Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

> Rom Bailey explodes it.

s/Rom/Ron

Posted by Neil H. at April 27, 2006 06:16 PM

Rand

I find his article unconvincing. I would appreciate more references and fewer diatribes.

I read Simmon's book and at least he provides extremely detailed refrences for his claim.

One thing that Hubbert did get right was that the peak of U.S. oil production did happen when he forecast and has been in decline since that time. I find it interesting that this guy did not acknowledge that fact.

Here is the reference for U.S. oil production over the past few decades.

http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/gasprices.asp

Even the rosy projections in the article show that the peak will occur between 2020 and 2030. Why not start planning for that inevitability now?

It is a mathematical fact that after half of the oil is produced that the production will either have to tail off on the same slope as the increase or it will drop of dramatically after artificial inflation.

Also, another mistake that is made in the article is to say that all the Saudi's have to do is to start using water injection. They have been doing that for ~25 years now.

Another factoid is that there are some very influential oil men who think that the peak either has or is about to occur. T Boone Pickens of Mesa oil thinks so and has discussed this several times lately.

It would be interesting to see a line up of those who do and who do not think that the peak is near.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at April 27, 2006 10:25 PM

Whether or not there is "peak oil" it seems to me there should be less doubt about "peak platinum"

$1140 an ounce was yesterday's price and "Moonrush" was written when platinum was in the $900s as I recall and now George W. Bush wants to introduce hydrogen fuel cells as his energy plan.

Where's all that PGM going to come from? :: wink ::

Posted by Bill White at April 28, 2006 05:46 AM

I sincerely doubt the hydrogen/fuel cell vision is going to lead to anything practical in the foreseeable future. There are too many roadblocks, including the cost of fuel cells, the cost of hydrogen, and hydrogen storage. There are too many alternatives that are easier and cheaper (synfuel from coal, for example) as well as continued improvements being made in ordinary IC engines. You'll see large market penetration by high efficiency IC hybrids before you see fuel cell vehicles in any large numbers.

If reducing CO2 emissions is the driver, then fuel cells are an economically inefficient way to do it (as are IC hybrids). The cost per ton of avoided CO2 emission is much lower if you just replace coal-fired powerplants with nuclear plants.

Posted by Paul Dietz at April 28, 2006 09:08 AM

I remember the oil snafu of the 1970's well. I also remember the tree huggers screaming we had only 20 years of oil left. Gasoline prices are up do to increases in demand against our ability to make gasoline. I'm paying $2.89 but its STILL available.

I also remember Ted Danson warning me that the oceans were dying. They had 10 years tops. Have you seen the Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel? Those crab look pretty lively to me.

I remember tens of thousands of doom sayers telling me about global warming starting in the 1970's. (Remember hell! I've heard it twice while typing this.) Then Mount Pinatubo blew it's stack and world temps dropped for the next 18 months. I remember Algore telling a meeting of Enviro-Nazis in NYC a few years ago that the reason for the record COLD that day was global warming. Al you should have stopped when you created the internet.

I do not believe ANY of these dooms day types. They give dates and times for our supposed human extinction but Atlatis didn't rise up in the Atlantic, California didn't fall into the Pacific, O.J. didn't get convicted and I don't see us running out of oil either. Bad news sells.

Prognostication is a business for all soothsayers. Whether they use a crystal ball or a geological oil survey map. None of these people GIVE the information away. If the oil depletion side people want the word out why not give the books away? Because they know doom minded handwringers will pay $21.95 to have their fears confirmed by "experts".

If I want a good scare. I'll read Stephen King. He, at least, admits his writing is fiction.

Posted by Steve at April 28, 2006 10:28 AM

Hydrogen fuel cell autos?

It's our President's idea even if I share your skepticism. ;-)

But there are plenty of other snazzy PGM applications to drive up demand. Like catalytic converters.

= = =

Nuclear? Yup I agree. Besides I seem to recall that petroleum and natural gas is the fuel for about 25% of our electrical generation. Switch to nuclear and there is more for vehicle fuel.

Posted by Bill White at April 28, 2006 10:36 AM

Besides I seem to recall that petroleum and natural gas is the fuel for about 25% of our electrical generation.

Mostly natural gas, that. Very little petroleum is burned for stationary power in the US.

Posted by Paul Dietz at April 28, 2006 10:54 AM

> Whether or not there is "peak oil" it seems to me there should be less
> doubt about "peak platinum"

"Platinum and palladium supplies are expected to be surplus in the year 2006 and this is likely to keep prices of these precious metals at current levels" -- The Business Standard, April 27, 2006

And on April 12, Rusina Mining announced a high-value platinum strike in the Philippines.

The sky is not falling, Chicken Little.

Aside from terrestrial sources and ocean mining, there's another source for platinum that you overlook.

If the Moon contains platinum from ancient asteroid impacts, then we should also be able to find platinum at the source: the asteroids themselves.

The fact that NASA doesn't consider the asteroids as sexy as "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" is all to the good. It means private enterprise won't have to compete with NASA there, as it would on the Moon. And not being ideologically wed to high-cost ELVs, like the Moonies, we can may be able to extract platinum for less than a bazillion dollars an ounce.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 28, 2006 12:14 PM

Another potential source of PGMs is as a byproduct of CO2 sequestration. The most permanent way to store CO2 is by reacting it with silicate rocks to form carbonates and silica, an exothermic reaction. The most easily reacted silicates are magnesium silicates from ultramafic rocks. These rocks often have traces of PGMs. Because literally tens of billions of tons of rock would need to be reacted to counter global CO2 emissions, even traces of PGMs would add up to quite a lot of the metals, if they could be extracted at low marginal cost.

(This would also possibly glut the world markets for iron and nickel ores, and possibly for other elements like cobalt.)

I've seen some very skeptical analyses of fuel cell vehicles. Apparently current prototypes are worse than battery electric cars in most respects (range, cost, complexity), and that's saying a lot.

Some skeptical references on hydrogen, particularly for vehicles:

http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=691
http://www.efcf.com/reports/hydrogen_economy.pdf
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E04.pdf
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E10.pdf
http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full04/mar03/romm.pdf

Posted by Paul Dietz at April 28, 2006 01:31 PM

> Another factoid is that there are some very influential oil men who think
> that the peak either has or is about to occur. T Boone Pickens of Mesa oil
> thinks so and has discussed this several times lately.

So, if influential industrialists say something, they must be right?

Thomas Watson of IBM said there was a market for fewer than 10 large computers in the US.

Does that prove we reached "peak computing" in the 50's and it's been all downhill from there?

Canadians are already making money on oil from tar sands -- something you thought would never be possible.

There are millions of geologists and engineers in the world. It's hubris to expect that none of them will discover or invent anything that you (or T. Boone Pickens) haven't imagined.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 28, 2006 02:28 PM

Oh I figured that Ed would crawl out from under a rock on this one with gratuitous references.

You mean this one in the Phillipines?

http://www.rusina.com.au/pdf_reports/3.11.04%20MiningNews.net.jpg

or this update

http://www.rusina.com.au/pdf_reports/25_07_deeper.pdf

or this one

http://www.rusina.com.au/pdf_reports/sept_05_shares.pdf

After several years of drilling the mineralization is only 28 meters deep at ore grade and only 0.71 grams/ton overall, hardly a big find.

I busted this last year and yet you still bring it up.

The average PGM fraction in lunar regolith (after benefication) is 28 grams per ton, along with lots of useful cobalt, nickel, and iron.

This will be the habitats that your tourists go to so you might not want to always piss your future building owners off.

As for Pickens, the article referenced, that you obviously did not even take the time to read, appealed to generalized authority to state that most oil professionals don't think that we are anywhere near peak oil.

This is patently false when the largest investment banker (Matt Simmons) in the oil business, and the largest independent oil company (Picken's Mesa petroleum), along with Chevron think otherwise.

You really need to keep up with the times Ed.

Paul

How about some references on these "traces". In granite and even fairly good rocks the PGM fraction is in the parts per billion. Right now with the best technology the cost of production when the ores are in the 5 parts per million is $200 per oz. Do you seriously think that we can improve these processes by a factor of a 1000 with any reasonable process on the horizon?

Do you have any references for reacting silicate rocks with CO2 in such a way that is exothermic? On a mass scale?

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at April 28, 2006 05:30 PM

> After several years of drilling the mineralization is only 28 meters
> deep at ore grade and only 0.71 grams/ton overall, hardly a big find.

> The average PGM fraction in lunar regolith (after benefication) is 28
> grams per ton, along with lots of useful cobalt, nickel, and iron.

:-) Beneficiation is the process of crushing and separating ore to increase the yield. Of course, you get more g/ton after beneficiation. Did you think you'd get away with that?

The question you ignore is the first question real businessmen would ask. Not how many grams per ton do you get, but what will it cost to extract and bring to market?

According to the proposal submitted to NASA, the Andrews/SkyCorp architecture would cost over $100 billion -- just to land the first small base on the Moon.

How much would it cost to expand from there to a real mining operation? How many hundreds of Common Expendable Boosters would you need? How many billions of dollars?

No matter how many times you chant "transportation costs don't matter," real businessmen do care about transportation costs.

Transportation costs don't matter to you because you're a government contractor, and they give you free launches. If you were paying, you would care.

You and Bill talk about selling platinum group metals to Chinese peasants, for whom a bicycle is a major investment. The idea that they don't care about transportation costs is obvious nonsense.

Or do you expect US taxpayers to subsidize your sale of platinum to the Chinese?

> the article referenced, that you obviously did not even take the time
> to read, appealed to generalized authority

Dennis, you need to look up what "appeal to authority" means.

"Appeal to authority" is what you do when you claim you're right because important people agree with you.

Which is most of the time.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 28, 2006 06:39 PM

How about some references on these "traces". In granite and even fairly good rocks the PGM fraction is in the parts per billion. Right now with the best technology the cost of production when the ores are in the 5 parts per million is $200 per oz. Do you seriously think that we can improve these processes by a factor of a 1000 with any reasonable process on the horizon?

Dennis: PGEs are extracted from far more dilute sources than that. The key is: they're extracted as byproducts in those cases, and they alone don't have to shoulder the cost of processing the material. For example, in Arizona platinum is successfully extracted from copper anode slimes, even though it occurs at a concentration of less than 1 ppb in the raw ore.

If ultramafic rocks are chemically processed to extract magnesium hydroxide (as one scheme has it), it's possible something similar could be done with the trace of platinum present. CO2 sequestration would pay the vast bulk of the cost; the PGEs would just have to pay the marginal cost of extraction from the solution during processing.

We might want to pick ultramafic rocks that are subeconomic for PGE extraction alone, but that have more PGEs than random crustal rocks. There should be a continuous range of PGE concentrations in these rocks, with the quantity at (say) 1/10th the limit for PGE-only extraction being considerably larger than the fraction at that limit.

Posted by Paul Dietz at April 28, 2006 07:38 PM

Edward, here is why I believe mining asteroid fragments that have come to rest on the lunar surface is easier than mining asteroids that orbit the Sun:

(a) Gravity helps - even 1/6th gravity. In zero gee how do you keep the drill bits from just bouncing off?

(b) Lunar asteroid fragments are not tumbling. Look up the spin rates for some of those guys in free space (multi axis spin, by the way) - how the heck are you going to bring mining equipment to bear?

Asteroid cohesion? Some of those guys are going to shatter on you and eject volatiles in an unpredictable and perhap dangerous manner. Lunar fragments will be, well, just lying there all nice and peaceable.

(c) Abundant lunar LOX. Possibly extractable H2O. I favor Zubrin over Spudis. Accessible water ice would be mah-velous! Simply mah-velous but I am not sanguine we can harvest any H2O at an affordable cost.

Lunar LOX? Grab a spadeful of regolith and there it is. LO2 is 89% by mass of an LH2/LO2 engine's fuel. Besides, an LH2/LO2 or CH4/LO2 launch will deposit SNOW underneath the launch site. Collect that and re-cycle. Not 100% but it is something.

Lunar LOX and a re-useable LSAM is what we need to open up the Moon to commerce. Do that and NewSpace will have the demand needed to develop low cost Earth-to-LEO and EML-1.

(d) Tourism can help share infrastructure costs. How many tourists would pay for 2 weeks on the Moon? Eights months on an asteroid waiting for launch windows to open?

(e) 3 or 4 days from the Moon to Earth creates a safety cushion for injured astronauts and those who, for example, discover symptoms of cancer.

Many asteroids do have lower delta V to/from LEO but there are substantial launch window issues. Some are in odd inclinations, for example.

Looking for and harvesting asteroids that have stopped tumbling (because they smacked the Moon) just makes sense to me.

= = =

Maybe there are NO harvestable lunar asteroid fragments. Heck, I don't know and I ain't no rocket scientist.

But it sure seems worthwhile to go looking.

= = =

If anyone wants to argue in person at ISDC I will buy one round of drinks for up to 12 people. Draft beer or equivalent. No Dom Perignon, sorry.

Post your RSVP here, and cheers! :-)

Over to you, Edward.

Posted by Bill White at April 28, 2006 07:41 PM

Paul, here is my idea.

On the moon nickel-iron asteroids have NOT been oxidized. No water and no atmosphere and metallic nickel is very amenable to CO digestion. Mond process.

Create nickel carbonyl gas by placing the intact Ni-Fe fragments inside a chamber filled with CO. There are indeed engineering challenges, no argument. But, if you digest away the nickel (iron carbonyl works too, just not as easily) the PGM concentrations go up before export to Earth.

Now, g00gle nickel vapor deposition.

Nickel carbonyl gas is VERY useful all by itself. You can build pressure hulls for example, or tools, or trusses or just about anything.

Where does the CO come from? I propose methane from Earth plus lunar LO2 as the fuel of choice for rovers and Honda power gen-sets etc. . . Adjust the tuning and CO comes out the exhaust. Besides, when you vapor deposit the nickel you get your CO back.

Process the fragments until you get to acceptable PGM levels and ship them to Earth.

= = =

Ha! g00gle got boinked! :-)

Posted by Bill White at April 28, 2006 07:50 PM

Paul

I would appreciate a reference to the extraction of pgms at parts per billion fractions rather than a statement that it is so. This is a sincere request. I have never seen this to be the case.

I tend to doubt statements made as facts without a way to trace them back to the source. If what you are saying is true, then the company that I referenced for Ed's magical Phillipines venture would have already be in production. The reason that they aren't is that the pgm fraction at 0.71 g/ton does not cross the threshold of economic feasibility.

Just think about what you are talking about for a ppb process. It takes the chemical processing of a thousand tons of ore to get five grams of PGM. It really does not grok unless there are is a lot of copper there and the copper concentrating process ups the PGM fraction a great deal.

Also, there is a HUGE difference between running a magnet over the surface of the Moon versus the mechanical crushing benefication and chemical processing that has to happen for terrestrial PGM concentration.

Also, if my hypothesis is correct there are large fragments of PGMs in Ni/Fe impactors on the lunar surface and or buried there.

You keep with this fantasy that somehow Skycorp and Andrews are joined at the hip. You have zero idea about what my plans are and all you see is some subcontract work that I did for them. Get over it.

I also have other contracts and do other work, including for NASA but mostly for my commercial customer base. Get a grip Ed. You have absolutely zero idea about the architecture that I favor.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at April 28, 2006 10:01 PM

Paul

I took the trouble to look this up myself.

Here is the link.

http://www.admmr.state.az.us/circ3ptinaz.htm

Here is the summary result of platinum mining in Arizona.

In Summary:
1. Platinum and platinum group elements do occur in Arizona.
2. They are not known to occur in sufficient concentration to justify their mining.
3. They are recovered, but only when concentrated nearly 200,000 times in a process that is necessary to refinement of copper. (If the anode could be used without electrolytic refining, the precious metals would not be worth recovering.)

Platinum group metals will continue to be the subject of discussion and arguments among Arizona miners. The platinum group metals have very high prices and it is the dream of most prospectors to find ores of very valuable minerals. That dream encourages prospectors to keep looking and that is how valuable mineral deposits are found. However, an erroneous report of high concentrations of platinum group metals (or any other metals, if in error) in ores will cause a prospector to spend nonproductive time and money trying to prove a mine or develop exotic extraction methods. When that happens, everyone loses, especially the prospector. The prospector should always double or triple check assay reports showing ore grade concentration of platinum group metals.

Erroneous reports of the presence of platinum group metals often stem from the difficulties in detecting them. Assays for platinum and palladium, even for amounts that could constitute ore, are much more difficult to determine than for g0ld. Even reliable and experienced assayers have been deceived into reporting nonexistent platinum. On the other hand, it is not likely to be missed if present and looked for.

A number of metals and minerals have been mistaken for platinum group metals due to some of their properties. Among them are "chilled" birdshot (lead alloyed with arsenic), lead fragments from other sources, specular hematite in small flakes, and old amalgam. Any of these materials may be found in some panned concentrates. If the sample has been roasted in the presence of carbon, metallic iron or other metals may have been formed and might be reported as platinum. All of these materials may be surprisingly resistant to acid tests. Even some g0ld-silver alloys are nearly insoluble in aqua regia.
Because of the difficulty in detecting the platinum group metals and because of their probable scarcity in Arizona and elsewhere, caution is advised in accepting any unconfirmed reports of their presence.

_______________

What is it with you guys that you always think that you have a way around something that someone else says? Actually READ what the OFFICIAL state assay office says about Platinum in Arizona. While they may obtain very small amounts of platinum as a BYPRODUCT of copper mining, there is zero chance that this process has any economic viability in the absence of other metal and the amount recovered is pitifully small.

You want fuel cell cars to be too expensive forever then this is the way to go about it.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at April 28, 2006 10:11 PM

What is it with you guys that you always think that you have a way around something that someone else says? Actually READ what the OFFICIAL state assay office says about Platinum in Arizona

I did read that, Dennis. It supports my argument. Read for comprehension, man!

It is an example where platinum is successfully extracted from a material at a concentration 5000 times lower than you claimed was the limit, because your limit only applies to materials mined primarily for their PGMs. It does NOT apply to byproduct extraction. Most of the extra stuff you also quoted there is not relevant.

Your easy way out here is to doubt that CO2 sequestration by mineral carbonation will occur (I also have some doubts). If it DOES occur, the quantities of rock would be so large (tens of billions of tons a year) that even the byproduct streams could be globally significant.

Posted by Paul Dietz at April 28, 2006 10:34 PM

> Lunar LOX and a re-useable LSAM is what we need to open up the Moon to commerce.

The LSAM is not reusable, Bill, and because it uses highly toxic propellants, it cannot easily be made reusable.

How many times must I explain that to you?

>Do that and NewSpace will have the demand needed to develop low cost Earth-to-LEO and EML-1.

ESAS isn't going to use NewSpace for that; it' going to use expendable heavy lift.

You know that very well because it's a policy you've defended. So, why do you pretend otherwise?

> (d) Tourism can help share infrastructure costs. How many tourists would pay for 2 weeks on the Moon?

Zero, as long as it costs hundreds of millions of dollars for one seat in a Constellation capsule.

There will be no market for lunar tourists until launch costs are reduced. Wishful thinking is no substitute for sound economics.

Sadly, it seems Moonies will continue to oppose anything that might reduce launch costs, thus undermining your own agenda.

> (e) 3 or 4 days from the Moon to Earth creates a safety cushion for injured astronauts
> and those who, for example, discover symptoms of cancer.

Do you think humans should never venture anywhere more that's more than 3-4 days from a hospital? Do you think they never have in the past?

Scientists who are wintering at the South Pole don't have that kind of "safety cusion." One of them did develop cancer a few years ago. You should read up on what it took to get her out. Yet, scientists still go back to the Pole every year.

> Many asteroids do have lower delta V to/from LEO but there are substantial launch window
> issues. Some are in odd inclinations, for example.

Launch windows are easier to deal with than zealots who insist we have to settle the Moon, Mars, and Alpha Centauri before doing anything to reduce the cost of launch.

Again, Bill, I'm glad there's one part of the inner solar system that neither Moonies nor Marsies are interested in. It means the non-zealots will have some place to go. :-)

Posted by Edward Wright at April 29, 2006 01:09 AM

> You keep with this fantasy that somehow Skycorp and Andrews are joined at the hip.

You boasted about that at ISDC last year.

Now you say it's fantasy.

I wonder what you will say next year.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 29, 2006 01:17 AM

If Dennis is correct:

Also, if my hypothesis is correct there are large fragments of PGMs in Ni/Fe impactors on the lunar surface and or buried there.

Then our astronauts pick these things up (maybe with a Bobcat or something like that) extract the Ni-Fe to make cool stuff on the moon and send the concentrated remnants back to Earth.

= = =

Edward - -> LSAM means what the acronym states, Lunar Surface Access Module, which I interpret as ANY module used to access the lunar surface. I do not believe the term LSAM has been trademarked by NASA, therefore I decline to agree that LSAM can only mean the NASA hypergolics mistake, under proposal and hopefully reconsideration.

A re-useable LSAM would use the same engines for ascent as descent and would burn H2 or CH4 or another alcohol or hydrocarbon. No hardware is expendable at any point. It may not be optimal, but even RL-10s could work as the engine of choice for a re-useable LSAM. EML-1 appears to be the best place to park it between uses (perhaps EML-2 for some additional units).

Posted by Bill White at April 29, 2006 06:25 AM

Actually, to the degree one considers the Orbiter reusable, hypergolic vehicles are clearly reusable...

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 29, 2006 07:13 AM

The Russian plan:

"The second phase of the lunar program must see the establishment of a permanent reusable lunar transportation system. This will include Clipper-derived manned spacecraft and orbital transfer tugs with liquid propulsion to transfer manned spacecraft between space stations in circumterrestrial and circumlunar orbits, as well as tugs with electric thrusters and large solar arrays for “slow” transportation of big cargoes. This phase must establish a permanent space station in circumlunar orbit as a spaceport (similar to the space station in low-Earth orbit) serving as a base for a reusable lunar ascent/descent module, which shuttles crew and cargoes between it and the lunar surface.

The next, the third phase must see the establishment of a permanent lunar base in order to start the industrial development of the lunar surface."

Indeed.

Posted by Bill White at April 29, 2006 11:17 AM

I can't help that you live in Ed's world. You just keep on thinking these things.

Paul

Do you ever consider economics when you come up with these things?

I hardly think that one oz of platinum per 364,000 TONS as a tertiary adjunct to the refining of copper means anything within the context of a resource. So now you have found an exception to what I said. Do you, at any point, think that this is something that can be used as a primary resource to provide platinum for fuel cell cars?

The answer is no and you know it. This is what I HATE about space advocates. In your quest to show yourself as the smartest boy on the block you bring up a completely irrelevant piece of information and use this as your basis that "see, see" this is being done and therefore your entire argument is false. What is it with you guys (I am not singling you out here as it is a much more general phenomenon) that you just HAVE to do these kinds of things. It took me less than five minutes of research to show that while what you said was possible it makes zero contribution to global platinum production. Why did you even bring it up then in the context of the discussion which was the economic viability of a PGM mine?

This is why space advocacy is the laughing stock of the world in terms of effectiveness.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at April 29, 2006 11:36 AM

Do you ever consider economics when you come up with these things?

Your anger is not helping the coherence of your thinking, Mr. Wingo.

Yes, I consider economics. I have pointed out that byproduct extraction is not subject to the same economic constraints as primary extraction, as you were incorrectly attempting to argue. This remains true and relevant, your bluster notwithstanding.

Not from copper, obviously -- we don't mine enough of it. From processing dunite for CO2 sequestration? It's possible, particularly if the rock has more PGMs than that copper ore (as some ultramafics do, even if they are not concentrated enough to serve as primary PGM ores). Do the math and see the staggering quantity of rock that would be involved. To absorb global CO2 emissions would involve mining and processing tens of cubic kilometers of rock per year. This could yield thousands of tons of PGMs per year, if PGM content is in the hundreds of ppb.

At least one process for mineral carbonation involves first dissolving the source rock in acid. This would liberate any platinum in solid solution, and extracting traces of metals from a liquid solution can be much easier than doing so from a solid (for example, the cost of extracting uranium from seawater is just a factor of a few greater than the current market price, even though the concentration of uranium there is 3 part per *billion*). Minor insoluble fractions like sulfides would be greatly concentrated; if these are where the platinum is it could be much easier to obtain.

The answer is no and you know it

The answer is 'possibly' and you'd see that if you bothered to honestly think about the issue.

(irrelevant ad hominem defensiveness ignored)

Posted by Paul Dietz at April 29, 2006 02:37 PM

Paul

Do you actually read what you post? Processing tens of cubic kilometers of rock per year by an acid solution process? While this could technically work it is as likely to happen as David Criswell's power beaming from the Moon.

Just where are we going to get the billions of gallons per year of acid to make this work? Just where are we going to dump the effluent?

Paul you just keep going farther afield with every post that you make. How about something practical with even a remote chance of being economically viable.

I think honestly about these issues all the time and that is why flaky ideas like what you are spouting as the solution are completely ignored by people who write checks for businesses.

Without money and the possibility of making money none of these ideas have the slightest possible chance of seeing the light of day.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at April 29, 2006 04:14 PM

> Edward - -> LSAM means what the acronym states, Lunar Surface Access Module,

Yes, I know what it stands for.

> which I interpret as ANY module used to access the lunar surface. I do not believe the term
> LSAM has been trademarked by NASA,

"Bill White" isn't trademarked, either. That doesn't prove all lawyers are named "Bill White."

Even NASA doesn't agree with your definition. They call the Apollo lander the "Lunar Module," not the LSAM. They don't call the unmanned landers they're working on LSAM, either.

Who, besides yourself, thinks that any module used to access the lunar surface must be named LSAM?

> A re-useable LSAM would use the same engines for ascent as descent and would burn H2 or CH4
> or another alcohol or hydrocarbon.

It would also have nothing in common with the *real* LSAM -- the one NASA is building, and the one you mean when you say we must support ESAS so NASA can build LSAM.

You're playing word games to pretend NASA is building something they are not. Please stop.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 29, 2006 04:36 PM

> "The second phase of the lunar program must see the establishment of a permanent reusable
> lunar transportation system. This will include Clipper-derived manned spacecraft and orbital transfer
> tugs with liquid propulsion

How does that support your claim that we must support ESAS so NASA can develop LSAM?

If LSAM means any lunar landers, as you now claim, doesn't that mean the Russians are building LSAM? If so, NASA is clearly not the only agency that can do it.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 29, 2006 04:44 PM

How does that support your claim that we must support ESAS so NASA can develop LSAM?

This is not my position, Edward. ESAS is better than Admiral Steidle's spirals. That is the extent of my position on ESAS. ;-)

Frankly, I'd like to give Burt Rutan a billion dollars and say "Wow us, Burt"

More money for COTS would be good also. The lunar LOX prize, the suit glove prize, the other prizes, all good stuff.

= = =

Mike Griffin is the first NASA Administrator to state that humanity's destiny is "out there" and Shana Dale said today (yesterday?) that NASA's objective is for people to make money on the Moon.

Scratch ESAS and we start over. I oppose that.

Posted by Bill White at April 29, 2006 05:07 PM

> Actually, to the degree one considers the Orbiter reusable, hypergolic vehicles are clearly reusable...

Yes, given the existance of an Orbiter Processing Facility and thousands of Shuttle workers.

On the Moon, a vehicle would have to be maintained with austere facilities and a small workforce.

It's bizarre that Moonies have no doubt that is possible, but refuse to believe it's possible to build a spacecraft that can be maintained and reused right here on Earth, with all the resources that are readily available on Earth.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 29, 2006 05:15 PM

>> How does that support your claim that we must support ESAS so NASA can develop LSAM?

> This is not my position, Edward.

Perhaps not, but presumeably it was your position, at the time you said it.

Communication would be a lot easier if you'd just tell us when you've changed your mind.

> ESAS is better than Admiral Steidle's spirals. That is the extent of my position on ESAS. ;-)

By itself, that is not a good reason to spend money on it.

> Frankly, I'd like to give Burt Rutan a billion dollars and say "Wow us, Burt"

That directly contradicts your previous statements that we cannot do anything to reduce the cost of space transportation until we first go to the Moon and "create a market" (the "Wingo thesis").

Again, if you've changed your mind, why don't you just say so instead of making us guess what you really believe?

> Mike Griffin is the first NASA Administrator to state that humanity's destiny is "out there"
> and Shana Dale said today (yesterday?) that NASA's objective is for people to make money on
> the Moon.

Other administrators have made exagerrated claims about the benefits of NASA programs. Griffin is hardly the first.

> Scratch ESAS and we start over. I oppose that.

Why? You haven't given any reason why starting over would be a bad thing. At least, no reason that you didn't later deny.

Especially when starting over could easily mean reaching the goal sooner, and for less money, than continuing down the current road.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 29, 2006 08:12 PM

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