Written in 1987, still true today:
Introduction
Many of us have a great dream of people living in space permanently and independently. There need not be logical reasons for this vision: it may very well be an expression of a biological imperative to fill every possible ecological niche. Of course our living in more niches like space would increase humanity's survivability, and I happen to feel that this is a good thing. I give no apologies for being a flaming humanophile.
What is the best way to achieve this dream? What can we do such that we may see people living in space independent of earth in our lifetimes? It is apparent that if the United States does nothing, space will still become inhabited by Russians. That is fine. But I hope we are the ones to do it.
This note is a proposal for a project that may be the key to accomplishing the goal. Possible projects will be compared against each other. But first it is important to discuss the features of successful projects.
Successful Projects
Elements of a successful project are stated here without proof:
• The project should have clear, limited goals.
• Each major step of the project should be doable within a graduate student lifetime.
• They should use pre-existing materials and techniques.
• There should be a relatively low entry cost.
• The project should offer the possibility of early return on investment.
• It should have a unique technological niche: competition can kill innovative projects in their infancy.
• The project should form a firm base for future expansion.
• Single failure points should be avoided at all costs.
The shuttle project failed on many of these points. The National Commission on Space also fails many points: their goals are too broad and nebulous.
Proposed Space Projects
Below are five proposed projects for insuring mankind's survival in space. All have been bouncing around for years. Which of the five, if any, whould be the best path to take?
Boosters to Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
Every technological nation on the face of the planet has plans to build new boosters. The competition is fierce, and the pressure to lower costs is intense. Nothing that a small group can do with the design of new boosters can have much of an effect on space.
LEO Space Station
Space stations will clearly be needed eventually, to develop a good infrastructure for permanent human occupation in space. At least two nations are working on LEO space stations right now, more will follow. But a small group cannot compete against nations with billions to spend.
A second problem with space stations is that there is no incentive to develop an independent presence, since they will be visited so frequently. This independence is absolutely crucial to the vision. With independence there is no economic limitation to future expansion of human presence in space.
Perhaps the best way to think of boosters and space stations is to make the analogy with the development of aviation: new airlines do not have to start by spending literally billions on airports, navigational aids, charts, etc. That infrastructure has been set up for them by the government. The same is of course true for roads: every trucker need not spend billions on highways. One reason for the existence of governments is to create these infrastructures that make commerce possible.
Boosters, space stations, and orbital transfer vehicles will be the governmental infrastructure of space. We want to merely make use of the system.
L5 Space Station
Or equivalently, a space station in geosynchronous orbit (GSO). They are equivalent because the energy cost to go from GSO to L5 is approximately zero. The original proposal for a manned solar power satellite was outrageous. It grossly violated the rules of low entry cost, of single failure point, of early return, of limited timespan.
A more modest space station in GSO is interesting, and will certainly happen without our intervention. There are at least two problems: the first is the lack of shielding against solar radiation. The inhabitants would now be outside the radiation belt protection.
The second is a complete lack of raw materials: everything for life support and expansion of facilities will have to come from earth at great cost. It will not therefore further the vision of an independent presence. I do not see a GSO space station as the magic key to human colonization. I do see it as another part of a government supplied infrastructure, along with transfer vehicles to go between LEO and GSO.
Trip to Mars
This is the option sponsored by Carl Sagan and the Planetary Society. It would be very expensive and time consuming. There is no apparent short term return from the project. More importantly, there would be no incentive to develop a firm base for future expansion: the infrastructure required for colonization would not necessarily be put into place. It appears to be like the Apollo project, which did nothing for the infrastructure.
It seems that a Mars project is best left for governments with trillions of dollars burning a hole in their respective pockets. It's emotional impact may benefit other space projects following on it's coattails, or conversely the project could soak up all available funding (as the shuttle did).
Lunar Base
If done correctly a lunar base would be an unprecedented opportunity. There is unlimited raw material, unlimited shielding, unlimited expansion for structures, and relatively low energy cost from GSO. It is certainly a technological niche currently unoccupied.
If done by governments, a lunar base would be phenomenally expensive, again because all needed supplies would be shipped from the earth. But imagine an ideal lunar base than can produce anything needed using raw materials on the moon. For such a base, the one and only cost would be the price of a single one way ticket to the moon. The potential is there for a low entry cost and immediate economic returns.
It would in one fell swoop be the realization of the dream of an independent presence. This ideal lunar base could produce additional lunar bases, ensuring that no single failure point exists.
Lunar Base Pros and Cons
Advantages
No other terrestrial planet has a moon like the Moon. It would be a shame not to make use of this fortuitous circumstance. Advantages include cheap shielding, cheap raw materials, cheap construction. It is a perfect base for all types of astronomy: radio, optical, xray, gamma ray. It it also a good location for remote sensing of the earth. And it is the only one of the proposed projects that ensures an independent presence.
It could be argued that a lunar base now is too drastic: that effort should instead be concentrated on space stations in earth orbit. Imagine in the late 15th century proposing that a large, floating platform be placed in the middle of the Atlantic, as a staging area for the future expansion of the New World. Such a platform would of course have been useful, but at staggering cost. It was then, and is now, much cheaper to just go all the way.
Disadvantages
There can be no microgravity manufacturing on the moon. Actually, the presence of gravity is a major plus for lunar base. Humans are used to dealing with gravity, in construction, in living quarters. It is certainly not clear what the long term effects are of living in microgravity. This will be one less problem for the lunar base. Microgravity factories can still be placed in lunar orbit, and supplied from the lunar base.
The lunar base would be in darkness two weeks every month. This means that solar power cannot be the sole energy source of the base. Possible short term solutions include batteries, nuclear power plants, or some sort of chemical or thermal power plant. The long term solution would be power transmission lines or microwave links from lunar bases in the sunlight. Three bases, all separated by 120 degrees and connected by power lines, would be an ideal configuration.
This lack of a power source is a serious problem, but I do not believe it is fatal to the project. Perhaps mirrors in lunar orbit could beam sunlight to the bases?
What are the possible psychological problems from living in such a base for long stretches? The presence of gravity and cheap construction will make the psychological problems much less than other proposed projects. However the high energy cost from the lunar surface to the earth surface greatly limits options for medical evacuations, trips home, etc.
We have some modern experience with this: members of the south pole station cannot leave the base for any reason for six months. Perhaps much can be learned by the experience of this base.
Historically, humans have prospered in much worse circumstances. The whole point of this exercise is to have people eventually treat the moon as their home.
The occupants of the base will understand that life on the moon is extremely hazardous. But there are millions of people willing to take those risks, to possibly give their lives for the opportunity.
Economic Returns of a Lunar Base
For the base to be viable, it needs a near term economic return. The initial lunar bases clearly cannot be our ideal completely independent bases, and needed supplies from earth cost money. Possible opportunities include:
Products with Markets on Earth
It is not clear what can be produced on the moon that that would be worth shipping to earth. The moon does not have microgravity, and a much longer supply line than say LEO.
Products with Markets in Space
This is a great opportunity for the lunar base. Given the energy closeness of the lunar surface and GSO, it may be possible to greatly underbid shipping from the earth. The lunar base would excel at bulky or heavy objects that are expensive to get from earth: shielding, construction materials and fuel are items that come to mind.
Service Industries
It is impossible today to service GSO satellites. It the future it may be possible but not economically viable. A lunar base may be able to service those satellites cheaply. Perhaps the lunar base could have an exclusive service contract for anything from GSO on out. Anything requiring human presence at GSO or lunar orbit or the moon would be fair game for bids from the lunar base.
Science
As stated before, the lunar surface is perfect for astronomy. The lunar base could become a subcontractor for NSF or NASA to run observatories on the moon.
In the early days of aviation, airlines were supported by the government through the indirect subsidy of carrying the US mail. This subsidy allowed to airlines to exist and grow until they could exist on their own. GSO servicing and NSF observatories may be the space form of the indirect government subsidy.
Funding
Direct government funding should be avoided if possible. The levels of funding can change drastically from year to year. This is a long-term project that needs long-term funding. In addition, too many strings are usually attached to the money. And the potential for economic profit is that much reduced.
There may not however be a choice. The experience of startup companies is not encouraging. Only two startups in the last fifteen years that required more than 50 million dollars initial funding have made it. The startup costs of this project are obviously much higher than that.
One possible way out of this dilemma is having some form of short-term return. As will be discussed below, the lunar base will be self-sufficent in terms of life support, but also in terms of manufacturing. Are there any environments on earth that could benefit from such a base? Antartica is one possible place. Research for the lunar base could pay for itself by selling bases to such places.
Another possible solution would be to interest large corporations. For example, Boeing is currently thinking of spending $10 billion of their own money to develop a heavy lift vehicle. That sort of cash can pay for our proposed lunar base many times over.
How to Proceed
The good news about the lunar base is that the needed technology can all be developed on the earth. The bad news is that much of the technology does not yet exist. The needed modules include:
Closed Ecologies
Both the Russians and the United State (Biosphere in Tuscon,AZ) realize the importance of close ecologies for cost effective life support. The problem is much easier on the lunar surface than in orbit, since the lunar base does not have to be completely closed: there is raw material at hand. The lunar base project could publicise the importance of closed ecologies, to encourage the funding of research.
Lunar Studies
It is an incredible stroke of luck that we have in hand several hundred pounds of lunar soil. This material should be studied with processing in mind: what raw materials (oxygen, iron, aluminum) can be extracted easily from the soil? How uniform is the lunar soil?
We do know that the lunar soil contains 40% oxygen, 20% silicon, 14% aluminum, 4% iron, and a large amount of hydrogen in the lunar dust. These are all exceptionally handy elements to have available, if they can be isolated in a cost effective way. The relative lack of carbon and nitrogen is irritating but not necessarily fatal to the project.
The government should be encouraged to send more robot probes to the lunar surface, to get a detailed view of the available resources. For example if Apollo had landed on the earth, the soil samples returned would have been grossly inadequate for judging the mineral wealth of the planet. Legal issues of using the moon for economic gain should also be clarified.
Robotics
Autonomous robots are needed for the lunar base, but they are also needed desparately for all aspects of space exploration. The lunar base project need not spend precious funding on this, as governments and companies with billions to spend will do the work for us.
MicroManufacturing
This will be the pacing technology. It is not enough to have a closed ecology for life support. One must also be able to manufacture any object needed, from walls for structures to power tools to lightbulbs to computer chips. The cornerstone of this effort would be micrometallurgy. Precision objects made of metal will probably constitute the bulk of the required technological items. High value, low bulk items such as computer chips would still be imported to the lunar base for some time.
We we propose is nothing less than the creation of a new technological civilization. Every town on the planet today has thousands of ties to the technological base of the planet. On the moon each of those ties is very expensive, and must be broken.
What are all of the elements of technological civilization? What raw materials are needed, what objects need to be created and in what order? Perhaps the leaders of the lunar base project will be technological ecologists, those able to see systems as a whole and how they interact.
As mentioned before, the project becomes much easier if there are markets for these micromanufacturing factories on the earth. I recently visited the Aleutian islands, where every item costs about twice what it would cost in the states. If a microfactory there manufactured for example metal tools from materials at hand at about twice the cost of doing it with a large factory, it would be economically viable. More extreme locations may have even better economic ratios.
Transportation
As mentioned above, the project will merely buy time on commercial boosters and orbital tugs to get to GSO. A tug to go from GSO to lunar orbit is trivial, since the energy difference between the two is essentially zero. The lunar lander is not trivial, but makes use of no exotic technology.
Theoretically, if a single ideal lunar base can be constructed and placed, only one lunar lander need be constructed on earth. New landers would be constructed on the moon itself.
Conclusion
A lunar base is the magic ticket to independent human presence in space. There is no limit to the growth of a base with no economic ties to the earth.
Parts of the proposed project are extremely difficult and may be impossible in the short term (micromanufacturing of everything needed, for example). However because they are difficult does not necessarily mean they need be expensive. The lunar base project would be one of finesse, not brute force.
There is no reason not to start now. The infrastructure of boosters and space stations will be in place by the time the base is ready. To delay may mean postponing the realization of the vision to after our lifetimes, which I am selfish enough to not want.
Brand Fortner
January 28, 1987
Good Tip
Posted by: | October 24, 2009 at 11:44 PM