NASA Considers Mobile Lunar Base

colonist writes "During the Apollo missions, astronauts explored on foot or in rovers. The next astronauts on the moon may move the entire base instead. Marc Cohen, from NASA's Ames Research Center, proposes a lunar base on wheels or legs, such as the habot (robotic habitat) or the mobitat (mobile habitat). Cohen considers mobile bases superior to rovers: 'To avoid life-threatening or other compromising situations that might occur with only one rover traveling to a remote place, a second rover might travel with the first. But what if the second rover runs into a problem, too - the same or a different problem? Well, that means a third rover. So, why not make the entire base mobile, so that all the resources, reliability and redundancy of the lunar mission move with the excursion crew?' Of course, mobile bases are nothing new. Terran buildings have been lifting off for years."

Space RV's

[gbulmash]

Moon missions in a futuristic RV. Feels like some cheap 70s TV Saturday morning sci-fi series.

That's just the ticket, ain't it. Winnebago finally becomes a NASA vendor. Mobile base, spare wheel on the back with a "Good Sam" wheel cover, towing a couple of electric Honda Quad-Runners as mini rovers. I can see it now. Space tourism will be huge.

Re:Space RV's

[red floyd]

Oh no! It's Lone Star and Barf! Prepare for Ludicrous Speed!

Re:Space RV's

[Esion Modnar]

Mobile base, spare wheel on the back with a "Good Sam" wheel cover

Yeah, but will the mud flaps feature Yosemite Sam ("Back Off!") or the ever popular Reclining Busty Chick?

Re:Space RV's

[irokitt]

Feels like some cheap 70s TV Saturday morning sci-fi series.

Actually, my first thoughts were about a particular search engine...

Winnebago.

[torpor]

I've thought for years that companies that make 'habitats' all need to tie up with NASA.

I think it'd be great if boat mfr's, RV mfr's, and cheap house mfr's, all got together and developed a common, open, standardized framework for habitat design and construction, with NASA involved.

Every time I look at a UFO, I think to myself 'well-designed Winnebago', and if I could, I'd buy one of those instead of ___insert_favorite_waste_of_realty_here___ any time ...

Re:Space RV's

[mwood]

Hmmm, let me get this straight: instead of the risk of losing one rover and having to double up, plus the much smaller risk of losing both rovers and having four people *perhaps* unable to hike back to base, we'd prefer to lose the *entire base with all its resources* and leave our guys with nothing but the consumables in their suits (presuming they got out safely).

Hmmm.

As long as

[Tebriel]

As long as we've discovered Doctrine:Mobility beforehand, we'll be fine.

Re:As long as

[boicy]

I have a friend in the UK Armed Forces who had a thing or two to say about the US Army's docrine of mobility.

It's a long story so I'll cut it short; he was involved in training some soldiers from the 101 Airborne whilst they were in the UK and got into a conversation with one of their officers:

Bemused US Airborne Dude: "say, why do you brits spend so much time running up and down mountains in training? Can't you just radio a chopper?"
UK Dude: "Well, what happens if it gets shot down?"
Bemused US Airborne dude: "We radio for another one."
UK Dude: "And if the second one gets shot down?"
Even more bemused US Airborne dude: "We radio for another one..."

Train hard, fight easy as they say...

Re:As long as

[ArsSineArtificio]

I was waiting for someone to put this in here! :)

You're on your own. The rest of us Must Dissent.

To the Moon, Alice

[SolidiusRock]

It's been something of a dream to see us go back to the Moon. Mostly on the basis that we need to support space exploration and without people getting interested, that won't happen. However, with new and unique ideas in contrast to the moon, much like this one, it may ignite even more people to support space travel. On a different note, it would be interesting to see how a mobile base would work let alone fair in some large disaster. Instead of one or two deaths, we now have ten.

- P.S.: I know I just contradicted myself in some fashion, but so be it. :-)

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[ChowyChow]

What will likely happen, within the next twenty years is the advent of commercialized space travel.

I'm guessing those who are motivated with money and exploration [scaled.com] will be the same ones motivated to reach the moon 'first.'

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[Rei]

Scaled Composites, whose craft isn't even designed to make it into orbit, let alone to the moon?

Keep dreaming...

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[matlhDam]

Yes, because it took more than 20 years to go from the first sub-orbital flight to the moon the first time around.

Wait...

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[Rei]

I used to be a major "moon-as-stopping-point" proponent myself. However, there are some serious advantages to a base on Mars in comparison.

* Higher gravity means less need for strength training to stop bone loss and other problems
* Partial natural radiation shielding
* Ample known water supplies (moon ice is currently only speculative, despite plenty of lunar-orbit studying)
* Cheap to get bulk raw materials to anywhere we care about. Even cheaper to get raw materials to Earth than it is from the moon, due to the orbital energy of the moon that needs to be overcome.
* Ample sunlight for farming; artificial light for farming is a pretty doomed concept, when you do the energy calculations.
* Partial-pressure domes
* Far more mineral rich in every respect except for Helium-3, which is currently pretty worthless.
* A perfect stopping point for a triangle trade with the incredibly mineral rich asteroid belt (Mars raw materials and people can get to the asteroid belt with very little energy; asteroid belt materials get sent to Earth; Earth sends small, high tech components that Mars can't build to Mars).
* Major terraforming prospects; estimated workforce needed to terraform Mars to 1atm=10,000 people; procodes enough pressure and CO2 for plants, which over about 100 years can produce enough O2 for humans to breathe.

Of course, the big downside: It's far. Still, I think the pros really outweigh the cons. A Moon base would be like an antarctic research station. A Mars base would be like a colony. Stopping at the moon just seems like a waste of time - it'll take so much in terms of resources to keep it going that it will severely sap from the Mars effort. Just think of food and nuclear fuel shipping costs alone... Mars will take more resources initially, but at least it becomes somewhat sustainable over time since large-scale partially-pressured agriculture is feasable, and there's enough good raw minerals in easily processable forms...

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[JazzXP]

Yes, but a moon base is much closer, even just for "practice" for a mars base. It's still a hell of a lot cheaper to send stuff to the moon than Mars.

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[adeyadey]

I would agree with some of your points, but probably the strongest argument for the moon is simply that it is so close.

If there is a major accident, an astronaut can get back to a tried-and-tested apollo style lunar capsule, launch pretty much immediately and get back home in a few days.

On mars, you only have fast(ish) routes back to earth every 18 months (assuming something close to current rocket tech) with a 6 month transit time. A moon base will also give NASA time to invent new vehicles for landing men on, surviving on, then returning from another world with reasonable safety - remember they have not built such vehicles for over 30 years.

Zubrins plan for Mars is tempting, but NASAs manned program is really shaky at the moment post columbia - if they tried that direct-to-mars route & had a major catastrophe, which would be very possible given all the unknowns, they would be in political hot water. An easier & sucsessful moon mission would give them the political confidence to carry on to mars, and develop a range of useful technologies in the meantime.

I personally think that the X-prize is an interesting route - when you think about it it was *enthusiasts* that got men on the moon quickly and safely - the timescale for Apollo development was amazing, now we look back. Think of those early fanatical engineers, like van braun.. I think that a series of objectives, ending with prizes for the first hotels on the moon/mars, could acheieve far more for much much less public money - maybe operating in tandem with NASA agencies. If fact it seems NASA is starting to think this way too, and offer its own X-prize..

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[CrimsonAvenger]

* Higher gravity means less need for strength training to stop bone loss and other problems

* Partial natural radiation shielding

* Ample known water supplies (moon ice is currently only speculative, despite plenty of lunar-orbit studying)

Won't argue with those.

* Cheap to get bulk raw materials to anywhere we care about. Even cheaper to get raw materials to Earth than it is from the moon, due to the orbital energy of the moon that needs to be overcome.

No. MUCH cheaper in terms of deltaV to get something from Luna to Earth than from Mars to Earth. Roughly 2400m/s to get to Earth from Luna, 5700m/s from Mars to Earth.

* Ample sunlight for farming; artificial light for farming is a pretty doomed concept, when you do the energy calculations.

Probably. No clue how this would work out with artificial lights for two weeks, natural sunlight for two weeks. On the other hand, people grow marijiuana indoors all the time. Can't be too hard...

* Partial-pressure domes

Hmmm? Martian atmospheric pressure is ~2% of terrestrial. Close enough to a vacuum to make no practical difference in designing a dome, I think.

* Far more mineral rich in every respect except for Helium-3, which is currently pretty worthless.

Probably. But by no means certain. We've looked at a handful of surface spots on both places, so we really don't know too much about the mineral resources of either.

* A perfect stopping point for a triangle trade with the incredibly mineral rich asteroid belt (Mars raw materials and people can get to the asteroid belt with very little energy; asteroid belt materials get sent to Earth; Earth sends small, high tech components that Mars can't build to Mars).

No. deltaV requirements to go from Luna to an asteroid ~500Gm from Earth are essentially the same as those required from Mars to the same rock. And launch windows from Luna come along almost twice as often, giving Luna an edge. Admittedly, there are some materials (carbon, specifically) that we can get in quantity on Mars that we can't get from Luna. So there will no doubt be a reason to move some materials from Mars to the asteroids. But anything available both on Mars and Luna will be equally expensive to ship from either, and more convenient from Luna because of more frequent launch windows.

* Major terraforming prospects; estimated workforce needed to terraform Mars to 1atm=10,000 people; procodes enough pressure and CO2 for plants, which over about 100 years can produce enough O2 for humans to breathe.

Won't argue with this one either.

Mars base is desirable, but it does not eliminate the need for a Lunar base - if nothing else, the Lunar base should be where the majority of the Mars spacecraft are built. Not the complicated parts, necessarily, but structures, liquid oxygen for fuel/atmosphere, that sort of thing. If we could build all of a Mars ship but the electronics, food, and H2 from Lunar materials, we'd significantly lower cost of a Mars mission.

Yah, we'd frontload a lot of costs by building the Lunar infrastructure, but in the long run it would save us a great deal of money. Even in the medium run. And possibly in the short run (the first three-five missions, perhaps) we'd even come out slightly ahead....

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[CrimsonAvenger]

On Mars, however, you have ample hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, iron, and aluminum already known (plus a whole lot of other stuff). So, perhaps if you shipped in nuclear fuel or huge amounts of solar arrays, you might be able to produce aluminum products and oxygen on the moon... but I can't see how you'd economically produce fuel there. On the other hand, it is quite feasable, and actually rather simple, to do so on Mars.

You liquify O2. That accounts for ~5/6 of the fuel mass required for an H2/O2 rocket. Y

Re:To the Moon, Alice

[starcraftsicko]

You were good until this:

* Major terraforming prospects; estimated workforce needed to terraform Mars to 1atm=10,000 people; procodes enough pressure and CO2 for plants, which over about 100 years can produce enough O2 for humans to breathe

The much lower gravity on mars combined with the lack of useful magnetic field will make it virtually impossible to hold a surface pressure anywhere near 1 atm. The best you can reasonably hope for is a 1/2 atm surface pressure (in the deep valleys mind you) and a high fraction of oxygen to yeild a breathable atmosphere.

Keep in mind also that the atmosphere of mars is really all of the radiation shielding there is. With no magnetic field to speak of, the martian atmosphere is exposed to solar wind and all of the other hard radiation that the sun throws at it. That's one of the reasons they have such a hard time keeping probes and robotic explorers "alive" on the partian surface.

Did any one else

[JRob007]

read that as mobile laser base?

Re:Did any one else

[TheSpoom]

NASA Considers Alan Parsons Project
from the one-miiiiillion-dollars dept.

^H^H^H^H^HWrong!

[quarkscat]

In keeping with the Bush doctrine of only
supporting applied science (as opposed to
pure science), the mobile lunar base will
be used as a replacement penal colony for
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ashcroft has adviced
that it will be the only way to keep the
Red Cross, ACLU, and Amnesty International
away from his "boy toys" in detention there.

Re:^H^H^H^H^HWrong!

[Rei]

You forgot to add "Supreme Court".

Terran?

[Traa]

Ha, Protoss will wipe you out!

Re:Terran?

[ArsSineArtificio]

kekekeke scaled composites rush ^_^

Does anyone else think NASA reads too much SCI-FI

[Claire-plus-plus]

Land trains without tracks, sounds like the trains in the Amtrak wars books by Patrick Tilley. As you may or may not know those books featured a mobile base/habitat on wheels that was set up like a trackless train.

Re:Does anyone else think NASA reads too much SCI-

[FleaPlus]

I would certainly tend to hope that people at NASA read large amounts of sci-fi. Many of the most useful concepts in spaceflight have come from science fiction, e.g. geosynchronous satellites.

In this particular case though, I'm not so sure. It just seems that you would take too much of a hit on cost and reliability to make up for any possible benefits. For one, a mobile base can't be built into the regolith for insulation, a feature one hopes a lunar base would have.

Re:Does anyone else think NASA reads too much SCI-

[irokitt]

There actually was such a vehicle developed by the military in the 50s, designed to haul troops around Alaska. Each vehicle had huge tires, and the whole thing would just crawl around on the snow.

Disagree

[hung_himself]

I think they write too much sci-fi...

Seriously, I feel a bit sorry for the folks there. The interesting science that they do is not really interesting enough to warrant the billions invested unless they can come up with military applications or appeal to the Trekker in the public. Hence have the nanobe "discovery" while shilling for money to send men to Mars or school teachers on missions to generate excitement for the space shuttle. Meanwhile, planetary probe missions get cancelled.

Maybe it is time to

Re:Disagree

[dschuetz]

Maybe it is time to retire this relic of the cold war or just admit that it is primarily for military purposes and re-allocate the funds for science elsewhere.

I really don't know why people perpetuate the myth that NASA is a branch of the military. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think NASA has launched a military satellite since the Challenger explosion. All military satellites are currently launched by expendable boosters, built by Lockheed and Boeing, from Air Force Bases (Cape Canavaral and Vandenberg).

NASA missions, on the other hand, have all been about the ISS, Earth science, and the effects of weightlessness on humans. I'm not even sure NASA is involved with cutting-edge military-based aerospace research (most of that happening out in Nevada now).

Can anyone expand on this?

Inherent problem

[carambola5]

By making the base mobile, it would obviously need to be above ground (er, regolith, I suppose). One of the major problems with this is shielding from cosmic radiation. By placing a base a few meters under the lunar regolith, expensive (either due to manufacturability or weight) shielding need not be used... the regolith is good enough. However, with a mobile lunar base, that expensive shielding must be employed and transported along with the mobile base.

I'm sorry, but this is just one of the many reasons why a mobile lunar base is infeasible (as of now). The sheer coolness of it is astronomical (haha, get it?), but the costs are simply too high.

Re:Inherent problem

[Sampizcat]

So, why not make it underground, and just tunnel everywhere? We could become the Mole People!

Seriously though, it would shield from (some? UV?) radiation as well as help against debris striking the base (provided the debris was small and/or the base & tunnels were deep enough underground).

Plus, the moon rock between you and space would provide some sort of insulation and therefore warmth as opposed to being simply "out in the open", wouldn't it? And how hard could moon-mining be anyway? There's no issue of debris, just shoot it out into space, or even at Earth and it will just burn up (assuming the pieces are small enough). Of course, this could be bad as if they don't make it we could end up with a lovely ring of debris around the moon.

Regardless of what happens, there's some pretty cool stuff waiting in the future. Hope it's in my lifetime.

Re:Inherent problem

[Sampizcat]

Actually, as well as the benefits mentioned above, we eliminate (mostly) the problem of transporting weighty materials to the moon. All we really need is the mining equipment.

...plus a few fluoro lights, brightly-coloured flower wall-paper, lava lamps, spiders to leave their webs around the upper parts of the tunnel and dark areas so you can walk through them...

Re:Inherent problem

[carambola5]

Plus, the moon rock between you and space would provide some sort of insulation and therefore warmth as opposed to being simply "out in the open", wouldn't it?

Actually, regolith is such a good insulator, the base would have to vent off heat.

And how hard could moon-mining be anyway?

Not terribly hard. Remember, everything weighs ~6x less on the moon. Picking stuff up and putting it down elsewhere is much easier. But also, regolith is mostly of a very fine composition. Something similar to the sand you find in hourglass timers. Not to mention no water to allow it to clump. I would imagine such a small angle of repose would lead to a more inefficient dig than generally expected.

Re:Inherent problem

[penguinoid]

So, why not make it underground, and just tunnel everywhere? We could become the Mole People!

Well, for starters there would be the problem about tunnels not being air-tight. Although I suppose a thin sheet of plastic would solve that (since the air pressure will push it outward against the walls of the tunnel).

Re:Inherent problem

[Rei]

I vote for this proposal. Not the "tunnelling everywhere" concept so much as the humans becoming Lunar Mole People concept. is there a signup sheet somewhere? I've always wanted to make B-movie sci-fi into reality... ;)

Re:Inherent problem

[fredrik70]

Plus, the moon rock between you and space would provide some sort of insulation and therefore warmth as opposed to being simply "out in the open", wouldn't it?

actually, vacuum is a hell of an insulator, the only way you can lose heat in space is via radiation, which is a fairly slow process, You wont instantl freeze if you take of your space suit (in the shadow). What we would need to insulate against would be solar radiation, since that can get pretty hot up there (~150C, IIRC), plus we get the benefit

Re:Inherent problem

[Dark Nexus]

Considering the low gravity, transporting that shielding along with the base wouldn't be that difficult.

You're probably right about the cost though, and weight would certainly come into play with actually GETTING the sheilding there.

Re:Inherent problem

[RollingThunder]

Remember that low gravity doesn't change the mass, just the weight. You still need to put in a lot of energy to start the mass moving, it's just easier to build the structure to hold it and lift it up.

Re:Inherent problem

[Slashamatic]

Forget cosmic, the main issue for the lunar camperwould be solar, i.e., during flares. This is already a major issue for mission planners and the ISS has a single protected area where astronauts can hide in when NASA sounds the alarm.

Of coure it would be possible to do something similar for NASA's lunar-camper. It would just add to the weight. A static underground shelter as you suggest would be much better.

Re:Inherent problem

[stevelinton]

The moon rotates every 29 plus days, call it 700 hours.

The diameter of the moon is about 2162 miles, so the circumference is about 6800 miles. So at less than 10 mph, even at the equator, you can keep the entire moon between you and solat radiation.

Not realistic at the equator, but rather fun.

Nearer the poles though, this could be entirely feasible. Use the mobile base to simply avoid daylight.

Rules out solar power, of course.

Steve

Re:Inherent problem

[cynic10508]

...simply avoid daylight.

Something tells me that this is something slashdotters can contribute a lot to. I call it Project: Parents' Basement.

Re:Inherent problem

[Somegeek]

You're also forgetting about the cold. I think that the lunar night is like -180 c or something. I think that would be a huge challenge for our material sciences to deal with. That is one of the challenges of a lunar base, if they can't put it in a spot with constant sunlight (they think they have found a couple) then the base has to deal with 2 weeks of 100c in the sunlight, followed by 2 weeks of darkness in the impossible cold. Also one of the reasons to go to Mars first. The environment is much mor

Re:Inherent problem

[stevelinton]

There is a problem with temperatures, but it doesn't work quite the same way on the Moon as you seem to think. There is (basically) no atmosphere, so there is no "current air temperature" as there is on Earth. The rock surface varies from very hot after being in sunlight for a while to very cold after being in shadow for a while, but the rock is a very poor conductor, and it is not hard to insulate the base from the rock it's standing on (or rolling over) or simply to heat or cool the small amount of immedi

Re:Inherent problem

[hughk]

A decent bit of metal and possibly polyethylene will help to handle radiation, at least to the level of the ISS. The 'shelter' in the ISS is in the hab module and also has things like water tanks as well around it.

The closest analogue to this would be the ISS, but as far as I know, it flies beneath the Van Allen belts. Outside the belt then the risk from charged particles increases a lot.

Re:Inherent problem

[techno-vampire]

What's the problem? You simply lower the base, shovel some regolith over it and Bob's your uncle. When you're ready to move, a little more shovel work uncovers it.

Thought

[BCW2]

If we want to go back, send a mars type rover first and put it near one of the previous landing sites. It would be nice for planning purposes to know how the lower part of a lander has held up for thirty years or more. Might help plan the construction of something permanent.

Re:Thought

[Esion Modnar]

send a mars type rover first and put it near one of the previous landing sites

I've always wondered if there is a plan for preserving the original landing sites: landers, footprints, everything.

The sites have huge potential for tourism in the future (think next couple hundred years), and tracking them up with all our new footprints just won't do.

I suppose a crane could be brought in to drop a big protective dome over the whole area, put in observation catwalks, and such like. Turn the place over to the Parks Service.

Re:Thought

[Alsee]

Or they could just spray the sites with UltraHold hairspray.

-

interesting

[lingqi]

Giving this some thought, I wonder if it will provide any good return of information we do not already know.

1) the the last few decades material sciences has advanced a lot, for example I believe that the amount of titatium and composite materials being used today is a lot more than the lunar lander.

2) if we are worried about the effect of radiation, vacuum, etc on space structures - we really don't need to look at the lander: an astronaunt can just walk outside of the space station (provided a functional

This is a great idea, until....

[sharkb8]

The mobile habitat runs into the same problem that toasted the rovers. It may suck crashing your moon buggy off a crater lip, but imagine wrecking your entire mobile-Moon-house.

Yeah, this is exactly what we need...

[shigelojoe]

Mobile homes on the freaking moon. Dale Earnhardt commemorative posters and a car on cinderblocks are all that's left.

Re:Yeah, this is exactly what we need...

[Waffle Iron]

At least the tornado risk should be minimal.

Proposal...

[sinner0423]

...I have a cheaper solution [scientificsonline.com] than NASA. It would cost 80 billion less, too.

Only for astronauts who demand better things in life.

Re:Proposal...

[deathcloset]

eureka!
thanks sinner you gave me an idea.
maybe this sounds stupid, but wouldn't it be possible to make the base a giant sphere? essentially a hamster ball.
Two spheres really. An external sphere in contact with the moon's surface and a free-floating internal sphere - with the living quarters and such.
how to keep it floating? well, first we need a nuclear power plant (but of course). then we could find good use from our good old friend magnetism [sci.kun.nl]...or whatever.
then, drive it the same way a hamster drives his ball; create an magnetic impulse between the internal and external sphere. the internal sphere will try to climb the inner-wall of the external sphere and the external sphere will counter with an equal and opposite reaction which will result in forward movement. Nuclear meltdown aside, it sounds like a relatively simple concept. and it's bound to have less moving parts than some trackless-locomotive or star-wars-power-droid-lookin' [starwars.jp] hundred legged breakdown-machine.

Re:Proposal...

[sinner0423]

Hey, cut me in for some profit, and you'll have your own (patent pending)AstroBall.

Re:Proposal...

[xenocide2]

well, aside from putting nuclear material on the moon, there's the matter of getting in/out. Also im sure your electronics would love to float on the moon from incredible magnetism.

It's been done.

[Lost Dragon]

For a truly practical design, NASA will need to add front and top mounted lasers, as well as the ability to hop over craters. If Moon Patrol taught us nothing else, it taught us that.

NASA Ames...

[IanDanforth]

I went to check out their Mars flyby simulation the other day. They had SGI towers powering a multi-projector system. I was all excited, as were the kids around me, until the showtime came and went with no show. A few minutes later an engineer came by and taped up a hand written sign saying there would be no shows today, the system was broken, and they didn't know when it would be back up.

Needless to say my confidence in the place dropped a few points. But maybe they could get a walking moon-base up and

AAA

[cynic10508]

But, would AAA honor my membership card off-planet for when my mobile habitat needs a tow?

In my database

[suso]

I knew I put the moon and a table for planet in my address database design for a good reason.

What if...

[idontneedanickname]

What if the mobitat (or whatever) runs into the same problem the rover[s] ran into? In general what if the mobitat runs into any problems? This page [nasa.gov] shows a mobitat that also acts as a lander. I'm guessing it would also act as the return vehicle. Do you really want to put your ticket back home into more jeopardy than absolutely necessary? For example, by having it move around, possibly through difficult terrain and such. Of course one would have to weigh the benefit of not having to travel to get back to your return vehicle over the mobility of this type of habitat and the equipment-carrying capability it implies.

Re:What if...

[colonist]

Moving the return vehicle puts it at risk, but not moving it could put it at risk, too. I'm thinking more of Mars, where you could move your return vehicle out of the way of bad weather, etc.

A robotic scout could go first and test difficult terrain to see if the base can handle it.

Problem Solved

[tunabomber]

NASA's already got this monstrosity [nasa.gov] (the Mobile Launcher Platform, not the shuttle), so why can't they just throw some bunk beds in it and blast it into space?
Oh, and food. They'd need food as well.

Re:Problem Solved

[Have Blue]

Probably because it weighs over 7,000 tons, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's more than every payload ever launched into space so far put together.

You know you're reading Slashdot when...

[brewin]

...the author of a post tries to pass a StarCraft strategy guide off as a legitimate news source.

Mobile base breaking down?

[MoobY]

Are these guys considering the fact that the mobile base might break down too so that doesn't really solve the problem of rovers breaking down?

Re:Mobile base breaking down?

[nick0909]

Not sure why you got a redundant on this, but they say it will bring along all the redundancy of multiple rovers with one base. I fail to see how one base is as redundant as multple rovers. If your one base dies its dead. If you build a static base and let rovers out and they crash who cares, your base and people are okay and you can still send out more rovers.

Re:Mobile base breaking down?

[Somegeek]

If lunar explorers are out in a rover, and say the axle breaks, if it takes them longer to walk back than their air supply of their suit lasts, they die. So you send a backup rover. it gets an electrial problem that fries it electronics. they die if there is not a third rescue mobile. Big negative for your exploration crews to die.

Now if you are moving your whole base around, if an axle breaks, you are now stuck in that spot until/if repairs are made, but you still have your food, water and air generating/recycling equipment with you. everyone lives. Big plus.

They already have a "mobile lunar base"

[penguinoid]

Its called a spaceship

Didn't they already try that? (Obg. Simpsons Ref)

[MachDelta]

Yeah, I think i've seen the mobile house thing before somewhere... but didn't it fall over? And what did Professor Frink say? Oh right!
"The real humans won't, er, wo -- won't burn quite so fast"

Astronaut flambé anyone?

(PS: First person to mention lack of oxygen on the moon gets kicked in the head)

Re:Didn't they already try that? (Obg. Simpsons Re

[MachDelta]

Oh you bastard! You'll bleed for this!

/me chases Sielle with his shoe

Is NASA lost?

[Dzimas]

And I mean this in all sincerity. It appears that they're not really sure what the next big thing is. Perhaps its Mars, or maybe RV moon bases. Remember the space station? I thought not. The ISS seems to have become boring background noise to the American public. Until someone gets killed in that duct-taped tin can, it won't get more than a passing mention. I suspect that the BIG problem is that we've just about hit the technical limit of what can be accomplished with big metal firecrackers blasting

Re:Is NASA lost?

[Overzeetop]

No, it's not about technical limits, it's about financial limits. NASA does a lot of continuous research, both alone and with other agencies, such as NOAA. It's all stuff we take for granted now, kind of like sending the shuttle up three or four times a year. It's not sexy anymore just to get to orbit.

The problem is that the "next big thing" costs a lot of money. Think in terms of $1E12 to $3E12. Thats where preliminary Mars Mission estimates hit. Bush announced his plans for the Mars mission, then offered to give them an extra $1E7 to $1E8 over the next ten years to pull it off. I see no less than 3 orders of magnitude shortfall.

Think that number is out of line? Wiki mentions $1E10 as the 1994 cost of Apollo. Though not listed at Wiki, I would expect the Shuttle program cost somewhere in the $1E11 range. Given inflation of both costs and expectations, $1E12 is a good target for the next likely Big Thing.

With the retaliatory action in Afghanistan and the personal vendetta persued in Iraq, along with a not-red-hot-bubble-driven-economy tax base, we're back in the red by $5E11 a year, and still owe $7E12.

NASA doesnt seem to have vision because there's really no money to do a marquis program properly. They're trying to start a high profile program, funded by scraping the sides of the financial pudding bowl. It just isn't going to work. Gee Whiz is expensive - it always has been. Now that we pay for overhead and profit of corporations in addition to the research and development, its even more expensive than it used to be.

NASA hasn't lost it focus, it's been beaten out of them. How much would you expect to spend for the next Hollywood super-blockbuster? I'll give you a budget of $750,000. And I want three films. And amazing special effects - stuff never done before. Throw in a couple of name actors, too - that'll help the marketing. You'd start putting together Blair Witch Project ideas, too, faced with that kind of scenerio.

Mobile?

[penguinoid]

Shouldn't they first set up a permanant base on the moon before worrying about a mobile one? That plus a vehicle would provide good coverage until they can learn a little more about driving on the moon.

Re:Mobile?

[NanoGator]

"Shouldn't they first set up a permanant base on the moon before worrying about a mobile one? That plus a vehicle would provide good coverage until they can learn a little more about driving on the moon."

Shouldn't they first set up a mobile base on the moon before worrying about a permenant one? That plus a vehicle would provide good coverage until they can learn a little more about establishing a base on the moon.

Don't know bout you, but...

[Esion Modnar]

if I'm on the moon, and I leave base in a rover, I think I'd like to know the damn thing will still be there when I get back. I can see some really nasty practical jokes being pulled.

Of course, if they were to "bug out" a la M*A*S*H, it'd be easy to track them in the lunar dust. And I'd be just a wee bit testy, too.

The Russian version isn't mobile...

[NanoGator]

... but it does have cloaking capability.

In Soviet Russia, they did this in 1970

[Animats]

The USSR landed several rovers on the moon. Big rovers. The first, Lunokhod 1 [vsm.host.ru] worked for eleven months, exploring far more territory than the short-duration American manned missions. This vehicle was the size of an SUV, so it is clearly the first "mobile lunar base".

References for Mobile Lunar Base Papers

[colonist]

I found these references at AeroSpace Architecture Publications [cuhk.edu.hk]:

Cohen, Marc M. (2003 September). Mobile Lunar and Planetary Base Architectures (AIAA 2003-6280). AIAA Space 2003 Conference & Exposition, Long Beach, California, USA, 23-25 September 2003. Reston, Virginia, USA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Link to on-line order forms [aiaa.org]

Cohen, Marc M. (2004 February). "Mobile Lunar Base Concepts." In M. S. El-Genk (Ed.), Space Technology and Applications International Forum - STAIF 2004: Conference on Thermophysics in Microgravity; Conference on Commercial/Civil Next Generation Space Transportation; 21st Symposium on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion; Conference on Human Space Exploration; 2nd Symposium on Space Colonization; 1st Symposium on New Frontiers and Future Concepts (p. 845-853). Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, 8-11 February 2004. College Park, Maryland, USA: American Institute of Physics. Link to on-line order forms [aip.org]

Space Camp Fantasies-

[Alice_Pleasance_Lidd]

The best experience of Space Camp was joining with the other cadets to design a lunar base. I remember well the debate on how much area we would have to devote to the oxygen-producing forest. (yes, hardly mobile.)

Now that I've established my expert credentials: If you're going to be on an energy budget there are almost certainly going to be higher priorities than the energy required to lug everything around. Orders of magnitude difference- think of all the other things you could be doing.

Pick a good

Department of Redundancy Department

[Tokerat]

To avoid life-threatening or other compromising situations that might occur with only one rover traveling to a remote place, a second rover might travel with the first. But what if the second rover runs into a problem, too - the same or a different problem? Well, that means a third rover. So, why not make the entire base mobile, so that all the resources, reliability and redundancy of the lunar mission move with the excursion crew?

That's fine and all, but what happens when only one base is traveling to a remote place? A second base might travel with the first...but what if the second base runs into a problem, too? Well, that means a third base...

Re:Department of Redundancy Department

[Tokerat]

That's fine and all, but what happens when only one rescue crew is traveling to a remote place? A second rescue crew might travel with the first...but what if the second rescue crew runs into a problem, too? Well, that means a third rescue crew...

God, I'm such an asshat ;-D

(OT) Re:Department of Redundancy Department

[Tokerat]

Yea but I have a feeling Department of Redundancy Department dates back to the days before Slashdot...you insensitive clod!

Pictures

[Somegeek]

Here are some links to NASA's concepts of what the mobile bases might look like:

MOBITAT [nasa.gov]

HABOT [nasa.gov]

What are they smoking?

[Alsee]

Habot? Mobitat? E-gads! What horrid names!
Hell, even Lunabago would be better than those monstrosities!

-

Obligatory pictures

[FleaPlus]

I haven't seen them linked to yet, so here's some info pages with pics of this:

"Habot" mobile lunary base [nasa.gov]
Mobitat (mobile lander?) [nasa.gov]

Does anybody know if scientists in Antartica use mobile habitats? If they do, then this would seem much more plausible.

White Trash!

[James Durie]

Oh My God!

Don't you see the real point of this.

The US creates a trailer park on the moon and ships up all their trailer trash.

Leave 'em for a few years and let natural selection work things out. Pretty soon the moon will be overrun with mutants that can shoot a stop sign with deadly accuracy from a mile away.

It Science gone mad I tell you.

An endless string of "what ifs."

[techno-vampire]

No matter how you try to arrange things to be perfectly safe, there's going to be risk, and the explorers will be the type of people willing to take them. NASA has long viewed its mission to be "the exploration of space with zero risk." Everything they design is over-engeneered to make it as close to 100% safe as possible, with the result that everything takes longer to build, is exorbitantly expensive and far more massive than it needs to be. I'm beginning to believe that NASA is more interested in keeping its workforce busy and getting bigger budgets with which to do less. Maybe we need to tell them that enough is enough already, and that they need to get off the stick and get us back to the Moon.

Re:An endless string of "what ifs."

[techno-vampire]

NASA is a bureaucracy. As such, the main interest of many of its members is keeping their jobs and funding. Actually doing something comes second, at best. They stick to the shuttle because it keeps 25,000 people on their payroll, and they get the same budget if it flys twenty times a year or zero. Doing everything in the most elephantine way is much less work for the same money, so that's what they do. Maybe if they were paid on a flight-by-flight basis would encourage them to fly more often. I doubt

ARC has some bored scientists

[EvilStein]

"Hey Dave, watch Slashdot pick up on this crazy ass article I just posted!"

"Yeah, man.. that Moon-Winnebago thing is pretty out there.."

*sound of snickering*

Houston, we have a problem...

[c0p0n]

But what if the second rover runs into a problem, too - the same or a different problem? Well, that means a third rover. So, why not make the entire base mobile...
What if the base has a problem? that means a second base...

Problem in one word:

[TheLoneCabbage]

Sheilding!

You don't have the earth to protect from all those evil sunspots, misc radiation sources, and micrometorites. A mobile base would have to manufacture it's sheilding on earth and ship it (at extrodinary cost) to the moon.

A static base can just pile up moon dirt on it's self. (or just give the astronots a shovel!)

I always loved the reason that Joss Weadon gave in fire fly for why the future looked more like a western. It's the frontier stoopid. Resources are rare, machines break down, and simple works just fine. If you ship 2 motor bikes to a remote planet you will only have 2 motor bikes, but if you ship two horses... Of course this is the moon, not the wild wild planet, however the basic idea aplies. KISS

Re:Problem in one word:

[pragma_x]

Agreed. Sometimes you have to stick with what works. A big pile of regolith is 100% effective against radation and the entire moon is made of the stuff. Plus, you could build most of the base by remote with *robots* before people even have to set foot there.

I like the idea of motor bikes, but I always thougth that some Segways with oversized wheels would be ideal, given that space suits have pretty limited flexilibity. Plus the things are at least doubly redundant in the commercial version: imagine one

Nonsense

[Fortress]

This is the height of foolishness. For the mass of the drive system for the entire base, you could fly ten rovers to the moon. This would give much better redundancy than a single base-like vehicle. About the only advantage I see is using the same base to explore physically disparate locations.

Is it just me?

[Shoten]

Is it just me, or does this guy seem a little low on the common-sense scale? I mean, his logic is this:

1. Unpressurized rovers can't go too far because the astronauts will be limited by the air supply in their suits, so pressurized rovers that can go further are better.

Okay, good so far. On to the next part of the idea.

2. If something goes wrong with the rover, the guys inside are screwed. Being stranded on the moon with no AAA roadside assistance really sucks, so there should be two rovers.

Hm. Maybe, but you've just doubled the resources needed to go look into something. If this logic had been followed before, we'd never have made it to the moon in the first place. At some point you need to just accept that setting up a base of operations on the moon HAS to involve risk. Why not have redundant systems on the rover instead of two rovers? But it really goes off the tracks here...

3. But what if something happens to both rovers? You really need three!

Wait, now...someone didn't pay attention in statistics class. If there's a 1% chance of the first rover failing, then the chance of two rovers failing isn't .5%; it's .01%. And as I said above, at some point you just need to accept that being an explorer on this level is dangerous stuff, and shit will happen. Also, any event big enough to nail both rovers at the same time (meteor strike, or solar radiation enough to overwhelm any protection the rovers have?) would nail three as well, so that kind fo risk isn't limited by this approach at all.

4. So just get rid of the rovers, and stick with one big mobile moonbase!

Okay, so now what you've done is gotten rid of the rovers, only to make the whole base just one big rover itself, or a whole group of interdependent rovers? And this is more reliable HOW? It seems to me that it takes the challenge of a moonbase and adds complexity to it. Not only do the pieces have to fit together to form a secure and reliable habitat, now they have to withstand coupling and uncoupling, as well as the challenge of mating when the respective pieces might not be exactly aligned due to terrain. So I'm thinking this guy is a little more into astrophysics and a little less into simple common-sense engineering than he should be. Thoughts, anyone?

Those are big rovers NOT mobile bases

[J05H]

I don't care how NASA is pitching it - one of those designs is a burly rover and the other is an unstable tinkertoy. Neither design is a "mobile base" - they are both large rovers.

A base should, by any reasonable designation hold at least a dozen people, these units look like they each hold 1-3 people, max. So they have a docking tunnel, big deal. They are still rovers, not mobile bases. A fleet of mobile bases (like in the Habot pic) will need a shirt-sleeve environment for maintenance, guaranteed. Hence, any schema like this will end up basing from a buried garage/base of some kind. The units might make sense for exploration, especially if the units can lift, fly to a new area to explore, then fly back to a main base.

Others have already mentioned it, but shielding on the moon is a critical issue. Even with the tanks mounted above, a user of one of these steroid-Rovers is going to get an unhealthy dose of radiation. This kind of setup would probably require a buried, rad-safe base to retreat to.

The Mobitat uses a modified version of the Mars rover "rocker-bogey" suspension - it's good to see that NASA will keep using what has turned into a very successful design.

The Habot is, IMHO, totally impractical. The "walker" legs would be a maintenance nightmare in the lunar environment. The fines (very small particles) on the moon are abrasive and static-charged. The particles find their way into anything - the Apollo suits were breaking down after a few days exposure. Sealing the joints on those legs is going to prove futile - wheels have similar problems but not nearly as complex.

Cute viewgraphs, I'm waiting for a private base.

Build lunar base.
do something.
profit!

Josh

But of course!

[sunking2]

Let's replace a relatively simple lunar rover that just might break with a super complex movable base! Nothing disaterous could ever happen to something like that.

Here's an idea, lets take the big mobile base design and scale it down. Then it could leave the base with say, one or two people in it and cruise around. Surely these little bases would be less prone to failure than the big base. We could call them Rovers!

Re:Mars for me.

[techno-vampire]

A moonbase has a number of advantages. It's a good idea to learn how to build and maintain a base, because it's close enough to the Earth for us to send needed supplies or repair material. It might even be a better place to start a Mars expidition from, because we can get a little extra velocity from the moon's orbital velocity.

Re:But what happens if...

[surprise_audit]

I think the plan is to drag the whole ball o' wax along in one lump - rovers, base, return rocket, etc. At least, that's how I read "make the entire base mobile". I suppose there might not be a return rocket...