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Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!



 
 
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  #11  
Old July 6th 03, 06:22 PM
trakar
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Default Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!

On Sun, 6 Jul 2003 09:23:42 -0500, "Christopher M. Jones"
wrote:

"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.


Personally, I'd like to see how the figure is that low, that is
generally agreed to be the US cost, but I've heard estimates that
exceed 200B for the total cost of ISS.
  #12  
Old July 6th 03, 06:31 PM
trakar
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Default Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!

On 6 Jul 2003 03:02:59 -0700, (John Ordover) wrote:

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?


Who said anyone was planning on building one? I thought we were merely
speculating on the costs and methods of doing so. Personally, I don't
see anything like this becoming a reality without a private individual
or small group of individuals dedicating the money to do so (so it's a
long off potential, not an eventuallity). There simply, at this time
no reason for governments to do this type of project.

Operation costs should be irrelevent to a true colony, as it needs to
able to at least produce as much as it consumes. Once it's fully
functional and operational it should be more than self-sufficient.
  #13  
Old July 6th 03, 07:37 PM
Rand Simberg
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Default Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!

On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 17:22:35 GMT, in a place far, far away, trakar
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


Personally, I'd like to see how the figure is that low, that is
generally agreed to be the US cost, but I've heard estimates that
exceed 200B for the total cost of ISS.


The cost of ISS has absolutely no relevance to the cost of building a
Stanford Torus. It had unique requirements, few of which had anything
to do with actually building a space station, or saving money.

If it had been important to do so, for some reason, we could have
easily had ten or a hundred times the space station for less money
than ISS.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

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  #16  
Old July 14th 03, 03:10 AM
John Ordover
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Default Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!

Operation costs should be irrelevent to a true colony, as it needs to
able to at least produce as much as it consumes. Once it's fully
functional and operational it should be more than self-sufficient.


Uh - Colonies usually begin by shipping raw materials - lumber, beaver
pelts, etc. back to the home country in return for manufactured items
that they aren't set up yet to produce themselves. They do not start
out by producing as much as they consume, they start out bascially
shovelling coal back home.
  #17  
Old July 15th 03, 03:59 PM
gmw
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Default Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!

Your argument about the cost, "its only 15 B2 bombers", is fatally flawed.
The cost of the B2 is enormous. It was/is justified by it backers as a
necessary deterrent in a dangerous and unpredictable world. Your personal
opinion non withstanding that argument was sufficiently compelling for a
majority of the population and has become more so in the wake of 9-11.

What argument do you have for a colony that is as equally compelling to the
majority to the majority of Americans? The answer is currently none, which
is why we have bombers instead of bases.


  #18  
Old July 15th 03, 08:40 PM
Alex Terrell
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Default Only 33 billion for a space colony?? Thats only 15 B-2's!

"gmw" wrote in message ...
Your argument about the cost, "its only 15 B2 bombers", is fatally flawed.
The cost of the B2 is enormous. It was/is justified by it backers as a
necessary deterrent in a dangerous and unpredictable world. Your personal
opinion non withstanding that argument was sufficiently compelling for a
majority of the population and has become more so in the wake of 9-11.

What argument do you have for a colony that is as equally compelling to the
majority to the majority of Americans? The answer is currently none, which
is why we have bombers instead of bases.


In the mdium term there is no attractive alternative.

Sounds pretty compelling to me.
 




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