[Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by scc

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.

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.