I have some thoughts on recent events over at Open Market.
9 thoughts on “A Bad Week For Shuttlyndra Supporters”
It is amazing how blatant a disregard for facts can be. As said, it’s a no brainer, but meaning they have no brain.
Of course Planetary Resources has made not only the concept of Earth supplied fuel depots obsolete, but also the Obama explore asteroids program.
That’s jumping the gun a bit Mark. I expect we will get some elements from an asteroid or the moon, but that doesn’t mean some might also come from the earth which has a rather large advantage in productivity. Perhaps not for oxygen but perhaps for something like kerosene.
Regarding a govt. asteroid program you may be right.
The very first orbiting fuel depots will necessarily be supplied from Earth. As humanity pushes farther and farther out,further depots will be needed in locations not easily supplied by Earth (although they too will initially be Earth-supplied).
There is currently nobody making propellant in orbit but once they do, they too will be supplying depots, both in Earth orbit and farther out. My bet is that as the industry matures the market would differentiate and depots would be supplied by a combination of terrestrial and extraterrestrial resources, with the extraterrestrial sources supplying mainly water or LH2/LOX, and terrestrial sources supplying RP1, Hydrazine, and other more complex chemicals.
I could definitely see mining operations as a driver for building the fuel depots in the first place. If for instance Planetary Resources finds a small water-rich NEA and brings it to Earth orbit they would only be able to mine it for water if they had somewhere else to put it. An existing orbital depot would be an absolute requirement to begin water mining.
My dog just farted. Therefore, fuel depots are obsolete, and Elon Musk is a wanker.
“Of course Planetary Resources has made not only the concept of Earth supplied fuel depots obsolete, but also the Obama explore asteroids program.”
Actually, it indicates why mining NEOs is a problem.
We need lunar mining, but first fuel depots supplied from earth, BEFORE what Planetary Resources wants to do can be done.
But when these are “obsolete” it first means earth or the Moon will not shipping rocket fuel or water to Earth/Moon L-1.
Shipping rocket fuel from high earth orbit to lunar surface probably will not occur once NEO mining begins, though decade after this, with very low rocket fuel prices at L-1 this could occur [or at least capture a large percentage of the lunar surface market].
In the situation of earth shipping rocket fuel, one gets cheapest price at LEO, followed by high earth orbit, and highest prices at Mars and lunar surface.
Once lunar water mining starts, the lunar surface and LEO will roughly be same price, once lunar production increases lunar surface could become cheapest rocket fuel in space and it lower costs in high earth by shipping from Moon.
It is at this point, when one should be mining NEOs. You will have market existing in L-1 and the market size could be approaching 100 tons or more per year. Therefore selling say 1000 or 10,000 tons of water from NEO is reasonable. And dumping that much water [to make rocket fuel] on the Market could significantly add demand. Comanies looking to jump in could this added supply as signal to get into a business [which needs a lot of rocket fuel and at lower price].
Or said differently, the entrance of NEO supply of rocket fuel, might be good good news to earth supplier of LEO rocket fuel and Lunar supplies of rocket rocket. The lunar water miner could as result get more business on lunar surface [while losing it on L-1] but there would better profit selling just to lunar surface. Whereas on earth, one get improvements on shipping rocket fuel to LEO [use a gun, or use bigger gun [if one is already using one].
And speaking of guns, such a threat to lunar L-1 market could cause the development of some mass driver project on the Moon [to keep some of L-1 market share, or simply with grow market in general, it simply could become affordable to spend billions of on some rail gun or whatever.
Sending humans to an NEA has little to do with Planetary Resource’s program. The way to explore and exploit asteroids is robotically, as many asteroids will need be visited and there is no hope at all of generating a profit if people are sent. The benefit of sending people to an NEA, on the other hand, is principally in the demonstration of deep-space operations; science would be a side benefit and would in no way justify the mission.
Good article Rand.
SLS cost too much and can be done safer and cheaper.
Sold me (yeah, I’m already in the choir.) “But it’s the 70mt capability dammit” supporters will insist (facts just aren’t persuasive when you’ve got pork.)
Falcon Heavy just isn’t enough. Elon is going to have to strap four more F9s to it (imagine the liftoff with 63 merlins!) even if it’s just a one of demo. /not serious.
Sometimes it takes a sledgehammer to drive home a point.
It is amazing how blatant a disregard for facts can be. As said, it’s a no brainer, but meaning they have no brain.
Of course Planetary Resources has made not only the concept of Earth supplied fuel depots obsolete, but also the Obama explore asteroids program.
That’s jumping the gun a bit Mark. I expect we will get some elements from an asteroid or the moon, but that doesn’t mean some might also come from the earth which has a rather large advantage in productivity. Perhaps not for oxygen but perhaps for something like kerosene.
Regarding a govt. asteroid program you may be right.
The very first orbiting fuel depots will necessarily be supplied from Earth. As humanity pushes farther and farther out,further depots will be needed in locations not easily supplied by Earth (although they too will initially be Earth-supplied).
There is currently nobody making propellant in orbit but once they do, they too will be supplying depots, both in Earth orbit and farther out. My bet is that as the industry matures the market would differentiate and depots would be supplied by a combination of terrestrial and extraterrestrial resources, with the extraterrestrial sources supplying mainly water or LH2/LOX, and terrestrial sources supplying RP1, Hydrazine, and other more complex chemicals.
I could definitely see mining operations as a driver for building the fuel depots in the first place. If for instance Planetary Resources finds a small water-rich NEA and brings it to Earth orbit they would only be able to mine it for water if they had somewhere else to put it. An existing orbital depot would be an absolute requirement to begin water mining.
My dog just farted. Therefore, fuel depots are obsolete, and Elon Musk is a wanker.
“Of course Planetary Resources has made not only the concept of Earth supplied fuel depots obsolete, but also the Obama explore asteroids program.”
Actually, it indicates why mining NEOs is a problem.
We need lunar mining, but first fuel depots supplied from earth, BEFORE what Planetary Resources wants to do can be done.
But when these are “obsolete” it first means earth or the Moon will not shipping rocket fuel or water to Earth/Moon L-1.
Shipping rocket fuel from high earth orbit to lunar surface probably will not occur once NEO mining begins, though decade after this, with very low rocket fuel prices at L-1 this could occur [or at least capture a large percentage of the lunar surface market].
In the situation of earth shipping rocket fuel, one gets cheapest price at LEO, followed by high earth orbit, and highest prices at Mars and lunar surface.
Once lunar water mining starts, the lunar surface and LEO will roughly be same price, once lunar production increases lunar surface could become cheapest rocket fuel in space and it lower costs in high earth by shipping from Moon.
It is at this point, when one should be mining NEOs. You will have market existing in L-1 and the market size could be approaching 100 tons or more per year. Therefore selling say 1000 or 10,000 tons of water from NEO is reasonable. And dumping that much water [to make rocket fuel] on the Market could significantly add demand. Comanies looking to jump in could this added supply as signal to get into a business [which needs a lot of rocket fuel and at lower price].
Or said differently, the entrance of NEO supply of rocket fuel, might be good good news to earth supplier of LEO rocket fuel and Lunar supplies of rocket rocket. The lunar water miner could as result get more business on lunar surface [while losing it on L-1] but there would better profit selling just to lunar surface. Whereas on earth, one get improvements on shipping rocket fuel to LEO [use a gun, or use bigger gun [if one is already using one].
And speaking of guns, such a threat to lunar L-1 market could cause the development of some mass driver project on the Moon [to keep some of L-1 market share, or simply with grow market in general, it simply could become affordable to spend billions of on some rail gun or whatever.
Sending humans to an NEA has little to do with Planetary Resource’s program. The way to explore and exploit asteroids is robotically, as many asteroids will need be visited and there is no hope at all of generating a profit if people are sent. The benefit of sending people to an NEA, on the other hand, is principally in the demonstration of deep-space operations; science would be a side benefit and would in no way justify the mission.
Good article Rand.
SLS cost too much and can be done safer and cheaper.
Sold me (yeah, I’m already in the choir.) “But it’s the 70mt capability dammit” supporters will insist (facts just aren’t persuasive when you’ve got pork.)
Falcon Heavy just isn’t enough. Elon is going to have to strap four more F9s to it (imagine the liftoff with 63 merlins!) even if it’s just a one of demo. /not serious.
Sometimes it takes a sledgehammer to drive home a point.