MMM Classics Year 7: MMM #s 61-70

“A question of not wasting spent personpower”By Peter KokhMaking the most of energy and personnel will be veryimportant anywhere on the space frontier where existence mustbe eked out in barren surroundings untransformed by eons ofliving predecessors. Support from Earth will be dear, no matterto what cost/per kilogram launch expenses fall. To waste noimport crumb, to put to best use every scheduled productivehour, to get the most out of the talents of available personnel, itwill be vitally important to keep track of things of which weare by habit oblivious in our terrestrial “business as usual”. Thesettlement with the cavalier attitude towards loose ends willfail. The one that ties up those loose ends in bonus bouquetswill thrive.What is needed is a hyper-organized or multi-dimensionalmatrix type data base in which the settlement can keeptrack of every gram of reject and byproduct and waste in everycategory of material from all its industries and enterprises. Anyenterprise would be able to access this resource bank and findout which of its needs is available, where, and for how much.Any discarded material has already had work done on it - ifonly the sorting, and putting that expended work to profitableuse, instead of losing it in a default waste regime, will enhanceby that much the net productivity of the community.Relatively unprocessed tailings, partially processedslag, fully processed reject material; solids, liquids, gasses,even waste heat: these are all things worth keeping track of ifone wants a leg up on the formidable odds against success ofthe settlement. Such items can then be banked where producedor moved along specific routing channels to some surpluscommodities exchange warehouse. Purchases can be direct twoparty affairs or mediated by the utility as a special broker.Using “partially cycled” or “precycled” items makesas much economic sense as using “recycled” ones. It keepsdown the cost of manufacturing new goods, can be the sourceof new enterprises, and helps minimize the material impactupon, and disturbance of, the host terrain, thereby stretchingresources that future generations will need as well.An “Encyclobin” Utility would be a publicly regulatedenterprise to keep track of all such items and chargedwith facilitating their fuller use as potential resources. Bykeeping track of byproducts unwanted by each producer, it willhelp inform the “right hand” of what the “left hand” is“bydoing” so to speak. Personal talents, expertise, andexperience ought also to be listed for help in putting togetherteams for new projects. Encyclobin would serve as a finderservice, for which there would be a fee to help maintain andgrow the system.The University might run such a system to bestcategorize everything, trace potential connections, and suggestnovel applications to enterprise. Waste not, want not!MMM #67 - JUL 1993What if the Moon’s “Lost Lakes” are Dry?[L] There is now some strongcircumstantial evidence thatpolar ‘permashade’ ‘coldtraps’ do not hold significantreserves of water ice, any icelong ago sublimated.[R] Yet the Moon’s water glass is 89% full. Asmuch water as we could dream of — 8/9ths of itis already there in the oxygen bound up in theregolith sands. “Dry water” to be sure. And onlya relative ‘puddle’ of wetting hydrogen is to behad from the same source. How to industrialize adry Moon?Hydrogen: The “Water-Maker”Lunar Industrialization: Part IV by Peter KokhLUNAR POLAR ICE FIELD RESERVES.- NOT ?The ‘88-’91 drive to design, fund, build and flyLunar Prospector and the current drive to get Congress topass the Lunar Resources Data Purchases Act have bothbeen hyped on the possibility of finding lunar polar permashadeice fields, hopefully extensive enough to “fuel” early andaccelerated utilization of Lunar resources, and thereby jumpstart a spacefaring civilization. Even if the results are negativeand lunar “cold traps” are dry, we still need both Probe and Actto put together a global geochemical map of lunar resourcesupon which to base alternative plans for economicdevelopment.And dry they probably are. Francis Graham who firstsuggested the method by which episodic increases in the incidenceof cometary impacts on the Moon could lead to coldtrappingof significant volatile reserves, is very pessimistic.The suggested mechanism may have actually worked to storeup water ice and clathrates, water and carbon oxide ices mixedalong with other frozen volatiles. But the point is that “lossmechanisms” must also have been at work, inexorablyvaporizing and dissipating any temporary deposits. While the“Sun doesn’t shine” over lunar polar permashade craters, theSolar Wind and Cosmic Rays share no such inhibitions. If atvarious times in Lunar history, polar ice fields have existed -Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 7 - Republished January 2006 - Page 44