
Space: A sudden light - jimsojim
http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2016-25-08/space-2016#section-2?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/asuddenlight
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chris_va
The real problem with the space economy is that there are really very few
business plans:

\- Space Tourism

\- Imagery Acquisition

\- Communications

\- Science

\- Astroid Mining (pending)

... And it turns out that none so far have been good businesses, and the small
sat form factor is really limited. I really really love space stuff, but I
don't see any of these creating explosive growth in the short term. Eventually
the costs will come down, but it will probably take a long time.

*EDIT (as pointed out by pjungwir):

\- Zero G manufacturing

~~~
pjungwir
I keep daydreaming about what a killer business might be. A few other ideas
that probably won't pan out but are interesting to think about:

\- Since nuclear reactors are dangerous, what if we build them on the moon
instead? Is there any way to generate energy there and get it back to earth?

\- In _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ the moon-dwellers fight earth by hurling
rocks (maybe just threatening?), which strike with more force than nuclear
weapons. What if you could use the gravity gradient to generate electricity
instead? Instead of windmills we could drop rocks. :-) Of course if this
actually worked we would solve global warming just in time to discover global
massing.

\- Or if we had a way to transfer energy, we could just put big solar arrays
up there.

\- I keep hoping that something will turn out to work much better in zero-
gravity, like manufacturing or farming or energy production or some medical
procedure.

\- Since superconductors require low temperature, what if we put them in
space? What if our biggest supercomputers were in orbit? What else might
superconductors be good for? What if quantum computers are easier to build in
vacuum?

As soon as something gets a toehold, then there will be economic incentive for
mining, so that you don't have to launch all the stuff the other industries
need.

~~~
chris_va
\- Zero g manufacturing ( _good edit_ , has some potential)

You have something with the spaced based solar (SBSP). The unsolved problem
there is the microwave power beaming, which has some technical hurdles
(synchronizing microwave frequencies across multiple dishes is apparently
hard, but necessary for power beaming, and there is an ozone problem). Any
other space based power system has this same transmission problem (people have
proposed attaching conductive tethers to orbiting NEOs to drag through the
magnetic field).

The "nuclear reactors are dangerous" bit hasn't really been true in a long
time (Chernobyl was the worst disaster, but killed a lot fewer people than
hydro/coal/etc).

Space is actually not great for computers. Dielectrics change in vacuum, and
cooling is actually a big problem (turns out space isn't actually "cold" in
the traditional sense, it is insulating, and heat tends to build up). Quantum
computers are probably a red herring, there is vey little difference on an
atomic scale in/outside of micro-gravity.

~~~
extrapickles
Even if you solve the synchronization problem, you still have the main problem
with power beaming of the massive sizes needed of the transmitter and
receivers at space scale distances, thanks to diffraction.

Microwaves need prohibitively large transmitter/receiver arrays if you go
beyond LEO (drag is an issue in LEO). While putting a kilometer^2 scale
transmitter in orbit isn't a problem, putting the similarly sized receiver for
it on the ground is. At optical or smaller wavelengths, the arrays can be much
smaller, but they will still be large structures.

Disclaimer: I worked with a company that does terrestrial optical power
beaming.

~~~
moreati
> putting a kilometer^2 scale transmitter in orbit isn't a problem, putting
> the similarly sized receiver for it on the ground is

Wow, I would have guessed the exact opposite. What's the reason(s) for the
higher difficulty on the ground? Planning permission? Cost of the land?
Needing multiple sites in multiple countries for non-geosynchronous orbits?

> Disclaimer: I worked with a company that does terrestrial optical power
> beaming.

That sounds fascinating. Could you elaborate? What's the power level and the
application?

~~~
extrapickles
Building the structure itself isn't too hard as it will be mostly empty space.
For microwave it will be an area packed with odd looking antennas, optical is
basically an off the shelf solar farm (though the cells should be tuned for
the application rather than general sunlight).

The hard bit getting all the regulatory ducks in a row, as you will need
ground->space no fly zones, environmental approval, not be sited near anything
else in case of alignment/focus/astigmatism (side lobes for rf) issues, etc.
Generally out in the middle of nowhere there is some endangered animal (or its
migration pattern) that will cause no end of issues regulatory wise for
something this big/dangerous to wildlife unless you keep the energy density
down below that of the sun (at that point you might as well use normal solar).
You will also need controls to rapidly shutdown the system (or shunt to new
location) in case an aircraft violates the no fly zone or another satellite is
about to pass between the transmitter and receiver.

> That sounds fascinating. Could you elaborate? What's the power level and the
> application?

What they did when I was there was fairly diverse. The biggest was delivering
1kw at a distance of 1km with ~5-10% plug to plug efficiency. The primary
application for that system was inflight refueling of electrically powered
drones. They normally do much smaller/simpler (10w over dozens of meters)
systems for oddball applications (eg: sensors that are sitting on something
charged to 500+kv, etc) and power over fiber-optics.

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SubiculumCode
Reads like a big PR release for a budding industry....but since I am a huge
fan of space exploration... I'm totally cool with it.

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falconman
What's so interesting to me is that the more we want to do and further we want
to go in space the more unity and collaboration we seem to need at the
planetary level

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perseusprime11
In Elon Musk, we trust!

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viach
What problem do space flights solve?

~~~
hossbeast
Long term continuity of the human race, by backing up to another physical
medium, I.e. planet

~~~
erikpukinskis
Anyone looking to invest in the long term continuity of the human race would
be foolish to invest in space travel. There are practically limitless
terrestrial investments which would offer much better ROI.

I have yet to see anyone describe a single scenario of even low probability
where Mars is more habitable than the entirety of Earth.

~~~
tokipin
The idea is to have our eggs in more than one basket so that the next mass
extinction event doesn't take us all out or set us back hundreds of years.
Whether life on mars is fun or not is a separate question. (I do agree with
you. We can barely manage to live in Antarctica. Mars will be much more
difficult.)

And in becoming multiplanetary, we can start gaining the tools that could help
us avoid some of those extinction events.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I get the idea. I'm saying we're better served by improving our Earth baskets
than trying to add a Mars one. Moving 1% of your net worth out of your home
currency doesn't make any sense if 99% of your money is invested in a Ponzi
scheme. You want to move some of it to a safer investment before worrying
about outlandish economic collapse scenarios. Not all diversification is
created equal.

Not sure what you mean by extinction avoiding tools or why you think
developing them on Mars will be easier than on Earth.

~~~
Rhapso
Different fundamental goal. Putting 1% in another market is an amazing way to
increase the odds somebody survives. In terms of optimizing for "maximum
likelihood of humanity's future existence" local improvement are marginal,
versus colonization which essentially ORs the odds of survival together. The
ideal is to have as many people as possible living sustainably in poverty in
the asteroid belt as soon as possible.

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api
This is notable because The Economist penned this a few years ago:
[http://www.economist.com/node/18897425](http://www.economist.com/node/18897425)

Of course economists are on par with Ouija board users at predicting the
future.

~~~
blackbagboys
The typical Economist staff writer is probably a 25-30 year old journalist
with a B.A. and a prestigious-sounding alma mater, not an actual economist.

~~~
rcarmo
And an Oxford Dictionary on a hair-trigger.

