Thursday, February 19th at 6:30pm Pacific - Mining the Moon with a Lunar Elevator
Charles Radley
Thursday,
February 19th at 6:30pm -
Mining the Moon with a Lunar Elevator, Vancouver,
WA
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Mining
the Moon with a Lunar Elevator - Google+ https://plus.google.com/b/103254083344364591475/events/cjii6mls1ro511qv0ln0onb1l3k The NASA Constellation Program was cancelled when the price tag
estimates reached $100 Billion. This is inevitable if one is trying to land
lots of heavy payl...
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Thursday,
February 19th at 6:30pm - Mining the Moon with a Lunar Elevator, Vancouver,
WA
Pearson Air Museum
1115 East 5th St, Vancouver,
Washington 98661
A joint meeting of the
Oregon L5 Society and United States Parks Service.
A lunar elevator can be built today cheaply using widely available inexpensive commercial super-strong materials, such as M5, Zylon or Dyneema. A lunar elevator reduces the cost of soft landing by a factor of sixfold, and reduces sample return by one thousand times. A lunar elevator with a payload capability of 100 kg can be built for less than $1 Billion.
This
could reduce the cost of a Constellation effort from $100 Billion [way
unaffordable] down to $20 B which would be easily affordable within the NASA
budget.
The NASA Constellation Program was cancelled
when the price tag estimates reached $100 Billion. This is inevitable if one is
trying to land lots of heavy payloads on to the Moon and bring them back using chemical
rockets.
For soft landing payloads, the LSE pays for
itself in 20 payload cycles; for sample return it can pay for itself in as
little as a single payload cycle, depending on the sample site.
The lunar elevator concept is a long tether which is
loaded under tension by terrestrial and lunar gravity. One end is anchored on the Moon and the other end free, hanging
towards Earth. The orbital center of mass of the system is located at an Earth-Moon Lagrange location, either L1 or L2,
approximately 50,000 kilometres from the lunar surface. Such a tether can now be
built inexpensively from commercially available materials, e.g. Zylon, Dyneema,
M5. The near-side L1 tether is attached to the lunar equator at Sinus Medii.
For a one time capital cost of US$800 Million
[2012], a lunar elevator can be built today using existing
available materials. This first generation lunar elevator will softly deliver an infinite
number of payloads to the lunar surface, each weighing 100 kg, and
retrieve the same amount of material from the lunar surface. The alternative of using
chemical rockets to soft land on the Moon [or return material] is prohibitively
expensive.
The first generation lunar elevator kit weighs 30 tons and can be
delivered today to the Lunar L1 lagrange libration location, using
a single Delta-IV (or Ariane-V) launch. From there the tether is unreeled
upwards and downwards. The lower end anchors itself into the lunar soil using robotic penetrators.
The lunar elevator represents a game changing technology
which will open up the Moon to commercial mining and long term
human exploration.
Background:
A very nice lunar elevator study report from Israel. Student
Project at The Technion, Israel, 2008. A full year under the supervision of Dr
Alexander Kogan.
Conclusions
•
Cargo delivery from the Moon to the Earth can be done within 6
days using solar power and no propellant.
• The
cargo system uses a cable car moving along a stretched ribbon.
• The
ribbon is kept stretched by terrestrial and lunar gravity. One end is anchored on the Moon and the other one free.
• The
cargo released from the cable car performs a passive flight to the Earth.
Here is the link to the details:
http://lunarjacobsladder.webs.com/Jacobs%20Ladder%20IACAS%202010.pdf
more details here too ... http://asri.technion.ac.il/jacobs-ladder/
The Earth's Moon is a treasure trove of mineral
resources, such as precious metals, rare earth elements, Helium-3 and Oxygen
for propellants. However, the cost of soft landing on the Moon is currently very high. A lunar elevator can bring the cost of lunar mining to a par with terrestrial
mining for some commodities.
The first market will probably be Helium-3 which
currently sells on the terrestrial market for one million dollars per ounce.
There is a critical shortage of He-3 which is in great demand for various
industrial applications. Terrestrial supplies of He-3 will be exhausted by
2030. He-3 is abundant on the lunar surface.
The lunar elevator can also transport oxygen from the Moon to Low Earth Orbit where it can
refuel tugs to take satellites from LEO to GEO, a significant revenue source.
This reduces the cost of launches to GEO by a factor of 7.
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A joint meeting of the Oregon L5 Society and
United States Parks Service.
75 people attended the first meeting of this
lecture series
For more information on the Oregon L5 Society,
please see our web site http://www.oregonl5.org