Will it ever be economically feasible to colonize the solar system?

[frunk]

While I hear what you are saying, Tamas, I still think spices are overly expensive and I generally don't find them in stories for mere pennies.

You should shop at places that sell pepper.

[Neil]

Just think of spices. They were extremely expensive luxury ingredients for centuries. Trading them was very problematic and dangerous.
Now you buy them for pennies at every corner.

Industrialization of the solar system will happen and will be a profound change to a lot of stuff.

What do they have in space that we don't have on Earth?

People have been talking about the industrialization of the solar system for over forty years now, but it's always twenty years from now.

[Zanza]

The earth has only so much of finite natural resources. 
It'll happen, just not for a couple more centuries.

It will be much cheaper to just recycle what we have here.

[CountDeMoney]

The earth has only so much of finite natural resources. 
It'll happen, just not for a couple more centuries.

It will be much cheaper to just recycle what we have here.

Recycling can't avoid the law of diminishing returns, though.  Especially with precious minerals and metals.

[Neil]

The earth has only so much of finite natural resources. 
It'll happen, just not for a couple more centuries.

What makes you think that there will be an advanced technological society centuries from now?  If spaceflight becomes more common and practical, then it's only a matter of time before some Muslim blows a debris bomb in orbit or rides a large spacecraft into the Twin Towers.

[Zanza]

Precious minerals and metals are typcially not consumed, but still exist as part of say electronics. If you recycle enough electronics, you have a literal gold mine.

However, that's not worth it right now because it is still cheaper to have someone in the third world scratch it from earth. I doubt that spaceflight will ever become cheap enough to be a viable competition to high-tech recycling of all the trash we have here for precious minerals and metals.

The law of dimishing returns applies of course, but I guess, the law of scale economics would apply first if we would do large-scale recycling of that stuff.

Or before we run out of something, it will likely be cheaper to just come up with a more expensive alternative instead of flying all the way to the Kuiper belt or wherever to mine it.

[garbon]

While I hear what you are saying, Tamas, I still think spices are overly expensive and I generally don't find them in stories for mere pennies.

You should shop at places that sell pepper.

Pepper is one spice.

[CountDeMoney]

The earth has only so much of finite natural resources. 
It'll happen, just not for a couple more centuries.

What makes you think that there will be an advanced technological society centuries from now?

Because that's how it's turned out so far.

If spaceflight becomes more common and practical, then it's only a matter of time before some Muslim blows a debris bomb in orbit or rides a large spacecraft into the Twin Towers.

Meh, my money is on a nasty bug pandemic.

[Neil]

Because that's how it's turned out so far.

It wasn't until very recently that we learned how to destroy mankind.  As that technology becomes more common, it's going to get used.

[CountDeMoney]

Because that's how it's turned out so far.

It wasn't until very recently that we learned how to destroy mankind.  As that technology becomes more common, it's going to get used.

Meh, on the nation-state level, there's not as much of a threat anymore as MAD still applies, save local regional actors that are pointed at one another anyway.
The real concern is non-state actors, but the ability to acquire a device is remote, even through a third party sponsor.
And even if they did, it's a one-shot job.

[Neil]

Because that's how it's turned out so far.

It wasn't until very recently that we learned how to destroy mankind.  As that technology becomes more common, it's going to get used.

Meh, on the nation-state level, there's not as much of a threat anymore as MAD still applies, save local regional actors that are pointed at one another anyway.
The real concern is non-state actors, but the ability to acquire a device is remote, even through a third party sponsor.
And even if they did, it's a one-shot job.

All it takes is one man behind the wheel of a spacecraft or at the controls of a mass driver.

[lustindarkness]

The only reason Antarctica is not mined to nothing is the international treaties. The other thing I can tell you is that it is cold as fuck, but we have built a very nice station(s) there, just not called a town with permanent residents.

http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm

I can also tell you that McMurdo has two bars (right next to the blue building), Southern Exposure used to be the Navy Chief's club, and they serve beer or whiskey in little plastic cups with a penguin on it for $3 a cup. For like $30 you get sloppy.

-----------------

Regarding off earth colonies, I sure hope we do so someday.

[The Brain]

My guess is it will be.

[Ed Anger]

Any plan must include shooting tim into deep space. Or the sun.

[Razgovory]

Just think of spices. They were extremely expensive luxury ingredients for centuries. Trading them was very problematic and dangerous.
Now you buy them for pennies at every corner.

Industrialization of the solar system will happen and will be a profound change to a lot of stuff.

There really isn't any space spices and nobody to trade with.  If there were Moon people that we could trade moon spices with, it could easily be profitable, but there is not.  C'mon  Tamas, with your dedication to Free markets you should at least see the problem I'm talking about.