Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[orange]

Planetary Society coverage  (Bill, Bill, Bill Nye the Science guy is the CEO)

Congrats to the Chinese on their successful landing on the Moon.

AIAA's monthly journal's cover article (warning: big file) assessing the mission and containing Buzz Aldrin's (2nd man) and Gene Cernan's (last man) assessment of the published pictures and approximate capability and trajectory of the Chinese program.

My personal assessment is that until the Chinese have completed a Mir-esque station, they will likely continue to replicate the 1970s achievements of the Soviet Union, including a hefty robotic sample return.   I however would not rule out a Chinese manned Lunar mission or two in the 2020s if they can maintain their current economic trajectory.

[Iwan Terpalen]

Fun fact: if you're younger than 37, this is the first soft landing on the moon of your lifetime.

Also, the first Chinese moon landing deniers have come out of the woodwork. That didn't take long.

[Vic Van Meter]

Hey, grats to them.  I guess I'm just less sneeringly nervous about China, or any country for that matter.  I've always thought nationalism was a little irritating.

There's been a lot of talk about whether or not the Moon can be mined for minerals.  It's apparently made out of exactly the same stuff Earth is, more or less (indeed, the leading theory is that it was separated from the planet during a collision during the planetary formation period), so who knows what's in it or whether it would ever be economically feasible to do.

Right now, I think the objective in the spaceflight community is to get the costs down so that exiting and re-entering orbit doesn't cost a billion dollars a launch and that spaceflight becomes a little more commonplace.

[Esna Pitoojee]

First off, nationalism and arguments aside, grats to China for pulling this off. Whether we're nervous, annoyed, or just plain dislike the government, in the end there's a lot of very happy techs, scientists, and flight ground crew in China right now and I don't think it's fair to let their accomplishment get lost in the :politics: of the issue.

There's been a lot of talk about whether or not the Moon can be mined for minerals.  It's apparently made out of exactly the same stuff Earth is, more or less (indeed, the leading theory is that it was separated from the planet during a collision during the planetary formation period), so who knows what's in it or whether it would ever be economically feasible to do.

My understanding is that the moon is a pretty terrible place for mining any solid substance or element for Earth usage; you're better off looking at asteroids. Helium-3, on the other hand, might just be economically feasible for mining... IF we ever find a good use for it. Right now it simply isn't necessary (let alone economic) to land a processing and refinement facility of the scale Helium-3 production would demand.

[Desiderya]

There has been a finno-german documentary regarding helium 3 mining on the moon.

Also cool to see more on the moon.

[orange]

Re: Politics of the Issue.

I do not wish the Chinese program ill and applaud their success.

My comments about 2nd and last man were not meant as nationalism, but rather to indicate their expertise with lunar landers.  These men  knew the Apollo LEM as well as any person and thus are qualified to assess the capability of a lunar lander design, even if just from photos.

There's been a lot of talk about whether or not the Moon can be mined for minerals.  It's apparently made out of exactly the same stuff Earth is, more or less (indeed, the leading theory is that it was separated from the planet during a collision during the planetary formation period), so who knows what's in it or whether it would ever be economically feasible to do.

My understanding is that the moon is a pretty terrible place for mining any solid substance or element for Earth usage; you're better off looking at asteroids. Helium-3, on the other hand, might just be economically feasible for mining... IF we ever find a good use for it. Right now it simply isn't necessary (let alone economic) to land a processing and refinement facility of the scale Helium-3 production would demand.

Space is generally a terrible place to mine most substances for Terrestrial usage.  An argument can be made for Platinum group metals, but only as the costs (environmental, physical, political, etc) become even greater.

The tons of Lunar regolith required for a gram of Helium-3 makes it also essentially a non-starter, even if fusion radioactive byproducts are a challenge to deal with.  Go mine the upper atmosphere of Jupiter and Saturn.

In the 1970s, the L5 Society and now the National Space Society argue to use Lunar resources to be the primary source to construct space colonies around EML-5.  This involves a relatively small, lightly manned lunar outpost doing resource extraction and then throwing it via mass drivers out to the general vicinity of EML-5.

The "business-case" for such colonies was/is production of Space-Based Solar Power plants to provide power to Earth.   These would be massive satellites in Geosynchronous orbit beaming (broadcasting) their power down to ground collection antennas.  In theory, this would shift power production off world except for the antennas and all the benefits that may have.

In general, the biggest challenge for space development for the past 30 years has been the business-case.  What do you sell back to the Earth to pay for the cost of getting there?

Right now, I think the objective in the spaceflight community is to get the costs down so that exiting and re-entering orbit doesn't cost a billion dollars a launch and that spaceflight becomes a little more commonplace.

Not even a Delta IV Heavy actually costs $1B to launch at the moment (assuming ULA is launching other vehicles that year).

SpaceX currently has the Falcon 9 (~13 tonnes to LEO) priced at $56.5M (<$4,350/kg) and the Falcon Heavy (~53 tonnes to LEO) priced at $135M (<$2550/kg).   These are roughly 1/2 and 1/4 the traditional estimate of $10,000/kg!

In addition, the cost to send 2 people to space for 2 months (60 days) on a SpaceX DragonRider to a Bigelow Space Station can be estimated at <$80M (almost as cheap as a single seat on a Soyuz to ISS).

This is all a really long way of saying prices are coming down.  As flight rate goes up, prices will come down more.

[Vic Van Meter]

Re: Politics of the Issue.

I do not wish the Chinese program ill and applaud their success.

My comments about 2nd and last man were not meant as nationalism, but rather to indicate their expertise with lunar landers.  These men  knew the Apollo LEM as well as any person and thus are qualified to assess the capability of a lunar lander design, even if just from photos.

There's been a lot of talk about whether or not the Moon can be mined for minerals.  It's apparently made out of exactly the same stuff Earth is, more or less (indeed, the leading theory is that it was separated from the planet during a collision during the planetary formation period), so who knows what's in it or whether it would ever be economically feasible to do.

My understanding is that the moon is a pretty terrible place for mining any solid substance or element for Earth usage; you're better off looking at asteroids. Helium-3, on the other hand, might just be economically feasible for mining... IF we ever find a good use for it. Right now it simply isn't necessary (let alone economic) to land a processing and refinement facility of the scale Helium-3 production would demand.

Space is generally a terrible place to mine most substances for Terrestrial usage.  An argument can be made for Platinum group metals, but only as the costs (environmental, physical, political, etc) become even greater.

The tons of Lunar regolith required for a gram of Helium-3 makes it also essentially a non-starter, even if fusion radioactive byproducts are a challenge to deal with.  Go mine the upper atmosphere of Jupiter and Saturn.

In the 1970s, the L5 Society and now the National Space Society argue to use Lunar resources to be the primary source to construct space colonies around EML-5.  This involves a relatively small, lightly manned lunar outpost doing resource extraction and then throwing it via mass drivers out to the general vicinity of EML-5.

The "business-case" for such colonies was/is production of Space-Based Solar Power plants to provide power to Earth.   These would be massive satellites in Geosynchronous orbit beaming (broadcasting) their power down to ground collection antennas.  In theory, this would shift power production off world except for the antennas and all the benefits that may have.

In general, the biggest challenge for space development for the past 30 years has been the business-case.  What do you sell back to the Earth to pay for the cost of getting there?

Right now, I think the objective in the spaceflight community is to get the costs down so that exiting and re-entering orbit doesn't cost a billion dollars a launch and that spaceflight becomes a little more commonplace.

Not even a Delta IV Heavy actually costs $1B to launch at the moment (assuming ULA is launching other vehicles that year).

SpaceX currently has the Falcon 9 (~13 tonnes to LEO) priced at $56.5M (<$4,350/kg) and the Falcon Heavy (~53 tonnes to LEO) priced at $135M (<$2550/kg).   These are roughly 1/2 and 1/4 the traditional estimate of $10,000/kg!

In addition, the cost to send 2 people to space for 2 months (60 days) on a SpaceX DragonRider to a Bigelow Space Station can be estimated at <$80M (almost as cheap as a single seat on a Soyuz to ISS).

This is all a really long way of saying prices are coming down.  As flight rate goes up, prices will come down more.

That's interesting, I heard a much more inflated estimate (maybe taking into account total costs including pad rental and ground complement?) so I had no idea it was that relatively cheap to fly out there.

They say rocket fuel can essentially be made from water if we can localize the processing.  What's the reality of that?

Sorry, I know about trebuchet ballistic properties, but not so much the space stuff.

[orange]

The Space Shuttle averaged ~$1.5B per launch, if you amortize the cost of the R&D with the cost of the launch itself.  The high profile US Government spacecraft (spy satellites, Mars rovers, outer planet orbiters) routinely cost over $1B to produce for a variety of reasons not including launch.

They say rocket fuel can essentially be made from water if we can localize the processing.  What's the reality of that?

Big chemical rockets use a fuel and an oxidizer.  These come in a variety combinations.

The "big rockets" tend to use RP-1, an highly refined hydrocarbon, and liquid oxygen (LOX) (Saturn V, Falcon 9 & Heavy, Atlas V, Soyuz) or liquid hydrogen and LOX (Ariane V, Space Shuttle, Delta IV).  This ignores any solids they may also use (Atlas V, Delta IV often do, Space Shuttle and Ariane V always).

So, in the case of the Space Shuttle Main Engines, the Delta IV main engine (and upper stage), the Ariane V main engine, and the Atlas V Centuar upper-stage (RL-10), they all produce water as their exhaust gas.  Really, really, really, hot water.

So, using electrolysis water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen for use as fuel.

So, if you mine water out of NEOs or the Moon, you can reduce the amount of fuel you have to lift from the Earth's surface (which uses more fuel) to fill up transit stages headed to destinations in and beyond Cislunar space.

So, if you have more water than you could ever want where you are (like on a NEO you are going to process) then fuel can be produced in space via electrolysis.   I prefer to keep Lunar water on the Moon, for those eventual cities that will be built there.

[Bataav]

Regarding the value of mining in space, from the people at Planetary Resources.

[Alain Colcer]

Actually, moon itself, or it's crust to be precise, holds little of value.....the gold lies in all the impact basins. From ice to platinum.

The issue as the video above me explain, is taking the stuff needed to actually begin an industry out there. I really hope planetary resources begin pinpointing near earth asteroids and we kick-start this civilization into space soon.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Re: Politics of the Issue.

I do not wish the Chinese program ill and applaud their success.

My comments about 2nd and last man were not meant as nationalism, but rather to indicate their expertise with lunar landers.  These men  knew the Apollo LEM as well as any person and thus are qualified to assess the capability of a lunar lander design, even if just from photos.

Oh, this wasn't aimed at you. It was frustration aimed at the wave of generic politics/bashing/etc that I was seeing in other places.