China Plans to Build a Moon Base Near the Lunar South Pole

I'd rather it was the US, but building permanent structures on the moon is a significant step, that humanity needs to take.

On the plus side, most Chinese are lactose intolerant, so at least the cheese should be safe...

 

I say we just Let China learn the lessons we did about the moon.....there are very good reasons we never went back. Lunar soil is deadly to man and machines, they apparently did not learn from their little bunny rover.

 

Fair point, but if humanity can't conquer the nearest extra-terrestrial body we have little or no hope of getting off this rock when we need to. I would still wish it was us to do it first, they will have the upper hand in fixing the problems, we will only have second hand knowledge and guess work...

 

Oh...we CAN do it, but would be stupid to spend the money and resources. An orbiting space station makes far more sense, especially on the far side for protection from cosmic rays.

 

I disagree, we should do it, or at the least do a joint operation to get it done. We cannot survive long term in the future in stations. There are going to be problems, but the faster we find solutions the faster we move to the next step then the next step after that...

 

We can and must survive on space stations. There we control gravity, position, expansion, resource management …….etc.....Once we begin asteroid mining the future has no real limits.

 

Budget ideas.

The president's budget for 2020 required by law that NASA build the SLS - our Saturn V class rocket, whether there is a use for it or not. It's being built in Senator Richard Shelby's state, and that turns out to be a significant factor. It required by law that NSAS focus on a moonbase and then from that base to Mars - whether we need a base on the Moon or not, whether we find we need more time or discover other alternatives. Since this would be law, it would be out of NASA's hands to make rational decisions, whether for efficiency, budget, science or whatever. This law thing isn't something new. Congress does select missions that they make either illegal or required by law - certainly not all of them, but NASA does not have the latitude to form a sound strategy to meet overall objectives.

In order to do that while cutting the NASA budget by 2% it required by law that NASA end it's science outreach program entirely and significantly cut science in general, including earth science, leaving the Moon + SLS consuming half the entire NASA budget - which had been pretty much focused on science.

That would have ended numerous space missions, some by law, including earth science missions that are only fractions of the cost of these stupendously expensive manned ventures. Also, the budget would have cut the budget for analyzing data returned by our science missions - science that would not be picked up by the NSF or other science organizations as they were proposed to be cut even more seriously than NASA. (It would have cut cancer research by billions and cut 30% of EPA, for example.) Plus, that budget still called for canceling future SLS versions - making it a relative dead end, not part of a continuing investment direction. After all, commercial vendors are expected to take over this sector.

For science missions, commercial vendors such as SpaceX are being used and are fully sufficient. And, SpaceX now does resupply missions for the ISS and is on course to qualify for manned flight to the ISS.

Lucky for science, congress did something quite different.

However, this is an example of what can happen if congress were to decide that moonmen are more important than science.

 

I just don't see this scenario.

Anything that would cause Earth to be uninhabitable would require many years to settle down. I don't know why a moonbase is needed for that purpose until such time as we've solved numerous serious problems that do not require us to be on the Moon in order to fully understand. How many years can a sufficient population live huddled inside a lunar lava tube without just killing themselves? Where would the numerous requirements for life come from?

The best investment we can make today is to ensure Earth is well cared for. With a moonbase estimated to cost more than $50B, we have some money to invest in Earth if the point is survival. And, given how these things go, I'd suggest that cost estimate is WAY to low. There are problems such as radiation where we just don't have solutions. Plus, we're starting at a point where we can't get a crew to and from the ISS.

Today, Mars seems more likely - not that I'm a fan of that, either. We should know why we need to "go there". Once upon a time, humans had to go there (wherever the "there" was).

But, now the places we can rationally expect to go are a miniscule drop in the ocean compared to where we already explore.

 

A moon base is just the first step. As it is the closest it is a place we would be able to build and if necessary make quick repairs. If the species needs to leave the planet, we are doomed unless we have mastered living off the planet first. If we can't even survive on the moon how would we survive anywhere else? This stuff is centuries away at the earliest, but if we balk now there is no telling how that will impact the future.

 

I'm not so sure that a moonbase is the logical first step - or even a step at all. In going to Mars, construction in space makes more sense than anything done on the surface of the moon. The Moon is incredibly inhospitable and presents the problem of gravity when making trips. Construction on earth is done in clean rooms. On the Moon, the molecular sized electrostatically charged dust is bound to be a significant problem that doesn't exist in space.

I'm not suggesting that we balk now. I'm just suggesting that we have serious problems to solve where building a moonbase on our incredibly limited budget does not seem to be a real advantage - especially when it devistates our exploration budget.

Let's not gut our science budget without well reasoned objectives and serious investigation and planning.

 

It makes more sense to start at the moon, Mars is farther away, which increases the cost exponentially. Until costs can be reduced our most efficient steps forward would be closer to home. If there is a catastrophic accident, costs will determine how long it will take to recover and continue.

 

That's not an argument for a moonbase effort today. It sounds good, but it misses the point of what can be done on Earth, in the ISS and in a lunar orbit.

 

ISS is far too small for any reasonable operation. We need to start thinking on a larger scale, we need to move ourselves forward and that is eventually going to require that we prove we can build permanent structures outside of orbiting stations...

 

Why? Why make a difficult process even harder?

Lets for a moment focus on the easiest and most Earthlike place to colonize.....Mars.

First you have the weak gravity and what that does to the human body.
Then you have the atmosphere and pressure that will kill you in moments.
We also have cosmic rays and stellar radiation, followed by storms, dust and limited sunlight.
Next comes the isolation such a distance creates and lack or resupply possibility or emergency response.
There are also the unknowns which may be far worse than anything listed.

 

ISS is big enough for stuff like studying how badly humans respond to radiation (with the ISS receiving only a limited amount compared to the Moon, yet showing real issues), studying growing food, etc. We should know stuff like how many hours "outdoors" an astronaut can survive on the Moon. Today, we don't have a design that would get an astronaut to Mars and back alive.

I would suspect a Mars base would come only after there is a permanent station in Mars orbit.

We have a LONG way to go for a Mars base and I don't see evidence that a Moon base is a needed step at all, let alone a first step. If we need a permanent station in Mars orbit, perhaps a permanent station in lunar orbit is better progress. Plus, construction there would be free of the micrometer sized and electrostatically charged moon dust that is a serious problem, and would not require launching stuff off the lunar surface. And, asteroid material would be more easily available if we found that to be of interest (which seems like a long ways off, too).

And again, we're talking about killing our space science budget - both in exploring the universe and studying Earth.

 

What's wrong with reflecting diversity & skills both?

 

Not anywhere the six Apollo landers went.

 

In a race between diversity and skills, who wins?

 

I'm not suggesting competition between them. I'm suggesting a cooperative combination of the two together.

 

This is clearly a plot by the chineezers to build a base on the Moon from which they can drop rocks on our heads.

Never trust the chinamens.

 

Dropping rocks on your head from the Moon could be a very complicated act. It would be far easier from Earth orbit. I'm not worried.

 

Nice try, chinamans.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/lunar-tunnel-engineers-excited-boring-moon-colonies-015102802.html

Lunar tunnel engineers excited by boring Moon colonies​

Naples (Italy) (AFP) - As space agencies prepare to return humans to the Moon, top engineers are racing to design a tunnel boring machine capable of digging underground colonies for the first lunar inhabitants.

. . . . harsh conditions on the surface of the Moon mean that, once up there, humans need to be shielded from radiation and freezing temperatures in structures which maintain atmospheric pressure in a vacuum.

They also need protection from meteorite strikes. . . .


Moon Base First.
China has "it" correct

 

...it is already done:



Same for our moon

 

Starting on the moon would give us the opportunity to learn how to build structures and figure out what is wrong with them while there is still time to fix it. If you start on Mars, a simple error or design flaw would be fatal, because there is zero chance of getting support there within a reasonable timeframe. There will be errors, design flaws, and other problems, better to figure that out closer to home than sending a new mission to pick up the bodies of a failure. In truth, the best designs we could come up with should be totally compatible in any environment...