LUNAR BASE DESIGNS

"We can be sure that those who come after us will think of much better ways of doing these things - and will wonder at our conservatism and our quaint, old-fashioned ideas. And they in their turn will be laughed at by those who come after them, when the Moon is only a suburb of the Earth, and the real frontier is far away among the planets. . ."

-Arthur C. Clarke

At JSC - High School Aerospace Scholars - http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/
http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/HAS/cirr/em/6/default.cfm
http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/HAS/cirr/em/6/1.cfm

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http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/HAS/cirr/em/6/8.cfm


What will the first lunar base actually look like? No one knows yet, but many have been designed. In the 1950's and 1960's, many designs were put forth by scientists and engineers who hoped that by the next century a lunar base would be fully operational. In 1992, the FLO design, the First Lunar Outpost reference, mission was developed (and rejected) by NASA. Igloos, railroads, buses, ecospheres, and domes, have all been proposed. Inflatable structures, underground structures, structures at the South Pole, and space ports at lunar libration points have all been designed. Hotels, laboratories, observatories, sports arenas, as well as mining and manufacturing plants are all very real possibilities. What would a lunar base that you designed look like? What types of power will be used on the moon? Solar? Nuclear? Fission reactors? Fusion reactors? Lasar beamed electricity? What kinds of fuel will be developed for rockets making the journey? Aluminum? Oxygen? Hydrogen? Solar sails?

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Russian Space Web - News and History in the Former USSR http://www.russianspaceweb.com/index.html

and what is listed about lunar base proposals.
- LRK -

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http://www.russianspaceweb.com/lunar_base.html
In the 1960s, the Moon Race between the United States and the Soviet Union made many scientists in both countries believe that human colonization of the Moon was at hand. Lunar bases became a frequent subject for the popular press and sci-fi novels; however, the space community also started looking at the problem seriously.

Advocates of lunar settlements believed that a permanent outpost on the Moon would allow extensive exploration of the Earth's natural satellite for future mining of its resources, for the use of its surface as a platform for astronomy research and as a "proving ground" for further planetary exploration.

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Maurizio Morabito was not pleased with the analysis of the authors on the last post. He has some good suggestions for use of Lunar Bases. Read his rant below. Appreciate the thoughts.
- LRK -

Before we mentioned the Asteroid 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4)near approach in 2029 and possible collision with Earth in 2036. Larry Klaes passed a link to a competition to design a mission to tag the asteroid.
- LRK -

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Design an asteroid tag, win $50,000

A competition to design a 'tagging' mission to mark and track an asteroid in danger of hitting the Earth in 2036 was announced this week in the USA.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/925

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Also at the Planetary Society web site.
- LRK -

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http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/apophis_competition/
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The Planetary Society is conducting a competition to design a mission to rendezvous with and "tag" a near-Earth asteroid such as Apophis.

The competition is being conducted in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). Findings of the competition will be presented at relevant conferences, and winning entries will be shared with space agencies directly, including those actively cooperating in this competition.

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Copied a larger snip below.
- LRK -

Hope we have continued support for going back to the Moon.

It is going to take some time, so every administration will count. Put those politicians in office that think as you do.
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.


Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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Thanks for the rant Maurizio. - LRK -
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Larry

I find these discussions more than self-defeating. Where else in the Universe can we place a radiotelescope permanently shielded from terrestrial interference by hundreds of kilometers of rock, but on the opposite side of the Moon?

Do those people understand there is virtually no astronomical observation at all in the low-frequency radio bands? What are _their_ plans for neutrino astronomy in the 1GeV-10TeV energy band? Both are ideas that become feasible in the Lunar environment

And do they really believe it is easy and inexpensive to place a set of free-flying observatories at the precise distances necessary for interferometry? LISA is at least 10 years away, if not more

Do I need to continue? Where else can we easily excavate regolith that contains the recording of billions of years of solar activity, in the form of isotopes embedded in the soil? If there is any place where the solar rays never illuminate, how much of the history of the galaxy are we going to be able to read simply by analyzing the composition of its terrain?

What other marvels serendipitously wait for us to go beyond timidity and explore the ONE astronomical thing that is not millions of miles away?

Stuff such as Lester/Yorke/Mather's reminds me of the definition of
stupidity: to damage somebody else without gaining a thing for yourself

(sorry for the rant and merry Christmas!)

regards
maurizio

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http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/925
Design an asteroid tag, win $50,000
Thursday, 14 December 2006
Cosmos Online

SYDNEY: A competition to design a 'tagging' mission to mark and track an asteroid in danger of hitting the Earth in 2036 was announced this week in the USA.

This week at the autumn meeting of the American Geophysical Union, The Planetary Society - a U.S. non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing space research - announced the launch of their Apophis Mission Design Competition, which invites participants to submit designs for a mission to rendezvous with and 'tag' a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid.

The organisation believes that tagging may be necessary to track an asteroid accurately enough to determine whether it will impact Earth, and thus help facilitate the decision whether to mount a deflection mission to alter its orbit. The Society is offering US$50,000 in prize money for the competition.

Apophis is an approximately 400-metre 'near-Earth object' (NEO), which will come closer than 36,000 km to Earth in 2029 - inside the the orbit of many satellites. On that pass, the asteroid will be gravitationally perturbed to an unknown orbit, one that could cause it to hit Earth in 2036.

"While the odds are very slim that this particular asteroid will hit Earth in 30 years, they are not zero, and Apophis and other NEOs represent threats that need to be addressed," said Rusty Schweickart, Apollo astronaut, and head of the Association for Space Explorers NEO committee.

Bruce Betts, The Planetary Society's Director of Projects said, "With this competition, we hope not only to generate creative thinking about tagging Apophis, but also to stimulate greater awareness of the broader near-Earth object threat."

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http://www.planetary.org/home/
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/apophis_competition/
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Thanks for the Pioneer Anomaly info Larry Klaes. - LRK -
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Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0612567

From: John Hodge [view email]

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:54:25 GMT (32kb)

Scalar potential model of the Pioneer Anomaly

Authors: John C. Hodge

The unexplained sunward acceleration $a_\mathrm{P}$ of the Pioneer 10 (P10) and the Pioneer 11 (P11) spacecraft remains a mystery. A scalar potential model (SPM) that derived from considerations of galaxy clusters, of redshift, and of H{\scriptsize{I}} rotation curves of spiral galaxies is applied to the Pioneer Anomaly. Matter is posited to warp the scalar potential $\rho$ field. The gradient of the $\rho$ field produces a force on matter and light. The changing $\rho$ along the light path causes the Pioneer Anomaly. The SPM is consistent with the general value of $a_\mathrm{P}$, with the annual periodicity, with the differing $a_\mathrm{P}$ between the spacecraft, with the slowly declining $a_\mathrm{P}$, with the low value of $a_\mathrm{P}$ immediately before the P11's Saturn encounter, with the high uncertainty in the value of $a_\mathrm{P}$ obtained during and after the P11's Saturn encounter, and with the cosmological connection suggested by $a_\mathrm{P} \approx cH_\mathrm{o}$. The effect of the $\rho$ field warp appears as the curvature of space proposed by general relativity.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612567


Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0612599

From: Mike McCulloch [view email]

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 17:57:45 GMT (19kb)

Modelling the Pioneer anomaly as modified inertia

Authors: M.E. McCulloch

Comments: 15 pages, 2 bw figures, accepted by MNRAS 19th December 2006

This paper proposes an explanation for the Pioneer anomaly: an unexplained Sunward acceleration of 8.74 +/- 1.33 x 10^-10 m s^-2 seen in the behaviour of the Pioneer probes. Two hypotheses are made: (1) Inertia is a reaction to Unruh radiation and (2) this reaction is weaker for low accelerations because some wavelengths in the Unruh spectrum do not fit within a limiting scale (twice the Hubble distance) and are disallowed: a process similar to the Casimir effect. When these ideas are used to model the Pioneer crafts' trajectories there is a slight reduction in their inertial mass, causing an anomalous Sunward acceleration of 6.9 +/- 3.5 x 10^-10 m s^-2 which agrees within error bars with the observed Pioneer anomaly beyond 10 AU from the Sun. This new scheme is appealingly simple and does not require adjustable parameters. However, it also predicts an anomaly within 10 AU of the Sun, which has not been observed. Various observational tests for the idea are proposed.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612599

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

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