Space Solar Economy Involving the Moon.

Void · 2016-12-30 12:48:06

This idea will cross over into Terraforming, Heliostats, Economics, Ecology, and Security, and likely other things, so with the moderators permission I will put it here.

Solar power from the Moon has been faulted as being dangerous as a fault in it's delivery by microwave could be deadly.

I intend instead a somewhat simpler product to deliver. Photons from the Moon and from other orbits, to provide selective heating. The heating "Product" will be to warm selected Ocean, Sea, and perhaps Lake locations to promote additional evaporation. The heliostats will on some occasions be able to do a temporary warming to ward off frost for some crop locations.

It is obvious that if you could ward off an unfortunate frost, their will be economic value. However the Moon will be positioned to do this only some of the time. So, perhaps some geosynchronous mirrors needed. Presumably from Lunar materials. Warding off frost however is only useful at high latitudes primarily in the northern hemisphere, and then only for at most a few weeks each year. But if those mirrors could also double for the next economic benefit, it might be justified.

Increasing evaporation on a water surface would only be useful, if you were going to gain from increased aquaculture benefit, or if the increased evaporation caused adjacent land masses to gain useful additional moisture. This would be doable from the Moon I think. Heliostats on the Moon increasing evaporation at certain locations. Perhaps able to target a certain area effectively for > 2 weeks on a stretch. But it would not matter, it a adjacent land mass received additional rain for > 2 weeks, because you would still be increasing it's annual rainfall or fogs/humidity.

So Photons from the Moon would be a useful economic product, how you would recharge the customers would be a bit of a problem, but not beyond a solution.

Obviously this would be terraforming the Earth. I think it would be limited but it would be terraforming.

Ecological concerns:

As an example, I will mention the Persian Gulf. It is obvious that the people there will pump all the oil they can, if they can sell it. But they also consume oil increasingly. One of the methods of consumption is to use oil to desalinate water, because they really need it. Granted, they could go to ground based solar to desalinate water, but that will lead to local discharges of very briny water. I think they will prefer to use oil. It is up in the air which of the three energy sources would be the most economical for them Oil, terrestrial solar, or Moon solar. The point is however, that with Moon solar, they might burn less oil now, and so release less Carbon into the atmosphere now.

Wildlife: Well yes if you are going to mess up rare wildlife by doing this it should be limited or not allowed in those locations. But for life forms that are common much less of a concern. I am actually thinking of small increases in total light. Of course likely some will come in during the night, so that might confuse life forms. Don't know.

Security: Well yes, a stupid kid with a magnifying glass mentality could make this idea dangerous, but so are nuclear weapons, and so would be microwave delivery of solar power.
An international social system is required to moderate it. Likely splitting control of the mirrors up between various nations.

Could the Earth receive a very hot focus from mirrors on the Moon? I think so. It is not the method I would prefer however.

For our purposes:
I would say that if this could be done, then you would have a solar economy that delivers a product to Earth, and a revenue stream which would involve the Moon. Then I think that it would almost certainly facilitate movement of humans to Mars and other planets/moons/planemo's.

Done (For now).

Last edited by Void (2016-12-30 13:13:03)

GW Johnson · 2016-12-30 14:14:30

I dunno about effective transfer from the moon, because a quarter million miles is a long way, compared to only-at-most-a-mile-class dimensions of the receiving target. But you might do a lot of orbiting mirrors, if you can figure out how to build structures of such size, and from what.

You're biggest problem, other than the safety concerns you already listed, will be climate change (global warming), when you start adding heat to selected targets. You must compensate this by reflecting an equivalent energy back to space instead of letting it hit the Earth. That means you must build a huge fleet of very large mirrors, and steer them precisely, selectively, and differentially.

I really don't believe we are capable of a project this huge, not yet. Not for a century or more.

GW

SpaceNut · 2016-12-30 17:08:48

The photonic energy does just warm the ground it hits it would also warm the air all the way to the ground changing air currents and evaporation of clouds.....
I would say keep the energy for the moon and use it there instead.

Void · 2016-12-30 19:03:25

Your opinions and expertise are of course valuable, and you have a right to voice them.

I see the situation in another way however. When people think about regulating the Earth's environment, they incorrectly factor in what humans will really do. Therefore in my estimation we will be dealing with a damaged Earth. Further natural deviations in climate could ultimately cause a cooling effect. Therefore, I see a place for an active intervention.

For instance nations will not choose to be poor and not burn coal in my opinion. If there is coal to sell for instance and China and Germany decided to not burn coal for some reason, then the price of coal would go down, and there is lots of possibility that other nations would choose to burn more of it for profit.

In Africa, it is likely that the Megafauna will go extinct. Our environmentalists are stupid to stop other continents from hosting such animals. Places like Texas. They are under the delusion that humans will ultimately behave. No they won't. Particularly if hunger comes to them, or they want money from poaching.

So, my opinion is we will be dealing with a changing Earth. Best to have tools to manipulate it to our favor as a species.

The global heat balance could be managed I think even though adding sunshine to selected locations. Particularly if the greenhouse effect is real, and petro nations use hydrocarbons to manufacture water from salt water.

The greenhouse effect is said to warm the polar areas twice as much as the rest of the planet.
Putting extra sunlight into waters in the temperate zones adjacent to deserts would not be likely to warm the planet as much. Any warm water created will tend to wander towards the equator. As for the rise in humidity, that should create additional clouds. Of course in the desert night, clouds would hold in heat. But the desert areas tend to cool off quickly at night so it might be hoped that those clouds in the high troposphere would rain out. During the day when humidity would rise from the additionally heated water, it should form reflective clouds at the higher levels of the troposphere.

As for can the Moon itself host useful mirrors, I will reduce my confidence to maybe, based on GW Johnsons words.

I must confess to some possibility of ignorance. I do anticipate that sunlight that traveled an additional 2 x "238,855 miles (384,400 km)" outward from the orbit of Earth would attenuate somewhat. I expect that you are thinking in addition of the deformities of the mirrors?

At maximum 238,855 miles of travel. Geosynchronous orbit being 35,786 kilometres (22,236 mi), so 10.742 times the distance of travel.

Where it has been speculated in the past frost could be warded off by mirrors in orbit, I can see that coming from the Moon it might be more of a challenge. However the target areas might be quite large, and I also anticipate that the heliostat outputs could be overlapped, in order to improve precision and accuracy on the average.

Another issue I do have is that other then safety their has not been a complaint about adding heat to the Earth from orbital solar power plants. Their was a valuable caution about radiation safety. But solar mirrors will not have that type of danger. I think it would be very unlikely that a collection of heliostats would suddenly decide to focus in a dangerous way unless some idiot was behind it purposely.

So, just a little peeved that heating the Earth up is raised as an objection.

But thanks for challenging it anyway. Where would I be without struggle?

I like you guys but I think you are too left and globalist spacenut. GWJohnson? Don't know.

Your turn

Last edited by Void (2016-12-30 19:27:56)

Void · 2016-12-30 19:57:16

Of course you are free to be that way. No insults were intended. Just voicing my opinion.

Here is some food for thought:
http://alexanderhiggins.com/top-scienti … roversies/
Quote:

Freeman Dyson, revered in the ranks of Einstein, Hawking, Teller and Montgomery, warns scientists should be skeptical of Nuclear and Climate Change science.

Physics-Legend-Freeman-Dyson-On-The-One-Thing-We-Just-Don’t-Get-About-Science-1024x512.jpg

Now I am not actually a climate change denier. But look at the above. I think the magnitude of the problem may have been exaggerated. I do not think I exaggerated the magnitude of the problem with human behavior in my previous post however (Unfortunately).

I do smell rats however. I see them as both leftists and rightists. I consider them to both be alien imports to the American culture, and I am not amused at their activities here. Neither group believes in the freedom of the individual. Now I am not extreme. We do need some hierarchy, and some collective behaviors, but I like it in much less of a dose. The only dose justified is that which is necessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
Quote:

A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures most or all of its power output. The concept was first described by Olaf Stapledon in his science fiction novel Star Maker (1937), and later popularized by Freeman Dyson in his 1960 paper "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation".[

Yes I am a pest, and on technology, GW and actual social capability to handle the problem you might prove correct. But I felt the need to offer what I consider reasonable challenge.

I do appreciate both of your replies.

Goodnight!

Last edited by Void (2016-12-30 20:24:25)

SpaceNut · 2016-12-30 21:03:54

Solar energy on orbit is around 1300 wats per meter and the amount hitting the ground is about 1000 so the reflected energy is around 30% while the remaining is heating the atmosphere....so simple redirection to recievers on earth would only amplify this problem.

Thats why many talk about on geo orbit microwave ( the same that cooks food ) being beamed to earth to very large recievers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power
http://ssi.org/reading/papers/the-world … -in-orbit/
http://www.businessinsider.com/space-ba … rth-2015-9
Solar Power Transmission: From Space to Earth
https://energy.gov/articles/space-based-solar-power

The reason for the large array antenna is that the beam power is spread out to lower the level of strike power recieved by entering the beam. That just means for short duration you might end up with a sun burn....prolonged means....not so good.

Now for the ugly as solar is being defeated now by big oil and power companies to keep the power you create by buying panels from disturbing there wallets....While I would love low cost power even hydro power cabling is being put into the same category as not in my back yard.....

So safe areas that would lesson chance for beam over spill of target antenna would be floating ocean targets and the poles them self....but getting that power would still be via cables which are part of why cheap power gets stop by those extreme enviro types....

Void · 2016-12-30 21:21:19

Good information, all of it.
And then this specifically:

Solar energy on orbit is around 1300 wats per meter and the amount hitting the ground is about 1000 so the reflected energy is around 30% while the remaining is heating the atmosphere....so simple redirection to recievers on earth would only amplify this problem.

Actually I can use that. I will make the following modifications to my original suggestion. To make the mirrors on the Moon selectively reflective by wavelength. (If that is economically possible). Avoiding the reflection of wavelengths which are easiest absorbed by the atmosphere.

In my original vision, I actually thought mirrors on the Moon should be concave perhaps, so as to reduce the quantity of sunlight received at the point of impingement. I was thinking a nominal 5% of noon daylight if possible. Most of that would arrive during Earth's night time.
Slightly heating the surface of water above normal, perhaps promoting evaporation. The humidity rising I should hope. Then normal sunlight in the daytime would pull it upwards with
an adiabatic heating process.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ad … &FORM=IGRE
http://jennyse7en.blogspot.com/
cloud%2Bformation%2Bby%2Badiabatic%2Bcooling.png

Now, if a cloud deck is produced, by afternoon, sunlight is being reflected into space. The suns sunlight not the light from the Moons heliostats.

Next, a wind to carry the cloud deck over a desert, and the next nightfall.

Rain I would hope. While the cloud deck would tend to hold in heat over the desert, such induced storms would only perhaps be induced once or twice a month? And after the storm, the sky might clear, and normal radiation of heat resume.

While I appreciate what you explained about solar power with microwaves, from space, I note that from orbit you have to first use a solar power plant then convert to microwaves and transmit, then receive with a rectenna?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectenna

Then you have electric power but have to move it by underwater cable to land for use in an electric load, such as desalinating water. (Granted desalination of water could be done with terrestrial solar power).

I see a lot of cost issues and energy losses are likely to be high.

Or;

Heliostats on the Moon or orbit, with selective wavelength reflectance, and direct heating of water with photons, to generate rain. Rain then benefiting people.

Just saying that this method is much easier, but of course it is specific to one purpose.

Now for the ugly as solar is being defeated now by big oil and power companies to keep the power you create by buying panels from disturbing there wallets....While I would love low cost power even hydro power cabling is being put into the same category as not in my back yard.....

Yes, that is real. However, there are lots of countries who will develop alternative energy methods, as it benefits their particular situations (Necessity is the mother of invention).

The transition away from big oil perhaps over the next 30 years I believe.

I do approve of alternative energy, but I also believe that we have a 5th column force in this country that is exploiting that process to attempt to cripple the American & Western economies. And I believe that it is from people who don't like the way we are very much, and wish to enslave us.

So, yes, for now I will sleep in the same bed with the hydrocarbon people. Actually we should never have to completely abandon hydrocarbons, just reduce the rate of use over time.

As for orbital or Lunar microwave energy? Fine, if it can be done. Even better for a Lunar/orbital economy.

I won't read any replies, tonight as I want to foster a good nights sleep. Zzz........

Last edited by Void (2016-12-30 21:48:13)

GW Johnson · 2016-12-31 11:18:49

Freeman Dyson is right: one should always include some healthy skepticism. The right balance is the real trick: you have to be an open-minded skeptic, and you have to believe real data when it comes along.

Some sort of climate change warming is underway, that's what the real data say. You don't have to trust proxy temperature records to see that, the last two centuries of melting ice packs, glaciers, and the like should be enough. Especially the acceleration of it in the last 50 years.

Whether we humans had anything to do with that is mostly (but not entirely) irrelevant! Simple common sense says don't make it any worse, because you won't like relocating the 3 billion people who live within a meter or two of sea level, when sea levels rise by 60+ meters like the geology says it has before. It really is that simple to understand that consequences will be bad.

We already know from the bell jar experiment that adding CO2 makes things warmer still, thus accelerating the ice melt. We also have the measured Keeling curve as real data on atmospheric CO2. So it makes simple common sense to look for ways to get what we need in the way of energy, etc, while reducing those emissions. You don't have to be a "leftist" or an "alarmist" to understand that.

We can always argue about how much and how fast. But "whether-or-not" is not a question worthy of asking, for anyone of even low-grade moron intelligence. Those who still raise that question are quite apparently motivated by political brainwashing and/or short-term profit. They care not about the 3-billions-relocation faced by our descendants, because they personally won't live to see that.

That's a very selfish approach to take. I disapprove most strongly of selfish idiots like that. Near as I can tell, buckshot to the head is the only "cure" for it. But that wanders off topic.

As for modifying climate by "geoengineering", I am very much still the open-minded skeptic. Because we do not know what will really happen, we must restrict ourselves to those things that are reversible. Adding sulfur dioxide to the stratosphere is not reversible. Seeding the oceans with iron fertilizer is not reversible. Adding sunshade mirrors in space to reduce insolation, is reversible. We are not capable of building such structures yet. But maybe we should be getting that capability.

Meanwhile, replacing coal with natural gas as power plant fuel makes good sense. It produces less CO2 for the same MW-hr produced, which is in the right direction. Plus, you get cleaner air with gas plants instead of coal plants.

To see the difference this makes, look at a picture of Los Angeles before the Clean Air Act, which looks about like Beijing today, where they have no Clean Air Act. Compare that with a picture of Los Angeles today. That's real data. It makes a tremendous difference in people's lives to address issues like this. Only a selfish idiot would deny that. And you already know what I think of selfish idiots.

We have to bring that kind of thinking to climate change. Or else our grandchildren must move ~ thousand miles inland.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-12-31 11:23:22)

Void · 2016-12-31 13:15:30

I am fairly comfortable with most of your words in the last post.

I have indicated that the scheme might induce some countries to reduce the use of oil and gas to make drinking and wash water. So potentially it could reduce the greenhouse effect's expansion of magnitude, while even also directly improving food sources.

I have suggested that by inducing the formation of clouds, it might be possible to have an approximate net null of additional heating. The induced heating on the water, inducing clouds, the clouds reflecting daytime sunlight back into space. I don't have any evidence, but I don't regard the possibility of creating a net cooling for the Earth from such a process as beyond reach.

I will attempt to re-enforce the previous paragraph with this:
http://www.space.com/33758-venus-habita … years.html
It is proposed that for the first 2 billion years of the life of Venus, (After settling down from it's formation process), that the planet could be kept cool with a cloud deck on the sunward side of the slowly rotating planet. The sun was dimmer then, and the model presumes a thinner atmosphere and shallow oceans on the planet.

So generating cloud deck can cool a planet, it does not always just retain heat.

Now, should you have a repository for snow, such as Antarctica, Greenland, or significant Alpine glaciers, you might make snow instead of rain, and so lower the sea levels over time.
And sea levels maintained at optimum level should reduce the amount of flow of warm water under ice shelves, which might reduce melting and caving of floating ice sheets. This in turn should dam up glaciers of Antarctica and so slow down their flow. Expanding ice shelves would then in turn reflect more light back into the universe, providing a further push towards a net planetary cooling capability. To make snow over Antarctica, or Greenland or significant glaciers, however, you would have to inject moisture into an airstream which was favorable to moving the moisture there to fall out of the sky as additional snow. In the case of an alpine glacier, you would potentially providing a summertime water supply as well. In the case of Antarctica or Greenland, you would be simply lowering the sea level. However for Antarctica or Greenland, it is not entirely out of the question to eventually pipe melt water to a distant user under the ocean, but we are not ready to do that yet, if ever.

And I will re-mention warding off frost from high latitude or alpine farm lands. Those mirrors creating cloud decks, rain, and snow, at convenience could be redirected to ward off frosts from farm lands at high latitudes. Farming uses Carbon fuels, at least now, and to waste a crop is to inject the Carbon into the atmosphere without benefit to the human race.

This is just conversation. Nothing to get hackles up about.

Oh, one more thing. If the mirrors are on the Moon, I think then the Moon would just look brighter, and perhaps a bit strange, but it would be in the same place in the sky it always is. So this may be less of a disruption to organisms tuned to it's timing. Brighter will potentially disrupt wildlife, but at least the location the light is coming from would not.

As for orbital mirrors, it seems to me the light from them could confuse Earth organisms, because the timing of their appearance in the sky would be unlike historical nature.

An interesting thought is that humans could make a false Moon to orbit Mars, of an array of reflectors which would have an orbital timing similar to our Moon. That might make it easier for a wide array of life to adapt to Mars, and of course, it could be a tool to manipulate the climate of Mars. No tides though unfortunately. In the case of Mars of course you would not worry about warming the planet up, I would think.

So, then several services rendered by the Loonies. Potable water/Irrigation, Sea Level Maintenance, and possibly Planetary Cooling or Warming as needed. How the Loonies would be compensated I guess would have to involve social schemes.

But I am thinking as others have stated the for the most part there would be many virtual reality actuators on the Moon driven by humans on the Earth, and some driven by humans on the Moon, perhaps in Lava Tube or other types of Cities. But I think a small population on the Moon, with the right to emigrate to the Earth if they can and want to. A population turn over between the Earth and Moon would reduce the development of hostile ethnic identity conflict.

Perhaps actually only a small number of adults older than normal child rearing age would be on the Moon. When they got too old they would return to Earth or Mars for retirement, and be replaced by more people from Earth.

Last edited by Void (2016-12-31 13:52:05)

Void · 2016-12-31 13:56:11

I have only the best of intentions. Of course we know what the road to hell is paved with. So, lets do be careful, yes. Happy New Years!

Last edited by Void (2016-12-31 13:57:17)

SpaceNut · 2016-12-31 16:56:09

Well the moon does reflect sunlight back to earth already and that process is Albedo which just happens to have the Percentage of diffusely reflected sunlight in relation to various surface conditions. I meantioned earlier that albedo of Earth, its planetary albedo, is 30 to 35% because of cloud cover, but widely varies locally across the surface because of different geological and environmental features.

The overall albedo of the Moon is measured to be around 0.136, but it is strongly directional and non-Lambertian, displaying also a strong opposition effect.

You are looking to the change in climate and weather, temperature feedback, snow, water, clouds...

just how bright is the moon

The moons reflection is one of Diffuse reflection in that its unfocused and bouncing off from a round object that further makes the reflection less intense.

Void · 2017-01-03 19:47:50

Spacenut said:

You are looking to the change in climate and weather, temperature feedback, snow, water, clouds...

Well maybe that is a way of saying it. Another way, is to say that we are beyond the infancy of humanity.

I actually see that in some cases the objective is to stabilize the climate, while recognizing that we are likely patching it to compensate for human activities.

We are already in the business, or will be in the business of trying to play Noah with certain animals. It is not enough to just leave them a reserved area to live, it is becoming required to actively intervene to preserve their kind. Compensating for other human activities such as farming and poaching, an outright extermination by some peoples who don't like the animals.

Similarly we are likely beyond that time when just doing less of what we do will help the situation. If ocean levels are going to rise, it does not matter why that much. It does matter that a lot of most valuable real estate will be damaged and this will make humans poorer and more likely to exploit what remains in a rude way.

It is our species nature to use tools to increase our survival abilities, those of us who are truly human. The fake humans use words and violence to try to rape each other and true humans.

Therefore for the tool maker to make a tool which can have the potential to so greatly alter the likely course of the average human race seems totally human to me. It's what we do.

As for generating water and protecting crops, this will be valuable for when the water wars become likely.

As for a nuclear winter per some set of countries such as Pakistan/India, it would be good to have a tool to try to help humanity with in an event like that. Many would say "Well the trick is to get everyone to get rid of their nuclear weapons". Well, good luck with that.

And if you are on the Moon for the climate regulation item, there is no reason to not prospect for minerals. Also support for deeper space efforts would be important as well.

Last edited by Void (2017-01-03 20:33:38)

Void · 2017-01-10 15:39:37

Oh, I just thought I would put this here for various reasons. One being to not start a new topic.

http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-scient … 10-billion
Quote:

NASA scientists say we could colonise the Moon by 2022... for just $10 billion
A lot of focus over the past 12 months has been on NASA's journey to Mars. But a group of space experts, including leading NASA scientists, has now produced a special journal edition that details how we could establish a human colony on the Moon in the next seven years - all for US$10 billion.
Although that's pretty awesome, the goal isn't really the Moon itself - from an exploratory point of view, most scientists have bigger targets in sight. But the lessons we'll learn and the technology we'll develop building a human base outside of Earth will eventually be the key to colonising Mars, and other planets, according to the experts.

So, the lunaticks are rising.

SpaceNut · 2017-01-10 19:48:33

Well there is the "Make America Great" moments to relive again with the dates slowly growing nearer for the Apollo programs miles stones.
Time tables are restricted currently by funding supplied internally via companies like Space x and Externaly from the Ferderal budgets created to fund such projects. We know that any project has from starting at a scratch point a long time line so as we are exploring how do we speed up that period so as to meet the mile stones of the various anniversary dates fast approaching.

Void · 2017-01-10 21:28:44

I don't know if I can get inside of the "Head" of the new administration as far as space goes, but the little I have read, is they might cancel the SLS, and instead promote private/public endeavors with the money to achieve the goals.

They also seem to be more interested in the Moon, but I really don't think anniversaries matter. (That is imaginary thinking. Just because the Earth went around the sun "X" number of times, does not mean that a day today, has any real relationship to a day in the past). I really only have one "Birth Day". It was when I was born.

There is another camp which wants to mine asteroids.

Personally, I think our space program should be generic, and any propulsion devices should be built with the Moon, Asteroids, and Mars in mind. Not choosing just one.

SpaceNut · 2017-01-14 21:14:16

"The Opportunity of Space Solar"

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-01-15 07:16:31

One way to use solar energy on the Moon is to build a colony there and use the solar energy locally. Solar energy is available 100% of the time at the poles of the Moon. The more people that live on the Moon, the less we need to tax the Earth's resources.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2017-01-15 08:09:47)

Void · 2017-01-15 10:50:20

OK, at least some responses. That at least is appreciated.

However, I have offered a new alternative, and it might provide sea level regulation, clean water, and some protection of crops from frost damage.

Beamed power is interesting, but relative to what I have suggested, it is not K.I.S.S.
friendly. It is technically very complex, and potentially dangerous.

Heliostats, are a relatively universal tool, should they be able to survive on a planets surface such a tool could contribute to the physical means of human existence. They are after all relatively simple robots, and we are in the new age of robots.

To do this humans will have to have habitat on the Moon. I favor only housing adults of a filtered nature, and then only as many as are useful.

Eventually, it may be that humans will raise children on the Moon, but it is not critical to the needs of Earth and humans of the future in general, and could be counterproductive to our purpose of projecting humans into the solar system and beyond.

Before human children were raised on the Moon, experiments with higher animals would be a moral requirement.

So, what I have set out stands by itself in the beginning time of the use of the Moon.

The international space station sets a model for international co-operation on the Moon,
and the law of the sea, is being used as a legal loop hole to get a potential space economy out of the head lock that the enemy of our purposes has built to contain humanity as a slave.

Now is too soon in my opinion to burden the process with the entanglements that establishing an "Ethnic" group on the Moon could generate.

For now the Moon can be a source of reflected photons, research, and minerals.
Minerals could be used to build beamed power systems in orbit around Earth, or habitats in orbit around Earth, that have synthetic gravity.

Last edited by Void (2017-01-15 11:05:13)

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-01-15 12:13:52

Each human raised on the Moon is one human not raised on the Earth, and in that sense it is useful. My diagram shows how you ca have a habitat on the Moon with 1 full Earth gravity, that way you can raise children on the Moon under a full Earth gravity, and in their spare time, they can jump around under lunar gravity if they like. A tower in the center has an elevator shaft and a mast for holding up a giant mirror angled at 45 degrees to reflect downward polar sunlight at the Moon's north or south pole. The mast rotates to track the Sun. Shutters on the dome roof open and close to give night and day. Towards the edge of the parabola, the sunlight comes in at a low angle. Beyond the spinning parabola at the edge of the crater is some lunar gravity parkland. crops can be grown under lunar gravity, we're not concerned about that. The regolith surrounding the centrifuge provides protection from radiation from the Sun and 75% protection from cosmic rays. water sandwiched between the 2 dome membrane can provide the remainder of protection against the cosmic rays, providing an Earthlike environment on the Moon in which we can raise our children, and if they want to visit the Earth, there is no reason why they cannot.

Overall the dimensions of this habitat is about the size of a football stadium, so structures of this size are not unprecedented on Earth. We would never build a mast an mirror set up like this on Earth, but the Moon has only one sixth gravity and there is no wind, so why not?

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2017-01-15 12:15:53)

Terraformer · 2017-01-15 12:21:54

I really don't think a couple of generations of Lunar settlement, with a constant influx of Terran-born humans, is going to result in an anti-Terran Lunar war...

Void · 2017-01-15 13:59:53

Quote:

I really don't think a couple of generations of Lunar settlement, with a constant influx of Terran-born humans, is going to result in an anti-Terran Lunar war...

Your opinion is just as valid as mine (Although I am not comfortable with it).

Lets approach this as if it were an investment problem.

As far as legal issues, we now have a sizable body of people who maintain that removing materials from a body like the Moon then makes them property. So, legally, removal to a orbital habitat has more of a foundation of support.

As far as my original topic which was using heliostats to weather and climate influence/control the Earth, putting an indigenous population on the Moon, then creates a conflict where they may interfere with the best interests of the people of Earth.

From example we can suppose that a relatively nomadic period will precede any large scale settlements. With the improbable exception of what most of the people on this web site want to do, a last ditch "Hail Mary" to get a handful of people onto Mars to eat vegetables from a greenhouse.

And we have the issue of what will be valuable in the future? It could be Carbon from Venus and Mars.

https://www.cnet.com/news/graphene-stru … -printing/
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0 … -structure
1021897_1_0108-graphene_standard.jpg?alias=standard_900x600nc

These structures, while not very dense, have a large surface area and are extremely strong; one graphene sample had only 5 percent of the density of steel, but was 10 times stronger.

As far as radiation goes, I think getting rotating habitats inside the Earth's radiation belts is the best place to locate people. Having some outposts orbit in "L" locations and perhaps even a powered orbit of the Moon, also.

And so, then teleoperation. With the infrastructure I have described previously, telepresence should be an art that can be perfected and made actual. What if I could step into a virtual reality machine to link with my machine avatar body on the surface of the Moon, and engage in productive behaviors.

As an investment scheme the above is what I would currently tilt towards, hedging my bets, so as to have human populations able to interact with whatever priorities of the future emerge from new invented and perfected technologies which I do expect will happen.

We can have everything from the Moon we want and avoid a lot of the trouble in my opinion.

In reality "The future belongs to those who will be there". So, I am just offering my best hunches on how to avoid cul-du-sac's, the treachery of the people owners, slave masters.
And how to maintain flexibility for an undefined future.

I think that this is the best plan to use the Moon to help get humans onto Mars as well.

Last edited by Void (2017-01-15 14:18:28)

SpaceNut · 2017-01-15 19:42:50

Which reminds me of a MIT article about trade routes and how going to the moon saves mass to Mars.

To save on weight, a detour to the moon is the best route to Mars

MIT-Space-Commodities_0.jpg?itok=yGsWonnA

It not that you save mass its that you can save on lofting fuel from earth which saves on another rocket stage that saves on more fuel to get our ship to Mars.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-01-16 08:35:44

Void wrote:

Quote:
I really don't think a couple of generations of Lunar settlement, with a constant influx of Terran-born humans, is going to result in an anti-Terran Lunar war...
Your opinion is just as valid as mine (Although I am not comfortable with it).
Lets approach this as if it were an investment problem.
As far as legal issues, we now have a sizable body of people who maintain that removing materials from a body like the Moon then makes them property. So, legally, removal to a orbital habitat has more of a foundation of support.
As far as my original topic which was using heliostats to weather and climate influence/control the Earth, putting an indigenous population on the Moon, then creates a conflict where they may interfere with the best interests of the people of Earth.
From example we can suppose that a relatively nomadic period will precede any large scale settlements. With the improbable exception of what most of the people on this web site want to do, a last ditch "Hail Mary" to get a handful of people onto Mars to eat vegetables from a greenhouse.
And we have the issue of what will be valuable in the future? It could be Carbon from Venus and Mars.
https://www.cnet.com/news/graphene-stru … -printing/
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0 … -structure
http://images.csmonitor.com/csm/2017/01 … _900x600nc
These structures, while not very dense, have a large surface area and are extremely strong; one graphene sample had only 5 percent of the density of steel, but was 10 times stronger.
As far as radiation goes, I think getting rotating habitats inside the Earth's radiation belts is the best place to locate people. Having some outposts orbit in "L" locations and perhaps even a powered orbit of the Moon, also.
And so, then teleoperation. With the infrastructure I have described previously, telepresence should be an art that can be perfected and made actual. What if I could step into a virtual reality machine to link with my machine avatar body on the surface of the Moon, and engage in productive behaviors.
As an investment scheme the above is what I would currently tilt towards, hedging my bets, so as to have human populations able to interact with whatever priorities of the future emerge from new invented and perfected technologies which I do expect will happen.
We can have everything from the Moon we want and avoid a lot of the trouble in my opinion.
In reality "The future belongs to those who will be there". So, I am just offering my best hunches on how to avoid cul-du-sac's, the treachery of the people owners, slave masters.
And how to maintain flexibility for an undefined future.
I think that this is the best plan to use the Moon to help get humans onto Mars as well.

It just seems to me that mining the Moon, transporting material into space to build a colony in space requires more energy than building a habitat on the Moon. (or in the Moon) The Moon is a giant rock in space, it has more material than the asteroid belt. I think he first colonies made out of the Moon would be in the Moon. The Moon is in a nice convenient orbit, unlike asteroids, the Moon is conveniently close, the launch window to it is always open. I just think we need to consider living in the Moon rather than on its surface like we do on Earth. Rather than thinking of living underground in a dank cave, think of carving out an asteroid, except the Moon is much bigger than that! It is already the right distance from the Sun. People living there would not be separated from the rest of humanity like just about any other body in the Solar System. I think the Moon has been overlooked because it is so familiar to us from the Apollo missions, but there is actually a lot we can do with it.

Void · 2017-01-16 13:47:54

I have already answered your question.

The Moon is to the Sea

Built items on the Moon, are conceivably under the jurisdiction of what ever dominant entity exists. For now that will be a power group on the Moon.

Objects in orbit of Earth however, are specifically the property, of a Nation, or Corporation, or some other entity. This is our end run around the "Outer Space Treaty". There may be sufficient players on Earth to support the political opinion, that the Moon shall be treated as similar to international waters of an Ocean or Sea.

For a body of water, if you catch fish and bring them into your boat, then they become property. Then if a ship enterers national waters, the property right may be even more re-enforced.

If you pick up an item on the Moon, and build a technological platform on the Moon, you are still in international waters. Your rights of property, are dependent on the dominant power of that time. You could be taxed, if somehow we got a socialist third world mentality in charge, who unlike now could physically enforce it.

However if you built a device in the orbit of Earth your property rights would no longer be affected by what ever the mentality of the era enforces for the Moon.

And there are the laws of nature. I think it unlikely that the Moon would be a good place to raise children relative to a space habitat with synthetic gravity.

You may say that you could build a spinning habitat in a crater bowl. The bearings needed for that are very likely impractical. You could build a centrifuge with a gym in it if it turns out to be necessary, but that is an expense to avoid if possible.

I might amend my comments by saying that yes, if you could hollow out a sufficiently large void, in the bedrock below, and fill it with Carbon Dioxide, then you could "Float" a air filled habitat in that and spin it. If the CO2 floatation fluid was not too viscous, then you would be able to have laminar shell flow, so that no exposed surface would experience the full differential speed.

But if you do that, then you have to change the Outer Space Treaty, or you are vulnerable to harassment from the Earth population, if western concepts of behavior do not hold.

As for hosting a established population on the Moon. What are the chances that the gulf states would allow us to take oil from their countries for free?

Perhaps you have not bothered to read what I wrote about using heliostats to alter the weather and perhaps climate on Earth. Do you think that if a Middle Eastern mentality people got established on the Moon, that they would not press any advantage they could have to enslave a people an make them pay tribute for no value added service rendered?

Humans typically pair off into two opposing groups, and then they try to butcher each other.

Last edited by Void (2017-01-16 14:12:35)

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-01-17 09:43:07

Free floating space habitats are more vulnerable to attack than a space colony built into the crust of the Moon.

None of the Middle Eastern countries are capable of building a colony in the Moon, all they can do is complain, and they are too busy fighting each other to do much of anything else!

One strong motivation to build space colonies is to get away from these nitwits that want to die for Allah and kill others in the process of fighting their Holy war.

We need to insulate ourselves from the less civilized people of the World, that is why we need to build space colonies.

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