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You don't seem to resonate witn the basic premise of this discussion: the mass of the structure must stil be lifted into orbit in the form of raw materials, pri

You don't seem to resonate witn the basic premise of this discussion: the mass of the structure must stil be lifted into orbit in the form of raw materials, printer fillament, etc. We were debating the finer points of wheter the high cost of space fabrication is covered by space optimized design that will never need to experince atmospheric drag, gravity, launch forces, vibrations and volume constraints etc.

Nomentatus 4y ago
No, soon enough the vast majority of mass will be catapulted from the lunar surface. There's oodles of aluminum in lunar soil.
- manholio 4y ago
  > soon enough the vast majority of mass will be catapulted from the lunar surface Other than naturally falling asteroids, to date we have managed to acquire about 400Kg of moon rock at a price point of roughly $200bln in today's money. That's about $500k per gram. These speculative predictions about moon & asteroid mining imply technology advances that are so far into the future that they are basically mindless daydreaming. Things like self replicating robots, nuclear space-ships and other sci-fi staples. We are decades or centuries away from that and the impact of such tech cannot be predicted - they will change society so much that we cannot even begin to imagine their impacts. Sort of like people in the 19th century imagined a future of personal balloons, not being able to imagine the impact of airplanes and the automobile.
  - Nomentatus 4y ago
    It's early days, but costs per pound to space are going down fast. The tech itself isn't science fiction we can sinter a cannonball from lunar dirt or extract aluminum and make a ball to put in a catapult. It's just plenty expensive as yet, but costs are coming down. You're right, according to me, about getting minerals from the asteroid belt, for earth use. That's not happening until the farther future: the delta is extreme, and down to earth itself not trivial. But extraction from the moon or mars moons (about the same delta to a lagrange point as the moon believe it or not) can be economical in bulk precisely because the cost to get to earth orbit can only go down so far (the cost of the fuel). Fulton used to loiter around the fences around his steamship as it was being built; you should find and read all the scorn every single passerby had for the mad, doomed project that seems pretty ordinary now. When I was young, maybe 1963, I had dreams in which people in the future were carrying around small devices with screens they kept looking at, about the size of my fathers pocket calender planner (3" by 6" maybe). Not a wholly original idea, Dick Tracy comics showed a TV watch back then. My father, a very competent electronics engineer who was very well read, poured absolute scorn on the idea. He didn't just say that no known tech could do that, he said that the device was strictly impossible, and that no matter how long the world lasted, no such device would or could exist. His reason: you can't flatten a cathode ray tube that much. Time easily dispenses with our reasons why not.
kiba 4y ago
The mass of the structure need not be entirely sourced Earth not should it. Space industries must eventually transit to resource extraction from the rest of the solar system rather than solely from Earth. Labor is extraordinary expensive, yes, at first. That is because our robotic technology isn't good enough and that people don't live and work in orbit yet. That will change with time as we begin space colonization.

Nomentatus 4y ago

No, soon enough the vast majority of mass will be catapulted from the lunar surface. There's oodles of aluminum in lunar soil.

manholio 4y ago
> soon enough the vast majority of mass will be catapulted from the lunar surface Other than naturally falling asteroids, to date we have managed to acquire about 400Kg of moon rock at a price point of roughly $200bln in today's money. That's about $500k per gram. These speculative predictions about moon & asteroid mining imply technology advances that are so far into the future that they are basically mindless daydreaming. Things like self replicating robots, nuclear space-ships and other sci-fi staples. We are decades or centuries away from that and the impact of such tech cannot be predicted - they will change society so much that we cannot even begin to imagine their impacts. Sort of like people in the 19th century imagined a future of personal balloons, not being able to imagine the impact of airplanes and the automobile.
- Nomentatus 4y ago
  It's early days, but costs per pound to space are going down fast. The tech itself isn't science fiction we can sinter a cannonball from lunar dirt or extract aluminum and make a ball to put in a catapult. It's just plenty expensive as yet, but costs are coming down. You're right, according to me, about getting minerals from the asteroid belt, for earth use. That's not happening until the farther future: the delta is extreme, and down to earth itself not trivial. But extraction from the moon or mars moons (about the same delta to a lagrange point as the moon believe it or not) can be economical in bulk precisely because the cost to get to earth orbit can only go down so far (the cost of the fuel). Fulton used to loiter around the fences around his steamship as it was being built; you should find and read all the scorn every single passerby had for the mad, doomed project that seems pretty ordinary now. When I was young, maybe 1963, I had dreams in which people in the future were carrying around small devices with screens they kept looking at, about the size of my fathers pocket calender planner (3" by 6" maybe). Not a wholly original idea, Dick Tracy comics showed a TV watch back then. My father, a very competent electronics engineer who was very well read, poured absolute scorn on the idea. He didn't just say that no known tech could do that, he said that the device was strictly impossible, and that no matter how long the world lasted, no such device would or could exist. His reason: you can't flatten a cathode ray tube that much. Time easily dispenses with our reasons why not.

kiba 4y ago

The mass of the structure need not be entirely sourced Earth not should it. Space industries must eventually transit to resource extraction from the rest of the solar system rather than solely from Earth. Labor is extraordinary expensive, yes, at first. That is because our robotic technology isn't good enough and that people don't live and work in orbit yet. That will change with time as we begin space colonization.