Orbital Gas Station

[freeztar]

A Texas-based firm has drawn up plans for a manned expedition to the Moon to seek out the raw ingredients for what amounts to an orbital gas station for future spacecraft.

Under the plan, from Bill Stone of Austin’s Stone Aerospace, Inc, a vanguard team of industrialists would explore the Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole to determine how much, if any, frozen water and other materials sits locked beneath the lunar regolith.

If enough resources are found, they could then be processed into spacecraft fuels and hauled into low-Earth orbit (LEO) for propellant-thirsty spacecraft at one-tenth the cost of launching them from Earth, according to the plan.

“Once initial funding is received to initiate the detailed planning effort, we expect to be open for business in LEO in the 2015 timeframe,” Stone said in a statement, adding that the ambitious plan would likely cost about $15 billion and require significant international partnerships. “Only by operating commercially will this enterprise be successful.”

To that end, Stone has formed Shackleton Energy Company (SEC). He discussed his plan in a March 10 presentation at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference in Monterey, California.

“This is water exploration first,” SEC president Dale Tietz told SPACE.com Wednesday. “And if it’s there, then our whole business plan is based upon, by 2015, having a very aggressive program to then process that with our own crews…bring it to low-Earth orbit and then open for business.”

SPACE.com -- Texas Firm Draws up Plans for Orbital Gas Station

Finally!

[CraigD]

Very cool!

However, am I the only one who finds the beginning of the article’s first paragraph,

Originally Posted by Space.com

A Texas-based firm has drawn up plans for a manned expedition to the Moon to seek out the raw ingredients for what amounts to an orbital gas station for future spacecraft.

and of its last,

NASA chief Michael Griffin said in 2005 that a private spacecraft refueling depot in low-Earth orbit, among other commercial spaceflight services, could aid the U.S. space agency’s future goals of returning astronauts to the Moon.

A bit comical?

Rather like saying US Pres. Thomas Jefferson having said in 1803 “A private intercontinental highway, and perhaps some nice hotels along the way, could aid the President and Congress’s goal of goal of having Lewis and Clark reach the Pacific Ocean overland.”

If Stone Aerospace is planning on having explorers and workers living in buried, inflatable habitats, refining and transporting Moon-stuff to low-Earth orbit by 2015, doesn’t that rather steal the thunder from US Pres. G. W. Bush and NASA’s “returning astronauts to the Moon” by 2020?

[freeztar]

Good point!
I suppose NASA figures that since they've been to the moon already, they might as well exploit a private company to do their dirty work in getting there cheaper this time. But somebody has to pay for the lunar harvesting, that it makes me wonder how much money NASA will actually save.