[meteorite-list] Model Rockets and Moon Rocks was...13.5 kg lunar
From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun May 15 17:24:18 2005 Message-ID: <1aa.38145300.2fb917fc_at_aol.com> Hola Adam, I need to add my support to Mark F and Darren's openminded interpretation of your negative assessment of the (lack of) feasibility getting Lunar material FOB Earth at a cost (mind you, not price) below $5000 per gram. The optimistic figure starts at about $1 per POUND, cheaper than any US domestic mail product. Mark has already mentioned the mass catapult idea which certainly is feasible and has numerous designs. On such design taken seriously by NASA is said to cost about one dollar per pound to reach a cislunar geocentric orbital location (Lagrangian: L1 for example). That is the orbital location materials can be concentrated and collected for reentry into Earth's atmosphere and sent back will minimal energy using airbraking technology that exists in a space shuttle like set-up at worst, and at best in very oblique chute/balloon entry. Or just chucking the rocks at the Earth at nearly no extra charge forming natural fusion crusts and very fresh low cost witnessed fall lunaites. The "mass driver" catapult mentioned just uses a tubular set of circular coils timed to become electromagnets as a magnetized payload in a bucket passes through them, installed on the Moon with off the shelf modest technology to accelerate the bucket with 1 kilogram or so of material. The many buckets in the mass escalator are recoverable and detach and are reused many many times, providing tons and tons of ejected material at its destination. Material slightly overshot will probably fall to Earth as meteorites. And the energy is all right there on the moon - electricity generated from solar cells to power the coils (electromagnets) which nudge the bucket ever faster through the tube and comfortably reach the necessary escape velocity. The escape velocity of the moon is much lower as Darren has reminded and there is practically no frictional slowing (drag), which on Earth causes most entry difficulties, and that the escape velocity is much lower. On the Moon, it is only an escape velocity 2400 m/s. I am betting that many list members can relate to that in terms of model rocketry. Ever wonder whether that model rocket you launched on Earth could be a space mission if Launched from the Moon? Here are some calculations estimates I have made regarding commercial hobby and amateur model rocket engines. Company - Engine - Est. Maximum Velocity Estes - D12 - 320 m/s Apogee - F10 - 724 m/s Aerotech - I65 - 955 m/s Kosdan - K700 - 1118 m/s Animal Motor Works - M2500 - 1404 m/s So you can see, hobbyists (little and big kids like us) on the earth are already using engines are practically there, when a little Estes kit can do 14% of Lunar escape velocity reaching 2.65 miles height on the Moon, but only 0.25 of a mile on Earth. The AMW motor mentioned is two thirds of the way there, but on Earth can only do a little over 2 miles height ... though if not for the atmosphere it would make it into space, but not escape. Last May a Hollywood stuntman actually did launch an amateur rocket into space from the US for the first time, though it went relatively unnoticed in the shadow of the X-prize multimillion dollar extravangaza. So you can bet these commercial toy rockets and their engines are not limited by physics, but rather the FAA, etc. So the technology and feasibility for the Moon is a given, as it its reserves. Now all we need is a reason. How about high oil prices? Lack of a variety of economic metal reserves? 20 years may or many not be the number but I am guessing it is close! One further metion right on the Mark was the Lunar tourist (including scientists)souvenier rocks stuffed in the pockets and boots of people. I believe that is very true as well. Didn't Ron just post how a professor asked NASA for dust from the astronauts boots of mixed Lunar origin on the site - and didn't he get 100 grams of it? Saludos, Doug PS Mark, The crazy value of meteorites from the Moon, is principally because they are from the Moon, not because they are meteorites. Perhaps the craziness of collectors will prove without bound, but I am not too sure of that as perspectives change and novelty wears off on many. And remember that there will probably be more than enough Lunar slag reentering the Earth following these points of discussion...And never mind the slag, "Made in Luna" or "Assembled in Space from parts imported from Luna" is not as far away as you think for some products. Earth and the human ADVENTUROUS spirit especially when a buck is to be made, is too finite to believe anything less... En un mensaje con fecha 05/15/2005 12:52:19 PM Mexico Daylight Time, mqfowler_at_mac.com escribe: > On Sat, 14 May 2005 17:03:53 -0700, "Adam Hupe" <raremeteorites at > comcast.net> wrote: > > >That's ridiculous, Lunar material brought back from the moon would > baseline > >at more than $5,000.00 a gram. Anything less is not feasible because > the > >costs are tremendous and have already been calculated. > > Adam One should be very careful about making dogmatic statements about what will never be technically or financially possible in the future! Quite possibly 100 years in the future, the cost of a package to or form the moon may be little more in comparison to our income then, than the cost of getting one banana from Ecuador to the USA was in comparison to the income of Americans 150 years ago. I've observed in my lifetime that the optimists have always been more right than the pessimists! > > Oh, maybe in the near future (I just used the 20 year figure because > that is what the original > poster used) but I refuse to believe that, for an established lunar > mining colony launching material > from the surface of the moon under the Moon's 1/6th g using lunar > construction materials and lunar > fuel, the price will always be in the thousands of dollars per gram > range. I'm not talking about a > simple sample return mission, here. > > Darren Read Heinleins " The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" a classic SF story in which a rail gun catapult plays a crucial part. Certainly, if we have a lunar colony and there is enough commerce to justify such a rail gun, the cost of transport from the moon to earth will be reduced by more than a factor of 1000. Even before then, colonists, astronauts, scientists, or tourists will have a personal allowance of one or two kilos for personal effects. Who's to say that they won't choose to leave behind their underwear, toothpaste, shaving cream etc. and use their personal allowance to bring back moon rocks instead. I would. After the 20? or so specimens have been found in Dhofar (such a small region) who is to say how many more my turn up elsewhere. The 13.5 kilo one from the Kalahari may be the tip of the iceberg. A maxim of warfare is to ask not what is the intentions of your enemy but rather what are his capabilities. NASA may have no intention of ever selling those moon rocks, but they are there, and it could happen. Received on Sun 15 May 2005 05:24:12 PM PDT |
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