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European Scientists Make a Case For a Return To the Moon
MarkWhittington writes "While the official target of NASA's space exploration program remains exploring Earth approaching asteroids, the case for a return to the moon has been made from a variety of quarters. The most recent attempt to make a case for the moon is in a paper, titled Back to the Moon: The Scientific Rationale for Resuming Lunar Surface Exploration, soon to be published in the journal Planetary and Space Science."
Write this down. M.A.R.S. That's right! Mars, bitches!
Please link to the actual journal submission, not some article from the Yahoo! Contributor Network...
Since "European" scientists are in board, maybe the Obama administration will agree to it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
To me, there's incentive enough to return to the moon simply because of the research and development that would occur. The space program that sent us to the moon the first time brought forth incredible advances in all kinds of areas. We should keep pushing our own boundaries and explore the unknown not simply because it's there, but because we have the opportunity to develop stronger / more efficient / less expensive / generally better tools at the same time. Make the results of the new research available to the public at large and everyone benefits.
It's a use of my tax dollars that I can support without reservation.
Love sees no species.
The US is spending 25.7 billion (17.7 billion NASA, 8 billion for the military (GPS, etc)) on space in 2012
ESA spent 4 billion Euros (about $5 billion)... a total of 413 million EU on human space flight.
There's a lot of talk in the paper about "global" exploration of the moon. I can only assume that means they don't plan on increasing that.
We need kids engaged in science and exploration, not killing terrorists or idolizing warfare. Bring back the coolness of space exploration and the meaning of the word "hero"
One way or another humans will render the Earth uninhabitable by humans. Sooner or later.
The only way to give humans a chance to survive our own suicidal idiocy is to colonize other places. The Moon is the obvious necessary step towards that.
There's plenty of other reasons to make it worthwhile until the Earth is done. But let's get started already. There's a chance that spreading somewhere else might take the pressure off and postpone the inevitable down here.
--
make install -not war
1. Mobility: humans are more mobile than probes. This ignores the fact that, for a fraction of the cost of sending a human (say 50%) a robot could be developed and sent which was far more mobile than a human. Robots also don't need to be trained or selected - astronauts have a fixed cost per unit that doesn't reduce significantly by volume - 10 astronauts cost approximately 10x as much as one astronaut. Whereas the per unit cost of a robotic probe reduces per unit at volume - building 10 probes doesn't cost 10 times as much as building a single one.
2. Presupposing that humans are better at drilling than robots. However, this fails once again to take into account that the constraint is the size of the drill - human missions require larger rockets, which coincidentally allows for a larger drill to be carried. Robotic missions launch with smaller rockets. Solution: use the big rocket. Launch a couple of probes at once, with big, capable drills. No need for the spurious meat bag attachment.
Both the US and Western European countries should be spending substantially more on space programs, and revitalizing the manned space program is the best way to do that.
A space program is the best way to stimulate the economy:
- no military or civilian lives lost (a handful of astronauts will probably die in accidents, but the numbers are orders of magnitude less)
- dependable revenue stream for private industry, not a one-shot stimulus encouraging reckless spending
- home industry can be favored over China, Brazil, etc.
- competitive procurement, no (necessary) giveaways to unproven startups with a promising technology
- creates a stable long-term demand for engineers, encouraging university students in their career choice
- the growth in the economy creates good paying jobs and tax revenues for the government, which may well be sufficient to erase the induced deficit (this is what happened with military spending during WW II)
And it's something that the US and other countries can be remembered for 500, 1000, 2000 years from now, assuming that the human race is around that long.
Forget the space race, let the space rush begin! Let's mine some asteroids!
Seriously, once space exploration can be economically self sustaining, self perpetuating, then maybe we can get somewhere.
From the conclusion: Summarising the above, we see that the lunar geological record still has much to tell us about the earliest history of the Solar System, the origin and evolution of the Earth- Moon system,
Yawn. I am an almost certified space nut, and i could not care less. Science for science's sake for cost of billions is just not worth it.
Now if this bunch got together and declared that they support lunar return for more useful reasons like exploiting its potential resources or developing and giving shakeout to critical technologies for figuring out if we could eventually settle it, while doing a bit of interesting science along the way, i would be all ears.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Long ago, someone once said, "Man cannot fly." And in the sense he meant it, it is still true today.. You can't flap your arms and propel yourself like a bird. However, mankind has learned to fly to the moon, something no bird could every do. In the same sense, man will not live on the moon or any other planet. Our physiology is too delicate for alien environments, even if we find one with nearly identical atmosphere and climate. We would be as welcomed as any foreign body (think 'War of the Worlds'). To get a very faint sense of the challenge, move to Mumbai or Bangkok and start drinking the tap water and eating their fresh food. Of course, the challenge will not stop us from trying.
However, as technology advances, it will become so much cheaper to send a machine, which can be built for space, that humans will always be a prohibitively costly payload. Sure, there will be a colony on the moon, but people will not thrive in a pressurized can at 1/6th our gravity. Mars, too. However, machines can be built for those environments. As they become more sophisticated, they can adapt, too. At some point, they may evolve to become indigenous.
Humans may evolve, too. However, our inherent advantage, created by billions of years of evolution, may tether us to this planet forever. Not a bad thing, either. At the point when what we create evolves beyond what we are, it may not make a difference.
the growth in the economy creates good paying jobs and tax revenues for the government, which may well be sufficient to erase the induced deficit (this is what happened with military spending during WW II)
Um... no. You aren't creating tax revenues for the government because everything is taken from tax revenues... from the government. By your logic I should employ myself and write myself checks and make myself a millionaire! The decreased deficit from WWII came because the dollar became more worthless because tyrant-in-chief FDR stole the nation's gold and revalued the dollar (and declared gold clauses illegal) meaning that the amount of money the government had to pay for any contract denominated in dollars (which all domestic contracts had to be because gold clauses were illegal) decreased. The government in essence declared that a pound was not worth 16 ounces but instead only worth 9 ounces.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
In stead of blasting hundred's of billions into space and and a trillion a year playing whack the Taliban, how about we invest in electronics fab labs, American auto factories, textile mills, Southern invasion prevention measures. Borrowing one and a half trillion every year making bombs and rockets to nowhere makes a few defense contractors rich but are really just make work jobs that pull money out of the economy. We need to invest in energy independence. That means refinery's, pipe lines, transmission lines. Factories and mills where Americans can get a job. We are in an economic war. Business can not be allowed to import goods just to make an extra dollar of profit. Yes, your new iwhatever will cost more, and Walmart's shelves might get a little bare but more people will have money to spend and taxes for welfare and unemployment will drop. Out fifteen trillion dollar economy will keep rolling along. There will still be plenty of pork for greedy pols to grab. We have hundreds of thousands of collage graduates and none of you can figure out how to create wealth? Any one can con or steal someone else's money. Distributing tax money to people so they can just spend it on useless stuff does nothing to in cress the amount of money, just different people have it. The Earth is not in a crises. India and China are increasing their energy usage daily. If we turn out all the lights and sit in the dark, world wide carbon usage will still in cress. We need to spend the next twenty years building up our economy. Then from a position of wealth we can explore alternative energy sources. The worlds brightest minds are working on it and when renewables become reliable and sufficient for our needs we can switch over. Collages and universities wont close, just now more graduates will be able to find a job. The first person that says Smoot-Hawley I'm going to find you an beat like a rented mule. How could the economy get any worse? Government insures no one starves or loses their home. During WWII Compan s sacrificed profits for the war effort, millions had their lives uprooted and hundreds of thousand died. In four or five years of the same kind of effort we could create another Manhattan Project. Put every able bodied person to work. attack unemployment at the source and mobilize a well trained army in a coordinated production effort. The dieing part is optional.
It's not much of a case. There is no estimate of the cost of the research they advocate nor of the sacrifices that would be made to fund the research and, therefore, no evidence of a net benefit.
Papers such as these are great at pointing benefits, but do little to address costs. The question is not, is going to the moon useful, but rather, is going to the moon worthwhile?
I have become very skeptical of governments taking on such well-intentioned programs as governments are ill-equipped to evaluate such trade-offs as they do not collect the benefits or bear the costs. Instead, governments collect the benefits of appearances (as opposed to actual success) and shift the costs.
If those scientists can convince Buffett or Gates, there is a chance the proposal makes sense. If the can convince politicians, fat chance.
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
Energy gathering, asteroid mining, making materials maybe too complicated to do in a planet, or just manufacturing with the resources gathered up there, thats a more direct and shorter term return of investment, if you could do things that would please both people that care about knowledge and people that care about money, then better. And could ease things for future moon missions.
Everyone seems to focus on GDP, but that merely measures economic churn, not wealth production. If you want to grow the GDP, introduce lotteries with 99% of the take returned to the gamblers, with a daily draw and legalized borrowing to buy tickets. A few will go bankrupt to avoid their debts but many will prosper and, with appropriate advertising, the daily economic turnover will soon dwarf manufacturing, agriculture and traditional service industries. If you want people to be wealtier, throw out the economists (if they knew what they were talking about there would be no global financial crisis) and the financial services industry (if they had any integrity, morality or liability there would be no global financial crisis) and focus on education, manufacturing and agriculture - the real engines of real wealth - in the short term, and democracy (the real thing - not the fiction perpetuated by the two-party, first-past-the-post "democratic" election systems current in several countries lately) and population control in the slightly longer term. And, while you're about making fundamental changes, stop spending so much on imperialist aggression.
And they shall find out who's on the dark side...
ESA is not the EU's space program, it's the all-European space program.
Dude, paying 2m people to build a space station/and infrastructure is way better than having 2m cafe workers, or 2m tax accountants, or 2m cops, or 2m parking insepectors, or 2m taxi drivers.
If you attempt the impossible, then you create new industries, new techs, new methods, and learn stuff.
Now go back to your C-64 and be happy with the same tech forever.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Read the balance report.
All income taxes, (not much really), all goes to pay of all bank loans.
All your paid for services come from corporate taxes, sales taxes, business taxes, trade taxes, local taxes and fines.
So what does modern govts pay for?
Nothing, I have to pay for everything.
Parking
Food
Gas w/taxes.
Lawyers arent free, all cost $.
Most education isnt free any more.
Most medical services arent free, or the crap ones are free. Good ones cost an arm or leg.
Public transport, mostly privitized now, and isnt cheap.
Nothing is subsidized for the average man.
Who gets the goodies?
Old people and their discounts.
People with children and their tax discounts, so they pay no tax.
Corporates and their 'discounts in tax rates'
Big corps, who get electricity 1/3d retail price.
Disabled people.
Illegal immigrants get lots of shit free.
Over the last 15 years, ive paid for everything, the govt has paid crap all. And your local upkeeping is just based on local city taxes from services.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I think you are approaching the mining problem from a wrong perspective:
:-)
From all that you say, the conclusion should be that we need a small solar panel factory first. And in order to mine its raw material, we need to tape a shovel to its side so the astronauts can shovel regolith dust into its input funnel.
No need to start launching or building something like Bagger 293 until you have a need for 240 000 m^3 of raw material per day!
Assuming the production needs are for one or two buildings and a dozen small rockets per year, a "fool's stick" (metal shovel on one end and a fool on the other) should suffice for the ore collection phase.
Maybe a small table-top factory that can produce a crude amorphous Silicon solar cell the size of a large button, with Calcium or Aluminium wires, can be built somehow(*). Then you need a small robot to arrange and solder the solar cell buttons outside in the sunlight and presto, you've got a growing power source.
Time is probably much cheaper in the beginning than raw power. Germany built those Bagger (in German) things because their heavy industry in the Ruhrgebiet had a large need for "Braunkohl" in the '70s. On the Moon you only need industry for your own base and maybe to launch volatiles and fuel to Moon orbit where they can be tugged to orbital destination or attached to a large (Mars) rocket.
Apropos, anybody here on Slashdot who actually read De Re Metallica by Georgius Agricola? I'm a bit too lazy, but that level of technology (16th century) probably gives hints for energy-appropriate resource extraction methods. Although fire and water are probably hard to come by on the Moon
I've got the modern English translation from Project Gutenberg but haven't got around to studying it yet.
(*) Please disregard the hand-waving.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
You make good fiscal points and we do need to scrutinize government spending and make sure money is spent efficiently.
For me it should be a beachhead into space - a place to have a decent heartfelt attempt at a community with a purpose - namely developing and testing new space engines and telescopes. That's my vision for the moon, and ultimately it would probably involve disconnecting the moon from the global economy for it to work. It would have to find a way to be self sufficient - really a completely different way of civilization. It might not be possible today but some time in the far distant future. If we don't start we'll get nowhere.
I can envision a colony being set up in a crater for for protection from direct light, using a system of mirrors and lenses to channel light to the colony so that it has a natural light source in daytime. Solar arrays would power the colony with ease.
A large opaque dome would be the result of lenses used to scatter light and a blue/white/yellow filter to create natural conditions.
Quartz crystal can filter out harmful UV light. It would need to be a crater with water nearby in abundance, and in any case water would have to be recycled and re-purified.
Radiation-shielding would be needed to prevent exposure to harmful cosmic rays. Water is the key I think. Is there enough water on the moon. You can't recycle it all.
For this to ever become a reality, I envision plants being grown from the minerals on the moon - preferably sourced on the moon - essential again really in 1/6 gravity so that would require proof of concept on the moon itself long before any community is set up there.
My overall feeling about the paper - good choice of planet, wrong choice of goals. Step one would be how we can cheaply, and sustainibly attempt to form a colony on the moon with it's own energy, food and life sustainibility. Long before we have telescopes and science going on there, I think we need to make sure it can sustain itself without outrageous cost and burden on the Earths taxpayers.
My science goals - Robots to mine the moon for raw materials, robots (assisted by humans) to develop plants (maybe even GMO'd) that can handle 1/6 gravity and are resilient enough over time. Solar powered maintenance robots that can diagnose and fix some problems as a backup. Robots to carry out gravity experiments - how to create 1g on the moon. Much of this research would be carried out on Earth but eventually, we would need to deploy a system for testing on the moon that can produce 1 g in a local gravitational field.
I think it's a pipe dream for now. We need to develop robots first that carry out these long duration experiments with only small human involvement from Earth periodically.
It would be very challenging, and require great minds.
maybe we need cybernetics then - autonomous robots.
Make it useful and beneficial. A tolerable pre-cost that pays for itself / pays itself off.
So I guess more moone surverying missions then - bigger better moon surveyor missions.
But I still think there's things we can do now like harvest biomass on the moon and sell it to Earth.
Meanwhile ISS will be abandoned in 6 months lol. Anyway our only hope is China.
"...infrastructure and assets on the Moon won't degrade, or at least will degrade very slowly compared with infrastructure and assets built on earth."
Moon dust is incredibly sharp and jagged, because it isn't constantly blown by wind and eroded by water. And it's very fine, the result of being pulverized by asteroids. So you have very fine, extra gritty grit working it's way into everything that isn't hermetically sealed. Bad news for anything with moving parts.
Personally, I'd rather spend money on moon bases than on making wars and maintaining our empire, but that ain't happening.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
It better be damn big, I need leg room and head room. I should be able to tilt my seat ALL the way back, too!
You know, never mind. Forget it! I ain't going to the moon in no damned CASE!
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Specifically, the LRO mission demonstrated that the moon itself is a source of radiation, so burying yourself in it is probably a bad idea, unless it doesn't go to any real depth, and you are willing to seriously dig down.
http://news.discovery.com/space/moon-radiation-gamma-rays.html
-- Terry
When Kennedy announced the race to the moon he wanted to be able to put nuclear weapons the size of a school bus within a mile or so of the Kremlin. That was far to crass to admit in Camelot, so this bullshit was launched. The moon is a dead rock, they found exactly what the scientist's predicted,nothing of value. There were no real gains beyond payload and accuracy. Nixon knew this and promptly cancelled the lunar program and scrapped flight hardware that went to several museum's where they decompose this very day. Getting to the moon is very easy compared to getting back alive. Getting back alive has little miltary value unlike payload and accuracy.
We are all adults, so please put the bong down, turn off the TV and give up the StarTrek/Buck Rogers dreams. Mankind is vastly closer to the stone age than we are to interstellar travel.