The Case for the Moon 641
apsmith writes "Continuing the flurry of recent hearings on the future of humans in space, a Senate committee on Thursday heard testimony in favor of a return to the Moon. Former senator and moon-walker Harrison Schmitt and physicist David Criswell see the lunar surface as an immense energy resource, just waiting to be tapped. Astronomer Roger Angel sees the lunar south pole as the ideal astronomical observatory, with locations for telescopes 100 times better than anything we've done so far. And geologist Paul Spudis sees a lot of unfinished business on the Moon, to develop it as the "feedstock of an industrial space infrastructure." TransOrbital also sent written testimony."
Re:The moon (Score:2, Informative)
stupidity (Score:5, Informative)
But the article is facetious from the start; they claim the "only" way to keep up with power demand is through solar power. Whatever happened to nuclear? Reactors would easily cover any power demands for the next few centuries -- the next few millennia, if we ever get over the stupid dislike for breeder reactors.
The Moon doesn't offer much, but Mars... (Score:5, Informative)
Robert Zubrin [pioneerastro.com], president of Pioneer Astronautics [pioneerastro.com] and founder of the Mars Society [marssociety.org] has called for the mobilization [marssociety.org] of Mars exploration proponents to write their representatives on the future of post-Columbia NASA. From his announcement: 'This debate will play out over the next six months, and the result could determine the future of the American space program in our generation. Now is the time when anyone who cherishes hopes for a spacefaring future for humanity must step forward and speak up.'
This is happening alongside the recent [marssociety.org] testimony [msnbc.com] Zubrin gave to the full Senate Commerce Committee on Oct 29th (audio [nw.net] files [nw.net] here [nw.net] and the
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
"There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
--John F. Kennedy
Going to the moon didn't really make much sense in terms of cost/benefit at the time, but if nothing more, it was quite symbolic of the age. Going to the moon, was in many ways, a direct response to the Soviet space program. It had some similar goals as the recent Chinnese launch -- much of the reason for going to the moon was to demonstrate the US' technological, scientific, and economic strength.
From a more idealistic perspective, it was because the US was given the dream, and challenge, of going to the moon.
John F. Kennedy,
Address at Rice University on the Space Effort,
September 12, 1962:
President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb. Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:
I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.
We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far out-strip our collective comprehension.
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only 5 years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than 2 years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than 2 months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.
Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to
Minor factual error: no "darkside" of the moon (Score:5, Informative)
The moon has a 29.5 day cycle meaning that places on the moon experience about 15 days of daylight and about 15 days of night. The far side of the moon gets just as much (and just as little) sunlight as the near side. Only radio telescopes would see a big advantage on the farside by using the moon to block the Earth's noisy radio chatter.
Its a minor point, but it does have implications for what you can do on the moon and the special engineering challenges of the environment (e.g., storing 15 days of solar power).
Read Roger Angel's testimony... (Score:5, Informative)
I've always thought the Moon would be a great place for a telescope, and he lays it all out in detail, including:
He does miss one trick, which is that the moon itself provides the stiff structure required for long-baseline interferometry, which would be necessary to image planets around other stars.
It's really nice to see this idea wrapped up in a neat package.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
See this NASA website [nasa.gov] for a brief overview of the Apollo missions.
Re:Minor factual error: no "darkside" of the moon (Score:3, Informative)
Ponxx
Re:The Moon doesn't offer much, but Mars... (Score:3, Informative)
Waiting for a functional moon base before going to Mars would lead to the kind of thinking that's killing NASA right now. They've been spending decades "preparing" for some grand mission as if it's going to be assigned by God. What they need to realize is that if they plan to go now the technology will follow just as it did with the Apollo missions.
I would also think that things we learn from parallel Moon and Mars settlement would have simultaneous positive feedback technologically.
Re:stupidity (Score:3, Informative)
Prime orbital real-estate tends to be geosynchronous orbits, since satellites in these locations can be communicated with using dishes which don't need to track the satellite. Power satellites would use microwaves to beam their energy to earth, and I believe that phase-locking technologies exist which would let the satellite automatically track its receiving station on earth. If you split the contruction costs with various nations around the world you could put them in non-stationary orbits and each country would use whatever satellites are overhead at the moment. This means that you can use a lot of orbits that are considered undesirable for other uses.
DirecTV has to use geosync orbits since the average consumer doesn't want to spend $10,000 for a satellite mount which can track a transponder, plus a second dish so that as one satellite is dipping towards the horizon the second dish can seek a new one. When you have many ground stations it is worth spending more on the satellite launch to simplify their design. When you have one ground station and hundreds of satellites you spend money on the ground station design so that it can handle satellites in any orbit.
Re:Minor factual error: no "darkside" of the moon (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it does have some disadvantages, but not much. It is true that a nearside observatory would have the issue of Earthshine. This would definitely block a small part of the sky (nearly fixed from the moon's frame of reference, but moving in a galactic frame of reference). And you would probably need to add some features to the telescope design to reduce light scattering. But with no atmosphere to scatter the Earthshine, you would not have the level of light pollution that the moon currently imposes on Earth-bound astronomers.
The big ugly for moon-based optical astronomy would be the 15 days of sunlight that occur in most settings. The best options that I am aware of would put telescopes in craters at each of the moons poles. The crater walls would block sun and Earthshine and the environment would be delightfully chilly for easy use of low-noise detectors.
Venus is better (upper atmosphere) (Score:4, Informative)
Even though the upper atmosphere is mostly sulfuric acid, dealing with that is a lot easier than dealing with the vacume of space, lack of gravity, extreme tempurature shifts and almost complete lack of extra hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. A slightly pressurized oxygen baloon could easially float on it's own weight and sustain large city complexes, and if it leaked it could be fixed in due time and wouldn't immediately kill everybody.
But most importantly - life on venus would be self sustainable because there are loads of natural resources and absolutely no shortage of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and a variety of other elements. (not in raw form of course)
Re:I'm a big fan of Robert Zubrin's book... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why we stopped going to the moon (Score:3, Informative)
This site [kyoto-u.ac.jp] also has some interesting information on beamed-power research.
Re:Why we stopped going to the moon (Score:4, Informative)
Because microwave transmission is line-of-sight, so you can't use it on Earth for distances longer than about fifty miles, and it's cheaper to use copper wire for runs that short.
Just because it's an urban legend... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Definitely need a moonbase... (Score:3, Informative)
From http://www.isr.us/SEConcept.asp?m=2
"With a concerted and well-funded effort the raw technologies could be ready in two years, further engineering would take three more years. Once construction begins it will take six years to complete construction and launch the initial spacecraft. Two and a half additional years will be required to build up the ribbon to a 20,000 kg capacity. "
This site is a very interesting read (IMO).
Re:Read Roger Angel's testimony... (Score:3, Informative)
1) Yup. Mercury doesn't do it. He's been looking at liquids with very low vapour pressure, and he's found one he likes. The problems is that it isn't reflective. So now he's trying to figure out how to aluminize a liquid... should be pretty cool to see what he comes up with.
2) The centrifugal force is what gives the mirror the correct parabolic shape. It's not a problem, it's an asset!
3-4) see 2)
5) Yes, it'll be expensive, on the scale of telescopes (Roger's best estimate is currently $100 billion). But the cost of getting back to the moon will be larger, so it's not the biggest part of the budget.
And your last statement is wrong. IR is probably easier than optical for this (you don't need to get the surface quite as accurate), and is much better suited to the science they want out of it (due to redshift, the light from the first stars is way out in the infrared, not in the optical).
Also, more science is done in the optical than in the radio... I'm looking at the table of contents of the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal, and out of the 53 articles, here's the breakdown by what part of the electromagnetic spectrum they use:
Radio: 7 (1 of which used other data too)
Infrared: 6 (2 of which used other data too)
Optical: 19 (5 of which used other data too)
Ultraviolet: 3 (2 of which used other data too)
X-ray: 7 (1 of which used other data too)
Gamma-ray: 2
Theory (no data): 16
[TMB]
Re:The Moon doesn't offer much, but Mars... (Score:3, Informative)
This is a reason not to go only if your primary reason is to strip mine Mars. Besides, by the time a strip mining opperation was mature, space elevator technology would probably allow you to do a run-around of the gravity well.
The barriers to human survival in that environment make it just as costly to live there as on the moon.
Not so. Mars has a thin but existant atmosphere. With a few stowed chemicals and a little 19th century chemical engineering, humans would be able to create quite a bit out of thin air. Don't forget the vast ice caps and higher gravity that Mars provides.
Travel times are a bitch.
And yet exploration happened before jet propulsion was invented...
And terraforming just AIN'T GONNA WORK.
Have you tried or done any research? There are plenty of researchers who disagree with you. Also, what are the timescales of this atmospheric stripping? Is it on the order of decades or millennia? If we could bring the atmosphere up to 500 mb in a thousand years and it takes a million to bring it back down to 50mb, I would see this as a maintenance task rather than a show stopping obstacle. There is still a lot that we don't know but that's not a reason to just throw up our hands and give up.
Re:Space elevator makes *everything* easier... (Score:1, Informative)
Mostly True (Score:2, Informative)
He had been president for 7 months when the first moon landing occured in 1969. Nixon was asked by NASA in the early 1970s where he wanted to see the space program go.
The choices given to him were: Mars, a Moon Base, a cancelled program or The shuttle. Nixon chose the Shuttle, since, in (roughly) his words, he didn't "care about space, but it would look bad for the USA to end its space program"