NASA's accelerated return - What could international partners contribute?

[A_M_Swallow]

I don't think he was referring to launching rockets, but providing auxiliary services from Australia.  I'd like to see Australia provide scientific equipment or contribute to the lander in some fashion 

Getting back to the Moon within the next 5 years is going to be a big rush. IMHO The USA will do it all internally. However after that things may be opened up to external contributions.

I suspect the Moon base will need:
* an assay module to determine what rocks consist off
* a lunar dump truck to bring the regolith back from mine to the processing plant
* an ore processing plant to extract water, carbon, oxygen and metals from the regolith
* industrial scale drilling, bull dosing and other mining equipment
* rock blasting equipment so dirt roads can be built

I am assuming the USA will make the habitats, landing pads, landers and space tugs.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
I suspect the Moon base will need:
* an assay module to determine what rocks consist off
* a lunar dump truck to bring the regolith back from mine to the processing plant
* an ore processing plant to extract water, carbon, oxygen and metals from the regolith
* industrial scale drilling, bull dosing and other mining equipment
* rock blasting equipment so dirt roads can be built
....

For the foreseeable future rock sample analysis will be done back on Earth.

The first few Moon base will not be mining operations. Which could only start with the availability of a heavy robust Lunar cargo lander that can disembarked at least 50 tonnes on the Lunar surface..

Finally there will not be not too much rock blasting on the Moon. The cloud of Regolith particles coating the work site is too hazardous and wears out hardware.

[ncb1397]

The first few Moon base will not be mining operations. Which could only start with the availability of a heavy robust Lunar cargo lander that can disembarked at least 50 tonnes on the Lunar surface..

50 t is not a minimum. For instance, excavators from Caterpillar range from about 1 t to 87 t. 90% of their models listed on their website are under 32 t.

source: https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/excavators.html

edit: I think you are over-estimating how much material needs to be processed for useful mining as well. For instance, about half of lunar soil by weight is oxygen. That means a cubic meter of lunar soil massing about 1.5 t would contain nearly 750 kg. Assuming that 50% is recoverable, 375 kg is enough oxygen for an astronaut for a year, not counting CO2 recovery.

[Zed_Noir]

The first few Moon base will not be mining operations. Which could only start with the availability of a heavy robust Lunar cargo lander that can disembarked at least 50 tonnes on the Lunar surface..

50 t is not a minimum. For instance, excavators from Caterpillar range from about 1 t to 87 t. 90% of their models listed on their website are under 32 t.

source: https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/excavators.html

edit: I think you are over-estimating how much material needs to be processed for useful mining as well. For instance, about half of lunar soil by weight is oxygen. That means a cubic meter of lunar soil massing about 1.5 t would contain nearly 750 kg. Assuming that 50% is recoverable, 375 kg is enough oxygen for an astronaut for a year, not counting CO2 recovery.

Didn't say anything about how much material need for viable mining operations.

The 50 tonnes payload is a bit arbitrary. But like for example a 25 tonne earth excavator of some sort needs spare parts along with maintenance consumables and support equipment. So it is not just a vehicle tied down in the lander cargo hold (if there is one) plus the hardware for deploying the vehicle to the Lunar surface if not part of the lander design.

However the energy requirement to processes Lunar Regolith will need a lot of tonnage for energy generation and storage.

[Patchouli]

50 t is not a minimum. For instance, excavators from Caterpillar range from about 1 t to 87 t. 90% of their models listed on their website are under 32 t.

source: https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/excavators.html

edit: I think you are over-estimating how much material needs to be processed for useful mining as well. For instance, about half of lunar soil by weight is oxygen. That means a cubic meter of lunar soil massing about 1.5 t would contain nearly 750 kg. Assuming that 50% is recoverable, 375 kg is enough oxygen for an astronaut for a year, not counting CO2 recovery.

Probably going to need 20 tons of LOX and hydrogen to refuel the lander.
Though even there you won't need a large excavator if there is only a flight every few months.
Move and process a ton a material a day that's 15 tons of LOX in a month you can at least take care of the oxidizer needs for a small lander in a month or a large one in two or three months.
A couple of rovers the size of ATHLETE could handle the digging.