The cost of 31.25 million tonnes of mirrors would be about $3.377 trillion (US 2004 dollars). Spread out over 41.3 years would be about $81.77 billion annually. Based on the cost of materials for the solar concentrator, it is unlikely that a geometric growth can be supported by tax dollars to achieve the 1% world ridership goal. It would have to be financed by commercial revenues.

On the other hand, if government only paid for the first full-scale Skyhook -- got the ball rolling -- then the cost would be far lower. This plan would require about 500,000 tonnes of powerplant mirrors at a cost of $54.1 billion. Spread over 26.3 years it would cost $2.06 billion annually, which seems more in line with current manned spaceflight expenditures. But like I said, without revenues from paying passengers, this process could only increase linearly. It would therefore take 550 years to build the infrastructure needed to move 1 percent of the world's population.

This can't be done in a shorter timespan without direct revenues from paying passengers. The first full-scale Skyhook might carry 3,250,000 people into space in the first 27 years of operations. So if the cost of the powerplant is $54.1 billion, then ticket prices will be a minimum of $16,646 per passenger. Added to this would be development costs, and other component costs, as well as service costs. The total might be between $20,000 - $30,000 per ticket. If a typical passenger is 100 kg then launch costs would be down around the $300/kg range. That's alot, but it's better than what we have now.

This is of course assuming that mirrors can't be made cheaper. The price I'm using for vapor-deposited mirrors is $930 per square meter. For all I know, adequate reflective aluminum foil might be made for a few cents per square meter. Now THAT would be a breakthrough!