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

[Razgovory]

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.

Gambling isn't outlawed by international treaty.

[Tonitrus]

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.

But you have people on the MOON!   

[Tamas]

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.

as I mentioned in my boardgame thread () I read that energy consumption-wise it is a pretty bad deal to land on the moon. You could be better off with some asteroids

[Tamas]

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.

Gambling isn't outlawed by international treaty.

I hate it when you are dense on purpose

[Razgovory]

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.

Gambling isn't outlawed by international treaty.

I hate it when you are dense on purpose

What do you want from me, I'm trying to explain to a person why it won't be cheaper to build prisons on the fucking moon!

[Tamas]

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.

Gambling isn't outlawed by international treaty.

I hate it when you are dense on purpose

What do you want from me, I'm trying to explain to a person why it won't be cheaper to build prisons on the fucking moon!

if you are really doing that, you are doing it very wrong.

[Razgovory]

Okay, how would you explain to a person that it isn't cost effective to build a prison on the moon.

[Strix]

What do you want from me, I'm trying to explain to a person why it won't be cheaper to build prisons on the fucking moon!

No one has suggested building a prison on the Moon. I suggested using prisoners as indentured colonists ala the British model in Australia. Is that a hard concept for you to understand?

[Zanza]

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.

Right now, NASA pays $62.7 million per astronaut roundtrip with the Soyuz. The idea that it saves any money to send prisoners to space is ridiculous. And frankly, you want motivated, skilled people there, not drug dealers and thiefs. It worked in Australia because they needed manual, untrained labor. However, that's not really fitting the job profile of astronauts.

[Strix]

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.

Right now, NASA pays $62.7 per astronaut roundtrip with the Soyuz. The idea that it saves any money to send prisoners to space is ridiculous. And frankly, you want motivated, skilled people there, not drug dealers and thiefs. It worked in Australia because they needed manual, untrained labor. However, that's not really fitting the job profile of astronauts.

NASA pays that because they have no way to send Astronauts to the Soyuz themselves, so that amount is not an accurate judge of what it would cost.

Colonists would not be Astronauts for the most part. The initial start up team and the pilots would most likely be but past that...it will be good old fashioned hard labor required.

It doesn't take a Navy Seal to use a deep water dive suit to work on the bottom of the Ocean and it won't take an Astronaut to use a space suit to build a colony either.

[Zanza]

I was under the impression that guys working on the bottom of the ocean are typically highly trained specialists. But that's really besides the point: the expensive part about spaceflight is that space is extremely hostile to humans and you need very expensive technology to keep humans alive up there. So even if you send slaves up there, it will still cost roughly the same as sending well-trained volunteers there. The salary of those volunteers is certainly the least of your costs. And if you can get motivated volunteers, why send prisoners? Just to save $35,000 a year? That's really chump change when it comes to the costs of human spaceflight.

I do agree that the $62 million figure is not an accurate judge of what it would cost though. I am sure an American solution would be more expensive.

[Razgovory]

What do you want from me, I'm trying to explain to a person why it won't be cheaper to build prisons on the fucking moon!

No one has suggested building a prison on the Moon. I suggested using prisoners as indentured colonists ala the British model in Australia. Is that a hard concept for you to understand?

Yes, yes it is.  Cause it doesn't make sense.  For instance, Australia has food, water, and air.  The moon is distinctly lacking in these things.  Second, forced labor worked because there was a demand in unskilled workers.  Anyone working on the Moon will have to be highly skilled.  Third, what exactly are they going to do on the moon?  It's not like it would be profitable to grow moon cotton or something.  Fourth, it's illegal under US law almost certainly unconstitutional.


I brought up the example of Antarctica at the beginning of this thread.  Antarctica is sorta was the great unexplored continent a hundred years ago. It's sorta of like the Moon is to us. Today, it's not difficult to go to Antarctica, yet there are still no cities (or Gulags) there.  Why?  Cause there is nothing there.  The moon (and most of the planets) have the same problem.

[Strix]

I was under the impression that guys working on the bottom of the ocean are typically highly trained specialists. But that's really besides the point: the expensive part about spaceflight is that space is extremely hostile to humans and you need very expensive technology to keep humans alive up there. So even if you send slaves up there, it will still cost roughly the same as sending well-trained volunteers there. The salary of those volunteers is certainly the least of your costs. And if you can get motivated volunteers, why send prisoners? Just to save $35,000 a year? That's really chump change when it comes to the costs of human spaceflight.

I do agree that the $62 million figure is not an accurate judge of what it would cost though. I am sure an American solution would be more expensive.

The reason is eventually you will need mass labor. Once you become serious about colonizing and/or industry in space you will quantity over quality. It will be easier and more cost effective to initially send expendable segments of the society (like criminals) until the colony/industry becomes more settled. It worked for the United States and Australia, I can't see why it wouldn't work for space.

The point of a dive suit is so that the person isn't required to be high skilled or excessively trained. The same will be true of a space suit.

[Strix]

What do you want from me, I'm trying to explain to a person why it won't be cheaper to build prisons on the fucking moon!

No one has suggested building a prison on the Moon. I suggested using prisoners as indentured colonists ala the British model in Australia. Is that a hard concept for you to understand?

Yes, yes it is.  Cause it doesn't make sense.  For instance, Australia has food, water, and air.  The moon is distinctly lacking in these things.  Second, forced labor worked because there was a demand in unskilled workers.  Anyone working on the Moon will have to be highly skilled.  Third, what exactly are they going to do on the moon?  It's not like it would be profitable to grow moon cotton or something.  Fourth, it's illegal under US law almost certainly unconstitutional.


I brought up the example of Antarctica at the beginning of this thread.  Antarctica is sorta was the great unexplored continent a hundred years ago. It's sorta of like the Moon is to us. Today, it's not difficult to go to Antarctica, yet there are still no cities (or Gulags) there.  Why?  Cause there is nothing there.  The moon (and most of the planets) have the same problem.

I refer you back to the title of the thread. I am talking about colonizing the solar system. I am not sure why you are fixated on the Moon.

You make my point for me. There is nothing to attract people to work in space, so the use of prisoners would make it that much easier to create a willing labor pool. Otherwise, you will need to overpay average people to agree to work in space.

What exactly is illegal? The prisoners will sign a waiver in exchange for potential freedom later on ala Australis/United States colonization.

[Neil]

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.

A single Saturn V launch cost the equivalent of over 2 billion dollars, and you can't pack 2,000 prisoners onto a rocket.