NASA: "Water on the Moon!" This is the Shameless Science!

On Oct 3, 7:25*am, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:
"Scotius" wrote in message

...



Except that the moon is also filled with helium 3, which can
be fused much more easily than hydrogen. Putting reactors up there
would allow the astronauts an almost unlimited supply of energy.

Yeah, once we actually you know, build WORKING ones. *In the meantime there
are far easier and cheaper ways to power a lunar base.

Certainly more than enough to move the material to get water, if they
had to.
I don't think they'd have to though. I think there are plenty
of places on the moon where there are outcroppings of ice that would
provide an easy source of water.

Based on what? *Wishful thinking?

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

Perhaps he found some of that "right stuff" that got tossed out in all
of those 700 large boxes of science and technology data from our
Apollo era of those missions impossible.

~ BG

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
m...
"Scotius" wrote in message
...

Except that the moon is also filled with helium 3, which can
be fused much more easily than hydrogen. Putting reactors up there
would allow the astronauts an almost unlimited supply of energy.

Yeah, once we actually you know, build WORKING ones. In the meantime
there are far easier and cheaper ways to power a lunar base.

Certainly more than enough to move the material to get water, if they
had to.
I don't think they'd have to though. I think there are plenty
of places on the moon where there are outcroppings of ice that would
provide an easy source of water.

Based on what?

Based on nothing.

This SCOTIUS dickwipe is a total whackjob.

Scotius wrote:
On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:14:51 +1000, Sylvia Else
wrote:

jonathan wrote:
Timing is everything; An Example of the Lowest Form
of Science.

NASA finds ice on the moon
http://www.reuters.com/article/scien...36167620090924

This 'Big Discovery' comes just as the Augustine Report on NASA's future
is being released. A report which is /very harsh/ on the notion of returning
men to the Moon. See below.

What curious timing? One might just think this 'science' is nothing more
than a politically motivated show, 'politico-science'...call it, only meant
as a last-ditch effort to save the dying idea of building a Moon Colony.

An idea even Tom Hanks considers without reason......

"I think in the history of the human race, the moon has been
the first place we've gone to and said, 'OK, we don't need
to go back there again.'" Hanks said.

"And maybe we should do it again?" Axelrod asks.

"Well," Hanks says, "the question would be why?"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in881421.shtml

Moon Water is .."THE REASON WHY". A drop of moon water per liter
of lunar soil..Wow! FORGET GLOBAL WARMING, we need to be
mining water on the flippin' moon for a Trillion Dollar Colony instead.

ARE THEY LUNATICS? (literally speaking....yes they are)

AMERICA'S SINGLE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM
for the next fifty years, a Gilded Safari to the Moon!
That's incredibly sad, if not tragic, considering what the world
will soon become due to fossil fueled climate change.

WHILE THE WORLD BURNS these 'scientists' hold a press conference
that's nothing more than a political dog-and-pony show.
To justify an immoral waste of taxpayer funds.
They should be fired.

And let "Moon Water" serve as the fitting epitaph for America's
manned space program.

Jonathan



Moon-Water-Factory or Space Solar Power?
Which makes sense?

Executive Summary
NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
AND TECHNOLOGY (SERT) PROGRAM
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1


SUMMARY REPORT
of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight

"The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an
unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice
of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources."
http://www.ostp.gov/galleries/press_...tineforweb.pdf

Given the quantities they're talking about, and the amount of material
that would have to be processed to get a useful amount of water, I
suspect that shipping water from Earth would still be cheaper than
putting the necessary equipment onto the moon.

Sylvia.

Except that the moon is also filled with helium 3, which can
be fused much more easily than hydrogen. Putting reactors up there
would allow the astronauts an almost unlimited supply of energy.
Certainly more than enough to move the material to get water, if they
had to.

Leaving aside that we don't have working fusion reactors, using any kind
of fuel, that have a net power output, you're still looking at the wrong
aspect of the problem. Even if we had such a design, and built the
reactor, it would be on Earth. Before it could be put to use on the
Moon, it would have to be moved there. Nothing in the development path
so far suggests that we're heading towards something of low mass. I
shudder to think at the cost of launching it and landing it on the moon
intact. Would it really be the cheapest way of providing astronauts with
energy?

Sylvia.

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Sylvia Else wrote:

:Scotius wrote:
:
: Except that the moon is also filled with helium 3, which can
: be fused much more easily than hydrogen. Putting reactors up there
: would allow the astronauts an almost unlimited supply of energy.
: Certainly more than enough to move the material to get water, if they
: had to.
:
:Leaving aside that we don't have working fusion reactors, using any kind
f fuel, that have a net power output, you're still looking at the wrong
:aspect of the problem. Even if we had such a design, and built the
:reactor, it would be on Earth. Before it could be put to use on the
:Moon, it would have to be moved there. Nothing in the development path
:so far suggests that we're heading towards something of low mass. I
:shudder to think at the cost of launching it and landing it on the moon
:intact. Would it really be the cheapest way of providing astronauts with
:energy?
:

Well, that, of course, is the other part of the problem. We don't
know how massive the thing must be or how much of it could be
fabricated locally until we actually know what one of these things
looks like.

Well, we don't know that it's not possible to build small and light
ones, but the present development line is clearly heading towards
something very big and very heavy. Maybe when the physics is better
understood, the small and light will become practical, but we're clearly
not going to see anything like that in the foreseeable future. At the
rate things are going, I don't really expect to live to see a working
fusion power plant on Earth even.


You're going to have to 'bootstrap' into something like fusion power.
I still think the best bet is solar furnaces and such, coupled with
heat engines and/or some sort of thermocouple power. Use that to
fabricate the massive parts of your fusion plant and only ship the
small, expensive (hopefully light) bits.

If you have the kind of power required to do the fabrication on the
Moon, I'd have to wonder whether you needed the reactor anyway. At least
until you're thinking about a Moon colony, rather than just a Moon base.

Sylvia.

Reactors burning D-3He are likely to be heavier than ones burning D-T, not
lighter, since the reactivity of D-3He is many times less. This means a
larger reactor or stronger magnets are needed. And you still need just
about as much neutron shielding (to protect the magnets), even with D-3He.

Fission reactors would superior for use on the moon (and, very likely, on
Earth too).

Paul

"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...
Sylvia Else wrote:

:Scotius wrote:
:
: Except that the moon is also filled with helium 3, which can
: be fused much more easily than hydrogen. Putting reactors up there
: would allow the astronauts an almost unlimited supply of energy.
: Certainly more than enough to move the material to get water, if they
: had to.
:
:Leaving aside that we don't have working fusion reactors, using any kind
f fuel, that have a net power output, you're still looking at the wrong
:aspect of the problem. Even if we had such a design, and built the
:reactor, it would be on Earth. Before it could be put to use on the
:Moon, it would have to be moved there. Nothing in the development path
:so far suggests that we're heading towards something of low mass. I
:shudder to think at the cost of launching it and landing it on the moon
:intact. Would it really be the cheapest way of providing astronauts with
:energy?
:

Well, that, of course, is the other part of the problem. We don't
know how massive the thing must be or how much of it could be
fabricated locally until we actually know what one of these things
looks like.

You're going to have to 'bootstrap' into something like fusion power.
I still think the best bet is solar furnaces and such, coupled with
heat engines and/or some sort of thermocouple power. Use that to
fabricate the massive parts of your fusion plant and only ship the
small, expensive (hopefully light) bits.

--
"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