Space In General

[RacingFan1]

How else would humans live on other planets in the solar system if it's wasn't for enclosed habitats? This is what I was talking about when I said we could colonize Mars. While terraforming is a thing, the sheer amount of effort to do that to Mars wouldn't really be productive until technology greatly improves.

So, my original point was that we really only have planet Earth to live and it is not possible to mass colonize Mars.
We urgently need to take care better of our beloved Earth, I say this as a "kinda" ecologist.

 

[Joey D]

So, my original point was that we really only have planet Earth to live and it is not possible to mass colonize Mars.
We urgently need to take care better of our beloved Earth, I say this as a "kinda" ecologist.

Not really. Humans can mass colonize a planet while still living in controlled environments. They should colonize other planets too because humanity should not be a one-planet species. This isn't something that's going to happen in the next 50 years, but it's definitely something that could be a possibility by the end of the century.

 

[RacingFan1]

Not really. Humans can mass colonize a planet while still living in controlled environments. They should colonize other planets too because humanity should not be a one-planet species. This isn't something that's going to happen in the next 50 years, but it's definitely something that could be a possibility by the end of the century.

How can you mass colonize a planet without even being able to go outdoors? Seriously...

 

[Joey D]

How can you mass colonize a planet without even being able to go outdoors? Seriously...

Enclosed habitats.

You can also go outdoors on other planets too, we proved that when we went to the moon.

 

[Dotini]

Enclosed habitats.

You can also go outdoors on other planets too, we proved that when we went to the moon.

Some generations ago we visited but did not stay on the moon. It says something about us that we never went back. I will be suitably impressed when and if Musk, NASA or anyone else lands people on the moon again. Mars will be much more difficult to visit, let alone colonize. The chances of a civilization-level slowdown in these sorts of priorities is always present. Fundamental changes in the economy and the changes in social values regarding colonization are real. In my humble opinion, even under the very best circumstances I personally can envisage, it will be well into the 2030's before man can visit Mars.

 

[RacingFan1]

Some generations ago we visited but did not stay on the moon. It says something about us that we never went back. I will be suitably impressed when and if Musk, NASA or anyone else lands people on the moon again. Mars will be much more difficult to visit, let alone colonize. The chances of a civilization-level slowdown in these sorts of priorities is always present. Fundamental changes in the economy and the changes in social values regarding colonization are real. In my humble opinion, even under the very best circumstances I personally can envisage, it will be well into the 2030's before man can visit Mars.

Living on Mars, if it's ever possible, would bore the hell out of anyone because it would be like living in a prison, just like in the moon but with different gravity (more on Mars). No wonder nobody lives in the moon even though we went there since more than 50 years ago.

 

[Dotini]

Living on Mars, if it's ever possible, would bore the hell out of anyone because it would be like living in a prison, just like in the moon but with different gravity (more on Mars). No wonder nobody lives in the moon even though we went there since more than 50 years ago.

I actually expect people to live on the moon (underground due to radiation) sometime in the future. It is nearby and has resources we could mine and use. Also it would serve as an admirable base for an eventual trip to Mars with quite heavy and well equipped robotic landers to set up an advance base there prior to human occupation.

 

[Imari]

I actually expect people to live on the moon (underground due to radiation) sometime in the future. It is nearby and has resources we could mine and use. Also it would serve as an admirable base for an eventual trip to Mars with quite heavy and well equipped robotic landers to set up an advance base there prior to human occupation.

I'd be shocked if there wasn't at the very least a research outpost on the moon sometime in the not too distant future.

Everyone gets super keen about Mars, but I agree that a moon base first seems like a better idea. If we can't do it on the Moon, where short turnaround resupply and the like is actually possible, there's no chance of success on Mars.

You can also go outdoors on other planets too, we proved that when we went to the moon.

Hell, you can barely go outside on this planet sometimes at the moment. Three steps out the door, you've got COVID and someone is punching your horse.

 

[RacingFan1]

I actually expect people to live on the moon (underground due to radiation) sometime in the future. It is nearby and has resources we could mine and use. Also it would serve as an admirable base for an eventual trip to Mars with quite heavy and well equipped robotic landers to set up an advance base there prior to human occupation.

The idea of mining on the moon sounds interesting. But of course there's the big problem, how would we bring the material to earth? It would be prohibitively expensive.

 

[BobK]

The idea of mining on the moon sounds interesting. But of course there's the big problem, how would we bring the material to earth? It would be prohibitively expensive.

Not necessarily. Check Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for what sounds like a plausible way of doing it.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Not necessarily. Check Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for what sounds like a plausible way of doing it.

Most people don't like to be directed to even a YouTube video of more than a couple of minutes to get an answer, let alone read a 382 page book. You might want to at least give a clue.

 

[Dotini]

"The man who reads leads a thousand lives. The man who doesn't leads only one"
- GRRM

 

[MatskiMonk]

"The man who reads leads a thousand lives. The man who doesn't leads only one"
- GRRM

"Sentimental arrogance"
- MM

 

[BobK]

Most people don't like to be directed to even a YouTube video of more than a couple of minutes to get an answer, let alone read a 382 page book. You might want to at least give a clue.

Solar-powered electric catapults

 

[MatskiMonk]

Solar-powered electric catapults

It's an interesting idea. (Apparently) escape velocity for the Moon is ~5400mph. Current military Rail guns achieve that even in our atmosphere, so we're already at the point where we have a (somewhat) portable technology that can fire an non-self-propelled object from the Moon to the Earth.

Catching it at this end when it's been accelerated by Earths gravity might be the harder challenge, and I suspect not viable for raw materials.

If we can process them on the moon too, into much more valuable, smaller items, than just thousands of tonnes of rock, it starts to make more sense to try, IMHO.

 

[Famine]

It's an interesting idea. (Apparently) escape velocity for the Moon is ~5400mph. Current military Rail guns achieve that even in our atmosphere, so we're already at the point where we have a (somewhat) portable technology that can fire an non-self-propelled object from the Moon to the Earth.

Catching it at this end when it's been accelerated by Earths gravity might be the harder challenge, and I suspect not viable for raw materials.

If we can process them on the moon too, into much more valuable, smaller items, than just thousands of tonnes of rock, it starts to make more sense to try, IMHO.

You wouldn't even need that. Get a waystation up there and you could fire stuff off the surface into lunar orbit at half that. It could even be lunarstationary, and while a space elevator might be out of the question with current materials technology (and the problem of where the bottom of it will be) on Earth, it isn't on the Moon - you could do it with kevlar. Climbing robots (also solar powered) could wheel themselves up the tether at any speed you like, although it is a hell of a climb at pretty much 35,000 miles...

 

[Joey D]

Living on Mars, if it's ever possible, would bore the hell out of anyone because it would be like living in a prison, just like in the moon but with different gravity (more on Mars). No wonder nobody lives in the moon even though we went there since more than 50 years ago.

It might bore you, but I'm willing to bet there's a long list of people itching at the chance to live on another planet. Plus the earlier settlers on a planet will have plenty to do, from building to research to further exploration there won't be a shortage of work.

And the reason we don't live on the moon is that there isn't a need at this time. That could very well change over the coming decades though.

 

[Tired Tyres]

From my point of view, this commercial space flights thing is an enormous waste of time and money and it goes nowhere... Only a thing affordable for the very rich.
And we will never be able to go to another habitable planet because they're too far away... and they should better spend that money in R&D to save our own and only planet... Clean energies, sustainability, reverse climate change, and so on.

Maybe, just maybe, some of these very rich people when they see the Earth from up there might get a new perspective on protecting it. Very rich people lobbying gets things done. Usually for the worst but you never know....

 

[Danoff]

I'd be shocked if there wasn't at the very least a research outpost on the moon sometime in the not too distant future.

Everyone gets super keen about Mars, but I agree that a moon base first seems like a better idea. If we can't do it on the Moon, where short turnaround resupply and the like is actually possible, there's no chance of success on Mars.

Hell, you can barely go outside on this planet sometimes at the moment. Three steps out the door, you've got COVID and someone is punching your horse.

I agree that the moon is a far better choice than mars for settlement. There are raw materials on the moon, more sunlight, and benefits from being closer to Earth. Also amazing view. I'd be interested to see an analysis of whether the moon or a free-floating station turns out to be more practical though, because free-floating has some major advantages in control over orbit and sunlight.

"The man who reads leads a thousand lives. The man who doesn't leads only one"
- GRRM

"leads" is misplaced there. You can't "lead" a life you read. You can experience it, but not lead it.

 

[Dotini]

Professional writers, but not us, use allegory and simile.

 

[Danoff]

Professional writers, but not us, use allegory and simile.

I love me some GRRM. But that statement was not quite right.

 

[Imari]

Catching it at this end when it's been accelerated by Earths gravity might be the harder challenge, and I suspect not viable for raw materials.

There's no need to actually catch it. Stick something on the front as an ablative shield, and simply make sure you have enough empty space in the vessel for it to be buoyant. Aim for the nearest large body of water. Parachutes optional if you don't want to make massive waves. Or just scream "CANNONBALL".

You probably need parachutes, big rocks at terminal velocity into the ocean seems like a bad idea.

You wouldn't even need that. Get a waystation up there and you could fire stuff off the surface into lunar orbit at half that. It could even be lunarstationary, and while a space elevator might be out of the question with current materials technology (and the problem of where the bottom of it will be) on Earth, it isn't on the Moon - you could do it with kevlar. Climbing robots (also solar powered) could wheel themselves up the tether at any speed you like, although it is a hell of a climb at pretty much 35,000 miles...

Nice. I was too lazy to look up whether materials technology was advanced enough to allow for a moon space elevator, but I'm not that surprised that it's doable. It's probably a more efficient method, but it also feels far more prone to catastrophic failure than a "simple" catapult.

I agree that the moon is a far better choice than mars for settlement. There are raw materials on the moon, more sunlight, and benefits from being closer to Earth. Also amazing view. I'd be interested to see an analysis of whether the moon or a free-floating station turns out to be more practical though, because free-floating has some major advantages in control over orbit and sunlight.

I think from a mechanical functionality standpoint free-floating would have to be better. But at some point we're going to have to start gathering data on the effects on humans of living in low gravity environments. There is data from ISS, but it's not quite the same and the sooner we get started on long term experiments the sooner we'll find out what goes wrong and how to solve it.

Also, the opportunity to moon the Earth from the Moon is not to be passed up.

Professional writers, but not us, use allegory and simile.

Professional writers are also apt to write complete bollocks simply because it sounds cool. Just because someone famous wrote it doesn't mean that it's not dribble.

 

[MatskiMonk]

There's no need to actually catch it. Stick something on the front as an ablative shield, and simply make sure you have enough empty space in the vessel for it to be buoyant. Aim for the nearest large body of water. Parachutes optional if you don't want to make massive waves. Or just scream "CANNONBALL".

It really depends what we're on about bringing back. If it needs to go in a vessel to come back, that vessel needs to get to the moon in the first place. It's all cost for the sake of overcoming gravity. I still think that what we need to do is process and manufacture in space - find a way of using the characteristics of Space, the Moon, or Mars to the benefit of a process (e.g. could we make some kind of alloy more easily in the vacuum of space, with those ambient temperatures, and abundant solar energy? Could we 3D print that alloy into more complex shapes more easily in a low-G environment?). I think the notion that we could mine the Moon for something like Iron Ore, and bring that back to earth makes little sense.

 

[Imari]

It really depends what we're on about bringing back. If it needs to go in a vessel to come back, that vessel needs to get to the moon in the first place. It's all cost for the sake of overcoming gravity. I still think that what we need to do is process and manufacture in space - find a way of using the characteristics of Space, the Moon, or Mars to the benefit of a process (e.g. could we make some kind of alloy more easily in the vacuum of space, with those ambient temperatures, and abundant solar energy? Could we 3D print that alloy into more complex shapes more easily in a low-G environment?). I think the notion that we could mine the Moon for something like Iron Ore, and bring that back to earth makes little sense.

Oh right. I was talking mainly about raw materials, ore, metals, etc. as you'd said not viable. Stuff where it's just about the Moon having an abundance of material that is less easily accessible or unavailable on Earth. Iron ore is probably always going to be sufficiently available on earth, but depending on the geology of the Moon there may be other things. If the price for a raw material is in the millions of dollars per tonne, you can go a long way to find a rich source.

Bringing ore back to Earth makes perfect sense if the infrastructure is already in place. It's going to be harder to mine on the Moon than on Earth but this is already assuming that whatever ore is available on Earth is financially not viable to mine. And there are still advantages unavailable on Earth, like an electric catapult setup is going to be arguably cheaper to use to distribute your product internationally than standard shipping means - the power is basically free and it costs you the same to land your product anywhere there's a large enough clear area.

One wouldn't have thought it would have been worth mining bird feces and shipping it halfway around the world on a sailboat, but that sure happened.

An easy imaginary example is the movie Moon. Helium-3 is required as a fuel and the Moon is the closest place with high enough concentrations to make collection viable, so there's a mining base on the Moon. Obviously that's science fiction, but it's not really that hard to imagine that the Earth becomes scarce enough of some highly useful resource that mining it on the Moon is reasonable. Doubly so if the problems of living and working on the Moon have already been solved through prior research missions to establish habitats and industrial production facilities.

If it's processing and manufacture, then that's different and there would absolutely be restrictions on how much G and the like the items could be subjected to. But for some stuff it's probably still fine, alloys for example. And even more fragile things are still doable, it's just harder. If an escape capsule can get humans (who are not exactly the most durable things ever made) from the ISS down to the ground in one piece, I feel like with a little engineering one could ship most things if you really wanted to. As with many things, it would come down to whether it was economic, not whether it was possible. And without getting into specifics that's a question that's impossible to answer.

If you're into this stuff The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as suggested by @BobK is a good book. It outlines a Lunar society that is technically self-sufficient undergoing the transition from a colony being bled for raw materials to a state in it's own right trading on fair terms with the nations of Earth. It's not super hard on the science, but there's plenty there about a potential manufacturing Lunar society and how it might function if you're looking for it. As a starting point for a discussion about what Lunar mining and manufacturing might look like, you could do a lot worse.

 

[Famine]

Professional writers are also apt to write complete bollocks simply because it sounds cool.

I'm a professional writer and I've never come even close the the complete bollocks that issues forth from Dotini's phalanges.

 

[polysmut]

How much mass would have to be transferred from the moon to the earth or vice versa before that causes new problems?
I'm wondering about the orbits of either body being altered.

 

[Exorcet]

How much mass would have to be transferred from the moon to the earth or vice versa before that causes new problems?
I'm wondering about the orbits of either body being altered.

Probably quite a bit. Even if we changed the masses enough to adjust orbits, the Moon would still orbit the Earth just at a slightly different distance (and it's already constantly changing distance as is).

But to give an idea of how much stuff is on the Moon, it weighs 10^19 lbs. If you covered the entire land area of Earth with Empire State Buildings, such that not a single blade of grass or grand of sand was visible, that would also take about 10^19 lbs of material (using Google for the mass and dimensions of the Empire State Building). The number of buildings would be 69,113,590,882 by my estimate.

 

[CodeRedR51]

I've applied for a Starship Integration Technician position at Starbase. No response yet on my application...

Speaking of Starbase, busy morning out there. The 9th and final section of the launch tower was stacked, and the launch table (along with another GSE tank) made their way to the launch area.

 

[unit-one]

Was thinking about posting this is amateur photo thread, but decided to show it here as it's about space stuff.
I shot these on a Nikon COOLPIX B700

Jupiter.

Saturn.

There's a lot of turbulence in the air due to hot weather.
Can't even take clear pics of the moon, they are all blurry.

(20 July, 22 July and 23 July)

 

[wfooshee]

I played around on the evening of the Great Conjunction last December, and didn't get anything useful of Jupiter, but I actually got a shot with Saturn's rings visible, which astonished me with what I was using, a D7200 with a 300mm zoom, and I was traveling so I had no tripod; I set the camera on the roof of the rental car using my wadded up jacket to "aim" it, and the remote to trigger the shutter. I still can't believe you can capture the rings with a freaking camera!

I saw a moon about the same color on the evening of the 23rd, and when I took the camera out to set up and shoot, everything in the camera fogged up from the heat and humidity; it had been inside in the air conditioning, about 10 or 12 degrees cooler and much dryer than it was outside! by the time the fogging cleared, the red moon was gone.