Shackleton Energy Company Launches Plan for First Lunar Mining Operation

[go4mars]

We've already had one $100B experiment ... Yes, yes, I know, there were a ton of "unnecessary" requirements like cross range capability, man-rating, down mass, etc. ... Thus, the fact that the first $100B wasn't enough means nothing to you guys. Keep in mind that a refurbished SRB costs 80% of brand new one. NASA's success at developing LV's is checkered at best.

Here's something just as relevant as shuttle and its costs:  A low-cost room in the Park Hyatt Zurich costs over 700 Swiss Francs. 

Skylon says $1000/kg. How is Elon's flyback booster concept going to blow that out of the water by an order of magnitude???

Here's three things that help:
1)  Proven low-cost development of funtional, high-tech hardware (that doesn't involve miles of iconel) which isn't a diss to skylon's potential. 
2)  2 stages (or more in the case of cross-fed heavy) implies more margin and payload to orbit per unit of lift-off mass.
3)  Plans to scale up to BFR.

$100/kg simply isn't in the cards.

The river card hasn't been turned yet (Texas hold-em poker reference).

Not true: a Lunar ISRU program could make available to NASA 3,000 mT per year that could be used for a sustainable Mars program for $2B/year. That's a pretty big market.

It comes down to whether you have more faith in the "NASA mars program market" or the "everything that might go to space" market. 

Exploration in other words, and as an oil man, I mean exploration in the same way that Exxon uses the word.

Which is more likely: Rewriting the mandate of NASA to operate as a private entity akin to Exxon?  Or allowing rich dreamers to pursue their hobbies in a market economy, funded partially through mutually beneficial arrangements with governments? 
As another oil man, I've noticed that national oil companies are not very efficient at operating assets, marketing production, or innovating. 

[Warren Platts]

back booster concept going to blow that out of the water by an order o

$100/kg simply isn't in the cards.

The river card hasn't been turned yet (Texas hold-em poker reference).

lol! That's what I'm worried about: you guys want to go all in, when there's about two cards left in the deck that will make a winning hand!

[Robotbeat]

I absolutely love how high-launch-rate RLVs aren't in the cards but a fantastical moon base serving a non-existent market it. To each his own, I guess.

$3000-$5000/kg is TODAY using the likes of Proton, etc. It's not next-generation and certainly isn't RLVs. Falcon Heavy is $2400-$1500/kg (non-reusable). Any reasonable RLV is going to be considerably less than that. $100/kg is in the cards just as much as mining water on the Moon to the tune of ten thousand tons a year and shipping it to EML1 or LEO is. I guess if it makes your argument stronger, you can ignore that possibility, but I'm having an argument with a lunar evangelist, here.

[Warren Platts]

Actually $100 per kg is possible if the hardware can be reused 50 to 200 times.

Only if you assume zero operational and refurbishment costs.

Skylon has a high R&D cost and is very dependent on flight rates initially it's assumed the flight rates would be low and the vehicles subject to inspection after each flight.

But if the flight rate ramps up sub $100 per kg numbers could be possible.

That is not what's coming out of Reaction Engines. Their honest assessment is $1000/kg upon "mature service".

$100/kg is ridiculously low. It will never happen. $100/kg is the cost of Concord ticket to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, also known as "The Pond" since its only a few thousand miles. There is simply no way that flights to ORBIT are going to cost as much or less than a basic supersonic flight across the Pond.

[Warren Platts]

I absolutely love how high-launch-rate RLVs aren't in the cards but a fantastical moon base serving a non-existent market it. To each his own, I guess.

You just contradicted yourself (again):

'non-existent market for fantastical moon base' = 'non-existent market for high-launch-rate RLVs'

What you consistently fail to grasp is that RLV's and ISRU are not only not mutually exclusive, they depend on each other. Only a heavy Lunar base with an industrial focus will generate the mass flux necessary to support high flight rates of anything. And has Hop pointed out, the availability of cheap Lunar propellant in LEO would radically simplify the design of Earth to LEO RLV's. You're shooting yourself in the foot in order to spite your face!

I'm sure I know what you're hopes are: you've given up on BFR-based Mars Direct missions. At least you have enough common sense for that, I'll give you credit.

So now the latest straw to be grasped at is RLV's. This time is going to be different, right? Shuttle, Buran, X-33, Delta Clipper were all misguided abortions that failed because of human failure of imagination, and not the fact that cheap 747/Concord-cost RLV's to orbit are simply as an insurmountable engineering problem as FTL warp drive.

So your hope is now that Mars missions will provide the mass market for RLV's, and that we can shave a few years off getting to Mars if only we bypass the Moon, and gut the HSF budget--again--on tech development for RLV's--again.

Who was it that said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

$3000-$5000/kg is TODAY using the likes of Proton, etc. It's not next-generation and certainly isn't RLVs.

Uh huh... Notice you don't mention any American LV's.

Falcon Heavy is $2400-$1500/kg (non-reusable).

"IS" Meaningless statement on par with statements about the present king of France and golden mountains.

'Falcon Heavy WILL BE $2400-$1500' however, is meaningful, and hopefully true. Likely an overpromise though. There is no market for FH absent an aggressive Lunar program.

Any reasonable RLV is going to be considerably less than that.

A reasonable RLV (e.g., Skylon) will deliver launch costs that are comparable to ELV's. They will trade expensive complexity and high maintenance costs for cheap simplicity and low maintenance costs. The result will be a wash, but human passengers will prefer RLV's since they are a much more elegant mode of transportation than sitting on top of a rocket and parachuting back to Earth.

Only an unreasonable RLV will be able to deliver the 747 or Concorde cost levels that you're willing to go all in with the entire HSF space program for. Maybe you know something nobody else knows. If that's the case, please share your magic beans with the rest of us!

$100/kg is in the cards just as much as mining water on the Moon to the tune of ten thousand tons a year and shipping it to EML1 or LEO is. I guess if it makes your argument stronger, you can ignore that possibility, but I'm having an argument with a lunar evangelist, here.

You are projecting again. I am not the evangelist here. Offering the hope of 747 or Concorde-level prices if only we abandon BLEO space exploration for another decade or two is like promising 70 virgins in paradise if only you'll perform this one dirty deed.

Going to the Moon and establishing a permanently manned research station is just something we should be doing anyways, ISRU or no ISRU. It's going to cost on the order of $100B either way. So we might as well try and do some ISRU while we're there. If it fails, so what? We'll still have a permanently manned beachhead on another world and a depot-based cis-Lunar infrastructure to support it and other projects as well. A successful ISRU propellant operation will simply be icing on the cake.

However, as the dismal results of Bill Stone's attempts to raise private money demonstrate, the first ISRU operation will likely have to be government owned and operated. Once the way is paved, commercial outfits like SEP can step into the breach and start producing.

[dcporter]

I wonder if Shackleton's best move (in the world where they had money) would be to invest in putting earth propellant in LEO, in order to create the market they intend to serve with lunar matter.

[JohnFornaro]

To get loosely back to the original topic.

Are we sure that harvesting propellant from the Moon would be cheaper than just bringing it up from Earth?

In principle, yes. 

Given several assumptions about the hardware and amortization.  Assume a very long amortization period.  All the space hardware, cis-lunar tugs and depots, would cost the same for either approach.  Assume the depot at EML-1.  The cracking plant mass would have to be launched and set up on the Moon's surface.  The prop launchers from the Earth would consume a lot more prop in getting to the depot than would the lunar launchers carrying the same payload of prop.  A lot more, on a continuing, amortized basis. 

And that's why lunar prop would win over the long term.

It does take less prop to deliver prop from the moon. But that's not the major savings.

The major savings is lunar prop delivery vehicles could be reusable.

I think the correct statement here is surface to orbit vehicles could be made to be reusable more easily for the Moon than for Earth.

Thank you, that is what I meant to say.

So far as I know, the jury is still out whether practical RLVs for earth surface to orbit is doable.

Lunar surface to orbit has much smaller delta V budget (therefore less challenging mass fraction). And doesn't endure 8 km/s re-entry.

I agree with Hop David and Old Atlas Eguy about that more careful wording.  It is still the amortization of the development costs of such a system, which will prove the practicality.  And here, it is the degree of honesty with which the government can control those development costs, which will enable a realistic amortization period, thus increasing the chances of a cis-lunar market developing.

The atmospheric reentry makes the problem easier on the way down, not harder.

The Moon has the added complication of... Earth has the added benefit of...

Really, is it necessary to say all this? It's all kind of obvious when you aren't in space cadet fantasy land.

And I support reusable landers (if we're going to be doing a bunch of lunar missions), mind you.

After reading this, I also ask if it is necessary to point out all this?  Your point certainly seems to be "Stay the Course".  So what is your argument?  This?

Yes, my argument is that it's worthless to compare the cost of lunar ISRU propellant in LEO to the cost of the very expensive ELVs often used now, which is often done to justify lunar ISRU.

But that argument is incomplete.  RLV's should certainly be developed and it is truly a shame that shuttle did not improve costs, but this seems clearly to be a matter of politics running the management and procurement show at the expense of accomplishment.

Do you have a suggestion of a plan forward with RLV's?

[Patchouli]

Actually $100 per kg is possible if the hardware can be reused 50 to 200 times.

Only if you assume zero operational and refurbishment costs.

Skylon has a high R&D cost and is very dependent on flight rates initially it's assumed the flight rates would be low and the vehicles subject to inspection after each flight.

But if the flight rate ramps up sub $100 per kg numbers could be possible.

That is not what's coming out of Reaction Engines. Their honest assessment is $1000/kg upon "mature service".

$100/kg is ridiculously low. It will never happen. $100/kg is the cost of Concord ticket to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, also known as "The Pond" since its only a few thousand miles. There is simply no way that flights to ORBIT are going to cost as much or less than a basic supersonic flight across the Pond.

This is from their own site.

"The initial vehicle cost is determined by the development cost, the cost of development finance and the production cost of the machines. The SKYLON vehicle has been designed with the aim of achieving not less than 200 flights per vehicle. This seems a reasonable target for a first generation machine. Various scenarios have been examined but the uncertainty lies.      
At present the true launch cost of a typical 2-3 tonne spacecraft is about $150 million. Actual costs paid by customers vary from about one-third to one half of this due to the hidden subsidies on vehicle development, range maintenance, range activity and support infrastructure. For SKYLON, if no growth occurred and all operators flew equal numbers of the current approximately 100 satellites per year using 30 in-service spaceplanes from 3 spaceports, the true launch cost would be about $40 million per flight.
Even if the customer paid all of this, it would still represent a large reduction on current costs and would be a true transport operation.

This however is a very naive and pessimistic assumption. The real market would involve benign and aggressive operators with differing flight rates and nationally biased traffic. The total traffic would affect service and facility costs whilst profits and loan repayments would affect operators' cost. Pricing strategy would create different rates for cargo categories and human transport.
      
We expect mission costs to fall to about $10 million per launch for high product value cargo (e.g. commmunications satellites) $2-5 million for low product value cargo (e.g. science satellites) and for costs per passenger to fall below $100k, for tourists when orbital facilities exist to accommodate them.
"

[Warren Platts]

Well, if a person weighs 75 kilograms, and it costs $75,000 to go into orbit, that's $1000/kg: exactly what Mr. Hempsell, one of the main engineers at Reaction Engines said on this forum. That's still a far cry from the $7,500 you might have bought a Concorde ticket for.

[Robotbeat]

Well, if a person weighs 75 kilograms, and it costs $75,000 to go into orbit, that's $1000/kg: exactly what Mr. Hempsell, one of the main engineers at Reaction Engines said on this forum. That's still a far cry from the $7,500 you might have bought a Concorde ticket for.

Yeah, right, only 75kg is needed per person... They don't get to breathe, then.

[Warren Platts]

Well, if a person weighs 75 kilograms, and it costs $75,000 to go into orbit, that's $1000/kg: exactly what Mr. Hempsell, one of the main engineers at Reaction Engines said on this forum. That's still a far cry from the $7,500 you might have bought a Concorde ticket for.

Yeah, right, only 75kg is needed per person... They don't get to breathe, then.

Thanks for making my point better than I could.

[Warren Platts]

Getting back to Shackleton Energy Company, I'm afraid we've seen the last hurrah. Going with Rockethub had to be a last resort. Most people that try to raise money are people trying to start little independent films, or build a bungalow in Panama or someplace. Evidently, the TED talks failed to motivate any phone calls from the sort of multi-billionaires that could maybe pull it off. Now with the Rockethub attempt less than a smashing success (0.46% of the goal of $1.2M was raised), there's nothing left. There's been no response whatsoever from Shackleton or Bill Stone since the it ended that I can find on the web.

Goes to show that the Lunar mining first step is going to have to be sponsored by government.

[Robotbeat]

Well, if a person weighs 75 kilograms, and it costs $75,000 to go into orbit, that's $1000/kg: exactly what Mr. Hempsell, one of the main engineers at Reaction Engines said on this forum. That's still a far cry from the $7,500 you might have bought a Concorde ticket for.

Yeah, right, only 75kg is needed per person... They don't get to breathe, then.

Thanks for making my point better than I could.

No, they claimed $100,000 per person, not $1000/kg. Your estimate of their estimated cost to orbit for mass cargo to LEO is far off. $250/kg to LEO is an upper bound for achieving $100,000 per person to LEO.

[Patchouli]

Well, if a person weighs 75 kilograms, and it costs $75,000 to go into orbit, that's $1000/kg: exactly what Mr. Hempsell, one of the main engineers at Reaction Engines said on this forum. That's still a far cry from the $7,500 you might have bought a Concorde ticket for.

Yeah, right, only 75kg is needed per person... They don't get to breathe, then.

Thanks for making my point better than I could.

No, they claimed $100,000 per person, not $1000/kg. Your estimate of their estimated cost to orbit for mass cargo to LEO is far off. $250/kg to LEO is an upper bound for achieving $100,000 per person to LEO.

I was going to post a similar correction but to carry people they need to carry the passenger module which would have to be included into the total mass.
The 100K per passenger is carrying about 40 people.
Assuming they weigh on average 75Kg each this is only 3,000kg of human cargo.
This rest is the PAX module,cargo, and consumables.

[Warren Platts]

Here it is from Mr. Hempsell himself:

A reply to Warren

QUESTION: What are your current projections these days for bulk cargo launch prices?

From the objectives laid out in the Requirement Specification

On entry into service cost per kg = $8000 (2004)
About 80% current prices but this is a true unsubsidised cost and is less than half the true cost of current expendables.

In Mature Service (the most meaningful number) cost per kg = $1000 (2004)

Even if you look at that quote, and they get the cost per flight down to $10M ea., which requires some totally optimistic, build-it-and-they-will-come projections about what the future market will be like, thats' $667/kg for 15 tonnes of bulk cargo. More realistic is the $40M figure, so that's $2667/kg.

Once again, think about it this way: to fly on a 747 across the ocean, you can expect to pay about $10/kg.

If you want to fly on an air-breathing supersonic transport across an ocean, you can expect to pay $100/kg.

Now you guys are seriously expecting people to take you serious when you say that $100/kg is a realistic near-term to medium-term expectation.

In other words, you're saying you can get the cost TO ORBIT down to cost of a supersonic flight across the ocean or below.

Sorry guys, but that's just crazy. There is simply no way spaceflight is going to get cheaper than flying airplanes. Unless of course you know something I don't.

So that means realistic expectations are going to be at $1000/kg plus or minus a couple of hundred--as a best order of magnitude estimate of what's realistic. That's optimistic.

And at those prices, Lunar propellant makes sense. As a business venture, it's probably forlorn: think about the market: no one has more than 2 or 3 billion per year that can be spent on propellant. But if NASA were able to do that in-house, it could leverage that 2 or 3 billion into a massive amount of propellant that could prove to be truly game-changing.

[Robotbeat]

Humans have significant, um, "payload support" requirements. $250/kg of raw payload translates into $1000/kg of human, at best. Usually it's more like 8:1 ratio for an efficient capsule design.

[Warren Platts]

You're still ignoring the fact that you're ignoring Skylon's own numbers. You're more optimistic than they are. Hempsell says that even with a major SBSP project going on that's going to save the planet, $500/kg is their best estimate.

EDIT:

"For SKYLON, if no growth occurred and all operators flew equal numbers of the current approximately 100 satellites per year using 30 in-service spaceplanes from 3 spaceports, the true launch cost would be about $40 million per flight."

E.g., this: 100 satellites with 30 spaceplanes in one year. That's like 3.3 flights per spaceplane per year. A turnaround rate not much better than Shuttle. That's awful.

[JohnFornaro]

Here's something just as relevant as shuttle and its costs:  A low-cost room in the Park Hyatt Zurich costs over 700 Swiss Francs.

Which is affordable, for those who can afford it.  Not quite sure what you're getting at here.  I've thrown out a room rate of $10M/day each for two at the L-1 honeymoon suite.

I absolutely love how high-launch-rate RLVs aren't in the cards but a fantastical moon base serving a non-existent market it. To each his own, I guess.

I savor your observation how certain theories get to make some assumptions which are not allowed to other theories.

Mentioning my thoughts again, before the usual suspects misquote me:  The uhhhh, "fantastical moon base" would serve an existing market, if I had my way.  The "high-launch-rate RLV's" would serve the same market, presumably evolving into being as business begin acknowledging the sustainability of the effort.  For me, all things are possible, as long as they are done in the proper order.

I saw that "Skylon Pax Module".  I wish these people would present the early version of this, rather than the unbelievable picture shown.  It passeth all understanding to think that such a passenger load will be the first iteration of their "module".  Even the casual observer can see that the gray area labeled "life support systems" is a bogus artistic rendition.  Left unsaid of course, is the huge infrastructure which would already need to be in place before such a thing could be even imagined.

Moving back to the OP:

Come on guys. This "entrepreneur" couldn't even finance a good study to plan what he claims with $1.2 million. It is at best a failure waiting to go nowhere and at worst a get-rich-quick scheme for one person.

It's certainly no get rich quick scheme.  I know Bill personally, and can say with 100% confidence that he is in this for the exploration and to push the frontiers of humanity, not the money.  Although he is not yet well funded, he has a funding and technical plan that could work (obviously whether or not it does work is a function of many unknowns), and he is serious about this project.

Good to see Blazotron back.  Good to hear that the entrepreneur is serious about the effort.  And maybe he could demonstrate that crowd sourcing funding is a viable financial concept.  If that other site is correct, $15B is enough money to do some kind of demonstration, I'd think.  But that's a lot of money, still.

Going back to RobotBeat's continued push for Earth to LEO RLV's:  If this guy can make crowd sourced funding work, so could you, in principle.

I see you avoided nearly all my points other than "delta-v, delta-v."

Well, it is a problem that an RLV scheme would have to address.  That and aerobraking.

The amount of funding needed to make a reusable lunar lander PLUS all the new ISRU infrastructure and is probably more than enough to develop and demonstrate EVERY SINGLE RLV CONCEPT I listed above...

I don't know about that, but still, consider the crowd sourced funding mechanism.

Yes, my argument is that it's worthless to compare the cost of lunar ISRU propellant in LEO to the cost of the very expensive ELVs often used now, which is often done to justify lunar ISRU.

The relevant comparison is with whatever LVs could be developed for a similar sum of investment, which you'd have to say includes RLVs. And then you have the fact that RLVs could serve other markets, so their investment costs are spread. Another point is that you likely wouldn't have a sizable market to sell lunar ISRU to unless you had cheap access to space (i.e. RLVs) in the first place. Additionally, having RLVs would make installing the lunar infrastructure needed for extensive lunar ISRU far more reasonable. In other words, I'm frustrated with the apparent opposition to RLVs coming from folks here who are in favor of huge amounts of investment for lunar ISRU instead.

Thanks for clarifying, but I don't quite agree.  To paraphrase, what you're saying is that a trade or comparison should be made of the development of lunar ISRU prop to LEO versus the development of Earth to LEO RLV's; as an either/or comparison.  First, both of these suggestions would fail due to unsustainability; there is a lack of a market as a pre-requisite for either scheme.  Second, it is time which is the most important factor, by my reasoning.  EELV's are indeed expensive, but they exist and could be used to get the cis-lunar market creation "ball" rolling.  There is so much to be done in building an infrastructure, admittedly on taxpayer dollars at first, that should not be put off until RLV's have been implemented.

If the political sustainability can be maintained, and if public program accomplishment can be reinstated, then market competition could evolve, and RLV's could start being developed.  For example, SS3 or SS4 might be the first one to come to be.  Remember also, that lunar prop could indeed refuel those RLV's.  Also, Hop-David pointed out that propulsive braking, using lunar prop, could help RLV's as well, but that too is another technical hurdle.

[Robotbeat]

You're still ignoring the fact that you're ignoring Skylon's own numbers. You're more optimistic than they are. Hempsell says that even with a major SBSP project going on that's going to save the planet, $500/kg is their best estimate.

EDIT:

"For SKYLON, if no growth occurred and all operators flew equal numbers of the current approximately 100 satellites per year using 30 in-service spaceplanes from 3 spaceports, the true launch cost would be about $40 million per flight."

E.g., this: 100 satellites with 30 spaceplanes in one year. That's like 3.3 flights per spaceplane per year. A turnaround rate not much better than Shuttle. That's awful.

The same logic applied to lunar mining would mean that each ton of lunar water would cost at least several billion dollars (only place water is useful in orbit right now is at ISS). They were looking at the existing satellite market, not the growth market (i.e. space tourism, etc).

[Warren Platts]

Uh huh. You must have missed the part where Hempsell said that even if there was a major SBSP project that needed 10,000,000 tonnes in GEO, they could probably, hopefully get the cost down to $500/kg.

Here's an article you might find interesting:

Rockets are as close to perfect as they're ever going to get. For a few more billion dollars we might be able to achieve a microscopic improvement in efficiency or reliability, but to make any game-changing improvements is not merely expensive; it's a physical impossibility.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2011/02/space_stasis.single.html