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Zooming into building on the moon vs. building in orbit, one big difference is that with some bootstrapping, on the moon a number of materials can be sourced lo

Zooming into building on the moon vs. building in orbit, one big difference is that with some bootstrapping, on the moon a number of materials can be sourced locally. Some things will still need to be shipped in, but eliminating many of the most cumbersome materials (water, aluminum, iron, and titanium among others) will cut the number of supply missions down considerably. In contrast, everything in orbit needs to be launched from Earth, and shipping up raw resources doesn't make sense because you don't really have the space for processing and manufacturing facilities. That said, this assumes a more robust and steadily growing presence. If all you want is a tiny antarctic style outpost a lot of that doesn't matter.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PeterisP 5y ago
All the resource questions essentially may make building the base cheaper by sourcing some materials locally and bootstrapping, but it does not answer the main question about the economic purpose of the base. What benefit exactly does having that base give back to whoever built it; who wants to pay for the existence of that base and why? Insofar that the base provides materials and experience for building future bases, that just postpones answering the real question - what exactly is the expected benefit from those future bases? Because the exact answer matters a lot for any discussions on where and how to do things. If the eventual answer is "research and exploration", then suddenly it's very important to consider exact needs of the sponsors of that research which can't be done on earth - e.g. if it's zero-g research, then a moon base doesn't help that and you need orbit, no matter what the cost difference is. If the eventual answer is "eternal glory to the sponsor", which arguably was the goal which funded a big part of the space race, certainly more than any pure scientific goals, then the appropriate metric is some sort of "PR per dollar" ratio, and there a Moon base probably wins over orbital bases simply because orbital bases have been built but a Moon base has not. If the eventual answer is "make humanity interplanetary", then suddenly it's very important to consider what exactly the sponsors of that social project want (because in that scenario that's a subsidized colony that exists to fulfil the desires of some Earth people/organization spending resources to allow it to exist), but in any case it would look like that an orbital base likely does not fill that need and neither does Moon except as support for a potential Mars base, so again the cost difference doesn't matter because the other options simply don't fill the need. If the eventual answer is "because it will be commercially self-sustaining" then that would need an explanation of what resources exactly would be cheaper to mine from there (at great cost and difficulty) for the purposes of Earth (because any non-Earth uses go right back to question of why would Earth fund those uses instead, they're just a discount on that purpose) as opposed from existing resources, or ocean floor, or Antarctica, etc because with current technology (hopefully changing due to Starship et al), if there were pallets of processed gold bars sitting on a prepared landing pad on the Moon, it would not be worth the cost to fly there to pick them up, much less ship mining equipment to do anything realistic.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

PeterisP 5y ago

All the resource questions essentially may make building the base cheaper by sourcing some materials locally and bootstrapping, but it does not answer the main question about the economic purpose of the base. What benefit exactly does having that base give back to whoever built it; who wants to pay for the existence of that base and why? Insofar that the base provides materials and experience for building future bases, that just postpones answering the real question - what exactly is the expected benefit from those future bases? Because the exact answer matters a lot for any discussions on where and how to do things. If the eventual answer is "research and exploration", then suddenly it's very important to consider exact needs of the sponsors of that research which can't be done on earth - e.g. if it's zero-g research, then a moon base doesn't help that and you need orbit, no matter what the cost difference is. If the eventual answer is "eternal glory to the sponsor", which arguably was the goal which funded a big part of the space race, certainly more than any pure scientific goals, then the appropriate metric is some sort of "PR per dollar" ratio, and there a Moon base probably wins over orbital bases simply because orbital bases have been built but a Moon base has not. If the eventual answer is "make humanity interplanetary", then suddenly it's very important to consider what exactly the sponsors of that social project want (because in that scenario that's a subsidized colony that exists to fulfil the desires of some Earth people/organization spending resources to allow it to exist), but in any case it would look like that an orbital base likely does not fill that need and neither does Moon except as support for a potential Mars base, so again the cost difference doesn't matter because the other options simply don't fill the need. If the eventual answer is "because it will be commercially self-sustaining" then that would need an explanation of what resources exactly would be cheaper to mine from there (at great cost and difficulty) for the purposes of Earth (because any non-Earth uses go right back to question of why would Earth fund those uses instead, they're just a discount on that purpose) as opposed from existing resources, or ocean floor, or Antarctica, etc because with current technology (hopefully changing due to Starship et al), if there were pallets of processed gold bars sitting on a prepared landing pad on the Moon, it would not be worth the cost to fly there to pick them up, much less ship mining equipment to do anything realistic.