US Officially Out of the Space Program

[FrostyBoy]

no no, I am serious about that, look how quickly we remove/shift stuff on Earth. I know the Moon is big, but do you honestly have doubts we are capable of mining so much of it, that it would effect Earth? Unless we build a McDonalds on the Moon I don't see how we can replace the mass.

Businesses scare me.

[DanS]

Basically, I completely agree with KH on this -- although I may be more radical.

There are some who won't even trust their own business judgments on novel ventures, even though they are the best in their fields. Steve Jurvetson for one tries to take a more random approach in his venture funding at DFJ, a Silicon Valley venture funding outfit where he is a name partner. And they actually have invested tens of millions of dollars in SpaceX.

As an expert on a topic, it's easy to trick yourself into thinking that you know more than you really know about the future. In the government, this is an especially bad problem because it's a group psychosis. It puts market groupthink to shame. Fantastic sums are thrown down the rathole all the time.

KH's attitude is comparatively humble and realistic than that of many of you.

So, in short... R&D Randomized > Private-sector directed R&D >>> Gov't sector R&D

[KrazyHorse]

no no, I am serious about that, look how quickly we remove/shift stuff on Earth.

[KrazyHorse]

In the government, this is an especially bad problem because it's a group psychosis.

I would say it's even worse because they AREN'T experts, but believe that winning a popularity contest gave them extraordinary judgment...

[DanS]

I think the answer would be similar if they were experts, though. Yeh, it might be slightly better with actual experts.

[notyoueither]

Okay, ****. Either you meant your comment seriously, in which case you should be ashamed, or you meant it as a joke, in which case you should be happy to have others laugh at it.

Then you really don't want to hear fears that geothermal will let all the heat out...

But seriously, what is the mass of the moon? What would be a good guesstimate of total mass of refined products produced on Earth in a year?

I'm asking you since you seem to know everything.

[KrazyHorse]

The mass of the moon is just over 1% that of the Earth. Removing 1% of that and moving it to the Earth would involve moving ~6*10^20 kg from the moon to the Earth. World GDP is ~6*10^13 $. If all of the world's GDP over the next 100 years was used to move mass from the moon to the Earth and we wanted to end up moving 1% of the moon's mass this means that the cost of moving mass from the surface of the moon to the surface of the earth would have to be 1 cent per ton

How's that for a back of the envelope calculation?

[notyoueither]

A better question would be, what portion of the mass of the moon would likely be of great enough value to move it off?

[notyoueither]

Assume we use all of the hydrogen and oxygen and such as fuel.

Assume we move all the metals off, other than those required to build and maintain the moon pillaging mission.

What portion of the moon would be candidates for burning/removal?

[KrazyHorse]

A better question would be, what portion of the mass of the moon would likely be of great enough value to move it off?

None

[KrazyHorse]

I have no idea why you would mine a metal-poor object like the moon with a relatively deep gravity well if you wanted material in orbit.

[notyoueither]

Assume extreme scarcity of materials on Earth. Iron is priceless.

What portion of the moon is metal or useful for fuel?

[KrazyHorse]

So, assuming we've managed to mine the mantle of the Earth completely (what the **** are we doing with all this iron?) then look up what the composition of the moon is. As I recall, it's something like 10% metals. The rest is oxygen and silicates. Very little in the way of hydrogen.

[notyoueither]

Well, there you go. That wasn't hard, was it. I don't want to look it up. I want to bask in the brightness of your revealed glory.

10% metal.

Really so little hydrogen? I thought that stuff was like... water.

[FrostyBoy]

Actually, my concern is the oxygen. We would need to mine the Moon for oxygen obviously, we can't be transporting it there from Earth all the time. That being said, can you imagine if the Moon were populated by just 10 million people. How much Oxygen would we need to keep them alive, including production of water and other uses. I can only imagine we would suck it dry on a major scale. We have to look at the long term effects here, because I assume we plan to use the Moon for a very long time.