Why Some Say the Moon?

>>Would the U.S. taxpayer stand for seeing the Chinese land on the moon while the U.S. was in a multi-decade Mars mission development program?

Sadly, I think most taxpayers would not care either way, or would care for a few days and then get upset about something else...it seems apathy, ignorance, and short-term thinking is catching...

However, they probably would care more if private organizations would do those things...

--S

Land, set up a simple station to do some general long-term exploration of the surface - but to make it the primary focus for any duration would be a very expensive detour when there are so many other places to head off to. Think South Pole lite :)

Mars should be the primary focus of VSE, not the Moon, and not ISS. No current research seems to be focused on Mars for Constellation. The Moon is a detour to Mars but has become the primary focus, just like ISS is a detour to the Moon.

Certainly Mars is more romantic, but is it more practical for the development and exploration of the solar system?

The moon is the key to the commerical development of the solar system and it is a grave error to leave its development to the Chinese. It can provide a longterm lower gravity launch pad for exploration of the asteriods and Mars.

Assuming the United States intends to remain a nation engaged in human space activities - as the US public in polls, the US Congress in numerous bipartisan votes and the new Administration in its campaign documents have all supported – the question arises, where next? Some have already pushed to directly explore Mars, Phobos, or possibly investigate the outer solar system without a long journey by visiting near Earth approaching asteroids that periodically cross Earth’s path around the sun. All of these alternatives have merit but the moon offers unique benefits that enable each of these and far more:

The Moon as a Subject of Scientific Inquiry
• Although it may seem a dry grey place that we have already explored, in fact, the Apollo missions only explored a very small fraction of the lunar surface – and all near the lunar equator on the near side. We do not have a complete understanding of the moon and its history or composition; additional landings at a wider variety of locations will doubtless reveal much that has yet to be discovered.

The Moon as a Test Bed for Exploration Capability Development:
• The Space Station and the International Space Station have allowed our nation to develop and demonstrate a wide range of capabilities to construct, modify or repair systems in low Earth orbit. The moon will enable us to expand upon this experience to live and work on low gravity field bodies with a harsh surface dust environment with a wide range of thermal conditions.

• We have demonstrably already shown we can successfully overcome the crew life support challenges of sending people to the moon. To go to Mars, we will need to compensate for the effects of no or low gravity on the human body for multi-year periods of time and also develop capabilities to protect crews from solar and cosmic radiation. The recent discovery of sustained and aubstantial bone loss in astronauts staying in space for as little as six months should raise concerns among those who think we can just rocket off to Mars without understanding how the body reacts to low-g environments.

• Developing crewed space vehicles to support human activities outside of the Earth’s magnetosphere and land on another celestial body is directly relevant to a Mars mission, a visit to a near Earth asteroid or any of a number of planetary satellites. At the same time, its proximity to Earth – no more than three days travel time – make it a safer place to do this work since it is possible to envision an evacuation to Earth in the event of a system failure, accidents or a crew medical emergency.

• Although surface environmental conditions differ, the surface of the moon is likely very similar to asteroid and rocky outer planet satellites. It is far closer to the Martian surface in air pressure and humidity than is Earth; systems developed to operate on the Moon will probably need only modest modifications to work on Mars or many other low or no atmosphere rocky bodies.

• The moon is close enough that it is feasible to stage several missions annually – allowing for the positioning equipment and lander hardware which can be re-used to support establishment of a base for extended stays.

• Developing resource extraction technologies that work on the moon is likely more difficult than on Mars. By learning how to develop these capabilities on the moon, we will gain confidence that similar systems will work for extended periods on Mars. Additionally, development of workable lunar volatile extraction technologies, if the right surface resources exist, will greatly facilitate missions to other destinations by reducing the amount of propellants that need to be brought up from Earth’s stronger gravitational field.

The Moon as a Platform for Future Exploration:
• Although not yet confirmed, spacecraft such as the Lunar Prospector and Clementine have turned up exciting indications that substantial water ice deposits may exist in permanently shaded areas at the lunar poles such as Shackleton Crater. Assuming this turns out to be the case, the use of this water could provide (via simple solar powered electrolysis) hydrogen and oxygen for propellants, breathable O2 for crew life support and possibly potable water. Such a situation would greatly facilitate developing an extended duration crewed capability on the lunar surface. In addition, it would substantially reduce the amount of mass needed for Mars or other exploration missions that need to be brought into space from the Earth’s surface. With the moon’s one-sixth of Earth’s gravity field and lack of an atmosphere, bringing the huge quantities of hydrogen and oxygen needed for Mars missions would be much less expensive.

• Even if it proves impossible to extract water from rocks or lunar regolith, due to insufficient resources or inaccessible water ice at the lunar poles, the moon’s regolith and surface rocks, already sampled during the Apollo missions, are rich in aluminum, silicon, titanium magnesium and oxygen as well as abundant solar energy which can provide the electricity needed to extract these and other materials needed for spacecraft structural elements such as metallic panels, beams and rods which could be fabricated robotically and shipped to low earth orbit or a Lagrange point for assembly into an interplanetary spacecraft. Even something as simple as fused regolith could be used to provide a thick sunward facing shield to protect a crew from the risk of a solar storm enroute to Mars.

• Developing a lander capable of descent to and return from the lunar surface would not directly create a capability suitable for going to Mars but the lander itself would be more than sufficient to support near Earth asteroid visits assuming a sufficiently robust in-space transportation capability is developed to match the orbit of the asteroid and support a return to Earth.

The Case for International Lunar Exploration
• Unlike Mars and the asteroids, several nations – most notably China, India, Japan and Russia have already begun a robotic lunar exploration program and several have already announced plans to land humans on the moon. As with the ISS, this could serve as an opportunity to share the burden of exploration and build international scientific and technical cooperation while sharing the benefits of exploration.

Commercial Development of Lunar Resources
• A key near term benefit of most human exploration have been the development and exploitation of the resources of the new environment. Although some potential lunar commercial opportunities have been promoted (e.g. Helium 3 for power generation, at this time, the commercial potential of the moon is difficult to quantify. But at a similar point in the exploration of the Americas, who would have forecast the impact of tobacco, potatoes or maize on continental Europe? The moon is much easier to reach than other exploration candidates and so it is much more likely to be an earlier candidate for commercial exploitation of its resources and a more plausible candidate for commercially provided support services.

I think the moon is a good place to practice using resources in-situ (yeah, Mars is good too). This is going to be important for any kind of sustained exploration initiative, so we should make it a primary focus.

How much easier would the next steps of space exploration be if we could send machines that build all of the infrastructure out of off-planet materials before the humans arrive? As with any development effort, infrastructure is key. I don't see much focus on space based infrastructure in existing VSE plans to support ongoing activity.

From 69 to 72 NASA landed on the moon and made it look easy- so much so that before long the American people began to think it actually was easy. In fact, it was far from easy- what became easy, however, was the ability for some to sell the myth that doing easy stuff like that for "huge" amounts of taxpayer dollars was a waste of those dollars. We should go back to the moon just so the human race can learn, again, just how hard that really is. Perhaps this time, NASA will take to posture that this is very, very hard. Spaceflight is as much about Inspiration as it is about Exploration.

Sorry in advance if the following has been discussed before.

I hate to be the one to bring this up, as I would rather discuss the direction of human space flight based on the scientific merits, but from any government's standpoint, I think the moon is going to be the first target given the fact that it is more an issue of security than science or prestige (although those latter 2 will be inextricably linked and used as reason to justify going to the moon first). Whomever gets firmly entrenched on the moon first will have the advantage of the gravity well working for them, and any countries not involved will see the ease of lobbing things down the gravity well as a threat. Due to this, I would greatly favor an international, science/technology-driven focus on establishing a moon base as a method to diffuse and negotiate such a situation (although if ISS is any guide, I have my doubts about this approach as well).

From a gut feeling standpoint, I just can't see Mars being a viable near-term option (~10 years) given just the raw length of time it takes to get out there, and the little amount of experience we have in long-term terrestrially-based space exploration. I would rather see a robust outpost on the moon being used to develop, test, and improve technologies for working on Mars.

I would like to preface my remarks by stating that I am as big a proponent of the human exploration of Mars as anyone, and I am second to none in my regard for Colonel Aldrin, but I must say that I believe that a return to the Moon by this country is an essential predicate to the successful manned exploration of Mars. My argument consists of 3 points.
1. The moon will serve as an excellent test bed for all of the technological and life science R&D that needs to be completed before taking that long step into the deep. The Moon is outside the Earth's Magnetosphere and will give us suitable exposure to the radiation environment of solar space. We will need to become fairly astute at predicting solar whether, developing an early-warning network, and suitable protection when radiation hazards increase. What are the long-term consequences of exposure to cosmic radiation? Beat the heck out of me!
2. Just what is the highest reliability of the hardware we use in the space program? How many equipment squawks are there on the average shuttle flight? What is that (12 days)? How much experience do we have in in-flight repair of many these items? Mars has fine rain dust and so does the Moon. If they are at all similar what will be the long-term effects on moving parts, and what is the best way to perform maintenance and repair? Just how do you manage the dust, especially if it's toxic? The first time I try that little operation I wouldn't want to be 100,000,000 miles from home.
3. The America of today is much less risk averse than the America of my father or my grandfather’s generation. The moon’s environment is suitably harsh, and will serve to test our metal as to whether we can survive for an extended period in its environs, and while not a walk in the park, it only takes 3 days to retreat to a place where there is air to breathe and water to drink, and potential help doesn't have to wait 2 years for a launch window.
4. Finally, does anybody else think it's a bad idea to have a country run by the "KGB Colonel" or one that HLA-types its prisoners, building boosters for us? “I'd like to teach the world to sing” also, but until I feel the spirit of Washington and Madison in their music, I want all of our space hardware Made in America.

I can't help but think that continuing to use a ground-based infrastructure for near-space endeavors (near meaning "out to & including the Moon"), let alone using that same infrastructure approach for interplanetary endeavors, is no longer viable. Granted, it _is_ currently the only infrastructure we've got, but that doesn't mean its the best one, especially in view of everything required to accomplish a given mission in either space region-of-endeavor has to start off at the wrong end of Earth's gravity well.

A space-based infrastructure _and_ industry base, where spacecraft design, construction, & repair facilities have been seen as the proverbial space beachhead for any off-Earth efforts since Von Braun & Arthur Clarke, as well as "lunar mining & industry" to support those efforts.

Perfecting the tools & techniques to accomplish anything in space by adopting the "build the tools to build the tools" mindset, created in the same environment the tools will be used in, not only creates that infrastructure, but trains & develops the personnel that have to accomplish that mission. Astronaut training in huge full-immersion tanks to simulate a space environment, as well as the use of the Vomit Comet, is good for exposure, but at best those are training sessions measured in minutes rather than the weeks-on-end space environment experience needed.

You can have a Vision of Space Exploration (VSE), but unless there's been a preliminary Establishment of Space Exploration Infrastructure (ESEI) to serve as the resource foundation for any level of VSE, you're using an existing infrastructure designed under the same limitations that will limit any hoped-for VSE capabilities.

An ESEI program, where space environment living, training, & working is the norm, developed in lockstep with determining how to actually perform the mining of resources from the Moon to accomplish an ESEI as a _precursor_ to a VSE, is needed.

Start it now with an understanding of what is _currently_ needed. NASA representatives have already discussed publicly the need for on-orbit servicing of spacecraft, without which the only remedy for a satellite malfunction or failure is the design, construction, and launching of a replacement at several-score millions of dollars per replacement. If what is needed is a replacement circuit board, repairs to communications systems, or other items that are a small part of the overall satellite that caused the failure, then replacing only that part/parts at fractions of a full replacement would be a sound business practice.

Easy to do? Hardly. Necessary to do? Yes.

"Why not save time & money, and spend the money for your ESEI here on Earth where it's needed?" Guess you don't use GPS, weather satellites, COMSATs ... which are several hundred billions of dollars worth of infrastructure that also only have the option of launching a replacement if/when part of that system fails.

Or you invest in ways to not only restore a failure in that system, but provide a way to improve and/or replace that system, and others like it.

We are literally still in the birchbark canoe stage of space exploration, testing the waters. We need to take a serious look at what is needed for commerce & trade, resource development, and a spacefaring industrial capability.

There's also the question of survival. There have been multiple meetings and studies on Asteroid "mitigation" over the years. Everything available for any level of mitigation is also limited by an Earth-based infrastructure, from detection of any near-Earth crossing asteroid to the "tools" needed to effect that mitigation. Everything would be done in space, but again it has to be designed, built, and launched from the bottom of Earth's gravity well.

A spacebased infrastructure for space missions is half-way to any solution towards such mitigation, let alone how to support, construct, and execute such missions.

I cannot emphasis this enough -

Unless working and living on the moon is routine there is no way any one is going to Mars.

The technology needed to go to Mars has to be developed via the moon.
Its as though a high school kid who just got a drivers license wants to go drive Indie race cars. There are a few steps in between. To put it bluntly, the United States, nor any other country posses sufficient technological sophistication for a manned Mars mission. Now if the intent is to maintain the appearance of a space program with out actually going any where, then by all means tell every one you are going to Mars and we will have another 30, 40, 50 years of the same crud I for one would really like to get away from.

A focus on Mars has a use only for exploration and purely scientific purposes. Period. Obviously it is something which has to be accessed and developed at some point or another, but Mars actually offers little in terms of practical returns compared to the Moon in terms of a realistic close time scale. Mr. Aldrin seems to be focusing too much on the "scale" of a discovery, and the mere act of exploration in itself, rather than the return gained back for the time and monetary cost.

A fitting comparison would be Jefferson sending Lewis and Clark instead to the Arctic instead of the Louisiana purchase, since it was far more unknown and more monumental a place to go. Lewis and Clark were supposed to explore the West for the purposes of leading towards development of the new, largely un-accessed territories. So should NASA be doing right now with the Moon. There is no need to ignore the near-Earth objects just because Mars is "the next big thing"; let's get the "wagon trains" running before running out to freeze our buns off, so to speak.

We've hardly even begun to access most near-Earth objects, but on the bright side, commercialization and development HAS begun. Groups like the X Prize Foundation and NASA are encouraging private space development in the local area, and we are seeing good returns and entrepreneurship. Some people used to think companies developing space would be a pipe dream but, lo and behold, it's happening, and quite innovatively as well. Already companies are talking about having private moon rovers landing on the Moon within the next decade. Remarkable.

I certainly don't see any problem with multi-nationally accessing the moon, so long as it's encouraging private development, but I do believe that space EXPLORATION needs to be considered ultimately secondary to space DEVELOPMENT. Many of the problems facing the US and the world can be solved via creative solutions taking advantage of resources and features of space, and I feel we'd be better off focusing on them than trying to spread ourselves too thin for the time being.

Hell, perhaps more importantly than the moon, we should focus on accessing the near earth asteroids before even considering developing Mars at all. They possess so much concentrated resources, much more easily processed than those on the moon (the lack of gravity is actually a benefit for mining, as well), and they are both numerous and even relocatable. Development of the moon should definitely go along side development at the Moon-Earth Lagrangian points, if not after. Mars is a distant third.

The increased concentration of Helium-3 on the moon is an important factor to take note of, as well, in it's importance in development before exploring Mars.

I second Richard Bailey though I do think that any "Vision" should focus on what we want to get out of space and have that drive where we go and what we do.

Why would we spend billions of dollars in a race to beat the Chinese to be the first nation to be SECOND to land on the Moon?

NASA has again swept the development of closed-loop life support systems and self-sustaining enabling technologies that are essential for human survival and operations beyond low-earth-orbit. The research to obtain data bases for such designs wil have to be done on ISS and then the systems must be tested on the moon, before any attempts are made for a Mars mission

What is the point of going to the moon?

Right now - none. I've been into pro-space activities for a while now and I've come to the conclusion that
#1 - It will suffer from the same setbacks as the ISS if done by governments.
#2 - It won't contribute much to the overall human GDP.

A moon-base now, built by government agencies wouldn't contribute much to society - so society rightly sees no point in it.

For space to become a place people operate in, it can't be forced by a government. There has to be compelling social or economic reasons for corporations and common people to operate there, otherwise, why go to such a deadly & costly place? Economies grow organically. When airplane technology was invented, it took a lot of experimenting and grassroots growth before viable commercial operations were established. The same will happen with space starting with things like SpaceX & Virgin Galactic.

However, space is 10x harder than air travel - so it'll take longer for an economy to form around it. That fact is too bad for all of us who want to go zipping around the solar system, but that's the reality.

> How would each of you use the moon in the context of solar system exploration?

The Russians have the right idea. The "LEO Shipyard" says it all! The ISS would in fact be useful if it were in fact a station and not a lab as in Sky LAB. Too bad ISS does not stand for International Space Shipyard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8064060.stm

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2009/01/russia-plans-soyuz-cargo-retur.html

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/05/20/326773/2025-leo-shipyard-is-new-esa-roscosmos-goal.html

> If the U.S. used the moon to mature technologies for deeper missions to asteroids, or
> Mars, could a sortie-type approach suffice, or would a permanent lunar base be the
> better way?

> Or could we reasonably avoid the moon entirely in a credible manned Mars effort?

First there are two distinct objectives that are causing confusion. One is the exploration goal while the other is the development goal. So fundamentally it needs to be determined which of the following combination is the objective

1 - Exploration only
2 - Exploration and Development
3 - Development only
4 - No space program at all

Exploration only, What is the objective of exploration only? Why explore?
Sure its fun - but what is there an overwhelming economic and social driver for this?

Development only, What resources are on the moon or in space that cannot be accessed by other cheaper means? Are there any? What else is permanent habitation and development of the moon good for in terms of social and national needs?

Exploration and Development - If it is decided that both Exploration and Development are desirable goals, then, can the technology for one effort be complimentary to the other? - "dual use" is a standard catch phase.

No Space Program at all - what are the social, economic and national security detriments to not having a space program? Are there any? Would the world be better off to forget about this silly space stuff and concentrate on more immediate problems? The future is, after all, not a present problem, Im just saying, it is an option. No one I like however.

Space exploration was the stated reason for space operations during the cold war. It sounded more noble than saying we need to stay ahead of our adversaries technologically other wise they may blow us up. Every space telescope, every observation satellite, every space probe, every manned mission was part of this cold war technological race. This was stated at an all hands meeting at Dryden by Dan Golding in 1992. I did not like the message at the time but have come to understand it. So again, why explore?, if its because we forgot the cold war ended then that, by its self, might not be a very good reason.

Once the goals are decided one and they make sense then the rest will follow.

! No Goals - No Glory !

You misrepresent the strategy advocated by Buzz Aldrin. This is not "Mars only" and it does not suggest that the U.S. would be stuck in a long-term Mars program while other nations frolic on the Moon. Buzz suggests a strategy of phased human expansion. The first asteroid visit would take place before 2020, to be succeeded by a visit to a comet, another asteroid, and the moons of Mars. This is just the opposite of a Mars-or-nothing program.

Frank's note: It is you that is misinformed about Buzz's ideas. At dinner recenttly, he was clear in opposing another moon race-and was fully opposed to a U.S. human landing on the moon-period. Mars, by way of Phobos and Deimos, should be the focus of the VSE, he now says. No U.S. moon landings, period. My question to readers were if they agreed with a "no U.S. human landings on the moon", period, or if either short term lunar missions vs. a permanent base was needed for development of advanced human exploration technologies. That's the issue.

> How would each of you use the moon in the context of solar system exploration?

The Russians have the right idea. The "LEO Shipyard" says it all! The ISS would in fact be useful if it were in fact a station and not a lab as in Sky LAB. Too bad ISS does not stand for International Space Shipyard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8064060.stm

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2009/01/russia-plans-soyuz-cargo-retur.html

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/05/20/326773/2025-leo-shipyard-is-new-esa-roscosmos-goal.html

> If the U.S. used the moon to mature technologies for deeper missions to asteroids, or
> Mars, could a sortie-type approach suffice, or would a permanent lunar base be the
> better way?

> Or could we reasonably avoid the moon entirely in a credible manned Mars effort?

First there are two distinct objectives that are causing confusion. One is the exploration goal while the other is the development goal. So fundamentally it needs to be determined which of the following combination is the objective

1 - Exploration only
2 - Exploration and Development
3 - Development only
4 - No space program at all

Exploration only, What is the objective of exploration only? Why explore?
Sure its fun - but what is there an overwhelming economic and social driver for this?

Development only, What resources are on the moon or in space that cannot be accessed by other cheaper means? Are there any? What else is permanent habitation and development of the moon good for in terms of social and national needs?

Exploration and Development - If it is decided that both Exploration and Development are desirable goals, then, can the technology for one effort be complimentary to the other? - "dual use" is a standard catch phase.

No Space Program at all - what are the social, economic and national security detriments to not having a space program? Are there any? Would the world be better off to forget about this silly space stuff and concentrate on more immediate problems? The future is, after all, not a present problem, Im just saying, it is an option. No one I like however.

Space exploration was the stated reason for space operations during the cold war. It sounded more noble than saying we need to stay ahead of our adversaries technologically other wise they may blow us up. Every space telescope, every observation satellite, every space probe, every manned mission was part of this cold war technological race. This was stated at an all hands meeting at Dryden by Dan Golding in 1992. I did not like the message at the time but have come to understand it. So again, why explore?, if its because we forgot the cold war ended then that, by its self, might not be a very good reason.

Once the goals are decided one and they make sense then the rest will follow.

! No Goals - No Glory !

I am not in favor of a Moon mission until two things have been developed first (they may be developed with an eye towards a Moon mission, as long as they are not designed to be exclusively for the Moon mission)

1) a REALY space station. There has to be an orbital assembly/interface point between moving people and cargo from the Earth to orbit and moving people and cargo from Earth orbit to "wherever" and No, the ISS as currently designed is totally unsuited to such a mission.

2) There needs to be an interplanetary transport program. Forget designing a vehicle that is designed to go from a launchpad on the Earths surface to the surface of the Moon. That is horribly inefficient and costly. This interplanetary transport system should be specifically designed to go from orbit to orbit, and should be flexible enough to get at least anywhere within the inner solar system (Mercury to Mars and maybe the asteroid belt) Operations to and from the Moon would be a good test of the spacecraft design.

THEN we can go to the Moon, and with only a little tweaking, we can go to Mars too without a completely redesigned spacecraft and tens of billions of $$.

I am emphatically against any NASA project that does not include these steps.

I am not in favor of a Moon mission until two things have been developed first (they may be developed with an eye towards a Moon mission, as long as they are not designed to be exclusively for the Moon mission)

1) a REALY space station. There has to be an orbital assembly/interface point between moving people and cargo from the Earth to orbit and moving people and cargo from Earth orbit to "wherever" and No, the ISS as currently designed is totally unsuited to such a mission.

2) There needs to be an interplanetary transport program. Forget designing a vehicle that is designed to go from a launchpad on the Earths surface to the surface of the Moon. That is horribly inefficient and costly. This interplanetary transport system should be specifically designed to go from orbit to orbit, and should be flexible enough to get at least anywhere within the inner solar system (Mercury to Mars and maybe the asteroid belt) Operations to and from the Moon would be a good test of the spacecraft design.

THEN we can go to the Moon, and with only a little tweaking, we can go to Mars too without a completely redesigned spacecraft and tens of billions of $$.

I am emphatically against any NASA project that does not include these steps.

Fortuitously I'm reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress right now - so, uh, perhaps "not like that" is a good answer.

But we should probably be focusing on the moon simply because it's so close and convenient. It would give us a chance to test technologies and procedures that we've lagged in developing so far - for example, how will multiple colony sites (e.g., a Chinese one and an American one) interact with each other in terms of communications and resources? Once we've figured out that sort of thing and maybe done some good for people on Earth via the easier prospect of lunar resource extraction then going to Mars may be a better idea.

I for one probably wouldn't be very supportive of any manned mars mission that took more than about 90 days to get from earth to mars. And I would probably only be supportive of that if most of the equipment and material was already in mars orbit before the manned mission left.

If a small mars orbital facility, complete with landers, was launched to mars using an economical orbit and placed into position and had its systems checked out then I think we could send a higher energy (a hot-shot) manned mission to finalize the setup of the station. It would then be a base for the exploration of that planet. I like the idea of sending the heavy mass slow and the manned component fast.

I don't think I'd support any kind of manned mission to mars where 5 or 6 people have to spend 3 years in something the size of a mobile home. I think that's nuts although they could certainly find people who are willing to try it.

Scale back the moon base to a small, single module L1 station built as a precursor to a lunar surface hab. Simpler, less risky, cheaper. Scale back the two stage partly cryogenic, partly hypergolic Altair to a single stage, all hypergolic, refuelable and reusable cis-lunar shuttle with 2-3 km/s total delta-v. Since dry mass is much less of a concern than for a lunar lander, don't worry about using the latest composites etc. Do something simple and soon. Add plenty of radiation shielding. Scale back Ares V to J-130 + Delta-IV upper stage. Add a small hypergolics depot and make both Altair and Orion refuelable.

Now you can use Altair + Orion as a reusable shuttle to GEO, LLO, SEL-2 and NEO's. In GEO you could visit satellites, perhaps attempt to repair one, or visit a permanently stationed Orion functioning as a makeshift radiation research lab beyond the van Allens. At L1 you could do something similar and even do some lunar telerobotics. In LLO you could take nice pictures. At SEL-2 you could visit and later service the space telescopes stationed there. A NEO mission would be the first mission to move beyond the Earth's gravitational sphere of influence and to visit a body beyond the moon.

The Altair would be permanently based at L1. Astronauts would arrive on J-130 + D-IV upper stage + Orion, refuel, dock with Altair, and move to SEL-2. The Orion would not use its propulsion system under normal circumstances and would at all times have enough fuel to return to Earth in an emergency. Once at SEL-2 the astronauts would refuel the Altair and move on to a NEO. Then they would return to SEL-2, where the Altair would refuel again and then return to L1. There Orion would undock and head back to Earth and Altair would refuel awaiting the next mission.

Later on you can add back all the features you stripped out and return to the moon and then go on to Mars.

Skipping the Moon to going directly to Mars (and/or its moons) is a straw man argument. We can't get to Mars without first establishing lunar outposts. The reason is because the principles of orbital mechanics and Biology dictate that any Mars mission is going to last 5 years or so from the first launch of equipment to the crew being back on Earth again. The crew obviously will need significant infrastructure, including habitats and surface vehicles, designed and built to operate reliably for that length of time. Infrastructure like that cannot be developed and tested either on Earth or in microgravity (i.e., LEO, on asteroids, etc.). This is a no-brainer. I don't understand why so many people think it's even worth debating (well, maybe I do).

The goal should be to build a prison colony on the Moon, and have it overseen by a large computer. They we get it to grow grain and ship it the the Earth via a rail gun.

Let's go (back) to the Moon; let's build on the Moon; let's stay on the Moon (some of us, anyhow), even while venturing outward to other destinations. Let's build a lunar colony, in other words. Let's spend some big bucks and do it right.

The Moon is airless and likely waterless; it's exposed to meteors and cosmic rays and solar radiation; its gravity is small; its mineral wealth is unknown and unmapped; it varies between too hot and too cold, etc. All very unappealing, but the Moon is also a sizable body known to possess useful resources, and in case of disaster/difficultly, the Moon is close enough to be reached quickly from earth, by radio or rocket -- a serious advantage.

If we can build a self-sustaining colony on the moon, we'll have the technology to build colonies anywhere in the solar system. Need I add, colonies beyond the solar system?

Sending a couple of astronauts to jump and down on Mars and plant a flag would be a far less significant acomplishment.

I read that a single Ares trip to the moon will cost 5 Billion dollars. Just like Apollo, the public will loose interest quickly.

I view the moon as a logical stepping stone to Mars and other destinations, but hardware developement must be logical and methodical.

1. Put the Orion capsule on EELV and cancel Ares I.
2. Design a small space station to be placed in equitorial orbit as a lunar way station.
3. Design and build an earth-orbit to moon-surface craft for transporting people back and forth. Send up an EELV with a fuel tank for each trip.
4. Fly cargo directly to the moon on Ares V.

Once a lunar transportation system is in place and the US has established a strong and permanent presence on the moon (for polical, scientific and strategic reasons) should the program be expanded to include Mars.

@Moonliner:

L1 is a better staging place than equatorial LEO. An additional staging point in LEO would be excellent, but why not use the ISS? The slighly higher cost isn't much of a problem.

@David DeBoth: I second your comments on NEA exploration. They have 2 very overwhelming benefits in my mind: test beds for learning how to deal with the different types of NEAs that may be on possible collision with Earth/Moon and raw material processing. This does again prove another difficulty from a security standpoint though. I'm unsure as to what theories of asteroid/comet processing are out there, but I imagine demonstrating a capability to move NEAs around at will, and the resulting fruits of mining down the gravity well, as another potential threat in the eyes of many governments. I wonder sometime if such concerns will necessitate the development of a cohesive international space traffic regulation agency.

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, this would be a great topic for a NASA Watch discussion forum.

Keith,

Welcome home. Please get us a forum!

The continuing enormous US federal budget deficits will render the topic moot before too long. We are not far from the point where public debt exceeds 1 year of the GDP, the point at which countries begin to lose their credit ratings. The dollar declined 5% last week, I understand -- a big drop as those things go. At some point foreign lenders will begin charging larger and larger premiums for US debt, and the music will stop. I expect NASA (and much else) to be eviscerated or even terminated in the ensuing fiscal train wreck.

the ensuing fiscal train wreck.

A meek voice of rationality and sanity attempting to rise above the clamour. Please do continue to take the time to attempt to bring that little inconvenience to their attention, Paul, because most of the space cadets here simple do not take the time to develop the depth of understanding necessary to get the big picture of what this is all about, and why we continue to try to do it, no matter how impossible the odds. If you even want a chance to dig yourselves out of the financial, social and intellectual hole you have dug for yourselves in the last forty years since the Vietnam War and the Apollo moon landings, it will necessarily have to be from a scientific breakthrough of almost unimaginable significance, because that hole is deep and steep. It won't come from the space program, trust me. What will come from the space program is the technological maturity necessary to weather to inevitable coming storm.

The whole point of human space flight is simply - planetary protection, internally from the follies of humanity, and externally from periodic icy bolides, whether they be comets of fragments blasted off of ice moons. They happen far more often than most people suspect, and the effects on a civilization utterly dependent upon oil and sunlight for agriculture will be far more catastrophic than it has been on previous generations. If we're lucky we'll get a moderately sized bolide impact in the next decade which hopefully will bring people to their senses. That thing in Peru just wasn't big enough. It's not about where, or even how, it's about why. VSE is diametrically opposed to why.

And for the rest of you space cadets, enjoy it while it lasts. Three words : Ceres, Pluto, 2015. Fortunately, you'll get a small sneak preview of the show at Vesta in late 2011. The moon isn't going anywhere, but human civilization is a train running directly off a cliff. Evolve, or perish.

Buzz nailed it, I think. The top of the agenda should be remaking our space progam into a cooperative international venture. It's the most cost effective and economically sensible way to proceed, and it's the right thing to do anyway. Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but those who think they can sell a junk-yard engineered launch system and a rehashed Apollo mission by bashing the Chinese are dillusional.

I am in favor of returning to the moon and staying there. My reason is, I do not see the president or congress having long term support for a Mars initive which it would take to get there. I understand and agree with all of the Mars first reasons, but I just do not see the political will power to pull it off. The moon base can also be the start of a tourist industry that can help support the base. Mostly I just want us to get beyond LEO and I think a better chance with the Moon first. Heck right now we may not even have the political support to stay in LEO after next year. It hurts me to write this as I always had hope we would go to Mars.

@Gregory Lemieux: The issue is less with impacts and damage and more "how do we handle resource claiming"? Which has been an issue sort of in the air. Current international space law, as I recall, has it where no resources in space can be owned except "collectively for the good of mankind". Which basically means "no one is allowed to touch anything ever", which is a pretty terrible temporary stop gap that inhibits development.

Eventually, someone will just break the rule and go "bugger that" and we'll see a mad rush of competition. Hopefully anyway. Unfriendly competition can still be an overall positive benefit for both competitors, if the space race is any indication.

"Would the U.S. taxpayer stand for seeing the Chinese land on the moon while the U.S. was in a multi-decade Mars mission development program?"

This seems to be the nub of it. I wonder if when Cheney and co were formulating VSE, they were getting advice from some quarters that "the Moon is technically necessary to shake out Mars missions" which fitted well with their militaristic perspective that if the US aims for Mars "we could overstretch and leave our ourselves vulnerable to others doing flashy stuff more easily on the Moon". For short-term politicians, civilian space is mainly a PR exercise. I doubt if it got hugely more sophisticated than that.

So the question would then become, how does this logic actually hold up? Technically, Mars is more difficult, maybe an order of magnitude so. Not in terms of energy but logistics. So it would be a stretch. What could you do thats flashy on the Moon? I think this is where it falls down. This is a PR/marketing question and the views of these types would be good. But I'm guessing that the image of the US struggling through setbacks to get to a really new place would have an order of magnitude, or more, PR appeal than others doing probably quite sensible/useful things on the Moon. I reckon Cheney was probably worried about Chinese on the Moon building the Alan Parsons project using sharks with friggin lasers on their heads, aimed at NYC.

All you need to look at is the end goal.

Then you decide how to get there.

My end goal includes a base on the moon AND mars.

So since we're doing both anyway, we should start with the moon because it is easier and safer and will prepare us for mars.

Since we probably need to cover a moon base with rock anyway, we should dig a hole in the side of a crater and stick living spaces into it.

NASA needs to do innovation that the private sector is not motivated or able to do. NASA should not be in the business of building mundane rockets anymore. NASA should be funding new fringe technologies that could help with space exploration, and building hardware to prove that we can live on other planets.

The first goal has to be sustainable and affordable space access. If you cannot afford to fly the spacecraft and missions at will, then all you are trying to do is a repeat of Apollo, and the nation did not support continuing that spectacular program. I do not believe that sustainable and affordable means an enlarged Apollo capsule, throwaway hardware, or ocean splashdowns.

The people who dreamed that approach up were under the gun to try and meet a largely fictitious race schedule; the only race was to gain access to ISS soon after Shuttle stops flying. We missed that schedule entirely, probably by most of a decade. This concept also started out using existing Shuttle hardware components. But that system does not and won't work in the way it was intended because of the limited capacity of the Aries 1 and the need to significantly modify the SRMs. The Orion capsule as conceived is too large and massive. That was true for a six person crew and its certainly true for a smaller crew.

Sustainable and affordable access is likely to take several years to define and design and another several to build and fly.

This means the moon is not a reasonable goal in the next decade with existing funding levels. Substantially higher funding levels are not a reasonable expectation.

After agreeing that sustainable and affordable access is the key, then the long term program can be reasonably considered. A proper goal for NASA is to develop the detailed rationale for the long term. Something that has not been done.

Its easy to wave your arms and talk about 'learning to live and work on another world', like the moon, first, before going to Mars. Of course currently we are learning to live and work in space on the space station, which is probably a much more accurate prototype for a trans-Mars spacecraft. Its also far more accessible at far lower cost. Lots of Constellation supporters feel ISS is a waste. ISS keeps claiming that its main goal is science. Its use as an engineering prototype for exploration is probably as or more significant.

What are we going to do on the moon once we can get there routinely at reasonable cost ? Is the goal only in the context of the Mars mission ? Or are we setting up an outpost that we are going to grow to a base, and then a small colony ? Is what we are going to do on the moon, substantially going to improve our odds on the interplanetary voyage or on Mars ? Most of the geologists and chemists I have heard say that the differences between the moon and Mars are so great that the moon really does not help very much. If the goal is simply to explore and do science, unless its reasonably inexpensive, its not going to be supportable and sustainable.

How do you develop a sustainable and affordable program?

First spacecraft and boosters need to be turned out on a continuing basis at minimal cost and hardware either needs to be very inexpensive to produce or very reusable. An HLLV, perhaps like Aries 5 or perhaps a Shuttle C, needs to be buildable on an assembly line basis - turned out like sausages, the same way aircraft manufacturers build airline fuselages. This is how the Russians have operated for a half century and its how big aerospace deployment programs operate. If its like past NASA programs, and if its one or two spacecraft or rockets a year, then its not affordable or sustainable. A radical change will be needed.

Its time that NASA's human spaceflight program decide what its proper role is. What is the proper role of government ? NASA should be involved in R&D and top level requirements definition and have a minimal role in design, testing or operations. Follow the military model for big systems development, or the X-plane development and test process. NASA needs to ensure that the nation's industry and academia are fully engaged leaders in the program. This should not be a hand-in-hand partnership; NASA needs to be making sure the nation's resources are hard at work on the program; that is what will ensure national support.

The Spacehab commercial project, though done on a small scale, is an example that could be emulated. NASA set top level requirements, negotiated the contracts, and managed to identify and organize the utilization goals. The contractors were making money based on how efficiently they could operate and whether they could capitalize on their initial set of hardware, personnel, facility and capabilities to fly many more missions. Spacehab was responsible end-to-end for their hardware design, manufacture, flight preparation, mission integration, and in space operations. It was the difference between Spacehab's tens of millions of dollars a mission every 2-3 months, and Spacelab's 100s of millions once every 6 months to a year. They both carried virtually the same payload. Spacelab started with far more complex and expensive systems that users did not want to deal with, and that were mostly outdated by the time they were put into operation. Spacelab's 1970s era CCTV and centralized computers and telemetry were prime examples. Spacehab used off-the-shelf camcorders and laptops to provide the same or better capability.

The overall goal is simply, and already signed off on by congress and the former administration (though they may not have fully realized what they were signing off on)

From Marburger

________________________

As I see it, questions about the vision boil down to whether we want to incorporate the Solar System in our economic sphere, or not. Our national policy, declared by President Bush and endorsed by Congress last December in the NASA authorization act, affirms that, "The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program." So at least for now the question has been decided in the affirmative.
__________________________________________________________________

If we are EVER going to be a space faring civilization, we need to just bite the bullet and get to it. There is no reason not to, and the benefits are so enormous that it won't cost a dime more than frittering around with science only human exploration and indeed will be much cheaper in the long run.

The Moon has several advantages.

1. Distance

At 384,000 km the Moon is three days and 1.25 light seconds away. From a time cost of money perspective (government or commercial) the Moon wins hands down.

2. Resources

The Moon has plentiful resources, almost all bound as oxides (excepting the water and the meteoric metals).

Here are the mineral reports from the Apollo missions (early ones)

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11psr.html

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/a12psr.html

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/a14psr.html

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar_resources/documents/PostApollo.pdf

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15psr.html

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/a16psr.html

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17psr.html

A more recent set of reports from the book "Resources of Near Earth Space"

http://www.nss.org/settlement/spaceresources/resources4.html

READ THESE REPORTS, don't just throw out reasons why there are no resources based upon your ignorance.

The issue is not whether there are resources, but can we process them. You also need to read Paul Spudis's reports on the elevated levels of volatiles in the Lunar Polar regions outside of the cold traps. Bottom line there is plenty of water there.

In order to obtain and process resources you need energy. Energy from solar power is readily available at the North and South polar regions of the Moon. I prefer the north as the mobility to the entire lunar nearside and farside is much greater than in the south. The sunshine in the north is of greater extent and duration than in the south. With this we don't need nuclear energy to start ISRU.

We can easily emplace 1 megawatt of solar energy on the Moon in four to six Delta IVH class payloads. The Moon is much better in this regard than Mars as to get any significant ISRU you must go nuclear.

With this much solar power we can begin processing hundreds to thousands of tons of oxygen and metals per year. If we can process this much material (of which there are several processes that will give both metals and oxygen).

In the worst case scenario the regolith has up to 1-2% of pure metal from meteorics and reduced iron. Simple melting with solar thermal power will get enough metal with a front end loader and a magnet to build large structures to get the ball rolling.

The mirrors below can handle 3500 degrees F.

http://www.trexadvancedmaterials.com/

With an initial engineering program focused on ISRU and prepositioning supplies on the Moon, we can rapidly ramp up ISRU, followed by In Situ Food Production (ISFP)

As for those who think that ISS is not a good station, guess what people, we have spent $100 billion dollars on the damn thing so WE ARE GOING TO USE IT. Get over it. ISS is actually very close to Freedom in design and there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING precluding ISS from being used as a construction, docking, and operational facility supporting a multinational effort for lunar exploration and development. Another key thing that ISS gets us is the participation of private enterprise, both as contractors and as primary users. Again, guess what, this is the first bullet in the Augustine commission charter.

This can be done within the dollar amount that NASA is going to actually have, not what we wish it would have.

If all we want is to 'explore' plus send folks into space for fun, then we could easily cut the NASA budget by about 10 or 12 billion by using robots to explore and buying rides from the Russians for about 50 million a passenger. We could buy space rides for 12 Americans a year for about $600 million and then spend about 5 or 6 billion dollars a year on robotic space probes.

However, if we want to expand human civilization into space in order to enhance the survival of or species and to commercialize and exploit the natural resources of the solar system in order to enhance our economic growth, then we first need to establish a permanently manned and continuously growing facility on the moon that utilizes lunar resources and other extraterrestrial resources for its survival.

The best science that we'll do on the Moon will be that which tells us if humans can survive and thrive permanently off our planet of evolutionary origin.

From the TV news it looks like we are about to spend all our money on Korean War 2. Instead of the Moon we will have to play find the Weapons of Mass Destruction with real nukes.

Lets hope for a short war so NASA is funded in Obama's second term.

@Dennis Wingo:

Your lunar plans sound excellent, but why not go to L1 first as a less ambitious target? It would take less time and less money. The next step after that should clearly be the moon. L1 supports the moon, NEOs and Mars. All three are important for ISRU and both the moon and NEOs are important for Mars. L1 also supports commercial development of the Earth-moon system.

And L1 may also help with a high power architecture for ISRU. Here's an idea I had the other day and that I wanted to run by you:

Use of advanced and unconventional propellant combinations may lead to much more benefit from lunar ISRU and maybe even more efficient ISRU itself.

Two combinations are of particular interest:

- Silane + H2O2
Higher silanes + H2O2 are expected to be a dense, space storable and hypergolic propellant combination with better Isp and lower toxicity than MMH/NTO. This is useful for science missions, but since both silicon and oxygen are plentiful on the moon, this propellant combination would also benefit substantially more from lunar ISRU.

See

https://iti.esa.int/iti/fileUploadForm.do?action=viewer&proposalId=1001&contentType=5
Prediction of Performance of (Higher) Silanes in Rocket / Scramjet Engines.

- MMH/Al/NTO gels
Under the ISTP project NASA is developing an advanced MMH/NTO engine called AMBR for science missions. The goal is to increase the Isp to about 375s in the next ten years or so. One of the more advanced techniques under consideration is use of gelled propellants, with significant amounts of metal powders combined with the MMH. Depending on the mass fraction of the metal, Isp and density can be increased.

Again, a second effect is that a larger mass fraction of the fuel can be sourced from ISRU. MMH consists entirely of elements that are rare on the moon, whereas aluminium is plentiful. Mass fractions of up to 70% metal are a serious possibility. For high metal fractions, the Isp drops but this is likely more than compensated for by the increased potential for ISRU.

See

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090001339_2008047216.pdf]
AMBR* Engine for Science Missions

http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/1998/TM-1998-206306.pdf
Preliminary Assessment of Using Gelled and Hybrid Propellant Propulsion for VTOL/SSTO Launch Systems

http://pdf.aiaa.org/jaPreview/JPP/1996/PVJAPRE24074.pdf
Theoretical Effects of Aluminum Gel Propellant Secondary Atomization on Rocket Engine Performance[/url]

The following article gives the average composition of the lunar regolith:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1973LPSC....4.1159T
The average chemical composition of the lunar surface

It looks as if nearly all of it could be turned into propellant. If this is true, then it may make sense to export ore & regolith to L1/L2 for processing there. Establishing the initial infrastructure there is cheaper than doing it on the lunar surface, because of the lower delta-v. Also, with uninterrupted sunlight and cheaper solar panels it would be much easier to generate massive amounts of power. You would still need some propellant production on the surface, but the scale could be reduced.

The United States, as a nation and leader of the Free World, needs to be the gaurdian of the Lunar Future. The last thing I want to see on a full moon is a future Chinese Territory and have to have that countries approved visa for future visits, explorations and permission for development.

There is a reason why God put us in the position of being the first nation there. By our leadership we will make sure the Lunar Future will be a free and democratic society. Sure, we will invite other nations to participate, but through U.S. leadership we will ensure it is a just system for future resource development. It may look like a large rock in the sky at the moment, but as soon as commercial development finds a way to make money there, it becomes real estate. The question will be who gets to control the distribution of the best sites, who decides future taxation of resources, etc.

We have a unique situation that we have not seen for couple hundred years, and history is about to repeat itself. We need to claim this stepping stone now, and the Liberation points, then Mars. I for one do not want a Red Moon Rising. We can do it with international participation, but it must be with bold U.S. leadership for a democratic future. The investments we make now do not just effect the next couple of decades, but the next several hundred years.

For a fraction of what we are now spending on bailouts, we could have a very aggressive infrastructure on the Moon, then on to Mars. NASA must lead the way, then get out of the way, and let private companies find a way to make money and spur further development. Once lunar surface operations can be economically self-sustaining, then NASA can concentrate it's resources on Mars and beyond.

As Ronald Reagan said in his speech to console a grieving nation during the space shuttle Challenger tragedy; “The Future Belongs to the Brave, not the Faint Hearted “ Now’s the time to be brave, there will only be one opportunity for Lunar Leadership, we need to make it ours.

With an initial engineering program focused on ISRU and prepositioning supplies on the Moon, we can rapidly ramp up ISRU, followed by In Situ Food Production (ISFP)

As for those who think that ISS is not a good station, guess what people, we have spent $100 billion dollars on the damn thing so WE ARE GOING TO USE IT. Get over it. ISS is actually very close to Freedom in design and there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING precluding ISS from being used as a construction, docking, and operational facility supporting a multinational effort for lunar exploration and development. Another key thing that ISS gets us is the participation of private enterprise, both as contractors and as primary users. Again, guess what, this is the first bullet in the Augustine commission charter.

We may decide to put the people in the ISS and the cargo handling machines in a separate spacestation in the same orbit. Even on the Earth warehouses and homes are different buildings.

"The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program."

If only the word "exploration" had been left out that would have been so helpful.

"The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space program."

Simple. Because Google does moon first ( lunar X-Prize ), and when has Google been wrong ?

Buzz is going in the right direction with the idea of focusing on in-space transportation and exploration. The only thing I would add to his approach is a strong science bent through use of telerobotics. This takes advantage of the strong science justification for human spaceflight by effectively eliminating the communications latency in robotic operations.

Surface systems and infrastructure for human operations are very planetary body-unique. Avoiding these investments, at least for the first phase of human exploration beyond LEO, would save a lot of resources. Plus, the telerobotic approach could be used to perform sophisticated demonstrations of the technologies you will need for eventual crewed surface operations (e.g., in-situ resource utilization, heavily automated excavation equipment).

There are other targets that Buzz should include. Some of the main belt asteroids could be considered later on with improvements in life support and propulsion. I also like the idea of Venus, mainly because of its receiving strong interest from the science community and its connection with Earth science. The fact that the human telerobotic approach opens up multiple destinations in the near-term makes it very appealing.

I oppose Mars-direct. I believe in the Moon as stepping-stone to Mars (or asteroids, and beyond). We need to establish an outpost on the moon and use it as a testbed for Mars facilities. Whether you call it "Arctic-light" or "ISS-2", we need to establish the logistics train, get REAL data on hardware failure rates, and develop our experience where we're still close enough to make a trip home.

Wow! Lots-O-Comments.

I believe we are not ready to go to Mars. I think that our goal should be to establish a U.S. moon base that is occupied by humans full-time, or most of the time. Another Inter-Governmental Agreement (international ISS agreement) for the Moon would jack up the price of a base tenfold, and would delay completion by many years. We should definitely coordinate our efforts with other spacefaring nations, however.

We should also ensure that the U.S. legal and policy environment encourages private enterprise, and prize competitions relating to the Moon and Mars. U.S. policy should also continue former President Bush's wise VSE philosophy of a steady, long-term plan for human and robotic exploration, development and settlement, with stable funding sustained through many election cycles.

Mars and near-earth asteroids are also worthy destinations, but only after we have gained additional knowledge and experience on the Moon. If we try to go to Mars first, I think we will find that it is far more expensive and difficult than most imagine, resulting either in a very expensive program cancelation, and long-term setback for the space program, or at best, more flags & footprints.

Time to make the expression 'man in the moon' more than just a figure of speech. The United States needs a robust, comprehensive space exploration program that focuses on Mars as an eventual destination but builds a space-based infrastructure in LEO, at LaGrange coordinates, and on the Moon. A launch system offering multiple capabilities through separate human and cargo transports would give the US the ability to pursue its exploration, science, and commercial interests.

Sharing the burdens and benefits of human spaceflight with multiple nations seems ideal, both in the context of cost sharing and in the sense one-humanity into space (Jointly conquer new frontiers rather than each other). Realistically, the complications of such mixed undertakings would be enormous, in much the same way that they were for the International Space Station. Personally, I think the long-range benefits to humanity are worth that trouble.

In addition to human spaceflight, we also need to regain technological prowess - the kind that fuels economic strength and prosperity. In the 60's human spaceflight and technological prowess were synonymous, but not today. Human spaceflight can commence with mere re-designs, while the mismatch between budgets and goals required that Griffin end NASA research to create NEW spaceflight technology. There is no other organization to pick up that dropped ball - no other group to keep the advances coming. That needs to be fixed too.

"The best science that we'll do on the Moon will be that which tells us if humans can survive and thrive permanently off our planet of evolutionary origin." -Marcel

Exactly right. The argument for lunar versus Mars as a destination is the wrong argument. The argument should be "why do we go?", not "where?". The ultimate reason in my opinion is colonization and access to resources. The Moon is our nearest neighbor, and provides us with a perfect environment within which to learn how to create a thriving and self sustaining human outpost. We could do the same thing on the surface of Mars, but at a much higher initial cost. I believe Mars will ultimately be a better place for permannant human colonization, but if we want to make significant gains in the near term, the lunar surface is a lot more appealing.

@kert

Google has been wrong. Recently they tried extending their advertising model into radio and failed miserably. They backed out of that market.

The “Return to the Moon” benefits are shown in the following:

Benefits of Second Human Wave Lunar Exploration:

New world for mankind
New economics
New business
New industry
New careers and work
New house and home
New hotel and spaceport
Lunar science research on-site
New Earth observatory on the surface of the Moon and can be repaired by human over there
New space observatory on the surface of the Moon and can be repaired by human over there
New space systems
New base for the Mars trip
Tourist travel
Others

World system of free enterprise can be developed by the new human space exploration program and turned over to the private sector for production, housing, energy, and environment needs, and the new materials to be found in the solar system can offer mining and production by private enterprise. As more and more nations join together to explore space and solar system. Major breakthroughs in science and technology can become possible, as the great minds of many nations combine to address the direction that face humanity in the future.

The cooperation in human space exploration system between the nations has been developed based on mutual benefits of collaboration. Lunar and Mars exploration and the settlement of human space exploration ventures of this century may prove too expensive for any one nation to handle. International teaming can be required to meet these mission requirements. It is very important to promote international cooperation activities which can enhance the security and welfare of mankind in this great 21st century.

Why so much enthusiasm for living and building at the bottom of gravity wells anyway? Is it really that much better than building in zero G?

Let other nations mount exploratory missions to the moon. There US has been there, done that.

And why is the ability to land on a planet a pre-requisite for going there? Would you refuse a trip to Jupiter?

'Space - the final frontier'. Not Planets.

What if Columbus has spent all his time exploring the Canary islands instead of sailing ahead "to the edge of the world"?

Marc, I don't know why you you added an editorial comment saying I was wrong about Buzz Aldrin's approach for human space flight. It is as I wrote, and you actually confirmed it. He suggests a phased push outward with visits to asteroids, a comet, and the moons of Mars before landing humans on the Red Planet. That is substantially different in engineering, cost profile, and public interest from making Mars the only target and not getting there for at least a couple of decades.

Marc Boucher Editor's note: The editorial comment you refer to was made by Frank who originated the query to our readers. I have not commented on Buzz's editorial or this discussion.

Frank's additional comment: David, as I have tried to explain to you previously, Buzz's idea is colonization of Mars should be the central goal of the VSE. Visits to NEOs et al and initial landings on Phobos and Deimos are fine, but the GOAl is Mars settlement-with no human landings on Earth's moon as an interim step. Hence my query to the group was: would that work? Or, alternatively, if a visit to the moon was essential in proving technology for more distant missions, would either a sortie or permanent base be preferable. The whole idea behind the discussion was to seek views about the suitability of lunar exploration as a steppingstone elsewhere. Buzz will publish more on his ideas in the Aug issue of Pop Mechanics-look for it.

"If the architecture of the exploration phase is not crafted with sustainability in mind, we will look back on a century or more of huge expenditures with nothing more to show for them than a litter of ritual monuments scattered across the planets and their moons.” John Marburger

We can not achieve sustainability with Constellation. We do not have either the budget nor the technology to do a sustainable Lunar or Mars effort.

NASA should be focusing on the basic R&D needed to achieve low cost LEO access, the basic R&D for long term survival in space, and the basic R&D for construction of evolving interplanetary space craft. Anything else is spam-in-a-can flags-n-footprints and will be recognized as such by the American people.

Frank's note: So Norm what should we do? Abandon human spaceflight entirely?

NASA should, IMHO, be involved in either pathfinder missions or in LEO-deepspace infrastructure development but not both because of the cost. Either push the bounds of human and machine exploration or build "frontier towns" at L1, Shackleton, etc. Personally would prefer many sorties to different places than a single base on Luna with private infrastructure following the pathfinder sorties. The first mile is a solved problem, go farther.

Have to agree about planetary chauvinism. The greatest economic gains are to be had far up the gravity well, providing services to lower orbits and surface activity such as telecomm, VR operation, search-and-rescue and baseline power.

“Frank's note: So Norm what should we do? Abandon human spaceflight entirely?”

Not at all Frank

In the short term: America and NASA has an international commitment to maintaining an operational space capability to maintain the ISS. This requires, IMO, extending the SSP until suitable replacements come online whether that replacement is COTS or Orion on an EELV. We also can learn a great deal that is applicable to long term exploration from things currently underway on the ISS such as the closed loop recycling system that has just come online as well as further experiments into partial gravity impacts on life processes, radiation shielding, and numerous other experiments that are better done in LEO than on either the Moon or Mars.

In the medium term: virtually every study that I have seen states that low cost access to LEO is a requirement of a sustainable exploration effort. Therefore, NASA should be doing the kind of cutting edge research needed to develop such systems, an X-program if you will. Not to develop the next operational NASA launch system but to do the R&D that commercial organizations can not. Continuing research into closed loop recycling systems for all waste in LEO, on the Moon, on Mars, and in interplanetary space is vital to a robust exploration effort since each pound recycled is a pound we don’t need to manufacture in situ or haul out of a gravity well.

In the long term we go explore, once we have the technology to do so in an affordable and sustainable way.

Rather than a reprise of Apollo to the Moon or Mars think building an evolving infrastructure that supports building evolving interplanetary exploration vehicles that can take us to all the inner and, later, the outer planets.

Yes it will take a heck of a lot longer to get there but when we do get there we will be there to stay. And, in both the short term and the long term, it will probably cost us a lot less.

Buzz has got it right. As far as we know the moon offers no near term (20 years) practical ISRU for life support, thus any moon base would be a flags and footprints mission with ISS-style resupplies all the time. You're talking about taking NASAs budget and pouring it down a bottomless hole with absolutely no returns.

Telerobotics are the way to exploit the moons resources. There's even a venture capitalist argument in there somewhere.

The argument is extremely trivial and almost indisputable.

Unless you triple NASAs budget.

"Why so much enthusiasm for living and building at the bottom of gravity wells anyway? Is it really that much better than building in zero G?"

That's the question. We don't know. Thanks to Skylab, Mir, and the ISS we already know that living in zero G is deleterious to human health over the long run. Some very limited simulated gravity experiments seem to indicate that at least 0.3 g of gravity is healthy. So living on Mars (0.37g) may be OK for human health. Maybe!

By setting up a manned facility on the moon where people could live there for at least a few years, we'll finally find out if the Moon's 1/6 gravity is deleterious to human health over the long run. And that will be very important to know as far as our long term ability to commercialize and industrialize the lunar surface is concerned.

"Thanks to Skylab, Mir, and the ISS we already know that living in zero G is deleterious to human health over the long run."

Not just deleterious -- REALLY deleterious. The most valuable resource the Moon has by far is gravity. One sixth g can, in principle, be leveraged to higher values. Zero g cannot. (Of course, if you've got money and blueprints for a "2001" style rotating space station you can generate your own g.)

"The United States, as a nation and leader of the Free World, needs to be the gaurdian of the Lunar Future. The last thing I want to see on a full moon is a future Chinese Territory and have to have that countries approved visa for future visits, explorations and permission for development."

I'm not convinced we are the leader of the Free World any more. We're certainly not the economic leader any more. We're about to have our credit rating lowered, and unless we get the $1T structural deficit under control, we're headed for belly-up status--probably before the end of the president's term.

NASA is not an island. We have to see NASA in the national context, and the national context is a disaster-in-the-making. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could recreate a national enthusiasm and will to develop the moon and other solar system assets, but I just don't see it in the cards any time soon. This is a sad thing to say, but the way things are now, every new national endeavor further drives the country into financial ruin.

I encourage anyone interested to learn more about the national economic situation by starting with wikipedia's US Public Debt. Here is the concluding comment from that page:

"The 2010 Budget proposed by President Barack Obama projects significant debt increases.The debt is projected to nearly double to $20 trillion by 2015, but is expected to increase to nearly 100% of GDP by 2010 and remain at that level thereafter. These estimates assume real GDP growth (after inflation) ranging from 2.6% to 4.6% annually from 2010 through 2019, which exceeds Blue Chip consensus estimates."

On the whole, I don't think the US is going to be able to afford either scenario of Mars or the Moon, unless something unbelievably GOOD happens in the relatively near future.

I listened to one of the Fed Reserve Bank VPs speak recently, and it is oh so not pretty. Not that any of you didn't know that . . . just if the US doesn't get paid back and then some, we're screwed. It will be a cheap sale on assets that don't provide tangible ROI. We haven't hit the perfect storm yet either; we're just in rought seas.

Anything outside LEO is going to be private funded, at least in a large portion . . . not because it is easy, because it is hard. (my regards to JFK)

I believe if pass up going to moon and wait for going to mars, we will probably go to neither. I do not believe anyone is going to sink the money to a trip to Mars anytime soon. If we do not try to at least build a lunar base to start with we will never leave LEO ever. The polical will is not strong enough to go straight to Mars. At least with the moon there is really some work that can be done that can be used as building blocks for heading to Mars. Maybe a fueling station or something.

I say we go to the Moon first then tackle Mars. If I thought the politics would easily allow Mars first then that would be different but that is just a pipe dream.

Moon first, then everything else.

1. Lunar base development first, with sortie exploration missions launched (or driven) from that base. (The architecture should ultimately involve the establishment of fuel depots, aerobraking, tethers, and reusable ascent/entry vehicles both at Earth and at the Moon);
1a. Nuclear propulsion (including high-thrust) developed in parallel. (Remember Project Prometheus, anyone?)
2. then crewed asteroid sorties;
3. then crewed sorties to Phobos & Deimos (perhaps base/outpost establishment there);
4. then Martian landings geared toward Martian surface base establishment.
5. Missions to The Jovian satellites and beyond.

NASA's primary role should be to develop the high-leverage, enabling technologies at each stage and then get out of the way as commercial capability steps up to fill in as service providers.

Regarding the logic of starting with the Moon:

Krafft Ehricke, in his 'A Vision of Lunar Settlement' in the 1985 "Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century", summed it up nicely:

"It has been said, 'If God wanted man to fly, He would have given man wings.' Today we can say, 'If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a moon.'"

He goes on to explain, quite eloquently, the logic of pursuing lunar development as a stepping-stone to wider solar system exploration and expansion.

Isaac Asimov, in the marvelous 1974 Asimov-McCall book 'Our World in Space', offers a similar summary point, after explaining quite extensively the value of future lunar exploration and development:

'In short, it may well be that for the intensive exploration and (perhaps) colonization of the Solar System, we will have to depend on a Moon colony; that it will be only after the establishment of that colony that space will really be open to mankind.'

Dr. Paul Spudis, of course, has offered more recent, equally cogent defenses of this premise.

All I can add, for those who are pushing so hard to skip the Moon and go straight to Mars, is to not forget the 'Wisdom of Gemini' lest we suffer serious, perhaps crippling consequences. Chris Kraft in his book "Flight" summed it up nicely:

'Gemini seldom gets proper credit in the eyes of space historians, except for those few who were there to see for themselves. [...] My view is simple: Gemini bridged the technology gaps that made Apollo possible. Without Gemini, the Kennedy goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of that marvelous decade would not have been accomplished.'

@Artful Dodger at May 26, 2009 4:53 PM
Oh yus! And I would add that the Moon is an ideal place to reprocess our nuclear follies into nuclear fuel. (There is only one Orion! The original.) Ditto fast breeding and all the other nuclear processes that the "space lobby" (us) could use to convince the "environmental lobby" (them) to become space lobbyiests too! The Moon is also an ideal workshop for nuclear engine development Blowups Happen... and eventually a scrapyard for used vessels. My preference: an Angel by Carlotti (The Rolling Stones 1952 RAH)

"Unless working and living on the moon is routine there is no way any one is going to Mars."
Brian Bernhard at May 26, 2009 5:01 PM
Amen and have you looked at the transit times to NEOs? Where is a radiation shelter when you need one? Indeed once out of The Well I can see a need for various stations at all the various "Liberational" Points! But the Moon will be a useful (jade) rabbit hole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit
UNTIL a mass driver can boost raw materials into orbit and we can build nice thick Mooncrete radiation proof pressure shells. In "The High Frontier" O'Neill suggested that the Lunar Base would be small: little more than a mass driver and the support staff using teleops for shifting the regolith and running repairs. With EVAs to repair the repairbots. ALL the materials processing and construction would be space based. Utilising the peculiarities of zero gee, hard vacuum and lots of energy. Think "outside the box." Where the inside out box is a mass spectrometer operating on an industrial scale! Magneto-deposition of thin films. Oh and blowing really large bubbles of glass!

"ISS as currently designed is totally unsuited to such a mission."
Will at May 26, 2009 5:53 PM AFAIK the inclination ain't too bad for TLI and the ISS can be expanded. IIRC Freedom phase two was to include the OTV /LTV hanger and MTV assembly facilities. It is far better to expand the current Base Camp rather than build a new one, just a little higher up with a better view. But point (2) yes reusability is key. The Disposable Days are over.
(This commenter Echos the salutary pessimism of Paul F. Dietz at May 26, 2009 8:14 PM and Rocket Science at May 26, 2009 8:41 PM)
IMHO the launch window on a space-faring society is closing. America could have done it by herself in the 70-80's. The World acting in concert could do it now. Maybe. But by 2030:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/perfect-storm-john-beddington-energy-food-climate
One hopes that we, as a global technological society, can weather this perfect storm and and transition from a non-sustainable Kardaschev I to a sustainable K2. (Subtle mountaineering pun for Keith. Namaste :) As on Everest: "Going it alone" is not an option. And neither is Failure.

@Eronarn at May 26, 2009 5:56 PM and David DeBoth at May 26, 2009 10:29 PM Yes. I am leaning to the concept of UN Treaty mandated rights. Thus the Americans get the first pick say Oxygen concessions. The Russians: Aluminium; Chinese: Silicon; ESA: Rare Earths. Atreides: Spice! But NO-ONE gets the "Common Heritage" Water. Share the wealth! However the effort is cooperative i.e. uses the same dozers, base facilities,... to shift the raw regolith. The goal is a communal (Gasp! Socialism!!) ...Lunar Catapult. Largely built from lunar materials and operated, for obvious reasons, by the UN. "Big Rocks Mike!" The Prison can come later! Then the Revolution.


@mmeijeri the advantages of a GEO transit station (and recycled comms farm?) will only really be of use with a good radiation shelter. At low cost dV even L1 and L2 are a bit too far in the face of a sudden Coronal Mass Ejection. Thus I still prefer a permanent human presence in LLO with a rabbit hole just a short hop away. And from the tourist point of view... Otherwise L1: "Nearside Station" and L2 "Farside", "Dayside" (E1) and "Nightside" (E2) remain Crew tended propellant dumps and resource aggregators: Camps: I thru to IV up the Well, or rather, further out on the exploration spiral. And only permanently staffed when a real storm cellar is in place (Like really big tanks of water!) Then a multitude of Goddard Industrial Facilities (Leading the Lunar gravity well.), Tsiolkovski Cosmic Farms (Trailing) and the Tsien Science Fair at L3.


In the original O'Neillian future history: the Main Belt Asteroids would have come next. But at the time us Colonials had no IDEA how well populated the inner solar system was with useful chunks. Bell shaped curved into a handy size for whatever size of propulsion system you have to play with.
One hopes that 1/6th g is enough for normal embryological development but the bulk of the real space cadets will be born in rotating bubbleworlds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandridge_M._Cole
Phobos First! MIJAW (Mars is just another Well) You saw it here first!
But enough prognostication.
In the short term: Cheap access to space. With a tip of me 'at to LewisJ at May 26, 2009 11:35 PM and Norm Hartnett (always a pleasure at May 27, 2009 12:06 PM) =Skylon. Sorted! As we say here in Blighty.
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2009/05/video-skylon-ssto-designer-ala.html
*Toot Toot*
Plus and here I echo Josh Cryer at May 27, 2009 4:21 PM (et al) Teleoperated LunaBots; followed by More Bots and Even More Bots for Kids to Play With. Real time! On the Moon!! And then... the Repair Bots and later (and only then) human Repair Crew to fix the Bots that the Repair Bots can't repair and fit the curtains. Building a lunar base by hand is just so 20th Century.
Finally Serious Kudos @Dennis Wingo at May 27, 2009 12:11 AM please tell me you're on the Augustine II commission 'cos if you ain't there is something seriously wrong with the selection process. (And this is from a DIRECT v3.0 Fanboi!)
//
PS Keith welcome back! Can we have a Symposium... if a Forum is out of the question. You could be a Symposiarch!
Pretty Please with Moondust on it!

Frank's note: Hey! You got Moondust? Better watch out for the NASA police!!!

Moon is essentially the eighth continent, thats why.
http://www.8cproject.com/