[Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon

[scc]

Originally Posted by Witchking

Ummm the amount of Orbital shades and SHIPS you have discussed in this thread IMHO would likely be less than the costs of orbital habitats (or belter ones). They can be built with Rec facilities. In a LOT of SF plants play an integral part of life support in space (CO2 to O2) in some flavors the plants involved also help provide calories. Orbital farms are a known SciFi concept (see classic BSG forex of a massive ship farm) The factories of course were a given.

The cost of building all of this IS massive. However it is (in many cases) a single time, up front cost. An orbitial factory costs more to build than a ground side one. Once it is built tho every day you make that investment back with the savings on transport costs. The only real question is what is the time to break even (upfront cost vs transport savings) after that orbital production will be more profitial than groundside.

Considering how many Megaprojects this proposed setting encompasses and that ALL of them are in Earth orbit (or further out Venus, Mars, etc); the thought of doing it with every nut, bolt and washer being made Earthside is at least for me a total 'dealbreaker'.

Hell I have been reading this thread mostly for entertainment. Even with very robust Orbital Industry I am not sure this setting does not bust my suspension of disbelief. However unless gravity has been ELIMINATED as a factor in transport costs I just do not see it.

Well good luck and hopefully we have helped a bit with the creative process.
Its all good so long as peeps have fun!

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.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

"We can't possibly help African countries repair the environmental damage we mostly caused with colonialism, but instead will simulaneously colonize three uninhabitable bodies in space" seems like a satire.

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.