US Plans Lunar Motel 355
OffTheLip writes "The US is planning to build a permanent lunar base which will support future visits to Mars. The living conditions on the moon presents a variety of challenges from medical to construction. Contingency planning would be critical but some feel the challenges presented on the moon will be less than Mars. The moon is closer to Earth, the atmosphere is less harsh and, unlike Mars, water does not exist. Is this the start of the next space race?"
Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:2)
This http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/2 6/0851241 [slashdot.org] might have been it, though this one seems to focus on the health issues of the dust.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Informative)
Lunar 'Lawnmower' Devised for Moon Colonists:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:4, Funny)
Au contraire. Offer cheap 3 month trips for all those coming up to retirement age, and they likely won't live long enough to claim their pension. Will do wonders for the demographic pensions black hole that the western world seems to be looking forward to.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you suffer from a power/oxygen/water/etc. system failure, all you need is a few weeks supplies in the shelter on the moon. Wheras, you need to ensure that at all points in time, you've got 2 years worth of shelter supplies on Mars.
Also, the lowered gravity and nearly-nonexistent atmosphere means that a moonsuit from the 60s still works out well enough.
Also, given that you have only 3 days outside of the earth's magnetosphere to get there, you'll accumulate a lot less radiation on the way there than you would going to Mars.
Of course, that also would require piling lunar soil and rocks on top of whatever the lunar base ends up being made out of to provide sufficent mass.
But, still... Because of all of these things, it's easier to get a toehold sooner on the Moon.
The problem is that NASA has yet to grasp the idea of a fully independent spacecraft. It works out reasonably well to have astronauts swap out complete assemblies in LEO, where you can send up and down the stuff, if you are talking about going to Mars or Io or Titan or even near-earth-asteroids, you are going to be too far to pull stunts like that. We barely know how to weld and solder in space and nobody's ever tried to make a set of machine shop tools for space like lathes and mills. The moon would be a great place to research such things, but that also depends on NASA breaking with tradition and not blowing a good chance yet again.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Interesting)
I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Er, no, seriously, you make a good point.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:2)
Welding torches require oxygen in order to burn. In a ~0g environment you face a few unique problems.
Liquids (like really hot liquid metal) fly away, and can hit astronauts/equipment, and not cool on the spot of the weld (you seemed to realize this one on your own.)
Any sort of torch, assuming it provides its own oxygen, would either contaminate the air in the spacecraft, or if use outside, have the potential to apply thrust and m
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:5, Informative)
Oxygen is not required. There are certain high-strength welding processes that even require a vacuum to work.
They already need to deal with the problem of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen getting into the welds, which is why stick welders have a thick coating of flux on the rods and MIG and TIG welders cover the weldment with a variety of inert or mostly-inert gasses.
There are other problems, of course.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Informative)
While 0 G welding would present some difficulties (stuff flying out, and more importantly, all the dust that is typically ge
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Informative)
All the tips for MIG welders are made of copper, and so is the spool wire, so if you run them without a cooling gas they melt to
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:2)
Cooling would still be a problem, but thrust is a non-issue for arc welders.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:5, Insightful)
But, no, nothing on the ISS is being welded in space. It is sent up in large chunks and is bolted together, often times with motorized screws so that the astronauts just have to manuver the pieces towards each other and then command the berthing mechanism to grip. They have been doing some limited soldering experiments in the ISS, but never as repair work, just as tests for eventually doing repair work.
The biggest problem is that a spacewalk takes too much effort to set up. You have to plan it out. You have to pre-breathe oxygen. You have to replace all of the relevant consumables. The people doing them are scientists, not bridge workers.
You can only get so far with merely bolting stuff together. Eventually, you need to start doing fabrication work. Sure, it's easier to send up 1 ton of easy-to-fab raw materials, but it's even easier to grab a 100 ton iron asteroid and not bother calling back to Earth at all.
Some things will be much much easier in space. Ovens for example. A nice parabolic reflector to focus the sun's heat on a lump of metal can be made out of aluminised mylar and (titanium) chickenwire. You can use a refractory blowpipe to blow a bubble out of the lump once it's melted. Taking this to a logical extension, I could see large structures being manufactured using something akin to a glassblower's lathe.
But the problem is, on both the how-do-we-repair-things-and-build-new-things-in-s
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:2)
There's a fairly simple solution to that: dig a hole, build the station in it and pile the removed rubble on top. You not only get protection from radiation, you also get insulation. Also, you don't have to worry about packing the coverage down to keep it from slipping and exposing the station.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am imagining something like porcupine quills, only much bigger. The moon-based construction equipment shoots a couple into the ground when it needs purchase. If the construction were planned well, the equipment could be detached and the quills used again when something else needs to work in that same spot.
For a bulldozer, you could use the quills as mount points for a modified railroad track that was added on to as the bulldozer needed to move further. Unlike a railroad track on Earth, this one would also be anchoring the vehicles that ran on it.
The dust and problems with hydraulics are big concerns, though. I think it will be interesting to see how those are overcome.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Funny)
How about "light fuse on 1MT nuke. run like hell. boom. plop in base. cover.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:5, Informative)
The moon has problems with being used as a base, this is true. But, you have to look at all the pros and cons.
The moon is close. Astronauts, vehicles, resupplies, or emergency equipment can reach the moon in a much shorter time span than Mars. Heck, even communications reach the moon in a couple seconds. Also, gravity is lower on the Moon, so launches from the Moon won't take all that much effort.
Mars possibly has more water resources to utilize. The thin atmosphere doesn't help much overall, other than blocking a few micrometeorites from causing damage. There is also dust on Mars, but probably not as harsh as that on the Moon, as it's been exposed to wind erosion for a long time now, and is assumed to be rounded in shape. Mars days also are a benefit, as opposed to the Moon, which rotates only as it orbits the Earth.
My opinion, though it matters not? I say we need to dig on the Moon. Expensive though it may be, going underground protects you from radiation meteors, and solar flare material.
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:2)
Pro:
Just as close as the moon
Smaller gravity well from the moon, though still gravitationally stable
No dust
No issues with rotation blocking sunlight for solar cells
Con:
No resources at all, have to ship in everything.
I think whoever starts building at L4/L5 first will have a huge long-term advantage over any of the other space-faring groups. Lack of supplies is, I t
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Insightful)
tunnels (Score:2)
It'd seem something that would be within reasonably ability
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Less challenges on the moon? (Score:2)
The destination may be harsher, but factor in the 1+ year a trip to Mars takes and all that lovely hard radiation you'd be exposed to, and the moon doesn't look so bad.
Besides, if something goes wrong, the moon is only about a week away.
mars 1 water 0 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:mars 1 water 0 (Score:2)
Yes, but only if you BELIEVE.
"News" for Nerds, Stuff that matters. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:mars 1 water 0 (Score:2)
That would be the third amendment. The second one says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Atmosphere? (Score:5, Funny)
The moon has atmosphere now?
What a truely magnificent age we live in.
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:2)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually it does; a very, very thin one.... which, I guess, is how it is in some bizzare way, less harsh.
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:2)
The moon is closer to Earth
Closer then Mars? Who woulda thought!?
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:2)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:5, Interesting)
An atmosphere on Earth provides us with many benefits. First, it gives us oxygen to breathe (duh). Second it provides us with ambient pressure so our liquids don't boil. Third, it holds water in solution so we don't dry out. Fourth, it protects us from radiation from space. Fifth, it maintains a livable temperature so we don't boil or freeze. This doesn't include a host of useful and non-immediate applications, like carrying voice communication or supporting airplanes, or providing an environment for us to grow food.
The atmosphere of Mars does none of these things (except mild but inadequate radiation protection) so it's little better than a true vaccum. What it does do is leech heat out of anything it touches. It also carries microfine dust which will make it hell to keep anything mechanical working. So, yes, the "atmosphere" of the Moon (or ultrahigh vaccum, or whatever) is, in fact, less harsh than the one on Mars.
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:5, Interesting)
Due to budget constraints... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Due to budget constraints... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Due to budget constraints... (Score:5, Funny)
Ring, Ring
"What do you need?"
"A lunar base to support 50-100 people for 6-8 months."
"What do you got?"
"The cover from an old FORTRAN manual, some rubber tubing, and a chewing gum wrapper...
"Yeah, I'm sending the blueprints overnight FedEx, along with a working model made out of the contents of an ashtray outside the Post Office."
"Thanks!"
"It's what I do." Click.
Re:Due to budget constraints... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, just ask at the Department of Homeworld Security.
Space Race (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be nice if we could all work together instead of wasting billions on competing?
Of course, that's not gonna happen any time soon.
Re:Space Race (Score:2, Informative)
However - most scientific research is done in collaboration between countries, but the most valuable information is often kept secret, so not to let others jump in and steal credit. I would however agree with you that competition can trigger a waste of money, but it d
Re:Space Race, with standards? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe somebody at NASA will write an RFC...
--jrd
Re:Space Race (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't we try that with the International Space Station? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that "all working together" only really worked until such time as the question of who was going to pay for all of this working together came up, at which point the Russians wound up sticking America with the bill for most of the Russian contribution, then started renting stays on the ISS to wealthy millionaires.
Now, the ESA and Japan and whatnot seem to be a lot more responsible about their portions of the project-- hell, maybe more responsible than NASA even-- but maybe we can say there's some downsides to collaboration when we're talking about multi-year public projects that cost many billions of dollars, downsides that don't exist when we're talking about I dunno world diplomacy. The heads of governments and even corporations change from time to time, and when (as with the ISS or a lunar base) the benefits of the project are indirect, every time this happens there is a risk of the new leadership going "wait... why are we paying for this again?". The more countries or entities you have involved, the more chances you wind up with for this risk to come to pass...
Re:Space Race (Score:3, Informative)
Do keep in mind that the US was supposed to ferry crew back and forth - when the Shuttle was grounded after Columbia, we started using the Soyuz capsules. Russia then started to say "uh, hey, we need to get paid for this sort of stuff..." and Congress starting hedging about whether they could give Russia money at all due to political issues.
We're not exactly blameless in this.
Re:Space Race (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it would not. Competition breeds innovation. Non-competition breeds bureaucracy.
the moon... (Score:2)
Re:the moon... (Score:2)
That would be a plus, if it weren't for the little matter of fuel. Since there's no practical way to obtain rocket fuel from the moon itself, we'd have to carry it all up there on other spacecraft--completely eliminating any advantages.
Re:the moon... (Score:2)
If you build the spacecraft on the moon and only send up fuel, you may come out ahead.
If you build a mass driver on the moon for launch, you come out ahead.
If you were to use nuclear propulsion, the amount of fuel required might be sufficently small to outweigh the disadvantages. Remember, you can use a nuclear powered craft to escape the gravity well, it would just cause cancer in a lot of folks if you ever tried it on Earth.
But... ehrm... yeah, it's probably still better to assemble and
Re:the moon... (Score:2)
Atmosphere less harsh (Score:5, Funny)
I am certainly glad it is less harsh than the atmosphere of Mars, since I still have that image of Shwarzenegger's eyeballs popping out of his head in "Total Recall" when he is exposed to the pre-terraformed atmosphere.
Perhaps hybrid Man-Beasts will be able to farm water on the Moon. I am looking forward to them filling some craters with farmed water, so I can go sailing there. The trade winds are always nice around the Sea of Stoopidity.
Less harsh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Near vacuum is "less harsh" than thin C02? How so? And even though water does exist on the moon, its absence would be a minus, not a plus. The "weather" on the moon may be marginally less objectionable (it depends on your tastes, I suppose) but you're not going to be out in the weather much on either of them. And as for the distance, the real question is the depth of the gravity well, on which standard I'll grant that the moon is somewhat nicer.
Even so, an Earth-crossing asteroid would probably be a better choice, or something in one of the L-points (from which you could use the superhighway for cargo that wasn't marked "Rush").
-- MarkusQ
Re:Less harsh? (Score:2)
Wind, perhaps? Dust storms on Mars would be a nasty event for a colony, especially if it interferes with communications and solar power. Some of them last months, too.
Not until the moon dust problem is solved. (Score:5, Informative)
"The real problem is the lungs," he ex-plains. "In some ways, lunar dust resembles the silica dust on Earth that causes silicosis, a serious disease." Formerly known as "stone-grinder's disease," silicosis first came to idespread public attention during the Great Depression when hundreds of miners drilling the Hawk's Nest Tunnel through Gauley Mountain in West Virginia died within five years of breathing the fine quartz dust kicked into the air by dry drilling--even though they had been ex-posed for only a few months. "It was one of the biggest occupational health disasters in U.S. history," Kerschmann says...."
"...Quartz, the main cause of silicosis, is not chemically poisonous. "You could eat it and not get sick," he continues. "But when quartz is freshly ground into dust particles smaller than 10 m (for comparison, a human hair is 50+ m wide) and breathed into the lungs, they can embed themselves deeply into the tiny alveolar sacs and ducts where oxygen and carbon dioxide gases are exchanged." There, the lungs cannot clear out the dust via mucus or coughing. Moreover, the immune system's white blood cells commit suicide when they try to engulf the sharp-edged particles to carry them away in the blood-stream. In the acute form of silicosis, the lungs can fill with proteins from the blood. He adds that it is as if the victim slowly suffocates from a pneumonia-like condition.
Lunar dust, which like quartz is a compound of silicon, is (to our current knowledge) also not poisonous. But like the quartz dust in the Hawk's Nest Tunnel, it is extremely fine and abrasive, almost like powdered glass. Astronauts on several Apollo missions found that it clung to everything and was almost impossible to remove. Once it was tracked inside the lunar module, some of the dust easily became airborne, irritating lungs and eyes...."
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_moondust_060
Re:Not until the moon dust problem is solved. (Score:2)
I don't know how difficult it is to remove lunar dust, but I'd imagine 30 seconds in a strong windtunnel would be sufficient.
Re:Not until the moon dust problem is solved. (Score:3, Informative)
-CGP [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:Not until the moon dust problem is solved. (Score:4, Funny)
Jeezus! Even KingKong doesn't have that fat hair.
Re:Not until the moon dust problem is solved. (Score:3, Funny)
I think you don't have to be scientist to realize that eating 10 meter wide chunks of rock is dangerous.
Re:Not until the moon dust problem is solved. (Score:2)
Less harsh ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Moon pressure (none or nearly none) [hawaii.edu]
Less harsh is a kind of misnomer. You would probably have the same kind of problem between a wall separating 1 atm air and 1/100 atm CO2, as with a wall separating 1 atm air and 0, nada...
Re:Less harsh ? (Score:2)
Re:Less harsh ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Moon (Score:3, Funny)
They feel [wikipedia.org] do they? I'm glad we have people willing to know with their hearts rather than think with their heads.
-CGP [colingregorypalmer.net]
hell yes (Score:5, Funny)
Don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing is "permanent" that doesn't pay for itself. I'm sure everyone thought in 1969 that we were permanently on the moon, but it didn't quite work out that way, did it?
It's like Magellan. You send them off, and maybe they come back, maybe they don't,
Magellan et al were looking for PROFIT. They weren't risking their lives for the hell of it.
Re:Don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt any astronaut would word it like that tho... damn those people and their sense of adventure, if only they could be boring too
Why now? (Score:2)
Manned exploration is a stupid vanity project (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile, we're becoming dramatically better at robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and long-distance communication. What we can do in 2020 that we couldn't do in 1968 is to send good, smart and relatively cheap robots to the moon, and actually have them build something useful.
If we don't have to worry about human safety and frailty, we can get big projects done for relatively little money. I'm talking about satellite-steered bulldozers, a nice big nuclear powerplant, and a real industrial-scale mining operation. We don't need humans to be there, the moon is close enough for fly-by-wire with reasonable ping times. Sure, once our robots build a reasonably shielded and equipped hotel, we can launch people who can say "been there". But let's first figure out what our goals are and then make sure we're acting to fulfill our goals! I'm almost sure that we're better served by some serious robots than by astronauts on the Moon.
Re:Manned exploration is a stupid vanity project (Score:3, Informative)
The goal, in this case, is human life on mars. The moon is just a stepping stone, a warm up. During the process, we will discover, gain experience, and invent. We will learn more than what is only relevant on the moon. Sometimes you gotta take the plunge. To get life up there, we need to send life up there.
Re:Manned exploration is a stupid vanity project (Score:3, Informative)
There's more than enough people on this planet to have some working towards getting into space, and some working towards helping the starving. NASA aren't stopping you from helping the starving. Also, you do realise that they aren't going to be launching money into space, right? The money required to do this will stay on earth, ready to be spent on the next thing. There's no waste here on the money front.
idiotic wars
We are talking about america here, I don't know if they have the grou
just more NASA funding propaganda ... (Score:2)
NASA is a bureaucracy, not a construction company
the only thing NASA can build is even more bureaucracy
if you want a moon base, space station, etc
I would like to build this! (Score:2)
...also... (Score:2)
Obligatory Futurama Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Fry: I do!
Narrator:
[Animatronic whalers emerge from a lunar lander]
Animatronic whalers: [singing] We're whalers on the moon.
Animatronic gophers: We carry a harpoon.
Animatronic gophers, Animatronic whalers: But there are no whales, so we tell tall tales and sing a whaling tune.
Fry: That's not how it happened.
Leela: I don't see you with a Fungineering degree.
Seeing is believing. NASA == cancelled projects (Score:2)
They haven't earned much trust recently. And as fiction writers, they need to work on plotting, pacing, and character development.
Re:Seeing is believing. NASA == cancelled projects (Score:3, Insightful)
You must be young. This has been going on for as long as I can remember. NASA has done the groundwork for at least seven or eight systems since it became clear the shuttle would never live up to its billing in the early 1980s. They never happen because the shuttle employs 20,000
That's nothin' (Score:5, Funny)
Towels and soap (Score:2, Funny)
Bread and circuses (Score:2)
"Symbolic of his struggle against reality, more like..."
The case for Mars (Score:2)
Why in the name of God do we go to the Moon first if what we really want is to go to Mars ?
Robert Zubrin have written an excellent book on the subject, more info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin [wikipedia.org]
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
Doesn't feel good (Score:2)
A moon base is the right next step, but the footing on our current step isn't that good.
Finally ! (Score:3, Funny)
space prostitute
burmashave (Score:3, Funny)
Low-gravity sex motel!! (Score:4, Funny)
Moonquakes (Score:3, Interesting)
They also have to take into account possible moonquakes [nasa.gov]. They seem to be quite common and are powerful enough to move furniture.
Don't believe a word of this (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, they're talking. Talk is cheap. They're drawing pretty pictures, writing nice things... but I'd bet a rather large sum of money that they'll not build anything at all on the moon for the next twenty years.
They will get several more budget cuts and generally become even more bureaucratic and immobile. There will be less and less useful things happening, and (except for all the top-secret military stuff) will be able to do less and less.
Pity about the SPACEX problem, but I'd give them much higher chances of actually getting anywhere.
Besides, hey, nobody outside the USA expects the USA to carry on like they do now. They'll collapse economically in a major way withing a few years - we just hope that they'll do it without killing everybody else. The russians set a nice example, only ruining themselves in the process.
Re:The atmosphere is less harsh? (Score:2)
No, RTFA. The atmosphere that isn't on the Moon is less harsh than the one that is on Mars.
Re:The atmosphere is less harsh? (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, it's not astonishing. Thanks to the Apollo missions and more recent studies it was determined that our moon and many others in the solar system actually have very faint atmospheres. Though the Moon's gravity is very low it's just enough to hold a thin concentration of gas molecules very close to the surface:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/moonI do see your point, common sense would make it seem that it's just a vacuum. What with all the impact craters and the sky being always black over there.
Re:The atmosphere is less harsh? (Score:2)
You might want to read the link you posted. The moon does not actually have a very faint atmosphere. From your link: "[the moon is] surrounded by a *very* this [sic] region of molecules which might be loosely classified as an atmosphere."
My math may not be that great but my English is pretty good: "might be loosely classifed as" != "is"
Re:The atmosphere is less harsh? (Score:2)
Re:The atmosphere is less harsh? (Score:2)
MO-tels? (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, LockMart, Boeing, and the rest will (Score:2)
NASA hardly does anything "in house", certainly not spacecraft construction. As much as the "free market" droids like to scream about how NASA needs to be privatized, the majority of their budget just gets handed over to private industry via procurement contracts as it is.
Maybe what is needed is for NASA to get people ON STAFF to handle some of the work that is now being farmed out?
Re:Just remember... (Score:2)
Why does that imply that desiring private participation in space is somehow "trolling"?
I'm proud of NASA. I'm proud of its past accomplishments. I consider the odds of NASA getting a viable, long-term, self-sustaining human presence in space about zero, using the current effectively-monopolistic approach. Again, how is this "trolling"? I think it's a pretty clear-eyed view of the presen
Re:I hope it does mean a new space race (Score:2, Interesting)
The space race was merely a way to put a pretty public face on the development of rockets powerful enough to boost nuclear weapons into a ballistic arc from which they could strike other continents, otherwise known as ICBMs. As with all "epic" war programs, this one primarily enriched the defense contractors involved, although it did actually create several
Re:Is there hope? (Score:2)
Why post AC? (Score:2)
Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:3, Informative)
In one word: no.
There were certainly ill effects from their experiments, such as fairly significant loss of bone mass and muscle mass. Whether those ill effects were serious enough to be a problem, that's another issue.