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NASA Considers Plans for Permanent Moon Base
el crowbar sent us a link to an MSNBC article detailing NASA's plans for a moon base. The permanently staffed structure could begin construction sometime in 2010, with six-month duty rotations the norm by 2025. Interestingly, the space agency is looking far afield for technical expertise. Consultants on the project include individuals from Caterpillar, Norcat, Boeing, and other manufacturing concerns. Right now the only detail for placement and purpose is 'on the rim of a crater near one of the poles', but the article outlines a few other ideas that enterprising individuals have in mind for a moon base. Besides helium-3 mining and lunar hotels, do you have any good ideas for a moon base startup?
But I coulda swore I heard some crackpot on the radio saying the US already HAD a base on the moon. Man, slashdot is slow...
Funnypics
Naturally, a basketball court for all us white folk...
This is the first resident
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
A lunapark and casino with hookers and blackjack... Ah, forget about the blackjack.
Let's see...
Moon Base (for the sci-fi fans)
Resort Hotel (most likely modeled in the Las Vegas "style")
Commercial trips to the moon (perfect for advertising agencies to plaster their wares on)
Strip Mining (for the republicans)
Yeah, you can tell the American touch has been put on these plans (Note, I am American). Any chance we can put some government offices, maybe a DMV or something?
Disclaimer: This is written as sarcastic dry comedy, not hateful/spiteful/snotty
- Nobody would know what RTFA meant if it didn't need to be said all the time
Gotta have some good porn on the moon and imagine the possibilities of making new porn there too!
I could see lots of novelty things that would bring a premium on the moon, from radio and television shows (imagine Coast to Coast live from the moon?) plus the market for moon dust and rocks back here on earth. Something similar already done, but worth doing again, is "first day covers": envelopes postmarked from the moon.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Does it come with a giant "Laser beam?"
From TFA:
I think we should start by getting a few moon facts straight before we progress to a permenant settlement:
So if it was going to lose line of sight occasionally it would be on every lunar orbit, not every year. The lunar axis of rotation is so close to the orbital plane around the Earth that a polar station will never see the Earth move significantly in its sky.
If anybody is interested my preference would be for a heavy, pressurised rover. Capable of autonomous driving and control from the ground. Each new crew lands close to the path of the rover and drives it for a week or so. They then meet up with another lander and use its ascent stage to return to Earth. Some ascent stages are landed under remote control so that the first crew can use one to return.
The problem with a fixed base is that the local area will get boring pretty quickly, so a pressurised rover will be needed in any event. If the rover only drives at 10km/h the whole habitat may just as well be on the rover. It can drive fast enough to always be in sunlight, so you don't have to worry about energy storage at night.
Ascent stages are flown down under automatic control, or left behhttp://michaelsmith.id.au
A moonbase? Starting four years from now?
Give me a break.
So... are they going to sprinkle around a bunch of LED pictures of Earthlings to incite panic on the moon?
They need an amusement park. We're whalers on the Moon, we carry a harpoon...
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
It's a pain manufacturing a vacuum; the moon has a lot of it laying around, making it a great place to make things that require one.
How about.... a solar forge, melting down local ore, bubbling a gas through it (lower gravity means more spherical bubbles, better strength) to make foam alloy structural elements, then putting it on your solar powered catapult to shoot into orbit for either a) recovery for earth use via semi-controlled re-entry or b) orbital construction.
Low gravity ceramic compounds would be interesting also.
um... a joke has to be thrown in...
great place for a remake of Sapce:1999?
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Probably not very feasible, but why not have a base built underground, where the temperature could be stabilized year-round?
- Aetheral Research -
Inquiring minds want to know.
Normally something like building a base on the moon would seem like a cool idea. But in today's world of politics and jockeying for money, this will never see the light of day. Projects over 4 years are guaranteed to get the boot at some point down the road for either political reasons or just flat out budget issues.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
Or maybe build something along the lines of the moon base in the old British sci-fi flick Space 1999, only they'd better hurry up and go back in time, since 1999 is now in a time warp seven years away in the past... Oh wait a minute. I must've forgotten to take my time travel sickness pills.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
I say we use the moon as a place to exile enemies of humanity like George Bush and Dick Cheney. Throw Osama bin Laden in there too, make them share a bunk-bed.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I was just watching The House Oversight Committee being told by a NASA scientist that global warming had to be addressed. So what does our government do? Throw a ton of money at blasting a four ton tourist trap into space. Have we learned our lesson? I think not. Perhaps once we lose Manhattan the 9-11 fever will redirect its frustration. Perhaps.
Hey, somebody call Babs Bain and Martin Landau! We've got an endless supply of Eagles, crap scripts and disaffected space-hippies out there for you to go find. Just make sure you can remember the only two facial expressions you ever had to pull: "shocked" and "confused".
Consultants on the project include individuals from Caterpillar, Norcat, Boeing, and other manufacturing concerns.
In different words, the US government is taking away most of the money flowing to scientifically valuable projects and instead handing it out to big corporations with no experience. This is kind of like the administration's picks for "experts" and service companies in Iraq.
Wars and space exploration, together with outsourcing and privatization, are a great pretext for corporate welfare and pork.
I'd prefer to see the space program killed altogether and NASA disbanded instead of having taxpayer money wasted on moon colonies and manned trips to Mars.
The moon is a harsh mistress. If we go up there we might not be able to come here back down :p.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
More likely a lunar detainment and "rendition" centre far from snooping eyes and pesky UN rules and human rights lawyers.
Don't they know that a base on the moon is just going to be overrun by Cybermen? Duh!
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
just tell me the answer to this ...
Read radical news here
they are not able to acceptably and feasibly maintain an orbital space station around earth. Are they gonna go set up a base in a more distant and hostile environment ?
Read radical news here
Just existing up there requires a Ph. D. in Not Fucking Up the Hab.
And for what? He-3? Try again.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
regular reentries cause a significant amount of heat, way to speed up global warming some more guys...
Forget 6 month rotations. Ask for volunteers to make the moon their permanent home. They would need larger sturdy buildings but the goal should be to build enough infrastructure so that mining and refineries can eventually build additional infrastructure completely from resources on the moon itself. In the long run I imagine that this would be much more economical than trying to maintain an aging space station. I would def be looking to sign up to be a lunar pioneer. Sure it would be hard but nothing worthwhile comes easy. The 3 main resources that would be in short supply would be oxygen, water, and food. But with water and seed food could be grown.. maybe even enough plant life to produce a renewable supply of oxygen and food. Leaving only water, I guess that's why NASA is so bent on looking for that stuff!
Electricity could be provided from solar power, since you would have areas that always receive direct sunlight. At first a large scale Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator could provide more than enough power.
I may be a pessimist but it's my belief that the key to long term human survival (as a species) requires that we find a way to get off this rock and not just for 6 months but indefinitely. The moon seems like a very good start. Once we learn how to survive there the prospect of permanent colonization of an actual planet, like Mars, would be cake.
Nick Powers
Computer Science Masters student Texas A&M U
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
Lunar hotels? He3 mining? Did someone say Moonbase? http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/moonbase That was one of my favorite games ever...seventeen years ago.
So does anybody know when Google is going to start calling the people who applied to come in for interviews?
I can see it now. My moon garden in the future with Natalie Portman naked and petrified, covered in abrasive grits.
Watch out for Ignignokt, he might flip you the bird real hard then explode... or maybe just light up like a toy. *shrug*
Up, make it self-sustainable, self-expanding and self-developing through utilising the resources available on the moon, aiming to import as little as possible from the mother nest. I say we should aim for a colony, not a base.
Well the Indians are planning on making a moon trip... maybe everyone'll work together on the moon base.
_Vishal www.squad9.com
Besides helium-3 mining and lunar hotels, do you have any good ideas for a moon base startup?
/. submission summary:
2 -climatechange_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
This is possibly the most small-minded query ever seen on a
[assume best Jeff Spicoli persona] Like, Mr. Hand, do you have any good ideas for a moon base startup? [giggles nervously]
Opinions on the submission summary aside, the big question for me is: To what extent will Americans (I'm not) expect this venture to be self-funding? A research component (pursuit of pure knowledge stuff) in NASA's budget will, I expect, only get you part-way.
If helium-3 is present to the extent indicated by the lunar soil samples brought back by Apollo 11 and subsequent missions, then the economics of a lunar mining operations might even work - if we can find something to do with a big swack of helium-3, other than filling kid's birthday balloons. Maybe there's someone out there who is an authority on this: to what extent does using helium-3 as fuel for fusion reduce the by-product/radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors? Is helium-3 at reasonable cost a Big Win for the nuclear industry?
The time is certainly ripe for getting serious about getting out of the fossil-fuel business (not from an economic perspective, where Exxon's $40 Billion USD profit last year looks Pretty Good, but from a How Long Can This Go On? perspective).
I'm reading this the day after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued their report, which says things don't look good, to say the least:
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2007-02-0
So the economic appeal may be there.
Six month rotations are mentioned. I'm not an out-doors guy, but I'll tell you that the prospect of spending 175+ straight days in-doors isn't too appealing to me. Maybe this is why Huxley envisaged Happy Drugs; this would be the ultimate test of our ability to medicate ourselves to contentment in the face of adversity in our environment. I'm wondering what the rotation cycles are for remote assignments on Earth, e.g. Antarctic and Arctic exploration stations? While functionally the Antarctic Winter and the Lunar environment have the same effect - no going outside except in serious gear, or you die - I think that there is a psychological oppression that goes along with being on the moon. Comments?
I think that six month rotations would take quite a while to build up to.
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
starting a country with freedom as its basis on the moon
i would say that could be done here on earth but it hasn't been, and there is no unclaimed land left to move to.
waspleg
Build A datacenter to host piratebay services, away from Mpaa, Riaa and their friends.
Careful! Once you have finished building your base some Jewish fundamentalists come along and claim that God gave them this peace of Land personally. If you resist they will call you terrorists and get the US military to blow up your base.
Heinlein had Luna City set up as a penal colony, originally. However, given the massive growth in the number of laws we have and the fact that almost everyone breaks the law doing something... (talked on a cell phone in a car? Let the batteries run out in your smoke detector? Bumped into someone on the subway? Ooops--assault!) well, it might just be easier to send the innocent people to the moon. Also, can we send up a bovine creature capable of jumping?
Don't piss off the neighbors. Their space guns are better than ours ;)
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
IMHO organised religion should be prohibited on the moon. However, as we know all too well, various "world leaders" and terrorists, think that they hear their god talking to them and seem to enjoy misinterpreting their religious guide books. (Books and scripts which were written thousands of years ago, often in the same part of the world, funnily enough, translated, ammended, adapted and forked). No doubt they will insist on taking their gods to the moon.
I've got nothing against people having faith or belief in something but I do have a problem with people trying to force those beliefs on to others. If organised religions start to become polular on the moon, will we see a repeat of the past few thousands of years on Earth?
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Start searching thew Tycho crater for a magnetic anomaly...
Actually space tourism is an excellent way to start "terraforming" even the moon. Of course it cannot hold an oxygen atmosphere so full terraforming is impossible. Tourist will happily pay to visit moon so that any enterprise is profitable to begin with. Tourist always leave something behind: urine and excrement that can be used to fertilize land in small greenhouses.
Also it's a good idea to transfer raw materials to moon as containers of food, water, liquor or whatever. These containers then can be melted/molded into raw materials to build things... and keep in mind that tourist are required to pay for this cargo.
They allready have a base on the moon, this means in a few years time it will be magicly completed. And be built on 60's tech!
The thing I always wonder when it comes to a moon colony is Will we do something that fucks with the moon's rotation/the earth's tides = ?
Is anyone concerned about this? I suppose in the beginning we won't have much impact. Just like industrialization and global warming. (Joke; They gazed upon their coal darkened skies and took a deep breath of elation, seeing smog filled skies as a sign of their(our) progress.)
sometimes, nothing.
Obviously the export of the moon would be solar power converted to microwave and beamed to recievers orbiting earth. Wasn't it Heinlen who suggested that tunnels be dug and farms created heated by the raw solar energy from above? If h2o is anywhere near the the polar caps then ice mining?
The solution is to make any intellectual property created for this endeavor public domain when the effort fails. That way there will be plenty of encouragement to participate only if the companies think they will succeed. If they succeed then they profit off their IP monopolies. And if they fail then the public will have received something for their tax dollars and the companies may still have an edge over their competition -- just not a long-lived one.
Finally, IP would have a use other than screwing non-lawyers.
Maybe this is just a clever ploy to bring the War on Terrorism to the front?
To me the only sensible thing to do with a moon base is to dig it out of the lunar surface, not place buildings on that same surface. Consider!
Builds require structural materials to maintain their integrity, which means mass to haul into space
There is no protective atmosphere on the moon, so the structures are SOL if a rock happens to come wandering in from space, barring LOTS of mass for protection. (Yes it can happen - where do you think meteor showers come from?)
Radiation on the moon's surface is also not cut down, so same problem as incoming high speed rocks. Materials durability concerns, people concerns, all sorts of fun.
If we put the sucker underground, we get a nice layer of rock on top of the base, which will neatly avoid getting lots of support materials up there and will protect everyone. It would also provide thermal inertia against extreme temperature swings, reducing energy and insulation costs. Sure the view would suck, but I'll bet after a while the view on the moon would get old too. Have a viewing station above for observations/airlock/what have you, but build the bulk of it underground. The moon is relatively stable geologically and the far more active Earth has plenty of underground structures on it, so the real question is digging it out.
So I would suggest looking at ways to hollow out large areas on the moon with minimal equipment. My first thought would be small, low mass automated diggers running off of solar power feeds working slowly over time, so we can learn about the environment as we dig into it. Easy to get up there, and over time they could do serious work if built reliable (think filling up a swimming pool one drop at a time, just in reverse.)
It wouldn't have the neat "space base!" look you see on the covers of science fiction books, but I think it would be much more practical, safe, and useful.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
......but the moon turned out to completely suck.2 591/sr=1-1/qid=1170510399/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0097 095-3472904?ie=UTF8&s=books/
http://www.amazon.com/Feed-M-T-Anderson/dp/076362
Vacuum is cheap on the moon, but not very good. There are a fair number of trace gasses and dust (when disturbed) which makes it not very clean. We can fairly easily get vacuum in the lab that beats low Earth orbit. Yes, it's expensive; it costs hundreds or thousands of dollars... about a millionth of a moon shot.
---Nathaniel
1. send men and women together to the moon ...
2. set up webcams around the base
3.
4. PROFIT!
-Styopa
It should be called moonbase alpha.
The article says they plan to start building in in 2010. That's only 3 years away. They haven't got anything to put that kind of gear on the moon at present. How do they intend to have a vehicle ready by then?
Stick Men
I'm amazed I'm the first to say 'The Ultimate in Off-Site Backup'. Just think about it. A backup that can actually survive a world-ending scenario. Nuclear war on Earth? Foreign body impact on a globally catastrophic scale? Sure your business infrastructure, employees and market are wiped out in one fell swoop... but with us, your backups survive!
Ok none of this is new but...
vacuum industry - there are lots of cool potential manufacturing technologies (and lots of current ones) that require a good vacuum.
Low-G research - kind of like the vacuum industry
Microgravity research - Create a Zero-G environment directly on the moon by taking advantage of the vaccum and low G environment; basically build a linear accelerator mass driver on the equator at the highest elevation. Use it to accelerate a lab to moon oribtal speed at that altitude, let the lab whip around the equator skimming the mountain tops (and passing through the now dormant accelerator every "orbit" - you've basically created a geosynchronous (lunarsynchronous?) labratory. When it's time to deorbit, just capture the velocity back when the lab goes through the accelerator and you'll get back a good portion of the acceleration energy.
Build it right and the scientists can enter and exit the lab in their shirtsleeves, too. About a million times better than doing research on the vomit comit and probably a couple orders of magnitude better than trying to do it on the ISS (if only from a perspective of the amount of equipment / space to store that equipment available on the moon vs. the ISS - especially if vacuum industry on the moon is available by then)
And finally, my favorite... liquid metal mirror observatory. Thanks to the low G, absence of geologic processes, and vacuum, you could build a great reflector. And because the primary mass component is liquid, it bulks very little (carry it up in a tank)
I'm not sure if Mercury will sublimate in vacuum, but it's worth a try right?
So, if your data is REALLY vital, you can store your backups in the ULTIMATE offsite data center!
1. A television station. Local community news. Possibly a shopping channel. Tease on shopping channel that a ticket back to Earth is comming up as an item for sale but never offer it!
2. Magnifiying glasses and mirrors. I've had fun reflecting sun beams in people's eyes. I'm sure the moon people will having doing it to us Earthlings. Only we'll never know who did it.
3. A limitless supply of drugs and other entertainment. If you're never coming back, then you might as well have a hell of a time!
As a secret staging ground for the resistance once the Decepticons take over.
You don't get to space by making budget cuts. With the current situation there is a US rocket company with their most highly advanced rocket motors as surplus motors from the failed N-1 rocket from Russia back from the early 1960's - that's the closest thing available to be able to put together anything as powerful as Von Braun's Saturn V.
The Alan Parson's Project.
If they can't solve the age-related muscle- and bone-deterioration problems by the time I get frail, I want to be able to retire on the Moon. Yes, I know, getting there once will be difficult, but I hope, I'll be able to make it.
And then — many more years of free movement in a comfortable nursing home. With beautiful views, miles of walkways, high-speed Internet (even if some latency remains talking to Earthlings), and monthly visits from family...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'm sure The Pirate Bay would like to relocate in case the Sealand thing doesn't work out. After all the Moon has the same legal status as international waters.
I really don't see why we should build this moon base at all.
1) The moon isn't in any significant way closer to anything interesting (e.g. Mars).
2) The idea of using this moon base as a kind of stepping-stone on our way to other planets is very stupid at least . For example, we can't assemble rockets at the moon base, so these rockets should be brought there first (very complex, landing etc.) So why don't fly them to other planets directly?
etc.
Awww COME ON! Someone had to say it.
The way to get over the six month limit (due to bone degradation and muscle atrophy), is to send people who have that happen naturally anyway, retirees that is. The moon may well end up with very similar demographics to Florida back here on Earth. A Sunset Resort which will let the elderly feel an extra spring in their step, and allow them to remain physically active for years, or even decades longer than here on earth.
If a good part of these are one-way tripper elderly (experienced that is) scientists, those youthful visitors who go on those 6 month rotation gigs may well go there partly for personal tutorship from these grayhaired eminent research scientists.
Less seriously, I would predict that the location on a crater _rim_ on the _moon_, will swiftly lead towards the colloquial nicknames of most places and facilities acquiring allusions to the human posterior, in unending variations, no matter what the designated official nomenclature for same will be. Moon or earth, human nature is much the same, puerile humour will find a way.
That's no moon.. That's a space station!
How could slashdot miss the big plot in this one.... it's the cheese there going after. Boeing will fly it back to Earth, while Caterpillar scrapes off the new land for some real mooncheese.
So you are against people pushing their faith on others, and your proposed policy is to force visitors to the moon to become atheists while they are there? Isn't that just a tad bit hypocritical? Or is it only bad to force one person's faith on another person if their faith is different from yours? Because I know lots of religious people who would agree with you on that.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
I thought the idea was to start a penal colony on the moon? Then they can develop into a libertarian society portal to the rest of the solar system...
Clearly, this calls for the .mn top-level domain. It already belongs to Mongolia, but that's not a problem! Caterpillar, Norcat, and Boeing can do what they're best at - blowing things up! Once Mongolia is gone, the .mn extension will be up for grabs.
What is the best way to get to the moonbase? I've heard that having an orbiting space station (per Werner von Braun) is a better approach than direct travel (per Apollo and Space Shuttle) but don't know what the reasoning was. Anyone know the pros and cons of the different approaches?
For one, the moon gets pounded with, depending on sources, 70 to 150 measurable (from Earth), meteorite impacts. This is not bad considering the area of the moon, but much worse than, say Earth, which at least has an appreciable atmosphere to break down large rocks to dust before impact. I see no mention in the article of how they are going to mitigate this risk in a moon base.
Secondly, we have no vehicle capable of reaching the moon. We have lost the technology to build a rocket such as the Saturn V, we do not have the blueprints or the parts available to build such a rocket, safety regulations would not allow us to build it if we DID have the parts, and our short-sighted investors in the United States will not stand for research into building such a rocket, unless it could be made profitable within 90 days, which is impossible.
This is just somebody's wet dream. It won't happen until our society developes the ability to think past the next 3 months.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I have to agree that it is a corporate welfare fantasy.
Look at one of my favorite examples: the Chunnel vs. the Big Dig. The Chunnel is 31 miles long, 24 miles under the English Channel. The Big Dig is about 6 miles long, 2.5 miles under Boston Harbor. Wikipedia says the Chunnel cost about 10 billion pounds and the Big Dig has cost about $15 billion "so far". Not much difference between the two. The Chunnel has had a non-fatal fire. The Big Dig leaks like a sieve, the books were cooked to hide the substandard materials used to construct it and it has had a fatal ceiling collapse. Makes you proud to be an American taxpayer, doens't it?
But a person could take any number of examples of bridges to nowhere, Big Pharma and the like that are draining a few billion here and a few billion there of citizen taxpayer dollars until you are talking real money. What I have to wonder isn't how long people will put up with it but how long people _can_ put up with it. Is the typical American so rich he really can be bled indefinitely with little to show for it? I'm guessing not and I think that is an important difference between now and the 60s. You can point out that Apollo had to start from scratch, corporations were probably making a good profit on the deal then too and that the Vietnam war was going on. But the U.S. was in an historic boom, people with well-paying jobs actually made things here and the average household wasn't carrying $7000 in credit card debt. It isn't enough to rebuild the Saturn V or relearn the Apollo program knowledge now residing in nursing homes. We need to get back the best parts of the America that created the Apollo program.
What scares me most I think is the fallout when it becomes undeniably clear to the world and ourselves that we've metastasized from a pragmatic "can-do" nation of the Right Stuff to some schizoid out-of-touch B.S. nation.
The moon motels! Keep the moon hookers affordable.
Does our favorite Seattle coffee company know about the lunar base and that these 6-month shifts will be more that 4 blocks from 'the mermaid'? Get them a memo, stat!
Ahh, the good'ole gaming days on a Kaypro...
damaged by dogma
Perhaps you meant: Death and Taxes: A Visual Guide to Where Your Federal Tax Dollars Go rather than the domain squatting site budgetgraph.com.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Ah yes, American settlers. How can we sell this?
Live in the New World with no established cities. Never come to Europe again. Ridiculously expensive to have family and friends visit. Possible long term health consequences, possible heath effect for children, if children are even a possiblity.
Yeah. Everyone I know would like to settle there.
The point is not that everyone would like to settle there, but that some would. Do you think that the first settlers in the new world were viewed as visionaries, or as insane weirdos who thought it would be fun to try to start a colony from scratch in the middle of freaking nowhere?
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
A place that will actually serve a decent Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
on how long until the first low-grav brothel gets set up.
If you have a buttload of the stuff already available the moment it's needed, you are rich.
> Does it come with a giant "Laser beam?"
Nope, the sharks need water/oxygen.
- Building a permanent lunar base is going to require the efforts of tens of thousands of people all over the country. New jobs, new industry, stimulated economy.
- New manufacturing possibilities. We've always been stuck with a huge gravitational field. Perhaps in a reduced gravity, we could manufacture purer drugs, or faster microchips, or bake soufflés that won't fall with a loud noise.
- The lack of water and atmosphere on the moon could have lead to the creation minerals and ores that do not exist on Earth.
So... Who says it's going to be wasted?When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You could put a radioactive garbage dump on the other side.
Mass doesn't change, so the opponent will have his normal amount of inertia.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
Disclaimer - Sci-Fi freak, Science Geek Dinosaurs around for 65 million years, killed by whatever. Humans around 1.3 million years? Maybe can commit suicide? As a species, we are young, very young. Hunter-gatherers, been doing that a relatively long time. 98% of our existance? Agriculturalists, maybe in kindergarten? Still making obvious screwups. Industrialists, still babies. Shitting in our own corner of the pen. Pigs are smarter. Scientists, still toddlers. Have community members that have no clue about science. Reason for sailing to the far horizon? High value goods, spices, slaves and gold. Resources found? How much is the Western Hemisphere worth? Whoda thunk? Industrialized nations - amount of time spent outdoors in NATURE? What percentage of us poor humans want industrialization like in the movies, so WE can live indoors most of the time? Raw resource sites (mining, timber, energy, chemicals) are dirty, dusty, and dangerous. We take money to work there so our families can live clean and happy indoors. Construction sites are dirty, dusty, and dangerous. We take money to work there so our families can live clean and happy indoors. Our homes are safe, warm, clean, with good views. And the possiblity of experiencing Nature or near-nature at our whim. We may be screwing up our area, because we are babies and don't know how to best do this thing we call civilization. It would be difficult to screw up the moon. Or an asteroid. Make the ultra-strong building blocks on the moon, mass-drive it to orbit, assemble big spinning buildings that are shaped like cans. Waddagot? Clean homes with gravity and zero-gravity, free power (very strong sunlight), vacuum and atmosphere. Where's the downside?
The Computer Guy, Seattle
Some random ideas:
:-)
- Some residents get into some trouble, e.g. their rover breaks down and they have to find their way back/sit out a lunar night. Make it something typically lunar.
- Some significant discovery is made, e.g. a tunnel system leading far into the moon's interior. Possibly by people trying to survive a lunar night after their rover broke down. More extreme: in one of the tunnels, they find a skeleton. Where did it came from?
- On earth, political changes/(nuclear) war/a pandemia causes the budget for the moon base to be scrapped. You're on your own! How will that douchebag of a leader respond? Will he be able to handle the stress? I think not!
One more thing: why is the base covered with 3m of regolith? Is that a number you researched? I ask because I recently read an article that radiation on mars would kill all live up to 7m below the surface. I guess the moon has more radiation, being closer to the sun and having no athmosphere at all (well, not anything significant anyway). But since I can't find the article anymore, I might be wrong.
PS: If your story gets nominated for "worst novel ever", don't blame me.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
... is what one can say when looking at our moon-base with a decent telescope.
C'mon - poverty, disease, lack of this that and the other. So we spend g'zillions on a moon base - for what.? I see no waterfalls, no forestes, no life - why would you move from luxury to a desert with no oxygen..? The whole man kind endeavour thing is good, however, lets fix the probs here before taking on the universe right..? Why, a few billion $ could change alot round here. Yet I would love to see the earth from the moon - one millenia. So lets get the computer OS stable - space flight also uses hard drives
Artemis Project - been around since 1994. By far the most comprehensive plan I've seen.
Moon Society - been around since 2000. They've already tested one habitat.
LiTeRaTi - been around since 1996. Private company in Sweden.
If an incumbent president shafted a bill through congress, to spend 1 trillion dollars over a 4 year period, we could do it. We went to the moon in a one shot in the 60s, and we mobilized the whole country to take to the Nazis. I think that by mobilizing the country again, and paying through the nose, we could have a 500 person multi-role moon base operational within 4 years.
- "Computer, calculate pi to the last digit" -Spock, Wolf in the Fold
How could anyone take such a proposal seriously while the ISS remains unfinished? And how many tens of billions has it cost? Send machines, not people to the Moon. It's far cheaper and the science yield (if that's the real objective) is likely to be far greater.
The base doesn't have to be at the south pole. Use solar power to electrolyze water into hydrogen, then run the hydrogen through fuel cells to power the base during the 336-hour lunar night. Send up a few RTGs for emergency power.
I can't imagine putting giant hydrogen (and oxygen, air, and water) storage tanks in the payload section of a moon-bound rocket, so maybe we need inflatable tanks. Either that, or send plastic and graphite fiber and a tank-making machine, and make the tanks in-situ.
I think smelting metals from the lunar soil to make the habitat itself is asking too much. Better to send construction materials from Earth, at first. Once the astronauts are up there, they can prospect for useful ores, smelt them for oxygen, silicon, and metals, and use that material to expand the base, make equipment, etc.
Inflatable hydrogen tanks are one thing, but inflatable habitats make me uneasy (especially given how abrasive the lunar soil is). Maybe build a more conventional structure out of metal. You need 5 tons/m2 of material (probably lunar soil) heaped on top of the habitat to block radiation. Rather than putting it right on top of the habitat, maybe put it on a "bridge" that goes over the habitat (like an artificial cave). This leaves the exterior of the habitat exposed for inspection, repair, and expansion.
Why, launch tubes for nuclear-tipped missiles, of course. What else would a moonbase be good for?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"The permanently staffed structure could begin construction sometime in 2010"
That gives us three years to come up with something that can throw the huge payloads required. Not bloody likely. We won't have a transportation system in 2010 that could land a single man on the moon, much less be ready to begin construction.
A home for Adam Selene.
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Uh... no. The most powerful booster rocket engine being manufactured in the ex-USSR right now AFAIK is the RD-170 used in the Zenith and Sea Launch vehicles. Which were designed for Energia, which is more recent than the Shuttle. Those modified N-1 engines you were talking about, the NK-33, are a toy compared to them.
Low gravity, family can't visit, kids out of the question...
It's all a plus to me. Sign me up!
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Exactly - but I am talking about the USA here since it is an article about NASA. Aerojet General and Kisler Aerospace are using the N-1 engines, which I suppose is fair enough since there are no F-1 engines from the Saturn V available. You can't get to Mars with budget cuts and no launch vehicle with enough power to do it - but perhaps with an international effort the new Russian technology could be used.
I would imagine one of the most fun things to do it 1/6 gee would be to fly, or at least to glide long distances. Get a good running start, open your coat like a flying squirrel and glide for half a city block. Imagine the possibilities -- now flashers could flash an entire lunar block at one time, by gliding with a trenchcoat. CowboyNeal would probably not fly all that far, much to everyone's relief.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
It will cost twice as much, but the conflict with run smoother and the whole experience will feel Snappier!
iRaq
iRan
iPhone
How long until iWantPeaceInTheMiddleEast ?!!?
Why does a Moon rock taste better than an Earth rock?
Because it's a little... meteor!
"but there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing this whaling tune..." Damn, that gets in your head...
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
Hey, it's supposed to be the *meek* who shall inherit the earth! You don't sound very meek to me.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
I don't remember where I heard this argument, but I think it's a good one: :-)
If building a self-sustained small ecology on a harsh and empty environment (such as the moon) is so very difficult and expensive, maybe that teaches the lesson that we really shouldn't turn our 1 inhabitable planet into a harsh and empty environment.
Go on, prove that a moon base is viable anyway, I dare you
Either way, humanity benefits.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
They can take a small fraction of the money they get and pump it right back into Republican campaign coffers. Republicans can then fire any nosey AG's that decide to investigate corruption. Oh and of course, the administration can use government money overseas on creating fake news stories that then trickle back to the US. The circle of political life will be complete.
Any chance of rockfishing?
(for those of you who haven't been around long enough): http://www.atomfilms.com/film/rockfish.jsp
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
There really isn't a choice - it's going to be under 'ground'. The choice will be whether the ground is raised over the top of the dwelling - like an adobe hut or whether the hole in the ground used to get the material out will also be used.
There's about 15 pounds of atmosphere over our heads in every square inch column to space. There's also a magnetic field that has some effect. That much material is not going to be transported from earth - especially considering there's some already there. Besides, transporting h2o to the moon will be a horrendous expense since it seems unlikely any will be found there.
As for the which approach will be used, I'm betting on both. Don't expect the glass dome stuff though - except for the occaisional very short term scenic viewing. The rest of the 'above ground' is going to more closely ressemble a pueblo than anything else and much of the base will be inside the caves/mines below the ground rather than 'outside'. At least there, one doesn't have to worry about rain or strong winds damaging the structure - only the various forms of radiation that can even be almost as deadly as losing a space suit's pressure.
For the fairly longterm future, this place is going to be far duller and far more inhospitable than an Arctic research base - and far more dangerous too. Club Clavius competing with Club Med is going to be a long time coming.
Just consider that to date, no one has estabilished a permanent human habitat at the bottom of any of our oceans. The little experiments done to date have been only a few feet under the water's surface and were for very short periods of time. Imagine one 10,000 ft down - potentially only 3 or 4 miles away from civilization and were that distance flat & horizontal on the earth's surface it could be walked in an hour by almost anyone not bedridden. That far down is well below modern military submarine depth but well within the capabilities of deep submersibles. Note that while we talk of colonizing the moon and mars and asteroids - we've not colonized the ocean floor - not even on the shallow shelfs. There is essentially no ocean farming or ranching (nevermind the catfish farm ponds on the back 40 - they're virtually insignificant unless you love fried catfish).
Colonizing the moon will likely have some benefits and will probably be of strategic importance and will probably happen long before ocean colonizing ever begins. There is a wealth of man's accounts at colonizing and there are many factors - usually the worst ones - which will be applicable - far more so than some frustrated scifi writer's wet dreams put down on paper. Ultimately, economics must enter the fray and the effort must be considered to be 'worth it' for it ever to continue or expand. Otherwise it just becomes a temporary outpost in a barren hostile land.
P.S. may have been posted already, no time to read all
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But in today's world of politics and jockeying for money, this will never see the light of day. Projects over 4 years are guaranteed to get the boot at some point down the road for either political reasons or just flat out budget issues.
Don't worry it's a planetary security issue.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Condos come to mind. Places to live for those who want to keep their families going for another hundred years. I'm not convinced anymore I can do this here on earth.
Neutiquam erro
If NASA did all of what it has done while being nothing more than a tool for corporations to steal government money
I'm not criticizing NASA, I'm criticizing politicians trying to redirect most of NASA's activities towards manned exploration. I'm saying that if NASA has to scale back its unmanned efforts (which are the only ones that are scientifically valuable) further, then I'd much rather see NASA shut down altogether, instead of becoming an excuse for pork spending on manned exploration. The space station and shuttle program have already been an enormous waste of money.
And best of all, think about the scientific opportunities space bases would allow us.
Science funding works by cost/benefit analyses. Manned space bases have an enormous cost compared to unmanned projects yielding the same or more results. On the whole, a manned space program will mean delaying space exploration and progress by many decades at least.
With the money that a manned moon or Martian colony costs, we could cover every planet in the solar system with dozens of robotic probes at least and at the same time advance robotics and AI tremendously here on earth.
Hey this is ONE space Satellite that the chinese or russian's wouldn't be able to take out so easy. Spying on places on the earth would be a bit easier from there than orbit of the earth. Place HUBBLE like scopes on the moon in area's claimed by your country and as the moon passes over every night you would get a chance to LOOK at what your interested in.
If we set up a solar array on the moon that tapped 1% of the Sun's energy, converted that energy to microwaves, which would be beamed to earth and received by microwave towers, it would supply all the power we'd need. http://www.envsci.rutgers.edu/~veron/moon.pdf
Outdoor signage, natch. Stuff large enough to read from Earth with binoculars or less, but that can be altered in an Earth day or less. Mobile MIRVed missiles on the opposite side, so that China could not know where they are except for when their spacecraft orbit 'round, and they'd already be moved by the time the spacecraft could relay back the positions. Or we could hide most anything else on the opposite side, for that matter. How about a replacement for the detainment facilities at Gitmo?
Seriously. What's the point of building a lunar base, all told? Sure, it's been suggested we can mine there for needed minerals, but look at the cost of doing so. It's something like twice as hard to get to the Moon as it is to achieve Earth orbit, and maintaining a Moon base would be phenomenally expensive. Think of the fuel, food, water, oxygen, etc. that would have to be ferried there on a regular basis. It seems to me that maintaining a base (mining or otherwise) on the Moon would be a net loss.
Also, think of the comparative risk: if you're in Earth orbit and run desperately low on supplies, or if something goes disastrously wrong, taking an escape pod home is a viable option, so long as you have one: hop aboard and drop out of orbit. But it would be a lot more complicated from the Moon: gotta lift off the surface, spend a couple days in transit home, and go through a harder reentry (reentry is faster--therefore hotter--coming back from the Moon than coming down from LEO).
As for using it as a jumpoff point for a trip to Mars, why the Moon? Why not Earth orbit? It's a lot easier to get to LEO than the Moon, and you don't have to lift off from the lunar surface.
Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of space science and exploration, and love the history of the Space Race (and enjoy playing a game that relives it: http://www.geocities.com/raceintospace/index.htm). I'm just not convinced that a Moon base is the most appropriate next step.
Considering that the plan is to make the next landing in 2019 (50 years after Buzz and Niel were there), the 2010 date is an error.
-- Stephen.
"It's ill-tempered sea bass all the way down."
I wonder if you could send a relatively small package of micro-robots that would be a complete mining and manufacturing colony? This colony could then build larger robots who in turn would build larger robots for several generations until you had a mining and manufacturing colony capable of building structures for human habitation and of course new micro-robot colony packages to be sent to other planets and the asteroid belt. A kind of robotic evolution. You would start by designing the end state and work your way backwards designing through successive generations until your design reached the initially deployed micro-robot colony.