NASA Unveils Strategy for Return to the Moon

mknewman writes to tell us that NASA recently announced plans to build a permanent base on the moon by 2024. The (still tentative) plans call for building the base on one of the moon's poles, which constantly receive light from the sun and have less temperature fluctuation. This base will start small in 2020 and grow over time with the hopes of eventually supporting 180-day stays and providing a jumping-off point to Mars."

Comments

FP for once...

[advocate_one]

and I was able to read the article first... just hope they're not gonna be bean-counted to death on this one... those auditors are already sharpening up their knives to trim the budget... I'd hate to see an astronaut die because things were cut too fine...

Re:FP for once...

[cold fjord]

....just hope they're not gonna be bean-counted to death on this one... those auditors are already sharpening up their knives to trim the budget.

I would worry more about the new and future Congresses, and future presidents. After all, this is in response to President Bush's initiative to go to Mars, it will require a long term commitment to accomplish it, and some people prefer President Bush to be a "miserable failure".

FTA:

"We're going to go after a lunar base," said Scott Horowitz, NASA associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. The lunar base will be the central theme in NASA's going back to the Moon effort, he said, in preparation to go to Mars and beyond.

There will always be pressure to spend the money elsewhere, especially since the budgets for social welfare programs (social security, medicare, medicaid) are going to start ballooning* due to the retiring baby boomers. The politics on this will be brutal: "If you aren't for moving $5 billion from the moon base to put into social security, you are for tossing grandma out on the street to die." You should expect the media to perform to existing standards on this issue, and Washington is a place where simply reducing the planned growth rate in future year's budgets is decried as a cut in budget. President Reagan used to be regularly excoriated in the media over budget games like this, and the pressure on future administrations is likely to be worse.

Some things, like a space program, require long term commitments as it can take years to get anything useful done. During that entire time you are subject to accusations of waste and failure since you don't have anything shiny to show for all of the time and treasure being expended. Over time, a disaster like Apollo 1 or Challenger is almost inevitable given the technically challenging and inherently dangerous nature of space exploration. The time and treasure required, and the practically inevitable lost lives, will all challenge to our commitment to go the moon and Mars. Will we remain committed? Almost everyone will celebrate the victory of establishing a moon base, and ultimately planting a flag on Mars; relatively few will support the long term effort it will take to get there.

I am hopeful that we can accomplish it. The fact that other nations are heading into space and toward the moon will probably serve to increase support for it since the US won't want to be left out.

* The combined total of social welfare spending already dwarfs military spending, including for the war against extremist Islamist terrorists. Let us hope that moderate Islam starts racking up some victories - even if it takes some time.

NASA needs mixed developments...

[__aaclcg7560]

NASA should follow the examples of many communities by resorting to mixed developments (i.e., stores on the bottom level and apartments on top) to sustain a viable community for the base. Real estate prices will obviously shoot to the moon but I'm sure that Donald Trump will go for a ride.

Re:Nice... but...

[hondamankev]

I'm excited about this announcement. However, how many other "NASA Initiatives" have been announced, and due to funding, have never materialized? How many times by how many different presidents has used space exploration purely for political gains with no intention whatsoever to follow through?

Like the OP said, I'll believe it when I start seeing it built. If they really do it, I'll still be alive and senile enough to appreciate the monumental and technical achievements not seen since (then) 55-60 years ago.

It will never happen

[WindBourne]

This is WAY too slow of a schedule.

I suspect that by 2015, we will be back on the moon due to Bigelow. Even now, the sundancer is a nice small module for launching as a good way to carry to the moon, as well as land on the moon for a station. Combine that with 2 launch systems, one for earth and one for the moon. By 2010, there will be at least 5 human rated systems (Russian, China, Space Shuttle (probably will not be fully canceled until we have orion going) or Orion, and the 2 cots system). By 2014, the Sundancer will have been in orbit for at least 3 years. That will make it acceptable for taking to the moon and landing on its surface. All that is needed is a landing system for it, a connection module, and a true lunar transport. Finally, the BA-330 will be available by 2015 (I would guess by 2011) and that will be used for the real transport to lunar orbit.

While I like the Ares V (love the capacity), I think that the only real chance is the direct launcher. It is the true safer, faster, cheaper approach.

Re:It will never happen

[nacnud75]

The first experimental GPS sat was launched in 1978 The first fuel cell was built in 1843 The technology has been around to do this for a while now, the reason for the long time lines is lack of money not lack of courage. The lack of money isn't necessarily a bad thing it makes the whole program a much more sustainable effort.

gromit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gromit, that's it! Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese!

Such a shame Sergei Korolev died.

[QuantumG]

He was the Russian space program. It all went downhill after that. The US had no way of knowing, of course, but his death signalled the end of the space race and the US had won. The fact that they got a man on the moon at all after that is a massive acheivement - a political one as well as a technical one. Even without a heavy lift vehicle, I think Korolev could have beat Von Braun to The Moon. He had the contingency all planned out. This is the plan that the Russian space agency announced last year: take a Souyez up to a space station, refuel it, do a flyby of the Moon. With another refueling in Lunar orbit, you can land and takeoff. You don't need a heavy launch vehicle to do a Moonshot.. it just makes it a lot easier.

Re:Such a shame Sergei Korolev died.

[WilliamSChips]

Yeah, it really sucked when the Ori blew up that ship.

Re:Such a shame Sergei Korolev died.

[Anonymous Coward]

The US had no way of knowing, of course, but his death signalled the end of the space race and the US had won.

When did US win space race? USA was second to put man on space. 2nd woman. 2nd to be over 24h at space. 2nd to space walk. 2nd to do multi-personnel space walk. 2nd to put a space station on orbit (3rd space station). 2nd birthday on orbit :) Russians only have double and triple birthdays on orbit. :)

About staying in space. Longest US stay on US station 84 days. Longest USA stay on Russian station 188 days. With those figures they would not even listed in Russian list top 20, could be more but top 20 is listed with a longest single stay 438 days. Longest cumulative stay 747 days. USA cumulative record 230 days.

USA leads 18-4 space deaths. So that race you won if it ended today.

Don't be a victim of US propaganda. What USA can claim is winning of "moon race". But that isn't space race.

The other big breaking news...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a rumor that NASA will announce the discovery of liquid water at or near Mars' surface.

God I hope that's true.

And I hope the aquifer is substantial.

First Things First

[DumbSwede]

Why not spend a decade concentrating our efforts on designing and building radically new heavy launch lift concepts? While we are far from being able to build a space elevators, we could build both launch assist catapults and orbit assist tethers.

Re:First Things First

[Richard_at_work]

A billion bucks could also make life seriously worse on Earth - how much has the Iraq war cost so far? NASA doesnt spend money in space, it spends money here, people get paid, companies get paid, life goes on. We have been throwing stupendous amounts of money at humanities ills for the past 50 years, do you really think a few billion more is going to accelerate the process where a few hundred billion hasnt been able to?

Earth, humanity will get fixed, but at its own pace.

less energy to go direct?

[techmuse]

Wouldn't it take a LOT less energy and time to go directly to mars, rather than stopping off at the moon and having to escape the gravity well of *two* planetary bodies before going to Mars?

Besides, they'll probably only serve peanuts, they won't have any pillows, the in flight movie will be a bad movie that all the astronauts have already seen 3 times, they will spend most of their time waiting for other spacecraft to launch while they sit in a hot and stuffy capsule, and they will have to take their moon boots off as they pass through security. Not to mention delays due to meteor showers, turbulence in the solar wind, and aliens that pop out of crew members' stomachs. It's probably better to take the train at this rate, or maybe even drive.

Re:less energy to go direct?

[Reverse Gear]

I haven't been doing calculations on this, but I imagine you need to bring a lot more weight to send someone to Mars than to the moon, so if you could somehow get the weighty parts you need to the moon in small bits (or even better extract it from the moon or make it on the moon, for example the fuel through solar panels) then I think you could save a substantial amount of fuel doing so.
Also with the moon rotation around the earth you probably would be able to get an extra starting speed that you wouldn't have to spend fuel to get.
There are probably other factors involved in this that I haven't considered ... this is just what came to mind.

Re:less energy to go direct?

[camperdave]

You don't stockpile your supplies on the Moon. You stockpile them in Earth orbit. You don't build a spaceport on the moon. That would be pointless. You build an interplanetary spacecraft in orbit. The moon serves but a single purpose in a Mars mission: Technology proving ground. Can we build functional habitats? Can we stay in space for months, years at a time? What tools do we need? What issues might arise?

The only role the moon might play in the actual Mars launch would be as a gravitational slingshot.

on the moon's pole

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it safe to build a house on ONE POLE??

Keyword: unveils

[djupedal]

Pay attention now...this is really pretty simple, but we don't want any slip-ups!

• Book backlot at Universal Studios. Same one as last time, since some of the original moonscape props are still there - minimum, oh, say 90 days out to do it.
• Schedule several hundred yards of dry beach sand and 1/4" cobble for delivery weeks 1 thru 3.
• Inform all staff that primary shooting will be done after sundown.
• Find those guys that pulled this stunt off last time!

Everybody understand? Good, now go! It's Oscar time!!!

Beancounters and budgets

[wasted]

... just hope they're not gonna be bean-counted to death on this one... those auditors are already sharpening up their knives to trim the budget... I'd hate to see an astronaut die because things were cut too fine...

I would guess that the lunar budget would be cut totally before it got that fine. There is plenty of time before an actual landing for Congress to cut that part of NASA's budget, saying "The money could be better spent here on Earth," leaving out the last part of the phrase. ("The money could be bettter spent here on Earth getting pork for my constituents so I get re-elected and/or my party gains more seats.")

I hope that it doesn't happen that way.

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[nido]

There is plenty of time before an actual landing for Congress to cut that part of NASA's budget, saying "The money could be better spent here on Earth," leaving out the last part of the phrase. ("The money could be bettter spent here on Earth getting pork for my constituents so I get re-elected and/or my party gains more seats.")

Just because that's been the modus operandi for most of the 20th century doesn't mean that it will be forever. I expect in the (very near) future it might go something like this: "after 100 years of pork, our once-noble republic is now bankrupt, and we have no resources to spend on moon shots."

See the St. Louis Fed's Is the United States Bankrupt?:

CONCLUSION

There are 77 million baby boomers now ranging from age 41 to age 59. All are hoping to collect tens of thousands of dollars in pension and healthcare benefits from the next generation. These claimants aren't going away. In three years, the oldest boomers will be eligible for early Social Security benefits. In six years, the boomer vanguard will start collecting Medicare. Our nation has done nothing to prepare for this onslaught of obligation. Instead, it has continued to focus on a completely meaningless fiscal metric--"the" federal deficit--censored and studiously ignored long-term fiscal analyses that are scientifically coherent, and dramatically expanded the benefit levels being explicitly or implicitly promised to the baby boomers.

Countries can and do go bankrupt. The United States, with its $65.9 trillion fiscal gap, seems clearly headed down that path. The country needs to stop shooting itself in the foot. It needs to adopt generational accounting as its standard method of budgeting and fiscal analysis, and it needs to adopt fundamental tax, Social Security, and healthcare reforms that will redeem our children's future.

(emphasis added)

This means no more big expensive chemical-rocket-powered moon shots. If someone figures out antigravity (I'd bet that it shares as-yet undiscovered principles with Cold Fusion) in the next couple years that'd be an option, but Apollo is simply fiscally unrepeatable.

Don't mean to be too harsh on GWB & his co-conspirators (coupsters? - whoever killed JFK never let go of the control they gained) - other countries are bankrupt too. But if you can find the United States on this ordered list of Current Account Balances, and compare its number to, say, Germany or Japan, you might begin to understand the U.S. economy's problem. Even though such industrialized countries as Spain, the U.K., Australia, France, Italy, etc are in close proximity on the list, if you compare the actual numbers you will surely realize that that certain 'empire' (military bases in 130+ countries) is in a class all by itself.

Recall that the real unemployment rate in the U.S. is probably somewhere around 12% (according to the Shadow Stats guy), and that the rich have been screwing the masses ('us') for most of the last 150 years, concentrating 'our' wealth in 'their' pockets. Even if this moonshot thing was fiscally possible, it'd just be another way for the corporate class to concentrate the working stiffs' ('our') tax dollars in their pockets.

(I look at the positives of the situation - the end of this economic system will mean the end of the masses' ['our'] current state of Wage Slavery, where many spend 40+ hours/week slaving away at two jobs to make someone else ['the corporate class' or 'the bankers'] rich.)

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[1u3hr]

"The money could be better spent here on Earth," leaving out the last part of the phrase. ("The money could be bettter spent here on Earth getting pork for my constituents so I get re-elected and/or my party gains more seats.")

The money IS all spent on Earth. It'll be a while before it can be outsourced to Mars. As for pork, why do you think NASA is based in Houston? Answer: LBJ.

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[E 99]

But if you can find the United States on this ordered list of Current Account Balances [cia.gov], and compare its number to, say, Germany or Japan, you might begin to understand the U.S. economy's problem.
I guess looking at that list, you would either have to assume that the U.S. has the worst economy in the world or the best economy in the world. The obvious truth is that it's the best. Just look at the trade deficit. All the other countries make a living selling stuff to us -- our economy drives the world economy. We're the only country with that much debt because we're the only country that could afford it. We should pay it down, however, and there's only one realistic way to go about it: (1) conclude the military actions we're involved in in Afghanistan and Iraq, (2) get back a Republican Congress so we can run budget surplusses again.

P.S. Be careful before accepting any raises or new jobs. If you ever end up in the top 15% "rich" bracket, you'll have to change all your conspiracy theories.

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[bhmit1]

[ Sorry for being completely off topic, but a few points seemed appropriate to be addressed ]

There are two things that will likely happen before the US goes completely bankrupt.

First, there will be some kind of massive plague or catastrophe to eliminate 10% or more of our population. There are simply too many people in the world causing problems with our food supply, environment, etc. Perhaps it will be a spin off of bird flu, but I suspect it will be something that no one ever considered. It's best if the impact hits the elderly hardest to reduce the strain on our medical and retirement systems.

Second, the US will crank up the printing presses. They are already considering what to do for blind people to be able to differentiate denominations, so printing a little extra will be no big deal. When push comes to shove, the choices are to raise taxes, cut spending, raise interest or other income generators, or print more money. Printing more money will have the smallest negative impact on the voters and will begin to turn around all the damage we have down with massive imports from China and other countries. If China refuses to increase the value of their currency, it's entirely possible we'll respond by devaluing ours to protect the US economy (negative side effects be damned).

But like I say, the second will have all kinds of negative side effects, which is why you will see even more of a run up in gold, real-estate, foreign investments, and other non-cash assets before the big day comes. As for the little guy, he will continue to be screwed. It's a side effect of the mega corporations that got rid of all the mom and pop shops. As they went away, so did the entrepreneurs, and as more people turned from being an employer to being an employee, income naturally redistributed. There's no easy fix for that, economies of scale won't unscale. The recovery from a bankrupt country isn't the masses getting their wealth back, it's foreign companies moving in to make a buck off of us, just look at what we do to most third world countries. But a good start would be to give our school kids a financial education instead of having them figure out how a credit card works from some guy on the sidewalk when they get to college.

Anyway, as an attempt to be on topic, I'd love to see a moon base. People need to stop thinking of their backyards and consider how we will exist when the planet tells us our time is up. The clock is ticking and it's definitely getting more angry at us these days.

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[fimbulvetr]

(2) get back a republican Congress so we can run budget surplusses again.

There, Fixed that for ya. The neocons can't help us now.

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[PermanentMarker]

Well ehm.. Looking at global impact of America on the world resources today. I could say that 10% of the people of the world. Equals about 1% of those high resource users today ..oops. Intrestingly read, as the money part is indeed intresting. The country with the biggest money problem is wel you know it ehm the same country Dont hope the trust in dollars might vaporize with such expensive ideas, it could mean a dollar collapse which would have a big impact on money markets (but will in the end balance). Think its no good to go to mars, another startrek film might cause the same global effects. Just pulpscience for the masses they dontneed to bycicle on red sand. And honestly who cares about life in the universe? I mean would it change the way you live? Would your alarmclock allow you more sleep because there is life out there? no nothing will change.

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[mr_mischief]

Printing more money has proven in the past to be inflationary, and that it would be makes sense. While a little bit of inflation is the friend of of the working man, a lot of it at once is bad for everybody. A balance might be struck there that does indeed help, but it can't be taken to extremes.

One of the biggest problems with the U.S. economy is the whole Information Economy idea. Yes, computers and networks and the right kinds of software make work much more efficient. No, having enough computers, software, and networks will not make any real work get done if we're not making anything in the first place. We're making intellectual property investments protected by U.S. laws, spending our money from that on Chinese goods, and seeing the money spent in China spent on counterfeit Chinese versions of our U.S. software, movies, music, and whatever else. Meanwhile, China is not being punished but is officially enjoying "Normal Trade Relations". China, of course, is only one example, but is the biggest example. Unless counterfeit goods can be stifled, manufacturing is still the answer to long-term stability and prosperity.

The U.S. has always been a manufacturing powerhouse, and it still is. The US does not have the kind of manufacturing leadership role it could though because it's cheaper in the short term to outsource labor or to build whole American-owned factories in China, India, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, or any number of other countries than to streamline manufacturing processes and automate factories in the U.S. for long-term prosperity. One of the biggest reasons for this is health-care costs in the U.S. -- GM and Ford, for example, have health care for current and retired workers as one of their biggest line items in their budgets.

In 2004, GM reported its liabilities for retiree health benefits alone to exceed $61,000,000,000 USD. That's 2004 dollars unadjusted for inflation, as far as I can tell. Compare that to New Zealand's 2005 estimated GDP of $101,685,000,000 USD. Maybe compare it against the 2005 GDP of Latvia at $29,214,000,000 USD. It's not hard to see that unfettered lawsuits against doctors, huge inefficiencies in health care, huge drugs costs, and other things are damaging the bottom line for big manufacturers in the U.S. at all. How to best solve the health care issue may not be clear, but that it needs to be solved should be like plate glass to anyone concerned.

Re:Beancounters and budgets

[MBGMorden]

You must have been sniffing that permanent marker that inspired your username when you wrote this.

The plan will adapt to commercial developments.

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is fully aware of the current work in commercial spaceflight.

Some NASA centers (*cough* Marshall *cough*) feel threatened by it. The brass, and some of the centers, love it, though. They can't say it strongly in public right now, but they would love to take advantage of it to make lunar exploration cheaper and more sustainable.

If the commercial sector --- including COTS, Bigelow, and the other players --- take root and grow, expect NASA to revise the lunar plans. The current plan is the fallback plan. Read the words they used today. They make very clear that the plan is provisional, pending future developments.

Re:The plan will adapt to commercial developments.

[WindBourne]

Well, it appears that Zubrin is pushing for us to go onto Mars. The nice thing about all this, is that Zubrin and the mars society probably will convince some billionare (or 2) to invest in sending us to Mars. In doing so, much of the same tech that goes to the moon will work on mars and vs.-versa.

Analysis of launch architecture; critiques

[FleaPlus]

Coincidentally, a pretty good article analyzing the planned launch architecture was published yesterday. Here's the link.

Additionally, aerospace engineer Jonathan Goff over at Selenian Boondocks has a post titled Lunar Much Sooner (and Better) which discusses a number of alternatives to NASA's current plan.

Finally, Selenian Boondocks also has another post about some things revealed by one of the architects of NASA's plans, suggesting that several of the design constraints imposed on the architecture may be somewhat dubious, (arguably) making the whole project much more expensive and unsustainable.

Let's hope it works

[Nyeerrmm]

I actually finished a presentation today with Johnson Space Center (JSC) about resupplying a Moon Base for a university class today, and I'm planning on going and helping run a booth at the SEC conference (where I assume this plan was announced) tomorrow. Needless to say I'm very excited about these plans and am very much a space exploration advocate. Look at my previous posts and I think that will show it.

NASA at times does a great job of innovation and exploration. Anything unmanned, JPL and Ames do a great job with. Not to deride anyone at JPL, but its very hard to not be a little cyncical about this. I am very afraid of what the next administration may bring, whether it's Democrat or Republican, and am afraid that whoever is next may help put the axe on Bush's best initiative (though its been a bit bastardized lately.)

Here's hoping we get a moon base like the antarctic base, and can move on to Mars (although I don't believe that the one is necessarily dependent on the other.)

Never gonna happen

[jimhill]

Just look at the steaming pile of crap that is the ISS and there's your Moon Base Alpha right there. Grandiose dreams and visions reduced to a paltry 3-man crew that spends most of its time trying to stay alive. Rah farkin' rah.

Put down your Heinleins and spend a little time trying to make the planet we will all live and die on a better place.

Re:Never gonna happen

[Nyeerrmm]

I'd say this is the exact problem with the space program. Yes, the ISS is a steaming pile of crap. Spending our the to make the planet we will all live and die on a better place is a noble goal, however, its not the only goal. I think we already have a large number of people concentrating on that. That is I know people involved in Amnesty International, developing new hybrid vehicle systems, Engineers Without Borders, and the best of organized religion (mission trips concentrated on helping people as opposed to simple evangelism). I hear of even more here on slashdot, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the One Laptop Per Child Project, and the endless watch for Big Brother-ism and the tyranny of monopoly. I personally do some work with regards to the improvement of the educational system within the US, which is one of my main personal cause du jours. However, I think with all this effort spent to improve our earthly existence, theres a little room to get us off this planet and help to provide some relief that way. Obviously it won't have immediate effect. The early colonist's to America didn't immediately stem Europe's problems even directly related to population growth, however in the end its impossible to deny its effects. And with space we dont have the genocidal side effects that are such a stain on that period in history. The future of humanity (in my own very humble opinion) depends on us establishing offworld settlements, and whether thats in the next 20 years, the next 200, or the next 2000, I plan on doing my damndest to push us forward, and supporting others who do, because some people need to do it. And there's nothing wrong with a small portion of the national budget going that way too (and it is a small portion, look it up.) Find your own way to save the world, improve it, or keep it going. All of those things are vital.

Re:Never gonna happen

[Gnostic Ronin]

I think that's true, but another thing Sci-Fis never really get right is the types of people who will go to these colonies.

When the Americas were colonized, it wasn't by and large the Well-To-Do, well-educated, aristocrats who left everything behind for America. Yes there were a few dreamers, and I won't deny it. However, most people who came weren't rich. They were the peasants, the cultural outcasts, and so on. Lord Fauntleroy wasn't interested in building the colonies. But for a peasant, it was their last chance. I think that's going to effect space travel and colonies far more than people realize.

We think Space Travel, and see Kirk beating up a klingon. Chances are that the real explorers will be 3rd worlders from Africa and South Asia, etc. On Earth, for good or for ill, the US, Europe, and other First World nations are Aristocrats. I just don't see rich Americans playing X-box being the type of people to colonize space. I think that for humanity, this is a good thing -- just don't expect the money to come into American coffers.

This has other problems as well -- namely language. Sure most highly-educated people can probably speak passable English, but I have my doubts that a random person on this planet can read -- literacy rates in many parts of the world are horrible -- let alone speak English. We'll have to solve such a problem before we can have large scale open colonization. What exactly do you do when you have large, barely literate colonists all speaking different, unrelated languages? How do you counter ethnic strife caused by bringing Serbs and Croats together, or Indians and Pakistanis, or any other groups. How do you get an emergency message around, or give safety warnings, etc. in 25 languages, and so that marginally literate new arrivals can understand them? What happens if two religious groups get into a fight -- Sunni Vs Shia in Iraq, or Christians Vs Atheists, who knows.

The long term problems of Space Exploration are more likely to be human conflicts and inequalities we bring along from Earth, much more so than anything Technological. If the scientific leadership (the first astronauts and engineers who know how the station works), do things (intentional or unintentional) that inflame people's passions, you could fairly easily end up in a riot or worst-case war that could destroy the colony.

In space "direct" != "efficient"

[Cordath]

A direct transfer orbit (which is nowhere near a straight line) to Mars is the fastest way to reach Mars, but it's also one of the least fuel efficient ways. For this reason, large payloads such as the orbiter, rover, etc. have been sent to Mars via gravity assisted transfer orbits instead. These usually involve multiple trips around the sun and a couple close passes with other planetary bodies. If the payload goes past a planet or moon at just the right angle it will sling-shot around, effectively stealing momentum from the body. (don't worry, planets have plenty to spare) Go watch Star Trek IV to get the hollywood version. Gravity assisted transfer orbits are more difficult to plot, far far slower, and overall just a PITA, but there isn't any other option at the moment. Even if we had the money to spare nobody makes rockets big enough to send large payloads to Mars "directly".

Unfortunately, sending humans to Mars via gravity assited transfer orbits is not as easy. It's a much longer trip, so unless we sort out that suspended animation gig soon they would need much more food, supplies, etc.. That means more mass and more fuel, so a direct transfer orbit starts to look more economical for human travellers. As an added bonus, they don't spend several years in deep space, probably much closer to the Sun for much of their journey facing who knows what kind of added health risks. Given that there's little chance we'll ever build a rocket big enough to blast off directly for mars,we'll have to assemble the ship that goes to mars in orbit or on the moon. The moon's low-gravity environment may well prove to be an easier and safer environment for assembling an interplanetary space vessel. The moon is only about 1.2% as massive as the Earth so it's not that much of a "detour".

Re:In space "direct" != "efficient"

[DerekLyons]

A direct transfer orbit (which is nowhere near a straight line) to Mars is the fastest way to reach Mars, but it's also one of the least fuel efficient ways. For this reason, large payloads such as the orbiter, rover, etc. have been sent to Mars via gravity assisted transfer orbits instead. These usually involve multiple trips around the sun and a couple close passes with other planetary bodies.

Not true at all - every US Mars mission to date with the exception of Mariner 10 has been a direct launch. (What few gravity assist missions the US has flown have been mostly because the mission budget couldn't be stretched to cover the cost of a larger booster.)
 
 

Even if we had the money to spare nobody makes rockets big enough to send large payloads to Mars "directly".

Nobody in their right mind would launch a 'large' (presumably manned) Mars payload directly - it would be assembled in and launched from Earth orbit.
 
 

Given that there's little chance we'll ever build a rocket big enough to blast off directly for mars,we'll have to assemble the ship that goes to mars in orbit or on the moon. The moon's low-gravity environment may well prove to be an easier and safer environment for assembling an interplanetary space vessel.

No, it would be much harder and much more dangerous. (As well as *much* more expensive.) A launcher than can put 100 tons of Mars bound components into LEO can only put 12 or so tons of the same into Lunar orbit or 5 tons onto the lunar surface - which means many more launches, both of components and of support for the assembly crew. Worse yet - you waste a great deal of mass and fuel on your Mars craft because assembling it on the surface means it has to be strong enough to withstand being assembled and launched from the surface rather than the far more benign assembly and launch enviroment of orbit. (This alone will boost the number of launches by 20-30% *over and above* the already vastly increased number required by moving it to the Moon in the first place.)
 
And that's just the problems caused by the weight issue - the problems caused by the lunar surface thermal enviroment, potential dust contamination, etc... etc... make the issue even worse.

Fuel depots in orbit.

[Anonymous Freak]

If you want to run a moonbase, how do you get lots of fuel into Earth orbit? And into lunar orbit? Doesn't sound terribly efficient. You get fuel into Earth orbit with heavy lifters. That carry enough fuel for multiple moon trips. You then use a light-lift rocket to get the actual spacecraft up. You can then do multiple light-lift spacecraft up to use up the previously launched fuel more cheaply than putting each spacecraft on its own heavly-lift rocket. If we had used a Saturn V to put a refueling station up (Skylab sized, without the 'space station' internals,) we could have used Saturn-IBs to actually launch the moon-ready pair. (The IB was used to launch Apollo 5, an unmanned CSM/LM pair.) Refuel in LEO, then head off to the moon. That would have saved a lot of money, and could have kept us going to the moon. The main reason this wasn't done was to save development time. It would have required longer to develop the orbiting refueling depot and related procedures.

As for putting a fueling station in lunar orbit, yeah, that's more difficult. The moon's gravity is low enough that 'wasting' the fuel to do direct lunar launches all the way back to Earth orbit would probably have to do until we come up with a 'cheap' way to get mass quantities of fuel to lunar orbit.

But, again, it might be cheaper to launch one big 'fuel depot' to the lunar surface and cut down on the need to carry return fuel out (from Earth) and down on the actual landing craft.

Re:Cost for supporting people is high.

[Wavicle]

They need to be so fast that going to and from Pluto should take no more than an hour.

186,282.397 miles per second. It's not just a good idea, it's the law!

What is there to be had?

[soccerisgod]

A quote from the Stargate episode "The Nox":

They said the same thing about the Apollo Program. That brought back some moon rocks. You may have noticed we haven't been back to the moon in 20 years.

Now we might all agree that space exploration is exceedingly exciting. But why on Earth (no pun intended) would we want to go to the moon? There's nothing there but sharp and spikey moondust. Now, missions like Hubble I understand and support. Those make sense as they get us a much better insight into what is out there and how it might have come to be. But manned missions to nowhere just to prove "we can do it"? It seems to me this kind of mission is designed purely for the publicity value. For the general public, stunts like these are much more interesting than some probes sent to other planets that actually provide us with new and possibly new information.

And don't even get me started on the "we have to spread out humanity to other planets" argument. I'd rather die out as a species than to have to live on Mars, I tell you that.

Re:Cost for supporting people is high.

[nacnud75]

Well seeing as the point of sending people to the moon is to figure out how to get humans to survive off planet just sending robots seems rather pointless. There is nothing to stop you sending robots as well in fact sending both is probably far more productive than either alone as then enhance each others strengths.

Astroids

[Ignatius]

Forgetting one moment about the ridiculous time schedule (17 years with current technology after Apollo took less than 10 years after starting virtually from scratch half a century ago is simply embarrassing), the question remains what to do up there besides scientific explorations. The Moon is basically a pile of worthless dirt: Light crust material with all the volatiles gassed out.

Going after astroids is both cheaper (in terms of delta-v) and more interesting economically: You have anything from volatile rich comets to core material iron/nickel balls in all different sizes and at delta-vs as low as several hundred m/s from HEO (as compared to 2 x 1.4 km/s for the moon). Also, a zero gravity enviroment has many advantages for processing, requires less structural support (e.g. for solar pannels and mirrors) and makes it easy to move heavy stuff around.

After all, if you're serious about developing a permanent space presence, you will need some sort of space industry which is easier to bootstrap from astroids than on the moon.

Re:Astroids

[sasha328]

Going after astroids is both cheaper (in terms of delta-v) and more interesting economically:

Well, that may be true, but where is the nearest Earth-orbiting asteroid? Not anywhere to be seen?
 
Yes, it may be more interesting/rewarding to go to an asteroid, but if it aint staying in the neighbourhood, how do we get anything back?

All right, I will take a shot.

[WindBourne]

Speaking of "first things first", why not focus on, oh, I don't know, AIDS. Or maybe homelessness in America. Or shitty public schools. Or a better trained (i.e. not shooting a drunk, black guy 50 times) police force. Or clean water. Or more energy efficient cars.

1. Aids: The simple answer is that more money is going into aids research, prevention, and life sustinance than into NASA. Funny thing though, is that AIDS is not even #3 killer in America, let alone the world. Throwing money at it will NOT make this happen. In fact, if you are going to solve a major bio killer, then solve heart problems, cancer, or even influenza.
2. Homelessness in America? You kidding? the best way to solve it is by job creation esp for the middle class. As it is, the middle class is being quickly wiped out. What will get it back is simple job creation. And where does that come from? By start-ups and by high tech. And where does the high-tech for this come from? Well, DARPA is a good source. So is, wait for it, NASA.
3. shitty public schools. First, our schools are not that shitty. The problem is that other nations are simply catching up. Due to our high labour costs, we need to figure out how to teach more efficiently esp since we are losing our middle class (the true tax base). But where does all that high-tech education come from? Various sources including .... NASA.
4. a better trained police force: This will not change until society changes its mores. Unless you want American to force everybody to think the same (it failed in NAZI Germany, totalitarian USSR and China), then this will take time.
5. Clean water: this is doable today. The problem is that it is an issue of politics. Bush has been gutting the EPA and its rules (including on clean water). As it is, the new dems will at least slow down the rape and pillage. But now it is up to the dems to win the next election as well as make sane laws. For starters, they should allow more oil drilling. Just hold the companies and their officials truely responsible. Require that drilling in environmentally sensative areas require BEST AVAILABLE tech, as opposed to simply setting minimum standards. If we did that, then the drilling would happen as tech improves and oil prices go up, but it would be safe. Basically, they need to use some reason.
6. Energy efficent cars: Worse idea yet. The simple answer is that the gov. has no business trying to figure out how to solve this. As it is, Bush is busy giving oil major tax cuts, which skews the market. In addition, he is pushing hydrogen which is 20 years out. OTH, v.c. money is going into electrical systems esp. super capacitors. If Bush (including clinton, bush I, and reagan) had stayed out of playing with support for Oil, then we would already have efficient cars. BTW, who else is spending money on good super capacitor? NASA. Why? because most of the sats have power cycles due to solar cells being blocked by planet shadows. In addition, batteries really have a limited re-charge cycle on the order of a 1000x, where U.C. are rechargable 100-1000 K x.

I will take the idea of spreading our risks around rather than trying to solve just one or several issues, thank you very much. NASA is acutally some of the cheapest insurance that our society has. As it is, a bunch of new jobs are about to come on line in aviation and aeronautics, due to NASA.

2024??

[tsa]

Whatever happened to "before this decade is out"? Why the hell could we go to the moon almost from scratch in the 1960's and do we need almost 20 years now?

Re:2024??

[DerekLyons]

Whatever happened to "before this decade is out"? Why the hell could we go to the moon almost from scratch in the 1960's and do we need almost 20 years now?

We didn't go to the moon from scratch in the 1960's. By the time Kennedy made his announcement considerable work was already in progress (and had been for some years) on various things that could be repurposed to going to the moon. (Most importantly the F-1 engine and Apollo capsule.) Additionally, NASA of that era had essentially a blank check (the Apollo program consumed on average 1% of the GNP by itself over the period 1963-69), where the NASA of today has live on a much tighter budget - with very little of the precursor work done.

So this new moonbase..?

[StoatBringer]

Will it have Blackjack, and hookers?

Re:Cost for supporting people is high.

[AGMW]

... and by using a crude robot ...

I, for one, welcome our new foul mouthed, swearing like a wounded pirate, robot overlords ... er ... or something?

Earth to the Moon

[D.A. Zollinger]

As someone who finished watching "From the Earth to the Moon" earlier tonight, I can say that I can't wait for humans to return to the moon. We do need a permanent presence on the moon, for many reasons, such as; separation of the human species in case of global tragedy, explore moon's geology (where did that thing come from?), explore theories about colonization, biospheres, and self-sustenance, launch point for future missions to distant worlds (if we could build a manufacturing center on the moon, its 1/6th gravity would be very beneficial to launching new craft), and many, many, many more benefits both seen and unseen.

Returning to the moon is in humanity's best interest, and is clearly the path to the future. Focus on the space program will push development and inventions to help push the edge of what is capable. I see space travel as one of the grand challenges we will face in our lifetime, and it would be a shame to hesitate when we have already taken so many steps toward that goal. As someone who was born prior to the last Apollo mission, I feel it is a crime that we have abandoned the moon for the majority of my lifetime.

Unfortunately, the political winds have not been blowing favorably towards NASA, and it may take another visionary like JFK to take us back to the moon and beyond.

Re:Earth to the Moon

[Tsuki_no_Hikari]

Try telling that to the racist bigots in much of the world. Even if not evident, in some form, I'd say most people in the developed/developing world have some type of prejudice in their hearts. In America it's the gays and Arabs these days. No one is immune to it. It's human nature to try to stick to familiar groups of people. You can make yourself be a better person by doing what you can to be as kind and fair a human being as you can be, but most of the world doesn't have that patience, even if for one type of person. That's just discrimination by skin color or personal background. Imagine the racism if you have humans who are born with an entirely different physiology than us. Never doubt the reaches of human racism.

Re:Earth to the Moon

[E 99]

That's just discrimination by skin color or personal background. Imagine the racism if you have humans who are born with an entirely different physiology than us. Never doubt the reaches of human racism.

Lousy moon people with their degenerated muscles! They come around here and take all our jobs and then say, "ooo, everything is SO HEAVY, help!" Friggin moon people. They're the scum of the er.. moon. (sorry, just practicing)

Re:Earth to the Moon

[Daniel Dvorkin]

And one might call you a bigot, because you are a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion, such as those who choose to be racist. So you are a bigot towards racists. What makes you any better?

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

It is perfectly legitimate to judge people by their actions. You are welcome to believe anything you want about people who are in some way different from you. But the instant you step over the line of treating them differently because of that belief, you have marked yourself as evil. And realistically, there are very damn few racists/sexists/religionists/whatever-ists who can keep themselves from crossing this line.

What makes the anti-racist better than the racist? The same thing that makes the person who kills in self-defense better than the serial killer.

Re:Earth to the Moon

[ultranova]

The moon's gravity is 1/3 that of Earth's, so any human beings that reproduce and stay there for some number of generations will grow to be much taller and thinner. They're muscle structure might change a lot and by the end of the human race on Earth, they'll be completely alien

Wrong. Such changes happen if, and only if, they give a significant advantage in the number of offspring such people produce. Since the human hipbone is already too thin for safe birth, and the reason it can't get wider is that you'd have trouble walking then, it is likely that evolutionary pressure would be for wider, not thinner, people. Why the muscle structure would change I have no idea; large (strong) muscles are only disadvantageous during a famine (since they consume energy), since upkeeping them consumes more energy than smaller muscles, and such famines are pretty unlikely in a colony dependent on high technology (if it breaks, the colonists are all dead anyway). Unless you meant the places the muscles anchor to, in which case we're talking at least millions of years of evolution...

Of course all of this completely ignores human medical and other technology, which is likely to render any such advantages/disadvantages insignificant. But even discounting that, let's all repeat now: "Acquired charasteristics are not inherited, with the only exceptions being mutations".

Good fearmongering nonetheless. And, I suspect, a good troll.

Re:Nice... but...

[SamSim]

All we need is another space race and it'll be done inside a decade. Let's start fabricating evidence that the terrorists are planning their own moon base.

Radiation

[AliasTheRoot]

With no magnetic field to shield them what kind of strategies will the base need to use to cope with solar radiation and not have the astronauts fried? Is it as simple as building the base in a crater permanently in shadow?

Here's the plan

[gelfling]

Outsource the project to India and China
Rebrand it
Declare success

Re:Cost for supporting people is high.

[testadicazzo]

+5 for informative? wow... if I had mod points that would get overrated.

sorry, that was pretty polemic. Your post and the rating it got show however, a lack of understanding of both physics, and the process of scientific discovery and eventual engineering.

A quick google search reveals tha the distance of pluto (presumably average distance) is 5.4 light hours. A light hour is the distance light can travel in an hour. It's also the shortest possible time anything can get from point a to point b as dictated by the fundamental limits of the universe as best we currently understand them. So travelling at the speed of light, which we are so very very far away from being able to achieve, we could get to pluto in 5.4 hours. For frame of reference, the fastest manned spacecraft to date is appolo 10 at 11000m/s (3.7e-5 c, a pretty impressive feat actually).

What are the issues facing high speed space travel?

First off you have the limitation of the speed of light. It might be there is some fancy sci-fi solution to this limit, but we don't even have a theoretical idea of how to approach the problem, so until there's a major revolution in physics (it could happen, it does from time to time) you're stuck with it.

A second issue is the problem of the energy required to accelerate a body to sufficiently fast speeds. This is the issue your Heim reference addresses. Well, another consequence of relativity is the mass of a body increases as you accelerate it. This means that the closer we get to light speed, the more force required to accelerate a given body by the same amount (f=ma, but a=a(v)!). Practically speaking this imposes another limitation on the speed we can accelerate to. To keep it simple, lets say we it really is possible to use this Heim stuff to overcome the limits of the rocket equation (extra mass for extra acceleration, yuck!). Well great. But we still don't even understand the theory properly, let alone have a working prototopy, so that's years and years away, and because of relativity we probably can't hope for better than ~.001c as maximum speed. That means 5000 hours at max speed to pluto.

But we haven't addressed acceleration yet, which is my point 3: The human body can only withstand so many G's (1g = earth's gravity, a unit of acceleration, 9.8m/s^2). the space shuttle accelerates at 3G which uncomfortable but doable (note that special materials were developed as part of the space program to reduce the impact of acceleration, for example tempur. These materials now have civilian applicatons). The detonator at thorpe park goes to -5.5g. Wikipedia says the highest g force sustained by humans were (voluntary 46.2g astronaut john stapp, involuntary 180g F1 driver David Purley in an accident). But surviving high g's for a short time and for a long time are different things. We'll take a n aggressive estimate and say we could accelerate at 5g's sustainably. To reach .001c with 50g's would take .003e8 m/s / (5 * 9.8m/s^2) ) ~= 8 hours (neglecting relativistic effects, real time would be longer... lets say we can increase the force arbitrarily to compensate for relativity, again more new physics needed). So we need 16 hours to reach that speed, and another 16 hours to decelerate at the other side, means 16 hours accelerating and decelerating, and I'm neglecting more relativity here, but again on the aggressive side.

My next point is often neglected. What happens if you hit a little meteorite (It could be the size of a pebble, or even just a little cloud of dust). If that smacks into you at .001c relative velocity, you can bet it's going to do a lot of damage, even without considering relativistic mass. Think about how much damage small meteors do impacting earth at terminal velocity, which is probably at .00001 c or something... So we need shielding technology. Think about how much trouble the shuttle has with it's shielding tiles...

The up

Correction

[volpe]

Crap, I forgot a square root in there. The required speed is 0.9696c. Sorry.

Re:Nice... but...

[adamanthaea]

First step: Convince Bush that Moonraker was actually a documentary.

Re:Cost for supporting people is high.

[indifferent children]

To Pluto in an hour would take about 6 times the speed of light. Not likely to happen anytime soon.

That's good, because at 6 times the speed of light 'soon' would be 'recently', and your comment would be a dupe.

Apollo = 2.5 Iraqs

[maillemaker]

>Apollo is simply fiscally unrepeatable

I have read that for the $340,000,000 currently spent in Iraq we could have nearly 2.5 Apollo missions in today's dollars.

Re:Apollo = 2.5 Iraqs

[CommunistHamster]

Apollo program, not apollo missions. One apollo mission was relatively cheap, but the program required to develop the technology for that missions (and the others) was expensive. I suppose there could have been a new moon program and a fusion power program (or a sizable donation to the ITER)

Re:Apollo = 2.5 Iraqs

[Omestes]

I wouldn't think that R&D costs would be nearly as high as during Apollo, I mean we already DID the R&D on Apollo, and thousands of other unmanned missions since. Sure we might not launch the technology that scifi writers are extolling, but do we really need a hydrogen pulse engine and solar sails to get to the moon? Probably not, we got there fine with massive amounts of explosives strapped to the back of a couple brave souls. We could do this again if it wasn't for NASA being a bunch of wusses. Back during Apollo they had cojones, now they seem to think that space should be risk free, and if not, no one can go. It's like Disney bought NASA.

Re:Apollo = 2.5 Iraqs

[ultranova]

Sure we might not launch the technology that scifi writers are extolling, but do we really need a hydrogen pulse engine and solar sails to get to the moon? Probably not, we got there fine with massive amounts of explosives strapped to the back of a couple brave souls.

Yes, we do. We aren't talking about a single or even a few missions, but a permanent base. Permanent base means regular trips to rotate crew and bring in supplies. Regular trips must be cost-effective so it can be maintained even during financial difficulties - and, frankly, the chemical rocket was/is anything but cost-effective.

The Apollo approach - using a single rocket that launches from the surface of Earth and goes all the way to the Moon and hauls a rocket capable of both landing and rising back up from the lunar surface, and finally returns back to Earth surface - is all fine and good for a single trip, but regular trips require splitting the journey into three stages (Earth -> terrestial orbit, terrestial orbit -> lunar orbit, lunar orbit -> Moon) and using a different vechile for each. Maybe you'd use the Shuttle (or whatever replaces it eventually) to reach orbit, switch to a solar sail there (one that never lands but just moves between terrestial and lunar orbits) and, finally, the station would send a lunar lander to get you down from the lunar orbit ?

But the point is: the Apollo way of doing things is not suitable for regular Earth-Moon travel, especially if you need to supply a lunar base.

This is great news ..

[level4]

.. because it throws down the gauntlet to China. China's in the same position the USSR was a generation ago - proud, insecure, and eager - perhaps overeager - to demonstrate its "greatness". But unlike the USSR, they actually have the economic viability to mount a decent long-term challenge to the USA.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. America is a great country but it NEEDS a competitor. Without Russia to "compete against" the whole game has fallen apart, the US has lost its confidence, progress in "national pride" projects such as this grinds to a helpless standstill while the narrow-minded lefties whine about "the money could be best spent at home" and similar short-term thinking - and let's not even mention the miserable standstill in the middle east.

China is shaping up to be the new Russia for America - a capable, proud opponent who will catalyse any number of "races", some good, some bad. But any way you cut it, this can only be a good thing in the long term, and China certainly presents less of a threat than Russia.

Now if the Euros could get in on the action, we could have a three-way race to the stars, and progress in space technology will accelerate to a pace we can only dream of today, and about time.

Brilliant news, let's wait for China's response - that's what will really "lock it in".

Heim theory may permit "warp drive"

[maddogsparky]

http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg18925331.2 00

The above article at the above link has a quote indicating that physical constants may be different if one were to travel along the different dimensions described by Heim Theory. If that was the case, the speed of light may be raised and the trip to Pluto shortened. Note that this would not actually require traveling faster than light, just faster that light as measured in "our" vacuum.

Think of it as a real theory which predicts warp-drive-like effects.