NASA and Astrobotic Investigating Ice Hunting Mission to the Moon

Zothecula writes, quoting Gizmodo "While the Moon may or may not contain life forms, precious metals or even green cheese, recent satellite missions have indicated that it does nonetheless contain something that could prove quite valuable — water ice. NASA has estimated that at least 650 million tons (600 million tonnes) of the stuff could be deposited in craters near the Moon's north pole alone. If mined, it could conceivably serve as a source of life support for future lunar bases, or it could be used to produce fuel for spacecraft stopping at a "lunar gas station." Before any mining can happen, however, we need to learn more about the ice. That's why NASA has contracted Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology to determine if its Polaris rover robot could be used for ice prospecting."

Comments

Transport

[trimpnick]

Hopefully they design a vehicle to take them to the moon first...

Re:Transport

[Anonymous Coward]

From Polaris rover "Already, Astrobotic has reserved the use of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle to send a spacecraft containing Polaris on a trajectory toward the Moon, for a planned 2015 prospecting mission. That spacecraft should be able to deliver the robot safely to the lunar surface, using a system that allows it to automatically avoid landing hazards such as large rocks or craters â" ", so it's already being addressed

Re:Transport

[Chris Burke]

There's no point in building a heavy lift vehicle to build a lunar base that's going to use the water if we can't access the water.

There's no point in building a heavy lift vehicle to go to the moon in the first place.

It's vastly easier to get from LEO to the moon and back than it is to get to LEO from the earth's surface. If NASA finds usable water on the moon that can be turned into propellant, then we should take that and bring it to LEO to use as a fueling station. Then when we want to go to the moon, we only need to lift the craft itself and not all the propellant that it will need to get from earth to the moon (which has an exponential effect on the size of rocket you need to get to orbit).

What we need to start doing is treating space missions as two steps: 1) earth surface to earth orbit 2) earth orbit to wherever. And ideally stage 1) should never be lifting anything for stage 2) that doesn't need to come from earth.

NASA is indeed doing it right. They know this is the way to do things in the future, and it's what they're trying to aim for.

Of course then there's the Congress-mandated SLS pork rocket. Nice!

Impressive

[SJHillman]

650 million tons of ice sounds impressive, but it's really not a lot considering how much we use.

650,000,000 - tons of ice estimated on the moon's north pole
27,000,000,000,000,000 - tons of ice estimated on Antarctica
5,400,000,000,000,000 - tons freshwater on Earth excluding Antarctica
90 - tons of residential water use per American per year

Re:Impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

650 millions tons is a lot when you consider that a lunar facility would be recycling most of the water, this gives a nice starting point without having to haul it out of our gravity well.

This then leaves a lot of extra for use by space craft for various reasons. It's a lot cheaper to lift the water or by products from the moon then it is from the Earth!

Re:Impressive

[Sparticus789]

I don't believe that NASA is planning on moving 6 billion people to the moon. 650 million tons of ice is plenty for a few hundred person colony or refueling station. Plus I doubt that they would be watering lawns, taking long bubble baths, or washing their cars. So if each person uses 90 tons of ice, and assuming no recycling, then: 650,000,000 tons of ice / 90 tons of eater per American per year = 7,222,222.222 years of water for one person for one year. One hundred people can live on the moon for 72,222 years or so.

First send the robots

[perpenso]

Well sending robots is the first step. Even NASA did so in the 1960s. The Surveyor program tested technology, landing, and various other things before the Apollo program sent the humans. One of the Apollo missions landed within a couple of hundred meters of one of the Surveyor missions. The astronauts visited the robot and brought back one of its cameras.