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Ara Pacis · #3 (**permalink**) 05-March-2006, 06:02 PM

The more I think about it the more I think that there are reasons other than tourism.

1. Communications. This will continue to be a key sector in space economics.

2. Solar power stations. Even if they don't become useful for terrestrial use, they may be useful for beaming power to various satellites such as manned orbiting facilities. Imagine the huge area of solar panels on a tourism space hotel... it might block views! A space hotel could have a small or retractable MW dish that receives high power beams from a separate solar power station. Maybe the orbiting power station uses fission too, but few tourists would want a fission plant on the space hotel itself.

3. Solar Weather systems. Satellites, earth bound systems, and interplanetary exeditions need to be alerted to changes in solar weather and this will require several satellites in solar orbit, helioseismology notwithstanding.

4. Mining. A lot of people have tried to claim this and a lot of people have tried to debunk this. The truth is that a lot of money can be made if we create an efficient means of harvesting certain small objects. This will become more feasible as people start placing higher and higher premiums on wilderness areas, biodiversity, and population centers threatened by mining pollution in earth's biosphere.

For example: if it takes $1B to find and setup a mineral extraction operation, another $1B for operations, and another $1B to clean up the ecological mess, and a final $1B in lost revenue due to land sequestration from other uses for the life of the contamination (a total of $4B), all for X tons of mineral Y; then it may be economically feasible to do space mining if X tons of mineral Y can be extracted for a total cost of $4B OR if the total amortized cost of mining an object for mineral Y averages out to $4B per X tons. (B nominally indicates a billion dollars here, but it could be a variable for any monetary amount.)

5. Manufacturing. There are certain things that are hard, if not impossible, to fabricate on earth due to atmospheric and gravity effects. Initially, the market would probably be for high cost high tolerance specialized equipment, like components for supercomputers or aeronautics or even racecar engines. The cost of a manufacturing facility will be amortized over an increasing number of products and the costs of raw materials acquisition will decrease (from cheaper launches or from space mining). This will allow for larger runs of (somewhat) lower cost items, along the lines of optional luxury/performance car engines that will still benefit from the higher tolerances possible in space manufacturing.

6. Retail and Service Industries. A military base almost always has a PX, so a long term space base in orbit, on Luna or on Mars, will develop a need for people to service the scientists, technicians, and other project workers. Sure, on a small base, people will take turns cooking, but as a base grows to hundreds and thousands of people they will want to stop "roughing it" and start acting civilized. And one of the central tenets of civilization is division of labor. On the sociological side, it gives a non-technically skilled person a value and a reason to be near their spouse who may be one of the scientists, or technicians or other project workers. Civilized living increases morale, which increases productivity, which increases the return on investment.