The Economic Development of the Moon

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Why fixated on tokamaks? There are lots of other confinement
approaches.

They don't work yet either.

Actually, we do have one way to produce energy from fusion with
present-day technology. We can use H-Bombs to boil large amounts of
water underground. Oh, but that would be testing, they scream.

If we could put the energy to use to, say, feed the world's hungry,
though, the screamers would be shouted down. (Some portion of the
energy, that is: most of it would go towards increasing the wealth of
the American taxpayer, who paid for the project.)

John Savard

On Nov 14, 5:39 am, Quadibloc wrote:
Joseph Nebus wrote:
You know, I'm curious. Has anyone demonstrated that helium-3
is in fact of any particular benefit in making a fusion reactor? Like,
have experiments borne out that it's easier to make a sustainable and
power-generating reaction using the stuff?

Getting a reaction started is easier with Tritium, or Helium-3, than
with just plain Deuterium.

But Helium-3 has some major advantages of compactness for energy yield
that make it useful for sending out the first interstellar probes. So,
bringing it to Earth from the Moon for *routine* energy uses is...
wasteful, at least according to one author I've read.

I advocate the Thorium breeder as the *simplest* and most inexpensive
and straightforwards solution to our energy problems in the near to
medium term.

Of course, fusion power and solar power satellites avoid proliferation
concerns, and hydroelectricity as well as the warm, fuzzy sources of
wind and tidal power should be used where available as well, but we
need more energy sooner than either of those alternatives would
provide.

John Savard

But since you obviously don't understand physics, can't do basic math
or otherwise believe in pictures of the most believable kind of
pixels, is exactly why you're so entirely dead wrong about our not
having sufficient renewable energy as is.

You only believe in the sorts of infomercial eye candy that's spendy
as made by the likes of NASA.

Going off-world for He3 is up to the likes of China and India.
Establishing their LSE-CM/ISS within our moon's L1 is also one of
those goals that'll take charge of our future that you're so
dumbfounded about.
--
Brad Guth

Quadibloc wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Why fixated on tokamaks? There are lots of other confinement
: approaches.
:
:They don't work yet either.
:

Neither does tokamak.

:
:Actually, we do have one way to produce energy from fusion with
resent-day technology. We can use H-Bombs to boil large amounts of
:water underground. Oh, but that would be testing, they scream.
:

It's also not a particularly good or practical approach.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

On 4 Nov, 21:11, "Mark R. Whittington" wrote:
Andrew Smith, the author of Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to
Earth, recently published a polemic in the British newspaper The
Guardian, entitled Plundering the Moon, that argued against the
economic development of the Moon. Apparently the idea of mining Helium
3, an isotope found on the Moon but not on the Earth (at least in
nature) disturbs Mr. Smith from an environmentalist standpoint. Even a
cursory examination of the issue makes one wonder why.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...nomic_developm...

Imagine this scenario: 2020, and NASA's first six month long mission
is prospecting. They visit aan old impact site, and find some metal
fragments with 10% platinum group metals. A quick analysis of the site
provides an estimate of 1,000 tons of PGMs mixed in with about 10
million tons of copper, iron, nickel and related metals scattered over
a few km2.

What would happen then?

Earth prices might fall somewhat, but I suspect lunar exploration
might speed up somewhat.

Alex Terrell wrote:
:
:Imagine this scenario: 2020, and NASA's first six month long mission
:is prospecting. They visit aan old impact site, and find some metal
:fragments with 10% platinum group metals. A quick analysis of the site
rovides an estimate of 1,000 tons of PGMs mixed in with about 10
:million tons of copper, iron, nickel and related metals scattered over
:a few km2.
:
:What would happen then?
:
:Earth prices might fall somewhat, but I suspect lunar exploration
:might speed up somewhat.
:

Too expensive to retrieve. There's be no appreciable market effects
here on Earth. With any luck, this would help provide a driver to
lower transport costs, but even that is the tip of the iceberg.

How are you going to do lunar mining? Lots of technology development
and testing necessary before any of that become reasonably feasible.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

On 19 Nov, 18:38, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Alex Terrell wrote:

:
:Imagine this scenario: 2020, and NASA's first six month long mission
:is prospecting. They visit aan old impact site, and find some metal
:fragments with 10% platinum group metals. A quick analysis of the site
rovides an estimate of 1,000 tons of PGMs mixed in with about 10
:million tons of copper, iron, nickel and related metals scattered over
:a few km2.
:
:What would happen then?
:
:Earth prices might fall somewhat, but I suspect lunar exploration
:might speed up somewhat.
:

Too expensive to retrieve. There's be no appreciable market effects
here on Earth. With any luck, this would help provide a driver to
lower transport costs, but even that is the tip of the iceberg.

It would never pay back to go to the moon just for this, but if at the
astronaut's feet?

How are you going to do lunar mining? Lots of technology development
and testing necessary before any of that become reasonably feasible.

Mining an M-type impactor might be relatively easy. There are no
compounds so in theory no chemistry to worry about. Lots of heat
needed, but that's easy to get on the lunar surface.

On Nov 19, 1:38 pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Alex Terrell wrote:

:
:Imagine this scenario: 2020, and NASA's first six month long mission
:is prospecting. They visit aan old impact site, and find some metal
:fragments with 10% platinum group metals. A quick analysis of the site
rovides an estimate of 1,000 tons of PGMs mixed in with about 10
:million tons of copper, iron, nickel and related metals scattered over
:a few km2.
:
:What would happen then?
:
:Earth prices might fall somewhat, but I suspect lunar exploration
:might speed up somewhat.
:

Too expensive to retrieve. There's be no appreciable market effects
here on Earth. With any luck, this would help provide a driver to
lower transport costs, but even that is the tip of the iceberg.


Here we go again, Fred. What makes you think that
the stupid way we have gone about getting to LEO
--and beyond--for the past 45 years is the only way?

Len

How are you going to do lunar mining? Lots of technology development
and testing necessary before any of that become reasonably feasible.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

Len wrote:
Here we go again, Fred. What makes you think that
the stupid way we have gone about getting to LEO
--and beyond--for the past 45 years is the only way?

Well, is there a better way that we should be using?

Maybe someday we will be able to build a usable mass driver even on
Earth.

Maybe, further in the future, we will be able to manufacture nanotubes
by the ton, and build a beanstalk.

And, further in the future, when we master new sciences as yet
unknown, we might have something we would call "antigravity" today.

Of course, while it is horrendously expensive to send astronauts
*from* Earth to the Moon, mass drivers _are_ practical *on the Moon*.
So, valuable metals on the Moon might *not* be too expensive to
recover. If there were an *awful lot* of them, enough to recover the
costs of setting up there in the first place... but that much platinum
would bring down the market.

John Savard

On Nov 20, 8:20 am, Quadibloc wrote:
Len wrote:
Here we go again, Fred. What makes you think that
the stupid way we have gone about getting to LEO
--and beyond--for the past 45 years is the only way?

Well, is there a better way that we should be using?

Of course, probably a number of ways. However, we
are only pursuing ONE way that appears to be quite
feasible with current rocket engines and existing technology.
This way promises to completely change the economics of
getting to LEO and --therefore, according to Heinlein--beyond
LEO.

Maybe someday we will be able to build a usable mass driver even on
Earth.

Maybe, further in the future, we will be able to manufacture nanotubes
by the ton, and build a beanstalk.

And, further in the future, when we master new sciences as yet
unknown, we might have something we would call "antigravity" today.

Of course, while it is horrendously expensive to send astronauts
*from* Earth to the Moon, mass drivers _are_ practical *on the Moon*.
So, valuable metals on the Moon might *not* be too expensive to
recover. If there were an *awful lot* of them, enough to recover the
costs of setting up there in the first place... but that much platinum
would bring down the market.

Some of these other "blue sky" approaches may be
useful some day.However, they are not necessary.
We can do what is necessary with what we already
know. We just have to change our basic approach
in applying existing knowledge in a way that should
have been done 45 years ago.

It's not that what could be done is so unreachable.
It's what is being done is so incredibly bad.

Len

John Savard

On 20 Nov, 16:23, Len wrote:
On Nov 20, 8:20 am, Quadibloc wrote:

Len wrote:
Here we go again, Fred. What makes you think that
the stupid way we have gone about getting to LEO
--and beyond--for the past 45 years is the only way?

Well, is there a better way that we should be using?

Of course, probably a number of ways. However, we
are only pursuing ONE way that appears to be quite
feasible with current rocket engines and existing technology.
This way promises to completely change the economics of
getting to LEO and --therefore, according to Heinlein--beyond
LEO.

If your using chemical rockets, then LEO is actually about 1/4 to 1/5
of the way to the moon, in that you need about 4-5 tons in LEO to land
about 1 ton on the moon. That would allow you to launch 1/2 ton to
Earth. Or, 10 Falcon 9Hs could launch 250 tons which might allow 25
tons to be brought back.

Ten Falcon 9Hs would cost about $700 million at current prices, but
would be a lot less if you ordered 100 over a 5 year period. If that's
the minimum cost, then what you bring back must be worth a least $30
million per ton just to cover launch costs. I think that's about the
current price of PGMs. So if an astronaut found Platinum scattered
around his base, it might just be worth bringing it back. If they go
up in an Ares 1 and V, probably not.



Maybe someday we will be able to build a usable mass driver even on
Earth.

Maybe, further in the future, we will be able to manufacture nanotubes
by the ton, and build a beanstalk.

And, further in the future, when we master new sciences as yet
unknown, we might have something we would call "antigravity" today.

Of course, while it is horrendously expensive to send astronauts
*from* Earth to the Moon, mass drivers _are_ practical *on the Moon*.
So, valuable metals on the Moon might *not* be too expensive to
recover. If there were an *awful lot* of them, enough to recover the
costs of setting up there in the first place... but that much platinum
would bring down the market.

Some of these other "blue sky" approaches may be
useful some day.However, they are not necessary.
We can do what is necessary with what we already
know. We just have to change our basic approach
in applying existing knowledge in a way that should
have been done 45 years ago.

It's not that what could be done is so unreachable.
It's what is being done is so incredibly bad.

There are medium term approaches like rotovators, which would reduce
the launch mutiplier by about 10. In other words, a rocket that
currently puts 5 tons in LEO could, with a rotovator, put about 10
tons on the lunar surface.

Then there's ISRU, especially using lunar water to make rocket fuel.
Anticipating this, NASA would like methane burning engines for lunar
operation!

Then there's a catapult. That's a lot of up front investment, but very
low cost.