Humans on the Moon- 2019 - Shakelton Energy - Seed Money

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Purple-Days

Well-Known Member
I have nothing to do with these folks.

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A while back we lamented, on this forum, the passing of the Space Shuttle and the apparent demise of NASA. I think NASA should be funded, but the idea of private enterprise in space seemed sorta weak, ala Spaceship Two (Scaled Composites, into space lite), or highly subsidized by NASA, ESA etc... such as Falcon and Dragon by Space X...

This effort by Shakelton Energy is very different and makes a lot of sense to me on several levels. And it's the most far thinking plan (other than science fiction) I've ever seen. There is water on the moon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water These guys want to mine and sell it...

Seed money is being gained through crowdfunding. This is to pay for the first level planning, engineering for system designs. I learned of this through SpaceRef.com a top notch blog about such things that I read daily. Here is the article. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=35264

Here is the link to Shakelton Energy's crowdfunding site. http://rockethub.com/projects/3822-shackleton-energy-company-propellant-depots

The guy behind this is a space and antarctic robotics engineer of some note.

basically you have water, frozen in polar craters on the moon. It's water, it's Oxygen and it's Hydrogen and it's in a gravity well 1:22 that of the Earth, with no atmospheric drag... Dropping payloads into Low Earth Orbit would be a snap...

This is why we need to go to the moon and these guys plan on getting there and selling it at a profit some day. :tup:

Cheap fuel, may someday lead to an ability to clean up LEO... another space profit maker . . . some day . :cool:

I'm in for $5, soon as I can, WTF . . . Good luck to them. :2c: If you have $500,000 the first Lunar Base will have your name on it ! That would be sorta awesome... Lunar Base Clyde . :lol:
 
Purple-Days,
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Nosferatu

Well-Known Member
Seems cool but but wouldn't the cost of bringing water back from the moon outweigh how much its actually worth here? I can't imaging how much one shuttle could carry, are they going to condense it? ;)
 
Nosferatu,
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Purple-Days

Well-Known Member
Couple of points to answer. Getting a Kilo of water into LEO is about $10,000, yes, that will come down someday, but not much, and a Gallon is several Kilos... ie. Water is about $40,000 a gallon in LEO. Getting there is a much harder struggle than lifting the same kilo of mass off the moon. Liquid Hydrogen or Oxygen also cost $10,000 a Kilo launched from earth. You may start to see the economics of selling Space Water.

Since there is no atmosphere a likely strategy will be a mag-lev / rail / rifle... Free solar energy (no clouds). ;) And some polar crater rims are exposed to nearly constant sunshine. So you set up the rifle and lob payloads with minimal effort to overcome the Moon's gravity then let the Earth's gravity take over, with some aerobraking, you set the load near a LEO or LaGrange Point depot.

Here is the other point Water is H2O . Two Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen... Instant rocket fuel. You split the Water molecule with that same abundant electricity*. BTW you are near a Lunar polar crater, home of some of the coldest temps in the solar system. Instant Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen. Oh and another BTW Fuel Cells used to supply electricity use Hydrogen. And water is a handy thing to have in itself.

It's an economics thing, the gravity well we live in is deep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_well
This vid graphically explains it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBQHtF3WhMw

It's like having high ground in a battle. At least one sci-fi book I read had the moon winning a Moon Earth battle in short order. They started turning payloads into meteors... pretty neat idea but basically this Moon to LEO idea has been around a long while. But, until now nobody knew about a boatload of water on the Moon.

Heinlein in the same book had the Loonies underground mining ice, this stuff is two meters deep on the surface... basically except for the location, RH wrote the book on Moon + Water, total fantasy, but wait there really is ice on the Moon... RH you have done it again. ;)

Screw Mars, this is the Motherload.

*Solar wind whipping across polar crater rims may mean no need for solar panels to catch sunlight either, no need to lift heavy fields of photo-voltaics. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...n.html?cid=6a00d8341bf7f753ef014e88f5c9e0970d

ps.

Plenty of Titanium on the Moon too... http://www.moontoday.net/news/viewpr.html?pid=34898
 
Purple-Days,
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Purple-Days

Well-Known Member
I've been watching the Chinese program for a while.

This is from a couple days ago, "SHENZHOU 8 RETURNS TO EARTH: The unmanned Shenzhou 8 probe returned to Earth on Nov. 17th, wrapping up a three-week mission to China's Tiangong 1 space station. Shenzhou 8 spent its time in orbit practicing rendevous and docking maneuvers which are still new to China's upstart space program. Chinese authorities say the mission was a success. Tiangong 1 is still in orbit and may be seen flying through the night skies of North America this weekend."

Yes, China has a space station, small, un-manned, but it's a start.
And likely in a more useful orbit than the ISS. :doh:

Anybody who remembers the structure of Apollo missions, docking maneuvers were a big part of getting there and back. The Chinese have said, a manned moon base is the goal.

Did you know we obtained special permission, from the UN, to raise a flag on the Moon ? I'm not sure the Chinese will be as diplomatic... if they 'claim' a crater or area as their own, maybe we won't say so much, heh ?
ala Tibet ? :cool:
I mean you aren't going to start an Earth war, with somebody you are economically co-dependent. Over some lousy scrap of Moon soil, right?

Would be interesting to see the response to a Chinese built rifle on the Moon. :2c:
 
Purple-Days,
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