Re: Summer Study and colony location

From: Mike Combs (mikecombs_at_nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti)
Date: 08/02/04 

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 13:35:41 -0500

"Sander Vesik" <sander@haldjas.folklore.ee> wrote in message
news:1091306731.467725@haldjas.folklore.ee...
>
> Yeah, but who cares? Why is this metric even used? What special advantage
> does it give?

If you simply reject the notion that a more-continuously-available source of
energy is advantageous to energy-hungry operations like ore refining and
metal-working, then there's nothing that I or anyone else could say that you
would choose to consider a valid argument. They say, "Continuous
availability of energy is an advantage." You say, "No, it's not," and
consider that you've won the argument. That's fine for you, but don't
complain when you see so many fellow space advocates continuing to spend
time discussing the only NASA-funded studies ever made of space
industrialization. They may not choose to utterly dismiss the same
operational advantages that you do.

> Remember that the mass driver would face this same limit, so
> it doesn't even affect flow of material

It would effect flow of material as long as the mass driver could keep up
with material flow-through at the refining/fabrication end. I assume that
they had calculated it would. I base that assumption on the fact that early
in this research, the moonbase had a small nuclear reactor buried in a pit.
At a later point, the reactor was gone, and the mass-driver was powered
solely during the lunar day by solar panels. I'm pretty sure this was due
to a calculation that even a mass-driver operating on a 50% duty cycle 4
weeks long could still keep up. Evidently they had concluded that making
the mass-driver operate continuous was not even worth the political hassle
of getting a nuke to the moon.

Besides, there has to be some down-time anyway for repairs and maintenance
on the mass-driver, and switchover of mass-catchers at the L-2 point.

> (and if you beam energy or have a
> nuclear reactor you can use that for all the rest too).

Nobody ever argued one /can't/ have continuous power on the moon, only that
the uninterrupted availability of solar power in HEO is advantageous. That
advantage includes not having to pay for a separate beaming power plant
elsewhere, or a separate nuke.

> Not relevant as we have no special processes to take advantage to any of
> these for the issues at hand like extracting aluminum or oxygen. And no
> apparent sources of funding for such.

Not sure if I'm correctly parsing this part. The only point is that one
cannot cite the gravity of the moon as some advantage for processing there
over orbit. The point is itself a denial of the relevance of an
often-argued advantage of basing industrial operations on the moon.

> > 3) HEO represents a reasonable middle ground between being close to the
> > mining site, and being close to the final location for finished
products.
>
> No. This can *NOT* simply be claimed - it has to be proven by at least
> some calculations showing that that really is the case.

This is based on delta-V's. Do you think the Summer Study did no
calculations on delta-V's?

> No. Again. one cannot assume there will be humans unless you can show that
> you *CAN* have gumans there and still remain profitable. Or compete with
> others who also make SPS-s, except go about it differently and with a
> much smaller human crew.

In my opinion, the burden of proof is on you to prove that space can be
economically developed without humans being involved, or with hardly any.
The recent experience with the DARPA competition doesn't give one much cause
for optimism here. If we can't even so much as design an automated ore car
that would drive itself from the site of mining to the site of refinement,
what other gaps exist throughout the enterprise?

> Only relevant if it is not completely swamped by the need to launch
> more from Moon and transport it all to HEO.

True. It's just an area where you and the Summer Study group proceed from
different assumptions. They assumed the same amount of material would be
launched in either case.

> Except for the last, these are all completely unwarrantied. There simply
is
> no reason to make such assumption.

You've yet to sell me on that.

> Again, they have no numbers to show that any of this makes any sense
> whatsoever.

I'd consider it a truism that manufacturing on the lunar surface makes more
sense for products intended for lunar surface use than those intended for
use elsewhere.

Look, this is what it boils down to: You argue in favor of lunar surface
industry mostly because you're convinced that it reduces the lunar launch
requirement from the mass of the ore needed to the mass of the finished
products. The Summer Study recommended the High Frontier plan based on the
fact that mass-driver launch of raw materials from the moon should be much
less expensive than launch of finished products due to G-force limitations
and bore size issues, plus the half-dozen or so points that you quoted back.
You simply pick and chose your assumptions and care-abouts seemingly based
on whatever brings you to the conclusion of lunar-surface industry. That's
fine for you, but quit wondering why so many other space advocates are
paying attention to the published and peer-reviewed studies because not
everyone is going to pick and choose their care-abouts in order to arrive at
the same conclusions you do. Some of us are proceeding from the assumption
that people are going to be involved in this process and will require
shielding. Some of us see operational advantages in one power plant in
orbit versus two on some surface. Feel free to consider us idiots for doing
so, but don't act like it's all a foregone conclusion and that our
assumptions are obviously wrong to anybody. 

-- 
Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of the National Non-sequitur Society.  We may not make
much sense, but we do like pizza.

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