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Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

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Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#161

Post by nathan_compton »

NickM wrote: post #149
stainablesteel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a recent megaprojects video claimed harvesting water from asteroids was more worth the time and money than to do the same for rare earth metals. apparently bringing tons of rare earth metals back to earth would only lower their price and therefore not make the trip worth the money, but i guess this isn't a problem for the water that those asteroid might hold as that would still be not only valuable but worth the expe…

That seems like a bizarre take. Even with efficient fully reusable rockets, surely desalination will still be much cheaper than mining water from asteroids and bringing it back to Earth? And sure, maybe bringing huge amounts of rare earth metals back might reduce the price a bit, but to the point where rare earth elements are cheaper per mass unit than water ?

If we ever have a space elevator bringing water down from space could actually be a net negative expense, since you could be using the weight to carry stuff up out of the gravity well.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#162

Post by sandworm101 »

whatshisface wrote: post #158
wongarsu wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impact sites of larger asteroids are also great targets for mining operations. For example there's some speculation about the gigantic impact crater on the far side of the moon containing a gigantic metal lump below the surface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pole%E2%80%93Aitken_basi... https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nasa-moon-mass-crater-met...

It's not entirely clear to me why you'd want to find asteroids on the moon rather than finding them in space, where the mass wouldn't hardly have to be lifted.

On paper, it would be easier to lift them from the moon than it would be to intercept and slow them down enough to land them on earth. When the asteroid hits the moon it expends huge amounts of energy in the impact, slowing it to the a near-stop as compared to its speed while free in space.

It may be possible to aerobrake asteroids at orbital velocities in earth's atmosphere, but that is a VERY dangerous proposition. It might work for small rocks, but a commercially-relevant chunk of iron would be a very dangerous object to point at earth.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#163

Post by yellowapple »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #52
hulitu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they find oil, or cobalt, or rare earths. We have enough water on earth, we don't need the one on the moon. /s You might remember, Columbus did not go to America for a vacation.

Slavery and bloodsport, but neither will be found on the moon so your point stands.

We'll just have to make our own, then.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#164

Post by jrussino »

32gbsd wrote: post #2

Moonbase when?

https://www.reddit.com/r/artemisnasa/comments/12jox39/timeli...

Does the lunar gateway meet your definition of a "moonbase"? Because if you mean "long-term human presence at the moon" (at least, in the same sense in which we have "long-term human presence in orbit" with the ISS) then the answer seems to be "possibly as soon as the early 2030's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#165

Post by andsoitis »

credit_guy wrote: post #113

Just to be clear, the "vast stores" of water are only theoretical. There are no implications for Moon colonies. You are not going to try to extract water from glass beads. You would need to go through thousands of tons of regolith before extracting a single liter of water, and that's only if you have 100% efficiency, which you will not have. If we ever decide to have Moon colonies we'll have 3 big problems: we won't…

> "you're full of shit" will be a high form of praise, since shit will be thoroughly recycled and highly valuable.

Extra special relativity.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#166

Post by kspacewalk2 »

Firadeoclus wrote: post #125
credit_guy wrote: post #113

Just to be clear, the "vast stores" of water are only theoretical. There are no implications for Moon colonies. You are not going to try to extract water from glass beads. You would need to go through thousands of tons of regolith before extracting a single liter of water, and that's only if you have 100% efficiency, which you will not have. If we ever decide to have Moon colonies we'll have 3 big problems: we won't…

Certainly, getting those elements in larger quantities will be important, but by the time we have the cargo capacity to build colonies on the moon it seems likely that someone would be very happy to trade, say, 100t of Earth-sourced C/N/H for 100t of Moon-mined Au, shipping included.

Which will of course tank the price of Au into the oblivion, since it is mostly speculative.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#167

Post by kspacewalk2 »

pvaldes wrote: post #153
ath3nd wrote: post #146

Oh, goody, can't wait for Nestle to buy up the land and sell it for 100x profit.

That's a really interesting twist. Could legally pour a lot of money to assure control over a parcel or a mine in Mars?

Legality will not be a very easily enforced facade if those who don't have "legal rights" have the means of getting to that parcel, taking it and keeping it. Not gonna be that much different than the Age of Discovery. Except, you know, no Natives to enslave/kill/influence/exploit/befriend/ally with.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#168

Post by Tagbert »

nathan_compton wrote: post #161
NickM wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a bizarre take. Even with efficient fully reusable rockets, surely desalination will still be much cheaper than mining water from asteroids and bringing it back to Earth? And sure, maybe bringing huge amounts of rare earth metals back might reduce the price a bit, but to the point where rare earth elements are cheaper per mass unit than water ?

If we ever have a space elevator bringing water down from space could actually be a net negative expense, since you could be using the weight to carry stuff up out of the gravity well.

"If we ever have a space elevator" such a simple phrase doing a lot of rhetorical lifting. The logistics and problems of space elevators make them extremely unlikely in any timeframe that is less than fantasy.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#170

Post by alex_young »

credit_guy wrote: post #113

Just to be clear, the "vast stores" of water are only theoretical. There are no implications for Moon colonies. You are not going to try to extract water from glass beads. You would need to go through thousands of tons of regolith before extracting a single liter of water, and that's only if you have 100% efficiency, which you will not have. If we ever decide to have Moon colonies we'll have 3 big problems: we won't…

Seems like the 28 day, uh, day will be a bigger problem. Everything from keeping power on for 14 days without solar to keeping the temperature up to human habitability levels will be challenging won’t it?
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