Space Colonization Economics, Part 2

[chris_gerrib]

So, in Part 1 of my continuing saga on Space Colonization, I talked about the economics of Antarctic "colonization." Basically, once the research to be done reaches a certain level, setting up a base, as opposed to flying in and out, makes sense.

Today I'll talk about oil rigs and colonies on the ocean floor. Actually, let's get the ocean floor out of the way first. We'll have sea-bed colonies after space colonies. Simply put, it's easier to keep a modest pressure in then to keep a massive pressure out. On Mars or the Moon, taking an inflatable building and covering it with local dirt is a perfectly viable construction technique. You can't do that on the ocean floor - at a certain (fairly shallow) depth, the amount of oxygen in the air needed to keep the building inflated is toxic to humans.

But that's not a problem, because we do have oceanic colonies - they are called "oil rigs." After all, the business end of the oil rig isn't at the ocean surface, it's at the sea floor. So, economic things to note about oil rigs:

1) They run short shifts - usually two weeks on, two weeks off. This is because travel time to and from is measured in hours via helicopter.

2) Again, they do live off of the land - nobody ships water to them, they make their own.

3) Being close to the work matters. Even though work at the bottom is done by remote vehicle, logistical support for the vehicle and time lag for the operator means that the human behind the screen needs to be close.

4) Oil rigs also bake their own bread. It's cheaper to ship flour via boat and hire a person to bake on 3rd shift than it is to have more frequent runs and bring in fresh bread.

What the observant reader should note is that shipping costs matter. They should also note that ocean shipping is cheaper than air freight. What's not clear is how much cheaper.

My dad, in his working days (he retired a couple of years ago) had call to air-freight aluminum castings from China to the US. The cost? $2 a pound. I recently had call to ship medical supplies to Zambia. The shipping company never asked how much my shipment weighed. They asked how much volume of stuff I had. I could have shipped as much as 56,000 pounds for $3150.

That's $0.0625 per pound. That's two orders of magnitude cheaper than air freight.

Yet even at six cents a pound, it's cheaper to hire a guy to bake bread than ship it to an oil rig. Part three - what this tells us about how self-sufficient any manned colony would have to be, and the (unfortunate) importance of failure. Part four will be my vision of how we get "true" colonies in our solar system. (whole series)

Comments

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

You know, it always amazes me how few people (and thus writers) give a moment's thoughts to logistics. I don't find the thing about the bread surprising, but only because I realize that a rig is much like a ship at sea...not so easy to get onto or off of...

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

It's hard to make reading about logistics interesting.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Good point. ;o)

But I was in grocery, then a retail buyer, so I am far more interested in how things get where (hopefully on time)...

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Yes. The reasons why long tours of duty would be preferable to short tours of duty, and permanent settlement preferable to either, for a space colony boil down to passenger transport costs and time. And, of course, any factor dropping these costs would tend to make it easier to colonize for non-economic motives.

We'll have sea-bed colonies after space colonies. Simply put, it's easier to keep a modest pressure in then to keep a massive pressure out.

Which is one of the reasons why we'll see extensive Lunar and Martian colonization before we see much settlement of the surface of Venus or the deeper atmospheres of the gas giants.

Incidentally, while advanced automation makes colonization a lot easier, it does not negate the need for and utility of humans on-site. Speed-of-light is a hard physical limitation, and signal lag means that it is impractical to run a colony by remote control from Earth.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

"We'll have sea-bed colonies after space colonies. Simply put, it's easier to keep a modest pressure in then to keep a massive pressure out."

I submit that there is some doubt about this. Mostly because of the "shipping costs" discussed. Ocean freight you have already mentioned is in cents per pound, the cost to geosync orbit is a *minimum* of $5000/lb.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=301

That is a pretty large shipping cost that has to be overcome by the cheapness and lightness of the structure to be installed. Space structures are not famous for low prices.

As far as truly usable sea colonization, I submit Holland as a prime example. You need not be under the ocean to colonize it.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

"We'll have sea-bed colonies after space colonies. Simply put, it's easier to keep a modest pressure in then to keep a massive pressure out."

I submit that there is some doubt about this. Mostly because of the "shipping costs" discussed. Ocean freight you have already mentioned is in cents per pound, the cost to geosync orbit is a *minimum* of $5000/lb.

Indeed, but orbital launch costs per pound are likely to drop over time, as providers multiply and technologies advance. Also, there's maintenance and safety issues: it's much harder to build a structure that remains safe under high external pressures than one that remains safe merely having to keep 1 atmosphere in; and the consequence of the failure of a structure under high external pressure is far more lethal to the occupants.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Agreed, I wasn't staking out a position that sea-bed would happen before lunar or martian, I was pointing out that it's closer to even odds. There is also the point that while "deepwater" habs would require insane structures, the continental shelf is still "seabed". and the continental shelf has a maximum depth of 460 feet, which corresponds to 13 atmospheres, or 200 psi. Still a bigger challenge than 15 psi, but not a particularly daunting one. Remember also that that is the maximum depth for the continental shelf.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

That's true -- colonizing the continental shelf is much more easy than is colonizing the deep ocean floor. For one thing, humans can safely scuba-dive at most continental shelf depths, especially if they remain at that depth throughout -- by comparison, this is possible only in the shallowest oceanic floor depths.