From: utzoo!decvax!cca!REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.space Title: solar power on the moon Article-I.D.: sri-unix.3399 Posted: Tue Sep 21 17:00:39 1982 Received: Wed Sep 22 04:46:52 1982 From: Robert Elton MaasI think it's quite clear that in the long run we want to have habitat and industry etc. in space, probably a la Dyson sphere around each star we homestead. It's not so clear what method we want for powering planet-based habitat and industry, whether simply tap off the Dyson power grid, or have local solar energy with local storage, or have a ring of energy girdling the planet to avoid need for local storage, or have local nuclear fission power, or if we solve the problem local nuclear fusion power. I think it's too early to decide on one or the other, although we ought to keep all those possibilities in mind towards the end of the next 50 years as we approach the time they will be implemented. (My guess, none of the above, by 50 years from now we'll have a new and better idea.) My suggestions how to supply energy to lunar mining stations deals with the bootstrapping period, from when we first establish an experimental mining station on the Moon until we have enough industry on the Moon to begin to consider linking all of it together into large power grids or mass-tossing networks of manufacturing stations (imagine using a mass-driver to toss pellets of pure titanium from the titanium-extracting station to a place where it's needed to make titanium-iron alloy, this toss perhaps being between points hundreds of miles apart!). Our urgent problem now is that (1) the money-holders don't think space is worth money because they think it's too expensive or impossible or doesn't reap enough rewards, (2) the scientists haven't really worked out all the possibilities and created a proposal for action (some starts have been made here with Pournelle's space policy proposal), (3) because of 1 and 2 hardly anything is moving along and thus we simply aren't bootstrapping ourselves into space. Currently I stick mostly to things that will be useful for getting started. In addition to the currently-planned shuttle activities of chemical-manufacture experiments and large-space-telescope, these include: development of SEPS (Solar Electric Propulsion System = solar-powered ion rocket) and a general space-tug capability, development of a full-scale mass-driver, launching of a permanently-staffed LEO (Low Earth Orbit) station, surveying L-4 and L-5 for debris, surveying the polar regions of the Moon for water ice, surveying near-Earth asteroids and comets for minerals, experimenting with remote-control mechanisms and robotics to determine whether they are feasible, and actual starting of experimental robot mining on moon (in polar regions if water is found there, else in equatorial regions). It is in this context that I debate whether robotics is sufficiently developed for mining, whether solar or nuclear energy should be used, ... and dismiss power grids on the moon as being too far in the future but still worth discussing briefly to aid our long-range perspective.