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!"

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: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.