hollywood
01-10-2004, 05:34 AM
Back at my home website: www.tacticalgamer.com
A guy asked me just why we should go back to the Moon and not just straight to Mars. I thought my answer as killer...so here it is for you all to mull over... ;)
Mudshark wrote:
What exactly do we have to gain from a perminent base on the moon? How would that make scientific research any easier than in the ISS (which isn't even completed yet)?
Mars... sure. It's got an atmosphere we can mess around with, plenty of iron and the possibility of water to boot, but the moon... well there is a bunch of rocks in a complete vaccum.
Maybe as a stop off point in transit to mars but I don't really see what that offers anyway. wouldn't we want to use the earth's more significant gravity well to slingshot out to mars anyway? Maybe as a depository for fuel to be picked up on the way... but couldn't we just put some in orbit around the earth and scoop it up before traveling to Mars?
Well Muddy...there are MANY reasons to head to the moon to establish a permanent manned settlement. Most scientists and NASA's reasoning is three-fold.
1. Systems research and Development:
Establishing a permanent manned base on the Moon allows us a testing ground for true interplanetary spaceflight. As the moon is "only" 250,000 miles from earth if any catastrophic event occurred, the crew/colonists would have a MUCH better chance of earth return and subsequent survival than if they were on Mars. We would be developing several space based vehicular systems required for interplanetary travel and orbital work as well.
SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) vehicles for crew/cargo lofting to LEO (Low Earth Orbit). Also needed would be a dedicated orbital tugboat type craft. This is known as a TOB or Trans Orbital Bus. The TOB would take over the cargo and crew transfer duties away from the SSTO vehicles when in Low Earth Orbit. By having a dedicated orbital tug, the SSTO vehicles can be smaller, cheaper and faster due to the fact that they don't have to carry a full load of fuel for extended orbital maneuvering. They also would be able to loft more cargo into orbit due because they won't need the fuel to perform the role that the TOB (tug) does. Now since you have light and fast SSTO vehicles handing over crew and cargo to a tug-type craft ,this tug could then assemble parts of an interplanetary craft or take the whole load to a space station for further assembly.
This is MUCH more efficient than the shuttle as the shuttle is a "jack of all trades" type spacecraft that has to loft cargo, maneuver it to an orbital location and then remain in orbit for a long duration. All the while it also must be able to survive re-entry and landing back on earth. With all those capabilities, it sacrifices cargo capacity on launch for orbital maneuvering fuel and consumables for missions lasting 14 days or more. With a dedicated SSTO vehicle, it merely needs to be able to launch, rendezvous with the orbital tug and then return home. This "quick haul" type mission would only require a capacity for less than two days in orbit, thus resulting in a huge gain in lifting capacity to LEO.
Now as far as the orbital tug is concerned (TOB) it only needs to be launched once then it would never return to earth. It would be kept docked at a space station and would not require the requisite heat shielding or even any sort of aerodynamic shape. It simply would be not much more than a pressurized vessel with robotic arms and powerful electric-ion thrusters (As flown on NASA's DS1 probe mission). This do-all vehicle would pick up cargo flown up from earth and aid in orbital assembly of space stations/interplanetary craft.
There is one more type of vehicle required for Moon settlement. This vehicle would be known as a TLV (Trans-Lunar-Vehicle). Crew launched by a SSTO would dock with a space station with a waiting TLV. The TLV would then act as the "ferry" between the earth and the moon. Again, so the vehicle is cost effective, it would not have any atmospheric capabilities. The only vehicle required for getting off of and returning to the Earth surface would be the SSTO. Both the TOB and TLV craft would be pure spacecraft that dock with either SSTOs or space stations to accept crew or cargo.
2. Resources:
There are extensive deposits of highly valuable minerals and core elements on the Moon. One isotope required for high-state nuclear fission is Helium3. Helium3 was found in great abundance in the Apollo-era Moon-rock samples. If enough Helium3 could be mined the possibility for clean nuclear fission as a viable power solution on Earth would be nothing less than revolutionary. Also of mention is the Moons extensive deposits of Nickel, Iron, Magnesium, Silicon, Aluminum, Hydrogen and of course Helium and Helium3.
3. Weight:
Here's a simple fact. The Moon has 1/6th of the Earth gravity. Trying to launch a mission to Mars from Earth (aka Mars Direct mission profile) is nothing less than a foolhardy and halfassed way to launch an interplanetary expedition. If one was to launch all required fuel and components from Earth and then assemble them in orbit, you could only send a very small spacecraft with limited return capabilities as most of the return trip fuel would have to be manufactured on Mars via gaseous diffraction.
However, the Moon has proven and plentiful water and mineral-bound Hydrogen. If the components for a Mars vehicle could be launched into Lunar orbit the fuel could be manufactured on the moon. The effort then required to launch the fuel to the waiting Mars-bound craft from the surface of the Moon would be exactly 1/6th that of earth made fuel. With this entire added weight savings, the craft itself could be much larger, faster and carry much, much, much more fuel for a Mars-bound journey.
It boils down to this...A manned trip to Mars would take about 9 months in transit. With an Earth-Launched mission you'll be in a space equivalent of a Yugo and only have about 2 weeks Martian surface time. With a Lunar-Launched/Assisted mission profile, you'd have a greyhound bus and over a month of Martian surface time.
Now....which mission would be more meaningful??? A flag, picture and some rocks, or a real expedition in the tradition of Lewis and Clark with a REAL intent of future exploration?
In this day and age, we need REAL progress...not cheap one-off stunts. By going to the Moon first we're investing in a REAL future in space, not just some parlor trick.
-Sean M. Kaldahl
A guy asked me just why we should go back to the Moon and not just straight to Mars. I thought my answer as killer...so here it is for you all to mull over... ;)
Mudshark wrote:
What exactly do we have to gain from a perminent base on the moon? How would that make scientific research any easier than in the ISS (which isn't even completed yet)?
Mars... sure. It's got an atmosphere we can mess around with, plenty of iron and the possibility of water to boot, but the moon... well there is a bunch of rocks in a complete vaccum.
Maybe as a stop off point in transit to mars but I don't really see what that offers anyway. wouldn't we want to use the earth's more significant gravity well to slingshot out to mars anyway? Maybe as a depository for fuel to be picked up on the way... but couldn't we just put some in orbit around the earth and scoop it up before traveling to Mars?
Well Muddy...there are MANY reasons to head to the moon to establish a permanent manned settlement. Most scientists and NASA's reasoning is three-fold.
1. Systems research and Development:
Establishing a permanent manned base on the Moon allows us a testing ground for true interplanetary spaceflight. As the moon is "only" 250,000 miles from earth if any catastrophic event occurred, the crew/colonists would have a MUCH better chance of earth return and subsequent survival than if they were on Mars. We would be developing several space based vehicular systems required for interplanetary travel and orbital work as well.
SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) vehicles for crew/cargo lofting to LEO (Low Earth Orbit). Also needed would be a dedicated orbital tugboat type craft. This is known as a TOB or Trans Orbital Bus. The TOB would take over the cargo and crew transfer duties away from the SSTO vehicles when in Low Earth Orbit. By having a dedicated orbital tug, the SSTO vehicles can be smaller, cheaper and faster due to the fact that they don't have to carry a full load of fuel for extended orbital maneuvering. They also would be able to loft more cargo into orbit due because they won't need the fuel to perform the role that the TOB (tug) does. Now since you have light and fast SSTO vehicles handing over crew and cargo to a tug-type craft ,this tug could then assemble parts of an interplanetary craft or take the whole load to a space station for further assembly.
This is MUCH more efficient than the shuttle as the shuttle is a "jack of all trades" type spacecraft that has to loft cargo, maneuver it to an orbital location and then remain in orbit for a long duration. All the while it also must be able to survive re-entry and landing back on earth. With all those capabilities, it sacrifices cargo capacity on launch for orbital maneuvering fuel and consumables for missions lasting 14 days or more. With a dedicated SSTO vehicle, it merely needs to be able to launch, rendezvous with the orbital tug and then return home. This "quick haul" type mission would only require a capacity for less than two days in orbit, thus resulting in a huge gain in lifting capacity to LEO.
Now as far as the orbital tug is concerned (TOB) it only needs to be launched once then it would never return to earth. It would be kept docked at a space station and would not require the requisite heat shielding or even any sort of aerodynamic shape. It simply would be not much more than a pressurized vessel with robotic arms and powerful electric-ion thrusters (As flown on NASA's DS1 probe mission). This do-all vehicle would pick up cargo flown up from earth and aid in orbital assembly of space stations/interplanetary craft.
There is one more type of vehicle required for Moon settlement. This vehicle would be known as a TLV (Trans-Lunar-Vehicle). Crew launched by a SSTO would dock with a space station with a waiting TLV. The TLV would then act as the "ferry" between the earth and the moon. Again, so the vehicle is cost effective, it would not have any atmospheric capabilities. The only vehicle required for getting off of and returning to the Earth surface would be the SSTO. Both the TOB and TLV craft would be pure spacecraft that dock with either SSTOs or space stations to accept crew or cargo.
2. Resources:
There are extensive deposits of highly valuable minerals and core elements on the Moon. One isotope required for high-state nuclear fission is Helium3. Helium3 was found in great abundance in the Apollo-era Moon-rock samples. If enough Helium3 could be mined the possibility for clean nuclear fission as a viable power solution on Earth would be nothing less than revolutionary. Also of mention is the Moons extensive deposits of Nickel, Iron, Magnesium, Silicon, Aluminum, Hydrogen and of course Helium and Helium3.
3. Weight:
Here's a simple fact. The Moon has 1/6th of the Earth gravity. Trying to launch a mission to Mars from Earth (aka Mars Direct mission profile) is nothing less than a foolhardy and halfassed way to launch an interplanetary expedition. If one was to launch all required fuel and components from Earth and then assemble them in orbit, you could only send a very small spacecraft with limited return capabilities as most of the return trip fuel would have to be manufactured on Mars via gaseous diffraction.
However, the Moon has proven and plentiful water and mineral-bound Hydrogen. If the components for a Mars vehicle could be launched into Lunar orbit the fuel could be manufactured on the moon. The effort then required to launch the fuel to the waiting Mars-bound craft from the surface of the Moon would be exactly 1/6th that of earth made fuel. With this entire added weight savings, the craft itself could be much larger, faster and carry much, much, much more fuel for a Mars-bound journey.
It boils down to this...A manned trip to Mars would take about 9 months in transit. With an Earth-Launched mission you'll be in a space equivalent of a Yugo and only have about 2 weeks Martian surface time. With a Lunar-Launched/Assisted mission profile, you'd have a greyhound bus and over a month of Martian surface time.
Now....which mission would be more meaningful??? A flag, picture and some rocks, or a real expedition in the tradition of Lewis and Clark with a REAL intent of future exploration?
In this day and age, we need REAL progress...not cheap one-off stunts. By going to the Moon first we're investing in a REAL future in space, not just some parlor trick.
-Sean M. Kaldahl