The case for an economy in space

[SargeRho]

Satellite operators, other companies looking to establish themselves on the Moon, which already exist by the way, such as Shackleton Energy, and Moon Expres. Producing fuel on the Moon would inevitably bring down the price of transporting anything between LEO and LMO.

Edited August 3, 2015 by SargeRho

[DBowman]

Currently there is no 'space economy', there is an Earth based space exploitation economy I guess. There are some things Earth have paid /will pay for that have to happen in space; satellite remote earth sensing, comms & geo positioning, science, & glory.

Proposals like 'propellant/water production on Luna' are great in that they are a '$$ multiplier' for space activity, but they are not drivers of new activity. You could imagine them making LEO-GEO, tourism, etc cheaper - but they can only be as big as their contribution to those markets. In that sense they are secondary.

What else is there? What are the new primary drivers? What are the big huge things that Earth needs and space has? I can only see two:

• near term: clean power / electrical energy via orbital solar (see earlier posts)
  
• long term: lebensraum - most of the stuff and energy is not here on Earth it's 'up there'. The Earth is a unique jewel of self assembled life (as far as we know so far, and for a very long time and maybe always for all practical purposes). We should 'get up there' and put the Earth back the way we found it.
  

[juanml82]

Satellite operators, other companies looking to establish themselves on the Moon, which already exist by the way, such as Shackleton Energy, and Moon Expres. Producing fuel on the Moon would inevitably bring down the price of transporting anything between LEO and LMO.

Satellite operators don't need to refuel in LEO. As for Shackleton Energy and Moon Express, they are startups which claim to be interested in producing fuel in the Moon - they question is, who are their customers?

[55delta]

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd have a merry little Christmas in space. There's a lot of potential in outer space, but there doesn't seem to be much that anyone thinks is viable. There's a lot of 'when flight costs go down', or 'when someone creates the infrastructure', or 'we'd need a pilot-project to test the concept first.' It seems that this whole thing is waiting for a major break-through. Still, let's see what we have.

Orbital solar power: I see great potential here. The construction costs are huge, but the possible output is in the realm of some of our biggest power projects. However, we can't say how well transmitting that power would work, let alone the hundreds of little concerns about anything that gets between the transmitter and receiver. Additionally, a decent break-through in fusion power could make the matter irrelevant.

Microprocessor manufacture: There's a lot of theory here. The idea is that better crystals could be grown or more dense microprocessors could be made in microgravity. But this is still three or four projects short of a full plan. First, crystal grown of silicon in zero-g. Second, the combining of gallium arsenide and/or gallium nitride in zero-g. Finally, modifying the machinery for creating microprocessors for zero-g and testing if zero-g allows for improvement in manufacture. Those have to be done before anyone is going to commit to any plan. I did have a thought of sourcing the materials for making zero-g microprocessors from space to reduce the up-and-down costs. However, gallium is only found as a trace element in zinc ores and bauxite, which means you'd already need to be producing aluminium before you'd find gallium and I haven't found a notable source of zinc in space. Current ISRU doesn't cover rare minerals right now. Either way, we're just not there yet.

Mining ice water: This one looks easier. All of the concepts, except two, have already been proven. It has also been pointed out that there is a potential market for water in space, the ISS. Yes, it's a tiny market...but it does currently exist and has plenty of room to grow. The issue that still needs to be examined is the mining and handling of materials in zero-g. The devil's in the details here. This plan is a one-trick pony unless the vehicle can also making fuel from some of the ice it is mining. The water could be melted and electrolysed in some form into hydrogen and oxygen. But it turns out that pure water needs overpotential (that is, a lot of power) to break down into it's components. Usually an additional material is added (a salt, acid, or base) to the process to reduce the power requirement. But that means adding something to the water that can be separated from the hydrogen and oxygen afterwards before the process of compression and cryogenic cooling. Otherwise you have self-induced fuel impurities in a continuous mission. This is not to mention that materials handling now includes moving both liquids and gases in zero-g or the general power requirements of the process. Still, nothing that is, as of yet, impossible to overcome. Before I forget, you also need a big source of ice water to continuously mine.

Additionally, how much is the payload fraction of average ISS re-supply made up of water? I don't exactly see this as reducing the number of ISS re-supply missions, although it would definitely extend some of the safety factors for operational crews. That said, cargo space on a re-supply mission will be filled with something. I'm just wondering if that'll be enough to get two different space agencies to sign the contract. I'm sort of wondering if this plan couldn't be sweetened a bit. What else could be mined in space, preferably near ice water, that with only a bit of refining, could be used by the ISS?

But you might have calculated something here. If the vehicle could mine ice water, and make it's own fuel, then it should be able to bring liquid fuels to LEO, right? Well, possibly and sort of. The vehicle already needs fuel to both get to LEO, then back to the ice mine. Anyone who knows about cryonic fuels knows that they tend to boil off in the tanks. So the vehicle used might not have enough fuel to spare for other craft. Also, The thrusters on the ISS don't use a liquid hydrogen/oxygen mix, so that can't be re-supplied through ice mining. If anyone wanted to use any extra water for fuel, they would have to make that fuel through their own means.

Sending whisky to age in LEO: I like this one. It's just the sort of thing I was hoping to see here. It can be done with current technology, it is done for a uniqueness that only continuous zero-g can provide, and it can easily absorb the launch costs to make it happen. Modern whisky, or whiskey, casks can be made of metal or plastic, so materials shouldn't be an issue. They just have to be left in long-term storage in a climate-controlled environment, which a space-station should have. The market for specialty alcohol is huge. More than a few labels go for over a thousand a bottle. A quick Google search tells me that a bottle of Black Maple Hill 21 Cask 5 goes for approx. $3,000, a bottle of Bowmore Black 1964 2nd Addition for approx. $9,300, and a bottle (likely just one in existence) of Macallan 1946 Select Reserve for over $13,000. If aging in zero-g does slightly different, yet agreeable, to whisky, specialty collectors will buy the bottles for thousands per bottle. Of course, at anywhere from 119 litres to 300 litres per cask, it likely sets the teeth of engineers and quartermasters alike to lift and return that much dead-weight whenever it would be time to rotate the stock. But it's very unlikely that space-aged alcohol will flood the market anytime soon, keeping the prices stable.

That's what I have for now. Let's see what else could take us out to space.

[juanml82]

Sending whisky to age in LEO: I like this one. It's just the sort of thing I was hoping to see here. It can be done with current technology, it is done for a uniqueness that only continuous zero-g can provide, and it can easily absorb the launch costs to make it happen. Modern whisky, or whiskey, casks can be made of metal or plastic, so materials shouldn't be an issue. They just have to be left in long-term storage in a climate-controlled environment, which a space-station should have. The market for specialty alcohol is huge. More than a few labels go for over a thousand a bottle. A quick Google search tells me that a bottle of Black Maple Hill 21 Cask 5 goes for approx. $3,000, a bottle of Bowmore Black 1964 2nd Addition for approx. $9,300, and a bottle (likely just one in existence) of Macallan 1946 Select Reserve for over $13,000. If aging in zero-g does slightly different, yet agreeable, to whisky, specialty collectors will buy the bottles for thousands per bottle. Of course, at anywhere from 119 litres to 300 litres per cask, it likely sets the teeth of engineers and quartermasters alike to lift and return that much dead-weight whenever it would be time to rotate the stock. But it's very unlikely that space-aged alcohol will flood the market anytime soon, keeping the prices stable.

That amounts to putting a satellite in LEO and recovering it. While it's an additional venue for making profits off space, it doesn't demand anything produced outside Earth.

[55delta]

While it's an additional venue for making profits off space, it doesn't demand anything produced outside Earth.

Please re-read my OP. Plans for making profits off space is the purpose of the thread.

[Stargate525]

That's what I have for now. Let's see what else could take us out to space.

There's two big ones that I can think of.

Waste Processing: If we're able to ship the rather nasty byproducts that arise from some production processes offworld, that's a very lucrative boost to our economy. Many things are done in a less efficient manner because the most efficient one is horribly polluting. Without having to worry about killing the local wildlife or contaminating the water supply, I could see quite a bit of industry being done offworld.

Rare Earth Mining: Grab an asteroid, capture it, break it into chunks, send it down, recover and smelt it down. There are asteroids estimated to be worth billions in rare earths.

[SargeRho]

Satellite operators don't need to refuel in LEO.

Not quite true. While they don't *need* to refuel, refueling would extend the lifetime of many sats considerably, and bringing over some fuel from the Moon is going to be cheaper than launching a whole new sat, or anything from Earth for that matter. Getting off the Moon only costs electricity and a smidgeon of fuel, since you can throw things into space using mass drivers.

Edited August 3, 2015 by SargeRho

[DBowman]

Not quite true. While they don't *need* to refuel, refueling would extend the lifetime of many sats considerably, and bringing over some fuel from the Moon is going to be cheaper than launching a whole new sat, or anything from Earth for that matter. Getting off the Moon only costs electricity and a smidgeon of fuel, since you can throw things into space using mass drivers.

I agree being able to refuel would extend their working life, but they don't do it now so ... I don't know if it's like laser printers and the 'consumables' are so expensive you might as well buy a new one (and new shiny) - maybe Luna cheap fuel would make the difference.

Also Luna cheap fuel could handle the LEO-GEO leg, from Wikipedia it's 3.8 km/s deltaV which is more than I thought. Falcon 9 will lift 13 ton to LEO but only 5 to GTO (2.5 km/s), so some Luna fueled in LEO top-up has the effect of 2.5x the Falcon 9 'to GTO' rating (I guess it's a little more complex because Falcon 9 would boost direct to GTO but to take fuel would have to make a LEO orbit first).

[SargeRho]

Well, it takes more time (a few days or weeks, depending on your engines) to bring fuel from the Moon to LEO than from the Surface, but it only takes a much less d/V, and only a small portion has to be carried by the craft itself. I think a well placed mass driver can shoot directly towards LEO, where the payload can then aerocapture or brake using engines. 9400 d/v to get from Earth to LEO, 2/3 of that to get from the surface of the Moon to LEO.

[DBowman]

I think a well placed mass driver can shoot directly towards LEO, where the payload can then aerocapture or brake using engines. 9400 d/v to get from Earth to LEO, 2/3 of that to get from the surface of the Moon to LEO.

Yep what I was thinking.

Current thermal protection is heavy & one time use so hard to say on the face of it if aerocapture or powered capture would be the best (4.1 km/s on the LEO capture is a big incentive to make the TP work).

The other 'hard part' is if you have Luna payload with propulsion, guidance, & TP then either that's made on Luna (setup and running costs large) or shipped to Luna (costs). An inert payload is attractive but frankly O'Neill's 'mass driver bullet catcher' seems a little far fetched - but I guess they must have done a sanity check on the things ... what deltaV does it take to circularise an aerocaptured Luna shot mass driver bullet? ( it sounds like what the catcher would have to absorb/impart to the bullet, it's got to essentially come and sweep up the payload just as it 'wants' to circularise and then make up the momentum change from absorbing the payload? )

[SargeRho]

I'd have to calculate that, I've not slept in a day and a half though, so I'll do that after I've slept.

Another solution is to fire things into LMO, and then use electric propulsion to transport them. That would allow to transport things between Earth and the Moon, and you could reuse the guidance and propulsion system for as long as they'll last. They move things needed on the Moon that can't yet be produced there, also people, from LEO to LMO, and Fuel and perhaps rare earth minerals from LMO to LEO. A system like that would allow one to almost completely forego heavy launchers. You bring things up to LEO or MEO, and they're picked up there by tugs fueled and perhaps even partially built in Space.

I think some Kerbal Science Program is in order.

[DBowman]

We'd still have a circularisation issue at LMO ( use Low Luna Orbit and save Low Mars Orbit for Mars? ) with either engines & guidence 'recycling' or 'catching the bullets' - but maybe it's much easier in LLO? enjoy the zzzs

[SargeRho]

Yep, breaking into LLO from LTO (Lunar Transfer Orbit) are apparently just 680 m/s d/v. Breaking from a ETO to LEO are over 3200 m/s, but you can shave off a considerable amount by using aerocapture, Ceramic tiles would be heavy, but may be worth the extra fuel cost if such a heat shield can be reused often enough.

Lunar Surface to LLO are 1750 m/s or so, a lot which can be shaved off with a mass driver, and the rest be done an oxygen-aluminium hybrid rocket.

The total d/v from the Surface of the Moon to LEO are 5670 m/s, Earth to LEO are 9400 m/s, so, you save 40% of d/v, regardless of your propulsion systems.

Edited August 3, 2015 by SargeRho

[Rakaydos]

We'd still have a circularisation issue at LMO ( use Low Luna Orbit and save Low Mars Orbit for Mars? ) with either engines & guidence 'recycling' or 'catching the bullets' - but maybe it's much easier in LLO? enjoy the zzzs

Circularization isnt a problem if you use something other than a mass driver.

The company Liftport has run a few numbers and figured out that you can string a kevlar rope from the moons surface, all the way to the earth-moon lagrange point, if you can anchor it with enough counterweight past the lagrange point. Putting an elevator car on that cable is an engineering problem that is already being worked on.

[SargeRho]

So, assuming that works out, we're down to 3.8-4 km/s to get something from the Moon to LEO. So, you only need to slow something down by Mach 10. That's less than Half of what you need to get from Earth to LEO.

Also, since the Lunar ground station could be closer to the Poles than a mass driver, you don't need to transport things nearly as far, either.

ot:Rakaydos, your post and my post were both our 1214th posts!

[juanml82]

Please re-read my OP. Plans for making profits off space is the purpose of the thread.

I know, I'm just pointing out that it doesn't create further demand

[Mr Shifty]

Sending whisky to age in LEO: I like this one. It's just the sort of thing I was hoping to see here. It can be done with current technology, it is done for a uniqueness that only continuous zero-g can provide, and it can easily absorb the launch costs to make it happen. Modern whisky, or whiskey, casks can be made of metal or plastic, so materials shouldn't be an issue. They just have to be left in long-term storage in a climate-controlled environment, which a space-station should have. The market for specialty alcohol is huge. More than a few labels go for over a thousand a bottle. A quick Google search tells me that a bottle of Black Maple Hill 21 Cask 5 goes for approx. $3,000, a bottle of Bowmore Black 1964 2nd Addition for approx. $9,300, and a bottle (likely just one in existence) of Macallan 1946 Select Reserve for over $13,000. If aging in zero-g does slightly different, yet agreeable, to whisky, specialty collectors will buy the bottles for thousands per bottle. Of course, at anywhere from 119 litres to 300 litres per cask, it likely sets the teeth of engineers and quartermasters alike to lift and return that much dead-weight whenever it would be time to rotate the stock. But it's very unlikely that space-aged alcohol will flood the market anytime soon, keeping the prices stable..

Dragon can haul to space and return 3310 kg. Whiskey has a mass of about 0.95kg/L and a fifth is 0.75L, so you could launch and return about 4700 fifths of whiskey per Dragon-load. NASA's contract with SpaceX was $1.6 billion for 12 launches, which averages to about $133 million per launch. At that rate, you'd have to sell your space-aged whiskey for more than $28,000 per bottle to break even.

Rare Earth Mining: Grab an asteroid, capture it, break it into chunks, send it down, recover and smelt it down. There are asteroids estimated to be worth billions in rare earths.

This has been mentioned a bunch. Many rare rare-earths are actually not super rare terrestrially; they're just not in high enough demand to justify more expensive extraction methods than are currently used. Just as with platinum, an asteroid rare earth scheme would almost certainly make itself unviable by flooding the market.

[juanml82]

As for extracting hydrogen on the Mun to refuel satellites, do satellites use hydrogen as a fuel, or do they use other, easier to store, fuels?

[Rakaydos]

As for extracting hydrogen on the Mun to refuel satellites, do satellites use hydrogen as a fuel, or do they use other, easier to store, fuels?

You mean the Moon, AKA Luna, right?

[SargeRho]

As for extracting hydrogen on the Mun to refuel satellites, do satellites use hydrogen as a fuel, or do they use other, easier to store, fuels?

They normally use Nitrogen Tetroxide and Monomethylhydrazine, or as of late, Xenon in Ion Engines.

[juanml82]

You mean the Moon, AKA Luna, right?

LOL

https://stancarey.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/futurama-fry-should-i-lol-or-roflmao.jpg

[55delta]

Whiskey has a mass of about 0.95kg/L and a fifth is 0.75L, so you could launch and return about 4700 fifths of whiskey per Dragon-load. NASA's contract with SpaceX was $1.6 billion for 12 launches, which averages to about $133 million per launch. At that rate, you'd have to sell your space-aged whiskey for more than $28,000 per bottle to break even.

You're right, a 4700 bottle run would be a lousy way to make a specialty product. But I don't think anyone wanted to fill an entire Dragon capsule with whisky in the first place. No one can afford an entire capsule of dead-weight and the ISS doesn't have that much long-term storage. So let's cut it down a bit. This calls for a limited run. Let's say, a run of 100 fifths. As you said, a fifth is 0.76L. Assuming that we're not bothering with specialty casks, Wikipedia tells me that a wine cask holds 119L, of which only 75L is needed for the run itself. In fact that's over-kill, even with testing, tasting, and potential inefficiencies in bottling. The cask would weight a little over 113kg, which actually might not be as bad as I feared in terms of payload weight. The other 3197 kg in the capsule can be filled with things NASA or someone else actually wants to send in space. So the whisky doesn't need to pay for the whole rocket, just it's small part of it. Just keep the runs made to a hundred bottles or so and you have a small amount of a unique product for a market whose high-end market values unique products. Additionally, sometimes collectors actually consume the product they collect. So there is the possibility of a small amount of repeat business too.

Yes, this plan does require that someone else want to buy up the rest of the space in a capsule to make it work. But I'd like to point out that it also currently would also use long-term storage on the ISS because the ISS is currently the only climate-controlled environment in space right now. But that's what I like about this plan. It makes use of the currently existing infrastructure to make a business. And just to note. you would only want to send up casks of alcohol, never bottles. Fears of filching by the residents aside, it would be much easier to protect a cask from the tough handling up and down from space.

[Stargate525]

This has been mentioned a bunch. Many rare rare-earths are actually not super rare terrestrially; they're just not in high enough demand to justify more expensive extraction methods than are currently used. Just as with platinum, an asteroid rare earth scheme would almost certainly make itself unviable by flooding the market.

You're adorable. The idea that there is a surplus of supply does not necessarily mean that the cost won't be astronomical. I could simply point you to the diamond cartels, who price FAR higher than any reasonable supply/demand curve would indicate. And if you suddenly open an abundance of metals that are otherwise expensive or difficult to acquire, you allow a whole plethora of experimentation in materials science.

And if not rare-earths, then helium. that is legitimately running low, to the point where scientists are starting to worry about us using it for party balloons.

[DBowman]

They normally use Nitrogen Tetroxide and Monomethylhydrazine, or as of late, Xenon in Ion Engines.

These look like interesting 'work-a-likes' for 'station keeping', Silanes (Si?H?) + Peroxide (H2O2) - wide liquid phase temperature range similar isp (though I've not worked out their units yet) https://iti.esa.int/iti/fileUploadForm.do?action=viewer&proposalId=1001&contentType=5

Also you might find these interesting http://web.archive.org/web/20120205192436/http://www.moonminer.com/Moondust_index.html (Luna ISRU smelting etc), http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=14380.60 (Fe + LOX rockets...)

Re a Luna elevator that would be wild. But we are talking a 250,000 km cable with a counterweight of 100x the lift capacity. If SpaceX predicted $1000 / kg to LEO happens => 2500 to GTO (lets say thats what it costs to lift the counter weight) & the elevator has a 1 ton lift capacity then 250 M USD to lift the counterweight - their total budget is 800 M USD. They say they'd be able to move 36 people a year to the surface - that's not much capacity for supplying propellant. I guess the non obvious part of the Luna elevator is how long it take to climb 55000 km to the station, @150 km/hr = 15 days - so the elevator can lift 2 ton a month? 24 ton a year for an 800M investment? ( I couldn't find their mass lift / annum figures but 300kg of people + life support etc for three week trip? the counter weight lift budget would mean they couldn't much more than double or triple my number? ). Maybe we have to treat it as a 'starter elevator' and use it to build more / bigger ones using Luna materials to get to the real mass lift demand.

I guess we should work backwards from the potential demand in $$ & mass for LEO-GTO/GEO & station keeping propellant and then see how that fits with the Luna elevator proposals.

I could simply point you to the diamond cartels, who price FAR higher than any reasonable supply/demand curve would indicate.

I think the diamond cartel works because it's fashion and a contentious resource. There are plenty of rocks up there and industry isn't going to keep paying cartel prices if the supply cannot be controlled by the cartel.

And if not rare-earths, then helium. that is legitimately running low, to the point where scientists are starting to worry about us using it for party balloons.

Why not work up some $$ numbers to illustrate your point? I've no idea what the total helium market is worth etc.

Edited August 4, 2015 by DBowman