For All Mankind

[libra]

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.
[/SPOILERS]

I believe the mining site they are contesting is lithium, not water. It is used for battery cells for their lunar base (lunar night being long, energy storage is important although they mention it is nuclear powered so that is sort of incongruous).

Would make some sense - KREEP on the Moon, electric cars on Earth... maybe there is some kind of connection there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KREEP

[sanman]

If you look up the episode on IMDB, it says that character was indeed Korolev:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11784180/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

I too wish there was more of him in the episode (which I really liked)!

To me it's rather odd that Korolev is apparently working on a Buran that's a literal carbon-copy of the US Space Shuttle, right down to the SRBs. As the Soviet Von Braun, you'd think that he would've put a little of his own vision into the vehicle, instead of just going with a clone.

Who knows, maybe it's not the last we see of him, since he's apparently a key driving force in Soviet rocketry.

[Robotbeat]

My wife said this episode reminded her of this song for some reason.

[Robotbeat]

If you look up the episode on IMDB, it says that character was indeed Korolev:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11784180/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

I too wish there was more of him in the episode (which I really liked)!

To me it's rather odd that Korolev is apparently working on a Buran that's a literal carbon-copy of the US Space Shuttle, right down to the SRBs. As the Soviet Von Braun, you'd think that he would've put a little of his own vision into the vehicle, instead of just going with a clone.

Who knows, maybe it's not the last we see of him, since he's apparently a key driving force in Soviet rocketry.

I mean, I think they did it to enable the plot point. Fairly plausible as far as alt-history goes (although the Soviets didn't have much industrial base with large solids, it's not some enormous stretch that they might develop it, or be ordered to from their superiors if the US looks like they're getting ahead).

[Robotbeat]

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.
[/SPOILERS]

I believe the mining site they are contesting is lithium, not water. It is used for battery cells for their lunar base (lunar night being long, energy storage is important although they mention it is nuclear powered so that is sort of incongruous).

Honestly, that doesn't make it LESS ridiculous, IMHO. Do they have a battery factory on the Moon? Those are like the size of an aircraft carrier. How could it possibly be worth mining lithium? At least water is pretty easy to process. Lithium is just straining to make lunar exploration into a resource conflict in spite of making absolutely no sense whatsoever (although granted, lots of people today also try to do the whole "lithium is the new oil" bad take today).

But I still love the show, in spite of the silliness of a resource conflict on the Moon. It's not hard to just accept it for what the plot says it is in order to enjoy the show. (I only hope people don't get the wrong idea about lunar exploration or lithium because of this show.)

[ncb1397]

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.
[/SPOILERS]

I believe the mining site they are contesting is lithium, not water. It is used for battery cells for their lunar base (lunar night being long, energy storage is important although they mention it is nuclear powered so that is sort of incongruous).

Honestly, that doesn't make it LESS ridiculous, IMHO. Do they have a battery factory on the Moon? Those are like the size of an aircraft carrier.

This guy does it in in his garage sized lab.



Presumably only a portion of the inputs are manufactured on the moon and the machinery is imported as well.

If you want to poke holes in it, I guess you could point out that Lithium isn't a major mass component of lithium ion batteries (only a few percent of the mass). The electrolyte solution is typically Lithium hexafluorophosphate (LIPF₆). If you want to explain it away, you could point out that earth based lithium ores like Lepidolite contain both Lithium and Flourine and the characters are just using lithium as a abbreviation.

[Robotbeat]

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.
[/SPOILERS]

I believe the mining site they are contesting is lithium, not water. It is used for battery cells for their lunar base (lunar night being long, energy storage is important although they mention it is nuclear powered so that is sort of incongruous).

Honestly, that doesn't make it LESS ridiculous, IMHO. Do they have a battery factory on the Moon? Those are like the size of an aircraft carrier.

This guy does it in in his garage sized lab.

...

No, he absolutely doesn't. He has a National Laboratory worth of equipment at his disposal, the video is shot in multiple different rooms (several of which need lots of supporting equipment) and, most importantly (because you can actually mix parts into a working battery in a smaller lab) is that he has ordered high quality materials... and he makes a single, small cell.

It's all about material purity and manufacturing. To get large amounts of high quality feedstock to make batteries requires a lot of industrial chemistry, reagents, etc. Absolute poppycock that they have that in a small base on the Moon. And it'd NEVER pay back the mass penalty of landing the required equipment. There just is no need for that amount of lithium battery packs there (hundreds to thousands of tons of lithium needed to "pay back" the equipment mass investment... you'll need a long assembly line to have enough throughput, and that long assembly line is very massive).

This is extremely different from water ISRU which could be done fairly easily with a small amount of equipment. (Although, like water ISRU, it's pretty dang questionable whether it's worth any kind of conflict over...)

[ncb1397]

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.
[/SPOILERS]

I believe the mining site they are contesting is lithium, not water. It is used for battery cells for their lunar base (lunar night being long, energy storage is important although they mention it is nuclear powered so that is sort of incongruous).

Honestly, that doesn't make it LESS ridiculous, IMHO. Do they have a battery factory on the Moon? Those are like the size of an aircraft carrier.

This guy does it in in his garage sized lab.

...

No, he absolutely doesn't. He has a National Laboratory worth of equipment at his disposal, the video is shot in multiple different rooms (several of which need lots of supporting equipment) and, most importantly (because you can actually mix parts into a working battery in a smaller lab) is that he has ordered high quality materials... and he makes a single, small cell.

It is two rooms, each 600 square feet. Total volume assuming 10 foot tall walls would be 12,000 cubic feet or about 3 destiny modules. And they can't just make one battery. This facility is configured more for manufacturing or battery cell research, rather than raw production, but you don't need an aircraft carrier sized building to make 18650 format lithium ion cells or even larger formats. You might need that to output 1 GWh per year or something like that.

https://energyenvironment.pnnl.gov/eere/vb/pdf/advanced_battery_facility.pdf

As far as needing high quality imports from outside of the facility, I agree. A supply chain to earth would be required at the point of lunar exploitation they appear to be at. Lunar ISRU to offset downmass requirements would only be for certain components (like the packaging that doesn't effect battery chemistry) or the electrolyte solution that requires chemical processing and purity equivalent to the water recycling system on the ISS.

It's all about material purity and manufacturing. To get large amounts of high quality feedstock to make batteries requires a lot of industrial chemistry, reagents, etc. Absolute poppycock that they have that in a small base on the Moon. And it'd NEVER pay back the mass penalty of landing the required equipment. There just is no need for that amount of lithium battery packs there (hundreds to thousands of tons of lithium needed to "pay back" the equipment mass investment... you'll need a long assembly line to have enough throughput, and that long assembly line is very massive).

Pay back doesn't have to occur, it is a government program. Growing vegetables on the ISS doesn't have mass payback, they do it anyway (for science and stuff...or make work for the politically required body count). The point is to get mass payback eventually down the road after a lot of trial and error (and unfortunately maybe in some cases never).

[Nibb31]

I find it totally disconcerting how cool the US was at letting the Russians take over their mining facility. In real-life, it would have been caused a major diplomatic incident, a real casus belli on the same level as Russian forces boarding and confiscating a US Navy ship in international waters, or invading and claiming Attu Island out of the blue. It would have been suicidal for the Russians to do something that stupid, and it would have brought up protestations at the UN and major sanctions.

They make more of a fuss about the KAL007 shoot down than they did for what was an actual act of agression against the strategic US assets on the Moon. And sending marines to take back the site would have been a last resort. The issue could have been resolved by taking it to the UN and making a diplomatic stink out of it.

[Blackstar]

I find it totally disconcerting how cool the US was at letting the Russians take over their mining facility. In real-life, it would have been caused a major diplomatic incident,

You don't know that did not happen. The show focuses on the people in the space program, not diplomats or politicians in Washington and Moscow. They give hints of bigger international issues taking place with the TV news programs that you see in the background. It's also implied that this is just one of several big international clashes that are taking place, particularly Panama.

[hartspace]

I don't know if it was a throw-away line or not, but did anyone notice that, when Ellen was in the hospital room with her father, she mentioned that she might quit NASA because she wanted to go to Mars and private industry might get there first.  Could this be a setup for a Elon-like character (20 years earlier than reality)?

[Jarnis]

Seemed to me like obvious foreshadowing to pivot to a situation where the private sector takes over and runs away with Mars stuff while NASA and the government is "stuck" on the Moon and as part of a quagmire with the Soviets and politics in general.

Interesting how far they'll get to go with the series over the long run and how well they handle extrapolating the hardware side when real history "runs out", so to speak. Already wasn't too impressed by the whole "Shuttle to lunar orbit" malarky, but frankly it is bit of nitpicking over otherwise fine show.

[Blackstar]

If you look up the episode on IMDB, it says that character was indeed Korolev:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11784180/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

I too wish there was more of him in the episode (which I really liked)!

To me it's rather odd that Korolev is apparently working on a Buran that's a literal carbon-copy of the US Space Shuttle, right down to the SRBs. As the Soviet Von Braun, you'd think that he would've put a little of his own vision into the vehicle, instead of just going with a clone.

Who knows, maybe it's not the last we see of him, since he's apparently a key driving force in Soviet rocketry.

Not a carbon copy.

[Robotbeat]

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.
[/SPOILERS]

I believe the mining site they are contesting is lithium, not water. It is used for battery cells for their lunar base (lunar night being long, energy storage is important although they mention it is nuclear powered so that is sort of incongruous).

Honestly, that doesn't make it LESS ridiculous, IMHO. Do they have a battery factory on the Moon? Those are like the size of an aircraft carrier.

This guy does it in in his garage sized lab.

...

No, he absolutely doesn't. He has a National Laboratory worth of equipment at his disposal, the video is shot in multiple different rooms (several of which need lots of supporting equipment) and, most importantly (because you can actually mix parts into a working battery in a smaller lab) is that he has ordered high quality materials... and he makes a single, small cell.

It is two rooms, each 600 square feet. Total volume assuming 10 foot tall walls would be 12,000 cubic feet or about 3 destiny modules. And they can't just make one battery. This facility is configured more for manufacturing or battery cell research, rather than raw production, but you don't need an aircraft carrier sized building to make 18650 format lithium ion cells or even larger formats. You might need that to output 1 GWh per year or something like that.
...

Actually, they probably DO need 1GWh/year to justify building a factory up there. That would take hundreds to thousands of tons.

And no, assembling a cell from components is not even CLOSE to the same as being able to purify and build significant numbers of cells.

If it's just for research and a demo, then what kind of "strategic" value could it possibly have? It doesn't make any sense. Sorry, but lithium is not the "new oil."

Anyway, it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the show, but this is a much bigger absurdity than flying shuttles to lunar orbit.

[libra]

Since they mentionned electric cars, they could have had a similar plot using KREEP and the REE inside it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_resources

Rare-earth elements

Rare-earth elements are used to manufacture everything from electric or hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, electronic devices and clean energy technologies.[46][47] Despite their name, rare-earth elements are – with the exception of promethium – relatively plentiful in Earth's crust. However, because of their geochemical properties, rare-earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found concentrated in rare-earth minerals; as a result, economically exploitable ore deposits are less common.[48] Major reserves exist in China, California, India, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, and Malaysia,[49] but China accounts for over 95% of the world's production of rare-earths.[50] (See: Rare earth industry in China.)

Although current evidence suggests rare-earth elements are less abundant on the Moon than on Earth,[51] NASA views the mining of rare-earth minerals as a viable lunar resource[52] because they exhibit a wide range of industrially important optical, electrical, magnetic and catalytic properties.[1]

For example, REEs as a byproduct of LOX & water mining - all of sudden some major technological shift on Earth has REEs taking a central role - in electric cars, smartphones, D-mails - all of them mentionned in the show.

[sanman]

Seemed to me like obvious foreshadowing to pivot to a situation where the private sector takes over and runs away with Mars stuff while NASA and the government is "stuck" on the Moon and as part of a quagmire with the Soviets and politics in general.

Considering that NASA now has a nuclear-powered Space Shuttle (Pathfinder) which can travel to Mars, I don't think the private sector would be able to field anything of comparable capability. If they do have to show Falcon-9 or Starship in a future season, it'll be interesting to see how they ret-con that in.

[Robotbeat]

Seemed to me like obvious foreshadowing to pivot to a situation where the private sector takes over and runs away with Mars stuff while NASA and the government is "stuck" on the Moon and as part of a quagmire with the Soviets and politics in general.

Considering that NASA now has a nuclear-powered Space Shuttle (Pathfinder) which can travel to Mars, I don't think the private sector would be able to field anything of comparable capability. If they do have to show Falcon-9 or Starship in a future season, it'll be interesting to see how they ret-con that in.

Starship could have similar capability. Nuclear thermal has only a modest performance advantage over chemical when you include dry mass constraints.

I can imagine something like a private Delta Clipper (with Starship-like mission architecture).

[Robotbeat]

I kind of hate the episode that just came out, FWIW. Most of it was good. But that ending. Frak.

[sanman]

[SPOILERS]Bradford says the AIM-54C anti-satellite missile has a range of 100 nautical miles. That seems very short range for something that's supposed to hit targets in space. I wonder whether they'll deal with the issue of space debris.

It almost seems like Gordo & Tracy have traded places - she's now the more experienced space jockey, and he's now trying to keep up with her.

During Karen and Danny's pillow talk, they get onto the odd topic of selling tickets for spaceflight. Is this some kind of foreshadowing that Danny is going to become a future Elon Musk and build private spacecraft for space tourism? Are Gordo & Tracy going to be parents of a future billionaire space entrepreneur?

I'm thinking Ed's going to wind up on Mars. If he splits with Karen over her fling, while Kelly reunites with her biological father, then there's nothing to tie him down and he's free to leave Earth behind.

Why did one of the shot Soviet astronauts start burning up inside his spacesuit? Was the interior of his suit flammable? Do astronauts breathe pure oxygen?[/SPOILERS]

[Nibb31]

Ellen is going the be the Elon Musk of this timeline. Her dad owns an airline and she is clearly thinking of taking up the CEO seat instead of being head of NASA. After the latest fiasco on the Moon (for which she bears a pretty large responsibility) and the issues with her personal life, I think she is going to quit NASA and turn her dad's company into a more successful Virgin Galactic.