Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

Even so, such plans generally either never go anywhere, or only go far enough to have someone work out the cost.

If the terraforming plan cost ten times as much as cleaning up the Earth, I could see it happening.
If it cost 100x as much, it's definitely pushing the limits of plausible but maybe still.
If it costs 1,000,000x as much... I really can't believe it. And that's probably still lowballing the cost of the terraforming project.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

OK, first there's one thing I think you're ignoring about how jobs creation works in democracies, they've got to benefit some community somewhere, preferably one that's underdeveloped because there's no reason to build stuff there and likely good reasons not too. It doesn't matter that a space-borne aluminum plant will employ 5,000 people if those jobs aren't in, say, the Scottish Highlands.

Beyond that when I wrote my previous post I was only thinking about the aluminum production for the shade in isolation, it didn't occur to me until later that it could be used later on, or for that matter before hand (Solar Power Satellites were being built when this project was embarked upon).

Yes plants can convert CO2 to O2 but I don't see orbital farms ever taking off for staple crops for people Earth side, too expensive.

Yes an orbital colony makes for a cost effective worker barracks. It will start out simply assembling the power satellites, then it will start building structural elements and solar cells and then expand out into other areas over time. And there will surely be rec areas, likely serving beer (at first imported, later on maybe local [how does that affect the CO2/O2 balance?]) but likely also other things, fast food restaurants, (The US military maintains the McDonald's in Guantánamo Bay), normal restaurants, stores for all sorts things, and no and no. At what point does it make economic sense to manufacture things like O-rings in orbit rather then ship them up?

As for gravity, yes it is basically a non issue. The colonial heavy freighter/Colonial One from the new BSG? Or the shuttles used in Star Wars? That's the kind of performance I'm talking about, it probably takes less time to get into orbit then to another country.

Well ignoring that my idea revolves around post-colonial industrialization pollution mucking things up, any sort of cleanup like this in Africa would likely require Western companies/labor, which basically makes it non-viable.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

It's more like a real world problem when dealing with developing nations is getting them to avoid the mistake the West made developing. Sure, cutting down all the tress for farms is what the West did, but we now KNOW it causes all sorts of long term problems. Same thing for car dependent infrastructure or using coal/oil to power your country, but getting developing nations to listen is basically impossible.

That's what's happened in my setting. And no, the West using it's militaries to force the issue is not a workable solution.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

A small fraction of the likely cost of terraforming three worlds would probably be enough to make basically every African nation rather wealthy - wealthy enough, at least, that they wouldn't need to destroy their environment to make a living. The issue, of course, would be to insure corrupt officials at the top don't just squander everything, leaving the populace to still resort to environmentally-destructive methods of making ends meet.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

It was my assumption (since it was in response to your point that 'shipping up food to the workers' would make orbital factories a no go)that it was understood that I was pointing out 'orbital farms' or combined environmental/food production O2 production modules would be making food SOLEY to feed the workers/famililes/etc at said orbital facilities.

At no point was I suggesting building 'orbital' farming facilities to ship food back down to Earthside. It was a measure to lower the support costs for workers in orbital or Trans-Terran factories.

I would not suggest such a thing (the start up costs for the 'farms' would be a problem) since I assume such farms would be 100% occupied exploiting their competitive advantage over Earthside farmers who DO face the costs for boosting to orbit. I would point out that shipping 'down' into the gravity well would be very close to free. Depending on the method(s) chosen to de-orbit the payloads of course. Many of the methods would be cost competitive with Earth shipping costs since 'dropping' an Orbital load can be done fairly close to the chosen market.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

I've heard before - but never found a confirmation of it - that plants actually grow and mature more rapidly in a zero-g environment, as they don't need to fight against gravity. If this is true, such plants may be able to generate appropriate produce more rapidly than those that are Earthside, potentially giving orbital farms an advantage over terrestrial ones.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

However the start up costs are enough that I assume 100% of orbital food production will be tied up in feeding people in orbit.

I doubt IF the build out gets to the point of 100% supplying orbital food demand there will then be a drive to build more expensive orbital farms to ship 'down'.

I assume that the marginal improvements in growth and shipping costs will be more than offset by the large difference in upfront costs.

YMMV of course.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

The reason it's hard is because the option with long term problems is short term cheap. If you're willing to make your preferred option cheaper, they'll use your preferred option. This costs a lot of money... but nowhere near as much money as terraforming.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

It would depend on a variety of factors, but that's probably not a bad assumption. The real question is how much of a startup cost there really is, at least for later farms. If you can mine and transport the raw materials for building and maintaining the farms from asteroids for less than you can ship them up from Earth, you would be able to get the startup costs down, potentially low enough to make it competitive with Earth. But that's probably not the way to bet.

Re: [Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon
 

IMHO the most likely scenario to make orbital farms shipping food down a feature/fixture in the OP's world is environmental degradation.

Depending on the path of Earth's downward slide vast tracts of currently productive farmland (hello Kansas, Alberta, and Ukraine) could see temperature changes and drought.

We have a historical precedent for the rough outline of the results.

Imagine the Oklahoma Dust Bowl but more on a continental scale than a regional one. Possibly also lasting longer than the 8ish years of the 1930's but for decades (or longer).

In that scenario of massive reduction in the ability of Earthside farming production it is conceivable that exo-farms would be a way (massive upfront costs not withstanding) to avert massive famine. Assuming of course there is enough lead time to start spinning up new farming plexes.