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Colony Economics and Construction |
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Now that it's established that if we were able to build a colony, it would positively serve humanity,
the next step is finding out wether it's possible to build such a colony, and, if so, how to do it.
The first problem encountered is of course money. To build a lunar colony you need a lot of it, and it has to be paid back eventually.
Therefore, a lunar colony will only be built if it can produce economically interesting goods.
Multiple theories on this problem exist, we give you two here: |  |
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PERMANENT assumes a situation in which there are one or more orbital factories in orbit around the moon,
which are supplied by the lunar colony. The colony will collect raw materials and send them in raw or semi-processed
form to the orbital factories, which will further process the materials and send them back to Earth. Assuming that this process
is cost effective, this would allow the loans to be repaid and would create a cost effective lunar and orbital colony. |
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Students at the Genesis Project assume that Helium-3 can be mined on the moon and can be sent back to Earth,
where it will be used to produce energy (in a process called nuclear fusion). Such a process would produce vast
amounts of energy and would be very cost effective. Again, this would enable the repayment of the loans.
Whether these methods and situations are technologically feasible is up to you to decide.
The next step is the construction of the lunar colony. Since there isn't a definite plan for a lunar colony yet,
and there are a great number of theories on the construction of a lunar base, it is difficult to point out exactly which theory is best.
Here, we'll give you a few of these theories, it's up to you to decide wether they are realistic and which one is best.
The PERMANENT lunar base, which supplies factories in orbit with raw and semi-processed materials,
is built using mostly materials from the moon itself. This will of course decrease costs needed for Earth-Moon transportation.
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The PERMANENT base being purely an industrial structure, the facilities are mostly designed only to make the industrial
process as cost effective as possible. The base will consist of a landing/launch pad for the transportation of raw materials
into orbit as well as Earth-Moon transportation. The energy needed in the industrial process is produced by a power plant,
probably a solar cell array during daytime and a nuclear plant during nighttime. If something breaks down,
there will be a spare parts and maintenance garage at the base. Furthermore, there will be a central control and communications center,
housing for the base population and of course life support. |  |
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The Genesis Project has an entirely different point of view. The Genesis lunar base will be a "real" colony,
in which colonists will not only attempt to make a profit by mining valuables, but also conduct research on the moon
and make attempts to further colonize the moon by building additional lunar bases. It's clear that Genesis colonists won't be
bored once the base is completed: A relatively large portion of the base is dedicated to the storage of CD's,
on which there will be enormous amounts of entertainment, fiction and non-fiction books, music and so forth.
This will enable the colonists to also take up a hobby or, for example, learn a second language.
Furthermore, there are several obvious colony facilities: Medical facility, storage room, briefing room,
living quarters and a lounge. The life support consists of a facility for atmospheric recirculation and a facility for
agriculture and water purification. |
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Space Tourism
Space tourism can be considered a form of colonization. After all, you're building a hotel and accomodations in space
and maybe even on the moon. How realistic is space tourism, really? The answer is: More realistic than you think.
According to market research, there is an enormous amount of interest in space tourism.
Most people really want to go in orbit and experience both the tremendous view and the Zero-G environment.
The amount of interest is comparable to aviation during WWII: A lot of people wanted to make a flight,
but thought they would never get the chance. Now, 50 years later, aviation industry is huge,
with 1 billion passengers per year, and is still growing. Who knows how large the space tourism industry will be in 50 years...
For space development itself, space tourism is a great asset. Right now, the only income generated by space agencies
comes from commercial satellite launches. The development of the space tourism industry would mean an additional
profitable enterprise, much more so than satellite launches. This financial aspect also brings along perhaps the
greatest objection to space tourism: It'll be too expensive! Projections by Space Future,
an organisation that promotes space tourism, indicate that there will be three phases in the development of space tourism:
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- The Pioneering phase. In this phase there will be between hundreds and thousands of passengers per year, with high tickets prices ($50,000). The hotel accomodations will be safe but "spartan".
- The Mature phase. In this phase there will be hundreds of thousands of passengers per year, with lower ticket prices and better and improved accomodations, such as orbital entertainment.
- The Mass phase. In this phase there will be millions of passengers, with ticket prices of a few thousand dollars. Millions of passengers seems a lot, but not if you compare it to the 1 billion passengers per year transported by the aviation industry.
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Read more about space tourism
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