Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

>>"...the main reason we abandoned the Moon was lack of national will, not price."

I tend to agree, but might put it down to lack of political will, instead. I was beyond the age of consent at the time and wanted to keep going, as did many other folks I knew. How successfully that kind of "national" will is translated into political will is, of course, part of another discussion.

Posted by billg at July 5, 2005 06:43 AM

Actually, Day said it was the laws of physics, which I found to be rather odd.

Posted by Mark R. Whittington at July 5, 2005 07:27 AM

When it costs as much as it did to go to the moon, that's a lot of "will" to maintain. It can't compete in the long term with social programs.

Posted by B.Brewer at July 5, 2005 07:47 AM

When it costs as much as it did to go to the moon, that's a lot of "will" to maintain.

Then we should let the tribbles run the space program -- 'cause brother, have they got a lot of will.

Posted by "Bones" McGehee at July 5, 2005 08:13 AM

$2000 per pound to LEO for Saturn V? Humanity has access to low launch costs today, just not with US-made carrier rockets.

Aren't Protons being sold for $50M per shot which translates to about $1000 per pound? Build a Proton pad in equatorial Brazil (as I read was once proposed) and the incremental cost might fall below $800 per pound, due to the physics involved.

A lack of a property rights is part of the problem but the lack of a profitable business model is another part of the problem. Recognition of lunar property rights is an excellent idea I support wholeheartedly, however by itself is insufficient until a profit source is identified.

Tourism? Why do you need land ownership to do that? Antarctic tourism exists today notwithstanding the Antarctic Treaty.

He3? Sure, maybe someday but not soon. Besides double deuterium may prove a better fusion fuel.

PGMs? My personal favorite however PGM can be mined today if collecting asteroid fragments were analogized to fishing the ocean. No one need own the open ocean to harvest tuna so why do we need lunar real property rights for harvesting PGMs (or He3) if we use a fishing analogy.

Next, who will extend and recognize lunar property rights? I am reminded of when the Pope divded the New World between the Spanish and the Portuguese and France, Holland and Britain responded by denying that the Pope had the auhtority to make that pronouncement.

= = =

PS - - The Shuttle orbiter was Nixon's doing and he despised Jack Kennedy (think 1960) and was eager to bury Camelot as deeply as possible. The idea that LBJ is "responsible" seems to stretch things in an untenable direction.

Posted by Bill White at July 5, 2005 09:15 AM

Bill: all we need now is the will to go at $500/lb by 2010 if we believe Musk.

I bet on lunar tourism in the next 10-20 years as profitable. Entertainment alone would be profitable in the next 100. Property rights allows someone to bootstrap a monopoly on entertainment broadcasts from the Moon.

As for enforcement, my vote would be for US courts. Ideally as a coalition of willing countries that mutually enforce each others' citizens property claims.

Think I can get the US Supreme Court to void the Lunar property rights portion of the Outer Space Treaty as an unconstitutional taking?

Posted by Sam Dinkin at July 5, 2005 09:50 AM

"Ye canna change the laws of physics, laws of physics, laws of physics." "Star Trekkin'" http://people.ssh.fi/tri/hack_man_guide/misc/tos_music.html

Posted by Sam Dinkin at July 5, 2005 09:55 AM

As for enforcement, my vote would be for US courts. Ideally as a coalition of willing countries that mutually enforce each others' citizens property claims.

In theory I agree.

However we US-ians may need to add some spoonfuls of sugar and a global media and marketing smoke-screen to persuade China, Russia, India and Brazil to accept US courts as having jurisdiction.

Not to mention France. ;-)

Global wrangling over which national courts have jurisdiction won't make Lloyds of London or the investment bankers very happy.

Posted by Bill White at July 5, 2005 10:34 AM

"When it costs as much as it did to go to the moon, that's a lot of "will" to maintain. It can't compete in the long term with social programs."

It would seem that it cost less to go to the moon 2-3 times a year then it did to fly the Shuttle 5-7 times a year yet we have found the political will to fly the shuttle for what will proabally end up being around 30 years. And that is operational costs, not to mention the sunk costs of decomissioning Saturn and buying the Shuttle program.

We had a larger standing army for Saturn than Shuttle yet we spread the personel costs out over a third the flight rate and still came out cheaper.

Imagine if we took the money we poured down the shuttle hole and made the Saturn more ameanable to mass production and reduced the number of personel to prepare her to shutle levels or lower and bupmed the flight rate up a bit.

Perhaps we could have gotten it down under a $1000 per pound with a bit of effort.

Posted by Mike Puckett at July 5, 2005 11:58 AM

> Am I missing something? Is pad construction, tooling, design and so
> on not included in the original $6.4 billion?

Upkeep. Anything you own has to be maintained -- unless you want to let it decay to nothing. Eventually, you will have replaced everything, piece by piece. Assuming that happens over a period of 10-20 years, you'll be spending 5-10% of your capital costs every year on upkeep.

NASA's been spending a lot of money to maintain Shuttle infrastructure over the last 20 years, but they've also been deferring a lot of maintenance. The crawlers and VAB are reportedly overdue for replacement.

Upkeep is also the flaw in most schemes to privatize ISS, etc.

> No, I think the main reason we abandoned the Moon was lack of national will,
> not price. The price point for colonization can be achieved if the national
> (or subnational or even rich guy) will comes back.

"Rich guy will" was there in the 1970's. Barbara Marx Hubbard (of Marx toys) approached NASA about funding another Apollo mission, to be called "Harvest Moon." The price exceeded the level of will, though.

In a sense, it's incorrect to say the US "abandoned" the Moon. It simply completed everything it set out to do there. Kennedy's original goal was to land "a man" on the moon before the Russians did. There was never any national will to colonize the Moon, at least not enough to justify the cost of the commitment. Even George W. Bush has only talked about extended stays, which covers a wide range of possibilities. At the low end, it could be met by nothing more than slightly longer Apollo missions.

Posted by Edward Wright at July 5, 2005 12:11 PM

Upkeep would bump up the numbers if they were not included in Griffin by $300-$600M/year and so we would only be able to get 27 instead of 30 launches per year for $15B in today's dollars for only 7 thousand tons instead of 7.5 thousand tons over 35 years.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at July 5, 2005 12:47 PM

> It would seem that it cost less to go to the moon 2-3 times a year then
> it did to fly the Shuttle 5-7 times a year

Assuming that's true, all you're really saying is that sending 4-6 astronauts to the lunar surface (6-9 to Lunar orbit) costs less than sending 35-49 astronauts to LEO.

In other words, sending an astronaut to the Moon with Apollo hardware costs nearly an order of magnitude more money than sending an astronaut to LEO with Shuttle hardware.

I'm not sure what's surprising or significant about that. It's not a good argument for Return to Apollo unless each lunar-naut will be doing something >10 times as valuable as an astronaut in LEO. The argument that NASA isn't doing anything valuable on ISS, so going to the Moon has to be better is not convincing.

> And that is operational costs, not to mention the sunk costs of decomissioning
> Saturn and buying the Shuttle program.

But returning to Apollo wouldn't recover those sunk costs. It would incur new costs to decommision Shuttle and buy the Saturn VI.

> We had a larger standing army for Saturn than Shuttle yet we spread the
> personel costs out over a third the flight rate and still came out cheaper.

That, in itself, should alert you that your math is wrong, given that aerospace projects are dominated by labor costs. Unless Shuttle personnel are earning three times as much as their Apollo counterparts, those numbers can't possibly be right (unless you're failing to account for inflation).

> Imagine if we took the money we poured down the shuttle hole and made
> the Saturn more ameanable to mass production and reduced the number of
> personel to prepare her to shutle levels or lower and bupmed the flight
> rate up a bit.

Imagine what? If you "reduce" personnel to Shuttle levels, you'll be spending just as much money as you do now. Workers are not going to take pay cuts just because Apollo is cooler than Shuttle. Nor can you "mass produce" something at a trivial rate.

If we return to Apollo, we will spend more money to send fewer astronauts further into space. Whether that's a good tradeoff is a valuable judgement. However, if the trend continues in that direction, NASA will eventually spend an infinite amount of money to send nobody to the edge of the universe. :-)

Posted by Edward Wright at July 5, 2005 01:20 PM

> Upkeep would bump up the numbers if they were not included in Griffin
> by $300-$600M/year and so we would only be able to get 27 instead
> of 30 launches per year for $15B in today's dollars for only 7
> thousand tons instead of 7.5 thousand tons over 35 years.

But since $15 billion is nearly the entirety of the NASA budget, there would be no payloads for those 27 launches. The total budget for building payloads and running the rest of NASA (unmanned missions, ISS, wind tunnels, education programs, everything) would be only $2 billion.

Goldin used to complain that he spent a third of his budget on transportation. I think it would be very hard to support more than that.

Posted by Edward Wright at July 5, 2005 01:31 PM

"> It would seem that it cost less to go to the moon 2-3 times a year then
> it did to fly the Shuttle 5-7 times a year

Assuming that's true, all you're really saying is that sending 4-6 astronauts to the lunar surface (6-9 to Lunar orbit) costs less than sending 35-49 astronauts to LEO.

In other words, sending an astronaut to the Moon with Apollo hardware costs nearly an order of magnitude more money than sending an astronaut to LEO with Shuttle hardware. "

You are misinterpreting what I posted. To distill it down, Apollo costs less PER FLIGHT than Shuttle, not per year.

I have heard the number $500 million bandied about in todays costs for a single Shuttle and a single Satrun V flight. One delivers a lot more payload than the other for that same cost.

Posted by Mike Puckett at July 5, 2005 01:34 PM

My proposition is that Lunar property rights would be the impetus to set these wheels back in motion. I dare you to prove me wrong.

You forgot to double-dog dare - darers go first!

Of course the only real way to prove you right or wrong is to enact legislation, or claim-jump the property and force the action into court ...

Posted by Brian Dunbar at July 5, 2005 02:02 PM

. . . My proposition is that Lunar property rights would be the impetus to set these wheels back in motion. I dare you to prove me wrong. . .

Brian's reply:

You forgot to double-dog dare - darers go first! Of course the only real way to prove you right or wrong is to enact legislation, or claim-jump the property and force the action into court

= = =

I agree with Brian Dunbar.

As for US Congressional action, what possible benefit accrues to Senator Jones or Representative Smith for supporting such legislation?

It will be just like what Jean Jacques Rousseau's fabled story about the origins of property - - > Property began when someone built a fence, said this is "mine" and cajoled, persuaded or bullied everyone else into saying okay.

Posted by Bill White at July 5, 2005 02:28 PM

> You are misinterpreting what I posted. To distill it down, Apollo costs
> less PER FLIGHT than Shuttle, not per year.

Again, that doesn't make sense. You acknowledge that Apollo employed far more people than Shuttle does. Since aerospace costs are dominated by labor costs, that indicates a higher annual cost -- unless the Shuttle's raw materials are amazingly expensive. The lower average flight rate makes Apollo look even worse.

> I have heard the number $500 million bandied about in todays costs for
> a single Shuttle and a single Satrun V flight.

Didn't you say a Shuttle flight costs more than a Saturn V?

Rumors are a notoriously poor source of information.

Assuming those numbers are correct, how do you account for the fact that spending $500 million on a Shuttle flight generates (far) fewer jobs than spending $500 millio on an Apollo flight?

Posted by Edward Wright at July 5, 2005 03:15 PM

"Assuming those numbers are correct, how do you account for the fact that spending $500 million on a Shuttle flight generates (far) fewer jobs than spending $500 million on an Apollo flight?"

Perhaps the Orbiter is really that big of a money pit.

Posted by Mike Puckett at July 5, 2005 03:40 PM

Property began when someone built a fence, said this is "mine" and cajoled, persuaded or bullied everyone else into saying okay.

I think it was more like everyone else looked at the fence, thought about it, and then ran off to build fences of their own -- each one jibbering in caveman-speak the equivalent of, "I am such an idiot for not thinking of it first!"

Posted by McGehee at July 5, 2005 03:41 PM

That's my favorite scenario for a last hour presidential directive: announce the US is withdrawing from the 1967 outerspace and antarctic treaties, and that we're going to claim all lunar territory within a 100 km radius of all Apollo and future US landing sites.

Really, that is one of the most destructive assumptions underlying the rot at the UN: by outlawing war and colonization, the UN also ensured that humanity would stop growing and expanding by open and legal means.
That's the secret purpose of the UN: civilizational suicide.

Posted by cuddihy at July 5, 2005 04:56 PM

The reason we abandon the Moon is NASA management wanted the shuttle and didn’t care about the Moon beyond landing a man there.

As for lunar property rights, no one has sovereignty over radio frequencies either, but using them is a multibillion dollar business. We should look to the ITU for a model for some form of lunar property right not over turning the Outer Space Treaty.

Posted by Karen Cramer Shea at July 5, 2005 06:25 PM

> "Assuming those numbers are correct, how do you account for the fact that
> spending $500 million on a Shuttle flight generates (far) fewer jobs
> than spending $500 million on an Apollo flight?"

> Perhaps the Orbiter is really that big of a money pit.

NASA doesn't buy a new orbiter for every flight -- remember what you said about sunk costs?

They do maintenance on the orbiter, but there again, you're talking about labor costs.

Even if NASA did buy a new orbiter, the cost would be mostly labor, not aluminum.

So again, how could Apollo employ far more people in man-years per flight without spending more money?

The obvious answer: they didn't.

The kicker, though, is the up-front cost we have to pay before the first flight.

An "Apollo-like capability" has been estimated to cost $50-55 billion between 2005 and 2020, according to Mike Griffin.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=12151

This cost is only through the first lunar landing. Even if the marginal cost of the new Apollo/Saturn V turns out to be "only" $500 million, and assuming three flights a year for 20 years, the average cost per flight comes to over $2 billion.

To put it into perspective, McDD's estimate for the development cost of the DC-Y was in the range of $1.5-2 billion.

Posted by Edward Wright at July 5, 2005 06:33 PM

As for lunar property rights, no one has sovereignty over radio frequencies either...

That would come as a surprise to the FCC and its counterpart agencies in countries all around the world. The reason the allocation paradigm works there is because within each country there is a recognized sovereignty over the uses of the spectrum by broadcasters under the jurisdiction of the government thereof.

That notion can be applied to the use of the moon -- um -- by, uhhhh...

By smoking crack, I'm thinking.

Posted by McGehee at July 5, 2005 07:25 PM

The claiming of extraterrestrial real estate is something that really needs to be done multilaterally, because if different nations don't recognize each other's claims we're inviting territorial wars that (besides causing bad things like death and destruction) would make people shy of colonizing, which would be self-defeating.

And the administration of who owns title to extraterrestrial real estate is a mainly bureaucratic function, one which requires the cooperation and assent not of the world's peoples, but of the world's governments.

Guess what? We've just hit upon an actual good use for the United Nations.

I would propose that the United Nations should get commitments from a list of nations representing, say, at least 75% (or whatever) of the world's economy and also at least 75% of the world's population that the undersigned nations will honor titles administered by the UN Title Commissioner, and then they should auction off title to chunks of the Moon's and Mars's real estate, a little each year for the next few decades, with all the signatory nations agreeing that the proceeds shall be used for economic development in the poorer nations that have agreed to honor the property rights.

Posted by Mark at July 5, 2005 08:43 PM

I agree with Rand about property rights two (farcical) reasons...

I don't expect any international fight over property that seems worthless in most eyes. The property today seems of insufficient value in terms of mining. What value that will exist will be value added. Imagine a movie studio creating sets that take advantage of 1/6th gravity?

Down the road from where I'm typing this is Sun City... You've never seen so many golf carts on the road. They even have electric cart parking at the grocery stores. Imagine a retirement comunity with 1/6th gravity for frail bones. Let's spread the rumor that you live 50 years longer under Moon gravity... sshhh! Pass it along!

Watch granny take the dunes with her supercharged electric land yacht!

Posted by ken anthony at July 5, 2005 09:36 PM

Ed: My mistake, 9 instead of 10 flights per year not 27 instead of 30. That leaves 2/3 for research and payloads. That's still 7 thousand tons over 35 years.

McGehee: radio in the US should belong to the states. FCC has the right to regulate, not confiscate. I think there is a class action that someone could file asking for all the spectrum auction money FCC has collected.

The communist property rights regime might result in everyone on the Moon living in mobile homes. If someone starts making money on the Moon, established governments will start conspiring about how to tax it. The Outer Space Treaty will eventually be negotiated, but will it be 20 years after we are making profits on the Moon or 5 years before? And are those two dates 50 or 100 years apart? How long until we drill for oil in Antarctica?

Do we have to wait for a child born from two stateless people on the Moon to have someone with standing to claim it?

Ed: The number for a whole launch would be $1.5B. The payload to LEO would be 118,000 kg vs. about 20,000 for the shuttle.

Ed: I would never advocate Saturn V now. I am just trying to point out that we would have a viable colony that might just survive an Earth disaster by now. We might have had an extra colonization boom by now. We might be on Mars by now. It was a lack of national will, not affordibility that took us down this path instead of the other. We can pick up the trail with a shuttle derived heavy lift or a bunch of Falcons.

Ken: It's Sam, not Rand on this one.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at July 6, 2005 03:12 AM

McGehee, While each country controls broadcasts within their country, I seem to remember Wolfman Jack got his start at a radio station just across the border in Mexico which could be heard all the way to the to Denver. I believe it was eventually shut down by Mexico at the request of the US.

How radio is treated internally to a country is irrelevent. It is the international model that is relevent. All citizens will be under the juristiction of their country of orgin while in space. It is the country to country agreement we desperatly need.

The beauty of this model is it only needs to involve those countries that might actually get there. At this point that is US, Russia, EU, India, China, and Japan.

The Moon is the size of Africa, there is plenty of room. The key importance to bussiness is to have some form of internationally recognized right to use a piece of land for their intended purpose without interference. That is what the ITU does for telecomunications. That is what using this model could do for lunar development

Posted by Karen Cramer Shea at July 6, 2005 05:01 AM

As for US Congressional action, what possible benefit accrues to Senator Jones or Representative Smith for supporting such legislation?

Long term prosperity for the Republic.

Posted by Brian Dunbar at July 6, 2005 07:37 AM

Using historical events to model future actions is limiting BUT competition in the Americas was a spur to colonization not a deterent.

Posted by Brian Dunbar at July 6, 2005 07:40 AM

"what possible benefit accrues to Senator Jones or Representative Smith for supporting such legislation?"

If Luna became a U.S. territory there would be a new nonvoting territorial represenative in Congress. In addition mining companies tend to be generous campaign donors and one third of the profit goes to congress for their most fun activity - SPENDING.

Posted by Norden at July 6, 2005 07:49 AM

As for US Congressional action, what possible benefit accrues to Senator Jones or Representative Smith for supporting such legislation?

Long term prosperity for the Republic.

= = =

Perhaps, however I believe one of the thoughts uppermost on the mind of any red-blooded American lunar settler or Mars settler or asteorid miner will be:

"Freedom from Terran tyranny!" :-)

For many, the whole point of going to the moon or Mars is to reprise 1776 or as my daughter summarizes Jefferson's July 4 th letter:

"Dear King, You're fired!"

Maintaining political control over Luna or Mars or Ceres will be difficult for Washington to accomplish.

Posted by Bill White at July 6, 2005 08:26 AM

And while this is happening, Russia, China, Brazil, Japan and France are doing what, exactly?

If I were Brazil's president I might say, switch loyalties to us and pay only 25% of your profit to Brazilia rather than 33% to Washington.

Or if I were the CEO of a multi-national mining corporation I would incorporate at the Isle of Man (a zero gee - zero tax locale) and declare myself exempt from US taxation.

Posted by Bill White at July 6, 2005 08:39 AM

Drats, I forgot India, and Poland!

: wink :

Posted by Bill White at July 6, 2005 08:41 AM

McGehee: radio in the US should belong to the states. FCC has the right to regulate, not confiscate.

I referred to the FCC in relation to its counterpart agencies in other countries. As a theoretical matter, state-level FCCs should be just as workable -- though few states would have the resources to operate such agencies.

As for confiscation, the fact is that the property paradigm simply cannot be applied to the airwaves because of their finitude. A working market needs a wide range of choices in addition to all else.

Imagine Clear Channel actually doing what the lefties claim it's trying to do. Under a pure property system it's not only possible but inescapable. The allocation system, while imperfect, works better for the purposes of what market may be said to exist in that particular realm.

And under an allocation system, there do need to be standards for keeping the license, and the regulatory agency needs the authority to enforce those standards. What those standards are, becomes a political issue because of the government involvement -- and I've never shared what appears to be a common desire to "keeping politics out" of matters of legitimate public interest.

Posted by McGehee at July 6, 2005 09:18 AM

McGehee: Auctions with caps on ownership seemed to work pretty well with cell phone spectrum. (Full disclosure: my day job is privatization auctions).

As for resource contention and governance, we need assurance of no contention as a spur to development. As a contentious commons the Moon is not yet worth developing. This isn't going to be colony wars. It might be Antarctica though.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at July 6, 2005 10:58 AM

The non-interference clauses in the Outer Space Treaty already assure that a lunar hotel (for example) would be legally secure from any nearby operations that threaten its safety. In that case, first come gets the best views.

No new laws are needed for tourism.

Likewise, if PGMs are harvested from asteroidal remnants and we argue that is like pulling tuna from international waters, a mining operation could start tomorrow and be free from interference (just as Japanese fishing vessels cannot manuever so as to damage the nets of Australian fishing vessels in international waters).

A property rights regime is very highly desirable - - VERY very desirable IMHO - - just difficult to accomplish.

Posted by Bill White at July 6, 2005 11:29 AM

> Ed: My mistake, 9 instead of 10 flights per year not 27 instead of 30. That
> leaves 2/3 for research and payloads. That's still 7 thousand tons over 35
> years.

If NASA were spending $15 billion a year on transportation, it couldn't afford much research with the $2 billion that was left. I'm not sure any organization could survive spending 15/17 of its budget on transportation, unless it was in the business of selling transportation.

Realistically, I don't think you can assume NASA would be spending a much greater percentage of its budget on transportation than it is today. So, you're probably talking more like three flights a year.

> Ed: The number for a whole launch would be $1.5B. The payload to
> LEO would be 118,000 kg vs. about 20,000 for the shuttle.

Payload to LEO is not what matters for a moon base, however. The proper figure of merit is payload to the lunar surface. If you assume an architecture where it takes 10 pounds in LEO to land one pound on the Moon, then 118,000 kg becomes 11,800 kg.

That's roughly the payload of one C-130. Three C-130's a year (or even 9) won't support much of a base. Building the new base at the South Pole took 348 C-130 flights, including 151 flights of construction materials.

Because of transportation costs, ISS 2 on the Moon will have a lower standard of living than ISS 1 in LEO, unless the cost of space transportation is cut by more than a factor of 10 or they can produce 90% of what they need from local materials -- and Griffin has already decided that cutting the cost of space transportation isn't possible in the next 40 years.

> Ed: I would never advocate Saturn V now. I am just trying to point out
> that we would have a viable colony that might just survive an Earth disaster
> by now. We might have had an extra colonization boom by now.

Doubtful. The South Pole base isn't close to that level. Making the optimistic assumption that the moonbase can get 100% of its air and water from local sources (as is possible in Antartica) and 100% of its building materials could be manufactured locally, eliminating 151 C-130 flights, you would still need 198 flights to get to the level where the South Pole is today.

You might imagine NASA doing that at a rate of 9 flights a year over 22 years -- *if* the crew didn't consume any of those supplies during those 22 years, which of course they would.

> We might be on Mars by now.

Even more doubtful. NASA might have visited the Mars a couple of times. Mark and Karen would be complaining that NASA was "stuck on the Moon" just "going in circles" around the Earth, that the only men to walk on Mars were now collecting Social Security, and we needed to increase the size of the NASA budget so they could Return To Mars. Bob Zubrin would be heading the Jupiter Society. :-)

Posted by Edward Wright at July 6, 2005 12:43 PM

> Or if I were the CEO of a multi-national mining corporation I would
> incorporate at the Isle of Man (a zero gee - zero tax locale) and declare
> myself exempt from US taxation.

Otherwise known as the Walt Anderson strategy. Bill, meet your new roommate.

Posted by at July 6, 2005 12:46 PM

> Or if I were the CEO of a multi-national mining
> corporation I would incorporate at the Isle of Man > (a zero gee - zero tax locale) and declare
> myself exempt from US taxation.

Otherwise known as the Walt Anderson strategy. Bill, meet your new roommate.

= = =

Good point.

Okay, this hypothetical corporation should be run entirely by foriegn nationals who have never been subject to the jurisdiction of the IRS.

Either way, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is largely irrelevant to the main question. ;-)

Posted by Bill White at July 6, 2005 01:06 PM

Ok, the first private lunar mission ( TransOrbital ) has been struggling to get off the ground for years and years, "launching any day now(TM)". It has scant little to do with property rights of any kind. Same goes for LunaCorp that apparently has shelved their entire project altogether.

I'd say we have a pretty solid case of lack of clear property rights _NOT_ being an obstacle at present. At this point in time, difficulties in securing funding for your lunar enterprise have much more to do with general public perceptions ( i.e. giggle factor, NASA=space belief etc ) than lack of clear regulatory regime. Im willing to bet that your average investor with sufficiently deep pockets doesnt know jack about Outer Space Treaty but he knows for sure that Space = NASA = hard = risky = Star Trek.

Posted by kert at July 6, 2005 02:52 PM

I think the perception of space development being hard and risky is due to the reality that it is hard and risky. I find the complaint that this is just a NASA-induced false perception to be more an excuse than an explanation.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 7, 2005 05:38 AM

> I think the perception of space development being hard and risky is due to the reality that it is hard
> and risky. I find the complaint that this is just a NASA-induced false perception to be more an
> excuse than an explanation.

Yes, SpaceShip One was a Hollywood fraud. The whole thing was faked using an alien saucer from Area 51.

Details in an upcoming expose on the Fox Channel! :-)

Posted by Oscar Diggs at July 7, 2005 10:36 AM

"Yes, SpaceShip One was a Hollywood fraud."

I'm amazed by the stupidity expressed in this thread (well, at least when somebody actually manages to stumble onto a point). Equating SpaceShip One to a moon landing indicates that you have no clue what you're talking about. Look up the delta-v requirements sometime.

And as for Mr. Dinkin's original post--what, EXACTLY, is there on the moon that is worth the billions of dollars of getting there? If you're going to base your argument on economics, then it is up to you to explain where the actual profit can come from. The US government did it for prestige, not profit. Apollo 17 returned 244 pounds of lunar materials. What is the street value of that material and how does it compare to the cost of a Saturn V? After all, your, and Alan Wasser's original argument, are both based upon the insane notion that if only we could "own" the moon we would be there right now. So explain what is there that is so economically valuable.

Posted by Joe Athelli at July 7, 2005 11:20 AM

> Equating SpaceShip One to a moon landing indicates that you have no
> clue what you're talking about. Look up the delta-v requirements sometime.

Do you think systems and technologies never evolve? That microcomputers will never be more than toys and airplanes will never be a viable form of transportation? The Wright Brothers flew only a few hundred feet.

What makes you think the delta-v requirements are an obstacle? This isn't like the speed of light. Rockets have been capable of achieving the necessary delta-v since the 1960's. We know how to do it, just as we knew how to achieve mainframe speeds in the 1960's. What's needed now is to make rockets cheaper, not faster.

> what, EXACTLY, is there on the moon that is worth the billions of dollars of getting there?

How can companies make a profit on cruises to Antarctica?

What, exactly, is there in Antarctica that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to get there? It has to cost hundreds of millions, because the government spent hundreds of millions to establish Antarctic bases -- doesn't it?

Why do you assume getting to the Moon has to cost billions of dollars? Just because NASA spent that much? People have done things for less moneh than NASA before. General Worden said that if the government put up a one-billion prize for landing on the Moon, someone would certainly win it. What do you know that he doesn't?

> What is the street value of that material and how does it compare to the cost of a Saturn V?

Irrelevant. Future lunar visitors and immigrants won't use Saturn Vs any more than American immigrants and visitors use Viking longboats.

Why do you assume the only value that can come from the Moon is rocks? Do you know what percent of the US GNP comes from mining minerals?

Posted by Edward Wright at July 7, 2005 02:00 PM

Wow. I did not realize that there are two Ed Wrights and that they disagree with each other so vehemently!

Just now we've seen Ed Wright the youthful idealist. But yesterday we saw Ed Wright the pessimist:

The Evil Ed Wright wrote:
"Doubtful. The South Pole base isn't close to that level. Making the optimistic assumption that the moonbase can get 100% of its air and water from local sources (as is possible in Antartica) and 100% of its building materials could be manufactured locally, eliminating 151 C-130 flights, you would still need 198 flights to get to the level where the South Pole is today.

You might imagine NASA doing that at a rate of 9 flights a year over 22 years -- *if* the crew didn't consume any of those supplies during those 22 years, which of course they would"

So, getting to the moon is either easy or it is hard, depending upon whether Ed has taken his meds or not.

Posted by Joe Athelli at July 7, 2005 03:49 PM

> But yesterday we saw Ed Wright the pessimist:
> The Evil Ed Wright wrote:

>> you would still need 198 flights to get to the level where the South Pole is today.

>> You might imagine NASA doing that at a rate of 9 flights a year over
>> 22 years -- *if* the crew didn't consume any of those supplies during
>> those 22 years, which of course they would"

Um, so? Just how is that evil? What is pessimistic about believing humans will make a lot more than 198 flights to the Moon, using systems that are a lot cheaper than the Saturn V?

Is this one of those Star Trek "mirror universe" things?

Posted by Edward Wright at July 7, 2005 05:05 PM

The answer to what the Moon has which can be used to make a profit? Power in the form of Solar collectors on the Lunar surface for beeming power back to earth, Solar Power Satelites made of lunar regolith and Helium-3 for fusion.

While none of these will be profitable on a short term basis. If the government invests suffient resources to allow these, they will be very profitable in the long run.

Posted by Karen Cramer Shea at July 8, 2005 03:43 AM

He-3 flown at $10,000/lb back to earth or fused on the Moon and beaned back is not competitive with Uranium at $12/lb. The profitable industries will be entertainment, tourism and retirement communities.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at July 8, 2005 04:43 AM

Fusing 3He on the moon for beaming back to Earth makes no sense at all -- 3He packs so much energy/mass that the cost of sending it back to Earth is affordable even with current technology.

The real problems are the cost of mining it in the first place, and the unavailability (then, cost) of the fusion reactors.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 8, 2005 05:48 AM

I must have missed this announcement on the news. When did we achieve fusion so that we can use all that Helium-3?

Oh, and does anybody have an operational flying carpet I can borrow?

Posted by Joe Athelli at July 8, 2005 06:56 AM

What will be the future? 3He?
Solar energy to produce positrons (on the Moon AND in orbit AND Lagrange)!

Posted by Rémy Mercier at July 8, 2005 01:13 PM

Good luck getting those positrons back to Earth, R.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 8, 2005 03:22 PM

Yes, production, storage and distribution are the three fields of study. The prospects are extraordinary. It is very very interesting: http://www.pr-llc.com/
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/positron_drive_pluto.html?3062005

Posted by Rémy Mercier at July 8, 2005 04:01 PM

So I guess Dwayne Day was more or less correct, after all, right?

I suppose launch costs, per se, are merely one component for the lack of a profitable business model for lunar exploitation, however has anyone persuasively defended the idea that our pathetic space program is all the fault of LBJ and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967

Posted by Bill White at July 9, 2005 09:02 AM

Rémy: yes, I know about positrons. Their advantage over antiprotons is that they can be made with far higher efficiency (5-10%). Their big downside is that to date there's been no means to store them at a reasonable density. Penning traps fail to store enough to be interesting (by their nature, the stored mass-energy of the charged particles in a Penning trap is on the order of the stored magnetic energy, which makes the energy/mass too low.)

Annihilation in a positron/electron plasma is too fast for storage of neutral plasmas to work, unless the density is very low (which might be useful for deep space where you might store the plasma in an enormous external magnetic field, but useless for storage inside a spacecraft or for transport down to Earth.)

I noticed that Positronics' web site carefully fails to mention just how they are proposing to store these positrons.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 9, 2005 10:06 AM

Paul:
In 2001, Positronics:
"""First-level verification of positron heating requires a trap that can store ~ 10 15 positrons. It is not difficult to obtain these quantities from existing research facilities, but such quantities have not been experimentally stored. The principal focus is to develop and diagnose such a high-density storage trap and use it for small-scale experiments. Such results will play a role in the development of future positron storage research in areas such as positronium formation, parelectricity, or quantum reflection."""
from http://membres.lycos.fr/atar/Synergistic.htm
(this link is in french AND english)
But i was unaware that the energy/mass was so limited with Penning trap. We'll see "positronium formation, parelectricité or quantum reflection"?
"""Synergistic Technologies is currently designing a positron trap that can store 10 15 positrons. This trap will refine research in the area of Penning trap research for both antiprotons and positrons, although these traps are limited to these levels due to space-charge effects."""
If one must use antiprotons to reach high densities, that becomes more complicated, indeed (but also possible).
It would be so nice to be able to store solar energy in space AND even more interesting with a great energy density! For energy transport, laser and microwaves pose also great problems (and in this case no storage).
rémy

Posted by at July 9, 2005 01:31 PM

10^15 positrons corresponds to an annihilation energy of about 1.6 kJ. This is well within the stored magnetic energy of a moderately strong laboratory magnet.

The problem, of course, is that a magnet's stored energy is limited by the strength of materials (JxB forces in the conductors try to push it apart), and the energy/mass of the magnet is no better than, and in practice much worse than, the energy of chemical propellants.

So, no, this doesn't provide evidence that these people have a solution to the fundamental problem of high energy density positron storage.

The limit on storage density of particles in a Penning Trap is the Brillouin limit, which has been known since 1967. It applies equally to pure antiproton plasmas, btw.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 9, 2005 02:13 PM

Paul:
Interesting, thank you. Therefore, it would be interesting to be informed on current research for the production of antihydrogene (because of the possibilities: high density storage).

Posted by Rémy Mercier at July 9, 2005 02:38 PM

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