Future Lunar Bases – Space Quarterly Magazine Preview
The following excerpt is a free preview from the March issue of Space Quarterly magazine. This article is only available in the U.S. edition of the magazine.
Future Lunar Bases, Why, Where, and How By Dennis Wingo
Lunar bases and their location is a subject that has been discussed and argued about for decades, without any real consensus, because each interest group is driven to a different area. Some think little of the Moon and see it as nothing more than a distraction on the way to Mars. The thesis of this article is that not only is the Moon vitally important for developing a sustainable infrastructure to support the eventual settlement of Mars, it is vitally important for the overall future of mankind and for the economic development of the solar system. It is far beyond time for our community to make this intellectual commitment and then develop our thoughts and plans from there. In order for mankind to prosper on the Earth in the long term, the resources of our solar system, beginning at the Moon, are crucial, and it is time to quit apologizing for this stance. To provide structure three general regions of interest will be discussed, based upon utility, cost, and long-term viability.
Requirements Development
If you look at lunar infrastructure studies by NASA since the late 1980’s, requirements have been primarily science driven. During the recent Constellation program, the science rational of looking at the geologic history of the Moon, toward its origins, drove NASA to favor the south polar region on the rim of crater Shackleton. This is partly due to its location inside the South Pole-Atkin Basin, an ancient impact that could have excavated lunar mantle material. Also, polar sites are near resources of water as identified by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), and previous lunar missions. The rim of Shoemaker also is one of the nearly permanently illuminated areas, reducing the need and cost of nuclear power.
NASA efforts previous to Constellation were less constrained in their approach to a site and while a specific site was never definitively chosen, it was generally considered to be at a non-polar location. A baseline that enabled this freedom of location was a nuclear power system for continuous power. This reduced the logistical burden of energy storage systems to survive the over 320 hour lunar night, but with a greatly increased development cost and political risk. Additional reasons for a near side location include continuous communications, telepresence operations, and the “comfort” of seeing the Earth. However, an ESA study (Moon 2025) from the early 2000’s had an interesting idea to break this sense of comfort by placing a base on the far side of the Moon as a mental test of the outlook of the inhabitants of the base. Would such a crew, without the comfort of seeing the Earth in the sky, develop a different way of thinking regarding exploration?
Very few serious efforts, especially NASA ones, have looked beyond the science meme. However, if economic development is the goal, how does site selection change? With the failures of NASA efforts since Apollo, we should incorporate as a core value that private enterprise will either drive requirements or at least be an integral part of such development. Deriving requirements with economic development as a goal provides a guide to site selection. These are as follows:
Cost – without cost control and local resource leverage, it is unlikely to go beyond paper studies.
Global Surface Access – whether science or industrial development, global surface access is a must.
Access to Resources – cost control and economic development require ready access to resources, including sunlight.
Power – success of lunar activities is directly proportional to power available.
Cislunar Access – anytime launches are highly desired
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Wouldn’t Spacex dropping a dragon on the moon even as just a demo test of their falcon heavy be important spark to make the people/companies start thinking of all the economic possibilities. I don’t understand why there is not such a mission already planned by NASA right now.
I was just talking about getting a robot there as soon as possible. A one way dragon crash/soft landing maybe on the falcon heavy test flight. Show the pubic/ourselves we can get a can to the moon maybe soft land it and if there is enough fuel put it back in lunar orbit.
Do a cots for that now for musk and crew for their falcon heavy shakeout flight 1 or 2 in a year or two.
Milestone 1 crash landing
Milestone 2 soft landing.
Milestone 3 lift off to lunar orbit
Let’s get the show on the road 🙂
It’s show time ! 🙂
Write that cots tonight NASA!
What the cost on that I forget ? A lot less than one shuttle flight. With the bonus soft land money and bonus orbit money require it lol ear mark it for Merlin two development.
if you want to land something on the Moon land the Project Morpheus lander. Now is a good time to devise a ~400 kg payload.
I think it’s a horrible mistake not to have some kind of July 2019 Landing, even if it’s just for the HDTV of a group of astronauts roving around for a couple months.
James,
I don’t want to take away from anyone’s enthusiasm, but I think that doing a less-than-optimized mission for the sake of a significant date would be a mistake. If we could do a lunar mission that lines up with an historically significant date, that would be a bonus, the icing on the cake. But I wouldn’t want to see a mission compromised or made less useful than it could be (over perhaps delayed) just to make the date (what worked for Kennedy during the Cold War won’t work again).
Most if not all of us recognize the pointlessness of flags and footprints missions. The current budget/debt situation would make a F&F mission even more of a mistake, and the money situation isn’t going to change any time soon.
Every mission or proposed mission, of any kind, must be designed and optimized in terms of a well-defined set of useful goals, and from those flow all of the mission requirements. Ideally, the mission goals should also consider future missions, such that the gains made benefit an overall “space plan,” whereby we retain what we gain and it contributes to a growing capability and space architecture (there’s nothing new in that idea; it’s von Braun 101).
And let’s not overlook the basic concepts and requirements that have finally started getting much-needed attention over the last few years — things like sustainability, reusability, modularity, bootstrapping, reduced price-per-pound lift costs, and more streamlined operations processes and costs — which are necessary for success in space, the factors that we can confidently label as do-or-die. We can not sacrifice these requirements in order to make a date, or we’ll be moving backward (again) instead of progressing, and once again be throwing away money.
The PR sentiment that we’d get from meeting an historically significant date would be fleeting, a two-day news story at best, forgotten overnight in the shadow of the next media scandal. But the knowledge gained, and any new capabilities established, from a well-reasoned and successfully completed mission will benefit us for many years to come. One of the things that China’s progress in space over the last few years should bring to mind is the well-known adage that nothing succeeds like success. Birthday parties make for good fun, but provide no profits.
Steve
On the other hand, if you haven’t done those things for the last 40 years, it seems unlikely you’ll suddenly change your SoP in the next 7. So instead, Anniversary Prize? The US Government pays $1b each to any US citizen who happens to be on the moon on July 20, 2019. And hope that to get there, teams build the stepping stones that the official programs never could. Even if all it does is remind the public that the US doesn’t have a space plan, and hasn’t progressed towards one in, by then, 50 years, that realisation alone will be more than you have now.
(Good god, 7 years… So… old…)
Paul
your idea of an x prize to put astronauts on the moon in 2019 is great.
But consider this
What if the people of NASA watch wrote a lunar xprize to have a large rover on the moon on that date at one of the Apollo sites
Or better still start a lunar ice finding mission.
Don’t many of you know the google guys or others in business that we could present a lunar xprize plan too.
Don’t many of you know how to write it?
You want to get the public interested and kick NASA and congress in the backside.
Wellllll
Why not!!!!
What’s the worst case
We make the news trying to present it.
Best case we send a robot mission to the moon long before NASA ever will, get the publics attention embarress the current missions to no where, congress and NASA and get a voice.
Why not!!!!!
Spacex will have all we need at a cheap price any way so why not get them a mission and some money.
Elon did this showing THEM
Why can’t we?
NEWS FLASH
NASA WATCH bloggers get fed up with do nothing SPACE program and write an xprize to send a large rover to the moon for the the fiftieth birthday of first apollo moon landing. Their plan is designed to lay the ground work to start to create the robotic ability to harvest water/ fuel. Etc etc.
Whatever, you guys know what to write not me.
Anyway
Why nottttt????????
We are so many years, more likely decades. away from the next landing, the result of NASA management’s screw ups since Griffin, the days of NASA being able to put anyone in space or send them anywhere are likely over for good.
I worked on the Boeing Concept Exploration & Refinement Study, and we looked at a variety of landing sites, for different reasons. My suggestion as a logistician, when asked about a landing site for public outreach, for example, was to land at a previous Apollo site with equipment to repower and test the rovers, analyze the lunar landers, and gather materials to do further analysis. This would probably be the most viewed TV show in history. The consensus on polar locations was based on up mass cost, water resources, limited periods of darkness, and the fact that there had been no manned exploration anywhere but near the lunar equator. We talked about reusable, modular landers, possibly with a staging tug system that could also serve as a safe haven for approaching manned space craft, because our estimate of acreage for the Apollo-like ascent/descent stage landers that NASA insisted on became immense as the lunar colony was implemented over time, and ground movement for recycling/reuse seemed necessary. Of course, the CE&R studies were thrown out with the 60-day study Mike Griffin instituted.
Yep. I have all of the CE&R material and a lot of it was good. It is a damn shame that it all got thrown out with Griffin’s arrival. From what I heard they did not even send a senior person to listen to the final presentations.
Dennis,
I didn’t read the entire article, just the excerpt here. Based on that, it was interesting to contrast this with the content of Moonrush*. The overall concepts are the same, but the details (as per this excerpt) have changed a little with time. Are you still as enthusiastic about “the hydrogen economy”?
And with all due respect to HH, do you agree that lunar Helium 3 mining is a non-starter, at least in the foreseeable future?
Steve
* For those not familiar with it, Moonrush — Improving Life on Earth with the Moon’s Resources is a book that Dennis wrote (published summer 2004). The book’s subtitle succinctly describes what the book is about. Dennis particularly stresses the availability and use of the platinum metals group on the Moon and the use of hydrogen for power generation on Earth and in places in the solar system where solar intensity is low. In my opinion, it is a well-presented statement of the possibilities.
Steve
What I was asked to do here is to evaluate sites for lunar bases, not to predispose them to a certain location. The principle involved, and this is in the article, that a base must be near resources. Now the lowest cost and quickest to get going in my opinion is the lunar North pole area near Whipple crater. However, and this was a good exercise for me, is that if you have a lot of power, then the polar regions may not be the best place for an outpost.
For the purpose of PGM access I still think that an identified metallic body will be the best for PGM mining. However, most highland sites, which are much older terrain than the Mare regions, will have elevated Ni/Fe fines and thus with more work, they can be farmed as well.
One thing that needs to be clarified as well is that global access via the surface is a must. One thing that we have found is that the slope angles on the moon almost universally, except for young craters, is modest, no more than 25 degrees. That is interesting and well within the capabilities of rover designs. We have identified multiple driving routes from the rim of Peary to Mare Frigoris, which is only 428 km away. That is interesting. That means that we can have global access on the ground. An ideal base site is going to be at the interface between the highlands and the mare regions, caveat being power availability. The PGM bodies are going to be where they are found. This is whether they are large buried bodies that GRAIL finds, or more modest finds, but they will be found.
The underlying principle of the article is that economic development should drive requirements, not science. Science will drastically benefit from economic development which will be enabled by the science. They two are not mutually incompatible.
Dennis,
You’ve brought up the point of rover distance with respect to surface access to resources and that reminds me of the one thing that it seems to me is generally missing from lunar proposals — large-scale transportation from one surface location to another (yet some of the Mars proposals have thought about it). There are several elements of risk to site selection, which I assume your full article addresses. What happens if you’re executing a well-planned mission and it turns out that, despite the best information available, we end up landing at a lunar site that doesn’t possess all of the resources and characteristics that the mission requires? (Robots and orbiters can only learn so much.) How do you relocate all of your assets and facilities to an alternate location at a distance? A rover simply isn’t going to cut it. And as another aspect of the same problem, once you’ve “mined out” the area around your landing site and you want to move your facilities to a new location, how do you do it?
What we’d need is basically a lunar surface tractor-trailer as part of the mission infrastructure. I certainly haven’t seen every lunar plan and proposal that’s been done, but I can’t recall seeing anything more than passing mention of a need for relocating large equipment and structural modules. If this is a government mission, or if the government is in any way subsidizing it, I would insist on this being part of the original mission, not a follow-on program, given the history of cancellations and cut-backs.
If you’ve already discussed this in the full article, I apologize. The Space Quarterly Magazine looks like a good publication, but the price is a little out of my reach these days.
Thanks,
Steve
Steve, you are correct that there has not been that much written on this subject and it is a shame that this is the case. The biggest problem with long distance surface transportation on the moon is energy. For example, here on the Earth about the best you can get out of a non internal combustion engine is the 240 mile range of an F-Cell fuel cell Merceedes.
With the amount of water on the Moon I think that closed loop fuel cell powered vehicles will be the norm for long distance operations. Since fuel cells are entering the mainstream, this cuts down the development costs dramaticaly for lunar implementation. The second part is energy. We need refueling stations on the Moon for fuel cell vehicles space at an appropriate spacing distance wise.
My team’s calculation is that it is only about 430 kilometers distance from the rim of Peary crater to Mare frigoris. That would be the first highway on the Moon that needs to be built. Using Larry Taylor’s method of sintering the regolith a road can easily be made that would be durable.
I REALLY need to start writing Moonrush II as I have so many ideas floating around and I do see how this can develop. One of the interesting things about the Moon is that its entire surface area is no larger than Africa so a transportation network around the entire Moon is not really that big of a deal.
Thanks for the info Dennis.
A couple of suggestions: With fuel cells (in fact, with all lunar development) stress the need for and benefits of full recycling of materials, wherever possible (as opposed to just cost effective), from day one. It’ll pay back in spades.
Pick your own name now for “the first highway on the Moon” and it will probably stick (Lunar Route 1, a.k.a. The Wingo Way sounds cool). I’d rather see your group honor someone appropriate than have some bureaucrat’s assistant whose never heard of von Braun “officially” name it for his boss’s dog.
Re Moonrush II: Let me know if I can be of (free) assistance. I was a space book editor for many years (and wrote a few as well), and also did graphics, layout, and all the rest; and then I’d get to read it that much sooner!
Steve
Keeping hydrogen liquid in a mobile installation on the Moon will not be easy. Hydrogen gas will need a large tank, so will oxygen. I hope you find a source of carbon on the Moon so hydrocarbon fuels can be used.
Keeping hydrogen liquid in a mobile installation on the Moon will not be easy. Hydrogen gas will need a large tank, so will oxygen. I hope you find a source of carbon on the Moon so hydrocarbon fuels can be used.
Andrew. Ever hear of metal hydride storage of hydrogen? You can get densities higher than liquid hydrogen that way. Also, for the distances involved you don’t need liquid hydrogen at all. I can buy off the shelf today 10,000 PSI gaseous hydrogen storage which is sufficient for hundreds of kilometers of travel.
I had heard of metal hydride hydrogen storage but did not know that it was now off the shelf.
A 5kW hydrogen fuel cell is powering a boat in England. The hydrogen is stored in cylinders containing metal hydrides.
http://www.protosystems.co….
Given a valid system for storing hydrogen and oxygen then land vehicles can be powered. Stepping up production allows the base to be heated and powered during the long lunar nights. The same applies to mining equipment.
Solar power being used for electrolysis of the water.
Andrew (I really hate the nesting limitation here), cool stuff huh!
There have been some amazing technology strides in the last ten years that completely transform how lunar development should play out. The things that were mere thoughts 20 years ago are now reality and to me the cost of developing a lunar infrastructure has probably decreased by 50-75% due to these advancements.
With fuel cell vehicles, charging stations, 3D printing things can move rapidly. The biggest issue today is providing plentiful energy for lunar development. My best guess right now is that we need a megawatt as rapidly as possible and things can progress from there. That might be the self sustaining threshold even. The limiting factor after energy is humans. With humans and ISRU derived robotic systems elements the economic development of the Moon can be explosive.
Dennis,
This
civilian 1MW diesel generator weighs 19500 kg. So a 1 MW space rated
turbine could be launched on a single EELV. Something like a 1 MW
Stirling engine would be needed to turn it. Using radiators
painted black we can make the pipes for a non-tracking solar thermal
system. The pipes for the second generator can be ISRU.
http://wshk186.en.made-in-c…
Solar
arrays – UltraFlex space rated solar arrays that are 10 metres in
diameter weigh about 100kg to produce 21kW. (Out of date figures.)
(1000kW/21kW)*100kg =
4,762kg.
The arrays will need
stands and may need solar tracking systems plus connecting cables.
http://www.atk.com/capabili…
I conclude that a 1MW
solar power source on the Moon is doable. A method of deployment
will have to be devised. Two astronauts? Robots?
Andrew
Stirling, or photovoltaic or some combination of the above will work. This is why I favor the north polar location on the rim of Whipple crater. It is less than 10 km from there to where some of the smaller permanently dark craters are located. Knowing this, and setting some other parameters lets you start architecting the base location.
Storage for liquid hydrogen and oxygen will be actually fairly easy to do as the floor of Whipple is in a permanently dark area. We have done some interesting work on what it will take to do some of these tasks and it is not bad in terms of logistics and resource availability. The highlands region of which the North Pole is, has much higher concentrations of all kinds of good stuff. I will lay the whole thing out in M-R-II
Mr. Wingo,
“The underlying principle of the article is the economics not science should drive requirements, not science” 🙂
About time!!!
First things first lol
Travel the least expensive path! Wow! Another novel idea!
Our Space program has been kind of like a mad scientist that tries to walk by bouncing on his head. All you have to do is show him he has feet and turn him right side up lol
Then you don’t have to spend much to buy him track shoes 🙂
Then you can just point to the goal!
What’s the goal again!
Make man a multi planet species making it possible to use and develop Spaces resources for the betterment of man kind right!
Which then makes it possible to do all kinds of things including wonderful science right?
What is NASAs role? to make transportation to and in space affordable so that passengers /customers soon can do their thing in a self sustaining manor.
Ok somebody start outlining the master Space plan and schedule.
Since we are now an equal opportunity transportation provider, Somebody tell Mr. Science that he no longer gets to fly first class. He can fly couch like everybody else, tell him the plus side is he doesn’t have to pay as much so he can afford to do more science.
Send a meno to the PR department to start using the the words space development and Space Settlement nott Space exploration!
In all seriousness Mr. Wingo
It’s about time we moved on to that middle ground Mr. C Describes. To me Science has been used an excuse to waste money for to long. I think we can do more science by doing what you suggest.
Economic development isn’t business profitability. It is a step beyond scientific exploration. So it fits into the “no man zone” – neither governmental nor business. Few understand this well.
An example of why this is important:
* for exploration, many disparate lunar sorties are about a broad brush survey, “breadth first”
* for economic development, exhaustive involvement with “good enough” sites / regions to yield “good enough” production
* for commercial development/operation, intensive surveys and many sorties to do “depth first” about the very best for the very most time/yeild production all factors
In other words “middle way”. Large scale businesses find these too perilous. Entrepreneurs carve out enough of a “good enough” business, so that they can threaten a grab as if a large business, and if the threat is compelling, a large scale business steps in.
All of these have different funding profiles, returns, tool sets, … risks.
Lol a tiny question lol
What should our lander look like and what’s the best way to get it there which leaves us with the most infrastructure for the buck.
And I’m not interested in birthday parties that just point out how little has been done in 50 years.
Look at the landers that have been built to start with.
* Surveyor/Viking/NEAR/Phoenix – get an instrument package onto a plain.
* LM – get pair of astros + eqt (rover!) onto surface for a week and return, once every 6 months.
* Lunakhod/Pathfinder/MER’s – platform delivering rovers.
* MSL – skycrane delivered rover no platform.
So if you are certain of what/where to deliver, the lander can be incredibly minimal – look at NEAR, it wasn’t even a lander!
If you’re not, then mobility is the rover itself SOLEY – MSL.
Finally, reuse from logistical “base” – in orbit or “ground” situated. You choose where based on the cost to deploy resources. EML “station centered” logistics means less costly to station from earth, same cost to anywhere on moon, no cost support for secondary targets anywhere in solar system. Lunar “base centered” logistics means higher cost from earth but preferential cost radially increasing from base, secondary use at highest cost e.g. really dedicated logistics for base only.
These choices drive lander as end of a reusable logistics delivery chain. With EML, reuse of SEP tugs to convey from LEO to a lander distribution implies a lander strategy that might not need to even land (ala MSL), while with a base one would optimize reusable landers for short duration rendezvous with SEP in LLO.
Thanks
Dragon moon lander feb 26. 12
no one of consequence
Spacex just tested their super Draco.
For the first robot moon missions isn’t a dragon your cheapest choice right now?
For your human lander wouldn’t a shieldless dragon maybe different shape be cheapest and quickest option?
Isn’t Spacex ahead of anyone else in delivering a moon lander because a dragon could be our first lander?
If Denise wants small car size rover on the moon, would taking it there in a dragon be the cheapest easiest choice?
Isn’t the falcon heavy the cheapest best choice to get that stuff there?
Why not send the first falcon heavy flight moonward ?
Next
Send a tesla rover to look around.
Can’t Spacex do a lite version of what Mr. Wingo is talking about cheaper than anyone else on this planet.
Write Spacex a robot moon mission plan NASA with the option to let it grow to have a Bigelow Habitat plus a few robot techs/tourists later.
Why not get on with it in a cheap way now?
I agree the heck with the big plans.
The heck with the flags and foot prints.
Let’s get up there with a few dragon foot prints and make some electric tesla tracks soon.
If you can’t have astronauts on the moon in seven years you sure could have a tesla robot rover take us to an old Apollo site so we could all be at the party.
What are we waiting for?
SLS?
Orion?
JWST?
Congress?
The president?
NASA?
How more must we waste to do something?
Very puzzled
Joe Q Tax Payer
John Q public
Pauls
What are we waiting for?
Unity in rationale and ration.
Too many see NASA as a projection of power in the form of a BFR (intimidation as a stand in double for a like sized weapon), which might eventually be sometimes used sorta for establishing dominance on the moon (possibly the theory of even more stockpiled there, raining down … so beware!). Moon/space is sort of an afterthought to them.
Then there’s the group who believes in miracles, where anything other than something resembling holy Apollo/Saturn redux approaches apostasy. They willfully ignore that you can’t work this way now, nor can they realize that it had been overkill as well when we did it last, because we were goaded by the Soviets to be stupid, and we got away with it anyways through dumb luck.
Then there’s those out of work from Shuttle who want something that resembles it as moon rocket built out of Shuttle parts they used to assemble, ASAP, so they can return to their life as before. Those similar from Saturn days might have some dismal words for them – if any are still alive…
I could go on like this for 20-25 different groups, who barely agree on SLS to begin with. This is a divisive group, and each blocks things hoping to get a bigger piece of the pie. Part of the desire for a truly commercial activity on my behalf is to tame some of this mess, so the tail doesn’t wag the dog as you and I are both frustrated with. Think of crabs pulling each other back into the crab pot.
We’ll still have tons of pork, greed, disaster, corruption, self-dealing, infighting …human nature of course. But we’ll get further down the path faster with a little less of it.
Its the people chaos not the technology. Can’t solve it Griffin’s way either – a too simplistic plan and yelling at people to keep them in line. It now requires America to find its best, get its mojo back, and move in concert. At a time most can’t even find their rears with both hands.
Mr. Consequence
I just read your words from yesterday in the moon thread. Paul and I are kicking around that dragon birthday, Snow White and Seven dwarfs idea. Do you think their could be any way to get funding for something like that for the birthday?
I made the point some where how easy a building can be built when ALL have a plan a schedule that ALL believe and They work together. It’s sad to know how easy it could be, yet how impossible it is. Anyway I’ll try to be careful with my comments. I hope I don’t hope I don’t Appear to be throwing mud when Trying to call for change.
Anyway thanks for truly doing your part
Joe Q
LOL I am the guy here that really is just a Joe tax payer
PS having taken your advice and learned to use the tech by learning how to use my iPod better I have gained my voice. Lol one finger is almost as fast a two lol
I type all my ideas in the note pad which works much better than the discus window then just paste it in.
I get a screwy idea just tap in a few note words. Lol
Economic development is pretty much all about government. From wiki ( and you will find pretty much the same in any economic textbook)
“Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area. Such actions can involve multiple areas including development of human capital, critical infrastructure, regional competitiveness, environmental sustainability, social inclusion, health, safety, literacy, and other initiatives. Economic development differs from economic growth. Whereas economic development is a policy intervention endeavor with aims of economic and social well-being of people, economic growth is a phenomenon of market productivity and rise in GDP. Consequently, as economist Amartya Sen points out: “economic growth is one aspect of the process of economic development.” “
In all cases it is pretty much assumed you have a population base in the area you are trying to economically develope that are not enjoying the same level of economic prosperity as other citizens around them.
Since there is no population on Luna to try and help to economically develop their area a better choice of terms would be some kind of modified Homestead act.
That is the process we used to put people on land that was not being utilized and that is exactly the case we have on Luna.
Yep, at this time we need wheels on the ground. It amazes me just how many missions we have had to Mars and none on the regolith of the Moon since the Nixon administration.
Me too. I underestimated how long to go back. IMHO the Viking let down was 1/100th Apollo’s.
Paradoxically, the success of planetary missions has rekindled interest in the moon. The two are closely linked, and not like advocates would prefer. Perhaps an appetite for the solar system inspires more interest in viewing something closer to home … in new ways.
To be honest, mankind has trouble with the more familiar and less trouble with the more extreme. They don’t understand what to do with the moon, because they think of it as a denuded part of Earth not as a nearer “planet”.
However, moonies sometimes misapply this argument, trying to make the other planets/asteroids even less interesting, so as to make the Moon more appealing. Like throwing mud on others in a beauty contest, it has the effect of killing interest in space altogether. They don’t get this.
My hunch has been that a lunar base won’t be successful, but lead to a 100 year hiatus following. But that a EML station will yield a less stressful, more casual evaluation of the moon with habitation either on specific exploration sorties or on station, and that ISRU development will be automated and funded solely to defray solar system exploration costs, and stretch lifetimes of deployed assets. Then, with a proven economic asset (and exploiting the already prior funded ISRU resources), joint ventures will scale highly tentative explorations to secure more return to Earth “resultants”, which will eventually bring lunar habitation over a hundred years increasing as a phase over from government to commercial, being labeled “waste” the entire time. At some point the multinationals will force themselves in.
So unfortunately like it or not, lunar is a poor stepchild of planetary due to anthropological reasons. Not logical or desirable, but understandable.
My hunch has been that a lunar base won’t be successful,
There are three things that will determine the success or failure of a lunar base (base is the wrong word but lets go with it).
Energy
It is my gut feeling that 1 megawatt is the break even point, maybe 2. With that much energy you can grow food and bootstrap industrialization.
Resources
Resources are really a no brainer at the Lunar North pole. The scarcest resource will more than like be volatiles such as nitrogen and other things not thought of today. There will be plenty of metals, oxygen, and other stuff.
Logistics and Trade
There has to be value generated that generates trade that generates revenue that generates value. I think that there are those things but they may not be what we think today. I would even put Platinum Group metals behind things like large GEO structures. That will make money. So will telescopes, data warehouses that are safe from terrestrial threats, and other products.
I would add the construction of planetary exploration vehicles and their provisioning. Mars will be FAR easier to colonize using the resources of the Moon.
Cost to get there….
Five-Ten billion maybe….
The 50th anniversary of the 1969 Moon landing would be a great promotion for a 2020 manned return to the Moon, IMO. A manned lunar orbiting or lunar flyby mission in 2019 would make more sense since it would also tell the citizenry that America will soon (the following year) be returning to the lunar surface to stay. The excitement of returning to the Moon could start as early as 2018 with the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8 and extend all the way to 2020 with the first manned Moon landings since 1972: two to three years of positive promotional news for a new manned lunar program.
Even the smallest manned lunar outpost will be the beginning of a momentous change in human civilization once the first extraterrestrial source (ice from the lunar poles) is used for the production of water for: washing, drinking, growing food, and the production of air and the production of fuel.
Marcel F. Williams
Marcel,
Are you thinking of developing lunar resources for use on Earth, or just on the Moon, or on the Moon and in space (LEO, cis-lunar)?
With current and near-future hardware and technology, I think bringing these things to Earth would be extremely expensive, so all of those people who can’t seem to think long-term (the majority) will fall back on the same old “we’ve still got plenty of resources on Earth” argument, instead of being willing to invest in the future, when resources will be increasingly scarce and the cost to acquire them will steadily climb.
If you’re thinking of developing lunar resources for use on the Moon and/or in space, then for a long time yet it’s going to require far more money being spent than could be either saved or earned, and right now, people (public and private) are unfortunately not willing to spend that money on something they see as offering no return.
I think there’s still something more needed to bring about “the beginning of a momentous change in human civilization,” something that provides interest, and above all, incentive for both the majority and for the power brokers. It’s the same “something” that’s been missing all along; I just wish I knew what it was. Sometimes, I almost wish we were faced with a sudden threat from space, like a very-near-miss asteroid, that would wake people up to the necessity of establishing and maintaining and growing off-Earth facilities. But then again, the fright would fade from public consciousness long before any useful program could be started, let alone finished.
As things are now (and probably will be for years), I think the majority would see developing lunar resources exactly the way you see the ISS — a perpetual money sponge that offers no return. And whether or not this is true is completely irrelevant; it’s the perceptions that people have which will either motivate them or fail to do so. People like you and I know why it’s necessary without having to articulate it, but we are very much in the minority. To bring the majority around, we need that “something,” that we haven’t yet identified, that will click with them, and I very much suspect it will be something emotional rather than logical that will do the trick, as uncomplimentary as that seems.
Developing the Moon so that we can develop the Moon is a circular argument. We need another argument that provides an incentive for people (individually and collectively) to turn full around and not just embrace lunar/space development, but demand it of our governments. At that point, I think we’d see the next logical steps following COTS, CCDev, etc., the beginnings of a public/private partnership. But any proposal that doesn’t include a compelling incentive for the masses is going nowhere, just like all the proposals that have already come and gone. Of late, more and more space advocates seem to be insisting that incentive and payback must be financial. The financial aspect is certainly a major consideration, and it seems to be the primary weapon of those opposed to space development, but I don’t believe that it’s solely a money matter any more than it’s destiny. I strongly believe that we need to stop using the same old arguments, because they don’t work, and they won’t suddenly start to work just through continued repetition. We somehow need to articulate the need (as a need rather than a desire) in terms that the majority can understand and emotionally commit to, or we’ll just continue to spin our wheels. If we can’t describe that incentive-providing “something” in simple, convincing words, then selling it to the majority will remain impossible. (But, let’s never stop trying.)
Steve
Unfortunately, the ISS does not enhance the human ability to live permanently beyond the Earth. Humans need gravity, air, and water in order to survive beyond the Earth without terrestrial resources. And the Moon can provide all of those things.
However, if it turns out that the Moon’s 1/6 gravity is deleterious to human health then it may force NASA to refocus its efforts on developing rotating space stations with artificial gravity. But we’ve been traveling in space for 50 years and we still don’t know if the Moon’s gravity is deleterious or harmless to human health and we still don’t know if humans can adapt to artificial gravity. And the ISS certainly won’t help us in these matters.
There are immediate economic advantages for mining lunar ice within cis-lunar space. Being able to fuel reusable tugs with lunar fuels for transferring satellites from LEO to GEO would be of great economic value for the over $200 billion a year satellite based telecommunications industry. Reusable space tugs could also be advantageous for the emerging space tourism industry.
Supplying lunar water shielding to a manned Lagrange point space station for water, air, fuel, and mass shielding could allow satellite repair and cheap redeployment of repaired satellites back into Geosynchronous orbit.
The long term advantages of the Moon, over the next 30 to 40 years, would be to industrialize a lunar colony to a point where satellites could be manufactured using lunar resource and launched from the lunar surface (taking full advantage of the Moon’s tiny gravity well) to GEO and LEO.
China is a nation that thinks in the long term and is a country politically dominated by men who use to be scientist or engineers.
The US, on the other hand, is a country that responds to what’s politically popular, no matter how harmful it would be. And, of course, the US is a country politically dominated by lawyers, like our President, who have very little understanding or interest in science and technology. Reducing the country’s investment in scientific and technological advancement doesn’t make our country richer– it makes it poorer!
Marcel F. Williams
Marcel,
I agree, basically, with your goals, but not your reasoning, I’m afraid. In my eyes, for whatever it’s worth, most of your post is unqualified opinion and circular reasoning, which don’t serve you well in selling your proposal. I apologize for being so straight forward, but it seems to me that you reduce the value of your own good ideas by providing “reasons” that invite rebuttal.
With respect to the ISS, I would certainly agree with the assertion that it’s not being effectively used, but I think it’s important to distinguish between “does not” and “can not.” Despite all of the baggage attached to its building and operation, I believe that the ISS can be a very valuable asset in “enhanc[ing] the human ability to live permanently beyond the Earth,” but it is not and has not been used anywhere near its potential. If the carpenter is incompetent you don’t blame the saw, you get a better carpenter. And if you’re not willing to work further toward microgravity living and want to jump to the more expensive and complex rotation-based artificial gravity, you’re not going to prove anything on the lunar surface. You’d be trying to test a large-scale three-dimensional situation in a smaller two-dimensional lab. It’s got to be tested in free fall or at a Lagrange point to have any conclusive validity. Doing it on the Moon would be little different from doing it on Earth, which means that the ISS can help us in these matters, not the Moon.
“There are immediate economic advantages for mining lunar ice within cis-lunar space“
Who’s your buyer? Where is you market located? Define immediate.
“Being able to fuel reusable tugs with lunar fuels for transferring satellites from LEO to GEO would be of great economic value“
How is an entire additional craft and its infrastructure, being fuel from a third location, “of great economic value” when you can put a satellite into GEO directly from Earth’s surface? Off-hand, I would say that putting satellites straight into GEO requires less launching ability than sending up an interplanetary probe, which we can do with a third stage?
“Reusable space tugs could also be advantageous for the emerging space tourism industry.“
Used how? And when you look at the investment costs, the actual non-existence of the space tourism industry, and the time frames involved, this statement doesn’t ring true to me.
“redeployment of repaired satellites back into Geosynchronous orbit“
On your way from Chicago to LA, can you please make a stop in Tokyo? Consider the distances involved from the L points to GEO, and the supply route from the Moon to the L points. It’s would be cheaper, much faster and less risky to do it straight from Earth or the Moon.
All of the “advantages” you cite assume markets and/or infrastructure that don’t exist and won’t any time soon. So I don’t see how we can consider them as reasons for developing a lunar base now. There’s no question in my mind that a lunar base, which will necessarily be expanded into a full-time colony, will help facilitate everything that we will (hopefully) do in space long-term, if planned properly, but there have to be valid, convincing reasons to take that first step — a lunar base — and then the logical follow-on steps for developing the Moon and/or LEO/GEO and/or cis-lunar space. But things like manned Lagrange points and a sustainable, paying space tourism market are, realistically far down the road and do not serve as reasons for what we need to do first and do now. We need to have reconciled timelines.
The argument that, if we could do ABC, then we could do ABC, is how I interpret some of your reasons, and that doesn’t hold water (or air, or aluminum). Like I said earlier, I think you have good ideas, but you’re not giving valid, convincing reasons.
Steve
PS: I noticed that you took yet another opportunity to take a shot at Obama. That won’t help get us a lunar base. Besides, we got the message; you don’t like him.
Steve just had my hair by an 18 year old kid. She had no clue.
It may be hopeless
She asked me when we were last on the moon. I said 1972 . She said wow! That’s older than my mother.
You better get Elon in more Iron Man movies
I heard. Zubrin talking about Obama pulling the mars plug too
How to get them excited a about space. Nooooooooo clue
I’ll assume that NASA starts building a lunar outpost around 2020. Once a NASA lunar base is producing more water than it needs for drinking, air, food production, washing, and for lunar shuttle fuel production, that excess water production will suddenly become a valuable commodity that could be sold to the highest bidders. If we assume that such excess water production by NASA could begin as early as 2025 then the commercial utilization of lunar water could be begin during a time when private commercial manned spaceflight companies have several years of manned spaceflight experience behind them.
Commercial utilization :
1. Lunar water for lunar tourist hotels and for lunar tourist shuttles. Commercial tourism to orbit should already be happening amongst three or more American companies. While extending their flights to the lunar surface would be more expensive, it would also be more attractive to billionaires and could also be paid for by national and international lunar lottos.
2. Lunar water for commercial Lagrange point satellite repair space stations (air, fuel, mass shielding, etc.) The delta-v requirements between L5 and GEO would only be 1.71 km/sec both ways. Fixing and repairing GEO satellites would be substantially cheaper than manufacturing a new satellite plus the huge delta-v cost (13 to 14km/sec). Repairing LEO satellites would require 3.99 km/s of delta-v to transport the satellite to L5 and then an additional 0.98 km/s of delta-v to aerobrake the repaired satellite back into Low Earth Orbit. Still, a lot cheaper than building a brand new satellite and launching it from the Earth’s huge gravity well.
3. Lunar water for commercial LEO space stations. Using aerobraking, the delta-v requirements from the lunar surface to LEO is only 2.74 km/s. While the delta-v required to return reusable (5 to 10 round trips?) tankers to the lunar surface from LEO would be 5.93 km/s, cost would be minimized since they would return empty to the lunar surface. Water from Earth requires 9.3 to 10 km/s of delta-v from expensive expendable launch vehicle and an upper stage or huge side-mounted boosters.
4. Lunar water for commercial LEO space tugs. This would allow reusable space tugs to nearly double the mass of satellites intended for GEO with a single launch from Earth.
5. Lunar water for commercial LEO and Lagrange point space tugs. This would allow Commercial Crew companies to transport their passengers to reusable space tugs destined for a Lagrange point or for lunar orbit in order to meet a reusable lunar shuttle.
Under this scenario, I assume that water exported from the Moon would be converted into LOX and LH2 in space using solar power at LEO and at the Lagrange points (similar to the Spudis and Lovoie concept).
I would use a modified SLS EDS upper stage as a reusable lunar space tanker, replacing the J-2X engines with several RL-10 engines and would land the– empty– cargo tanks vertically on the lunar surface with landing legs. More than 120 tonnes of water could probably be transported to LEO or the Lagrange points per launch from such tankers.
Marcel F. Williams
Note: We’ve run out of nesting again. This is in response to newpapyrus, February 26, 03:33 PM, below.“
that excess water production will suddenly become a valuable commodity that could be sold to the highest bidders“
Marcel,
There won’t be anybody at all to bid under this situation. Nobody is going to pay to put anything into space that requires an outside water source until they have a pre-arranged, contracted, reasonable-risk water source in place before they start. I think this is one of those situations were you can’t apply Earth methods and processes to off-Earth situations. On Earth, there are almost always alternatives. In your bidding for water scenario there are none for the losers, which makes the risk unacceptable.
In the rest of your post, I still maintain that you’re proposing to rely on markets that simply don’t yet exist and won’t (short of magic) until long after your suggested 2025 date, so I don’t see how this can work (just my opinion, of course).
When it comes to SLS, I have to admit I’m confused. You were all for it, then you seemed to be changing your mind, and now you’re proposing to use it in modified form. I won’t repeat my same old arguments about SLS, but I think you should consider design plans that don’t include it. I firmly believe, and I’m not alone, that if we are going to move forward we have to think (in all contexts) in terms of more and smaller packages designed to integrate and aggregate, not bigger packages based on mega-programs which predictably get underfunded and then canceled.
If I may make a suggestion, Marcel: Where you and I mainly differ is in the time frames and interdependencies of the various elements of developing space. I think our long-term goals are close enough to being the same that we can treat them as such. So, what I suggest, if I may, is, at the top level, initially treat space development over the next 200 years as if it were a single program (which it certainly isn’t). Determine your major goals in detail, and also your lesser goals, to some level, in enough detail to consider how they would be implemented; then determine the interdependencies between your goals (a most important step); then, against a 200-year time line, develop a top-level schedule of programs and projects to implement your goals — using the interdependencies to tell you what can get done when, and in what order. When you do this, don’t be optimistic. Instead, think in terms of contingencies, and dealing with unknowable variables, and the surprises involved with any new or unproved technologies and processes. This exercise is a lot of work, but it provides a more realistic grasp of time frames and dependencies. One difficulty will be deciding how NASA would fit into the implementation. Unlike some people, I don’t think we can simply write them out of the picture because 1) we still need new government-sponsored research and guaranteed access to existing research data, and 2) like it or not, NASA is American space’s ambassador to both the US government and other countries’ space agencies and assets; but that’s just my opinion.
One of the reasons that this exercise is a lot of work is that some aspects of it will be iterative, so therefore the whole thing will be as well. But each iteration will add value and accuracy to the results. In industry it is advantageous to deal with the need for iterations up front because the items that are iterative in nature will also often be the same items that will require applying tactics during implementation to get you back to plan when things start to deviate. Knowing this lets you develop possible tactics for foreseeable problems well before they are needed.
The final thing I suggest is that in assessing the interdependencies involved, we can not ignore the bi-directional interactions with the various markets. The markets affect the “sellers” as much as the sellers affect the markets. One area where I think you and I still differ is in the markets. If you provide the facilities for a new market to come into being, or for an existing market to grow, that, in itself, will not cause a market to spring into being or invest in significant growth. “If you build it, they will come” is a fallacy. In order to start or to grow, a market also needs other things (which we can’t provide), like incentive, funding, a reasonable expectation and rate of return, and more. Although sellers and existing markets are interdependent, these other factors are independent of the sellers, who can not affect them, but must still understand and monitor them in order to “know” their markets. Therefore, they, too, must be somehow quantified and included in risk assessment, market management and program planning.
There’s an old but still valid concept that helps in evaluating your own proposals. If you’re trying to sell an idea, or a product, the first time your listener can say, “yes, but,” you’re in trouble. The goal is to satisfactorily answer all of the questions he’s likely to think of at the time before he can think of them. The easiest way to achieve this is to test drive your proposal/presentation before taking it on the road. In industry, before submitting a proposal, I’d have the team play devil’s advocate with it, getting them to do their best to find faults and holes, and identify the parts that are most likely to be questioned or challenged, and then beef them up. In my solo work, I’ve found that this works just as well with a group of one.
I know what I’m suggesting is a lot of work, but I think we all need to become better salesmen (and ladies) if we’re ever going to start winning the majority and the power brokers over to our side. As advocates, we can start by winning over each other to a more common mind set and game plan. “United we (might) stand; divided…”
One final note (sorry to go on so long, Marcel). I’ve found lately that your ideas and mine are moving closer together. I strongly suspect it’s because we’re talking less about the politics and more about the stuff that really matters to us. So, maybe the idea that advocates can win each other over holds water. I firmly believe that all of the things we want, and much more that we haven’t yet imagined, will, one day, all come to be. But we’ve, all of us, got to somehow develop and present and more united and reconciled front to get the world started down the right path.
Thanks for your ideas, and for tolerating my occasional bluntness.
Steve
However, if it turns out that the Moon’s 1/6 gravity is deleterious to human health then it may force NASA to refocus its efforts on developing rotating space stations with artificial gravity.
This is actually of extreme importance, and NASA’s turning a blind eye of human development in low gravity as opposed to zero gravity is one of the many big mistakes NASA has done.
I doubt Joe public will be willing to relocate to a spinning space station, unless it is for short periods of time or some hypothetical calamity happens on earth.
Unfortunately, if humans can’t grow healthy in low gravity don’t expect to see much space colonization until we have developed interstellar travel capabilities to reach habitable extrasolar planets.
Spacelab1,
Joe Public won’t, but hopefully enough of us enlightened folk would relocate if the station was large enough to avoid coriolis-type effects and claustrophobia. We have to start somewhere. Ah, but we still have so much to learn after so much time wasted. But someday…
Steve
Thats true.
Regardless of whether the Moon or Mars are truly colonizable I’m sure that rotating “cities” in space would definitely make good tourism resorts too!
Were just going to have to wait for the technology to get right.
The difference between a continuously manned moon base and a limited base manned “as needed” to maintain long term science (such as radio astronomy on the dark side of the moon) is significant.
Where has the ISS being continuously manned gotten us? With 6 people up there, NASA reports 35 hours of science a week. And, as Keith has pointed out, earth based science is easier than jumping through hoops and favoritism for NASA’s ISS.
I suggest robotic exploration – as has been described here – followed by a limited “manned as needed” moon base. The budget is flat and will remain so. Let us deal with it and stop the imaginary big projects which will be funded sometime in the indefinite future. We have been playing that game since 1973 and are still in low earth orbit for humans. Even planetary exploration is limited by expenditures on the James Watt telescope.
Ed,
The dark side of the Moon?
Steve
I am certainly not an expert, but I had read that the side of the moon facing away from us always faces away from us. Thus some articles have suggested it would be would be good for radio astronomy because it would not have to filter earth interference and would only need occasional maintenance and not have to be continuously manned.
Bigelow with its inflatable space habitats has already done some impressive work on making affordable inflatable space station/moon/planet living quarters. My main point, as an enthusiastic fan of space exploration, is that we have to start having reasonable affordable achievable goals rather than lofty goals that we will never reach. I had just finished 10th grade when we landed on the moon. I am now 59 and looking at social security. I think we all reasonably thought we would be further along by now.
Ed,
You’re absolutely right. One side always faces away from the Earth because the two bodies are tidily locked. And because the side away from us is shield from all of Earth’s EM “noise” by the Moon’s mass, it would be a better (quieter) place for all types of astronomy.
What you called the “dark side” is actually called “far side,” which makes sense. But there is nothing dark about it. The Moon is lighted by reflected sunlight, just like Earth. Over the course of a month, the Moon rotates once around the Earth, which means there is no point on the Moon’s surface that doesn’t get sunlight at some point during the month. In fact, every point on its surface gets almost same amount of sunlight over a month, just at different times. The only other dark time is during an eclipse.
I suspect that most people who think there’s a dark side got that idea from the title of the Pink Floyd album. If you listen carefully at the very end of the album, there’s a taped voice that says, “there is no dark side of the Moon, really; as a matter of fact, it’s all dark.” This refers to the fact that the Moon generates no light itself, just reflects sunlight, which probably only confuses things further.
As for the rest of your post, I think you’re right on the money. I firmly believe that we need to do, and should have been doing all along, smaller, more realistic missions/tasks, and further, each one, wherever possible, should have involved reusable craft, infrastructure, and/or material that would allow us to incrementally grow our space capability. The classic example is the 100+ Shuttle ETs that were allowed to burn up when they were very nearly already in orbit at the end of their use. As either real estate or material they were priceless and could have been put into orbit with very little extra expenditure.
Steve
Note: Disqus is doing weird things again. This reply ended up in two different places.
“James Watt telescope”
Is it steam powered?
Ed, You’re absolutely right. One side always faces away from the Earth because the two bodies are tidily locked. And because the side away from us is shield from all of Earth’s EM “noise” by the Moon’s mass, it would be a better (quieter) place for all types of astronomy. What you called the “dark side” is actually called “far side,” which makes sense. But there is nothing dark about it. The Moon is lighted by reflected sunlight, just like Earth. Over the course of a month, the Moon rotates once around the Earth, which means there is no point on the Moon’s surface that doesn’t get sunlight at some point during the month. In fact, every point on its surface gets almost same amount of sunlight over a month, just at different times. The only other dark time is during an eclipse. I suspect that most people who think there’s a dark side got that idea from the title of the Pink Floyd album. If you listen carefully at the very end of the album, there’s a taped voice that says, “there is no dark side of the Moon, really; as a matter of fact, it’s all dark.” This refers to the fact that the Moon generates no light itself, just reflects sunlight, which probably only confuses things further. As for the rest of your post, I think you’re right on the money. I firmly believe that we need to do, and should have been doing all along, smaller, more realistic missions/tasks, and further, each one, wherever possible, should have involved reusable craft, infrastructure, and/or material that would allow us to incrementally grow our space capability. The classic example is the 100+ Shuttle ETs that were allowed to burn up when they were very nearly already in orbit at the end of their use. As either real estate or material they were priceless and could have been put into orbit with very little extra expenditure. Steve
(drags out the old dead horse and starts beating it with a stick)
Wouldn’t it help any effort for Luna development to have some sort of ownership regime in place first?
I think it would be great if we had another landing to commerate the July 1969 landing. But it would be a group of private citizens each making a claim of X amount of land.
I believe that senerio would create the greatest amount of capital infusion possible.
Looney ideas solar train
Why not put a railroad around the moon and aways keep the train on the light side of the moon.
Lol a solar powered train. all cars have big solar collectors on them.
Rail and tracks not steel I guess but low friction and no air and electric motors have great torque, fuel free 🙂
Is there iron ore on the moon?
Continuous power if you stay on the light side.
Being electric, easy to power with nuclear power electric plant later.
Maybe have high transmission and low voltage on or near your tracks.
Humm could you also use a electric train track as your electric power line for out posts and mining sites near the line.
Remember lighting your plastic village off your Lionel railroad tracks. The moon has solar energy all month if you are wired lol
Ride the solar electric highway. Use the highway grid to tie all solar together creating no need for power stations.
No clouds on the moon lol.
Why not have a solar energy system mixed with hydrogen? All classes live near the tracks. Lol
Doesn’t take a rocket scientistt
Just a Lionel engineer lol
Mr. Wingo
Maybe you should call Elon at Spacex about transportation to the moon. And our x prize idea
Then call Elon at Tesla for short range moon rovers and our x prize idea
Then call Elon at Tesla about building the Tesla lunar railroad.
Then call Elon at Solar city to build your electric solar energy system.
Like one stop shopping at Walmart lol
DTARS
Hum well if we ever do get electric roads on the moon let’s design them more like slot cars with passing lanes and of course you can go off the highway on battery power too.
“Is there iron ore on the moon?”
There’s metallic iron. Unlike on Earth, none of the iron meteorites that have hit the moon over the last few billion years have oxidised. Dennis talks about just running a magnet over the regolith, then using microwaves to melt the iron for casting. I’m not sure how wide of the rail-line you’d need to sweep to pick up enough iron to make the tracks. I doubt you could even come close to automating it, though.
But alternatively, you can directly sinter the regolith into a kind of concrete, either for a simple road, or a more elaborate guideway.
And you don’t need to build it around the equator, just around the axis. As long as you’re more than 5 degrees from the poles, some part of the track is always in sunlight. (950km track length, 150km from the pole.)
It is an interesting model. If you’ve ever seen a track-laying machine on Earth, all the heavy equipment stays on the tracks, crane, welders, generators, etc, with new tracks being continuously laid ahead, supplies being shipped in from behind along the newly built rail-line.
But none of this is first generation, or even third, IMO.
I know it’s third generation:) I was just brain breezing hopeing to get some good ideas out of you guys 🙂
Instead of laying track use an overhead cable. Due to the low gravity the distance between towers can be enormous.
Being overhead there are few problems with abrasive moondust, so you can go fast.
The power can be collected at static solar array farms and sent through the cables. Three (or more) farms on different sides of the Moon can produce power 24/7.
Iron and aluminum can carry power. Silicon and other compounds can provide both insulators and strong fibres (made using ISRU materials).
I think that’s a neat idea:) add any thoughts to my x prize ideas if you would.
Good suggestion for a cratered, rocky, mountainous terrain. Popular with mining companies, apparently, so there’s experience with harsh use with freshly cut rock powder (which regolith essentially is.)
It might also eliminate (or dramatically simplify) the thermal expansion problem that’s been on my mind since I wrote my reply to DTARS. As long as the slackest line and tightest line (day and night, respectively) are within the limits of your vehicle, you’re golden.
Raw Looney ideas II x prize
X prize news flash
Flock of hopping, roller skating dragons head to the moon for a little drink.
What stuff would you need for a cheap x prize water mining project on the moon.
Mission program goal. To demonstrate that water can be mined with a cheap mobile mining, water making, fuel refining factory flock of dragon landers.
Mobile mining platforms.
Moving the flock
Hummmm we want to have all landing platforms be about the size of dragon.
If all dragons can fly they can hop too.
If they have enough fuel a dragon factory unit can hop to another location to stay up with the flock.
Plus our dragons need to like to roller skate.
Wouldn’t it be easy to have all looney dragon landers have wheels above their landing legs after landing impact you retract your legs a little so all dragon landers ARE rovers. No sky crane needed.
Maybe not for the very first moon sorties but have Spacex develop a moon fuel drinking Draco so that our flock can mine its own fuel to keep it on the move, sharing the fuel they mine.
How many dragons do you need in your flock? Hummmm
Let’s name them
There is driller, water maker, fuel maker, water tanker, fuel tanker
All these landers skins are solar collectors or they have collectors that follow the sun. Plus all dragons can plug into each other to share battery and solar power as needed.
I think water maker and fuel maker could be bird/dragons with a split personality.
Hummm
Fuel tanker and water tanker could be one, with a split personality at first too. Later they become dedicated tankers
Driller has the a ability to mine the water out of the ground.
Water/fuel maker does your refining.
Tanker stores your water and your fuel and can fly to an orbiting or looney depot.
All units are mobile and can feed each other fuel as needed and could receive supples from any new dragons sent from earth to join the flock
Sooo using just 3 dragon size landers couldn’t you start a demo moon factory?
How many dragons could a falcon Heavy get to the planet surface in one flight?
Couldn’t a falcon heavy easily leave a fuel depot in looney orbit? Or a point?
This idea was written to suggest possibilities and was not researched so any advice on how to improve or make possible the theme of starting a moon robot moon mining operation for x prize like prices sure would be appreciated.
Time to go outside and watch some birds.
Couldn’t such a small mobile flock travel around the moon leaving behind it loaded fuel tank/depots which tanker could shuttle to where ever it is needed.
X prize mission
Pre dragon factory mission should be a tesla rover mission. The rover and dragon platform should be solar powered. You have a tesla rover inside your dragon that is lowered out the bottom after landing with standard science package on board(to follow the water lol). In addition you have wheels on your dragon platform and demonstrate platform roller skating.
Also once your standard rover has traveled off exploring you hop you dragon platform to another location to meet back up with you standard rover.
To demonstrate future mobile factory capabilities.
Also this gives tesla a chance to make a multi purpose rover that can be used again and again on other rocks to do science cheaper in the future.
Also having two rovers/hopper together on the moon with cameras watching such a mission could be great fun for the public.
Joe Q
“There is driller, water maker, fuel maker, water[/]fuel tanker”
Hmmm, Driller, Baker, Maker, and Tanker.
Add in Seeker, science and survey, working ahead of the flock. And Talker, communications relay, stays on higher ground to keep line-of-sight with bother Earth and the other Dragons, with high-gain dishes and a deployable tower to see over terrain.
Thanks 🙂 at first glance I thought you were joking with a butcher a baker a candle stick maker lol. Do you think such a cheap idea could work? After writing it I started to wonder if such a flock of birds could send one of their flock to mars just to full fill the statement that we need to go the moon to get the fuel to go to mars.
Driller, baker, maker, tanker, seeker, science and survey, and talker
That’s seven lol and the Ice is Snow White
Well naming them should be easy for that first mission. Call Disney
Should seeker be a whole dragon or just a speedy rover? Like the one that drives to one of the Apollo sites after driving back in it’s dragon garage and hopping to the birthday party 🙂
Ok seeker IS the first rover mission with it’s drop down speedy rover.
Thanks Paul
Errr, I meant “Seeker” as the science and survey Dragon. Flying ahead of the pack, picking the next site. Then roving the site doing science while waiting for the others.
Within 3 to 4 years NASA’s Project Morpheus hopes to have a small working lunar lander, launched on Atlas V, able to land 500kg payloads on the Moon.
A prize for 1 kg of ISRU water made on the Moon is a possibility.
The higher level prize could be for water massing at least twice the mass of the ISRU machines that made it. At this point NASA would no longer be running a reconnaissance mission but actually working on the Moon.
The regolith LOX Centenary Challenge could be revived.