[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mercani', 'J')D, can you address Devil's points please?

How does that factory on the moon work? Do you drill moon for oil? or do you use solar power to construct mirrors?

[eric_b]

...



FOAD

[Aaron]

And through the power of technology...

PO.com "Keeping it Real!"

From Michael Duke, CCACS Research Professor and Director of CCACS link

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is an idea that was developed by Dr. David Criswell at the University of Houston. I think that it is generally correct, though there are a lot of detailed technology questions to be worked out. Some of those are being supported by NASA in a preliminary way. I've attached a report on the concept.

[nero]

I did take a look at the link and without much knowledge of power transmission or space exploration I have some critisisms.

1. As Devil pointed out, how large a colony on the Moon would this require to operate?

The author argues that most of it can be performed by remote controlled robots but he is being niave if he feels that that solves the problem. The replacement of people with machines increases the capital costs and complexity. The factory he imagines working on the moon would be the most sophisticated piece of machinery ever devised by man. I have the feeling that to the author the factory is a big black box and that as long as you have enough energy and the right elements you can make anything in it. Maybe that's how things work on StarTrek but we aren't there yet.

The author doesn't completely discount the need for some people actually present on the Moon to operate/fix the factory so we are back to the question how many people would be necessary? Using the ISS as a guide how much would it cost to build and maintain the quarters for those people. The ISS has taken decades and over 100 billion dollars to get this far. The base on the Moon would be at least 10 times as expensive and take at least as long to get going(IMO). This is of course assuming NASA handles the project, I'm sure private industry probably could do it for a 10th of the cost but then what private industry has a 100 billion dollars to venture on a demo.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for setting up a self sustaining colony on the moon and a demonstration LSP would be a nice goal. But I think you would be fooling yourselves if you think the program would ever make economic sense.

2. Before we can start putting our energy infrastructure eggs into any one basket we better be darn sure that that basket is not going to fall apart. We probably would need at least a 10 year track record on the demo LSP before people would even start considering it a viable alternative energy source to invest in. Take a look at the history of stationary fuel cell technology, the biggest barrier to the technology is the conservative nature of the energy industry, they require years and years of demonstration plant operation before they are willing to put any signifcant investment in real power generation capacity.

So even assuming that the technology is technically sound no one will invest in it until it is demonstrated to be economically viable. The cost of producing the demo plant is such that only the government has deep enough pockets and once produced the demo plant must have a proven track record. I'll be kind and put it in the "hot fusion catagory" of potential energy technologies.

[nth]

The energy beam concept is not reality either. Several experiments done on beaming energy has not proven commercial viability.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nero', 'T')he author argues that most of it can be performed by remote controlled robots but he is being niave if he feels that that solves the problem. The replacement of people with machines increases the capital costs and complexity. The factory he imagines working on the moon would be the most sophisticated piece of machinery ever devised by man. I have the feeling that to the author the factory is a big black box and that as long as you have enough energy and the right elements you can make anything in it. Maybe that's how things work on StarTrek but we aren't there yet.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nth', 'T')he energy beam concept is not reality either. Several experiments done on beaming energy has not proven commercial viability.

[Mercani]

The Sun is beaming orders of magnitude more energy to the Earth than this system can beam from the moon.

So why don't we build this "energy base" on Earth and forget about beaming the Sun's energy from the Moon to Earth and instead get the energy directly from the Sun?. The concept of PV solar basically.

Don't we have the raw materials that exist on the Moon here on Earth?

[Devil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'M')ost electronic products are already built almost entirely by robots.

[jato]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Apollo program sent a lot of tonnage and people to the moon, and wasn't prohibitively expensive.

[sjn]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jato', '
')If you car gets 15 miles to the gallon, you could drive 18 million miles or around the world about 400 times on the propellants required for the Apollo/Saturn lunar landing mission. The Saturn V launch vehicle contains 5.6 million pounds of propellant (or 960,000 gallons).

The ratio of propellant to payload in Saturn V is 50 to 1.

The power of one Saturn V is enough to place in earth orbit all U.S. manned spacecraft previously launched. (Sounds great, but it only put 2 people and a rover on the moon.)

[Ryan]

I've been a big space-exploration fan, love science fiction, etc. One of the things peak oil has forced me to realized is that we missed our chance. The High Frontier concept was brought up back in the later 1970s by Gerard K. O'Neill. His whole push was to build solar-power satellites using lunar materials. But there just wasn't a push to do that - instead we invested in SUV nation. Any chance we had to build a space-faring civilization is gone. There simply won't be any space programs in a post-peak world.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jato', 'I')f you were to only need a one-way trip to the moon

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ryan', ' ')Any chance we had to build a space-faring civilization is gone. There simply won't be any space programs in a post-peak world.

[Ryan]

I have plenty of backbone - the ISS is a joke and a terrible waste of time/money. I wouldn't use it as an example of a viable space program. It's pathetic that we don't have anything better since the Apollo program.

[Devil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jato', 'I')f you were to only need a one-way trip to the moon

[nero]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JD', 'A')lso, telepresence is a practical idea which is at the engineering level, as shown by the success of the recent mars rovers.

[nth]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nth', 'T')he energy beam concept is not reality either. Several experiments done on beaming energy has not proven commercial viability.

[gnm]

I nominate JD for the first one way trip to the moon!


-G

btw do you have ANY IDEA how much energy that hypothetical beam would waste just heating up the 20 miles of atmosphere it was punching through? I'm thinking LOTS....

[clv101]

JD's still in the Denial Stage, he'll come around eventually and realise business as usual can't be sustained by pie in the sky space projects or even be sustained at all.