From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Subject: Re: Lunar "colony" reality check
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 21:12:00 GMT

In article <BxEt07.G32@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes...
>Lunar "colony" reality check:
> 

Nick, Nick, Nick, at it again I see.

>* The moon has no significant sources of hydrogen, nitrogen,
>  or carbon.  Wishful thinking about polar volatiles or
>  scrounging solar wind particles are hardly significant.

Until there is a lunar polar orbiting spacecraft with a neutron spectrometer
this question will remain unanswered, not wishful thinking. Calculations
that you can do Nick old boy shows that the temperature in some of the
northern and southern lunar craters is low enough that water could exist there
for several billion years. If you doubt this look at the voyager pictures. Some
of the permanently dark craters have temps well below that of the surface of
the Jovian and Saturn moons. Comments like yours above merely reflects your
bias and not the state of knowledge in this area. Also underground water and
volatiles are a definite possiblity. What about carbonaceous meteor impact 
areas? Would this not enrich the surrounding area and the underground where
the meteor penetrated with voliatiles or even water in the case of a comet?

>* A livable atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, not oxygen.
>* Plants and animals need copious amounts of hydrogen, nitrogen,
>  and carbon.
>* There is no affordable way to crack oxygen out of lunar
>  rock or to recycle it.  This would cost, at bare minimum,
>  tens of millions of dollars per astronaut per year.  

Apparanently you have missed the last few lunar resource conferences. The
carbotek process which is ALREADY producing oxygen from lunar simulants is
a viable and relatively low cost process for making oxygen out of native
materials. By the way the Shimzu corporation is paying for that research. I 
guess the Japanese see no promise?

>* Because of transportation costs for recycling equipment,
>  recycling on the moon is far more expensive than recycling on 
>  earth.  Even on earth the best attempt at building a livable, 
>  working biosphere masses hundreds of thousands of tons and leaks 
>  over tens of tons of air per year.

References for this statement?

>* Hydrogen is extremely innefficient to transport from
>  earth.  The stoichiometric volume of LH to make water is
>  _larger_ than the volume of oxygen; huge amounts will
>  be wasted on tankage.  Much of the LH will leak before
>  it can be used; it's extremely difficult and expensive
>  to store even for the few days trip.

Funny that the Apollo SIII stage had no problem with that. It worked for
several days at a time to push the astronauts to the moon. Here is another
idea for you Nick. Refigure this if you ship WATER. Well you solve both
problems. You get inexpensive transport (you don't need 100% rocket reliablity)
and you get a power source by the stepwise conversion of excess water to H & O
during the lunar day and back again for power generation during the lunar night.
Nick please open your mind a little.

>* The annual per capita consumption of water in the
>  U.S. is over 500 tons.  In this as in many other
>  areas, the "colony" will be living in abject 
>  poverty despite the $billions spent on its
>  construction.

This is because we americans love to take a bath every day.

>* It takes more than a rocket payload full of hydrogen
>  to make the water needed by industry.  If we're to have any 
>  significant manufacturing industry in space, we're going to need 
>  tons of volatiles.  For example, here is the water used to make 
>  a few kinds of products on earth:
> 
>			gallons/unit
>			------------
>finished steel, ton	40,000

These are nice true numbers but are not applicable to space. most of the
water you quote here is used in the reduction process that gets the iron from
the ore. In space this is eliminated by  using pure sources from Nickel iron
meteors and simply melting by electrical induction.

>automobiles, unit	12,000

I dont think we will make many cars up there or buses for that matter.

>trucks, buses, unit	20,000
>ref: Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, 1987
> 
>* There is no signficant economic resource on the moon. 
>  Revenues as a percentage of costs will be 0%.

Hey! Have you been there? Geez there has not been even one resource mapping
mission to the moon and you are prepared to live or die by this statement?
Come on, that sounds like the people on the Spanish court who were against
Columbus. You have absolutly zero basis for that statement. Just from the
Apollo 15 and 16 gamma ray spectrometers we found economically feasible 
concentrations of titanium and aluminum. This was only a few days of 
survery with a crude instrument!

>* SSF bare-bones habitat operations costs will be $2 billion
>  per year.  Scaling for transport costs gives over $10 billion
>  per year for a bare-bones lunar "base".   Redesign will cost
>  even more than SSF cost,  since industry has no reason to
>  participate beyond the usual NASA-contractor mode.
>* Calling a few astronauts huddled in a Winnebago a "base" is
>  a major exaggeration.  Calling it a "colony" is an abominable 
>  misuse of the word.
> 

Calling this post a reality check is also abominable. You don't have to go
you do not have to particpate. Just get the heck outta our way.

>There are dozens of other pathways to space colonization.
>Fixation on obsolete concepts like the "lunar base" and oxymoronic
>concepts like the "lunar colony" is one of the main reasons why
>the space colonization movement lies mired in failure.
> 
> 

Tell you what Nick. You do it your way and we will do it this way and lets
see who comes out ahead.


>-- 
>Nick Szabo					 szabo@techboook.com
>Hold Your Nose: vote Republocrat  ////////  Breathe Free: vote Libertarian

Hell with all of em be an American and do something with your life and do not
count on any politician.


Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville