https://sea.mashable.com/tech/20939/a-l … ng-planned
The team behind the concept hails from Kyoto University and the Kajima Corporation in Japan, with a joint proposal highlighting a three-phase approach for creating a sustainable and completely habitable environment for humans on the Moon.
This complex would be housed within Lunar Glass structure, and would theoretically be able to support human life to the point that even babies could be born and grow up within the structure.
]]>If regolith from Mars can make so much money, why haven't we had a sample return mission yet? If they retail for $1k/g ($1 billion/tonne), a Mars Sample Return Mission should pay for itself easily.
Perhaps the market isn't there?
NASA have never formally abandoned the "free for humanity" approach to space missions and only NASA up until now have the wherewithal to get to Mars. ESA also appears to follow a "free for humanity" approach. Very laudable, but possibly this approach is holding up development.
I never claimed that a Mission could realise a billion per tonne ( I was illustrating what a $1000 per gram would be worth, so people understood). I think $200 million per tonne for two tonnes is more likely for regolith/meteorites/precious metals and stones ($400 million in total). But of course one can add on: commercial sponsorship ($300million?), sale of TV and film rights ($300million?), sale of first mission artefacts ($50-100 million?), sale of TV appearances, exclusive books etc ($100 million?).
You've got to remember individual art works have sold for hundreds of millions of dollars; Liz Taylor's jewels went for over a hundred million.
How much do you think it costs a university to mount a geological or botanical expedition? How much to build a new telescope? Remember, also, most universities get public funding as well - they have the money to spend on science-related projects. The idea that regolith won't seel is I think preposterous.
I don't think Missions will be able to pay for the initial capital cost. However you cut it, I think you are probably in for $10billion -$40 billion for the overall project spread over maybe 10 years. However, I think they could cover operating costs thereafter.
]]>Perhaps the market isn't there?
]]>GW Johnson wrote:Once somebody has actually been to Mars the first time and brought some rocks back, I kind of doubt that Mars minerals will remain as valuable commodities. It's a perception thing.
I would say just like moon rocks have been...government owned and not in private collectors property vaults as they did not go and get them....So how did any become sold?
The up front cost to send men to mars, keep them alive all comes out of the collected sums for any return ore or refined metals.
How do you know some slivers - like the Luna 17 specimens weren't given to some notables on retirement?
Anyway, we certainly have reliable costing for Mars meteorites - their value is indeniably stratospheric.
Not sure what you mean by "collected sums". Obviously if you have revenue, then you can use that to fund capital developments such as building MTVs.
]]>Once somebody has actually been to Mars the first time and brought some rocks back, I kind of doubt that Mars minerals will remain as valuable commodities. It's a perception thing.
I would say just like moon rocks have been...government owned and not in private collectors property vaults as they did not go and get them....So how did any become sold?
The up front cost to send men to mars, keep them alive all comes out of the collected sums for any return ore or refined metals.
]]>On the contrary, I believe that the existence of two tonnes of the material will be enough to drive the price down to below $200/g. I'm pretty sure that there is no stable element or natural mineral, rock, etc., no matter how rare, that costs $200,000/kg. That is, based on the charts that I looked at, more than four times the price of the rarest and most expensive elements, even Rhodium. I think that you would want to look at a price 5 or 10 times less than that, even if you're going to be optimistic.
Didn't you read the post above:
"Moon rocks collected during the course of lunar exploration are currently considered priceless. In 1993, three small fragments from Luna 16, weighing 0.2 g, were sold for US$ 442,500."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock
Or this:
http://www.rockhounds.com/rockshop/martians.shtml
You'll see references to meteorites being sold for $4000 to $10000 per gram - that's up to $10 million per kg.
I don't know why you are ignoring the evidence.
If you have say 10,000 universities, various agencies, and private collectors competing for these very rare items, you can see a 2 tonne load split into maybe 1000 lots ranging from $1million per kg items down to $50,000 per kg objects or sand and an overall value of $400 million being realised. Of course the rocks etc can be sold with photos of the collection sites which agencies and collectors could frame. (They were be returned digitally.)
Of course, if anything is found with a fossil on it the value would be far greater.
In addition, a huge number of valuable collector artefacts could be created e.g. handwritten statements by the first colonists written on Mars. A sale of the first items used on Mars - everything from knives and forks to shaving cream will have value for future generations. Many museums across the globe would be willing to pay to pay well over $50,000 per kg for such items.
]]>I agree that if increased revenue were to be a help to further settlement missions, then it would be a good idea to go after it if it did not lead to the scientific and practical aims of the first missions being compromised too much. However, I don't think that that will be the case. I do intend to respond to your thread in Mars Politics and Econ, by the way, but I don't have time for a long post at the moment so I'll probably do it tomorrow.
Selling Mars rocks to Universities vs. giving them away is one of the things that I would say may indeed be a legitimate source of revenue. However, I'm unsure as to what the extent of this market is, and unless it would represent at least a percent or two of the total cost of the mission I don't believe it to be worth it. You talk a lot about the value of Mars meteorites, but there is a very important difference between the meteorites gotten from Antarctica et. al., and rocks gotten from the surface of Mars as part of an ongoing series of exploration and eventually colonization missions: They are both high in value because they represent the sale of a limited resource. In part, I would imagine that the ability to get rocks back from Mars would drop the cost simply because of an increase in supply. Given that Mars rocks tend to be sold at auction etc. as opposed to at a fixed price, I would imagine that each increase in the availability of rocks would lead to a decrease in the price for quite a while.
The more important reason why the prices will drop is the promise of future materials. If we have a base on Mars, or even a serious colonization enterprise, those who would buy Martian materials know that the supply is increasing. For meteorites, that is not really the case, because the increase is at such a small rate that it might as well be zero. An example of the reverse effect is quite current, when the shutdown of Libyan Oil exports led to a significant increase in price, even though Libyan oil is a very small percentage of world oil production not due to an actual shortage but rather due to fears that there would be a shortage. Fears of an excess will lead to a similar drop in prices. Given the energy crisis I doubt we will ever see fears of an excess of oil, but the same cannot be said of Martian materials. Only so many people are in the top 1%, though given the prices you're talking about this is more like a top .001% endeavor.
I actually disagree that colonists will ignore raw profitability. Many of the things that will be imported are things that could conceivably be engineered around. For example, computer chips and chemical catalysts rightly should be used the minimum amount that is possible. Given that there is absolutely no way around the use of medical equipment, I agree that that would be subsidized, but I would put the subsidy at the very end of the line, e.g. have the government pay for a part of the cost of treatment. Raw profitability, assuming that the currency being used on Mars is relatively closely correlated to how much work is put into obtaining the product, is the best measure of efficiency.
I look forward to your comments on the economics thread.
You ask about the market for the rocks.
There are about 20,000 universities on planet Earth. There are probably a few thousand other institutions such as science museums, geological associations, planetariums, well endowed schools, space agencies and major mining companies who would be potential buyers.
I don't know how many people collect gem stones and rocks but clearly the market must run into hundreds of thousands or millions across the world. Among them are some very rich collectors for these intrinsically rare objects, such as meteorites or unusual gems.
To begin with I think the regolith, rocks, meteorites etc would sell at incredibly high prices. I think we would be talking at least $200 per gram. Institutions like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Bologna, space agencies,research institutes etc will be competing for these first tranches. Two tonnes - producing revenue of $400 million - for Mission One sounds to me like a good target. Maybe that would be spread across a couple of hundred buyers. But that's just the start of the market. You still have tens of thousands of potential buyers out there. One can simply offer smaller lots then - instead of say offering 10-50 kg lots, you offer 500 gram to 5 kgs, and so on until you are reaching the mass market where people buy tiny slivers of rock. I don't think there will be any decline in the price per gram for many years - probably 20-30 years.
I think one should note that there will be a huge market for jewelry from Mars - polished gem stones will have great value well above $20 per gram. Probably in the region of $100 per gram I would say.
There will be some decline in the price per gram, but not a lot I think, and as the colony grows its ability to identify and harvest high value meteorites will grow. I think the trade will remain profitable, not least because the price of transit imposes a price floor (no one else is going to undercut you).
]]>Selling Mars rocks to Universities vs. giving them away is one of the things that I would say may indeed be a legitimate source of revenue. However, I'm unsure as to what the extent of this market is, and unless it would represent at least a percent or two of the total cost of the mission I don't believe it to be worth it. You talk a lot about the value of Mars meteorites, but there is a very important difference between the meteorites gotten from Antarctica et. al., and rocks gotten from the surface of Mars as part of an ongoing series of exploration and eventually colonization missions: They are both high in value because they represent the sale of a limited resource. In part, I would imagine that the ability to get rocks back from Mars would drop the cost simply because of an increase in supply. Given that Mars rocks tend to be sold at auction etc. as opposed to at a fixed price, I would imagine that each increase in the availability of rocks would lead to a decrease in the price for quite a while.
The more important reason why the prices will drop is the promise of future materials. If we have a base on Mars, or even a serious colonization enterprise, those who would buy Martian materials know that the supply is increasing. For meteorites, that is not really the case, because the increase is at such a small rate that it might as well be zero. An example of the reverse effect is quite current, when the shutdown of Libyan Oil exports led to a significant increase in price, even though Libyan oil is a very small percentage of world oil production not due to an actual shortage but rather due to fears that there would be a shortage. Fears of an excess will lead to a similar drop in prices. Given the energy crisis I doubt we will ever see fears of an excess of oil, but the same cannot be said of Martian materials. Only so many people are in the top 1%, though given the prices you're talking about this is more like a top .001% endeavor.
I actually disagree that colonists will ignore raw profitability. Many of the things that will be imported are things that could conceivably be engineered around. For example, computer chips and chemical catalysts rightly should be used the minimum amount that is possible. Given that there is absolutely no way around the use of medical equipment, I agree that that would be subsidized, but I would put the subsidy at the very end of the line, e.g. have the government pay for a part of the cost of treatment. Raw profitability, assuming that the currency being used on Mars is relatively closely correlated to how much work is put into obtaining the product, is the best measure of efficiency.
]]>Quite a discussion going on here. Anyway, specific points:
I don't think that it makes sense to try to get an operating profit out of the Mars base while it is still a "tour of duty" kind of place, and while it is not self sufficient. That seems to not make sense to me, in that before it is self sufficient (or nearly so, e.g. by self-sufficient I mean when it is capable of producing the vast majority of that which it consumes locally and to fill in the gaps with a minimal amount of imports paid for with locally generated funds), its primary goal should be getting to the point of self-sufficiency as opposed to generating income that will be absolutely minimal compared to the real program cost, e.g. the cost of developing equipment and getting there in the first place. It makes a lot more sense to me to do the stage where you're developing the colony's facilities and making it self-sufficient and, directly or indirectly, providing for hundreds of years of future development, correctly. Obviously if there's a way to make money that does not incur any additional costs, then by all means, but I tend to think that as long as the money being put into developing the colony is coming from Earth, it will not be economically feasible to even make an operating profit with exports.
As I mentioned before, though, all of this changes when the colony has its own internal economy that is basically separate from Earth. I saw that nobody replied directly to my argument that it does not make sense to talk about exports from a Martian colony in terms of profitability. That was in my post here; the reason for this is probably that that post was on the long side. Nevertheless, I do think that this is an important thing to keep in mind when talking about the economics of a Mars colony that is almost self-sufficient. If you would like to save some time, the stuff that I consider to be most important starts in the third paragraph.
With respect to the Antarctic bases, I think that there are definitely ways in which that is a good comparison. However, there are also ways in which it's not. The relatively low cost of transportation from the civilized world to Antarctica means that there is little impetus for local self-sufficiency, and given that most of the continent is covered in ice anyway it does not seem to me that there are actually many available resources that could be extracted on a small scale even if they were desired. That said, if you subtract out the cost of scientific materials from that $167,000/person, you can perhaps come to some kind of approximation of the total per-person cost of keeping one person alive in a hostile environment for one year, though there is of course a significant margin of error on that. Further, I would like to point out that because there is little attempt at self-sufficiency for an Antarctic base, a significant part of that remainder could be made up by the colonists working towards self-sufficiency by themselves. Our goal, of course, if we're trying to design such a colony is to make the amount that needs to be imported absolutely minimal.
I agree with your point about Antarctica. I was thinking of that myself. If you told 5,000 people, here's - say - $10 billion dollars to go and live self sufficiently on Antarctica, how difficult would it be for them? Not so v. difficult I think. We can imagine how they might settle there with huge solar arrays and wind turbines, produce their own food, grind down the regolith to create soil, grow food in heated domes etc etc.
I don't disagree that self-sufficiency (or more accurately, near self-sufficiency) should be the primary aim (since that is the quickest way to grow the colony). But if increased revenue allows you to launch more missions or import more complex technology, then surely that will help achieve the aim earlier.
The reality is that the first colonists will be bringing back regolith from Mars. You can either give it away free or sell it. I don't see anything wrong intrinsically with selling it.
I would say that the colonists will ignore raw profitability when it comes to imports and transits. They will effectively subsidise the cost of importing goods because those imports (medicines, communications equipment, rocketry etc) will be vital to the colony's survival and development. But there is scope for huge profit margins on exports from Mars to Earth.
]]>Wait, I'm just trying to say that we don't know yet what Mars might have to offer economically. Whatever it is, it would have to be a very high value-added physical commodity, to justify the shipping costs. But, it might be an intellectual property, capable of being transmitted electronically. Or something else we simply haven't thought of yet. It will become clear, just give it time once folks are there.
I kind of doubt plain rocks would ever be that valuable. Lots of gold or diamonds might be, at least for a while before the market gets flooded. A supply of high-grade uranium or thorium might be worth it, if enriched and/or bred on Mars to high-grade fission fuels before transport to Earth. (Of course, that last would assume we get over our irrational fears about nuclear power, and proceed with rational solutions to the very real problems of waste disposal and plant vulnerabilities to natural disasters.) Not very likely for a while yet.
I quite agree that what I called "prospecting" would naturally occur, once manned bases get put on Mars. And having robots there working with the men at short distances, is exactly what needs to be done. I rather think we ought to do some serious exploring, based from orbit, at many landing sites, in a single first mission. Then the best 2 or 3 sites get the initial surface bases on the next mission, after we've had time to digest all the data from the first mission.
That's the most practical way to identify what actually might support a future colony. If you don't do that, the colonies never prosper: Spain's mistake 500 years ago with an extractive-mining-only model. Most of those colonies today are 3rd-world countries still.
GW
I am not sure how you can say the plain rocks of Mars won't ever be "that valuable" (I guess you mean in excess of $20,000 per kg if we take that as the cost of transit), given we have the clear example of ordinary bog standard lunar regolith in front of us.
"Moon rocks collected during the course of lunar exploration are currently considered priceless. In 1993, three small fragments from Luna 16, weighing 0.2 g, were sold for US$ 442,500."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock
Can you argue with that? I don't think so. That's $2billion per kg! Or $2 trillion per tonne...Is that enough value for you?
Of course scaling up you $2million per gram won't hold, but clearly there is huge value to be exploited there, particularly in the early years.
]]>I don't think that it makes sense to try to get an operating profit out of the Mars base while it is still a "tour of duty" kind of place, and while it is not self sufficient. That seems to not make sense to me, in that before it is self sufficient (or nearly so, e.g. by self-sufficient I mean when it is capable of producing the vast majority of that which it consumes locally and to fill in the gaps with a minimal amount of imports paid for with locally generated funds), its primary goal should be getting to the point of self-sufficiency as opposed to generating income that will be absolutely minimal compared to the real program cost, e.g. the cost of developing equipment and getting there in the first place. It makes a lot more sense to me to do the stage where you're developing the colony's facilities and making it self-sufficient and, directly or indirectly, providing for hundreds of years of future development, correctly. Obviously if there's a way to make money that does not incur any additional costs, then by all means, but I tend to think that as long as the money being put into developing the colony is coming from Earth, it will not be economically feasible to even make an operating profit with exports.
As I mentioned before, though, all of this changes when the colony has its own internal economy that is basically separate from Earth. I saw that nobody replied directly to my argument that it does not make sense to talk about exports from a Martian colony in terms of profitability. That was in my post here; the reason for this is probably that that post was on the long side. Nevertheless, I do think that this is an important thing to keep in mind when talking about the economics of a Mars colony that is almost self-sufficient. If you would like to save some time, the stuff that I consider to be most important starts in the third paragraph.
With respect to the Antarctic bases, I think that there are definitely ways in which that is a good comparison. However, there are also ways in which it's not. The relatively low cost of transportation from the civilized world to Antarctica means that there is little impetus for local self-sufficiency, and given that most of the continent is covered in ice anyway it does not seem to me that there are actually many available resources that could be extracted on a small scale even if they were desired. That said, if you subtract out the cost of scientific materials from that $167,000/person, you can perhaps come to some kind of approximation of the total per-person cost of keeping one person alive in a hostile environment for one year, though there is of course a significant margin of error on that. Further, I would like to point out that because there is little attempt at self-sufficiency for an Antarctic base, a significant part of that remainder could be made up by the colonists working towards self-sufficiency by themselves. Our goal, of course, if we're trying to design such a colony is to make the amount that needs to be imported absolutely minimal.
]]>I kind of doubt plain rocks would ever be that valuable. Lots of gold or diamonds might be, at least for a while before the market gets flooded. A supply of high-grade uranium or thorium might be worth it, if enriched and/or bred on Mars to high-grade fission fuels before transport to Earth. (Of course, that last would assume we get over our irrational fears about nuclear power, and proceed with rational solutions to the very real problems of waste disposal and plant vulnerabilities to natural disasters.) Not very likely for a while yet.
I quite agree that what I called "prospecting" would naturally occur, once manned bases get put on Mars. And having robots there working with the men at short distances, is exactly what needs to be done. I rather think we ought to do some serious exploring, based from orbit, at many landing sites, in a single first mission. Then the best 2 or 3 sites get the initial surface bases on the next mission, after we've had time to digest all the data from the first mission.
That's the most practical way to identify what actually might support a future colony. If you don't do that, the colonies never prosper: Spain's mistake 500 years ago with an extractive-mining-only model. Most of those colonies today are 3rd-world countries still.
GW
]]>The links between supply and demand and price are much less clear in the real world as compared with textbooks.
The point about the Mars meteorite market (and other Mars products) is that it is a unique product and that it appeals to collectors, academic institutions and possibly the general public.
]]>