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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?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
I think initially this would be due to a lack of bulldozers. "Bermed" construction has been proposed since a long way back as it solves several problems, not the least of which are insulation and protection from micrometeorites.
Yeah, but think of the billions of dollars the administration can funnel to its buddies in industry before the project gets killed. And since the project isn't going to work anyway, the companies getting the money aren't going to be held accountable for what they did with the money and they can spend it on whatever they like. It's brilliant.
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...
"n 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."
No experience in what? Building moon bases? Who has that kind of experience? Building equipment to build moonbases? I think Boeing and Caterpillar might be good bets as Boeing is a space contractor and Caterpillar is manufacturer of construction equipment.
Tell us, who would you recommend to build a moon base? Or are you suggesting we don't build a moonbase? In which case, what do you suggest we do instead?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
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.
Wars and space exploration, together with outsourcing and privatization, are a great pretext for corporate welfare and pork.
That's harsh. Apparently corruption managed to land us on the moon, send dozens of probes out into the solar system, and built an International Space Station complete with the capability to take routine space trips every 4 months. If NASA did all of what it has done while being nothing more than a tool for corporations to steal government money, then shit, sign me up to be a congressional lobbyist- I might cure world hunger.
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.
This is definitely not a waste of money. Once this industry gets started, the possibilities are enormous. First think of the political implications of having a thriving off world colony. What if we could move UN headquarters to Lunar City, the first truly international city? What would it mean for world unity, for peace and human progress? You're worried about the cash? Well the first thing they told me in economics is that technological innovation drives the economy- we were an agricultural planet until technology came along and forged the industrial economy. The technologies developed to build a moon base would filter down, as they always have, and invigorate the economy. Then think about the industry that would follow, that would benefit Earth: off world manufacturing that would get pollution out of our fragile ecosystem, off world (solar) energy generation, off world disposal of hazardous waste. Did you know that on earth, Iron, the most commonly used metal, is mined from Iron Oxide- rust? Did you know that rust is literally covering the surface of mars? It might even get cheaper to extract Iron from Mars than on earth if we keep up this exploration nonsense.
And best of all, think about the scientific opportunities space bases would allow us. A perfect, undisturbed view of the heavens. Super ideal experiment conditions in the form of vacuum and free fall. Greater access to natural resources for particle physics- research stations on mercury interacting with the sun, or on pluto interacting with nothing. Advances in bio-chemistry that would come from vastly improved understanding of planetary/atmosphere physics and chemistry, and study of asteroids and comets, as well as above mentioned 0 g and vacuum. All these opportunities are only accessible if we make a serious, money losing push at first.
I get your cynicism as to the intentions of the politicians but realize, it's not the politicians or the people who are interested in huge profits who are doing this (there are vastly better industries to make money in than space). It's the people who are passionate about such things. And while it may just be another project for the politicians, for the people who choose to devote their lives to its pursuit, space is much more- and it is something worth going about correctly and responsibly. People willingly sacrifice their lives in return for the chance to explore space. To say that NASA is a waste of taxpayer money and no better than waging a war...
[shrug] Let 'em try. Colonization provides many examples of the law of unintended consequences. E.g., the Massaschusetts colonies were founded by some of the most fanatical believers the world has ever seen. The Puritans were the Taliban of their day. Now? Massachusetts in general and Boston in particular are probably the least religious places in the US. You know, when the kids grow up, they get all kinds of funny ideas in their heads.
... Let 'em try. Because absolutely none of the folks here on Earth who are going to try to export their beliefs can predict which way their spiritual children will go.
Realistically, we're going to see all kinds of competing religions up there: Christians from the US and Europe, hard-line Communist believers (who are religious in all but name) from China, Hindus from India, assorted Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Shintos and, so to speak, God knows what-all
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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
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
Like you, I used to be a believer. Then I went to space camp and realized that manned spaceflight is an exercise in marketing, not science.
>That's harsh. Apparently corruption managed to land us on the moon, send dozens of probes out into the solar system, and built an International Space Station complete with the capability to take routine space trips every 4 months.
A space station, built at an exorbitant $100 billion, that has delivered very little serious scientific research. That's 18 years of NSF funding... science on the ground in the US could have been transformed with that money in a way not seen since the funding increases that were a response to sputnik. We could have Cassini quality unmanned probes around every planet, and a hubble replacement ready to go, for a fifth of that. But no, we had to have MANNED spaceflight.
>Well the first thing they told me in economics is that technological innovation drives the economy...
Yes. Notice that they didn't jump straight from the agrarian age to the information age. Economies advance in modest steps, and each step is profitable at the time it is made. Until there are compelling economic reasons to go into space, it isn't going to happen. You might call an ancient Mayan trying to create a transistor far sighted, but if he dumps a ton of money into the problem, gets nowhere, and asks for more money, you are a fool to give it to him.
What we need to do is fund r&d on the ground. Eventually materials advances may cheapen the cost of of getting into space. Then everything else follows on it's own. This has already happened for the special case of the communications satelite, because they are light and don't need constant resupply, like people do.
>Did you know that rust is literally covering the surface of mars?
Did you know that iron ore is literally pulled out of holes in the ground in Minnesota? You need to give me very compelling reason to convince me to go to mars for it.
>Advances in bio-chemistry that would come...
NASA has sold manned spaceflight to the US public since Skylab with these kind of boilerplate promises of the great science that will be done in "the ideal laboratory of space". 30+ years later and it hasn't panned out. NASA people who keep hyping these promises are full of crap. Space is an ideal lab for a few things- some fundemental physics, like LISA (LIGO's planned, yet largely unfunded descendant), and for observational astronomy. It is NOT an ideal lab for biochemistry, metalurgy, manufacturing, or anything else that requires people. And putting people up there won't change that fact. As Doug Osheroff, physicist and Columbia accident investigator, put it to me: "The only scientific reason for manned space flight is to study the effects of space on people."
>People willingly sacrifice their lives in return for the chance to explore space.
Fine with me. But don't defend NASA when they make false promises to the taxpayer to get them to foot the bill.
>To say that NASA is a waste of taxpayer money and no better than waging a war.
Better than waging an unnecessary war, of course. But the space station is no better than a pork project along the lines of the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska.