The guy in the space suit needs a pick and shovel.
Its cool how the guy in the space dinghy looks like he is rowing.
OK, having read the article,
At this time, the USGS does not have a funded program to conduct full-scale assessments of space resources.
How does NASA feel about this? Is this just the USGS trying to remain relevant or is this a good role for them to have over other government agencies? How much money do they think it would take to give the USGS the capability to do detailed surveys? Would this cannibalize commercial efforts?
Regardless of who does it, it needs to be done and not just on the Moon. It would be really cool to see the asteroid belt “mapped” but perhaps it is a bit early to do that.
USGS played a vital role in mission planning for Apollo 12. The landing site was to have been near the landing site of Surveyor 3, a probe which had landed two years earlier. It wasn’t possible to get an accurate enough read of Surveyor’s location from Earth to make this happen. But USGS took overhead imagery from the Lunar Orbiter satellites, and matched it with the terrain images taken by Surveyor on the surface. When Conrad and Bean landed, they were a mere 600 feet from Surveyor.
I imagine the Soviet threat analysts got a bigger shock from that than we did from Sputnik. The existence of Talent Keyhole was TS/SCI, but the Lunar Orbiters were widely written about in the press, so they must have known we had some capability. They found out just how much in a really big hurry.
I thought of slightly different way to explore the Moon.
I think we explore moon robotically and follow this crewed landing and sample returns.
And the slightly different, is, then follow crewed landing with robotic exploration..
So use robotic missions to limit or narrow locations for crew landing, use crew to confirm and verify these results, and with better understanding, have better idea what look for with robotic lunar exploration.
It seems NASA lunar exploration should focused on surface of the Moon. Or in terms any near term commercial use, the lunar surface is what will be mined.
And this seems quite different than Mars exploration- it seems to me that for Mars settlements the focus should what lies under the surface. Can drill for Mars water. Are there underground caves [and perhaps with water]. This could seem like same plan if you looking for life on Mars- but I don’t think searching for life should be priority, rather I think the priority should be to determine if and where on Mars, “commercial” humans settlement are possible.
So looking for commercial prospects in terms of mining the Moon and looking for commerical prospects of the real estate to live on Mars.
I think also this can allow us to move faster towards Mars exploration, before first crew lunar landing, you getting ready for crew landings on Mars. And after one crew landing on the Moon, you starting Mars crew exploration.
So one land 1, 2, or 3 crew on Moon before Mars crew leave Earth and you might send a few crew mission to the Moon while having crew at Mars surface.
But one could say the first lunar crew landing marks the start of Mars manned program.
You could say crewed lunar program ends when you have crew landing on both lunar poles. But “as needed” one might send more crew to moon. And plan on sending more robotic missions to moon after crew part has ended.
In any case we don’t need the long separation we had with ending of shuttle program, and present time of yet to have US spacecraft sending crew to ISS. It should be seamless transition from Moon to Mars exploration.
But terms of a stage or movie, Act One ends with a crew landing on Moon and Act Two starts with a crew heading to Mars.
And have all the action needed to prepare for the Lunar landing and then the Mars crew going to Mars.
No change that, Act Two should begin by sending a base to Mars, which will later have crew go to it.
The USGS had been surveying America’s geological resources since in the 1800’s so why wouldn’t they be the best qualified to survey space resources?
The guy in the space suit needs a pick and shovel.
Its cool how the guy in the space dinghy looks like he is rowing.
OK, having read the article,
At this time, the USGS does not have a funded program to conduct full-scale assessments of space resources.
How does NASA feel about this? Is this just the USGS trying to remain relevant or is this a good role for them to have over other government agencies? How much money do they think it would take to give the USGS the capability to do detailed surveys? Would this cannibalize commercial efforts?
Regardless of who does it, it needs to be done and not just on the Moon. It would be really cool to see the asteroid belt “mapped” but perhaps it is a bit early to do that.
USGS played a vital role in mission planning for Apollo 12. The landing site was to have been near the landing site of Surveyor 3, a probe which had landed two years earlier. It wasn’t possible to get an accurate enough read of Surveyor’s location from Earth to make this happen. But USGS took overhead imagery from the Lunar Orbiter satellites, and matched it with the terrain images taken by Surveyor on the surface. When Conrad and Bean landed, they were a mere 600 feet from Surveyor.
I imagine the Soviet threat analysts got a bigger shock from that than we did from Sputnik. The existence of Talent Keyhole was TS/SCI, but the Lunar Orbiters were widely written about in the press, so they must have known we had some capability. They found out just how much in a really big hurry.
“The USGS realized that our congressional mandate to assess natural resources extends to space,” Kestay said.
https://www.space.com/41707-space-mining-usgs-resource-survey.html
It sounds good to me.
I thought of slightly different way to explore the Moon.
I think we explore moon robotically and follow this crewed landing and sample returns.
And the slightly different, is, then follow crewed landing with robotic exploration..
So use robotic missions to limit or narrow locations for crew landing, use crew to confirm and verify these results, and with better understanding, have better idea what look for with robotic lunar exploration.
It seems NASA lunar exploration should focused on surface of the Moon. Or in terms any near term commercial use, the lunar surface is what will be mined.
And this seems quite different than Mars exploration- it seems to me that for Mars settlements the focus should what lies under the surface. Can drill for Mars water. Are there underground caves [and perhaps with water]. This could seem like same plan if you looking for life on Mars- but I don’t think searching for life should be priority, rather I think the priority should be to determine if and where on Mars, “commercial” humans settlement are possible.
So looking for commercial prospects in terms of mining the Moon and looking for commerical prospects of the real estate to live on Mars.
I think also this can allow us to move faster towards Mars exploration, before first crew lunar landing, you getting ready for crew landings on Mars. And after one crew landing on the Moon, you starting Mars crew exploration.
So one land 1, 2, or 3 crew on Moon before Mars crew leave Earth and you might send a few crew mission to the Moon while having crew at Mars surface.
But one could say the first lunar crew landing marks the start of Mars manned program.
You could say crewed lunar program ends when you have crew landing on both lunar poles. But “as needed” one might send more crew to moon. And plan on sending more robotic missions to moon after crew part has ended.
In any case we don’t need the long separation we had with ending of shuttle program, and present time of yet to have US spacecraft sending crew to ISS. It should be seamless transition from Moon to Mars exploration.
But terms of a stage or movie, Act One ends with a crew landing on Moon and Act Two starts with a crew heading to Mars.
And have all the action needed to prepare for the Lunar landing and then the Mars crew going to Mars.
No change that, Act Two should begin by sending a base to Mars, which will later have crew go to it.
The USGS had been surveying America’s geological resources since in the 1800’s so why wouldn’t they be the best qualified to survey space resources?