International cooperation with Europe, Russia, India, China, Canada, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, and many other countries can help reduce costs for various types of Lunar missions. Many businesses will be seeking to set up Lunar profit centers.

For example:

“Meanwhile, in preparation for the potential ISS 2021-2024 contribution deal, European technical studies this year will assess avionics, habitation modules and life support systems for a cislunar habitat and new propulsion options for the Orion service module.”

And, “One possible alternate hydrazine engine is the Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ10-118k. It produces a 9,850-pound thrust at altitude and was used for the second stage of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 2 rocket.”

From: ‘ESA deal hinges on what Trump does with NASA’s human spaceflight plans’
By Rob Coppinger February 23, 2017
At: http://spacenews.com/esa-deal-hinges-on-what-trump-does-with-nasas-human-spaceflight-plans/#sthash.WOK0bofy.dpuf

“’The new White House needs to make a real commitment to this nation’s space future,’ he said, specifically citing lunar bases and industrial activity. ‘The reason I’m focusing on the moon is because the business case for the moon is potentially substantial compared to the business case for Mars, and the financial requirements are of no comparison.'”

From: ‘Bigelow calls on Trump to sharply increase NASA spending’
By Jeff Foust November 17, 2016
At: http://spacenews.com/bigelow-calls-on-trump-to-sharply-increase-nasa-spending/#sthash.GRzvm8BL.dpuf

There are big holes in what he is presenting.

That is not what I wrote. I commented that is NOT “doable” anywhere we need to use them. I disagree with you.

“-could be used to enable multi-year or even multi-decadal Lunar living.”

1G is what I wrote. Working a certain percentage of the day in a low gravity environment might not cause any debilitation if compensated for but what you are talking about is completely different and I completely disagree. No natural bodies are suitable for long term human habitation.

Hydrogen is the best radiation shield and anything rich in hydrogen and low in heavy elements works better than heavy elements or any mix of heavy elements and other schemes. It is a matter of simple physics. As I have commented on dozens of times, water is the most utilitarian shielding for a spaceship.

That may be true of SpaceX, but not Blue Origin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/02/an-exclusive-look-at-jeff-bezos-plan-to-set-up-amazon-like-delivery-for-future-human-settlement-of-the-moon/?utm_term=.d713780f8094

“The latest to offer a proposal is Jeffrey P. Bezos, whose space company Blue Origin has been circulating a seven-page white paper to NASA leadership and President Trump’s transition team about the company’s interest in developing a lunar spacecraft with a lander that would touch down near a crater at the south pole where there is water and nearly continuous sunlight for solar energy. The memo urges the space agency to back an Amazon-like shipment service for the moon that would deliver gear for experiments, cargo and habitats by mid-2020, helping to enable “future human settlement” of the moon. (Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, owns The Washington Post.)

“It is time for America to return to the Moon — this time to stay,” Bezos said in response to emailed questions from The Post. “A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this.”

“most tele-operated robots will probably be operated by educated individuals from third world countries . . .”

Hmm, hadn’t thought of that, but probably also true. Today tele-operations consoles are specific to the task, probably expensive. That may change, but even if they stay expensive, they are still cheaper than labor.

“. . . surprised just how cheap and easy it’s going to be to mine the water . . .”

Definitely. This is one of those things where half the people think it’s very difficult and the other half think it’s impossible; until it’s accomplish, when every exclaims “I knew it all along!” There’s a large measure of engineering involved, and I have a lot of respect for it, just as for any other kind of mining operation, but it’s a far cry from impossible.

And last, Where’s My CHON??
This is the money question. With reasonable amounts of Carbon-Hydrogen-Oxygen-Nitrogen, plus energy and time, one can build a civilization. We can already tell most of the bodies suitable for landing (or docking) in the solar system are rocky, so that question is solved. We, humans, also need, just for example, selenium in our diet, but only in trace amounts, so it’s not a problem. So it comes down to reasonably abundant C-H-O-N.

For the Moon, it looks like the water ice is there, so that’s O and H. There may also be ammonia ice, for N. I’ve also seen the possibility of methane ice mentioned in articles, so that’s C. This all needs confirmation of course – prospecting.

This is why the next important step is prospecting probes, particularly like those put forward by Dr. Spudis. More probes, not less, more special function instead of just one all-encompassing rover, consider impactors, penetrators, etc. as the scientific optimum for a given budget.

Not necessarily. When we worked up our lunar resources outpost architecture in 2011, we assumed that only the existing budget envelope would be available (~ $7 B per year, or less — out of a total NASA budget of ~$ 18 B). And we crafted our plan using small, incremental pieces that work together as a system of systems. Such an approach can be bought by the yard — we know the end point, so we work toward it regardless of the amount of money available in any given year.

Also note that we are further along the road of strategic knowledge now than we were in 2004, when President Bush outlines the Vision or Space Exploration. We know that water exists at the poles and we know also where the quasi-permanent unit areas are. So we can start flying the prospecting robotic missions immediately.

That would still require landers using powered VTVL capability not parachutes.

It would be (if proven practical) a novel adaptation of the airbag technology for a different purpose in a different system.

If the kind of facilities we are discussing ever become sufficiently developed all kinds of lunar launch/landing site technologies may be deployed to make the operation of the spacecraft accessing the site safer/more reliable. Lets all hope that happy day arrives as soon as possible.

Now if the Moon is the goal, then that means someone will have to cough up some real money now and start building something now so it will fly real soon, and not 20 years from now.

However, NASA budget is fixed. Additional money will have to be yanked from other programs which will create opposition. Those laid off and lose money from their programs are not going to be supporters for lunar programs. They probably will be writing critical articles in magazines and forums.

I suspect a banked railroad track or eventually a Maglev system would be quite doable on the Moon, Ceres, Mars, and anywhere else we need to use “circular ‘sleeper trains'”.

Actual human circular sleeper train experience and experiments will be needed to determine our human gravitational needs and our tolerance for RPM on the Moon.

The Moon might offer enough gravity that astronauts using exercise suits with built-in weights might remain quite healthy for early one-year-long Lunar missions. Time and actual experience will tell if such simple technology combined with regular heavy exercise could be used to enable multi-year or even multi-decadal Lunar living.

A combination of weighted exercise suits and circular sleeper trains might work out quite well on the Moon.

Note concerning “besides shielding or sanctuary providing near sea level radiation”:

“”Therefore, to achieve the ideal shield, multi layered shield consisting of layers with high and low densities is suitable. Depending on the radiation environment, the optimal thickness of each light and heavy layer, their material and arrangement can be declared. Arrangement of the layers also influences doses received by an electronic device which is sensitive to radiation. High density shield materials (such as Tungsten and Tantalum) and low density materials (such as polyethylene) can be considered as an ideal shield [1, 4]. Also, some materials like Boron (B¹º), liquid hydrogen, lead, enriched plastics with oxygen are named as shield.”

From: ‘Shielding protection of electronic circuits against radiation effects of space high energy particles’

By Omid Zeynali, Daryoush Masti, and Saeed Gandomkar
At: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/think/%E6%A1%8C%E9%9D%A2/Radiation%20Risk/shielding-protection-of-electronic-circuits-against-radiation-effects-of-spacehigh-energy-particles.pdf

Once we’re back on the Moon, I think people are going to be surprised just how cheap and easy its going to be to mine the water from the regolith at the lunar poles or even the oxygen (89% of the mass content of water, 86% of the mass content of rocket propellant) from lunar regolith in general.

How much carbon and nitrogen resources we’re going to have easy access to at the lunar poles is also going to be economically important.

Marcel