0191 -9067/82/01 OOO3-O5$O3.00/0 Copyright ® 1982 SUNSAT Energy Council LETTER TO THE EDITOR To the Editor: The paper “Space Settlements and Extraterrestiral Resources — What Benefits to SPS Construction' ' (1) constitutes one of the first of many works which will focus on the benefits of using nonterrestrial materials (NTM's) to construct systems in space supportive of a wide range of human and human directed activities. The topics to be explored are clearly at least as vast as those related directly or indirectly to industrial activities on Earth and will profit from the work of many people from this period of time onward. At the end of these comments, we have appended a reference list of recent work relevant to studies on space industry, space solar power systems (SPS), and space habitation. Portions of the compilation were conducted by Mr. P. Puzo under contract to the California Space Institute. An annotated bibliography is available from the California Space Institute on these and other entries. Mr. Woodcock explores in this paper some of the interactions between the costs of providing habitats in deep space for workers producing SPS and the costs of constructing SPS. We raise several points of disagreement with the contentions of the paper and direct the reader's attention to several problem areas which we feel are of economic significance to industrial systems in space using solar energy and NTM's. In particular, we feel that several of the references (2,3) consider in greater detail the development of evolutionary strategies for the growth of space industries. Mr. Woodcock challenged the general results of a recent study conducted by the General Dynamics Corporation with respect to the construction of SPS from lunar materials (4). The study ground rules stated that the NASA/Johnson Space Center reference SPS program, derived primarily from Boeing data, was to be used without modification as the basis for lunar resource utilization (LRU) comparison with corresponding Earth baseline studies. Second, the most cost effective LRU concepts were to be defined and compared to the exiting Earth baseline. Thus, the LRU study had no control over the Earth-baseline case. The LRU study assumed a great deal more automation than the Earth baseline. Increased automation does indeed give LRU an unfair advantage but the study personnel felt this approach was philosophically correct. It was also required that all facilities were to be deployed from Earth. No use of lunar materials would be made in the construction of any portions of the facilities of production either on the Moon or in space. Woodcock contends the costs of producing parts by LRU were 6 times less than for terrestrial production. This contention is not correct. In comparing the cost to produce satellites both RDT&E and actual production costs must be considered. In the Earth baseline, production costs include an allocation of facilities cost through
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