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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.'"
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.
A) It's (relatively) not that big of a gravity well, and
B) It's pretty close to here for easy construction and resupply,
C) It's easier to protect it and its occupants from radiation and asteroids, and
D) There might be water available nearby, precluding the need to ship at least one thing up there constantly.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
If you spend too much time on the Moon, or in space for that matter, you could easily find yourself in a position where you're no longer able to stand the gravity of the Earth.
We understand zero/microgravity's effects on human beings pretty well. That said, the longest we've ever had a human on the Moon is 3 days--not really long enough to study anything. One of the things I wish we'd have been able to study on the ISS is the effect of various levels of gravity and their effect on humans. Unfortunately, that capability was cut.
Zero-G/Microgravity is not all that great for human beings. As I understand it, besides muscle issues (ie, not using them), there's also bone-loss. I believe these are dealt with on ISS via a combination of exercise and drugs. The problem is, we don't know how much gravity is necessary. Would 0.5G be enough? 0.25G? 0.16G (ie, lunar gravity)? Do we need gravity the whole time? Could we, for example, put beds in a 1G centrifuge so people get eight hours of 1G while they sleep but spend the rest of their time in Zero-G with no ill effects?
These are things that need to get figured out.
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).
The Moon is too unstable for human underground habitation and strip mining is still the best way to mine if you can get away with it.
The moon is virtually dead geologically and has been for 3 billion years. "the energy associated with the Earth's seismic activity is about 10^14 times larger than that of the Moon"
(Dark side of the moon; more mining friendly?)
You do realize that it's not really dark, right? It is only "dark" in relation to the Earth, not the sun.
For shielding, why not use lead plates, bet yet gold
So you want to lift large amounts of very dense materials (or rare) from the earth to the moon rather than use the materials that are already there and adequate? I guessing you recently received your MBA.
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.