Guest essay by Eric Worrall
An in-progress low key Chinese robotic sample and return mission is challenging the commonly held assumption that the USA is still the dominant player in deep space missions.
China’s Chang’e 5 poised for historic moon landing to collect lunar samples
China has reached a major milestone in its quest to bring home moon rocks, with its Chang’e 5 mission spacecraft separating into two pairs of vehicles in preparation for a lunar landing.
The Chang’e 5 spacecraft launched on Nov. 23 intent on becoming the first mission to bring lunar samples to Earth since 1976; the mission reached lunar orbit on Nov. 28. According to China’s state-run news agency Xinhua, the mission’s orbiter/return vehicle and its lander/ascender vehicle separated in lunar orbit yesterday (Nov. 29) at 3:40 p.m. EST (2040 GMT; 4:40 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 30). That move sets the stage for a landing near the peak of Mons Rümker, a mountain in the Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”) region of the moon.
“The spacecraft is performing well and communication with ground control is normal,” officials with China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) said according to Xinhua.
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Read more: https://www.space.com/china-chang-e-5-moon-lander-separates-from-orbiter
Why do I think a low key unmanned robotic mission poses such a threat to US space supremacy?
The reason is if China decides on the basis of this mission to increase their Lunar activity, China’s friend Russia has spent over a decade developing nuclear launch technology which China could use to make a major expansion into space affordable.
In as little as 10 years, China could be building major industrial bases on the Moon, with the help of Russian nuclear powered reusable space launch vehicles.
By 2030, with Chinese and Russian flags flying on the moon, the USA could be staring into the face of at least two decades of desperate catchup, to get back into a game which America once dominated.
Note: The Russian nuclear launch technology is based on the 1960s US NERVA programme. Stationary ground based testing of NERVA at the time was perceived as an outstanding success, making NERVA a strong candidate for powering a manned mission to Mars, and resupplying a permanent moon base planned for 1981. Despite bipartisan support from Congress in 1972, the programme was cancelled by President Richard Nixon in 1973, part way through building a full scale NERVA launch vehicle, while Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal.
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So China is on the verge of possibly matching a feat that we achieved over 50 years ago? *yawn*
wish I scrolled down further before posting to see several have the same thought as me! China’s space program is the least of our worries with them. I’m more worried about their unfathonable diplomatic efforts in APAC in the face of their unleashing such a pandemic, their new colonization program with 3rd world countries, as well as their growing military might.
Realistically, I sit in that large group of scientists who are hard and practical, Thirty years exploring Earth for wanted mew mineral resources was adequate to educate me as to the sheer futility and enormous cost:benefit failures of mining asteroids or the moon even using rough ball park figures. Nobody seem to know what valuable minerals might be out there, so we are reduced to the mentality of dreaming after reading a comic book. In reality, there is a probabil;ity that nothing out there will prove to be worth mining.
Science in the last 30 years has had a sickness whereby too many incompetent scientists have been given far too much money to perform quasi-scientific acts to bolster their incomes. Standards, especially in climate science, have dropped. Children are seldom educated enough these days to pass simple entrance exams for the hard sciences.
It is partly driven by the academic arts mob, those who could not make it to enriol in hard science. Fresh in my mind of how horrible academic arts have become, please read and study this.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2020/12/the-white-privilege-of-being-black/
It is an article about how arts academics, even professors, are being paid by taxpayers to invent how, to publicise and to make it OK to lie about yourself to gather in that money and fame (whatever fame is, these days). It is depressing, so be warned.
Then, use it as an example of how low academia has plunged and how the worst might yet be ahead of us in the search for more high quality hard science that can be replicated, that has significance in that findings can help benefit all people, nut just the person with the academic grant. Geoff S
“In reality, there is a probability that nothing out there will prove to be worth mining.”
The current problem is the cost of mining something in space which is related to the current cost to leave Earth.
Due to current cost to leave Earth, lunar water is worth about $500,000 per ton, on the lunar surface {not worth this if brought back to Earth}.
There might be more than 1 million tons of mineable water on the Moon. And this doesn’t mean 500,000 x 1,000,000 = 500 billion dollars.
But it does mean 500,000 x 10,000 tons is probably worth about 5 billion dollars and that over time the price of lunar water will decrease, due to lowering costs to mine lunar water and competition and lowering of launch cost to leave Earth.
One talk about something different and sort of similar. The current price of lunar material is about $1000 per gram. If one shipped 10 tons of lunar material to Earth each gram could be worth about $50 per gram {around the price of gold}, one reason lunar material would worth less is because there is expectation of lower price of lunar material in the future, but there is also possible that lunar material one buys to today at $50 is worth $50 per gram or more in the future. If instead of 10 tons shipped in one year, one shipped 1000 tons in one year, it probably would not be worth $50 per gram, but perhaps it’s worth $10 per gram or less {Silver is worth less than $1 per gram}.
So issue of shipping more lunar material to earth and having the price lower, is not a bad thing. One might think wildly fluctuation of any price or anything as “bad” but it seems having lower price of lunar material for anyone who wants it, is better than not having available or difficult to get.
But want to get back to value of something at destination like the lunar surface, it likewise will not be bad thing to have lower priced lunar water in the future, and would say “the promise” of lower price lunar in future, makes present of lunar water “worth more”. And roughly speaking it related to over priced Amazon stock, say 10 years ago.
Or stock markets will realize that lower price lunar water in to future, make now stocks of lunar water mining company worth more due to lower costs and price in the future.
Or if you knew {somehow} that lunar water could sell for $100 per kg in 10 years in future and means lower lunar rocket fuel in 10 year in the future, you probably want to get involved with anything related to any party doing anything on the Moon- including lunar water mining. Or lunar companies are growth companies.
But at moment we don’t know if the lunar polar region has mineable water, and what is mineable water is can sell enough of it, and could sell at about $500 per kg.
And selling enough it is related to the “very cheap price” of $500,000 per ton.
Now the lunar polar region might allow being able to sell lunar water for less than $500 per kg, which would good news, but if have sell it at higher price, that not very promising for it’s future.
And if you sell lunar water around $500 per kg, it also means would sell other stuff- like iron ore and/or some other metal ore. They have value on Moon as metal and their oxygen, any oxygen sold as LOX, should worth about $1000 per kg, and metal should be worth less than that per kg. And metal fabricated into something needed on the Moon could be worth could more than $1000 kg. But likewise such things will worth less in the future, and cheaper they can be, the better {the more a company making things out metal can make them cheaper in future, the more the company is worth which selling at the higher price, now.}
But prices are constrained by reality or some party just dumping a lot investment dollar into making it cheaper, faster – to capture more of a supposed/imagined future market- which of course, has risks, and generally requiring luck/skill.
Backing up a bit. If the Moon has market for rocket fuel at around $1000 per kg, that provide market for rocket fuel in high earth orbit, and deliver water from somewhere else in space, at less than $1000 per kg {shipping Lunar LOX or Lunar water to lunar orbit cost more than this, if lunar water is $500 per kg] could done. It probably would result in “over supply” of water in high earth orbit- but that would “good news” any lunar business- including lunar water miners.
LOL-
The moon?
Been there, done that.
With 12 people and probes.
We have also had 11 probes since 2001.
Pluto?
Yea, been there too. And then on to rendezvous with a KBO.
Oh yea, the Voyager rockets from the 1970’s?
They’ve left the Solar System.
Everyone else has some catching up to do to claim “surpassing the USA.”
Besides, they do need to have something to spend the trade deficit on.