From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Bootstrap hardware for LunaBase
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 92 20:43:49 GMT
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu

In article <1992Oct6.154855.12520@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>This is a misuse of the word "bootstrap".  The scheme does not substitute 
>a major percent of native materials that would make ensuing steps much 
>cheaper, as for example a earth-comet-earth-comet propellant bootstrapping 
>scheme does.

Oh please, I realize you believe you have a patent on the use of the word, but
really....

Bringing water to earth doesn't strike me as very profitable. Even bringing
water to LEO doesn't strike me as profitable. Will probably be easier to ship
water outbound in the near-term by using a gas gun or something equally
unconventional.

A lunar colony needs to have PROFITABLE EXPORTS and a minimium of heavy
imports. The only profitable export of the near-term is going to be power. 

Once you land the initial hardware, LunaOne should be able to use native
materials to generate its own oxygen and extract metals to produce more
machines. 

>I've included below just the estimated launch costs for this scheme, at
>$40 million per ton to the lunar surface.

Where d'ya get $40 mil/ton, laddy? Is that NASA costs? I'm going to subcontract
to the Russians. They're the only ones with a Real Big Booster right now. If I
could get the little problem with those 4 islands worked out, I'd get the
Japanese to provide money; they've already done some gaming of moon
construction. 

>>	o	"construction shack" & living quarters space
>
>Based on SSF, presumeably.  $120 billion SSF cost + Apollo
>cost = $270 billion (see my previous article on FLO).
>Construction shack 200 tons, launch cost  $8 billion.

<<buzzer>> WRONG! All my R&D has been done thanks to the folks at Freed (I'll
spot them two letters since they're bending metal now :-) and FLO, since
they're going to work out all those problems with long-life suits, plus do all
my initial surveys. 

If I don't like the costs here at home, I'll go talk to the Italians, who are
building smaller modules to be installed on Freedom. Or the Russians, who have
lots of leftovers, and hungry families.

>>	o	Caterpiller 2000+ Lunar Bulldozer (:-)
>
>50 tons, $2e9, not including power supply, spare parts and tools.
>N.B. must be totally redesigned for 1/6 normal force, electric
>power, and vacuum-welding conditions, if "dozer" concept will even 
>work at all.

That's nice. Putting a pricetag on something which you don't think will work.
:) Doesn't matter. Maybe I'll have a super-sucker instead, or SOMETHING which
will scoop up soil to feed to the O2 plant and smelting facilities.

>>	o	Processing plant to extract O2 from lunar soil
>
>This is a losing proposition.  $2e9 to set down 50 tons of equipment,
>which will -- if your engineering is quite advanced! -- produce 50 tons
>of LOX per year.  The LOX will have all leaked out in that time,
>alas.

Uh, Nick, why don't you talk to your hero of "Mars Direct" (Name escapes me).
He wrote up a scheme for "LunarDirect" which landed one plant to process soil
for O2. 

Some of it will be used for breathing, some for propulsion & energy, fuel cell
for the Caterpiller 'dozer, etc.

>>	o	Solar furnace to melt soil for glass & construction material
>
>50 tons, $8 billion.  It will break down before it's output a thousand
>tons, though.  Astronauts won't be able to fix it, though, any more
>than they've been able to fix a myriad of similar problems with the
>shuttle over the years.

Based on your own considerable experience with space-based furnaces too, no
doubt? 

I respectfully submit the furnace might be the EASIEST thing to construct and
build now. It'll need dusted off once in a while, but this is why we have extra
02 to blow off the gunk :-).

Not a whole lot of moving parts here, other than a set of focusing mirrors.
It'll probably be easier to operate and design than a zero-g one "from
scratch."

>>	o	Some food production facility.
>
>500 tons, $20 billion.   This will be a toy, though, since water, air
>and organics have to be resupplied from earth as they leak from
>the system.  Check out SSF resupply costs for estimates.

Let's see, we get air from our O2 plant. Water is a little tougher, but we can
get some of it from recycling, some from fuel cells. 

I don't expect immediate closed-cycle results from food production, but I do
expect to grow some crops, with an eventual goal of being fully self-sufficient
in food somewhere down the road. 

Care to tell me where your asteroid miners get their food? 

>billion or $510 billion.  The base  is still totally dependent on earth for
>air, water, and organics, not to mention spare parts, medicine, and
>any signficant expasion of the base.  

No Nick. The base is infrastructure. If you can smelt metals and produce O2,
you're half-way home to building other things. Such as solar cells to beam
power back to earth (which you so flagantely cut out and ignore). 

If you can smelt metals, you can produce some spare parts on-site. No matter
how you slice it, you'll be dependent on someone in the early stages for
medical supplies, supplementary foodstuffs, and high-refinement/low-mass
materials. Computing power here is a biggie. 

> After $540 billion no mass driver or other way to get the LOX off,

You can smelt metals and you have power. You build a mass-driver on-site.
Radical concept, huh? Even uses native materials. 

> even if it was useful (it's not -- the market
>for LOX in earth orbit is $1 billion a year with 100% penetration,
>but this base amortizes to $50 billion a year if you can get in
>on the current low interest rates, which you can't, because it's
>a high-risk venture).

I'm going to skip this, because there's no "market." There's a couple of
government outposts, but no set of multiple buyers and sellers as the term
"market" implies. 

>This method of "space development" has been beaten to death.
>Give it up, already.  There are plenty of other, better ways
>to develop space.

The Szabo comet express, which is high-risk, and bases itself on the need for
what? Alleged U.S. government needs, such as inflated SDIO "needs."

Who needs water? Well, LunaOne could use some. Need the hydrogen for the fuel
cells, and the crops. You boys *did* want some fresh bread and vegetables,
right?  :-) 

Of course, shipping costs to orbit are much cheaper than Earth's, altho' you
can get a wider variety from Terra.

>>[admits to problem with start-up costs]
>
>No doubt.  This is more than 500 times the amount spent to start 
>up comsats, which got a large purse for a new industry.

Which was built on a goverment-constructed infrastructure and R&D.
And is currently maxed.

>By comparison, an automated ice extraction scheme could come 
>in under $10 billion, given some fairly easy advances in tech -- eg 
>good deep-space electric rockets.

*snort* Two problems:

	A) You have nobody to sell the ice to in orbit. Sorry. 
	B) You use the Shezer ruler of "If my idea, it's cheaper than
	   yours, even if I do play it fast and loose with my R&D
	   numbers."

Fundmentally, you have to bring something which is in demand on earth. Clean
power is not a bad place to start. It solves the chicken-and-egg problem
which you seem to miss, and goes to develop infrastructure to produce metals
and O2.

  


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