21–30 of 58 posts
I profoundly disagree. IMHO, the destination is open space, not another planet, and the gravity well on the Moon is waaay easier to overcome.
What's interesting about open space? To me it's the stuff in space that makes interesting destinations.
I profoundly disagree. IMHO, the destination is open space, not another planet, and the gravity well on the Moon is waaay easier to overcome.
What's interesting about open space? To me it's the stuff in space that makes interesting destinations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Braking," not breaking. Some of the most difficult challenges have to do with maintaining life support long term. The Moon isn't a bad place for that. If we're able to deal with operations in conditions dealing with vacuum, that experience is still applicable. Also, the human side of the procedures for preventing lunar dust and grit from entering the living space will be important and applicable to Mars. Mars soil i…
> "Braking," not breaking. Ah jeez. That's what I get for commenting right after rolling out of bed. > ... the most difficult challenges have to do with maintaining life support long term. The Moon isn't a bad place for that. The moon is a bad place for that because now you have to carry all that extra fuel for landing/etc. Low earth orbit is just fine for figuring out life support as has been done on the ISS already…
I think that might be outweighed by the fact that the transit time is a few days compared to months, and launch windows are plentiful. It's better to test with all the benefits we can initially, IMO, as failure has such a high cost (in all aspects. How long do you think it would take for the public to get over their distaste of manned missions or colinization efforts after a big failure?).
"Each Apollo mission increased the mass of the lunar atmosphere by about 30%, and it took several weeks for the atmosphere to return to its natural state. Highly sensitive measurement or communication instruments may be affected by the additional atmospheric particles." [1]
"Studies have also revealed that the balance is very delicate. At present, the solar wind sweeps the lunar atmosphere into space very efficiently, limiting its density to that of a collisionless gas (an exosphere). If the atmosphere were, however, a factor of just 1000 denser, this process would invert itself and the atmosphere would remain stable for tens of thousands of years. Just the Apollo missions to the Moon increased the atmospheric density by a factor of 10 with rocket exhaust (mostly CHON compounds). Large scale human activity on the Moon could push the total mass over the limit and create an artificial atmosphere, pushing the Exobase off the surface and creating a stable, if highly tenuous atmosphere which could threaten precisely the most important asset that the Moon can offer us: its sterility and almost atmosphereless nature." [2]
[1] http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/tadp/1995/spects/environment.html
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20050214155703/http://www.iac.es...
Ugh. Zubrin's 'The Case For Mars' (which on reading, it's obvious SpaceX have based a lot of their strategy on) is categorically against going back to the Moon and using it as a 'stepping stone'. Zubrin's 'Mars Direct' architecture shows quite plainly that it is possible using current technology readiness levels and funding to send a significant scientific mission to Mars directly , without the need for huge orbital…
For example, spacex wants to test the BFS. They could send it on a wide orbit 2 days away, or they could orbit around the moon instead. Going for the moon is probably only slightly different (ie different orbit insertion) but other than that it would be the same, except awesome pics/video.
Human space flight - what a waste of resources. Send robots for the next 100 years.
The moon has 1/6th of Earth's gravity and 0% of our atmospheric pressure. Mars has 1/3rd of the gravity and 0.6% of the pressure. Those 2 factors make them very similar to each other and the distance makes the moon the clear candidate for a first step.
There is also something to be said for sending humans to a place where humans have never been able to go before. To many people, that's an end goal in and of itself.
So let assume they can make oxygen, water, maybe even calories. Great. Self supporting base.
But other than that. Everything will have to be trucked in. Pipes, electrical wires, valves, medical supplies, antennas, plastics, etc.
Will any of these be manufactured on-site in say 2050 ?!
- Are we largely constrained in our ship design since everything has to be structurally capable of handling launch and re-entry from earth's gravity well?
- How would our ship designs change if they were just meant to transport heavy loads and never actually re-enter a major gravity well? Similar to the Gateway hand-off mentioned in the article
- Wouldn't asteroid mining, resource harvesting be easier from a semi-permanent base that's still reasonably close to earth?
- Doesn't "Moon Base" just sound really freakin' cool?
Ugh. Zubrin's 'The Case For Mars' (which on reading, it's obvious SpaceX have based a lot of their strategy on) is categorically against going back to the Moon and using it as a 'stepping stone'. Zubrin's 'Mars Direct' architecture shows quite plainly that it is possible using current technology readiness levels and funding to send a significant scientific mission to Mars directly , without the need for huge orbital…
He's obviously still pro-Mars, but in that interview he seemed less anti-Moon than he was in the past (but emphatically against certain approaches).