Digest Number 2571

Posted by:
"Joe Strout" joe_strout

On 5/29/13 10:30 AM, JLB39401@... wrote:

> Actually the price is much cheaper than that. The SpaceX Falcon 9 is

> priced at $54 million per launch, which is about $4107 per kilo. When

> the Falcon Heavy comes on line, it will cost $83 million per launch --

> which drops the price to LEO to ~$1585 per kilogram.

But this is the launch cost. The cost of returned materials isn't

related in any simple way to launch cost; it's related instead to the

launch and operations cost for whatever return system you use. There

are lots of alternatives for that, ranging from mass launchers to

(lunar) space elevators to ion tugs. Most of these have a high initial

cost, and a low (but varying) operation cost, so the cost/kg of the

material they return goes down the more you use it.

That's fine, but I was using the metric that the original poster chose; he cited a cost to LEO of $20k/kilogram. I was just pointing out that -- with his chosen metric -- he was off by a factor >4, and will be off by more than an order of magnitude before the end of 2015.

Posted by:
"Joe Strout" joe_strout

On 5/29/13 10:30 AM, JLB39401@... wrote:

> PMGs aren't really all that great, though. Sure, they are valuable right
> now -- and there are any number of industrial uses for them -- but then
> again a kilo of sand is currently worth more than $1500... if it is
> already in LEO.

No, a kilo of sand *costs* more than $1500 on orbit. That doesn't mean
it's worth that much. In fact, we can pretty much tell that it is NOT
worth that much, because nobody is paying anybody that much to launch sand.

Fair point; nobody is yet paying to have sand delivered to LEO. I was just using it as a slightly ridiculous example though; construction materials and volatiles were really the bits I was thinking of -- classically, this would have meant steel, copper, aluminium, titanium, and others in much smaller amounts, silica bricks, glass, and concrete. It seems like Bigelow is moving to more modern synthetics though, and delivering petroleum for making plastics from Luna is... problematic. For manufacturing in space with metals though, it seems like lunar resources could undercut terrestrial ones with a nice profit margin. PGMs would enjoy the same location mark-up advantage, of course -- but now much demand would there be? If we are talking about quickly-saturated markets with ultra-valuable materials, though -- how much does NASA currently price a gram a lunar regolith?

Posted by:
"Joe Strout" joe_strout

Even PGMs won't be worth much on orbit if there are no customers there.
The customers are here on the ground, so we'll be returning those
metals all the way to the ground, and from there go to customers via
regular shipping methods. That's where their value is.

(Eventually, I have no doubt we WILL have offworld markets, at which
point things like water and sand may have substantial value there... but
we're not to that point yet.)

Very good point; I'll have to concede this one -- for a few years. :)

Posted by:
"Joe Strout" joe_strout

On 5/29/13 10:30 AM, JLB39401@... wrote:

> But if we are
> supposing enough infrastructure exists to mine the moon, process the
> ore, and export PMGs back to Terra, then maybe supposing enough activity
> in LEO to form a viable market for everything else isn't so much of a
> stretch.

True, it's not a HUGE stretch. But in the chicken-and-egg part of the
development curve, you need to identify your initial market big enough
to make all that infrastructure worthwhile. That initial market is
terrestrial customers.

Terrestrial customers, yes -- exports to Terra, maybe not so much. The data market is pretty much already served, but space solar power might be worth examining for niche markets; tourism is already visibly on the upswing, and satellite service & refuelling could be a very lucrative business model. Just because the customers are earthbound doesn't mean their money is -- and it doesn't necessarily require sending hunks of mass to the surface of Terra to get paid. All of the aforementioned space-businesses would be eager for cheaper non-terrestrial supplies if they could get them. So while the nest egg is earthling capital, when those fledgling space-business take off (very soon, I hope) they will be sustained both by money from Terra and materials from Luna (or NEOs). That's the place (LEO, in the near future) where the kilo of sand -- or other, more practical materials -- might find a buyer.

Posted by:
"Joe Strout" joe_strout

On 5/29/13 10:30 AM, JLB39401@... wrote:

> And while the current price for PMGs is large, the market could
> quickly become saturated -- while it seems like the market in LEO will
> have nowhere to go but up. :)

A fair point, again in the long term. But in the near term, the
business plan seems pretty clear: mine those deposits from the Moon and
get the shiny stuff back to Earth as cheaply as you can, and sell it to
the existing customers already paying $50,000/kg.

Actually, it might be a fun exercise to try and design the
smallest/simplest mission that could return a profit, assuming (for the
sake of argument) that nuggets of PGMs are simply lying around on the
surface if you look in the right place. What if we said: forget about
infrastructure -- we want a profit on the very first launch.

If the Falcon 9 costs $54M, then we'd need to return about 1000 kg of
PGMs just to cover the launch cost. The Falcon 9's payload is 13150 kg
to LEO, or 4850 kg to GEO. The Dragon capsule masses 4200 kg dry, and
can return 3310 kg of cargo to Earth. Anybody want to try to connect
the dots and sketch out a profitable single mission, or prove that it's
impossible?

Cheers,
- Joe

That is a fun exercise! But don't saddle yourself with having to buy the ~$60M Dragon spacecraft unless you really think you need it.. would a simpler, pupose designed system be cheaper?

Delta-V from LEO to Lunar orbit runs about 4.1 km/s, with another 1.6 to get to the Lunar surface; if we aren't in a rush we could use the 13150 kg LEO allowance to build a trans-lunar bus with a solar-electric drive -- the mass we save on propellent could be spent on the lander / prospecting / ascent / re-entry packages. Doing the Apollo-thing and using the lander as the Lunar ascent stage has some appeal -- some of the landers mass is useful twice. There is no reason for the re-entry package to land on the moon, so the landing/ascent module would need to be built purely to lift the paying cargo -- or powerful enough to deposit the prospecting package, whichever is more. We can even dump the prospecting stuff on the surface permanently, in the hopes that it might be useful again later.

What process would you recommend for extracting the pay-dirt? Or for refining the ore? Would the carbonyl process be suitable?

As long as the goal is to get paid on the very first mission, I think this really has a shot. Do you want to impose a budget -- maybe $100M in 2013 dollars -- or a timeline?

Fly safe;

JLBrown

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