Bob Zimmerman says the the emphasis should be on doing the Moon best, not on doing it first. I think we could do both, if we can end our risk aversion.
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Bob Zimmerman says the the emphasis should be on doing the Moon best, not on doing it first. I think we could do both, if we can end our risk aversion.
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Why not both? A short term quick, leading to a long term best?
I work in software development. You can get write something quick and get it out there, and sometimes you have to.
But when when you try to expand it’s much more expensive than it would have been if you spent a little more time designing it better.
The moon landings were done quick. But there was nothing there to build on.
Admittedly it didn’t help that the money people had no desire for expanding on it – once the goal was reached, bribing people for votes with their own money became more attractive.
Colonies. They don’t go up fast and planning is key. The moon is a great place to expand towards Mars.
The main reason I can see for colonizing Luna is a testbed for Mars.
What we need are women with purple wigs. And lunar interceptor craft to defend against the UFO menace that look like . . . you get the idea.
First priority is to perfect the skin-tight spacesuit that can be worn either in a pressurized environment or with a helmet, not.
I’d always assumed the purple hair was to ward off cosmic rays. (Or a side effect of exposure to same).
UFO menace that looks like…. Drones over NJ?
Stack Exchange says “Gerry Anderson was the producer and his wife, Sylvia Anderson, did the costume design. The wigs were her idea. One reason for the wigs, originally, was the idea that it would tame hair – women would wear wigs of special material to keep their hair from getting in the way (presumably more of an issue in lighter gravity) and to reduce any issues with static electricity in the sterile environment.”
In 2001: A Space Odyssey all the women in 0g wore bubble hats over their hair. Could be the next fashion trend. You never know…
I’m agnostic on those wigs.
The rest of their uniforms? Hell yeah!
The hippies and commies already did all the hard thinking.
NSS.org/moon-miners-manifesto
Not that they were all hippies and commies, but some of them definitely were, especially the ones pushing the idea of having prison convicts do the work, along with emphasizing the importance of sending agitator propagandists and jugglers.
If you can get past that, there are some pretty good articles on radiation shielding, ISRU, and other topics.
How does juggling work in 0g? Wouldn’t you need at least two jugglers? Also in motion. Talk about the three-body problem… With three jugglers maybe the guy in the middle can remain stationary…
I suppose it would be possible to juggle (sort-of) by bouncing balls off the walls back to you while either tethered or back against the wall. Of course it would be far more entertaining if the thrower were in motion as well. Number of balls going depending upon the spacial diameter of the enclosure? Would this be like juggling or plate spinning? As the balls loose elastic energy to the walls and travel ever more slowly…
In my opinion, this is a recipe for failure. “Commercial station” is a pipedream, without a closeable business case. Axiom Station will become a NASA funded enterprise. Voyager will become and ESA funded enterprise (if at all). Orbital Reef would be a Bezos pet project, especially if Vast becomes a Musk pet project. Sierra could contribute modules to all of the above as a subcontractor. “City on Mars” is Musk’s dream. How long will he live. I think, in the end, space will be about industrialization and resource utilization, or it will pass like a fever dream.
I wish it were otherwise.
Just think of all the countries that don’t have a space program, who could be sending people to space on commercial launch to commercial stations. Madagascar could have astronauts at a fraction of the cost the US or Russia has historically had to spend.
Amazed at the Old Space fossils that are responding to your article Rand over at SpaceNews using the Apollo narrative. No one seems to think that a private company can get employees to sign up for a frontier operation that entails some risk. But at the same time can keep sending them enough infrastructure to keep them going on the moon indefinitely, biology aside. Yeah return would be nice but if we’re working to stay on the moon isn’t that the priority? I still think the prime motivator ought to be ROI. Have yet to see anything compelling for either Moon or Mars.
Funny WB. We posted simultaneously with nearly the same conclusion.
Maybe similar lessons learned from similar IT careers.
Throw in a few failed startups as well….
There are some government contracting business cases for various telescope and radio-telescope projects on the dark side. One of the craters at the south lunar pole has a temperature close to liquid nitrogen, so you could make a very odd business case for cryogenic burials there, even if it’s just heads, if it doesn’t freak people out and cause protests in India and Pakistan. There’s tourism, and of course you could sell moon rocks to labs, museums, and collectors for a while before the price collapsed.
Beyond that, the only way to generate revenue that I can think of is mining, which would itself be dependent on other space projects that do generate revenue.
Zimmerman’s idea is private enterprise not involving a government contracting business case. Right now, Comsats are the only viable private enterprise business case, regulation notwithstanding. Musk’s Mars colony would be a species of charitable nonprofit, by backing up human civilization.
My idea is space industrialization has a general business case, of resources from the accessible (to current technology) Solar System. Luna, Mars, Near-Earth Asteroids, Piazzi Belt Asteroids, Trojan Asteroids. Callisto (outside Jovian radiation belts) and maybe Saturn System way down the road.
Mostly, it would be, as you say, some sort of mining. And most of the human crew would be robot repairmen.
I’d make sense to send out robotic survey vehicles to all the near Earth asteroids to see if they contain precious metals (i.e. rare Earth, but not rare perhaps on NEO-740398309). One could imagine a breakout strategy where profits from the easier to reach build infrastructure necessary for the harder to reach.
The USA has an immediate need for rare Earths that are being embargoed by China. (Yeah I know, too late for right now, we need to play nice in the sandbox and work the art of the deal until then. I heard yesterday Xi is stiffing Trump’s invite to his inaugural.) And a Space Force to prevent acts of piracy.
The flip side of this, possibly sustainable strategy, is that it captures the imagination of no-one. George at least gets some interesting Science done, but not sure it’d be best to do on the Moon or out at L2 like Webb. Something really big, that can resolve extra-solar planets. There are proposals out there, can’t think of their names off-hand.
Maybe Issacman can steer NASA in the direction of working on orbital and cis-lunar space construction to enable this. Starting with a rescue mission to Hubble. Starship is going to be a huge enabler. People (other than Rand and the good folks here) don’t realize this, yet.
I am concerned that “Moon fever” will sweep aside the aforementioned activities. To what end? As someone once wrote: “The Moon is a harsh mistress”
Is a Mars colony sustainable? Yet to be answered. However I will point out there were colonies that failed here on our (American) shores back in the 1600’s largely because they didn’t have the proper human factors.
“It is now the 21st century. The best way to assure that when we go “back to the moon, this time to stay,” is to stay. Let us get on with it. ”
Same applies to Mars. But it would be better to first do it on the Moon. If crew can stay on Moon for a year, they should be able to stay on Mars for +2 years.
So Musk should use Falcon Heavy to put people on the Moon, which is near where NASA wants to land a Starship.
There has been no development on a lander that could utilize Falcon Heavy to my knowledge. Nothing serious anyway.
Starship on the other had has been designed as a lander from the outset, at least in a variant. And it’s already in flight test with mockups of the lander and who knows how much real hardware already in existence.
Starship will be ready to land on the moon years before a FH-based system if it started today. 5-years ago that may not have been the case, but here we are.
Besides, if you want more than flags-and-footprints (and perhaps tents), you need a Starship-scale lander.
The new world was not colonized by people crossing the Atlantic in fancy canoes.
No, it now seems more likely that it was colonized by people crossing the Pacific (well, short stretches of it, anyway) in canoes. It’s kind of unfortunate that the coastal areas at the time are now covered by 400 feet of water–there might still be some interesting remains there.
Griffin lunar lander was going to land Viper with Falcon Heavy. But now, suppose to land a mass simulator on the Moon.
You could send mice to the Moon.
But I thinking sending a bunch landers with supplies for humans to live on the Moon. And after some have successfully landed in a spot, send couple people to that spot. But the spot should also be same spot the Starship is going to do it’s test cargo landing on the Moon. And the people once Starship lands, could get more stuff so they could continue to live on the Moon.
Starship will be ready sooner than most of you think, just not as soon as Musk hopes. Refueling and EDL in 2025. Test lander (Skeletor) om 2026. If that works, crew lander in 2027.
The Cargo Dragon-based ISS splash vehicle could easily be reworked as a lunar orbital transport, if needed, but probably it won’t be needed. Probably a single Starship, refueled in LEO and again in LLO could make the round trip with Earth EDL direct. LEO refueling involves five tankers (or, worst case, eight). LLO refueling requires worst case four (100 tons fuel apiece). This would allow propulsive braking to LEO aerodynamic EDL if needed.
…aerodynamic EDL if needed.
The landing legs may not be massive enough to handle 1G. Therefore it might be aerodynamic & propulsive EDC. 🙂
What part of “tower catch” did you forget about? Lunar Surface Rendezvous Starship will launch with folded, shrouded legs. deploy them for lunar landing, then jettison said legs post lunar liftoff (maybe after TEI, just to be safe). It would then make a standard EDL. Part of the point is to minimize refueling at LLO by relying to aerodynamic EDL, not capture to LEO. It’s much easier to refurbish and reuse the thing once its back on Earth.
E.D.C. = Entry, Descent and Capture.
If you can do EDL, then you can do EDC, if you think of reasons to do so. Bear in mind you’re going to do at most two ellipses before DL or DC, so it seems moot.
Not convinced they’d jettison the legs just to have to re-install back on Earth. I suppose it might depend on returned payload mass or how painful it would be to provide a TPS for them. Or heck maybe they are their own TPS being made of ceramic or titanium? They only have to provide support for mass at 1/10g stationary. A bit more on lunar landing I presume. You are probably more keyed into the SpaceX plans than I am.
Oops forgot to do my fact checking and relied on my (bad) memory. Wikipedia sayeth lunar gravity at 1/6g.
SpaceX art has shown some versions of the Lunar Lander using the stub legs like the early test landings, while the NASA mandate HLS has four very large, splayed legs for stability. You could go with the stub legs to keep the Raptors off the regolith, and then have deployable stabilizers deployed at need.
Otherwise, I think it would be very difficult to provide full heat shielding for the big legs NADA wants, and which may, indeed be necessary. But sooner or later SpaceX is going to need shielded landing legs for Mars, so they might as well do it now. Some fan art has shown the legs deploying from a swingout section of the hull, but I bet that won’t work.
Fortunately, thousands of engineers at SpaceX are smarter than me. I hope.
Another possibility is that down the road SpaceX builds a capture tower on the Moon. Coupled with silos dug into the surface, the tower could lower the lander into a silo after capture. Once the payload section is at surface level cargo loading and unloading becomes the far simpler roll-on/roll-off type, eliminating the need for cumbersome cranes. Also the silo would allow for special louvers that could lower and attach to the sides of the lander allowing the underground section to be sealed off and pressurized to allow working on the engines and pumps in a shirtsleeve environment if necessary. Imagine these silos arrayed around the tower like cylinders in a revolver. The chopsticks could rotate around the tower to pull up any vehicle ready for launch and stack it on the launch ring for fueling and launch. You could do the same on Mars. And it dovetails nicely with what the Boring Company does.
That’s a *long* way down the road.
Sure, Starship weighs less on the Moon, but it masses the same. I suspect the loading on the tower during catch would probably be pretty close to the loading on Earth.
So that’s a lot of construction. I can’t see them sending girders from Earth for that. So you’d have to make them onsite.
If there’s in situ infrastructure on the Moon, you’d start with a concrete landing pad to get off the dusty, debris-laden regolith. But one of the important features of Lunar Surface Rendezvous is, there’s no surface infrastructure. You land a pressurized rover, land a crew to it, they drive off, and sometime later, another crew lander picks them up somewhere else. Could have been done with Apollo!
I would build small “baselets” first. A construction shack next to the farside radiotelescope, frex.
NASA has pissed away about $45 billion on Artemis/SLS/Etc. so far. Probably more. We may never know.
What if they’d just offered a $25 billion prize to somebody to build a functional Lunar Base capable of supporting a dozen humans for one year, plus the transport and return architecture?
Why don’t they do that now?
Why don’t they do that now?
Cash award or have the prize be whatever degree of construction their SLS’es are in + infrastructure as a gift? That they can do now. Oh wait, I see. You mean a prize somebody would actually *want*?
Because those funds have to go to the right people in the right places. Can’t risk the rewards going to those who actually earn it!
The whole “prizes” thing is silly. Remember Americas Prize? Yeah, that sure worked out!
Maybe rather than a “prize” we award trading stamps?
Old joke, so old it’s incomprehensible to youngsters: “Jesus save, but Moses gives Green Stamps.” Remember Sperry & Hutchinson? Not to mention Top Value Stamps…
“Get Top Value Stamps where you save! Get Top Value Stamps where you shop! Get Top Value Stamps where save and shop! Get Top Value Stamps, and save, save, save!”
I wish I’d learned math instead of jingles!
King Korn 🤴 🌽
A market wont exist before there is a market. Demand is infinite but only realized at the right price. Chickens and eggs.
It would be nice if a market grew organically all on its own, and that will take place for it is our nature, but it is utopian to think government shouldn’t/wont play a role. A lot of the commenters here are in the business and how do your companies make money? Mostly by solving problems for activity that is taking place right now.
IMO, the ideal would be a shift in mindset from merely fulfilling a contract to leveraging contracts for larger goals. Starship changes the range of possibilities and more people will be involved than just government and unless everything is vertically integrated, there will be a web of companies enabling these new efforts. Who made the money during our gold rushes?
It’s Utopian to think the government won’t fuck things up. It seems to me the markets grow organically from the dreams of supermen. We have one on hand just now, if only we (and the government of the people, for the people, and by the people) don’t fuck things up. Starship makes space industrialization plausible. But it only exists because Musk dreams of building a city on Mars.
Didn’t James Watt develop his reciprocating steam engine for the sole purpose of pumping water out of coal mines? And look where that led…
Then again, Hieron of Syracuse developed the steam turbine (aelopile) and couldn’t think of a use for it.
Watt needed a purpose for an engine that was so leaky it basically needed free fuel to be worth deploying.
So the only place suitable was right on top of coal being mined.
The engine did get less leaky fairly quickly, at which point it could be deployed further away from the fuel, and eventually the operators could even pay someone else for it.
I like Rand’s trust fall idea and it is a bit more realistic than previous suggestions to do the same thing on Mars. It puts pressure on everyone involved and more important, accountability.
Be it five, ten, twenty years or more, there would be no shortage of volunteers. Just lob more stuff at them until we can bring them back and one of the things we keep lobbing up there should be more people.
It shouldn’t be, “These three people are stuck there until we can bring them home.” It should be, “We are sending increasing numbers of people to the lunar surface every year and one of the many capabilities they will help develop is returning people to Earth.”
Also, it is another trust fall that markets will grow when people are there but that will happen anywhere there is more than one person.
Deliver a thousand people to Mars (with materiel) and see what happens. Maybe they build a city; maybe they all die. Building ISS with an engine and taking nine years to land four government employees on Mars (the NASA plan) is the alternative.
Maybe in a panic to get back to Earth before they all freeze to death they build an ISS with a superior engine that can traverse the solar system faster than anything NASA would develop. Life and death has a way of focusing the mind. 🙂
I wonder if you can make soda lime on Mars. Probably. Potassium superoxide? No idea, but I guess probably. That’d be the simplest, lowest-power life support system on Mars. A thousand people would probably generate enough body heat for the habitat, so long as it was buried.
Are there better worlds than Earth.
Is Mars a better world than Earth?
It seems if Mars had a lot underground tunnels, it might be better.
There are good and bad things about Earth.
One thing bad about living on Earth surface is it’s lousy place to make electrical power from solar panels.
Mars is better despite getting far less sunlight at Mars distance from the sun. And the Moon which has same Earth distance from the Sun- is a lot better than the Earth’s surface. And Moon might have many and very deep and large tunnels, and like Mars that could make it better than Earth.
But the problem with Mars and the Moon is, the lack of exploration.
They don’t have to be better worlds, just useable worlds. Better is the enemy of good enough, right?
Well, in terms of government, we {NASA}should explore the Moon and Mars in order to find out more about Earth. Now, we have not explored Earth, much and most of exploration of Earth has been done by private sector. But US govt had a policy to explore US and it was very practical and useful to do and one could look at NASA as continuing this tradition. Apollo wasn’t really about exploration, it was a race to the Moon, but the small amount it did do, had quite large effect upon further understanding of Earth.
One thing we discovered is that space rocks impacted Earth.
A good guess is Earth was formed from a “Mars size rock” impacted the early Earth, and formed the Moon- and we need more evidence about that. And the ancient surface of the Moon is said to hold the history of our solar system.
In terms being useful, we need launch costs to lower- which the government has proven it can’t do.
Also government seems incapable of determining how to live in artificial gravity and nor has determine the effect of low gravity on humans.
But generally I see “space” as better in terms of allowing “infinite” and very cheap energy for a human civilization in coming centuries. And in terms of billions of people living in space, I would guess Venus orbit would be the place.
One could say, that Mars is frozen desert world.
And it’s average temperature is around -60 C.
Is that average temperature, a problem?
Or is it worth a billion dollars to fix it?
The Moon has average temperature which is colder and we “want” to go to southern pole of the Moon, which has much lower average surface temperature.
A selling feature of southern lunar pole is it’s “average temperature”- or it’s a less harsh environment compared to most of the Moon.
And the planet Mercury is thought to be kind of hot, as has polar region which is as cold as the Moon’s polar region- or one might assume the polar regions of Mercury is a less harsh environment and it’s where people would live if living on Mercury.
One could say increasing or decrease the average temperature of Mercury, Mars, or our Moon is not worth doing. Or could say, that in vacuum, there is no temperature- it’s not hot or cold.
And on Earth, heating and cooling are a significant energy cost. And a refrigerator’s energy cost are a large energy cost for residential living. And on Mercury, Mars, and Moon, passive [not using electrical power] refrigeration is free.
On Earth, India as average temperature of about 25 C and China’s average is about 8 C.
Is India’s higher average temperature “worth much money” to lower? Would it be better if China had a higher average temperature [or a colder one]?
In terms of Earth’s history, we are living in the coldest time. Or Icehouse global climates are rare in Earth’s history, and we are present living in the coldest icehouse global climates. And it’s related to the cold average temperature of our oceans- which is about 3 to 4 C.