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[sonerohi]

I would love to live on a terraformed mars or the moon, but otherwise life would be pretty bland. Live inside a metal shell, depend on Earth for food... not fun.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I would love to live on a terraformed mars or the moon, but otherwise life would be pretty bland. Live inside a metal shell, depend on Earth for food... not fun.

Not quite, but.

Making a xanatos gambit or two to make your colony offline with the mother world...
Then making it your own personal colony...
is FUN.

I.E: With the advent of space coloniism, expect bastards to began carving their own empire.
Especially when communication with the homeworld began to cut off.
Not so when the homeworld has all the fleets and stuffs.

[sonerohi]

But that's why I would want it terraformed a bit first. The loyalists would more likely than not retain control of the original colony, but I would strike off into the moon-forest with my moon-axe made of moon-iron and seeds from a bunch of moon-crops. I would carve my own kingdom out and build a death laser or a kinetic projectile launch station (Moon mounted Rod from God). Then I would be able to attack Earth whenever, which would be way cool.

[Eagleon]

If the moon is colonized, it will be for mining purposes. Not mining of anything on the moon, but rather as a drop-point for automated asteroid mining, which presents an extremely rich amount of resources (both metal and carboniferous/water), and a construction base to actually build and launch the automated miners. At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply. Then and only then will the moon really begin to be colonized, as the massive inflow of resources makes the quality of living there approachable to Earth's.

Attempting to colonize another planet(oid) for the purpose of relieving population problems is pointless, as the birth rate will almost certainly exceed the passenger capacity for the forseeable future, but at the same time if there is overcrowding going on in developed countries with disposable income, there will be people that want to get away from it and go somewhere exotic. That would provide a small boost to the existing miner family population, further increasing the growth of any colony, but it would likely be quite small indeed. Colonies, if they occur, are going to be very poor at first, and very rich and exclusive towards the end.

These aren't all my predictions. Arthur C. Clarke I believe is the one responsible for turning me on to space mining It makes a lot of sense when you consider that the fuel for a mining vehicle (which really could be any kind of mass at all) can be harvested at the source. And Red/Green/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson are the first books I've ever seen acknowledge the fact that it would take thousands of grueling and wasteful years to significantly decrease the population of Earth using colonization alone, if it's possible at all.

[Dwarf]

If the moon is colonized, it will be for mining purposes. Not mining of anything on the moon, but rather as a drop-point for automated asteroid mining, which presents an extremely rich amount of resources (both metal and carboniferous/water), and a construction base to actually build and launch the automated miners. At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply. Then and only then will the moon really begin to be colonized, as the massive inflow of resources makes the quality of living there approachable to Earth's.

Attempting to colonize another planet(oid) for the purpose of relieving population problems is pointless, as the birth rate will almost certainly exceed the passenger capacity for the forseeable future, but at the same time if there is overcrowding going on in developed countries with disposable income, there will be people that want to get away from it and go somewhere exotic. That would provide a small boost to the existing miner family population, further increasing the growth of any colony, but it would likely be quite small indeed. Colonies, if they occur, are going to be very poor at first, and very rich and exclusive towards the end.

These aren't all my predictions. Arthur C. Clarke I believe is the one responsible for turning me on to space mining It makes a lot of sense when you consider that the fuel for a mining vehicle (which really could be any kind of mass at all) can be harvested at the source. And Red/Green/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson are the first books I've ever seen acknowledge the fact that it would take thousands of grueling and wasteful years to significantly decrease the population of Earth using colonization alone, if it's possible at all.

You know, when we're talking about an 'asteroid belt', it isn't the Star Wars-kind of asteroid belt. You'd be damn lucky to even see one.

[sneakey pete]

If the moon is colonized, it will be for mining purposes. Not mining of anything on the moon, but rather as a drop-point for automated asteroid mining, which presents an extremely rich amount of resources (both metal and carboniferous/water), and a construction base to actually build and launch the automated miners. At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply. Then and only then will the moon really begin to be colonized, as the massive inflow of resources makes the quality of living there approachable to Earth's.

It'd be interesting to see the economics of actually doing that. for regular minerals, eg iron etc, i don't see it becoming cheaper to do it in space for a long time yet.
As for reducing population, humanity just needs to stop breeding so much, its a much, much cheaper way of fixing the problem than trying to ship people off the planet.

[Rakonas]

The majority of colonization on the moon will probably be through indentured servitude and machinery unless you're some kind of scientist of value or businessman. There simply wouldn't really be any jobs for you to get on the moon where anyone wants to pay you anything of value.
I'm sure that some mining will be done on the moon, and major experimentation to see how beneficial the lack of atmosphere+low gravity and whatnot is for whatever, too.
I can't wait until some people decide to go and invade moon colonies and use them as bases to take satellites hostage or something crazy like that; It will just be awesome.

[Ampersand]

Interestingly, Paul Krugman wrote an economic thesis on how to manage interstellar trade.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf

[DJ]

At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply.

Why? Just package the products in some heat shields, attach parachutes and give them a nudge towards the Earth, gravity will do the rest. Now getting stuff up from Earth is a whole different matter.

[andrea]

actually, with minerals, can't we just drop the rock in a desert, without parachutes and containers?

[Dwarf]

At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply.

Why? Just package the products in some heat shields, attach parachutes and give them a nudge towards the Earth, gravity will do the rest. Now getting stuff up from Earth is a whole different matter.

The space elevator has some essential problems.

First, which material has the encessary - enourmus - strength so you don't end up with a metal pillar 300 km in diameter

Second, how the hell are you going to do the first with an elliptical orbit

And third, how the hell are you going to do the third with a non-geostatic object?

[Maltay]

By the end of our lifetimes we will probably see the moon colonized and nearly fully developed, and possibly the foundations of colony's on mars, unless a apocalyptic-class event happens.

Getting to be a colonist would probably be restricted to very, VERY rich people for quite a few years until advancing technology makes it possible for people to move to the moon with a rather large loan. Many industry's would probably move to the moon, as theres no atmosphere to fuck up, thus boosting the Lunar Economy.

So, would you guys move to a moon colony if you got the chance? It seems to be the topic of discussion everywhere nowadays, on the internets, the news..

Yes.

[Maltay]

By the end of our lifetimes we will probably see the moon colonized and nearly fully developed, and possibly the foundations of colony's on mars, unless a apocalyptic-class event happens.

Getting to be a colonist would probably be restricted to very, VERY rich people for quite a few years until advancing technology makes it possible for people to move to the moon with a rather large loan. Many industry's would probably move to the moon, as theres no atmosphere to fuck up, thus boosting the Lunar Economy.

So, would you guys move to a moon colony if you got the chance? It seems to be the topic of discussion everywhere nowadays, on the internets, the news..

Read the  Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.  It is a science fiction trilogy that follows the first hundred colonists during the colonization of Mars.

[Eagleon]

actually, with minerals, can't we just drop the rock in a desert, without parachutes and containers?

At that point you have a man-made meteor It would burn up.

At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply.

Why? Just package the products in some heat shields, attach parachutes and give them a nudge towards the Earth, gravity will do the rest. Now getting stuff up from Earth is a whole different matter.

It's possible to send cargo to Earth in this way. The big problem would be making sure it got where it was supposed to. That involves moving it off of the moon on the right trajectory from the moon to land in a specific area, or sending it directly to Earth from the mining operation, which is an even greater navigational challenge but possibly cheaper. The question is, will people want hundreds of tons of nickel-iron and minerals to fall from the sky on a regular basis? There's bound to be an accident at one point. The same thing I think will sink a space-elevator into a slow financial death. Could be wrong there. I hope so, I want to go to space.

It'd be interesting to see the economics of actually doing that. for regular minerals, eg iron etc, i don't see it becoming cheaper to do it in space for a long time yet.

Quoting wikipedia here, but

In 2004, the world production of iron ore exceeded a billion metric tons.[1] In comparison, a comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 km could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron-nickel ore,[2] or two to three times the annual production for 2004. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×1019 kg of nickel-iron, which could supply the 2004 world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also contain precious metals, although these would likely be more difficult to extract.

Keep in mind, virtually all iron on earth is extracted from ore, an energy- and resource-expensive process. Many asteroids are composed of much higher grade materials by comparison. The economics would have to be worked out carefully for sure, but so long as fuel for the mining operations and return trip is processed in-situ, most existing mining companies would jump at the chance for a claim like that, if they had a reasonable estimate of the equipment's reliability.

[andrea]

i know that what i suggested would burn the material, but as long as it doesn't evaporate, then what is wrong with it? would the external heat drop quality of the mineral?
of course some would be wasted, but it would also be cheap. still, maybe parachutes are a good idea. flaming meteors are bad as far as advertising goes.