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Forums - Politics Discussion - Moon express plans to mine the Moon surface closer to reality

JEMC on 03 October 2015
AbbathTheGrim said:
JEMC said:

From Rocket Lab website

http://www.rocketlabusa.com

Electron is a two stage vehicle that uses Rocket Lab’s Rutherford liquid engine on both stages.

The first Electron launch is planned for 2015, with commercial operations scheduled to begin in 2016. At a cost of $4.9M Electron is the most affordable dedicated launch service for small satellites to Low Earth Orbit.

If the first launch is planned for 2015 (we're already in October, shouldn't they have done that already?), I doubt they'll be able start their operations in 2016, at least if they want them to succeed.

And the rockets are made to launch 150Kg satellites to low Orbit, which is far, far away from the Moon.

The end game for them is to look for rare materials on the lunar surface:

MoonEx aims to scour moon for rare materials

The Silicon Valley start-up is building machines with NASA scientists that are designed to search the lunar surface for precious metals and scarce metallic elements.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/08/business/la-fi-moon-venture-20110408

I read that, thanks.

But the rocket they plan to use can only put satellites up to 150Kg into a low Earth orbit. Going from there to the Moon still takes a lot of work, and their plan to use a secondary satellite (to which the Lunar robot will attach) to impulse the whole thing into the Moon is not an easy one.

I really doubt they'll be able to make it by 2017, and as haxxiy said, it would cost many millions ($5M just for the launch) for only a few kilograms of ore. This is just to proove that it can be done, but not that it's worth doing it.



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Mnementh on 03 October 2015
haxxiy said:

Too bad any kilogram of ore brought from the moon probably costs on the high millions. Hell, it isn't profitable to mine from the deep sea, or even to extract certain precious metals from the northern permafrost. But props to them for being slightly more believable than Mars One, and earning a Google Prize too, specially after being founded by three entrepreneurs known for working on those kickstarted high investment, zero return  companies. I didn't even laugh - like JEMC said, they even have a chance of launching a small satellite into low orbit in a few years.

Actually... our current costs of space-transportation is for bringing stuff from earth into space. As the moon has a lot less gravitational pull, it should cost a lot of energy less to get stuff leave the moon. Landing on earth is much simpler, as the atmosphere is slowing down the craft. As a mining operation brings much more from the moon to the earth than the other way, the cost should be no longer in the high millions.

Still, nobody really has done something like that so far and the initial cost to buold up operation should be incredible. But let's see how this idea turned out in 25 years (that seems a realistic timeframe to get operational).



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