I was David Livingston’s guest on The Space Show this past Sunday, January 26, 2014. The podcast is available at that link.
We discussed several topics on which I have previously posted here and at The Once and Future Moon blog, including China in space, the Clementine mission and a few other topics. Readers might find our conversation interesting; I welcome your comments here.
Previous posts of relevance to Sunday’s discussion:
http://www.ibtimes.com/human-beings-are-not-cut-out-life-space-report-1549863
And a short video on the jade rabbits problems. Your voice is different than what I imagined from your picture Dr. “Spoodis” (I thought it was pronounced like the potato).
Great show! I really liked the space Navy analogy.
NASA’s manned spaceflight priority should still be to establish a simple human outpost on the lunar surface in order to find out if humans can physically and psychologically adjust to a low gravity environment over several months and even several years.
And, of course, the exploitation and export of lunar water resources should also be a priority in order to reduce the recurring cost of a lunar outpost and in order to provide the mass shielding and fuel that will be required for humans to venture forth to Mars and beyond.
Marcel
Yes, the Space Navy remark was pretty good; very catchy and attention getting… and it makes sense. Use that one again next time you go on!
Depending on conditions on the lunar surface, mining lunar water may be rather rather easy, and perhaps one even say it’s likely it could be easy. And it seems if it’s fairly easy, then one will areas which are easiest, and generally one would want to start mining lunar water where it is the easiest to mine water. Though there other factors, which are more important. Though at this point in time we don’t know how easy or hard it is the mine lunar water. It seems determining this first would be a step you take before mining lunar water and something that NASA over the decades has failed to do.
But it could argued NASA is not ready to do this step yet. It could argued that we need more broader more detailed survey of lunar poles before going to particular locations. Just it could be argued that by going a location or number of locations, could step needed before a more detailed board survey is done- as we could know more exactly what to look for.
Or if betting everything, one doesn’t have enough certainty in regards to any one location. This problem of not knowing is problem NASA faces if it wants to extract water for NASA purposes, and is problem for any entity wishing to commercially mine lunar water.
It seems to me the robotic lander can used find a location. Having lander land one one spot in lunar polar crater, and flash camera picture, could tells us a lot. But one can design such lander to do much more this. It seems one flask picture could tell us a lot, or tell us nearly nothing. Or rotating a camera taking more than one picture could tell us a lot or nearly nothing. And/or moving lander 100 meters in either direction, taking more pictures, could tell us a lot more than we know at the moment- or not. Then if we dig into the surface and get an analysis of soil- this could tell a lot or very little. And etc.
A lander could confirm or disprove what we assume. So one could have exercise where one chooses to test assumption. So say go where LCROSS impacted in Cabeus crater.
There many advantages of this. Many options possible in this regard. One land beacon type lander to assist additional follow on landers. Or land something outside the crater be beacon and/or look into crater at the impact site. So Cabeus crater has number advantages, the fact we know there is water there of predicted quantity has a sort of built risk reduction that one will find something interesting, assuming one successful get to the location. Of course one could say we “been there and done that” and why not go somewhere different?
So I think in the tiny region of the lunar poles, there is a lot of exploration to find minable water, and the simplest lander [and cheap] could radical alter or confirm assumption. Or we need a lot robotic lunar mission which exploring to find lunar water. And I think we once the moon has been explored enough, we should land crew on the Moon. As additional step to find minable lunar water. But all this can be done without mining lunar water before finishing it. Or I think purpose is to get to point of mining lunar water. Or if mining lunar water begins, such exploration no longer has a purpose.
So *maybe* one explores the moon for some other purpose- find a site to put a lunar telescope, for example. Or since there is lunar mining, one could then decide to have very low cost NASA lunar base. Maybe. I don’t think NASA can lower costs by mining lunar water. Rather I believe NASA can lower costs by doing it’s job of exploring space- and start with exploring moon to find minable water. And such NASA lunar exploration could cost about 40 billion- or at least focus on achieving such exploration for 40 billion, and when said and done, may end up being 60 billion. And if managed do such program with 50% of planned budget would change the paradigm of how NASA manages large programs.
I don’t it matter of how much exploring the Moon is “worth”, but rather I think NASa should focus on what it needs to do. And NASA needs to explore the Moon with purpose of determining where and if there is minable lunar water.
I have always made the point that we need to explore and survey the resource potential of polar sites before establishing processing facilities. There are many ways to acquire these data, including hard and soft landers, multiple probes, rovers and fixed stations. Once the decision to pursue this line of inquiry is made, we can design a series of small, inexpensive missions to get the information we need.
Well, I have long tended to believed the NASA should do a relatively low cost lunar program, but within last couple years I have tended more towards a more expensive program- as in more through exploration of the Moon.
So at present I would like to see something like a 21 century Apollo lunar program, modern, smart, using robotic, using small and cheap and the big and gold plate kind of missions.
Something that one looks at and says- that is an example of information age, space age program.
So I would think low cost lunar program could fit within time period of the Apollo program. So, “Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972”- wiki.
Included such things as making the huge Saturn rocket and doing Gemini program. With going to the moon starting, Apollo 11 in July 1969 and ending December 1972- so 3 1/2 years.
So say cheap lunar program being less than 5 years. But maybe less 10 years would better. It seems as general rule crewed is faster and robotic is slower. And seems one wants spend 1/2 budget on robotic
and other on crewed. And spend more program years doing the robotic,
and finishing with robotic/crew. So general idea is crew doesn’t go where
no robots has gone. Instead crew may go where more than 2 robotic
mission have already gone. And so one might have 5-6 years of robotic
before 1-2 years of crew.
Purpose of crew is do better exploration than robot- better in sense of
compete.
The disadvantage of crew, is they have to return to Earth, the advantage of robotic is they don’t need to return to Earth- or are disposable. Or robots could also be more permanent- operate for years.
So crew will return lunar samples- the crew have to return, anyhow.
I don’t see any need for long studies of low gravity effect on crew.
Nor do see any need for long term stays of crew in general.
If there is one year time of per crew on the Moon, it seems couple weeks
in various location is generally better months on one location.
And tend to think better to pre land the crew return vehicle.
If one going to use the moon in any way, one has to able to land in exact
location. If can confidently land in precise location, there no downside to
pre landing the crew return vehicle.
I tend go with Bush vision of going to the Moon, then going to Mars.
I think going to Mars is market for lunar rocket fuel and lunar water.
I tend to think exploring the Moon for lunar water, enable commercial lunar mining of lunar water, and this makes Mars settlement possible or
“realistic” possible within a couple decades.
I don’t think lunar rocket fuel will provide NASA Mars mission with cheaper rocket fuel- though maybe somewhat cheap water.
I think having fuel depots and market for rocket fuel [which includes bringing rocket fuel from Earth rather only the Moon] will dramatically
lower the costs of NASA Mars mission. So none of NASA exploration of Moon or Mars requires lunar rocket fuel. But commercial lunar water mining, would make permanent manned base cheaper- so cheap, it doesn’t need to be a NASA lunar base, maybe US government base.
But also US entities which not government or private/government partnership. And other nations having bases on the Moon. Or whatever.
It seems unlikely one could available rocket fuel and water at lunar surface and not have manned bases on the Moon.
But the bases are not necessary or key element which support lunar rocket fuel market. Exporting lunar rocket fuel and/or lunar water to lunar orbit, is key part of lunar surface rocket fuel market. So for lunar surface rocket market, one wants to sell the lunar rocket fuel to parities
coming to the Moon [or going to Mars or elsewhere].
And it seems the whole purpose of lunar base is to stay on the Moon for extended periods of time. So lunar base mostly use lunar water in comparison to lunar rocket fuel. But landing all gear other then crew,
can use lunar rocket fuel shipped to lunar orbit. So exporting stuff
from Moon, is where one uses the most rocket fuel, and to be profitable one has sell a lot of water and rocket fuel- getting to point of selling hundreds of tons of water/rocket fuel per year, has to be goal you reach within decade or it’s not profitable. Not worth doing.
So what I have not seen, is a major NASA program which focus on a thorough exploration of the Moon to find where there is best locations
to mine lunar water. But it seems such a program could be about 40 billion dollars or maybe less.