Technologies for Moon mission useable for missions further out

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

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

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

Another example might be an orbital fuel depot.

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


Alain Fournier

At Wed, 9 Jun 2010 19:36:17 EDT Alain Fournier wrote:



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

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

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

Another example might be an orbital fuel depot.

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

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

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

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

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

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



Alain Fournier



--
Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar!
Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
-- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So far, no probe has been inside one.

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

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

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

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

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

-michael turner


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







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

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

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

Another example might be an orbital fuel depot.

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

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

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

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

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

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



Alain Fournier

--
Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireF
ox Toolbar!
Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administratio
nhttp://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
-- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk

Robert Heller wrote:

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

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

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

Yes, but the methods for doing so can be very different for Mars vs for
the Moon. To get an oxygen atmosphere on in a martian habitat, you get
plants to process the CO2 from the atmosphere. On the Moon you pry the
oxygen out of the rocks. For water, you can get water on Mars by
extracting it from the atmosphere, on the Moon again you have a very
different process.

This means:
Air recycling: probably some sort of CO2 scrubber and/or some
sort of CO2 = C, O2 conversion: photosynthesis?
Water recycling: solar still?
Food: farming / gardening (Air/Water/Waste recycling on the side...).
Energy: solar cells / solar heating. Energy storage (2 weeks of
day, 2 weeks of night on the Moon, fainter solar radiation on Mars and
asteroids).

Again that energy storage for the four weeks day/night cycle on the Moon
is a lunar mission specific technology, not one that will be used on
Mars.

Housing: need to worry about solar radiation (no atmosphere or
ionosphere on the Moon, Mars, or the asteroids). Need to hold in the air.
Be meteorite proof...

Being meteorite proof on Mars is basically a non issue. The thin atmosphere
slows down meteorite a lot.

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

I don't think so. For the above reasons, many things will be done quite
differently on Mars as opposed to how they will be done on the Moon. I
think it is worthwhile to know what will be lunar specific and what will
not, before going to the Moon.

In fact, it would have been interesting if such an advance planning had
been done before building ISS. I think that some kind of greenhouse should
have been installed on ISS, and that it should have been built with the
idea of reusing much of the technology on the Moon and Mars. Wouldn't it
be nice if those planing a lunar mission could say, for food and CO2
scrubbing we will use the tried tested and true greenhouse technology of
ISS. Maybe Bigelow, will to that route with his Space Hotel and have a
head start in the future for Luna Hotel and Motel Ares.


Alain Fournier

"To get an oxygen atmosphere on in a martian habitat, you get
plants to process the CO2 from the atmosphere. On the Moon you pry
the
oxygen out of the rocks. For water, you can get water on Mars by
extracting it from the atmosphere, on the Moon again you have a very
different process."

Some processes for direct primary resource extraction will differ.
The shared challenges for the scenarios isn't extraction, but
reliable, robust closed-cycle support. There's talk of greenhouses on
Mars, but I think when you look at all the issues squarely
(temperature extremes, atmospheric pressure near vacuum, etc.), it's
not so easy.

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/biomed/marsdome/papers.html

You're basically compensating for a lot of environmental differences
just to get one thing: sunlight passing through directly to plant
leaves. Is this really more sensible than piping sunlight from a
concentrator on the surface to a more controllable environment below
the Martian surface?

To live economically on the Moon for extended periods, you'll have to
develop some way to grow food in caves. To go to Mars, you'll
(probably) have to develop technologies for growing food aboard ship
-- not too different from growing it in caves. To live on Mars, you'll
have to live underground most of the time -- like you did on the
Moon. Water from the atmosphere? Water vapor content is about 0.03%
- of a very thin atmosphere. You're more likely to find acceptably
high concentrations somewhere else -- say, underground?

-michael turner

On Jun 13, 4:55 am, Alain Fournier wrote:
Robert Heller wrote:
Basically it is mostly a matter of thinking not in terms of going to th
e
Moon (or Mars or ???) as a one shot trip, but we really should be
thinking about living on/in/about these places as a long term thing.
None of this "small step for a man" sort of notion -- the main 'failure
'
of the Apollo missions was that nobody was really thinking of going
there and just staying indefinitely. The difference between buying a
tent to go camping in vs. loading up the wagon with ones worldly goods
with the idea of when you get there, you are going to build a house to
spend the rest of your life in and raise a family, etc. Apollo was j
ust
a weekend camping trip / scouting trip. It is time to load up the wa
gon
train and go stake out a homestead, build a cabin, and start farming th
e
prairie...

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

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

Yes, but the methods for doing so can be very different for Mars vs for
the Moon. To get an oxygen atmosphere on in a martian habitat, you get
plants to process the CO2 from the atmosphere. On the Moon you pry the
oxygen out of the rocks. For water, you can get water on Mars by
extracting it from the atmosphere, on the Moon again you have a very
different process.

This means:
Air recycling: probably some sort of CO2 scrubber and/or some
sort of CO2 = C, O2 conversion: photosynthesis?
Water recycling: solar still?
Food: farming / gardening (Air/Water/Waste recycling on the side
....).
Energy: solar cells / solar heating. Energy storage (2 weeks
of
day, 2 weeks of night on the Moon, fainter solar radiation on Ma
rs and
asteroids).

Again that energy storage for the four weeks day/night cycle on the Moon
is a lunar mission specific technology, not one that will be used on
Mars.

Housing: need to worry about solar radiation (no atmosphere or
ionosphere on the Moon, Mars, or the asteroids). Need to hold in the ai
r.

Michael Turner wrote:

You're basically compensating for a lot of environmental differences
just to get one thing: sunlight passing through directly to plant
leaves. Is this really more sensible than piping sunlight from a
concentrator on the surface to a more controllable environment below
the Martian surface?

To live economically on the Moon for extended periods, you'll have to
develop some way to grow food in caves. To go to Mars, you'll
(probably) have to develop technologies for growing food aboard ship
-- not too different from growing it in caves. To live on Mars, you'll
have to live underground most of the time -- like you did on the
Moon. Water from the atmosphere? Water vapor content is about 0.03%
- of a very thin atmosphere. You're more likely to find acceptably
high concentrations somewhere else -- say, underground?

It isn't quite obvious to me that it would be better to grow crops in caves than in greenhouses on the surface. I would
expect something like a greenhouse with 10 kP atmospheric pressure, 85% O2 and 15% CO2 to be workable. You would need a
relatively large volume to grow all the food for a crew. And space pressurized at 101 kP wouldn't be cheap. So it might
be easier to build a low pressure greenhouse exposed to sunlight than to grow the food in a more Earthly atmospheric
environment with artificial light. I'm not saying one method is superior to the other. I'm saying that it isn't obvious
to me which is best. Tending to the crop at 10 kP means farming in a pressure suit, so it isn't obvious that it is easy.
But, I would expect most of the work to be automated, and once the basic installation is setup, it should be in many
regards easier than farming on Earth because you don't expect weeds to be much of a problem nor would the weather be a
problem.

I'm also saying, that if you build a lunar base, the money you invest figuring out which is the best method of crop
production, is not money spent solely for the lunar base. It is also money spent preparing martian and/or asteroidal
exploration as the technology is probably easily adaptable. So develloping food production on a lunar base might be more
important than extracting water from the probable polar ice deposits.

I think food production (and at the same time O2 production from CO2) is one of the most important (if not the most
important) technology to be developped for space exploration. It is right up there with cheap access to space.


Alain Fournier

It isn't quite obvious to me that it would be better to grow crops in cav
es than in greenhouses on the surface. I would
expect something like a greenhouse with 10 kP atmospheric pressure, 85% O
2 and 15% CO2 to be workable.
You would need a relatively large volume to grow all the food for a crew.

I think you're laboring under the assumption that I'm proposing the
kind of caves that people would need to stoop to walk into. I'm
not. I'm talking about lava tubes on the Moon and Mars.

Have you heard about those? (I already supplied a link above.)

"A 1969 paper by Oberbeck, Quaide, and Greeley, taking into account
only the Moon's lighter gravity, and not the stronger nature of lunar
anhydrous glass,[1] calculated lunar lavatubes could reach 340 meters
in span (lengths could go to kilometers).[2] There are some
indications in Coombs and Hawke's work (see "Locations" below) that
some lavatubes may be much larger."

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

And now we have some data: The lunar lava tube skylight discovered by
some Japanese researchers hole might be almost 400 meters wide at the
point of the skylight.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002173/

On Mars, with about twice lunar gravity, lava tubes will be smaller.
But the big ones will still be enormous by terrestrial standards.
More than enough volume, if volume is what you're worried about it.

What you should really be worried about with a surface greenhouse:

- wind storms creating structural loads (more mass to take to Mars)
- dust abrasion at the greenhouse's interfaces to the atmosphere
(mechanical wear on air pumps needed to keep it pressurized; filters
clogging up)
- *toxic dust* - http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-08-01-m
ars-storms_x.htm
- very low surface temperatures at night (during which you *will*
need to supply heat just to keep the plants from freezing, as the dome
radiates heat away),
- UV degradation of the greenhouse skin
- maybe plant pathology issues, under occasional solar storms.

In short, pretty much the same problems you'd be dealing with if you
had a sky-exposed greenhouse on the Moon, with some things harder
(wind-blown toxic dust, for example) on Mars, and some things easier
(e.g., where to get your initial CO2.)

I'd bet what would end up working best for both the Moon and Mars is
to concentrate sunlight on the surface and pipe it down into a shelter
set up on the floor of a lava tube. For crops requiring more frequent
light, you might want artificial sources during the long Martian
night.

Even if Martian agriculture could be done robotically, people on Mars
might prefer being more hands-on about their food sources. After all,
they'll be in stuck in a very artificial and limited environment much
of the time; and even where it's natural, it will be starkly desert-
like, very alien and rather dangerous. Growing crookneck squash and
your own fresh basil -- maybe raising chickens, too, and if you can
find/make/take enough water, would fish-farming be too much to ask
for? .... Well, farming might be just the thing to take your mind off
how far you are from home, how hostile the external environment is,
and how many unforeseen variables have popped up in the question of
whether you'll ever be able to get back.

I think food production (and at the same time O2 production from CO2) is
one of the most important (if not the most
important) technology to be developped for space exploration. It is right
up there with cheap access to space.

I wouldn't say so. We have some idea of how to do closed-cycle long-
term human life support. Cheap access to space is a much harder
problem. Moreover, if access to space became _very_ cheap somehow,
would allow you to defer the whole problem of extraterrestrial food
production indefinitely.

The really big question is, I think, psychological: will people really
want to live in space, or just visit? A sustainable human future
might depend on large-scale exploitation of space resources (and on
space as the ultimate industrial effluent sink, the other part of the
equation Gerard O'Neill wanted to address). But even if so, it
doesn't necessarily depend on human presence.

-michael turner

On Jun 15, 11:13 am, Alain Fournier wrote:
Michael Turner wrote:
You're basically compensating for a lot of environmental differences
just to get one thing: sunlight passing through directly to plant
leaves. Is this really more sensible than piping sunlight from a
concentrator on the surface to a more controllable environment below
the Martian surface?

To live economically on the Moon for extended periods, you'll have to
develop some way to grow food in caves. To go to Mars, you'll
(probably) have to develop technologies for growing food aboard ship
-- not too different from growing it in caves. To live on Mars, you'll
have to live underground most of the time -- like you did on the
Moon. Water from the atmosphere? Water vapor content is about 0.0
3%
- of a very thin atmosphere. You're more likely to find acceptably
high concentrations somewhere else -- say, underground?

It isn't quite obvious to me that it would be better to grow crops in cav
es than in greenhouses on the surface. I would
expect something like a greenhouse with 10 kP atmospheric pressure, 85% O
2 and 15% CO2 to be workable. You would need a
relatively large volume to grow all the food for a crew. And space pressu
rized at 101 kP wouldn't be cheap. So it might
be easier to build a low pressure greenhouse exposed to sunlight than to
grow the food in a more Earthly atmospheric
environment with artificial light. I'm not saying one method is superior
to the other. I'm saying that it isn't obvious
to me which is best. Tending to the crop at 10 kP means farming in a pres
sure suit, so it isn't obvious that it is easy.
But, I would expect most of the work to be automated, and once the basic
installation is setup, it should be in many
regards easier than farming on Earth because you don't expect weeds to be
much of a problem nor would the weather be a
problem.

I'm also saying, that if you build a lunar base, the money you invest fig
uring out which is the best method of crop
production, is not money spent solely for the lunar base. It is also mone
y spent preparing martian and/or asteroidal
exploration as the technology is probably easily adaptable. So devellopin
g food production on a lunar base might be more
important than extracting water from the probable polar ice deposits.

I think food production (and at the same time O2 production from CO2) is
one of the most important (if not the most
important) technology to be developped for space exploration. It is right
up there with cheap access to space.

Alain Fournier

In sci.space.tech message ,
Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:13:37, Alain Fournier
posted:


It isn't quite obvious to me that it would be better to grow crops in
caves than in greenhouses on the surface. I would expect something like
a greenhouse with 10 kP atmospheric pressure, 85% O2 and 15% CO2 to be
workable. You would need a relatively large volume to grow all the food
for a crew. And space pressurized at 101 kP wouldn't be cheap. So it
might be easier to build a low pressure greenhouse exposed to sunlight
than to grow the food in a more Earthly atmospheric environment with
artificial light. I'm not saying one method is superior to the other.
I'm saying that it isn't obvious to me which is best. Tending to the
crop at 10 kP means farming in a pressure suit, so it isn't obvious
that it is easy.

Aside: You mean 10 kPa. P is for poise.

Perhaps not. On Earth, we generally have large quantities of soil found
just lying about the place. Off Earth, soil will be in limited supply
and valuable. It can well be that it will be kept in trays of modest
size, such that a farmer can reach the middle without actually standing
on the stuff.

With "farmland" on trays standing on blocks or tables or with legs, with
aisles between the trays, the robots can easily bring the trays in turn
into a reasonably Earthly atmosphere for planting weeding thinning and
harvesting. It need not be at 100 kPa; the farmers can wear lightweight
non-pressure suits to hold a somewhat enriched breathing atmosphere.

--
(c) John Stockton, near London.
Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Correct = 4-line sig. separator as above, a line precisely "-- " (RFC5536/7)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with "" or " " (RFC5536/7)

At Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:55:54 EDT Alain Fournier wrote:


Robert Heller wrote:

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

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

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

Yes, but the methods for doing so can be very different for Mars vs for
the Moon. To get an oxygen atmosphere on in a martian habitat, you get
plants to process the CO2 from the atmosphere. On the Moon you pry the
oxygen out of the rocks. For water, you can get water on Mars by
extracting it from the atmosphere, on the Moon again you have a very
different process.

I thinking that while these locale-specific methods might be sensable
as part of a short-term / initial setup solution, for the *long term*
it might be worth looking at a continious recycling option. On the
Earth, the air and water is continiously recycled: animals breath in O2
and exhale CO2 and (green) plants 'breath in' CO2 and 'exhale' O2. The
oxygen you are breathing in was converted from CO2 by some tree or
bush. Potable water on Earth has been distiled by solar power (the sun
evaporates water from the ocean surface, it get blown over land and
comes down as rain or snow). [Yes, I have greatly simplified things,
but the principle still holds.] Another use of developing methods for
continiously recycling not only air and water, but also organic waste,
makes sense also for long term space travel (or more than days or weeks
or even mere months) and for more distant and/or more 'hostile'
environments -- ones where there is no locally available sources of
either oxygen or water (ice caps, atomosphere, or water/oxygen bearing
rocks) -- such as astoroids, etc. Also most likely the easiest /
cheapest / most effiencent methods of air, water, and organic waste
recycling is likely to be the good old fashion method of photosynithsis,
which will also double as food production. The key is how to do this in
a closed self-suffienent system in an otherwise hostile environment.


This means:
Air recycling: probably some sort of CO2 scrubber and/or some
sort of CO2 = C, O2 conversion: photosynthesis?
Water recycling: solar still?
Food: farming / gardening (Air/Water/Waste recycling on the side...).
Energy: solar cells / solar heating. Energy storage (2 weeks of
day, 2 weeks of night on the Moon, fainter solar radiation on Mars and
asteroids).

Again that energy storage for the four weeks day/night cycle on the Moon
is a lunar mission specific technology, not one that will be used on
Mars.

Long term energy storage might still make sense. Given Mars's
*distance* from the sun and thus the *weakness* of solar radiation,
long term energy storage might still be of interest.


Housing: need to worry about solar radiation (no atmosphere or
ionosphere on the Moon, Mars, or the asteroids). Need to hold in the air.
Be meteorite proof...

Being meteorite proof on Mars is basically a non issue. The thin atmosphere
slows down meteorite a lot.

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

I don't think so. For the above reasons, many things will be done quite
differently on Mars as opposed to how they will be done on the Moon. I
think it is worthwhile to know what will be lunar specific and what will
not, before going to the Moon.

There are (relatively) short term and long term issues. It makes
little sense to haul up a complete base supply of air and water (for
either the Moon or Mars) -- for both places a 'base level' supply of
air and water is 'locally' available (as you mentioned -- extraction
from the rocks, what atomosphere, ice caps, etc.). For the long term,
*both* places would need some way to recycle this 'base' supply of air
and water, since endless extraction will have limits. For the long term
this will be a simplified version of what happens 'naturally' on the
Earth. This recycling methodology would likely also deal with organic
waste recycling and food production as well, both of which will have to
be dealth with somehow. For *any* *long term* human settlement off the
Earth, whether on the Moon, Mars or elsewhere, humans will need to
setup some sort of 'ecology', probably a 'simplified' one, possibly a
specialized one, depending on the local conditions -- eg a Lunar colony
*might* need a different 'farm' from the Martian 'farm', OTOH, there
will be some similar features. As I wrote: "It is time to load up the wagon
train and go stake out a homestead, build a cabin, and start farming the
prairie...". In many ways the this aspect is somewhat independent of
the specific location of the 'homestead', whether it is on the Moon or
on Mars or in/on an asteroid.


In fact, it would have been interesting if such an advance planning had
been done before building ISS. I think that some kind of greenhouse should
have been installed on ISS, and that it should have been built with the
idea of reusing much of the technology on the Moon and Mars. Wouldn't it
be nice if those planing a lunar mission could say, for food and CO2
scrubbing we will use the tried tested and true greenhouse technology of
ISS. Maybe Bigelow, will to that route with his Space Hotel and have a
head start in the future for Luna Hotel and Motel Ares.

Yes indeed! Robert Heinlein had the right idea: 'Farmer in the Sky'.



Alain Fournier



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Robert Heller wrote:

At Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:55:54 EDT Alain Fournier wrote:

Again that energy storage for the four weeks day/night cycle on the Moon
is a lunar mission specific technology, not one that will be used on
Mars.

Long term energy storage might still make sense. Given Mars's
*distance* from the sun and thus the *weakness* of solar radiation,
long term energy storage might still be of interest.

It is of interest but I don't think it is very important on Mars.
The colonist would probably be underground at night, with good thermal
insulation. Their level of activity would probably be low at night.
Therefore, they wouldn't need much energy for heating and not much
energy for their activities. Plus clouds are rare and thin on Mars
so you don't need to store energy for cloudy days. You do need
something to wipe off dust deposited on your solar cells or solar
concentrator or solar whatever, but if you can remove the dust after
dust storms, you can pretty much count on having solar energy
every day. Still I agree that it is of interest, just not as important
as it is on the Moon.


Alain Fournier