The pushback to lunar return is beginning. Expect to see a blitz of articles screaming how stupid it is to go back to the Moon. I am very unhappy about this and blame it on the usual suspects.

Since the first rule of NewSpace is to always scream cheap, they can simply say there is no commercial reason to do anything except launch satellites. They win any way you look at it and are actually quite shameless about their Ayn-Rand-in-space ideology if you examine the subtext of their comments. It is all a money game to them. Several sites are little more than SpaceX infomercials and I would not dignify what is posted there by calling it a “discussion”. Nothing to do with space exploration really and everything to do with the company. They want nothing to do with the Moon because it is not good for the company. The SLS is not good for the company, a Blue Moon Lander is not good for the company. Funding a lunar return instead of commercial cargo/crew is not good for the company.
See how that works?

Thanks for posting link to proposed lunar architecture at http://spudislunarresources.nss.org/Bibliography/p/102.pdf hope the “powers” will adopt some of this for future rovers. Would love to see results and photos of craters on the poles.

Fleets of true atomic spaceships patrolling the solar system and visiting various places with guest scientists on board as a secondary mission might be appropriate. But that would almost certainly depend on the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers being moved into deep space on such fleets.

If we are looking for places to find life, that is one thing, and if we are looking for places to live, that is another. Living oceans with complex life forms similar to the creatures in our own deep ocean are at this point a possibility. Most people would agree that would be worth spending billions on missions sending human-crewed submarines to explore such living oceans. But not putting bootprints on barren rocks like Mars. The list of icy bodies with possible oceans is long, starting with Ceres.

Lebensraum is best accomplished by building miles-in-diameter hollow spinning artificial moons with lunar material as envisioned by Gerard K. O’Neill. You are of course familiar with my view on this. Space Solar Power would be the economic engine to effect those mega-structures.

If NASA’s human spaceflight related budget was prioritized at about $12 billion a year, I think NASA could easily have permanent outpost on the lunar surface well before the end of the 2020s, permanent outpost on the surface of Mars well before the end of the 2030s, and similar human outpost on the surfaces of Callisto and Mercury before the end of the 2040s.

Also from the 2020s to the 2040s, simple rotating– artificial gravity– outpost could easily be placed within cis-lunar space, the orbits of Venus, Mercury, Jupiter (beyond the orbit of Callisto), Ceres, Vesta, etc.

But, again, NASA’s human spaceflight related budget has to be sufficiently funded. With a current human spaceflight related budget at about $8 to $9 billion a year, its very difficult to fund a Big LEO program (ISS, Commercial Crew development) plus a big beyond LEO program (SLS, Orion, etc.). So NASA has to either prioritize more money for its human spaceflight related program within the current NASA budget or ask Congress for at least a $3 to $5 billion increase in its total annual budget.

Marcel

The three problems with LLO are first the mascons that make low lunar orbits unstable. Stable “frozen” orbits are now understood and that problem is solved. The second problem is the radiation environment and the solution is ice-as-water-shielding dipped out of the Moons shallow gravity well. The third is of course getting hardware there and a wet workshop/robot lander combination for a Super Heavy Lift Vehicle can place large habitats in LLO and fill their radiation shields. The eventual 130 metric ton lift of the SLS makes this practical with few technical challenges.

The first such water shielded workshops could also be utilized as lunar cyclers to provide commuter service to and from the Moon. This would make the Muskrats happy by possibly giving the hobby rocket a job as a taxi intercepting the cyclers as they swing around the Earth.

True as of now,but someone (believe it may have been Robert Heinlein) coined the phrase – “If this goes on” to note the fallacy of assuming that past trends automatically continue into the future. For instance, after the first Apollo Landings an analysis was done of the speeds humans would be able to travel in the future – it showed us being able to exceed the Speed of Light by 1986.

Amen, brother.

I am not saying that robots have no role; I am saying that no matter how much better they get, humans also have a critical role.