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Is NASA Planning To "Terraform" Part of the Moon? Not Quite

Posted by samzenpus on from the keeping-it-warm dept.

MarkWhittington writes: A story in Popular Science suggested that NASA is mulling a plan to "terraform" part of the moon. The term is more than a little misleading, as it implies making a portion of the moon livable for humans. The actual plan, being funded by the space agency as part of NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program is exciting nevertheless. The idea is to deploy reflectors around the rim of the Shackleton Crater, a region at the moon's South Pole where ice is thought to exist in permanent shadows. The reflectors would focus light onto select areas to provide power for robotic explorers. In this manner, the robots would not have to be equipped with protection against the cold inside the crater and would not have to be powered by plutonium-fueled RTGs. Temperatures inside the shadowed regions of Shackleton plunge to minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit.

65 comments

  1. Fun stuff.... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

    Just hope they don't end up vaporizing away all the (currently solid) H2O before we can capture it.

    1. Re:Fun stuff.... by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      You could have RTFA and saw the bit where it says

      The strategy would be to send rovers into Shackleton, powered by the reflected solar light, and set up a kind of base of operations within the crater. Then the rovers would make forays into the darkened regions under battery power to prospect for ice. They would return to the illuminated spots to warm up and recharge. Later, the same arrangement would be made for mining robots, extracting the ice for use by human settlers.

      They don't plan on shining sunlight on the ice

    2. Re:Fun stuff.... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I saw that bit - what I didn't see was hard data on where the ice actually is (because nobody knows), or any estimation of what the solar reflection into the crater will do to peak temperatures within the crater. With any luck at all, things won't be getting out of hand, better to try than not to try. But, if we are fortunate and the ice is deposited as thin frost on the cave entrances, we'll have to be careful to charge the rovers a good distance from the caves to avoid sublimating too much away (sublimation point of H2O in hard vacuum is 150K, or -123C / -190F). Even driving a "warm" rover into the cave might start the process...

    3. Re:Fun stuff.... by durrr · · Score: 1

      Sounds like needless complexity when you could just put an RTG in the fucking rover instead.

    4. Re:Fun stuff.... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Sounds like needless complexity when you could just put an RTG in the fucking rover instead.

      How is an RTG less complex than a reflector? RTGs involve handling plutonium isotopes. Oh, and those isotopes don't currently exist, but let's just forget about that for now. Assuming the proper isotopes did exist, preparing an RTG for launch is very expensive. If the launch is delayed, the RTG continues to generate heat and decay as it sits on the shelf. RTGs are heavy and require even heavier shielding. That raises lauch costs, and more importantly raises lunar landing difficulty and cost. RTGs generate radiation that can cause errors in electronics. That will be mostly soft errors, but they still need to be dealt with.

      Or you could just use a solar panel and a reflector.

    5. Re:Fun stuff.... by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 1

      We are running out of fuel for RTGs and will not have any more until we start producing a lot of weapons grade Plutonium because the fuel is a byproduct of the process. It make a lot of sense to develop alternatives

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    6. Re:Fun stuff.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If there is so little H2O that a "warm" rover sublimates it let's not bother mining it. :)

    7. Re:Fun stuff.... by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      That raises lauch costs, and more importantly raises lunar landing difficulty and cost.

      Or you could just use a solar panel and a reflector.

      Because multiple launches are free and increase reliability...?

      --
      No sig today...
    8. Re: Fun stuff.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lets leave these things to the experts at NASA. If they think this is the best option available who are we to dissent?

  2. Is any of this useful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think space exploration should be focused on what is useful for mankind. The choices we general make today seem handicapped by our limited ability to travel vast distances so we seem to compromise and do stuff closer. Even though its really not that interesting or of real value. Its like going on vacation to a place you've been many times but because its close you go there to save money. NASA certainly has lost focused and someone needs to get a real ideal about exploring space in a way that can truly be a new opportunity for man kind. Not a trip to good old Moon.

    1. Re:Is any of this useful? by youngone · · Score: 1
      While I agree with you that more exploration is needed, the Moon is a great place to set up on because it is close to Earth, and the gravity well is 1/6th of Earth's, so getting off again uses less fuel.

      If this water can be made use of, both as water for crew and fuel for space ships it's already where it can be helpful.

    2. Re:Is any of this useful? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Go, do, learn, do some more. We've been sitting on this rock, theorizing, for hundreds of years, and all it got us was a couple of lousy atomic bombs.

      Getting out and actually going to the Moon got us more "useful for mankind" tech in 10 years than the equivalent amount of resources spent in "think tank" academic institutions did in the previous 100. Look at life in 1960 vs 1860. Then look at life in 1980 vs 1970. We need the academics, but they need to get out and stretch their legs "in the real universe" once in awhile, too.

    3. Re:Is any of this useful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps the frist step is to "lunaform" a part of the earth, then carefully terraform that without letting the real earth seep in.

    4. Re:Is any of this useful? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Then look at life in 1980 vs 1970

      1970 = Led Zeppelin
      1980 = Disco

      Progress?

      Though now that I think about it, the last man on the moon was 1972, and that's when things started going downhill. Maybe you're right, let's terraform the moon, bitches!

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:Is any of this useful? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Don't know where you lived, but in West-Central coastal Florida, disco died, hard, in about 1979.

      A lot of the 1970-1980 period was the early deployment of technologies (microchips, digital recording and communications, fiber optics, spandex) that would be put to better use in later decades...

      That late 60's early 70's culture did have a lot of influence from the "blows my mind" kind of things that were being done at the time. Terraforming, space elevators, and high-speed interplanetary travel could bring that back.

    6. Re:Is any of this useful? by Jesrad · · Score: 1

      Establishing a lunar ice mining operation is actually the first, necessary step into building the much needed Cislunar Infrastructure that will power our future forays to Mars, Venus and the Asteroid Belt ; as well as sustain our existing LEO and GEO infrastructure in a more efficient way.

      The Shackleton Crater is the perfect place to have permanent solar power as well as solid ice. From there the water and ice can be turned into bipropellant and brought to the Moon's L2 point, and from there you can pretty much reach anywhere around Earth cheaply.

      --
      Maybe we deserve this world ?
    7. Re: Is any of this useful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since nobody is going to do that, ever, you might as well resign yourself to living the rest of your life here on this terrible Earth where there's plenty of air, water, sunshine and everything you need to sustain life. Unlike space which is dead, hostile and blasted with radiation. We've been there and there's nothing for mankind there. Ever. Get over it.

    8. Re:Is any of this useful? by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      Lol :

      America must lead this movement of humanity into space lest other powers that do not share our values and belief system fill this leadership vacuum.

      Do they mean the USSR is about to form again? or what?

  3. Fahrenheit? by agm · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Fahrenheit? Do they still measure the distance in fathoms? Force in pounds?

    1. Re:Fahrenheit? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Fahrenheit? Do they still measure the distance in fathoms? Force in pounds?

      don't worry, surely the next CSS will have support for unit conversions

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Fahrenheit? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Are they still using musty old units that were spun up out of nothing during the French Revolution? That metre that was supposedly a perfect multiple of the earth's radius? (oops!) What happened to the 10 month calendar?

      I have several French coins from the era, when they thought they had done a big enough thing to start renumbering the calendar years. Coins for a little while were numbered 'The year 2' and 'the year 3' and so on.

      Those dumb Revolutionary Committees. All we have left from their little ego trip (the French reset and did their revolution again a few times since then) are their arbitrary units of measure that aren't scaled to anything particular in the human experience.

    3. Re:Fahrenheit? by Trogre · · Score: 1

      Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Straw Man of the year!

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    4. Re:Fahrenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You left out Freedom Fries.

    5. Re:Fahrenheit? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      All we have left from their little ego trip (the French reset and did their revolution again a few times since then) are their arbitrary units of measure that aren't scaled to anything particular in the human experience.

      And your proposal is... what? The cubit?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    6. Re:Fahrenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The SI units are the only ones left that actually have external definitions.

      All the US customary units are defined only as so-and-such many of the relevant SI unit.

      Most SI units are now defined such that you could explain the definition to a hypothetical space alien by radio and they could reproduce them exactly. "Oh right, I see, and that's a 'metre' is it? OK. Well, the space ship we're sending you instructions for needs to be 316.2 of those metres long, got it?"

      The only one left is the kilogram, still presently defined as "The mass of this object, the prototype kilogram". Once we redefine that, in the next few years, all of SI will have communicable definitions, a huge breakthrough that will go unnoticed by the general population who still think "twelve inches to the foot, three feet to the yard" is a good idea.

    7. Re: Fahrenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CSS? You mean systemd?

    8. Re:Fahrenheit? by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      12 inches to a foot is a great idea. Imagine the confusion if suddenly a foot became 10 inches.

  4. And what's that in SI units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sheesh guys, get with the times already.

  5. -173.333 Celsius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    -280 f is -173.333 c.

    1. Re:-173.333 Celsius by penguinoid · · Score: 2

      100 K

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    2. Re:-173.333 Celsius by Tomahawk · · Score: 1

      :)

    3. Re:-173.333 Celsius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering the lack of appreciable atmosphere, that's remarkably warm.

    4. Re:-173.333 Celsius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is heated by the sun.

    5. Re:-173.333 Celsius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazingly, there are physics professors who think the earth's atmosphere generates 30C of warming. They say a bare rock with the same albedo as earth would be -15C, but forget that the earth's albedo is caused by the atmosphere:
      http://mathsci.ucd.ie/met/cess/FoundClim/archer_global_warming.pdf

      That is why people are surprised at the temperature on the moon. They learn from confusing texts.

  6. launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mirrors? Really?
    WTF. Just make the damn plutonium-fueled RTG's happen instead.

    Yeah, I know:
    -Because: launching radioactive evilness will kill everybody. (This time, unlike the last 28+ times we have done it.)
    -Because: The DOE or whoever does not have enough refined PU238 these days. Boo Hoo, make some more, damn it.
    Are we a first world country with functioning space and nuclear energy programs or not? (Maybe we should outsource RTG's to SpaceX too? Once Elon Musk has some breeder reactors in the corporate fold he is pretty much ready to get the white cat, island fortress, and inscrutable henchmen. :) Why the hell not.)

    While we are at it, that is: sending mass up and mucking around on the rim of a permanently shadowed crater.
    Why don’t we send up some pipe, a thermal fluid, turbine, etc. with reservoirs on the sun side and shade side of the rim. Not sure how efficient a Stirling engine really is, but permanent shade and direct sun sound pretty ideal. We could even beam power to the damn rovers, making Nikola T. happy.

    Mirrors, uhg.

    1. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by tomhath · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's Green Energy. They don't want to start Anthropogenic Lunar Warming

    2. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      Mirrors? Really?
      WTF. Just make the damn plutonium-fueled RTG's happen instead.

      The sun will last longer than the plutonium.

      I guess when your only tool is a shotgun, everything starts to look like a clay pigeon.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Ummm... actually, I believe the plutonium production reactors are mostly shut down, these days. Something about not antagonizing the 3rd world countries who we also want to shut down their enrichment programs?

      Yeah, it's better. Yeah, I wish we could have neighborhood nukes providing our electricity instead of coal fired slag pile makers, but there is something intrinsically lacking in our education system of the last 50 or so years where we can't even convince 1/2 the people that doing something to slow down global warming is a good idea.

      So, mirrors it is. Hey, if mirrors can get funding, I'd rather fund a 2 billion dollar program to put mirrors up there than a 500 million dollar program to do the same thing with plutonium anyway (4x the jobs, 4x the spinoff benefits, 4x the fun.)

    4. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      http://science.slashdot.org/co...

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    5. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      The sun will last longer than the plutonium.

      The Pu will last longer than the rovers it's installed in. Your point?

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    6. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Will the reflectors last as long as the plutonium tho? Although there is no weather on the moon, there is still dust thrown up from activity on the surface (meteorites etc) which will coat the reflectors and reduce their efficiency over time.

    7. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Seems rather inefficient to launch multiple RTGs, one for each robot. Maybe they could have one set up as a recharge station, but then they would have to have a complicated recharging mechanism that would be prone to failure. In fact a single failure of that charge station could scupper everything.

      Solar makes much more sense. Mirrors are cheap, there can be lots of them. They can deliver power to a wide area, or multiple areas. With a simple motor mechanism they could even move their delivery zone around. Multiple devices can easily charge at once. The sun won't run out of energy, and doesn't need its own complex support hardware to keep operating. They are much, much cheaper than an RTG.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      there is something intrinsically lacking in our education system of the last 50 or so years where we can't even convince 1/2 the people that doing something to slow down global warming is a good idea.

      Oh we can, it just has to be wind or solar because they're too stupid to understand that nuclear could ever be safe.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    9. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is something intrinsically lacking in our education system of the last 50 or so years where we can't even convince 1/2 the people that doing something to slow down global warming is a good idea.

      Yes, there is. The method of doing science changed. Rather than coming up with a theory and having that theory make a prediction that is then checked against observations, researcher's instead compare observations to a "null hypothesis". Then if they do not agree with the "null hypothesis" they jump to the conclusion that their theory is correct. This is obviously nonsense, yet it pervades nearly every "scientific" field these days. Read nearly any paper (not just the press release) submitted to this site and you will see I am correct.

    10. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mirrors? Really?

      To concentrate, yes. See +5 Informative above who RTFA'd.

      WTF. Just make the damn plutonium-fueled RTG's happen instead.

      Right, which provide magical free energy forever with no any engineering concerns whatsoever.

      Why don’t we send up some pipe, a thermal fluid, turbine, etc. with reservoirs on the sun side and shade side of the rim. Not sure how efficient a Stirling engine really is, but permanent shade and direct sun sound pretty ideal.

      Not a terrible idea, Stirling engines are awesome. There may be some challenging finding and using and maintaining a suitable thermal fluid that can handle the -280F temperatures. No idea, I'm a software guy but it seems

      So ... what were your technical concerns with mirrors beside "Mirrors, uhg."?

    11. Re:launch cost mirrors vs. a teeny tinny PU RTG? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      The Pu will last longer than the rovers it's installed in. Your point?

      Isn't that a reason not to use Pu?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. Orbiting the moon by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

    Can we put satellites in orbit of the moon?

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
    1. Re:Orbiting the moon by pjtp · · Score: 1

      A geosynchronous satellite around the Moon?

      It turns out that the required distance for this is outside the Moon's sphere of influence. Placing a satellite at the L1 Earth/Moon Lagrange point might work better.

    2. Re:Orbiting the moon by Trepidity · · Score: 1

      Yes, the first artificial satellite to be put into lunar orbit was the Soviet Luna 10 in 1966. There have since been a number of others, such as Japan's Selene, which orbited from 2007-2009 to do mapping and various such things. There are some oddities to low lunar orbits, though.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    3. Re:Orbiting the moon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the five earth-moon Lagrange points would constitute the only available geosynchronous (lunasynchronous?) orbits of the moon, wouldn't they?

      A synchronous orbit for the moon means a 28-day orbital period (using the sun as the reference point for the moon's rotation). But orbits don't have to be synchronous. Yes, we can put objects in a low lunar orbit. It's been done several times already on both manned and unmanned moon exploration missions.

    4. Re:Orbiting the moon by dargaud · · Score: 1

      Yes, but not for long. Lunar orbits are inherently unstable because of the overwhelming influence of the mass of the Earth.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
  8. the cost is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Plutonium batteries are a better answer.

  9. Terraforming... by jandersen · · Score: 0

    Regrettably, the efforts to Lunaform the Earth are at a more advanced stage ;-)

  10. Fahrenheit... Degrees? by Calabacin · · Score: 0
    Just two things:

    1.- Fahrenheit is a measure, like miles. They are not degrees. So you would say 280 Fahrenheit, or maybe 280 Fahrenheits.
    2.- And most importantly, except for the US and a couple of places more, the whole world uses Celsius. The whole scientific community uses Celsius. Even the US is trying to get rid of Fahrenheit!

    It's about time for US writers to use Celsius, or at the very least, to use both. How hard is it to say "280 Fahrenheit (about 137.78C)"?

    --
    How much wood would a woodchopper chop if a woodchopper would chop wood?
    1. Re:Fahrenheit... Degrees? by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 1

      More important, they don't even say how many rods wide the crater is.

      --
      No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
  11. Celsius by Tomahawk · · Score: 1

    For those of use that don't speak in archaic measurement:
    https://www.google.co.uk/webhp...

    (-280F =~ -173C)

    1. Re:Celsius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe C should stand for Chaic.

    2. Re:Celsius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does it really matter? Once you cross -40 (C or F) you can just replace the measured value with the words "REALLY FREAKIN' COLD"

    3. Re:Celsius by dargaud · · Score: 1

      Having lived it, I can assure you there is a great big difference between -40C (not that cold with good clothing), -60C (fucking cold even with good clothing) and -80C ("my lungs are freezing and I feel like I've just fallen in a pool of liquid nitrogen argh cough cough cough")...

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    4. Re:Celsius by jaklode · · Score: 1

      Convert to K. The only proper unit.

    5. Re:Celsius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. But at least C is based on K, unlike the other unspeakable one...

  12. If the headline is a question by Revek · · Score: 1

    The answer is always no.

  13. I'm a little confused by argStyopa · · Score: 0

    1) this crater is interesting because it's been dark at the bottom forever, meaning it's likely that water ice has accumulated.

    2) in order to explore it, we're going to DIRECT LIGHT INTO THOSE DARK PLACES.

    I'm not a rocket scientist, but doesn't that seem just a trifle stupid?

    If you're going to need power to the rovers, wouldn't it make more sense to land a solar array OUTSIDE the crater, and then broadcast power in to the rovers?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    -Styopa