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Has the Great 'Moonrush' Begun? (thespacereview.com)
This week The Space Review published an essay by retired aerospace engineer Gerald Black, who worked in the aerospace industry for over 40 years and tested various rocket engines, including the ascent stage engine of the Apollo lunar module.
"The Moonrush is now on," he argues "fueled by entrepreneurs dreaming of profits from Earth's nearest neighbor." Leading the Moonrush are a bunch of private companies developing small lunar landers and rovers to explore the Moon. On February 21, the first mission of the Moonrush embarked aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
The Beresheet lunar lander built by Israel's SpaceIL was launched as a secondary payload, sharing the ride with the Indonesian communications satellite PSN-6. After reaching geostationary transfer orbit, Beresheet and the communications satellite separated from the Falcon 9 launcher. The communications satellite will propel itself to geostationary Earth orbit. Meanwhile, Beresheet is slowly raising its orbit. In early April the spacecraft will enter lunar orbit, then land on the Moon. Israel Aerospace Industries, the company that built the lander for SpaceIL, announced plans in January to partner with the German company OHB to offer a commercial lunar payload delivery service to the European Space Agency.
Black also notes that while Google never awarded its $20 million Lunar X grand prize, many teams are still active, including Astrobotic Technology, Moon Express, ispace inc., TeamIndus and PTScientists -- and that NASA will be awarding $2.6 billion in commercial moon exploration contracts over the next decade under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The first mission under this program could be launched as soon as late this year... Blue Origin is developing a much larger lunar lander called Blue Moon that can land several metric tons of cargo on the Moon. And the German companies OHB and MT Aerospace have tapped Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket and Blue Moon lander to ferry a payload to the Moon in 2023.
Around-the-moon tourism could begin as soon as 2023, Black writes, while Bigelow Aerospace's CEO "is dreaming about establishing facilities on the lunar surface that could host tourists and others." And finally, landers and rovers will soon confirm whether there's accessible water hiding in the moon's perpetually dark craters -- and will hunt for other valuable resources. Rovers that include sample analysis laboratories like the one aboard the Curiosity rover on Mars will provide details about the constituents of the lunar rocks and soil. Deposits of gold, platinum group metals, and rare earth metals are likely to be found. Especially promising in this regard are the numerous impact craters on the Moon. High concentrations of precious metals have been found in craters where asteroids impacted the Earth.
Riches are there to be had, and mining may well become a major industry on the Moon.
"The Moonrush is now on," he argues "fueled by entrepreneurs dreaming of profits from Earth's nearest neighbor." Leading the Moonrush are a bunch of private companies developing small lunar landers and rovers to explore the Moon. On February 21, the first mission of the Moonrush embarked aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
The Beresheet lunar lander built by Israel's SpaceIL was launched as a secondary payload, sharing the ride with the Indonesian communications satellite PSN-6. After reaching geostationary transfer orbit, Beresheet and the communications satellite separated from the Falcon 9 launcher. The communications satellite will propel itself to geostationary Earth orbit. Meanwhile, Beresheet is slowly raising its orbit. In early April the spacecraft will enter lunar orbit, then land on the Moon. Israel Aerospace Industries, the company that built the lander for SpaceIL, announced plans in January to partner with the German company OHB to offer a commercial lunar payload delivery service to the European Space Agency.
Black also notes that while Google never awarded its $20 million Lunar X grand prize, many teams are still active, including Astrobotic Technology, Moon Express, ispace inc., TeamIndus and PTScientists -- and that NASA will be awarding $2.6 billion in commercial moon exploration contracts over the next decade under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The first mission under this program could be launched as soon as late this year... Blue Origin is developing a much larger lunar lander called Blue Moon that can land several metric tons of cargo on the Moon. And the German companies OHB and MT Aerospace have tapped Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket and Blue Moon lander to ferry a payload to the Moon in 2023.
Around-the-moon tourism could begin as soon as 2023, Black writes, while Bigelow Aerospace's CEO "is dreaming about establishing facilities on the lunar surface that could host tourists and others." And finally, landers and rovers will soon confirm whether there's accessible water hiding in the moon's perpetually dark craters -- and will hunt for other valuable resources. Rovers that include sample analysis laboratories like the one aboard the Curiosity rover on Mars will provide details about the constituents of the lunar rocks and soil. Deposits of gold, platinum group metals, and rare earth metals are likely to be found. Especially promising in this regard are the numerous impact craters on the Moon. High concentrations of precious metals have been found in craters where asteroids impacted the Earth.
Riches are there to be had, and mining may well become a major industry on the Moon.
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there is no profit to be made on the Moon
get real space nutters
No hot picks? Cringely blows.
I have heard these predictions a few times in the past 60 years. Nothing ever happened, and since the laws of physics have not changed, nothing will happen.
Is it even remotely feasible to send normal-ass moon rocks back to earth for less than $1300/ounce including overhead, let alone gold which would have to be mined/purified/whatever first?
So how long before the first Poseidon Adventure/The Martian-style film featuring moon tourists getting stranded...
Deposits of gold, platinum group metals, and rare earth metals are likely to be found.
So? A fact I've always heard is that going to the moon is so expensive, that even if there were endless pure gold nuggets (or diamonds?) littering the surface, then it simply isn't worth the cost to go get them. Has that cost/benefit analysis changed much, if at all?
Tourism is another valid angle, but there's much more to see (much more quickly and safely) in LEO and that hasn't taken off either.
But I hope they dig out the back side first. Who wants to look at a bunch of strip mines?
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As it is the second step of winning the science race. #civilization6
It's great that a number of companies are reaching out to the moon and organizations like NASA is paying for it but until there is some way to cheaply return materials, the "moonrush" will be a flurry of explorers and then nothing.
The moon gets a lot more exciting when we get cheap titanium and aluminum down to Earth and power from solar cells from the moon's crust. Oh, and maybe in 10 years or so we'll know what to do with He3.
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So? A fact I've always heard is that going to the moon is so expensive, that even if there were endless pure gold nuggets (or diamonds?) littering the surface, then it simply isn't worth the cost to go get them. Has that cost/benefit analysis changed much, if at all?
It is not about mineral deposits or tourism. All those can be considered as auxiliary inxomw, at best.
The one main thing that can make this worthwhile is Gov. Moonbeam !
Yep, that famous Gov. Moonbeam gonna make this tremendous success.
A fact I've always heard is that going to the moon is so expensive
"A fact" huh?
Don't you think your intel is pretty dated?
That was true when a handful of governments could get you into space. But now clearing the atmosphere has been made far cheaper thanks to companies like SPaceX and Blue Origin, and driving costs cheaper.
Anyone can do the math and see that it might make a lot of sense to try mining valuable minerals from space objects now, and if not certainly within 10 years it will be easily viable.
Tourism is another valid angle, but there's much more to see (much more quickly and safely) in LEO and that hasn't taken off either.
It's just starting but the uptake will be quick. I'd way rather visit the moon than just do an orbital visit though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. Go to the moon.
2. ???
3. Profit!
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SpaceX currently charges $62 million to launch 50k lb satellites
No, they say it costs $62 million for each Falcon 9 launch.
Form Earth.
So it would be pretty expensive to send gold to the moon. Luckily for people working on this plan, they only need to get gold from the moon back to the Earth - way cheaper since you just have to launch from the moon's gravity well, and basically takes controlled falling back to Earth to recover.
Also of course, SpaceX launch costs are predicted to get much cheaper over time.
You might say, well the rocket has to get there... true, but since it would go to the moon mostly empty to pick up shipments, it would could also have a paying cargo like satellites that get released before it heads to the moon.
The economic feasibility of the plan is good, just needs the BFR (which is more made for these kind of land and re-takeoff missions) to make it practical.
All you'd be paying for would be the rocket and not the fuel, which would be made on the moon. Heck you'l probably come back with some extra fuel so that would further reduce the cost of the flight as SpaceX could credit a mining org for that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, it's a fact. Going to the moon and bringing anything back is prohibitively expensive to the point that to do so for collection of ore/artifact purposes has no chance of breaking even. You're a fucking moron.
Fact.
It's a fact. Going to the moon and bringing anything back is prohibitively expensive to the point that to do so for collection of ore/artifact purposes has no chance of breaking even. You're a fucking moron.
Fact.
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"A fact" huh?
Don't you think your intel is pretty dated?
Yes, hence my question of how much it has changed.
Anyone can do the math and see that it might make a lot of sense to try mining valuable minerals from space objects now, and if not certainly within 10 years it will be easily viable.
False, I cannot do this math, nor does it seem intuitive (even ignoring mining costs) that mining anything on the moon could come close to breaking even.
I was hoping someone might link an xkcd-what-if style analysis of some kind. In another post, you made a good point that the rocket could leave Earth empty and the payload only needs to escape moon's gravity, but that's all.
Shouldn't we rape Antarctica First for resources before the moon?
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
Mining? I don't know about you guys, but I see great potential to use the moon as a huge billboard to place ads. Is there any treaty against that?
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Betteridge says no. But we didn't need Betteridge's law for this: Clickbait makes stupid.
The value in the moon is in cheaper launches. Might be a little late for karma whoring but... bare with me here.
In the 60's we had the technology to build a base on the moon. Hell, we could have even had the technology to produce fuel on the moon. Somewhere there's an interview with Armstrong who said even NASA knew there was water on the moon in the 60's. Water + electricity = hydrogen and oxygen. Very easy to get the 2 turned into some sort of fuel.
The thing we lacked though was money. Beyond money, we lacked things we have today that we just take for granted (looking at the har har funny comments here) We barely had enough fast switching technology to send a 240x160 video stream back to earth. Today we can switch at GHZ, lots of stuff can be fit into that stream. Lots of information. We don't even need it though, we can probably fit plenty in 1tb of solid state storage.
Moving on, we now have advanced processing that recognize conditions and work autonomously. Coupled with 3d printing, we can send smaller robots to the moon to do most of the heavy lifting that would have required humans years ago. There's no atmosphere on the moon, so solar panels will work a lot better up there than here on earth.
So now instead of sending a construction crew to the moon, we can send robots. Robots that will find a suitable place (lava tubes or deep craters) that will build us a base in a somewhat underground area, shielded from cosmic rays and the suns radiation. They can generate their own power, find ice, turn it into breathable oxygen, and eventually fuel for return trips.
I think that's the end game of this moon rush. It's not for tourism, or finding metals. It's to be somewhere that has 1/7th the gravity of the earth, meaning 1/7th the amount of fuel to launch. Future missions, like building a deep space manned craft to go to mars will need the moon. As soon as we get some sort of livable permanent habitat up there, we will start sending other machines up there, start building clean rooms to build processors and RAM up there.
In the beginning, I'd imagine the labor on the moon will be much higher than that on earth, but as the outpost up there evolves, eventually the cost of manufacturing up there will be negated by the cost of launches. That is why we need to be up there. There will never be any reason to bring the resources of the moon back here, but we need to be there to make our eventual trip into the outer solar system possible.
there's too much debris in Earth orbit to safely traverse.
The radiation in space will give you all cancer. You'll then die a slow and painful death. And Earth will be a better place. The end.
Jack Vance thought of this idea in his novel "The Face". Well worth a read btw...
We are not running out of anything on Earth except maybe intelligence. I doubt youâ(TM)ll find much of that on the Moon, though bringing back few rocks might significantly improve the average IQ of the planet.
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The Moon was formed from a big collision between the Earth and some other object. Generally speaking, the light stuff was flung further into space, and formed the Moon while the heavy stuff congealed into the Earth as we know it.
As a consequence, the Moon has density of 3.5 grams/cc while the Earth has 5.5 g/cc. All the heavy, expensive stuff is on the Earth. So mining operations on the Moon would not find a lot of iron and valuable heavier metals. Silicates and the like, sure.
Let's build theme parks and race tracks on the moon! Imagine how much fun we could have in a low-gravity environment! Roller coasters and real-life F-Zero Grand Prix for everybody!
Exclamation point!
An American might reach the moon. For real.
This Gerald Black dude, he's projecting his desires here. I mean the Google Lunar X prize was never awarded. How much proof do you need?? $20 million was on the line and not one of the teams even launched.
Just because the Chinese and Israelis put landers down, does not mean there is a "Moonrush". When was the lander before that? Wasn't it the last Apollo mission? That's a 45 year gap; it's way, waaaayyyyy premature to be talking some big surge in Moon missions.
And the justification for going back to the Moon is still pretty thin. "The Moon is awash in water!" people are smoking too much weed, as are most of the lunar mining proposals. Making statements on first principles are fine but that only suggests that in the long term the Moon might become an important base of operations.
In the meantime, the Moon has no atmosphere, it has precious little water, there's no infrastructure or support, there's no place to refuel, there's no base, there's no magnetic field to shield you, and it can kill you in a heartbeat. It's a place you can touch down on for a day to a week so long as you bring everything with you. Fail to bring everything and you do without.
Also, the "do it with robots!" people manage to ignore that robots are poor at autonomous operation, break down frequently, and get hung up on the simplest and most ridiculous of problems. No, don't tell me about NASA's Mars rovers. Those get 24x7 handholding from a massive support team, and the Mars rovers are only tasked with simple and unchallenging work.
There's no mining going on by Mars rovers, not to put too fine a point on it. And if there were, even a purpose-build Mars mining rover would last about a week before experiencing a catastrophic failure.
in 2000, when the dotcom deregulation came through, i had the idea of stellarpropertymanagement.com and said. can't wait till we have to do an open house and showing on the moon.
Short answer: nope!
Longer answer: Gold rushes start when someone finds an easily and cheaply accessible lode of commercially valuable ore... And a bunch of other people rush in to get their piece of the action. Almost always, they're short lived and the only people who actually make money are the folks selling supplies to would-be miners.
There is no material on the Lunar surface that's easily and cheaply available - even if you use it on orbit rather than returning it to Earth.
Implied in all of this by the "colonize" movement seems to be that the Moon, Mars, etc are places we will naturally ultimately colonize, they are just really hard to get to, much like for instance the Americas or Australia in colonial times. But humans colonized new places on Earth because there were solid economic reasons - actual riches - to be made there. New land to farm, mines, commodities like sugar, tobacco, rice, timber, cotton to produce and sell. Land ultimately every bit as advantageous and habitable as in the Old World. And you could get there in normal technology sailing vessels that were already in use, and bring those commodities back just as easily (if slowly). Yet I continue to see in extraterrestrial real estate little in common with those earthly colonial territories. Consider a place much closer to home that is similarly inhospitable: Antarctica. You can sail or fly there fairly easily in conventional transport. There is just as much reason (probably more) to believe there are mines there with undiscovered commodities. Plenty of unoccupied land where humans could colonize. Air to breathe and water to (melt and) drink. There aren't even any pesky indigenous people you'd have to displace. We even use Antarctica as a place to simulate aspects of Moon and Mars colonies! Lots of interest from tourists and scientists. It's a cool interesting place to visit and study. Yet even though it's a thousand times more accessible than space, no one has ever bothered to establish a colony there or even a viable town, other than to support scientific outposts (McMurdo). It's just because . . . why?
Honestly, I don't see the moon, or Mars, or the ISS for that matter, as being much different from Antarctica. Some science outposts (though mostly occupied by robots), a bit of tourism. That's about it, for the next century or so. Now, if someone can figure out a fairly cheap way to to terraform . . . please do get back to me in that case.