A further search brought me to this a link about Gregg Easterbrook, who is a critic of manned space flight. It would be wrong to blame him for the plans not being implemented. I don't want to slam Easterbrook here. Only to point out that the criticisms are too harsh. It has to be balanced by something. The manned space program needs a champion, like in the early days. These days, the critics, like Easterbrook, have the upper hand. To offset the critics, a there must be a champion of manned space flight.
Here's the article he wrote about the shuttle in 1980 ; it is fairly critical article and its tone turns out to be wrong in most respects, but it proved him to be prophetic in predicting failure as two shuttles were lost. With the loss of two shuttles, his point of view gained ground. But why did the Shuttles fail? Was it design failure, or did some other explanation account for this? To answer this question, it would take an extensive study the reports that came out of each disaster. Basing it solely on memory, I suspect that a change in specifications led to both disasters. If these specs weren't changed, perhaps both Shuttles could have survived. The Shuttle wasn't an inherently unsafe design, if that is true. To confirm that opinion would be out of the scope of this post.
In Easterbrook's 1980 article, he mentions that a permanent moon base was considered before deciding upon the shuttle program. He says that a base would have been useless. But the moon base would not be useless if it can solve the launch problem. If men and materials can be launch into space at a reasonable cost and be done relatively safely, we can open up the solar system for business. At one sixth the gravitational field of the Earth, getting to the near Earth asteroids would entail much less energy and consequently, much reduced cost for fuel. Having a moon base that is self sufficient in terms of life support could mean multiple missions from the moon, before having to return to Earth- giving further savings. And mining asteroids for fuel and metal ores could defray the costs of manned space flight. They may even be able to turn a profit.
A Moon base needs a champion. If the critics win, it may never be done. At least, not by the USA. Someone else could and probably will. If that happens, American leadership in this field will go by the wayside. Like many other things. Isn't it time that this trend be turned around?
Update: So, how much M type asteroid worth? This question is answered in Mining the Sky:
"As an example of the magnitude and economic value of space resources, we shall assay
the smallest known M asteroid and account for its market value. That distinction
belongs to the NEA known as 3554 Amun. Amun is only 2 kilometers in diameter, the
size of a typical open-pit mine on Earth, with a mass of ... thirty billion tons.
... the total market value of Amun ... $20.000. billion" -John S. Lewis
Mining the Sky, pp. 111-112
more info here
According to this: the feasibility of mining asteroids is close with present day technology.
Here is a site that I just found with plenty of info. It is called spacefuture.com
Those are late nineties numbers, as the book was written then. Prices have gone up.
I ran the numbers and each ton of the asteroid would be worth $667 at that time.
This would not seem worth the time orthe expense to bring all back. I suppose you
would need to pre-process the ore before you brought it back. Platinum at todays
prices would be about fifty million per ton. The Altair lunar lander which was to
land men on the moon was supposed to be able to handle (in unmanned versions)
up to 15 tons of cargo.
This would not seem worth the time orthe expense to bring all back. I suppose you
would need to pre-process the ore before you brought it back. Platinum at todays
prices would be about fifty million per ton. The Altair lunar lander which was to
land men on the moon was supposed to be able to handle (in unmanned versions)
up to 15 tons of cargo.
3 comments:
Under the existing economic crisis, space travel is a luxury. There isn't any money available for venture projects. I am the first to say that the space program has added new products and business opportunities to the American economy, but we can't afford to spend our "Chinese" money on anything less than a guaranteed winner. Since, as a nation, we lost our zeal for space a generation ago, we can't do it alone. (see the International space station project)I think, if it's done, we won't be the one doing it. The explorers on our planet,that went out centuries ago to find the New World, were from different nations and they will need to be again if it is to happen again.
Well, I guess not when Obama just spent 800 billion for a stimulus package that supposedly saved 3 million jobs. Here's a program that would cost a lot less than that (a Mars mission would cost 100 billion in one estimate I saw, this would not be as ambitious as a Mars mission), and could pay for itself over the long run.
Unfortunately I'm speaking of the short run. It's a great investment, however when you are living on borrowed money, you don't use it to speculate. Spending money without immediate results is how Obama got into his present political quandry. All things considered this program should have been carried out starting in the middle of the shuttle program. That would have given us a chance to keep a constant presence in space. Now we are going to lose the technical personnel and thus the ability to do it without starting from scratch. I blame the shortsighted approach on Washington in general, not just those in power today, because it's a long term failure, with long term consequences.
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