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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation ofmoon
On Sun, 22 Oct 2017, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
"William Elliot" wrote in message On Fri, 20 Oct 2017, Fred J. McCall wrote: The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale." https://www.theguardian.com/science/...sation-of-moon should send a rover to check it out Rovers can't do spelunking. You'd have to send people. Why? A rover could go in, take a look around and come back to tell us what it saw. And how do you navigate? Radio isn't going to work well, and while an autonomous rover sounds like a good idea, they work best when we already know the terrain. Place a transmission station at the entrance. That'll do until there's a bend. So bring along a relay for each bend. Otherwise, a cable connection would have to be laid as the rover roves. Let's ask Comcast. :-) In theory a lava tube should be relatively smooth on the inside except for chunks that have fallen from the ceiling, there's no guarantee what we know about lava tubes here on Earth cleanly translates to how they'd form on the Moon, or how this particular one would form. So, you really want to have someone on site. And once you do, you might as well just use them to explore the tube. On their own without outside communication? And trust me, there's no shortage of cavers here on Earth that would be willing to check out a lunar lava tube. I'm probably a bit too old to go, but you know, I've got some time to spare if NASA is willing to provide transportation. How about lodging and supplies? Pack your own backpack? |
#12
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation of moon
William Elliot wrote:
On Sun, 22 Oct 2017, Fred J. McCall wrote: William Elliot wrote: The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale." https://www.theguardian.com/science/...sation-of-moon should send a rover to check it out Rovers can't do spelunking. You'd have to send people. Why? A rover could go in, take a look around and come back to tell us what it saw. Rovers are only good on relatively flat ground and even there they travel slowly to avoid accidents. No way one can go spelunking. There are robots that walk into volcano craters. Use one of those. And send a human with it? Communication lag between your volcano robot and the operator is? A few seconds. No big deal like the 8 hrs to Pluto. The robot could use automonous driving like rovers do. Simple way is to take a look, go a bit, take another look. Quick reactions aren't required of a plodder. So you're going to build a purpose-built rover for this single cave, including all the software development for autonomous operation... -- "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." -- Charles Pinckney |
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation ofmoon
On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Fred J. McCall wrote:
The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale." https://www.theguardian.com/science/...sation-of-moon should send a rover to check it out Rovers can't do spelunking. You'd have to send people. Why? A rover could go in, take a look around and come back to tell us what it saw. Rovers are only good on relatively flat ground and even there they travel slowly to avoid accidents. No way one can go spelunking. There are robots that walk into volcano craters. Use one of those. And send a human with it? Communication lag between your volcano robot and the operator is? A few seconds. No big deal like the 8 hrs to Pluto. The robot could use automonous driving like rovers do. Simple way is to take a look, go a bit, take another look. Quick reactions aren't required of a plodder. So you're going to build a purpose-built rover for this single cave, including all the software development for autonomous operation... They've been doing it for Mars rovers, mostly on the fly. Once done, it could be used for other caves or difficult parts of Mars, even perhaps caves. Just imagine going into the depths of a volcano and running out, just in time to jet pack away from an eruption. Wow! Wnat pics. |
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation of moon
William Elliot wrote:
On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Fred J. McCall wrote: The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale." https://www.theguardian.com/science/...sation-of-moon should send a rover to check it out Rovers can't do spelunking. You'd have to send people. Why? A rover could go in, take a look around and come back to tell us what it saw. Rovers are only good on relatively flat ground and even there they travel slowly to avoid accidents. No way one can go spelunking. There are robots that walk into volcano craters. Use one of those. And send a human with it? Communication lag between your volcano robot and the operator is? A few seconds. No big deal like the 8 hrs to Pluto. The robot could use automonous driving like rovers do. Simple way is to take a look, go a bit, take another look. Quick reactions aren't required of a plodder. So you're going to build a purpose-built rover for this single cave, including all the software development for autonomous operation... They've been doing it for Mars rovers, mostly on the fly. Once done, it could be used for other caves or difficult parts of Mars, even perhaps caves. And they've deliberately avoided 'difficult' terrain. As already noted, Mars is harder because of the communications delay. How much (flat) ground have Mars rovers covered over the decades? Not much. And it only gets slower as the terrain gets more difficult. Just imagine going into the depths of a volcano and running out, just in time to jet pack away from an eruption. Wow! Wnat pics. Just imagine magic pixie dust... -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation of moon
"William Elliot" wrote in message
x.com... On Sun, 22 Oct 2017, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote: "William Elliot" wrote in message On Fri, 20 Oct 2017, Fred J. McCall wrote: The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale." https://www.theguardian.com/science/...sation-of-moon should send a rover to check it out Rovers can't do spelunking. You'd have to send people. Why? A rover could go in, take a look around and come back to tell us what it saw. And how do you navigate? Radio isn't going to work well, and while an autonomous rover sounds like a good idea, they work best when we already know the terrain. Place a transmission station at the entrance. That'll do until there's a bend. So bring along a relay for each bend. Otherwise, a cable connection would have to be laid as the rover roves. Let's ask Comcast. :-) It's funny you mention this. The first idea has been looked at for cave rescue, but so far hasn't been done, at least routinely. It may work better in lava tube because they tend to be straighter and less mazy (but that's far from true too). But there's no guarantee until we go. As for laying cable, actually that's what we do now for cave rescues (where shortening communication times is paramount), but it's not as straightforward as you might think. And woe be the rover that catches the cable on something or jams the reel. (We've already had this issue with a tether deployment in LEO). So possible, but like any engineering challenge, there are questions and it's not quite as straightforward as you'd think. Keep in mind too, you have to land the rover in the lava tube, that's going to take some pin-point aiming too. We'll definitely want to get a MUCH better map of the floor. Most likely because the roof has caved in, the floor will be littered with chunks of rock. A rover is NOT going to easily traverse those. To give you an example, a lava tube in Oregon I was in earlier this summer had a width that was probably 200' wide and distance from floor to ceiling varied from probably 25' to 100' because of the piles of basalt that formed basically small hills inside the lava tube. Even as an experienced caver, this was NOT easy ground to traverse. I can NOT imagine an form of a Mars based rover making it more than 100' beyond the entrance in this particular lava tube. In theory a lava tube should be relatively smooth on the inside except for chunks that have fallen from the ceiling, there's no guarantee what we know about lava tubes here on Earth cleanly translates to how they'd form on the Moon, or how this particular one would form. So, you really want to have someone on site. And once you do, you might as well just use them to explore the tube. On their own without outside communication? Sure, why not. We have cavers who routinely spend 3 days to weeks underground. Granted, it's NOT a mode NASA is used to operating in, but there's no guarantee NASA will be the ones doing the exploration. The logistics are more complicated, because you will have to bring shelter and air and the like, but it's definitely doable. Look at some of the work Bill Stone has done in Sistema Huautla. Oh and he has experience working with NASA. I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to go. And trust me, there's no shortage of cavers here on Earth that would be willing to check out a lunar lava tube. I'm probably a bit too old to go, but you know, I've got some time to spare if NASA is willing to provide transportation. How about lodging and supplies? Pack your own backpack? Sure. I can be packed and ready to go any time! -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation ofmoon
On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Elliot wrote: So you're going to build a purpose-built rover for this single cave, including all the software development for autonomous operation... They've been doing it for Mars rovers, mostly on the fly. Once done, it could be used for other caves or difficult parts of Mars, even perhaps caves. And they've deliberately avoided 'difficult' terrain. As already noted, Mars is harder because of the communications delay. How much (flat) ground have Mars rovers covered over the decades? Not much. And it only gets slower as the terrain gets more difficult. One doesn't have to go far into a cave to discover the unknown. Just imagine going into the depths of a volcano and running out, just in time to jet pack away from an eruption. Wow! Wnat pics. Just imagine magic pixie dust... Just look at what magic pixel dust can already do. |
#17
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation ofmoon
On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale." Rovers can't do spelunking. You'd have to send people. Why? A rover could go in, take a look around and come back to tell us what it saw. And how do you navigate? Radio isn't going to work well, and while an autonomous rover sounds like a good idea, they work best when we already know the terrain. Place a transmission station at the entrance. That'll do until there's a bend. So bring along a relay for each bend. Otherwise, a cable connection would have to be laid as the rover roves. Let's ask Comcast. :-) It's funny you mention this. The first idea has been looked at for cave rescue, but so far hasn't been done, at least routinely. It may work better in lava tube because they tend to be straighter and less mazy (but that's far from true too). But there's no guarantee until we go. Why not? More expensive than cables? On the other hand, for twisting, winding, narrow caves, cables would be better, at least for those portions. As for laying cable, actually that's what we do now for cave rescues (where shortening communication times is paramount), but it's not as straightforward as you might think. What's happened? Tangle foot had to be rescued? And woe be the rover that catches the cable on something or jams the reel. (We've already had this issue with a tether deployment in LEO). That would be far as it would go. So possible, but like any engineering challenge, there are questions and it's not quite as straightforward as you'd think. Keep in mind too, you have to land the rover in the lava tube, that's going to take some pin-point aiming too. We'll definitely want to get a MUCH better map of the floor. Why expect the impossible? Go over to the edge and jump in or lower yourself with a cable into the cave. With luck, a walkin opening would be found. Most likely because the roof has caved in, the floor will be littered with chunks of rock. A rover is NOT going to easily traverse those. Even with a lift from above. So if you get stuck, at least you made a landing and have in place look see. To give you an example, a lava tube in Oregon I was in earlier this summer had a width that was probably 200' wide and distance from floor to ceiling varied from probably 25' to 100' because of the piles of basalt that formed basically small hills inside the lava tube. Even as an experienced caver, this was NOT easy ground to traverse. The heck with six wheel. Let's crawl like six legged insects. I can NOT imagine an form of a Mars based rover making it more than 100' beyond the entrance in this particular lava tube. That's as big of a deal as hours on Venus or days on Titan. In theory a lava tube should be relatively smooth on the inside except for chunks that have fallen from the ceiling, there's no guarantee what we know about lava tubes here on Earth cleanly translates to how they'd form on the Moon, or how this particular one would form. So, you really want to have someone on site. And once you do, you might as well just use them to explore the tube. On their own without outside communication? Sure, why not. We have cavers who routinely spend 3 days to weeks underground. Granted, it's NOT a mode NASA is used to operating in, but there's no guarantee NASA will be the ones doing the exploration. What do they do with all their poop, **** and crud? Are all meals prepared and ready to eat? Are they cabled to the outside of is it an isolation ward? The logistics are more complicated, because you will have to bring shelter and air and the like, but it's definitely doable. Look at some of the work Bill Stone has done in Sistema Huautla. Oh and he has experience working with NASA. What was that? I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to go. And trust me, there's no shortage of cavers here on Earth that would be willing to check out a lunar lava tube. I'm probably a bit too old to go, but you know, I've got some time to spare if NASA is willing to provide transportation. How about lodging and supplies? Pack your own backpack? Sure. I can be packed and ready to go any time! With all of your needed supplies? |
#18
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation of moon
"William Elliot" wrote in message
.com... On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote: The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale." Rovers can't do spelunking. You'd have to send people. Why? A rover could go in, take a look around and come back to tell us what it saw. And how do you navigate? Radio isn't going to work well, and while an autonomous rover sounds like a good idea, they work best when we already know the terrain. Place a transmission station at the entrance. That'll do until there's a bend. So bring along a relay for each bend. Otherwise, a cable connection would have to be laid as the rover roves. Let's ask Comcast. :-) It's funny you mention this. The first idea has been looked at for cave rescue, but so far hasn't been done, at least routinely. It may work better in lava tube because they tend to be straighter and less mazy (but that's far from true too). But there's no guarantee until we go. Why not? More expensive than cables? On the other hand, for twisting, winding, narrow caves, cables would be better, at least for those portions. Logistics. Caves tend to be windy. So the number of repeaters can climb quickly. That said, research is still ongoing. As for laying cable, actually that's what we do now for cave rescues (where shortening communication times is paramount), but it's not as straightforward as you might think. What's happened? Tangle foot had to be rescued? Cave rescues vary in nature. Get your hands on the American Cave Accident report for an idea. And woe be the rover that catches the cable on something or jams the reel. (We've already had this issue with a tether deployment in LEO). That would be far as it would go. Wow, that's great mission planning. "Well if it breaks, so what?" Since the point is to explore the target, you really can't say, "Eh, so what." So possible, but like any engineering challenge, there are questions and it's not quite as straightforward as you'd think. Keep in mind too, you have to land the rover in the lava tube, that's going to take some pin-point aiming too. We'll definitely want to get a MUCH better map of the floor. Why expect the impossible? Go over to the edge and jump in or lower yourself with a cable into the cave. With luck, a walkin opening would be found. Wait a second... you just went from wanting to land a rover in the cave entrance, to accepting people as part of the mission. Guess you do see the value of people. Most likely because the roof has caved in, the floor will be littered with chunks of rock. A rover is NOT going to easily traverse those. Even with a lift from above. So if you get stuck, at least you made a landing and have in place look see. So you see a pile of rock. Umm. Ok. But that's barely scratch the surface (or below the surface as the case may be). We want to find things out like how large it is, are there flat areas large enough for us to place structures, is it airtight enough that in parts perhaps we can even use the lava tube itself as an air pressure. We're also interested in the geology. How exactly does the magma flow in 1/6th G and zero atmosphere. My guess is noticeably different from here on Earth. To give you an example, a lava tube in Oregon I was in earlier this summer had a width that was probably 200' wide and distance from floor to ceiling varied from probably 25' to 100' because of the piles of basalt that formed basically small hills inside the lava tube. Even as an experienced caver, this was NOT easy ground to traverse. The heck with six wheel. Let's crawl like six legged insects. Great, and our experience with these on foreign bodies is how much? So you've again changed the engineering problems. I can NOT imagine an form of a Mars based rover making it more than 100' beyond the entrance in this particular lava tube. That's as big of a deal as hours on Venus or days on Titan. Hardly. It barely tells you anything about the tube. In theory a lava tube should be relatively smooth on the inside except for chunks that have fallen from the ceiling, there's no guarantee what we know about lava tubes here on Earth cleanly translates to how they'd form on the Moon, or how this particular one would form. So, you really want to have someone on site. And once you do, you might as well just use them to explore the tube. On their own without outside communication? Sure, why not. We have cavers who routinely spend 3 days to weeks underground. Granted, it's NOT a mode NASA is used to operating in, but there's no guarantee NASA will be the ones doing the exploration. What do they do with all their poop, **** and crud? Carry it all out. This isn't an issue on the Moon since there is no biosphere you risk contaminating. In many caves they setup their base camps near a water supply so they don't need to carry water IN, but they do need to carry their used water out! Are all meals prepared and ready to eat? Depends. For morale, fresh cooked is usually better. Are they cabled to the outside of is it an isolation ward? Depends, but generally there's NO outside contact. It's just not feasible. So you need folks who are trained to operate on their own and collect data and do the proper research. It's certainly possible, just very different from the current NASA model where Houston wants to watch you 24/7. But, this is going to have to change if we want to get serious about exploration. The logistics are more complicated, because you will have to bring shelter and air and the like, but it's definitely doable. Look at some of the work Bill Stone has done in Sistema Huautla. Oh and he has experience working with NASA. What was that? Like I said, look it up. I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to go. And trust me, there's no shortage of cavers here on Earth that would be willing to check out a lunar lava tube. I'm probably a bit too old to go, but you know, I've got some time to spare if NASA is willing to provide transportation. How about lodging and supplies? Pack your own backpack? Sure. I can be packed and ready to go any time! With all of your needed supplies? If NASA is providing the transportation, I'll find a way! ;-) -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation of moon
William Elliot wrote:
On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote: It's funny you mention this. The first idea has been looked at for cave rescue, but so far hasn't been done, at least routinely. It may work better in lava tube because they tend to be straighter and less mazy (but that's far from true too). But there's no guarantee until we go. Why not? More expensive than cables? On the other hand, for twisting, winding, narrow caves, cables would be better, at least for those portions. I'm speculating, but I would expect wireless relays to have a lot of problems with multipath reception ('echoes' from all the rocks and crap in the cave). Of course, physical wires have the problem that something actually needs to pay them out and not have problems with reels and snags. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
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Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation of moon
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
... William Elliot wrote: On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote: It's funny you mention this. The first idea has been looked at for cave rescue, but so far hasn't been done, at least routinely. It may work better in lava tube because they tend to be straighter and less mazy (but that's far from true too). But there's no guarantee until we go. Why not? More expensive than cables? On the other hand, for twisting, winding, narrow caves, cables would be better, at least for those portions. I'm speculating, but I would expect wireless relays to have a lot of problems with multipath reception ('echoes' from all the rocks and crap in the cave). Of course, physical wires have the problem that something actually needs to pay them out and not have problems with reels and snags. Yeah, radio's really not my forte, but that's a concern. But my understanding is with modern signal processing that can be mitigated somewhat. Whether it's enough, I have no idea. The more I think about this, the more interesting the problem is. For example, here on Earth, some folks are starting to use drones in caves. Lets you explore pits or domes w/o needing to do any rigging or bolting. But of course that's not really feasible on the Moon. And of course any of our techniques for going up and down rope here on Earth are going to be far more complex on the Moon. On the other hand, you've got 1/6th the mass to move. Most likely you'd have to rely on winches, but as a backup, I think you'd still want to do some version of what's known as single rope (or knowing NASA, twin-rope) technique hear on Earth. I think some version of what's known as a rope-walker would work well. Bit more complex than some other systems, but doesn't rely on bending at the waist as much. But still not sure it would be possible to get on/off the rope in a full suit. I'm definitely eager now to try to figure out if this is possible! -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
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