U.S. will lag behind in utilization of resources on the Moon.

[NFUN]

5 hours ago, darthgently said:

Dad joke warning!

  Reveal hidden contents

Well, technically, the apparatus did penetrate the surface

 

"Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have more data available, but I don't consider this to be a ground breaking discovery. Well, other than the actual breaking of the lunar ground." - Shpaget, 2023

[SunlitZelkova]

8 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

By the way, in regards to the point that India nor China have evinced no interest in exploiting the resources on the Moon, it is interesting that India is a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty. The purpose of the treaty was to prevent the wealthy spacefaring countries like U.S., Europe, Japan, Russia, China from exploiting the resources in space to the detriment of the underdeveloped countries, such as India.

 Quite ironic then India one of the countries the Outer Space Treaty was designed to protect may be a country best in line to exploit those resources IF, and that’s a big IF, their rover confirms the large amounts of precious metals suggested by orbital observations. 

 Follow along with the me on this hypothetical scenario: suppose India does discover these high levels of precious metals. As a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty they are obligated to share this information with the world. But suppose the amounts they found suggest literally trillions of dollars worth of precious metals. They are still an underdeveloped country. The leadership in their country would understandably ask themselves this question: what is in India’s best interests?

India does not have any reusable rockets, let alone apparatus capable of returning things from space to Earth.

Even if they discovered large amounts of metals, it would cost far more to develop equipment, mine the resources, and return it to Earth than any return from the minerals.

SpaceX would be in a far better position to do so.

[Exoscientist]

4 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

India does not have any reusable rockets, let alone apparatus capable of returning things from space to Earth.

Even if they discovered large amounts of metals, it would cost far more to develop equipment, mine the resources, and return it to Earth than any return from the minerals.

SpaceX would be in a far better position to do so.

 As I said in the first post of this thread it is a major irritation of mine that the U.S. landers won’t have detectors for detecting them even if they are there. It’s not like these are gigantic detectors that take a huge amount of weight. I showed the image of the little Sojourner rover with its own APXS at the front. So if the Indian and Chinese lander discover these precious metals in high abundance, the U.S. landers would be blind to the fact they are even there.

 Hypothetical scenario: ISRO scientists are pleased to see large amounts of water in the lunar regolith. They immediately release this data to the world. But looking at the APXS data they are astonished to find high levels of platinum, gold, silver, and uranium and other valuable minerals right in the lunar regolith. You could literally scoop up the lunar soil to get huge amounts of the valuable minerals. The ISRO scientist are about to release the data to the world, when they get a call from the Indian military. They want a consultation before this data is released.

 Comes the end of the mission after 14 days and the results of the APXS are still not released. U.S. and other scientists around the world inquire when the data will be released. ISRO scientists respond they want to give Indian scientists first crack at publishing on these results. And actually, that is not an uncommon practice for expensive science projects to want the scientists who worked on the project to have first crack at analyzing the data.

 A year later the data is still not released. U.S. and other scientists around the world inquire when the data will be released. ISRO responds the data is more complicated than expected. It may take 5, 10 years or more before the data is properly analyzed.

   Meanwhile, after China sends its lander to the Moon it releases the data showing large amounts of water or the Moon, but the results of the APXS instrument are delayed. China responds also it wants to give their scientists proper time to analyze the data.

 During this time, the U.S. landers also show large amounts of water in the lunar regolith. However, they don’t have instruments for measuring heavy elements. So they just assume they are at the same levels as seen by the previous U.S. robotic landers and Apollo missions to the Moon at locations other than the lunar South Pole.

   Bob Clark

  

Edited August 30, 2023 by Exoscientist

[SunlitZelkova]

22 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

Hypothetical scenario: ISRO scientists are pleased to see large amounts of water in the lunar regolith. They immediately release this data to the world. But looking at the APXS data they are astonished to find high levels of platinum, gold, silver, and uranium and other valuable minerals right in the lunar regolith. You could literally scoop up the lunar soil to get huge amounts of the valuable minerals. The ISRO scientist are about to release the data to the world, when they get a call from the Indian military. They want a consultation before this data is released.

 Comes the end of the mission after 14 days and the results of the APXS are still not released. U.S. and other scientists around the world inquire when the data will be released. ISRO scientists respond they want to give Indian scientists first crack at publishing on these results. And actually, that is not an uncommon practice for expensive science projects to want the scientists who worked on the project to have first crack at analyzing the data.

 A year later the data is still not released. U.S. and other scientists around the world inquire when the data will be released. ISRO responds the data is more complicated than expected. It may take 5, 10 years or more before the data is properly analyzed.

   Meanwhile, after China sends its lander to the Moon it releases the data showing large amounts of water or the Moon, but the results of the APXS instrument are delayed. China responds also it wants to give their scientists proper time to analyze the data.

This is a reasonable concern but I don’t think this is how it works, at least in India.

The military and government have no control over what gets published.

China on the other hand? I don’t know what their regulations are.

I’d much rather ask @steve9728 to chime in rather than assume we have a space boogieman.

Note that even if there was some degree of government control over what gets published, there would actually be an incentive to publish the data for two reasons-

1. Claim the historic prize of the discovery itself.

2. Make sure the resources fall under the OST and are available for joint utilization.

Because China and India are behind the US in terms of heavy lift vehicles required for crewed lunar exploration, let alone lunar resource utilization, it would be in their best interest to make sure they make the discovery and can declare it is protected under the much more universally recognized OST.

In contrast, it’s not clear how the US might try to govern jurisdiction of lunar resources utilizing the new Artemis Accords.

In fact, India is part of the Artemis Accords, now that I just realized. I haven’t read the accords but they probably can’t do any secretive activities like you are suggesting while being party to them.

EDIT-

To add on, we don’t know what punishment would look like if someone were to violate the OST yet. I’m sure both India and China would not like to find out by being potentially restricted from mining the resources they discovered due to flouting UN regulations.

Edited August 31, 2023 by SunlitZelkova

[steve9728]

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

China on the other hand? I don’t know what their regulations are.

I’d much rather ask @steve9728 to chime in rather than assume we have a space boogieman.

Depends on who’s catering the party: if it’s something like CAS, domestic universities, and foreign academic collaborations (and if the foreign friends don’t have a need for confidentiality), you can expect something cool they will be announced.

But if the party is hosted by some research unit of the military, and if the experimental program is very cutting-edge internationally, is under the sanctions embargo, and is somewhat controversial, “Friendly suggests that you’d better don’t ask”.

A similar case is that slanted rectangular expandable thing on the outside of IV quadrant of CSS’s WT module. Nobody officially telling us what that thing can do exactly. And, well, don’t worry, that no less than 10m driller program that is being solicited, the results of future research on what’s inside the samples taken from the moon should going to be published. Just like those researching results about the samples drilled from 3m deep of moon by Chang’e-5. Months ago, the President of France came to visit China, as a national gift, we presented them 1g of surface sample and 0.5g of drilled sample of moon. And CNSA also presented one as national gift when Russian President visited China last year.

But, to put it bluntly, extracting metals from outside the Earth and utilising them is not a pragmatic thing to do in the current context of Chinese public opinion. Both normal citizens and science research institutions. At least for this and the next five years. 3D printing buildings on the moon out of lunar soil is the “bottom line of what can be tolerated”.

We have a saying: if you make your steps too big may rip your b*lls off

Add: according to CNSA, they said that since the Regulations on Lunar Sample Management has been published, there’s many scientists from several countries involved in scientific research of the lunar samples taken back by Chang’e-5, including Australia, Russia, France, America, Britain, and Sweden etc.

Edited August 31, 2023 by steve9728

[darthgently]

On 8/30/2023 at 11:08 PM, steve9728 said:

We have a saying: if you make your steps too big may rip your b*lls off

Good advice for nearly any endeavor

[Exoscientist]

The Chandrayaan-3 rover has been parked and put in sleep mode in preparation for the upcoming lunar night. The ISRO hopes it can be reactivated when daylight returns Sept. 22nd:

  Robert Clark

[Exoscientist]

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023
 Editors' notes
India's moon rover completes its walk, scientists analyzing data looking for signs of frozen water.
by Ashok Sharma
The data is back on Earth and will be analyzed by Indian scientists as a first look and then by the global community, he said.
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-india-moon-rover-scientists-frozen.html

 Seems to suggest both the water and heavy metal results won’t be released until ISRO scientists have a chance to analyze them first.

  Robert Clark

Edited September 4, 2023 by Exoscientist

[SunlitZelkova]

11 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023
 Editors' notes
India's moon rover completes its walk, scientists analyzing data looking for signs of frozen water.
by Ashok Sharma
The data is back on Earth and will be analyzed by Indian scientists as a first look and then by the global community, he said.
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-india-moon-rover-scientists-frozen.html

 Seems to suggest both the water and heavy metal results wont be released until ISRO scientists have a chance to analyze them first.

  Robert Clark

Perhaps, but not at all long enough to give India some kind of “lead”.

[Exoscientist]

China reveals grand vision for space resource utilization
Could you mine all the resources needed for space exploration from space itself? China reveals plans to achieve this goal by 2100.
Created: Sep 02, 2023 07:10 AM EST
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-reveals-grand-vision-for-space-resource-utilization

  Bob Clark

[Shpaget]

3 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

Could you mine all the resources needed for space exploration from space itself?

Of course you can, given a sufficiently loose definition of "space". If we only look at elements, composition of Earth is nothing special, however, some materials such as organic compounds might be worth shipping from Earth.

Even if you can devise a convoluted chain of reactions to get whatever plastic you need from raw elements, it would probably be much much simpler to just use well established processes and get it from oil (as in, use existing factories and just ship it to your space outpost). Industrial processes we use today benefit a lot from having near infinite access to almost free water, be it for cooling or as solvent. Same goes for air and any other chemical that is available with same day shipping.

[farmerben]

Fun fact:  I was thinking a monorail would be better than traditional tracks on the moon because you can grip the rail and not rely solely on gravity.  Then I did the calculation, you would stay in contact with traditional tracks up to a speed of 6000 km/hr.  So traditional tracks work fine.

[steve9728]

12 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

China reveals grand vision for space resource utilization
Could you mine all the resources needed for space exploration from space itself? China reveals plans to achieve this goal by 2100.
Created: Sep 02, 2023 07:10 AM EST
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-reveals-grand-vision-for-space-resource-utilization

  Bob Clark

I just read that. And I found I missed the China Space News report about that.

"The report puts forward the concept of building a space resource development system from near to far and in a distributed manner, with the development of strategic mineral resources as the goal, the utilization of extraterrestrial water and ice resources as the basis, and the Lagrange point L1/L2 between the two major celestial bodies as the node.

Will gradually build the water ice resource development facilities on the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, Mars, main belt asteroids, Jovian moons, etc. Form progressively the system of Earth-Moon L1, Sun-Earth L1/L2, Sun-Mars L1/L2, Ceres, and Sun-Jupiter L1 space resource replenishment stations. To gradually form the ability to explore and develop resources throughout the solar system.

... The plan focuses on the layout of space access, transportation, resupply mining and resource processing technologies. With emphasis on breakthroughs in common key techniques such as low-cost resource return, flight-oriented space resource transportation, space resource resupply stations, extraterrestrial celestial body mining stations and space resource processing stations.

The report sets out the milestones of 'exploration, extraction and utilization' and gives the preliminary road map for the development of the four phases of resource development in the entire solar system by 2035,2050, 2075 and 2100."

 

Based on what has been going on with CNSA's program and their level of completion of the program. We can safely put ≮60% confidence in these things if they set certain milestones. My understanding of this is that it may be that some people in CNSA finally have figured out a more convincing use for the new heavy rockets other than going to Mars and building NEO power stations.

Edited September 5, 2023 by steve9728

[KSK]

13 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Of course you can, given a sufficiently loose definition of "space". If we only look at elements, composition of Earth is nothing special, however, some materials such as organic compounds might be worth shipping from Earth.

Even if you can devise a convoluted chain of reactions to get whatever plastic you need from raw elements, it would probably be much much simpler to just use well established processes and get it from oil (as in, use existing factories and just ship it to your space outpost). Industrial processes we use today benefit a lot from having near infinite access to almost free water, be it for cooling or as solvent. Same goes for air and any other chemical that is available with same day shipping.

Depends where you set up your space outpost but that's going to be true of any ISRU process. The chemistry isn't actually too convoluted on paper, although as you point out,  getting everything working under non-terrestrial condition is a challenge all by itself.

Starting with CO₂ and water, electrolyzing the water will give you hydrogen and oxygen and from there the water gas shift reaction will get you carbon monoxide, water, carbon dioxide and hydrogen in varying ratios, depending on your reaction conditions:

CO + H₂O ⇌ CO₂ + H₂

For the non-chemists reading this, the double-headed arrow indicates an equilibrium reaction, and those can be driven either way by process conditions. So it's not simply a matter of reacting carbon monoxide and water and ending up with carbon dioxide and hydrogen - the reaction mixture at the end will most probably contain all four of them. Which in this case is exactly what you want - for ISRU purposes, you start with hydrogen and carbon dioxide and drive the reaction towards the left to give you some carbon monoxide and water too.

Now that you've got carbon monoxide and hydrogen, you've got synthesis gas and if you have synthesis gas you're halfway to anywhere, given the right set of catalysts. For example, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis will give you alkanes, and according to this relatively recent  paper, you can get directly from synthesis gas to ethene and propene (ethylene and propylene). At that point you’ve got a very similar set of feedstocks to those that you’d get from oil.

So set up shop on Mars (lots of lovely carbon dioxide ice and water ice on Mars) and you’re potentially good to go for quite a complicated chemical industry.

One of the more difficult element to get hold of through ISRU is probably going to be nitrogen, at least to begin with. There’s ammonia (NH3) ice on Triton and possibly on comets or outer planet icy moons  but Triton is quite a way out. For early, inner system outposts, shipping ammonia from Earth might be a better solution. However, if you’re feeling muscular about the whole rocketry business, the outer planet icy moons or Kuiper belt, should both be good sources of carbon dioxide, water and ammonia ices. Or skip the whole ‘starting from syngas’ thing and just start mining Titan for your hydrocarbons and other organics.

But yeah, this only really makes sense if you're going off-world in a big way and can't make do with a hundred tons of polymers at a time sent up from Earth.

Edited September 5, 2023 by KSK

[Exoscientist]

On 8/30/2023 at 12:26 AM, Exoscientist said:

 As I said in the first post of this thread it is a major irritation of mine that the U.S. landers won’t have detectors for detecting them even if they are there. It’s not like these are gigantic detectors that take a huge amount of weight. I showed the image of the little Sojourner rover with its own APXS at the front. So if the Indian and Chinese lander discover these precious metals in high abundance, the U.S. landers would be blind to the fact they are even there.

 Hypothetical scenario: ISRO scientists are pleased to see large amounts of water in the lunar regolith. They immediately release this data to the world. But looking at the APXS data they are astonished to find high levels of platinum, gold, silver, and uranium and other valuable minerals right in the lunar regolith. You could literally scoop up the lunar soil to get huge amounts of the valuable minerals. The ISRO scientist are about to release the data to the world, when they get a call from the Indian military. They want a consultation before this data is released.

 Comes the end of the mission after 14 days and the results of the APXS are still not released. U.S. and other scientists around the world inquire when the data will be released. ISRO scientists respond they want to give Indian scientists first crack at publishing on these results. And actually, that is not an uncommon practice for expensive science projects to want the scientists who worked on the project to have first crack at analyzing the data.

 A year later the data is still not released. U.S. and other scientists around the world inquire when the data will be released. ISRO responds the data is more complicated than expected. It may take 5, 10 years or more before the data is properly analyzed.

   Meanwhile, after China sends its lander to the Moon it releases the data showing large amounts of water or the Moon, but the results of the APXS instrument are delayed. China responds also it wants to give their scientists proper time to analyze the data.

 During this time, the U.S. landers also show large amounts of water in the lunar regolith. However, they don’t have instruments for measuring heavy elements. So they just assume they are at the same levels as seen by the previous U.S. robotic landers and Apollo missions to the Moon at locations other than the lunar South Pole.

   Bob Clark

  

 

  Chandrayaan-3’s 14 day primary mission is completed and the water and heavy metal detections have not been released.  My speculations may turn out to have some validity.

  Bob Clark

[SunlitZelkova]

11 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

 

  Chandrayaan-3’s 14 day primary mission is completed and the water and heavy metal detections have not been released.  My speculations may turn out to have some validity.

  Bob Clark

It can take years to analyze data and publish a paper on it…

With Chang’e 5, it took months to get the first scientific paper released on the samples.

I don’t see any sign of Indian malpractice.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It can take years to analyze data and publish a paper on it…

With Chang’e 5, it took months to get the first scientific paper released on the samples.

I don’t see any sign of Indian malpractice.

This, scientists want to get the first publish before releasing the data, this is everywhere also places like archaeology. 
As an big find is an boost. 
Also they want to make sure the data is good so they don't end up with an egg in their face if data is wrong because an fault in the equipment. 
Cold fusion and room temperature superconductors comes to mind, now the later two are easy trillion dollar technologies. 

[steve9728]

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

With Chang’e 5, it took months to get the first scientific paper released on the samples.

And most of the first laboratories to receive lunar samples were given distribution within a week of those samples being brought to Earth. If memory serves, some of these were reported to have arrived at the lab the day after the notary organization did their paperwork on the samples.

Spoiler

Do some little research, the whole process was:

• Sample landing at 1:59, 17 Dec. 2020 at Inner Mongolia
• Landing capsule been lifted to the airport by air-force’s helicopter at 8:19
• Arrived Beijing at 17:30 and empty  the remaining fuel inside the capsule
• Arrived the CAST at 20:30, open the capsule and take the sample container out
• 19 Dec. 2020, before CAST and the third party notary organization did their paperwork, sample been handle to CAS
• Nearly 1 year later, 8 Oct. 2021, the first paper Age and composition of young basalts on the Moon, measured from samples returned by Chang’e-5, has been published on Science.
• Two years later, 9 Sep. 2022, scientist found the new mineral: Changesit-(Y)

Still that saying I said before, any tech takes time, just please, please give them some.

Edited September 7, 2023 by steve9728

[Exoscientist]

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It can take years to analyze data and publish a paper on it…

With Chang’e 5, it took months to get the first scientific paper released on the samples.

I don’t see any sign of Indian malpractice.

 Keep in mind India is still an underdeveloped country. I don’t see any malpractice in the Indian leadership asking the question, “What’s in the best interest of India?”

Seeing the new India through the eyes of an invisible woman
By Moni Basu, CNN
Video by Nick Scott and Jordan Mendys, CNN
She is part of a faceless, often-cited statistic: About 60% of India's nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than $3.10 a day, the World Bank's median poverty line. And 21%, or more than 250 million people, survive on less than $2 a day.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/10/world/i-on-india-income-gap/

How much money did Britain take away from India? About $45 trillion in 173 years, says top economist.
Patnaik, in her essay published in Columbia University Press recently, said Britain drained out over $45 trillion from India, which to date has hampered the country's ability to come out of poverty.
https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/economy-politics/story/this-economist-says-britain-took-away-usd-45-trillion-from-india-in-173-years-111689-2018-11-19

 

  Robert Clark

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Exoscientist

[Exoscientist]

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

And most of the first laboratories to receive lunar samples were given distribution within a week of those samples being brought to Earth. If memory serves, some of these were reported to have arrived at the lab the day after the notary organization did their paperwork on the samples.

Still that saying I said before, any tech takes time, just please, please give them some.

 I agree India should have time to release the data - all the time in the world.

   Robert Clark

[SunlitZelkova]

21 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

 Keep in mind India is still an underdeveloped country. I don’t see any malpractice in the Indian leadership asking the question, “What’s in the best interest of India?”

Seeing the new India through the eyes of an invisible woman
By Moni Basu, CNN
Video by Nick Scott and Jordan Mendys, CNN
She is part of a faceless, often-cited statistic: About 60% of India's nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than $3.10 a day, the World Bank's median poverty line. And 21%, or more than 250 million people, survive on less than $2 a day.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/10/world/i-on-india-income-gap/

How much money did Britain take away from India? About $45 trillion in 173 years, says top economist.
Patnaik, in her essay published in Columbia University Press recently, said Britain drained out over $45 trillion from India, which to date has hampered the country's ability to come out of poverty.
https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/economy-politics/story/this-economist-says-britain-took-away-usd-45-trillion-from-india-in-173-years-111689-2018-11-19

 

  Robert Clark

 

Sudden access to space resources- not that they have the means to actually access them, only identify them- would not make India an economic superpower or raise the standard of living.

Russia is the second largest producer of oil in the world (or so claims my quick Google search) and yet it does not have a widespread high standard of living (not even before current events caused economic havoc).