That’s huge.

FWIW…

“Just to emphasize, the Spudis/Lavoie plan supplied 150 mt at the surface of the Moon.”

Good point. And I liked your detailed analysis earlier too.

“For instance, under the Spudis/Lavoie plan it takes $88B to start supplying 150mt of water a year from the Moon, but we could be supplying that much from Earth for far less and much sooner using existing launchers and technology. It doesn’t make economic sense.”

Just to emphasize, the Spudis/Lavoie plan supplied 150 mt at the surface of the Moon. If you could magically transport that to LEO, where it might be useful, at zero cost it would still be a money losing proposition. In reality, most of that is gong to get burned on the way to LEO and in shuttling the tanker back to the Moon. The same net transfer could be supplied from Earth by as little as one medium lift launch vehicle. The economics just don’t work.

“And based on your comments, I can understand why it isn’t clear to you.”

I’ve shown my calculations. Where are yours?

“But it is clear to some of the world’s best-known planetary scientists.”

Scientists aren’t engineers. The orbital mechanics of shipping ISRU products around the Earth-Moon system are very straight forward and very unfavorable, as I have shown.

“But it is clear to some of the world’s best-known planetary scientists.”

Scientists think it would be neat to explore the Moon, and I would I agree. It would be neat.

You and others have also claimed that lunar ISRU makes economic sense, but so far you haven’t been able to show us the math that even comes close to supporting that claim. Why is that?

Until you can provide some sort of economic and logistics rationale for why lunar ISRU is part of the critical path for space exploration, people will continue to not believe you.

For instance, under the Spudis/Lavoie plan it takes $88B to start supplying 150mt of water a year from the Moon, but we could be supplying that much from Earth for far less and much sooner using existing launchers and technology. It doesn’t make economic sense.

For me, that’s why I don’t see a need for a big push to the Moon, since it’s not on the critical path for us to do space exploration. It’s a nice to have, but not a gotta have.

“it is not clear to me that the Moon is the place to start.”

And based on your comments, I can understand why it isn’t clear to you.

But it is clear to some of the world’s best-known planetary scientists.

“They’ll be involved at some point. And if it goes through, it solves the hab module problem as not being in NASA’s budget right now (Ron-are you listening?).”

I think it’s great that ESA proposed the ATV, but I don’t see where it increases NASA’s budget to do anything beyond LEO, which current is $0. Every MPCV and SLS are 100% disposable, and you need to build up an inventory of them to do any missions. When are we going to add that to the budget?

Are you listening Matt?

Earth’s First Trojan Asteroid Discovered

I wonder how many more there are floating around.

Hmmm. Your own words– clearly opinion and decidely not factual: “…the Boeing Corporation, which has built every manned spacecraft that has flown in the last forty-five years.”

“They’ll be involved at some point. And if it goes through, it solves the hab module problem as not being in NASA’s budget right now (Ron-are you listening?).”

NASA would be required to pay the ESA’s 8% share of costs for the ISS in exchange. NASA would have to have a new budget line providing that funding since the ESA would not be putting up the cash for their share.

So, where does that funding come from?