NASA Planning Lunar Mining Tests, Other New Tech 79
FleaPlus writes "NASA has released the initial details on its ETDD (Enabling Technology Development and Demonstrations) program to 'develop and demonstrate the technologies needed to reduce cost and expand the capability of future space exploration activities.' The ETDD program is initially planning on funding small-scale demonstrations in five technology areas: in-situ resource utilization (with a robotic lunar resource extraction mission in 2015), high-power electric propulsion, autonomous precision landing (building on the success of the Lunar Lander Challenge), human-robotic collaboration (2011/2012), and fission power systems. More info on NASA's larger-scale Flagship Technology Demonstrations (FTD) program is expected in the coming month."
Can't we do this for the coal mines? (Score:2, Insightful)
And maybe save a few lives besides? Sounds worth the cost, no?
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however you would only get accurate results in terms of monetary value from this if there was > full employment.
You get accurate results as long as the workers can choose.
Also you have to take into account that humans are not rational decision makers and probably would underestimate the danger
It doesn't matter. They make a choice that we can quantify.
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You're ignoring parent's point. He gives the reason why you DON'T get accurate numbers when the workers can choose -- namely, that the workers are not able to accurately estimate risk.
You'd only get accurate numbers from free choice if (1) the choice is made with complete knowledge by the chooser and (2) the chooser makes the choice completely rationally.
Neither of these conditions are true, which is why the number is not accurate.
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You're ignoring parent's point. He gives the reason why you DON'T get accurate numbers when the workers can choose -- namely, that the workers are not able to accurately estimate risk.
You're right. But I'm ignoring it because the point is irrelevant. It doesn't matter, if the workers are rational decision makers or not. Their preferences can be quantified when you look at groups of people.
Sure we can quantify the choice... but your point seems to be that the accuracy of that quantification is meaningless? Any numbers, even bad numbers, are better than no numbers?
What do you think these numbers are used for? I'm not using them to estimate what you value death at, but rather society as a whole. For the latter, they are accurate enough to be relevant.
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Re:Can't we do this for the coal mines? (Score:5, Insightful)
And maybe save a few lives besides? Sounds worth the cost, no?
No, it isn't. Otherwise it'd be done already. The problem is that human labor isn't that expensive and you'd have to put a huge amount of money in to develop a completely automated system. No coal mine will have either the incentive or the assets to do such a project.
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Personally, I think this is exactly something that NASA should be doing. NASA is about pushing the envelope, and this is just as good an envelope to push as any.
This sort of bleeding edge technology development is expensive and wasteful, so it only makes sense for the government to be doing it. Which isn't a bash against government (well, it sorta is), as that is what I want the government to do. Leave making money to the people.
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When robots can climb, operate for eight hours in damp and mostly-dark conditions, and do elaborate things with ropes...sure.
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When robots can climb, operate for eight hours in damp and mostly-dark conditions, and do elaborate things with ropes...sure.
So you want robots that operate in brothels?
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If we have a robot-operated moon base, it makes getting a constant human presence on the moon a lot easier. With a coal mine it might last 20-30 years before the coal runs out. The more efficient the workers, the more supply and the less value the mine has on earth. Robotic lunar workers could help build a moon-base for human occupants, create infrastructure using the natural resources of the moon, and allow for a lot of s
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Keep in mind that any near-term robotic lunar resource extraction is going to be much more analogous to surface mining [wikipedia.org], rather than the underground mining [wikipedia.org] which is responsible for the deaths which we've been reading about in the news. Lunar resources like water ice are going to be on or close to the surface, so no complex tunneling will be involved.
Re:Can't we do this for the coal mines? (Score:4, Informative)
Also, I did a bit of searching, and it turns out that basic robots already exist for underground mining:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12637032 [npr.org]
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-00g.html [spacedaily.com]
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Special Offer! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:*yawn* (Score:4, Interesting)
these are the holdover missions that NASA will have to be content with until there is an administration that is serious about space exploration.
Even if this is a stealth attempt by Obama to kill off manned spaceflight, it still means that he's more serious about space exploration than any president since Lyndon B. Johnson.
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Funny you should make that comparison, I recently heard someone, rather older than myself, compare obama to LBJ.
One thing that is obvious is that Obama is no LBJ. LBJ wouldn't have let Congress get out of hand. But I think some of Obama's problems come from not having influence over Congress and its leaders.
Mod parent up (Score:4, Insightful)
If we don't have an active and funded unmanned space exploration mission, we can't do manned missions. Sending manned missions ahead without investigating the environment that people are going to have to deal with is tantamount to sending them on suicide missions.
It's not "either or" it's "do both at the same time" and if we spend too much on manned we won't have anything to spend on the unmanned that should precede them.
Of course we aren't spending enough on either, but that's because we have a lot of two and four year shortsighted idiots running our country. Reelection and quarterly profits are more important to them (and to many of the sheeples) than actually doing anything about the future is.
SB
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If we don't have an active and funded unmanned space exploration mission, we can't do manned missions. Sending manned missions ahead without investigating the environment that people are going to have to deal with is tantamount to sending them on suicide missions.
Yeah, but suicide missions in space!
Seriously, the problem is that while you can't have a manned mission without an unmanned science program, not only can you have an unmanned program without a manned one, but a decent unmanned program renders your manned program unnecessary.
This is what annoys me about NASA's patronising pretending-to-be-doing-science on the ISS. (And before that, the shuttle.) The ISS's one and only purpose is to practice having people in space, not researching, practising. Take assembly.
Re:*yawn* (Score:5, Insightful)
You probably don't know very much about space exploration do you? All the fluffy expensive bull shit like the ISS and manned space travel actually produce very little that will help space exploration. This is the one thing that will possibly provide humanity with usable resources from space, and make travel and construction in space a reality instead of a one-off dick measuring contest between super powers.
Re:*yawn* (Score:4, Interesting)
Large masses are few and far between in space. Therefore to get anywhere we are probably going to looking at a series of space stations. The nice thing about this moon mining idea is that it may give the raw materials we need to build space stations, without falling to the 60's idea that the goal is to live on the moon. That is like flying cars. A neat idea, but what we really want are hover craft.
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That is like flying cars. A neat idea, but what we really want are hover craft.
That analogy is broken since we really don't want either. We really want fast point to point transportation (well, we might also want something we can bling up, but that's the primary desire). Neither flying cars nor hovercraft can deliver that to us today.
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I'm with Stephen Baxter on this--mining near Earth asteroids is where it's at. Easier than the Moon, with quicker pay-offs. Supposedly, the raw materials we could get from just one metallic asteroid would be enough seriously upset the world-wide market for many sought-after metals and minerals.
Most of space is more like the surface of an asteroid than it is like the surface of the Moon.
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Do you realize that this is essentially a renamed department from Constellation?
Not true. The reason is because Obama is proposing to end Ares I. Everything currently running in Constellation revolves around that choice for a launcher. Orion is designed to fly on that rocket (and I think, cynically perhaps, that it was originally designed to be just a bit too heavy to fly on the Delta IV Heavy). The choice of heavy lift vehicle, Ares V just so happens to require Ares I development in order to be cost effective. That's virtually all of the current or already planned technology developme
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Re:*yawn* (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like this administration?
They have given more money to NASA and killed a boondoggle that was wasting what little money NASA had.
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Also there is a reason we should put people in SPACE, the reason is because we are a group of explorers and doers. Once we remove the challenging parts
mistakenly thinking they understand (Score:4, Insightful)
> egotistical intellectuals, who mistakenly think they understand
> the real world.
You want national leaders with no ego? Lose your own, then run for office.
And if intellectuals bother you, you're in the wrong place.
As to "mistakenly thinking they understand the real world", how do you know you understand it better? Do you have broader experience? A better advisory staff? More resources? Greater access to NASA?
I agree with you on the X-Prize approach. You have good points in there, but they can get drowned in the ranting and hyperbole.
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And if intellectuals bother you, you're in the wrong place.
I assume you mean "the internet" and not slashdot
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The best way to expand and increase the cost effectiveness of NASA is convert it to a goal driven agency. Don't pay to research or study something. Instead setup prizes like the X-Prize or Google's Android challenges to motivate everyday Americans, small business startups, Universities, etc. to solve challenges. Send a rocket to the moon get X million. Put a Satellite in orbit of the moon get Y million, send a crew to circle the moon get Z million, etc. Then we the tax payers only pay for success and we onl
Perfect (Score:3, Interesting)
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http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/428Boston.pdf [usra.edu]
One of the best studies done on extraterrestrial cave habitation. Reports like this are one of the reasons why it was such a travesty that Griffin shut down NIAC, just to raid their budget for Constellation.
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One of the best studies done on extraterrestrial cave habitation. Reports like this are one of the reasons why it was such a travesty that Griffin shut down NIAC, just to raid their budget for Constellation.
Not sure if you already knew this, but NASA is actually planning on restarting the NIAC under its new plans:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/428439main_Space_technology.pdf [nasa.gov]
Responsive the NRC report, Fostering Visions for the Future: A Review of the NASA Institute for
Advanced Concepts (2009), the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts (NIAC) will be re-established
as a project within the Early Stage Innovation Program. The project is formulated as a two-phase,
low TRL activity, focused upon conceptual studies of visionary approaches addressing long-term
NASA strategic goals. The first phase of NIAC will fund a competed set of conceptual studies and
systems analyses that investigate how technology innovations will enable NASA's future missions
and extend its goals. Second Phase NIAC proposals will further develop successful Phase I
proposals and work to transition the key technical advances into projects within the Game Changing
Technology Program.
NIAC will serve as an incubator for bringing new technologies into future aerospace endeavors. By ...
supporting innovative and visionary concepts aimed a decade or more into the future, NIAC-funded
research significantly impacts the Agency's future missions as well as its roadmaps for future
science, discovery and exploration. As a low-TRL early phase activity, NIAC will serve as a visible
and recognized entry point for innovators and researchers who will enable future NASA missions and
goals.
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I had, yes, but good news is worth repeating and you did it well. Thanks.
Misleading: nuclear is excluded (Score:5, Informative)
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on the other hand, using "micro pellet inertial confinement compression
Re:Misleading: nuclear is excluded (Score:4, Interesting)
I cannot say for sure, but I do not believe that an inertial confinement system is decades away. In fact, there was a-lot of research into such systems during the 1960s. It was abandoned during the 70s when nuclear energy for space became politically untenable, but then it was picked up again during the 90s. During the late 90s it very abruptly stopped - or went dark. (Perhaps it was successful...)
In any case, it turns out that the energy required to compress fissile pellets (the size of a grain of sand) to critical density for fission requires particle beam equipment the size of a refrigerator - i.e., very achievable. The engineering challenges then are not related to creating fission, but rather to managing the high temperature plasmas to produce usable thrust without damaging the system. These engineering challenges are very similar to the challenges that VASIMIR has, and so if they can be solved for VASIMIR one would expect that they could be solved for a fission-powered system. I believe that the plasma temperatures for a micro pulse fission system (using water as a propellant mass source) are similar to those for VASIMIR, but I cannot say for sure.
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micro pellet inertial confinement compression-induced fission
You say that like you didn't just make it up. ;)
br/
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According to the RFI at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=34056 [spaceref.com] nuclear propulsion is excluded unless it is used solely for heat generation or as a power source for electric propulsion. Thus, some of the most promising nuclear technologies for rocket propulsion such as micro pellet inertial confinement compression-induced fission are excluded.
Keep in mind that the ETDD program (the one mentioned in the summary) is specifically intended for tech which has already attained a mid-level TRL (Technolo [wikipedia.org]
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Thanks for this clarification.
I wonder if some of the more promising long term technologies are covered under a different initiative?
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According to the RFI at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=34056 [spaceref.com] nuclear propulsion is excluded unless it is used solely for heat generation or as a power source for electric propulsion. Thus, some of the most promising nuclear technologies for rocket propulsion such as micro pellet inertial confinement compression-induced fission are excluded.
There's two questions to ask here. First, is there a role for such propulsion in near future space activities? I'd have to say "no". Most of our transportation overhead is going from Earth to orbit, something which nuclear won't help with, just due to environmental and safety concerns, until it's been proven somewhere else first (namely somewhere in space). You'll need infrastructure there to support such tests IMHO, which makes it a second generation project. Also, you need to do something with the remains
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...to get our hands on good cheese.
Not according to these guys [wallaceandgromit.com].
Tibetans from space (Score:1, Insightful)
interesting bbc article, sounds like Tibetans would make great astronauts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8680503.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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Command & Conquer: Tibetian Moon
Please be careful (Score:2)
and avoid oil spills on the moon. We just jammed up gulf of Mexico, avoid covering with tar palus Putredinis [fourmilab.ch]
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There's no oil on the moon!
They might create a dust spill or something, maybe a water or helium-3 spill.
That being said, us being humans I'm sure we'll find a way to make a horrible mess of the moon, even if it is just dust and rocks.
I wonder... (Score:1)
I wonder if they let players interface with those mining drones via the that NASA MMO [nasa.gov]
The moon is the door to the solar system. (Score:1)
The high cost to the human race's colonisation of space is caused by the complexity and danger of reaching and leaving escape velocity within the earth's atmosphere.
The Space Shuttle turned out to be an expensive and dangerous white elephant, the reason the Shuttle was so expensive is, because of its complexity with millions of different manufactured parts, and the need to cover it with bathroom tiles.
There is another route, we can reach the edge of space no problem Burt Rutan proved this with Space Ship on