Author Topic: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.  (Read 60776 times)

Offline Mader Levap

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Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« on: 06/06/2014 01:07 pm »
As meekGee suggested, I take here discussion that was very OT where it was.

The question is the trade-off between harder-to-reach Mars and harder-to-live on Moon.
How much harder is to live on Moon? Certainly not orders of magnitude harder (for that you need Io or something).

Even if living on moon is significantly harder than living on Mars, travel expenses will weight costs in favour of Moon in near and medium future.

In other words: assume that living on Moon is harder. Your and meekGee error is that you claim this assumption means no Moon base whatsoever. This is wrong and looks like wishful thinking of Mars Firster.

Why? Scenario below explains that.

1. Moon base will be deployed first, simply becasue of lower total costs (cost to travel+cost to live).
2. It will grow slowly due to our assumption (harder life).
3. Decades later (when cost to travel will be sufficiently low) first Martian base will be deployed.
4. It will grow faster (easier life)...
5. ...and some time later (another few decades) will be larger than Moon base.

Result? Of course, Moon First.
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...and if you have failure, tell it anyway.

Offline HappyMartian

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #1 on: 06/06/2014 02:37 pm »
The much lower risk, and quicker, trips to the Moon than Mars, or asteroids, means the Lunar surface will initially be the most attractive and affordable beyond LEO 'boots and wheels on the ground' location for robots, commercial investors, miners, tourists, astronomers, geology graduate students, politicians, rocketeers, and pioneers.

The Moon is also close to the immense marketplace called Earth. Electromagnet catapults can routinely launch aircraft off of aircraft carriers and will someday launch spacecraft off of the Moon and thereby enhance its ever expanding role as the transportation and resource hub of the Solar System.
"The Moon is the most accessible destination for realizing commercial, exploration and scientific objectives beyond low Earth orbit." - LEAG

Offline Burninate

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #2 on: 06/06/2014 02:57 pm »
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?

What necessitates increasing the size of a lunar base from 0 people to 3 people, from 3 people to 100, from 100 to 3000?  What do we get out of it?

A Lunar mass driver (maglev + linear induction motor) aimed at the horizon is a hell of a thing for getting mass amounts of resources back to Earth... but what's the Moon got that Siberia doesn't?

If the terminal goal is only to seek out self-sustaining incremental terraforming / Marsbase-building strategies, the Moon is just not helpful for learning about Mars.  If the terminal goal is to learn about building stations without in situ resources - well then we already have LEO for that, and we don't have to worry so much about radiation there in the meantime.

Essentially the only major thing the Moon has got, is a much shorter and more frequent trip.  Aerobraking at Mars (a technology with a boatload of compelling improvements in the pipeline) cancels out almost the entire dV advantage of the Moon being so much closer.  If we build that aforementioned mass driver, it improves the economics of return to LEO quite a bit, but what would justify the huge investment to get to that point?

Radiation shielding and an in situ smelter / machine shop perhaps, as a replacement for mass brought up from Earth's gravity well?  That only works when there's sufficient demand in LEO, something that's only going to be true when there's thousands of people moving there every year.
« Last Edit: 06/06/2014 03:01 pm by Burninate »

Offline HappyMartian

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #3 on: 06/06/2014 03:29 pm »
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?

What necessitates increasing the size of a lunar base from 0 people to 3 people, from 3 people to 100, from 100 to 3000?  What do we get out of it?

A Lunar mass driver (maglev + linear induction motor) aimed at the horizon is a hell of a thing for getting mass amounts of resources back to Earth... but what's the Moon got that Siberia doesn't?

If the terminal goal is only to seek out self-sustaining incremental terraforming / Marsbase-building strategies, the Moon is just not helpful for learning about Mars.  If the terminal goal is to learn about building stations without in situ resources - well then we already have LEO for that, and we don't have to worry so much about radiation there in the meantime.

Essentially the only major thing the Moon has got, is a much shorter and more frequent trip.  Aerobraking at Mars (a technology with a boatload of compelling improvements in the pipeline) cancels out almost the entire dV advantage of the Moon being so much closer.  If we build that aforementioned mass driver, it improves the economics of return to LEO quite a bit, but what would justify the huge investment to get to that point?

Radiation shielding and an in situ smelter / machine shop perhaps, as a replacement for mass brought up from Earth's gravity well?  That only works when there's sufficient demand in LEO, something that's only going to be true when there's thousands of people moving there every year.

Mars would be 'flags, footprints, and getting to this place is not fiscally sustainable at this time so lets find a dozen excuses to forget about it for fifty or sixty years'.

The Moon is easy for everyone on Earth to see and love. Real-time two-way communication is doable. Transportation risks and costs in cislunar space will drop once we have Lunar derived propellants.


Edited.

 
« Last Edit: 06/06/2014 11:28 pm by HappyMartian »
"The Moon is the most accessible destination for realizing commercial, exploration and scientific objectives beyond low Earth orbit." - LEAG

Offline ncb1397

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #4 on: 06/06/2014 04:06 pm »
The air pressure on the summit of Olympus Mons is .03% of 1 atm. Delta V to Lunar orbit is about 1.87 km/s while mars is 4.1 km/s. A mass driver on Mars is a bit harder than on the moon but hardly insurmountable. SSTO on Mars is pretty easy as is SSTO on the Moon. Mars is closer delta-v wise to the outer solar system.

Payload to TMI vs payload to TLI is not much worse. For instance, SLS block 1 does 24 mt to TLI and 20.2 mt to TMI. The problem with Mars is delta-t(has more to do with risk) than delta-v(has more to do with cost).

Moon first is not up for debate though. The history of humans in space will have a chapter on the Moon before a chapter on Mars. There is no retro-actively changing this without a time machine stopping Kennedy from being assassinated or something.

Offline savuporo

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #5 on: 06/06/2014 05:04 pm »
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?
As rapid industrialization as possible, with cutting edge automation, robotics and teleoperations.

Learn to make as many things as feasible using the available energy and materials.

EDIT: Dont limit yourself to just trying one thing, such as He-3, PGMs, propellant from water, construction materials or anything else. Industrialize as flexibly as possible.
« Last Edit: 06/06/2014 05:44 pm by savuporo »
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Offline dror

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #6 on: 06/06/2014 05:38 pm »
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?
What necessitates increasing the size of a lunar base from 0 people to 3 people, from 3 people to 100, from 100 to 3000?  What do we get out of it?

H3

Space is hard immensely complex and high risk !

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #7 on: 06/06/2014 06:03 pm »
The question is the trade-off between harder-to-reach Mars and harder-to-live on Moon.

First, there is a tremendous amount of science to be done on the Moon. And I see a moon base as a sort of inevitable step, no matter when.

I'm biased by my experience and my work, I know, but I see it as the installation of stations in Antarctica: in some sense in the Geophysical Year 1957 there was not a clear reason other than politics to go there and install expensive permanent stations. Today, however, some of the best astronomy in the world is done at the South Pole. Note that this was something unexpected in 1957, when the first few large permanent facilities were built on the Antarctic Plateau. This shows there are almost always some unknown unknowns waiting to be catched when we extend our frontiers.

Moreover, there is an hell of glaciology, atmospheric science, biology going on there, despite the fact we don't have yet a real economical exploitation of Antarctica: metal nodules are there with oil (probably) but nobody is actually benefitting from them because of the Antarctic Treaty. However, despite of the unavailability of even future economic returns, Stations have been flowering everywhere and the development of facilities has not stopped. Rather the opposite.

Regarding astronomy, the vacuum and the lower gravity on the Moon would allow to build very large instrumentation with unprecedented sensitivity, including interferometers, that still present unresolved problems, specially for larger than we say 100 m baseline, in LEO. LEO is not really a competitor either because of maintenance and integration and specially scaling and refurbishing structures in orbit is more challenging. We could install instrumentation that may be refurbished and working at very low temperature for more than a few years (and then not thrown away as for LEO or L2 telescopes etc.).

Of course there are a lot of drawbacks, but I can't see Mars as a competitor to the Moon either. Mars is Mars. It's literally "another planet" with its own challenges, benefit and costs. Reaching it is difficult and dangerous for humans first because of the two order of magnitude times longer trip, while for robotic probes there is the problem of the gravity making returning samples still difficult.

Happy to listen and learn about. I'm sure there is a lot to be discussed and understood, huge costs to be covered, etc. However, I can't really understand why people is considering going to Mars when the Moon is just 3 days away from us, unexplored and almost untouched since decades, when technologies from the sixties allowed us (...US, actually) to get there after a 10 years "only" work.

I respect any different opinion, but that's why I fully agree with Mader Levap.
« Last Edit: 06/06/2014 07:13 pm by pagheca »

Offline bad_astra

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #8 on: 06/06/2014 06:41 pm »
Until we develop rapid non-chemical interplanetary travel I see the moon as our most obvious gravity well to visit and settle. I see it as Moon, the Rocks, then Mars in that order. Our version of Canaries, Azores, Americas.
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Offline HappyMartian

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #9 on: 06/07/2014 09:52 am »
Until we develop rapid non-chemical interplanetary travel I see the moon as our most obvious gravity well to visit and settle. I see it as Moon, the Rocks, then Mars in that order. Our version of Canaries, Azores, Americas.


Yep.

And maybe a few other folks see it that way too.



"The report's authors said that returning to the moon would foster better international cooperation given the interest about the destination in other countries, and such a mission would help develop technology to land and eventually live on Mars."

From: NASA warned plan to send humans to Mars may fail    By Jean-Louis Santini June 5, 2014
At: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-warned-plan-send-humans-mars-may-fail-022806799.html



"With the NRC study showing favor towards a return to the Lunar Surface, a potential battle between lawmakers who continue to express a wish for NASA to return to the Moon, and the current NASA leadership, may be in the offing in the coming months."

From: NRC Pathway approach to Mars includes Lunar landings, Chinese alliance By Chris Bergin
June 4, 2014
At: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/06/nrc-pathway-approach-mars-lunar-landings-chinese-alliance/ 
"The Moon is the most accessible destination for realizing commercial, exploration and scientific objectives beyond low Earth orbit." - LEAG

Offline gospacex

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #10 on: 06/07/2014 09:11 pm »
And so the "Moon first! No, Mars first!" flame war has been reignited for the seventeen gazillionth time.
« Last Edit: 06/07/2014 09:11 pm by gospacex »

Offline redliox

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #11 on: 06/07/2014 10:20 pm »
Moon or Mars...always a fun debate!  It's kind of like deciding between going to the supermall two hundred miles away versus the minimart a quarter-mile away.  Ultimately it depends on what you're going out to get.

I'm a follower of the Mars Direct philosophy, largely because it's straightforward and economical...and we are stuck in an economy where less-is-more...and NASA is not so likely to get the 'more' it needs in its budget.  NASA will spend a few years daydreaming what it could do with SLS, but once it's flying most of those dreams will pop and a lucky few become reality.  So what we're really debating is what that reality might be.

For economics, the Moon ultimately wins out.  As is, SLS and Orion have the capacity to get us into lunar orbit; that seems to be the secret skeleton (out of Constellation's closet) subtly supporting the program.  Apparently an additional module or vehicle is needed if we're to go on monthly-scale-missions.  The Moon isn't a desirable planet, but it isn't fully explored and it's more complex than an asteroid.  And, as always noted, it is conveniently located.

Mars should be the long term goal for sure, and aside from propellant production and exploration, I think I can sum up why in one word: life.  Aside from colonizing for the sake of humanity's future, finding out if Mars likewise spawned life is the undeniable spark the Moon lacks in comparison.  It can help us answer the bigger questions.

IMO as well, I think the Moon would win out purely on cost.  Still, I think it's a better stepping stone to Mars versus the asteroids.  I was left with mixed feelings after Obama's speech, but if anything I would credit his administration for SLS which is the rocket needed for either lunar or Martian missions.  But if we're going to do this in a stepping-stone-approach with concerns about technology and human life...lets use the Moon as that stone.

My suggestion would be spend the 2020s flying to the Moon, Lagrange points, and surface under the auspice of setting up a science camp and preparing for Mars.  By the end of the '20s turn the Moon camp's reigns over to commercial companies, making the Moon turf for industry and universities, while NASA begins the 2030s making excursions to Mars with likely its moons as initial targets.

The Moon can become a convenient, commercial destination that can develop at its own pace whereas Mars explored in the stages set by NASA and whatever governments cooperate in its venture.
"Let the trails lead where they may, I will follow."
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Offline savuporo

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #12 on: 06/07/2014 11:08 pm »
And so the "Moon first! No, Mars first!" flame war has been reignited for the seventeen gazillionth time.
A more constructive thought exercise for the OP and the thread :

what would make you change your mind ?
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Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #13 on: 06/07/2014 11:11 pm »
what would make you change your mind ?

Having from Mars the same great seaview we have from the Moon.

« Last Edit: 06/07/2014 11:55 pm by pagheca »

Offline savuporo

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #14 on: 06/07/2014 11:56 pm »
Seriously.

Everyone with a "moon/mars/Betelgeuse first" hypothesis would help the discussion a lot by explaining the conditions of how is this falsifiable? What sort of evidence, information or experiment would reasonably disprove the claims.

Maybe we should have a thread titled "moon first: here is how you can prove me wrong"
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Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #15 on: 06/08/2014 12:15 am »
And so the "Moon first! No, Mars first!" flame war has been reignited for the seventeen gazillionth time.

I think there should always be a moon-mars punchup thread. Same with SLS-vs-commercial. What gets really tiresome is when it swamps other threads drowning out the actual new and relevant gems in that thread. I think the moderators should have a macro that just copies any such post to the appropriate punchup thread and replaces the original with a single link to it :)

Offline butters

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #16 on: 06/08/2014 12:24 am »
The biggest challenge in human missions to Mars is the delta-t. It takes a long time to get there, and perhaps more importantly, it takes a long time to get back. We have to really master deep space ECLSS before we can commit to a Mars mission.

The ECLSS requirements for the cis-lunar environment are everything Mars demands and then some. If we can handle long-duration human missions in cis-lunar space and on the lunar surface, then we can handle Mars missions of the same length. We can prove this out with missions where it takes much less time to get there and get back, reducing risk and cost.

I don't see how we can work up the confidence to commit humans into Mars transfer orbit for the first time until we've gamed out the procedures, technologies, and hazards somewhere closer to home. Apollo was a good first step, but we've got to stay for a Mars-relevant duration. We have to learn how to live on another world, day in and day out. Anything less would be irresponsible.

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #17 on: 06/08/2014 12:26 am »
savuporo,

Ok, I accept your invitation and will be serious (at least as much as I can... :) ).

I don't think you can really have "demonstrations" here. The debate is opinionated, in a Bayesian sense (this is something people find difficult to understand here: technicalities are technicalities, but spaceflight is not only technicalities and demonstration. So, there is a lot of room for different opinions here).

Imagine to be on the 11 of September 1962, one day before JFK Apollo speech, and you have to tell which is the best strategy to speed up space exploration. I don't think many people would say "Tell the President to talk about going to the Moon and back within the end of the decade". Nobody would take you seriously. We are in a similar situation. We are talking about something that is completely unrelated with the reality of things, politics, human psicology, economics, etc.

I think we can just say what we guess is the best strategy for us. It's Saturday night and I like to waste time speculating and dreaming, but I do not think there is mathematics in what I'm going to say.

I think that:

(1) there is a huge amount of awesome science to be done on the Moon. Regarding astronomy, it's empty, there is no atmosphere and the sky rotate pretty slowly. Mars has a lot of problems, including dust and an atmosphere plus gravity. It is more similar to the Earth. With no great benefits (at least, I can't really see them but a lot of fancy proposals to solve the various problems). Geology is of paramount importance on the Moon to understand our Planet. You can communicate easily. You can even call home and get the phone answered in 3-4 seconds, not in minutes. So, running experiment would be possible with assistance from the Earth in real time.

(2) it's a "natural" step. You first go to Normandy, and then you get across Europe till Berlin. You go to McMurdo, and than you go to the South Pole. You go to the America, and then to Australia. Not the opposite.

(3) safety concerns (radiation, rescue issues, etc.) may delay Mars missions for a while. A trip to the Moon may take a week return if you need to evacuate someone or deploy some urgently required material. You know if you were successfull or not in 3 days and then can try again.

(4) it's cheaper. We already have demonstrated our technology can do that 40 years ago.

(5) it can be a rehearsal for a lot of other missions. Once you master how to survive on the Moon, 3 days from home, you can - almost - survive everywhere in the solar system.

(6) I think (but with a big error bar...) it would be relatively* easier to convince funding agencies and several countries to cooperate in the project. The Moon is visible from the Earth. People knows we can do that. Watching the sky you can see the Moon. (*relatively easier doesn't mean easy!).

(7) we could develop something incremental there, as the turnaround duty cycle is relatively shorter. Light is promptly available (ok, two weeks a month...) to supply energy. The gravity well is shallower. There is potential for really easy ways to pull out with today technology if required.

On the other side, I can't really see any good reason to go to Mars first. Sorry about that. I think this, for what it matter, is the only thing I do not agree with (my idol) Elon Musk. But I would bet he will change his mind later. I guess he want to push people to do something with a very far objective to then sell the feasible one. 

Opinions at go-go....
« Last Edit: 06/08/2014 12:29 am by pagheca »

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #18 on: 06/08/2014 12:37 am »
one more:

To be honest I do not trust any "one way" plan to Mars.

And this because I know that even in a place like Antarctica people doesn't like to stay more than an year or two continuously. Nobody can't live inside a pressurised suit for all his life (when he wants to get "out") or meet the same people every morning.

I experienced what isolation - a much milder isolation! - means at the Pole. You miss the green, the walk and the occasional rain. I liked like crazy the experience, but I never met a single person that want to do that forever without taking at least a vacation in summer. This wouldn't be possible on Mars one way missions, while Moon offer a nice way to go back home after an year or so, ISS-like.
« Last Edit: 06/08/2014 12:40 am by pagheca »

Offline savuporo

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #19 on: 06/08/2014 01:01 am »
savuporo,

Ok, I accept your invitation and will be serious (at least as much as I can... :) ).
..
(4) it's cheaper. We already have demonstrated our technology can do that 40 years ago.
Yeah, i don't think you got it. Falsifiability means that you outlined the conditions of how that claim can be shown to be false.
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Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #20 on: 06/08/2014 01:03 am »
As meekGee suggested, I take here discussion that was very OT where it was.

The question is the trade-off between harder-to-reach Mars and harder-to-live on Moon.
How much harder is to live on Moon? Certainly not orders of magnitude harder (for that you need Io or something).

Even if living on moon is significantly harder than living on Mars, travel expenses will weight costs in favour of Moon in near and medium future.

In other words: assume that living on Moon is harder. Your and meekGee error is that you claim this assumption means no Moon base whatsoever. This is wrong and looks like wishful thinking of Mars Firster.

Why? Scenario below explains that.

1. Moon base will be deployed first, simply becasue of lower total costs (cost to travel+cost to live).
2. It will grow slowly due to our assumption (harder life).
3. Decades later (when cost to travel will be sufficiently low) first Martian base will be deployed.
4. It will grow faster (easier life)...
5. ...and some time later (another few decades) will be larger than Moon base.

Result? Of course, Moon First.

On topic, Im actually sort of inspired by the current asteroid approach, because it is so cheap it might actually get done. It also suggests a possible path where both moon and mars are side projects to the colonization of the solar system.

Get a DSH (developed from ISS budget) attached to a 7 meter rock in lunar orbit. Practice HSF operations involving regolith in low gravity. Practice baking volatiles out of regolith. Practice exploiting this material for propellant and life support. Practice propellant depots. Develop confidence that you can really keep this DSH habitable for years. Eventually just push off for other locations such as NEAs, Deimos, Ceres and the entire asteroid belt.

There are many reasons that make moon and mars superior, but none of these pay off until you actually land on them. Unfortunately 'moon' has become a codeword for "build SLS, totally ignore lack of funding for lander" and 'mars' has become a codeword for 'handwavy future goal than any current project might be justified by'

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #21 on: 06/08/2014 01:22 am »
Yeah, i don't think you got it. Falsifiability means that you outlined the conditions of how that claim can be shown to be false.

Savuporo, not everything can be falsifiable.

If I say that the US football team will not win the World cup this statement is not really falsifiable, but is highly likely to be true ;)

That is cheaper is obvious IMHO. I don't think I need to show you this on paper. More distance, more time, more gravity means more costly.

That we went to the Moon already is difficult to falsify, unless you don't trust to some conspiracy theories... :)

That a 3 days exposition to radiation is easier to survive respect to a 6 month one (specially when you consider solar flares) is obvious too.

That is safer and that people can be pulled out easily comes from the above considerations.

That from a scientific point of view the Moon is more intersting than Mars requires more time and understanding. Regarding astronomy in particular, vacuum, lower gravity and the rotation speed are all great assets that the Mars doesn't have. The real competitors are Lagrangian points, not Mars, but with a lot of additional issues.

That we have the technology to get out of the Moon with a SSTO is, avain, obvious. That is possible to do this from Mars has still to be demonstrated.

There is only one point debatable IMHO: that the Moon is easier to sell than Mars. And there in fact I said this is an opinion, not a fact.



Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #22 on: 06/08/2014 01:46 am »
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?
What necessitates increasing the size of a lunar base from 0 people to 3 people, from 3 people to 100, from 100 to 3000?  What do we get out of it?

H3

Helium-3 is easy to make in nuclear reactors.  We already make a lot of it as a side effect of creating tritium for nuclear weapons, and we don't even use that helium-3.

Helium-3 has some advantages in fusion power reactors, but it has disadvantages that far outweigh the advantages.  The helium-3 fusion reaction under consideration is fusing He3 with deuterium.  It's much harder to do that than to fuse tritium with deuterium, which is why tritium is used in most fusion research (and in nuclear weapons).  We can't even do the easier fusion reactions to generate net power.

And to cap it all off, helium-3 is pretty rare on the Moon, too.  We'd have to process vast quantities of regolith to get helium-3.  Even if we had colonies on the moon already and even if we needed helium-3 for fusion power, it would probably still be easier to just make it in a breeder reactor than to try to mine the stuff from the moon.

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #23 on: 06/08/2014 02:01 am »
(1) there is a huge amount of awesome science to be done on the Moon.

There's even more awesome science to be done on Mars.  Look at how many unmanned Mars missions the U.S. has launched in the last three decades versus how many unmanned Moon missions.  Why do you think that is?

Regarding astronomy, it's empty, there is no atmosphere and the sky rotate pretty slowly. Mars has a lot of problems, including dust and an atmosphere plus gravity. It is more similar to the Earth. With no great benefits (at least, I can't really see them but a lot of fancy proposals to solve the various problems).

Yes, the Moon is better for astronomy than Mars.  The thing is, though, that both are worse than just doing astronomy from space.

Geology is of paramount importance on the Moon to understand our Planet.

In what way?  The moon is very unlike the Earth.  It seems to me Mars is much more interesting in understanding Earth because it gives us more information about the development of planets similar in some ways to our own.

You can communicate easily. You can even call home and get the phone answered in 3-4 seconds, not in minutes. So, running experiment would be possible with assistance from the Earth in real time.

That's true.  But that is just saying it's easier to do science on the Moon, not that there's more science to do there.

(2) it's a "natural" step. You first go to Normandy, and then you get across Europe till Berlin. You go to McMurdo, and than you go to the South Pole. You go to the America, and then to Australia. Not the opposite.

The thing is that it's really not a natural step.  It's more like going to the North Pole on the way to America.  It requires solving a lot of problems that wouldn't require solving if our goal is just to go to Mars.

(3) safety concerns (radiation, rescue issues, etc.) may delay Mars missions for a while. A trip to the Moon may take a week return if you need to evacuate someone or deploy some urgently required material. You know if you were successfull or not in 3 days and then can try again.

(4) it's cheaper. We already have demonstrated our technology can do that 40 years ago.

I agree with you on these two points.  It is cheaper, and it is faster to get home from there.

(5) it can be a rehearsal for a lot of other missions. Once you master how to survive on the Moon, 3 days from home, you can - almost - survive everywhere in the solar system.

I completely disagree with that.  It's not a good rehearsal at all for Mars because it is so different.  Most of the hard problems to solve for living on the Moon don't apply to Mars, and most of the hard problems you need to solve to live on Mars aren't needed for the Moon.

(6) I think (but with a big error bar...) it would be relatively* easier to convince funding agencies and several countries to cooperate in the project. The Moon is visible from the Earth. People knows we can do that. Watching the sky you can see the Moon. (*relatively easier doesn't mean easy!).

I haven't seen a lot of evidence whether that's true or false.  Still, even if it's true it would be easier to get funding for, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right choice if that funding goes to something that doesn't help us get closer to what matters a lot more.

(7) we could develop something incremental there, as the turnaround duty cycle is relatively shorter. Light is promptly available (ok, two weeks a month...) to supply energy. The gravity well is shallower. There is potential for really easy ways to pull out with today technology if required.

Again, the hard things we would have to do to live on the Moon aren't needed for Mars, and the hard things needed to live on Mars aren't needed on the Moon.  Going one place doesn't help you much on the other, aside from things we could learn just as easily in LEO.

Offline savuporo

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #24 on: 06/08/2014 02:41 am »
Yeah, i don't think you got it. Falsifiability means that you outlined the conditions of how that claim can be shown to be false.

Savuporo, not everything can be falsifiable.


If you have a rational hypothesis, summarized in an abstract "moon first is cheaper/better/delightful/..." and backed by a solid set of arguments, reasoning and data, it will also be falsifiable

Otherwise it's just an opinion, wild *ss guess or religion.

And the corollary : opinions, guesses and religious arguments are not really worth debating over. Everyone has their own and arguments are not going to sway anyone. Make it a falsifiable hypothesis, and we might get somewhere.
« Last Edit: 06/08/2014 03:13 am by savuporo »
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Offline Oli

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #25 on: 06/08/2014 02:49 am »
The Moon is a far better/easier target for tourism, so Moon first.

Mining and science can be done with robots, possibly remote-controlled from orbit (or L1/L2 in the case of the Moon).
« Last Edit: 06/08/2014 02:52 am by Oli »

Offline Alf Fass

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #26 on: 06/08/2014 05:06 am »
Oli is correct, tourism will be one of the major initial drivers for HSF throughout the Earth/Moon system.
« Last Edit: 06/08/2014 05:07 am by Alf Fass »
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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #27 on: 06/08/2014 05:14 am »
Propellant sourced from the lunar surface. If it's there, and if it can be exported to the trans-Mars departure point, it should be exploited for that purpose. If it's not there, or can't be economically exported, the lunar surface is a dead end.
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Offline Warren Platts

Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #28 on: 06/08/2014 11:38 am »
Propellant sourced from the lunar surface. If it's there, and if it can be exported to the trans-Mars departure point, it should be exploited for that purpose. If it's not there, or can't be economically exported, the lunar surface is a dead end.

You can make ALLOX rocket propellant out of plain rocks if necessary. There are potential resources on the Moon that might actually be worth exporting to Earth (e.g., gold, maybe He3), or to Earth orbit (material for a SBSP system or Brilliant Pebbles anti-missile system). Mars wouldn't be any help for the latter two projects.

Whether there is gold on Mars is an interesting question. Assuming that Earth and Mars have similar bulk compositions, one might expect that there has been less depletion of HSE's from the Martian mantle. Combine that with hydrothermal processes that are probably mostly lacking on the Moon, there might be some lucrative Mother Lodes on Mars that could possibly be enough to finance a small colony...
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Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #29 on: 06/08/2014 01:56 pm »
There's even more awesome science to be done on Mars.  Look at how many unmanned Mars missions the U.S. has launched in the last three decades versus how many unmanned Moon missions.  Why do you think that is?

Sure. But here is only one driver for this: the idea that Mars may have hosted life or host life even today. This helps a lot to win funding against other solar objects. And I admit, is a good point. But a part from this Mars is "just" another solar system object and IF there is no life on Mars - as many think today - the "market value" of Mars will be highly reduced. In fact Jovian and Saturnian satellites are gaining visibility quite quickly today.

Yes, the Moon is better for astronomy than Mars.  The thing is, though, that both are worse than just doing astronomy from space.

I don't think so.

All the astronomical observatory done to date in space suffer from basic limitatons:
(1) the focal plane instrumentation cannot be easily upgraded.
(2) they run out of cryogenic liquids and other consumable soon or later.
(3) formation flight for interferometry - something I've been involved, and that could be of high interest - is not technically easy to be done. So, the benefit of not having the atmosphere absorption in some critical bands unaccessible with high spatial resolution from Earth is lost.
(4) the largest mirror built (Herschel) is of a relatively modest size respect to instruments like the VLT, TMT or E-ELT.. JWST is different but will be limited to by the mass to be put in orbit in one shot.

As a consequence, all the instrumentation done to date is "expendable" and limited in size. There is no upgrade, no quick servicing available. The only, limited exception is HST (JWST as you know is not serviceable). Almost everything required for deep space observation go wasted.

An observatory on the Moon could benefit from having a base in the vicinity. One may observe that the budget and the technical improvements required for this may be used to improve this in orbit. But having a fleet of instruments around is different than having them at a base in the Moon, serviced by the same logistics used to do other science, maintain the base, experience long term survival techniques and logistics management on another "planet", etc.

I appreciate all your points but I still think that, as mentioned by many, the "delta-t" is a show stopper: no Moon, no Mars, no other long permanence in space manned projects. We have to master how to do the "small leap" to do the longer one. The Moon is the only place on the solar system where we can install something permanent with current credible technology available now. And that has a slight possibility to be sold to the public.
« Last Edit: 06/08/2014 02:14 pm by pagheca »

Offline RonM

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #30 on: 06/08/2014 02:16 pm »
Both the Moon and Mars are important destinations for scientific research. Considering the difficulty in getting to Mars compared to the Moon and the interest in the international community, it looks like a return to the Moon will be first.

Optical telescopes on the Moon might have problems with dust, making space based telescopes more practical. Radio telescopes placed on the far side of the Moon would be shielded from interference produced on Earth.

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #31 on: 06/08/2014 02:30 pm »
Optical telescopes on the Moon might have problems with dust, making space based telescopes more practical.

You are right, Ron, but it's not an insurmountable problem. There are already many techniques, like electrostatic traveling-wave that may help in mitigating the problem in vacuum.

Please note that I'm not saying that it is worth to go to the Moon because of astronomy. I'm just making an example of an advantage in science of having a permanent base on the Moon that may have gone underrated.
« Last Edit: 06/08/2014 02:33 pm by pagheca »

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #32 on: 06/08/2014 02:48 pm »
We already make a lot of it as a side effect of creating tritium for nuclear weapons, and we don't even use that helium-3.

"Mr. Miller estimated that demand for helium 3 was about 65,000 liters per year through 2013 and that total production by the only two countries that produce it in usable form, the United States and Russia, was only about 20,000 liters. In a letter to President Obama, he called the shortage “a national crisis” and said the price had jumped to $2,000 a liter from $100 in the last few years, which threatens scientific research." (source)

While I do not think the Moon is yet a reasonable solution, at least for the next decade, the problem exists. He3 is used in dilution cryopumps and a single leak may mean a financial "tragedy" for a small research group :)
« Last Edit: 06/09/2014 12:36 am by pagheca »

Offline savuporo

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #33 on: 06/08/2014 04:06 pm »
Here is as good place and time as any to ask for a poll.

What should USG human spaceflight efforts mostly focus on over the next decade?

I am a dedicated Moon firster, nothing will change my mind - do not collect $200, go straight
I am a dedicated Mars firster, nothing will change my mind - do not collect $200, go straight
I am a Moon firster, but some conditions might change my mind ( explain )
I am a Mars firster, but some conditions might change my mind ( explain )
Asteroids !
Focus on the earth to orbit leg, i.e. build bigger/better rockets - RLVs, HLVs etc
Focus on developing technology required for deep space ops - refueling, AR&D, reentry, ECLSS, artifical-g etc.

None of the above is always an option, too. IMHO two first options do not warrant much further discussion, because it's more like a religious argument.
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Offline Lar

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #34 on: 06/08/2014 06:26 pm »
What would this poll tell us other than that opinions vary? I'm not convinced of the utility enough to start one.
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Offline Barrie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #35 on: 06/08/2014 06:53 pm »
What would this poll tell us other than that opinions vary? I'm not convinced of the utility enough to start one.

It would be interesting to see which option is more popular, but I would have different options:

After careful analysis, I favour Mars first
After careful analysis, I favour Moon first
My interest is casual, but my gut says Mars first
My interest is casual, but my gut says Moon first
The world is big enough to pursue multiple paths, no such choice is necessary

Offline savuporo

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #36 on: 06/08/2014 07:35 pm »
What would this poll tell us other than that opinions vary? I'm not convinced of the utility enough to start one.

I'd be most interested in seeing the split between people who have made their minds up and are not open to change it, vs people that do.
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Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #37 on: 06/09/2014 12:19 am »
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?...

You should try answering this question honestly, instead of pretending that it is a valuable objection.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #38 on: 06/09/2014 12:21 am »
What would this poll tell us other than that opinions vary? I'm not convinced of the utility enough to start one.

I'd be most interested in seeing the split between people who have made their minds up and are not open to change it, vs people that do.

Why?  It is not a matter of being open to correction.  It is a matter of considering the ease of landing on the proximate versus the distant destination at first.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline kch

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #39 on: 06/09/2014 12:39 am »
Here is as good place and time as any to ask for a poll.

What should USG human spaceflight efforts mostly focus on over the next decade?

I am a dedicated Moon firster, nothing will change my mind - do not collect $200, go straight
I am a dedicated Mars firster, nothing will change my mind - do not collect $200, go straight
I am a Moon firster, but some conditions might change my mind ( explain )
I am a Mars firster, but some conditions might change my mind ( explain )
Asteroids !
Focus on the earth to orbit leg, i.e. build bigger/better rockets - RLVs, HLVs etc
Focus on developing technology required for deep space ops - refueling, AR&D, reentry, ECLSS, artifical-g etc.

None of the above is always an option, too. IMHO two first options do not warrant much further discussion, because it's more like a religious argument.

Had to chuckle when I got to your fifth option -- could hear Fred Scuttle protesting "no, no, it's true, it's true!"   ;D

Offline Mader Levap

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #40 on: 06/09/2014 01:12 pm »
Man, a lot of replies. Will try to adress most important issues.

First, disclaimer. I consider Mars and Moon separate goals and both are worth pursuing. This detail is important, as many people here seems to operate on "screw Mars/Moon, only Moon/Mars is worth doing and alternative is to never be pursued" pseudologic. ::) Other sin is looking at Moon only as stepping stone to Mars - it indeed will not yeld directly much in that direction. Indirectly it will give a lot, however.

I am focusing on Moon purely because of three reasons: money, money and money. We cannot afford both destinations, so I choose Moon. Well, I don't have to. Laws of physics does that for me.

What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base? What necessitates increasing the size of a lunar base from 0 people to 3 people, from 3 people to 100, from 100 to 3000?  What do we get out of it?
General advice: don't put forth arguments (or in this case leading questions) against Moon base that can be used against Martian base. This is just silly.

And so the "Moon first! No, Mars first!" flame war has been reignited for the seventeen gazillionth time.
I am interested not so much in debate itself as in thinking of Mars Firster. Why he thinks that? Hell, laws of physics are against him, making his case hopeless excercise in futility. I just can't understand why anyone would think seriously that Martian base could be first.

A more constructive thought exercise for the OP and the thread : what would make you change your mind ?
Evidence that Martian base would be cheaper and easier to do than Moon base. Good luck with that.

All pro-Mars arguments that I've seen are lies by omission, usually focusing on Mars itself and argumenting it is easier to live on - deliberately overlooking tiny little unimportant details like "how I do get to Mars in first place?".  ::)
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Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #41 on: 06/09/2014 02:40 pm »
I fully agree with reverse-Pavel logic.

At this point, I will never see a Moon base, ok, but sometime I really wonder why there is no much more general consensus about the fact that we need and can install a permanent station on the Moon first. And that we must do it asap. I'm not talking about the general public, or Governments, but at least about that subset of people thinking Manned Space Flight is required at least in some situations (and I think this is one of those).

It may be some sort of tunnelling vision problem of mine, but at present I can't really see a single relevant argument where the Moon is not required and would distract resources and time rather than help in preparing for the next leg(s).
« Last Edit: 06/09/2014 06:55 pm by pagheca »

Offline Alf Fass

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #42 on: 06/09/2014 06:54 pm »

I am interested not so much in debate itself as in thinking of Mars Firster. Why he thinks that? Hell, laws of physics are against him, making his case hopeless excercise in futility. I just can't understand why anyone would think seriously that Martian base could be first.


I put it down to them being seduced by images from the Martian surface, they look like some not-so-bad place on Earth! You can run the physics and math passed people and not turn their head if they're emotionally committed to an idea.
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Offline high road

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #43 on: 06/10/2014 07:42 am »
2. It will grow slowly due to our assumption (harder life).

The speed at which a base/colony will grow is determined by the 'value' it generates over what it costs. I have not heard anything that can be done on Mars better than here or the moon (other than 'survive'). That means a lunar base will grow exponentially faster than a Mars base.
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?

What's the immediate goal of a Mars base? Other than science, because there's lots of potential for that on the moon as well. At least on the moon, risks will be lower, as any unforeseen problem or things not working as advertised, can be quickly solved.

At least the moon has some potential to eventually send tourists there. Most people when talking about space, even astronauts, go on about 'looking back at earth'. The moon offers a nice big view of Earth, and a two week round trip appeals to more people than two years off planet.

There's even more awesome science to be done on Mars.  Look at how many unmanned Mars missions the U.S. has launched in the last three decades versus how many unmanned Moon missions.  Why do you think that is?

Politics and risk reduction. Missions to the moon are less 'sexy' than missions to Mars, they can benefit from experiences with previous spacecraft instead of starting again from scratch because local conditions are different, and as more and more people at Nasa earned their PHD's with Mars data, Mars missions get more support than other missions. Russia's Venera programme followed the same logic.

Quote
Geology is of paramount importance on the Moon to understand our Planet.

In what way?  The moon is very unlike the Earth.  It seems to me Mars is much more interesting in understanding Earth because it gives us more information about the development of planets similar in some ways to our own.

And the moon is supposed to be leftover debris of Earth colliding with another planet. That gives us information about the history of our own planet, not just similar planets.

Quote
(2) it's a "natural" step. You first go to Normandy, and then you get across Europe till Berlin. You go to McMurdo, and than you go to the South Pole. You go to the America, and then to Australia. Not the opposite.

The thing is that it's really not a natural step.  It's more like going to the North Pole on the way to America.  It requires solving a lot of problems that wouldn't require solving if our goal is just to go to Mars.

All bad examples. The allies landed in Normandy to skirt the best defended points in the Atlantic Wall closer to England. So that would be more like going to Mars because it's 'easier'. Explorers went to America before they went to Australia because the Turks were in the way to go east (which was the entire point of finding a way west to China). Which is completely incomparable to space as it is today.

The last example is also bad. The moon is a lot closer than the North pole. It's more comparable to setting up a harbour on a rock near the shore, before going to another continent. If nothing else, it gives you experience to sail the high seas, do emergency repairs, build without assistance (but with assistance if things go horribly wrong). Even if the moon and Mars are two separate locations, there is a lot of technology to be put through extensive durability, repairability, refurbishability, and so on.

Historically speaking, the current LEO --> moon --> Mars --> everything else might be more comparable to Portugal sailing along the coast of Africa, while Mars Direct is comparable to Columbus' voyage. Given that Columbus success was mostly luck, taking that gamble with space exploration seems far too risky, IMO.

Here's my reply to the poll suggestion: I'm a moon firster, but my mind can be changed by a good answer to the as of yet unanswered question in manned space exploration: why would we? What does Mars have that makes it worth going, other than science? Regardless of the things that make it 'easier' to go there? And even for science, what does Mars have more than the moon, other than potential life in the past? Because if it's life we want to find, we had better forget that shaky 'habitable zone' idea, and go drill through the ice layers above liquid oceans further out in the solar system. But that's another discussion.

Offline DGH

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #44 on: 06/10/2014 10:07 am »
And so the "Moon first! No, Mars first!" flame war has been reignited for the seventeen gazillionth time.
A more constructive thought exercise for the OP and the thread :

what would make you change your mind ?
I can tell you what did change my mind.
Water
It is what makes the Moon more interesting in many ways.
It makes the Moon easier than we originally thought.
It also proves we have a lot to learn post Apollo.


Offline Mader Levap

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #45 on: 06/10/2014 10:53 am »
2. It will grow slowly due to our assumption (harder life).
The speed at which a base/colony will grow is determined by the 'value' it generates over what it costs. I have not heard anything that can be done on Mars better than here or the moon (other than 'survive').
Does not apply. That was thought experiment with assumptions that was pretty generous for Mars Firsters. I can't be bothered with disputing claim that life is easier on Mars (it may be actually true!) when even with assumption that this claim is true we still end up with Moon First.

That means a lunar base will grow exponentially faster than a Mars base.
Not really. It is actually possible that at certain point Mars base will be bigger than Moon base. We are talking about what should be tackled first, not what could happen in 2114.
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Offline high road

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #46 on: 06/10/2014 12:41 pm »
2. It will grow slowly due to our assumption (harder life).
The speed at which a base/colony will grow is determined by the 'value' it generates over what it costs. I have not heard anything that can be done on Mars better than here or the moon (other than 'survive').
Does not apply. That was thought experiment with assumptions that was pretty generous for Mars Firsters. I can't be bothered with disputing claim that life is easier on Mars (it may be actually true!) when even with assumption that this claim is true we still end up with Moon First.

That means a lunar base will grow exponentially faster than a Mars base.
Not really. It is actually possible that at certain point Mars base will be bigger than Moon base. We are talking about what should be tackled first, not what could happen in 2114.

Well, if you split up a paragraph, it's bound to be out of context...

I'll rephrase: given that Mars firsters fail to give anything substantial that makes Mars 'better' than the moon to make it worth taking the much bigger risk (and cost etc.), ceteris paribus a Moon base would grow exponentially faster than a Mars base, as any activity would be equally 'valuable' on Mars or on the moon, and the moon can take advantage of the existing infrastructure on earth more easily. Especially in the early days, this is important.

Once a 'value' generating activity can be done on Mars that can not or no longer be done on the moon, a Mars colony will naturally be bigger.

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #47 on: 06/10/2014 12:51 pm »
Personally, I do not think the destiny of a moon station is to be the seed of a "colony". At least for the first x decades.

My arguments is quite weak, I admit it, as any long-term forecast, but I think that what will happen will be that at least for some decades we will be busy with an "Antarctic Station model" of moon settlement. Exactly the same happened with LEO. Despite many debate, is still a tiny thing with limited economic exploitation, despite the cost of "producing" there is relatively (respect to the Moon gravitational well) limited.

The reason of this is that I consider it still too risky (in terms of health hazard and actual risks) and expensive to justify and investment, but also because I expect very wide protests about commercial exploitation or ownership rights over land on the Moon. The Moon is also quite large and we need some time to fully understand its potential for science and business.

I guess that we will start with one or a few very tiny stations with very limited science output and most of the time spent for survival, for a decade to say the less - ISS like. This may grow slowly to a sort of permanent settlement busy with science, but with a duty cycle of 6 months, max an year for the personnel involved.

At some point it may become possible to do some experimental mining, tourism, etc. but I cannot venture so far. I do not think the Moon will ever see "families" living there in the same way that America or Australia has been colonized, at least for the foreseeable future,

Speculations, speculations, speculations. I know.
« Last Edit: 06/10/2014 02:26 pm by pagheca »

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #48 on: 06/10/2014 07:40 pm »
I created a comparison table between the ISS (or a future SS), Moon and Mars.

5 is best
1 is worst

Please take it as what it is: just a quick and dirty job, obviously subject to my personal judgement. If you have any suggestion about  other rows, let me know. Of course also the weight of each row is highly opinionated.

However, IMHO it shows that there is not a single reason that may make one change opinion. Rather, a different weight/vote for each row.

EDIT: attached document updated.
« Last Edit: 06/16/2014 06:06 pm by pagheca »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #49 on: 06/10/2014 08:36 pm »
The strongest argument is that country like China has little interest in Mars.

But in terms of bases, with Mars distance and speed of light, one needs Mars bases more than Moon bases.

It seems to me if going to send crew to Mars, and because it takes at least 3 months just to get there, that economics would indicate that the crew should stay on Mars for longer periods- so stay on Mars more than 1 year.  Whereas shorter stays on the moon are more reasonable because your time and public time is not largely spent traveling to the Moon.
One can flyby Mars, one can land on surface and stay a couples weeks, but this is sort of thing one would only do once rather having be "normal".

It seems if NASA were to send crew to the Moon, they would probably want crew to stay a bit longer, than crew spend on the Moon in Apollo program. But in terms of exploring the Moon it could same type of time periods as Apollo or maybe twice as long.
One could send crew to the Moon, based upon what things you want the crew to do on the Moon. Or rather than "just living" one could have numbers things which one needs a human crew to do, and once completed, they return to Earth.

The main purpose of Moon first, is to mine the moon to make rocket fuel. If can't mine Moon, then I see little purpose to go to Moon first. But what is really wanted is not NASA mining the Moon, what is actually wanted is investment dollars spend in order to commercially mine the Moon. So NASA purpose should be to do things which could enable investment dollars to be spend to commercially mine the Moon.
If NASA can get some entity mining the Moon, in terms of it's budget, it can afford to explore Mars exploration program.

And in terms of why go to Mars, it seems the question is can there be future human settlements on Mars.
I don't see the why as finding alien life. Rather the finding of alien life *might* be a reason not to have human live on Mars. Of course if people go to Mars ahead of NASA, it wrecks why NASA should explore Mars-
the cow has left the barn.
So say purpose of exploring Moon is related to mining the Moon. and purpose of exploring Mars is to get human settlement on Mars.
Purpose is not to have huge NASA mining operations on Moon, nor large NASA "settlements".
Congress and American public simply has no rational reason to want this- no compelling need to waste American tax dollars for this useless activity. But American public could think it's bargain if what NASA does, is opens space frontier.
Opening space frontier is situation where hundreds of billions of dollar per year is invested in various commercial enterprises [and are earning return on money invested].
« Last Edit: 06/10/2014 08:52 pm by gbaikie »

Offline meekGee

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #50 on: 06/22/2014 08:26 am »
Ooh, I'm late to the party. :)
Some good arguments and perspectives here, and some of the premises are convincing.

The next pair of boots on extra-terrestrial land might indeed be on the moon.

But implicitly, in most of my arguments, I dismiss non-colony bases and expeditions unless they are stepping stones to colonies, since otherwise in the grand scheme of things, they are dead ends.

There are very few players in the extra-terrestrial boot game today. If SpaceX succeeds, a Mars colony will get a fair shot. There is nobody today that is planning a lunar colony - not even governments. But if SpaceX succeeds, I think that indirectly a lunar colony will get a fair shot as well.
« Last Edit: 06/22/2014 08:26 am by meekGee »
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Offline Greg Hullender

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #51 on: 06/23/2014 01:46 am »
Why does anyone think resource extraction would lead to colonies? On Earth, we have giant oil platforms in the ocean and big mining operations in northern Canada, but none of those ever turns into a city. The companies doing the extraction have zero incentive to encourage colonies--a local government would just be another source of trouble to them. If miners had to stay for many years then it might be impossible to employ them without making arrangements for spouses and families, but the history of sail exploration on Earth suggests that up to five years wouldn't be a problem.

Canada could (for example) decide it wanted to create towns up in the north--maybe building large domed areas to make the winters nicer--but they appear to have no interest in doing do. Perhaps the technology of doming a small town is too exotic.

But if that's the case, then the technology for building a space colony is very far away. Not this century. Maybe not the next one either.Heck, if we aren't willing to colonize the Arctic, why do you think we'll ever colonize space?

I've been a space fan my whole life (I'm 55 now). I'd really like to imagine a more optimistic scenario, but right now I don't see one.

Offline Alf Fass

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #52 on: 06/23/2014 07:03 am »
There seems to be a belief that Mars would be a nicer place to settle and bring up a family than the Moon, why?
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Offline edkyle99

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #53 on: 06/23/2014 03:25 pm »
Humans on Mars should be NASA's next goal, because, unlike the Moon, that is the next place that irrevocable history can be made. 

 - Ed Kyle

Offline bad_astra

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #54 on: 06/23/2014 03:44 pm »
We don't even know if a fetus can gestate successfully in partial gravity. I cannot say our history can be irrevocable on Mars, but we can come and go on the Moon. I see no reason why our descendants would want to be bound to gravity wells. Gravity wells will be for tourism, I suspect. Mars has no other value, unless some persecuted religious minority wants to try to make a go of it.
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Offline bad_astra

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #55 on: 06/23/2014 03:46 pm »
Heck, if we aren't willing to colonize the Arctic, why do you think we'll ever colonize space?

Lapps, Siberians, Inuit, the entire population Barrow, etc, may disagree with you.
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Offline Hop_David

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #56 on: 06/24/2014 02:21 pm »
Mars is closer delta-v wise to the outer solar system.

In terms of delta V, EML2 is closer to the outer solar system.

For example, EML2 to Trans Jupiter Injection is about 4 km/s. Mars surface to Trans Jupiter Insertion is about 8 km/s.

The moon is about 2.5 km/s from EML2.

Offline Hop_David

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #57 on: 06/24/2014 02:38 pm »
Propellant sourced from the lunar surface. If it's there, and if it can be exported to the trans-Mars departure point, it should be exploited for that purpose. If it's not there, or can't be economically exported, the lunar surface is a dead end.

EML2 is a great departure point for Mars, asteroids as well as the rest of the solar system. And the moon's only 2.5 km/s from EML2.

If the more optimistic estimates of lunar water are true, a lunar base is a no-brainer. The LEND data seems to contradict those estimates though.


Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #58 on: 06/24/2014 02:39 pm »
Gravity wells will be for tourism, I suspect.

... and science. There are a lot of known and (probably) unknown resources and reasons for science on Moon and Mars and any other celestial body.

Apart for this, I agree with what all of you, myself and many others remarked many time: thinking at a Moon/Mars colony completely overlook the actual conditions for colonization.
« Last Edit: 06/24/2014 02:45 pm by pagheca »

Offline francesco nicoli

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #59 on: 06/24/2014 02:54 pm »
As I pointed out in the other discussion, the debate, as such, makes sense only if you believe that colonization will happen with public money. If you think that colonization will be a public enterprise, well then discussing it makes sense but you have to do that in lights of the public powers' goals in space- which are science and security, not colonization as such.

if on the contrary you believe (as I do) that space colonization will be led by private agents, then makes no much sense to discuss as it being done here- it will not be a centralized, decade-planned process. Rather, privates will go where business and (in a much lesser measure) ispiration brings them in a decentralized, not organized, and short-term sighted variety of approaches. Discussing which one "is best" makes no sense, as we don't know enough of the space-based market as it will be in 100 years from now, and this is the only relevant variable of the discussion.

Moon or Mars first? anywhere, where the profit is.

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #60 on: 06/24/2014 03:04 pm »
Moon or Mars first? anywhere, where the profit is.

Let me remind that, for the very same reasons you mentioned, neither of the two, maybe. But we are not talking about a colony here, but about "where first". And, again, the reasons for going to the Moon or Mars maybe totally or partially different from profits or colonisation. See Antarctica.
« Last Edit: 06/24/2014 03:09 pm by pagheca »

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #61 on: 06/24/2014 05:02 pm »
I tried to make a list of potential drivers for a settlement that can be a station, a colony, a single or limited number of trips or whatever else is including at least a human being. I put some examples that came to my mind in parenthesis):

1) Politics (Antarctica, Apollo)

2) Exploration and discovery (Polar Regions)

3) Science (Polar Regions). This is different than bare exploration. Remind that only many years after the first stations were installed it was suggested that the Antarctic Plateau could be an excellent site for astronomy).

4) Migration due to climatic, environmental, issues or conflicts between different groups (This probably apply to most of the known world and of course is not independent from others)

5) religious, political or ethnic groups diaspora (North America)

6) known or potential business opportunities, for privates or a Government (as in 4, this may apply to a wide range of settlements)

7) tourism. This may be seen a little different from 6 as it is not necessarily "extracting" resources from the planet to sell or exploit them but just making use of the "location").

I wonder if I missed something...

Now, this and many other discussions may be seen as identifying which of all those reasons may potentially drive trips, colony or the construction of scientific stations on the Moon or Mars.

I would exclude 4 and 5, because of the actual conditions and the costs of the trip or survival there. All the others maybe IMHO valid drivers. 7 can be right, but by looking to the history of exploration, 1, 2 and 3 are the more likely, at least in the medium term.

Again, I'm not basing this on real evidences (nobody can) but just on past experience and some speculations, so picking up one or another point is completely arguable.

« Last Edit: 06/24/2014 05:10 pm by pagheca »

Offline francesco nicoli

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #62 on: 06/24/2014 07:19 pm »
Moon or Mars first? anywhere, where the profit is.

Let me remind that, for the very same reasons you mentioned, neither of the two, maybe. But we are not talking about a colony here, but about "where first". And, again, the reasons for going to the Moon or Mars maybe totally or partially different from profits or colonisation. See Antarctica.

yes. but in Antarctica, you have MAINLY public power involved, not private companies....which brings back to the original statement in my post: before discussing anything, you need to clarify whether you are talking about private or public actions as their goals and approaches are completely different.

Offline bad_astra

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #63 on: 06/30/2014 02:36 pm »

yes. but in Antarctica, you have MAINLY public power involved, not private companies....which brings back to the original statement in my post: before discussing anything, you need to clarify whether you are talking about private or public actions as their goals and approaches are completely different.

If you include South Georgia island into the area of Antarctica, that was not always the case. But in any case, Antarctic colonization is prevented by treaties. There is no way to make use of its mineral wealth, even if it were practical, so we will not be able to prove practicality at this time, unless some billionaire wants to go rogue and try that in Queen Maude Land.

I don't think Antarctic works very well for space colonization analogs. Mayebe sea-surface or undersea colonization might, which again, has not happened despite being technically feasible.
« Last Edit: 06/30/2014 02:37 pm by bad_astra »
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Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #64 on: 06/30/2014 07:00 pm »
Why does anyone think resource extraction would lead to colonies? On Earth, we have giant oil platforms in the ocean and big mining operations in northern Canada, but none of those ever turns into a city. The companies doing the extraction have zero incentive to encourage colonies--a local government would just be another source of trouble to them. If miners had to stay for many years then it might be impossible to employ them without making arrangements for spouses and families, but the history of sail exploration on Earth suggests that up to five years wouldn't be a problem.
The problem of getting to the Moon is rocket equation. Chemical rockets have limit in terms of delta-v.
There is similar problem with simply getting to Earth orbit- the problem of getting to Earth orbit is commonly solved by having rocket stages. So one have 2 stage [or 3] rocket in which the first stage doesn't get to orbit. With Apollo one large booster and a 3 stage rocket, plus other stage rockets- [service module, descent and ascent lunar vehicle- 6 "stages"]. So stages are mostly thrown away and each stage is expensive and most of mass of stage holds rocket fuel- if don't have to drag rocket fuel to the Moon, there is *a lot* less payload needed to be lifted from Earth- and you can reuse stages [have less stages].
So the Apollo LEM was basically a fuel truck brought the the Moon, in order to get crew back off the lunar surface. So if rocket fuel available at lunar surface don't need to bring a fuel truck- instead could you bring a "sedan" and a fill up the tank at the Moon.

But making rocket fuel on the Moon has to get to point of exporting lunar rocket fuel from the Moon- which allows the stages to be more reusable and further reduces the amount mass needed to be lifted from Earth. The most critical aspect of exporting lunar rocket fuel is increase the market size of lunar rocket fuel-
as there is some threshold needed to make it economically viable.
Exporting lunar rocket fuel to low Earth orbit would increase lunar rocket fuel market, but there is higher cost to ship it to LEO and it could be cheaper to ship from Earth to LEO than from Moon to LEO.
And as it cost more to ship from Earth to higher orbits [GEO, Lunar orbit, L-points] and less from lunar surface. It's more feasible to export Lunar rocket fuel to higher earth orbits [or other planetary orbits] as compared to LEO. Or until the price of lunar rocket fuel has lower enough, it's less feasible to ship it to LEO.

But if one economically ship to high earth orbit, eventually costs will lower so as to allow shipping lunar rocket fuel to LEO, but before such a point in time, one will have dramatically lowered costs to get to the Moon [and Mars and etc].

Currently the only viable market related to  space is the satellite market- globally a 200 billion dollar industry.
If one can start another market [rocket fuel in space market] this will affect the current satellite market [lowering costs and increasing capability of these satellite] and such as rocket fuel market in space will encourage other markets in space and lower costs for government space agencies doing science related activities.   
Quote
Canada could (for example) decide it wanted to create towns up in the north--maybe building large domed areas to make the winters nicer--but they appear to have no interest in doing do. Perhaps the technology of doming a small town is too exotic.
Imagine someplace on Earth which one has the Moon's gravity instead of Earth's gravity- one get a large city at such a strange geology. Or imagine someplace on Earth which has the Moon's vacuum- that would also be important characteristic which is useful to some industries- like making computer chips.
Quote
But if that's the case, then the technology for building a space colony is very far away. Not this century. Maybe not the next one either.Heck, if we aren't willing to colonize the Arctic, why do you think we'll ever colonize space?

One could expect fairly rapid technological advancement related to lunar industries, but we don't need technological advancement to get to such a point. What is needed is exploration to determine whether or not lunar water is minable- and where exactly to do this [lunar poles- but where exactly- or which lunar pole
is best].
Quote
I've been a space fan my whole life (I'm 55 now). I'd really like to imagine a more optimistic scenario, but right now I don't see one.
Well US president thinks we have explored the Moon, "been there and done that", so until this changes
so that exploring space to find new markets, there isn't much to be too optimistic about.
« Last Edit: 06/30/2014 07:11 pm by gbaikie »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #65 on: 06/30/2014 07:29 pm »
Propellant sourced from the lunar surface. If it's there, and if it can be exported to the trans-Mars departure point, it should be exploited for that purpose. If it's not there, or can't be economically exported, the lunar surface is a dead end.

EML2 is a great departure point for Mars, asteroids as well as the rest of the solar system. And the moon's only 2.5 km/s from EML2.

If the more optimistic estimates of lunar water are true, a lunar base is a no-brainer. The LEND data seems to contradict those estimates though.

In terms of mining lunar water, what matters is related to a scale of less than 1 square km. Or one could spend more than 1 year mining an area less than a football field and unlikely to harvest from a region larger than 1 square km.
I don't believe, LEND data has the resolution needed. Or it's more general characteristic which might useful if needed to mine million of tons, but what needed is first 100,000 tonnes of water which could mine for less than 10 billion dollars. Or at $500 per lb 1 million per ton, 100,000 tones is 100 billion dollars of water.
And it unlikely one is going to mine 100 billion dollar of water within a decade of the start of mining lunar water- and more importantly there not this much demand for this much water within a decade of time.
« Last Edit: 06/30/2014 07:32 pm by gbaikie »

Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #66 on: 07/06/2014 02:54 pm »
@ Alf Fass
http://www.isruinfo.com/index.php?page=srr_15_ptmss
Keep the light on.
Cheers

Offline aero

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #67 on: 07/06/2014 03:27 pm »
@ Alf Fass
http://www.isruinfo.com/index.php?page=srr_15_ptmss
Keep the light on.
Cheers

@Warren Platts -

Did you include insulation of your LOX tank in your mass budget? LOX will freeze at 30 K, won't it? Or are you intending to heat the LOX continuously? That may be better.
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Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #68 on: 07/08/2014 03:05 pm »
What's the immediate goal of a Lunar base?

Exactly the same as the immediate goal of a martian base:  Attempting to live off-planet.

If there's no point to the attempt on Luna, there is no point to the attempt on Mars.

Your further questions doubting the value of increasing the population of a lunar base also apply to Mars.

Most people are making the argument to stay on planet and that is a perfectly acceptable point of view.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #69 on: 07/08/2014 03:06 pm »
Of course there are a lot of drawbacks, but I can't see Mars as a competitor to the Moon either. Mars is Mars. It's literally "another planet" with its own challenges, benefit and costs. Reaching it is difficult and dangerous for humans...

Bingo.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #70 on: 07/08/2014 03:17 pm »
After careful analysis, I favour...

Unfortunately, the "careful analysis" would be typically only a personal claim to opionion, and not a theoretically falsifiable chain of logic.

Sadly, this debate fails every time for two reasons:  The martian side always fails to acknowledge the problems of delta-t.  The martian side always states as axiomatic that should mankind establish a foothold on the Moon, then no other planets shall ever be explored by mankind, without proof of the assertion.

Any argument of "irrevocable history" borders on nonsense.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Nilof

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #71 on: 07/13/2014 03:22 am »
My sumup:

As I see it, the moon is more interesting in the sense that it is completely different from Earth. It is airless, it has a shallow gravity well, and it is part of a binary system which makes it really attractive for implementing non-rocket spacelaunch. Furthermore, L1/L2 are "high points" of the solar system since they have a very massive body nearby for using the oberth effect. Counterintuitively, this makes reaching the outer solar system is easier to do from L2 than from Mars C3=0.

This makes the Moon an absolutely amazing place for large-scale industry aimed at providing materials for colonies anywhere in the solar system. If you're thinking on a very large scale, the moon can supply more materials for O'Neill habitats than the entire asteroid belt. Developing assets on the moon generally puts us on the path towards orbital habitats which I think is critical if we're ever going to pull off interstellar travel. Mars on the other hand is a return to the prison of living deep inside a gravity well and is in this sense is a dead end on the very long term.

So from my point of view, Moon and asteroids it is.
For a variable Isp spacecraft running at constant power and constant acceleration, the mass ratio is linear in delta-v.   Δv = ve0(MR-1). Or equivalently: Δv = vef PMF. Also, this is energy-optimal for a fixed delta-v and mass ratio.

Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #72 on: 07/13/2014 07:34 am »
I think GLPX-class landers could handle this little mission: Get to the earth-facing equator and install retroreflectors that are larger than Apollo's. Make them big enough to handle forseeable dust degradation, big enough to get enough S/N for general relativity experiments, and maybe big enough to be of use to less powerful lasers used by academia and outreach. Wouldn't that be a very clever good idea, Moon Express, and demonstrate a business capability while also answering a scientific need, while also enabling a popular sense of direct, tangible connection to that white thing that almost all can see on most nights.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18527-dusty-mirrors-on-the-moon-obscure-tests-of-relativity.html#.U8I0H6gW7yI

Offline Rhyshaelkan

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #73 on: 07/27/2014 04:49 pm »
My sumup:

As I see it, the moon is more interesting in the sense that it is completely different from Earth. It is airless, it has a shallow gravity well, and it is part of a binary system which makes it really attractive for implementing non-rocket spacelaunch. Furthermore, L1/L2 are "high points" of the solar system since they have a very massive body nearby for using the oberth effect. Counterintuitively, this makes reaching the outer solar system is easier to do from L2 than from Mars C3=0.

This makes the Moon an absolutely amazing place for large-scale industry aimed at providing materials for colonies anywhere in the solar system. If you're thinking on a very large scale, the moon can supply more materials for O'Neill habitats than the entire asteroid belt. Developing assets on the moon generally puts us on the path towards orbital habitats which I think is critical if we're ever going to pull off interstellar travel. Mars on the other hand is a return to the prison of living deep inside a gravity well and is in this sense is a dead end on the very long term.

So from my point of view, Moon and asteroids it is.

Emphasis is mine. This is the reason for Moon first. We could have an explosion of space industry for space industry, in spaaaaaace.

Rather than long flight times(Mars), irregular operation times(asteroids). The Moon is always 4 days away by rocket, and 3 seconds away by telecommunication. The Moon offers the greatest flexibility of robotic or manned missions.

This will open up the solar system to mankind. It will lead to a stronger Mars, a stronger Ceres and Vesta. More missions to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. All for less $$$ and less time, if, we plant that industry seed on the Moon first.
I am not a professional. Just a rational amateur dreaming of mankind exploiting the universe.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #74 on: 07/27/2014 08:17 pm »
My sumup:

As I see it, the moon is more interesting in the sense that it is completely different from Earth. It is airless, it has a shallow gravity well, and it is part of a binary system which makes it really attractive for implementing non-rocket spacelaunch. Furthermore, L1/L2 are "high points" of the solar system since they have a very massive body nearby for using the oberth effect. Counterintuitively, this makes reaching the outer solar system is easier to do from L2 than from Mars C3=0.

This makes the Moon an absolutely amazing place for large-scale industry aimed at providing materials for colonies anywhere in the solar system. If you're thinking on a very large scale, the moon can supply more materials for O'Neill habitats than the entire asteroid belt. Developing assets on the moon generally puts us on the path towards orbital habitats which I think is critical if we're ever going to pull off interstellar travel. Mars on the other hand is a return to the prison of living deep inside a gravity well and is in this sense is a dead end on the very long term.

So from my point of view, Moon and asteroids it is.

Emphasis is mine. This is the reason for Moon first. We could have an explosion of space industry for space industry, in spaaaaaace.

Rather than long flight times(Mars), irregular operation times(asteroids). The Moon is always 4 days away by rocket, and 3 seconds away by telecommunication. The Moon offers the greatest flexibility of robotic or manned missions.

This will open up the solar system to mankind. It will lead to a stronger Mars, a stronger Ceres and Vesta. More missions to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. All for less $$$ and less time, if, we plant that industry seed on the Moon first.

And I think the "seed" is more about information than hardware.
Or what is needed is exploration of Moon, and the exploration should focused on where there is minable lunar water. This is assuming there is minable lunar water- which seems to me to be fairly likely.

Having the Moon have some water, does not have any significant importance, the sole question is it minable [profitable to mine] water. So NASA explores the Moon and reaches NASA's and US governmental findings in regard to possibility of minable water. Then investment and business can determine whether it could be or should be mined- just as it is done on Earth in regards the mining of anything.
Though not saying there would not be government involvement, but point is we should not assume lunar water is minable BEFORE it's explored to determine if it is. As this is never the way any mining on Earth is done. For instance one can pick a mountain [at random] and decide that since there is no doubt that there is some gold in any mountain, that one should start mining the mountain for gold- without first exploring the mountain. [Edit: Or any mountain will have far more gold in it than any town, that one would build near it, would "need" {{how much gold does any town *actually* need? Yes, it's crazy and makes no sense}}. The only reasonable question is, would it be profitable to mine the gold].

But major importance in terms of getting to industrializing the Moon and/or space, is finding anything which could become a market. So lunar water is related to a rocket fuel market in space. Which in turn related to the transportation market in space. And to convert water into rocket fuel, one needs a lot more electrical power than we are currently using [for the only current market in space of the satellite industry- which globally is a 200 billion per year market]. So making rocket fuel will/could be a step in direction of a market for electrical power in space. This electrical market is unlike satellites using solar panels to operate satellites, instead one buys [or is selling] by Kilowatt or Megawatt hour- just as is done on Earth. Or electrical power can be sold to lunar water miners, but it's also sold to anyone else who needs electrical power [like a hotel or something] . And perhaps at some point satellites may also just buy electrical power rather bringing solar panels for just their satellite. And if one can buy electrical power, one can buy the power to be used with spacecrafts powered by beamed power. And etc.

And once there is rocket fuel [and water and electrical power] then one more cheaply mine things like iron or PGMs. Or have hotel and/or space agencies lunar bases. And do lots of things, which include human settlement on Mars [and elsewhere].

Edit: But before something like human settlements on Mars, the best thing to do, is first have a space agency, explore Mars [with idea that exploration is related to having future human settlements- or what about Mars should be known that would important for people going to Mars in terms building towns- where would there be good spots for Mars settlements].
« Last Edit: 07/27/2014 09:17 pm by gbaikie »

Offline manboy

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #75 on: 07/29/2014 10:03 pm »
As meekGee suggested, I take here discussion that was very OT where it was.

The question is the trade-off between harder-to-reach Mars and harder-to-live on Moon.
How much harder is to live on Moon? Certainly not orders of magnitude harder (for that you need Io or something).

Even if living on moon is significantly harder than living on Mars, travel expenses will weight costs in favour of Moon in near and medium future.

In other words: assume that living on Moon is harder. Your and meekGee error is that you claim this assumption means no Moon base whatsoever. This is wrong and looks like wishful thinking of Mars Firster.

Why? Scenario below explains that.

1. Moon base will be deployed first, simply becasue of lower total costs (cost to travel+cost to live).
2. It will grow slowly due to our assumption (harder life).
3. Decades later (when cost to travel will be sufficiently low) first Martian base will be deployed.
4. It will grow faster (easier life)...
5. ...and some time later (another few decades) will be larger than Moon base.

Result? Of course, Moon First.
It's the most logical destination but people do illogical things, which is part of a much larger tirade of mine.
"Cheese has been sent into space before. But the same cheese has never been sent into space twice." - StephenB

Offline Robert Thompson

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Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #77 on: 07/31/2014 09:43 pm »
Seriously.

Everyone with a "moon/mars/Betelgeuse first" hypothesis would help the discussion a lot by explaining the conditions of how is this falsifiable? What sort of evidence, information or experiment would reasonably disprove the claims.

Maybe we should have a thread titled "moon first: here is how you can prove me wrong"

Good idea. I would say Moon first is falsifiable.
Though it also happens to be what I think NASA should actually do in terms of Lunar exploration.
Or I think NASA should approach exploration in logical or scientific manner.
So if the Moon does not have minable water, then the moon would not be first.

I think the question of whether the Moon has minable water, is the most important thing NASA should determine in the near term.
But I do not think NASA should try to "make" lunar water minable, or what I mean is NASA should discover whether the Moon has minable water.
So NASA should not go the Moon will goal of attempting extract water for some wild idea about this lowering NASA cost of other lunar exploration. Or with idea NASA will mine lunar water to lower costs of Mars exploration. Economically it can't work, and it does not matter how easy it is to extract lunar water [or inherently minable it is].

Rather the NASA focus is only to find better locations which which may have minable water, and part of this is the possibility that the Moon does not have minable water.

Now, single aspect related to whether the Moon has minable water has is little to do with the possible different conditions on the Moon, but rather it depends upon the amount of water which can be mined and sold as water. Or if lots of water can be mined and sold, low concentration and difficult conditions can be overcome. Or said differently the fact that there is low potential demand/market for water, means there is uncertainty in terms of whether lunar water is minable.

So example if total need for lunar water for decades into the future was only 50 tonnes of water per year at constant and non increasing amount, it quite different that larger future need per year of water. So say one starts 50 ton per year [or less] in first few years growing to 100 tons within a decade and potentially thousands of tons per year thereafter.

Or for mining lunar water to be economical it requires a significant and a continuation of growth in the demand of water.
And it's cheaper to start with mining a relatively small amount, and growing capacity in production. Or if had a government guarantee [not something I favor- and if done it should not be taken from NASA's budget, but more as general governmental funding- it could be placed in NASA, but not matter of drawing it from NASA's normal budget], the purchase of 1000 tons of water per year, as starting point, this actually costs more to the mine water, than having a lower demand of say 100 tons of water per year, and ever increasing demand would reached 1000 tons or more  per year within a decade.
So one needs a growth market.
Plus there is factors which limits demand of water and related to bootstrapping. Say one mines 50 tons of water and one makes 50 tons of rocket fuel [50 tons rocket fuel requires  more electrical power than ISS has if done within a year of time], and by having this rocket fuel on lunar surface, it lower cost to get to the Moon. So one use rocket fuel to lower costs of increasing production [adding solar panels or nuclear powerplants]. A main limiting factor is having enough electrical power to split the water. Or one starts with modest amount electrical power, and one uses the rocket fuel it makes to lower cost of adding [say yearly doubling/tripling] electrical power capacity.  So by starting with 1000 tons, it means one will paid more for the lunar electrical capacity needed [it's not boot strapping the operation]. Another element is developing the technological ability to mine and make rocket fuel. Delays due to various problems one always will have, when occuring with smaller operation, have lower costs than compared to delaying a larger operation. So there is learning curve.

Anyhow, main problem is not related to mining enough water, it's mining enough water in context of selling enough water and using the water to lower transportation/operational costs and within a short enough time period.

But all NASA needs to do is find best places to mine lunar water, and then this data is analyzed, to determine whether it could be minable, and based upon this, whether one could make profit by investing money to do it. And if it's deemed one would only loses money, then it's not mined.
If loses money, it not worth doing. End of story.
And NASA losing money doing it is just the same a commercial operation not making money- having government doing something not profitable is wasting potential resources [and the public's time] that NASA could spend doing exploration which could actually be worth the money spent doing it.

So ultimate success of NASA lunar exploration, is potentially minable areas are found, and they are mined, which might be something which occurs within, say 10 years after NASA has explored the Moon.
[Oh btw, I think we assume that the conditions on Moon are not rapidly changing, so data 10 years or older would be still valid.]
And whether it's minable could depend on many factors, including say better earth launcher vehicles becoming available- for example. Or the time period, NASA finishes it's lunar exploration [and starts Mars exploration program] lunar water deposit found, may not be minable, but 5 years later, because changing circumstances, these deposits could then become minable.

So if NASA is exploring the Moon, rather than focusing on putting lunar bases on the moon and ISRUing lunar water, then this the cost of the program could rather inexpensive. Plus the money spend doing lunar exploration will be useful in regards to Mars exploration. Or gearing up the space agency in terms of exploring other bodies in space, and with similar type elements as will involved with Mars Exploration.
So with lunar exploration, the program should weighed with significant amount of robotic elements, plus the manned component. And likewise or maybe more weighted with robotic elements, one will conduct Mars exploration.
Or NASA has been trying to do Mars sample return for over 3 decades, with NASA lunar exploration, it could actually shorten the time to finally getting a Mars sample return [we actually do it, rather merely want to do it]. And there is little doubt of importance of getting Mars samples back to Earth.

So rather than Lunar program of 100 billion cost, one looking at program of 50 billion or less, and something NASA can complete within 10 years. And because it's cheap and short, it's more likely to get congressional funding. And it gives NASA the opportunity to prove to Congress that Mars exploration though more expensive, could done as successfully.
So at completion of lunar program, NASA should found some areas in polar poles which are the better places to mine.
Also NASA should have establish at least one depot at LEO, and have had operational experience using the depot as part of Lunar program [both robotic and manned aspects]. NASA will have used both medium and large earth launch vehicles, for the Moon exploration. And is likely to continue using a variety of launcher for Mars exploration.
NASA should have by start of lunar exploration or end of lunar exploration, have done "something" to lower operational yearly cost of ISS.
And should be more ready to do a Mars exploration program, than compared to at any time in NASA history.
« Last Edit: 07/31/2014 10:07 pm by gbaikie »

Offline aero

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #78 on: 07/31/2014 10:55 pm »
I think it is the mission time to Mars that will result in Moon first.

In particular, even if the Moon is only used to prove the transportation of equipment to Mars in preparation for Mars, such equipment proof missions can be completed in 3 days, or 14 days round trip including a surface excursion. Of course that won't test the heat shields or Mars EDL but the delta V for TMI can be used for propulsive landing on the Moon and off-loading lunar ISRU equipment will prove that capability for Mars. Habitats for Mars should be suitable for the moon and water mining on the moon should be similar to on Mars. That leads to methane production (is there carbon on the Moon) and hence establishes the Moon as a supply source.

I think there are to many similarities between the Moon and Mars to justify skipping the advantage of short transit times and real time communications for proving extra-Earth capabilities. Sure, keep your eye on the prize but don't fail to take advantage of the Moon.
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Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #79 on: 08/01/2014 12:43 am »
My sumup: ...

This makes the Moon an absolutely amazing place for large-scale industry aimed at providing materials for colonies anywhere in the solar system. If you're thinking on a very large scale, the moon can supply more materials for O'Neill habitats than the entire asteroid belt....

So from my point of view, Moon and asteroids it is.

I had not heard that POV before.  Thanks.

Like I've said at least a brazilian times:  Delta-t is the salient metric.
« Last Edit: 08/01/2014 12:43 am by JohnFornaro »
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #80 on: 08/02/2014 07:27 pm »
You could look at One-Way Mars mission not as new approach, but rather as recognition of the existing
paradigm. Or we are mostly exploring space with missions which are one way but we use expendable machines/robots. And with One-Way Mars mission instead of using just robots, one is also sending humans. 

And it's not just exploration, the satellite industry is currently using an one way paradigm which is resulting a satellite cemetery at GEO. And at current rate we are stacking up dead satellites in GEO, and if given enough time, it will result a more massive pile of dead satellites, which eventually we will want/need to mine them for their scrap value.  Or the 100 tons or so at the moment may not be viable, but as reaches thousands of tonnes, it becomes more viable [and more of problem which should be resolved].

The One-Way manned Mars also is related to commonly shared worldview that people living on Mars will isolated and cut off from Earth. And that a goal of Mars settlements, is building towards Mars becoming more independent.
It's sort of like America as isolationist nation. But as most are aware, America is not an isolationist nation.
Instead America is comprised of people and some of these people like to imagine America is or should an isolated nation.
But America has never actually been a isolated nation, instead it  had been a destination which requires  long time to travel, but advancing technology has made the world smaller.
Instead of the delusion of America being isolationist, America has actually been a center of the world in terms of free trade. For, say two reasons, first reason is America was the child of the British Empire [and all of the Americas {North and South} were colonize by powers who were involved in world trade]. And second reason is America needed to trade. Just as the oldest superpower, China, needed free trade [and how and why it was able to transform itself from one of poorest country to a country will a per capita GDP comparable to EU]. 

So likewise if Mars doesn't want to be a third world country, it too will need to trade. And it seems to me the One-Way paradigm is temporary or characteristic of immature state of things.

The transformation from the immature state of things, would be a market for rocket fuel in space. Or I suppose, superduper spacecraft which require far less propellent could another way to do this- so Nuclear Orion could work- though quite unlikely in the near term. Or getting Nuclear Orions would require that space was very important. And if there were large market in space, this would make space much more important.
[[For example: A market in space could be 10,000 or more people [somehow] living on Mars. So if we had 10,000 people living on Mars, Nuclear Orions may be needed, and so could be made. Though politically it seems unlikely Nuclear Orions will be made so as to cause there to be, 10,000 or more people living on Mars]]

So let's say, the practical and near term solution, so as to transform away from this immature state of things, would be a market for rocket fuel in space.
And such a market starts by having depots in space, in which rocket fuel is delivered from Earth.
« Last Edit: 08/02/2014 07:55 pm by gbaikie »

Offline Nilof

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #81 on: 08/02/2014 09:22 pm »
Just as the oldest superpower, China, needed free trade [and how and why it was able to transform itself from one of poorest country to a country will a per capita GDP comparable to EU]. 


Uh what? China isn't even remotely close to reaching that level of wealth. It's 2013 per capita GDP was still about half of Brazil's, which itself has a lower GDP per capita than any of the EU member states.

Sure, at 7-8% growth rate a year, it's closing in. But it isn't passing the west soon.
For a variable Isp spacecraft running at constant power and constant acceleration, the mass ratio is linear in delta-v.   Δv = ve0(MR-1). Or equivalently: Δv = vef PMF. Also, this is energy-optimal for a fixed delta-v and mass ratio.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #82 on: 08/02/2014 11:46 pm »
Just as the oldest superpower, China, needed free trade [and how and why it was able to transform itself from one of poorest country to a country will a per capita GDP comparable to EU]. 


Uh what? China isn't even remotely close to reaching that level of wealth. It's 2013 per capita GDP was still about half of Brazil's, which itself has a lower GDP per capita than any of the EU member states.

Sure, at 7-8% growth rate a year, it's closing in. But it isn't passing the west soon.

Wiki:
Brazil: 82     Brazil    12,100    2013 est.
China: 97     China    9,800    2013 est.
[[Central Intelligence Agency (1993–2013)
(based on estimates and, sometimes, IMF data) ]]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
So according to above China is more than 3/4rd of Brazil's per capita GDP in 2013.

One basis of comparison with EU and China is both have large populations.
EU population is 505.7 million [wiki] which significantly larger than US [318.4 million- wiki],
though EU is significantly lower than China's 1365.9 million.
India though has large population 1,247.4 million is not as comparable to China as EU is to China
due to China having higher economic growth and higher per capita GDP. India [4,000  2013 est - wiki].
Though with China one have could doubts about how real it's current economic growth is, and if "real" will it continue into the future.
If one makes assumption that China's economic growth is a comparative "real" as or as "real" economic data regarding EU [or any other country] the issue of China's fast growth in comparison EU comparatively low growth [plus factor in both of their similarly high unemployment] then I would say, both China and EU are one best comparison in terms per capita income of any other countries. Or Chinese may be more economical better off than members of EU within a decade and that relative near future potential, does affect the present economic reality.

Another metric could be looking at number of billionaires:
1     United States    492    Bill Gates
2     China    152    Wang Jianlin
3     Russia    111    Alisher Usmanov
4     Germany    85    Dieter Schwarz
5     Brazil    65    Jorge Paulo Lemann
6     India    56    Mukesh Ambani
7     United Kingdom    47    Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor and family
8     Hong Kong    45    Li Ka-shing
9     France    43    Liliane Bettencourt and family
10     Italy    35    Michele Ferrero and family
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_US_dollar_billionaires

And with China regaining Hong Kong, and  there other regions in China like Hong Kong- which have very high per capita GDP.

So if China is not comparable to EU in terms of per capita GDP, what other country or region is more comparable to China?

Edit: One could point out a large difference between China and EU is land area.
"(EU), a multinational polity that occupies a large portion of Europe and covers 4,422,773 km2"-
wiki
And China has 9.707 million km². So China's land area is similar to US.
But in terms "average population density" with China having  twice as much land area as EU, China is *very roughly* more similar in terms of population density to EU, [than it is to US]. And population density is relevant in regards to economic considerations.
« Last Edit: 08/03/2014 12:36 am by gbaikie »

Offline Bob Shaw

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #83 on: 08/03/2014 01:05 am »
http://www.astrowatch.net/2014/07/ancient-earth-fossils-could-be.html

I've been saying this for years; the potential for terrestrial biological remains on the Moon and Mars is enormous. Not 'fossils', as the geological conditions are quite different, but certainly biological material - even if just chirality enhanced chemical residues. Full biohazard precautions - both forward and backward - will need to be undertaken, especially for any dealings with 'benign' Lunar polar regions where relict Terrestrial pathogens may be preserved. There's also the issue of gravitational traps and null points around the Solar System - the local LaGrange points, Trojan/Ajax asteroids, surfaces of retrograde orbiting moons of the outer planets, etc. I might add that I'm not a fan of Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe's ideas in this area, which strike me as being examples of special pleading at best.

Biological materials on NEOs are also a hazard - just because something doesn't have claws isn't a test of whether it might be a danger, and sometimes these dangers are at odds with established wisdom. As an example, look at VCJD and the (still debated) role of prions, or indeed dangers from viruses (some of which can have crystalline forms).

This isn't really a problem with robotic exploration - I don't think there's much likelihood of an active biosphere in many parts of the Solar System which could be forward contaminated from Earth.
« Last Edit: 08/03/2014 01:05 am by Bob Shaw »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #84 on: 08/04/2014 12:14 am »
http://www.astrowatch.net/2014/07/ancient-earth-fossils-could-be.html

I've been saying this for years; the potential for terrestrial biological remains on the Moon and Mars is enormous. Not 'fossils', as the geological conditions are quite different, but certainly biological material - even if just chirality enhanced chemical residues. Full biohazard precautions - both forward and backward - will need to be undertaken, especially for any dealings with 'benign' Lunar polar regions where relict Terrestrial pathogens may be preserved.



There's also the issue of gravitational traps and null points around the Solar System - the local LaGrange points, Trojan/Ajax asteroids, surfaces of retrograde orbiting moons of the outer planets, etc. I might add that I'm not a fan of Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe's ideas in this area, which strike me as being examples of special pleading at best.
There is a potential of scientific study of lunar surface regarding microbiology, but I don't think there is a significant biological threat to Earth biosphere, related to studying it.
There is probably hundreds of tons of extraterrestrial material falling on earth each day and some very small percentage of it would coming from the Moon or Mars, so maybe kilograms of it could be what you might imagine is potential hazard; and no one, has been checking if it was threat for the last thousand years, nor does seem to me that we know enough to be able to effectively do this.
There is also parts of Earth which which could preserve this assumed hazardous substances. The ocean itself could seen as such reservoir of biologic material which could be preserving "bio hazards" for thousands of years [or turn over of ocean water is on thousands year scale].
Also we mine fossil fuel which can preserve such things for millions of years. One could say, that  we incinerating it as fast as we can- not that I think such argument is very persuasive in terms of good reason to burn fossil fuel.
And soil deposits and glacial deposits also preserve material for thousands of years.
So we have glacier falling into the ocean, rivers changing paths and eroding difference soil deposits, cold arctic water falling toward the equators, and billions of tons of fossil fuel- plus all other types of mining, bringing material which has sequestered for millions of year underground, up to the surface.
And in this context, one is suppose to be concerned about grams of the stuff, which would also have been examined quite thoroughly [unlike all other the stuff which isn't] and being quite valuable [one is not going to just throw away on earth because it's precious] to somehow be something to be worried about?

It seems more likely that lives could be saved rather than endangered by studying it as soon as possible and rather than fearing what we know little about, should to replaced with finding out as much as we can and as soon as we can, so we have a clue of what specifically might be an actual threat.
 
« Last Edit: 08/04/2014 12:26 am by gbaikie »

Offline M_Puckett

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #85 on: 08/04/2014 01:29 am »
Seriously.

Everyone with a "moon/mars/Betelgeuse first" hypothesis would help the discussion a lot by explaining the conditions of how is this falsifiable? What sort of evidence, information or experiment would reasonably disprove the claims.

Maybe we should have a thread titled "moon first: here is how you can prove me wrong"

Ulysses Merou did Betelgeuse first.  Things got a bit hairy for him.

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #86 on: 08/04/2014 06:27 am »
Seriously.

Everyone with a "moon/mars/Betelgeuse first" hypothesis would help the discussion a lot by explaining the conditions of how is this falsifiable? What sort of evidence, information or experiment would reasonably disprove the claims.

I would suggest the so-called "wait & see" method, for example.
« Last Edit: 08/04/2014 05:42 pm by pagheca »

Offline Darkseraph

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #87 on: 08/05/2014 05:34 am »
Going beyond even 450 kms altitude is not even certain within the next 3 decades, never mind any particular rock being inevitable!

That said, if they can't create the capability ($$$) to go to the Moon, forget Mars.
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Offline Alf Fass

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #88 on: 08/05/2014 09:07 am »

Wiki:
Brazil: 82     Brazil    12,100    2013 est.
China: 97     China    9,800    2013 est.
[[Central Intelligence Agency (1993–2013)
(based on estimates and, sometimes, IMF data) ]]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
So according to above China is more than 3/4rd of Brazil's per capita GDP in 2013.

This ain't got a lot to do with Moon first, but I think it should be pointed out that nominal GDP is probably a more useful measure of a nations productivity than PPP, which is more useful when comparing living standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Brazil 65    Brazil   11,100 2013 est

China 83    China   6,900 2013 est
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?
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Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #89 on: 08/05/2014 02:11 pm »
CubeSats to the Moon
http://thespacereview.com/article/2570/1
"An illustration of Lunar Flashlight, a 6U CubeSat with a solar sail used for propulsion and to reflect light into permanently-shadowed craters to look for water ice deposits.. (credit: NASA)..."

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #90 on: 08/05/2014 06:51 pm »

Wiki:
Brazil: 82     Brazil    12,100    2013 est.
China: 97     China    9,800    2013 est.
[[Central Intelligence Agency (1993–2013)
(based on estimates and, sometimes, IMF data) ]]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
So according to above China is more than 3/4rd of Brazil's per capita GDP in 2013.

This ain't got a lot to do with Moon first, but I think it should be pointed out that nominal GDP is probably a more useful measure of a nations productivity than PPP, which is more useful when comparing living standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Brazil 65    Brazil   11,100 2013 est

China 83    China   6,900 2013 est
What in general this has to do with Mars and the Moon,  is that China's increase is standard of living is directly related to it's trade with rest of the world. Or the single most important Chinese governmental policy in last 50 years has been deciding not to continue hindering trade.

Whether the Moon would be first, is solely dependent upon whether lunar water can be economically mined. Or that more money can be made mining lunar water rather than not mining lunar water.
Or investing is lunar mining is as profitable or more profitable than investing in say, US government bonds.

It does not matter whether water can merely be extracted from the Moon, other than is sense that it could lower uncertainly [possibly, lower economic risk related possible future investment]  though proving that lunar water can be extracted [regardless of cost] is not very significant/important. Or in terms of dollar amount, it's could worth as much as say, 5 billion dollars- meaning not worth tens of billions of dollars.
Whereas finding where there is the best locations to potential mine lunar water would be more valuable- worth far more than 5 billion dollars. Or doing that, would lower uncertainly for possible future investment by a greater degree.

Mining lunar water and making rocket fuel is directly related to exporting anything from the Moon, and it seems that exporting lunar rocket fuel would be a critical element related to whether lunar water can be profitably mined. Or I would say if one is not exporting rocket fuel from the Lunar surface, within 10 years of the beginning of the lunar operation, then the project of mining lunar water will not be viable/profitable [not have any value connected with doing it- or it will be a waste of time and money].

My conclusion regarding the necessity of exporting lunar rocket fuel within 10 years, is related total amount of water mined in a given time period. And get enough total production of lunar water and lunar rocket fuel, one must export and export enough tons per year.

So in order to have minable water on the Moon one must export from the Moon, and one of the critical things to export would be rocket fuel.
And best places to export lunar water and rocket fuel [mostly LOX] is high earth orbits [or beyond high earth orbit, such as Mars orbit]. This due to fact that Earth exported rocket fuel is more expensive at high earth, as compared to LEO. And it costs a bit more to ship from lunar surface to LEO.

So the cost to ship rocket fuel from Earth to high orbit, gives upper limit of how much lunar rocket fuel is worth. Or it is incorrect to assume it related to cost to ship rocket fuel from Earth to lunar surface.
So the cost to ship LOX from Earth to L-1 would be around $5000 per lb [or within range of 4000 to 10,000], and require LOX on lunar surface to be about $1000 to $2000 per lb. Or LOX 1000 and LH 4000 and with 1 to 6, making LH & LOX lunar rocket fuel: $1428 per lb at surface, and lunar LOX exported to high earth orbit around $4000 per lb.
Which doesn't mean lunar rocket fuel can't be more expensive, particularly in beginning, but I mean in terms of within a 10 year period. Or most of lunar LOX made and sold at lunar surface within the first 10 years, would need to be around $1000- 2000 per lb.

So NASA develops a depot in LEO, explores Moon to find water, completes lunar exploration within 10 years, then explores Mars and perhaps finishes it's Mars exploration within 20 year.
And if the Moon has minable water, at time NASA has explored Mars for 20 years, one could have 10 years of lunar mining with lunar surface LOX at around $500 to $1000 per lb and more than 1000 tonnes per year being exported from the Moon- with large fraction of +1000 tons being rocket fuel.

And such situation makes various investments in the Moon very likely, and also makes Mars settlement more likely.
« Last Edit: 08/05/2014 07:05 pm by gbaikie »

Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #91 on: 09/04/2014 05:22 am »
http://www.space.com/27009-electric-moon-sparks-lunar-dirt.html

" To confirm whether sparking happens on the moon and elsewhere, Jordan noted that "sparks give off electromagnetic radiation at many wavelengths, including visible and radio waves, so in principle they are detectable. Detecting them during a large solar energetic particle event may require a combination of ground- and space-based observations."

In addition, "having shown that breakdown weathering is a possibility, we'd like to quantify better how it might affect the soil," Jordan said. "We're working to find out how much of the soil in permanently shadowed regions may have been affected and compare that to what meteorites do.""

Offline yg1968

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« Last Edit: 09/24/2014 03:13 pm by yg1968 »

Offline RanulfC

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #93 on: 09/24/2014 09:21 pm »
gbaikie;

Lunar economics may (probably will) be based less on water than on LOX and Lunar sourced materials that don't require "exportation" of water based products. Water at the poles and in the regolith enables easier on-site exploitation but it would really be better to reserver exports to materials that are in abundance and not source limited which the polar cold traps are. There are a LOT of products possible from the Moon:
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_LunarEconomy.pdf%20
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_Earth.pdf
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_construction.pdf
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_ArtsCrafts.pdf

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline Patchouli

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #94 on: 09/25/2014 05:26 am »
True LOX can pretty much be made anywhere on the moon including the easier to access equator regions.

Besides just LOX ISRU alone could save a lot of mass on missions.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #95 on: 09/25/2014 09:10 am »
gbaikie;

Lunar economics may (probably will) be based less on water than on LOX and Lunar sourced materials that don't require "exportation" of water based products. Water at the poles and in the regolith enables easier on-site exploitation but it would really be better to reserver exports to materials that are in abundance and not source limited which the polar cold traps are. There are a LOT of products possible from the Moon:
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_LunarEconomy.pdf%20
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_Earth.pdf
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_construction.pdf
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_ArtsCrafts.pdf

Randy
The aspect of exportation of lunar rocket fuel [which could be just the LOX component of rocket fuel] is related increasing market share.
I regard exportation of lunar rocket fuel, necessary because it triples the market for lunar rocket fuel.
And the main problem is selling enough rocket fuel per year.
Or roughly one should get to point of selling 100 tons of water [or more] per year within 5 years. If it could be 1000 tons within 5 years, that is obviously better, but it seems it should take at least decade before one could sell 1000 tons of water per year.
Also it seems if one could sell 100 tons of water per year within 5 years without exporting lunar rocket fuel, than the "natural consequence" will be to export lunar fuel to triple your gross profit.
Or without the business being supported without subsidy one can't afford low yearly production of rocket fuel.
So basically a lunar base isn't enough demand, though if one is already mining water commercially, a lunar base could be another market- and by having water and rocket available one has allowed the cost of lunar base to be quite cheap. So for example with lunar rocket fuel and water available on lunar surface,
then 10 billion dollar lunar base with yearly operational cost of 1 billion dollars should be doable. And it might use 10 to 20 tons of fresh water per year, and perhaps 10 to 20 ton of lunar rocket fuel per year.
Or if one had to ship total 20,000 kg of rocket fuel and water to lunar base, and getting it for cheap price of $10,000 per kg- that's 200 million. That would large chunk of operational cost and is wildly optimistic, and is allowing for crew number of 2 or less.
Whereas if lunar mining is already occurring, a lunar base cost for water, would be far less than NASA pays for water on ISS. Or it's a insignificant cost.
If one is mining water and exporting to lunar orbit, then addition to low cost of water and rocket fuel at lunar surface for use of a lunar base, one has also lowered the cost of getting all the stuff of the lunar base to lunar surface.
But in any case a lunar base is not enough demand for lunar rocket fuel or water.
Nor can lunar rocket fuel be the entire lunar economy. Instead, lunar water may be about 5% or less, rocket fuel might be another 5%, electrical power could be about 5%. Exporting lunar material- lunar samples, precious metals, He-3, and whatever about 5 to 10%. Tourism: 5 to 10%. additional lunar exploration 5 to 10%. Lunar projects: telescopes, mass drivers [or one can use less rocket fuel] and whatever [say someone want to build Nuclear Orions]. Transportation off the Moon and on to it, and across lunar surfaces.
The future of the Moon would include involvement making parts or entire satellites for Earth orbit. Or if you want a big satellites [including SPS] building them on the Moon could make economic sense at some point. And governments or large satellite  makers are probably at some point in time, foresee this future potential [once lunar water mining begins]. And after 5 or 10 years of lunar water mining, such forward leaning plans could be 5% to 50% of money spent related lunar activity.
Another potential large revenue/investment could be related to all things Martian- in terms what can be done on the Moon related to Mars. Or NASA manned Mars program could be about 25% of lunar revenue- in terms of water and in terms of rocket fuel both for getting to Mars from Earth and getting from Mars orbit back to Earth or to Mars surface.
And then got stuff related to asteroid mining.
The point of lunar mining water mining is providing what we need most right now- which is rocket fuel.
And making the total cost of doing this as cheap as possible. And part of cheap as possible, has to include that there are things with higher value that are going to be done, which are enabled by having rocket fuel
available to do it.
« Last Edit: 09/25/2014 09:15 am by gbaikie »

Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #96 on: 09/26/2014 12:17 pm »
Going beyond even 450 kms altitude is not even certain within the next 3 decades, never mind any particular rock being inevitable!

That said, if they can't create the capability ($$$) to go to the Moon, forget Mars.

Exactly, if you think the moon is expensive Mars will be 5-10 times more expensive.

Obviously the costs need to come down, way down.  But also, the way to get beyond LEO is beyond the vision of a single POTUS.  It has be a multi-term sustained effort.  In that regard I think the slow steady approach of designing and building the required parts, put them on the shelf, Orion, SLS, J-2X, RS-25E etc. is key.

That way at some point all you need is a lander and surface hardware.  That is within a single administration's ability.

I think the stated goal of a lunar outpost should be just to become as self sustainable as possible.  They would have to produce energy, oxygen, harvest trace elements of hydrogen and oxygen etc.  I'm not the biggest fan boy of 3D printing but there are things that it is well suited.  If

It would take years to build up capacity but for the country(ies) that establish that ability that is the multiplier that opens up Mars, asteroids and on it goes.

A quick and cheap way to start would be a series of 1 year competitions between universities and companies to test on earth technologies for extracting and refining (simulated) regolith into useful feed stocks.  I think they need to be done on a 1 year cycle so that the number of cycles and opportunity to learn from one cycle to the next is increased.  I think within 4-5 years you'd have a solid idea what ideas are more solid and work on those with larger competitions and prizes.  Not just theory and paper but actually build something and make feedstocks.

This would be vastly more interesting than the ISS.
Wildly optimistic prediction, Superheavy recovery on IFT-4 or IFT-5

Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #97 on: 09/26/2014 07:31 pm »
Science Channel Man vs Universe had some nice looks at GLPX and lunar mining hardware.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #98 on: 09/27/2014 04:10 am »
Going beyond even 450 kms altitude is not even certain within the next 3 decades, never mind any particular rock being inevitable!

That said, if they can't create the capability ($$$) to go to the Moon, forget Mars.

Exactly, if you think the moon is expensive Mars will be 5-10 times more expensive.

Obviously the costs need to come down, way down.  But also, the way to get beyond LEO is beyond the vision of a single POTUS.  It has be a multi-term sustained effort.  In that regard I think the slow steady approach of designing and building the required parts, put them on the shelf, Orion, SLS, J-2X, RS-25E etc. is key.

That way at some point all you need is a lander and surface hardware.  That is within a single administration's ability.

I think the sequence is we first need fuel depot.
Or we first need to do what ISS should done.
Anyhow, the fuel depot should be at 28 inclination and it should be robotic [not needing crew to refuel spacecraft].
Next point, is we need to explore the Moon before even thinking of any lunar base.

And to explore the Moon we should begin by using robotic missions.
So, need robotic fuel depot in LEO and need robotic lunar exploration.
The problem with people who advocate robot vs manned, is they made the assumption robotics
can do everything. It's about a dumb as thinking one have factory which only has robotics, rather than
a factory which uses robotic [but you don't insist that no humans are involved at all]
So the fuel depot can mostly about robotic operation, but one may have humans going to it, and one might humans "fixing it" and generally manned missions can be involved with it's construction, and operation, but you want the depot able to dock fuel and refuel spacecraft without it being crewed-  so it could function just via teleoperation and robotic operations for fueling spacecraft.

So the lunar exploration program would start emphasis on robotics, first in regards to depots, followed by robotic craft refueling and then going to the Moon.
During this time one can continue ISS- so you still have manned program. And manned program during this time is also gearing up to do manned lunar exploration.
But by the time one going to do manned lunar exploration which will be followed by Mars manned exploration, one has to do something with ISS.
I think it's a very bad idea to deorbit ISS, so doing something with ISS is mothballing it. Which is basically putting it into a higher orbit so that it does not need to be reboosted. So a higher orbit which doesn't have earth's atmospheric drag. And it seems one would have put it above the Van Allen belts. Putting in the Van Allen belts would be more mothballing then I mean, because I think ISS should available for countries to use, but want the option that the US does need to involved with running ISS at it's current cost of about 3 billion per year cost. So instead US could spend 1/2 billion per year [or no money in a year related to ISS, but have future option to use it [or US private sector could be permitted to use it].
So one think of cost of mothballing/putting in higher orbit as investment for future potential use, and it should be worth a few billion dollar in upfront cost to do this.
Instead of 1/2 billion or more spent de-orbiting it, one spends far more than this but one has ISS for indefinite period of time [more than couple decades into the future] .
So as far as term of president, the first term could be establishing depot, and beginning robotic lunar exploration, and second term could be mothballing ISS, and doing crew exploration of the Moon.
And next president can do Mars robotic missions in first term, and second term send first crew to Mars.

Note, the main advantage of using crew is one can do more exploration in a shorter period of time.
« Last Edit: 09/27/2014 04:27 am by gbaikie »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #99 on: 09/28/2014 05:28 pm »
Has the obvious been mentioned, yet? We DID do the Moon first!
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Offline TakeOff

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #100 on: 10/19/2014 06:41 am »
The Moon will win because in any situation where space exploration is considered, the Moon will be cheaper, sooner, safer and simpler than Mars. The relative value of Mars and the Moon is not important, it is the doability which will win the day early on.

The Moon is a great science target, considering that it was formed from Earth and has very early Earth meteorites on its surface. And a strange "geology" which could help understand Earth geology better. But Mars is a superior target in several ways. It is more Earth like, it has atmosphere, it has reasonable gravity, it might have traces of life. And most of all, it is a planet. While the Moon just circles us, Mars is really out there on its own. The Moon has a potential as a local base, but Mars is the first stepping stone to the Solar system. The fact that Mars is up to a thousand times further away than the Moon is, is not only a problem, it is a logistical asset too.

But I think that for practical reasons, today's Mars hysteria will be replaced by explorations of the Moon. Mars is nice on paper today, but when it comes down to nuts and bolts and bricks the Moon will be the thing to go to.

Btw, the rational way to settle space would be to build space stations as we would want to have them, instead of trying to adapt to some rocky place. But since it is possible to walk on Mars and the Moon, people will not be able to let go of the thought of actually doing that. It is an unstoppable instinct. It's human behavior to go to the Moon and to Mars.
« Last Edit: 10/19/2014 06:45 am by TakeOff »

Offline TakeOff

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #101 on: 10/19/2014 06:52 am »
I don't understand the argument that exploring the Moon would help us explore Mars too. The differences between the Moon and Mars are huge: Distance, atmosphere, dust, gravity, day/night. One cannot use the same lander or space suite or transfer vehicle or habitation module or temperature controls or energy source or communication system or bloody anything on both places! Even the Apollo rover would collapse in Mars' gravity. A trip to Mars has nothing to learn from a trip to the Moon. They are two completely different things. Like flying or diving.

And because the Moon is easier, we will explore the Moon first and it won't help us at all to get closer to Mars.
« Last Edit: 10/19/2014 06:56 am by TakeOff »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #102 on: 10/19/2014 12:48 pm »
I don't understand the argument that exploring the Moon would help us explore Mars too. The differences between the Moon and Mars are huge: Distance, atmosphere, dust, gravity, day/night. One cannot use the same lander or space suite or transfer vehicle or habitation module or temperature controls or energy source or communication system or bloody anything on both places! Even the Apollo rover would collapse in Mars' gravity. A trip to Mars has nothing to learn from a trip to the Moon. They are two completely different things. Like flying or diving.

And because the Moon is easier, we will explore the Moon first and it won't help us at all to get closer to Mars.

I think commercial suborbital joyrides will help, in regards to going to both Moon and Mars.
Though NASA is not doing suborbital joyrides. Space exploration and activities related to space is
not just about NASA. Give example, NASA launches of all non-crewed payloads are on rockets designed and built for US military [primarily] and for commercial satellite business. So all probes sent to Mars were not sent on "NASA rockets" nor will they be.
And it's nonsense to imagine that everything sent to Mars in a Mars Manned program will be sent on SLS.
Next way Lunar exploration it helps, is regarding the question, will Congress ever fund a Mars Manned Program.
Now what I would advocate is a cheap and short term lunar exploration program- so less than 10 year and less than 40 billion total spent. One reason I think this is good approach, is because Congress could actually want to fund it. And it could began now [or years ago]. And part of how I see it, Mars is the lunar exploration program, "exit strategy" or in addition to going to war, I think good idea to have exit strategy
on a program. So do, a,b,c, and then "d" is focus on exploring Mars. So the bureaucracy knows where it's going, and can move in that direction before finishing the Lunar exploration program. So it helpful in terms of what to do with the NASA workforce. Or NASA doesn't spend a decade wandering in the wilderness after doing something.
Third, the most important and critical aspect about a Mars exploration program will related to fuel depots.
One could go to the Moon without fuel depots, can't do it with Mars. But that doesn't stop people from imagining they can go to Mars without first establish the operations involved with fuel depots.
But it's a good idea, to use fuel depots for Lunar exploration- particularly when one realize that after the Moon you going to Mars.
So before doing a major lunar program, NASA should first establish the use of fuel depots, and than go to Moon, and then go to Mars.
Before human land on Mars, it probably be wise to get a Mars return sample- and with depots one could more easily do a Mars return sample. In fact many different type of robotic missions would be made easier [or possible] if there were fuel depots.
« Last Edit: 10/19/2014 12:49 pm by gbaikie »

Online TrevorMonty

Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #103 on: 10/19/2014 08:41 pm »
I like the idea of NASA developing a L1 gate station plus lander and maybe lunar base using COTS approach. Don't own any of the assets just pay for placement and lease them for a set period eg 5-10 years. This allows them to walk away at the end ie exit strategy.
Hopefully a substantial commercial/ tourist industry will use infrastructure to get established.

If Bigelow's private LEO stations prove a success I can see support for this approach. Bigelow's should bring in a lot of foreign cash into US especially as main customers will be other nations, not to mention all tourists.

Offline turbopumpfeedback

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #104 on: 10/23/2014 09:18 pm »
At the moment it is neither Moon nor Mars. For me it was a sobering, that people (including me) were ready to skip the moon because we thought it has no water. But it has an unexpected amount.

So, I think at the moment lets just study the Moon from the point of view of ISRU, and then if it is not possible to make an international lunar base with the cost of under 3x the cost of ISS then, I think we will have to wait for a new technology. But, then it its completely unpredictable if the next step is base/colony on the Moon or Mars first.

Mars is much much harder than the Moon: even sample return from Mars is the stuff of fantasy, while sample return from the Moon is considered boring. So the only way for Mars mission is one way trip. But this will not happen. If you is ready to ignore the Moon it means you are not serious, and if you are not serious you will not take actions...

Predictions aside, there is one thing that fascinates me about the Moon. It is possible to make a reusable single stage orbital vehicle (assuming fuel, materials and base on the surface). Then you just assemble a huge ship in lunar orbit from materials from the Moon and then you go in style to Mars, Callisto and Titan :-)

Anyway, I don't think there will be another person on the Moon or first person on Mars in my lifetime, i.e. before 2050. (But hey, there is ISS and the race between Boeing and SpaceX to take the flag there fun fun fun :-))








« Last Edit: 10/23/2014 10:08 pm by Carl G »

Offline QuantumG

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #105 on: 10/24/2014 12:08 am »
Welcome to the forum. Great first post!
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline muomega0

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #106 on: 10/24/2014 01:43 am »
At the moment it is neither Moon nor Mars. For me it was a sobering, that people (including me) were ready to skip the moon because we thought it has no water. But it has an unexpected amount.

So, I think at the moment lets just study the Moon from the point of view of ISRU, and then if it is not possible to make an international lunar base with the cost of under 3x the cost of ISS then, I think we will have to wait for a new technology. But, then it its completely unpredictable if the next step is base/colony on the Moon or Mars first.

Mars is much much harder than the Moon: even sample return from Mars is the stuff of fantasy, while sample return from the Moon is considered boring. So the only way for Mars mission is one way trip. But this will not happen. If you is ready to ignore the Moon it means you are not serious, and if you are not serious you will not take actions...

Predictions aside, there is one thing that fascinates me about the Moon. It is possible to make a reusable single stage orbital vehicle (assuming fuel, materials and base on the surface). Then you just assemble a huge ship in lunar orbit from materials from the Moon and then you go in style to Mars, Callisto and Titan :-)
Lets see 3*100B and betting it all in ISRU.  if the $140B ISRU achieves 1000mT L2 propellant/yr, then it may break even by 2040 or so, assuming someone could actually use 1000 mT of propellant in L2 or LEO per year.  $140B would buy quite a bit of propellant and would help address the dozens of other challenges need to head beyond the moon.  Establish ISRU feasibility first with demo project?  The hardware necessary to build space stations in orbit of all the planets, most the moons, and all the planetary Lagrange points are nearly identical.  The IRSU hardware from all of the asteroids are nearly identical. OTOH, manned landing missions on any of the high gravity well objects in the solar system are all very specific

By staging the propellant with high ISP EP tugs, perhaps heavier cargo can be landed on Mars and its moons and the crew can travel faster with chemical propulsion within the existing mass and cost budget.  In addition, a space infrastructure is established that focuses on reuse rather than expendable hardware to keep the in-space and IMLEO transportation costs reasonable.

The Moon will win because in any situation where space exploration is considered, the Moon will be cheaper, sooner, safer and simpler than Mars.
Not with the current architecture. The technologies to arrive on the surface of the moon have well already been developed several decades ago and have been transferred to 'commercial' companies.  Perhaps more work on  Economic Access to Space is in order to make the business case close.
   
I don't understand the argument that exploring the Moon would help us explore Mars too. The differences between the Moon and Mars are huge: Distance, atmosphere, dust, gravity, day/night. One cannot use the same lander or space suite or transfer vehicle or habitation module or temperature controls or energy source or communication system or bloody anything on both places! Even the Apollo rover would collapse in Mars' gravity. A trip to Mars has nothing to learn from a trip to the Moon. They are two completely different things. Like flying or diving.
And because the Moon is easier, we will explore the Moon first and it won't help us at all to get closer to Mars.
The direction is Mars and beyond, with a new reuseable, launch vehicle independent architecture, with probable participation of the private sector

Perhaps some is in order.
« Last Edit: 10/24/2014 01:50 pm by muomega0 »

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #107 on: 10/24/2014 03:04 am »
At the moment it is neither Moon nor Mars. For me it was a sobering, that people (including me) were ready to skip the moon because we thought it has no water. But it has an unexpected amount.

So, I think at the moment lets just study the Moon from the point of view of ISRU, and then if it is not possible to make an international lunar base with the cost of under 3x the cost of ISS then, I think we will have to wait for a new technology. But, then it its completely unpredictable if the next step is base/colony on the Moon or Mars first.
{snip}

The Moon may be short of hydrogen and carbon but there are plenty of oxides.  So we can make oxygen.

If you are will to be adventurous materials like aluminium dust be be burnt.  It has a low Isp but not impossibly low.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #108 on: 10/24/2014 03:23 am »
At the moment it is neither Moon nor Mars. For me it was a sobering, that people (including me) were ready to skip the moon because we thought it has no water. But it has an unexpected amount.

So, I think at the moment lets just study the Moon from the point of view of ISRU, and then if it is not possible to make an international lunar base with the cost of under 3x the cost of ISS then, I think we will have to wait for a new technology. But, then it its completely unpredictable if the next step is base/colony on the Moon or Mars first.

Mars is much much harder than the Moon: even sample return from Mars is the stuff of fantasy, while sample return from the Moon is considered boring. So the only way for Mars mission is one way trip. But this will not happen. If you is ready to ignore the Moon it means you are not serious, and if you are not serious you will not take actions...

Predictions aside, there is one thing that fascinates me about the Moon. It is possible to make a reusable single stage orbital vehicle (assuming fuel, materials and base on the surface). Then you just assemble a huge ship in lunar orbit from materials from the Moon and then you go in style to Mars, Callisto and Titan :-)
It's possible to make a single stage which delivers payload to Lunar orbit, and returns to the Moon empty-
to get more rocket fuel. Of course with rocket fuel at lunar orbit the single stage could refuel and land on the moon with a payload.
But it also is not necessary to use a single stage. One could have two stages, one adds say 500 m/s [1116 mph] and then returns in short period of time to the lunar surface. Since total delta-v to low lunar orbit is about +1600 m/s, the 500 or 400 m/s would increase the efficiency of the payload of the rocket.

Edit: The Virgin Galactic, SpaceShipTwo has about 1000 m/s of delta-v.
And you could say White Knight Two adds what is equal to about 600 m/s to the SpaceShipTwo's 
total suborbital flight. Or from ground and about 1600 m/s delta-v, one should able to do a suborbital
flight.
Quote
Anyway, I don't think there will be another person on the Moon or first person on Mars in my lifetime, i.e. before 2050. (But hey, there is ISS and the race between Boeing and SpaceX to take the flag there fun fun fun :-))

I think it's reasonably possible we could have commercial lunar water mining within 20 years. And have manned Mars just about same time as commercial lunar water mining- and it will be like chicken and egg question- which caused which. I would answer the question that it was *mostly* commercial lunar water mining which enabled Mars Manned exploration [at least in terms faster or as a practical matter] and certainly was only reason people could afterwards, make settlements on  Mars.
« Last Edit: 10/24/2014 03:45 am by gbaikie »

Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #109 on: 10/28/2014 02:45 pm »
...and then if it is not possible to make an international lunar base with the cost of under 3x the cost of ISS then, I think we will have to wait for a new technology.

I think it has be less than the cost of ISS.  Maybe half the cost or less.  That of course can only happen with lower launch costs.

No government is going to spend $300 billion to mine moon dust or lunar water. 

If the price is low enough (not cheap or super low) then makes a reasonable goal.

Long term the only reason why it will make sense to go to the ISS, Moon or Mars is if a resource found there can justify the expense to go and work there.  ISS only offers weightlessness.  The moon has plenty of minerals to mine, refine and use there or ship back to earth. 

I wish someone would create a video game for Lunar ISRU.  How much external resources are needed and how best to build up capacity on the lunar surface. 

A high level of automation will be used for surface operations.  Those operations produce feedstock that get turned into, using 3D printing, more equipment and power generating capacity.

The country that sees that path and can make it happen will hold a multi-century, maybe permanent lead in the off earth part of human history. 
Wildly optimistic prediction, Superheavy recovery on IFT-4 or IFT-5

Offline SpacemanInSPACE

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #110 on: 01/25/2015 01:38 pm »
If the purpose of going was for planetary research, Mars would make sense as we know much about the moon already.

But regarding a colony, the moon has the single most advantage of being a temporary visit. I would think more people would rather pay a lot to visit the moon than sell everything to move to mars.

Plenty of activities on the moon. Enjoying the low gravity, touring the Apollo sites, exploring the landscape to find those alien structures, and gazing at the beautiful view of earth and the stars.
Space is worth it God Damnit!

Offline daveklingler

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #111 on: 01/25/2015 02:01 pm »
For exploration, the Moon and Mars are great, and as far as that goes, I think any kind of human asteroid exploration is going to capture people's imaginations in a way that will surprise everyone whenever it happens.  Humans gallivanting about asteroids also has an inherent practical value that the Moon and Mars don't have.

But I have a feeling that over the next 20-30 years, if we begin to develop a manned orbital infrastructure, someone will get around to building an artificial 1g station.  At that point it will begin to sink into our collective consciousness that we can build 1g pressurized and well-shielded habitats anywhere we please, and space colonies on the Moon and Mars will remain mostly unrealized dreams for a damned good reason - because they're silly. 

The reason we endlessly argue over the Moon and Mars is because neither one of them makes any real sense.  They're both tremendously impractical, require huge investments and yield something totally unsatisfactory, an inferior place for humans to live at the bottom of another gravity well.  Exploring them is one thing, but living on either place is harder than living on, say, the bottom of the Marianis Trench.  I don't see anyone bringing THAT up as an alternative...  :)

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #112 on: 01/27/2015 10:00 am »
...and then if it is not possible to make an international lunar base with the cost of under 3x the cost of ISS then, I think we will have to wait for a new technology.

I think it has be less than the cost of ISS.  Maybe half the cost or less.  That of course can only happen with lower launch costs.

No government is going to spend $300 billion to mine moon dust or lunar water. 
Correct.
But no government should spend 50 billion to mine moon dust and/or lunar water.
Instead government should spend at most about 20 billion for rocket fuel and water.
For a manned Mars program.
And for the manned program it should buy at EML-1. And not on lunar surface.
Or if going to Mars, lunar rocket fuel is worth more if at EML-1.

What NASA should spend about 40 billion on is exploring the lunar surface.

And the 40 billion should be spent on getting most exploration for that 40 billion dollars.
One lunar base could cost more than 40 billion. So don't build a lunar base.

But if NASA were to do a good job of building a lunar base, then NASA should first spend
somewhere around 40 billion dollars doing the exploring of the Moon to find best place to
put a base.
So skip the base and just do the exploration.
Where one would want to build a lunar base is where there was minable lunar water,
so don't build base, look for lunar water.
And what want to do is do a good job of finding most minable lunar water that is possible.

And maybe at some point in the future, Congress could want [and pay] for NASA to build a lunar base.
[So while NASA exploring Mars, and congress wants Lunar base, NASA says, add 25% to budget and we will get right on it]

But I am saying  NASA just explores the Moon using robotic and Manned missions, and builds bases
for Mars.
So Lunar exploration can be viewed as testbed for Mars program.
So primary mission is to determine where and if there is minable water. Which requires robotic
missions and manned follow up missions. And manned mission, would have as one part of it,
lunar sample return.
And if want to divide lunar program in terms of robotic vs Manned in dollar amounts, then one spends about 20 billion on robotic and 20 billion on manned. So big on robotics and relatively small on Manned.

And one going to roughly do the same with the mars exploration- big on the robotic.
So one testbed part of lunar exploration would will working out teleoperation and having the crew work with robotic missions.

Or once one has crew on Mars, you are no longer going to have the time delay disadvantage with robotic operation on Mars. So this essentially makes robotic operations on Mars *better*.
Or why would send crew and then stop sending robotic missions to Mars- that is backwards. Once got crew there, one wants to send a lot robotic missions to Mars.

So would NASA find minable lunar water. We don't know. But it seems commercial lunar mining can have better chance of making the mining profitable. And supposing a miracle, that NASA could "profitable mine lunar water", what is predictable, is Congress will instruct NASA to stop doing it because it could be done commercially.
Or there no way NASA can win at the game of mining lunar water- NASA is not suppose to do things which are commercially profitable.
So not having NASA plan to mine lunar water, nor plan on base will save time and money.
And major part is the time saved.
Which gets back to idea of low launch cost. It's not needed. Instead what will lower cost on lunar program
is finishing it in shortest time possible- which goes against the whole idea of a lunar base.
Why build lunar base if only going to be on the Moon for less than 5 years?

An other aspect is spend more time doing robotic part and less time doing manned part of program.
Now with Mars exploration one will spend a lot of time doing robotic and manned- it required- assuming one wants to do reasonable amount of Mars exploration.

So front load Lunar program with cheaper robotic program [and robotic programs take more time] and during this time one can continue with ISS {a manned program}, you end ISS when do lunar manned, and when lunar manned ends one starts Mars manned. And with ISS ended, on has funding to start Mars robotic while doing lunar Manned.
Once NASA exploration the moon, further analysis can done, and private sector can decide where and if
lunar water is minable. And part of business plans can include selling rocket fuel and water to be used
on Mars exploration program.

« Last Edit: 01/27/2015 10:23 am by gbaikie »

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #113 on: 01/27/2015 10:30 am »
What NASA should spend about 40 billion on is exploring the lunar surface.

what about other space agencies joining the effort?

Or once one has crew on Mars, you are no longer going to have the time delay disadvantage with robotic operation on Mars. So this essentially makes robotic operations on Mars *better*.

A couple of considerations:

(1) if a permanent Moon base is too costly for NASA, why Mars exploration should be ok, when you need long term survival infrastructure (aka something very similar to a base) there to do the exploration?

(2) how can you predict that Moon exploration will last just 5 years? It's a big celestial body! Again, I can get the example of inner Antarctica: we are still there after 50 years and more, and the number of researches increased in geometrical fashion, at the point that we have way more stations on the inner continent today than in the past, and the current South Pole can accomodate more than 100 researchers during winter. You cannot say now what would happen should we have a Moon station. It's a big celestial body, and it is reasonable to guess that once we get there the number of possible scientific usages will increase with time.

(3) Even if Moon exploration can last just 5 years, on which basis you can say that Mars exploration will take longer?

Said that, I agree with you that I really cannot see human presence on Moon (or Mars) other than for scientific purposes. Maybe tourism, but I have not seen a credible business plan to develop an industry there.

But I have a feeling that over the next 20-30 years, if we begin to develop a manned orbital infrastructure, someone will get around to building an artificial 1g station.  At that point it will begin to sink into our collective consciousness that we can build 1g pressurized and well-shielded habitats anywhere we please, and space colonies on the Moon and Mars will remain mostly unrealized dreams for a damned good reason - because they're silly. 

The problem is you assume a 1g station make sense. To do what? Even the tiny microgravity researches are difficult to do there.

Exploration is valuable as long as you do research. What for a 1g station? For fun? To replicate the conditions on the ground but with a spectacular view? I would call this "silly"...
« Last Edit: 01/27/2015 10:35 am by pagheca »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #114 on: 01/27/2015 11:15 am »
What NASA should spend about 40 billion on is exploring the lunar surface.

what about other space agencies joining the effort?
Only problem I see with it, is the possibility it might slow down the lunar program. But seems less of problem in this regard with robotic part of program [one might need other countries with their capacity to build various robotic missions in order to do robotic part fast enough]

Or once one has crew on Mars, you are no longer going to have the time delay disadvantage with robotic operation on Mars. So this essentially makes robotic operations on Mars *better*.
Quote
A couple of considerations:

(1) if a permanent Moon base is too costly for NASA, why Mars exploration should be ok, when you need long term survival infrastructure (aka something very similar to a base) there to do the exploration?
Well I see advantage of doing low cost manned lunar, is to get the political will to do the more expensive
Mars. Or a part of testbed of lunar program is testing NASA ability to do things in timely and low cost fashion.
And I see doing lunar base as going in opposite direction in terms of getting more political will.
The amount money is not important- NASA should be getting double it's budget [if world were fair/nice/ or compared what else Congress is pissing money at].
Another thing is someone could asked why spending all this *for* money grubbing capitalist- and short answer is American public are money grubbing capitalists. So, NASA showing "why" explore space. And Mars is just further out in time, in terms commercial prospects- and is connected to gateway moon.

Quote
(2) how can you predict that Moon exploration will last just 5 years? It's a big celestial body! Again, I can get the example of inner Antarctica: we are still there after 50 years and more, and the number of researches increased in geometrical fashion, at the point that we have way more stations on the inner continent today than in the past, and the current South Pole can accomodate more than 100 researchers during winter. You cannot say now what would happen should we have a Moon station. It's a big celestial body, and it is reasonable to guess that once we get there the number of possible scientific usages will increase with time.
I would put time period as being less than 10 years. First 6 to 7 year robotic, then 2-3 year crewed and robotic lunar exploration.
What is being explored is lunar poles- about size of California. Antarctic is 150% of continental US.
But California is pretty big- so a reason one wants to start/focus with robotics.
Mars on other hand is same land area as all Earth land area.
And I envision much exploration of the Moon, once there is commercial lunar water mining.
But idea is not to have NASA bogged down on the Moon- and don't have political fight with those who want Mars. And Moon and then Mars has been passed by US congress [and I like the idea].
And I want more billionaires like Musk to do things on the Moon. It's going to be hard to do- need lots
of world's talent to do it.

Quote
(3) Even if Moon exploration can last just 5 years, on which basis you can say that Mars exploration will take longer?
If Mars settlers show up, I think, NASA should consider shifting it's priority. I just think it's better if NASA gets to Mars before settlers show up [and possibly die]. I think what needs to be explored on Mars is cheap water. Which points to pumping water from the ground [rather than digging up permafrost- maybe permafrost is only option, but I think exploration could find other options].
And/or if one get lunar water mining, that will speed up possibility of Mars settlers.
Quote
Said that, I agree with you that I really cannot see human presence on Moon (or Mars) other than for scientific purposes. Maybe tourism, but I have not seen a credible business plan to develop an industry there.
I see Mars having cheaper water than Earth*. And SPS within a century.
And fun really beginning with asteroid mining.

*Or some places on Mars with cheaper water than some places on Earth which has most
expensive water.
« Last Edit: 01/27/2015 11:52 am by gbaikie »

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #115 on: 01/27/2015 02:25 pm »
I would put time period as being less than 10 years. First 6 to 7 year robotic, then 2-3 year crewed and robotic lunar exploration.
What is being explored is lunar poles- about size of California. Antarctic is 150% of continental US.
But California is pretty big- so a reason one wants to start/focus with robotics.
Mars on other hand is same land area as all Earth land area.
And I envision much exploration of the Moon, once there is commercial lunar water mining.
But idea is not to have NASA bogged down on the Moon- and don't have political fight with those who want Mars. And Moon and then Mars has been passed by US congress [and I like the idea].
And I want more billionaires like Musk to do things on the Moon. It's going to be hard to do- need lots
of world's talent to do it.

(1) Most of inner Antarctica is covered by thick ice. This made Antarctic exploration quite different from almost any other continent in the world. For this reason, most of Antarctica has never been visited by a man and real "exploration" is only needed in a fraction of its mostly featureless territory In this sense, just in this sense, Moon exploration can be very different and it may require much more time to explore the very different features available there, left in much better conditions than on Earth from the lack of an atmosphere (although other effects are obviously in action to impact on its surface characteristics).

(2) Also, consider there is some potential for other sciences, like astronomy, but not only, on the dark side, as an alternative to satellites and probes, just like in Antarctica, that has become one of the few best sites in the world, although not in optical astronomy, as it was hoped at the beginning because of a very turbulent layer found relatively recently. For example, long baseline interferometry may results much more feasible on the Moon than on Earth, in orbit or even Mars. This may really develop only as soon as a permanent infrastructure is available. Moreover, the crust and even the ice of the polar cap maybe of invaluable relevance for those studying the origin of the solar system. If ice is found on the polar cap I guess it could really become exciting and handy to analyze samples found at various location.

Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #116 on: 01/27/2015 06:11 pm »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #117 on: 01/28/2015 02:36 pm »
I would put time period as being less than 10 years. First 6 to 7 year robotic, then 2-3 year crewed and robotic lunar exploration.
What is being explored is lunar poles- about size of California. Antarctic is 150% of continental US.
But California is pretty big- so a reason one wants to start/focus with robotics.
Mars on other hand is same land area as all Earth land area.
And I envision much exploration of the Moon, once there is commercial lunar water mining.
But idea is not to have NASA bogged down on the Moon- and don't have political fight with those who want Mars. And Moon and then Mars has been passed by US congress [and I like the idea].
And I want more billionaires like Musk to do things on the Moon. It's going to be hard to do- need lots
of world's talent to do it.

(1) Most of inner Antarctica is covered by thick ice. This made Antarctic exploration quite different from almost any other continent in the world. For this reason, most of Antarctica has never been visited by a man and real "exploration" is only needed in a fraction of its mostly featureless territory In this sense, just in this sense, Moon exploration can be very different and it may require much more time to explore the very different features available there, left in much better conditions than on Earth from the lack of an atmosphere (although other effects are obviously in action to impact on its surface characteristics).

(2) Also, consider there is some potential for other sciences, like astronomy, but not only, on the dark side, as an alternative to satellites and probes, just like in Antarctica, that has become one of the few best sites in the world, although not in optical astronomy, as it was hoped at the beginning because of a very turbulent layer found relatively recently. For example, long baseline interferometry may results much more feasible on the Moon than on Earth, in orbit or even Mars. This may really develop only as soon as a permanent infrastructure is available. Moreover, the crust and even the ice of the polar cap maybe of invaluable relevance for those studying the origin of the solar system. If ice is found on the polar cap I guess it could really become exciting and handy to analyze samples found at various location.

The inherent vast potential of our Moon, appears to me, to be hindrance to lunar exploration and
therefore I believe NASA needs paid attention to the need to limit it's exploration of the Moon to being mostly about exploration of minable lunar water.

It seems to me the American public should be willing to spend say 10 billion dollars for a through exploration of the moon to determine whether there is minable water.
But apparently it can't. Instead it's option appears to be that the American people should assign NASA should do this task.
And instead of about 10 billion, it's going to cost about 40 billion.
If the American public wishes to establish a different organization to explore the Moon [and thereby have it cost less 40 billion explore the Moon to determine whether there is minable lunar water] that could be option which has some merits. But there are political problems related to this and therefore such problems
could easily make it not a good option.
So, I don't think it's realistic option, unless some vast and unlikely political talent materializes.
Or it appear, America and it's government lacks the right stuff.
I think rather than expecting the right stuff to magically appear, we should work toward creating the right stuff. Or go with the army you have.
Now if there was a necessity, I have little doubt America has the right stuff. But I don't like idea of waiting for people to get to point of seeing that there is a necessity.

So what I see as quickest path is for the NASA bureaucracy to get it's act in order.  And I don't think this is just pie in the sky wishful thinking. I think I see various signs of the bureaucracy making some progress already in this direction.  And I have no real clue how precisely this is being done.

So NASA can't go to the Moon over a presidential veto, and Obama doesn't want to go to the Moon.
But then again, we aren't really ready to go to the Moon, yet.
First we need to know if we can make depots work- and again, things seem to be working [generally] in that direction. And don't imagine, Obama would veto depots- and as depots could related to go the asteroid by year 2025, thing. Or that could be a step actually done which is in that direction.

Depots seem to be fairly necessary to be able to commercially mine lunar water.
And it seems to keep costs under control there are necessity for Mars exploration program. And using depots in relation to Lunar exploration is another testbed aspects of lunar exploration relating to mars exploration. And it seems that depot use could be related to the commercial satellite market.


Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #118 on: 01/28/2015 04:39 pm »
Depots seem to be fairly necessary to be able to commercially mine lunar water.

Sorry - I may have missed some information but, why should lunar water have some commercial value??

Offline NovaSilisko

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #119 on: 01/28/2015 04:50 pm »
Depots seem to be fairly necessary to be able to commercially mine lunar water.

Sorry - I may have missed some information but, why should lunar water have some commercial value??

Conversion to LH2 and LOX for usage in propellant depots, is what I usually hear, as it's cheaper from a delta-v perspective to go from the moon's surface to LEO than earth's surface to LEO.

So I guess you'd set up the depots traditionally first, then once you've gotten a moon-mining setup, the depots suddenly get much more sustainable as they don't need launches from earth to stay topped up.
« Last Edit: 01/28/2015 04:51 pm by NovaSilisko »

Offline pagheca

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #120 on: 01/28/2015 05:14 pm »
Sorry - I may have missed some information but, why should lunar water have some commercial value??

Conversion to LH2 and LOX for usage in propellant depots, is what I usually hear, as it's cheaper from a delta-v perspective to go from the moon's surface to LEO than earth's surface to LEO.

So I guess you'd set up the depots traditionally first, then once you've gotten a moon-mining setup, the depots suddenly get much more sustainable as they don't need launches from earth to stay topped up.

Ok, I got what you mean.

However, we are talking about short term plans (you mentioned Obama). I think this kind of processes cannot be validated in time to be convenient or even used locally for the next step in space exploration.
« Last Edit: 01/28/2015 05:15 pm by pagheca »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #121 on: 01/28/2015 05:45 pm »
Depots seem to be fairly necessary to be able to commercially mine lunar water.

Sorry - I may have missed some information but, why should lunar water have some commercial value??

Conversion to LH2 and LOX for usage in propellant depots, is what I usually hear, as it's cheaper from a delta-v perspective to go from the moon's surface to LEO than earth's surface to LEO.

So I guess you'd set up the depots traditionally first, then once you've gotten a moon-mining setup, the depots suddenly get much more sustainable as they don't need launches from earth to stay topped up.

As for lunar rocket fuel being sold at LEO; it is unlikely in the near term [within 10 years of start of lunar mining] but it's cheaper to ship lunar rocket fuel to lunar orbit as compared to ship to LEO, and more expense to ship rocket fuel from Earth to lunar orbit as compared to LEO.

So for NASA exploration of the Moon and it's exploration of Mars, it would ship rocket fuel from Earth. If NASA finds lunar water which is minable, it continues shipping rocket fuel from Earth until commercial lunar mining can replace the Earth rocket fuel at competitive price.

Lunar rocket fuel could shipped to lunar orbit, EML1 and Mars orbit. And at same time, Earth rocket fuel
could still be shipped to LEO [because it's cheaper].
So NASA plans on using earth shipped rocket fuel until such time as it get it elsewhere.
And NASA isn't getting a cheap price of rocket fuel from the Moon, instead it get a competitive price of rocket fuel- and knows what is competitive price because it's already paying for rocket fuel shipped from Earth.

I think if NASA doesn't find minable water on the moon, then NASA should look at possibility of finding minable water elsewhere in space, before starting Mars exploration program, but such things could be determined while and after lunar exploration.

Since lunar rocket fuel will be about the same price as earth launched rocket fuel, NASA not going to save much money buying lunar rocket fuel- or that's not the purpose- and nor does matter much to NASA budget at what time it starts gets lunar rocket fuel.
But to anyone thinking of commercially mining lunar water, starting soon as possible is better than waiting for NASA to finish exploring Mars- because they might be able to sell it to NASA.

But it's also possible that lunar water mining is unrelated to NASA Mars exploration [NASA is not a customer]. Or lunar mining might only ship rocket fuel to low lunar orbit [and not ship to EML-1] and it's also vaguely possible that lunar rocket fuel is only used on lunar surface [not shipped to orbit] but it's a pretty big advantage to ship lunar rocket fuel to lunar orbit, because one selling a larger quality of rocket fuel- and one probably needs to mine and sell over 100 ton of water/rocket fuel per year [to be viable/profitable].

So having depot in LEO [with rocket fuel shipped from Earth] should lower one cost to go to lunar surface. And having depot at lunar orbit will also lower cost of going to lunar surface. And having rocket fuel on lunar surface will lower the cost of traveling around lunar surface, and leaving the Moon.
So one could just have lunar rocket fuel only available at surface if there enough demand for the rocket fuel- say with enough lunar tourism [and the need for return to Earth] or lot's of exporting of stuff from Moon {lunar sample for sale at Earth and/or PGM, He-3, etc}. But if exporting lunar rocket fuel one is selling more rocket fuel [3 times as much]- So getting anyone coming to lunar surface [or landing lunar base or whatever on one way]. And then if shipping lunar rocket to EMlL-1 and mars orbit, one is increasing the volume even more.

So lunar water mining is mostly about lower the costs of getting and leaving the Moon. And what important about commercial lunar mining to NASA is makes easier [politically] to do a long term Mars exploration program [which is expensive and needs to justified in order to be continued for decades].
And if one has lunar water mining [and other activity on the Moon] this makes more viable for Mars settlers.
« Last Edit: 01/28/2015 06:17 pm by gbaikie »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #122 on: 01/28/2015 06:31 pm »
Sorry - I may have missed some information but, why should lunar water have some commercial value??

Conversion to LH2 and LOX for usage in propellant depots, is what I usually hear, as it's cheaper from a delta-v perspective to go from the moon's surface to LEO than earth's surface to LEO.

So I guess you'd set up the depots traditionally first, then once you've gotten a moon-mining setup, the depots suddenly get much more sustainable as they don't need launches from earth to stay topped up.

Ok, I got what you mean.

However, we are talking about short term plans (you mentioned Obama). I think this kind of processes cannot be validated in time to be convenient or even used locally for the next step in space exploration.

I mentioned Obama.
NASA needs to establish the first operational depot, and starting with LEO seems best.
It would surprising and impressive if NASA could get further than build, launch, and have any significant operations using the depot in LEO all within 2 years.
So instead it be rather hopeful that during Obama term, that the preliminary aspects related to depots could begin.

Offline spacenut

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #123 on: 01/28/2015 08:27 pm »
To me Mars makes more sense to colonise.  It has a 24 hour day.  The temperature is less extreme than the moon.  It definately has more water and a CO2 atmosphere.  Plants and animals can be grown in greenhouses easier on Mars.  They are already used to the 24 hour light dark cycle.   ISRI resources might be easier to make on Mars than the moon.  I think the moon will be useful for mining.  Oxygen and silicone from the soil as well as other minerals.  Mars might be more asthetically pleasing to human life due the the 24 hour cycle, sunrises and sunsets, etc. 

I do agree that giant space stations with 1g spin, like giant cylinders is probably the ultimate way to go.   As one said they could be in orbit around the moon, Mars, or even asteroids and just use the planets, moons, and asteroids for mining resources.  Out past Mars though, solar power would probably not be enough.  Nukes would have to be used for power from the asteroids out to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. 

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #124 on: 01/29/2015 12:28 pm »
To me Mars makes more sense to colonise.  It has a 24 hour day.  The temperature is less extreme than the moon.  It definately has more water and a CO2 atmosphere.  Plants and animals can be grown in greenhouses easier on Mars.  They are already used to the 24 hour light dark cycle.   ISRI resources might be easier to make on Mars than the moon.  I think the moon will be useful for mining.  Oxygen and silicone from the soil as well as other minerals.  Mars might be more asthetically pleasing to human life due the the 24 hour cycle, sunrises and sunsets, etc. 

I do agree that giant space stations with 1g spin, like giant cylinders is probably the ultimate way to go.   As one said they could be in orbit around the moon, Mars, or even asteroids and just use the planets, moons, and asteroids for mining resources.  Out past Mars though, solar power would probably not be enough.  Nukes would have to be used for power from the asteroids out to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

At Jupiter distance the solar insolation is pretty low- around 52 watts per square meter. But if times that by 24 hours that is 1248 watts per square meter per day. And Germany the "solar capital of the world", gets about 2000 watts per square meter on average per day.
And if not on a moon or planet at Jupiter distance, solar energy could make more sense than compared
using solar energy in Germany. And that true even if you don't consider using reflectors to increase the solar energy per square meter.

People as general rule don't understand how bad harvesting solar energy is on the the Earth surface.
And wind energy is not much better or about the same as solar energy.
So if out in the Main asteroid belt and getting 1/10th of solar flux as Earth, so 136 watt per square meters
and you can always point your solar array at the Sun, that's better than anywhere on Earth surface.

So 136 times 24 is 3264 watts of solar flux per 24 hour day. So that easy to see that this is better than anywhere on the surface of the country of Germany.
So places on Earth can get an average of of about 7000 watts per day, but 3264 watts per day is better-
and again one doesn't even have to use reflectors.
3264 watts per day is better because it is constant power, whereas on Earth you have the average of 12 hours of night and 12 hours of daylight.
And since the time of discovery of use of fire, humans have enjoyed not merely stumbling around in the dark after the sun went down. And they found this use fire particularly useful in terms of survival in regions which are not tropical. Or the human animal is a tropical creature- and fire allowed humans to live outside of the tropics. Though of course fire was also useful if one lived in the tropics, but point is it is more of a necessity if living outside of the tropics.  And fire allowed human to gather together and tell stories and become a creature that could go to the Moon- hence why the discovery of fire ranked highly and considered more important the than invention of the wheel.

Now if one got at least 12 hours of usable solar energy everyday, harvesting solar energy on earth wouldn't be as bad as it is- but you don't get at least 12 hours. As general rule after the spring equinox
one does get more than 12 hours of daylight and gets more daylight the further poleward you are on Earth. Most of people living on Earth are in northern hemisphere and north of the tropical zone- most of population of India, China, Europe, US, and etc- so as go north one gets longer daylight as you approach Mid summer, but after June 20th, the daylight shortens until the fall equinox when one starts to get less than 12 hours of sunlight. And it is the part of the year between fall and spring equinox where our tropical creature needs discovery of fire in order to live outside the tropics. And it's this part of the year where human use the most amount of electrical power [and various fuels] in order to survive- and generally not be cold and miserable.
So on Earth when one has the greatest need of solar energy, one has less than 12 hours of daylight. Plus when one has less than 12 hours of sunlight one has less than 6 hours of usable solar energy- because usable energy occurs in time of day between 9 am and 4 pm- known as solar power hours or also called,
Peak Sun Hours:
"For example, a location that receives 8 kWh/m2 per day can be said to have received 8 hours of sun per day at 1 kW/m2"
http://pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-sunlight/average-solar-radiation
[Note: one can only get 8 kWh/m2 per day during summer- no where on Earth surface can get this during the winter or between Fall and Spring- or look at the map given at above link and best appears to be 8.09
kWh/m2 in New Mexico in June, and New Mexico in one better regions on Earth for harvesting solar energy- and 1/2 of it's year is appears to less than 5 kWh/m2. It also appears that map doesn't include cloudiness- or numbers given for the one Germany city seems wrong- and Seattle also seems excessively optimistic to me.]
And as mentioned above there the problem with cloudy weather- desert regions are best places to harvest solar energy on Earth, but most people in this world don't live in deserts.
But what said above was  "3264 watts per day is better" than best places on Earth- what I meant by "best places" was essentially desert regions.

Now why "3264 watts per day" is better average of say 7000 watts per day is because one gets the power 24 hour per day, and the 7000 per day on best day gives about 12 hours- if solar array tracks the sun, and most are fixed. So in best areas, one get less than 12 hours during best of times and more 1/2  of average 7000 watts per day, and other 1/2 of year you less than 7000 [or about 5000 watts] and get about 6 hours of usable sunlight. And modern human sleeps about 8 hours and is not sleeping 16 hours a day. Also many modern human activity involves running things 24 hours a day.
So for a human not to be crippled by idiocy, if using solar energy on Earth one needs back up sources of power other than solar energy OR one need a system that stores electrical power. And not very practical to store electrical energy for 6 months.
So need to store power every day, and during 6 months of fall,winter and spring one has less power and more night time.

Another factor is that with modern electrical grids [and not including solar or wind] one has about twice the power capacity which needed on average power loads. And you have this to be able to provide varying power needs during a day and/or during the different times of the year. The customers [the public] expect to be able to get power whenever they need it. So you have peak hours and one has to have time for various types of maintenance for the powerplants- one needs to manage the powergrid [and despite what you may have been told- the alternative energies of solar and wind, do not help in regards to dealing with power-grid imbalances but in practice worsen the situation].
So point is for any power supply one needs redundancy and more redundancy required increases the costs. So if getting 136 watt of solar flux one is also going to need to deal variations of power needs and
some system of back up emergency power. But I would argue if you getting constant sunlight one has less need of backup system- less redundancy in the generational capacity.
So simple terms, solar [and wind] powerplants on Earth require normal/conventional power grids to have greater redundancies of the available power then they would otherwise, and with constant solar energy in space one needs *less* redundancy compared to a normal conventional electrical grid.
So instead twice as much as average load, one might need 150% or less. Or the solar power can run constantly. There is no weather.  And one can make rocket fuel with excessive power [and use rocket fuel
with fuel cells for emergency or additional power].
Oh part reason need less redundancy is that on Earth part the peak power loads are related to when sun rises and sets and it's connected are times human activity- whereas in space one can operate on 24 hour clock.
« Last Edit: 01/29/2015 12:49 pm by gbaikie »

Offline TakeOff

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #125 on: 02/02/2015 02:01 pm »
If there is no water in the polar craters, or if it is caught up inside minerals and need difficult processing, then the Moon becomes a much less attractive place. This needs to be found out by a lander in order to potentially falsify the Moon first idea. I hope that the Chinese are on to doing this soon, no one else in the world cares so the Moon is for them to take. The most attractive real estate is not very large, so the first one there could take it all for themselves.

But science today leans towards there not only being water, but also nitrogen and carbon, trapped in the eternally shadowed polar craters. Big solar panels on an eternally sunlit ridge which beams microwaves to power a volatile extracting rover in the shadow below, and voila we will soon have a permanently manned Moon base with greenhouses and a rocket fuel factory.

As the Lunar architecture develops, I think that the gap between the Moon and Mars could widen. Continuing development of the Moon would then be easier than trying to reinvent a Mars version of it all (almost everything must be differently designed from scratch for the two very different destinations, the Moon is NOT a stepping stone to Mars).

A big argument against Mars is the travel time. 8½ or 6 months in a tiny tin can to get there is not for the casual traveller. Explorers, scientists, workers would find the Moon much more comfortable. Especially when it has better infrastructure for travel and living and working there than Mars will have. Mars will remain less developed, less profitable and less accessible for centuries. As someone pointed out here, the Moon has the huge Earth marketplace nearby, fueling spaceships in cis-lunar space where more than 99% of all space assets are located.

A base near the Lunar equator is a bigger problem which requires nuclear power and likely also supply transports from a polar base. In the very long term, Mars might be better for huge settlements. But we'll have a Hong Kong on the Lunar pole first.
« Last Edit: 02/02/2015 02:04 pm by TakeOff »

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #126 on: 02/02/2015 11:53 pm »
If there is no water in the polar craters, or if it is caught up inside minerals and need difficult processing, then the Moon becomes a much less attractive place. This needs to be found out by a lander in order to potentially falsify the Moon first idea. I hope that the Chinese are on to doing this soon, no one else in the world cares so the Moon is for them to take. The most attractive real estate is not very large, so the first one there could take it all for themselves.
LCROSS impact {part of LRO} seemed to me [and others] that the Moon has water [and not water caught up in minerals]. And also methane and CO, and etc.
As taking it all for themselves- the most attractive real estate might around size of Hawaii, scattered over area the size of California and Oregon, and be at both poles.
And the amount area one mines could less area than area one typically mine on Earth. The area of extracting water could be the size of a couple football fields or large parking lot and the whole area used
might equal about 1 square km. And I think it over generous to allow a claim for mining lunar water larger than 10 square km.
If China wants to claim entire Moon, I think US should consider consequence to the Chinese for this provocation and hostility.
But Chinese want to mine lunar water, I have no problem with this- but do have problem with the intention of ceasing all lunar activity not sanctioned by Chinese government.

Quote
But science today leans towards there not only being water, but also nitrogen and carbon, trapped in the eternally shadowed polar craters. Big solar panels on an eternally sunlit ridge which beams microwaves to power a volatile extracting rover in the shadow below, and voila we will soon have a permanently manned Moon base with greenhouses and a rocket fuel factory.


As the Lunar architecture develops, I think that the gap between the Moon and Mars could widen. Continuing development of the Moon would then be easier than trying to reinvent a Mars version of it all (almost everything must be differently designed from scratch for the two very different destinations, the Moon is NOT a stepping stone to Mars).
Moon should not mined by NASA.
The idea of mining or farming is a commercial activity- that produce is brought market. Or thousands of years farming has been a specialized activity that allow other people to do other things other than farming or mining.
NASA can/should do gardening- and perhaps bio research.

Quote
A big argument against Mars is the travel time. 8½ or 6 months in a tiny tin can to get there is not for the casual traveller. Explorers, scientists, workers would find the Moon much more comfortable. Especially when it has better infrastructure for travel and living and working there than Mars will have. Mars will remain less developed, less profitable and less accessible for centuries. As someone pointed out here, the Moon has the huge Earth marketplace nearby, fueling spaceships in cis-lunar space where more than 99% of all space assets are located.
Ok, but Mars has a lot more water and CO2, so better if one needs farming.
Or The Moon may have 10 billion tonnes of water in polar region, and million tonnes of water which economical to mine [within a century or couple centuries]
Mars has trillion of tons of water, and may have trillion of tons of water which minable within a century.
And Mars has more CO2 in it's atmosphere than Earth has CO2 in it's atmosphere. And I think it's possible
that Mars *could* have more fresh water than Earth, in terms of rain water, river, and lake water, and ground water which one get water from a well. Or for water for farming, Mars *could* have more water
than is currently used by humans on Earth- and certainly has more CO2 that is used by plants to grow on Earth. [Though there is vast amounts of CO2 in Earth oceans].

Quote
A base near the Lunar equator is a bigger problem which requires nuclear power and likely also supply transports from a polar base. In the very long term, Mars might be better for huge settlements. But we'll have a Hong Kong on the Lunar pole first.

The Moon could be Hong Kong to rest of solar system. But probably more important for next couple centuries, is that the Moon is Hong Kong to Earth.
But if there isn't minable lunar water, then Mars and asteroids will have be Earth's Hong Kong.
Or if we get to point of Mars settlements [however it's done] this will also will accompany SPS for Earth- unlimited electrical power for Earthlings. Or people can live on Mars, such a space economy will also
economically allow harvesting energy from space for the people on Earth.

Offline sanman

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #127 on: 04/20/2015 07:23 am »
Both the Moon and Mars are vast airless mega-deserts (to borrow Go4Mars's phrase). So either of them would be extremely challenging to live on. Fine, whoever manages to pursue terraforming some centuries from now (millennia from now?) will prefer to choose Mars. But meanwhile, for mere 21st-century mortals, Mars is at least as inhospitable as the Moon - and probably worse, if you consider the much greater distance.

Go for the Moon first because it's closer and easier to get to, and use it to test out life support equipment, robotic support equipment, off-world construction technologies (both places have dirt). Arguably, the more extreme environment of the Moon can serve as a stress-test for ECLSS technologies that will later be adapted to Mars.

Lunar tourism would be more affordable than Martian tourism. Communication would be easier, travel there and back would be easier. The Moon could serve to lower the cost of access to Mars. It's a much greater psychological leap to go to a place that's months away and hundreds of millions of kilometers away, than to go to a place that's mere days away and only hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.


Offline Impaler

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #128 on: 04/21/2015 02:31 am »
The most compelling argument for inevitability is the political one.

ALL OTHER NATIONS ON EARTH, other then the US with half a though of manned space programs have Moon ambitions and intend to go to the moon FIRST, they have not 'been their done that' and are not going to try to land on Mars as their first landing on an outer-space body, Mars is by far the HARDEST thing to land on and they wisely are going to get their 'space-legs' on another body.

This creates an inevitable 'Moon-rush' in which a lot of interest and activity starts occurring on the moon and many nations national pride becomes wrapped up in these activities and (very importantly) for such acclivities to visibly exceed the bars set during the Apollo era.  Simple Apollo-clones which will be of little interest to the American public , a sustained rush which is setting new 'firsts' and compelling milestones with no end in sight creates a lot more 'gravity' it would be very hard for the US to not be sucked into this.  The US will have the launch vehicles capable of doing the launches for moon or mars (SLS or SpaceX equivalents) but may be decades away from the full set of vehicles and technologies for Mars. 

With the development of a modest lander the US will be able to take part in the moon rush while still trumpeting it's Mars ambitions, but the return to the moon will save-face (even if the US is not the leading nation in said rush) during the long development of these Mars systems/techs.

Offline sanman

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #129 on: 04/21/2015 02:47 am »
LOL, then pray for social collapse here on Earth, so that fed up people will flee to the "new world" of the Moon.

Nah, people would probably just shoot it out here on Earth, rather than pack their bags and go somewhere else.

Offline Star One

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Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #130 on: 04/21/2015 01:17 pm »
Best to stick to the Moon for now as a target as in spite of the fine words to the contrary I don't think Mars is really a viable target using chemical propulsion as there are just too many technical and medical barriers with such a slow transit. Best to keep away from Mars until we can get there in a reasonable quick way.
« Last Edit: 04/21/2015 01:18 pm by Star One »

Offline sanman

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Re: Why IMO Moon First is inevitable.
« Reply #131 on: 04/21/2015 06:43 pm »
Living on the Moon could actually whet our appetites for living on Mars. Humanity will build up its confidence by adapting to the Moon, and then that will pave the way for the more difficult and less forgiving challenges of Mars.


But you know what they say -- "If you want to reach the Moon, you've got to shoot for the s̶t̶a̶r̶s̶ Mars"

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