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We are discussing a very good plan for the future of space presented by members of the planetary society at:
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 041]Return to flight slipping
The plan is at:
http://www.planetary.org/aimformars/stu … ]Extending Human Presence into the Solar System An Independent Study for The Planetary Society on Strategy for the Proposed U.S. Space Exploration Policy July 2004
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The five tonnes of water per astronaut per year estimate was off the top of my head, based on the International Space station, which seems to need quite a few tonnes of water every year. But Zubrin in *The Case for Mars* says that NASA says people need 1 kilogram of oxygen, 0.5 kg dry food, 1 kg whole food, 4 kg potable water, and 26 kg of wash water per day, for a total of 32.5 kg per person per day or about 12,000 kg (12 tonnes) per year. Of course, if one recycles the water that drastically cuts down on the mass. Zubrin assumes recycling of water that is about 90% complete, in which case the astronaut needs 4.3 kg per day (1.57 tonnes per year) of consumables, of which 1.5 kg is food, 0.2 kg is oxygen, and 2.6 kg is water. So that's 949 kg of water per year, not 5 tonnes. If the cycling is even more efficient, then even less is needed.
I agree, it is not clear that export of water to low earth orbit will be economical. It probably will be economical to the L1 Gateway, if such a thing is itself needed and is economic.
As for extracting platinum group metals or utilizing meteoritic nickel-iron, there's a way that is probably cheaper and easier than melting the stuff: blast it with heated carbon monoxide to make metal carbonyls, which are liquids at 100-200C. Each metal forms a complex carbonyl with carbon monoxide. Each carbonyl has it's own temperature where it breaks back down into pure metal and CO gas. One could convert the nickel-iron into iron carbonyl, nickel carbonyl, and cobalt carbonyl, which will eliminate 99% of the mass; the platinum group metals will be concentated in the remaining 1% and will be about 3000 parts per million or 3/10 of 1% of the residue (platinum group metals are about 30 parts per million in typical nickel-iron, meaning 1 tonne has 30 grams of the stuff). The liquid metals could then be poured into mould and heated up to crystalize the carbonyls. The CO would then be recycled. Note that a plant that produced 30 tonnes of platinum-group metals per year (worth about $100 million) would have to process 1 million tonnes of meteoritic material. If the recycling process were 99.9% efficient, the carbon monoxide would be reused 1000 times, and the process would require 1000 tonnes of carbon monoxide to process a million tonnes of meteorite. This is a problem because if carbon is vanishingly rare on the moon, the carbon monoxide would have to be imported. Importation costs right now would far exceed the profits of the platinum-group metals; if platinum-group metals are worth $30 million per tonne (which is about $900 per ounce) and if each tonne of platinum-group metals requires 33 tonnes of CO, importation of CO has to be 30 times less per kilogram than the price of the product, or 1 million per tonne. Right now it costs several times that much to put a tonne into low earth orbit, let alone send it to the moon.
What are the chances of finding carbon on the moon? We know the regolith has vanishingly small amounts of carbon; so small, it would be too expensive to obtain it. Maybe the polar volatiles include carbon dioxide and/or methane, but we simply don't know. Right now the experts seem to doubt there's much of either.
So my guess right now is that lunar production of platinum-group metals will not be profitable. Dennis Wingo's book argues that it will be, but I don't think he dealt with the problem of lack of carbon on the moon. Maybe there are other extraction processes one can use instead.
But this argument also leads one to conclude that Mars is a better place for platinum production, because it has all the carbon one could need. Carbon monoxide can be made from carbon dioxide and it takes maybe 2 kilowatt-hours to make a kilogram of the stuff (plus the 2 kwh is converted to heat, so you can use the heat as well).
-- RobS
A third posibility for extracting those metal would be to use Plamsa steel Funice. But, that means you would have to heat the metal up to a million degrees or more until it break down into plasma state which doable, but you would need at least one fission or fusion power plant to generate the power to do that. So there would be a horrible start up cost involved to setting up such a plant with all the support that would be needed to make it happen. But, once you had all that support in place, it would be doable though and would be the only logical way to process it.
But, assuming that we had all the infrastructure in place, which at this point is highly unlikely, it would work like this.
When metal are heated up to that temperature which will turn it into a plasma state, they break down into there individual componients. Plasma being the third state of matter. At different temperatures, the metal will flow out of the system in a self-separating process in an almost pure state. A Plamsa steel Funice type technology already exist or could exist with present technology, but has not been implimented. It would also be a self-cantained unit so we would not have smoke stacks or need the use of the external air. But, this process does have one down side, it an energy hog and take a lot of energy to run it and keep the process going.
Larry,
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A third posibility for extracting those metal would be to use Plamsa steel Funice.
So assuming we have a 1 MW furnace, how much dirt can we process with this a year. How long will the furnace last and how much will it weigh. This could be a good way to obtain more rare elements with common elements produced as a byproduct. Perhaps this should be the first refining device with less energy intensive methods used later on. But if the plasma furnace is used on preprocessed material perhaps it could be even more usefull.
P.S. I think the materials would probably be for local use. It sounds like too expensive a process for exports.
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There will likely not be great concentrations of hydrogen in a frozen lake of ice or frozen hydrocarbons. But a frost covering or spread of debris from impacts. But research done at the Colorado schools of mines has shown it is relatively easy to harvest either. But until we send a mission either telerobotic or manned to actually visibly look it is only a potential resource nothing to count on.
But we will still go to the lunar poles but it will be for the other most significant lifeblood of the Moon, power. We have surveyed both the poles of the Moon to see what areas have the most sunlight. When this was done it was found that the south pole had 3 places very close to each other where the sun shone all the lunar day apart from 78 hours. The north pole had places where the sun shone 100% of the time but this survey was done in the North poles summer so does not give a true reading for that area. It is a crime that a real survey of mineral and power has never been done, with the missions that where planned to do this constantly being cancelled.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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A third posibility for extracting those metal would be to use Plamsa steel Funice.
So assuming we have a 1 MW furnace, how much dirt can we process with this a year. How long will the furnace last and how much will it weigh. This could be a good way to obtain more rare elements with common elements produced as a byproduct. Perhaps this should be the first refining device with less energy intensive methods used later on. But if the plasma furnace is used on preprocessed material perhaps it could be even more usefull.
P.S. I think the materials would probably be for local use. It sounds like too expensive a process for exports.
You would probably have to add another process to try draw out mostly metal to put through the plasma funice. This is a process that you would want to use on anything else except separating faris metal of different types and not something that we would be useing on plastic, carbon, silicon or common dirt. It would really come in handy if one or more of those crater has primarally iron or nickel or some other combination of faris metal in it. The only two reason for considering it are:
1. You don't have to use rare resources like carbon in the process to make your metals.
2. It labor effecient in that you don't have to use as meny people to work the foundaries and you don't need as meny foundaries to keep the diffrent metals separate from each other, because there self-separating.
But, like I said in the last post, the energy uses go would go through the roof as to other process that you could choose to use. but, you would generally be using fewer people having to process the metals too if we use the Plamsa Steel Methode.
Larry,
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This is a process that you would want to use on anything else except separating faris metal of different types and not something that we would be useing on plastic, carbon, silicon or common dirt.
Oh I thought it was something more general.
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This is a process that you would want to use on anything else except separating faris metal of different types and not something that we would be useing on plastic, carbon, silicon or common dirt.
Oh I thought it was something more general.
Here a web site that goes into it a little bit, but it not the one that I remember reading though.
http://www.westinghouse-plasma.com/pfc. … om/pfc.htm
Larry,
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The moon has all the resources for people just like mars but in fin amounts.
Sunlight is as strong as earths gets, no atmospere to absurb light means more light for solar power. The ices at both of the Lunar poles comes from comets, and coments are drity ices so there should be carbon mixed in with the ices. For that matter many other elements that the moon lacks N,C, so if you mine the ices their will be other good stuf in it to.
A better source of O2 if silcate rocks, water on the moon is too rare to waste on O production.
Power since the moon is not protected from the solar wind, power can be harested from it. If you strech Power lines all the way around the moon, like we do on earth, the electrons fron the solar wind will hit the lines and flow into them. Making power with out any effort, this happens on the earth durning strong solar storms. The ionized praticals that get past are mag field cause the northern lights and black outs. The ionized particals, electrons enter power lines, sense the earth wont absorb them. This effect over a large area generates lots of power, which over loads the power grid and causes black outs. On the moon there no mag field to stop the solar wind, so you dont need a big solar storm to make power. Everyday solar wind would make lots of power.
I love plants!
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Sounds like a good idea. The solar wind has also bought C to the regolith over eons of time.
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Yes there is carbon and nitrogen on the Moon
But not in any signifigant quantity... trace amounts in the soil from solar wind, trace amounts in comet ice.
You two don't seem to have any concept of what "trace" actually means: there is trace amount of gold floating in the oceans. Why don't we go get it? Because there is so little of it. There is trace amounts of toxic chlorine in your tap water, why doesn't it kill you? Because there is to little of it. Why aren't you killed by the deadly X-Rays you get in a hospital? Because there is so little of it. Why can't your amount of understanding compute this? Because...
The idea about trapping the solar wind is a novel one, but it won't work very well. The solar wind is a PARTICLE radiation, so you need a collector for it. In the case of Earth, it has a powerful magnetic field and an atmosphere to capture it. The Moon has neither.
Plus, both this method AND solar pannels will be useless for two solid weeks of Lunar time except for very limited places near the poles.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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So place the panels where the light is and then run the power lines to the poles. Where the light does hit near the poles, use panels in those locations to help with the voltage line loss. Very simple and very easy to have the robots do the work. I would love to be the Maytag repairman for them when they do break down.
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You can manufacture water by hitting ilmenite with hydrogen at a temperature of 1000 C. The hydrogen can partly be reused. I believe this will have better adaptability for a lunar settlement than the finit resource of hard to extract polar water.
Ship hydrogen by the bulk to the Moon and I think you are set.
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