New Mars Forums

Official discussion forum of The Mars Society and MarsNews.com

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Announcement: As a reader of NewMars forum, we have opportunities for you to assist with technical discussions in several initiatives underway. NewMars needs volunteers with appropriate education, skills, talent, motivation and generosity of spirit as a highly valued member. Write to newmarsmember * gmail.com to tell us about your ability's to help contribute to NewMars and become a registered member.

#26 2017-02-05 20:01:34

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

The Moon is no more hostile than any other place in near Earth Space. Probably the easiest place to establish a base would be the Lunar poles. Sending cargo to the Moon is one thing, sending people to the Moon is something else. It would be cheaper to send people to the Moon than to Mars, because people need life support and cargo does not. When you transport a person to Mars, the equipment you need to keep him alive to get there has more mass than the equipment you need on the Moon. Also anyone on the Moon is still orbiting the Earth, you just have the little matter of achieving Lunar Escape Velocity, and you have a three day trip back to Earth at anytime. If an emergency happens at a Lunar base, evacuation is easy. Also the return to Earth from the Moon requires less delta-v than the return to Earth from Mars, as the Earth has an atmosphere for slowing down in both cases.

Offline

#27 2017-02-05 22:10:16

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,379

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

When one considers the 14 days of total darkness, followed by 14 days of sunlight, the dark cycle means extremely low temperatures due to rapid radiative heat loss. The space suits are much heavier for both thermal and pressure protection when built for lunar use. Not really much there to support a base, since the O2 availability requires LOTS of energy in order to liberate; no solar panels for 14 days. Mars also has enough atmosphere to slightly attenuate the Cosmic Ray background radiation, as well as a larger gravitational constant which is healthier for the human organism.

So...I must totally disagree with your assessment of using the Moon for a base as a stepping stone to Martian missions.

Offline

#28 2017-02-06 04:33:56

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

Well the Moon actually blocks half of all cosmic rays, you get less cosmic rays sitting on the surface of the Moon than you do in free space. Night time means that astronauts need to carry flashlights and need thick soles on the boots to protect their feet from the cold ground. Vacuum otherwise makes a very good insulator, it is probably easier to keep warm in he dark on the Moon than on Mars at night, the thin atmosphere does give the suit a little extra work in maintaining is internal temperature. These are only problems if you are in places where there is not constant sunshine on the Moon. The place to build a base I clearly at the poles, if you want o rely on Solar power. One can make excursions to other places while they are lit. There is also energy storage possibilities.

Offline

#29 2017-02-06 06:28:36

Terraformer
Member
From: Ceres
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,816
Website

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

Oldfart, your information on Luna is significantly out of date. We know there is ice there, which can be used to produce oxygen and propellent. Building at the poles (which is where the ice is...) reduces the energy storage problem significantly, since you can raise solar panels on peaks of eternal light.

It doesn't make sense to go to Luna to load up on propellent to go to Mars, but no-one is suggesting that. You bring the propellent to L1 and LEO, and refuel there.


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

Offline

#30 2017-02-06 08:21:44

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,379

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

The jury is still out on the water available on the Moon. There is some evidence of some water ice deep within the shade of the polar craters, but no indication of how much. Extraction of this super cold ice could be difficult w/o access to adequate power (nuclear). Use of Solar panels will be limited to 50% of the time, requiring enormous battery packs.

The Moon offers "Magnificent Desolation."

Offline

#31 2017-02-06 09:28:43

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

Let me remind you, the Space Shuttle was powered by fuel cells, and sometimes missions have lasted as long as 2 weeks, that should about cover the Lunar night, and then we can lay out extra solar panels to recharge them during the day.

Offline

#32 2017-02-06 09:53:38

elderflower
Member
Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

Tom, fuel cells require fuel. generally fuel containing hydrogen, or just hydrogen. Methanol is popular for this purpose. When the fuel is gone they stop working until more is supplied. They don't get recharged with electricity directly,  as a storage battery does.
You might generate more hydrogen by electrolysis during sunlight hours. If this process were efficient as a means of storing power on a large scale the utility corporations would be using it by now.

Offline

#33 2017-02-06 10:18:15

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

Plenty of room to lay out more Solar Panels to get this job done, plenty of sunlight too. Solar panels cost just about as much as anything else you might haul to the Moon, the main consideration is mass, not cost to manufacture. I still think a nuclear reactor would cost more than the number of Solar Panels you'd need t recharge the fuel cells. Also what about lithium-ion batteries?

Offline

#34 2017-02-06 10:38:39

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,455
Website

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

The original title of this thread was "Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan".  Here is a view from a subset of industry insiders that suggests he will not.

From AIAA’s “Daily Launch” email newsletter received today 2-6-17:

Sources, Memos Indicate Administration Will Focus On Commercial Space Exploration.

In an extensive article based on interviews with industry and transition officials and copies of previously-confidential memos sent to the White House, the Wall Street Journal (2/5, Subscription Publication) reports that those sources indicated that President Donald Trump’s administration will advocate for prioritizing commercial space initiatives and focus on short-term goals – including a potential lunar mission – that can be completed during Trump’s four-year term. Sources said that the administration has directed its NASA transition team to postpone any major decisions until the formation of the new space council, but according to memos reviewed by the Journal, tension is already building between advocates of NASA’s established priorities and supporters of commercial projects. Underscoring that divide was a January 23 email from NASA transition team member Charles Miller to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggesting that NASA “hold an internal competition between Old Space and New Space” to decide the best option to reach the moon quickly.

        Proponents Of SLS-Orion Seek To Protect Programs.

In a separate article, the Wall Street Journal (2/5, Subscription Publication) reports that proponents of the Boeing-led Space Launch System (SLS) and Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft are taking steps to shield the projects from commercial space advocates in the White House, who likely will push for defunding them. With the first mission not scheduled until 2021, supporters are exploring unusual options to protect funding. According to an unnamed source, NASA officials recently attempted to safeguard SLS by using contract-termination accounts – which would make it harder to cancel the program – but the administration’s transition team discovered the effort and terminated it.

Now back to me:  It looks to me like the focus may shift toward “new space” firms and what can be done in LEO and on the moon.  It also looks like there will be a huge fight over the “old space” pork program SLS/Orion. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

Offline

#35 2017-02-06 14:18:23

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,379

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

I believe that Elon Musk has had several meetings with Donald Trump. I think the "Old Space" advocates better get ready for the Pork Barbecue represented in the SLS and Orion capsules. Another 4-5 years before they fly? Unreasonable.

Offline

#36 2017-02-06 18:03:42

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,832

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_facilities

There are 10 NASA field centers, which provide leadership for and execution of NASA's work.

400px-Usa_edcp_location_map.svg.png

In 2013 a NASA Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) Report recommended a Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) style organization to consolidate NASA's little used facilities. The OIG determined at least 33 of NASA's 155 facilities were underutilized.

So we have 155 building for the ten site locations with 33 not being used to the fullest of potential which is adding to the bottom dollar that nasa needs to maintain them.

Nasa can do great things but how much duplication is there from miscommunications being that they are so spread out....

Maybe its time to make nasa a for profit system to motivate management to get the job done rather than designing with the most expensive or unobtainium for what they are working on in each location.

It is important to do the cutting edge science and developement but there must be cost control to it.

Also hire some new contract writing lawyers as the current batch suck at it....

Offline

#37 2017-02-07 17:37:12

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,455
Website

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

We went through this with the military base consolidation thing a few years ago.  Pork politics screwed that up.  What makes you think pork politics won't screw up a NASA consolidation?  It has already screwed up NASA's mandated objectives with SLS/Orion. 

It's not so much NASA as it is Congress that is at fault here.  Although NASA itself has expanded into a gigantic bureaucracy essentially unable to function on ordinary human timescales.  Reminds me of government in India,  actually. 

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-02-07 17:39:45)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

Offline

#38 2017-02-07 19:40:37

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,379

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

NASA really needs to do some project rationalization. Yes, they are doing some "interesting stuff," but not what the agency was founded to do. And...it's not individuals, but whole research groups. A little belt tightening?

Offline

#39 2017-02-07 20:22:50

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,832

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

power and water post was from a long time ago 12-12-2007

cIclops wrote:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/2057 … ll_226.jpg
Lunar solar array and regenerative fuel cell

Lighting up the Lunar Night with Fuel Cells - 12 Dec 2007

NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is leading an effort to develop systems that could store energy for use during the long, frigid lunar nights. The solution may be a fuel cell system that originally was designed for a high-altitude solar-electric airplane.

In 2005, Electrical Engineer David Bents and his team at Glenn demonstrated the first and only fully closed-loop, regenerative fuel cell ever operated. Though the technology never was implemented on the airplane, Glenn engineers are gleaning valuable information from the project as they design a next-generation regenerative fuel cell for the moon.

How It Works:

A typical hydrogen fuel cell combines hydrogen from a tank and oxygen from the air to produce electricity, leaving water and heat as its only byproducts. A regenerative fuel cell also works in reverse, using electricity to divide the water into hydrogen and oxygen, which are fed back into the fuel cell to produce more electricity.

"What makes our regenerative fuel cell unique is that it's closed loop and completely sealed," Bents said. "Nothing goes in and nothing comes out, other than electrical power and waste heat. The hydrogen, oxygen and product water inside are simply recycled over and over again."

In other words, instead of using oxygen from the air like other regenerative fuel cells, the closed-loop system re-uses the oxygen extracted from the water. That makes it ideal for use on the moon, where there is no oxygen.

"On the moon, you would start with a tank of water. You'd use the solar arrays to make hydrogen and oxygen during the day, then use the hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity during the night when there's no sun," said Bents. "Ideally, if nothing broke and nothing wore out, it could run forever without being refueled."

The system is very similar to a rechargeable battery, but it can store four to six times more energy than a battery of the same weight.

cIclops wrote:

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/5244 … ostjg3.jpg
From ISRU Development & Incorporation Plans (5MB PDF) - November 2007

o O2 Production from Regolith
– 2 MT/yr production rate for surface mission consumables – 1 MT/yr for ECLSS/EVA and 1 MT/yr to make water
– Capability manifested on 6th landed mission (before start of permanent presence)
– Increased production to 10 MT/yr during Outpost operation could also support refueling 2 ascent vehicles per year to further increase payload delivery capability

o In-Situ Water Production
– Scavenge minimum of 55 kg of hydrogen (max. ~252 kg) from each LSAM descent stage after landing and add to in-situ oxygen to make 1 MT/yr of water
– Polar water extraction not evaluated in Lunar Architecture Phase II effort. Not needed unless large scale in-situ propellant (O2 & H2) production is required

o In-Situ Methane Production
– Pyrolysis processing of plastic trash and crew waste with in-situ oxygen can make methane
– Capability supports LSAM Ascent ‘top-off’ in case of leakage, power loss, or increased payload to orbit

Using crew waste and trash to make CH4 - ingenious!

cIclops wrote:

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/5000/fspsve6.jpg

FSPS (Fission Surface Power Systems) is mentioned several times in the FY2009 budget with a date of 2012.

This project is developing concepts and technologies for affordable nuclear fission surface power systems for long duration stays on the moon and exploration of Mars. NASA is collaborating with the Department of Energy on development of fission surface power system concepts. Power conversion test facilities at Glenn Research Center and nuclear test facilities at the Department of Energy will support this project.

The Fission Surface Power Systems Project will demonstrate full-scale radiator panels at temperatures and heat transfer rates relevant to a reference 40-kilowatt fission surface power system.

Energy Storage & Power Systems (PDF 2MB) - 14 Nov 2007

FSPS System characteristics
– Low temperature, NaK cooled, UO2 reactor
– Use of regolith for shielding
– Stirling power conversion
– Water heat pipe radiators

A 40 kW class power plant would enable both lunar and martian ISRU.

cIclops wrote:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/214144main_4-516.jpg
Radar map of an area 650 x 450 kms near Shakleton Crater proposed site of the Outpost

Enhanced Radar Imagery of Lunar South Pole - 27 Feb 2008

Lunar Architecture Update (PDF 5MB) - 28 Feb 2008 - more radar images in last section

cIclops wrote:

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/5656 … ukero6.jpg
Fission Surface Power (FSP) system - reference concept layout

From System Concepts for Affordable Fission Surface Power (PDF 2MB) - January 2008

NASA and DOE conducted a 12 month study to estimate the cost of a FSP system for lunar and Mars missions. Screening studies were performed to evaluate technology options and design variables before selecting a preliminary reference concept for costing. The screening studies led to a UO2-fueled, NaK-cooled reactor with Stirling power conversion and water-based heat rejection capable of providing 40 kWe with an 8 yr design life. The reference system is emplaced in a pre-excavated hole to allow nearoutpost siting and reduce radiation levels to less than 5 rem/yr at 100 m separation distance. The reactor uses stainless steel construction, limiting nominal coolant temperatures to less than 900 K, in order to minimize development cost and leverage terrestrial technology. Stirling power conversion is well suited to the operating temperature, providing high efficiency at relatively high heat rejection temperature. The use of water heat transport and water heat pipe radiator panels provides efficient waste heat removal, using a deployment approach that is derived from the ISS radiators. The FSP system concept is extensible to Mars, with materials and design strategies that are fully compatible with the Martian environment. The total system mass with 20 percent margin is less than 5000 kg.

Offline

#40 2017-02-07 22:00:52

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

GW Johnson wrote:

We went through this with the military base consolidation thing a few years ago.  Pork politics screwed that up.  What makes you think pork politics won't screw up a NASA consolidation?  It has already screwed up NASA's mandated objectives with SLS/Orion. 

It's not so much NASA as it is Congress that is at fault here.  Although NASA itself has expanded into a gigantic bureaucracy essentially unable to function on ordinary human timescales.  Reminds me of government in India,  actually. 

GW

It is still the foremost space agency in the World! NASA has a bigger budget than any of the others, and it is doing stuff no one else is doing. After almost 50 years, not a single country has followed up on NASA with a manned Moon landing of its own. Does that mean NASA was 50 years ahead of anyone else? Only one country has sent astronauts up into space onboard a shuttle of its own design, other countries have sent their astronauts on our shuttle, but no one else has built a shuttle and sent astronauts into space on it, Russia had  shuttle but it was never manned. NASA is the only space agency to have sent probes to the outer planets, although the ESA hitch hiked a probe on one two of our rockets, it was NASA that got them there, NASA has pioneered a number of space technologies that are now being used by private industry. NASA has done a lot of things, particularly in technology development, that other people are now using.

Offline

#41 2017-02-08 00:01:28

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,379

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

Tom-

In my view, your description was NASA "then," and not "now." NASA has become very conservative and risk adverse, and when an organization is "afraid to lose," they cannot develop strategies to win. Progress on everything has become glacially slow. I was at one time a huge cheerleader for NASA, but that was when Von Braun was still in the loop.

Offline

#42 2017-02-08 09:10:51

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

Oldfart1939 wrote:

Tom-

In my view, your description was NASA "then," and not "now." NASA has become very conservative and risk adverse, and when an organization is "afraid to lose," they cannot develop strategies to win. Progress on everything has become glacially slow. I was at one time a huge cheerleader for NASA, but that was when Von Braun was still in the loop.

I am still waiting for some other space agency to beat NASA at anything, but the Chinese haven't even landed a man on the Moon yet, and neither have the Russians. In fact the Russians don't do much besides send things into low Earth orbit, their program is just as much stuck as ours, and you have seen pictures from the Juno probe haven't you?
swirling%20cyclones%20at%20Jupiter%26amp%3B%23039%3Bs%20north%20pole.jpg.jpg
Do you know of any space agency besides NASA that can get an image like this?

Offline

#43 2017-02-08 10:15:00

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,379

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

I'm not in denial of the accomplishments of NASA; historically, they have done great things. What concerns me, moving forward, is the manner in which they spend taxpayer dollars--never accomplish a project in the 8 year time frame of a particular presidential term--which leads to subsequent cancellations and waste of efforts. Example: Project Constellation. There needs be a much more aggressive mind set w/r completion times. Not--Man on Mars "some time in the 2030s." We've done about as much as possible there by robotics; what's needed now is boots on the ground. Maybe a better cooperation between NASA and SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and yes--Boeing and Lockheed Martin. And for goodness sake, stop these wasteful cost-plus contracts. Break the barrier of using nuclear reactors in space applications. The deep space probes to the outer solar system could give a huge return on the investments made if they were to say" we need to fly a small reactor to optimize data return," we'd be seeing 100X the data for these billion dollar missions.
The SLS is a great example as to why NASA should no longer be "building" rockets. Start issuing contracts for defined goals and under non-glacially mandated time lines.

Offline

#44 2017-02-08 12:42:02

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 7,076

Re: Trump may fund the Spacex Mars Colonization plan

I will intrude and make the point that for instance now, for Astrobiology, Mars has competition from Europa, and Enceladus.
One rumor has it that Europa will become the target, not Mars.  After all a probable habitable ocean which has likely existed for a long time, and may have gysers which might be sampled, is possibly more important than Mars which may have been periodically habitable in a large way, but has also periodically has likely been more challenging to life than it is now.

Similarly though 95% of the members here loath the face, Mars also has competition from the Moon and Asteroids.
The failure of the space program(s) (Everybody's), to achieve human grasp of Mars, as a real possibility, is making people tired of the idea in fact.  We would like some achievement of some kind.

I have read various articles in relations to what is spoken of in this topic so far.

Here is an example of a non-Mars opinion:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/spe … 6cd5828fd0
Quote:

Novelist David Brin, author of Earth, The Postman and Heart of the Comet, emailed a response to this blog item:
Joel. I like most of your reporting a lot, but the piece on Trump and NASA, while informative, seems to miss an undercurrent. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are eager for an all-out "Mars or Bust" push, though both see it as a long term goal. The alternative to the Moon is not Mars, it is asteroids.
Most of the scientific community and all the new space entrepreneurs, from [Elon] Musk and Bezos and [Peter] Diamandis to Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, are eager for missions to analyze the wide variety of near-Earth asteroids or NEOs. Ever since John Lewis wrote Mining the Sky, in the 1980s, we've known that some of these objects offer easy access to gobs of water — the massive necessity for space activities. Others offer prodigious amounts of iron, nickel, gold and platinum. Except for some meager ice at the hard-to-reach lunar poles, the moon has none of these things.
For analysis of such samples, no place is better than lunar orbit, and that is why the Obama Administration aimed NASA there. Also, from lunar orbit, it would have been cool to offer transit services to all the wannabes and johnnies-come-lately who want to land on the sterile moon. Russians, Chinese, Europeans, billionaires...why do another useless "joint program," when their prestige-race to imitate Apollo would make lively competition. And cash for our lunar-orbit station. More dusty, lunar footprints do nothing for us. Not at the bottom of that deep and useless gravity well.
As it happens, this issue, like everything else, has become partisan. If you find some American wanting to go to the moon, it will almost always be a Republican. The facts and the math and any scintilla of national interest all point to asteroids. In fact, experience using asteroid resources could let us turn Phobos into a logistics hub, which would then make any Mars exploration much more practical. Moreover, many tech billionaires see the promise in potential trillions of return from asteroids, much to the horror of those whose fortunes depend on resource extraction from our dwindling planet.

And here is indication of mining the Moon:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/10/billiona … -moon.html
Quote:

Moon Express, a Mountain View, California-based company that's aiming to send the first commercial robotic spacecraft to the moon next year, just took another step closer toward that lofty goal. Earlier this year, it became the first company to successfully test a prototype of a lunar lander at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The success of this test—and a series of others that will take place later this year—paves the way for Moon Express to send its lander to the moon in 2016, said company co-founder and chairman Naveen Jain.

Source: MoonExpress
Moon Express conducted its tests with the support of NASA engineers, who are sharing with the company their deep well of lunar know-how. The NASA lunar initiative—known as Catalyst—is designed to spur new commercial U.S. capabilities to reach the moon and tap into its considerable resources. In addition to Moon Express, NASA is also working with Astrobotic Technologies of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California, to develop commercial robotic spacecrafts.
Jain said Moon Express also recently signed an agreement to take over Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral. The historic launchpad will be used for Moon Express's lander development and flight-test operations. Before it was decommissioned, the launchpad was home to NASA's Atlas-Centaur rocket program and its Surveyor moon landers.

Read MoreBillionaire's plan to mine the moon
"Clearly, NASA has an amazing amount of expertise when it comes to getting to the moon, and it wants to pass that knowledge on to a company like ours that has the best chance of being successful," said Jain, a serial entrepreneur who also founded Internet companies Infospace and Intelius. He believes that the moon holds precious metals and rare minerals that can be brought back to help address Earth's energy, health and resource challenges.
Among the moon's vast riches: gold, cobalt, iron, palladium, platinum, tungsten and Helium-3, a gas that can be used in future fusion reactors to provide nuclear power without radioactive waste. "We went to the moon 50 years ago, yet today we have more computing power with our iPhones than the computers that sent men into space," Jain said. "That type of exponential technological growth is allowing things to happen that was never possible before."
An eye on the Google prize

Source: MoonExpress
Helping to drive this newfound interest in privately funded space exploration is the Google Lunar X Prize. It's a competition organized by the X Prize Foundation and sponsored by Google that will award $30 million to the first company that lands a commercial spacecraft on the moon, travels 500 meters across its surface and sends high-definition images and video back to Earth—all before the end of 2016.
Read MoreFans give millions to fund pop-fantasy video game
Moon Express is already at the front of the pack. In January it was awarded a $1 million milestone prize from Google for being the only company in the competition so far to test a prototype of its lander. "Winning the X prize would be a great thing," said Jain. "But building a great company is the ultimate goal with us." When it comes to space exploration, he added, "it's clear that the baton has been passed from the government to the private sector."
Testing in stages

Jain said Moon Express has been putting its lunar lander through a series of tests at the space center. The successful outing earlier this year involved tethering the vehicle—which is the size of a coffee table—to a crane in order to safely test its control systems. "The reason we tethered it to the crane is because the last thing we wanted was the aircraft to go completely haywire and hurt someone," he said.
At the end of March, the company will conduct a completely free flight test with no tethering. The lander will take off from the pad, go up and sideways, then land back at the launchpad. "This is to test that the vehicle knows where to go and how to get back to the launchpad safely," Jain explained.
Read MoreSpaceX, Elon Musk and the reusable rocket dream
Once all these tests are successfully completed, Jain said the lander—called MX-1—will be ready to travel to the moon. The most likely scenario is that it will be attached to a satellite that will take the lander into a low orbit over the Earth. From there the MX-1 will fire its own rocket, powered by hydrogen peroxide, and launch from that orbit to complete its travel to the moon's surface.
The lander's first mission is a one-way trip, meaning that it's not designed to travel back to the Earth, said Jain.
"The purpose is to show that for the first time, a company has developed the technology to land softly on the moon," he said. "Landing on the moon is not the hard part. Landing softly is the hard part."
That's because even though the gravity of the moon is one-sixth that of the Earth's, the lander will still be traveling down to the surface of the moon "like a bullet," Jain explained. Without the right calculations to indicate when its rockets have to fire in order to slow it down, the lander would hit the surface of the moon and break into millions of pieces. "Unlike here on Earth, there's no GPS on the moon to tell us this, so we have to do all these calculations first," he said.
Looking ahead 15 or 20 years, Jain said he envisions a day when the moon is used as a sort of way station enabling easier travel for exploration to other planets. In the meantime, he said the lander's second and third missions could likely involve bringing precious metals, minerals and even moon rocks back to Earth. "Today, people look at diamonds as this rare thing on Earth," Jain said.
He added, "Imagine telling someone you love her by giving her the moon."
—Susan Caminiti, special to CNBC.com

And here is evidence that the wicked enemy is afraid that we will.
http://www.themarshalltown.com/moon-min … nned/18640
Quote:

Professor Sa’id Mosteshar, director of the London Space institute of Property and Law

Essentially he is completely wrong.  But I believe if necessary the involved mining entities will withdraw from any such treaties.  It is immoral for freeloading old worlders to suppose that they can get a free ride and charge rents.  That has been their historical behavior, but they will be smashed flat on this one I believe.

Anyway, to get to the point, I think that purpose is strongly defused at this point, and if you want to go to Mars, you should be thinking about how you can piggy back onto other intentions such as space mining, at least until that becomes proven undoable, or in fact until it becomes reality, and can boost the projection of humans to Mars.

You are being silly having a temper tantrum demanding Mars or bust.

The band you are in is playing different tunes, so I will see you on the dark side of the Moon smile

Last edited by Void (2017-02-08 13:15:43)


Done.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB