Why LEO is better than Mars or the Moon
Tom Neff
by staying inside the magnetosphere, you can avoid killing your astronauts
from cosmic HZE particles. Data rates are high, lifeboat transits are
short, resupply is fairly reliable, sample return ditto. Microgravity
yields to trussed barbell centrifuges.
LEO is our Canaries and Azores. We need to be there before we're ready to
be much farther out. People act like it wouldn't be exciting enough. It
would definitely be exciting enough, once we reached "creative critical
mass" where unexpected things are discovered and done up there.
--
Tom Neff <tn...@bigfoot.com>
"My God, Thiokol, when do you
want me to launch, next April?"
Jonathan A Goff
> LEO is a better manned spaceflight destination than Mars or the Moon because
> by staying inside the magnetosphere, you can avoid killing your astronauts
> from cosmic HZE particles. Data rates are high, lifeboat transits are
> short, resupply is fairly reliable, sample return ditto. Microgravity
> yields to trussed barbell centrifuges.
>
> LEO is our Canaries and Azores. We need to be there before we're ready to
> be much farther out. People act like it wouldn't be exciting enough. It
> would definitely be exciting enough, once we reached "creative critical
> mass" where unexpected things are discovered and done up there.
I disagree. We've already proven that the moon is doable. Shielding
is pretty darned simple to do--just shove some regolith on top. Data
rates are still decent, lifeboat times aren't too long, and you have
most of your raw materials already there. There is stuff to do in LEO,
but LEO will take a long time to develop into anything else.
But this is just an intellectual disagreement. Like Mike and that
LordMaliki guy, I don't really care what you guys want to do. Just
do it on your own buck. At the same time, I'll be aiming somewhere
else. All in all I really don't see how it would hurt having several
people try out several options. Someone is probably bound to succeed
to some level.
So, even though I think that the moon is better, I wish you luck anyhow.
Jonathan Goff
"America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the
well wisher to the freedom and independence of all." -- John Q. Adams
gbaikie
"Tom Neff" <tn...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> LEO is a better manned spaceflight destination than Mars or the Moon
because
> by staying inside the magnetosphere, you can avoid killing your
astronauts
> from cosmic HZE particles. Data rates are high, lifeboat transits are
> short, resupply is fairly reliable, sample return ditto. Microgravity
> yields to trussed barbell centrifuges.
>
> LEO is our Canaries and Azores. We need to be there before we're
ready to
> be much farther out. People act like it wouldn't be exciting
enough. It
> would definitely be exciting enough, once we reached "creative
critical
> mass" where unexpected things are discovered and done up there.
>
polar orbit. But if I want to put in a new swimming pool or tennis court
I would get a contractor who was using lunar or NEO material, the
prices would be about 10 times cheaper.
Just a hint to homeowners:)
-gb
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Thomas Kalbfus
>be much farther out. People act like it wouldn't be exciting enough. It
>would definitely be exciting enough, once we reached "creative critical
>mass" where unexpected things are discovered and done up there.
>
LEO is more analagious to the Atlantic ocean off of Spain. The Canaries and
Azores would be the Moon, and the New World would be Mars. To protect the
astronauts from radiation you would leave them on Earth. Teleoperation works
quite nicely at LEO. There is little justification for the presence of a manned
space shuttle in low Earth orbit. The Space Shuttle could easily be modified
for teleoperation. Mars on the other hand requires a human presence or a low
level of activity because of the time delay and advance robotics requires for
teleoperation. If something interesting was found by the Pathfinder for example
it would take one or two days for the scientists on Earth to act on it. They
must plot a course for the Sojourner while anticipating all the obstacles on
the way to the point of interest. An astronaut on the other hand would have
those rocks in a sample bag in a matter of minutes.
Ablemonk
Tom Neff <tn...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:scg0nh3...@news.supernews.com...
> LEO is a better manned spaceflight destination than Mars or the Moon
because
> by staying inside the magnetosphere, you can avoid killing your astronauts
> from cosmic HZE particles. Data rates are high, lifeboat transits are
> short, resupply is fairly reliable, sample return ditto. Microgravity
> yields to trussed barbell centrifuges.
>
> be much farther out. People act like it wouldn't be exciting enough. It
> would definitely be exciting enough, once we reached "creative critical
> mass" where unexpected things are discovered and done up there.
>
system.
It would make a great bus stop (and hotel spot!)
ag
Robert Maas
polar orbit. But if I want to put in a new swimming pool or tennis
court I would get a contractor who was using lunar or NEO material,
the prices would be about 10 times cheaper.>>
Yes, you seem to be converging on my plan for the next decade: (1)
Robotics such as NEAR/DS1 for surveying aseroids then bringing back
workable size pieces such as easiliy-dislodged house-sized boulders;
(2) Tele-operating on Luna, operated from Earth, to process Lunar
material; (3) Tele-operating in LEO to process the pieces from
asteroids and further process the stuff from Luna; (4) Humans in LEO
to learn about living in space (life sciences) and to do anything that
requires a hands-on touch, can't be done well by tele-operating.
Of course, on the side we'd also have some pure science deep-space
missions such as to Europa, Mars, Saturn (Cassini) and Pluto. But the
main quantity of missions would be to develop infrastructure that
mines Lunar and asteroidal materials and processes them into useful
materials for construction.
Tom Neff
"Thomas Kalbfus" <thomas...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000311150915...@ng-cs1.aol.com...
> No LEO is not our Canaries or Azores because there is nothing there
> explore.
[a] There actually is stuff to explore up there, just not land masses to
clump around on. It's the first stable platform that lets you observe the
rest of space AND the whole of Earth as a system. We know this because we
have been doing it for forty years. Anyway, remote sensing has killed
"exploration" in the Renaissance sense of the word. We already have better
maps of Mars than any New World explorer did in four hundred years of
voyaging.
[b] The significance of the offshore Atlantic islands was not their value as
land to be "explored" but their strategic location for longer voyages. The
Portuguese and Spaniards swiftly crawled over every nook and cranny of most
of those islands in a few decades, to no great lasting effect (unless you
count inspiring Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST). But as way stations, watering
holes and crew entrepots, they were essential for two hundred years.
> LEO is more analagious to the Atlantic ocean off of Spain. The Canaries
and
> Azores would be the Moon, and the New World would be Mars. To protect the
> astronauts from radiation you would leave them on Earth. Teleoperation
works
> quite nicely at LEO.
Since LEO is inside the magnetosphere, you don't need to leave astronauts on
Earth to protect them from radiation, except for solar storms which really
only required a shielded shelter module of some kind.
Teleoperation does work at LEO distances - for what it does - but it is not
capable of doing everything that needs to be done. I expect to see it used
quite a bit with ISS, but as a supplement rather than a replacement for
space based crew tasks.
> Mars on the other hand requires a human presence or a low
> level of activity because of the time delay and advance robotics requires
for
> teleoperation.
Not necessarily, especially when measured purely by science per mission. An
inordinate amount of a human crew's time tends to get taken up on tasks
whose sole purpose is, one way or another, to support the presence of the
human crew. A robot can afford to Just Do Science, stupidly or smartly, all
day long. And if we get good at throwing a lot of little robots onto a
site, rather than one big gold-plated single-threaded robot, we may find
science pouring out at a rate humans can't match.
> If something interesting was found by the Pathfinder for example
> it would take one or two days for the scientists on Earth to act on it.
They
> must plot a course for the Sojourner while anticipating all the obstacles
on
> the way to the point of interest. An astronaut on the other hand would
have
> those rocks in a sample bag in a matter of minutes.
However, that is primarily because the astronaut is much BIGGER than the
little Pathfinder and can simply walk over and take something. If the
scientists needed two days to decide whether they want a rock, it's probably
for a scientific reason. A human astronaut might just grab it without all
that deliberation, but if they had wanted to they could have programmed the
robot the same way. And if the scientists decide they want a sample that
requires a 36 hour traverse, they just send the command, without worrying
about air supply, the wee wee bag, space food sticks or any of that animal
husbandry.
CLVANCIL
>Yes, you seem to be converging on my plan for the next decade: (1)
>Robotics such as NEAR/DS1 for surveying aseroids then bringing back
>workable size pieces such as easiliy-dislodged house-sized boulders;
>(2) Tele-operating on Luna, operated from Earth, to process Lunar
>material; (3) Tele-operating in LEO to process the pieces from
>asteroids and further process the stuff from Luna; (4) Humans in LEO
>to learn about living in space (life sciences) and to do anything that
>requires a hands-on touch, can't be done well by tele-operating.
>
>Of course, on the side we'd also have some pure science deep-space
>missions such as to Europa, Mars, Saturn (Cassini) and Pluto. But the
>main quantity of missions would be to develop infrastructure that
>mines Lunar and asteroidal materials and processes them into useful
>materials for construction.
So let me get this straight...you want to propel large chunks of rock towards
the Earth...oh yeah no problemo.
Chris Vancil
Member NSS and Mars Society
http://hometown.aol.com/CLVANCIL/
Joe Strout
<clva...@aol.com.NoSpam> wrote:
> Robert Maas wrote:
>
> >Yes, you seem to be converging on my plan for the next decade: (1)
> >Robotics such as NEAR/DS1 for surveying aseroids then bringing back
> >workable size pieces such as easiliy-dislodged house-sized boulders;
> ...
> So let me get this straight...you want to propel large chunks of rock towards
> the Earth...oh yeah no problemo.
You don't need to worry about house-sized boulders; if they go off
course towards the Earth, they just make a very bright streak in the
sky.
It's the half-kilometer boulders we need to worry about.
Cheers,
-- Joe
--
,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| j...@strout.net http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'
CLVANCIL
>You don't need to worry about house-sized boulders; if they go off
>course towards the Earth, they just make a very bright streak in the
>sky.
>
>It's the half-kilometer boulders we need to worry about.
>
>Cheers,
>-- Joe
Hum, what size was Skylab?
I'm not terribly worried myself, but moving large rocks in the direction of
Earth won't fly with the public, IMO.
Roy Stogner
>I'm not terribly worried myself, but moving large rocks in the direction of
>Earth won't fly with the public, IMO.
It gets worse, from a PR standpoint. If you want to be really
efficient with your asteroid harvesting, you find asteroid material
with sufficient internal cohesion to act as a shield for aerobraking,
and then you use aerobraking to move it from interplanetary orbit to a
capture orbit (with an ion rocket to give it a little more delta vee
at apogee to raise the orbit above the atmosphere). So you don't just
want to send large rocks close to Earth, you want to send them into a
narrow orbital path that practically grazes the planet.
Of course, it gets better, too. Aside from safety reasons, it may
make economic and technical sense to send asteroid chunks to Earth
orbit a dozen tons at a time, in which case a failed aerobraking just
means that the asteroid and rocket burn up in the atmosphere.
---
Roy Stogner
Thomas Kalbfus
Perhaps the moons gravity can be utilized for capturing some near-Earth
asteroids whose orbital trajectory is nearly the same as the Earth. Such an
object would normally approach the Earth at a velocity greater than the local
escape velocity from Earth at the asteroid's position. To slow the asteroid
down a reverse swingby of the moon can be used. Just as Jupiter's gravity well
can add velocity to Voyager to fling it out of the Solar System, the Moons
gravity can subtract velocity from an asteroid heading to Earth. This will
leave the asteroid in an elliptical orbit around the Earth. No Aerobraking is
required and you can capute large asteroids this way.
Roy Stogner
>To slow the asteroid down a reverse swingby of the moon can be used.
>Just as Jupiter's gravity well can add velocity to Voyager to fling
>it out of the Solar System, the Moons gravity can subtract velocity
>from an asteroid heading to Earth. This will leave the asteroid in an
>elliptical orbit around the Earth. No Aerobraking is required and you
>can capute large asteroids this way.
I thought about this, but didn't want to mention it without doing a
bit of math on it. Even in the best case, escape velocity is what,
1400 m/s at lunar orbit? The question then is at what distance from
the moon's center of mass the asteroid would have to pass to cut
500 m/s from it's final velocity, and whether that distance exceeds
the lunar radius or not. If not, it'd still be a useful technique to
make the final aerobraking less harsh.
Also, the final orbit after a lunar capture maneuver would worry me -
it would necessarily have an apogee high enough to be effected by the
moon's gravity; such an orbit would have to be lowered for long-term
stability. Would the delta V required for that lowering be greater or
less than the delta V to bring an aerocaptured asteroid's perigee well
above LEO?
Ok, all these questions bring up one bigger question:
What open source software (Unix, preferably) is worthwhile to simulate
Newtonian gravitation? I can do a web search myself; just wondering if
anyone has recommended favorites. I know it'd only be 100 lines of
code to do it myself (In fact I did it myself in BASIC for a science
fair project, but I'm not too proud of that), but I'd like to build on
someone else's work rather than reinvent the wheel.
---
Roy Stogner
Frank Crary
Roy Stogner <royst...@SPAMiname.com> wrote:
>>To slow the asteroid down a reverse swingby of the moon can be used.
>>Just as Jupiter's gravity well can add velocity to Voyager to fling
>>it out of the Solar System, the Moons gravity can subtract velocity
>>from an asteroid heading to Earth. This will leave the asteroid in an
>>elliptical orbit around the Earth. No Aerobraking is required and you
>>can capute large asteroids this way.
>I thought about this, but didn't want to mention it without doing a
>bit of math on it. Even in the best case, escape velocity is what,
>1400 m/s at lunar orbit? The question then is at what distance from
>the moon's center of mass the asteroid would have to pass to cut
>500 m/s from it's final velocity, and whether that distance exceeds
>the lunar radius or not. If not, it'd still be a useful technique to
>make the final aerobraking less harsh.
It depends on the asteroid's initial velocity relative to the Moon
and its impact parameter (what its closest approach to the Moon
would be, if the Moon had no gravity and the asteroid just moved
in a straight line.) Under ideal circumstances, you can get a
delta v of order the escape velocity at closest approach (i.e.
the surface escape velocity times sqrt(R/r), where R is the
radius of the Moon and r is the radius of closest approach.)
I think the absolute maximum delta v is either sqrt(2) times
the escape velocity at closest approach, or that velocity
divided by sqrt(2). I forget which. But that change in velocity
may not be in the right direction for capture. If you could
control the approach trajectory, at least partially, you could
probably manage 500 m/s in the right direction. But that would
be a near thing, and for some random asteroid encountering the
Moon, the odds of a capture are extremely low.
>Also, the final orbit after a lunar capture maneuver would worry me -
>it would necessarily have an apogee high enough to be effected by the
>moon's gravity; such an orbit would have to be lowered for long-term
>stability.
And could not be lowered by subsequent encounters with the Moon:
The apogee after an encounter with the Moon will, by definition,
cross or touch the Moon's orbit. Nor would a low-acceleration system
allow efficient perigee maneuvers to change this, and I can't
imagine _any_ way to move an asteroid that wouldn't be low-acceleration.
>Would the delta V required for that lowering be greater or
>less than the delta V to bring an aerocaptured asteroid's perigee well
>above LEO?
I'd have to work the numbers (my rate as a consultant is currently
$250 per hour, and I don't have the time or inclination to do the
numbers for free...) But my gut feeling is that the delta v would
be lower than it would be for a propulsive capture, but higher than
for aerocapture. Even so, we are probably talking about less than
a kilometer per second or so, and that would probably be worth it
to avoid aerocapturing an asteroid... I really don't want to think
about what an aerocapture would do the the upper atmosphere, and I'm
someone that isn't at all worried about current risks to the ozone
layer.
>Ok, all these questions bring up one bigger question:
>What open source software (Unix, preferably) is worthwhile to simulate
>Newtonian gravitation? I can do a web search myself; just wondering if
>anyone has recommended favorites. I know it'd only be 100 lines of
>code to do it myself (In fact I did it myself in BASIC for a science
>fair project, but I'm not too proud of that), but I'd like to build on
>someone else's work rather than reinvent the wheel.
I tend to write my own code rather than using stock software (if the
stock software doesn't do exactly what I want, I end up modifying it
to do so, and that's usually more work than just writing it myself.)
To do an encounter correctly, you definitely need more than 100 lines
of code: That requires either small step sizes, which would be slow
as mud, or an adaptive step size, which takes more like 200 lines
and some serious work to get right. I happen to have something
which does this (ANSI C written on a unix box), but the input and output
formats aren't really suitable for this application. I'm not sure
about giving that away for free: It did take a fair amount of work
to write and test, and I'm not sure how I feel about the benefits
of giving that away versus having it available for use. I think
I'll pass the buck. Technically, I'm Retro Aerospace's staff scientist
in addition to my day job, and I'll call this software developed
for Retro. If George Herbert (President of Retro) wants me to give
it away, for the PR value to the company, I will. But I'm definitely
not going to rewrite the input and output formats for free.
Frank Crary
Robert Maas
rock towards the Earth...oh yeah no problemo.>>
Yeah. Start with a NEA, maybe it gets within a million miles of Earth
once a century, within 10 million miles of Earth more usually. Nudge a
house-sized boulder off it, so the boulder is in nearly the same
orbit, likewise missing the Earth by a few million miles most of the
time. Gently apply ion-rocket thrust to the boulder to change the
orbit so it'll get as close as half a million miles from Earth,
tracking carefully so you can stop this phase of nudging before you
get too close. Now track it more carefully as you nudge it into an
orbit that will swing by Luna and get captured into some Earth/Luna
orbit, still being careful that it won't get dangerously close to
either Earth or Luna, nor any known satellite/station, any time soon.
Once it settles into Earth/Luna orbit, we can nudge it into lower
orbit, or tele-experiment with cutting smaller pieces off it, or
tele-study it to better determine its chemical and physical
characteristics.
Hopefully nobody will get English and metric units mixed up when
tracking the ion-rocket-plus-boulder!
Robert Maas
near-Earth asteroids whose orbital trajectory is nearly the same as
the Earth. Such an object would normally approach the Earth at a
velocity greater than the local escape velocity from Earth at the
the moon can be used. ...>>
That's further down the road when we already have (1) gigantic ion
rockets that can significantly alter the course of a whole asteroid
instead of just a house-size boulder formerly resting on the surface
of an asteroid, and (2) gigantic ETR (Extra-Terrestrial Resource)
processing factories that can process a whole asteroid in less than a
century, like in a year or two. During the start-up phase, I imagine
smaller ion rockets such as used on DS1, and smaller experimental
processing stations that would take a year just to process one
house-size boulder. I don't forsee us ready to tackle a whole asteroid
during the first ten or maybe even twenty years after we start
processing the first boulders. Remember I estimated tens (or did I say
hundreds) of boulders on each of many thousands of asteroids, so if we
leave all the asteroids intact except for dislodging some of their
surface-resting boulders, we should be able to keep our little ETR
processing factories busy for a long time before we ever need to bring
a whole asteroid to Earth orbit. Even after we've already exploited
all the boulders we can find, it may be better to slice segments off
asteroids rather than bring whole asteroids to Earth.
Thomas Kalbfus
>rockets that can significantly alter the course of a whole asteroid
>instead of just a house-size boulder formerly resting on the surface
>of an asteroid, and (2) gigantic ETR (Extra-Terrestrial Resource)
>processing factories that can process a whole asteroid in less than a
>century, like in a year or two. During the start-up phase, I imagine
>smaller ion rockets such as used on DS1, and smaller experimental
>processing stations that would take a year just to process one
>house-size boulder. I don't forsee us ready to tackle a whole asteroid
>during the first ten or maybe even twenty years after we start
>processing the first boulders. Remember I estimated tens (or did I say
>hundreds) of boulders on each of many thousands of asteroids, so if we
>leave all the asteroids intact except for dislodging some of their
>surface-resting boulders, we should be able to keep our little ETR
>processing factories busy for a long time before we ever need to bring
>a whole asteroid to Earth orbit. Even after we've already exploited
>all the boulders we can find, it may be better to slice segments off
>asteroids rather than bring whole asteroids to Earth.
>
But if we bring back a whole Asteroid we will have contiuous access to it
rather than having to wait for the next launch window for further mining. Also
if the asteroid is in an elliptical orbit around Earth we can gradually
circularise its orbit with each close pass to Earth. Asteroids come in many
different sizes. I'm not suggesting that we start with Ceres. For creating an
orbiting space colony of the Island 3 type, many asteroids are just the right
size.
Robert Maas
it rather than having to wait for the next launch window for further
mining.>>
If we wait until after we have the technical capability of bringing a
whole asteroid, even one only a half mile across, to Earth/Luna orbit,
we'll NEVER get started. I'm looking at what we could start RIGHT NOW
if we got going on it, and how that would develop during the next ten
years. We already have a working ion rocket, and with a little more
work we could devise a way to knock a boulder off a small asteroid,
like maybe fire a small explosive between the boulder and the
asteroid, or just shoot a wedge-shaped object there at high enough
speed.
<<Asteroids come in many different sizes. I'm not suggesting that we
start with Ceres.>>
Currently we can't even significantly nudge a small asteroid like
Eros. Let's stick to what's possible now instead of dreaming about
what we might do in 50 years and never get started in that direction.
Let's do the easiest thing ASAP, and do harder things later when we can.
Jonathan A Goff
First off, that house sized boulder is likely to weigh in at
several tonnes, thus requiring several tons of fuel. Ion
engines are kind finicky, so that is several tons of expensive
fuel. After the moon braking, you will need a high thrust
engine to do the last corrective burn to get it into a safe
orbit. That also will require tonnes of fuel. The ammount of
time you are talking about als makes thing economically infeasible.
Money has a time value. You have to depreciate machinery, etc.
Which means that you could have a situation where you find
a rock that is several tonnes of pure gold, yet not be able to
make money on it if it costs enough and takes long enough.
Without aerobraking, you are unlikely to get better than a
6-to-1 return masswise. If it takes a $200M harvester, and it
can only harvest 50 tonnes, and it takes 3 years for your
gentle nudging, then you are hosed. Not to mention that
"just any old boulder" won't do! Regolith processing makes
sense due to solar wind volatiles, and the fact that chemical
processing can yield decent metals. OTOH, processing just
a boulder of rock is likely not to yield much of value. It
is ore that you want, or volatiles. Not just some chunk of
silicates.
Mike Combs
>
> LEO is a better manned spaceflight destination than Mars or the Moon because
> by staying inside the magnetosphere, you can avoid killing your astronauts
> from cosmic HZE particles. Data rates are high, lifeboat transits are
> short, resupply is fairly reliable, sample return ditto. Microgravity
> yields to trussed barbell centrifuges.
>
> LEO is our Canaries and Azores. We need to be there before we're ready to
> be much farther out. People act like it wouldn't be exciting enough. It
> would definitely be exciting enough, once we reached "creative critical
> mass" where unexpected things are discovered and done up there.
I agree with you that everything starts in LEO. Also, it's half-way to
anywhere. But I've been in debates in other threads regarding the
merits of colonizing HEO ala O'Neill vs. colonizing the surface of
Mars. From a permanent settlement standpoint, we will never be able to
live long-term nor create large, Earthlike environments in LEO due to
the intermittent nature of sunlight there. HEO, where sunlight is
continuously available, is better from both an energy and a
life-support/agriculture point of view.
Also, given the steep gravity well of the Earth, lifting raw materials
from Earth will always be expensive. Lifting raw materials from the
moon, or a NEA will be much more economical. This also favors a higher
orbit over a lower one.
People living in HEO will live behind a radiation shield composed of the
slag left over from the ore refining operation. This shield will
attenuate cosmic ray particles to fluxes no higher than in some Earthly
communities.
Staying under the magnetosphere is fine for smaller scale operations,
like space stations (as opposed to space colonies). But when it comes
time to live in space full time, when we want to use space resources,
and when we want to create large, Earthlike environments, we'll have to
move to higher orbits.
--
Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hey, waiter, I'm in my soup!"
Overheard in a cafe in "A Bug's Life"
Tom Neff
don't need to shield against CGR, only relatively rare solar events.
Intermittent sunlight reduces your net solar efficiency but it also improves
your heat disposal budget. It is undoubtedly cheaper to double your arrays
in LEO and add some capacitance (you didn't want to be sucking straight from
the photovoltaics anyway) than to haul everything to HEO and shield it.
About gravity wells: Lifting materials from the Moon TO LUNAR ORBIT or
various Lagrange hangouts is easier than lifting materials from Earth's
surface to LEO/HEO -- unless you include the cost and difficulty of creating
that Lunar lifting capacity to begin with, of course. Lifting materials
from the Moon TO LEO is not as easy as you think. The gravity well costs
you both ways.
Personally, I find it difficult to think of a reason to lift materials from
the Moon into orbit. If you have that much of a physical plant on the Moon
to begin with, you should just stay there and do whatever it was you wanted
to do. At least you can dig for shielding. (Don't believe the argument
that "a few shovelfuls of regolith" will shield against HZE - if I remember
recent research right, regolith is a much poorer shield than originally
thought.)
The only reason I can think of to haul Moon stuff to lunar orbit is if you
had some kind of microgravity industrial process that worked up there and
could use "ore" from the Moon. But even then, coming from a family of
mechanical engineers who built factories all over the US, I can assure you
that somebody would quickly come up with a clever way to do the same thing
on the Moon's surface - you already have the vacuum if you want it, and at
1/6 g's you can build a tall tower and get quite a few seconds of
microgravity if needed.
I would also be quite cautious about throwing around terms like "ore" and
"slag" because as yet there is NO evidence that anything like usable ores
for traditional industry exist in reachable form on the Moon. Much of what
we take from Earth relies on the twin facts that (a) we have a geologically
active planet, and (b) there is a billion years of fossilized ocean bed
laying around. Neither appears likely to be true on the Moon. Everything
interesting may be buried 800 miles down. (The asteroids are a much better
bet in this regard because you get to choose the good ones.) It also goes
without saying that we don't know how safe any of this processing would be
for human life, or how usable the by-products would be for mundane purposes
like shielding. It's quite possible that it would be simpler and cheaper
(if one decided one _had_ to work in lunar orbit for some reason) to just
lift random soil and build a shelter with it, rather than messing around
with slag. But I would still be tempted to stay on the Moon if I left LEO.
"Mike Combs" <mike...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti> wrote in message
news:38D0E236...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti...
rwe...@my-deja.com
r...@shell.netmagic.net (Robert Maas) wrote:
> <<Perhaps the moons gravity can be utilized for capturing some
> near-Earth asteroids whose orbital trajectory is nearly the same as
> the Earth. Such an object would normally approach the Earth at a
> velocity greater than the local escape velocity from Earth at the
> asteroid's position. To slow the asteroid down a reverse swingby of
> the moon can be used. ...>>
>
> rockets that can significantly alter the course of a whole asteroid
> instead of just a house-size boulder formerly resting on the surface
> of an asteroid, and (2) gigantic ETR (Extra-Terrestrial Resource)
> processing factories that can process a whole asteroid in less than a
> century, like in a year or two. During the start-up phase, I imagine
> smaller ion rockets such as used on DS1, and smaller experimental
> processing stations that would take a year just to process one
> house-size boulder. I don't forsee us ready to tackle a whole asteroid
> during the first ten or maybe even twenty years after we start
> processing the first boulders. Remember I estimated tens (or did I say
> hundreds) of boulders on each of many thousands of asteroids, so if we
> leave all the asteroids intact except for dislodging some of their
> surface-resting boulders, we should be able to keep our little ETR
> processing factories busy for a long time before we ever need to bring
> a whole asteroid to Earth orbit. Even after we've already exploited
> all the boulders we can find, it may be better to slice segments off
> asteroids rather than bring whole asteroids to Earth.
>
>
be immensely easier to build a colony right on the surface of an
asteroid and mine it from there?
Mike Combs
>
> LEO is still better than HEO because you're inside the magnetosphere and you
> don't need to shield against CGR, only relatively rare solar events.
> Intermittent sunlight reduces your net solar efficiency but it also improves
> your heat disposal budget.
I'm not convinced about the latter. One can arrange things such that a
heat radiator (or whatever) is in permanent shade. Permanent shade with
the sun out all the time is only going to be moderately warmer than
permanent shade with the sun not there half the time. Shading your heat
radiator will be less expensive than doubling your solar arrays.
> It is undoubtedly cheaper to double your arrays
> in LEO and add some capacitance (you didn't want to be sucking straight from
> the photovoltaics anyway) than to haul everything to HEO and shield it.
Sheilding will not be as expensive as you might think, as it will be
done with material we'll be producing anyway.
Photovoltaics is only part of it. If we're serious about colonizing
space, we're going to want to create an Earthlike environment, ideally
with natural sunlight. We'll also want to grow crops. Has anyone
performed any experiments with growing crops with a 45 min on/45 min off
daylight cycle?
> About gravity wells: Lifting materials from the Moon TO LUNAR ORBIT or
> various Lagrange hangouts is easier than lifting materials from Earth's
> surface to LEO/HEO -- unless you include the cost and difficulty of creating
> that Lunar lifting capacity to begin with, of course.
But this is a one-time cost. Lift costs from Earth are ongoing costs.
The wise investor would spend lots of money on a one-time cost to
substantially reduce an ongoing cost, if he was in it for the long haul.
> Lifting materials
> from the Moon TO LEO is not as easy as you think. The gravity well costs
> you both ways.
I hear what you're saying, after passing over the "hill", you have to
expend energy going "down hill". That's one reason why a system
supplied with raw materials from the moon is best put in a higher
orbit. But the physics works out such that the energy required is only
1/20th. Certainly easier than the alternative.
> Personally, I find it difficult to think of a reason to lift materials from
> the Moon into orbit. If you have that much of a physical plant on the Moon
> to begin with, you should just stay there and do whatever it was you wanted
> to do.
Unless you wanted to build SPS for Earth, or Earth orbiting habitats (or
anything else desired in orbit of Earth).
Also, orbital ore refineries and fabrication shops will be able to
capitalize on the 24-hr/day sunlight, plus whatever benefits 0G might
offer.
> At least you can dig for shielding. (Don't believe the argument
> that "a few shovelfuls of regolith" will shield against HZE - if I remember
> recent research right, regolith is a much poorer shield than originally
> thought.)
Could you please provide a cite, as I'd be interested in reading up on
this.
Last I knew, 6 ft of either regolith or slag was considered sufficient,
even for pregnant women. I recently got into a debate with someone who
said you don't need nearly that much. If you have info indicating it's
not enough, please bring it to the discussion.
> I would also be quite cautious about throwing around terms like "ore" and
> "slag" because as yet there is NO evidence that anything like usable ores
> for traditional industry exist in reachable form on the Moon.
I agree that in terms of ore concentrations, lunar soils are little
different from what's in your backyard. The economic
value of extraterrestrial resources lies not in their concentration, but
in their location outside of Earth's gravity well. A bucket of
dirt in a high Earth orbit is worth its weight in gold. Why? Because
that's how much money you'd have to spend to lift it there!
Admittedly, this argument proceeds from the assumption that you want to
build something in high Earth orbit.
> It's quite possible that it would be simpler and cheaper
> (if one decided one _had_ to work in lunar orbit for some reason) to just
> lift random soil and build a shelter with it, rather than messing around
> with slag.
Well, the assumption is that we're refining the lunar soil for its
oxygen, silicon, and metals, and so would be producing the slag in any
case. If we didn't use it for shielding, we'd have to figure out some
way to safely dispose of it.
Tom Neff
have time for tonight, it's been a long day.
"Mike Combs" <mike...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti> wrote in message
news:38D26E7E...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti...
> Well, the assumption is that we're refining the lunar soil for its
> oxygen, silicon, and metals, and so would be producing the slag in any
> case. If we didn't use it for shielding, we'd have to figure out some
> way to safely dispose of it.
If you're taking out oxygen, silicon and metals, would you remind me what is
left to build with?
Robert Maas
it be immensely easier to build a colony right on the surface of an
asteroid and mine it from there?>>
We don't have the technical capability of setting up either a fully
robotic or a manned colony on an asteroid. Although dislodging
boulders from a small asteroid may take some R&D to make practical, I
believe we DO have the technical capability to do everything needed to
bring boulders from NEAs to cislunar orbit.
Robert Maas
than doubling your solar arrays.>>
I assume you intend to radiate out both sides of the radiator, one
side directly facing dark cold space, and the other side facing the
parasol, right? But the side of the parasol facing the radiator needs
to reflect infrared away from the radiator, not back to it. So you
need a slightly complicated shape of parasol/reflector, such as two V
shapes side by side, so radiation from the radiator mostly strikes the
inner parts of the Vs, then bounces to the outer parts, then bounces
out to space. Any radiation going out at such an angle to strike
either outer part of V bounces once to space.
Robert Maas
what is left to build with?>>
For the first few years of operation, we might be removing only the
small fraction of those elements which are super-easy to remove. The
hard-to-separate portions of those same elements would be slag until
it becomes profitable to further process the same material to recover
more of those same elements.
Scott Robinson
----------
In article <sd61vu...@corp.supernews.com>, r...@shell.netmagic.net
(Robert Maas) wrote:
Would there be a long term effect from all these bouncing photons in terms
of acceleration? Referring of course to the fraction that doesn't bounce.
Filip De Vos
: I know there was a bunch to respond to in the posting, but this is all I
: have time for tonight, it's been a long day.
: "Mike Combs" <mike...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti> wrote in message
: news:38D26E7E...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti...
: > Well, the assumption is that we're refining the lunar soil for its
: > oxygen, silicon, and metals, and so would be producing the slag in any
: > case. If we didn't use it for shielding, we'd have to figure out some
: > way to safely dispose of it.
: If you're taking out oxygen, silicon and metals, would you remind me what is
: left to build with?
Helium-3 :-)
--
"Who needs credibility around | Filip De Vos
here?" -- T. L. Elifritz | FilipP...@rug.ac.be
Robert Maas
terms of acceleration? Referring of course to the fraction that
doesn't bounce.>>
Yes. Anything with solar wings will experience some light pressure,
likewise anything with a large heat radiator, compared to a tiny
spacecraft without any such large protrusions. In the context of a
large manufacturing facility, I suspect the delta-momentum caused by
loading ore and unloading processed materials would be larger than the
light pressure, so there's gotta already be a way to keep it in the
desired orbit, so photon pressure isn't worth worrying about much.
seag...@my-deja.com
"Tom Neff" <tn...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> LEO is a better manned spaceflight destination than Mars or the Moon
because
> by staying inside the magnetosphere, you can avoid killing your
astronauts
> from cosmic HZE particles. Data rates are high, lifeboat transits are
> short, resupply is fairly reliable, sample return ditto. Microgravity
> yields to trussed barbell centrifuges.
>
> LEO is our Canaries and Azores. We need to be there before we're
ready to
> be much farther out. People act like it wouldn't be exciting enough.
It
> would definitely be exciting enough, once we reached "creative
critical
> mass" where unexpected things are discovered and done up there.
>
> Tom Neff <tn...@bigfoot.com>
> "My God, Thiokol, when do you
> want me to launch, next April?"
>
I think you missed on your anology;
Luna is our Canaries and Azores, LEO is our coastal waters.
We have to be able to operate in LEO, absolutly. However, there are
more raw materials and once processing is set up on site(Luna), which
will cost alot, all aspects of operation should be simpler (if my
thinking is correct).
You will have gravity. There is plenty of experience moving things
(anything: dust, granuals, large rocks, and finished components) from
one process to another in gravity (belts, rollers, buckets, and
inclines). As someone in a previous thread on orbital processing
pointed out, even on earth robotic plants have to have people walking
around correcting jams and in general keeping everything adjusted, zero-
gravity will just make it more complicated. How will everything be
moved from one process to another, blow tubes, auger screws, robotic
arms? I would doubt that any processing/manufacturing will be able to
be unmanned for a very long time. All zero-g is good for is specialized
processes, specific manufacturing, and science or research, most other
steps will be less complicated in a gravity field. How easy will it be
to expand the trussed barbell centrifuges and how much will they cost,
expansion of a "factory" on the moon will be more in line with an earth
facility than an orbital.
Once we start sailing out of sight of the coast (LEO), the moon is our
first jumping off point, and we should be going to it concurrently with
what we are doing in LEO.
Jonathan Larson
Mike Combs
>
> <<One can arrange things such that a heat radiator (or whatever) is in
> permanent shade. ... Shading your heat radiator will be less expensive
> than doubling your solar arrays.>>
>
> I assume you intend to radiate out both sides of the radiator, one
> side directly facing dark cold space, and the other side facing the
> parasol, right?
What I had actually visualized was a rectangular heat radiator arranged
edge-on to the sun, with a shield only as tall as the radiator, and only
wide enough to prevent the "edges of the sun from peeping around". I'm
sure there's a better technical way of expressing that last thought.
> But the side of the parasol facing the radiator needs
> to reflect infrared away from the radiator, not back to it. So you
> need a slightly complicated shape of parasol/reflector, such as two V
> shapes side by side, so radiation from the radiator mostly strikes the
> inner parts of the Vs, then bounces to the outer parts, then bounces
> out to space. Any radiation going out at such an angle to strike
> either outer part of V bounces once to space.
That would work. A slight convexity to the shield would work also. But
I'm also thinking that if one could do a good job of always keeping the
radiator edge-on to the sun, one might could blow off the shield
entirely.
Mike Combs
> "Mike Combs" <mike...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti> wrote in message
> news:38D26E7E...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti...
> > Well, the assumption is that we're refining the lunar soil for its
> > oxygen, silicon, and metals, and so would be producing the slag in any
> > case. If we didn't use it for shielding, we'd have to figure out some
> > way to safely dispose of it.
>
> If you're taking out oxygen, silicon and metals, would you remind me what is
> left to build with?
Well, I'm sure there's still all the above in the slag, just not in a
form conducive to separation. I'm no expert in the field of ore
refining, but I've always imagined that past a certain point you're down
to stuff where the additional effort involved in refining out what you
need makes it counter-productive to continue.
Robert Lynn
Robert Maas wrote:
>
> <<One can arrange things such that a heat radiator (or whatever) is in
> permanent shade. ... Shading your heat radiator will be less expensive
> than doubling your solar arrays.>>
>
> I assume you intend to radiate out both sides of the radiator, one
> side directly facing dark cold space, and the other side facing the
> parasol, right? But the side of the parasol facing the radiator needs
> to reflect infrared away from the radiator, not back to it. So you
> need a slightly complicated shape of parasol/reflector, such as two V
> shapes side by side, so radiation from the radiator mostly strikes the
> inner parts of the Vs, then bounces to the outer parts, then bounces
> out to space. Any radiation going out at such an angle to strike
> either outer part of V bounces once to space.
A large flat plate edge on to the sun is about the best space radiator
you can get, no shields or other intricacies required. It is also
possible to align such a device using tidal locking with the sun.
Robert Lynn
Henry Spencer
Roy Stogner <royst...@SPAMiname.com> wrote:
>What open source software (Unix, preferably) is worthwhile to simulate
>Newtonian gravitation? I can do a web search myself; just wondering if
>anyone has recommended favorites. I know it'd only be 100 lines of
Doing it well takes a bit more than that, especially if you want to do
things like encounters or low-thrust propulsion. I'd recommend the
chapter on ordinary differential equations in "Numerical Recipes", 2nd
ed., as a starting point. (Their software is available but it's not
free, alas.)
At the very least, you need a good basic integration method (the obvious
method, aka Euler integration, is not good) plus code that intelligently
monitors its own errors and adjusts the step size accordingly.
--
Computer disaster in February? Oh, you | Henry Spencer he...@spsystems.net
must mean the release of Windows 2000. | (aka he...@zoo.toronto.edu)
Robert Maas
radiator you can get, no shields or other intricacies required. It is
also possible to align such a device using tidal locking with the
sun.>>
If you're far enough from Earth that it isn't going to rotate out of
that alignment, yes that sounds like a good idea. You'll probably want
to 'silver' the edge facing the Sun, otherwise all blackbody surface.
The only problem is that you can have only one of these in any region
of space unless more than one are lined up edge-to-edge so none of
them radiate to the others. I guess the canonical configuration is to
have the planes of the radiators the same as the ecliptic. But
assuming you're collecting sunlight to run all these stations, you can
have only a single line of them around the orbit, because any closer
to the Sun would block their light and any further from the Sun would
be in the dark and any out of that plane would radiate to those in the
plane and vice versa. Whereas my idea would allow a full spherical
surface of collectors and radiators, a full Dyson sphere instead of
just a single ringworld and waste all the rest of the Sun's radiant
energy. Maybe for cost reasons, in the short term your idea is best,
but in the long term we'll have to convert to my method. During the
next ten years, your idea sounds great.
Robert Maas
granuals, large rocks, and finished components) from one process to
another in gravity (belts, rollers, buckets, and inclines).>>
Yuk, what an awful complicated mess just to get something moved from
point A to point B. In zero gravity vacuum, you just shove it from A
in the desired direction and a little while later it arrives at B all
by itself without having to do any work along the way. You don't have
to worry about up/down/sideways, just make sure the path from A to B
and the path from C to D don't intersect (or schedule AB and CD trips
so they don't happen to be simultaneous at point of intersection,
easily achieved by getting reservations in advance of any trip, which
is easily managed by a modern computer). If you want to move a fluid,
either pump it through a pipe, or put it in a sealed container then
shove the container in the right direction and catch it at the
destination. Powders can be pushed by an appropriate fluid throug a
pipe. Large masses of rock etc. can be shoved and caught.
One slight problem: Each time you speed up or slow down any such
conveyance of material from one place to another, the overall station
is nudged in the opposite direction with equal momentum, so with lots
of random shovings going on the station is liable to randomly moved
slightly. As a result you can't expect an object to travel a very
large distance, like all the way from one side of the station to the
opposite side, and land exactly where it was expected. Accordingly
most such shoves & catches should be relatively short range, either
short distance end to end, or guiders along the way to judge it
slightly if it's off course.
<<As someone in a previous thread on orbital processing pointed out,
even on earth robotic plants have to have people walking around
correcting jams and in general keeping everything adjusted,>>
Because floorspace is extremely limited and only humans can easily
maneuver around equipment and lean over things to reach difficult
places. But in zero gravity, robots could easily maneuver in 3-space
to reach any problem, then humans on Earth could tele-operate to fix
the problem.
<<zero- gravity will just make it more complicated.>>
I disagree. It'll be simpler since all directions are the same, no
problems with things that fall down too easily and won't go up. A
single set of mechanisms can move ALL materials in ALL directions
instead of having special cases for up down sideways and inclined.
<<How will everything be moved from one process to another, blow
tubes, auger screws, robotic arms?>>
Auger screws wouldn't work, but the others would work much easier than
in gravity.
Robert Maas
> left to build with?
<<Well, I'm sure there's still all the above in the slag, just not in
a form conducive to separation. I'm no expert in the field of ore
refining, but I've always imagined that past a certain point you're
down to stuff where the additional effort involved in refining out
what you need makes it counter-productive to continue.>>
Yes, I expressed a similar idea, only more extreme, a few days ago:
Initially, with very crude extraction methods, it may be possible to
extract only 5-10% of the oxygen, etc., leaving the rest (the more
tightly bound chemicals) in the slag. Eventually some of that slag
could be re-processed when we develop better extraction methods, but
there'd almost always be some slag left over.
One additional idea: If we grow bacteria which are capable of
producing complex organic chemicals from only inorganic minerals and
simple one-carbon compounds, a lot of the slag can simply be used to
feed the bacteria. If we discover there are too many toxic metals in
the slag, we may perform a simple chemical process to concentrate more
of the toxic metals in one side and less in the other side, using the
former as radiation shield and the latter to feed the bacteria. Or
maybe slag from some resources (KREEP most likely) is more toxic than
slag from other resources (ordinary regolith), so we'd have two kinds
of slag already, one suitable for growing bacteria and one not.
seag...@my-deja.com
r...@shell.netmagic.net (Robert Maas) wrote:
> <<There is plenty of experience moving things (anything: dust,
> granuals, large rocks, and finished components) from one process to
> another in gravity (belts, rollers, buckets, and inclines).>>
>
> Yuk, what an awful complicated mess just to get something moved from
> point A to point B. In zero gravity vacuum, you just shove it from A
> in the desired direction and a little while later it arrives at B all
> by itself without having to do any work along the way. You don't have
> to worry about up/down/sideways, just make sure the path from A to B
> and the path from C to D don't intersect (or schedule AB and CD trips
> so they don't happen to be simultaneous at point of intersection,
> easily achieved by getting reservations in advance of any trip, which
> is easily managed by a modern computer). If you want to move a fluid,
> either pump it through a pipe, or put it in a sealed container then
> shove the container in the right direction and catch it at the
> destination. Powders can be pushed by an appropriate fluid throug a
> pipe. Large masses of rock etc. can be shoved and caught.
>
Alot less complicated then making sure everything is going in one
direction, where you want it, and not ALL directions where you might
not. Small amount of practice moving large quantities of anything in
zero-g vs. large amount of practice moving just about everything in
gravity, of course lunar gravity might require things to be done at a
slower speed than might be liked.
> One slight problem: Each time you speed up or slow down any such
> conveyance of material from one place to another, the overall station
> is nudged in the opposite direction with equal momentum, so with lots
> of random shovings going on the station is liable to randomly moved
> slightly. As a result you can't expect an object to travel a very
> large distance, like all the way from one side of the station to the
> opposite side, and land exactly where it was expected. Accordingly
> most such shoves & catches should be relatively short range, either
> short distance end to end, or guiders along the way to judge it
> slightly if it's off course.
>
There is very little practicle experience moving anything in a
maufacturing process in zero-g. It required several launches of the
first spy sat's just to learn how to make the film run reliably from
one spool through the camera and onto the take-up reel and all they did
to it was shine some light on it.
I overlooked the problem of everything inside moving around on the
stability of the structure, that could cost a lot in energy to keep
stable. I do agree that zero-g has unlimited potential in science,
materials, and things we haven't even thought of, but why make things
more complicated than need be? I 'm just saying keep the parts that
involve dust, molten materials, and splaters where we know how to deal
with it, in a gravity field.
> <<As someone in a previous thread on orbital processing pointed out,
> even on earth robotic plants have to have people walking around
> correcting jams and in general keeping everything adjusted,>>
>
> Because floorspace is extremely limited and only humans can easily
> maneuver around equipment and lean over things to reach difficult
> places. But in zero gravity, robots could easily maneuver in 3-space
> to reach any problem, then humans on Earth could tele-operate to fix
> the problem.
What limited floorspace?
I can't give a reliable price but which do you think will cost the most
to make? 15,000 square feet of work space on the moon or in an orbital
facility launched from earth?
I must admit I "think" building a facility with as much local
materials as possible on the moon would cost less (and be more easily
expandable-adaptable) than having to launch from earth, but I have no
facts other than dollars per pound launched.
<<zero- gravity will just make it more complicated.>>
>
> I disagree. It'll be simpler since all directions are the same, no
> problems with things that fall down too easily and won't go up. A
> single set of mechanisms can move ALL materials in ALL directions
> instead of having special cases for up down sideways and inclined.
> <<How will everything be moved from one process to another, blow
> tubes, auger screws, robotic arms?>>
>
> Auger screws wouldn't work, but the others would work much easier than
> in gravity.
Yeah, but it was late and I wanted more than two examples;)
Those are my thoughts and opinions, corrections or compliments welcomed.
Robert Maas
You want things close together so you don't have to move materials too
far from one place to another. In 2-d, you have things crowded in
floorspace, and you have to figure out how to get materials around an
obstacle. Making multiple levels eases the obstacle problem but
requires lifting and dropping things against or with gravity. But in
3-d, things can be closer on the average and still have more room to
navigate around obstacles, and never have to worry about
lifting/dropping relative to gravity.
Note that seldom are industrial processes as simple as a straight line
A -> B -> C -> D, but rather there is a forking process as raw
materials are broken down into portions according to chemical or
physical properties, and chemical reagents need to be fed to
processing stations somewhat randomly, so having the flexibility to
connect any two points easily, rather than being forced to put things
in straight lines, is an advantage of zero-g 3-d layout.
Mike Combs
>
> I do agree that zero-g has unlimited potential in science,
> materials, and things we haven't even thought of, but why make things
> more complicated than need be? I 'm just saying keep the parts that
> involve dust, molten materials, and splaters where we know how to deal
> with it, in a gravity field.
Or in a rotating structure. The advantage there is that you don't have
to go down to the very bottom of a gravity well just because you need to
make things settle.
> What limited floorspace?
> I can't give a reliable price but which do you think will cost the most
> to make? 15,000 square feet of work space on the moon or in an orbital
> facility launched from earth?
Why must the orbital facility be launched from earth? Why could it not
instead be made from lunar materials? Granted that for the lunar
surface facility we could deduct the cost of launching the lunar ores
into space via mass driver, but if the orbital facility could do a
number of things which the lunar facility could not, it might be well
worth the extra expense.
> I must admit I "think" building a facility with as much local
> materials as possible on the moon would cost less (and be more easily
> expandable-adaptable) than having to launch from earth, but I have no
> facts other than dollars per pound launched.
I'm sure your thinking is correct here. Using local resources is
tremendously leveraging.
I would simply argue that use of lunar resources does not necessarily
limit us to only building on the surface of the moon. If we need to
build something in HEO, we can lift a pound of lunar ore to that orbit
for 1/20th the energy as from Earth to that same orbit.
Jonathan A Goff
> Or in a rotating structure. The advantage there is that you don't have
> to go down to the very bottom of a gravity well just because you need to
> make things settle.
The problem with rotating structures is that everything has to
be built to withstand the artificial gravity, as well as tensile
members to keep it together. As such, the thing would need to
be entirely built elsewhere, or it would take a very long time
to build on site. Also, the actual mining processes are helped
by a little bit of gravity, which would require spinning the
whole asteroid. To get say lunar gravity (to allow lunar derived
equipment to be used), you would likely need sever hundred tonnes
of connecting cable to hold it together, and the gravity would
be pointing in inconvenient directions. Asteroid mining is
not impossible, it is just going to be complicated and annoyingly
difficult.
> Why must the orbital facility be launched from earth? Why could it not
> instead be made from lunar materials? Granted that for the lunar
> surface facility we could deduct the cost of launching the lunar ores
> into space via mass driver, but if the orbital facility could do a
> number of things which the lunar facility could not, it might be well
> worth the extra expense.
A lunar base could be literally melted, dug and cut out of the
lunar landscape. As such it doesn't require very much of any
manufacturing compared to such an orbital station. As such, it
would likely cost a tiny fraction (less than 1/1000th by my
guess) of a similar orbital structure. Sure orbital stuff needs
to be done (as it is the only likely area that can directly
export stuff to earth), but only those things that can't be done
on the moon or mars, as those will be worlds cheaper than your
orbital O'Neills.
> I'm sure your thinking is correct here. Using local resources is
> tremendously leveraging.
Good to see you agree.
> I would simply argue that use of lunar resources does not necessarily
> limit us to only building on the surface of the moon. If we need to
> build something in HEO, we can lift a pound of lunar ore to that orbit
> for 1/20th the energy as from Earth to that same orbit.
True. However, mass drivers on the moon are a long way off,
and the moon doesn't have many decent rocket fuels, which
means that only part of that 1/20th leverage is going to really
exist. And there are some materials that can only be exported
in sufficient quantities from the earth or mars (buffer gasses).
Robert Maas
gravity, which would require spinning the whole asteroid.>>
That's way way down the road, at least 20 years away. I'd rather
figure out how to get started, and let our children figure out what to
do 20+ years in the future after there's already major infrastructure
on the Moon and in orbit. After all the loose surface boulders have
been picked off an asteroid, the best way to deal with the main bulk
of the asteroid will be to break the asteroid into small pieces by
some sort of explosion or collision, then process each piece
separately. Can we agree that it's not at all urgent for us to solve
that problem already?
<<A lunar base could be literally melted, dug and cut out of the
lunar landscape. As such it doesn't require very much of any
manufacturing compared to such an orbital station.>>
The advantage of lunar infrastructure is that the material is right
there, no need to move pieces of asteroid over long distances. The
disadvantage is that for the first ten years there's no good way to
get anything there up off the moon to use anywhere else, so all
infrastructure is ONLY for use on the moon.
So in parallel with all that building infrastructure on the moon, we
should be building infrastructure in orbit using asteroid materials.
That has the disadvantage of long lead times to get pieces of
asteroids from the asteroid to Earth orbit, but the advantage that
once we process or build anything it's immediately available to move
to anywhere in the solar system where it's needed, with only trip time
to consider, not the need to develop new mass-driver technology before
the trip can start.
After both independent infrastructures have been developing about ten
years, then we can start considering whether it's time to start
building a mass driver for launching large amounts of lunar stuff into
orbit. Let's not fret that now, OK?
<<mass drivers on the moon are a long way off,>>
Yes, probalby ten years or more after we start seriously bootstrapping
lunar mining&processing infrastructure. We'll probably already have
large radio telescopes on the far side of the moon before we build a
large mass driver on the moon.
Jonathan A Goff
> That's way way down the road, at least 20 years away.
You boulder picket is 20 years down the road. Spinning
an asteroid is likely 40+.
> I'd rather figure out how to get started,
> and let our children figure out what to
> do 20+ years in the future after there's
> already major infrastructure on the Moon
> and in orbit.
That's the whole problem Rob. We don't need to go to
space. Our children don't need it either. Why would
I do something that I gain no benefit from that my
children don't even need? I have no desire to sit
on my butt for the next twenty years watching a bunch
of teleoperated probes "pave the way for future
generations". Call me selfish and shortsited, but
look at NASA. They've been giving this line about
how space exploration is only 20 years of infrastructure
building away. They gave that speil 40 years ago, 20
years ago, today, and will be giving it again to my
kids if we don't do something sooner. 20 years is a
usefulessly long time to wait.
> After all the loose surface boulders have been
> picked off an asteroid, the best way to deal with the main bulk
> of the asteroid will be to break the asteroid into small pieces by
> some sort of explosion or collision, then process each piece
> separately. Can we agree that it's not at all urgent for us to solve
> that problem already?
Yes, because I don't even think your boulder processing is
economically feasible. Let alone breaking a huge asteroid
into pieces and shipping it back to earth.
> The advantage of lunar infrastructure is that the material is right
> there, no need to move pieces of asteroid over long distances. The
> disadvantage is that for the first ten years there's no good way to
> get anything there up off the moon to use anywhere else, so all
> infrastructure is ONLY for use on the moon.
Not true at all. Sure, a mass driver or lunar beanstalk (which
btw is actually not too far fetched) would make transportation
dirt cheap. But right now we don't need dirt cheap. We need
cheaper than coming from earth. And that is doable TODAY. Not
10 years from now, not 5, but today. All you need is to replace
80% of the return fuel with lunar derived oxygen, and you can
get a return on your intial mass. Over time, with low cost lunar
reusable launchers, you can actually send a huge ammount of stuff
to orbit. Fuel is cheap dude. If you can eventually send a
couple Sea Dragons full of kerosene to form an orbital refueling
dock, you could likely keep lunar commerce going for a long time.
> So in parallel with all that building infrastructure on the moon, we
> should be building infrastructure in orbit using asteroid materials.
> That has the disadvantage of long lead times to get pieces of
> asteroids from the asteroid to Earth orbit, but the advantage that
> once we process or build anything it's immediately available to move
> to anywhere in the solar system where it's needed, with only trip time
> to consider, not the need to develop new mass-driver technology before
> the trip can start.
There is no need to develop mass driver technology. Escape from
the moon and return to earth orbit is far less stressful than
launch to LEO from earth. It can easily be done with an SSTO,
and with the right balance of return fuel, and cargo both ways
you can easily keep up trade with state of 1960s technology.
Very short lead times.
> After both independent infrastructures have been developing about ten
> years, then we can start considering whether it's time to start
> building a mass driver for launching large amounts of lunar stuff into
> orbit. Let's not fret that now, OK?
I agree that we shouldn't fret about lunar mass drivers as they
just plain aren't needed.
> Yes, probalby ten years or more after we start seriously bootstrapping
> lunar mining&processing infrastructure. We'll probably already have
> large radio telescopes on the far side of the moon before we build a
> large mass driver on the moon.
I agree with that. However we will be sending back at least
propellant and some processed metals within a year of the
first people returning.
Robert Maas
is likely 40+.>>
I basically agree on the latter, maybe 20-30 years, but still outside
my 10-year plan. Regarding the former, I disagree. All you need is one
ion rocket craft with ammunition to fire projectiles at a boulder to
see how it responds to different forces, then calculate how much force
is needed ot dislodge it and how fast it'll recoil, then send the
second craft on an intercept course then fire the projectile from the
first craft to dislodge it, then rendezvous and dock with the second
craft and begin applying gentle delta-V. We have all the technology do
do that already, we just have to budget and design and build the two
craft. If we got funding now, we could launch in 2 years, reach the
asteroid within 1 more year, and dislodge by early 2003. You
disagree??
<<I have no desire to sit on my butt for the next twenty years
watching a bunch of teleoperated probes "pave the way for future
generations".>>
I wouldn't mind doing that, especially if I could aid the process in
some way and get some income as a result, but even if I couldn't.
<<Call me selfish and shortsited, but look at NASA. They've been
giving this line about how space exploration is only 20 years of
infrastructure building away. They gave that speil 40 years ago, 20
years ago, today, and will be giving it again to my kids if we don't
do something sooner.>>
They stopped building Lunar infrastructure around 1970, and they never
did start any asteroid infrastructure except just recently when they
did NEAR and DS1. I would have us start immediately doing the stuff
that comes next instead of sitting doing nothing toward this end as
NASA did from 1970 to 1998.
<<20 years is a usefulessly long time to wait.>>
Yes. I've been terribly saddened that for 28 years nothing was done
toward an infrastructure for using Lunar or asteroid resources. Lunar
resources could have been used, making oxygen at the least, as early
as 1975, if somebody with funding had been working on it from 1975
onward. Computers were crude compared to nowadays, but quite
sufficient to handle simple tele-operating with error-correcting
communication codes. Asteroid-surveying craft would take longer, but
given that Viking worked fine in 1976, not once but twice, and the
robotics needed for orbiting an asteroid are less time-critical then
landing on Mars, we could have run a NEAR-style mission (except for
the automatic navigation by star patterns) shortly after Viking.
<<I don't even think your boulder processing is economically
feasible.>>
But it is possible with today's technology, with just a little
specific engineering, right? So we can move a few boulders of
different compositions to Earth orbit, practice processing them, then
decide at that point whether it's economica to move boulders to Earth
orbit for processing just like that or whether we can automate some
processing and do it in situ at the asteroid. So the boulder
processing doesn't have to be economically feasible to be worth doing
for the experience. We can't say ahead of time what will be
economically feasible until we do some experiments. So I favor trying
things like that. Maybe we can sell it to Golden on the science, that
we can get better analysis of a boulder by bringing it to Earth orbit
and studying it by telepresence than by trying to examine it one
light-hour away at the asteroid. The tele-operator can slice off
interesting pieces for return to ISS or to land on Earth for even more
in-person study.
<<Let alone breaking a huge asteroid into pieces and shipping it back
to earth.>>
That's way down the line. My guess is that boulders will quite suffice
for several decades, and by then we'll have enough infrastructure to
either move a whole asteroid, or slice an asteroid into pieces to
move, or send an automated pre-processing factor to the asteroid to
work there and transport only the most valuable chemicals back to
Earth orbit. But there's no need to fret about that for at least 10-20
years into the future.
<<Sure, a mass driver or lunar beanstalk (which btw is actually not
too far fetched) would make transportation dirt cheap. But right now
we don't need dirt cheap. We need cheaper than coming from earth.
And that is doable TODAY.>>
Not with any Lunar shuttle I've ever heard of actually existing yet.
<<Not 10 years from now, not 5, but today.>>
Using what as the craft??
<<All you need is to replace 80% of the return fuel with lunar derived
oxygen, and you can get a return on your intial mass. Over time, with
low cost lunar reusable launchers, you can actually send a huge
ammount of stuff to orbit. Fuel is cheap dude.>>
But what vehicle do you put the fuel into?
<<Escape from the moon and return to earth orbit is far less stressful
than launch to LEO from earth. It can easily be done with an SSTO,>>
Are you aware of any SSTO that is currently operational, TODAY??
<<we will be sending back at least propellant and some processed
metals within a year of the first people returning.>>
Why wait for people on Luna?? Why not build everything tele-remotely?
With communication relay satellites in orbit of Luna, we can even
tele-operate on the far side to build our giant radio dish(es) and/or
phased array(s).
Jonathan A Goff
> <<You boulder picket is 20 years down the road. Spinning an asteroid
> is likely 40+.>>
>
> I basically agree on the latter, maybe 20-30 years, but still outside
> my 10-year plan. Regarding the former, I disagree. All you need is one
> ion rocket craft with ammunition to fire projectiles at a boulder to
> see how it responds to different forces, then calculate how much force
> is needed ot dislodge it and how fast it'll recoil, then send the
> second craft on an intercept course then fire the projectile from the
> first craft to dislodge it, then rendezvous and dock with the second
> craft and begin applying gentle delta-V. We have all the technology do
> do that already, we just have to budget and design and build the two
> craft. If we got funding now, we could launch in 2 years, reach the
> asteroid within 1 more year, and dislodge by early 2003. You
> disagree??
Actually I do disagree. Even using an ion engine you are talking
about a pretty lousy leverage ratio. That means most likely that
you'll need several hundred pounds of Xenon, which will likely cost
far more than your boulder will be worth.
Also it is entirely not clear if large scale solar ionic systems
will be economic for quite some time. DS1 was a fairly small probe,
likely several orders of magnitude smaller. Not to mention, that
it is likely that there will be a couple of required high thrust
burns that will require chemcial rockets.
Dislodging the boulder is cake when compared to moving it
to earth orbit.
> <<Call me selfish and shortsited, but look at NASA. They've been
> giving this line about how space exploration is only 20 years of
> infrastructure building away. They gave that speil 40 years ago, 20
> years ago, today, and will be giving it again to my kids if we don't
> do something sooner.>>
>
> They stopped building Lunar infrastructure around 1970, and they never
> did start any asteroid infrastructure except just recently when they
> did NEAR and DS1. I would have us start immediately doing the stuff
> that comes next instead of sitting doing nothing toward this end as
> NASA did from 1970 to 1998.
The point is that you can't just "build infrastructure".
The whole challange of the game is that you have to make it
pay for itself. The moon is the next step, not asteroids.
And it needs to be done manned, as that can be done quicker
than a teleoperated mission. Not to mention that it would
garner more advertising and comercialism dollars. Picking
boulders and tossing them at the earth is unlikely to get
you much profits.
> <<20 years is a usefulessly long time to wait.>>
>
> Yes. I've been terribly saddened that for 28 years nothing was done
> toward an infrastructure for using Lunar or asteroid resources. Lunar
> resources could have been used, making oxygen at the least, as early
> as 1975, if somebody with funding had been working on it from 1975
> onward. Computers were crude compared to nowadays, but quite
> sufficient to handle simple tele-operating with error-correcting
> communication codes. Asteroid-surveying craft would take longer, but
> given that Viking worked fine in 1976, not once but twice, and the
> robotics needed for orbiting an asteroid are less time-critical then
> landing on Mars, we could have run a NEAR-style mission (except for
> the automatic navigation by star patterns) shortly after Viking.
Actually, I don't think we even have the technology today tdo
a moon base cheaper by teleoperation than by sending people.
We sure as heck couldn't do it back in the 70s. As for asteroid
surveying and ion engines et al, DS1 and NEAr had their fair share
of problems and they are quite recent. Space automation is tough,
not anywhere near as trivial as you seem to think.
> <<I don't even think your boulder processing is economically
> feasible.>>
>
> But it is possible with today's technology, with just a little
> specific engineering, right? So we can move a few boulders of
> different compositions to Earth orbit, practice processing them, then
> decide at that point whether it's economica to move boulders to Earth
> orbit for processing just like that or whether we can automate some
> processing and do it in situ at the asteroid. So the boulder
> processing doesn't have to be economically feasible to be worth doing
> for the experience. We can't say ahead of time what will be
> economically feasible until we do some experiments. So I favor trying
> things like that. Maybe we can sell it to Golden on the science, that
> we can get better analysis of a boulder by bringing it to Earth orbit
> and studying it by telepresence than by trying to examine it one
> light-hour away at the asteroid. The tele-operator can slice off
> interesting pieces for return to ISS or to land on Earth for even more
> in-person study.
Sure, NASA would be perfectly willing to part with several billion
dollars on what could easily become a boondoggle. You don't just try
things that cost several billion dollars unless there is a good chance
of it working. Real people in the private sector have to make money at
what they do. Paying back several billion plus interest is unlikely
to happen.
> <<Let alone breaking a huge asteroid into pieces and shipping it back
> to earth.>>
>
> That's way down the line. My guess is that boulders will quite suffice
> for several decades, and by then we'll have enough infrastructure to
> either move a whole asteroid, or slice an asteroid into pieces to
> move, or send an automated pre-processing factor to the asteroid to
> work there and transport only the most valuable chemicals back to
> Earth orbit. But there's no need to fret about that for at least 10-20
> years into the future.
I still disagree that boulder picking will ever turn a profit
without at least some processsing in-situ.
> <<Sure, a mass driver or lunar beanstalk (which btw is actually not
> too far fetched) would make transportation dirt cheap. But right now
> we don't need dirt cheap. We need cheaper than coming from earth.
> And that is doable TODAY.>>
>
> Not with any Lunar shuttle I've ever heard of actually existing yet.
No lunar shuttle of any sort exists yet. However, the
technology does. Do the math, it is quite feasible.
> <<Not 10 years from now, not 5, but today.>>
>
> Using what as the craft??
Well, I imagine it would be a LOX/CH4 combo based on the
LEMDE, but bigger. Single stage to some intermediate
staging area. Likely have room for a one many crew.
Not too tough. Could pay for itself within a few months
of operations.
> <<All you need is to replace 80% of the return fuel with lunar derived
> oxygen, and you can get a return on your intial mass. Over time, with
> low cost lunar reusable launchers, you can actually send a huge
> ammount of stuff to orbit. Fuel is cheap dude.>>
>
> But what vehicle do you put the fuel into?
There is no specific vehicle that you can just go and buy. It
would have to be designed and built. But all the technology
is there, and development will be much cheaper than for your
boulder picker.
> <<Escape from the moon and return to earth orbit is far less stressful
> than launch to LEO from earth. It can easily be done with an SSTO,>>
>
> Are you aware of any SSTO that is currently operational, TODAY??
Return from the moon is about 3km/sec. Even the X-33 could do
better than that. Crap, that requires only a mass ratio of about
2! Any rocket stage can get that kind of delta-vee. There are
hundreds of examples.
> <<we will be sending back at least propellant and some processed
> metals within a year of the first people returning.>>
>
> Why wait for people on Luna?? Why not build everything tele-remotely?
Because we could put people on the moon within 5 years of when we decide
to go, whereas teleoperated systems capable of making a lunar base
without needing any people to maintain them or anything are going to
cost ten to twenty times more than sending people. Why pay more for less?
People are far simpler than teleoperations.
> With communication relay satellites in orbit of Luna, we can even
> tele-operate on the far side to build our giant radio dish(es) and/or
> phased array(s).
Dude, teleoperation is far more expensive than you seem to understand.
It is expensive, unreliable, and will take far longer to develop.
Peter Lynn Ltd
to require rockets a possible scheme for launching rocks into lunar
orbit and beyond would be a simple high speed rotating arm with the
payload attached to the tip. Use solar power to slowly accelerate the
arm until it reaches the desired speed. I am guessing a 10 ton machine
delivered from earth could launch a one ton payload every hour of sun
light. Of couse the payload would require a little strengthening to
handle the 10000 plus g's it would be subjected to. An appropriate
cradle and aluminium casing or like would probably be sufficient. In
orbit guidance and maneuvering would be a problem. I don't much like
the idea of incorporating these systems at launch, perhaps a small solar
powered high isp tug using lunar derived reaction mass which catches the
payload and guides it to its destination. While fairly inexpensive in
itself and technically unchallenging (comparatively), it would probably
require some existing infastruture on the moon - rock making and
loading. A part from the obvious "Who is going to pay for it?" what are
the draw backs of this system?
Pete.
seag...@my-deja.com
mike...@nospam.comchgnospam2ti wrote:
> seag...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > I do agree that zero-g has unlimited potential in science,
> > materials, and things we haven't even thought of, but why make
things
> > more complicated than need be? I 'm just saying keep the parts that
> > involve dust, molten materials, and splaters where we know how to
deal
> > with it, in a gravity field.
>
> to go down to the very bottom of a gravity well just because you need
to
> make things settle.
>
> > I can't give a reliable price but which do you think will cost the
most
> > to make? 15,000 square feet of work space on the moon or in an
orbital
> > facility launched from earth?
>
> instead be made from lunar materials? Granted that for the lunar
> surface facility we could deduct the cost of launching the lunar ores
> into space via mass driver, but if the orbital facility could do a
> number of things which the lunar facility could not, it might be well
> worth the extra expense.
>
Lunar or orbital processing/production facilities for other than earth
ores.
If we all ready have a facilty on the moon able to produce structural
components and machinery, which is the implication of your above
paragraph, why would you add the cost of transporting a duplicate
facility modified for zero-g and all the raw materials it will need to
make anything, if you are already doing it right at your material
source, the surface of the moon? Or if it is not launched from earth,
where did it come from?
Have I misunderstood you, or was it late and you needed more than two
examples this time :-)
seag...@my-deja.com
r...@shell.netmagic.net (Robert Maas) wrote:
> <<You boulder picket is 20 years down the road. Spinning an asteroid
> is likely 40+.>>
>
> I basically agree on the latter, maybe 20-30 years, but still outside
> my 10-year plan. Regarding the former, I disagree. All you need is one
> ion rocket craft with ammunition to fire projectiles at a boulder to
> see how it responds to different forces, then calculate how much force
> is needed ot dislodge it and how fast it'll recoil, then send the
> second craft on an intercept course then fire the projectile from the
> first craft to dislodge it, then rendezvous and dock with the second
> craft and begin applying gentle delta-V. We have all the technology do
> do that already, we just have to budget and design and build the two
> craft. If we got funding now, we could launch in 2 years, reach the
> asteroid within 1 more year, and dislodge by early 2003. You
> disagree??
What ion craft is that?
How can all that cost less than doing the same thing on the moon with
the most sophisticated and adaptible(sp) "machine" we have, a person.
> <<Let alone breaking a huge asteroid into pieces and shipping it back
> to earth.>>
>
> That's way down the line. My guess is that boulders will quite suffice
> for several decades, and by then we'll have enough infrastructure to
> either move a whole asteroid, or slice an asteroid into pieces to
> move, or send an automated pre-processing factor to the asteroid to
> work there and transport only the most valuable chemicals back to
> Earth orbit. But there's no need to fret about that for at least 10-20
> years into the future.
>
> <<Sure, a mass driver or lunar beanstalk (which btw is actually not
> too far fetched) would make transportation dirt cheap. But right now
> we don't need dirt cheap. We need cheaper than coming from earth.
> And that is doable TODAY.>>
>
> Not with any Lunar shuttle I've ever heard of actually existing yet.
And what company makes your two ion asteroid pushers?
There is a great deal of equipment that will have to be made for either
idea and the most likely way to get the funds is to KIS: Keep It Simple.
(I only use the second S in reference to myself, multiply, generally
after a big mistake!)
> <<Not 10 years from now, not 5, but today.>>
>
> Using what as the craft??
>
> <<All you need is to replace 80% of the return fuel with lunar derived
> oxygen, and you can get a return on your intial mass. Over time, with
> low cost lunar reusable launchers, you can actually send a huge
> ammount of stuff to orbit. Fuel is cheap dude.>>
>
> But what vehicle do you put the fuel into?
>
> <<Escape from the moon and return to earth orbit is far less stressful
> than launch to LEO from earth. It can easily be done with an SSTO,>>
>
> Are you aware of any SSTO that is currently operational, TODAY??
>
> <<we will be sending back at least propellant and some processed
> metals within a year of the first people returning.>>
>
> Why wait for people on Luna?? Why not build everything tele-remotely?
> With communication relay satellites in orbit of Luna, we can even
> tele-operate on the far side to build our giant radio dish(es) and/or
> phased array(s).
>
Mike Combs
>
> Just a few thoughts - while initial inhabitation of the moon would seem
> to require rockets a possible scheme for launching rocks into lunar
> orbit and beyond would be a simple high speed rotating arm with the
> payload attached to the tip. Use solar power to slowly accelerate the
> arm until it reaches the desired speed. I am guessing a 10 ton machine
> delivered from earth could launch a one ton payload every hour of sun
> light.
In the very early days of Gerard O'Neill's "orbital habitats built from
lunar resources" proposals, the scheme involved something they called
the "rotary pellet launcher", a machine very similar to what you
describe. They later abandoned that approach for the lunar mass
driver. I have to assume that was because the mass driver was more
advantageous. So the above approach was actually the approach which was
looked at first before they hit on the idea of mass drivers.
> Of couse the payload would require a little strengthening to
> handle the 10000 plus g's it would be subjected to. An appropriate
> cradle and aluminium casing or like would probably be sufficient.
I think it's more of an issue of strengthening the rotating arm to
withstand the centrifugal forces. I don't know, but that might very
well have been the show-stopper.
Mike Combs
>
> Topic check; this is a discusion of which should be made first:
> Lunar or orbital processing/production facilities for other than earth
> ores.
> If we all ready have a facilty on the moon able to produce structural
> components and machinery, which is the implication of your above
> paragraph,
Actually, I was assuming the High Frontier scenario, in which you launch
nothing but raw ores from the lunar surface into space, with all ore
refining and parts fabrication taking place in HEO.
The material requirements for the initial lunar mining camp and mass
driver are relatively modest, so the assumption is that we would start
out with components launched from Earth, and begin launching lunar
resources into space, with initial use of lunar resources taking place
in orbit. Later on, when you're ramping up and need to vastly expand
the lunar installations, creating the capability to do things like
building additional solar panels and mass driver components on the moon
from local materials begins to make sense. But maybe not prior to that
point.
> why would you add the cost of transporting a duplicate
> facility modified for zero-g and all the raw materials it will need to
> make anything, if you are already doing it right at your material
> source, the surface of the moon?
Perhaps because you want to build something in HEO like SPS, or orbital
habitats. Everything depends on if the final location for your finished
product is on the lunar surface, or in orbit. If in orbit, you might as
well take advantage of continuous solar power and 0-g.
Robert Maas
Lunar or orbital processing/production facilities for other than earth
ores.>>
IMO, it's too early to tell how much of the processing of Lunar
materials will be done on the surface of Luna and how much will be
done after lifting into Earth/Lunar orbit. For objects to be used on
Luna, of course as much as possible should be done on Luna. But for
objects to be used in space, we don't know what strategy will work
best. Also we don't yet know how effective it'll be to use Near-Earth
Objects (mostly pieces from small asteroids, such as boulders sitting
on the surface) during these early years of extra-terrestrial
materials usage.
For the moment, we need ground-truth surveys of the major Lunar
resources (polar hydrogen, KREEP, oxygen from J.Random regolith,
oxygen from iron-rich regolith which is alleged to have more
loosely-bound oxygen, and solar-wind deposits) and then preliminary
attempts to extract the easiest resources (probably polar hydrogen,
and oxygen from everywhere, leave everything else for a little later).
And we need further study of asteroids, expecially those many many
boulders resting on the surface, which for each asteroid probably
represent a sample of virtually all classes of asteroids except those
which are too fragile to create boulders. Being able to select
boulders of any desired composition (within the range of what kinds of
asteroids there are) from the surface of each SINGLE asteroid should
be a big win, because we can set up the pipeline of delivery from an
asteroid once and then harvest whatever we need any particular year
until the best kinds of boulders on that asteroid become depleted.
Lunar Prospector's finding of so much hydrogen likely at the poles, and
NEAR's observation of boulders on 433 Eros, are IMO good news that we
are likely to find very useful, so let's quickly explore those two
features more and consider taking advantage of both if feasible.
Robert Maas
[[one ion rocket craft with ammunition to fire projectiles at a
boulder to see how it responds to different forces, ... fire the
projectile from the first craft to dislodge it, then rendezvous and
seag...@my-deja.com asked: <<What ion craft is that?>>
Duplicate of the ion rocket used on Deep Space 1, perhaps use several
together if more peak thrust is needed than one would provide,
eventually scale up the design for efficiency but for now just use
several current-size rockets together. Of course we need to put
together various off-the-shelf equipment such as computers, guidance,
power regulator, solar panels, communication, military weapon or other
projectile-shooter (does the USA military currently have fully
automated weapons, which load themselves from a local cache without
needing a human present?), and some grappling device for holding onto
a boulder once it's free from the asteroid where it was
found&dislodged. If we can find some really small boulders, would the
craft of the needed size be small enough to fit inside STS cargo bay?
If so, we wouldn't need to make them aerodynamically shapely to be
launched through the atmosphere, but could just have everything
attached around a truss or something, exposed directly to space except
for micrometeorite shielding of delicate/essential systems and
solar-flare shielding of delicate electronics. Since we'd be dealing
with an asteroid, not a comet, we wouldn't have to shield against a
flood of chips being blown off a comet.
> ... But right now
> we don't need dirt cheap. We need cheaper than coming from earth.
> And that is doable TODAY.>>
>
> Not with any Lunar shuttle I've ever heard of actually existing yet.
<<And what company makes your two ion asteroid pushers?>>
I admit my ion asteroid-boulder dislodger&pusher doesn't exist today,
but believe it could be hacked together in a couple years. Will you
admit your Lunar shuttle likewise doesn't exist, would require some
engineering and gearing up new manufacturing? How long do you estimate
it'd take for (1) my putting together off-the-shelf equipment, perhaps on
a truss, and verifying that maximal stress from operating all ion
rockets simultaneously at maximum thrust won't break anything; (2)
your doing whatever it takes to create a reusable lunar shuttle that
carries its own hydrogen both ways but refuels oxygen on Luna before
take-off again?
<<There is a great deal of equipment that will have to be made for
either idea and the most likely way to get the funds is to KIS: Keep
It Simple.>>
My plan would mostly use already-existing equipment, only the
attachment and electrical&signal connections and software would have
to be designed somewhat anew. How close to existing rocket designs
come to what you would need for the Lunar shuttle? (Assuming somebody
else achieves extracting oxygen and liquifying it and storing it and
pumping it into your shuttle LOx tank.)
Robert Maas
you launch nothing but raw ores from the lunar surface into space,
with all ore refining and parts fabrication taking place in HEO.>>
I tentatively believe that (1) it will be very easy to extract some
reasonable amount of oxygen from Lunar regolith, even if it's only 5%
by mass that'll be a LOT of easily available oxygen, and (2) we will
NOT want to send both fuel and oxidizer to Luna for the return trip,
but will definitely want to make use of that Lunar oxygen for the
return trip.
Accordingly, depending on whether we need more or less oxygen in
orbit, the actual payload could be the oxygen-deprived slag from the
oxygen extraction process, or more raw regolith (and just discard the
slag for now).
Do you have any good reason for NOT using lunar oxygen for
first-generation launch-from-Luna capability (before a mass-driver is
online for launching payloads from Luna)? I tentatively believe we can
assay lunar resources within a couple years, and start experimenting
with extracting oxygen from known sources at the same time, and have
production of Lunar LOx operational within 5 years from whenever we
get funding to start. Can your mass-driver launcher come online sooner
at comparable cost? If the other fellow's Lunar shuttle comes
operational within five years, could his shuttle and my oxygen supply
beat your mass driver timewise?
Mike Combs
>
> Mike Combs said: <<I was assuming the High Frontier scenario, in which
> you launch nothing but raw ores from the lunar surface into space,
> with all ore refining and parts fabrication taking place in HEO.>>
>
> I tentatively believe that (1) it will be very easy to extract some
> reasonable amount of oxygen from Lunar regolith,
Well, as I've had it pointed out to me by the volatiles-from-Mars crowd,
"easy" is a relative term. It's a complex chemical process, requiring
prodigious amounts of energy (which is why HEO is favored; it enables
huge flimsy solar concentrating mirrors, and the power is available
continuously.
> even if it's only 5%
> by mass
As a matter of fact it's quite a bit more than that: 40%. But it's all
tied up in oxides of silicon and metals.
> that'll be a LOT of easily available oxygen, and (2) we will
> NOT want to send both fuel and oxidizer to Luna for the return trip,
> but will definitely want to make use of that Lunar oxygen for the
> return trip.
I'd go even further than that. If we're using lunar resources in HEO,
we will not want to take the oxidizer along for ANY trip above LEO. The
ore-refining operation will be producing oxygen by the ton. Propellant
depots at the L-1 point, in HEO, and in LEO make sense. Most folks
don't realize that lunar oxygen can be provided to LEO for less energy
than from the Earth's surface. (Ditto hydrogen if the poles are
minable.)
> Accordingly, depending on whether we need more or less oxygen in
> orbit, the actual payload could be the oxygen-deprived slag from the
> oxygen extraction process, or more raw regolith (and just discard the
> slag for now).
If we're building habitats for long-term stay in space, we'll need
radiation shields. The slag will be as good a material for that use as
any other. So I say launch raw regolith from the moon. Every atom of
it will find a use in space.
> Do you have any good reason for NOT using lunar oxygen for
> first-generation launch-from-Luna capability (before a mass-driver is
> online for launching payloads from Luna)?
There's no good reason for holding off on that indefinitely (and good
reasons for wanting that capability in the long run). But it might not
happen before use of lunar resources in HEO. Getting off the lunar
surface into orbit is not the hard part. Producing the oxygen in HEO
and providing it in HEO and LEO may be even more leveraging than oxygen
availability on the lunar surface. But past a certain point, you're
going to want to expand your lunar facilities with additional mass
drivers and more solar panels. At that point, some refining and
manufacturing capability on the lunar surface begins to make sense.
Thereafter, we would expect lunar oxygen to become available for
lunar-surface-to-orbit launches. But given the modest requirements of
the initial installation, major refining and manufacturing in HEO may
precede same on the lunar surface.
> I tentatively believe we can
> assay lunar resources within a couple years, and start experimenting
> with extracting oxygen from known sources at the same time, and have
> production of Lunar LOx operational within 5 years from whenever we
> get funding to start. Can your mass-driver launcher come online sooner
> at comparable cost? If the other fellow's Lunar shuttle comes
> operational within five years, could his shuttle and my oxygen supply
> beat your mass driver timewise?
I won't pretend to know. It's difficult to make side-by-side
comparisons, because the goals are different. The primary goal of High
Frontier is not to make lunar oxygen available to space craft. It's to
create the manufacturing capability needed to build large structures in
HEO. The oxygen produced is just a fringe benefit; albeit one which
improves the economics of space flight in cislunar space dramatically.
Mike Combs
>
> IMO, it's too early to tell how much of the processing of Lunar
> materials will be done on the surface of Luna and how much will be
> done after lifting into Earth/Lunar orbit. For objects to be used on
> Luna, of course as much as possible should be done on Luna.
I would agree.
> But for
> objects to be used in space, we don't know what strategy will work
> best.
I suspect launching raw ores into space and doing all the ore refining
and parts fabrication in space will work best, for the following
reasons:
1. If we're launching raw ore only from the moon, there's a much more
relaxed upper limit on the G forces that our payloads can withstand.
That makes mass drivers with accelerations of 1,800 G's usable. The
economics of electromagnetic launch from the moon will always be better
than for rocket launch.
2. If a certain portion of the lunar ores was totally unusable, it might
make sense to do some manufacturing (or at least ore beneficiation) on
the moon. But if we're building permanent habitats for long-term stay
in space, they'll need radiation shields. Those shields will be very
massive. It's been proposed that they be built from the slag left over
from the ore-refining operation. So it can be the case that every atom
of soil launched from the moon will find a use in space.
3. Ore refineries and manufacturing facilities in HEO will be able to
use solar power continuously. On the moon, industrial operations may
have to cease or at least be scaled back considerably during the 14-day
long night. The only practical alternative to solar power in the lunar
surface is nuclear. This would require convincing everyone that we can
launch a nuclear reactor from Earth without danger.
4. Ore refineries and manufacturing facilities in HEO will have
convenient access to 0-G. While the materials processing advantages of
0-G may not be clear, it's much more clear that solar concentrating
mirrors of enormous size, but far too flimsy to withstand even lunar
gravity, become possible. Such mirrors could provide prodigious amounts
of heat to ore processing and metal working operations.
> Also we don't yet know how effective it'll be to use Near-Earth
> Objects (mostly pieces from small asteroids, such as boulders sitting
> on the surface) during these early years of extra-terrestrial
> materials usage.
Well, we can't "know" in the sense that's we've already done it. The
same can be said for manufacturing on the moon. We can know in the
sense that we're getting better and better data on the composition of
asteroids, and can propose methods for their retrieval and use which
don't involve materials beyond what is currently used, or technology not
extrapolatable from what's presently available.
> For the moment, we need ground-truth surveys of the major Lunar
> resources (polar hydrogen, KREEP, oxygen from J.Random regolith,
> oxygen from iron-rich regolith which is alleged to have more
> loosely-bound oxygen, and solar-wind deposits)
I'd agree that where the moon is concerned, we've literally only
scratched the surface.
> Lunar Prospector's finding of so much hydrogen likely at the poles, and
> NEAR's observation of boulders on 433 Eros, are IMO good news that we
> are likely to find very useful, so let's quickly explore those two
> features more and consider taking advantage of both if feasible.
Gets my vote.
Roy Stogner
>1. If we're launching raw ore only from the moon, there's a much more
>relaxed upper limit on the G forces that our payloads can withstand.
This is an excellent argument against launching thin fabricated parts.
If you're building even small O'Neill scale colonies, there will be a
large amount of mass taken up by thick load-bearing members which will
be able to handle a high acceleration mass driver, and which could
conceivably be cheaper to fabricate on the moon.
>That makes mass drivers with accelerations of 1,800 G's usable.
Depends on how much you want to launch at a time. A mass driver will
accelerate your ore container, but not your ore, and that container
has a limited strength.
>The economics of electromagnetic launch from the moon will always be
>better than for rocket launch.
Not exactly. There's a large capital investment and time investment
necessary to develop, build, and place a mass driver on the moon in
the first place.
In the long run, you can probably operate and maintain a mass driver
much more cheaply than an equivalent payload capacity rocket fleet,
but in the short run the rockets will have a nice headstart.
It's also easier to dock a rocket with something already in an
arbitrary orbit; correct me if I'm wrong, but with a mass driver
if you want frequent launch windows you're pretty much limited to
catching payloads at a lagrange point (O'Neill suggested behind the
moon?), and you have to worry about their incoming velocity.
>3. Ore refineries and manufacturing facilities in HEO will be able to
>use solar power continuously. On the moon, industrial operations may
>have to cease or at least be scaled back considerably during the 14-day
>long night. The only practical alternative to solar power in the lunar
>surface is nuclear. This would require convincing everyone that we can
>launch a nuclear reactor from Earth without danger.
Of course, if you want to use electromagnetic launch continuously, you
need a lot of energy at night too, and batteries/flywheels/etc don't
look so hot after 14 days. You can melt aluminum (dunno about
regolith) for the same energy it'll take to shoot it into lunar orbit.
>> Lunar Prospector's finding of so much hydrogen likely at the poles, and
>> NEAR's observation of boulders on 433 Eros, are IMO good news that we
>> are likely to find very useful, so let's quickly explore those two
>> features more and consider taking advantage of both if feasible.
>
>Gets my vote.
Same here.
---
Roy Stogner
Mike Combs
>
> On Tue, 04 Apr 2000 12:58:46 -0500, Mike Combs wrote:
>
> >1. If we're launching raw ore only from the moon, there's a much more
> >relaxed upper limit on the G forces that our payloads can withstand.
>
> This is an excellent argument against launching thin fabricated parts.
> If you're building even small O'Neill scale colonies, there will be a
> large amount of mass taken up by thick load-bearing members which will
> be able to handle a high acceleration mass driver, and which could
> conceivably be cheaper to fabricate on the moon.
Perhaps, but I think launching raw lunar soil into space, and doing all
the refining and fabrication operations in HEO would still be
advantageous for all the other reasons I previously gave. I'm not sure
what aspects of the lunar surface would necessarily make the fabrication
processes cheaper. Given the limited availability of sunlight on the
lunar surface, I'd sooner expect the opposite.
> >That makes mass drivers with accelerations of 1,800 G's usable.
>
> Depends on how much you want to launch at a time. A mass driver will
> accelerate your ore container, but not your ore, and that container
> has a limited strength.
Back in the seventies they built a mass driver model with the same
diameter as what had been proposed for the moon. It had a bucket
capable of withstanding 1,800 G's.
> >The economics of electromagnetic launch from the moon will always be
> >better than for rocket launch.
>
> Not exactly. There's a large capital investment and time investment
> necessary to develop, build, and place a mass driver on the moon in
> the first place.
You're right. I should have more correctly said "For continuous launch
beyond a certain point, etc."
> In the long run, you can probably operate and maintain a mass driver
> much more cheaply than an equivalent payload capacity rocket fleet,
> but in the short run the rockets will have a nice headstart.
True.
> It's also easier to dock a rocket with something already in an
> arbitrary orbit; correct me if I'm wrong, but with a mass driver
> if you want frequent launch windows you're pretty much limited to
> catching payloads at a lagrange point (O'Neill suggested behind the
> moon?), and you have to worry about their incoming velocity.
Yes, the L-2 point was proposed. Actually, the incoming velocity will
be relatively small. Each sphere of soil will be slowing down
continuously as it climbs up the lunar gravity well.
> Of course, if you want to use electromagnetic launch continuously, you
> need a lot of energy at night too, and batteries/flywheels/etc don't
> look so hot after 14 days. You can melt aluminum (dunno about
> regolith) for the same energy it'll take to shoot it into lunar orbit.
At the beginning of the proposals, the lunar mining camp was assumed to
have a small nuclear reactor. Later, the reactor was gone, and there
were only solar arrays. I think they decided that even if the mass
driver could only work 2 weeks out of every 4, that was still
sufficient. You're going to need some downtime anyway for maintenance,
repair, and the occasional coil replacement.
Robert Maas
> by mass
<<As a matter of fact it's quite a bit more than that: 40%. But it's
all tied up in oxides of silicon and metals.>>
You missed my point. Although the total Oxygen content is 40%, most of
it is tied up in those oxides, only a small amount is relatively easy
to extract. So suppose we get just the easy part, maybe 5% instead of
40%. I seem to recall somebody saying that oxides of aluminum,
magnesium, and silicon, are difficult to decompose to yield oxygen,
but iron oxide is relatively easy to decompose by reacting with
hydrogen. Some deposits are rich in iron, so we could use them for
easy oxygen and leave all the other deposits (except polar water) for
later.
> that'll be a LOT of easily available oxygen, and (2) we will
> NOT want to send both fuel and oxidizer to Luna for the return trip,
> but will definitely want to make use of that Lunar oxygen for the
> return trip.
<<I'd go even further than that. If we're using lunar resources in
HEO, we will not want to take the oxidizer along for ANY trip above
LEO. The ore-refining operation will be producing oxygen by the ton.
Propellant depots at the L-1 point, in HEO, and in LEO make sense.
Most folks don't realize that lunar oxygen can be provided to LEO for
less energy than from the Earth's surface. (Ditto hydrogen if the
poles are minable.)>>
Stage 1, what I'm most interested in currently: We don't yet have any
infrastructure on Luna nor in HEO or L-n, and hardly any in LEO. We're
trying to put the bare minimum of equipment, from Earth, onto Luna to
get processing started. We land something near some iron-rich regolith
that can extract just the very-easy oxygen. Once we have that working
without trouble, we start sending shuttles that land with only
hydrogen, re-fuel with oxygen, and take off with a load of unprocessed
regolith or slag from the quick&easy-oxygen-extraction, depending on
which is more profitable in LEO. In polar regions, we land equipment
for extracting water, and decomposing it into hydrogen and oxygen.
Once that is working without trouble, we start sending shuttles that
are totally empty of fuel and get re-fueled with BOTH hydrogen and
oxygen, and take off with a load of unprocessed or water-depleted
regolith depending on value at LEO. When this is working, we no longer
need to lift oxygen from Earth for any reason except for use during
ascent from Earth to LEO.
Stage 2, when all the above is working fine: Hydrogen extracted (in
LEO) from the polar regolith is used to fuel all trips from LEO to
Luna, and to provide hydrogen for return trip from non-polar sites on
Luna, and to provide hydrogen for oxygen-extraction in non-polar sites,
so we no longer need to lift hydrogen from Earth except for use during
ascent from Earth to LEO.
Stage 3: At that time we decide where to open additional sites on Luna
and whether it will be profitable to build HEO and/or L-n processing
stations.
<<If we're building habitats for long-term stay in space, we'll need
radiation shields. The slag will be as good a material for that use
as any other. So I say launch raw regolith from the moon. Every atom
of it will find a use in space.>>
The problem with that is that we're also producing slag on Luna, which
must be disposed somewhere. It's easier to launch the slag from Luna,
rather than dispose the slag on Luna and go collect a bunch more raw
regolith as payload in lieu of the slag we already had on site. If we
really need a lot of oxygen in orbit, if we're running short, then
launching raw regolith from Luna will supply that oxygen better than
launching slag from the quick&easy oxygen-extraction process. But I
suspect we'll have excess oxygen in orbit, so launching slag from Luna
and processing it further in orbit would be best.
Mike Combs
>
> > I tentatively believe that (1) it will be very easy to extract some
> > reasonable amount of oxygen from Lunar regolith, even if it's only 5%
> > by mass
>
> <<As a matter of fact it's quite a bit more than that: 40%. But it's
> all tied up in oxides of silicon and metals.>>
>
> You missed my point. Although the total Oxygen content is 40%, most of
> it is tied up in those oxides, only a small amount is relatively easy
> to extract. So suppose we get just the easy part, maybe 5% instead of
> 40%.
OK, I get you now. So there's reason to think the oxygen bound to the
iron will be significantly easier to extract than from the other
oxides? I certainly agree with pursuing the low-hanging fruit first.
> Stage 1, what I'm most interested in currently: We don't yet have any
> infrastructure on Luna nor in HEO or L-n, and hardly any in LEO.
Yeah, I read you. We have to get there from here.
High Frontier started out with the assumption that we want to build
enormous structures in space. We build the infrastructure to do that,
and lunar oxygen becomes available in space as a side business. You're
advocating making the oxygen available first, making some money from
that, and then later on (capitalizing on use of that oxygen) moving up
to wider use of lunar resources. This is the kind of "terraced
approach" thinking that I guess I need to embrace.
seag...@my-deja.com
r...@shell.netmagic.net (Robert Maas) wrote:
> Regarding my idea of:
> [[one ion rocket craft with ammunition to fire projectiles at a
> boulder to see how it responds to different forces, ... fire the
> projectile from the first craft to dislodge it, then rendezvous and
>
> seag...@my-deja.com asked: <<What ion craft is that?>>
>
> Duplicate of the ion rocket used on Deep Space 1, perhaps use several
> together if more peak thrust is needed than one would provide,
> eventually scale up the design for efficiency but for now just use
> several current-size rockets together. Of course we need to put
> together various off-the-shelf equipment such as computers, guidance,
> power regulator, solar panels, communication, military weapon or other
> projectile-shooter (does the USA military currently have fully
> automated weapons, which load themselves from a local cache without
> needing a human present?), and some grappling device for holding onto
> a boulder once it's free from the asteroid where it was
> found&dislodged. If we can find some really small boulders, would the
> craft of the needed size be small enough to fit inside STS cargo bay?
> If so, we wouldn't need to make them aerodynamically shapely to be
> launched through the atmosphere, but could just have everything
> attached around a truss or something, exposed directly to space except
> for micrometeorite shielding of delicate/essential systems and
> solar-flare shielding of delicate electronics. Since we'd be dealing
> with an asteroid, not a comet, we wouldn't have to shield against a
> flood of chips being blown off a comet.
>
> > we don't need dirt cheap. We need cheaper than coming from earth.
> > And that is doable TODAY.>>
> >
> > Not with any Lunar shuttle I've ever heard of actually existing yet.
>
> <<And what company makes your two ion asteroid pushers?>>
>
> but believe it could be hacked together in a couple years. Will you
> admit your Lunar shuttle likewise doesn't exist, would require some
> engineering and gearing up new manufacturing? How long do you estimate
> it'd take for (1) my putting together off-the-shelf equipment,
perhaps on
> a truss, and verifying that maximal stress from operating all ion
> rockets simultaneously at maximum thrust won't break anything; (2)
> your doing whatever it takes to create a reusable lunar shuttle that
> carries its own hydrogen both ways but refuels oxygen on Luna before
> take-off again?
>
I didn't save and now can't find, that there is a lot of sulfer on the
moon and while it is not as effceint as hydrogen it can be used in a
rocket engine with oxygen, so potentially all you need is to get to the
moon and set-up, then your costs start falling. If the sulfer/oxygen
rocket works economicly enough for the immeadiate area around earth we
can save the lunar hydrogen for life suport and other planetary
missions.
> <<There is a great deal of equipment that will have to be made for
> either idea and the most likely way to get the funds is to KIS: Keep
> It Simple.>>
>
> My plan would mostly use already-existing equipment, only the
> attachment and electrical&signal connections and software would have
> to be designed somewhat anew. How close to existing rocket designs
> come to what you would need for the Lunar shuttle? (Assuming somebody
> else achieves extracting oxygen and liquifying it and storing it and
> pumping it into your shuttle LOx tank.)
>
The lunar shuttle people are using the same statement, that their plan
would use already-existing equipment, so the lunar shuttle is just as
close to being made as your ion rocket.
David Anderman
development, the very first terrace had better be feasible before such
projects like lunar factories are envisioned.
We get lots of people here who are all excited about lunar bases and the
like, but they quickly become disenchanted when they realize that their
dreams will not be realized in their lifetimes - that there is no way to
get from here to there.
IMHO, the best approach is to work the problem in reverse, and to focus
on early, enabling steps that can be accomplished in the near term. This
tends to reinforce the morale, and facilitates the next step. Of course,
one outcome from this is the perception that the first steps are
insufficiently ambitious for anyone to pay attention to ("hey, I got the
city council of Wichita, Kansas to declare that space is a good
thing!").
LordMalikii
> IMHO, the best approach is to work the problem in reverse, and to focus
> on early, enabling steps that can be accomplished in the near term. This
> tends to reinforce the morale, and facilitates the next step.
Oh how sadly true.
I have long lamented the space advocate's tendancy to look only at the far
distant horizon without a glance down as to where they are putting their feet,
watching how they stumble along the way. Which is why, to me, issues of
terraforming, O'Neil type habitats, and huge SPS stations are so very
uninteresting.
No doubt those who settled the new world had wonderful visions of what their
creations would look like 100 years in the future. No doubt they would have
been surprised with the actual results.
We will never get there from here without a better understanding of where
"here" is and at least a bit more focus on the first steps we need to take to
move us along that route.
Richard Hendricks
David Anderman wrote:
>
> ("hey, I got the
> city council of Wichita, Kansas to declare that space is a good
> thing!").
ObDrivel: Considering Kansans don't believe in the Big Bang or
evolution, maybe we should just let them stay here on this dirtball.
Woollard, Ian [HAL02:GB13:EXCH]
> IMHO, the best approach is to work the problem in reverse, and to focus
> on early, enabling steps that can be accomplished in the near term. This
> one outcome from this is the perception that the first steps are
> city council of Wichita, Kansas to declare that space is a good
> thing!").
I agree. The most obvious question is:
how can we make money from space?
The most realistic answer I have is:
mine near earth asteroids like eros...
(conservative estimate of 20 Trillion dollars worth of metals on ONE
asteroid ;-)
More metal than can ever be mined on the entire surface of the earth...
in one asteroid.
Yes there are difficulties. No I don't think they would cost 20
Trillion.
We're talking profit. We're talking a lot of profit!!!!
And yes bringing back metal would reduce the world price- you'd have
to control the rate that you brought it back so that the price doesn't
dip- but you can bet that it would also increase the long term demand-
all kinds of applications that weren't competitive before would become
competitive...
(Including High Frontier applications....)
> > High Frontier started out with the assumption that we want to build
> > enormous structures in space. We build the infrastructure to do that,
> > and lunar oxygen becomes available in space as a side business. You're
> > advocating making the oxygen available first, making some money from
> > that, and then later on (capitalizing on use of that oxygen) moving up
> > to wider use of lunar resources. This is the kind of "terraced
> > approach" thinking that I guess I need to embrace.
--
-Ian (wo...@nortelnetworks.nojunkmail.com)
|"Everything takes longer than you expect, even when you |
|take into account Hofstadters law". "Hofstadter's Law? |
|What's that?" "That IS Hofstadters law..." |
Jonathan A Goff
> I agree. The most obvious question is:
>
> how can we make money from space?
Yup, that is the key question.
> The most realistic answer I have is:
>
> mine near earth asteroids like eros...
>
> (conservative estimate of 20 Trillion dollars worth of metals on ONE
> asteroid ;-)
Except for the fact that the cost of shipping that
metal back to earth to be used would be prohibitive.
It doesn't matter if you can make 20 trillion dollars
if it is going to take you 2 centuries to do it.
You have to have a return on your investment, and it
has to be within a decade for anyone to buy into it.
> More metal than can ever be mined on the entire surface of the earth...
> in one asteroid.
Think about that statement for a second. First off,
it probably isn't really true. Second off, most of
that metal is probably tied up in forms that make it
uneconomical to extract them. Third, we've had several
millenia to extract ore here on earth, what makes you
think that this wonder asteroid will be able to be
extracted in less than a century? Fourth, mining
places on earth, which have far cheaper sources of ore
are not getting much funding right now.
Basically, you could claim that a beach has several
trillion dollars worth of silicon for computers.
That doesn't mean you could actually make money on
extracting it.
> Yes there are difficulties. No I don't think they would cost 20
> Trillion.
> We're talking profit. We're talking a lot of profit!!!!
Then how come nobody is really putting any money into it?
Think about that for a while.
> And yes bringing back metal would reduce the world price- you'd have
> to control the rate that you brought it back so that the price doesn't
> dip- but you can bet that it would also increase the long term demand-
> all kinds of applications that weren't competitive before would become
> competitive...
>
> (Including High Frontier applications....)
Yeah, if you could do it cheaper than from earth. That is the
problem with your conclusions. You start out with a reasonable
question, then immediately go off into science fantasy land.
Woollard, Ian [HAL02:GB13:EXCH]
>
> On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Woollard, Ian [HAL02:GB13:EXCH] wrote:
>
> > I agree. The most obvious question is:
> >
> > how can we make money from space?
>
> Yup, that is the key question.
>
> > The most realistic answer I have is:
> >
> > mine near earth asteroids like eros...
> >
> > (conservative estimate of 20 Trillion dollars worth of metals on ONE
> > asteroid ;-)
>
> Except for the fact that the cost of shipping that
> metal back to earth to be used would be prohibitive.
> It doesn't matter if you can make 20 trillion dollars
> if it is going to take you 2 centuries to do it.
OK in all seriousness, the energy costs to return materials
from some near earth asteroids is about 0.5km/s. This is low-
an order of magnitude less than launching to LEO.
Also, provided the asteroid has sources of oxygen and
metals like aluminium on it: Aluminium + oxygen = rocket
fuel. You'd use sunlight to separate them and then you
can burn them to get back to earth. Sunlight is free.
Collecting it just involves a big mirror.
I'm vastly oversimplifying but you get the idea.
> You have to have a return on your investment, and it
> has to be within a decade for anyone to buy into it.
>
> > More metal than can ever be mined on the entire surface of the earth...
> > in one asteroid.
>
> Think about that statement for a second. First off,
> it probably isn't really true.
Actually it probably IS true. Do some research. Come back
when you've done it.
On the earth most of the metal sank when the earth formed.
That didn't happen in the asteroids.
> Second off, most of
> that metal is probably tied up in forms that make it
> uneconomical to extract them.
Nope. Did you ever see that 1 mile wide crater in USA somewhere
(I forget where) with the village at the bottom. There's a
mine in the middle where they mine the asteroid... And that's
after it got vapourised and spread around reentering...
> Third, we've had several
> millenia to extract ore here on earth, what makes you
> think that this wonder asteroid will be able to be
> extracted in less than a century?
Um. Its all in one place, it has concentrations of metal
of 5 PERCENT, compared to parts per million down on earth.
Secondly the metal is in sub-millimeter sized bits rather
than distributed evenly throughout the ore. Its better
qualite ore than anywhere on earth.
> Fourth, mining
> places on earth, which have far cheaper sources of ore
> are not getting much funding right now.
Depends on what you are mining. Some metals are very rare.
Look at some of the metals used for catalytic converters.
They've hit $450 an ounce and climbing. What do you
reckon the incremental costs are to return an ounce from
an asteroid? Launch costs TO orbit are probably dropping
to around $1000 a pound, return costs from an asteroid
should be a fraction of this.
> > Yes there are difficulties. No I don't think they would cost 20
> > Trillion.
> > We're talking profit. We're talking a lot of profit!!!!
>
> Then how come nobody is really putting any money into it?
> Think about that for a while.
a) the mineral assays are coming back now and coming
back good
b) its going to cost a 100 billions just to get into the game,
its a high cost, very high return game.
> > And yes bringing back metal would reduce the world price- you'd have
> > to control the rate that you brought it back so that the price doesn't
> > dip- but you can bet that it would also increase the long term demand-
> > all kinds of applications that weren't competitive before would become
> > competitive...
> >
> > (Including High Frontier applications....)
>
> Yeah, if you could do it cheaper than from earth. That is the
> problem with your conclusions. You start out with a reasonable
> question, then immediately go off into science fantasy land.
There are many things you can do cheaper in orbit than on the earth.
One of them is building large structures. Moving large things around
is easier in zero-g; you don't need cranes for example. You can extrude
unlimited lengths of metal etc. etc.
> Jonathan Goff
>
> "America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the
> well wisher to the freedom and independence of all." -- John Q. Adams
--
Jonathan A Goff
> I have long lamented the space advocate's tendancy to look only at the far
> distant horizon without a glance down as to where they are putting their feet,
> watching how they stumble along the way. Which is why, to me, issues of
> terraforming, O'Neil type habitats, and huge SPS stations are so very
> uninteresting.
That is rather funny coming from someone who has come across
to me as a O'neill cheerleader. If this post is how you
really feel, then we may have more in common then I thought.
Near term, I agree that none of the above are realistic. What
is realistic is small (less than 10,000 people) in-situ derived
lunar cities feeding processed metals and oxidizer to small
(less than 500 people) orbital cities making sat farms. That
is about the only near term way that I think can realistically
make money from space. Of course, once you start getting lots
of orbital cities, space tourism becomes possible. And with
many small orbital cities (towns or hamlets would be more
accurate) doing those two things, it may make some sense to
have a small martian outpost of ~1000 people that mostly just
provides volatiles, water, and some materials that the moon
can't provide to those space cities. After that point we will
likely have enough critical mass to start using the NEAs, at
which point the moon and mars and orbital space will start
to develop a significant offworld economy.
But I only see getting to about the start of NEA usage within
20 years. Anything past that (SPS, O'Neill colonies, terraforming,
stationary skyhooks anywhere but on the moon) is pushing it a lot.
> No doubt those who settled the new world had wonderful visions of what their
> creations would look like 100 years in the future. No doubt they would have
> been surprised with the actual results.
>
> We will never get there from here without a better understanding of where
> "here" is and at least a bit more focus on the first steps we need to take to
> move us along that route.
Quite true. What we really need is to figure out the details
needed to get the whole thing going. My personal guess is
that you will need at least a small orbital facility, and a
small lunar city. With the orbital facility assembling GEO
sat farms, and the lunar facility supplying it with all raw
materials that make economic sense. I think this could get
started even without a CATS RLV going. All we need really
is some Protons, and a really well thought out system for
the space station and the lunar city.
Jonathan A Goff
> Geez, although I am a big fan of 'terraced approaches' to space
> development, the very first terrace had better be feasible before such
> projects like lunar factories are envisioned.
Well, a lunar setup that could pay for itself by
exporting LOX, some processed metals, and some
processed ceramics could likely be started up
for less than $750M. A small space station that
could aid in the manufacturing and assembly of
GEO sat farms could likely be built and launched
for $200-500M (with 500M being the more conservative
guess). That is pretty low cost. However it would
need some source of money that wasn't tied directly
to it. The possibilities I see are:
--an Andy Beal sort investing the cash (unlikely to say the least)
--shameless commercialism (ala the Artemis Project) raising money
by sponsorship, prizes, toys etc (also fairly unlikely)
--money invested by a non-aerospace company that is started up
to raise revenue for the project (I have a version of this idea
that I plan on trying), this is the quickest but not the most
likely.
--Incrementally reinvesting from other space startups (ie do
rocket engines, then suborbitals, then launch vehicles,
then space stations, then lunar bases). This is likely to
do it, but would take a long time. This is my fall back
plan
--Try to get venture capital (Yeah right)
--Try to get government money (If you lack a soul that is).
> We get lots of people here who are all excited about lunar bases and the
> like, but they quickly become disenchanted when they realize that their
> dreams will not be realized in their lifetimes - that there is no way to
> get from here to there.
I disagree that it is impossible to get here from there.
Tough yes, impossible no. I'm doing what little I can
right now.
> IMHO, the best approach is to work the problem in reverse, and to focus
> on early, enabling steps that can be accomplished in the near term. This
> tends to reinforce the morale, and facilitates the next step. Of course,
> one outcome from this is the perception that the first steps are
> insufficiently ambitious for anyone to pay attention to ("hey, I got the
> city council of Wichita, Kansas to declare that space is a good
> thing!").
Depends on what you mean. I actually agree in incrementalism.
I just think we are ready to take bigger steps then just getting
a city council to agree with you. As it is, I'm not interested
in the space advocacy group approach. Government ain't gonna
get us into space. Only finding something profitable will do so.
What did you have in mind as first steps?
Jonathan A Goff
> OK in all seriousness, the energy costs to return materials
> from some near earth asteroids is about 0.5km/s. This is low-
> an order of magnitude less than launching to LEO.
Actually it is closer to 1-2 km/s from most of them. Sure
it is cheaper, but nobody is going to pay you for stuff on
orbit without there being some way for them to use that to
make money. As it is, it is way too expensive to import
back to earth. Also, the startup costs will be tough to
meet.
> Also, provided the asteroid has sources of oxygen and
> metals like aluminium on it: Aluminium + oxygen = rocket
> fuel.
No, aluminum and oxygen isn't that good. Poor performance,
difficult to get it to work. Hydrocarbons are far better
fuels.
> You'd use sunlight to separate them and then you
> can burn them to get back to earth. Sunlight is free.
> Collecting it just involves a big mirror.
Big mirrors are hard to do. Separating aluminum from
its oxygen is tough, and requires a very, very high
temperature.
> I'm vastly oversimplifying but you get the idea.
Yeah, and when you drop the simplification, you find
that it is actually no long economical.
> Actually it probably IS true. Do some research. Come back
> when you've done it.
You said any given asteroid, not all of them. And as it is,
there is thousands of cubic miles of material that can be
accessed here on earth. It just ain't worth going after
because it costs more to pull it out than it is worth.
> On the earth most of the metal sank when the earth formed.
> That didn't happen in the asteroids.
However, even though you can get at all the metal doesn't
make it cheaper.
> Nope. Did you ever see that 1 mile wide crater in USA somewhere
> (I forget where) with the village at the bottom. There's a
> mine in the middle where they mine the asteroid... And that's
> after it got vapourised and spread around reentering...
Yeah, with gravity to separate the materials, chemical processes
from groundwater, and several other effects you can get pretty
good ore. Oh, you forgot, you don't have groundwater or gravity on
those rocks.
Also, most of that metal is still in only a few percent
of the full mass.
> Um. Its all in one place, it has concentrations of metal
> of 5 PERCENT, compared to parts per million down on earth.
Assuming that you can ship it cheaply. As it is, 40% of your
asteroid would have to go to fuel if you wanted to ship it
using your LOX/Al system. That just used up most of your
metal.
> Secondly the metal is in sub-millimeter sized bits rather
> than distributed evenly throughout the ore. Its better
> qualite ore than anywhere on earth.
Still doesn't make it easy to mine or to ship. Mining in
zero gravity is a bugger. And shipping it back is also
tough. It doesn't matter if there is tons of material
out there. Even if it is easy to access (which not all
or even most asteroids will be as good as the example
above), shipping it and the setup time will make it hard
to make a decent ROI. This is something that makes sense
in the very long run, but short run mars and the moon are
tons easier and quicker to do. You just are simply
ignoring anything that doesn't fit your preconcieved
notions.
> Depends on what you are mining. Some metals are very rare.
> Look at some of the metals used for catalytic converters.
Yeah, and they are also very rare in space too.
> They've hit $450 an ounce and climbing. What do you
> reckon the incremental costs are to return an ounce from
> an asteroid? Launch costs TO orbit are probably dropping
> to around $1000 a pound, return costs from an asteroid
> should be a fraction of this.
Launch costs to an asteroid are on the order of $10k per
pound or more. Platinum group metals are very rare, and
are only present in some of the asteroids. You would have
to process several tons of metal to get a couple of ounces.
As such, you could likely make a small fortune.
Only problem is that it will cost you a large fortune to
make it.
> a) the mineral assays are coming back now and coming
> back good
What assays? We only have a single probe that has really
come close enough to an NEA to get decent info, and it
isn't even close to an assay. If NEAP works, then I'll
take that back, but there are no assays yet at all. Just
a little spectroanalysis from a couple light minutes away,
and some guesses based on meteorite falls.
> b) its going to cost a 100 billions just to get into the game,
> its a high cost, very high return game.
The problem is that if it takes more than 3-4 years to make a
return, it isn't worth it at this time.
I usually play games that cost less than a billion dollars as
they actually have a chance in hell of getting funded.
> There are many things you can do cheaper in orbit than on the earth.
Oh?
> One of them is building large structures.
Bullshit. Right now construction in zero g is an absurdly
difficult task. Everything takes several times more to
do in space, and is far more physically demanding. As it
is, the ISS isn't much bigger than some houses I've been
in. And it is the biggest space structure ever built.
> Moving large things around is easier in zero-g;
> you don't need cranes for example.
Actually, this isn't true. Things still have mass in
zero-G, which means you need heavy equipment to move
heavy stuff still. And you have to anchor things together,
and you have to worry a lot more about construction
accidents. On a whole, gravity is only a very small
problem for construction, and in reality makes most things
tons easier.
> You can extrude unlimited lengths of metal etc. etc.
Not true either. Extrusion processes for metal would
likely induce some pretty hefty vibration modes pretty
quickly. Enough to rip it apart after it gets past a
certain distance. Also, you have to worry about what
it is doing to your center of gravity. Not to mention,
why on earth would you want ultralong metal extrusions?
In theory, I don't see any reason why it would be more
difficult to make long extrusions in orbit than on
earth. As it is, the only limiting factor is the
bumpiness of the earth.
Jim Harris
Iridium was $13 billion for a bunch of dinky satellites.
Your money won't even cover launch costs.
Anything built on the moon will require a committment of
billions--probably 3-5 billion a year for a minimum of a
decade to just get started.
Who would buy lunar LOX? Lunar LOX will only lower the cost
of financing the development of the moon. Anything not
brought from Earth lowers the costs.
There's no one in space who wants to buy lunar LOX? Are you
talking asteroid miners? What will they pay for it with,
even if they existed? Anything they got would be cheaper to
mine and process on the moon. Same for would be Martians.
And the guys floating out in space wanting to build their L5
colony only have vacuum to swap.
THERE IS NO PROFIT IN SPACE EXPLORATION! At least not for a
very long time--like maybe in the 22nd century.
That doesn't mean a city won't be built on the moon or
Mars. Space requires an economic system that is beyond
capitalism. At least until things get going good.
Jim
Mike Combs
>
> That is rather funny coming from someone who has come across
> to me as a O'neill cheerleader.
Naw, that's me you're thinking of. (Rah! Rah! Go, Bernal Spheres, Go!
Yay, Stanford Toruses!!) Lance has consistently argued for development
of near Earth spaces over development of Mars, but considers things like
orbital habitats or SPS to be too far out in the future to even be
discussed intelligently.
Jonathan A Goff
> Your figures are off by a magnitude at minimum. I heard
> Iridium was $13 billion for a bunch of dinky satellites.
> Your money won't even cover launch costs.
Interestingly enough, Iridium put up about sixty some odd
sats using about 10-20 launches (real rough estimate).
They also had to build dozens of ground track stations.
My plan involves only 3 or 4 launches, for a total mass
of less than 10% that of Iridium. Also, there is no need
for ground track stations, etc. Basically you are totally
comparing apples to oranges.
To compare my numbers with those of others:
NASA estimated ~$10,000,000,000,000 for a 1000 person base
on the moon with a factor of fifty launch cost reduction.
Microcosm estimated ~$10,000,000,000 for the same base with
the same cost reduction.
Artemis is looking at ~$1,415,000,000 for a six man base.
The big difference between Microcosm and NASA is that
microcosm is assuming that structures and other high
bulk simple parts are derived from in-situ materials,
the structures are assumed to be big enough to allow
for almost all of the important work to be done inside
in a shirtsleeve environment, and the tools would be
COTS as much as possible (with some testing to make
sure they will function in the chosen environment).
The difference between mine and Microcosm's estimate,
is that I'm not assuming a major cost reduction (ie
Proton and Soyuz) unless Beal is there by the time I
start. It is also not including the development cost
for the equipment inside the base. I am taking a
business park aproach, build it and maybe run a lunar
LOX processor and sell the rest of the space for others
to use as they please. That way most of the equipment
costs are passed off. This reduces the risk of other
peoples' ventures (as they actually have a place that
they know exists that they can get to), while reducing
the startup costs of the base to just construction
equiment, temporary housing, and volatiles extraction
equipment. Maybe a little excess for prospecting, and
some light manufacturing equipment for molding airlocks
and doors and such.
The full cost of the city once you include everyone's
equipment, shipping everyone, and maintenance for them
comes up to not much less than Microcosm's estimate.
> Anything built on the moon will require a committment of
> billions--probably 3-5 billion a year for a minimum of a
> decade to just get started.
I disagree totally. Artemis and Microcosm are both
guessing much lower. Of course, Microcosm isn't to my
knowledge actually pursuing such a goal, just doing cost
estimating.
Why should going back to the moon cost so much?
Unlike Apollo we don't have to test manned space flight.
Unlike Apollo we don't need to develop three new boosters.
The gravity field maps are already done, as well as some
pretty good resource maps. Also, we have calculators,
computers, CAD/CAM packages, FEA packages, and other things
that had to be done with pencil, paper, slide-rule, and
tape punch. We have much more experience with the design
of space electronics, rocket engines, and other space
structures. High strength materials have dropped in cost,
and are easier to build with. Quality has gone up, etc.
Why on earth should a mission that isn't much more difficult
than a single Apollo launch cost ten times as much?
> Who would buy lunar LOX? Lunar LOX will only lower the cost
> of financing the development of the moon. Anything not
> brought from Earth lowers the costs.
>
> There's no one in space who wants to buy lunar LOX? Are you
> talking asteroid miners? What will they pay for it with,
> even if they existed? Anything they got would be cheaper to
> mine and process on the moon. Same for would be Martians.
> And the guys floating out in space wanting to build their L5
> colony only have vacuum to swap.
>
> THERE IS NO PROFIT IN SPACE EXPLORATION! At least not for a
> very long time--like maybe in the 22nd century.
Bullshit. Pardon the french, but you are just plain
ignoring everything I'm saying. Telecommunications
is a huge market, and is growing bigger all the time.
GEO and LEO sat farms have the huge advantage over
normal sats of having very large antennas, and high
transmitting power. This allows for much smaller
ground communications (ie instead of Iridium sized
sat phones, you are talking about hearing aid sized
devices), much higher bandwidth than almost any other
possible solution (except everyone having a fiber
optic line), and they take up less of the EM spectrum.
As it is, these could likely be done now (the GEO
ones) using say a few proton launches to orbit an
assembly station, then sending up the rest of the
components to orbit and assembling them there.
However, they still need to be boosted from LEO,
and barring nearterm CATS launch prices the structural
material costs way more than it needs to. This is a
very realistic, near term market for lunar LOX, and
also any lunar metals available. Eventually, this
will enable some of the other orbital industries.
They'll do the direct trading with the earth, while
the moon, NEAs, and Mars will supply them (and each
other).
> That doesn't mean a city won't be built on the moon or
> Mars. Space requires an economic system that is beyond
> capitalism. At least until things get going good.
Beyond capitalism? There is no other economic system that
can do rational calculation at all. Capitalism is really
the only sustainable economic system. And capitalism can
easily handle the development of space. The reason nothing
has be happening in space for the past 30 years is because
of such flawed thinking. Space isn't growing because of
impeding the market, not because the market is incapable.
Jim Harris
and I don't mean to sound like I'm attacking you. I'm just
hashing out ideas and plans.
Also, I think we should narrow the ground rules. When I
think of space and space exploration, I think Moon, Mars,
asteroids, or L5 colonies. The big stuff. I concede that
you can make money at LEO and GEO. Beaming information
around isn't what I'm talking about. I talking manned
missions beyond earth.
1. Where did you get that figure for the NASA moon base?
10 trillion? Seems like even NASA could do it cheaper than
that.
2. The other two are 10 billion and 1.5 billion. Where is
the cost of infrastructure? NASA has half a century of
buying land and building labs, research facilities, launch
sites, etc. Those are worth billions. If any private
company starts up in this business, they will need to
include the cost of the infrastructure. Prices to build a
modern chip fabrication site is in the billions, so I would
think a clean room for building anything we're talking about
would cost the same.
And consider payroll. To build a corporation will require a
lot of people working for it, so there is quite an
overhead. Then you have investors who want dividends, if
not profits.
So pricing just modules, or equipment shipped to the moon
doesn't count.
I think your plans are okay for what you want to do. I just
think you will need a lot more money. Big projects always
cost way more than planned and take way more time than
planned. I plan to study what you say more, and research
some of the things you mentioned.
And why won't you need ground tracking stations? One
revenue stream you will get is from TV feeds. I'm not
saying you won't find ways to finance parts of your project,
I just don't think it will ever get out of the red.
I doubt you will do much business selling industrial park
sites on the moon. Or even make money selling manufactured
goods on the moon. There's no economy on the moon. There
is no economy to make stuff and sell to people on earth (the
only people with money.)
Now if you mean, you make the LOX, and I make the ceramics
and we trade, there will be a barter economy. You might
could even develop a monetary system to represent the
barter. But why would earth people or corporations want moon
credits?
To start a moon civilization you need:
+ air
+ water
+ food
+ shelter
+ clothing (could be optional, not a necessity)
Eventually you will want:
+ computers
+ machinery
+ robots
+ fun stuff
+ fabrics
+ animals - meat eating and pets are a luxuary
We think there is water on the moon, so that solves the air
and water problem, although we'd probably want to breath an
inert gas with our oxygen. Food can be grown. Shelter will
come from underground living. Clothing will be an import.
To make the above self sufficient will require manufacturing
the equipment that turns water into air, and moon rocks into
shelter.
Most everything else will come from earth -- big drain on
the bottom line. Nothing you can make will be profitable to
sell back on earth. But you wouldn't even want to try to
send stuff back to earth. Every bit of machinery and metal
arriving on the moon will be the most valuable stuff you
have for years and years to come. Recycling on the moon
will be a life and death issue.
Even if you could manufacture a launch container, I think
you'd prefer using the materials to build stuff for the
moon, rather than flinging stuff back to earth.
The only stuff you can return to earth is information.
Earth will send you stuff because you send them information,
but it will never be a profitable thing. As long as there
are people on earth who want to see a moon civilization,
there will be funding for sending stuff to the moon.
Even after the moon becomes self sufficient, people on earth
will want to go to the moon. Lets say people want to
immigrate to the moon. You will accept them because they
will be worth having, plus they will bring X tons of goods
with them to pay the moon people to accept them. But I
don't see a profit here for Earth. It's one way.
There will be revenue streams, but not something investors
can make money off of.
I'm sure you're going to mention tourism. Tourism does
benefit poor economies because rich people come to visit.
If a trip to the moon is $30 million dollars, how many
tourists do you need to cover an overhead in the billions?
There's not that many people willing to part with that kind
of money. And I'm not sure you can send and return a person
to the moon for $30 million. A shuttle launch to LEO for
6-7 people is a billion dollars.
To build a civilization on the moon will require a lot of
money. It will generate priceless knowledge. It will
develop a new economy. But I find it hard to believe, it
will provide capitalists on earth a return on their
investment.
Jim
Rand Simberg
<jha...@memphis.edu> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:
>I'm sure you're going to mention tourism. Tourism does
>benefit poor economies because rich people come to visit.
>If a trip to the moon is $30 million dollars, how many
>tourists do you need to cover an overhead in the billions?
>There's not that many people willing to part with that kind
>of money. And I'm not sure you can send and return a person
>to the moon for $30 million. A shuttle launch to LEO for
>6-7 people is a billion dollars.
It's only a half billion dollars, not that this is any way relevant to
the space tourism market. You cannot extrapolate costs, using
thirty--year-old technology, by a government space agency flying half
a dozen times a year, to speculate what it would cost to fly a mass
market.
************************************************************************
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org
"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Replace first . with @ and throw out the "@trash." to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers: postm...@fbi.gov
Jonathan A Goff
> First let me say that I'm having fun with this conversation,
> and I don't mean to sound like I'm attacking you. I'm just
> hashing out ideas and plans.
It's cool. I some time come off too forcefully on usenet.
> Also, I think we should narrow the ground rules. When I
> think of space and space exploration, I think Moon, Mars,
> asteroids, or L5 colonies. The big stuff. I concede that
> you can make money at LEO and GEO. Beaming information
> around isn't what I'm talking about. I talking manned
> missions beyond earth.
I don't see why they can't be big stuff. I'm talking about
hundreds of large sat farms in LEO, and hundreds in GEO.
Each with dishes as large as 40 meters in diameter or more.
This will require some pretty good sized assembly and
maintenance facilities, and some decent infrastructure.
It can be started, and making money with very little startup
capital, but to get it going full bore, it will become a
multi-billion dollar industry almost over night, and it will
require some level of lunar materials.
> 1. Where did you get that figure for the NASA moon base?
> 10 trillion? Seems like even NASA could do it cheaper than
> that.
Well, first off I checked my sources and the number was
actually $4T. Secondly, they extrapolated from a study
involving 8 people to a base for 1000. Thus with some
decent efficiencies of scale, a more polite cost is in
the neighborhood of $.5-2T, which is still way too high.
> 2. The other two are 10 billion and 1.5 billion. Where is
> the cost of infrastructure? NASA has half a century of
> buying land and building labs, research facilities, launch
> sites, etc. Those are worth billions. If any private
> company starts up in this business, they will need to
> include the cost of the infrastructure. Prices to build a
> modern chip fabrication site is in the billions, so I would
> think a clean room for building anything we're talking about
> would cost the same.
Well, the simple fact of the matter is that most companies
don't need to build that infrastructure anymore. Remember,
Apollo was done in the day of sliderules and tape punch
computers. The data gleaned from most of that infrastructure
only needs to be done once, then it is in the public domain.
No need to reinvent the wheel. Also, if you scale things
down, you could probably make a local chip fab setup for
only a couple milllion. IIRC, there is a local company that
doesn't outsource anything, including chips and circuit
boards (for its mostly mechanical products). Sure the chips
are lower end, but I hear rumors about the possibility of
making mini chip fab setups that can be economical, yet
don't even take up a full room. Sure they aren't going to
compete with Intel or AMD for new commercial product development,
but for fabrication they do fine. And as it is, you don't
need a glitzy high end chip to launch a rocket or to control
the life support. Most of it has been done practically before
computers as we know it came into style.
Had NASA not done all that development of infrastructure some
of it would have been provided privately (that which could
aid in making money), or wouldn't have been provided. The
basic point though, is that most of the components can be
purchased OTS. You can buy Proton launches from russia, and
therefore don't have to pay to develop, build, and launch
the thing, you just have to pay the price for the launches
you need. There are some good upper stage engines that are
available from P&W and various sources. Sure you'd still
have to fab a lot of stuff. However, you can also outsource
some of it to companies that already do similar stuff. The
simple fact of the matter is that you don't need all the
infrastructure all by yourself.
> And consider payroll. To build a corporation will require a
> lot of people working for it, so there is quite an
> overhead. Then you have investors who want dividends, if
> not profits.
Keep it small. This isn't the Apollo Program. You can
keep design costs low using COTS parts, use CAD/CAM to
eliminate most of the work that was originally done.
We also have the data available on what works and what
doesn't. This is not a huge corporation deal, it is a
small set of companies, and maybe not even neccessarily
a publicly traded one.
> So pricing just modules, or equipment shipped to the moon
> doesn't count.
Yes it does because I was counting design, manufacturing,
and launch costs for in-house stuff, and purchasing price
and launch costs for outsourced stuff.
> I think your plans are okay for what you want to do. I just
> think you will need a lot more money. Big projects always
> cost way more than planned and take way more time than
> planned.
Oh, I agree. However, with good management, it is often
possible to come in fairly close to target. And this
really isn't such a huge project. Its potential is huge,
but most of the startup (the hard part) is actually done
with a pretty small group.
> I plan to study what you say more, and research
> some of the things you mentioned.
Thanks, I'm flattered.
> And why won't you need ground tracking stations? One
> revenue stream you will get is from TV feeds. I'm not
> saying you won't find ways to finance parts of your project,
> I just don't think it will ever get out of the red.
Ground tracking stations for LEO sats help control them.
There is software out there that allows sats to cheaply
track themselves and control themselves. For a moon base,
track stations aren't needed after the first flight, as
it needs to be self-controlled. As it is, having a ground
watch that is pretty small, backed up with skilled volunteers
in case of an emergency will likely do.
> I doubt you will do much business selling industrial park
> sites on the moon. Or even make money selling manufactured
> goods on the moon. There's no economy on the moon. There
> is no economy to make stuff and sell to people on earth (the
> only people with money.)
>
> Now if you mean, you make the LOX, and I make the ceramics
> and we trade, there will be a barter economy. You might
> could even develop a monetary system to represent the
> barter. But why would earth people or corporations want moon
> credits?
I'm a manufacturing engineer. However, I will point out that
there is tons of stuff that makes money without anything more
than a couple electrons being moved. You don't have to make
money off of manufactured goods. You can make money off of
supporting large scale communications processes, microgravity
research labs, or a few rare microgravity manufacturing setups
that can turn a profit. As it is, there is plenty of money
to be made in orbit, but orbit doesn't have material to tap,
so it must get it from the moon.
> To start a moon civilization you need:
>
> + air
> + water
> + food
> + shelter
> + clothing (could be optional, not a necessity)
We'll assume that this is a neccessity.
> Eventually you will want:
>
> + computers
> + machinery
> + robots
> + fun stuff
> + fabrics
> + animals - meat eating and pets are a luxuary
More or less.
> We think there is water on the moon, so that solves the air
> and water problem, although we'd probably want to breath an
> inert gas with our oxygen. Food can be grown. Shelter will
> come from underground living. Clothing will be an import.
>
> To make the above self sufficient will require manufacturing
> the equipment that turns water into air, and moon rocks into
> shelter.
Well, you don't need self-sufficiency, but making lunar
oxygen processing equipment and construction equipment
on the moon will likely soon be more efficient then making
it on earth. As it is, you'd be wiser to save your
money for importing tougher stuff like computers. At
some point, it will just make sense for almost every
bulk item to be built in space if it is to be used there.
> Most everything else will come from earth -- big drain on
> the bottom line. Nothing you can make will be profitable to
> sell back on earth. But you wouldn't even want to try to
> send stuff back to earth. Every bit of machinery and metal
> arriving on the moon will be the most valuable stuff you
> have for years and years to come. Recycling on the moon
> will be a life and death issue.
Of course recycling will be a big issue. However, you are
missing the point. Manuactured consumer goods is not the
only source of wealth.
> Even if you could manufacture a launch container, I think
> you'd prefer using the materials to build stuff for the
> moon, rather than flinging stuff back to earth.
However, it would make perfect sense to send stuff to
LEO/GEO/HEO, where it could then be made into things
that are valued on the earth.
> The only stuff you can return to earth is information.
> Earth will send you stuff because you send them information,
> but it will never be a profitable thing. As long as there
> are people on earth who want to see a moon civilization,
> there will be funding for sending stuff to the moon.
I disagree, providing world wide satellite communications
can easily pay for a moon base. And with orbital research,
manufacturing, and tourism being enabled by such, I really
don't see how you can come to your conclusions.
> Even after the moon becomes self sufficient, people on earth
> will want to go to the moon. Lets say people want to
> immigrate to the moon. You will accept them because they
> will be worth having, plus they will bring X tons of goods
> with them to pay the moon people to accept them. But I
> don't see a profit here for Earth. It's one way.
>
> There will be revenue streams, but not something investors
> can make money off of.
First off, I'm not intending to fund this from investors
or from venture capitalists, or from stock offers.
> I'm sure you're going to mention tourism. Tourism does
> benefit poor economies because rich people come to visit.
> If a trip to the moon is $30 million dollars, how many
> tourists do you need to cover an overhead in the billions?
> There's not that many people willing to part with that kind
> of money. And I'm not sure you can send and return a person
> to the moon for $30 million. A shuttle launch to LEO for
> 6-7 people is a billion dollars.
As rand pointed out, the shuttle is an obsenity to good
engineering. It costs way too much and does way too little.
Most of the tourism would likely be in LEO built using the
same infrastructure that builds the sat farms manufacturing
facilities. As it is, I invision space hotels could actually
get down to $50k for a week or two stay once things have had
a time to get going. Lunar tourism will be much more expensive,
more on the order of $1-2M for a month.
> To build a civilization on the moon will require a lot of
> money. It will generate priceless knowledge. It will
> develop a new economy. But I find it hard to believe, it
> will provide capitalists on earth a return on their
> investment.
That is the beauty of capitalism. If you disagree with me,
you don't have to put any money in. Under socialist schemes,
you have to pay for another man's dreams.
LordMalikii
> That is rather funny coming from someone who has come
> across to me as a O'neill cheerleader.
You need to actually learn to read what I write. I argue that near-Earth space
has a number of economic advantages over developing Mars. But also argue that
any discussion of what life will be like in space more than 10 years into the
future is a waste of effort.
(And you are hugely overoptimistic about what will be available in space 10
years from now.)
> What is realistic is small (less than 10,000 people) in-situ
> derived lunar cities feeding processed metals and oxidizer
> to small (less than 500 people) orbital cities making sat
> farms.
Even that is well beyond the threshold that I would consider appropriate for a
reasonable discussion of real-world space development. It may happen some day
in the far future, but, again, there is still a lot of ground to cover between
now and then.
By the time such things become plausible, the social, political, technological,
and economic influences that will be relevant will almost certainly be beyond
our ability to predict.
I would put the limit of any reasonable discussion at, in my most wildly
optimistic moments, 25 people (20 in LEO, inat most 4 separate stations -- ISS,
Mir II, something from China, and a commercial equatorial station), with
researchers outnumbering tourists by about 2 to 1. What happens after that --
well, I'll be willing to discuss that in about 7 years or so.
Gregg Germain
: I would put the limit of any reasonable discussion at, in my most wildly
: optimistic moments, 25 people (20 in LEO, inat most 4 separate stations -- ISS,
: Mir II, something from China, and a commercial equatorial station), with
: researchers outnumbering tourists by about 2 to 1. What happens after that --
: well, I'll be willing to discuss that in about 7 years or so.
That's how I see it as well. The only other addition I would make is
the possibility of some or all the shuttles being grounded. And some
pressure in building something new.
--- Gregg
"Eschew surplusage."
gr...@head-cfa.harvard.edu
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Mark Twain
Phone: (617) 496-7237
Jeff Farless
say I wanted to buy some land to start the first peanut farm, who would
i send the check to? I think thats where the profit is. Getting people
there, and keeping them there...
> there is tons of stuff that makes money without anything more
> than a couple electrons being moved. You don't have to make
> money off of manufactured goods. You can make money off of
> supporting large scale communications processes, microgravity
> research labs, or a few rare microgravity manufacturing setups
> that can turn a profit. As it is, there is plenty of money
> to be made in orbit, but orbit doesn't have material to tap,
> so it must get it from the moon.
--
Jeff Farless <sel...@earthlink.net>
A.K.A Spando
Jim Harris
reality, the land will belong to whoever goes to the moon
and Mars and uses it. Are they going to send some UN troops
and take it away from you?
Jim Harris
Jeff Farless wrote:
>
> gee what i wanna know is who would own the land on mars or the moon? If
> say I wanted to buy some land to start the first peanut farm, who would
> i send the check to? I think thats where the profit is. Getting people
> there, and keeping them there...
>
> > there is tons of stuff that makes money without anything more
> > than a couple electrons being moved. You don't have to make
> > money off of manufactured goods. You can make money off of
> > supporting large scale communications processes, microgravity
> > research labs, or a few rare microgravity manufacturing setups
> > that can turn a profit. As it is, there is plenty of money
> > to be made in orbit, but orbit doesn't have material to tap,
> > so it must get it from the moon.
>
Jim Kingdon
> mine near earth asteroids like eros...
This one might work for platinum group metals (see some back of the
envelope calculations at
http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/mining.html although different
assumptions change the answer a lot).
There are a bunch of other promising ideas (for a short-term thing,
I'm somewhat partial to some of the entertainment markets). See
http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/markets.html for an overview of
the possibilities.
Invid Fan
<jha...@memphis.edu> wrote:
> There are all kinds of international laws about this, but in
> reality, the land will belong to whoever goes to the moon
> and Mars and uses it. Are they going to send some UN troops
> and take it away from you?
>
Beware the Black Spaceships...
--
Chris Mack "Never let two artists marry! Always push the
'Invid Fan' painter down the well! GRR! I CAN'T FORGET!"
-Quinton, 'Thieves & Kings'
In...@localnet.com
LordMalikii
> There are all kinds of international laws about this, but in
> reality, the land will belong to whoever goes to the moon
> and Mars and uses it. Are they going to send some UN troops
> and take it away from you?
In reality?
This is a simplistic answer, as I am sure you are aware.
In reality, whoever uses this territory will still have most of their assets,
and their corporate staff, on Earth, within easy reach of government
enforcement agencies.
The only way the type of scenario you describe will exist is if the person who
goes to the moon or Mars and uses it takes everything they need with them,
living in isolation with no trade with the people of Earth. For the earth-based
element of that trade can certainly be limited.
There certainly won't be any profit in this type of expedition. And, given the
high cost of space travel and settlement, in reality, no such mission will ever
exist.
Even if it did, though the individual or group in question may be able to
continue to use the resources free from outside influence for some time, there
is no guarantee that this situation will last. When the civilizations of Earth
grow to be able to contest that same territory, it may push the settlers off
just as they displaced the Native Americans. For all practical purposes, there
is still no ownership -- no belonging.
Most important, in my mind, are the influences that these facts have on space
development. I believe it is extremely detrimental, and in need of a change.
Jeff Farless
moon/mars tomorrow, but i'm pretty sure that the colonization of mars and maybe
even the moon, won't be by NASA or any other government funded agency, but rather
from a private source. Which is why i asked who would own it. It would sure start
a heap of problems for whoever got there and built the first shopping complex.
Sure UN won't start sending any solders right when you get there, but once you
start making money off the land, then i'm almost positive there going to come then
and take it from you.
LordMalikii wrote:
--
Jonathan A Goff
> You need to actually learn to read what I write.
I had been reading what you wrote, I just got a different
impression then you were trying to give.
> I argue that near-Earth space has a number of economic
> advantages over developing Mars. But also argue that
> any discussion of what life will be like in space more
> than 10 years into the future is a waste of effort.
Well, I do think that there are some markets where mars
is better, and some where near-earth is better, some
where the asteroids are better and some where the moon
is better. Odds are, we'll be doing a little bit of
all of them.
As for the futility of long term predictions, I agree
with you. I just think that we'll be to the moon
and to either Phobos or Deimos by 2010ish.
> (And you are hugely overoptimistic about what will be available in space 10
> years from now.)
We won't know how far off my guesses were until I get the
time to try them out.
> Even that is well beyond the threshold that I would
> consider appropriate for a reasonable discussion of
> real-world space development. It may happen some day
> in the far future, but, again, there is still a lot
> of ground to cover between now and then.
I prefer moving in the right direction to standing still.
If you wait 10 years to start making lunar material
derived sat farms, the market will have already found
an alternative. There aren't many more baby steps left
to take. We've been to the moon a couple times, the
technology is starting to mature a bit, we have a lot more
data about what is going on, LEO assembly bases are
totally available with current technology. What do you
plan on doing? Waitin 15 years until NASA ends ISS and
pray that they choose a moon base as their next option?
IOW, I am not in a position to do anything soon, as my
medium term plans (next 4 months) are way too hazy.
But you seem to prefer the sound of your own voice to
actually tring to come up with a solution. There is
nothing that I can think of near term other than the
sat farms that could actually get us closer to being a
spacefaring society. Have you found something else that
will allow us to snail along, or are you just trolling?
> By the time such things become plausible, the social,
> political, technological, and economic influences that
> will be relevant will almost certainly be beyond
> our ability to predict.
The technology is here, the social doesn't matter, and
the political also doesn't matter. I'm looking at a
private initiative, not a government one.
> I would put the limit of any reasonable discussion at,
> in my most wildly optimistic moments, 25 people (20 in
> LEO, inat most 4 separate stations -- ISS, Mir II,
> something from China, and a commercial equatorial
> station), with researchers outnumbering tourists by
> about 2 to 1. What happens after that -- well, I'll be
> willing to discuss that in about 7 years or so.
That's funny. Research on mars capable of maintaining
the economy financially is impossible, but in LEO it is
all that you have gotten? Unless there is some fairly
large profits in it, none of this will help at all.
There just isn't that much money in research that is done
in microgravity.
No offense, but I just don't accept your above statement.
We will either have over 100, or less then 8.
giga...@shore.net
> That's what i'm saying. Now I'm not saying i'm going to be leaving for the
> moon/mars tomorrow, but i'm pretty sure that the colonization of mars and maybe
> even the moon, won't be by NASA or any other government funded agency, but rather
> from a private source. Which is why i asked who would own it. It would sure start
> a heap of problems for whoever got there and built the first shopping complex.
> Sure UN won't start sending any solders right when you get there, but once you
> start making money off the land, then i'm almost positive there going to come then
> and take it from you.
I'm not going to disagree with the concept of a governmental (of national or
vile international form) assault on a successful commercial base. I consider
it a distinct possibility. However, I think that a government actually being
able to seize a colony/outpost/factory/etc are slim, unless it's an inside
job (saboteurs, etc, posing as employess?). The inhabitants of the targetted
facility will know both the human structures and the surrounding land much
better than the attackers. Will every soldier have a spacesuit? Pretty hard
to take any structure, since the inhabitants will likely be able to control
the atmosphere inside, by depressurization, heating, cooling and
overpressurization. Destroying gardens and lifesupport equipment, or even
threatening to do so, would be a powerful deterent against force.
If the facility has a small, highly trained crew that leaves or strikes,
how will the captors make any use of the facility? What sorts of extremely
nasty boobytraps are possible, again with a retreating crew and plenty of
backdoors and trojan horses in the local robots and lifesupport computers?
Destroying an "enemy" (is there a word for governments killing civilians?
Oh, right, "war crime") installation would be far easier than taking it for
use. Factories and other pieces of production infrastructure are common
targets in modern war, but usually as part of a larger goal. Destructive
strikes against small and medium space-based facilities would likely
occur only during parts of a larger campaign.
Economic "attacks" and regulatory pressure against parent companies and
institutes, as Lord Maliki pointed out, will be the primary tool to
control space assets in the near term.
J05H
_______________________________________________________________________
www.shore.net/~gigantin/
_______________________________________________________________________
"There is gold in that thar' sky!" -wmook on s.s.p 101499
Filip De Vos
: Even if it did, though the individual or group in question may be able to
: continue to use the resources free from outside influence for some time, there
: is no guarantee that this situation will last. When the civilizations of Earth
: grow to be able to contest that same territory, it may push the settlers off
But... will the setlers have human rights, too?
I am not aware of any wording that specifically strips humans who leave
the planet of their human rights. As in the wording of the pre-amble of
the constitution, they are _inalienable_. So the future 'civilisations'
just can't shoot the settlers off their rock, I hope.
: just as they displaced the Native Americans. For all practical purposes, there
: is still no ownership -- no belonging.
But those 'civilisations' have the same problem, no?
: Most important, in my mind, are the influences that these facts have on space
: development. I believe it is extremely detrimental, and in need of a change.
--
"Who needs credibility around | Filip De Vos
here?" -- T. L. Elifritz | FilipP...@rug.ac.be
Jeff Farless
> LordMalikii (lordm...@aol.com) wrote:
>
> : Even if it did, though the individual or group in question may be able to
> : continue to use the resources free from outside influence for some time, there
> : is no guarantee that this situation will last. When the civilizations of Earth
> : grow to be able to contest that same territory, it may push the settlers off
>
> But... will the setlers have human rights, too?
> I am not aware of any wording that specifically strips humans who leave
> the planet of their human rights. As in the wording of the pre-amble of
> the constitution, they are _inalienable_. So the future 'civilisations'
> just can't shoot the settlers off their rock, I hope.
>
>
Here is my understating. Who ever goes to the moon/mars and colonizes it, would be
the 'rulers' of it. It would be a sovereign nation, unless other wise specified.
The reason I big this up on a policy news group is because i think there needs to
be some sort of policy on this. I know it may seem like a long way off, but this
whole colonize other plants will hit us before we know it. And I just think we
should plan so that there is no bloodshed over it. An old saying comes to
mind..."If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail."
The next question that comes to mind is, who should be in charge of making such
a policy, and what would it entail? But this might be another thread entirely...
LordMalikii
> Sure UN won't start sending any solders right when you get there, but
> once you start making money off the land, then i'm almost positive there
> going to come then and take it from you.
Precisely. Which is why the type of investment we would like to see in space
development pretty much doesn't exist.
LordMalikii
> But... will the setlers have human rights, too?
> I am not aware of any wording that specifically strips humans who leave
> the planet of their human rights. As in the wording of the pre-amble of
> the constitution, they are _inalienable_. So the future 'civilisations'
> just can't shoot the settlers off their rock, I hope.
A short piece of historical correction here -- "unalienable" rights were never
mentioned in the Constitution, but in the Declaration of Independence.
For a not-quite-so-short history of political philosophy lesson, there is a
great deal of disagreement over what those rights are, how they manifest
themselves, and even whether or not they exist at all. Just as no legislature
can make it the case that pi = 3 (exactly), political bodies can not -- poof --
make entities such as these come into existence merely by declaring them in a
document.
I think that all talk about what to do about a settlement that establishes
itself in complete isolation from Earth and exists for a period of time is
purely academic -- a nice discussion perhaps for some pulp science-fiction
novel or B movie.
But even within such a movie, the "bad guys" can simply treat the settlers as
they would treat a bunch of protestors that moved onto federal land and set up
a community. A warning to start. A show of force later. A raid.
But save the space cowboy stuff for some science-fiction newsgroup. It has no
real-world relevance.
LordMalikii
> Here is my understating. Who ever goes to the moon/mars and
> colonizes it, would be the 'rulers' of it. It would be a sovereign
> nation, unless other wise specified.
This may be your wish, but it is not your understanding. Or, at least, it is
not an accurate understanding.
Your "base" will have to have a national flag. And its people will be governed
by the laws of the country to which the "ship" is registered, just as crews and
passengers on the high seas, including international treaties, and in
particular international treaties governing space assets.
The ground upon which this "ship" is built -- even if it is a parmanent
structure, does not belong to the company that owns the "ship,' any more than
"ships" at sea own the water upon which they sit.
> The reason I big this up on a policy news group is because i think there
> needs to be some sort of policy on this.
On this, I agree. There needs to be some policy on this. I would add an
additional proviso that this "policy' be one that can be accepted in the real
world, and not some scrap of ideology that can, at best, appeal to an extremely
small and fanatical faction of the world's population. That type of policy is a
waste of time.
> The next question that comes to mind is, who should be in charge
> of making such a policy, and what would it entail? But this might
> be another thread entirely...
More good questions
Jeff Farless
> From: Jeff Farless sel...@earthlink.net
>
> > Here is my understating. Who ever goes to the moon/mars and
> > colonizes it, would be the 'rulers' of it. It would be a sovereign
> > nation, unless other wise specified.
>
> This may be your wish, but it is not your understanding. Or, at least, it is
> not an accurate understanding.
>
> Your "base" will have to have a national flag. And its people will be governed
> by the laws of the country to which the "ship" is registered, just as crews and
> passengers on the high seas, including international treaties, and in
> particular international treaties governing space assets.
>
> The ground upon which this "ship" is built -- even if it is a parmanent
> structure, does not belong to the company that owns the "ship,' any more than
> "ships" at sea own the water upon which they sit.
>
Ok this is why it was my understanding. For this i'll bring out the history
books, well not really, i left them all at school. But any who, tell me if i'm
wrong, but didn't the government of spain pay for an explorer to come over to
america. Much like NASA pays people to go to other places in search of new worlds
and all that star trek stuff. But when it came time to actually colonize america,
didn't people have to get permission to go? And the ones that didn't pay didn't
the kings and queens, didn't they come after them and make them pay? I know you
might be saying across the ocean is much different than crossing the stars, but
that's the same thing we will be saying 400+ years from now. I mean, if we, the
citizens have the ability to travel to a distant land, don't you think the
government will to?
Thomas Kalbfus
private manned mars expedition to land on the planet and then claim the entire
planet as his own? Does he have a legal right to do this? This could end up
being very profitable for him in the long run if he gets away with this.
Greg D. Moore
Thomas Kalbfus wrote:
>
> What if Bill Gates sells half of Microsoft as required by law
Umm, what law exactly would that be?
If you're referring to a possible court ordered break-up, that would
simply mean he's got 1/2 as much stock in two companies. (If anything,
it could make him richer.)
>and then mounts a
> private manned mars expedition to land on the planet and then claim the entire
> planet as his own? Does he have a legal right to do this? This could end up
> being very profitable for him in the long run if he gets away with this.
It's unclear whether private individuals could do this. Nations can't.
It's doubtful he could. And even if he could, where is the profit to be
made?
CLVANCIL
>What if Bill Gates sells half of Microsoft as required by law
This is not what is proposed by the commission. It is unclear that the proposed
split will happen as it will be fought in court by Microsoft for years.
and then mounts
>a
>private manned mars expedition to land on the planet and then claim the
>entire
>planet as his own? Does he have a legal right to do this? This could end up
>being very profitable for him in the long run if he gets away with this.
>
Gates hasn't the slightest interest in Mars and space other than communication
satellites.
Chris Vancil
Member NSS, The Mars Society and The Moon Society
http://hometown.aol.com/CLVANCIL/