Whether it’s economically a good idea, I don’t think it is, at least not right now. People want to do it primarily because it’s cool, not because it’s useful. (There’s also the cynical view that Elon is hyping it up in order to induce demand for his own company, which seems plausible to me given that his arguments about X-risk are so transparently wrong and he’s even admitted as much in the past.)
However, once the first settlements are established and the sunk costs have already been paid, it will be much easier to make them an economic positive. It’s also possible that we get a space race 2.0, as other superpowers like China become concerned about the US establishing a dominant interplanetary presence and try to create their own.
When I talked about the economic incentive, I was mostly asking about what is the economic incentive long-term? What can be done in space cheaper than on Earth ?
Mining seems much more complicated than on Earth, due to lack of water, and the fact that minerals are not being very concentrated, which makes it much more expensive to extract than on Earth.
Interplanetary presence might be more plausible if there’s another space race.
A location doesn’t need to be “better” for it to contribute to the economy. Some countries are almost strictly worse than others in terms of natural resources and climate for living and growing things, but people still live there.
If you’re doing a comparison with anywhere on Earth, the obvious one would be Antarctica. There absolutely are permanent settlements there even though it’s barely livable, but really only for relatively short term visitors to do scientific research and/or enjoy the experience of being one of the few people to travel there. It absolutely isn’t a functioning economy that runs at a profit. (Some places inside the Arctic Circle, maybe, but that wouldn’t be the case if shipping the exploitable resources back to somewhere that felt more like home cost spaceflight prices per kg). The profitable segment of space is the orbital plane around earth, ideally without the complications of people in the equation, and that’s what SpaceX has actually spent the last decade focused on.
Antartica is also an interesting comparison point for the social and legal systems since it’s also small numbers of people from different missions living on extraterritorial land. I mean, they’re not really particularly well sorted out, it just turns out they involve far too few people and far too little competition to be particularly problematic.
Yes, but transport on Earth is mostly cheap, which cancels out a lot of the natural inequalities in geography. Meanwhile, transport to Mars would be super costly.
I think a significant difference with current countries is that having an additional person on Mars would be incredibly expensive compared to living on Earth—in terms of rocket, fuel, shipping stuff from Earth, getting additional supplies, getting super high-tech materials and minerals for maintenance…
Whether it’s economically a good idea, I don’t think it is, at least not right now. People want to do it primarily because it’s cool, not because it’s useful. (There’s also the cynical view that Elon is hyping it up in order to induce demand for his own company, which seems plausible to me given that his arguments about X-risk are so transparently wrong and he’s even admitted as much in the past.)
However, once the first settlements are established and the sunk costs have already been paid, it will be much easier to make them an economic positive. It’s also possible that we get a space race 2.0, as other superpowers like China become concerned about the US establishing a dominant interplanetary presence and try to create their own.
When I talked about the economic incentive, I was mostly asking about what is the economic incentive long-term? What can be done in space cheaper than on Earth ?
Mining seems much more complicated than on Earth, due to lack of water, and the fact that minerals are not being very concentrated, which makes it much more expensive to extract than on Earth.
Interplanetary presence might be more plausible if there’s another space race.
A location doesn’t need to be “better” for it to contribute to the economy. Some countries are almost strictly worse than others in terms of natural resources and climate for living and growing things, but people still live there.
If you’re doing a comparison with anywhere on Earth, the obvious one would be Antarctica. There absolutely are permanent settlements there even though it’s barely livable, but really only for relatively short term visitors to do scientific research and/or enjoy the experience of being one of the few people to travel there. It absolutely isn’t a functioning economy that runs at a profit. (Some places inside the Arctic Circle, maybe, but that wouldn’t be the case if shipping the exploitable resources back to somewhere that felt more like home cost spaceflight prices per kg). The profitable segment of space is the orbital plane around earth, ideally without the complications of people in the equation, and that’s what SpaceX has actually spent the last decade focused on.
Antartica is also an interesting comparison point for the social and legal systems since it’s also small numbers of people from different missions living on extraterritorial land. I mean, they’re not really particularly well sorted out, it just turns out they involve far too few people and far too little competition to be particularly problematic.
Yes, but transport on Earth is mostly cheap, which cancels out a lot of the natural inequalities in geography. Meanwhile, transport to Mars would be super costly.
I think a significant difference with current countries is that having an additional person on Mars would be incredibly expensive compared to living on Earth—in terms of rocket, fuel, shipping stuff from Earth, getting additional supplies, getting super high-tech materials and minerals for maintenance…