What strikes me about this plan is that since L1 is the point where Earth's gravity and the Moon's cancel each other out once you go beyond it the moon's pull starts to take over and you get a largely free ride the rest of the way in (minus some braking). So where is the advantage to putting stuff there when for a very small additional cost it could go on the moon?
Though I agree with a number of the other posts the moon doesn't seem to hold a lot of promise these days other then potentially as a proving grounds for Mars.
I like it. Sure it's in its infancy now but once they start getting good at this sort of thing it has all kinds of potential, not just for the disabled. Talk about a sweet human computer interface. Does anybody know if they have bi-directional communication on these things yet? But why limit it to human computer interfaces, why not human to human? If it can be used to control it should be able to be used for communication. Or why limit it to an external party how about a self interface. There are a lot of involuntary muscle responses that may not always be the best reaction to a situation, having complete control over ones own body has some interesting potential as well.
I just hope they don't use WEP to secure it.
By "more regularly" I didn't mean to imply there was a bright side, just that the daylight period was longer and more regular. (And yes the relay would be on the side facing the Earth) Though I suppose orbits would exist that would be well suited to this as well, they would still seem to me to be more volatile than a lunar installation. The Earth is a far bigger gravity well and would consequently be expected to attract more incoming debris. The breakup of a relatively major solar collector in a high orbit would likely cause a debris field that would effect the more "prime" real-estate orbits.
International cooperation would be ideal of course, I wonder how feasible that would actually be though? Of course that problem exists with both scenarios. There are huge costs either way.
I'm not too savvy on transmission drop offs. How is it that a transmission from the moon would suffer an order of magnitude loss? I would think the majority of the loss would come from the atmosphere a problem both solutions face.
Yeah, that is a problem with it, but we don't really have the ability to build a permanent space habitat either with appropriate shielding from say solar storms... A nice chunk or rock can provide that easily. Not to mention the raw materials that are available there that would allow the facility to be more self reliant than a space station could be. Additionally part of the point of a presence on the moon would be the installation, and maintenance of some equipment being it mining, power generation, or scientific. Not all of those, particularly mining, is well suited to an orbital operation.
Certainly solar collectors in orbit would not have nearly the transmission loss that you would get from the moon but they have some other down-sides as well. Prime orbital real-estate is becoming more scarce, there is already a lot of debris floating around up there and adding to that pollution with giant solar panels doesn't seem to make sense to me either. Solar panels in Earth orbit would also only be able to gather energy when they were not in Earth's shadow. Panels on the light side of the moon would be able to collect more regularly. Nuclear plants are a decent form of energy but they aren't without risk and they aren't without waste, they may be better than some other options but the potential environmental impact of solar panels on the moon is pretty minuscule. I haven't run the math on it, but I doubt that we would be talking an order or magnitude loss on efficiency from the moon vs. earth orbit assuming a decently narrow beam transmission and good relay technology.
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What strikes me about this plan is that since L1 is the point where Earth's gravity and the Moon's cancel each other out once you go beyond it the moon's pull starts to take over and you get a largely free ride the rest of the way in (minus some braking). So where is the advantage to putting stuff there when for a very small additional cost it could go on the moon? Though I agree with a number of the other posts the moon doesn't seem to hold a lot of promise these days other then potentially as a proving grounds for Mars.
I like it. Sure it's in its infancy now but once they start getting good at this sort of thing it has all kinds of potential, not just for the disabled. Talk about a sweet human computer interface. Does anybody know if they have bi-directional communication on these things yet? But why limit it to human computer interfaces, why not human to human? If it can be used to control it should be able to be used for communication. Or why limit it to an external party how about a self interface. There are a lot of involuntary muscle responses that may not always be the best reaction to a situation, having complete control over ones own body has some interesting potential as well. I just hope they don't use WEP to secure it.
By "more regularly" I didn't mean to imply there was a bright side, just that the daylight period was longer and more regular. (And yes the relay would be on the side facing the Earth) Though I suppose orbits would exist that would be well suited to this as well, they would still seem to me to be more volatile than a lunar installation. The Earth is a far bigger gravity well and would consequently be expected to attract more incoming debris. The breakup of a relatively major solar collector in a high orbit would likely cause a debris field that would effect the more "prime" real-estate orbits. International cooperation would be ideal of course, I wonder how feasible that would actually be though? Of course that problem exists with both scenarios. There are huge costs either way. I'm not too savvy on transmission drop offs. How is it that a transmission from the moon would suffer an order of magnitude loss? I would think the majority of the loss would come from the atmosphere a problem both solutions face.
Yeah, that is a problem with it, but we don't really have the ability to build a permanent space habitat either with appropriate shielding from say solar storms... A nice chunk or rock can provide that easily. Not to mention the raw materials that are available there that would allow the facility to be more self reliant than a space station could be. Additionally part of the point of a presence on the moon would be the installation, and maintenance of some equipment being it mining, power generation, or scientific. Not all of those, particularly mining, is well suited to an orbital operation.
Certainly solar collectors in orbit would not have nearly the transmission loss that you would get from the moon but they have some other down-sides as well. Prime orbital real-estate is becoming more scarce, there is already a lot of debris floating around up there and adding to that pollution with giant solar panels doesn't seem to make sense to me either. Solar panels in Earth orbit would also only be able to gather energy when they were not in Earth's shadow. Panels on the light side of the moon would be able to collect more regularly. Nuclear plants are a decent form of energy but they aren't without risk and they aren't without waste, they may be better than some other options but the potential environmental impact of solar panels on the moon is pretty minuscule. I haven't run the math on it, but I doubt that we would be talking an order or magnitude loss on efficiency from the moon vs. earth orbit assuming a decently narrow beam transmission and good relay technology.