Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
It sounds like a joke or the stuff of a children's fantasy novel: taking an elevator to the moon.
But that's how astronauts plan to get from their spaceship to the lunar surface, and back, in a few years when NASA returns to the moon for Artemis missions III and IV.
The elevator is part of SpaceX's Starship human landing system, which will not only carry two crew members to the moon but serve as their home for about a week while they explore the south pole, a dark and cold region where scientists believe water ice is buried in craters. The natural resource is coveted because it could supply drinking water, oxygen, and rocket fuel for future missions, ushering a new era in spaceflight.
NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug Wheelock recently tested a small mockup of the elevator — a crucial element to SpaceX's solution for getting humans from space to the moon's surface. This lift will be the portal from which the first woman and person of color step onto the moon.
[...] SpaceX's elevator will transport equipment and astronauts between Starship's living quarters, near the top of the lander, and the lunar surface, where astronauts will exit for moonwalks. The demonstration allowed Mann and Wheelock to interact with a flight-like design of the elevator system and provide feedback from a crew perspective.
During the test at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, the astronauts wore spacesuits to get a feel for the mobility challenges they'll face on their journey. For Artemis III, the crew will wear new advanced spacesuits being developed by Axiom Space. They practiced using the controls for the gate latches and ramp deployment, and they assessed the roominess for moving cargo.
As part of the deal, SpaceX will need to demonstrate a successful uncrewed test flight to the moon before Artemis III.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday December 27, @07:52AM (3 children)
Is this believed natural resource renewable? Just asking. How long it takes for the landing site to get exhausted?
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 27, @02:51PM
If you liked drinking it the first time, you're going to love it the 100th time.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 27, @03:01PM
Depends on how widely it is spread in use and how far you are willing to go to retrieve and recycle it.
When used for drinking and possibly farming, renew ability is fairly easy if we try.
When used as rocket fuel.... Not so much.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 28, @04:36AM
Depends. Do you believe water exists? Because if you don't then it is not believed.
Here, I think it's just some sloppy language. It doesn't look to me like the author meant to state with confidence that easily extractable water exists in those regions, but rather that water or ice is a really valuable resource in the context of doing stuff on the Moon.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Wednesday December 27, @01:33PM (8 children)
Not surprised to see a Lunar space elevator before a Terrestrial one, given the shallower gravity well up there. On the other hand, there's still going to be quite the velocity difference between their polar orbit and the stationary elevator top. I guess Space X has some practice landing orbital rockets on the surface of the Earth, so they're OK with doing it at altitude above the moon now?
I guess this is just a paradigm shift for me, since I think of space elevators as being equatorial and geosynchronous; going from Earth-surface to orbital altitude and velocity in one go is part of the package in my head. Centrifugal counterbalance is a feature there, too. I guess since the Moon's rotation speed is so low (1/month) there's not a lot of rotational velocity benefit to be had at the equator, so may as well drop the elevator shaft wherever you think is useful.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Wednesday December 27, @02:21PM (2 children)
Calling that a "space elevator" is true, but confusing. This thing is an elevator in the sense of "Otis Elevator Company", not in the sense of "a way to get from ground surface to orbit".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 27, @03:05PM
I had the same initial misunderstanding.
This is an elevator to make that "one small step for a man" more universally accessible to our mere mortal astronauts of tomorrow. Even the guys with "the right stuff" had some trouble with that bottom step on the ladder of the Apollo landers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27, @10:48PM
> "Otis Elevator Company"
If it's voice activated, then it could be a prototype for a Happy Vertical People Transporter from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday December 27, @03:00PM
Let's shift it right back. This is an actual lift to take astronauts and cargo down from where they are, at the top of a very tall rocket, down to the lunar surface.
https://www.universetoday.com/164983/nasa-astronauts-are-trying-out-the-starship-lunar-elevator/ [universetoday.com]
https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/11668-750.jpg [universetoday.com]
That is apparently what it would look like.
Risks probably include the rocket tipping over if it's not anchored in the regolith well or they distribute too much load somewhere.
The real paradigm shift is coming......
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27, @10:43PM
Amazing, I was just going to "wooooosh" your comment/mistake...but today we must be seeing the holiday spirit around SN--all the comments currently posted are very polite!
ps. I also thought this might be a true space elevator to orbit, but only for about 30 seconds as I read through the rest of tfa.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday December 28, @03:23AM (2 children)
Is this related to a skyhook?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_(structure) [wikipedia.org]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday December 28, @08:43AM (1 child)
Your linked Wikipedia article explains the relationship between skyhooks and geostationary space elevators better than I could:
The only thing I'd add to that is that a skyhook might be possible with real materials; we haven't yet invented or discovered anything strong enough to support the weight of a space elevator based on the Earth's surface, nor strong enough to handle the tension at the midpoint. We might be able to build a skyhook out of carbon nanotubes and have it survive operational stresses.
Also, from the other comments I gather that SpaceX isn't doing anything like either; they're just getting astronauts from the top of a landed space rocket down to the Lunar surface on a lift. I thought Musk's other company was supposed to be the Boring one... <rimshot>
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday December 28, @09:14AM
I was concerned about "polar orbit".
I believe the orbital dynamics of a skyhook would allow operation over the poles.
I don't think the orbital dynamics of a geostationary space elevator allows polar visits... Only equatorial ones. And, given the moon's angular velocity, I haven't run the numbers. A preliminary quickie internet query yields this :
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/20499/is-it-possible-to-achieve-a-stable-selenostationary-orbit-around-the-moon [stackexchange.com]
Which leads me to consider the concept to be unworkable for a "geosynchronous" elevator, especially considering Earth's gravity well and distance. Without as much as lifting a calculator, I highly doubt a stable orbit exists.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Informative) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday December 27, @11:37PM (1 child)
"It sounds like a joke or the stuff of a children's fantasy novel: taking an elevator to the moon."
This is an incredibly misleading statement, obviously designed to present this as another of Musk's "stupid ideas".
No, it's not in any way an "elevator to the moon". It's simply a lift that gets people and supplies from the landed craft down to the surface of the moon and back. A ladder served the same function (with less capacity) on the Apollo LEM.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28, @06:27AM
More likely the line is aimed at people who don't know squat about space or space programs. Perhaps "Mashable" [wikipedia.org] readers.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday December 28, @03:22AM (3 children)
There's a question that's been bothering me: Why don't they simply put the people at bottom of the rocket, under the fuel tanks, like the much smaller proposed Blue Origin lander does? That not only makes it much easier to get to the ground, it also means your unused propellant is acting as a radiation shield while you're parked on the surface.
It absolutely makes sense to have the payload at the top for launch vehicles that have an emergency escape system - you want that escape pod to have a clear escape route to blast free of the larger rocket. But for Starship there is no escape pod. And for HLS there's not even anywhere you could realistically escape to.
Other reasons I can think of are:
- You don't want propellant lines running through the payload compartment. Counterpoint: Starship already does that anyway for the header tanks needed for landing (and possibly whenever starting the engines in freefall, in order to settle the propellant in main tanks?)
- You're right next to the engines. That'll be loud, and if something explodes hard enough to breach the payload compartment you're dead instantly. Counterpoint: the engines are only going to be on for a few minutes, hearing protection exists, and if something breaches the propellant tank instead you're still just as dead, just a few moments later.
- The payload chamber would require extra reinforcing (and thus mass) to support the mass of tanks above. Counterpoint is that they already need to do exactly that for the skirt around the engines, which transmits the thrust from the SuperHeavy to Starship. And from a distance it doesn't seem to be dramatically greater than the reinforcements already needed to keep the payload bay from collapsing under reentry stress (granted, HLS can't do reentry anyway, so there would probably be greater mass savings)
- It's always been done that way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 28, @04:40AM (2 children)
Launch abort systems are easier to implement when you're further away from the bang with nothing in the way of your escape route. That's probably the design consideration driving this choice IMHO. I guess if you do get in a solar storm, you can ride the elevator down and shelter there?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday December 28, @02:52PM (1 child)
I addressed that in the second paragraph, before I even got to the potential reasons:
Starship has no ability to perform a launch abort. The passenger compartment is completely integrated into the second stage.
And HLS won't even have anywhere to abort *to* - you'd just be trading dying in the explosion for dying on the Moon's surface (via either suffocation of lithobraking depending on whether it happened at launch or landing). At least without a second HLS on standby in lunar orbit to rescue them, which doesn't seem to be in any current plans.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 29, @02:45AM
Yet. They do have a working launch abort system. And it won't always be flag and footprints missions.