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Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 1:40 am
by kunkmiester
With Musk’s recent releases we are ending up in some interesting circumstances. The development of the infrastructure is coming to the point where it's not a matter if, it's a matter of when. That when is becoming more accurate too, with the 2040s dates looking likely short of nuclear war or some such.

With 20 to 30 years to go, we are at an interesting financial situation too. Most people with a larger paycheck capable of managing their money well could have the 500,000 dollars Musk is looking at as the price of immigration by the time the rockets make their first flights. A lot of others could have enough to make “steerage” tickets an attractive offering. Put simply, now is a good time to charter a colony company.

This round of colonization will have little in common with past efforts however. For one, the trip will almost definitely be one way, and unlike Virginian tobacco or West Indies sugar, there is basically nothing to ship back, which means the sole purpose of the colony is settlement. The only money the domestic branch can expect is that raised by colonists.

There are three basic purposes for a colony company at this point. First is the money. Half a million is a lot, and with judicious management can pull well above its weight. If you have at least 100 colonists, that's 50 million. While most will be held in escrow for later use, some will be used as a slush fund to invest in technologies that still need to be developed and thus advance the goal of setting up the colony.

The company maintains the charter. Some of the political divides in this country are as bad as or worse than the religious divides from the 1500s and 1600s that led to a lot of the initial colonization of the Americas. People of lime mind will flock together and the company will draw them together for unity. The companies would also serve as a point of contact and reassurance through legal questions of colonization that are just starting to crop up. Some of it is absurd, but lobbying and public relations are important.

Plenty to discuss, but let's start now. You don't even need money yet-- just start a free internet forum to get your crew together and start talking. When we have groups with money to drop, things will get sporty.

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 4:29 am
by williatw
kunkmiester wrote:This round of colonization will have little in common with past efforts however. For one, the trip will almost definitely be one way, and unlike Virginian tobacco or West Indies sugar, there is basically nothing to ship back, which means the sole purpose of the colony is settlement. The only money the domestic branch can expect is that raised by colonists.
Except for one potential "product"; more like a service a private independent politically & legally from earth entity can only provide:


The "Bank of Mars" of course:


Mars Colony financing


viewtopic.php?t=3383&highlight=

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 5:44 pm
by hanelyp
A question I've asked before, what use is an independent Bank of Mars if Earthside would be business partners are prohibited from doing business with it? Or killed by punitive tariffs?

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:01 pm
by williatw
hanelyp wrote:A question I've asked before, what use is an independent Bank of Mars if Earthside would be business partners are prohibited from doing business with it? Or killed by punitive tariffs?
No good...if the tariffs/injunctions against doing business were truly global in scope; not just the US. Also if there really were 100's of billions or trillions of dollars invested in the mars colony at some point (officially the "investments" would be called money donated to the mars colony) many countries would likely decide they couldn't afford not to do business with them. That is allot of potential investment dollars you would be passing on; to say nothing of all the supplies/equipment the now expanding colony would be importing from earth. The mars colony lets you make donations to them it is just that you are allowed to withdraw said donations; whatever "interest" you allegedly have earned would be confidential between you and the colony (no. of shares you have, share price). And of course the bank of mars would have lobbyists back on earth arguing for their economic/political freedom.

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 11:22 am
by williatw
Opinion: Jeff Bezos shoots for the moon


Sounds like something the late J.E. Pournelle said first back in the late '70's; wouldn't be at all surprised if Bezos read "A step Further Out":
"The Earth is not a very good place to do heavy industry,” he said in an interview with GeekWire, insinuating it should be relocated to the moon. Earth will be zoned for residential and light industrial use, while heavy industry will be moved off-planet and powered by 24/7 solar power, he said to the interviewer. “In the not-too-distant future — I’m talking decades, maybe 100 years — it’ll start to be easier to do a lot of the things that we currently do on Earth in space ... because we’ll have so much energy."

Image
This man has big plans for the moon.

When Barack Obama was president, NASA’s sights were firmly set on conquering Mars.

President Trump’s new team has other priorities, and they’re taking shape in a series of partnerships with private companies to colonize the moon. Before we can inhabit Earth’s only satellite, quite a few steps need to be taken, the first of which is figuring out how to transport equipment up there. NASA wants a commercial company to help achieve that goal, and Amazon is a likely candidate.

At the beginning of May, NASA announced it would like to sign up with a company to help transport equipment to the moon. A few weeks later, Amazon.com AMZN, -0.24% CEO Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world, outlined his goal of setting up a lunar settlement via Blue Origin — the aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight-services company he owns.

Coincidence? Not really. A Washington Post article uncovered a “proprietary and confidential” white paper that shows Blue Origin’s “interest in developing a lunar spacecraft with a lander that would touch down near a crater at the South Pole where there is water and nearly continuous sunlight for solar energy.”

“The [document] urges the space agency to back an Amazon-like shipment service for the moon that would deliver gear for experiments, cargo and habitats by mid-2020, helping to enable “future human settlement of the moon,” according to the Washington Post article.


Before we can establish a settlement there, Bezos believes we should first do something about the Earth’s heavy industry.


Relocating to the moon

“The Earth is not a very good place to do heavy industry,” he said in an interview with GeekWire, insinuating it should be relocated to the moon. Earth will be zoned for residential and light industrial use, while heavy industry will be moved off-planet and powered by 24/7 solar power, he said to the interviewer. “In the not-too-distant future — I’m talking decades, maybe 100 years — it’ll start to be easier to do a lot of the things that we currently do on Earth in space ... because we’ll have so much energy.”

At this point it’s quite clear his goal is for Blue Origin to transport goods to the moon. Once Blue Origin produces an unmanned lunar spacecraft, the vehicle will carry up to 10,000 pounds of cargo to the moon’s surface and support NASA’s activities in cislunar space. Bezos proposes that the first mission be a 2020 lunar South Pole landing.

Cost constraints

Before that can happen, the cost of frequent space travel needs to be reduced, and Blue Origin is already on it. The company is optimizing performance of its New Shepard recyclable rocket, especially its thruster system, which will enable a landing on the lunar surface. While New Shepard’s purpose is to fly passengers to space as early as the end of this year, Blue Origin’s other rocket is being developed with a far loftier goal. As the company’s website puts it: “New Glenn [the rocket] is a major step toward achieving our vision of millions of people living and working in space. ... New Glenn will carry people and payloads routinely to Earth orbit.”

Having said all this, a partnership with NASA, although likely, doesn’t yet exist in any formal way. But that won’t stop Bezos, who said Blue Origin will develop its lander “even if NASA doesn’t do it.”

“We’ll do it eventually. We can do it a lot faster through a partnership,” Bezos said.

Finally, Blue Origin isn’t the only company looking for a piece of space action. As the space race intensifies, we can expect even more privately owned companies to lend NASA a hand, as well as come up with their own solutions that could facilitate space travel.

In a few (dozen) decades, we might be able to order products from the Moon Colonies, and Space Amazon will deliver them to our doorstep via its space drone delivery service. I need to know one thing, though.


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jeff- ... 2018-08-10

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 4:35 pm
by paperburn1
I think BEZO,s main problem is he is stuck on the "Starship luxurious mindset. :D

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2018 11:03 pm
by williatw
Why the United States will beat China in the new moon race
By Mark R. Whittington, opinion contributor — 08/20/18 02:00 PM EDT


Image

However, a number of policy decisions undertaken by the United States very likely means that China has likely already lost the second race to the moon. The reason the Chinese are almost certain to fall short is that they are following the old Soviet playbook for conducting space exploration. It is government-centric and somewhat limited in its potential to benefit China’s economy.

Meanwhile, President Trump signed a couple of low-key executive orders that have fundamentally changed the way the United States is going to explore space. The first executive order directed NASA to return American astronauts to the moon before sending them to Mars and other places in the solar system. The order reversed an Obama-era directive that ordered NASA to bypass the moon.

The second executive order directed all of the departments and agencies of the executive branch to streamline regulations for commercial spaceflight activities. The order will allow commercial space companies to more easily comply with government rules while they help open up the high frontier to economic development.

The two orders mesh with NASA’s plan to restart lunar exploration with commercial and international partners. The space agency plans to buy flights to the moon on commercial lunar landers of increasing size and complexity. When Americans return to the moon, the plan is to land in a vehicle developed and operated by a private company.

A 21st century version of the race to the moon is taking place. Few people realize it. No one, least of all the president of the United States, has proclaimed a space race with the ringing tones of a JFK. Yet, the race has started, and the winner may well own the future.

China is one of the participants, as the recent launch of the Queqiao communications satellite reminds us. Queqiao or “Magpie Bridge” is currently orbiting around the Earth-Moon Lagrange point where the gravities of the two worlds cancel out over the lunar far side. Queqiao will serve as a communications relay for the Chang’e 4 lander and rover due to touch down on the lunar surface toward the end of the year.

The planned landing is just the latest in a program of lunar exploration that China has embarked upon to establish itself as the dominant space power of the 21st century. The Chinese are planning a series of ever more sophisticated missions to the moon leading to the landing of astronauts, a feat only accomplished by the United States during the Apollo program.


China not only regards the exploration of the moon as a political feat, wrought with as much prestige and symbolism as the Apollo 11 lunar landing was in 1969, but something that will derive practical benefits through access to the moon’s resources. The Chinese hope to supplant the United States as the dominant space power.

However, a number of policy decisions undertaken by the United States very likely means that China has likely already lost the second race to the moon. The reason the Chinese are almost certain to fall short is that they are following the old Soviet playbook for conducting space exploration. It is government-centric and somewhat limited in its potential to benefit China’s economy.

Meanwhile, President Trump signed a couple of low-key executive orders that have fundamentally changed the way the United States is going to explore space. The first executive order directed NASA to return American astronauts to the moon before sending them to Mars and other places in the solar system. The order reversed an Obama-era directive that ordered NASA to bypass the moon.

The second executive order directed all of the departments and agencies of the executive branch to streamline regulations for commercial spaceflight activities. The order will allow commercial space companies to more easily comply with government rules while they help open up the high frontier to economic development.

The two orders mesh with NASA’s plan to restart lunar exploration with commercial and international partners. The space agency plans to buy flights to the moon on commercial lunar landers of increasing size and complexity. When Americans return to the moon, the plan is to land in a vehicle developed and operated by a private company.

The new approach, very different from the one taken during Apollo, uses a competitive advantage that the United States has over China. Aside from a few small startups, the “commercial” space sector in China consists mainly of state-run enterprises, almost indistinguishable from government departments. Some true private space companies have been formed, but are currently relegated to developing niche technologies such as small launchers.

China has no equivalent to SpaceX or Blue Origin, not to mention Moon Express or Astrobotic, two companies eager to join NASA’s new push to the moon. Its government culture, which seeks control over China’s citizens and institutions as much as possible, tends to discourage the freewheeling behavior of entrepreneurial companies. China gets its innovations mainly by stealing them from other countries.

NASA has combined its experience and institutional memory with the flexibility and willingness to take risks that characterizes the private sector to create a potent back-to-the-moon program. Partly, this approach is being made out of necessity. America may want to return to the moon, but it is not willing to pay for a repeat of Apollo. However, the United States has stumbled into a new method of conducting a space race, one that focuses as much on economic development as it does science and political prestige.

The United States is unleashing the forces of free-market capitalism to return to the moon. By so doing, NASA’s new coalition is likely to run rings around China. When the Chinese eventually land on the moon, Americans and their allies may well be there to greet them.



http://thehill.com/opinion/internationa ... -moon-race

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 1:13 am
by williatw
NASA Administrator Bridenstine: ‘We’re not going to do flags and footprints again’



Image
This image shows the distribution of surface ice at the Moon’s south pole (left) and north pole (right), detected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument. Blue represents the ice locations, plotted over an image of the lunar surface, where the gray scale corresponds to surface temperature (darker representing colder areas and lighter shades indicating warmer zones). The ice is concentrated at the darkest and coldest locations, in the shadows of craters. Image Credit: NASA
In fact, a recent NASA report said a team of scientists directly observed “definitive evidence of water ice” on the lunar surface of the polar regions. The space agency said the deposits are “patchily distributed”—most of the ice at the southern pole is concentrated in craters while ice at the northern pole is more widely, but sparsely spread.


Sounds like the lunar South Pole is shaping up to be the most valuable off-planet piece of real estate on the Moon (perhaps the Solar system)...hope that's where we setup our base.




http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organ ... nts-again/

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 3:03 am
by hanelyp
If polar regions are premium real estate on the Moon, a transfer station at L1 or L2 seems a strategic location to catch a shuttle to the lunar surface. I'm assuming a transportation architecture where using 3 specialized spacecraft and 2 transfer stations, one in LEO and the other somewhere near the moon.

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 5:19 am
by williatw
hanelyp wrote:If polar regions are premium real estate on the Moon, a transfer station at L1 or L2 seems a strategic location to catch a shuttle to the lunar surface. I'm assuming a transportation architecture where using 3 specialized spacecraft and 2 transfer stations, one in LEO and the other somewhere near the moon.
In addition to the cold trap in the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole (where most of the water is) my understanding is that at some higher elevations (mountains) at the poles are areas that are in almost perpetual sunshine. Not only an ideal place for solar power but between the two a natural heat exchanger ready to be used. Furthermore at some of those peaks at the poles the large temperature extremes at most areas of the moon between lunar day and lunar night are very much muted; a much more inclement mild temperature shifts:

The lunar poles have long been places of mystery and promise. Since the Moon's spin axis is tilted less than 2 degrees relative to its orbital plane, the interiors of many topographic lows (mostly impact craters) never receive any direct sunlight. These regions are perpetually dark and thus very, very cold. The Diviner instrument on LRO has shown that the interiors of some of these shadowed regions are as cold as -248°Ç (-415°F or 25K)! Conversely, a few mountain peaks receive nearly constant illumination resulting in only very small temperature variations. One such peak is on the northern rim of Peary crater, close to the pole. The night to day temperatures at the lunar equator range from about -150°C to 100°C (-238°F to 212°F), so finding a spot for a lunar base with only small temperature variations and nearly constant solar power is a large engineering advantage.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/ ... rpole.html

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 11:55 pm
by williatw
Make Outer Space Great Again

Image


Nationalism is not an uncommon topic in Mike Pence’s faith. One relevant principle promoted among some evangelical communities is called Christian Nationalism. Equal parts religion and patriotism, Christian Nationalism posits that the US has a special covenant with God, and is therefore destined to lead globally. Pence’s sermon-like appeals for prioritizing outer space policies fall right in line with what Christian Nationalism pushes for—a more explicitly American-isolationist legislative pathway, in this case leading up into space. In his interviews with members of the Evangelical community—specifically those members that share Mike Pence’s particular brand of the faith—Researcher Joshua Ambrosious found that when it comes to space, “evangelicals may be likely to view space exploration favorably if it is framed as something essential for a successful country.” Pence’s space policies nicely feed the nationalism essential to further galvanize this base.
Presidents have often alluded to manifest destiny when discussing space exploration: outer space is the next frontier. Presidential administrations have often conflated the imperative to pursue new knowledge with an American duty to lead other nations towards the stars. However, Vice President Mike Pence has recast the conversation in a way that hasn’t been present since the space race of the 1980s: cosmic exploration as a proxy for Christian nationalism. Pence’s rhetoric around the cosmos is a perfect vehicle through which he can solidify President Trump’s evangelical base. The nationalism that’s being sold in these speeches however, may shift space policies away from the international collaboration and back toward Cold War-era antagonism.

Mike Pence relentlessly pursues space initiatives and policies. In early October of last year, a day after the 60th anniversary of Sputnik’s launch, he reconvened the National Space Council that had been disbanded under President Clinton. He has pushed for less red tape for commercial space companies, arguing that the government was not prioritizing the industry adequately. Most notably, this August, Pence was the driving force behind the proposal of a Space Force, which would create a separate wing of the military for outer-space mobilization. There was even some discussion of creating a new logo—Pence left out none of the frills that typically accompany such nationalistic and symbolic initiatives.

Both nationalism and symbolism have been part of the space-exploration process as long as scientists have built rockets. During the Cold War, space was publicly portrayed as a battleground between Christian capitalism and atheistic communism. US advances in space were considered not only Christian advances but proof of American exceptionalism. Cultural anthropologist Diana Weibel described the framing of the space race as, “a competition between those who loved and feared God, and those who sought to defy God’s existence.” Pence’s advocacy for the Space Force harkens back to the symbolic roots of that competition.

Exploring Pence’s space is both a duty and right for his base of evangelical Americans.

His speeches have a spiritual quality that frame space in a totally unique way. Other presidents and presidential representatives have spiritualized space: Lyndon Johnson called for the US to be the “space pioneers who lead the way to the stars,” George W. Bush drew a parallel to Lewis and Clark, and Reagan even referred to space as “the face of god,” but never before has a policy-maker framed space as an overtly religious quest. Pence frequently references evangelical text when he addresses the astronomical community. At the inauguration of the Space Council he remarked, “… as we embark, let us have faith. Faith that, as the Old Book teaches us, that if we rise to the heavens, He will be there.” Leaving very little vagaries, exploring Pence’s space is both a duty and right for his base of evangelical Americans.

Nationalism is not an uncommon topic in Mike Pence’s faith. One relevant principle promoted among some evangelical communities is called Christian Nationalism. Equal parts religion and patriotism, Christian Nationalism posits that the US has a special covenant with God, and is therefore destined to lead globally. Pence’s sermon-like appeals for prioritizing outer space policies fall right in line with what Christian Nationalism pushes for—a more explicitly American-isolationist legislative pathway, in this case leading up into space. In his interviews with members of the Evangelical community—specifically those members that share Mike Pence’s particular brand of the faith—Researcher Joshua Ambrosious found that when it comes to space, “evangelicals may be likely to view space exploration favorably if it is framed as something essential for a successful country.” Pence’s space policies nicely feed the nationalism essential to further galvanize this base.

The cultivation of this framing of space in Pence’s evangelical base as a rallying point is not a harmless strategy. Pence’s nationalistic policy path for space, like his creation of a new American military branch, narrows the collaborative culture of space exploration today. The Cold War may have been the country’s most space-enthusiastic era, but it wasn’t the country’s most productive. Projects like the Hubble telescope were completed with aid from dozens of different countries, and have taught us more about space than the US could have learned on its own. Isolationism in Space would be detrimental to America’s progress in space.

Several officials have expressed concern about the possible exclusion of other faiths Pence’s rhetoric might inspire. Others fear the agency may face public backlash spawning from the religious behavior of the Vice President, like NASA has in the past when astronauts have held spiritual services in space. But the slower shift that Pence’s rhetoric might inspire—a shift that involves less collaboration as Pence uses outer space spiritualism to strengthen the Presidential bond to a nationalistically-minded base—is what NASA should truly fear.

http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/201 ... ent-144367

As far as space development long term is concerned...combine something like this with Elon Musk (& Bezo's) energetic entrepreneurial capitalism and you may have a winning combination. I am Kinda warming to the idea of Mike Pence more and more as a successor to Donald Trump in 2024.

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 1:38 pm
by ladajo
Typical Brown bias. The article demonstrates some leaps of logic, and a lot of naivety regarding what is currently going on in space as well.
Meh.
I think two things are going to drive the future of humanity, and they are interrelated in a big way: The coming (I hope) Energy Age, and its enablement of real human space access, The Interplanetary Age. Down the road, we can hopefully look to the Interstellar Age, and then way off, maybe the Intergalactic Age. We don't know enough yet to realistically consider the Interuniverse Age. All that said, there remain many pitfalls both known and unknown to us humans that could delay or derail the journey.
I promise to not have any more big thoughts for the rest of the year. Quota reached.

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 2:09 pm
by paperburn1
I have to agree wholeheartedly. Our next big step needs to be the availability of cheap dependable energy for the long-term. We can go back to our historical record and find civilization after civilization basically collapsed because the lack of available energy to overcome flood, famine, climate change or invader. Somehow by luck or my personal opinion the introduction of caffeine along with the cheap easily accessible petroleum stocks we were able to enter into the Industrial Revolution and develop precision and repeatability.

Our next big hurdle is to have enough energy to maintain our society and crawl out of this gravity well that has been holding us back from becoming a truly interplanetary Society. I have a hypothesis that this is one of the reasons of the Fermi paradox. The developing civilization did not have enough energy to support the population and and leave the gravity well. It seems currently the most water worlds for life can exist are larger than our planet Earth. Most people don't realize that it only takes our planet being just a little bit larger and the ability to go into orbit increases by several factors reaching to the point where something 50% larger than Earth would be almost impossible to get the orbit using conventional means [ rocket fuel and oxygen ]

Under those assumptions it would be easy to see why have planet would not focus outward into space but inward into sustainability

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 2:19 pm
by paperburn1
hanelyp wrote:If polar regions are premium real estate on the Moon, a transfer station at L1 or L2 seems a strategic location to catch a shuttle to the lunar surface. I'm assuming a transportation architecture where using 3 specialized spacecraft and 2 transfer stations, one in LEO and the other somewhere near the moon.
L1, L2, and L3 are positions of unstable equilibrium. Any object orbiting at L1, L2, or L3 will tend to fall out of orbit; it is therefore rare to find natural objects there, and spacecraft inhabiting these areas must employ station keeping in order to maintain their position. In contrast to L4 and L5, where stable equilibrium exists would require no fuel to remain in the basic same location. I think that would be a huge plus as far a logistics go and would not cost that much more in Delta V. (I have not done the math , this is just an assumption)

Re: Extraterrestrial colony companies

Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 12:12 am
by kunkmiester
Forgot about this thread. Some interesting articles, but still no comments about having future colonists invest in a colony and fund their move now, rather than later.