Some Corrective Lenses II - ...hmmm, another corrupt thread

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-04 20:05:41

"Which implied a significant amount of material worthy of bringing back, not just for use in fuel cells on the Moon.

And again, asteroids (which are known to contain significant or otherwise amounts of platinum) are not worthwhile due to some supposed zero-G mining barrier - while supposed asteroidal material from impacts... have not been detected despite hundreds of kilograms of samples..."

Nonsense, the rocks that fell on the Moon are the same ones you intend to go and try and mine in zero-G. Some of them will certainly contain useful amounts of Platinum, we just haven't found them yet. It could very well require human prospectors to go there and find it, as it probobly be buried under the dust so simple robots could not find it.

I assert that mining in zero-gravity is inherintly impractical, because the process of mining is made essentially impossible by the fact that doing any serious work without gravity is too difficult. You can't dig, you can't build, and you can't process raw ores.

The closeness of the Moon (6MT capsule versus 20MT transit vehicle, shorter stays), the accessability of Lunar oxygen (perhaps H2 as well), and the general ease of operations there outweighs the drawbacks of escaping the Moon's gravity to get back to Earth.

"it would have shown up via GRS."

No it wouldn't. We are talking about single-digit percentages of the metal locked up with other elements hidden under a shallow layer of dust... and as far as a mass spectrometer goes, getting a proper signal from a metal is not that easy, there may be Pt there and you'd never see it.

"As to MD, again, I would like to see the basis for these opinions from other - and I'm assuming your a qualified engineer (I don't know of coure) - qualified engineers who have given these two scenarios a through examination."

*Snorts* Please, I am quite tired of "but you wern't THERE" arguments feigning to defend Zubrin's hairbrained scheme from rational critique... Any reasonably intelligent person with access to his proposed plan and the actual requirements, hardware, and real-world engineering margins for such a challenging endeavour could tell you his plan is highly questionable or downright foolhardy.

MarsDirect is a fools' errand trying to be sold as a revolutionary concept to people who don't know any better. No "thurough examination" is required to show that Zubrin's plan is either borne of incompetance or deception. Simply taking a cursory glance at the volumes, masses, and other factors of the plan show that it is unworkable. It is also VERY obvious that MarsDirect is an evolutionary dead-end, and can never be anything more then it is.

Zubrin has become his own worst enemy, his own book decends into a ramble about how "we HAVE to go to Mars or humanity is doomed!!!" like other Marsie wackos, and he very probobly sees himself and his plan as the only way to "save" us. He has been shown to have been deceptive with his treatise against VSE to try and torpedo NASA's plan to make something less practical but easier to hop to MD, and his unforgivably "optimistic" estimates about MarsDirect I feel are probobly deceptive too...

Zubrin isn't stupid, he knows his plan won't work and will never lead to a "clusters HABs = base!!!" or a reuseable system that actually frees up enough money for base building rather then building new ERVs/HABs... he is obsessed with getting to Mars right now at any price... including his own trustworthiness and credibility.

Commodore · 2005-05-04 20:31:40

NASA will never keep those engineers and scientists alive long enough unless they learn to live off the land and pay their bills.

They can, should, and must exploit the land enough to get what they need for themselves, and prove methods to the industy to follow.

If they can make something to soften the blow to tax payers and thus support more exploration, they should do that to.

SpaceNut · 2005-05-04 21:25:42

Agreed Nasa must learn how to live with less than the amount it is scheduled to get but we all know that they will always use all of the funds and have none for a rainy day.

Dook:

Sure some of it's scientists come up with new materials that benefit American businesses but that is a side benefit and not it's primary goal. No one ever says "Lets invent this superior high temperature sealant so we can own the market!" They develop it because there is a space exploration need, not an economic need.

But when they do this they work usually with the same companies to actually make the item so in turn they do get the development work for free and if they see any profitable market then they do go for it.

On the mars direct plan scale of mission, could it be geared at the moons as plans to test its size scale for Mars indirectly. Then judge if it needs changes to make it more successful for Mars.

BWhite · 2005-05-04 21:33:12

NASA cannot do the Moon and Mars at the same time. Humanity can and should. I would like to see the platinum thing switched to the private sector ASAP.

Doing a Mars quasi-Direct with the crew transit ship built from 2 shuttle C++ and an EELV CEV is realistic IMHO. Mars Direct original with Ares might be shaved too tight. But no matter. Use the savings from NO Ares development to help fund operations.

Maybe there is NO platinum on the Moon. But Wingo did convince me. Terran platinum (in the west) is at two places Merensky Reef in South Africa (asteroid impact site) and Sudbury in Canada (asteroid impact site). More in Russia - - again asteroid impact sites.

If there is NO easily mined platinum, okay skip the Moon. BUT platinum mining is easily explained to the world's population as a good reason for going there. We gotta start getting something back, economically, for doing space exploration.

He3? Not for until we get fusion, which has been 20 years away for the last 50.

Lunar water? Nah. I see that as a dead end. Too hard to find and extract.

Lunar LOX? By itself, not worth it. But if we are mining platinum anyway, mining LOX is a no-brainer.

If we are minng platinum we can also fabricate HUGE amounts of pure nickel alloy since PGMs follow nickel in asteroids. Cannot get to the PGM without stripping off the nickel so use it, don't throw it away.

Heh! /rant

RobS · 2005-05-05 00:43:14

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

Visionary Explorer · 2005-05-05 03:52:56

Nonsense, the rocks that fell on the Moon are the same ones you intend to go and try and mine in zero-G. Some of them will certainly contain useful amounts of Platinum, we just haven't found them yet. It could very well require human prospectors to go there and find it, as it probobly be buried under the dust so simple robots could not find it.
I assert that mining in zero-gravity is inherintly impractical, because the process of mining is made essentially impossible by the fact that doing any serious work without gravity is too difficult. You can't dig, you can't build, and you can't process raw ores.

As I'm about to say later, guessing is fine until it costs us several billion to be perhaps wrong.

And that's your assertion, which is based on the ISS and/or MIR (our only two examples of zero-G construction, since we have none in the fields of mining or processing).

The closeness of the Moon (6MT capsule versus 20MT transit vehicle, shorter stays), the accessability of Lunar oxygen (perhaps H2 as well), and the general ease of operations there outweighs the drawbacks of escaping the Moon's gravity to get back to Earth.

That is true.

No it wouldn't. We are talking about single-digit percentages of the metal locked up with other elements hidden under a shallow layer of dust... and as far as a mass spectrometer goes, getting a proper signal from a metal is not that easy, there may be Pt there and you'd never see it.

I concede that point, but in another post, as it well explained - which is what I was hoping for.

*Snorts* Please, I am quite tired of "but you wern't THERE" arguments feigning to defend Zubrin's hairbrained scheme from rational critique... Any reasonably intelligent person with access to his proposed plan and the actual requirements, hardware, and real-world engineering margins for such a challenging endeavour could tell you his plan is highly questionable or downright foolhardy.

I can tell it has problems - as I've said before repeatedly. I'm not defending anything - as I've said before repeatedly. I'm asking for a general consensus based on scientific and rational criteria for doing this vs. that, via this method vs. another. I'm not even suggesting MD as the de facto way to go to Mars.

As an example of what I said before: "Basically, Zubrin’s “hockey puck” cruise/decent vehicle and an CEV (as an ERV) would do the trick – even though both the CDV and ERV may be untenable as Zubrin designed them initially..."

Just a small reminder of the purpose of this topic: Because the people who pay the bills deserve a chance to have a say. Any valid and workable plan should be put on the table - not just the planning done by NASA "engineers" or the aerospace industries. Others can maintain this is folly, that the President (as Commander in Chief) or VP (who overseas it marginally) runs NASA - the civilian space agency - not Congress or the people of the U.S. (who really run the show and pay the bills, respectively).

I also purposely don't look at other people's opinions of Zubrin's plan (or any plan based on it) because I'm not sure of their agenda - until I know what they're background is. I've seen for and against, all well reasoned, all contradictory. Zubrin p.o.'d alot of people, including me initially, but that doesn't make him right or wrong. Any opinions as to his state of thought are sure signs of complete prejudice.

Now, as I also said before, if there is a better plan bring it forth. The only thing I'm stressing is timing - not architecture. If there is better architecture - rationale it's use. Don't give me or anyone else this "it's better because I said so" mantra. Some of the things you've said make sense, but I for one wanted to see the reasoning behind those things.

Griffin may be willing to hear it, and he may be the man to convince Congress to consider it. And that is to the benefit of the space program, not necessarily me, certainly not Zubrin. If it involves risking several billions dollars on assumptions about this or that - then someone should have more than assumptions to make it worthwhile.

I'm for one tired of you falling back on this "but you weren't there" thing personally. I don't know what the heck your referring to - as I've not been to Mars, nor have I have been in a MD vehicle! If you mean C.F.M, big deal - alot has changed since then - considering IV was about 15 years ago or more, and doesn't apply anymore. If you mean something else - whatever.

However, if you cannot provide an analysis from an independent source or justify your opinion (after I've repeatedly asked you to - quite kindly I might add), then say so. I'm not trying to prove you wrong - but I expected your vitriol was for some reason and I was interested to see that reason - either several papers you studied, some analysis you'd done, somesuch. Baring that, your opinion stands for squat - regarding me or anyone/thing else for that matter.

Visionary Explorer · 2005-05-05 04:09:10

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

All very well presented and factual Rob. I've been waiting for someone to point out several things you included - thankfully you did so.

I seem to remember an paper about using GRS for detecting metals from low orbit, but I may be thinking of something else. I'll concede that as I just found it - and it is something else upon examination.

I would have to say, I can now see valid reasons of going to the Moon first, for commerical and exploration purposes - excluding the problem of carbon for carbonyl process extraction - and the possibility water might not exist as extensively as needed.

Those are two problems that could be easily solved - although what I'm personally thinking about would take longer while being (perhaps) cheaper than supplying from Earth-side sources.

It is also quite easy to see (now that a reasoned presentation has been made) how it could be used for furthering exploration initiatives, although I'm still of the opinion that assuming much on the basis of asteroid impacts (that enough of them were Ni-Fe) is risky. But so is a trip to Mars, and "x" amount of money is less valuable than lives lost (or more of "x" amount of money spent and lives lost).

However, Pt has a high vaporisation point, and excluding some global primoridial deposits of S on the surface of the Moon from it's formation, it is indeed reasonable to expect it to be there (despite not one bit of evidence that it is, which is my main problem, as it should have shown up at least in one sample in the PPM range).

But again, I've seen the reasoning behind going to the Moon first, and I understand it's validity.

Assuming everything required is available that the Moon is suspected to hold in promise - which sadly as you noted - will likely require we spend the money to send people there to find out.

SpaceNut · 2005-05-05 05:18:44

Could passing magnetic fields next to a molten puddle of ore help to aid in separation of the metals? Also the deeper the vat is that contains them is the chances are the lighter metal will go to the top and the heavier one will sink if left heated.

Visionary Explorer · 2005-05-05 05:20:42

Could passing magnetic fields next to a molten puddle of ore help to aid in seperation of the metals? Also the deeper the vat is that contains them is the chances are the lighter metal will go to the top and the heavier one will sink if left heated.

Anyone a metallurgy expert around here?

Rob S seems to know what he's talking about in that field, so maybe he can answer that(?).

Shaun Barrett · 2005-05-05 06:00:32

Iron loses its magnetic properties if you heat it up beyond a certain temperature because the ordered arrangement of its atoms is broken down. I can't remember the exact temperature at which this occurs but I'm pretty sure molten iron isn't magnetic.

BWhite · 2005-05-05 06:23:23

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.

He overlooks the Mond Process which will strip off Ni & Fe. Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo did experiments with NASA funding. I posted the links earlier - - maybe a week or two ago.

The temperature and pressure needed for stripping out nickel were surprisingly mild.

Deposit the nickel by vapor phase deposition and you recover the CO for reuse and have pure nickel metal parts deposited on a mandrel. Again, only mild temperatures are needed to deposit the nickel. A company in Canada has largely perfected this process already and is fabricated large parts from nealry pure nickel.

Iron deposition is trickier.

= = =

google "finds-space Murali" - - for some reason, the page is down. The link worked a few weeks ago.

As I recall (I have a printed copy somewhere) Ni-Fe asteroid fragments literally dissolved in the presence of CO gas.

If pressure and temperature were properly controlled, the process could be restricted to extract either Fe or Ni giving pure carbonyl gas of either Ni or Fe. The PGMs remain behind, of course, and final processing may need to happen on Earth.

= = =

The missing link asserted that Ni(CO)4 forms exclusively at 75 C with a CO pressure of 10 atm. Not too extreme.

Ten atmospheres? 75C?

Heck, you could put Ni-Fe asteroid fragments in a giant bag of high performance plastic, pump it full of CO and siphon of the Ni(CO)4.

Find an impact site (use low lunar orbit sats to hunt likely asteroid impact fields) and then sift for fragments to digest.

Edited By BWhite on 1115303038

SpaceNut · 2005-05-05 06:58:51

If you had a foil sheet of the alloy, then you could ecth the iron out with an acid leaving behind the nickel I think. ???

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-05 07:46:10

"I'm not defending anything"

You know how you have that awful habit of saying things that aren't true? Well, what do you call snidely heckling dissenters about their "qualifications to question the allmighty Zubrin?"

"because I'm not sure of their agenda"

What? An "agenda" is irrelivent when considering the facts, and the facts are that MarsDirect cannot work in its advertised form. I doesn't matter what Zubrin or I or whoever thinks about it, it objectivly doesn't, and neither of our opinions will change that.

"but that doesn't make him right or wrong... Any opinions as to his state of thought are sure signs of complete prejudice."

What makes him wrong is that the numbers and size of his ship can't possibly do the job... My assertions to this state of mind are perfectly valid... I've read portions of his book, watched reccordings of him in person, read accounts of his behavior at meetings, but most tellingly detailed his LIES about the baseline NASA VSE plan. What other possible explanation is there for the way he acts then him being obsessed?

"Now, as I also said before, if there is a better plan bring it forth."

NASA's Design Reference Mission, version three (not one), except employing more powerful Thiokol/ATK solid rocket boosters and perhaps RS-68R engines on the Magnum SDV or else building a clean sheet HLLV to reach an assembled vehicle mass of 200MT. Oh, and launch the crew seperatly on CEV. Perhaps throw in the superior Russian tricarbide fuel elements for the NTR engines while we're at it.

"I'm for one tired of you falling back on this "but you weren't there" thing personally."

I use that phrase to dub false and rediculous "questions" about the validity of my arguments which are actually intended to shut me up. For instance, saying I can't comment about the Vietnam war because I was not there to witness it. Just the same with you, your question obviously implied that if I were not a professional, trained, and experienced engineer that I have no business questioning Zubrin because "well, what do YOU know about engineering." And as I have stated, that any reasonably intelligent person is competant to comment on the basic tenants of his plan given what his plan actually entails... you don't need to be an engineer to know that the overgrown broom closet of the ERV is a bad idea, or that Zubrin is a liar when he tacitly insists that VSE must use Hydrogen fuel when his own ERV uses Methane, and so on.

"...if you cannot provide an analysis from an independent source"

Now see, there is a perfect example! I assert that MY personal opinion and analysis is valid. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the basic goings-on in the business.

"Any valid and workable plan should be put on the table"

In which case, MarsDirect is off the table.

Grypd · 2005-05-05 15:58:31

Grypd:
NASA is not driven by economics. Sure some of it's scientists come up with new materials that benefit American businesses but that is a side benefit and not it's primary goal. No one ever says "Lets invent this superior high temperature sealant so we can own the market!" They develop it because there is a space exploration need, not an economic need.

Also I really think you should start spendig more time over at the Moon Society since that is how you feel but it's a really boring place, just like the moon.

Dook
Nasa is driven by whatever the powers that be decide it is driven as. No sentiment here it was designed as the apparatus to catch up with the USSR and surpass them. No more USSR but it still functions as one of the main research arms of the US goverment. And the US is perfectly correct to do this as there is a link between how much of a countries GDP is spent on Research and development and on a countries productivity. And agencies operate better for oversight than direct fiscal control by the goverment.

I don't understand your statement "if we go to the moon we will get to go to mars." In my opinion terraforming mars might give us a need for moon manufactured solar panels. Going to the moon first and building any kind of base there would forever tie up all of NASA's time and resources. We would never go to mars then. It really is a choice between the two.

The Moon is a logical step. We have not been out of LEO with anything except robotic probes since the early 70s. The space exploration iniative is the reasonable progressive course. Mars direct is nothing more than an apollo mission writ large. But as the spirals note they will improve capacity to actually go beyond LEO and to have the skill and willingness to try. With a Moon first agenda it means we can start to create infrastructure on what will be our factory. With the Moon close and with a limited gravity we can use Telerobotics to construct items and without the expense of human crews. This is a lot easier for us. How do you propose to Terraform Mars when you are discussing an engineering project on a tremendous scale. To get the needed people then we are talking cyclers and that needs a capacity for construction that the Earth cannot do but the Moon can.

The statement that you believe that a Moon first will stop a Mars mission indicates that you believe that NASA will through tens of billions of dollars to get to the Moon. Yes they will but the plan is not to do it at once but to Spread it out over years. This allows a development of mission infrastructure that can be used on either Mars or Moon. Would you really object to a heavy lifter designed to get more to the Moon. And strucure built on the Moon wont rust but can be serviced easily compared to the ISS and if we really need a part it can come from Earth on the next transport quickly. Still once we are on the Moon the next logical step is Mars.

Also I really think you should start spendig more time over at the Moon Society since that is how you feel but it's a really boring place, just like the moon.

Why have I upset your feelings in declaring my belief that Moon then Mars is the best way forward. In that case tough. I support Mars missions but not at the expense of the space program and logic and reason prevail in this.

got a society for you. http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublons … y.htm]Flat Earth Society

Yours in fun

Dook · 2005-05-05 18:32:14

The moon IS NOT a logical step to mars! If you want to go from Los Angeles to New York you don't drive down to San Diego first! It's the same thing.

The Presidents plan is NOT a reasonable progressive course. If you want to buy a new vehicle do you go back to riding a bicycle to get ready for it?

Moon infrastructure means we will NEVER go to mars! We can't do both and we don't even need moon infrastructure if mars can't be terraformed so the logical step is to go to mars and find out! I'm not proposing we should terraform mars until we know it has a chance to work.

Who is going to fix all your robots on the moon? People. People who need food, oxygen, and other people.

Your idea: Plan 1
1) launch from the earth and achieve orbit
2) burn fuel to leave earth orbit for the moon, travel at 1.5 kms
3) burn fuel to land on the moon where there is a moon base (moon base=30years wasted and over $1 trillion dollars)
4) refuel on the moon
5) burn fuel to leave the moon and accelerate to 3.5 kms for mars
Assessment: more risk, time to first landing on mars 2040, much more fuel used, longer total mission time from earth to mars.

My idea:
1) launch from the earth and achieve orbit
2) burn fuel to leave earth orbit, travel 3.5 kms
3) aerobrake in mars atmosphere
Assessment: less risk than plan 1, time to landing on mars by 2018, less fuel used, less total mission time from earth to mars

Believe me, I know NASA will spread out the cost of any moon base over many years and that is my worst fear. I see 30 years wasted to build moon infrastructure that requires constant missions to keep it supplied with food, oxygen, and repair parts that we can never go to mars. And if by some incredible tax raise we decide to go to mars while maintaining this wasteful moon base and we find out that "Ooops, mars doesn't have enough CO2 to terraform! Sorry, guess we didn't need that moon base after all."

You want the first mission to mars to have hundreds of people when we don't even know if we can grow things there, provide oxygen for that many, clean CO2 for that many for long periods of time, and provide a long term power supply for all of those people. You want science fiction and that's it. Not true science or dicovery, you want a life like what you've read in your fantasy books.

clark · 2005-05-05 20:05:53

If I want to go from LA to Vegas, I go to Long Beach first.

Sometimes the best way to get to a destination is by another route.

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-05 21:00:12

The moon IS NOT a logical step to mars! If you want to go from Los Angeles to New York you don't drive down to San Diego first! It's the same thing.
The Presidents plan is NOT a reasonable progressive course. If you want to buy a new vehicle do you go back to riding a bicycle to get ready for it?
Moon infrastructure means we will NEVER go to mars! We can't do both and we don't even need moon infrastructure if mars can't be terraformed so the logical step is to go to mars and find out!
I see 30 years wasted to build moon infrastructure that requires constant missions to keep it supplied with food, oxygen, and repair parts that we can never go to mars. And if by some incredible tax raise we decide to go to mars while maintaining this wasteful moon base and we find out that "Ooops, mars doesn't have enough CO2 to terraform! Sorry, guess we didn't need that moon base after all."

Logisticly? About actually pushing a Mars ship to the Moon? No, no the Moon doesn't make much sense... but one thing the Moon IS good for is learning: learning to build and use bigger spacecraft that must not fail all over again, learn to develop equipment that works, and learn to develop methods that work best... And some technology can be directly adapted too: Methane rocket engines, new super-suits, nuclear reactors, LSS systems, and so on and so forth... However, if we rush off to Mars right now, I think that we will have difficulty pulling it off, and may not cost much more in the long run.

So why exactly isn't VSE reasonable or progressive?

Why does building Lunar infrastructure preclude going to Mars? We very well can do both without a radical funding increase, we just can't do both at the same time. And, since Earthly Platinum is running out, and we have no Helium-3, and the Moon is a great place for telescopes... setting up a small-time base on the Moon is a good idea Mars or not.

By "build Lunar infrastructure" I am not talking a self-sufficent town for a 100+ people, I am talking about a minimal perminant surface HAB that can make its own fuel (or at least LOX), limited bulk metal refining/regolith processing/light construction capability, and possibly a heavy-duty nuke. Thats it. Plus, a reuseable lander/TLI/TEI medium rocket ferry.

Once the construction and development of these things are complete, then the only thing you would need to tend such a base is the occasional load of supplies (say, three or four times a year, Atlas-V sized) and 2-3 crews per year. Thats it, the base would otherwise not cost any more money for the government to operate, only about $1.5Bn ($2.0Bn w/o Lunar H2) anually, and half that if private enterprise helps out ... which NASA can afford AND pay for Mars simultainiously.

VitaminJ · 2005-05-08 12:46:43

The moon IS NOT a logical step to mars! If you want to go from Los Angeles to New York you don't drive down to San Diego first! It's the same thing.
The Presidents plan is NOT a reasonable progressive course. If you want to buy a new vehicle do you go back to riding a bicycle to get ready for it?
Moon infrastructure means we will NEVER go to mars! We can't do both and we don't even need moon infrastructure if mars can't be terraformed so the logical step is to go to mars and find out!
I see 30 years wasted to build moon infrastructure that requires constant missions to keep it supplied with food, oxygen, and repair parts that we can never go to mars... "
Logisticly? About actually pushing a Mars ship to the Moon? No, no the Moon doesn't make much sense... but one thing the Moon IS good for is learning: learning to build and use bigger spacecraft that must not fail all over again, learn to develop equipment that works, and learn to develop methods that work best... And some technology can be directly adapted too: Methane rocket engines, new super-suits, nuclear reactors, LSS systems, and so on and so forth... However, if we rush off to Mars right now, I think that we will have difficulty pulling it off, and may not cost much more in the long run.
So why exactly isn't VSE reasonable or progressive?
Why does building Lunar infrastructure preclude going to Mars? We very well can do both without a radical funding increase, we just can't do both at the same time. And, since Earthly Platinum is running out, and we have no Helium-3, and the Moon is a great place for telescopes... setting up a small-time base on the Moon is a good idea Mars or not.
By "build Lunar infrastructure" I am not talking a self-sufficent town for a 100+ people, I am talking about a minimal perminant surface HAB that can make its own fuel (or at least LOX), limited bulk metal refining/regolith processing/light construction capability, and possibly a heavy-duty nuke. Thats it. Plus, a reuseable lander/TLI/TEI medium rocket ferry.
Once the construction and development of these things are complete, then the only thing you would need to tend such a base is the occasional load of supplies (say, three or four times a year, Atlas-V sized) and 2-3 crews per year. Thats it, the base would otherwise not cost any more money for the government to operate, only about $1.5Bn ($2.0Bn w/o Lunar H2) anually, and half that if private enterprise helps out ... which NASA can afford AND pay for Mars simultainiously.

Feeling a bit like a minnow among sharks, I chime in to this exhilarating thread

GNCRevenger, would you be for MD if the mass margins were increased (say by Mars SemiDirect, or otherwise) to be more like DRM?

Dook, I think a stop at the moon before going on to mars (the real objective) could be a good idea -- so long as we don't go overboard there. Little infrastructure. No permanent base (money sinkhole, huge delay to mars). But if we achieve a genuinely capable exploration system (shuttle-stack derived MD, DRM etc) shouldn't we at least try them out on the conveniently placed Moon, and do some geology and astronomy while we're there? As well as testing our mars hardware and training astrounauts of course. I too would hate to see decades lost at the moon, but it might be worth a year or three...

As for lunar ISRU, regolith mining etc, sounds like a BIIIG distraction IMHO...but how heavy would the ISRU/mining stuff (and supporting power system etc) be? Tons, tens of tons? What if nasa, instead of making this core stuff, had a competition for private industry to make demonstrator ISRU units at the lightest possible weights. If it were just a few tons there would be no problem including it and seeing if GNCR's scenario is feasible (and perhaps even worthwhile)..And if there is money to be made in lunar mining the private industry can then go ahead and make some, while nasa continues to explore..

The key to having mars and the moon simultaneously is likely shared hardware. Shared booster of course, and the large/main habs and landers be of the same diameter (27' say) and made on the same basic factory design. Launch capacity could then be divided as desired, say 75% to mars, yet maintain a significant lunar presence too.

Just a noob's two cents worth.

Martian Republic · 2005-05-08 15:54:13

Could passing magnetic fields next to a molten puddle of ore help to aid in seperation of the metals? Also the deeper the vat is that contains them is the chances are the lighter metal will go to the top and the heavier one will sink if left heated.

If you want to separate ores or different metals, go with a plasma steel furnace. You would have to heat the metal up to around a million degrees to make the metal go into a plasma state or the fourth state of matter. But, once you had it at that temperature, your metals and ores would self-separate at different temperature into a pure form of what ever metal you were melting when you have finished. Of course, you would probably have to have a nuclear power plant present to both generate both the power and the heat to accomplish turning that metal into plasma so you can separate it. Because, a very energy intensive process to use a plasma system to separate metals.

I'm sure there are other way's to do it too, but this would be one way of doing it.

Larry,

Dook · 2005-05-08 16:09:19

The arguments in this topic and the topic "The Reasons to go to Mars" have become the same. Can we continue the debate over there?

A stop at the moon before going on to mars COULD be a good idea but the chances are that it won't be because NASA has no clearly defined mission. "Go to the moon to stay," is all the President said. As far as trying MD or better NASA's DRM out on the moon, I'm all for it but GCN seems to think it's way too much. Can't have too much habitat space on the moon after all because that would be a bad thing.

The MD in-situ rocket propellant lander could be a lunar LOX/rocket fuel machine and the MD mars habitat lander wouldn't need it's heat shield or parachutes so the less weight could balance out the extra weight needed for rocket fuel since it would have to land with enough fuel to leave the moon (safety backup in case the lunar rocket fuel machine fails).

I would approve of us going to the moon to test MD or DRM equipment and set up a very limited base to build an automated telescope array on the dark side, test lunar rocket fuel, conduct other moon science, and recover platinum which NASA would sell only to US companies below world prices. Let China spend more for it's technology. But not if it takes all of NASA's time and money.

I agree with the shared hardware idea, that's what I proposed some posts ago. It seems to me to be the best planning that meets the Presidents goal within or likely ahead of schedule and with little to no redesign needed.

Martian: I'm just guessing but I don't really think you need to go as high as a million degrees for metals to melt and separate.

RobS · 2005-05-08 20:33:31

You could convert metals into a plasma at a few tens of thousands of degrees, not millions, but the idea is to MINIMIZE energy expenditure to produce platinum, not maximize it. It'll be hard enough to get enough energy, especially in the early days.

As several people noted, metals go above the Curie point and lose their magentization before they melt. Liquids can't be magnetic because the atoms are free to move randomly, so each one's magnetic moment is canceled by the others. Magnetization usually requires the formation of "domains," groups of atoms where the north and south poles are aligned the same direction. The exception is liquid oxygen, which responds to a magnetic field. But I don't know how or why that is, and it is not magnetic in the normal sense either; I think it is "paramagnetic" whatever that means.

I think the problem with using the carbonyl process to separate platinum is that even with very efficient recycling it will take several tonnes of carbon to produce one tonne of platinum. If it costs fifty million to fly a tonne of anything to the moon and you have to import two tonnes of carbon to get one tonne of platinum, you have to spend $100 million to get the carbon in order to export $30 million of platinum. Obviously, that won't make money. Remember that one needs to process something like 10,000 tonnes of nickel-iron to extract one tonne of platinum. If the process loses two tonnes of carbon through inefficiency every time 10,000 tonnes of nickel-iron is processed, you have a problem. And I bet its real hard to take iron and nickel carbonyls and free up ALL the carbon monoxide; all you need is 1 part per thousand of carbonyl trapped in your nickel-iron waste to be losing too much carbon.

This is not a problem on Mars; carbon is free. But right now we know of no carbon sources on the moon, dang it. For that reason, Mars may prove a better export source for platinum than the moon, depending on transportation costs, of course. But lower transportation costs, which will get carbon to the moon more cheaply, will also get Martian platinum to the Earth more cheaply. Reusable shuttles to carry stuff from the Martian surface to orbit should be much easier to build than terrestrial shuttles (and might even use the same technology, if terrestrial shuttles are two stage vertical takeoff/vertical landing; the second stage would be almost right for a martian shuttle).

-- RobS

BWhite · 2005-05-08 20:48:54

RobS, the carbon monoxide is recycled.

Ni + CO - - > Ni(CO)4

Vapor phase deposition leaves pure nickel in whatever shape you desire, as the Ni very precisely following the mandrel.

The CO is recovered for re-use.

To make CO I would use methane as the primary rocket fuel and use methane for supplemental power generators and rovers. Incomplete combustion (lean O2) of methane yields CO and water ( ! ) which has other uses.

Methane transport? $1000-$1500 per pound to LEO (Zenit/Proton at today's prices followed by solar ion tug to L1. Then drop to Luna.

Its a great private sector program. Offer $5000 per pound for methane delivered to L1 in standardized tankage. THAT will give the private sector a launch market to fight over.

Also, any lunar presence will need water. Shipping methane and combusting with lunar oxygen kills two birds, so to speak.

Shipping H2O to Luna is foolish. What percent of water (by mass) is oxygen? Why carry any O2 to Luna?

Shipping LH2 to burn in lunar LOX is better yet LH2 is a much trickier cryogenic material. Liquid methane can be stored in lunar shadow. LH2 would require more effort to store, either at L1 or on Luna.

So, if we are shipping methane anyway, CO won't be a problem, IMHO.

BWhite · 2005-05-08 21:10:47

Calling our chemists. . .

4 units of C would weigh 48 while 1 unit of nickel would weigh 58, on average. Therefore somewhat less of 1 ton of C extracted from methane and combined with lunar LOX can bind with one ton of nickel using the carbonyl process, right?

58/48 = 1.2 unit mass of Ni per 1.0 unit mass of C

I disregard the mass of the hydrogen in CH4 since we will need H20 anyway. Besides, 4 units of CH4 would only mass 64 rather than 48. Right?

Still, we recycle the CO.

= = =

Fe mass is less than Ni mass however depositing pure Fe to liberate the CO from Fe(CO)5 appears to be more difficult than with nickel.

Nonetheless, pure nickel and pure iron toolings are fringe benefit freebies from the carbonyl process.

Edited By BWhite on 1115608985

Martian Republic · 2005-05-08 21:49:20

Martian: I'm just guessing but I don't really think you need to go as high as a million degrees for metals to melt and separate.

I was going by an article that I read about a few years ago in a magazine on the subject of plasma Steel. They were the ones that mentioned that the most optimal temperature for plasma steel furnace was about a million degrees or there about. They also claimed that the process had already been developed, but has never been implemented. The reason they gave for going up to hundreds of thousands degrees to millions of degrees, was that metals would separate and roll out of the mex at different temperatures. According to them, lead will roll at one temperature, tin will roll out at another temperature and so on down the line until you have separated all the different metals out. Assuming that that is so, then we could collect each group of metal in there own section and get several metal types instead of just the one we were after.

Other wise we have to coke that metal or send coal up to break those metal apart so we can use them. We are trading one problem of shipping stuff to the Moon for the other problem of heating it up to a higher temperature. We can either figure out how to heat up to a higher temperature or we can choose to ship coal and other resources from the Earth to do it.

Larry,

RobS · 2005-05-09 01:18:24

Of course we will recycle the CO. My point is that recycling is not 100% efficient. Some carbon will escape with the slag. If it is 99.9% efficient, you'll get about a thousand uses out of a tonne of carbon.

Right now we can't get anything to low earth orbit for $1000 per kilogram. I find the Zenit/Proton prices surprisingly low and they may not last; you can't pay Ukrainian engineers diddly squat forever. Multiplying the LEO prices by at least three, probably five, will give you your price to the lunar surface.

-- RobS

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