Moon exploration dead?

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The important thing is that all the planning for private investment in the exploitation of the moon has to wait until NASA<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />No they dont.<br />And like i said, the major problem that i see right now is that no public funds are expended or even planned for these technologies.<br />Validating concepts line in-situ solar cells production, baking oxygen out from the regolith or getting metal feedstocks, none of them need or even want to have a manned base on the moon. Or to search and validate or disprove the presence of water ice on poles.<br />Basically all of them can be pilot-tested with a single surface lander mission.<br /><br />Go to isruinfo.com and read through Space Resources Roundtable meeting proceedings, this is the most authoritative group working on the problem, and they have 9 years worth of detailed research papers online.<br /><br />Basically no pilot or prototype system developed and proposed for in-situ shakeout needs a base, and they definitely dont need to wait another 20 years. <br /><br />The Eigth Continent Project was established partly because the very same research groups finally understood that if they keep waiting for NASA nothing will ever happen.<br /><br />I mean, the first prototype lunar oxygen plant was proposed and developed shortly after Apollo brought lunar regolith samples back. In the past 30 years since, nothing has really happened. Lunar oxygen plants are still prototypes and concepts on the paper.

 

[frodo1008]

Investors in such projects want to see Profits! Profits! Profits!<br /><br />That is why even with all those research papers nobody has launched any metal towards the moon except the military, other countries, and NASA!<br /><br />Look, I am just as much for pure private efforts as the most avid supporter of alt.space. But, with the exception of Bigelow, who from what I hear is a billionaire (and even he uses the least expensive rockets his organization can find), will never the less not be placing humans into his stations until he finds somebody that wishes to invest in them, alt.space has yet to place anything (let alone human beings) into LEO, let alone placing anything on the moon!<br /><br />Even if we were to use anything but robotics (and without human beings to fix things if they go wrong, that is extremely unreliable) to mine useful materials from the moon, it is going to require large rockets (which in themselves are expensive) to boost the needed equipment to the moon! <br /><br />Yes, I happen to believe that NASA (as goofed up as they sometimes seem to be) is going to go back to the moon by about 2020. If alt.space can indeed beat this then absolutely wonderful! However, NASA is the insurance that at least somebody will make it. I do also believe that due to the profit motif, pure private interests are going to wait for NASA to do the initial exploration, and then (hopefully) realizing that there will be profits to be made, can then find investors to make such exploitation happen. I have no doubt that eventuall the efforts of pure private industry are going to dwarf all the efforts by all of the governments of the Earth as that is the way it has been throughout human history. Even our own country was initially explored through governmental efforts, but the truly vast exploitation for the US had to wait for pure private profit making industry to do it, the same will be true of space itself, that IS a reasonable way to do things, is it not?<br /><br />I was

 

[j05h]

<i>> 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</i><br /><br />Metals are great and all, but you can't possibly expect a rocket-factory (or even hull-factory) to be built on Luna before we are capable of traveling to Mars. One requires craft to be built and checked out in Decatur or KSC then staged in LEO, the other requires first putting all that infrastructure in the Sea of Tranquility. Maybe, just maybe, there will be Lunar Oxygen available, but you are talking about an entire industrial base on the Moon before going anywhere else. You are saying that we'll build a new Pittsburgh on the Moon before someone figures out how to go elsewhere, using mostly tech we already have? <br /><br />You worked in quality control - so what kind of QC/QA do you expect from the first generation of space-based forges? Are you willing to trust it with your life, especially vs something assembled and tested on Earth? <br /><br />The major thing missing in the whole return-to-the-Moon plan is hydrogen. You can type it as often as you like, but it doesnt' make it accessible. The ISRU processes proposed do not produce hydrogen byproducts, re-read that AerospaceScholars site, the processes need hydrogen for reactions, they don't produce it. Ilmenite can theoretically capture hydrogen, but in practical terms does not. Polar hydrogen exists in some form, but has not been proven to be ices - it is more likely locked up in hard-as-steel clays in Shackleton Crater. That is a hu <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Investors in such projects want to see Profits! Profits! Profits!<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />With so high degree of uncertainty in technologies, where even not a single small scale demo has been done, there wont be any private investors, ever. You could call it Technology Readiness Level Minimum. However, i was not talking about private investment into ISRU.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>That is why even with all those research papers nobody has launched any metal towards the moon except the military, other countries, and NASA! <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />You are not getting it. No "except". NASA hasnt, military either, launched any metal towards moon to do in-situ resource utilization testing. For 30 years, not even a single experiment, not on moon, not on mars, not on asteroids.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Even if we were to use anything but robotics (and without human beings to fix things if they go wrong, that is extremely unreliable) to mine useful materials from the moon, it is going to require large rockets (which in themselves are expensive) to boost the needed equipment to the moon!<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Wrong, wrong and once more wrong. I recommend actually reading some of the papers i linked to.<br /><br />Look, my gripe here is only this: for something with so vast potential for future payoff like using resources from space, you would expect at least SOME level of attention and investment using public funds. At least a demonstration of the concept, not start mining the moon but to validate the idea and raise awareness of the possibility.<br />Once you have done the tech demos, you have removed huge barriers for other investments into the idea, either public or private.<br /><br />No, you dont need big rockets nor a manned presence to do this. I am not saying that NASA should play Norilsk Nickel in space, or any other *SA. I am sayi

 

[no_way]

In other words, you could call my campaign "1% for space, BUT 1% of that explicitly towards utilizing space resources"

 

[MannyPim]

Well, it's good to see that at least the Moon Exploration thread is NOT dead ! <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>

 

[j05h]

<i>> In other words, you could call my campaign "1% for space, BUT 1% of that explicitly towards utilizing space resources"</i><br /><br />Not sure how to implement that - would that mean NASA building ISRU hardware? Starting the "LunOx Corp" with govt money? Just in research? <br /><br />One thing to note about process research is the recent availability of the several Moon and Mars soil simulants from JSC. These are incredibly useful in developing rough processes with those materials. They've been used in soil-inoculation experiments and are supposed to be used in the lunar-bakeout ovens that NASA created a prize for - not sure it's current status. You can grow sunflowers in rhyzome-inoculated Mars-simulant with acceptable results. <br /><br />Is that 1% of Federal budget for NASA? DoD already gets more than that in their space budget. The way to make VSE happen is with more/different corporate involvement - find syngeristic solutions instead of reinventing the wheel. So how do you implement 1% for space?<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

<font color="yellow"> I would really like you to address QC issues with building your Mars Rocket on Luna vs in Decatur. </font><br /><br />Why would you Mars first people listen to what I have to say anyway, you argue with everything I have said so far. <br /><br />However, just for laughs. I will be happy to admit that there is going to have to be a whole lot of research into manufacturing and Quality Assurance in space itself. That is one of the greatest reasons for the existence of the ISS. The initial research certainly would not be done on full scale operations at best.<br /><br />And if we (the US, humanity, private interests, whoever) do not learn to build reliable space craft from the materials that are not only on the moon, but also NEO's, and other smaller objects and moons we will never have a true space faring civilization. Even the Mars First people realize this.<br /><br />So yes, by the time we can build the infrastructure of space from the materials and energy of space I would be more than happy to trust my life to such craft. And so will thousands of future generation space workers and travelers!<br /><br />If not, then why should we even bother to get off this planet at all?<br />

 

[frodo1008]

To someone like myself versed in the methodologies of Manufacturing and Quality, one of the main future uses of the ISS is going to have to be developing the methods of materials research and manufacturing in space. This alone would make the expenditure of building the largest research facility in space well worth the cost of doing so.<br /><br />If this is done then NASA and its international partners in the ISS wil have spent some $100 billion plus in starting the learning curve of materials and methods research into actually working in space. I mean, that was one of the main purposes of the entire project, was it not? <br /><br />For instance, how do you machine, weld, and assemble metals in space? <br /><br />I would agree that nobody seems to be yet investigating this most important of space activities. But then, the ISS is not yet complete enough to do so. But, hopefully it will be soon. This would also be a very good research effort for using Bigelow inflatable modules also!<br /><br />Does that make sense?

 

[j05h]

<i>> Why would you Mars first people listen to what I have to say anyway, you argue with everything I have said so far.</i><br /><br />I only argue with you because you have something interesting to say. <br /><br />For the record, I"m not "Mars First". I'm "whatever makes money and makes Space happen Sooner." <br /><br /><br /><i>> However, just for laughs. I will be happy to admit that there is going to have to be a whole lot of research into manufacturing and Quality Assurance in space itself. That is one of the greatest reasons for the existence of the ISS. The initial research certainly would not be done on full scale operations at best.</i><br /><br />What are the biggest issues of open-sky and shirtsleeves manufacturing on the Moon? Especially compared to LoX extraction or other raw-resource mining. Are the components made in clean-room conditions? If not, how do they keep dust from being a problem? Probably most important is whether a rocket/otherspaceproduct made on the Moon is better and cheaper than one made on Earth? <br /><br />The only metal item I can think of that makes sense now, made in space, is a simple truss element. It would be made in a solar forge at L1 or lunar surface from scavenged metal and regolith. Tooling rocket motors on the Moon doesn't make sense, at least not yet. <br /><br /><i>> And if we (the US, humanity, private interests, whoever) do not learn to build reliable space craft from the materials that are not only on the moon, but also NEO's, and other smaller objects and moons we will never have a true space faring civilization. Even the Mars First people realize this.</i><br /><br />Obviously spacecraft (and cities) will have to be built locally in space in the long term. This requires the infrastructure to build essentially a shipyard somewhere, I'm saying we can build thousands of Bigelow and Boeing modules on Earth before that shipyard comes online. We're still crawling before we walk. My personal solution is to grow giant freefal <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

Deleted as requested <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>

 

[kelvinzero]

Hi willpittenger,<br />I really hadnt got that impression. What links are you referring to?<br /><br />I just want to see someone demonstrating functional ISRU or artificial biosphere technology right here on earth. I want to see little lawnmower sized robots that can actually print solar cells on regolith, or smelting regolith into actual aluminum plates, or a small community that can survive indefinitely without extra materials.<br /><br />If we had those robots, I would definitely support putting them on the moon. If we could point to those communites then, barring a couple of issues like cosmic radiation and gravity, we would know we had a blueprint to live pretty much anywhere in the solar system... Including most importantly right here on earth.<br /><br />Unlike rocket technology (especially when human life is involved) I feel we could make leaps and bounds in these areas if we put real effort in because there doesnt need for decade-long development cycles.<br /><br />Also it doesnt need to be taken from the space budget. Learning to survive on 100% renuable and %100 local resources is probably the most important technological and political problem facing us today. I just dont think these schemes to save 5% here and there are going to work. We are just going to end up with legislation to breathe less and still not solve the problem. We wont be near a solution until we can demonstrate a 100% solution on a minature scale.

 

[richalex]

FWIW, a motor is an electrical appliance. An engine propels a ship.

 

[willpittenger]

Josh gave a series of links that he used to demonstrate that there was no money being spent on exploiting the Moon. I don't know where those links were. <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]

no-way gave the following link much earlier in this discussion:<br /><br />http://www.8cproject.com/<br /><br />But I have seen nothing from JO5H.<br /><br />And the site from no-way would take a very long time to read, and quite frankly this discussion has already gone on long enough as far as I am concerned! If you then want to call me a troll, be my guest!<br /><br />This entire thread is getting to be more and more like free space, and so it just is no longer worth the effort. Many here have very good ideas, but we will see how the future actually goes, now, will we not?

 

[JonClarke]

<i>deletedi]<br /><br />This remark is uncalled for. Please remove.<br /><br />Jon</i> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

<i>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. </i><br /><br />Careful with the hyperbole. Multiple ships is not the only way to ensure success. Lots of things are required for a successful mission, including, accurate navigation, good design, reliable systems, appropriate crew selection.<br /><br />Sending multiple ships is a sure fire way of incurring massive costs. if you send one ship, it just has to support a single crew. if you send two ships in the worst case scenario (failure of one ship immediately after Earth departure) each has to be support both crews for the mission duration. So two spacecraft, each twice the size. Four times the mass and thus cost (igoring some economies of scale). If you send three ships each must be three times the size and thus nine times the overal mass. Ensuring a single ship has adequate reliability and redundancy is going to cost far less.<br /><br />remember too that you only get once chance to use your back up space craft. If the failure happens earlythen the whole mission will be a single ship one. Each spacecraft will, of neccessity, have to high a high enough level of redundancy and reliability to comple the m ssion on its own anyway. in that case, why accept a four (or nine-fold) increase in cost.<br /><br />In fact, sending several ships increases the chances of a fatality. The most dangerous part of any space mission is ascent and descent. Every mission-related faility has been related to those two mission segments. A single ship Mars landing mission will have two of each. Double the number of these, as you would double the risk of a catastrophic <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[bobunf]

I think economic opportunities in space may come from some not so obvious sources. For instance, eternal records storage on the moon or Mars. Even if the Earth were destroyed, these records would probably continue to exist.<br /><br />This is one area where the Moon could offer something which currently has a vast market on Earth, involves no new technology, and where doing it on the Moon would produce a superior product at a similar cost. For little extra, the customer could have much greater confidence that his data would survive a catastrophe of almost any kind. <br /><br />I’m almost tempted to start writing the sales brochure: “Because of Eternal’s advanced storage, retrieval and transmission systems most data will be retrieved and available at any location on Earth more quickly than from less secure terrestrial facilities. The two second delay imposed by the limitation of the speed of light is more than compensated by the advanced, proven technology developed in that most technologically challenging human endeavor: the space program.â€<br /><br />Here’s a venture with great potential for profit.<br /><br />Bob<br /><br />

 

[halman]

JO5H,<br /><br />I was responding to a poster who advocates not going to the Moon at all, and using all of our resources to colonize Mars, immediately, if possible.<br /><br />I am not the least bit interested in colonizing other planets, because I consider that to be out of our reach right now. What I am interested in is getting private industry involved in off planet exploration, because that seems like the only strategy which will insure that we will continue to explore off planet. The most likely candidate for resource extraction right now is the Moon. It may not the best one, Mercury would probably be far better, but the operative words are 'right now.'<br /><br />If we can get the private sector involved in space exploration, I have no doubt that space exploration will thrive. We are at a critical juncture in terms of the U. S. space program, I believe, and focusing on a highly visible, easily achievable, widely understood goal is essential to keeping it alive. If we can build a base on the Moon, we will create a demand for launch services which will be sufficient to get private industry motivated in building better launch systems.<br /><br />To a person who barely made it through high school, and is totally ignorant of the Solar System, having people claim that there is no benefit in going to the Moon is likely to be confusing. We need all the support we can get if we are going to get off of this rock, I think, and confusing the public will not help us. At our current level of technology, the Moon is the only candidate for resource extraction. Therefore, it is the only destination which private industry will give widespread support to. <br /><br />To me, this whole debate is about economic growth, expanding the sphere of human activity, making the creation of new wealth possible, because those are the factors which will ensure private sector contributions to space exploration. That is the only thing of importance, I feel, because that is the only means of insu <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[bobunf]

Thinking only about this century, and only about commercial possibilities, we have to get past the Bronze Age metal extraction models. Our efforts so far have really only consisted of picking up some rocks. We haven’t made it to the Stone Age.<br /><br />Retrieving a hunk of anything from some celestial body and sending it to Earth has got to be orders of magnitude more expensive and dangerous for the balance of the century than getting the same thing from somewhere in the Earth’s crust or oceans. <br /><br />I can’t imagine any commercial use of materials from space on Earth, except as display pieces for museums and other collectors—essentially souvenirs. Maybe Moon Wine.<br /><br />Even processing stuff for use in space will be orders of magnitude more difficult, complex and sophisticated than anything we’ve attempted. I do see some possibilities:<br /><br />• Zubrin’s plan, or some modification, of sending a fully functional factory to Mars to process the Martian atmosphere into oxygen and methane, using imported hydrogen. <br />• Processing ice on Mars or the Moon may be feasible, although we are talking here of processing many tons of ice for drinking water, oxygen and fuel. That’s assuming the ice is easily accessible and not too diluted with other minerals. <br />• Using regolith as shielding, maybe even making some bulk building materials. <br /><br />The power source would be a serious issue for all of these activities, but that is solvable although far from trivial.<br /><br />But mining, smelting, processing and eventually molding metals would require a small city of people, machines and other facilities; and many times the national budget in launch costs alone. Even Antarctica hasn’t presented any economic opportunities; and it has air and pure ice. <br /><br />Commercial application in space will require thinking past the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and into something post-industrial. Nobody is going to build steel mills on the Moon

 

[franontanaya]

We are talking about Moon or Mars because they are easier to reach and more human friendly, but I wonder if the real interest wouldn't be at places with chances to find rare metals and nuclear fuel. Mercury could have that, it has a cheap delivery system through solar sails, and huge amounts of solar energy always available at the poles. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[bobunf]

No human device has ever even landed on Mercury; and none are planned. It’s proximity to the Sun and Mercury’s size and density mean two huge gravity wells to overcome. Then there’s the radiation hazards from the Sun—about ten times as intense as around Earth.<br /><br />Also, there are plenty of rare metal in the Earth’s oceans and crust; and a hell of lot easier to get. Same is true of fissionable nuclear materials. As for fusion—it’s still twenty years in the future; just like twenty years ago; just like forty years ago.<br /><br />Mercury is hard to get to and really dangerous. We may get a sample return from Mercury before 2200 AD, which will be valuable as a museum exhibit. I think that’s about it for commercial possibilities for Mercury in this century.<br /><br />Bob<br />

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>would that mean NASA building ISRU hardware? Starting the "LunOx Corp" with govt money? Just in research?<br />....The way to make VSE happen is with more/different corporate involvement - find syngeristic solutions instead of reinventing the wheel.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Sorta. The Eight Continent Project that i keep referring to intends to do exactly that, act as a catalyst to find synergy between research groups, companies and investors. It is an independent entity so far, nothing to do with NASA.<br />But something like that is exactly the type of thing that should be backed by public funds. And research projects that are really at the forefront of the potential technology should be done with public funds.<br />In other words, i'd like to see and entity that would be for space resource utilization like NACA was for aeronautics in the early days. Doing the basic research, but at the same time acting as a catalyst for commercialization.

 

[no_way]

Another thing. This has to do with personal preferences and so on but .. <br /><br />It feels to me that finding out whether we can use most basic types of lunar materials like Oxygen baked out from the rocks, whether there is ice on the poles or whether we can indeed do space vacuum epitaxy and actually build solar cells directly on regolith surface, these are like really important things for our near- and far-term future in space. <br />Far more important than sending a probe to jupiter icy moons, going to take a close look at pluto, or even to find out whether microbes crawled the surface of mars some time in the past.<br /><br />Even if my personal preference is wrong, then i think these matters bear SOME importance, and i find it completely unjustified that missions are flown for hundreds of millions of dollars or more to do the latter, but not even a single one has flown to do the former.<br /><br />I have the same gripe about space solar power.

 

[j05h]

<i>> I was responding to a poster who advocates not going to the Moon at all, and using all of our resources to colonize Mars, immediately, if possible. </i><br /><br />That's foolish and irresponsible, IMHO, whether we're talking private, public, cooperative or other missions/goals. Mars only is as unlikely as any other One True Way. The post above that says that profits and resources will come from unexpected places is correct. If we are only talking NASA missions, I think the strongest argument is for going with many more robots including ISRU demonstrators and scaling back their crewed efforts until next-generation commercial spacecraft can handle the LEO taxi for much cheaper. Use these resources to send hundreds of rovers and probes throughout the Solar System, and help develop the tech for companies to go there. Fostering that route (COTS, COTSII) makes sense. With Dragon succeeding for instance, SpaceX could be offering LEO taxi flights in the $50m/seat a range and be making serious money well before Orion/AresI flies. That would be in service in 2010 against 2012-2015 for Orion. The only US competition might come from Lockheed/ULA fielding an AtlasV-Capsule, but that is uncertain. <br /><br />Touching on the "3rd rail" of spaceflight, scaling back STS/ISS commitments and turning that money toward robotics and Research & Development for a few years would work wonders for returning to the Moon. Build a robot base on the Moon first or something, and start it now not in 20 years. Put landers in the polar crater instead of guessing what's down there. All that is held back by the double-anchors of STS and ISS. And we still need to differentiate between what NASA is doing and what private organizations are doing. <br /><br /><i>> If we can get the private sector involved in space exploration, I have no doubt that space exploration will thrive. </i><br /><br />Absolutely. The problem so far isn't companies making money off "space" because comsats and rocket launc <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>