From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Lunar "colony" reality check, part 2
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 11:48:05 GMT

Lunar "colony" reality check, part 2:

* The claim that solar energy will be so cheap on the moon as
  to be an advantage, is absurd.  A lunar site spends a
  half-month long stretch every month out of sunlight.
  Solar cells are not economical for most uses on earth
  and would cost far more to transport on the moon.  Making
  them on the moon is even more absurd, see following comments
  on industrial capabilities.
* Lower launch costs benefit all large space operations, from
  DBS to comet mining.  Lunar bases do require a much larger and
  more improbable fall in launch costs than dozens of other
  space development activities which would actually make money.
* In addition to hydrocarbons or polymers, urea is a good
  bulk way to supply lunar operations with essential volatiles
  from earth.  However, these schemes require huge ongoing launches
  from earth.  They require large-scale, messy, difficult to maintain 
  chemical plants designed for 1/6 g, as does the cracking of oxygen 
  from lunar regolith. 
* The industrial environment on the moon is vastly inferior to that 
  on earth, and to that in space where there is microgravity,
  high-grade metal regolith and abundant volatiles.  The energy 
  and thermal environment of the moon, as well as the lack of cheap
  volatiles, makes it an extremely poor place for chemical
  and industrial operations.
* Just as with Shuttle, astronauts will not be able to fix most 
  broken equipment.  Most disabling breaks, no matter to how 
  small a part, will require an entire replacement unit to be 
  shipped from earth.  Since the astronaut's very lives will 
  depend on recycling equipment, large numbers of spares will 
  have to be shipped on the first trip.
* Redesigning equipment for 1/6 g will cost _more_ than
  redesigning it for 0 g, because the latter has been
  done for a much wider array of equipment on satellites
  & stations.
* Unlike the intrepid Biosphereans, lunar astronauts will
  not be able to cheat and come back to civilization to
  find good medical care.  In a lunabago will be found
  little more than a part-time doctor and a first-aid kit.
* There are no "resources" on the moon that could not be
  provided at lower cost from asteroids or comets, and the
  most important materials like volatiles and high-grade
  metal regolith are available only from the planetesimals.
* Transport costs to the moon are six orders of magnitude 
  greater than transport costs to the North Slope.  Not only 
  Ed's toilet paper but also the recycling equipment, spares,
  and volatiles (if brought from earth) will make the cost of 
  supporting astronauts at least six orders of magnitude more 
  expensive than the cost of hosting a worker at the North Slope.  
  It should be noted that no families have permanently relocated 
  to the North Slope; even the industrial workers themselves 
  commute by airplane rather than live without their families for 
  years on end.
* Submarines get to surface every month or more, and can come back to 
  port for food & sex.  Nobody has a "submarine colony", even though
  it would be far less expensive and more functional than a lunar 
  "colony".
* If scientific knowledge is an "economic resource", then what
  happened to NASA's planetary science budget?  Why can't they
  even find money for a lunar polar orbiter, which costs many
  orders of magnitude less than even a minimal lunar base?   
  Why not let scientists decide where to spend the science budget? 
  (Hint: lunar base isn't even _on_ their long list of priorities).
* Microgravity manufacturing, large platforms and other space
  industries could export $10's of billions per year to earth
  by using a large supply of cheap volatiles and high-grade metal 
  regolith, available in abundance from planetesimals but absent 
  on the moon.  With low thrust in microgravity, the power needed 
  to move this material to earth orbit is orders of magnitude less 
  than needed to get useless lunar material out of the moon's gravity 
  well. 

Our obsession with the Death Valley in front of us continues
to blind our eyes to the fertile valleys beyond, and the space
colonization movement remains mired in failure.


-- 
Nick Szabo					 szabo@techboook.com
Newsgroups: sci.space