OSTP Questions Response

1. What research and development should the U.S. government prioritize to help advance a robust, cooperative, and sustainable ecosystem in cislunar space in the next 10 years? And over the next 50 years?

Prologue

The United States and its allies are at a turning point regarding our space efforts. Space exploration began as a government effort for prestige during the cold war, and we claimed victor with the audacious Apollo program. The United States had at that time the technology and wherewithal to begin the economic development of the solar system. We threw it away, to focus instead on domestic issues of perceived higher priority. In the Space Shuttle era, which was to begin the time of ubiquitous space operations, the loss of the Challenger shifted NASA’s human spaceflight toward a science only focus. This led to the human spaceflight program, and our subsequent two failed attempts to return to the Moon (1989 and 2005) to be dominated by narrow scientific goals.

Today NASA’s Moon to Mars program is beset by the same narrow science only focus. This is great for science, but it has not, as it did not before, lead to wide public support of the quality to withstand the shifting priorities of transient political office holders. What is needed is a wider sense of purpose, one that can capture the imagination and the support of the American people.

Simply stated, the economic development of the solar system, the acquisition of the vast resources of the Moon, Mars, and asteroids has the direct potential to change our entire planetary narrative away from the doom and gloom scenarios of the climate catastrophe, the degrowth movement, and many of the most negative aspects of our current societal trajectory. All civilization and all of our long history is a tension between fear and hope. For many years we have been dominated by fear, fear of the collapse of the environment, fear of climate change, fear of overpopulation, fear or the lack of resources to support our modern civilization, fear fear, fear.

The economic development of the solar system is the counter narrative, and it is one of hope, of a positive future where our resource base is expanded by orders of magnitude, where technologies developed for the Industrialization of the Moon and the settlement of Mars, which will be intrinsically non fossil fuel based, can show people a positive future beyond oil. A future where we do not have to give up the last 500 years of the March of civilization that has done more to eliminate poverty, foster equality, and improve the lives of billions, than all other civilizations combined in our history.

Introduction

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Solomon the King)

To Fix a Problem, You Must First Understand the Cause

This ancient bit of wisdom is fundamental philosophy regarding a group, a tribe, or a nation, and it is just as meaningful today as it was almost 3,000 years ago. Unfortunately, the quote is not as illuminating as it could be in that English translation from the Hebrew. A newer and more precise translation is:

“Where there is no sense of purpose, the people are out of control”

Does this not speak to us today? Humans are a purposeful species. The vast majority of people want to have a purpose in life that goes beyond just eating, sleeping, and reproducing. We want our lives to have meaning. Without that we drift.

We see this lack of sense of purpose in stark detail today. From the smearing of cake on the Mona Lisa in France (because climate change), to the wanton murder of our fellow citizens here by young men filled with hate and empty of purpose. Its not just in these large and public deep expositions of personal emptiness, it extends down, such as two women recently beat a fast food worker, kicking her in the face repeatedly, simply because they were unhappy about their order. Another is a young gentleman in Texas who broke into a museum and smashed priceless 2500 year old Greek vases, and other art, to the tune of $5 million dollars, simply because he was mad at his girlfriend. Yet another man in New York killed a meal delivery man over an argument regarding his duck sauce. Last but not least, a young California man said that he “found his sense of purpose” in traveling to Washington to attempt to assassinate a sitting U.S. Supreme court judge. The people are out of control.

Despair as Purpose

Today we are being sold despair of the future. We are told that we only have 30, 20, 10, 3 years to avoid the apocalypse. We are told that our only future is one where energy is more expensive, our options more limited, that we must have fewer kids, eat bugs for protein, and give up our cars. We can have solar panels, but not nuclear power. We can have electric vehicles with rare metals strip mined from Africa and Asia but not space resources. It was even suggested at Davos this year that each human be tracked and taxed for their individual carbon footprint. This is patently a dystopian viewpoint. It does not even include the further out ones such as the degrowth movement, the human extinction movement and the Georgia Guidestones, a Stonehenge type monument erected near Hartwell Georgia (USA) calling for humanity to be culled down to 500 million people.

There has been, since the advent of industrialization almost two and one half centuries ago, a thread of doom and counterforce in human nature has arisen. The original manifestation of this is exemplified by the mythical Ned Ludd and the “Luddites” that smashed the machines of industrial progress in England. Today this is the mindset behind the “Limits” movements, that predict the end of civilization.

This is a deeply regressive “geocentric mindset. “Geocentric” is broadly defined as:

“a mindset and public policy focused primarily on actions, actors, and influences regarding earthly powers, the earth itself, and its nearby orbital environs”.

Add on top of all this the last two years of pandemic, supply chain woes, and now 1970’s style inflation and It’s no wonder that people are confused, angry, and out of control.

A Question of Worldview

The question is, is there an alternative to change this narrative of gloom and doom? Retreat from the advances of the last 300 years of progress is treated as something that is inevitable, desirable, and required for humanity, when this is simply not true. It is an anti-technology, anti-human spirit kind of a societal sickness that must be countered. Humans have adapted and overcome for hundreds of thousands of years now, why is it that now we can’t think and work our way beyond our current limitations? A friend of mine, Jeff Greason a fellow space pioneer, in a twitter thread the other day had an amazing and axiomatic statement about humanity.

There is another way. Jeff’s statement is absolutely right and came in a threaded discussion on Twitter regarding the value of space development (as opposed to just space exploration). The discussion revolved around whether or not it would be harder today for humans to operate and live in space (Moon, Mars, Asteroids, Free Space). In 2011 in a chapter in a book called “Toward a Theory of Space Power” published by the National Defense University, I defined the term “geocentric”. In order to provide a shortcut to the comparison/contrast, it is valuable to define a term for a more expansive viewpoint. I propose the term “solarcentric” or “solar” viewpoint that is defined as:

“a mindset and public policy focused on actions, actors, and influences beyond the surface of the earth and its immediate orbital environs in a manner to support economic, social, and political development in and to extend the technical expertise, resource base, and industrial capacity of the human race across the solar system”.

Geocentric vs Solarcentric

Any sustainable societal construct must have a solid philosophical foundation. Jeff’s premise of the ever adaptable human is what enabled our global civilization of 8 billion humans. Humanity in the pre-farming neolithic age pressed beyond its African roots, moving from the savannas of Africa, across the deserts of the middle east, to the cold and often frozen European landmass. Spreading east from there across mountains, steppes, and even oceans, humanity for almost the entirety of that time did not have the luxury of metal or metal tools. It has only been, as far as we can ascertain, in the last ten thousand years since the end of the last great ice age, that humanity has progressed from the itinerant hunter/gatherer lifestyle to building towns, cities, technology, and a global civilization. The adaptations that humans have made over this relatively short period of time have always been in response to solving problems associated with resource limits, or alternately, fighting over them. As can be seen even today, the perceived limits of our world are already leading the geocentric worldview to violence again on an industrial scale. It is time to adapt again if we wish to avoid increasing doses of this negative outcome.

The philosophical proposition is simple, that the limits that are of such concern of the geocentrists are only operative within a geocentric framework. In the solarcentric framework, these limits simply don’t exist, based upon the last several decades of scientific exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Geocentrists vs Solarcentrists

Resources

Many of the problems of the geocentrists are solved by the adoption of a solarcentric viewpoint. For example, one of the greatest problems that we face in a geocentric world is the exhaustion of resources of high economic value. Over the last 50-100 years we have built larger and larger mining operations to winnow from the Earth metals containing an ever decreasing ore quality. Technological improvements (larger machines, more efficient processes) have largely offset the declining ore grade. However, energy cost per ton of refined metals is increasing, as is the processing waste and chemicals used in the refining process [Calvo, et al, 2016]. This trend inevitably continue to the point where we will be processing native rock for ores, which is exponentially more expensive energy and pollution wise. Thus, its not that the Earth will run out of metals, but the energy cost (already 8-10% of global energy production) and pollution will increase. Thus, looking only through a geocentric lens, there is great trouble ahead in metals extractive industries.

In comparison space resources are exceptionally plentiful. Just one asteroid, 16 Psyche, a roughly 223 kilometer metal asteroid, has more metal by a factor of of more than a billion, than what is easily accessible for mining on the Earth. There are millions of asteroids out there, and 3-4% of them are metallic. This is an unimaginable amount of iron, nickel, cobalt, and minor metals in the platinum group of metals. Additionally, even on our Moon, with its pockmarked surface representing asteroid impacts. Below is the composition of a metal meteorite derived from looking at many samples, from Argentina.

Metals Analysis of the Campo Del Cielo Meteorite

Nickel and Cobalt (Ni, Co) are crucial for Electric Vehicles. Germanium and Gallium (Ga, Ge) are great for high efficiency solar cells. Iridium and platinum (Ir, Pt). And Chromium and Copper (Cr, Cu) for many industrial uses. We have tested thousands of metal meteorites on the ground, and indeed some of our richest mining areas for Nickel, Cobalt, and Platinum group metals is from asteroid that have struck the Earth over time. Recently these headlines remind us that there is an enormous amount of resources out there.

Metals on the Moon Discovered by Remote Sensing

It is not hyperbole to state that it is likely That there are enormous quantities of metals on the moon from asteroid impact. While some of those, like the 300 kilometer sized rock buried on the Moon may not be our first target, the second indicates that there may be some of the spall (fragments) of that impactor on the surface today. We have ground truth of metals on the Moon as well. The Apollo samples, especially Apollo 16 show metals. In the regolith samples brought back some samples had almost 2% by mass of metal asteroid fragments.

Finding Lunar Metals

Objections used to be raised, stating that these metals would get blasted back off the Moon. Several efforts, including this author’s have refuted this old premise. However, the key now is to figure out where these metals might be on the Moon. If we find them, it is a much better time-cost-of-money proposition to mine asteroids that have hit the Moon, rather than going out into the solar system to get them (at least initially). One effort that was undertaken in this area was in 2019 with the NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL), in association with the SETI institute in Mountain View CA. A team used Machine Learning technology to search for thermal anomalies in NASA and other lunar data sets [Moseley, et al, 2020]. One of the outputs from this process is seen below.

Lunar Thermal Anomalies

The above graphic shows areas with a thermal profile strongly at variance with surrounding terrain. The learning model used to derive this map contained several variables associated with the thermal properties of metals versus the surrounding basaltic and other lunar rock properties. While this is not conclusive, it is indicative of sites to probe in the future for large scale (the scale of this map is ten km/pixel) possible metals concentrations. The Apollo missions were uninterested in metals, they were just fortunately obtained in random regolith samples.

There is a conceptually simple way of determining whether these metals are there or not. A high power, high resolution radar in lunar orbit. This would accomplish multiple goals. Today NASA’s models for the lunar surface from the NASA laser altimeter in orbit has inaccuracies on the order of mid single digit meters that make current surface route planning and even landing somewhat problematic at the detail level. The Apollo missions purposefully did not select challenging terrain for landing, and even then an extensive effort (Project Slope) was used to analyze the Lunar Orbiter images to make sure that none of the landing sites had any slopes greater than 14 degrees, the Apollo lunar lander tipping point. A 1 meter or better resolution radar would work wonders for mission planning. Additionally, this would conclusively find metals on the surface, down to meter scales. In an unpublished work, our team worked with another team that provided a radar image of the (Hoba) largest metal meteorite on the Earth, laying on the surface in Groonfontein South Africa. We have proven the concept, all that is needed is to fly the mission.

Other Metals in Oxide Form on the Moon

In a previous missive (link here) I discussed in great detail the oxide resources on the Moon. The Moon is almost entirely made of metal oxides. So is most of the Earth, but the issue is extracting these resources in an economic manner. Additionally, with the asteroidal impact related metals discussed previously, there is an exceptional level of resources available to humanity at the Moon, and beyond. Additionally, there are very significant resources of water, both in the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSR’s) and in elevated quantities throughout the lunar polar regions. These water resources, and the oxygen liberated from the metal oxides, form the basis for an immense store of propellants to help create a sustainable means of going to Mars. The metallic resources, when coupled with an industrial capacity, can be, coupled with the deep vacuum of the Moon, into many advanced materials for further aerospace development. Additionally, these resources and industrial capacity can be used to build vehicles for Mars and beyond with rotating sections for gravity and with sufficient radiation protection to eliminate the dangers to humans that have been well documented and also a critical shortcoming of existing Moon to Mars plans.

There are those who say that these cannot ever become economically attractive, but this was said about just about all of our previous frontiers. The key is two things. Energy and transportation, just as it is here on the Earth. With a lunar industrial capacity for ship building, materials research and development, propellant production, and products for the terrestrial marketplace the stage is set for a renaissance in technology, a vast increase in available resources to the Earth, and perhaps best of all, hope for the future.

Recommendation 1

1. Transform the Artemis program from camping trips to a sustainable, permanent human presence.
   
   The six day camping trips to the Moon and the Artemis base camp are a waste of taxpayer resources and unworthy of our national needs. Beginning with Artemis III, transform the mission from a camping trip to a one year stay. Below is the current Artemis Concept of Operations.

NASA Artemis II Concept of Operations

SpaceX is developing a cadence of operations that could easily support monthly or even quarterly resupply. This could also be a mission for the second lander that NASA has been mandated to build. Scientist’s like Dr. Phil Metzger has presented research regarding the danger of large vehicles landing on the Moon. The six day camping trip makes this a permanent feature of lunar exploration. Rather than this approach, the crew’s first job would be to create a lunar landing pad, which is the first element of a base. Here is one version that was proposed during the 2005 Vision for Space Exploration.

Commercial/Government Lunar Base Circa 2025

This base has sintered landing pads, roads, and critical infrastructure needed for a base. Add to this electrical power.

Recommendation 2

2. Emplace, at Government Expense, 1-10 megawatts of electrical power.

No matter what we do on the Moon, we need power. Not 10 kilowatts, not 40 kilowatts, not even 100 kilowatts. For propellant production or any significant resource processing activities we need a lot more power. A minimum of 1 megawatt. With a standard design of a power lander, this could be made a lot less expensive than one off power systems. Such a system is shown at the base above, and below here.

100 Kilowatt Each Power Landers at the Artemis Lunar Base

These are well within our capabilities, and by simply adopting already existing terrestrial electrical standards, these could be made on a production line. In the past, with a science dominated focus, the local use of resources, called In Situ Resource Utilization, has always been cast away because it was “not in the critical path”. Well, those days are over. Either NASA puts in, and keeps it that way, or some entity other than NASA should be put in charge of this effort.

Recommendation Three

3. In Situ Resource Development

Lunar Metals Production from a Vacuum Induction Furnace

It is actually quite easy, using just heat and electrical power, to force apart oxygen and metals. Additionally, NASA and private entities are already developing the science and technology for the acquisition of the water in the Permanently Shadowed Regions. Its time to make it happen. These metals, oxygen, and water have a plethora of uses, and we must move that forward.

Recommendation 4

4. Lunar Industrialization as a precursor to the settlement of Mars, and the exploration of asteroidal resources.

This is not a NASA goal, it is a national goal. It is quite probable that NASA is not up to the task for this activity. NASA is a science agency, great at science, and great at many things, but the last 30 years of failed efforts to go back to the Moon, and to Mars for science alone is simply not enough to win the fight with other priorities of the federal government. This is just too important to be just NASA. There are defense, and national reasons to do this, for the preservation and extension of our society and to preclude the global fight for our limited resources here. We already see how much this is costing in Ukraine and other countries around the world. Far better our treasure be spent toward the noble purpose of extending the march of civilization, as a president once said, “from the swamps to the stars”.

End State Results

When proposals and architectures and plans are put together, the planners, architects, and proposers rarely look beyond their immediate goals. Here let it be stated where we see the future by 2030, 40, and 50.

2030

The first year of the Artemis base was fraught with the peril of developing our civilization on another celestial body. After a rough start, by the year 2027, over 10 megawatts of electrical power was emplaced on the Moon. Propellant production from the pyrolysis of metal oxides was enough that by the time Artemis V was launched in 2027 the capabilities were in place for Liquid Oxygen production in the metric tons per week. This allowed the SpaceX Starship to be launched with one fewer tankers in low earth orbit, and the full tank of fuel provided on the surface was enough to loft 100 tons of lunar metals produced to provide rock solid shielding for the NASA lunar gateway, removing the threat of solar flares for the crew.

The harvesting of hydrocarbons and carbon bearing molecules, first hinted at by the early NASA’s LCROSS mission in 2009 was confirmed by private prospectors and a means was developed by 2029 to use the hydrogen from the lunar water along with the carbon to make the fuel for Starship HLS lander. This further extended the utility of the SpaceX Starship, lowering the number of flights for fueling in Earth orbit and resulting in the HLS to be a fully reusable system, cutting the cost for a lunar payload to under $1,000 per kilogram, and enabling up to 30 tons of payload to be returned to the Earth for $1,500 per kg. This set of a rush of exploration and investment in lunar industrial infrastructure that continues today.

2040

In the year 2031 the first Aldrin Cycler built in the newly christened lunar orbital shipyard was commissioned. The SS Buzz Aldrin made its inaugural trip to Mars using a LOX/Hydrogen reusable propulsion system that was able to throw 500 tons of payload to Mars, to brake into Mars orbit with its propulsion system. With the Mars power system, financed by SpaceX, producing 20 megawatts of nuclear power on Mars in operation, the SpaceX Starship Mars tanker was able to completely refill the tanks of the Buzz Aldrin, enabling a fast transit time back to the Earth for reprovisioning for the next mission. The Buzz Aldrin was the first human vehicle with a rotating section to create Mars (1/3rd Earth gravity) conditions, along with 50 tons of water excess to the propulsion system for galactic and solar cosmic ray protection.

With industrial materials being transferred from the Moon to Mars, a more rapid cadence of lunar settlement has been enabled. SpaceX and two other entities are sending settlers to Mars at this time, and five Aldrin cyclers were ordered in 2033 and by 2037 over 5,000 settlers per year are moving to Mars.

The population of the Moon continues to rise, with the 2040 census, just completed, showing a permanent population of 1,250 people, and over 5,000 transients who work on contract. Production of Platinum Group metals, Titanium, sapphires, monolayer carbon crystal glass production has skyrocketed due to their properties to make larger windows for terrestrial hypersonic passenger vehicles. Lunar Economic growth continues at 25% per year compounded. in 2038 25 Aldrin cyclers were ordered by various asteroid mining interests and production has soared to one vehicle every quarter. the most recent versions have 50 megawatt nuclear reactors, with the heat being used to heat hydrogen for high performance propellant, along with electrical power generation of 10 megawatts to power asteroid mining and processing operations. Robotics sales for delivery to Mars are also off the charts and near vacuum adapted robotics is a lunar speciality.

2050

The sky is no longer the limit. Realizing that the deep vacuum of the Moon would greatly simplify the development of fusion reactors, General Atomic had begun building a commercial fusion reactor on the Moon in 2035. This was completed in 2041, raising the aggregate power generation capacity of the Moon to 10 gigawatts. Combining this with the 500 megawatts already emplaced and lunar mining of multiple discoveries of impacted metallic and carbonaceous chondritic asteroids on the Moon is moving fast. Production rates of titanium, aluminum, iron, nickel, cobalt, platinum group metals continues to soar, enabled by plentiful electrical power. The competition is such that most terrestrial mines for rare metals have closed. This has removed a major source of pollution from the terrestrial biosphere.

Due to the rapidity of the startup of the General Atomics Reactor 1, more reactors started being built. Reactor 2, 3,4, and 5 were completed in the last ten years, and in 2050 lunar power production has soared past 70 gigawatts per year. Mars continues its incredible population explosion. There are now over 3,000 “Marsies” or kids born on Mars. Over 150,000 humans now live on Mars, with over 50,000 on the Moon and growing at compound rates of 15% per year. High pay, challenging work, and the escape from continual terrestrial political squabbling has been a great draw.

In this year, over 50 vehicles of the Aldrin II class (250 megawatt reactors) are flying the Mars run, the asteroid belts, with exploration vehicles now as far out as Pluto. The SS Alan Stern arrived in orbit around Pluto in 2044 and continues its fascinating exploration there. With the vast reactor capacity the Alan Stern has been able to refuel from water harvested from the Plutonian Moon Charon, and is expected to be able to make the dash back to its Mars base in less than two years!

It is expected by the end of this year that the Aldrin III series of solar system transport vehicles (both cargo and humans) will be flying. With the fusion breakthrough and a 500 megawatt uprated Aldrin II reactor, first fire was ignited in the fusion reactor four months ago. This 20 gigawatt nuclear electric and thermal power reactor, when service begins, will be able to ship 100,000 tons of water from the belt to the inner solar system. The Ceres outpost, set up in 2041 has the capacity to ship twice that much water, and the salts and other minerals mined has made a major difference in Martian agriculture. With the Aldrin III series being placed into service, it will only be a short time before humanity expands to the farthest reaches of our solar system.