Japan Considering Moon Base, Shuttle Projects

ScentCone writes "A brief article at Newsday mentions a Monday report that JAXA, Japan's counterpart to NASA, is looking at robotic probes on the moon by 2015, and construction on a solar-powered manned research base starting there by 2025. The (very) big bump in the agency's budget will also get spent on tsunami warning technology and other terrestrial communications technology development."

Comments

Good

[Prophetic_Truth]

The more the merrier. Man Spaceflight is sorta like Chess, its no fun playing by yourself. This will foster competition and everyone wins!

Re:Good

[Rei]

57 billion is no small sum... but 57 billion every how often? I'm guessing that's a one-time increase to be phased in over the next 15 years or so.

I'm most interested in the new craft, because we need to get costs down, Before people start bashing the notion of a "shuttle-like craft", please remember that the shuttle wasn't supposed to be this way. The original shuttle would have been a titanium frame design without external boosters; however, most of the way through the design process, its budget was almost halved without a decrease in its capability requirements. A titanium frame, while more expensive up front, gives a significant payload boost (I've seen numbers at around 30-40%) and decreases maintainence costs (you need a much simpler TPS, and it doesn't fatigue like aluminum). And, of course, we know the problems that they've had with the boosters.

When it comes down to it, fuel is incredibly cheap. If a low-maintainence reusable is developed, it will clean the market up. The problem is maintainence. Some people argue instead for mass-produced disposables, but just the amount of raw materials needed and the difficulty in producing engines seems to make it unlikely that mass production costs (if you could convince governments/companies to mass produce rockets when there's not a market) could, in the long run, compete with reusable launch costs. If your costs end up being little more than your fuel costs, space travel will be incredibly cheap.

The shuttle has really been a research project (one that was forced to take an essential role, unfortunately). Many people don't realize that the cost for operating the shuttle is calculated by looking at its annualized operating costs and dividing by the number of launches; however, the operating costs of the shuttle not only include administrative overhead, but a lot of research on ways to improve reusable craft. Whoever designs the next generation will not only have the benefit of hindsight, they'll also be standing on the shoulders of giants, technologically.

Besides... if some of the new titanium manufacturing costs come online, not only will titanium be much cheaper than it is now (which is cheaper than it was in the 60s/70s), but could approach aluminum in costs. One interesting one is that they've discovered that they can do direct electrolysis on titanium oxide without having to dissolve it in a solution first.

Re:Good

[forkazoo]

Zubrin (Guy who wrote case for Mars), who is a bit of a nut, but knows a lot about rocket engines, has suggested that while a reusable system is a good idea, the shuttle is basically built backwards. What we need is a system that has a disposable top, TPS if applicable, etc. But, a reusable first stage booster assembly. The first stage won't be subjected to the same level of thermal stress as the last stage, and so needs much less in the way of protection to be made reusable.

In many cases, there may not even be a reason to bring the last stage back, such as satellite deployment, etc, and the last stage mission requirements will vary so widely that it may not make sense to reuse it even if it is free.

Re:Good

[Rei]

Yes, titanium sponge is a lot harder to work with than aluminum. It pushes the difficulty to the initial costs. You still get the lower maintainence and greater payload, however. Plus, the new method of direct electrolysis can easily produce titanium metal powder for powder metallurgy.

Good quality titanium welds are doable; you just need people properly trained and with proper equipment - you need to weld in very pure argon (applied both front and back), you need to clean the area with good solvents beforehand, you need to keep the argon flowing until the metal is relatively cool, etc. Plus, at all times, you want to use gloves when handling the titanium to be worked (to prevent chlorine corrosion from perspiration) and avoid contamininating it by using aluminum tool surfaces (frictional heat from working with tools can cause localized alloying). In short, you need to use clean conditions and use good tools - something NASA excells at.

Also, a nice thing about titanium is that impurities produced marked discolorations, making a poor weld or corrosion easy to spot. This is a whole lot better than aluminum fatigue, which you need specialized equipment to determine.

T

Me too

[Anonymous Coward]

I am also considering a moonbase, but I don't get a front page story.

First thing that came to mind...

[turboflux]

"Gentlemen, allow me to demonstrate the awesome lethality of the Alan Parsons Project. Fire the laser!"

I'm considering annexing my neighbors house

[Anonymous Coward]

They can 'consider' it all they want. Money/resources and willpower to make it happen are something completely different.

Launch explosion?

[randyest]

Asia's leading spacefaring nation, Japan has been struggling to get out from under the shadow of China, which put its first astronaut into orbit in October 2003. Beijing has since announced it is aiming for the moon.

One month after China's breakthrough, a Japanese H-2A rocket carrying two spy satellites malfunctioned after liftoff, forcing controllers to end its mission in a spectacular fireball.

Well first, go Japan. This should make things interesting (competition spurring innvovation and all that.)

Second, did anyone else miss the story about the failed Japanese launch? I'd imagine the video clips must be pretty spectacular -- anyone see them or know where one might find a link? Torrent? :)

Re:Launch explosion?

[tokyopimpdaddy]

I'm a Tokyo resident, and yes, have been watching the JAXA programmes for a while, as well as some of the national pride (and nationalism) which surrounds them. Infamous Tokyo mayor, Shintaro Ishihara mocked the Chinese for using old technology just days before the Japanese rocket exploded. Hmm. I guess old is OK as long as it works right? (The nicer irony was that that rocket was due to launch 2 spy satellites over North Korea).

I wish JAXA all the best, but I don't think it takes a lot to figure out that this is more symbolic than anything else, and certainly isn't business driven which is a shame, because the X Prize etc., seems to have made more people get interested in space again, on a commercial, private level. Japan is feeling the Fear with a rising China right now, and is desperately trying to flex itself again, but you only have to look at stories like the Livedoor vs. Fuji TV to see the internal conflict Japan's industry has.

Also, the word 'tsunami' seems to get bolted onto everything now in an attempt to get funding. I just hope some of it gets spend on the tsunami victims.

It's getting crowded up therre...

[gmajor]

Israel and India also have a pact to reach the moon by 2008 with an unmanned probe (and for a mere $83 million US dollars!) . Maybe reaching the moon is becoming the new "it" thing to do for goverments, much like becoming a nuclear power once was (or is)?

Re:It's getting crowded up therre...

[philkerr]

To an extent a moon shot is an extension of a ballistic missile programme. The space race of the 50's and 60's between the USSR and USA was partly a PR excersice to cover the massive developments needed for intercontinental missle technologies needed to maintain the status in the arms race.

It would be great if all this interest was purely for scientific and discovery purposes, but under the surface of any programme will be a significant component for the development of millitary technology.

the moon treaty

[wfmcwalter]

There's the 1979 Moon Treaty - see wikipedia.

Re:What's the propertie status of the moon?

[Ed_Moyse]

Not that anyone outside of the US gives a flying fuck about UN resolutions.

PLEASE tell me you're joking!?!?! Somehow the concept of the US being the only defender of the UN (or its resolutions) is making me giggle and wince at the same time.

The Moon belongs to America!

[sizzzzlerz]

The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men. Will you be among them?

OK, maybe I do watch The Simpsons way too often.

Re:THATS NO MOON!

[Tackhead]

> Here come the star wars quotes, followed by the Anime crowd, then followed by SkyNet.

Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational tentacle station upon the quivering form of a miniskirt-wearing Sarah Connor!

Never underestimate the power of the otaku side.

... how delightful ...

[ninjagin]

I think it's a marvelous thing. Given the wild and futuristic Japanese design aesthetic, I can't wait to see what it will look like.

My only question, and it's a question that crops up every time I hear about nations/people hollering for moon missions, is "What do you do once you get there?"

I've heard about mining and spaceship fabrication, but both of those have very high transportation costs involved. Just getting a habitable structure for the lunies (or is it "loonies"?) to stay in for weeks/months at a time is going to be a fantastic challenge -- do you use inflatables? -- do you burrow bug tunnels into the moon?

Back when I had an interest in tokamaks (those plasma-fusion-toroid-shaped doohickeys), I'd heard that the moon has a fairly rich quantity of Helium-3, a good fuel for tokamak-style fusion reactors. One shuttle bay full of moondust could power the whole earth for a year, supposedly. How much would it cost to get a shuttle to the moon, fill it with dirt and send it back? It must be a lot of moolah. Would it be worth it? I dunno.

Somehow, though, I'll bet the Chinese and the Japanese could work it out.

Still, my inner skeptic holds sway -- I don't believe it when the President says it, and I have a feeling that China and Japan will reconsider when the costs of such far-flung plans become real.

Re:What's the propertie status of the moon?

[greyhoundpoe]

The property status of the moon is determined by whomever puts military bases in place first.

It's not a new phenomenon--at the start of the last century, the border between the United States and Canada was very vaguely defined in the area of the valuable seaports in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia. How was the situation resolved? The United States Army built Fort William H. Seward in the disputed territory and trained its guns on the narrow waterways. Now, 105 years later, the US controls all the port cities in Southeast Alaska and the Canadian border is 40 miles away from the ocean most of the way down.

See? No politics required. It's called "staking a claim".

Re:What's the propertie status of the moon?

[twostar]

According to international treaties, no country can claim land outside of the Earth. But who's going to stop them? Basically it's going to come down to who can get there and put people there.

IIRC they can put research facilites and whatnot there, and they own the facilities but not the ground they're on.

The other side is that international law makes no mention of nongovernment agencies (ie Corporations) claiming parts.

Basically it's going to all come down to ability to claim and hold an area. We've got crazy people all over the earth who "buy" plots of land from compainies who purport that they can claim parts of the moon even though they've sent no one there and have no intentions to.

Mining resources is also going to bring up interesting implications, since countries can't claim the land and minerals, how can one make money from the sale of it?

This whole thing has been the subject of countless SciFi books and will probably come to the fore front soon as we approach the capabilities to actually use extra-planetary sites.

The coolest part about this

[eagl]

The coolest part is that their rocket ship will be nuclear powered and turns into a really big robot when attacked or befriended by a child.

All your *moon* base belong to us ?

[swid]

Hey, maybe this is what NASA needs to convince the gov't we need another moon mission.

Re:Can I Come ?!?!?!!!111!1!one

[WormholeFiend]

I want a wing on back of my lunar rover!

Oh wait, no atmosphere...

I guess a Type R sticker will have to do.

Things don't always go as planned

[MonkeyCookie]

I remember that back in the 1980's it was said that the United States was planning to have a moon base by the year 2000.

Look where that ended up.

So, as for the Japan's plan for a moon base, I'll have to see the thing actually under construction before I believe it. I find the robotic probe plan to be much more realistic. I think they have a pretty good chance of succeeding there.

Oh dear

[Platinum Dragon]

In other news, the Japanese government has proposed to raise the sunken WWII-era battleship Yamato...

Yay Japan

[Lord_Dweomer]

As an American, all I have to say is, "leave it to the Japanese to take massive steps towards furthering the human race while the rest of us are stuck here fighting amongst ourselves."

Re:Yay Japan

[ScentCone]

As an American, all I have to say is, "leave it to the Japanese to take massive steps towards furthering the human race while the rest of us are stuck here fighting amongst ourselves."

Please be sure to pass that along to the Japanese troops that are in Iraq right now. Because they, like us, know that things like space exploration, and liberating places like Iraq from corrupt regimes are not mutually exclusive. Read the damn news, why don't you? The Japanese are still embarassed by the last war they started, but they understand the need to get involved the "fighting amongst ourselves" so that it can be stopped. Doing so, just as ending the Soviet rule of Eastern Europe, brings huge peace dividends: which we can spend in space (I hope!). Less turmoil, and fewer crazy tyrants with pet oilfields in the world is crucial if we want to really focus on things like space. But we can work on both at the same time.

You've been paying too much attention in school

[UnrefinedLayman]

You've been paying too much attention in school. Despite what the prophets of capitalism will say, competition does not mean everyone wins. In fact, by definition, competition means that someone will win and someone will lose.

While there may be tangible benefits from competition by nations in space exploration, there are certainly benefits from cooperation as some recent explorations have shown, particularly Cassini/Huygens. Two nations with $10 billion each can do projects together that are impossible alone.

Part of the problem with your thinking is that you seem to think that nations aren't driven to innovate in the field of space research. The main problem right now is that there isn't enough money to do what they imagine they can do; we're not short on ideas by any means, but we're short on means to be sure.

My belief is that we're not going to see significant care shown to the space programs here in America any time soon, as most politicians are too busy solidifying their power bases by exploiting whatever hot-ticket item they can. Space exploration isn't going to win over Nascar dads, but being pro-life and imprisoning American citizens without hearings because they are suspected of terror ties that cannot be proven seems to work.

Re:What's the propertie status of the moon?

[owlclownish]

Is there an "official" body for sectioning off the moon? How does all that work? There's the Moon Treaty, which reads in part:

Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof. The foregoing provisions are without prejudice to the international regime referred to in paragraph 5 of this article.

And:

The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on the moon shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration and use of the moon shall also not be prohibited.

And:

The exploration and use of the moon shall be the province of all mankind and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. Due regard shall be paid to interests of present and future generations as well as to the need to promote higher standards of living conditions of economic and social progress and development in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

Re:not to take the wind out of everyone's sails

[Game_Ender]

I hate when people bring up this kind of moral argument. By this logic instead of paying for the internet connection you are using, shouldn't you just feed the poor around you? Or give it to the local homeless shelter?

Why you're at you should probally just take every cent you don't spend on rent on food and send it to the UN. After all that last food program they had worked out real well didn't it...

Re:Implications

[ScentCone]

Sigh. OK, he said:

I can easily imagine that Japan may be able to seriously leverage the commercial use of space the way the current corrupt leadership in the US cannot. What mean if the Japanese seriously started space based businesses while the US did not?

What country has even come close to what the U.S. has done to further the world's commercial use of space? Our telecommunications pioneering alone lead the world into a new age. Of course Europe (and to a certain extent now, Asia) are catching up. But as country with an industrial focus in this area, it's no contest. Is the US focus in space spread around too awkwardly of late? Yes. I'm glad to see Bush's recent directives to NASA to focus some more riveting projects. Can't wait for more of the same.

Now, will Europe use an arrangement not unlike Airbus to actually get those governments directly into the business? Will the Japanese government become a bigger part of their country's corporate space business? Probably.

But: is some "corruption" (as the twit poster put it) keeping the US out of a healthy commercial role in space? Please. And, to your point: I didn't "refute" the post because it was so non-specific (non-meaningful, really) that there's nothing but anti-Americanism to refute. As nothing more than a cranky-sounding excuse to say that America is corrupt, I called that troll a troll.

Re:Zubrin is a monomaniac

[bluGill]

There is a reason's Columbus' home country of Portugal refused to fund his voyage. (Portugal was a major power at the time, they had the money, perhaps more than Spain) In fact, it is the same reason Spain's King refused to fund the mission until his wife got interested.[1]

The kings were well aware that the earth was round, and they knew how big the earth was. This was calculated about 200BC(IIRC). Columbus calculated the earth's size at about 1/4th the correct size. With the correct size it isn't worth sailing around the world to get to Asia, with Columbus' size it was.

When Spain finally gave Columbus sponsorship they gave him junk ships and essentially prisoners as crew. As they watched him leave they were fully expecting that he would starve to death on the trip. (And if you read the accounts it is clear they came close) Spain was surprised when he came back reporting he found land.

[1]Those who are married can understand why you would pay for a stupid mission if you wife was interested.

Re:Zubrin is a monomaniac

[J05H]

On Columbus (actually "Colon" - he was not Italian), he had been part of Prince Henry's navigation school (an evolution of the Portugeuse Templars - the Order of Christ), Colon learned the new sailing skills and also saw maps that the prince collected. Colon also took part in a 1477 trip from Norway (royalty linked to Portugal), to Iceland and probably beyond. Colon probably heard northern seamen's tales of vast land beyond the "land of cod" that we now call the Grand Banks. The Vikings and later Scandinavians had been travelling the whole northern arc of the Atlantic from at least 800AD onward, with fishermen from Bristol, the Shetlands and Orkneys, Norway, Bremen and Basque following from at least the 1300s. Supposedly the permission letter from Ferdinand and Isabella granted him to go claim the lands he had already discovered (past/present tenses being important in Spanish). Colon's calculation of the size of the Earth and his brother's maps were largley political, IMHO - they were trying to sell this trip any way they could.

Colon wasn't the only southern European traveller to the Americas in the late 1400s, either. The whole Atlantic had been a Portugeuse pond from the 1450s onward. The settlement of the Azores and Madieras spawned plenty of journeys that included possible settlement in Puerto Rico and the discovery in the 1470s of "Lavrador" by Juan Corte Real, sailing a privately funded mission. Maps from the 1400s (based on Ptolemy even) show the Americas as a third peninsula hanging off China - the oldest sometimes just show Mexico and isthmus of Panama, the later ones (1448 Walsperger, IIRC) have complete maps of S. America rivers and coastal N. America labelled as "India Meridionalis".

What Columbus/Colon did was not original but part of a spectrum of trips that were taking place at the time. The Portugeuse contibution is obscured because of the Lisbon earthquake and the fact that much of the School of Navigation's work was a state secret. An argument could be made that the only thing Columbus did was commit an act of supreme treason against the Portugeuse Crown.

ObSpace: we can draw VERY important lessons from exploration and frontiers of the past - but the new situation is equally different in nature. "Space" still needs to pay for any of us to be able to go - so NASA, JAXA, ESA are only going to be bit-players in a truly space-faring future.

Josh