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Science (non-SETI) :
Moon
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Author | Message |
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KLiK Send message Joined: 31 Mar 14 Posts: 1304 Credit: 22,994,597 RAC: 60 |
There's some different rock out there... http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a18698/china-moon-lander-new-moon-rock/ ;) non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU |
Bob DeWoody Send message Joined: 9 May 10 Posts: 3387 Credit: 4,182,900 RAC: 10 |
I think the space community was far too hasty in writing off the moon as an interesting place to go back to. Mining our moon will be far easier than going out to the asteroid belt and I still believe a colony on the moon could be self supporting and the best place to build the spacecraft needed to explore the rest of the solar system. Bob DeWoody My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events. |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
First you have to send a nuclear reactor to the Moon to obtain electricity. Then you must find some water ice to produce hydrogen as a rocket fuel and oxygen to breathe. All this in a harsh Moon environment without any atmosphere to shield you from cosmic rays. It is not an easy task. Tullio |
Bob DeWoody Send message Joined: 9 May 10 Posts: 3387 Credit: 4,182,900 RAC: 10 |
First you have to send a nuclear reactor to the Moon to obtain electricity. Then you must find some water ice to produce hydrogen as a rocket fuel and oxygen to breathe. All this in a harsh Moon environment without any atmosphere to shield you from cosmic rays. It is not an easy task. Still easier than landing on an asteroid or going to Mars or one of the moons of the gas giants. Bob DeWoody My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events. |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
To build a base on the Moon you should have to build thousands of chemical rockets and send them to a lunar orbit to build a Moon satellite, from which a few pioneers would have to go down to the Moon surface to build the lunar base and back to the satellite. A trip to Mars would require on a rocket, possibly nuclear powered, provided the human body (and mind) can survive such a trip. Tullio |
rob smith Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22160 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 |
...certainly closer. My first thought was to use solar power, but given the 14 days of night that might prove to be a bit of an issue in the early days. Sending suitable batteries would require a lot of launching power. So my mind went to alternative sources, geothermal was the first, but I'm pretty certain that there is no geothermal activity on the moon, so what else? Ground energy? There may be a way of using the temperatyre difference btween lit and unlit locations during the day while at night using the surface to sub-surface temperature difference. As to shielding, dig down a short way, or roof in a handy crater. Whatever way the materials for the early days would have to come from Earth, so how about harvsting some of the boosters and the like that have been 'abondoned' in orbit over the years; with luck some of them might be in suitable orbits to be boosted to Lunar tragetory orbits ahead of the mission (I've not thought how to get them to the surface in a non-destructive way...). Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
KLiK Send message Joined: 31 Mar 14 Posts: 1304 Credit: 22,994,597 RAC: 60 |
First you have to send a nuclear reactor to the Moon to obtain electricity. Then you must find some water ice to produce hydrogen as a rocket fuel and oxygen to breathe. All this in a harsh Moon environment without any atmosphere to shield you from cosmic rays. It is not an easy task. No you don't...there's a Sun! Again, water has been found on Moon...confirmed several years ago! Also, living underground would be the best way...plans have been made several decades ago! Nobody said it was easy...just weather it's feasible?! From my opinion, YES: 1. you can mine He-3 or H3: http://www.space.com/28189-moon-mining-economic-feasibility.html 2. also, you can observe all the Universe from the back side of the Moon...& establish a dish the size of a FAST or greater to listed out the Galaxy & beyond... ;) non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU |
Michael Watson Send message Joined: 7 Feb 08 Posts: 1383 Credit: 2,098,506 RAC: 5 |
The Moon shows definite signs of natural tunnels, akin to lava tube caves on our planet. These could be used as shelters. They would offer protection from radiation, and would moderate the day-night extremes of temperature to some degree. Many lava tubes on Earth contain ice. If one with ice could be found on the Moon, perhaps it could provide enough oxygen for breathing, and with hydrogen for fuel, through electrolytic splitting with solar-derived electricity. Perhaps enough of these gasses could be stored during the day to provide energy, through fuel cells, during the long Lunar night. |
Gordon Lowe Send message Joined: 5 Nov 00 Posts: 12094 Credit: 6,317,865 RAC: 0 |
As to shielding, dig down a short way, or roof in a handy crater. Whatever way the materials for the early days would have to come from Earth, so how about harvsting some of the boosters and the like that have been 'abondoned' in orbit over the years; with luck some of them might be in suitable orbits to be boosted to Lunar tragetory orbits ahead of the mission (I've not thought how to get them to the surface in a non-destructive way...). That's a clever use of a crater. I don't know how it would be done, but it's a clever idea. :~) I also never thought about using old orbiting booster rockets for anything. I would have thought they were all too deteriorated. The mind is a weird and mysterious place |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
A nuclear fission reactor is a must for a lunar base. Fusion reactors do not exist, despite what Lockheed-Martin says. The solar power source is not continuous, and there are no winds on the Moon. Tullio |
William Rothamel Send message Joined: 25 Oct 06 Posts: 3756 Credit: 1,999,735 RAC: 4 |
Booster rockets fell into the ocean on parachutes and almost all of the 270 examples were re-used. In any event we should return to the moon with a moon base with an eye toward building a Mars exploration ship if radiation problems can be solved. |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
It's not only a radiation protection problem, it's the loss of muscle power in a gravity free condition. An American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut are staying for one year on the ISS to check the consequences of a long flight. Tullio |
rob smith Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22160 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 |
Lower stage boosters fall back to Earth, but a number of orbital stage boosters are still up there, all be it in decaying orbits. Boosters are basically tubes, so could either be used as tubes, or sources of the sheet metal and composites they contain. Further on the idea of scavenging space junk, what about solar panels from dead sattelites? Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
SciManStev Send message Joined: 20 Jun 99 Posts: 6651 Credit: 121,090,076 RAC: 0 |
Lower stage boosters fall back to Earth, but a number of orbital stage boosters are still up there, all be it in decaying orbits. One issue I see about old solar panels, is that the new ones are much more efficient, and the output of all solar panels begins to decay after about 10 years. I am not sure if the materials can be recycled, but the panels themselves, most likely not worth the effort. Steve Warning, addicted to SETI crunching! Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group. GPUUG Website |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
It's not only a radiation protection problem, it's the loss of muscle power in a gravity free condition. An American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut are staying for one year on the ISS to check the consequences of a long flight. The heart is a muscle. Loosing it's muscle power is perhaps not a problem when staying in micro gravity but what happens when returning back to earth? |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
I don't think it is a heart problem. More likely a problem with the legs' muscles. I have problems while standing still that I don't have walking or cycling. Tullio |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
But if you loose leg's muscles doesn't that mean that you don't have to use the heart so much? It's from my understanding/experience that if you doesn't use the muscles, you loose them. Trying to walk around with both loss of leg's muscles and a low blood pressure seems not nice to me. I have no idea how long time it takes to restore the muscles. |
Mark Stevenson Send message Joined: 8 Sep 11 Posts: 1736 Credit: 174,899,165 RAC: 91 |
I know from having a motorbike crash back in 2010 , it takes a lot of physiotherapy and exercise to rebuild your mussel mass but it deteriorates very quickly if you just lay / sit around doing nothing , the physio's told me for everyday of not doing exercises you loose a weeks worth of what progress you made , but I never wanted to find out for myself if they are right or not . This is on earth . In the ISS I think they have to do a set of exercises for a set amount of time each day so the loss is kept to a minimum , but when they return to earth it takes them a few weeks to fully recover from being in space |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
The heart is always working and this keeps it healthy. In low gravity it probably has less work to do for pumping blood upwards in the legs. I have read that Samantha Cristoforetti has done research on this subject while on the ISS, using an instrument called pletysmograph, in cooperation with doctors on the Earth. Tullio |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
Well. There are plenty of time to do the research of longtime exposure in low gravity before we build Moonbase Alpha. Heart problems are maybe a minor problem to cosmic rays. https://alteaspace.wordpress.com/category/history/ |
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