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Going To Mars Via the Moon (mit.edu)
An anonymous reader writes: Getting anywhere in space is a difficult proposition — at least, if you want to get there in a timely manner. Rocket propulsion requires combustion mass. The more mass you take, the more you need. A team at MIT has found that establishing fuel-generating infrastructure on the Moon could reduce launch mass for missions to Mars by up to 68%. "They found the most mass-efficient path involves launching a crew from Earth with just enough fuel to get into orbit around the Earth. A fuel-producing plant on the surface of the moon would then launch tankers of fuel into space, where they would enter gravitational orbit. The tankers would eventually be picked up by the Mars-bound crew (PDF), which would then head to a nearby fueling station to gas up before ultimately heading to Mars." The technology to make this happen is not difficult to build; it just requires a lot of money. Once it's in place, it'll cut down on expensive launch costs. As the commercial space industry gets going and launches happen more often, such an investment starts to make more and more sense.
At some point in the past the Moon must have had lots of fuel. Oil most likely. Look at all the bomb craters on its surface visible even today. If didn't have oil why would have anyone bombed it? QED, the Moon had oil. It still might, but till unless we get the Moonstone XXL pipeline approved, it will remain unexploited.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
These guys just wanted an excuse to play Kerbal in class.
They could launch fuel into orbit from Earth with existing launch platforms and then have the Mars bound mission collect all the fuel tanks before proceeding on to Mars. The moon base would likely be more efficient, but this still wouldn't require a massive new rocket that could launch all the fuel and the Mars space craft at once.
the rest is just commentary.
Simulations were done via Kerbal Space Program.
I would rather NASA goes somewhere, even the Moon, than plans to go somewhere even better, such as Mars, but never gets off the ground. The Mars discussions are like the Wright Brothers complaining it's not worth building the Wright Flyer until they solve how to cross the Atlantic, because who really wants to fly 259.7 meters on a sandy beach.
Just building a launchpad and fuel storage infrastructure on the moon does make more sense than blasting off from earth every time. The less gravity that the platform has, the more efficient it is to lift off from it.
I guess it might technically be cheaper to launch if you assemble ships using a space ladder and launch from that orbit... but it would likely be easier to make a moon base.
The question then becomes, how to make the fuel on the moon? They could send millions of tons of fuel up there waiting to be spent, but that would cost a huge amount of money anyway. So I'm not sure if there would actually be any savings overall.
It would be ideal to use the moon as a platform for all satellite launches, supposing we can find the raw materials there to make metals. There's enough water and oxygen for humans, and enough silicon to make photovoltaics. Electronics and rare or hard-to-purify materials could be imported from Earth. Fuel could be made using the PVs by reduction of water or other reactions. Once we have a good lunar base, putting satellites in orbit around the Earth or sending ships to Mars will be far more efficient and less polluting and wasteful. And we could use toxic or radioactive rockets that we can't launch from Earth, with fluorine as an oxidizer, or fission.
If you can extract resources from the moon to create fuel, perhaps you can do the same on Mars? Then the lunar refinery only needs to produce enough fuel to get to Mars, and the martian refinery can produce the return trip fuel.
We're not going to Mars. There's nothing of any value for us there, and scientific research and knowledge is not enough of a compelling reason for humans to make the trip when robotic exploration will do it cheaper and safer.
I really don't want to minimize the engineering problems they're trying to solve, but a refuelling station is not a new idea. Thousands of years ago there were rest stops on courier routes.
How about NASA spend their money trying to learn about the universe rather than sending people somewhere, which doesn't really teach us anything and is mainly politically moviated, now that China's doing it too.
Instead, let's use NASA funding to set up more laboratories, create more abs better probes to travel to the distant reaches of the universe, and inspire younger generations about the mysteries of the universe.
Before you build the upper floors of a house, you need the foundation. Pioneer endeavors to other planets should begin with a foundation of ongoing commerce between Earth and the Moon. This reeks of another " trip to the Moon " , once you go, been there, did that; and now for the next campaign rally .
A myopic vision is compounded by a short attention span.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
The problem with any space based mining/resources operation is that competition from just launching from Terra Firma doesn't go away. Let's say that SpaceX can get a fully reusable BFR flying regularly, putting 100 metric tons to leo on every launch at a vastly lower cost. Would it still worth the huge capital expenditure to develop space based resource mining/extraction to reduce the amount of mass that needs to go up form Earth? Maybe eventually -- the rocket equation is cruel, but we are no where near the limits of what we can do with technology on a $$$/kilo delivered to Mars.
...and IN SOVIET RUSSIA, beowulf clusters imagine 1, 2, 3 profit!!!! jokes made out of YOU!!!
Yeah, it would be great to be able to launch fuel from the moon, but how easy is it to get a fueling station there? My intuition is that it would take a lot more resources to build a moonbase capable of sending up the fuel for trips to Mars than it would to just ship everything for the trip to Mars directly from the Earth. This approach only makes any kind of sense if you plan on going to Mars a lot- or if you're just looking for a convenient excuse to build a moonbase.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Please tell me we're not talking about chemical rockets here? A nuclear rocket is the most sensible way to get to Mars, as it can reduce the flight time to a third of what's required with chemical fuel. Then everything becomes vastly easier. The life support and other supplies are greatly reduced. The crew's exposure to radiation and microgravity is greatly reduced. We developed nuclear rocket engines in the 1960s. It's time to use them.
Now, if you want to mine thermal reaction mass on the Moon, sure. . . Why not? The Moon would be a great proving ground for equipment and techniques that would be used on the later Mars mission.
Tl;dr
If you want an "efficient" mars mission, the last thing you want is to send people. That sort of thinking is just stuck in the past, like old science fiction whose idea of an automated car was one driven by a robot. They are successfully reducing launch mass by using smaller robot probes. Miniaturisation is the key. Exploration and research is good, but does not need bodies in a can. If you want to establish a colony, do it somewhere far cheaper and more sensible, like the bottom of the Pacific.
Awfully light on the kinds of fuel that might be made. Pipe dream, but where's the pipe? The moon may or may not have much water ice. Apart making H and O (requiring large storage tanks ... that have to come from Earth) ... what else is there? Where are the BIG CARBON deposits on the moon? No C, no hydrocarbates. Going to bring the carbon from Earth?
This idea might have come from a 12-year-old, so far as the article is concerned. Except that a 12-year-old would probably be more practical.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
AFV - autonomous fuel vehicle. Why send all the fuel with the astronauts? Send multiple smaller fuel tanks ahead of time and have them go into orbit around Mars. This should greatly reduce the risk of such a mission. Hell, do not send astronauts until you have first verified that 150% of the fuel required has already been successfully put into Mars orbit. Then when humans do go to Mars (if it ever happens), first have then sit in orbit using a robotic workforce to construct whatever planet based infrastructure they require. Only when everything is done should humans step foot on Mars.
So Have these geniuses calculated exactly how much water is on the moon? And how do they know? Enough to fuel every lanuch to mars - plus the water needed by the operators?
What is the specific tonnage of water on the moon? Maybe that is important. Or maybe we can send water form earth there and still save money.
Every single MOON FIRST! scenario seems to need a "Here sumpin cool happens" placed right in the middle of the equation, and without it, the whole thing fails.
So instead of using present technology to develop and go to Mars, we're going to embark on a hundred year project to just get started.
Anyhow, it was quite cool reading the precise calculations based upon a wild-ass guess.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Fuel is a small cost of a space launch. Only about $250,000 per low earth orbit launch is fuel. The big cost of space flight is the throw away rockets. Going to extreme measures to save fuel is not a wise use of resources. With the boost capability of the Falcon 9 it would take maybe 100 flights to carry the amount of fuel and resources needed for a flight to Mars and back. Assuming 100% reusability the cost to carry the fuel to orbit is only $25million. Developing and building a refueling station on the moon and manning it would probably cost many billions of dollars. Spending billions to save millions does not make much sense. The thing that will make space travel cost reasonable is getting to that 100% reusability and long operating life. A rocket with 120 flights to orbit would only have 40 hours of run time on it. Current Jet engines can run for thousands of hours between rebuilds. The Air frame can go much longer than that. Once we get rockets and engines with those same types of run times and perfect vertical return landings flying to space will not cost much more than the fuel and it is cheap.
Maybe not a dupe, but definitely deja-vu...
http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/09/26/0050245/why-nasas-road-to-mars-plan-proves-that-it-should-return-to-the-moon-first
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Gee whiz, all that infrastructure to be built on the Moon would require lots of personnel to construct, maintain, and operate; sounds to me like having a permanent colony on the Moon would be the first step in that process..
..which is what I've been saying for years now, and more than once here on Slashdot. Come on MIT, try to keep up, will you please?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
We need a permanent international Moon base much like the ISS before we even start planning for Mars. Make all our mistakes, learn all our lessons on the Moon where it would be MUCH cheaper and closer to Earth. Once the Moon base becomes just another standard science base (like Antarctica & the ISS), then, and only then, can we prepare for Mars.
Going to Mars without learning from a Moon base is a bit like entering a marathon without ever having exercised.
That's why this bit was included:
The moon base would likely be more efficient
Because you sent up spaceships to the moon, with your fuel, you expended all the energy you wanted to save. THEN you also added extra burden escaping the moons gravity.
MIT's claim is that if you could find a way to MAKE fuel on the moon then it could be a net gain.... but not really, because all the rock crushers and solar collectors would be maintained from earth at great fuel cost since the parts can't be made on the moon.
Plus the whole point of this ridiculousness is to send a MAN to Mars for bragging rights. Would you force him to live on the moon between missions in order to save the fuel? No? So really you'll always travel to and from earth, and adding a moon hop is just busywork.
Most likely, the authors are envisioning a future Mars mission being propelled by chemical rockets. And that would requires oxygen (or water as the storage medium). But that's all wrong. The true rational approach would be to develop ION propulsion, which does not require oxygen, and does not require a lot of propellant. So assuming the future manned Mars mission is attempted, it wouldn't be using chemical rockets, which means not a lot of propellant mass needs to be moved into space from Earth.
If there are metal deposits to be mined from the Moon, that would save a lot of mass if the superstructures could be manufactured from space. Right now, no one believes there are such deposits readily available, so that is wishful thinking.
Really, the only integral material that could be produced from the Moon would be water, which would be indispensable for sustaining the crew, making available an emergency supply for oxygen, and being a component of a radiation shield.
As I see it, there are only two critical aspects of developing a Mars mission. First would be that ION drive, so that the mission can be completed in less than a year, which requires better propulsion than chemical rockets. Second would be the scheme used to shield the crew from radiation. If they can't survive a solar flare, there's no point in even trying to go to Mars. Then it makes sense to figure out just how much mass is required.
If lots of water is needed for a Mars mission, then the design of a robot factory to produce water on the Moon makes sense. If not, then may as well eat the cost of a Mars mission launching water from Earth, rather than designing a robot factory for the Moon.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Is nobody here old enough to remember Space: 1999? In that British science fiction series, nuclear waste stored on the Moon mysteriously ignited and took the Moon on a wild and wacky romp through the universe.
So, let's get on it, and plan a mission to take the Moon to Mars!
A paper on this idea would definitely win an IgNobel, at least.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Meanwhile in our world, Walter White was a fictional character while World War II really happened.
I liked you better when you were just ranting away about "space nutters."
Not to mention that there are precisely 2 points on the moon that have both a) a constant line of sight to Earth, and b) constant line of sight to the sun (ie power): the poles.
Whatever nation occupies those poles with its stations will have a strategic advantage over all latecomers to the regular use of near-earth space.
-Styopa
There is also fuel in the form of uranium and thorium.
Using solar power as you propose, spanning the moon with power lines so that there is always light shining on the panels, would be an exceedingly difficult and costly way to produce power. To get the oxygen and hydrogen from the lunar surface you'd already be digging up the rock and processing it. What do you do with all the stuff that isn't oxygen and hydrogen?
From that rock you are going to get a lot of iron, aluminum, silicon, magnesium and other elements useful for building material. There's also a lot of calcium, potassium, sodium, and other stuff useful for supporting life. After all of that is extracted you are going to have piles of uranium and thorium, while also useful as a building material it would be much more useful as a power source.
Building a power line that goes around the moon would be equivalent of building one across Russia. Granted it only has to go halfway around to work that just means going halfway across Russia, still a long way. All of that aluminum used to make that wire would be more useful in building other things, like tanks for the hydrogen and oxygen you'd be making from your nuclear powered fuel factory.
Unlike on Earth the disposal of any nuclear waste is not an issue. The entire surface of the moon is bombarded with radiation from space, no place is safe from radiation so anything additional from the reactors is trivial. After you've dug a hole to get your oxygen and hydrogen from the rocks then dump in your trash, including the radioactive stuff.
Actually there's probably a bunch of valuable stuff in the fission products, best not to throw that away.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Why do we have this fascination with solar power on the moon? With the exception of a small area near the poles the sun sets on the moon for weeks at a time. Something has to power your moon base when the sun goes down. I suppose the power could be stored but that is going to be very expensive.
Use nuclear power, it's not like there's a shortage of uranium and thorium on the moon.
If we can find enough hydrogen and oxygen to make fuel, and enough silicon to make solar panels, then finding fuel for a fission reactor is going to be trivial by comparison. Oh, and fusion reactors are only a dream right now so don't suggest helium-3 as a viable fuel.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Distraction JEW troll, your post says nothing, as with the mass of other bs trolls on this and every other thread on the web. Idiot slobber that says nothing only proves the point. Your scum fraud lies about 'war two' are shown in the 'jew nasa' posts above. You can do all the bs you want to, nothing changes the facts. Patton, the real one, not your scum fake 'movie' bs, he knew the truth too late, and when he was going to do something about it, you killed him, same way you killed Huey Long, Forrestal, Tesla and every other person that mattered, while idiots sat on their asses and failed to stop your tribe.
http://67.225.133.110/~gbpprorg/judicial-inc/7_31_patton.htm
For the rest of you. No one is coming to 'save' you. Get off your ass. More on their spraying us with chemtrails if you didn't know of this -
archive.org/details/DontTalkAboutTheWeather_451 The haze in the air is nano chips, other content- www.willthomasonline.net/Nano_Chemtrails.html - the contents far more than described, we're breathing the nano chips, other content. For 'wireless' brain surveillance, control by 'smart grid'. Their chemtrails also to cause the drought and flood so they can assault at will, also control the food supply. If you've been duped by the jew fake 'alternative media' about 'haarp' it's disinfo. The towers everywhere are not 'cell', they direct wind, storms, cause lightning, earthquake, the low on-off hum you hear at night. All cell is satellite. This being done by the jews who also do this to children - skrewdriver.net/ritual.html
copy this, also the jew nasa posts above for links and to re read, postal mail info to those you know, put links on notes hand out to others. The mass murdering jews are spraying you, no one is going to stop them but you. Chemtrail virus. Time is short.
Show comments. Convenient that jews direct the thread, manage to keep my original post above your say nothing post hidden while yours shows.
If people haven't figured it out, slide bar at top of thread to show comments, and, click button to further load the comments, otherwise the mass of jew trolls that 'work' the threads vote up their bogus posts to hide others unless you open all comments.
Do both to show all comments, see original 'jew nasa fraud' post. copy info, links, give links to others. No one is going to stop the lying, scheming, mass murdering jews for you. It's up to you or face the consequences. Chemtrail virus.
Your 'moon walk' bs is a proven fraud. 'jew nasa fraud' post above shows the facts. Distraction jew trolls don't want dupes to know the schemes and lies, especially now the jew tribe is at their final stage for the big cull. top of thread slide bar to show comments, also click button above to show all comments. see 'jew nasa fraud' posts.
Like when someone buys a sports car, or gaming PC or a huge flat TV.
Investment. Gotcha.
It took MIT to state the obvious?
meanwhile, jew trolls continue to post bs, and hide posts so only jew troll bs posts show.
click show all comments and slide bar to see what they're hiding.
Russia and the EU. They won't be going any time soon. They don't have the tech. Just another desperate spasm by the impoverished, pariah Russia. Also, let's please end this notion of mining water at the south pole. Do you honestly believe it makes sense to strip mine 1000's of cubic meters of regolith, one of the rarest geological phenomena in the solar system, for a few gallons of water?