Move the ISS to the Moon!

[R.Mackey]

Might we one day preferentially put orbiting observatories that will require multiple servicing missions in lunar orbit instead in order to take advantage of the lower delta-v required to get from the lunar surface to the platform? Granted we would need a pretty sophisticated lunar surface presence to do so.

Very sophisticated. Otherwise, those parts and crew are coming from Earth, and there's no reason to make a stop on the Moon. I don't see this happening for a long, long time.

Being on the moon makes some problems of pointing much easier for a telescope.

Some, but it brings new problems. If you're going to do large scale assembly this is arguably easier in gravity, even Lunar gravity. The Moon is also nice and quiet with respect to radio frequencies. One can put the collector on the far side and never see the Earth.

On the other hand, the Moon is a severely challenging dust and thermal environment, probably enough to outweigh any possible advantages. Thermally the Moon sees fourteen days of blazing sun, followed by fourteen days of total darkness, and the temperature swings are on the order of 250^oC! The thermal problem can be partly mitigated by building in a permanent shadow crater on one of the poles, especially if imaging in LWIR or radio where low temperature is a good thing, but doing this will limit your field of view to practically nothing.

Moral of the story, most deep space science and observatories will be better served in space. The science reasons to be on the Moon all have to do with the Moon itself or what we can find there.

Since the ISS is a waste of time and money (wherever it is), your "intellectual exercise" begets the question of why not pitch it into the Pacific Ocean, or somewhat more safely, into deep space.

Politics forum is that way, sir.

Incidentally, the problem of deorbiting the ISS is a big one.

 

[JJM]

What a depressingly short-sighted perspective.

NASA: AUGUSTINE PANEL FINDS LITTLE FOR ASTRO NAUGHTS TO DO. As described by Joel Achenbach in this morning's Washington Post, "Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation," the final report of the 10 person committee led by former aerospace executive Norman Augustine, came up empty. The 154 page report is unenthusiastic about the Ares I rocket under development to replace the space shuttle, and suggested a heavy lift rocket to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit. Augustine said NASA should be building spaceships that can travel to distant destinations "rather than running a trucking service to low-Earth orbit." Yes, of course, but what distant destination? The panel proposes a flyby of Mars. A flyby? We conduct a huge and costly mission just to look out the window? Perhaps they could point their cell phone out the window.

http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN09/wn102209.html

 

[BenBurch]

...

Incidentally, the problem of deorbiting the ISS is a big one.

I would not want to be responsible for computing the probable cross-range.

 

[Travis]

http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN09/wn102209.html

Actually a flyby might be useful in testing the life support and guidance features for a future landing on Mars. Similar to Apollo 8.

 

[JJM]

... Politics forum is that way, sir. ...

That is an interesting point, the problem straddles science and politics. Twenty years ago, after the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a desire to keep the Soviet rocket scientists employed in Russia, rather than N. Korea, Iran, etc. Also, then-President Bush (pere) hoped that 50 years hence, on Mars arrival, he would be fondly remembered; just as the late JF Kennedy was when we landed on the Moon. Note that in the 70s, then-President Nixon canceled the final Moon missions because there was nothing to do there- and the annoyance that every landing resurrected the memory of his late rival (Kennedy).

As a scientist, I challenge others to explain the scientific benefit of humans in space. Perhaps they can then lobby Congress to stop the program. So far, the scientists (here) have not come up with any scientific justification for the astronaut program. I am not even sure if the missions to repair the Hubble telescope were cost-effective vs simply launching another one. (I would like to know the relative costs if anyone knows.)

So, I challenge everyone again- what are humans doing in orbit that cannot be done by robots (who don't need toilets)? Britain's Royal astronomer is "underwhelmed" by the research, and former America Physical Society president (professor Bob Park) calls what they are doing "school science projects." I think Park would acknowledge that good quality research is done in space, it just does not require people being there.

You also have to consider the fact that the Sun can belch elemental particles in our direction (as it did 150 years ago), and it will fry everyone that is not heavily shielded (it costs $100k to launch a pound). At that time, Morse-code operators were electrocuted and their offices were set on fire. We were simply lucky that no such thing happened on our Moon excursions. When your cable TV is fried, do you want to watch that destruction on local broadcast (when it recovers).

 

[Toke]

Research tend to pay off one way or another, and it is hard to tell in advance what is worthwhile. That you can't see any point is space programs does not mean that there isn't one.

 

[JJM]

Research tend to pay off one way or another, and it is hard to tell in advance what is worthwhile. That you can't see any point is space programs does not mean that there isn't one.

That is true. However, we do know that humans in orbit have not done anything that cannot be done robotically. Even the latest Hubble repair was potentially a robotic mission. You have to look at return on investment- so far it has been nil. It would take some monster discovery to justify the expense, and cost in human life, to justify the effort to date.

The only thing we cannot do on Earth is determine the effects of weightlessness on humans. We have tons of that data now. An astro naught is just returning now after a couple months on the ISS, her contribution to that database will be trivial. Nevermind that the information is trivial since, barring some revolutionary discovery on Earth, only a few dozen people will ever get go into space.

 

[arthwollipot]

http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN09/wn102209.html

Your point?

Yes, I'm aware that Park is against human space exploration. I've been on his What's New mailing list for many years. I think his perspective is depressingly short-sighted.

 

[BenBurch]

My problem is not so much with man going places - its with man going places with some chance of survival.

No spacecraft design I have seen yet could save Mars-bound astronauts from a class-X solar flare.

 

[Toke]

My problem is not so much with man going places - its with man going places with some chance of survival.

No spacecraft design I have seen yet could save Mars-bound astronauts from a class-X solar flare.

The moon have large deposits of accessible dust and rubble for radiation shielding.

So a moon base would consist of a stone quarry and a solar farm to feed the water to fuel factory. I sounds like a huge investment.
While we are at it why not figure out a way to build most of a spaceships hull with local material?

 

[kedo1981]

"Wanted
Untold numbers of men and women willing to face certain death.
Journey into an environment that will almost certainly kill you.
Explore new territory that will do it’s best kill you.
Spend all your money and all your societies money for very little return.
All for the glory of being completely forgotten.
Signed
The Guy that invented the first boat
20 thousand BC (or there bouts) "

 

[BenBurch]

The moon have large deposits of accessible dust and rubble for radiation shielding.

So a moon base would consist of a stone quarry and a solar farm to feed the water to fuel factory. I sounds like a huge investment.
While we are at it why not figure out a way to build most of a spaceships hull with local material?

Easy to say. Not feasible to DO.

Go ahead and try, though. Things are always learned from failures.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The ISS is and has been useful in its own right, among other things to teach us how to build and manage large structures in space. It's an enormous problem all its own.

It may be an enormous problem, but I hardly think that reason doing something is useful is simply working out how to do it.

We could build a gigantic pyramid out of stone blocks on the surface of the Moon, and I suspect we'd learn a lot about how to do that by doing it, but that's hardly an argument that it's useful.

 

[SeanDamnit]

bah, every moon/mars topic always ends up turning in to a manned space flight argument just when it starts to get interesting.

 

[Cuddles]

Would the station be able to withstand the rigors of accelerating to an escape velocity and then decelerating to enter Lunar orbit?

Just to comment on this part, which I don't think was clarified - you don't ever accelerate to escape velocity in a spaceship. The escape velocity of a body is the velocity you would need to launch an object from the surface in order for it to reach an infinite distance with no further forces acting on it. Since rockets accelerate continuously rather than being fired out of a cannon, they don't ever need to reach that speed. In fact, you can pick any arbitrary velocity you like and fly into orbit at that velocity - all you need to do is accelerate to that velocity and then turn your engines down so that they exactly counter gravity (and friction of course) and nothing more.

 

[Dilb]

"Wanted
Untold numbers of men and women willing to face certain death.
Journey into an environment that will almost certainly kill you.
Explore new territory that will do it’s best kill you.
Spend all your money and all your societies money for very little return.
All for the glory of being completely forgotten.
Signed
The Guy that invented the first boat
20 thousand BC (or there bouts) "

You think swimming was only invented after boats? That those stupid cavemen didn't realize there was delicious fish sitting right under the surface? At 20 000 BC man was already bringing death and utter ruination on all sorts of species, like mammoths. The chance to go somewhere else and eat more mammoths would be a golden opportunity.

On topic, moving out of earth's gravitational well is expensive. LEO is very far 'downhill' compared to getting into Lunar orbit, with very few advantages. If the energy to launch stuff was nearly free, a moon base could be useful, as it would have gravity, radiation shielding, and scientific things like no atmosphere, reasonably high vacuum, and cryogenic temperatures on tap, but the space around the moon still wouldn't be that valuable compared to the space around the earth.

 

[R.Mackey]

It may be an enormous problem, but I hardly think that reason doing something is useful is simply working out how to do it.

We could build a gigantic pyramid out of stone blocks on the surface of the Moon, and I suspect we'd learn a lot about how to do that by doing it, but that's hardly an argument that it's useful.

Yes, but we do wish to build large structures in space. We have no plans to build pyramids on the Moon, as far as I know.

There is no question that ISS is and has been useful. Whether or not it is the best usage of funds spent on it is subjective, and I tend to avoid the political argument, partly because I am too close to the problem.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Yes, but we do wish to build large structures in space. We have no plans to build pyramids on the Moon, as far as I know.

There is no question that ISS is and has been useful. Whether or not it is the best usage of funds spent on it is subjective, and I tend to avoid the political argument, partly because I am too close to the problem.

I don't shy away from that. I happen to think we could have learned a lot more using that much money in other projects.

The justification for ISS has been a constantly shifting and changing one. (Remember when it was all about the protein crystals?) For years it was all about the science, and now I hear that the scientific results that came from it can be published on the back of a postage stamp. For a while it was about resolving life support issues and studying the effects of micro-gravity on humans living for extended time periods (as if the Mir never happened).

At any rate, is the ISS a large structure built in space? I thought it was a series of modules built on the Earth and transported into orbit and added on to the modules already up there.

 

[BenBurch]

... At any rate, is the ISS a large structure built in space? I thought it was a series of modules built on the Earth and transported into orbit and added on to the modules already up there.

A significant amount of it was assembled there. These modules do not just connect up themselves.

EDIT: you can make trusses that way, but these were not.

 

[R.Mackey]

The justification for ISS has been a constantly shifting and changing one. (Remember when it was all about the protein crystals?) For years it was all about the science, and now I hear that the scientific results that came from it can be published on the back of a postage stamp. For a while it was about resolving life support issues and studying the effects of micro-gravity on humans living for extended time periods (as if the Mir never happened).

The design for ISS also changed with the shift in priorities. No reason we should have never changed from the original pre-1980 plan.

One of the priorities is political, i.e. cooperation with the Russians. This mandated a change in orbit, etc., which many decried at the time, but had we not done that we would have lost ISS after the Columbia accident. Who's laughing now?

As we look forward to new exploration, and talk again about partnering with the Russians, the Europeans, the Japanese, even the Chinese, the international exercise ISS afforded us will turn out to be singularly valuable.

At any rate, is the ISS a large structure built in space? I thought it was a series of modules built on the Earth and transported into orbit and added on to the modules already up there.

We will always build in as large chunks as we can launch. The ISS is no different than what we will do in the future. It's also quite a bit more complicated than it seems.