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posted by martyb on Tuesday December 12 2017, @09:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the To-the-Moon,-Alice!-To-the-Moon! dept.

No more sending humans to an asteroid. We're going back to the Moon:

The policy calls for the NASA administrator to "lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities." The effort will more effectively organize government, private industry, and international efforts toward returning humans on the Moon, and will lay the foundation that will eventually enable human exploration of Mars.

"The directive I am signing today will refocus America's space program on human exploration and discovery," said President Trump. "It marks a first step in returning American astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972, for long-term exploration and use. This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprints -- we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars, and perhaps someday, to many worlds beyond."

The policy grew from a unanimous recommendation by the new National Space Council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, after its first meeting Oct. 5. In addition to the direction to plan for human return to the Moon, the policy also ends NASA's existing effort to send humans to an asteroid. The president revived the National Space Council in July to advise and help implement his space policy with exploration as a national priority.

President's remarks and White House release.

Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America's Human Space Exploration Program

Also at Reuters and New Scientist.

Previously: Should We Skip Mars for Now and Go to the Moon Again?
How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently
NASA Eyeing Mini Space Station in Lunar Orbit as Stepping Stone to Mars
NASA and Roscosmos Sign Joint Statement on the Development of a Lunar Space Station
Bigelow and ULA to Put Inflatable Module in Orbit Around the Moon by 2022


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @10:51PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @10:51PM (#608993)

    Asteroid mining, out. Conversion of Moon to a Death Star, begin. Now if only Trump only wanted some fricking sharks . . .

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 12 2017, @11:08PM (7 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday December 12 2017, @11:08PM (#609001) Journal

    The commercial asteroid mining ventures like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries have little or no interest in sending humans to asteroids. In the near-term they want to send asteroid-prospecting satellites into orbit around Earth or asteroids. In the long-term they want to send spacecraft and robots to redirect and mine asteroids. Water found in asteroids could be used to refuel manned or unmanned spacecraft. I'm not sure what they will do with the metals. Would a human visit to an asteroid really have supported these goals?

    NASA's return to the Moon will likely involve a lot of cooperation with other nations:

    Russia and US will cooperate to build moon's first space station [theguardian.com]
    Japan moves ahead with plans to join U.S.-led project to build space station orbiting moon [japantimes.co.jp]

    So rather than a Death Star... an International Space Station in lunar orbit.

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    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:26AM (6 children)

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:26AM (#609057) Journal

      Water is not a fuel.
      Metals can not be economically landed, and would have to be used in space very near to where they were found. There is no amount of voodoo economic theory were this makes sense.

      And please don't mention gravity wells, they don't change the economics one iota.

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      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:42AM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:42AM (#609059) Journal

        http://theconversation.com/making-space-rocket-fuel-from-water-could-drive-a-power-revolution-on-earth-65854 [theconversation.com]

        It can be used to make a propellant. Which is still necessary so long as EmDrive is not real.

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      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:55AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:55AM (#609063) Journal

        Water is not a fuel.

        For now, you are right. For a nearish future, I wouldn't be so sure.

        Depends on your available energy. If you have enough of it, you can actually use water for, e.g., ionic rockets - you'll lose the dissociation energy for water about 900kJ/mol (only about half of it if you deal with a partial H/OH dissociation), but if you want (better said, "are able") to space-thug an ice asteroid, this will be a negligible to the amount necessary to modify its orbit. But at least you'll not scramble for special fuel.

        If you are capable to fuse hydrogen (even when explosively, like nuclear pulse propulsion [wikipedia.org]), then water does become fuel.

        Metals can not be economically landed

        On the other side, devastatingly...

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      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 13 2017, @04:05AM (3 children)

        by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @04:05AM (#609080)

        Of course it is - you just have to add energy to convert it into a more useful form, just like you do on Earth. Hydrogen and oxygen gas for example. Or hydrogen peroxide if you're feeling especially adventurous. Either way will burn beautifully and send your rockets wherever you want them. And either way you avoid shipping lots and lots of mass up from Earth for the explicit purpose of throwing it away. All you need is a refinery and a power source and you can make your fuel in space from local materials.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:55AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:55AM (#609162)

          I know, but you should stop thinking like an Earthling landlubber. You don't need to spend energy to dissociate H2O just so that you could combine H2 and O2 again in a chemical reactor with a nozzle on one side. To much loss, both in separation and during recombination!

          In vacuum and small gradient gravity field, most efficient use of the energy you collect would be spending it on direct acceleration of matter using electromagnetic force.

          It makes sense to do H2+O2 rocketry down here where water is really abundant and generally not toxic to biosphere (I know, I know, the dreaded di-hydrogen-monoxide ...), but up there, really no.

          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:40PM

            by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:40PM (#609218)

            Depends on your specific goals - lots of maneuvers benefit from high thrust. Also, we don't currently have any reliable, field-tested ion drives suitable for moving large masses, though a few show promise in the lab. We also have some significant challenges in terms of developing a high-density power supply to drive them, not to mention a way to radiate the copious amounts of waste heat. I've heard counter-claims that the VASIMIR "39 days to Mars" claim would require a space-based nuclear reactor with an energy-to-mass ratio 100x higher than anything we've produced so far. Maybe we can pull that off, but I'm betting it takes at least a few more decades.

            Plus, in the mid-term as we're expanding into space, ion drives are extremely intricate, expensive pieces of equipment. Whereas chemical rockets can be as simple as a fuel tank and a nozzle - much easier to actually manufacture in space.

            I'll grant you that it's far from the most elegant or efficient solution, but it gets the job done quickly, simply, and cheaply. And fast, easy solutions will be make establishing a serious presence in space far more doable.

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 13 2017, @04:38PM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @04:38PM (#609255)

            You don't need to spend energy to dissociate H2O just so that you could combine H2 and O2 again in a chemical reactor with a nozzle on one side. To much loss, both in separation and during recombination!

            Losses aren't important in space: you have limitless solar energy up there, at least anywhere near Earth orbit (not so much in the outer system). You just have to collect it, which can take a little time, but water can make a good energy-dense energy storage form this way, by converting it to H2 and O2 over time with a power station.

            most efficient use of the energy you collect would be spending it on direct acceleration of matter using electromagnetic force.

            Ok, and where are you going to get something that can create that much electric power? There's plenty of sunlight, sure, but collecting that much (to get enough power for what you want to do) will require an enormous PV array, which really isn't feasible. That's why the idea is to use water: have a somewhat-enormous PV array in a fixed point near where you're mining H2O, and use that to slowly electrolyze the water to fuel, which you can then load onto small spacecraft so they can do whatever it is you want done with them, like transporting valuable metals around.

            Maybe before long, it'll make more sense to just use those enormous PV arrays to store electricity in batteries and power the spacecraft with ion engines, but we're not there yet. We have working H2/O2 rocket engines; we don't have ion engines capable of powering significant-sized spacecraft.

  • (Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday December 12 2017, @11:20PM (1 child)

    by jimshatt (978) on Tuesday December 12 2017, @11:20PM (#609008) Journal
    The moon can be mined for He-3. Maybe that's the reason?