Exploitation aspects and spin-off potential
The first human landing on the moon in 1969 was a giant enterprise, involving more than 400 000 people in 20 000 US industries. Even though much of the technology used in 1969 is now more or less routine, the establishment of a lunar base will require considerable technical development, naturally forcing co-operation of organisations that would not otherwise have any contact. The lunar colony envisaged in this project is not only more ambitious than other published suggestions, but also intuitively more sustainable, because it avoids the need for establishing and maintaining a large-scale long-term supply rocket infrastructure between Earth and the Moon.
A successful demonstration of the possibility for building an off-Earth settlement will increase the quality of life throughout the world, by providing a brighter vision for the future and pointing out possibilities beyond the limitations of an increasingly overpopulated Earth. This will stimulate an increase in education, thereby providing a peaceful outlet for natural human competitiveness, channelling destructive forces towards an exciting peaceful goal.
More near term, the self-sufficient moon colony is a scenario that can be simply and easily adapted to the day by day situation in remote area or developing countries. Meeting the increasing environmental requirements in creating future manufacturing systems, it will be necessary for everybody in the supply chain "from grain to loaf" to communicate their needs, think about how to use less energy and foremost of all, how to do this in a more nature friendly way. Any time a new factory is to be built, whether in a developing region or a highly industrialised area, it is necessary to consider the energy consumption, raw materials availability and production waste. Adverse environmental impact from future production plants must be as low as possible; It is therefore imperative that every new industrial activity acknowledges the scarcity of the earth’s resources, both raw materials and energy, and takes appropriate steps to minimise detrimental environmental effects. It is necessary to find ways to maintain production capacity using less energy, and in a more eco-friendly way. This will sustain progress and will also allow developing countries access to industrialisation in a real and sustainable way. The project will create not just a new way of manufacturing the products, but also a new knowledge community that will be able to use in an intelligent manner the earth resources for the common benefit of mankind.
The self-sufficiency approach on the moon
In contrast to common approaches to space exploitation, the concept of self-sufficiency would, by definition, completely eliminate all recurring costs. Even a limited success in applying the idea would thus dramatically reduce the transportation and re-supply requirements. In fact, by performing this thought experiment of complete isolation, it will most probably be possible to employ a much larger fraction in-situ resources early on in the establishment of sustained human presence, than is immediately apparent from the conventional, programmatic approach. Furthermore, by eliminating the need of sending 20 people a year to the base for limited one year periods, it would instead be possible to send 20 colonists per year to the moon, thereby increasing the community to at least 500 after 25 years (Counting children born on the moon during 25 years, the colony would probably be much larger.) Further, leaving the landing modules on the surface instead of bringing extra fuel to return it to Earth with the rotation crew is not only cheaper, but would provide the moonbase with extra supplies with each landing, such as residual fuel rich in precious volatiles, fuel tanks for use as pressure vessels, life support equipment, and capsule metal to be salvaged for manufacturing processes.
The emerging and immature field of in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) is mostly discussed in the context of space exploration, and the closest available space resources are on the moon. According to a recent estimate [Koelle, 2001], a total spare parts supply of 70 metric tons per year would be required for a lunar base of 25-100 people. A lunar production of 10% would decrease the recurrent cost of the moon base by roughly 3%. Keeping the same mass assumptions, a 90% self sufficiency would decrease the costs of spare parts supply only, by almost a third of the total costs. For a colony of 500 people, this would correspond to 6*1012 $ per year at the initial mass and crew salary costs assumed in [Koelle, 2001]. Extensive self sufficiency would not only reduce the amount of initial equipment needed, but also remove the psychological barrier of being dependent on Earth supplies, which again would significantly extend the average crew rotation period because more people would choose to stay and make the Moon colony their permanent home.
The self-sufficiency approach in establishing other off-earth bases
The approach of the proposed project is to start from the requirements and, only when these are fully understood, continue the chain of production towards the source of raw materials, keeping thorough track of the flow of requirements and resources. Thus, the findings can be easily adapted to other locations in the solar system. For example, on Mars, carbon is not a limiting resource due to the carbon dioxide atmosphere, and other resources as well have different levels of abundance than on the moon. This difference will have an impact on the relative effort needed to extract different resources in the mining and extraction processes. Other process groups may be kept identical, or new tradeoffs may be found between processes, possibly bringing a manufacturing method that was uneconomical on the moon into focus for a Mars base. However, except the possible replacement of one manufacturing method by another, all the conceptual structure and all practical experience gained can be directly employed in a different resource situation by simply changing a few numbers in the resource flowchart, and consequently modifying the amount of different equipment required.
The self-sufficiency approach for terrestrial uses
As well as in other space applications, the idea of self-sufficiency can be used as a first step in planning terrestrial large-scale operations. Since the cost of externally supplied equipment is much less on the Earth’s surface, the subsequent buy-or-make trade-off will more often result in purchase decision on Earth than in space. However, we still believe that there are many applications when, by considering self-sufficiency, a better end process would be achieved than would have been possible if going directly from a cheapest one-product source mind frame.
Disaster relief
Recent terrorist actions and natural disasters have demonstrated the vulnerability of modern society. In particular, production of vital supplies and tools is easily destroyed or wiped out. This can be temporarily relieved by flying in supplies from surrounding areas. However, for medium term restoration of society functionality after a disaster, also destroyed production equipment has to be replaced from the outside. The self-sufficiency concept can therefore be applied in disaster relief, not only to quickly and efficiently re-establish the infrastructure in remote areas using local resources, but even to build a complete city for thousands of people from scratch. Maybe there are a few yet to be discovered high-tech options for relief work, so disaster relief would certainly be a valuable spin-off from the Moon-ISRU study. Disaster relief is a large market, as we are presently experiencing at least one large natural disaster somewhere in the world each month.. The project spin-offs could include knowledge into what kind of material/equipment can be produced on-site without major instrumentation. Target groups for improved disaster relief procedures using locally derived materials, could be disaster relief organisations, such as the Red Cross, Medicien sans frontiers, etc., governments, military, and other organisations with an interest in disaster relief, including supply chain industry for disaster relief.
Remote area infrastructure build-up
A major advantage for mankind will be improved utilisation of terrestrial resources now only inefficiently exploited due to their difficult geographical location. Designing a production system for the moon will teach constructors and engineers how to work almost anywhere, under all kinds of conditions. Additionally, the flexible production methods to be studied would increase the economy by re-using discarded sub-components. This will help save energy and time for the production of components. The study will look at the design and use of alternative materials that could be produced on the moon, but these same arguments can also be a base for improvements to manufacturing on earth. In particular, there is a great number of living areas in the world that are, in a higher or lesser degree, away from the main sources of goods (small islands, highlands). This may be particularly true in the developing world, but many industrialised countries also have remote and inaccessible areas, such as parts of Alaska, the Greek archipelago and the Nordic mountain ranges. Solutions that have been derived for environments as unwelcoming and remote as that of the surface of the Moon will provide useful ideas for the castaway regions of Earth as well.
Production system robustness
Current production philosophies of globalisation and outsourcing do have inarguable economic merits since large-scale mass production and local resources, such as cheap labour, can be more efficiently utilised with economies of scale. However, this production paradigm does have some less desirable consequences. Notably, since most, if not all, production chains are spread over large parts of the globe, the vulnerability of the end product supply on availability and timely deliverable of semi-fabricates, is absolute. If the delivery of semi-fabricates is interrupted, the supply of the product to the market stops.
With the self-sufficiency approach, on the other hand, the entire flow of resources that will ultimately give the desired product, can be mapped and contingency plans for scarce resources or process steps can be evaluated. Without arguing for each production unit to be self-sufficient, higher levels of replaceability, flexibility and self repair capabilities will decrease vulnerability, especially with a better understanding of the resource supply flow from exterior sources.
Production system environment impact
The sustainability of the modern way of life with large-scale consumption of natural material resources and energy is coming under increasing concern. The pattern of material consumption and destruction in the developed world is carried out on an even more massive scale in the developing countries. Environmental legislation is being brought in to improve the situation. However, the international consensus to implement this has been running into continuous difficulties. Some of the approaches are politically motivated against the use of technology. A successful self-sufficiency study for moon colonisation, however, would demonstrate that appropriate deployment of technology is the effective way to realise the common global future. Scientific understanding on the use of material and energy in a closed environment is an important basis when planning future use and discovery of technology.
The concrete results of the study will have immediate applications as a tool and illustration of requirements and effects of human presence. A self-sufficiency study following the approach that will be tested in this project can be performed for any existing community; town, city or village. By comparing with the complete self-sufficiency of the proposed study, the impact on the environment of the community studied can be assessed against a neutral and idealised baseline. The model can be used for minimising transport costs, for evaluating what type of industries should be encouraged to establish in an area, and for deciding on recycling campaigns of maximum positive impact on the environment.