Mars and Asteroids are a waste of time

[RyanCole]

I agree that the moon is vitally important. I feel that out main goal is colonization of space, and obviously the Moon is a great place to start; however, I agree with nimbus, it is about prestige.

But there is an issue with making the Moon a national priority. If we focus on the Moon, we could easily give up the prestige of being first to an asteroid or Mars. An asteroid can be easier to achieve than the moon, and someone like China or Russia would love to get there first. If we make a big deal about going to the Moon, for a second time, it will just make someone getting to an asteroid or beyond that much more prestigious. I think This type of prestige is important because it makes us look more powerful and more like the side to ally with. I suspect it has been critically important to us keeping our reputation up in the last 40 years.

On the other hand, if we set a national priority to go to an asteroid and beyond, and merely do the Moon at our convenience, perhaps after Russia or China get there, then we gain far more prestige and them much less. It is them arriving 60 years after we got there, and for us just a stop along the way. Been there done that.

I am not sure if that is Obama's idea when he laid out the current plans, but this is indeed why I am content with the destination.

--Ryan

 

[Galacticexplorer]

The Obama administration is a waste of time.A big waste.

 

[kaizen]

asking if any given goal is a waste of time is asking the wrong question. the real question is why bother with such goals in the first place?

I think there is too much focus on prestige goals and being first and trying to do spectacular things, all in a misguided effort to capture the publics attention. if those are your goals, then all you can ever hope to achieve are one off manned missions, not sustainble programs. and because those one off mission require a decade or more of sustained commitment, you wouldn't likely launch the mission. Nasa will never sustain the public's attention enough to send scientists anywhere and, personally, i'm not interested in space because i want to see someone else, or even myself, in the Guinness book of records. i think Apollo is a perfect example of this fact. further, Obama's changes are just another step in a long line of such adjustments leading to nasa becoming a glorified darpa for space. all this happens because the average voter will always ask 'why should we spend billions of dollars so a geologist can tell us from first hand experience that mars used to have water millions of years ago? hell, why even spend millions on robots to learn the same fact?' As long as space is viewed as the realm of abstract science that has zero appreciable impact on the average voter, nasa will always struggle for funding from congress. especially if such research done outside the context of some kind of monetization or permanent settlement plan. the destination just doesn't matter.

this means that it doesn't matter what destination NASA focuses on, anything they do with the pretext for manned flight is a waste of time. the dates get pushed back, the ambition gets scaled back, funds get cut. quite frankly, i'll be surprised if NASA ever does another manned mission anywhere other than the ISS in the next 50 years. a better question is whether nasa would better serve the U.S. as darpa for space. at least then we won't be disappointed when all they ever do is make a better space glove.

i think the immediate future of manned spaceflight, will be the moon and low earth orbit. not because of moon resources or cheap launches or scientific value, but because of tourism. considering what same very rich people are willing to pay to visit low earth orbit, what do you think they would pay to go run around the moon for a week? how much would they pay to own their own pod on the moon, which they could then charter a flight to? how much would you? add to this whatever other industries are willing to spend to try and monetize the moon, and you have the beginning of a full fledge colony. a private company will be the first human organization to set up a permanent human presence on another celestial body, guaranteed, probably with tourism as the primary initial goal. the way i see it, its either private tourism, or we send robots until we build a space elevator or something

of course, all this assumes the western aerospace industry can survive its infancy. if it doesn't.... well, maybe china will be selling tickets

 

[mithridates]

To my mind, the most critical reason for selecting the Moon as the focus of our efforts in space, at least in the near term, has nothing to do with orbital mechanics, resources, or gravity wells. It is a result of the human mind associating more strongly with what it can see than with what it cannot. There is no more visible goal in space than the Moon, no simpler destination to explain to ignorant voters, no closer world with gravity.

I have pointed out the International Space Station to many people, and I can tell that most of them just kind of shrug it off, because all that they see is a point of light in the sky. (Obviously moving, but still just a point of light.) The Moon is a PLACE in their minds, or, at least it has the potential to be a place in their minds. If there were people up there living and working, 24/7, year in, year out, the impact on the consciousness of the average person would be profound, I am convinced. For the first time, they would be aware of somewhere besides the Earth, somewhere else other than HERE.

Nothing will stimulate interest in space exploration like a permanent base on the Moon. We could build cities on Mars, have thousands living on an asteroid, but they will still just be lights in the sky to most people. But the Moon is different, because you can say that someone is stationed near Tycho, or in the Sea of Rains, or at the south pole, (Is that the one on the top?) and people can look and SEE those places. Space will no longer be Star Wars, but the Wild Wild West all over again. "Why, hell, I could go there!" people will think, something which I can assure you most of them have never thought about Mars.

Exactly right. Imagine pulling out your cell and dialing up a person who happens to be on the MOON. Or even just having an online chat with an astronaut stationed there who takes a few hours out of his schedule every week to answer questions.

Two more points to make: 1) the Moon is the only location where other countries besides perhaps Russia and ESA countries can actually help out in manned exploration. India, China and Japan are easily capable of pitching in. So is the private industry. Move the destination to Mars and once again it becomes NASA all alone. 2) The idea of "we've been there before" is silly - nobody under 45 or so even has a clear memory of the Moon landings, so now we've no more been there than Europeans had been to North America thanks to Leif Ericson. It's like saying you've been to Germany before even though it was just 10 days back in 1970 and you've never been able to save up money for another trip across the ocean since.

 

[mithridates]

Consumable use is going to be similar on the Moon or Mars. On the Moon or Mars 18 months of surface operation is going require the same about of food (about 540 kg per person). Of course on Mars you have a longer transit time compared to the Moon, say 10 days for a round trip against 360 days, so 10 kg per person rather than 360 kg. Taken together for the same surface stay a person on the Moon is going to require 190 kg of food as against 900 kg. That is about a factor of 4.5, again not "an order of magnitude". Food of course is going to be a small fraction of overall mission mass, a few percent at most.

The big difference there is that with Mars everything has to be launched in one go (or whenever a launch window opens up), and the surface time will have to be 18 months in order to wait for the opportunity to come back. With the Moon it could be 12 months, or 6, or 7.5. Food could be launched ahead of time by other partners whenever they are ready, not just during the short period of time available every 2.5 years. SpaceX for example is waiting on the launchpad for clearance, and if a Moon mission were in the works a few days' delay wouldn't be a big deal. With Mars though, you miss it once and you have to wait over two years for the chance to try again.

 

[onesmallstep]

The earth is lucky to have a natural re-fueling truck stop in the sky. If there were no moon, it could take much longer, and require much greater long-term cost just to get to the point of routinely making manned flights to other bodies within the solar system. Not using it and taking advantage of its resources is like taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Or, like Lewis and Clark not stopping for supplies in St. Louis on their way to the Pacific.

The moon and its resources may also offer eventual return on investment that would "refuel" the entire world's economy and not just future space enterprises. In fact, the whole question of cost of any future expansion into space in terms of today's economy is ridiculous. It would be like showing someone from the 18th century a picture of modern day Los Angeles and having their first reaction be, "who's going to pay for that?"

Too bad the politicians don't see this...Or maybe they do and don't care. As other posters have suggested, perhaps it was Obama's intent all along to kill the manned space program by substituting this half-baked, shoot-from-the-hip scheme to go to some asteroid, then to Mars. If it doesn't kill it completely, at best it's just a sneaky way of kicking the can down the road to some future administration.

 

[pathfinder_01]

I support asteroid and perhaps phobos as destinations. I do think that a lunar base should precede mars, but asteroids and perhaps phobos can give low cost opportunities to prove long duration technology. The trouble with the moon is that it is too close and it is a bit too easy to do a flags and foot prints here. Asteroids and phobos force you to have the ability to work in space for longer periods of time.

The last program did not approach going to the moon in an affordable sustainable way. If we are unable to do that then perhaps we should stay in LEO and work on our technology. There are lots of near term technologies that could reduce the cost and enhance the abilities of a lunar mission, but sadly the last program decided it was better to relive the 60ies than invest in the 21st century

 

[Eye]

Yes, right now we are waisting time and money - man isn't built to float around in space - but we can build robots that are - right now they are crude, but given time and money, these robots will get better and better and by the time they are great, we'll be advanced enough to simulate gravity, advance propulsion and be able to build ships man can live in comfortably, then we can roam the stars, and take our robot friends with us.

 

[dRAGEnD]

Technology is driven by either fear or money. Since there are no foreseeable plans for WW3 we need to find ways of making the aerospace industry more commercially viable. NASA and other governmental space agencies should focus on pushing the boundaries, while the commercial sector should follow in their wake. This is the path most technologies have walked in the past and it is the reason why our influence in space will not extend further than space probes and robots/rovers (excluding LEO). The commercial sector is still stuck on earth! Look at electronics and avionics: The initial breakthrough was done by the government for military or scientific purposes. Now, it's mainly driven by the commercial market.
Therefore i believe it would be smarter for NASA to try and focus on the moon first. Why? Because it has the biggest commercial potential when compared to an asteroid or mars. I can see commercial mining companies on the moon, supplying commercial satellite manufactures which in turn build satellites for commercial companies. I can see tourism, property development etc. To do this, you would need to establish an infrastructure on the moon and it's up to NASA to show everyone it is possible. If companies see a way to make money they will help invest in the aerospace industry and we NEED their investment. But at the moment, NASA (and other space agencies) is fighting a lone battle and it will remain that way for while.

 

[Lancelot_64]

I agree.

By the way, I am going to go on a limb and say its going to be Mr. Bigelow that will have a Moon base first before anybody else.

Yep, color me crazy.

I hope that is a strong limb because im right behind you!
Also, I envy Bigelow's luck or wisdom in choosing to buy this 'ignored' technology from Nasa as it has the potential to be the basis for all of our ships and all habitation modules in the near future. He may be the next Microsoft of space travel lol..

Personally, I wish Bigelow would take the lead in putting rotating sections in space to mature artificial gravity science. Why has Nasa and others ignored such a simple and critical piece of the space survivability puzzle?
Anyway, I am getting off thread : )

 

[ndelange74]

DarkenedOne, you're definitely onto something here.

In order to construct a spaceship completely from the keel out on the Moon, you would need an industrial complex with literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of workers - not only those working on a spaceship, but also for support services such as mining, refining, aerospace control, maintenance, food production, medical services, educational, police, clerical and many more. Since it does not exist as yet, we'd have to transport all the people, facilities and machinery from Earth to the Moon in any case.

This would allow us to establish our first off-world settlement, which is something I'm firmly in favour of. But please, do not ignore or discount the incredible potential of Mars or the asteroid belt (or for that matter, Europa, Io, Titan or any of the other Jovan and Saturnine moons). Eventually, we will have to explore and settle Mars, at the very least. And Mars is much closer to the asteroid belt and Jupiter's helium-rich atmosphere than the Earth-Moon system - and when, eventually, we send out generation ships to other star systems, we'll need the asteroids to build the kind of ship that would be required. And that, in turn, would require a mature and fully developed industrial complex close to the asteroid belt.

 

[deagleninja]

The REAL waste of time is trying to educate the masses and having your posts deleted because your views don't recycle the same tired talking points millions of people have been making since we left the Moon.

If you want honest, serious replies to your post great!
If you want only people who agree with your thinking to respond then say so.
That way MY time isn't wasted.

 

[zwheel]

I don't think materials prospecting is the best goal for the moment. It's still too expensive to bring those materials back to Earth. I'd like to see a base on the far side of the moon. It's communication w/ Earth would be via a network of lunar satellites which would be strictly limited in frequency range. With the moon to block out signals from Earth this would be the only man-made interference. That would be the main point of the base, besides developing abilities for future colonization. I see two big telescopes being built there, one radio and one optical. Who needs Hubble/James Webb if you can place a terrestrial sized scope on the lunar surface where there is virtually no atmosphere?

Benefit Phobos would have for this purpose... zero. As for Mars, it would certainly be part of the long term picture but I don't think it should be the priority any time soon. Mars is exciting for it's Earth like qualities but these are exactly why it should come later. It's more Earth like because it has an atmosphere but it isn't like we can breath it. It can however create huge dust storm problems! The important differences between Mars and the Moon for now are Mars is farther away, Mars has a bigger gravity well and Mars has potentially dangerous weather. Sure, Mars and/or it's moons are probably the next logical choice after multiple permanent settlements are well established on our own moon. Mars is also the best bet if we ever achieve the capability of transforming a planet. I think transforming is so far out that if it happens at all I doubt our descendants will even be Homo Sapien Sapien by then.

I would like to see Apollo style visits to Mars occur in my lifetime... after permanent settlements are established on the moon. I think expecting settlement there in the near future is asking too much. The current plan just sounds like Apollo style, make some prints and leave all over the place, this asteroid, that one, this planet, that planet a moon or two until the money runs out. That seems pointless. It will make for a nice rock collection followed by yet another 50 years of nothing.

I'm not opposed to the asteroid visit. If doing so really does stand a good chance of helping us learn something we can use to deflect them. I'm kind of doubtful of that though. It sounds more like a plot from a bad movie. I suspect we could learn what we need to know about asteroids with a robot and the rest will happen in some brilliant mathematician's head back on Earth anyway. I think it is a distraction from setting up an actual colony somewhere. I think that is the most important goal and it will be plenty hard enough to achieve this at the moon. We don't need the extra challenge of going so far as Mars.

Oh, and I think those who say Biggelow will have a lunar base soon, I think your right. It will be built but as things are going it will probably remain packed away in some warehouse awaiting rockets that never get built or at least waiting for the price to come down. Or maybe the money will run out just in building the thing and a museum will get it. I doubt it will ever actually come to rest on the moon. Then even if it does I doubt there will be any money left to fly the tourists to it. It will be empty. Sorry...

 

[kousha84]

your point about Moon being a good initial step is right, moon is a good place to colonise. but i dont understand how you could bring arguments of spaceflight, mars,astroid and ISS with this...

regardless of the planet you want to go to, you will need to escape earth's gravity, even for moon! infact going to moon means you need to spend even more energy as moons orbital velocity requires the spacecraft to reduce its speed AFTER it has escaped earth gravity. let me tell you the difference more clearly:


you will need about 16km/s Delta-V budget to go from earth to moon's orbit. (if you want to go from moon to mars you will need another 3-4km/s Delta-V budget!)

you will only need about 11.5km/s Delta-V budget to go straight from earth to Mars' orbit.

so which one do you think is cheaper?


maybe if we had a manufacturing plant to make the rockets and fuel and supplies in moon, then yes it would be more beneficial. but this is too costly and at the moment it is not feasible in technological term.

 

[ndelange74]

I don't think materials prospecting is the best goal for the moment. It's still too expensive to bring those materials back to Earth. I'd like to see a base on the far side of the moon. It's communication w/ Earth would be via a network of lunar satellites which would be strictly limited in frequency range. With the moon to block out signals from Earth this would be the only man-made interference. That would be the main point of the base, besides developing abilities for future colonization. I see two big telescopes being built there, one radio and one optical. Who needs Hubble/James Webb if you can place a terrestrial sized scope on the lunar surface where there is virtually no atmosphere?

The most valuable commodities we can produce are scientific/technological information & actual technology. If we consider the inevitable need for humans to settle other worlds, if we're to survive as a species, as well as the fact that technology is becoming cheaper to USE as time moves on, then I believe that new human colonies on other worlds (Luna, Mars etc) will eventually be able to trade both information and actual technology with Earth, which would make interplanetary trade viable in the long run (give a colony a century or so to grow large enough and mature enough in terms of survival, to start concentrating on research and development).

 

[Jason99403]

Fact is that getting into space is expensive. It costs about $10,000 per kg in order to get into LEO.

[...]

...the laws of orbital mechanics benefit launching from the moon for all destinations in space. Assuming aerobraking is utilized it takes 17.5 times less energy and 1/6 the trust for a spacecraft to travel from the lunar surface to LEO than it does to go from Earth's surface.

NASA puts the cost of a shuttle mission at around $450 million.

Using the maximum payload of 25,060 kg would suggest a cost of $18,000/kg, but adding the weight of the orbiter (78018 kg) would give a cost of about $4,400/kg. I imagine a satellite launch would still have significant non-payload weight (vehicle + casing), but much less than the Shuttle (because it doesn't require crew facilities or re-entry).

So your figure of $10,000/kg sounds about right.

However...

The number is meaningless for comparison to hypothetical launch systems, whether they're based on new technology paradigms or a smaller gravity well.

The Space Shuttle uses about 740,000 kg of fuel (as best as I could calculate-- someone please correct me if I'm wrong) to launch 103,000 kg (orbiter + payoad) into LEO. The fuel cost is no more than $5/kg (again, as best as I could calculate; that was the bulk price for ammonium perchlorate, which had a signficant proportion of weight; liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen were both cheaper). Crunching some more numbers, that's 7.2 kg ($36) of fuel per kg. (By comparison, if a 70kg person purchased gas at $3/gallon for a car which got 25mpg, then for a cost of $36/kg he could travel ~21,000 miles, slightly less than once around the world. The shuttle gets better mileage than your car!)

That shuttle mission with a 25,060 kg payload cost $450 million. Reducing the payload to only 1kg would reduce the launch fuel by ~180,000 kg, reducing the total mission cost to about $449 million. Not much savings, is it?

To summarize: Average payload cost times total payload does not equal total launch cost.

Spaceship launches are expensive because the engineers and scientists who operate them are expensive. They require vehicles, equipment, support facilities, and an entire design lineage that are created by other expensive engineers and scientists. Launching from the moon will not change that.

We know now that the Moon has all types of useful resources. It has water for both drinking, growing plants, and making fuel. It has oxygen for human consumption and fuel. It has iron, aluminium, and titanium for building and spacecraft. It even has silicon for electronics. There is also evidence that it has carbon, however we have yet to figure out how much. With all of these resources a moon base can potentially be sulf-sustaining and thus even cheaper to maintain then the ISS. Gathering and using these resources would lower the cost of not just Moon operations, but all operations in space.

I think this underestimates the massive industrial foundation required to produce a functioning piece of technology.

Imagine that NASA has leased 10,000 (completely undeveloped) square miles of Kenya, hoping to take advantage of the favorable equatorial launch conditions. Then they are tasked with creating a production facility for spaceships, fuel, and human consumables. Furthermore, that production process must-- eventually-- use almost no products or resources from the outside.

What would that take? Let's assume they're not allowed more than 100 workers at a time (which would be comparable to having 100 austronauts continuously on the moon during the developmental stage) and they are given 30 years.


Raw ore extraction will require dozens of mines, hundreds of vehicles, storage facilities, and a tremendous outlay in motive power (energy).

Then they'll need more machines (and more of everything else) for smelting, alloy production, and casting. All of this needs to be supported by a substantial chemical industry (browse http://www.ashburnchemical.com/ to get an idea of how many different chemicals are involved in metal production).

And that's just for metal. A similar magnitude of equipment will be needed for their electrical/conductive materials, optical materials, structural materials, hydraulics, pneumatics, polymers, insulators, coolants, lubricants, ceramics, textiles, etc.

And that's just the first few generations of the production process. More machines & tools will be needed to turn those materials into components, and another generation to turn components into parts, and another generation to turn parts into products.

All of those machines will need maintenance, repair, and periodic replacement. And if they hope to adapt to changing technologies and refined processes, they'll need the capability to create entirely new machines. (Have you ever read Nobody knows how to make a pencil?).


One hundred people is not sufficient to operate all of that, let alone build it in 30 years with a minimal supply chain from back home. NASA would have to ship over, not tons of equipment, but millions of tons of equipment.

The ability to build spaceships relies on the fact that nearly all of the raw materials, extracted materials, and refined materials, as well as most of the components, many of the parts, and a few of the products are already being produced by some of the 6 billion people on Earth. A spaceship operates in a vacuum, but it isn't built in one.



I don't disagree that the moon would be the best location to colonize (for proximity and size, if nothing else), but that's a vision for the next few centuries. Over the next few decades, it has no value as a production facility for supporting other space missions. Even if the moon's surface were as lush, wet, and life-bearing as that of the Earth, it would not be cost-effective to build an industrial foundation. At best, we might hope to produce a useful propellant there; and for that purpose, we shouldn't ignore asteroids or comets which might have superior resources (and can be nudged into earth orbit for extraction purposes).


The scenario you describe might be possible with the advent of new technologies, but unless we're talking about highly-advanced robots and generic self-replicating machines, then we'd need thousands of new technologies and processes. By contrast, we could get the same improvement in cost-to-payload ratio from Earth-based launches with just a handful of new techs. The biggest need is cheap energy, but unlike energy needed for the moon, it can flow from large, stationary power plants. With that in place, the field is open to developing beamed-energy flight power, magnetic launch ramps, or whatever else some genius happens to think up.


Cheers,
Jason

 

[DarkenedOne]

your point about Moon being a good initial step is right, moon is a good place to colonise. but i dont understand how you could bring arguments of spaceflight, mars,astroid and ISS with this...

regardless of the planet you want to go to, you will need to escape earth's gravity, even for moon! infact going to moon means you need to spend even more energy as moons orbital velocity requires the spacecraft to reduce its speed AFTER it has escaped earth gravity. let me tell you the difference more clearly:


you will need about 16km/s Delta-V budget to go from earth to moon's orbit. (if you want to go from moon to mars you will need another 3-4km/s Delta-V budget!)

you will only need about 11.5km/s Delta-V budget to go straight from earth to Mars' orbit.

so which one do you think is cheaper?


maybe if we had a manufacturing plant to make the rockets and fuel and supplies in moon, then yes it would be more beneficial. but this is too costly and at the moment it is not feasible in technological term.

What is so not technologically feasible or costly about getting fuel and water from the ice we know is there. Honestly what is so technologically challenging about landing there, melting the ice, and performing electrolysis to separate the ice into usable fuel?

 

[pathfinder_01]

your point about Moon being a good initial step is right, moon is a good place to colonise. but i dont understand how you could bring arguments of spaceflight, mars,astroid and ISS with this...

regardless of the planet you want to go to, you will need to escape earth's gravity, even for moon! infact going to moon means you need to spend even more energy as moons orbital velocity requires the spacecraft to reduce its speed AFTER it has escaped earth gravity. let me tell you the difference more clearly:


you will need about 16km/s Delta-V budget to go from earth to moon's orbit. (if you want to go from moon to mars you will need another 3-4km/s Delta-V budget!)

you will only need about 11.5km/s Delta-V budget to go straight from earth to Mars' orbit.

so which one do you think is cheaper?


maybe if we had a manufacturing plant to make the rockets and fuel and supplies in moon, then yes it would be more beneficial. but this is too costly and at the moment it is not feasible in technological term.

What is so not technologically feasible or costly about getting fuel and water from the ice we know is there. Honestly what is so technologically challenging about landing there, melting the ice, and performing electrolysis to separate the ice into usable fuel?

Actually there are several. Long term storage of liquid hydrogen is a problem. At the moment it is unknown what else in in the ice(contaminates). The ice is at the bottom of craters that don't get direct sunlight(light issues and transportation issues to getting the equipment in). Rocket launches are expensive and the amount of mass a rocket can land depends on many factors. I have seen figures that current ELLV can only land about 5-10 tons on the moon at the moment.

The best way to extract the ice is unknown. Ice gets harder the colder the temperature so cutting it might not be a good method, but if you heat it the ice will simply sublimate away(water can not be liquid on the moon). We need a bit more on the scene data to design equipment. Finally if you are making propellant you need methods to determine if the bacth of propellant is good, last thing you want to do is fill up a lunar lander with bad gas.

Also it could be very helpful if the elements nitrogen or carbon are found nearby. Both for life support and because you could create more easily storable propellants by combining hydrogen with them. At the moment the poles of the moon are a good place to start, but give the fact that you would need tons of propellant to get to lunar orbit making propellant might not be the first thing a lunar base or robotic ISRU mission does. I think propellant will be made on the moon, but life support will come first due to the lower power requirments.

 

[Booban]

Excellent posts Jason and Pathfinder, thank you.

 

[kelvinzero]

What is so not technologically feasible or costly about getting fuel and water from the ice we know is there. Honestly what is so technologically challenging about landing there, melting the ice, and performing electrolysis to separate the ice into usable fuel?

One step at a time. Lets agree we should get back the ability to just land something there!

And this time, make it sustainable. Even if we can only manage a few hundred kg every year, it should be something we are willing to just keep doing. We will never run out of useful things to do with it. Even after we have looked into every crater and lava cave and done every other possible exploration, then we can start sending ISRU experiments to extract water, oxygen, print solar panels onto the regolith and so on. We could even start charging to print messages into the regolith where they will last for ever. The point is that as long as we maintain the ability to just land something, we will keep finding more people clamouring to exploit it.

 

[DarkenedOne]

Fact is that getting into space is expensive. It costs about $10,000 per kg in order to get into LEO.

[...]

...the laws of orbital mechanics benefit launching from the moon for all destinations in space. Assuming aerobraking is utilized it takes 17.5 times less energy and 1/6 the trust for a spacecraft to travel from the lunar surface to LEO than it does to go from Earth's surface.

NASA puts the cost of a shuttle mission at around $450 million.

Using the maximum payload of 25,060 kg would suggest a cost of $18,000/kg, but adding the weight of the orbiter (78018 kg) would give a cost of about $4,400/kg. I imagine a satellite launch would still have significant non-payload weight (vehicle + casing), but much less than the Shuttle (because it doesn't require crew facilities or re-entry).

So your figure of $10,000/kg sounds about right.

However...

The number is meaningless for comparison to hypothetical launch systems, whether they're based on new technology paradigms or a smaller gravity well.

The Space Shuttle uses about 740,000 kg of fuel (as best as I could calculate-- someone please correct me if I'm wrong) to launch 103,000 kg (orbiter + payoad) into LEO. The fuel cost is no more than $5/kg (again, as best as I could calculate; that was the bulk price for ammonium perchlorate, which had a signficant proportion of weight; liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen were both cheaper). Crunching some more numbers, that's 7.2 kg ($36) of fuel per kg. (By comparison, if a 70kg person purchased gas at $3/gallon for a car which got 25mpg, then for a cost of $36/kg he could travel ~21,000 miles, slightly less than once around the world. The shuttle gets better mileage than your car!)

That shuttle mission with a 25,060 kg payload cost $450 million. Reducing the payload to only 1kg would reduce the launch fuel by ~180,000 kg, reducing the total mission cost to about $449 million. Not much savings, is it?

To summarize: Average payload cost times total payload does not equal total launch cost.

Spaceship launches are expensive because the engineers and scientists who operate them are expensive. They require vehicles, equipment, support facilities, and an entire design lineage that are created by other expensive engineers and scientists. Launching from the moon will not change that.

It is true that the highly technical labor is expensive, but then again so is the airline industry. So why is access to space so expensive?

The reason is that airplanes are fully reusable single-stage craft. Thus even though each airplane itself is a incredibly advanced and complex machine it is able to be used thousands of times. For example even though the 747 jets cost $260 million, but are still able to take you around the world for a few thousand.

Spacecraft on there other hand are launched most efficiently by large, multistage, expendable rockets. Clearly launching this way is incredibly wasteful as the expensive rockets are thrown away after every use.

So why don't we make launch vehicles single stage and reusable like aircraft. The reason is that it takes far to much energy and thrust to make it to orbit than any single stage reusable craft using chemical propulsion could produce. You can see this in the rocket equation. Even if you were to use the chemical rocket with the highest impulse of around 450 sec in order to get up to the delta-v of around 9.3 needed to attain orbit you would need a craft that was no less than about 90% fuel. By comparison a typical jet is around 50% fuel.

That is why space access cost so much. It is because expendable, multistage rockets is the only way we know how to get into space.

Launching off the moon as I said before is considerably less energy or power. Lets use the rocket equation again. With an impulse of 450 sec in order to get to achieve the 1.6 km/s in order to get into low lunar orbit you would only need 30% of your craft to be fuel. This fact allows launch vehicles to be just like airplanes. Hell with a escape velocity that small you could launch things into orbit with a cannon.

So yes with single-stage reusable spacecraft it would not be as expensive as expendable launchers.

We know now that the Moon has all types of useful resources. It has water for both drinking, growing plants, and making fuel. It has oxygen for human consumption and fuel. It has iron, aluminium, and titanium for building and spacecraft. It even has silicon for electronics. There is also evidence that it has carbon, however we have yet to figure out how much. With all of these resources a moon base can potentially be sulf-sustaining and thus even cheaper to maintain then the ISS. Gathering and using these resources would lower the cost of not just Moon operations, but all operations in space.

I think this underestimates the massive industrial foundation required to produce a functioning piece of technology.

Imagine that NASA has leased 10,000 (completely undeveloped) square miles of Kenya, hoping to take advantage of the favorable equatorial launch conditions. Then they are tasked with creating a production facility for spaceships, fuel, and human consumables. Furthermore, that production process must-- eventually-- use almost no products or resources from the outside.

What would that take? Let's assume they're not allowed more than 100 workers at a time (which would be comparable to having 100 austronauts continuously on the moon during the developmental stage) and they are given 30 years.


Raw ore extraction will require dozens of mines, hundreds of vehicles, storage facilities, and a tremendous outlay in motive power (energy).

Then they'll need more machines (and more of everything else) for smelting, alloy production, and casting. All of this needs to be supported by a substantial chemical industry (browse http://www.ashburnchemical.com/ to get an idea of how many different chemicals are involved in metal production).

And that's just for metal. A similar magnitude of equipment will be needed for their electrical/conductive materials, optical materials, structural materials, hydraulics, pneumatics, polymers, insulators, coolants, lubricants, ceramics, textiles, etc.

And that's just the first few generations of the production process. More machines & tools will be needed to turn those materials into components, and another generation to turn components into parts, and another generation to turn parts into products.

All of those machines will need maintenance, repair, and periodic replacement. And if they hope to adapt to changing technologies and refined processes, they'll need the capability to create entirely new machines. (Have you ever read Nobody knows how to make a pencil?).


One hundred people is not sufficient to operate all of that, let alone build it in 30 years with a minimal supply chain from back home. NASA would have to ship over, not tons of equipment, but millions of tons of equipment.

The ability to build spaceships relies on the fact that nearly all of the raw materials, extracted materials, and refined materials, as well as most of the components, many of the parts, and a few of the products are already being produced by some of the 6 billion people on Earth. A spaceship operates in a vacuum, but it isn't built in one.



I don't disagree that the moon would be the best location to colonize (for proximity and size, if nothing else), but that's a vision for the next few centuries. Over the next few decades, it has no value as a production facility for supporting other space missions. Even if the moon's surface were as lush, wet, and life-bearing as that of the Earth, it would not be cost-effective to build an industrial foundation. At best, we might hope to produce a useful propellant there; and for that purpose, we shouldn't ignore asteroids or comets which might have superior resources (and can be nudged into earth orbit for extraction purposes).


The scenario you describe might be possible with the advent of new technologies, but unless we're talking about highly-advanced robots and generic self-replicating machines, then we'd need thousands of new technologies and processes. By contrast, we could get the same improvement in cost-to-payload ratio from Earth-based launches with just a handful of new techs. The biggest need is cheap energy, but unlike energy needed for the moon, it can flow from large, stationary power plants. With that in place, the field is open to developing beamed-energy flight power, magnetic launch ramps, or whatever else some genius happens to think up.

First of all what you must understand is that I, as well as many of the supports of that destination, do not advocate that the such a moon base should be made completely self-sustaining.

Instead you would start with water, which is simple to mine and process from the frozen lakes of the Moon. This water would provide water for people, oxygen for people, and fuel for hydrogen rockets.

 

[kousha84]

your point about Moon being a good initial step is right, moon is a good place to colonise. but i dont understand how you could bring arguments of spaceflight, mars,astroid and ISS with this...

regardless of the planet you want to go to, you will need to escape earth's gravity, even for moon! infact going to moon means you need to spend even more energy as moons orbital velocity requires the spacecraft to reduce its speed AFTER it has escaped earth gravity. let me tell you the difference more clearly:


you will need about 16km/s Delta-V budget to go from earth to moon's orbit. (if you want to go from moon to mars you will need another 3-4km/s Delta-V budget!)

you will only need about 11.5km/s Delta-V budget to go straight from earth to Mars' orbit.

so which one do you think is cheaper?


maybe if we had a manufacturing plant to make the rockets and fuel and supplies in moon, then yes it would be more beneficial. but this is too costly and at the moment it is not feasible in technological term.

What is so not technologically feasible or costly about getting fuel and water from the ice we know is there. Honestly what is so technologically challenging about landing there, melting the ice, and performing electrolysis to separate the ice into usable fuel?

Im not talking about fuel, because it doesnt much matter as we can get the fuel from earth! im talking about the spacecraft and astronauts going there!

Think of Delta-V budget as the money you need to spend for energy to reach specific destination in space. if any astranaut or spacecraft want to go to moon it needs to spend 16km/s Delta-V budget from earth, do you agree with this? so this doesnt make any difference if it refuels in moon because you still have to spend 16km/s Delta-V budget for it if you want to go to the moon! now if you want to refuel in moon and send the same spacecraft to mars or asteroids you will need to spend another 4km/s Delta-V budget so in total you need 20km/s Delta-V budget to go from earth to mars via moon. but it will only take you 12 kms/s Delta-V budget to go straight from earth to mars! so which one do you think is cheaper?! in fact fuel made in moon is gonna be more expensive than in earth so the price of launch is much higher than double that amount!!.. regardless of what you do, you have to spend money on two things: Rocket & spacecraft + Fuel. since we use the same spacecraft to refuel in moon the cost of rocket doesnt change, but fuel in here is more doubled! so this way of launch is much more expensive than straight from earth travel.


unless of course we use a smaller rocket from earth to send astranauts to moon while a bigger "moon made" rocket & spacecraft is waiting for them to take them from moon to mars and beyond, then yes it will be cheaper IF making rocket & spacecraft in moon is same price as making them on earth! ... anyway these are just cost terms, i still havent talked about complexity of doing it this way! imagine making a rocket factory in moon! )

 

[kousha84]

your point about Moon being a good initial step is right, moon is a good place to colonise. but i dont understand how you could bring arguments of spaceflight, mars,astroid and ISS with this...

regardless of the planet you want to go to, you will need to escape earth's gravity, even for moon! infact going to moon means you need to spend even more energy as moons orbital velocity requires the spacecraft to reduce its speed AFTER it has escaped earth gravity. let me tell you the difference more clearly:


you will need about 16km/s Delta-V budget to go from earth to moon's orbit. (if you want to go from moon to mars you will need another 3-4km/s Delta-V budget!)

you will only need about 11.5km/s Delta-V budget to go straight from earth to Mars' orbit.

so which one do you think is cheaper?


maybe if we had a manufacturing plant to make the rockets and fuel and supplies in moon, then yes it would be more beneficial. but this is too costly and at the moment it is not feasible in technological term.

What is so not technologically feasible or costly about getting fuel and water from the ice we know is there. Honestly what is so technologically challenging about landing there, melting the ice, and performing electrolysis to separate the ice into usable fuel?

Actually there are several. Long term storage of liquid hydrogen is a problem. At the moment it is unknown what else in in the ice(contaminates). The ice is at the bottom of craters that don't get direct sunlight(light issues and transportation issues to getting the equipment in). Rocket launches are expensive and the amount of mass a rocket can land depends on many factors. I have seen figures that current ELLV can only land about 5-10 tons on the moon at the moment.

The best way to extract the ice is unknown. Ice gets harder the colder the temperature so cutting it might not be a good method, but if you heat it the ice will simply sublimate away(water can not be liquid on the moon). We need a bit more on the scene data to design equipment. Finally if you are making propellant you need methods to determine if the bacth of propellant is good, last thing you want to do is fill up a lunar lander with bad gas.

Also it could be very helpful if the elements nitrogen or carbon are found nearby. Both for life support and because you could create more easily storable propellants by combining hydrogen with them. At the moment the poles of the moon are a good place to start, but give the fact that you would need tons of propellant to get to lunar orbit making propellant might not be the first thing a lunar base or robotic ISRU mission does. I think propellant will be made on the moon, but life support will come first due to the lower power requirments.

man what you say is true, but look at more common sense answer to it:





Im not talking about fuel, because it doesnt much matter as we can get the fuel from earth! im talking about the spacecraft and astronauts going there!

Think of Delta-V budget as the money you need to spend for energy to reach specific destination in space. if any astranaut or spacecraft want to go to moon it needs to spend 16km/s Delta-V budget from earth, do you agree with this? so this doesnt make any difference if it refuels in moon because you still have to spend 16km/s Delta-V budget for it if you want to go to the moon! now if you want to refuel in moon and send the same spacecraft to mars or asteroids you will need to spend another 4km/s Delta-V budget so in total you need 20km/s Delta-V budget to go from earth to mars via moon. but it will only take you 12 kms/s Delta-V budget to go straight from earth to mars! so which one do you think is cheaper?! in fact fuel made in moon is gonna be more expensive than in earth so the price of launch is much higher than double that amount!!.. regardless of what you do, you have to spend money on two things: Rocket & spacecraft + Fuel. since we use the same spacecraft to refuel in moon the cost of rocket doesnt change, but fuel in here is more doubled! so this way of launch is much more expensive than straight from earth travel.


unless of course we use a smaller rocket from earth to send astranauts to moon while a bigger "moon made" rocket & spacecraft is waiting for them to take them from moon to mars and beyond, then yes it will be cheaper IF making rocket & spacecraft in moon is same price as making them on earth! ... anyway these are just cost terms, i still havent talked about complexity of doing it this way! imagine making a rocket factory in moon! )

 

[Jason99403]

It is true that the highly technical labor is expensive, but then again so is the airline industry. So why is access to space so expensive?
[...]
So why don't we make launch vehicles single stage and reusable like aircraft. The reason is that it takes far to much energy and thrust to make it to orbit than any single stage reusable craft using chemical propulsion could produce.

Agreeing with your overall point, and I underestimated the savings of small-well launching, but exploring some details for edification...



First, why are spaceship launches so much pricier than airplane flights, even disregarding fuel costs and disposable hardware?

* Gravity-drag -- Not only do you have to spend delta-V to increase altitude/velocity, you have to spend delta-V to bear the weight of the vessel (airplanes are supported "for free" by the atmosphere). The longer you take to reach orbit, the more load-bearing delta-V you spend. The need for fast acceleration has to be met with much more powerful engine designs (which require more maintenance and development costs and have less error tolerance).

If the Earth had one-sixth its gravity (with, magically, its normal atmosphere) this would still make orbital flight more expensive than atmospheric flight, even disregarding fuel costs.

* Acceleration tolerance -- With greater acceleration you need stronger load-bearing structures (again, this is not just a matter of weight, but the costs associated with building & maintaining a more advanced design with less error tolerance). You also need a pretty sturdy launch platform (which itself requires more maintenance).

If launching from the moon, the concern for gravity drag (and hence the need for rapid acceleration) is reduced. But it's still there, and larger payload launches are likely to need stronger load-bearing structures than would be present on an airplane (and, obviously, they can't ride up on the moon's atmosphere).

* Pressure (vacuum) tolerance -- Airplanes only need to be pressure-rated to a certain height, and are error-tolerant even with passengers. A launch vehicle, even unmanned, has to operate in very thin atmosphere, and any part that makes it to space (everything if it's entirely reusable) has to work in a vacuum. Again, this requires high-performance technology.

* Guidance demands -- A fixed-wing passenger plane is, to a certain degree, self-stabilizing. An upward bound rocket is not, and thus requires more sophisticated navigational hardware (and monitoring). Furthermore, anything which goes into Earth orbit has to be guided away from 30,000 potentially violent collisions (requiring more personnel and equipment on the ground). Airplanes need traffic controllers too, but they move much slower, and-- more importantly-- every airplane is taking directions from ground control, whereas space junk tends to ignore orders to change its course.

* Atmospheric tolerance -- An airplane that goes 500 mph needs to withstand wind speeds of ~600 mph (allowing for a gust of headwind). A vehicle going into orbit has to take much more; and if it's reusable, it has to take it again when landing.

This is one reason I underestimated the savings of moon launches. Obviously, there's no atmosphere, and no need for those carefully-monitored ceramic tiles. But on the down side, a reusable vehicle launched from the moon will have to carry all the fuel it needs to slow down and descend; it can't get free deceleration from atmospheric drag.

* Amortization of development cost -- There are ~10,000 satellites in orbit, plus ~20,000 pieces of junk. So I'm going to estimate ~50,000 orbital launches in all of human history. By contrast, there are some 18 million commercial airplane flights each year, leading me to an historical estimate of about 10,000 airplane flights to every one orbital launch.



Second, A single-stage, completely reusable craft is feasible. Note that the STS re-uses the most expensive piece of hardware (the orbiter), as well as both SRBs. But most of NASA's non-shuttle launches, and all commercial rocket launches use expendable hardware because it's actually cheaper. So how do they differ from airplanes, which are clearly a better bargain when reused?

* Because of gravity drag, it's profitable to jettison anything you don't need as soon as you don't need it. If you wanted to reuse it, then, you'd have to haul it back and put it back together (which also necessitates making nice, clean screws instead of exploding bolts-- more construction cost).

* You have to load up on reentry armour to make anything reusable. I think this is the biggest reason that unmanned launch vehicles are disposable. They want to avoid the direct expense (buying and sticking on the armour) as well as the weight cost.

* The combined violence of high-speed atmospheric forces and rapid acceleration requires stronger material (and/or more refit time) if the craft is to be reused. A rocket which is scrapped after one launch can be made more cheaply.

* Because of low demand rates, the specter of technological obsolescence reduces the potential return on any reusable system. If a new airplane is expected to go obsolete in five years, it can still provide thousands of flights. But the Atlas III rocket, to use a demonstrative example, was used only six times between its maiden voyage in 2000 and its retirement in 2005.



So to sum up: A lunar-launched vehicle would eliminate nearly all of the reuse problems, would not require atmospheric tolerance, and could operate with much less fuel. Considering those factors, it would be significantly cheaper than an Earth-launched vehicle.

It would still require sophisticated navigation and vacuum-operational systems, making it more expensive than an airplane, but not astronomically so. The lack of atmospheric braking is a wild card, which could drive up the cost significantly depending on how its used.

The biggest factor in the short term would be development and design, which would make its initial cost many times more than that of an airplane.

First of all what you must understand is that I, as well as many of the supports of that destination, do not advocate that the such a moon base should be made completely self-sustaining.

Instead you would start with water, which is simple to mine and process from the frozen lakes of the Moon. This water would provide water for people, oxygen for people, and fuel for hydrogen rockets.

I probably agree with you, but I think it depends on what we're considering as the long-term goal. I can certainly get behind the idea of mining lunawater to support lunabases, but that's assuming that lunar exploration and living is a worthwhile goal in itself.

I'm still not sold on taking advantage of the lower gravity as a means to provide launchable resources for missions further into space. It's not exactly a question of whether or not its self-sustaining, but whether or not the resources produced outweigh the resources expended (which we'll have to keep expending, in great degree if the base is not at least partially self-sustaining).


Consider this: The Constellation program is estimated to cost $230 billion (in 2004 dollars) through 2025. The mission plan includes about 10 ISS rotation flights (which would only be ~$10 billion at shuttle prices), but the big-ticket item is a lunar base that's expected to be finished by 2024. That base includes a currently-hypothetical In-situ resource utilization, but this is not an industrial-sized device, it doesn't include deep-shaft mining capability, and there is no launch pad or delivery system to carry extracted resources into lunar orbit for rendezvous.

So assuming everything goes perfectly, that $230 billion gets them a regular supply of drinking water. How much more do you think it would cost to send up enough hardware (and do enough engineering) to turn that concept into a fuel-supplying station for outbound craft from Earth? They'll need more (and/or bigger) ISRU machines, a certain amount of mobility, a means to turn water into fuel (electrolysis is only part of the process), a launch pad & ship (to make the fuel available without requiring a Mars-bound ship to land on the moon), plenty of storage tanks, regular crew rotation, and either (a)a continuos supply of food & energy, or (b)the necessary infrastructure to provide those themselves.

Let's be generous and assume they get all of that for a mere $70 billion. Let's say, unrealistically perhaps, that $300 billion provides a steady supply of ready-to-burn rocket fuel that can be parked in lunar orbit for refueling.


Now the alternative. Our current payload cost for LEO is ~$10,000/kg. If you started doing thousands of launches per year, I bet that cost would go down. Furthermore, if you were building up a supply of hydrogen & oxygen fuel in orbit, you could tolerate lots of risk for even more savings (the tanks are all identical, therefore interchangeable, and there is no environmental impact from spreading oxygen & hydrogen). But let's be conservative and say the cost stays the same.

At that rate, for the same $300 billion, we could put 30,000 metric tons of fuel into orbit for use by outgoing spacecraft.

Which means that's our break-even point. But the problem is, even if the lunar base can produce 30,000 metric tons of fuel, it's not worthwhile (as justified solely by resources provided to outbound spacecraft) unless we can also use that much. Three hundred tons of fuel should be enough for a Mars mission, considering its already in orbit. Can we afford to develop, build, and launch into lunar orbit one hundred such missions?

Eventually, perhaps, but now we're on the scale of a century again (instead of just a decade), and chances are good that before we get that far, a better solution to launch costs will arise. We could have a robot working on the martian polar ice cap (same principle, true, but with a much more definite source); we could nudge a comet into Earth orbit for easy mining; or, my personal favorite, maglev ramp launches. Maglev rails are a fully-proven, operational technology, and require only some engineering to be applied to orbital launches. Even better, the investment can be scaled to predicted frequency of use. For a dozen launches a year, it's not worthwhile to build; for several hundred launches a year, a track of several miles can be profitable; for ten thousand launches a year, a track could be hundreds of miles long and extend to high altitude.

And finally, an investment in improved Earth-based launches gives us something that no lunar system can: The ability to put things into Earth orbit, which is where the vast majority of useful satellites go, and where the first generation of space tourists will likely be content to visit.


Cheerio,
Jason

 

[scottb50]

It is true that the highly technical labor is expensive, but then again so is the airline industry. So why is access to space so expensive?
[...]
So why don't we make launch vehicles single stage and reusable like aircraft. The reason is that it takes far to much energy and thrust to make it to orbit than any single stage reusable craft using chemical propulsion could produce.

Agreeing with your overall point, and I underestimated the savings of small-well launching, but exploring some details for edification...




If the Earth had one-sixth its gravity (with, magically, its normal atmosphere) this would still make orbital flight more expensive than atmospheric flight, even disregarding fuel costs.

It can be a lot simpler. A quick turn around launcher and an upper stage. The Launcher could be two, or four Delta Common cores and attached engines. A light weight aerodynamic cover would allow return for a controlled and powered landing. For launch jet engines would have more then enough thrust to lift the shell and themselves. Shut down at 50,000 feet they would be restarted on descent for controlled descent and landing.

Upper stages use identical Modules, fuel tank, cargo container becomes bigger fuel tank or any number of things by adding Modules. The Modules, brought up to orbit can be used for virtually any purpose. Lunar, Mars, asteroids or Comets would use combinations of the same Module so it's just as easy to do any of them or all of them.

I'm also partial to cyclers, at least for Mars and the moon. Orbit to orbit and usable water at either would be a plus.

With better and more reliable launch schedules it could be easy. Add a crewed, powered lander and they'll be beating the doors down.

Totally re-usable, some Modules could last centuries and perform any number of missions at different times. The Cyclers would enter orbits at the moon, Mars and Earth. At Earth Modules would be exchanged and a new outbound vehicle assembled, at the destination orbit landing ships would take people to the surface facilities. Returned Modules would be unloaded and refurbished for subsequent use.