nanotech
space elevator
airships
Space Settlement
• Not just a place to go work or visit
for a limited time
– Not a space station like ISS
– Not exploration
• A home in space
– Hundreds or thousands of residents
– Many space settlements (thousands)
• Some stay for life
• Some raise kids
To raise children that can visit Earth requires 1g
– Moon 1/6g Mars 1/3g
– Orbit any g, for 1g rotate at 2rpm = 250m radius
• Continuous solar energy
• Large-scale construction easier in 0g
• Short supply line to Earth (hours vs days/months)
• Greater growth (Moon/Mars 2x vs orbit 100+x)
• Orbital disadvantage: materials
– Need millions of tons, mostly shielding and structure
– Moon: metals, Si, O
– Near Earth Objects (NEO): wide variety
Tourism = Launch Volume
$500,000 170
$250,000 1,000
$100,000 400,000
$10,000 5,000,000
$1,000 20,000,000
Price/ticket Passengers/year
Crouch, G. I., “Researching the Space Tourism Market,”
Presented at the annual Conference of the Travel and
Tourism Research Association , June 2001.
Launch Prize Schedule
10,000 10 1,060 742 318
1,000 50 960 672 288
100 100 910 637 273
50 1,000 900 630 270
50 2,000 850 595 255
25 5,000 750 525 225
25 10,000 625 437 188
25 15,000 375 262 113
Passenger K$/Pass Cost($M) Comp. 1 Comp. 2
Floating to Orbit
• Airships (JP Aerospace)
– Experimentalists
– Vehicles
• Ground to 120,000 ft
• Floating base at 120,000 ft
• Orbital vehicle constructed at base
– Km scale
– Floats to 180,000 ft
– Low thrust engines
– 1-5 days to get to orbit