Luna 2076 – Page 13 – The Geopolitics of Lunar Colonization

CubeSats to Probe for Water on Moon

October 8, 2015

CubeSats measure about four inches on each side — an oversized Rubik’s Cube. Photo source: NASA

The SpaceTrex lab at Arizona State University is partnering with NASA to create a tiny satellite, called the CubeSat, designed to measure and locate water on the Moon in the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper or “Luna-H Map” project.

The competition is intense to be included on mission payloads. CubeSats are small enough, writes Popular Science, that they can hitch rides on rockets with larger payloads and get released on their own trajectories to conduct their own science. The first official launch of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, scheduled for 2018, will carry 11 separate CubeSat missions into deep space, including one that will measure the effects of space radiation on yeast. The spacecraft will drop off LunaH-Map potentially along with two other lunar CubeSats to settle the question of how much water there is on the Moon and where it is.

The question for lunar water has strategic significance that the other scientific endeavors, as interesting as they may be, do not have. As Popular Science notes, lunar water will fuel exploration deeper into the solar system.

Jekan Thanga, the head engineer on LunaH-Map, dreams of a lunar gas station for astronauts. “Just think, we could have a refueling station at the L2 point,” he says, referring to a point beyond the Moon where gravitation alignments would allow supplies in space to remain stationary. “Our astronauts could stop there to refuel and stock up on supplies before heading out to Mars, or Europa.”

Since 2000 more than 300 CubeSat missions have been deployed in Earth Orbit, including the Planetary Society’s LightSail this year.

Moon Walking

September 22, 2015

In 1972 NASA published a time and motion study of Apollo 16 astronauts walking on the Moon. You can find that report here. The Atlantic Magazine has highlighted the findings here. NASA researchers were interested in finding out answers to very prosaic questions. Were space suits flexible enough? Would astronauts be physically able to handle critical equipment? Could then get up once they fell over?

One thing the researchers discovered: Because a person falls much slower on the Moon, he has more time to correct for a slip before reaching the surface.

Loss of traction on loose lunar soil — Buzz Aldrin described it as like “most talcum powder” — caused crewmen to slip and fall. Earth-style running was impossible. Astronauts utilized two “sharply divergent methods of locomotion” — walking and skipping. Both seemed to require the same amount of energy.

Mystery: If the Moon Has No Plate Tectonics, Why Does it Have Moonquakes?

September 21, 2015

In 1972 America’s astronauts left seismic sensors on the Moon. Gathering data for five years, they transmitted evidence of 12,000 moonquakes, reports The Atlantic.

Scientists have identified four classifications of moonquakes: deep moonquakes, thermal moonquakes, meteroid impacts, and shallow moonquakes. Deep moonquakes are the most common. Scientists counted 7,000 of them. Likely caused by the Earth’s tidal pulls, they occur about every 27 days and usually measure 2 or smaller in magnitude. Thermal quakes occur in response to the temperature changing from lunar day to night. Meteoric quakes are triggered by the impact of meteors.

The really interesting moon quakes are the “shallow” moonquakes. Seven of the 28 recorded up to 1977 exceeded magnitude 5. They last longer than earthquakes, where underground water helps dampen them. On the Moon, which is incredibly dry, seismic energy is more efficiently propagated.

Another factor differentiating shallow moonquakes from earthquakes: Unlike the Earth, the moon has no active tectonics.

The cause of shallow moonquakes remains a mystery.

Earth Gravitation Effects Scarp Formation on Moon

September 16, 2015

Humans have long observed the effect of the Moon’s gravitational force on the ocean tides. it turns out that the Earth has a gravitational effect on the Moon as well. Earth gravitation is shaping formations of cliffs that form as the Moon slowly shrinks, reports C/Net.

The core of the Moon is cooling. As the core cools, the partially molten regions in mantle solidify and the Moon shrinks slightly, a process that wrinkles the crust. The wrinkles form a type of cliff called “lobate scarps,” usually less than six miles long and tens of yards high.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified 3,200 scarps randomly scattered across the Moon’s surface.

“There is a pattern in the orientations of the thousands of faults and it suggests something else is influencing their formation, something that’s also acting on a global scale — ‘massaging’ and realigning them,” explained study lead author and Smithsonian senior scientist Thomas Watters of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

That force comes from the gravitational pull of the Earth.

Because the Moon’s core is still cooling, the scarps are likely still forming. Seismic activity is likely to peak when the Earth and Moon are furthest apart. NASA hopes to be able to monitor the hypothesized moonquakes with a lunar seismic network..

Luna 25 Probe to Restart Russian Ambitions on the Moon

September 3, 2015

Model of the Luna 25 probe. Photo credit: Gazet.ru.

Russia is pinning its hopes for lunar colonization on Luna 25, a probe set for launch in 2025 — making it the first Russian craft to land on the Moon since 1976. Luna 25 will pave the way for an even bigger coal, a crewed landing and lunar base, reports Spaceflight Insider.

The probe, also known as the Luna-Glob lander, will land in the Boguslavsky crater near the lunar south pole and analyze the region’s regoloth. Its four television cameras will take footage of the area. Another two cameras will observe the work of the probe’s digging tool. A radioisotope thermoelectric device will provide power by converting the heat generated by the decay of plutonium-238 isotope into electricity.

“This mission is a scientific-technological one. We want to carry out scientific experiments there, but this is a technological mission in the sense that we need to return to the Moon, learn how to land, and survive the lunar night, since a lot of what was achieved in the 1970s has been forgotten,” said Vladislav Tretyako, a researcher in nuclear planetology at the Russian Space Research institute. more “Luna 25 Probe to Restart Russian Ambitions on the Moon”

Bigelow Touts Benefits of Inflatable Habitats

August 18, 2015

Is the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) the future of outer space habitation? Bigelow Aerospace hopes to demonstrate that it is with the launch of BEAM on the next launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, reports Space.com.

“This will give us the opportunity to demonstrate expandable-habitat technology as part of a crewed system for the very first time,” said Michael Gold, director of Washington, D.C., operations and business growth for Bigelow Aerospace. “This will be a very big step.”

The inflatable habitat is launched in a tightly packed configuration, taking up less room in a rocket than traditional metal habitats. When expanded, they offer much more living space when they reach their destinations. They also offer greater protection against space radiation and debris strikes than metal modules do, Bigelow contends.

The idea of inflatable habitats has been around for more than 50 years but the earliest model, made of rubber, would have been destroyed by any meteoroid or piece of space junk. The concept had to be shelved until materials science advanced to the point where Kevlar-like weaves were strong enough to withstand the space environment. more “Bigelow Touts Benefits of Inflatable Habitats”

Explore Space from the Comfort of Your Own Home

August 18, 2015

SpaceVR, a San Francisco, Calif.-based virtual reality company, wants to bring solar-system exploration to Earth by using modified GroPro cameras to capture and convey immersive, 3D views from the Space Station. In time, the startup hopes to capture the entire astronaut experience, reports Space.com, from training to launch to spacewalks.Ultimately, the aspiration is to put VR cameras aboard missions to the Moon, asteroids, Mars, and Jupiter.

“We want to take space exploration where it was meant to go — the whole planet experiencing it together,” said SpaceVR co-founder and chief technical officer Isaac De Souza. “When people take their first steps on Mars, there should be a SpaceVR camera there to watch.”

As of Aug. 17, 2015, the company’s crowdfunding effort had raised about $38,000 out of $500,000 needed to put cameras on the space station and cover the first year of operations.

Neon Found in Lunar Atmosphere

August 17, 2015

Artist’s concept of NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft. Source: NASA

The Moon’s thin atmosphere contains neon, NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft has confirmed.

“The presence of neon in the exosphere of the moon has been a subject of speculation since the Apollo missions, but no credible detections were made,” said Mehdi Benna of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in a NASA press release. “We were very pleased to not only finally confirm its presence, but to show that it is relatively abundant.”

Because the Moon’s atmosphere is so tenuous, about 100 trillion times less dense than Earth’s atmosphere are sea level, the volume of neon is minute.

Most of the gases in the exosphere — primarily neon, argon, and helium — comes from the solar win, a stream of electrically conducting gas blown from the surface of the sun into space at about one million miles per hour. All of these elements impact the Moon, but only helium, neon and argon are volatile enough to return to space. A portion of the helium, argon, and neon in the lunar exosphere comes from naturally occurring radioactive potassium-40, thorium, and uranium found naturally in lunar rocks. more “Neon Found in Lunar Atmosphere”

Returning Humans to the Moon Could Cost Only $10 Billion

July 20, 2015

Landing humans back on the Moon could cost only $10 billion, one-tenth the cost of previous estimates of $100 billion, according to a study released by the National Space Society and the Space Frontier Foundation, two nonprofits that advocate building human settlements beyond earth.

“A factor of ten reduction in cost changes everything,” said Mark Hopkins, executive committee chair of the National Space Society, in a press release.

The 2014 Human Spaceflight Report cites two source of cost reductions: the forging of private and international partnerships, and the ability to mine fuel on the Moon. The report envisions setting up a lunar industrial base that mines water from the lunar regolith, reports Popular Mechanics, and then sends the hydrogen into orbit around the Moon where Mars-bounds spacecraft can refuel. The industrial base would house four astronauts. Within 12 years, it would provide 200 megatons of propellant at a cost of $40 billion.

Bigelow Asks for Clarification of Property Rights on the Moon

February 24, 2014

Property rights are essential in order to establish a space industry operating beyond Low Earth Orbit, says Robert Bigelow, president of Bigelow Aerospace, and he’s seeking clarification from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Space Transportation (AST) on whether a Moon habitat would have a zone of operation in which other persons are prevented from entering.

In December, Bigelow asked AST to confirm that no future AST license would interfere with the operations of a Bigelow habitat, Director of D.C. Operations Mike Gold told NASA Spaceflight.

The International Space Station has a zone of operation, extending extends 200 kilometers from the station, that keeps out all manned or “mannable” objects. According to Gold, a zone of operation on the Moon would be organic, varying in size depending upon the circumstances. It would be small for a robotic payload and larger for a human payload such as a habitat.

Defining property rights is critical to developing the Moon, says Bigelow.

“(It is) nearly impossible at this time to identify exactly what activities will sustain commercial industry on the Moon, mining of resources such as Helium-3, mining rare earth elements, or leveraging fields of solar arrays for power generation are all possibilities.

Bigelow notes that regardless of whether these ideas come to fruition or not, the granting of property rights could lead to substantial non-governmental funds being invested in space on the basis of the potential that exists for future development.

During the press conference that followed the release of the Gate 2 Report, Bigelow mentioned that he believes that extracting resources from the Moon makes more sense that extracting them from an asteroid.

“People talk about harvesting an asteroid, well, the Moon has been bombarded for billions of years by asteroids especially, the back side of the Moon. So there is probably no material that an asteroid has ever contained that isn’t somewhere on the Moon.”