NASA Back to Moon by 2018 - But WHY ?

On 19 Sep 2005 15:32:23 -0700, "Alex Terrell"
wrote:

Almost agree. It doesn't need colonisation; exploitation would do.

I question our ability, and motivation, to exploit the
moon WITHOUT a substantial number of humans present. As
I see it, the commercial exploitation will follow along
naturally as lunar colonists begin to exceed their own
needs and have surplus material to export.

And there might be a case for sending manned crew to visit a short list
of chosen base locations, before the base is deployed.

Maybe ... but probably not. IMHO, everything can be done
using bots unless there's some really complicated fix-it
job required on an excavator or drilling machine or
whatever.

A descent cargo lander could have landed a mobile base, which could
have been crewed on an adhoc basis. As it is, each mission will do just
a little more than Apollo did 50 years before it.

"A little more" isn't worth doing. This is going to be EXPENSIVE
and somewhat DANGEROUS - so let's make it WORTH the pain. The
moon isn't going anywhere. We can wait a bit longer if necessary
or refocus our existing timeline on colonization and commercial
exploitation rather than 'tourism'. I want the moon to be a
money-maker, or at least self-supporting. The prime first products
will be exotic minerals and electricity (microwaved back to earth
and/or space-stations).

Using bots to do 98% of the set-up work is sensible and economical.
Yes, some little inflatable moon-hab could be dropped down so
people could do maintenence visits, but the bots should dig the
first mines, drill the first wells, assemble the BIG habitat
for the initial wave of colonists.

Ought to be able to use solar heat to sinter lunar soil & rock
into standard interlockable structural components. Just spray the
inside with a sealant afterwards ... could even make THAT there,
if water for making the silicones is availible. If NO water is
availible then a lunar colony probably isn't worth it and we should
either leave it to the bots or arrange to crash a nice wet comet
gently into the moon.

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:58:29 GMT, "abracadabra"
wrote:

"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
roups.com...
Almost agree. It doesn't need colonisation; exploitation would do.

What could we exploit on the moon that would worth the shipping cost (OK, I
know it takes a lot less energy to break lunar orbit than to break terran
orbit, but still!)


And there might be a case for sending manned crew to visit a short list
of chosen base locations, before the base is deployed.

A descent cargo lander could have landed a mobile base, which could
have been crewed on an adhoc basis. As it is, each mission will do just
a little more than Apollo did 50 years before it.

*sigh*
I remember staying up late to see men walk on the moon. I slept through it,
but I'll never forget how everyone in the USA (in my little world of
elementary school) saw everything differently the next day.

There was barely anything to see ... the TV pix were
horribly contrasty. The semi-decent stuff they show
today is what they got after carefully image-processing
the tapes.

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 21:25:49 -0500, Brian Thorn
wrote:

On 19 Sep 2005 15:32:23 -0700, "Alex Terrell"
wrote:

As it is, each mission will do just
a little more than Apollo did 50 years before it.

Well, over 200% more. (2x crew, 2.25x stay time.)

NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

On 19 Sep 2005 17:48:18 -0700, wrote:


abracadabra wrote:
"B1ackwater" wrote in message
...
(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.



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.

I know they found at least one decent water supply in a crater filled with
ice on the dark side.

Not precisely, They think water is there, but not absolutely proven.

There is no dark side of the moon really ...

There are a few perpetually-dark PLACES however, a few
craters near the poles. If there's any surface ice, those
would be the spots. Sub-surface ice, probably still near
the poles, but it would have to be pretty deep lest it
sublime out into space. Hydrated minerals ... better
chance of finding them, although the H20 extraction
becomes more energy-intensive.

One decent fiction book I read had humans terraforming Mars by crashing
comets into the planet's surface - comets rich in frozen nitrogen, oxygen,
water, etc. Are there enough asteroids in the belt with water that it might
be worth fetching some to put on Mars or the moon?

I once advocated smashing-up europa and directing some
of the ice towards a gentle collision with mars. You'd
want a few comets too - for the nitrogen compounds.

Asteroid belt, no. Try Kuiper belt and Oort Cloud. Also, moons,
starting with Jupiter outwards, are rich with H20 and other necessary
volatiles. Robotic vehicles could being back all that would be needed
to support a Moon and Mars habitat.

'Habitat' yes ... but what about a CITY, or ten ?

Unless substantial SCALE is in the picture here, the moon
would be a perpetual, severe, money loser.

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.

Agreed. I'd hate to be colonists on the moon depending on one
party staying in power.

Aw ... they could apply for WELFARE if the Dems took charge :-)

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.

The USA will fall, as all empires fall, but what a legacy to leave behind -
a colonized Moon, Mars or colonies in the asteroid belts.

The USA isn't an 'empire' in the traditional sense. It
is just a LARGE commercial bloc constantly fiddling with
things to improve its supply and trade position. More of
a "money empire" than a hands-on empire like those of old.

But it WILL fall, or at least seriously mutate, sooner or
later. All civilizations seem accumulate errors as they
go along and eventually the cumulative burden drags them
down or shatters them. Most of the olde tyme empires did
not recognize the fallacy of empire - that conquest skims
the most cherry assets from a territory right away, but
from there on you must administer and defend that territory
even though it's no longer 'rich'. Defense is expensive
and administration, well, errors accumulate.

Sadly I don't think the current administration is serious about space,

It's more of a distraction. They aren't even really DOING
anything about their alleged plans ... any of the gigabuck
contracts for rockets and other equipment would take many
years to even make it onto paper.

and
the Democrats can't seem to get excited about it either.

They want to spend it on midnight basketball or something.
Of course you can ALWAYS find a "more worthy cause" here
at home. The Dems sometimes don't seem to understand that
by investing in new frontiers you can make MORE money and
opportunity. That can pay for all the social programs and
much more.

My fear is that
it'll be the Muslims or Chinese who actually get around to colonizing space
while the USA twiddles it's thumbs. What a waste.

I'd bet on the Chinese. Already they're buddying-up with
the Russians and India will eventually join that little
club as well. Looks as if we're going to be left out in
the cold. Hmmm ... maybe that will be motivational ? Still,
I don't know if you can properly calculate orbits using
'bible math' and 'bible science' ... :-)

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:51:26 GMT, Alan Anderson
wrote:

"abracadabra" wrote:

I know they found at least one decent water supply in a crater filled with
ice on the dark side.

"It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you
know that ain't so."

Yep. No 'decent water supply' has been located.
Only a few hints that SOME water may exist near
the poles ... but how MUCH and how ACCESSIBLE is
totally unknown. That's what bots are for ... send
a few to scout-out the area.

If there's essentially NO water on the moon, is it
even worth sending humans there again ?

On 20 Sep 2005 10:38:22 GMT, Ian Stirling
wrote:

In sci.space.policy Michael Rhino wrote:
"B1ackwater" wrote in message
...
(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.

In my mind, Apollo on steroids would require lots of flights -- around 50
manned flights and 50 heavy lift cargo flights over 20 years. I don't know
if that is the plan. No single flight can be Apollo on steroids.

I dunno.
Steroids do cause weight growth, lack of balls, irrationality and premature
deaths.


But first you get to be the multi-millionare governor
of California ... :-)

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.


One word..W A T E R!

I once read (years ago) that it would cost thousands of dollars per
gallon to ship plain old water to the moon, and IF they have found a
source of water already on the moon then that makes it many many times
more valuable than GOLD!

And look at the lenghts humans have gone to just to go after a few tons
of gold?

With water you get stuff like Hydrogen/Oxygen also you can use it to
grow plants in, which allows you to Cheaply clean the air and waste
water as you grow food at the same time!

Also with the moon comes other good things like Gravity (even low
gravity is better than no gravity when it comes to bones) and then
there is the almost unlimited space AND a cheap means of protection
against cosmic radiation as all you have to do is bury your building
under a couple of feet of moon dirt!

In fact as I see it this is the direction NASA should have gone in
startig as farback as the 1980's, and that the real WASTE was the
Stupid Shuttle and the ISS, which have been Money Black Holes since day
one (as both have NEVER lived up to even the low end of the hype they
sold them on) !!!

In article ,
(B1ackwater) wrote:

If there's essentially NO water on the moon, is it
even worth sending humans there again ?

Of course. The only problem is HOW they're being sent.

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On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 09:00:58 -0600, Joe Strout wrote:

In article ,
(B1ackwater) wrote:

If there's essentially NO water on the moon, is it
even worth sending humans there again ?

Of course. The only problem is HOW they're being sent.

Better by by warp drive because doing it with chemical
rockets, especially NASA rockets, is ultra-expensive
and quite dangerous.

Now if going to the moon is as easy as catching a flight
to Atlanta ... sure, go back as often as you want, even
if it doesn't accomplish much.

B1ackwater wrote:

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:51:26 GMT, Alan Anderson
wrote:

"abracadabra" wrote:

I know they found at least one decent water supply in a crater filled with
ice on the dark side.

"It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you
know that ain't so."

Yep. No 'decent water supply' has been located.
Only a few hints that SOME water may exist near
the poles ... but how MUCH and how ACCESSIBLE is
totally unknown. That's what bots are for ... send
a few to scout-out the area.

If there's essentially NO water on the moon, is it
even worth sending humans there again ?

How much water is there in the orbit that ISS is in? Putting people on
the Moon gives us a chance to test things that are not easily tested
otherwise, whether partial gee mitigates the effects of zero gee, how
people could explore in a vacuum, tele-exploration and construction,
etc.


--
So they are even more frightened than we are, he thought. Why, is this
all that's meant by heroism? And did I do it for the sake of my country?
And was he to blame with his dimple and his blue eyes? How frightened he
was! He thought I was going to kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand
trembled. And they have given me the St. George's Cross. I can't make it
out, I can't make it out! +-Leo Tolstoy, "War and Peace"