Mining the Moon and Other Space Oddities

[Locke_]

This article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/scien ... sa.html?hp

These quotes.
"The Obama budget proposes spending $18 billion over five years for development of technologies like fuel stations in orbit, new types of engines to accelerate spacecraft through space and robotic factories that could churn soil on the moon — and eventually Mars — into rocket fuel."

"The space agency would no longer operate its own spacecraft, but essentially buy tickets for its astronauts on commercially launched rockets."

One question. Upon showing this article to a friend he asked if they were planning to harvest tachyon particles. I've researched a little bit, but does anyone know if this is even feasible considering their hypothetical nature?

(feel free to put this in Science)

[ender1]

I've researched a little bit, but does anyone know if this is even feasible considering their hypothetical nature?

If they did exist they'd be so unstable one couldn't treat them as existent.

Besides, why would you use Tachyon's as a fuel source? The most likely candidate for a fuel source on the Moon is Hydrogen-3 (Tritium).

[mr_thebrain]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twuScTcDP_Q amiright?

except that was helium-3.

on a side note, awesome movie. but sam rockwell sometimes looks like different actors in it. now and then he looks a little like ed norton, then one of the scenes where he's puking blood- he looks like both ethan embry and scott bakula at the same time. its a little odd. maybe its just me

[mr_thebrain]

i totally should have done a dobie! oh well.

could have named it "Mining the Moon by a Space Oddity" or something.



(cuz the director is the son of david bowie )

[locke]

the real question is when will the porn industry get into shooting on the moon. Low-G porn will probably be the first moon-based industry to turn a profit. :-p

[Wil]

No, the real question is when we'll get to the moon again in the first place. Obama recently announced his 2011 budget which, while giving NASA an extra $1 billion, $3 billion of which is earmarked to shut down the Ares and Constellation programs. Not only is he scraping the half-developed new rockets Ares I and Ares V, but also the moon mission.

Instead we are to look in to developing new heavy lift rocks... instead of finishing with the Ares V which is exactly that. So, we have no way to reach the ISS on our own terms once the shuttles retire in a few more flights until we can start buying our astronauts tickets on commercial LEO rockets like the Space Ship Two.

He is also having NASA redirect efforts on studying the Earth for "green" reasons. He's turning NASA in to NOAA... awesome.

So, you give NASA more money, but make sure that a third of which goes to shutting down a project which has already cost us a lot tons of money, leaving us without manned space flight in this country for five or more years with no way to get our astronauts to space after having just spent the last two decades helping build a space station? You're shutting down the newest and most advanced heavy lift rocket to sit around and think about a new heavy lift rocket? You're also slating money for "self-sustaining life support research"... for what? Sure would have been useful on the moon, but we can't get to the moon without a rocket, and you canceled the rockets! Way to f****** go, dumbass.

End of rage.

[Locke_]

I'm curious about the motives behind the actions as well. But, then again, why did we want to return to the moon in the first place? Just to go? It seems like without a proper cause we'd get there and then... "Now what?"

It's sensible and frightening the direction our government wants "NASA" to go. Give corporations the ability to put us into space instead of a government funded organization... have other nations involved while we maintain the right to say we're leading the way... we're basically trying to do in space what we do in other countries. Claim freedom and unification while ensuring that we have even a little more power, and ensuring we can say we're responsible for the spark that fired the process. We want to mine the moon? Why not get other countries involved beforehand and avoid disputes about who is laying claims.

My questions about the steps we seem to want to take are Why? and Why now? Why with wars and nuclear threats and genocide and starvation do we insist on wanting to expand into space? For the sake of doing so? For the sake of conquering? I haven't read the article, but I read a headline blip that said potentially we won't be able to take domestic initiatives for up to ten years. So why space?

[Locke_]

Note: I'm aware I just tried to blot out cynicism with naivete. But still.

[Olhado_]

I guess I am the lone wolf here on the subject; but private industry is not ready for a "manned" space program. They may be able handle unmanned rockets, just fine; but we need to be able to send people into space and no company is ready for this.

Senator Shelby, AL

...We cannot continue to coddle the dreams of rocket hobbyists and so-called ‘commercial’ providers who claim the future of US human space flight can be achieved faster and cheaper than Constellation. I have consistently stated the fallacy of believing the cure-all hype of these ‘commercial’ space companies, and my position has been supported time and again by both the experts and the facts. Those who believe that it is in our nation’s best interest to rely on ‘commercial’ space companies need only examine their current track record. Of the companies enlisted to deliver only cargo to space, not humans, one company failed to move beyond paper drawings, another is years behind schedule, and a replacement company for the first failure will not even be ready for test flights for years to come...

Senator Shelby says it best. Now I know there is Virgin Galactic; but it can barely reach the border of Space. It is progress; but not anything to disband NASA with/ It has reached space; but it cannot come close to even reaching the Space Station, let alone beyond. It is much more of a novelty trip, then a real trip into Space.

But to get back to the proposed budget, Obama also wants NASA to focus on "21st Century Launch Complex". That comment right there is bogus, without a rocket, because anyone who know anything about rockets and space systems knows you need to know what the vehicle is before you can build the launch site for it. How is it going to get fuel? How are the astronauts going to get into the vehicle? How will the payload get into the vehicle? How will it launch (Horizontal or Vertical)? How will it land?

These are but a few questions you need a vehicle to answer and to get a vehicle you need a goal. A goal ask some of the questions: Where will it go (deep space, moon, Mars, Jupiter, deep space, etc)? How long does it need to stay up there? How will it return? Will it be for science or commercial?

Constellation, I will admit was not the best program. It started out behind schedule, over budget, and personally not the program I would have chose; but it is the one we [as a nation] was given in 2005 and it is finally getting off the ground and moving. We had a launch of the test rocket. The launch platform is now ahead of schedule. The capsule is almost done with its testing and according to the manufacture it can be delivered within months.

This is a great video that discuss the progress of the Constellation Program.

[Olhado_]

...just wanted to say sorry, about not fully reading this thread. This subject is just a passionate one for me and the first few post gave me the wrong idea.

I am glad others feel the rage I do about this budget.

[Wil]

Constellation really was a silly concept, but it's what we could do on NASA's crap budget. There are those that say that we've already been to the moon, why go again? Why not just shoot for Mars? And those are very good questions. However, I believe we first need to test our ability to get back to the moon and keep a manned station on it, so that if something goes wrong we have the potential to help then and make changes to our plans.

Did you know that in the 1970's NASA was already working on plans to do another round of Moon missions, setting up permanent colonies on the moon, and even making it to Mars by 1985? 1985! That was 24 years ago! Unfortunately, once we got to the moon to beat those damn evil Russian commies, everyone lost interest and congress cut the s*** out of their budget.

The Ares rockets, while a step back from the shuttle, and while not perfect, shouldn't be scrapped while we don't have another plan. As I said, we have a fully functional space station and no way to get there independent of other countries. Ideally, we should have several types of launch vehicles. I'm thinking of a ground to LEO/ISS rendezvous vehicle that takes off like the Space Ship one - off the top of a plane - all of which is completely reuseable. We need something to get to GEO/the Moon, preferably the majority of which (the largest fuel tanks) return to Earth to not create more junk.

Those are the two most important parts. Once we are IN space, moving around in it is easy. We have literally a half-dozen different fuel-efficient ways of moving in space, but the only way for us to use them is to burn the s*** out of fossil fuels using a huge rocket to get off this rock.

Another thing about the moon is that we can transport materials and supplies there to launch a mission to Mars with ease. Not to mention the large amounts of he3 on the moon... if we ever manage to get fusion energy working.

We also need to start thinking about constructing a space station at a Lagrangian point so that it is gravitationally stable and not constantly trying to re-enter the Earths atmosphere like the ISS. We would be able to do a lot more research.

One issue we really need to solve is that of radiation and space debris. Something that is a real problem with moving between planets is, while we can do it relatively fast, moving at such speeds would be bad when hitting things, even things as small as a grain of sand. What we need are shields!

If it were up to me, I'd be boosting NASA's budget up billions a year, taking it out of our insanely high defense budget. Not only does NASA create lots of jobs over many fields of study, but what they create inevitably ends up back in the consumer market (yay velcro!). Plus, we need to get off this rock if we want to survive as a species. Eventually someone is going to blow something up, something is going to hit us, or something is going to explode on this planet.

The private sector could do space, but I don't see anyone willing to spend tens of billions a year to do so. Just like if we were to inject billions in to fusion energy research we could make great strides in it. Wind, solar, tidal, and all those other alternative energies are nice sounding, but they are expensive and not the best sources of energy. People need to get over their fears of nuclear power, allow fission energy plants to be built (which produce less waste and more energy safer these days), and start looking past the not at all plausible hippy energy sources.

[Olhado_]

Those are the two most important parts. Once we are IN space, moving around in it is easy. We have literally a half-dozen different fuel-efficient ways of moving in space, but the only way for us to use them is to burn the s*** out of fossil fuels using a huge rocket.

Will, you make great points all of which I could agree with and I hope you saw my post above.

Anyways, if I am reading this statement correctly, then I believe you are mislead on what actually launches rockets. It is not fossil fuel. It is typically Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen; but it is also can be solid fuel. I cannot think of any rocket that uses fossil fuel.

However, what we use now results in one of the main cost to get into space, as you said. It is easy to move around in space, It is just getting off this rock that requires so much fuel and weight. Not to mention if we want to go to another Earth like planet (like Mars) we would currently need just as much fuel on that planet to launch as we have do here, which means more weight to add to the initial launch.

[Wil]

Anyways, if I am reading this statement correctly, then I believe you are mislead on what actually launches rockets. It is not fossil fuel. It is typically Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen; but it is also can be solid fuel. I cannot think of any rocket that uses fossil fuel.

*Nods* My mistake. I was aware it wasn't fossil fuels, though I'm not quite sure why I said they were. Over sight on my part.

However, what we use now results in one of the main cost to get into space, as you said. It is easy to move around in space, It is just getting off this rock that requires so much fuel and weight. Not to mention if we want to go to another Earth like planet (like Mars) we would currently need just as much fuel on that planet to launch as we have do here, which means more weight to add to the initial launch.

Well, as shown by the xkcd comic (if I understand it correctly), it would take less lift to get off Mars (since the gravity is lower) than it would the Earth. Though, still a significant amount of energy. We would need to send unmanned supply drops to Mars before sending a manned mission in any case.