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| ID No : | 148 Edit | Title: | Lunar Resources Utilization for Space Construction |
| Summary / Review : |
A landmark, groundbreaking report in 1979 by a large team of engineers under contract to NASA, this remains a good introduction to lunar mining, material processing, and manufacturing, despite many parts being obsolete. It is nicely written and organized.
The study was funded by the Solar Power Satellite (SPS) initiative of the recently created (at the time) US Department of Energy (DOE) under President Carter to address our oil and energy issues, whereby the baseline concept was for launching SPS from Earth. At around this same time, NASA had been performing some new studies into large scale space colonization utilizing lunar and asteroidal materials (with Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill as a major proponent), and near the end of the SPS Concept Evaluation and Development Program, the proponents eventually were successful in getting DOE to consider making the SPS from mostly lunar materials, whereby funding was channeled thru NASA for this tail end study, which, unfortunately, came too late in the process to gain much traction. Wisely, the report took on a generic title even though it is focused entirely on building SPS from lunar materials, since that was the directive where the money came from. The results were positive and clearly left a lot of room for further major improvements and refinement, but by then the SPS funding had dried up and the SPS concept was rejected due to the cost of Earth launch of the Earth baseline concepts, without significantly considering the lunar concept ... and after a flawed final report lazily sweeping away non-Earth concepts, there was a postscript admitting the error and that the lunar option for SPS indeed had merit, but it was too late politically, plus a new President had been elected with a shift in Congress, with a vow to shut down the Department of Energy (unsuccessfully) and other major changes ... with SPS funding dead. Nevertheless, this report inspired other, much better refined studies on lunar materials utilization, including improved designs of SPS from lunar materials. The SPS concept in this study is fundamentally flawed in many ways, sometimes ridiculously so, such as the size of the SPS based on the equally ridiculous Earth launched concept, but those were the constraints put upon the researchers, and the value of this study is mainly on its introduction to lunar mining and materials processing. Again, this is an easy to read technical report introducing the concept from end to end -- from mining to manufacture and assembly -- of a sample product. While many parts are obsolete, it's nevertheless a good introduction and overview. The report is 3 volumes. I have a PDF of the first volume, here, the relatively short Executive Summary. I have all 3 volumes on paper in my library which I had ordered from the government press shortly after this report was printed, but volume 2 and 3 are very thick. If there's enough demand, then I can have a staff member spend a few days scanning it into PDF format. - MP |
| Author(s) : |
Bock, Edward H., [General Dynamics, Convair Division, Advanced Space Programs, San Diego, California] |
| Publication Type : | Standalone Special report of special distribution |
| Publication Date: | 1979 |
| Pages : | 3 volumes |
| Copyright By : | public domain |
| Category(s) : |
Missions / Lunar Bases, industry and manufacturing Products / Powersat / Satellite |
| Web URL : | No known web URL exists. If you know of one, please Add Comment below. |
| PERMANENT Library : | Paper copy in PERMANENT library (office). |
| PERMANENT code(s) : | P |
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(Explanation of the last 3 rows above) |
In the row above, there are up to 4 possibilities: U = URL you can click on to get a copy instantly from another source on the internet, or request it from that source D = Downloadable from PERMANENT (such as because no other URL known...) L = LAN copy, PERMANENT has a digital copy but not downloadable from our website P = Paper copy in the PERMANENT office Typically, only 0 to 3 methods are available. |
| Submitted by : | Mark Evan Prado |
| Comments: |
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