Moon exploration dead?

[halman]

alokmohan, <br /><br />Where did you get the figure of 100 years? Everything that I have read says that you are off by at least 2 zeros. The advocates for dropping everything and rushing off to Mars seem to ignore any science which contradicts their beliefs, while belittling anything which could take resources away from developing Mars.<br /><br />Sometimes, I wish that we had the ability to send people to Mars, so that we could get them off of Earth and out of discussions about off planet exploration, because they confuse the issues that we face to those who are not familiar with space exploration. For a layman, anywhere except the Moon is just a tiny dot of light, yet some people are saying that it would be easier to get to one of those little dots of light than it would be to get to the Moon. Those people don't mention that it would take several months to get to Mars, and only a couple of days to get to the Moon, nor do they say anything about closed system life support, radiation shielding, or a score of other subjects which have bearing on the subject.<br /><br />If we go to the Moon first, there is no doubt that we will go to Mars.<br /><br />If we go to Mars first, we may never go anywhere again. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>It can be the source of raw materials of all kinds, high enough in our gravity well that those materials can be used here on Earth, in orbit, or anywhere in the Solar System.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />The only problem is, that no public funds are currently going into researching into exploiting this, and nobody in private industry has picked up the idea.<br />Another place in discussion to link to the Eighth Continent Project

 

[j05h]

<i>> The advocates for dropping everything and rushing off to Mars seem to ignore any science which contradicts their beliefs, while belittling anything which could take resources away from developing Mars. </i><br /><br />"Dropping everything"?? What "science" says humanity will fail to develop Mars, or other space destinations? Name it. Except for the modest NASA Rovers, Orbiters followed by 4Frontiers and MarsDrive, there are no resources going to Mars development. The only "space" thing that gets real money are satellites for Earth orbit. Any human space development beyond ISS will be bootstrap efforts made by effort, investment and luck.<br /> <br /><i>> Sometimes, I wish that we had the ability to send people to Mars, so that we could get them off of Earth and out of discussions about off planet exploration, because they confuse the issues that we face to those who are not familiar with space exploration.</i><br /><br />Nice. Penal colonies for people who have different opinions. You remind me of the woman on sci.space.policy that yelled at us for dissing on John Glenn during his Shuttle flight, because Glenn was her daughter's hero. <br /><br />WE ARE NOT JUST LAYMEN. We are educated and work to varying extents in this field. If you want to have a glossed-over discussion of space, maybe space.com should create a "for the beginners" forum where we can continuously go over the basics. <br /><br />Besides that, what issues do we discuss that "confuse" the non-space cadet community? You are denying that Mars and it's orbit is energetically easier to get to than the Lunar surface? Fact is that with aerobraking at Mars it is almost half the energy required to get to the Lunar Surface (3.8km/s vs 5.8 from LEO). Yes, this is technical and yes it takes months longer to get there. Or should we never mention delta-v, time and aerobraking to not confuse someone? <br /><br />On top of this, the Moon is a fossil world lacking volatiles. To properly develop the Moon requires Mart <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

There are public funds that are being expended right now. The first logical step is to get back to the moon for even further exploration, and that is what NASA is dong with the Orion project!<br /><br />There are also companies that are indeed interested (if only for the helium 3 at this time) in eventually mining the moon for its resources (Heck, there are entire nations such as Russia and China that are interested in this exploitation).<br /><br />The best way to see to this happening is to see a reasonable increase in NASA's overall budget so that we can not only go back to the moon, but do it without sacrificing all the other things that NASA does so well. This includes the continued robotic exploration of Mars, which IS all that is needed for the next couple of decades or so.<br /><br />The human exploration of Mars can wait until the resources of the moon truly enable humanity to send an entire fleet of humans to Mars. This would ensure the mission could be completed with a high degree of confidence. Sending just one ship to Mars at a time is a guarantee that Mr. Murphy and his Law will see to it that we can watch a disaster in the making!!<br /><br />The kind of effort really needed to go that far out into space absolutely guarantees that humanity needs to put forth far more effort than the Mars first people such as Dr. Zubrin think it is going to take. And the moon IS the key to being able to affordably make that effort! If it means that it will take several more decades longer then so be it!<br /><br />Why is this so very hard for people to understand?<br /><br />

 

[MannyPim]

<font color="yellow"> Why is this so very hard for people to understand? <br /></font><br /><br />Because it makes too much sense..... <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[quasar2]

i guess what we need is a Harriman. someone w/ resources & vision who can get together the likes of Gates & Turner. it always pissed me off they never did send Yeager into Space just cuz of the degree thing. as if.. i`ve noticed even on here, several basics have been forgotten, like, Lunar Orbit. <br />the fact that, sometimes Lunar Orbit almost grazes the higher Mtns. therefore the only way to "orbit" the Moon is L1. sometimes "small' things like this get shuffled in the Political furor. & of course the 1/6 g well is often cited as more difficult to get out of than L1. but if we concentrate on The Moon the least bit a Sling would eventually be built. <br />i think the stability of 1/6 g is probably the best resource we have as our experience in microG assembly isn`t well perfected. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MannyPim]

<font color="yellow"> i guess what we need is a Harriman. someone w/ resources & vision who can get together the likes of Gates & Turner.</font><br /><br />Actually we have more than one.<br />We have Mr. Bigelow, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin & Larry Page, and many more at slightly less ambitious levels. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[franontanaya]

Yet exploration it's not to pick a fedora hat, a pickaxe and a rocket and go to Mars.<br /><br />We ain't going to fly everyday out of the Earth until we solve cancer. There's tons of radiation out there and we want to be able to deal with that better than hiding in planetary magnetic fields or underground holes.<br /><br />We need to demonstrate once forever that we can successfuly educate random people, since people born in Mars must better be able to do useful things for the air they breath and the water they drink and not kill their neighbour with a chainsaw. Many first American pilgrims had a lot of confidence on their New World view till they had to deal with the next generation.<br /><br />Space exploration can be split between space-only tech and space/earth tech. Robots are dealing quite well with space-only tech, and there's still a lot of science to collect before we taint everything with Earth life. Moon can be our poorman's escape plan during quite some time.<br /><br />Meanwhile, space exploration will advance too spending funds in space-oriented investigations that can be useful now and here, like biasing some of the cancer investigations to consider low gravity/space rad, or settlement engineering on Earth extreme enviroments.<br /><br />I think 99% of bad things that can happen to Earth during the next century are better survived with Earth extreme engineering (which provides more job opportunities) that with manned space missions, and we can export extreme engineering later to space when we are able to build better space settlements than some tuna cans threatened by resources and social entropy. Anyway, if Earth happens to look scary during these times, it's most probably our fault, so we take it as (wo)men and not just jump the board before it sinks, you know...<br /><br />If I could vote there, I'd pick a science and tech aware candidate, not someone with just a shiny plan to fire some rockets. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[venator_3000]

Is the slow strangulation of the Moon Plan (what else should I call it?) less similar to the 2 previous abandonments than a function of the current demographic? By that I mean a viable Moon Program (exploration, outpost, resource utilization, research base and stepping stone to Elsewhere) has been effectively abandoned twice: 1972 and 1992. <br /><br />The current NASA staff is looking a tad old and tired. Are they passing the torch to a new generation? Or is retirement the final frontier? <br /><br />Honestly, CEV looks more like archeology than reengineering. Is this a final nostalgia trip for a fading generation. And will it culminate in yet another tepid "advance" for manned planetary exploration. <br /><br />Seems like a waste of time and monies all around.<br /><br />--v3k <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[BReif]

That is my fear, that this "new plan" will meet the same end as did the others in 1972 and 1992. I expect that the CEV/Orion/ESAS/VSE etc. will all be shelved on January 20, 2009 with the inauguration of a new president.

 

[willpittenger]

Keep your heads cool so I don't need to get a moderator involved. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[venator_3000]

If not shelved then certainly up for a major review. If past behavior is any gauge there might be some push for an RTM effort as the Tranquility Base Centennial approaches in 2069, but that is unlikely.<br /><br />v3k <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The human exploration of Mars can wait until the resources of the moon truly enable humanity to send an entire fleet of humans to Mars. This would ensure the mission could be completed with a high degree of confidence. Sending just one ship to Mars at a time is a guarantee that Mr. Murphy and his Law will see to it that we can watch a disaster in the making!! <br />.<br />.<br />.<br />Why is this so very hard for people to understand?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />In fact, I do have a decent grasp of the problems involved. So please don't accuse people blindly. One thing that would definitely set Martian exploration back would be an Apollo-style "flags and footprints" mission. I think that the first manned mission to Mars needs to initiate a permanent base. At least one or two crew members would stay to join the next crew to carry forward the experience. Now with a permanent base, you need transportation, but you don't have to build a new habitats or laboratory -- or the shielding around them. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

Good, if you have such a grip on the issues involved then you also know that sending only one ship is a recipe for disaster. The ONLY way to ensure mission success for a mission that has a goal of millions of miles from the Earth is to have such a redundancy in mission spacecraft that any failure of one or even two of the ships can be overcome by transferring the crew(s) to other mission ships at the scene of failure. <br /><br />There will be NO Apollo 13 style rescue in such a situation some millions of miles from the Earth (we were incredibly lucky as well as resourceful to even get the Apollo 13 crew back alive as it was)!! <br /><br />Although Dr. Zubrin is indeed a great and well qualified engineer (his ideas on working on Mars using the actual resources of Mars are indeed brilliant) he does not seem to realize the problems such crews could face so far away from ANY source of physical help.<br /><br />It IS this situation that seems so very hard for people to understand. It should indeed be obvious that we should not be just planting flags, but staying with enough people and resources to truly explore such a large and fascinating place as Mars!<br /><br />Please note, that those of us that believe that we should go back to the moon first, to not only further explore (how many people have we landed on the backside (hidden) of the moon?) but to actually begin to exploit the materials of the moon, do NOT say that we should not eventually go on to Mars, and even far beyond!.<br /><br />But we do need a true Earth/moon space faring civilization first in order to go further out safely and economically! <br /><br />

 

[j05h]

<i>>> The human exploration of Mars can wait until the resources of the moon truly enable humanity to send an entire fleet of humans to Mars. This would ensure the mission could be completed with a high degree of confidence. Sending just one ship to Mars at a time is a guarantee that Mr. Murphy and his Law will see to it that we can watch a disaster in the making!!<br /> .<br /> .<br /> .<br /> Why is this so very hard for people to understand?<br /><br /><br /> /> In fact, I do have a decent grasp of the problems involved. So please don't accuse people blindly. One thing that would definitely set Martian exploration back would be an Apollo-style "flags and footprints" mission. I think that the first manned mission to Mars needs to initiate a permanent base. At least one or two crew members would stay to join the next crew to carry forward the experience. Now with a permanent base, you need transportation, but you don't have to build a new habitats or laboratory -- or the shielding around them.</i><br /><br />Two things to keep in mind for Frodo and the Mars nay-sayers. Living underwater in space will provide all our radiation protection. 1M thick of water around habitats provides Earth-level shielding. Second, current proposed missions (such as Energia's MarsPost) are only in the 500-1000t range for 6 crew and 3+ years. 500t is only 20 current ELV flights to assemble in LEO. Once destinations are established, even lighter crew-ships can make the transit. This fits well with what Elon Musk and Bigelow Aerospace are doing, including Elon's expressed interest in Mars flights. This requires extensive, safe habitat at the other end, starting with Nautilus modules. Destinations count, many destinations count more. <br /><br />These two facts (shielding with in-situ materials/wastewater and fairly modest mission mass once in LEO) mean that many destinations can be established and work together across the Inner Solar System. In fact, the best economic situatio <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[holmec]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>well, im no expert, but i think that the way to expand the economy is though productivity and inovation. It may very well be done on earth, not necessarily space settlement. Besides where will humanity settle?????...in the barren and life-impossible moon and mars????<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />If you hamper the space effort, you will limit most of what your advocating. The fact is, colonization is in the way future, and what your advocating is in the here, now. <br /><br />What will the future be like in 10, 100, 1000, 10000 years from now will depend on what we do with space now. And, btw, all those issues you mentioned will be issues then. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />What is more innovative than learning to live in space? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[holmec]

I agree with Josh.<br /><br />Its going to be a "shot gun effect" on the exploration of moon , mars, asteroids and beyond from several sources, not just NASA.<br /><br />Infrastructure is the key. And the main thing for infrastructure is fuel. And when it comes to fuel, gravity is the enemy. So fuel sources should come from the moon and asteroids, apart from Earth and Mars.<br /><br />Also refuelable tugs operating in the inner solarsystem I see as key. That could be an industry all itself.<br /><br />Shielding, water may be good for shielding but detrimental to acceleration and deceleration. So maybe a nuclear powered magnetic shielding technology is needed for space craft.<br /><br /><br />Also propulsion systems other than chem rockets need to come up. Solar sail tech, and VASIMR come to mind. These could only aid in the economy and the efficiency of the infrastructure.<br /><br />Automation will continue to play a big part. Sending crew less cargo ships for example.<br /><br />Power is crucial for all operations. It would surely be nice to have nuclear fusion available rather than fission. But fission is what we have to work with now. And the anti nuclear people may hinder that effort. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[holmec]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>That is my fear, that this "new plan" will meet the same end as did the others in 1972 and 1992. I expect that the CEV/Orion/ESAS/VSE etc. will all be shelved on January 20, 2009 with the inauguration of a new president.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That would be political suicide, and then the president after that would reinvigor the program for some easy political point. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>There are public funds that are being expended right now.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />I was referring to exploiting space resources. No public funds and very little private funds are currently spent on this purpose, and there are no defined plans to do so.<br /><br />If someone would state that using space resources is a mission goal, then solutions and architectures for it would be way way different from what is being planned right now. No public space agency, european, russian, japanese or american is working towards such a goal.<br />I cant tell about chinese, they keep their cards close to their chests, at least until the plans are very well defined.

 

[frodo1008]

The important thing is that all the planning for private investment in the exploitation of the moon has to wait until NASA at the very least has set up some kind of a moon base where at least a few humane with many robots can live in a permanent manner. <br /><br />Until that happens all planning for such mining and processing of moon resources is just wistful thinking. The main area for private investment is just what such people as Burt Rutan are now doing. First establish a viable tourism industry for sub-orbital flight. Then using profits from this, build a true orbital flight vehicle, and using Bigelow's modules establish the same market for orbital space stations at a far lower cost than NASA now can do.<br /><br />In the meantime NASA will hopefully establish a reasonable moon base and expansive exploration program. Private industry can then move in to do the same for the moon as it would have done for LEO. And then using materials from the moon NASA can truly have enough lower cost vehicles to build enough vehicles to safely and reliably go on to Mars and beyond.<br /><br />This is not going to happen over night, but with a reasonable budget and continuing reasonable budget increases for NASA it can happen by 2030 or there about.<br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[j05h]

<i>> The important thing is that all the planning for private investment in the exploitation of the moon has to wait until NASA at the very least has set up some kind of a moon base where at least a few humane with many robots can live in a permanent manner.</i><br /><br />Why does industry have to wait for NASA to build a base in 20 years? If the Hilton Company decides it's time to build their Lunar Hilton, are you saying they should be stopped? Who are you (or NASA) to demand they follow a certain path? This is what I mean about a broad-based approach to space development - you are already slamming the door on the rest of the solar system because you know the One True Way. NASA can't carry the load themselves, nor should they. They should be facilitators and if they prove their competence in the current generation, trailblazers. So far they are screwing it up, as evidenced by the continued slide in expected Orion launch and expected moon landing. I don't see how they/you have any authority over private efforts.<br /><br />NASA isn't getting any budget increases. Not 1% for Space, not anything. They will continue to scrape and grovel before Congress for every penny. "The smaller the pie, the harder the fight." Budgets for discretionary Federal spending are about to plummet with Baby Boomer retirements. <br /><br /><i>> then using materials from the moon NASA can truly have enough lower cost vehicles to build enough vehicles to safely and reliably go on to Mars and beyond. </i><br /><br />Exactly what material needs to come from the Moon to make spaceflight cheaper? <br /><br />The thing that will make Earth-LEO transport cheaper is more frequent flights, nothing more, nothing less. With frequent flights all the other space things can be done. Lunar oxygen might help, but no one has made a compelling case for it, nor for the origin of the hydrogen signals in Shackleton. Without water, the Moon is not nearly as attractive. What do you do then? <br /><br />Mars probably won <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

We do appear to differ a bit. Redundancy is good. But not completely independent ships. If there is a problem with one, they must dock to redistribute their contents (or abandon ship). Now if you look at Cassini, we see a totally different kind of redundancy. It had two engines. One flew solely as a backup for the other and to my knowledge has never been fired in space.<br /><br />In a manned Mars ship, this would require that anything remotely critical gets at least one backup with really critical systems getting at least two. This might be implemented as a series of craft that stay docked for the mission. Think of ISS with several modules having propulsion systems and shared fuel sources. (With 100% of the stored fuel available, a landing would be an option. If one or more tanks become unavailable, a return to Earth ASAP is required.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

That would probably double the cost of the program (or more). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

<font color="yellow"> Exactly what material needs to come from the Moon to make spaceflight cheaper? </font><br /><br />How about iron, titanium. aluminum, magnesium. manganese, and many such minerals, all of which are used in the manufacturing of spacecraft?<br /><br />All of which (when scooped up from the lunar regolith) can be quite literally thrown off of the surface of the moon (due to its very low gravity and no atmosphere) in either a raw form (to be smelted and turned into useful space products at such locations as L1 and others) or smelted on the moon. NASA is already working on these types of processes, which when attempted also result in byproducts of hydrogen and oxygen, which NASA has already proved can be turned into potable water even if there are no direct water sources in deep craters at the poles. I went into NASA.gov and found the following to support what I am saying here:<br /><br />http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/HAS/cirr/em/6/6.cfm<br /><br />I have no objection to private industry beating NASA back to the moon and directly exploiting its resources themselves, but it is going to cost far more than just getting to LEO! And at first there is going to be no direct profit motive from this. So as usual private industry is going ot have NASA break the initial and expensive way, but there is also nothing wrong with that either as that is one of NASA's jobs! <br /><br />And going on to Mars is going to be even more expensive! <br /><br />Pure private industry efforts are going to have to provide actual profits to investors for each and every individual step into space. That is going to take a lot of time as people such as Burt Rutan and Elon Musk can not afford mistakes. Mistakes will kill their program even faster than mistakes would kill NASA's programs.<br /><br />Getting into space is very expensive as it requires by far the greatest Quality Assurance

 

[scottb50]

That's where my Modular plan makes sense. The basic design uses 13 identical Modules, outfitted as needed, for the mission. Combine two, three or four and you have a multi-redundant system that can work as one unit or be split into two, three or four if needed.<br /><br />Two would be minimal for extended LEO operations, three for Moon transits and four or more for Mars transits.<br /><br />Using identical Modules, that also serve as upper stage propellant tanks the hardware is in place, it's just a matter of outfitting it in orbit.<br /><br />Multiple redundancy, artificial gravity, as well as adding cargo only Modules as needed provide a simple, safe and economical vehicle for pretty much any use. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>