food from space
Willie...@gmail.com
O'Neill wrote on them in The High Frontier.
http://space.mike-combs.com/SCTHF.html
The costs do not take into account the ability of developing the
technology more gradually in a way that sees it more of an investment
that earns profits, which are then re-invested in technology
development.
One interesting finding was that farms in space support 40,500 people
per square kilometer at US per capita levels of consumption. This
amounts to 730 kg per person per year. To fee 6.6 billion people at
this level requires 162,963 square kilometers of pressure vessel
area.
103,745 spheres each 1 km in diameter each housing a spinning cylinder
707 meters in diameter and 707 meters deep, support 1.57 square
kilometers of growing area - each supporting 63,585 persons.
Each satellite has a rail gun and fires 2 meals per second - to people
all over the Earth aided by low cost GPS guidance systems and ceramic
aerogel thermal protection systems with aerodynamic features. MEMs
based rockets forming a propulsive skin to execute a soft landing at
the desired location for each meal. Terminal velocity of the aerogel
encased meal is about 200 m/sec following re-entry - which requires a
propellant fraction of 4.3% or 30.4 grams of propellant for a 700 gram
meal. The rail gun fires it to the targeting envelope and the kinetic
energy and tail fins of the falling meal are adjusted to bring it to a
precise GPS cooerdinate. A solid state doppler radar determines
precise altitude to ignite the engines, and bring the meal to a halt
at zero altitude at the desired location.
The mass of 2 meals per second is 1.47 kg per second. With an
ejection speed from the rail gun of 500 m/sec to deorbit each meal,
this exerts a 75 kgf thrust on the station. This is made up for by
burning of hydrogen and oxygen made from water at a rate of 0.17 kg
per second.
Orders are taken via satellite cell phone or satellite internet, and
delivered within 30 minutes or less anywhere on Earth. . .
10 billion tons per year of asteroidal materials, principally water
and carbon-dioxide - are imported from the asteroid belt by nuclear
pulse deflection of asteroidal material selected for quality and
variety of materials.
The satellites are made from asteroidal material as well brought from
the asteroid belt earlier..
7,255,410 equilateral triangles composed of aluminum framing encased
in PET film are manufactured as a flexible 'string' 3,627 km long. An
assembly head welds the aluminum frame, and seals the PET film in a
spiral pattern to form a 1 km diameter stationary sphere. A 707 meter
diameter cylinder 707 meters wide, rotates freely inside this sphere
supported by magnetic bearings at the edges of the cylinder. The
cylinder rotates once every 37.7 seconds. The interior of the
cylinder has an oblate thin film reflective surface that reproduces
over the course of 24 hours the same day/night conditions one finds on
Earth which rotates along with the cylinder, but in such a way that it
completes one rotation every 24 hours - giving a day night cycle to
the plants and animals on the cylinder surface.
.
40 farmers and 200 farm helpers are present tele-robotically to grow
the foods at the station. Additionally, there are 360 cooks cleaners
and handlers at each station to prepare meals and package them. Thus,
600 people are needed to support 40,500 in their food needs. All
stations together require a total of 62,247,000 telerobotic workers.
Each station has a set of 10 people present in person, thus
1,037,450 people are living on orbit in the 103,745 stations.
The world presently spends $9 trillion per year on food. The network
here captures the bulk of this, and at $50,000 per person on average
$3.15 trillion is salaries, and the balance is capital cost and
profits. A total of $46 trillion may be supported in this way - This
allows $440 million per satellite as the target price in this
quantity. This is $282 per square meter - allowable cost.
This is the fourth step in a seven step process of lowering cost of
space borne pressure vessels
1) mining - highest cost
2) smelting
3) forming/assembly
4) farming - mid-range
5) forestry
6) residential <-- high frontier level
7) private home - lowest cost
Moving entire asteroids from the asteroid belt into MEO seems to me
more 'doable' than lifting things piecemeal from the lunar surface.
Since substantial ice is present in the asteroid belt, that is also a
plus.
10 billion tons per year requires the expulsion 17 billion tons of
'propellant' vaporized from the surface of the asteroids moved in this
way. Expelling the materials at 7 km/sec requires an average
expenditure of only 20 terawatts - averaged over the entire year. .
856 tons per second are harvested and 317 tons per second are made
availale. Of this, half is turned into food and deposited on the
Earth.
Four asteroid fragments, each roughly spherical each 100 meters in
diameter, arrive at Earth orbit from around the asteroid belt every
hour to resupply the ring of farm satellites. They have taken 3 years
to get to Earth and enter a MEO to be processed at centers that build
the satellites in the first place. Each fragment has sufficient raw
material to feed a farm satellite for 3 years. Each moves to an
appropriate position next to a satellite, and is fed into it - and raw
materials are processed on board into air, water, fertilizer and
nutrients- to replace the constant stream of materials falling to
Earth.
The satellites form a Saturn like ring in polar orbit above the Earth
- and each satellite flies over the entire Earth several times per
day.
Ian Parker
I thin that perhaps a more cost effective solution would be to grow
food on part of the 90% of land surface. Deserts which consitute 30%
of the world's land is a good candidate.
A far better solution therefore would be to export microwaves - not
food and use the energy to desalinate sea water. This would have to
compete of course with terrestrial solar power. We have I think
already discussed the pros and cons. As a European my focus tends to
be the Mediteranean, the Middle East and N Africa rather then the
South West although any remarks I have made is equally applicable.
Deserts if watered are amazingly fertile.
There is one snag with the scheme which you propose and that is that
is that you need to transport water and CO2 to your space stations. If
you had pure recycling this problem would not arise.
My proposal therefore is a canal/pipeline to take water from the
Mediteranean across Lebanon to Damascus. If we were to have peace, and
a joint project would help cement peace, canals could go through
Israel. Solar power, initially terrestrial, would be used to
desalinate Med water thereby opening up vast areas for agriculture.
The dry fountains in Damascus have left an impression on me,
particularly when the energy from 2 or 3 roofs would be enough to
supply them with water.
I feel all told this is a far better bet.
- Ian Parker
Willie...@gmail.com
But they farm nearly all the arable land to feed themselves. Cities
are not places people grow food.
> I thin that perhaps a more cost effective solution would be to grow
> food on part of the 90% of land surface.
Your numbers are approximately correct. However, please understand
that all the arable land that can be farmed IS being farmed.
Increasing the productivity of those lands would involve radical
engineering that is more costly per acre than the cost per acre I'm
proposing above - that's why costs are so important. Certainly simple
low cost solutions should be used early on. What are those?
Ultimately however, the ability to produce very low cost pressure
vessels, at less cost than converting arable land to production, will
tend to favor that use. Its all a function of cost. The point is,
space development is relatively unlimited, whilst terrestrial
development is very limited and very mature.
> Deserts which consitute 30%
> of the world's land is a good candidate.
Nothing grows in deserts. To make use of deserts requires a massive
engineering effort - more massive than building the pressure vessels
from asteroidal feedstock. Furthermore, the political and economic
and social conditions in which this engineering project is undertaken
on Earth is far less controllable, and hence costs and time frames are
far less controllable when compared to the benign political conditions
in space.
> A far better solution therefore would be to export microwaves -
The rayleigh criterion in optics tend to favor concentrated
photovoltaics driving free electron lasers having a greater efficiency
than klystron tubes - to beam band gap matched energy to terrestrial
solar panel array at 1,100 nm wavelength.
> not
> food
Why? You are not arguing from any detailed analysis of cost. I said
at the outset, as production in space grows, at some point pressure
vessels will be built at less cost than green houses on Earth. At
that point, given the very high productivity of space based
agriculture, we'll be able to produce and deliver foods from space far
more cheaply and with far less hassles than we can on Earth.
For example, consider what happens when you order a pizza. You dial
the phone place your order, give your credit card information and the
pizza arrives. Some driver had to haul the pizza in a car from the
kitchen where it was assembled and baked and packaged - encountering
rolling friction and stop and go traffic all the way. Before that the
flour, tomato sauce, cheeses, sausages, and spices all arrived from a
variety of food wholesalers, by truck. Those wholesalers received
those products from food packagers by truck, rail, ocean, or plane.
Packagers received their products from farms or specialty jobbers.
This too arrived by truck, train or boat. The energy to transport
and cook your pizza exceeds the energy to grow and harvest the
products that went into your pizza.
Say your pizza uses a bit of real italian parmesano cheese mixed into
the 4 cheeses the pizza is laced with. That cheese is made from milk
in Italy. It is aged, and graded and sold, and resold and packaged
and shipped from Italy. It then arrives in the USA say, and goes to a
warehouse, where it is shipped to a food wholesaler, who ships it to
your pizza place where it is ground and assembled with the other
ingredients on your pizza backed and packaged for delivery and
delivered.
Now imagine the land that all that food grows on, and all those pigs
and other meat animals live on, transported to a pressure vessel on
orbit. This pressure vessel is made at less cost per area than the
cheapest land around on Earth. Imagine that all the farmers and
helpers and whatnot, in all the stages of production, are brought to
orbit telerobotically using equipment that costs less than 1/2 the
price of an automobile - that all of them now use to drive to work.
Now imagine that in response to your telephone call a GPS coordinate
is provided and your pizza is made from fresher ingredients, with less
handling, and shot directly from orbit to your front door.
Guess which takes less energy? The orbital system
Guess which takes less handling? The orbital system
Guess which takes less capital costs? The orbital system
The famrland on orbit is less expensive than the farmland on Earth
The capital equipment to tarnsport, store and handle supplies is less
The cost of getting labor to work is less
The cost of energy is less
The productivity of labor is higher
the productivity of capital is higher
the productivity per acre is 10x higher
The political hold ups and costs are lower
The constraints on growth are less
> and use the energy to desalinate sea water.
The critical component in anything is the cost of capital to generate
that energy and the cost of capital to use it. i have sponsored
several projects in the world, one in Dubai, several others in
Australia, to use solar energy to desalinate seawater and use the
fresh water for agriculture, and sell the salt.
The cost ofmicrowave based systems thus far are not competitive. The
cost of my solar panel systems are competitive
> This would have to
> compete of course with terrestrial solar power. We have I think
> already discussed the pros and cons.
Its all a matter of cost. For agriculture you need distilled water.
DI water won't work - since enough salt remains to build up in the
soil. It takes 2,300 kJ to boil a liter of water. It takes several
kiloliters of water to produce a metric ton of foodstuffs. So, each
person you support in this way will need about 18 GJ - equivalent to 3
barrels of oil in energy - of energy. To feed 6 billion people like
this will require the equivalent of 18 billion barrels of oil per
year. The Earth uses about 28 billion barrels per year today - not to
boil water but for everything else - so you can see just to keep you
supplied with fresh water requires a substantial infrastructure.
Processing water in the vacuum of space using solar systems directly,
require far less infrastructure at far less cost.
.
> As a European my focus tends to
> be the Mediteranean, the Middle East and N Africa rather then the
> South West although any remarks I have made is equally applicable.
> Deserts if watered are amazingly fertile.
A ring of stations in sun synchronous polar orbit flying above the
terminator of Earth- will place them in constant sunlight. All
satellites will fly above all points of the Earth twice a day.
Products will be delivered to anyone anywhere at sunrise and sunset -
within 10 minutes of placing an order without any border hassles.
> There is one snag with the scheme which you propose and that is that
> is that you need to transport water and CO2 to your space stations. If
> you had pure recycling this problem would not arise.
There is no recycling of products, although there is no waste. All
the material leaving as foodstuffs, must be replaced by importing it
from the asteroid belt. The same infrastructure that allows the
construction of the ring, allows its continued maintenance. It only
requires a 5 km/sec delta vee to import items from the Asteroid belt.
That's 12.5 MJ per kg, or 12.5 GJ per ton. - which is less than the
energy needed just to boil water in your desert scheme.
>
> My proposal therefore is a canal/pipeline to take water from the
> Mediteranean across Lebanon to Damascus.
Building a canal of this magnitude (wide enough to have the water flow
needed,and deep enough to allow gravity to let it flow where you want
it) nvolves moving Earth that masses 100x the mass of the orbital
system described.
> If we were to have peace, and
> a joint project would help cement peace, canals could go through
> Israel.
A salt water ditch wide enough to have adequate water flow, and deep
enough to have it flow downhill FROM the ocean, involves MASSIVE
trench being cut in the land, which involves moving lots of material
in a high gravity field.
No agreements between enemies are needed to capture asteroidal
fragments and process theminto useful products on orbit.
While we have vast eperience building canals and no experience other
than CERN and FermiLab building large pressure vessels, we shouldn't
let our prejudices blind us to the results of actual engineering
requirements when making decisions about our future.
> Solar power, initially terrestrial, would be used to
> desalinate Med water thereby opening up vast areas for agriculture.
Yes, I produce solar panels at $0.07 per peak watt, and have a $0.02
per balance of system cost. I have adapted these systems for
desalination. Adding bandgap matched laser satellites on orbit
increases energy output 16x at an added cost of $0.30 per initial
installed watt using my CPV/FEL approach.
> The dry fountains in Damascus have left an impression on me,
> particularly when the energy from 2 or 3 roofs would be enough to
> supply them with water.
Depends on the evaporation rate.
http://www.portlandonline.com/water/index.cfm?c=ecdei
A typical fountain uses 5,000 gallons per minute. That's 18,181
liters per minute. assuming in the desert climate you have 10%
evaporation rate in the desert - of the water spray - that's 1,800
liters per minute evaporating from 18,181 liters per minute. Divide
by 60 to obtain 30 liters per second. A required 2,300 kJ/kg - which
is 2,300 kJ/liter - that means you need a boiler with 69 MW of
capacity to provide the desalination energy per fountain - to get it
from seawater as you propose. A typical rooftop in that region of the
world is 100 sq m. Three rooftops would be 300 sq meters. At 18%
efficiency, this produces .54,000 watts when the sun shines. The sun
shines in this region about 9.6 hours per day. With cosine losses
this is an average output from those three roofs 15,270 watts
continuous. You are off by a factor fo 4,518 per fountain.
> I feel all told this is a far better bet.
You may feel that way, but you have not demonstrated that your feeling
is based on any real world analysis of what you have proposed or any
real world understanding of what I propose.
> - Ian Parker- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
BradGuth
Don't bother informing our lord all-knowing willie.moo of such
perfectly viable terrestrial alternatives that wouldn't cost us 0.1%
as much as for going off-world. Seems our willie.moon doesn't care
how spendy energy, food, housing, education and medical care gets,
because he is set for life no matters how spendy his survival gets.
. - Brad Guth
Willie...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Nothing is stopping you from feeding the world by making the deserts
bloom Brad. Go out and do it, and then come back and tell us how easy
it was!
Fact is, humanity is doing all it can to grow as much food as it can
with the resources at its disposal.
Since the productivity of farms in space are about 10x greater than
the productivity of even the best run terrestrial farms, when the cost
of surface area in space drops below the cost of land area on Earth,
it will be cheaper to grow food on orbit than on Earth.
Since a satellite in polar orbit overflies every point on Earth twice
a day, and since it takes less energy to deorbit a mass than to ship
it even 100 miles, and since a satellite is easily hailed anywhere on
earth by radio, and since very simple GPS guided articles can be
precisely landed anywhere on the planet from a polar orbit, once you
have farms and forests and factories on orbit, they will outclass any
terrestrial facility in level of service and access to market. That
is even if you could make the deserts bloom more cheaply than building
farms on orbit - which you cannot - your economics would be ruined by
the logistical nightmare of shipping your products to market before
they rotted away.
Consider a head of lettuce grown in California and consumed in say New
York. It takes a certain amount of time material and attention to
grow well. Then it is picked cleaned packaged. Then it is transported
and stored locally. Transported and stored centrally. Transported
and stored near point of sale. Transported and displayed at point of
sale. Transported and stored at home. Then, its made into a salad.
The capital equipment associated with all the transport and storage
facilities far and away exceeds the cost of the land, ffarm inputs to
create the lettuce in the first place.
Now consider a head of lettuce grown in polar orbit and consumed at
any point on Earth. It is grown in a facility that costs 1/10th per
unit area that comprable land costs in California. It is grown with
technology that is 10x more productive than terrestrial open air
agriculture. The workers arrive telerobotically, instead of by
automobile, using equipment that costs a fraction of what an
automobile costs. Because the telerobots are especially built, and
because of the unique environment, the capital cost of the equipment
is 1/10th that typically associated with terrestrial farming. When
the lettuce is ready for harvesting, its characteristics are entered
into a database along with the satellite flight path and this is
matched against ALL the people of Earth request for a head of lettuce
in tha time window, and an ejection window is assigned. The lettuce
is harvested, cleaned and packaged in a propulsive aeroshell, and
ejected directly to the end user who then uses it in a salad. The
food - delivered - costs 1/100th to 1/1000th the cost of foods today.
The unlimited availability of resources off-world provide unlimited
scope for expansion - limited only by demand.
So, by getting rid of all those trucks, loading docks, dock workers,
roadways, trains, refrigerated warehouses, even refrigeration in each
home, the cost of actually getting food in your home is dramatically
reduced and reliability is improved while time to market is measured
in minutes instead of weeks.
BradGuth
>
> Nothing is stopping you from feeding the world by making the deserts
> bloom Brad. Go out and do it, and then come back and tell us how easy
> it was!
>
> Fact is, humanity is doing all it can to grow as much food as it can
> with the resources at its disposal.
Most of humanity isn't doing 90% of what could be easily accomplished,
that is if it were not for the corporate and faith-based restrictions
of those intent upon keeping their off-shore bank accounts stuffed
with our hard earned loot. Obviously you do not care how spendy food
gets.
>
> Since the productivity of farms in space are about 10x greater than
> the productivity of even the best run terrestrial farms, when the cost
> of surface area in space drops below the cost of land area on Earth,
> it will be cheaper to grow food on orbit than on Earth.
Nothing is stopping you from feeding the world by making the vacuum
of LEO space bloom Mook. Go out and do it, and then come back and
tell us how easy it was!
>
Off-world growing of rad-hard food is technically doable and otherwise
spendy as hell, but then so is surviving on Venus where there's no
shortage of locally renewable energy or even water as easily taken
from those acidic clouds. As Venus cools off it becomes more Earth
like, so the geothermal forced environment is already going in the
right direction.
Obtaining salty or fresh water while in LEO isn't going to be cheap or
all the DNA friendly. Hauling tonnes of salt water from Earth to LEO
at $10,000/kg isn't going to get cheaper unless we utilize China or
India CATS, and we both know that Mook isn't having anything to do
with China or India.
In theory water sent to LEO will be 100% efficiently utilized (meaning
no leakage). However, what's your best water efficiency cycle, of
water sent up as opposed to produce that goes back down?
With a billion in USDs, how many acres of high tech greenhouse farms
could be accomplished within India, where we can still get a 10 hour
work shift worth of local labor for as little as a couple bucks (in
some areas make that $1)?
. - Brad Guth
Mike Combs
sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to Earth;
given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition you have to
undersell is food rocketed up from Earth. Space food fired off to Earth
would have to compete with Earth food.
But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era... maybe.
Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global agriculture
collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.
--
Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole
prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all
human beings... It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that
any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.
Ronald Reagan at Westminster Abbey, 1982
Mike Combs
news:92c09fbb-1346-4ecf...@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
> Nothing grows in deserts. To make use of deserts requires a massive
> engineering effort - more massive than building the pressure vessels
> from asteroidal feedstock.
and
> I said
> at the outset, as production in space grows, at some point pressure
> vessels will be built at less cost than green houses on Earth.
As tremendous a booster of orbital habitats as I am, that's the part I have
a hard time accepting.
G. L. Bradford
"Mike Combs" <mike...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in message
news:fuqm6i$i59$1...@home.itg.ti.com...
> Maybe. I tend to expect that food grown in space will become economical
> for sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to
> Earth; given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition
> you have to undersell is food rocketed up from Earth. Space food fired
> off to Earth would have to compete with Earth food.
>
> But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era...
> maybe. Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global
> agriculture collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.
>
> --
>
>
> Regards,
> Mike Combs
Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space colonies --
but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a purpose you're
aren't thinking about but should be. Personally, I'd like the product from
the shrimp farms in space. Even more particularly, the product from the
anchovie growers. I don't know about the others, though they are getting
harder to find on the shelves, but the blue tuna is so popular in a world
that can afford it better today that it is being eaten to extinction.
Goats and chickens, grains and fruits and vegetables and the like, will
not be the only life production of specialized colony structures in space.
------------------------
So let's farm blue tuna on Earth instead. Not going to happen! So much is
not going to happen in or on a world that does not have a whole universe of
vast and opening frontiers keeping it more open as an integral part of the
bigger system. That world being in implosion instead of explosion....it
being a [concentration] camp world where growing interest on the principal
of life cannot be an option. Thus the principal will not keep.
GLB
Ian Parker
> "Mike Combs" <mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in message
>
> news:fuqm6i$i59$1...@home.itg.ti.com...
>
> > Maybe. I tend to expect that food grown in space will become economical
> > for sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to
> > Earth; given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition
> > you have to undersell is food rocketed up from Earth. Space food fired
> > off to Earth would have to compete with Earth food.
>
case of a singular event like that it would be much better to
stockpile 1-2 years supply in (say) the Antarctic.
I have yet another point to make about global warming. We are worried
about rising temperatures. Sunlight reaching the Earth could be
stopped in space. With Yellowstone in mind it might be as well to
build a system that could INCREASE the sunlight striking the Earth,
and penetrate, partially at least, the Yellowstone clouds.
> > But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era...
> > maybe. Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global
> > agriculture collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.
>
> Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space colonies --
> but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a purpose you're
> aren't thinking about but should be. Personally, I'd like the product from
> the shrimp farms in space. Even more particularly, the product from the
> anchovie growers. I don't know about the others, though they are getting
> harder to find on the shelves, but the blue tuna is so popular in a world
> that can afford it better today that it is being eaten to extinction.
>
> Goats and chickens, grains and fruits and vegetables and the like, will
> not be the only life production of specialized colony structures in space.
>
> ------------------------
>
> So let's farm blue tuna on Earth instead. Not going to happen! So much is
> not going to happen in or on a world that does not have a whole universe of
> vast and opening frontiers keeping it more open as an integral part of the
> bigger system. That world being in implosion instead of explosion....it
> being a [concentration] camp world where growing interest on the principal
> of life cannot be an option. Thus the principal will not keep.
>
I would like to end with a few words on deserts. I am really
commenting on what other people have said. You can grow lots in a
desert provided you have water. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar Iraq
produced 3 crops a year. In Britain only one crop is produced. The
Tigres and Euphates are powrerful rivers - still despite the water
Turkey is taking.
In many deserts, Egypt for example, seeds remain dormant for long
periods and after a downpour flowers come up with hours. The problem
then is a source of fresh water.
- Ian Parker
Willie...@gmail.com
<mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:
> <Willie.Moo...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:92c09fbb-1346-4ecf...@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > Nothing grows in deserts. To make use of deserts requires a massive
> > engineering effort - more massive than building the pressure vessels
> > from asteroidal feedstock.
>
> and
>
> > I said
> > at the outset, as production in space grows, at some point pressure
> > vessels will be built at less cost than green houses on Earth.
>
> As tremendous a booster of orbital habitats as I am, that's the part I have
> a hard time accepting.
>
haha.. I logged in and fewer than 10 people looked at my stuff. A
month ago more than 1000 looked at my stuff. Don't know what
happened, but I guess today every person i'm talking to is 100x more
valuable to me! Thanks! lol.
So, respectfully I ask Why? Have you really looke at the numbers?
Look at the value of land on Earth and how it varies per unit area
with varying use. Different uses have different values. If those
values in space are greater than on Earth, there is no compelling
reason to do it in space is there?. If these values are less than on
Earth, there is a compelling reason.
So, let's look at the numbers and see what our target is?
The cost of an acre in Tokyo, or Manhattan, or London or Paris, or
Sydney, is such that you're paying many tens of dollars per square
foot. I think Dubai and Abu Dhabi,in places like the Palms and the
World islands,its in the hundred dollar per square foot range.
Even in outlying regions, the sub-urban regions dollars per square
foot for land is supported.,
Of course when you add improvements, values go up from there. Space
colonies and space stations.large pressure vessels, can incorporate
improvements that add value. With lots of sun and perfect weather,
with improvements like irrigation and so forth, the land is not likely
to be worth less than prime agricultural real estate in say Southern
California - which is in the ten dollars per square foot range
again.
Now, consider that acording to NASA researchers, productivity for
improved farmland in space is likely to be 10x to 20x that of the best
farms on Earth.
With telerobotics in MEO you'll be able to hire anyone anywhere to do
anything on orbit that needs done. So, there's a definite labor
advantage. You may also be contacted by anyone anywhere via satellite
communications.So there's a definite advantage in getting to market.
Improvements include unlimited power from solar sources, and unlimited
feedstocks from captured asteroidal fragments returned from deep space
which are a fixed capital cost not a rising recurring cost.
In a polar orbit, with GPS guided aeroshells launched from a low
velocity rail gun - to precisely place product anywhere on the Earth's
surface in 10 minutes or less. You therefore have direct access to
anyone on Earth within minutes. I used to work at the Ohio State
University. A friend of mine was a film professor there. They closed
down the film department. His wife was from the Phillipines. They
bought a coffee plantation and he spent his retirement building up
that plantation into an estate type specialty coffee. haha.. along
with working on some kick ass documentaries for Japanese and
Australian TV.
Anyway, since I had some experience in business, I helped him map out
a successful plan to improve production. The biggest stumbling block
for his plantation was access to markets. Nestle' used the
Phillipines as a source for low cost instant coffees. His plan
involved importing better grades of beans, and paying workers what he
considered a fair wage, and basically going around Nestle's lock on
the market. HIS success was seen as an impetus to other growers to
breakout of the Nestle' stranglehold - and since Nestle' had invested
heavily in plant and equipment that needed a certain volume of beans
at a certain price each year - to feed the largely European market -
well,things got quite interesting - haha - and became the subject of
one of my friends documentaries.
So, telling a farmer he not only has water, fertilizer, land sunlight,
good growing conditions all year round, access to labor no diseases or
pests of any sort and DIRECT access to EVERYONE EVERYWHERE ANY TIME -
with no hassles - wow... just wow... this is a REVOLUTION waiting to
happen! A freaking revolution!! Thatwill free small farm owners and
small business owners - from antedated systems of production and
distribution. Satellites will do for food and raw materials and
finished goods and consumer goods what they have done for
communications and weather.
In fact, I predict that as soon as a large number of independent
farmers are making money hand over fist on orbit delivering food
products to the top 20% of the market (pareto's principle - 80% of the
effect is caused by 20% of the market) - they'll arrange to GIVE AWAY
at reduced prices food to everyone for a variety of logistical reasons
having to do with production of food on orbit. THAT will change a
lot of things.
But I want to get back to your difficulty about price
I hope you can see that anything less than say $50 per square foot -
for a satellite based agriculture for all the reasons stated above,
will allow satellites to compete with the best farms on Earth.
Anything less than say $5 per square foot - for a satellite - with all
the advantages listed - will create a food revolution - putting nearly
all farms on Earth out of business, as everyone everwhere gets fat and
sassy on a food glut that will transform life on Earth.
Is $50 per square foot to $5 per square foot feasible?
Well, to understand that we have to look at how we're going to build
our pressure vessel how much it weighs, and where we get that material
and so forth.
The first thing to notice is that in land use some land has higher
value than others.
The second thing to notice is that when people do things for the very
first time - its more costly at first, and drops in price over time.
This is called the learning curve effect.
The third thing to notice when you do a thing, is to take note of the
fundamentals that are driving the costs - and see where they might
go. Moore did this with integrated circuits back in the 1960s - he
figured that investments into improving the fundamentals he outlined
in the range of 20% of sales - would permit a doubling of performance
in integrated circuits every 18 to 24 months - and that doubling would
continue for 80 years or so. This made computers for example from a
rarity in the 1960s to a home appliance b the 1980s. It has made the
internet possible, as well as HDTV, and soon, 3D-HDTV.
Looking at the fundamentals of rockets, and space manufacturing and so
forth, we see the potential for fundamental improvements in both -
beyond the learning curve effects.
What this means is that when large pressure vessels are made on orbit,
there will be an order of battle in their use. Highest value uses
will be done first, and as both fundamental improvements are made and
learning curve effects accumulate, they will naturally move to lower
value uses.
We have already seen that taking all uses into account, and improved
pressure vessel - one with water air energy and so forth - will likely
command premium pricese in whatever market it competes in, while
giving its owners or renters valuable economic and business advantages
in serving the world's markets in whatever area they're operating.
So, while farming won't be first use, it will eventually be A use,
once we start down the development and learning curve.
So, for orbiting pressure vessels to be competitive with land on Earth
we probably won't see anything more than $200 per square foot - and at
$50 per square foot - we'll definitely see a rout as businesses flock
to orbit. Farming as pointed out above will likely become interesting
at no more than $50 per square foot - and at $5 per square foot - all
farms everywhere on Earth will feel the pinch. If prices fall below
$0.50 per square foot for improved farmland - the food situation on
Earth will be transformed, and the cities of earth will dissolve as
farmers sell off their land and people build remote homes powered,
connected, and fed from space.
Now, the process I am proposing is that we send fission free nuclear
pulse spacecraft to the asteroid belt to survey the small bodies
there, and arrange to capture rich small bodies that are well suited
for exploitation and return them to Earth.
I have shown elsewhere with references, how boron can be used in an
inertial confinement fusion bomblet to energize with prompt gamma rays
well defined regions of an asteroidal surface - creating a plasma
flash that imparts thrust to the asteroid itself, giving it a small
acceleration pulse in a well defined direction.
Average exhaust speed is around 10 km/sec - and the delta vee required
from the asteroid belt into Medium Earth Polar Orbit - is about 7 km/
sec - we're not using aerobraking or anything like that. What I'm
doing is surveying thousands of small bodies close up, selecting the
one I want to move - and moving it wholesale. While the nuclear pulse
rocket is capable of achieving 1,000s of km/sec - when hauling an
asteroid, it uses its self- propelled bomblets in a controlled way to
'shepherd' the chosen asteroid into a minimum energy orbit toward
Earth and ultimately into Earth orbit. For safety's sake, none of the
small bodies will be greater than 100 meters in diameter.
The mass of these objects will average about 1.65 tons per cubic meter
and average 70 meters in diameter. So they average 296,330 tons - when
they arrive at Earth.
The total delta vee is 7 km/sec - and the body itself is the
propellant energized by the fusion bomblets - to an average speed of
10 km/sec - which means 50.34% of the total mass is energized in this
way. So, if we end up with 296,330 tons per asteroid, we start with
596,735 tons and vaporize 300,405 tons in a way that moves the
asteroid to where we want it. This requires 15.02e+15 joules of
energy. The process I am proposing is about 30% efficient. That
means 5e+16 joules of energy must be generated by the bomblets.
A ton of boron fused with protium releases about as much energy as 20
million tons of TNT. A ton of TNT releases 4.184e+9 joules. So, a
ton of boron fused with protium releases 8.368e+16 Joules.
So, less than 2 metric tons of boron base pulse units. The Earth
today produces over 1 million metric tons per year. Pure elemental
boron in bulk costs $2,500 per kg, or $2.5 milion. So, the boron
costs would be around $5 million. Protium is about $6 per kg in
liquid form, and adds very little to the cost of this fuel mix.
Fuel costs - in an efficient fusion propulsion system as I'm
contemplating here is about 20% of all operating costs. It plays less
of a role the more primitive the system. Fuel costs in modern
boosters run around 3% of all costs for a space launch. Higher
energy, higher value propellants and fuels, especially nuclear fuels,
have a far higher percentage of the total. It is very unlikely even
early systems would have fuel costs less than 10% of the total.
So, to move 296,330 tons into MEO willl like cost between $25 million
and $50 million - using the process I just desribed. In round numbers
$30 million for 300,000 tons. - that's $100 per metric ton to harvest
asteroidal materials and bring it to earth orbit.
fusion based nuclear pulse rockets can impart 10 km/sec to payloads
from Earth as well. With gravity and air drag losses combined with
the fact that gamma ray flashing off of bulk materials are likely not
to be used - the cost will actually be higher to lift items from
Earth. But those costs are likely to be no more than 3x what the
import costs are from the asteroid belt. So, we're talking with this
rocket technology, $300 per metric ton - to lift things from Earth.
Looking at the logistics and requirements for building up a farm on
orbit inside a pressure vessel, we'll likely have no more than 15% of
the total mass arrive from Earth -with the balance processed
asteroids. That 15% includes the telerobots and tooling and factories
and so forth - to process the asteroids into pressure vessels and all
the other components needed for a space farm.
This means that each ton will be 0.85 x $100 + 0.15 x $300 = $130 per
metric ton
Now, you can get different costs with different assumptions, but here
i am assuming a specific fusion ICF propulsion unit in a certain class
of ship - a 2,000 ton payload small-size ship - that flies at 1 gee to
the asteroid belt in a few days, spends a few days surveying hundreds
of objects, and picks the best object to shepherd back to Earth after
outfitting it for inner solar system transit (putting on a reflector)
- a similar ship based on Earth, meets the asteroid, and shepherd's it
safely into the desired orbit, and deposits a 1,500 ton manufacturing
cell on its surface - with a crew of 30 - and a complement of 500
telerobots.
Now, what does a square foot weigh?
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/II-1.html
In this design about 0.3375 metric tons per square meter. They have
53 metric tons per person and 157.1 sq m per person - this is 337.5 kg
per squae meter.
There are about 4050 square meters per acre - so, we're talking about
1,365 metric tons per acre. At $130 per metric ton - we've got
$177,450 per acre. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre - so we're
at $4.07
So, this process is very interesting! We're more competitive than
downtown New York, given the 20x increase in productivity possible on
orbit, we've got the equivalent of prime California real-estate -
irrigated and supplied with fertilizer and such - for less than
$10,000 per acre - given the global access to market - these farms
ought to do quite well for a developer!!
Now, this estimate for the acreage cost is based on a 10,000 person
habitat that NASA designed to be optimized for human habitation. It
is not optimized for farming along the lines I've described. When
one takes that into account, we might see a factor of 3 - off the bat
- and with learning curve effects - a factor of 10.
So, our initial 'manhattan' style habitat will cost $4.07 per square
foot -when built in the manner described - and a 'farm' style habitat
will cost $1.40 per square foot. Fresh out of the box. More mature
systems will range from $1.00 to $0.35 per square foot - depending on
design. More mature systems made with more mature SPACE systems that
reduce the cost of a ton to MEO by building better rockets operated
more efficiently will produce habitats that range from $0.10 to $0.04
per square foot.
These last prices will promote a mass exodus from Earth - just like
free land in Oklahoma spawne the 'sooner' state! It will also
promote the development of long growing crops - like forests - to
provide fiber for humanity across the solar system.
It has been said, because it is true, that energetically, Earth orbit
is halfway to anywhere - when looking at minimum energies. This makes
it an ideal place to gather resources to be molded by human time and
attention - into useful products that are distributed on Earth, on
orbit, and beyond.
Creating a ring of habitats, in a controlled polar orbit, sun
synchronized to be constantly in sunlight, where the ring overflies
the entire Earth twice a day, provides a productive center off-world,
with easy access to low cost labor telerobotically - and easy access
to markets.by JDAM style re-entry vehicles launched by low velocity
rail guns. higher velocity cannons shoot products to the moon and
beyond.
This will transform the Earth as mines, smelters, refineries,
factories, farms and industrial forests move off-world while reducing
their costs aind increasing their output. People move far from cities
to homes that receive power from space, communications from space, and
products from space. People work telerobotically anywhere including
oribt, and the emergence of personal ballistic vehicles, powered by
hydrogen/oxygen rockets in the low atmosphere and solar pumped lasers
at higher altitudes - with the laser beams arriving from space -
anyone can travel anywhere in 42 minutes or less.
So, cities dissolve, as people occupy former farms, and the Earth
becomes one vast natural preserve. People communicate instantly
anywhere, and travel anywhere in minutes through the skies in silent
pollution free VTOL spacecraft.
As costs of on orbit 'land' decreases over time, more and more people
elect a second home on orbit, ultimately,making orbit their primary
home, and retaining a second home on Earth. Finally, fewer and fewer
people remain on Earth, and as propulsion costs drop, and savings and
investments accumulate, while robotic labor becomes more capable,
people begin moving beyond Earth orbit in their own personally owned
space colony - and population on and around Earth begins its
inevitable and final decline.
.
Willie...@gmail.com
I have outlined a method above that produces first generation space
colonies at about $180,000 per acre. This is improved land, with
water, mild climate and so forth. NASA studies indicate 20x increase
in output from even the best farms on Earth. So, think Southern
California irrigated farmland. Divde $180,000 by 20 and you get
$9,000 - per acre - which is cheap.
Now, this cost figure is based on a 2,000 ton nuclear pulse spacecraft
fleet harvesting small asteroidal debris - suited for our purposes -
built into a NASA style space colony optimized for human habitation.
Changing the habitat design to optimize it for farming - as Bradford
says - changes the cost.. to about 1/3 to 1/10th the figure above.
and perhaps improving output by 20% or so. This reduces the effective
cost below $900 per acre farmland. This is improved land - not raw
land - so, this is a helluva deal.
Now beyond economics there are logistics - and politics.
Farms on orbit would be a REVOLUTION in the way food is consumed on
Earth.
Consider a head of lettuce you pick up at the store. First you have
to go to the store to pick it up. Drive there, walk around the
aisles, find a lettuc head, pay for it, walk out, drive home, stick it
in the fridge - pull it out when you need it.
This is just the tail end of a HUGE supply chain. MOST of the cost of
that lettuce is in supporting that supply chain. So, beyond the raw
productivity increases possibleon orbit, there are HJGE logistical
improvements that can RADICALLY cut the cost of farming on orbit.
Lets follow this head of lettuce back to tis field in California.
Before it was on the refrigerated shelf at your local store, the
lettuce was in the cooler in back of the store. Then it was in a
refrigerated truck that serves the store. It was in a refrigerated
warehouse before that. Before that it was in a refrigerated train
car. Before that another refrigerated warehouse. Before that another
refrigerated truck. Before that a refrigerated warehouse near the
farm. Before that a refrigerated truck FROM the farm. .. before
that, in a cleaning and processing station near the farm. before
that, in the bin of a harvester, before that, sitting in the field.
About 95 cents of every dollar you pay supports all those refrigerated
spaces and trucks and all the people who touch the lettuce to get it
to your door. And all the people who finance all the equipment
needed to do that.
if you had a farm on a hill that had a cannon that could shoot heads
of lettuce to people as they needed it - you could dispense with ALL
this bullshit.
In fact, if you were describing two systems to non-technical people,
they'd immediately see, that a network of roads trucks train and rail
with refrigerated warehouses and armies of people with fork lifts -
would be the crazy idea!
I'm merely supposing that we can make MEMs based rockets to soft land
things like heads of lettuce, for about the same cost as the head of
lettuce.
The lettuce farm with the cannon on the hill, provides fresher food
more quickly at lower cost than the farm connected to the valley by
truck, railroad and an assorted array of warehouses manned by armies
of people.
So, taking today's price for a head of lettuce, and understanding that
95 cents of every dollar goes to the delivery infrastructure, and
noting that at the prices that are feasible with my system of farming
satellites, we can cut the 5 cents down to 0.5 cents - and here's the
beauty part - we can cut the 95 cents down to 0.5 cents - we then take
a $1.00 worth of lettuce and reduce it to $0.01 - available to ANYONE
ANYWHERE.
Here's the otther beauty part - We charge the $0.10 for $1.00 worth of
lettuce to the 20% of the market that has 80% of the wealth - and use
$0.08 of that to subsidize food distribution world wide - keeping
$0.02 profit - and increase food production world wide 500% - this
sets the stage for a consumer revolution as people everywhere have
more money to spend on consumer items - and consume more energy.
(this is built after i put up power satellites to provide hydrocarbons
and hydrogen to the world's energy markets)
- communications
- energy
- manufacturing
- food
- fiber (wood paper)
- homes
Well before we have space homes, we will deorbit cities manufactured
on orbit - that will be heated and powered by laser beams - that will
allow them to float.
This simple approach ioriginated with Buckminster Fuller in 1967.
Light weight structures hundreds of meters in diameter, heated and
powered with a small nuclear reactor, would house thousands of people,
who would float freely over the earth trading in goods and services
wherever they went.
I have updated this concept. And done some engineering work on it.
Powered by laser beams from space, and the air heated by those same
beams, these cities float as well. The people on board, are fed from
orbit, they also work on orbit telerobotically.
So, I imagine I could say at some opint to all the people of Earth -
that a new Colossus has arisin... and would repeat with deep
conviction and meaning...an ancient poem from another age...
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, 1883
These floating cities, made in space - will be the first step toward a
more peaceful and prosperous planet, and the first step of humanity
off-world
BradGuth
<mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:
> Maybe. I tend to expect that food grown in space will become economical for
> sale to space dwellers long before it becomes economical for sale to Earth;
> given that if the market is space dwellers, the only competition you have to
> undersell is food rocketed up from Earth. Space food fired off to Earth
> would have to compete with Earth food.
>
> But in the long run... many decades into the space settlement era... maybe.
> Perhaps if that Yellowstone supervolcano goes off and global agriculture
> collapses it could be that food will rain down from HEO.
>
> --
>
> Regards,
> Mike Combs
What? You mean that $25,000 per head of lettice from space is too
spendy. Who would have guessed that Mook LEO grown produce wouldn't
become all the rage.
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
You need to change your medication, because as is it's causing a
rather bad reaction that's manifesting itself as though you are
seriously crazy.
. - Brad Guth
Willie...@gmail.com
I can get a bag of spinach leaves ready for tossing into a salad for
$2.15 at Trader Joes. The farmer gets $0.15 of that. Everyone in the
supply chain gets the balance. Produce growing area on orbit for 1/2
the price the farmer now pays for land (without property taxes!) and
increase his productivity by 20x - and reduce his labor cost to 1/3 -
and he is happy to charge $0.05 per bag - ready to go. Now, figure
out how to deorbit that bag of lettuce and drop it to where its needed
on Earths surface - within a centimeter - for another $0.05 - and
you've delivered the product for $0.10 - charge those who are now
buying a bag of spinach leaves for $2.15 at trader joes (plus taxes)
$1.00 - and point out its harvested just minutes ago in the field -
nothing fresher - and take $0.50 to buy five bags of lettuce from our
farmer and deliver them to people with butkas to pay - and pocket
$0.50 for your troubles - perhaps investing in other aspects that are
growing because people aren't going apeshit over food.
Willie...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
That's actually a complement coming from you. I gave you the basis
for my numbers - I see you merely assert bogus numbers with no
analysis or thought. Which is de rigeur for you sir.
BradGuth
Lord Mook on topic reentry, burning up our $25,000/kg spendy bags of
spinach leaves that'll unavoidably create NOx prior to crashing
through the roofs of our energy and food starved homes that are in
foreclosure, as well as Mook LEO Produce having been polluting our
environment with having to launch all those tonnes of water and
essential minerals into LEO.
Gee whiz, can life anywhere on Earth get any better?
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
You need a new mainstream box of medications for controlling your BD.
What's wrong with simply Mook H2? At least that was going to be
renewable as well as next to dirt cheap and fully doable as is.
Even one days worth of cow poop methane can keep a 150 watt lamp going
for an hour. 24 cows and you're good for burning that 150 watt lamp
24 hours. Isn't Mook solar/PV generated H2 a whole lot better
alternative than cow poop?
. - Brad Guth
Willie...@gmail.com
You are fond of saying things without one iota of fact - which makes
it easy to check on reality with you to prove just how wrong you
are. For those who don't want to go to the trouble they can just say
generally, that if you say it, it must be bogus - that saves a lot of
time and effort.
To prove this truism once again lets take your statement.
A days worth of cow poop can keep a 150 watt lamp going for an hour.
That's 150 watt-hours. Over 24 hours that's 6.25 watts on average.
That implies a heat value of 540 kilojoules. Which means 34.8 kg
(76.6 lbs) of poop is made by a cow since;
15.5 kJ/kg of energy is contained in dried cow dung
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
There are 1.5 billion cows in the world
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/holycow/index.html
and each cow produces 4.7 kg of volatiles a day... all forms
www.clemson.edu/camm/Camm_d/Ch3/dch3a_04.pdf
Manure management is a huge issue in dealing with cows. So this last
figure is well known.
According to agricultural practice each 1,000 lbs of animal live
weight produces 12 gallons of waste per day - which includes both
urine and manure - of which
14.4 pounds is solid, and
11.9 pounds is volatile.
The average animal weight of a mature cow 880 lbs so,
10.5 pounds per day of volatiles
- after you go to the trouble of separating it from urine and non-
volatile solids.
That's 4.7 kg of volatiles per cow per day.
That's 72.85 kJ/day per cow.
The heat with which cow dung burns is limited - even when dried - and
that limits the efficiency with which is may be converted to
electricity.
This is about 25% efficient.
So, 18.2 kJ/day per cow of electrical energy is possible.
There are 3.6 kJ per watt-hour.
So, this is 5 watt-hours.
Divided by 24 hours this is 210 milliwatts per cow.
A simple solids separator and dryer for the waste put out by a cow
consumes vastly more than this.
Of course, if you like playing in poop, you may get a kick out of
doing that - but don't kid yourself that you're creating energy.
Do you really want me to tell you how much energy it takes to keep a
cow alive each day?
The highest best use for cow manure is to use it as fertilizer for cow
feeds - use the natural gas saved - to make electricity.
Now what about the cow situation over the entire planet?
The poop from from 1.5 billion cows adds up to 316 megawatts - a small
peaking plant.
The world consumes 15 million megawatts of power.
Willie...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMTC04_974/PV2004_2273.pdf
A simple porous phonelic impregnated carbon ablator (p2 ica) less than
0.15 cm thick (in this case) - with a liquid nitrogen sponge -
surrounding a multi-layer aluminum foil - inflated with gaseous
nitrogen at near freezing - provides structural rigidity and keeps the
spinach leaves cool during re-entry.
MEMs based self-contained rocket array wafers
http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200313/000020031303A0398737.php
and combined vane control - attached to strakes folded in the lines
where the gas tight bag is crimped closed after the spinach leaves are
inserted.. costing only pennies per square inch - equipped with GPS
ASIC and integrated control system - provive a variety of control
inputs - including rocket braking for automatic landing - and guidance
during free fall and re-entry. A total cost of the wafers, attached
to the foil bag during forming - is less than 5 cents.
The 1 pound bag of spinach is housed in a highly engineered self
propelled intelligent package that weighs only 4 ounces. So the total
mass of material sums to 1-1/4 pounds. That's 568 grams altogether.
Now I showed in an earlier post that raw material costs dominate, and
are unlikely to exceed $130 per metric ton - that's $0.13 per kg, or
1.3 cents per 100 grams - so, we're talking 7.5 cents per 1 pound
spinach bag - DELIVERED - add the other costs of labor capital and
whatnot - and you have something like $0.11 - which is what it costs
for a pound of spinach leaves ON THE FARM - before it goes through the
supply chain.
So, you see, the cost is really quite reasonable and the spinach
arrives cool crisp and fresh - minutes after being picked and washed.
Furthermore the NOx production caused by the slowing of 0.54 kg of
material from orbital speed to subsonic speed is about 100 ug due to
atmospheric heating early in the deceleration cycle.
Making PVC packaging on Earth produces more than 100 ug of NOx
Running refrigerators to keep the spinach cool for the week it takes
to go from the field to your home produces more than 100 ug of NOx
Running trucks trains and ship engines for a week to move the spinach
from field to your home produces more than 100 ug of NOx
Making artificial fertilizer to grow the spinach in Earth's biosphere
releases more than 100 ug of NOx
The tractors harvesters and other farm implements used to plant,
fertilize, tend grow and harvest the spinach releases more than 100 ug
of NOx
The automobiles that bring the workers to the field create more than
100 ug of NOx.
Are you getting the point? The small amount of NOx produced during
the early stages of re-entry when balanced against all the NOx NOT
produced conventionally - spells a dramatic decrease in production of
pollutants - despite a 500% increase in food consumption on planet
Earth.
Mike Combs
news:rvednRohRvcqBIzV...@insightbb.com...
>
> Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space colonies --
> but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a purpose you're
> aren't thinking about but should be.
Oh, I've dreamed about these kind of things too. I've even thought about
O'Neill Cylinders which are nothing but tree farms. Early space settlers
will doubtless get very clever with wood substitutes, but long-term I expect
they'll want to take advantage of wood construction, and certainly paying
for wood from Earth will be a non-starter.
Yes, I'd even allow that a space habitat built for the purpose of a tuna or
shrimp farm might be in several ways less complicated, given that it would
only have to provide an environment which would keep tuna or shrimp happy.
Mike Combs
news:8af009ac-d5bd-4922...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Yellowstone is quite an interesting point. To "save the world" in the
> case of a singular event like that it would be much better to
> stockpile 1-2 years supply in (say) the Antarctic.
Interesting idea. Might be a good safeguard against more than one kind of
disaster.
> I have yet another point to make about global warming. We are worried
> about rising temperatures. Sunlight reaching the Earth could be
> stopped in space. With Yellowstone in mind it might be as well to
> build a system that could INCREASE the sunlight striking the Earth,
> and penetrate, partially at least, the Yellowstone clouds.
That's a good argument for space-based sunshades over aerosols, and for
reflective sunshades over Fresnel lenses. It's true that Fresnel lenses
would experience less pressure from sunlight. But the advantage of a mirror
is that in a heartbeat (OK, over the course of several days or weeks) it
could be used to push climate in the opposite direction.
> You can grow lots in a
> desert provided you have water.
Nobody thought space habitats would be a bigger thing than did Gerard
O'Neill. But in his later book, "2081", he revealed that he also thought
covered cities and greenhouse agriculture would be big deals here on Earth.
While he mostly talked about making cities in frigid areas warmer, there
were also obvious applications for conserving water (and reducing
insolation) in desert climes.
Mike Combs
news:969eb942-0fe2-4456...@56g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
>
> So, respectfully I ask Why? Have you really looke at the numbers?
I mostly just have a tendency to go along with O'Neill in these matters,
since he was the acknowledged expert and pioneer in this field. While I
know he made the point that space habitat construction costs would decline
dramatically with experience and infrastructure build-up, I just can't
imagine O'Neill making this audacious an assertion.
I agree with most of the points you make about the advantages of use of
solar energy in space, that orbiting man-made land will be prime, and
certain other things. Just please know that I've had lengthy arguments with
people who think I've extremely naive for supposing that space construction
costs might drop to the point that some large multinational corporation
doing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of SPS construcuction work might
could afford to build a single Island One so their space workers could have
a modest little apartment to live in.
I believe that, and I believe that as costs decline, additional habitats
might be built for billionaires who want to live among the stars. I expect
further decline, to the point where more-average-type people could afford to
emigrate short of pawning their souls. I expect further decline, to where
the population density in the average space habitat is less than that for
the average area on Earth.
What you're advocating seems another step beyond that. But I argue with
people who won't for a minute accept square one in this process I've just
described.
--
BradGuth
going to save us all.
. - Brad Guth
> A simple solids separator and ...
>
> read more »
(why bother)
BradGuth
<mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:
> "G. L. Bradford" <glbra...@insightbb.com> wrote in messagenews:rvednRohRvcqBIzV...@insightbb.com...
>
>
> > Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space colonies --
> > but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a purpose you're
> > aren't thinking about but should be.
>
> Oh, I've dreamed about these kind of things too. I've even thought about
> O'Neill Cylinders which are nothing but tree farms. Early space settlers
> will doubtless get very clever with wood substitutes, but long-term I expect
> they'll want to take advantage of wood construction, and certainly paying
> for wood from Earth will be a non-starter.
>
> Yes, I'd even allow that a space habitat built for the purpose of a tuna or
> shrimp farm might be in several ways less complicated, given that it would
> only have to provide an environment which would keep tuna or shrimp happy.
Keeping lord Mook happy and his offshore bank accounts stuffed with
our hard earned loot is so very important. Whatever it takes for
keeping us focused away from the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
And none of this is being done or even considered because it's too
profitable, too environmentally clean and too renewable??????
. - Brad Guth
Willie...@gmail.com
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
You just want a vehicle to say offensive and dismissive things
regardless of what is being said. That's your whole go. Obviously
you're the one who said cow poo is going to save humanity - notme - I
merely showed you that it was a less than useless source of energy.
BradGuth
>
> You just want a vehicle to say offensive and dismissive things
> regardless of what is being said. That's your whole go. Obviously
> merely showed you that it was a less than useless source of energy.
Not at all. I actually have a few matters of complex research that
could use the honest give and take from others smart enough to
deductively figure out how to blow their own nose. Obviously that
excludes the ulterior mindset of lord Mook right off the bat.
Your intentions of distracting folks away from utilizing our moon,
away from our moon's L1 and especially away from anything associated
with the planet Venus is only too obvious.
. - Brad Guth
Willie...@gmail.com
<mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:
> <Willie.Moo...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:969eb942-0fe2-4456...@56g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > So, respectfully I ask Why? Have you really looke at the numbers?
>
> I mostly just have a tendency to go along with O'Neill
> in these matters
That's nice.
> since he was the acknowledged expert and pioneer in this field.
Yes he was.
> know he made the point that space habitat construction costs would decline
> dramatically with experience and infrastructure build-up,
Yes he did.
> I just can't
> imagine O'Neill making this audacious an assertion.
You are mistaken to believe an audacious assertion was made. I *used*
the numbers he developed for NASA in their study. Its right there in
the pointer I gave. 335.7 kg per square meter. That gives you $4.07
per square foot. Space farming has 20x the yeild as open air
terrestrial farming. Its right there in the NASA studies.
> I agree with most of the points you make about the advantages of use of
> solar energy in space,
Of couirse why wouldn't you. Its based on solid work done by the very
person you're talking about.
> that orbiting man-made land will be prime, and
> certain other things. Just please know that I've had lengthy arguments with
> people who think
I doubt they were thinking that clearly.
> I've extremely naive for supposing that space construction
> costs might drop
Its not the construction cost, its the transport costs. An expendable
chemical booster has certain costs - something like $10 milion per ton
to LEO, so under those circumstances a 337.5 kg will cost $4.4 milion
making a square foot cost over $2,000 -
The construction program on the moon that NASA proposed reduces these
costs by a factor of 50 - $40 per square foot.- powered by chemical
rockets up from Earth, and nuclear powered launcher from the moon.
Using nuclear pulse rocket technology I'm postulating a reduction by
another factor of 10 - $4 per square foot - and provided there are
changes that reduce mass, and improve nuclear impulse rocket
technology - further reductions.
> to the point that some large multinational corporation
If there is a certainty that money will be made they will have to
invest in it, if its their primary business and not investing in it
would mean death.
> doing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of SPS construcuction work
Conventional PV with microwave power links are non-starters for energy
companies. Concentrating PV with free electron lasers beaming energy
to advanced solar collectors that make hydrogen on Earth is the way to
go.
> might
> could afford to build a single Island One so their space workers could have
> a modest little apartment to live in.
Island one is an end point of a development process. I outlined a
very simple program that gets you to pressure vessels that are used
to assist in mining, then in smelting, then in industrial goods
manufacturing, then in consumer durable goods, then in consumer goods
- food, wood, etc. THEN you're ready for cities in space - and then
homes in space.
> I believe that, and I believe that as costs decline, additional habitats
> might be built for billionaires who want to live among the stars.
Yes, the Palms and the World islands are based on the precept. But
there is a city around it and money being made in the region from
other business.
> I expect
> further decline, to the point where more-average-type people could afford to
> emigrate short of pawning their souls.
You have a very negative view of how things will proceed because you
are not familiar with the way property is developed on Earth. Given
the huge reduction in logistical costs of getting perishables to
market, farming is an obvious initial use - along with free electron
solar laser beamed power to solar panels using band gap matched
energy.
.
> I expect further decline, to where
> the population density in the average space habitat is less than that for
> the average area on Earth.
Its really very simple. If you're building something like the NASA
colony, you're going to end up using 337.5 kg per square meter. If
you're building a special purpose agricultural satellite you're going
to be using something like 58 kg per square meter. Now, how do you
get it there. If you use expendable chemical booster from Earth
you're paying $10,000 per kg. If you're using a reusable heavy lift
launcher, you'll pay $1,000 per kg. If you're using a launcher on the
moon with sufficient quantity, you'll pay $500 per kg. If you're
using nuclear pulse technology to lift products from Earth you're
paying $0.30 per kg. If you're importing materials from the asteroid
belt you're paying $0.10 per kg
> What you're advocating seems another step beyond that.
I'm proposing two innovations which are not that difficult to
understand.
1) reduce the mass per square foot of area by focusing exclusively
on agriculture
2) reduce the cost per unit mass by using nuclear pulse to harvest
asteroids
People are talking about deflecting asteroids from collison with
Earth. I'm talking about harvesting smaller asteroids to use in orbit
around Earth. You don't have to mine them on the moon, or toss them
into space. You merely find the ideal asteroid from the 10,000s there
- and shepherd them to Earth orbit uising nuclear pulse units.
> But I argue with
> people who won't for a minute accept square one in this process I've just
> described.
Look, I've got it in my business plan -
1) develop ultralow cost solar panels
http;//www.usoal.com
2) develop a 75 ton to LEO TSTO-RLV
3) deploy comsat network to generate $100 bilion/yr in sales
4) deploy telerobotic and telepresence standards
5) provide banking and financial services globally
6) expand to 225 ton to LEO 3STO-RLV
7) add solar pumped laser satellite beaming1108 nm to solar arrays
8) add $1,000 billion per year in power salesw
9) expand to 500 ton to LEO 7STO-RLV
10) expand solar power satellite size
12) develop ICF fusion powered satellite
13) adapt ICF for propulsion system
14) do asteroid survey and capture
15) deploy advanced telerobotic and telepresence system in orbiting
factory
a) mine
b) smelt
c) industrial production
d) durable consumer good production
e) non-durable good production
i) food
ii) paper
iii) wood
f) homes
16) adapt industrial production to low cost housing
a) Fuller cloud nine
b) space home
17) add propulsion unit to space homes
Willie...@gmail.com
The last time land sold in Tokyo it sold for $7.8 BILLION per acre.
Central park is worth over $600 million per acre
http://ask.yahoo.com/20070202.html
Farmland in Iowa costs $4,000 per acre
Farmland in California can cost over $200,000 per acre.
With access to global markets, and 20x productivity advantage, and
zero very low logistical and transportation costs - space farms make
sense.
Using my nuclear pulse approach costs of building a NASA style habitat
and adapting it to agriculture would cost $90,000 per acre. Building
a custom purpose agriculture satellite along NASA designs, reduces
that cost to about $5,000 per acre - which would dramatically
transform agriculture. Lowering it further, with learning curve
reductions in nuclear pulse efficiency - reduces it to $600 per acre.
At this price everyone moves off world.
Basically there are 3.3 billion people who earn less than $2 per day.
Those people are offered homes in 66,000 cloud nine cities each
housing 50,000 - they all have jobs on orbit, producing massive
quantities of things from asteroidal feedstocks, including - space
homes - which they buy after 10 to 12 years of steady labor - so, we
reduce Earth's population by half - and another 2.5 billion middle
income folks join them - to improve their lot. These people grow
rich, just as Americans grew richer than Europeans - and spread across
the solar system
BradGuth
and company of DARPA spooks and moles) telling us we should give up on
Earth, and at the very least move our commercial agriculture into LEO
for accomplishing most of our future food production.
Of course those trusty LEO wizards of DARPA will gladly R&D and
somehow deploy as well as sustain all of this infrastructure in LEO
for next to nothing, along with those rad-hard workers from India
still willing to earn their $1/day plus R&B, that which along with
their to/from transporting and banked stem cell plus bone marrow and
subsequent transplants should only cost us a few tens of millions per
worker per year. (such a deal)
Why this should all work according to plan; It’ll work because along
with those Mook atomic/nuclear rockets it’s so much more profitable,
so much better for our environment, and of that rad-hard food derived
from LEO space will even become so much cheaper for the populations of
Earth, including those that are currently stuck with earning $1/day,
because those folks will soon enough under the wise rule of Mook
become wealthy enough to afford any price for terrestrial energy,
food, housing, education and medical care, regardless of how many
world class wars and AGW events are festering on Earth.
Now for starters, the bipolar/multipolar aspects of lord Mook should
be ignored, all because he is so good at telling us stories, of how
the rich and powerful (mostly of his close DRAPA friends) are
genetically smarter than all of us combined, as well as having been
entirely responsible for all the good on Earth. Of whatever’s bad and
ugly is simply a direct result of those crazy Muslim or similar faith-
based groups that don’t happen go along with the Old Testament as
Zionist interpreted.
Seems like a perfectly good global domination plan of action, doesn’t
it.
. – Brad Guth
On Apr 23, 4:59 pm, Willie.Moo...@gmail.com wrote:
> NASA did studies on space colonies back in the 1970s and 80s. Gerard
> O'Neill wrote on them in The High Frontier.
>
> http://space.mike-combs.com/SCTHF.html
>
> The costs do not take into account the ability of developing the
> technology more gradually in a way that sees it more of an investment
> that earns profits, which are then re-invested in technology
> development.
>
> One interesting finding was that farms in space support 40,500 people
> per square kilometer at US per capita levels of consumption. This
> amounts to 730 kg per person per year. To fee 6.6 billion people at
> this level requires 162,963 square kilometers of pressure vessel
> area.
>
> 103,745 spheres each 1 km in diameter each housing a spinning cylinder
> 707 meters in diameter and 707 meters deep, support 1.57 square
> kilometers of growing area - each supporting 63,585 persons.
>
> Each satellite has a rail gun and fires 2 meals per second - to people
> all over the Earth aided by low cost GPS guidance systems and ceramic
> aerogel thermal protection systems with aerodynamic features. MEMs
> based rockets forming a propulsive skin to execute a soft landing at
> the desired location for each meal. Terminal velocity of the aerogel
> encased meal is about 200 m/sec following re-entry - which requires a
> propellant fraction of 4.3% or 30.4 grams of propellant for a 700 gram
> meal. The rail gun fires it to the targeting envelope and the kinetic
> energy and tail fins of the falling meal are adjusted to bring it to a
> precise GPS cooerdinate. A solid state doppler radar determines
> precise altitude to ignite the engines, and bring the meal to a halt
> at zero altitude at the desired location.
>
> The mass of 2 meals per second is 1.47 kg per second. With an
> ejection speed from the rail gun of 500 m/sec to deorbit each meal,
> this exerts a 75 kgf thrust on the station. This is made up for by
> burning of hydrogen and oxygen made from water at a rate of 0.17 kg
> per second.
>
> Orders are taken via satellite cell phone or satellite internet, and
> delivered within 30 minutes or less anywhere on Earth. . .
>
> 10 billion tons per year of asteroidal materials, principally water
> and carbon-dioxide - are imported from the asteroid belt by nuclear
> pulse deflection of asteroidal material selected for quality and
> variety of materials.
>
> The satellites are made from asteroidal material as well brought from
> the asteroid belt earlier..
>
> 7,255,410 equilateral triangles composed of aluminum framing encased
> in PET film are manufactured as a flexible 'string' 3,627 km long. An
> assembly head welds the aluminum frame, and seals the PET film in a
> spiral pattern to form a 1 km diameter stationary sphere. A 707 meter
> diameter cylinder 707 meters wide, rotates freely inside this sphere
> supported by magnetic bearings at the edges of the cylinder. The
> cylinder rotates once every 37.7 seconds. The interior of the
> cylinder has an oblate thin film reflective surface that reproduces
> over the course of 24 hours the same day/night conditions one finds on
> Earth which rotates along with the cylinder, but in such a way that it
> completes one rotation every 24 hours - giving a day night cycle to
> the plants and animals on the cylinder surface.
> .
> 40 farmers and 200 farm helpers are present tele-robotically to grow
> the foods at the station. Additionally, there are 360 cooks cleaners
> and handlers at each station to prepare meals and package them. Thus,
> 600 people are needed to support 40,500 in their food needs. All
> stations together require a total of 62,247,000 telerobotic workers.
> Each station has a set of 10 people present in person, thus
> 1,037,450 people are living on orbit in the 103,745 stations.
>
> The world presently spends $9 trillion per year on food. The network
> here captures the bulk of this, and at $50,000 per person on average
> $3.15 trillion is salaries, and the balance is capital cost and
> profits. A total of $46 trillion may be supported in this way - This
> allows $440 million per satellite as the target price in this
> quantity. This is $282 per square meter - allowable cost.
>
> This is the fourth step in a seven step process of lowering cost of
> space borne pressure vessels
>
> 1) mining - highest cost
> 2) smelting
> 3) forming/assembly
> 4) farming - mid-range
> 5) forestry
> 6) residential <-- high frontier level
> 7) private home - lowest cost
>
> Moving entire asteroids from the asteroid belt into MEO seems to me
> more 'doable' than lifting things piecemeal from the lunar surface.
> Since substantial ice is present in the asteroid belt, that is also a
> plus.
>
> 10 billion tons per year requires the expulsion 17 billion tons of
> 'propellant' vaporized from the surface of the asteroids moved in this
> way. Expelling the materials at 7 km/sec requires an average
> expenditure of only 20 terawatts - averaged over the entire year. .
> 856 tons per second are harvested and 317 tons per second are made
> availale. Of this, half is turned into food and deposited on the
> Earth.
>
> Four asteroid fragments, each roughly spherical each 100 meters in
> diameter, arrive at Earth orbit from around the asteroid belt every
> hour to resupply the ring of farm satellites. They have taken 3 years
> to get to Earth and enter a MEO to be processed at centers that build
> the satellites in the first place. Each fragment has sufficient raw
> material to feed a farm satellite for 3 years. Each moves to an
> appropriate position next to a satellite, and is fed into it - and raw
> materials are processed on board into air, water, fertilizer and
> nutrients- to replace the constant stream of materials falling to
> Earth.
>
> The satellites form a Saturn like ring in polar orbit above the Earth
> - and each satellite flies over the entire Earth several times per
> day.
I've intentionally top-posted for the benefit of others.
. - BG
BradGuth
and company of DARPA spooks and moles) telling us we should give up on
Earth, and at the very least move our commercial agriculture into LEO
though our wise Mook knows something that’s worse off than WWIII or
AGW, that’s just around the corner (perhaps as soon as 2029, in the
form of an asteroid).
> > . -BradGuth- Hide quoted text -
I've intentionally top-posted for the benefit of others.
On a generous scale of 0-10, I give this Mook rant a 0.5, because
we'll all be long dead and gone by several generations worth,
especially by the time the first pilot version gets placed and
sustained in LEO.
Too bad Mook and DARPA company isn't allowed to utilize the moon's
L1.
. - BG
G. L. Bradford
"Mike Combs" <mike...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in message
> "G. L. Bradford" <glbr...@insightbb.com> wrote in message
> news:rvednRohRvcqBIzV...@insightbb.com...
>>
>> Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space
>> colonies -- but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a
>> purpose you're aren't thinking about but should be.
>
> Oh, I've dreamed about these kind of things too. I've even thought about
> O'Neill Cylinders which are nothing but tree farms. Early space settlers
> will doubtless get very clever with wood substitutes, but long-term I
> expect they'll want to take advantage of wood construction, and certainly
> paying for wood from Earth will be a non-starter.
>
> Yes, I'd even allow that a space habitat built for the purpose of a tuna
> or shrimp farm might be in several ways less complicated, given that it
> would only have to provide an environment which would keep tuna or shrimp
> happy.
>
>
> --
>
>
> Regards,
> Mike Combs
We will have cities and city states in space, Mike, but by far the largest
number of the habitats will be functionally customized to specifically meet
the environmental and life needs of other life that humans will depend upon.
Other stations of course will be specially designed and built to meet and
serve other specific needs, such as ship building and many other hi-tech
productions.
There are those who can think only of all functionality being designed and
built into each and every single colony structure in space...the most
inefficient, also the most potentially catastrophic, way to go. Each
function will have its own differing structures. Each industry will have its
own structures. Some, several different types of individual space structures
that will combine to complete end productions. Everything we have on Earth,
except for the Earth itself, we can in some way, to some degree large or
small, facilitate in space. And in and from all these facilities -- all this
facilitation -- in space, as well as our growth of vast numbers of lanes of
travel and a far reaching mobility in space, we can become vastly freer once
more in increasingly innumerable space and time horizons.
GLB
G. L. Bradford
Continue to press! We differ sharply on many subjects but share the want to
get humanity [in mass] going out there, soonest! It doesn't need to do much
of anything different than it does on Earth (except of course to design,
construct and otherwise develop the wherewithal in outer space to not do
much of anything different than it does on Earth).
Those who believe humans have to become, and do, something vastly
different out there are insane. They are the same ones who plan for and work
toward forcing humans to become something quite unnaturally different (than
life) here on Earth. The cost of that, and the cost of trying to keep it
from reverting to nature forever, will be disastrous. So the actual result
will be simply the plagues, the wars and famines of totalitarianism all over
again. In other words, the world is already getting there (disastrous).
Getting out there 'enmasse', soon, is not only important, it's imperative.
There are too many among us who would far rather "rule in Hell," and plenty
enough more of the rest of us who would resolve to grimly make it just that
("Hell") for any kind of total authoritarianism whatsoever. That is the
[nature] of that beast.
GLB
Willie...@gmail.com
Thanks for the kind words. Guth is best ignored. As I said elsewhere,
I respond to him when such response is helpful to him.
The issue for space access is merely cost of momentum and the momentum
requirements for space habitation.
In this regard we have the NASA space colonization studies of the
1970s - which show that NASA using 1970s technology could build a
space habitat for 337.5 kg per square meter. Deeper in those studies
you will find that agirculture only pressure vessels massing only 58
kg per square meter. Industrial engineers givev the basic design and
charged with reducing the mass would likely reduce asses to 30 kg or
so for the ag satellite and 150 kg or or for homes and industry at 1
gee. A stationary pressure vessel encasing an asteroid that is being
mined or smelted, might mass even less.
This translates to, in the NASA studies, 53 metric tons per person and
23.5 metric tons per person - for the habitation side.
So, these are the 'fixed' mass costs of space habitats in the current
age.
The recurring mass costs are approximately 1 metric ton per person per
year to stay alive without any recycling or use of local materials.
This is the minimum. The average American consumes 4 tons of products
a year not counting coal and oil - which is a source of heat - and
provided by sunlight or some other nuclear source in space. This
gives a range of 'recurring' mass costs for space habitation.
Farms in space can feed 20 people per acre. That's about 202.5 square
meters per person. This is the low end. At the high end, 100 people
per acre can be supported. This is 40.5 square meters per person.
The average person consumes about 650 kg of food per year. The
average farm - not counting fuel - consumes 1.65 times the productive
mass. So, that's 1.07 metric tons per person per year. This gives
the 'recurring' mass cost for an agsat.
So, we're talking
202.5 sq m x 337.5 kg/sq m = 68,343.7 kg
40.5 sq m x 58 kg/sq m = 2,349 kg
As a fixed mass
and
1,070 kg per year input
650 kg per year output
So, to support 6.6 billion people with agsats requires 15.5 billion
metric tons of satellites (51,678 of those 100 m diameter harvested
fragments returned over the course of two and a half years) and to
feed it requires 7.1 billion metric tons of feedstock each year.. The
annual rate is a constant 223.7 metric tons per second spread across
the entire polar ring area. We start at a high altitude and deliver
raw materials there. That material gets processed and fed to lower
orbits, where food is grown and delivered by rail gun and gps guided
package directly to people anywhere on Earth - typically within +/.- 3
hours of sunrise and sunset.
Now the question of the cost of that mass. At today's aerospace
engineering costs each ton costs $5.3 million to build, and $10
million to place in LEO - with costs increasing exponentiall as you
move beyond LEO.
Larger scale prodcution of payloads and vehicles, combined with higher
launch rates, and reusability, might reduce these costs by a factor of
10 to 100 for chemically fueled vehicles. from $15 million per ton to
$150,000 per ton. Reliance on chemical fuels still imposes a stiff
exponential cost increase as you move beyond LEO.
Nucleaer pulse changes all that. 2 tons of borane in the form of a
series of ICF bomblets can move over 300,000 metric tons of payload
from the asteroid belt to MEO at a cost of less than $100 per ton. A
comparable system lifting materials from Earth's surface to MEO can
deliver payload at $300 per ton. Allowing for seeds and livestock and
specialty material from Earth, including telerobotic factory elements,
a mix of materials on MEO would be $130 per ton.
Henry Ford showed that in the early part of the 20th century that mass
production of any item no matter how sophisticated is possible for
about the cost of the raw materials that go into the item. There is
no reason to doubt that once designs are standardized and means of
mass production are created, that this cannot be done for space based
assets. The mass of the original factories are likely to be about
1/100,000th the mass flow rate and cost on the order of $150,000 per
ton to build.
So, we're processing 7 billion metric tons per year - and that means
the original 'seed' mass - will be around 70,000 metric tons, and cost
about $10.5 billion. This is the fleet of the first ICF ships -
which mass 2,000 tons each, and the original tooling they used on
orbit.
The agsat ring itself will cost $2.015 trillion to build and $855
billion per year to feed. Since humanity spends a total of $9
trillion per year on food, this represents a huge savings and a huge
profit opportunity. Most of this savings will be in replacing the
supply chain with space based direct delivery. Owners of these
assets on orbit could easily eliminate world hunger, since this
infrastructure produces roughly 5x the amount of food currently
produced by humanity. That is, the average American consumption of
food product is 5x greater than the world average consumption.
To promote higher levels of consumption, we take a small poriion of
the profits made among the the wealthiest 20% (which includes
America's 4.3%) and allocate them toward subsidizing food purchases
among the poorer 80%.
This merely is an accounting transfer in the operation of the farming
system - akin to markups made in present distribution systems. This
in order to avoid the logistical cost involved in securing the 20%
deliveries from the 80% who are going hungry.
That is, since 95 cents of every dollar spent on food presently is
spent to distribute food to those with the money to pay for food,
through the market - any system that eliminates this logistical
overhead easily makes food freely available while reducing costs.
That is, using credit checks and banking information thats freely
available its possible to determine if one can afford to pay market
rates for food or not at the time of purchase. Delivery of food to
anyone who wants it any time any place - relieves the logistical
burden of people trying to game the system for illicit gain - which
reduces costs for everyone who pays.
Furthermore, a steady supply of nutrious high quality food available
to all, improves the likelihood that everyone will participate in the
market at some point.
One could do this on Earth. I have designed a system of solar powered
green houses tended by telerobotic workers
The only place on Earth where they might operate un-fettered by
various rules is Western Sahara. Its a region about 1,100 km long and
226,000 sq km in area. Before 1976 it used to be called Spanish
Sahara. Morocco annexed the Northern 2/3 of the country in 1976 -
largely unopposed. It is inhabited by fewer than 400,000 people, half
of which are under the age of 16. No government, no hospitals, no
schools, no natural resources, literacy rate is unknown, fewer than
2,000 telephones in the entire region, a single 70 MW power plant near
the major runway.
In many ways sending people to Ceres would be preferable than sending
them here.
There are a surplus of oil tankers these days. One could buy some
tankers, fit them out with a variety of equipment built using the
factories I use to make solar panels. And build a factory system to
build tele-operated robots and other systems. Hire a crew and sail
for the Azores. Arrange and organize telerobotic drive centers in low
wage nations around the world. Train everyone with gaming sorts of
software.
Make land fall along the entire coast with a handful of ships, and
erect 10 m wide and 200 km long plastic green houses with solar
panels, water piping and so forth built in - fed with fresh water from
each of the ships. So, solar power is collected in the desert - fed
to the ship, which runs a desal plant/recycle plant, and feeds the
water back to the greenhouse interior. teleoperated robots with seed
crops and livestock proceed to work the soil, enrich it, and plant
crops. At the far end of each 200 km long greenhouse is a barn -
where livestock is fed and tended. manure is harvested processed and
used to fertilize the growing crops.
Each greenhouse is basically an optical film of coated PET that forms
a10 m wide and 5 m tall semi-circle attached to the ground and
stabilized by high pressure. The base of the circle is held in place
by a few cm of soil, and it houses water lines, power lines, and so
forth. The base of the semicircle form plastic rails that are sunk
into the Earth. Arcing over the semicircle is a mobile electrically
powered cross beam that carries things at high speed along the length
of the greenhouse. A similar system inside the green house carries
harvesters and planters and so forth - all are teleoperated by remote
workers.
Water and robots and equipment arrive from the ships moored near the
shore. Greenhouses grow food along the 1,100 km of coast line up to
200 km inland. West of the greenhouses, are barns for livestock which
are fed a portion of the food,and provide manure for the fertilizing
the food. Micronutrients are brought in from off shore East of the
greenhouses. The entire network is solar powered.
West of the livestock barns and yards are the food processing
centers. These butcher livestock and process foods - recycling wastes
- and producing finished food products. Packaging is a problem. The
system I'm describing can feed 1.1 billion people at US standard. 725
million tons of food, and about 14 million tons of packaging are
distributed each year. This means 1,600 tons per hour of packaging
materials must be delivered to the site. This means that an offshore
handling facility to receive 100 large container ships filled with
packaging must be supported. One could grow switch grass or some
other fast growing product to make a sort of paper or plastic and put
a package manufacturing system in place here. This would reduce
output about 50% - which is nuts on a world already well suited for
the production of packaging. It doubles the cost of the food however.
West of food processing and packaging area are the airfields for the
Predator-like automated aircraft. These unpiloted aircraft are fueled
by liquid hydrogen made from sunlight and water, and they are capable
of circumnavigating the Earth at 90,000 feet at 670 km/hr ground
speed, delivering 10 tons of food over their 60 hour flight that
circumnavigates the world. 2 million tons of food must be delivered
every day to 1.1 billion customers - and response time between order
and delivery is up to 60 hours - not 10 minutes - and so, lots of
aircraft, lots of food in transit. Not everyone can be served by this
system, so, lots of opportunity for conflict, and the farm, the supply
chain, and the delivery system is subject to attack anywhere by anyone
for any reason Seaborne attack, ground attack, air attack, surface
to air attack.
Anyway, with 10 tons of food cargo per plane and a 60 hour flight
cycle, each plane delivers 4 tons of food per day. 2 million tons of
food are produced and delivered, this requires 500,000 planes.
Allowing for ground maintenance of the planes - 700,000 planes. There
are 2,500 airstrips all running east to west - spanning the 1,100 km
length of the country. There is a landing or take off at each strip
every 9 minutes. Each plane is directed to one of 7 vectors assigned
to each strip. The northern most strip is directed due north. The
southern most strip is directed due south. There is a 7 degree band of
directions assigned to each strip. As the plane flies its assigned
great circle route, is releases its cargo to land JDAM style near the
delivery point specficied.
You can see by not being on orbit the logistics have increased
dramatically. First off, you have to load 10 tons of food in the
right order. Second, you have to deliver food to a place someone
specified 60 hours or more earlier. Third, you have to worry about
people not getting food they paid for - since in this supply chain is
vulnerable - and that means you've got to add more costs and
logistical headaches to the system.
You could just fire food packages to end users - in a way similar to
that indicated for the satellites. While this has the same terminal
flight problem, the initial flight is quite different. That is,
deorbiting a package requires very little energy. Tossing a package
from one point on Earth to the antipodes - requires nearly orbital
velocity. This is hundreds of times more energy than needed in the
orbital case - and so, requires another solution - like a high flying
aircraft. Think about it this way. Its cheaper to harvest asteroids
with nuclear pulse rockets than toss 4.3 billion tons of food
ballistically around the world each year. It takes about 8 km/sec
ideal delta vee imparted on a mass to toss it to the antipodes. It
takes about 5 km/sec ideal delta vee imparted to a mass to bring it
from Ceres to Earth orbit.
Getting a bag of groceries from the air twice a week at about the same
cost as it costs today, might be something that's workable. But its
inferior in many ways to building agsats as I've already described.
If Morocco and Mauritania, Algeria and Mali could be persuaded to join
Western Sahara in this scheme, we could expand this system to feed the
entire world. This will require the addition of 3 million long range
hydrogen powered aircraft - to arrange 60 hour delivery. One could
use off shore loading of foods on cargo ships- and deliver through the
existing system - but this restricts what can be grown and sold to
what is in short supply in the market - not what is needed by the bulk
of humanity outside the market - and it undercuts the ability to use
the market to reduce logistical costs which now dominate food
production..
Another possibility, which others have looked at are floating
greenhouses in the ocean, again solar powered, that are supplied
materials by robot subs mining the floor of the ocean - with submerged
free floating processing centers.
The advantage of this sort of system is that it can be erected
piecemeal near consumers and flight times can be reduced dramatically
to about 6 hours in most cases - which reduces the size of your air
fleet.
The disadvantage is that large regions far from oceans will not be
served by this system, and it is still subject to seaborne attack.
All terrestrial systems also suffer from disease, weather, pests, and
so forth.
Willie...@gmail.com
per year - and a cost of $150,000 per metric ton - using highly
reusable chemical rockets - the cost of establishing and maintaining a
person on the moon $3.5 million to $8.0 million and cost $0.6 million
per year.
This is within the capacity of approximately 3 million of the
wealthiest people.
Lighter weight, less pervasive structures massing 8 to 12 tons per
person, using 1 ton per person per year - would cost $1.2 to $1.8
million to build and $150,000 to maintain.
This is within the capacity of approximately 7 million of the
wealthiest people.
I have written elsewhere how a small fleet of highly reusable chemical
rockets, developed initially for deployment of ultralight power
satellites - could be adapted to maintain thousands of people on the
moon and hundreds of people on Mars.
The original fleet along with the satellite build infrastructure would
cost roughly $30 billion. Adapting a portion of this capacity to
lunar and mars settlement would cost less than $10 billion.
The revenue produced from space based power could mount into the
trillions of dollars per year.
The revenue from space base communications can exceed $100s billions
per year.
BradGuth
Right on. Pay no attention to the $25,000/kg cost of LEO space grown
food, or that of WWIII, WWIV and the future coming of WWV to end all
such terrestrial wars.
Pay no attention as to the rad-hard genetic mutations required of such
food grown in space, especially if going anywhere near our expanding
SAA, or for that matter of just having to always hide behind Earth
from those pesky halo CMEs. (that's a neat LEO trick, if there ever
was)
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
China CATS is more than ready whenever you are, although fully expect
to pay at least ten fold as much as you think is possible, because
them smart Chinese are not exactly dumb and dumber about doing
international business, or much less with Earth/moon related stuff,
especially since they'll be in charge of the moon's L1 and quite
possibly in charge of Venus L2.
. - Brad Guth
Willie...@gmail.com
<mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:
> "G. L. Bradford" <glbra...@insightbb.com> wrote in messagenews:rvednRohRvcqBIzV...@insightbb.com...
>
>
>
> > Several blue tuna fishery-stations in space the size of space colonies --
> > but customized to the specific purpose -- would serve a purpose you're
> > aren't thinking about but should be.
>
> Oh, I've dreamed about these kind of things too.
Well then trouble yourself to look at the numbers
> I've even thought about
> O'Neill Cylinders which are nothing but tree farms.
Yes, figure out what it must cost in order to be competitive
> Early space settlers
> will doubtless get very clever with wood substitutes,
Why?
> but long-term I expect
> they'll want to take advantage of wood construction, and certainly paying
> for wood from Earth will be a non-starter.
True. But the market is on Earth! There are 3.3 billion people with
butkas. Give them a job and pay them with a portion of the output you
let them create and you'll be rich beyond imagination!
I looked up the numbers before for wood. I seem to recall that 20
cubic feet per acre year is what might be extracted for most woods.
This varies by hardwood and softwood. That's about 1.4 cubic meter
per year per hectare. Which is about 700 kg - depending on the
wood. Americans use the most per person 240 kg per year - in
softwoods - 120 kg per year in hardwoods. So, two people consuming at
the American rate may be supported per hectare.
Now, in the end, we're talking something along the lines of 40 tons of
fixed assets of station and forest for every ton per year.
Now, I showed that using boron and protium fueled nuclear pulse
technology to move stuff from the asteroid belt it would cost $100 per
ton - at most - to get stuff into LEO. This could drop by a factor
of 10 or more.
Henry Ford showed that with the right kind of factory, all you pay for
is material costs by using labor and capital very very efficiently.
Telerobotics is a HUGE opportunity waiting to happen!
So, we're talking about $0.20 per day - for each man woman and child
on Earth to provide them with wood, dropping to $0.10 per day as
propulsion systems become more efficient (by handling larger payloads
and mining boron in the asteroid belt)
The fixed cost is $1,440 per person - and the recurring cost is $36
per year - with appropriate discount rates - that's $0.20 per day.
> Yes, I'd even allow that a space habitat built for the purpose of a tuna or
> shrimp farm might be in several ways less complicated, given that it would
> only have to provide an environment which would keep tuna or shrimp happy.
Correct -
the fundamentals are - cost of momentum and mass flow rate.
secondary - labor rates
Willie...@gmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
When someone pays me money and receives value for it, the money
becomes mine. That's another thing you don't get.
Willie...@gmail.com
opportunities are on Earth. Sure, those that are in power will pull
every trick they can think of to secure their position - but that
shouldn't stop us, any more than it stopped their forebears from
promoting change.
While successfully shipping food and wood and clothing and homes and
cars and energy and telephone and internet services to every person on
Earth at very low cost directly from space - will be seen as a good
idea to many, there will be those whose rice bowls will be broken. We
must go forward anyway for our good and the good of our customers.
There will be early adopters, as I've said now for 20 years. What
isn't as obvious, is that the 3.3 billion of the poorest of us, will
gain employment and move off world as soon as it benefits them to do
so. Just the way the Irish left Ireland for America after the great
famines there. So too space development will be seen as a great
opportunity for getting ahead in the face of hard times on Earth.
As I mentioned, by the end of the 21st century more people will be
living off world than on world. And nearly all of us will be
supplied by off world assets and resources.
BradGuth
You can still buy entire cities or townships within India for $1/acre/
yr.
I bet there are countless acres throughout northern Canada that $10/
acre/yr would give us rights to utilize until hell freezes over, and
because of our AGW and that pesky GW moon of ours, northern Canada is
never again going to freeze solid.
Put a few of those failsafe thorium reactors on site and go for it.
. - Brad Guth
G. L. Bradford
opportunity will be out there right from the beginning of colonization AND
OPENING. And, will be here on Earth but only from and because of that GOING
outland frontier. The Old World only becomes a brand new frontier when the
New World Frontier is breaching (opening wide open).
What is the literal definition of entropy? The literal definitions --
literal meanings -- of the words 'en' and 'trope'?
GLB
Williamknowsbest
All explorers brought gold back from the new world to the old world
and sought to become rich IN the old world, and failing that, rich IN
the new world.
There will be a two way flow. People into the solar system.
Material and great wealth to all - including Earth. This will have an
immediate and powerful impact on the geopolitical conditoin. Kennedy
saw it. No one else since that time has seen it. That's why he
wanted America to be first. Eisenhower saw in the Russian interest in
space - the potential of the US being tricked by the Russians to give
up their missile and nuclear secrets. Kennedy saw in the Russian
interest in space - the potential of the US being left behind as they
were totally outclasse by the Russians in a new and vital frontier.
Eisenhower's vision won out during the Nixon administration.
Kennedy's vision died with him.
Now, the facts are technical so they're easily appreciated. Their
meaning perhaps is not.
To use rockets to project payloads to the anti-podes requires a delta
vee after gravity and air drag losses of about 7 km/sec. Trip times
42 minutes
To fly the same payload subsonically by jet aircraft the same distance
takes more energy - due to gravity and air drag losses. Trip times
24 hours..
Using boron-protium ICF rockets to impart the same momentum reduces
costs by a factor of 100 dropping to a factor of 1000 over time - 42
minutes.
To float the same payload across the ocean by freighter the same
distance - reduces costs by a factor of 50 over that of aircraft.
Trip times 60 days.
Now consider that to bring payloads from Ceres or anywhere in the
asteroid belt to Earth's surface requires a delta vee of 5 km/sec.
HALF the energy it takes to boost it there by rocket..
Using ICF powered rockets - along minimum energy orbits Ceres is
closer to US Soil than Japan or China - possessing 10,000s of dwarf
planets - all of which are movable using ICF pulse units - trip times
18 months. (sailing ship periods) .
Using ICF powered rockets - at constant gee - Ceres is closer to the
US than China by air - trip times 3 days (steamship crossing times of
the Atlantic)
So, this gives us a rough idea of the economics and logistics of
building a society that spans the solar system.
Here's a business plan;
Recruit about 20,000 'scouts' to wrangle rich asteroidal fragments
into sun synch polar orbit, and erect tele-operated factories on their
surface once safely in a stabvle orbit. Then hire the 3.3 billion
poorest people on Earth to operate the telerobotic systems - after a
period of training using virtual software - and pay them with the
output of 3/4 of what they produce - keeping 1/4 for your trouble in
setting the system up. Arrange financial services and banking
software so that they all reitre in luxury - and have an inheritance
to give their kids by the time the releoperated robots are
autonomous. To avoid difficulty among the political regimes these 3.3
billion find themselves, build and deploy 'cloud nine' floating cities
- and supply them from space - and arrange deals with Indonesia
(12,000 islands similar to Hawaii- uninhabited) and Chile (a pacific
coastline as beautiful as any California coast - 4 times the size of
california - against a backdrop of mountains bigger than the rocky
mountains) to house a billion of the retirees - but with longevity
research success, and experience aboard the hot air cities - and deep
distrust of any terrestrial governments - many of the 3.3 billion
retirees - will elect to build their own space ranches - and live
their with their families. This will be the first mass exodus,
against which the 10 million early adopters already inhabiting the
solar system - will be as nothing - and this will set the stage for
much of the political wrangling in the 21st and 22nd century.
Williamknowsbest
Allocating $150,000 of that toward worker maintenance - which includes
pay, maintaining capital equipment and so forth (a non standard
accounting but useful in social planning) - this provides a tremendous
return - and you recapture this as you sell workers stuff that they're
building. The $50,000 per worker year goes in your pocket as creator
fo the system. So, there are 3.3 billion people available to work in
this system. So, that's $660 trillion of which $165 trillion goes in
your pocket.
Now, the world today produces about $70 trillion per year and about $3
trillion per year goes in the pockets of all the world's richest
people.
So, you can see we're talking HUGE transformative effects. The
opportunities created in space for the 9.5 million millionaires who
have $38 trilion fixe in liquid assets - far and away outclass
anything they might want to protect. Against this opportunity, the
2.1 billion working poor in the world, also gain by supporting this
system, even while older systems are displaced.
Why didn't the buggy whip manufacturers organize to stop the new
fangled horseless carriage? Well, some did! lol. But, their efforts
were a fools errand. In the end, the buggy whip manufacturers made
antennae and steering wheel covers - and made MORE money doing it than
they ever made in buggy whips.
Same here.
BradGuth
Technically with sufficient expertise and nearly unlimited terrestrial
resources, most anything become possible.
I didn't realize that Earth has had such a spare/surplus cache of
energy (say 5+ terawatts) to put into creating and sustaining your off-
world methods of resolving all future problems.
Of course with all of those Mook farms of those greatly improved PVs
doing their commercial hydrogen productions would more than
accommodate whatever clean and renewable energy demands of creating
and sustaining your off-world infrastructure, with terawatts of clean
energy to spare.
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.policy/browse_frm/thread/35fc406133c3ae2d?hl=en#
Not that all of William Mook is ‘off the hook’, just 95+% is sort of
off-world and otherwise downright spendy unless it’s war like paid for
by countless generations to come.
What we need is to focus our resident wizard Mook expertise on that
terrestrial 5% worth of his mindset that’s affordably within our
grasp.
The likes of Warren Buffett, GE and even Dubai are going big-time into
wind energy investments, not to mention the other significant half of
Europe that isn’t already doing those failsafe thorium reactors, and
then we always have those pesky Norwegian/Netherlands that never know
when to give up, and perhaps because it all represents by far the
greatest energy density per green tower footprint. Dubai and a few
other nations based almost entirely upon exporting and/or utilizing
fossil energy by the supertanker loads are more than ever getting down
to their spendy dregs of their soon to be dry wells, with few viable
options other than to go into renewable energy alternatives before
it’s too late.
I’d mopre than once suggested my tower footprint of composite energy
density at 40 kw/m2, with a future of 50 kw/m2 within our grasp. Of
course our resident energy wizard Mook and company could not only care
less, but chose to summarily topic/author stalk and bash at every
possible consideration, taking as much out-of-context and turning it
all around in order to suit whatever his all-knowing naysay mindset
could muster.
However, perhaps we should never fear but fear itself, as lord Mook is
more than all-knowing and apparently never makes a mistake, that is
unless it's the sneaky fault of some crazy Muslims or some other than
Semitic faith-based group pulling off another fast one on us, though
I’m still a little surprised that constructive contributions to this
and other topics hasn’t been Mook authenticated, by yet another one of
his do-everything or else manifestos.
Even if given a green light for his vast surface area of complex
mirror enhanced PVs consuming space and thus creating those somewhat
inefficient methods of accomplishing his low energy density footprints
on behalf of green hydrogen production is technically doable, that is
once given enough free land and reverse tax incentives so that it's
essentially public funded to start with.
BTW, I totally agree with the use of 3He(He3) in future space energy
demanding applications, although terrestrial thorium reactors are also
quite failsafe doable as is, as well as He3/fusion seems worthy.
Notions of our lord Mook “pushing present day technology in the near
term” is asking a bit too much of our bipolar energy wizard, as is
anything of China or India CATS somehow taboo or off-limits according
to the all-or-nothing mindset of Mook. Silly old me for thinking we
have an ongoing global energy crisis.
. – Brad Guth
Williamknowsbest
I say I am doing it and will continue to do it.
The first thing to realize is that the highest best use of low cost
hydrogen produced from ultra-low-cost solar panels in today's energy
economy is the production of hydro-carbon fuels.
See
for more info.
You have four immediate opportunities with hydrogen
1) inject it in 'empty' wells to mobilize additional production 800
bbl/ton
2) hydro-crack heavy oils to form lighter oils 200 bbl/ton
3) convert coal to light oils 70 bbl/ton
4) displace oil directly with hydrogen 23 bbl/ton
The figure of merit is barrels of oil you get per ton of hydrogen.
Multiply that figure by the current price of oil to get $/ton for the
hydrogen.
The first two make the existing energy economy more efficient. the
last two transition away from fossil fuels as you ascend the learning
curve and make hydrogen ever more efficiently.
Other processes are possible, and form some projects I'm sponsoring
with the technology. For example, taking methane and carbon dioxide
that both exist naturally in the Natuna gas fields and combine them to
make methanol and hence iso-octane using a little bit of hydrogen.
That's a special case though.
I am sponsoring eight projects around the world, 2 of them major coal
to oil projects overseas. I am selling commodities not capital, not
debt, not IP. That way I own about $200 billion of assets at the end
of the day when construction is complete in 3 to 5 years - depending
on when the project started.
This allows me over the next 4 years following to do about 40 coal-to-
liquid projects, similar to the first, each producing 200,000 b/d of
light oils from coal, sunlight and water. Each facility is worth $80
billion when in production at current prices. All together the 48
projects will produce about 12% of the world's oil output and I am the
world's first trillionaire. Steeply discounting the future value of
the planned production here, I'm worth a trillion dollars already! on
paper. (I have agreements for the use of the needed coal and land for
all the 42 ctl facilities)
So, that's a thumbnail of the next 10 years.
Technically, at each CTL facility I use 30,000 tons of coal per day
and 38,700 tons of water per day. From the water using 236.5 GWh of
solar electricity each day I produce 4,300 tons of hydrogen along
with 34,400 tons of oxygen. This is provided by 525 sq km of silicon
based solar panels built on spent and abandoned strip mines near the
operating mine and conversion site.
The collectors are arrayed into a spiral pattern forming a disc 26 km
across.
This means that all 42 ctl sites have a collector size totalling
22,000 sq km built on 22,000 sq km of abandoned mine sites throughout
the world.
.
The coal is hydrogenated in a Bergius reactor. This produces;
syncrude
methane
char
The syncrude is fractionated and you're done. The heavy stuff
remaining is hydrocracked and sent back through the fractional
distiller. The lighter stuff is sent back with moderately heavy stuff
to the reactor.
The methane is partially oxidized to form methanol and sent for
further processing
The char is partially oxidized to form carbon-monoxide. CO is
combined with additional hydrogen to form methanol which is processed
as described below.
Both methanol streams are dehydrated to form di-methyl-ether and
water. The water is recycled.
Di-methyl-ether is dehydrated along with a small amount of hydrogen to
form Butane.
Butane is polymerized to form iso-octane - the principal component of
premium gasoline.
The iso-octane is blended with the syncrude before fractionation.
In this way 220,000 bbls of liquid fuels are produced from coal water
and sunlight - from EACH facility.
The ash left behind after the char is converted has iron oxides
removed magnetically from it, and recharged with oxygen and recycled
in the Bergius reactor..
The tars and asphaltenes left behind in the fractioning process are
steam cleaned out of the stills weekly with automate equipment built
in and mixed with the ash to make about 4,000 tons per day of bitumen,
asphalt, and road building materials - worth about $180 per ton.
There are no emissions of anything that's not sold at any of the
facilities.
In this way I take coal purchased for $1 per ton, (buy the mine not
the coal) water costing $0.30 per ton, and sunlight - available free -
and convert it to fuels worth $800 per ton.
How the ownership of each facility is structured varies which varies
how the values of the facilities are realized. In the USA I own them
100% and own the retailing operations they supply. Converting an oil
retailer into an integrated domesticallly sourced oil company,
multiplying its stock value 30x or more.
Overseas, ownership and value creation occur by different routes
specific to each situation.
The ten years following is more interesting - but not before the back
channel of the previous 10 years is told.
In the first 10 years significant R&D money is being spent. Yet, the
solar panel technology is well developed after the previous 15 years
of effort extending all the way back to 1993. The chemical processes
are 100 years old - only the cost of hydrogen and oxygen along with
unique relationship with land owners and coal owners make oil for
$8.57 a barrel possible So, why waste money on R&D?
Because there's a radical breakout I want to orchestrate - and it
depends on space technology.
Solar panels already harvest energy from 93 million miles in space!
That's farther than the moon, or mars or venus or mercury or the dwarf
planets of the asteroid belt. So, terrestrial solar panels - plugged
into our existing energy economy in a way that makes a few bucks - is
the first step along the road to plugging our ENTIRE economy into
space.
So, R&D in space by my holding company makes sense in this context.
If you look at any balance sheet or income statement of any major US
based aerospace company, you will find a big gaping hole in such
statements. Companies like Boeing and Lockheed are making money hand
over fist selling airplanes, weapons systems, missiles, bombs computer
systems, financial services. They're losing money in one area. Take
a look at any aerospace companies cash flow and balance sheet and
you'll see they're losing money in space. Boeing last year took a
$1.7 billion hit on its association with United Space Alliance.
Lockheed ditto. United Technologies isn't making money in its space
sector. Accountants treat it as a loss leader to promote the skills
of the company. Others explain it as a part of one's national duty,
national service, pay back to the nation that gives the company so
much.
These stories make sense in good times. They do not play well in bad
times. I've owned Boeing stock since the 1990s. Since 1998 there has
been a strong and growing and vocal group that wants Boeing to get out
of the space business.
If any American company with a credible plan and pocketbook offered
anything to Boeing for those assets - they'd take it. They'd have
to. What's an additional $1.7 billion a year worth to the company?
Hell, they'd pay you if you could throw $10 billion in the kitty to
fund it for a decade so people would forget Boeing ever owned it!
lol. And the $10 billion set aside? You'd spend it on building up
the company. Its a win-win in anyone's book.
So, the cost of acquiring ALL the space faring assets developed by the
United States over the past 60 years would be basically 5 to 10 years
of future costs of existing space operations - which flow back to the
buyer, but get the current owners off the hook. Like I said, they'd
pay you a portion of that to get the space demon off their balance
sheets. They don't have to believe your bullshit. All they have to
do is believe you will manage it responsibly for 5 to 10 years out and
you have the money to carry the implied debt without disbanding it.
That's what the government will want too. Someone who will carry out
their programs at current costs for a period of time.
As the price of fuel rises, pressure will be put on airplane
manufacturers to sell non productive assets. The terms going forward
will get better and better for a company that is making fuel cost
effectively.
So, after the first TWO ctl plants - the one's I'm building now - I
organize my own aerospace company and seek to acquire all the money
losing space faring assets from the majors. I then build the multi-
element launcher system, along with the communications satellite
constellation already described. This alone generates $100 billion
per year in sales and sets the stage to add the following services
through the global network;
banking and financial services
trading and shipping services
telepresence and telerobotic services
These add another $1,000 billion per year or more to positive cash
flow, which supports additional research in space faring technology
and additional investments in space faring infrastructure.
In the meantime, I organize overseas operations to sell labor services
to drive the telerobots, current industry leaders to build the
telerobots, and work with all manufacturers word wide - to build
teleoperated factories in the US - to sell products in the US.
So,for example, say Toyota is getting hit hard by high oil prices.
Not only do people have less money to spend on operating their cars,
Toyota has to spend more money shipping cars and car parts around the
world. There's still a lot of steel in Michigan! There's still a
lot of coal in Wyoming! There's a lot of industrial space in
Detroit! So, why not organize folks in Indonesia say, to teleoperate
a factory,managed by American workers on site - to produce Toyotas in
Detroit? Why not continue building Fords in America with workers
from overseas managed by American workers on site? Its more cost
effective than shutting down the tooling building new tooling and
shipping cars to America.
In this way America's rust belt will be shiny and new again. Powered
by my solar derived fuel, churning out products in America at a cost
all Americans can afford. The unionized labor are paid more than ever
before, because they are producing more than ever before. In fact
workers in Indonesia and elsewhere, begin importing excess production
from America reversing our balance of trade - strengthening our
economy building our nation our world and our place in the world.
But that's just the first step.
The next step is orbiting power satellites - which I've described
elsewhere. High intensity PV devices operating in many parts of the
spectrum at once - generate electricity and drive free electron lasers
of very high efficiency. These lasers project beams of IR laser
energy at 1,100 nm wavelength, through holographic windows that direct
energy precisely safely and efficiently to any of the 42 ground
stations observable by the satellite - in response to a pilot beam
from each ground station. Only the 42 ground stations are illuminated
in this way.
Laser energy in the invisible infrared portion of the spectrum,
illuminates each solar arry with half the energy of the sun, yet
because this laser energy is precisely tuned to drive the silicon PV
cells - it produces 3x the amount of energy as sunlight. Furthermore,
it illuminates the panels for 5x the time in a year - so, over a
year,you get 15x as much energy from each site as you do with raw
sunlight.
What do you do with the excess?
That's right - make hydrogen with it.
The 30,000 tons of coal per day and 38,700 tons of water each day rise
to 100,000 tons of coal per day and 619,200 tons of water each day.
(the sites were chosen to their proximity to water as well as coal) -
and outputs increase from 200,000 bbls/da of oil to 700,000 bbl/da of
oil PLUS 53,700 tons of hydrogen. The hydrogen has a heat value of
1,236,250 barrels of oil.
So, I'll be producing 10 billion barrels of oil per year when the
power satellites are operational, along with hydrogen enough to
displace another 18.9 billion barrels of oil with pure hydrogen.
The coal fields are sized so that at 700,000 bbl/da - the coal field
is emptied in 17 years. This is the ideal field development time. At
that time, the stripped land (these are strip mines) is covered with
additional solar panels, and additional water is converted to hydrogen
and sold.
If you empty a coal field with a ctl plant in 1 year you overspend on
equipment. If you empty a coal field with a ctl plant in 100 years
you save on equipment, but you have lost the value of that last
dollar. By looking at your field and what you're doing - you can
estimate using calculus of variations the optimal plant size - and
given cost of capital optimal build out etc.
So, to recap...
The world burns
28.8 billion bbls of oil
5.5 billion tons of coal
1.1 billion tons of methane
each year to generate 15 trillion watts of power.
I build 42 ctl plants that produce 3.0 billion bbls of oil from coal
directly over the next 10 years using large solar collector arrays.
I next build 4,000 solar powersats that illuminate those solar
collector arrays with laser energy and expand the ctl plants to
produce 10 billion barrels of oil directly each year and the
equivalent of 18 billion barrels of hydrogen gas energy each year.
I use the oil output as a lever to keep downward pressure on liquid
fuels while Igrow the hydrogen market.
Simple.
Look at it this way.
A ton of coal has 23 GJ in it on average. A ton of hydrogen has 141.8
GJ. That's about 6.2 tons of coal in each ton of hydrogen. So, 887
million tons of hydrogen replaces all the coal use. A ton of
hydrogen is worth 2.55 tons of natural gas. So, another 431 million
tons of hydrogen replaces that.
The natural gas is easily converted to methanol which is converted to
8 billion barrels of iso-octane each year.
The coal is easily converted to 35 billion barrels of gasoline each
year by adding another 600 million tons of hydrogen.
After 2015-2020 time frame - outputs of all these primary fuels will
fall. Meanwhile demand grows 5% per year. There will be an 8% per
year growth in the shortfall. At that point oil - in the absence of
any other factor - will rise to $430 per barrel.
Yet here we have shown that by intelligent action we can reduce the
price of oil to $25 to $30 per barrel and sustain a rapidly growing
economy.
We can even predict the transition. In 2015 the natural demand for
energy without shortages would be around 37% higher than it is today.
This means that unconstrained by supply limits;
DEMAND in 2015
39.4 billion barrels of oil
7.5 billion tons of coal
1.5 billion tons of NG
PRODUCTION 2015
28.2 billion barrels oil
5.5 billion tons coal
1.0 billion tons NG
Which means that the coal fired facilities are burning 1.2 billion
tons of hydrogen, the natural gas burning facilities are burning 588
million tons of hydrogen.
At this time coal outputs will be about what they are today. Oil
outputs will drift down about 2% to 28.2 billion barrels and natural
gas output will drop by 10% to 1.0 billion tons per year. The coal
will be converted to 34.1 billon barrels of liquid fuels and the
natural gas to 7.3 billion barrels of liquid fuels -
Fast forward another 15 years - 2030 - and oil output has dropped 40%
from today's level Coal output has dropped 10% and natural gas has
dropped 60%
PRODUCTION 2030
17.3 billion barrels oil
5.0 billion tons coal
0.4 billion tons NG
DEMAND 2030
44.5 billion barrels oil
8.5 billion tons coal
1.7 billion tons NG
Here we start seeing the surpluses of the earlier analyses fall away.
At this point, hydrogen begins to dominate. At this point I sell off
all my oil producing assets and concentrate on hydrogen..
and other products
like beamed energy from space
and
other commodities from space - including food.
.
BradGuth
acres upon acres of such superior Mook PV arrays (w/o a cent of
public, DOE or Federal Reserve loot) is available when?
. - Brad Guth
You have my undivided support, even if it's only for moderating your
bipolar New World Order way of thinking.
The time to deliver Mook energy and green hydrogen fuel by the
thousands of tonnes per day is now, if not a decade ago.
. - BG
Williamknowsbest
efforts. Just let me emphasize that my comments about concentrating
photovoltaics resulted in the first CPV conference held by DOE NREL.
Sarah Kurtz, now head of CPV research for DOE NREL in Golden Colorado,
cut her Christmas vacation short some years ago to come out and look
at my prototypes at my machine shop! She offered me an SBIR grant
right then and there. I refused! We were spending what she offered
every month on R&D. We did work closely with them to find vendors,
qualified vendors, and do independent testing of my designs - no
charge. I thought that was nice. I was invited to the White House to
speak with OSTP about energy policy in both the Clinton and Bush
administrations. My efforts in part resulted in this adminstration
pushing oil to coal and I worked with the Air Force over the past four
years to establish FT-IPK standards for coal derived jet fuel. I have
been sent several RFQs and RFPs from the Defense Enersy Supply Center,
but they are far too small to fit in my business model (less than $5
million) - but I am working with a group there to arrange the forward
sale of 200 mllion gallons per month. This is a big deal for the
government, and well, they're working with me. Which says a lot. I'm
asking DOD to buy $21 billion worth of jet fuel from me, and asking
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to buy a similar amount of blended
syncrude from me - all on forward contracts. Again, they're meeting
with me and seriously considering these huge expenditures. Of course,
DOD and SPR are both spending huge amounts of money on oil - so, I'm
actually offering them a savings.
The point is, I am neither a government mole nor an outcast shunne by
the government. I'm a guy with a damned good idea for America, and
people who know,knowledgeable people, both at the R&D level, as well
as the operational level thorughout government that understand energy
- understand the value proposition I offer and are treating it
seriously, despite the fact that I'm a rank newbie. This makes be
believe strongly in America. It makes me feel proud to BE an
American, and I am certain of my ultimate success AS an American and I
work hard, as do millions of other Americans to make America better in
the future.
BradGuth
The do or die of technology derived energy future has come and gone as
of a good decade ago.
How many spendy and likely bloody decades of butt-sitting and of
business as usual plus phony WMD fiascoes do you think we have to
spare?
. - Brad Guth
Williamknowsbest
technology may be the result of a covert desire by the governments and
energy companies of this world to supress technology. While the
energy business is cut-throat and while our nation takes its position
in the world very seriously, I would just like to report that everyone
within government and outside of government I have met, and this
includes the boards of major energy companies as well as folks who
work at the White House, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill, all are
cognizant of the need for new low cost and abundant energy supplies
going forward. All I have met with are genuinely concerned about this
issue. All are willing to do what they can to do their part to
advance whatever technology is needed to resolve this issue.
Now one wonders about the lack of progress in light of this fact.
Well, when I go to work every day, its my job to make sure there is
progress in my programs and projects. I see progress. Those who do
not see progress do not know what's going on. Those think progress
should be more rapid, do not understand the difficulties involved in
actually carrying out projects of this type. If they have
constructive comments to make to accelerate progress that is not only
welcome, but could be very lucrative for them if it results in
practical improvements. If they see some vast conspiracy because they
cannot see the difference between seeing a problem and doing the work
necessary to resolve a problem, well, that's a problem they have and
their ravings are less than useless, they're downright destructive of
progress.
Williamknowsbest
entire villages in India for $1. They also said you could buy an acre
in Canada for $1. Such pricings if they exist in fact, do not affect
the price of real estate in Central Park or Tokyo. They do not affect
the price of farmland in Idaho, or in the wine growing regions of
France or California.
Similarly, the value of land created through technical means in the
right orbit, will have a tremendous value, greater than the value of
construction, if done efficiently, which will cause the market to
build it.
The important point is thet the assumption of economists since the
time of Ricardo is that they're not making any more land., Real
estate values are predicated on that maxim. So, actually building new
lands able to easily reach all markets and all buyers on Earth, is a
radical shift in the economics of land. Add to this the fact that as
we do a thing, we get better at it and do it more cheaply, land prices
on orbit will fall from their initial levels. This leads to a
different sort of analysis for rents and labor and income - and at a
very fundamental economic level, improves the prospects of the 3.3
billion unemployed and the 2.1 billion underemployed on this planet,
and gives us all hope that the faith and belief of our founding
fathers in the dignity of all peoples might someday be realized
through the prudent and careful use of technology to improve
everyone's lot in life without harming anyone or taking anything away
from anyone to do it.
The land mentione that was available at very low prices, land in those
regions nentioned, if it really is that price, there is likely a
reason for it if true.
If those who think $1 for a village in India is a good deal, or an
acre in Canada for $1 is a good deal, then I would urge them to take a
dollar of their own money and buy that property and learn about
comparative value in economics! lol.
If those who say such crazy things would be so bold with their money
as they are with my time and attention, and actually go out and do a
thing rather than talk about it, they'd find very quickly the reality
of a situation and perhaps not be so crazy and downright hurtful in
the future.
.
Williamknowsbest
a tenth of what they could. No clear explanation was given as to why.
I know I get up each morning seeking to do as much as I can. I know
everyone who works for me, does the same. When I drive to my office,
or my machine shop, or fly somewhere to meet a customer or a
colleague, I know I am surrounded by thousands of people, in cars,
walking on the street, at airports,rushing like mad to do as much as
they can for at least 8 and sometimes 12 or even 16 hours a day. A
very dear friend of mine is an ER Nurse at a hospital where I live.
We had a date. Usually, I'm the one who calls and cancels. I was to
pick her up after work. I parked, people rushing about. I walke into
the ER. Everybody doing as much as they can to help everyone who
walked or was brought through that door. She had a particularly
difficult case that day and was helping an elderly patient who she
didn't want to see in her words 'crump' - so, I waited quietly in a
corner while everyone did their job.
There's a process in ER work called Triage. They examine everyone the
moment they present themselves, and make a determination who needs
resources most. Then, take those who are in the greatest need back,
and leave those who are not in so great a need, waiting. This causes
geat anguish to those who are so worried about their status, and can't
see the pain and nees of others all around them. Many of those self
absorbed assholes have the temerity to badmouth the angels who are
helping everyone who presents themselves and loudly complain they are
being mistreated and spout theories that reflect more on their mental
condition than their medical one. My friend has a special treatment
for them, we she gets to them. She's very nice to them, and as she
takes care of that person she apologizes for the delay and make sure
the complainer sees all the 'train wrecks' as she calls them, and
'sifficult cases' that came through before them - even if they died.
That pretty much shuts them up.
I really respect everyone who is in that sort of profession. They're
not there for the money. They're there because they care about people
and know that if they weren't there, somone may not get the quality of
attention they need. I know I couldn't do that sort of work.
But, ALL of life is filled with struggle and strife, and we all work
together doing as much as we can as best we can for ourselves, our
families and each other. Somone who doesn't see that, must not get
out in the world, and likely has never done a good deed or a worthy
thing for another. Which is just too damned bad. The world needs as
much help as it can get.
Williamknowsbest
scientific research that shows cow poo will save humanity and resolve
our energy problems. Of course this same person never provided one
scintilla of evidence that what they said was true, nor did they
explain how the world's 1.5 billion cows can produce more than 12
gallons of waste a day or how that waste can have more heat value than
cow poo has ever had.
While it may make sense for a subsistence farmer to take the cow poo
that dries around his cow and use it to build a camfire - it makes
precious little sense to use cow poo as an energy source in the modern
world. At best it contributes one peaking plant's worth of energy to
our energy total. At worst, due to the cost and logistics of
arranging to recover all that poo - its an energy sink. In fact, when
you subtract out all the energy costs of feeding the cow, you find
that you're better off and using the manure as fertilizer for cow
feed. And that in fact is what most farmers do.
So, to those who say cow poo is a vast untapped energy resource for
humanity, I say go for it! Make energy and sell it. If we're wrong
you'll get rich. I suspect rather than muck around in all the manure,
you'll just sit on your ass and keep ranting.
In that case, we'll have our answer won't we?
Williamknowsbest
put up materiel into orbit for $150,000 per ton. Chinese launchers
sell for about 70% of what an Ariane or Atlas commercial launch
costs. This is about 100x more expensive than the number cited.
That's because everyone in the commercial launch business, uses ICBMs
adapted to space launch. Furthermore, no one knows the true costs of
those systems day to day, since very government subidizes the
commercial side. Teledesic found out this unfortunate fact when they
tried to get Boeing and others to sell them 100 launches. The price
went up, not down - and their grand plan stalled. It stalled further
when they found that the space business wouldn't respond to get their
constellation up quickly. Any successful business is built upon
efficient use of time and money. The people who make strategic
weapons available for the occasional commercial launch have other fish
to fry the commercial applications are an after thought. Even those
whose primary business is commercial launch vehicles - people like
Arianespace - approach the market a certain way, and do not change
that approach even in the face of huge opportunities. Why? Because
change is costly and the benefit might not be worth the cost, once
risk factos are taken into account. Even as commercially driven
entity as Arianespace costs billions of euros a year - and one does
not throw away 5 or 10 billion euros lightly.
No commercial space launch provider sends payloads beyond GEO., No
commercial space launch provider sends payloads into space for less
than millions of dollars per ton. This will not always be the case.
But it is the case today.
I have owned a company since 1996 that has been a certified space
launch provider. Orbatek. With that company I have explored several
opportunities that have presented themselves in this business. My
feeling after more than a decade of effort, is that if anyone wants to
make major changes in the way space is done, on a commercial level,
they need to have deep pockets and take major risks, and assure all
the stake holders in this business, that they will not create problems
going forward.
This is a tough and complicated job. Made even more complicated by
the technical difficulties involved. Its the sort of job I happen to
like.
That job not made any easier by the rantings of lunatics that say all
I need to do is hire the Chinese! lol. A person who says something
like that is truly clueless.
Boeing lost $1.8 billion last year in their space operationos
supporting NASA. Lockheed a similar amount. United Technologies, a
lesser amount, but still a loss. Every major aerospace firm dealing
with space launch, is losing money in space launch. This does not
make for a good investment environment.
Also, space launch and the technology that supports it, is highly
regulated, and supremely important in the defense of this nation.
This is not conducive to rapid and unpredictable change. There are a
lot of stakeholders who have to be brought along.
These are the challenges to making real and lasting change in the way
we do space in the world. The technology in many ways is secondary to
the finance model and business model, and political model you are
using.
The good news is that anyone who has $10 to $12 billion and a sound
plan of succession and a strong relationship with people in
Washington, could acquire about $200 billion worth of assets.
i have outlined a program that would spend about $60 billion putting
up a constellation of satellites after building a fully reusable heavy
lift launcher. That constellation of satellites would earn $100
billion per year. Rather than charge per launch, I plan to have the
launch provider charge a piece of the action. One of the guys who is
working throgh some of the software problems related to using this
network for a virtual cell phone service wanted to call the dialing
interface oxmix. haha..
anyway, this is a sound program, and positions us well to cnosider
seriously power satellites that have the potential to earn even more
revenue.
as revenue sources build, the need for government subsidy wanes - and
a new era of growth and opportunity emerge.
that's what I see. and its a good thing.
Williamknowsbest
will cost $25,000 per kg. While this reflects the current cost of
placing payloads on orbit rom Earth using expendable chemical rockets,
it does not reflect the cost of my system. Why? Because I'm not
using expendable chemical rockets.
I am using reusable nuclear pulse rockets that fuse boron and hydrogen
to produce a rocket of tremendous capability. Basically you blow up
a tiny nuclear charge behind the rocket, and ride the plasma wave
that's created. then do it again and again. about 1 time every
second. or with very tiny charges, up to 100 or even 1000 times per
second.
These charges use borane fusion for their power. No radioactive
debris whatever. Not only can you fly ships to the Asteroids in a
matter of days using these pulse units. You can also use the plasma
wave to push asteroid s around. People have spoken for years about
deflecting asteroids from collision with EArth. Well, you can use the
same technology to bring small fragments back into a safe stable orbit
around Earth, and then use these high peformance rockets to bring up
teleoperated robots - that process the asteroid into mines factories
farms and even forests in space - all at very very low cost. Lower
cost than you can do the same thing on Earth.
there are two things that are important about rockets. how fast they
go, and how much they lift. how fast a rocket goes is computed by the
rocket equation.
Vf = Ve*LN(1/(1-u))
where Vf = final speed of the rocket
Ve = the speed of the exhaust products coming out of the
rocket
LN(=natural log function
u = propellant fraction - dimensionless.
So, if your propellant fraction is 68% say - then,
Vf = Ve * LN(1/(1-.68)) = Ve * 1.134
Which means the rocket can go 1.134 times as fast as its exhaust.
The best chemical rockets have Ve=4.5 km/sec
The best nuclear thermal rockets have Ve=10.0 km/sec
no nuclear thermal rockets have ever been flown
Early designs for nuclear pulse rockets have ve=25.0 km/sec
no nuclear pulse rockets have ever been flown.
Advanced designs for nuclear pulse rockets have ve=6,000 km/sec and
more.
These are truly monumental improvements.
The lifting capacity of a rocket is given by the following equation;
F = mdot * Ve
here the thrust (F) in Newtons is given by the mass flow rate (mdot)
in kg/sec times the exhaust velocity in meters per second.
high speed rockets are also powerful rockets!
Today the cost of rocket travel is a function of the cost of building
the rockets, because we need really large propellant fractions. that
means we build rockets in stages. Which means we throw away all those
stages and only get the payload back.
How expensive would an airplane ticket be and how popular would air
travel be if the airplane crashed after every flight after people
jumpe out with a parachute at their destination?
Not very . The key is reusability at reasonable costs.
This means getting clever with our stage design - if you're building a
chemical rocket.
A nuclear pulse rocket allows improved engine perofrmance which means
less propellant fraction, which means greater reusability - nothing
thrown away.
A careful analysis of chemical rocket technology indicates that
$150,000 per ton is achievable when launching from Earth, and $30,000
per ton is achievable when bringing material back from the asteroid
belt - once you make fuel on an asteroid from water found there..
A careful analysis of nuclear pulse rocket technology indicates that
$300 per ton is achieveable when launching from Earth, and $100 per
ton is achievable when bringing material back from the asteroid belt -
even if you mine the boron you need on Earth.
$100 per ton - means the 2 kg per day that the average American
consumes by way of food, costs an average of $0.20 - well within the
capacity of even the poorest of Earth (who makeabout $2.00 per day) to
afford.
This changes everything.
.
BradGuth
Not one honest soul, including myself, is insisting that Mook produce
from LEO is not technically doable.
However, for all the best known methods of getting the bulk tonnage of
good old water into spece, much of which needed for the transparent
shell of whatever LEO greenhouse shielding against cosmic, moon and
solar radiation of the bad kind isn't going to get into LEO at 10 fold
the $100/tonne cost that you've suggested, not to mention there's no
such nuclear impulse method of LEO deployment other than what's within
that all-knowing Mook head of yours.
Of course, since you claim being fully independent funded and not
willing to accept even public matching loot, be our guest and grow as
much LEO pot and whatever other cash-crops as you like.
Perhaps the way things are going down on Earth, with fuel, food,
housing , education and medical care following the same artificially
inflationary trail of ENRON energy cost gouging, that's going postal
through the roof, whereas such perhaps whatever the cost per kg of
delivered food from Mook's LEO greenhouses is not a problem, at least
not for the rich and powerful that can afford to dine via crane
supported platform at $1636 + tip (makes it an even $2000 per lofty
meal).
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
> Some have pointed out without documentation whatever, that you can buy
> entire villages in India for $1. They also said you could buy an acre
> in Canada for $1. Such pricings if they exist in fact, do not affect
> the price of real estate in Central Park or Tokyo. They do not affect
> the price of farmland in Idaho, or in the wine growing regions of
> France or California.
At this point, it seems your bipolar medication hasn't quite kicked
in, has it.
I'd said something like $1/acre/year for India, and perhaps $10/acre/
year from northern Canada.
You really need to wait until that medication kicks in before going
Mook postal.
. - Brad Guth
Williamknowsbest
flying a synchrounous polar orbital track.
Here are the dosage levels for deep space
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/images/figII-2.GIF
here's the dosage due to solar flares
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/images/figII-3.GIF
One of the reasons I have elected to use this in my design is because
it is near the Earth, beneath the van Allen radiation belt. This
combined with the mass of the stations themselves reduce radiation to
Earth normal levels.
Here is the NASA Ames study on human babitation in space.
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/II-1.html
It shows that 5 REM per year is acceptable. That is the limit for
radiation workers. The study also shows that in deep space 280 grams
per square cm of habitat surface is needed for sheilding in deep space
to keep radiation levels down to 5 REM per year.
Most crops are grown in 100 days or less. Most animals grow to
maturity and slaughter in less than 3 years. Some less than 1 year.
Reproduction and gestation of these animals can occur in sheltered
environments - storm cellars - that mainain genetic vitality of the
reproductive members while the non-reproductive members fatten in 5
REM per year climates. .
This is deep space.
Near Earth space is far less energetic. Especially under the van
Allen radiation sheild. That's why I know I can cut total habitat
mass considerably by choosing the right orbit.
.
BradGuth
> Some have worried about the level of radiation in Medium Earth Orbit -
> flying a synchrounous polar orbital track.
>
> Here are the dosage levels for deep space
>
>
> here's the dosage due to solar flares
>
>
> One of the reasons I have elected to use this in my design is because
> it is near the Earth, beneath the van Allen radiation belt. This
> combined with the mass of the stations themselves reduce radiation to
> Earth normal levels.
>
> Here is the NASA Ames study on human babitation in space.
>
>
> It shows that 5 REM per year is acceptable. That is the limit for
> radiation workers. The study also shows that in deep space 280 grams
> per square cm of habitat surface is needed for sheilding in deep space
> to keep radiation levels down to 5 REM per year.
>
> Most crops are grown in 100 days or less. Most animals grow to
> maturity and slaughter in less than 3 years. Some less than 1 year.
> Reproduction and gestation of these animals can occur in sheltered
> environments - storm cellars - that mainain genetic vitality of the
> reproductive members while the non-reproductive members fatten in 5
> REM per year climates. .
>
> This is deep space.
>
> Near Earth space is far less energetic. Especially under the van
> Allen radiation sheild. That's why I know I can cut total habitat
> mass considerably by choosing the right orbit.
> .
Whatever you do, don't go anywhere near the expanding an deepening
SAA, because it's a real killer.
BTW, Raytheron TRW Space Data report has the GSO environment at a warm
and fuzzy 2e3 SV/year (that's only 200,000 rad/yr), and thank God or
your lucky stars, that's while fully shielded by merely 5/16"
aluminum, and at that only having to survive one halo CME.
Got rad-hard DNA ?
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
> On May 1, 6:20 am, Williamknowsbest <William.M...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Some have worried about the level of radiation in Medium Earth Orbit -
> > flying a synchrounous polar orbital track.
>
> > Here are the dosage levels for deep space
>
> >http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/imag...
>
> > here's the dosage due to solar flares
>
> >http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/imag...
>
> > One of the reasons I have elected to use this in my design is because
> > it is near the Earth, beneath the van Allen radiation belt. This
> > combined with the mass of the stations themselves reduce radiation to
> > Earth normal levels.
You've got yourself 10+ tonnes/m2 planned into those LEO greenhouse
environments? (I'm impressed)
>
> > Here is the NASA Ames study on human babitation in space.
>
> >http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/spaceres/II-1...
>
> > It shows that 5 REM per year is acceptable. That is the limit for
> > radiation workers. The study also shows that in deep space 280 grams
> > per square cm of habitat surface is needed for sheilding in deep space
> > to keep radiation levels down to 5 REM per year.
>
> > Most crops are grown in 100 days or less. Most animals grow to
> > maturity and slaughter in less than 3 years. Some less than 1 year.
> > Reproduction and gestation of these animals can occur in sheltered
> > environments - storm cellars - that mainain genetic vitality of the
> > reproductive members while the non-reproductive members fatten in 5
> > REM per year climates. .
>
> > This is deep space.
>
> > Near Earth space is far less energetic. Especially under the van
> > Allen radiation sheild. That's why I know I can cut total habitat
> > mass considerably by choosing the right orbit.
> > .
>
> Whatever you do, don't go anywhere near the expanding an deepening
> SAA, because it's a real killer.
>
> BTW, Raytheron TRW Space Data report has the GSO environment at a warm
> and fuzzy 2e3 SV/year (that's only 200,000 rad/yr), and thank God or
> your lucky stars, that's while fully shielded by merely 5/16"
> aluminum, and at that only having to survive one halo CME.
>
Mook got rad-hard DNA ?
. - Brad Guth
Williamknowsbest
sometimes seen in single events at specific regions of high intensity
and mis represented them as a typical environment my systems will be
flying in.
They have also quoted extraordinarly high masses for sheilding
implying they'd be needed routinely. Figures that are higher than the
masses of materials that sheild the Earth! lol. Merely because they
appear in a chart.
The true situation is more complex, and less threatening than this
rather naive and foolish interpretation would have us believe.
Here are two good sources for valid information
http://www.eas.asu.edu/~holbert/eee460/spacerad.html
http://radhome.gsfc.nasa.gov/radhome/environ.htm
A low altitude sun synchronous polar orbit, is not to be confused with
a geo-synchronous orbit - which is quite different despite both having
the word 'synchronous' in their names. One synchronizes with the
sun's motion through space. The other synchronises with the Earth's
motion. One keeps the same relationship to the sun always, while
overflying the entire Earth twice a day, while the other keeps the
same relationship to the Earth always, while the Sun buzzes around the
sky the satellite sees.
Precise radiation data for the polar orbital environment is known due
to the great work of National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/NOAA/noaa_poes.html
I stand by my figures - of 53,000 tons per sq km of growing area and
Earth normal radiation levels within.
Williamknowsbest
land in one part of the world adversely affects the value of high cost
land in another part of the world. To anyone who maintains such
foolish beliefs I would urge them to go to Manhattan, get an interview
with a major land owner there, and lean forward and put forth a formal
offer for an acre of land along Park Avenue, for $100 - with the $100
bill paper clipped to the offer explaining that since you can buy an
acre of land just 300 miles North in Canada for $1 - have an appendix
detailing that assertion - this $100 is a reasonable and in fact
lucrative offer. Then see what happens!
I would say he'd keep the $100 for his troubles, and kick your ass out
of the office!
Land's created on orbit only need sell for more than it costs to make
them. Even if that price is higher than some other land prices.
Land's used on orbit only need create more value for a given
investment than other investments to attract investment. Even if you
can invest less elsewhere somewhere else.
For example, if it costs $50,000 per acre to build a space farm, and
it sells for $200,000 per acre, then space farms will be built.
For example, if an acre in space is 40x more productive than farmland
in Southern California, and land in Southern California sells for
$30,000 per acre, then $200,000 per acre in space is a bargain since
its equal to 40 x $30,000 or $600,000 per acre.
The presence of land in Idaho for $3,600 per acre doesn't change this
analysis - or the ability for this business model to attract
investors.
BradGuth
Anything lord Mook has to say, is apparently good enough to put his
LEO affordable food on our table by the year 3000. Gee, can't wait.
It's all so simple and clear cut, isn't it Willie. We'll do most of
everything necessary to survive upon Earth by way of going off-world.
Of course, by the year 3000 it'll likely cost a million bucks just to
buy a HAPPY MEAL, made primarily from jellyfish because that's about
all that'll survive in the mostly dead-zone populated oceans.
We assume you're going to accomplish fish farming in LEO. Isn't that
right?
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
> Some have quoted extraordinarily high levels of radiation that are
> sometimes seen in single events at specific regions of high intensity
> and mis represented them as a typical environment my systems will be
> flying in.
>
> They have also quoted extraordinarly high masses for sheilding
> implying they'd be needed routinely. Figures that are higher than the
> masses of materials that sheild the Earth! lol. Merely because they
> appear in a chart.
>
> The true situation is more complex, and less threatening than this
> rather naive and foolish interpretation would have us believe.
>
> Here are two good sources for valid information
>
>
> A low altitude sun synchronous polar orbit, is not to be confused with
> a geo-synchronous orbit - which is quite different despite both having
> the word 'synchronous' in their names. One synchronizes with the
> sun's motion through space. The other synchronises with the Earth's
> motion. One keeps the same relationship to the sun always, while
> overflying the entire Earth twice a day, while the other keeps the
> same relationship to the Earth always, while the Sun buzzes around the
> sky the satellite sees.
>
> Precise radiation data for the polar orbital environment is known due
> to the great work of National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration
>
> http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/NOAA/noaa_poes.html
>
> I stand by my figures - of 53,000 tons per sq km of growing area and
> Earth normal radiation levels within.
Earth has a relatively low density and thus effective radiation shield
of 10 tonnes/m2, and but sadly this thin and somewhat polluted
atmosphere is not quite sufficient for protecting our frail DNA,
especially with our magnetosphere failing us by -.05%/year.
Some day you will never understand.
. - Brad Guth
Williamknowsbest
I suggest your irritation in this case is your choice? There is a
little thing called reality and well, knowledge of it is open to
anyone who cares to look at it.
There was also some mention of fish farming in space. A layer of
water only 1 meter deep masses about 1 metric ton per square meter - a
little heavier - 3.5% heavier to be exact- if you're mimicing the
oceans. So, 1 sq km of a 1 m deep pond would mass over 1 million
metric tons. A little less than 200x as massive as the 53,000 tonnes
per sq km I've quoted before.
So, is fish farming out?
No!
Because the productivity of these fish farms however are tremendous!
http://nsgd.gso.uri.edu/vsgcp/vsgcpc98001/vsgcpc98001_part5.pdf
Cornnell produces 220 metric tons per year from 60 metric tons of
water! .The average American consumes less than 7 kg of fish per
year, so over 31,000 people's nee for fish may be supplied by 60,000
kg of water. 2 kg of water per person. At $100 per ton that's less
than 1/5th cent capital cost. The major cost is the 7 kg of fish -
which requires about 10 kg of inputs - and that costs $0.01 per person
per YEAR - for fish!
Of course, those who can pay, will pay about half what they pay now.
Those who cannot pay, will eat free. If the bulk of the surplus goes
to the governments of the world, we can eliminate taxes.
It is very interesting that those who urge that money be spent to send
to the moon robots that don't exist, to build tethers that can't exist
out of materials that don't exist (unobtainium) for no real defineable
purpose - would simultaneously object to someone who proposes that
private capital be used to feed everyone on Earth to earn a reasonable
profit and reduce crime, turmoil, and taxes.
Ah well, it takes all kinds doesn't it?
BradGuth
Are you the new BD poster boy for Pfizer?
. - Brad Guth
Willie...@gmail.com
Aerogels are an interesting materials with which to make things.
Alumina aerogels, silica aerogels and carbon nanotube aerogels are
extremely lightweight, highly insulating, transparent in most
instances, and very strong in compression. Sandwiched between
materials strong in tension, aerogels make a very low mass high
strength structure.
Using a vacuum method to create aerogel structures in zero-gee
environment can be very efficient in use of materials, and energy, and
produce very large, very strong, and very lightweight structures with
very little effort or materials. That is, the triangular windows and
structures, and acceleration cylinder described in the original post
could be done with aerogels with far less structural mass than the
original Ames studies upon which my estimates were originally made.
That is, instead of 53,000 tons per square kilometer, it may be
possible to build something less than 1,000 tons per square
kilometer.
Aerostat cities as well could easily be made of aerogels far more
lightly - but stronger than - the aerostat structures envisioned by
Buckminster Fuller in 1967 - over 40 years ago.