NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea • Hacker News Board

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#101

Post by AcerbicZero » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #94

jandrese wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early warning satellites would be a heck of a lot easier to install than the missiles. Basically once someone started building such a plant it would be impossible to hide what you're doing. You'd never get first strike launching from the Moon, regular ICBMs would be all over you long before the moon IPBMs made the 1 day journey back to Earth. Even with the faster travel speed from only having to accelerate out of the…

It doesn't have to be a one day journey. With a 3 ton payload the Atlas B seems to have > 8000km/s delta-v. Getting from moon to earth took Apollo about 4800km/s delta-v, leaving our little Atlas 3200km/s spare fuel. If you use that to accelerate to 3200km/s travel speed you arrive on earth after about 2 minutes (if we ignore the time it takes to accelerate).

I think we can simplify this further. It seems reasonable to assume that any weapon deployed on the surface of the moon would be devolved and dedicated specifically for that purpose, so we can ignore playing theoretical math games :).

It would also be fairly obvious that someone was trying to move several thousand pounds of hardware onto the moon, and launch detection satellites would be even more effective at monitoring the moon. So you've got a first strike, that will be detectable basically immediately, and weapons that now need to travel ~385,000 km and survive even more serious re-entry than the ICBM's based on Earth. Or you've got a second strike capability that cost you billions of rubles/dollars.

Once you look at it like that, its pretty easy to see why the submarine launched weapons were the preferred method for threatening rapid first strike while providing a guaranteed second strike capability.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#102

Post by bbojan » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #63

rtkwe wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a lot of value in the research NASA/JAXA/ESA/Roscosmos does in space. Some experiments are only really doable under long term microgravity The US runs it as a national lab and many companies use it for experiments. Maintaining it that way makes it way easier for companies to run experiments in space, with out the ISS each company would have to design, build and launch their own satellite for each experim…

The catch 22 is any experiment that you can only do in microgravity is also only really relevant in microgravity. That’s fine if we have a larger goal, but not really useful on it’s own. Sure simply learning this stuff is interesting, but the costs are so extreme it’s effectively a vanity project.

Researchers discover cool-burning flames in space that could lead to better engines here on earth

https://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe...

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#103

Post by ynik » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #94

jandrese wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early warning satellites would be a heck of a lot easier to install than the missiles. Basically once someone started building such a plant it would be impossible to hide what you're doing. You'd never get first strike launching from the Moon, regular ICBMs would be all over you long before the moon IPBMs made the 1 day journey back to Earth. Even with the faster travel speed from only having to accelerate out of the…

It doesn't have to be a one day journey. With a 3 ton payload the Atlas B seems to have > 8000km/s delta-v. Getting from moon to earth took Apollo about 4800km/s delta-v, leaving our little Atlas 3200km/s spare fuel. If you use that to accelerate to 3200km/s travel speed you arrive on earth after about 2 minutes (if we ignore the time it takes to accelerate).

A two minute travel time is ridiculous. Even light takes more than a second to reach us from the moon.

The lunar orbit->earth delta-v is 4.8km/s. I didn't check your other numbers but they seem to be off by a factor 1000 too.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#104

Post by LoSboccacc » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

on one hand I agree that a lunar base would be a cheaper option for a wealth of reasons including not having to refuel orbit keeping rockets, however, landing supply is far more risky than docking supply, which compound with the mission's distance and scope: failing a shipment is always an eventuality, but losing it at launch is far worse than losing it on arrival, in the first case you know immediately, in the other you know 2-3 weeks later, and that influences how large your stockpile needs to be.

what I'd say would be useful is if this station was the stepping stone for a lunar space elevator. then it would be a great investment and a true stepping stone for a permanent lunar presence, but a stationary orbit around the moon is impossible (too far, you'd fall on earth), so the tether would actually have to anchor the station.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#105

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #81

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country, the Democratic party and Kennedy for that matter were lucky Johnson wound up in the oval office. Johnson was very good at actually making deals and getting stuff done (e.g. ensuring the budget that gets to his desk includes NASA). If it weren't for Johnson Kennedy would only be remembered for getting us into Vietnam then getting shot.

> If it weren't for Johnson Kennedy would only be remembered for getting us into Vietnam then getting shot. Well, getting shot. Kennedy wasn't all that important in getting is into Vietnam, that was mostly before and after Kennedy.

And Cuba. Both Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#106

Post by Ididntdothis » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

ansible wrote: post #68

magashna wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total conjecture, but seeing as how the private space industry has ramped up, it would make sense to leave during such a hostile administration

Where are people going to go if they want to do science? OK, the ESA, Japan, India. Maybe China. But is there anywhere else to go in the USA?

NASA does a lot of science.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#107

Post by greglindahl » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #13

The thing about the original moon landing programme was that it had a great clarity of outcome and timeline. What: Land a man on the moon and return him safely When: Before the decade is out That meant NASA could really focus and throw out everything that wasn't directly on that path. Reusability - take too long, we'll build each craft from scratch. Permanent mission - Too complicated, keep the missions very short. M…

> What is NASA's manned programme for now? Maybe the Moon. When, who knows? Maybe Mars. What architecture, when, how, for how long? Who knows. Moon orbit? For what, when? who knows.

In the past 10 years, NASA has had an answer for all of those questions. Two different ones over time.

Also, SNC's Dream Chaser isn't ablative, and it's funded by NASA's CRS-2 program.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#108

Post by magduf » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #87

ansible wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are people going to go if they want to do science? OK, the ESA, Japan, India. Maybe China. But is there anywhere else to go in the USA?

SpaceX? Or if your science isn't specifically on materials for rockets/physics for rockets/etc... you could be funded by a university or research institute and simply pay for (part of) a launch on a SpaceX rocket. NASA still does quite a bit of science work though, so I wouldn't count them out entirely. Administrations come and go. Sometimes you just gotta keep your head down and keep doing your job until someone bet…

>until someone better is voted in.

At this point, this seems like wishful thinking. Maybe we'll get someone better voted in in 2024, but I wouldn't count on it.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#109

Post by greglindahl » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:04 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #47

BurningFrog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other cynical view is that the moon program was really military. As in, if the Soviets got to control the ultimate "higher ground", they could rule the world from it. Apollo made sure no one could control space, and we now have peace in space. I kinda believe in this, though I don't know how historically verified it is. It's of course not what you ever say in your rousing speeches to the nation and the world!

There was fear that if the Russians got to the moon first they might set up a base, and having a base they could shoot down any other landing attempt (literally, with guns mounted in their moon base). Thus the moon could become Russian domain, which would not just grant them great research opportunities but also a virtually unreachable weapons platform. (Remember that the first crewed space station was 2 years after…

Do you have a source for this claim? A base on the moon is a sitting duck for an incoming missile -- it's easier to figure out how to guide a missile near the moon than to shoot down an incoming high-velocity missile.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#110

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:07 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #63

rtkwe wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a lot of value in the research NASA/JAXA/ESA/Roscosmos does in space. Some experiments are only really doable under long term microgravity The US runs it as a national lab and many companies use it for experiments. Maintaining it that way makes it way easier for companies to run experiments in space, with out the ISS each company would have to design, build and launch their own satellite for each experim…

The catch 22 is any experiment that you can only do in microgravity is also only really relevant in microgravity. That’s fine if we have a larger goal, but not really useful on it’s own. Sure simply learning this stuff is interesting, but the costs are so extreme it’s effectively a vanity project.

Actually not true in the slightest. Microgravity removes one more confounding variable present in all experiments gravity. One example, in addition to those already mentioned, is crystallography; where it's much easier to grow the crystals we need for experiments in space than it is on Earth where gravity is constantly present affecting the growth. Those results are useful here on Earth but can only so far be achieved in space.

Even beyond things like that the only real way to study the effect of space on the human body is to put people up there for a long time and test. There are some analogues available here on Earth but they can only really test a few things at once like fluid redistribution and not the entire set of effects.

https://www.nature.com/articles/npjmgrav201510