International Moon Transit Station

[cavesofmars]

The first large object in space with artificial gravity will be the International Moon Transit Station (IMTS). Sometime over the next decade or so, a consensus will emerge among nations planning bases on the moon that a place near the moon where they can control the activities at their bases is necessary. Since building the IMTS will be costly, the nations will be forced to share the costs which will likely be more than 100 billion dollars. However, with a IMTS in place, nations will be able to ferry their astronauts from low earth orbit to the IMTS and then, back and forth from the moon using moon ferries. Along with the IMTS, the ferries will be shared by everyone. Also, the ferries will be small freighters able to carry supplies and parts as needed.

To support all this activity, the IMTS will need to maintain a staff of a hundred or more personnel. Unlike the highly trained astronauts of the International Space Station (ISS), the ITMS staff will need an artificial gravity environment where adaption to microgravity is not necessary. Because these may be year-long assignments, the IMTS will require substantial protection from radiation as well.

 

[cavesofmars]

To create artificial gravity, the IMTS needs to have a donut-like design which can rotate where the floor inside will be on the outer end of the donut. This shape can be constructed using a large number of cylindrical modules with connectors on each end. These connections could be sealed off inside in case of an emergency. Each module would be designed to support needed capabilities of the IMTS and that would determine how many were needed as well as the overall size of the station. The modules would all be connected to a central frame structure running through the center of the donut shape. Projecting from the center in both directions would be a long frame containing the devices to rotate the IMTS as well as communications and storage facilities.

Over time, as necessary, another donut could be added on to this central frame to provide for the growth of expanded activities on the moon.

 

[cavesofmars]

The construction of the IMTS will be completed sometime in the 2030s when SSTO capability will be available and the costs of moving large amounts of material into low earth orbit will have been substantially reduced. One reason for an ever larger set of personnel on the IMTS is the expanded use of telepresence to control an ever-growing group of robot contruction machines building the bases on the moon. The near location to the moon will minimize the communication delays between the personnel and the robots.

 

[cavesofmars]

The IMTS will be located at the L5 point between the earth and the moon to ensure positional stability. As the activity on the moon ramps up during the 2030s, it will be the main support position for the construction of the first spaceships to Mars. Although small robot spacecraft will have traveled to Mars and the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos to set up base support facilities, the first major human flight to Mars will take place on the Mars One spaceliner assembled near the IMTS. The reason for this is that the moon will be supplying a large percentage of the materials and supplies needed to build the spaceliners. In addition, much of the technology of artificial gravity, radiation protection, growing food in space, and the utilization of robot construction machines will have advanced through the activities at the IMTS.

It may well be that the design of the Mars One liner will resemble that of the IMTS because it may well serve initially the same purpose for Mars as the IMTS did for the moon. The major addition, of course, will be the propulsion system to take it to Mars.

 

[bdewoody]

I'm sorry I fail to see the need for your IMTS. We can fly directly from the ISS to the moon and the communications delay from the ISS to the surface of the moon is insignificant. Mission control can remain right where it is now. Your IMTS would be too expensive and drain resources better spent on making a robust moon base.

 

[cavesofmars]

What appears to be more expensive as a first impression actually is the least expensive option when the needs of multiple nations to access the moon and build their own bases are considered. The ISS is not built to handle the surge of activity that will ensue in the 2030 time frame. Further, for each nation to build all the individual components needed to assemble and service a base on the moon would be duplicating the work of everyone else. It is much more preferable to be able to piggy-back on an international infrastructure that will get you to the moon so that you only need to focus on what you want to do at your base.

If each of the nations, who wished to set up a base of their own on the moon, bought access to the IMTS and the associated components for 20 billion each, the money would be their to get it built. Then, all they would have to do is to design and build the modules for their base and train their own personnel to carry out the planned activities. On a smaller scale, the ISS is an example of this approach.

 

[Beanze]

I'm sorry I fail to see the need for your IMTS. We can fly directly from the ISS to the moon and the communications delay from the ISS to the surface of the moon is insignificant. Mission control can remain right where it is now. Your IMTS would be too expensive and drain resources better spent on making a robust moon base.

I like the idea :/

 

[MeteorWayne]

A few questions from a curmudgeon.

How much will it cost?
Who's paying for it?
What vehicles will launch it (in the hundreds of pieces and launches, each of which need to be paid for)?
What purpose will it serve compared to dedicated missions, and is worth the extra dozens of trillions of $ it will cost?

 

[cavesofmars]

Although a few nations (possibly China and America) may opt initially for dedicated missions to the moon, the long term expansion into space requires the building of an infrastructure that will most efficiently support that expansion. Private companies would be able to finance building a factory on the moon if they could purchase the services needed to transport personnel and materials at a fixed price. The income from these services would support the maintenance and the upgrade of the IMTS going forward.

However, the cost of building the IMTS will be covered by the major nations committed to expansion into space. Many smaller countries such as Sweden or South Africa may also buy shares in the project so that they will have access to the activities on the moon for their companies. Although the initial cost will likely be more than 100 billion, this will be easy to meet for nations with economies of 20 trillion plus annual gross national product in 2030.

 

[cavesofmars]

By 2030, SSTO technology will have matured to the point that major nations will have fleets of five or more SSTO freighters. Compared to the once every three months shuttle flights of today, there will be daily SSTO flights in 2030. Assuming these freighters will have at least as much storage space as the shuttle, there will be no problem delivering the modules for the IMTS to L5 as fast as they can be built on earth.

At L5, a team of assembler robots working 24 hours a day will assemble the modules for the ITMS into the donut configuration. Assuming each of the modules can be built in parallel in a year, the ITMS will be fully assembled and ready for human occupation a year after that. By designing the center truss so that additional donuts can be assembled on to it for future expansion, the ITMS will easily reach a personnel size of a hundred or more by 2040.

 

[cavesofmars]

By 2050, one of the delights of travel from the moon to the IMTS is the new version of the ferry. Initial versions of the ferry used rocket technology to reach escape velocity from the moon. The advanced version will use magnetic levitation to achieve the needed velocity. Travelers will enter the tube-like freighter at an underground facility. At the start of the journey, the ferry will accelerate at a pace similar to today's airplanes on a small uphill gradient in its underground tunnel. After it reaches escape velocity, it will burst out of the tunnel and the travelers will view the moon below as they rapidly move away into space.

The flight as well as the docking at the IMTS will be under total robot control. When exiting from the ferry into the ITMS, the travelers will notice an increase in gravity relative to what they experienced on the moon. Alternatively, the docking would be with a moon-earth orbiter having artificial gravity and the same effect would occur.

 

[scottb50]

By 2050, one of the delights of travel from the moon to the IMTS is the new version of the ferry. Initial versions of the ferry used rocket technology to reach escape velocity from the moon. The advanced version will use magnetic levitation to achieve the needed velocity. Travelers will enter the tube-like freighter at an underground facility. At the start of the journey, the ferry will accelerate at a pace similar to today's airplanes on a small uphill gradient in its underground tunnel. After it reaches escape velocity, it will burst out of the tunnel and the travelers will view the moon below as they rapidly move away into space.

The flight as well as the docking at the IMTS will be under total robot control. When exiting from the ferry into the ITMS, the travelers will notice an increase in gravity relative to what they experienced on the moon. Alternatively, the docking would be with a moon-earth orbiter having artificial gravity and the same effect would occur.

It would take about the same amount of propellant to go to an L5 point as it would take to get to lunar orbit. It would take additional propellant to go from L5. What is needed is LEO and LLO transit and assembly stations. Various Modules are assembled at the stations, launched by any number of launchers they could be combined for heavier or just more cargo or people.

From there the vehicle travels to the moon and enters an elliptical orbit matching the station, rendevous and docks. Transit vehicles bring departing Modules to the station and take arriving Modules to the surface. Return is the opposite, enter LEO and dock to the Station, descent vehicles would go to the surface.

 

[samkent]

You are making the assumption that countries will have bases on the Moon.
You also assume this station is needed.

Both are incorrect.

For all practical purposes the Moon base envisioned by our former president is dead. He proposed it back in the days when we thought we had a few dollars left over. But now that we have opened the countries wallet all find is maxed out credit cards. Every country I can think of has done the same. For the worlds countries to spend 100 billion you will have to prove the benefit will far exceed the cost.

As it stands many if not most people see no need for a six person space station let alone a 100 person version. As to the Moon base you will have to prove the need for one. Many have tried but none have succeeded . The Moon has nothing we need to survive. And the stuff we might want is far too expensive to bring back to Earth.

This isn’t Star Trek!
Space cost money.

 

[orionrider]

the ITMS will easily reach a personnel size of a hundred or more by 2040.

This is fast becoming a duplicate of the dying '21st Century Space Travel' post.
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=24733

cavesofmars, you keep replying to your own posts, repeating the same story over and over again without listening to what people say. You have incredible imagination. If only you could be less delirious, ask short easy questions or make a simple point instead of writing Hugo and Nebula novels :?

I strongly suggest you go for literature instead of Science at college :idea:

 

[nimbus]

A few questions from a curmudgeon.

What vehicles will launch it (in the hundreds of pieces and launches, each of which need to be paid for)?

It's understandable cynicism when even as we speak (type) "a company" is screwing with a perfectly good (meeting all beggar's needs in today's circumstances) solution as DIRECT is: ATK.

What could overrule this bunch of crooked "businessmen"? Public influence.
What's the public doing? Watching Oprah instead of duly and cogently protesting.

 

[cavesofmars]

Expansion into space is the destiny of the human race as well as the advanced humans that will emerge later in this century. This basic urge will use any new capability to take whatever next steps are possible. While cost is always a consideration, other factors will always come into play to drive the expansion. National pride is a big factor and national security will be another factor in creating the needed capabilities.

What the expansion into space requires is a supporting infrastructure that will enable private companies to drive the exploration forward. While the ITMS as I have described it here may not be what actually happens, some variation of it will happen. While humans may arrive on Mars in a way similar to our initial landing on the moon, I think it is more likely to happen once the supporting infrastructure is in place to nurture the growth of colonies on that planet.

Bases will be built on the moon to provide the materials needed for this expansion into space. Using the moon materials, construction of the space ships to Mars can be done at L5 and launched from there.

 

[EarthlingX]

I think you don't have a clear idea about Lagrangian points, so please read this before more talking about L5 :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

This thread is sci-fi, not SB&T, and i think you should start with a bit of asking first, to clear out some things.

 

[cavesofmars]

I've suggested L5 as the location of the IMTS for no other reason than positional stability. There may be other factors that might lead planners to make a different choice. The reason this post strikes readers as sci-fi is that it is making certain predictions based on major technological trends visible today. Inevitably, any prediction is making a choice about the future versus many other possibilities.

The basic argument of this post is that the expansion of humanity into space will occur as the result of a supportive infrastructure built at an ever more rapid pace using a vast array of intelligent tools.

One component of this infrastructure will be the technology of artificial gravity environments. To further discussion, I have used the idea of an IMTS to allow responders to the post to visualize what that environment might be like.

 

[aaron38]

The construction of the IMTS will be completed sometime in the 2030s when SSTO capability will be available...

If only. I remember when it was 1990 and reading that we'd have SSTOs by 2010. Didn't quite happen.

We could probably get a very rugged fully reuseable TSTO by then if we tried. I actually think that's what NASA should be working on with the Shuttle retired.

 

[pmn1]

Why do you need one for the moon, Mars is more likley to need it.

There was a paper in the December 1991 issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society by Michael A Minovitch of Phaser Telepropulsion Inc proposing the building of rotating 2001 type stations 100 metres diameter for at least 150 crew by using automatic wrapping machines rotating round inflated Kevlar torus’ to wind thin layers of aluminium until the required thickness had been made.

The rotating toroidal living section would have a major and minor radii of 100m and 2m while the two central column cylinders with labs etc and constructed in the same way would each be 100m long x 10m diameter. The two column cylinders would connect into a pre-fabricated central hub into which three spokes 100m long x 4m diameter also constructed in the same way would be fitted to join the hub to the toroidal living section.

The station also served as the basis for a 'cycling' ship and would take about 10 HLLV (assuming 100 tons/launch) or 14 Shuttle-C launches and 1 STS flight with minimal EVA.

Costs were about $400 billion for an Earth orbit station, a Mars orbit station and a cycling ship

 

[cavesofmars]

The reason that SSTO technology will have matured by 2030 is that the processing power of the systems simulating and testing the designs will be so advanced that it will be possible to go right from the simulations to the building and flying of prototypes thus vastly speeding up implementation time. Plus, these vehicles will be fully robot-controlled so that they can be flown during the testing phase up to the outer limits of their design.

Having fleets of SSTO freighters means that it will be easy to move huge amounts of materials and supplies into space. This will support the rapid building of relatively large structures. Using robot assemblers in space where gravity is not a big problem will also make rapid assembly possible. While the British proposal of 1991 is one approach, I llike the modular approach better because, like a modular home, it can be shipped with all the required components already inside and ready for use.

Finally, the moon will be an important destination because it has vast amounts of various materials that can be easily moved into space because of its weak gravity.