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Russia Talks Moon Base With NASA, ESA
milbournosphere writes "Russia and NASA are reportedly in talks to create a base on the Moon. They're looking to create either a facility on the Moon itself or a permanent space station in orbit around the moon. 'We don't want man to just step on the Moon,' agency chief Vladimir Popovkin said in an interview with Vesti FM radio station. 'Today, we know enough about it. We know that there is water in its polar areas,' he added. 'We are now discussing how to begin [the Moon's] exploration with NASA and the European Space Agency.'"
Sounds like a good idea. Hopefully they can actually do something with this instead of endlessly talking about it, and sinking money into studys.
Twenty years later than it should have been on the table.
We should have had a base up there for years - an ideal place to serve as a jumping off point for science elsewhere in the solar system, even if the Moon itself is "barren".
Weren't we supposed to have a well established moonbase 13 years ago?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
well don't you need a way to get food / other stuff there and keep it coming.
How easy is it to get the water on the moon? is it safe to drink?
Why does everyone want to build a base inside a giant gravity well? Wouldn't it make more sense to build a base anywhere besides there? How about one of those all metal asteroids, or close to the sun where there's lost of solar power?
With a moon base you have access to that water they mention, and perhaps enough sunlight to actually grow food (although the water seems to be in the wrong place for this). You have shelter by digging into the moon itself, and enough free raw materials to extract an atmosphere, make building materials, etc. You don't have to bring everything from earth. You have gravity as well, which makes for more comfortable living and building. None of that is available in moon orbit.
Although an orbiting moon base makes for a quicker return to earth vicinity, the value of "quick" makes it a fairly meaningless advantage. There is no point in putting a base in moon orbit unless you intend to frequently visit the moon surface. At which time you encounter the assent problem, the same problem you have with a moon base.
The major problem of a moon base, or simply visiting the moon, is the problem of fuel expenditures for lift off. For all the Buck Rogers si-fi we've written, we still can't carry enough fuel to get out of sight. Any system we have for getting off of the surface amounts to a zero-backup, Hail Mary. There is no plan B.
We (barely) got out of the moon program without the horror of stranding people there. Until a more realistic system for getting off the moon is built, putting a base there is just a disaster waiting to happen with our current technology.
Maybe it would be easier to build the often talked about space elevator on the moon.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If we'd gone with the original plan for space exploration, we'dve had a (small) colony on the moon, an orbital transfer/construction station in HEO, and a manned landing or 3 on Mars by 1985. Problem was, there just wasn't any way to put a man on the moon by 1970 if we'd done it that way. Upside is, we'dve had a reuseable lunar lander, just refuel, preflight, and go. We went with Apollo instead because it was the quick and dirty solution.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Yes, I agree...
Should be a lot easier to launch something into space if there's no atmosphere and only 16 % of earth's gravity.
Also, the astronauts would have _some_ gravity... maybe you could even build something underground to reduce space radiation?
A lot of interesting things could be done there... space wouldn't be so much of an issue anymore. (Well, only if we could get some machines up there that can create building material out of stuff that can be found on the moon... Building a larger structure with material from the earth would be super-expensive).
I would think that the fastest (timeline) to having a large presence in orbit around the moon would be to boost ISS to lunar orbit, or possibly (stability?) a figure-8 orbit around earth and moon. That gives us a large, stable presence, in a relatively short time frame. ISS is nice, but it's not really doing anything super useful in LEO.
One of the reasons that the US doesn't have the supercollider and CERN does is that they reused all their old equipment. We had similar equipage, the Tevatron, but no, SSC had to be all brand new, and ended up being so great it was never built.
We have a large, manned habitat, already in orbit. Use it.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.
(while Whitey's on the moon)
The man jus' upped my rent las' night.
('cause Whitey's on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
I wonder why he's uppi' me?
('cause Whitey's on the moon?)
I wuz already payin' 'im fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
An' as if all that shit wuzn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face an' arm began to swell.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Was all that money I made las' year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain't no money here?
(Hmm! Whitey's on the moon)
Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I'll sen' these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)
John Madden!
Don't dump our nuclear waste there! It has been well established if we do that, the waste will become critical and blow the moon out of orbit.
Fight Spammers!
It makes sense that if these things are done to collaborate between the major nations of the earth. Why not include china as well, to pool resources, it will happen quicker, with rewards for everyone, and with more distributed cost.
this is such a massive project, with enormous cost, that such collaboration makes sense.
However, I am doubtful as to wether this is a good use of money. The fact is the moon is a very inhospitable place, it makes Earth look like a paradise. It seems like it makes better sense to spend the money to save the better planet and keep it haitable than to try to move to one that is totally uninhabitable.
Moon, mars and so on are all unprotected from solar rays having no magnetic field, which means they are constantly toasted by the sun. They have no oxygen atmosphere, weak gravity and enormous lists of other downsides. I think for Moon to even be viable there needs to be a water resource on the moon that could be developed locally.
These ideas are, when you look at the logistics, of trying to move to the moon or mars or create a base there, are just so outrageous. If we are talking about scientific research, they provide a very poor return on investment compared to probes, we can launch thousands of probes for what it costs to launch a few people into space.
It is truly a concept for people who are wild eyed and do not have any grounding in reality, efficiency, cost and practicality. Unless we can make a major breakthrough, like a free energy technology that can generate massive amounts of energy without fuel, anti gravity and so on, we really should shelve these ideas, and work on doing things to save the only habitable planet we have and what is really the best one we have.
These sorts of adventures are popular for people who look at them in the same light as tight rope walks and so other stunts, thats what a trip to the moon or mars would be, a stunt, but any real scientists can tell you the return on investment for an unmanned probe is far better and they can get far more information for less money with those.
..."The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
TANSTAAFL!!!!
Silence is a state of mime.
I thought I read not long ago that there might be some ancient lava tubes or similar on the Moon, and that there were thoughts of using these to create underground living habitats.
Of course neither country has a strong infrastructure to build such an endeavour (they act like they do but it all looks pretty dismal). However, far better than discussions on building up missile bases aimed at each other (i.e. ABM site in Poland, Russia countering that with additional missiles).
Another to consider is Russians are essential for USA space program (and other way around). NASA was created because the Russians launched first satellite. Apollo program was created because the Russians launched first man in space. Shuttle was created because Russians still flying spaceships. ISS was created because we partnered with Russians (Space Station Freedom never got off the ground because no Russians involved). VSE, Obamaspace, SLS, and derivatives going nowhere because it has nothing to do with the Russians. Well there is the USAF space command, maybe they're still countering the Russians.
So if you are going to do a big space program... don't forget the Russians. Of course some will say don't forget Russian spies but so what else is new. If you are a country you gotta deal with spies, like server owners have to deal with spyware.
mfwright@batnet.com
A disk, a back flap, and a scorpion.
In soviet russia... meh, I got nothing.
Or maybe you could just dig a hole in the ground and inflate a tent in it. Boom! Instant base.
The tent won't protect against radiation. Unless you're talking about a hole underground (the way you worded it, it sounds like you're talking about just digging a big pit), which does make perfect sense. The problem is that it takes a lot more work to dig an underground cavern than to use one that's already there, but I don't think it's proven that any such lava tubes exist yet. Of course, we only recently even figured out that water exists there, even though we set foot on the place 40+ years ago, so there's no telling what else is there that we've been too lazy to look for.
I think it's important to distinguish between at least two sets of people on this News for Nerds site who oppose manned missions and favour robotic probes instead. On one hand, perhaps there are people who aren't inclined to dream, see no romantic vision in man expanding into the cosmos, and may make a good argument that mankind can have a bold future without ever living the planet.
On the other hand, there's people who have read Ray Kurzweil's conjectures/ravings in The Singularity is Near and other books. This crowd doesn't lack dreams of humanity spreading through the galaxy. Rather, they might simply say that we should wait a few decades or a century until human beings will have supposedly overcome biological limitations that hamper spaceflight: radiation exposure, need for certain sustenance, limited lifespans that would force unrealistic generational starship designs, etc . That is, such people may figure that human beings will eventually be robotic probes, and once the two are the same, then we can really begin with longterm space exploration that is more than just a stunt.
tl;dr: Robots first, mine the asteroids for building materials.
The proper plan is to start mining Near Earth Asteroids for supplies. Why NEO's? They take less velocity to reach than the Moon's surface for some of them, and all of the velocity can be done with highly efficient electric thrusters. The Moon is physically closer, but distance is not what costs in space, it's velocity and fuel. Haul back surface dust and rocks from your chosen asteroid with a solar powered tug, and have the extraction equipment in Earth orbit. Why here? it's close enough to be remote controlled by humans on the ground. Depending which asteroid and it's composition you can get: metals, glass, oxygen, fuel for more mining trips, carbon, silicon for solar panels, even water in some of them. Also sheer bulk rock gives you radiation shielding.
Once you learn to extract useful stuff, and build up a supply, you use that to build a habitat, including a greenhouse using the glass for windows and carbon to feed the plants. *Then* you start sending people. Until then you send the minimum crew you can get away with, possibly zero. With people up there and their life support taken care of long term, you can start building space elevators in Earth orbit and Lunar orbit out of the carbon you extract. Not the sci-fi one at Earth that goes all the way to the ground, that takes materials we can't make yet. You can reach 30% of the way to the ground in velocity terms at Earth, and all the way on the Moon, cause it's smaller. 30% in velocity means 50% in energy for a vehicle starting from the ground. You can now build single stage to orbit vehicles easily. At the moon you don't need vehicles at all as far as propulsion, just a pressure cabin. Now you can send people all the way from Earth to the Moon at reasonable cost. You can also send habitat parts made in orbit down to the Moon, and start building up your infrastructure there.
We already know a lot about mining and manufacturing on Earth. The main thing we have to learn is how to do it remotely, and possibly in zero gee (you can always spin things if you need gravity).
You could lay/unroll shielding on top of the tent. You don't have to leave it exposed.
You'd want to have stuff up there anyway to catch solar energy.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
The usual assumption by people who have worked on it seriously (I'm one of them, retired from Boeing, did advanced space studies while there), is you set up a habitat module, which is your Space Station type pressurized cylinder, and then over that you place a quonset hut type arched structure, which you pile lunar regolith (surface rocks and dust) on top of for shielding. Depending what level of shielding you want, it needs to be around 1-3 meters. Given the Moon's gravity, that's equivalent to 16-50 cm on Earth, which is quite reasonable. Your airlock, antennas, and such would poke out of the lunar dirt.
The other thing burying your habitat does is protect it from landing craft. The rocket exhaust from them tends to throw any loose dust around at high velocity. Even if you pave the landing pad itself, there will be loose dust around that.
Cosmic radiation on the moon is pretty hard stuff. I think 12 inches of lead would be a little much for a tent. The astronauts who walked on the moon got away with it because they spent so little time there; for people living there, you need some really serious shielding to limit their exposure.
As for solar energy, it might make more sense to put those collectors in a different location, namely at one of the poles at the "peaks of eternal light", and run transmission cables to the habitat(s), which might be located in other places near other useful things. Of course, transmission cables might have problems with micrometeorites. Then again, your tent idea would probably have a much bigger problem with micrometeorites. Remember, the moon has no atmosphere, so it's constantly getting hit with micrometeorites.
Maybe we could just copy some technology from the Nazis with their giant bases on the far side of the moon.
Actually, the most useful thing we learned building the Space Station is how to assemble and maintain large complex objects in space. Any scientific research done on board is a bonus. If we ever want to do any other large scale projects in space, we had to learn how to assemble stuff, and this was the first really big, long term example (not neglecting all the Russian stations that came before, but they were smaller and didn't stay up there as long).
If we'd gone with the original plan for space exploration, we'dve had a (small) colony on the moon, an orbital transfer/construction station in HEO, and a manned landing or 3 on Mars by 1985.
Don't forget flying cars.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
As icebike mentions, space elevator, specifically one rotating at a tip velocity equal to orbit velocity. Then you are dropped off on the Lunar surface at zero net velocity. Half a rotation later, the elevator can fling you off at more than lunar escape, so you can pretty much go wherever you want. What do you build it out of? Near Earth asteroids can supply the raw materials for fiberglass and carbon fiber (depending which asteroid you mine). The asteroids don't have a pesky gravity well, so you can haul back materials entirely using efficient electric thrusters (~10x more efficient than chemical rockets). A partially built elevator helps lower the velocity required, so it's useful even before it's finished.
A rotating cable 600 km long, and having 1 Earth gravity at the tip, would let you place objects at rest on the Moon, and also fling them to more than escape. If it's in polar orbit, it also has the advantage of being able to drop and pick up from anywhere on the Lunar surface. Being much shorter than the Moon-L1 elevator by a factor of around 100, it is much less exposed to meteor impact, which can cut cable strands. Also, the climb time is greatly reduced. Instead of having to climb 60,000 km or so to escape the Moon, you climb at most 300 km from tip to center to reach Lunar orbit, and about 150 km from tip to halfway to center to reach escape. You merely wait till it rotates half a turn, to release you at above orbit speed. The rotation period is around 18 minutes.
To understand how this works, imagine a giant spoked wheel rolling along the Lunar surface. Now remove everything but two spokes opposite each other and the hub, with the motion unchanged. Smaller ones would work also, but would leave some job for a rocket to do on landing or taking off.
Gee, let me guess.
...and those with the money won't shut up to let those who can actually make it happen do their work.
What happened to going to Mars? How much money have they already blown on that?
What happened to replacing the shuttle fleet? SpaceX isn't going to do so well if NASA funding gets redirected into a Moon project.
What happened to turning the ISS into something more than a scientific play thing? Eventually it will need maintenance/replacement.
What happened to staving off economic meltdown and looking after an increasingly impoverished working class? Education, health, housing, etc.
What happened to controlling the national debt that is spiraling out of control at over 15 trillion dollars and counting?
When politicians and bureaucrats say we're going back to the Moon... I say they're all full of shit and I'll believe it when I see it.
What's more likely to happen is Russia and China will collaborate on a new space station in orbit around Earth that will serve as their staging point for missions to the Moon, and Europe and the US will continue their gradual collapse into economic irrelevance.
I would think since the moon lacks a protective atmosphere, any old rock flying through space would make this project halt pretty quickly I would think.
Most non-Russian folks are completely clueless why Russian men are so freakin desperate to fly into space and are quite successful at this? You think because we care about other countries successes in space or any other bullshit like curiosity? We just want to run away from Russian women. There, now you know. :-)
Russian dude.
If Russia's intent here is sincere and carries no ulterior motive, then they should be congratulated for doing what even the United States has failed to do. Cooperative, not competitive, exploration and colonization is the wise approach.
It's a lovely vision. I don't wish to crap all over it, but we're still struggling with how to deal with bone loss and atrophy. And that's with the most athletic candidates that take on such orbital missions. How can we ever have an average-Joe take on employment in such a space mining industry? The caliber of men and women necessary to do these missions would be exceedingly costly. I'm afraid until such problems are solved, cheap 3rd world labor strip mining in afghanistan would be cheaper and less risky if you can believe that.
Life is not for the lazy.
We need the lunar version of a self-replicating machine shop that can reproduce >95% of its parts from materials that are proxucible on the moon. It will likely be a while before things like microchips or things requiring exotic materials wil be easier to make there, but other things may be produced from raw materials or grown (feasibility depends on what feedstocks can be found vs what needs to be shipped in). We need to look for the advantages that would allow new basic approaches to create processed goods at low cost. use of solar furnaces mirrors in a vaccum environment may make it easy to refine titanium from the regolith. If you can do that, that is a huge step towards self sustainment or even a viable export commodity.
science is a religion
Since oxygen and hydrogen can be obtained from the moon, by using Sun light for energy to crack water - it would seem to make sense to export oxygen and hydrogen to Low Earth Orbit, as it requires less energy to get to LEO from the moon than from the Earth. This would reduce the size of rockets required to deliver payload from the Earth's surface to the Moon!
I think longer term getting to the Moon will be a 3 stage journey:
(1) from Earth to LEO station
(2) from LEO to a Moon orbiting station
(3) from the Moon orbiting station to the Moon's surface
Why spend the energy repeatedly lifting a new heavy vehicle required for people to live a week from the Earth's surface and throw it away after each journey? The 3 vehicles for the 3 stages are very different in function, leaving 2 of them in space best way reuse them. Reusing the Earth to LEO rocket is the most difficult.
You just freaking blew my mind. Thank you.
If you're near the Everett plant, I'd love to buy you a beer and chat sometime. My email is above and the whois for the domain is current.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Madness
I am so ready for this, i have played, er, trained many many hours.
Be seeing you...
Re-read the sequence in my previous article. Mining and ore processing are done by robots. Then you build a habitat once you have stockpiled materials. Your minimal robot assisted construction crew can survive for at least 6 months in zero-g, that's how long the Space Station tours of duty are. The habitat itself is rotating to make artificial gravity, so that problem is solved.
What has terrestrial mining in Afghanistan got to do with this discussion? This is mining in space TO USE IN SPACE. The reason to do that is to avoid the high cost of launching stuff from Earth. Cost of mining on Earth is irrelevant.
Why building a lunar base on the Moon? What significant research can be done there that on Earth can't? Moon's just a big rock, face it. We should spend the money on building more stable society on our own planet, like new power sources, better schools or helping third world countries become a nice place.
Fuck People. Start the space mining, and simultaneously work on AI for the robots. By the time either pipe dream comes to fruition we'll all be extinct anyhow. At least some small spark of life can carry on where we failed to collaborate a way off this rock. With any luck the drive to create and explore the cosmos will live on in our more sturdy & logical cybernetic creations.
We should have had a base up there for years - an ideal place to serve as a jumping off point for science elsewhere in the solar system, even if the Moon itself is "barren".
Uh, no. Although there are perhaps reasons to go to the moon, there are good reasons not to as well. The 28-day lunar night will make it difficult to ever grow food or use solar power there, and the almost complete lack of volatiles will make any lunar resources extremely difficult to extract on site. And before anyone natters on about iron and titanium on the moon, look at the abundances of these; I've got better ores growing grass in my back yard.
And then there's that gravity well. It doesn't sound like much, but it's enough to be annoying and costly (all those steel beams you're manufacturing at the lunar Pittsburgh are going to need to get back to Earth orbit to be valuable, and the delta-vee for that is somewhere around 2.8 km/s.) To be long-term viable, the fuel for that is going to have to be produced on the moon (see aforementioned lack of volatiles.) The delta-vee budget to send something to the outer solar system from the moon's surface is only slightly less than to send it directly from low Earth orbit.
The Lagrangian points in the Earth-moon system are, in many ways, more attractive for settlement, provided that near-earth asteroids prove useful for raw materials. And even the surface of Mars makes more economic sense in supplying exploration and exploitation of the outer solar system.
I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Why not to go down into Earth? There is unlimited source of energy there. Just some 10 - 15 km and unlimited source of energy.
The temperature increases 30 degrees with each kilometer down. Why not to build a large scale energy generating and R&D station there?
you are still a dude!
That's what I mean by jumping off point. You have to take it in stages unless you want to risk a manned Mars base from the outset - right now we've found it hard to run a self sustaining isolated environment *on earth* let alone on another rock. You learn on the Moon, with a shorter lifeline to Earth, even if it's energy-expensive and not long-term viable, then you move outwards. The point is to cut our teeth in the "relative safety" of the Moon before we are confident about going further abroad.
No, seriously... why? Because the Chinese are talking about going there? Is it going to be a big busywork project like the space station?
I can think of a half dozen space-related projects that would make more sense to fund, and at a fraction of the cost. This obsession with big vanity projects is crazy in light of the budgetary environment we'll be in for the next few decades.
I suppose since Slashdot has a wide variety of readers from different countries that your post is correct in saying specifically why Slashdot readers might oppose such a mission, but since people in Europe, Australia, etc. are not US citizens it might be more relevant to talk about why Americans oppose such things too. The general argument goes like this - "How can we pay for _____________ (insert anything space related) when we still have problems in this country that we haven't solved?" Back in the day it was easy to sell the American public on space missions because they were exciting and there was also a fear that "If we don't do it first, the Russkies will use it to destroy us". Geez, back in the late 1960s the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey" pictured a working space station and lunar bases in 2001. The old "UFO" TV show from the early 1970s had a small lunar base in the 1980s. Here it is 2012 and we can't even get enough enthusiasm up to even go back just one more time to the moon, let alone do anything interesting or useful there. What it is going to take is a president and Congress who want to make it a priority and they basically say "Screw it. We're paying for it. End of story." We'll never go back until the Chinese put their own base up if we wait for the American public to get on board with this. I believe for various reasons that the Russians are quite sincere about wanting to find partners, but you could probably just substitute "European" for "American" in my post and you'd have the same result. Sorry Ivan, but if you want a partner for a lunar base you're probably going to need to talk to Beijing. Sigh.
Make the landing pad slightly bowl-shaped.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The problem with a rotating tether as you describe is that you only get an "instant" to catch the end of the cable, secure it to the payload, and then clear the area as the payload takes off.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Great plan below here, but from a politician with elections coming up in less than 2/4/6 years, a) tl/dr, b) what kind of payback horizon are you talking about? Will my voters see anything worthwhile in their lifetime? In their children's lifetime?, c) take anything the far out science guys say, and multiply the schedule x3, the budget x12, and the tangible taxable benefits x0.2, does it still sound good? Good enough to get me re-elected? "We're going to Mars!" was a dud for W., why should I think I'll get more bang out of supporting this?
Short version: build a bridge, one plank at a time, and get to several something usefuls along the way - pie in the sky is going to stay there.
tl;dr: Robots first, mine the asteroids for building materials.
The proper plan is to start mining Near Earth Asteroids for supplies. Why NEO's? They take less velocity to reach than the Moon's surface for some of them, and all of the velocity can be done with highly efficient electric thrusters. The Moon is physically closer, but distance is not what costs in space, it's velocity and fuel. Haul back surface dust and rocks from your chosen asteroid with a solar powered tug, and have the extraction equipment in Earth orbit. Why here? it's close enough to be remote controlled by humans on the ground. Depending which asteroid and it's composition you can get: metals, glass, oxygen, fuel for more mining trips, carbon, silicon for solar panels, even water in some of them. Also sheer bulk rock gives you radiation shielding.
Once you learn to extract useful stuff, and build up a supply, you use that to build a habitat, including a greenhouse using the glass for windows and carbon to feed the plants. *Then* you start sending people. Until then you send the minimum crew you can get away with, possibly zero. With people up there and their life support taken care of long term, you can start building space elevators in Earth orbit and Lunar orbit out of the carbon you extract. Not the sci-fi one at Earth that goes all the way to the ground, that takes materials we can't make yet. You can reach 30% of the way to the ground in velocity terms at Earth, and all the way on the Moon, cause it's smaller. 30% in velocity means 50% in energy for a vehicle starting from the ground. You can now build single stage to orbit vehicles easily. At the moon you don't need vehicles at all as far as propulsion, just a pressure cabin. Now you can send people all the way from Earth to the Moon at reasonable cost. You can also send habitat parts made in orbit down to the Moon, and start building up your infrastructure there.
We already know a lot about mining and manufacturing on Earth. The main thing we have to learn is how to do it remotely, and possibly in zero gee (you can always spin things if you need gravity).