TrumpSpace Tidbit: #BackToTheMoon ?
Trump met with historian Douglas Brinkley. Brinkley said afterwards Trump "was very interested in a man going to the moon," per pool report.
— Alex Pappas (@AlexPappas) December 28, 2016
Trump ‘very interested in a man going to the moon,’ says historian, Washington Examiner
“A historian who met with Donald Trump says the president-elect was “very interested in a man going to the moon.” Historian Douglas Brinkley met with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Wednesday afternoon. Brinkley told reporters after the meeting his conversation with Trump focused on “Nixon and Reagan and Kennedy … a sort of history of the presidency and past inaugurals and things like that.” He also mentioned that Trump “was very interested in a man going to the moon and the moon shot so we were talking a little bit about that.”
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Which man? I can think of a few I’d like to send there…
Does Donald Trump Know That We’ve Already Landed on the Moon? He and his buddies seem to be firmly on both sides of the conspiracy question… If NASA starts now, do you think they could land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth before this decade is out? (I bet Elon could)
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2…
You might want to check your link. Disqus has been screwing up links lately, a-href tags aren’t likely to work until they fix it (if ever).
Re: Disqus. Not seeing link issues, but every single morning I have to login again. I’ve been commenting on the internet for many years with Disqus remembering me until the past 6 months or so.
What happens when you open the top link in Eric’s post? (Ie, “Does Donald Trump Know That…”)
If you hover over the bottom link (which Eric added in after my comment), you can see that Disqus has actually added itself (“disq⋅us/url?url=”) to force all links through it’s own servers, presumably to scour more information to sell to advertisers. Of course, when its servers are overloaded, that means all links will fail to resolve. Yay, progress.
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Re: Login.
Are you using Disqus from two devices? I’ve noticed that when I switch networks/devices, Disqus demands a new login.
Yes! That could be it, I’ll have a look.
I see only the line of logos from Disqus, Facebook, etc.
And there’s this: if I have all of Keith’s current posts open in tabs, as I usually do in the morning, then start to comment on the first one, requiring login, I’m taken not to the post I started but to the last opened post. I think this is a Safari issue though.
The travails of the 1%.
“Man” – enough said.
I understand we have been there…50 years ago. We spent a total of approx. 14 days there. We did 14 moon walks totaling less than 150hours. All the missions were equatorial,and on the near side. So I guess there isn’t any reason to take a few 3 day flights to the moon,to maybe practice a long term stay on a celestial body other than earth, before we land on mars and stay a month or more the first time we go…Its not exciting, but doing the practice since most people involved in the moon landing operations are either very elderly or dead… Just my two cents worth…
A 3day flight to the moon…how does that address a typically 6 month trip to the vicinity in Mars in full GCR and microg? How does ‘practicing’ on the lunar surface compare to practicing on an asteroid or Martian surface and would not ‘practicing’ to gradually extend duration of deep space travel have much greater ‘practice’ value?
There are several wrong ways to go to the Moon. If the policy is redirected to the Moon I hope that we don’t do any of those.
“a man going to the Moon” sounds like a sortie which would be no greater progress than what we have accomplished during the Apollo program.
Resurrecting the Constellation program with a very expensive lander using a very expensive rocket resulting in a government habitat only to be abandoned to go to Mars would be a terrible waste and delay.
But perhaps the worst way would be to establish a cis-lunar station and then use a very expensive HLV to constantly rotate crew. This approach would mean that we get neither the Moon nor anything at Mars until we finally get around to abandoning it.
My hope would be a Lunar COTS approach with the establishment of humanity’s first permanent off-Earth base while simultaneously taking the in-space steps in the Mars system.
What would those lunanauts be doing with their time? Assuming the outpost supports a number higher than required simply for maintenance, what are they doing, and who is paying for it?
More importantly what percentage of what they are doing could be done remotely? Or indeed using sorties?
I find myself constantly arguing against any sort of occupied Lunar or Martian presence because I can’t imagine the enormous costs being borne long by government. Any government. It’s not that I don’t personally support use of tax dollars to support a deliberate, conservative presence. I do.
I just don’t see it happening in the political climate.
For those who imagine some sort of ‘settlement’, think again.
Let’s see if I can restate that in a more positive way.
I believe field scientists are better than robots, even teleoperated ones. That’s because robots have not replaced humans for this sort of work on Earth. Therefore, if the cost is low enough, governments would send scientists to the Moon, just as they send them to Antarctica.
With that in mind, the NSF’s polar program has an annual budget of $450 million. Almost all of that goes to supporting the Antarctic program, to the tune of about 800 person-years per year. Therefore, the US government is willing to spend about half a million per person-year to do science in remote places. Presumably, that would apply to the Moon as well.
That gives us a rough number to work with. You can scale it up or down, based on efficiency (scientists-hours in the field per person-year on site, including support and maintenance people.) You might scale it up based on public interest (people on the Moon might have more popular appeal than people in Antarctica.) But it is a rough figure we can work from.
So, if someone is in favor of a government-funded, scientific station on the Moon (or Mars), they need to figure out how to do it for that price. About a million dollars per person-year for transportation and logistics. I think that’s more positive than saying that the costs are impossibly high. If setting a target cost for anyone who think they can do it.
A very useful metric.
While Antarctica is surely a very expensive transportation ticket, Luna Base 1 would be astronomical; and while Antarctica has water and air and gravity, of course Luna Base has none.
The capital costs of a lunar base are probably more akin to building ISS, particularly is NASA is charged with the job.
It all depends upon how you do it. If you use the cost-plus approach, accommodate the preferences of multiple national space agencies, require the use of the SLS, and design the lunar base to be composed of multiple aluminum cylinders needing separate launches then yes, it would cost at least as much as the ISS.
But in the scenario that I advocate it would use a LunarCOTS.com approach with competitive, fixed-price contracts with payments for milestones met, be developed with designs by American companies with other national space agencies adding redundancy to the system using whatever approach they choose, using Falcon Heavy launches, and a single launch of a large, thin, inflatable habitat providing 92% of the volume of the ISS then I estimate that it would cost about 1/7th what it cost to develop the ISS.
Hi Michael. Your questions are not rhetorical but have some straightforward answers.
> What would those lunanauts be doing with their time?
The initial crew would be providing transportation for astronauts from many countries to conduct their own “Apollo programs” from an International Lunar Research Habitat (ILRH). To do this they would be maintaining the ice harvesting equipment and ice-to-propellant production system. They would also be expanding the telerobotic ice-harvesting workforce by extracting and processing the metallic micrometeorite bits in the regolith into the gross metal parts of more ice harvesters. They would also set up the ILRH as well as other large inflatables in preparation for others. They would also be growing food and demonstrating the production of various organic chemicals. So, they would be busy and productive.
> and who is paying for it?
Under a Lunar COTS scenario, NASA would be paying for the majority at about 7% of its budget. This would include transportation hardware development (e.g. Masten-Xeus & ULA-ACES-DTAL), Commercial Lunar Cargo, and Commercial Lunar Crew. In other words, just a repeat of what NASA and participating companies have been doing very successfully since 2006 only now through cis-lunar space and on the Moon.
Later, the many countries who would like to see their compatriots exploring the Moon would pay the participating companies for the transportation services and housing.
Finally, those individuals able and interested in retiring on the Moon would purchase transportation and housing. So the economics of this phase would be based upon the same rationale as growing, sustainable retirement communities on Earth — i.e. wealth earned previously in various Earth-based markets.
> what percentage of what they are doing could be done remotely?
The telerobots would be operated remotely by people on Earth just like they do with telerobots in mining situations on Earth. But, just like the ISS, most of the indoor work would be done by crew and not Robonaut 2s (which has been used very little).
> Or indeed using sorties?
Sorties are very expensive, and dangerous. Far better to extend crew stay and get more crew labor per launch.
> I can’t imagine the enormous costs being borne long by government.
> The public-private approach is far more cost effective than the usual approach. Starting with COTS, the current programs have been ongoing for nine years now with no sign of stopping.
Also, the Lunar COTS scenario would have a clear path to transitioning the lunar facilities off of NASA’s budget to that of other nations and then from there to the wealth of private individuals. In other words, there would be a clear path to truly market-based support.
> I just don’t see it happening in the political climate.
The current Trump NASA transition climate is favoring:
– commercial space,
– cost-effectiveness,
– the Moon, and
– American leadership.
A Lunar COTS approach would be in line with all of those.
> For those who imagine some sort of ‘settlement’, think again.
Settlement is not a base. Settlement is people settling down by establishing a home. A base is a workplace. But to be cost-effective and safer, a base (really just a single large inflatable habitat – think Bigelow) would want to extend crew stay by providing radiation shielding and at least some artificial gravity. This type of base could therefore also be the start of settlement because people could live there for long periods of time.
The only difference would be essentially just a choice. Do the crew have a home back on Earth with a spouse and children that they need to get back to or do they have their spouse along with them and have no children back on Earth? Retirees would be the ideal initial settlers because they have saved up wealth, they don’t have the occupational or childrearing responsibilities, and they wouldn’t be risking the dangers of getting pregnant. So, initial settlement could start right after an initial ILRH and so sooner than even many space advocates realize.
Thanks for the reply; this thread is getting stale, so hope you still see this.
Antarctica has been offered as a reasonable cognate to a lunar base, which seems reasonable in many ways. Scientists there passively collect data.
As you describe lunar activities you are describing the establishment of a major mining operation, one using engineering that has yet to be invented. Similarly, techniques for growing crops in low G and in sufficient amounts to support staff simply don’t exist; and when they do, the area required will be many many acres.
Certainly you are correct about funding: nobody is envisioning, as far as I know, any sort of ‘settlement’ in the manner of Heinlein. It’s possible one supposes that some point the availability of cracked products will be salable, but the sunk costs are going to be so large that launching from earth makes sense.
So there’s that: it’s cheaper to launch from earth for consumables, and that being the case, why bother cracking ice on the moon?
Your point about retirees representing a useful population is a good one that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
> this thread is getting stale, so hope you still see this.
Discus sends responses to my e-mail so they are brought to my attention regardless of how stale the rest of the thread is.
> Antarctica…Scientists there passively collect data.
I see an International Lunar Research Facility as likely going to be as a launching pad for sets of national astronauts to conduct their own Apollo program. By this, I mean that a fully-refueled lander could conduct between five and six ten-degree (latitude) suborbital hops before needing to return to base to be refueled. Conducting multiple suborbital hops using a reusable, refuelable lander would be so cost-effective that I would imagine that the majority of countries would want to have that national experience (e.g. Having their children inspired by watching Brazilian astronauts exploring the Moon in Portugese).
> As you describe lunar activities you are describing the establishment of a major mining operation, one using engineering that has yet to be invented.
No, no, no. I use the term “ice-harvesting” because “mining” conjures up all of the wrong images. LCROSS showed the presence of water ice within fluffy regolith in concentrations of one part per 18. To harvest ice you need a vehicle that gently scoops up the fluffy regolith, brings it into its body, closes its body, heats and tumbles it to steam out the volatiles, passively chills the volatiles, stores them on board, poops out the now-dry regolith, and then moved forward a few feet and repeats. An ice harvester would look something like this only larger: [Pict 1]
“Mining” on the other hand implies huge, heavy, Caterpillar-like equipment, jack-hammers breaking hard rock, multiple pieces of equipment (excavated, hauler, crusher, chemical extractor, men with hard-hats getting all dirty, etc). “Mining” looks something like this:
http://images.google.com/se…
Big difference! I see the hardware needed to harvest and process enough propellant to fully refuel a full-sized lander as being low-enough mass such that it could be delivered on a single, one-way, automated landing.
> Similarly, techniques for growing crops in low G and in sufficient amounts to support staff simply don’t exist.
Not exactly true. Produce has been successfully grown on the ISS which has less gravity than the Moon. Here are pictures of that: [Pict 2, 3, 4]
The Lunar Greenhouse work at the University of Arizona has modules large enough to supply the caloric needs of astronauts: [Pict 5]
> and when they do, the area required will be many many acres.
I estimate that a lunar greenhouse for a single crew would require about 0.017 of an acre. One acre would support about 60 crew. This is intensive hydroponic gardening with a controlled environment for maximal yield.
> It’s possible one supposes that some point the availability of cracked products will be salable
No, salability is not the goal. Rather, displacing the high cost of transport is the goal. Once ice harvesting is achieved, the top mass requirements will not have to be shipped. This includes: propellant, water, and organics such as CO2 and NH3 for plants and organic chemicals (eg plastics).
The mass of ice harvested will be far in excess of the mass of the hardware sent to harvest it. Once the equipment is on site and producing it will be much less expensive for it to produce than to ship the same amount of product from the Earth. However, complex parts such as low-mass electronic equipment will need to be shipped to the Moon for quite some time. https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
The President-Elect is in so many ways a ‘new’ person, one not fully knowledgeable about public issues and policies (or anything intellectual, his vocabulary and grammar being evidence).
This hasn’t dissuaded him, though, from thinking like so many of us do that a ‘smart person’ is sufficiently equipped to find solutions to any issue we face.
He is aided in part by certain a priori predilections: government bad/ private enterprise good, for instance; the sense that we are over-taxed being another; and the idea that welfare is essentially a cheat. Get your own damn health insurance. So-armed, many decisions make themselves, right or wrong.
While it would be useful for the President-elect to learn about Dunning-Kruger, as he will, he’s in the enviable position of seeing just how powerful the Presidency really is. Imagine being able, for instance, at a stroke of a pen to determine that the US will visit the moon. Not Mars (maybe later). Wanna drill in the arctic? Do it. Or…dozens of other things the Administration finds in purview.
None of us would be anything less than overwhelmed with such a revelation.