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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
Why hasn't anyone just gone to the bankers? It looks like Space
Colonies can pay for themselves. Tamara (marian futerman) wrote: Dear Monart, Do you have the actual breakdown of how much it will cost to construct a habitat for 10,000 people? Getting there and building one? For O'Neill's original estimates (as low as $33 billion 1975 dollars), see his "TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JULY 23, 1975" in the section "Costs and Payoffs" http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/CoEvolutionBook/TESTIM.HTML The site here http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/ is brim-full of info. In the 1977 Enclycolopedia Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future, the lead article, "Space Colonies" by O'Neill, gave a figure of $40 billion 1975 dollars for a habitat housing 10,000 on 750,000 square meters of land. As to the cost of "getting there" to build it: I've not seen any estimates. Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 19:15:35 -0600 From: Monart Pon Subject: Costs of an O'Neill Habitat Suppose that 10,000 families were to pay (in cash or in mortgages) an average of $1,000,000 each for a home in an O'Neill habitat, then there would be $10 billion dollars towards the construction. Suppose that 2 tourists per month, paying $20 million each, were to visit the habitat, then there would be $480 million per year towards the construction. Suppose the billions per year spent on tickets for football, baseball, hockey, wrestling, etc., on burgers, pizzas, doughnuts, gambling, tobacco, alchohol, cocaine, etc., were instead invested in shares of an O'Neill habitat, then... Suppose the billions were NOT spent on fighting one war or another every year, then... Suppose the billions spent on burning up petroleum as fuel were spent instead on buying solar power from an O'Neill habitat, then ... Suppose IBM, Intel, Microsoft, General Foods, Dupont, Exxon, Johnson&Johnson, General Motor, Ford, etc., were to invest in subsidiaries in an O'Neill habitat, then ... Suppose the government were to give up their predatory practices, let people mind their own businesses and let them keep their own money, then ... Add up all those billions and trillions, and there you'd have more than enough for several O'Neill habitats. The issue is not how much it costs or how much people can afford, it's what people choose, and are allowed to choose, to spend their money on. |
#2
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
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#3
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
On 05 Jul 2003 16:11:01 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote: $33 billion in 1975 dollars equals $95 billion in 2003 dollars. This is for a "big can" colony, however, I believe the estimates for the stanford torus colonies would be much less. |
#4
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
trakar wrote in
: On 05 Jul 2003 16:11:01 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote: $33 billion in 1975 dollars equals $95 billion in 2003 dollars. This is for a "big can" colony, however, I believe the estimates for the stanford torus colonies would be much less. No doubt the 1975 estimates would have been less, I agree. But the assumptions behind those estimates were deeply flawed. -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
#5
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
"trakar" wrote in message ... On 05 Jul 2003 16:11:01 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote: $33 billion in 1975 dollars equals $95 billion in 2003 dollars. This is for a "big can" colony, however, I believe the estimates for the stanford torus colonies would be much less. I've seen reports that the cost of ISS has appraoched $90 Billion. I've seen cost estimates all over the map for ISS. Does anyone have a definititive number amd a source they can point me to. If the ISS did indeed cost $90 billion, then a rethink for even a Stanford Torus is in order. TangoMan |
#6
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 05:38:18 GMT, "TangoMan"
wrote: I've seen reports that the cost of ISS has appraoched $90 Billion. I've seen cost estimates all over the map for ISS. Does anyone have a definititive number amd a source they can point me to. If the ISS did indeed cost $90 billion, then a rethink for even a Stanford Torus is in order. The primary differences here are the methods of construction and launch technologies. ISS did not truely try to optimize either. It is hard for me to find any validation in O'neill's original proposals, but, I'm relatively satisfied that with the proper approach, a 10K pop orbital colony could be built for a few hundred billion dollars and about a decade and a half of time. BDBs and mass launch systems can make a dramatic difference, and a project like this can more than absorb the costs of developing and implementing both these and personnel transports within it's budget (infact they are requisite to meeting the budgetary restrictions). Even using some cargo varient of the shuttle and once a week launches you'd go way over budget of money and time without getting anywhere close to completing a colony. |
#7
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
trakar wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 05:38:18 GMT, "TangoMan" wrote: I've seen reports that the cost of ISS has appraoched $90 Billion. I've seen cost estimates all over the map for ISS. Does anyone have a definititive number amd a source they can point me to. If the ISS did indeed cost $90 billion, then a rethink for even a Stanford Torus is in order. The primary differences here are the methods of construction and launch technologies. ISS did not truely try to optimize either. It is hard for me to find any validation in O'neill's original proposals, but, I'm relatively satisfied that with the proper approach, a 10K pop orbital colony could be built for a few hundred billion dollars and about a decade and a half of time. BDBs and mass launch systems can make a dramatic difference, and a project like this can more than absorb the costs of developing and implementing both these and personnel transports within it's budget (infact they are requisite to meeting the budgetary restrictions). Even using some cargo varient of the shuttle and once a week launches you'd go way over budget of money and time without getting anywhere close to completing a colony. Whose few hundred billion are you going to use to build it? How much does it cost to operate? |
#9
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
"Henry Spencer" wrote:
You *just might* be able to attract financing for such a venture once transport into space is cheap and easy, large-scale infrastructure is being built, the unknowns of building very large space structures are largely solved (with the solutions demonstrated at scale in space), and there is a thriving and rapidly-growing economy out there which is crying out for an upscale local housing development to convince people to move there permanently. You can't get there (quickly) from here. That favorable environment has to evolve a piece at a time; you can't force-feed confidence to a banker. I don't see people buying mortgages on unbuilt space colonies any time soon. But I do think we're about at the stage where manned spaceflight will be able to pay for itself, and that's really all you need to get anywhere that can be gotten to. First, start of with sub-orbital joy rides, fast package delivery, etc. Then go to orbital tourist flights, then build a small orbital hotel (which would pretty much just be a simple station with rather spartan accomodations). Then you're set up, assuming there is a decent stream of profit, for bigger space habitats, more robust space operations, etc, scaling up, eventually, to building permanent living quarters in space. Even if no one really wanted to live permanently in space, it would happen eventually anyway. Because people still wan't to visit, and tourism creates jobs. And where's the best place to live if you work in orbit? Of course, there are plenty of people who will want to live permanently in space, but don't be fooled into thinking they will be the only ones who will end up doing so. |
#10
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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!
"TangoMan" wrote:
I've seen reports that the cost of ISS has appraoched $90 Billion. I've seen cost estimates all over the map for ISS. Does anyone have a definititive number amd a source they can point me to. The major differences are in what you count as an ISS cost and what you don't. Then, of course, you've got to count, in an appropriate manner, the development costs of everything involved. The highest cost estimates come from two things: first, taking the cost of all the Shuttle flights that will ever visit ISS and adding it to the cost of ISS; second, adding in a lot of the development costs of the ISS systems, the per-flight development cost of the Shuttle, etc. The lowest cost estimates come from simply adding up the ISS specific budget, while ignoring the cost of the Shuttle flights, etc. If the ISS did indeed cost $90 billion, then a rethink for even a Stanford Torus is in order. Just because a certain amount of money will eventually be spent, effectively, on ISS, don't think that the same quantity of money could be allocated for any other use, even related uses. Even *the exact same use*. Yeah, congress is weird that way. |
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