Clark Lindsey points out that, while there may be many good arguments against NASA's human spaceflight program, the notion that we can't afford it is ludicrous.

It's really tragic that the debate is so simple minded. There seems little point in debating whether or not NASA should continue to spend money on manned spaceflight--that seems to be inevitable, for reasons of inertia, perceived prestige, and (most importantly) pork. So, as Clark points out, if we could accept that as a given, it would be nice to have an intelligent discussion about how NASA spends the money that they seem inevitably to be given. Unfortunately, that debate is driven largely by pork as well.

[Update at 8:50 AM EDT]

Jeff Foust has an article about media reaction over at The Space Review this morning.

[Late afternoon update]

There's an interesting discussion in comments at this post by Jeff Foust at Space Politics, including comments on the existence of lunar water by Paul Spudis.

Many unwise actions are affordable. For example, I could afford to convert 10% of my income to paper currency and burn it every payday.

The 'affordability' issue ignores the main problem, as you discuss earlier, which is that manned space spending has been pointless, not working in a plausible manner toward a goal that would justify the spending.

Oh well. I expect NASA will be burning money on this for years to come, naysaying Cassandras notwithstanding. NASA seems intent of demonstrating the Marxian epigraph 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.'

One word: platinum

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Expanded, PGM catalysts can help extract more energy per gallon of gasoline which has a net effect similiar to finding more energy resources. This opens the door for recruiting environmentalists as supporters for space exploration as well as those interested in getting America off dependence on Persian Gulf oil.

Montana coal reserves employed more efficiently via lunar derived PGM catalysts may be a winning combination for American politics.

Especially since "boys and their toys" doesn't appear to be selling.

If you want to produce baseload electricity from coal with fuel cells, you don't need platinum. The leading technologies there are combined-cycle units using high temperature fuel cells (SOFC or molten carbonate FCs) as a topping cycle. Because they operate at high temperature, these cells don't need expensive electrocatalysts.

In cars, fuel cells are not competitive even with cheaper platinum. Hydrogen storage alone is a showstopper. If you're going to thermally reprocess a liquid fuel to get the hydrogen on-line, then you might as well have a high temperature fuel cell in the vehicle too. But this is still probably not competitive; internal combustion engines are remarkably cheap per kilowatt of power output, and in a hybrid configuration (which you'd need for a fuel cell car too) they can be quite efficient.

Anyway, NASA's current project won't develop the technologies needed for obtaining platinum from the moon, any more than ISS has led to microgravity industries.

High temp fuel cells are a terrific technology but are not suitable for consumer applications. Too hot.

Direct methanol micro-fuel cells are coming on market today for things like digital cameras and laptops and those do use platinum. Platinum's catalytic properties are essential for the catalytic converters that scrub pollution from auto engines.

You say NASA's plan not are not helpful for the prospects of mining lunar PGMs? I agree. NASA needs to change that mission statement. Doing so can win allies for space exploration in unexpected places.

Doing so can win allies for space exploration in unexpected places.

Can you explain further?

Let's look at direct methanol fuel cells.

http://www.fctec.com/fctec_types_dmfc.asp

Initially developed in the early 1990s, DMFCs were not embraced because of their low efficiency and power density, as well as other problems. Improvements in catalysts and other recent developments have increased power density 20-fold and the efficiency may eventually reach 40%.

This projected ultimate efficiency is disappointingly low; diesel engines deliver 35% of the chemical energy of the fuel as work to mobility and accessories. Also, the government is currently funding efforts to increase the thermal efficiency of automotive engines to 45% by 2012. So, what's the point of these fuel cells?

Direct methanol fuel cells can used for cell phones and laptops. Diesel engines cannot.

Toshiba is putting such things on the market today and the price of platinum is a direct trade-off on power output for these devices. Cheaper platinum will mean lower costs for more robust portable devices. More powerful micro fuel cells would be useful for next generation soldiers.

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Doing so can win allies for space exploration in unexpected places.

I expressly mean among people Rand Simberg define as being "on the Left" including environmentalists.

The Dennis Wingo book Moonrush argues bluntly that we (humanity) needs more resources if the global population is to have a first world standard of living. Okay, lets go to the moon and the asteroids and bring back those resources.

Lowering the cost of PGMs will lower the cost of low temperature fuel cells which will simplify the sale of consumer eletronics and appliances in 3rd world nations where no reliable electric grid exists. (For example.)

Paul, looks like you went to the first hit on google. Try this one from Toshiba:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0406/04062401toshibafuel.asp

> There seems little point in debating whether or not NASA should continue
> to spend money on manned spaceflight--that seems to be inevitable, for
> reasons of inertia, perceived prestige, and (most importantly) pork.

If you assume they're spending on manned spaceflight. The number of Shuttle astronauts who fly every year peaked before Challenger. Constellation will carry fewer astronuats each year than the post-Challenger Shuttle, at higher cost. Common wisdom at NASA is that they have "too many" astronauts. No one seems to ponder the notion that they may have too few flights.

NASA doesn't seem to have any interest in spending money on human spaceflight, per se.

I mean spending money on the "manned spaceflight program," not on manned spaceflight per se. Just like spending money on the space station program doesn't necessarily result in actual space stations (and didn't for the first decade and a half of the program).

Bill: yes, I saw that. If you compute using the numbers given, you will see that the efficiency of this device is about 20%, and it would require about a million of them to equal the power output of a single automobile engine. These devices may be nice for some mobile applications, but they are not competitive for bulk power production, and will not cause so much platinum demand as to require ET mining.

Also, this comment:

High temp fuel cells are a terrific technology but are not suitable for consumer applications. Too hot.

deserves rebuttal. The operating temperature of existing catalytic converters is around 650 C, and in off-nominal condtions the temperature can reach 1400 C (this would damage the converter, but the car has to be designed to tolerate this excursion). So automobiles already are designed to have thermochemical devices that operate in or near the temperature range of high temperature fuel cells.

Paul Dietz -

You are correct. High temperature fuel cells that do not need PGMs might very well be feasible for automotive engines. If we humans discover we are unable to harvest lunar platinum, we are not doomed as a species - - which is good because Wingo's theory is only a theory and perhaps there is no recoverable lunar platinum in the first place.

But I am not looking for what we absolutely need, I am looking for what might be collected on the moon and sold on Earth to generate supplemental revenue to assist with the costs of exploration. If no meaningful revenue can be generated from lunar platinum mining where will lunar derived revenue come from? He3? Water?

Is tourism the ONLY scenario available?

Be careful what you wish for Bill, an environmentalist that supports space exploration might take the form of a Bruce Gagnon.

Here is a link offering an overview of fuel cells.

Direct methanol need more PGM than PEM fuel cells but do not need hydrogen to operate.