…on the moon.
It doesn’t make much sense to even speculate on the economic potential until we solve the launch-cost problem, though, and there is little in current space policy that even attempts it.
65 thoughts on “Rare Earth”
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…on the moon.
It doesn’t make much sense to even speculate on the economic potential until we solve the launch-cost problem, though, and there is little in current space policy that even attempts it.
Comments are closed.
So. When chinese stop selling, and the price of a pound hits infinity ( sorry .. hits whatever the cost of recycling ends up being .. ) . Where do you start digging ? And why exactly is noone digging yet ?
This is why one creates stockpiles, to tide over interruptions until other sources can be brought online.
As for where you’d go digging, go read the mineral commodity summary for REEs at minerals.usgs.gov for more details.
People aren’t digging because, despite all the hot air, the prices of REEs aren’t that high, and not all that likely to go much higher.
Yeah, lets sit back and see how it works out. Couldnt be worse than well deep water drilling
I do think that RLV’s will be the ticket as lunar industrialism takes hold but not for propellant.
Perhaps not in the long term, but I’m hoping the initial boost of demand for propellant launches will enable the market to develop RLVs. I’m very skeptical you could have lunar commerce without cheap lift, even with SEP and ISRU. Launching people and stuff to LEO would still be very expensive. I can see how that might in theory lead to enough demand to develop RLVs, but I’m worried about what would happen in practice.
Launching people and stuff to LEO would still be very expensive.
People yes, stuff no. Part of the issue is that the stuff that we launch is incredibly expensive due to the need to engineer the hell out of it to survive launch and deploy all the appendages. In the scenario of a developing lunar industrial infrastructure the majority of launched hardware would shift from being complete ground integrated systems to subsystems and parts. These subsystems and parts would be far cheaper and could be packed in energy absorbing material to get rid of the pesky loads above that of the static launch load (acceleration of the vehicle).
This would dramatically reduce the cost of the parts, which again, does more for the overall launch costs than building an RLV. This would increase the demand for launch, which is the only thing in the end that will justify the existence of an RLV.
OK, in the long run you could perhaps reduce the cost of the hardware, which dominates total costs for most launches today. But these high costs wouldn’t really be the problem a problem once you had cheap lift, even if only for crew and consumables. Launch costs and construction costs for a space station can be amortised over many missions or many customers once you have cheap lift. EELVs are good enough for launching space station modules etc at current EELV prices and current space station module prices. Cheaper would always be better, but not crucial. It seems to me that launching people (and initially propellant) are the bottleneck.
Let’s see if we agree on the following assumptions,
– for lunar exploration and development SEP or ISRU would be as useful as cheap lift
– for large scale LEO tourism even SEP and ISRU combined wouldn’t be as useful as cheap lift
– cheap lift is probably necessary for large scale LEO tourism to exist.
– commercial development of the moon will likely be good enough to lead to RLVs and thus large scale development of LEO
And disagree on the following assumption:
– SEP and ISRU together would be good enough to lead to commercial development of the moon
which you believe to be true and I believe to be false. Fair summary?
– for lunar exploration and development SEP or ISRU would be as useful as cheap lift
More
– for large scale LEO tourism even SEP and ISRU combined wouldn’t be as useful as cheap lift
Not intended to be , though the demand driven by SEP and ISRU is likely to be the enabler for cheap lift.
– cheap lift is probably necessary for large scale LEO tourism to exist.
– commercial development of the moon will likely be good enough to lead to RLVs and thus large scale development of LEO
yea
And disagree on the following assumption:
– SEP and ISRU together would be good enough to lead to commercial development of the moon
Along with other commercialization efforts associated with GEO and other orbits. This is a systems of systems solution that incorporates all of Cislunar space and terrestrial markets.
How would SEP or ISRU (one of the two, not both) be more useful to development of the moon than cheap lift? Let’s say cheap lift means $500/kg or less.
Here is the math.
Today, launch at $5000 per kg.
Delivery to the Moon is and additional $95,000 per kg.
If I decrease the cost of lift to $500 per kg that reduces the price from $100,000 to $95,500
If I build a SEP (forget ISRU for now)
My price per kg to Lunar orbit is $29,000, including the $5000 per kg to LEO.
Cheap lift reduces that price to $24,500 per kg.
Ok, it is interesting but no where near as much of a decline as from $100,000 per kg to $29,000 per kg. (which drops to $16,000-$20,000 per kg in subsequent missions)
Today, launch at $5000 per kg.
Delivery to the Moon is and additional $95,000 per kg.
If I decrease the cost of lift to $500 per kg that reduces the price from $100,000 to $95,500
Reducing the cost of getting to LEO will reduce the cost of propellant delivery to LEO, which will reduce the cost of getting mass to the lunar surface. You calculation assumes the cost of propellant for the beyond-LEO segment is unchanged.
I’d love to compare numbers, but this thread is nearing the end of its useful life. Anywhere online you hang out where we could discuss this further?
For now I’ll just say that your cost numbers look strange to me. Are you assuming expendable hardware in those costs? I have a whole spreadsheet and I can’t dump that here, but I’m getting quite different numbers. LEO to L1/L2 is roughly a factor 2. A round trip L1/L2 moon with a reusable lander would require roughly 3.5 times its dry mass at L1/L2 so roughly 7 times its dry mass in LEO. Now the numbers do scale with launch costs, so improvements in launch costs should lead to similarly spectacular results as your scenario.
MPM
would love to see your numbers. However, the fact remains that no one in the private world is going to develop an RLV until there is a demand that justifies it. There is not even the demand to support the global existing stable of launch vehicles without subsidies. Yes, I know, if launch was cheap, the demand would rise. I just think that the low hanging fruit is up there not down here.
However, the fact remains that no one in the private world is going to develop an RLV until there is a demand that justifies it.
Absolutely true and that is precisely the point. Doing brute force propellant intensive exploration would create an enormous demand. And since propellant is so easily divisible you could make do with tiny (<1mT) RLVs. Once you've proven those to be economic, you'd have no problem funding bigger ones that could carry humans. Everything else could be carried on EELVs.
Once you had the RLVs, I'd be thrilled to use SEP and ISRU to reduce IMLEO and therefore costs even further. In fact I think things will probably still go so slowly that there is no need to slow down SEP and ISRU artificially.
Thinking just about crew rotation for now because those numbers are easier to distill from my spreadsheet, a single crew mission would require 7 times the lander mass in propellant plus the mass of the capsule in propellant. 200mT of propellant per mission should be more than enough. Expensive of course, but competitive with NASA's admittedly exorbitant Constellation costs. Reduce launch prices by an order of magnitude and now we're talking. Even one moon mission a year could create enough demand for a thriving market for small RLVs.
However, the fact remains that no one in the private world is going to develop an RLV until there is a demand that justifies it.
I agree with this assessment but surely the same could be said of your lunar development scheme?
…no one in the private world…
Which is why the size of NASA should be reduced and they should lease equipment designed, build and owned by a multitude of private organizations. Suddenly you’ve got the forces of commerce working in your favor.
One difference between Lunar REE and such ores here in the U.S.; here, you are going to have to dig a hole (or holes), or take away a mountain top to get to your ores-with all the issues of land ownership, the EPA, layers of lawyers, waste tailings, etc.. On the moon you won’t be having to deal with all those problems, merely the tech development of the tools and some robotic refining capability, which is likely to be much quicker than overcoming the Earth-based problems.