Mining on MOON FIFO or FUFD?

I work for a Mining/Construction company doing FIFO. During last RDO we were drinking & discussing about future of mining and FIFO works. One of my friend made a good comment, he said forget FIFO, we will be doing FUFD (Fly Up-Fly Down)soon. He explained. There are plenty of minerals on MOON. Many companies/investors are interested in investing on infrastructure and mining projects on Moon. Mineral like He3 is the one, they are interested in. Then we discussed the salary and wages, rosters, RDO and R&R and project completion Bonus. Here were some question raised (after 4-5 or more beers)
• How much will be the wages ($500 per hour?)
• What will be the roster (2 years Up & 6 months down?)
• FUFD Effects on relationship, family and children etc.
• Health effects on workers
When I came back for my R&R last week, I discussed with my wife and kids, Wife disagree with this FUFD idea, she said no one will go up there (on the moon) but my son said that it's a cool idea, I will see you working up there on moon! Don't through a stone on us:D
Do you think FUFD is possible in near future? Anybody interested to join?
 
why not?

If a multinational saw enough profit in it and could raise the finance.

Technology seems to be improving at an exponential rate. From my understanding, the processor used to power the original lunar lander is no more powerful than one you would find in a modern day calculator.
 
Sounds interesting but what is he3 and what could it be used for ? What about buying some of the moon so we can set up accomodation for the good keen fellows who wish to work there ?
 
taken from wikipedia
Helium-3 (He-3) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. It is rare on Earth, and is sought for use in nuclear fusion research. The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon (embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years) and the solar system's gas giants (left over from the original solar nebula), though still low in quantity (28 ppm of lunar regolith is helium-4 and 0.01 ppm is helium-3).[1]

Only issue with working in 0 gravity is that bone density goes down so unless you can create artificial gravity no one will be working up there.
Most likely do everything by remote control

The legal question is who owns the moon?
Does the US own it they planted a flag but then didn't they say for all man kind.

personally I would like to look at a full moon and see a big mine. best bet is to work on the dark side so that the moon view isn't ruined
 
Sounds interesting but what is he3 and what could it be used for ? What about buying some of the moon so we can set up accomodation for the good keen fellows who wish to work there ?

Cubic helium? Could stack it close together and transport it easier than in gaseous form? :D

Certainly an interesting idea, which also usually gets brought up when camping (outside so can see the moon) after a few ... drinks (opens the mind wonderfully).

Can't see it happening in my lifetime, but who knows!!?!
 
I work for a Mining/Construction company doing FIFO. During last RDO we were drinking & discussing about future of mining and FIFO works. One of my friend made a good comment, he said forget FIFO, we will be doing FUFD (Fly Up-Fly Down)soon. He explained. There are plenty of minerals on MOON. Many companies/investors are interested in investing on infrastructure and mining projects on Moon. Mineral like He3

• How much will be the wages ($500 per hour?)
• What will be the roster (2 years Up & 6 months down?)
• FUFD Effects on relationship, family and children etc.
• Health effects on workers

Do you think FUFD is possible in near future? Anybody interested to join?


It costs an incredible amount to send stuff into low earth orbit. About $10,000 to $25,000 per kilo. It costs about $1.5 billion for a space shuttle flight, although the shuttle was an monumental disaster. It's much less for conventional non-reusable launches. So then, forget the stupid shuttle, Lets use cheap, tried and true russian technology then? The price for a flight brokered by Space Adventures to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft is US $20–35 million per person.

So it costs much much more to get to the moon. Then more again to land on the moon. To send men, you also have to send food, water, oxygen, etc. Then to get them home again it all takes more energy and cost and fuel.



If this ever happened, it would only be with something worth many millions of dollars per kilo. So helium3 might be a reason to do it.

But why send humans? That would be silly. As above, it would be so expensive. Send automated robots. It only needs to be a one way trip for a robot, they don't have to come back. It doesn't matter so much if the rocket explodes so the rockets can be cheaper to start with.

As also above, what ever is mined will have to be worth millions per kilo. So not much stuff will be actually be sent back. Say it's helium3..?? There might only be a few tonnes per year being sent back and that much might provide a lot of power. It could be simply put into projectiles, and with one sixth gravity, and no atmosphere it could be shot into lunar orbit, then at low cost returned to earth. But humans would need expensive rockets to get them off the moon and back to earth, you can't just shoot humans into orbit. Humans need rockets and a few gee's acceleration with a life sustaining capsule attached. It would cost hundreds of millions per human. Crazy.



As a kid, I read all Arthur C Clarks books. He foresaw satellites in space, geo-stationary satellites and space travel in the 40's and 50's. But he did get it a fair bit wrong. He saw thousands of people living in space. He saw giant space stations as the TV stations beeming the news down. The news reader actually lived in space. The reality is just boring satellites full of electrical equipment, whizzing above the earth.

I can see mining of space. Done by robots. Hopefully humans will be going into space too, but they will be exploring, colonising planets, doing all the exciting stuff. Robots will be doing the mining.


See ya's.
 
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It costs an incredible amount to send stuff into low earth orbit. About $10,000 to $25,000 per kilo. It costs about $1.5 billion for a space shuttle flight, although the shuttle was an monumental disaster. It's much less for conventional non-reusable launches. So then, forget the stupid shuttle, Lets use cheap, tried and true russian technology then? The price for a flight brokered by Space Adventures to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft is US $20–35 million per person.

So it costs much much more to get to the moon. Then more again to land on the moon. To send men, you also have to send food, water, oxygen, etc. Then to get them home again it all takes more energy and cost and fuel.

you forgot to add "now"

there were times when plane tickets were expensive
 
you forgot to add "now"

there were times when plane tickets were expensive


Fair enough call. It's pretty hard to see more than a few decades into the future.

Airtravel has become cheap. But it's not because energy has gotten cheaper, it's efficiencies elsewhere, and scales of economy. The major reason space travel is so expensive is because of how much energy it takes. Soyuz rockets are manufactured on an assembly line, they are simple and cheap and safe and effective, unlike the space shuttle, but it still costs an absolute fortune to send a kilo of mass into space. The soyuz rocket has got to be an example of how cheap space travel can get.

We need a new source of cheap energy for space travel to become cheap? And if some new form of energy were found, why would we need to mine Helium3? Dunno.


See ya's.
 
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space travel is dead.

the only way we're gonna get across the solar system / orion / galaxy is to bend space*

and we need energy to do that, more energy than you can possibly fathom.

so we're stuck here for a little while yet.

*shortest distance between two dots at opposite corners of a sheet of paper - draw a line between them. is that the shortest distance? no. this is how we currently travel though. fold the paper so the dots almost touch and then jump from one dot onto the other - that's bending space.
 
space travel is dead.

the only way we're gonna get across the solar system / orion / galaxy is to bend space*

.


This bloke reckons that he can build a rocket that could take people to Mars in 39 days,.....

http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1829152/rocket_scientist_eyes_shorter_mars_trip/index.html


......."A rocket scientist has gotten the attention of the US space agency, after he announced that a journey from the Earth to Mars could soon take only 39 days, cutting the travel time down nearly six-fold'"........



NASA_VASIMR_AdAstra_Rocket.jpg



Well, get on with it then. I want to see humans on Mars while I'm alive.

See ya's.
 
NASA and their trillions couldn't come up with something better than Apollo for half a century, yet some dude sat down to think about it for a few years and now NASA are all over him, JV-ing test engines etc.

wow. those americans really need to re-think the whole "if it aint broke, don't fix it" mantra.
 
I doubt it will happen very much.

We haven't even gone to the moon yet!!!

Too freakish of an idea.

I think the big biys will be content in draining the earth of all its natural resources, and when that's finished.....who knows.

Cheers,

F
 
yeah, i wish they would put money into space programs instead of tackling things like global climate change (notice, it's not global warming anymore)
 
yeah, i wish they would put money into space programs instead of tackling things like global climate change (notice, it's not global warming anymore)

Saw an interesting Doco that suggested that the change was engineered by US Republican spin doctors to counter a perception that they were not strong on environment issues so they used less "loaded" terminology.

Double plus good I think.:D
 
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