Throwing a chemical plant and a metal smelting machinery to outer space is just a small part of the problem. You´ll need volumes of chemical source material and energy to produce anything of importance there.
If done right and somewhat cost effective, it would bring lots of benefits down to earth in the form of less resource usage (water …
Throwing a chemical plant and a metal smelting machinery to outer space is just a small part of the problem. You´ll need volumes of chemical source material and energy to produce anything of importance there.
If done right and somewhat cost effective, it would bring lots of benefits down to earth in the form of less resource usage (water comes to mind!), I guess that it may attract lots of venture capital to those endeavors, but I doubt it would be economically viable.
On the energy question, solar won´t cut it. It is too energy intense to produce an efficient panel, and the fact that being farther from the Sun, means less available energy to harvest. Nuclear energy is the only viable option, be it for electricity or thermal source.
But scaling an outer space settlement may become a inter-generational endeavour and creating a functional society, albeit small, means a staggering amount of disposable energy to make it work.
Throwing a chemical plant and a metal smelting machinery to outer space is just a small part of the problem. You´ll need volumes of chemical source material and energy to produce anything of importance there.
If done right and somewhat cost effective, it would bring lots of benefits down to earth in the form of less resource usage (water comes to mind!), I guess that it may attract lots of venture capital to those endeavors, but I doubt it would be economically viable.
On the energy question, solar won´t cut it. It is too energy intense to produce an efficient panel, and the fact that being farther from the Sun, means less available energy to harvest. Nuclear energy is the only viable option, be it for electricity or thermal source.
But scaling an outer space settlement may become a inter-generational endeavour and creating a functional society, albeit small, means a staggering amount of disposable energy to make it work.