Speculations on a Moon Colony 121
Buggernut writes "As reported by the BBC, humans could be living on the Moon within 20 years, according to a leading lunar scientist."
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Speculations on a Moon Colony
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Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user!
Yeah right! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yeah right! (Score:5, Funny)
Moonbase possible (Score:2)
Sending ppl up there is just cost prohibitive
But if you think a little like Isaac Asimov, then sending
robots makes perfect sense
You send small robots up there that can be remotely controlled
from earth, and have Xmit/Rcv stations at different locations
around the globe
You bring in several countries and even companies on the project,
split the costs, and write a agreeable charter
One country footing the bill imght be high, but if 10 d
Deja vu (Score:5, Insightful)
Today it's the Chinese, but it all seems very similar.
Sure we've got better technology now, but will that really make the difference? Lunar colonisation will only happen when there's political will to see it happen, and frankly, I can't see the conditions being right for that for some time.
Re:Deja vu (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Deja vu (Score:1)
Re:Deja vu (Score:1)
Re:Deja vu (Score:3, Interesting)
Typical BBC (and CBC, ABC, SABC, PBS) drivel that only the almighty Government can make something happen, and those mindless voters must be made to see reason. [www.cbc.ca]
Want space colonization? Try a gold rush... it worked in California, Yukon/Alaska, Australia (Vic), South Africa, and is currently populating parts of Brazil. So what do we need to start this gold rush?
First of all, higher commodity prices [bigpond.com] for things we'll find in space (metals, diamonds, power, etc). All these things are presently better provi
Nice (Score:2)
Re:Nice (Score:3, Funny)
Certainly. I'm currently selling plots at $10/sq.m (earth view), or $8/sq.m on the far side. I'm prepared to negotiate a discount for lots of 1000sq.m and over. How much do you want?
Re:Nice (Score:1)
5 years there as long as you don't leave.
Re:Nice (Score:1)
Re:Nice (Score:3, Funny)
I've already got mine! (Score:2)
Buy Lunar and other planetary properties (Score:1)
maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it would be technologicly feasable to have people living on the moon in 20 years, but I don't think there will be a financial inscentive for the huge cost.
Re:maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the moon has lower gravity, it would make an ideal space station.
The moon has a higher content of metals than the earth's crust. Plus, you can dig up entire craters and no one will notice. You can set up low-G manufacturing processes, dump all the waste chemicals into the moon, and no one will care.
Because the moon is on top of the earth, it is really easy to launch attacks on the earth from the moon with missiles or bombs. Whoever can get the hardware on the moon first will dominate the entire earth.
The problems outweight the costs. There's the whole problem of radiation. Solar flares release enough dangerous radiation that it would kill anyone who stayed on the moon's surface for an extended period of time. We would need a lot of shielding to protect us from it, more than is reasonable to manufacture at this time.
Also, launching stuff into space is one thing, but it is more expensive to get it to the moon and back.
When these two problems are solved, then you may see people beging to establish bases on the moon.
Solution to first problem (Score:2)
Solution to second problem is left as an exercise to the /. reader. Several hints may be found on google.
Re:maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong (which I very well may be), but I thought that the moon was well within the earth's magnetosphere. The only problem was that it didn't have an atmosphere to block out certian radiation.
Re:maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:2)
OK, the ionosphere is where the Earth blocks most incoming ionized radiation. The Moon is a little bit above that (say 300k miles or so).
Re:maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:3, Informative)
Shielding (Score:2)
would need to largely live underground
Several hundred feet underground in circular tunnels
similar to those going under the english channel
The cost of tunnelling has dropped due to projects
and tech derived form it like "The Big Dig" in Boston
The moon base should be built by robots running off
a Solar array set up on the moon, by said robots
The robots need to be able to diagnose and troubleshoot
each other, and repair each other
Like a linux cl
Re:maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:1)
Take a shuttle stack remove the orbiter and place the SSMEs on the ET what you get is a 100+ton launcher that will cost 300million a flight.
The frist thing before sending people would be first send permanmt orbital communication sats then send remote vehicals to explore for then to process raw materials and water ice at the poles.
Once that has been done send the first habitats and people.
With raw materials and water you have a reliable source of oxyge
Re:maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:maybe the tech is there, but show me the money (Score:2)
the moon that could lease out time to scientists on the
surface with a digital microwave link of the data
The keck telescope had to use a multipart mirror due
to its sheer weight, on the moon the gravity is MUCH
less and a larger lense is feasible
The near zero light pollution on the darkside of
the moon would provide great imagery
The moon having nearly no atmosphere helps that as well
Robots mining the raw materials and building it there
could build
If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe 20 years from now, we'll be surpassed in space and get shamed into exploring again.
Re:If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:1)
Re:If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't we spend 20 billion less (what is that, a couple stealth bombers?) and get:
*NASA sending a probe a month to mars, or the OTHER 7 PLANETS
*build a better ISS.
*colonize the moon
*colonize mars
*put a big honkin telescope(or an array of them!) on the moon/mars.
*mine moon/mars for resources(water, building materials?, ore???)
*have a launchpad on the moon, since it would be less fuel intensive to launch from there
*build a space shuttle that kicks ass. that can easily takeoff/land/look cool without needs major repairs after every mission.
*or...
those might not seem practical, but why not? the advancement of science shouldn't be determined by profitability of a given project.
Re:If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:4, Insightful)
That, and with all the stuff the military is doing nowadays (troll about whether or not that stuff is justified and you die), Congress is likely to only increase military spending so the military doesn't get spread too thin.
*sigh* If only there were hostile space aliens...
Re:If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:2)
Re:If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:3, Interesting)
While both stimulate the economy, the local economy, they basicly both have no return on investment.
Fighting a war and destroying the competition, removes the enemies economy, but has no long time effect(benefit) on your own as your economy does not need to do the necessary adjustments, as it can continue to run like it did so far.
Ho
Re:If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:2)
Re:If anyone colonizes the Moon (Score:2)
Typo (Score:5, Funny)
That was supposed to be "loony" scientist.
Moon bases are dumb. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, weather a moon base is practical, usefull, or economically feasable is a whole another ball of wax, and the answers are probably all "no". What the hell are you going to do up there? I would like to have a ham radio linear transponder up there, but other than that what is the moon really good for? It can't be a RELIABLE communications satellite because it's only in the sky half the time and is very far away with a very high latency. It's got some rocks and minerals but nothing that would be worth flying back down to earth. Scientific research I suppose, but what could you do on the moon that you can't do on the space station for a lot less money, due to it being so much closer? Yea yea, a jumping off point for a Mars mission. See above, what is really the point to going to Mars? We still don't have the propulsion technology to make frequent Mars trips a practical reality.
One thing that could be a lucritive source of income for a moon base would be moon tourism. Perhaps the science could use it to fund itself, a la the russions and the space station.
IMO, before we even think about a moon base, we need to think long and hard about what the fuck we're going to do with it. Send more probes, shit send a thousand probes. Don't send big dumb expensive probes, send little cheap insectiod probes. Do the same to Mars. If there's something interesting there, we'll find it that way.
I know I know, if people said what I've said about the new world the US wouldn't be here. But the analagy with space is a little different. The "new world" was just another continent on earth. It had air, water, arible land, native people for which to enslave and abuse. Mars is a giant inhospitible desert with some frozen CO2 at the poles. Its possible we've overlooked something, but again it's a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to send probes.
If someone wants to squander their personal fortune on manned missions to Mars/Moon, go for it, but I'd rather my tax dollars be spent more efficiently.
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:1)
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:2)
Look up your selenology and physics too (Score:4, Insightful)
Quoth the poster:
Wrong. Getting to the moon is about as expensive as getting to Mars, more or less, largely because Mars has an atmosphere that you can use to brake against for free. Only a fool would go to the Moon, stop there, then launch off again to go to Mars; for one thing, you're much more efficient doing your boosting near the bottom of a gravity well rather than at the top of one (em vee squared, dude).The Moon is largely made up out of minerals we are quite familiar with here on ol' Terra, and nature has done us a favor by differentiating them using water-based sorting processes which don't exist on Luna. You should do some studying of the subject; not only might you learn something, you might put yourself in a position to actually contribute something useful.Re:Look up your selenology and physics too (Score:2)
Hm. True, but then you say...
The Moon is largely made up out of minerals we are quite familiar with here on ol' Terra[.]
Even more true! But then you miss the obvious - it shouldn't be that hard to flat out build spacecraft on the Moon (after all, they've g
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:5, Interesting)
So I agree that we need a 'reason' to go to the Moon. Once we've got that, it's only a matter of time.
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:1, Funny)
Does that mean GWB is going to drive Muslims to colonize the moon.
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:1)
Re:religious persecution (Score:2)
Necessity is the mother of invention... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Sol system is a little less friendly. A comet or other planet wide disaster is more likely to kill a very large portion of the planet, and totally destroy it's manufacturing infrastructure.
It would be far better to have a self sustaining economy away from Earth, one that could help rebuild our planet if BAD THINGS were to happen to it.
Before we can have a s.s. economy in space, we need to take first steps. We need to put people up there and find out what they need based on the circumstances, then we invent it and move on to the next thing.
The moon hopefully will provide enough resources for those living there to create what they feel they need.
As to your tax dollars, c'mon man, wouldn't you say your grand children being able to take a shuttle trip or elevator ride to the moon would be a good thing?
Re:Necessity is the mother of invention... (Score:2)
Re:Necessity is the mother of invention... (Score:4, Interesting)
Doing things on the moon. (Score:2)
In order to get to the moon in the first place, you need to have almost completely escaped the Earth's gravity, so it doesn't help for launch of things that are originally from Earth. Best approach for that is to launch them to as _low_ an orbit as you can (so as to minimize delta-v required of high thrust, low-Isp drives), and to spiral the rest of the way out
Re:Doing things on the moon. (Score:2)
Correct. But it does help for things that are going to Earth. That is, a base on the Mo
Re:Doing things on the moon. (Score:2)
Much as with lunar mining, this is only economical if you have a large amount of space traffic to and from Earth's region of space. No such traffic exists, nor will it exist in the near future. Even the arguments about towing metal-rich asteroids around only hold water if you assume th
Re:Doing things on the moon. (Score:3, Informative)
The delta-v quoted by your source is far lower than the delta-v needed to get into a Hohmann transfer orbit even from free space in a circular solar orbit at Earth's radius (which the C3=0 orbit is the equivalent of). As the Hohmann orbits are the lowest energy transfer orbits that don't require slingshots from other bodies, I question the values on that figure.
Ah, there's your problem. The C3=0 orbit is NOT a circular orbit at Earth's radius. It's a parabolic orbit with Earth at i
Re:Doing things on the moon. (Score:1)
Re:Necessity is the mother of invention... (Score:3, Funny)
Lol, planetary backup!
I can just picture a meteor wiping out half the population of earth, and then some aliens come along and say "What's the big deal? Just restore your backups. You did have backups, didn't you?"
Re:Necessity is the mother of invention... (Score:2)
You ever think about how the big flood in Genesis is basically equivalent to God hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete?
Re:Necessity is the mother of invention... (Score:1)
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:2)
Maybe it has something that would be worth flying to the earth orbit? Say, water extracted from the polar craters. Later maybe some metals. But for that to work, we need very good power sources, very reliable mechanisms and technology that allows extraction of metals with limited supply of water and no heavy parts in the beginning.
Considering that we have to service Hubble every 5 years because gyroscopes ke
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:2)
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:2)
Prisoners and Wheat (Score:3, Funny)
As they dig those big caves they can grind the rock up for soil, melt pockets of ice that they find and use the water to grow wheat.
You put the wheat in big metal capsuls and you use a magnetic catapult to chuck the wheat down the gravity well to good ol' earth.
don't you read?
Re:Prisoners and Wheat (Score:2)
http://www.cyberhaven.com/books/sciencefiction/
Moon bases are brilliant. (Score:3)
Read Enterning Space [amazon.com].
1KG of He3 is worth $6 million.
Transportation costs to space and manufacturing processes need to come together...oh yeah, and we need to figure out that whole fusion thing. But once we're there, science knows of no better energy source (outside of anti-matter).
Good enough reason for me.
Re:Moon bases are brilliant. (Score:2)
Why not just process He3 out of terrestrial helium? Sure, the ratio's about 1e-8 instead of the 1e-4 or so you have for deuterium, but you don't need a million tonnes of the stuff, and it stands a good chance of being cheaper to process it here tha
Re:Moon bases are brilliant. (Score:1)
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:2)
analagy
*Russians
*analogy
Just had to switch the 'o' and the 'a'.
Actually, the moon has been found to be a great source of Helium-3 [space.com], an isotope that would be used in fusion reactors if we had any.
From the linked article:
And:
Practical, useful, feasible... (Score:3, Interesting)
and very timely:
Getting power from the moon. [physicscentral.com]
More details at Space.com. [space.com]
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:2)
You asked if a bas on the moon would be "practical, usefull, or economically feasable".
"Practical"
Let's see:
- a nearly unlimited source of steel and other useful materials
- no steep gravity well
- lack of atmosphere means very efficient solar power collection, practically free energy
- the moon is much closer than Mars
Mean distance to moon: 384,000 km
Mean Distance to Mars:
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:2)
It's got some rocks and minerals but nothing that would be worth flying back down to earth.
There is supposedly one substance found in quantity only on the moon that would be incredibly useful here on earth - Helium-3. He3 is not radioactive (and here's the good part) - neither are its fusion products. Imagine essentially radiation-free fusion power! See this list of resources [wisc.edu], specifically this article [wisc.edu].
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:1)
The moon has the gravity we need as well a MUCH reduced cost of getting back and forth to orbit. Additionally the moon has the raw materials to support much of the construction of same.
Shipping it all up from the bottom of earth's gravity well and through our atmosphere is going to be energy intinsive until such time as an orbital elevator(s) can and are built.
I suspec
Re:Moon bases are dumb. (Score:1)
Do you need a financial reason for everything? Goodness, in this case feel free to sit on your ass and collect money thanks to some or other patent.
Going to the moon would be fascinating. Who KNOWS what we would find up there? What we could do by creating a nice big moon base? Just the astronomy would be awesome.
Heck, I'd sell myself into slavery for a two-month hotel vacation up there. Oh, wait, thanks to taxes I already am in slavery...
Re:what does it do the other half? (Score:2)
Anyway it doesn't matter WHERE on earth you are, the moon is only VISIBLE (there happy???) in the sky an average of 50% of the time. Also it's a zillion miles away and the latency to it is very high. Therefore it's useless for normal every day communications. SO THERE!
The story should read (Score:3, Insightful)
somehow I don't think there is going to be a colony on the moon by 2023, I say we are lucky if we get a man back to the moon by then....
sigh....
Slightly offtopic (Score:3, Interesting)
So, what are they going to do, beam x-rays through the moon down to a receptor on earth or vice-versa? Somehow I doubt they'd get very accurate pictures.
Are they going to have the craft drop a plate off on one side of the planet, zoom across to the other side and take the picture?
Re:Slightly offtopic (Score:3)
They're not going to x-ray the moon like doctors do.
They're gonna bounce the rays off its surface. You know, like you do with visible light? Its exactly the same kind of wave for christ's sake.
Re:Slightly offtopic (Score:2)
All EM waves are not equal.
Low-frequency waves, like RF and up through the microwave range, interact with matter like classical EM fields. They're reflected by conductors, and mostly absorbed by dielectrics.
High-frequency waves, like light (IR through UV), are in about the right energy band to interact directly with electrons in atoms. This process involves both cl
Nonetheless (Score:2)
Recall a few months ago a
Re:Slightly offtopic (Score:4, Informative)
15 month trip ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I believed that "traditionnal" engines could send people on the moon in two days.
Anyone can explain ?
Re:15 month trip ? (Score:1)
Weight of 'traditional' engines (which actually, we can't rebuild- we would have to totall re-engineer from scratch) which took us to the moon: thousands and thousands of pounds.
Both will get you there. Which do you choose, as a rocket scientist?
Re:15 month trip ? (Score:1)
But I'm not a rocket scientist
Re:15 month trip ? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may very well be cheaper. Lifting something to low earth orbit is hard. Lifting it to escape velocity (or nearly so, for a lunar transfer orbit) is even harder.
You shave at least 4 km/sec off of your required delta-v if you can use ion drives and have a longer trip.
You're going to keep these astronauts on the moon for years anyways; why not spend the first year or so en
Re:15 month trip ? (Score:1)
Nope (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, for the delta-v that's hard to produce. (Score:2)
Let me clarify - you shave 4 km/sec off the delta-v you need to produce using chemical rockets.
An ion drive with an Isp of thousands or better can use even an inefficient transfer scheme and use only a little fuel. Adding 4 km/sec using a rocket with an Isp of 300 gives you another factor of 3+ on the fuel:cargo ratio.
What you say doesn't mean what you think (Score:2)
It was clearly wrong (either erroneous or grossly mis-stated) the first time.
Getting to LEO from the ground requires roughly 5 miles/second of delta-V, about 8 km/sec. Getting to escape velocity requires about 7 miles/second, or 11.2 km/sec. If you chop 4 km/sec off the delta-V for escape, you're down to 7.2 km/sec and you will not even achieve orbit.
You're right about the mass-ratio, so I suspect that you're
"What makes your rockets go up?" (Score:5, Insightful)
In the movie The Right Stuff, and, IIRC in the book,a congressman says to an astronaut "What makes your rockets go up?" The astronaut starts to saying something about reaction masses and exhaust velocity, and the comgressman cuts him short and says, "No. What makes your rockets go up is funding."
Of course a Moon base is technologically feasible. Goodness, if we're just talking technological feasibility we should be able to be a lot more imaginative than that. (Project Orion [islandone.org], anyone?).
But unless someone "salts" the Moon with gold nuggets (I believe it's in Carl Sandburg's The People, Yes in which someone starts a rumor that there's gold on the Moon, and so many people start heading for the Moon that the person who started the rumor figures there must be something in it after all and joins them) I don't see how it's going to happen.
(Another nugget from The People, Yes "Another baby in Cuyahuga County, Ohio--why did she ask: 'Papa, what is the moon supposed to advertise?'" I'd give a nickel to know whether Heinlein read that before writing "The Man who Sold the Moon.")
Gold on the moon (Score:2)
Several other posters on here have mentioned it
The dark side of the moon would make a great place for
a Telescope roughly 3 or 4 times the size of the
Keck telescope in Hawaii
The solar power on the moon would be very plentiful, and
we could build the majority of this with robots and remote
control systems
Yes, there is a 2 second dealy, but we have a further dealy to
mars and use the rovers there in a similar manner
Build the moonbase unde
sic - editor correction (Score:2, Redundant)
ralph (Score:1)
Whitey On The Moon (Score:1, Offtopic)
Her face and arms began to swell and Whitey's on the moon.
I can't pay no doctor bills but Whitey's on the moon.
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still while Whitey's on the moon.
The man just upped my rent last night cuz Whitey's on the moon.
No hot water, no toilets, no lights but Whitey's on the moon.
I wonder why he's uppin me. Cuz Whitey's on the moon?
I was already givin' him fifty a week but now Whitey's on the moon.
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
T
Whatever (Score:2)
Agreed ... (Score:2)
I think it would be alot easier to have robots land on it,
mine it, and rail gun it to the moon
Then use it to build space craft or whatever on the moon
If the earth is wiped out due to disease, nuclear war,
or some other human engineered disaster, we need a backup
plan , and the moon is the closest one to us
A moonbase is a good idea, all the He3 up there is a good idea
We can use the MUCH stronger solar power up there to make it work
We have robo
This reminds me of a 1954 Sci-Fi Classic... (Score:2)
Amazon Women on the Moon [imdb.com]!
"This is just a hunch, but..."
"Steve! What are you doin'?! You're committin' suicide!"
"Ahhhhh. Seems the moon has an atmospere similar to Earth's."
"Good 'ole H2O!"
Eviction notice (Score:1)
Re:Eviction notice (Score:2)
http://www.webee.co.jp/southpaw/cx/htm/wwwboard
Anyone Else (Score:2)
I hope to one day visit the moon, and maybe Mars, but I fear the $$ will keep me here, on the good olde Earth.
Re:Anyone Else (Score:1)
Space 1999 (Score:2)
Moon Base Alpha! Launch all Eagles! (Score:2)
(Yes, I'm seriously dating myself. No, not in that way.)
Just wait while I get my rocket ship... (Score:1)
Sure we can stick a few people into the ISS for 6 months, but the moon is another matter. It's unprotected by Earth's magnetic field, so
Re:Just wait while I get my rocket ship... (Score:2)
is possible, just have robots build it , not humans
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75577&cid=6
Also, build it underground, you need to mine it anyways
for raw matrials, and we built a tunnel under the
english channel
With much less gravity it is much more feasible
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
Re:Moon bases, you say? (Score:2)
would be too vulnerable a target
Whether something is vulnerable or not has little bearing
on whether it will be pursued
The ISS was vulnerable to micro meteors travelling at
horrific speeds, yet it went up . Same with HST
He3 is reason enough alone to send remote control
mining to the moon
I think we should delay sending man til the robots
build it and test it thoroughly
They do not need food, water, or air, just solar powe