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Terraformer -
Actually squid and other similar creatures are very intelligent.
I have long been fascinated by the capacity for evolution to make use of the colour displays on such creatures - which indicate a range of quite complex behaviour. One can easily see how such creatures might with the right evolutionary pressures evolve a language which would be simultaneously communicative and written.
I think such creatures could then go on to develop artificial limbs and artificial islands.
"Any strategy that uses less payloads from Earth will be a lot more feasible and economical." says gregori
Agreed.
But that is what is at question. I'm suggesting far less payload will be involved in getting solar power to Mars and then developing ISRU on Mars than in developing several locations simultaneously and trading between those locations.
What does Mars need that it hasn't got?
Have you seen the amazing robot quadruped. Here's the You Tube link:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
Looks to me like that could be very useful for exploration of Mars. It can carry a significant package. It might be used to lay supplies robotically for exploration trails. Or it might accompany Mars explorers on journeys. Or it might be used around the base, particularly the industrial zone for fetching and carrying.
Nice idea but not necessarily practical.
Also I think Mars has everything we need. Water is there in abundance. Hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen are there - perhaps not in ideal quantities, but there is a sufficiency. Remember, for the foreseeable future the colonies are going to be quite tiny. Even a colony of 100,000 is not going to tax the resources available on Mars. The significant thing about Mars is that it has huge amounts of usable land and solar insolation not far off the equivalent figure for earth (thanks to the lack of a dense atmosphere). With the huge energy surplus (far greater per capita than anything available to the earth-bound), we will be able to make good use of the resources.
Right - so it is part of an independent state but it looks like the US has some rights in perpetuity over Kwajalein.
"In 1986 the Compact of Free Association with the United States entered into force, granting the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) its sovereignty. The Compact provided for aid and U.S. defense of the islands in exchange for continued U.S. military use of the missile testing range at Kwajalein Atoll. The independence was formally completed under international law in 1990, when the UN officially ended the Trusteeship status."
Apologies.
I realised it was a US company but thought Kwajalein was part of an independent nation. I'll look into that.
My comments below:
1. Civilisations developing technology (radiostelescopes) also invent ways of destroying themselves (nucelar bombs). They destroy themselves so often, that the number of civilisations co-existing within our galaxy at a given time is about 10. (from Sagan's book)
COMMENT: Possible. But seems a bit unlikely. Whilst no power has succeeded in dominating the whole of civilisation many have come close: Roman Empire, Chinese Empire, Islam, British Empire, Soviets and USA.
Were the continents arranged in a different manner then it seems likely to me that on power would succeed in getting control and then hang on to it.
Or, alternatively, since I cannot think of one example of a democracy fighting a war against another democracy, the whole planet might become the preserve of peace loving democracies. I feel there should be many more examples of those sorts of planets where nuclear war will never lead to destruction.
2. Civilistations concentrate on listening instead of broadcasting due to limited resources/funds. Nobody talks, everybody just listen. (a Polish book)
COMMENT: No. Pathetic.
3. Civilisations capable of detecting Earthlings are very advanced. They are aware of our existence but they do not want to interfere and prefer to observe. (Sagan's book).
COMMENT: Yes, that seems reasonable. Advanced industrial societies do now take that sort of approach with primitive tribes in the rain forest.
4. We are living at the border of a region in space that has been recently cleansed of all life by a violent supernova. Eartlings were too far but other life in the vicinity was destroyed (my humble assumption).
COMMENT: Possible I guess - but would that stop messages coming from billions of light years away.
5. There are colonisers gradually proceeding from one system to another but they have not reached us yet - life is common but intelligent life is quite scarce (Sagan's book).
COMMENT: The possibility that intelligent life is rare does seem possible to me. It may require a whole series of accidents of evolution.
ANOTHER POSSIBILITY: All advanced civilisations will, by definition, be science based. However, we can see on earth how difficult it is to control the development of science. If there are dangerous experiments out there about which we know little, e.g. black hole experiments, then that might be an explanation for the collapse of intelligent life on planets. However, surely the radio messages woudl continue to pump through the cosmos even where these societies go under.
OK recap:
1. Conventional multi stage rocket to earth orbit.
2 . Possible Single Stage Lander which will then return to earth in one piece.
3. Refuel on the moon.
4. Peak of Eternal Light location for colony/base. Are we talking north or south pole? Think south is favoured.
5. Base to be located on plateau.
6. Base to comprise: habitat, industrial zone, entrenched hydroponic facility using artificial light and commercial zone (lunar hotel and lunar gardens of romance and remembrance).
7. Commercial revenue stream to be sought from the off e.g. taking ashes to the moon or love messages.
8. Lunar economic development to be a priority:
Lunar hotel, lunar website, lunar gardens of romance and remembrance, rocket fuel production, mining for precious metals (if they exist in any quantity).
9. Solar power. Ultra thin PV should be usable within the Peaks of eternal light (ignore my previous comments on that). Can generate a huge surplus for storage where necessary. . Storage, apart from chemical battery storage will not be very necessary on the moon, but as one of the main objectives of the lunar base is to test all systems for the Mars colonisation programme we will want to try everything we can especially methane production.
So what's the latest knowledge on presence of water or hydrogen on the planet?
I've always suspected it's a great big, fat waste of space!
Yes, I;d thought about that. It could be quite heavy if pressurised. But it would be quite nice way to explore if you had no space suit on. Watch out for the precipice though!
You really think non-democracies like China, Iran and Russia can be trusted to play a constructive role in colony development? I don't. I think they will be pursuing a very narrow interest.
That's why I would much prefer nation states to be kept out of Mars if possible. It's probably not possible, but we shall have to wait and see. There is in my view a reasonable chance that an enterprise like Space X might get there first.
Difficult to say about revenue stream, but there is definitely the need for one.
I wouldn't rule out my "garden of remembrance" idea either - layout the ashes of dead people on the Moon. People might just send up a couple of Kgs - pay maybe $15,000 - or could be lower figures. Ashes are a lot easier to handle than live human beings. Hardly any running costs involved. We migth have a web cam so people could view where there loved ones were.
There would be advertising revenue from other live webcams on the moon I'm sure. Quite significant I would guess - it's the sort of thing car companies and so on would want to be associated with. I reckon you could be looking at revenue of 1 million dollars plus from that.
We could think of lots of ones - how about this for Valentine's Day -
We have a live webcam which shows your name and your loved ones plus message being embossed on metal on the surface of the moon .These declarations of love are robotically attached to magnetic poles and remain there "forever". Maintenance costs? Close to zero. Potential revenue? Quite huge I would say. We could be talking of millions of dollars. Wouldn't a message on the moon to last for all eternity be more impressive than a notice in the local newspaper? And we could probably retail that at say $200 a message. The robots could handle thousands a day. Think of the demand at Valentine's Day!
Yes, fuel taken from the moon to LEO or whatever earth orbit makes most sense.
We really need to drive down the cost of space travel and this is one way. Perhaps with a reusable lunar lander and LEO fuelling, we can make substantial inroads into cost. If we can get the cost of the launch down to $5000 a Kg and the overall cost of a three day stay to say $250,000 I think we could be in business. There are lots of multi millionaires who would consider that sort of payment for a once in a lifetime adventure. It would be such a status symbol as well.
With this revenue stream we could fund the resupply and expansion of the colony.
Remember, once in operation, the hotel would cost very little to operate. There will be no rent, no taxes, no fuel bills, no licensing, no bureaucracy to deal with, no advertising to pay for and no labour costs as such.
The itinerary would probably be something like: one day acclimatise within the hotel, one day lunar rover expedition and one day moon walking/having fun.
Terraformer -
According to the NASA site:
May 5, 2006: An early, persistent problem noted by Apollo astronauts on the Moon was dust. It got everywhere, including into their lungs. Oddly enough, that may be where future Moon explorers get their next breath of air: The moon's dusty layer of soil is nearly half oxygen.
Isn't oxygen the basis for fuel as well?
Is aluminium a good fuel? How is it used?
Back to the landing location - if it's Peaks of Light, then we need to identify a valley bottom of plateau where we can locate the base I think.
Greenhouse? I think I would still go with artificially lit hydroponic farming in an entrenched inflatable habitat. Protects from cosmic rays for one thing. For another, although there may be peaks of light, they aren't necessarily suitable for surface greenhouses. Plus, even within the peaks of light area there may be substantial variations in solar radiation between night and day.
Do you think we should aim to begin surface construction at an early juncture. The reason I ask is that I think that could be important to developing a lunar economy. If there is to be a lunar hotel, something on the surface may be far more attractive to visitors, than being cooped up in an underground facility. Eco dome construction (see link below) might be one way forward. Sandbags could be filled with earth. A good sealant cement should be possible.
http://www.calearth.org/EcoDome.htm
An eco dome "adobe" style building or connected series of buildings would look good on the moon I think. Windows would have to be limited, but perhaps one could build in an air lock to an observation platform with special glass to give people an all round view from maybe a plateau over looking hills and dramatic scenery.
Getting the hotel established and creating a revenue stream which will contribute to the upkeep of the colony could be very important.
Terraformer -
I think the objectives of going there would include:
1. Manufacture of rocket fuel, which could also be transferred into LEO or GSO.
2. Establishment of a lunar economy based on tourism, remembrance gardens, a small educational academy, and possibly medical treatment centre for persons with arthritis.
3. Testing of all Mars ISRU proposals.
4. Establishment of a permanent human presence on the Moon (lined with 2).
The Moon would offer some ISRU options that are possibly less clear on Mars. A solar forge must be easier to operate there I would think. Also, it might be possible to build a solar tower with an enclosed atmosphere - not sure about that but I guess it could be possible.
A solar forge is as I understand it a solar reflector - parabolic (?) shape which concentrates the sun's rays. My understanding is that the amount of solar radiation on the moon is far larger than on earth because of lack of atmosphere. You could generate v. high temps. with a reflector, no probs.
The downside seems to be the absence of water. Will come back to that soon.
Anyway so far we seem to be looking at:
- Multi stage conventional rocket into earth orbit, launching a possible single stage lunar lander. Lunar lander to be refuelled on the moon.
- Solar power.
- Permanent human settlement.
- Development of a lunar economy.
Not sure about melting of precious metals or metal ores. I don't think the moon is v. volcanic and it is volcanoes that are associated with gold I understand. However, I need to read up on that more.
But ferrying rocket fuel to craft in LEO could maybe be quite a productive economic activity in years to come. If it means the mass of a NASA rocket can be half what it is now, then that might be justification enough.
Thanks for the quick tutorial Robert. I'm very much a beginner in this area.
I think I've read that the difficulty with jet engines at speed is the heat - when you are getting to these high Mach speeds the air is so superheated it's behaving quite differently form at lower temps. But certainly longer term, the space plane concept sounds good.
My interest is still in a pure rocket engine achieving SSTO.
Are you saying that at present there is no way you could get a 10 tonne payload to LEO on a single stage reusable craft? If so, can you explain why.
Terraformer -
Yes I did momentarily discount the peaks of eternal light, or maybe the sceptic in me was wondering about those.
Have they been proved to exist definitively and if they have been, do they make suitable locations for a base (or is there a good location close by)? Generally speaking I always feel a nice bit of flat land is best for first base.
Jump -
No - nuclear does require storage as well, otherwise if the nuclear system fails you have nothing to fall back on. Of course you can take along two nuclear generators, in which case the chances of both failing are pretty slim, although if they require monitoring by a specialist engineer then injury to or death of the engineer could be problematic (but less so on the moon, compared with Mars).
Ok, shall we leave the rocket issue to one side for a while.
Next difficult one: energy source. Solar or nuclear. I think those are the only two options, unless there's some way of operating hydro on the Moon.
Anyway, I would certainly opt for solar. The arguments are more balanced for a Mars Mission, but with the moon being so close, I think there is little to be gained from nuclear.
We can start with Mars Rover style panels if we wish. They give something like 100 watt hours I think. But we can probably triple that on the moon.
But of course we have lunar day and night, so we have to have storage.
Suggest we start with chemical batteries for storage.
Would there be an argument for an in-out mission to begin with? So we set up some energy storage process but then evacuate the humans, only returning to take up permanent occupation once the energy stored is sufficient to cope with lunar nights.?
What methods of energy storage are practical on the moon?
Robert -
Yes, ultimately that would be the goal I think. But certainly as a half way house, let's assume a full refuel on the Moon. So really it's SSTO, journey to moon and moon landing I'm thinking about.
On the question of weight, doesn't a retrorocket descent preclude the need for a specialist heat resisting skin? Surely some weight saving there - although you say the materials used are v. light.
Is there anyway of describing a rule of thumb for the physics limits? I've read 100 to 1 for mass to payload to get into orbit. Not sure if that's LEO, or GSO but I guess that's on the assumption of multi-stage rockets. .
Saturn V was nearly 3,000 tonnes and that got a 30 tonne command and service module to the moon and back. So I am assuming it is GSO.
Of course there sometimes appear to be ambiguity about what constitutes payload and what is dry mass.
I suppose I'm wondering what a 3,000 tonne monster with today's materials and fuels but SSTO could do in terms of a 10 tonne payload.
Thanks for the peach image - that's one to keep in mind.
One things for sure - we won't be throwing away the faeces. That faeces is your next meal. It's fertiliser. Straight into the nutritional solution facility to help make the solution that will be used to growing crops hydroponically.
Very interesting Robert.
Well it seems to me that what is holding people back here is really the investment costs and the challenge of developing all the necessary new knowledge - not any physical limits. It's probably similar to what happened with jet aircraft. The delta concept coudl have been developed with the cabin built into the wings. Many engineers think that could be a more efficient design. But to design a plane like that now means you would have to go back to basics in a lot of areas - and that is expensive and difficult to predict in terms of outcome i.e. there might be a serious problem we haven't anticipated.
I can see why a company like Space X will not want to go back to basics - far too expensive. Why not just go with the basic multi stage approach with which engineers are familiar and which delivers immediate upfront benefits.
However, I am quite encouraged by what you say. Seems to me a ten tonne payload to the Moon and back again with full retro rocket landing at both ends (but maybe with refuelling on the moon) is certainly doable. The great advantage would be turn round times, convenience, lack of heat damage, reusability greater reliability - which, once the initial investment is discounted must translate into reduced costs.
Everybody tells me an SSTO is impossible. But no one ever gives any figures.
Here's one estimate of an SSTO configuration:
"So how bad is this? Well, it's not good. Even with hydrogen, an SSTO launcher which weighs (say) 800,000 lbs at launch has to be 7/8ths fuel. We've got 100,000 lbs for tanks to hold 700,000 lbs of fuel, engines to lift an 800,000 lb vehicle, a heatshield to protect the whole thing on return, structure to hold it all together at high acceleration...and some payload to make it all worthwhile. Most of the dry weight has to go for the vehicle itself; only a small part of it can be payload. (That is, the "payload fraction" is quite small.) To get any payload at all, we need to work hard at making the vehicle ("dry") very lightweight."
So that's a 50 tonnes for tanks to hold 350 tonnes of fuel, engines, and the rest, including the payload.
But how much payload?
Saturn V was I think about 3000 tonnes in total mass.
Does that give us some leeway.
What if we had a 3000 tonne SSTO. Could that carry a 10 tonne payload.
I favour permafrost mining because that will be a double use for the mini-digger i would recommend taking as part of a minimal mission. Multitasking of machines will keep down mission mass.
I've suggested we probably need some sort of microwave machine that can turn the ground into something more like slush, which can then be loaded into a trailer (where it will quickly refreeze). Icy ground can quickly blunt all sort of cutters/diggers, so this would make sense. Maybe one crew member should have a sort of pneumatic drill-cum-microwave generator that would break up the regolith and allow the digger to scoop it up.
Heating and filtering the permafrost blocks should be a fairly easy task.
History is plenty on my side. Most of the Europe exploration and settlement of the world was undertaken by companies, often backed initially by philanthropists or religious organisations e.g. East India Company, Hudson Bay company, Pilgrim Fathers etc The Portugese explorations were privately financed by Prince Henry the Navigator, not the state as such. State monopoly of exploration is a very recent and probably abnormal state of affairs.
Terraformer -
I think we're looking for quite a loose form of government. No one really governs the Antarctic at the moment. I'm not saying we need an Antarctic Treaty, but that just illustrates the point that not everywhere needs to be run by a centralised state machine.