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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

Oh dear

[Platinum Dragon]

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

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: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.