Moon race - Armadillo vs NASA

What kind of LEO infrastructure are we talking about? 1G Stations? Fuel depots? It all has to come from somewhere. I rather prefere to go to the moon, construct large bases with material from the moon, then send a lot of stuff back to Earth or LEO and then go to Mars when the profits of the moon are at their top.

He's the guy who is or was attempting to claim ownership of the asteroid Eros. He's written up a bunch of stuff on space base property rights. While I don't personally agree with his claim on the asteroid I do think his tactics of putting a bunch of 'sweat equity' into writing up that claim, all of his supporting arguments and then to top all that off by sending a bill to NASA for 'parking fees' when the NEAR Shoemaker probe was landed on Eros was pretty sharp. If someone at NASA had simply paid the ridiculously small bill to avoid the headache of dealing with him it would have validated his claim on some levels. I'm actually glad that last I heard his case was dismissed. While I think that his overall goal of attempting to acquire a legal title of some sort to a space based piece of property is a good one I don't like the idea that someone can claim anything in space by simply writing up a claim, no matter how extensive that write up is.

Here's a link to his criteria for property claims.
http://www.erosproject.com/reason.html?source=ErosProject

Interesting case. I had heard of it before but did not know many details. He is saying that in the absence of any owner, the mere stating of a claim gives him some rights. I could do that too. I will.

I do in this public forum for all to see, herby claim full ownership of the asteroid Pallas.

Now according to Nimitz, that gives me some legal basis for ownership of Pallas. Since nobody else has made such a claim. In fact, he is saying that I now have the BEST EXISTING claim to Pallas. It is up to me to defend it, but more importantly, it is up to someone lese who later tries to claim Pallas to prove that his claim is better than mine. However, he also says that perfecting the claim, which is just giving more credibility to a claim, requires work. That work does not have to be actual physical occupation but could be mere surveying. So if I was the first person to see it in a telescope, I would have a better claim than the second person to see it in a telescope, and the second person to see it in a telescope has a better claim than a person who has never seen it; or that a person who has photographed it has a better claim than someone who has only seen it. If NASA had claimed Eros, then they have perfected their claim by sending a probe there and they now have the best claim to Eros, EXCEPT they can't use it because the US signed away those rights in the Outer Space Treaty. If a private person claimed it and then sent a space craft there, they WOULD be able to perfect their ownership. If he had the money, he would have done so. He may be going through this court case just to set a precedent that he COULD claim an asteroid as a tactic to entice backers to put up money to mount a mission.

Future asteroid miners may owe him a debt of gratitude for setting the basis for their claims.

(This has gotten off topic, hasn't it! By the way, I think this is more similar to high seas salvage rights than real estate law. I recommend reading the very good book, "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" to get an idea of the silly things that the law does in such cases. http://www.amazon.com/Ship-Gold-Deep-Bl ... 0871134640 )

It does highlight the issue that some sort of property or "resource rights" regime needs to be put in place. If only to avoid international disputes over the choicest real estate.

It seems reasonable that one entity (person/company/nation) could own and exploit a 50m or 100m radius asteroid, but no-one should own the 1500 km radius Moon. (At least, unless and until an independant lunar nation state is established.) But what about the big asteroids? Should anyone own Ceres? My gut feeling is no.

There should be a requirement to place & maintain; a radio beacon, radar transponder, relay station, fuel depot and emergency shelter for humans, on any claim. And the claim should extend no more than a prescribed distance from the beacon. Maybe 10 or 20 km? This forces any would be land-grabber to build useful infrastructure at huge expense, yet would be required by any genuine developer anyway.

I'm not really sure that it has. If Armadillo manages to someday land someone on the moon and return them they may have to face these issues. Even if they do not make an actual claim, the mere act of a private company achieving such a goal will bring this subject to a boil.

Yes, Armadillo can beat NASA with the next manned lunar landing.

Neither Armadillo, nor any other producer, is required implement complete vertical integration. Freight can be hauled to LEO as a commodity. Costs can be as low as $12 Million for a Dnepr with 8000 pounds of payload, to $170 Million + for 56,800 pounds on a Delta IV Heavy. (Note that these prices are considerably less (by a factor of 1000 or so) than NASA’s “notationalâ€

I currently favor lox-methane for a short lunar trip that is launched by a single booster. With vacuum all around, just some reflective foil should allow lox-methane to store for a week.

I do think about peroxide, or possibly even nitrous, as an oxidizer for storable space propulsion modules that may be assembled one at a time by a great many launches, where they might need to sit around for a long time. Also for mars missions...

I haven't done the detailed analysis, but I think that our current electronics are fine for keeping a vehicle stable through the various required burns to and from the moon, they would just need to be initialized before each one with a star tracker, or more likely, manually with a sextant. Higher precision accelerometers for burn termination and a radar rangefinder for landing would probably also be necessary. Getting tracking from a government radar would help a lot.

I do want to go to the moon, but I'm not in any particular hurry. I think we can bootstrap our way through routine orbital operations, at which point heading for the moon won't seem all that ridiculous.

John Carmack

Nitrous is fairly expensive though, at least it is here at around $35AUD/Kg. In any case for a space motor you don't need high chamber pressures so I'd think dealing with the vapour pressure of nitrous would represent unnecessary weight, also you'd still need thermal management to stop the nox boiling or freezing if you're planning on a pressure fed design.

But the cost of getting it into LEO would be so much higher, even at the most optimistic reductions, say $500 to $1000 per kg, that it would still be cheaper than using a 'cheap' propellant that requires more mass in orbit to handle it.

This is true assuming the mass required to use the propellant is biased towards the nitrous. Both propellants require thermal shielding, the difference being you have to keep LOX much cooler than you have to keep nitrous. However you can keep LOX at very low tank pressures (50-100psi) while the nitrous, assuming kept at room temperature would have to be at around 750-800psi which means the tanks would have to weigh much more. You could also cool the nitrous down to low pressures and you'd need less insulation than LOX but that eliminates the storable aspect of the propellant.

It really depends on what propellant feed method you go for, if you're doing self-pressurised pressure fed then you would probably do better with cold nitrous but I'd be interested in seeing how a reciprocating pump design with other storable propellants would stand up to a nitrous pressure fed system.