Space review: The vision thing

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 02:10:39 GMT, in a place far, far away, Michael
Walsh made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Does this mean that you believe that no operational SPS will be
built until a thriving infrastructure is in place on the Moon, built
for some other purpose?

Either that, or it becomes clear that it can be done profitably for
the purpose of building SPS (though they may employ asteroidal
materials as well).

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 02:16:05 GMT, in a place far, far away, Michael
Walsh made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I don't want to carry this discussion too far, as I believe I understand
the differences in the markets. I merely reject the argument that the
military rockets were not intelligently designed.

They were intelligently designed for their purpose, but not for low
cost.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

TangoMan wrote:

Uranium.- No, I don't think so. While there is about 50 years of proven
reserves, when the price of uranium goes up the incentive to
reopen mines and search for new sources will increase.

Also, it's 50 years of reserves using a once-through fuel cycle
in thermal reactors. Breeders would increase the energy produced
from this uranium by a factor of 50 to 100, which would also allow
ores of correspondingly lower quality to be mined.

Paul

Paul Blay wrote:

If space industry / habitation is at such a level to make mining and transport
of uranium from the moon practical then it is highly likely that it will be needed
and used locally (e.g. on the moon / in space). A kilogram of uranium /on the
moon/ would be worth rather more than the same amount /on Earth/.
Especially considering how people would think about the risks of it's transport
off-planet.

Producing enriched uranium on the moon is not a good idea.

Consider the mass of an enrichment plant. The plant will never
(over its lifetime) produce its own mass in enriched uranium, not
even close. Now toss in the mass of the uranium mining and extraction
equipment, fuel element fabrication, and so on. It's more economical
to just send the enriched uranium to the moon.

Paul

Tom Merkle wrote:

Now toss in the mass of the uranium mining and extraction
equipment, fuel element fabrication, and so on. It's more economical
to just send the enriched uranium to the moon.


Unless wackos make this politically undoable.

You can support any position with that argument. In reality,
if something is really worth doing, the wackos are ignored.

Paul

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...

There are actually many SPS concepts that are not in GEO, and not that
large per satellite.

....and are only in the MW range, not GW. And therefore have very limited
usefulness as actual powersats. Those are all basically testbed designs,
with some kind of "market" stapled on to make it look useful.

--
Terrell Miller


"Very often, a 'free' feedstock will still lead to a very expensive system.
One that is quite likely noncompetitive"
- Don Lancaster

"Terrell Miller" wrote in message
...

Sure it makes sense but only when you proceed on unstated assumptions.
Primary among them is that there is some reason to establish all that
infrastructure. Absent consideration of SPS as a driver, I ask you what
we're going to need a lunar or NEO mine for, a smelter, etc?

3He, maybe some uranium, all kinds of rare things that would turn a profit
if you go out to space to get them.

3He, no I don't think so. When a Plasma Physicist I respect tells me that
it's not going to work, I tend to believe him rather than the hype. Here's a
brief quote followed by the link to his explanation:

"It's too bad that the enthusiasm for D-He3 turned out to be poorly
founded, but basically nobody takes it seriously as an aneutronic fuel
cycle anymore. There are people who think that the 50% or so reduction
in neutron flux is worth it, but I don't think they are taking into
account the increased cost (even from lunar sources) of the fuel in
doing the trades. Actually, to be brutally honest, I think anyone
trying to predict the cost of a commercial fusion power plant is
deluding themselves. There is a real possibility that fusion will never
be able to compete with other sources of power. Fusion is *hard* - I
work on it in my day job, and I believe it can be done, but the sense I
get from talking to my fellow fusion researchers is that they are not
taking seriously the ongoing development of alternatives. Long before
it's economically viable to mine lunar He3 we'll have SPS. . ."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ssi_list/message/4295

Uranium.- No, I don't think so. While there is about 50 years of proven
reserves, when the price of uranium goes up the incentive to
reopen mines and search for new sources will increase.

I venture the opinion that it'll be cheaper to extract uranium from seawater
rather than mine it on the moon and send it back to Earth.

"Seawater contains 3.3x10^(-9) (3.3 parts per billion) of uranium, so the
1.4x10^18 tonne of seawater contains 4.6x10^9 tonne of uranium. All the
world's electricity usage, 650GWe could therefore be supplied by the uranium
in seawater for 7 million years."



It's theoretically possible that at some
point we get into a serious water shortage and need all the H2O ice out in
our backyard, but I kind of doubt that'll ever happen. Be nice if we
*could*
go get it, though.

If you're waiting for that orbital infrastructure to be in place before
embarking on SPS or other ventures, then you're going to be waiting a
long
time because each step in the process of orbital development is
interdependent on other steps, and they won't develop in a piece meal
fashion. There needs to be a driver like SPS that *pulls* all of the
ancillary industry into orbit. Once established that industry benefits a
range of ventures not just SPS.

please, not the spinoff thing again.

Why? What's magic about an SPS? It's just a bad idea that has to do
with
spaceflight, lots of other worthier goals to focus our efforts on.

The fact that you can't discern that SPS is not a space activity but a
commerical activity that serves the terrestrial electricity market is
illustrative of the problem you're having in this thread.

?!?

anything having to do with SPS means "out of Earth's gravity well", which
rather by definition means "space", both in semantic and logistical terms.

(and no, the problem I had on this thread was I let one asswipe **** me
off.
Will not happen again, and has nothing to do with any space/commercial
dichotomization you're thinking of).

If you're defining activities as *space* and not commerical, then you're
going to have a more difficult time in serving a societal need.

definitely true, but I've been deliberately avoiding any sociological
issues
and focusing on logistics. yes, there would be pushback on a massive
"death
beams from outer space" project. No, that opposition would not be
rational.

there are plenty of logical reasons to kill SPS, you don't need the boogey
man.

There may indeed be worthy spaceflight goals, but they are looked upon
akin
to charity, not a benefit to society. Reliable baseload power that is
clean
is a benefit to society. It matters not a whit that it comes from space.

Christ. Yes it *does*.

The tiny little fact that your generator is in Earth orbit means that the
entire thing carries a startup cost 50% higher than just building another
gas or coal plant on the ground. It also means that for the first ten or
fif
teen years of operation, your base rate for the beamed power is going to
be
two or three times the rate of the juice coming out of a coal or gas
plant.
And it means that *maybe*, if you realize massive economies of scale as
you
operate your SPS, that 15-25 years down the road your "clean" power is
going
to still cost 40-60% *more* than what's on the grid now.

Unless, of course, you are just assuming into existence the space
manufacturing capability you mentioned. In which case, you need to make
sure
you've allocated part of the massive development costs for all those space
tugs and mining rigs on Ceres or wherever. They'll cost a large fortune,
too
(quite possibly *more* than simple boost-from-Earth), and lots of the
revenue from a SPS would be sucked into repaying for the infrastructure.

I'd suggest you start with a Google search for "solar power satellites"
and
read some of the analyses that have been done in teh last five years. They
all reach the same conclusion: SPS is massively unaffordable, a sheer
boondoggle.

--
Terrell Miller


"Very often, a 'free' feestock will still lead to a very expensive system.
One that is quite likely noncompetitive"
- Don Lancaster

"TangoMan" wrote in message
news:BVoxb.508502$9l5.54699@pd7tw2no...

"Terrell Miller" wrote in message
...

Sure it makes sense but only when you proceed on unstated assumptions.
Primary among them is that there is some reason to establish all that
infrastructure. Absent consideration of SPS as a driver, I ask you
what
we're going to need a lunar or NEO mine for, a smelter, etc?

3He, maybe some uranium, all kinds of rare things that would turn a
profit
if you go out to space to get them.

3He, no I don't think so. When a Plasma Physicist I respect tells me that
it's not going to work, I tend to believe him rather than the hype. Here's
a
brief quote followed by the link to his explanation:

"It's too bad that the enthusiasm for D-He3 turned out to be poorly
founded, but basically nobody takes it seriously as an aneutronic fuel
cycle anymore. There are people who think that the 50% or so reduction
in neutron flux is worth it, but I don't think they are taking into
account the increased cost (even from lunar sources) of the fuel in
doing the trades. Actually, to be brutally honest, I think anyone
trying to predict the cost of a commercial fusion power plant is
deluding themselves. There is a real possibility that fusion will never
be able to compete with other sources of power. Fusion is *hard* - I
work on it in my day job, and I believe it can be done, but the sense I
get from talking to my fellow fusion researchers is that they are not
taking seriously the ongoing development of alternatives. Long before
it's economically viable to mine lunar He3 we'll have SPS. . ."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ssi_list/message/4295

Uranium.- No, I don't think so. While there is about 50 years of proven
reserves, when the price of uranium goes up the incentive to
reopen mines and search for new sources will increase.

I venture the opinion that it'll be cheaper to extract uranium from
seawater
rather than mine it on the moon and send it back to Earth.

"Seawater contains 3.3x10^(-9) (3.3 parts per billion) of uranium, so the
1.4x10^18 tonne of seawater contains 4.6x10^9 tonne of uranium. All the
world's electricity usage, 650GWe could therefore be supplied by the
uranium
in seawater for 7 million years."

Sorry about that, I accidently hit the send button.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html

You wrote "All sorts of rare things." That's tells me absolutely nothing.
What rare things?
Especially what rare things that can form the backbone of an economy?

Face it, SPS is the best, and most logical choice for industrializing space.

TangoMan

"TangoMan" wrote ...

Uranium.- No, I don't think so. While there is about 50 years of proven
reserves, when the price of uranium goes up the incentive to
reopen mines and search for new sources will increase.

I venture the opinion that it'll be cheaper to extract uranium from seawater
rather than mine it on the moon and send it back to Earth.

If space industry / habitation is at such a level to make mining and transport
of uranium from the moon practical then it is highly likely that it will be needed
and used locally (e.g. on the moon / in space). A kilogram of uranium /on the
moon/ would be worth rather more than the same amount /on Earth/.
Especially considering how people would think about the risks of it's transport
off-planet.

"Seawater contains 3.3x10^(-9) (3.3 parts per billion) of uranium, so the
1.4x10^18 tonne of seawater contains 4.6x10^9 tonne of uranium. All the
world's electricity usage, 650GWe could therefore be supplied by the uranium
in seawater for 7 million years."

The 'seawater contains' figure is quoted a _lot_. What's rarely quoted is how
much energy and infrastructure is needed to extract the uranium from seawater.

A google search produced a handful of results, I quote from the first
link to contain anything relevant
http://journal.kcsnet.or.kr/publi/bul/bu00n4/393.pdf
"It has been estimated that extraction of more than 500 micro-grams of uranium
is needed for 1 gram of sequestering agent per day to meet the economical
feasibility of extraction of uranium from seawater. In addition the sequestering
agent must be recycled many times. To date, no uranyl sequestering agents
meeting these criteria have been designed."

So, it's probably not impossible but it's not been shown to be feasible either -
which puts it in common with a whole bunch-o power generation technologies.

"TangoMan" wrote ...

Sorry about that, I accidently hit the send button.

yoku aru hanashi desu ne.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html

Not really very substantive. It gives a link to
'Japanese site on extracting Uranium from seawater'
http://www.jaeri.go.jp/english/ff/ff43/topics.html
which frankly isn't very substantive either. Not to mention it's got rather
dubious translations, no link to the Japanese versions*, is from the
Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute** and it's home page has a stupid
Flash system that doesn't display Japanese correctly on the menus***.

You wrote "All sorts of rare things." That's tells me absolutely nothing.
What rare things?
Especially what rare things that can form the backbone of an economy?

Face it, SPS is the best, and most logical choice for industrializing space.

* Finally found at http://www.jaeri.go.jp/jpn/publish/0...43/topics.html
Nice directory structure guys - NOT.
** E.g. is probably as unbiased a source as BNFL.
*** OK, it has a HTML version but it's the principle of the thing. :-P