Still not clear to me that NASA will be the one to do it.
14 thoughts on “The NASA Moon Base”
With SLS on track for one launch every 18 to 24 months, aren’t we talking about a 22nd century moon base?
That depends. Under a toxic male working definition of “base”, it’s wherever you set down the beer cooler. Blue Moon could lower one down on its davits and call it a day.
However, I think the goal of building a lunar base is possibly doomed to failure because that idea focuses on having some astronauts doing “something ” on the moon. For sustainability, the “something” they’re doing matters way more than having some folks up there occasionally wandering out of an igloo to do whatever random tasks need doing.
Bezos and Musk both understand this. They’re not going up there to go up there, they’re going up there to mine and build things that will allow them to bootstrap a sustainable industry. Without a growing industry, there’s no jobs and no eventual revenue stream.
“The ice mine and metal smelters allow the production of the mass driver that allows the construction of the L5 assembly facility that…” It’s a trajectory along a development path.
In contrast, much of the artwork and proposals look like ads for a station wagon. “Here’s people in space suits using our fabulous product to do whatever it is they’re doing up there. Won’t our product be great? You know you want to buy it because it looks so cool.”
On the lunar end of the pipeline, I’d focus on useful equipment such as power sources, ISRU equipment, smelters, and dozers, along with all kinds of prospecting equipment to locate wildly useful ore concentrations or serendipitous meteor impacts.
On this end of the pipeline, I’d evaluate proposals based on lunar payload tons per year, and lunar payload tons per dollar. Artemis is going to fail on both those measures, and the early Blue Moon design will probably fail on payload tons per year due to its small payload capacity compared to what an elliptical-orbit refueled Starship might set down. However, if Blue Origin follows through with their bold plan, Blue Moon will quickly be followed by really big landers.
Boom towns don’t form in some random spot in an empty desert, they form around lucrative mineral strikes.
Boom towns don’t form in some random spot in an empty desert, they form around lucrative mineral strikes.
A “base” that is mobile would help capitalize on discoveries and might even be cheaper than throwing away infrastructure if a site becomes a dead end.
Mobile bases lead to a Mortal Engines scenario.
Exciting. Everyone will want to go, assuming the toilets work ok.
I haven’t watched “Mortal Engines”. The reviews were pretty bad.
However, it makes a lot of sense to have a large rover that carries its own ascent module. The possibility of getting stranded by a breakdown wouldn’t limit the astronaut’s explorations to staying within walking distance of the landing site, and on a longer stay wouldn’t have them covering the same ground again and again. It would let them drive to many destinations like a much faster version of a Mars rover, with the added benefit of having astronauts on hand to collect rock samples, drill, or set up sensors.
As a little snipe, in the last picture, right above “No. 4”, they’ve got four huge engines sticking out of the bottom of a tiny descent stage. It looks spiffy and powerful, but I don’t think the combustion chambers and other engine doo-dads leave room for any fuel tanks. Also, the foreground astronaut needs to either eat more or inflate his pressure suit.
Artists… ^_^
I liked the PR piece.
Interested in nuclear power source, but interested if there problems launching it.
The piece missed one of the key elements of a NASA moon base. It will be very stealthy. It will make the F22 look like a neon sign in comparison. It will in fact, be undetectable.
*snort*
New plan: Print an overhead rendering of a moon base, the same way we print giant banners and advertising signs, and then NASA can use a small robotic mission to unroll that over some reasonably flat spot on the moon.
Hrm… They might have to make it a inflatable fake base so the Lunar Recon Orbiter will see proper shadows.
Does NASA know that so many aerospace professionals are laughing at them?
They have to. Surely.
But aerospace professionals aren’t Congressmen, and I guess they know whose opinion matters.
With SLS on track for one launch every 18 to 24 months, aren’t we talking about a 22nd century moon base?
That depends. Under a toxic male working definition of “base”, it’s wherever you set down the beer cooler. Blue Moon could lower one down on its davits and call it a day.
However, I think the goal of building a lunar base is possibly doomed to failure because that idea focuses on having some astronauts doing “something ” on the moon. For sustainability, the “something” they’re doing matters way more than having some folks up there occasionally wandering out of an igloo to do whatever random tasks need doing.
Bezos and Musk both understand this. They’re not going up there to go up there, they’re going up there to mine and build things that will allow them to bootstrap a sustainable industry. Without a growing industry, there’s no jobs and no eventual revenue stream.
“The ice mine and metal smelters allow the production of the mass driver that allows the construction of the L5 assembly facility that…” It’s a trajectory along a development path.
In contrast, much of the artwork and proposals look like ads for a station wagon. “Here’s people in space suits using our fabulous product to do whatever it is they’re doing up there. Won’t our product be great? You know you want to buy it because it looks so cool.”
On the lunar end of the pipeline, I’d focus on useful equipment such as power sources, ISRU equipment, smelters, and dozers, along with all kinds of prospecting equipment to locate wildly useful ore concentrations or serendipitous meteor impacts.
On this end of the pipeline, I’d evaluate proposals based on lunar payload tons per year, and lunar payload tons per dollar. Artemis is going to fail on both those measures, and the early Blue Moon design will probably fail on payload tons per year due to its small payload capacity compared to what an elliptical-orbit refueled Starship might set down. However, if Blue Origin follows through with their bold plan, Blue Moon will quickly be followed by really big landers.
Boom towns don’t form in some random spot in an empty desert, they form around lucrative mineral strikes.
Boom towns don’t form in some random spot in an empty desert, they form around lucrative mineral strikes.
A “base” that is mobile would help capitalize on discoveries and might even be cheaper than throwing away infrastructure if a site becomes a dead end.
Mobile bases lead to a Mortal Engines scenario.
Exciting. Everyone will want to go, assuming the toilets work ok.
I haven’t watched “Mortal Engines”. The reviews were pretty bad.
However, it makes a lot of sense to have a large rover that carries its own ascent module. The possibility of getting stranded by a breakdown wouldn’t limit the astronaut’s explorations to staying within walking distance of the landing site, and on a longer stay wouldn’t have them covering the same ground again and again. It would let them drive to many destinations like a much faster version of a Mars rover, with the added benefit of having astronauts on hand to collect rock samples, drill, or set up sensors.
As a little snipe, in the last picture, right above “No. 4”, they’ve got four huge engines sticking out of the bottom of a tiny descent stage. It looks spiffy and powerful, but I don’t think the combustion chambers and other engine doo-dads leave room for any fuel tanks. Also, the foreground astronaut needs to either eat more or inflate his pressure suit.
Artists… ^_^
I liked the PR piece.
Interested in nuclear power source, but interested if there problems launching it.
The piece missed one of the key elements of a NASA moon base. It will be very stealthy. It will make the F22 look like a neon sign in comparison. It will in fact, be undetectable.
*snort*
New plan: Print an overhead rendering of a moon base, the same way we print giant banners and advertising signs, and then NASA can use a small robotic mission to unroll that over some reasonably flat spot on the moon.
Hrm… They might have to make it a inflatable fake base so the Lunar Recon Orbiter will see proper shadows.
Does NASA know that so many aerospace professionals are laughing at them?
They have to. Surely.
But aerospace professionals aren’t Congressmen, and I guess they know whose opinion matters.
The other day Bill Whittle had an interview on Gerstenmaier getting canned. He unleashed. 🙂
Wow, that is an awesome video. You don’t often hear Bill Whittle sputtering and at a loss for words. But once he gets going, look out!
“Fire them all. Fire them all.” was better than anything in The Wrath of Khan, and that wasn’t even the best part. 🙂