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Space advocates and enthusiasts need to come together if we are to make the kind of case to the public required for our lofty goals. I won't go into the Mars direct VS moon debate (though feel free to discuss it) but instead my intent is to point out how much more powerful our argument and cause would be were we unified under one flag. Just look at the environmentalists! This debate should be front and center until we can generally come to general agreement. From my studies, I believe that Mars is a natural destination and should be the primary goal for medium term space endevours but first we MUST establish a permanent lunar presence. We must consider the economic, scientific, phsycological, political, etc. impacts of either decision.
Anyways, If anyone can list, preferably in point form, the generally accepted pluses and minuses to the mars direct VS moon first debate. Maybe we can unearth some more.
Justin
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The Moon has lot going for it.
It is the ideal industrial park.
Proximity, just a short rocket ride away.
Mining potential, due to lot of craters formed by meteors of various composition.
Low gravity and no atmosphere will enable linear motor launches to build large spaceships.
In order to occupy the solar system large amount of power and materials are needed. All is there at our footstep.
With the meager finances, lot can be done on the Moon.
Numerous nations, with ballistic missile capabilities, will be able to have a Moon base.
Colonizing Mars will be with mass produced, Moon developed and tested equipment.
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What we need in the first place is the capability to launch large masses into LEO for as few bucks/kg as possible.
But I agree that after that is done the next step should be a manned lunar base though you will be able to go anywhere as soon as it is cheap enough to afford it.
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i agree, i think that we should set up a permament residence on the moon, let the cost die down a bit over a year or two, and then let some of the major buisnesses get setteled up there with jobs and what not...
there are lots of basic rescources there for us to mine and use, labs and facilities will be easy to set up there, and decently cost affective against going straight to mars where everything from the flight out there to staying there is all just a matter of questioning right now.
I suggest doing something like this...
get a group of 3 living habitats there all in close proximity, set up a digging post, start the building of other habitats in the sub terrain of the moon so you are protected against solar winds, projectiles in space, and so on.
start moving people in the units that are being build below ground, and keep digging. you can always start multiple sub terrain bases misc scattered over the moons surface. the gravity is light and so you wont have to worry about the equiptment up there to dig most of everything, it is very simple work. you will still need some heavier stuff to cut away at parts but still... not bad.
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You can't have a permanent base in the moon. Having a permanent base in Mars is crossing a thin line it's self. The gravity is to low. You can probably only stay there for fewdays to months. The moon to me is big chunk of rock that just needs to be mined. Thats all.
"...all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by."
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You can't have a permanent base in the moon. Having a permanent base in Mars is crossing a thin line it's self. The gravity is to low. You can probably only stay there for fewdays to months. The moon to me is big chunk of rock that just needs to be mined. Thats all.
but to mine it it would be more cost effective if you have some permanent buildings there so that you can have living quarters there.... not to mention the fact that you can reproduce artificial gravity there... so you can stay longer periods of time. we still need to work out cost before we go out and work on stuff like this though... it all boils down to breaking through the earths atmosphere.... how we can do it cleaner, faster, and ALOT more inexpensive.
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It remains to be seen how the human body fairs in lunar gravity. Zero gravity can do a lot of damage over a long period of time. It may be that 1/6 gee makes a huge difference; or it may be that it makes a big difference only if you exercise like crazy.
-- RobS
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Perminant base, temporary crew. Humans can withstand 6mo in zero gravity, then a similar span in 1/6th gravity shouldn't be a problem.
Just like an ocean oil rig
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Perminant base, temporary crew. Humans can withstand 6mo in zero gravity, then a similar span in 1/6th gravity shouldn't be a problem.
Just like an ocean oil rig
exactly.
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A lot can be done by control from Earth as long as we have some people there. We are getting more and more practice with the use of Telerobotics and with only a small delay of 4 seconds to the Moon, that is nothing.
Certainly I think base infrastructure should be one of the Jobs that Telerobots should do. People we send to the Moon have a lot more important jobs.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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A lot can be done by control from Earth as long as we have some people there. We are getting more and more practice with the use of Telerobotics and with only a small delay of 4 seconds to the Moon, that is nothing.
Certainly I think base infrastructure should be one of the Jobs that Telerobots should do. People we send to the Moon have a lot more important jobs.
I agree that we should have robots there to take care of most of that there, but we still need to be there to take care of basic things like robot repair, heavy duty matinance, and so on...
the cool thing about stuff like this though, is the fact that once we get technology out there like this, then that means that we on earth will also have the same abilities at our disposal.
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Beside being able to keep people there for six months, we could also setup a small certrifical force room that could give us a higher artificial gravity force and check that out as a way to deal with the 1/6 the Earth gravity on the Moon. Any artificial gravity unit's will be small for the first twenty to thirty years or so, but if we start setting up manufacturing and mining colonies then we might consider building larger infrastructure projects on the moon using lunar material and we might eventually choose to use a round crater to setup a large gravity wheel for the lunar residence. If there is a tourist later on, they can stay in the 1/6 gravity of the Moon, because there only staying a few day to maybe a week or two. But, something like this would be like this would be like fifty to seventy years down the road. Also Mars has 1/3 of the gravity of the Earth, so if we can deal with the 1/6 of the gravity on the Moon and solve the problem, then the 1/3 should not be a problem for us either. Neither place is human friendly and will both have to be made human friendly by building large massive projects to make large colonies possible and building large structure will make colonizing the other place a forgone conclusion. Once you have those structure in place, we will be going to both places in mass. Besides the Moon only three days away, so if we get into trouble like we did in the Apollo 13 mission, we can retreat and try it again with overly endangering our Astronauts. Also our Astronauts will have a fairly limited exposure to solar flare and other such hazards that a longer trip might pose to them. We can also make a trip once a month vs once every two and a half years to Mars, which is also a factor.
Larry,
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Orrrr we could delve heavily into human biochemistry, and find the chemical trigger that orders the body to dump muscle/skelatal mass and just find a way to counter it with pills/patches/etc...
You are looking at the problem wrong MR, the issue is that the body throws away muscle & bone mass that it doesn't use; gravity isn't the root problem.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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you have to be careful with human bio-chemistry though.... could cause big problems.
I honestly think that we should dig into the ground there at least 200-300 feet deep, and build an infastructure there that revolves on an angle to increase the gravity... all you have to do is set it up on a magnetic rail system which you can import materials to the moon and magnatise it all there....
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Orrrr we could delve heavily into human biochemistry, and find the chemical trigger that orders the body to dump muscle/skelatal mass and just find a way to counter it with pills/patches/etc...
You are looking at the problem wrong MR, the issue is that the body throws away muscle & bone mass that it doesn't use; gravity isn't the root problem.
I wonder if there are hormones to tell the body where to get the energy from (fat, sugar or protein's) or if it just takes energy sources from where it can get them and it is up to the person to build them up enough to replace the bodies tendency to continues atrophy. Thinking about the problem more how does the body know when a mussel needs repair. There must be some kind of electric or chemical message that we can change to tell the body to keep building mussels.
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There's this genetic anomaly that causes kids to grow excessive amounts of muscle-tissue, I'm sure they're looking into this right now (not to cure those 2, 3 kids, sadly, but the potential for older, wealthy people with muscle wasting conditions.. )
Is there a similar anomaly that causes abnormal bonegrowth? (was the 'elephant man' not a case of such a condition?)
Anyhow, I'm not suggesting to tinker with the Moonies' of tomorrows genomes, but figure out what kind of 'extra' stuff these people churn out, hormones, etc... Then synthesize those 'extras,' and test it that way.
This could be big $$$$ for the faraco industry, giving the increasing age of the West, so there might be stuff in the pipeline already.
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I'm not talking about genetic modification mind you, thats a whole different can of worms, but rather a drug that either prevents the body from deciding that you have too much bone/muscle mass, or one that orders your body to make more without gravity or excercise.
Of course it would be a billion-dollar industry on Earth if you could get it to work... no more heavy excercise to lose weight or bulk up, just a pill or a patch, and ostioperosis will be a thing of the past. Want to run a marathon but don't want to spare the time for intensive training? No problem, just wear this patch for four months prior...
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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I'm not talking about genetic modification mind you, thats a whole different can of worms, but rather a drug that either prevents the body from deciding that you have too much bone/muscle mass, or one that orders your body to make more without gravity or excercise.
Of course it would be a billion-dollar industry on Earth if you could get it to work... no more heavy excercise to lose weight or bulk up, just a pill or a patch, and ostioperosis will be a thing of the past. Want to run a marathon but don't want to spare the time for intensive training? No problem, just wear this patch for four months prior...
there are other ways of going about this... i dont know about you but have you seen the drugs that are out lately? like lets take one thats a decently well known drug, like pain killers... well there are various kinds. Viox is one in specific, well that one does a good job at what its supposed to do, BUT it has side affects... like increasing the chance of heart attack... so basicly it renders it no good. im not saying it doesn't get the job done, but still it has side affects...
sadly enough you will go through the same thing with medications.... SO in order to battle bone/muscle loss i would suggest something like electrotheropy (just like on the movie the matrix where he gets his muscles back into shape) or there are other ways too, but that seems to be the safest way...
as far as Bone Loss, the body addapts to its environment, so if you have less pressure on the bone structure then obviously it will loose the need to be so strong in specific areas. but if you apply more pressure then you will gain more than normal bone groth. to battle this, you NEED some sort of artificial gravity machine...
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I'm not saying that such drugs will be easy to make, but I think they can be made... the body doesn't do anything without the presence or absense of specific chemical triggers, it is simply up to us to find out what they are and how to make/supress them.
"as far as Bone Loss, the body addapts to its environment, so if you have less pressure on the bone structure then obviously it will loose the need to be so strong in specific areas. but if you apply more pressure then you will gain more than normal bone groth. to battle this, you NEED some sort of artificial gravity machine..."
Or as a stopgap measure, sow weights into astronauts' clothes and boots.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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you NEED some sort of artificial gravity machine..."
Seems to be one needs a combination of gravity and excercice. Don't remember how they figured this out, but putting someone in a centrifuge, while doing no excercise, doesn't help any.
(oh, I know how they figured that out: couch potatoes-, heehee.)
I guess they figured that out partially by the horizontal rest sessions, that's under 1 g, but testpersons lay flat, do nothing, and waste bone and muscle tissue, *very* similar as under 0-g conditions.
Remember that European spacelab, that fitted inside the shuttle?
They did some things there, with humans in some sort of centrifuge, and bone-tissue cell growths etc... turned out, it looked liek even short bursts of centrifugal workouts worked quite nicely.
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well then that would be even better on the moon, for sleeping and what not.. just put them in the revolving machine to keep pressure on them and kep it like earth. when you need to go out and do work, then turn off the machine and get out, and you will be at 1/6th again... its all a matter of design to take care of things... once a day even would be better...
its like being on a trampoline all day and getting off for a while, and you can feel gravity really kick in...
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you NEED some sort of artificial gravity machine..."
Seems to be one needs a combination of gravity and excercice. Don't remember how they figured this out, but putting someone in a centrifuge, while doing no excercise, doesn't help any.
(oh, I know how they figured that out: couch potatoes-, heehee.)
I guess they figured that out partially by the horizontal rest sessions, that's under 1 g, but testpersons lay flat, do nothing, and waste bone and muscle tissue, *very* similar as under 0-g conditions.
Remember that European spacelab, that fitted inside the shuttle?
They did some things there, with humans in some sort of centrifuge, and bone-tissue cell growths etc... turned out, it looked liek even short bursts of centrifugal workouts worked quite nicely.
Hmm...Centrifugal workouts. I wonder if that will catch on earth. The spin Gym. lol.
Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]
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Hmm...Centrifugal workouts. I wonder if that will catch on earth. The spin Gym. lol.
only a few problems with it though... getting your orientation, that will be hard to take care of, and honestly some people just wont be able to do it...
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Hmm...Centrifugal workouts. I wonder if that will catch on earth. The spin Gym. lol.
only a few problems with it though... getting your orientation, that will be hard to take care of, and honestly some people just wont be able to do it...
Spin people is only one possibility way to solve the wasting problem of mussels and bones. As you say, some people may not be able to adapt to being spun, so it won't be an answer for them. So they may be restricted to only a six month stay on the moon. Also depending on how fast you spin that wheel or how big that wheel is will also have an affect on lot of people that have that problem with orientation with a smaller wheel.
But, we won't know the best way deal with this wasting problem until we get to the Moon and setup a laboratory to deal with it on a long term bases. We may do some prep work here on Earth on this problem too. But, we have talked about two way that we can get around that 1/6 G loan problem on the Moon, so the gravity issue on the Moon should not be show stopper when it come to setting up a colony on the Moon.
Larry,
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Hmm...Centrifugal workouts. I wonder if that will catch on earth. The spin Gym. lol.
only a few problems with it though... getting your orientation, that will be hard to take care of, and honestly some people just wont be able to do it...
Ever go on a graviton on a caravel? Now imagine riding a bike on one or lifting weights. The bicycle one would be real interesting because if you weighed more you could petal harder but then again don’t some bicycle riders get big enough quads as it is. At least the ones that do sprints.
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