[meteorite-list] Model Rockets and Moon Rocks was...13.5 kg lunar

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Hola Adam,

I need to add my support to Mark F and Darren's  openminded interpretation of 
your negative assessment of the (lack of)  feasibility getting Lunar material 
FOB Earth at a cost (mind you, not price)  below $5000 per gram.  The 
optimistic figure starts at about $1 per POUND,  cheaper than any US domestic mail 
product.

Mark has already mentioned the  mass catapult idea which certainly is 
feasible and has numerous designs.   On such design taken seriously by NASA is said 
to cost about one dollar per  pound to reach a cislunar geocentric orbital 
location (Lagrangian: L1 for  example).  That is the orbital location materials 
can be concentrated and  collected for reentry into Earth's atmosphere and sent 
back will minimal energy  using airbraking technology that exists in a space 
shuttle like set-up at worst,  and at best in very oblique chute/balloon entry. 
 Or just chucking the  rocks at the Earth at nearly no extra charge forming 
natural fusion crusts and  very fresh low cost witnessed fall lunaites.

The "mass driver" catapult  mentioned just uses a tubular set of circular 
coils timed to become  electromagnets as a magnetized payload in a bucket passes 
through them,  installed on the Moon with off the shelf modest technology to 
accelerate the  bucket with 1 kilogram or so of material.  The many buckets in 
the mass  escalator are recoverable and detach and are reused many many times, 
providing  tons and tons of ejected material at its destination.  Material 
slightly  overshot will probably fall to Earth as meteorites.  And the energy is 
all  right there on the moon - electricity generated from solar cells to 
power the  coils (electromagnets) which nudge the bucket ever faster through the 
tube and  comfortably reach the necessary escape velocity.

The escape velocity of  the moon is much lower as Darren has reminded and 
there is practically no  frictional slowing (drag), which on Earth causes most 
entry difficulties, and  that the escape velocity is much lower.

On the Moon, it is only an escape  velocity 2400 m/s.  I am betting that many 
list members can relate to that  in terms of model rocketry.  Ever wonder 
whether that model rocket you  launched on Earth could be a space mission if 
Launched from the Moon?  Here  are some calculations estimates I have made 
regarding commercial hobby and  amateur model rocket engines.
Company - Engine - Est. Maximum  Velocity
Estes - D12 - 320 m/s
Apogee - F10 - 724 m/s
Aerotech - I65 -  955 m/s
Kosdan - K700 - 1118 m/s
Animal Motor Works - M2500 - 1404  m/s

So you can see, hobbyists (little and big kids like us) on the earth  are 
already using engines are practically there, when a little Estes kit can do  14% 
of Lunar escape velocity reaching 2.65 miles height on the Moon, but only  
0.25 of a mile on Earth.  The AMW motor mentioned is two thirds of the way  
there, but on Earth can only do a little over 2 miles height ... though if not  for 
the atmosphere it would make it into space, but not escape.

Last May  a Hollywood stuntman actually did launch an amateur rocket into 
space from the  US for the first time, though it went relatively unnoticed in the 
shadow of the  X-prize multimillion dollar extravangaza.  So you can bet 
these commercial  toy rockets and their engines are not limited by physics, but 
rather the FAA,  etc.

So the technology and feasibility for the Moon is a given, as it its  
reserves.  Now all we need is a reason.  How about high oil prices?  Lack of a 
variety of economic metal reserves?  20 years may or many not be  the number but I 
am guessing it is close!

One further metion right on the  Mark was the Lunar tourist (including 
scientists)souvenier rocks stuffed in the  pockets and boots of people.  I believe 
that is very true as well.   Didn't Ron just post how a professor asked NASA 
for dust from the astronauts  boots of mixed Lunar origin on the site - and 
didn't he get 100 grams of  it?

Saludos, Doug
PS Mark, The crazy value of meteorites from the Moon, is principally  because 
they are from the Moon, not because they are meteorites.  Perhaps  the 
craziness of collectors will prove without bound, but I am not too sure of  that as 
perspectives change and novelty wears off on many.  And remember  that there 
will probably be more than enough Lunar slag reentering the Earth  following 
these points of discussion...And never mind the slag, "Made in Luna"  or 
"Assembled in Space from parts imported from Luna" is not as far away as you  think 
for some products.  Earth and the human ADVENTUROUS spirit especially  when a 
buck is to be made, is too finite to believe anything less...
 

En un mensaje con fecha 05/15/2005 12:52:19 PM Mexico Daylight Time,  
mqfowler at mac.com escribe:
> On Sat, 14 May 2005 17:03:53 -0700, "Adam  Hupe" <raremeteorites at 
> comcast.net> wrote:
>
>  >That's ridiculous, Lunar material brought back from the moon would 
>  baseline
> >at more than $5,000.00 a gram. Anything less is not  feasible because 
> the
> >costs are tremendous and have already  been calculated.
>
> Adam

One should be very careful about  making dogmatic statements about what 
will never be technically or  financially possible in the future!  Quite 
possibly 100 years in the  future, the cost of a package to or form the 
moon may be little more in  comparison to our income then, than the cost 
of getting one banana from  Ecuador to the USA was in comparison to the 
income of Americans 150 years  ago.  I've observed in my lifetime that 
the optimists have always been  more right than the pessimists!
>

> Oh, maybe in the near future  (I just used the 20 year figure because 
> that is what the  original
> poster used) but I refuse to believe that, for an established  lunar 
> mining colony launching material
> from the surface of the  moon under the Moon's 1/6th g using lunar 
> construction materials and  lunar
> fuel, the price will always be in the thousands of dollars per  gram 
> range.  I'm not talking about a
> simple sample return  mission, here.
>
> Darren

Read Heinleins " The Moon is a  Harsh Mistress"  a classic SF story in 
which a rail gun catapult plays  a crucial part.

Certainly, if we have a lunar colony and there is enough  commerce to 
justify such a rail gun, the cost of transport from the moon to  earth 
will be reduced by more than a factor of 1000.  Even before then,  
colonists, astronauts, scientists, or tourists will have a personal  
allowance of one or two kilos for personal effects.  Who's to say that  
they won't  choose to leave behind their underwear, toothpaste, shaving  
cream etc. and use their personal allowance to bring back moon rocks  
instead.  I would.

After the 20? or so specimens have been found  in Dhofar (such a small 
region) who is to say how many more my turn up  elsewhere.  The 13.5 
kilo  one from the Kalahari may be the tip of  the iceberg.

A maxim of warfare is to ask not what is the intentions of  your enemy 
but rather what are his capabilities.  NASA may have no  intention of 
ever selling those moon rocks, but they are there, and it could  happen.