All that above seems really expensive...
Has anyone done any reliable studies about how much it would cost to mine and ship water to LEO compared to when you launch it from earth?
Actually, as part of a AIAA Spacecraft Design Contest Entry back in the late 1990's a couple of classmates and I determined that mining Near Earth Asteroids (NEA) for water and carbon and mining the moon for metals then assembling spacecraft from these materials in lunar orbit was the most efficient in terms of cost per kg of materials. In fact, the only material that absolutely HAS to come from the Earth's surface is living creatures. Bring seeds and humans from Earth is the only thing you can't bring in from anywhere else.
We also determined that cheap human access to space in the form of LEO was by far the most expensive component (in terms of $$$/kg) in any sort of manned space flight. To save $$$ on that most expensive component, we determined that if humans went into space to colonize it instead of explore it, we could literally cut the cost in half.
Explore = Go someplace, look around, then come back
Colonize = Go someplace, look around, build a home, have children, and live the rest of your life there
Very simple economics actually. Doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure it out.
Oh, and our AIAA Spacecraft Design Contest Entry won.
Dantassii
BS Aerospace Engineering, MS Mechanical Systems Engineering, PhD Aerospace Engineering
Why yes, I am a Rocket Scientist
