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Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport
thrasymachus writes "Buzz Aldrin has an editorial in the New York Times (free reg req) advocating a spaceport at a Lagrange point between the Earth and the moon over simply more moon missions. He emphasizes the cost and practicality of such a station, as well its potential as a 'bridge to the heavens.'"
I am sure there will be legal battles about who can claim ownership of the lagrange points similar to the legal battles of Antarctica.
I think this is good as it is a step out of the 'Cradle' and probably requires nearly the same energy as a trip to the moon (TLI or whatever).
However the advantage of the moon is that you can burrow in and they might be water at the poles.
Water = H2 and O2 = Fuel and Air = Explore Solar System
Sorry if this is typed fast - I am trying to config a Cisco Router at the same time!!
I wonder if the Chinese (and maybe even the Russians) would be willing to go into a partnership with us for this. They've already said they want to place a man on the moon by 2020, and with Bush's recent indications that the US may be following suit, I'm sure a little cooperation wouldn't hurt.
Interesting article, but it still doesn't address the "building complex things in space" problem. I mean, we're pretty good at building things in gravity, with an abundance of raw materials, but we just haven't built much of note in hard vacuum zero gravity where you have to truck everything you need there. Even the space station was flown in modular format from Earth - at huge expense. Lagrange points are cool - but planets are cooler.
Everything you want to fly to somewhere else from a Lagrangian point you first have to fly to a Lagrangian point from some planet!
Frankly, the best place from which to get to pretty much anywhere in the solar system (including the Moon!) is from the surface of Mars. Two reasons: you can build things there, and the cost in fuel is lower. Here's a table which uses deltaV (total change in velocity required and thus fuel) to illustrate this very point.
First get humans to Mars, then the whole solar system is within reach.
I wish people would stop blaming NASA. Place your blame with the politicians who allocate where the money is to be spent. The engineers at NASA are phenomenal and have chosen to work for far less than they could make in the private sector because they share our dream of furthering our exploration of space.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Return to Moon May Be on Agenda : "President Bush's aides are considering a new lunar exploration program and other unifying national goals, including a campaign to promote longevity or fight childhood illness or hunger, as they sift ideas for a fresh agenda for the final year of his term, administration officials said yesterday."
Hmm. Perhaps they would like something to distract from the whole Afghanistan-Iraq thing, and the less than stellar results of those... And the Valerie Plame affair... and vote fraude through unauditable voting systems, like Diebold... and the massive budget and trade deficits.. and the declining value of the dollar...
We can hardly get a space station built in low earth orbit. I would imagine building one at L2 to be even more difficult.
Besides, how do you explain to the Amercian people that getting to L2 is an amazing accomplishment? They barely understand the moon and mars, forget explaining Lagrange points.
I'm sure this point was beaten to death in yesterday's story about moon missions, but space stations don't make much sense.
We've already got ISS for better or worse as a 0g test lab. On the Moon, we could build a solar farm that would fill our energy needs on Earth pretty much entirely. We would also be able to get a telescope bigger and better than anything else in existence. Lastly, the Moon offers a nice balance of construction material and low gravity which would give us a great jump-off point to Mars and the belt.
Speaking of Mars, putting people there would have more benefits than I care to type. New world for humanity, extraterrestrial science (possibly biology), easy access to the asteroids, ability to live off the land that can't be done on the moon or deep space...
Another thing while I'm all steamed up, isn't the LaGrange point between the earth and moon L1? That's an unstable point that would probably require regular correction so it doesn't fall to earth or the moon. SOHO has to deal with issues like that. I would hope that they would at least think to put it at L4 or L5 for stability's sake.
Could someone please enumerate the benefits of a L1 station cause I don't see them.
Blaze a trail to the New World
I wish people would stop blaming politicians, and point the finger squarely at the American public. People seem to gravitate mindlessly to tax-cutting messages, without considering the impact. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc. If the public got behind the idea of a space port or moon landing, the politicians would follow. It does indeed happen, even in these cynical times.
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First off you have to remember that Buzz is now in the spaceflight hardware business. While the Earth Moon L1 LaGrange point does offer intersting possibilites for being a gateway to the solar system, this really just sounds like another International Space Station. I worry about under utilization, a wandering mission objective, and massive operational costs. Not that a lunar surface base will be cheap. The big difference in my mind is the availability of raw materials on the surface. You won't have to launch as much mass from Earth. This would especially true if there really is water in the polar craters. Nevertheless, having a bunch of lunar soil to pile up for shielding would be a tremendous advantage. You also do not have to maintain the orbit of the moon (unlike an EM-L1 gateway). The other big advantage of the lunar base over EM-L1 is that once there you actually have things to do and places to explore. Just imagine having some large otpical, IR, and radio telescopes on the darkside of the moon - away from all of the earth-bound noise/light pollution. The possibilities are vast. Maybe we should go to the moon first and then build one of those carbon nanotube elevators from the surface to EM-L1 later.
-- Instant Karma's gonna get you! [320848 = 2*2*2*2*11*1823]
In the article, he recommends retooling the boosters and tanks with a new crew module and a separate cargo module. While I can see his point with regard to reuse of existing proven technology, I can't quite get away from the idea that sending people in the same craft as cargo is just a bad idea. Big Dumb Rockets (BRDs) are the only way that we should be putting cargo of any sort into space. We have become very good at orbital rendevous manuevers, so I can't see that separate launch vehicles for people and cargo will present a significant complication.
Perhaps the booster and tanks can be recycled with ONLY a crew module that can actually reach the L1 point. The current shuttles can barely make it to low orbit.
On the whole, he is right. An L1 base would be a nice permanent move into space and is probably something that should have been done in the mid-70's. The establishment of a moon base will be an easier political sell though. Once we hammer out manufacturing techniques, it should be possible to grow a spawling complex on the moon without needing to carry everything from earth. And you know we Americans love to spawl. If we can find water in sufficient quantities and are willing to take nuclear reactors with us to the moon, the fuel for future space flights will probably come from the moon.
Not counting oxygen failures, several fires, and the odd collision with a supply ship. Mir functioned. It certainly did not function well. And keep in mind that the realistic, incremental approach is what gave us the Space Shuttle and the ISS.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc.
I think I'm the only person on the freaking planet who actually considers paying taxes a civic duty, and that pays them willingly and with the knowledge that it is in my best interest to do so. (And no, not in some "if you don't you go to jail" way, either.) Taxes pay for bad things, taxes pay for good things. I oppose the former and support the latter.
Too many people are patriotic right up until you ask them to put their money where their mouth is.
People seem focused on the technical issues and the benefits, but how about that unpleasant, though unavoidable issue of cost?
... are we really going to fall for it?
Let's not be suckers like other interest groups, and let the government run up even more debt (remember that federal surplus of long ago?) by promising us our dreams to get our votes, ignoring the cost side of the equation
In fact, given our roles in the technology community, it's up to us to say 'it's not worth it'. Let's make the crazy assumption we must take money from something else in order to go to the moon, or build a space port -- is it worth it? What else should we sacrifice?
This is the crux of almost all problems in our efforts to evolve any further as a society, be it a push into space or whatever.
People are just plain ignorant. Not stupid. Ignorant. Most people I know never even crack open a book on ANY subject, much less something scientific. Sufficient scientific knowledge to graduate high school is knwoing the sky is blue and the ability to point to the sun in the sky. There's parts of the world where if you tell them the Earth revolves around the Sun, you'll get blank stares, and some of those parts are here in the USA. Smart people continue to be generally depicted in the media as outcasts and acceptable objects of ridicule.
We won't be going to L4, L5, L2 or even the L-train unless knowledge (and especially scientific knowledge) starts getting more respct in this world.
--- Ban humanity.
the Russians knowing how to keep people alive in space because of their experience from Mir is what gave us the ISS (plus money and experience of other teams, but none of it possible without Mir).
I personally think Mir functioned fantastically well. sure it had its problems, but it kept people alive for 15 years despite only being designed for 3 or 5 (c.f. Apollo 13 "finest hour").
The realistic, incremental approach had nothing to do with either Shuttle or ISS. Both are primarily the products of politics.
An incremental approach would have been to build a Saturn 6 booster that was more powerful/cheaper to operate/reusable, and keep upgrading the parts to make it better. Instead, Shuttle dropped all of that and restarted with an almost completely different appproach.
The real problem with NASA is that, like any bureaucracy, it's a political organization first. Its organization is built for maximum political gain (jobs in districts), and its operation rewards political gamesmanship much more than technical merit or economic feasibility.
I dearly hope that if Bush does make a speech on the 17th, he announces that he's taking NASA out of the space launch business permanently.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
No blame the goverment.. We do need tax cuts but its not at the school/service level.
The Military just got in trouble because of the number of people flying on our Tax dollars first class.
The goverment bidding system for outsourced jobs is broken. Its supposed to bring in the lowest costing qualified bidder. Instead its perverted by politicians to support larger companys that donate money to there political fund. This results in multi-million dollar political campains, while our childen have to bring there own toilet paper to school.
We spend billions defending a country over oil, yet we have millions without health care, homeless people and others things right here at home that money could of been used for.
Look at this picture..
If we spent less money putting pushing our beliefs on other countrys and defending other countrys, Not only would we have more money for our own people BUT we would have fewer people out there that thing america sucks.
If we had not stepped in and beat iraq down during the gurf war.. Oil prices may have gone up for a bit but they would of done everything they could to get those oil fields back online to make money. There would be one less set of people who feel we got invovled in something we shouldn't.
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The NASA budget is a mote of dust compared to the war budget. We have the resources. We need the motivation.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
What strikes me about this plan is that since L1 is the point where Earth's gravity and the Moon's cancel each other out once you go beyond it the moon's pull starts to take over and you get a largely free ride the rest of the way in (minus some braking). So where is the advantage to putting stuff there when for a very small additional cost it could go on the moon? Though I agree with a number of the other posts the moon doesn't seem to hold a lot of promise these days other then potentially as a proving grounds for Mars.
If I'm reading his topographic-like chart (see this article) correctly, it would appear that the cheapest points to get to would be L1 and L2 (because of the gravity trough between the bodies). L4 and L5 are actually gravity peaks (not troughs) and it's the Coriolis effect of the body speeding and slowing that keeps bodies stable.
Until we invent some new form of propulsion that gets a bit more punch, a space platform needs a cheap transport route. Imagine having to truck all those extra-Earth goodies to those gravity peaks (although trucking from them would be a touch cheaper)...
Keep in mind that there can be more than one spacecraft at or near the L points-- i.e., orbiting about the point. While still stable, it takes slightly less energy to break out of that orbit than to break away from the L point itself. (Both, of course, require much less energy to escape than from lunar or Earth orbit.)
If the IRS added a line to contribute funds to NASA, I would gladly donate money to them during tax time every year.
Even if people just donated $1 on their tax forms, imagine how much money that would generate for NASA.
In fact, they can replace the "presidential campaign fund" line with the NASA one. (I think they collect enough campaign funds with $1000/per plate dinners year round.) It would be a much better use of ink.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
-Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc.-
This is a false dilemna fallacy.
The current tax rate is far in excess of what is needed to maintain infrastructure. Waste and corruption is horrendous, entitlement programs are needless and duplicated. Crap, just eliminating 10% of the waste in the federal Entitlement programs would net every man, woman and child in this country a 200$ annual tax cut.
The real problem is that too many Americans have decided that someone else should pay for what they want. We have learned that we can vote ourselves money from the public largess.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Some reasons to pick an unstable point: