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Talk:New moon base concepts

2026-03-10T18:16:41Z

Farred: addition

==Why should humanity industrialize the moon?==
Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, and answers follow:

First, the excuse that NASA only does nonprofit missions such as robot probes to celestial bodies for scientific data and astronaut missions to celestial bodies to demonstrate the prowess of the USA. Profit-making use of space is left to private industry.
:NACA produced a great deal of economically useful research such as designs for air intakes, cowlings, airfoils, and superchargers. NASA continues to do research that helps the aviation industry. There is no reason that they could not do work that would help private industry in space. NASA just needs to imitate NACA. NACA's policies led to great advances in aviation. NASA's human space flight operations have been like a two trick pony. It sent people to walk on the moon then followed with space stations. When will NASA take it's lessons learned and do something more advanced? The fact that much of NASA's human space flight operations are for benefit of NASA employees, contractors, the congressional districts in which NASA spends money, and NASA's earnest attempt to be an immortal bureaucracy is a statement of the problem. It is not a justification for continuing to do the same old thing until the federal government goes broke. The main reason that NASA continues with it's choice of programs is tradition. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Sergeyevich Kruschev chose missions of monkey launching, dog launching and finally people launching when there was a rational reason for such missions. Launching heavy cargos to orbit demonstrated the ability to launch nuclear weapons to targets at any distance on the globe of Earth. Launching people to orbit anticipated a supposed need to have people accompany nuclear weapons to direct the weapons to a target as a bombardier did in bomber aircraft. With technical development of ICBMs it became apparent that the technical difficulty and cost of having people accompany warheads in orbital bombardment was not justified by any advantage people might bring to the effort. With nuclear weapons, hitting within a half mile of the target is usually sufficient for the military purpose and inertial guidance can do that. So the rational reason for launching people evaporated and NASA proceeds to launch people into orbit out of pride in setting world's records and because of tradition. Bureaucratic tradition is the main reason that NASA keeps moving like a ship without a rudder. NASA is about as tradition bound as it is possible for a government department to be and it is a rather sorry excuse for a technologically advanced government department that they continue to do the same old things only because that is the only thing NASA has ever done.

Second, the excuses that developing industry on the moon would require actual industrial activity that should be left strictly to private corporations and that industrializing the moon would not produce benefits for decades.
:The government authorized actual industrial activity in digging the Panama Canal. In 1903 the USA acquired rights to build a canal from Panama. It took until 1914 for the first ship to cross the isthmus by canal. The fees for use of the canal were never intended to repay the USA the capital cost of the canal. Fees just paid operational expenses. The benefit to the USA came from increased passenger and cargo traffic by ship connecting the American Atlantic coast and Pacific coast with each other and with foreign ports from which the canal shortened the voyage. On the moon, the lack of any return on investment for probably more than thirty years makes the construction of industrial infrastructure and particularly construction of an LRSTO ([[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]]) very difficult for private industry to justify. The U. S. could do it if there were a will to do so. Other countries would likely be willing to join the project if the U. S. made a serious start. The USA needs to use NASA in the same way as the USA built the Panama Canal with government money. Consider a Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit to be a public works project.
:The need to have another source of energy instead of fossil fuels is glaringly obvious. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice can be predicted as a result of continuing excessive use of fossil fuels. A hundred or so years for the Greenland ice sheet, longer for Antarctic ice, was estimated but the continual increase of the CO2 fraction of dry ambient air indicates the melting process is accelerating. So the reason for government action in a case where there is no indication that private industry can take on the task independently is well demonstrated.

Third is a real difficulty. Industry on the moon has inherent [[Geopolitics|military applications]]. The nations of the People's Republic of China, and Russia are not likely to just let the U. S. set up bases on the moon that are indistinguishable from military bases. We have already signed treaties promising that we would not use the moon for military purposes but some people would settle for nothing less than verification.
:The U. S. should invite other nations to robotically observe what we would openly do in developing lunar industry in such a way that it is unmistakably nonmilitary. We should sell them electricity for their robots and allow them to share robot shelters at night. We should require similar rights of observation of any Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or European bases. It would be best if we could cooperate on industry to the extent that we have shared ownership of some industrial facilities with other nations. International law allows nations to share the use of the oceans of Earth for transportation. We share the use of the radio broadcast spectrum. We follow treaty obligations in the way we share the ability to place satellites into orbit. For industry on the moon and low-cost launching to lunar orbit we should be able to work out something. ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) demonstrates some international cooperation.

Fourth, it is boiling hot during the day on the moon.
:The extreme heat on the moon exists only in the sunlight. If an aluminum foil awning is stretched from east to west, perhaps 5 to 10 meters high, over a strip of regolith in the lunar equatorial region, that area will be permanently in shade as long as the awning lasts. A short wall on the north and south borders of the strip could prevent infrared heat transport to the strip from the surrounding area. It would be possible to mess this up by incompetence, but it is actually possible to produce very cold areas in the daytime lunar equatorial region by properly managing sunlight. The reason a 40 degree below zero area can exist on the moon near boiling hot dirt during the day is that there is no heat transfer by wind (or any sort of convection) from one spot to another on the moon. If radiant heat transfer and conductive heat transfer are largely blocked, as they can be on the moon, hot and cold areas can coexist peacefully quite near each other.

Fifth, it costs too much.
:The cost seems commensurate with the benefits. It is impossible to give a very precise estimate of cost in the absence of sufficiently detailed ground truth for the moon and the absence of detailed plans to fit that ground truth. A guess of a $1 trillion seems reasonable for industrializing the moon up to the point of having an operating LRSTO. Then $2 billion each for a couple hundred space-based solar power (SBSP) satellites, beginning with one every year or two and ramping up to a few every year. These satellites in geosynchronous orbit would each collect 12 Gigawatts of sunlight and deliver power by microwave to each of a couple hundred rectennae on Earth. The electric distribution grid would finally receive 2 Gigawatts day & night, rain & shine, summer & winter, seven days a week at each rectenna. Cows could graze in the sunlight that passes through the rectenna, or wheat could be watered by the rain that falls through the rectenna. The rectenna on Earth would stop microwaves like the door of a microwave oven stops microwaves, leaving people on the outside of the microwave oven safe from the heat inside the oven. The difference with the rectenna in the SBSP scheme is that the intensity of the microwave beam is much lower and the beam is not merely reflected. It is converted into electrical power. The problem would be marketing that electricity for the biggest expansion of wealth that the human race has ever seen. Criminals trying to get some of that wealth by their preferred means of selling opiates would still be a problem, but if the wealth gets spread over all the Earth, we should eliminate the problem of people in poor countries seeing no means but crime to gain wealth. The costs could be better known after sending robotic probes to the lunar surface and developing specific plans giving some detail in what would need to be done to build a rocket-sled to orbit. The USA should at least afford looking into the task to see what it would cost. If demand for transportation from the moon remains strong, further capital investment could further reduce costs per ton to orbit. An [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|ECBTO]] system or mass driver launching two-and-a-half ton space ships might be helpful in this regard. Once we are building SBSP the effort to conserve electrical power will be replaced by encouragement to use more electrical power in whatever way people can profit by it. Cleaning up pollution sites, desalinating sea water and producing propane and oxygen from coal and water are all possibilities.

Sixth, we do not need it we have ITER.
:The latest cost estimate for ITER that I have found was $22 billion for operation in (perhaps) 2035.<ref name="nytime">[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/science/fusion-power-plant-iter-france.html "A Dream of Clean Energy at a Very High Price" @The New York Times]</ref>.<ref>[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle THE NEW YORKER]</ref> This is less than the trillion needed for space-based solar power by way of lunar development. However, ITER is only an experimental reactor. We are not assured that the commercial version will actually work. When Soviet physicists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov invented tokamaks in the 1950s, commercial fusion power was thought to be just a decade or two away. It has been two or three decades away ever since. If a commercial fusion reactor does produce electricity, it is likely to be more expensive per reactor than ITER and more expensive to operate than space-based solar power. The fusion power community should be put on notice that they should look sharp, because there is a competing project that will not only make them unnecessary but lead to massive emigration from the planet Earth besides. One deficiency in which ITER is not looking so sharp is breeding tritium. The deuterium tritium reaction uses up one tritium atom for every neutron produced. Not every neutron will enter into a tritium producing reaction with lithium. Neutrons will be absorbed by structural materials producing no tritium. Some neutrons will be thermalized before being absorbed by lithium 7, in which case they will produce two alpha particles and a beta particle but no tritium. A thermal neutron can react with lithium 6 to produce one tritium atom. A fast neutron can react with lithium 7 to produce one tritium atom and one thermal neutron. The task for fusion reactor builders is to get enough fast neutrons to react with lithium 7 and the resultant thermal neutron reacting with lithium 6 producing two net tritium atoms from one fast neutron to make up for lost neutrons and so produce as much tritium as is used up. This is one of those things that still needs to be demonstrated but seems unlikely.

Seventh, the plan for industrializing the moon makes use of robots and would put astronauts out of work.
:This is a political problem. There is work for people to do on the moon once a LRSTO system is available to transport them home again without wasting tons of hydrogen burning it as rocket fuel. It is the [[Doing Without Space Suits|work in space suits]] that can be dispensed with. The desire to preserve the self-esteem of a politically powerful group should not prevent economic progress for the human race. I understand that some people want to fearlessly risk their lives going where no one has gone before and conquering space. However, for the moon this is not needed. Astronauts on the moon assisting with the initial industrial set up would be like a ball and chain as a requirement on a 50 meter race. It will take some years to build the infrastructure necessary for people to do useful work on the moon. Some sort of [[Sewage|recycling toilet]] will be necessary, perhaps the Blue Diversion Toilet mentioned in the [[New_moon_base_concepts|main article]]. Recycling the water people use on the moon will be necessary, and radiation shielded pressure vessels in which to live. Until then the best thing that astronauts can do for establishing a human colony on the moon is to stay home and work on the engineering problems or work controlling the machines on the moon remotely. All profit making activities in space have been exclusively robotic. All astronaut involved activities in space have consumed taxpayers money. To make that quantitative, say about $7.5 million per astronaut per day on the ISS.<ref>[http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1579/1 The Space Review in association with SPACENEWS]</ref> Wherever astronauts have been involved, health and safety of the astronauts was job one. The second consideration was giving the astronauts something to occupy their time. If any time and money were left in the program, actually accomplishing something for the taxpayer could be considered. In circumstances such as found on the moon where survival is difficult in extreme and it is difficult for a human being to do anything useful, the NASA attitude toward human space flight is a burden that is hard to take. I am not a glad-hander that will lie to the astronauts telling them how wonderful they are. Astronauts, stay home! To make the future different the human space-flight program should be cancelled for a couple of decades. If you want some authoritative support for my opinion, consider that a research group at MIT admitted as fact that remotely controlled operations will always be cheaper than people working in person at a site like the moon.<ref>[http://web.mit.edu/mitsps/MITFutureofHumanSpaceflight.pdf page 7; Space, Policy, and Society Research Group; Massachusetts Institute of Technology]</ref> I contend that industrializing the moon will cause a condition in which people will be able to do economic work on the moon. The MIT group also suggested that doing the economically foolish stunt of having people do work in person on the moon as it is now would be valuable for the national prestige it would win. That research group also admitted that most Americans did not know the name of a current member of the astronaut corps. That does not seem to indicate that increased pride accrues in vast quantities from the ISS program. Why should we worry about the opinions of people who are impressed by such a waste of money. It is not only the money that will be lost. Forcing lunar industrialization to carry the burden of astronauts from the start seems likely to cause complete failure to ever arrive at any profit making condition. The very future of humanity is at stake. Do not let silly notions of national prestige interfere with doing the best that we can to survive. Politicians did not ask the MIT research group if human space-flight should continue, only what would be the best goal for human space-flight. Politicians did not ask me at all so I can say that robots working a couple decades in preparing infrastructure for human industry on the moon are necessary to achieve any worth while goal with people located on the moon working directly on that goal. The eight billion dollars a year spent on the current human space-flight program<ref name="hous">[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> is not only useless, it is counter-productive. This expenditure does not fulfill the MIT group's goal of increasing national pride. It is counter-productive because it perpetuates the idea that any profit-making activity involving people in space is impossible while adding to the national debt. Those in favor of using astronaut manual labor to build a base on the moon say of the robot competition that it must be proven that robots can accomplish building industry on the moon before we try anything so strange. That is bureaucratic inertia talking. Absolutely nothing new pleases a bureaucrat. The expense and inefficiency of direct human labor in outer space has already been proven. Robots do not need great life support facilities and can work in a space suit of simple design for days on end without using up expendables. They can be designed for the task. Men were sent to the moon before robots capable of repairing nuclear reactors were possible, so those in charge of the Apollo program did not have very capable robots to consider as an option. Progress has been made.<ref name="IAEA">[https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/27304740206.pdf IAEA BULLETIN, AUTUMN 1985: Nuclear power and electronics, page 6]</ref> We do not need to conform space development programs to the dreams of politicians and Hollywood screen writers. It is time to build something worth having on the moon with the most efficient methods available. That includes doing the work with robots instead of men in space suits. To prove appropriate capability for tasks in space, robots and men should be compared doing the task simulated on Earth and the least costly solution used.
:How close has NASA come to accepting the truth that men in space suits are not efficient agents for accomplishing any industrial task? They have admitted that the construction of a first moon base might possibly begin with robot labor.<ref>[https://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/robots-may-start-moon-base-construction/ Robots May Start Moon Base Construction]</ref> When there is a landing pad and robotic equipment to help people disembark a spacecraft it is not time to rejoice and say, "Now we have succeeded in our mission because there will be people on the moon. If astronauts do nothing worth more to the average taxpayer than pick their noses, we've still succeeded." No. There is still the building of the recycling life support system in a radiation shielded environment and placement of scientific equipment and machine tools to be used indoors. The decision on when people should arrive should be made based upon when their arrival will speed up the initial operation of efficient means of exporting material from the moon to build facilities in space. I expect a couple years worth of remote controlled construction at least, and perhaps a couple of decades. The time for people to just stare in awe to see people make footprints on the moon has past.

:The MIT Space, Policy, and Society Research Group (MSPSRG) wrote that the primary purposes of human space-flight were those that needed the presence of human beings while costing less than the benefits are worth. They failed to consider patiently delaying human space-flight until remote controlled machines on the moon could prepare a place to which it is worthwhile to go, so that human space-flight could actually fulfill a sensible purpose. They failed to consider the value of ceasing altogether the current program of launching astronauts. MSPSRG wrote that the ISS should be used to further the purposes of exploration, how? MSPSRG wrote that NASA should work on basic research to make future explorations possible, what research? They wrote that the U.S. should claim again that it is leading international human space-flight. If so, who is following? They ask why the government should be sending people to outer space? What good is obtained? Their analysis leads to the answer that no sensible good is obtained but I can only guess that in desperation to justify the current human space-flight appropriations they turned to national pride as a reason to justify human space-flight. MSPSRG proposes the question of whether there should be a different balance to the "equation" relating robotic to crewed missions of exploration. In answer to the MSPSRG, there is no equation relating what should be spent on robotic missions to outer space and crewed missions. Government expenditures should promote the common good in all cases. The most valuable missions should be funded without regard for whether they are crewed or robotic. When the task of putting people on Mars is reduced to a mere stunt engaged in so there can be a record of doing something very difficult, then it takes on the lowest value. As the SR-71 set a speed record on the 6th of March 1990 flying at an average speed of 2189 miles per hour from St. Louis to Cincinnati<ref>[https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/records.php Blackbird Records]</ref> only after the Blackbird's usefulness as a spy plane had expired and there was no longer any need to keep its top speed classified; a nation does not properly build a costly technological wonder to get recognition in a record book, but only as a second thought when setting a record does not interfere with the primary purpose of the project should recognition in record books be sought. That the MSPSRG suggested the absurdity of national pride as a primary purpose of human space-flight is a true embarrassment, but such an absurdity is given as the purpose of federal spending for human space-flight. This can be explained by noting that there is political support for the appropriations from people who receive these appropriations as their paychecks, from businesses which receive these appropriations as payments from their government customer, and from political districts that receive these appropriations as money spent by the federal government within their borders. These political supporters are desperate for some way to justify the appropriations without claiming that they would otherwise be indigent and incapable of earning any livelihood. So, national pride they take as their rationalization for dipping into the public purse without doing a lick of good for the average tax payer. One might say that people all over the world wanted to be associated with U.S. educational institutions and businesses because of the prestige associated with putting men on the moon and bringing them back alive. However, Mars is not the moon. Everyone who can see has seen the moon in the night sky. Most people have never knowingly looked upon Mars in the sky and would not recognize it unless it were carefully pointed out to them. Now Mars is about 593 times further from Earth than the moon on the average. The unfortunate situation for those who wish to justify a journey to Mars as an impressive stunt is that distance makes Mars seem much smaller and the average person does not care for numerical expressions of how difficult a stunt is. The journey to Mars would just be tediously boring if offered as constant updates on the news. As the Mars mission would drag on month after month, people would turn off that channel or not read that article. As for sending people to the moon, the typical reaction would be: "What? Again? Why?" If congress wants a civilian space program that it can justify properly by its achievements, they can work toward providing plentiful electrical power from the sun with equipment in space built out of lunar materials. This accomplishment would be exempt from the curse of excess carbon dioxide emissions. GPS and gathering global weather data from space are worthy accomplishments but going into space as a stunt will not do.
:The MSPSRG wrote that people cannot currently make a profit on outer-space resources. Gerard K. O'Neil proposed using robots to mine the moon to build space-based solar power stations in geostationary orbit to beam energy to Earth for a profit. The system proposed did not fully specify the method of capturing at L2 materials that were to be shot off the moon in one kilogram packets once per second, and so it failed, but variations upon that plan can succeed. An industrial infrastructure on the moon capable of maintaining an economical launch system to launch hundreds of tons of cargo per year in service of building SBSP satellites would take many years to establish but it is possible if established by remote controlled equipment without the overhead of maintaining life support for human beings from the start. This should have been considered as affecting human space-flight because it means that human space-flight could be valuable for economic exploitation of the moon if human space-flight is subjected to a hiatus of perhaps twenty years during which remote controlled equipment prepares an industrial base and life support systems. Human space-flight without this preparatory activity by remote controlled machines lacks any reasonable justification. The idea that the risk of human life cannot be justified by economic gain does not apply in this case because 1) preparation of life support facilities on the moon prior to people arriving greatly reduces the risk and 2) the economic gain to be achieved is on a scale like the gain achieved by the industrial revolution.

Eighth, the sale of rocket fuel will earn money, that is a benefit.
:To the people selling the rocket fuel that is a benefit. To the U. S. taxpayer who buys the fuel or pays the contractor who buys the fuel it is an expense. None of the uses of rocket fuel suggested in papers that McKay edited have any net benefit to the people of Earth. The same spend, spend, spend ideas with no suggested economic benefit, the same things McKay is reported saying in Popular Science, are also found on MarketWatch.<ref>[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/it-would-cost-only-10-billion-to-live-on-the-moon-2016-03-17 MarketWatch]</ref> The justification is that the cost is only $10 billion to set-up a manned base. I have heard of under-estimating the cost of a program to sell it to the government, but even $10 billion is too much if there is no eventual benefit to planet Earth. People could conceivably redesign geostationary satellites for station keeping rockets to use lunar hydrogen and oxygen or they might be redesigned to use oxygen in an electro-thermal thruster. However this small benefit will not justify the expense of a manned base on the moon and a rocket transfer system to lift the fuel from the moon and distribute it to Earth orbiting satellites. NASA's main task has been spending government money and the contractors it hires help in this task. Building industrial infrastructure on the moon and using it to build space-based power stations would require reforming NASA. Difficult but conceivable.

:Another reason to not mine water on the moon and use it to produce rocket propellant for sale is that the process degrades the moon. What is mined today and converted into tailings heaps cannot be mined tomorrow for the same purpose, but the tailings heaps might be useful for other things. Commentary out of Barcelona, Spain refers to the desirability of maintaining the pristinity of the lunar environment.<ref>[https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/1562.pdf CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS FOR PLANETARY OUTPOSTS: A REVIEW]</ref> This should have some limited applicability. A global modification of the Martian planetary surface, such as terraforming, would in this view be undesirable because the original planetary surface would no longer be available for research into planetary origins. Such global modifications are not considered for the moon but using up most of a limited resource would also have global consequences on the moon. Mining non-renewable rocket propellant should be considered as a temporary measure on the moon until a system for launching commercial products without using up limited resources is put in place. Most of the alterations considered for the lunar surface would not be visible from Earth even with a telescope and ought to be considered acceptable on the grounds of pristinity because there are over 14 million square miles (37 million square kilometers) of lunar surface suitably pristine for research. It is not like the case of some rare caves on earth that are among the few caves in a condition unaltered by human visits. National parks preserve some caves on Earth and perhaps a few square miles or a few hundred square miles of lunar surface merit preservation in an unaltered condition. Such preservation would be only temporary. In about 5 billion years the sun will become a red giant and incinerate both the Earth and its moon if they are left in position, but in only 1 or 2 billion years the increased luminosity of the sun would render Earth uninhabitabel in its present location.<ref>[https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/09/03/ask-ethan-when-will-the-sun-make-earth-uninhabitable/#808e7a0107c6 Ask Ethan @forbes.com]</ref><ref>[http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/11/heres-how-long-we-have-before-earth-is-uninhabitable/ SCIGUY]</ref> Also, as a practical matter, people would not want to preserve much of the moon's surface in its original condition. It is mostly black as charcoal nasty powdery stuff made of many tiny pieces as sharp as broken bits of glass. It is much better to process it into something useful. To vacate Earth's present location in orbit and take the planet with us we should mine the Earth and moon to remove 16 or 17 billion metric tons per day from the Earth/moon system for the next billion years to mine Earth down to its core in the time we have left. We can use the materials to produce habitats out by the current orbit of Uranus. Not only could we save the Earth from destruction, but we could learn what the core of the Earth is made of in detail and be colonizing an area of the solar system where there are substantial resources available such as carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. Harrison Schmitt, astronaut, collaborated with a paper suggesting that helium-3 mined from the moon could serve as part of humanity's future energy resources through a helium-3, deuterium fusion reaction.<ref>[http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/pdf/fdm817.pdf Mining Helium-3 from the Moon, G.L. Kulcinski et al]</ref> The team seemed to take a piker's position. If people can master the He-3/D fusion reaction, why not the CNO (carbon-nitrogen-oxygen) fusion reaction and burn plain hydrogen mined from Jupiter. Being able to produce large structures to contain fusion reactors in free-fall in outer space is something that might reasonably be expected if humanity goes the route of industrializing the moon and living in space habitats as I have suggested. If people can eventually fuse deuterium and tritium producing electrical power, the ability to fuse hydrogen in a controlled fashion in the CNO fusion reaction used by stars is not an exorbitant expectation. Having such energy resources available along with solar radiation could make it reasonable to mine the many trillion tons of stuff making up the Earth and moving them to where they could be used. As far as keeping the moon pristine is concerned, as the Earth's position becomes uninhabitable in a billion years, that will not be an option. The team, that Harrison Schmitt was part of, thought that the possibility existed that we could solve both our environmental and long range energy problems by extracting He-3 from the moon and using it to produce energy on Earth. Practical problems have caused delay in that scheme. ITER's latest delays leave proponents suggesting first plasma for ITER by 2025, one year later than predicted a year ago.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/06/iter-nuclear-fusion-project-reaches-key-halfway-milestone Iter nuclear fusion project reaches key halfway milestone]</ref> A so-called burning plasma, which contains a fraction of an ounce of fusible fuel in the form of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, and which plasma can be sustained for perhaps six or seven minutes and release large amounts of energy; would not be achieved until 2035 at the earliest.<ref name="nytime"/> If all goes well up to 2035, the success of ITER would allow the design of a reactor of unknown cost for actually using the heat produced by fusion to produce electricity at some future unknown date. Space-based solar power from lunar materials just might be ready sooner. To put all of this in perspective, the fusion research to produce electrical power from fusing deuterium and helium-3 is likely to succeed if it receives continued funding, but it will take longer than fifty years. Space-based solar power from lunar materials is a better near term bet. Terraforming Mars, if successful, will take millennia, and after a billion or so years Mars would be uninhabitable anyway because of the increasing solar luminosity. Mining the moon and Earth as I suggest would take care of habitats in space for humanity in a hundred years and would move Earth out of the way of the sun's red giant catastrophe also when that comes. The process of mining the Earth itself to move it away from the sun would not need to commence for a million years or so. People could start off just mining the moon and Mars.
:Getting back to CNO fusion and why people might achieve it if we move into space habitats, NASA researchers explain: "Many individual gamma-ray lines from a wide variety of different elements in the solar atmosphere have been detected. They result from the decay of such relatively abundant elements as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. that are excited to high energy states in the various nuclear interactions". <ref>[https://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/hessi/flares.htm Overview of Solar Flares @NASA]</ref> They are writing about the nuclear reactions that occur in solar flares. That is a low pressure region of the sun. Evidence of fusion has been detected in flares on M class dwarfs a number of light-years away also. It seems that this phenomenon of stellar fusion results from a magnetic wave moving outward from the dense convective regions of a star. Magnetic waves can be compared to other kinds of waves. When the ocean bottom slopes upward to an island beach, ocean waves which reach to the bottom of the ocean and disturb the open ocean surface only six inches are compressed into waves many feet high that crash onto the beach as breakers. Before breaking these waves can give rides to people on surf boards. A wave travels down a bull whip to transfer hand motion into a moving loop that reaches a speed equal to the speed of sound. When and if people master a technology to control magnetic waves in plasma we might be able cause controlled fusion in the plasma as there is uncontrolled fusion detected in stellar flares now. It would be high tech mastering of wave phenomena compared to low tech wave phenomena that our ancestors mastered millennia ago. Although most of the energy dissipated by stellar flares is produced in the core of a star, some fusion occurs in the flare and is a process that occurs at a low enough pressure that people might be able to copy the conditions.

Ninth, we have been educating children and encouraging them to think of becoming astronauts. It is their dream. We need a human space-flight program. It honors astronauts who have died for human space-flight.
:Children have dreamt of going to the moon or Mars since before people could fly airplanes. They should learn that personally dressing in a space suit and riding a rocket to orbit does not, in the current technological circumstances, help mankind establish colonies off of the Earth. The lessons learned by the human space-flight program are that living in weightlessness is unhealthy and there is no foreseeable benefit that can be achieved through working in a space station limited to the current space station technology. It does not honor those who have died in the process of learning lessons to ignore the lessons so learned. Instead of spending eight billion dollars a year ($8 billion per annum), show reruns of "Captain 11:30 and the Blazing Rocket Cadets" from channel 1½. Less money would be spent more effectively and with more honesty. Does anyone really aspire to a career of pretending to be a hero while milking the federal budget for billions of dollars a year and conning the unsophisticated taxpayers into thinking that the program is doing something significant to advance the position of humanity in space?
Tenth, there has been increased length of telomeres in astronauts who have been in orbit. Perhaps studying this in the space station will lead to increasing the human life span.
:Those about to fall down a slope will grasp at straws. There might be something learned about increased telomere length in weightlessness at sometime in the future but the slim chance of increasing human lifespan does not justify $8 billion per year spent on a human space-flight program.<ref name="hous"/> This research can wait until human occupied space stations become cheaper with industrialized cis-lunar space.

Eleventh, Mars just has more and better resources for a colony than the moon has. If the moon can provide some rocket fuel, that is all it is good for. We should use the rocket fuel and colonize Mars.
:The discussion so far has been about what the moon is good for besides rocket fuel. In particular it is good for establishing a colony on Mars. Some Mars colony enthusiasts propose only a way for people to get to Mars and return, completely ignoring the difficulty of establishing the industry necessary for a colony on Mars. Some seem to think that the establishment of a colony is so easy it is beneath their dignity to consider the details. If they had transportation to Mars, that would be soon enough to think about how to build a colony. So they concentrate on getting the rocket fuel in orbit as cheaply as possible. However, Mars is deadly-in-seconds to someone outside without a space suit and a space suit is very difficult to do any work in. The Apollo astronauts did little work while on the moon simply because a space suit is hard to work in. When an astronaut fell down, it was difficult to stand up again. An auger was used to try to sample the moon a ways below the surface. The auger got stuck. Remote controlled equipment will be needed for industrializing Mars as much as it will be needed on the moon. The difference is that people will need to be either on Mars or in orbit about Mars to operate remote controlled equipment there. To show how slow it is to operate remote controlled equipment on Mars from Earth, consider that Mars rover, Opportunity, covered about 44 kilometers in 13 years.<ref>[https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/ Jet Propulsion Laboratory]</ref> That works out to an average speed of 39 centimeters per hour, 15 inches per hour. That includes considerable standing still while looking at or scraping stuff and making side trips rather than a straight path, but it does give some idea of the slowness of remote control on Mars. Equipment for industrializing Mars includes: earth moving equipment; liquids handling equipment; equipment to use plastic or metal sheets to build pressurized vessels for factories and habitation; mining equipment; equipment to sort the pay dirt from the tailings; pressurized factories to take in the dirty ice through an air lock, melt it, and put out the tailings at another air lock; pressurized factories to produce iron and shape it into stock. There are many items of equipment that I could name. An industrialized moon could make equipment and launch it into lunar orbit while recycling the hydrogen. An industrialized moon could provide material to build a shielded livable space habitat as a space ship for traveling to Mars with a massive load of equipment. People have said such a large space ship is not needed, but they must under estimate the task of colonization by extremes. If the real goal is colonizing Mars an industrialized moon can help it succeed. Just claiming that colonizing Mars is easy will not get the job done.
:The November 2016 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, MARS supplement to their magazine claimed that because sunlight on the surface of Mars was interrupted at times by things like night and near global dust storms, a different source of power such as nuclear power would be needed to provide 24/7 power no matter what the weather. Solar power can still work on Mars. An industrialized moon that can provide SBSP for Earth and space habitats as colonizing space ships could also provide an SBSP for Mars. It would use a large mirror to concentrate the sunlight to Earth normal strength. The height of a SBSP satellite above the surface of Mars at the position of the rectenna would be less than the corresponding distance for SBSP on Earth, so there would be even less beam spread than on Earth. SBSP from lunar materials is beneficial for Earth, it is much more beneficial for a new colony on Mars. Solar sails could take a space habitat to Mars. Long trip time would not be a problem because the colony ship would be a complete colony in itself with radiation shielding, artificial gravity and recycling life support. Reusable rockets that are a further development of the reusable rockets Elon Musk developed for Earth would provide transport between Mars surface and space habitat. The reusability of rockets on Mars should be easier than on Earth because low altitude circular orbit velocity on Mars is only 45% of the low altitude circular orbit velocity on Earth. So reusable rockets made on Earth should be ferrying export cargo to orbit from Mars surface from the start of colonization. Exports would include hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, chlorine and argon; all of which will be needed by industry on Luna and in cis-lunar space. Mars will be able to supply these things more cheaply than Earth because the lower cost of achieving orbit will outweigh the longer distance to transport these items from Mars to cis-lunar space.
:It is conceivable that the advances in rocketry suggested by Elon Musk will allow the transport of enough equipment to establish the industry necessary for a colony on Mars directly from Earth, but it seems to be a task that calls for miracles. The moon is closer to Earth, transporting machinery there from Earth is easier, industry can start out on the moon without the overhead of supporting people there to run the machines because the machines can be controlled from Earth, and there is a market for lunar exports to pay for the industrialization. That is why industrializing the moon should come before industrializing Mars.
: Mars has the resources for building its own space-based solar power but getting and industrialized Mars going would be much easier if the original colonizing effort included a space habitat with recycling life support, a large supply of industrial equipment and an orbiting space-based solar power unit. All of these could be manufactured in cis-lunar space and shipped to Mars with the crew using the recycling life support on the way to Mars.

Twelfth, there is a paper in the group in New Space on economic use of the moon. It describes a self-replicating industry on the moon that produces a mass driver and the components of space-based solar power stations to be assembled in Earth synchronous orbit.
:Yes, and Chris McKay does not talk about this paper in interviews. Matt Williams in a ''Universe Today'' article wrote about this paper that claims a self-replicating factory on the moon could build solar power satellite components from lunar material and launch them to geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) with a mass driver.<ref>[https://www.universetoday.com/128011/moonbase-2022-10-billion-says-nasa/ Universe Today]</ref> The paper states that if the system that self replicates and produces the mass driver and space solar power components is produced, great benefits would result. The paper contains specifications not of how to build the self replicating system (SRS) but of what capabilities an SRS would need to work as the author envisions it. It is not a bad paper. There are helpful bits of information in it but it is not a proposal for a near term project on the moon. It is more like the advance in technology that might make the project I propose obsolete if it is perfected. I will mention one thing the author missed. Components launched from the moon to Earth synchronous orbit do not need massive engines on the construction base to which they are sent to maintain orbital momentum. The launches can be a mix of direct launch to GEO from the moon, which would need to loose momentum to circularize, and to GEO from the moon by way of atmospheric braking at Earth. From perigee, braking at Earth's atmosphere, the apogee should be at GEO and more momentum would be needed to circularize. If the unspecified technology of the cone-shaped catcher catches the right mix of arrivals from braking at Earth's atmosphere and from direct to GEO launch, then the needed transfers of momentum to circularize orbit at GEO will cancel each other out. Find the paper here.<ref>[http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/space.2015.0041 Lunar-Based Self-Replicating Solar Factory]</ref> The author keeps the idea simple by specifying capabilities in simple general terms. He presents a method of recurring procedures as mathematical evidence that the SRS is possible to build. He fails to say how a harvester will tell the difference between a rock and a manufactured component without human direction. I am sure that this is possible but there would be many details, each requiring attention by a programmer and experience in doing the different necessary tasks in the lunar environment.

:The length of a mass driver track or LRSTO track depends upon the mission delta V and the limit of acceleration to which cargo and/or passengers will be subjected. While it was not explicitly stated in the SRS paper, either sort of track would need thermal control or sufficient thermal expansion joints to operate reliably. The LRSTO would have an awning stretched out to shade that portion of the track outside of the pressure vessel. A set of pillars on one side would hold the awning. The second stage carrying cargo or passengers would be discharged on the opposite side. Thermostatically controlled electric heaters would maintain the track at a uniform low temperature to maintain the highly precise position of the track.

:As for a catcher at geosynchronous Earth orbit, the first transfers to GEO would need to be done with a sort of space tug, perhaps a VASIMR built to use oxygen as reaction mass. Then, dispensing with the cone-shaped catcher, a mass driver could be built at GEO to accelerate a catcher car along a track to match velocity with incoming cargo. The catcher would use a crane-like arm to deploy a loop to snag a hook on the incoming cargo ship and decelerate with eddy-current braking. The incoming cargo ship for its part would need to match the position of its incoming orbit to the track of the catcher car within the range that the catcher can reach. This would require some careful orbital maneuvering from a considerable distance.

:The abstract of the SRS paper states that "only the initial R&D costs would be of any consequence", of course those R&D costs could be considerable since learning how to build SBSP components on the moon by SRS includes learning how to build them on the moon by conventional means. In other words, after SBSP systems have been built by conventional remote controlled factories on the moon, assembled at GEO, and started selling power on Earth; people might learn how to do the same thing with SRS. There is no special quality of the lunar surface that makes SRS there easier than on Earth. There is no more likelihood that SRS on the moon will make conventional manufacturing obsolete than that SRS on Earth will make conventional manufacturing obsolete.

Thirteenth, the boards of power companies could see the space-based solar power as possibly lowering the rate paid for kilowatt-hours and decide to politically sabotage the competition.

:Lets hope they are better than that. After all, they are likely to be retired before the first SBSP satellite comes on line. They should follow the progress of lunar industrialization and after it seems safe enough based on all considerations, including the political, they should buy into SBSP and be part of the future.

Fourteenth, if it takes more than 30 years it won't happen because the U. S. dollar will collapse before then.
:The long development time is a definite problem but fusion power has been soaking up government funds for more than fifty years. Space-based solar power by way of lunar industrialization is a more worthy competitor. Let us hope it succeeds. Even without any spending for space development the U. S. economy is headed for collapse in considerably less than thirty years. To prepare for investing in space to secure the economic future of mankind, the U. S. must be prepared to invest over the long term (thirty years is a long term). First it must balance its federal budget and make some small annual payments in reducing the federal debt. This will likely cause some short term contraction of the U. S. economy but if people are sold on the need for investment they could take pride in what is being done and bear difficulty, inconvenience, or hardship. There is potential for the U. S. economy to grow and the expansion of industry in cis-lunar space allows great growth once the return on investment kicks in. As an alternative, other nations can industrialize the moon. If I knew enough about the economy to predict a date for the collapse of the dollar, I would be an unknown genius in the background, controlling the world economy through a number of privately held corporations, and finance SBSP myself. There is too much competition for such a career position so people settle for sharing control with a few other genii, only having incomplete control of a limited number of things. A thing we can be certain of is that borrowing money by the U. S. federal government as a significant fraction of its budget will change to an insignificant fraction of the federal budget or less at some time (there could be some repayment). Eliminating the deficit would tend to cause a temporary contraction of the U. S. economy and the circumstances of eliminating the deficit (such as harsh political battles) could cause worse. However, a plan to industrialize the moon could survive even an economic breakdown with a 70% reduction of highway traffic. People should push ahead with industrialization of the moon and hope for the best or hope that at least our efforts survive the worst.

Fifteenth, a repair robot has not been achieved in ANY industry on Earth, so robotic industry on the moon without humans to do repair work is impossible.

:This is simply a false statement. Usually robots are not used for repair on Earth because equipment needing repair can be moved to a handy repair facility where humans work easily. However, in the nuclear industry there has been need for repair where people could not easily go because of radiation. Robots capable of bolting and welding in nuclear power plants have been possible for quite a while.<ref name="IAEA"/> Robots have been used for decontamination and inspection.<ref>[https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/27304740206.pdf IAEA BULLETIN, AUTUMN 1985: Nuclear power and electronics, page 5]</ref> This can be done on Earth where there is need for repair where people cannot easily be supported. Whatever needs to be done as a repair on the moon could be done with robots to avoid the multimillion dollar per day cost of supporting a repairman on the moon with supplies directly from Earth. When there is sufficient industrial development, we know how to produce the recycling life support systems which will make the support of some people on the moon economical. The objection of robots supposedly not being able to handle repair is sometimes limited to the repair of robots. The repair of robots is not something different in kind from repairing nuclear reactors. There are simply more and smaller repair activities packed into a smaller space. Certainly it would be easier for a human to do repairs by hand on the spot if being on the spot could be easily arranged. To avoid ten million dollars a day for a repairman, many inconveniences can be accepted.

Sixteenth, space-based solar power stations would be a constellation of bright new stars that would spoil the night sky for professional and amateur astronomy.

:This could be avoided by construction methods intended to avoid brightening the night sky. A fifty mile power cable could separate the solar power collection section from the microwave generating section of the space-based solar power station which would hang that much closer to Earth. The microwave generating section could be shaded by a mirror finished disk of aluminum (or other metal) foil, blackened on the side facing the microwave generating section. The reflected sunlight would be directed away from Earth. At a position half way from the solar power collection section to the microwave generating section a mirror finished foil disk could reflect the view of empty space and stars toward Earth blocking the view of the solar power collection section. By these methods interference with Earth based astronomy could be minimized. The mirror shading the microwave beam generator would not be merely a means of keeping the sky dark for astronomers. Preventing the beam generator from moving from sunlight into shadow and from shadow into sun would be necessary to maintain dimensional tolerances that would assure proper focus of the beam. The industrial capabilities on the moon would be a great boon to space-based astronomy with the construction of professional quality instruments advancing the state of the art in astronomy before the space-based solar power stations are even constructed. Space-based telescopes will be made before SBSP satellites because they are an easier project to get industry started on, but they will not provide enough value to justify lunar industrialization on their own. Thousands of cheaper space-based telescopes would become available for students and for rental by serious amateurs. We should go with the future. Things can be better if we make them so.

Seventeenth, we need to defend Earth against asteroids that are sure to hit<ref>[https://qz.com/963039/nasas-plan-for-when-the-next-asteroid-strikes-earth/ QUARTZ: NASA’s plan for when the next asteroid strikes Earth]</ref> instead of wasting money for industry on the moon.
:I am glad that you brought up the point. Space-based telescopes will be produced by cis-lunar industry fed by lunar resources. Those telescopes will be able to take up position in the most advantageous locations, such as (perhaps) at 0.72 au from the sun in the plane of the ecliptic. A few telescopes spaced around that orbit could find asteroids that mostly appear in the daytime sky as seen from Earth and therefore often go unobserved. If sending a rocket to an asteroid to deflect it from collision with Earth would help, cis-lunar industry could provide such a rocket. Whatever the strategy, cis-lunar industry would provide more robust options for deflecting incoming asteroids than industry located on Earth.

Eighteenth, machines on the moon to build things will contribute to the subjugation of humanity by machines.
:The Terminator movies were meant to scare children for their amusement, not serve as advice for technological development. Let us consider real dangers from AI. Dimi Apostolopoulos of Carnegie Mellon worked on robots for NASA in the 1990s. When NASA cut budgets for robotics he took up a position building robots for the U.S. Marine Corps for the war in Iraq. He designed a reconnaissance robot but his team added weapons because the Marines wanted fighting robots. The fighting robots were never deployed because of problems with distinguishing friend from foe, recognizing an enemy's attempt to surrender, and identifying noncombatants.<ref>Beyond Earth by Charles Wohlforth and Amanda Hendrix (c) 2016, published by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. pp 124-130</ref> Clearly there are some dangers with artificial intelligence but the military uses are likely to be under a human chain of command. Military artificial intelligence is likely to be no more dangerous than land mines and bombing of enemy resources. Stopping lunar industrialization will only reduce the likelihood of people being able to flee from war into space. It will not prevent military use of AI. Nick Bostrom claims that some level of artificial intelligence could be dangerous to the human race. Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates have also suggested dangers in artificial intelligence.<ref>[http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-and-elon-musk-have-overhyped-ai-risks-2016-1 Business Insider]</ref> The threat that Hawking, Musk, and Gates have warned of seems more to do with giving a computer program control over the purchase of supplies, hiring employees, acquiring buildings, producing products, and selling them. First of all, current AI does not have sufficient knowledge of what supplies, employees, buildings, and products are to deal with them independently according to some rules to maximize profits. AI merely assists executives in mining data and seeing relevant economic data displayed in an orderly fashion for making decisions. There will be some warning before AI ends up telling all of us where to work and when to die. In any case, stopping lunar industrialization will not stop the development of AI. Remote controlled lunar industrialization will be under the control of operators on the Earth. We do not know how to make the machines on the moon independent of human control at this time. There is no more danger of AI getting the upper hand on the moon than on Earth. The legal status of AI agents is crystal clear. They are property, not persons. If an AI agent causes harm, it is the manufacturer, the programmer, and the purchaser who are held liable. I have seen no evidence of an AI agent filing a petition to be recognized as a legal person or having any desire to do so.

:Mike Wall, Senior Writer for Space.com wrote about the relationship humans would have with robots at a suggested future lunar base, calling the relationship "cooperative".<ref>[https://www.space.com/10634-moon-base-lunar-outpost-technology.html SPACE.COM; Back to the Moon: How New Lunar Bases Will Work]</ref> However, a human being usually does not cooperate with a robot any more than one would cooperate with a screw. People use screws and people use robots. One might call a screw uncooperative if it drifts as one tries to drive it into a piece of wood, tapping into the wood at a spot slightly removed from the desired location. The screw is just being a screw. It would help more to drill a lead hole than to call a screw uncooperative. If two people would compete in digging trenches on the moon, one with a robotic excavator and the other wearing a space suit and using a shovel, it would be easy to see that the space suit is not the right tool for the job. This competition could be simulated on earth with the person using a space suit having it inflated to 1.3 atmospheres pressure. That extra third of an atmosphere would cause the space suit to puff out to a particular inflated shape like a balloon, just as happens with space suits on the moon. The requirement to move the suit out of this shape to do useful work makes working in a space suit very difficult. I can almost hear the complaints: "We never suggested a man in a space suit should dig trenches with a shovel." OK, name the task. Let there be a contest between a robotic machine and a man in a space suit doing anything productive. Let us see what these space-suits are really good for. Remotely controlled equipment is more efficient for boring holes holes in the moons surface to sample at depth and to emplace sensors at depth; more efficient in moving equipment around on the moon; and more efficient in recognizing stuff on the surface that is likely to be worthy of further study because the remotely controlled equipment uses cameras at multiple wavelengths, lasers, electron guns and radar. Just what does anyone suggest that a man in a space-suit could do more efficiently than remote controlled equipment? The outdoor environment on the moon is lethal in seconds. That is the reason for using remotely controlled machines to do work on the moon rather than walking out on the surface of the moon. Artists love to draw astronauts in space suits walking happily all over a moon base but it is a deceptive image. There is nothing useful to be done in a space suit on the moon. People on the moon should be in a vehicle or in a building. A space suit is the smallest, most limiting, and worst vehicle a person could use to move through a vacuum.
:Writers and illustrators should try to give an accurate picture of what a future moon base will be like instead of giving descriptions suitable for science fiction. I believe people cooperating with robots and people walking all over the moon in space suits are misleading descriptions. A moon base will not look like that unless it is designed by Hollywood screen writers and technologically ignorant politicians. A space suit is limiting not only because it restricts the motions of arms and legs, it also prevents a wearer from bending at the waist. A man said something like he could do in twenty minutes every thing a Mars rover did in 18 months. I would like to see him wearing a space suit with actual one third atmosphere pressure difference between inside and outside and try to do field geology in an Earth based simulation. I would like to be there laughing at him, not because I bear ill will for anyone but because I think it would do him some good to help him learn the sort of limitations that people on Mars would face. I am not opposed to people on Mars, but when they are there they will do outdoor work by remote control. People available on Mars to do remote control will speed up the tasks that robots do there immensely. There will be no more waiting an hour between one command and the next.
:There is a hard suit made that is a possible substitute for the current space suit. The hard suit does not require effort by the wearer to maintain any particular shape, but this suit has not yet been fully developed for moon use. It requires a special method to escape from a number of lock positions for which efforts of moving limbs will not change the shape of one or another joint.
:A space suit was reported as costing $2 million (two million dollars) in 1994.<ref>[https://history.nasa.gov/spacesuits.pdf Space Suit Evolution From Custom Tailored To Off-The-Rack]</ref> That is plenty expensive, but the big reason for not having space suits in a colony on the moon or on Mars is that these troublesome devices would require a completely different technology from other things used so they could be built locally rather than imported from Earth. A colony cannot get along without outdoor robots but it can get along without space suits.
:A robot that one could cooperate with would be a self driving car on a city street, sharing the street according to traffic rules. If the way the robot car drives is not satisfactory, one takes up the issue with the owner and the programmer of the robot. So, let us have no more fears of robots subjugating people.

Nineteenth, if the ISS is crashed into the pacific we will lose all the billions of dollars that were spent on it. Further, loss of the ISS will end the astronaut program because there will be no place to which astronauts can travel. Then when the life support you refer to on the moon is complete a new group of astronauts will need to be trained restarting the program at great expense.
:The billions spent on the ISS are already lost. There is no way to recover them. The ISS will never make a profit. Spending more on it by operating it longer will only increase the loss. There is some possible scrap value in the solar cells and wiring attached to the ISS. The possible value depends upon some plan for a remotely controlled device in orbit that can contribute to actual profit-making activity being able to make use of salvaged solar panels from the ISS. One might say, "Well, the ISS was never intended to make a profit." However the promoters of the ISS at first claimed that experiments done there would show how profit could be made in space industries. They were just wrong and keeping the ISS will still fail to recover any benefit commensurate with what is spent on it. The way to get reasonable return on space development is to leave those expensive nuisances called astronauts on Earth and send robots where robots belong to eventually produce life supporting infrastructure on the moon so humans can follow. Basic industrial infrastructure should come first. Life support is easier to build when there is some local industrial infrastructure. When people finally do return to the moon, they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

:As far as losing the current astronaut program is concerned, nothing of value will be lost. At termination of the astronaut program, participants will write up their experiences, program procedures and lessons learned. The new batch of people sent to the moon will not be trained as test pilots, because that is not needed and would be a waste. What will be needed on the moon will be engineers; lab technicians and other technicians; machinists; remote control equipment operators and people trained in activating the redundant features of life support to possibly survive an accident. People can be capable of fulfilling more than one position. There will be techniques to learn that are specific to the industrialized moon. The training of the current group of astronauts will not be sufficient.

Twentieth, isn't this SBSP idea the same thing that people keep hyping as a high tech money-maker launching ultra light-weight carbon nanotube stuff into orbit to harvest free sunlight but with the profits always removed to some time after the investors money is taken.

:There was never a profit-making industrial idea that was so good that con artists could not alter it to make it sound even better in promising impossible results to investors. Now, I would not want to claim that any specific company deliberately defrauded investors, took their money, paid company officers and high-priced engineers until they could not get a bank loan. Then the officers and engineers kept their wages claimed that they had done their honest best and ceased operations. I would not want to be sued for libel. The project I am suggesting requires considerable development but the basic science is known. There is no requirement for carbon nanotubes. The federal government that I suggest should provide financing has engineers who can recognize technical impossibilities and I would not be receiving money as this project is developed in any case.

:Someone said to me that they would keep their money rather than invest in outer space enterprises. I wondered why I would get such a statement since I did not suggest that anyone other than governments invest in outer space enterprises immediately. Only after a lengthy period of government financed development and testing would it be time for institutional investors to join in. I looked on the internet and quickly found that a spokesman of a respected investment firm suggested that the first trillionaire would make money mining asteroids, that people who create the technology for mining asteroids will get rewards such as no one has seen.<ref>[http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/goldman-predicts-the-worlds-first-trillionaire-will-mine-asteroids/news-story/9f71301dd36846bfcdabdf846c1ba9ab news.com.au]</ref> Well, nonexistent rewards cannot be seen. An investment firm spokesman said that mining in space will not soon deliver commercial returns.<ref>[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06/goldman-sachs-tells-investors-to-consider-new-space-age.html CNBC]</ref> Investment firms will take people's money and help them invest even if the investor insists on a very foolish plan. The investment firm will get it's percentage even if the investor loses his shirt. Some asteroids go around the sun orbiting in 3 years with 1.5 year repeating windows to transfer cargo to Earth. Some asteroids orbit the sun in 6 years with 1.2 year repeating windows to transfer cargo. If a close approaching asteroid were to be captured so transfer of cargo could be done at any time, I expect I would have heard about it. I have heard no such thing so asteroid capture is not imminent. Asteroids need to be prospected before they are mined. I have heard of no such thing so mining asteroids is not imminent. Remote control of mining asteroids from Earth would be very slow for the same reasons that robot activity on Mars is now slow, only more so. All this means that profits from mining asteroids are unlikely in the short term. Mining infrastructure on the moon, especially the means of shipping cargo to orbit, will take decades to develop. If someone wants to take your money to develop asteroid mining technology, do not hold your breath waiting for the return on investment. It could be a long, long, time. The company could go broke and the company officers become hard to find. Projects that return profit only after thirty to fifty years are not financial investments. They are efforts to build the future that governments but not private investors can make. Governments ought to be wary of such efforts but they can hire the expert wariness that they need.

Twenty-first, SBSP will ruin all of our investments in oil wells and coal mines.
:Oil wells and coal mines will still be needed. Plants keep soaking up carbon dioxide. People have just been dumping more carbon dioxide into the air than plants can handle. Some oil and coal burning will still be needed to maintain the carbon dioxide level at 0.04%, 0.036% or whatever level people decide is best. We might need to incinerate leaves and old paper to recycle enough carbon into carbon dioxide in the air to keep plants happy with the high carbon dioxide level which plants react to as a fertilizer. SBSP will replace fossil fuel as a basic source of electricity, but not as a means of getting necessary carbon dioxide into the air. When electricity becomes cheap enough we might use an energy subsidized process to clean up old land-fills. Mercury, lead and cadmium could all be recovered from dumps and stored as useful commodities. Carbon dioxide could be dumped into the air as needed or stored as carbon while releasing the oxygen. Abundant energy would make cleaning up the planet easier. Don't think that increased carbon dioxide in the air has been all bad. The Earth has been getting greener. Twenty-five to fifty percent of land which is covered by vegetation has gotten greener in the last 35 years. Benefits to plants have occurred at the same time as detrimental changes in climate.<ref>[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth NASA: Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds]</ref><ref>[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-study-rising-carbon-dioxide-levels-will-help-and-hurt-crops NASA: Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Will Help and Hurt Crops]</ref> People might be able to live with a carbon dioxide level as high as 0.05% (five hundredths of a percent). We do not know what harmful effects that level of CO2 will cause because we have not done that experiment yet. We are still working on it. The only reason that carbon dioxide concentrations dropped to less than 300 parts per million (0.03%) in the Oligocene is that green plants were scraping the bottom of the barrel getting every last bit of CO2 they could while dealing with CO2 starvation. There are two kinds of people who claim that human emissions of CO2 need to drop to zero to reduce the atmospheric level of CO2 to less than 400 parts per million. Those kinds are the ignorant and the untruthful.

Twenty-second, there is an area of technical development that has not demonstrated the capability needed for launching to orbit from the moon with a rocket sled. While a rocket sled has gone 2868 meters per second which is in excess of lunar escape velocity, the fastest a maglev rocket sled has gone is only 283 meters per second.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160531114432/http://www.holloman.af.mil/ArticleDisplay/tabid/6274/Article/721428/633-mph-nothing-to-mach.aspx HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE]</ref> It is not known when a sliding support system to hold the sled at a fixed distance from the rails will be developed that is suitable for use on the moon and can perform at speeds over 1600 meters per second as would be needed for an economic launch system. It is ill-advised to enter into a program spending billions on a robotic base that is dependent on a maglev rocket-sled launching system when maglev rocket-sleds have only demonstrated about 18% of the minimum required velocity.
:The lack of a demonstration that maglev technology can be used with rocket-sled speeds in excess of 1600 meters per second is a serious lack with respect to using such technology in a plan for a profitable moon base. Rocket-sled tests have shown that a rocket sled can achieve a speed of 2868 meters per second.<ref>[http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/139307/test-sets-world-land-speed-record/ U.S. AIR FORCE]</ref> Thus we know that rails can be made straight and smooth enough for rocket-sleds supported by those rails to move at 2868 meters per second without being shaken apart by vibrations caused by variations from straightness and smoothness in the rails. That a maglev rocket-sled only achieved 283 meters per second indicates that some other factor is at work. The rails of the Holloman high speed test track (HHSTT) that were used with the Mach 8.5 record setting run are continuously welded heavy-duty crane rails.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090202185338/http://www.holloman.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=6130 Holloman Air Force Base]</ref> Their straightness, smoothness and strength are likely adequate for Mach 8 rocket-sled tests but maglev technology also depends upon the magnetic property of the rails at some depth past the surface of the rails. The magnetic properties of each rail length are not necessarily homogenous from end to end and welding to connect one rail to the next could possibly affect the magnetic properties of the rail at the position of the weld. The 846th Test Squadron quite possibly used different rails to test their maglev sled. I do not know the purposes of the tests at the HHSTT but to test for the suitability of maglev rocket-sled technology for use on the moon it would be better to have a twenty mile long vacuum chamber in which to build the track so that tests could be conducted without the interference of aerodynamic forces on the sled as would be the case on the moon and rails in which the magnetic character is homogenous from end to end. So there should be no welds in the magnetic portion of the rails interacting with the maglev support system. This could perhaps be achieved by hammering the magnetically active portion of rails together out of iron wires each wrapped 169 times around the 10 foot average diameter spool on which it is transported. Constructing things in a vacuum is a more natural way to do things on the moon, but the difficulty of building in a vacuum chamber on Earth can be justified if it is necessary to demonstrate a technology that is to be used for industry on the moon that will be critical to the future of humanity. There may be a cheaper way of demonstrating the technology than what I suggest, but as yet there is no demonstration that the desired technology is either inherently adequate or inadequate. Foregoing welds or using a track inside a vacuum chamber are not the essential things for demonstrating maglev technology for the moon. What is essential is sufficient magnetic homogeneity in the rails and small enough interference from aerodynamic forces for the maglev system to work, and an ability to extrapolate with confidence that a technical solution exists for achieving 1600 meters per second rocket-sled velocity on the moon. The support holding the record setting Mach 8.5 sled over the tracks was not maglev technology. Perhaps something like the slippers on the record setting sled would be suitable on the moon. Maglev technology may have some inherent sensitivity to vibration.
:If people are serious about industrializing the moon and want to test maglev rocket-sled technology as an optional means of transporting products from the moon to cis-lunar space, people should specify a test track that will model lunar conditions. A twenty mile long vacuum chamber in which the magnetically active portions of the rails are built by hammering together twenty mile long wires transported on spools to the site of construction of the rails would be likely suitable conditions. Constructing a moving roller mill that would press iron together into rails while moving along the intended path of the rails is another possibility. This would avoid possible magnetic inhomogeneity at welds. Active electronically controlled electromagnets could support the sled at a particular distance from the rails. The rocket nozzle should provide thrust directed through the center of mass of the sled and that center of mass should lie in a plane connecting the center lines of the right hand and left hand rails. Thus the sled would be between rather than over the rails. The cheapest version of a rocket sled that fulfills requirements such as a 1600 meter per second speed, ability to operate in a vacuum and use of a track constructed out of largely lunar materials should be the basis of a planned transportation system to compare to options like a gun in which hot gasses propel the projectile by pressing in on the tapered sides of a projectile as it moves through a large gun barrel.
:If rocket-sled technology were subjected to tests in simulated lunar conditions with the intent of testing a potential moon to cis-lunar space transportation system and failed to reach 1600 meters per second speed, then there would be evidence that rocket-sled technology is inadequate; not before such tests.

:Another consideration is magnetostriction. A magnetic field applied to an iron rail for levitation will also change the shape of the rail a small amount. Magnetostriction is what causes transformer hum. Magnetic levitation might possibly be decoupled from the structural strength of the rails by having a composite of a nonmagnetic matrix for stiffness and a magnetic component of the composite rail for levitation. Also spreading out the magnetic levitating field along the length of the rail reduces the intensity of the magnetization effects on any one spot thus reducing energy loss from a hysteresis loop and perhaps reducing difficulties with vibration. The cheapest solution that verifies the suitability of the technology for launch to orbit from the moon is what is sought.
:There is also the possibility of gas lubricated rails. High pressure oxygen can be pumped into the feet of the rocket sled to maintain a small separation between the sled and the rails it slides over. This can extend even outside the long tube pressure vessel because losing oxygen to the vacuum is a small concern. If all of the rocket-sled techniques fail to be adaptable to lunar conditions, there is still the option of launching a rocket horizontally within the long tube pressure vessel and flying at a fixed distance from the walls. The rocket would be in orbit before the second stage leaves the pressure vessel with the first stage landing within the pressure vessel. Flying a rocket down the middle of a long tube is no more difficult than formation flying of aircraft on Earth, a demonstrated technique. It will be handled by robot pilots on Luna. One possibility for retro-rocket thrust is to have the discharge of the second stage expose separate rocket motors for landing the first stage. These rockets would have their own fuel tanks. Alternatively, the requirement to reverse rocket thrust to stop and land in the pressure vessel can be avoided. The first stage could land on rails outside of the pressure vessel by friction as the X-15 landed on rear landing gear consisting of skids.<ref>[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-052-DFRC.html NASA Armstrong Fact Sheet: X-15 Hypersonic Research Program]</ref> On the moon the landing speed would likely be in the neighborhood of 2200 meters per second (5000 miles per hour) rather than the 200 miles per hour landing of the X-15. The lunar landing gear might grab the rails from above and below and brush them with actual bristles of silicon dioxide that are progressively extended from the landing gear as the ends of the bristles are worn away with the generation of silicon dioxide gas. There is certainly a wealth of possible techniques that might be used on Luna depending upon which techniques are cheapest over-all. There is no technical difficulty that will completely prevent recycling spent rocket fuel on Luna. There is only the possibility that people will not make a sufficient effort to achieve low cost, high volume launch techniques on Luna. Improvements in technology can only make lunar launches cheaper over the years. I have written what is required. If you want your grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews to live in space, take hold of space and make it your own.

Twenty-third, there is too much that is unknown about a SBSP system built from lunar materials. We do not know the precise lunar mineral types in their abundances by location, nor the depth to which minerals can be dug up, nor the details of how robots will do construction in space, nor the effects on the environment of Earth from operating a SBSP system, nor how far from a rectenna a person with a pacemaker must remain so the beam does not kill the person by messing up the pacemaker.
:These are all questions that need to be addressed and they will be addressed as part of the preliminary developmental process. Robots should be used in space for assembling large dish antennas out of components with equipment and on a jig that allows the completed antenna to function as well as one made on Earth to precise tolerances. Antennas should be assembled in this way to be attached to satellites launched without the enormous faring that would be needed to launch an Earth assembled antenna to orbit. Such antennas would handle Earth/satellite communications. Large space-based radio interferometry satellites could also use large antennas assembled in space. This can give people some experience with industrial purpose robots in space. Robots should be custom built for this job and astronauts and Robonauts should not interfere.

:A survey of the disposition of lunar minerals with remotely controlled equipment can be done with better cost effectiveness without the bother of astronauts and android shaped robots.

:Studies can tell us all of the environmental effects of SBSP, but to convince skeptics one set of microwave beaming satellite built by special purpose remote controlled equipment from materials launched from Earth and Earth based rectenna should be used to demonstrate the full scale workability of the scheme before investing in the full scale industrial plant on Luna for building two hundred of the same thing.

:NASA's most powerful reason for using astronauts for tasks that could be done more economically with remote controlled equipment has been that we have astronauts in space anyway so we might as well use them for something or the expense of putting them up there is wasted. So we need to remove astronauts from space and save the money that is wasted on them in order to remove this $8 billion per year obstacle to progress that astronauts constitute. Efficient shielded life support equipment with centrifuged living quarters can be produced so people on the moon can do scientific analysis of geological samples and of industrial production samples and build in machine shops devices of which there will be needed only one or a few. People doing repair indoors on whatever can be repaired indoors will make sense when there is efficient life support. It is the irrational premature placement of people in space at great expense and for no purpose that is an obstacle to progress in space. I have no big complaint against astronauts themselves. I can understand that a person might want to experience the weightlessness of orbit and be willing to endure the difficulties of being an astronaut for that purpose. If one astronaut were to quit the excessively costly program, another would take the place. It is the administrators and chief scientists that I would castigate severely for advising administrations that sending human crews to Mars makes a reasonable program in light of the known unwillingness of congress to appropriate sufficient funds for the undertaking. These people have a duty to resign rather than be responsible for such waste.

Twenty-fourth, we do not need SBSP. There are all sorts of entrepreneurial opportunities leading to investment in outer space.
:Government policy should not favor more opportunities for investment. People earning their money this way can look out for their own interests, which only partially coincide with the public good. Government policy should favor such industry as 1) does coincide with the public good and 2) requires some government assistance to get the desired level of industry. Lunar landers, tourists to Earth orbit and making deliveries to the ISS provide new profit making opportunities<ref>[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/new-space-business_n_907358.html HUFFPOST]</ref> that we could do without. We do not need six different lunar landers to explore the moon's surface. If private industry develops some useful feature from which NASA can learn, good, but the most efficient method of developing a lunar lander to meet public exploration needs is to discuss the desired specifications with the engineers who will develop the transportation system. If the government grants rights to act as a U.S. national on the lunar surface, mine ice and sell rocket fuel; and NASA thereby gains lunar lander design experience from a private corporation; the price paid is too high. Virgin Galactic will attempt to launch tourists into suborbital trajectory. It will be a long time before such a successful effort would have any positive effect on space industry outside the tourist trade. Whether government built launchers or private built launchers supply stuff to the ISS, the government pays for it all and it is all a waste because the $8 billion per year program produces no benefits worth anywhere near $8 billion. The benefit of the manned space station programs is that they provided solid documentary evidence of the inefficiency of direct human labor in space suits or in weightlessness in orbit. If we ignore that evidence, we fail to learn. Solar energy from space with the space-based end to be built from material launched from Earth with rockets is another potential industry. The 1997 Mankins "Fresh Look At Solar Power", a NASA associated study, referred to fully reusable two stage to orbit transportation and hundreds of astronauts as the work crew.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/1997-Mankins-FreshLookAtSpaceSolarPower.pdf A Fresh Look at Space Solar Power]</ref> The report stated that driving down Earth to orbit transportation costs was an unavoidable necessity "of course" for Space-Based Solar Power. Why did they reject robotic building of SBSP from lunar materials? They did not even consider it. The only use of the terms "moon" and "lunar" were in reference to SBSP enabling human exploration of the moon once the SBSP is built from Earth materials. The building of economical systems of launching stuff from the moon and building the industry for processing lunar materials to make them suitable building materials is likely to take decades from our current technological state, but it can be done. In the case of robotic lunar industrialization the length of time required is cause for NASA to reject the idea out of hand. In the astronaut based efforts at industry, commerce, or exploration NASA has been willing to keep looking for progress for forty-four years from skylab to the ISS and wants to keep on in the astronaut launching business as usual. The lack of profit is no consideration. NASA has different attitudes to astronaut efforts and robot efforts in space because NASA is not acting to serve the public good but to aggrandize astronauts. Actually producing SBSP is secondary to launching astronauts. Actually making progress to colonizing Mars is secondary to launching astronauts. Getting a crew of 6 to 8 people to Mars is at the border of current technological capabilities and could easily result in dead astronauts. Such a mission is not likely to be a precursor of a Mars colony any more than the Apollo missions were a precursor of a colony on Earth's moon. Congress balks at the cost of putting the first people on Mars and almost certainly will not put up enough money to start a Mars colony using direct from Earth techniques. Selling the space station as preparation for colonizing Mars is deceptive. NASA management seems to concern itself with maximizing appropriations of government money. The U.S. congress is a difficult master. The "Fresh Look at Space Solar Power" correctly concluded that building SBSP with hundreds of astronauts in space suits at geostationary orbit should be dismissed out of hand, but their failure to consider robotic construction from lunar materials could have come from the fixed idea that any construction in space must involve astronauts. NASA considers that efforts at the ISS in service of future Mars colonization are worth while as the main purpose of the station even though the funding congress has been willing to give puts even a minimal crewed trip to Mars out of reach until congress might change its mind. Getting rid of obsequious attitudes towards astronaut programs would make it worth while to disband NASA and disperse its non human space-flight activities to other agencies. While Mars colonization as currently envisioned by Mars colony advocates would not provide return on investment for a couple of hundred years, except for the claim that Martians would contribute intellectual works to Earth by radio, industrialization of the moon could provide a return in thirty to fifty years. It is the potential for expansion that is most important. That puts Mars colony advocates in the same category with moon industrialization advocates. We advocate something that does not produce large payoffs in our lifetimes (except possibly for some young advocates of lunar industrialization). However, providing hundreds of SBSP stations, the first in thirty to fifty years, seems more worth while than waiting millennia for a breathable atmosphere on Mars. Further, lunar industrialization, after making a good start to providing plentiful electrical power for the whole Earth could lead to the development of an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] system to put people and cargo cheaply into LEO from Earth's surface.

Twenty-fifth, Gerard K. O'Neil, recommended a mass driver rapidly launching one kilogram projectiles. Such a system would use much less electrical power and be cheaper to build than a rocket-sled launching system with a rocket for a second stage.
:God bless the memory of Gerard K. O'Neil. He worked on developing some very interesting lunar industry concepts. However, we cannot depend upon the dead to continue to provide all of the development details for producing a thriving industry on the moon. There were some details to O'Neil's ideas that still needed some work when he died. In particular, the system for catching the one kilogram projectiles launched from a mass driver to a facility at L1 or L2 was not completely specified. The complicated motions of the moon in its orbit can be approximated by a circular orbit with real Lagrange points exactly specified, but the differences from the circular approximation and probable spread in launch velocity could result in considerable spread in the position at which projectiles would need to be caught and a spread in the velocity at which they would arrive. When someone specifies a definite system for catching the projectiles, it can be compared to launching a rocket for an upper stage. Until then we know that a rocket can be guided to an exact rendezvous using a midcourse correction and final velocity adjustments near rendezvous.

Twenty-sixth, if a trillion dollar industrial infrastructure with rocket-sled to orbit cargo launching system is completed in thirty years that is thirty-three billion dollars per year. While NASA would love that kind of budget, it will not happen.
:The arithmetic is impeccable but not all funds need to come from NASA's budget. If NASA gets a reasonable budget for industrializing the moon, say four billion dollars per year, after twenty years all necessary industrial processes should have been demonstrated and there should then be an ongoing set of industrial activities to lead to SBSP. Eighty billion will have been spent and private sources of capital will be eager to get to join the fun. A trillion dollars, more or less, will become available quickly and the pace of development will increase markedly. The first SBSP satellite will appear on the thirtieth year or the schedule and budget could be more or less. I do not know of any law of physics that should prevent it.

Twenty-seventh, there may be 100,000 pieces of junk 1 to 10 centimeters in diameter orbiting Earth<ref>[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/07/the-danger-of-space-junk/306691/ The Atlantic]</ref> These chunks can hit satellites in orbit causing the breakup of the satellite. This generates more chunks of junk. The potential for a debris cascade has not yet made satellites in orbit totally useless but the space-based solar power scheme you suggest would have a million times more area available for generating debris by collision. It must not be attempted.
:One would think the large surfaces of SBSP satellites would have the potential to generate debris cascade,<ref name="ROSPAC">[http://www.aerospace.org/crosslinkmag/web-exclusive/orbital-debris-cascades-population-stability-growth-and-the-usability-of-space/ ORBITAL DEBRIS CASCADES @AEROSPACE]</ref> but the mirrors that shade the microwave power beam generators (for example as in the sixteenth answer to objection above) would incorporate whipple shields in which the mirror surface is the first of several thin layers of material which will stop the great majority of collision objects which will become trapped between the layers. Such passive debris removal features of the SBSP scheme can actually remove much of the space debris in its orbital area.
:The debris situation in GEO is referred to as unstable but the growth of debris population is said to take longer than in LEO and the growth of debris density in LEO is typically simulated to around 200 years.<ref name="ROSPAC"/> So, the installation of broad Whipple shields for passive debris removal can likely be put off for the first couple of SBSP satellites to save money. Then after shields have been included in the newer satellites for a few years, the first couple of satellites could be retrofitted into compliance. Retrofitting debris shields will be easier if it has been planned from the start.
:The statement by AEROSPACE that there tends to be debris cascade in GEO but with a long time scale is a reasonable description of the current situation. It does not take into account the industrialization of the moon with a low cost launch capability used to launch massive amounts of material to build large whipple shields suitable for protecting entire SBSP satellites. In the industrially developed situation the possibility for large passive debris removal devices can be considered. For instance, the shield to protect the microwave broadcast antenna from debris impact from below would be multi-layer microwave transparent sheets, possibly thin scales of glass woven into a fiberglass cloth.

Twenty-eighth, setting up trade with the moon would open Earth to biological contamination of an unknown sort. We cannot take such a risk.
:Let me set your mind at ease. The surface of the moon is one of the most sterile places possible. It is open to vacuum in which living things can at most survive for some time until they are returned to a moist environment to thrive again. It is mostly bathed in sterilizing ultraviolet radiation and, in those places around the poles that are permanently dark, there is still the effect of bombardment with the electrons and protons of the solar wind plasma and with unhindered cosmic rays with the power to break atomic nuclei. If even that does not relieve your worry, consider that meteorites from the moon land on the Earth every day, some after traveling through space for a million years<ref>[http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites.htm DEPARTMENT OF Earth and Planetary Sciences @Washington University in St. Louis]</ref> and these emissaries from Luna have failed to contaminate the Earth in any way that is noticeable. Prohibiting trade with the moon would not achieve the purpose of preventing contact with lunar materials.

Twenty-ninth, waiting thirty years for the solar power from space which would set us free from hazardous dependence on fossil fuels is ridiculous. A nuclear power plant can be built in five years and nuclear power can supply all of the electricity we need.
:Let us consider this idea carefully. In the United States there are regulatory provisions that extend the time needed to build a nuclear power plant to more than five years, but that is a matter of politics. There are people who claim to be protecting us from unsafe use of nuclear power but seem to only oppose nuclear power, no matter what efforts are made for safety. Some people make claims about many people dying from nuclear radiation coming from power plants and the cycle of mining nuclear fuel, processing it into fuel elements, and disposing of the spent fuel. It is well known that millions of people world-wide die every year from the use of fossil fuels to produce electric power. There are black lung disease, mine explosions, and accidents at drilling rigs to name just a few problems with fossil fuels. However, I do not know of anyone who died in the United States because of nuclear-electric fuel cycle efforts since the end of WW II. The Chernobyl accident occurred in a type of reactor not used in the United States which had no containment vessel surrounding the core systems. The recent nuclear accident in Japan released significant radioactive contaminants because the cooling system failed because of a lack of electric power because of a lack of fuel for the emergency generator because the fuel supply could not be replenished because the roads were disrupted by a tsunami. Planning alternate refueling methods for emergency cooling pumps and using a design that will fail safely in the event of cooling system failure are both achievable possibilities that could prevent this type of release of radioactivity. There are some risks in nuclear power. When the best nuclear technology is used the risks of death seem low compared to the known risks of fossil fuels. The problems of nuclear power should be compared to certainties with wind and Earth based solar power.
:The certainty with wind and Earth based solar power is that they are fickle. Those people who pride themselves on reducing CO2 pollution by producing electricity on their roof tops with solar panels and selling it to the electric companies can do so only because they are backed up by fossil fuel or nuclear produced electric power which they use when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. I notice the increase in my electric bill because of the political advantage these people have over me. I must give them credit for their political skill but I give them no thanks for the technical efforts that they back which injure the economy and do little to reduce the increasing concentration of CO2 in the air. I oppose subsidizing fickle Earth based solar power systems and wind power systems which only make their users feel good because their users are willing to lie to themselves and deny that their electricity use habits are tied to utilities using fossil fuels and nuclear power to supply them whenever fickle eco-friendly systems fail. A solar & wind power advocate when presented with these arguments said that there should be research programs to advance solar & wind power and systems for storing power as if storing a few days worth of electric power is as simple as saying "research programs for storing power." The article [[Flywheel]] addresses the problem of storing large amounts of power, but the solar & wind power lobby does not seem interested in research for power storage technology that could benefit humanity. What they have succeeded at is merely producing hugely expensive solar & wind electricity production systems that are completely dependent upon fossil fuel and nuclear systems as back-up. Perhaps one fifth of the reduction on carbon dioxide emission from using solar power instead of grid power can be lost because of necessary ramping of power production to equalize loads.<ref>[https://www.protononsite.com/news-events/lets-talk-grid-balancing PROTON THE LEADER IN ON SITE GAS GENERATION]</ref> Another problem is that the solar power users who have no power storage systems demand high power delivery when the sun does not shine leading to the necessity of having fossil or nuclear systems with a delivery grid sized to meet a high peak demand. This is the major expense of power generation but the solar power users do not pay according to the peak power that they demand. They pay for what they use which is reduced by their solar power generation. The cost of peak power demand is distributed to users according to what they use which in my case is not reduced by solar power generation. A means of storing power is electrolysis by methods such as proton exchange membrane electrolysis and alkaline water electrolysis. Possibly some solar power user somewhere produces enough hydrogen by electrolysis when the sun shines to provide all needed power when the sun does not shine. If so, such a solar power user knows what cheap solar power really costs. Adding in the cost of power storage results in a much higher cost for all power used by a solar power system. The solar power lobby does not encourage figuring the cost of solar power for completely off grid systems with storage but just wants continuing subsidies of installation of solar roof panel systems that they profit from.
:Nuclear power has the potential to satisfy electric power needs in less than ten years without contributing largely to the CO2 excess in the air. We could do that and develop solar electricity from space-based microwave beam generation with the space-based end built from moon supplied materials. That will allow us in a few decades to get rid of some long term problems that come along with nuclear power. Even though some nuclear power advocates claim that new technology can result in the nuclear power plant consuming nuclear waste, there will still be nuclear waste to get rid of at the end of the fuel cycle. Some trans-uranic radioactive material in spent fuel rods can indeed be consumed as fuel in nuclear reactors, but the fission products contain stubbornly long lived radio-active material that is best buried where there is no ground water flow, such as under the ocean. Then there is nuclear weapons technology. People who know how to make electricity with nuclear fuel generally also know how to convert the nuclear materials into bombs. If we continue to use nuclear electric technology for a large enough number of years, the political situation is likely to arise in which someone decides to use their reactors to make bombs. Representatives of The People's Republic of China claimed that a nuclear bomb could be used to protect Earth from an asteroid on collision course. I think the bomb is the more serious threat.
:There is much that is discussed about nuclear electric power. The conclusion of my limited study is that we need it as an alternative to the poverty that would result from relying wholly on Earth based solar and wind power but should replace it with space-based solar power when we can.

Thirtieth, do you have rocks in your head? The People's Republic of China is an enemy. You admit military applications (third objection) but suggest treaties with China governing the development of the moon. We need to keep potential military applications out of China's hands.
:If the USA could arrange the physical characteristics of the solar system and the political situation of Earth by political decree, it could develop the industrial potential of the moon without involving other nations that look at things differently than the US congress. Since we must involve other nations, let's look at who our enemies are and what sorts of arrangements could possibly be beneficial. Who put the many trillion dollar debt on the USA? It was the US government acting under the influence of lobbyists for various organizations such as medical organizations, defense contractors, teachers' organizations, and retired persons. The list of lobbyists trying to get a piece of the federal budget is too long for this discussion but people who allow such lobbyists to control federal spending with no concern for the federal debt are the enemies of the USA. That is: US citizens are their own worst enemies. The potential financial catastrophe could be worse than anything that China is planning for the US. Exact outcomes cannot be predicted but the potential for something worse than the great depression is a reason for some of the preparations for bugging out that are seen in people preparing access to nonurban property, learning gardening, storing essentials, and having a bug-out vehicle to get to their destination by driving off the road around traffic jams.
:The People's Republic of China is a problem because of their absolute insistence upon putting Taiwan under communist party control regardless of political and economic costs. It is their unifying purpose. If anyone does not agree with that they are not only kept out of political power, they risk prison. It is a case of self-reinforcement of an extreme position. However, China does bow to reality to the extent that they will put off their goal until they are confidant that they can succeed. Considering the shore of Taiwan as approximately a natural fortress protected by advanced anti-ship missiles with the USA guaranteeing access to trade, the People's Republic might need wait a long time. Satellite observations can pin-point naval targets like a shipborne invasion force and vessels that anti-ship missiles cannot knock out, submarine launched weapons that travel submerged to their target can. The high velocity canons to stop anti-ship missiles can be overwhelmed by a high number of targets and the guns can be blinded by a rain of chaff and other countermeasures such as has not yet been deployed in an actual war. I cannot list all of the reasons that an invasion of Taiwan from the People's Republic is not realistic without cooperation from Taiwan or the USA failing to defend Taiwan from blockade. It is just best for China to put unification under the communist party on the back burner and agree to disallow by international agreement any orbital or lunar weapons with the potential to do significant military harm to targets on Earth or flying at altitudes of less than 7.5 miles (12,000 meters, 40,000 feet). If China were to succeed in putting Taiwan under rule from the continent, it would face more difficult factional problems internally that could bring it to an end, but it might succeed in taking over Taiwan as conditions change with time.
:The fact that the People's Republic expressly refuses to forego violence in taking over the governing of Taiwan indicates that they likely see the possibility that opponents to such a development might refrain from going to total war to prevent it. Total war between two modern nations, such as the United States and the People's Republic of China, would cause harm far exceeding any possible gain from winning the war. Total war is simple to understand. It is based upon the method of accounting benefit in which gaining factories, gold, weapons, or agriculture is accounted the same benefit as destroying equivalent factories, gold, weapons or agriculture of the enemy. It continues until one side or the other concedes defeat or has been completely destroyed. The most illustrative examples I can think of are from the Greek bronze age. One city fought until it had killed every man of age for military duty in the enemy city. The enemy city was taken over as booty. Women and boys of age ten and less were taken as slaves with the boys separated from their mothers. If peace were achieved with merely exchanging some piece of land or paying some money, the loosing side would be allowed to keep their weapons, wives and children. It was assumed that a free man would rather die than give up weapons, wife or children.
:Bronze age total war made a sad sort of sense. Modern age total war with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons would be insane.
:It is possible for international law to be effective in outlawing spaceborne offensive weapons if nations are willing to agree to such terms with verifiability. There is plenty of wealth for everybody if we can agree upon reasonable ways of sharing it and the US federal government stops its deficit financing. The obstacles to a millennium of prosperity for humanity are economic and political. The technical problems can be handled with a reasonable international effort.
:Current difficulties with dissident groups in China might interfere with China's space development efforts or interfere with other countries thinking it is a good time to make treaties with China concerning space development. As of the 9th of September 2019, there have been protests in Hong Kong suggesting that the People's Republic should recognize in Hong Kong greater democratic lawmaking power and more extensive human rights. I have some sympathy with these aims as a citizen of the U.S.A. who enjoys considerable opportunity to have input to public policy discussions and considerable guarantees that the government will recognize that I have certain human rights. The legal system of the People's Republic comes too close to marshal law to suit me. Unfortunately for those living in Hong Kong, they must deal with the People's Republic of China. Neither the USA nor the United Kingdom is willing to send military force to defend democratic governing rights in Hong Kong. The USA would be crazy to oppose the People's Republic militarily where its army can roll in anytime at will. It will take some time to develop a completely satisfactory system of recognition of human rights just as a man does not become a fat man with one big meal. What the Hong Kong protesters are doing may not be helping. I do not see it likely that calling upon the U.S.A to guarantee recognition of human rights in Hong Kong will result in effective help from the U.S.A. in solving disagreements in Hong Kong. The U.S.A. can offer words to Hong Kong. The protesters, being closer to the disagreements, should be better placed to find words that improve the situation. I suggest they forego having tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people marching around. They should meet in smaller groups to discuss what petitions made to the People's Republic (with respect and recognition of the right of the current government to govern) might lead to some improvement. The fact is that most governments on the Earth can trace their right to govern to violent conflicts. So does the People's Republic. They are unlikely to voluntarily relinquish some governing power without extensive deliberate consideration. The U.S.A. will not just tell them what to do. If, against the odds, many popular protests all around China brought down the People's Republic, the result could possibly be chaos that would make the People's Republic seem better by comparison. As for Donald Trump putting pressure on China, I think he is just trying to make China a scapegoat for problems that the U.S.A. has caused for itself. The people of Hong Kong, the Uighurs, and the people around Tiananmen Square might consider making some accommodation with the People's Republic. Voluntary allegiance has some value as a consideration. The People's Republic might be willing to offer something valuable in exchange. The people of Hong Kong must know themselves what they will offer for better terms of relationship and for what they are willing to suffer possible imprisonment, death and worse. The People's Republic is certainly capable of being cruel if it suits the purpose. The fact that there is currently a "trade war" being waged between the U.S.A. and the People's Republic should not have the slightest affect in motivating protesters. It is heartening to know that some people far away hold the U.S.A. in high regard but I would hope that they do nothing rash in supposed support of the U.S.A.'s interests.
:When disagreements between the People's Republic and some dissident groups are somewhat more settled, increased cooperation between the U.S.A. and the People's Republic on outer space development might not raise so much objection.

Thirty-first, there is no safe way to deorbit a space-based solar power satellite.

: The objection is a false statement. If it is possible to build a space-based solar power satellite, then it is easier to break it up into pieces small enough to safely deorbit into the Pacific Ocean. However there is no need to get rid of a space-based solar power satellite. If solar cells or mirrors for directing sunlight onto solar cells or any other item of a space based solar power satellite becomes defective because of age and exposure to space, the defective item can be put into an orbiting junk satellite. When there is cheep access to orbit from the surface of the moon, a junk satellite can be placed in an orbit with about a five day period. It would be encircled by a double layer of woven fiberglass sheets to prevent bits broken off by collision with a piece of junk from leaving the junk satellite. Wherever people have built industrial process facilities they also made a place to store the waste products whether that be worn out equipment or anything else. Orbital space should be no different. The fiberglass sheets surrounding the junk satellite should be painted black to provide a minimum of problems for astronomers.

-- [[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) made last alteration on 10 August 2025.
:
:
Post script:
::If I can lure others to help with this discussion, I will treat them fairly rather than as I have treated the poor battered straw man. All contributors to Lunarpedia can make additions and corrections to articles as long as their edits are about the moon and moon colonies. Editing conflicts should be resolved by discussion and I will cease erasing the multiple dates at which I added to this discussion when there is another live editor contributing to this question.
-- [[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) quite some time ago.

==References==
<references/>

==More discussion==
What's ITER? Maybe add to exodictionary? Also add other definitions? -- [[User:Miros1|Rose/Miros]] ([[User talk:Miros1|talk]]) 05:24, 18 March 2019 (GMT)

ITER was defined in parentheses after its first use in the answer to the third objection. It is an abbreviation for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, an international government funded program.

--[[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) 21:18, 22 March 2019 (GMT)

I made an addition above and corrected some typos. It was nothing that you have objected to. You seemed only interested in clarifying a definition. I will undo the addition if you object to it. - [[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) 20:32, 30 March 2019 (GMT)

No objections. -- [[User:Miros1|Rose/Miros]] ([[User talk:Miros1|talk]]) 10:51, 11 April 2019 (BST)

New moon base concepts

2026-03-10T15:38:35Z

Farred: /* The main points in a nutshell */ use of more accurate words

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. (Wherever LRSTO is referred to in this argument, tube launch of rockets while [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]] should also be considered an alternative.) Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars. I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made in humanoid form to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge (That is a space habitat with solar sails for propulsion.). It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship propelled by solar sails to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing fatal injury in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization. That effort would require the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines to avoid extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars: hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2026-02-06T20:18:07Z

Farred: deletion of extraneous word

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of the amount of energy for achieving orbit as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed (about 56 seconds). The task of all electric acceleration to orbital velocity is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation on the lunar surface:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border trans-shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount of hydrogen added previously and the amount of oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]].
:For a partial transcript of the original presentation of the idea at a Moon Society meeting go to [[Recycling Rocket Exhaust Presented at Mare Cognitum Chapter Meeting]].
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2026-02-06T04:57:14Z

Farred: better specify a topic

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
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==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of the amount of energy for achieving orbit as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed (about 56 seconds). The task of all electric acceleration to orbital velocity is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation on the lunar surface:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border trans-shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount of hydrogen added previously and the amount of oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]].
:For a partial transcript of the original presentation of the idea at a Moon Society meeting go to [[Recycling Rocket Exhaust Presented at Mare Cognitum Chapter Meeting]].
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

New moon base concepts

2025-12-08T18:31:27Z

Farred: improve punctuation

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. (Wherever LRSTO is referred to in this argument, tube launch of rockets while [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]] should also be considered an alternative.) Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars. I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made in humanoid form to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge (That is a space habitat with solar sails for propulsion.). It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship propelled by solar sails to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing death in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization. That effort would require the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines to avoid extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars: hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

New moon base concepts

2025-12-08T18:26:11Z

Farred: rewording

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. (Wherever LRSTO is referred to in this argument, tube launch of rockets while [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]] should also be considered an alternative.) Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars. I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made in humanoid form to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge (That is a space habitat with solar sails for propulsion.). It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship propelled by solar sails to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing death in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization. That effort would require the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines to avoid extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars; hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

New moon base concepts

2025-12-08T18:15:31Z

Farred: addition

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. (Wherever LRSTO is referred to in this argument, tube launch of rockets while [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]] should also be considered an alternative.) Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars. I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made in humanoid form to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge (That is a space habitat with solar sails for propulsion.). It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship propelled by solar sails to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing death in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization and the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines without extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars; hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

FFC Cambridge Process

2025-12-08T17:16:30Z

Farred: correct target in link

__TOC__

== Introduction ==

The FFC Cambridge Process reduces oxides to their metal components by electrolysis in a bath of molten [[calcium]] chloride. The process has potential to directly produce [[oxygen]] and metal from virtually any oxide. The process works by placing the oxide to be refined into a bath of molten calcium chloride and creating a voltage differential between the oxide component (which forms the cathode) and an anode which is also placed in the bath. Oxygen is stripped off the cathode, where it forms calcium oxide, which is soluble in the calcium chloride bath. This oxide is split at the anode, producing oxygen. The cathode meanwhile is gradually reduced to a porous metallic sponge.

The process is currently being developed by Metalysis<ref>http://www.metalysis.com/</ref> for terrestrial metal production, specifically for the production of titanium; the developers hope it will eventually replace the Kroll Process.

==Application To Lunar Colonization==
In a lunar environment, this process could enable much simpler resource extraction. Experiments have already been done using pellets of [[Sintered Regolith|sintered]] lunar regolith simulant, as well as a non-consumable anode, producing metalized pellets and oxygen<ref>http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/roundtable2006/pdf/tripuraneni.pdf</ref>.

===Aluminum/Silicon/Calcium Production from Anorthite===
[[Anorthite]] ([[Ca]][[Al]]2[[Si]]2[[O]]8), which makes up much of the Lunar Highlands, could be separated from the regolith by grinding, followed by electrostatic/magnetic [[beneficiation]], and then pressed/sintered into an appropriate cathode. As the oxygen is stripped off, metallic [[aluminum]], [[silicon]], and [[calcium]] are produced. The [[calcium]] is soluble in the calcium chloride bath, and would need to be continuously distilled out to keep the calcium concentration from becoming too high (which can reduce current efficiencies). Since silicon is not very soluble in aluminum at bath temperatures (900-1100 C), the aluminum and silicon should separate, the silicon remaining solid, the aluminum melting. This molten aluminum is denser than calcium chloride, and should drip out and collect at the bottom, where it can be siphoned off. Once the [[anorthite]] cathode is completely reduced, a very porous sponge of silicon remains.

For every metric ton of Anorthite processed in this manner, approximately 460 kg [[oxygen]], 193 kg [[aluminum]], 201 kg [[silicon]], and 144 kg [[calcium]] would be obtained.

===Iron/Titanium Production from Ilmenite===
[[Ilmenite]] ([[Fe]][[Ti]][[O]]3), is found in abundance on the lunar Maria and is easily separated through magnetic means. This substance could be processed in the same fashion as [[Anorthite]], resulting in a 54% [[Iron]], 46% [[Titanium]] sponge. Separating this alloy into [[iron]] and [[titanium]] could be done by either distillation or [[Carbonyl process|carbonyl extraction]].

Another option is to first subject the [[Ilmenite]] to [[Ilmenite_Reduction#Hydrogen_Reduction|Hydrogen Reduction]], producing [[Iron]] and [[rutile|titanium dioxide]]. The iron could then be separated by [[Carbonyl process|carbonyl extraction]], distillation, grinding followed by use of a magnet, or by melting and then allowing the products to separate out. The remaining titanium dioxide could then be run through the FFC Cambridge process, producing a titanium sponge.

The end result for each ton would be approximately 316 kg [[Oxygen]], 316 kg [[Titanium]], and 368 kg [[Iron]].

===Other Products===
Lunar [[Chromite]] could also be reduced in the same fashion, producing Ferrochrome, which could be used to add [[Chromium]] content to [[Iron]] alloys. Many of the above listed reductions would also contain amounts of [[Magnesium]] and [[Sodium]] (Lunar [[Ilmenite]] in particular is known to be highly enriched with [[Magnesium]]), which could be distilled out fairly easily due to their low boiling points.

===Chlorine Recovery===
The only substance used which is not readily available on the Lunar surface is [[chlorine]]. Chlorine is available on the lunar surface in the form of [[Apatite]] ([[Ca]]10([[P]][[O]]4)6([[O]][[H]], [[F]], [[Cl]], [[Br]])2), but only in trace quantities. If a viable procedure for concentrating apatite out of the lunar regolith is not found, then a high degree of chlorine recycling would be necessary for the FFC Cambridge process to be useful in a lunar environment.

Chlorine losses from the system would come in the form of calcium chloride trapped in the pores of the metallic sponge produced in the reduction process, as well as any amount lost from the distillation of calcium metal out of the bath during anorthite processing. The latter losses could be reduced to acceptable levels through careful design of the distillation equipment.

In terrestrial applications, the salt trapped in the pores of the sponge is removed by grinding the sponge and washing the resulting powder with water, as calcium chloride is highly water soluble. The same procedure could be followed in a lunar environment, followed by reverse osmosis and distillation to recover the dissolved salt.

A simpler method is to melt the sponge, which would be required for many processes anyway. Since calcium chloride is not soluble in (and less dense than) most metals, it should separate into a distinct top layer, where it can be easily drained off, while the metallic elements are drained from the bottom.

Another method involves heating the sponge under partial vacuum until the calcium chloride evaporates out. This is useful in circumstances where the sponge itself is the desired product. Proper design of the process should allow for sufficient salt removal.

== References ==
<references/>

== External Links ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffc_cambridge_process FFC Cambridge process on Wikipedia]

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

FFC Cambridge Process

2025-12-08T17:06:49Z

Farred: spell correction

__TOC__

== Introduction ==

The FFC Cambridge Process reduces oxides to their metal components by electrolysis in a bath of molten [[calcium]] chloride. The process has potential to directly produce [[oxygen]] and metal from virtually any oxide. The process works by placing the oxide to be refined into a bath of molten calcium chloride and creating a voltage differential between the oxide component (which forms the cathode) and an anode which is also placed in the bath. Oxygen is stripped off the cathode, where it forms calcium oxide, which is soluble in the calcium chloride bath. This oxide is split at the anode, producing oxygen. The cathode meanwhile is gradually reduced to a porous metallic sponge.

The process is currently being developed by Metalysis<ref>http://www.metalysis.com/</ref> for terrestrial metal production, specifically for the production of titanium; the developers hope it will eventually replace the Kroll Process.

==Application To Lunar Colonization==
In a lunar environment, this process could enable much simpler resource extraction. Experiments have already been done using pellets of [[sintering|sintered]] lunar regolith simulant, as well as a non-consumable anode, producing metalized pellets and oxygen<ref>http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/roundtable2006/pdf/tripuraneni.pdf</ref>.

===Aluminum/Silicon/Calcium Production from Anorthite===
[[Anorthite]] ([[Ca]][[Al]]2[[Si]]2[[O]]8), which makes up much of the Lunar Highlands, could be separated from the regolith by grinding, followed by electrostatic/magnetic [[beneficiation]], and then pressed/sintered into an appropriate cathode. As the oxygen is stripped off, metallic [[aluminum]], [[silicon]], and [[calcium]] are produced. The [[calcium]] is soluble in the calcium chloride bath, and would need to be continuously distilled out to keep the calcium concentration from becoming too high (which can reduce current efficiencies). Since silicon is not very soluble in aluminum at bath temperatures (900-1100 C), the aluminum and silicon should separate, the silicon remaining solid, the aluminum melting. This molten aluminum is denser than calcium chloride, and should drip out and collect at the bottom, where it can be siphoned off. Once the [[anorthite]] cathode is completely reduced, a very porous sponge of silicon remains.

For every metric ton of Anorthite processed in this manner, approximately 460 kg [[oxygen]], 193 kg [[aluminum]], 201 kg [[silicon]], and 144 kg [[calcium]] would be obtained.

===Iron/Titanium Production from Ilmenite===
[[Ilmenite]] ([[Fe]][[Ti]][[O]]3), is found in abundance on the lunar Maria and is easily separated through magnetic means. This substance could be processed in the same fashion as [[Anorthite]], resulting in a 54% [[Iron]], 46% [[Titanium]] sponge. Separating this alloy into [[iron]] and [[titanium]] could be done by either distillation or [[Carbonyl process|carbonyl extraction]].

Another option is to first subject the [[Ilmenite]] to [[Ilmenite_Reduction#Hydrogen_Reduction|Hydrogen Reduction]], producing [[Iron]] and [[rutile|titanium dioxide]]. The iron could then be separated by [[Carbonyl process|carbonyl extraction]], distillation, grinding followed by use of a magnet, or by melting and then allowing the products to separate out. The remaining titanium dioxide could then be run through the FFC Cambridge process, producing a titanium sponge.

The end result for each ton would be approximately 316 kg [[Oxygen]], 316 kg [[Titanium]], and 368 kg [[Iron]].

===Other Products===
Lunar [[Chromite]] could also be reduced in the same fashion, producing Ferrochrome, which could be used to add [[Chromium]] content to [[Iron]] alloys. Many of the above listed reductions would also contain amounts of [[Magnesium]] and [[Sodium]] (Lunar [[Ilmenite]] in particular is known to be highly enriched with [[Magnesium]]), which could be distilled out fairly easily due to their low boiling points.

===Chlorine Recovery===
The only substance used which is not readily available on the Lunar surface is [[chlorine]]. Chlorine is available on the lunar surface in the form of [[Apatite]] ([[Ca]]10([[P]][[O]]4)6([[O]][[H]], [[F]], [[Cl]], [[Br]])2), but only in trace quantities. If a viable procedure for concentrating apatite out of the lunar regolith is not found, then a high degree of chlorine recycling would be necessary for the FFC Cambridge process to be useful in a lunar environment.

Chlorine losses from the system would come in the form of calcium chloride trapped in the pores of the metallic sponge produced in the reduction process, as well as any amount lost from the distillation of calcium metal out of the bath during anorthite processing. The latter losses could be reduced to acceptable levels through careful design of the distillation equipment.

In terrestrial applications, the salt trapped in the pores of the sponge is removed by grinding the sponge and washing the resulting powder with water, as calcium chloride is highly water soluble. The same procedure could be followed in a lunar environment, followed by reverse osmosis and distillation to recover the dissolved salt.

A simpler method is to melt the sponge, which would be required for many processes anyway. Since calcium chloride is not soluble in (and less dense than) most metals, it should separate into a distinct top layer, where it can be easily drained off, while the metallic elements are drained from the bottom.

Another method involves heating the sponge under partial vacuum until the calcium chloride evaporates out. This is useful in circumstances where the sponge itself is the desired product. Proper design of the process should allow for sufficient salt removal.

== References ==
<references/>

== External Links ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffc_cambridge_process FFC Cambridge process on Wikipedia]

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

Talk:Doing Without Space Suits

2025-10-24T05:00:19Z

Farred: addition

:doing without space suits is related to colonizing space and recycling rocket exhaust of launches from the moon.
:
:
:
:"The Colonization of Space"
:Gerard K. O'Neil estimated the population that could live in the solar system using the asteroid belt for resources. :Considering the time he made this estimate that is on the order of 50 trillion people

:To realize recycling of rocket exhaust of launches from the moon, the work must be done nearly exclusively by remotely controlled devices for a few years. An astronaut appearing on the scene might serve to produce some good publicity but remotely controlled machines will do the work. It is simply a matter of men being too expensive to support on the moon at least until a considerable amount of human support infrastructure is in place. There should be insulated thermal shelters so remotely controlled devices will not great thermal challenges every month. There should be awnings stretched from East to West to make handy shaded spots. There should be electronic landing aids to guide supply vehicles consistently to accurately located landings. There should be tanks of liquid oxygen available early on with vehicles to bring liquid oxygen to reusable landers that can be practical once locally produced liquid oxygen is available on the moon.

Talk:Doing Without Space Suits

2025-10-24T04:57:02Z

Farred: new discussion page

:"The Colonization of Space"
:Gerard K. O'Neil estimated the population that could live in the solar system using the asteroid belt for resources. :Considering the time he made this estimate that is on the order of 50 trillion people

:To realize recycling of rocket exhaust of launches from the moon, the work must be done nearly exclusively by remotely controlled devices for a few years. An astronaut appearing on the scene might serve to produce some good publicity but remotely controlled machines will do the work. It is simply a matter of men being too expensive to support on the moon at least until a considerable amount of human support infrastructure is in place. There should be insulated thermal shelters so remotely controlled devices will not great thermal challenges every month. There should be awnings stretched from East to West to make handy shaded spots. There should be electronic landing aids to guide supply vehicles consistently to accurately located landings. There should be tanks of liquid oxygen available early on with vehicles to bring liquid oxygen to reusable landers that can be practical once locally produced liquid oxygen is available on the moon.

Talk:New moon base concepts

2025-08-11T04:11:22Z

Farred: addition

==Why should humanity industrialize the moon?==
Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, and answers follow:

First, the excuse that NASA only does nonprofit missions such as robot probes to celestial bodies for scientific data and astronaut missions to celestial bodies to demonstrate the prowess of the USA. Profit-making use of space is left to private industry.
:NACA produced a great deal of economically useful research such as designs for air intakes, cowlings, airfoils, and superchargers. NASA continues to do research that helps the aviation industry. There is no reason that they could not do work that would help private industry in space. NASA just needs to imitate NACA. NACA's policies led to great advances in aviation. NASA's human space flight operations have been like a two trick pony. It sent people to walk on the moon then followed with space stations. When will NASA take it's lessons learned and do something more advanced? The fact that much of NASA's human space flight operations are for benefit of NASA employees, contractors, the congressional districts in which NASA spends money, and NASA's earnest attempt to be an immortal bureaucracy is a statement of the problem. It is not a justification for continuing to do the same old thing until the federal government goes broke. The main reason that NASA continues with it's choice of programs is tradition. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Sergeyevich Kruschev chose missions of monkey launching, dog launching and finally people launching when there was a rational reason for such missions. Launching heavy cargos to orbit demonstrated the ability to launch nuclear weapons to targets at any distance on the globe of Earth. Launching people to orbit anticipated a supposed need to have people accompany nuclear weapons to direct the weapons to a target as a bombardier did in bomber aircraft. With technical development of ICBMs it became apparent that the technical difficulty and cost of having people accompany warheads in orbital bombardment was not justified by any advantage people might bring to the effort. With nuclear weapons, hitting within a half mile of the target is usually sufficient for the military purpose and inertial guidance can do that. So the rational reason for launching people evaporated and NASA proceeds to launch people into orbit out of pride in setting world's records and because of tradition. Bureaucratic tradition is the main reason that NASA keeps moving like a ship without a rudder. NASA is about as tradition bound as it is possible for a government department to be and it is a rather sorry excuse for a technologically advanced government department that they continue to do the same old things only because that is the only thing NASA has ever done.

Second, the excuses that developing industry on the moon would require actual industrial activity that should be left strictly to private corporations and that industrializing the moon would not produce benefits for decades.
:The government authorized actual industrial activity in digging the Panama Canal. In 1903 the USA acquired rights to build a canal from Panama. It took until 1914 for the first ship to cross the isthmus by canal. The fees for use of the canal were never intended to repay the USA the capital cost of the canal. Fees just paid operational expenses. The benefit to the USA came from increased passenger and cargo traffic by ship connecting the American Atlantic coast and Pacific coast with each other and with foreign ports from which the canal shortened the voyage. On the moon, the lack of any return on investment for probably more than thirty years makes the construction of industrial infrastructure and particularly construction of an LRSTO ([[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]]) very difficult for private industry to justify. The U. S. could do it if there were a will to do so. Other countries would likely be willing to join the project if the U. S. made a serious start. The USA needs to use NASA in the same way as the USA built the Panama Canal with government money. Consider a Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit to be a public works project.

Third is a real difficulty. Industry on the moon has inherent [[Geopolitics|military applications]]. The nations of the People's Republic of China, and Russia are not likely to just let the U. S. set up bases on the moon that are indistinguishable from military bases. We have already signed treaties promising that we would not use the moon for military purposes but some people would settle for nothing less than verification.
:The U. S. should invite other nations to robotically observe what we would openly do in developing lunar industry in such a way that it is unmistakably nonmilitary. We should sell them electricity for their robots and allow them to share robot shelters at night. We should require similar rights of observation of any Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or European bases. It would be best if we could cooperate on industry to the extent that we have shared ownership of some industrial facilities with other nations. International law allows nations to share the use of the oceans of Earth for transportation. We share the use of the radio broadcast spectrum. We follow treaty obligations in the way we share the ability to place satellites into orbit. For industry on the moon and low-cost launching to lunar orbit we should be able to work out something. ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) demonstrates some international cooperation.

Fourth, it is boiling hot during the day on the moon.
:The extreme heat on the moon exists only in the sunlight. If an aluminum foil awning is stretched from east to west, perhaps 5 to 10 meters high, over a strip of regolith in the lunar equatorial region, that area will be permanently in shade as long as the awning lasts. A short wall on the north and south borders of the strip could prevent infrared heat transport to the strip from the surrounding area. It would be possible to mess this up by incompetence, but it is actually possible to produce very cold areas in the daytime lunar equatorial region by properly managing sunlight. The reason a 40 degree below zero area can exist on the moon near boiling hot dirt during the day is that there is no heat transfer by wind (or any sort of convection) from one spot to another on the moon. If radiant heat transfer and conductive heat transfer are largely blocked, as they can be on the moon, hot and cold areas can coexist peacefully quite near each other.

Fifth, it costs too much.
:The cost seems commensurate with the benefits. It is impossible to give a very precise estimate of cost in the absence of sufficiently detailed ground truth for the moon and the absence of detailed plans to fit that ground truth. A guess of a $1 trillion seems reasonable for industrializing the moon up to the point of having an operating LRSTO. Then $2 billion each for a couple hundred space-based solar power (SBSP) satellites, beginning with one every year or two and ramping up to a few every year. These satellites in geosynchronous orbit would each collect 12 Gigawatts of sunlight and deliver power by microwave to each of a couple hundred rectennae on Earth. The electric distribution grid would finally receive 2 Gigawatts day & night, rain & shine, summer & winter, seven days a week at each rectenna. Cows could graze in the sunlight that passes through the rectenna, or wheat could be watered by the rain that falls through the rectenna. The rectenna on Earth would stop microwaves like the door of a microwave oven stops microwaves, leaving people on the outside of the microwave oven safe from the heat inside the oven. The difference with the rectenna in the SBSP scheme is that the intensity of the microwave beam is much lower and the beam is not merely reflected. It is converted into electrical power. The problem would be marketing that electricity for the biggest expansion of wealth that the human race has ever seen. Criminals trying to get some of that wealth by their preferred means of selling opiates would still be a problem, but if the wealth gets spread over all the Earth, we should eliminate the problem of people in poor countries seeing no means but crime to gain wealth. The costs could be better known after sending robotic probes to the lunar surface and developing specific plans giving some detail in what would need to be done to build a rocket-sled to orbit. The USA should at least afford looking into the task to see what it would cost. If demand for transportation from the moon remains strong, further capital investment could further reduce costs per ton to orbit. An [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|ECBTO]] system or mass driver launching two-and-a-half ton space ships might be helpful in this regard. Once we are building SBSP the effort to conserve electrical power will be replaced by encouragement to use more electrical power in whatever way people can profit by it. Cleaning up pollution sites, desalinating sea water and producing propane and oxygen from coal and water are all possibilities.

Sixth, we do not need it we have ITER.
:The latest cost estimate for ITER that I have found was $22 billion for operation in (perhaps) 2035.<ref name="nytime">[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/science/fusion-power-plant-iter-france.html "A Dream of Clean Energy at a Very High Price" @The New York Times]</ref>.<ref>[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle THE NEW YORKER]</ref> This is less than the trillion needed for space-based solar power by way of lunar development. However, ITER is only an experimental reactor. We are not assured that the commercial version will actually work. When Soviet physicists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov invented tokamaks in the 1950s, commercial fusion power was thought to be just a decade or two away. It has been two or three decades away ever since. If a commercial fusion reactor does produce electricity, it is likely to be more expensive per reactor than ITER and more expensive to operate than space-based solar power. The fusion power community should be put on notice that they should look sharp, because there is a competing project that will not only make them unnecessary but lead to massive emigration from the planet Earth besides. One deficiency in which ITER is not looking so sharp is breeding tritium. The deuterium tritium reaction uses up one tritium atom for every neutron produced. Not every neutron will enter into a tritium producing reaction with lithium. Neutrons will be absorbed by structural materials producing no tritium. Some neutrons will be thermalized before being absorbed by lithium 7, in which case they will produce two alpha particles and a beta particle but no tritium. A thermal neutron can react with lithium 6 to produce one tritium atom. A fast neutron can react with lithium 7 to produce one tritium atom and one thermal neutron. The task for fusion reactor builders is to get enough fast neutrons to react with lithium 7 and the resultant thermal neutron reacting with lithium 6 producing two net tritium atoms from one fast neutron to make up for lost neutrons and so produce as much tritium as is used up. This is one of those things that still needs to be demonstrated but seems unlikely.

Seventh, the plan for industrializing the moon makes use of robots and would put astronauts out of work.
:This is a political problem. There is work for people to do on the moon once a LRSTO system is available to transport them home again without wasting tons of hydrogen burning it as rocket fuel. It is the [[Doing Without Space Suits|work in space suits]] that can be dispensed with. The desire to preserve the self-esteem of a politically powerful group should not prevent economic progress for the human race. I understand that some people want to fearlessly risk their lives going where no one has gone before and conquering space. However, for the moon this is not needed. Astronauts on the moon assisting with the initial industrial set up would be like a ball and chain as a requirement on a 50 meter race. It will take some years to build the infrastructure necessary for people to do useful work on the moon. Some sort of [[Sewage|recycling toilet]] will be necessary, perhaps the Blue Diversion Toilet mentioned in the [[New_moon_base_concepts|main article]]. Recycling the water people use on the moon will be necessary, and radiation shielded pressure vessels in which to live. Until then the best thing that astronauts can do for establishing a human colony on the moon is to stay home and work on the engineering problems or work controlling the machines on the moon remotely. All profit making activities in space have been exclusively robotic. All astronaut involved activities in space have consumed taxpayers money. To make that quantitative, say about $7.5 million per astronaut per day on the ISS.<ref>[http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1579/1 The Space Review in association with SPACENEWS]</ref> Wherever astronauts have been involved, health and safety of the astronauts was job one. The second consideration was giving the astronauts something to occupy their time. If any time and money were left in the program, actually accomplishing something for the taxpayer could be considered. In circumstances such as found on the moon where survival is difficult in extreme and it is difficult for a human being to do anything useful, the NASA attitude toward human space flight is a burden that is hard to take. I am not a glad-hander that will lie to the astronauts telling them how wonderful they are. Astronauts, stay home! To make the future different the human space-flight program should be cancelled for a couple of decades. If you want some authoritative support for my opinion, consider that a research group at MIT admitted as fact that remotely controlled operations will always be cheaper than people working in person at a site like the moon.<ref>[http://web.mit.edu/mitsps/MITFutureofHumanSpaceflight.pdf page 7; Space, Policy, and Society Research Group; Massachusetts Institute of Technology]</ref> I contend that industrializing the moon will cause a condition in which people will be able to do economic work on the moon. The MIT group also suggested that doing the economically foolish stunt of having people do work in person on the moon as it is now would be valuable for the national prestige it would win. That research group also admitted that most Americans did not know the name of a current member of the astronaut corps. That does not seem to indicate that increased pride accrues in vast quantities from the ISS program. Why should we worry about the opinions of people who are impressed by such a waste of money. It is not only the money that will be lost. Forcing lunar industrialization to carry the burden of astronauts from the start seems likely to cause complete failure to ever arrive at any profit making condition. The very future of humanity is at stake. Do not let silly notions of national prestige interfere with doing the best that we can to survive. Politicians did not ask the MIT research group if human space-flight should continue, only what would be the best goal for human space-flight. Politicians did not ask me at all so I can say that robots working a couple decades in preparing infrastructure for human industry on the moon are necessary to achieve any worth while goal with people located on the moon working directly on that goal. The eight billion dollars a year spent on the current human space-flight program<ref name="hous">[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> is not only useless, it is counter-productive. This expenditure does not fulfill the MIT group's goal of increasing national pride. It is counter-productive because it perpetuates the idea that any profit-making activity involving people in space is impossible while adding to the national debt. Those in favor of using astronaut manual labor to build a base on the moon say of the robot competition that it must be proven that robots can accomplish building industry on the moon before we try anything so strange. That is bureaucratic inertia talking. Absolutely nothing new pleases a bureaucrat. The expense and inefficiency of direct human labor in outer space has already been proven. Robots do not need great life support facilities and can work in a space suit of simple design for days on end without using up expendables. They can be designed for the task. Men were sent to the moon before robots capable of repairing nuclear reactors were possible, so those in charge of the Apollo program did not have very capable robots to consider as an option. Progress has been made.<ref name="IAEA">[https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/27304740206.pdf IAEA BULLETIN, AUTUMN 1985: Nuclear power and electronics, page 6]</ref> We do not need to conform space development programs to the dreams of politicians and Hollywood screen writers. It is time to build something worth having on the moon with the most efficient methods available. That includes doing the work with robots instead of men in space suits. To prove appropriate capability for tasks in space, robots and men should be compared doing the task simulated on Earth and the least costly solution used.
:How close has NASA come to accepting the truth that men in space suits are not efficient agents for accomplishing any industrial task? They have admitted that the construction of a first moon base might possibly begin with robot labor.<ref>[https://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/robots-may-start-moon-base-construction/ Robots May Start Moon Base Construction]</ref> When there is a landing pad and robotic equipment to help people disembark a spacecraft it is not time to rejoice and say, "Now we have succeeded in our mission because there will be people on the moon. If astronauts do nothing worth more to the average taxpayer than pick their noses, we've still succeeded." No. There is still the building of the recycling life support system in a radiation shielded environment and placement of scientific equipment and machine tools to be used indoors. The decision on when people should arrive should be made based upon when their arrival will speed up the initial operation of efficient means of exporting material from the moon to build facilities in space. I expect a couple years worth of remote controlled construction at least, and perhaps a couple of decades. The time for people to just stare in awe to see people make footprints on the moon has past.

:The MIT Space, Policy, and Society Research Group (MSPSRG) wrote that the primary purposes of human space-flight were those that needed the presence of human beings while costing less than the benefits are worth. They failed to consider patiently delaying human space-flight until remote controlled machines on the moon could prepare a place to which it is worthwhile to go, so that human space-flight could actually fulfill a sensible purpose. They failed to consider the value of ceasing altogether the current program of launching astronauts. MSPSRG wrote that the ISS should be used to further the purposes of exploration, how? MSPSRG wrote that NASA should work on basic research to make future explorations possible, what research? They wrote that the U.S. should claim again that it is leading international human space-flight. If so, who is following? They ask why the government should be sending people to outer space? What good is obtained? Their analysis leads to the answer that no sensible good is obtained but I can only guess that in desperation to justify the current human space-flight appropriations they turned to national pride as a reason to justify human space-flight. MSPSRG proposes the question of whether there should be a different balance to the "equation" relating robotic to crewed missions of exploration. In answer to the MSPSRG, there is no equation relating what should be spent on robotic missions to outer space and crewed missions. Government expenditures should promote the common good in all cases. The most valuable missions should be funded without regard for whether they are crewed or robotic. When the task of putting people on Mars is reduced to a mere stunt engaged in so there can be a record of doing something very difficult, then it takes on the lowest value. As the SR-71 set a speed record on the 6th of March 1990 flying at an average speed of 2189 miles per hour from St. Louis to Cincinnati<ref>[https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/records.php Blackbird Records]</ref> only after the Blackbird's usefulness as a spy plane had expired and there was no longer any need to keep its top speed classified; a nation does not properly build a costly technological wonder to get recognition in a record book, but only as a second thought when setting a record does not interfere with the primary purpose of the project should recognition in record books be sought. That the MSPSRG suggested the absurdity of national pride as a primary purpose of human space-flight is a true embarrassment, but such an absurdity is given as the purpose of federal spending for human space-flight. This can be explained by noting that there is political support for the appropriations from people who receive these appropriations as their paychecks, from businesses which receive these appropriations as payments from their government customer, and from political districts that receive these appropriations as money spent by the federal government within their borders. These political supporters are desperate for some way to justify the appropriations without claiming that they would otherwise be indigent and incapable of earning any livelihood. So, national pride they take as their rationalization for dipping into the public purse without doing a lick of good for the average tax payer. One might say that people all over the world wanted to be associated with U.S. educational institutions and businesses because of the prestige associated with putting men on the moon and bringing them back alive. However, Mars is not the moon. Everyone who can see has seen the moon in the night sky. Most people have never knowingly looked upon Mars in the sky and would not recognize it unless it were carefully pointed out to them. Now Mars is about 593 times further from Earth than the moon on the average. The unfortunate situation for those who wish to justify a journey to Mars as an impressive stunt is that distance makes Mars seem much smaller and the average person does not care for numerical expressions of how difficult a stunt is. The journey to Mars would just be tediously boring if offered as constant updates on the news. As the Mars mission would drag on month after month, people would turn off that channel or not read that article. As for sending people to the moon, the typical reaction would be: "What? Again? Why?" If congress wants a civilian space program that it can justify properly by its achievements, they can work toward providing plentiful electrical power from the sun with equipment in space built out of lunar materials. This accomplishment would be exempt from the curse of excess carbon dioxide emissions. GPS and gathering global weather data from space are worthy accomplishments but going into space as a stunt will not do.
:The MSPSRG wrote that people cannot currently make a profit on outer-space resources. Gerard K. O'Neil proposed using robots to mine the moon to build space-based solar power stations in geostationary orbit to beam energy to Earth for a profit. The system proposed did not fully specify the method of capturing at L2 materials that were to be shot off the moon in one kilogram packets once per second, and so it failed, but variations upon that plan can succeed. An industrial infrastructure on the moon capable of maintaining an economical launch system to launch hundreds of tons of cargo per year in service of building SBSP satellites would take many years to establish but it is possible if established by remote controlled equipment without the overhead of maintaining life support for human beings from the start. This should have been considered as affecting human space-flight because it means that human space-flight could be valuable for economic exploitation of the moon if human space-flight is subjected to a hiatus of perhaps twenty years during which remote controlled equipment prepares an industrial base and life support systems. Human space-flight without this preparatory activity by remote controlled machines lacks any reasonable justification. The idea that the risk of human life cannot be justified by economic gain does not apply in this case because 1) preparation of life support facilities on the moon prior to people arriving greatly reduces the risk and 2) the economic gain to be achieved is on a scale like the gain achieved by the industrial revolution.

Eighth, the sale of rocket fuel will earn money, that is a benefit.
:To the people selling the rocket fuel that is a benefit. To the U. S. taxpayer who buys the fuel or pays the contractor who buys the fuel it is an expense. None of the uses of rocket fuel suggested in papers that McKay edited have any net benefit to the people of Earth. The same spend, spend, spend ideas with no suggested economic benefit, the same things McKay is reported saying in Popular Science, are also found on MarketWatch.<ref>[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/it-would-cost-only-10-billion-to-live-on-the-moon-2016-03-17 MarketWatch]</ref> The justification is that the cost is only $10 billion to set-up a manned base. I have heard of under-estimating the cost of a program to sell it to the government, but even $10 billion is too much if there is no eventual benefit to planet Earth. People could conceivably redesign geostationary satellites for station keeping rockets to use lunar hydrogen and oxygen or they might be redesigned to use oxygen in an electro-thermal thruster. However this small benefit will not justify the expense of a manned base on the moon and a rocket transfer system to lift the fuel from the moon and distribute it to Earth orbiting satellites. NASA's main task has been spending government money and the contractors it hires help in this task. Building industrial infrastructure on the moon and using it to build space-based power stations would require reforming NASA. Difficult but conceivable.

:Another reason to not mine water on the moon and use it to produce rocket propellant for sale is that the process degrades the moon. What is mined today and converted into tailings heaps cannot be mined tomorrow for the same purpose, but the tailings heaps might be useful for other things. Commentary out of Barcelona, Spain refers to the desirability of maintaining the pristinity of the lunar environment.<ref>[https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/1562.pdf CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS FOR PLANETARY OUTPOSTS: A REVIEW]</ref> This should have some limited applicability. A global modification of the Martian planetary surface, such as terraforming, would in this view be undesirable because the original planetary surface would no longer be available for research into planetary origins. Such global modifications are not considered for the moon but using up most of a limited resource would also have global consequences on the moon. Mining non-renewable rocket propellant should be considered as a temporary measure on the moon until a system for launching commercial products without using up limited resources is put in place. Most of the alterations considered for the lunar surface would not be visible from Earth even with a telescope and ought to be considered acceptable on the grounds of pristinity because there are over 14 million square miles (37 million square kilometers) of lunar surface suitably pristine for research. It is not like the case of some rare caves on earth that are among the few caves in a condition unaltered by human visits. National parks preserve some caves on Earth and perhaps a few square miles or a few hundred square miles of lunar surface merit preservation in an unaltered condition. Such preservation would be only temporary. In about 5 billion years the sun will become a red giant and incinerate both the Earth and its moon if they are left in position, but in only 1 or 2 billion years the increased luminosity of the sun would render Earth uninhabitabel in its present location.<ref>[https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/09/03/ask-ethan-when-will-the-sun-make-earth-uninhabitable/#808e7a0107c6 Ask Ethan @forbes.com]</ref><ref>[http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/11/heres-how-long-we-have-before-earth-is-uninhabitable/ SCIGUY]</ref> Also, as a practical matter, people would not want to preserve much of the moon's surface in its original condition. It is mostly black as charcoal nasty powdery stuff made of many tiny pieces as sharp as broken bits of glass. It is much better to process it into something useful. To vacate Earth's present location in orbit and take the planet with us we should mine the Earth and moon to remove 16 or 17 billion metric tons per day from the Earth/moon system for the next billion years to mine Earth down to its core in the time we have left. We can use the materials to produce habitats out by the current orbit of Uranus. Not only could we save the Earth from destruction, but we could learn what the core of the Earth is made of in detail and be colonizing an area of the solar system where there are substantial resources available such as carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. Harrison Schmitt, astronaut, collaborated with a paper suggesting that helium-3 mined from the moon could serve as part of humanity's future energy resources through a helium-3, deuterium fusion reaction.<ref>[http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/pdf/fdm817.pdf Mining Helium-3 from the Moon, G.L. Kulcinski et al]</ref> The team seemed to take a piker's position. If people can master the He-3/D fusion reaction, why not the CNO (carbon-nitrogen-oxygen) fusion reaction and burn plain hydrogen mined from Jupiter. Being able to produce large structures to contain fusion reactors in free-fall in outer space is something that might reasonably be expected if humanity goes the route of industrializing the moon and living in space habitats as I have suggested. If people can eventually fuse deuterium and tritium producing electrical power, the ability to fuse hydrogen in a controlled fashion in the CNO fusion reaction used by stars is not an exorbitant expectation. Having such energy resources available along with solar radiation could make it reasonable to mine the many trillion tons of stuff making up the Earth and moving them to where they could be used. As far as keeping the moon pristine is concerned, as the Earth's position becomes uninhabitable in a billion years, that will not be an option. The team, that Harrison Schmitt was part of, thought that the possibility existed that we could solve both our environmental and long range energy problems by extracting He-3 from the moon and using it to produce energy on Earth. Practical problems have caused delay in that scheme. ITER's latest delays leave proponents suggesting first plasma for ITER by 2025, one year later than predicted a year ago.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/06/iter-nuclear-fusion-project-reaches-key-halfway-milestone Iter nuclear fusion project reaches key halfway milestone]</ref> A so-called burning plasma, which contains a fraction of an ounce of fusible fuel in the form of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, and which plasma can be sustained for perhaps six or seven minutes and release large amounts of energy; would not be achieved until 2035 at the earliest.<ref name="nytime"/> If all goes well up to 2035, the success of ITER would allow the design of a reactor of unknown cost for actually using the heat produced by fusion to produce electricity at some future unknown date. Space-based solar power from lunar materials just might be ready sooner. To put all of this in perspective, the fusion research to produce electrical power from fusing deuterium and helium-3 is likely to succeed if it receives continued funding, but it will take longer than fifty years. Space-based solar power from lunar materials is a better near term bet. Terraforming Mars, if successful, will take millennia, and after a billion or so years Mars would be uninhabitable anyway because of the increasing solar luminosity. Mining the moon and Earth as I suggest would take care of habitats in space for humanity in a hundred years and would move Earth out of the way of the sun's red giant catastrophe also when that comes. The process of mining the Earth itself to move it away from the sun would not need to commence for a million years or so. People could start off just mining the moon and Mars.
:Getting back to CNO fusion and why people might achieve it if we move into space habitats, NASA researchers explain: "Many individual gamma-ray lines from a wide variety of different elements in the solar atmosphere have been detected. They result from the decay of such relatively abundant elements as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. that are excited to high energy states in the various nuclear interactions". <ref>[https://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/hessi/flares.htm Overview of Solar Flares @NASA]</ref> They are writing about the nuclear reactions that occur in solar flares. That is a low pressure region of the sun. Evidence of fusion has been detected in flares on M class dwarfs a number of light-years away also. It seems that this phenomenon of stellar fusion results from a magnetic wave moving outward from the dense convective regions of a star. Magnetic waves can be compared to other kinds of waves. When the ocean bottom slopes upward to an island beach, ocean waves which reach to the bottom of the ocean and disturb the open ocean surface only six inches are compressed into waves many feet high that crash onto the beach as breakers. Before breaking these waves can give rides to people on surf boards. A wave travels down a bull whip to transfer hand motion into a moving loop that reaches a speed equal to the speed of sound. When and if people master a technology to control magnetic waves in plasma we might be able cause controlled fusion in the plasma as there is uncontrolled fusion detected in stellar flares now. It would be high tech mastering of wave phenomena compared to low tech wave phenomena that our ancestors mastered millennia ago. Although most of the energy dissipated by stellar flares is produced in the core of a star, some fusion occurs in the flare and is a process that occurs at a low enough pressure that people might be able to copy the conditions.

Ninth, we have been educating children and encouraging them to think of becoming astronauts. It is their dream. We need a human space-flight program. It honors astronauts who have died for human space-flight.
:Children have dreamt of going to the moon or Mars since before people could fly airplanes. They should learn that personally dressing in a space suit and riding a rocket to orbit does not, in the current technological circumstances, help mankind establish colonies off of the Earth. The lessons learned by the human space-flight program are that living in weightlessness is unhealthy and there is no foreseeable benefit that can be achieved through working in a space station limited to the current space station technology. It does not honor those who have died in the process of learning lessons to ignore the lessons so learned. Instead of spending eight billion dollars a year ($8 billion per annum), show reruns of "Captain 11:30 and the Blazing Rocket Cadets" from channel 1½. Less money would be spent more effectively and with more honesty. Does anyone really aspire to a career of pretending to be a hero while milking the federal budget for billions of dollars a year and conning the unsophisticated taxpayers into thinking that the program is doing something significant to advance the position of humanity in space?
Tenth, there has been increased length of telomeres in astronauts who have been in orbit. Perhaps studying this in the space station will lead to increasing the human life span.
:Those about to fall down a slope will grasp at straws. There might be something learned about increased telomere length in weightlessness at sometime in the future but the slim chance of increasing human lifespan does not justify $8 billion per year spent on a human space-flight program.<ref name="hous"/> This research can wait until human occupied space stations become cheaper with industrialized cis-lunar space.

Eleventh, Mars just has more and better resources for a colony than the moon has. If the moon can provide some rocket fuel, that is all it is good for. We should use the rocket fuel and colonize Mars.
:The discussion so far has been about what the moon is good for besides rocket fuel. In particular it is good for establishing a colony on Mars. Some Mars colony enthusiasts propose only a way for people to get to Mars and return, completely ignoring the difficulty of establishing the industry necessary for a colony on Mars. Some seem to think that the establishment of a colony is so easy it is beneath their dignity to consider the details. If they had transportation to Mars, that would be soon enough to think about how to build a colony. So they concentrate on getting the rocket fuel in orbit as cheaply as possible. However, Mars is deadly-in-seconds to someone outside without a space suit and a space suit is very difficult to do any work in. The Apollo astronauts did little work while on the moon simply because a space suit is hard to work in. When an astronaut fell down, it was difficult to stand up again. An auger was used to try to sample the moon a ways below the surface. The auger got stuck. Remote controlled equipment will be needed for industrializing Mars as much as it will be needed on the moon. The difference is that people will need to be either on Mars or in orbit about Mars to operate remote controlled equipment there. To show how slow it is to operate remote controlled equipment on Mars from Earth, consider that Mars rover, Opportunity, covered about 44 kilometers in 13 years.<ref>[https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/ Jet Propulsion Laboratory]</ref> That works out to an average speed of 39 centimeters per hour, 15 inches per hour. That includes considerable standing still while looking at or scraping stuff and making side trips rather than a straight path, but it does give some idea of the slowness of remote control on Mars. Equipment for industrializing Mars includes: earth moving equipment; liquids handling equipment; equipment to use plastic or metal sheets to build pressurized vessels for factories and habitation; mining equipment; equipment to sort the pay dirt from the tailings; pressurized factories to take in the dirty ice through an air lock, melt it, and put out the tailings at another air lock; pressurized factories to produce iron and shape it into stock. There are many items of equipment that I could name. An industrialized moon could make equipment and launch it into lunar orbit while recycling the hydrogen. An industrialized moon could provide material to build a shielded livable space habitat as a space ship for traveling to Mars with a massive load of equipment. People have said such a large space ship is not needed, but they must under estimate the task of colonization by extremes. If the real goal is colonizing Mars an industrialized moon can help it succeed. Just claiming that colonizing Mars is easy will not get the job done.
:The November 2016 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, MARS supplement to their magazine claimed that because sunlight on the surface of Mars was interrupted at times by things like night and near global dust storms, a different source of power such as nuclear power would be needed to provide 24/7 power no matter what the weather. Solar power can still work on Mars. An industrialized moon that can provide SBSP for Earth and space habitats as colonizing space ships could also provide an SBSP for Mars. It would use a large mirror to concentrate the sunlight to Earth normal strength. The height of a SBSP satellite above the surface of Mars at the position of the rectenna would be less than the corresponding distance for SBSP on Earth, so there would be even less beam spread than on Earth. SBSP from lunar materials is beneficial for Earth, it is much more beneficial for a new colony on Mars. Solar sails could take a space habitat to Mars. Long trip time would not be a problem because the colony ship would be a complete colony in itself with radiation shielding, artificial gravity and recycling life support. Reusable rockets that are a further development of the reusable rockets Elon Musk developed for Earth would provide transport between Mars surface and space habitat. The reusability of rockets on Mars should be easier than on Earth because low altitude circular orbit velocity on Mars is only 45% of the low altitude circular orbit velocity on Earth. So reusable rockets made on Earth should be ferrying export cargo to orbit from Mars surface from the start of colonization. Exports would include hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, chlorine and argon; all of which will be needed by industry on Luna and in cis-lunar space. Mars will be able to supply these things more cheaply than Earth because the lower cost of achieving orbit will outweigh the longer distance to transport these items from Mars to cis-lunar space.
:It is conceivable that the advances in rocketry suggested by Elon Musk will allow the transport of enough equipment to establish the industry necessary for a colony on Mars directly from Earth, but it seems to be a task that calls for miracles. The moon is closer to Earth, transporting machinery there from Earth is easier, industry can start out on the moon without the overhead of supporting people there to run the machines because the machines can be controlled from Earth, and there is a market for lunar exports to pay for the industrialization. That is why industrializing the moon should come before industrializing Mars.
: Mars has the resources for building its own space-based solar power but getting and industrialized Mars going would be much easier if the original colonizing effort included a space habitat with recycling life support, a large supply of industrial equipment and an orbiting space-based solar power unit. All of these could be manufactured in cis-lunar space and shipped to Mars with the crew using the recycling life support on the way to Mars.

Twelfth, there is a paper in the group in New Space on economic use of the moon. It describes a self-replicating industry on the moon that produces a mass driver and the components of space-based solar power stations to be assembled in Earth synchronous orbit.
:Yes, and Chris McKay does not talk about this paper in interviews. Matt Williams in a ''Universe Today'' article wrote about this paper that claims a self-replicating factory on the moon could build solar power satellite components from lunar material and launch them to geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) with a mass driver.<ref>[https://www.universetoday.com/128011/moonbase-2022-10-billion-says-nasa/ Universe Today]</ref> The paper states that if the system that self replicates and produces the mass driver and space solar power components is produced, great benefits would result. The paper contains specifications not of how to build the self replicating system (SRS) but of what capabilities an SRS would need to work as the author envisions it. It is not a bad paper. There are helpful bits of information in it but it is not a proposal for a near term project on the moon. It is more like the advance in technology that might make the project I propose obsolete if it is perfected. I will mention one thing the author missed. Components launched from the moon to Earth synchronous orbit do not need massive engines on the construction base to which they are sent to maintain orbital momentum. The launches can be a mix of direct launch to GEO from the moon, which would need to loose momentum to circularize, and to GEO from the moon by way of atmospheric braking at Earth. From perigee, braking at Earth's atmosphere, the apogee should be at GEO and more momentum would be needed to circularize. If the unspecified technology of the cone-shaped catcher catches the right mix of arrivals from braking at Earth's atmosphere and from direct to GEO launch, then the needed transfers of momentum to circularize orbit at GEO will cancel each other out. Find the paper here.<ref>[http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/space.2015.0041 Lunar-Based Self-Replicating Solar Factory]</ref> The author keeps the idea simple by specifying capabilities in simple general terms. He presents a method of recurring procedures as mathematical evidence that the SRS is possible to build. He fails to say how a harvester will tell the difference between a rock and a manufactured component without human direction. I am sure that this is possible but there would be many details, each requiring attention by a programmer and experience in doing the different necessary tasks in the lunar environment.

:The length of a mass driver track or LRSTO track depends upon the mission delta V and the limit of acceleration to which cargo and/or passengers will be subjected. While it was not explicitly stated in the SRS paper, either sort of track would need thermal control or sufficient thermal expansion joints to operate reliably. The LRSTO would have an awning stretched out to shade that portion of the track outside of the pressure vessel. A set of pillars on one side would hold the awning. The second stage carrying cargo or passengers would be discharged on the opposite side. Thermostatically controlled electric heaters would maintain the track at a uniform low temperature to maintain the highly precise position of the track.

:As for a catcher at geosynchronous Earth orbit, the first transfers to GEO would need to be done with a sort of space tug, perhaps a VASIMR built to use oxygen as reaction mass. Then, dispensing with the cone-shaped catcher, a mass driver could be built at GEO to accelerate a catcher car along a track to match velocity with incoming cargo. The catcher would use a crane-like arm to deploy a loop to snag a hook on the incoming cargo ship and decelerate with eddy-current braking. The incoming cargo ship for its part would need to match the position of its incoming orbit to the track of the catcher car within the range that the catcher can reach. This would require some careful orbital maneuvering from a considerable distance.

:The abstract of the SRS paper states that "only the initial R&D costs would be of any consequence", of course those R&D costs could be considerable since learning how to build SBSP components on the moon by SRS includes learning how to build them on the moon by conventional means. In other words, after SBSP systems have been built by conventional remote controlled factories on the moon, assembled at GEO, and started selling power on Earth; people might learn how to do the same thing with SRS. There is no special quality of the lunar surface that makes SRS there easier than on Earth. There is no more likelihood that SRS on the moon will make conventional manufacturing obsolete than that SRS on Earth will make conventional manufacturing obsolete.

Thirteenth, the boards of power companies could see the space-based solar power as possibly lowering the rate paid for kilowatt-hours and decide to politically sabotage the competition.

:Lets hope they are better than that. After all, they are likely to be retired before the first SBSP satellite comes on line. They should follow the progress of lunar industrialization and after it seems safe enough based on all considerations, including the political, they should buy into SBSP and be part of the future.

Fourteenth, if it takes more than 30 years it won't happen because the U. S. dollar will collapse before then.
:The long development time is a definite problem but fusion power has been soaking up government funds for more than fifty years. Space-based solar power by way of lunar industrialization is a more worthy competitor. Let us hope it succeeds. Even without any spending for space development the U. S. economy is headed for collapse in considerably less than thirty years. To prepare for investing in space to secure the economic future of mankind, the U. S. must be prepared to invest over the long term (thirty years is a long term). First it must balance its federal budget and make some small annual payments in reducing the federal debt. This will likely cause some short term contraction of the U. S. economy but if people are sold on the need for investment they could take pride in what is being done and bear difficulty, inconvenience, or hardship. There is potential for the U. S. economy to grow and the expansion of industry in cis-lunar space allows great growth once the return on investment kicks in. As an alternative, other nations can industrialize the moon. If I knew enough about the economy to predict a date for the collapse of the dollar, I would be an unknown genius in the background, controlling the world economy through a number of privately held corporations, and finance SBSP myself. There is too much competition for such a career position so people settle for sharing control with a few other genii, only having incomplete control of a limited number of things. A thing we can be certain of is that borrowing money by the U. S. federal government as a significant fraction of its budget will change to an insignificant fraction of the federal budget or less at some time (there could be some repayment). Eliminating the deficit would tend to cause a temporary contraction of the U. S. economy and the circumstances of eliminating the deficit (such as harsh political battles) could cause worse. However, a plan to industrialize the moon could survive even an economic breakdown with a 70% reduction of highway traffic. People should push ahead with industrialization of the moon and hope for the best or hope that at least our efforts survive the worst.

Fifteenth, a repair robot has not been achieved in ANY industry on Earth, so robotic industry on the moon without humans to do repair work is impossible.

:This is simply a false statement. Usually robots are not used for repair on Earth because equipment needing repair can be moved to a handy repair facility where humans work easily. However, in the nuclear industry there has been need for repair where people could not easily go because of radiation. Robots capable of bolting and welding in nuclear power plants have been possible for quite a while.<ref name="IAEA"/> Robots have been used for decontamination and inspection.<ref>[https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/27304740206.pdf IAEA BULLETIN, AUTUMN 1985: Nuclear power and electronics, page 5]</ref> This can be done on Earth where there is need for repair where people cannot easily be supported. Whatever needs to be done as a repair on the moon could be done with robots to avoid the multimillion dollar per day cost of supporting a repairman on the moon with supplies directly from Earth. When there is sufficient industrial development, we know how to produce the recycling life support systems which will make the support of some people on the moon economical. The objection of robots supposedly not being able to handle repair is sometimes limited to the repair of robots. The repair of robots is not something different in kind from repairing nuclear reactors. There are simply more and smaller repair activities packed into a smaller space. Certainly it would be easier for a human to do repairs by hand on the spot if being on the spot could be easily arranged. To avoid ten million dollars a day for a repairman, many inconveniences can be accepted.

Sixteenth, space-based solar power stations would be a constellation of bright new stars that would spoil the night sky for professional and amateur astronomy.

:This could be avoided by construction methods intended to avoid brightening the night sky. A fifty mile power cable could separate the solar power collection section from the microwave generating section of the space-based solar power station which would hang that much closer to Earth. The microwave generating section could be shaded by a mirror finished disk of aluminum (or other metal) foil, blackened on the side facing the microwave generating section. The reflected sunlight would be directed away from Earth. At a position half way from the solar power collection section to the microwave generating section a mirror finished foil disk could reflect the view of empty space and stars toward Earth blocking the view of the solar power collection section. By these methods interference with Earth based astronomy could be minimized. The mirror shading the microwave beam generator would not be merely a means of keeping the sky dark for astronomers. Preventing the beam generator from moving from sunlight into shadow and from shadow into sun would be necessary to maintain dimensional tolerances that would assure proper focus of the beam. The industrial capabilities on the moon would be a great boon to space-based astronomy with the construction of professional quality instruments advancing the state of the art in astronomy before the space-based solar power stations are even constructed. Space-based telescopes will be made before SBSP satellites because they are an easier project to get industry started on, but they will not provide enough value to justify lunar industrialization on their own. Thousands of cheaper space-based telescopes would become available for students and for rental by serious amateurs. We should go with the future. Things can be better if we make them so.

Seventeenth, we need to defend Earth against asteroids that are sure to hit<ref>[https://qz.com/963039/nasas-plan-for-when-the-next-asteroid-strikes-earth/ QUARTZ: NASA’s plan for when the next asteroid strikes Earth]</ref> instead of wasting money for industry on the moon.
:I am glad that you brought up the point. Space-based telescopes will be produced by cis-lunar industry fed by lunar resources. Those telescopes will be able to take up position in the most advantageous locations, such as (perhaps) at 0.72 au from the sun in the plane of the ecliptic. A few telescopes spaced around that orbit could find asteroids that mostly appear in the daytime sky as seen from Earth and therefore often go unobserved. If sending a rocket to an asteroid to deflect it from collision with Earth would help, cis-lunar industry could provide such a rocket. Whatever the strategy, cis-lunar industry would provide more robust options for deflecting incoming asteroids than industry located on Earth.

Eighteenth, machines on the moon to build things will contribute to the subjugation of humanity by machines.
:The Terminator movies were meant to scare children for their amusement, not serve as advice for technological development. Let us consider real dangers from AI. Dimi Apostolopoulos of Carnegie Mellon worked on robots for NASA in the 1990s. When NASA cut budgets for robotics he took up a position building robots for the U.S. Marine Corps for the war in Iraq. He designed a reconnaissance robot but his team added weapons because the Marines wanted fighting robots. The fighting robots were never deployed because of problems with distinguishing friend from foe, recognizing an enemy's attempt to surrender, and identifying noncombatants.<ref>Beyond Earth by Charles Wohlforth and Amanda Hendrix (c) 2016, published by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. pp 124-130</ref> Clearly there are some dangers with artificial intelligence but the military uses are likely to be under a human chain of command. Military artificial intelligence is likely to be no more dangerous than land mines and bombing of enemy resources. Stopping lunar industrialization will only reduce the likelihood of people being able to flee from war into space. It will not prevent military use of AI. Nick Bostrom claims that some level of artificial intelligence could be dangerous to the human race. Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates have also suggested dangers in artificial intelligence.<ref>[http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-and-elon-musk-have-overhyped-ai-risks-2016-1 Business Insider]</ref> The threat that Hawking, Musk, and Gates have warned of seems more to do with giving a computer program control over the purchase of supplies, hiring employees, acquiring buildings, producing products, and selling them. First of all, current AI does not have sufficient knowledge of what supplies, employees, buildings, and products are to deal with them independently according to some rules to maximize profits. AI merely assists executives in mining data and seeing relevant economic data displayed in an orderly fashion for making decisions. There will be some warning before AI ends up telling all of us where to work and when to die. In any case, stopping lunar industrialization will not stop the development of AI. Remote controlled lunar industrialization will be under the control of operators on the Earth. We do not know how to make the machines on the moon independent of human control at this time. There is no more danger of AI getting the upper hand on the moon than on Earth. The legal status of AI agents is crystal clear. They are property, not persons. If an AI agent causes harm, it is the manufacturer, the programmer, and the purchaser who are held liable. I have seen no evidence of an AI agent filing a petition to be recognized as a legal person or having any desire to do so.

:Mike Wall, Senior Writer for Space.com wrote about the relationship humans would have with robots at a suggested future lunar base, calling the relationship "cooperative".<ref>[https://www.space.com/10634-moon-base-lunar-outpost-technology.html SPACE.COM; Back to the Moon: How New Lunar Bases Will Work]</ref> However, a human being usually does not cooperate with a robot any more than one would cooperate with a screw. People use screws and people use robots. One might call a screw uncooperative if it drifts as one tries to drive it into a piece of wood, tapping into the wood at a spot slightly removed from the desired location. The screw is just being a screw. It would help more to drill a lead hole than to call a screw uncooperative. If two people would compete in digging trenches on the moon, one with a robotic excavator and the other wearing a space suit and using a shovel, it would be easy to see that the space suit is not the right tool for the job. This competition could be simulated on earth with the person using a space suit having it inflated to 1.3 atmospheres pressure. That extra third of an atmosphere would cause the space suit to puff out to a particular inflated shape like a balloon, just as happens with space suits on the moon. The requirement to move the suit out of this shape to do useful work makes working in a space suit very difficult. I can almost hear the complaints: "We never suggested a man in a space suit should dig trenches with a shovel." OK, name the task. Let there be a contest between a robotic machine and a man in a space suit doing anything productive. Let us see what these space-suits are really good for. Remotely controlled equipment is more efficient for boring holes holes in the moons surface to sample at depth and to emplace sensors at depth; more efficient in moving equipment around on the moon; and more efficient in recognizing stuff on the surface that is likely to be worthy of further study because the remotely controlled equipment uses cameras at multiple wavelengths, lasers, electron guns and radar. Just what does anyone suggest that a man in a space-suit could do more efficiently than remote controlled equipment? The outdoor environment on the moon is lethal in seconds. That is the reason for using remotely controlled machines to do work on the moon rather than walking out on the surface of the moon. Artists love to draw astronauts in space suits walking happily all over a moon base but it is a deceptive image. There is nothing useful to be done in a space suit on the moon. People on the moon should be in a vehicle or in a building. A space suit is the smallest, most limiting, and worst vehicle a person could use to move through a vacuum.
:Writers and illustrators should try to give an accurate picture of what a future moon base will be like instead of giving descriptions suitable for science fiction. I believe people cooperating with robots and people walking all over the moon in space suits are misleading descriptions. A moon base will not look like that unless it is designed by Hollywood screen writers and technologically ignorant politicians. A space suit is limiting not only because it restricts the motions of arms and legs, it also prevents a wearer from bending at the waist. A man said something like he could do in twenty minutes every thing a Mars rover did in 18 months. I would like to see him wearing a space suit with actual one third atmosphere pressure difference between inside and outside and try to do field geology in an Earth based simulation. I would like to be there laughing at him, not because I bear ill will for anyone but because I think it would do him some good to help him learn the sort of limitations that people on Mars would face. I am not opposed to people on Mars, but when they are there they will do outdoor work by remote control. People available on Mars to do remote control will speed up the tasks that robots do there immensely. There will be no more waiting an hour between one command and the next.
:There is a hard suit made that is a possible substitute for the current space suit. The hard suit does not require effort by the wearer to maintain any particular shape, but this suit has not yet been fully developed for moon use. It requires a special method to escape from a number of lock positions for which efforts of moving limbs will not change the shape of one or another joint.
:A space suit was reported as costing $2 million (two million dollars) in 1994.<ref>[https://history.nasa.gov/spacesuits.pdf Space Suit Evolution From Custom Tailored To Off-The-Rack]</ref> That is plenty expensive, but the big reason for not having space suits in a colony on the moon or on Mars is that these troublesome devices would require a completely different technology from other things used so they could be built locally rather than imported from Earth. A colony cannot get along without outdoor robots but it can get along without space suits.
:A robot that one could cooperate with would be a self driving car on a city street, sharing the street according to traffic rules. If the way the robot car drives is not satisfactory, one takes up the issue with the owner and the programmer of the robot. So, let us have no more fears of robots subjugating people.

Nineteenth, if the ISS is crashed into the pacific we will lose all the billions of dollars that were spent on it. Further, loss of the ISS will end the astronaut program because there will be no place to which astronauts can travel. Then when the life support you refer to on the moon is complete a new group of astronauts will need to be trained restarting the program at great expense.
:The billions spent on the ISS are already lost. There is no way to recover them. The ISS will never make a profit. Spending more on it by operating it longer will only increase the loss. There is some possible scrap value in the solar cells and wiring attached to the ISS. The possible value depends upon some plan for a remotely controlled device in orbit that can contribute to actual profit-making activity being able to make use of salvaged solar panels from the ISS. One might say, "Well, the ISS was never intended to make a profit." However the promoters of the ISS at first claimed that experiments done there would show how profit could be made in space industries. They were just wrong and keeping the ISS will still fail to recover any benefit commensurate with what is spent on it. The way to get reasonable return on space development is to leave those expensive nuisances called astronauts on Earth and send robots where robots belong to eventually produce life supporting infrastructure on the moon so humans can follow. Basic industrial infrastructure should come first. Life support is easier to build when there is some local industrial infrastructure. When people finally do return to the moon, they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

:As far as losing the current astronaut program is concerned, nothing of value will be lost. At termination of the astronaut program, participants will write up their experiences, program procedures and lessons learned. The new batch of people sent to the moon will not be trained as test pilots, because that is not needed and would be a waste. What will be needed on the moon will be engineers; lab technicians and other technicians; machinists; remote control equipment operators and people trained in activating the redundant features of life support to possibly survive an accident. People can be capable of fulfilling more than one position. There will be techniques to learn that are specific to the industrialized moon. The training of the current group of astronauts will not be sufficient.

Twentieth, isn't this SBSP idea the same thing that people keep hyping as a high tech money-maker launching ultra light-weight carbon nanotube stuff into orbit to harvest free sunlight but with the profits always removed to some time after the investors money is taken.

:There was never a profit-making industrial idea that was so good that con artists could not alter it to make it sound even better in promising impossible results to investors. Now, I would not want to claim that any specific company deliberately defrauded investors, took their money, paid company officers and high-priced engineers until they could not get a bank loan. Then the officers and engineers kept their wages claimed that they had done their honest best and ceased operations. I would not want to be sued for libel. The project I am suggesting requires considerable development but the basic science is known. There is no requirement for carbon nanotubes. The federal government that I suggest should provide financing has engineers who can recognize technical impossibilities and I would not be receiving money as this project is developed in any case.

:Someone said to me that they would keep their money rather than invest in outer space enterprises. I wondered why I would get such a statement since I did not suggest that anyone other than governments invest in outer space enterprises immediately. Only after a lengthy period of government financed development and testing would it be time for institutional investors to join in. I looked on the internet and quickly found that a spokesman of a respected investment firm suggested that the first trillionaire would make money mining asteroids, that people who create the technology for mining asteroids will get rewards such as no one has seen.<ref>[http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/goldman-predicts-the-worlds-first-trillionaire-will-mine-asteroids/news-story/9f71301dd36846bfcdabdf846c1ba9ab news.com.au]</ref> Well, nonexistent rewards cannot be seen. An investment firm spokesman said that mining in space will not soon deliver commercial returns.<ref>[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06/goldman-sachs-tells-investors-to-consider-new-space-age.html CNBC]</ref> Investment firms will take people's money and help them invest even if the investor insists on a very foolish plan. The investment firm will get it's percentage even if the investor loses his shirt. Some asteroids go around the sun orbiting in 3 years with 1.5 year repeating windows to transfer cargo to Earth. Some asteroids orbit the sun in 6 years with 1.2 year repeating windows to transfer cargo. If a close approaching asteroid were to be captured so transfer of cargo could be done at any time, I expect I would have heard about it. I have heard no such thing so asteroid capture is not imminent. Asteroids need to be prospected before they are mined. I have heard of no such thing so mining asteroids is not imminent. Remote control of mining asteroids from Earth would be very slow for the same reasons that robot activity on Mars is now slow, only more so. All this means that profits from mining asteroids are unlikely in the short term. Mining infrastructure on the moon, especially the means of shipping cargo to orbit, will take decades to develop. If someone wants to take your money to develop asteroid mining technology, do not hold your breath waiting for the return on investment. It could be a long, long, time. The company could go broke and the company officers become hard to find. Projects that return profit only after thirty to fifty years are not financial investments. They are efforts to build the future that governments but not private investors can make. Governments ought to be wary of such efforts but they can hire the expert wariness that they need.

Twenty-first, SBSP will ruin all of our investments in oil wells and coal mines.
:Oil wells and coal mines will still be needed. Plants keep soaking up carbon dioxide. People have just been dumping more carbon dioxide into the air than plants can handle. Some oil and coal burning will still be needed to maintain the carbon dioxide level at 0.04%, 0.036% or whatever level people decide is best. We might need to incinerate leaves and old paper to recycle enough carbon into carbon dioxide in the air to keep plants happy with the high carbon dioxide level which plants react to as a fertilizer. SBSP will replace fossil fuel as a basic source of electricity, but not as a means of getting necessary carbon dioxide into the air. When electricity becomes cheap enough we might use an energy subsidized process to clean up old land-fills. Mercury, lead and cadmium could all be recovered from dumps and stored as useful commodities. Carbon dioxide could be dumped into the air as needed or stored as carbon while releasing the oxygen. Abundant energy would make cleaning up the planet easier. Don't think that increased carbon dioxide in the air has been all bad. The Earth has been getting greener. Twenty-five to fifty percent of land which is covered by vegetation has gotten greener in the last 35 years. Benefits to plants have occurred at the same time as detrimental changes in climate.<ref>[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth NASA: Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds]</ref><ref>[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-study-rising-carbon-dioxide-levels-will-help-and-hurt-crops NASA: Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Will Help and Hurt Crops]</ref> People might be able to live with a carbon dioxide level as high as 0.05% (five hundredths of a percent). We do not know what harmful effects that level of CO2 will cause because we have not done that experiment yet. We are still working on it. The only reason that carbon dioxide concentrations dropped to less than 300 parts per million (0.03%) in the Oligocene is that green plants were scraping the bottom of the barrel getting every last bit of CO2 they could while dealing with CO2 starvation. There are two kinds of people who claim that human emissions of CO2 need to drop to zero to reduce the atmospheric level of CO2 to less than 400 parts per million. Those kinds are the ignorant and the untruthful.

Twenty-second, there is an area of technical development that has not demonstrated the capability needed for launching to orbit from the moon with a rocket sled. While a rocket sled has gone 2868 meters per second which is in excess of lunar escape velocity, the fastest a maglev rocket sled has gone is only 283 meters per second.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160531114432/http://www.holloman.af.mil/ArticleDisplay/tabid/6274/Article/721428/633-mph-nothing-to-mach.aspx HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE]</ref> It is not known when a sliding support system to hold the sled at a fixed distance from the rails will be developed that is suitable for use on the moon and can perform at speeds over 1600 meters per second as would be needed for an economic launch system. It is ill-advised to enter into a program spending billions on a robotic base that is dependent on a maglev rocket-sled launching system when maglev rocket-sleds have only demonstrated about 18% of the minimum required velocity.
:The lack of a demonstration that maglev technology can be used with rocket-sled speeds in excess of 1600 meters per second is a serious lack with respect to using such technology in a plan for a profitable moon base. Rocket-sled tests have shown that a rocket sled can achieve a speed of 2868 meters per second.<ref>[http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/139307/test-sets-world-land-speed-record/ U.S. AIR FORCE]</ref> Thus we know that rails can be made straight and smooth enough for rocket-sleds supported by those rails to move at 2868 meters per second without being shaken apart by vibrations caused by variations from straightness and smoothness in the rails. That a maglev rocket-sled only achieved 283 meters per second indicates that some other factor is at work. The rails of the Holloman high speed test track (HHSTT) that were used with the Mach 8.5 record setting run are continuously welded heavy-duty crane rails.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090202185338/http://www.holloman.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=6130 Holloman Air Force Base]</ref> Their straightness, smoothness and strength are likely adequate for Mach 8 rocket-sled tests but maglev technology also depends upon the magnetic property of the rails at some depth past the surface of the rails. The magnetic properties of each rail length are not necessarily homogenous from end to end and welding to connect one rail to the next could possibly affect the magnetic properties of the rail at the position of the weld. The 846th Test Squadron quite possibly used different rails to test their maglev sled. I do not know the purposes of the tests at the HHSTT but to test for the suitability of maglev rocket-sled technology for use on the moon it would be better to have a twenty mile long vacuum chamber in which to build the track so that tests could be conducted without the interference of aerodynamic forces on the sled as would be the case on the moon and rails in which the magnetic character is homogenous from end to end. So there should be no welds in the magnetic portion of the rails interacting with the maglev support system. This could perhaps be achieved by hammering the magnetically active portion of rails together out of iron wires each wrapped 169 times around the 10 foot average diameter spool on which it is transported. Constructing things in a vacuum is a more natural way to do things on the moon, but the difficulty of building in a vacuum chamber on Earth can be justified if it is necessary to demonstrate a technology that is to be used for industry on the moon that will be critical to the future of humanity. There may be a cheaper way of demonstrating the technology than what I suggest, but as yet there is no demonstration that the desired technology is either inherently adequate or inadequate. Foregoing welds or using a track inside a vacuum chamber are not the essential things for demonstrating maglev technology for the moon. What is essential is sufficient magnetic homogeneity in the rails and small enough interference from aerodynamic forces for the maglev system to work, and an ability to extrapolate with confidence that a technical solution exists for achieving 1600 meters per second rocket-sled velocity on the moon. The support holding the record setting Mach 8.5 sled over the tracks was not maglev technology. Perhaps something like the slippers on the record setting sled would be suitable on the moon. Maglev technology may have some inherent sensitivity to vibration.
:If people are serious about industrializing the moon and want to test maglev rocket-sled technology as an optional means of transporting products from the moon to cis-lunar space, people should specify a test track that will model lunar conditions. A twenty mile long vacuum chamber in which the magnetically active portions of the rails are built by hammering together twenty mile long wires transported on spools to the site of construction of the rails would be likely suitable conditions. Constructing a moving roller mill that would press iron together into rails while moving along the intended path of the rails is another possibility. This would avoid possible magnetic inhomogeneity at welds. Active electronically controlled electromagnets could support the sled at a particular distance from the rails. The rocket nozzle should provide thrust directed through the center of mass of the sled and that center of mass should lie in a plane connecting the center lines of the right hand and left hand rails. Thus the sled would be between rather than over the rails. The cheapest version of a rocket sled that fulfills requirements such as a 1600 meter per second speed, ability to operate in a vacuum and use of a track constructed out of largely lunar materials should be the basis of a planned transportation system to compare to options like a gun in which hot gasses propel the projectile by pressing in on the tapered sides of a projectile as it moves through a large gun barrel.
:If rocket-sled technology were subjected to tests in simulated lunar conditions with the intent of testing a potential moon to cis-lunar space transportation system and failed to reach 1600 meters per second speed, then there would be evidence that rocket-sled technology is inadequate; not before such tests.

:Another consideration is magnetostriction. A magnetic field applied to an iron rail for levitation will also change the shape of the rail a small amount. Magnetostriction is what causes transformer hum. Magnetic levitation might possibly be decoupled from the structural strength of the rails by having a composite of a nonmagnetic matrix for stiffness and a magnetic component of the composite rail for levitation. Also spreading out the magnetic levitating field along the length of the rail reduces the intensity of the magnetization effects on any one spot thus reducing energy loss from a hysteresis loop and perhaps reducing difficulties with vibration. The cheapest solution that verifies the suitability of the technology for launch to orbit from the moon is what is sought.
:There is also the possibility of gas lubricated rails. High pressure oxygen can be pumped into the feet of the rocket sled to maintain a small separation between the sled and the rails it slides over. This can extend even outside the long tube pressure vessel because losing oxygen to the vacuum is a small concern. If all of the rocket-sled techniques fail to be adaptable to lunar conditions, there is still the option of launching a rocket horizontally within the long tube pressure vessel and flying at a fixed distance from the walls. The rocket would be in orbit before the second stage leaves the pressure vessel with the first stage landing within the pressure vessel. Flying a rocket down the middle of a long tube is no more difficult than formation flying of aircraft on Earth, a demonstrated technique. It will be handled by robot pilots on Luna. One possibility for retro-rocket thrust is to have the discharge of the second stage expose separate rocket motors for landing the first stage. These rockets would have their own fuel tanks. Alternatively, the requirement to reverse rocket thrust to stop and land in the pressure vessel can be avoided. The first stage could land on rails outside of the pressure vessel by friction as the X-15 landed on rear landing gear consisting of skids.<ref>[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-052-DFRC.html NASA Armstrong Fact Sheet: X-15 Hypersonic Research Program]</ref> On the moon the landing speed would likely be in the neighborhood of 2200 meters per second (5000 miles per hour) rather than the 200 miles per hour landing of the X-15. The lunar landing gear might grab the rails from above and below and brush them with actual bristles of silicon dioxide that are progressively extended from the landing gear as the ends of the bristles are worn away with the generation of silicon dioxide gas. There is certainly a wealth of possible techniques that might be used on Luna depending upon which techniques are cheapest over-all. There is no technical difficulty that will completely prevent recycling spent rocket fuel on Luna. There is only the possibility that people will not make a sufficient effort to achieve low cost, high volume launch techniques on Luna. Improvements in technology can only make lunar launches cheaper over the years. I have written what is required. If you want your grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews to live in space, take hold of space and make it your own.

Twenty-third, there is too much that is unknown about a SBSP system built from lunar materials. We do not know the precise lunar mineral types in their abundances by location, nor the depth to which minerals can be dug up, nor the details of how robots will do construction in space, nor the effects on the environment of Earth from operating a SBSP system, nor how far from a rectenna a person with a pacemaker must remain so the beam does not kill the person by messing up the pacemaker.
:These are all questions that need to be addressed and they will be addressed as part of the preliminary developmental process. Robots should be used in space for assembling large dish antennas out of components with equipment and on a jig that allows the completed antenna to function as well as one made on Earth to precise tolerances. Antennas should be assembled in this way to be attached to satellites launched without the enormous faring that would be needed to launch an Earth assembled antenna to orbit. Such antennas would handle Earth/satellite communications. Large space-based radio interferometry satellites could also use large antennas assembled in space. This can give people some experience with industrial purpose robots in space. Robots should be custom built for this job and astronauts and Robonauts should not interfere.

:A survey of the disposition of lunar minerals with remotely controlled equipment can be done with better cost effectiveness without the bother of astronauts and android shaped robots.

:Studies can tell us all of the environmental effects of SBSP, but to convince skeptics one set of microwave beaming satellite built by special purpose remote controlled equipment from materials launched from Earth and Earth based rectenna should be used to demonstrate the full scale workability of the scheme before investing in the full scale industrial plant on Luna for building two hundred of the same thing.

:NASA's most powerful reason for using astronauts for tasks that could be done more economically with remote controlled equipment has been that we have astronauts in space anyway so we might as well use them for something or the expense of putting them up there is wasted. So we need to remove astronauts from space and save the money that is wasted on them in order to remove this $8 billion per year obstacle to progress that astronauts constitute. Efficient shielded life support equipment with centrifuged living quarters can be produced so people on the moon can do scientific analysis of geological samples and of industrial production samples and build in machine shops devices of which there will be needed only one or a few. People doing repair indoors on whatever can be repaired indoors will make sense when there is efficient life support. It is the irrational premature placement of people in space at great expense and for no purpose that is an obstacle to progress in space. I have no big complaint against astronauts themselves. I can understand that a person might want to experience the weightlessness of orbit and be willing to endure the difficulties of being an astronaut for that purpose. If one astronaut were to quit the excessively costly program, another would take the place. It is the administrators and chief scientists that I would castigate severely for advising administrations that sending human crews to Mars makes a reasonable program in light of the known unwillingness of congress to appropriate sufficient funds for the undertaking. These people have a duty to resign rather than be responsible for such waste.

Twenty-fourth, we do not need SBSP. There are all sorts of entrepreneurial opportunities leading to investment in outer space.
:Government policy should not favor more opportunities for investment. People earning their money this way can look out for their own interests, which only partially coincide with the public good. Government policy should favor such industry as 1) does coincide with the public good and 2) requires some government assistance to get the desired level of industry. Lunar landers, tourists to Earth orbit and making deliveries to the ISS provide new profit making opportunities<ref>[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/new-space-business_n_907358.html HUFFPOST]</ref> that we could do without. We do not need six different lunar landers to explore the moon's surface. If private industry develops some useful feature from which NASA can learn, good, but the most efficient method of developing a lunar lander to meet public exploration needs is to discuss the desired specifications with the engineers who will develop the transportation system. If the government grants rights to act as a U.S. national on the lunar surface, mine ice and sell rocket fuel; and NASA thereby gains lunar lander design experience from a private corporation; the price paid is too high. Virgin Galactic will attempt to launch tourists into suborbital trajectory. It will be a long time before such a successful effort would have any positive effect on space industry outside the tourist trade. Whether government built launchers or private built launchers supply stuff to the ISS, the government pays for it all and it is all a waste because the $8 billion per year program produces no benefits worth anywhere near $8 billion. The benefit of the manned space station programs is that they provided solid documentary evidence of the inefficiency of direct human labor in space suits or in weightlessness in orbit. If we ignore that evidence, we fail to learn. Solar energy from space with the space-based end to be built from material launched from Earth with rockets is another potential industry. The 1997 Mankins "Fresh Look At Solar Power", a NASA associated study, referred to fully reusable two stage to orbit transportation and hundreds of astronauts as the work crew.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/1997-Mankins-FreshLookAtSpaceSolarPower.pdf A Fresh Look at Space Solar Power]</ref> The report stated that driving down Earth to orbit transportation costs was an unavoidable necessity "of course" for Space-Based Solar Power. Why did they reject robotic building of SBSP from lunar materials? They did not even consider it. The only use of the terms "moon" and "lunar" were in reference to SBSP enabling human exploration of the moon once the SBSP is built from Earth materials. The building of economical systems of launching stuff from the moon and building the industry for processing lunar materials to make them suitable building materials is likely to take decades from our current technological state, but it can be done. In the case of robotic lunar industrialization the length of time required is cause for NASA to reject the idea out of hand. In the astronaut based efforts at industry, commerce, or exploration NASA has been willing to keep looking for progress for forty-four years from skylab to the ISS and wants to keep on in the astronaut launching business as usual. The lack of profit is no consideration. NASA has different attitudes to astronaut efforts and robot efforts in space because NASA is not acting to serve the public good but to aggrandize astronauts. Actually producing SBSP is secondary to launching astronauts. Actually making progress to colonizing Mars is secondary to launching astronauts. Getting a crew of 6 to 8 people to Mars is at the border of current technological capabilities and could easily result in dead astronauts. Such a mission is not likely to be a precursor of a Mars colony any more than the Apollo missions were a precursor of a colony on Earth's moon. Congress balks at the cost of putting the first people on Mars and almost certainly will not put up enough money to start a Mars colony using direct from Earth techniques. Selling the space station as preparation for colonizing Mars is deceptive. NASA management seems to concern itself with maximizing appropriations of government money. The U.S. congress is a difficult master. The "Fresh Look at Space Solar Power" correctly concluded that building SBSP with hundreds of astronauts in space suits at geostationary orbit should be dismissed out of hand, but their failure to consider robotic construction from lunar materials could have come from the fixed idea that any construction in space must involve astronauts. NASA considers that efforts at the ISS in service of future Mars colonization are worth while as the main purpose of the station even though the funding congress has been willing to give puts even a minimal crewed trip to Mars out of reach until congress might change its mind. Getting rid of obsequious attitudes towards astronaut programs would make it worth while to disband NASA and disperse its non human space-flight activities to other agencies. While Mars colonization as currently envisioned by Mars colony advocates would not provide return on investment for a couple of hundred years, except for the claim that Martians would contribute intellectual works to Earth by radio, industrialization of the moon could provide a return in thirty to fifty years. It is the potential for expansion that is most important. That puts Mars colony advocates in the same category with moon industrialization advocates. We advocate something that does not produce large payoffs in our lifetimes (except possibly for some young advocates of lunar industrialization). However, providing hundreds of SBSP stations, the first in thirty to fifty years, seems more worth while than waiting millennia for a breathable atmosphere on Mars. Further, lunar industrialization, after making a good start to providing plentiful electrical power for the whole Earth could lead to the development of an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] system to put people and cargo cheaply into LEO from Earth's surface.

Twenty-fifth, Gerard K. O'Neil, recommended a mass driver rapidly launching one kilogram projectiles. Such a system would use much less electrical power and be cheaper to build than a rocket-sled launching system with a rocket for a second stage.
:God bless the memory of Gerard K. O'Neil. He worked on developing some very interesting lunar industry concepts. However, we cannot depend upon the dead to continue to provide all of the development details for producing a thriving industry on the moon. There were some details to O'Neil's ideas that still needed some work when he died. In particular, the system for catching the one kilogram projectiles launched from a mass driver to a facility at L1 or L2 was not completely specified. The complicated motions of the moon in its orbit can be approximated by a circular orbit with real Lagrange points exactly specified, but the differences from the circular approximation and probable spread in launch velocity could result in considerable spread in the position at which projectiles would need to be caught and a spread in the velocity at which they would arrive. When someone specifies a definite system for catching the projectiles, it can be compared to launching a rocket for an upper stage. Until then we know that a rocket can be guided to an exact rendezvous using a midcourse correction and final velocity adjustments near rendezvous.

Twenty-sixth, if a trillion dollar industrial infrastructure with rocket-sled to orbit cargo launching system is completed in thirty years that is thirty-three billion dollars per year. While NASA would love that kind of budget, it will not happen.
:The arithmetic is impeccable but not all funds need to come from NASA's budget. If NASA gets a reasonable budget for industrializing the moon, say four billion dollars per year, after twenty years all necessary industrial processes should have been demonstrated and there should then be an ongoing set of industrial activities to lead to SBSP. Eighty billion will have been spent and private sources of capital will be eager to get to join the fun. A trillion dollars, more or less, will become available quickly and the pace of development will increase markedly. The first SBSP satellite will appear on the thirtieth year or the schedule and budget could be more or less. I do not know of any law of physics that should prevent it.

Twenty-seventh, there may be 100,000 pieces of junk 1 to 10 centimeters in diameter orbiting Earth<ref>[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/07/the-danger-of-space-junk/306691/ The Atlantic]</ref> These chunks can hit satellites in orbit causing the breakup of the satellite. This generates more chunks of junk. The potential for a debris cascade has not yet made satellites in orbit totally useless but the space-based solar power scheme you suggest would have a million times more area available for generating debris by collision. It must not be attempted.
:One would think the large surfaces of SBSP satellites would have the potential to generate debris cascade,<ref name="ROSPAC">[http://www.aerospace.org/crosslinkmag/web-exclusive/orbital-debris-cascades-population-stability-growth-and-the-usability-of-space/ ORBITAL DEBRIS CASCADES @AEROSPACE]</ref> but the mirrors that shade the microwave power beam generators (for example as in the sixteenth answer to objection above) would incorporate whipple shields in which the mirror surface is the first of several thin layers of material which will stop the great majority of collision objects which will become trapped between the layers. Such passive debris removal features of the SBSP scheme can actually remove much of the space debris in its orbital area.
:The debris situation in GEO is referred to as unstable but the growth of debris population is said to take longer than in LEO and the growth of debris density in LEO is typically simulated to around 200 years.<ref name="ROSPAC"/> So, the installation of broad Whipple shields for passive debris removal can likely be put off for the first couple of SBSP satellites to save money. Then after shields have been included in the newer satellites for a few years, the first couple of satellites could be retrofitted into compliance. Retrofitting debris shields will be easier if it has been planned from the start.
:The statement by AEROSPACE that there tends to be debris cascade in GEO but with a long time scale is a reasonable description of the current situation. It does not take into account the industrialization of the moon with a low cost launch capability used to launch massive amounts of material to build large whipple shields suitable for protecting entire SBSP satellites. In the industrially developed situation the possibility for large passive debris removal devices can be considered. For instance, the shield to protect the microwave broadcast antenna from debris impact from below would be multi-layer microwave transparent sheets, possibly thin scales of glass woven into a fiberglass cloth.

Twenty-eighth, setting up trade with the moon would open Earth to biological contamination of an unknown sort. We cannot take such a risk.
:Let me set your mind at ease. The surface of the moon is one of the most sterile places possible. It is open to vacuum in which living things can at most survive for some time until they are returned to a moist environment to thrive again. It is mostly bathed in sterilizing ultraviolet radiation and, in those places around the poles that are permanently dark, there is still the effect of bombardment with the electrons and protons of the solar wind plasma and with unhindered cosmic rays with the power to break atomic nuclei. If even that does not relieve your worry, consider that meteorites from the moon land on the Earth every day, some after traveling through space for a million years<ref>[http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites.htm DEPARTMENT OF Earth and Planetary Sciences @Washington University in St. Louis]</ref> and these emissaries from Luna have failed to contaminate the Earth in any way that is noticeable. Prohibiting trade with the moon would not achieve the purpose of preventing contact with lunar materials.

Twenty-ninth, waiting thirty years for the solar power from space which would set us free from hazardous dependence on fossil fuels is ridiculous. A nuclear power plant can be built in five years and nuclear power can supply all of the electricity we need.
:Let us consider this idea carefully. In the United States there are regulatory provisions that extend the time needed to build a nuclear power plant to more than five years, but that is a matter of politics. There are people who claim to be protecting us from unsafe use of nuclear power but seem to only oppose nuclear power, no matter what efforts are made for safety. Some people make claims about many people dying from nuclear radiation coming from power plants and the cycle of mining nuclear fuel, processing it into fuel elements, and disposing of the spent fuel. It is well known that millions of people world-wide die every year from the use of fossil fuels to produce electric power. There are black lung disease, mine explosions, and accidents at drilling rigs to name just a few problems with fossil fuels. However, I do not know of anyone who died in the United States because of nuclear-electric fuel cycle efforts since the end of WW II. The Chernobyl accident occurred in a type of reactor not used in the United States which had no containment vessel surrounding the core systems. The recent nuclear accident in Japan released significant radioactive contaminants because the cooling system failed because of a lack of electric power because of a lack of fuel for the emergency generator because the fuel supply could not be replenished because the roads were disrupted by a tsunami. Planning alternate refueling methods for emergency cooling pumps and using a design that will fail safely in the event of cooling system failure are both achievable possibilities that could prevent this type of release of radioactivity. There are some risks in nuclear power. When the best nuclear technology is used the risks of death seem low compared to the known risks of fossil fuels. The problems of nuclear power should be compared to certainties with wind and Earth based solar power.
:The certainty with wind and Earth based solar power is that they are fickle. Those people who pride themselves on reducing CO2 pollution by producing electricity on their roof tops with solar panels and selling it to the electric companies can do so only because they are backed up by fossil fuel or nuclear produced electric power which they use when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. I notice the increase in my electric bill because of the political advantage these people have over me. I must give them credit for their political skill but I give them no thanks for the technical efforts that they back which injure the economy and do little to reduce the increasing concentration of CO2 in the air. I oppose subsidizing fickle Earth based solar power systems and wind power systems which only make their users feel good because their users are willing to lie to themselves and deny that their electricity use habits are tied to utilities using fossil fuels and nuclear power to supply them whenever fickle eco-friendly systems fail. A solar & wind power advocate when presented with these arguments said that there should be research programs to advance solar & wind power and systems for storing power as if storing a few days worth of electric power is as simple as saying "research programs for storing power." The article [[Flywheel]] addresses the problem of storing large amounts of power, but the solar & wind power lobby does not seem interested in research for power storage technology that could benefit humanity. What they have succeeded at is merely producing hugely expensive solar & wind electricity production systems that are completely dependent upon fossil fuel and nuclear systems as back-up. Perhaps one fifth of the reduction on carbon dioxide emission from using solar power instead of grid power can be lost because of necessary ramping of power production to equalize loads.<ref>[https://www.protononsite.com/news-events/lets-talk-grid-balancing PROTON THE LEADER IN ON SITE GAS GENERATION]</ref> Another problem is that the solar power users who have no power storage systems demand high power delivery when the sun does not shine leading to the necessity of having fossil or nuclear systems with a delivery grid sized to meet a high peak demand. This is the major expense of power generation but the solar power users do not pay according to the peak power that they demand. They pay for what they use which is reduced by their solar power generation. The cost of peak power demand is distributed to users according to what they use which in my case is not reduced by solar power generation. A means of storing power is electrolysis by methods such as proton exchange membrane electrolysis and alkaline water electrolysis. Possibly some solar power user somewhere produces enough hydrogen by electrolysis when the sun shines to provide all needed power when the sun does not shine. If so, such a solar power user knows what cheap solar power really costs. Adding in the cost of power storage results in a much higher cost for all power used by a solar power system. The solar power lobby does not encourage figuring the cost of solar power for completely off grid systems with storage but just wants continuing subsidies of installation of solar roof panel systems that they profit from.
:Nuclear power has the potential to satisfy electric power needs in less than ten years without contributing largely to the CO2 excess in the air. We could do that and develop solar electricity from space-based microwave beam generation with the space-based end built from moon supplied materials. That will allow us in a few decades to get rid of some long term problems that come along with nuclear power. Even though some nuclear power advocates claim that new technology can result in the nuclear power plant consuming nuclear waste, there will still be nuclear waste to get rid of at the end of the fuel cycle. Some trans-uranic radioactive material in spent fuel rods can indeed be consumed as fuel in nuclear reactors, but the fission products contain stubbornly long lived radio-active material that is best buried where there is no ground water flow, such as under the ocean. Then there is nuclear weapons technology. People who know how to make electricity with nuclear fuel generally also know how to convert the nuclear materials into bombs. If we continue to use nuclear electric technology for a large enough number of years, the political situation is likely to arise in which someone decides to use their reactors to make bombs. Representatives of The People's Republic of China claimed that a nuclear bomb could be used to protect Earth from an asteroid on collision course. I think the bomb is the more serious threat.
:There is much that is discussed about nuclear electric power. The conclusion of my limited study is that we need it as an alternative to the poverty that would result from relying wholly on Earth based solar and wind power but should replace it with space-based solar power when we can.

Thirtieth, do you have rocks in your head? The People's Republic of China is an enemy. You admit military applications (third objection) but suggest treaties with China governing the development of the moon. We need to keep potential military applications out of China's hands.
:If the USA could arrange the physical characteristics of the solar system and the political situation of Earth by political decree, it could develop the industrial potential of the moon without involving other nations that look at things differently than the US congress. Since we must involve other nations, let's look at who our enemies are and what sorts of arrangements could possibly be beneficial. Who put the many trillion dollar debt on the USA? It was the US government acting under the influence of lobbyists for various organizations such as medical organizations, defense contractors, teachers' organizations, and retired persons. The list of lobbyists trying to get a piece of the federal budget is too long for this discussion but people who allow such lobbyists to control federal spending with no concern for the federal debt are the enemies of the USA. That is: US citizens are their own worst enemies. The potential financial catastrophe could be worse than anything that China is planning for the US. Exact outcomes cannot be predicted but the potential for something worse than the great depression is a reason for some of the preparations for bugging out that are seen in people preparing access to nonurban property, learning gardening, storing essentials, and having a bug-out vehicle to get to their destination by driving off the road around traffic jams.
:The People's Republic of China is a problem because of their absolute insistence upon putting Taiwan under communist party control regardless of political and economic costs. It is their unifying purpose. If anyone does not agree with that they are not only kept out of political power, they risk prison. It is a case of self-reinforcement of an extreme position. However, China does bow to reality to the extent that they will put off their goal until they are confidant that they can succeed. Considering the shore of Taiwan as approximately a natural fortress protected by advanced anti-ship missiles with the USA guaranteeing access to trade, the People's Republic might need wait a long time. Satellite observations can pin-point naval targets like a shipborne invasion force and vessels that anti-ship missiles cannot knock out, submarine launched weapons that travel submerged to their target can. The high velocity canons to stop anti-ship missiles can be overwhelmed by a high number of targets and the guns can be blinded by a rain of chaff and other countermeasures such as has not yet been deployed in an actual war. I cannot list all of the reasons that an invasion of Taiwan from the People's Republic is not realistic without cooperation from Taiwan or the USA failing to defend Taiwan from blockade. It is just best for China to put unification under the communist party on the back burner and agree to disallow by international agreement any orbital or lunar weapons with the potential to do significant military harm to targets on Earth or flying at altitudes of less than 7.5 miles (12,000 meters, 40,000 feet). If China were to succeed in putting Taiwan under rule from the continent, it would face more difficult factional problems internally that could bring it to an end, but it might succeed in taking over Taiwan as conditions change with time.
:The fact that the People's Republic expressly refuses to forego violence in taking over the governing of Taiwan indicates that they likely see the possibility that opponents to such a development might refrain from going to total war to prevent it. Total war between two modern nations, such as the United States and the People's Republic of China, would cause harm far exceeding any possible gain from winning the war. Total war is simple to understand. It is based upon the method of accounting benefit in which gaining factories, gold, weapons, or agriculture is accounted the same benefit as destroying equivalent factories, gold, weapons or agriculture of the enemy. It continues until one side or the other concedes defeat or has been completely destroyed. The most illustrative examples I can think of are from the Greek bronze age. One city fought until it had killed every man of age for military duty in the enemy city. The enemy city was taken over as booty. Women and boys of age ten and less were taken as slaves with the boys separated from their mothers. If peace were achieved with merely exchanging some piece of land or paying some money, the loosing side would be allowed to keep their weapons, wives and children. It was assumed that a free man would rather die than give up weapons, wife or children.
:Bronze age total war made a sad sort of sense. Modern age total war with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons would be insane.
:It is possible for international law to be effective in outlawing spaceborne offensive weapons if nations are willing to agree to such terms with verifiability. There is plenty of wealth for everybody if we can agree upon reasonable ways of sharing it and the US federal government stops its deficit financing. The obstacles to a millennium of prosperity for humanity are economic and political. The technical problems can be handled with a reasonable international effort.
:Current difficulties with dissident groups in China might interfere with China's space development efforts or interfere with other countries thinking it is a good time to make treaties with China concerning space development. As of the 9th of September 2019, there have been protests in Hong Kong suggesting that the People's Republic should recognize in Hong Kong greater democratic lawmaking power and more extensive human rights. I have some sympathy with these aims as a citizen of the U.S.A. who enjoys considerable opportunity to have input to public policy discussions and considerable guarantees that the government will recognize that I have certain human rights. The legal system of the People's Republic comes too close to marshal law to suit me. Unfortunately for those living in Hong Kong, they must deal with the People's Republic of China. Neither the USA nor the United Kingdom is willing to send military force to defend democratic governing rights in Hong Kong. The USA would be crazy to oppose the People's Republic militarily where its army can roll in anytime at will. It will take some time to develop a completely satisfactory system of recognition of human rights just as a man does not become a fat man with one big meal. What the Hong Kong protesters are doing may not be helping. I do not see it likely that calling upon the U.S.A to guarantee recognition of human rights in Hong Kong will result in effective help from the U.S.A. in solving disagreements in Hong Kong. The U.S.A. can offer words to Hong Kong. The protesters, being closer to the disagreements, should be better placed to find words that improve the situation. I suggest they forego having tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people marching around. They should meet in smaller groups to discuss what petitions made to the People's Republic (with respect and recognition of the right of the current government to govern) might lead to some improvement. The fact is that most governments on the Earth can trace their right to govern to violent conflicts. So does the People's Republic. They are unlikely to voluntarily relinquish some governing power without extensive deliberate consideration. The U.S.A. will not just tell them what to do. If, against the odds, many popular protests all around China brought down the People's Republic, the result could possibly be chaos that would make the People's Republic seem better by comparison. As for Donald Trump putting pressure on China, I think he is just trying to make China a scapegoat for problems that the U.S.A. has caused for itself. The people of Hong Kong, the Uighurs, and the people around Tiananmen Square might consider making some accommodation with the People's Republic. Voluntary allegiance has some value as a consideration. The People's Republic might be willing to offer something valuable in exchange. The people of Hong Kong must know themselves what they will offer for better terms of relationship and for what they are willing to suffer possible imprisonment, death and worse. The People's Republic is certainly capable of being cruel if it suits the purpose. The fact that there is currently a "trade war" being waged between the U.S.A. and the People's Republic should not have the slightest affect in motivating protesters. It is heartening to know that some people far away hold the U.S.A. in high regard but I would hope that they do nothing rash in supposed support of the U.S.A.'s interests.
:When disagreements between the People's Republic and some dissident groups are somewhat more settled, increased cooperation between the U.S.A. and the People's Republic on outer space development might not raise so much objection.

Thirty-first, there is no safe way to deorbit a space-based solar power satellite.

: The objection is a false statement. If it is possible to build a space-based solar power satellite, then it is easier to break it up into pieces small enough to safely deorbit into the Pacific Ocean. However there is no need to get rid of a space-based solar power satellite. If solar cells or mirrors for directing sunlight onto solar cells or any other item of a space based solar power satellite becomes defective because of age and exposure to space, the defective item can be put into an orbiting junk satellite. When there is cheep access to orbit from the surface of the moon, a junk satellite can be placed in an orbit with about a five day period. It would be encircled by a double layer of woven fiberglass sheets to prevent bits broken off by collision with a piece of junk from leaving the junk satellite. Wherever people have built industrial process facilities they also made a place to store the waste products whether that be worn out equipment or anything else. Orbital space should be no different. The fiberglass sheets surrounding the junk satellite should be painted black to provide a minimum of problems for astronomers.

-- [[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) made last alteration on 10 August 2025.
:
:
Post script:
::If I can lure others to help with this discussion, I will treat them fairly rather than as I have treated the poor battered straw man. All contributors to Lunarpedia can make additions and corrections to articles as long as their edits are about the moon and moon colonies. Editing conflicts should be resolved by discussion and I will cease erasing the multiple dates at which I added to this discussion when there is another live editor contributing to this question.
-- [[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) quite some time ago.

==References==
<references/>

==More discussion==
What's ITER? Maybe add to exodictionary? Also add other definitions? -- [[User:Miros1|Rose/Miros]] ([[User talk:Miros1|talk]]) 05:24, 18 March 2019 (GMT)

ITER was defined in parentheses after its first use in the answer to the third objection. It is an abbreviation for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, an international government funded program.

--[[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) 21:18, 22 March 2019 (GMT)

I made an addition above and corrected some typos. It was nothing that you have objected to. You seemed only interested in clarifying a definition. I will undo the addition if you object to it. - [[User:Farred|Farred]] ([[User talk:Farred|talk]]) 20:32, 30 March 2019 (GMT)

No objections. -- [[User:Miros1|Rose/Miros]] ([[User talk:Miros1|talk]]) 10:51, 11 April 2019 (BST)

New moon base concepts

2025-07-05T23:24:20Z

Farred: add mention of alternative technologh

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. (Wherever LRSTO is referred to in this argument, tube launch of rockets while [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]] should also be considered an alternative.) Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars. I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made in humanoid form to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge (That is a space habitat with solar sails for propulsion.). It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing death in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization and the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines without extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars; hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

New moon base concepts

2025-07-05T22:14:26Z

Farred: reduce ambiguity

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars. I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made in humanoid form to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge. It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing death in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization and the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines without extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars; hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2025-07-05T16:07:41Z

Farred: reduce ambiguity

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of the amount of energy for achieving orbit as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed (about 56 seconds). The task of all electric acceleration to orbital velocity is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border trans-shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount of hydrogen added previously and the amount of oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]].
:For a partial transcript of the original presentation of the idea at a Moon Society meeting go to [[Recycling Rocket Exhaust Presented at Mare Cognitum Chapter Meeting]].
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

The bad financial reputation of a lunar colony

2024-04-17T20:22:59Z

Farred: addition

There is a considerable fraction of the population that considers the concept of a lunar colony inherently unsound in terms of finance. Their line of argument goes something like this:<ref>This line of argument is taken from a category created by [[User:Fructivore]] at 04:17 hours on the 18th of April 2012. The category was deleted because it was not properly a category</ref>

:The high startup cost of a lunar settlement necessitates funding.

:As a baseline for comparison, the 7 Apollo crewed landing missions cost around $20bn (2010) each, including research and development costs over the decade preceding the first landing.

:In the context of the global economy, this cost amounted to roughly 0.2% of contemporary (circa 1960) gross annual world product.

:A comparable rate of financial commitment today would amount to roughly $135bn annually, sufficient to fund the entirety of an Apollo-scale program each year. Nevertheless, even at that level only a modest concentration of equipment, supplies, and personnel would still be possible -- likely insufficient to achieve anything close to real economic productivity on any scale short of generations.

:In any event, from that starting point it is possible to begin budgeting a truly substantial commitment to a near-term working colony.

In this way they consider it is definitely shown that a lunar colony is wasteful nonsense and usually do not bother to discuss the matter. If pressed they may refer to it as something more colorful.

==Financial prospects of a lunar colony==
The Apollo program has only a limited relationship to a lunar colony. It demonstrated that the laws of physics were amenable to manipulation by engineers so people could be transported to the moon, survive on its surface, and return safely to Earth. It was never intended to be the start of a colonization effort. It was done because it is hard to do and demonstrates ability. Like running a four minute mile, it is not worthwhile of itself. The Apollo program was part of a cold war effort to impress the population of the world with the superiority of the American system of government. Although there are still differences of opinion on which is the best, or least evil, of systems of government; the Apollo program was successful for its part in the contest. It was not a model of how to start a lunar colony.

Having demonstrated the physical possibility of transporting people back and forth to Luna, the steps in lunar colonization include:
:1) make a general plan for financial success of a lunar colony.
:2) explore Luna with robots taking note of the situation of all readily accessable resources there that can aid the plan.
:3) develope a detailed plan to build a colony and put it into operation, which plan will necessarily include doing very much infrastructure development using remote controled devices designed and used in such a way as to have operating lifetimes measured in years
:4) sell the plan to those nations of Earth whose cooperation is needed and to any organizations which will have a financial stake
:5) execute the plan

While people are still involved in making a general plan, selling the plan can be addressed in a partial manner. We can emphasize that sending people to Luna is not the first item in the plan, robotic operations can accomplish building of lunar infrastructure with all people involved remaining on Earth, and when it is time to send people to the moon, the existing infrastructure will make this less costly per person than the Apollo program.

==See also==
* [[In Situ Resource Utilization]]
* [[Ore Bodies]]
* [[Progress in Remotely Operated Equipment]]
* [[Bootstrapping Industry]]
* [[First Base]]
* [[Geopolitics]]
* [[Luna-Mars Trade]]
* [[Show Stoppers]]
* [[Long Endurance Rovers]]
* [[Lunar Settlement]]
* [[Robots in Space Suits]]
* [[List of Propulsion Systems]]

==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Finance]]

Lunar Electrothermal Oxygen Rocket

2024-04-17T18:44:42Z

Farred: dummy edit to put this article on my watchlist

An electrothermal oxygen rocket may be the first means by which product is exported from the moon for a profit. This is not intended to pay off the investment necessary to bring the lunar industrial base to the state necessary for this device, but early returns will give confidence that more substantial returns will be achieved later.

A conjectural example lunar electrothermal oxygen rocket flies parallel to the ground between two calcium filled steel tube electrically conductive rails. The rails are held 10 meters above the average ground level and extend forty miles (65 km) down range, straight, level, and parallel to each other. Beyond forty miles two steel rails without calcium fill extend in the same line to a point 60 miles (96 km) down range.

The rocket, made on Earth, has an electrically driven oxygen pump that forces oxygen at high pressure through the engine cooling system, a resistive heater, an arc gap and an expansion nozzle. The exhaust velocity should be 2000 meters per second. The rocket has 40 kg upper stage, 40 kg empty weight, and 120 kg oxygen in the propellant tank for a fueled loaded weight of 200 kg. The mission delta v is 1832 meters per second of which 229 meters per second is reserved for gravity loss and 1603 meters per second is stage separation velocity. Average downrange acceleration is 20.1 meters per second per second (2.05 g) for 79.9 seconds with stage separation at about forty miles (64) km downrange at which point the first stage begins to brake to a stop by friction, to be reused. Braking friction is provided by locally produced ceramic pads pressed against steel rails. Electric power for the rocket comes from the two rails that it flies between. The power required is 340,000 kilowatts for 80 seconds. The upper stage is a mini ion thrusting spacecraft made on Earth. The cargo in the upper stage is a canister of helium 3. Helium is not yet used for fusion power, but a small amount is used for research at about $4000 per gram. It is conceivable that at this price it would be worth exporting.

Since the steel rails must be straight and level to a close tolerance, they must be protected from thermal expansion stresses that result from the day/night temperature change of the surface of Luna. Fiberglass shades like tents would shade the entire length of the rocket launching rails. This would reduce the requirement for expansion joints in the rails.

Power could be supplied by about a dozen steel flywheels about 6.6 meters in diameter and 30 cm thick. These could be ganged 6 to each vertical shaft of two electric motor/generators and ride on gas bearings. Any [[Flywheel|other means]] of providing 27 gigajoules in 80 seconds would do. The rocket may use mainly microwave to heat the oxygen plasma with the power provided by spark gap conduction from steel rails along the flight path. To keep the heating chamber from oxidizing in the hot oxygen environment, the oxidation resistant structural metal of the heating chamber could be separated from the hot plasma by a layer of refractory ceramic scales in a fish-scale pattern. These could be supported by stems anchored in the structural metal but leaving a less hot layer of oxygen between the refractory scales and the cooled metal wall. At the end of the line a robot truck would pick up the first stage and haul it back for maintenance and refueling.

If there gets to be a massive enough industrial infrastructure on Luna that can cease operation for a couple minutes at a time so the electrical power is available to launch a rocket, the electric launch concept could be scaled up to launch a small manned craft.

==See Also==
*[[List of Propulsion Systems]]

[[Category:Space Transport]]

Lunar Polar Greenhouse

2024-04-17T18:37:35Z

Farred: dummy edit to put this article on my watchlist

==A Lunar Polar Greenhouse==
In economically [[Increasing Efficiency of Labor with Increasing Capital Resources|rational development of lunar resources]], remotely controlled devices would be used to establish some industrial infrastructure before people would be sent to [[Luna]] in person. Then the first employees would eat all imported food for some time. Air and water would be recycled to a considerable extent with the loss of some locally produced [[oxygen]] being tolerated. Human waste would be incinerated to recover water, [[carbon]] as [[carbon dioxide]] and other volatiles for industrial use. Hydrogen and perhaps some other volatiles would be mined from the lunar poles if practical but hydrogen and therefore water would still be rare and expensive on Luna.
===Gardening Begins===
When the extent of development permits, this underground greenhouse could be built in a polar region. It would require that the vast majority of materials be locally obtained. The greenhouse would be built as a 100 meter diameter ring around a hill. Then the top of the hill would be flattened enough to provide fill to bury the greenhouse 3 meters deep. Mirrors would be used to concentrate sunlight and send it to the greenhouse through periscopes. Sunlight would be dispersed in the greenhouse to the proper strength for plants. Radiation composed of subatomic particles would not be reflected by the mirrors so the greenhouse would be protected. Most ultraviolet light requires a special coating to be well reflected. <ref> McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (c) 1997 article on "Telescope, Ultra Violet Telescope" </ref> So the periscopes would protect against ultraviolet also. A glass window would provide further protection against ultraviolet. Light would not shine on the intake mirrors of all periscopes at the same time, so crops would be grown on flat top rail road cars to shuffle them around to get eight hours of light every day for each rail road car during the growing season, which would be the local summer at the pole. Since light enters the greenhouse in concentrated form through a minority of the area of the walls and ceiling, it would provide sufficient heat for the greenhouse and the problem would be controlled cooling. [[Lunar Radiator|Radiators]] on top of the flat hill would cool the greenhouse as other industrial installations on Luna will be cooled. Radiation of infrared can be indirect by reflection to protect the radiator from micrometeoroids. With the start of gardening human waste would no longer be incinerated but used to produce [[sewage]] sludge which would fertilize the greenhouse crops. Humidity would be reduced by air conditioning and the condensate would be recycled to water the crops.
===The High Cost of Food===
The many considerations beyond what is required on Earth that must taken into account to start operating a lunar greenhouse will result in expensive food. It only needs to be cheap enough to compete against food imported from Earth, and that is worth its weight in gold.

===Limited Area===
If a sunlight collection mirror at the pole is 10 meters high, then on the day when the shadow of that mirror is the shortest, it will be 370 meters long. So greenhouses could shade each other if they are spaced too closely. Considering that and shading from landscape features, there would be limited area available for agriculture on the moon's surface that can take advantage of sunlight every day of the local summer. When population growth requires additional agriculture, options for additional acreage include orbiting space habitats, lunar surface agriculture that is adapted to 14 day periods of darkness, and artificially illuminated crops.
===Reference===
<references/>
[[category:Agriculture]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-17T17:51:26Z

Farred: fix typo

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs, life support equipment and controls for each section. If one section has a fault, get into the section without a fault, close the pressure tight doors, separate the sections and walk off. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog rough-terrain robot]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

An example of robots used in an environment hostile to life is automobile manufacturers using paint robots to paint cars. The environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot "Paint robot" Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots in space suits, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, some of the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface can come from local industry. That will reduce cost and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases. [[Lunar Polar Greenhouse|Recycling wastes to grow food]] on the moon is technically possible but the required infrastructure will take a long time to build. We can look to the future as possibly having people living, working and growing food on the moon but robots must come first.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-17T17:46:15Z

Farred: addition

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs, life support equipment and controls for each section. If one section has a fault, get into the section without a fault, close the pressure tight doors, separate the sections and walk off. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog rough-terrain robot]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

An example of robots used in an environment hostile to life is automobile manufacturers using paint robots to paint cars. The environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot "Paint robot" Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots in space suits, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, some of the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface can come from local industry. That will reduce cost and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases. [[Lunar Polar Greenhouse|Recycling wastes to grow food]] on the moon is technically possible but the required infrastructure will take a long time to build. We can look to the future as possibly havig people living, working and growing food on the moon but robots must come first.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-17T17:28:05Z

Farred: addition

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs, life support equipment and controls for each section. If one section has a fault, get into the section without a fault, close the pressure tight doors, separate the sections and walk off. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog rough-terrain robot]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

An example of robots used in an environment hostile to life is automobile manufacturers using paint robots to paint cars. The environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots in space suits, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, some of the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface can come from local industry. That will reduce cost and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases. [[Lunar Polar Greenhouse|Recycling wastes to grow food]] on the moon is technically possible but the required infrastructure will take a long time to build. We can look to the future as possibly havig people living, working and growing food on the moon but robots must come first.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-17T16:40:21Z

Farred: reword

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs, life support equipment and controls for each section. If one section has a fault, get into the section without a fault, close the pressure tight doors, separate the sections and walk off. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog rough-terrain robot]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

An example of robots used in an environment hostile to life is automobile manufacturers using paint robots to paint cars. The environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots in space suits, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, when the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface come from local industry, then the cost will come down even further and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-17T16:18:45Z

Farred: reword

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs, life support equipment and controls for each section. If one section has a fault, get into the section without a fault, close the pressure tight doors, separate the sections and walk off. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog rough-terrain robot]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

An example of robots used in an environment hostile to life is automobile manufacturers using paint robots to paint cars. The environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, when the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface come from local industry, then the cost will come down even further and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-17T16:10:45Z

Farred: fix link

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs, life support equipment and controls for each section. If one section has a fault, get into the section without a fault, close the pressure tight doors, separate the sections and walk off. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog rough-terrain robot]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

For example: Automobile manufacturers use paint robots to paint cars. One reason is that the environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, when the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface come from local industry, then the cost will come down even further and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-17T16:08:24Z

Farred: replace broken link

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs, life support equipment and controls for each section. If one section has a fault, get into the section without a fault, close the pressure tight doors, separate the sections and walk off. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog rough-terrain robot]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

For example: Automobile manufacturers use paint robots to paint cars. One reason is that the environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, when the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface come from local industry, then the cost will come down even further and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus

2024-04-17T14:45:03Z

Farred: fix link

A human working in vacuum in a [[space suit]] labors under a great handicap. A spacesuit tends to stiffen into one favored shape and require effort to maintain arms and legs in some other position. Instead of going out into the lunar vacuum to maintain a piece of machinery, it can be brought [[Sintered Brick Construction|inside]] where an inert atmosphere will not cause rust or corrosion to susceptible metals. A person can then do maintenance work wearing a '''Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus''' (SCIBA) instead of a space suit. This will improve capability and efficiency.

A SCIBA is a gas tight suit that keeps moist oxygenated air from mixing with the gas in a chamber filled with inert gas, hydrogen, or carbon dioxide as might be necessary for an industrial process. It has a supply of oxygen and a scrubber to remove carbon dioxide. The nitrogen or other inert gas (such as argon) is recycled. Sensors monitor the breathing gas mixture and vital signs so a worker can be warned of any failure of the life support. Telemetry from the sensors also alerts others in a position to rescue the worker in case of accidental failure.

An oxygen sensor for a SCIBA suit could be an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-galvanic_oxygen_sensor oxygen sensor] such as is used on Earth for scuba diving. The use for a SCIBA suit is less technically demanding because the SCIBA suit is always used at about the same pressure. Sensors for carbon dioxide, gas temperature, total pressure, humidity, heart rate, and body temperature would also be included.

A use for a SCIBA suit on Earth could be research involving molten titanium or other materials that need to be protected from a breathable atmosphere. It may be practical in cases in which a glove box does not easily provide access for sufficiently complex manipulation of an experiment.

To see how industrial development might begin with making early remote controlled devices cost-effective in the lunar environment, see [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]]

[[Category:Life Support]]

Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus

2024-04-17T14:39:32Z

Farred: add link

A human working in vacuum in a [[space suit]] labors under a great handicap. A spacesuit tends to stiffen into one favored shape and require effort to maintain arms and legs in some other position. Instead of going out into the lunar vacuum to maintain a piece of machinery, it can be brought [[Sintered Brick Construction|inside]] where an inert atmosphere will not cause rust or corrosion to susceptible metals. A person can then do maintenance work wearing a '''Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus''' (SCIBA) instead of a space suit. This will improve capability and efficiency.

A SCIBA is a gas tight suit that keeps moist oxygenated air from mixing with the gas in a chamber filled with inert gas, hydrogen, or carbon dioxide as might be necessary for an industrial process. It has a supply of oxygen and a scrubber to remove carbon dioxide. The nitrogen or other inert gas (such as argon) is recycled. Sensors monitor the breathing gas mixture and vital signs so a worker can be warned of any failure of the life support. Telemetry from the sensors also alerts others in a position to rescue the worker in case of accidental failure.

An oxygen sensor for a SCIBA suit could be an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-galvanic-oxygen-sensor oxygen sensor] such as is used on Earth for scuba diving. The use for a SCIBA suit is less technically demanding because the SCIBA suit is always used at about the same pressure. Sensors for carbon dioxide, gas temperature, total pressure, humidity, heart rate, and body temperature would also be included.

A use for a SCIBA suit on Earth could be research involving molten titanium or other materials that need to be protected from a breathable atmosphere. It may be practical in cases in which a glove box does not easily provide access for sufficiently complex manipulation of an experiment.

To see how industrial development might begin with making early remote controlled devices cost-effective in the lunar environment, see [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]]

[[Category:Life Support]]

Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus

2024-04-17T14:08:35Z

Farred: add link

A human working in vacuum in a [[space suit]] labors under a great handicap. A spacesuit tends to stiffen into one favored shape and require effort to maintain arms and legs in some other position. Instead of going out into the lunar vacuum to maintain a piece of machinery, it can be brought [[Sintered Brick Construction|inside]] where an inert atmosphere will not cause rust or corrosion to susceptible metals. A person can then do maintenance work wearing a '''Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus''' (SCIBA) instead of a space suit. This will improve capability and efficiency.

A SCIBA is a gas tight suit that keeps moist oxygenated air from mixing with the gas in a chamber filled with inert gas, hydrogen, or carbon dioxide as might be necessary for an industrial process. It has a supply of oxygen and a scrubber to remove carbon dioxide. The nitrogen or other inert gas (such as argon) is recycled. Sensors monitor the breathing gas mixture and vital signs so a worker can be warned of any failure of the life support. Telemetry from the sensors also alerts others in a position to rescue the worker in case of accidental failure.

An oxygen sensor for a SCIBA suit could be an electro-galvanic_fuel_cell such as is used on Earth for scuba diving. The use for a SCIBA suit is less technically demanding because the SCIBA suit is always used at about the same pressure. Sensors for carbon dioxide, gas temperature, total pressure, humidity, heart rate, and body temperature would also be included.

A use for a SCIBA suit on Earth could be research involving molten titanium or other materials that need to be protected from a breathable atmosphere. It may be practical in cases in which a glove box does not easily provide access for sufficiently complex manipulation of an experiment.

To see how industrial development might begin with making early remote controlled devices cost-effective in the lunar environment, see [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]]

[[Category:Life Support]]

Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus

2024-04-17T13:51:42Z

Farred: delete dead link

A human working in vacuum in a [[space suit]] labors under a great handicap. A spacesuit tends to stiffen into one favored shape and require effort to maintain arms and legs in some other position. Instead of going out into the lunar vacuum to maintain a piece of machinery, it can be brought [[Sintered Brick Construction|inside]] where an inert atmosphere will not cause rust or corrosion to susceptible metals. A person can then do maintenance work wearing a '''Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus''' (SCIBA) instead of a space suit. This will improve capability and efficiency.

A SCIBA is a gas tight suit that keeps moist oxygenated air from mixing with the gas in a chamber filled with inert gas, hydrogen, or carbon dioxide as might be necessary for an industrial process. It has a supply of oxygen and a scrubber to remove carbon dioxide. The nitrogen or other inert gas (such as argon) is recycled. Sensors monitor the breathing gas mixture and vital signs so a worker can be warned of any failure of the life support. Telemetry from the sensors also alerts others in a position to rescue the worker in case of accidental failure.

An oxygen sensor for a SCIBA suit could be an electro-galvanic_fuel_cell such as is used on Earth for scuba diving. The use for a SCIBA suit is less technically demanding because the SCIBA suit is always used at about the same pressure. Sensors for carbon dioxide, gas temperature, total pressure, humidity, heart rate, and body temperature would also be included.

A use for a SCIBA suit on Earth could be research involving molten titanium or other materials that need to be protected from a breathable atmosphere. It may be practical in cases in which a glove box does not easily provide access for sufficiently complex manipulation of an experiment.

[[Category:Life Support]]

Thermal Shelter on the moon

2024-04-17T13:39:05Z

Farred: tweaks

==Thermal Shelter on the moon==
[[File:Model 4 thermal shelter.jpg]]
::
::
The thermal shelter on the moon that people should be concerned with now is a shelter for remotely controlled machines. To be economically effective, such machines must last more than two weeks, the length of time from sunrise to sunset on the moon. The Chinese made a machine last over night and continue working month after month. They used chunks of radioactive material, (probably plutonium 238), to provide heat and a small amount of electrical power during the sunset to sunrise period. This tactic makes maintaining a cool enough temperature for operation during the sunrise to sunset period more difficult, and it is rather expensive.
The thermal shelter concept I feature here is a double walled building of prefabricated charred corrugated paper represented by the construction paper model in the photograph.
The outer wall is 8 feet by 8 feet at the foundation and 8 feet high. With the inner wall, doorway, lintel, roof and six "V" cross section roof support girders (not shown because they are hidden by the roof) that comes to 550 square feet of
charred corrugated paper including 38 square feet to allow for slot and tab construction technique with prefabricated pieces. If I take a popular grade of corrugated paper and consider charring it to 40 percent of its original weight I get 23 square feet per pound. That makes about 24 pounds of charred corrugated paper for the building walls, 6 pounds for the 400 buttons strings and tensioners that will fasten the inner and outer walls together that need to be shipped to the moon for the building, another 6 pounds for the door to the building and its handles and no weight that needs to be shipped to the moon for the sifted regolith fines that will fill the spaces between the inner and outer wall of the building and door and cover the roof acting as thermal insulation. Regolith fines make good insulation in the ambient vacuum situation in which they are found and in which they will be used. They are already on the moon wherever the thermal shelter needs to be built.
When people need to be housed on the moon they will need much more complicated facilities. They will need a structure able to hold atmospheric pressure, a much more restricted temperature and humidity environment, lighting, food, water, furniture suitable for working, resting, eating and sleeping and waste disposal facilities. We will never be able to afford to build such facilities on the moon if we do not first build the facilities to be used to make remotely controlled devices on the moon cost-effective.

To see more of industrial infrastructure to be built by remotely controlled machines on the moon and various concerns about how this will be done, see [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]]
[[Category:Industrial Production]]

To see proposed use of self-contained isolated breathing apparatus (SCIBA) for people working on the moon when industrial development gets that far see [[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus]]

Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus

2024-04-07T18:48:38Z

Farred: addition

A human working in vacuum in a [[space suit]] labors under a great handicap. A spacesuit tends to stiffen into one favored shape and require effort to maintain arms and legs in some other position. Instead of going out into the lunar vacuum to maintain a piece of machinery, it can be brought [[Sintered Brick Construction|inside]] where an inert atmosphere will not cause rust or corrosion to susceptible metals. A person can then do maintenance work wearing a '''Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus''' (SCIBA) instead of a space suit. This will improve capability and efficiency.

A SCIBA is a gas tight suit that keeps moist oxygenated air from mixing with the gas in a chamber filled with inert gas, hydrogen, or carbon dioxide as might be necessary for an industrial process. It has a supply of oxygen and a scrubber to remove carbon dioxide. The nitrogen or other inert gas (such as argon) is recycled. Sensors monitor the breathing gas mixture and vital signs so a worker can be warned of any failure of the life support. Telemetry from the sensors also alerts others in a position to rescue the worker in case of accidental failure.

An oxygen sensor for a SCIBA suit could be an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-galvanic_fuel_cell Electro-galvanic fuel cell] such as is used on Earth for scuba diving. The use for a SCIBA suit is less technically demanding because the SCIBA suit is always used at about the same pressure. Sensors for carbon dioxide, gas temperature, total pressure, humidity, heart rate, and body temperature would also be included.

A use for a SCIBA suit on Earth could be research involving molten titanium or other materials that need to be protected from a breathable atmosphere. It may be practical in cases in which a glove box does not easily provide access for sufficiently complex manipulation of an experiment.

[[Category:Life Support]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-07T18:38:11Z

Farred: reduce ambiguity

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs and life support equipment for each section. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html BostonDynamics]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

For example: Automobile manufacturers use paint robots to paint cars. One reason is that the environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done on the lunar surface.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, when the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface come from local industry, then the cost will come down even further and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Doing Without Space Suits

2024-04-07T18:21:09Z

Farred: correct capitalization error

{{One Sided Article}}
The entire set of space suits would be an encumbrance to a moon colony. They are more [[Robots in Space Suits|suited to robots]] than to people. If a ditch needs to be dug on the moon's surface, a remote controlled power shovel is the tool to use. If a screw needs to be turned in the vacuum outside, a remote controlled screw driver on the end of a remote controlled robot arm is needed. Indoors, a man uses a screwdriver without a space suit. If a colonist needs to move from one place to another across the moon's surface, a vehicle with a pressurized cabin and an air lock that can mate to the air locks of colony living quarters is preferred as transportation over a space suit. This is described in [[Air Lock to Air Lock Transfers#Air lock to Air Lock Transfers]], just ignore the mention of a space suit in the description. Being able to scratch ones elbow and otherwise be comfortable and able to move quickly are advantages of a motorized vehicle with a pressurized cabin. For redundancy a vehicle can have two sections separated by a set of pressure tight doors with independent sets of legs and life support equipment for each section. That kind of redundancy is hard to get with a space suit. When people arrive on the moon by rocket, they should be in a passenger compartment that doubles as a land vehicle. A mobile platform from the colony should come up to the descent vehicle so the cabin can detach from the lander, walk onto the platform, and be lowered to the ground. Then it can walk to the colony air locks.

To produce a successful human colony on the moon, people must be able to imagine what the successful colony is like before it is built. The division of labor between remote controlled devices and people doing hands on work should be this: Robots will do all work outside in the vacuum and robots will do routine easily automated industrial tasks indoors. People will work inside pressurized environments doing tasks that are not easy to automate. Such tasks include analysis of samples brought in from the lunar surface for scientific and economic significance, analysis of production samples to determine the efficiency of industry, repair of machinery, and fabrication of small numbers of devices. When some of this work involves working with machines or materials that would be harmed by exposure to oxygen or moisture, a person can wear a Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus ([[Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus|SCIBA]]) in a compartment pressurized with inert gas or some other non-oxidizing gas. A SCIBA does not restrict a person's dexterity and mobility as much as a space suit does, because it is worn in a one atmosphere pressure environment instead of in a vacuum environment; and so has no tendency to blow up like a balloon and assume one particular shape. Also there is no long preparation time of breathing low pressure pure oxygen before using a SCIBA. It works with a breathing gas that is at one atmosphere pressure, 20% oxygen just like the inhabited portions of the colony. If for any reason a task usually handled by remote control from Earth is not so handled, the task can be undertaken by remote control by a person on the moon, or it can be handled by a person in a surface vehicle using attached manipulators. A space suit will not be necessary for any tasks on the moon.

For some tasks on Earth screws are made with hex heads to be turned by a wrench and also a slot for a screw driver. This is typical of customer assembled furniture in which the manufacturer wants the customer to be able to assemble the product even with a deficient set of tools. There should be no similar situation for colonists on the moon using either a space suit or a remote controlled tool. There should never again be any space suits on the moon. Designing a task for two means of operation is an expense to be avoided. For redundancy, more than one remotely controlled device should be available for a task outside, more than one person to control available the task, and more than one radio control frequency or laser control frequency.[[File:MMSEV variation.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Although there are space suits illustrated, the idea that the less the better may well apply to their use.]]Besides colony air lock doors to mate with vehicle air locks, there should be air lock doors big enough to admit an entire vehicle to a repair shed when needed. A possible minimum sized vehicle for a man moving on the lunar surface could be a two meter (79 inch) high 66 cm diameter vertical axis cylinder with hemispherical end caps top and bottom, and external arm and leg type manipulators attached fore and legs aft. Another possibility is an 84 cm diameter 135 cm long horizontal axis cylinder with legs beneath and arms in front. These vehicles would have advantages over space suits as above. Certainly there could be much larger vehicles also which would have other advantages. An example of a legged vehicle is the BigDog<ref>[http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html BostonDynamics]</ref> rough-Terrain robot. To operate outdoors on the moon this robot would need an atmosphere-containing, dust-shedding covering and alterations to operate on electricity and withstand the thermal threats. No new science is required to develop walking robotic vehicles for the moon. Long lasting power supplies will be a concern. Most proposals for rovers, for example the NASA MMSEV, include external tele operated arms to reduce the need for leaving the vehicles.

For example: Automobile manufacturers use paint robots to paint cars. One reason is that the environment in the paint shed is often toxic to people.
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_robot Wikipedia]</ref> The robots sometimes also require protection which can sometimes be provided by putting plastic bags around the robot. It is easier to protect robots than to protect people. The environment of the lunar surface is more challenging than the environment of a paint booth. So, people should use robots to perform the tasks that need to be done there.
==Humans on the moon==
Taking into account the cost of maintaining people on the moon, the choice for initial agents to establish industry there becomes clear. Robots, not people in space suits should be used. One source estimated that the cost of having four people on the moon for a year would be 36 billion dollars.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouiTMXuDAQ&feature=youtu.be You Tube: How Much Would it Cost to Live on the Moon?]</ref> However, since these numbers were proposed, launch costs have gone down significantly, and SpaceX is proposing the Starship vehicle that is designed to provide transportation at a fraction of these historical numbers. Nevertheless, robots and in particular remotely operated vehicles and machinery remain a very attractive alternative to people in space suits.

Supplying humans from Earth will remain expensive. However, when the resources for supporting people on the lunar surface come from local industry, then the cost will come down even further and people will be doing work inside that does not require space suits. The costs of supporting people on the moon include [[Sewage|waste water treatment]]. These costs tend to get less per person as the number of people increases.

==Reference==
<references />

==See Also==

*[[Space suit]]

[[Category:Ground Transport]]
[[Category:Atmosphere Maintenance]]

Ants

2024-04-07T17:16:09Z

Farred: improve word choice

{{stub}}
{|align=right
|__TOC__
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Original Article can be found [http://www.colonyworlds.com/2008/04/will-ants-replace-bees-as-solar-insect.html here.]

==Will Ants Replace Bees As The Solar Insect?==

''"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."

'''King Solomon''', Proverbs 6:6-8''

===Bees: Magnetic Navigation===
Bees--whether you love them or hate them are an important insect, contributing an enormous amount to our food supply.

Without them, many of the foods that we eat (and take for granted) would be in scarce supply, which would be devastating for millions of tummies (not to mention agricultural stock holders) around the world.

Like many creatures, bees are dependent upon Earth's [[magnetic field]], which helps them navigate to and from their hive.

Unfortunately for humanity, global magnetic fields are a rarity throughout our solar system, as the only known "rocky" worlds hosting them belong to both Mercury and Jupiter's moon, Ganymede.

Unless humanity is able to create an artificial magnetic field that can cover the entire planet, future off world settlers will become heavily dependent on both Mercury and Ganymede to grow their "daily bread" (not to mention Earth as well).

===Ants: Possible Alternative===
[[image:Ant_in_flower.jpg|left|thumb|An ant patrolling a flower. Click Image to Enlarge.]]
In order to avoid this scenario, our species will probably have to look towards another creature to help us grow our fruits and flowers--which may mean that humanity may have to rely upon ants to help raise our food supply off world.

While colonists would probably object to importing fire ants (or even those flesh eating kind), they may want to consider adopting ants as a means of pollinating their flower crops and trees.

Even though they lack "the buzz" of their black and yellow friends, ants nonetheless are known to pollinate flowers.

Since many fruit trees require pollination in order produce a crop, ants may be able to compliment off world outposts since these insects rely upon smell, and not magnetic fields to guide themselves across long distances.

Like their flying "cousins," some ant species are known to breed large colonies, which may make it easier for settlers to export numerous these creatures to other locations without the fear of depleting the original ant colony.

Despite the fact that when comparing apples to apples (note: no pun intended), bees far outstrip their dirt walkers when it comes to pollination (due to their flying ability), scientists may be able to train ants to aggressively pollinate plants grown off world, enabling future colonies to grow their own food supply instead of importing most of it from Earth.

[[image:Antaster_lg.jpg|thumb|Click Image to Enlarge.]]

==Ant Pollination==

Ants form a great group of social insects that are great lovers of nectar. These busy insects are often observed visiting flowers to collect energy rich nectar. Ants are wingless and must crawl into each flower to reach their reward. Ants are more likely to take nectar without effectively cross-pollinating flowers.

There is a rare category of flowers that have become adapted to ant-pollination.

===Ant Flowers===

The flowers that are visited by ants are typically:

*Low growing
*Have small inconspicuous flowers
*Have flowers that are close to the stem

Note that this does not apply to many tropical species. It may be possible to breed vegetable strains which will emulate aspects of flowers typically pollinated by Ants.

==External Links==
*[http://www.colonyworlds.com/2008/04/will-ants-replace-bees-as-solar-insect.html Colony Worlds: Will Ants Replace Bees As The Solar Insect?]
*[http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/ants.shtml US Forest Service: Ant Pollination]
[[category:Agriculture]]

User:Farred/test

2024-03-21T14:56:29Z

Farred: addition

I intend to upload a picture here.

This charming image does not convey the words included in the original work because of insufficient resolution. On the left edge of the image from top down are the words:"HOT IN", "RADIATOR" and "COLD OUT". Arrows from the words point to features in the picture. On the top are the words: "Sun Rays". In the middle of the image are the words focus point. The image is a cross section of a parabolic ditch on Luna running East and weast at the 13 degree North latitude. The projetion of sun rays into the plane of the image is always tilted about 13 degrees to the right of vertical, ranging from 11.5 to 14.5 degrees from vertical. South is to the right. The radiator is always protected from sunlight, from infra red radiation from the surroundings and from micrometeoroids. The image is not intended to be to scale of an actual device, but merely to communicate the concept.

[[Image:Test.jpg]]
New image:
[[Image:RADI3.jpg]]

What can be built on the moon soon is a thermal shelter for remote controlled devices. Naturally, if a device sent to do work on the moon fails because it is vulnerable to the overnight low temperature of the two week long lunar night, it will not accomplish much work on the moon. It should be possible for a remotely controlled device to assemble a thermal shelter out of prefabricated pieces during the lunar day so it can be sheltered during the night and work again next day.
The lunar regolith is good insolation on the moon where it exists in a vacuum. At a depth of a foot or more in fine particles there is no great variation in temperature from day to night. A shelter could be covered with a foot of fines for insulation making good thermal protection. A door to the shelter could be made from prefabricated panels with a 14 inch hollow space between them. The space could be filled with sifted regolith fines for great insulation. The door could be carried by a remote controlled device on the moon as it enters the shelter it assembled. The door would be left at the doorway of the shelter to complete the thermal insulation.
Reasonably inexpensive (relative to other space probes) and simple devices could use such a shelter on the moon and survive the night to work again the next day.

[[File:Model 4 thermal shelter.jpg]]

==Thermal Shelter on the moon==
The thermal shelter on the moon that people should be concerned with now is a shelter for remotely controlled machines. To be economicly effective, such machines must last more than two weeks, the length of time from sunrise to sunset on the moon. The Chinese made a machine last over night and continue working month after month. They used chuncks of radioactive material, (probably plutonium 238), to provide heat and a small amount of electrical power during the sunset to sunrise period. This tactic makes maintaining a cool enough temperature for operation during the sunrise to sunset period more difficult, and it is rather expensive.
The thermal shelter concept I feature here is a double walled building as shown by the model photograph. The outer wall is 8 feet by 8 feet at the foundation and 8 feet high. With the inner wall, doorway, lintel, roof and six "V" cross section roof support girders (not shown because they are hidden by the roof) that comes to 550 square feet of cardboard including 38 square feet for slot and tab construction technique with prefabricated pieces. If I take a popular grade of cardboard and consider charring it to 40 percent of its original weight I get 23 square feet per pound. That makes about 24 pounds of charred cardboard for the building walls, 6 pounds for the 400 buttons strings and tensioners that will fasten the inner and outer walls together that need to be shipped to the moon for the building and no weight that needs to be shipped to the moon for the sifted regolith fines that will fill the spaces between the inner and outer wall, cover the roof and act as insulation because the regolith fines are already on the moon wherever the thermal shelter needs to be built.

==Venus cooled to 0 degrees Centigrade==
On Venus at 0 degrees Centigrade about 53 % of the atmosphere would remain as a gaseous CO2 providing the 49 bar pressure to liquify the 47% of the atmosphere that would fill the carbon dioxide ocean. The 3.5% nitrogen originally in the atmosphere would make up about 6.6% of the atmosphere remaining or about 22% by volume. Would people be able to fly a reentry vehicle to the surface under these conditions to make a base and mine the solid surface of Venus? A shade for cooling the planet Venus could be made out of stuff mined from Earth's moon. The accuracy of the numbers is low.

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2024-03-07T04:40:29Z

Farred: add link

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of the amount of energy for achieving orbit as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed (about 56 seconds), a task that is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border trans-shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount of hydrogen added previously and the amount of oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]].
:For a partial transcript of the original presentation of the idea at a Moon Society meeting go to [[Recycling Rocket Exhaust Presented at Mare Cognitum Chapter Meeting]].
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

Recycling Rocket Exhaust Presented at Mare Cognitum Chapter Meeting

2024-03-07T02:58:10Z

Farred: add link

At the Zoom meeting of the Mare Cognitum chapter of the Moon Society on the 16th of June, 2022, a speaker gave a talk roughly reproduced below:

I will explain potential advantages of recycling rocket exhaust into rocket propellant on the moon. Then I will suggest likely difficulties in that recycling. Then I will offer possible means of addressing those difficulties.

The propellant on the moon from recycling rocket exhaust will be worth money. Just how much is difficult to figure exactly. The cost of the Apollo program divided by the number of pounds that reached the moon yields about $2.8 million per pound which includes the cost of shipping it all to the moon. So, the cost of shipping to the moon must be less than $2.8 million per pound.

Starting with the cost of a recent Israeli moon mission I figure that the cost must be less than $300 thousand per pound. Working from an estimated cost of at least $6,000 per pound for achieving direct lunar transfer orbit, without the cost of developing a payload, I get at least $13 thousand per pound shipped to the moon. So, the cost of recycling rocket exhaust into propellant should be less than that to make it worthwhile. How much less is a good question. If the cost of recycled fuel can be made low enough it could make transportation from the moon for materials for building space based solar power (SBSP) stations practical. That is the really big draw. Once the facilities for manufacturing SBSP are in hand modifying them to produce space habitats would be a possibility. Solar sails manufactured in the as deployed condition to go along with the space habitats is another possibility. That is, if economically successful, recycling rocket exhaust could open the solar system from Mercury to Jupiter to economic exploitation.

It is the large demand for materials shipped from the moon for building SBSP that makes the problems with recycling rocket exhaust worth looking at to find a solution. Recycling would require launching rockets horizontally on the surface of the moon instead of launching in the traditional vertical way. The rocket would need to travel about 30 miles downrange within a tube on the surface of the moon for the rocket exhaust to be captured if [the rocket] accelerates at about 30 meters per second squared on average. The tube would need to be quite straight along the intended trajectory to accommodate the rocket reaching orbital velocity of about 1680 meters per second. Thermal management would be a concern in capturing hot rocket exhaust and converting it to cold fuel. Tanks for various process fluids would be needed. Building infrastructure for all needs would need to be done without ambient air for internal combustion engines on construction machinery. Lubricants tend to evaporate in the ambient vacuum of the moon making various bearings difficult to design.

For example, I choose a tube with a diameter of 12 feet. The rocket would be sized to remain about three feet away from the tube walls because the practice of flying aircraft in tight formation on Earth has shown that airplanes can routinely maintain such a distance from one another and rockets have maneuverability comparable to airplanes. I imagine RFID devices would be embedded in the wall of the tube for sensors in the rocket to determine position and velocity as the rocket flies through the tube. A computer would control maneuvers to maintain the proper position in the tube.

The rocket launch tube itself and a considerable array of radiator tubes should be constantly shaded from the sun to help maintain an adequate temperature. This is possible for a tube stretching East and West near the moon's equator by having a shade suspended directly overhead by pillars running with the tube and radiator array in an East-West direction. I propose an anchoring external tube of sintered regolith brick supporting an inner corrugated silicon steel tube for containing the exhaust after the rocket leaves the tube and a door closes. The line of the corrugations of the silicon steel would run circumferentially about the tube so that the steel could thermally expand without changing the length of the tube. The support from the anchoring outer tube would allow the tube to change diameter and shape slightly in response to a change in temperature while maintaining the same length and position. Ethylene glycol and water could be used as a cooling radiator fluid. Other cooling fluids would also be used to help compress and store exhaust awaiting recycling. The final choice of heat transfer fluids remains for the engineers who fix the specifications.

Silicon, iron, regolith and many other materials are available for building these things on the moon so only a small percentage of materials needed to build a rocket exhaust recycling system on the moon would need to be imported from Earth. To build all of this from lunar materials requires remotely controlled industry on the moon to produce the sintered regolith bricks, glass fiber cables, steel and other metals; grade the foundation for the tube and assemble it. The machines necessary to do this would come from Earth with components of the industrial machinery actually made on the moon wherever that is practical. The remote control from Earth should go on with three eight hour shifts of controllers per day. Electrical batteries can power mobile machines and the batteries could be exchanged spent for charged at charging stations. Mobile machines could walk so that all of their bearings could be enclosed in space suits that would retain a nitrogen atmosphere and prevent excessive lubricant evaporation. It is hard to put the wheels of a wheeled vehicle inside a space suit and retain their function. The outside layer of the space suit would not be woven fabric but a plastic film on a smooth surface designed to flex for the necessary motions of the machine. Accordion folds over joints is a possibility. The outer film would wash off and be separated from the dust it collected. Then the outer coating would be reapplied.

The relation of all of this to human space flight is that the enterprise would build a destination that would be worth a human visit. A habitat on the moon with recycling features, shielded from radiation by lunar material and containing a centrifuge to provide necessary exercise for people who come to do indoor work on the moon. No work for humans wearing space suits would be available.

This would be a vast enterprise to produce a vast solution of SBSP for any people on Earth that will accept it.

*There were many comments questions and answers at the meeting.
*One attendee asked what propellant was imagined for the example rocket launching.
*The speaker said that methane and oxygen at 3 kilograms oxygen to one of methane were imagined. This is less oxygen than needed for stoichiometric burning of the fuel but the rich mixture provides about 2500 meters per second exhaust velocity.
*One question was about the launching. The rocket would launch from an electric catapult giving it about 4% of mission delta V and providing ullage thrust for ignition.
*It was suggested that the 4% electric thrust could be increased incrementally as the use of the launching tube developed over years until the rocket was brought to orbital velocity completely by electric thrust. The speaker claimed that Gerard K. O'Neill's mass driver launching of cargo to L5 was limited to one kilogram sized packets because at orbital velocity one kilogram requires as much electric power as is practical for such a device so orbiting a ton-and-a-half cargo to orbital velocity all electrically would be 1500 times what is practical.
*One participant suggested that the impact of the rocket exhaust on the tube would be considerable at the moment of ignition. The speaker suggested that as a flame trench leads exhaust away from rocket launches on Earth, rocket exhaust would be led to the rear during a tube launch. The tube would extend not only down range but also in the opposite direction where it would have a larger diameter. The difference is that on Earth the exhaust is thrown away, with a tube launch it is kept. The participant noted that the volume in the up range direction from the launch point need not be cylindrical but spherical or any shape would do.
*Compartmentalizing the tube with a number of doors that would close behind the rocket as it passed during the tube launch was suggested to preserve the high pressure near the launch point to help the vacuum pumps remove exhaust in this relatively high pressure area. A separate port for drawing off exhaust would serve each compartment. There is some theoretical benefit to this but cooling the exhaust in the whole tube might provide a better distribution of thermal management load if the tube were left as only one compartment. One port for pumping out exhaust would be enough even if more than one pump were attached to the port to provide the most efficient pumping as the conditions of temperature and pressure changed as the last portion to be pumped out was reached. There is only one port for putting air into a car tire or letting it out. That works.
*Why silicon steel for the inner corrugated steel tube? There is more silicon than carbon available on the moon to use.
*How will the exhaust be changed into fuel? Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide mixed with hydrogen at the right temperature with a catalyst produces methane and water. Electrolysis of the water gives back the hydrogen so it can be used on the next batch of fuel.
*Can exhaust recycling be done only on the moon? No. It could be done at an orbiting fuel depot also. So, a rocket making a trip from the moon to orbiting depot then back and repeating could use the same fuel over and over again. Exhaust lost in recycling would need to be made up from another source.
*A suggestion was made that the launching tube could be shortened to something less than thirty miles, putting the door at the end of the shortened length and making no other change. This would result in the rocket proceeding to orbit passing the end of the tube while the rocket motor was still burning. If the rocket passed out of the tube with three out of fifty-six seconds burn time left then the launching tube would be more than two miles shorter (and cheaper to build) and three seconds of rocket exhaust generation would be wasted. Meanwhile, the launch tube construction robot crew could be occupied building another tube.
*It was suggested that the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel is in direct competition with Gerard K. O'Neill's concept of a mass driver launching kilogram packets to L5. However, that mass driver plan was never finished to the extent that one could check how much it would cost to build it. In particular, the method of adjusting the aim of the mass driver to compensate for the moon's libration and keeping it aimed at L5 was not presented. Also the means of receiving the cargo at L5 was not described better than calling it a conical catcher. It is likely that these concerns and others could be more easily worked out once the moon is industrialized and research facilities are available on the lunar surface and in cis-lunar space. It is just unlikely that both mass driver cargo launching and rocket exhaust recycling tubes will be built at the same time. Whichever can be finished first should be built first.
*A suggestion of quick acting doors implied that the tube end door would open and close quickly, being open just long enough to let the rocket out of the tube. Actually the launching tube can remain open to the vacuum of space as a rocket is readied at the launching spot. After the freshly launched rocket leaves the tube but before the vanguard of the exhaust gas cloud reaches reaches the end of the tube, traveling at merely the speed of sound, the tube end door would close and remain closed until all rocket exhaust that can practically be pumped from the tube has been removed.
*The meeting is available on YouTube at <nowiki>(https://youtu.be/PqSo-2MeSuU)</nowiki>.
*For an discussion of strategy for implementing the Recycling of Rocket Exhaust see [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]]

[[Category:Moon Society]]

Thermal Shelter on the moon

2024-02-24T14:04:11Z

Farred: use of more precise words

==Thermal Shelter on the moon==
[[File:Model 4 thermal shelter.jpg]]
::
::
The thermal shelter on the moon that people should be concerned with now is a shelter for remotely controlled machines. To be economically effective, such machines must last more than two weeks, the length of time from sunrise to sunset on the moon. The Chinese made a machine last over night and continue working month after month. They used chunks of radioactive material, (probably plutonium 238), to provide heat and a small amount of electrical power during the sunset to sunrise period. This tactic makes maintaining a cool enough temperature for operation during the sunrise to sunset period more difficult, and it is rather expensive.
The thermal shelter concept I feature here is a double walled building of prefabricated charred corrugated paper represented by the construction paper model in the photograph.
The outer wall is 8 feet by 8 feet at the foundation and 8 feet high. With the inner wall, doorway, lintel, roof and six "V" cross section roof support girders (not shown because they are hidden by the roof) that comes to 550 square feet of
charred corrugated paper including 38 square feet allowed for slot and tab construction technique with prefabricated pieces. If I take a popular grade of corrugated paper and consider charring it to 40 percent of its original weight I get 23 square feet per pound. That makes about 24 pounds of charred corrugated paper for the building walls, 6 pounds for the 400 buttons strings and tensioners that will fasten the inner and outer walls together that need to be shipped to the moon for the building, another 6 pounds for the door to the building and its handles and no weight that needs to be shipped to the moon for the sifted regolith fines that will fill the spaces between the inner and outer wall of the building and door and cover the roof acting as thermal insulation. Regolith fines make good insulation in the ambient vacuum situation in which they are found and in which they will be used. They are already on the moon wherever the thermal shelter needs to be built.
When people need to be housed on the moon they will need much more complicated facilities. They will need a structure able to hold atmospheric pressure, a much more restricted temperature and humidity environment, lighting, food, water furniture suitable for working, resting, eating and sleeping and waste disposal facilities. We will never be able to afford to build such facilities on the moon if we do not first build the facilities to be used to make remotely controlled devices on the moon effective.

To see more of industrial infrastructure to be built by remotely controlled machines on the moon and various concerns about how this will be done, see [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]]
[[Category:Industrial Production]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2024-02-08T23:14:06Z

Farred: add missing words

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of the amount of energy for achieving orbit as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed (about 56 seconds), a task that is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border trans-shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount of hydrogen added previously and the amount of oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]]
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2024-02-08T23:01:09Z

Farred: improve phrasing

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of the amount of energy for achieving orbit as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed (about 56 seconds), a task that is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border trans-shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount hydrogen added previously and the amount oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]]
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2024-02-08T22:35:27Z

Farred: improve phrasing

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of the amount of energy for achieving orbit as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed (about 56 seconds), a task that is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount hydrogen added previously and the amount oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]]
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2024-02-08T22:13:19Z

Farred: correction

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be an early step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of that amount of energy as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed, a task that is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount hydrogen added previously and the amount oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]]
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

New moon base concepts

2024-02-08T15:25:02Z

Farred: remove reference that fails to accurately specify source

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars. I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made humanoid to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge. It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing death in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization and the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines without extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars; hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

New moon base concepts

2024-02-08T14:59:34Z

Farred: correction

{{Controversial Question Series}}

==Controversial Question:==
===Should a new moonbase as suggested by NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay be built or should another or no concept be built?===

=New moon base concepts=

==Published in magazines==
Popular Science magazine recently published a couple of articles on a potential moon base for which the cost to maintain 10 people on the moon is said to have been reduced from $100 billion to only $10 billion.<ref>Popular Science, moon colony articles by Sarah Fecht, 10 March 2016 & 20 July 2015</ref> NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said that the reductions of cost were due to the planned use of recently developed technology such as self driving vehicles and waste-recycling toilets. To McKay the main advantage of colonizing the moon is the testing of technology and methods which would be similar to what would be used for a colony on Mars. McKay said that to him the moon per se is about as attractive as a spherical chunk of concrete.

Various papers concerning the moon colony were made public on the 10th of March 2016. McKay was the editor of that portion of New Space in which they were published. One team estimates that food for 10 on the moon could be provided for a year for $350 million. The waste-recycling toilet, Blue Diversion Toilet, is being developed for use on Earth by a company financed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and might have application as an example of the type of toilet to be used on the moon. The possible extraction of water from lunar ice at the poles and the use of such water to produce rocket fuel by electrolysis is not a new idea. However, a group gave a figure of $40 billion worth of propellant per year that they expected they might be able to extract from the moon.

==Criticism==
The above base concept certainly includes preliminary robotic probes that would assess, among other things, how much difficulty accessing hydrogen on the moon would entail and how much water ice seemed to be readily available. The estimate of producing $40 billion worth of rocket propellant per year seems premature in coming before the robotic probe data is available. However, if ice is plentifully and easily available, it might still be unwise to use this resource to enable colonization of Mars. Hydrogen on the moon is rare. Once the easily accessed deposits are used up they will be gone. Hydrogen could be used to further industry on the moon in the role of supplying hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for electricity during the lunar night. Hydrogen is essential for a [[Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit]] (LRSTO) which would recycle the hydrogen and the LRSTO, launching both cargo and passengers to cis-lunar space. Hydrogen is used to reduce [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite]] and it is a necessary part of sulfuric and nitric acids that are to be used industrially on the moon. It might be better to use scarce lunar hydrogen in industry on the moon to benefit the whole population of Earth rather than to enable an elitist colony on Mars like the one Elon Musk envisions establishing while charging colonists $200,000 each for transportation. Elon Musk does not advertise plans to use lunar hydrogen in his transportation system to Mars, so the whole idea of exporting lunar hydrogen for rocket transportation may be unnecessary. Wait a few years and develop an [[Eddy Current Brake to Orbit|eddy-current-braking to orbit]] (ECBTO) system to put people and cargo into cis-lunar space and the number of colonists sent to space habitats could be in the billions. This requires lunar industry to supply the materials for building the ECBTO systems in low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Lunar materials could also help Earth with space-based solar power as well as enabling the building of massive space habitats. The question is should public money enable the quick rides for astronauts or some rich people to Mars or should public money enable a millennium of prosperity by moving human trade and industry into orbit on a wave of cheaply provided lunar materials? It would require industry on the moon. It would require time, money, and hydrogen. The new moon base concepts from McKay seem to describe exporting hydrogen from the moon as a way to make money. I would rather it be described in different words. I suggest there be laws restricting the export of hydrogen from the moon so it could be called a crime. Oxygen as an export from the moon is much more sustainable. Almost every thing one sees on the moon is an oxide. So, about 44% by weight of the moon's surface is oxygen. People only need to separate the oxygen by processes like the [[FFC Cambridge Process|FFC Cambridge process]] or [[Ilmenite Reduction|ilmenite reduction]] to get plenty of oxygen. Oxygen would be recycled only to save the cost of making more. Hydrogen should be recycled severely because when it is gone, hydrogen will need to be imported to keep lunar industry running.

The philosophy behind McKay's new moon base concepts above seems to be that the moon is worth nothing more than a tool to rocket some astronauts to Mars and a test to see if we have learned to survive in a deadly-in-seconds atmosphere. Chris McKay speaks of terraforming Mars as if it were something easy. Just manufacture some perfluorocarbons out of the Martian atmosphere and elements found in the dirt. Then frozen CO2 would be released enhancing the warming effect and you would need to scatter some seeds.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> How many tons of perfluorocarbons would be needed? How large a nuclear electric generating capacity? How many centuries before this Martian industry can be built? NASA does not say. NASA does not estimate the cost of gardening the planet of Mars. The closest they have come to giving a cost was estimating $450 billion for a program including crewed missions to the moon and Mars for exploration only. The idea, I suppose, is that once we have spent $450 billion and any cost over-runs getting people to Mars, we will be obligated to keep financing a Mars development or we will have lost our investment. In only a few millennia we could have a breathable atmosphere on Mars.<ref>[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/07/mars-pg2 National Geographic]</ref> I do not suggest that McKay has tried to omit important information, but the particular point I am interested in is not always included in news reports about terraforming. In ''The future of space colonization''<ref>[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html PHYS.ORG The future of space colonization]</ref> it is clear that the short 100 years for producing a warmer thicker but still unbreathable atmosphere on Mars is counted by starting after the industrial infrastructure to produce greenhouse gasses is built and the desired quantity of gasses is manufactured. If it would take fifty years to establish the industrial infrastructure and then fifty years using that infrastructure to manufacture sufficient perfluorocarbons, then it would take 200 years to get the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that would allow liquid water on Mars but not allow people to breath without having their own contained atmosphere. As a clue to the cost of establishing the industrial infrastructure, I would suggest that the figure be enumerated in trillions. In the case of the moon, it is not unreasonable to guess that in thirty to fifty years a remotely controlled industry could have produced a hundred mile long rocket-sled track to routinely ship cargo to orbit while recycling the great majority of the hydrogen burnt as fuel. Lunar exports of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium, sodium, glass, solar cells, bare and insulated wire, and sifted regolith could make industry in orbit possible. Beside these plentifully available items there are things like helium-3 and rare earth elements which are less abundant on the moon but could be exported for high prices making their recovery and use for special purposes economically practical. People only need to commit to establishing reasonably large scale industry in orbit to create the market for lunar exports that would make the cost of export low per ton. Low-cost transportation to orbit is dependent upon a large market. When shipping lunar products to lunar orbit becomes a routine part of business, its costs should be comparable to air freight, because the aircraft are reused for years and a LRSTO for launching things to orbit should be reused for years. Jet fuel is made out of petroleum pumped out of the ground. Rocket fuel could be made by recycling the LRSTO exhaust. So rocket fuel would be somewhat more expensive on the moon than jet fuel on Earth. Air freight might cost $1.50-$4.50 per kilogram.<ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTAIRTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:22502536~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:515181,00.html The World Bank]</ref> I will estimate a cost of $20.00 per kilogram, $20,000 per metric ton, to put cargo into orbit around the moon in the case in which LRSTO is developed and there is a large market for cargo. The support for a Mars mission that a developed moon base could provide will not be available if instead of developing the moon with remotely controlled industry NASA rapes the moon removing as much hydrogen as possible to burn it as rocket fuel without the recycling possible in a rocket-sled launch. In testimony before the congress of the United States, on the 7th of September in 2000, NASA stated that costs of recurring launch ranging from $100 to $200 per kilogram would enable production of an economically operated SBSP (space based solar power) system.<ref>[http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/KALAM-NSS-Initiative.pdf KALAM-NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSAL INITIATIVE, page 5]</ref> Since the $20.00 per kilogram cost of launching from the moon could be made available, an SBSP system should be possible with materials available on the moon instead of the ultra light materials being considered for SBSP built from Earth launched materials. Building with lunar materials requires a time lag for the building of lunar industry, but no new scientific theories are needed. There must be considerable development of technology based on the science we already know.

Let it be clear that the advantage in launching cargo from the moon results from the physical properties of the moon. It takes 22 times more energy per pound to reach orbital velocity from the surface of the Earth than from the surface of the moon. Launching to orbit from Earth requires reaching an altitude above most of the atmosphere before acceleration to near orbital velocity. On the moon orbital velocity can be achieved at zero altitude as long as there are no physical obstacles in the path. Launches from Earth usually require an aerodynamic fairing to protect the cargo. Launches from the moon do not. These advantages will always remain in the moon's favor no matter what advances in launch technology are made in the future and these advantages are not had on Mars. What is preventing the practical use of these advantages is the lack of industrial infrastructure on the moon and a lack of a market for using launch facilities on the moon.

Quite apart from any harm done to lunar development by sending people to the moon before they can be economically accommodated, Chris McKay seems false to his goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. Any simulation of a Mars mission that can be done on the moon can, at this stage of lunar development, be done more cheaply on Earth. The idea of astronauts romping around the moon is not obviously connected to the mission of colonizing Mars. Astronauts are generally a savvy bunch. I doubt they will see the Popular Science moon mission concept as an integral part of a Mars mission. The U. S. general public should be polled on the question of whether they want a trillion dollars spent sending people to Mars or not, because if it is done without first industrializing the moon and cis-lunar space, that is about what it will cost. Half-trillion dollar Mars programs have been soundly rejected by lawmakers. With $8 billion per year for human space flight,<ref>[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it's not enough @HOUSTON-CHRONICLE October 2015]</ref> NASA can play with the ISS and pretend to be working on going to Mars, but no crewed vessel will ever arrive at the destination. As evidence that NASA is not serious about colonizing Mars I mention the well known Robonaut made humanoid to be able to handle tools made for people. Requiring a robot to work through the limitations of human form is likely to make it ineffective at industrial tasks. So far NASA has been successful in keeping its humanoid robots too ineffective to compete with humans in developing space. NASA is developing another humanoid robot called Valkyrie to work on Mars.<ref>NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, NOVEMBER 2016, page 38</ref><ref>[https://news.northeastern.edu/2016/06/valkyrie/ News@Northeastern]</ref> Robots made for industrial tasks by private industry are not humanoid in form. Robots made to move ore like a truck at a mine look like a truck with cameras attached. Robots made to paint products on the production line do not have five fingers to hold a paint sprayer. Their arms end in paint sprayers. The best that a humanoid robot could do for industrial tasks on Mars is to do the task with more expense than standard robots because of the unnecessary humanoid form. A robotic front-end loader on Mars should look like a front-end loader on Earth with some changes. There would be no crew cab. Remote controls would link the operator to the machine. That is cheaper than building a separate life support system in the crew cab for a front-end loader and every other construction or mining machine used on Mars. Developing a humanoid robot for industrial tasks is a waste of money which concerns NASA very little. NASA wants to handle more money and is indifferent to accomplishing anything or not. Worse than just wasting money, if a NASA sponsored humanoid robot were to be the only agent suited to a certain job on Mars and it needed to be replaced, industry on Mars might be insufficiently developed to do the complex task of replacement and be reduced to begging Earth to send a replacement. Does NASA get its ideas for projects from Hollywood screenwriters and politicians? That would explain the seemingly perverse attitude that since there is commercial potential for developing Earth's moon such a project is disqualified for NASA while the lack of commercial potential in developing Mars puts Mars development projects right in NASA's line.

:With a strategy of industrializing the moon first and using that industry to colonize Mars in an economically possible way, it is likely to take fifty or sixty years before lunar industry is up to making the massive sort of vessel that could hold a crew of a thousand and a recycling life support system in a fully radiation shielded centrifuge. It is an inconveniently long time to continue a program before a desired result, but there are desirable goals along the way that the program would achieve. First there would be the development of ground truth in making worthwhile measurement of resources on the lunar surface and the development of robots that could last long enough in a lunar environment to make exploitation possible. Second there would be development of a non-rocket launching system or a fuel-recycling rocket sled launching system (an LRSTO) to put cargo into space from the moon, making space-based industry possible for building of space-based telescopes and other salable space-based commodities. Third the cargo launching system would be upgraded for launching people at which time life support facilities would also be built so people could work indoors on the moon at the sophisticated tasks that people can do more economically in person than by remote control if supported by the proper infrastructure. Fourth lunar materials will be used to build a space-based solar power system that will free humanity from excessive fossil fuel use. Fifth space habitats will be built from lunar materials and one or more of them used as a colony ship to send to Mars. So it will be a long wait for a Mars colony, but the space program will be generating enough money to pay for it by the time that it is built.

==The main points in a nutshell==
Ambient conditions on the surface of the moon and Mars are hostile to human life, causing death in seconds to the unprotected human being. The situation is the sort that calls for remotely controlled machines to operate in these conditions just as remotely controlled machines on Earth search the ocean bottom for wrecks and bury pipelines and communications cables on the ocean bottom. NASA has sent remotely controlled machines to explore Mars' surface but colonization with concurrent effort to terraform Mars would require an enormous effort at industrialization and the efficiency of remotely controlled machines that could only be achieved by people being on Mars, on Phobos, on Deimos or in orbit around Mars to control the machines without extremely long communications delays. A theoretical alternative would be having a yet-to-be-developed artificial intelligence on Mars that could efficiently control industrial machines with only occasional communications with controlling humans on Earth, perhaps once per day.

An obvious use of the moon is to get experience in the remote control of machines which would be in important ways similar to the machines that would be used in colonizing Mars. Earning money on the moon would make this economically possible and lunar industry would be a market for exports from Mars; hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, argon, and chlorine. Colonizing Mars directly from Earth with all vehicles and equipment produced on Earth's surface is unrealistically expensive with a cost much more than that of crewed Mars exploration programs that have been rejected by the lawmakers in the U.S.A. Placing a base on the moon that only assists with a never-to-be-realized Mars effort with fuel produced from lunar resources will use up funds while doing not enough to bring Mars colonization costs into acceptable limits. The financial loss could bring all colonization efforts, lunar and Martian, to an end for some significant time.

==See the discussion==
Why would NASA, as represented by its employee, Chris McKay, avoid economically sound ideas of lunar development and promote a program which would do considerable harm to the prospects for industrial development on the moon? Not being privy to the unpublished policy discussions at NASA, I can repeat unofficial excuses I have read, and then get to some real difficulties. Objections, as presented by a peculiarly inept and accommodating opponent to lunar industrialization, are offered in '''the [[Talk:New_moon_base_concepts|discussion page]] for this article'''.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2024-02-08T01:24:25Z

Farred: add link

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
__NOTOC__
==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be a first step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of that amount of energy as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed, a task that is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount hydrogen added previously and the amount oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
:To see some discussion of argument in favor of building infrastructure on the moon see [[New moon base concepts]]
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

Thermal Shelter on the moon

2024-02-08T01:12:56Z

Farred: add link

==Thermal Shelter on the moon==
[[File:Model 4 thermal shelter.jpg]]
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The thermal shelter on the moon that people should be concerned with now is a shelter for remotely controlled machines. To be economically effective, such machines must last more than two weeks, the length of time from sunrise to sunset on the moon. The Chinese made a machine last over night and continue working month after month. They used chunks of radioactive material, (probably plutonium 238), to provide heat and a small amount of electrical power during the sunset to sunrise period. This tactic makes maintaining a cool enough temperature for operation during the sunrise to sunset period more difficult, and it is rather expensive. The thermal shelter concept I feature here is a double walled building as shown by the model photograph. The outer wall is 8 feet by 8 feet at the foundation and 8 feet high. With the inner wall, doorway, lintel, roof and six "V" cross section roof support girders (not shown because they are hidden by the roof) that comes to 550 square feet of cardboard including 38 square feet for slot and tab construction technique with prefabricated pieces. If I take a popular grade of cardboard and consider charring it to 40 percent of its original weight I get 23 square feet per pound. That makes about 24 pounds of charred cardboard for the building walls, 6 pounds for the 400 buttons strings and tensioners that will fasten the inner and outer walls together that need to be shipped to the moon for the building, another 6 pounds for the door to the building and its handles and no weight that needs to be shipped to the moon for the sifted regolith fines that will fill the spaces between the inner and outer wall of the building and door and cover the roof acting as thermal insulation. Regolith fines make good insulation in the ambient vacuum situation in which they are found and in which they will be used. They are already on the moon wherever the thermal shelter needs to be built.
When people need to be housed on the moon they will need much more complicated facilities. They will need a structure able to hold atmospheric pressure, a much more restricted temperature and humidity environment, lighting, food, water furniture suitable for working, resting, eating and sleeping and waste disposal facilities. We will never be able to afford to build such facilities on the moon if we do not first build the facilities to be used to make remotely controlled devices on the moon effective.

To see more of industrial infrastructure to be built by remotely controlled machines on the moon and various concerns about how this will be done, see [[RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST]]
[[Category:Industrial Production]]

RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

2024-02-03T20:20:12Z

Farred: addition

This is a concept for lunar industrial development.
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==Concept description==
:It seems technologically possible to produce a space based solar power (SBSP) system for Earth from lunar materials, but the economics cause difficult constraints and the current geopolitical situation is very difficult.
*Investment in costly infrastructure is necessary to take full advantage of the potential low cost of achieving orbit from the moon. Many launches to orbit for a large customer are necessary to pay for the infrastructure. So, committing to infrastructure for launching to orbit and the building of SBSP should be a package deal. One or the other by itself or half-way measures do not make much sense.
*Industrial production of oxygen on the moon with depot storage should be a first step. Then depots orbiting the Earth and moon. This technology is difficult, possible, and certainly possible to get wrong. Then there is the recycling of rocket exhaust into rocket fuel by having the acceleration to orbit on Luna occur in a tube that is horizontal along the equator with the tube in a semicircular cross section ditch in the lunar regolith with an air-lock door at the downrange end of the tube. The air-lock door must be closed after the rocket leaves the tube to allow the rocket exhaust to be captured by vacuum pumps. The regolith on which the tube rests should be built up enough so the craft exiting the acceleration tube misses any landscape features. The rocket flies free down the center of the tube with guidance from RFID tags mounted on the walls. The guidance of a free flying rocket would need to have about the accuracy that is achieved in acrobatic formation flying of jet airplanes. Jet airplanes have routinely flown as close as three feet from wing-tip to wing-tip while in formation flying. This suggests that three feet clearance between the rocket and the tube walls can provide room in which the rocket can maneuver to avoid hitting the walls. The choice between rocket-sled cargo launching and free flying rocket is a matter of which technology is most easily verified by development of models on Earth.
*If acceleration in the tube averages about 30 meters per second squared then the tube on Luna needs to be about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) long. I find "30 meters per second squared for 30 miles for orbital speed" easy to remember. A rocket-sled can use one of various deceleration techniques to use fuel recycling. A free flying rocket continues on in orbit to an orbiting depot where another tube would exist for providing delta v to deorbit and return to the moon with the deceleration rocket exhaust recycled to rocket fuel on the depot. For orbital stabilization the orbiting depot would need large, high specific impulse electric thrusters with low thrust to weight ratio which are possible with various technologies. The mystery to me is why these technologies have not been already employed, since they were all available since 1985. The low thrust to weight ratio for the orbital maintenance thrusters on the orbiting fuel depot would not be something people would strive to achieve. It would be a natural result of releasing a weight constraint in design and using every means possible to increase exhaust velocity.
*The horizontal acceleration of a rocket in a tube should start with electric acceleration of a movable launching pad for the first 4% or so of orbital velocity. The moving start of the rocket prevents the rocket exhaust from having too much erosive effect on the tube, prevents excessive pressure build-up behind the rocket, prevents the rocket from flying in its own exhaust, provides ullage thrust for the start of the rocket engines and a portion of mission delta v. A larger diameter section of tube to collect exhaust behind the launch spot may also be desired. Six feet larger in diameter than the rocket should be about the minimum diameter for the launching tube to provide the clearance to avoid the rocket smashing into the tube wall. Rocket scientists can calculate whether the tube needs to be larger at some parts of the tube to accommodate the volume of exhaust. As the rocket continues down the tube at increasing speed, the mass of exhaust gas deposited in the tube per unit length decreases. So, the diameter of tube needed to accommodate the exhaust gas decreases with distance traveled in the tube to where it is less than the diameter needed to avoid crashes into the tube wall.
*Recycling rocket exhaust provides a way of storing the electrical energy needed for launch of a cargo carrying rocket. The energy is stored as rocket propellant. That compares to the use of that amount of energy as electricity in the short time that it takes a rocket to accelerate to orbital speed, a task that is undemonstrated and, I feel quite confidant, would require much more expensive infrastructure.

==Mining the building materials==
:Of course, remotely controlled equipment would be necessary to mine the moon; separate oxygen which is 44 percent of the moon's regolith; store oxygen in tanks; separate the regolith into constituents by electrolysis in a bath of calcium chloride, potassium chloride or potassium fluoride, with the potassium and chlorine or fluorine recycled; take the iron sponge from the anode of the electrolysis bath and purify it by a carbonyl process; form the iron and aluminum into pigs, alloys, and bar and sheet stock; form sifted regolith into sintered brick and fiber glass; build buildings, the orbital acceleration tubes, sheltered and shaded East-West roads and North-South roads, each type by its proper techniques; make the solar cells and ship products out. Astronauts doing any of those things on the moon by any means other than remote control simply could not be economically competitive. This is not a new idea. "THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement"<ref> THE MOON : Resources, Future Development, and Settlement; Second Edition (C) Praxis Publishing Ltd Chichester, UK, 2008; by David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu </ref> described remotely controlled equipment doing industrial tasks before astronauts arrive on the moon before I did and did a better job of it than I can. Eventually there should be enough infrastructure built up to be able to support human workers on the moon doing tasks suitable for human beings in vehicles with suitable life support systems and in buildings with recycling life support systems; not in space suits. When people come to the moon they should be called passengers, not astronauts.

*'''The carbonyl process:''' The reason for the carbonyl process in purifying (and perhaps extracting) iron is that it can separate the iron from the nickel that is naturally in lunar iron that comes largely from meteorites. Nickel carbonyl and iron carbonyl plate out of vapor at different temperatures. The nickel is needed to put a corrosion resistant coating on the inside of the corrugated silicon steel tube that catches the rocket exhaust.
*A zeroth step in building a SBSP system is verifying the technologies. Step 0.1 is committing to all that is necessary for the whole chain of steps to work and finally start producing revenue. Within step 0.1 there are agreements among nations to share the financing, engineering, hardware building, electrical power sales arrangements, and revenue.
*For high specific impulse, large, thrusters for orbital stabilization of the moon orbiting fuel depot, the reaction mass should be oxygen plasma since oxygen is readily available on the moon.
*'''Transportation:''' For East-west roads on the moon the pavement could be graded regolith or sintered, and perhaps glazed, bricks separated by sifted regolith. There could be an East-West awning over the road held up by a row of pillars and made of aluminum sheet or aluminized glass sheet or material of suitable alloy containing some proportions of aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, titanium or whatever available material is found to be most economic for the use. The pillars would separate the Northern lane from the Southern lane. There could be solar cells for charging batteries or recharging fuel cells that are swapped, spent for charged, by passing vehicles.
*The vehicles might be walking vehicles (four or more legged) that wear space suits holding one percent of an Earth atmosphere pressure of nitrogen thus eliminating the need for a gas tight rotary seal around wheel axles that would otherwise be necessary to prevent wheel lubricant (and all other lubricants inside the space suit) from evaporating into the vacuum.
*Alternatively, wheels could be outside of the pressure containing suit and supported by magnetic bearings, instead of a typical greased axle bearing, with only electric wire connections to the inside of the vehicle. The key to economic remote-controlled equipment on the moon is long-lived equipment.
*The North-South roads could be sometimes two-lane roads with a wall between the lanes and an awning hanging out over the lanes on both sides of the wall and sometimes a three lane road with two walls separating the center lane from the Eastern lane and the Western lane. The two walls would support an awning covering all lanes. When the sunlight comes from the East, the Western lane would be used. When sunlight comes from the West the Eastern lane would be used. Where three lane stretches meet two-lane stretches there is a provision for cross over as necessary to stay in a shady lane. Spurs going off to the East or West under Awnings would provide the battery exchange stations where the spent batteries are charged.
*Roads can be involved with bringing necessities to the tube construction area, such as sulfur to aid in sintering in a sulfur dioxide atmosphere. It would be possible to construct a solar power grid active in lunar day and lunar night by connecting distant spots on or near the 87th latitude North or South. Electric power by wire could flow from this grid following a road to where a fuel recycling depot is being built. If nuclear power is available at the construction site, a polar electric connection might not be necessary. Road construction could be delayed until necessary. If it is found to be most expedient to build the polar power grid and forgo nuclear power, then for three circumpolar points with always one of the three in sunlight, a road to connect point A to point B and point B to point C would be about 240 miles long. Nuclear power or no nuclear power there would be much construction activity before a 48.3 kilometer (30 mile) long tube to collect the exhaust of a rocket launch to orbit could be built.

==Impacts of mining on the Moon==
:People have complained that so much industrial development would ruin the pristine nature of the moon but people need to dig to get the scientific truth of the moon's composition. Where there is soil dug up and pushed around for industrial development, it will be first photographed then analyzed as much as is necessary to get a good idea of the moon's nature. The opportunity for exploration will not be missed. There are more than 9,370,000 square kilometers of lunar surface. A few hundred thousand square kilometers reserved as parks here and there might be reasonable, but not the whole 9,370,000 square kilometers.

==Political context==
:It is essential that peaceful use of the moon be guaranteed with treaties forbidding any weapon based on the moon or in space that would reasonably have potential for damaging targets on Earth. Treaties must include a means of verification by inspection with robots for the inspecting nation given access to a reasonable environment and electrical power sold at rates equivalent to what it costs the operator of an industrial establishment to provide this for its own robots. The plans for industrial establishments on the moon must not be allowed to be secret. It would be nice to get Russia and China to a situation in which they would cooperate with an international group of nations to everyone's advantage. There is precedent for the cooperation of enemies in the numerous treaties the U.S. signed with the U.S.S.R. and China in the past referring to the launching of satellites, the sharing of radio broadcast frequencies and the elimination of smallpox.
*With a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, there must be peace before we can have cooperation from these countries in providing SBSP to Earth. President Volodymyr Zelenski has been quoted as saying that Russia should not receive control of the Crimean peninsula in a negotiated peace. That is a proper negotiating position to start from but it seems unlikely that there will be a quick settlement that fails to leave Russia controlling Crimea. The administrative assignment of Crimea to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by the USSR<ref>In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia. (according to Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. pp. 702–703. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.[footnote from Wikipedia article "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"])</ref> would indicate that Crimea should be part of Ukraine. The history of Russian military forces fighting to control Crimea, the considerable number of ethnic Russians living in Crimea and the Russian military occupation of Crimea since February 2014 tend to suggest that it should be Russian territory. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and terrible. There have been terrible elements of Ukraine's response which is more likely to be excused because of Ukrainians defending their home territory. The significant point is that both sides need to stop fighting without regard to assigning blame.
*We have a situation in which Russia and Ukraine are enemies. It did not need to be this way but we cannot change history. Both Russia and Ukraine have Christian backgrounds and Christian teaching favors dealing charitably with enemies when possible. Proverbs 25:21 states: "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat..." Mathew 5:44 states: "But I say to you, love your enemies..." Romans 12:19 states: "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine'..."
*It may be difficult for people in Ukraine and Russia to imagine cooperating peacefully after the harm and destruction that has been done but if all that can be imagined is continuing war, war will go on for a long time.
*One does not need to believe Christian teaching to see that it could be a basis for these countries with a history of Christianity to reach a peace agreement acceptable to many of their people. Scriptures respected by the Jews predate the exclusively Christian scriptures on this point so Zelenski should pay attention as well.
*Things that a peace treaty might include would be: 1) an agreement to not seek prosecution for war crimes that may have occurred in this invasion by Russia and defense by Ukraine 2) a return to their original countries of anyone captured or deported to another place who is willing to return 3) interviews with any persons unwilling return, which interviews are to be monitored by neutral parties 4) provisions allowing international trade with reasonable cross border shipping procedures to help both countries to return to economic productivity. There is some potential use to be made of Putin. He can carry the blame for "Putin's war". Leave him under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow with the Kremlin controlling who does or does not visit him. It does not matter if ruling class in Russia forced this war on Putin or not. Only Russians can determine if this is practical or not.
*Other nations trying to assist in peace making will have the task of making reasonable analysis of the likelihood of Russia and Ukraine abiding by terms reached at any stage of negotiations and advising negotiations to bring about a successful end to fighting.
*Ukraine's help in setting up SBSP is desirable but Russia's help is especially needed because the international treaties needed for SBSP should be written to work with enemies being parties to the treaty forswearing use of the technologies for warlike purposes and verifying each other's compliance. Unfortunately, the attitude of Putin and the Russian leadership make cooperation with a good enemy and the whole notion of industrialization of the moon seem unlikely. We should not quit without an attempt.
*China requires a different approach. A big concern of the People's Republic is that factions of the population take the opinion that the communist party government is illegitimate and even occasionally voice that opinion. The communist party leadership correctly interpreted the Tiananmen protests as a the first step in a change of government if they were to have done nothing. The nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could offer to help stabilize dissident groups by encouraging them to diplomatically word their grievances and plead for practical relief while acknowledging the legitimacy of the current government. They could do this with trained teams of diplomats visiting groups in the People's Republic and promoting the benefit of a stable government as opposed to the chaos that can be expected in a violent change of government, acceptance of the devil one knows rather than the unknown devil to come. Teams of two trained Taiwanese with PLA armed guards and a logistics support crew could be convincing. The idea that even the Taiwanese oppose violent overthrow of the communist government would make quite an impression. In return the People's Republic would agree to no invasion of Taiwan or use of violence to take over Taiwan. The People's Republic could become the best authoritarian government that it can be. The population of mainland China would have more of its needs met. Taiwan would still be safe behind the navies of the USA and Australia. The People's Republic suspects the nationalists on Taiwan of fomenting rebellion on the mainland. Another rebellion on the mainland would not only hurt the mainland population, it would hurt the world economy. We do not need to know if the communist party's suspicions are justified. Openly and actively opposing rebellion would answer such suspicions. Give peace a chance.
*I hope and pray enough talented people of goodwill will be able to bring some sort of solution to our political troubles. I know that some groups in war have done terrible things, killing large numbers of people who had not been threatening them with violence. If it is considered impossible to make necessary treaties that can be depended upon, industrial development of the moon will need to wait until such treaties are possible.

==Some alternate ideas==
*As an alternative, a rocket upper stage or rocket-sled payload could leave the acceleration tube at orbital velocity leaving the first rocket stage or the rocket-sled to proceed to a deceleration track. This could accomplish a special purpose but it would introduce extra engineering considerations to be dealt with.
* Sintered brick reinforced with fiberglass cables is a possible material for building a tube to recycle rocket exhaust on the moon. A nickel coated corrugated silicon steel inner tube would be held in place by the outer sintered brick tube. It might be decided that an all-metal tube is better.
* After the acceleration tube and fuel depot on the lunar surface are completed, they can be helpful in constructing the exhaust collecting deceleration tube for the lunar orbiting fuel depot.
*People who were intent on using mass drivers to build space habitats as suggested in "THE HIGH FRONTIER" by Gerard K. O'Neill need not give up hope. Recycling rocket exhaust to make it possible to build SBSP and space habitats does not preclude perfecting better mass drivers for space transportation. The more that extraterrestrial resources become available, the more they can be used to develop more advanced technology.
* The rocket for which exhaust is recycled can burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Then, the Sabatier reaction could be used to add hydrogen to the carbon dioxide at the proper temperature with a proper catalyst to produce methane and water. That water along with the exhaust water could then be subjected to electrolysis to recover the amount hydrogen added previously and the amount oxygen that originally burned the fuel. As side benefits the lower exhaust velocity of a methane/lox rocket as compared to a hydrogen/lox rocket would result in cooler exhaust gas to collect and recycle, a smaller fuel tank in comparison to the cargo mass and a less difficult cryogenics problem handling the low temperature liquid fuel.
* oxygen gas could be used as a heat transport fluid for taking the heat from the captured hot exhaust and transferring it to shaded radiators extending from east to west along with the launch tube. Oxygen is not the best heat transfer fluid on Earth but on the moon we might take what we can get most cheaply and there is plenty of oxygen available.
==Military Considerations==
*An important point is that a desirable industrial infrastructure on the moon would be quite vulnerable to attack from Earth. A rocket with small warhead consisting of metal grains surrounding small explosive could ruin industrial equipment on the moon over a considerable area. The velocity of any rocket capable of reaching the moon would be sufficient to impart to metal grains in the warhead sufficient destructive potential to ruin photo-voltaic cells, electrically conductive wire, or gas filled tubes for radiation of waste heat. The explosive charge in the warhead would spread the grains out over the target area. Since there is considerable potential to use the moon for military purposes, an enemy of the United States (for example) could claim that if the United States is involved with its allies in industrial development of the moon it must allow examination of that industrial development to insure its non-military nature. Failure to allow such examination could be taken as evidence that the industrial development is military in nature and so require its destruction.
:Building industrial infrastructure resistant to such simple attack would likely make the industrial development prohibitively expensive. The more reasonable policy would be for the United States to include enemies in industrial development of the moon so that all can mutually benefit as with the treaties mentioned above.

==Security Classification of Lunar Development Information==
:Since there is potential military application for the industrial development of the moon, should the study of such development be classified? What would we gain from such classification? There are some techniques of using the moon for military purposes that are so simple that any halfway decent training in an engineering field make them obvious. No one can prevent the Americans or Russians from understanding some military potentials by classifying them secret. No one can prevent suspicion that industrial development will serve a military purpose by refusing to discuss such development with enemies. Rather, engaging in some industrial development on the moon without demonstrating what it is, provokes suspicion on the part of enemies that it is military development.
:It would be better to have a policy of "trust but verify" that industrial development is nonmilitary. Verification can be accomplished with robots acting on behalf of enemies of the operators of the industrial facility and on behalf of neutral parties. Just who operates which robots is a matter to be determined by treaty.
:As for myself, I can discuss the use of lunar industry for military purposes, nuclear fission weapons, thermonuclear fusion weapons, or advanced aircraft with secret features all without any restraint because I do not have an active security clearance. I have never been exposed to classified documents on any of these topics. It cannot be made illegal to discuss nuclear fusion weapons, the laws of nature that make them possible, the means by which and places from which they might be deployed. It is only illegal to reveal the contents of classified documents or discuss classified activities of and locations of the military about which a person has come to know by virtue of employment requiring access to such documents and knowledge of such activities and locations. I have no access to any classified documents, activities or locations. So, I can discuss them all. If some military official cannot understand the need for some information to be openly demonstrated, that one might reasonably consider other employment.
:However, if officials in charge of classifying documents related to lunar industrial development, for reasons known to themselves, insist on making such development secret and making open discussion by professionals in the field impossible, I must accept their decisions. I cannot even learn of their decisions.
:The apparent obsession with security classification has to do with the illusion that one nation can improve its position in the world by militarily dominating other nations. We see an example of this in the world situation about the time of the revolution of the British colonies in North America which colonies declared their independence to become the USA. England on one side with the world's most powerful military fought against its own colonies, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The military giant was brought to exhaustion of its resources by the five less powerful entities acting in consort against it; and England sued for peace. One could take as a lesson that military action against other nations leads to their looking for a chance to get back at the oppressor when the oppressor comes to difficulties. However, it is inevitable that military domination of others will ultimately only waste resources and make everyone poorer. For example, the Russians spent considerable effort with secret agents and secret police in the nations they militarily dominated after World War II. Russia lost much opportunity for economically competitive industry because they did not develop the network of cooperating industries using market price as information to govern the distribution resources. Workers and managers resorted to falsely reporting good production, more so than is common in Western Europe and the USA. Large blocks of industry in the USA use political influence to get preferential treatment through tax loopholes and loopholes in laws governing the use of labor. So, these industries get locked into inefficient practices to use these loopholes. Actually, honesty is the best policy.
:The astronaut program as we have it today is only a demonstration of superior industrial power to impress other nations at great cost. It is the shame of USA's legislators that they force such a program upon NASA when a program based upon remotely controlled equipment could result in economic development of the moon. Such development in careful stages could in time include economic activity of people on the moon. Today's astronauts are in no way heroes. They get what they bargain for, what they risk their lives for, in floating through an expensive living space with no sensation of weight. The ISS gives experience in air-lock doors and maintaining a passage between separate pressurized compartments but not enough progress in space technology to be worth nine billion dollars a year. We know weightlessness harms people. The greater time of weightlessness, the more harm. Humanity does not need more humans as guinea pigs in outer space and the guinea pig program is blocking needed space development.
:One might suspect that a worse than worthless, counter-productive, USA human space-flight program is protected from unfavorable comparison to a program of remotely controlled development of the moon which would in time include humans doing economic work on the moon by forbidding discussion of the remotely controlled program through security classification with the rational that it could possibly include some military capabilities. This harms humanity in three ways. 1) It interferes with production of treaties that could possibly prevent dangerous military development of the moon. 2) It allows a wasteful expenditure to continue. 3) It interferes with the development of economic human space-flight.
:Such suspicion is speculative but where is a reasonable discussion of the possibilities that would demonstrate that there is no abuse of security classification to protect contractors benefitting a government expenditure?
==What goes on now==
:I have noticed several people simultaneously becoming reluctant to discuss lunar development. I suspect there may have been a decision that studies of such potential development should be classified. So, people who might have access to official discussion of such development can no longer openly discuss it. What can be done while keeping lunar industrial development secret? Technology verification experiments can be done. A rocket can fly through a two-mile long tube made of chicken wire and mounting RFID tags. Scientists can learn how the output of inertial sensors for inertial guidance and data read from RFID tags correlate with maneuvering controls for the rocket. They learn how the data is a measurement of how straight and level the tube is in order to use such measurements to straighten the tube to be built to actually collect rocket exhaust on the moon. They can measure the effectiveness of heat transfer by oxygen gas pumped from a storage tank to a heat source and on to a radiator and back to storage with the whole system being in a vacuum tank simulating the moon. They can test remote controlled devices to assemble a liquid oxygen storage tank, devices to produce oxygen from simulated lunar regolith and store it, devices to haul liquid oxygen to a rocket on a simulated lunar surface and make fluid transfer. They can test instrument landing systems and ground navigation aids for the rockets that will bring equipment to a lunar base construction site.
:National space agencies can learn how to build a [[Thermal Shelter on the moon]] to allow their remotely controlled devices to last longer than two weeks on the moon.
:However, if they actually start to build something on the moon, there will be people who will want to know what the plans are.
==The benefits to be expected from space bases solar power==
: As SBSP built from lunar materials continues to be installed and promoted, starting perhaps about twenty years after the start of building a landing base on the moon, there should be many various uses of electrical power that become practical as the price of the electricity decreases. Desalination of sea water to irrigate deserts and chemical processing of the material buried in land-fills to remove toxic substances that could enter ground water are possibilities. The incorporation of Whipple shields of the proper scale to protect SBSP satellites will have the effect of sweeping small debris from the geostationary orbit environment. Larger pieces of debris will need to be removed on a per each basis, perhaps by solar sail maneuvering satellites dedicated to the task.
: The construction equipment and processes used for SBSP could then also be used to manufacture solar sails in the as-deployed condition and attach them to space habitats to make humanity finally a spacefaring species. To economically construct suitable space habitats a solar sail attached to a relatively small batch of construction equipment could be sent off to Demos or Phobos, moons of Mars, to bring back chunks of rock and piles of gravel in a bag. This material would be processed into a nonrotating shell for radiation shielding for two counter-rotating steel cylinders made from lunar materials. There would be no rocket driven start-up of the rotation of a space habitat as has sometimes been suggested by commentators. When the two steel cylinders are spun up by electric motors in opposite orientations on their tracks within their radiation shield, the whole assembly will still have zero net rotational momentum. Humanity will be at the doorway to the stars.
[[Category:Rocketry]]
[[Category:Infrastructures]]

Thermal Shelter on the moon

2024-02-03T20:00:48Z

Farred: attempt improved format

==Thermal Shelter on the moon==
[[File:Model 4 thermal shelter.jpg]]
::
::
The thermal shelter on the moon that people should be concerned with now is a shelter for remotely controlled machines. To be economically effective, such machines must last more than two weeks, the length of time from sunrise to sunset on the moon. The Chinese made a machine last over night and continue working month after month. They used chunks of radioactive material, (probably plutonium 238), to provide heat and a small amount of electrical power during the sunset to sunrise period. This tactic makes maintaining a cool enough temperature for operation during the sunrise to sunset period more difficult, and it is rather expensive. The thermal shelter concept I feature here is a double walled building as shown by the model photograph. The outer wall is 8 feet by 8 feet at the foundation and 8 feet high. With the inner wall, doorway, lintel, roof and six "V" cross section roof support girders (not shown because they are hidden by the roof) that comes to 550 square feet of cardboard including 38 square feet for slot and tab construction technique with prefabricated pieces. If I take a popular grade of cardboard and consider charring it to 40 percent of its original weight I get 23 square feet per pound. That makes about 24 pounds of charred cardboard for the building walls, 6 pounds for the 400 buttons strings and tensioners that will fasten the inner and outer walls together that need to be shipped to the moon for the building, another 6 pounds for the door to the building and its handles and no weight that needs to be shipped to the moon for the sifted regolith fines that will fill the spaces between the inner and outer wall of the building and door and cover the roof acting as thermal insulation. Regolith fines make good insulation in the ambient vacuum situation in which they are found and in which they will be used. They are already on the moon wherever the thermal shelter needs to be built.
When people need to be housed on the moon they will need much more complicated facilities. They will need a structure able to hold atmospheric pressure, a much more restricted temperature and humidity environment, lighting, food, water furniture suitable for working, resting, eating and sleeping and waste disposal facilities. We will never be able to afford to build such facilities on the moon if we do not first build the facilities to be used to make remotely controlled devices on the moon effective.

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

Thermal Shelter on the moon

2024-02-03T19:57:13Z

Farred: new article

==Thermal Shelter on the moon==
[[File:Model 4 thermal shelter.jpg]]
The thermal shelter on the moon that people should be concerned with now is a shelter for remotely controlled machines. To be economically effective, such machines must last more than two weeks, the length of time from sunrise to sunset on the moon. The Chinese made a machine last over night and continue working month after month. They used chunks of radioactive material, (probably plutonium 238), to provide heat and a small amount of electrical power during the sunset to sunrise period. This tactic makes maintaining a cool enough temperature for operation during the sunrise to sunset period more difficult, and it is rather expensive. The thermal shelter concept I feature here is a double walled building as shown by the model photograph. The outer wall is 8 feet by 8 feet at the foundation and 8 feet high. With the inner wall, doorway, lintel, roof and six "V" cross section roof support girders (not shown because they are hidden by the roof) that comes to 550 square feet of cardboard including 38 square feet for slot and tab construction technique with prefabricated pieces. If I take a popular grade of cardboard and consider charring it to 40 percent of its original weight I get 23 square feet per pound. That makes about 24 pounds of charred cardboard for the building walls, 6 pounds for the 400 buttons strings and tensioners that will fasten the inner and outer walls together that need to be shipped to the moon for the building, another 6 pounds for the door to the building and its handles and no weight that needs to be shipped to the moon for the sifted regolith fines that will fill the spaces between the inner and outer wall of the building and door and cover the roof acting as thermal insulation. Regolith fines make good insulation in the ambient vacuum situation in which they are found and in which they will be used. They are already on the moon wherever the thermal shelter needs to be built.
When people need to be housed on the moon they will need much more complicated facilities. They will need a structure able to hold atmospheric pressure, a much more restricted temperature and humidity environment, lighting, food, water furniture suitable for working, resting, eating and sleeping and waste disposal facilities. We will never be able to afford to build such facilities on the moon if we do not first build the facilities to be used to make remotely controlled devices on the moon effective.

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

User:Farred/test

2024-02-02T17:13:51Z

Farred: addition