[ExI] What happens to US space programs after November?

[Adrian Tymes]

>
> >> Is it worth the many billion it would cost to keep humans on the moon?
> >
>
> >Would it in fact cost many billions?
>
> Yes.  Industrializing the moon might run more than $2 T.  O'Neill's
> 1975 proposal is close to half a trillion in current dollars.
>

I didn't ask if a proposal from decades ago, without the benefits of all
the research and advances since then, would cost many billions.

Yes, NASA has come up with many very expensive proposals.  And?  Others,
with more reason to believe their estimates, have come up with cheaper and
more reliable ways to do it.


> It takes the full-time efforts of 3 people to maintain the ISS.
>

Three people is hardly billions, even including life support.


> That means your lunar base is located in a lave tube, not where you
> want it to be for other reasons.
>

There are lava tubes all over, and it's quite possible lava tubes would be
colocated with KREEP deposits in particular.


> Rare earth elements are not that rare.  I don't think anyone of them
> is worth the cost to ship to earth.  Certainly, magnesium i and
> aluminum are not valuable enough for them to be worth shipping.
>

Once the facilities are set up, what's the per-unit cost to ship them back
to Earth?  Assume a reusable railgun has been set up, and that you've got
enough solar panels (in lunar or even Earth orbit if you prefer) to fully
power the works.

If the cost is not at least $6/kg, then magnesium would seem profitable to
ship - and some rare earth elements sell for much more than that.

Of course, the facilities will have to be paid for - but if you can make a
profit per unit, then paying off the facilities is just a matter of
shipping back and selling enough material.  How many kg is enough, and how
many years would it take to ship that much material?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200618/b81b9ea5/attachment.htm>