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Space Science

Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport 425

Posted by michael from the shipping-and-receiving dept.
thrasymachus writes "Buzz Aldrin has an editorial in the New York Times (free reg req) advocating a spaceport at a Lagrange point between the Earth and the moon over simply more moon missions. He emphasizes the cost and practicality of such a station, as well its potential as a 'bridge to the heavens.'"
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Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport More

Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport

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  • Maybe we should involve... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ooby ( 729259 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:44AM (#7638330)
    ZZ Top

    • L Point (Score:2, Insightful)

      by justinmc ( 710870 )
      I think this is good as it is a step out of the 'Cradle' and probably requires nearly the same energy as a trip to the moon (TLI or whatever).
      However the advantage of the moon is that you can burrow in and they might be water at the poles.
      Water = H2 and O2 = Fuel and Air = Explore Solar System

      Sorry if this is typed fast - I am trying to config a Cisco Router at the same time!!

      • Re:L Point (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Chmcginn ( 201645 )
        I think this is good as it is a step out of the 'Cradle' and probably requires nearly the same energy as a trip to the moon (TLI or whatever). However the advantage of the moon is that you can burrow in and they might be water at the poles.

        While the moon only costs a little bit more to get to, it costs a lot more to leave. That's the whole point of his arguement. An interplanetary spacecraft assembled at L1 wouldn't have to worry about escape velocity - it's already pretty close to it. And if there is

      • Re:L Point (Score:2, Insightful)

        by BCSEiny ( 656170 )
        Common misconception is the there is water on the moon. If you want water goto Mars. There may be water trapped in rocks but the cost to get it out would be prohibitally expensive. The moon would be neat but it is not practical right now. The problem is whatever we send to the moon or to a space station in any orbit is that all the materials needed (fuel, water, food, etc) must be sent there at high expense. Mars on the other had has the advantage of being able to provide raw materials for fuel and wat

      • Re:L Point (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mikerich ( 120257 )
        I think this is good as it is a step out of the 'Cradle' and probably requires nearly the same energy as a trip to the moon (TLI or whatever).

        One big problem is that this sounds just like the ill-fated proposals that NASA had in the 1960s. Then it was go to Mars, but to do that they would build a space station in LEO, to get to that they would need a reusable spacecraft.

        And what happened? Well reality intruded, manned space travel is horribly expensive and not terribly justifiable when government spen

    • That was the first thing I thought of -

      followed by
      Lagrange numbers [wolfram.com]... not sure if it has anything to do with that, either :)
    • but how how how would you do involve them?

  • China, Russia and the Space Race (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MURD3R3R ( 691512 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:46AM (#7638345)
    I am sure there will be legal battles about who can claim ownership of the lagrange points similar to the legal battles of Antarctica.
    • Unlikely. China's space program is still in it's infancy, and a Lagrange point would be pointless for them. The Russians likely wouldn't fight hard for them, as they know we would almost certainly let them use ours.
    • I am sure there will be legal battles about who can claim ownership of the lagrange points similar to the legal battles of Antarctica.

      If you think that's going to be a problem, just wait till the spaceport is being build and all those people who bought 'lunar land' try to charge rent.

  • Buzz on cable news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:46AM (#7638346)
    Saw an inteview this morning on CNN I believe. He talked about the L2 point idea as well as the dificulty with all the other things going on in the world as well as the budget deficit.

    Most opponents to this idea don't consider that they are talking about realigning NASA in the direction of achieving this one big mission instead of the aimless direction it has been moving if for quite awhile. Not more money, just applying existing resources in a specific direction.

    • Re:Buzz on cable news (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:54AM (#7638426) Journal
      I wish people would stop blaming NASA. Place your blame with the politicians who allocate where the money is to be spent. The engineers at NASA are phenomenal and have chosen to work for far less than they could make in the private sector because they share our dream of furthering our exploration of space.

      • Re:Buzz on cable news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:57AM (#7638469) Homepage Journal
        I wish people would stop blaming politicians, and point the finger squarely at the American public. People seem to gravitate mindlessly to tax-cutting messages, without considering the impact. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc. If the public got behind the idea of a space port or moon landing, the politicians would follow. It does indeed happen, even in these cynical times.

        • I pay my taxes knowingly and willingly (Score:5, Insightful)

          by revscat ( 35618 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:08AM (#7638559) Journal

          Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc.

          I think I'm the only person on the freaking planet who actually considers paying taxes a civic duty, and that pays them willingly and with the knowledge that it is in my best interest to do so. (And no, not in some "if you don't you go to jail" way, either.) Taxes pay for bad things, taxes pay for good things. I oppose the former and support the latter.

          Too many people are patriotic right up until you ask them to put their money where their mouth is.

          • Re:I pay my taxes knowingly and willingly (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Moofie ( 22272 ) <.moc.nrutasfognir. .ta. .eel.> on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:10AM (#7638585) Homepage
            I'd have much less issue with performing my civic duty of paying taxes, if my elected representatives did THEIR civic duty and spent those revenues wisely.

            And BOTH parties have a hideous record on that front.
            • Nonsense. I said I had issues with paying my taxes, not that I didn't pay them.

              And, for the record, I would love a multi-party system here in America. I believe that the fake battles between Republicans and Democrats are nothing more than bread and circuses, and do nothing whatsoever to further the State's service of The People.

              • The biggest problem with third parties is that they have to go for state legislatures first, and they don't. They always go for the federal seats and you can't hang onto that unless you control the states.

                Look at what the Republicans did. Yeah, Reagan won in 1980 and he was able to change the mindset of the country to the right a bit by using the presidency as a bully pulpit, but, real Republican dominance did not come until Republicans methodolically took control of many state legislatures, then governorships, and then, reworked districting laws in their favor, and then won the congress. Barring any disasters, they should hold the congress for the next decade.

                Against such a well coordinated plan, you have Green Party people like Ralph Nader that aren't really interested in winning for their party as much as they are about trying to get power for themselves. Really, my Republican Party is successful because not everyone wants to be president, and, we are willing to "take one for the team", in order to get our overall agenda passed.

                You don't see that kind of sacrifice on the left, where everyone wants to be a best seller, a pundit, or a president, and that is why you lose.

                The green party and the libertarian party will never be successful until it has people that are willing to be elected to state legislatures on local, practical, issues.
              • In politics as most things, form follows function.

                In the US, most elections are 'winner take all'. In a 'winner take all' election, a set of three or more parties is unstable because the voters for whichever party is weakest are motivated to defect to whichever of the stronger two parties' platforms is more palatable. The "don't waste your vote by voting for a third party" refrain is painful to hear, but it's based on solid ground in political theory. It is possible for a third party to overtake one of

          • "I think I'm the only person on the freaking planet who actually considers paying taxes a civic duty"

            No, and yes. I pay my taxes because I know it does good, but I also object to the fact that a good portion of the 400+ that is taken from my monthly wage ends up beind spent on administration, political lunches and pointless, counterproductive rubbish by a government that stopped paying any attention to the elctorate a long time ago and now even goes as far as fiddling public consultations.
            (I'm in the UK, i
          • If the IRS added a line to contribute funds to NASA, I would gladly donate money to them during tax time every year.

            Even if people just donated $1 on their tax forms, imagine how much money that would generate for NASA.

            In fact, they can replace the "presidential campaign fund" line with the NASA one. (I think they collect enough campaign funds with $1000/per plate dinners year round.) It would be a much better use of ink.
        • Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc.

          Can't everyone else just pay a little more?

        • Re:Buzz on cable news (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cyberlotnet ( 182742 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:35AM (#7638836) Homepage Journal
          No blame the goverment.. We do need tax cuts but its not at the school/service level.

          The Military just got in trouble because of the number of people flying on our Tax dollars first class.

          The goverment bidding system for outsourced jobs is broken. Its supposed to bring in the lowest costing qualified bidder. Instead its perverted by politicians to support larger companys that donate money to there political fund. This results in multi-million dollar political campains, while our childen have to bring there own toilet paper to school.

          We spend billions defending a country over oil, yet we have millions without health care, homeless people and others things right here at home that money could of been used for.

          Look at this picture..

          If we spent less money putting pushing our beliefs on other countrys and defending other countrys, Not only would we have more money for our own people BUT we would have fewer people out there that thing america sucks.

          If we had not stepped in and beat iraq down during the gurf war.. Oil prices may have gone up for a bit but they would of done everything they could to get those oil fields back online to make money. There would be one less set of people who feel we got invovled in something we shouldn't.

        • Re:Buzz on cable news (Score:4, Insightful)

          by b-baggins ( 610215 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @12:44PM (#7640015) Journal
          -Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc.-

          This is a false dilemna fallacy.

          The current tax rate is far in excess of what is needed to maintain infrastructure. Waste and corruption is horrendous, entitlement programs are needless and duplicated. Crap, just eliminating 10% of the waste in the federal Entitlement programs would net every man, woman and child in this country a 200$ annual tax cut.

          The real problem is that too many Americans have decided that someone else should pay for what they want. We have learned that we can vote ourselves money from the public largess.

          • A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this s

      • I'm not really blaming NASA. Yesterday I watched an interview with two astronauts on the Internation Space Station. The Russian looking dude just looked desparate for a drink of Vodka and the British soundind dude talked about spending his entire day on some incredibly stupid sounding experiment.

        NASA has been grasping at straws for the last decade to justify its existence. They have the capability to do truly great things but havn't been given the mission/direction to achieve anything great. The moon now a
      • I've never heard anybody blaming NASA's engineers, we all blame NASA's managers. But the blame does go to NASA. They never had any sense of compromise, realism, or incremental development. This "everything or bust" attitude got us to the Moon real fast when everybody wanted to, and then it hasn't taken us anywhere else in over thirty years. Apollo was a magnificent achievement, but it was ultimately a stunt. The Shuttle is a stunt without an archievement, it's just a joke with booster rockets. We could have

        • Re:Buzz on cable news (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:06AM (#7638547) Homepage Journal
          Blockquoth the poster:

          They kept Mir in orbit, functioning well, always manned, etc., for about fifteen years

          Not counting oxygen failures, several fires, and the odd collision with a supply ship. Mir functioned. It certainly did not function well. And keep in mind that the realistic, incremental approach is what gave us the Space Shuttle and the ISS.

          • Re:Buzz on cable news (Score:3, Insightful)

            by rokzy ( 687636 )
            the Russians knowing how to keep people alive in space because of their experience from Mir is what gave us the ISS (plus money and experience of other teams, but none of it possible without Mir).

            I personally think Mir functioned fantastically well. sure it had its problems, but it kept people alive for 15 years despite only being designed for 3 or 5 (c.f. Apollo 13 "finest hour").

          • Re:Buzz on cable news (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Thag ( 8436 )
            The realistic, incremental approach had nothing to do with either Shuttle or ISS. Both are primarily the products of politics.

            An incremental approach would have been to build a Saturn 6 booster that was more powerful/cheaper to operate/reusable, and keep upgrading the parts to make it better. Instead, Shuttle dropped all of that and restarted with an almost completely different appproach.

            The real problem with NASA is that, like any bureaucracy, it's a political organization first. Its organization is buil
    • i wonder what tax cut is going to pay for this.

  • Google Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by erinacht ( 592019 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:47AM (#7638365) Homepage
    It's actually quite a good read [google.com] but not enough to make me want to register...

    Just click on the link after the text
    If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking on the following link:

  • I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IANAL(BIAILS) ( 726712 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:49AM (#7638373) Homepage Journal
    I wonder if the Chinese (and maybe even the Russians) would be willing to go into a partnership with us for this. They've already said they want to place a man on the moon by 2020, and with Bush's recent indications that the US may be following suit, I'm sure a little cooperation wouldn't hurt.

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ScottCanto ( 705723 )
      I could see a partnership with the Russians, but not the Chinese. The only way the great American public will be won on an idea like this is to invoke competition, and since they're the ones we're competing against...

  • Interesting article, but it still doesn't address the "building complex things in space" problem. I mean, we're pretty good at building things in gravity, with an abundance of raw materials, but we just haven't built much of note in hard vacuum zero gravity where you have to truck everything you need there. Even the space station was flown in modular format from Earth - at huge expense. Lagrange points are cool - but planets are cooler.

    Everything you want to fly to somewhere else from a Lagrangian point you first have to fly to a Lagrangian point from some planet!

    Frankly, the best place from which to get to pretty much anywhere in the solar system (including the Moon!) is from the surface of Mars. Two reasons: you can build things there, and the cost in fuel is lower. Here's a table [nw.net] which uses deltaV (total change in velocity required and thus fuel) to illustrate this very point.

    First get humans to Mars [marssociety.org], then the whole solar system is within reach.

    • Re:The Moon or Lagrange? I still choose Mars. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:01AM (#7638500) Journal
      you can build things there

      No you can't because it hasn't been done yet... we need to walk before we run.

      Zubrin't table of delta-V's has a fundamental error in it... it doesn't include the fuel required to launch an vehicle from Earth to parking orbit, the fuel for the transfer orbit to Mars, the fuel for Mars capture or the fuel required for landing at Mars. Don't forget you aren't just moving the spacecraft to Mars but all the ground support equipment, mining equipment and fuel refining equipment as well.

      Don't get me wrong, Zubrin has some excellent ideas and I would never question his conviction, but we still must walk before we run.

      • We also haven't built anything on orbit. We HAVE built stuff in gravity wells.

        You missed a fundamental point in Zubrin's plan. There IS no Earth parking orbit. You do a direct launch for Mars, aerobrake into the atmosphere, and do a lot of your deceleration using a parachute (rather than rockets). Zubrin's plan includes a HUGE support infrastructure (including several rovers, two to three habitable volumes, a HUGE power budget, SCADS of fuel, the capacity to make MORE fuel, and massive redundancy of co

        • Re:The Moon or Lagrange? I still choose Mars. (Score:5, Informative)

          by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @11:41AM (#7639404) Journal
          Well direct injection and aerocapture (not aerobraking which still required capture propellant) have their own drawbacks. In the case of direct transfer injection, you are much more constrained by launch windows than if you use a parking orbit. As for aerocapture (my thesis by the way), while there are significant propellant cost savings you now have to have a robust thermal protection system (TPS). Aerocapture has not yet been used on any mission as it is relatively high risk (due in large part to insufficient understanding of the Mars atmosphere and what type of heat loads would be encountered). The closest to aerocaputre that has been accomplished were the direct entries of the Apollo missions. Moreover, aerocapture guidance is still in its infancy (again, point designs have been done but we need a guidance algo that is robust enough to account for huge errors in Mars' atmospheric model). Further complicating matters is the fact that for large (manned spaceflight sized) missions, the heat loads and instantaneous heaing rates really push the limit of what current ablative technologies can sustain.

          Don't get me wrong, I think that eventually we will have the technology to stage missions from Mars. However, I think that by the time we overcome some of the human related issues (long zero-g exposure, radiation, psycological, etc...) we will likely have made other advances that mitigate the benefit of launching from Mars over simply staging from Earth (i.e. cheaper access to space here at home).

          I am not saying that Zubrin has misled you, and I never finished reading my copies of his books. He does an excellent job of pointing out the current deficiencies with our current technologies and policies, but I think he is overly optimistic in the alternatives that he suggests.

          Why yes, I am ALSO a rocket scientist! :)

          • EXCELLENT. I knew if I trolled this discussion, I'd find somebody who knew more than I did.

            My particular interest is atmospheric flight, so I'll defer to your expertise on aerobraking and aerocapture.

            To me, the key feature of Zubrin's plan was the in-situ propellant production. If you can render the fuel on Mars, you cut your required throw rate by an incredible margin. Once you sign up for that as a part of your mission architecture, you get rid of a whole lot of weight problems.

            Can we, as Zubrin sug
    • Oh...and very nice Mars-related nick!

    • Re:The Moon or Lagrange? I still choose Mars. (Score:4, Informative)

      by jdh-22 ( 636684 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:08AM (#7638566)
      I never knew what a Lagrange point was. I found that Wikipedia gave the best explanation.

      Lagrange Point [wikipedia.org]

      • I never knew what a Lagrange point was. I found that Wikipedia gave the best explanation

        Don't worry too much about that. My high school physics teacher didn't know what a Lagrange point was either. I had to bring in an explanation from some NASA webpage to convince him they exist.

        The only reason I knew about them was a couple of old books I had bought at a library book sale. They were from the late 70s and talked about how we could put up thousands of giant space stations at the Lagrange points and move
    • ..the base(that would be visited frequently) at lagrange point could very well be essential for a mars trip, much better to assmeble things in space if it's possible, especially complex structures like a space vessel to mars would probably be(look, getting it up in one piece after being assembled on earth could be a big problem)..

      when you're leaving from earth, to anywhere else than to mars, surface of mars isn't that good point to visit..

      .
  • Presumably, given the relative masses of the Earth and Moon, the Lagrange point is pretty close to the latter. I don't know how much energy is required to blast off from the Moon, but it seems to me that if you've gone nearly all the way there you might as well have a solid foundation and a bit of gravity to make life easier. A space station at the Lagrange point would need some energy to stay in position anyway - it would invariably drift over time if not corrected due to the solar wind and inaccuracies
    • You are correct for all Lagrange points in line with the Moon and the Earth. The L4 and L5 points, however will never need repositioning because they automatically re-center themselves. Unfortunately, L4 and L5 are just as distant as the moon is, and have no indiginous resources.

    • A space station at the Lagrange point would need some energy to stay in position anyway - it would invariably drift over time if not corrected due to the solar wind and inaccuracies in the initial positioning.

      Not nearly as much as you think; possibly none at all. That's the whole reason to put one in the Lagrange points, well, half the reason anyway.

      You know those "gravity/mass" diagrams that start with a flat Cartesian grid, and whenever a body is added, it sinks down like a well, or a rock weighin

      • Your imagery is wrong. There are no dimples, except for the gravitational effect of whatever you put at the Lagrange point.

        For one thing, you have to include the centripetal forces exerted on the satellite as it's orbiting. The Lagrange points are places where the centripetal forces exactly cancel the gravitational forces.

        The L4 and L5 points are stable. If the satellite drifts out of position then the gravitational and centripetal forces acting on it will nudge it back into position.

        But the L1, L2 an

  • Don't disagree with Buzz!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:51AM (#7638395) Journal
    Here [csicop.org] is a link the famous Buzz Aldrin "punch" video wherein he punches some moron who calls him a liar about having ever been to the moon. Posted for your enjoyment :)
    • Here is a link the famous Buzz Aldrin "punch" video wherein he punches some moron who calls him a liar about having ever been to the moon. Posted for your enjoyment.

      Nice left for a 72 year old guy!

      (BTW, don't forget that this idiot also called him a "coward".)

      The best part, though was the epilogue: "The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has declined to file charges.". Sometimes, there is justice in the world. :-)

      • Rubbish.. (Score:5, Funny)

        by Channard ( 693317 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:03AM (#7638518) Journal
        Here is a link the famous Buzz Aldrin "punch" video wherein he punches some moron who calls him a liar about having ever been to the moon. Posted for your enjoyment.

        That's clearly faked. The shadow cast by Buzz Aldrin's fist is all wrong.

  • Building bridges in the wrong place? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ShavenYak ( 252902 ) <bsmith3NO@SPAMcharter.net> on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:53AM (#7638423) Homepage
    Something like 90% of the energy needed to get to the Moon is spent just getting to low earth orbit. While it might be an interesting project, a Lagrange point space station isn't going to make space travel much cheaper. We've got to solve the "first 100 mile problem", to paraphrase the telecomm industry.

    I can't say whether a space elevator is feasible, but it seems a more useful goal to shoot for. That, or some method of launch better than strapping on a shitload of explosives and lighting the fuse.

  • Related article: Possible moon voyage proposal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by revscat ( 35618 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:54AM (#7638431) Journal

    Return to Moon May Be on Agenda [washingtonpost.com] : "President Bush's aides are considering a new lunar exploration program and other unifying national goals, including a campaign to promote longevity or fight childhood illness or hunger, as they sift ideas for a fresh agenda for the final year of his term, administration officials said yesterday."

    Hmm. Perhaps they would like something to distract from the whole Afghanistan-Iraq thing, and the less than stellar results of those... And the Valerie Plame affair... and vote fraude through unauditable voting systems, like Diebold... and the massive budget and trade deficits.. and the declining value of the dollar...

  • We can't even fund ISS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:55AM (#7638434)
    We can hardly get a space station built in low earth orbit. I would imagine building one at L2 to be even more difficult.

    Besides, how do you explain to the Amercian people that getting to L2 is an amazing accomplishment? They barely understand the moon and mars, forget explaining Lagrange points.

    • Nailed it. Mod up more. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:11AM (#7638591) Journal
      They barely understand the moon and mars, forget explaining Lagrange points.

      This is the crux of almost all problems in our efforts to evolve any further as a society, be it a push into space or whatever.

      People are just plain ignorant. Not stupid. Ignorant. Most people I know never even crack open a book on ANY subject, much less something scientific. Sufficient scientific knowledge to graduate high school is knwoing the sky is blue and the ability to point to the sun in the sky. There's parts of the world where if you tell them the Earth revolves around the Sun, you'll get blank stares, and some of those parts are here in the USA. Smart people continue to be generally depicted in the media as outcasts and acceptable objects of ridicule.

      We won't be going to L4, L5, L2 or even the L-train unless knowledge (and especially scientific knowledge) starts getting more respct in this world.

  • Guess what's in space? Nothing! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kippy ( 416183 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @09:56AM (#7638446)
    I'm sure this point was beaten to death in yesterday's story about moon missions, but space stations don't make much sense.

    We've already got ISS for better or worse as a 0g test lab. On the Moon, we could build a solar farm that would fill our energy needs on Earth pretty much entirely. We would also be able to get a telescope bigger and better than anything else in existence. Lastly, the Moon offers a nice balance of construction material and low gravity which would give us a great jump-off point to Mars and the belt.

    Speaking of Mars, putting people there would have more benefits than I care to type. New world for humanity, extraterrestrial science (possibly biology), easy access to the asteroids, ability to live off the land that can't be done on the moon or deep space...

    Another thing while I'm all steamed up, isn't the LaGrange point between the earth and moon L1? That's an unstable point that would probably require regular correction so it doesn't fall to earth or the moon. SOHO has to deal with issues like that. I would hope that they would at least think to put it at L4 or L5 for stability's sake.

    Could someone please enumerate the benefits of a L1 station cause I don't see them.

    • Another thing while I'm all steamed up, isn't the LaGrange point between the earth and moon L1?

      Yes. And while all the Lagrange points are stable, the L4 and L5 points are even more stable (more massive objects can sit in them and catch the ride, as it were).

      I'm not sure why they talk about L1. All the predictions I've ever read, over the last several years, have always placed the hypothetical space station at L5. (Why L5 over L4? I'd be guessing there, sorry.)

      • L4 and L5 are both located one equilateral triangles with the significant masses (the earth and sun, in this case). I don't think it would make a terrible lot of difference either way.

      • Re:Pick a point, any point (Score:4, Informative)

        by barawn ( 25691 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @01:45PM (#7640606) Homepage
        Yes. And while all the Lagrange points are stable, the L4 and L5 points are even more stable (more massive objects can sit in them and catch the ride, as it were).

        No. While all the Lagrange points are *balanced* - that is, there's no net acceleration towards either of the two objects, only L4 and L5 are stable. If you nudge something at L1,L2, or L3, they fall away.

        L1 is between the two objects. This is obvious why it works: because one object pulls one way, and one object pulls the other way. Where the two pulls are equal, there's no net force.

        L2 is on the other side of the (smaller) mass. Since it's farther away from the (larger) body, it should orbit slower than the (smaller) mass, but the added gravity makes it orbit at the same speed as the (smaller) mass, making it stationary.

        L3 is on the other side of the (larger) mass. Same reasoning, just substitute "faster" for "slower".

        All of these three are unstable: if you push something at L1, it goes towards the body you pushed it towards, ditto with L2,L3.

        They talk about L1/L2/L3 because of the positional convenience of them. Yes, you have to active stationkeep, but this isn't impossible, and the drift rate would still be slow for reasonable timespans.

        Regarding L4 and L5, L5 is more convenient than L4 because of dynamics of the Earth-Sun-Moon system, rather than just the Earth-Moon system.

    • Why space? Abundant natural resources. We can find orders of magnitude more useful stuff just floating around up there than we ever could on Earth. And as an added bonus, we can extract it more easily than we could on a planet, and then use a lot of the waste products to build or improve housing for ourselves. Plus it makes getting everywhere else easier and building other things in space easier.

      • You're missing my point. The useful stuff floating up there is called "the Moon", "Mars" and "Asteroids". There's nothing but dust at the LaGrange points of the Moon and Earth.

        It's like starting a farm in the middle of the Sahara because you heard that Africa is a fertile place.

    • How much energy does it take to balance a broom. L1 is unstable, but that is a benefit not a hinderance. It means that when you want to leave you just "lean" in the direction you want to go while to leave the moon you have to fight its gravity.

      Not only can you leave without much effort, you can also get there with as little. You just have to plan well and accept a long trip.

      Using the Lagrange points requires a different philosopy to mission planning.
    • What are you going to use on the Moon for construction materials? More to the point, what are you going to breathe? Or drink?

      The Moon is a waste of resources (for now). Mars is where the action is.

    • Stable vs. unstable (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jyung ( 679159 )

      Some reasons to pick an unstable point:

      1. L4 and L5 are stable and therefore tend to collect space junk - this is one reason why you would pick an unstable point (like L1, L2 or L3).
      2. Stable points are at the bottom of the proverbial energy well, and it would be harder to leave them then to leave an unstable point, which is "perched" at the top of the proverbial "energy hill".
  • A manned moon base would encourage astronauts to practice In Situ Resource Utilization, making fuel and oxygen out of the moon, or mars' geological resources. This would be good practice for a future Mars mission, and would be useful in producing fuel for other missions in our solar system. Also, it would demonstrate whether or not there is commercial viability for a moon-based mining operation.

  • Lagrange Points (Score:5, Informative)

    by DarkDust ( 239124 ) <marc@darkdust.net> on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:00AM (#7638490) Homepage
    A really interesting article about Lagrange Points can be found here [nasa.gov]. What I found really fascinating is the fact that it seems like that the earth pulls/pushes dust around space on the earth-moon Lagrange Points L4 and L5.

    • Re:Lagrange Points (Score:3, Informative)

      by devphil ( 51341 )

      It's not just the Earth/Moon points that pick up stuff. Any time you have a body in a stable orbit around another body, the five Lagrange points are created. Presumably we could put an even bigger station at, say, the L5 point in the Earth/Sol set.

      All five are regions of gravitational equilibrium and stability, it's just that L4 and L5 are especially likely to capture things, since they're in the same orbit as one of the bodies, which is usually "shedding".

      I've heard that one of the early space missi

      • This is why you should read your post before clicking submit, boys and girls.

        All five are regions of gravitational equilibrium and stability

        Sorry, I didn't mean to imply they're stable enough to build stuff there. The straight-line points (L1, L2, and L3) are stable only compared to the points in other random space around them. Stuff placed there eventually falls away.

        The orbital points (L4 and L5) are truly stable, in the sense of being self-correcting. Stuff placed there has to work to get out

  • Lunar Surface makes more sense (Score:4, Insightful)

    by L0C0loco ( 320848 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:04AM (#7638525) Homepage
    First off you have to remember that Buzz is now in the spaceflight hardware business. While the Earth Moon L1 LaGrange point does offer intersting possibilites for being a gateway to the solar system, this really just sounds like another International Space Station. I worry about under utilization, a wandering mission objective, and massive operational costs. Not that a lunar surface base will be cheap. The big difference in my mind is the availability of raw materials on the surface. You won't have to launch as much mass from Earth. This would especially true if there really is water in the polar craters. Nevertheless, having a bunch of lunar soil to pile up for shielding would be a tremendous advantage. You also do not have to maintain the orbit of the moon (unlike an EM-L1 gateway). The other big advantage of the lunar base over EM-L1 is that once there you actually have things to do and places to explore. Just imagine having some large otpical, IR, and radio telescopes on the darkside of the moon - away from all of the earth-bound noise/light pollution. The possibilities are vast. Maybe we should go to the moon first and then build one of those carbon nanotube elevators [space.com] from the surface to EM-L1 later.

  • I agree with Buzz to a point (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mprinkey ( 1434 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:04AM (#7638528)
    In the article, he recommends retooling the boosters and tanks with a new crew module and a separate cargo module. While I can see his point with regard to reuse of existing proven technology, I can't quite get away from the idea that sending people in the same craft as cargo is just a bad idea. Big Dumb Rockets (BRDs) are the only way that we should be putting cargo of any sort into space. We have become very good at orbital rendevous manuevers, so I can't see that separate launch vehicles for people and cargo will present a significant complication.

    Perhaps the booster and tanks can be recycled with ONLY a crew module that can actually reach the L1 point. The current shuttles can barely make it to low orbit.

    On the whole, he is right. An L1 base would be a nice permanent move into space and is probably something that should have been done in the mid-70's. The establishment of a moon base will be an easier political sell though. Once we hammer out manufacturing techniques, it should be possible to grow a spawling complex on the moon without needing to carry everything from earth. And you know we Americans love to spawl. If we can find water in sufficient quantities and are willing to take nuclear reactors with us to the moon, the fuel for future space flights will probably come from the moon.

  • come on (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Custard ( 587661 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:05AM (#7638534) Homepage Journal
    What the heck does Buzz Aldrin know, anyway? He hasn't been in space for, like 30 years now! ;-P

  • The US really doesn't have the financial resources to pay for or support another sustained space program like they did in the 1960s. It's not what everyone here wants to hear, but it's the truth.

    America's industrial base is overseas in China, the country runs BOTH trade and government budget deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars every year, the Ponzi/pyramid schemes of Social Security and Medicare are beginning to crack, the nation is highly dependant on foreign oil and energy resources, and NASA ca

  • How does the U.S. PAY for it? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by guanxi ( 216397 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:08AM (#7638570)
    People seem focused on the technical issues and the benefits, but how about that unpleasant, though unavoidable issue of cost?

    Let's not be suckers like other interest groups, and let the government run up even more debt (remember that federal surplus of long ago?) by promising us our dreams to get our votes, ignoring the cost side of the equation ... are we really going to fall for it?

    In fact, given our roles in the technology community, it's up to us to say 'it's not worth it'. Let's make the crazy assumption we must take money from something else in order to go to the moon, or build a space port -- is it worth it? What else should we sacrifice?

  • Neat idea, but lots of pitfalls (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:12AM (#7638604) Homepage
    I would like to see a more detailed analysis of his cost estimates -- $15 billion seems rather low for "developing a new, more flexible launch vehicle," designing a sophisticated (and large) long-life station, shipping the thing up to L1 point, and assembling it.

    He also doesn't address things like radiation concerns: Where are the Van Allen belts in relation to L1? L1 is outside the inner (high intensity) Van Allen belt, which means it is likely to get more solar radiation than we do on Earth. You need a lot of shielding to make long-term habitability practical.

    Why pick L1 over L4 or L5? L1 is an unstable point -- items there tend to fall to one of the two major bodies; L4 and L5 are stable points.

    He doesn't address the fuel cost to go the extra distance; ISS is 250 miles up, while L1 is about 190,000 miles up. Even though neither location is far down the gravity well, astronauts can't afford the slow boat, so you have to spend more fuel to get up to speed and brake at the far end.
    • If I'm reading his topographic-like chart (see this article [montana.edu]) correctly, it would appear that the cheapest points to get to would be L1 and L2 (because of the gravity trough between the bodies). L4 and L5 are actually gravity peaks (not troughs) and it's the Coriolis effect of the body speeding and slowing that keeps bodies stable.

      Until we invent some new form of propulsion that gets a bit more punch, a space platform needs a cheap transport route. Imagine having to truck all those extra-Earth goodies to

  • For those who dont know what Lagrange Points are.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Manhigh ( 148034 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:13AM (#7638608)
    AKA Libration Points...

    For any heavenly body with a satellite in a relatively circular orbit, there are 5 points where gravitational forces and centripetal accelerations cancel each other out. Three fall on a line that connects the two bodies, and the other form a pair of equilateral triangles with the heavenly bodies.

    L1 between the two bodies
    L2 on the far side of the smaller body
    L3 on the far side of the larger body
    L4 is the "leading" equilateral point
    L5 is the "trailing" equilateral point

    L4 and L5 are relatively stable. Putting a station at L1-3 would require more propellant to keep it there, though not an unreasonable amount.

    Personally, I'd rather go for a base on the Moon that at a libration point. Sure, it requires more propellant to get to and from there, but its also a permanent fixture, rather than something that would need to be disposed of eventually.

  • NASA Goals (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mntgomery ( 620581 )
    Why is it that NASA always seems more interested in the public perception than the actual progression of space exploration? The reasoning seems to be that moon landings are "cool" and "sexy" and look great in the short term.

    Seems that Aldrin is at least being a little more of a visionary and thinking about where we can go from there rather than appeasing the public and its contant "what have you done for me lately" philosophy.
  • Lets say it again: Build a space elevator. Same costs as Buzz cites for an L1 spaceport, but allows for a much cheaper exit from the gravity well. Best of both worlds.

  • Home on Lagrange (Score:5, Funny)

    by sshore ( 50665 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:36AM (#7638845)
    Oh give me a locus
    Where the gravitons focus
    Where the three-body problem is solved
    Where the microwaves play
    Down at 3 degrees K
    And the cold virus never evolved

    Home, home on Lagrange,
    Where the space debris always collects,
    We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams,
    Solar power and zero-gee sex.

    (to the tune of "Home on the range")

  • Cost benefit analysis (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kippy ( 416183 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:47AM (#7638951)
    So the plan is to build a station at L1 and use it as a jump off point. Let's think about that. We'll have to burn fuel (cash) to get away from Earth. Dock with the station for some reason, then blast off to other places. Does this really save fuel? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just blast off from Earth to Mars or the belt? Why the middle man?

    Even if there is fuel savings in that plan, the infrastructure is this: launch hundreds of tons of equipment into L1. Fly up, put it together and maintain it. That would cost billions just to do that. How long until that initial investment is made up by any possible energy savings in going from Earth to L1 then outward? I would guess it would be decades if not centuries if there's any savings at all. Wouldn't we have space elevators, fusion and all that other cool stuff by then anyway?

    I maintain that just blasting off to the destination remains the best way to go. No interplanetary rest stops. They'll probably smell like pee just like on Earth anyway.

  • Keep sending the robots... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Inflatable Hippo ( 202606 ) <inflatable_hippo ... k ['aho' in gap]> on Friday December 05, 2003 @11:13AM (#7639147) Journal
    When robots are capable of assembling and maintaining a fully functional and habitable environment for us on the moon or mars, that's the time to start packing our suitcases.

    Once the base and (cheap unmanned) supply chain is reliably up and running people can go and do the stuff that robots/remote sensing can't accomplish (still a hell of a lot).

    This also has the virtue of enforcing a severe simlicity and modularity on the design of the whole venture since everything has to be autonomously assembled. Who wants a fancy home when you're hundeds of millions of miles from the hardware store anyway.

    If we don't yet have the technology to do this then I'd question our ability to reliably send people on such missions and kepp them alive for much longer than it takes to plant a flag.

  • Lets get the problem straight (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Yanray ( 686150 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @11:43AM (#7639425)
    Fundemental problems of space exploration:

    --Air, Water, Food, all building materials, and the humans to operate must be lauched into orbit (first 500 miles are the hardest)

    This seems to be slowly being addressed. However the best solution is to minimize the materials needed to be lifted into orbit. Most of the material needed for the construction and operation of an L2 station, Lunar Outpost, or other space infastructure should be produced in space at the lowest possible cost. The proposed NASA Tug's designed to stop small asteroids from hitting earth could quite easily push a NEAR object made of water, iron, nickle, etc into leo were the materials could be extracted.

    This activity (mining, extracting, refining, and molding in 0-G) could have huge benefits scientifically in the US (and other countries) manufacturing community and bring support for further space projects.

    --Radiation and 0-G are not condusive to long term life in space. This is addressed using brute force engineering on the Moon (bury yourself under a ton of regiloth. This can then be modified to be used in space. A condenced hardened shell of the lunar surface should provide a Mars mission with sufficient radiation and heat shielding at a fraction of the cost of launching that material from earth. Same with shielding manned Lagrange stations.

    --Costs: Definiately difficult to justify because of the lack of positive returns on investment to date. However long term research and science along with creative problem solving are the precursers to creative success. Suriving in space nessesitates such problem solving and long term benefits will present themselves in the challeges we overcome.

    Questions:
    -Is the Lunar station to be preminantly manned form the start or will it resemble plans for early mars mission plans? (Completing early constuction missions using such a plan could be highly beneficial.)
    -Is L1 suposed to be manned or just serviceable by passing ships? (Given radiation and other hazards of living that far from assistance it would make more sence to construct a serviceable automated platform.)
    -Who is resonsible to make the New Saturn V's capable of large payloads?

  • Ain't never gonna happen... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rosbif ( 71236 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @12:02PM (#7639598)
    Imagine the scene in the White House..

    NASAGuy: Mr President, we'd like to set up a station at one of the Lagrangian points.
    Dubya: Lagrangian - sounds like one them cheese-eating surrender monkeys - that in France?
    NASAGuy: No, Mr President, its in space
    Dubya: Oh, wherebouts?
    NASAGuy: Well, sir, its at an imaginary point between the Earth and the Moon
    Dubya: So it ain't real?
    NASAGuy: No sir, its a stable point determined by the relative gravitational attraction of ......oh, the hell with this...it's in Irag..sir
    Dubya: Well why didn't ya say so - let's go

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