What is the status today of O'Neill's vision today?

Antius · 2016-09-08 04:54:24

O'Neill's business plan was to establish a lunar mining outpost equipped with mass driver, launched packaged soil samples to a collection facility at L5 and process the resulting materials into solar power satellites. Large space colonies would have been constructed later on, only after operations had expanded enough to finance them.

A good question today would be how space based resources could be used profitably to start an operation like this at a minimum level. That means relatively small and mass-efficient factory units and living spaces, just sufficient to support a minimum operation. As SPSs come off the assembly line and are sold for profit, you can then attract investment for expanded facilities, eventually building up to the sort of space habitats that O'Neill had in mind. With the Space X launch systems apparently reducing launch costs by a factor 10 or more over the shuttle, we are in a much better position to start thinking in these terms.

GW Johnson · 2016-09-08 09:25:43

Just for reference: shuttle $100M/delivered to to ISS orbit, Atlas-5 near $6M/delivered ton. Falcon-9 near 6.5M/delivered ton. Falcon-Heavy near $2M/delivered ton (if 3 who cares?). SLS Block 1 near $7-14M/delivered ton, depending upon whose cost estimates you believe.

I understand what to do with the iron in iron-type meteorites or asteroids. I do not understand how anyone makes use of stony meteorites or asteroids (what can you do with largely-igneous-type rock minerals? Not very much!). Carbonaceous chondrites might be a source of soot, maybe even other simple carbon compounds, maybe some water, plus more stony minerals.

Iron and carbon potentially make mild steel. Alloy steels? Much tougher to do. Need things like nickel, chrome, and vanadium, in pure forms. Need to control for things like lead and sulfur. With variability in the source materials, this kind of thing doesn't automate very well.

Where do I get aluminum? Well, maybe from aluminum-oxide minerals, but the energy cost is very high and the zero-gee/vacuum environment presents gigantic challenges, same for steel-making, too.

And then there's titanium, various plastics, and glass. We need them all. And copper to make wire and tubing from.

Just creating these materials out of meteorites and asteroids will be very difficult. Not impossible, but very difficult, since the processes and environment are so at variance with prior human experience.

Now, just how do I shape them and join them in vacuum/zero-gee? Does welding work? Soldering? How do you glue things when your glue wants to bubble up and boil away in vacuum?

See what I mean about the technology-materials problem?

Very few are yet looking at any of this. The ones who are, are not really NASA or ESA etc (although small groups within them might be), they are the potential space or lunar mining enterprises. And they are not yet looking at this whole picture, just at small pieces where they think they could generate profit.

We are very far from using space resources in situ yet.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-09-08 09:29:52)

Antius · 2016-09-08 10:39:09

O’Neill’s space studies institute was set up in an attempt to answer these sorts of questions. From what I remember, they achieved some progress in refining the mass driver and there was some discussion on space based metal refining. But their achievements were confined to select areas and they appeared to lose momentum after O’Neill’s death in 1992.

In my opinion, the establishment of space manufacturing and resource utilisation should be NASA (and ESAs) primary day job. Sending probes to Jupiter and Pluto and hunting for extra-solar planets is all very fascinating, but it isn’t going to do much to drive the manufacturing bases of the US and Europe. The western world is in economic decline and needs a new frontier with new resources. At this point in history, space agencies should be focusing on the nuts and bolts technology work needed to pursue space colonisation. It should focus on the places we intend to go first, like the moon, near-Earth asteroids and further into the future, Mars. This should be done in partnership with domestic companies, including mining companies, metal refining companies, power systems companies, etc. Space agencies need to be tools for building empires, not dry scientific organisations sending probes to places that no one is going to visit for centuries. I think the public would be far more supportive of space based spending if they understood that it was being directed in this way. Programmes costing $100’s Billions become easier to support if they have a more imperialist and commercial flavour to them.

Last edited by Antius (2016-09-08 10:41:14)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-08 11:19:48

How does this fit into the picture? Gerard O'Neill never mentioned using these as heavy lift launchers. I think one of the first things they could do is fit the components of a Moon base, along with mining equipment and a mass driver. One of the big obstacles to getting this project off the ground is te cost of lifting things to orbit. A nuclear Orion is among other things an SSTO. Instead of waiting for some mythical future tech to develop, we can start launching these things with known science. I get tired of waiting, maybe we have to do something drastic to get space colonization going. if the anti-nuke people don't like it, maybe they should turn their efforts to see to it that bad people in the Middle East don't get their own nuclear weapons, but seeing how they dn't care aout that, they don't have a decent leg to stand on. Maybe Trump will do it, I can see, he's not afraid to offend people, and he is into real estate, he can put his name on the colony in big letters!

RobertDyck · 2016-09-08 11:35:06

At the Mars Society convention in Chicago, 2004, I presented a paper how to make aluminum on Mars. There is no bauxite on Mars, because bauxite is result of a tropical rain forest. Moving water weathers igneous rocks into clay, then trees and other plants in a tropical rain forest leach out nutrients. After all nutrients they need are depleted, left over is bauxite. There never was a tropical rain forest on Mars, so no bauxite. But the good news is you can use anorthite or bytownite as ore. The Bayer process uses dissolves bauxite in strong alkali then uses a weak acid to neutralize pH. Instead reverse the pH: dissolve anorthite or bytownite in strong acid, then use a weak alkali to neutralize pH. The Bayer process uses sodium hydroxide known as caustic soda, and neutralizes by bubbling CO2 gas through solution to create carbonic acid. The reverse would use hydrochloric acid, then bubble ammonia through. I thought I came up with a wonderful invention, but it turned out a mining company in Sweeden was already doing it. I have re-invented the wheel!

The point is you can use igneous rocks as ore. The two minerals I mention are types of feldspar; plagioclase feldspar to be precise. Anorthite is pure calcium-alumino-silicate. Well, it can have up to 10% sodium. Bytownite has 70% to 90% sodium-alumino-silicate. If it has more sodium than that, then acid causes the alumino-silicate to form quartz. Once a film of quartz forms over the surface of the grain, it stops dissolving. So feldspar with more sodium than that is said to "etch" but not dissolve.

The problem is whether asteroids have any anorthite or bytownite. I treat meteorites as a reasonable sample of near Earth objects. Analysis shows none of either of these minerals. Oops.

Mars orbiters have found thermal emission spectra and thermal momentum consistent with lots of bytownite. However, rovers found surface minerals are more complex than orbiters claim. Ground truth is important. But there is anorthite and bytownite on Mars.

GW Johnson · 2016-09-08 13:53:56

I think I remember there being anorthite ? anorthosite? on the moon. I also remember hearing about titanium there.

Too bad the asteroids don't look so promising for useful metals (except iron). The icier ones (and comets? as if there is much difference) might be sources of volatiles like H2O, CO, and CO2.

Somehow, there must be ways and means to create what we need.

GW

Void · 2016-09-08 17:26:23

OK GW, hopefully you won't think I am picking on you. I am only seeking commonality of information.

You said:

I think I remember there being anorthite ? anorthosite? on the moon. I also remember hearing about titanium there.
Too bad the asteroids don't look so promising for useful metals (except iron). The icier ones (and comets? as if there is much difference) might be sources of volatiles like H2O, CO, and CO2.
Somehow, there must be ways and means to create what we need.
GW

Is it the NEO asteroids which do not look promising? From what I read, the main belt ones will sometimes have 80% Iron and 20% other metals. Hard to get to those though. Comets will be really hard to use, unless you slam them into something. (Mars for instance).

But I don't want to be an ignorant jerk, it would not surprise me at all if someone like you were privy to data someone like me would lack. I am interested in what you can tell me on the matter.

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

But.... How about this? "What is the status today of O'Neill's vision today?".

I think it's status should be changed to "Under review due to changed understanding of the Moon".

First of all, I believe that O'Neill's vision needs revision, and I am sure he would do so if he could.
1) The Moon is not bone dry as they thought it was. (Is this not true that they thought that then?).
2) No idea of electronic miniaturization, such as we might be aware of today.
3) Less understanding of microgravity disease.
4) If I understand, then the cash cow for the whole concept was to be beamed solar energy, which does not look that plausible at this time, for various reasons.
5) We may expect telepresence to become qualitatively better from here and further forward in time.
6) Humans in spacesuits although worth working towards and on, is always deadly serious work.
7) [Add your own stuff].....................

I think that the deal, is to telepresence human activity onto the surface of the Moon, and to also allow for that to in part support the existence of humans on the Moon.

Unless there is a more compelling reason to do it I am not at this time wild about placing enormous facilities in the "L" locations of the Earth/Moon. (But appropriate way stations are fine).

As far as mass delivered from the Moon to other locations, I do not favor raw ore shipments, rather I favor an assembly line method to repetitively create and launch tiny machines made of processed materials, and capable of navigating to a programmed location. Either to be "Netted" by high impact speed into a catcher, or to gently move to the appropriate orbit.

A mass driver for this could be very small relative to what has been previously been proposed. And it could earn it's keep by launching tiny robots 24/7, as long as it is up and running.

So, the Moon, it seems is a much more Mars like object than was supposed from the original interpretation of Apollo era data. It may have been that was the flavor of the month back then because there had been a back lash from the "Down to Earth people" then.

The Moon should contain ore bodies of asteroids which crashed into it. (Tom K.)\
So that is a possible plus.

If you don't have to manipulate large masses through orbital changes, then you need far less of the chemical fuels that have typically been
used.

So, where can the paydays be?
1) I think that a lot of countries are going to go to the Moon regardless of what NASA does. Having telepresence skills to sell, will be marketable.
*It appears that NASA has quite a lot in mind for the Moon. I apologize to the Archangels of this site, as I know that only a rigid path to Mars is favored. But oh, well, too bad, so sad. Really it should be OK.
2) Little tiny machines that can fly themselves to a location should be useful, Mars, Venus, etc.

Now, about humans in Moon gravity, we really don't have much clean test data do we, just assumptions, and I know you much prefer hard data G.W.

The four bad things that I am aware of are:
1) Bone Loss
2) Muscle Loss
3) Blood pooling in upper body (Don't know about the long term effects, but it seems like something to avoid).
4) Eye damage (Might be because of #3?)
5) Other things to discover.

I am wondering if the Moon's gravity is sufficient to take care of #3 and #4, (With the body's adaptability, and some of whatever #5 could be).

As for #1 and #2, I think the Moon will likely buffer some of the bad effects. In addition, I believe that space medicine might take care of the balance of the problem, once it is better understood.

As for the possible need for synthetic gravity, if you can do Hyperloop, surely you can do synthetic gravity on the Moon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop
And, we have had other discussions about synthetic gravity, where magnetic methods might be used, or in my case, I favor floating the spinning habitat in a heavier gas filled chamber. (CO2 for instance).

And we know the Moon can provide all the radiation shielding you might care for.

Done. Hmmm.... Not going to be impressed if I get ignored here. Not gonna whine either

Last edited by Void (2016-09-08 18:14:30)

GW Johnson · 2016-09-08 17:58:35

Just for reference, I saw online a price quote regarding Osiris-Rex as $800 M exclusive of the launch rocket. That turns out to be an Atlas-5 configuration 411, priced at $183M.

I don't think a 411 configuration will send 15 tons to the ISS orbit, that's more likely a 551 or 552. But what's a few solid boosters among friends? Using $180 M for 15 tons is closer to $12M per delivered ton than the $6M per delivered ton I posted above in post 52.

Compare that to $6-7M per delivered ton for Falcon-9, as a throwaway. Compare also to $2-3M for Falcon Heavy as a throwaway, and at least $7-14M for SLS.

Personally, I have no faith in the $0.5-to-1.0 B prices for SLS block 1. I think we'll eventually see launch costs closer to $2-3B per launch. And the later blocks will be higher still. You need to start thinking $20-50M/delivered ton for the SLS configurations.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-09-08 18:01:21)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-08 22:19:20

As for the possible need for synthetic gravity, if you can do Hyperloop, surely you can do synthetic gravity on the Moon.

On the other hand, you can just rotate people on and off the Moon on whatever schedule you like. I think people could do a tour of duty on the Moon for the same length of time as people do tours on the International Space Station, so the harmful effects should be the same or less than that of the ISS, then you jus send them home, where they can recover from the effects of low gravity, and then resume normal life. One could have a rotating space station in orbit around the Moon, and then teleoperate robots on the lunar surface, from the comfort of a rotating 1-G space station in low orbit around the Moon. A bunch of comsats will make communications continuous between the station and the robots on the surface with a time delay of only a fraction of a second. The Moon is 3476 km in diameter, and the speed of light is 300,000 km/second. Lets assume comsats and a space station that orbit at 100 km above the surface, the maximum distance a signal will have to cross is 100 km up to the first satellite + 0.5 * 3674 * pi + 100 = 5971 km We'll make this 6000 km for easier math. (6,000 km) / (300,000 km/sec) = 0.02 seconds time delay, that is one fiftieth of a second, and given than humans can perceive only time intervals s short as one fifteenth of a second, that will seem pretty much instantaneous to human operators in orbit around the Moon. This is less than the amount of time it takes a nerve impulse to travel from the brain to finger tips, the extra one fiftieth of a second won't be noticed at all.

Antius · 2016-09-09 03:08:48

I think the killer for the concept is the implausibility of microwave energy transfer from GEO to ground. If that doesn't work (I don't know if it does or doesn't) then nothing else that O'Neill proposed has very much chance. The SPS was the source of revenue that made everything else possible. If it is implausible to transfer power in a practical way, then everything else is pie in the sky.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-09 07:59:49

Why wouldn't it work? Ever put an incandescent light bulb in your microwave oven and then turn it on? I did once. The light bulb glowed, that shows that yes indeed microwaves can indeed be converted into electricity! I saw it happen myself!

GW Johnson · 2016-09-09 11:28:38

2-10 watts of incandescent light from a 1200 watt microwave is one lousy conversion efficiency.

That has always been one of the two biggest bugaboos for SPS designs.

The other has been the danger posed by the microwave beam to people on the ground if aiming fails in some way. That's a Murphy's Law inevitability.

GW

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-09 12:39:10

GW Johnson wrote:

2-10 watts of incandescent light from a 1200 watt microwave is one lousy conversion efficiency.
That has always been one of the two biggest bugaboos for SPS designs.
The other has been the danger posed by the microwave beam to people on the ground if aiming fails in some way. That's a Murphy's Law inevitability.
GW

Very easy to safeguard, you design the Solar Power Satellite to automatically shut off when it doesn't receive a signal from the microwave rectenna ground station, and you power that signal from the electricity produced by the microwaves that it receives. You design the SPS to send the microwave beam for only the fraction of a second it takes to reach Earth and for a signal to be sent back to the SPS. If the SPS doesn't receive that signal, it automatically shuts off. Basically if the rectenna receives no power it send to signal to the SPS to "stay on", and so it shuts off!

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-09-09 12:39:57)

GW Johnson · 2016-09-09 16:25:10

Tom:

The GEO altitude of 22,300 miles corresponds to a speed-of-light delay around 0.2 sec, two-way. That's just speed-of-light physics.

You are going to kill lots of people exposed to multi-tera-watt microwave radiation in that 0.2 second interval, even neglecting however long it takes your software to respond to a perceived problem, which is then inherently 0.2 sec too late, or more. Period.

That is simply inherent in the microwave-transmitted model of O'Neill's vision, given the extremely low conversion efficiency inherent in what he proposed. And we know nothing (nothing !!!!!) any better today!

How many millions do you want to kill for a Murphy's Law problem? We have known about the lethality of microwave radiation since early/before WW2, when my father-in-law was first exposed to it.

USN radars killed a lot of folks on ships in port, circa 1938-1941, not to mention the ones who died from exposure in combat theaters. My father-in-law served with equipment causing these problems until he retired in 1958. The VA was still checking for exposures like this when my father-in-law died in the late 1990's.

Not to mention fuel oil in the water (he had 3 ships blown out from under him), and his presence at the Pacific atomic tests (both Bikini Able and Baker!). The VA nearly freaked out over this the last time I brought him in, before he died. I was personally there. The technician really did freak out. Most of those exposed to such things had already died by that time.

This man, for the last 30 years of his life, invariably woke up thinking it was 1943, when he was actively opposing the Japanese in the Aleutians, with nothing but a 0.45 caliber 1911 Colt pistol. He quite obviously had extreme PTSD, decades before such a term had ever been defined. But the pistol, that's a weapon I know well, having shot Navy Expert with it in 1969.

I'm actually even better with a long gun, having used them all my long life here in Texas (I have killed birds in flight with a .22). I put bullets-through-the-same-hole with an iron-sight M-1 Garand at 200 yards, about that same time, while I was in the USN at the Annapolis Academy. My personal M-1 there had a 1942 serial number and a 12-inch bayonet, but the bloodstains were long gone. The USMC captain who watched me shoot was utterly amazed, until I told him where I was from. Since then, I have been absolutely lethal with buckshot in a 12-gauge at a dead run against a running target, out here on the farm, for over 30 years.

We had my father-in-law in private care before he died, which as it turned out was much better for him. He was completely senile-dementia-destroyed, but on a timescale an order of magnitude, or two, longer than typical Alzheimer's. This dementia was then combined atomic radiation, chemical, and microwave damage. There's no doubt about that, there were no other influences on him.

There was no other recourse, either, as all these effects have been politically redefined as "nothing to worry about", thanks to the GOP, mainly. My wife and I paid for all of his care.

You really need to consider the real consequences of what you propose on these forums. Please go educate yourself about these effects. What you proposed just above is utterly and completely ignorant in its historically-demonstrated effects upon real people.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-09-09 16:56:33)

RobertDyck · 2016-09-09 18:05:38

I agree with GW Johnson regarding Solar Power Satellites. However, his experience is far greater and more personal than mine.

My argument re SPS deals with efficiency. The best wireless power transmission efficiency ever achieved was 30%. And that was over short distance, not thousands of km from GEO to Earth. Solar power on Earth has issues: no sunlight at night, and clouds. However, power transmission losses are greater than sunlight losses. It's more efficient to build solar power systems on the surface of the Earth where you can use power cables to deliver power. And systems on the Earth can be repaired by a technician wearing jeans and shirt, breathing open air, arriving on site via truck. Solar Power Satellites require a technician in a spacesuit, breathing air recycled with a PLSS backpack, arriving via spacecraft of some sort. We don't have Shuttle any more, and that could only reach LEO. The only spacecraft we will have within the foreseeable future that could reach GEO is Orion. Dragon and CST-100 Starliner could do it, but they would require a larger service module and larger launch vehicle. I don't think the heat shield on Dream Chaser could return from GEO. Delta IV Heavy could deliver Orion to LEO, but not GEO. So pickup truck vs Orion on SLS block 1. Which do you think is more cost effective?

Of course the truly efficient future technology that I see goes further. Instead of a large power plant, with power sold by a utility, instead each house will generate its own. Not just a small solar panel bolted to the roof, instead the entire roof is solar array. Don't bother with shingles, in fact why bother with sheathing? The entire roof just joists supporting solar panels. The reason I have repeatedly brought up high efficiency photovoltaic panels is so such a house would be entirely energy independent. Roof panels a combination photovoltaic and solar thermal, plus geothermal heat pump, plus windmill, plus batteries in the basement, plus well insulated house. Result is energy independent under worst case conditions, the other 51 weeks per year it would sell power to the grid. This only works with houses and low buildings with large roof, such as factories or shopping malls; it doesn't work with high-rise apartment or office buildings. Those high-rise buildings would buy the power.

This thread is about O'Neill colonies. They could mine asteroids. Something other than SPS.

Void · 2016-09-09 22:17:21

OK, so it's one, two, three and your out at the old ball game.

Granted, not technically proven for ability or efficiency, not proven safe (Many serious reservations on safety), and I will add, not after all competitive. That is, three main reservoirs of oil at price remain, Russia, Persian Gulf, and USA. All others may be screwed, fastly (New word) or over an excruciating period of time. And then there are electric cars, alternative energy, and the demographic realities.

So, unless others who want to do the work prove otherwise, power on the Earth is the mode of the current time, and not beamed power from space. We are in a different era. Isn't it interesting how "Karma" plays out? The M.E. should have been happy to have what they had, but instead they prompted a revision of reality which has gone against them to some extent.

Some have suggested asteroids, as a purpose. What does that indicate? Some asteroids are large and far away, and some are NEO. I think that if there are companies that think that they can turn a buck, mining NEO's then let them have at it, we will then see what they can do.

Now the Moon, we will share, at least with non-zombies. That is if we can ever prove our worth by doing what we want.

Similar surface area to the America's, and not dry bones after all.

The Marsies are horrified. Shouldn't be, gonna get that too I think, if it all works out.

Why wouldn't the same rich people who are presumed to want to pay for a joy ride into sub orbital space, not want to walk on the Moon in a telepresence alternate body, and pay for it?

Why would not a university want to pay for a geologist to do the same thing on the Moon?
And of course aquisitioner entities, for the same or similar motives, bonded with the universities.

I see much to do. I see that there may be many who do not have true hearts in this.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2016-09-09 22:31:08)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-10 00:01:33

GW Johnson wrote:

Tom:
The GEO altitude of 22,300 miles corresponds to a speed-of-light delay around 0.2 sec, two-way. That's just speed-of-light physics.
You are going to kill lots of people exposed to multi-tera-watt microwave radiation in that 0.2 second interval, even neglecting however long it takes your software to respond to a perceived problem, which is then inherently 0.2 sec too late, or more. Period.

What can you cook in your microwave if it is set to 0.2 seconds?
Not a whole lot! if you put a bowl of ice cream in your microwave and you set it for only 1 second, you ice cream will not melt. The rectenna is over a wide area, I kind of doubt the microwave intensity will be higher than in your standard microwave oven. I don't think anyone will cook in 0.2 seconds of microwave exposure. I think you are setting the bar too high to prove that it will fail. I might also add, what are the safegards to prevent someone from drinking a gasoline at a gas station? Maybe gasoline is not safe, as we can't ensure that someone won't drink the stuff!

That is simply inherent in the microwave-transmitted model of O'Neill's vision, given the extremely low conversion efficiency inherent in what he proposed. And we know nothing (nothing !!!!!) any better today!
How many millions do you want to kill for a Murphy's Law problem? We have known about the lethality of microwave radiation since early/before WW2, when my father-in-law was first exposed to it.

You make it sound like an atomic bomb! So you aim the microwave beam at Los Angeles for 0.2 seconds and suddenly everyone in that city is dead!

USN radars killed a lot of folks on ships in port, circa 1938-1941,

Well then, how come we didn't use it against the Nazis, instead of using microwave radars to detect German airplanes, how about just frying them out of the sky?

not to mention the ones who died from exposure in combat theaters. My father-in-law served with equipment causing these problems until he retired in 1958. The VA was still checking for exposures like this when my father-in-law died in the late 1990's.

That was a long time to cook. Seems to me he lived a long time, you sure he didn't just die of old age?

Not to mention fuel oil in the water (he had 3 ships blown out from under him), and his presence at the Pacific atomic tests (both Bikini Able and Baker!). The VA nearly freaked out over this the last time I brought him in, before he died. I was personally there. The technician really did freak out. Most of those exposed to such things had already died by that time.
This man, for the last 30 years of his life, invariably woke up thinking it was 1943, when he was actively opposing the Japanese in the Aleutians, with nothing but a 0.45 caliber 1911 Colt pistol. He quite obviously had extreme PTSD, decades before such a term had ever been defined. But the pistol, that's a weapon I know well, having shot Navy Expert with it in 1969.
I'm actually even better with a long gun, having used them all my long life here in Texas (I have killed birds in flight with a .22). I put bullets-through-the-same-hole with an iron-sight M-1 Garand at 200 yards, about that same time, while I was in the USN at the Annapolis Academy. My personal M-1 there had a 1942 serial number and a 12-inch bayonet, but the bloodstains were long gone. The USMC captain who watched me shoot was utterly amazed, until I told him where I was from. Since then, I have been absolutely lethal with buckshot in a 12-gauge at a dead run against a running target, out here on the farm, for over 30 years.
We had my father-in-law in private care before he died, which as it turned out was much better for him. He was completely senile-dementia-destroyed, but on a timescale an order of magnitude, or two, longer than typical Alzheimer's. This dementia was then combined atomic radiation, chemical, and microwave damage. There's no doubt about that, there were no other influences on him.

Usually when I cook something in my microwave oven, it just gets hot.

There was no other recourse, either, as all these effects have been politically redefined as "nothing to worry about", thanks to the GOP, mainly. My wife and I paid for all of his care.
You really need to consider the real consequences of what you propose on these forums. Please go educate yourself about these effects. What you proposed just above is utterly and completely ignorant in its historically-demonstrated effects upon real people.
GW

Lots of people get Alzheimers, lot of people get Demensia, its hard to prove an environmental cause of it. If someone doesn't die immediately the cause of death is speculation. Someone gets exposed to microwave radiation and 30 years later, he dies of cancer, maybe it was the radiation or maybe it was something else, I really is hard to tell. Most battlefields are unhealthy places. If I was you, I would be afraid to do anything different, for fear of it causing cancer. There is also a rumor that immunization causes down syndrome, a lot of people think that, but it has not been proven. So may parents refuse to immunize their children, their children get sick and they spread disease to other people!

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-10 00:07:04

Void wrote:

OK, so it's one, two, three and your out at the old ball game.
Granted, not technically proven for ability or efficiency, not proven safe (Many serious reservations on safety), and I will add, not after all competitive. That is, three main reservoirs of oil at price remain, Russia, Persian Gulf, and USA. All others may be screwed, fastly (New word) or over an excruciating period of time. And then there are electric cars, alternative energy, and the demographic realities.
So, unless others who want to do the work prove otherwise, power on the Earth is the mode of the current time, and not beamed power from space. We are in a different era. Isn't it interesting how "Karma" plays out? The M.E. should have been happy to have what they had, but instead they prompted a revision of reality which has gone against them to some extent.
Some have suggested asteroids, as a purpose. What does that indicate? Some asteroids are large and far away, and some are NEO. I think that if there are companies that think that they can turn a buck, mining NEO's then let them have at it, we will then see what they can do.
Now the Moon, we will share, at least with non-zombies. That is if we can ever prove our worth by doing what we want.
Similar surface area to the America's, and not dry bones after all.
The Marsies are horrified. Shouldn't be, gonna get that too I think, if it all works out.
Why wouldn't the same rich people who are presumed to want to pay for a joy ride into sub orbital space, not want to walk on the Moon in a telepresence alternate body, and pay for it?
Why would not a university want to pay for a geologist to do the same thing on the Moon?
And of course aquisitioner entities, for the same or similar motives, bonded with the universities.
I see much to do. I see that there may be many who do not have true hearts in this.
Done.

Maybe Lunar Polar Orbit would be a good place to build an O'Neill colony. Mount amass driver at the Lunar North or South Pole, on a giant turn table, and counter-rotate it so as to cancle out the Moon's spin, that way you can hurl rocks into the same orbit, have a catcher catch those rocks and build an O'Neill colony in Low Lunar Orbit, the material only needs to move short distance. You don't even have to land people on the Moon. Teleoperated robots can do the mining.

Void · 2016-09-10 08:24:26

Well we have a list of needs and wants.

To start with what exists that comes naturally? An Earth/Moon binary planet, and the orbital/Microgravity environments associated.

Microgravity has been proven to have toxic effects on human life.
-One answer to that is to send more people and keep testing, and try to come up with anti-toxins for micro-gravity disease.
-Another answer is to create a mechanical synthetic gravity system in micro-gravity environments.
We have a lot of expectation that that will be a valid anti-toxin for Microgravity Disease, but it is not proven.
-We have two gravity fields of significance in the Earth/Moon system.
1) Earth (We know that people currently don't live beyond 125 years even in a 1 gee environment).
2) Moon (It has been SPECULATED that the Moons gravity is not sufficient to provide an equal health assurance to that of Earth. We do not have much for direct measurements for the speculation mentioned.

Measurements are available for human health for Earths 1 gee, and for Microgravity, but not the Moon.

Some measurements for animals may be available from centrifuge experiments, perhaps chickens.
This was Earths 1 gee + some synthetic gravity. The experiments preformed on Earth.

So there exists a Moon surface which is approximately equal to the America's in area, which is being ignored, simply because there was speculation in the 60's and 70's that it's gravity field is insufficient.

Perhaps it would be more correct to speculate that the Moons gravity is somewhat deficient.
With the hyperloop, and other schemes, to me it becomes obvious that synthetic gravity can be created on the Moons surface, without the use of clunky centrifuges with giant expensive bearings.

It is considered likely that radiation on the Moon can be treated with shielding using stones and soil, and of course manufactured structure.

It may not be necessary to put more than a few humans on the Moon, and true data can be collected from that population.

So, Tom, if you could get into a telepresence machine on the surface of the Earth, and activate and drive a robot on the surface of the Moon, would you want to try it?

Would you consider being a 2nd body operator, as employment, if you were skilled in it?

Your 2nd body would be on the Moon, would be mechanical, and would be used to manipulate objects. The ~3 second delay, would be something that needs to be factored in, tolerated, and compensated for. You would do that with training and the development of patience. Also the robot itself should have it's own protective reflexes to keep you from doing damage if you make a mistake.

So, maybe there could be some kind of ratio....say: 1000 Earth Based Teleoperators, and 10 Moon Surface Based Teleoperators, and 1 human who can work in a spacesuit for special situations.
(Of course the true ratio would be discovered and modified as work was attempted and done).

As for sending mass into orbit, then I propose a much sized down mass driver, and a very small payload, which would be a robot, capable of using photon propulsion or solar wind propulsion.
They could be treated rudely, such as having them slam at high speed into a catcher, or they could gently rendezvous to a chosen location, over time, using some type of solar propulsion.

The little robots would be recycled to whatever you wanted to make. (They would not be all that smart, just with navigation systems).

So, then if you can try living and working on the Moon itself, synthetic gravity manufacture in a orbital microgravity environment becomes much less of a priority, but it is not ruled out, down the road.

We have a Giant moon, why are we ignoring it?

Last edited by Void (2016-09-10 09:02:38)

GW Johnson · 2016-09-10 09:29:13

Actually, it's as simple as this: We cannot yet build giant things in space because (1) we do not have the supporting materials and technologies, and (2) these supporting materials and associated technologies need to use "space-based resources" to make this financially feasible at all. Trouble is we know almost nothing about how to use "space based resources", really the minerals, metals, carbon, and sometimes volatiles, in asteroids. Or the moon.

We'll never learn if we don't ever go and try these things out. But you need recognize that not all your experiments or missions will succeed. In fact, quite a few might fail. It is, after all, trial-and-error, just like it was over the centuries down here. You have to have the fortitude to take failure in stride and keep on trying. I don't see a lot of that fortitude in today's society, unfortunately.

You have to take these things step by step. No outfit is just going to build a giant structure outright. They can't. This is as true of a large mass-driver as it is a giant habitation. We know how to build, and we have the resources to construct, smaller things, including small mass drivers and rail guns. But not yet the giant ones.

We need to dream big, yes, but we also need to know (and deal with) that which we really can do (reality). We also need to distinguish between dream and reality. I sometimes do not see that ability to distinguish dream from reality in some of these threads.

Void makes good points about the moon and low-gravity. I suspect without evidence that low gravity plus exercise and possibly some centrifuge time might be therapeutic enough for permanent residence in a low-gravity environment. The best way to verify or deny it, is to try it out on a place we can reach reasonably easy, and that is the moon.

And do some resource mining and utilization work while we're there. Some of that is men-in-suits, some of that is tele-operated equipment, but without the speed of light delay, because the operators are right there on the moon with the equipment.

It should be possible to extract, refine, and process aluminum and titanium from moon rocks. Those are metals we need to build things from. If there's any way to utilize rocky minerals effectively, the same base should be able to help with that. Bring an iron-type small asteroid to lunar orbit, and it might become possible to develop a way to do steel-making in lunar orbit. That's another material we'll need. Once you have those processes working on the moon, then you can move them and use them in-situ on NEO's. Later, in the main asteroid belt.

Step by step by step.

There I went and gave you a self-justifying concept for a useful moon base. And I didn't even mention that it's also a far safer place to develop nuclear propulsion items.

RobertDyck is also quite correct to point out that electricity production for use on Earth is better done right down here on Earth. We already know how to make solar panel roofs and well-insulated houses. We already know the problem we have with transmission line losses, so distributed generation really is the way to go. What lacks is the political will, and the business/organizational structures, to make it happen. Those are people-problems. Just as hard to solve, but at least the materials and technology issues all have known solutions that we know work.

In comparison, why would we ever want to build a space power satellite? It costs a lot more to build, the transmission loss problem is far worse, we do not yet know how to build structures that large in space, and not knowing anything about how to utilize space resources yet, the cost is far higher still because we have to ship the entire mass up from Earth. And there is the Murphy's Law inevitability of the errant beam direction problem. Maybe later, when we have learned to do those enabling things, we might want to build one. But not now. Maybe elsewhere than Earth. Who yet knows?

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-09-10 09:43:29)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-11 09:18:26

In comparison, why would we ever want to build a space power satellite? It costs a lot more to build, the transmission loss problem is far worse, we do not yet know how to build structures that large in space, and not knowing anything about how to utilize space resources yet, the cost is far higher still because we have to ship the entire mass up from Earth. And there is the Murphy's Law inevitability of the errant beam direction problem. Maybe later, when we have learned to do those enabling things, we might want to build one. But not now. Maybe elsewhere than Earth. Who yet knows?

1) The Sun's energy is for free.
2) its constant, there is no night or cloudy days
3) If there is transmission loss, we simply collect more solar energy to compensate and factor that in
4) Also people don't typically live in vast empty deserts, which are places on Earth where vast solar farms might be located

Solar panels take up space which can be used for other things, if for instance you live in an apartment building, having solar panels on your roof isn't an option. If for example you live in New York City, and you want to provide solar power for all 8 million residents, the amount of roof space compared to living space is not sufficient, you would have to clear cut some forests in Westchester, Long Island, or New Jersey, and you would have to use eminent domain to force people to sell their homes, so the can be bull dozed to make room for the solar farm you want to construct to provide for the electricity needs of the city, and of course all those trees you would have to clear cut, some environmentalists will object!

The real estate in space is much cheaper than the real estate on Earth, the Solar energy you'd be collecting is space doesn't otherwise fall on Earth, and you don't have to clear cut vegetation to make room for the SPS satellites, and if you build a solar farm out in the desert, you have to consider the distance between that desert and the city who's power demands you want to provide for. For example, how far is the nearest desert from New York City? I believe it in the American Southwest, you would need to string up transmission lines from the deserts of Arizona all the way to New York City, to provide for New York's power needs, without doing enviromnetally destructive things, such as clear cutting forests, or displacing farms.

Imagine taking a drive through upstate New York, typically you see a lot of farms, imagine replaceing those farms with solar power stations, instad of seeing miles and miles of wheat fields and dairy farms, you see miles and miles of solar panels instead, the lost agricultural areas will have to be made up somewhere if people wish to have food on their tables.

Void · 2016-09-11 09:19:01

I have read your view, it seems sensible. I am still pulling for telepresence from Earth's surface to assist in certain areas of action. (Transport by a cart, pick up rocks, observations and that sort of thing).

I will also talk Mass Drivers, and re-label the type of it that I think we have had a tentative agreement towards. I will call it a "Smart Mass Driver", and specifically say that like you I expect that we should want it to be as small as is functional to achieve a useful end. The payloads sent by the mass driver will be smarter than a bag of rocks. (Moon Rocks)

Here is an article which seems to indicate what some "Space Thinkers" are thinking about the Moon. It is encouraging more than discouraging.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/20/90034 … anent-base

Here are some numbers claimed in a section of the article:

The NexGen study references SpaceX's ISS resupply costs as an example of where these savings will come from. SpaceX currently charges NASA about $4,750 for every kilogram sent to orbit aboard its Falcon 9 rocket, far less than the price of the Apollo-era Saturn V ($46,000 per kilogram) or even the space shuttle ($60,000 per kilogram). While the study does use SpaceX's next generation rocket, the Falcon Heavy, as an example in its plans to get to the moon, SpaceX claims the Falcon Heavy will be as cheap or cheaper per kilogram than the Falcon 9.

So, that looks encouraging, perhaps ~1/10 the cost for mass to LEO, relative to prior work for the Apollo program.

Typically, it has been suggested to place people in orbital machines in "L" locations in the Earth/Moon system. Go and get mass from the Moon to process in the "L" locations, from low grade ore to manufactured objects.

I want to reverse that. Instead, I would like to see the humans on the Moon, in a favored location, and to use a "Smart Mass Driver" to deliver small manufactured objects to a Moon associated location such as an "L" location.

Of course real research would have to give reasonable proof that this expansion from a Moon base is practical prior to sending smart loads to another location in space from the Moon.

Although there could be facilities for a small number of persons at the "L" location used, (Or a Moon orbit), mostly the "Factory" for recycling these objects would be more like an unpressurized tin shed. But of course not as clap trap as that image might project.

Most of the manufacturing processes in this "L" located facility would be manipulated by telepresence machines, with the humans preferably in the Moon base, but perhaps also some help from humans from Earth, if that proves workable for some types of manipulation.

So for these smart loads, the first propulsion would be from the Mass driver, and the second would be on board of the smart load, and might be any variety of method. I see no reason to exclude any options that make sense.

Nuclear propulsion would make no sense to me.
Solar methods might make sense, sailing, tethers, etc.
Chemical, might have a place, if you can mass produce chemical micro thrusters.
Electric might make sense, if you can similarly manufacture such micro thrusters.

The receiving method can be sudden catching, or a gentle arrival.

I believe that in the original plan, a spinning cup like object would receive dumb loads of bags of dirt and rock, and those would then be incorporated into the cups content, and would assume the spin of the cup, and that would capture the dirt and rocks, and bags into the synthetic gravity of this device. I don't think it was anticipated that the dumb loads would be moving at a much different speed than the catching cup.

I am sure that for tiny projectiles, something even more active than that could be devised, but for now, I will simply default to the catching cup as a symbolic representation of the "Active Reception Process".

While in this post, I specified Lunar Surface to >>>> "L" locations (Or Moon orbit);

I would like to also suggest that there could be a nice spot in Medium Earth Orbit, where such a receiving/recycling center could be. I don't specify LEO, because for a number of reasons, such as that is where your human inhabited space stations in many cases, and I do not specify synchronous orbit because there is a business use for that, it is already used.

Also, I am thinking a balance of other factors, such as time delay tolerance, where the teleoperators would be on the surface of Earth, and also time period of orbit, where the orbit ideally would fit into a human wake/work/sleep cycle. And then of course if you were planning to recycle "Smart Payloads" ejected from the Moon by a mass driver, you might not want to drag them too deep into the Earths gravity well (LEO).

That's about it, trying to update the topics original intent with new technological possibilities.

Last edited by Void (2016-09-11 09:55:52)

GW Johnson · 2016-09-11 10:44:37

This responds to what Tom said about space vs surface solar in post 71 just above.

You cannot do rooftop solar downtown in cities where the tall buildings are. We all know that. But you can do rooftop solar in the single-story suburbs quite effectively, and right now. Most cities are surrounded by giant suburbs. There's millions of rooftops available for the larger cities like Dallas or Houston. There is no need to re-purpose farmland.

Most single family homes have enough rooftop area to get around 10-15 KW during the day, consuming only 6 in the afternoon and 2 at night. That leaves about 5 KW per roof available in the afternoon for transmission downtown. 5 KW times a million rooftops is 5 GW in the afternoon sent to the central city. More than enough. Needs only a decent storage approach to make this practical 24/7.

The transmission distances from the suburbs to the city center are much shorter than what is typical from a centralized power plant. There's a whole lot lower line loss inherent with distributed generation. As we do it now, we lose nearly half our electricity as i^2 R losses.

The key thing to take out the intermittency objection is a practical storage method. They do need a much better battery, or maybe some kind of chemical storage. Folks are working on it. We might have something within a decade, about the same time before anything serious could be done anyway.

As for the supposed lack of intermittency in space, it's "night" for your solar power satellite every time it flies through the Earth's shadow. This happens with any orbit about the Earth, once per orbit, whatever altitude and period it has. So space power is also intermittent, its real advantage is only a somewhat higher energy per unit area outside the atmosphere.

There is no "weather" in the sense of Earthly weather out there, but there is "space weather", meaning solar storms. Your station is an electric device, vulnerable to charged particle bombardment. It will have to shut down for solar storms.

So space power is also intermittent with regular "night" and erratic space weather outages. Just like solar down here.

As for space solar being "free", you are ignoring the capital costs to put the facility there, which have to be amortized into the sale price of the electricity over the life of the project, one way or another. All facilities have them, but facilities in space at this time must pay an additional cost of about $6M per every ton of facility sent to low orbit, higher still for GEO.

That kind of extra charge would sink any facility anywhere into financial infeasibility, and thus dooms giant space projects for now, until and unless we can successfully exploit "space resources" instead of shipping everything up from Earth.

And, you must deal with the fact that we do not know how to successfully exploit space resources yet. "Yet" is the operative word for future prospects some decades away, but the "not" still applies for now.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-09-11 10:46:15)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-11 22:11:12

As for space solar being "free", you are ignoring the capital costs to put the facility there, which have to be amortized into the sale price of the electricity over the life of the project, one way or another. All facilities have them, but facilities in space at this time must pay an additional cost of about $6M per every ton of facility sent to low orbit, higher still for GEO.

How much does a Solar Sail weigh? I am told solar sails have t be extremely thin to take advantage of the momentum of photons to push them a long. I think a square meter of solar sail would weigh a lot less that a square meter of photovoltaic solar arrays.
Now imagine a Solar sail, shaped into half a sphere that reflects sunlight and the other half being transparent to sunlight, then inflate it with a convenient gas, possibly nitrogen would do. We only need enough nitrogen to inflate this sphere so that half of it is a concave reflector. We orient the transparent half of the sphere towards the Sun. The sunlight passes through the transparent hemisphere, is reflected off of the Solar Sail, and is concentrated at the focal point., fluid expansion driven by the heat of concentrated sunshine drives a turbine and electricity is generated, the hot gas is then channeled into some radiators behind the reflective hemisphere so it can cool off and be recycled through the turbine so it can generate more electricity. A microwave antenna then transmits this energy to a receiving station on the ground. No photovoltaic cells required! I believe Marshall Savage once proposed this kind of Solar Power Satellite for his Millennial project, I don't see why this wouldn't work. Your Solar Collection area doesn't have to be where you convert sunlight into electricity.

Void · 2016-09-12 09:31:10

There are three factors that I can think of that have to be satisfied.
1) Can it be done technically? I think that that is unlikely at this time, in reality. We can imagine it, being done, but we don't have a likelihood of causing it to happen, due to lack of infrastructure.
2) Is it safe? I wouldn't trust a whole list of current actors to behave themselves, even if the technology could be made failsafe and idiot proof.
3) Market for the power. The USA, Russia, and the Middle East want to use their petrochemicals, and likely can do so for some time. Others want to control their own alternative energy resources if they can. I don't see how a space based energy supply could be brought forward at this time for those reasons. I also don't think it would be likely to be competitive with surface energy sources.

Another factor is globalization appears to have overplayed it's hand, nationalism is on the rise, because the globalists chased a utopian agenda (Once again), where they wanted to be the arbiters of moral issues, but in reality were doing it in a manner to facilitate selfish purposes. This has offended lots of people and has made nationalism rise.

A space based system would have to be international I would think, and at this time the trust level between nations, and other groups is eroding.

I think a Moon base still might be possible, and from that an attempt to project materials from the Moon to a purpose. Maybe, if it can be done on the lines of the international space station, more or less.

Last edited by Void (2016-09-12 09:39:58)

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