Mining the Moon: Need We Despoil that Planetoid, too?

[Oleg Bach]

Why mine the moon? The idiots that consider this should be more pragmatic - why not just mine protein from the loins and backsides of the poor of the earth - Lets just start eating people..it makes just as much sense - those that seek wealth from the moon are greedy self centered pigs - maybe we could eat this pork first.

[GostHacked]

Mining the moon would be a good thing. It will be very pricey to start up the venture, but when the infrastructure is in place, mine away. This will not only help earth out, but it would be easier to make that plunge into exploration of our solar system and our galaxy in general.

Some posts in here are "why trash the moon when we can trash earth first'. Mining the moon would be a good start to not strip mine our planet to death. We need this planet to remain the way it has been. Does anyone really care if a portion of the moon was designated as a mining facility or a garbage disposal??

Are we mining HE3??

[ToadBrother]

Mining the moon would be a good thing. It will be very pricey to start up the venture, but when the infrastructure is in place, mine away. This will not only help earth out, but it would be easier to make that plunge into exploration of our solar system and our galaxy in general.

Some posts in here are "why trash the moon when we can trash earth first'. Mining the moon would be a good start to not strip mine our planet to death. We need this planet to remain the way it has been. Does anyone really care if a portion of the moon was designated as a mining facility or a garbage disposal??

Are we mining HE3??

The problem is the Moon is still a substantial gravity well. It still requires a good deal of energy to get to escape velocity, and if you're considering firing ore or refined materials, that costs goes up. Until we find cheap ways to achieve escape velocity, mining on planets or large moons would likely not be economically feasible.

The Asteroid Belt, however, gives another option. There are a number of large asteroids, and even some planetoids (like Ceres). Various metals are common. Gravity is minimal. Getting there might be slow, but with ion drives, or more rationally, nuclear engines, it wouldn't be that long.

For hydrocarbons (which we'll need just as much as anything else by the next century), it appears that comets may hold plentiful supplies. In fact, I would suspect that our first real mining attempts on any of the major moons or planets will be Titan, where we have a world where hydrocarbons literally rain from the sky.

[ToadBrother]

BTW: People who believe certain things "Weapons of Mass Destruction" are usually the ones that are most likely to not question anything - like condoning and actively helping to kill millions of innocent people without solid proof.

Do you really want to be one of those people? Healthy skepticism is a good thing, especially since most of the US media is a massive lying machine, arguably as bad as China.

There's healthy skepticism, and then there's disbelief bordering on the schizophrenic.

We have left things behind on the moon, including a laser, which scientists use to measure the varying distant between the Earth and Moon. Now you can disbelieve that sort of thing if you want, but there is a point where skepticism simply becomes a nihilistic rejection of virtually all knowledge.

[jbg]

There's healthy skepticism, and then there's disbelief bordering on the schizophrenic.

My own view is that the moon is made of blue cheese. That being the fact, any rocket trying to launch off the moon would have melted it. Thus the moon landings were all a hoax.

[ZenOps]

Well.. you do have to ask yourself what have we done in the last 40 years, and what is our capability today...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

The most advanced imagery we can get from Nasa 40 years later as "proof" of the moon landing is a 5 pixel high greyscale image.

Now - Do you really want to believe that a nation can have regressed so much in the last 40 years - or that it never happened at all? For the sake of future generations and not to totally dishearten the next generation - I think its better that they think it was all a hoax whether it was a hoax or not.

Sort of like how the history books all say that the Aztec/Incan/Mayans were savages that sacrificed themselves in the millions on top of pyramids, and not by European conquistadors. Some things people just need to believe.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Well.. you do have to ask yourself what have we done in the last 40 years, and what is our capability today...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

The most advanced imagery we can get from Nasa 40 years later as "proof" of the moon landing is a 5 pixel high greyscale image.

Now - Do you really want to believe that a nation can have regressed so much in the last 40 years - or that it never happened at all? For the sake of future generations and not to totally dishearten the next generation - I think its better that they think it was all a hoax whether it was a hoax or not.

Did you miss this? if you had bothered to scroll down you would have noticed the smaller version of it that says

This photograph shows Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin in front of the lunar module. The photo helps provide a scale to the LROC images shown above.

What about the bit at the top of the page that says

The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

Did you notice that?

Sort of like how the history books all say that the Aztec/Incan/Mayans were savages that sacrificed themselves in the millions on top of pyramids, and not by European conquistadors. Some things people just need to believe.

Never read a history textbook that said that. Plenty that said they sacrificed thousands of slaves.

One last thing how to you explain the mirrors that were left on the moon?

[DogOnPorch]

Not to mention had it been a hoax, the Soviets would have screamed bloody murder. They were tracking Apollo's every move and had their own remote lander in Lunar orbit attempting a soil return mission. So unless Moon hoaxers actually believe the Cold War was a cover for the Moon Landings.......well you know.

They dropped development of their Moon rocket (N1) and went into space stations (Salyut/Almaz) in a big way right after the Apollo missions ended. As the Americans had pulled off Kennedy's promise, the Soviets lost interest in spending billions to put a Russian on the Moon. They were pushing the limits of their technology with the N1 rocket, anyways. Quite the beast, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xc87zr9PI4

[ZenOps]

So goes the conspiracy of course - that the Russians were in on the hoax as well.

OR

The US probably did have the capacity to send up a 10 pound satellite relay around the moon at the time, which could have been rebroadcasting a bounced video feed from that hoaxlovers California movie studio.

The wonderful thing about satellite transmission and rebroadcasts is that you never know exactly where the origin point is... In North America today if you are watching Al Jazzera TV - are you sure its the real thing?

China is considering dropping a satellite-like antennae on the moon too... There is a huge potential upside to this as regular geosynchronous satellites usually run out of fuel after 12 years or so trying to stay "in box". An information relay placed on the moon would be accessable as long as you have the ability to track it (and physically have line of sight to it) and about 8 second delay instead of 250 millisecond delay.

But it more or less would be permanent as it requires no fuel to maintain. The moon is a perfect satellite too, in that same side always faces the earth.

A satellite relay properly made could be slammed into the side of the moon at several G's of force (would not require tens of thousands of kilograms of fuel to slow down)

A satellite relay on the moon would probably consist of a gigantic micromillimeter titanium plate sheet that would unfold from suitcase sized like a flower to at least the size of a football field.

Edited January 5, 2010 by ZenOps

[bush_cheney2004]

....The US probably did have the capacity to send up a 10 pound satellite relay around the moon at the time, which could have been rebroadcasting a bounced video feed from that hoaxlovers California movie studio.

Both the USA and USSR has capabilities for lunar flyby, impact, lander, and orbiter missions by 1967....oh wait...they were all fake too!

[ZenOps]

Hey. Billions of Chinese believe that internet porn doesn't exist. The media can be very pervasive.

IMO, its just a matter of time (and figuring out how to bond ultrathin solar panels to titanium sheets) before any nation (US, USSR, China) decides to put up a square mile sized satellite relay style dish on the moon.

I mean really - the logistics of it are simple by comparison (needs only be in the 100 kilogram range) if you've already sent a man to the moon seven times.

Added bonus is of course anything 1 square mile or larger would be visible from Earth. Its one of Republican US greatest fears to have another nations flag (or even perhaps a corporation like Sony) visible on the moon from the Earth.

Edit: For all practical purposes if there was a tiny bit of will... Canada could easily be the first nation to fund a satellite dish on the moon (Say running 100 1 Gbit transponders at something newer than Ka band.)

Hell of a lot more useful than the outhouses and human poop that the US left on the moon.

Edited January 5, 2010 by ZenOps

[bush_cheney2004]

Hell of a lot more useful than the outhouses and human poop that the US left on the moon.

Sure...but smart Canadians decided to leave "human poop" instead...as members of NASA, after getting cocked-up Avro Arrow pink slips.

[GostHacked]

The problem is the Moon is still a substantial gravity well. It still requires a good deal of energy to get to escape velocity, and if you're considering firing ore or refined materials, that costs goes up. Until we find cheap ways to achieve escape velocity, mining on planets or large moons would likely not be economically feasible

The Asteroid Belt, however, gives another option. There are a number of large asteroids, and even some planetoids (like Ceres). Various metals are common. Gravity is minimal. Getting there might be slow, but with ion drives, or more rationally, nuclear engines, it wouldn't be that long.

The Moon is a lot closer than the asteroid belt, which makes it cheaper to actually mine. You'd spend a good deal of energy just to get out to the asteroid belt and back.

For hydrocarbons (which we'll need just as much as anything else by the next century), it appears that comets may hold plentiful supplies. In fact, I would suspect that our first real mining attempts on any of the major moons or planets will be Titan, where we have a world where hydrocarbons literally rain from the sky.

Gotta catch one first. That will take a good amount of fuel as well.

[Oleg Bach]

We should mine the sun. I hear that it is just chalked full of energy. AND we don't have to travel to get it - the delivery is free of charge.

[Wild Bill]

The Moon is a lot closer than the asteroid belt, which makes it cheaper to actually mine. You'd spend a good deal of energy just to get out to the asteroid belt and back.

Gotta catch one first. That will take a good amount of fuel as well.

It doesn't work like that! Space is zero G. Once you give an object some thrust it just keeps going! Stronger thrust would make it go faster and less thrust slower but NOTHING short of another thrust will change its velocity!

So if you fired a small rocket on the surface of the moon and it was not strong enough to overcome the Moon's gravity then your package would not leave the surface. However, if you were already in space and you fired that same rocket towards the asteroids it would get there! It might take months or even years but you would get there without having to fire one extra drop of rocket fuel!

So your only real problems are ballistics and if you're running a manned mission, life support. If you've aimed right and you have enough Twinkies it's much easier to mine the asteroids! If you have smart enough robots you don't even need the Twinkies!

The cost of manoeuvering in space depends only on how patient you are.

Even if you prefer to mine the Moon it doesn't matter that you still have SOME cost in firing the material back to Earth! You don't need a fleet of space shuttles. Just make some 10 ton "slug" carriers from iron ore and fire them back with a mass driver or whatever. Again, it's just ballistics. Aim it right and it will plop gently down just off your coast into the sea water, where you can haul it up on land and transport it to a smelter. If your profit margin is high enough compared to your costs you win.

Edited January 5, 2010 by Wild Bill

[ZenOps]

Yup, it would actually be cheaper to mine an asteroid, but would take slightly longer.

Moon is still 1/6th gravity of earth, and it takes two million pounds of rocketfuel to lift a decent sized object off of the earth.

A large asteroid would be well under 1/1000th the gravity of earth.

[Oleg Bach]

Yup, it would actually be cheaper to mine an asteroid, but would take slightly longer.

Moon is still 1/6th gravity of earth, and it takes two million pounds of rocketfuel to lift a decent sized object off of the earth.

A large asteroid would be well under 1/1000th the gravity of earth.

Nerds love adventure - go to the moon and don't bother mining it---you don't need an excuse to have some fun...just don't send me the bill.

[Wild Bill]

Nerds love adventure - go to the moon and don't bother mining it---you don't need an excuse to have some fun...just don't send me the bill.

No problem! Just don't expect any of the profits or the aid of any new inventions, including medical.

No tickee, no washee!

[Bonam]

The reason for "mining" on the moon, more commonly known as ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) is that any facility or "base" we might want to establish on the Moon would obviously require a lot of materials. Whether it is Oxygen to breath, water to drink, or fuel for rockets to leave the Moon and go to other destinations, brining these materials in from Earth is prohibitively expensive. If any of these materials can be extracted in place on the Moon, the cost and therefore the feasibility of any potential settlement on the Moon is improved.

We already know the Moon has substantial deposits of water, and there are nitrogen compounds in the lunar regolith. That means that a properly equipped facility on the Moon can produce breathing air, water, and hydrogen/oxygen fuel. The delta-V needed to escape from the Moon is FAR less than that needed to escape the Earth, thus if we have the capability to produce rocket fuel and other materials needed for longer trips in our solar system on the Moon, we can greatly reduce the cost and size of launch vehicles needed for interplanetary missions.

[Guest TrueMetis]

I'm hoping if we can mine the moon and use it as a jumping point than mining things like asteroids won't be that far off. Lots of resources out there for the taking.

Edited February 19, 2010 by TrueMetis

[Bonam]

Indeed, some asteroids contain trillions of dollars worth of mineral ores. Definitely a lot of resources. That being said, unless we have a system like a space elevator, these resources would pretty much only be of use for projects outside of Earth's gravity well. That's why, in my opinion, getting to the Moon and building a substantial settlement there is so critical, as it will really spur the whole space industry. There will suddenly be real economic use for extracting materials from asteroids, comets, etc.

Unfortunately, all these kinds of plans are being postponed indefinitely by Obama and his cancellation of the Constellation program...

[Wild Bill]

Indeed, some asteroids contain trillions of dollars worth of mineral ores. Definitely a lot of resources. That being said, unless we have a system like a space elevator, these resources would pretty much only be of use for projects outside of Earth's gravity well. That's why, in my opinion, getting to the Moon and building a substantial settlement there is so critical, as it will really spur the whole space industry. There will suddenly be real economic use for extracting materials from asteroids, comets, etc.

Unfortunately, all these kinds of plans are being postponed indefinitely by Obama and his cancellation of the Constellation program...

Yeah, some nations are going to get rich in space and colonize other worlds.

It just seems that they likely won't be speaking English...