What will we do on the Moon?

[quasar2]

that`s yet another reason for the Moon. i think alot of people who have dreamed most of their lives to go to the Moon have seen their opportunities slip away. & i think many are sobering up now to the fact that Mars is even further away. so since walking on a stable planetary surface is a practical goal, it will happen faster on The Moon. many of the promised microG construction projects have died, so we`re needing to stick by tried & true, even 1/6G techniques. the spinoffs from even a one-week stay will be unimaginable, & those haven`t even begun to be explored. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[arobie]

Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

 

[halman]

thedream,<br /><br />Personally, I believe that one of the major reasons why there is not stronger support of the American space program is that many people in the public consider space exploration to be thrill seeking adventuring, with no intent of doing anything to repay the (seemingly) enourmous investment required for space exploration to be possible. Mars has become the focus of many people's energies, as well as media coverage trumpeting the imminent manned flights to the Red Planet. But nothing is said about the Moon, except that "We've already been there."<br /><br />Even Mr. Man On The Street knows that there is always something of value to be found in new territories, new lands. So he begins to think that the space program is not interested in developing resources, creating new industries, or making money. It is all about a bunch of overgrown kids gallavanting around in high tech jalopies. Maybe he is right.<br /><br />If we do not take the time to develop the Moon, but instead rush willy-nilly off to Mars because of the adventure, the romance, the mystery, then the public is not getting much for their money. To my mind, Mars is unlikely to ever be as valuable to the human race in terms of making raw materials available for our use as the Moon will be. Low gravity and no atmosphere means that mass can be launched from the Moon without rockets, just a bunch of electricity and a magnetic launcher a few miles long.<br /><br />Even if Mars were to become the future home of Homo Sapiens, it still would not overshadow the importance of Earth's Moon in developing the Solar System. The Moon will be the supply center for all of our off-planet activities for centuries, providing metals, chemicals, oxygen, and food to every corner of the Solar System.<br /><br />Shoot for the Moon, and you will find the future. Once we have the future, Mars, the stars, and everything else will be ours. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[grooble]

Well said and i agree.

 

[scottb50]

I look at it from a business point of view. Why do the Americans have to do it. The entire World should participate because they will all benefit. The U.S. or any other country doesn't own Space.<br /><br />Looked at as a way to employ people, further science and develop new industries makes sense for anyone. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[propforce]

Historically, it is always difficult to convince the general public to finance <i>any</i> exploration missions, unless there's evidence of <font color="yellow">gold</font>at the end of that rainbow. So I am not suprised and not expecting the general public buys into the "business case" argument and the "jobs" argument of the need to go to the moon.<br /><br />However, I do believe that the general publics can be inspired of NASA mission of go explore and search for the presence of life, many us did.<br /><br />Like others have stated, Moon will be a "test bed" for our exploration to the solar system and beyond. I can't recall who has stated that, if you can get to the low earth orbit (LEO) you are half way to anywhere in the universe. Building a "base" on the surface of moon, as oppose to a giant space station, makes sense as we test out the technologies and manufacturing capabilities we need to explore Mars (for example). <br /><br />We need to understand how to build human habitats in an essentially vacuum and/or hostile environment, how to recycle human waste, water, CO2, and grow food to sustain us in the long term. We need to understand how to design and build vehicles that can travel and explore a planet that is more substantial than some cutzie little robots with cameras. We need to understand how to "make-do" with the local natural resource provides and utilitize for sustaining the human race. <br /><br />But what can we do on the Moon? There's so much we don't know about the moon and what we can do, and that's exactly the reason we need to go there. We need to understand more in depth of the physical and chemical makeup of the moon before we know how to survive on the surface of moon, or other future planets, in the long run. More importantly, we need to go there and test out various technologies we'll used in other planets, technologies we don't even have today, to identify local resouces and how we can convert to something useful for our sur <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[scottb50]

Actually you seemed to agree with me on most of it.<br /><br /><<My question then is why would we not be expected to profit? Our 21st Century society employs the use of pretty much every element on the Periodic Table in our products. Indium? Used in flat panel displays. Rare Earth Elements (the Lanthanide series) are useful as doping elements in things like, oh, superconductors. Calcium? Good for our bones and teeth. />><br /><br />All are found on the Moon. />><br /><br />Maybe they are, but by the time you get them back to Earth they cost a lot more. Now find an unknown element that has magical properties and thats another story. <br /><br />Face facts, the Moon is very much like the Earth but probably lacks large deposits of heavy metals. The density is pretty well known, based on it's orbit, so you're not going to hit the mother lode in heavy metals..<br /><br />All of the Elements you talk about are found in abundance on Earth. If it costs $1,000 per pound to get to LEO, say $2,000 pounds to get to the Moon, $300 to land and three hundred to return to LEO, plus another $3,000 to LEO and $300.00 to Earth it is still pretty expensive for something you can already get on Earth. <br /><br /><<I'm not seeing you looking at it from a business point of view. I'm seeing you looking at it from a vague Economics 101 point of view. Americans have to do it to keep their prosperity and role as the leading economy in the world. But I'm just an analyst at an investment bank, so I could be wrong. />><br /><br />Yes you could be. If it doesn't offer a return than it's not a good business decision. I remember that from Business 101. <br /><br /><<Tourists will be part of the equation, but they alone, or even in conjunction with the scientists, aren't going to open the frontier for us. It's going to take a strategic decision by the US of A to commit to using the resources of space (minerals, vacuum, plasma, &c) to keep ourselves at the cutting edge of business a <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

Scott-<br />Even if the Moon has only really boring stuff, we can still make really big spacecraft from it and launch them from there much easier than from Earth. The building would be really hard at first, but the ease of launching more than makes up for it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[scottb50]

It would be easier to launch from there, but by the time you get the payload to the Moon, and to the surface, then prepare it and launch it, it is going to cost a hell of a lot more than if you launched it from LEO. Just the equipment to mine, smelt and fabricate metals would be hugely expensive to get to the Moon. Coupled with the fact composites offer the most economical and safest way to the outer Planets anyway and few, if any, of the components need are available on te Moon, stopping at the Moon is a ridiculous idea.<br /><br />If we were to mine water, if it even exists in any abundance, and turn it into LH and LOX to power our craft we would still have to get our craft from the Earths surface to LEO, then to LMO and further to the surface of the Moon. Since it would take pretty much the same amount of energy to go from LEO to Mars orbit as from LMO to Mars orbit, why bother.<br /><br />The Moon can definitely be a destination and I can easily see testing Mars habitates, rovers and other equipment on the Moon. But to use the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars is totally ridiculous. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[arobie]

<font color="yellow">If we were to mine water, if it even exists in any abundance, and turn it into LH and LOX to power our craft we would still have to get our craft from the Earths surface to LEO, then to LMO and further to the surface of the Moon.</font><br /><br />Why not just send the propellant to the ship instead of bringing the ship to the propellant.<br /><br />Lets put together our ship in LEO, or maby at L1. If it is cheaper to get some parts from the Earth, or they are impossible to manufacture on the Moon ie not the right resources, then we send them up from Earth. Those parts that we can get from the moon, we get from the Moon. <br /><br />After we get the infrastructure in place, producing from the Moon will become cheap. Even if it costs more to manufacture something on the Moon that it does to manufacture it on Earth, It definitely costs less to send something up from the Moon than it does to send it up from Earth.

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

Scott-<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Just the equipment to mine, smelt and fabricate metals would be hugely expensive to get to the Moon.</font><br /><br />Did you ever wonder how an Acorn can become an Oak Tree?<br /><br />To open up the Moon, we follow the acorns example. We won't send smelters to the moon, we build them molecule by moleue from moon stuff, just like that acorn does with the tree. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[halman]

Scottb50,<br /><br />You mentioned returning resources from the Moon to Earth for processing. In my opinion, that is very unlikely, for the reasons that you stated. You also said that unless we find some substance with magical properties, lunar resources are not going to be valuable. Most people cannot seem to imagine that resources on Earth are ever going to become scarce, or expensive, probably because the Earth seems so big. But just having raw material is not enough, it has to be processed into a finished good. So even if iron ore is still easily available on Earth 200 years from now, it may be very expensive to make steel, because of the energy costs, and the pollution controls.<br /><br />We are debating starting down a road that eventually leads to making things in outer space, either because they can only be made in a microgravity environment, or require large amounts of energy, or because they will be used in outer space. If we start down that road, the time will come when most things will be made in outer space, from raw materials found in outer space. Space is a natural industrial zone, where specialized environments can be created merely by keeping something in shadow, or out of the shadows, or mixing materials can be done without regard to density differences. And energy is free there, while on Earth energy is becoming the single largest cost for many products.<br /><br />None of this will happen anytime soon, but if it is to happen, we must learn to live on the Moon, to find resources there and extract them, all the while learning how to survive in the lunar environment. Along the way, tourist facilities will be created, I am sure, but I doubt that tourisim will ever offer the potential for profit that mining and manufacturing will, and I seriously doubt that tourisim will generate the kind of investment that industry will.<br /><br />There is no reason that America should spearhead this effort, apart from the fact that our economy is the largest in t <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[scottb50]

I don't dipute materials exist that could allow manufacturing using Lunar material and it could be done relatively simply. What I wonder about is setting off with this as a goal before we know exactly what is there. Water is a good example, it is theorized to be in craters in the polar regions, but it hasn't been physically seen or sampled. In this thread it is taken as a given it exists and that we can use it to power a space ship. Maybe putting the cart ahead of the horse.<br /><br />If we develop the Moon and build factories in orbit to use Lunar material we will spend all our effort on that, then it will be 50 years before we go to Mars or explore the asteroids. Who knows it may be much more economical to mine asteroids than the Moon, but we have to get to them first and find out.<br /><br />I have no doubt Lunar manufacturing and mining will come about at some point, I just wonder if that should be the first point we concentrate on rather than exploring everything we can reasonably get to. If we have a need to mine the asteroids then building equipment on the Moon would make sense, but if we build the factories and find there is no value to mining the asteroids we wasted a lot of time and effort. <br /><br />I'm also not saying we shouldn't pursue Lunar and LEO manufacturing, but we should do that as well as exploring and pushing the frontier. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

kad-<br />Thanks for the good stuff, there. I agree that the Moon is best only in the short term, once we can get to the Asteroid Belt "easily" it will be better to go from there. I see the Moon as the ticket to the Solar System, and the Asteroid Belt as the ticket to the stars. Even if we never develop "Warp Drive", one good asteroid 20 miles in diameter has everything we need to keep a population of a few hundred colonists alive for the long journey. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[halman]

Scottb50,<br /><br />I appreciate the thoughtful response, which states your concerns well. I think that I may have emphasized developing the Moon so much that I have not put that effort in the larger context of exploring the Solar System.<br /><br />In my view, it is essential for the timely expansion of the space program for the U. S. government to fund the construction of a permanent base on the Earth's Moon, which would be turned over to a private agency for operation. Upon completion of that project, I believe that the government should finance a survey of the Asteroid Belt, in conjunction with the development of a completely self-contained life support system, for use on extended duration missions, as well as the use of nuclear power on manned spacecraft, for energy generation as well as propulsion. Concurrently with that program, I would advocate the government construction of a solar orbit space station, to be used by the private sector for studying materials processing in microgravity environments.<br /><br />Lunar prospecting and mining should be performed by the private sector, as well as asteroid prospecting and mining. The government should lead the way by developing the technologies needed to perform these operations, but should not compete with the private sector once the technologies have been created. Lunar resources will be available for use much sooner than resources from the asteroids, and will provide the initial profits which will support developing methods of utilizing materials from the asteroids. Processing materials in the asteroid belt is unlikely, as the distance from the Sun reduces the amount of power which can be easily collected, and the dispersion of the asteroids requires moving large amounts of mass to a centeral processing facility. By placing the processing facilities Sunward of the Earth's orbit, raw materials can be shipped to the factories by small applications of delta-V, and finished goods can be shipped to Earth, the Moon, <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[quasar2]

it is true that in earth-based economics, getting things to the moon is unfeasable. but bear in mind we will be moving away from earth-based economics. also i don`t think any return to the moon wouldn`t just be "stopping" there & slowing a mars mission down. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacester]

Nice post halman, I <i>thought</i> you had a broad perspective, and I was right! <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> (Perhaps I provoked you earlier in the thread . . . but you've been on a roll since <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> )<br /><br />I'll save y'all from one of my long posts and just mention two related points.<br /><br />When talking about moving away from cis-luna space in the search for resources, folks still, after all these years of preaching, go straight to the "asteroid belt" and forget the easily accessible NEOs.<br /><br />Do you remember the Near Earth Objects? They require about the same or even less deltaV than getting to and from the Moon! That's not just hype! And there's a pretty decent chance some of them are big chunks of ice with a rocky crust, which means the extraction would be easy.<br /><br />Yet everyone puts water extraction from "the asteroids" as being decades and decades in the future. I think they are flat out wrong in that assessment. In fact if you chose the number one priority to be the development of a water resource other than Earth, without a doubt the NEOs would be your first targets.<br /><br />Point two: The polar hydrogen may end up being too precious a resource to be frittered away on rocket fuel. Think about that: it means you need to use it for water and water only. We may find out that billions of gallons of water at the poles isn't as much as we thought. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[halman]

spacester,<br /><br />Thank you for the compliment.<br /><br />Near Earth Asteroids are a relatively new find, which could not have happened until we were able to look around with new eyes. As we establish ourselves in space, we will learn many new things, which will alter our perspectives.<br /><br />One of the reasons that I have supported mining the Asteroid Belt is the relative density of bodies in that area. I have thought that it would not require a lot of searching and delta-V to be able to drop chunks of mass Sunward on a regular basis. Once we have a good picture of the dstribution of NEA's, we might be able to figure out a way to alter the orbits of a number of them without having to do a lot of running around.<br /><br />When people talk about mining hydrogen from the Moon, I consider that to be a very short term program. The mother lode of hydrogen in the Solar System is Juipiter, and all the gas giants have high percentages of hydrogen. Eventually, the source of all hydrocarbons will be the outer Solar System, which will keep us well supplied for millenia.<br /><br />But we must use what is readily at hand at first, until we have the ability to reach out further. Resources which are concentrated in one area may be easier to extract cheaply than dispersed resources closer at hand. But all resources in the Solar System will be available for exploitation if we are wise. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

How much harder is it to mine the Ort Cloud, than the Asteroid belt? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[scottb50]

About 20 years or so. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[nacnud]

Per trip

 

[halman]

rocketwatcher2001,<br /><br />The Ort Cloud lies beyond the nominal orbit of Pluto, if I remember correctly, while the Asteroid Belt is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, which puts it somewhat closer to where the range of human activities is likely to be.<br /><br />Additionally, the Ort Cloud is probably composed primarilly of hydrocarbons and water ice, if theories attributing comets to particles dislodged from the Ort Cloud are correct. The Asteroid belt is thought to be composed of stoney asteroids, nickel-iron asteroids, and light metals. The metallic content of the Asteroid Belt is a major question, which will affect its usefullness to us. The hydrocarbons we need will probably be easier to procure from the systems of the gas giants then from the Ort Cloud. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

<font color="yellow">"How much harder is it to mine the Ort Cloud, than the Asteroid belt?"</font><br /><br />The astroid belt has a <b>much</b> higher concentration of material than the Oort cloud. Millions(?), billions(?), of times more concentrated. And the Oort Cloud objects are so far apart that flying from one Oort Cloud object to the next may be no easier than flying from one planet to another. You'd have better luck in the Kuiper Belt. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

Scott-Nac-Hall-<br />I'm thinking that water is cheap in the Ort Cloud, but expensive in the Asteroid Belt. But cheaper still from the gas giants. I'd like to see a survey. I bet that there has been done already. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

We will not even to be able to get to the Oort cloud until we have the capability of going to the stars. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>