0191-9067/85 $3.00 + .00 Copyright ® 1985 SUNS AT Energy Council CIS-LUNAR INDUSTRIALIZATION AND HIGHER HUMAN OPTIONS* DAVID R. CRISWELL California Space Institute UCSD Mail Code A 021 La Jolla, California 92093, USA Abstract — Cis-lunar industries offer the second portal for mankind's entry into space. Lunar supported materials industries can spread to low Earth orbit (LEO) and then outward from the Earth-Moon system. Rockets from Earth are the first portal. Operating alone, rockets are uplift limited, constrain space construction and impose major costs and time penalties. Very small initial cis-lunar industries could output more useful mass to space annually than do all Earth-supported space flights. Complex components and critical lunar- deficient elements supplied from Earth would greatly leverage both industrial growth in space and the efficient use of space transportation systems. Known lunar resources can provide radiation/impact/thermal shielding, life-support and propulsion chemicals, refined engineering materials (oxygen, silicon, aluminum, titanium, calcium, magnesium, minor elements and many oxide and alloyed compounds). Other lunar resources, possibly even polar ices, will be found via exploration from orbit and on the surface. Solar power facilities in space made primarily from lunar materials can have energy payback times of tens of days. New low cost bulk industrial processes with minimal equipment can be expected. Doubling times of a few months are reasonable for many systems. Very fast industrial growth is possible. Permanently inhabited, growing facilities can rapidly extend burgeoning terrestrial technologies, skills, and commercial links into space. Humans in space will need and receive a wider and more progressive range of productive facilities, goods, and services than provided previously in space. They will direct from space more appropriate new developments and activities than can be accomplished by Earth-bound decision makers. They will be more deeply and consistently attentive to the growing permanent presence of mankind off Earth. Several new extensions of human presence into space are described. New Net Wealth must be created in space from solar energy and common resources for permanent human growth off Earth. All major space programs should start developing now the tools for creation of new wealth. The full range of terrestrial technical skills, not just those in aerospace, should be considered. We should circumvent the restrictions of the exponential rocket equation. We should send outward maximum smarts and minimum mass to build cooperative but reasonably autonomous human facilities in cis-lunar space. Cis-lunar industries can build the portals for human expansion into the solar system and beyond. A twopronged program for starting growing cis-lunar industrialization is presented. 1. EARTH INDUSTRY Any discussion of space industrialization should note the fact that mankind has industrialized Earth. Man lives primarily in a human-made context. There are lessons to be remembered and used as humanity extends itself off Earth permanently. *Portions of this paper were presented at the conference, “Charting a Course for Spaceship Earth,” Session 9, Earth Orbit and Cis-Lunar Operations, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Baltimore, MD, 25-27 May 1982. Research was sponsored in part by the California Space Institute of the University of California, San Diego.
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