[secstate]

The problem with your logic is that the current highest hurdle to any of those goals, even the Oort cloud is how much it costs to get anything into orbit. We already know how to construct things in orbit. Getting the massive equipment cheaply into orbit busts the door open to serious space travel, not launching over-sized washing machines into orbit around comets.

[nordsieck]

> current highest hurdle to any of those goals, ... is how much it costs to get anything into orbit.

This is true for micro-sats, but an awful lot of high end communications sats as well as (I'm assuming) the deep space exploration vehicles cost on the order or 10x their launch cost. Dropping the launch price isn't going to drop the total price tag by much.

[ricardobeat]

Isn't that partially because these vehicles are designed under strict weight and volume constraints, so that they can be launched in one piece?

I imagine being able to cheaply put tons and tons of equipment in orbit and do the build up there would remove all those constraints and maybe allow the use of cheaper construction and technology.

[randall]

I think the poster is saying if we can launch cheaply, potentially assemble in space, we might find new techniques for doing everything in the space pipeline more cheaply now that the first stage in the pipeline is less prohibitively expensive.

Not sure I agree or disagree but it's a POV.

[josh-wrale]

Manufacturing those items in orbit and/or on the moon might reduce their cost. Cheap to-orbit rates lessen barriers to that sort of technology. Transporting raw materials to orbit would increase the efficiency of the to-orbit trip by increasing cargo density.

[huxley]

Wouldn't higher cargo density be more of a benefit if launch costs are high?

[josh-wrale]

Indeed. Raw materials in space won't be of great use without in-orbit manufacturing infrastructure. Cheap to-orbit begets economically realistic in-orbit manufacturing begets need for raw materials at high densities in orbit.