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Guest

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:59 pm

NASA did studies on space colonies back in the 1970s and 80s. Gerard
O'Neill wrote on them in The High Frontier.

http://space.mike-combs.com/SCTHF.html

The costs do not take into account the ability of developing the
technology more gradually in a way that sees it more of an investment
that earns profits, which are then re-invested in technology
development.

One interesting finding was that farms in space support 40,500 people
per square kilometer at US per capita levels of consumption. This
amounts to 730 kg per person per year. To fee 6.6 billion people at
this level requires 162,963 square kilometers of pressure vessel
area.

103,745 spheres each 1 km in diameter each housing a spinning cylinder
707 meters in diameter and 707 meters deep, support 1.57 square
kilometers of growing area - each supporting 63,585 persons.

Each satellite has a rail gun and fires 2 meals per second - to people
all over the Earth aided by low cost GPS guidance systems and ceramic
aerogel thermal protection systems with aerodynamic features. MEMs
based rockets forming a propulsive skin to execute a soft landing at
the desired location for each meal. Terminal velocity of the aerogel
encased meal is about 200 m/sec following re-entry - which requires a
propellant fraction of 4.3% or 30.4 grams of propellant for a 700 gram
meal. The rail gun fires it to the targeting envelope and the kinetic
energy and tail fins of the falling meal are adjusted to bring it to a
precise GPS cooerdinate. A solid state doppler radar determines
precise altitude to ignite the engines, and bring the meal to a halt
at zero altitude at the desired location.

The mass of 2 meals per second is 1.47 kg per second. With an
ejection speed from the rail gun of 500 m/sec to deorbit each meal,
this exerts a 75 kgf thrust on the station. This is made up for by
burning of hydrogen and oxygen made from water at a rate of 0.17 kg
per second.

Orders are taken via satellite cell phone or satellite internet, and
delivered within 30 minutes or less anywhere on Earth. . .

10 billion tons per year of asteroidal materials, principally water
and carbon-dioxide - are imported from the asteroid belt by nuclear
pulse deflection of asteroidal material selected for quality and
variety of materials.

The satellites are made from asteroidal material as well brought from
the asteroid belt earlier..

7,255,410 equilateral triangles composed of aluminum framing encased
in PET film are manufactured as a flexible 'string' 3,627 km long. An
assembly head welds the aluminum frame, and seals the PET film in a
spiral pattern to form a 1 km diameter stationary sphere. A 707 meter
diameter cylinder 707 meters wide, rotates freely inside this sphere
supported by magnetic bearings at the edges of the cylinder. The
cylinder rotates once every 37.7 seconds. The interior of the
cylinder has an oblate thin film reflective surface that reproduces
over the course of 24 hours the same day/night conditions one finds on
Earth which rotates along with the cylinder, but in such a way that it
completes one rotation every 24 hours - giving a day night cycle to
the plants and animals on the cylinder surface.
..
40 farmers and 200 farm helpers are present tele-robotically to grow
the foods at the station. Additionally, there are 360 cooks cleaners
and handlers at each station to prepare meals and package them. Thus,
600 people are needed to support 40,500 in their food needs. All
stations together require a total of 62,247,000 telerobotic workers.
Each station has a set of 10 people present in person, thus
1,037,450 people are living on orbit in the 103,745 stations.

The world presently spends $9 trillion per year on food. The network
here captures the bulk of this, and at $50,000 per person on average
$3.15 trillion is salaries, and the balance is capital cost and
profits. A total of $46 trillion may be supported in this way - This
allows $440 million per satellite as the target price in this
quantity. This is $282 per square meter - allowable cost.

This is the fourth step in a seven step process of lowering cost of
space borne pressure vessels

1) mining - highest cost
2) smelting
3) forming/assembly
4) farming - mid-range
5) forestry
6) residential <-- high frontier level
7) private home - lowest cost

Moving entire asteroids from the asteroid belt into MEO seems to me
more 'doable' than lifting things piecemeal from the lunar surface.
Since substantial ice is present in the asteroid belt, that is also a
plus.

10 billion tons per year requires the expulsion 17 billion tons of
'propellant' vaporized from the surface of the asteroids moved in this
way. Expelling the materials at 7 km/sec requires an average
expenditure of only 20 terawatts - averaged over the entire year. .
856 tons per second are harvested and 317 tons per second are made
availale. Of this, half is turned into food and deposited on the
Earth.

Four asteroid fragments, each roughly spherical each 100 meters in
diameter, arrive at Earth orbit from around the asteroid belt every
hour to resupply the ring of farm satellites. They have taken 3 years
to get to Earth and enter a MEO to be processed at centers that build
the satellites in the first place. Each fragment has sufficient raw
material to feed a farm satellite for 3 years. Each moves to an
appropriate position next to a satellite, and is fed into it - and raw
materials are processed on board into air, water, fertilizer and
nutrients- to replace the constant stream of materials falling to
Earth.

The satellites form a Saturn like ring in polar orbit above the Earth
- and each satellite flies over the entire Earth several times per
day.

Ian Parker

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:36 am

Guest

On 24 Apr, 00:59, Willie.Moo...@gmail.com wrote:

Quote:

I thin that perhaps a more cost effective solution would be to grow
food on part of the 90% of land surface. Deserts which consitute 30%
of the world's land is a good candidate.

A far better solution therefore would be to export microwaves - not
food and use the energy to desalinate sea water. This would have to
compete of course with terrestrial solar power. We have I think
already discussed the pros and cons. As a European my focus tends to
be the Mediteranean, the Middle East and N Africa rather then the
South West although any remarks I have made is equally applicable.
Deserts if watered are amazingly fertile.

There is one snag with the scheme which you propose and that is that
is that you need to transport water and CO2 to your space stations. If
you had pure recycling this problem would not arise.

My proposal therefore is a canal/pipeline to take water from the
Mediteranean across Lebanon to Damascus. If we were to have peace, and
a joint project would help cement peace, canals could go through
Israel. Solar power, initially terrestrial, would be used to
desalinate Med water thereby opening up vast areas for agriculture.
The dry fountains in Damascus have left an impression on me,
particularly when the energy from 2 or 3 roofs would be enough to
supply them with water.

I feel all told this is a far better bet.

- Ian Parker

Guest

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:26 am

On Apr 24, 6:36 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@gmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

But they farm nearly all the arable land to feed themselves. Cities
are not places people grow food.

Quote:

I thin that perhaps a more cost effective solution would be to grow
food on part of the 90% of land surface.

Your numbers are approximately correct. However, please understand
that all the arable land that can be farmed IS being farmed.
Increasing the productivity of those lands would involve radical
engineering that is more costly per acre than the cost per acre I'm
proposing above - that's why costs are so important. Certainly simple
low cost solutions should be used early on. What are those?
Ultimately however, the ability to produce very low cost pressure
vessels, at less cost than converting arable land to production, will
tend to favor that use. Its all a function of cost. The point is,
space development is relatively unlimited, whilst terrestrial
development is very limited and very mature.

Quote:

Deserts which consitute 30%
of the world's land is a good candidate.

Nothing grows in deserts. To make use of deserts requires a massive
engineering effort - more massive than building the pressure vessels
from asteroidal feedstock. Furthermore, the political and economic
and social conditions in which this engineering project is undertaken
on Earth is far less controllable, and hence costs and time frames are
far less controllable when compared to the benign political conditions
in space.

Quote:

A far better solution therefore would be to export microwaves -

The rayleigh criterion in optics tend to favor concentrated
photovoltaics driving free electron lasers having a greater efficiency
than klystron tubes - to beam band gap matched energy to terrestrial
solar panel array at 1,100 nm wavelength.

Quote:

not
food

Why? You are not arguing from any detailed analysis of cost. I said
at the outset, as production in space grows, at some point pressure
vessels will be built at less cost than green houses on Earth. At
that point, given the very high productivity of space based
agriculture, we'll be able to produce and deliver foods from space far
more cheaply and with far less hassles than we can on Earth.

For example, consider what happens when you order a pizza. You dial
the phone place your order, give your credit card information and the
pizza arrives. Some driver had to haul the pizza in a car from the
kitchen where it was assembled and baked and packaged - encountering
rolling friction and stop and go traffic all the way. Before that the
flour, tomato sauce, cheeses, sausages, and spices all arrived from a
variety of food wholesalers, by truck. Those wholesalers received
those products from food packagers by truck, rail, ocean, or plane.
Packagers received their products from farms or specialty jobbers.
This too arrived by truck, train or boat. The energy to transport
and cook your pizza exceeds the energy to grow and harvest the
products that went into your pizza.

Say your pizza uses a bit of real italian parmesano cheese mixed into
the 4 cheeses the pizza is laced with. That cheese is made from milk
in Italy. It is aged, and graded and sold, and resold and packaged
and shipped from Italy. It then arrives in the USA say, and goes to a
warehouse, where it is shipped to a food wholesaler, who ships it to
your pizza place where it is ground and assembled with the other
ingredients on your pizza backed and packaged for delivery and
delivered.

Now imagine the land that all that food grows on, and all those pigs
and other meat animals live on, transported to a pressure vessel on
orbit. This pressure vessel is made at less cost per area than the
cheapest land around on Earth. Imagine that all the farmers and
helpers and whatnot, in all the stages of production, are brought to
orbit telerobotically using equipment that costs less than 1/2 the
price of an automobile - that all of them now use to drive to work.
Now imagine that in response to your telephone call a GPS coordinate
is provided and your pizza is made from fresher ingredients, with less
handling, and shot directly from orbit to your front door.

Guess which takes less energy? The orbital system
Guess which takes less handling? The orbital system
Guess which takes less capital costs? The orbital system

The famrland on orbit is less expensive than the farmland on Earth
The capital equipment to tarnsport, store and handle supplies is less
The cost of getting labor to work is less
The cost of energy is less
The productivity of labor is higher
the productivity of capital is higher
the productivity per acre is 10x higher
The political hold ups and costs are lower
The constraints on growth are less

Quote:

and use the energy to desalinate sea water.

The critical component in anything is the cost of capital to generate
that energy and the cost of capital to use it. i have sponsored
several projects in the world, one in Dubai, several others in
Australia, to use solar energy to desalinate seawater and use the
fresh water for agriculture, and sell the salt.

The cost ofmicrowave based systems thus far are not competitive. The
cost of my solar panel systems are competitive

http://www.usoal.com

Quote:

This would have to
compete of course with terrestrial solar power. We have I think
already discussed the pros and cons.

Its all a matter of cost. For agriculture you need distilled water.
DI water won't work - since enough salt remains to build up in the
soil. It takes 2,300 kJ to boil a liter of water. It takes several
kiloliters of water to produce a metric ton of foodstuffs. So, each
person you support in this way will need about 18 GJ - equivalent to 3
barrels of oil in energy - of energy. To feed 6 billion people like
this will require the equivalent of 18 billion barrels of oil per
year. The Earth uses about 28 billion barrels per year today - not to
boil water but for everything else - so you can see just to keep you
supplied with fresh water requires a substantial infrastructure.
Processing water in the vacuum of space using solar systems directly,
require far less infrastructure at far less cost.
.

Quote:

As a European my focus tends to
be the Mediteranean, the Middle East and N Africa rather then the
South West although any remarks I have made is equally applicable.
Deserts if watered are amazingly fertile.

A ring of stations in sun synchronous polar orbit flying above the
terminator of Earth- will place them in constant sunlight. All
satellites will fly above all points of the Earth twice a day.
Products will be delivered to anyone anywhere at sunrise and sunset -
within 10 minutes of placing an order without any border hassles.

Quote:

There is one snag with the scheme which you propose and that is that
is that you need to transport water and CO2 to your space stations. If
you had pure recycling this problem would not arise.

There is no recycling of products, although there is no waste. All
the material leaving as foodstuffs, must be replaced by importing it
from the asteroid belt. The same infrastructure that allows the
construction of the ring, allows its continued maintenance. It only
requires a 5 km/sec delta vee to import items from the Asteroid belt.
That's 12.5 MJ per kg, or 12.5 GJ per ton. - which is less than the
energy needed just to boil water in your desert scheme.

Quote:

My proposal therefore is a canal/pipeline to take water from the
Mediteranean across Lebanon to Damascus.

Building a canal of this magnitude (wide enough to have the water flow
needed,and deep enough to allow gravity to let it flow where you want
it) nvolves moving Earth that masses 100x the mass of the orbital
system described.

Quote:

If we were to have peace, and
a joint project would help cement peace, canals could go through
Israel.

A salt water ditch wide enough to have adequate water flow, and deep
enough to have it flow downhill FROM the ocean, involves MASSIVE
trench being cut in the land, which involves moving lots of material
in a high gravity field.

No agreements between enemies are needed to capture asteroidal
fragments and process theminto useful products on orbit.

While we have vast eperience building canals and no experience other
than CERN and FermiLab building large pressure vessels, we shouldn't
let our prejudices blind us to the results of actual engineering
requirements when making decisions about our future.

Quote:

Solar power, initially terrestrial, would be used to
desalinate Med water thereby opening up vast areas for agriculture.

Yes, I produce solar panels at $0.07 per peak watt, and have a $0.02
per balance of system cost. I have adapted these systems for
desalination. Adding bandgap matched laser satellites on orbit
increases energy output 16x at an added cost of $0.30 per initial
installed watt using my CPV/FEL approach.

Quote:

The dry fountains in Damascus have left an impression on me,
particularly when the energy from 2 or 3 roofs would be enough to
supply them with water.

Depends on the evaporation rate.

http://www.portlandonline.com/water/index.cfm?c=ecdei

A typical fountain uses 5,000 gallons per minute. That's 18,181
liters per minute. assuming in the desert climate you have 10%
evaporation rate in the desert - of the water spray - that's 1,800
liters per minute evaporating from 18,181 liters per minute. Divide
by 60 to obtain 30 liters per second. A required 2,300 kJ/kg - which
is 2,300 kJ/liter - that means you need a boiler with 69 MW of
capacity to provide the desalination energy per fountain - to get it
from seawater as you propose. A typical rooftop in that region of the
world is 100 sq m. Three rooftops would be 300 sq meters. At 18%
efficiency, this produces .54,000 watts when the sun shines. The sun
shines in this region about 9.6 hours per day. With cosine losses
this is an average output from those three roofs 15,270 watts
continuous. You are off by a factor fo 4,518 per fountain.

Quote:

I feel all told this is a far better bet.

You may feel that way, but you have not demonstrated that your feeling
is based on any real world analysis of what you have proposed or any
real world understanding of what I propose.

Quote:

- Ian Parker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

BradGuth

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:12 am

Guest

On Apr 24, 3:36 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@gmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

On 24 Apr, 00:59, Willie.Moo...@gmail.com wrote:

NASA did studies on space colonies back in the 1970s and 80s. Gerard
O'Neill wrote on them in The High Frontier.

http://space.mike-combs.com/SCTHF.html

The costs do not take into account the ability of developing the
technology more gradually in a way that sees it more of an investment
that earns profits, which are then re-invested in technology
development.

One interesting finding was that farms in space support 40,500 people
per square kilometer at US per capita levels of consumption. This
amounts to 730 kg per person per year. To fee 6.6 billion people at
this level requires 162,963 square kilometers of pressure vessel
area.

103,745 spheres each 1 km in diameter each housing a spinning cylinder
707 meters in diameter and 707 meters deep, support 1.57 square
kilometers of growing area - each supporting 63,585 persons.

Each satellite has a rail gun and fires 2 meals per second - to people
all over the Earth aided by low cost GPS guidance systems and ceramic
aerogel thermal protection systems with aerodynamic features. MEMs
based rockets forming a propulsive skin to execute a soft landing at
the desired location for each meal. Terminal velocity of the aerogel
encased meal is about 200 m/sec following re-entry - which requires a
propellant fraction of 4.3% or 30.4 grams of propellant for a 700 gram
meal. The rail gun fires it to the targeting envelope and the kinetic
energy and tail fins of the falling meal are adjusted to bring it to a
precise GPS cooerdinate. A solid state doppler radar determines
precise altitude to ignite the engines, and bring the meal to a halt
at zero altitude at the desired location.

90% of the world's population live in 10% if the world's land surface.
I thin that perhaps a more cost effective solution would be to grow
food on part of the 90% of land surface. Deserts which consitute 30%
of the world's land is a good candidate.

A far better solution therefore would be to export microwaves - not
food and use the energy to desalinate sea water. This would have to
compete of course with terrestrial solar power. We have I think
already discussed the pros and cons. As a European my focus tends to
be the Mediteranean, the Middle East and N Africa rather then the
South West although any remarks I have made is equally applicable.
Deserts if watered are amazingly fertile.

There is one snag with the scheme which you propose and that is that
is that you need to transport water and CO2 to your space stations. If
you had pure recycling this problem would not arise.

My proposal therefore is a canal/pipeline to take water from the
Mediteranean across Lebanon to Damascus. If we were to have peace, and
a joint project would help cement peace, canals could go through
Israel. Solar power, initially terrestrial, would be used to
desalinate Med water thereby opening up vast areas for agriculture.
The dry fountains in Damascus have left an impression on me,
particularly when the energy from 2 or 3 roofs would be enough to
supply them with water.

I feel all told this is a far better bet.

- Ian Parker

Don't bother informing our lord all-knowing willie.moo of such
perfectly viable terrestrial alternatives that wouldn't cost us 0.1%
as much as for going off-world. Seems our willie.moon doesn't care
how spendy energy, food, housing, education and medical care gets,
because he is set for life no matters how spendy his survival gets.
.. - Brad Guth

Guest

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 1:05 pm

On Apr 24, 2:12 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Apr 24, 3:36 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 24 Apr, 00:59, Willie.Moo...@gmail.com wrote:

NASA did studies on space colonies back in the 1970s and 80s. Gerard
O'Neill wrote on them in The High Frontier.

http://space.mike-combs.com/SCTHF.html

The costs do not take into account the ability of developing the
technology more gradually in a way that sees it more of an investment
that earns profits, which are then re-invested in technology
development.

One interesting finding was that farms in space support 40,500 people
per square kilometer at US per capita levels of consumption. This
amounts to 730 kg per person per year. To fee 6.6 billion people at
this level requires 162,963 square kilometers of pressure vessel
area.

103,745 spheres each 1 km in diameter each housing a spinning cylinder
707 meters in diameter and 707 meters deep, support 1.57 square
kilometers of growing area - each supporting 63,585 persons.

Each satellite has a rail gun and fires 2 meals per second - to people
all over the Earth aided by low cost GPS guidance systems and ceramic
aerogel thermal protection systems with aerodynamic features. MEMs
based rockets forming a propulsive skin to execute a soft landing at
the desired location for each meal. Terminal velocity of the aerogel
encased meal is about 200 m/sec following re-entry - which requires a
propellant fraction of 4.3% or 30.4 grams of propellant for a 700 gram
meal. The rail gun fires it to the targeting envelope and the kinetic
energy and tail fins of the falling meal are adjusted to bring it to a
precise GPS cooerdinate. A solid state doppler radar determines
precise altitude to ignite the engines, and bring the meal to a halt
at zero altitude at the desired location.

90% of the world's population live in 10% if the world's land surface.
I thin that perhaps a more cost effective solution would be to grow
food on part of the 90% of land surface. Deserts which consitute 30%
of the world's land is a good candidate.

A far better solution therefore would be to export microwaves - not
food and use the energy to desalinate sea water. This would have to
compete of course with terrestrial solar power. We have I think
already discussed the pros and cons. As a European my focus tends to
be the Mediteranean, the Middle East and N Africa rather then the
South West although any remarks I have made is equally applicable.
Deserts if watered are amazingly fertile.

There is one snag with the scheme which you propose and that is that
is that you need to transport water and CO2 to your space stations. If
you had pure recycling this problem would not arise.

My proposal therefore is a canal/pipeline to take water from the
Mediteranean across Lebanon to Damascus. If we were to have peace, and
a joint project would help cement peace, canals could go through
Israel. Solar power, initially terrestrial, would be used to
desalinate Med water thereby opening up vast areas for agriculture.
The dry fountains in Damascus have left an impression on me,
particularly when the energy from 2 or 3 roofs would be enough to
supply them with water.

I feel all told this is a far better bet.

- Ian Parker

Don't bother informing our lord all-knowing willie.moo of such
perfectly viable terrestrial alternatives that wouldn't cost us 0.1%
as much as for going off-world. Seems our willie.moon doesn't care
how spendy energy, food, housing, education and medical care gets,
because he is set for life no matters how spendy his survival gets.
. - Brad Guth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Nothing is stopping you from feeding the world by making the deserts
bloom Brad. Go out and do it, and then come back and tell us how easy
it was!

Fact is, humanity is doing all it can to grow as much food as it can
with the resources at its disposal.

Since the productivity of farms in space are about 10x greater than
the productivity of even the best run terrestrial farms, when the cost
of surface area in space drops below the cost of land area on Earth,
it will be cheaper to grow food on orbit than on Earth.

Since a satellite in polar orbit overflies every point on Earth twice
a day, and since it takes less energy to deorbit a mass than to ship
it even 100 miles, and since a satellite is easily hailed anywhere on
earth by radio, and since very simple GPS guided articles can be
precisely landed anywhere on the planet from a polar orbit, once you
have farms and forests and factories on orbit, they will outclass any
terrestrial facility in level of service and access to market. That
is even if you could make the deserts bloom more cheaply than building
farms on orbit - which you cannot - your economics would be ruined by
the logistical nightmare of shipping your products to market before
they rotted away.

Consider a head of lettuce grown in California and consumed in say New
York. It takes a certain amount of time material and attention to
grow well. Then it is picked cleaned packaged. Then it is transported
and stored locally. Transported and stored centrally. Transported
and stored near point of sale. Transported and displayed at point of
sale. Transported and stored at home. Then, its made into a salad.
The capital equipment associated with all the transport and storage
facilities far and away exceeds the cost of the land, ffarm inputs to
create the lettuce in the first place.

Now consider a head of lettuce grown in polar orbit and consumed at
any point on Earth. It is grown in a facility that costs 1/10th per
unit area that comprable land costs in California. It is grown with
technology that is 10x more productive than terrestrial open air
agriculture. The workers arrive telerobotically, instead of by
automobile, using equipment that costs a fraction of what an
automobile costs. Because the telerobots are especially built, and
because of the unique environment, the capital cost of the equipment
is 1/10th that typically associated with terrestrial farming. When
the lettuce is ready for harvesting, its characteristics are entered
into a database along with the satellite flight path and this is
matched against ALL the people of Earth request for a head of lettuce
in tha time window, and an ejection window is assigned. The lettuce
is harvested, cleaned and packaged in a propulsive aeroshell, and
ejected directly to the end user who then uses it in a salad. The
food - delivered - costs 1/100th to 1/1000th the cost of foods today.
The unlimited availability of resources off-world provide unlimited
scope for expansion - limited only by demand.

So, by getting rid of all those trucks, loading docks, dock workers,
roadways, trains, refrigerated warehouses, even refrigeration in each
home, the cost of actually getting food in your home is dramatically
reduced and reliability is improved while time to market is measured
in minutes instead of weeks.

Mike Combs

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:14 pm

Guest

Maybe. I tend to expect that food grown in space will become economical for
sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to Earth;
given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition you have to
undersell is food rocketed up from Earth. Space food fired off to Earth
would have to compete with Earth food.

But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era... maybe.
Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global agriculture
collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.

--

Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole
prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all
human beings... It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that
any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.

Ronald Reagan at Westminster Abbey, 1982

Mike Combs

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:23 pm

Guest

<Willie.Mookie@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:92c09fbb-1346-4ecf-adbf-a00e64dcac4a@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

Quote:

Nothing grows in deserts. To make use of deserts requires a massive
engineering effort - more massive than building the pressure vessels
from asteroidal feedstock.

and

Quote:

I said
at the outset, as production in space grows, at some point pressure
vessels will be built at less cost than green houses on Earth.

As tremendous a booster of orbital habitats as I am, that's the part I have
a hard time accepting.

--

Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole
prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all
human beings... It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that
any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.

Ronald Reagan at Westminster Abbey, 1982

BradGuth

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:04 pm

Guest

On Apr 24, 4:05 pm, Willie.Moo...@gmail.com wrote:

Quote:

Most of humanity isn't doing 90% of what could be easily accomplished,
that is if it were not for the corporate and faith-based restrictions
of those intent upon keeping their off-shore bank accounts stuffed
with our hard earned loot. Obviously you do not care how spendy food
gets.

Quote:

Since the productivity of farms in space are about 10x greater than
the productivity of even the best run terrestrial farms, when the cost
of surface area in space drops below the cost of land area on Earth,
it will be cheaper to grow food on orbit than on Earth.

Nothing is stopping you from feeding the world by making the vacuum
of LEO space bloom Mook. Go out and do it, and then come back and
tell us how easy it was!

Quote:

Since a satellite in polar orbit overflies every point on Earth twice
a day, and since it takes less energy to deorbit a mass than to ship
it even 100 miles, and since a satellite is easily hailed anywhere on
earth by radio, and since very simple GPS guided articles can be
precisely landed anywhere on the planet from a polar orbit, once you
have farms and forests and factories on orbit, they will outclass any
terrestrial facility in level of service and access to market. That
is even if you could make the deserts bloom more cheaply than building
farms on orbit - which you cannot - your economics would be ruined by
the logistical nightmare of shipping your products to market before
they rotted away.

Consider a head of lettuce grown in California and consumed in say New
York. It takes a certain amount of time material and attention to
grow well. Then it is picked cleaned packaged. Then it is transported
and stored locally. Transported and stored centrally. Transported
and stored near point of sale. Transported and displayed at point of
sale. Transported and stored at home. Then, its made into a salad.
The capital equipment associated with all the transport and storage
facilities far and away exceeds the cost of the land, ffarm inputs to
create the lettuce in the first place.

Now consider a head of lettuce grown in polar orbit and consumed at
any point on Earth. It is grown in a facility that costs 1/10th per
unit area that comprable land costs in California. It is grown with
technology that is 10x more productive than terrestrial open air
agriculture. The workers arrive telerobotically, instead of by
automobile, using equipment that costs a fraction of what an
automobile costs. Because the telerobots are especially built, and
because of the unique environment, the capital cost of the equipment
is 1/10th that typically associated with terrestrial farming. When
the lettuce is ready for harvesting, its characteristics are entered
into a database along with the satellite flight path and this is
matched against ALL the people of Earth request for a head of lettuce
in tha time window, and an ejection window is assigned. The lettuce
is harvested, cleaned and packaged in a propulsive aeroshell, and
ejected directly to the end user who then uses it in a salad. The
food - delivered - costs 1/100th to 1/1000th the cost of foods today.
The unlimited availability of resources off-world provide unlimited
scope for expansion - limited only by demand.

So, by getting rid of all those trucks, loading docks, dock workers,
roadways, trains, refrigerated warehouses, even refrigeration in each
home, the cost of actually getting food in your home is dramatically
reduced and reliability is improved while time to market is measured
in minutes instead of weeks.

Off-world growing of rad-hard food is technically doable and otherwise
spendy as hell, but then so is surviving on Venus where there's no
shortage of locally renewable energy or even water as easily taken
from those acidic clouds. As Venus cools off it becomes more Earth
like, so the geothermal forced environment is already going in the
right direction.

Obtaining salty or fresh water while in LEO isn't going to be cheap or
all the DNA friendly. Hauling tonnes of salt water from Earth to LEO
at $10,000/kg isn't going to get cheaper unless we utilize China or
India CATS, and we both know that Mook isn't having anything to do
with China or India.

In theory water sent to LEO will be 100% efficiently utilized (meaning
no leakage). However, what's your best water efficiency cycle, of
water sent up as opposed to produce that goes back down?

With a billion in USDs, how many acres of high tech greenhouse farms
could be accomplished within India, where we can still get a 10 hour
work shift worth of local labor for as little as a couple bucks (in
some areas make that $1)?
.. - Brad Guth

Ian Parker

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 12:20 am

Guest

On 25 Apr, 09:41, "G. L. Bradford" <glbra...@insightbb.com> wrote:

Quote:

"Mike Combs" <mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in message

news:fuqm6i$i59$1@home.itg.ti.com...

Maybe. I tend to expect that food grown in space will become economical
for sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to
Earth; given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition
you have to undersell is food rocketed up from Earth. Space food fired
off to Earth would have to compete with Earth food.

Yellowstone is quite an interesting point. To "save the world" in the

case of a singular event like that it would be much better to
stockpile 1-2 years supply in (say) the Antarctic.

I have yet another point to make about global warming. We are worried
about rising temperatures. Sunlight reaching the Earth could be
stopped in space. With Yellowstone in mind it might be as well to
build a system that could INCREASE the sunlight striking the Earth,
and penetrate, partially at least, the Yellowstone clouds.

Quote:

But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era...
maybe. Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global
agriculture collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.

Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space colonies --
but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a purpose you're
aren't thinking about but should be. Personally, I'd like the product from
the shrimp farms in space. Even more particularly, the product from the
anchovie growers. I don't know about the others, though they are getting
harder to find on the shelves, but the blue tuna is so popular in a world
that can afford it better today that it is being eaten to extinction.

Goats and chickens, grains and fruits and vegetables and the like, will
not be the only life production of specialized colony structures in space.

------------------------

So let's farm blue tuna on Earth instead. Not going to happen! So much is
not going to happen in or on a world that does not have a whole universe of
vast and opening frontiers keeping it more open as an integral part of the
bigger system. That world being in implosion instead of explosion....it
being a [concentration] camp world where growing interest on the principal
of life cannot be an option. Thus the principal will not keep.

I would like to end with a few words on deserts. I am really

commenting on what other people have said. You can grow lots in a
desert provided you have water. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar Iraq
produced 3 crops a year. In Britain only one crop is produced. The
Tigres and Euphates are powrerful rivers - still despite the water
Turkey is taking.

In many deserts, Egypt for example, seeds remain dormant for long
periods and after a downpour flowers come up with hours. The problem
then is a source of fresh water.

- Ian Parker

Guest

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:29 am

On Apr 24, 3:23 pm, "Mike Combs"
<mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:

Quote:

Willie.Moo...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:92c09fbb-1346-4ecf-adbf-a00e64dcac4a@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

Nothing grows in deserts. To make use of deserts requires a massive
engineering effort - more massive than building the pressure vessels
from asteroidal feedstock.

and

I said
at the outset, as production in space grows, at some point pressure
vessels will be built at less cost than green houses on Earth.

As tremendous a booster of orbital habitats as I am, that's the part I have
a hard time accepting.

haha.. I logged in and fewer than 10 people looked at my stuff. A
month ago more than 1000 looked at my stuff. Don't know what
happened, but I guess today every person i'm talking to is 100x more
valuable to me! Thanks! lol.

So, respectfully I ask Why? Have you really looke at the numbers?

Look at the value of land on Earth and how it varies per unit area
with varying use. Different uses have different values. If those
values in space are greater than on Earth, there is no compelling
reason to do it in space is there?. If these values are less than on
Earth, there is a compelling reason.

So, let's look at the numbers and see what our target is?

The cost of an acre in Tokyo, or Manhattan, or London or Paris, or
Sydney, is such that you're paying many tens of dollars per square
foot. I think Dubai and Abu Dhabi,in places like the Palms and the
World islands,its in the hundred dollar per square foot range.

Even in outlying regions, the sub-urban regions dollars per square
foot for land is supported.,

Of course when you add improvements, values go up from there. Space
colonies and space stations.large pressure vessels, can incorporate
improvements that add value. With lots of sun and perfect weather,
with improvements like irrigation and so forth, the land is not likely
to be worth less than prime agricultural real estate in say Southern
California - which is in the ten dollars per square foot range
again.

Now, consider that acording to NASA researchers, productivity for
improved farmland in space is likely to be 10x to 20x that of the best
farms on Earth.

With telerobotics in MEO you'll be able to hire anyone anywhere to do
anything on orbit that needs done. So, there's a definite labor
advantage. You may also be contacted by anyone anywhere via satellite
communications.So there's a definite advantage in getting to market.

Improvements include unlimited power from solar sources, and unlimited
feedstocks from captured asteroidal fragments returned from deep space
which are a fixed capital cost not a rising recurring cost.

In a polar orbit, with GPS guided aeroshells launched from a low
velocity rail gun - to precisely place product anywhere on the Earth's
surface in 10 minutes or less. You therefore have direct access to
anyone on Earth within minutes. I used to work at the Ohio State
University. A friend of mine was a film professor there. They closed
down the film department. His wife was from the Phillipines. They
bought a coffee plantation and he spent his retirement building up
that plantation into an estate type specialty coffee. haha.. along
with working on some kick ass documentaries for Japanese and
Australian TV.

Anyway, since I had some experience in business, I helped him map out
a successful plan to improve production. The biggest stumbling block
for his plantation was access to markets. Nestle' used the
Phillipines as a source for low cost instant coffees. His plan
involved importing better grades of beans, and paying workers what he
considered a fair wage, and basically going around Nestle's lock on
the market. HIS success was seen as an impetus to other growers to
breakout of the Nestle' stranglehold - and since Nestle' had invested
heavily in plant and equipment that needed a certain volume of beans
at a certain price each year - to feed the largely European market -
well,things got quite interesting - haha - and became the subject of
one of my friends documentaries.

So, telling a farmer he not only has water, fertilizer, land sunlight,
good growing conditions all year round, access to labor no diseases or
pests of any sort and DIRECT access to EVERYONE EVERYWHERE ANY TIME -
with no hassles - wow... just wow... this is a REVOLUTION waiting to
happen! A freaking revolution!! Thatwill free small farm owners and
small business owners - from antedated systems of production and
distribution. Satellites will do for food and raw materials and
finished goods and consumer goods what they have done for
communications and weather.

In fact, I predict that as soon as a large number of independent
farmers are making money hand over fist on orbit delivering food
products to the top 20% of the market (pareto's principle - 80% of the
effect is caused by 20% of the market) - they'll arrange to GIVE AWAY
at reduced prices food to everyone for a variety of logistical reasons
having to do with production of food on orbit. THAT will change a
lot of things.

But I want to get back to your difficulty about price

I hope you can see that anything less than say $50 per square foot -
for a satellite based agriculture for all the reasons stated above,
will allow satellites to compete with the best farms on Earth.
Anything less than say $5 per square foot - for a satellite - with all
the advantages listed - will create a food revolution - putting nearly
all farms on Earth out of business, as everyone everwhere gets fat and
sassy on a food glut that will transform life on Earth.

Is $50 per square foot to $5 per square foot feasible?

Well, to understand that we have to look at how we're going to build
our pressure vessel how much it weighs, and where we get that material
and so forth.

The first thing to notice is that in land use some land has higher
value than others.

The second thing to notice is that when people do things for the very
first time - its more costly at first, and drops in price over time.
This is called the learning curve effect.

The third thing to notice when you do a thing, is to take note of the
fundamentals that are driving the costs - and see where they might
go. Moore did this with integrated circuits back in the 1960s - he
figured that investments into improving the fundamentals he outlined
in the range of 20% of sales - would permit a doubling of performance
in integrated circuits every 18 to 24 months - and that doubling would
continue for 80 years or so. This made computers for example from a
rarity in the 1960s to a home appliance b the 1980s. It has made the
internet possible, as well as HDTV, and soon, 3D-HDTV.

Looking at the fundamentals of rockets, and space manufacturing and so
forth, we see the potential for fundamental improvements in both -
beyond the learning curve effects.

What this means is that when large pressure vessels are made on orbit,
there will be an order of battle in their use. Highest value uses
will be done first, and as both fundamental improvements are made and
learning curve effects accumulate, they will naturally move to lower
value uses.

We have already seen that taking all uses into account, and improved
pressure vessel - one with water air energy and so forth - will likely
command premium pricese in whatever market it competes in, while
giving its owners or renters valuable economic and business advantages
in serving the world's markets in whatever area they're operating.

So, while farming won't be first use, it will eventually be A use,
once we start down the development and learning curve.

So, for orbiting pressure vessels to be competitive with land on Earth
we probably won't see anything more than $200 per square foot - and at
$50 per square foot - we'll definitely see a rout as businesses flock
to orbit. Farming as pointed out above will likely become interesting
at no more than $50 per square foot - and at $5 per square foot - all
farms everywhere on Earth will feel the pinch. If prices fall below
$0.50 per square foot for improved farmland - the food situation on
Earth will be transformed, and the cities of earth will dissolve as
farmers sell off their land and people build remote homes powered,
connected, and fed from space.

Now, the process I am proposing is that we send fission free nuclear
pulse spacecraft to the asteroid belt to survey the small bodies
there, and arrange to capture rich small bodies that are well suited
for exploitation and return them to Earth.

I have shown elsewhere with references, how boron can be used in an
inertial confinement fusion bomblet to energize with prompt gamma rays
well defined regions of an asteroidal surface - creating a plasma
flash that imparts thrust to the asteroid itself, giving it a small
acceleration pulse in a well defined direction.

Average exhaust speed is around 10 km/sec - and the delta vee required
from the asteroid belt into Medium Earth Polar Orbit - is about 7 km/
sec - we're not using aerobraking or anything like that. What I'm
doing is surveying thousands of small bodies close up, selecting the
one I want to move - and moving it wholesale. While the nuclear pulse
rocket is capable of achieving 1,000s of km/sec - when hauling an
asteroid, it uses its self- propelled bomblets in a controlled way to
'shepherd' the chosen asteroid into a minimum energy orbit toward
Earth and ultimately into Earth orbit. For safety's sake, none of the
small bodies will be greater than 100 meters in diameter.

The mass of these objects will average about 1.65 tons per cubic meter
and average 70 meters in diameter. So they average 296,330 tons - when
they arrive at Earth.

The total delta vee is 7 km/sec - and the body itself is the
propellant energized by the fusion bomblets - to an average speed of
10 km/sec - which means 50.34% of the total mass is energized in this
way. So, if we end up with 296,330 tons per asteroid, we start with
596,735 tons and vaporize 300,405 tons in a way that moves the
asteroid to where we want it. This requires 15.02e+15 joules of
energy. The process I am proposing is about 30% efficient. That
means 5e+16 joules of energy must be generated by the bomblets.

A ton of boron fused with protium releases about as much energy as 20
million tons of TNT. A ton of TNT releases 4.184e+9 joules. So, a
ton of boron fused with protium releases 8.368e+16 Joules.

So, less than 2 metric tons of boron base pulse units. The Earth
today produces over 1 million metric tons per year. Pure elemental
boron in bulk costs $2,500 per kg, or $2.5 milion. So, the boron
costs would be around $5 million. Protium is about $6 per kg in
liquid form, and adds very little to the cost of this fuel mix.

Fuel costs - in an efficient fusion propulsion system as I'm
contemplating here is about 20% of all operating costs. It plays less
of a role the more primitive the system. Fuel costs in modern
boosters run around 3% of all costs for a space launch. Higher
energy, higher value propellants and fuels, especially nuclear fuels,
have a far higher percentage of the total. It is very unlikely even
early systems would have fuel costs less than 10% of the total.

So, to move 296,330 tons into MEO willl like cost between $25 million
and $50 million - using the process I just desribed. In round numbers
$30 million for 300,000 tons. - that's $100 per metric ton to harvest
asteroidal materials and bring it to earth orbit.

fusion based nuclear pulse rockets can impart 10 km/sec to payloads
from Earth as well. With gravity and air drag losses combined with
the fact that gamma ray flashing off of bulk materials are likely not
to be used - the cost will actually be higher to lift items from
Earth. But those costs are likely to be no more than 3x what the
import costs are from the asteroid belt. So, we're talking with this
rocket technology, $300 per metric ton - to lift things from Earth.

Looking at the logistics and requirements for building up a farm on
orbit inside a pressure vessel, we'll likely have no more than 15% of
the total mass arrive from Earth -with the balance processed
asteroids. That 15% includes the telerobots and tooling and factories
and so forth - to process the asteroids into pressure vessels and all
the other components needed for a space farm.

This means that each ton will be 0.85 x $100 + 0.15 x $300 = $130 per
metric ton

Now, you can get different costs with different assumptions, but here
i am assuming a specific fusion ICF propulsion unit in a certain class
of ship - a 2,000 ton payload small-size ship - that flies at 1 gee to
the asteroid belt in a few days, spends a few days surveying hundreds
of objects, and picks the best object to shepherd back to Earth after
outfitting it for inner solar system transit (putting on a reflector)
- a similar ship based on Earth, meets the asteroid, and shepherd's it
safely into the desired orbit, and deposits a 1,500 ton manufacturing
cell on its surface - with a crew of 30 - and a complement of 500
telerobots.

Now, what does a square foot weigh?

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/II-1.html

In this design about 0.3375 metric tons per square meter. They have
53 metric tons per person and 157.1 sq m per person - this is 337.5 kg
per squae meter.

There are about 4050 square meters per acre - so, we're talking about
1,365 metric tons per acre. At $130 per metric ton - we've got
$177,450 per acre. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre - so we're
at $4.07

So, this process is very interesting! We're more competitive than
downtown New York, given the 20x increase in productivity possible on
orbit, we've got the equivalent of prime California real-estate -
irrigated and supplied with fertilizer and such - for less than
$10,000 per acre - given the global access to market - these farms
ought to do quite well for a developer!!

Now, this estimate for the acreage cost is based on a 10,000 person
habitat that NASA designed to be optimized for human habitation. It
is not optimized for farming along the lines I've described. When
one takes that into account, we might see a factor of 3 - off the bat
- and with learning curve effects - a factor of 10.

So, our initial 'manhattan' style habitat will cost $4.07 per square
foot -when built in the manner described - and a 'farm' style habitat
will cost $1.40 per square foot. Fresh out of the box. More mature
systems will range from $1.00 to $0.35 per square foot - depending on
design. More mature systems made with more mature SPACE systems that
reduce the cost of a ton to MEO by building better rockets operated
more efficiently will produce habitats that range from $0.10 to $0.04
per square foot.

These last prices will promote a mass exodus from Earth - just like
free land in Oklahoma spawne the 'sooner' state! It will also
promote the development of long growing crops - like forests - to
provide fiber for humanity across the solar system.

It has been said, because it is true, that energetically, Earth orbit
is halfway to anywhere - when looking at minimum energies. This makes
it an ideal place to gather resources to be molded by human time and
attention - into useful products that are distributed on Earth, on
orbit, and beyond.

Creating a ring of habitats, in a controlled polar orbit, sun
synchronized to be constantly in sunlight, where the ring overflies
the entire Earth twice a day, provides a productive center off-world,
with easy access to low cost labor telerobotically - and easy access
to markets.by JDAM style re-entry vehicles launched by low velocity
rail guns. higher velocity cannons shoot products to the moon and
beyond.

This will transform the Earth as mines, smelters, refineries,
factories, farms and industrial forests move off-world while reducing
their costs aind increasing their output. People move far from cities
to homes that receive power from space, communications from space, and
products from space. People work telerobotically anywhere including
oribt, and the emergence of personal ballistic vehicles, powered by
hydrogen/oxygen rockets in the low atmosphere and solar pumped lasers
at higher altitudes - with the laser beams arriving from space -
anyone can travel anywhere in 42 minutes or less.

So, cities dissolve, as people occupy former farms, and the Earth
becomes one vast natural preserve. People communicate instantly
anywhere, and travel anywhere in minutes through the skies in silent
pollution free VTOL spacecraft.

As costs of on orbit 'land' decreases over time, more and more people
elect a second home on orbit, ultimately,making orbit their primary
home, and retaining a second home on Earth. Finally, fewer and fewer
people remain on Earth, and as propulsion costs drop, and savings and
investments accumulate, while robotic labor becomes more capable,
people begin moving beyond Earth orbit in their own personally owned
space colony - and population on and around Earth begins its
inevitable and final decline.
.

Quote:

Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole
prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all
human beings... It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that
any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.

Ronald Reagan at Westminster Abbey, 1982

Guest

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:01 am

Its all a function of cost and productivity.

I have outlined a method above that produces first generation space
colonies at about $180,000 per acre. This is improved land, with
water, mild climate and so forth. NASA studies indicate 20x increase
in output from even the best farms on Earth. So, think Southern
California irrigated farmland. Divde $180,000 by 20 and you get
$9,000 - per acre - which is cheap.

Now, this cost figure is based on a 2,000 ton nuclear pulse spacecraft
fleet harvesting small asteroidal debris - suited for our purposes -
built into a NASA style space colony optimized for human habitation.
Changing the habitat design to optimize it for farming - as Bradford
says - changes the cost.. to about 1/3 to 1/10th the figure above.
and perhaps improving output by 20% or so. This reduces the effective
cost below $900 per acre farmland. This is improved land - not raw
land - so, this is a helluva deal.

Now beyond economics there are logistics - and politics.

Farms on orbit would be a REVOLUTION in the way food is consumed on
Earth.

Consider a head of lettuce you pick up at the store. First you have
to go to the store to pick it up. Drive there, walk around the
aisles, find a lettuc head, pay for it, walk out, drive home, stick it
in the fridge - pull it out when you need it.

This is just the tail end of a HUGE supply chain. MOST of the cost of
that lettuce is in supporting that supply chain. So, beyond the raw
productivity increases possibleon orbit, there are HJGE logistical
improvements that can RADICALLY cut the cost of farming on orbit.

Lets follow this head of lettuce back to tis field in California.
Before it was on the refrigerated shelf at your local store, the
lettuce was in the cooler in back of the store. Then it was in a
refrigerated truck that serves the store. It was in a refrigerated
warehouse before that. Before that it was in a refrigerated train
car. Before that another refrigerated warehouse. Before that another
refrigerated truck. Before that a refrigerated warehouse near the
farm. Before that a refrigerated truck FROM the farm. .. before
that, in a cleaning and processing station near the farm. before
that, in the bin of a harvester, before that, sitting in the field.

About 95 cents of every dollar you pay supports all those refrigerated
spaces and trucks and all the people who touch the lettuce to get it
to your door. And all the people who finance all the equipment
needed to do that.

if you had a farm on a hill that had a cannon that could shoot heads
of lettuce to people as they needed it - you could dispense with ALL
this bullshit.

In fact, if you were describing two systems to non-technical people,
they'd immediately see, that a network of roads trucks train and rail
with refrigerated warehouses and armies of people with fork lifts -
would be the crazy idea!

I'm merely supposing that we can make MEMs based rockets to soft land
things like heads of lettuce, for about the same cost as the head of
lettuce.

The lettuce farm with the cannon on the hill, provides fresher food
more quickly at lower cost than the farm connected to the valley by
truck, railroad and an assorted array of warehouses manned by armies
of people.

So, taking today's price for a head of lettuce, and understanding that
95 cents of every dollar goes to the delivery infrastructure, and
noting that at the prices that are feasible with my system of farming
satellites, we can cut the 5 cents down to 0.5 cents - and here's the
beauty part - we can cut the 95 cents down to 0.5 cents - we then take
a $1.00 worth of lettuce and reduce it to $0.01 - available to ANYONE
ANYWHERE.

Here's the otther beauty part - We charge the $0.10 for $1.00 worth of
lettuce to the 20% of the market that has 80% of the wealth - and use
$0.08 of that to subsidize food distribution world wide - keeping
$0.02 profit - and increase food production world wide 500% - this
sets the stage for a consumer revolution as people everywhere have
more money to spend on consumer items - and consume more energy.

(this is built after i put up power satellites to provide hydrocarbons
and hydrogen to the world's energy markets)

- communications
- energy
- manufacturing
- food
- fiber (wood paper)
- homes

Well before we have space homes, we will deorbit cities manufactured
on orbit - that will be heated and powered by laser beams - that will
allow them to float.

This simple approach ioriginated with Buckminster Fuller in 1967.
Light weight structures hundreds of meters in diameter, heated and
powered with a small nuclear reactor, would house thousands of people,
who would float freely over the earth trading in goods and services
wherever they went.

I have updated this concept. And done some engineering work on it.

Powered by laser beams from space, and the air heated by those same
beams, these cities float as well. The people on board, are fed from
orbit, they also work on orbit telerobotically.

So, I imagine I could say at some opint to all the people of Earth -
that a new Colossus has arisin... and would repeat with deep
conviction and meaning...an ancient poem from another age...

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883

These floating cities, made in space - will be the first step toward a
more peaceful and prosperous planet, and the first step of humanity
off-world

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ldjjj/109033997/

G. L. Bradford

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:41 am

Guest

"Mike Combs" <mikecombs@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in message
news:fuqm6i$i59$1@home.itg.ti.com...

Quote:

Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space colonies --
but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a purpose you're
aren't thinking about but should be. Personally, I'd like the product from
the shrimp farms in space. Even more particularly, the product from the
anchovie growers. I don't know about the others, though they are getting
harder to find on the shelves, but the blue tuna is so popular in a world
that can afford it better today that it is being eaten to extinction.

Goats and chickens, grains and fruits and vegetables and the like, will
not be the only life production of specialized colony structures in space.

------------------------

So let's farm blue tuna on Earth instead. Not going to happen! So much is
not going to happen in or on a world that does not have a whole universe of
vast and opening frontiers keeping it more open as an integral part of the
bigger system. That world being in implosion instead of explosion....it
being a [concentration] camp world where growing interest on the principal
of life cannot be an option. Thus the principal will not keep.

GLB

BradGuth

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:14 am

Guest

On Apr 24, 12:14 pm, "Mike Combs"
<mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:

Quote:

What? You mean that $25,000 per head of lettice from space is too
spendy. Who would have guessed that Mook LEO grown produce wouldn't
become all the rage.
.. - Brad Guth

BradGuth

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:18 am

Guest

On Apr 25, 5:01 am, Willie.Moo...@gmail.com wrote:

Quote:

You need to change your medication, because as is it's causing a
rather bad reaction that's manifesting itself as though you are
seriously crazy.
.. - Brad Guth

Guest

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:54 am

On Apr 25, 2:14 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Apr 24, 12:14 pm, "Mike Combs"

mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:
Maybe. I tend to expect that food grown in space will become economical for
sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to Earth;
given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition you have to
undersell is food rocketed up from Earth. Space food fired off to Earth
would have to compete with Earth food.

But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era... maybe.
Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global agriculture
collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.

--

Regards,
Mike Combs

What? You mean that $25,000 per head of lettice from space is too
spendy. Who would have guessed that Mook LEO grown produce wouldn't
become all the rage.
. - Brad Guth

I can get a bag of spinach leaves ready for tossing into a salad for
$2.15 at Trader Joes. The farmer gets $0.15 of that. Everyone in the
supply chain gets the balance. Produce growing area on orbit for 1/2
the price the farmer now pays for land (without property taxes!) and
increase his productivity by 20x - and reduce his labor cost to 1/3 -
and he is happy to charge $0.05 per bag - ready to go. Now, figure
out how to deorbit that bag of lettuce and drop it to where its needed
on Earths surface - within a centimeter - for another $0.05 - and
you've delivered the product for $0.10 - charge those who are now
buying a bag of spinach leaves for $2.15 at trader joes (plus taxes)
$1.00 - and point out its harvested just minutes ago in the field -
nothing fresher - and take $0.50 to buy five bags of lettuce from our
farmer and deliver them to people with butkas to pay - and pocket
$0.50 for your troubles - perhaps investing in other aspects that are
growing because people aren't going apeshit over food.

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