The RDA can't do physics

[Clarke]

Right, to the calculations! (again! )

Working from the OP, the fuel required for the Venture Star will be 49 times as large as the payload being delivered. Since the fuel is antimatter, this is equivalent to 4.4×10^18 J per kilo of payload.

To give an idea of how massive this quantity is, assume the Venture Star weighs 5000kg. Also assume that the RDA have the resources to fuel it in the time it actually takes to fly, which is slightly under 6 years. We can thus calculate how much power the RDA have access to (4.4e18J/kg * 5000kg) / 6 years = 116.3 TW. (i.e. 116,300,000 megawatts.) This will obviously increase significantly if the loop idea was implemented.

Acording to this page, the world energy consumption in 2003 was 20,261TWh, and so the power of that year was 20261e12/1 year = 2.313 TW. The ratio between these is 50.3. IOW, the RDA require the power of 50 modern Earths to fuel an ISV. I presume that JC does not mean to imply that the RDA rule (a large chunk of) the world of 2154?

Now, I'm disinclined to believe that the RDA actually have access to this, because the expanded canon tells us that Earth's current major power source is fusion reactions. These are nowhere near powerful enough to provide the requsite power, as I'll now demonstrate. ATM, there are 441 fission reactors in the world, providing 379GW of power. This gives a rough ratio of 859 MW per reactor. Fusion as a process is roughly 5 times as efficient (per mass of reactant) as nuclear fission is. Let's give the future the benefit of the doubt and say each reactor is 10 times as efficient as fission ones, so each produces 859*10 MW = 8590MW each. So, a simple division tells us that the RDA requires 116,000,000/8590 = 13,505 reactors. (Ignoring the fact that modern reactors take thousands of staff as well...)

I hope you can understand why I don't like this idea. Although a Dyson solar collector would stop it being such an impracticality, this isn't mentioned in the background material AFAIK, and so, IMO, assuming it's there is handwaving. (which is, apparently, unrealistic. )

Now, since getting a payload to Pandora is so incredibly expensive, the RDA want to make every kilogram count. Considering how many people disembarked the ship with Jake, they appear to be doin' it rong.

My plan is as follows: bring as few people as possible, with as many automative facilities as possible. (Remember, every single person you bring costs about the same energy as all of Earth produced in 2001.) Construct Hell's Gate either automatically or by remote control from the Venture Star. (If necessary, bring the two satelites needed to establish total radio cover over the moon along with the Venture Star, but I assume the RDA do this anyway.) From there, construct most of your equipement on-site, including the majority of the defense network and mining machinery. You obviously need some mining robots to begin with, but these should also be kept as light as possible. If the microchips controlling the robots cannot be manufactured to any degree, then load a large amount of them onto the Venture Star. (i.e. 5000 or so) This will be far economical than the RDA's plan, as electronic components are orders of magnitude ligher than a human, once all the heavy parts are removed. (i.e. conventional harddisks. Solidstate or spintronics all the way.) Low-performance electronics are acceptable if that's what can be manfactured. The Avatar program is essentially a sunk cost; whether it goes ahead depends on how valuable the RDA consider PR to be, and it produces no profit.

The defense should be done with energy weapons, most likely electrolasers and masers. This is because the primary running cost of any weapon is the ammunition, which in the case of energy weapons is nearly free, and requires no specialised machinary or specific resources. Additionally, some types of energy weapon are capable of bypassing the natural armour of Pandora's fauna. Physical armour has no bearing on the effectiveness of a maser, and only very little impact on the effectiveness of an electrolaser.

The energy you need to power all of this is provided by fusing water, which can presumably be found in abundance. (There is mention of the Eastern Sea.) The materials are provided by mining, as well as recycling everything you can get your hands on. Solar panelling on the Venture Star may also be used to begin with, but fusion will be more reliable and efficient. Since Hell's Gate will be smaller than even an Earth town, power becomes functionally unlimited, so long as instaneous energy output is not too high. This will be more than enough to support the humans living there.

Oh, just as a closing note, look at my numbers in the first paragraph or so carefully. I worked on the basis of the ISV weighing 5 tons. The actual Project Valkyrie specification that the Venture Star is based on gives a mass of roughly 100 tons. The numbers above are a gross underestimation and yet IMO, they are still impossibly large.