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

[Admiral Yi]

Did you guys catch the news that an asteroid is passing by the earth closer than a geosynchronous orbit sattelite?

[Grey Fox]

To be fair, geosynchronous orbit is pretty far.

[The Brain]

What if katmai was in geosynchronous orbit?

[Admiral Yi]

To be fair, geosynchronous orbit is pretty far.

Yeah, I didn't know that until I saw the asteroid bit.  It's really way the fuck out there.

[jimmy olsen]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

Whoever succeeds in mining the asteroids will become richer than Rockefeller (the richest man ever) and revolutionize the world economy. There's no comparison.

You keep saying that, but that's not really true.  Whoever does it will be fined, and might spend some time in prison.

The Outer Space treaty, like many UN treaties is unenforceable. As soon as a company manages to mine an asteroid, their home country will simply tax them.

[jimmy olsen]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

And if there's so much of it either they'd devalue the commodity, or scale back production and thus reduce profits. At this point in time there's no reason to do it. Economically anyway.

Mass production and high availability of certain products and resources did not seem to stop highly profitable industries. Otherwise we would not have had an industrial revolution.

Yeah, but the smart ones didn't flood the market.  US Steel became rich by producing much more steel then anyone had done before, but they did it over the course of decades.  They didn't just show up one day with 100 million tons of steel.

The guy who figured out how to smelt aluminum and formed ALCOA crashed the market for aluminum. Seems like he did fine.

[Zanza]

Ok, two thoughts on the subject...

1) We went from riding in horse drawn wagons and carriages to riding rockets to the Moon in less than a 100 years, so it's not improbably we go from riding rockets to the Moon to riding ships to Pluto (fuck you scientists, it is a planet).

We haven't been back for more than 40 years now. And it looks likely that no one will be back in time for the 50th anniversary either.

[Strix]

2) We should take a page from history and start sending out penal colonies to space as soon as possible. The money saved by not having to care for felons in prison would probably cover a lot of the cost of colonizing.

Except you're not saving money, because launching people into space is far, far more expensive than keeping them in prison.

No, it's not, especially once the technology becomes more common. The average prisoner costs an estimated $35,000 a year to house (jumps to over $65,000 once they reach 50). So, if a prisoner enters the system at around 20 years old, for a major felony, he will live to at least 60, so that's 40 years or $1.4 million in costs to the State. Even if we halved his lifespan, that's still $700,000. Now, say we send 100 prisoners to an interstellar penal colony, that would save 70-140 million.

So, it probably won't cover the total cost of a program but it will save a significant amount of money and provide free labor/guinea pigs.

[lustindarkness]

So, first we have to find the unobtanium right?

[Razgovory]

You still have to house them in space.   And forced labor/guinea pigs is illegal in the US.

[Razgovory]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

Whoever succeeds in mining the asteroids will become richer than Rockefeller (the richest man ever) and revolutionize the world economy. There's no comparison.

You keep saying that, but that's not really true.  Whoever does it will be fined, and might spend some time in prison.

The Outer Space treaty, like many UN treaties is unenforceable. As soon as a company manages to mine an asteroid, their home country will simply tax them.

It's not a UN treaty, it's just a treaty between countries.  And it's easily enforceable.  You simply arrest people who violate it.

[Strix]

You still have to house them in space.   And forced labor/guinea pigs is illegal in the US.

Sigh...

You still have to house whomever you send to space, that's the point. You save money by NOT having to house the prisoners in PRISON. So, instead of paying twice you only have to pay once.

Sorry but forced labor/guinea pigs are routinely used in the U.S. Corrections system. It gets glossed over and called other things, and prisoners "agree" to sign a waiver but it still goes on. Or, do you imagine that those prisoners working on farms and in other industry getting paid less than a $1 a day are anything other than forced labor?

[jimmy olsen]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

Whoever succeeds in mining the asteroids will become richer than Rockefeller (the richest man ever) and revolutionize the world economy. There's no comparison.

You keep saying that, but that's not really true.  Whoever does it will be fined, and might spend some time in prison.

The Outer Space treaty, like many UN treaties is unenforceable. As soon as a company manages to mine an asteroid, their home country will simply tax them.

It's not a UN treaty, it's just a treaty between countries.  And it's easily enforceable.  You simply arrest people who violate it.

That only happens if countries wish to enforce the treaty.

[Strix]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

Whoever succeeds in mining the asteroids will become richer than Rockefeller (the richest man ever) and revolutionize the world economy. There's no comparison.

You keep saying that, but that's not really true.  Whoever does it will be fined, and might spend some time in prison.

The Outer Space treaty, like many UN treaties is unenforceable. As soon as a company manages to mine an asteroid, their home country will simply tax them.

It's not a UN treaty, it's just a treaty between countries.  And it's easily enforceable.  You simply arrest people who violate it.

They would just treat it like off-shore gambling. Companies would move to 3rd world locations that haven't signed any treaties. Treaties are just paper and worth about as much.

[Razgovory]

You still have to house them in space.   And forced labor/guinea pigs is illegal in the US.

Sigh...

You still have to house whomever you send to space, that's the point. You save money by NOT having to house the prisoners in PRISON. So, instead of paying twice you only have to pay once.

Sorry but forced labor/guinea pigs are routinely used in the U.S. Corrections system. It gets glossed over and called other things, and prisoners "agree" to sign a waiver but it still goes on. Or, do you imagine that those prisoners working on farms and in other industry getting paid less than a $1 a day are anything other than forced labor?

Yes they are more then forced labor, since they don't have to do it, and they get paid if they do.  If they live on the moon, it's still a prison.  It's just a much more expensive prison that's on the moon.  I'm not seeing how you have to pay twice if the prison is on Earth but only once if it's on the moon.