Comments on: China and the “dark side”

By: billgamesh

billgamesh — Fri, 29 May 2015 12:57:23 +0000

I wish I was good with infographics, or knew someone who could cook up graphs like that. Many of the “facts” the public takes for granted concerning space exploration and space travel are not facts at all when compared to reality- Low Earth Orbit being the most ridiculous example of all.

Talk about LEO as not really deserving to be classified as “space” and some people get pretty upset. Compared to the great beyond LEO is a thin slice of nothing. It is a comparatively tiny domain that allows extended human visits because it is protected from the radiation and solar events of actual outer space. Calling it space exploration (what’s to explore?) and space travel (there has to be a destination to travel somewhere) have been obsolete classifications since 1968 when LEO was left far behind.

Humankind retreated back into LEO after leaving because the money was cut off to continue a real space program. For the last 40 years the public has been fooled into thinking the space age did not end and this farce continues. Likewise Mars is being marketed as the “horizon goal” because it is useful as a device to keep the public distracted from what is in plain view in the sky most evenings- the Moon.

By: Paul Spudis

Paul Spudis — Thu, 28 May 2015 21:54:24 +0000

They do have state-of-the-art instruments and publish their results in the open literature (more or less; a lot of the raw, mission data are not released and all we have are their published results). They are a bit behind the curve in terms of scientific acumen and imagination, but are trying. For this far side mission, they actually are soliciting foreign instruments, i.e., if you provide the instrument, they will fly it to the Moon in exchange for data sharing. American scientists are prohibited by law from participating in any of this, but many of our European colleagues are salivating over the chance.

By: LocalFluff

LocalFluff — Thu, 28 May 2015 19:53:31 +0000

What is the science quality of the Chinese lunar missions? Do they have efficient instruments and do they publish data and papers? Is their mission to the Far Side likely to reveal deep secrets about the formation of the Moon, or is it just a technology demonstration without real science goals?

By: Paul Spudis

Paul Spudis — Thu, 28 May 2015 18:32:07 +0000

Warren,

Two different ideas there. The Asphaug idea is that a very large impact early in lunar history “plastered” the far side with excess crust, making it thicker and accounting for the CM-CF offset and tidal rotation lock. Not really any geochemical evidence to support such an idea.

The “magnetic anomaly” on the far side is centered in the northern part of the South Pole-Aitken basin, near the crater Van de Graaf. The idea (by a guy named Mark Wieczorek and others) is that the impactor that created the SPA basin was metallic and partly buried itself beneath the floor of the basin. This asteroidal metal is the magnetic carrier for the anomaly. Sort of a Deus Ex Machina idea — impacts typically don’t work that way. But one can imagine some extreme conditions that might permit it.

More likely, it is related to the opposite hemisphere Imbrium basin, either antipodal converging ejecta (magnetized by impact shock) or seismic fracturing of the crust, creating pathways for igneous intrusions resulting in a dike swarm that cooled below the Curie point in a formerly existing global magnetic field.

Lots of ideas, but no real answers. Take your pick.

By: Warren Platts

Warren Platts — Thu, 28 May 2015 17:37:10 +0000

Paul, what do you think of the Asphaug and Jutzi hypothesis that the Dark Side highlands could be largely a leftover carapace resulting from a huge, slow-moving impactor? If it’s true, the Dark Side highlands could possibly be enriched in metals. Then there’s that huge magnetic anomaly over there. Could that possibly be the remains of the metallic core of a large impactor?

By: Warren Platts

Warren Platts — Thu, 28 May 2015 17:30:37 +0000

There is actually a grain of truth to the appellation “Dark Side”. Of course, the other side of the Moon goes through a two-week period of sunlight every month. But at night, it’s really dark dark, as there’s no Earth-light. Whereas on the Near Side at midnight, the “Full Earth” provides 23 times more light than does the Full Moon as seen by us Earthlings.

cf. http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-dark-side-of-moon.html

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 28 May 2015 16:47:22 +0000

The Gravity Well Map is indeed instructive.

Now it there was just a way to get people who do not already understand the situation to look at it.

By: Paul Spudis

Paul Spudis — Thu, 28 May 2015 14:10:17 +0000

Does the Far Side have any strategic importance?

Not per se. The ability to access the far side and conduct routine operations there is simply part of the much larger cislunar capability that China is developing, one that does have strategic significance.

By: LocalFluff

LocalFluff — Thu, 28 May 2015 06:40:43 +0000

Does the Far Side have any strategic importance? It is harder to access and no satellites are in line of sight from there, also resources should not be better than on the Near Side. Could there be some value in hiding there? I suppose this could still become a polar mission, out of sight from Earth and thus the Far Side effectively.

By: billgamesh

billgamesh — Thu, 28 May 2015 04:21:23 +0000

There are presently several showstoppers for any real space program- the first being the inexcusable SLS core production rate at Michoud. That is the dead giveaway concerning how dirty the games are that are being played between NASA’s political appointees and the SLS supporters in congress and the senate. As long as Human Space Flight-Beyond Earth Orbit is so incredibly underfunded compared to Low Earth Orbit operations, and military space expenditures, and keeps being a political football tossed back and forth between administrations- there is little hope.

Dr. Spudis proposed what I have come to believe is the ideal solution- make Human Space Flight-Beyond Earth Orbit one of those military expenditures by creating a new agency (like the Department of Homeland Security was). Certain people can do nothing but scream at the top of their lungs there is no money, no payloads, and no reason to spend tax dollars on NASA and it should all be handed over to Musk. There are reasons and the Chinese are well aware of them.

A deep space force would operate Beyond Earth Orbit and use nuclear energy and carry nuclear weapons. These spaceships would use water-as-cosmic-ray-shielding derived from lunar ice. They would replace the strategic nuclear forces on Earth- the bombers, missiles, and submarines. And they would be used to detect and defect any asteroid or comet impact threat. Exploration with some scientists always on board would also be part of their mandate.

As I have commented before, the first step would be to replace the present GEO satellite junkyard with human-crewed von Braun wheels assembled in lunar orbit. By capturing a percentage of the over 100 billion dollar profits of this industry, and also the savings accrued by transferring legacy nuclear weapon system funding into space, such a force becomes affordable. The certain number of space stations in this case becoming spaceships by the addition of nuclear propulsion systems.

Using SLS wet workshops and robot landers to shuttle ice into lunar orbit from the surface, such a plan would immediately make the U.S. dominant in all space matters. Just as the pathetically low output of SLS cores from Michoud is a tell-all, I recently saw a simple graph detailing the depths of the gravity wells of the Earth and Moon and this is also a stark display of just how poorly informed and mislead the public is. The two most useless and dead end destinations to spend public treasure on- LEO and Mars.

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucfbiac/Lunar_resources_review_preprint_accepted_manuscript.pdf

Figure 10, page 23