New Radar Maps of Moon

SpaceAdmiral writes to mention that NASA has some new high-resolution radar maps of the Moon obtained by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The new images have also been used to create a simulation of the Moon's day and a movie of a Moon landing from the point of view of the astronaut. "NASA is eying the Moon's south polar region as a possible site for future outposts. The location has many advantages; for one thing, there is evidence of water frozen in deep dark south polar craters. Water can be split into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn as rocket fuel--or astronauts could simply drink it. Planners are also looking for 'peaks of eternal light.' Tall polar mountains where the sun never sets might be a good place for a solar power station."

Comments

Oh, no...

[Kagura]

That's no moon, it's an overused joke!

H2O - H2 + O2

[PetiePooo]

Water can be split into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn as rocket fuel...

And if the astronauts are breathing all of the O2, what oxidizing agent do they plan to burn the H2 with?

Journalists should really have some knowledge of the topic they're writing about before spouting their blather...

Re:H2O - H2 + O2

[evanbd]

LOX/LH2 rockets are normally run fuel-rich (most rockets are, actually, it's just more pronounced with LH2). 2H2 + O2 corresponds to a mass ratio of 8 parts O2 to 1 part H2; in actual practice the mass ratio used is somewhere between 4:1 and 6:1, depending on the engine.

There are several reasons for this. One is that the chemistry going on is more equilibrium chemistry than normal combustion chemistry -- the H2, O2, H2O, OH, etc are all in equilibrium. Adding excess H2 burns more of the O2, and that gets more energy out of the reactants per unit mass (having similar numbers of moles of unburned reactants uses less weight if they're moles of H2 instead of O2). Secondly, H2 is better behaved than almost anything else when it comes to using the nozzle to turn heat into kinetic energy -- you'll get a larger fraction of the chemical energy out as exhaust velocity. If the H2 were inert, that wouldn't be enough to make it worth adding, but it's not inert as explained above. And thirdly, adding excess H2 drops the combustion temperature while simultaneously increasing the cooling ability (LH2 is a marvelous coolant; LOX isn't), making it easier to run the regeneratively cooled engine.

Re:H2O - H2 + O2

[wizardforce]

They've been doing this for years. some of the oxygen is used to oxidize the hydrogen and some of it is used to breathe. In this case, you would probably be using the hydrogen/oxygen to power fuel cells during the night time as solar power is available to regenerate the oxygen and hydrogen stores during the day. It's probably not going to be used as the only power source sue to the fact you would need to carry all of it up there from Earth at an expense hovering around 10,000$ a kg. More likely is that it will serve like a battery storing power for emergencies and night-time.

Re:Err.. Why do we need H20 for fuel again when,

[Wandering Wombat]

Because there's no way in Hell you're getting OFF the moon with ion drives. 1/6th gravity is still way, way more attractive force than an ion drive is capable of generating. But yeah, once you're back in (relatively) zero-gravity space, toodle around in your ion drives all you want.

I wish they'd just stop

[isomeme]

I was seven years old when Apollo XI landed on the moon. I grew up with the space race, and that was big part of what got me hooked on science and engineering. I watched every mission with absolute fascination, and dreamed endlessly about how space travel would continue to develop during my lifetime.

Now, nearly 40 years later, we've barely made progress on manned space travel. I am amazed and thrilled by the scientific successes achieved through unmanned satellites and probes. But humans haven't been further from Earth than San Diego is from Los Angeles in decades.

It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to read articles about NASA's manned space program anymore. What they're actually doing is pathetic; the aging, dangerous shuttles exist only to service ISS, and ISS exists only as a place for the shuttles to go. And NASA's plans for future moon and Mars missions are so long-term as to be meaningless; why talk about building solar power stations on eternally sunlit peaks when development of a new heavy-lift launch system is getting nowhere?

It's astonishing to me that I have gone from being thrilled with manned space travel to wincing when I read about it, but that's what has happened.