Robert Heller wrote:
------
...... The difference between buying a
tent to go camping in vs. loading up the wagon with ones worldly
goods
with the idea of when you get there, you are going to build a house
to
spend the rest of your life in and raise a family, etc. Apollo was
just
a weekend camping trip / scouting trip. It is time to load up the
wagon
train and go stake out a homestead, build a cabin, and start farming
the
prairie...
-----

It goes further than that. Nobody loaded up wagons in the absence of
trails that could become roads (if they hadn't already), trading
posts, pre-positioned caches of supplies, a minimal infrastructure at
the destination. Apollo was done entirely on what Andy Evans et al.
have called "the backpack model" of space logistics.

http://spacelogistics.mit.edu/worksh...tion/Day1/Welc
omeAndIntroductoryRemarks/DeWeckProjectOverview.pdf

In most ways, a *long term* lunar settlement is not really going to be
much different than a long term Martian (or beyond) settlement.

Realistically, that's going to be underground, on both the Moon and on
Mars, and not least for the radiation shielding. Some years back I
went to a conference (Robosphere 2004) where somebody gave a talk
about taking tunnel-boring machines to the Moon, for this very
reason. But carving out your own underground space might not be
necessary.

Both the Moon and Mars have lava tubes. A 'skylight' into one of them
has been discovered on the Moon by Japanese researchers. Lava tubes
are likely to be relatively free of dust, and to offer some
temperature stability (certainly a good thing on the Moon, possibly
important on Mars.) Parts that haven't caved in might be relatively
air-tight. Lunar lava tubes might be truly vast by any measure. Much
has been written about their colonization potential.

http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Lava_Tubes

So far, no probe has been inside one.

There are also lava tubes -- and skylights into them -- on Earth.

This suggests that one could do significant technology maturation
terrestrially, in a somewhat realistic environment. One might have X-
Prize-style robotics competitions in which the goals are

(1) descend through a lava tube skylight
(2) avoid disturbing any dust on the sides of skylight or on the floor
of the tube below it
(3) set down in a relatively dust-free location within the tube
(4) explore a little
(5) collect samples of dust under the skylight
(6) ascend

The scientific value of such an apparatus on the Moon should be
obvious: even if you could land right below the skylight with an
ordinary rocket-powered lander, you don't want to scatter/alter rare
geological samples with hot rocket exhaust. For that matter, it might
have speleological/volcanological/ecological scientific value on
Earth. Imagine, for example, a lava tube with some minimal ecosystem
under its skylight, in the vicinity of a recently active volcano; this
apparatus would give you ways to study the impact of the eruption on
that ecosystem with minimal invasion/contamination and maximum human
safety. Its potential as an enabling technology for cleaning out and
setting up relatively cheap and hospitable lunar habitat suggests it
would be irresponsible to NOT explore this possibility, at least, in
any long-range plan for sustained human presence on the Moon.

Call it "lunar acrobotics", if you need a blanket term for such
technologies. It's also a vague hint about how you'd do this.

-michael turner


On Jun 10, 9:35 am, Robert Heller wrote:
At Wed, 9 Jun 2010 19:36:17 EDT Alain Fournier wr
ote:







Let's assume a new program for lunar missions is started.
Let's also assume it is posited as Bush had did it, saying
we are going to the Moon, and should go to more distant
places after.

What technologies could be developed for a Moon mission
that would be useful for a Mars mission and/or a mission to
the asteroids? Or another way to say this, what technologies
that would be needed for going to asteroids or to Mars would
be useful to have for Moon missions, even if the technology
might not be worth the trouble to develop solely for lunar
missions?

For example, a few weeks ago, Fred J. McCall was proposing
to use a cycler for missions to the Moon. A lunar cycler that
would have been developed solely for lunar missions would
not be of much use for going to Mars. But if you know that you
are later going to Mars, then you can put some extras on the
lunar cycler, such as having a garden where crops are grown
and a solar storm shelter. Those would be valuable experiences
in preparing for a Martian or asteroidal mission. It probably
is not worth the trouble to do so if you are only going to the
Moon. But if you are going to develop the technology anyway
for Martian missions, might as well integrate them in the
lunar mission.

Another example might be an orbital fuel depot.

The purpose of my question is to try to find the best way
to return to the Moon and avoid it being Apollo redux. To
make the next "small step for a man", a step towards God
knows where.

Basically it is mostly a matter of thinking not in terms of going to the
Moon (or Mars or ???) as a one shot trip, but we really should be
thinking about living on/in/about these places as a long term thing.
None of this "small step for a man" sort of notion -- the main 'failure'
of the Apollo missions was that nobody was really thinking of going
there and just staying indefinitely. The difference between buying a
tent to go camping in vs. loading up the wagon with ones worldly goods
with the idea of when you get there, you are going to build a house to
spend the rest of your life in and raise a family, etc. Apollo was jus
t
a weekend camping trip / scouting trip. It is time to load up the wago
n
train and go stake out a homestead, build a cabin, and start farming the
prairie...

Any sort of long term living on the Moon *or* Mars / asteroids means:

The 'settlers' need to produce their food, air, water, and energy and
construct *permanent* places to live. (It won't be cost effective to
haul all that up the Earth's gravity well.)

This means:
Air recycling: probably some sort of CO2 scrubber and/or
some
sort of CO2 = C, O2 conversion: photosynthesis?
Water recycling: solar still?
Food: farming / gardening (Air/Water/Waste recycling on t
he side...).
Energy: solar cells / solar heating. Energy storage (2
weeks of
day, 2 weeks of night on the Moon, fainter solar radiation on Mars and
asteroids).
Housing: need to worry about solar radiation (no atmosphe
re or
ionosphere on the Moon, Mars, or the asteroids). Need to hold in the air.
Be meteorite proof...

In most ways, a *long term* lunar settlement is not really going to be
much different than a long term Martian (or beyond) settlement. If we
(humanity) can figure out how to *live* on the Moon, we would then know
how to *live* on Mars (yes Mars will have less sunlight, which just
means there is a greater need to make more efficient use of that
sunlight).



Alain Fournier

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