MSFC, in their assessment (Ref. A20), questioned whether the processing could in fact be done at L5. It is desirable to do so to take full advantage of solar power but MSFC is concerned that the quantity of slag created may overwhelm the whole operation, possibly being much more than that needed for radiation protection and other useful purposes. MSFC further points out that many processes now used on earth for dressing and refining of materials would not work at the libration point due to lack of gravity. Therefore, considerable engineering development of alternative methods of production would be necessary, or very large artificial "g" facilities would have to be placed at L5. While the great amounts of power assumed to be available from the solar generator and the high vacuum available for certain processes is very attractive, the amount of development required to realize practical refining facilities in zero gravity is at this time an unknown. 4. Cost There is no consistent and comprehensive economic analysis of the O'Neill concept such as ECON provided for the SSPS (Ref. All) as summarized in Section V. Considerable attention has, however, been given to the costs involved and the sometimes inconsistent results are briefly surveyed in this section. First, it is assumed that there will be a large and growing demand for electricity at least into the early decades of the next century. It is further assumed that many initiatives and types of power plants will be required to satisfy the demand. The one initiative that is entirely consonant with the O'Neill concept of space colonization is satellite solar power. Furthermore, O'Neill contends (Refs. Il, 15) that providing satellite solar power stations from the earth is uneconomic and that the best way to provide these power stations is to first establish a space manufacturing facility and then build the power satellites from lunar material. The costs for establishing the first colony have varied widely and it is not clear in all cases just what elements are being included in the cost. Ref. 13 gives an estimate of $100 billion with a possible variation of $50 billion in either direction. O'Neill has made a spartan estimate
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