Good evening, Which should come first, the orbital chicken, or the transportation egg?"

Reading others writings and thinking about my warm house as it rains outside, and I wonder who would like to live on the Moon or Mars or on a Spaceship to the stars.

I have lurked on various space oriented groups and see folks talk about how we might move off mother Earth and argue about what NASA is doing wrong or why we are still in LEO just going around this Blue Marble every 92 minutes.

I don't read in my little home town, Tracy, newspaper any interest in setting up "human settlements" on the Moon. We list the car crashes on I205, and the possible building of a bio-weapons lab at Lawrence Livermore Labs just down the road from me. (aaah to make sure no one uses them on us)
- LRK -

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http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=53463
Articles : The Why, What and When of a Permanent Manned Lunar Colony by Maurizio Morabito, on 18-Aug-05 12:11am

W.W.W. MOON? The Why, What and When of a Permanent Manned Lunar Colony by Maurizio Morabito

Snip
Background

A few points of note to explain the main assumptions: first of all by "human settlement" it is intended a self-sustaining permanently-manned colony, inhabited not only by scientists and astronauts. In the sense of being opposed to the idea of a "lunar outpost", the structure must be as far as possible from the old concept of "habitable tin cans" ('a la International Space Station).
Snip
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A trip back to the Moon for an outing is not a "human settlement" and neither would a trip to Mars. If you never grew up living in an igloo or a house built on permafrost (now melting into the ocean) why would you want to go live in a lava tube on the Moon or an ice cave on Mars?

Why do you want a space elevator to climb to GEO and a tether system to sling shot you to the Moon?

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http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn8725
Space-elevator tether climbs a mile high

* 15:29 15 February 2006
* NewScientist.com news service
* Kimm Groshong
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http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?id=4202
Sling me to the Moon
1/18/2006 11:22:00 AM
By: Chris Bergin
NASA researchers are working on an alternative form of space travel to the Moon, involving a ride on a giant slingshot that utilises the technology of momentum-exchange tethers.

These giant structures - roughly 100 kilometres in length - would rotate end-over-end in space, catch a spacecraft, before "throwing" it on a path to take it to the Moon.

Snip
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The ISS is still under construction and we are complaining that it isn't going to assemble rockets to go to the Moon. Not in a good orientation anyway. The shuttle is going to be decommissioned and we haven't provided hotel accommodations or space taxis, and so what, that I can live a year under the protection of our magneto sphere. Where is my high view port at GEO? Are we afraid of getting radiation sickness from a solar flare?

Donald Robertson says in an article he wrote back in November 2001, "Which should come first, the orbital chicken, or the transportation egg?"

Think about it, was the Intercontinental Railroad built to make it possible for San Francisco to be built or was it built to make it easy to get goods and supplies to San Francisco after the gold rush made it expedient to do so? http://www.speakeasy.org/~donaldfr/sfmodel.pdf

What do you do to get all people looking up?

Maybe a Lunar Lab of some extended time will be noticeable. Maybe an orbit by the Chinese will perk up some ears. Maybe some college students micro-sat launched to orbit the Moon send back a CQ that some Earth bound Radio Hams will pick up and send the message over the Internet. (working on my Technician Ham license :-)

Add to that add an Indian Lunar Satellite. Maybe if we get enough missions to the Moon my home town paper will pick it up off the AP wire and print it.

It would help if you find some fossils in those cold traps along with some ice that you could melt to make my coffee.

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http://www.panspermia.org/zhmur2.htm
27 October 2000: Microorganisms from the Moon

On 24 September 1970, for the first time, an unmanned spacecraft delivered a lunar "soil" sample to Earth. The Soviet Union's Luna 16 spacecraft returned from the moon's Sea of Fertility with 101 grams of lunar regolith in a hermetically sealed container (1). In February 1972, only 120 kilometers from the Luna 16 site, Luna 20 used a drill with a ten-inch, hollow-core bit to collect another regolith sample that was also hermetically sealed on the moon (2). Back in the USSR, the sealed containers from the Luna missions would be promptly delivered to the laboratory for the contents to be examined and photographed. But even after hundreds of the pictures were published in an atlas in 1979 (3), the biological nature of some of the particles was not noticed.

Snip
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You want a sample return from Mars, good, every two years or so. Want some sample return practice, stab the Moon and return in a week.

Quit dropping eggs from University Campus bell towers, build micro soil samplers with transmitters to radio back the results.

If you really want to go to space, find some ways to transport your egg and get that chicken out of orbit. :-)
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update

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http://www.spaceagepub.com/Daily.html
See image - LRK -
Credit: David Schrunk
'Malapert Mountain,' Possible Lunar Observatory And Science Research Center, Lies Situated On Near Side Of Moon Just Above Shackleton Crater And South Pole

Snip
http://meetings.copernicus.org/egu2006/
European Geosciences Union 'General Assembly 2006' in Vienna, Austria on 02 Apr thru 7 Apr; lunar science

http://isdc.nss.org/2006/
'International Space Development Conf' on 4-7 May in Los Angeles CA to focus on tourism, Moon; Buzz Aldrin, Burt Rutan to speak

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20015
Intl Lunar Conf 2006 / 8th ILEWG Intl Conf on Exploration & Utilization of Moon' on 23-27 Jul in Beijing; abstracts due 20 Apr Snip

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Maurizio Morabito sent a link to an article he presented about the reasons for a Permanent Manned Lunar Colony - LRK -
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Hello Larry

Let me point out some work on Lunar Bases I have done a couple of years ago, for a presentation at the British Interplanetary Society

You can read "The Why, What and When of a Permanent Manned Lunar Colony" at URL http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=53463

There are quite a few references. Of course one of my main sources was 'Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century'

By the way it includes my own proposal for a polar base called P.O.L.E.

Snip

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A note from Donald F. Robertson and some discourse with link to one of his earlier writings (Nov 2001) have some thoughts to consider. - LRK -
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A quick comment, Larry.

While I agree with Mr. Zubrin about the short-sightedness of abandoning the Methane-Oxygen engine, I think the current vision is the vision we get. The best way to make certain that nothing happens is to start fighting amongst ourselves. Let's return to Earth's moon and work on Mars as we can.

Second, Mr. Zubrin ignores one key resource that the moon can supply, which is oxygen. I think the moon is critical because it can supply low-cost oxygen for use on the moon, then later at the Space Station (which has a huge and growing oxygen requirement) and eventually at other application satellites in LEO. It could also supply the oxidizer, breathing, and (with
hydrogen) drinking requirements of future Mars missions.

This starts the earliest beginnings of a trading economy. A quick look at terrestrial history shows that trade has driven much of the human expansion across the globe. If we want space exploration to happen relatively soon, our first and highest priority should be to get that trading economy started. Delivering oxygen from the moon to LEO is the easiest and earliest thing we can do to achieve that -- and thus should be our single highest priority in space. NASA's current vision speaks directly to that goal . . .
and could more quickly lead to deep space missions to the Martian moons, nearby asteroids, and the Martian surface, and a permanent infrastructure for same, than any amount of front loaded government efforts.

My opinion, but based on what has worked in the past.

Thanks for listening!

-- Donald
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My reply - LRK -
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Thanks much for your thoughts Donald.

May I pass them to the lunar-update list?

My feeling is that a permanent presence in space for humans needs to be justified and sold to the public.

A lot of chicken and egg problems. Inkjet printers was a similar problem.
Hewlett Packard wanted to make printers. No paper that would work with the early models, and paper manufactures didn't want to make special paper if there were no printers. HP ended up making paper and printers to start out.

Someone has to have the belief and vision and perseverance to follow through from invention to innovation to production.

Zubrin is pushing for Mars. Some pushing for the Moon. Need some pushing for the whole ball of wax.

Could make for some interesting times and a lot of new inventions to solve all the problems (opportunities :-)

Larry
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You certainly may. However, I think we already have our chicken. In addition, you may want to distribute the link to this article, which was published several times and most recently in Spaceflight. It's a bit out-of-date, but I still think it's solution to the "Chicken-and-Egg"
problem is the correct one.

http://www.speakeasy.org/~donaldfr/sfmodel.pdf

-- Donald
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http://www.speakeasy.org/~donaldfr/sfmodel.pdf (Nov 2001 - 267 KB PDF file)

Building a Place to Trade in Space: the San Francisco Model (an Acrobat
file) most recently appeared in Spaceflight. Why would anyone invest the hundreds of millions, or billions, of dollars needed to develop routine transportation to space? After all, the only existing market each year is a few dozen communications, scientific, and military satellites. An unfortunate number of would-be entrepreneurial launch companies are finding themselves asking just that question. Humanity has never tackled a frontier as difficult as the Solar System before, so we cannot know the answer to that question with any certainty. But, history does provide some clues, at least to what has worked in the past.
-----------------------------------
Snip

Which should come first, the orbital chicken, or the transportation egg?
These are not new questions, but, in today's climate of slowly improving technology and rapidly decreasing funding, answers to them are more important than ever.

Snip
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More of Donald's writings. - LRK -
http://www.speakeasy.org/~donaldfr/

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Lord Kimberley sent the below links from the NewScientist magazine. If you have a subscription you can read the whole article. The snips at least give you an idea of what is of interest. - LRK -
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Larry,

For once the main feature in this week's New Scientist. Sadly only subscribers only for the magazine content.
http://www.newscientist.com/contents/issue/2545.html - I do get a print version.

It's time to go back

* 01 April 2006
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

In the 34 years since Eugene Cernan left the last footprint on the moon, our knowledge of the nature of the universe and the origins of life has expanded immeasurably, bringing us up against questions that are impossible to answer here on Earth. Now NASA and others are getting serious about harnessing the moon for science, and over the next 10 pages, we find out why.

We explore the opportunities available at the prime lunar locations and the challenges of working there. And we examine the apparently bizarre idea that going fossil hunting on the lunar surface is our best chance of discovering our own origins. For science, there's no place quite like the moon...
>From issue 2545 of New Scientist magazine, 01 April 2006, page 32


but some more is available at
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg19025450.300.html
and
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025450.200.html

--
Yours John.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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