The Best Method To Get Cargo To The Moon
- Thread starter Dryson
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Yeah, my assumption was based on the power output by Earth-bound domestic solar panels, which is a lower limit. As you state, no weather in space - well, apart from particle and magnetic storms due to solar flares/coronal mass ejections on top of the background galactic cosmic radiation. Probably better to go for quantity over technical sophistication with panels - cheaper and easier to manufacture and maintain using robots - there's plenty of room out there.
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That's what I was thinking. Nuclear power to bootstrap--good energy density--then go in situ.
A lunar elevator could be made with existing materials, no threat of lightning or icing loads as on Earth based space elevators. What I would really like would be cyclers made from asteroids.
There may be some hope there--project RAMA
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2016_phasei_dunn_projectrama_tagged.pdf
It makes me wonder about this:
www.spacedaily.com/reports/First_known_interstellar_object_gets_unexpected_speed_boost_999.html
The thinking is that this body is a comet:
space.com/41015-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-comet-after-all.html
But I would think that we would have seen degassing earlier, with 'Oumuamua closer to the Sun. I wonder.
A lunar elevator could be made with existing materials, no threat of lightning or icing loads as on Earth based space elevators. What I would really like would be cyclers made from asteroids.
There may be some hope there--project RAMA
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2016_phasei_dunn_projectrama_tagged.pdf
It makes me wonder about this:
www.spacedaily.com/reports/First_known_interstellar_object_gets_unexpected_speed_boost_999.html
The thinking is that this body is a comet:
space.com/41015-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-comet-after-all.html
But I would think that we would have seen degassing earlier, with 'Oumuamua closer to the Sun. I wonder.
You know that is a very good idea Deks. I will bring it up to NASA and make certain that it was you that had the idea.
I will also bring this idea up to the X Prize Foundation that excels in creating such and idea.
Thank you.
I didn't know you had NASA's ear.
But hey, if you want, we could try collaborating on the premise and bring it to X Prize Foundation as I could provide more details.
in terms of raw mass, there's not that much recoverable material in orbit. It might be more than a ton, though. This is especially true LEO which is where the junk is of any real concern. The really large satellites in LEO tend to be military and those are off limits, even if they are defunct, and there aren't that many defunct spysays. There are plenty of dead smaller satellites, cubesats etc in leo and molniya orbits but as mentioned, they are tiny and don't really provide much. Mostly they are an annoyance as they did not have planned deorbiting built into their devices or else those options did not work. Must also take into account a lot of that stuff has been orbiting out there for a long time exposed to gamma particles. Not something you want to bring in to your Salvage One franchise. There's good reason to remove the junk, but recycling is not really one of them. Not yet, anyway.
If you've reached a level of technical prowess where launch concerns are low enough on the totem pole that you're ready to get your raw materials in space, the main options are the moon, which has much of what is needed for an industrial base, and near earth asteroids that can provide many of the elements that we require and which the moon curiously lacks. This part of space is almost like a crafty early level laid out by one of those Civilization game designers, but like an early level, the path forward is mostly clear.
Technical efficiency allows us to do more with less.
As such, we should be able to create considerable amount of a material based on carbon derivatives such as graphene, carbon nanotubes and synthetic diamonds (just as a suggestion) that would be extremely thin but durable, flexible, self-repairing, etc. by just converting the trash in orbit.
The 3d printing bots/satellites would need to be programmed with the specific molecular structure of the said compound (depending on which one is most suitable - but it also depends on the amount of material in orbit - so for the trash in orbit, we could use specific material, while the resources from the moon and asteroids could provide a more diverse amount of resource).
So, technically, all you need to do is send the automated construction equipment up there with some starting raw material and let it do the rest.
What's in orbit (all of the non functional satellites, debris, etc.) would serve as a good starting point with the nearby asteroids and the moon used as secondary sources.
It would reduce operational costs if you just launch say a specific amount of 3d printing bots in 1 launch and let them build more of themselves along with the desired structures from the stuff that's already up there.
The idea is, once you made the initial launch of the 'mobile construction bots' in that one launch, you wouldn't need to send anything else from the ground.
So, technically, its only 1 launch that would be needed - which can be done even using existing (expensive) methods.
But I'm not concerned about money... the resources and the technology is there and it works - not using it is just another excuse.
As for how much space junk is there... a lot ore than just a ton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
According to Wikipedia data:
"Over 98 percent of the 1,900 tons of debris in low Earth orbit (as of 2002) was accounted for by about 1,500 objects, each over 100 kg (220 lb).[10] Total mass is mostly constant despite addition of many smaller objects, since they reenter the atmosphere sooner. Using a 2008 figure of 8,500 known items, it is estimated at 5,500 t (12,100,000 lb).[11]
And that data is from 2008.
All of that trash (including old/non-functional satellites) is recoverable and can be used as raw material for construction of any number of other things (fully automated science labs in orbit that would conduct R&D), all with PV properties (panels are really outdated approach... just integrate the freaking technology into the hull itself and make it self-maintaining - which can be done with meta-materials).
"all you need" "just" "Is only"
just doesn't work in space. Nothing generally goes right, and everything is exceedingly harder to do and generally more expensive than originally planned.
And being concerned about the money is critical. The only ventures that have worked so far in space have been moneymaking ventures. The tech you are suggesting is cool, but the problem is it does not exist, just hypothetically. Find my someone who has demonstrated on earth, a machine that can tear apart a satellite, in freefall, in vacuum, somehow with both the power to do that, AND the thermal management for all that waste heat (remember that there are no convention cooled electronics in space, and that have to be rad-hardened as well), AND then turn around and refin useful components out of then and somehow either then transfer those materials to a useful depot or reproduct them into something functional right on the spot, assuming that orbit is useful and you don't mind keeping it there because you probably have no fuel left to go anywhere else while the ghost of Isaac Newton is smiling smugly at you from the void.
That quote about mass as I said before, or tried to, the big dead birds are mostly in geostationary orbit. LEO space is mostly small sats, launch debris and military junk that's untouchable. Also, maritime law regarding salvage does not apply in space.
But back to GEOsats. They're not easy to get to, though fortunately they're all for the most part on the same inclination. You waste fuel for delta-v to reach them and harvest.. what? This idea that you can digest any broken down part like a hungry cockroach on an old gummy bear and then cough up a brand new cockroach works well enough with living things but that level of materials reprocessing has never been demonstrated. No one is anywhere close to that. So no, not all of that trash is recoverable and much of it, say reprocessed aluminum or silica parts, would be much easier to mine and produce on the moon where the by-product of the manufacturing process is O2, which everyone is going to need.
I dont dislike these ideas, they are a lot of fun to muse about. I just personally don't see any way forward to colonize space, and it will happen soon, besides the moon and the NEAs. Anything else is a distraction, including Mars.
Never demonstrated?
Not accessible?
Shall we also completely ignore Buckminster Fuller?
Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing," that is, an accelerating increase in the efficiency of achieving the same or more output
44 years ago, we developed thousands of synthetic derivatives that can be produced in sustainable abundance which can replace so-called 'scarce' materials and surpass them in performance.
Also, please explain this:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/sp...could-actually-build-a-space-colony-17268252/
Then this:
https://3dprint.com/50777/molecular-3d-printer/
And this:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1115.html
https://www.fastcompany.com/1790525/darpas-plan-harvest-space-junk-new-satellites
These aren't 'ideas to be mused about'... these are practical technical solutions that can be implemented.
The fact we already had the ability to construct orbital habitats in 1974 with the resources, science and technology that we had back then is a testament to that (and that's only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of what was possible back then).
We simply have much better tools at our disposal today that would make things A LOT easier.
Money and 'cost' are artificial obstructions that have no relation to our technical ability to produce something fast in sustainable abundance with as little as possible damage to the environment.
But as you can see from those articles, even within the monetary system, building the orbital habitats back (for $40 billion) in 1974 would have been cheaper than the annual USA military budget (which at the time was $299.7 BILLION).
Inflation would bring up the cost today to $220 billion, whereas the annual USA military budget went up to $700 billion for 2018 (this year).
So, still cheaper, with the rest of the cash could have been invested in crumbling USA infrastucture, improving living standards for everyone, providing homeless people with homes (there being 6.5 times more empty houses in the USA than there are homeless people - and numbers like that are similar across the globe).
We have so many options at our disposal and its a matter of COMBINING them together to come up with better results (and yes, they CAN be combined).
Nope, never demonstrated, navel-gazing about the dome guy notwithstanding.
This has nothing to do with the practicality of salvaging old space junk en-situ and building working components from them, vs mining and refining model.
And farts can obtain combustion. What does this have to do with anything.
Popsci is not a valid scientific journal. In fact usually having it predict your project is going to happen in the future is the nail in its theoretical coffin. None of what you describe currently exists in a form that could be useful. DId you actually read what DARPA's Phoenix program was trying to do? It's not a materials salvage program at all. Maybe you were just goggling for headlines. Phoenix satlets were an idea to make old defunct comsats with working antennas be made operable again. But thanks for the Link McNuggets
It's probably easier to build a space station now, yes. That's why there are so many of them in the sky right now.
Ok, joking, though its not orders of magnitude easier to build space stations than it was in the early 1970's. If anything it has been harder as the US hasn't had heavy lift since Saturn V, and the Soviets only briefly had it with Energya. If ISS could have been lofted in large diameter modules like Skylab, it's sad realizing the station we could have had vs the one that took years to build. Still, it got built and I'm glad we at least got that. But all that aside I suspect the real reason there are few orbital habitats is that the reason for having them hasn't occurred. There is no economic reason for them to exist. O'Neil believed that SSP would be the key to developing a full infrastructure of millions living and working up there. I think it will happen, but on a longer time scale than he envisioned.
Since money and cost are artificial obstructions, will you please give me $100,000?
One piece of space junk factors in at 8 metric tons
The announcement instantly made Envisat one of the biggest pieces of space junkin low-Earth orbit. Its body measures about 30 feet long by 16 feet wide (9 by 5 meters), but its 46-foot-long (14-m) solar array gives the satellite an even bigger profile. The dead spacecraft weighs 17,600 pounds (8 metric tons).
Space Debris and Human Spacecraft. More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft
Even if every piece of space junk weighs only five tons that is 2,500,000 metric tons of steal, aluminum, plastic and wiring that would be more than enough to build a colony on the Moon from.
I recently watched the newest Aliens movie Covenant and really the idea of the cargo lifter.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qdeye
It wouldn't be a very difficult ship to design either.
The same truss used on the ISS could be used to create the length of the cargo lifter. Connecting truss would then be fit in between the lengths of the truss to create a more rigid structure. Habitation modules could be placed within the central area between the length truss.
http://desktopsimmer.blogspot.com/2013/05/
The upper landing pad would then be an aluminum alloy composite similar to stainless steal but lighter and less expensive.
The cargo lifter could then be deployed in orbit around the Moon where strong tethers would keep the lifter in orbit around the Moon without having to use much fuel.
A second set of tethers would allow astronauts and cargo to descend to the Moon as well as ascend using a Gondola system that is found in the Alps.
https://www.tetongravity.com/story/ski/Great-Gondolas-Of-The-Alps-Part1-Verbier-5819367
The base structure for the lifter is there in the framework of the ISS as well as the habitat, propulsion and fuel systems. The biggest problem that exists is the tethering lines. Will they hold as the Moon pulls the lifter around in an orbit?
The announcement instantly made Envisat one of the biggest pieces of space junkin low-Earth orbit. Its body measures about 30 feet long by 16 feet wide (9 by 5 meters), but its 46-foot-long (14-m) solar array gives the satellite an even bigger profile. The dead spacecraft weighs 17,600 pounds (8 metric tons).
Space Debris and Human Spacecraft. More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft
Even if every piece of space junk weighs only five tons that is 2,500,000 metric tons of steal, aluminum, plastic and wiring that would be more than enough to build a colony on the Moon from.
I recently watched the newest Aliens movie Covenant and really the idea of the cargo lifter.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qdeye
It wouldn't be a very difficult ship to design either.
The same truss used on the ISS could be used to create the length of the cargo lifter. Connecting truss would then be fit in between the lengths of the truss to create a more rigid structure. Habitation modules could be placed within the central area between the length truss.
http://desktopsimmer.blogspot.com/2013/05/
The upper landing pad would then be an aluminum alloy composite similar to stainless steal but lighter and less expensive.
The cargo lifter could then be deployed in orbit around the Moon where strong tethers would keep the lifter in orbit around the Moon without having to use much fuel.
A second set of tethers would allow astronauts and cargo to descend to the Moon as well as ascend using a Gondola system that is found in the Alps.
https://www.tetongravity.com/story/ski/Great-Gondolas-Of-The-Alps-Part1-Verbier-5819367
The base structure for the lifter is there in the framework of the ISS as well as the habitat, propulsion and fuel systems. The biggest problem that exists is the tethering lines. Will they hold as the Moon pulls the lifter around in an orbit?
The first phase of building anything in orbit around the Moon is the remote assembly of the station.
The truss work of the International Space Station provides the best framework or foundation to start with. The truss have proven to be structurally sound engineering and will work for any orbital platform built in orbit around the Moon.
The following paper discusses Robotic Assembly of Truss Structures for Space Systems and Future Research
The robotic designs outline in the paper would be able to remotely assemble a platform in orbit around the Moon.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20040085697.pdf
The image below is a conceptual model of the truss work for the Lifter Platform. The structural frame work and it's connections are based exactly on the ISS design plan except for the truss frame at the bow of the platform. The bow and aft framework would be connected to the port and starboard section truss after the interior components of the platform, such as the habitat and docking modules were connected to the platforms truss work.
This image of the Lifter Platform is give a general idea of the truss framework.
The width of the platform from the interior truss is 50' wide.
One of the biggest obstacles to colonizing planets in space is:
1.Fuel
2.Water
3.Oxygen
Being able to manufacture oxygen from water even in orbit around the Moon will create a lot of new avenues for space exploration.
NASA might have figured this problem out.
Method of Making Oxygen From Water in Zero Gravity Raises Hope for Long-Distance Space Travel
https://www.space.com/41133-oxygen-...vel.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
The truss work of the International Space Station provides the best framework or foundation to start with. The truss have proven to be structurally sound engineering and will work for any orbital platform built in orbit around the Moon.
The following paper discusses Robotic Assembly of Truss Structures for Space Systems and Future Research
The robotic designs outline in the paper would be able to remotely assemble a platform in orbit around the Moon.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20040085697.pdf
The image below is a conceptual model of the truss work for the Lifter Platform. The structural frame work and it's connections are based exactly on the ISS design plan except for the truss frame at the bow of the platform. The bow and aft framework would be connected to the port and starboard section truss after the interior components of the platform, such as the habitat and docking modules were connected to the platforms truss work.
This image of the Lifter Platform is give a general idea of the truss framework.
The width of the platform from the interior truss is 50' wide.
One of the biggest obstacles to colonizing planets in space is:
1.Fuel
2.Water
3.Oxygen
Being able to manufacture oxygen from water even in orbit around the Moon will create a lot of new avenues for space exploration.
NASA might have figured this problem out.
Method of Making Oxygen From Water in Zero Gravity Raises Hope for Long-Distance Space Travel
https://www.space.com/41133-oxygen-...vel.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
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I do hope I live to see BFS fly.
A very nice artist conception:
reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/8o05ua/bfs_cutaway_diagram_oc_graphic/
Misc space news--Ceres Map and Mars clock
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/pgm2018/pdf/7001.pdf
https://jtauber.github.io/mars-clock/
A very nice artist conception:
reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/8o05ua/bfs_cutaway_diagram_oc_graphic/
Misc space news--Ceres Map and Mars clock
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/pgm2018/pdf/7001.pdf
https://jtauber.github.io/mars-clock/
The most obvious solution would be a technology that's still too far beyond us, if it's at all possible (human imagination often conceives of the impossible). That being anti-gravity.
For now, we're still faced with pushing directly against gravity with massive rockets. It's terribly inefficient.
The space elevator simply won't work, for so many reasons already cited. It's just too vulnerable to failure, weather, and terrorism.
I wonder about two other approaches: heavy-lifter and slingshot (or "rail catapult").
For now, we're still faced with pushing directly against gravity with massive rockets. It's terribly inefficient.
The space elevator simply won't work, for so many reasons already cited. It's just too vulnerable to failure, weather, and terrorism.
I wonder about two other approaches: heavy-lifter and slingshot (or "rail catapult").
- Heavy Lifter: This is a specially designed aircraft with highly efficient engines and a tremendous load capacity. You design an orbiter type spacecraft that is carried aloft by this heavy lifter aircraft. Once it reaches maximum altitude, the orbiter fires its engines and rides up into orbit from there.
- Slingshot: Arthur C. Clarke conceived this a long time ago. You select an ideal launching spot somewhere along the equator where there's a mountain top/plateau tall enough for the shortest distance to Earth orbit. You construct a massively powerful launching system that runs on maglev rails. An orbiter spacecraft is positioned and then the system catapults the orbiter across the rails at an upward angle, with tremendous speed (whatever maximum g-force that won't kill the human occupants).
there's also the rotovator, which is not as subject to the flaws of the space elevator.
I think though for the next few decades, barring some unforseen breakthrough, chemical propulsion will get things to LEO. beyond that, some form of nuclear propulsion like VASIMIR will open up the solar system. Long term use of chemical rockets for work beyond earth orbit would be like settling the Americas with rafts and canoes. Possible, but not optimal.
