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I like all of your notions.
I might add a strange one. I recall that one of the Sci Fi books I read as a kid had a guy visiting a monistary, which I think was a sort of a cycling spaceship. I think that for philisophy, the Moon would be quite a stimulus. The near side puts the whole Earth in view at times, as the Apollo missions briefly demonstrated. The far side would be another thing as well, only the stars in the sky of the universe.
Monks typically do not require large material needs, but are willing to toil for their group. Not many are called for such a thing, but there are some.
I would think that for them the Moon would be quite a place of contemplation, with the remoteness from worldly matters, and the celestial views, and the truth of the death of the human body just outside of the shelter.
It is true that religion has been at times a prompter for human wandering.
Very true - Irish monks got to Iceland before the Vikings. I am would be surprised if all sorts of religions wouldn't want to establish a presence on the Moon. And it will no doubt become competitive.
The same sort of thing will happen with Universities I believe. If MIT have a research centre on the Moon won't Harvard and Yale want one and then won't Cambridge, Oxford, Paris and Bologna want one? And of course companies as well. When Ford get an adapted 4X4 on the Moon won't Toyota want one there? These enterprises won't necessarily be profitable in a strictly commercial balance sheet sense, but they will be important to all these organisations in showing that they are the forefront of this advance on to a new celestial body.
There will be all sorts of reasons why people will engage in lunar trade.
Before I have suggested a few including the Moon as the perfect place for disposal of people's ashes after death - with loved ones able to look on the Moon and associate it with the departed.
Lunar jewelry would be another, given the romantic connection.
I think we might have lovers writing their names on lunar stone robotically.
People have suggested that patients with arthritis or similar complaints would find great relief in the virtually weightless conditions on the Moon, though there may be a lot of practical issues with that.
Lunar tourism incorporating visits to sites like Apollo 11 landing site will have great pulling power I believe.
Those points, and also the two asteroid (NEO) mining organizations.
If the asteroid mining operations work, then it sort of dampens the notion of the Moon for non-Moon resources.
So, the Moon is an object in itself, perhaps a bit like Antarctica, but with space tourism?
I would think that an item of research might be how the human body holds up in the Moons gravity field, so perhaps tourists could get a discount, if they agree to be part of such a study.
That information might give clues on how humans might do in the Martian gravity field.
An interesting notion might be if there may be people who would want to live on the Moon long term, as a sort of home for a awhile. Artistic type people.
Of couse Scientists would likely have actions such as Telescopes on the far side? Or would that actually be automation with a few repair people on hand?
Thinking about it logically, there must be a point at which low launch costs kick start lunar development. If it cost $100 per person to get to the Moon, there would be no doubt we would see all sorts of lunar developments. If it cost $1000 per person, still the case. $10,000 still the case. $100,000 - well now we are getting into a phase where we can see development opportunities narrowing. There aren't that many people with $100,000 spare cash. $1million per person...still potential but less so. $10million per person - a much narrower base for development. $100 million per person? Hardly any scope. $1 billion? No scope.
So the question really is where are we today and where will we be in say 10 years.
Today, we seem to be approaching launch costs of something like $5000 per kg. You could probably set up a base on the moon for $500 million and ferry people back and forth for maybe $1-3million per person.
If Musk gets it right we may see those figures reduced by something like 70-80% over the next ten years. You can see how lunar tourism for the super-rich could take off.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21293258
Well things might be on the move. Foster and Partners are a big, serious company.
I think there is less to this story than meets the eye - piling regolith over a structure is not exactly rocket science! However, it is interesting that big profit-orientated companies are taking an interest in lunar development.
louis wrote:There isn't going to be a one way mission. End of story. (.../..)
There will be.
Once pioneers will have set up a proper settlement, settlers will make a one-way mission. But I think we agree on the main point : first Marswalkers will be pioneers, coming back to earth after having done their job.
Well, maybe, after a few decades. But by then I think journey times between Mars and Earth may be down to 2 months or so. It seems unlikely that people won't return to Earth for a holiday, to see the old folks...maybe every 5 years or so.
I think you'll find that's not quite true. IN fact 3D printers tend to be specialist e.g. for toys, medical products or industrial protoypes. Not to say, that a pretty generalist machine couldn't be produced. It would be expensive but expense is probably the least consideration here.
As already said, I am not opposed to a 3D printer being a part of the first mission. I just think it is probably going to be a fairly limited machine and it won't necessarily produce a mass saving. I think it's more important probably to get a small furnace in place that can use Mars iron (with some imported materials like calcium and carbon) to create high grade steel. Versatile moulds (using design info beamed from Earth) could then be used to make complex parts/tools as necessary. The furnace itself can probably be built in large part with Mars based materials.
I agree there should be robot landings to precede the human missions. I envisage at least 4 landings in the prep period of maybe 8 years. During that time you could drop long lasting supplies, clear the landing zone of hazardous rocks, generate rocket fuel (for a return journey), set up PV panels for instant power on landing...and so on. A first hab unit could be dropped to the surface robotically and inflated there. You then have an immediate alternative living area. At the same time there would be materials to build a larger hab using cut and cover methods.
I favour taking a 1.5tonnes mini digger to the surface as part of Mission 1. This could used to dig the hab trench and also be used for mining. It could be human driven (in a pressurised cab) or driven robotically through tele-radio contact.
Well, as manufacturing goes 3D printers are a generalist, on the first few missions, the unexpected might be a factor, so I would want some generalist capabilities supported by innovative solutions (Software) from Earth.
The personal though? Specialized as far as a narrow purpose, most efficient at that. The 3D printer might save them, if events go outside of their specialized efficient abilities.
If you are talking exploration, then the scheme to escape danger might focus on leaving early.
If you are talking about the first construction crew, then maybe you send a drone/warehouse with robotic hard landers into orbit around Mars, with spare parts, 3D printers, and whatever, before sending the crew.
Then you send a split crew, some in orbit, and some early landers.
The early landers, set up the prelimary habitat and life support. As they need it, additional supplies from the drone are dropped down by the orbital crew. Spare parts, a 3D printer.
Supposing that it starts as a experiment, and they do a final evaluation. Is this location going to be worth building on. Are the resources expected actually available and usable? In the case of yes, then you send down more of the materials. Otherwise abort and relocate at a later date.
If the location is confirmed and the construction crew intend to stay permanently, then after the hard landers are all used up, the orbital crew lands also, and the drone and unused parts remain in orbit, to be sold to anyone wanting them to set up a different base.
I am presuming that the drone would have been propelled to Mars not by chemical rockets, but perhaps efficient and slow electrical or solar sail or solar wind methods.
This after all would be a construction project, not the first landing.
Here are some thoughts about bringing plastic raw materials:
-What if the fuel tank of the hard lander were Plastic? Could Kerosene be suitable for a lander fuel?
-What if such a parts lander had a cushion of crushable honeycomb made of plastic?Then those materials could be scavenged to feed into the 3D printer.
Where it might seem like I am proposing that I am not being real about the amount of materials that could be available in orbit, I would suggest that by the time such an activity like this were actually done, humans would have already been capturing small asteroids/rocks, and moving them the the Earth/Moon area, and in that situation, I do not think that the mass delivery to Mars orbit budget will be nearly as strict as if we were supposing a delivery from the Earths surface to the Mars surface.
True,
I was thinking of the recent effort where a primitive object was created using a laser process in a 3D printer. A sort of particle by particle sintering.
Manufacturing a glue to glue particles together might be an option, but perhaps not value effective. As you have said, transporting the raw materials is not a real option.
Well some of the 3D printer objects are quite sophisticated now but the question is - is it easier to take a 3D printer and materials for printing (plus spare parts) - or is it easier to take a what you need in finished form...at least for the first few missions that is. I think it's an open question at the moment. Perhaps if 3D printer can be made smaller and lighter it might be worth take one or two along with us.
Digging up and using materials on Mars is not so easy. What really takes labour, plant and time on earth is purifying materials and then treating them by various processes to mix them etc so that they form useful materials in manufacturing etc. On Earth we do that in great big industrial plants. To start doing that on Mars, even at reduced scale, is quite a logistical challenge when we can only take to the surface maybe 50 tonnes of equipment per mission and a lot of that has to be used for life support, habitat and food production.
We can take some of the raw materials with us e.g. plastic balls for use in 3D printers, but that does really save us much mass (if any).
What I think we need to do is maximise use of Mars based materials that are relatively easy to manipulate. I think this might mean iron and basalt to begin with. We can also use plants like bamboo to make a whole range of useful utensils, vessels and other products. We also need to ensure a simple low input lifestyle as far as possible.
Why don't you think Mars brick construction, as advocated by Zubrin, woudl not be the way forward? Wouldn't that be a lot easier?
One of the things I have been pondering is the use of ground ice as habitat. The point is that Mars may have a lot of it to offer at high lattitudes. For instance glaciers in the south part of Hellas?
I guess what I would be searching for is a submerged lava tube system, or a submerged bed of soft sediment stone like sandstone, which I think there could be a chance of.
But to get into it, you would have to have a tunnel system, and a means to habitate your location while you were tunneling.
If I were a Mars inhabitant, and had decided that I would be able to profit from such an effort, I would want materials to make the habitation of ice caves more pleasant.
So, as a customer, I would want patio type bricks, for a floor, perhaps putting an insulation under them. Not specified what insulation. I have considered an analog of tar paper as well. Mineral wool bonded with tar to make walls and roof. This supposes that it would be practicle to pressurize deep buried ice caves, and that you would have a power source.
I am not trying to deviate from initial plans for settling Mars. That would be by delivered materials. However having mastered habitation of "Glaciers", inhabitants would have a place to expand in a large degree. The methods would be useable in high lattitudes, to provide living space and factory space.
I am doing this as an exercise.
So I am a hypethetical construction oriented business person, can I get patio blocks an bricks built from dune materials or the tailiings from drilling in sandstone.
Could a 3D printer of sorts build walls and a ceiling from mineral wool and tar? Granted there could be other finishing materials involved in making the interior more pleasant. Insulation on the outside of the "Tar Paper Shack" as well.
Obviously if I am building an expanding system of tunnels in the ice, I have a water supply.
I hope my presence is not a negitive here.
Caves sound superficially attractive but I am not sure they really are a good option for early settlement.
Firstly, you have to "find your cave" and that is no mean feat. It will probably require thorough robot exploration over several years: all very expensive and unnecessary.
Even if you have a cave, you can't just go set up in it. You would have to have a habitat unit WITHIN the cave. There may well be venting and ventilation issues (e.g. dust accumulation that need to be addressed).
Caves are inherently dangerous places - roof falls, flooding and so on, none of which can be ruled out. On Mars you would have to be v. sure of your location, so that the entrance did not become blocked by a sand storm.
The only major advantage of a cave is providing protection against radiation. But we have ways of ensuring that protection is delivered outside in the open - most easily by simply heaping regolith over the habitat unit. Also, my favoured method of construction (trench and cover) gives you a lot of the advantages of caves with none of the problem.
Longer term I can see there may be some advantages to caves as natural structure, particularly if we could create safe, pressurised atmospheres in them. But we need to get plenty of humans there on the ground first.
I agree with louis.
What in means is you can greatly reduce the number of Engineers you need insitu. The people on Mars will need to be technically skilled, and an engineering background will be helpful. However, much of the initial design can be done in labs on earth. Crowd source solutions can also be implemented. In addition to lowering the amount of experts needed on the ground, the amount and diversity of objects will increase.
As for an economy, it will shift towards raw materials. For an earth example, you won't go to the shoe store and buy a finished pair of shoes. You will go to the store, buy the materials and pay for time with a specialist to custom fit a pair of shoes and make them in the store. For those who have the skills to make shoes at home, they can simply buy the materials.
The Martian impact will be people will spend their time getting raw resources while using off-planet talent to come up with new designs. Conversely, engineers on Mars can design things using the alien landscape as a test bed that could be novel on earth.
I imagine Mars will be a fairly frugal place to begin with. There's a lot we can do without, especially if we are not living as part of a commercial economy. We won't need paper. Kitchen space can be v. simple - a hob and a microwave oven.
Here is something I saw when it first came out Dec 19th but thought it may be another discarded piece off the rover but after looking at it more I now wish I would have posted it right away. Blogs are now calling it a "Flower." I sharpened Curiosities image a bit and added more contrast and this is what it looks like, note the whitish reflective partially covered rocks above left and below left of it???
What I find amazing is that they wouldn't have done some more investigation of that - whatever it is.
There isn't going to be a one way mission. End of story.
Elon Musk is several astronomical units ahead of everyone else and is already well on the way to developing the infrastructure that will allow colonisation to begin. I'd be surprised if he's not actually able to get to Mars orbit and back by 2020. A landing by 2025 should be be possible.
After the Apollo 11 television spectacular, coverage of the following moon missions became increasingly brief and critical. NASA actually had to pay the networks to cover the last Apollo mission
So you're saying it's a negative sum...Space X will have to pay the networks to cover the first landing on Mars?
I was interested in what sponsorship funding a credible (e.g. Space X) Mars mission could attract over say 10 Years - from inception to landing + 2 years, for various "single sponsor" categories (i.e. the categories would run concurrently but would each have only a single sponsor). I'd be interested in your estimates (in dollars) for such 10 year deals.
1. Soft drinks (e.g. Coca Cola) -
2. Food (e.g. McDonalds) -
3. Travel company (e.g. Expedia) -
4. Books (e.g. Amazon)
5. Clothing (e.g. American Apparel)
6. University (purely sponsorship) -
7. Special TV and film rights -
8. Sports goods (e.g. Nike) -
9. Motor manufacture -
10. Computer firm -
Just how much would they each pay to be an "Official Sponsor of Mars Mission 2022"?
Remember, the 2012 Olympics raised over $1billion through sponsorship funding, spread over probably about 6 years.
I think the biggest influence the grasshopper will have on Mars is its effect on launch costs to LEO. If spacex achieve what they claim they'll have fuel in LEO at $1000 a Kg. At that price a lot of people will stop worrying about fuel for Mars missions and start planning missions with more margins, more contingencies, more comfort... etc. That's my take.
Well that will certainly be a by product of a $1000 per kg. You could probably do a Mars Mission for less than $1billion. You could probably get close to that in sponsorship alone.
Hi Louis:
Their stated purpose is an experiment vehicle that could lead to a reusable first stage for Falcon-9 (and by extension falcon-Heavy). Whether that would lead to any other applications, who knows?
For one-way Mars landings, they are looking at a version of Dragon with landing legs, that has the big Super Draco thrusters installed. These are the thrusters powerful enough to serve as the escape rocket for manned versions of Dragon. I've never worked out if the stock propellant tank size in dragon is enough for a powered landing on Mars with these Super Dracos, but the thrust levels are certainly there. I'd guess that the propellant tank size problem is solvable in some way. In some circles, this design concept has been referred to as Red Dragon. It is not intended to carry men one-way onto Mars. It might be used for a rover or sample-return mission. Or maybe one-way cargo delivery.
GW
Maybe they could pre-land a tank on Mars to replace the one they descend with?
http://www.spacex.com/updates.php
Does anyone know what the purpose of the Space X Grasshopper development is?
Could this be used to land and take off from Mars?
Or is it meant as a reusable craft for ferrying people from Earth to LEO?
I am intrigued by this one...need to do some more research but if anyone has any good links I will be interested to see what they have.
Lots of good ideas there.
I think in reality, for the first few missions, much of the food will be imported as energy bars, vacuum packed meals, frozen meals, and dried food stuffs.
Food growing will initially be experimental along the lines of the "salad bars" in Antarctic stations.
Gradually the amount of imported food will reduce but until animal husbandry is introduced, we will still import lots of food.
I think guinea pig and rabbit farming could be the first animal farming introduced. Then maybe goats.
Hi Louis:
No, I never got to hobnob with any of the astronauts. I never worked at NASA, the companies I worked for were defense contractors. I'd like to have met them. Armstrong was a very retiring, very private man. Few ever got close to him. I did get to meet Rusty Schweikart and Dumitru Prunariu at an asteroid defense meeting 4 years ago. I've corresponded some with Tom "Skywalker" Jones, but that's about all.
I've looked at that photo of the "flower" several times now. To me, it's beginning to look like some sort of broken pieces of clear crystalline substance that have been eroded to really odd shapes by the wind and dust. There's at least one other protruding outcrop of this stuff, just not as prominent. What material might be clear among all that red and brown and black stuff, I dunno. I think they ought to laser it for the spectrometer and find out what it's made of. If we've learned anything, it's that appearances are very deceiving on Mars, which really is an alien place.
GW
It would be extremely odd if they didn't go and take a closer look.
There do appear to be some odd shapes on the Martian surface making me wonder whether it is the absence of water erosion that accounts for that. Or maybe it's the extreme cold.
Apologies for misunderstanding your career.
It would be up there with the greatest stories of all time if it turned out to be living organic material. Somehow I doubt it though. Microbes seem a safer bet. But i would love to be proved wrong.
Incidentally GW I watched an interesting documentary on Neil Armstrong last night - it was most affecting to hear how they dealt with that almost-disaster of out of control spin on the Gemini mission.
Made me wonder - did you ever meet Armstrong?
Hi Louis:
Beats the hell out of me what it is.
But it surely will be an interesting tale as somebody figures this out. That's where the fun really is: watching 'em squirm over something unexpected.
GW
Very interesting. Very odd-looking. From what I have seen and read, it appears to those investigating it that it is stuck into the rocks, which rules out the "plastic trash from the rover" hypothesis. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. I've seen lots of clear crystal minerals, but never something curved.
GW
Well, as you are someone plugged into the space industry, I find that v. interesting GW. Yes - will be interesting to see what emerges in due course.
Is there an analogue for crystalline plants on Earth? I am thinking that clearly such a plant would not rely on Earth-based photosynthesis which leads to the green and other colouring of plants.
If this was an organism (wild speculation I know, but fun) might the protusion be more about sending out genetic material (seeds or similar) on the wind.
UK paper says it's a flower....possibly...
Josh,
Firstly, learn some manners. That is not how one engages in constructive debate.
Secondly, it is only your only view that we have not reached a conclusion previously. I leave others to judge whether that is accurate.
Thirdly, my figures are all anchored in reality e.g. I always start with Space X claims for launch costs to LEO in the near future. I am always careful to check development costs against NASA figures. But equally I am not stupid enough to include in development costs things that have already been developed. The fact that Space X has the Red Dragon concept shows that they will be using the NASA funded Dragon to cancel out (partially) developement costs for a Mars project.
Everything I say about Musk is based either on his own quotes (he is probably the most extreme advocate of Mars colonisation of any note on the planet today) or rational interpretation of his actions.
As to "glorification" - Musk has proved his worth through deeds. It's like criticising me for glorifying Edison as the founder of domestic electricity supply.
Louis-
The reason why I did not address your points specifically is that we've been in this argument before, at least a dozen times. You know what my responses to what you've said are because we've done the whole thing before and come to no conclusion. I'd rather not do that here, and as you are presumably aware my largest single grievance with your arguments is that instead of basing your conclusions on numerical analysis or established facts, you simply settle on a number that you like and repeat it like gospel. When pressed you provide neither citations nor real justification, but instead simply appeal to a presumed (but not shared, thus the reason you're being pressed in the first place) rationality of the numbers provided, and claims to research (While I don't doubt that you do research that does not make your conclusions above challenge). Rather than launch a long discussion on the matter (something I have tried in the past with unsatisfactory results) I chose to note my objection with a facetious "citation needed."
While there are many other topics where I think you have valuable, interesting, and very relevant contributions to make in this one I chose not to respond where it wasn't worth my time.
With regards to Musk I don't disagree that Mars is one of his primary goals as the CEO of SpaceX. To say he's made it his life goal, or as you have elsewhere that he's a philanthropist, or any number of other statements that you've made that involve phrases like "Elon thinks..." "Musk wants..." or glorifications of Mr. Musk are going rather far and, again, generally cannot be verified.
