Monetizing Space

[Cisventure Astronot]

I was listening to TWIS episode 122 "No City on Mars?", and they talked about the value of operating in space. That made me want to start a discussion on the possible ways we could monetize space, what's being worked on right now, and what the near future might look like.

Here are the applications I can think of:

• Telecommunications (Telecom)
• Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP)
• Organ Printing
• Meteoroid Mining
• Tourism

Are there any that I missed? And what do you think of them?

 

[Classical Motion]

I have a couple. Gravity. Shielding. And a real shower and toilet. And free time. Make space livable and people will want to spend time there.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for if truly serious about space travel.

A spinning craft gives a gravity gradient to experiment in. And a range of densities.

 

[billslugg]

Asteroid mining would be mega expensive to set up but might have some big advantages. What they could do is separate out only the most valuable elements for the expensive return trip to Earth. How can one separate? Best method might be to just get up close to an asteroid, put a probe down that vaporized the asteroid metal. The vapor could then be run under a magnetic field to separate out the elements. It would even separate the isotopes. One could send back to Earth only the best stuff. Titanium is mostly Titanium-48 but there is 8% Titanium-44 in there. Separate out and send home only that lightest stable isotope of titanium and sell it people who make returnable rocket ships. They'd love to have their structure be 4% lighter by using a single, lighter, isotope. Aluminum only has one stable isotope so it won't work there. Copper could be made 1.5% lighter, iron about 4%, silver about a percent, magnesium 6%, chrome 4%, nickel 4%.

 

[Cisventure Astronot]

I have a couple. Gravity. Shielding. And a real shower and toilet. And free time. Make space livable and people will want to spend time there.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for if truly serious about space travel.

A spinning craft gives a gravity gradient to experiment in. And a range of densities.

You make a good point. Space tourists will want longer, and more comfortable tenures in space. Artificial gravity would eliminate atrophy without exercise, allow a greater variety of foods (which they could taste better), and (IIRC) make sleeping more comfortable.

Artificial gravity can be unpleasant, probably uses a lot of power, and the tourists would likely want to experience microgravity. So maybe it won't be active all the time.

Sadly, I don't think there's any work being done on artificial gravity. Orbital Reef is a large, expandable space station, so it's probably where the first tests will happen.

The cost of launch probably won't go down until a Starship variant is human-rated as a spacecraft and launch vehicle. I feel like that won't happen until after the regular, HLS, and tanker variants are finished.

Tourism this luxurious would also be a great first step of colonization, but that deserves its own thread.

 

[ChrisA]

I was listening to TWIS episode 122 "No City on Mars?", and they talked about the value of operating in space. That made me want to start a discussion on the possible ways we could monetize space, what's being worked on right now, and what the near future might look like.

Here are the applications I can think of:

• Telecommunications (Telecom)
• Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP)
• Organ Printing
• Meteoroid Mining
• Tourism

Of those only the last one would require humans in space. No. Please don't tell the humans are better then robots. The are today but that will change in 50 years and if not then in 200. So even if you want to mine an astreroid, no humans are needed in space.

All of the above and even the ones you did not think of have one very huge problem. You need customers who want the product and can afford to pay for it. You need to estimate the cost and demand. Yes, I might want a printed organ when I am 85 years old but can my insurance company (Medicare) afford to pay ten million dollars for it?

The only way to have a one million-person city on Mars is for there to be one million jobs on Mars that are impossible for robots to do and that pay a high enough salary to cover the cost of living on Mars. (actually, it is worse than that because children, old people and the disabled don't work and are paid for by those who do.)

Ok, it is even worse then that. The business that operate on mars have to sell their products at prices that compete with the same products made on Earth. Eith that or they make stuff that can not be made on Earth (tourism). A model for this is Iceland. Only 300,000 people live in Iceland but there are about 1.7 million tourists who go there every year. But then a round trip airfare is only about $700. and once you get there breathable air is free.

 

[Cisventure Astronot]

Of those only the last one would require humans in space. No. Please don't tell the humans are better then robots. The are today but that will change in 50 years and if not then in 200. So even if you want to mine an astreroid, no humans are needed in space.

All of the above and even the ones you did not think of have one very huge problem. You need customers who want the product and can afford to pay for it. You need to estimate the cost and demand. Yes, I might want a printed organ when I am 85 years old but can my insurance company (Medicare) afford to pay ten million dollars for it?

The only way to have a one million-person city on Mars is for there to be one million jobs on Mars that are impossible for robots to do and that pay a high enough salary to cover the cost of living on Mars. (actually, it is worse than that because children, old people and the disabled don't work and are paid for by those who do.)

Ok, it is even worse then that. The business that operate on mars have to sell their products at prices that compete with the same products made on Earth. Eith that or they make stuff that can not be made on Earth (tourism). A model for this is Iceland. Only 300,000 people live in Iceland but there are about 1.7 million tourists who go there every year. But then a round trip airfare is only about $700. and once you get there breathable air is free.

To clarify, the podcast episode was about the colonization of space, but I started this thread to talk about the monetization of space.

 

[ChrisA]

To clarify, the podcast episode was about the colonization of space, but I started this thread to talk about the monetization of space.

You were right to do so. A colony needs a way to support itself economically. Even if we assume the colony has a perfect communist system where each person contributes as they are able and each person is given what they need and no money is needed. Even if idealist communism could work, there will have to be some way where the labor of 1 million humans can create the basic needs of 1 million people.

Today we need about 10,000 people on Earth to create what one person living in space consumes. (living spaces and transportation are "consumables") You can not have a self-sustaining colony until the ratio dips below 1.0 (because they need to care for children, old people, and the disabled.). How to get from 10,000:1 to 1:2 ratio? And this assumes a perfect frictionless communism. If you assume a modern US-style capitalism then it is much worse because 1% of the colony will use 50% of the colony's resources so you would need considerable overproduction to allow for grossly unequal distribution.

Space must be monetized to the point where one person's labor in space generates enough to support the cost of living for at least two people. We need a four orders of magnitude-increase in labor productivity to enable a self-sustained colony.

You were right to bring up economics. Technology is not the limiting factor.

 

[PlanetMan]

Asteroid mining would be mega expensive to set up but might have some big advantages. What they could do is separate out only the most valuable elements for the expensive return trip to Earth. How can one separate? Best method might be to just get up close to an asteroid, put a probe down that vaporized the asteroid metal. The vapor could then be run under a magnetic field to separate out the elements. It would even separate the isotopes. One could send back to Earth only the best stuff. Titanium is mostly Titanium-48 but there is 8% Titanium-44 in there. Separate out and send home only that lightest stable isotope of titanium and sell it people who make returnable rocket ships. They'd love to have their structure be 4% lighter by using a single, lighter, isotope. Aluminum only has one stable isotope so it won't work there. Copper could be made 1.5% lighter, iron about 4%, silver about a percent, magnesium 6%, chrome 4%, nickel 4%.

How is the vaporized metal captured or contained? is it vaporized withing the so called magnetic field...w/o damaging or harming the field?
But most importantly...who is funding this? who benefits from this? and by the way....as we continue to grow all of "our" efforts in space....what exactly are the costs to our atmosphere and planetary health??? I can't believe that there are no environmental costs to all of the launches occuring and being planned

 

[ChrisA]

I can't believe that there are no environmental costs to all of the launches occuring and being planned

It is possible for methane/oxygen rockets to be carbon neutral. As of today, they are not. What matters is where you get the methane from. If it is a natural gas then it is a fossil fuel. But Mathane is CH4. It can be made by extracting carbon from atmospheric CO2. Then when it is burned in the rocket engine the carbon is returned to the air. So it could be not so bad, someday.

SpaceX's new "Starship" uses CH4 as fuel. Right now the fuel is tucked in using tanker trucks and the transportation is expensive. It would be that making CN4 on-site saves the cost of transportation and the pollution from the trucks. But this is decades away.

Using hydrogen for fuel is better as you can make H2 from water and there is no carbon. But today we make most H2 from CH4 and release the extra carbon to the air. So in 2024, hydrogen power is very "dirty". But it could be clean, one day.

As for who pays for this? Likey no one would, so it will never happen. The economics is not there. Let's just say for example someone discovered that gold bars were on the Moon. Already refined and made into bars and stacked on forklift palettes and all we need to do is go and fetch the gold. Even that is unprofitable. Gold bars are not nearly valuable enough to cover the cost of fetching them from the Moon.

 

[billslugg]

How is the vaporized metal captured or contained? is it vaporized withing the so called magnetic field...w/o damaging or harming the field?
But most importantly...who is funding this? who benefits from this? and by the way....as we continue to grow all of "our" efforts in space....what exactly are the costs to our atmosphere and planetary health??? I can't believe that there are no environmental costs to all of the launches occuring and being planned

The vaporized metal is produced in the vacuum of space and can be held by any thin walled metal container. The pressure is very low. The magnetic field is not affected by the passage of ionized gas.

The metal that might be recovered would have immense value here on Earth. The metal would be just like normal metal except it would not weigh as much. About a 4% gain can be realized and this applies to just about all of the metals. They all have lighter isotopes. The value of titanium that is 4% lighter than normal titanium would be worth a lot of money to someone making a rocket ship.

The environmental cost of the launches is a separate issue.

 

[PlanetMan]

The vaporized metal is produced in the vacuum of space and can be held by any thin walled metal container. The pressure is very low. The magnetic field is not affected by the passage of ionized gas.

The metal that might be recovered would have immense value here on Earth. The metal would be just like normal metal except it would not weigh as much. About a 4% gain can be realized and this applies to just about all of the metals. They all have lighter isotopes. The value of titanium that is 4% lighter than normal titanium would be worth a lot of money to someone making a rocket ship.

The environmental cost of the launches is a separate issue.

okay....let's pretend that I understand the value of these metals....the harvested ones. Wanna explain to me how you get your thin walled container up there and place an asteroid in it? And I have no idea what it takes to vaporize the asteroid...but will your thin walled container survive the process....
Please use bold/italicized scripts or fonts to explain....as I need you to yell the answers at me....I'll be rolling on the floor laughing from this conversation for some time I expect.

 

[billslugg]

I sense a slight skepticism in your comments. We'll strike you from the list of recipients of our upcoming prospectus.

 

[PlanetMan]

I sense a slight skepticism in your comments. We'll strike you from the list of recipients of our upcoming prospectus.

So...no skeptics in space???

 

[billslugg]

I don't mind skeptics. You appear skeptical due to the complexity of asteroid isotope mining. But if you can't grasp the value of a 4% reduction in weight of structural metals, with no other reduction in quality, there is no way you'd be capable of understanding the mining process.

 

[Cisventure Astronot]

It is possible for methane/oxygen rockets to be carbon neutral. As of today, they are not. What matters is where you get the methane from. If it is a natural gas then it is a fossil fuel. But Mathane is CH4. It can be made by extracting carbon from atmospheric CO2. Then when it is burned in the rocket engine the carbon is returned to the air. So it could be not so bad, someday.

SpaceX's new "Starship" uses CH4 as fuel. Right now the fuel is tucked in using tanker trucks and the transportation is expensive. It would be that making CN4 on-site saves the cost of transportation and the pollution from the trucks. But this is decades away.

Using hydrogen for fuel is better as you can make H2 from water and there is no carbon. But today we make most H2 from CH4 and release the extra carbon to the air. So in 2024, hydrogen power is very "dirty". But it could be clean, one day.

As for who pays for this? Likey no one would, so it will never happen. The economics is not there. Let's just say for example someone discovered that gold bars were on the Moon. Already refined and made into bars and stacked on forklift palettes and all we need to do is go and fetch the gold. Even that is unprofitable. Gold bars are not nearly valuable enough to cover the cost of fetching them from the Moon.

I don't have any sources or numbers, but I think most of a rocket's environmental impact comes from it's construction. But, in my opinion, that's not relevant to this thread unless it significantly effects the commercialization of space.

---

So...no skeptics in space???

Science is defined by skepticism, so there are plenty.

 

[COLGeek]

Let's take it down a notch, please. Civility and respect is expected of all.

Thank you.

 

[Atlan0001]

Bring the material of the Space Frontier down to Earth?! That is like Europeans of the 1400s through the 1800s CE talking about bringing the physical continents and islands of the Americas and Australasia to Europe.

Wealth and expansionism went to the homelands of Europe, not material continents and islands. The Frontier came to Europe, and Europe effectively went out to the Frontier, in a merger with its vastness of mass and energy resource potential wealth. The wealth and expansionism! Money is a token of energy and energy exchange . . . an opening Frontier system!

The opening up of the New World Frontiers opened up homelands Europe wide open, 1400s through the 1800s CE. It freed millions, economically and societally, from an 'Iron Curtain' bubble of closed world systemic lock.

The opening up of the Space Frontier will open up homelands Earth, wide open to wealth and expansionism! It will free up billions, economically and societally, from an 'Iron Curtain' bubble of closed world systemic lock.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Apart from the already monetized communications and ground sensing satellites that already profitably service paying subscribers I think asteroid metal is the best commercial opportunity there is. Tourism seems unlikely to be more than expensive niche, not leading to anything that generates tangible benefits. I keep hoping for space manufacturing - exotic high value materials and products that can only be made in space - and there have been some trials but nothing has led to investing in space manufacturing. However I do wonder if anyone did develop something whether Earth based manufacturers would find a way to do it on Earth and cheaper. Something may yet emerge, but I suspect sourcing lower cost materials in space (from asteroids) could be a precondition.

Asteroids contain materials in great abundance that are worth US$ thousands per ton raw and unprocessed, hundreds of thousands to millions per ton partially refined and from tens to above a hundred million per ton for some of purified elements. Nothing compares to that.

Can those be exploited cost effectively? I'm of the opinion that if we are incapable of that then the much greater, more complex and difficult ambitions like space habitats or colonies that have no intrinsic commercial basis won't stand a chance.

I see the in-space rocketry and the ability to shift payloads between asteroid source and Low Earth Orbit and do so fueled entirely with asteroid produced consumables - in situ fuel manufacture - as a critical first step. Of all the ingredients asteroid mining requires the ones that are going to be needed in greatest abundance will be fuel/reaction mass. Unlike shipping here on Earth where payloads far exceed the mass of fuel used, for space and rockets the fuel (or reaction mass) needed far exceeds the payloads. Even optimistically I don't see how materials from Earth are going to be less than $ hundreds of thousands per ton to LEO and more than that to get to an asteroid and back so making fuel/reaction mass in situ, for in space rockets of exceptional durability will be crucial.

Absolute minimum of ongoing supply from Earth, in situ supply of consumables. No astronauts - all remote robotic. Reliable rockets that can move (even small) payloads between an asteroid and LEO and do it again and again.

The mining and partial refining as well as the final delivery from LEO to Earth seem to have potential solutions - the Mond/carbonyl refining process (if I understand correctly) should be able to turn nickel-iron into pure nickel and pure iron with a leftover residue that should contain a mixture of the high value target metals - mostly Cobalt and Platinum Group metals, maybe worth $millions per ton for the PGM's. That is what I would aim for - leaving further refining for Earth. There may be potential for supplementary income from supplying space stations with asteroid materials - although how those are reliably monetized is another question.