Can Humankind Establish a Supply Chain in Space? (arxiv.org)

Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor shares a new paper by NASA planetary scientist Philip Metzger, "detailing a roadmap for humanity to take control of the Solar System in order to solve problems on Earth" by utilizing the resources that are already on the moon. In a 2013 paper, Dr. Metgzer wrote: "[B]ootstrapping" can be achieved with as little as 12 metric tons landed on the Moon during a period of about 20 years... The industry grows exponentially because of the free real estate, energy, and material resources of space. The mass of industrial assets at the end of bootstrapping will be 156 metric tons with 60 humanoid robots or as high as 40,000 metric tons... Within another few decades with no further investment, it can have millions of times the industrial capacity of the United States...
Dr. Metzger wrote in 2013 that "This industry promises to revolutionize the human condition." (See RockDoctor's original submission for more details.) While Metzger now notes that "It will require a sustained commitment of several decades to complete," his new article points out that a lunar supply chain outpost "will cost about 1/3 or less of the existing annual budgets of the national space programs," thanks to advances in both robotics and artificial intelligence, and will help humanity develop renewable energy and greatly expand the availability of other limited resources.

Comments

Yes

[NotInHere]

a matter of when not whether.

Re: Yes

[DanielRavenNest]

I think you are being too pessimistic, Barbara.

Space industry as of 2015 was $335 billion in economic activity ( see page 7 of http://www.sia.org/wp-content/... ), with about 1400 operational satellites in total. We don't have a way to effectively repair or refuel these satellites. When they stop working, we have to replace them at great expense. Saving money or increasing profits provides plenty of "will and commitment" to build the first generation of space mining and production. This would start with propellants, since just about every satellite uses them, and they are a simple product to make.

> we don't know where (or even if) the needed resources exist in viable quantities or concentrations

On the contrary, nearly all satellites operate on solar energy, so we know that is feasible. The total solar flux passing closer than the Moon is equal to the whole world's fossil fuel reserves *every minute*. That's more energy than we know what to do with, provided we can tap it economically.

Meteorites are pieces of asteroids that hit the Earth and survived re-entry. So we are able to examine those in detail, and then infer the composition of asteroids still in space by comparing spectra. For a handful of asteroids, and the Moon, we have visited by scientific missions, or in person, and gotten more direct information. So, for example, we have detailed geologic maps for the Moon ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resour... ) and are building up our knowledge of other bodies.

> human colonies are a death sentence to anyone living there permanently

I will set aside the fact that the human condition has a 100% mortality rate so far, and that a minor oops driving to work will kill you on Earth. But I helped design and build the Space Station, and it's been occupied for 15 years now. Think of it as a proof of concept. A space colony in orbit or on the surface can deal with gravity by rotation. On the ground that means a merry-go-round or racetrack setup that people use for as many hours as required to maintain health. Bulk rock is easy for surface locations, and not so hard for orbital ones. Enough thickness will provide good shielding. Most illustrations of space colonies are "artist's concepts" and don't address safety in the way engineers building bridges and skyscrapers have to. A real colony would have multiple layers of pressure shell, compartmentalization, emergency shelters, and other safety provisions. Yes, accidents and failures will happen, but we live with fires and natural disasters on Earth. The question is can you bring the risks down to a comparable level as on Earth. I think the answer is yes.

> at the rate we're avoiding meeting even our moderate climate change goals, we'll have a massive depopulation or extinction event long before that.

We are installing over a hundred billion watts of solar and wind capacity worldwide this year. Coal use has dropped by a third in the US in the last 10 years. Things could move faster, but when oil states like Saudi Arabia and Dubai are installing renewables, it should be obvious change is happening ( http://www.pv-tech.org/news/sa... )

Re: Yes

[Applehu Akbar]

The will and the commitment are there in the private sector, which is willing to tolerate far more personal risk than the public sector and is not saddled by the 'priorities' argument.

Re:"the free blah blah blah of space"

[GNious]

After all, Moon is made basically of the same material that the Earth was formed with.

Slightly more precise, the Moon is made out of Earth's crust, so primarily consists of the lighter materials.

Seed Factories

[DanielRavenNest]

I'm part of a project to build this kind of self-bootstrapping Seed Factories, for Earth first, then later in space. There's a report on applying the concept to space at:

* https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/... (part 1)
* https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/... (part 2)

I've corresponded with Metzger, and agree with his general idea, but disagree about placing the seed factory on the Lunar surface. The surface only gets sunlight half the time, while in high orbit you can get sunlight 100% of the time. The Moon is severely depleted in volatile compounds because it was baked for hundreds of millions of years, and is too low mass to hold on to easily vaporized materials. Near Earth Asteroids complement the Moon in terms of ore types, and the optimum place to bring everything together is a high orbit near, but not on, the Moon.

Re:"the free blah blah blah of space"

[DanielRavenNest]

That's where self-bootstrapping automated production (seed factories) come in.

You build the first ones here on Earth. That's my day job, by the way - building prototype seed factories. The first generation factories are built in moderate environments, like Atlanta where we are working. They produce parts for more equipment, eventually growing to industrial size. They also produce useful products to pay for their upkeep. Eventually you send new seed factories to more difficult locations, like the oceans, ice caps, and deserts. Finally, you tell your collection of factories to build rocket factories and launch pads, and off you go to space.

The starter sets (seed factories) won't be free, but they will be low cost because they are small. They pay their own way after that, by making things people need and want.

> but you need to claw out of a really deep gravity well to get that stuff to the Moon

The actual escape energy from Earth is 62.5 MJ/kg = 17.375 kWh/kg = $1/kg at wholesale electric rates, about what I pay for potatoes. We just have been terribly inefficient about how we get to space.

Re:"the free blah blah blah of space"

[DanielRavenNest]

That's why you want to build in high orbit *near* the Moon, and not *on* the Moon.

The three main types of asteroids (chondrite, stony, and metallic) are all different from each other, and from the Moon, because of their origins and history. In particular, the chondrites have up to 20% water and carbon compounds. You can deliver asteroid rock to high orbit using solar-electric propulsion, which is very efficient. You can deliver Lunar materials to orbit with an electric centrifuge, also very efficient. In high orbit you get sunlight 100% of the time to power your equipment. The Lunar surface only gets sunlight 50% of the time, and the gaps are two weeks long, which is annoying.

> After all, Moon is made basically of the same material that the Earth was formed with.

They started out similar because the Moon is made from debris from the Theia-Proto Earth collison. But the Moon remained hot for a long time due to original collision energy, later bombardment, radioactive decay, and tidal heating when it was much closer to Earth. Because of the Moon's smaller size, it lost most of the "volatile" compounds (anything with a vapor pressure at lava temperatures). They either escaped directly, or were stripped by solar wind particles. So the Earth and Moon are fairly different today.

Re:Why is this easier in space than on Earth?

[TapeCutter]

Modern mines here in Oz are pretty much run by robots already, eg: the giant open cut Argyle diamond mine is operated by just 12 people (up to the point where the raw diamonds are ready to be assessed by a jeweler's eye).We do some really dumb shit too, eg: we mine bauxite in the NT desert, put it on a boat and send it several thousand miles south to Victoria where the state government gave them a great deal on a coal fired generator to run their electric arc smelter. The aluminium is then loaded on a boat that sails back past the mine to the northern hemisphere markets.

Why don't they smelt it on site using solar power from the desert around the mine? - Because "jobs for victorians".