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10kBq Jaro


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commercial lunar base for NASA ?
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check out also the picture linked below.....


ISS Could Only Be First Stop For Commercial Space Industry


Aviation Week & Space Technology, 02/20/2006, page 39


Frank Morring, Jr., Washington


Industry to have role in plotting lunar exploration; public-private investment capital pool is sought



Planners at NASA have private hotels, filling stations, utility networks and transit systems on the Moon in mind as they invite U.S. industry to help write a "decadal lunar exploration strategy" this year.


The agency will also ask universities and its international partners to take part in the strategizing, beginning with a workshop on the subject here late in April. But, in a drive to engage the private sector in the long-term space exploration effort, the Bush administration plans to move well beyond the request for commercial space station resupply proposals already on the street.


"If we are to make the expansion and development of the space frontier an integral part of what it is that human societies do, then these activities must assume an economic dimension as well," Administrator Michael Griffin told the American Astronautical Society last year. "Sooner rather than later, government space activity must become a lesser rather than a greater part of what humans do in space."


To push toward that goal, the agency will soon start spending a $500-million funding line to promote commercial resupply of the International Space Station (ISS). Proposals for the Commercial Orbital Transportations Services (COTS) demonstrations are due next month. The agency has been expanding its Centennial Challenges technology-prize effort into the multi-million-dollar range (AW&ST Feb. 13, p. 23). It has also sought proposals for a public-private investment capital fund similar to the one Griffin ran for the CIA that would back technology NASA can use in its exploration effort.


To handle NASA's exploration partnerships with industry -- and with non-U.S. space agencies -- Griffin named Shana Dale, a veteran Republican space-policy expert who left the White House science office late last year to become deputy NASA administrator. Dale has already opened exploration discussions with European space agencies (AW&ST Feb. 13, p. 40), and her office is preparing to broaden the discussion with the Washington lunar workshop.


http://www.aviationnow.com/media/images/awst_images/large/AW_02_20_2006_846_L.jpg


NASA wants the private sector to develop and maintain lunar rovers and habitats like those in this artist's concept of a future Moon base. Credit: PAT RAWLINGS/NASA


"We want to hear from the other players," she says. "We want to hear from the commercial sector -- what do they think they can actually do? -- the academic community, as well as the international. What are their goals and objectives? [And we want to talk to them] about capabilities and requirements for doing activities on the surface of the Moon."


As NASA begins work on its decadal strategy, potential commercial activities range all the way from mission support on Earth's surface to pulling oxygen from the lunar regolith for rocket propellant and life support once humans return to the Moon -- after about 2018 under the current schedule. Brant Sponberg, exploration program executive for innovative procurements, told the NASA Advisory Council Feb. 8 that the agency sees commercial potential in the Earthbound space industrial base, in microgravity access for research and in ISS crew and cargo transport.


On the way to the Moon and on the lunar surface, Dale says, "among commercial opportunities that come to mind are in-space fuel delivery; lunar resource prospecting; and the development and maintenance of lunar surface systems and infrastructure, including lunar habitats, power and science facilities, surface mobility units such as rovers, logistics and resupply, communications and navigation, and in situ resource utilization equipment."


The first lunar workshop will probably involve about 200 participants from around the world and include breakout sessions on specific topics. It follows a similar conference for governmental participants only in 2004 (AW&ST Nov. 22, 2004, p. 35). At that time, NASA still was working to fulfill President Bush's exploration order with a broad "spiral development" approach to human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Griffin dropped that last year in favor of a more direct approach to the Moon outlined in his Exploration Systems Architecture Study (AW&ST Sept. 26, 2005, p. 22).


Dale said a follow-up workshop session focusing on the science that can be conducted in the exploration program probably will take place this summer. Another workshop might be held in Europe or elsewhere, if NASA's potential partners there are willing. "It is our goal, working with international partners along with the commercial sector and the academic community, to develop a decadal lunar exploration strategy by the end of the year," she says.


Nearer term, proposals are due Mar. 3 on the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) demonstrations effort, which has $500 million to spur existing and startup companies to develop the capabilities needed to carry cargo and eventually crew to the ISS and back (AW&ST Nov. 21, 2005, p. 84). NASA's Fiscal 2007 budget request includes $91 million for COTS, and the agency hopes to award one or more contracts this summer.


Dale told an FAA commercial space transportation conference Feb. 10 that NASA will play the role of an investor, and winning bidders will most likely own any hardware that results. Griffin has said the approach is designed to encourage contractors to put some "skin in the game" in terms of their own investments and risk, and NASA is forfeiting some normal government oversight as a result.


"NASA . . . typically requires specific cost accounting standards from our contractors and has certain audit rights," Dale says. "In this case, our only interest is in whether the milestone is met. If they hit a milestone, they will get a check."


EARLIER IN HIS CAREER, Griffin was president and CEO of In-Q-Tel, a CIA proprietary that offered investment capital for new technology to serve intelligence community requirements. Now NASA is spooling up a public/private investment fund patterned on In-Q-Tel to back companies with technology that might aid the exploration effort.


With an initial stake of $11 million in the current fiscal year, NASA says the Red Planet Capital Fund will grow to $20 million a year. In a request for information from potential fund managers published Feb. 6, NASA says it wants to enter a Space Act agreement with a fund manager this year and deliver "NASA mission problem sets" to guide fund investments.


"The expectation [is] that it would be an independent partner making investment decisions based on NASA's priorities, and looking at some of the younger privately held companies and developing innovative, multi-use and dual-use technologies," Dale said.

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GoogleNaut


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This is a good idea. I'm just afraid that it's too little too late.

Originally the space station was to have had large industrial 'contributors' who would even send up special crews to to oversee specific experiments. The whole idea, back in the mid 1980's was grandiose, exciting, and really cutting edge stuff...now twenty years later, the reality is surprisingly "ho-hum" with an iffy shuttle resupply schedule, resulting in a maximum crew of two to stay at anyone time, because that is the capacity of the Soyuz spacecraft. The American Habitation module, which would have expanded habitation quarters for up to six astronauts, has been 'recycled' (read "cancelled") for life support systems studies. Incidently, the life support system will probably not fly, until crews go to Mars. Wouldn't it be better to fly it to the space station, for a rigourous decade of testing in actual space conditions?

It's really good that the Russians came on board--ironically because of NASA's total dependence upon the shuttle, the space station would have likely been abandoned during this time when we are without manned space access. Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that the station's orbit is inclined by almost 51 degrees, which limits the utility of the station for some uses. The station is impractical to be used as an orbital construction yard/staging area for manned deep space missions. That was one of the many original uses first proposed back in the 1980's (See the excellent report "Pioneering the Space Frontier" Bantum Books, May 1986.)

The text is available online at:
http://history.nasa.gov/painerep/begin.html, but I recommend the book because of the wonderful color plates painted by Robert McCall.

Anyways, I hope the commercial resupply program works. If anything else, it will demonstrate just exactly what a moderate space logistics supply line will look like, and will no doubt be used as a model for the real thing later on....


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Philipum


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Very interesting.

Certainly, there are two aspects in the idea of "commercial space industry". What is likely to happen is that private industry develops space technologies and sells them to governmental space agencies, the latter still driving the whole process. But is space in itself attractive to the industry? Could companies build hotels on the Moon, harvest Moon rocks and sell them, or do advertising in space? Could them find customers foolish enough to pay exorbitant prices for things that, however supremely exotic, are not especially comfortable nor beatiful in themselves, not mentioning the risks?

Maybe! Space stuff could get a connotation of very precious and luxurious things, because of their rarity and high price. Individuals might be interested to advertise their status by displaying such things!



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GoogleNaut


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O.K., here's a thought.

Why not put something precious in the hands of ordinary folks?

One of the ideas I have kicked around for quite sometime is to mine platinum group metals from Near Earth Asteroids. Even a small nickel-iron will likely have several thousand tons of the stuff. Why not, over the course of a few years, mint special, commemorative 1 troy oz platinum coins made from asteroid PGM and distribute them as a gift to all the tax payers whos taxes contributed to the project. Sure, such a 'waste' would represent 300 million times about 700 bucks each (about $210 billion...) but the PR value of such a return, something physical and tangible that 'ordinary' folks can hold in their hands, ought to be worth it. One of the problems with Space Program PR is that so many of the technologies orginally developed for the space program are so pervasive that sometimes they are difficult to 'see.' Giving folks something tangible, something they can hold in their hands, could be a plus...

It's interesting that the presence of PGMs and gold could represent a significant value of returned cargo. Industrially speaking, the PGMs will have more value than gold, because of their value as catalysts. Gold might be a 'cheaper' way to create commemorative mints--ironically like the old Jules Verne classic "Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea" gold may be used as a ballast for returning spacecraft. Slabs of ballast gold could then be easily melted and struck as coins for general dispersement. I don't know, it might even be possible to pay space workers in gold-coin or platinum coin.

Anyways, it's a cool idea...


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Philipum


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Good idea with the gold coin! Imagine an astronaut or rich person which would be very happy show this highly-valuable coin on TV, giving folk the impression that space exploration actually yields wealth!

But before we go to the asteroids, has the Moon something to offer? Can simple Moon rock be considered a treasure just because it comes from the Moon? Would rich and advanturous people pay a trip to the Moon just to show how rich and advanturous they are (just the same motivation as climbing the Everest)? Actually, space tourism already exists: just going into orbit is nowadays considered a great thing. As this sort of business goes on, one can expect that one will wish to go beyond the limits of what is "common", thus going further and further out, and, actually, unlike mountain climbing, in space there are no limits !

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GoogleNaut


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Actually the idea of going to the asteroids was to obtain PGMs (platinum group metals) for use as catalysts here on earth. Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis of hydrocarbons give best results from a Rhodium/Platinum/Rhenium promoter on Iron-Oxide catalysts. Fuel cells pretty much demand the use of Platinum metals for corrosion resistant electrodes. And then there are catalytic converters, which use tens of tons of the stuff each year--so adding to the supply should reduce the cost of certain applications. I was just brainstorming about the idea of distributing to everyone a 'free' gift that is actually quite valuable...

Lunar PGM's have been discussed, but I haven't seen any numbers so I can't make a judgement there. We have to know where to look and know how much is htere before we can say...yet another good reason to return to the moon...

Ty Moore


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