Quote from: Nelson Bridwell on 11/21/2012 03:01 pmAnd for those who have not happened to notice, China is very much into PLANNING. It is something that they do very well. Yes, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were textbook examples of careful and meticulous planning.
And for those who have not happened to notice, China is very much into PLANNING. It is something that they do very well.
Ok folks, back on topic please.
:(That is a reference to Calvin and Hobbes.)
Quote from: Nelson Bridwell on 11/22/2012 12:17 am...Mao is no longer running the show...Putting Mao in charge was yet another example of Chinese prowess at planning.
...Mao is no longer running the show...
You're totally confused about cause and effect. Mao took charge.
Nobody is going to invest private capital in a scheme to land people on the Moon because the Chinese may someday land people on the Moon.
Quote from: Danderman on 11/22/2012 03:34 amNobody is going to invest private capital in a scheme to land people on the Moon because the Chinese may someday land people on the Moon.If I were a very large mining company (or conglomerate of mining interests) and I believed that there was an economically highly attractive deposit on the moon (either because I believed in near-term reusable rockets or otherwise), then I might in fact be willing to attempt claiming and mining the deposits, using a small portion of my exploration budget toward a well-defined plan and timeframe. If I thought that the chance existed for a competitor (China) to get there first, then my motivation to fund development appropriately would be stronger, especially if losing the race held the potential to collapse the value of my current assets and operations. There is both a carrot and a stick for the private capital.
I gather you have not calculated the cost per ton of moving metal from the surface of the Moon to Earth compared with the price per ton of that metal.
The biggest cost driver will be flying the linear accelerator out to the Moon and installing it on the surface. After that, it will just be electricity generation. Use aero-capture to drop the chunks into LEO and then have them recovered by LEO-only robot freighters (think of a recoverable Angry Alligator that can close its jaws).
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 11/22/2012 04:00 pmYou're totally confused about cause and effect. Mao took charge.You're not suggesting that the Chinese didn't plan for such a contingency , are you?
The C&H strip so apply represents the normal relationship between NASA and contractors with the "worms" being...
Assuming that mining can be done for some precious metal and assuming that accelerator does work which are big assumptions.
Honestly, the assumption that economically interesting materials are on the lunar surface is by far the larger one. If they're there, and there is an economic case, someone will find an engineering solution.
Probably the best case for mining the Moon is to not actually mine the Moon. Rather, it would be find economically valuable asteroids and put them on trajectories that would impact the Moon at extremely slow velocities ...
Ok. Here is my quick price per mission estimate for a dual EDS storable propellant using vacuum optimized SuperDracos with one EDS used to refuel the lander and also used as a crasher stage so that the Lander only needs propellant for 2700m/s delta V (500 for terminal landing and 2200 for ascent) ~6mt propellant with a dry weight of 1.5mt. To do the deorbit burn the crasher stage will need ~15mt of propellant. A BEO DragonRider with a 2-2.5mt propulsion module in the trunk to do a TEI burn from LLO. A regular paying mission involves two FH flights delivering two fully fueled EDS placed into LEO. This is followed by a F9 BEO DragonRider flight. To do the TLI and TOI to place the second EDS with 21mt of propellant and the 9mt of DragonRider +trunk+TEI ppropulsion module up to 78mt of propellant is used leaving total weight at LLO of 31mt(21mt propellant+9mt Dragon+1mt for EDS dry weight).The development program would be as follows. An unmanned test flight of BEO DragonRider and the EDS involving 1 FH and the F9 BEO DragonRider – cost $275M. The placement of the reusable lander into LLO + a small Bigelow habitat- cost $1,000M. A manned demo flight to the surface – cost $440M.The development of the habitat the BEO DragonRider and EDS are done by a provider and is not directly borne by the Lander operator but is paid off by purchases of DragonRider and EDS and the habitat. The Lander development + the test flights are amortized over 10 paying customer flights. The per flight amortized development charge per mission would be $170M.This would make a per mission price to put 4 persons to LLO with 2 of those to the surface at $800M.There is nothing exotic in the tech for this solution and uses existing, soon to exist, or extensible of those technologies being developed.
Pretty much agree, with the additional observation that replicating an Apollo landing, or even building a four to six person base is also a problem awaiting only an engineering solution.