I'm well aware of this, but what I'm suggesting is to get rid of separate refining facilities and instead have the refineries built into mining facilities. Because unrefined ore is very heavy and only a small part of it is something you actually want. So launching it into orbit and/or shipping it across many millions of kilometers doesn't seem very economical.travists wrote: A refinery, however, is where I see gasses and mined metals as well as silicon, carbon, etc. combined into alloys glass and other developed commodities. Those used by factories to make useful stuff.
However big or small a part consumerism plays in the distant future, in a space setting it is really out of place. Consumer may or may not be king planet-side, but as an astronaut trading commodities the player isn't going to deal with consumers directly. He deals only with large producers and organizations that need standardized bulk resources. From the perspective of realism, space is too expensive for picky individualistic consumers, so there is no need for us to worry about them.I was not intending to imply that we have every manufacturer of every device, but rather that the consumer is as large as government purchasers.
Also, for more perspective, keep in mind VS is set during real and direct wartime. Wars are won by production, not consumption, so you would expect to see rationing and larger group purchasing in such times.
But universities don't take up entire planets nor dwell in space, so they are well outside the scope of the space based commodity trade. Their own well developed planet can supply them with more than enough ethanol production, whereas shipping it in from another planet or solar system would be insanely more expensive.Universities mainly produce intellectual property. But they consume what would be expected of a mostly young population. And thus differ from a research station proper.