4 ms·

> we haven't expanded into space because we don't need to? What's the benefit? Access to resources. A sense of adventure. Learning.

lokar 5mo ago
Which resources are cheaper to get from space? I’ve only ever seen hand waiving arguments, never any math.
- somenameforme 5mo ago
  The hand waving is probably reasonable for a couple of reasons. The first is that you can't really math things out yet when costs are shifting by orders of magnitude on relatively short timeframes. What seems impossible in one year is a casual achievement in the next. If we go back to 2002 (when SpaceX was founded) and I told you that within 2 decades they'd have lowered the cost to get stuff to space by more than 97% relative to Space Shuttle, it'd have sounded somewhere between unreasonable and impossible, yet that is exactly what happened. And Starship is set to send prices plummeting yet again. The second reason is that the notion of economics becomes kind of odd when you start introducing space. Space has practically infinite resources of every type imaginable. For instance one single asteroid, Psyche 16, is thought to have orders of magnitude more gold than has ever been extracted in human history. But I mean, what does this even mean economically? Obviously if you start bringing back hundreds of thousands of tons of gold, the price is going plummet. And even the viable possibility of this happening would probably send the price of gold plummeting. So... it's weird. We're in uncharted waters. And then on top of this access to space will mean we will start expanding outward - colonies, vastly larger stations stations, and so on. And these expansions will develop their own parallel economies with their own needs/production/etc. This is all kind of like trying to predict the economics of the internet before the first cable had been laid.
  - lokar 5mo ago
    Most people I see online freak out at the idea of normalizing living in an apartment/condo and slightly higher density. I don’t see them lining up to live in space :)
    - ben_w 5mo ago
      Depends on the timescale, and what other tech is the prerequisite to this and what other things can be done with that tech. Even with cheap rockets, Musk was talking about 6-digit-dollars for becoming a Martian, I don't see more than a few million people wanting to spend that much for that outcome. If we get self-replicating robots or whatever, big space stations aren't that expensive, but also Earth is huge and you can extract minerals from seawater electrolytically and PV is already cheap, so perhaps we'd just get a load of seasteads instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading
      - lokar 5mo ago
        How far out would you say that is? Have you sketched out the net present value calculation for an investment in spacex today based on that?
        ben_w 5mo ago
        > How far out would you say that is? Really hard to say. Everyone who does space stuff talks with the same level of optimism as Musk but historically they deliver less. But for what it's worth, I don't think Musk's going to reach Mars except in an urn, baring some surprise development in anti-aging medicine. Even though their progress is rapid by the standards of the industry, they are still slow in terms of natural human lifespan and his age. > Have you sketched out the net present value calculation for an investment in spacex today based on that? IMO, their market cap should be around $200bn at the moment. That's mostly Starlink, so if there's a Kessler cascade *or* if China makes a competitor that goes down to about $80-100bn The long-term stuff about Mars or turning the moon into a factory for modular data centres is too far into the future to be worth considering.
        lokar 5mo ago
        That was my general impression. They did amazing work to totally change launch costs (with more on the way). But launch was a limited market. The low costs have and will grow it, and starlink will grow it, but not enough to justify this value.
- ben_w 5mo ago
  That depends entirely on the price; things are very different when it costs $20k/kg to orbit (basically nothing is worth that) vs. $20/kg to orbit. Some people are suggesting making high quality fibre optics and pharmaceuticals in LEO already with Falcon prices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Forge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Forge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varda_Space_Industries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varda_Space_Industries While I am *extremely* skeptical, I've heard people talk about space-based solar. I mention this only so nobody adds an "and also" for that. Ditto anyone talking about lunar He-3. This is a bad idea, "why" is long enough to be worthy of a blog post. But if you were committed to expansionism for whatever reason, then you'd want some way to get industrial quantities of steel from mines already in space, to make the factories themselves cheaper. Possibly megastructures like an orbital ring, too.
- petrocrat 5mo ago
  It's not about the "Access to resources. A sense of adventure. Learning." Since you are right. All of these things are available on Earth for far cheaper, with better ROI and with far less risk of dying or getting early cancer from cosmic rays. The real benefit is a commanding lead over geopolitical rivals in the domain of satellites and satellite platforms for hosting devices in orbit, thus securing an insurmountable national security advantage.
CuriouslyC 5mo ago
The only argument for space is because you're so set on capitalism that you'd rather destroy the earth than stop trying to continually grow profit. If you're that sick and deluded, then space gives you a way to escape the consequences of your own foolish hubris.

lokar 5mo ago

Which resources are cheaper to get from space? I’ve only ever seen hand waiving arguments, never any math.

somenameforme 5mo ago
The hand waving is probably reasonable for a couple of reasons. The first is that you can't really math things out yet when costs are shifting by orders of magnitude on relatively short timeframes. What seems impossible in one year is a casual achievement in the next. If we go back to 2002 (when SpaceX was founded) and I told you that within 2 decades they'd have lowered the cost to get stuff to space by more than 97% relative to Space Shuttle, it'd have sounded somewhere between unreasonable and impossible, yet that is exactly what happened. And Starship is set to send prices plummeting yet again. The second reason is that the notion of economics becomes kind of odd when you start introducing space. Space has practically infinite resources of every type imaginable. For instance one single asteroid, Psyche 16, is thought to have orders of magnitude more gold than has ever been extracted in human history. But I mean, what does this even mean economically? Obviously if you start bringing back hundreds of thousands of tons of gold, the price is going plummet. And even the viable possibility of this happening would probably send the price of gold plummeting. So... it's weird. We're in uncharted waters. And then on top of this access to space will mean we will start expanding outward - colonies, vastly larger stations stations, and so on. And these expansions will develop their own parallel economies with their own needs/production/etc. This is all kind of like trying to predict the economics of the internet before the first cable had been laid.
- lokar 5mo ago
  Most people I see online freak out at the idea of normalizing living in an apartment/condo and slightly higher density. I don’t see them lining up to live in space :)
  - ben_w 5mo ago
    Depends on the timescale, and what other tech is the prerequisite to this and what other things can be done with that tech. Even with cheap rockets, Musk was talking about 6-digit-dollars for becoming a Martian, I don't see more than a few million people wanting to spend that much for that outcome. If we get self-replicating robots or whatever, big space stations aren't that expensive, but also Earth is huge and you can extract minerals from seawater electrolytically and PV is already cheap, so perhaps we'd just get a load of seasteads instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading
    - lokar 5mo ago
      How far out would you say that is? Have you sketched out the net present value calculation for an investment in spacex today based on that?
      - ben_w 5mo ago
        > How far out would you say that is? Really hard to say. Everyone who does space stuff talks with the same level of optimism as Musk but historically they deliver less. But for what it's worth, I don't think Musk's going to reach Mars except in an urn, baring some surprise development in anti-aging medicine. Even though their progress is rapid by the standards of the industry, they are still slow in terms of natural human lifespan and his age. > Have you sketched out the net present value calculation for an investment in spacex today based on that? IMO, their market cap should be around $200bn at the moment. That's mostly Starlink, so if there's a Kessler cascade *or* if China makes a competitor that goes down to about $80-100bn The long-term stuff about Mars or turning the moon into a factory for modular data centres is too far into the future to be worth considering.
        lokar 5mo ago
        That was my general impression. They did amazing work to totally change launch costs (with more on the way). But launch was a limited market. The low costs have and will grow it, and starlink will grow it, but not enough to justify this value.
ben_w 5mo ago
That depends entirely on the price; things are very different when it costs $20k/kg to orbit (basically nothing is worth that) vs. $20/kg to orbit. Some people are suggesting making high quality fibre optics and pharmaceuticals in LEO already with Falcon prices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Forge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Forge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varda_Space_Industries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varda_Space_Industries While I am *extremely* skeptical, I've heard people talk about space-based solar. I mention this only so nobody adds an "and also" for that. Ditto anyone talking about lunar He-3. This is a bad idea, "why" is long enough to be worthy of a blog post. But if you were committed to expansionism for whatever reason, then you'd want some way to get industrial quantities of steel from mines already in space, to make the factories themselves cheaper. Possibly megastructures like an orbital ring, too.
petrocrat 5mo ago
It's not about the "Access to resources. A sense of adventure. Learning." Since you are right. All of these things are available on Earth for far cheaper, with better ROI and with far less risk of dying or getting early cancer from cosmic rays. The real benefit is a commanding lead over geopolitical rivals in the domain of satellites and satellite platforms for hosting devices in orbit, thus securing an insurmountable national security advantage.

CuriouslyC 5mo ago

The only argument for space is because you're so set on capitalism that you'd rather destroy the earth than stop trying to continually grow profit. If you're that sick and deluded, then space gives you a way to escape the consequences of your own foolish hubris.