Mining the moon for unlimited Energy.

Of what's affordable and what's not; clearly of anything manned is
going to be spendy and time consuming, not to mention potentially
lethal.

Though instead of our flushing hundreds of billions and decades worth
into the frozen and thoroughly irradiated to death Mars space toilet,
then having to continually dodge them meteorites, I do believe this
lunar goal is worth supporting, even if this must be via our resident
"so what's the difference" WMD snipe hunting warlord. Though as for
starters, we may need some actual lunar science data that's of "real
time".

Instead of achieving Mars, perhaps we should affordably do our moon,
at least robotically.

After all, if we're not there first, it'll either be China or perhaps
Russia, or even the ESA group that certainly has nothing to lose.


"Deploying dozens of small javelin lunar probes on the cheap"

As just an example;
I'm thinking that of a modern day probe with a suitable battery and
compact PV cell array that's either tightly integral and/or
subsequently deploy able upon impact, that perhaps this form of micro
instrument and of it's data/transponder could be comprised of as
little as 1 kg. Of course, of your vastly superior "all-knowing" probe
can become whatever, 10 kg 1 t.

As for my initial delivery scheme, I'm thinking of involving hydrogen
or whatever gas filled balloons, actually quite a good number of
balloons within one another, and obviously not the least bit for their
buoyancy, but as for spreading out the impact to a rather sizable zone
of perhaps as much as 10 m2, as opposed to the instrument probe impact
zone representing as little as a mere 0.001 m2 (25 mm upper body with
a tapered 25 mm 5 mm spike end), and of what this relatively small
instrument/probe may be looking somewhat like a miniture spear or half
javelin.

1/2*M*V2 = impact energy or equivlent mass, whereas the V = 1.6 m/s/s

In other words, I'm suggesting that the initial impact of this small
probe can be spread conservatively by at least 1000:1, therefore if
the raw velocity at impact were to become 5 km/s, thus a 1 kg/probe
that was surrounded by another kg worth of balloons and sub/micro
balloons that would impact at an overall worth of 25,000 tonnes,
though this energy is subsequently being spread over the 10 m2, thus
the actual javelin probe body of 0.001 m2 should become merely 2.5
tonnes, though applying another 10X fudge factor makes for 25 t.

Any way you'd care to slice it, 25 tonnes worth of probe impact is
still one hell of an impact, though I tend to believe this could be
survivable, especially since the notion of delivering any decent probe
will ideally need to be firmly implanted into lunar soil and rock, the
deeper the better, as long as the upper protion remains exposed for
receiving and transmitting data.

Obviously, if this turned out being the 25 tonnes worth of impact
survival, as representing too much to ask for, then enlarging the
balloon and of increasing the numbers of the smaller balloons within
should further spread this impact, thus decelerating and taking the
brunt of the probe delivery impact. Another avenue is to lengthen upon
the spike end, at the risk of increasing the mass, as the compression
of this semi-hallow javelin will also absorb energy. Obviously the
deployment and desired free-fall vertical positioning will need to be
gyroscopic, though the probe itself could be initially set spinning at
100,000 rpm, adding somewhat a friction drilling attribute to the
probe impact.

The lunar soil (supposedly 11% reflective index and of clumping moon
dirt) should account for another degree of impact deceleration, then
of the penetrated rock and I'll assume some degree of compression of
the javelin probe tip itself should absorb whatever remains. At least
if all fails, the value per micro-probe isn't going to bust the world
bank, nor stress the technology expertise to any breaking point, as if
need be a dozen of every required instrument function can be deployed,
so that if only one survives the delivery, we've accomplished the
task.

Unlike those Apollo landers, every facet of these probe deployments
can be fully tested and confirmed on Earth prior to accomplishing the
real thing.

Of course, having a fully fly-by-wire robotic lander certainly would
be nice, though a wee bit spendy, and I'll suppose that of some day
our crack NASA teams will actually obtain that degree of purely rocket
powered controlled flight capability, as otherwise the next best
technology is obviously what the recent Mars probes utilized in order
to decelerate their impact. Since there's so little difference between
the thin Mars atmosphere and that of the moon, where actually the
lesser gravity of the moon should almost offset this disadvantage, so
that such a well proven method of essentially dropping objects safely
onto such a foreign surface seems almost like way-overkill for the
task of delivering such small (1 kg) probes onto and preferably as
partially impaled into the moon, though dozens of such probes might be
safely deployed by one such velocity breaking maneuver, such as
bringing everything to a vertical velocity of zero at the elevation of
1 km would certainly do wonders for alleviating the horrific impact
that's otherwise faced with the 1.6 m/s/s influence of lunar gravity.

1/2*M*V2 = impact energy or equivlent mass, whereas the V = 1.6 m/s/s

1 kg dropped from 1 km = .5*1e3*2.56e6 = 1.28e3 t (1,280 tonnes
impact)

Thus a raw javelin probe of 1 kg, as being dropped from 1 km, should
impact at roughly 1.28e3 t (1,280 tonnes), might not survive
specifications of even the most robust toys-R-us, though obviously
accommodating more than sufficient impact for implanting these
lightweight probes.

The part about the 2 kg package consisting of balloons within
balloons, surrounding the 1 kg probe, all of which impacting at 5 km/s
is still amounting to 25,000 t. At least this portion is still
correct, and I tend to believe the 1000:1 reduction in impact for the
probe within this format is also within reason, even though I haven't
researched a darn thing as to such impact absorbing packaging.
Obviously this delivery method remains way more complicated than the
simple "all stop" raw free-for-all drop from 1 km.

What caught my own attention about a previous error was in my
recalling previous references I'd made to the sorts of damage small
and even micro-meteorites can impose upon any lunar EVA, as such open
exposure to whatever is incoming is downright pesky if not lethal.

As usual, I'll likely make such math mistakes in the future, and even
some of my best effort corrections are going to be in error, though at
any time others can provide their more correctness and I'll certainly
give all the credits possible, which by the way, seems to be far more
than our NASA has ever done for you.

Keeping in mind that shape and/or size of an object is not a velocity
factor, other than spreading the impact energy over a greater or
lesser zone, whereas the Hindenburg of 242 metric tons and of
representing more than 210,000 m3 will obtain the exact same impact
velocity as a bowling ball or even that of a dust-bunny, identical
velocity as long as each were introduced from the same altitude.

Of course, this is all purely "one-way", and never given a second
thought of our retrieving anything but measured data, nor of having to
sustain human or other life by shielding them from the truly horrific
elements of various lunar exposures. Eventually there'd have to be a
manned lunar landing (first time for that as well), and next there'd
be the LSE-CM/ISS, although of all those javelin probes implanted
earlier could be collected, and/or of those still functioning left as
is.

I believe such small/compact probes can be engineered to survive these
sorts of deployment impacts, as well as sufficiently immune to such
horrific radiation, and of their avoiding meteorite impact, as their
odds are greatly improved upon by the sheer fact that these compact
probes represent such a small target, though eventually they'll each
be pulverised by something.

Regards. Brad Guth / IEIS~GASA

(Guth/IEIS~GASA) wrote in message om...
Lunar 3He or He3 is just one of many energy contributions that our
moon holds, as there's energy to be derived from the LSE-CM/ISS
tethers and of the deployed tether dipole element that's potentially
reaching to within 50,000 km of Earth.

I'd urge you not to give up your day job!

Harry C.

(Harry Conover) wrote in message . com...

I'd urge you not to give up your day job!

Harry C.

this is his day job Harry. the nice people in the long white coats
gave him this job, and he's taken it to heart.

Tom

In sci.space.policy Harry Conover wrote:
(Guth/IEIS~GASA) wrote in message om...
Lunar 3He or He3 is just one of many energy contributions that our
moon holds, as there's energy to be derived from the LSE-CM/ISS
tethers and of the deployed tether dipole element that's potentially
reaching to within 50,000 km of Earth.

I'd urge you not to give up your day job!

umm.. well, it depends on what type of job he has. It may be it
was better if he didn't follow your advice...


Harry C.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Sander Vesik wrote in message ...
In sci.space.policy Harry Conover wrote:
(Guth/IEIS~GASA) wrote in message om...
Lunar 3He or He3 is just one of many energy contributions that our
moon holds, as there's energy to be derived from the LSE-CM/ISS
tethers and of the deployed tether dipole element that's potentially
reaching to within 50,000 km of Earth.

I'd urge you not to give up your day job!

umm.. well, it depends on what type of job he has. It may be it
was better if he didn't follow your advice...

What you are posting is finally sinking in to my, for want of a better
word, brain. Likely lots of white coats are worn where he does his day
job, just not by him! :-)

Nah, thinking it over, that was a mean thing, although possibly true,
for me to post! :-)

Harry C.