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Lunar Dust: A Major Worry for Moon Visitors
smooth wombat writes "Wired has a story which talks about a danger to possible future inhabitants of the Moon that is rarely brought up: the highly abrasive lunar dust. Unlike Earth, the Moon has no erosive capabilities to smooth the edges of rocks or dust. As a result the lunar dust has arms that stick out, like Velcro, and sticks to everything. As the astronauts who walked on the moon found out, the dust scratched lenses and corroded seals within hours. Some of the particles are only microns across which means once they get into your lungs, they stay there. This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis."
Who do we have to thank about that? The smokers of the world!
Just think. Iron lungs, operations, tracheotomies, breathing machines, voice boxes, all that. All that moon dust that's gonna end up in your lungs? Second hand dust, just like second hand smoke. Right? Right.
All the technology to handle lung disease is already here. You should be thanking the tobacco companies right now. Or... you should be lighting up... to umm, help your lungs adjust to the moon dust... Yeah!
I for one salute the smokers of this world, for giving us the technology to explore and survive on the moon and in outer space.
---
This joke was brought to you by camel cigarettes. Now light up, maggots!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
look out here we go...
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
No one seems to have publically noticed this effect until now.. funny. Say, I heard Christopher Columbus met this crazy bunch of people called the Caribs!
meh
that biodomes will be clean. All the sci-fi movies had moon cities in a giant biodome! Anyone who goes outside and interacts with the dust gets cleaned on the way back in
sounds like moon dust has similar properties to asbestos. So small that it gets stuck in lungs and such...I have no idea if it's as resilient as asbestos is though...any clues?
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
As the astronauts who walked on the moon found out, the dust scratched lenses and corroded seals within hours. Some of the particles are only microns across which means once they get into your lungs, they stay there. This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis.
I wonder if breathing a vaccum without 'dust' in the air would cause a lung disease too?
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Some of the particles are only microns across which means once they get into your lungs, they stay there. This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis.
I think that if you're freely breathing in dust with no protection between you and the lunar surface, you've got bigger issues to worry about than silicosis.
But what if they want to swim with moon babes? What then!?
Lunar dust (loo-near duhst)n.
Highly abrasive and difficult to remove.
see Republicans
Sorry, I accidently RTFA.
The Apollo astronauts couldn't help but get covered in the stuff as they struggled to stay upright on the moon's surface, where the force of gravity is one-sixth of that on Earth. Later, they tracked the dust back into their space capsules and inhaled it when they took off their helmets.
It won't happen again.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Sounds like the makings of a "dirty bomb".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Dunno, just a thought.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Or, more likely, tracking in dust that then gets into the life support system.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
We can help. If you have been injured by dust not of this earth we can help. Call Dewey, Keetum and Howe 999.000.04~4 Now, time is slipping away you could lose your chance to get money for your injuries.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
That is something they most certainly would plan on doing once they return to the space capsule.
Moreover, once you have a permanent base, thing are going to get that much worse. It is extraordinarily hard to keep micron-sized particles out completely whenever you enter and exit the airlock.
RTFA. Yes, they do plan on removing their breathing apparatus, like after the reenter the capsule. Dust on the outside of their space suits then gets into the capsule. Article also contains possible solutions. You should read it.
...that poor cow. Do you think it suffered?
Yet another reason to keep your helmet on while out on the moon.
So if the radiation, metorites, temperature, subversive crewmembers, psychotic computers, lack of air, fuel, or water doesn't get you... the dirt will.
...I'd still go.
(strip soft/first post?)
This dust could get everywhere. Sooner or later you take off your space suit, you track dust into the biodome on your boots, you park the moon buggy in the garage, etc. Dust just a few microns has the potential to work its way all through air circulation systems, etc. It'll be a nightmare to deal with.
Slashdot beaten by Fark (this was posted days ago).. A sad sad day for /.
2 + 2 = 5. Big Brother's watching you. bonglord.com
I just hope Google gets the joke and doesn't accuse /. of slamming the mesothelioma links. [Has reported and a different article earlier this week.]
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
If there is no wind on the moon, and people are living indoors, this dust does not seem like a huge deal.
The only potential problem would be during outdoor activities and construction, but I am sure simple solutions can be found.
When you go back into the shuttle/station/building, you trek dust in with you.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Don't mod this guy up. He is a whore for his site. Just look at his history, all he does is post worthless articles that are semi-ontopic that link to his site.
If the turnover rate of information is 40+ years (From the moon landing till now) I think we might have a slight latency gap of informaiton flow.
Also, with these particles getting caught in the lungs, isnt the whole "lack of oxygen on the moon" probably, a bigger breathing threat?
You are just saying that since you are so looking forward to being able to wear your Darth Vader helmet and costume SOMEWHERE without everyone laughing at you. Even if you have to go to the moon to do it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"Dust is the No. 1 environmental problem on the moon,"
And here I thought it was the lack of segnificant atmosphere. Silly me.
Although I do think it is great that we are considering other major problems.
Just tell the astronauts to hold their breath when they go outside.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
While you could certainly minimize the effects by doing something like leaving your space suit in the airlock, there's going to still be dust contamination. Over time, I think that the dust buildup inside the rest of the spaceship would cause problems. You could always replenish the supply of air, which is going to be necessary anyways, but msot of the dust would still be floating around, as the replacement of dirty air with fresh air would be gradual.
Unlike Earth ,the Moon has no erosive capabilities to smooth the edges of rocks or dust. As a result the lunar dust has arms that stick out, like Velcro, and sticks to everything.
So we start eroding the moon. How hard can that be?!? Create an atmosphere, bring some water, don't plant anything*. In a few years you have perfectly safe eroded dust.
*Note that not planting anything is not an actual step, but listed for cautionary purposes.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Finally an environment I was BUILT to survive in. Having gone to the desert at the end of August for the last 4 years, I know DUST. I know the feeling of contact lenses gritty with it, zippers of tents being destroyed after only one week exposure to it, taking a shower feeling dry and fresh for all of maybe 5 seconds before your skin has that fine gritty coating on it again. Bring on the moon!
Call it pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It makes you sound smarter.
ResidntGeek
"As the astronauts who walked on the moon found out, the dust scratched lenses and corroded seals within hours." I don't think the problem is with the dust getting into your lung, even thought that could be a serious one; however, I doubt ppl actually take deep breathe out in the open, and the air lock should be able to remove the dust with a strong air filter. I believe the real problem is with the structure of the house ON the moon surface. It said that it scratched lenses and corroded seals within hours which mean that any windows and air lock seals will be damage. The cost of the constant repair for the damage might be the cost issue here. I am not sure if I am getting it all right, but that is the problem as I see. What do you ppl think?
Just filter it.. this is basic cleanroom technology that has been perfected already.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Keeping a survivable environment on the moon is a difficult task, but I don't think I'm too worried about the dust getting in my lungs as the description suggests. Any habitat on the moon will be pressurized. I should hope so, at least.
:)
Anyway, I'm not too worried about that dust getting in my lungs if I ever go to the moon, because of the very same force that keeps an airplane's door closed, and maintains the security of a level 5 biohazard area: air pressure. The pressure in a biohazard area is kept negative, relative to the outside pressure. That way, if there's ever a breach, the outside air will be gushing in, so the viruses won't be able to escape. Likewise, an airplane's door is held closed by the force of the higher air pressure inside the cabin.
The same laws of physics apply on the moon. If I'm wearing a space suit that develops a micro-hole because of this abrasion, I'm not going to be sucking vacuum as it won't be a big enough hole to depressurize the suit. I'm also not going to be worrying about any of this dust getting in the suit, because of the pressure from the air escaping the suit. The same goes for a habitat that's breached. And if the hole is big enough to depressurize the suit, I've got bigger worries than dust in my lungs.
As for the initial problem of the abrasiveness, I can think of a possible solution that may or may not work... If there's an outer shell of some kind of flowing liquid held to the structure with electrostatic or magnetic force, would you be all that worried about abrasion? Or if you could generate that electrostatic force in the first place, couldn't you use that to repel the dust?
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
It won't happen again.
Because we're not going back any time soon.
Toner cartridges carry a distribution of particle sizes that are considered 'safe' for you to inhale because they can't stick in your lungs.
;P
You can also make toner with such a small particle size distribution it is actually taken into the blood stream and excreted, well, normally.
You get into trouble, however, when you get into particle sizes between the two of those ranges (Which escape me ATM).
That sized dust goes into the lung and stays there- too large to get absorbed, too small to get exhaled out.
It will also exhibit most of the properties of statically charged nano-particulates: It gets everywhere, fast.
There may be a 'clean room' to disengage the suits, but no matter how you adjust for the problem (save going underwater in an ultrasonic scrubber) that dust will move with you.
Maybe installation of those 'ion-breeze' units from SharperImage will fix it....
Simple.
Just equip every airlock with that marvel of 1980s technology...
Well, maybe, but it replaced them with far more savage ones.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Just mix with water and the complaints will only be about tracking mud all through the station.
This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicolunarosis!!!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The landings were quite real. They had a full 48-bit mantissa and 16-bit exponent.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
WTF does soon mean?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I wont take any deep breaths while I'm on the moon. Thanks for the heads up!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Just take some dust-slaying Nano-shurikens of Doom with you (TG is owned by OSTG, the parent company of Slashdot, so activate all conspiracy theories now). They'll take care of it, whoop-ass style.
While you're there, you can also look into the new iPod accessory iCopulate which allows intimacy between mp3 players never before fantasized. And for the suit that has everything, Executve Pong. There's also Alarm Pills that help you wake up and fall asleep and a new USB-powered Fundue set available.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
You are arguing the Republicans are mooning us...?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
He's a plagarist.
Google sentences from his "articles" and see for yourself.
Just hire the spaceballs & their Mega Maid. Operation Vacu-suck seemed to work on Druidia
I'm not sure it would be as much of a problem as it seems. We already have decontamination proceedures set up and in place for dealing with hazmat responce. The airlock could contain a forcful shower that recycle the water being used and basicaly hose the dust wich become mud off. Also chemicals could be added to disolve anything that the water would miss. Then a positive force air/gas flow could be applied to filter anyhting remaining out(if there would be). This would basicaly be a self contained system and could easily be modified from somethign already in existance.
Something like this for the suites, a respirator then doing it again for the person should eliminate enough of the threat to make it little to worry about. As for abrasions on boots or lences? There could be a sleaved system that slides over them to take the blunt of the damage like sock or contact lences. These could be clearned and reused several times until they become unsafe or unproductive.
Of course this would be more suitable for permanent structures then it would be for landing craft. Somethign that could be done to litigate the risk would be to have a second landing vehicle with the neccesary componants and then have the landing craft dock with it after landing. The second lander could be motorized and have the ability to manuver to different parts of the moon by remote control to make it more convientient and less expensive. Once permanent structures are made, there would be little need for them again unless they can be fabricated into the the desing of the biodomes (whatever) and become one of it's functional clean room. It might even be able to goto the landing craft, pickup visitors and return them to the permanent structures to reduce the risk of colision when landing a craft at the building.
This fits so well in my little imaginary moon world. The shuttles could land far enough away to not endanger the settlement and the left over mision decontaminators become the airport shuttles. I bet there could even be a loading dock built into them so supplies could be lifted out of the cargo bay with the arm and placed directly on the transport like a shiping container.
Well then, it sounds like I'll be picking a nice little spot in the middle of the Gobi dessert while other people struggle to survive on the moon.
Actually we handle asbestos on Earth quite well, I rather doubt the dust on the moon will be an issue. Its really low on the scale of things to do.
The funding might be the biggest obstacle to ever living on the moon, although I hear Scaled has a 5 year plan. hehe
D
We should have a betting pool on how many people point out that you're not supposed to breathe outside on the moon. Thanks folks, I never knew that. Seriously, the stuff sounds like playa dust to me, and anybody who's ever been out on the playa knows that you track that stuff in with you all the time. If lunar dust is half as pervasive as playa dust, it's going to take serious decontamination to keep it outside.
This thread is USELESS with PICS! Fap fap fap.
If you are returning to a space port in the US, we noe require a passport. If not, you may be required to stay on the moon and die, or even worse, go to Canada.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Come on NASA, how hard could it be?
- Lightweight jumpsuits you wear on the outside of your pressure suit, which you put on and take off in the airlock.
- Blow the site clean with gas jets or ions before you go for a walk. There no wind -- once the dust is gone, it's not coming back any time soon.
- Mag-cloride does a bang up job gumming the road dust together here on earth, spray the site with some before you get out of the capsule. You can be sure it will dry fast.
- The dust is only inches thick. Use a broom. Move the dust out of your normal outside work areas. Don't just wallow in it like a moon-billy. Act civilized!
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
couldnt they just apply some kind of lunar dust filter to the pattern buffer and beam the stuff off me?
I'd like to volunteer as a test subject for external-dermotological moon dust tests. As long as I get hands-on gel baths from T'Pol and Hoshi, I should manage to get by okay.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Sorry, being lunar today.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
There's a book you should read on this, might help put the parent's comments into context.
Can't we just fuse it all into glass with a few thousands well placed nukes?
No, that would blow it flat out of orbit, resulting in some really bad sci-fi. PLEASE don't do that.
Tag lost or not installed.
This is such a stupid concern. As for breathing it, do the same thing moms have done for 2000 years, don't let people wear dirty stuff inside.
There is no reason you would need to expose the INSIDE of the structure you live in to the OUTSIDE of the suit. Design the suit so that getting into the suit is the same as leaving the dust-free area. That means sort of 'docking' it. That way you are only exposed to the inside of the suit, never the outside.
Obviously you will have to repair and maintain the suit. When this comes up you'll have to clean it before bringing it in. At least you won't have to clean it after every use, and you won't need complicated (heavy, thus expensive) equipment to dedust people who go outside for 10 minutes to check something. Plus, no deduster means no failing deduster, which means you won't have to let dusty ass people inside because the vaccum broke.
The real question is why do you have a suit. It will only be necessary to go outside very rarely I would imagine, so the dust becomes less of an issue. Just suck it off anybody coming in and forget about it. You will have to be running some serious hepa/ultraviolet air cleaners anyway, because dust from human skin and abrasion between objects will just build up without limit otherwise. You'll have to ultraviolet the air somehow, or you risk things like legionairs disease, and nitrous oxide buildup.
I would be more worried about wear due to abrasion. Unless parts can be fashioned easily on the moon this could be a serious problem. Perhaps parts exposed to dust could be made out of a polymer that can be melted and remolded, so that the only loss is the small amount of plastic that is actually abraded off, instead of the entire part being ruined.
Well, lets see. For one, there is no wind on the moon, so particles aren't being blown around. Any particles rubbed on lenses and therefore scratching them would be done accidentally by the person handling the equipment.
So in short, no, this does not lend credibility to the idea the moon landings were faked. That idea is still as idiotic as ever, and the people who believe it still don't know anything about physics.
So suppose the dust is dangerous, which it may be, why are we assuming the people on the moon would ever have to breath it? What you do is design your space suits like the Russians do, they have a hatch built into the back. So when you need to come in from outside, you don't go in an airlock with your dusty suit and then come in the space habitat getting dust all over the inside-- you go in an external room and dock the hatch to the habitat and climb out of the suit. This way the dust can't get in. Mark
You got to get your Rousseau Noble Savage/Disney history out of your head and pick up some history books.
MIC will want to.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I remember that NASA was concerned that the lunar module would sink into the layer of dust, but it didn't.
At the time scientists only had experience with terriestrial dust. Could the surprising supportiveness of the moon dust be at least partially related to the sharper structure of its particles?
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
"Don't think they have to worry about it getting into their lungs unless they plan on removing their breathing apparatus."
If they remove their breathing apparatus, I think moon dust will be the least of their worries.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
The problem isn't breathing the "fresh lunar air;" the problem is breathing the air inside after you take your suit off and shake the dust off it.
ISTR (quite vaguely, though I was a teenager at the time and of course could not possibly be wrong) that the Apollo astronauts (perhaps after 11, as they didn't have many clues before the first actual Moon mission) would vacuum their suits after coming in and pressurizing the Lunar Module after Moonwalks, to remove the dust from their suits and especially the bottoms of their shoes, so they wouldn't track the dust in and breathe it.
Something future missions will surely have, especially permanent Lunar stations, is airlocks that will suck/blow/wash away Lunar dust before the Lunarnauts open their suits and open the inner airlock door.
Tag lost or not installed.
To be fair, the Caribs were (at the time of Colombian Contact) engaged in a genocidal war against the Arawaks.
The Arawaks were the former inhabitants of the Greater Antilles, and were (primarily) a fairly peacefull people that utilized a hybrid hunter-gathering/agrarian system of nomadic farming on the islands.
The Caribs were invaders from the mainland, probably from what is modern day Brazil. They moved up the island chain starting in modern day Trinidad, killing and eating the Arawaks.
While not canibals as a primary food source, the Carib religous thoughts about the consumption of an enemy and the rights of war weren't well received by the Europeans, who set about dispatching them with some urgency.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
furry seals?? what kind of zoo have you been to?!
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
See Mike Combs' space settlement FAQ which says:
Sunlight also drives the life-support system of the habitat, so the day/night cycle can be set to whatever is convenient. Compare this to the moon, where there is 14 days of continuous daylight, and then a 14-day-long night. Here, some alternate energy source would probably have to be used half the time.
Zero G would be a liability if there were no alternative to it. Astronauts experience loss of bone mass and muscle tone after prolonged exposure to weightlessness. But most of a space habitat would be under Earth-normal gravity, although there would be easy access to regions of reduced gravity and zero G (perhaps for personal flight). With planets, on the other hand, you have to take the gravity that's there, and it's often the wrong kind of gravity to keep us healthy. Lunarians or Martians would probably not be able to visit the Earth (nor accelerate at 1 G).
Seastead this.
It could be worse.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
A moon tourist has spent millions getting there. Surely stumping up for a few worn camera lenses is just going to be hiss...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
not if they were well placed, ya know, like he said, so the net acceleration would be 0
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
And that means disrobing within an airlock. Then the dust caught on your suit or that has fallen into the airlock will be free to enter your lungs and abrade other sensitive equipment.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Where the backpack mounts, underneath it on the back of the suit, there's a hatch.
Astronaut backs up to the side of the habitat,
removes the backpack or hinges it to one side.
There's a flat oval surface big enough to exit from.
A matching surface on the habitat also opens up.
On it there's a sticky surface like a Post-It note.
Astronaut presses the suit up against that surface, and it seals around the edge.
The sticky surface traps all the dust on the outside of the suit hatch and anything that stuck to the surface gets peeled away along with the sticky layer, out from between the EVA suit and the actual habitat surface.
Think of the old magic trick of slipping a tablecloth out from under the table setting, or of putting down one side of double-sticky tape and then pulling the covering paper out from in between the parts you want to stay in contact.
Then you have a pair of freshly cleaned surfaces stuck together -- astronaut on one side in the EVA suit, and true airlock on the other side in the habitat (yes, you do want a backup door.
Pull the little zip strip all the way around, roll up the membrane with any remaining dust stuck in between two thin layers of clean material.
Astronaut backs into the airlock.
Pull down another clean sheet of sealing material over the opening, with whatever connectors are required for flushing out and cleaning the EVA suit.
Close the portal, leaving the cleaned suit hanging there on the outside of the habitat waiting to be entered next time.
Step through the real airlock door, seal it, wash up, lather-rinse-repeat.
Go into the habitat.
Yes, I take this stuff seriously.
Short of setting up a nice big sprinkler system and freezing the whole area to control the dust, it's going to be a constant issue.
Mars is looking friendlier all the time, as are the Lagrange points.
Maybe the Moon really is for the machines.
Currently there is even some concern (hope?) that the nukes we have wouldn't even go off, if called upon, or at least not produce an explosion as large as intended.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Can somebody please tell me why the practice of linking random words in a sentence is so prevalent?
...and little gravity, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, I won't be visiting any time soon...
... so let's go to Mars!
NASA recently found undeniable evidence that there's plenty of water on Mars too!
And for some reason, Slashdot, in all its April Fool craze, missed to post that one! Grrr!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I wonder how this compares to Mars dust. Does the wind there grind off the micro-spikes?
Table-ized A.I.
>>As an amateur photog, I can attest to how difficult it is to get a photo to look as good as those the lunar landing team took did.
:-)
I guess you have never used 70mm film format Hasselblad cameras (with Zeiss lenses no less) in a vacuum!
There is lots of resolution redundancy in that combination!
If you have seen the Kipp Teague, et al, ALSJ scans (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html/ - go to the Image Library) - the high resolution images have been very well done and far surpass any printed equivalent I have ever seen.
"It won't happen again."
No, it won't. Not to Americans anyway. Not with NASA's already paltry budget being cut to fund more Pentagon spending.
It might be a problem for the Chinese, but as long as we can keep buying cheap Chinese make consumer products at Wal*Mart, America won't give a damn.
Wake up America! Your birthright is being sold to Halliburton. Your schools have been hi-jacked by Christian Fundamentalists who believe that their Creation story ought to be taught in biology classes, and Florida is about to pass a law allowing college professors to be sued for offending Fundamentalist students by ignoring Creationism.
A Republican Congressman, Sennsenbrenner wants to enact criminal penalties -- that is, jail time -- for broadcasters who violate his idea of "decency", and Republican Senator Ted Stevens, wants to expand existing decency laws to cover cable and satellite broadcasts that people can't even see without subscribing.
Your President wants to outlaw medical research because he considers a two-day-old, 16-cell, unimplanted embryo a human life. His executive agencies are quizzing scientists about who they voted for as part of the hiring process, and suppressing research that his corporate backers don't want to see.
Wake up! Science in America is under siege -- not only are we not going back to the Moon, we're headed straight for the Dark Ages.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Thanks! I'll remember that next time I'm on the moon.
...but is it art?
Not only does not having an atmosphere leaves dust very sharp, it also makes it very hard to breathe!
Thinking about it, I don't think moon dust is going to be that much of a problem because I just don't foresee people going out on the moon that often. Where are they going to go?
Maybe the first few missions they will, but later on, I'll bet that they stay inside of their "houses" while machines do all the work.
I hope silicosis isn't at all like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. If only I actually knew what that meant...
English is easier said than done.
Serously, infect the moon with nano machines that assemble copies of themselves from the snipped off rough bits of anything it comes in contact with. You would have the surface of moon as smooth as billard ball within a decade!.
When the nano virus can not find any more rough surfaces, it disassembles itself into a graphite like lubricant.
Then all you have to do is post an article to slashdot complaining about the slippery surface of the moon.
As soon as they pass legislation to make all the asbestos lawsuits go away, there will be wave after wave of moon dust lawsuits. Betcha they'll claim the stuff just falls out of the sky, and the lawsuits will allege that God is liable.
The human organism as it is today is suited for life on earth and if we want to go into space, we must create another life form capable of holding our intelligence or more and also able to support the new environment's conditions. Genetic studies are not at this point yet but maybe someday will be; I imagine their must be some secret lab working on this already. What would the organic form that would naturally survive on the moon or Mars? Already just imagining the life form is not that easy but remember nothing is impossible given the means and the time.
This is a test!
He meant he wouldn't read an article again. But your point is worth making. Well, I haven't read it yet, but I will, and it will be worth it.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
For protecting the lenses they could use tear-away windshield film.
chown -R us
Unlike Earth, the Moon has no erosive capabilities to smooth the edges of rocks or dust.
what does that mean? in other words, what makes Earth have this ability and the moon not? is it water? different atmospheric pressure? atomospheric gases? different in gravitational pull?
HD Trailers
While all of these are good reasons to establish independent space colonies, here is the #1 reason for landing on a planetary body:
Natural Resources!
Simply put, you need to have "stuff" in order to build anything, and planets like Mars and the Moon have lots of that stuff.
A neat advantage that Mars also offers is that you can start a human civilazation with comparatively fewer resources to start with, as they can draw from the local environment in a much easier fashion than you can by simply sitting in "empty" space, such as LEO. The ISS is a prime example of this, where all of the resources have to be brought up from the Earth in order to sustain human life up there... subject to budget cuts, mismanagement at HQ, and changes of priorities.
That said, you can still obtain some resource from asteroids, but that means you have to run out to them and set up camps on those asteroids to carve up the resources for the space stations you are talking about, or simply start building the settlements themselves right there. You still got planetary settlement then, regardless of where you ship the metal & minerals afterward.
In short, I don't see a way that you can avoid settlements on the Moon or Mars in the next 500-1000 years, and any manufactured worlds (like an O'Neil colony) would have to at least have a symbiotic relationship with miners living on dirt with gravity.
BTW, when you are dealing with agriculture in space, there are a lot of unknowns that will go into the picture. To suggest that there will be no pests or weeds is showing signs of ignorance as to how food is actually grown, as you need a very complex relationship between microorganisms, insects, and multiple species of plants in order to grow healthy crops. Even most farmers take this for granted as they push dirt around, but it is still something that they use to their advantage even here on the Earth. I've had to pull too much sweet corn out of soybean fields to think that weeds are merely noxious plants that God somehow put in there to "torment mankind". This is going to be an issue, however, for any agriculture that takes place off of the Earth.
Also RE: mobile territories--- This is going to be much harder than you think. If you want to have a space colony that can be moved around, it has to be built substantially different from something that is simply built in place to stay there. For a practical current application to compare against, look up or examine the building practices for mobile homes ("manufactured homes" in the current lexicon) vs. on-site constructed homes. Mobile homes have to have steel beams in certain places in order to keep the thing together as it travels down a freeway at 70 mph, and other construction considerations that must be done that keep certain floorplans from being done. Yes, there are some very creative architects that do seeming wonders with manufactured homes, but you can still look at the outside of a house and tell the difference. What make a manufactured home cheap is the economies of scale when they are mass-produced, and not having to haul as much labor on-site. This will not be an option in space for centuries if not for over 1000 years.
If you already have a solid and well established colony on bodies like Mars or the Moon (self-sustaining even), then you will be able to talk about manufactured worlds. Until then, you will have to lift everything from the Earth, which is prohibitively expensive for any very large project, or something that has not risen to the level of being of national importance, Robert Bigelow not withstanding.
On a serious note, how about building a large domed or enclosed environment that gets some serious weathering and erosive treatments before humans enter it while suited, let alone suitless. Once this environment is created, for entry and egress to untreated areas use some kind of severe service clean room system that uses liquids, pressurized gases, and suits designed to flow electrical current to disengage the particles, and treat everything with level four biohazard style methods.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm still cleaning off dust from Burning Man.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Adequacy.org?
kaens.blogspot.com
we all know that the diamond industry artificially inflates the prices on diamonds, so either using those "surplus" diamonds, or through thin film diamond manufaturation (which btw is better in low/no gravity)... ... COAT the suits and lenses! problem solved!
sure you have to wash off the dust, but it wont be rubbing anyone the wrong way after that.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
Kin Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars" spends a few pages on the 'fines' of Mars, as we might expect similar problems there. It doesn't get expanded on much as an implication to martian colonists however, it just gives them red eyes when exposed to it.
One might expect the problem to be lesser on a planet like Mars, with more atmosphere and significant dust storms. However there is no liquid surface water to bind tiny particles up into more manageable sizes. Also the wind probably plays an active role in making the dust fine, perhaps finer than that found on Luna.
What, exactly, does TV censoring have to do with scientific research, pray tell?
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
the free flow of ideas has everything to do with science
The problem is when they take off their suits. We had the same problem with the guy in the ISS. THe rocket spewed toxic material which didn't bother the suit, but when they brought it in it wouldn't be so trivial.
"This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis"
I'm not worried. It's pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis that really
scares me.
I can mention "Chinese," "Walmart," "Halliburton," and "Fundamentalists" too.
Christian Fundamentalists and Creationism are not the biggest problems in American schools today. I'm not sure what the biggest problem is (I've begun to realize that my last hypothesis was rather narrowminded), however, I'm starting to think that a deep fear of controversy, and the lack of clear purpose are in a dead heat for it.
Schools seem unwilling to teach about ideas and issues people feel strongly about one way or another. Schools also can't seem to figure out if they exist strictly to do the bidding of the parents, or to have some measure of independence and personal destiny of their own. That ties in with the issue of controversy, though, I suppose. (Then there's also my pet issue with schools: the sink holes that are administrations)
On the issue of broadcast(and cable/satellite) standards, I have to agree with The Wilschon and wonder what this has to do with science, or the Moon. Nevertheless you're talking about one Representative(of 435) and one Senator(of 100). I don't know what kind of support they have for their ideas, but I'm not about to become panicked over the fact that they have them. Senators and Congressmen are allowed to have dumb ideas too... just so long as they don't get the votes to pass them into law.
As to stem cell research(which you can say), like one of the ACs said, he isn't outlawing it, just restricting Federal funding. We're funding it out here in California, though.
Yes, my headline is rather flamish(flemish?), but seriously man, the Dark Ages? If you're going to act as an alarmist, at least come up with some original thoughts.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
When your suffocating from the lack of oxygen (if you don't blow up ala movies), getting lung cancer would not really be on the top of my list of priorities
There is no excuse for reading the article. The only excuse for even going and loading it, is to try and cut/paste into a posting here, trolling for karma. You should damn well know better by now, actually making intelligent comments based on the articles content is a sure sign of total incompetence with regard to how /. works.
It won't happen again.
It damn well better not, this kind of behaviour can only result in intelligent and <shudder>informed</shudder> commentary. Thats NOT what /. is all about...
If I inhale dust on the moon I might have a bigger problem to worry about ...
Silicosis: the decrease in lung capacity as a result of excessive pressure due to silicone implants.
What do you think the astronauts were breathing in their capsule? Sure , it might not have had the exact mix of gases of earths atmosphere but it mixed with O2 which is the most reactive gas in our atmosphere and if it doesn't react with that I don't think anyone will be losing too much sleep over what happens if you mix it with nitrogen or argon. As for it not being in contact with the lungs , well how do you think the astronauts smelt it without beathing in? Perhaps you should read the article first hmm?
"Another one bites the dust!"
(ducks)
"What, exactly, does TV censoring have to do with scientific research, pray tell?"
The people that want to get offended on my behalf because Janet Jackson has boobs, are the same people that want to teach our children that the earth is flat. And they're the same people that want to halt any scientific research that might produce results contrary to their mythology.
This urge to control the information you're exposed to doesn't exist in a vacuum, whether you're talking about space, embryos, or TV.
how about laying down a bed of ... say, concrete ?, and or melting the walls with high powered lasers, and setting up a simple decontam ( hazmat style ) should be cost-effective ...
Question Authority before IT questions You
I guess you haven't noticed, but the moon is not rich with resources. It costs a fortune to go there, and it's got nothing worth bringing back. There is no reason for NASA to return, and I think they know this.
Also, we are not heading for the "Dark Ages". Things get better gradually, and religion is slowly losing ground.
Sorry you lost your federal grant money to prove that God does not exist. However you have to realize that government funding of research is something new and raising taxpayer interest in research is hard to do.
Currently the Federal Government has alot of problems getting the average tax payer to want to spend money on research of any kind. It isn't interesting and most people equate it to spending $115.00 a hammer or research into the medicinal properties of Timber Owl pellets.
Manned Space Exploration in the early years of NASA and the Soft Science of the Apollo Missions was seen as exciting and worth the expense. Support is seriously lagging for any science experiment that doesn't provide great video captions or pictures for the newspaper. Unless you support Soft Science on a Large Scale it is eventually going to be impossible to get money for anything but a better bullet or bomb.
To use a business analogy "You have to spend money to make money." Big Science can only make money by providing a supporting role and then living on the coat tails of Soft Science.
That said Bush is solely show boating the Manned Space Exploration in order to appease Joe Taxpayer's apprehension on spending any money on science. Truth be told unless it means immediate return of investment I doubt 10% of the administration (or the U.S. government) desires to spend money on "Big Science." They spend enough to keep the academics and educated placated.
It is my belief that in that 10% of government who actually care about science research someone decided that the best way to get more research funding in the long run is to get the polarized public interested in space exploration through the Moon, Mars and Beyond program. Without it they understood that thier budget would continue to shrink as the government invested more in the care of aging baby boomers.
I made a joke a while back about Haliburton being blamed by liberals for all the evils of today's world. I though it was a joke.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
I knew I shouldn't have listened to that agent...
Some settling may occur during posting.
4. Control of the environment.
That's not a bug, it's a feature!
Man, I wish I had an explanation that good when I'd try to hide my late-night Cinemax viewing from my parents as a kid.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Such a space suit is depicted in the online comic strip Freefall. (use the "previous" and "next" buttons to see more details.
As if we'll ever get to the stage of people living on the Moon. Dear, dear me. I think the more pressing concern is the fact that we're about to skid down the wrong end of Hubbert's Curve wearing margarine trousers. In the decades to come, getting a hot meal will be the priority for most people.
Just use that giant vacuum cleaner spaceship from the movie 'Spaceballs' and vacuum the whole moon clean.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
soon Pronunciation Key (sn)
adv. sooner, soonest
1. In the near future; shortly.
2. Without hesitation; promptly: came as soon as possible.
3. Before the usual or appointed time; early.
4. With willingness; readily: I'd as soon leave right now.
5. Obsolete. Immediately.
Idioms:
no sooner than
As soon as: No sooner was the frost off the ground than the work began.
sooner or later
At some time; eventually: Sooner or later you will have to face the facts.
[Middle English sone, from Old English sna, immediately, soon.]
Usage Note: No sooner, as a comparative adverb, should be followed by than not when, as in these typical examples: No sooner had she come than the maid knocked. I had no sooner left than she called.
IT: Mabir.A Virus Targets Symbian Phones
Science: The End of Mathematical Proofs by Humans?
Hardware: Homemade Mecha Walks in Japan
Hardware: Finally ... RoboShark!
Lunar Dust: A Major Worry for Moon Visitors
So "Lunar Dust" will soon be a new /. category. I certainly appreciate that.
You are hereby being served for infringing on US Patent #123789321987: "Method For Recovery of Capital used for Investment In Extra-Planar Activities".
Sincerely,
The Law Offices of Greasum, Fleecem and Phly.
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
How about coating space suits with a layer of grease? The grease would trap the particles and keep them from penetrating into seals as quickly. When you go back to the base, the suit can go into a cleaner which would dissolve the grease and wash everything away.
Another idea would be a high-pressure shower and filtering and recycling the water.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I like that idea- solves alot of issues, and with some refinement it might be able to address issues of seal penetration on that seam.
You've touched the cornerstone tho- every single seal will eventually become contaminated with time...
Maybe fluid seals are the way to go.
Since there's not much free oxygen on the moon, the dust is likely to contain any number of compounds that will rapidly oxidize on contact with a human-breathable atmosphere.
So all the comments about moon dust smelling "burnt" sound pretty likely. Fire can be seen as an example of a rapid oxidation effect, after all.
But I'm a lot more worried about folks that want me to exercise my "right to die". Perhaps before I'm good and ready to go. I'm a lot more worried about that than someone passing a law against saying "F..K" on the radio.
As far as medical research is concerned, I think there is a equally a fear that if you can get $100 for your embryo that people will do this for the money. Just for the money. Just like people sell their blood today. Haven't heard about that? Well, listen up! Yes, if it is legal, people will make people (or potential people) just for money.
One of the concerns of stem-cell researchers is about supply. If they come up with a technique that really, really works, where are they going to get a steady supply of nice fresh cells? If you had cancer and could be cured, but it would require someone to have an abortion to get the cells, would you do it?
Before establishing a lunar colony, we'll have to go prospecting in the asteroids and find some with carbonaceous material. This material has various resemblances to kerogen, which under heat deep underground on Earth is converted to oil. Hit a colony site with such an asteroid. I believe the description in song is "put up a parking lot".
Prior to setting the majority of your equipment down, set a robotic facility down that clears the dust from several acres. I'd imagine that you could create an electrostatic vacuum system that accelerates the dust enough to just fire it into neighboring areas. With no atmosphere to slow it, you might even be able to fire it all into a nice pile a mile away or so.
"Outlaw medical research?" He authorized limited funding for that research. Feel free to create your own new fetal stem cell lines if you wish. I hear that there may actually be means of funding other than handouts from the government -- say, corporations or individuals.
Senesennbrenner would have a hard time enforcing "his" policies, being as whatever lousy legislation he might push through would only empower the FCC to do so.
Hallibruton? Geez, that's just a buzzword now that doesn't need explaining, does it?
Creationism? Listen to how looney you sound, protesting that views you don't like might actually be mentioned in a classroom. The first amendment doesn't just apply to left-wingers, you buffoon. We talk about disproved theories like "aether" in science classes, along with yet-unproved theories like black holes. As long as students are encouraged to think (a tall order, I know) instead of dumbly accepting everything they're told, we'll be better off.
How sad that the other tinfoil-hat wearers thought your post was insightful.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
A stable, terrestrial (lunestrial?) location still poses several advantages over orbital facilities:
- Ability to build a much more stable, accurate instrument platform for telescopes operating in the shorter wavelengths (ie not just radio). Spacecraft docking, astronauts on EVA, and minute disturbances in gravitational fields from other celestial bodies all cause motion which would ultimately diminish the instrument's sensitivity.
- Ability to utilize the lunar surface for minerals and materials. Iron ores, etc. Orbital platforms have to be built with materials shipped at a very high energy cost (payloads).
- Protection from solar radiation. Tunnel down and get some decent mass to stop those pesky particles from randomizing your DNA in unhelpful ways.
And when it comes down to it, after a few vehicle ascents and descents around the settled area, the force of the vehicle's exhaust will both clear away large portions of dust as well as create an artifical eroding force.
The dust remains a problem? Orbit a relecting parabolic mirror and reheat the surface to a nice, creamy, smooth finish.
-mj
Just build the exterior portions of the base on a platform. There's no air on the moon to raise the dust, so just stay out of it. A single tunnels leads underground to the main habitat. Design landing docs so that the rocket exhaust blows the dust away (again, there's no air so there won't be a problem with vortices bringing the air back to you).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Just filter it.. this is basic cleanroom technology that has been perfected
All cleanroom systems rely on an overabundance of outside air to do their work. They are designed to be at a consistently higher air pressure than their surroundings, so that when breaches occur, material only blows outwards, not in. They also contaminate and "waste" a tremendous amount of air (and/or water) cleaning off visitors as they are about to enter.
The more critical goal of conserving the very limited supply of moonbase air is opposed by the less important (and less obvious) goal of preventing dust buildup inside the living/plant areas.
This is nothing new. We all learned of the perils of lunar/space dust on the Simsons' Halloween special " "Treehouse of Horror: Hungry are the Damned.". Kang and Kodos had their feelings hurt because the cook book "How to Cook For Forty Humans" was covered with the highly sticky dust resulting in the book title reading "How to Cook Humans". If only this article was available back then to Lisa Simpson, she and her family could have lived their lives in luxury on Nigel-4 instead, the insulted Kang and Kodos returned the Simpson family back to toil here on earth.
1. Hang the astronauts upside down ( feet up )
2. Beat them with a broom
In the long term: It's obvious that we need to get proactive and develop some process for eroding the lunar dust. WAIT, I KNOW! We can erode the dust by BREATHING IT! I recommend that we send a group of Windows/Linux zealots to the moon for a study. We could find lots of candidates here on /. Then we could film it and and call it "LUNAR SURVIVOR." I'd watch.
Being a smoker, I'm only moderately offended by the callous statements being made here about smokers and astronauts.
"I'd rather win in an ugly car than lose in a pretty car" - Jari Lahdenpera
Well I'm neither. The joke was that *both* sides suck -- and since I'm neither, it's equally fun to poke at both sides.
:/
Aparently, the moderators aren't smart enough to understand that
Okay...
;)
And one of the number one problems on spacecraft is thermal management. You have a hard time radiating all that extra heat away if you sit in direct sunlight all the time.
So does the asteroid belt-and its already broken up for you and in an evironment where energy is accessible. Which elements are you thinking are available on planetary surfaces that aren't available in the belt?
That said, you can still obtain some resource from asteroids, but that means you have to run out to them and set up camps on those asteroids to carve up the resources for the space stations you are talking about, or simply start building the settlements themselves right there. You still got planetary settlement then, regardless of where you ship the metal & minerals afterward.
Why wouldn't this be done robotically?
In short, I don't see a way that you can avoid settlements on the Moon or Mars in the next 500-1000 years, and any manufactured worlds (like an O'Neil colony) would have to at least have a symbiotic relationship with miners living on dirt with gravity.
Again, why wouldn't this be done robotically?
It also isn't clear to what extent you can't get these elements from the belt as necessary.
No, a more sane approach is to extract moonbase air from frozen ice or the regolith.. not truck it up from earth and be stingy with it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Somehow i'm failing to find the significant moral highground in "You can't just go around eating those people! We want to enslave them!"
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I'm just pointing out that, as always, it's a little more complex than it looks on the surface... though you seem to have encapsulated it fairly susinctly.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Dip the astronauts in water (I'm thinking a toilet U-Bend shape). The dust stays in the water and the astronaut comes out clean. The water could be filtered and reused.
You get water filtered vacuum cleaners and apparently they're 100% effective and all the allergy groups approve of them.
heh. I'm just as surprised as you that my quick quip is modded up so high. I believe the appeal is that everyone has their own definition of soon when talking about the space program. Saying things like "within our lifetime" instead of "soon" is much more appropriate. Or in the case of going back to the moon "within the next 30 years". Which I think is a fair amount of time to wait. After all, we've waited 30 years already.
How we know is more important than what we know.
a more sane approach is to extract moonbase air from frozen ice or the regolith
Even if that is possible (a long shot), you'd still need to be stingy. Extracting gas from regolith is hard.
bah.. it's 19th century technology.
How we know is more important than what we know.
That's a wonderful comic -- I had to start at the beginning and read the whole story, and when I got back to this suit design I see not only the dockable suit, but even the "keep clean" cover is described there.
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1000/fv00988.gif/
I hope NASA reads this stuff. The design is attributed to the Russian space program.
There's not that much mass available at L5 for the taking. You need to get mass to L5 first. One obvious place to get mass is the Moon, which as I understand it has comparable delta V to near Earth asteroids to near Earth asteriods.
As far as your projections 500-1000 years into the future go, we'll probably have inside of ten years rapid prototype machines (with human operators) capable of replicating themselves. It's not a particularly large jump from that point to building a space-based infrastructure from a small investment of self-replicating factories. Certainly not 500-1000 years worth which is a vast amount of time for such things.
I'm not sure what your point was about mobile homes. Mass production will always be an option. Even if we suppose that every space station has to be made by hand and was intended to stay in L5, we can move these stations literally anywhere given enough time. We either just accelerate below the tolerances of the station or we can strap down the station (or break it up into more manageable pieces) and accelerate faster. Where's the difficulty?
After all, homes made on site on Earth are moved all the time even homes that are a century or older and extremely fragile. It just requires more care, slower speeds, and more time. I see no real difference with moving space stations around. Beside each space station will need station keeping and hence will handle a usable amount of acceleration anyway. The effort required to move a station around the solar system just isn't that great. IMHO, it's harder to make the station in the first place.
I know this is a late reply to your comment, but I want to tackle this comment and put in some replies before it gets archived.
RE: older homes and moving them. You will never see a home that is more than a century old, particularly one that was "stick built" or with masonry be brought down a super highway (autobahn or interstate) at 90 mph. Instead, it will be on special trucks, often "built" on site under the home, and rarely will it even get above about 5 mph... usually less. It is more than just speed and time. The point I was trying to make is that if you are going to be moving homes around all over the place, they have to be built to do that, and that includes a "space station".
While the ISS might eventually be brought up to a geo-sync orbit (or L-5 as a museum piece), the process of doing that would be the space equivalent of moving a lighthouse down the road a couple of miles. If it weren't so big most people involved with it would simply prefer to let it deorbit and crash into the ocean (as happened to Mir and Skylab). The difficulty involved (to answer your question here) is that while low acceleration may be possible to move something from L-5, unless it was built to be moved it would take an incredibly large amount of time to move, and require specialized labor of a magnitude that doing so wouldn't be worth it unless it was a historic artifact worthy in its own right and essentially priceless. This is while older homes are moved at all, and is an incredibly expensive process.
As far as projections into the future, I don't see any fancy machines being built in the next 10 years that are substantially different than anything currently being built. Indeed, space is a frontier, which means that the big concern is that the technology base is actually going to be lower than where people are coming from. If you are going to somewhere else in the solar system, you will find that very low-tech approaches will have to be found to get a colony established. Things like horses will be common as they can self-replicate, and with a technology base that was common 1000 years ago. The problem here is that people will have to relearn how to establish industries that are taken for granted now due to mass scale industrialization, like how to sheer wool and spin it into thread. You will see bizzare things like a horse carriage with a GPS reciever, but that will be the nature of going into new worlds. And a common theme for most good SF authors.
There is no way that you can plop down everything to Mars needed to re-create a 21st century 1st world city in one single shot. The problem with the L-5 colony groups is that they assume that a Manhattan or Apollo scale project can be mounted to help build the space station, and unfortunately there just isn't a national will to spend the economic resources necessary to put something like that together (unless you have some sort of SF type doomsday issue like a black hole swallowing up the sun).
I've been having a hard time even knowing where to begin with this post.
Robots are not the answer, and the necessary artificial intelligence to get robots to do all of the cool things you are suggesting is going to be several centuries away. Sure, there have been some rather spectacular robotic missions to the outer planets (like Cassini or Voyager), but keep in mind these all had huge teams of people on the Earth working usually 24/7 trying to keep these going and had incredible costs associated with them... usually on the order of $1 billion or more for each mission. This is simply out of the question for realistic and practical robotic mineral extraction from asteroids.
Also, when you get to a production environment (as opposed to exploration missions) there are other factors that come into play where you simply are going to have to have a flesh and blood person on hand to get "dirty" and pound on stuff to get it to work correctly. On site human judgement, together with being able to send instructions without having to come up with the computer programming necessary to accomplish a totally new task never thought of before, are going to make having real people on the ground where the dirt is being pushed around. And that means you also have to have all of the related facilities necessary to keep people alive.
In addition, I feel like we need to have HUMAN colonization of space, not robotic. There is something twisted and wrong to assume that people are no longer needed as life moves into space. There are some individuals that seem to hate humanity as a whole, and would prefer mass genocide of most of the peoples of this Earth (excepting themselves and close family members or friends that think the way they do). I disagree completely and feel there needs to be a place for humanity among the rest of the stars of this galaxy. The first step is simply getting up there and going to places like the Moon or Mars.
Importantly, you can go to the Moon with a relatively small group of people (5-20 or so to start with) to make a completely self-sufficient community. That is the critical factor, and something that simply can't be done with an O'Neil colony. Yes, you can get minerals from asteroids, but you have to get to the asteroids in the first place. That is not as easy as it seems, and the Moon is considerably easier to get to.
If the Earth had a moon the size of Phobos, it would be a different story. BTW, Mars has a moon the size of Phobos, where you can extract minerals effeciently without having to worry (too much) about getting out of the gravity well. Of course, if you are going all the way to Mars to get those resources, why not also put some people down on that planet to do some poking around. And with a group already pounding the dirt down there they will have to be self-sufficient as well.
We aren't "gods" with the ability to manipulate orbits of planetary objects and put them where convient. I think the task that you have glossed over is substantially more difficult than you can possibly imagine in terms of mineral extraction, and will require an incredible amount of human labor in order to get the stuff done. Most of the current space program that has existed so far has been done relatively hidden from view where only a few astronauts who are hyper specialists (most with PhD's) represent teams of thousands not seen. In the future what you are going to see is rather than this huge group of people staying on the Earth to keep operations going in space, that army of people necessary to keep space exploration going will have to move up into space as well. That is the real challenge, and is going to fundimentally change the way living in space is going to be perceived.
I know I am coming from an American perspective on this, in part because this is mostly how the area that I live in right now was built and created, through exactly this sort of colonization process. I am only a few generations from the very first inhabitants to this area I'