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[Trekkin]

I don't think anyone here is saying that you're wrong, only that you can't discard the idea based solely on risk.

Nor am I doing so. I'm not saying we shouldn't colonize space or mine asteroids; I'm just trying to explain how the incentives currently available don't motivate the kinds of efforts people think are cool space colonies. There is, I think, a marked tendency for people to just identify someone who could possibly do the grandiose science thing they think is cool and blame them for not doing it because they're greedy and stupid and evil, which I know feels good to say but isn't really helpful. The next step after "we should do X thing" needs to be to ask why we aren't, not to find the nearest entity notionally capable of doing it, presuppose why they aren't doing it, and call them nasty names.

The Columbus analogy is less than perfect for several reasons, but the basic motivation for the trip would have been good had his math been sound: fund expedition, possibly get direct sea route to the East along which caravels can immediately go to supply a demonstrable need for the quantities of spices they can carry. Everything was in place except that route, which is also the sort of scenario where science funding becomes available: the benefits are not much less concrete than the costs and there's a small number of unknown points of failure.

The Columbus equivalent to asteroid mining would have been asking Isabella to fund the development of carvel-hulled ships and shipyards capable of producing them so that ships capable of transatlantic crossings could be developed, a route found, and spices brought back as above, all without any concrete plan for what to do if any of those things do not work as expected. It's too many steps with too many unknown unknowns to predict, so of course nobody's throwing money at it as such. Even the much-heralded Planetary Resources isn't launching asteroid miners. It's launching for-hire space telescopes. DSI has been acquired by Bradford Space, but when confronted about the extreme cost of their proposals they quickly backpedaled to servicing communications satellites.

So no, I'm not saying we should discount the idea based on the risk. I'm saying that airy proclamations about how space is our future and protects us from extinction and it's the most important thing we could be doing and so forth don't actually fly, pun intended, because the risk is still incalculably high. Incrementally decreasing that risk requires intermediate applications to motivate the requisite technology development and establish a need for space infrastructure, but unfortunately those are complicated and boring and don't lend themselves as readily to complaining on the Internet, so everyone's going to keep being disappointed for a while.

[PTTG??]

Ok, how about this argument:

Not everything we do needs to be for profit. Space exploration is, at its core, a pure cultural value. It is not a thing we do in order to make money; it is a thing we make money in order to do.

Do you ask yourself why you bother spending money on entertainment? Simply staring at the wall for hours will cost less.

Why spaceflight in particular? Because our current understanding of the universe shows there is much to see and do there. It is not the only thing to explore. The depths of the ocean, the nature of subatomic particles, the cognitive realm of mathematics -- these too should be explored. But they are only part of the experience. Humanity has never done just one thing.

The arguments for spaceflight that describe it as profitable are an attempt to struggle through an economic system that is obsessed with the desires of non-humans over those of actual people. The arguments for spaceflight as a way to preserve humanity are noble, but flawed because they imply we must wait for our life to be in danger first. No, we should go to space because to do so is to live, not merely exist.

No, spaceflight is not economically justifiable. Neither are libraries, poetry, nature preserves, or art. These things all benefit from being done by the collective efforts of mankind.

[Trekkin]

No, spaceflight is not economically justifiable. Neither are libraries, poetry, nature preserves, or art. These things all benefit from being done by the collective efforts of mankind.

And when you can bill "the collective efforts of mankind" for tens of billions of dollars of rockets, you might have an argument, but space is presently noncompetitive in the philanthropy market too; there are closer, cheaper, more visible things on which rich people can put their names to feel better about stealing things.

[LordBaal]

Like I wrote on the actual space thread, I think Elon and like minded individuals have their hearts on the rigth place,  but seeing too far into the horizon at the moment. I believe the optimal route is first rc robots building basic stuff on the moon. Not even pressurized things yet, just basic stuff like trenches for future habitats or shelters for machinery.

After that semi autonomous or fully autonomous bots would be a steep further.

Then setting up basic systems and infrastructure for temporary settlements as scientific outposts or prospecting  (which wouldn't necessarily be manned) and even a turistic place.

After all this is a tad mature then you can think on venturing people further on regular basis.

Also (to add a tad of topic), when murica first went to the moon it wasn't a economical impulse that drove it, it basically a measuring dick contest. Would you think another political conflict would push a new space race?

[Trekkin]

Like I wrote on the actual space thread, I think Elon and like minded individuals have their hearts on the rigth place,  but seeing too far into the horizon at the moment. I believe the optimal route is first rc robots building basic stuff on the moon. Not even pressurized things yet, just basic stuff like trenches for future habitats or shelters for machinery.

From a technical perspective, sure; it's possible to stick a shovel and a tamper on a rover and put that rover on the moon. But what would be the benefit of doing that? Not for future habitats, but for the agencies funding that particular mission. What do we learn about the moon from digging trenches there that we couldn't learn just by gathering rock samples?

[wierd]

Well, I don't mean to be TOO much of an asshole here... but...


In the recent past, we DID purposefully crash a probe as hard as we could into the surface to see what volatiles were present beneath the upper crust of the regolith.  Digging a trench could have geological science value on par with digging trenches here on earth; It gives a window into the past geological history of the moon, and allows examination of deposits not reachable with a 6 inch drill on a robot's arm.

[LordBaal]

Like I wrote on the actual space thread, I think Elon and like minded individuals have their hearts on the rigth place,  but seeing too far into the horizon at the moment. I believe the optimal route is first rc robots building basic stuff on the moon. Not even pressurized things yet, just basic stuff like trenches for future habitats or shelters for machinery.

From a technical perspective, sure; it's possible to stick a shovel and a tamper on a rover and put that rover on the moon. But what would be the benefit of doing that? Not for future habitats, but for the agencies funding that particular mission. What do we learn about the moon from digging trenches there that we couldn't learn just by gathering rock samples?

How The machines behave under the moon environment? The abrasive dust? Also that I know of, letting aside the crater made by the Japanese on the asteroid this week it would be the first extraterrestrial earthworks effort ever? (Earthwork would be the correct world or would it bee moonworks, lunarworks or seleniteworks?)

If we are ever to create even just a turistic place for the ultrarich that is not a space station then large amounts of earthworks would probably be needed as the most practical and cheap way to insulate stuff from radiation and micrometeorites. And you'll have to start somewhere at least as a proof of concept.

[wierd]

Trekkin is referring to the fact that NASA is a science foundation, and needs a science mission mandate to even consider a mission on the moon. 

He is specifically asking what scientific value we intend to extract from sending a robot designed to move a shitload of dirt.

I suggested that examining deeper strata of the lunar surface would be revealing about the moon's past.  There are still 3 major theories about the moon's formation, that each give different predictions about the composition of the deeper materials of the moon. This is the reason behind crashing a probe into it some years back-- to explosively expose deeper deposits that could be analyzed with a radio spectrometer that was still floating around overhead, to get data about water ice and other volatiles in the subsurface materials.

Digging an actual trench, and being able to directly inspect deeper deposits would be valuable to determining the true formation process of the moon, and give more insights into its distant past.


If we include explosives (to help clear large areas to make very deep holes) we can include seismometers on the robot to map the interior of the object at the same time.

[LordBaal]

We'll there's scientific value on the engineering development and testing of such machinery isn't?

[Trekkin]

How The machines behave under the moon environment? The abrasive dust? Also that I know of, letting aside the crater made by the Japanese on the asteroid this week it would be the first extraterrestrial earthworks effort ever? (Earthwork would be the correct world or would it bee moonworks, lunarworks or seleniteworks?)

If we are ever to create even just a turistic place for the ultrarich that is not a space station then large amounts of earthworks would probably be needed as the most practical and cheap way to insulate stuff from radiation and micrometeorites. And you'll have to start somewhere at least as a proof of concept.

Well, the first two are still relevant mainly to other, future missions to the moon; it's valuable data in that case, to be sure, but it's nothing that could be called experimental significance.

And yes, if we ever wanted lunar tourism we'd have to build into the moon as well as on it, but that gets to the core of the problem: it's not possible to finance half a space mission. If we're going to spend tens of billions of dollars to build a space tourist hotel, NASA would need the scientific output from that venture to be a better use of tens of billions of dollars than all the other experiments they would be doing. Then it'd absolutely be worth testing the robots, though. Conversely, if we're to just send up a digging robot to cut that cost down, we need laying the groundwork for a future tourist base to be the most efficient way to accomplish its scientific goals, and testing the robot becomes less important as an end unto itself. Even if, as weird suggests, you wanted a trench-digging robot, it'd only need to dig a hole to fit itself into to grab rock samples anyway,and that's assuming it doesn't just go with a large drill. It doesn't need to also dig a hotel basement, so there's no reason to make it capable of that much digging. 

Technology demonstrators do still fly, but they need to serve a scientific purpose contained within the mission itself.

[Karnewarrior]

The interesting thing about a moon base is that you can put telescopes there as well as bunks for rich tourists. Telescopes which would be much clearer-eyed than earth-based telescopes, while still being able to be built large unlike sattelite telescopes, and manned by people.

That would be of immense scientific value, since right now our telescopes either have to be built on top of a mountain and still be foggy, or small enough to stuff into a rocket and unfold once out in space. A telescope on the moon would have neither such issues (although it might have it's own problems we don't know about) and would thus be very, very valuable indeed to astronomers.

[wierd]

I think it could be swung both ways here Trekkin...

See also, "Curiosity ran many times its original planned mission life."

We send a robot that is able to easily dig a very deep trench, and analyze the deeper regolith deposits for lunar geology research.  We overbuild that robot, so that it can dig more trenches.

We just constrain its mission areas to those that also just so happen to be useful for landscaping a construction site later.


Again, if we include explosives-- we use the explosives principally to use sonar echo mapping to get a deeper view of what is going on VERY deep beneath the surface.  That will take multiple detonations to get very detailed results.  We just place the bombs used in places we want to also dig basements in later.


RE: Lunar telescopes

Unless this is a very long armed interferometric telescope, the money is better spent putting said telescope in orbit.

[Trekkin]

The interesting thing about a moon base is that you can put telescopes there as well as bunks for rich tourists. Telescopes which would be much clearer-eyed than earth-based telescopes, while still being able to be built large unlike sattelite telescopes, and manned by people.

That would be of immense scientific value, since right now our telescopes either have to be built on top of a mountain and still be foggy, or small enough to stuff into a rocket and unfold once out in space. A telescope on the moon would have neither such issues (although it might have it's own problems we don't know about) and would thus be very, very valuable indeed to astronomers.

If these astronomers would like to pay $10 billion just to build the colony to build and maintain their telescope, sure, but they could get two Hubble telescopes for that price and have $600 million left over -- and that's without the cost of the lunar telescope itself. One could always just build that telescope array in orbit, too, which ameliorates the size problem via interferometry, doesn't block half the observable sky with the moon, and can be serviced from Earth.

We just constrain its mission areas to those that also just so happen to be useful for landscaping a construction site later.
[...]
We just place the bombs used in places we want to also dig basements in later.

This sort of cleverness is exactly what oversight avoids, and with good reason. You don't plan things around nebulous future missions; you plan to maximize the scientific return on investment, which also means minimizing risk -- and therefore doing as little as possible to get the data. If your mission profile doesn't include laying out a colony, you don't lay out a colony. You bring the smallest, simplest shovel you can get away with, and when you've dug all the holes you want to dig in all the most interesting places, you go dig more holes for more interesting samples with it until it breaks. You don't get to pay the mission team to just goof around digging ornamental ponds and making regolithcastles because hey, the robot's already up there, so why not.

[wierd]

Considering that part of this is an edict from the executive about getting a human presence on the moon, it makes sense to get as much science out of the "waste", no?  It can still be principally a science mission (you want to find out whats inside the moon? You need to lug explosives up there to map whats deep down there?  Awesome, we also want big holes dug. Let's work something out--- type of thing.)

Your argument mostly stems from the perspective of "We have very limited funds to conduct science with, how do we get the most science for the money?".  Again, the executive is willing to shovel money into a furnace to look pretty (and not so willing to shovel money into a furnace for actual pure science). It's an opportunity to get science up there that would otherwise not get done, not a waste of science money for digging holes.  The executive wants the holes dug. Might as well get science while you are at it.

Here, NASA even has a page on this shit.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-unveils-sustainable-campaign-to-return-to-moon-on-to-mars

The lunar surface will serve as a crucial training ground and technology demonstration test site where we will prepare for future human missions to Mars and other destinations. Through an innovative combination of missions involving commercial and international partners, robotic lunar surface missions will begin as early as 2020, focus on scientific exploration of lunar resources, and prepare the lunar surface for a sustained human presence.

This is especially poignant, since Pence is threatening to start cutting pretty damn deep if they dont do it.

This isn't about "Getting science without also digging foundations."

This is about "Getting science while being forced to dig foundations."

[Trekkin]

The lunar surface will serve as a crucial training ground and technology demonstration test site where we will prepare for future human missions to Mars and other destinations. Through an innovative combination of missions involving commercial and international partners, robotic lunar surface missions will begin as early as 2020, focus on scientific exploration of lunar resources, and prepare the lunar surface for a sustained human presence.

Reference to future human habitation has been tacked onto every Mars rover's mission, too. How's the Mars base looking?

Check NASA's actual upcoming missions. The only thing planned for the Moon is an uncrewed test orbit by Orion. They may well come up with a rover and add a technology demonstrator to it, but don't read vague aspirations on their public-facing website as anything other than spin.