Why the US has not been back to the moon?

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With the advances in machine technology and remote control systems we could easily construct and send a self-contained 'auger' module which can drill into the lunar surface/rock and mound the 'spoil' around itself and so bury itself. The module would have incorporated habitat sections around the main auger frame so that all will be ready (and protected from radiation) for humans to follow with 'start-up' seed materials/provisions to allow establishment of self-sustaining colony.

If the poles have water in craters (and/or if water chemically bound in the lunar underground minerals) then solar power units will provide all the energy needed for reprocessing waste (splitting waste water to O2 for breathing/and H2 for fuel before using such re-combined water for drinking, irrigating food crops etc. Also, CO2 can be re-processed by pyrolitic-catalytic methods back to Carbon and O2).

Only automation and remote control and self-sustaining strategies using solar power and chemistry will make the Moon 'dream' colony a feasible reality.

And let's not forget, eventually some catastrophe (comet strike, runaway greenhouse effect, super volcanism etc etc) may leave us no choice but to temporarily leave this planet (those who can). The smart ones will prepare sooner rather than later for such eventuality. But then, who said the human race was smart? Just look at us around the globe all going in all different directions like chooks with their heads chopped off!

Someone will have to lead us chooks out of the henhouse when the sky does eventually 'fall in'. Good luck to those brave new chooks, whoever they turn out to be!

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Oh balderdash. The Chinese have a vision, and we don't. They are putting their money where their mouth is.

We are literally giving all our funds to a dozen clowns, who want to store it for posterity, stare at it until they reach a zen state, or just wade out into the huge pile of cash and drool. They have absolutely no scope. Kinda like you, but with a lotta money.

 

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I very much have scope, we need to get off this planet ASAP, that doesn't mean we CAN or SHOULD right this second. If we did it now what would we have to show for it exactly? A bunch of dead people on the moon.

 

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Good one RC. It'll drive a lot of action projects in low orbit. The conversation is still valid. After all this time of having the conversation. The technology keeps improving and the reality follows.

 

Have you been reading any of the posts that anyone else or I have posted? They will obviously be DEVELOPING THE TECHNOLGY NEEDED TO GET THERE. Do understand that it's something like a billion dollars just get there with CURRENT TECHNOLGY? Do you also understand that developing new technology to get there costs money? We need to develope new rockets, launch vehicals, habitats, radiation shields, and many other technolgies to make this possible. None of which will be FREE. You talking about possible TRILLIONS in overall developent costs if the tech is developed at a normal pace, fast tracking it will cost even more.

How will going to moon solve any of mankinds current problems in way to make fast tracking such a project worth while? How do you expect to pay for it without completly bankrupting America for a project with no real benifit (if you think there are real benifits why are they)? Why would we do such a thing? Where should the money come from exactly? What programs do you cut to pay for it? Socal securtiy? Medicare? Infostructure? Military? Other research? Are you planning on just taking it from rich people? Good luck with that.

I'm not against going to moon, it just makes no sense to do it now. We have more immediate problems that have to be fixed first.

 

Oh, develop nuclear fusion, cure cancer, end HIV, boring stuff like that.

If there are minds on Earth that cannot be stimulated with anything other than spacemen - we're probably OK with losing them.

 

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/106/9

SEI didn't help. the moon isn't much help if you want to go to mars. why go down a gravity well just to have to climb back out again. far better to go mars direct. which can be done with our current levels of technology. using that tech to construct the necessary equipment will, of course, take time and money but not trillions and probably less than $100 billion.

 

Because the gravity well is a quarter the magnitute of that on Earth. So if you can find a fuel source on the moon (e.g. water) and use lunar resources to supply Martian stations, it makes sense to use the moon as base for development of Martian colonies.

 

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Hi everyone.

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Once a proper self-sustaining Moonbase is established, the re-launch problem is easily solved using electromagnetic 'rail gun' type launchers powered by solar energy storage/battery electricity.

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It's amazing that these launch systems haven't been already used as 'fist stage boost' for Earth based launching of raw supplies/raw materials for space station and moon-project programs. The vehicles need not be man-rated, hence can be accelerated to many more g's than for delicate cargo would require.

The main problem is to get as much raw material and other 'robust' instruments/machines in orbit and/or to the Moon so as to kickstart things quickly and cheaply using solar power and/or hydro-power electricity/battery current for rail gun launches from Earth.

The manned vehicles could thus be only small 'conventionally launched' aero-space plane types which need only be for passenger-only 'bus' to and from orbit and to-from Moon.

From the news I read somewhere recently, I see that there are plans afoot to do just that, use rail-gun launch systems for low earth orbit operations/placements. I wonder how long it will take for the technology/infrastructure to attain 'critical mass' and 'critical maturity' and see Earth-to-orbit/moon trips for cargo.

Maybe followed soon by manned vehicles configured to 'absorb' high 'g-forces' within a long and slender manned-vehicle using a 'sled- system' which can move backwards (air-tube system for cushioned/controlled movement) within the vehicle tube for a second or two (during the short rail-gun acceleration phase only). Then even manned rail-gun launched vehicles can join the cheap and frequent 'bus trip' program to orbit/moon!

That's my other two cents worth, guys!

Cheers.

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The issue is plowing through several hundreds of miles of atmo. Almost all the energy from a launch must go into tangential velocity of 8km per second - far more than the pittance required to gain 100 miles of altitude. So the trajectory is mostly horizontal.

A rail launch system would have to accelerate its payload horizontally through the thickest part of the atmo to well over 8km/s to achieve that kind of velocity by the time it cleared the atmo. And it will spend muuuch more of its time in the atmo than any rocket (thtn can change its direction once it gets into the thinner high atmo).

It is almost impossible to do without vapourizing the payload. It works great on the Moon, but no so well on a planet with an atmo.

But that doesn't stop them from trying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_sled_launch

 

you really don't want to be using water as a fuel. sooner or later you'll run out and then need to import it. better to use water in systems where it can be (almost) endlessly recycled on the moon.

 

Hi DaveC426913.

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I know what you'e saying, mate. But that way of launching into orbit is based on the conventional rocket launch systems.

With Railgun systems, it makes more sense to launch straight up (and hence miss all that atmospheric drag in 'longitudinal trajectory' method) and then use vacuum-rated 'manoeuvering system' rockets (like those used by the space shuttle in orbit) and just burn until the requisite orbital speed is reached.

Also, when going straight to the moon, the same sort of vacuum-rated manoeuvering systems would be required for ongoing thrust straight 'up' (launching when moon is above) past orbit altogether, and then for landing on the moon.

Anyhow, I envisage the whole technique and designs will be specifically optimized for railgun methods rather than the conventional rocket first&second-stage methods applying now.

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Cheers!

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Hi Boris2.

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Good point, mate! Perhaps we can use the Oxygen/Nitrogen extracted from the minerals using solar energy/electrolysis etc as the gaseous propellant 'ionised' in ion engines working with solar energy panels attached to in-solar-system spacecraft travel/manoeuvering craft?

Cheers!

 

Like I said, getting altitude is trivial. The trick is getting the 8km/s tangential velocity. To do so, you'd have to launch your vehicle with a very large fraction of its fuel as-yet unused. To get an Apollo sized payload, you'd still need to launch a Saturn V-sized vehicle. And once you got it up there, it's going to fall right back down in the time it takes to get up to orbital velocity.

 

Hi again, DaveC426913.

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yes mate, I know. But again, it's because the conventional rockets must carry so much fuel just to get up to any altitude at all, let alone up to speed.

The whole point of launching from railgun is that most of that fuel load is not needed to lift all that fuel in the first place (the HUGE and heavy first stage, and still-relatively large/heavy second stage rockets, will not be needed). And the speed is almost all there from the start rather than only after a laborious climb against gravity with all that conventional fuel/rocket mass.

Once the railgun vehicle is sent up at speed, only small 'sustainer rockets' will suffice to get that vehicle to whatever speed is required for orbit or extra-orbit (to moon) trajectory/velocity.

the vehicle will be much less massive and less wasteful in associated equipment etc for the usual trans-atmospheric stages, the vehicle will be easily boosted to the necessary velocities using very efficient and much less massive/powerful in-vacuum manoeuver rockets only (because once in space they will not be dragged back down into the atmosphere so quickly if not enough power, which would be the case in the conventional case without large boost rockets to keep it going in the atmosphere 'longitudinally').

It's where the final boosting happens that is important. That is the advantage of straight up quickly through atmosphere railgun launch as opposed to the conventional as you described, once in space there is more time and less necessity for powerful/wasteful firs&second stage rockets/fuel loads etc.


Gotta go for the day. See you round, mate!

Cheers!

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Nope. You're still missing the point. 8km/s is 18,000mph. No small 'sustainer rockets' are going to do that. And that's only to low orbit.

 

That solves a work-around for the lunar surface dust problem, but it negates the need to go to the moon, as such underground digging technologies would be incorporated to construct under Earth surface strategies, at a much cheaper cost than transporting that technology to the moon. ( 'Believe' can use the technology to hide their head under the sand closer to home:thumbsup

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We're probably headed for the asteroids. All the conversations near the subject seem to regain that momentum.
Transport equipment technologies are still in their infancy, but the raw resources are just laying out there...in great supply (greater supply than on Earth, for that matter)...and ripe for the picking....no gravity wells to deal with. Get a load up to speed, and heading to a refinery/stockpile location, then slow the load to a halt.

What materials are out in the asteroids, you ask? What's not, would be the reply. The asteroids are a freaking grocery store of raw material resources.

 

Hi DaveC426913.

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I know what you're saying, mate. Perhaps I am not making myself clear, though.

The 'sustainer' only needs to continue the 'muzzle velocity' of the vehicle from the railgun launcher though the vertical cross-section of the atmosphere. Then that sustainer rocket will use all its power for sheer acceleration in no-drag environment, and so quickly get up to speed for low-earth/moon-transfer orbit trajectory.

Also it is crucial to make clear that such a sustainer rocket, apart from its simplicity and lower weight and fuel requirements, will burn more efficiently and for as long as necessary. It is not anywhere near as massive and wasteful/powerful as the conventional stage one and two rockets/systems/fuel loads.

Moreover, such sustainer rockets are designed with vacuum/low pressure environment 'nozzles/expansion-bell geometry, they burn VERY efficiently and need not be as robust/massive as the usual first/second stage rockets/nozzles etc. So their FUELS and their quantities of fuels will be more simple and more effective per gram (hence specific impulse would be much much greater than conventional first/second stage rocket systems/fuels).


The advantages are manyfold. Much lighter, less fuel/tank weight, less complexity/power 'burning' and for longer time in less/no-drag environment. It all adds up to a totally new way of lofting cargo (and eventually humans) to low earth/moon transfer orbits, because most of the trans-atmosphere and early speed stages have been replaced by railgun launcher, leaving only sustainer/long-burning more efficient vacuum rated rockets for the 'upper/space stage' final thrust/control.

I hope that makes it a little clearer, mate? It's the various advantages of lower weight and fuel loads plus higher efficiencies and simplicities that make the railgun launchers so desirable for at least heavy cargo lofting on a frequent/cheaper basis.

Anyhow, that's all I have to contribute to this discussion, mate. I leave it to others to do their own research into this area and arrive at their own conclusions.

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Thanks for the discourse, mate!

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Cheers!

 

That is your opinion. The answer is called speculation. And thank God we do have visionaries who are and have been willing to speculate.

 

First, we are not 20 trillion in debt. Two I think you should take some of your advice. Three, I think we have agreed that lunar colonization will only become viable if there is a solid economic reason to do so.

And finally, colonization will require some out of the box thinking - not just doing the same old things the same old ways (e.g. robotics and advanced software - sometimes called artifical intelligence).

China is probably investing in a lunar visit for a number of reasons inclulding political.