Getting that lunar ice up into space as cosmic ray water shielding is the only path to any progress in Human Space Flight. Robot landers and rovers should be a priority.
A 60 foot diameter sphere with a 26 foot sphere inside it would require 2889 tons of water shielding for 9203 cubic feet of crew space (if my math is correct). This is about the same as a olympic swimming pool and three 3-bedroom apartments. As these constructs get larger they become several times more efficient. An 80 foot diameter sphere with a 46 foot inner sphere would need 6037 tons for 50,965 cubic feet of crew space.
In comparison the ISS has a pressurized volume of 35,491 cubic feet, though it only lists 13,696 as living area. I’m assuming equipment fills up the difference.
A pair of 80 foot diameter spheres spinning opposite each other with a tether system would require over 12,000 tons of water alone. Using the ISS as a guide and with half of those 3 bedroom apartments filled with equipment, this Space Station would have a crew of thirty or forty astronauts. This is not so extreme when compared to a 18,750 ton missile sub with a crew of 155.
On the plus side that water, as a medium for a closed loop life support system, would provide air, drinking water, and basic calories for an indefinite number of years with little or no resupply. Dock nuclear electric propulsion modules and off to the outer solar system we go with no dosing or debilitation. I believe that is how we will do it.
Lunar exploration with robots and rovers should have been ongoing and continuous after Apollo. We would have found the ice at the poles by 1980 instead of 2010. We would likely have found lava tubes by 1990. And by 2000 robot landers may have demonstrated ISRU of ice into water and propellants allowing water to be repeatedly lifted off the lunar surface and transferred to water depots in lunar orbit. By 2010 there would have been cislunar Space Stations and by 2020 inflatable habitats inside lava tubes. And right now, we would be seeing larger and larger numbers of people Beyond Earth Orbit. Possibly several hundred.
What we got was the Reagan Revolution and one of the worst designs possible for a Space Transportation System. Leading to NewSpace as the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration.
No…. Nuclear Thermal is no good for several reasons… it is a money scam, and it would be better to just spend that mountain of money they will blow on a giant chemical booster. They have all the data from rover so they think it will be easy to charge billions while only spending millions.
There are three paths; the one that will work right now and take us to Ceres is nuclear pulse. But repurposed nuclear weapons are politically problematic. The second is some form of nuclear electric and new TPV cell tech is improving the prospects of that. But it has a way to go. The third is fission fragment propulsion and it appears to be a nearly ideal concept. Unfortunately, the isotope required, Americium 242, would require a new near-trillion-dollar nuclear industry to be built.
They could replace the SLS SRB’s with New Glenn first stages and develop an engine return module for the RS-25’s. That is my best plan. Of course, a certain psychopath fanboy goes apesh#t crazy when I mention that. He even made a graphic to mock me with. Really creeps me out.
Human Space Flight Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit HSF-BELO will require, in my view, a Near Sea Level Radiation One Gravity NSLR1G crew compartment. A cosmic ray water shield well over a thousand tons and a several thousand feet long Tether Generated Artificial Gravity TGAG system. And that means nuclear propulsion and NOT nuclear thermal, which does not have the necessary Isp. It probably means using a wet workshop and getting the water shielding from the Moon. None of this is my idea…it is all from scientists and engineers. And fanboys hate that.
Waiting for China to build some BIG engines and then the west scrambling to match it. If they build a thrust chamber exceeding the 1.8 million pound thrust of the F-1A, let’s say they go 1.9, and then feed two of these chambers with one set of turbopumps, technically making it a 3.8 million pound thrust engine, they will be on their way to a Moon base.
Four such engines, with 8 thrust bells, and a center variable thrust landing engine, would be the reusable version of the original Nova concept entertained before Lunar Orbit Rendezvous made the “smaller” Saturn V the cheaper go-to. If only they had built Nova, where would we be now?
I can see inflatable habitats used inside lava tubes or in craters that have been roofed and covered over with regolith on the Moon…but not in space. Likewise, the plentiful depictions of Moonwalkers bunny hopping fancy free are not reality. Radiation means EVA will be for emergencies only. Astronauts will only suffer exposure when unavoidable such as transit to a shielded conveyance such as a Lunar Cycler, Space Station, or even a lunar water carrying vehicle. Such vehicles could lower themselves over surface features blocking most of the radiation.
Spacesuits will be needed for working in these repurposed craters or lava tubes, however. The main problem, if I am not mistaken, are the gloves, which precludes 1 atmosphere suit. It seems like haptic technology needs some investment.
The logical sequence is to identify and start with an ultimate goal. This was done almost a half a century ago by Gerard K. O’Neill…miles in diameter artificial hollow spinning moons. He also identified the economic engine to enable space colonization and also solve the overheating of Earth: Space Solar Power. The resources for manufacturing both Space Solar components and colonies can be lifted into space from the Moon using 23 times less energy than from Earth.
After initial industrialization of the Moon the need for resources like water and volatiles will grow. There are vast quantities in the asteroid belt with no gravity wells to limit exploitation.
I would bet the Chinese have identified the goal and are working on resources. And wondering if the west is really as greedy and stupid as we seem.
Large human-crewed Space Stations in GEO as repair and recycling stations are the best solution to maintaining a sustainable satellite environment. Megaconstellations are unsustainable. Strict limits on the number of LEO satellites are hopefully on the way.
In my view the ideal system would be Ultra Heavy Lift Vehicles launching to GEO. Part of a typical mission would be to make a stop and collect old satellites from a lower orbit and then carry them to the GEO stations. The second stage engine module would then separate and reenter, leaving the tankage to be repurposed.
This kind of space commerce would, due to economy of scale, result in the minimal mass launching and only engine modules reentering would result in minimal reentry byproducts affecting the upper atmosphere.
LEO crewed platforms will be gone soon enough, and their replacement will be the “true” Space Station, that is, a construct with both a massive cosmic ray water shield and a tether generated artificial gravity system.
A simple capsule would require, at a minimum (the “Parker Minimum”), 500 tons of water. For any practical living space at least double…and for a crew larger than a couple astronauts on a long duration mission double it again. The options are lifting a couple thousand tons of tap water into GEO, which is halfway to anywhere (not LEO), or bringing it up from the surface of the Moon using 23 times less energy.
This water from the Moon is the critical resource upon which any progress in Human Space Flight depends. Getting that water into a double hulled construct stressed for over 1 gravity of centripetal acceleration (a wet workshop) is a goal worthy of adulation. Setting sail on a new sea.
This cheering about spacex pocketing more pork for paddling in a duck pond is fanboy buffoonery.
The shiny is designed to lift tens of thousands of satellites into LEO. It uses engines about 1/3 the size of those used on the Saturn V, because they are cheaper. It uses a single type of stainless steel for both stages, because it is cheaper. The number of engines and structure, along with landing back both, entail a huge payload penalty.
The concept is a VTVL fully reusable SHLV, but much like the Space Shuttle, the design is mismatched with reality and likely destined to fail at whatever mission it undertakes. This is very similar to the gamble another wealthy eccentric took on a giant wooden seaplane.
The need was to fly cargo across the Atlantic if the German submarines succeeded in sinking ships faster than they could be built. The need disappeared. The low latency megaconstellation was never needed to start with.
Great questions! Thank you for asking. So, first, “fully reusable” includes the wet workshop concept. But a wet workshop program is fundamentally opposed to making money with satellites because it changes the whole point into expanding humankind into space instead of turning a profit. This is why it is not part of NewSpace ideology, which is only about profit. Wet Workshop reusability..is the correct match, not returning what is essentially a Shuttle external tank made out of steel.
Second, the shiny is designed to support an LEO internet satellite megaconstellation, one of the truly worst ideas ever. In regard to expanding humankind into space, it is a dead end. Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources, as the solution to Climate Change, as envisioned by Gerard K. O’Neill, is the only path to accomplishing the survival imperative. One path leads to Elon becoming god-emperor of cyberspace and the other to an insurance policy for the human species. If you worship wealth and individual greed, then Elon is your choice… not mine.
Space Solar Power is the economic engine enabling a multitrillion dollar multinational energy project on the Moon realizing all the dreams of space enthusiasts. Elon could never own and monopolize such an immense enterprise, so he wants nothing to do with it. As a state sponsored public works project his libertarian whack job fans want nothing to do with it. Fossil fuel interests want nothing to do with it. Defense contractors cashing in on the new satellite cold war want nothing to do with it. If the public understood it as the solution to Climate Change, they would support it, but NewSpace ideology is all they are getting….and that may cost hundreds of millions of lives. All of us end up on the right or wrong side of history. I know which side I am on.
Ironically, the Space Shuttle was going to “make space pay for itself” by launching all commercial satellites cut-rate and using those monopolized profits for “the dream.” The obvious problems were the Shuttle was a great concept but a horrible design and there was no designated goal, no specific dream, to realize. And the third showstopper was the defense industry, and the fossil fuel industry, and congress. Politically, the right did not want taxes spent on anything but defense and what lobbyists for the energy industry wanted, while the left wanted to address social issues and infrastructure.
Enter NewSpace, which could have adopted Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources as the ultimate goal, but a certain entrepreneur realized he could never monopolize such an immense multinational project. Making him the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration. The shiny is a new kind of Shuttle with a new set of problems and the new goal is simple greed by way of a contrived satellite market. What a mess.
Ice on the Moon 