President Trump Wants to Send Humans Back to the Moon by 2020

[Adam Jensen]

Back to the moon?

He takes the illegal alien thing a bit too literal

And we're gonna build a yuge wall around the heliopause! A yuge beautiful wall! To keep the crooked Ferengi out of our system! When the Ferengi come into our system, they're bringing us their rapers and their murderers! These are bad people! Bad people! We are going to build a wall!

[Vankrys]

Antarctica is a better analog for Mars than the Moon. The vehicles, suits, habitats used for the moon are entirely different and would be completely unsuitable for Mars.

i'm genuinely wondering why? Antartica still have earth gravity, earth atmosphere, a lot of humidity (typical problem with humidity like mold, rusting...). Both moon and mars are dusty rocks, antartica is covered in ice, vehicle behave differently on ice or dust. And of course, there is the relative safety astronauts may have in antartica, being on earth and a chopper flight away from warm base, rather being in space, a rather hostile environement.

At least that's my perpestive from it, maybe i'm wrong, what make you think antartica is a better analog to mars?

[XDurionX]

Like that "wall" that was supposed to be paid for by mexicans, ending up being a shitty fence paid by the american taxpayer. We know the drill.

Edit: I bet he saw that documentary about Nazis on the dark side of moon and wants to befriend them.

[zoomgpally]

Yeah, pretty much this.

Mad props to Trump if he does.

But this won't win me over or change my mind about him. He's an ass and his other policies make him despicable. But I am willing to give credit where credit is due. If he succeeds in getting a man to the moon, then good for him. Honestly.

Succeeds in telling NASA to do what they did decades ago?

If Trump sends a man to the moon, all he will have done is given the order.
NASA already has the technology, and they know how to use it. They would handle training the astronaut(s), building the rocket, and generally doing all the work...

Kennedy of course does deserve some credit, as back then it was new technology, doing something that hadn't been done yet

[Zeta333]

How's he gonna manage that if he wants to cut Nasa's funding?

pretty sure he said he wanted to boost nasa's funding to begin with.

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I don't really see the point. I'm all for science and space exploration, but that kind of implies exploring new things. We've been to the moon, it wasn't all that great and I suspect nothing major has happened recently to make it better than the first time.

There's nothing of value on the moon and there's no reason to head back, I will give Trump props for wanting to do something that isn't either batshit retarded or openly sexist/racist/etc. seems like a step in the right direction at least.

the moon is covered in fuel. We will need fuel refined and made available outside of our atmosphere for future longer trips into space. A ship cannot carry all the fuel it needs into space from earth.

[XDurionX]

pretty sure he said he wanted to boost nasa's funding to begin with.

Yeah, but he must get rid of that pesky healthcare and education first to pay for it.

[Slant]

i'm genuinely wondering why? Antartica still have earth gravity, earth atmosphere, a lot of humidity (it's a huge desert of ice after all). Both moon and mars are dusty rocks, antartica is covered in ice, vehicle behave differently on ice or dust. And of course, there is the relative safety astronauts may have in antartica, being on earth and a chopper flight away from warm base, rather being in space, a rather hostile environement.

At least that's my perpestive from it, maybe i'm wrong, what make you think antartica is a better analog to mars?

Because Antarctica has an Atmosphere to deal with. This includes all the things that Atmospheres have, that you mentioned. Moon doesn't have atmosphere, so that's a whole different beast. No storms eroding the hull by sandblasting it. No dust being whipped around by wind, getting into the tiniest holes and being bad for electronics. Things like that. Antarctica is also not very humid, due to the cold temperatures. Cold air cannot hold vapour as well as warm air. Compare northern Europe to the Amazonian jungle, and you'll realise the difference.

It's not as bad an analogy as you might think!

[Skroe]

Why is one of the most anti-science administrations in the history of the US even talking about science?

Maybe they should stop scrubbing publicly available scientific data from various agencies web pages before they start talking about wanting to send people back to the moon.

This is hypocritical to the extreme, and standard Trump.

Well the major Space Contractors are ALSO most of the major Defense Contractors.

I mean it's kind of funny that people are talking about "NASA budget cuts" in this thread. NASA has been one of the few government agencies to weather the storm that has been sequestration, the Budget Control Act of 2011, and the Obama/Congressional Republican dysfunction, rather well. It's budget increased modestly almost every year. In fact, the guy who wanted to cut NASA the most was... you guessed it... President Barack Obama. To which Democrats and Republicans in Congress said 'no'.

Don't believe me folks?

2011, 2012 (post-BCA cuts), and the 2013 request.


2013 enacted, 2014 enacted, 2015 request


2015 request, house, senate, omnibus (final)


2016 Request, House, Senate, Conference (what was finally passed)


2017 Request (last Obama budget, noted as "PBR"). Still operating though at 2016 passed numbers thanks to the budget deal.



And this puts it all in perspective.



The Obama Administration was never a friend to NASA Space Exploration and Planetary Science... underfunding large portions of it every year and trying to kill it. Earth Science? Lavishly supported. Obama asking for $1.3 billion for the Space Launch System in 2016 is a slap in the face after the prior year gave it $1.7 billion, and 2016 ended up giving it $2 billion. That was the Obama Administration playing politics.


Obama put all these budgets up, and Congress passed their bigger budgets. And it shouldn't be a surprise why. More money in a NASA budget = more money to a district. Lockheed is building Orion... they get paid if they're building an F-35, or if they are building a Freedom-class LCS, or if they are building a Mars lander on behalf of JPL. They get paid regardless.

The myth of "poor underfunded NASA" needs to die in a dumpster fire. NASA should only get more money after substantial structural reform.

-> It's field centers must be consolidated.
-> It's powerful Center Administrators must be brought under control of the weak NASA Administrator's office
-> Excess facilities must be closed or leased out to private industry.
-> Cost-Plus contracts must generally be replaced with Fixed-Price contracts
-> the ISS must be de-orbited in 2024.
-> NASA must present a detailed roadmap and industrial / funding plan for a manned Mars mission
-> Climate Science should be moved to the NOAA and co-financed with it. Climate science SHOULD be funded by government, absolutely. But what yous ee up there in those budgets is Obama trying to turn NASA from a Space Agency into the Climate Change agency.
-> The Space Mission Directorate at NASA must have its house cleaned.
-> NASA must have it's major programs budgeted in 5 year, mandatory spending blocks (with annual additional spending). Agency-wide annual appropriations must come to an end.
-> The NASA Administrator must be changed to be a non-political position and directed to serve a 10 year term not bound to the Presidential Administration.
-> A National Space Oversight Council must be made to provide expert-oversight of the agency's programs.

After it does that, we can give NASA more money.

[Slant]

the moon is covered in fuel. We will need fuel refined and made available outside of our atmosphere for future longer trips into space. A ship cannot carry all the fuel it needs into space from earth.

What kind of fuel?

[Vankrys]

Because Antarctica has an Atmosphere to deal with. This includes all the things that Atmospheres have, that you mentioned. Moon doesn't have atmosphere, so that's a whole different beast. No storms eroding the hull by sandblasting it. No dust being whipped around by wind, getting into the tiniest holes and being bad for electronics. Things like that. Antarctica is also not very humid, due to the cold temperatures. Cold air cannot hold vapour as well as warm air. Compare northern Europe to the Amazonian jungle, and you'll realise the difference.

It's not as bad an analogy as you might think!

i stand corrected.

[Zeta333]

What kind of fuel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

[Surfd]

We're probably centuries or even thousands of years away from the point we'll be doing anything practical on places like the Moon or Mars (unless someone makes an awesome plan to capture an asteroid by knocking it onto the moon). But outside of collecting valuable resources for use on Earth, nothing exciting is likely to happen.

You seem to be demonstrating an insane lack of perspective when it comes to just exactly how fast our technology develops. I mean, take a step back, and actually look at just how far basic technologies have developed in a little under 50 years. It's fucking mind blowing.

I have a portable cellphone, not terribly much bigger than a deck of playing cards, that, for all practical purposes, has more computing power than the ENTIRE computer lab used to send the first satellite into space. And that's just computational developments over the last 60 or so years. I am 38 right now. If we properly funded them, I could easily see practical shit getting done on the moon in my lifetime, and potentially viable solutions to mars colonies being put into practice before I kick it.

[Ripster42]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

I think he means fuels that are viable. Not H3 that is used in fusion reactions that aren't currently viable, and that has no real time table to being viable.

[Skroe]

Yeah, there is. And you don't see it, because you're letting your understandable Geekdom get the better of you. It's not about actually landing on the moon. It's about desperately copying Kennedy to give himself some credibility. Nobody gives a fuck about the moon, least of all Trump. But a narcissist like him sure would like to be loved by the masses. Which he isn't. Hence, the carbon copy of one of the most favourite Presidents of all time. Pathetic. At least Obama had the balls to shoot for Mars to follow the US credo of "bigger, better, faster, further" instead of doing shit that everyone already got bored of after the second flight. :P

Well, as you probably know from my posts, I've had my eye on Orion/SLS for years now. I've been talking about it here, for years, and I've been following their programs and predecessors since High School. It's finally all coming together.

It was already going to be a historic irony that some President, be it Hillary, Trump, or one of their successors, was going to inherit an achievement in space that Barack Obama's Administration spent YEARS fighting against, but that Congress lavishly supported. It's absolutely revolting to me, that Trump gets to "make America Great Again" by putting Man around the moon!, even though he had nothing to do with it and NASA has been mostly tepid about the entire thing.

[Slant]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

Yeah... that's a bit too much science fiction. Up to 50 parts per billion... that's not literally "covered in fuel". That's more like get a shitton of heavy equipment up there to mind 4 million tons of rocks per week to get enough to Earth to sustain our energy need, which is growing rather rapidly. That's a lot of heavy equipment. :P

[Ripster42]

Yeah... that's a bit too much science fiction. Up to 50 parts per billion... that's not literally "covered in fuel". That's more like get a shitton of heavy equipment up there to mind 4 million tons of rocks per week to get enough to Earth to sustain our energy need, which is growing rather rapidly. That's a lot of heavy equipment. :P

And again, isn't fuel we can currently use, because we don't have real viable fusion tech.

[Slant]

Well, as you probably know from my posts, I've had my eye on Orion/SLS for years now. I've been talking about it here, for years, and I've been following their programs and predecessors since High School. It's finally all coming together.

It was already going to be a historic irony that some President, be it Hillary, Trump, or one of their successors, was going to inherit an achievement in space that Barack Obama's Administration spent YEARS fighting against, but that Congress lavishly supported. It's absolutely revolting to me, that Trump gets to "make America Great Again" by putting Man around the moon!, even though he had nothing to do with it and NASA has been mostly tepid about the entire thing.

What irks me most is that Orion seems to be such a step backwards from the Shuttle program. I think we're not ready for space exploration beyond the moon, yet. Why? Because our propulsion systems are shite. We're investing a shitton of resources, time and energy into going to a silly rock that we'll bring some smaller silly rocks back, go "Hum, ok, we're awesome!" and then go back to ignoring space and propulsion for another few decades.

What we need to do is focus that kind of money on top of the research we're already doing into energy systems and propulsion technology that will be a game changer. Ion drive and all the low em silliness is fine and dandy, but it's not a game changer on the scale you and I might be dreaming of. We need fundamental physics research, we need to find a way to cheat nature's laws. Otherwise, we'll be stuck exploring a solar system that really doesn't have anything exciting to offer, if you think about it.

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And again, isn't fuel we can currently use, because we don't have real viable fusion tech.

Well, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in that if he can get that kind of heavy industry mining equipment up to the moon in a number that we can harvest and mine 4 million tons of rock per week, we might as well have fusion to use that fuel.

But it's still way, way into the future/science fiction realm and shouldn't be a goal of today.

[Skroe]

i'm genuinely wondering why? Antartica still have earth gravity, earth atmosphere, a lot of humidity (typical problem with humidity like mold, rusting...). Both moon and mars are dusty rocks, antartica is covered in ice, vehicle behave differently on ice or dust. And of course, there is the relative safety astronauts may have in antartica, being on earth and a chopper flight away from warm base, rather being in space, a rather hostile environement.

At least that's my perpestive from it, maybe i'm wrong, what make you think antartica is a better analog to mars?

Antarctica's dry valley terrain, temperature, weather (remember, it is mostly a desert), resources are closer to Mars than you'd find on the Moon (albeit, quite different from Mars still). In general, surface conditions in Antarctca, while inexact, are closer to Mars than the Moon. You cannot simulate Mars' gravity, radiation exposure, oxidized dust, low atmospheric pressure anywhere except for Mars.

The Moon's gravity is a poor analog for Mars. Furthermore due to the lack of weathering, lunar soil has different effects on vehicles and suits than would be the effect on Mars. In fact, the current Mars analog soil is modified volcanic ash from Hawaii.

In terms of the vehicle it would take to get to Mars... it would be several times larger than a lunar mission, so that would be purpose built. As for landing on Mars, with Apollo 11-17, we've seen the Lunar Lander... well... just set down on it's legs with retro rockets. A Mars lander / habitat would be an entirely different (and much more difficult) undertaking. It would likely involve a multi-stage landing profile, perhaps involving some kind of massive parachute-glider-retrorocket combination, because unlike the Moon, Mars has an atmosphere. But as always, the problem with Mars' atmosphere is, it's too thin to help you decelerate much, but it is too thick to ignore (you can burn up).

So in other words, landing on the Moon provides no practice for landing on Mars. What it DOES DO though is provide potential practice for landing on Phobos (a moon of Mars), and my favored Mars mission profile involves landing on Phobos first, and using Phobos (a captured asteroid) as a staging ground for a subsequent Manned Mars mission.




The attraction of a Phobos mission is because, in theory, we could build a reusable Mars ascent/descent vehicle whose expressed purpose would be to ferry crew (and cargo) to and from the surface of Mars and Phobos, and refuel at each point. It would only need to be periodically replaced. That would allow subsequent Mars missions to not have to fly ascent/descent vehicles... they just take the Transit Vehicle to Phobos, send the crew and cargo down via the descent vehicle, and focus on building planetary infrastructure.

You know who would be ideal for sub-contracting such a vehicle? SpaceX, who just so happens to be working on a Methane engine, that could be easily refueled on Mars.

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What irks me most is that Orion seems to be such a step backwards from the Shuttle program. I think we're not ready for space exploration beyond the moon, yet. Why? Because our propulsion systems are shite. We're investing a shitton of resources, time and energy into going to a silly rock that we'll bring some smaller silly rocks back, go "Hum, ok, we're awesome!" and then go back to ignoring space and propulsion for another few decades.

What we need to do is focus that kind of money on top of the research we're already doing into energy systems and propulsion technology that will be a game changer. Ion drive and all the low em silliness is fine and dandy, but it's not a game changer on the scale you and I might be dreaming of. We need fundamental physics research, we need to find a way to cheat nature's laws. Otherwise, we'll be stuck exploring a solar system that really doesn't have anything exciting to offer, if you think about it.

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Well, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in that if he can get that kind of heavy industry mining equipment up to the moon in a number that we can harvest and mine 4 million tons of rock per week, we might as well have fusion to use that fuel.

But it's still way, way into the future/science fiction realm and shouldn't be a goal of today.

Well you bring up an excellent point. Our propulsion systems are shit. Namely our spacebourne ones. Even SpaceX's most advanced engines, the latest version of the Merlin-1D and the forthcoming Raptor engine, when used as part of their rocket enable economical large cargo, but they don't get to destinations faster and still require a liquid fuel.

NASA knows this problem and has been working on a high acceleration variation of the ion drive for years. And it's come along very well. The problem though is that it's ultimate form" in one of their their envisioned NASA architectures for Mars, requires a Nuclear Fission reactor to produce power for it. Right now, they just plug it into the national grid.

The 2009 NASA mission archtecture for Mars (and subsequent updates) kind of engage in this fiction. They offer two paths: a Mars mission where NASA uses rockets, and a Mars mission where NASA uses either nuclear rockets (not a complex technology, we had flight-ready artciles in the 1970s) or nuclear-electric propulsion. But doing either of those requires a program that will be making said nuclear rocket engine or nuclear-electric propulsion. That basically isn't happening, and the clock is ticking.

If NASA is serious about going to Mars in the late 2030s, the time for deciding "we're going to use rockets to do it" or "we're going to use a nuclear solution", needs to be within the next few years. It takes a five years to build a new rocket engine in general. It takes a baseline ten years to build a new rocket system. If NASA starts today, they'll have about fifteen years before whatever they decide on will need to be LAUNCHED in order to prove that it works, prior to a manned Mars mission attempt. NASA, in other words, has a lot less time than it may appear. And when people say "oh we went to the moon in 8 years in the 1960s"... well... this is harder. This is much, much harder.

In my opinion, NASA must do nuclear for Mars Transit Vehicle. They would be insane not to. The ISS would have been built in a fraction of the missions had NASA powered it using a nuclear reactor. It took around 20 missions to construct the entire Electrical system of the ISS, which generates a paltry 120 kilowatts of solar power (by contrast, every single US Virgina Class submarine has a ~110MW nuclear reactor). A nuclear reactor was estimated to be build-able in four missions.

Insofar as exotic solutions are concerned... they're surprisingly not needed. Nuclear and Nuclear-Electric propulsion can go very fast, very quickly, within the confines of the solar system. Is it as fast as in fiction? No. But consider, it used to take weeks to cross the Atlantic and months to cross the pacific. Colonists did it all the time. Airline travel as spoiled us, psychologically a little bit. If it takes eight months to get to Titan one day, on a Nuclear engine, I think that's acceptable.

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And again, isn't fuel we can currently use, because we don't have real viable fusion tech.

A fusion reactor wouldn't get you any faster than a fission reactor, because in both cases, they'd be providing just electrical power to an electric propulsion system.

In terms of a fusion rocket - that is, using a fusion reaction to generate thrust, in the way a fision rocket uses a fission reaction to generate thrust, it really depends on the mass-comparison. Right now, fusion technology is enormous... megaproject scale. Tiny fission reactors are in operation today (granted, industrial-scale ones are large, but still a fraction of the planned size of ITER). What's better? A fission rocket that is less mass or a fusion rocket that is many times the size? Depends on how much faster or how much more mass the fusion rocket allows you to send.

[Slant]

In terms of a fusion rocket - that is, using a fusion reaction to generate thrust, in the way a fision rocket uses a fission reaction to generate thrust, it really depends on the mass-comparison. Right now, fusion technology is enormous... megaproject scale. Tiny fission reactors are in operation today (granted, industrial-scale ones are large, but still a fraction of the planned size of ITER). What's better? A fission rocket that is less mass or a fusion rocket that is many times the size? Depends on how much faster or how much more mass the fusion rocket allows you to send.

You're not thinking radical enough. Not big enough. Humanity has always had this cycle of innovation following research. We should be at a point where research progresses us. We need those big realisations that came at the beginning of the 20th century. We've had a century of rather little fundamental and game changing realisations that are actually worthy of the nobel prize. That's where we need to bite and start chopping some serious wood. Otherwise, we'll still be talking about bloody rocket technology in 200 years. What NASA's doing with ion engines is all fine and dandy, but it's not really innovative. It's just yet another refinement of existing ideas. Put fuel X in and burn it as efficiently as possible to get Y speed out the other end.

More fundamental research, less money sinking into deficient (according to the goals we set ourselves) technology.

[Skroe]

You're not thinking radical enough. Not big enough. Humanity has always had this cycle of innovation following research. We should be at a point where research progresses us. We need those big realisations that came at the beginning of the 20th century. We've had a century of rather little fundamental and game changing realisations that are actually worthy of the nobel prize. That's where we need to bite and start chopping some serious wood. Otherwise, we'll still be talking about bloody rocket technology in 200 years. What NASA's doing with ion engines is all fine and dandy, but it's not really innovative. It's just yet another refinement of existing ideas. Put fuel X in and burn it as efficiently as possible to get Y speed out the other end.

More fundamental research, less money sinking into deficient (according to the goals we set ourselves) technology.

Well the common thread for all exotic propulsion techniques is that they need an utterly enormous mount of energy. Our options according to the laws of physics are chemical reactions, nuclear reactions, and matter-antmatter reactions.

Chemical reactions are rockets and engines as we know thew. You ignite a fuel, or you mix two fuels and generate energy to do work.

Nuclear reactions can be harnessed a handful of ways:
-> Use heat to turn a turbine to generate mechanical engergy to do work
-> thermocouples
-> Direct Energy conversion, which turns kinetic energy into voltage via collectors. Largely theoretical.

Matter-Antimatter annhilation energy extraction is much the same as the above.

However you do it, we need a lot of it. Right now, we've long mastered chemical reactions. Nuclear reactions... we're in advanced shape with Fission... controlled Fusion is in it's infancy. Matter-Antimatter reactions... we know how to do it but we don't have an economical way of making it a reality.


That's basically how I see it. If every scheme requires energy, and a lot of it, that has to be the first thing resolved. We can then choose a propulsive technique based on that. Many people relate the real life potential Alcubierre drive with the fictional Star Trek Warp Drive, in a conversation like this. That's only partially correct, because while the Alcubierre drive would be possible, insofar as we know, only be a matter-antimatter reaction to generate that enormous amount of energy, with the Star Trek Warp Drive, the Enterprise is dependent upon the entirely fictional "warp effect" of their matter-antimatter reactions. In the fiction, Federation ships couldn't achieve even Warp 1 (Speed of Light) using their auxiliary fusion reactors.

Which is all to say, in reality, unlike fiction, the propulsion method is energy-source agnostic. So if you're looking for something truly exotic, I'd say... let's find a way to economically do antimatter production and containment, which will then lead to controlled large matter-antimatter reactions. If that's too far away, one step below that, is of course, fusion technology.