NASA: Lunar Pits and Caves Could House Astronauts 157
An anonymous reader writes: Astronomers have documented hundreds of holes on the lunar surface. These aren't simply craters, but actual pits ranging from 5 to 900 meters across. Scientists suspects many of these will lead to underground cave systems, which NASA says would be great spots for an astronaut habitat once we get back to the Moon. "A habitat placed in a pit — ideally several dozen meters back under an overhang — would provide a very safe location for astronauts: no radiation, no micrometeorites, possibly very little dust, and no wild day-night temperature swings," said Robert Wagner of Arizona State University. He says it's time to send probes into a few of these pits to see what they're like: "Pits, by their nature, cannot be explored very well from orbit — the lower walls and any floor-level caves simply cannot be seen from a good angle. Even a few pictures from ground-level would answer a lot of the outstanding questions about the nature of the voids that the pits collapsed into. We're currently in the very early design phases of a mission concept to do exactly this, exploring one of the largest mare pits."
Hmm... (Score:1)
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There's just an opportunity in Siberia - just opened up this week. Current theories are giant sandworms, graboids, pingo's, ufo's or an alien missile base:
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/myst... [gizmodo.com]
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There's just an opportunity in Siberia - just opened up this week. Current theories are giant sandworms, graboids, pingo's, ufo's or an alien missile base:
The ideal finding, of course, would be all of the above.
"Visitors: to ensure optimum relations with the locals, no anal probes will be allowed beyond this point. You may check them in at Customs and reclaim them on your return home.
"Mind the sandworms."
Urr, there's space between earth and moon.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Only if the US could get it's space program off mothballs... But there's no room in the budget for that due to the black budget takeover...
retarded nostalgia ... is lying. (Score:1)
The space program is a lot more productive now than when we were focused on a retarded war with the Russians. Unlike the 60's, we're actually doing basic science and planetary science missions now instead of chest thumping bravado.
Space program greatly benefited from the cold war (Score:4, Interesting)
The space program is a lot more productive now than when we were focused on a retarded war with the Russians. Unlike the 60's, we're actually doing basic science and planetary science missions now instead of chest thumping bravado.
Much of the science and tech of today's planetary missions are the result of military tech and those glory days of NASA manned missions. Those manned lunar missions were preceded by various robotic lunar missions.
The cold war greatly benefited the space program, it funded its tech. That chest thumping got the public behind all that spending on space. NASA and the US space program suffer today because of a lack of interest by the people. Fortunately the civilian commercial space industry seems to be coming along quite nicely.
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We just need better robots!
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After all, what level of autonomy is actually optimal? We would not want the human to be moving about too much and possibly missing important details that would show up when using a more patient and obedient robot. Neither would we want the human to lie down and die because she/he feels sick or tired or depressed and overtaken by ennui. A level of limited autonomy seems the most practical.
Robots would ex
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Asteroids, for example, have very low gravity due to their low mass. Humans tend to propel themselves by walking or otherwise pushing against the ground - this form of transportation would be sub-optimal to impossible on an asteroid. Secondly, the primary (only) method of scanning availa
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Except that you assume the geologist wouldn't have top-notch tools on his hands. Of course he would, just like the rover - but on top of that, he'd have his human brain on site, and not twenty minutes away. Gets even worse for outer planets.
He or she, I assume you mean.
In any case, I don't see why the brain would pose any advantage. Much of the geologists brain is taken up with irrelevant information - recipes, techniques for identifying a ripe rockmelon, political views, emotions concerning her family connections, etc. The learned geology is mostly useless and likely to be a liability: minerals on an asteroid haven't been through the same processes as minerals on earth so they aren't likely to be in a familiar pattern - even assuming the ge
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He or she, I assume you mean.
I'm a speaker of an Indo-European language; do the math. Regarding the rest, well, then replace the geologists with mission planners of any other kind, capable of deciding into which rock the machine should poke next time. Or devise a way to make the machines maintain themselves far away from Earth, because that's another thing humans would be able to provide on site and current technology doesn't.
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I'm a speaker of an Indo-European language; do the math.
Alternatively, you could just clarify what you meant: maybe you didn't consider the possibility that the astronaut could be female or transgender. Or possibly you were using 'he' as the gender neutral pronoun - which hasn't been the convention in most english speaking countries for many years.
Regarding the rest, well, then replace the geologists with mission planners of any other kind, capable of deciding into which rock the machine should poke next time.
Or send a machine which avoids the need to choose which rock get's "poked".
Or devise a way to make the machines maintain themselves far away from Earth, because that's another thing humans would be able to provide on site and current technology doesn't.
Given the human body is notoriously unreliable and can only self repair minor injuries, I don't think the 'self repair' option is really viable
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Alternatively, you could just clarify what you meant: maybe you didn't consider the possibility that the astronaut could be female or transgender. Or possibly you were using 'he' as the gender neutral pronoun - which hasn't been the convention in most english speaking countries for many years.
Actually, it's been the convention in Indo-European languages for a millennium or so; in fact, the structure of many of these allows for no other choice (Slavic languages, German, French etc.), and many English speakers - if not most - are L2 speakers for which this is the most compatible and the only natural alternative (the "uncanny valley" subproblem of interference in interlanguage fossilization). As a bonus, with the rapidly increasing number of perceived and recognized psychological genders (not the l
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Actually, it's been the convention in Indo-European languages for a millennium or so; in fact, the structure of many of these allows for no other choice (Slavic languages, German, French etc.), and many English speakers - if not most - are L2 speakers for which this is the most compatible and the only natural alternative (the "uncanny valley" subproblem of interference in interlanguage fossilization).
Well, thanks for the history lesson, but the fact of the matter is, the use of "he" as the gender neutral pronoun fell out of common usage some time ago. Using it in a modern context or to refer to future events, creates a confusion : are you referring to a known male astronaut? Are you assuming that the astronaut will be male? Or are you (for whatever reason) using a language convention from prior the 1960's? English has always had a gender neutral pronoun (Churchyard et. al.) and therefore the use of the
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(Spoken with Scooby Doo accent.)
"We need an interrock?"
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You should quit wanking on about how superior robots are at this job, and start doing up some calculations on the costs just to develop said robots. You will need a few engineers on your staff, so you can get cost estimates from them, and you'll need to factor in the costs of sending the robot to whichever target.
Meanwhile, sending humans requires us to also send the same number of robots - robots to scrub the atmosphere, robots to store and heat food, recycle human waste, coddle them and make sure they stay alive. The only really useless thing in the whole circus is the human.
e costs of developing the technology to build these superior robots. Research is not cheap and takes many, many years. We've got plenty of humans who'd be able to train up as geologists and then go do the job decades before your robots would be ready for their first Death Valley trials.
Decades sooner and billions of dollars cheaper. You just try teaching a robot how to be a good field geologist.
Well, that explains why robots are in space right now doing geology and humans have never left the gravity well of earth. Oh wait, no: it doesn't explain that at all.
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Governments, ours especially, are not going to be participating in a lunar return, because there is no way that manned space programs beyond LEO can ever be made safe enough by today's standards.
In the long run, space exploration will be better off for this.
We have to be quick about it. (Score:3, Funny)
Newt Gingrich isn't getting any younger, and that Moon-town needs a Mayor.
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Okay get your political avatars correct. Jerry Brown is governor Moonbeam [latimes.com] and he'd be much better suited for Mayor McCheese's position on the moon.
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How do wigs work in 1/6th gravity?
Fixed it for you (Score:2)
no wild day-night temperature swings... (Score:3)
Re:no wild day-night temperature swings... (Score:4, Informative)
With no atmosphere, you could also say it's extremely well-insulated all the time.
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And managing "extremely cold all the time" is much easier than having to manage rapidly changing temperatures.
Google Lunar X Prize (Score:1)
I attended a talk by Dr. Red Whittaker (from CMU) after robotic exploration of the moon. His team is going after the Google Lunar X Prize. They're planning on sending their robot down into a crater to peek into one of these caves.
Forward into the past (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like a cool idea to me, but it seems a bit like a cosmic joke that we would in a way be reverting to a past we had here on earth by living in caves. The symbolism is nice, though; starting over in a new environment.
Re:Forward into the past (Score:5, Insightful)
reverting to a past we had here on earth by living in caves
Ancient humans didn't "live in caves". Caves are just especially good as preserving signs of human activity. You'll note the decided lack of cave dwelling amongst remnant hunter gatherers in the modern world.
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Not sure about a movie, but it IS a line from a Firesign Theatre piece. :-)
The only problem is... (Score:4, Funny)
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You missed out the bit about cleaning up every sign that they'd ever existed. Which is not a trait that any human society has ever had.
No wild day-night temperature swings.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep. It'd be in shadow all the time which means it would be perpetually cold. 26 to 35 Kelvin cold.
That means to maintain the habitat, you'd have to have a perpetual power source. To me, that says you look at the poles with an eye towards building mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a heat collector. The poles are more likely to have a site that has both a pit and more or less full time sun. Unless of course, you want to ship a nuclear reactor to the moon in which case you'll need political will which is sca
Re:No wild day-night temperature swings.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like, gosh, space for instance?
The ISS isn't exactly sitting there in a cosy blanket with a fire on... it's fighting against things just as cold.
Also, the amount of insulation you can carry is ENORMOUS (because most insulation is nothing more than pockets of gas trapped in a thin substrate, so think "expanding foam" instead of "brick"). Insulation means you don't care what it is outside - once the inside has been warmed once, you are only fighting the speed which heat leaks through the insulation. Anything decent and modern and we're talking minimal loss.
Otherwise, quite literally, you would die camping in the Antarctic with only clothes and a little tent to keep you warm.
Heat's not the problem, if you've already got the power, the infrastructure, the ability to move the materials, to shore up the place, build a structure, move into it, and live independently inside it.
Re:No wild day-night temperature swings.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Otherwise, quite literally, you would die camping in the Antarctic with only clothes and a little tent to keep you warm.
With appropriate equipment, you can camp in Antarctica... [wordpress.com]
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Actually, having a permanent cold source like that is a huge advantage, since the thermodynamic efficiency depends on the absolute temperature difference. So you'd need to spend less fuel to get the same energy/work out.
As for habitats, with sufficient insulation, humans generate more than enough body heat to keep it cozy. You'd probably even need airco to get rid of excess heat.
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Not so. From Wikipedia :
Surface temp.
min mean max
Equator 100 K 220 K 390 K
85ÂN [6] 70 K 130 K 230 K
(Near-surface) cave systems internally attain the mean temperature of their surface environment over a period of decades or centuries (depending considerably on the rate of heat movement by air flow ; negligible in this case). So a mean temperature
NASA is spying on me (Score:2)
This is exactly what I said a few weeks ago [slashdot.org].
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Of course not. I stole the idea from the Mole Men.
This whole idea is the pits. (Score:1)
Yup.
I've seen this before. (Score:1)
As always, Clarke was first (Score:3)
Time to re-read _A Fall of Moondust_
sPh
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I was thinking Gentlemen, Be Seated! [wikipedia.org]
What caves? (Score:2)
I was unaware that there was any verification that caves even exist on the moon.
And considering the processes that form practically all natural caves here on earth (that I am aware of) involve moving water, or at least glacial movement, I'm not sure how anything like that would ever form on the moon.
... or volcanoes (Score:2)
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Courtesy of the US Forest Service:
http://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/por... [usda.gov]
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Most pits were found either in large craters with impact melt ponds – areas of lava that formed from the heat of the impact and later solidified, or in the lunar maria – dark areas on the moon that are extensive solidified lava flows hundreds of miles across.
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Why are we trying this now.. (Score:1)
Lunar Pits (Score:2)
The astronauts had better hope that there are no Lunar sarlaccs.
Astronaut versus Cave Man (Score:2)
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
SF precedent (Score:2)
once we get back to the Moon.... (Score:2, Interesting)
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im glad that better people than you do not share your cynicism
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he economy will likely collapse again before the end of the decade. There won't be the money or the resources.
That's an interesting prediction.......based on what?
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Its about time! (Score:2)
>> it's time to send probes into a few of these pits to see what they're like
Great! Finally we will now discover all the moon-alien hives and secret Nazi UFO moonbases!
So... we're going to be cave men again? (Score:2)
so you mean to tell me that after thousands of years and billions of dollars that we're going to go to the moon to be cave men? Talk about coming full circle.
H.G Wells? (Score:1)
We will finally have the first men IN the Moon after all.
And will they meet the insectoid creatures called the Selenites?
Pointless? (Score:2)
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Re:Glass half-empty (Score:4, Insightful)
By us, of course I mean our machines, not physical humans - the distinction between abstracting 'our' presence via a machine or by the physical presence of a bunch of humans we've never met and are not related to us is purely arbitrary. What makes humans distinct from other creatures is that we can abstract our intent into machines that fulfill that intent: ploughs, swords, trains, coaches, treaties, man pages, computers, space probes. We are not limited by the limitations of our physical bodies.
To suggest that we, ill adapted to space as we are, ought to go physically into space instead of sending a machine is absurd - like saying that a field is only plowed if dug by hand, or the only correct calculation is done without the aid of a computer, calculator or abacus.
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To suggest that we, ill adapted to flight as we are, ought to go physically into the sky instead of sending a machine is absurd - like saying that a field is only plowed if dug by hand, or the only correct calculation is done without the aid of a computer, calculator or abacus.
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Rather than focus on arbitrary distinctions, we ought to focus on non-arbitrary distinctions i.e. the gap in capability between human bodies and robots. In space, robots are far more capable than human bodies - to the extent that humans rely entirely on machines to survive.
I don't see why it's embarrassing or unsatisfactory to apply a machine t
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But who is suggesting that? Sounds to me like a subtle strawman. The distinction between a robot landing on Titan and a robot which contains a human is arbitrary.
You complain about strawmen, then string together a strawman of your own. Nobody is suggesting that humans need to travel to Titan.
"mark-t" was absolutely right. Your statement was absurd, and my parody illustrated it's absurdity. Our unsuitability to space is entirely irrelevant. You're right in pointing out that there are many aspects of space exploration which are best done by machines; you're completely wrong when you take that idea and present it as an absolute for why no human should ever go into
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You complain about strawmen, then string together a strawman of your own. Nobody is suggesting that humans need to travel to Titan.
Except for the OP whose views you irrationally decided to defend, despite (apparently) not agreeing with them. Here [slashdot.org] the OP said (quote) The next manned lunar landing will not be so much for scientific exploration there as much as to start laying the foundations for stepping further into space. implying that our efforts stepping further into space: New Horizons, Voyager, Cassini Huygens, travelling to Pluto, Mercury, Jupiter, Titan - even to the edges of the solar system itself somehow don't count as "stepp
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It's not embarrassing to apply machines as all.... as you say,
I would like to fly to New York...
Or....
I would like to travel into space.
The fact that we are ill adapted to survive in space should be no more of a justification that we shouldn't go there than the fact that we are unable to fly without machines should be a justification to never get into an aircraft.
Really.... did I have to explain this twice?
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It's not embarrassing to apply machines as all.... as you say,
I would like to fly to New York...
Or...
.
I would like to travel into space.
That's what I said.
The fact that we are ill adapted to survive in space should be no more of a justification that we shouldn't go there than the fact that we are unable to fly without machines should be a justification to never get into an aircraft.
That's what I said. Just because our physical limitations prevent us from bodily travelling any significant distance through space, doesn't mean that we should not go further than those physical limitations practically allow. We just need to accept that, like ploughing is best performed by machines, so travelling in space is best done by machines. Thus: the term "we travelled to Jupiter" or "we landed on Titan" does not imply that our physical bodies are located near Jupiter nor on Titan,
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Of course, the same argument could be made for, as a previous poster had said... flight. Obviously human beings can't fly no matter how hard they flap their arms, but that's no reason to not get into an aircraft. And nobody disputes that it's equally obvious
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What I said was:
To suggest that we, ill adapted to space as we are, ought to go physically into space instead of sending a machine is absurd - like saying that a field is only plowed if dug by hand, or the only correct calculation is done without the aid of a computer, cal
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That is correct. Evolution is still happening. There were no humans here two million years ago and there won't be any in another two million years.
What's the big deal? You think our little oil-powered party has any meaning on geological and evolutionary time-scales?
Civilizations have collapsed before, who are you to say that the humans in a hundred years will have the same level of technology and cheap energy we have now? We very likely won't, and we won't even have anything like the Pyramids to show for it
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And who are you to say with any certainty that they won't be any better than they are now? I only suggest that it's at least as probable as not because in the timescales that are involved to make it genuinely unlikely, progress can still continue to happen.
Also, I'm not disputing that evolution is still happening, but I'd dare suggest that whatev
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It's also possible that your grandchildren will need to know how to shoe a horse. That's far more probable.
You really need to learn more about human history and realize that this idea that everything "progresses" towards some "better" goal is a recent idea. As recent as coal and oil... See what I mean?
I think a far more likely future scenario will be simpler lives, less materialism, more hardship. Is that so hard to believe?
Space is a fantasy that won't die for the same reason religions won't die. It appeal
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Oh, how absurd of me to think that somebody will think of something that nobody has thought of before.
It may not happen in my lifetime, or even my kids lifetime... but it's going to happen, someday... and the cynicism that you are so clearly hold dear to will eventually be seen as just as absurd and outdated as what scientists less than 200 years ago were saying when they suggested that we could nev
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I'm fairly sure Columbus heard similarly-themed arguments before he went sailing. Why bother? We've got everything we need right here.
I guess the short version is that, if you're going to stop aspiring, you're only going to start existing. You'll live a life of drudgery, which for some of us just isn't worth living.
This is not a juvenile fantasy, it is a driving need for the creative members of the race. The juvenile aspect of this whole thread is your pressure for everyone else to give up their ideals
You are in the no more glass camp. (Score:1)
That is correct. Evolution is still happening. There were no humans here two million years ago and there won't be any in another two million years. What's the big deal?
To continue with the glass is half full/empty metaphor, you ignore the fact that someday there will be no glass. More mass extinction level events will happen. And the big deal is that it would be a shame to lose the only known intelligent species capable of contemplating and studying the universe in such an event, and lose whatever species may have developed from this intelligent species.
Occupying more than one rock in the solar system greatly increases the species chance of survival. Plus the amount of
The only species to have this conversation ... (Score:2)
And as for extinction-level events, life survived; we are here. Who are you to decide what life will survive on this planet millions or billions of years from now?
The one and only known species that is aware of this issue and can have a conversation about it and can do something about it, i.e. not limit itself to this one planet. That's a pretty special species.
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In some number of decades we could have a manned mission to mars, the technology is getting feasible.
In centuries it is feasible that we would have the technology to colonize other rocks in the solar system. We can't do so today but we can research the technology and discover the science that future generations will stand upon.
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How does private industry justify for investors the expense when a payoff may not even be realized, fortunes lost or it takes another generation to see any profit?
It won't take a generation to see a profit. Consider space tourism, it is currently outrageously expensive but that is OK. The handful of people willing to pay such sums exist. Such willingness to pay is a tried and true factor that supports initially expensive products and services.
Investors won't go for that.
The quarterly focus that you assume is for publicly traded companies. Privately held companies can have longer perspectives.
In fact, the only reason the U.S. even had a space program is because of the funding and taxing power of government.
That is just a phase. A necessary phase, but one that people move beyond. Just as sailing from Europe to
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Regarding tourism, that is just a convenient way to make money in the short term. The current
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Just save your hateful sniping for the next climate change article. Slashdot has at least one every week.