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[Jelle]

I agree with the notion that there is an irrational fear of space travel. People die for lesser things then the space frontier. I suppose it's because its a great unknown? The darkness of the all encompassin void...
/dons tinfoil hat
I tell you man it's the governments instilling fear in the people so they can monopolize in them interstellar oppertunities!

[mainiac]

Don't think that's going to work. Moon doesn't have much rare metals, or normal metals for that matter. It's mainly boring rock. He-3 isn't worth anything yet. Besides, setting up a lunar mining and construction operation costs quite a lot. A lot more than what we're going to get.

The moon has iron and oxygen in extreme abundance (40% and 10% of the lunar soil, respectively).  Those aren't the sexiest elements out there, but every kilogram of iron or oxygen you get from the moon is a kilogram you don't have to launch from earth.  Consider that the lowest launch costs achieved so far are $4000 per kilogram to LEO, that is some valuable material.

If you don't have enough money to use lunar oxygen, if not lunar iron, then you don't have enough to go to mars in the first place.

[10ebbor10]

Depends. You'd need to build an entire lunar refinery operation, and then launch the stuff from the moon. Considering oxygen is recycled during long term missions, and metal might be hard to refine, it's not a rather obvious move. Water concentrations on the moon are still fairly low, so fuel would be a problem. (And launching fuel from the earth to the moon to launch stuff there is just ...). There's also quite a few problems with maintaining the base, especially considering radiation, lunar dust and other health/material risks.

Also, the launch costs are due to drop severely in the near future, so you're profit margin will drop soon

[GlyphGryph]

And you'd be death in minutes. Both lunar and Martian nights are fairly cold, after all. Space suits ain't going to help. Not that you can do anything useful against a dust storms. Brushing dust of a solar panel when it's cloudy is rather bad.

No atmosphere means the cold doesn't actually matter all that much - you're primarily losing heat to thermal radiation and that can be minimized and isn't really that severe. The primary purpose of space suits is actually to get rid of and prevent heat, not keep it in - heat is far more of a problem in most of space than cold. Even on mars, the much thinner atmosphere means keeping warm is significantly easier than in cold places on earth (though nowhere near as easy as it on the moon)

[Eagleon]

Ok, fair, the moon does have rare Earths, but in far smaller concentrations than any of earth's mines. (And concentrations on earth are already so low that mining them isn't economically viable without there being another ore(like thorium) present. Mining and refining materials on the moon is far harder than mining on Earth. And well, Ion propulsion is a rather complicated, and power hungry technology. Not certain if you can do it on the moon)

(wall of text go!)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My bet is that there is much more sitting in many of the craters, in much higher concentrations, than we've been able to verify. It's going to take landing a rover with a decent lifecycle and sample equipment to determine, because absolutely everything is covered with highly reflective ejecta. On the surface (literally), the moon looks like a useless chunk of shit, but I think that's mainly because 1 - we looked on our side, which has much older and fewer craters, and 2 - we've only done very cursory spectroscopic analysis of the surface, and collected surface samples rather than any asteroid material.

RF ion propulsion is actually quite simple, as far as materials involved. The design and engineering of the systems involved takes up the bulk of its complexity, which is less of an engineering problem than manufacturing complex polymers and fuel without solvents. Go ahead and try to make a chemical propulsion system in vacuum, I dare you - when you break them down, ion thrusters are mostly just metal and some electrical components.

And I wouldn't say that it's more complicated than manufacturing things on Earth, just different. What will have to happen is a much more thorough understanding of the materials chemistry involved given sub-optimal components, and a great deal of work in solvent-free refinery processes. Other than that, the fact that it's near-vacuum eliminates the vast bulk of the contamination/oxidation prevention that a modern refinery uses, so it might even end up being cheaper way down the line.

In particular, laser CVD is the technology I'm eying to take up the bulk of the work - take a sample, blast every square millimeter with a tuneable solid state laser backed by a beefy capacitor system, draw the vaporized components off using a magnetic field into a readied chamber containing a changeable deposition surface, and change up the output according to spectroscopic/manual analysis in order to optimize for transition between the chemical components of the sample. Then, if necessary, load up the plates you've made to draw out impurities using the same process. Start queuing up templates for electrical components when you've refined the necessary materials, and if absolutely necessary, most standard lithographic processes that use solvents will work fine in lunar gravity. Make new plates as needed - it's simple enough to coat basalt with gold, they did it way back in the 70s to keep moon rocks from burning up under their electron microsocopes. Rinse, repeat, until you've got the refining infrastructure to move on to faster processes.

There're 6 7 billion people on this planet. You're always going to find enough people to go if you bother to look for them. No reason to pick up extra liabilities.

And yes, the MarsOne program is liable for disaster. SpaceX is much more realistic, aiming for a mainly self-sufficient Mars base. Your plan won't get the funds to start the first stage. Maybe in 50 years, but know you don't have the technology, nor the funds.

The first stage is R&D and education for the work to be done using a robotic facility, not manned. I'm not expecting to get funding for a colony any time soon, but neither do I want to live on one until it's stocked to the brim with replacement parts and backup supplies, and in a position to receive more without permission from interests on Earth. I think it's a mistake to pick and choose who gets to go, rather than setting up the infrastructure so that anyone who wants to go, can given a reasonable investment of time and training. You have to think of the resources involved with tossing 100,000 people into Mars orbit, and what kind of impact that's going to have on the industries involved - can we sustainably launch that much using conventional propulsion? And their supplies, facilities, and equipment? Instead of jumping straight to Mars, why not set up industry that can immediately benefit our demands here on Earth?

[FritzPL]

I'm really liking the idea of making the colony on Mars a penal colony. It can't be that hard to send them up there and have them come back, either, because
"it works in Kerbal Space Program™"

[10ebbor10]

Ok, fair, the moon does have rare Earths, but in far smaller concentrations than any of earth's mines. (And concentrations on earth are already so low that mining them isn't economically viable without there being another ore(like thorium) present. Mining and refining materials on the moon is far harder than mining on Earth. And well, Ion propulsion is a rather complicated, and power hungry technology. Not certain if you can do it on the moon)

(wall of text go!)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My bet is that there is much more sitting in many of the craters, in much higher concentrations, than we've been able to verify. It's going to take landing a rover with a decent lifecycle and sample equipment to determine, because absolutely everything is covered with highly reflective ejecta. On the surface (literally), the moon looks like a useless chunk of shit, but I think that's mainly because 1 - we looked on our side, which has much older and fewer craters, and 2 - we've only done very cursory spectroscopic analysis of the surface, and collected surface samples rather than any asteroid material.

Why would there be? There've been plenty of mining experiments in Earth meteor craters (including perfectly intact ones), and the conclusion is that all off the original meteoroids mass is either obliterated or thrown away with the debris(which would mean thrown very far away, due to the moon's gravity). Considering there's been a 30 million price just to make a robot drive 500 meters on the moon, I doubt it's that easy. (or cheap). A quarter quit already, and none of the teams have made major progress.
Besides, I doubt many people would like you'd do to the moon. Large scale topsoil mining (because that's where the nicest elements are), would flatten massive stretches of ground, throw up dust in the air and ruin the moon's vacuum atmosphere for scientific experiments.

Also, craters give problems for solar power production, amongst other things.

RF ion propulsion is actually quite simple, as far as materials involved. The design and engineering of the systems involved takes up the bulk of its complexity, which is less of an engineering problem than manufacturing complex polymers and fuel without solvents. Go ahead and try to make a chemical propulsion system in vacuum, I dare you - when you break them down, ion thrusters are mostly just metal and some electrical components.

Getting efficient ion propulsion is more interesting though. Ion propulsion is highly efficient, but slow(low thrust = low arceleration). Also very mass inefficient. Sadly humans don't keep very well in space, so you'd be increasing problems (lifesupport, antiradiation) rather than preventing them

And I wouldn't say that it's more complicated than manufacturing things on Earth, just different. What will have to happen is a much more thorough understanding of the materials chemistry involved given sub-optimal components, and a great deal of work in solvent-free refinery processes. Other than that, the fact that it's near-vacuum eliminates the vast bulk of the contamination/oxidation prevention that a modern refinery uses, so it might even end up being cheaper way down the line.

Mining operations would ruin that vacuum pretty quick, and lunar dust is polarized and will stick to any exposed elements. So you'd have to have a pretty advanced dust contamination prevention going on, for both the refinery and the human habitations/ robot hangars/ any other part of the base.

There're 6 7 billion people on this planet. You're always going to find enough people to go if you bother to look for them. No reason to pick up extra liabilities.

And yes, the MarsOne program is liable for disaster. SpaceX is much more realistic, aiming for a mainly self-sufficient Mars base. Your plan won't get the funds to start the first stage. Maybe in 50 years, but now you don't have the technology, nor the funds.

The first stage is R&D and education for the work to be done using a robotic facility, not manned. I'm not expecting to get funding for a colony any time soon, but neither do I want to live on one until it's stocked to the brim with replacement parts and backup supplies, and in a position to receive more without permission from interests on Earth. I think it's a mistake to pick and choose who gets to go, rather than setting up the infrastructure so that anyone who wants to go, can given a reasonable investment of time and training. You have to think of the resources involved with tossing 100,000 people into Mars orbit, and what kind of impact that's going to have on the industries involved - can we sustainably launch that much using conventional propulsion? And their supplies, facilities, and equipment? Instead of jumping straight to Mars, why not set up industry that can immediately benefit our demands here on Earth?

Considering there's a lot of research to be done, and space launches aren't cheap, I'm not sure you'll fund your robotic facility.

We can't launch 100 000 people at all. But why would we want too. Such a mass of people will destroy anything of scientific interest on Mars, mostly by accident, but anyway. Contamination is dangerous, hence why most plans start with a very small outpost for some time, to research. Full scale colonization is something to think of within a hundred years, or later.

[Eagleon]

Spoiler: Last one :P (click to show/hide)

Why would there be? There've been plenty of mining experiments in Earth meteor craters (including perfectly intact ones), and the conclusion is that all off the original meteoroids mass is either obliterated or thrown away with the debris(which would mean thrown very far away, due to the moon's gravity). Considering there's been a 30 million price just to make a robot drive 500 meters on the moon, I doubt it's that easy. (or cheap). A quarter quit already, and none of the teams have made major progress.
Besides, I doubt many people would like you'd do to the moon. Large scale topsoil mining (because that's where the nicest elements are), would flatten massive stretches of ground, throw up dust in the air and ruin the moon's vacuum atmosphere for scientific experiments.

Also, craters give problems for solar power production, amongst other things.

There's a big difference between a meteor that's passed through the atmosphere, heated to almost boiling, and one that's struck the moon. Yes, you'd have significant ejecta, but the forces involved are different enough that I think it's worth a look. If there isn't any, it's still a good source of bulk material - the weight problem doesn't stop once you've started mining NEOs, it's probably always going to be easier to get bulk structural materials from the moon given the same equipment.

Getting efficient ion propulsion is more interesting though. Ion propulsion is highly efficient, but slow(low thrust = low arceleration). Also very mass inefficient. Sadly humans don't keep very well in space, so you'd be increasing problems (lifesupport, antiradiation) rather than preventing them

For robotically operated mining and refineries to work, they need to be able to send what they create back, as well as to spread new equipment to fresh extraction sites. As I understand it, ion propulsion is the sanest solution for that between bodies, because it can use a wide variety of fuel mixtures at very low material costs. It has the potential added benefit of being synergistic with the motors and steppers used for the rest of the systems involved.

Mining operations would ruin that vacuum pretty quick, and lunar dust is polarized and will stick to any exposed elements. So you'd have to have a pretty advanced dust contamination prevention going on, for both the refinery and the human habitations/ robot hangars/ any other part of the base.

Which is why you'd need a compact system with few moving parts running over an extended lifecycle, yes. Hence making everything using CVD and lithography first, including bulk materials, which would already require isolation from everything but the sample. But whether or not it would work on the moon isn't really the point. I'm not a roboticist, I'd just like to help encourage it.

Considering there's a lot of research to be done, and space launches aren't cheap, I'm not sure you'll fund your robotic facility.

We can't launch 100 000 people at all. But why would we want too. Such a mass of people will destroy anything of scientific interest on Mars, mostly by accident, but anyway. Contamination is dangerous, hence why most plans start with a very small outpost for some time, to research. Full scale colonization is something to think of within a hundred years, or later.

Ok, here's what I don't understand - I've already stated that I don't intend to seek funding for any kind of facility yet. Starting a school or research program as a non-profit is not a new idea. Neither is it necessarily requiring massive charity or faith from the public - I expect the patents and research the students develop to be useful to any number of interests. My goals (and I don't pretend for a second that I'll achieve them alone or even to be certain I'll find the right people to pull it off) are to make a research university dedicated to colonization research. That's it. Whatever comes as a result is bonus added after getting people like myself proactive about their future in space, exactly because the status-quo right now is to turn nose at any hint of imperfection in a colonist.

So what's with the nitpicking? If it's absolutely impossible to stage mining operations, even one substantially less profitable than a fully autonomous, self-expanding one, we have no chance of creating a self-sufficient colony anyway. I've already said that I'm only an information student, not (officially) a roboticist. My original post was mostly to express irritation with such short-sighted publicity stunts spearheading our commercial efforts in space.

There's a reason you don't see a lot of tourists in the Amazon - once the novelty has worn off, space tourism is going to collapse unless tourists can afford it. That includes balancing their impressions of risk, that includes the people complaining and lobbying against all the launches that are suddenly making our airports marginally noisier, etc. etc. I think that the solution to that (barring a space elevator, which is a whole different argument to go into) is to invest in real industry, sending resources back to earth to balance the massive amounts dumped into launch costs, offsetting the supplies needed for a colony, and in the process working towards the knowledge necessary to keep expanding to places like Titan. if that's 100 years off, we still need to start working on the technology for it now, no?

Realizing after I posted this that I'm being a little over-sensitive, considering I'm -not- in any way professionally qualified to say that my ideas will work, other than in software, and I did post on the internet But the sentiment remains: Fuckin' space, guys. Let's do it already ;O

[Baffler]

It may have been brought up before, but at least right now, ion propulsion does give you a lot more speed but tiny acceleration compared to conventional propulsion techniques. As far as the moon goes, we're probably better using a more conventional propulsion system. A future mission to Mars, or anywhere else in the solar system for that matter, would benefit enormously from this technology. From the NASA website:

Modern ion thrusters can deliver up to 0.5 Newtons (0.1 pounds) of thrust, which is equivalent to the force you would feel by holding nine U.S. quarters in your hand. To compensate for low thrust, the ion thruster must be operated for a long time for the spacecraft to reach its top speed.

The only reason I can see for any kind of permanent settlement off of Earth is a huge trove of valuable minerals being discovered. We haven't done very much investigation into the possible mineral wealth of the other rocks in our solar system, at least that I know of,  but as I understand it finding minerals in deposits worth extracting requires extensive surveying and analysis of the local geology. These companies do exist but none of them are nearly ready to seriously consider a mission like that. If they do get enough money to last that long I hope to see colonization take off vigorously.

[10ebbor10]

So in the end, they managed to find 165 000 candidates.

Just FYi, they were hoping for 1 million. And that includes the people who haven't paid. Considering they need those funds for early operations...

[10ebbor10]

Double post.

Mars One update

They appear to be continuing with the plan, despite major troubles.