New Mars Forums

I'm trying to teach you how the worldwide economic model of price determination works, i'm not making any assumptions, just trying to get you more informed.
I'm not making any predictions or assumptions on who will buy what. I'm also not setting concrete prices (especially ones that seem too optimistic)

louis wrote:

If your argument were true, the huge increase in meteorite finds in recent decades (thanks to commercialisation of searching and improved technology) would have led to a collapse in prices, but there is no evidence of that. On the contrary interest in private collection of meteorites, increased per capita wealth, more opportunities to trade and the huge growth in higher education have cancelled the effects of increased supply. What is your explanation for the healthy state of the meteorite market on Earth?

louis wrote:

Repeatedly asserting something is not the same as arguing it.

You're right, I feel like i'm beating a dead horse; Mark and I have reinforced how supply and demand works via our previous postings.

louis wrote:

There is no reason to suppose that demand for lunar regolith will continue indefinitely at high levels.

Yup

I stand corrected. My chicken expert informs me that you can freeze whole eggs. She will be trying this for me soon with a few fertilized eggs. I will update you shortly.

That market would implode or become inaccessible the moment you bring back a sample with the promise of more on the way. Meterites are fetch high prices because they are a rare, naturally limited product. The people who are paying $20-30 a gam for pallasite have no interest in buying it from you (trust me, I know many of them). Either the entire collectors market will disappear, or more likely it will be come like diamonds: only 'natural' meteorites will continue to have value, and rigorous documentation of the fall is required to sell one.

Gathering moon rocks and sending them back to make jewlry would not be profitable at all. Quoting SpaceX's Steve Davis "If the entire moon was made of solid gold, it would be unprofitable for any company on Earth to go mine it and bring it back, if the entire moon was made of heroin, it would still be unprofitable." The cost alone of the fuel + lander (every time the lander spashes down / lands on the earth, it will have to be completely stripped down and refurbished after taking the extreme thermal stresses) to get them back to earth is much greater (using your optimistic return cost) than the moon rocks (100/g - your price, which would significantly drop if you tried introducing 20 tonnes/year of the stuff into the world economy) are even worth. This is why planetary resources won't be sending anything back to Earth (as they said), instead they will be catering to the growing space infrastructure.

Be vary wary on that Bone-lose study.  First off the problem is BONE STRENGTH not density, for a long time people assumed low density and high fracture risk were synonymous and just simple cause and effect.  Thus the focus on drugs that in a rather crude and unnatural way increase density by directly interfering with the bodies bone mineral breakdown.  But Bone is (thank goodness) not just a lump of Chalk, its a complex lattice structure and its strength is nearly ALL is it's complex protein-mineral micro-structure. 

Thus it should really come as no big shock that this artificial interruption in the normal bone cycle actually weakens the bones rather then strengthens it.  Their is in fact a BIG fall-out and liability here in drugs that were advertized to 'fix osteoporosis' but which did no such thing because the erroneous conflation of bone density and bone strength.

The Drug in this ISS study (Fosamax) is exactly the drug that has now been massively discredited by findings of higher rates of crippling Femur fractures when taken for long periods, and it's now recommended that only people suffering severe osteoporosis be put on the drug and even then only for short periods.  Astronauts might be such a group ware the benefits outweigh the risks but its FAR from proven.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic … tures.aspx

We are basically still at square-1 when it comes to drug-based solutions to the bone lose problem in Space, if anything I expect that we will find non-drug control methods like diet, exercise and various mechanical vibrations/stresses and particularly the selection of the best 'bone retaining' astronauts selected from ISS stays (like anything we would expect some individuals to be genetically more resistant) as the best solution for assembling a longer duration crew that must live in zero-g. This is not to say artificial gravity is wrong/bad/stupid, just that drugs are not the silver bullet some claim they are.

At a minimum will also need to learn of a way to actually medically scan and determine the TRUE strength of a persons bones (non destructively of course) and and move away from false proxies like density. 

As usually it will be ground based research that helps us in Space via 'trickle up' rather then space-tech 'trickle down', NASA would probably love to do this kind of research both to protect the astronauts and to give them a really big 'useful science' feather in it's cap that it can point too every time someone says NASA is a waste of money.  But the test population they have to work on is just pathetically small it would take a decade to accumulate a marginally meaningful clinical study, ware as ground based research has access to millions of test subjects, and DEEP pockets of funding to conduct such studies.  Thus the ground will always innovate drugs faster then Space can, and space will always be a receiver of drug discoveries rather then a creator of them.

Go look at this news article,  and you will understand what I said in other posts about bloated contractors and bloated government agencies.   You have to read between the lines,  though.   Not even the reporters who wrote the article truly understand why this happened.  Or what it really means. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3033063/ns/ … nce-space/

It’s very sad these ex-shuttle folks are caught in the middle.  But,  working in defense contracting,  in a second/third tier vendor,  I never had a $100K/yr job,  either.   Not like those NASA folks.  Although I did make a comfortable salary,  not seen by me again since the defense plant where I worked got closed by corporate politics-for-profit,  and in egregious error at that. 

Teaching college is far less than half of that salary.  Teaching high school is less than a quarter.  I’ve done both,  since the defense jobs ended in these parts.  But,  we’re still alive.  We might even get to retire in 5 years or so,  no thanks to the defense industry,  but due to our own efforts,  and no small measure of good luck.   

There has to be a coordinated plan for space exploration,  and the necessary oversight to prevent contractor and agency bloat.  The US Congress provided neither,  not in 50 years.   What a bunch of incompetents and malfeasants! 

THAT is why the NASA we have today is not the NASA of 1959. 

THAT is why the NASA of today cannot send men to Mars,  even though the knowledge and most of the technology to do so,  existed as far back as about 1990. 

THAT is why it appears a private outfit like Spacex seems more likely to go to Mars,  if anybody ever goes at all.   Very sad,  that outcome.  Especially since it is the role of government to explore,  and business to exploit,  not the other way round. 

THAT is why I say the things I say.

GW

I think my point is that we don’t need to “practice” for Mars (or anywhere else).  We already know what we need to know. 

We could have gone to Mars successfully about 20 years ago.  Everything we needed to know about,  was known then.  Including radiation and microgravity effects.   The only real limitation persisting to this very day is an effective Mars lander in the 10-100 ton dead-head payload class. 

That’s about a 5 year technology development and demonstration.  We already know what to do,  we just haven’t done it.  Mostly because of “not invented here” problems at NASA. 

Microgravity is a simple problem to solve.  Beyond roughly about 14 months,  it becomes increasingly and essentially permanently irreversible to expose yourself to zero gee.  It’s demonstrably bad enough at 6 months,  that’s why ISS crews are changed out at 6-7 month intervals. 

Exercise regimens make no real difference at that 12-14 month length of exposure.  We already know that.  There is no credible data whatsoever (!!!!) to suggest that 0.38 gee on Mars is any way therapeutic.   The round-trip Mars mission is about 24 to 28 months long.  So,  there is NO solution space for traveling to Mars in zero-gee. 

You can completely forget that concept.  That way lies a dead crew. 

So,  spin the damned ship for artificial gee.  Simple as that. 

I’d suggest a 1 gee design,  simply because there is no credible data whatsoever (again !!!!) to suggest that anything less is therapeutic.    That’s no more than 4 rpm for no less than a 56 m radius.  Basic physics.  Radius times square of angular velocity equals radial (inward) acceleration. 

But no “Battlestar Galactica” is required,  nor is any Rube Goldberg cable tether system required.  Build your ship as a slender baton from simple docked modules in LEO,  and spin it end over end.  Nothing hard about that at all.  Something 5 m wide at 20:1 L/D is 100 m long.  Stack it up in parallel to achieve 10 m wide at L/D = 20:1.  200 m long,  that’s a 100 m radius at about 2 rpm on the outbound leg. 

5 m wide fits or replaces a lot of the existing payload fairings we already have.  Modules can ride up “naked” on existing launchers in the 20-25 ton class,  or two at once on a Falcon-Heavy,  very soon. 

What is so hard about that?

For the lander,  you just need to use low levels of retro thrust during entry to end the hypersonics at an acceptably high altitude,  and perhaps low levels of retro thrust with a chute (if you choose to use one),  then finally high levels of retro thrust for the final touchdown. 

Take a good look at Spacex’s Dragon with the Super Draco’s installed.  That’s a small 2-3 ton dead-head payload one-way (only !!) lander right there.  Retro thrust is exactly what they’re doing.   

Retro plume instability is solved by cant angle.  Theirs (Spacex) is 45 degrees,  but you don’t need that much.  They did that to avoid firing a rocket plume through a hole in a heat shield.  But,  if you seal the engine compartment behind the heatshield to prevent throughflow,  you actually can have a hole in a heatshield.  Throughflow is death (Columbia 2003).  No throughflow is a static gas column,  the best insulator we know.  We already did this ca. 1970 with Gemini-B for the MOL test flight. 

Radiation is not a problem if you use a “real” habitat module for the interplanetary transits.  20 cm of water (or wastewater) stops solar flares.  End of problem.  You have to have water and wastewater tanks anyway.  So position them as radiation shielding.  At least around the flight deck as your radiation shelter. 

The cosmic ray stuff at 60 REM/yr max is very close to our current “acceptable limit” for astronauts of 50 REM/yr,  even in a peak radiation year.  The min exposure is 24 REM/yr.  Varies sinusoidally with time during the sunspot cycle.   There is a career limit,  which is violated in a second flight to Mars,  if conducted in a peak radiation year.   

All these things have been known since about 1990 or so.  As I said,  we could have gone to Mars about 20 years ago. 

GW

Louis:

As far as I remember,  the only weights the lunar astronauts lifted on the moon were those 100 kg suits. 

Lower body negative pressure temporarily relieves the upper body and face swelling that is typical of zero-gee body fluid redistribution.  It's no real solution to anything. 

The only real "secrecy" is that no one at NASA (or ESA or any of the rest) wants to admit that there is no solution to extended living in zero gee.  Artificial gravity is absolutely required beyond about a year or so for sure,  and beyond about 6 months,  with some serious but recoverable effects.  That's why ISS crews are changed out at no more than about 6-7 months.  Didn't you notice that?

The other "secret" is that "they" completely failed to find out how much gee is therapeutic,  after all these decades doing stuff in LEO.  In other words,  "they" didn't do their damned jobs for all those tax dollars we spent.  "They" (all the government space agencies) do not want you to know that.  The favorite-contractor corporations get tarred with the same brush:  they also did nothing,  choosing instead just to profit from the status quo. 

The original NASA Mars mission was on the books for the 1980's.  We could have sent them back then,  but in 20-20 hindsight,  that crew would most likely have died from microgravity disease or solar flare radiation.  We actually knew how to handle all of those things by the mid 1990's,  roughly. 

The only remaining problem is a practical Mars lander - as evidenced by the technological troubles the JPL guys are encountering putting ever more massive rovers on the surface.  You have to do something different from Viking 1/2 by the time you exceed around a landed ton or so.   

GW

... And if it's not?

re: lots of technical problems, maybe so, but it would also *solve* a lot of problems, no suffering zero-g toilets to for months, for starters. The ability to take a shower,  et c....

Hi Louis:

I think your assessment in the last post is just about right.

GW