4 ms·

This raises many questions: - how speculative are they about the rare material they intend to find? - how are they going to mine and transport them? - how mu

by mekoka 16y ago

This raises many questions: - how speculative are they about the rare material they intend to find? - how are they going to mine and transport them? - how much is it going to cost? - will it be worth it in the end, compared to earth mining (which to this day still requires considerable manpower)? Until such questions are answered, I think it would be more appropriate to look at this more as robotic experiment, not a moon mining startup project.

waterlesscloud 16y ago
It's like oil exploration, there's a cost at which extraction makes sense. Since the price of the resource varies over time, the economics of extraction will as well. There's no firm "yes" or "no" to the "Is it worth doing?" question, there's only "worth it / not worth it right now." The much bigger obstacle will be political, breezy as the article is about ownership of lunar resources.
ChuckMcM 16y ago
Valid questions, but there are some 'known' unknowns which is to say you can't even start if you can't get some way to manipulate the moon on to the surface of the moon. There is a variety of material on the surface [1] which removes the need for excavation. Economically one would want to post process raw regolith into the desired materials to improve the profitability of sending mass back from the moon to earth. But what I like about these guys is that they're in kick down the door and get a search warrant later mode. There is a demonstrated capability in the Falcon9 project to get an earth/lunar/lunar-surface mission together. If you borrow the Merlin engine from SpaceX for your rover, autonomous landing in a gravity well with a power variable engine is a solved problem. [2] So most of the questions vis-a-vis "How do I get something on to the surface to mine?" is an engineering / cost problem rather than a 'create from whole cloth' problem. The 'knotty bits' in this particular endeavor are then three; a) Do we deliver a return capability to the surface (aka a return craft) or do we create it on the surface from materials we find there? b) What is the energy infrastructure, solar? nuclear? And do we build it on site or do we transport it? c) Of the prioritized targets (in terms of value per lifted ounce of the surface and into low earth orbit) what are the extraction techniques for each and their repeatability? That would be a helluva lot of fun to play with wouldn't it? Building a series of modules that could deploy on the lunar surface and provide a refinery capability. Presumably there is a scenario where you put a variety of payloads on the moon and a means to assemble into the infrastructure you need. [1] http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ea.05.050177.002313 http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ea.05.0... [2] http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home
tzs 16y ago
There are something like 20 minerals that are important to US industry (some are essential) for which the US has no usable internal sources and so relies on imports. For many of these, most of the world's supply is in assorted unstable third world countries (mostly in Africa), or the former Soviet Union, or China. These minerals are often called "strategic minerals". For instance, here's a map of where cobalt comes from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/2005cobalt_%28mined%29.PNG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/2005cobalt_%28.... (Cobalt is essential in making the alloys used in jet engines, so a loss of access to cobalt could serious harm the US militarily). Having an emergency backup plan for these minerals, such as moon mining, would be good even if it is expensive.
- HelloBeautiful 16y ago
  There is such plan for every single strategic resource. Stuff like opening mines, that are currently unable to compete, because of low prices of Chinese, etc. products.

by mekoka 16y ago

waterlesscloud 16y ago

It's like oil exploration, there's a cost at which extraction makes sense. Since the price of the resource varies over time, the economics of extraction will as well. There's no firm "yes" or "no" to the "Is it worth doing?" question, there's only "worth it / not worth it right now." The much bigger obstacle will be political, breezy as the article is about ownership of lunar resources.

ChuckMcM 16y ago

Valid questions, but there are some 'known' unknowns which is to say you can't even start if you can't get some way to manipulate the moon on to the surface of the moon. There is a variety of material on the surface [1] which removes the need for excavation. Economically one would want to post process raw regolith into the desired materials to improve the profitability of sending mass back from the moon to earth. But what I like about these guys is that they're in kick down the door and get a search warrant later mode. There is a demonstrated capability in the Falcon9 project to get an earth/lunar/lunar-surface mission together. If you borrow the Merlin engine from SpaceX for your rover, autonomous landing in a gravity well with a power variable engine is a solved problem. [2] So most of the questions vis-a-vis "How do I get something on to the surface to mine?" is an engineering / cost problem rather than a 'create from whole cloth' problem. The 'knotty bits' in this particular endeavor are then three; a) Do we deliver a return capability to the surface (aka a return craft) or do we create it on the surface from materials we find there? b) What is the energy infrastructure, solar? nuclear? And do we build it on site or do we transport it? c) Of the prioritized targets (in terms of value per lifted ounce of the surface and into low earth orbit) what are the extraction techniques for each and their repeatability? That would be a helluva lot of fun to play with wouldn't it? Building a series of modules that could deploy on the lunar surface and provide a refinery capability. Presumably there is a scenario where you put a variety of payloads on the moon and a means to assemble into the infrastructure you need. [1] http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ea.05.050177.002313 http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ea.05.0... [2] http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home

tzs 16y ago

There are something like 20 minerals that are important to US industry (some are essential) for which the US has no usable internal sources and so relies on imports. For many of these, most of the world's supply is in assorted unstable third world countries (mostly in Africa), or the former Soviet Union, or China. These minerals are often called "strategic minerals". For instance, here's a map of where cobalt comes from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/2005cobalt_%28mined%29.PNG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/2005cobalt_%28.... (Cobalt is essential in making the alloys used in jet engines, so a loss of access to cobalt could serious harm the US militarily). Having an emergency backup plan for these minerals, such as moon mining, would be good even if it is expensive.

HelloBeautiful 16y ago
There is such plan for every single strategic resource. Stuff like opening mines, that are currently unable to compete, because of low prices of Chinese, etc. products.