Moderate temperatures, nearly perpetual sunshine, flat landing areas and subterranean resources make the rim of the Shackleton Crater — situated within the solar system’s largest impact crater — an ideal location for a lunar homestead, down near the moon’s south pole. NASA hopes to send the first pioneers there by 2020.
“Hardscrabble” was what future president Ulysses S. Grant named his ramshackle homestead on the pre-Civil War Missouri frontier. That might be an apt title for NASA’s planned lunar outpost, for its residents will find the moon a harsh place to settle. Survival will depend on their ability to evade micrometeoroids, extract oxygen from rocks and even, like Grant, grow wheat.
The space agency announced its strategy to return to the moon last December. Instead of emulating the series of six Apollo landings, it chose as its initial goal the establishment of a single lunar outpost. Using the new crew exploration vehicle, Orion, NASA plans to send four astronauts to the moon as early as 2020 (“Mission: Moon,” March ’07). Eventually, four-man crews will rotate home every six months. Their goal will be to live off the land, extend scientific exploration and practice for an eventual leap to Mars.
The moon, says NASA, is the place to get our space-suited hands dirty. “The lunar base is part of an overall plan that has legs, that makes sense,” says Wendell Mendell, chief of the Office of Lunar and Planetary Exploration at Johnson Space Center. “We’re moving the human species out into the solar system.”
Learn how NASA plans to build a Moon colony at Military.com.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I think NASA needs to figure a cheap, safe way to get large amounts of heavy material out into space before they come up with all of the stupid plans.
It is like planning to cycle across America and the only bike you own is a 20 pound Huffy you have had for fifteen years. The one you have crashed on ten times….
Right now there is only one really viable technology to accomplish this. A really large electromagnetic launcher.
Between what electromagnetic cannons and the electromagnetic catapult the Navy has been investing in (and have operational prototypes), and all of the “levitation” rail lines that have been created; this technology is not that far away from reality.
I am not saying to get rid of rockets. They could still be used to help get things into orbit. They would just light off at idle while the Electromagnetic launcher ran the craft up to speed. Once disconnected the rocket could run up to 50% power to keep the craft accelerating. At 50% power the chances of having problems with the rocket are much slimmer.
I know this is a tangent, but after looking at the article I am reminded of an article that I read once that said each launching of the shuttle cost a BILLION dollars. I am not sure how they came up with that number, but even if it is close, we are not getting into space in any meaningful way until the price comes down….
Several things need to happen before NASA’s dream can happen.
1) They need long term (read: non-political) leadership.
2) The US (yes even Congress) needs to stop being so risk-averse. People are going to die doing dangerous things. They knew that when they took the job.
3) Something that will give them a return on their money. Maybe mining helium-3
Dennis has a good idea, but the rockets will only slow things down. Use the rail gun to get the craft up to speed and ignite a scramjet.
To reduce the amount of structures shipped to the moon, life will have to be subterranean with inflatable structures to contain the O2.
How would they protect against cosmic radiation?
Actually you want a mass driver, no a rail gun. Still electromagnetic propulsion but optimized for cargo, not projectiles. Gerald O’Neill’s foundation did a lot of work on this back in the 1970s and 80s.
For getting people into low earth orbit (the hardest part of the trip by far) we need low cost launch vehicles. By that I mean things like SSTO vehicles.
The designs have been developing for years, as has the technology. We just need to spend the money competitively to develop them.
Greetings AhzeeDahak,
The Navy has working electromagnetic catapults that they are going to put on the next carriers to launch aircraft.
Granted, we are talking about getting aircraft up to 130 MPH in a couple hundred feet.
But take the same concept and make the launcher much larger and increase the length of it to miles, not feet; run it up the side of a mountain and the concept becomes viable.
The biggest problem (besides their tendency to blow up) with rockets are the bigger they get, the more inefficient they are. The bigger they get the more fuel they spend on lifting fuel.
That is why I think electromagnetic launch, with rockets, would be a winning, safe combination.
As far as the airframe, a vehicle that is meant to return would require a slower launch with possibly a scram jet and rocket to accelerate it smoothly into orbit. It would be light and carry just people.
But for getting large sections for a spaceship; space station; lunar station, they could be built like an aerodynamic brick, since they would have no humans on it. It could be launched with extreme Gee load.
I know this is all still science fiction, but so was stealth aircraft, high speed computers, the internet and electromagnetic catapults twenty years ago.
Plus, anything at this point is better than the shuttle…..
On a side note, Sea Launch, the satellite launch company which has been doing well for the past couple of years is just recovering from a rocket that blew up and damaged their launch platform.
How many of these things have to blow up before someone with more brains than money (obviously governments and NASA do not fall into this category) decides it is time for something new?
Orion rocks. Nothing like kicking a live nuke out the back of your ship every few seconds and riding the explosions into space.
The problem with a railgun-launched shuttle is that you get all your acceleration in one go. Even if you can build it inexpensively, you’re accelerating the human body to a huge speed over a small distance. NASA will again earn its name “Need Another Seven Astronauts” when the railgun rocket splatters the insides of the poor riders. You need a long, sustained burn to get into space.
I think a scramjet launch vehicle will eventually be the way to go. It’ll need 3 seperate engines, one to launch from the ground and get it up to mach speed, the scramjet to kick it up to mach 10+ in high atmospheres, and a standard rocket to take it out of the atmosphere.
You know,it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how you get to the moon or Mars if in the end you end up getting fried by “COSMIC RADIATION.” Any ideas how you are going to protect the astronauts from radiation?
Also,an EM Catapult or rail gun launch sounds great if you want your astronauts flat as pancakes & their guts all squished out from the G-forces.Wouldn’t a launch like that be equal to a bug hitting your windshield?
I have yet to hear or read an explanation of why we should want to have a lunar base to begin with. Or how it will contribute toward a manned Mars mission. I have read that when there is a Mars mission, it will make more sense to start from Earth orbit rather than the surface of the moon.
My opinion is that if you really want to move “the human species out into the solar system” the economics have to make sense. There’s a limit to how much Joe Citizen is willing to pay for science. (For heaven’s sake, look at all those people who don’t even believe in evolution. Pun intended) That means manufacturing in micro-gravity.
The Moon is a great spot to start for Mars. There is new evidence of moon ice at both poles and is is of a certain type that can be easily broken down in to special type of Hydrogen and of course oxygen which are basics for rocket fuel. If the moon can become a fueling station with its reduced gravity, a ship leaving the moon can leave with more fuel and accelerate to a faster speed for the trip to Mars. Also there is a special type of polyethylene that can be used to stop dangerous radiation. this was on a recnt show on one of the Discovery Channels that was specificaly about the prospective trip to Mars.
What we need to do first & foremost is get teleo-operated robot bucket loaders and dozers up there to scoop out some holes. Then, send some inflatable structures up there to put in the holes, inflate, and cover up with the scooped out lunar dirt– protection from micrometeorites and some radiation shielding. Then we can start talking about sending people there.
After that it’s got to be tunnels and making concrete from the moon– depending on inflatables, no matter how robust, is a recipe for disaster (read also: panicked withdrawal to cover political behinds).
And really, they need to parcel out that precious lunar ice water for habitation. If we also use that for fuel to Mars we’ll get maybe 10 years out of the Moon as a useful base before we run out of water up there.
From what I remember in Astronomy, it is ideal to launch from the mood to go to Mars because it takes less thrust and less fuel from the moon due to the less gravity there compared to Earth.
oops…I meant “moon” not mood :)