People are making a big deal of the latest story that Buzz Aldrin has seemingly changed his mind since April about the need to go back to the moon:
Aldrin believes NASA should move in stages toward a manned mission to Mars, by building outer space fuel stations and developing the moon. He said NASA has already spent hundreds of millions researching the projects, and their investment should be utilized — as recommended by Norm Augustine, former chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board and chairman of the Review of the U.S. Space Flight Plans Committee.
What’s more, Aldrin said, the American government should not simply shrug off the considerable experience we have with lunar travel. “The U.S. has the most experience in the world, of any nation, in dealing with the moon,” he told FoxNews.com. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that flexibility is needed here.”
Back in April, this was what was reported:
Aldrin prefers that NASA forgo our moon in favor of a trip to the Martian moon Phobos and then a permanent settlement on the Red Planet itself. President Obama’s proposed $3.8 trillion federal budget request cuts NASA’s moonshot Constellation program, which has cost $9 billion over six years, instead proposing to hire private contractors to fly resupply missions to the International Space Station. It also focuses research money on new rockets that could one day be used to send astronauts into Mars, its moons or an asteroid.
So what happened? Let’s leave aside the common confusion between Constellation and returning to the moon (there are many ways to get back to the moon, almost all of them better than Constellation). Let us also stipulate that Buzz can be…mercurial (no pun intended). It could be that what he meant at the time was that he was opposed to redoing Apollo, which was essentially what Constellation did, by Mike Griffin’s own admission, and that this was misinterpreted as an opposition to going to the moon at all. But even if he has changed his mind, aren’t people entitled to do that?
This is the first time that I’ve heard him talk about “fuel stations,” but once one starts thinking about fuel stations in cis-lunar space, it’s inevitable that one will think about the moon as a source for the fuel (and oxidizer).
A couple months ago, I had (non-alcoholic) drinks with Buzz for an hour and a half after Bill Haynes’ funeral, where we bemoaned the current state of space policy. Afterward, I emailed him the link to my piece from last year at The New Atlantis. Perhaps he read it. It would account for his new-found enthusiasm for fuel stations.
Maybe I’ll give him a call and ask.
There was also a lot of talk about it at the ISDC in Chicago. I didn’t talk to him about it (we got chatting about AOPA and flying) but lots of folk were. So I am sure he has been getting a good dose of this idea.
There was also a lot of talk about it at the ISDC in Chicago.
Buzz was in the room near the front when I gave my talk about the industrial development of the Moon. When I left the stage he said to me “Your on your own kid”. His interest in the Moon has waxed and waned over the years and during this year he has talked about a commercial and international base on the Moon.
I do think more and more that as people see that we are not getting a monster heavy lifter or nuclear thermal propulsion that they are realizing that the only way to get to Mars in a sustainable fashion it is going to require lunar resources.
Or cheap lift. I know you don’t believe in it, but it is as serious a contender as using lunar resources.
For as long as I’ve been hearing Buzz talk about space policy, the Moon has been a job for commercial development – a sentiment I tend to agree with. He’s been saying for quite a while now that NASA should be serving in an advisory role when it comes to return to the Moon.
Dennis, got any ideas on how to break the stranglehold of Moon == human exploration only? Lunar scientists seem to have no standing with the planetary science community, and “robotic precursors” seem to only be acceptable if you’re planning to send humans back (and have an administrator that doesn’t raid your budget).
Perhaps Tim Pickens and his merry band will get us there.
Dennis, got any ideas on how to break the stranglehold of Moon == human exploration only?
Right now I am actually growing optimistic. Technology is no longer a limit for us moving outward to the Moon, money is the issue. The question is, what is the cheapest self sustaining (as opposed to self sufficient) commercial lunar outpost that could be built?
Somewhere in the $2-$5 billion dollar range. It would have to focus from the very beginning for the specific task of becoming self sufficient. What does self sufficiency mean? break even on the dollar flow, at least after a certain point. How we do this is the question but it is a question that it is time to ask.
In examining computer technology today in detail I am seeing a veritable explosion happening right before our eyes in the area of embedded computers, robotics, and communications. This explosion is helping to lower the cost of putting together a commercial operation.
Like Southwest Airlines you don’t try and hit a home run every time in saving money but it is the continual cutting here and there, shaping this, bringing in this or that new technology.
I think that it is now cheaper than at any time in history to build a self sufficient lunar outpost and we need to just start showing how to do it. I want to set up a desert location in Nevada where you could bring promising technology for ISRU, power systems, roving, robotics. It would be extremely interesting to show how the integration of such a place would change the game for an outpost. I tell you I am getting more excited every day regarding the advances in robotics that are happening in front of our eyes these days. Surface robotics is now the true game changer for exploration.
I am going to be announcing something on this soon.
Dennis,
Have you been talking to Bill Stone and/or Dale Tietz? I know they’re very interested in concepts like those you describe.
As for Buzz, I thought it was pretty clear that he thought the Moon was for commercial and international development and that NASA should focus on BEO exploration. That doesn’t fit in a three-second sound bite or a six word headline, though.
The details might change, and should when you think about it, but the goal hasn’t changed at all. Buzz wants to colonize mars and thinks one way trips of settlers gets us there for the least cost and fastest time. He’s right.
Then you get to the details. Do we need heavy lift? Not if you focus on depots which make sense regardless of what size vehicle they support. Does the moon contribute? Yes, it could. Systems need to be tested in a hard radiation, low gravity environment. We happen to have one three days away. Abundant water has been discovered there. How does that affect our thinking and so on…
Our goal should be to grow the economy BEO by shortening the flat part of the growth curve. That’s what a settlement on the surface of mars will do better than anyplace else. Buzz knows that.
Is it possible to talk everyone onto the same page with regards to propellant depots? The Shuttle’s dead, and even DIRECT isn’t up to the level of heavy lift needed for single-piece to either Luna or Mars. So… all available paths require a depot to make sense. They might require different types of depot, but they require something. And depot-types aren’t mutually exclusive really.
Buzz wants to colonize mars and thinks one way trips of settlers gets us there for the least cost and fastest time. He’s right.
Only if they have a lot of logistical support to back them up, which means you need lunar resources.
Have you been talking to Bill Stone and/or Dale Tietz? I know they’re very interested in concepts like those you describe.
Lots of people are out there talking, however, few are listening.
Only if they have a lot of logistical support to back them up, which means you need lunar resources.
Lunar LOX seems like a no brainer. Hydrogen is a problem for long term storage. Methane seems the best candidate as a regular fuel with earth and mars the primary sources.
Although I don’t like the idea, a O/H stage could send a ship off to mars which otherwise is a self sufficient methane design. Then again, if an O/H ship is a pusher tug which just provide an initial impulse and returns back to a lunar depot for reuse, that might not be such a bad idea.
That tug could also be used to put supply packages in mars orbit where the colonists would have to then retrieve them.
Dennis Wingo Says:
October 15th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Where do you want to put a fuel depot?
Do you think $2-5 billion would be enough to launch the fuel depot infrastructure, supply it with fuel, and build a mining/processing node on the Moon? Or would it be $2-5 billion to maintain the system after the infrastructure is in place?
I’m also curious how the orbital dynamics shake out for launch seasons/windows for Mars missions with a fuel depot at EM1.
I agree that the primary limiting factor is money but a close second is priorities. I’m not sure NASA would be willing or able to reconfigure its priorities to do a fuel depot and lunar base with its current funding.
It’s a Fox News story whose theme seems to be criticizing the Obama Administration for so stupid in bypassing the moon. It comes from an organization whose main theme is criticizing the Obama Administration for being so incredibly stupid as to exist in the first place.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was not more to the story somehow. Fox blew Bolden’s remarks about Muslim outreach completely out of context and proportion.
Where do you want to put a fuel depot?
This is a purely economic decision. Since we don’t have a general purpose ship anywhere, the answer is nowhere. Once we have a ship in orbit willing to buy fuel, someone now has an incentive to supply it.
Then the question is what provides an incentive to put a general purpose ship in orbit? Paying passengers of course.
Could NASA stop F*&6ing around with architectures and plan a mission where they purchase tickets to ride. Sure, if someone could pull their head out of their arses. Of course, that’s not a jobs bill, is it? That doesn’t pad anyones turf. You can’t tell me NASA is about space because the only thing stopping them is ‘What’s in it for them?’
Rand,
Actually Buzz Aldrin has been looking a fuel depots for a while, at least since he developing his EM L1 Gateport idea in 2003. Here is a link to a 2009 Interview he did in which he discusses them.
http://www.lawac.org/speech/2008-09/ALDRIN,%20Buzz-2009.pdf
From the top of page 6.
[[[What we do is put up one of our XMs and eventually there’s a refueling station. The next one goes up in cycles back and forth between the Earth and Mars; Earth and the moon, and then becomes a communications relay. The other one becomes a fuel depot in the vicinity of the moon for us to use to go beyond the moon and for other people to use to go to and from the moon. This would be a commercial activity – people bring up fuel to the refueling place, somebody pays for the fuel they bring up and somebody goes and buys it, the government buys it to do what they’re going to do and all these things are worked out ahead of time.]]]
BTW XM stands for Exploration Module…
Also I expect this is not so much a change in Buzz Aldrin’s thinking then in way the question was asked as Buzz has been arguing for the U.S. to be part of an international return to the Moon for a while.
Also from page 5.
When you explore something, the next step is to develop it. Now other nations are going to explore the moon and we can work with them. We have resources. We’ve put $100 billion into the space station. To put $200-$300 billion into the moon when we’ve already been there and there is not a really definitive product to be developed that can begin to pay for habitation – habitation on the moon is just going to be very expensive unless it has a purpose.
Robots can go there. Robots can deploy most of the scientific experiments. But we’re kind of lucky because other people are going to go there and if we help them then they may help us. We’ll work together with their manpower; their resources to fix the robot that gets broken or to augment things. Internationally there’s a word for it: “International Lunar Economic Development Authority.” There’s ITSEC, the International Telecommunications, and COMSEC. These are combination commercial.]]]
BTW although its a long read, about 13 pages, this interview really provides good insight into what Buzz Aldrin plans for space are. Unfortunately the media only tends to focus on short sound bites when interviewing him.
ken, Paul Spudis has indicated that he thinks there’s as much carbon in lunar cold traps as there is hydrogen.. so making methane propellant on the Moon is as feasible as hydrogen. I think lunar methane is more interesting than lunar hydrogen as it can remain in liquid form in cold traps without boiloff.
The moon is a logical stepping stone to Mars and beyond. For me it is as simple and crystal clear as that. It is where we develop our deep space legs. It has resources which offer market development and serves as a highly visual and inspirational beckon for all of mankind that we are out there.
I’m not sure if Buzz is flip flopping on the moon perhaps it is just the context of his comments that reflect this back and forth swaying.
They (NASA and Congress) seldom support a budget that allows for anything beyond the basic program to keep the pork alive. Trips to the moon etc… never make the cut. So it is up to private and commercial space to develop the moon. A huge task to contemplate at this point in time.
However ULA put forth a white paper that suggest it could be done within current budgets and without HLV. But I fear now a mammoth HLV based pork program consumes to much of the budget for it to happen now. Had the A-panel been shrewd enough to put forth a defined incremental ULA type approach tweaked to sustain the basic pork infrastructure it could have happened. A logical transition to a limited shuttle-C cargo only HLV nixing the ISS by 2015 and putting the focus and funding on the moon with commercial involvement as in Bigelow bases, fuel depots, lander, LEO access etc… But that opportunity has come and gone now and with it hope of a USA lunar presence for decades to come.
But that opportunity has come and gone now and with it hope of a USA lunar presence for decades to come.
Horsepucky. I think that the Moon is closer than ever, but we have to look outside of the narrow confines of the present world.
While aerospace quit paying attention a revolution has started in manufacturing.
Self replicating machines are here.
http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
incredibly interesting new tech.
Land a machine shop, land a solar cell production line, land a few of these guys, and off we go!
By the way, I misspoke about the money thing. As much as I would like it to be cheaper, it is probably closer to the 7-10 billion range to build a self sustainable outpost at the lunar north pole.
That is still an amazingly low number.
http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
Mars missions have a terrible economic burden due to the inherently slow pace; a lunar shuttle can, given propellants at both ends, do several missions per month, while a Mars mission takes several years. The ROI on a Mars transport is at best 1/3 flight per year, while a lunar transport can do perhaps 30/year for LEO-luna-LEO. Very difficult to handwave that away.
…there’s as much carbon in lunar cold traps as there is hydrogen.. so making methane propellant on the Moon is as feasible as hydrogen
Hydrogen from water is a really simple process. Trent, do you have a link? I’d be very interested in this.
Mars missions have a terrible economic burden due to the inherently slow pace
The moon as an economical fuel source seems to have quite a bit of potential, but they need to be selling that fuel to someone. Getting 3000k kg of fuel to a depot at EML1 might take a lot of flights. I’m seeing a serendipitous match up here.
The advantage mars has as a colony is that it can’t depend on supplies being just a few days away. Mars will have a greater internal growth, while the moon will see more external growth. The psychology is different and important. On the moon, if you don’t like it, it’s easy to leave. On mars, if you don’t like it, you improve it. Incremental improvement will over time give a martian colony a huge growth advantage.
If mars were three days away, nobody would even consider the moon. The moon orbits the earth. It’s not BEO. It’s like saying we’ll develop the neighborhood, but not leave our front porch. Yes, you can develop your front porch faster, but what do you end up with? A nice swing?
Yes, you can develop your front porch faster, but what do you end up with? A nice swing?
A swing that is right outside your front door. That’s a lot more valuable than a swing that you have to walk thirty minutes to get to.
Plus lunar infrastructure can contribute more readily to LEO activities and industry and is far more easily run from Earth.
Hydrogen from water is a really simple process. Trent, do you have a link? I’d be very interested in this.
Google the “Sabatier process”. There may be some methane on the Moon but it will be in very small quantities compared to the water due to the emplacement mechanism.
I am just fine with a hydrogen economy on the Moon. Another advance that is completely ready for prime time on the Moon are fuel cells. This is especially true for larger vehicles with higher power requirements. The Fuel Cell catalyst will last much longer on the moon due to the lack of sulfur in the environment to poison it.
Heavy duty equipment, with modular fuel cell power supplies will be far more cost effective than taking batteries to the Moon from the Earth.
With a centralized (at least in the beginning) water splitting capability a really nice overall power systems architecture for an outpost is completely within our grasp today.
As I have been saying, I am getting increasingly optimistic that the lower level subsystem as well as systems technologies are all moving in the right direction to support a low cost manufacturing and industrial capacity on the Moon.
I suggest reading up on the latest in 3D printers as some amazing work is going on in this field right now.
@Trent: “For as long as I’ve been hearing Buzz talk about space policy, the Moon has been a job for commercial development – a sentiment I tend to agree with.”
Unless you, someone you know, or NASA has their hands on some super secret, killer surveying automation no one else in the world knows about, there’s probably a damn good deal of work–manned work–for government to perform before commercial gets their feet wet.
I’ve know about the Sabatier process since I first read Zubrins book.
Water may be easier to get from NEO than the moon. Park one slushball in orbit around the earth or moon and we could have enough fuel sitting there for thousands of missions. That would change the cost of fuel from billions to zero (well, you do have to heat up the ice to liquid to pump it.)
Capture others to orbit other destinations and we’ve just made space affordable.
Here’s a guy that says…
“The nuclear rocket scientists using LH2 propellant correctly insisted on increasing the specific impulse to improve performance. However, if water becomes available, then the tank can weigh a smaller fraction of the propellant, and the rocket will perform an order of magnitude better with less than 1/3 the specific impulse and at less than half the operating temperature.”
http://www.neofuel.com/optimum/
If I’m understanding him correctly, once you have nuclear power, steam becomes the best performing fuel. If water is abundant and low delta V’s apart (as it appears) the whole solar system is opened up to us at very low relative cost.
The lunar poles would be a much cheaper source for light weight radiation shielding for manned interplanetary vehicles (slush hydrogen or water) than the Earth with its huge gravity well.
Here’s a guy that says…
I read a missive one time about this and at the temperatures in the core of the reactor there is significant disassociation of water into H2 and O. When this happens the oxygen oxidizes the reactor and its performance goes to hell quite rapidly.
Presley, wtf are you talking about?
Dennis, along the “Self-replicating” line of thought, I keep thinking about moon dust itself. Most of the home-fab types are focused on mechanical engineering aspects, but a fair chunk of raw material production is actually chemical engineering. The limiting piece is power (as always). At least some of the types of moon dust seem quite high in Al2O3 – which gets one to pretty decent structural materials with the addition of some chemistry and a pile of power.
When this happens the oxygen oxidizes the reactor and its performance goes to hell quite rapidly.
Which seems like an easy fix. We’ve been heating water with nukes for quite some time now. The main problem with nukes of any power in space seems to be getting rid of heat in a closed environment. Sending heat out as exhaust seem a good fix for that as well.
Is deimos a slushball? If so, mars already has a fuel depot.
Al
You are absolutely right about the Moon (or any other location for that matter) as being energy limited. I am interested in developing larger 3D printers that use different materials, perhaps even liquid metals. This should be far easier to do on the Moon than on the Earth.
Even if we use plastic, and make forms for things that we want to make on the Moon, this should have a dramatic and immediate effect on what we can do with an outpost on the Moon.
So if NASA really wanted to get the ball rolling, they’d publish the ticket price they’d be willing to pay (one way and round trip) to various destinations they are interested in.
Which seems like an easy fix. We’ve been heating water with nukes for quite some time now. The main problem with nukes of any power in space seems to be getting rid of heat in a closed environment. Sending heat out as exhaust seem a good fix for that as well.
I would suggest a lot of reading in this area, about Phobeous and other early reactors that were used for propulsion testing. It is not as easy as it first may appear.
But my point is they’ve already solved the problem. If you don’t want oxidation, don’t transfer the heat directly. The water doesn’t go through the core, the core heats a boiler. You don’t care if the interior of the boiler oxidizes. The core has an inert gas… no oxidation possible. As long as you can dial up a sufficient specific heat for decades you’re good to go.
I’m sure there are lots of details. That doesn’t make it an unsolvable or even difficult problem.
Trying to google Phobeous reactor all that I came up was this…
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/nuclear-propulsion-in-space/
@Trent:
Exploration and cadastre. What else would I be talking about?
I’m sure there are lots of details. That doesn’t make it an unsolvable or even difficult problem.
Then by all means go out and do so.
Dennis, what kind of response is that? If I had the funds I certainly could get it done. I’ve worked with many engineers, technicians and machinists. Solving problems is a pretty straight forward process. Especially when it’s been done before, like in submarines and 55 gal drum type in Antarctica. How in the world can you suggest it’s some kind of insolvable problem? That’s nuts.
Perhaps paperwork could stop you, but I can’t imagine anything else could.
Dennis, what kind of response is that? If I had the funds I certainly could get it done
It has been a long time since I did the research but if you go back into the history of the nuclear stage, this was a huge problem and these guys knew what they were doing and abandoned water as a propellant. It is an inappropriate comparison to compare a nuclear reactor in a power plant with one that is supposed to run a stage.
I think that there is a lot that can be done in nuclear technology but we cannot cavalierly dismiss the problems that the engineers spent a lot of time and money on back then.
I said straight forward and I meant straight forward. You identified the problem. Nuclear fuel in direct contact with water will oxidize the fuel so it stops reacting. Ok. Finding out what doesn’t work is how you get to what does.
How do they make electricity (or are nuclear power plants just a fantasy rumor we’ve all just heard about… and seen if we happen to be driving by one?) They do it by heating water that runs through turbines that turn generators. So nuclear power works… by heating water.
Remove the turbines. Remove the generators. What do you have left? Hot water. Can it get hot enough? Sure, keeping it from getting too hot needs to be part of the design. So can we produce steam? We already are.
How small can you make a nuclear power plant? It wasn’t a good design and had to be retired, but Antarctica had a 1.5 mW nuke that fit in a 55 gal drum. Navy vessels used to use multiple power plants but now just use a single one. How big. That’s classified, but I hear not very big at all.
This isn’t a science project. The science is already done. This is an engineer and machining project with working examples. If we can’t do this it’s time to throw in the towel on everything else as well, cuz we’re done.
It has been a long time since I did the research but if you go back into the history of the nuclear stage
Things change.
Ken
The problem that I have is to cavalierly dismiss what was done before. This is what got us in trouble with Constellation as the new kids thought that nothing that was done before was worth even considering.
Yes, it is a new day, and new technologies abound and they are helping to make a critical difference in many areas. However, there has been darn little further development of nuclear propulsion in 40 years and to just state something of the order of “all you have to do is” is not helpful without understanding all of the issues involved.
“Water may be easier to get from NEO than the moon.”
The mini SAR radar of Chandrayaan-1 as well as LRO has detected what seems to be sheets of relatively pure water ice at least two meters thick.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/feature_ice_like_deposits.html
I understand. Like I said, there are details including handling of radioactive material. I just find it incredible that we’re talking about making water hot with a material that gets hot when you put enough of it together (less the more enriched it is) a thing which is being done this very second around the world including naturally in african caverns…
…and it’s too hard is the answer.
Ken
Too hard is not the answer at all. The answer is that before trodding off into already trodden territory today we should always review the lessons of those who went before us so that we may learn from their mistakes.
Agreed. Now to add text for another straight forward solution to get past the too short filter. 😉