NASA should bypass moon

[Junghalli]

The problem with trying to make a profit out of space is the sheer amount of investment it requires. You have to invest in making the capacity to see a profit, and it's a very expensive project that won't return you a profit for a very long time, and you need a huge pay-off to justify the huge investment.

What if I don't want to live in a dense, urban environment?

Then you'd be in one of the groups that would stand to benefit the most from moving food production off Earth. Eliminating terrestrial farming would open up huge tracts of land for low density development and result in more people being able to live away from the cities if they wanted.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd still like to see the figures on the proposition that extraterrestrial farming can pay using plausible reaction drive technology. I'll grant space elevators, but still... I mean yes, the atoms to make the crops out of are up there, but they're not all in the same place.

[Coyote]

Right now, the only thing in space that would be of interest is raw materials-- Iron ore, in particular. Investors know that "raw materials" is the bottom of the barrel in investment opportunities. The real money is in manufactured/refined goods, after the specialized labor costs and transport are factored in and the mark-up can really count as gravy.

So with space, you have a seriously high investment cost. First, special ships just to get there. With ships on Earth, you don't need to worry about pressure and oxygen or really water much. Second, once you get to a space field to work in, say, asteroid mining, you've got low gravity which causes physical damage to workers, radiation exposure, constant supply of basic elements (water, oxygen-- which you don't need to worry about much on Earth), there'll be hazard pay, family separation pay, and right now, even a lowly Janitor going to space needs billion-dollar astronaut training, so you'll have a Janitor working at something like $120.00 an hour. God forbid there's an injury, and you'll have to pay for his family or disability under special circumstances. The insurance premiums alone will bankrupt all but the biggest companies.

We'll have to run out of every single piece of iron ore on Earth before space resources even begin to look plausible. The only people to begin exploring space now are governments, who can hire people and tell them "we'll give you GS-15 pay (about the equivalent of a Sergeant Major) and standard military benefits for hazardous duty and family separation, and that's the end of it. If you want something more on top of that, we'll give you a nice medal, and you'll be happy or we'll find someone else willing to risk his balls just to wave the flag on Mars".

The only way around this is if we found "Miracle Element X" on some other planet or asteroid that becomes something we can't live without. Right now I'd dare to say that even if we had a breakthrough in FTL drive, there'd still be little interest from corporations if the only thing they could find out there were "just more rocks, dirt, and dirty ice". Even finding a planet of solid gold (or solid oil) wouldn't do it, because the resultant market flood would make the price worthless.

We need to find something that cures cancer, or something to that level of world-changing, before anyone will see a profit in space as it is today.

[Sarevok]

Actually space mining activities are very important - for construction projects in space. Building space stations is much cheaper when the raw materials are produced in space instead of lifted by very expensive rockets. Problem is no one has figured out practically how to do the sort of automated resource gathering and robotic factory stuff space colonization supporters think is possible. It may indeed be possible but the fallacy is in assuming it will automatically appear the day someone lands on Mars. There has to be lots of boring research right here on Earth on how to actually mine raw materials and turn them into machines with the tiny amount of initial hardware rockets can send. The prequisites for serious space presence like cheaper space launches, better interplanetary travel, in space mining and production etc are all sorely lacking. I think thats where the money should go instead of oneshot trips to the Moon or Mars. Its not very glamorous compared to a daring deep space mission in the coming years. And most of us may not see any outcome in our lifetimes but at least the future generations will have a firm base to stand on.

[Simon_Jester]

Actually space mining activities are very important - for construction projects in space. Building space stations is much cheaper when the raw materials are produced in space instead of lifted by very expensive rockets.

But that's a recursive argument, from an economic standpoint. It's reminiscent of planned economy programs that supercharge iron and coal production... to make steel... to make more mining equipment. It only makes sense to make the initial investment in infrastructure if there's a worthwhile end product.

[Junghalli]

But that's a recursive argument, from an economic standpoint. It's reminiscent of planned economy programs that supercharge iron and coal production... to make steel... to make more mining equipment. It only makes sense to make the initial investment in infrastructure if there's a worthwhile end product.

Cheaper, better commercial sattelites, SPS power, zero-gee manufacturing, and space tourism are all possibilities there. There's worthwhile stuff that can be built in space, the challenge is making the pay-off worth the huge initial investment, and being able to be reasonably confident that the promised pay-off will actually materialize.

[Broomstick]

Look at satellites - sputnik was basically a box that went "beep". Now satellites are a major industry that is highly profitable despite the cost of launches for a variety of uses ranging from navigation to weather to entertainment.

Space tourism has already started - if they can bring the price down while keeping things reasonably safe that, too, will take off. At first it will just be sight-seeing flights, but someone will come up with a means of having people stay for a bit, after which it will, again, take off.

Zero-gee manufacturing requires an initial success story, after which things will snowball.

The key is first to find something that will turn a profit, then ramp it up. As we become more and more adept at earth-orbit activities will move outward (assuming we can keep civilization running).

But, as much as I would like to see someone on Mars in my lifetime it may not be the best way to go about a real move into space. It's not about how fast we get there, it's that we can stay there once we reach outward.

[Sarevok]

Exactly Broomstick. Slow and steady progress that builds up our capabilities is the way to go instead of a dash to Mars in next decade or two.

[Serafina]

To draw an analogy to the industrial buidlup mentioned above (buidling iron+coal mines to procude steel to mine coal and iron):

We can dash off to Mars, plant a flagg or two there and do some research.

Or we can work on making space travel safer, cheaper and easier and put the presigious goals behind.

The first is analogous to building a single steel plant without the supporting infrastructure.
The second is buidling the infrastructure.
Guess which nations faired better during the industrial revolution?

[Coyote]

We can dash off to Mars, plant a flagg or two there and do some research.

Or we can work on making space travel safer, cheaper and easier and put the presigious goals behind.

But if there's no place to go --or no reason to go there-- why would anyone waste the money to make space travel safer? If no one's going to Mars, why build a Mars-capable ship?

The initial investments always have to be made by governments-- someone tells people to go there and learn things. Then, the government comes back and reveals that there are cool things there worth buying and selling, then investors rush in.

Right now, economics being what they are, no company or consortium of companies is going to undertake the massive costs and risks of a Mars mission on the off-chance there might be something there worth selling. Current theroy now is that there's nothing there but red rocks, which there's not much market for. There would have to be some sort of really, really compelling thing there on Mars (or a disasterously compelling shortfall on Earth making the risk look attractive) to get companies to invest in such a thing.

If something could be found that would spark a "California Gold Rush of '49"-style settlement frenzy, it would be one thing. But the irony about things like gold is that there'd have to be a lot of gold on Mars to get prospectors to go there... it would be so much gold, in fact, that the gold market would collapse due to the volume coming in from Mars. So it becomes self-defeating. It would have to be an element that is invaluable, that creates it's own need, can only be found in space, and cannot be replicated on Earth. Who's going to invest in finding that, if right now current wisdom is that such things don't exist?

[Sky Captain]

I`m not exactly sure but was`t there some rare elements that are needed for semiconductor industry and are in short supply on Earth while potentially being much more abundant in metal rich asteroids. At least in the beginning only way how to make space resource mining profitable would be to go for very expensive metals that are critically required for industry.

[KroLazuxy_87]

As more private companies are getting in the game, along with research being done at universities we're seeing some real promise: Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster

As it gets cheaper to get to space(and cheaper to move around in space) we keep seeing more and more non-government players. Thirty years ago where were the private space programs at? With technology advancing faster, where will they be thirty years from now?

[PeZook]

Getting more on-topic, NASA doesn't seem to care

They're going to the Moon anyway

Either way, the Constellation program will pay off somehow: the Ares I itself looks like it will be a nice launch vehicle: recoverable, with a decent payload capacity for its size, using existing infrastructure.

[Simon_Jester]

It would have to be an element that is invaluable, that creates it's own need, can only be found in space, and cannot be replicated on Earth. Who's going to invest in finding that, if right now current wisdom is that such things don't exist?

If we're talking about actual chemical elements, they definitely don't exist: no one is going to discover Element 6-1/2 in space any more than they will on the ground.

Getting more on-topic, NASA doesn't seem to care

They're going to the Moon anyway

Either way, the Constellation program will pay off somehow: the Ares I itself looks like it will be a nice launch vehicle: recoverable, with a decent payload capacity for its size, using existing infrastructure.

My father does research in a field that benefits from space-based instruments, so he's been peripherally involved in a few satellite designs over the years. Recently he was talking about how for years, the prevailing pressure was always "can we make this smaller? Can we fit this into a Delta fairing? How microminiaturized can we get this thing?"

Then, a few weeks ago, someone walks in and says "Uh, yeah, the guys planning the Ares launches say they have an extra cubic foot of space. Can anyone think of anything to do with it?" So I agree; I think the Ares may be worthwhile in and of itself.

[Starglider]

Either way, the Constellation program will pay off somehow: the Ares I itself looks like it will be a nice launch vehicle: recoverable, with a decent payload capacity for its size, using existing infrastructure.

My father does research in a field that benefits from space-based instruments, so he's been peripherally involved in a few satellite designs over the years. Recently he was talking about how for years, the prevailing pressure was always "can we make this smaller? Can we fit this into a Delta fairing? How microminiaturized can we get this thing?"

Ares I is much less exciting than Ares V, particularly if you care about payload size. As I understand it, the main reason Ares I exists is because Atlas V isn't man-rated and it's supposedly easier to develop a new rocket than man-rate an existing one. I won't believe the recoverability actually saves money until it has been shown to do so in practice, not after the turnaround/refurbishment costs for the shuttle exceeded predictions by an order of magnitude.

Ares V on the other hand represents the return of a 100 ton plus payload capability that hasn't been available since Saturn V was retired; in fact it should lift about 50% than Saturn V could.

[PeZook]

Ares I is much less exciting than Ares V, particularly if you care about payload size. As I understand it, the main reason Ares I exists is because Atlas V isn't man-rated and it's supposedly easier to develop a new rocket than man-rate an existing one. I won't believe the recoverability actually saves money until it has been shown to do so in practice, not after the turnaround/refurbishment costs for the shuttle exceeded predictions by an order of magnitude.

The first test launch cost NASA 450 million, so it's not a very cheap launch vehicle (about half of a Saturn V launch), but then again, it's just a first test, so every single rocket is essentially custom-built at this stage.

Ares V on the other hand represents the return of a 100 ton plus payload capability that hasn't been available since Saturn V was retired; in fact it should lift about 50% than Saturn V could.

The Ares V and Orion combo will be more of a Shuttle replacement than a commercial launch vehicle, though (except with somewhat lessened capability: bye bye cargo bay). Are there any commercial applications for a man-rated rocket that large?

This is part of the reason why the Saturn V was never used after the final Skylab and ASTP flights: nobody needed a rocket with a price tag of 1 billion per launch to put satellites in orbit.

[Coyote]

Are there any commercial applications for a man-rated rocket that large?

Well, possibly... there is the company that plans to have an inflatable Space Hotel by 2012 although there are detractors who say it remains pie in the, well, sky.

BARCELONA, Spain - A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.

The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost $4.4 million for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.

During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear Velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

The Russians have shown a willingness to go into the tourist industry, but I forget if paying customers have ridden on NASA's horse. Even so, at best NASA would do it as a publicity stunt; they wouldn't even recoup losses since any money they'd make off th etourists would at best go towards the cost of their own launch, and NASA would be devoting resources to a launch it otherwise would not have flown. The best they can hope for is a break-even, and that eventually enough people will go to space and think it is "cool" that they'll be more willing to fund future NASA requests and serve as public spokespersons for space flight things in general. But that's kind of a gamble, really. It's like opening up Disneyland and then relying entirely on word-of-mouth marketing by the few super-wealthy who can afford to go.

[PeZook]

Well, possibly... there is the company that plans to have an inflatable Space Hotel by 2012 although there are detractors who say it remains pie in the, well, sky.

Why do you need an Ares V for this project? Again, it will probably cost close to a billion dollars per launch ; You can do a Soyuz passenger launch to LEO for something like 40-50 million currently. I'm not sure how they plan to reduce this cost so that 4.4 million is profitable, though. Man-rated launches are always more expensive than satellite launches, for obvious reasons.

The Russians have shown a willingness to go into the tourist industry, but I forget if paying customers have ridden on NASA's horse. Even so, at best NASA would do it as a publicity stunt; they wouldn't even recoup losses since any money they'd make off th etourists would at best go towards the cost of their own launch, and NASA would be devoting resources to a launch it otherwise would not have flown.

If NASA even wants to bother ; The Russians have plenty of experience blasting off space tourists, so they may just want to pay them instead, or use some European vehicle.

The best they can hope for is a break-even, and that eventually enough people will go to space and think it is "cool" that they'll be more willing to fund future NASA requests and serve as public spokespersons for space flight things in general. But that's kind of a gamble, really. It's like opening up Disneyland and then relying entirely on word-of-mouth marketing by the few super-wealthy who can afford to go.

Word-of-mouth marketing for this kind of product is actually the biggest part of selling such a product. Selling extraordinary stuff to the super-wealthy looks completely different than selling tickets to Disneyland: how many TV ads have you seen for million-dollar yachts?

[Starglider]

Well, possibly... there is the company that plans to have an inflatable Space Hotel by 2012 although there are detractors who say it remains pie in the, well, sky.

Why do you need an Ares V for this project? Again, it will probably cost close to a billion dollars per launch ; You can do a Soyuz passenger launch to LEO for something like 40-50 million currently.

Getting the hotel itself up there. You could launch the entire ISS in just two Ares launches (well, subject to fairing drag/packing constraints), as opposed to the what, thirty shuttle and proton flights it took to get the hardware up there?

[Gilthan]

Well, possibly... there is the company that plans to have an inflatable Space Hotel by 2012 although there are detractors who say it remains pie in the, well, sky.

Hmm...

Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire space enthusiast has granted $3 billion to finance the project.

That's some serious dough! That's like 300 of the X-prizes, a lot for private investment. It really makes you wonder who that billionaire is, as there are only a handful of people worldwide who could redirect that much from existing investments.

Even finding a planet of solid gold (or solid oil) wouldn't do it, because the resultant market flood would make the price worthless.

Platinum is ten billion bucks annually worldwide now, maybe more if fuel cells using it took off. Throw in gold and other platinum-group metals relatively abundant (100+ ppm combined) in some asteroids compared to how they mainly sunk to the core on earth, and space miners could make a few hundred billion a decade from returning a few thousand tons annually of some materials. They'd need to balance how much to sell how fast so as not to flood the market and depress prices too much.

Still, it wouldn't give plausible return on investment right now, but if space access were cheaper and if there were already large spacestations up there to tow a chunk of near-earth asteroid up to?

We won't see semiconductor production shifting to space overnight either, but, in the long-term, the vacuum of space is cheap, abundant, and better than expensive vacuum chambers on earth; zero-g prevents gravity-caused defects in crystal growth; and such as germanium and gallium for semiconductors are more abundant in some asteroids than on earth, of high value per kilo much like the platinum-group metals.

[dragon]

I know they really want some of the Helium-3 from the moon in order to experiment with. There's enough H3 on the moon to last the earth a long time, assuming we ever get fusion working.

[Surlethe]

I know they really want some of the Helium-3 from the moon in order to experiment with. There's enough H3 on the moon to last the earth a long time, assuming we ever get fusion working.

How do you know? How much He3 is on the Moon, anyway, and would it be economically feasible to mine?

[Simon_Jester]

Platinum is ten billion bucks annually worldwide now, maybe more if fuel cells using it took off. Throw in gold and other platinum-group metals relatively abundant (100+ ppm combined) in some asteroids compared to how they mainly sunk to the core on earth, and space miners could make a few hundred billion a decade from returning a few thousand tons annually of some materials. They'd need to balance how much to sell how fast so as not to flood the market and depress prices too much.

How much does it cost to refine a ton of platinum out of asteroid rock in space? What level of infrastructure would be required?

[dragon]

I know they really want some of the Helium-3 from the moon in order to experiment with. There's enough H3 on the moon to last the earth a long time, assuming we ever get fusion working.

How do you know? How much He3 is on the Moon, anyway, and would it be economically feasible to mine?

Russia,China and India have all said they plan on mining H3 from the moon.

For its part, Russia claims that the aim of any lunar program of its own--for what it's worth, the rocket corporation Energia recently started blustering, Soviet-style, that it will build a permanent moon base by 2015-2020--will be extracting He3.

The Chinese, too, apparently believe that helium-3 from the moon can enable fusion plants on Earth. This fall, the People's Republic expects to orbit a satellite around the moon and then land an unmanned vehicle there in 2011.

Nor does India intend to be left out. (See "India's Space Ambitions Soar.") This past spring, its president, A.P.J. Kalam, and its prime minister, Manmohan Singh, made major speeches asserting that, besides constructing giant solar collectors in orbit and on the moon, the world's largest democracy likewise intends to mine He3 from the lunar surface.

link

As for amount of H3 on the moon

Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium 3 as the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, with virtually no radioactive by-product. Proponents claim its the fuel of the 21st century. The trouble is, hardly any of it is found on Earth.But there is plenty of it on the moon.

Scientists estimate there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, according to Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt.

link


Even NASA finally admitted they want to mine H3 as well.

Nestled among the agency's 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel used in fusion reactors -- futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment.

link

Edit as links were out of order.

[Gilthan]

Platinum is ten billion bucks annually worldwide now, maybe more if fuel cells using it took off. Throw in gold and other platinum-group metals relatively abundant (100+ ppm combined) in some asteroids compared to how they mainly sunk to the core on earth, and space miners could make a few hundred billion a decade from returning a few thousand tons annually of some materials. They'd need to balance how much to sell how fast so as not to flood the market and depress prices too much.

How much does it cost to refine a ton of platinum out of asteroid rock in space? What level of infrastructure would be required?

To get a ton of platinum-group metals and gold, from an asteroid of at least 110 ppm PGMs, a chunk of rock 9 meters or less in radius is necessary to process. A bigger $100 billion payback could come from a rock 130 meters or less in radius, 2000 tons PGMs. Choose a near-earth asteroid already crossing nearby earth, one requiring very little velocity change to nudge onto a slightly different trajectory causing the moon's gravity to sling it around into elliptical earth orbit.

Most of the tech needed for asteroid materials retrieval is like that needed to deflect a dangerous asteroid off a trajectory impacting earth, except far lesser scale. A nuclear or solar-powered tug would fly up to the stony asteroid and split off a chunk if the whole was too big. It'd apply slight velocity change over the next few months. Human crew members would be no more than a handful at most.

Propellant must come from local resources, given that the amounts needed are far more than the spacecraft's own mass. Propulsion options would be either a mass driver using the asteroid's material itself for propellant, like packing projectile cases with crushed rock, or, possibly, simply a steam rocket. (More so than a mass driver, a steam rocket would need to be exceptionally selective in targets, to gather ice from either the near-earth object being mined, if an ice-rich rocky body was found with good PGM concentrations, or instead from another nearby on the trip).

Considering meteorite samples, many LL chrondrite stony asteroids have 110 ppm of PGMs and gold plus 1000 ppm germanium, and some undoubtedly have more. The average nickel iron asteroid has only slightly higher PGM concentration while having vastly more metal, meaning that the PGMs are far more diluted in metal. So it is better to mine the right stony chrondrite asteroid than an iron asteroid here, as working with a giant steel ball in space would be harder.

Such could be done by feeding the rock into a crusher, separating out the metal grains. Being mixed with iron, they can be separately magnetically. With the rock delivered to a facility in high earth orbit, within a fraction of a light-second, equipment like the grinder and robots get teleoperated remotely by technicians on earth, to skip massive life-support for human astronauts. That's a lot of rock to crush, but, over thousands of days of operation, equipment can do many times its own mass. Pure refined platinum is unneeded, though the PGMs must be concentrated enough to package into compact enough reentry capsules for further refining on earth.

If an affordable reusable launch system and some infrastructure came about earlier, there seems to be no reason the project couldn't be done for less than the payback. The payback would be not only PGMs to earth but also extra mass in orbit for all other space missions, down to oxygen from the rock for propellant used by vehicles shuttling communications satellites from low orbit to geostationary orbit.