what is approx. cost to form space colony?

Answer 1

NASA sponsored a design study of space settlements by NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University in 1975. The results were published by NASA's Scientific and Technical Information Office in 1977. See NASA document SP-413.

It describes a space colony with 10,000 colonists in a toroidal habitat positioned at L5 orbiting the Sun in fixed relation to the Earth and Moon. Mining the Moon for oxygen, aluminum, silica, and the undifferentiated matter necessary for shielding, the colonists ship a million tonnes per year by electromagnetic mass launcher to L2. There, with the active catcher, the material is gathered and transshipped to L5 to be refined and processed. With small amounts of special materials, plastics, and organics from Earth, the colonists build and assemble solar power stations which they deliver to geosynchronous orbit. The colonists also raise their own food and work on the construction of the next colony.

To quote the preface, "This program, sponsored jointly by NASA and the American Society for Engineering Education, brought together nineteen professors of engineering, physical science, social science, and architecture, three volunteers, six students, a technical director, and two co-directors. This group worked for ten weeks to construct a convincing picture of how people might permanently sustain life in space on a large scale."

The study estimated the cost to build the space colony at $US190 billion in 1975 dollars. That is around $US725.48 billion in 2005 dollars.

By way of comparison, the war in Iraq has cost the US taxpayer around $US375 billion in direct appropriations so far. In August 2005, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the cost of the Iraq War could exceed $700 billion by 2007.

Answer 2

Measured against the cost of forming no space colonies, the price is cheap. If we build no space colonies, human beings, as a species, is doomed to extinction. That includes any higher species that might evolve from human beings

Answer 3

The cost to form the space colony is not the costliest expense. It's the transport of the materials, storage, maintenance, and paying and maintaining the crew to build it.

Everything would have to be brought in from somewhere else including the people to put it together.

Research would be done in the beginning to see if there were materials available to use, water to drink, sewage for waste, fuel for cooking...

It's mind boggling.

Answer 4

relies upon how massive you go with for it. to construct a completely inhabited base you may wish a minimum of, say, 20 or 30 billion to start up with and then yet another few billion consistent with 12 months to deliver factors as much as the inhabitants. to construct a self-keeping base could require much greater money initially, yet you does no longer could spend lots proposing it. that's assuming greater or much less contemporary technologies, it somewhat is achievable that some new technologies mutually with area elevators or launch loops would make it reasonable to construct lunar colonies for much less money than this.

Answer 5

As in a space station? Probably more money than we have on Earth. If they had enough money, they would be building it now. I could be wrong though. Hundreds of billions.

Answer 6

I think a trillion would get it off the ground