Moon base plans and research?

[YetAnotherBob]

I think Mars and the Moon really are, in terms of their economic potential and therefore potential for colonisation, rubbish - more comparable in lack of opportunities to the High Atacama desert (only worse) than the extraordinarily resource rich and already well populated Nth America, where low cost existing technology in widespread use was sufficient to suppress native resistance and exploit the existing resources. You can't let longhorn cattle loose and expect the herds to grow on Mars any more than in the Atacama and you won't be able to drive them on their own feet and you on your horse to meat hungry cities and use the money to buy essential equipment to grow your dryland economy. Except in the most superficial and misleading ways, The Moon and Mars are not much like North America during the "golden age" of European exploration, conquest and colonisation.

Ken are you aware of just how much the nation of Peru gets from the mining in the Atacama Desert?

 

[YetAnotherBob]

Catastrophe - I struggle to see any commercial opportunities in Earth's moon or Mars, let alone any obvious ones. Exploration there is more about scientific curiosity and understanding than about economic opportunity and I support that kind of exploration. There are commercial opportunities to service those activities but that is not the same as the the moon or Mars having commercial opportunities in and of themselves, so it remains a subsidised, loss making activity of wealthy Earth economies, in large part undertaken for national prestige - a demo of the wealth of their Earth based resources and capabilities.

Can those explorations reveal unexpected commercial opportunities? It is hard to imagine what those could be - the very definition of unexpected - but we are no longer flailing in the dark. We have good understanding of the nature of our universe and solar system and how planets and moons formed, so we have some idea what is likely and what is possible; if we are chasing the unlikely and unexpected the moon and Mars may not be the best targets. Even asteroids may not be the best targets; they, like planets, have seen a lot of mixing together of primordial materials, whilst lacking the un-mixing processes that geologically and hydrologically active planets (Earth) have, that make the rich ores we depend on. If we want to find unmixed primordial materials - the potential for finding some of those precious metals or high value ores in more concentrated or more easily extractable forms - we may be better looking to comets or other targets that have not been subject to those mixing processes.

Exploration needs to identify real and quantifiable opportunities for the planning and investment any commercial exploitation to happen; people going to someplanet and expecting the opportunities to inevitably follow just won't cut it. The pre-investments needed are far too large for that kind of bet.

The best way forward for larger scale and long term subsidised activities in space may be meteor defense - maintaining reason to keep up space tech R&D that can lower launch costs and establish permanent orbital presence despite the absence of commercial opportunity. Greatly reduced launch and in-space transport costs, if they can be achieved, greatly change the threshold for what is viable - but those costs are so very high that there is a long, long way to go.

We may yet see some kind of high value zero gee manufacturing - something that (disappointingly) has not emerged to drive space investments.

I've suggested elsewhere that I think nickel-iron may be the commodity to keep in our sights. If some method that can get the precious metals out, that would be a bonus, but crude nickel-iron is hugely abundant and potentially able to displace mild steel for many applications. If it were being mined for Earth markets, with minimal on-site processing, there may not be human presence needed at the mine site but there could be a lot of associated space activity near Earth - supply to the distant operation, repackaging and de-orbiting the cargoes sent back - that could see people working in space to support it.

The mineral resources of the Moons surface have been rather thoroughly surveyed by the US, Russia, China and India. Currently both the US and China have announced plans for bases there. India hasn't announced plans, but they are working towards that end. Russia is keeping quiet, but expect them to go. Even if only as a partner with the US or China or both. It has been more or less decided that Nations can't claim property on the Moon, but can operate bases that recover resources and send those resources back to Earth.
What makes the effort viable is the ease of shipping back material from the Moon using electromagnetic rail technology. It's literally pennies per ton.
It may make more sense however to mine on the Moon for building satellites and cities in Earth orbit and for infrastructure for trips to Mars, Venus and further out. We don't really know yet.
Resources available on the Moon include every mineral found on Earth. Oh, iron is rarer, Nickle more so, and aluminum is more abundant, but those are only when expressed in terms of comparison to Earth. Most of the iron there is meteoric in origin. Still, it comes to many hundreds of cubic kilometers. Water at the poles has been examined and that comes to several Cubic Kilometers. Enough for several decades anyway. The water is why China and the USA have plans for early bases at one of the South Pole craters. Also don't sell the natural advantages short either. One of those is vacuum. It's hard and expensive to create on Earth. Some industrial processes need it. The moon has a lot of that. Power is a potential problem, but it also is here on Earth. One thing we do know, we won't be powering a moon colony by burning coal or oil.

 

[Catastrophe]

I really am in two minds about this issue. I certainly regard terraforming as totally out of the question. Maybe some safe underground base? Most of the iron/nickel will be in the core but I have seen a theory about surface deposits arising.
How easy these are to find I do not know. I can see some possibilities for solar power but it is definitely on/off in terms of capture. I do see a lot of posts saying OK you mine this and build that but with total disregard for practicalities. IMO this post should be looking at overcoming some of these problems and coming up with practical solutions.

One thing I am sure will have occurred to some people. With the virus situation and who knows what mutations and other types might arise in the future even I can see a last ditch possibility for a clear Moon base, with long quarantine periods in an outer area.

With issues such as telescopic bases on the far side, I am all in favour. Maybe transfer stations at a later date. I am seriously concerned about asteroid / meteorite impacts on Earth and this may be another reason for the transfer station / base.
When you have asteroids coming as close as last week's with two days notice, whatever happened to the gentle pushes over a year or more to nudge it away? We have had close misses where we did not see the asteroid until it had left our vicinity. I am not scary. I believe the chances of serious consequences are low, but still worthy of concern.

Cat

 

[Ken Fabian]

Ken are you aware of just how much the nation of Peru gets from the mining in the Atacama Desert?

I think you have missed my point; the Atacama could not have supported self reliant and self sustaining colonisation during the heyday of European colonisation of The Americas and didn't. It still cannot; it cannot grow food or produce the equipment it needs to mine the few mineral resources there with economic potential. It takes a healthy, globally connected economy with low cost transport for Atacama mines to be viable. That greater economy makes mining there possible and viable and without it the Atacama is economically worthless.

None of the popular comparisons to recent colonisation of America work when examined; the differences are too great. The essential ingredients that made that a historical success are not there for Mars or The Moon.

What makes the effort viable is the ease of shipping back material from the Moon using electromagnetic rail technology. It's literally pennies per ton.

This is fiction. It is purely hypothetical without detailed plans and uses guesswork for costings. It leaves out the (enormous) capital costs of establishing such technology in such a remote and difficult place. And can we really fire inert canned loads at Earth and land them without de orbiting decelerations and drogues successfully, for pennies per ton?

Resources available on the Moon include every mineral found on Earth.

Lacking the geological and hydrothermal processes that concentrated Earth's mineral ore bodies, most minerals of interest and value are going to be found at low concentrations. Well established and successful refining processes require a lot more than the presence of a mineral ore. When you have to mine and refine and manufacture the most basic of consumable resources - water, oxygen, the materials for making acids and reagents - it gets even more costly.

Also don't sell the natural advantages short either. One of those is vacuum. It's hard and expensive to create on Earth.

Vacuum is far more a problem than an advantage, adding greatly to costs of almost every essential activity, whilst giving only small advantage to a very few activities.

 

[Catastrophe]

I think you have missed my point; the Atacama could not have supported self reliant and self sustaining colonisation during the heyday of European colonisation of The Americas and didn't. It still cannot; it cannot grow food or produce the equipment it needs to mine the few mineral resources there with economic potential. It takes a healthy, globally connected economy with low cost transport for Atacama mines to be viable. That greater economy makes mining there possible and viable and without it the Atacama is economically worthless.

None of the popular comparisons to recent colonisation of America work when examined; the differences are too great. The essential ingredients that made that a historical success are not there for Mars or The Moon.


This is fiction. It is purely hypothetical without detailed plans and uses guesswork for costings. It leaves out the (enormous) capital costs of establishing such technology in such a remote and difficult place. And can we really fire inert canned loads at Earth and land them without de orbiting decelerations and drogues successfully, for pennies per ton?



Lacking the geological and hydrothermal processes that concentrated Earth's mineral ore bodies, most minerals of interest and value are going to be found at low concentrations. Well established and successful refining processes require a lot more than the presence of a mineral ore. When you have to mine and refine and manufacture the most basic of consumable resources - water, oxygen, the materials for making acids and reagents - it gets even more costly.



Vacuum is far more a problem than an advantage, adding greatly to costs of almost every essential activity, whilst giving only small advantage to a very few activities.

Whether one wants to agree with it or not, that is a powerful, well-reasoned summary.

Cat