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Regarding platinum on Earth, we do not have proof that terrestrial sources are derived from impacts. It is true they are found around impacts, but the platinum itself is in deposits that formed other ways. If you Google "platinum ore" and related terms, you will see that terrestrial ore geologists do not assume the platinum came from the impacts themselves. Igneous processes appear to be involved and they often assume the platinum came up from the Earth's lower crust and mantle, just as gold does.

Regarding platinum on the moon, we can be sure it is there because the crust of the moon is full of asteroid impacts. Several percent of all asteroidal/meteoroidal impacts are of the nickel-iron variety. Ordinary nickel-iron meteorites are something like one part in 30,000 platinum-group metals. In other words, 1 tonne of nickel-iron has 33 grams (a bit more than an ounce) of platinum-group metals. The concentrations are LOW. But that's still several times higher than the terrestrial ore we are mining now, and there are relatively rare high-nickel meteoroids that are closer to 1 part in 3,000 PGMs.

Obviously, we don't spot platinum on the moon via remote sensing. Even if we had a bare nickel-iron surface I doubt the concentration is high enough to be detectable from orbit. But if a large mass of nickel-iron is exposed on the lunar surface (probably by a later impact) we might detect the nickel-iron. Nickel-iron probably produces magnetic anomalies detectable from lunar orbit. No search for them have yet been attempted.

Most likely PGM recovery on the moon will require field geologists and drilling. Robots and remote sensing techniques probably can't assure us well enough about the extent of the deposits. On the other hand, lunar fines are several percent nickel-iron, and the latter separates from the former easily via magnetism. So a big, dumb regolith sifter could probably recover nickel-iron particles pretty easily, and they could be refined to extract the PGMs.

I asked Dennis Wingo by email how he thought PGMs would be recovered and he said a solar thermal furnace could melt the different elements at different temperatures and thus separate them. I replied no, nickel-iron is a solid-solution; an alloy. If you heat it up, the nickel and iron won't separate via melting, they'll just melt together as a mixture at an intermediate temperature. So that aspect of his book needs further thought, I believe.

The carbonyl process will separate the different elements, but it suffers a major problem on the moon: any chemical process uses up small quantities of the materials it needs. Recycling is never 100% efficient. If it is 99.99% efficient, 1 tonne of carbon can be used 10,000 times to separate out about 10,000 tonnes of nickel-iron; but that still only gives you a third of a tonne of PGMs, unless you find the really high-quality deposits. Unless we find carbon on the moon, it will have to be imported from Earth (or later from Phobos or Mars) and that will be a major cost for PGM extraction on the moon.

One possible solution: one rich source of PGMs are chondrite-enstatite meteorites. If one of them hit the moon, I suppose the "chondrite" part of the name implies it will also have carbon! Maybe it won't have much, but it doesn't need to have much. If 10,000 tonnes of chondrite-enstatite has 1 tonne of PGMs, it will probably have 100 tonnes of carbon (asuming 1% by mass carbon). It may even have a similar amount of water in it, which would be worth recovering because the PGMs are partially covering the processing costs.

Regarding lunar water: We know from the radar data that sheets of ice do not exist (similar radar reflections off Mercury indicate the Mercury poles DO have ice sheets, so the technique works). We know from Clementine that hydrogen representing the equivalent of a few percent of water disseminated in the upper meter of the lunar regolith exists in the polar areas. These two data are hardly contradictory. They most likely tell us that the polar regions are lightly frosted. We should have this confirmed in the next few years. It is not clear how much it will cost to build equipment to process VERY cold lunar regolith that is 1-2% water by content. Michael Duke at Colorado School of Mines feels it can be recovered cheaply enough to be used to fuel vehicles, at least from L1.

                   -- RobS

First GCN, thanks for noticing the thread was busted and starting again. 

Ok, now to Platinum.  I'll guess my post mentioning this was missing some bits (if not just missing), so:

There are no significant sources of plantinum on the Moon - excepting perhaps surviving in asteroidal material.  Neither the Apollo nor Luna samples had detectable amounts of platinum.  So, what I was saying (before it disappeared) is, other than Al, Si, O; H2O, Fe, and Ti (in some spots); and He3 - what does the moon offer?

By the way, I have not seen the Clementine data - I have it - just not looked at it yet (and reading it would be an adventure).  Is there evidence for significant amounts of Pt there?

Ti alone I can see a use for, but it's still rather readily available here.

Your correct, Nuclear engines aren't new tech.  They've just never been used in space - just the usual test runs of the 60's (I know there have been later tests, I just don't have the material handy).  There are probably going to be tests upon tests to man-rate them, and that's (probably) going to cause massive delays.

MD will do one thing well, it will get us there.  Yes, up to a point it becomes useless - and by that time I would expect that we have a better space infrastructure (LEO, or if necessary, LLO direct to Mars).  But I see reasons to maintain that MD can serve us well for at least 10 missions (or 20 years) if not longer, making it not only cheap enough to go to Mars, but making it more likely to happen.

Actually GCN, two things that would remove my objection (that I may have missed?) is this: what is the total cost projection of the DRM?  Nothing lunar or support - just the DRM.

And would it be usuable by 2021 and no later?

When you say "signifigant" you sound like you are talking about "lets make ocean liners out of solid Platinum" kind of quantities... we neither could nor would ever need such large quantities. I am talking about a few hundred kilos would be worthwhile amounts, as it would only take a few grams to make a fuel cell, you could make thousands with one small load of the metal.

Platinum is going to be fairly rare no matter where it is, since it is a difficult element for stellar nuclear fusion to produce in the first place. There is virtually zero anywhere on Earth or the Moon's surface naturally, and the only practical mines on Earth are near old meteor impact sites. We have come to recognize that Pt is virtually always in combination with other base metals, which make up many asteroids. Asteroids of signifigant size are responsable for the craters on the Moon, so it stands to reason that there is Platinum likly there.

The Apollo missions did not go and visit any of the major impact sites, so they obviously wouldn't find much. Celemintine was a pretty primitive and low-resolution instrument, so it probobly couldn't see any trace amounts of Platinum buried under Lunar dust in highly localized locations. Its no wonder at all that neither mission detected Platinum.

"MD will do one thing well, it will get us there."

No it doesn't. MarsDirect is too light, and won't work safely even if you gut the entire science package. And what good does it do to just get there? If thats all it can do, then its worthless, and is just very much a "Martian Apollo." We'll leave as quick as we came, and it will be all over for another decade or two (or longer). MarsDirect won't work, and even if it did, it would be a waste of time and money... I assert that it would cost less to adapt an exsisting system, like DRM, to be a reuseable crew ferry and heavy (50MT) cargo hauler then it would be to start over after MarsDirect is done including the savings you get from MD versus DRM...

There is also the science-per-dollar concern, that DRM will be able to do much more with its far heavier payloads, six-man crew, and future reuseability upgrade path. Imparticular, DRM will have enough payload mass and dimensions to bring along a multi-meter drill, which MD probobly won't, which I think is absolutely nessesarry if we are going to be serious about hunting for (underground) life and water.

MarsDirect is a bad investment... As far as how much DRM costs, NASA pegs the current iteration at around $50Bn, which includes development for a capsule like CEV, a new nuclear reactor like JIMO's, and a Methane rocket like VSE Lunar lander/TEI would need.

Private companies will (or should) be able to buy the same systems or flights of a system from aerospace contractors as NASA does, and employ them to bring those materials back.

Surface/Crustal Composition (% by weight) -
    (Arranged by periodic order)
        Al:  2 - 7%    Ti:  0.5 - 2%    Cu:  <0.5%    Sr:  <0.02%
        Si:  15 - 30%    V:  <3%        Zn:  <0.1%    Y:  <0.02%
        P:  <10%    Cr:  <5%    Ga:  <0.03%    Zr:  <0.02%
        S:  0 - 6%    Mn:  <7%    As:  <0.02%    Nb:  <0.025%
        Cl:  0 - 3%    Fe:  14% ± 2%    Se:  <0.015%    Mo:  <0.05%
        K:  0 - 2%    Co:  < 7%    Br:  <0.015%    Tc - U:  <2%
        Ca:  3 - 8%    Ni:  < 5%    Rb:  <0.01%

There is more than just using regolith as a mass manufacturer of solar panels, but I used it show what the true lifeblood of any space mission is that of energy. Still ignoring He3 (which I can do easily) and the KREEP natural radioactives, there is still the matter of the very mineral rich asteroids that have collided with the moon over the millenia and high concentrations of Iron,Nickel,Cobalt and of course PGMs they consisted of. We are interested in the PGMs for here on Earth and this leaves the millions of tonnes of Iron,Nickel,Cobalt as waste. And usable for anything so wanted at a lunar base.

We will also go to the moon so that we can access its abundant oxygen bound up in the regolith. This fuel would also be a means to allow us further access to space and on to Mars.

It is not just the lower gravity of the Moon that makes it the best place to create industrial capacity but the capability to have power generated. The Moon with peaks that are almost permanently in sunlight are a solar power paradise. It is power and especially electrical that has made our civilisation what it is and the Moon has in abundance all that is needed to easily make cheap solar panels that are very "hard" when it comes to radiation. There are Science projects that have it planned for automated Rovers to make lines of these panels solely from lunar soils. Its all that abundant SiO2.

Another advantage is that the Moon is sprinkled with Iron not much except in certain concentrated areas but this allows us to build what scientists call smart bricks. If we collect Lunar regolith and crush it into a mold then heat it. The mold will release oxygen and any other free gases. leaving us with a structural component and if passed through a powerful magnetic source the brick becomes polarised. This allows us to create a very good structural component which helps to right itself and is easily picked up by a robot arm.

Still it is when we go to find the PGMs that the Moon will either pay for itself or at the minimum to defray costs the same with the use of Helium 3.

Question does the C(rew) D(ecent) V(ehicle), once it is time to go and leave mars will it act as a single stage to orbit or is there another lander that is used to do that function or is it the E(arth) R(eturn) V(ehicle) that is destine for this role?

I am looking at how many launches and how much is waste for the designs.

Thanks
What I find most interesting about the whole issue is who should say what monies are spent by Nasa on what projects.

Take for instance this one http://space.com/missionlaunches/050502 … arch.html] Search on Again for Mars Polar Lander

While it might be of interest to find out what happened to it 6 years ago to what benifit would we gain from doing so and at what cost should we do this for?

Nothing is really said about this question and the only thing to come from it is a new imaging technique.

Then the flip side of the coin from congress is that NASAs]http://space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_050502.html]NASA's Exploration Focus Blamed for Earth Science Cuts and while the desision making process is flawed it does seem to be getting congress in line to fund nasa correctly.

"We need to stop, examine what's happening, and make sure that the fiscal 2006 budget for NASA - whatever its top-level number - includes adequate funding to keep Earth science moving forward for the foreseeable future."

But where is there support when it is about getting to the lowest budget possible and not about the science?

"You talk about the handoff," Boehlert said. "I'm enough of a track man to know it takes two hands to hand off. One hand is extending to hand off, but there has to be a recipient with a plan and a program and the funding behind the program and we don't see that."

Here is a list of CEV references:
http://space.com/businesstechnology/tec … 209.html]A Spiral Stairway to the Moon and Beyond

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Exploration_Vehicle] Crew Exploration Vehicle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://aviationnow.ecnext.com/free-scri … =02215top] Aviation Week & Space Technology a Trial By Fire

Checkout the cev central for more links

Payback comes in the form of a return not just some data on the age or mineral composition of the moon but rather can we make the steps from there for infrastructure and colonization of beyound.

Timeframe, well we have had nearly two years of no flights to which we have paid for the shuttle army to put out no flights at all. A few months after the accident there was much discusion as to what to replace the shuttle with. The flyoff as it stands now is just a paper rocket with not even a complete flight test of hardware fully intergrated to actually a full size testing until 2012 with manned flight in 2014. All to get to LEO or spiral 1.

The problem with the plans are timeframe, cost and how many flights for payback.

1st, using the MarsDirect single-HLLV plan is unworkable. Zubrin's plan is simply not practical... it is an interesting thought experiment in ways to absolutely minimize the payload sent from Earth, but he went too far in trying to cut corners so that MD would fit on a single shot of a Shuttle-derived all-chemical vehicle. Furthermore, MD would require the largest and most difficult varient of SDV nuclear or not, which would be expensive.

MarsDirect has one much more fundimental problem however, in that it has no hope of doing anything more then just barely getting four people there and back.

Sounds like Mars Direct.  While I may agree with some of your changes I do not agree with the way you wish to implement these changes.  Having the NASA Administrator go behind the Presidents back to congress would be a huge mistake and political suicide.  The Administrator should bring the ideas to the President, convince him and his science advisor, then allow the President to announce the new plan to the people.

The best way to sell this to the public is to say that we can achieve it within NASA's current budget, no new taxes and no robbing from other programs.  To do it we would have to cut the space shuttle and ISS though.

Space based manufacturing infrastructure?  Why would we need that?  I am definately against it.  I support science efforts in space but not the settlement of space simply to fulfill science fiction readers fantasy.

1) To summarily get rid of the ISS is unfortunatly politically impossible even to stop construction is again almost impossible. The ISS was billed as a worlds space station to get other countries especially Russia on board to summarilly abandon its construction with the modules other countries have built sitting in hangers would not go well for international space relations.

2) You seem to be very anti lunar and this would alienate a degree of the space advocates and this includes your congress. Many people are bitter that the apollo program seemed to stop before the dreams of lunar bases and a foothold on Earths companion happened.

Still a good heavy with a  medium launcher would benefit the space program greatly. Especially if clean sheet but would the rather nasty buisness of political slash and cut allow it at the expense of all those current shuttle army and launchers jobs.

Try this site its called sandcastle

http://www.sandcastlevi.com/space/spa-p … Sandcastle V.I

Each probe is listed and at the bottom is a photo gallery

Oh, by the way welcome to new mars Visionary Explorer

and if you think your OT you should see some of the items I post.