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#1 2011-12-03 13:47:35

Hop
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From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
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Is space within our reach?

Tom Murphy is a physics professor whose Do The Math blog urges conservation of resources. He argues the earth is finite, therefore our rate of consumption can't continue to grow as it's done in the past.

His Stranded Resources argues space resources will remain beyond our grasp.

He regards attempts to settle or use space as wasted effort that could be better spent learning to live within our means.

I believe his view is becoming more widespread. If so, it will become even harder to drum up popular support for human spaceflight.

Last edited by Hop (2011-12-03 13:48:18)


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

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#2 2011-12-03 14:47:40

SpaceNut
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Posts: 29,433

Re: Is space within our reach?

Thanks for the links Hop...

Environmentalist do preach the conserve not waste the resources but while we can say do not go we can also just sit here and waste the chance to get a foot hold on the door steps of space as the next catistraufic collision could be just lurking around the next century. Then it will be to late if no infrastructure is in place to allow for the exidos to be had....

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#3 2011-12-03 15:06:18

Terraformer
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Re: Is space within our reach?

"I had never worked through these computations before, and took my typical approach of estimating obvious, brute-force solutions to a problem."
Therein lies the problem... he used what seemed obvious to him, ignoring all the much easier things that can be done. As a result, his post should be quite easy to refute. Just point out about Luna.


Use what is abundant and build to last

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#4 2011-12-03 15:20:46

Hop
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From: Ajo
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Terraformer wrote:

"I had never worked through these computations before, and took my typical approach of estimating obvious, brute-force solutions to a problem."
Therein lies the problem... he used what seemed obvious to him, ignoring all the much easier things that can be done.

You sum up the major flaws with his essay quite nicely.

Terraformer wrote:

As a result, his post should be quite easy to refute. Just point out about Luna.

That is what I have done. See Murphy's Mangled Math.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

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#5 2011-12-03 16:55:24

Terraformer
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Re: Is space within our reach?

I like it. Only, I seem to recall Luna has vauable metals which could be easily gathered, I seem to recall, which would be cheaper and easier to get than the asteroids...


Use what is abundant and build to last

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#6 2011-12-03 17:32:21

Hop
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From: Ajo
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Posts: 146
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Terraformer wrote:

I like it. Only, I seem to recall Luna has vauable metals which could be easily gathered, I seem to recall, which would be cheaper and easier to get than the asteroids...

That's something I don't know much about. If you run across any articles on lunar metals, I hope you'll share them.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

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#7 2011-12-04 08:41:40

SpaceNut
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Re: Is space within our reach?

I see from the post that many a what if changes the equation....
Such as the intake of fuel from other means in any of the steps of delta v changes.
I recall the air in take of the first stage to orbit as one such item as it changes the mass of the rocket equation.

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#8 2011-12-04 09:01:45

SpaceNut
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Hop I believe these links will highlight what you see in the insitu processing to get the material ready to be used.

Major Lunar Minerals

As you smelt the ore of

"anorthite" mineral consisting of 20% aluminum (chemical symbol Al), calcium (Ca), silicon (Si) and oxygen (O), with a chemical formula of CaAl2Si2O8. The smelter's job is to split all that up to produce pure aluminum metal, and optionally calcium metal, free oxygen, "silica" glass (SiO2), and perhaps pure silicon.

For each metal that we seek there is a different process to how to seperate it from the raw ore that is dug, mined or gathered.

Lunar Maters LLC

Acquisition and sale of platinum group metals (PGMs) extracted from Ni-Fe asteroid fragments collected from the lunar surface constitutes the flagship product line for Lunar Materials

It is felt that it would not be profitable to mine and export the moon for Earths mineral sources.
Mining the Moon for Rare Earth Elements - Is It Really Possible?

REE_Periodic.6065648_std.gif

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#9 2011-12-04 15:24:53

Hop
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From: Ajo
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Posts: 146
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Re: Is space within our reach?

SpaceNut wrote:

I see from the post that many a what if changes the equation....
Such as the intake of fuel from other means in any of the steps of delta v changes.
I recall the air in take of the first stage to orbit as one such item as it changes the mass of the rocket equation.

You're right, getting oxidizer as we pass through the atmosphere is one of the possibilities I hadn't looked at.

I was enthusiastic about scram jet lower stages for a time. Then some aerospace engineers whose opinion I respect pointed to what they regard as show stoppers.

Then Skylon came along. I was giving Skylon even odds. But at the moment I'm giving them less than even odds. If the Skylon boys do pull it off, it will be a major game changer.

Most (if not all) of the what ifs I mentioned are still open to question -- they're not done deals. I have no certainty the case for space resources can close. But naysayers like Stross or Murphy have no certainty either. And folks like Murphy and Stross greatly exaggerate the obstacles, in my opinion.

Last edited by Hop (2011-12-04 15:25:17)


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

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#10 2011-12-04 16:04:38

Hop
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From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Thank you for some interesting links, Spacenut.

SpaceNut wrote:

Hop I believe these links will highlight what you see in the insitu processing to get the material ready to be used.

Major Lunar Minerals

As you smelt the ore of

"anorthite" mineral consisting of 20% aluminum (chemical symbol Al), calcium (Ca), silicon (Si) and oxygen (O), with a chemical formula of CaAl2Si2O8. The smelter's job is to split all that up to produce pure aluminum metal, and optionally calcium metal, free oxygen, "silica" glass (SiO2), and perhaps pure silicon.

For each metal that we seek there is a different process to how to seperate it from the raw ore that is dug, mined or gathered.

As you know, Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation is very prominent on my radar screen. That is why lunar water is the resource I'm most excited about.

But a major obstacle is energy to crack water into the hydrogen and oxygen propellant. Given power sources of plausible mass it is hard to crack water at the rates an orbital propellant market would demand.

And aluminum is much worse. Here on earth we dissolve alumina in molten halogen salts and then split the oxygen from aluminum by electrolysis. An extremely energy intensive process. If limitations to GLOW and power sources with low specific power are headaches for cracking water, they're much worse for mining aluminum.

Mining iron, titanium and other metals are also energy intensive. They do have an oxygen byproduct, though.

So one of the things I hope for are power sources with lots of watts per kilogram. Not only would this make ISRU more plausible but it would improve the performance of ion engines.

If we did get enough power on the moon to mine aluminum, silicon and other minerals, we could start making solar panels from ISRU materials. Then the lunar power constraints would be slain. But this is a very ambitious project.

SpaceNut wrote:

Lunar Maters LLC

Acquisition and sale of platinum group metals (PGMs) extracted from Ni-Fe asteroid fragments collected from the lunar surface constitutes the flagship product line for Lunar Materials

I like this. Some of the best metal ores in our solar system are asteroids that come from differentiated bodies. These have better metal ores than found in planetary crusts. And it's possible that some metallic meteorites lie in the basins of lunar craters.

But lunar platinum couldn't be viable unless we had more economical transport to and from the moon. Again, volatiles are a prerequisite.

SpaceNut wrote:

It is felt that it would not be profitable to mine and export the moon for Earths mineral sources.
Mining the Moon for Rare Earth Elements - Is It Really Possible?

http://rareearthelements.us/yahoo_site_ … 48_std.gif

A few things this article brings up are the severe temperature swings and lack of volatiles. Both are much less of an issue at the lunar poles. Does the lunar KREEP extend to the poles? I don't know.

One of the hidden costs is environmental harm that rare earth mining inflicts. Not an issue on the moon. One of the harmful by-products is thorium. Possibly a lunar energy source. Kirk Sorensen has been trumpeting energy from thorium.

If luna infrastructure had enough power to make propellant and power rail guns, transportation costs would be cut a great deal. Possibly this would enable export of rare earths. But this a long term goal.

Last edited by Hop (2011-12-04 16:06:42)


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

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#11 2011-12-10 06:54:32

louis
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Re: Is space within our reach?

The guy seems to be confusing several different issues and coming up with wrong answers. 

I very much doubt that the Earth will "run out of resources". There is v. little sign of that happening. World economic growth continues at some huge figure like 4-5% (despite the problems of Euro-America). We are recycling materials more and more efficiently. We are on the brink of limitless energy, if not yet cheap energy through green energy technologies. We don't have to rely on oil - it's just rather convenient for a lot of things. But electric cars will perform just as well as petrol/gas cars within a few years (Toyota have just developed a 1000 mile range battery that will cost 25% of current batteries - and even if that didn't work, you could have battery changing stations to extend range). So that's ticks for energy and transport.  Aircraft can fly on bio fuels. Plants can produce polymers. Once you have limitless energy, you can put a lot of energy into growing food in special facilities e.g. polytunnels, farm towers, and so on. Energy can also be used to extract water from the atmosphere in dry aeas and irrigate the land.

If certain metal sources start to run out they will be recycled more efficiently or the seabed will be scoured as an alternative to mining on land. But most importantly I think we will see materials substitution and artificial creation of materials.

I have never thought space mining will be a major industry in the next 100 years or so. But certainly Mars and the asteroids can provide supplies of the most valuable metals and stones e.g. gold, platinum and diamonds.

Space energy could be important. I think there is certainly scope for solar satellites beaming energy down to Earth.

I think that old adage from the Apollo/Hippy era  is needed now: "Just do it!"  Once the public know we have a presence on Mars they will respond.

Fortunately there is one man I think agrees and he happens to be in just about the sweetest spot to take forward that approach: Elon Musk.  No coincidence of course: since his goal has always been to have humanity colonise Mars.

Last edited by louis (2011-12-10 06:55:37)


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#12 2011-12-10 13:53:08

Hop
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Re: Is space within our reach?

louis wrote:

The guy seems to be confusing several different issues and coming up with wrong answers. 

I very much doubt that the Earth will "run out of resources". There is v. little sign of that happening. World economic growth continues at some huge figure like 4-5% (despite the problems of Euro-America). We are recycling materials more and more efficiently. We are on the brink of limitless energy, if not yet cheap energy through green energy technologies. We don't have to rely on oil - it's just rather convenient for a lot of things. But electric cars will perform just as well as petrol/gas cars within a few years (Toyota have just developed a 1000 mile range battery that will cost 25% of current batteries - and even if that didn't work, you could have battery changing stations to extend range). So that's ticks for energy and transport.  Aircraft can fly on bio fuels. Plants can produce polymers. Once you have limitless energy, you can put a lot of energy into growing food in special facilities e.g. polytunnels, farm towers, and so on. Energy can also be used to extract water from the atmosphere in dry aeas and irrigate the land.

Even mild exponential growth like 4 or 5% will lead to dramatic quantities over time.

Human cleverness has increased amount of resources at our disposal. But this also has limits. If you read Murphy's blogs you will see he talks about thermodynamic limits to car efficiency, maximum amount of sunlight we can harvest, etc.

Earth is a finite body of resources. Murphy is absolutely correct that it can't sustain exponential growth forever. Sooner or later the growth curve will flatten and our growth will resemble logistic growth rather than exponential.

louis wrote:

I have never thought space mining will be a major industry in the next 100 years or so. But certainly Mars and the asteroids can provide supplies of the most valuable metals and stones e.g. gold, platinum and diamonds.

PGMs from asteroids is a possibility. I don't see mineral exports from Mars to earth ever making a profit.

louis wrote:

I think that old adage from the Apollo/Hippy era  is needed now: "Just do it!"

If we drop enough LSD and chant a mantra, that will levitate a Noah's Ark to another planet.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

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#13 2011-12-10 17:09:36

louis
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From: UK
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Posts: 7,208

Re: Is space within our reach?

Hop wrote:

"Even mild exponential growth like 4 or 5% will lead to dramatic quantities over time.

Human cleverness has increased amount of resources at our disposal. But this also has limits. If you read Murphy's blogs you will see he talks about thermodynamic limits to car efficiency, maximum amount of sunlight we can harvest, etc.

Earth is a finite body of resources. Murphy is absolutely correct that it can't sustain exponential growth forever. Sooner or later the growth curve will flatten and our growth will resemble logistic growth rather than exponential.

PGMs from asteroids is a possibility. I don't see mineral exports from Mars to earth ever making a profit.

If we drop enough LSD and chant a mantra, that will levitate a Noah's Ark to another planet."

Of course the Earth is finite but it is also very, very large. In tonnes it's:

6,585,000,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes

That's a lot of material. 

I think the point I would make is that it is unlikely human population will continue at rates seen between 1800 and 2000.  Everywhere - even places like Saudi Arabia where there is cultural subjugation of women - there has been a sharp reduction in the birth rate and that is likely to continue, with replacement of population becoming more of an issue in many places.

There are some absolute limits on how much someone can consume. A human being can only consume so many calories of food; there are only 24 hours in a day when you can wear clothes; even very rich people don't normally have more than 4 or 5 cars or own more than 3 or 4 homes. 

On the other hand we can see that the capacity to produce could increase much faster than the capacity to consume of humanity.  We're just playing catch up at the moment.

To take the most basic and important industry - agriculture - there is huge scope to increase food production through:

- Capture of moisture from the atmosphere in dry places to allow on site irrigation.

- Creating "fields in the sky" i.e. farm towers.

- Factory lab production of artificial "meat" (due to start next year for commercial sale I heard on the radio recently).

- Creation of artificial soil.

Even now, with no new technology, the scope for increasing food production in Africa is huge - you could probably increase production by a factor of three simply by bringing in commercial farming practices.

It depends what you mean by mineral exports.  Certainly to begin with export of meteorites and regolith will general billions of dollars of business.

Did you understand the point about "Let's do it!" ? - it's not that the hippy-dippy wishing overcomes all problems...it's that establishing settlements on Mars will create a new reality that people on Earth will respond to. 

I agree with Musk that getting people to Mars is doable within the next 10-20 years.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#14 2011-12-15 01:34:04

GW Johnson
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Posts: 5,806
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Here's an odd idea.  Water seems to be ubiquitously available on a variety of celestial objects,  although some purification may be needed.  Why not store it and ship it as ice,  which requires only the mildest pressure to prevent sublimation into space,  and has considerable structural strength in and of itself.  If you ship it robotically to your destination months ahead of time,  then you can robotically use small-power-level solar or nuclear power to electrolyze it into hydrogen and oxygen. 

The fact that electrolysis is inefficient is no problem if the power is essentially free,  as with solar or nuclear.  The fact that electrolysis production rates are very low is no problem if you have months to get the job done before men ever arrive. 

For example,  mine ice from the south pole of the weak-gravity moon,  and send it with an electrolysis plant to Mars orbit robotically.  Do it with a min-energy Hohmann transfer.  Have a supply of LH2 and LOX waiting on you when you arrive.  Use that supply to support landings and the return trip.  Once Phobos has been explored,  you may (or may not) have a supply of ice in situ in Mars orbit.  But either way,  you have the first manned Mars mission covered. 

Electrolysis creates H2 and O2 at 2:1 molar,  which is 8:1 oxygen:fuel by mass.  Even LH2-LOX engines do not use it stoichiometric,  they run rich on H2,  so there is always excess oxygen to breathe available.  Breathing oxygen is really abundant if your engines are nuclear thermal,  which typically use only the hydrogen. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#15 2011-12-15 15:52:14

louis
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From: UK
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Re: Is space within our reach?

GW Johnson wrote:

Here's an odd idea.  Water seems to be ubiquitously available on a variety of celestial objects,  although some purification may be needed.  Why not store it and ship it as ice,  which requires only the mildest pressure to prevent sublimation into space,  and has considerable structural strength in and of itself.  If you ship it robotically to your destination months ahead of time,  then you can robotically use small-power-level solar or nuclear power to electrolyze it into hydrogen and oxygen. 

The fact that electrolysis is inefficient is no problem if the power is essentially free,  as with solar or nuclear.  The fact that electrolysis production rates are very low is no problem if you have months to get the job done before men ever arrive. 

For example,  mine ice from the south pole of the weak-gravity moon,  and send it with an electrolysis plant to Mars orbit robotically.  Do it with a min-energy Hohmann transfer.  Have a supply of LH2 and LOX waiting on you when you arrive.  Use that supply to support landings and the return trip.  Once Phobos has been explored,  you may (or may not) have a supply of ice in situ in Mars orbit.  But either way,  you have the first manned Mars mission covered. 

Electrolysis creates H2 and O2 at 2:1 molar,  which is 8:1 oxygen:fuel by mass.  Even LH2-LOX engines do not use it stoichiometric,  they run rich on H2,  so there is always excess oxygen to breathe available.  Breathing oxygen is really abundant if your engines are nuclear thermal,  which typically use only the hydrogen. 

GW


I don't think ice is available on the Moon in the sort of quantities it is on Mars. We could manufacture rocket fuel robotically on Mars using entirely Mars ISRU.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#16 2011-12-16 11:11:06

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
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Re: Is space within our reach?

More ice on Mars.  True,  but you have to get there first. 

Without a space race motivated by something other than rationality (like last time to the moon),  you have to bootstrap your way there,  slowly.  Too many with political clout dig in their heels about space travel.  Gotta do this gradual to sneak it by them. 

Right now,  the moon is far easier to reach with the puny chemical rockets we have.  The propellants for an initial trip to Mars (perhaps along with other stuff intended for use here at home) might be made robotically on the moon,  instead of launched up from Earth.  It's energetically very easy to ship stuff from the moon.  Men might have to get involved in that shipment for safety's sake,  which is a good excuse to fly beyond Earth orbit once again. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#17 2011-12-17 05:10:36

Grypd
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From: Scotland, Europe
Registered: 2004-06-07
Posts: 1,879

Re: Is space within our reach?

It is an intresting fact that most rare Earths we mine here on the Earth are the result of lunar ejecta that has hit our Earth. And that our supplies of this essential elements are running short.

And that with current commodities prices PGMs and now Gold are worth the lunar mining and return.

Still the major bar is political under the current treaties space missions are under make any materials garnered the property of all mankind.


Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

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#18 2011-12-17 06:09:06

louis
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From: UK
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Grypd -

I have read that there are plenty of rare earths all over the planet but their extraction is a dirty business which is why the environmentally squeamish countries - somewhat hypocritically - leave it to China and elsewhere to do the mining and processing.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#19 2011-12-17 09:21:55

Terraformer
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Posts: 3,907
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Lunar regolith samples aren't the property of all mankind though, and neither are the cometary samples, or the solar wind samples... anyway, I'm sure the Outer Space Treaty doesn't mention that, only the ownership of real estate, and even then only by existing nations (tbh, if they wished to include private organisations they'd propably have to recognise them as non-signatory nations, giving them sovereignty at least...).

I think a cislunar economy of fuel and PGM's, with a bit of tourism tacked on at the side (it's not going to be all that large, more on par with ISS tourism in terms of rates I imagine - the fact that you may only get a flight once every 6 month tour of duty will mean only those with that much time available can go; how big was the waiting list to fly to the ISS?) is something that can be realistically aimed for within the next couple of decades. It won't be a colony, any more than an oil rig is a colony, but the high price of transport should force it to be highly self-sufficient.

Once it has been going for several years, the price of transport per person might come down to a few $100k (mainly to do with the cost of launching the person, since fuel, food, water, and the transport ship are already in orbit), which will allow tourism to take-off as a much bigger market (this is supposing payload costs to orbit are $2-300 per kg). When we reach that point, it may or may not make sense to establish colonies on Luna - but that's beside the point if enough people with enough money want to live the rest of their lives there (we might see a Lunar retirement home before any children are born). Certainly, a Lunar University will be practical, and a city would begin to develop at one of the poles (cheap abundant solar energy). Still no children, but much more like an aircraft carrier than an oil rig - in fact, much more than an aircraft carrier, given that it has a retirement home and a University. Given another decade, say, it may develop into a fully fledged colony.

As soon as we reach the point where fuel, water and food can be bought offworld, I reckon we'll see manned missions to Mars, Venus, the Asteroids... even at prices of $2k/kg, launching a 50 tonne dry spaceship (so it fits on the F9H wink ) would cost $100 million... say total project cost comes to $500 million (for a manned Mars mission yikes ), that's less than what we routinely spend on probes. Even the unmanned probe section would have a massive boost from being able to refuel cheaply on orbit. When you've got that, leaping to the next stage (manned outposts on Mars and Venus) becomes a lot easier, and the first Martian University may grow out of the University of Luna. Don't try colonising without building the support infrastructure first - without a mature shipbuilding industry, you can't reach the New World (bear in mind Mayflower was retrofitted).

The key to this is to reduce, reuse, and recycle - reduce the mass that needs to be sent to orbit, reuse what we can (e.g. make upper stage rocket engines restartable so that we can use them to construct new spacecraft on orbit), and recycle (e.g. turn upper stage fuel tanks into habitat space).


Use what is abundant and build to last

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#20 2011-12-17 14:30:18

louis
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From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Is space within our reach?

Mars MTVs could easily be bringing back material worth $300 million.   It will certainly slash the costs of missions - might even help make a profit when you throw in commercial sponsorship, sponsored crew etc.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#21 2011-12-17 15:07:36

JoshNH4H
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From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
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Re: Is space within our reach?

Terraformer- I don't think that a Mars mission will wait until such a cislunar economy exists, though I do believe it will be helped by it.  I think that initial expeditions will occur in tandem with or slightly ahead of the establishment of a cislunar economy, which will be designed to support Mars colonies.  In the long run, though, I do think that we will be looking at a fairly well-developed economy in LEO with bases on the Moon that will serve as a waypoint between Earth and Mars, as well as between Earth and the NEOs and anywhere else we decide to colonize (I see Lunar colonization proceeding more slowly than Mars; Mars will be a mad dash, in historical terms, while the Moon will grow at a more deliberate pace as it becomes a part of the supply station for people going from Earth to elsewhere.)

I also had an interesting idea that could result in a slight savings on fuel costs:  We all know that the delta-V to get from Phobos or Deimos to LEO is lower than to get from the Moon to LEO if you can take advantage of aerocapture.  This means that it makes sense if possible to send fuel from Phobos or Deimos if you can manage it in preference to sending it from the Moon.  However, there are issues associated with this in that the launch windows are relatively infrequent and in that aerocapture is a fairly complicated process.  My idea was that you could concentrate the raw materials on Phobos and Deimos, such as Carbon and Water if such are available, and send them to LEO, which is more energy-rich than Phobos/Deimos anyway, where the base materials (not necessarily water and carbon) can be electrolyzed and synthesized into chemical fuel.  Because they are raw materials, it's okay to lose some of them in aerocapture.  I would send them via a railgun made on Phobos or Deimos if this were feasible because that will be a much lower cost than a rocket.  They could be launched all at the same time and then converted to fuel as needed, meanwhile they would be stored in their base form in orbit.


-Josh

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#22 2011-12-17 15:53:08

Terraformer
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From: The Fortunate Isles
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Posts: 3,907
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Re: Is space within our reach?

But that requires several years to build up infrastructure in Martian orbit, whereas you can send a stream of materials and manpower to Luna constantly. I'm making a new thread for Lunar infrastructure to avoid taking this one too far off topic.


Use what is abundant and build to last

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#23 2011-12-17 18:03:37

Grypd
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From: Scotland, Europe
Registered: 2004-06-07
Posts: 1,879

Re: Is space within our reach?

louis wrote:

Grypd -

I have read that there are plenty of rare earths all over the planet but their extraction is a dirty business which is why the environmentally squeamish countries - somewhat hypocritically - leave it to China and elsewhere to do the mining and processing.

Is it really that or the simple fact that rare earths tend to be rarely focused in extractible density and that China had some of the best reserves in that concentrated form. And they appear to be once of origin of the same event that formed the Moon.


Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

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#24 2011-12-17 18:16:37

Grypd
Member
From: Scotland, Europe
Registered: 2004-06-07
Posts: 1,879

Re: Is space within our reach?

Terraformer wrote:

Lunar regolith samples aren't the property of all mankind though, and neither are the cometary samples, or the solar wind samples... anyway, I'm sure the Outer Space Treaty doesn't mention that, only the ownership of real estate, and even then only by existing nations (tbh, if they wished to include private organisations they'd propably have to recognise them as non-signatory nations, giving them sovereignty at least...).

This will go off topic slightly but has to be said.

Currently all the samples from the Moon are scientific samples for the exact purpose of furthering knowledge. They where never commercial samples.

Many people consider the only treaty that space missions are bound too is the Outer space treaty. Unfortunatly that is not the case. The Moon treaty of 1979 is still present and for all intents the countries of the world have acceded to that treaty and it considers the USA to have done so. And all missions into space have to have a country of origin and even if a private company they are licensed by that country.

Trying for commercial mining and resource hunting even if selling asteroidal material could well have a sting in the tale as all mankind could ask for some of the profits.


Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

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#25 2011-12-17 19:01:38

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Is space within our reach?

Grypd wrote:
Terraformer wrote:

Lunar regolith samples aren't the property of all mankind though, and neither are the cometary samples, or the solar wind samples... anyway, I'm sure the Outer Space Treaty doesn't mention that, only the ownership of real estate, and even then only by existing nations (tbh, if they wished to include private organisations they'd propably have to recognise them as non-signatory nations, giving them sovereignty at least...).

This will go off topic slightly but has to be said.

Currently all the samples from the Moon are scientific samples for the exact purpose of furthering knowledge. They where never commercial samples.

Many people consider the only treaty that space missions are bound too is the Outer space treaty. Unfortunatly that is not the case. The Moon treaty of 1979 is still present and for all intents the countries of the world have acceded to that treaty and it considers the USA to have done so. And all missions into space have to have a country of origin and even if a private company they are licensed by that country.

Trying for commercial mining and resource hunting even if selling asteroidal material could well have a sting in the tale as all mankind could ask for some of the profits.

Re The Moon Treaty, the following from Wikipedia:

"In practice, it is a failed treaty since it has not been ratified by any nation which engages in self-launched manned space exploration or has plans to do so (e.g. the United States, The United Kingdom, European Union, Russian Federation, People's Republic of China, Japan, and India) since its creation in 1979, and thus has a negligible effect on actual spaceflight."

Seems pretty irrelevant then.

IIRC The Outer Space Treaty does not prevent commercial exploitation of a planet.


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