It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistressis one of my favorite Heinlein novels along with Stranger in a Strange Land. Its about a revolt of a moon colony and their reorganization as an anarchist society. One of its characters Manny a technician worker who is an communist (well a Cold War Russian at least).
The Moon is a Harsh Mistressis similar to Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) in that both describe social upheavals, and both contain a strong streak of irony. In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the irony is that although the lunar colony is, at the beginning of the story, theoretically a kind of prison ruled by a tyrannical Warden, in reality the Warden seldom interferes in lunar society, which is portrayed as a kind of libertarianutopia. When the revolution succeeds, the new lunar government succumbs to its own worst instincts to regulate society to the hilt. The novel is notable stylistically for its use of an invented Lunar dialect consisting predominantly of English words but strongly influenced by Russian grammar (cf. Nadsat slang from Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess).
Well today Russia announced is planning to build a base on the moon for industrialization rather than weaponization of space.
Russia plans to put a mine on the Moon to help boost energy supply Independent - Russia has staked out plans to recapture its Soviet-era space-race glory and start mining the Moon for a promising energy resource that scientists say could meet the Earth's power needs for more than a thousand years.
Bloody well about time too. That someone used the space race for something other than weapons systems, spy sattelites and 500 channels on TV.
We should have had a viable space station orbiting in the L5 years ago, with regular missions to the moon, ala 2001 A Space Odessy.
But the Space Race was part of the Cold War and after that it was part of the American privatization of NASA at any cost program around the Space Shuttle. A cost which was measured in lives lost rather than missions accomplished.
After the umpteenth mission we know the space orbiter works, now do something with it like build a space station, one that won't come crashing down after a decade. But that opportunity is lost too. Won't be no more Space Shuttle missions, the point of which was what? Waste in space.
Really once the Reagan regime got the Space Weapons bug thats all the Space Shuttle missions were for, but seeing that no Weaponization systems could be put up well the Space shuttle went up and down, sometimes with horrendous accidents.
We should have one global space agency always should have. NASA the EU Space Program, the Japanese, Canadian, and all the other space programs and yes the Russians and Chinese should be part of a global space program. But sigh that is too much Star Trek for the liking of the Star Wars mentality around the Pentagon.
Now the Russians are onto something. Mining the moon, just like in the Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. One word of advice, from the novel, don't rely on prison labour for the miners or they may revolt and that would be Anarchy in space. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Wikiquote
Whoever Controls the Moon Controls the Solar System
Passant Rabie Sat, February 26, 2022 Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway and Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy declared that his nation would be the first to land a man on the moon. That ambitious goal would later be fulfilled as two NASA astronauts took wobbly steps across the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, much to the dismay of Russia’s own space program leaders.
More than 60 years later, a new space race to the moon has begun, albeit with much higher stakes and brand new players ready to make the 238,855-mile journey. This time, the race to the moon is about much more than just planting a flag on its dusty surface. Getting to the moon first could also mean calling dibs on its limited resources, and controlling a permanent gateway to take humans to Mars—and beyond.
Whether it’s NASA, China, Russia, or a consortium of private companies that end up dominating the moon, laying claim to the lunar surface isn’t really about the moon anyway—it’s about who gets easier access to the rest of the solar system. Everyone’s Got an Agenda
James Rice, a senior scientist at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, remembers growing up with the Apollo program and getting bitten by the space bug as he watched the 1969 moon landing unfold on television.
“As a kid, I saw that happening and I wanted to be a part of it,” Rice told The Daily Beast. “That’s basically why I’m in this career today.”
As Rice reflected on the current space race, he recognized some key differences. “Things have really changed dramatically in terms of the technology and the players that are out there,” he said. “This is not the moon we thought of during the Apollo days.” Scientists have learned so much more about the moon through more detailed analysis of lunar samples, as well as several missions that have probed exactly what might be sitting on the moon’s surface and remain hidden deep underground.
Though we have known for over a decade that the moon is probably teeming with reserves of water ice, NASA announced just last year that it had found the best evidence yet that water trapped in icy pockets were far more spread out across the lunar surface than previously believed. The discovery further fueled the idea of building a permanent base on the moon, which astronauts could then use to reach Mars and other celestial destinations. Conceptual art for a NASA-led astronaut base involving water ice prospecting and mining. NASA
Why is this such a big deal? Water is a precious resource for space travelers—not just for astronauts to drink, but also to turn into rocket fuel to use to blast off.
Remember your grade-school science here: Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is known to be the most efficient rocket propellant whereas oxygen can be combined by fuel to create combustion. The ability to break down all that water ice on the moon means you have access to both of its constituent elements—an enormous supply of rocket fuel. (And as an added bonus, you can use any excess oxygen as breathable air for astronauts.)
Finding these resources on the moon is much better than transporting them from Earth. Packing resources to space comes at a hefty price—it costs about $10,000 just to launch a payload weighing a single pound into Earth’s orbit, according to NASA. It could be far less costly to use what the moon has to offer to build a lunar pitstop to cosmic destinations.
“I think the moon has been placed as this midpoint, or first step towards Mars,” Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society, told The Daily Beast. “It’s not an end destination.”
In other words, going back to the moon is not really about the moon, at least not entirely. It’s a gateway to truly larger space ambitions. That’s why Artemis—NASA’s new lunar exploration program—has been consistently touted not as simply a redux of Apollo, but rather the initial foundation for a permanent presence on the moon.
Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk, left, and Rick Gilbrech, director of NASA's Stennis Space Center, right, watch as the core stage for the first flight of NASAs Space Launch System rocket undergoes a second hot fire test in the B-2 Test Stand on March 18. NASA/Robert Markowitz via Getty
Martha Hess, the director for human exploration and spaceflight at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit for technical guidance on space missions, echoed those sentiments. “This time, the moon is a training ground, and Mars is the destination,” she told The Daily Beast.
Today’s space race is also not merely between competing nations and political ideologies. It also involves private companies trying to pursue profits. “We are at a unique point in time where our economy and technology are aligned, allowing for private and commercial investment in space based capabilities,” said Hess. “This investment takes the pressure off government agencies to sustain the industry.”
Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are also looking beyond the moon. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has an obsessive vision of going to Mars and terraforming the planet to make it suitable for human colonization. Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos is looking to be a dominating player in the field of commercial space travel, transporting (probably very wealthy) citizens to the moon or beyond.
“Private companies have their own long term goals that exist outside of the national space program,” Dreier said. “They’ll do whatever NASA asks them to do, they don’t care whether NASA is going to the moon or Mars.” A fight over resources
Something that will define the upcoming moon race is the fact that not every region on the moon is equal in value. “There are limited places to go, and it’s all about location,” Rice said.
Just as the California gold rush of the 19th century was defined by where the gold was found, so too will the water rush to the moon be defined by where the water is stored. The U.S. is looking to build its lunar base at the moon’s south pole, where there is thought to be a wealth of water ice reserves.
Moreover, the south pole is a wellspring for fulfilling energy needs: It’s exposed to more sunshine than anywhere else on the moon, which would fuel solar panels and supply power to the base.
Li Xianhua, China Academy of Sciences academician and Institute of Geology, speaks during a press conference in Beijing on Oct. 19. Noel Celis/AFP via GettyMore
And with no clear space laws currently in place over ownership of objects in space, lunar resources may very well come down to whoever calls dibs first.
China’s space agency recently approved three more missions to the moon, targeting—you guessed it—the lunar south pole. The nation’s space program is hoping to land astronauts on the moon by the year 2030. Down the line, we may see Chinese and American astronauts hanging out on the moon at the same time. The finish line
Nevertheless, China and Russia don’t pose much competition to the U.S. as long as NASA doesn’t dawdle on its way back to the moon. “China is absolutely working on building up its capability,” Dreier said. “But I’d say they’re at least a decade behind, if not more, compared to the U.S. capability.”
First up on NASA’s agenda is Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight to the moon that is meant to debut the brand new Space Launch System (the biggest rocket system ever built) and the Orion crew capsule that will eventually take astronauts back to the moon. Launching tentatively in April, Artemis I will simply orbit the moon and come back to Earth. It won’t be until Artemis III, set to launch in 2025 (if you’re an optimist), that we’ll finally see human boots make it to the lunar surface.
Hess does believe, however, that China has one advantage over the U.S. that it could exploit to make speedy progress.
“China has the benefit of being able to establish a long-term plan and funding, which allows them the ability to chip away at their 30-50-100 year vision,” Hess said. “We don’t have that luxury; our plans are good for a presidential term, and our budgets are appropriated annually so our programs start, stop and starve.” Long-term exploration of the solar system isn’t actually something that’s crystallized in U.S. budgets for decades to come.
During the first space race, the agency spent $28 billion to land the first humans on the moon, which is about $280 billion when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society.
As the space program for each of the space race participants begins to take shape, policy makers are realizing that they need to update the laws at hand to better govern the new era of space exploration that’s about to launch.
Regardless of who gets to plant space boots on the moon next, there is an overarching benefit to human exploration as a whole.
“There's more to it than that because there's an inspiration to it that you can't put a price tag on,” Rice said. “It does something to you when you walk out there and look at the moon and now there are people out there doing something, that just resonates.”
Saturday, April 11, 2020
THE WEEK OF THE PINK SUPER MOON
TRUMP PRIVATIZES LUNA
President Trump has decided to turn his attention to mining the moon during this difficult time for the nation. According to documents released by the White House, Donald Trump paused his efforts around the growing coronavirus crisis to sign an executive order. This order will leave the US free to mine the moon for resources. The document says the order rejects the 1979 global agreement known as the Moon Treaty .
The Moon Treaty of 1979It was deliberated and developed by the Legal Subcommittee for the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) from 1972 to 1979. ... Specifically, the Moon Treaty applies to the Moon and other celestial bodies in the solar system excluding the Earth.Oct 24, 2011
This treaty says any activity in space should conform with international law. The order states: "Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space. "Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons." Trump now wants to 'mine the moon for resources' because causing havoc on Earth obviously isn't enough for him
INDEPENDENT UK Picture: CHRIS KLEPONIS / POOL/iStock/Getty/Twitter
In news that no one expected to read in the middle of a pandemic, Donald Trump has signed an executive order to mine the moon for resources.
Yes, that is something that the president of the United States actually did while hundreds of thousands of his citizens are being impacted by a deadly virus. Priorities!
In a document released by the White House, Trump's order controversially rejects the 1979 global Moon Treaty agreement, which stated that any activity in space should abide by international law.
According to Trump's order, it states that:
Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space.
Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons.
In response, the Russian space agency has accused Trump of trying to 'privatise space.' In a statement, Roscosmos said:
Attempts to expropriate outer space and aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets hardly set the countries (on course for) fruitful cooperation.
For some, this may bring back memories of the Cold War 'space race' between the US and the Soviet Union but for many, they have just been left baffled that Trump would choose to concentrate on this during one of the most testing periods the world has experienced for a generation.
This isn't a million miles away from the premise of the sci-fi film Moon, where mankind attempts to harvest minerals from our lunar friend. Even that movies director, Duncan Jones, was a bit taken aback when he heard this news.
Let's not forget that in June 2018, Donald Trump tweeted that the moon was 'a part of Mars' so we cannot wait to see how this is going to play out.
Aug 19, 2015 - Hans-Kurt Lange, who worked as an illustrator in NASA's Future Projects Division, modeled 2001's space suits on NASA's, using the same ...
Mar 27, 1997 - The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in "2001: A Space Odyssey," but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely ...
Apr 4, 2018 - Kubrick may have set out to make a science-fiction film, but 2001: A Space Odyssey, which turns 50 this week, is closer to home than we think, ...
Sunday, June 04, 2023
Lunar Orbital Congestion II: Economic and Strategic Drivers
Image take by ipsace's Hakuto-R lander about 100km above the Moon's surface.
SPACE
In my previous article, Lunar Orbital Congestion Is Gonna Be A Thing, I brought up the possibility of orbital congestion and debris becoming an issue at the Moon sooner than most people would think. That article focused on the problem of satellites in low lunar orbit (LLO). This area between 30 and 1,000 km is very attractive to remote imaging and communications constellations because proximity to surface increases their performance. Satellites in those low orbits pass quickly over the lunar surface and continuous coverage will require a lot of them, which is how Earth orbit observation (Planet) and communications constellations (Starlink) have evolved.
Artist rendering of a base on the Moon, including launch sites, an observatory and satellite dish, ... [+]
FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES
Today, satellites are expensive and getting them to Moon takes a lot of energy, so most proposed plans for lunar surveying and comms are less ambitious than the Earth orbital constellations. They depend on just a few satellites into higher, elliptical orbits, from which they can cover a lot of surface area, but are subject to longer observational distances and communications latency. In the last article, I predicted that we would see 1,000 satellites in lunar orbits by 2030. This aggressive forecast assumes a significant cost drop in both launch and satellite costs, which I believe are inevitable. If I am correct, the congested space around the Moon may result in international contention and/or a troublesome debris problem, similar to the one plauging Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
An Embarrassment of Rocket Riches
A ULA Atlas V rocket liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
GREG AUTRY
This is the golden age of space launch. We have workhorse launch systems developed by governmental agencies and state-founded enterprises including the Russian Soyuz, the European Vega and Ariane rockets, China’s Long March series, and Japan’s H-IIA. A growing livery of highly competitive commercial rockets is rapidly rendering these governmental systems economically obsolete. These include: the Atlas V from United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Falcon 9 from SpaceX, the Antares from Orbital ATK / Northrup Grumman, and the Electron from Rocket Lab. Several promising launch solutions are in the proving stage including the Alpha from Firefly, the Astra Launch System 2 Rocket, the Terran from Relativity Space, and LauncherOne from Virgin Orbit (moment of silence). This is an embarrassment of riches for satellite companies. Competitive pressures are growing, manufacturing processes are improving, and economies of scale are being captured. Consequently the launch price for payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has dropped from many tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram to under $5,000. The price of delivery to the Moon is also dropping and will continue to do so.
The author poses next to two of SpaceX's Starship prototypes at Starbase, near Brownsville, Texas. ... [+]
GREG AUTRY
Several new rockets are about to hit the market including ULA’s Vulcan-Centaur, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, SpaceX’s Starship / Super Heavy, and Rocket Lab’s Neutron. These next generation vehicles promise more power, greater efficiency and significantly reduced launch costs. Meanwhile, the satellite industry is recognizing economies of scale and standardization in manufacturing. The bottom line is that a lot of smallsat could be delivered to the Moon for a remarkably small amount of money in the next few years. The only remaining question is would any want to send all those satellites to LLO?As I noted in the previous article, useable LLO orbits are highly constrained by the Moon’s smaller orbital volume and the gravitational anomalies induced by mass concentrations (mascons). Orbital real estate is extremely limited and – in the absence of any coordination or law preventing occupation of those desirable orbits – the rules of First Mover Advantage must apply. If someone wants to own the lunar surface observation and low-latency communications business for the next century, getting their satellites into the prime real estate of low, stable orbits evenbefore market demand materializes is a smart business strategy. If it can be done for relatively cheap, I cannot imagine why some smart entrepreneur would not pack a Starship or two full of inexpensive satellites and jumpstart the lunar economy. In fact, I would bet on that. Presuming it is done well, I would applaud it, because the upsides of lunar development promise a great deal for all of humanity and our blue planet.
The Moon’s Prime Real Estate
The previous article noted that orbital congestion around the Earth is not limited to LEO. We also find many satellites in Geostationary Orbit (GEO), an arc 35,786 km above the Earth. At this distance, satellites move at the same angular speed as the Earth’s rotation and if they are over the equator, they will appear to “hover” there. If you’ve ever pointed your satellite TV antenna at a spot on the southern horizon (north if you’re down under) you’re aiming at one of those. There is no “Lunarstationary Orbit,” because such a point would so far above the Moon that it would disrupted by the stronger gravitational pull of the Earth, but there is something similar.
Earth-Moon Lagrange Points and gravitational contours.
NASA
The lunar equivalent of GEO are two points in space known as the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points 1 and 2 (L1 and L2). These gravitationally stable points in space are about 60,000 km above the Moon. L1 is located between the Earth and Moon; imagine the spot where the relative pull of the bigger Earth and smaller Moon balance. L2 is 180° away, on the far side of the Moon, at the same distance. All two-body celestial systems have these Lagrange Points, where a third body can settle in at. Even more interestingly, it is possible to place something into orbit around the empty space of L1 or L2. This is known as a “halo orbit.” The James Webb Space Telescope is in a halo orbit around the L2 point in the Sun-Earth system, million miles from Earth, opposite the sun. Several space weather satellites are located at Sun-Earth L1 and several more are planned. Among them is the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) which provides us with early warning of potentially dangerous solar storms and glorious pictures of the Earth-Moon system.
Earth-Moon L2 is a great place to put a satellite for communicating with landers or rovers on the Moon’s far side, and China located their Queqiao relay satellite there to support their Chang’e 4 lander and Yutu-2 rover mission. The Lunar Gateway, a NASA lead multi-national space habitat, will be placed in a special halo orbit around L2, called a Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). This weeklong orbit has one end which allows the Orion deep space capsule to dock and another in a good location for dropping a lander on the surface of the Moon. That’s important because Orion’s service module doesn’t have the power required to bring Orion into LLO to drop a lander and get back out of that orbit to return to Earth. The decision to use left-over Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering Engines (6,000 lbs. of thrust) to power the large Orion capsule left it much less lunar capable than the Apollo Command Module. An Apollo capsule weighed about half as much as an Orion and had a similar but much more powerful Service Module Propulsion System (21,900 lbs. of thrust). This shortfall created the opportunity for Gateway, a solution conceived while I was at NASA headquarters. While its original purpose was to fill this gap, I have argued that the Gateway is exactly the sort of flexible infrastructure NASA can use in a variety of future missions. Planting a big stake in the valuable L2 neighborhood is not a bad idea either.
Going Down?
Diagram of a lunar space elevator
STAR TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH, INC./JEROME PEARSON & BRYAN DERKSEN VIA WIKIMEDIA
One way to avoid the need for powerful rockets to get into and out of LLO would be a Lunar Space Elevator. Such an elevator would ride on a cable tethered from L1 or L2 that extended down to a surface location on the Moon’s equator. People and material could be transported from the lunar surface to a high orbit and back, with very little energy, on lunar funicular cars. The system requires a counter-balancing cable extending in the other direction. Zephyr Penoyre and Emily Sandford, scientists from Cambridge and Columbia, published a paper suggesting the cable could potentially reach as close to the Earth as the GEO arc. Earth based space elevators have been an idea for a long while, but while it is theoretically possible to run a cable from GEO to a spot outside of Quito Ecuador (or some other equatorial location) it is practically impossible. No material that can currently be manufactured in quantity could withstand the stresses associated with the weight of a space elevator cable under Earth’s gravity. Several engineers – including NASA leaders whom I’ve explored this topic with – agree that cables made of traditional materials like steel would suffice in lunar gravity. This makes L1 a very valuable piece of orbital real estate. The anchor point on the Moon’s equator underneath L1 would also be coveted. L2 has also been proposed as a location for assembling and launching ships constructed from lunar material deeper into the solar system. A space elevator at that point would facilitate such an orbital shipyard and spaceport. L1 and L2 may very well turnout to be the Suez and Gibraltar of cis-Lunar space and hot spots of international contention.
As you can see from the illustration, there are also three other Lagrange Points. L3 is on the other side of the Earth, directly opposite the Moon. There really aren’t many apparent reasons to use L3. L4 and L5 hang off to the sides and optical communications satellites might be located at either of these points to relay transmissions from a satellite at L2. Orbits around L5 were proposed as stable locations to locate large human space habitats by space settlement pioneer Gerard K. O’Neill in his seminal book, The High Frontier. In fact, I joined the L5 Society as a student in high school and my first space policy work was fighting the Moon Treaty with fellow L5 members. Back in 1980, we convinced the US Senate not to ratify that misguided UN agreement, which would have turned the Moon (and possibly all of space) into a boundless scientific preserve, making commercial development of space about as difficult as it is in Antarctica. This would have denied all humankind the economic benefits of space and denied our planet the ultimate release valve for its environmental pressures. I’m now proud to serve as Vice President of Space Development for the L5 Society’s successor, the National Space Society. If you share our vision of a brighter future with humans living and working in space, please join.
