NASA Has Plans for 2nd Space Station at L1

Keith Gabryelski writes "New Scientist has an article on NASA's unveiling of a "blueprint for the future" of space exploration. It entails a Space Station 5/6ths of the way to the moon. In other news, radiation sheilding on the space station isn't so good."

Mixed emotions...

[Orne]

The explorer part of me is saying, "Yay! It's about time we started building more structures in space. The Lagrange point would make a good neutral spot halfway to the moon." But then the realist in me says, "Given that NASA has proven that it can't stick to a budget, how much is this overrun going to cost?" And the article agrees with me.

Government is not the answer to promoting outer space as a new resource -- market forces have shown to be the driving force in all new ventures. We need competition in getting things into orbit, tourism to build hotels, industry to build fab plants, mining on the moon...

Re:5/6 is stopping short

[blincoln]

Why not just build on the moon?

Apples and oranges. Having a station in zero gravity is really useful for launching probes and ships from, and as a gateway between the Earth and the rest of the solar system. Having a moonbase gives you mining capabilities and so forth.

They're both very important aspects of stepping into space, for different reasons.

Re:Radiation is a solved problem

[El Pollo Loco]

From my expiernce in setting up really big tents, lead is heavy. Really heavy. The cost to orbit would be really high. At least, that's what I think.

Re:Radiation is a solved problem

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Gee, Doc, have you done any payload arithmetic lately? Lofting lead is possibly the dumbest idea ever-- no offense intended.

In terms of pounds of mass per gray-- meaning the amount of radiation that can be absorbed in a given unit of mass-- water is a better radiation shield than lead. Dual-purpose, too.

Re:Mixed emotions...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

market forces have shown to be the driving force in all new ventures

[sigh] I am getting really sick of hearing this bit of ideology repeated as though it were an established fact. Some things happen as a result of market forces, some as a result of government forces, and some (actually most) as a result of the combination of the two. Just because a generally capitalist economic system is healthier and more innovative than a generally socialist economic system (which is true) does not mean that "the market will take care of" everything, all the time.

If the Internet depended on "market forces," it wouldn't exist -- we'd be living in a world of multiple incompatible networks with users of any one network unable to communicate with those of others. If the highway system depended on "market forces," there would be no way in hell you could drive from one coast to the other. If education depended on "market forces," only the children of the rich would ever get an education. Etc. And if space exploration depends on "market forces," then you can kiss any chance you or your great-grandchildren have of ever getting off this planet goodbye.

Building Infrastructure for the Future

[GreenPhreak]

Yes, it is true that the International Space Station has taken a horrendous amount of money that could've been spent on real science. I admit that I'd like to see more money spent on real science missions like probes to Pluto or Europa or on more Space-based telescopes, but unfortunately as these devices increase in size (satellites, space telescopes, probes, etc.) it becomes infeasible to launch them in a confined shuttle (I believe Chandra X-ray telescope reached the volume limits on what could be launched in one piece).

That said, we need to be building an infrastructure for launching larger and more complex devices into space. This requires places where things can be assembled once in orbit, places such as the ISS or another station at a Lagrangian point. In and of themselves, these stations aren't spectacular, they don't produce good science and they are very expensive, but they need to be created to assist other scientific endeavors as our technology continues to develop. As an example, routers, fiber, and transcontinental backbones are expensive and to the layman, they produce no real science or pretty pictures, but they are necessary as an infrastructure over which people can do some really cool things.

Anyway, I think that even if this doesn't get passed by congress or the things run behind schedule, it is good that we are at least PLANNING to do some really cool stuff like this.

Can someone explain this?

[Have Blue]

I don't get your last paragraph... Why isn't everything in Earth orbit being gradually drawn towards L4 and L5? Why isn't there some large body captured there already?

what a waste of money

[g4dget]

Which would you rather have? Landings on all the major planets, together with exploratory rovers, chemical analyses, and photography, and space telescopes looking for planets around nearby stars? Or a handful of aging space cowboys spending a lot of their time cleaning toilets and keeping in shape at the Lagrange point? I know which one I would rather have.

Sure, it would be fun to go into space in person. But that's entertainment and tourism, and the best way to finance that is through private funding. It's the science, the big questions, that require government funding, and there we should concentrate on what gives the biggest payoff--and that is unmanned space flight with robotic probes.

It's about bloody time!

[elliotj]

I've long felt that human progress into space has been on some form of hold since the 1960s. JFK announced that we would goto the moon not many years before we actually did. Then we went back a couple of times. Then not much.

The major achievement of the late 70s was the Space Shuttle. The major achievement of the turn of the century will be the ISS. Obviously these are significant achievements but why we haven't been back to the moon in 40 years is baffling.

I'm very happy to see a station being considered that won't just be in orbit. I hope it is a sign of things to come. I'd really like to see a moon base in my lifetime. I don't know much about space but I'd expect it must be easier to build a big station if you build it on something.

We need to be up there. In large numbers. We need private industry up there. NASA should be focussing on putting human living quarters in space and providing transportation up there. I think there should be some kind of space oriented general contracting agency focussing on getting as many people up there for as long as possible. We need scientists, professors, entrepeneurs, the media...all sorts of people to go up and see what we can make of it.

If space really is the new frontier, it should be accesible. I hope this is a step in the right direction.

Re:yeah but...

[CynicTheHedgehog]

I know that the X-ray telescopes they have floating out there are of the grazing incidence variety, meaning the mirrors reflect X-rays/gamma rays at small angles, in stages, so that they lose some of their energy and don't burrow into the sensors. Kind of like skipping a bullet over a lake. At too high an angle of incidence you break the surface, but if your angle is small enough it will skip indefinitely. My take on the subject is that we don't have any materials heavy/stable enough to reflect high energy radiation.

Re:It's time to leave LEO

[jonman_d]

NASA is doing this for science, and they are publically funded.

The explorers did it in order to find/establish trade routes, and had a lot of private monies.

See the difference? Money.

field generator

[zenyu]

I've wondered about this too. I would imagine that the power required could be generated with a combination of solar cells and a decay reactor. Both for redundancy. This would also have the advantage that you could allocate more or less power to the shield depending on whether the station was occupied, or if you needed it for other things, or if there was a solar storm, etc.

The disadvantage is that the radiation would only be redirected toward the poles, so you would still need protection there. Hopefully this would still lower costs. There is also the issue of how strong the field would have to be? Would it affect electronics in the station? Would it take away a lot of usable space with a magnetic iron pole running through the station? Is it even feasable to generate?

Re:Radiation is a solved problem

[the_other_one]

Eventually lead could be a solution for future space stations but it would only be practical if it came from a shallower gravity well than the earth.

Mine it on the moon and ship it up with a rail gun. For better radiation shielding find an asteroid that can be manouvered into position and hollow it out by mining it. It's former interior can be used as reaction mass to get it into position in the first place, and can be used as raw material for other construction and manufacturing projects.

Unfortunately, we cannot do anything of the sort yet. We need to make do with less adequate space stations untill the infrastructure is available to build really livable homes in space.

Of course, if you still really insist on using lead as radition shielding in the earlier stages of space exploitation then their is possibly a practical way to do it. First send up the initial inflatable habitat. Preferrably it would be sausage shaped or better yet several sausages linked into a doughnut that could be spun to gererate artificial gravity. With every subsequent mission to the station a certain amount of launch mass would be allocated to a roll of lead foil. This would be unwound over the sausges just like a gauze bandage is unwound over a wounded arm. One other thing to consider, lead has a fairly low melting point and the temperature fluctuations in space can be fairly extream. Another material or a roll of various other materials layered would probably be more effective and provide more protection from other hazards such as particles of rock and junk travelling at high velocity.

Now, to change the subject.

I do not believe that NASA as a US Gov't funded organization will ever be capable of going where humans NEED to go in space. There needs to be a new organization that receives worldwide funding from governments, industries, people in general, and even slashdotters. Such a centralized organization with more encompassing funding than NASA and other private space efforts would have a much more likely chance of getting us on the road to the effective usage of space than an underfunded government beauracracy and a few small companies competing for a paltry X Prize or quick revenue from pay TV/phone satelite launches.

Oh, just one more thing.

To quote Arthur C. Clarke(possibly not exactly) "The dinasaurs became extinct because they did not have a space program."

Stable points unlikely to be empty

[Anonymous Coward]

If the L4 and L5 are stable, would they not have accumulated junk over the last 5 billion years? Rocks, dust etc that came near and slow enough would be captured and accumulate like gravel at the nexus of a country road.

Gravity Simulation

[irritating environme]

In most harder sci-fi I've read, stations are rings around docking spaces rotating at sufficient speed to simulate gravity. How well does this work?

For example, let's say I want to play basketball on a space station rotated to simulate 1G. I shoot a basketball at a hoop. It doesn't travel the same path since once it leaves your hand, there's no gravity to slow it or pull it down. To get the gravity simulation, do you have to be strapped into a chair?

A moon base could have a banked rotating surface to help enhance the puny natural gravity of the moon, couldn't it?

Re:Acceptable risk?

[Thomas M Hughes]

That's great. You don't want to spend a few more dollars to make sure someone doesn't die. How about we compromise. You spend most of your life researching so that you're valuable enough to be sent into space, and then, risk your life to go up into space, and we won't spend a dime to make sure you come back alive. Deal?

Re:I thought an L space colony would look like..

[Tablizer]

I see some safety problems with that design.

For one, you need thick radiation-sheilds if you are not in near-Earth orbit, so I don't see large windows very safe. And, even in NEO, radiation is still a problem.

(Anybody know how thick glass has to be to shield enough radiation to match Earth ground-levels? Apollo had windows, but the astronaut's exposure was only about a week's worth, not a life-time.)

Sure, the atmosphere in there might help some, but it is not near enough to match Earth's.

And, it would probably be based on seal-able sections so that no one leak threatens the whole station. Thus, a clear "tunnel view" like that is not likely IMO.

Sorry to burst your bubble (pun semi-intended).

Re:Stable points unlikely to be empty

[Dyolf Knip]

Third-body perturbations? Anything too big to capture that comes by them would tend to remove the clutter. The Earth-Moon and Earth-Sun systems aren't anything like, say, Jupiter's. Now there's a junkyard!

The Oceans are harsh . . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Earth's oceans are harsh places. Corrosion, temperature extremes, enormous distances of nothingness. Not to mention storms, rouge waves, sea monsters, and falling off the edge.

That didn't stop us.

Also, many explorers had economic motivation. Wasn't Columbus looking for a shorter (i.e. more economic) route to the orient for trade? Just bad luck there was this honking big continent in the way.

Re:Bottom line: stupid idea

[p3d0]

Others have already pointed out various reasons that your smug troll is off-base. I'll just add that it's dangerous to put things in the L4 or L5 points because they are stable, and therefore filled with potentially dangerous space junk.

If it's really so hard to put things at L1 and keep them there, you better go tell the SOHO team [nasa.gov] who have successfully kept that satellite at the Sun-Earth L1 point for almost 7 years now, without ever being "headed for Pluto".

Re:Building Infrastructure for the Future

[TGK]

Not really. The Space Shuttle actualy has a larger cargo capacity than the Apollo units ever got close to.

The Saturn V was designed to do two things. Escape the Earth's gravity well (or at least the great majority of it) and prove to the Soviets that if we could land a man on the moon we could damn sure land a hydrogen bomb on Moscow.

The Shuttle is a little more utilitarian. It is not deisigned to escape as much of the gravity well but rather focuses on providing a method of getting usefull stuff into orbit.

Saturn V might be a usefull way to get stuff very far away from Earth very quickly (a manned Mars mission probably won't use shuttle like craft) but it's not much for cargo capacity. The famous golf clubs had to be specialy designed and smuggled on board.

Re:Mixed emotions...

[sql*kitten]

Some things happen as a result of market forces, some as a result of government forces

A democratic government (or any government in which the taxpayers have any influence in decision making) is a crude market. The currency is the vote instead of the dollar.

The real use of government from an industrial perspective is that it can take extreme risk; the fact that it controls land and an army means that it isn't going anywhere, so it can afford to risk losing a great deal of money without going bankrupt.