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Howard Bloom has written a guest blog at Scientific American addressing the Trump Administration's plan to return to (orbit) the Moon. That mission would use the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, which have cost $18 billion through 2017 but are not expected to launch astronauts into space until around 2023. Bloom instead proposes using private industry to put a base on the Moon, using technology such as SpaceX's Falcon Heavy (estimated $135 million per launch vs. $500 million for the Space Launch System) and Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable habitat modules:
[NASA's acting administrator Robert] Lightfoot's problem lies in the two pieces of NASA equipment he wants to work with: a rocket that's too expensive to fly and is years from completion—the Space Launch System; and a capsule that's far from ready to carry humans—the Orion. Neither the SLS nor the Orion are able to land on the Moon. Let me repeat that. Once these pieces of super-expensive equipment reach the moon's vicinity, they cannot land.
Who is able to land on the lunar surface? Elon Musk and Robert Bigelow. Musk's rockets—the Falcon and the soon-to-be-launched Falcon Heavy—are built to take off and land. So far their landing capabilities have been used to ease them down on earth. But the same technology, with a few tweaks, gives them the ability to land payloads on the surface of the Moon. Including humans. What's more, SpaceX's upcoming seven-passenger Dragon 2 capsule has already demonstrated its ability to gentle itself down to earth's surface. In other words, with a few modifications and equipment additions, Falcon rockets and Dragon capsules could be made Moon-ready.
[...] In 2000, Bigelow purchased a technology that Congress had ordered NASA to abandon: inflatable habitats. For the last sixteen years Bigelow and his company, Bigelow Aerospace, have been advancing inflatable habitat technology. Inflatable technology lets you squeeze a housing unit into a small package, carry it by rocket to a space destination, then blow it up like a balloon. Since the spring of 2016, Bigelow, a real estate developer and founder of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, has had an inflatable habitat acting as a spare room at the International Space Station 220 miles above your head and mine. And Bigelow's been developing something far more ambitious—an inflatable Moon Base, that would use three of his 330-cubic-meter B330 modules. What's more, Bigelow has been developing a landing vehicle to bring his modules gently down to the Moon's surface.
[...] If NASA ditched the Space Launch System and the Orion, it would free up three billion dollars a year. That budget could speed the Moon-readiness of Bigelow's landing vehicles, not to mention SpaceX's Falcon rockets and could pay for lunar enhancements to manned Dragon 2 capsules. In fact, three billion dollars a year is far greater than what Bigelow and Musk would need. That budget would also allow NASA to bring Jeff Bezos into the race. And it would let NASA refocus its energy on earth-orbit and lunar-surface refueling stations...plus rovers, lunar construction equipment, and devices to turn lunar ice into rocket fuel, drinkable water, and breathable oxygen. Not to mention machines to turn lunar dust and rock into building materials.
An organization that Howard Bloom founded, The Space Development Steering Committee, has been short one member recently (Edgar Mitchell).
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @03:48AM (24 children)
And, do it now!
Once again - at this point in time, a single cataclysmic event could make mankind extinct. We need to get off of this one, single rock that we live on, and populate the solar system. The more we spread out, the less likely that any single event could harm us significantly.
Think of the children, for once. Think survival of the species.
Let's get it done! The moon first, Mars next, then we'll look at the gas giant's moons.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 28 2017, @04:59AM (9 children)
Whatever happened to the asteroid miners?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @02:40PM (8 children)
There's not much market for the miners, until there are some bases and/or cities located somewhere up there to use the stuff they mine. The miners are still needed, but the miners aren't going to be self sufficient. Someone needs to be willing to trade food, water, entertainment, and other essentials before the miners can really get going. In my mind, it's pretty well established that mining stuff to drop down the gravity well to the mud dwellers is a waste of time. If you're going to drop stuff down the well, you might as well shape it like a spear, and wipe out all the competition, then you can rule earth. That would be a lonely job - almost as lonely as mining asteroids.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @03:51PM (7 children)
If you're going to drop stuff down the well, you might as well shape it like a spear, and wipe out all the competition, then you can rule earth. That would be a lonely job - almost as lonely as mining asteroids.
Not seeing how that gets you food, water, entertainment, and other essentials.
In my mind, it's pretty well established that mining stuff to drop down the gravity well to the mud dwellers is a waste of time.
Mud dwellers are the only economic game in town right now. The asteroid mining would be to displace additional mass that would otherwise have to be lifted from Earth. But if you can drop something sufficiently valuable for a sufficiently cheap price, that too would count as something that isn't a waste of time.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @04:16PM (3 children)
"Not seeing how that gets you food, water, entertainment, and other essentials."
When you've killed off the competition, and subdued the remaining population, you claim tribute. Water, liquour, food, women, wine, song, jewelry, whatever. No need to mine asteroids, if you can just conquer earth. Of course, when that cataclysmic event happens, then it's "Good night, mankind!'
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @04:59PM (2 children)
When you've killed off the competition, and subdued the remaining population, you claim tribute. Water, liquour, food, women, wine, song, jewelry, whatever. No need to mine asteroids, if you can just conquer earth. Of course, when that cataclysmic event happens, then it's "Good night, mankind!'
Ok, genius, how do you get that tribute up to your sky fortress now that you're whacked the infrastructure for moving stuff into space?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:35PM (1 child)
Transporters.
Actually, you can probably come down and enjoy a life of ease after you've subdued the population.
But, come on, man - I'm the guy pushing the idea of getting OUT THERE - the rest of this scenario is just so much bullshit. Let me out there, and I sure as hell don't want to come back. The only reason I would come back is, I can't make it. I'm not good enough, the tech isn't good enough, the support isn't good enough. Let me out there, and I'm gonna do my damnedest to make things work, so that I don't HAVE to come back.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @06:04PM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 28 2017, @04:25PM (2 children)
If I had rule of space, with sufficient resources to drop even one kiloton asteroid per month anywhere on Earth I wanted, I'm pretty sure I could negotiate all the luxury goods, entertainment and other things I wanted to be sent up to my crew. Just have to pass that self-sufficiency threshold so the mud dwellers don't negotiate by boycott of life-sustaining essentials in return.
In all practicality, dropping nickel-iron asteroids containing sufficient amounts of interesting other elements (tantalum, iridium, gold, etc.) on a "mining target area" somewhere in a desert would be a pretty good alternative to mining the crust for the same things.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 28 2017, @08:48PM (1 child)
Just have to pass that self-sufficiency threshold so the mud dwellers don't negotiate by boycott of life-sustaining essentials in return.
Or by sending poisoned foods. Or goods that gradually off-gas small but significant quantities of chemicals that will poison you / screw with your life support systems / corrode the seals on your airlocks. Or things that explode violently and unexpectedly. Or an enraged bobcat.
Better hope your self-sufficient fare is as good as what the mud-dwellers are serving up, because that's all you'll ever dare to eat for the rest of your life.
In all practicality, dropping nickel-iron asteroids containing sufficient amounts of interesting other elements (tantalum, iridium, gold, etc.) on a "mining target area" somewhere in a desert would be a pretty good alternative to mining the crust for the same things.
How about a shaped projectile designed to blast a deep, narrow hole into the Earth's crust, allowing miners to reach deep deposits more efficiently? If the projectile itself was also made of useful materials, then bonus.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 28 2017, @09:09PM
Shaping a projectile seems like a lot of work as compared to just applying some delta-V.
And, there's no reason to be hostile with the mud side, we're up here to help, bring you valuable rocks, deflect ones that might land somewhere unpleasant. Just like nuke missile submarine crews, though, it probably would be a good idea to treat the rock-jockey crews as well as you can, don't want any disgruntled workers with that much potential destruction at their disposal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by davester666 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:16AM (13 children)
No, given how we currently are behaving, the sooner our infestation has been eliminated from Earth and not spread anywhere else, the better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:46AM
By all means. After you, Alphonse.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Sulla on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:58AM (8 children)
Ah screw off. We are a virus and the number one goal of a virus is to get a new host before the old one dies. Eventually we will learn to live with our host but we need to live long enough to see the day. If you really think that way then off yourself and save x sqft of ice (recent article will give you the calculation).
Every day we are becoming more sustainable, I personally don't think we are doing enough as a whole but I try and do my part. The more of a dick you are about it the less likely others are to comply. I just had to listen to my coworkers chew some guy out while we were on a vegas business trip for not storig his plastic and glass to reycle back in Oregon. Bet he will throw more away as a fuck you to the random out of staters that yelled at him.
Baring the establishment Rs and Ds getting us into a nuclear exchange, we stand a chance at survival for ourselves and some of the organisms from this age.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:00PM (2 children)
Baring the establishment Rs and Ds getting us into a nuclear exchange
This is exactly what's going to happen. It's frankly amazing it hasn't happened already, but it'll happen before too long, especially now with Trump in charge.
Oh well, we had a pretty good run.
What we really need to do is build some monuments/archives, much like the golden record on the Voyager spacecraft but with much more data, to tell others about our extinct civilization so they can learn from our mistakes, and then send these monuments to the Moon, Mars, and some out of the solar system, in the hope that they'll eventually be discovered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @06:10PM
I think a Putonium layer would be a nice complement to the Iridium layer to give future species something interesting to wonder about.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Tuesday February 28 2017, @08:41PM
I think you mistake the one who is a Russian puppet and therefor unlikely to nuke Russia and the one who promised to bomb Iran and hold Russia accountable (read: ground war in Syria and Ukraine). Sorry to say but the asshole Trump was the safer choice on not having a nuclear exchange.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 28 2017, @09:13PM (4 children)
Vegas business trip >> 20 years of not recycling a single thing you buy food in.
Vegas itself is pretty obscene, resource wise, but the flights to-from, especially trans-oceanic ones, are the real resource hogs.
Somebody should do an analysis: how much money does it cost to emit a ton of CO2 via various activities, I bet jet travel is the bargain basement CO2 emission method of modern life.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Tuesday February 28 2017, @09:19PM (1 child)
It really is disgusting here. I was walking through the MGM and just seeing the shear amount of wasted capital. The resource drain (capital/environmental) caused by Vegas is outstanding. Just the water usage alone is a crime.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @11:24PM
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 01 2017, @03:35PM (1 child)
but the flights to-from, especially trans-oceanic ones, are the real resource hogs.
Not that much. A single jet does consume a lot of fossil fuel, however if you add up how much fossil fuel it takes for each of those passengers to drive a 3-5000 pound vehicle on the road to that destination, it's much more. Modern passenger jets have very good person-mile-per-gallon numbers, much better than even hybrid cars. Granted, it'd probably be a lot better if everyone were taking a train, but compared to cars, jets are not bad, especially big jets traveling long distances. Cars are really much more wasteful in our society, because people don't fly *that* much, while they do drive a *lot*, and very rarely do they have multiple people in one car, plus they (these days) usually have much larger vehicles than they really need (big 20mpg SUVs and pickups). If you want to reduce carbon emissions, you'll do much better focusing on cars and SUVs than on jets.
In addition, because airlines are so price-sensitive these days (unlike the 60s-70s), they've done all kinds of things to improve fuel efficiency: they've added "winglets", they've moved from 4-engine planes to planes with 2 bigger engines, they've reduced their flying speeds (LA-NYC used to be significantly faster in the 70s than now), they've shrunk the seat space to pack more people in, etc. Of course, people complain about the lack of seating space a lot, but it is more fuel-efficient and also reduces ticket prices. And when you think about prices in terms of energy (how much fuel does your airline ticket cost you?), when you look at today's prices and see that you can fly rather long distances cross-country for frequently less than it'd cost you for gasoline for that same trip by car, and a good part of that ticket price is also paying for the airport, the crew and staff and baggage handlers, the plane and its maintenance, and profit, it's pretty clear that you're using much less fuel on a plane than driving your 6000-pound SUV to get there. Of course, you'd emit less CO2 if you just sat at home, but if everyone sat at home all the time, we'd have rather boring lives.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:54PM
I suppose that's akin to the argument that the Space Shuttle was the safest passenger vehicle ever created, per passenger mile traveled.
I have "gas hog" cars, they average 20mpg, I could go out, buy new ones that get 30 or even 40mpg, but since - as a family of four, we only drive about 6000 miles per year total, more efficient cars won't help our family budget, or the environment due to the cost of buying/making the new cars.
The environmental impact of the business trip to Vegas, or the vacation in Tahiti, isn't about the fuel efficiency per passenger mile, it's all about the number of people who make these cross-country and cross-ocean trips and the frequency with which they do so.
So, perhaps a SUV does pollute more per passenger mile, but how about per dollar spent?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @08:46AM
No, given how we currently are behaving, the sooner our infestation has been eliminated from Earth and not spread anywhere else, the better.
How odd. You think there is value in not being "infested". But the truth is humans are the only game in town. The rest of the Solar System will only have value because we'll eventually be there to give it value.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Tuesday February 28 2017, @01:49PM
I trust you are volunteering to eliminate your own personal infestation of Earth first. In fact I encourage you to get going.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @02:42PM
I've got to agree. Let's get together, and figure an angle to market this idea. SJW's should hop on rather quickly. Especially self-loathing heterosexual white male SJW's. The females can do the world a service by terminating themselves as well. Once they set the example, then all SJW's around the world will want to join them.
Damn, man, you come up with some good ideas!!