Posted on by Eric Robertson

Race to Mars, err…the Moon

European Space Agency announces plans to build a ‘Moon village’ by 2030

Villages on the Moon built by huge 3D printers and inhabited for months at a time by teams of astronauts could be a reality in the next decade or so, a recent conference of 200 scientists, engineers, and industry experts has concluded. Construction of this manned lunar base could begin in as little as five years, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced at their International Symposium on Moon 2020-2030 in the Netherlands last month, suggesting that a new Moon village could provide a potential springboard for future missions to Mars.

“The ESA space-exploration strategy sets the Moon as a priority destination for humans on the way to Mars,” NASA’s Kathy Laurini told Leonard David at Space.com. “The timing is right to get started on the capabilities which allow Europe to meet its exploration objectives and ensure it remains a strong partner as humans begin to explore the Solar System.”

NASA in particular has a vested interest in seeing this happen, as the Moon has been designated the most strategic pitstop for a manned mission to Mars, with MIT scientists calculating last month that astronauts could launch from Earth with up to 68 percent less mass if they collected most of their heavy liquid fuel from a Moon base on the way.

Add that to the fact that NexGen Space LLC, a consultant company for NASA, recently estimated that a lunar refuelling station would “reduce the cost to NASA of sending humans to Mars by as much as $US10 billion per year”, and a Moon village is starting to look pretty inevitable.

The plan outlined by the ESA is that, starting from the early 2020s, robots will be sent to the Moon to begin constructing various facilities, followed a few years later by the first inhabitants. Back in 2013, the ESA teamed up with building companies to start testing out various Moon base-building technologies, and determined that local materials would be the best for constructing buildings and other structures, which means no need for transporting resources from Earth at an astronomical cost.

“First, we needed to mix the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide. This turns it into ‘paper’ we can print with,” Enrico Dini, founder of UK manufacturing company, Monolite, said at the time.  “Then for our structural ‘ink’, we apply a binding salt which converts material to a stone-like solid. Our current printer builds at a rate of around 2 metres per hour, while our next-generation design should attain 3.5 metres per hour, completing an entire building in a week.”

Architectural firm Foster + Partners came up with a weight-bearing ‘catenary’ dome design, which features a cellular structured wall to shield residents against micrometeoroids and space radiation, and a hollow closed-cell structure that would give the building a good strength-to-weight ratio.

Once we’re there, scientists argued, we could figure out if the resources on the Moon are as valuable as we think they are. “We keep talking about lunar resources, but we still need to demonstrate they can be used … [that] they are, in fact, reserves,” engineer Clive Neal from the University of Notre Dame told Space.com. “So ground truth verification of deposit size, composition, form and homogeneity requires a coordinated prospecting program. A successful program would then clearly demonstrate that lunar resources can enable solar system exploration.”

Whether the Moon village becomes a reality in the next decade or so, NASA is determined to get its astronauts orbiting around it for months at a time, announcing last month that it’s “going to get out of ISS as quickly as we can” to set up shop near the Moon instead. There they will be days, instead of hours, away from Earth, and far from its protective geomagnetic shield, which will give astronauts a better idea of what they would have to endure physically and psychologically on a manned mission to Mars.

One thing’s for sure –  we’re in for some exciting times ahead.

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Posted on by Eric Robertson

We are explorers part 2

As I stated at the end of a previous post, the thrill of exploration is great and it runs deep.  Emily Dickinson put it well:

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses — past the headlands —
Into deep Eternity —

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?

I suspect the sailor understands the divine intoxication.

We cannot afford to fall in love with the thrill of the chase and the often very closely associated drive to create a utopia.  Eden exists only in a single chapter of the Bible.  And, anyway, even Eden has its perils.  Our mission to Mars is not fueled by a dream to create anew, to bring forth a new order.  Rather, it is the necessity of challenges.  We require tests as much as we need gravity, otherwise we become weak.  And Mars’ challenge shall be this: Mars is to be our cradle for space travel.  We cannot afford to fall short of the mark.

Don’t fool yourself.  No matter how difficult the road to Mars, it is but a short distance from Earth.  After Mars and other planets’ moons (there are well over 100, according to NASA),  there is an immensity of space still left to explore within the Milky Way.  Deep space travel (or its first generation) shall commence from Mars.  Mars will have the first orbiting production centers wherein the first generation robotic starships shall be built and from those same orbiting centers they shall launch.

Our colonization of Mars is not about exploiting Martian resources, we’ve done too much of that on Earth and until we can learn to be wiser and more caring stewards of Earth we cannot at all afford to take anything from Mars.  Our colonization of Mars shall not be about national pride or dominance.  It was foolish of the American government to plant a flag on the moon, for America can never claim ownership off an off Earth heavenly body.  It is utterly pointless to plant any flags, save only the United Nations flag, if one must needs be displayed.

You see, colonizing Mars is all about furthering space exploration: What we can learn about exploring space and what we can learn about the best ways to explore space.  One example involves procreation.  Mars’ gravity is approximately 1/3 of Earth’s.  As of now, we’ve no idea if one g (or a g-force close to one g) is necessary for conception and/or birth.  On the Martian surface we will learn whether or not women can conceive and bring forth life on a planet having less gravity than Earth.  Mars will also be the place where we determine if women can conceive and bring forth life in near zero gravity.  (Between Earth and Mars there is no such thing as zero gravity, some gravity, although only a tiny bit, is always acting upon astronauts.)  It is safer to simulate the level of gravity found in the transit between Earth and Mars while on Mars compared to on a starship, much safer than on a first GEN starship.  Mars will also be home to our first experiments in terraforming.  It only makes sense to terraform Mars because that is the most sensible way to create an environment people can live in without having to exist under restrictive conditions such as a limited number of hours outdoors per day, or having to wear a spacesuit whenever one goes out.  In the end, while not exploiting Mars’ ecosystem, we will have to alter it, and do so to a great extent, if Earthlings are to live on Mars in great numbers.

The fundamental reason to colonize Mars has to do with the inevitable changes to Homo sapiens and to Earth.  As we know, all creatures evolve and eventual become extinct.  The best way to avoid this doom is to expand the territory we can live on.  Eventually, even if we learn to do a much better job of honoring and protecting the multiple ecosystems on Earth, we will become extinct if we stay on Earth.  Furthermore, there is no guarantee that Earth will remain habitable for folk for any given time.  A biological war, further climate change, nuclear war, a worldwide pandemic, these and other possible catastrophizes could wipeout people and/or make it impossible to live on Earth.  So colonizing Mars, eventually, colonizing other uninhabited planets besides Mars is a must.

Posted on by Eric Robertson · 1 Comment

We are explorers

People have been on the move, migrating, for time out of mind.  Whether one thinks in terms of the colonization of islands in the Pacific Ocean (the crew had to bring their own water and food with them, you can’t drink salt water) or of the Bering Strait, or of any other exploration you care to mention, humans have been at it for a long time.  The last time folk committed themselves to such a project was in the early 1960, when President Kennedy dared us to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.  We did it.  And what is more, we kept on sending men to the moon.  But the last crew to go to the moon left over forty years ago (1972).  Since then we have sent robotic missions to Mars.  There is only so much a robotic mission can do.  These missions are quite good at doing what they are told to do and they don’t cost anywhere near as much as sending Homo sapiens to Mars.  They don’t need water, or breathable air.  Geez, robotic missions (rovers) don’t even need a specific atmosphere.  About all they seem to need is enough sunlight to generate power and enough gravity so they can actually stay on the planet’s surface. 

There is a downside to sending rovers and any other type of robotic mission to Mars.  People simply are not as inspired.  Certainly, landing a rover on Mars is a great challenge, to date only one nation has succeeded in landing anything on Mars.  Landing people on Mars will prove even more of a challenge.

Here’s the deal.  When people travel through space those humans back on Earth actually pay attention.  It’s a big deal!  And we start to become more aware of the fragile balancing act required to survive on Earth.  Pictures taken from the moon of this fragile island we call Earth woke up countless folk to the reality that if we continually mistreated Earth, if we constantly took Earth for granted, if we went on polluting the atmosphere, and all the bodies of water, along with the land, we would find ourselves in a very difficult place.  That realization is proving out.  There is no debate any longer, not among the people who study Earth sciences the most, and who are the most knowledgeable about how Earth works–climate change is a reality.

It has occurred in the past.  This time there is a difference.  Climate change is now being caused not by recurring predictable environmental phenomenon, instead it is driven by our activities.  Industrial activity is the current day number one cause of climate change.  What does climate change have to do with colonizing Mars?

Crewed missions to Mars matter because once more we Earthlings will be exposed in a very dramatic and up close way to the reality that without a great deal of work right now we risk poisoning our only home.  A spaceship travelling to Mars will be a very strong reminder that until we find a way to crate a safe environment on Mars we have but one planet upon which to live.  Colonizing Mars will make it crystal clear that there is nothing about Earth’s ecosystem that is guaranteed to last until the Sun devours the four inner planets.  After all, Mars once supported life, we cannot be the reason why others say the same of Earth.  Finally, it goes without saying that Homo sapiens will either evolve into a different species or we will become extinct.  As to evolving into a different species, that may not be the most desirable path.  As folk have the capacity to realize the inevitable changes nature forces upon all species, ours included, it makes sense to do all that we kind to delay such an occurrence.  Colonizing other planets is the most obvious means of perpetuating Homo sapiens.  Staying on Earth is the surest way for the species to vanish.  I’d just as soon we do what we can to remain alive.

A further argument for colonizing Mars has to do with my title: We are explorers.  I don’t know if it is a genetic thing or if it has to do with major environmental changes (major draughts, perhaps?); maybe it has to do with something else, that persistent question concerning what lies over the next hill, or around the next bend in the road.  Not everyone avoids the less trodden path.  At all events, our kind has ventured forth.  Mostly, it seems to me, these undaunted folk probably left their homes because they believed there was something better.  Abram heard the call to leave family, friends, and home–all he knew, so did Gilgamesh. I know that I am most content when I hike or when I am on a sailboat.  I am free.  Unfettered from the obligations and the expectations of others.  I know the promise of unlimited possibilities.