Commercial Logistics Transportation for the Emerging SSP Lunar Resource Opportunity

Abstract

Space commerce is emerging around the Earth orbit and the moon. Commercial Space logistics will help supply these new industries. The Space Solar Power (SSP) industry brings with it some significant cost incentives and climate change opportunities. Ultimately, large solar collectors will transmit energy 24/7 to an Earth that has used most other sources of stored energy. Later these collectors will be 60% less expensive to build after the full impact of lunar resources is available. Available commercial transportation support is the key to lower space logistics costs. Cost reduction is the objective in this paper’s concept investigation of unmanned logistics transportation hardware. Cost reduction is very common and encouraged in commercial projects financed by private sources, but somewhat uncommon in space projects financed upfront by governments using taxpayer sources. The objective is to bring down the cost of the future Space Solar Assembly industry transportation to orbit to a level that space solar power begins to appear on popular energy and climate change lists of solutions and is implemented. Both the reusable launch vehicle (RLV) with 50% cost reduction and the heavy lift side-mount Shuttle Cm are within our grasp as a nation with the technology and aerospace leadership currently in hand. Eventually a Lunar trade route will emerge and economics will govern the evolution of transportation hardware on these off planet trade routes. Two trade routes will exist, one to LEO for the assembly of Space Solar Power (SSP) Collectors with heavy lift capability and second, a route to and later from the moon capable of transporting lunar materials for the fabrication of SSP in Earth orbit. Each route is not about new vehicle hardware, but how innovative these vehicles can be in reversing the upward spiral of space transportation cost. The planning and control of the flow of goods and materials to and from the moon’s surface may be the longest and most complicated logistics challenge yet to be attempted by mankind. The price paid, if a single logistics system does not work well, is significant. Innovation and lessons learned are discussed and trade route transportation solutions proposed. Innovation leads to cost reduction, and minimizing the early risk money Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) could help stimulate private financing. The proposed launch hardware innovation expands the External Tank, changes the shuttle orbiter into an unmanned carrier that becomes part of an SSP truss component in orbit. A reusable launch vehicle spearheads the lunar development with a smaller RLV with 50% cost reduction and delivers Lunar Transportation Systems payloads to LEO to start the trip to the moon. Later these same LTS payloads use an advanced ion engine on a reusable lunar cycler to deliver LTS payloads to LLO. Private financing demands a series of financial holidays or outflows of profits periodically to ease the risk and allow private investors to enter and exit at will. Commercially, this new lunar logistics route permits capability and technology growth as the market grows, offers affordable transportation for the commercial sector and the later recovery of lunar resources. After NASA and other countries move on to other destinations