Space Colonization Economics, Part 1

[chris_gerrib]

So, Charles Stross has blogged extensively about how space colonization is not economically viable with foreseeable current technology. He makes a number of arguments, one of which is "call me when people colonize the Gobi Desert."

Well, people did colonize the Gobi - we call them "Mongolians." The immediate comeback to this is oil rigs, Antarctica, and the ocean floor. In other words, we might have spartan, not-even-close to self-sustaining outposts in space, but not "colonies." I submit that an understanding of the economics of those environments will produce useful (and not-obvious) results.

Let's talk Antarctica first, and a later post will address oil rigs and the ocean floor. We have colonized Antarctica with research bases. People don't live there permanently, but per the British Antarctic Survey, shifts are from 2 to 33 months long. What does this tell us?

1) Travel time to and from station drives the "colonize" vs. "visit" decision. With travel times of weeks via ship, setting up permanent bases and flying people in made sense.

2) Travel time also drives minimum shift times in a rotation. It would take the better part of a week to fly somebody from Great Britain to Antarctica via any commercial route. With that travel time, 2 months is probably the minimal amount of time you want somebody to be there.

Other useful facts about Antarctic "colonization."

3) Everybody maintains at least one base on the coast, accessible by sea. Bulk goods, such as fuel and food, have to come by sea, not air. In short, shipping costs matter.

4) Nobody ships water to Antarctica. In that regard, the colonists live off the land.

Tomorrow, oil rigs and ocean-floor colonization. Part 3, Grow houses Friday Monday, in part 4, I'll try to tie this together in a unified theory of colonization. (whole series, including part 5)

Comments

[bdunbar.livejournal.com]

Something else about Antarctica - we don't really know if people would voluntarily colonize there. The entire place is off limits to permanent habitation by treaty.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I would voluntarily colonize there, if there were considerable long-term financial gain in the operation.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The phrase "forseeable current technology" sets the future time horizon so short that the speculation is meaningless, assuming that he doesn't consider (for instance) orbital elevators or fusion-torch drive interplanetary craft to fit into that category. But of course you don't need either to make interplanetary colonization possible -- just to make it cheap enough that almost any organization could engage in it.

And yes, numerous inhospitable environments have been colonized, many of them before industrial technology became available.

Stross is a downer

[(Anonymous)]

...but I wouldn't argue against him because I'm nowhere near up-to-date to counter his arguments. He talked about how orbital elevators have dimmed in potential due to materials issues and a proper propulsion system for the elevator to climb up the beanstalk. Fusion? Well, that always seems to be 50 years out so no one's optimistic that's going to change either. If you haven't done so already, Jordan, you should read the comments thread attached to the article. Interesting, but pessimistic.

Re: Stross is a downer

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

He talked about how orbital elevators have dimmed in potential due to materials issues and a proper propulsion system for the elevator to climb up the beanstalk. Fusion? Well, that always seems to be 50 years out so no one's optimistic that's going to change either.

The main change in the materials issue is that we now actually know the general sort of material which will be used -- carbon nanofiber cabling. As is often the case, as we approach closer to the solution, the obstacles become clearly delineated and hence appear greater -- now the problem is to spin sufficiently long carbon nanofibers. But remember that when beanstalks were first proposed, we were merely assuming that someday we would develop sufficiently strong materials -- we didn't even know what class of materials would work aside from speculations about "artifiical diamond-like substances."

I'm not sure why "a proper propulsion system" is such an insuperable issue. When you have an actual beanstalk in place, many forms of propulsion are possible, the more so because you could now theoretically use mechanical systems (not good for passengers, as it would take weeks to get into GEO, but just fine for cargo, and if you can loft cargo cheaply you've mostly solved the cheap-access-to-orbit problem).

As for the supposed impossibility of ever achieving controllable fusion, you should compare where we are now with where we were c. 1960. And Stross is talking about whether or not we will ever achieve expansion into space -- can you reasonably assume that by, say, 2100 or 2200, we still won't have fusion reactors?