Interplanetary colonies

[Mentor]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

A lunar or even martian colony need not assume that there would not be new blood in and out over the years just based on new arrivals, retirement, different organizations or nations building competing facilities, etc.

[egaroadkill]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

I found a website that does estimates. However' date=' the estimates vary wildly depending upon what you use as a yardstick.[/color']

n 2005, $222,000,000.00 from 1976 is worth:

$762,635,294.12 using the Consumer Price Index

$619,501,492.54 using the GDP deflator

$731,911,416.62 using the unskilled wage

$1,113,569,866.14 using the nominal GDP per capita

$1,518,729,085.63 using the relative share of GDP

Ouch, no matter how you look at it, that’s a wad of cash but the project would certainly kick start the human races move into space and radically change things on the planet.

This would be a heck of a bill to digest for any group of governments. There isn’t any way to defer cost by giving land along the railroad tracks to the investors either. Nope, an investment this big would be beyond society today. They’d have to either feel pretty threatened somehow or the venture made comparatively dirt cheap before any of this could happen.

It would be nice to shake off the crack addition to oil though…

Does that estimate factor into account the capability to manufacture water and oxygen from the lunar regolith' date=' or are they assuming that all consumables would have to be transported from Earth?[/quote']

Actually the report hints at several possible sources of extraterrestrial supply, even Lunar oxygen. It didn’t say much about potential lunar ice mining but it did hint at later asteroid/comet mining being quite feasible.

Wait' date=' so in 21 years it would have paid back its initial investment?[/quote']

Estimates varied. I picked 21 because that was the middle one listed. One was suggesting it could pay back as early as 16 years. Personally, I don’t know how one would even be able to make these predictions until the project was nearly done.

quote=Sundog]That was the estimate. I've read some of the same reports.

Mind you, they were assuming that microwave beaming of power from satellites through atmosphere was feasible. Looks like it isn't, at least not with our current tech.

It isn’t? Dam, I had hoped they would find it a workable solution for power transfer. When I first heard of this as a kid in 77 I got all worked up with hope. Dam the gods of thermodynamics and particle physics, dam them all!!!

But…

If the beanstalk could work, we would have ready made power lines into orbit!

An alternative to the power sats I thought of was simply to orbit a bunch of dipole antennas near the sun that collectively beam microwaves to orbiting relays but now that power transfer through the atmosphere is out, what to do? Oh well…

[pinecone]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Well in an old Traveler game I "justified" the building of a beanpole space elevator, by explaining that the orbital power sats used it as an antenna to get the power to the surface (then ...I blew it up..)

[alexraccoon]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Sorry if this has been beaten to death here, but if someone was sending an interplanetary colony out that was expected to be on its own for a period lasting decades to possibly centuries, how many people should they pack along to try and avoid inbreeding within the first few generations? I've been told something about a '50/500' ratio but sadly, I don't know much more about it.

 

And am I wrong or would it be wisest to plan for a nasty attrition rate for the first few years until the colonists figure out the little quirks of their new home? This would of course depend on the technology available: if your tech is advanced enough, a very small group of people could be comfortable just about anywhere.

 

http://www.io.com/~thrash/viable.html'>http://www.io.com/~thrash/viable.html

this essay on traveller may help you

 

http://www.io.com/~thrash/

main site also has some stuff that 'll make you think a little

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

http://www.io.com/~thrash/viable.html'>http://www.io.com/~thrash/viable.html

this essay on traveller may help you

 

http://www.io.com/~thrash/

main site also has some stuff that 'll make you think a little

 

Thank you.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

This reminds me of an unknown novel by an unknown author about the very subject of sending criminal colonists to another planet.

 

I read it AGES ago. Not Prison Ship, that was sending alien criminals here and would probably be distasteful to most of the board. The one I'm thinking about was one where the planet was desert-like. Unknown to the prison population, the planet had been used for criminal dumping generations ago so already had human settlements.

 

Infinity Hold, by Barry B. Longyear. Interesting book.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

how many people should they pack along to try and avoid inbreeding within the first few generations? I've been told something about a '50/500' ratio but sadly, I don't know much more about it.

[snip]

if your tech is advanced enough, a very small group of people could be comfortable just about anywhere.

 

I know this is late in the game at this point,

 

but in the past, I've used a bit of handwavium for this problem:

 

Genetic engineering that tags multiple bits of dormant DNA to the colonists. The handwavium is that

1) different DNA from multiple donors is exchanged at conception, providing an artificially diversified gene pool

 

and

2) it works.

 

Once you get past the handwave, the rubber science is easier to swallow.

 

heh heh heh--

 

it's like FTL. Certainly impossible with current math, but an important enabler for sci-fi.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Yeah... those horse-drawn starships are really hard to come by.

 

Finally! The true originitors of the living space ship are revealved!

:p

[doublefine]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

The problem is, if you're looking at prison colonies especially, you need to make them economical. Shipping convicts to the 13 states, or later to Australia, worked because the cost of shipping someone was dirt cheap.

 

People will resent spending money on criminals, no matter what the good intentions. Unless your interplanetary/interstellar drive is real cheap, it's more economical to send motivated, strong-willed colonists to set up colonies than a bunch of convicts who, besides being criminals, all have the distinction of not wanting to be there in the first place.

 

Actually, you see things like this a lot in SciFi...particularly military ScFi(where the glorified commandos of X Unit have to go settle the long term problems caused by it)

 

Normally governments would essentially "subsidize" the transfer of whatever group they don't want around anymore. Paying part of the fee to get them away, and granting them a, sometimes hellish, world at the back end of beyond.

 

In others, groups of like-minded individuals, usually ones that no one really cares about, get together and purchase a world and move en mass all by themselves(see Gordon R Dickson's Dorsai books).

 

Basically...it COULD work, but the group in question would have to REALLy REALLY honk everybody off.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Basically...it COULD work, but the group in question would have to REALLy REALLY honk everybody off.

 

Politicians?

[EvilDrPuma]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Politicians?

 

Marketing executives. (cf. Restaurant at the End of the Universe.)

[doublefine]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Marketing executives. (cf. Restaurant at the End of the Universe.)

or telephone sanitizers

[alexraccoon]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Actually, you see things like this a lot in SciFi...particularly military ScFi(where the glorified commandos of X Unit have to go settle the long term problems caused by it)

 

Normally governments would essentially "subsidize" the transfer of whatever group they don't want around anymore. Paying part of the fee to get them away, and granting them a, sometimes hellish, world at the back end of beyond.

 

In others, groups of like-minded individuals, usually ones that no one really cares about, get together and purchase a world and move en mass all by themselves(see Gordon R Dickson's Dorsai books).

 

Basically...it COULD work, but the group in question would have to REALLy REALLY honk everybody off.

 

 

http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/spe01.txt

 

Highlights

 

States spent $29.5 billion for prisons in 2001,

about a $5½ billion increase from 1996, after

adjusting for inflation

 

* Prison operations consumed about 77% of State correctional

costs in FY 2001. The remaining 23% was spent on juvenile

justice, probation and parole, community-based corrections,

and central office administration.

 

* State correctional expenditures increased 145% in 2001

constant dollars from $15.6 billion in FY 1986 to $38.2

billion in FY 2001; prison expenditures increased 150% from

$11.7 billion to $29.5 billion.

 

* Excluding capital spending, the average cost of operating

State prisons in FY 2001 was $100 per U.S. resident, up from

$90 in FY 1996.

 

* Outlays for new prison construction, renovations, equipment,

and other capital account activities amounted to less than 4%

of total prison expenditures in most States.

 

* Spending on medical care for State prisoners totaled $3.3

billion, or 12% of operating expenditures in 2001.

 

 

in 2001 the cost per prisoner was $22,650 per year

The group doesn't need to honk everybody off, if you can get the transfer cost per body under 22650 and the journey time isn't too great and the planet can provide some form of basic life to the transportees Then getting rid of an undesirable unproductive element is going to start looking darned attractive.

You don't need to apply this to everyone figure anyone serving over ten years

or persistent repeat offendors or even illegal immigrants who've been caught one time too many.

[Sundog]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Great! Now we have a baseline we can work with.

 

Having taken another look at the British convict transportation system, I've also noticed something I'd forgotten: They had an additional reason to do it. British prisons were terribly overcrowded, to the point of their having to use decommissioned naval hulls as "prison hulks". Just shows economics isn't everything.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Of course, if we limit our forced-colonists to only prisoners serving life sentances without the opportunity of parole, you're talking about a much smaller population. And if we don't limit ourselves to lifers, we're going to have to provide some way to bring them back when their sentences are up. So I'm really not sure this is at all a viable scenario under anything approximating our current political system.

 

Which is not to say you have to go with anything approximating our current political system - just an observation.

[fwcain]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

...if we don't limit ourselves to lifers' date=' we're going to have to provide some way to bring them back when their sentences are up. [/quote']But, by then, the ones who made the decision to get rid of these undesirables while putting them to use colonizing new real estate, will have retired or otherwise no longer be in office; in other words, this will be a problem for SOME OTHER administration, so why should THIS administration worry about it?...

 

(What, cynical, me? Surely you jest!)

 

Franklin

[Manic Typist]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Of course' date=' if we limit our forced-colonists to only prisoners serving life sentances without the opportunity of parole, you're talking about a [b']much[/b] smaller population. And if we don't limit ourselves to lifers, we're going to have to provide some way to bring them back when their sentences are up. So I'm really not sure this is at all a viable scenario under anything approximating our current political system.

 

 

That could be dealt with.

 

"All right, you, you, you and you- lifers, get on the space ship. No shoving or cutting in line. For all you people on death row, the trip IS optional, but the needle IS NOT.

 

Now, you: how much time are you serving? Fifty years? Alright, you can spend fifty years in a jail cell, or get on that ship and go to a new world. Think fast, the seats are filling up. Now, you: how much time are you serving? Forty years? Alright, you can..." etc.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Now' date=' you: how much time are you serving? Fifty years? Alright, you can spend fifty years in a jail cell, or get on that ship and go to a new world. Think fast, the seats are filling up. Now, you: how much time are you serving? Forty years? Alright, you can..." etc.[/quote']

40+ year sentances are still a pretty small percentage of the prison population. (Actually, in some states 40 years is considered a "life" sentance.) OTOH, with a jail & prison population of over 2 million in the US alone, we'd only need about 0.5% of them to reach our 12,500 "self sufficient" number.

 

Compared to the $22,650 per prisoner per year cost of incarceration, even if the project cost $283 Million, it would still pay for itself within a year. So the economics of it don't seem outlandish.

 

Still... imagine the politics. Imagine the howls of outrage from the ACLU, Amnesty International and the like. Like I said...not under anything resembling our current system.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Of course the other consideration is that the US prison population is 93% male, and I suspect the numbers are even higher among lifers.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

I was working on the basis of 'slightly more women than men'. Besides' date=' when I said 'minority group', I was thinking either religious groups like, say, the Amish, or the sort of 'self-made' minorities such as I once went over in my Genetic Tribalism thread a year or so back. I wasn't thinking criminals as such.[/quote']

 

Just like the "English" to do that.

 

Of course, it could be easier to do a barn-raising in zero-G...

[Sundog]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Doesn't matter what the sentence is. Many Australian transportees served sentences of five years or less; they were then free, but banned from ever returning to England. They could stay in Oz, go to NZ, or the States, if they had the money, but not back to England. It was part of the sentence.

 

Our hypothetical 'involuntary colonists' could simply be banned from returning to Earth, regardless of actual length of sentence.

[LunaRagno]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Doesn't matter what the sentence is. Many Australian transportees served sentences of five years or less; they were then free' date=' [i']but banned from ever returning to England.[/i] They could stay in Oz, go to NZ, or the States, if they had the money, but not back to England. It was part of the sentence.

 

Our hypothetical 'involuntary colonists' could simply be banned from returning to Earth, regardless of actual length of sentence.

 

Youd could get to the same situ. if the govt. controls all star ships, and will only allow prisoners and administrators on ships going to/from Prisonworldia. It's not part of the sentance officially, but there's no diff in practice.

[Nyrath]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

Of course the other consideration is that the US prison population is 93% male' date=' and I suspect the numbers are even higher among lifers.[/quote']

I'm sure clever but evil administrators could work out some sort of scheme combining a "mail-order-bride" scam with a "sell your surplus daughters to the Colonization Bureau for Big Money!" scam.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

If my daughter has gotten to the point where Mail Order Bride is an option, I will have failed so miserably in my future incarnation that as a last resort I will pack a bag, head into the mountains, and learn ancient and lethal martial arts so I can dramatically save her in the conclusion.

 

YES. Good thing i don't have a daughter yet. Nonetheless, as Chris Rock says, "I have a daughter. Now I just have to keep her off the pole."

[doublefine]

Re: Interplanetary colonies

 

well...the prisoner thing obviously won't create a self-sustaining population, but it might still work with extremist groups, religous nuts (yes, that's the technical term), and other undesireables. You could even mix them up with the prisoners...if you really want to make things interesting.

BTW your Ice Cream cone has 2 OIFs on it TH