BASIC HYDROGEN SPACE ECONOMY - Commercial Lunar Propellant Architecture
Bass Hatvani Robert
CHIEF MAGNET IN BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE at SSR - STRATEGIC SUPPLY CHAIN REDUNDANCY
BASICS TWO SPACE ECONOMICS
For decades, humans have fantasized about living on the moon, but we haven't sent anyone there since 1972. So, how close are we to a moon base?
To the Memory of Dr. Spudis
Dr. Spudis earned his master’s degree from Brown University and his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Geology with a focus on the Moon. His career included work at the US Geological Survey, NASA, John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Lunar and Planetary Institute advocating for the exploration and the utilization of lunar resources. His work will continue to inspire and guide us all on our journey to the Moon.
“By going to the Moon we can learn how to extract what we need in space from what we find in space. Fundamentally that is a skill that any spacefaring civilization has to master. If you can learn to do that, you’ve got a skill that will allow you to go to Mars and beyond.”
Introduction - Background and Need
expansion and exploration of space
In the same way that exploration of our planet required mankind to adapt and learn to use local resources varying by continent, region, and climate, so too will mankind learn to find, extract, and use local resources to continue our expansion and exploration of space. The need for this adaptation is driven by the stark contrast between the relatively small amount of material that can be launched from Earth, and the enormous volume and diversity of resources available in space.
Commercialization of space resources, enhanced by Public-Private Partnerships (PPP)s, capital investments, and new business models, represents the future of resource extraction industries.
As capabilities in space continue to grow with the advancement of technology, strategic planning and prioritization of resource exploration, it is imperative to guide policy and commercial development of space-based natural resources. In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) represents the near future of the space industry, enabling the efficient use of resources both on Earth and in space, as well as continued expansion and development of human presence outside of our planet.
Technologies developed and refined for ISRU will continue to deliver additional benefits to Earth-bound industries, as demonstrated by the ubiquity of modern technologies first developed for space exploration programs. Thus, ISRU is an important area for investment and rapid development in the near future.
The most pressing need for resources in space is that of fuel; transporting cargo and humans in space requires a vast amount of propellant, and launching the full mass of propellant needed for long-term space missions from the Earth’s surface places severe limitations on missions of all kinds. Thus, developing an architecture for prospecting, mining, processing, storing, and transporting fuel products in space is the first critical step to creating a sustainable space development strategy.
Between the abundance of resources available, relative proximity to the Earth, and decades of scientific study, the Moon presents an ideal objective for early-stage ISRU activities, providing a testing ground for the development of new methods and technologies as well as a platform for continued expansion to other planets and Near-Earth Objects (NEO)s.
The collaborative input from some 40 individuals across 25 organizations to identify the technical and economic feasibility of developing a lunar propellant production plant. Academic, private, and government institutions worked together to identify hardware solutions, quantify near term customers and demand, navigate financial obstacles, and to explore the new industries and scientific findings that would be unlocked by utilizing lunar water ice deposits.
It was discovered, that for nearly every major component of the lunar propellant architecture there was already organizations developing the technology and hardware required to meet those function. Figure 1 shows several of the participating organizations and the systems in which they are currently developing hardware solutions. Subsequent sections within this document will outline in detail the hardware solutions that these organizations bring to the table.
Assumptions and Ground Rules
the presence of water ice on the lunar poles
Although the presence of water ice on the lunar poles has been confirmed, there are still a great number of unknowns about its abundance and physical state. Several science missions have provided 8 compelling details about the craters containing water ice. Most recently, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) detected 9 highly reflective patches within the craters indicative of frost concentrations.
Other sources of data suggest even wider distribution of water on the Moon. However, there are significant gaps in our understanding of exactly how much, where, and in what condition the water may be found.
The weight of evidence is that the lunar polar craters would be excellent locations for extracting commercially important amounts of water. This paper has been prepared by a group of experts working with a common model of how that water could be extracted, processed, and distributed for use. The common assumptions were:
To make the facility economically viable, the value of resources it produces must exceed its cost, including the costs of development, launch, installation and operation.
For decades, humans have fantasized about living on the moon, but we haven't sent anyone there since 1972. So, how close are we to a moon base?
NASA’s new focus has been made clear: the space agency is sending humans back to the Moon - this time, in a sustainable way. At least, that’s the claim made by NASA’s administrator Jim Bridenstine, who says he’s not interested in just leaving “flags and footprints” on the lunar surface.
Researchers relish the idea of a base for conducting experiments on the Moon and as a way to trial technologies for heading to Mars. Private firms, however, are increasingly tempted by the possibility of mining oxygen and hydrogen - which power rockets - from lunar ice.
Commercial Lunar Propellant Architecture - the billion dollar challenge to the trillion dollar universium
A Collaborative Study of Lunar Propellant Production
Aside from Earth, the inner solar system is like a vast desert where water and other volatiles are scarce. An old saying is, “In the desert, gold is useless and water is priceless.” While water is common on Earth, it is of very high value in space. Science missions to the Moon have provided direct evidence that regions near the lunar poles, which are permanently in shadow, contain substantial concentrations of water ice.
On the lunar surface, water itself is critical for human consumption and radiation shielding, but water can also be decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. The oxygen thus produced can be used for life support, and hydrogen and oxygen can be combusted for rocket propulsion. Due to the Moon’s shallow gravity well, its water-derived products can be exported to fuel entirely new economic opportunities in space.
This paper is the result of an examination by industry, government, and academic experts of the approach, challenges, and payoffs of a private business that harvests and processes lunar ice as the foundation of a lunar, cislunar (between the Earth and the Moon), and Earth-orbiting economy. A key assumption of this analysis is that all work - construction, operation, transport, maintenance and repair - is done by robotic systems. No human presence is required.
Obtaining more data on conditions within the shadowed regions is vital to the design of a lunar ice processing plant. How much water is actually present, and at what percentage in the lunar regolith?
How firm or soft are the crater bottoms, and how will that affect surface transportation? How deep is the ice resource, and in what state is it deposited amongst the regolith? These and other questions must be answered by precursor prospecting and science missions.
A wide range of potential customers for the hydrogen and oxygen products has been identified. They can be used to fuel reusable landers going back and forth between the lunar surface and lunar orbit. They can make travel to Mars less expensive if the interplanetary vehicle can be refueled in cislunar space prior to departure. Operations closer to Earth can also benefit from this new, inexpensive source of propellant.
Refueling in Low Earth Orbit can greatly improve the size, type, and cost of missions to Geosynchronous Earth Orbit and beyond. This study has identified a near term annual demand of 450 metric tons of lunar derived propellant equating to 2,450 metric tons of processed lunar water generating $2.4 billion of revenue annually.
Unlike terrestrial mining operations that utilize heavy machinery to move resources, the mass constraints of a lunar polar water mine are highly restrictive because of delivery cost. A revolutionary concept has been introduced that solves this issue. It has been discovered that instead of excavating, hauling, and processing, lightweight tents and/or heating augers can be used to extract the water resource directly out of the regolith in place.
Water will be extracted from the regolith by sublimation - heating ice to convert it into water vapor without going through the liquid phase. This water vapor can then be collected on a cold surface for transport to a processing plant where electrolysis will decompose the water into its constituent parts (hydrogen and oxygen).
To achieve production demand with this method, 2.8 megawatts of power is required (2 megawatts electrical and 0.8 megawatts thermal). The majority of the electrical power will be needed in the processing plant, where water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. This substantial amount of power can come from solar panels, sunlight reflected directly to the extraction site, or nuclear power.
Because the bottoms of the polar craters are permanently shadowed, captured solar energy must be transported from locations of sunlight (crater rim) via power beaming or power cables. Unlike solar power sources, nuclear reactors can operate at any location; however, they generate heat that must be utilized or rejected that may be simplified if located in the cold, permanently shadowed craters.
The equipment needed for this lunar propellant operation will be built from existing technologies that have been modified for the specific needs on the Moon. Surprisingly little new science is required to build this plant. Extensive testing on Earth will precede deployment to the Moon, to ensure that the robotics, extraction, chemical processing and storage all work together efficiently.
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The contributors to this study are those who are currently developing or have already developed the equipment required to enable this capability. From a technological perspective, a lunar propellant production plant is highly feasible.
Now is the time to establish the collaborations, partnerships, and leadership that can make this new commercial enterprise a reality. Currently, no one company has all of the capabilities necessary to build the lunar plant, but the capabilities all exist within United States aerospace industry and others (such as the chemical industry). It is necessary that new or existing competing companies establish the leadership needed to coordinate the variety of technologies required for a fully integrated Commercial Lunar Propellant Architecture.
Free market competition among these companies will aid in driving down costs, promoting innovation, and expanding the market. To justify such action, a secure customer base, solid business case, and high fidelity economic model is required. This too will help secure the investment required for development and implementation.
The initial investment for this operation has been estimated at $4 billion, about the cost of a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. With this investment however, a scalable market can be accessed. As refueling decreases in-space transportation costs, entirely new business and exploration opportunities will emerge with potential to vastly benefit the economies of Earth. Even with the early customers identified within this study, it has been determined that this could be a profitable investment with excellent growth opportunities.
The United States Government has critical roles to play in the development of this commercial capability as well. Government science/prospecting and communications missions to the Moon can be very helpful in both the development and operational phases of the business. Government laboratories can contribute some of their technologies and help facilitate integrated systems tests of a terrestrial pilot plant.
Government must also work to fill the gaps in international law regarding property rights on celestial bodies such as the Moon. In addition, between Earth orbit, Moon, and Mars missions, government could be an important anchor customer for the resource, stimulating the private sector into action with proposed demands and price points while improving its mission costs and capabilities.
This study demonstrates both the technical and economic feasibility of establishing a commercial lunar propellant production capability. It provides recommendations to interested government and private organizations and defines a path to implementation; and explains that by doing so the United States will fuel a new age of economic expansion, sustained space exploration, settlement, and American leadership in space.
How Close Are We to Mining in Space?
raw materials from asteroids
Asteroid mining is the exploitation of raw materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects. Hard rock minerals could be mined from an asteroid or a spent comet. Precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum group metals could be transported back to Earth, whilst iron group metals and other common ones could be used for construction in space.
Difficulties include the high cost of spaceflight, unreliable identification of asteroids which are suitable for mining, and ore extraction challenges. Thus, terrestrial mining remains the only means of raw mineral acquisition used today.
If space program funding, either public or private, dramatically increases, this situation may change as resources on Earth become increasingly scarce compared to demand and the full potentials of asteroid mining - and space exploration in general - are researched in greater detail.
Asteroids could become the intergalactic pit stops for exploring the universe. They have the potential to become cosmic gas stations, and even the building blocks for habitats on Mars. Asteroids can be huge, and they're almost everywhere in space. Asteroid mining could yield materials like platinum, iron, nickel, and cobalt; rare minerals; water; and even minerals that are impossible to form on Earth.
And while there are numerous kinds of valuable minerals on asteroids, the first and most important thing we need to do is learn how to extract water. Water is found in Carbonaceous asteroids, also known as C-type asteroids.
A water source in our planetary neighborhood could be a source of hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel and life support systems; a tool to shield us from radiation; and even a supply of drinking water for astronauts. The problem is that C-type asteroids are a bit tricky to find: the asteroids are incredibly dark. The good news is, all the sunlight they don't reflect gets absorbed, warms the asteroids up, and they glow in the infrared.
That's why NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing the Near-Earth Object Camera, or NEOCam, which, in addition to identifying potentially hazardous Near-Earth Objects, will be able to comb the infrared for evidence of C-type asteroids.
Based on known terrestrial reserves, and growing consumption in both developed and developing countries, key elements needed for modern industry and food production could be exhausted on Earth within 50 to 60 years. These include phosphorus, antimony, zinc, tin, lead, indium, silver, gold and copper. In response, it has been suggested that platinum, cobalt and other valuable elements from asteroids may be mined and sent to Earth for profit, used to build solar-power satellites and space habitats, and water processed from ice to refuel orbiting propellant depots.
Although asteroids and Earth accreted from the same starting materials, Earth's relatively stronger gravity pulled all heavy siderophilic (iron-loving) elements into its core during its molten youth more than four billion years ago. This left the crust depleted of such valuable elements until a rain of asteroid impacts re-infused the depleted crust with metals like gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium and tungsten (some flow from core to surface does occur, e.g. at the Bushveld Igneous Complex, a famously rich source of platinum-group metals)[citation needed].
Today, these metals are mined from Earth's crust, and they are essential for economic and technological progress. Hence, the geologic history of Earth may very well set the stage for a future of asteroid mining.
Man's Next Step through lunar mining operations
We stand on the cusp of a new revolution, one where early innovators of commercial space will capitalize on new technological advances, meet material demands to create environmental sustainability, and build spacecraft to transport populations into orbit that drive the exploration, exploitation, and habitation of our solar system.
Our greatest limitations to advancing into space exploration are the high cost of launching heavy essential materials and heavy payloads from Earth. (Currently $22,000 /kg) The ability to extract raw materials from the Lunar surface such as water and iron, would form the base of this infrastructure and processing these resources at an advanced space exploration site into useful products such as propellants, breathable oxygen, and power system consumables is known as In-Situ Resource Utilization.
An ISRU system on the Moon, is the last roadblock in significantly increasing robotic and human exploration infrastructure, sustaining life, and opening vast opportunities in space.
The ability to extract or produce large amounts of oxygen and water in-situ could minimize the need to maintain closed life support air and water processing system cycles, change thermal properties and provide radiation protection of habitats, and would influence propellant selection to lunar orbital platforms as gateway for refueling depots and staging areas in traveling to Mars and deep space.
Planetoid Mines provides the technological mining infrastructure to manage ISRU production, providing life essential resources of fuel, water, oxygen, and other mined resources, to cislunar refueling depots, lunar gateway outpost and orbiting satellites.
Back to the Moon - This Time to Stay?
SETI INSTITUTE
NASA is going back to the Moon, this time with commercial and international partners that will help us explore faster and explore more. After successful efforts to commercialize low-Earth orbit, there’s a renewed commitment to this new effort, which calls for the partnership to launch and operate a new space station, the Gateway. The Gateway will first explore the Moon from above and put men and women on the surface by 2024.
ARTEMIS
the ongoing crewed spaceflight
The Artemis program is an ongoing crewed spaceflight program carried out predominately by NASA, U.S. commercial spaceflight companies, and international partners such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) with the goal of landing "the first woman and the next man" on the Moon, specifically at the lunar south pole region by 2024.
NASA sees Artemis as the next step towards the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable presence on the Moon, laying the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy, and eventually sending humans to Mars.
In 2017, the lunar campaign was authorized by Space Policy Directive 1, utilizing various ongoing spacecraft programs such as Orion, the Lunar Gateway, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and adding an undeveloped crewed lander. The Space Launch System will serve as the primary launch vehicle for Orion, while commercial launch vehicles are planned for use to launch various other elements of the campaign.
NASA requested $1.6 billion in additional funding for Artemis for fiscal year 2020, while the Senate Appropriations Committee requested from NASA a five-year budget profile which is needed for evaluation and approval by Congress.
To celebrate this endeavor and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first moonwalk, the SETI Institute has organized two summer talks about this ambitious program, officially known as Artemis.
The first will take place on June 26. Greg Schmidt, Director of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), and Michael Sims, CEO, and founder of Ceres Robotics will present this first talk.
Greg Schmidt leads NASA’s lunar exploration research program and will give us an update on Artemis. Michael, an expert on AI and robotic exploration, will describe the activities of Ceres Robotics in the exploration of the Moon and the understanding of its geology and surface properties.
After a short presentation, both speakers will participate in a discussion about the past, present, and future of lunar exploration moderated by David Morrison, Senior Scientist at SSERVI and former director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute.