Creating a Moon Colony Using a Space Elevator System

Background:

Imagine a future where it’s possible for anyone to visit space by taking a leisurely and scenic ride from the Equator to Earth’s orbit and then catching a routine, safe, and inexpensive rocket flight to the Moon, Mars, or beyond. In this future, we could build lush, green, and beautiful space habitats with artificial gravity, where people would vacation, work, or even live. These habitats would alleviate pressure on Earth’s delicate, overworked, and fragile ecosystems. The technology to enable these events would provide humankind with limitless, safe, routine, environmentally friendly, efficient, and global access to space. To achieve these goals, some people envision a Space Elevator System, powered by electricity, offering a scalable infrastructure for interplanetary logistics, commerce, and exploration.

At its final operating configuration, the Space Elevator System would comprise three Galactic Harbours, ideally separated by 120 degrees around the equator. Each Galactic Harbour would include a single Earth port with two100,000 km-long tethers connected to two apex anchors, with multiple space elevators operating together, each capable of lifting massive payloads daily from Earth to geosynchronous orbit (GEO) and beyond to the apex anchor where they can be loaded on a rocket and delivered anywhere using much less fuel.

The Moon Colony Management (MCM) Agency is preparing to build a Moon Colony with an estimated 100,000 people beginning in the year 2050, after completion of the Space Elevator System. It is estimated that the Moon Colony will need about 100 million metric tons of materials. Additionally, water and supplies will routinely need to be sent to sustain the Moon’s population once the colony is complete. To get to the Moon, the Galactic Harbour must send material in two steps: first, from the Earth port to the apex anchor via a space elevator, and second, from the apex anchor to the Moon Colony via a rocket. The MCM Agency anticipates that the Galactic Harbor will provide an advanced lift system capable of moving 179,000 metric tons every year, while generating no atmospheric pollution.

The agency is also considering using traditional rockets to supply material for construction and supplies to the Moon Colony. The Earth current has ten rocket launch sites: Alaska, California, Texas, Florida, and Virginia (United States), Kazakhstan, French Guiana, Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India), Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (China), and Mahia Peninsula (New Zealand).

A rocket would require a single step from the rocket launch site on Earth to the Moon Colony. By 2050 it is estimated that rockets will be able to carry 100-150 metric tons of payload to the Moon using advanced Falcon Heavy launches. You may assume perfect conditions for both the Galactic Harbour system (e.g., no swaying of the tether) and rocket launches (e.g., no failed launches). You should consider the cost and timeline to deliver the materials from the surface of the Earth to the Moon Colony site for the different scenarios.