Discussion The next 100 years..

[n72.75]

Let's consider this:

The launch cost is likely to never drop below 1000 USD/kilogram on Earth.

But that's on Earth.

What would it cost to send a spacecraft from the Moon to Mars, assuming that you had the money to build a Moon factory.

I see the Moon as the gateway to the universe.

The only major barrier is getting people to the Moon, from there everything just falls into place.

 

[T.Neo]

The launch cost is likely to never drop below 1000 USD/kilogram on Earth.

Although it is important to be skeptical toward extraordinary claims, many people would say otherwise...

What would it cost to send a spacecraft from the Moon to Mars, assuming that you had the money to build a Moon factory.

Trillions of dollars. Literally, trillions of dollars to set up a "moon factory". The overwhelming lack of infrastructure cannot be overstated.

The Moon is also deficient in several things. You will have to ship these from Earth. This drives cost up. Far better to make use of infrastructure on Earth.

Many payloads already cost more than their launch vehicles. These payloads are built on Earth and they can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. If built on the Moon they would cost far more.

 

[n0mad23]

The reality is if you want a Moon factory, then you have to look at permanent colonization. In other words, the goal would have to be near total self-sufficiency. This is incredibly problematic in itself.

Personally, I think the lack of nitrogen cannot be overstated.

But I'm in favor of it.

 

[T.Neo]

Why favour something if it isn't viable?

The Moon isn't viable as a factory unless it becomes so tomorrow by magic.

 

[HopDavid]

Let's consider this:

The launch cost is likely to never drop below 1000 USD/kilogram on Earth.

But that's on Earth.

What would it cost to send a spacecraft from the Moon to Mars, assuming that you had the money to build a Moon factory.

With the moon's gravity well, Trans Mars Injection (TMI) would take more delta V than launching from LEO. Since any near term vehicle must come from earth, it would have to first reach LEO to reach the moon. Therefore launch from the moon's surface has no advantage for Mars vehicle.

While a near term lunar infrastructure capable of making spacecraft is implausible, mining propellant is a much simpler proposition. And lunar propellant (as well as water, oxygen and nitrogen) can be exported to EML1 with just 2.5 km/s. From EML1, Mars is only 1.2 km/s distance.

I see the Moon as the gateway to the universe.

A lunar propellant mine propellant mine plus propellant depots at EML1 and 2 would indeed be the gateway to our solar system.

The only major barrier is getting people to the Moon, from there everything just falls into place.

If humans were preceded by able telerobots, I believe a human base is much more plausible. And the state of art for telerobots is constantly advancing.

 

[T.Neo]

From EML1, Mars is only 1.2 km/s distance.

If you want to follow a low energy trajectory, yes.

A lunar propellant mine propellant mine plus propellant depots at EML1 and 2 would indeed be the gateway to our solar system.

No it won't, unless you can provide exceptional evidence for your exceptional claim.

If humans were preceded by able telerobots, I believe a human base is much more plausible. And the state of art for telerobots is constantly advancing.

Telerobots are not magic.

I really like how you've entirely ignored the problems I've raised yet you keep on going on about lunar infrastructure anyway. :dry:

 

[HopDavid]

The reality is if you want a Moon factory, then you have to look at permanent colonization. In other words, the goal would have to be near total self-sufficiency. This is incredibly problematic in itself.

Total self-sufficiency like Walden Pond? Nearly all human communities are dependent on their neighbors to some extent. I believe it suffices to be economically viable. To be economically viable, a community has to offer something in trade.

It would be helpful if a lunar community achieved enough self sufficiency to reduce mass lifted from earth. Locally produced bulky commodities would be the first goal. I believe water will be the first local resource mined.

Personally, I think the lack of nitrogen cannot be overstated.

The LCROSS ejecta was about 20% volatiles:
N 6.6000%
CO 5.7000%
H2O 5.5000%
Zn 3.1000%
V 2.4000%
Ca 1.6000%
Au 1.6000%
Mn 1.3000%
Hg 1.2000%
Co 1.0000%
H2S 0.9213%
NH3 0.3317%
Cl 0.2000%
SO2 0.1755%
C2H4 0.1716%
CO2 0.1194%
C 0.0900%
Sc 0.0900%
CH3OH 0.0853%
CH4 0.0366%
O 0.0200%
OH 0.0017%

Of the volatiles, you can see nitrogen compounds are present, as well as carbon compounds. There is CHON on the moon.

As I mentioned earlier, elevated CPR in Chandrayaan 1's radar seems to indicate sheets of ice at least two meters thick. 600 million tonnes at the north pole. If this ice has volatiles in the same proportions at the LCROSS ejecta, you could take the above volatile concentrations and multiply by 5.

 

[n0mad23]

Why favour something if it isn't viable?

The Moon isn't viable as a factory unless it becomes so tomorrow by magic.

For a lot of reasons.

One is for the potential technological advancements that have to accompany such a program. Consider what was developed leading up to Apollo for example. Another is because of the dV factor of Lunar operations. While I find myself disagreeing with much of the ongoing discussion here, the low energy trajectories from the Moon is really attractive. Gravity wells are welcome things (something I've really come to appreciate as an Orbinaut) but climbing out of them is a challenge.

LOX/H2 might not be the most attractive of the propellants, but the ice supply in the Aitkens Basin, coupled with the low energy requirements for leaving the Moon make this a resource that's incredibly attractive for use in getting to other bodies in our solar system.

And I haven't quite written off He3 as a possible way of getting past the petrochemical age.

I think the science possible with Lunar bases is yet another reason to have this as a goal. Figuring out how to succeed on the Moon seems like a pretty logical step before pushing on to Mars.

Mostly though my reasons are purely romantic. The Moon looms large over us all, and it's pull not only creates the tides, but it seems to pull at my heart strings as well.

Not the best argument, I agree. But if you look at the money we collectively waste on truly worthless endeavors, I think this is a much "healthier" way to waste it. Far less potential blowback imo.

EDIT-
I was cross posting with HopDavid.

I had no idea that nitrogen was found in the LCROSS ejecta. The carbon content is a lot higher than I'd imagined, too. Nice!

 

[HopDavid]

If you want to follow a low energy trajectory, yes.

The 1.2 km/s from EML1 is for TMI to a Hohmann trajectory.

 

[T.Neo]

I really do appreciate the fact that HopDavid prefers to parrot simplistic arguments instead of trying to justify what he is advocating with engineering logic. How insulting.

I believe it suffices to be economically viable. To be economically viable, a community has to offer something in trade.

It would be helpful if a lunar community achieved enough self sufficiency to reduce mass lifted from earth. Locally produced bulky commodities would be the first goal. I believe water will be the first local resource mined.

You will be shipping a huge amount of mass to the Moon for a very long time. At first it will be people and their supplies. Specialist goods. At first pretty much everything you bring to the Moon would be specialist goods.

Of the volatiles, you can see nitrogen compounds are present, as well as carbon compounds. There is CHON on the moon.

You got a source for that list?

CHON isn't present on all of the lunar surface.

As I mentioned earlier, elevated CPR in Chandrayaan 1's radar seems to indicate sheets of ice at least two meters thick. 600 million tonnes at the north pole. If this ice has volatiles in the same proportions at the LCROSS ejecta, you could take the above volatile concentrations and multiply by 5.

Multiply by 5? Care to illustrate how that number came about?

Is there really more nitrogen than water on the Moon? I'm trying to figure out how that would make sense, considering that water is more abundant than nitrogen (and less volatile).

For a lot of reasons.

One is for the potential technological advancements that have to accompany such a program. Consider what was developed leading up to Apollo for example. Another is because of the dV factor of Lunar operations. While I find myself disagreeing with much of the ongoing discussion here, the low energy trajectories from the Moon is really attractive. Gravity wells are welcome things (something I've really come to appreciate as an Orbinaut) but climbing out of them is a challenge.

LOX/H2 might not be the most attractive of the propellants, but the ice supply in the Aitkens Basin, coupled with the low energy requirements for leaving the Moon make this a resource that's incredibly attractive for use in getting to other bodies in our solar system.

And I haven't quite written off He3 as a possible way of getting past the petrochemical age.

I think the science possible with Lunar bases is yet another reason to have this as a goal. Figuring out how to succeed on the Moon seems like a pretty logical step before pushing on to Mars.

Mostly though my reasons are purely romantic. The Moon looms large over us all, and it's pull not only creates the tides, but it seems to pull at my heart strings as well.

Not the best argument, I agree. But if you look at the money we collectively waste on truly worthless endeavors, I think this is a much "healthier" way to waste it. Far less potential blowback imo.

Potential advancements aren't worth it. You can't turn a profit off of it and no sensible government would spend that amount of money. They also don't require a "money-sink" lunar architecture.

I have written off He3 as a means of "getting past the petrochemical age". Mind you, I do wonder about mining He3 for research purposes, for example. Fusion is an unknown matter and the cost of the whole operation would simply be too high.

There are a lot of things on the Moon that simply won't teach you about Mars. You can learn some things, but not all. A dedicated lunar program will not answer a lot of the very pressing questions about Mars exploration... but it will delay and potentially kill it.

A romantic attachment to the Moon is a very poor argument, though I must admit that a lot of my attraction to Mars is similar in nature.

 

[HopDavid]

You got a source for that list?

The LCROSS brew

The above page cites the Science journal of Oct 22, 2010.

CHON isn't present on all of the lunar surface.

CHON in exploitable quantities is present at the poles. To be valuable, it doesn't need to cover the entire lunar surface. Hope my Africa analogy above helps.

Multiply by 5? Care to illustrate how that number came about?

The LCROSS ejecta was about 20% ice. Chandrayaan 1's elevated CPR seems to indicate nearly 100% ice.

100/20 = 5.

 

[T.Neo]

The above page cites the Science journal of Oct 22, 2010.

Well, that's nice to know. I'd much rather trust Science itself than a website run by a Moon-proponent on the internet.

CHON in exploitable quantities is present at the poles. To be valuable, it doesn't need to cover the entire lunar surface. Hope my Africa analogy above helps.

No, it doesn't help. There are diamonds in Kimberly. I want to mine oil in Libya. Oops.

The LCROSS ejecta was about 20% ice. Chandrayaan 1's elevated CPR seems to indicate nearly 100% ice.

100/20 = 5.

Does not mean the compositions are the same. I also really do want to know why nitrogen is more abundant than water, that'd have to be a particularly interesting phenomenon causing that.


You still haven't provided any good engineering logic to back up your spectacular claims.

 

[n0mad23]

I tend to agree - there seems to be some red flags waving regarding the nitrogen content here.

Carbonaceous Chondrites' contain around 0.2% N, and those containing kerogen a bit more (kerogen can contain about 1.5% N). Incidentally, Carbonaceous Chondrites can contain as much as 20% water by volume (though most are closer to 11%, and up to about 4% carbon).

Since most of the volatiles on the Moon arrived via asteroid, the nitrogen levels are really odd. False positive readings perhaps? Or a source we aren't considering.

 

[T.Neo]

Water is simply that much more common than nitrogen. Hydrogen and oxygen are something like the first and second most common elements in the solar system, while nitrogen is something like the seventh.

The only explanation for a high concentration of nitrogen would be water somehow escaping to space while nitrogen remains. Since nitrogen is far more volatile than water, it would presumably have to be locked up in some kind of chemical compound that would be more stable than water in those conditions.

 

[n0mad23]

It turns out the nitrogen content is a real "head-scratcher" and has been since at least 2005. Huh.

From the Christian Science Monitor (27 May, `10) -

"Somehow, we see a substantial amount of nitrogen on the moon, over and above the well-known solar wind, and we don't have a single clue as to where it comes from," said cosmochemist John Kerridge at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, a co-investigator of the study into the lunar conundrum. "It's just baffling."

Although the sun's solar wind has deposited nitrogen on the moon, this solar nitrogen mostly consists of lighter isotopes, as NASA's Genesis spacecraft revealed in samples it collected of the solar wind. In contrast, a much heavier combination of nitrogen isotopes outnumbers this solar nitrogen roughly 10 to one on the moon.

"The nitrogen in the atmosphere we're breathing is not the same that was initially present in the solar system," said study co-investigator cosmochemist Kurt Marti also of the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla.

Also, in digging around I found this regarding the LRO:

According to the new information relayed back by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the lowest temperature inside such a shadowed crater can go as low as 26° Kelvin (-249° Celsius), which is well below the freezing point of nitrogen, at 63° Kelvin (-210.0° Celsius). “Nothing like this has ever been measured in the Solar System. One would probably have to travel far beyond the Kuiper Belt to find an object whose temperatures are this low,” University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) planetary scientist David Paige explains. The expert is also the principal investigator for the spacecraft's temperature-sensing instrument.

(emphasis mine)

I, for one, am going to reevaluate some of my assumptions about Lunar limitations.

I'm adding to this to my list of "why we should do it," and hopefully negate at least 1/2 a percentage from my romantic reasons.

 

[T.Neo]

Yup, let's totally abandon Mars to find out about lunar nitrogen.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't push to investigate stuff like that... but it shouldn't get in the way of other goals. In the Constellation program, it did just that.

 

[n0mad23]

Agreed. No need to go the Constellation program route.

I just downloaded the higher rez. Mars textures, and will certainly be saying "cheers" to you T.Neo as I make my pilgrimage tonight!

 

[HopDavid]

I tend to agree - there seems to be some red flags waving regarding the nitrogen content here.

Carbonaceous Chondrites' contain around 0.2% N, and those containing kerogen a bit more (kerogen can contain about 1.5% N). Incidentally, Carbonaceous Chondrites can contain as much as 20% water by volume (though most are closer to 11%, and up to about 4% carbon).

Since most of the volatiles on the Moon arrived via asteroid, the nitrogen levels are really odd. False positive readings perhaps? Or a source we aren't considering.

Maybe the data has errors. Or maybe your models are wrong. Or maybe both. It wouldn't be the first time that probe data sent back upset prevalent theories.

We still know very little about the moon. Those who say we know everything there is to know are only displaying their ignorance.

Comets have nitrogen and carbon compounds. So nitrogen wasn't particularly surprising. The cause for the high nitrogen readings remain to be determined. Just maybe there's a process going on that T.Neo hasn't imagined.

A big surprise was the high concentrations of gold and mercury. Mercury has a low vaporization temperature, so it's plausible mercury vapors would find their way to the lunar cold traps. But 1.6% Au? That has left a lot of folks genuinely perplexed.

We don't know everything there is to know about the moon. Not by a long shot.

---------- Post added at 05:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------

No, it doesn't help. There are diamonds in Kimberly. I want to mine oil in Libya. Oops.

It is right you say "Oops."

Your first argument: The moon's not covered with CHON, it's only at the poles.

Your second argument seems to be: Lunar resources are difficult because they're remote.

Two completely different arguments. The first is utterly worthless.

The second one is a straw man. Of course the distance to moon adds to difficulty. I've never said otherwise.

A sly transition to a strawman doesn't negate the absurdity of the CHON's Only At The Lunar Poles argument.

---------- Post added at 05:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:25 PM ----------

Agreed. No need to go the Constellation program route.

Agreed. No need for an Ares V Mars Direct rocket.

 

[T.Neo]

Just maybe there's a process going on that T.Neo hasn't imagined.

I full well imagine that there's potential for something going on that we don't know about yet, what that phenomenon is, is exactly what puzzles me.

We don't know everything there is to know about the moon. Not by a long shot.

We know less about the sea floor than we do about the Moon. Therefore I advocate abandoning space travel entirely and diverting its funds to exploration of the deep ocean. Getting to the Moon (or anywhere else for that matter) is too difficult, so we just shouldn't try. The scientific secrets of the ocean floor are much more important than anything else, because I say so.

:dry:

Two completely different arguments. The first is utterly worthless.

No, it is not. You almost seem to claim that a certain portion of the Moon is equated to the entire Moon and that simply isn't true.

That said, if you wanted to bother about the Moon, the polar sites would be of most interest.

The second one is a straw man. Of course the distance to moon adds to difficulty. I've never said otherwise.

Wrong. I've never complained about the fact that the Moon is distant, but rather that it is remote. It is a total wilderness without any infrastructure whatsoever.

Of course, distance (dV wise moreso than 'length' wise) would make setting up that infrastructure difficult, but that isn't the major problem. Most of the difficulty is caused by other reasons, including technology development and dealing with the adverse lunar environment.

Agreed. No need for an Ares V Mars Direct rocket.

:facepalm:

How many times do I have to start sounding like an idiot to explain to you that the problems of the Constellation program were not caused by Ares V?

Ares V was heavier than the original "Ares" rocket proposed by Zubrin in his original Mars Direct plan. And heavier than the vehicles proposed for other Mars mission concepts (including pre-CxP DRMs). DRM 5.0 grew dramatically from DRM 3.0.

Of course you don't want to delve into all the issues that the Constellation program had... you just read "Ares! Mars! Zubrin! Bad! Evil! Mars! Bad! Evil! Big rocket! Mars! Evil! Bad!"

Mike Griffin got the idea into his head somewhere along the line that there was somehow a need for an absurdly large launch vehicle. But this is unecessary even for Mars exploration.

 

[Urwumpe]

The problem with Constellation was, that it prescribed solutions before the technical problems had been known.