It depends on the point in history, but going back to the beginning, the Reagan-era space station that eventually led to ISS was justified partly on the basis of competition with the Soviets and partly on the promise of microgravity science and manufacture. Even after 30 years of Shuttle and ISS experiments, the latter has not panned out, arguably in the slightest. That may be because Shuttle and ISS are such constrained research platforms, but if no sustainable markets prove out there or elsewhere (e.g., Bigelow), it won’t matter much in the long-run that ISS demand helped incubate a couple new launch systems/providers. When ISS goes away sometime towards the turn of the next decade, in the absence of some proven, profitable microgravity research benefits and/or products, there won’t be much to replace that demand (excepting orbital space tourism, of course).

FWIW…

Please, no personal attacks. I’ve made none against you. You’re better than that, Mr. Wingo.

Debate the post, not the poster.

“From super alloys and nanotechnology to intermetallics the Moon has both the resources and the proper conditions for high tech materials industry.”

There is much, much more to an industry than just resources and production conditions. Does the lunar product address an unfulfilled market? If not, what’s the value proposition of the lunar product — does it possess a technical or cost advantage over competing terrestrial products? Is that advantage great enough to displace these terrestrial products? Is the combination of market size and profit margin large enough to sustain the necessary lunar infrastructure?

Without a much more detailed discussion, the short, vague list of products above provides no meaningful answer to these and other critical questions, especially in the absence of any quantifiable, nevertheless experimental, knowledge about the challenges and costs of lunar production.

Superalloys (one word, not two) have been around since the 1940s, when they were first used in gas turbines. New terrestrial production techniques (like radiolysis) promise to maintain the steady trend we’ve seen since that time towards superalloys capable of withstanding ever higher temperature creep. It’s not clear that lunar experimentation and production could accelerate this trend, and even if it could, it remains to be seen whether the advantages conferred would be worth the additional costs imposed.

Nanotechnology is a very broad term encompassing many, very different products. But assuming we’re talking about nanomaterials specifically, and not nanotechnology generally, the promise of nanomaterial production and application has yet to be fulfilled terrestrially. CNTs were only discovered in the early 1990s, and we’re only now beginning to see lab applications like transitors and potential lab proofs of industrial-scale production. Until terrestrial nanomaterial products actually hit the market and open up new applications or displace existing products, it’s premature to talk about the advantages of lunar nanomaterials (assuming any are conferred).

Various intermetallics have been around since the Roman Empire, at least. Some desirable intermetallics for semiconductor, microelectronic, and hydrogen storage application are difficult to manufacture terrestrially, and the lunar environment could theoretically alleviate (but not eliminate) these production issues. But even basic lunar experiments in lunar production of intermetallics have not been executed, and again, even if the theoretical advantages proved out, it remains to be seen whether the advantages outweigh the additional costs imposed by production on the Moon.

“Oh, and don’t talk to me about microgravity disturbances unless you have internalized all the data from Dr. Robert Naumann and understand the Naumann curve.”

The Naumann curve is just a plot of acceleration versus frequency. It defines disturbances in the microgravity environment, a key condition for microgravity experimentation and production. But again, there’s much more to the viability of an industry than environmental conditions. They are necessary, but not sufficient, prerequisites. Many other unknowns must be tackled before a business case can be made.

“Furthermore, recent scientific papers resulting from the Japanese data and theoretical modeling indicates that my own pet thesis that there are large quantities of Ni-Fe-Co-PGM impactors on the lunar surface”

Exactly — it’s a “pet thesis” (and this one is still about just the existence of resources, forget extraction, refinement, production, transportation, market, and competing products). It’s not a well-defined business case ready for major government or private investment.

I hate playing devil’s advocate here. I really do think that there is some promise regarding lunar resources than needs to be explored and pursued further. Apollo-era data and terrestrial experiments are clearly not enough. But there’s a huge leap between our existing state of knowledge and justifying a multi-hundred billion dollar investment in a human lunar base on the basis of lunar materials production. In between, there are many, many multi-ten million, multi-hundred million, and multi-billion dollar class missions and experiments that need to be undertaken before we can say with any confidence that there are products that can produced on the Moon that will sell well back on Earth, especially well enough to carry the burden of a human lunar infrastructure.

My 2 cents… FWIW…

Vladislaw wrote:

“By handing out land grants and mineral claims, the US would be in effect, handing out money at no cost to the taxpayer.”

There would be a very high cost to both taxpayers and everyone else in the economy (and not just in the US), it would amount to macroeconomic harakiri by instant massive devaluation and/or inflation, market instabilities of all sorts and general upheaval across the board.

Vladislaw wrote:

“I was being facetious about just claiming NEO’s, I think you should have to go and pile up some rocks plant a pin et cetera.”

Ok however what you go on to describe is practically the same as already exists under the Outer Space Treaty (occupation and/or use equals a valid claim) and that is already in effect. Sure there are details that will be worked out as it actually happens but there’s nothing major that’s needed and least of all preemptively or as some kind of prerequisite.

Vladislaw wrote:

“The moon will be very expensive and those expenses will be paid for with the very valuable resources, made valuable ONLY because of TODAY’S transportation system’s costs. Because the wealth generating capability will be so high, enormous pressure will be for a different method. That same enormous wealth will then be used to be the first to bring that transportation system online.”

Not sure I read you correctly but if you’re saying what I think you are then it’s like baron Münchhausen pulling himself up by the hair ^_^

There’s a market price for most commodities, let’s say you discover a fantastically rich vein of ore in a rather hard to get to place on Earth (has happened more than once and no California isn’t a good example but West Guinea and Papua New Guinea are). If I understand you correctly what you’re saying is similar to claiming that such ore would become more valuable than its commodity price because of its remoteness.

From a local perspective (i.e. close to the mines) that’s wrong as there’s vast oversupply.

From the perspective of everywhere else (and that’s all there is beforehand) it’s still wrong as such remote and difficult locations need to have richer than normal ores in order to attract investment and provide profit. The transportation costs deduct from the value of the ore.

I did talk about that. As in california when the mode of transportation was slow and irregular they did have enormous inflation and you would see that on moon. I was being facetious about just claiming NEO’s, I think you should have to go and pile up some rocks plant a pin et cetera. In the early mining districts if you left your tools in the hole, your claim was considered occupied and being worked. If you didnt work a claim in X amount of months it was considered abandoned and someone else could start working it. It should be the same in space, you get a claim and you get X many years to start working it and have to have a miner there X amount of months per year to maintain the claim. In land grants it was usually measured by making improvements, the homestead act you had to build a shelter et cetera, the same would hold for space, you do not get the free land or claim unless you are actually working it and making capital impovements.

If we suddenly added the ENTIRE moon into our economy overnight it would be to much. The rate at which we develop and how disruptive would be a function of how much and how fast you bring it in.

The moon will be very expensive and those expenses will be paid for with the very valuable resources, made valuable ONLY because of TODAY’S transportation system’s costs. Because the wealth generating capability will be so high, enormous pressure will be for a different method. That same enormous wealth will then be used to be the first to bring that transportation system online.

It california everyone thinks all the millionaires were made by finding gold. Actually the most millionaires were made from merchants SUPPLYING the miners! And it was merchants, the BIG FOUR, who pushed for railroads, the different form of transportation they needed in their day. I believe it will be the same thing on the moon. Merchants supplying food, water, breathable air, rovers, portable habitats, roving habitats, processors et cetera, to the miners that will be the big winners.

Legal tender or forced tender is payment that, by law, cannot be refused in settlement of a debt, a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment.

In lending agreements, collateral is a borrower’s asset that is forfeited to the lender if the borrower is insolvent — that is, unable to pay back the principal and interest on the loan. When insolvent, the borrower is said to default on the loan, in which case the lender becomes the owner of the collateral.

A LEGAL claim can be used as legal tender for collateral. It becomes a negotiable instrument. A negotiable instrument is a specialized type of “contract” for the payment of money that is unconditional and capable of transfer by negotiation.

In other words, mineral claims, timber claims, oil claims, water claims are in effect MONEY. You can use a claim as collateral for a loan and the bank HAS to accept it if it is recognized by the government in a default situation. You can lease claims or sell them outright. Claims were used as money in california for buying the equipment to mine after the rivers were panned out by the individual prospectors and industrial mining started.

By handing out land grants and mineral claims, the US would be in effect, handing out money at no cost to the taxpayer. Companies and individuals would then have INSTANT wealth generated. Since the claims are recognized by the taxing agent, the United States Government, they can be used as assets in accounting, collateral for loans, leased or sold to raise invesment money. A banker would be more willing to make a loan on a project if they KNOW that the assets are “real property”.

In the common law, real property (or realty) refers to one of the two main classes of property, the other class being personal property (personalty). Real property generally encompasses land, land improvements resulting from human effort including buildings and machinery sited on land, and various property rights over the preceding. ( including mineral rights)

Land is the number one asset a banker loves to see. If space companies have real property on the moon then the bank or lending agents are more willing to take part.

Imagine if as a limited experiment a million people got to claim a few tens of thousands of metric tons each among NEOs as they choose and pay taxes on it(please excuse the joke ^_^) and borrow with it as security.

Can you imagine the inflationary pressure from such a freebie? Are we trying to destroy economies here or are we trying to extend humanity (and hopefully freedom) into space?

I agree with a lot of what you say up until you get into the claims stuff Vladislaw but at that point I get the thousand mile stare and lose track of the reasoning. Why is it supposed to be a good idea again?

Because what government would recognize it? If it was legal to just claim them you would not even have to build a craft just claim it. But again, what government would recognize it.

Legal tender or forced tender is payment that, by law, cannot be refused in settlement of a debt, a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment. If I borrow money and use my car as collateral and default I could just hand over the title deed and if the car was valued at more then the loan a court would rule that the debt was settled. If you claimed land on the moon or NEO without the US government recognizing that claim it would be worthless as far as being legal tender in a US court of law and for accounting purposes for taxes.

The US could say we will not recognize an individual claim over X acres and no corporation over X acres. It would definately add some friendly competition to the space race. Anyone that doesnt think it is a race is fooling themselves. The moon is a 9 billion acre UNCLAIMED asset and sooner or later some of it will be listed on some company’s balance sheet.

Personally, I would like to see US firms get the high ground. LEO and GEO “real estate” has been defined. Since the USA was there first we got a lot of slots. A company can get a slot IN SPACE for their equipment. Lets extend that right a couple hundred thousand miles to include the moon.

And people thought the 19th Century land grabs were a thing of the past.

Really you already have thousands of trllion dollar NEOs out there for the taking and yet no one is rushing to build spacecraft to reach them. How would claiming the moon make any difference? Especially when you are able to mine all the PGMs you are able to find without permits or licenses from anyone?

From 1850-1871, the railroads received more than 175 million acres (708,000 km²) of public land – an area more than one tenth of the whole United States and larger than Texas.

Gosh I wonder why they agreed to build the railroads? All that FREE LAND and mineral rights or was it the 16,000 – 32000 – 48000 dollars they were paid per mile on top of the free land and all the free timber, water and mineral rights.

Transportation of today is all we need to start up with on the moon. Before the railroad we used ships and wagons, they were slower but they still did the job, it only made goods more expensive to the end user in california. California was basically a seperate economy that experienced inflation from lack of a cheap transportation system. It was the merchants who pushed for the railroad, the BIG FOUR.

If we use Today’s rockets the lunar economy will also be a seperate economy much like in california. If it costs $200,000.00 a kg to ship something to the moon how will lunar residents pay for it? They will do the same thing they did in california, pay for it with common LOCAL resources that are rare in the other seperate economy. timber, gold and silver was more common then in the east and paying for something with a “pinch of gold” was common.

Modern Lunar Prospectors will not offer up their poke sack but they WILL offer secondary mineral claims and land they OWN. They will trade regolite to the oxy processor or sell the mining rights to the regolith on the land they OWN. And like in California, where the risk of transporting gold was high, Lunar Prospectors will NOT cart the gold, silver, platinum back to earth, they will do what the miners did then. Stick it in a box and hang a sign outside “First Lunar Bank” .

NOTHING has to be brought BACK to earth in the beginning just like during the gold rush. The fortune was found locally and spent locally. Lucky for us we can just use ELECTRONIC EARTH LUNAR BANKING. It doesnt matter if my gold is in a vault on earth or the moon, I can still draw against it, take loans out for it, transfer ownership of it without ever actually touching it or having to move it.

“The unique benefits of a human lunar presence that could accrue to taxpayers — minerals from the Moon that could compete economically with terrestrial mining, solar or He3 power from the Moon, etc. — are very iffy at this point in time and many decades into the future.”

Minerals from the moon will never beable to compete with earth based minerals because costs associated with transportation and extraction will always be higher. That is not the problem.

We have to generate WEALTH for developers BEFORE they develop. When they built the railroad they gained 10 square miles of FREE LAND, an INSTANT ASSET, with each mile of track they laid.

We will never do anything on the moon until the PRIVATE sector actually OWNS something on the moon because it will always be predicated on ONE customer, NASA, and the political vulgarities of the day determining their budget. We need to create a ton of BILLIONAIRES by giving away MILLIONS of acres of free land so it is in THEIR economic best interest to develop the resources independent of what the next president or political party decides to spend on the space effort.