Bezos Says Blue Origin Will One Day Refuel Its Lunar Lander With Ice From the Moon (cnbc.com) 114
Earlier this week, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos explained how its spacecraft will eventually be powered with fuel harvested from the moon. CNBC reports: "We know things about the moon now we didn't know about during the Apollo days," Bezos said, speaking at the JFK Space Summit in Boston, Massachusetts. One of the things learned since Apollo that Bezos highlighted is that there are deposits of water ice at the bottom of craters on the moon. "We can harvest that ice and use to make hydrogen and oxygen, which are rocket propellants," Bezos said.
Blue Origin is developing its "Blue Moon" lunar lander, which Bezos unveiled last month. Bezos said Blue Moon is powered by a BE-7 engine, which uses hydrogen and oxygen as its two fuel sources. "The reason we chose those propellants is because... we know one day we'll be refueling that vehicle on the surface of the moon from propellants made on the surface of the moon from that water ice," Bezos said.
Blue Origin is developing its "Blue Moon" lunar lander, which Bezos unveiled last month. Bezos said Blue Moon is powered by a BE-7 engine, which uses hydrogen and oxygen as its two fuel sources. "The reason we chose those propellants is because... we know one day we'll be refueling that vehicle on the surface of the moon from propellants made on the surface of the moon from that water ice," Bezos said.
Always been the Plan (Score:2)
They have always thought there was water available on the Moon, the problem was finding it and refining it into the needed fuel.
No new ideas here.
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Be nice to have a flat area to land as well.
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This plan of using water on the Moon to make fuel, has been around for a long time?
Rockets don't need fuel, so much as propellant. Mass to throw out the back.
If you use a nuclear-thermal stage for Earth to Moon, you can just fill up with water for the return journey, no need to split it to hydrogen and oxygen.
For the outer planets, methane will make a fine propellant to get home.
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> Rockets don't need fuel, so much as propellant. Mass to throw out the back.
They need _both_. The energy density, or energy/unit mass of hydrogen and oxygen, is very high. Otherwise, we'd use fuels that are much cheaper and easier to handle, or even rely on jet engines for lower stages.
> If you use a nuclear-thermal stage for Earth to Moon,
See above. If you need to use nuclear energy sources, and are not in a rush, solar sails can shift orbit over the course of days and weeks to shift from Earth to L
Re: Always been the Plan (Score:2)
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Probably not. It can be fun to explore what a technology _can_ do, The physics involved is interesting to analyze. The transfer from orbit around one planet to another planet is fascinating. And the presence of the moon complicates other potentially very useful solar sail missions, such as harvesting planetary rings for ice to bring to Earth orbit, more efficiently and cheaply than launching water to orbit.
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The energy density, or energy/unit mass of hydrogen and oxygen, is very high. Otherwise, we'd use fuels that are much cheaper and easier to handle
Energy density is not particularly important. What makes hydrogen - oxygen combustion attractive is the low molecular weight of the exhaust (steam) meaning a higher exhaust velocity at the same temperature, and so a higher specific impulse. Rocket temperature is limited by the materials in the combustion chamber, so higher energy density is bad. In fact the rockets use an excess of hydrogen, so much of it is not burned.
not in a rush, solar sails can shift orbit over the course of days and weeks to shift from Earth to Lunar orbit.
My back of envelope calculation says you need around 1 newton/ton, so a solar sail the si
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> Energy density is not particularly important. What makes hydrogen - oxygen combustion attractive is the low molecular weight of the exhaust (steam) meaning a higher exhaust velocity at the same temperature
The key to rocket thrust is not exhaust velocity alone. It's also momentum transfer. The available momentum transfer can be calculated directly from the energy/unit mass of the fuel itself. I agree that a typical rocket will never reach complete efficiency, but it's a useful upper bound. Without the
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And once we cross the solar system’s “frost line” there is plenty of water.
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Nuclear thermal with water provides worse performance than chemical with LOX/LH2...lower temperatures, higher average molecular weight, more losses to the more complex vibrational modes of 3-atom water molecules compared to diatomic hydrogen, and high dry mass due to the reactor and shielding. Methane's better, but still pretty lousy and deposits carbon on things at high enough temperatures. Nuclear thermal is really only reasonable if you're using hydrogen propellant...if you're going to the trouble of inc
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Nuclear thermal with water provides worse performance than chemical with LOX/LH2...
Of course. The advantage is being able to collect water from the moon more easily than LOX/H2. But that is a big advantage, no?
Cryogenic refuelling on the moon sounds difficult and dangerous in comparison.
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Requiring a nuclear thermal engine brings a long list of disadvantages, including regulatory hassles, exotic materials, radiation shielding, maintenance on highly radioactive engine components, cleanup after an launch or landing accident...you're far better off working out what's needed for cryogenic refueling.
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Yes, probably more effort than it is worth for moon missions at this stage, though I'd say the same for Bezos' plan!
For crewed Mars missions, it would be nice though. And simple solid-core NT rockets have already been built and tested.
http://www.space-travel.com/re... [space-travel.com]
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Windmills? (Score:2)
Where is the energy coming from to produce this fuel? Not windmills, because there is no wind. Solar panels? Perhaps, but with the exception of the lunar poles there are 300+ hours of night. Of course that is followed by 300+ hours of sunlight but then the sun sets again. That's abut 14 days on Earth.
They will be building nuclear reactors on the moon to produce this rocket fuel. They will almost certainly test this process on Earth first. Once they prove that works then what? Stop using it on Earth
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They will use solar of course. Nuclear is a lousy option, too heavy, too complicated, and no good way for cooling.
Sure, solar won't work during lunar darkness, but that's not a big problem. Just wait.
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There are a whole set of reasons to develop large scale solar mirrors for power. Long-term Lunar bases are one of them. Cheaper, more stable energy for use on Earth than can be provided by Earthborne solar arrays, fission, fusion, or fossil fuels are another from a source that can produce more energy than covering the entire Earth with solar cells is another.
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no good way for cooling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Similarly, there are places that remain in permanent shadow at the bottoms of many polar craters,[96] and these "craters of eternal darkness" are extremely cold: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measured the lowest summer temperatures in craters at the southern pole at 35 K (â'238 ÂC; â'397 ÂF)[130] and just 26 K (â'247 ÂC; â'413 ÂF) close to the winter solstice in north polar Hermite Crater. This is the coldest temperature in the Solar System ever measured by a spacecraft, colder even than the surface of Pluto.[129]
Where is this water again?
The ice deposits were found on the North and South poles, although it is more abundant in the South, where water is trapped in permanently shadowed craters and cravices, allowing it to persist as ice on the surface since they are shielded from the sun.[108][110]
So, the water is sitting in these deep craters, where it's permanently shaded from the sun, and it's the coldest place known in the solar system.
As for the weigh and complexity I find those to be a simple engineering problem to be resolved. Far easier than trying to find a place on the moon where there is both plentiful water and plentiful sunlight.
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Sure, the Moon is extremely cold. We all know this.
The problem is that without convection, conduction, or phase change, the capacity to dissipate heat will be very limited.
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Sure, the Moon is extremely cold. We all know this.
The problem is that without convection, conduction, or phase change, the capacity to dissipate heat will be very limited.
And? So? Therefore?
On the moon the options for producing energy are very limited. With current technology the choices are solar and nuclear. On the moon the water tends to be in very cold and dark places. Now, tell me something. Which of the two options sounds most logical to turn ice on the moon into rocket fuel? Solar power or nuclear power?
I have no doubt that there will be attempts to use solar power to produce rocket fuel on the moon. I expect these to be replaced by nuclear power when it comes
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And? So? Therefore?
And so therefore nuclear is not a good option, because it generates huge amounts of waste heat that you can't get rid of.
On the moon the water tends to be in very cold and dark places. Now, tell me something. Which of the two options sounds most logical to turn ice on the moon into rocket fuel?
Go find a place that's on the edge of sun and permanent shadow. Install solar panels in the sun, start digging in the shadow. Install cable between the two sites.
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And so therefore nuclear is not a good option, because it generates huge amounts of waste heat that you can't get rid of.
Uh, isn't that mainly a problem in space because you got nowhere to dump your heat? On the moon or Mars you can just use closed loop cooling to pump excess heat into the ground.
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nuclear is not a good option, because it generates huge amounts of waste heat that you can't get rid of.
Waste? No, you'll be pumping all that heat into the ground to melt and extract water.
Solar is a good way to generate electricity, even near the poles, but in this case you *want* all that heat. The ground is your heatsink, no radiators needed.
If you did use radiators, as used to cool the ISS, I think they'd still be lighter and easier to build than PV solar panels.
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NASA appears to disagree with you, or at least wants to investigate all options.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This reactor design is only 10 kW. You can probably get 10 kW worth of solar energy, simply by replacing the heat sinks with PV cells.
Yes, it will work in the dark, but that's only a small benefit in return for higher mass and complexity. When you make fuel, you can simply wait for the sun to come back. This might be useful if we ever get to permanent human settlements.
Also, one of your motivations for nuclear was that we can use spin-off tech on earth, but this design is useless for that purpose.
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This reactor design is only 10 kW.
If we know how to make a 1 kW reactor, and a 1 GW reactor, then we can interpolate for anything in between.
You can probably get 10 kW worth of solar energy, simply by replacing the heat sinks with PV cells.
Maybe, but then why would NASA be bothering with this tech if it was just that simple?
Yes, it will work in the dark, but that's only a small benefit in return for higher mass and complexity. When you make fuel, you can simply wait for the sun to come back. This might be useful if we ever get to permanent human settlements.
That is until your batteries freeze. If the goal is to produce fuel for launching rockets from the moon then would not be burning that fuel to keep your habitat operational be counterproductive? Even on past solar powered missions to Mars and other points in the solar system NASA put in RTG units for heat to keep th
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This isn't orbit, you've conduction
Lunar regolith isn't very conductive, so you'd need to drill holes and install piping to run a coolant through it. That's a huge project compared to unfolding some solar panels.
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As the Moon is developed further, night will be come a good time to use nuclear. Radiators will be able to make use of a huge Carnot heat differential. No problems there with the Rhône getting too warm in the summer.
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It's unlikely that 10kW kilopower nuclear reactors are going to be deployed to every house on Earth. Larger nuclear reactors are unlikely to be deployed on the Moon, due to lack of a heat sink (unless we melt a huge lake somewhere first). There's no groundbreaking fission tech that's in development for space missions that would be useful on Earth, AFAIK.
If anything, economies of scale to produce all the batteries/solar panels will help lower costs or boost R&D investment into battery/solar panel tech, w
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The tech for making clean water, electricity and fuel on Earth has existed a long time.
Yes it has. Tell me something. Which is a better model for any kind of manned mission on the moon. The International Space Station? Or a nuclear submarine? Remember where the water is on the moon, at the bottom of dark, cold, and "wet" (with ice) craters.
Across the world the top three zero carbon energy sources are wind, hydro, and nuclear. There is no wind on the moon, and there is no flowing water either. Things change quite a bit when it comes to solar power on the moon, I won't deny that. But if
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The US Navy has been building small modular reactors for 50 years. This technology will directly translate to space missions.
The US Navy is literally travelling inside the worlds biggest heat sink. Getting rid of excess heat in space can only be done with black body radiators. The amount of heat transferred by black body radiation goes up with 4th power of temperature, so for maximum heat transfer per given surface area, you'd want to run your reactor at high temperatures. So even if you opt for nuclear, the US Navy reactor technology would be useless. A better design would be something like the current RTG system, but using uran
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something like the current RTG system, but using uranium + controllable neutron absorber instead of Pu-238.
Pretty much what you showed in the link to the NASA Kilopower system.
https://www.techradar.com/news... [techradar.com]
Big radiators, high temperature. But even then it has fairly low power at 10kW. Doesn't look at all like a US Navy reactor.
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On the Moon you could actually have photovoltaic arrays that double as nuclear radiators at night.
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The US Navy has been building small modular reactors for 50 years.
The Navy's idea of 'small' is (on the order of) 100 MWe and 1000 tons (as used in current nuclear submarines). They built one much smaller reactor (on the order of 100 kW) for the NR-1 submarine. Its weight is not published, but in diagrams, the reactor room takes up 2/3 of the ship's volume so could easily be 100 tons.
And in all cases, they have as much heat sink as they could possibly want, easily accessible by opening a valve.
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I really wonder how dumb you are.
A nuclear reactor on the moon will be an absurd amount of tons of weight. How do you assemble it?
Solar panels cost basically nothing.
At the end of 3 month it only counts if your tank is full with fuel. It has nothing to do with how long the sun is shining or how long it is not shining.
But, it seems you are the only person on /. who doe snot grasp those concepts ...
Nuclear power on the moon. My bet is: never going to happen ever.
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Nuclear power on the moon. My bet is: never going to happen ever.
The rocket scientists at NASA disagree with you.
https://www.techradar.com/news... [techradar.com]
Do you still want to make that bet?
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Yes, I take the bet.
The only conceivable nuclear power on the moon is an RTG ... and solar power.
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Solar is an obvious first choice in this application, because on the Moon the only limit to availability is the day/night cycle. Which is a month long, so you get two weeks of pure, no-atmosphere sunlight at a time. Split water slowly, so that later that energy can be recovered fast as thrust.
Yeah, just what we need (Score:2)
A billionnaire squandering another planet's precious resources
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Luna is a planet now?! Quick, call the Pluto apologists!
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are you serious?
the moon has a billion metric tons of water at each pole alone.
it's a dead rock, not a planet, and with no life
it is fine to use that water in any way by anyone that passes through
there is no danger of "exhausting the moons water"
even we had people there in habitat, they'd each be drinking 2 metric tons a year and recycling most of it.
"squandering" ... pfffft
Sure but how often? (Score:3)
"Bezos Says Blue Origin Will One Day Refuel Its Lunar Lander With Ice From the Moon "
How often?
Once in a blue moon?
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Well considering a blue moon happens every 2-3 years that'd be a significant upgrade... in a month it's 50 years since Apollo 11. The last four alive who walked on the moon are in their 80s now, it's a good bet that number will drop to zero before we return.
yeah sure sure (Score:1)
more hubris and space nutter nonsense
How About (Score:2, Insightful)
First getting something into earth orbit first? All BO bas done so far is test a sub orbital phallic amusement park ride.
Maybe it's a thing? (Score:2)
What a waste of water, typical irresponsibility (Score:1)
leave it to a rich person to come up with a plan that wastes a limited resource thoughtlessly
any water on the moon wouldn't just belong to Jeff to use as he sees fit, when are these affluent people going to learn that they can't just run amok and destroy everything in their quest for more power and to boost their egos
rich people are evil
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It ain’t an ecosystem unless it has life, so as far as I’m concerned, exploit away.
What’s important is not there is no life on the Moon, but that there will be life on the Moon.
Re: What a waste of water, typical irresponsibilit (Score:2)
So how are things at Oberlin these days?
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it isn't "limited", a billion metric tons on each pole alone, and it's on a dead rock with no life whatsoever.
you're whining about a resource that is fine to use for any purpose whatsoever
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AC can't do math, can't understand magnitudes, can't understand the difference between a world with ecosystem and a dead rock with not a single living thing on it.
So pathetic, so ignorant.
The water is gone now (Score:2)
India [wikipedia.org] found it [slashdot.org].
Bezos has been reading science fiction (Score:2)
There is a story (which, for the life of me, I cannot remember its title or who wrote it) about colonists on the Moon still needing to have supplies sent up from Earth, most particularly, water.
At some point the Earth and Moon get into a tizzy with the Earth essentially stopping to supply the Moon. This sets in motion the daring attempt by a group of miners to go to the asteroid belt. The story ends with the team landing this mountainous chunk of ice on the Moon which effectively kills the terran embargo.
S
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You're almost certainly thinking of The Martian Way, by Issac Asimov.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Thank you! Even though I have the book (somewhere), I could not for the life of me remember the title.
Someone with mod points, please give them.
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Because throughout human history, we have only ever worked on one problem at a time.