NASA Back to Moon by 2018 - But WHY ?

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 22:10:00 GMT, (B1ackwater) wrote:

(CNN) -- NASA Administrator Michael Griffin rolled out NASA's plan for
the future Monday, including new details about the spaceship intended
to replace the shuttle and a timeline for returning astronauts to the
moon in 2018.

The design for the new crew exploration vehicle (CEV) looks a lot like
the Apollo-era spaceship that first took NASA to the moon a generation
ago. It is a similarity that is not lost on Griffin.

"Think of it as Apollo on steroids," he told reporters at NASA
headquarters in Washington.

Under the new NASA plan, a "moon shot" would actually require two
launches, both using rockets derived from shuttle launch hardware.

One unmanned, heavy-lift rocket would transport a lunar lander plus
supplies and other equipment to low-Earth orbit.

Afterward, a second rocket would carry a crew capsule capable of
transporting up to six astronauts into a similar orbit. The two would
dock with each other, and then head to the moon.

The first few missions are planned to put four astronauts on the
surface of the moon for a week, while the unoccupied mothership orbits
overhead.

. . . . .

OK - the question is "WHY ?". A few people for a few days at
a time ... it's just not worth doing (except to enrich certain
aerospace companies).

While doing the 'final frontier' thing is appealing, there just
HAS to be a little cost/benifit thinking done first. Describing
this particular endeavour as "Apollo on steroids" is quite apt -
because it doesn't seem to accomplish much beyond what Apollo
accomplished, just a little more of it for a lot more money.

IMHO, we should not return people to the moon until they're
in a position to STAY there, with plenty of company. This
means a whole different sort of program - with the first
phases being entirely robotic. First of all, a supply of
water MUST be found and exploited. Secondly, habitats and
equipment for a growing colony MUST be in place. Only then
should people start arriving.

Robots can explore, robots can drill and mine, robots can
construct habitats from imported and natural materials,
robots can assemble equipment - and do it cheaply, safely
and well. Any moon colony should be set up from the get-go
to be perpetually self-sustaining ... because financing it
from earth would be a perpetual and heavy drain on cash and
resources.

The moon is especially suited for using robots. Not only is
the gravity light and the solar-power potential high but it's
less than two light-seconds from earth. This means that
telepresence robots - with human operators or guiders on
earth - can be usefully employed. This will take up the
slack until the electronic intelligence folks come up with
some decent autonomous designs.

Robo-Ants - swarm IQ - may be very useful for exploring,
exploiting and building certain kinds of habitats. Smarter
bots will be necessary to run/maintain certain kinds of
equipment. Field-usable designs seem to still be ten or
twenty years away. We've got the computing power now, but
aren't sure what to do with it. 'Smart' is more than
gigaFLOPS, it's doing the right things in the right order,
'mind' -vs- 'mess'.

Lessons and techniques learned from moon-bots can then be
applied to the NEXT big step - mars.

In any event, it never hurts to put our eggs in more than
one planetary basket, but the next step is to MAKE the
damned basket rather than just shuttle veritible tourists
to the moon and back and watch them do pretty much exactly
what their predecessors did before. The 'next step' isn't
one of volume, doing more of the same old crap, but a whole
different paradigm - colonization. THAT will be worth the
money and effort.

I would hope there's a better reason for going back to the
moon than enriching a few aerospace companies. There is water on the
moon, which could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to fuel a
rocket engine for travel farther out than the moon, and there are also
vast deposits of helium 3 on the moon. Helium 3 can be fused like
hydrogen, and can provide tremendous energy. It also has a far lower
fusion reaction temperature than hydrogen, so it looks doable as an
energy system for a potential moon base. They better have a better
reason for wanting to set one up than to beat the Chinese there
however. We don't need another Cold War if it can be avoided.

Scotius wrote:

Helium 3 can be fused like
hydrogen, and can provide tremendous energy. It also has a far lower
fusion reaction temperature than hydrogen

Uhh... sorry, but the ignition temperature for D-3He fusion is about
ten times *higher* than that for D-T, which we're far from mastering.

Not that that has slowed the hatching of a thousand confident plans
for PROFITS IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE...

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 22:35:16 -0700, Scotius wrote:

There is water on the
moon, which could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to fuel a
rocket engine for travel farther out than the moon,

That would be an insane waste of the tiny amount of hydrogen on the
moon. All the water on the moon is going to be needed right there, as
part of a growing colony's ecosystem. If you want rocket fuel,
refining lunar rock into O2 and light alkali metals (sodium is
plentiful, energetic and not useful for much else) makes incomparably
more sense. There's too much sodium in lunar soil for agriculture, so
extracting it for use as rocket fuel is the natural choice.

and there are also
vast deposits of helium 3 on the moon. Helium 3 can be fused like
hydrogen, and can provide tremendous energy. It also has a far lower
fusion reaction temperature than hydrogen, so it looks doable as an
energy system for a potential moon base.

This is speculation. For the foreseeable future, solar and perhaps
fission nuclear will be the energy sources for a moon base.

They better have a better
reason for wanting to set one up than to beat the Chinese there
however.

Actually, a lot of progress has been made for such reasons.

We don't need another Cold War if it can be avoided.

Reality check: nations have rivalries, and that is not going to go
away in this century. Better that they compete scientifically and
economically in space than militarily here on earth.

-- Roy L

100 billion dollars later, and we'll have some more moon rocks for
science classes.

Fact Attack,
Try 500 billion and, in addition to our obtaining all of those nifty
moon rocks which will be exactly like the megatonnes of our once upon a
time icy proto-moon rock that's already situated upon Earth, and since
thy insist upon working the moon under to full blazing and extremely
raw solar influx plus whatever physical influx to boot, as such they'll
also have contributed all of those TBI and nicely perforated astronaut
bodily organs to study, and perhaps still not having deployed one
interactive scientific nor astronomy instrument as could have been
robotically up and running upon the lunar surface as of decades ago,
much less accomplishing any of those energy efficient and extremely
high data throughput interplanetary/interstellar laser cannon
transponders, or God forbid allowing anything the least bit related to
Earth science. Meanwhile, Russia and China having been establishing
their one and only LSE-CM/ISS right over our silly moonsuit noses.

Naturally, if it weren't for "NASAs disinformation campaign" plus utter
lack of their being Johny on the spot with getting raw data directly
extracted from the lunar surface, as such we'd already know a whole lot
more than another thing or two about our moon.

Here's another one of my gravity and surface-tension related
contributions that's still formulated in basic kg or gram format, as
this time having to do with folks interested in getting a few small but
otherwise highly effective instruments safely deployed upon our moon.

Thus meanwhile back at the Guth ranch of being as much as possible
on-topic, such as per going "back to the moon by 2018", while so many
others are continually going off-track by remaining focused upon
defending their mindset and ulterior motives of whatever suits their
pagan NASA/Apollo Koran, and/or of their social/religious and political
brown-nosed bigotry status quo, whereas I'm into honestly wondering
what's technically possible and/or just affordably doable without
busting the bank nor further polluting mother Earth to a much greater
fairlywell by that method of our having to R&D those massive to/from
lunar landers for the daunting and extremly spendy task of sending
astronauts to/from the moon.

If we or even robots are to be going back to the moon, especially by
lunar daytime, then it might actually become a darn good idea as to our
knowing; How hot the moon.

If we're talking about certain substantially dark portions of the moon
as being not more than 5% reflective, in other words nearly coal black
and thus taking in 95% of the 1.4 kw/m2, and if that sort of dark
basalt and carbon soot covered surface were to be nicely covered with a
crystal clear layer/lens of several meters worth of Rn-222 gas, then
also as having been well insulated on all sides by those amounts of
supposedly clumping bone dry moon-dust, whereas that should insure the
dark substances should continue to rise in temperature well past the
150=B0C mark. At least I believe that's the result of what should be
accomplished upon Earth that's typically getting a little more than
half the amount of thermal influx upon the surface of Earth to work
with.

There's also the secondary energy as having been radiated from the
surrounding territory, whereas at a IR albedo of reflecting 25% would
have to be contributing a little something extra worth of thermal
energy.

The near-surface population of Rn-222 atoms should be considerable
though perhaps not amounting to much greater than a few meters worth,
however possibly at times as great as a km worth that's topped off with
a sparse amount of crystal clear argon is another insulative
consideration that we'll all have to learn more about, along with the
variable in solar winds and thermal extremes that's making the lunar
atmosphere anything but a constant. Even Rn-222 becomes a liquid state
if not frozen into solid form in lunar nighttime, although the near
vacuum of the lunar surface may somehow prevent those alternate phases
of radon gas.

Of course, if there's actually a near vacuum of 3e-13 kPa (3e-15 bar)
as supposedly the entire moon having a mere 25 tonnes in total
atmosphere to work with shouldn't retain all that much thermal energy
so easily, especially while having to keep up with Earth at 30 km/s and
otherwise with a 300+km/s solar wind (guesting to 2400 km/s) passing by
from time to time. So, my latest question is; exactly how much depth
and/or total mass of the Rn-222 gas does the moon have to work with?

What's the spectrum color (if any) of a fully saturated Rn-222
atmosphere?

Perhaps if we actually could manage to safely deploy a little something
that's interactive without having that deployment involve vaporising
itself upon impact, as then we'd all learn another thing or two about
our lunar environment, that which under the best of circumstance has
got to be downright nasty, that's otherwise robotically survivable.

Of course, within the last couple of decades we could have deployed the
sorts of hard-science instruments that shouldn't have amounted to much
greater than one kg, whereas a fairly large area and if need be
inflated mylar parachute should have easily gotten such light weight
times affordably and safely onto our dusty and reactive lunar surface,
thus capable of reporting back to Earth with at least hourly data
packets of pressure, temperature and most certainly a basic level of
foreground/background X-ray radiation info. As of today that kg package
could have included a reasonably good 2.25 micron/pixel full color CCD
camera, surface seismic/acoustic detections, a full range of spectrum
data including the amounts of various radiation and that of detecting
any number of available though rarefied elements passing by, as being
fully solar/PV cell recharged to boot so that minute by minute packets
would be available by day and at least hourly by nighttime/earthshine.

I can't hardly imagine that any one kg delivered package amounting to
more than a 10 kg compartment stowed item as having been rocket
delivered from an extremely low orbit, thus representing a fairly small
overall rocket delivery method hosting perhaps 100 of these little
suckers could be released along the lowest possible orbit path as their
delivery method makes a one-time de-orbit retrothrust maneuver at
perhaps 10 km off the deck, whereas that 10 km mark is perhaps where
the lunar atmosphere should (at a velocity of something less than 2
km/s) represent enough atmospheric mass/m2 and thus drag as per keeping
inflated the individual spinning delivery method of what should have
easily exposed the entire worth of whatever each of these mylar
parachutes could then take the fullest possible advantage of whatever
there is to grab onto.

Here's my plan-A; at 1/6th G and perhaps using a 36 meter diameter
aerobreaking method that's offered by better than a 1000 m2 mylar
parachute is why there's not going to be all that much combined mass
involved with having to slow the final velocity down to something less
than 10 m/s, that is unless there truly isn't any of the radon or other
heavy gas elements to work with, in which case those 1 kg items as
having 1.623 m/s/s going against their survival will likely impact at
something greater than 2.5 km/s (better luck next time). If the 1 kg
probe were to be somehow situated upon the top side of the parachute,
whereas this method could even help to support the final resting upon
an otherwise extremely low surface-tension of perhaps offering as
little as 5 g/cm2, thus a kg item might require a 3.34 m2 as being
necessary due to the lesser gravity where 1 kg becomes a factor of 167
grams with a final velocity of that mass having to come into contact at
10 m/s should represent a maximum of 16.7 kg (or perhaps it's actually
half that amount) within the first ms of impact, whereas otherwise the
lunar dry-quicksand as representing a micro form of powder/dust that
has been well documented as previously enveloping other deployed
instruments that were unfortunately considerably massive, though these
extremely light weight items having a large enough surface contact pad
area shouldn't sink out of sight.

Besides a centrifugal deployed mylar parachute, there's another
interesting notion of a "Ballute" as an inflated form of aerobreaking
for getting relatively small items safely deployed where a conventional
parachute may not represent the best all around ticket to ride.
http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/archive/subsystems/aero.pdf
-

This is actually another highly interesting notion of a worthy topic
that's anything but original.
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.ph...rm/thread/a47=
40ef840094820/1191e16695fda8e8?hl=3Den#1191e16695fda8e8
"Voyage to the stars" by Leonard David,
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.ph...rm/thread/2aa=
1dc4f5d3ab04b/b873b6cb7472d3ea?lnk=3Dst&q=3Dion+thruster&rnum=3D 8&hl=3Den#b=
873b6cb7472d3ea
That's certainly not such a bad notion "To send a spacecraft where none
has gone before is a dream assignment for any space scientist and
engineer."

However, I believe what's to be needed is a great deal of speed and
thus a great deal of applied thrust, at least until passing the
nullification point of no return, such as the mutual gravity-well
that's situated between our solar system and that of the Sirius star
system might prove most gravity attractive.

Perhaps there's another perfectly good reason as to first "go back to
the moon" for obtaining a large amount of Ra-226 so that a ion gas of
Rn-222 becomes the medium by which thrust is maximum/kj.

Ionized radon plasma could become our the next best form of powerful
ion thrusters.
Although the radon thrust itself could be invisible, it's greater
density as a gas, liquid or frozen substance seems rather interesting
since radon is something that's not exactly all that hard to come by,
yet as far as I can tell Earth and we humans upon it could do without
the likes of radon.

One method of artificially creating radon while on the fly is with
having a cash of radium which isn't exactly all that available upon
Earth but, perhaps upon our moon could represent megatonnes of radium
(Ra-226). Thereby the Rn-222/ion plasma thrusters of what a moon base
of operations could represent could become the very best alternative,
especially since by then solar/PV cell energy/m2 should be more than
adequate for ionizing radon into a substantial plasma flow. Getting
whatever back up into lunar orbit shouldn't be all that testy, and of
course so much easier yet with the LSE-CM/ISS accomplishing the simple
and energy efficient elevator to/from task of getting whatever products
and/or folks from the lunar surface into the ME-L1/EM-L2 gravity free
trade zone.

I'm thinking 222/131 =3D 1.71 fold thrust improvement over using Xenon
and, a greater than 800 fold improvement in thrust duration due to
utilizing a sufficient cash of Ra-226 on behalf of producing the Rn-222
on the fly, thus a 1360:1 overall improvement, which seems perfectly
nifty for a interstellar probe that could be making 10% light speed
once getting itself gravity pulled towards the next available star
system. Meaning that we could use Sirius a velocity booster for sending
that speedy probe far beyond.

Radium (Ra-226) offers a half life of 1600 years
http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/ra.html
http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/xe.html
http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/rn.html
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

Fact Attack ) wrote:
: 100 billion dollars later, and we'll have some more moon rocks for
: science classes.


I'd rather repeat Apollo every generation rather than Vietnam. Iraq is
there and so are we, we've yet to go back to the moon in this generation.
Besides, eventually something will come of it. We may have to do this five
more times before we establish a base. So what! It took 400+ years for
Columbus to follow the Vikings back to the New World. No on said it had to
work in your lifetime.

Eric

Eric Chomko (aka Sponge Bob rusemaster and all knowing wizard of Oz);
Your all knowing leader and resident commander in chief warlord has
just blown trillions down the nearest space-toilet, gotten tens of
thousands of innocent folks (mostly Muslims) quit prematurely dead and
or dying as we speak, set science and humanity back by decades and
gotten half the badly polluted and global warming world to hate our
energy sucking guts. If it wasn't for what that sicko incest Skull and
Bones ******* has done and is intending to do without a stitch of
remorse, your NASA would have had those hundreds upon hundreds of
billions to spend each and every year, and we'd be walking on Mars even
before we manage to walk upon the moon.
~

Kurt Vonnegut would have to agree; WAR is WAR, thus "in war there are
no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal
with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules,
such as GW Bush.
Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm

Scotius;
We don't need another Cold War if it can be avoided.
Sorry my friend, as it seems that our MI6/NSA~NASA has had it dead
wrong from their very perpetrated cold-war get-go, and that's as of
nearly 4 decades ago which isn't by any means over with until our fat
lady sings or even one of them Apollo cows comes home. Otherwise you're
right as to what's seriously good about getting at least robotically
established and of exporting really nifty stuff away from the moon. Too
bad we can't seem to figure out how to get our LSE-CM/ISS up and
running before others manage to accomplish that feat which is a whole
lot simpler and safer than accommodating fools walking upon our moon.

Ray;
People are not perfect and make mistakes. The people who work for
NASA are no different. People deserve a chance to learn from their
mistakes.
Sorry folks but, our MI6/NSA~NASA hasn't learned a damn thing, other
than how to brown-nose and cover their butts at the same time whenever
they're running out of money or having an insufficient number of
astronauts to roast.

I dont think 100 billion dollars is a lot of money for going back to
the moon over 13 years.
Try 500+ billions, and that's only if nothing goes terribly wrong.

Its the best architecture. Why gamble with new concepts when we dont have
that much money. We already tried that with the space shuttle.
This time it's also imposing 13 years worth of LLPOF plus more than
their fair share of spendy R&D crapolla than you or I can shake a
flaming stick at. Thus also another 13+ years worth of polluting mother
Earth to a rather nasty tune of 100,000:1. A thousand tonnes as
situated upon the moon equals at least a hundred million tonnes worth
of some of the worse known pollution you can imagine for our
environment (what's that going to be worth?). Just an orbiting space
probe can be worth generating 1000:1 tonnes of crapolla that we humans
upon Earth must accept and pay for with our lives if need be.

Josh Hill;
What I see there is vagueness:
What I see is MOS LLPOF dog-wagging and infomercial damage-control on
steroids, and certainly way more than our fair share of status quo
brown-nosed sucking and blowing at the same time.

Before Russia or whomever can hope to mine squat and much less He3 from
the moon, perhaps a few and relatively small robotic missions need to
make the grade by way of their surviving a sufficiently soft landing
long enough to provide science and the resulting R&D folks that'll be
encharge of the serious robotics that'll be required, thus sharing some
real good data that's as hard of science as can be had about the lunar
environment without someone having to die for merely attempting to walk
upon the moon that in of itself provides absolutely no benefit to
science, other than perhaps demonstrating upon a method of safely
getting rid of certain humans as astronauts that were too dumbfounded
as to tie their own shoe laces anyway.

At least robotically mining the moon may have become a bit easier than
we'd thought. However, before we common folk and the likes of "tj
Frazir" and myself (in other words the apparent scum of the Earth
according to whatever the mainstream status quo has to say) can fully
appreciate "What's actually HOT and NASTY about Venus", whereas instead
we may need to regress ourselves by a few decades in order to fully
appreciate the hard-science that's recently become available as
pertaining to what's actually all that HOT and NASTY about our Moon?

I believe the task of getting whatever safely and thus having to softly
deploy items upon the extremely dusty moon is going to be doable as
long as those forms of robotics are small enough so as to being least
massive, so as to slowing the arrival of them suckers down to perhaps
10 m/s and, they are of a sufficient surface coverage configuration so
as to not summarily sink out of sight.

Earth's atmosphere at sea level is worthy of 3e19 molecules/cm3 or 3e25
atoms/m3.
Moon's average surface atmosphere is supposely 2e7 molecules/cm3 or
2e13 atoms/m3.

Although element wise, the near surface atmosphere of the moon should
also be hosting of good deal of whatever's between that of Radon and O2
that's in addition to the rather robust populations of sodium that's
not exactly an element in short supply.

"Wilson and his colleagues at Boston University, led by Prof. Michael
Mendillo, routinely monitor the Moon's tail. They use extraordinarily
sensitive cameras that can detect sunlight scattered from as few as 5
sodium
atoms per cubic centimeter."

"I think we'll look back years from now and realize that 1998 was very
special," agrees Wilson. "The fireballs on Earth were unique and we've
never
detected another meteor-related enhancement of the Moon's tail. That
includes 1999 when the sheer number of Leonids hitting the Moon was
probably
much higher than the year before. Even in '98, when the sodium density
tripled two days after the shower (that's how long it takes for sodium
to
travel down the tail the length of the Moon's orbit), the enhancement
didn't
last long. The sodium tail faded back to normal within 24 hours.

"David Asher and Rob McNaught predict as many as 10,000 meteors per
hour on
Earth and similar numbers of impacts on the Moon."

For another example upon what's good about our extremely nearby moon;
the lunar sodium atmosphere that's certainly been a whole lot thicker
as of lately and offering so much greater expanse than you'd think
possioble if going purely by the molecular speed as given by the
molecular mass and temperature, whereas for appreciating such is why we
obviously need a surface instrument reading of what's what, and not
that of another remote estimate as obtained from such instruments in
orbit.

Actually a very small and energy efficient pulsed laser beam emitting
device would have done the trick as of more than 3 decades ago, or that
of a focused Xenon strobe as of 4 decades ago. At least the math proves
that such photon energy would have been easily detected by the most
amateur of observations.

Even the notions of them Russians and/or the Chinese robotically mining
the moon may have always been a bit easier to accompliush than we'd
thought. However, before we common folk, the likes of "tj Frazir" and
myself (in other words the apparent scum of the Earth according to
whatever the mainstream status quo has to say) can fully appreciate
"What's actually HOT and NASTY about Venus", whereas instead we may
need to regress ourselves by a few decades in order to fully appreciate
the hard-science that's recently become available as pertaining to
what's actually all that HOT and NASTY as well as surmountable about
our Moon?

The task of their getting whatever safely and thus having to softly
deploy items upon the extremely dusty moon is doable as long as those
forms of robotics are being kept small and light enough so as to being
least massive, so as to slowing the arrival of them suckers down to
perhaps 10 m/s and, they are still that of a sufficient surface
coverage configuration so as to not summarily sink out of sight as did
previous attempts.

Besides the raw solar influx aspects of 1.4 kw/m2 scorching
continuously upon most any given portion of the moon for nearly a month
at a time, thus getting whatever's dark and nasty extremely hot and not
to mention damn reactive as all get out. How about for the all around
sporting heck of it all, lets say we jump off the mainstream status quo
good ship LOLLIPOP that's been entirely owned and operated by our
NASA/Apollo rusemasters, in order to discuss our going back to our moon
for the very first time, so as to get an honest to God grasp upon
whatever the lunar atmosphere is actually all about. Of course, I'm
speaking robotically since it's usually so downright hot, reactive and
physically nasty or otherwise just damn cold and nasty upon our moon,
not to mention that robotics are certainly a whole lot cheaper than
clumping moon-dirt and obviously so much safer as compared to human
efforts and, since we're talking of accomplishing this as a one way
robotic ticket to ride and there shouldn't hardly be any R&D required,
as such robots are going to be damn fast at getting the job done, and
without any need of their having banked bone marrow standing by.

Seems rather gosh darn pathetically odd that there was never one usenet
contribution or even a worthy sub-topic generated thought as to
appreciating this perfectly nifty NYT published consideration, of which
we can go back through decades before, only to uncover MOS sequestered
information as to the lunar sodium atmosphere;
Moon's thin atmosphere extends farther than thought
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.a...201e82b060a176
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Moon's thin atmosphere extends farther than thought
(c) 1995 Copyright Nando.net
(c) 1995 N.Y. Times News Service

Now researchers at Boston University, who two years ago determined
that the rarefied gas bubble surrounding the Moon extended 5,000 miles
high, say new studies show that the lunar atmosphere reaches out twice
as far.

The astronomers, Dr. Michael Mendillo and Dr. Jeffrey Baumgardner of
the Center for Space Physics at Boston University, said that during
the eclipse the Moon was totally in Earth's shadow, blocking the
bright moonlight that obscures observations of gases in the lunar
atmosphere. Under these conditions, the astronomers were able to
detect the faint glow of sodium gas, which serves as a marker for
other gases in the lunar atmosphere.

"We were surprised to find that this glow extended to over nine times
the radius of the Moon, to a height of about 14,000 kilometers, or
9,000 miles above the Moon's surface," Mendillo said.

The researchers say their observations have enabled them to rule out
some theories on the origin of the lunar atmosphere. They believe that
the most likely explanation is the evaporation of atoms from the lunar
surface when it is struck by light particles called photons coming
from sunlight. Sodium and other elements escape the surface through
erosion caused by the bombardment of photons.

The astronomers earlier ruled out a suggestion that the lunar
atmosphere was formed by the constant bombardment of the surface by
micrometeorites. If the micrometeorite theory was true, they said, the
atmosphere would be evenly distributed instead of being irregular in
shape, as their measurements indicate.

Another theory holds that solar wind -- charged particles streaming
from the Sun -- kicks up surface atoms as it lashes the lunar surface.
But the researchers said this theory now appeared to be eliminated
because Earth's magnetic field traps solar wind and shields the lunar
surface during the full-moon phase, when their observations show the
tenuous lunar atmosphere fully extended above the surface.
-

If the regular lunar atmosphere of any substance extends out as far as
having been reported, then obviously doing the math of what was at the
time of Nov. 1993 as having been detectable at 8r (14,000 km) off the
lunar deck as representing perhaps as few as 100 atoms/cm3 worth of
sodium, whereas that amount certainly represents quit a bit of what's
compiled upon the deck (I'm merely suggesting 12.8e6/cm3 or 12.8e9/m3),
especially since sodium is most certainly one of the lighter elements
of available mass that's associated within the mostly basalt lunar
surface that's having been continually giving birth to such sodium gas.
Obviously from meteor impacts having contributed a great deal of
further insult to injury were subsequently generating massive amounts
of additional sodium atmosphere, thereby having co-generated other
elements such as good old O2, of which the molecular speed of even hot
O2 simply wouldn't have been so easily excavated away by the typical
hot and nasty gauntlet of solar winds (100~300 km/s).

Upon being under siege my a nasty gauntlet of micro and not so micro
meteorites might easily suggest having multiplied the atmospheric
population of sodium by as great as a billion fold, making the near
surface sodium density worth 6.4e15 ~ 12.8e15 sodium atoms/m3 plus all
of the other much heavier elements as equally having been released
becoming near worthy of creating 0.028 bar.

This image and information as to Leonids impacting the Moon imposes
further notions as to what the intensity of such impacts created with
respect to the visible aspects of sodium. According to at least one CCD
expterise and of the narrow optical/band-pass spectrum filter utilized
is suggesting that perhaps as few as 40 atoms/cm3 could be CCD detected
at the far end of the sodium trail.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast26oct_1.htm
Without our having a surface deployed probe taking various direct
measurements, as such we can't possibly begin to imagine what that
surface environment situation would have looked and felt like up close
and personal. Of course I've tried several times to suggest we need
this sort of raw data and, lo and behold each and every time the
mainstream status quo of need-to-know and otherwise sharing their usual
taboo/nondisclosure flak was insurmountable. Thus all of the usenet
from hell, the all-knowing BBC, FSA and whatever's associated with
brown-nosing NASA is continually out to lunch.

Besides the O2 that most certainly had to have been made available,
there's also Argon, Xenon, possibly a touch of CO2 plus certainly other
extremely heavy elements that wouldn't have been so easly be solar-wind
extracted, including the likes of existing Rn-222(radon) that's around
most of the time as having been naturally created by the available
Ra-226(radium) and via secondary/recoil reactions as having been solar
and cosmic contributed. Therefore, our moon is not nearly as devoid of
an atmosphere as we'd thought. As for deploying the modern day micro
probes of perhaps as little as one kg becomes quite doable, with
somewhat larger deployments accomplished as each of these highly
affordable efforts produces a better understanding of what other
methods can be achieved within such a thin but otherwise available
atmosphere that's actually fairly respectable considering the 1/6th
gravity factor.

According to Mike Williams;
"The strength of the surface gravity (1.623 m/s/s) isn't the critical
factor. What's more significant is the escape velocity (Moon 2.38km/s,
Titan 2.65km/s)."

"The heavier gas sticks around but the useful gas escapes. The various
types of molecules settle down to having the same average kinetic
energy, but that means that the lighter molecules move faster than the
heavier ones. They move just as fast, in fact, as if the heavier
molecules were not present."

"There's a piece of JavaScript on this page
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/kintem.html#c4
that will calculate the average molecular speed given the molecular
mass and temperature. N2 molecules (m=28) on Titan (T=-197C) average
260m/s which is about a tenth of the escape velocity. CO2 molecules
(m=28) on the Moon (daytime T=107C) average 464m/s which is about a
fifth of the escape velocity. That might sound OK, but not all
molecules travel at the average velocity, some travel faster and leak
away. The Earth isn't able to hold on to hydrogen molecules, and they
average about a fifth of Earth's escape velocity."

"Radon atoms would travel at an average of 206m/s on the Moon, which
suggests that you could build an atmosphere of pure Radon."

Of course, for building and sustaining that sort of a radon atmosphere,
as for that to happen the moon requires having a good amount of
background cash of radioactive elements including Radium(Ra-226) as for
generating the Rn-222 gas, although a good amount of raw solar influx
and thus secondary/recoil reactions might otherwise accomplish this
same task, that plus the matter of accepted fact that our moon has been
identified as being considerably more radioactive than Earth shouldn't
have gone to waste.

Fortunately for us humans, the notions of terraforming our moon into
being livable (at least within seems doable), radium (Ra-226) half life
is only good for 1600 years and thus the radon as having been generated
shouldn't be around forever. In fact, if our icy proto-moon wasn't so
gosh darn newish, as such most of the radioactive raw elements simply
would have become spent and thus faded away by now, that is for other
than whatever's continually solar and cosmic contributed and supposedly
responsible for creating the amounts of sequestered He3, of which
someone eventually needs to go there and process for obtaining that
nifty substance before Earth runs itself entirely out of
fossil/geological based energy and we manage to turn our Earth into
another Mars.
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

B1ackwater wrote:
(CNN) -- NASA Administrator Michael Griffin rolled out NASA's plan for
the future Monday, including new details about the spaceship intended
to replace the shuttle and a timeline for returning astronauts to the
moon in 2018.

The design for the new crew exploration vehicle (CEV) looks a lot like
the Apollo-era spaceship that first took NASA to the moon a generation
ago. It is a similarity that is not lost on Griffin.

"Think of it as Apollo on steroids," he told reporters at NASA
headquarters in Washington.

Under the new NASA plan, a "moon shot" would actually require two
launches, both using rockets derived from shuttle launch hardware.

One unmanned, heavy-lift rocket would transport a lunar lander plus
supplies and other equipment to low-Earth orbit.

Afterward, a second rocket would carry a crew capsule capable of
transporting up to six astronauts into a similar orbit. The two would
dock with each other, and then head to the moon.

The first few missions are planned to put four astronauts on the
surface of the moon for a week, while the unoccupied mothership orbits
overhead.

. . . . .

OK - the question is "WHY ?". A few people for a few days at
a time ... it's just not worth doing (except to enrich certain
aerospace companies).

While doing the 'final frontier' thing is appealing, there just
HAS to be a little cost/benifit thinking done first. Describing
this particular endeavour as "Apollo on steroids" is quite apt -
because it doesn't seem to accomplish much beyond what Apollo
accomplished, just a little more of it for a lot more money.

IMHO, we should not return people to the moon until they're
in a position to STAY there, with plenty of company. This
means a whole different sort of program - with the first
phases being entirely robotic. First of all, a supply of
water MUST be found and exploited. Secondly, habitats and
equipment for a growing colony MUST be in place. Only then
should people start arriving.

Robots can explore, robots can drill and mine, robots can
construct habitats from imported and natural materials,
robots can assemble equipment - and do it cheaply, safely
and well. Any moon colony should be set up from the get-go
to be perpetually self-sustaining ... because financing it
from earth would be a perpetual and heavy drain on cash and
resources.

The moon is especially suited for using robots. Not only is
the gravity light and the solar-power potential high but it's
less than two light-seconds from earth. This means that
telepresence robots - with human operators or guiders on
earth - can be usefully employed. This will take up the
slack until the electronic intelligence folks come up with
some decent autonomous designs.

Robo-Ants - swarm IQ - may be very useful for exploring,
exploiting and building certain kinds of habitats. Smarter
bots will be necessary to run/maintain certain kinds of
equipment. Field-usable designs seem to still be ten or
twenty years away. We've got the computing power now, but
aren't sure what to do with it. 'Smart' is more than
gigaFLOPS, it's doing the right things in the right order,
'mind' -vs- 'mess'.

Lessons and techniques learned from moon-bots can then be
applied to the NEXT big step - mars.

In any event, it never hurts to put our eggs in more than
one planetary basket, but the next step is to MAKE the
damned basket rather than just shuttle veritible tourists
to the moon and back and watch them do pretty much exactly
what their predecessors did before. The 'next step' isn't
one of volume, doing more of the same old crap, but a whole
different paradigm - colonization. THAT will be worth the
money and effort.


I agree with you 100%, we shouldn't go to the moon just to do it again,
it should be to stay and establish a permanent base. Robotics simply
make sense to do the basic set up work, lots of digging in, because you
wouldn't need to build structures on the moon, simply dig in and carve
your space out, because meteors still strike the surface of the moon,
and they aren't slowed by atmosphere. Dig in, seal the walls, floor,
and ceiling, then pressurize. Use as many square miles of photovoltaic
cells as required to power the place, raw sunlight being chock full of
power.






Hell, if you
pressurized the central chamber high enough, You could literally strap
on wings and fly in the thick air, weighing only 1/6 of what you weigh
on earth. A true human powered flight.

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 23:25:38 -0400, "J.J."
wrote:

I agree with you 100%, we shouldn't go to the moon just to do it again,
it should be to stay and establish a permanent base. Robotics simply
make sense to do the basic set up work, lots of digging in, because you
wouldn't need to build structures on the moon, simply dig in and carve
your space out, because meteors still strike the surface of the moon,
and they aren't slowed by atmosphere. Dig in, seal the walls, floor,
and ceiling, then pressurize. Use as many square miles of photovoltaic
cells as required to power the place, raw sunlight being chock full of
power.

NASA's current plan is not such a bad start for going down this
grander colonization route. Their main issue is to try and minimise
their launch costs.

Having a small base on the Moon is an idea to begin with, when someone
will need to service your remote controlled heavy construction and
mining equipment when it breaks down.

Also I just cannot see that digging long tunnels and open caverns into
the ground can be done efficiently using remote controlled robots. It
may be possible, but such projects on Earth usually need quite a lot
of human assistance.

In this respect it would be better to have your bouncy castle
equipment servicing mini-base first. Your quite small underground and
pressurized base second. Then to use your first wave of colony people
to enlarge the area that they are already living in.

And this enlarging base would need to be made fully self-supporting,
with home grown water, oxygen, food, power, etc. Then once they are
homed up you can see about large scale refining and construction.

They would still need a few things from Earth, like in the case of
electronics. This should mostly be small scale items though.

I am not sure how much of your air would leak out through the rock
above you, but I am sure that there would be methods to counteract
this. Digging down deeper would be one method.

This would seem like a better objective than ISS on the Moon. About
two people rotated each six months. And they learn to do a few things
on the smaller scale. Growing their own food not being one of them. I
would also doubt doing their own oxygen production either.

Not exactly living off the land in other words.

Cardman.