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NASA Has Plans for 2nd Space Station at L1
Keith Gabryelski writes "New Scientist has an article on NASA's unveiling of a "blueprint for the future" of space exploration. It entails a Space Station 5/6ths of the way to the moon. In other news, radiation sheilding on the space station isn't so good."
The explorer part of me is saying, "Yay! It's about time we started building more structures in space. The Lagrange point would make a good neutral spot halfway to the moon." But then the realist in me says, "Given that NASA has proven that it can't stick to a budget, how much is this overrun going to cost?" And the article agrees with me.
Government is not the answer to promoting outer space as a new resource -- market forces have shown to be the driving force in all new ventures. We need competition in getting things into orbit, tourism to build hotels, industry to build fab plants, mining on the moon...
Why not just build on the moon?
Apples and oranges. Having a station in zero gravity is really useful for launching probes and ships from, and as a gateway between the Earth and the rest of the solar system. Having a moonbase gives you mining capabilities and so forth.
They're both very important aspects of stepping into space, for different reasons.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
From my expiernce in setting up really big tents, lead is heavy. Really heavy. The cost to orbit would be really high. At least, that's what I think.
Gee, Doc, have you done any payload arithmetic lately? Lofting lead is possibly the dumbest idea ever-- no offense intended.
In terms of pounds of mass per gray-- meaning the amount of radiation that can be absorbed in a given unit of mass-- water is a better radiation shield than lead. Dual-purpose, too.
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Yes, it is true that the International Space Station has taken a horrendous amount of money that could've been spent on real science. I admit that I'd like to see more money spent on real science missions like probes to Pluto or Europa or on more Space-based telescopes, but unfortunately as these devices increase in size (satellites, space telescopes, probes, etc.) it becomes infeasible to launch them in a confined shuttle (I believe Chandra X-ray telescope reached the volume limits on what could be launched in one piece).
That said, we need to be building an infrastructure for launching larger and more complex devices into space. This requires places where things can be assembled once in orbit, places such as the ISS or another station at a Lagrangian point. In and of themselves, these stations aren't spectacular, they don't produce good science and they are very expensive, but they need to be created to assist other scientific endeavors as our technology continues to develop. As an example, routers, fiber, and transcontinental backbones are expensive and to the layman, they produce no real science or pretty pictures, but they are necessary as an infrastructure over which people can do some really cool things.
Anyway, I think that even if this doesn't get passed by congress or the things run behind schedule, it is good that we are at least PLANNING to do some really cool stuff like this.
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I don't get your last paragraph... Why isn't everything in Earth orbit being gradually drawn towards L4 and L5? Why isn't there some large body captured there already?
Sure, it would be fun to go into space in person. But that's entertainment and tourism, and the best way to finance that is through private funding. It's the science, the big questions, that require government funding, and there we should concentrate on what gives the biggest payoff--and that is unmanned space flight with robotic probes.
I've long felt that human progress into space has been on some form of hold since the 1960s. JFK announced that we would goto the moon not many years before we actually did. Then we went back a couple of times. Then not much.
The major achievement of the late 70s was the Space Shuttle. The major achievement of the turn of the century will be the ISS. Obviously these are significant achievements but why we haven't been back to the moon in 40 years is baffling.
I'm very happy to see a station being considered that won't just be in orbit. I hope it is a sign of things to come. I'd really like to see a moon base in my lifetime. I don't know much about space but I'd expect it must be easier to build a big station if you build it on something.
We need to be up there. In large numbers. We need private industry up there. NASA should be focussing on putting human living quarters in space and providing transportation up there. I think there should be some kind of space oriented general contracting agency focussing on getting as many people up there for as long as possible. We need scientists, professors, entrepeneurs, the media...all sorts of people to go up and see what we can make of it.
If space really is the new frontier, it should be accesible. I hope this is a step in the right direction.
I know that the X-ray telescopes they have floating out there are of the grazing incidence variety, meaning the mirrors reflect X-rays/gamma rays at small angles, in stages, so that they lose some of their energy and don't burrow into the sensors. Kind of like skipping a bullet over a lake. At too high an angle of incidence you break the surface, but if your angle is small enough it will skip indefinitely. My take on the subject is that we don't have any materials heavy/stable enough to reflect high energy radiation.
NASA is doing this for science, and they are publically funded.
The explorers did it in order to find/establish trade routes, and had a lot of private monies.
See the difference? Money.
--
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I've wondered about this too. I would imagine that the power required could be generated with a combination of solar cells and a decay reactor. Both for redundancy. This would also have the advantage that you could allocate more or less power to the shield depending on whether the station was occupied, or if you needed it for other things, or if there was a solar storm, etc.
The disadvantage is that the radiation would only be redirected toward the poles, so you would still need protection there. Hopefully this would still lower costs. There is also the issue of how strong the field would have to be? Would it affect electronics in the station? Would it take away a lot of usable space with a magnetic iron pole running through the station? Is it even feasable to generate?
Eventually lead could be a solution for future space stations but it would only be practical if it came from a shallower gravity well than the earth.
Mine it on the moon and ship it up with a rail gun. For better radiation shielding find an asteroid that can be manouvered into position and hollow it out by mining it. It's former interior can be used as reaction mass to get it into position in the first place, and can be used as raw material for other construction and manufacturing projects.
Unfortunately, we cannot do anything of the sort yet. We need to make do with less adequate space stations untill the infrastructure is available to build really livable homes in space.
Of course, if you still really insist on using lead as radition shielding in the earlier stages of space exploitation then their is possibly a practical way to do it. First send up the initial inflatable habitat. Preferrably it would be sausage shaped or better yet several sausages linked into a doughnut that could be spun to gererate artificial gravity. With every subsequent mission to the station a certain amount of launch mass would be allocated to a roll of lead foil. This would be unwound over the sausges just like a gauze bandage is unwound over a wounded arm. One other thing to consider, lead has a fairly low melting point and the temperature fluctuations in space can be fairly extream. Another material or a roll of various other materials layered would probably be more effective and provide more protection from other hazards such as particles of rock and junk travelling at high velocity.
Now, to change the subject.
I do not believe that NASA as a US Gov't funded organization will ever be capable of going where humans NEED to go in space. There needs to be a new organization that receives worldwide funding from governments, industries, people in general, and even slashdotters. Such a centralized organization with more encompassing funding than NASA and other private space efforts would have a much more likely chance of getting us on the road to the effective usage of space than an underfunded government beauracracy and a few small companies competing for a paltry X Prize or quick revenue from pay TV/phone satelite launches.
Oh, just one more thing.
To quote Arthur C. Clarke(possibly not exactly) "The dinasaurs became extinct because they did not have a space program."
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
If the L4 and L5 are stable, would they not have accumulated junk over the last 5 billion years? Rocks, dust etc that came near and slow enough would be captured and accumulate like gravel at the nexus of a country road.
That's great. You don't want to spend a few more dollars to make sure someone doesn't die. How about we compromise. You spend most of your life researching so that you're valuable enough to be sent into space, and then, risk your life to go up into space, and we won't spend a dime to make sure you come back alive. Deal?
I see some safety problems with that design.
For one, you need thick radiation-sheilds if you are not in near-Earth orbit, so I don't see large windows very safe. And, even in NEO, radiation is still a problem.
(Anybody know how thick glass has to be to shield enough radiation to match Earth ground-levels? Apollo had windows, but the astronaut's exposure was only about a week's worth, not a life-time.)
Sure, the atmosphere in there might help some, but it is not near enough to match Earth's.
And, it would probably be based on seal-able sections so that no one leak threatens the whole station. Thus, a clear "tunnel view" like that is not likely IMO.
Sorry to burst your bubble (pun semi-intended).
Table-ized A.I.
That didn't stop us.
Also, many explorers had economic motivation. Wasn't Columbus looking for a shorter (i.e. more economic) route to the orient for trade? Just bad luck there was this honking big continent in the way.
If it's really so hard to put things at L1 and keep them there, you better go tell the SOHO team who have successfully kept that satellite at the Sun-Earth L1 point for almost 7 years now, without ever being "headed for Pluto".
Patrick Doyle
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