Independent study finds NASA’s Mars plans infeasible
Surprise, surprise! An independent study, ordered by Congress, has determined that NASA’s Mars exploration plans are infeasible and cannot get the U.S. to the red planet in 2033 as NASA claims.
STPI, at NASA’s direction, used the strategy the agency had laid out in its “Exploration Campaign” report, which projects the continued use of the Space Launch System and Orion and development of the lunar Gateway in the 2020s. That would be followed by the Deep Space Transport (DST), a crewed spacecraft that would travel from cislunar space to Mars and back. NASA would also develop lunar landers are related system to support crewed missions to the lunar surface, while also working on systems for later missions to the surface of Mars.
That work, the STPI report concluded, will take too long to complete in time to support a 2033 mission. “We find that even without budget constraints, a Mars 2033 orbital mission cannot be realistically scheduled under NASA’s current and notional plans,” the report states. “Our analysis suggests that a Mars orbital mission could be carried out no earlier than the 2037 orbital window without accepting large technology development, schedule delay, cost overrun, and budget shortfall risks.”
I guarantee that even if NASA got a blank check from Congress it could not make the 2037 date above either, not if they intend to use SLS, Orion, and Gateway.
This report was ordered by Congress as part of the building political desire in Washington to shift gears away from SLS and to the private sector. SLS has too many vested interests, both in and out of Congress, for the cowards in Washington to just shut it down. In order to do so, they need ammunition they can use against those vested interests. This report, though stating the obvious, gives them that ammunition, as it carries an official think tank stamp, something the mediocre minds in DC require for them to take any forthright action.
At the same time, I can see the corrupt porkmeisters in Congress, such as Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), drooling over this report. They see the gigantic budget and endless time it estimates NASA will need to go to Mars with SLS, Orion, and Gateway as a feature, not a bug.
“As such,” the report concludes, “a mission to Mars orbit in 2033 is infeasible from a technology development and schedule perspective.” The next launch window, in 2035, was also deemed infeasible because of technology development work, pushing the earliest possible date for flying the mission to the following launch window in 2037.
STPI also estimated the cost of carrying out this first Mars mission in 2037. The report estimated the total cost of just those elements needed for the Mars mission, including SLS, Orion, Gateway, DST and other logistics, at $120.6 billion through fiscal year 2037. Of that total, $33.7 billion has been spent to date on SLS and Orion development and associated ground systems.
Another $90 billion in pork, spread over twenty years! Wow, that’s exactly what many of the thieves in Washington like. This wasteful spending won’t serve the nation’s needs by making us a competitive space-faring nation, but it will distribute a lot of money to the people who donate campaign dollars to these politicians.
Which way will we go? I have no idea right now. The voters could make a difference, if the voters finally decided to clean out Congress. I see no evidence of them doing so, however, so expect bad things for the future.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Surprise, surprise! An independent study, ordered by Congress, has determined that NASA’s Mars exploration plans are infeasible and cannot get the U.S. to the red planet in 2033 as NASA claims.
STPI, at NASA’s direction, used the strategy the agency had laid out in its “Exploration Campaign” report, which projects the continued use of the Space Launch System and Orion and development of the lunar Gateway in the 2020s. That would be followed by the Deep Space Transport (DST), a crewed spacecraft that would travel from cislunar space to Mars and back. NASA would also develop lunar landers are related system to support crewed missions to the lunar surface, while also working on systems for later missions to the surface of Mars.
That work, the STPI report concluded, will take too long to complete in time to support a 2033 mission. “We find that even without budget constraints, a Mars 2033 orbital mission cannot be realistically scheduled under NASA’s current and notional plans,” the report states. “Our analysis suggests that a Mars orbital mission could be carried out no earlier than the 2037 orbital window without accepting large technology development, schedule delay, cost overrun, and budget shortfall risks.”
I guarantee that even if NASA got a blank check from Congress it could not make the 2037 date above either, not if they intend to use SLS, Orion, and Gateway.
This report was ordered by Congress as part of the building political desire in Washington to shift gears away from SLS and to the private sector. SLS has too many vested interests, both in and out of Congress, for the cowards in Washington to just shut it down. In order to do so, they need ammunition they can use against those vested interests. This report, though stating the obvious, gives them that ammunition, as it carries an official think tank stamp, something the mediocre minds in DC require for them to take any forthright action.
At the same time, I can see the corrupt porkmeisters in Congress, such as Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), drooling over this report. They see the gigantic budget and endless time it estimates NASA will need to go to Mars with SLS, Orion, and Gateway as a feature, not a bug.
“As such,” the report concludes, “a mission to Mars orbit in 2033 is infeasible from a technology development and schedule perspective.” The next launch window, in 2035, was also deemed infeasible because of technology development work, pushing the earliest possible date for flying the mission to the following launch window in 2037.
STPI also estimated the cost of carrying out this first Mars mission in 2037. The report estimated the total cost of just those elements needed for the Mars mission, including SLS, Orion, Gateway, DST and other logistics, at $120.6 billion through fiscal year 2037. Of that total, $33.7 billion has been spent to date on SLS and Orion development and associated ground systems.
Another $90 billion in pork, spread over twenty years! Wow, that’s exactly what many of the thieves in Washington like. This wasteful spending won’t serve the nation’s needs by making us a competitive space-faring nation, but it will distribute a lot of money to the people who donate campaign dollars to these politicians.
Which way will we go? I have no idea right now. The voters could make a difference, if the voters finally decided to clean out Congress. I see no evidence of them doing so, however, so expect bad things for the future.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
As I feared, not a mention of the Elephant in the room. GRAVITY, or the lack there of…Are we to believe after an 8 month trip to the red planet, the crew is going to walk around the Martian Surface by merely exercising with rubber band resistance all that time? I doubt they will even be able to walk, yet they all act as though prolonged zero G on the Astronauts is no big deal, including Musk.
Orion314: You really should read more. You might for example read my book, Leaving Earth, which documents the medical problems of weightlessness quite thoroughly.
The whole reason this report says they can’t launch on time is because getting to Mars will require a much bigger vehicle than Orion, so that the crew has room to exercise, and thus reduce the problems of weightlessness in preparation for their arrival on Mars. Getting that interplanetary ship built, when NASA will be wasting its money on Gateway, will take more time than NASA has.
I agree however that many people, like Musk, most politicians, and too many at NASA, are more ignorant about the problems of weightlessness than they should be. However, I think overall the engineers working on Mars exploration both at NASA and privately understand the issues, and are getting a handle on them.
Thinking about the issues related to landing and takeoff from the Mars surface I wonder if exploring Mars with real time controlled robots and drones from orbit or maybe a Mars moon would be a realistic goal for the next 50 years or so.
Foxbat: Why do you want the robots to have all the fun?
Mr Z, why is this solution to the problem of extended zero G so secretive? The consensus seems to be like NASA ” Not my yob” the next guy will solve that , as soon as i retire”.
You said “However, I think overall the engineers working on Mars exploration both at NASA and privately understand the issues, and are getting a handle on them.” and yet, decades of ISS research has zero research for artificial gravity re: human space flight , buy any means. Please show us all, some evidence, they have a plan to resolve this problem.
Do you have any proof of that? Your claim seems to be based on faith and hope. If so, you have far more F&H than I, But i suspect you’re a younger man than I, so goodonya, as the aussies say…
@Orion314
Robert’s point is that those working on interplanetary space flight ARE working on the issue and have been since at least the 1970’s. One of the reasons orbital space stations became a thing is because of the need for information about really long term spaceflight. The human factors stuff was especially needed if we were to go to places like Mars.
Orion314: I wish I was a young man. I would not be surprised if I am older than you. :)
I make no claim on “faith and hope.” I base what I write on years of rigorous research. I outline in great detail in Leaving Earth the research the Russians did on the effects and cures for long term weightlessness. U.S. research on ISS has supplemented this considerably. The problem is not solved, it will involve considerable health risk to spend two years in weightlessness, but I think they are getting a handle on the problem.
What they haven’t done and need to do is begin testing the benefits, if any, of low grade centrifugal force. The tiny amount of research that has been done has suggested that it might be possible to mitigate the negative consequences of weightlessness with only a little acceleration from centrifugal force. If so, the engineering challenges of doing this go down a lot. We need to find out.
And no, this information is not being kept a secret. (Where do people get such ideas?) It is readily available from numerous sources. I post on it here on BtB whenever new results come in. And once again, I wrote about it in depth in Leaving Earth.
It is secret , because, NASA never EVER discusses this issue. Where are there’re public plans to resolve this posted?.
Please show us the NASA URL that explains how the micro gravity problems will be resolved? NASA/JPL et al. proudly post the most inane PC “Mission topics” one can imagine ,political correctness gone mad,. Yet no one on this site can come up with a URL link to convince me you are correct, and it is I , only I , that is full of [deleted].
With bated breath , I await a modicum of evidence……
please gang , jump in, pile drive.. i very much want to be wrong on this topic. But you need more than faith to convince me.
So far, i’m still waiting.
Orion, it only takes a few keystrokes to find abundant information on NASA’s research into the topic and proposed solutions, combined with research programs.
NASA seems to be planning too big, rather than planning for rapid schedule. It is almost like NASA of the early 1960s, when they were thinking of a huge rocket to go directly to the Moon. The alternative was to perform two launches large rockets and go with the Earth orbit rendezvous option for orbital refueling. However, the option that they went with was the risky compromise of using a large (not huge) rocket to perform a lunar orbit rendezvous.
I think that NASA needs to start working on a similar compromise for getting to Mars, otherwise they are likely to be scooped by commercial companies that are eager to do it, either for personal reasons (Musk wants to live in an old-age home on Mars), commercial reasons (they may be able to get paid billions for a mission that gets NASA there, saving NASA tens of billions), or for the prestige (similar to SpaceX going around the Moon with Starship).
I am a bit concerned that the head of NASA does not know the real reason for going to the Moon. From the article: “‘Why do we go to the moon? Why is that so important?’ NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine … ‘Well, because we’re keeping our eyes on the horizon. The moon is a proving ground. It’s the best place for us to live and work on another world so that we can ultimately go to Mars.’”
Although some of the technologies for use on Mars could be tested on the Moon, the environments are quite different, and several technologies are unique to each location.
The real reason to go to the Moon is to get the water at the poles for use as propellant so that we don’t have to haul all our propellant from Earth at great cost. Using lunar material as propellant is the real horizon to keep our eyes on.
Robert,
You wrote: “What they haven’t done and need to do is begin testing the benefits, if any, of low grade centrifugal force.”
I suspect that the reason we don’t see rotating space stations is that NASA does not have the intention of making a rotating section of a Mars ship, as was seen in the movie “The Martian.” For this case, the solutions need to be for a zero-G, free-fall ship.
I, too, would like to see a rotating space station, because we could easily do experiments at a variety of “gravity” levels without having to go to the Moon or Mars. However, that is not something that anyone is talking about, these days, much less planning for.
I suspect that the need for this is in the future, and you and I are going to be disappointed for the next decade or two.
Orion314: You’ve done it again. For the second time you’ve posted obscenities in a comment. I have deleted it.
According to my rules, I should now ban you for good. What do my readers say? Should I? I have suspended Orion314 at the moment, but can either lift that suspension in a week, or make it permanent. What do you think?
For those new here and who don’t know my rules concerning obscenities, read this post:
No obscenities on Behind the Black
You will note that Orion314 commended me on this policy in a comment there.
I also do not permit people to use insults as a tactic in debate. If you cannot act like a civilized human being, go somewhere else.
Orion314,
You wrote: “please gang , jump in, pile drive.. i very much want to be wrong on this topic. But you need more than faith to convince me.”
Here is just one reference to the study of the long term effects of weightlessness:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/nasa-announces-iss-manned-launch-schedule-through-february-2020/
Robert,
You asked: “ What do my readers say?”
I am not a fan of permanent bans on people who are usually good and otherwise provide good discussion.
Just a quick couple of points.
1) Why is everyone so down on the Gateway? It’s not in a good orbit, but other than that, it’s the start of a good cislunar architecture that facilitates the economical exploration of the moon, Mars, and asteroids. Fix the orbit and make sure it’s expandable, and it’ll be good.
2) The report doesn’t require launching to Mars instead of a manned lunar landing. In fact, the reason the report states that Mars 2033 is infeasible is because it assumes five moon landings on flights EM-8 through EM-12 in 2028 through 2032. Only then is the Deep Space Transport (the manned Mars ship) launched in 2033. Three years of checkout, shakedown, and refit then occur from 2034 to 2036 before the manned Mars mission flies in 2037.
If I actually thought that SLS and Orion could pull off a cislunar gateway, five manned moon landings, and a manned Mars mission in 18 years at current funding, I’d support it. Alas, I don’t think that’s possible.
Everything at NASA is in flux. SLS missions are still planned but Gateway could largely be constructed with private vehicles and some missions could be a mix of SLS and other launchers. From the construction of Gateway to the lunar prospecting missions, NASA wants to take a COTS like approach.
This means that companies get seed money through milestone based competition. These companies get help, funding and technical, developing their products and can market their products to other customers. A company that builds a mod for Gateway can then turn around and use a duplicate for a private station in LEO or a lunar hab. But that company might not be able to do it on their own without NASA as an initial customer.
Gateway isn’t perfect but it min/maxes on enabling lunar and Martian missions. I have yet to see good criticism of Gateway, most of it is off kilter, or a proposed alternative that doesn’t have a lot of the same drawbacks that people accuse Gateway of. There are a lot of different ways to do things and they all have pros/cons.
None of the work is completed that needs to be done for establishing a lunar base and the biggest drawback to current proposals is that they rely on existing rockets. Why should anyone be designing a crewed lunar lander or habitat that uses existing launchers when Super Heavy is on the near horizon? By the time work is done to make something for existing launchers, Super Heavy will be flying.
What should be done, is an intensive focus on prospecting. This is what NASA wants to do in addition to SLS missions. Placing infrastructure on the lunar surface to support humans wont be cheap, especially if it has a limited life span. The same is more true for Mars. Since some people are so concerned with cost, they need to look at the cost of the alternatives in a realistic way.
The best way forward is taking small measured risks that don’t tie all the participants down and actually enable participants to pursue what activities they want to, not just what NASA wants to do. SLS doesn’t matter. They only have a limited number of engines. The important thing is the other track NASA is pursuing at the same time.
Building a rotating space station is not much harder physically than building a suspension bridge. Its just a a bridge with the to ends connected together and its all suspended from a single central point.
The two main problems are the size.
It would have to be HUGE to create a 1g environment at a slow spin speed. If its smaller the speed needs to be increased to compensate.
https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/
And second, docking to a rotating object. Dock to the fast moving edge or dock to the slow moving center? Stop the center? How?
So far NASA says this is not impossible, just not doable with current technology.
I say its doable with current tech, just hard. Man power intensive. And we know NASA does not like man power intensive activities.
There is a huge number of other problems but I see those a pretty much small and solvable.
pzatchok – I enjoyed playing around with the SpinCalc page. Gave me some interesting insights.
Tom Scott recently posted a video on his experience in the Artificial Gravity Lab.
https://youtu.be/bJ_seXo-Enc
NASA wants to solve the artificial gravity problem by just getting to Mars faster.
IMO, spin rate is important not just for docking but for the view out the windows.
We could find that lunar gravity is not very enjoyable from a human factors perspective, even if it isn’t as detrimental as microgravity. A variable gravity station would allow for tours on the Lunar surface with stays on the station to recuperate. I wouldn’t be surprised if lunar activities for humans were: maintenance, construction, indoor research, and limited specialty excursions.
As for mining anything on the moon.
In my opinion is a waste of time, effort and cash. By the time we get a viable mining setup on the moon the cost of just launching the material from Earth will still be cheaper and easier.
If you have ever seen the gold mining show on Discovery that’s about the size of operation you would need to get water out of the moon. Add in the living and life support habitats, the water cracking facility, the compression and bottling facility, the launch facility and never forget the HUGE power production facility that’s will be needed for everything.
Unless you want to constantly be sending food to the moon add in a small farm.
I almost forgot, add in a maintenance and machine shop to make and fix everything that breaks.
Sorry but even robot facilities need people maintenance.
All of that just to get rocket fuel off the moon cheaper than from Earth.
As for the Gateway station. Just a big waste of time and money. Its like a bus station and storage facility in the middle of a short road between two cities. Just use the same vehicle you used to get off the moon and ride it all the way back to Earth. Heck it will more than likely be robotic and not have people on it anyways so if it takes three weeks or three days to get to Earth who cares. any ship carrying people will have to have life support for at least a trip to Earth just for emergencies so just use it for the whole return trip.
The last thing it could be used for is a telecommunications satellite. I think we have enough experience in that field to not need anything more than what we already have now. Just build and park one around the moon.
Gateway is an excuse for the SLS to exist. Nothing more.
“NASA wants to solve the artificial gravity problem by just getting to Mars faster.”
That’s not solving a problem just dodging it.
Physical rehab work could be done just as well in Earth orbit as in Lunar orbit.
If researchers on the Moon need a little extra gravity it would be cheaper to just ship a centrifuge to the moon. Then they could use it everyday. It could be as simple as an electric car on a circular track inside the dome.
Think cheaper.
What about the communications (time lapse, for example) and radiation problems? The astronuts would have to be masochistic hermit types as the major qualification.
mkent wrote: “Why is everyone so down on the Gateway? It’s not in a good orbit, but other than that, it’s the start of a good cislunar architecture that facilitates the economical exploration of the moon, Mars, and asteroids. Fix the orbit and make sure it’s expandable, and it’ll be good.”
But is it going to do what needs to be done at the time it needs to be done? If we build a good lunar space station too early, then we have spent money that could have better been spent on what is needed now. Instead, we miss out on what is needed now, making the usefulness of Gateway happen even later than it would have been. In planning the construction of infrastructure, you want items to come online as they are needed, not years or decades too soon, otherwise you spend precious resources on the wrong items when they should have gone for those items that are needed sooner. Delaying the items that are needed sooner merely delays the need for the items you built first. Poor planning and poor execution.
This fits in with mkent’s second point, are five manned lunar landings needed before we go to Mars? Only if we intend to use lunar propellant in our first Mars flight. But NASA does not seem to be interested in lunar propellant yet, so lunar landings this early are a distraction, not a benefit — a bug in the plan, not a feature.
Fixing Gateway’s orbit is one thing, but do we yet know what orbit would be optimal? We probably won’t know until after several lunar landings that help determine exactly what we want to do on the Moon. It may be that two lunar space stations would be best, but just as it is too early to plan for a lunar space station, it is far too early to plan for two. Meanwhile, ULA prefers the idea of a station at the Earth-Moon Lagrange point, L1, over a lunar space station:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxftPmpt7aA (7 minutes, “ULA CisLunar 1000”)
An intensive focus on prospecting would likely drive the optimal orbit(s) for lunar space stations as well as for lunar surface stations (even if the “surface” is inside a lava tube).
These are only a few reasons why we are so down on Gateway, right now.
The advantage of the modular design is that it can expand into what we need it to be, later, yet allow it to do what we need now. Except that we don’t need it now.
wodun asked: “
Why should anyone be designing a crewed lunar lander or habitat that uses existing launchers when Super Heavy is on the near horizon?”
I suspect that NASA does not yet trust that commercial companies will make the rockets that they say they will make or that they will make them when they say they will. There is reason to be cautious. For SpaceX, Falcon 1 was not available for the Air Force, which had expected to be able to use it, and versions of Dragon were made due to government decisions that reduced their desirability. Falcon Heavy (and New Shepard, SpaceShipTwo, and various other projects) were not completed in the time frame originally announced.
pzatchok asked: “And second, docking to a rotating object. Dock to the fast moving edge or dock to the slow moving center? Stop the center? How?”
A de-spun section, attached to the hub, would provide for both a free-fall micro-gravity section and stable docking ports.
pzatchok also pointed out that getting to Mars faster dodges the artificial gravity problem.
If the problem that is solved by using artificial gravity is solved instead by getting to Mars faster, then there is no need for artificial gravity, so artificial gravity does not even become a problem to solve.
Interstellar; docking with Endurance
https://youtu.be/c4tPQYNpW9k
3:38
Gateway space station. 25 minutes
https://newatlas.com/gateway-foundation-von-braun-rotating-space-station/58528/
For a trip to Mars, after escape burn, separate living quarters from return rocket and fuel with a tether and rotate. The lighter craft will orbit the other at 1G. Fuel and water must be frozen or stored in the middle to prevent drag. (Try spinning a raw egg)
I prefer a long tube flipping end over end. This can be done for free by saving final boosters, still attached to construction payloads, to use pressure tanks for living quarters/structure supports. Connecting points and airlocks can be built into the fuel tanks before launching. (The space shuttle center fuel tank had as much room as a 747 jet)
Pink Floyd –
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun/Mars Direct
https://youtu.be/a9ntxCcjVjE
9:47
Max,
The tether idea has been proposed, but there has been little research or testing into this possibility. This is yet another disappointment for me.
The more that I think about SpaceX, the more I realize that its main advantage is that they do rapid development. Not only does this bring their products and services to market quickly, but it costs them less than a long, drawn out development program. Less cost, revenue stream sooner, return on investment takes less time to achieve. They take some risks with their test hardware, but it also enables them to learn their lessons sooner. They didn’t wait to have a high level of confidence that the first Falcon Heavy would make it to orbit, because they needed to test their system sooner rather than later.
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are taking a long time to get their rockets operational. Rather than generating revenue, these are costing them money. For the past couple of years, Jeff Bezos has been selling about a billion dollars of his Amazon stock in order to fund his space developments. Meanwhile, SpaceX was founded two years after Blue Origin but is making money.
NASA makes plans for going to Mars, but these plans are expensive and are always more than a decade away. SpaceX thinks that it can go to Mars in about a decade, and without as much hardware as NASA plans to develop.
Despite SpaceX being willing to try new things, they do not seem to be planning to try a tether in order to make artificial gravity for their Mars missions.
pzatchok wrote: “As for mining anything on the moon. In my opinion is a waste of time, effort and cash. By the time we get a viable mining setup on the moon the cost of just launching the material from Earth will still be cheaper and easier.”
Not if we plan to do a lot of activity in space. If it is cheap to launch from Earth, it would be far, far cheaper to launch from the Moon. We may want to transport throughout the solar system, or even just in the Earth’s gravity well (out to the Moon). The idea of space based solar power plants is making a comeback, and these will take a lot of mass to build.
The delta-v to get from the Earth’s surface to low Earth orbit (LEO) is about as much delta-v as it takes to escape the sun’s gravity well. This means that getting to just about anywhere else in the solar system takes less delta-v than to get off the planet. Getting out of Earth’s gravity well out to the Moon’s orbit is another 1/3 of the Earth-launch delta-v, so getting to anywhere in the solar system from that high orbit is only about 2/3 delta-v as it takes to get off the planet.
The difference between getting material from the Earth to space and getting it from the Moon to space is enormous. It may not seem like it, because we talk about delta-v of 9.4 from Earth and 1.7 from the Moon, but it takes far more than 5.4 times as much fuel to get to LEO from the Earth than to lunar orbit orbit from the Moon.
To compare what it takes to accomplish these tasks with similar spacecraft, notice that a two-man Gemini spacecraft, weighing around 8,000 lbs, took an entire Titan II rocket to get to LEO, but a two-man Lunar Ascent Module weighing about 5,000 lbs dry and about 10,000 lbs with fuel, could take itself into orbit, no additional rocket necessary.
The reason that it does not take only 5.4 times more propellant to get to LEO than low lunar orbit is that, while both craft need about the same fuel to go the last 1.7 km/sec, Gemini also had to go another 1.7 km/sec, and the propellant to go that last 1.7 km/sec had to also be accelerated. The propellant needed for Gemini to go the last 3.4 km/sec also had to be accelerated by another 1.7 km/sec, and the propellant needed to go the last 5.1 km/sec had to be accelerated yet another 1.7 km/sec. And so on and so forth. A lot of propellant needed to be accelerated, and that takes a lot of propellant to do.
To put numbers to the propellant needed, let’s notice that for the Lunar Ascent Module, the weight of propellant was needed for a 1.73 km/sec delta-v is the same as the spacecraft being accelerated. If everything were equal (but it is not) then, for Gemini, the last 1.73 km/sec needs to use 8,000 lbs of propellant to go from a high suborbital trajectory into orbit. But the penultimate delta-v of 1.73 km/sec then would take 16,000 lbs. So the antepenultimate delta-v takes 32,000 lbs, and the next 64,000 lbs. The next takes 128,000 lbs, and that very first 0.4 delta-v off the pad takes, what, another 128,000 lbs? Adding these up, we get somewhere around 376,000 lbs of propellant. Not a bad analysis, because the Titan II GLV rockets that took Gemini to orbit weighed 340,000 lbs.
What you are thinking, right now, is that there is an equation for figuring out the fuel needed, and it looks like 2 raised to the delta-v. Well, you are close. Tsiolkovsky figured it out, and it is called the rocket equation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation
So the fuel-mass is related to the natural log, e, raised to the delta-v (as modified by the engine efficiency); where e is around 2.7.
What does it all mean?
It means that reducing the delta-v can dramatically reduce the propellant use. Increasing delta-v exponentially increases propellant use. By my calculation, going from LEO to the Moon’s orbit could take 1/20 as much propellant as getting to LEO from the Earth, although space engines (sustainer engines) tend to be more efficient than booster engines. Moving around the Earth’s gravity well takes much less than getting off the Planet, so if we want to do much in space, we don’t want to get the materials from Earth. Once again, if it is cheap to launch from Earth, it would be far, far cheaper to launch from the Moon.
Mining the Moon can save a huge number of rocket launches from Earth. The Gateway Foundation’s rotating space station, that Max linked to, would hardly be feasible if all the material had to be lifted from the Earth. Imagine the number of Super Heavy launches that would be needed to make just one such space station. But much smaller rockets and fewer launches would be needed from the Moon, if we would only mine the Moon.
And we don’t need to start with a huge mining, refining, and manufacturing operation. A small one would be able to “bootstrap” a larger one, when it is needed.
Unless we are not planning to do very much in space, give it up, and stay on Earth as homebodies.
Edward: Though I hate banning people, especially those who do contribute, I also hate how our society is becoming a pigsty. I refuse to contribute in any way to the decline. I am becoming very reluctant to tolerate bad behavior, just because everyone else is doing so.
I will consider what you say, but unless more people chime in, I am doubtful I will change my decision here.