Sentinel Exclusive: NASA wants to send astronauts beyond the moon

[bananas]

Source: Orlando Sentinel

Top NASA officials have picked a leading candidate for the agency's next major mission: construction of a new outpost that would send astronauts farther from Earth than at any time in history.

The so-called "gateway spacecraft" would hover in orbit on the far side of the moon, support a small astronaut crew and function as a staging area for future missions to the moon and Mars.

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NASA Chief Charlie Bolden briefed the White House earlier this month on details of the proposal, but it's unclear whether it has the administration's support. Of critical importance is the price tag, which would certainly run into the billions of dollars.

Documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show that NASA wants to build a small outpost — likely with parts left over from the $100 billion International Space Station — at what's known as the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2, a spot about 38,000 miles from the moon and 277,000 miles from Earth.

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Read more: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-09-22/news/os-nasa-space-outpost-20120922_1_moon-rocks-space-launch-system-nasa-chief-charlie-bolden?pagewanted=all

[MrSlayer]

1. Cool.

We could be there already if we weren't wasting so much money on wars and shit.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Whoa! Interesting, isn't it? Rec. n/t

[longship]

3. A stop on the Interplanetary Superhighway

Which is very cool and awesome.

Interplanetary Transport Network links Lagrange points throughout the solar system just like a subway system. The Earth-Moon L2 point is just one stop in that system.

[LunaSea]

4. Anyone else thinking 2nd term ambassadorial post?

[Festivito]

5. I wonder how they intend to effect communication.

Signals won't go through the moon.

[bananas]

6. It's actually a halo orbit around L2.

It will have constant line-of-sight communications with earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_orbit

[itsrobert]

12. If it didn't, a relay system could be deployed

n/t

[Festivito]

17. Adding a costly risky addition.

L2 is brilliant. L2 orbit can relay backside of the moon progress. I love it.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Doesn't matter what it costs

You just print the stuff over there. Don't you ?

Never the mind the alternative good uses to which those funds could be put.

[a geek named Bob]

8. ...here we go...

alternative good uses?

What about light weight alloys?
Semi-permeable membranes (which were uses for smaller and cheaper dialysis machines)?
Better weather forecasting?
Using a computer smaller than a house? You're welcome!
How about that satellite communication network?

All for pennies on the tax dollar...

[Dash87]

9. The further we explore, the more we learn about the universe and our own world.

If you had a problem with the defense budget instead, then I would agree with you.

[Fearless]

11. A revamped space program would create jobs

Just as it did in the 1960's. It won't be 500k jobs, but it will be some. Never mind the indirect job growth through subsidiaries and contractors. Plus new groundbreaking research. And who knows, statistically rare Earth metals could be found out there. Additionally, I'd gladly divert funding from some useless military project and reinvest it in American jobs, invention, and innovation.

Columbus was originally rejected money by Italy. That's why he went to Portugal. That turned out pretty well Portugal (albeit pretty badly for the natives).

[dipsydoodle]

13. But it wouldn't correct the inequalities which exist in the USA

which are the highest in the developed world.

[Fearless]

14. Neither would increased drilling safety procedures

But they're still a good idea.

The money wouldn't be thrown away. It would be part of essentially a government funded work program many of which jobs will have benefits.

[Posteritatis]

21. Zeroing out NASA's budget wouldn't either. (nt)

[rock]

10. We cannot allow a LaGrange Point Gap!

With apologies to Dr. Stangelove.

[Ratty]

15. I've always ridiculed a return to the moon as pointless and expensive

But have always been behind sending people to Mars. What would this staging area do exactly that couldn't been done in Earth orbit at the ISS? It would take less fuel to send a constructed ship on its way to Mars but would that savings in fuel be worth the construction cost? As I understand it it doesn't take much more fuel to send a ship to the Langrange point than it does to put it into orbit. But what about the construction costs? Would it be reusable? Do we build a Mars ship and then shutdown and mothball the thing when budgets get tight and political will fades?

[Sirveri]

19. You go to the moon to harvest the He3 deposits for fuel in nuclear fusion reactors.

Either that or you can manufacture it via tritium manufacturing and the decay cycle, however that has a 5 year lead time.

[Ratty]

30. When you show me a reactor

That can create energy from He3 maybe I'll listen

[Sirveri]

31. It's not exactly an old concept, but here you go.

http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=19296

Lab experiments suggest that future fusion reactors could use helium-3 gathered from the moon.
By Mark Williams

...

Even more surprising is that one reason for much of the interest appears to be plans to mine helium-3--purportedly an ideal fuel for fusion reactors but almost unavailable on Earth--from the moon's surface. NASA's Vision for Space Exploration has U.S. astronauts scheduled to be back on the moon in 2020 and permanently staffing a base there by 2024. While the U.S. space agency has neither announced nor denied any desire to mine helium-3, it has nevertheless placed advocates of mining He3 in influential positions. For its part, Russia claims that the aim of any lunar program of its own--for what it's worth, the rocket corporation Energia recently started blustering, Soviet-style, that it will build a permanent moon base by 2015-2020--will be extracting He3.

http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html

That 1 million metric tonnes of He3, reacted with deuterium, would generate about 20,000 terrawatt-years of thermal energy. The units alone are awesome: a terrawatt-year is one trillion (10 to 12th power) watt-years. To put this into perspective, one 100-watt light bulb will use 100 watt-years of energy in one year.

That's about 10 times the energy we could get from mining all the fossil fuels on Earth, without the smog and acid rain. If we torched all our uranium in liquid metal fast breeder reactors, we could generate about half this much energy, and have some interesting times storing the waste.

...

About 25 tonnes of He3 would power the United States for 1 year at our current rate of energy consumption. To put it in perspective: that's about the weight of a fully loaded railroad box car, or a maximum Space Shuttle payload.

To assign an economic value, suppose we assume He3 would replace the fuels the United States currently buys to generate electricity. We still have all those power generating plants and distribution network, so we can't use how much we pay for electricity. As a replacement for that fuel, that 25-tonne load of He3 would worth on the order of $75 billion today, or $3 billion per tonne.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/moon-mars/1283056

2. SECOND GENERATION: While useful for studying fusion, reactors operating with deuterium-tritium fuel are impractical for commercial use. Among other things, the reaction produces large amounts of radiation in the form of neutrons. Substituting helium-3 for tritium significantly reduces neutron production, making it safe to locate fusion plants nearer to where power is needed the most, large cities. This summer, researchers at the University of Wisconsin Fusion Technology Institute in Madison reported having successfully initiated and maintained a fusion reaction using deuterium and helium-3 fuel.

3. THIRD GENERATION: First-generation fusion reactors were never intended to produce power. And, even if they are perfected, they would still produce electricity in much the same way as it is created today. That is, the reactors would function as heat sources. Steam would then be used to spin a massive generator, just as in a coal- or oil-fired plant. Perhaps the most promising idea is to fuel a third-generation reactor solely with helium-3, which can directly yield an electric current--no generator required. As much as 70 percent of the energy in the fuels could be captured and put directly to work.--Stefano Coledan

http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2006/12/72276?currentPage=all

Nestled among the agency's 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel used in fusion reactors -- futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment.
Helium-3 is considered a safe, environmentally friendly fuel candidate for these generators, and while it is scarce on Earth it is plentiful on the moon.
As a result, scientists have begun to consider the practicality of mining lunar Helium-3 as a replacement for fossil fuels.

[bananas]

32. This fits into Mars missions in several ways

You wrote, "As I understand it it doesn't take much more fuel to send a ship to the Langrange point than it does to put it into orbit."

It takes a lot of fuel to send a ship to the Lagrange point, it takes a lot of fuel to send anything out of low earth orbit, that's one reason we've been stuck in low earth orbit for so long.

So NASA is planning a re-usable interplanetary ship which will park way up at the L2 Lagrange point for crew boarding, resupply, and maintenance. The L2 gateway will provide a habitat for workers performing maintenance on the interplanetary ship. Both craft will be built in low earth orbit and moved to L2 using solar electric propulsion.

We've never moved a large ship with electric propulsion before, and there are always surprises when you do anything new. This will also be the first deep-space habitat for long durations beyond the Van Allen belts. So in several ways the L2 gateway can be thought of as an early prototype or technology demonstration for the interplanetary ship.

Making the L2 gateway an international project will help defray costs and keep it from being mothballed when budgets get tight.

[bananas]

33. Beyond-the-moon base stirs up buzz

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/24/14072181-beyond-the-moon-base-stirs-up-buzz?lite

Beyond-the-moon base stirs up buzz

By Alan Boyle


NASA / Boeing via NASASpaceflight.com
An artist's conception shows a deep-space transfer vehicle flying near a exploration gateway platform at right.

A concept that calls for building a deep-space outpost beyond the moon's orbit has stirred up some positive buzz from space pioneers — including Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin.

Over the weekend, the Orlando Sentinel reported that top NASA officials have chosen the construction of a space exploration platform at a gravitational balance point known as EML-2, or Earth-moon Lagrange point 2, as the agency's next major mission. The outpost would be held in an orbit 277,000 miles away from Earth, and 38,000 miles beyond the moon.

<snip>

Aldrin has long urged NASA to set up a similar "floating launching pad" at a different balance point between Earth and the moon, called EML-1 or L1, and this weekend he said that platforms at L1 or L2, plus fueling depots for spaceships, would serve as appropriate "intermediate steps" for voyages to Mars and other worlds.

"It's part of my unified space vision," he told me during an international gathering of spacefliers and mission managers at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

<snip>

[bananas]

34. NASA response: see page 26 of the chapter "Habitation and Destination Capabilities"

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2012/09/nasa-ready-to-a.html

<snip>

NASA PAO has provided this verbose, stock-phrase rich, non-denial-denial response to the Orlando Sentinel article: "NASA is executing President Obama's ambitious space exploration plan that includes missions around the moon, to asteroids, and ultimately putting humans on Mars. There are many options - and many routes - being discussed on our way to the Red Planet. In addition to the moon and an asteroid, other options may be considered as we look for ways to buy down risk - and make it easier - to get to Mars. We have regular meetings with OMB, OSTP, Congress, and other stakeholders to keep them apprised of our progress on our deep space exploration destinations. This concept is a part of the Voyages document that we mentioned in an earlier Update posted on NASA.gov in June: http://go.nasa.gov/NASAvoyages ." Refer to page 26 of the chapter titled, "Habitation and Destination Capabilities."

[Ash_F]

16. $17.7 billion for NASA; 1.6 trillion for the military

Our NASA budget is 1% of our military budget.


The irony of it all is that someday our massive army probably wont stand against some other nation's more technologically advanced military, as has happened so many times in history.

[Posteritatis]

22. It bugs me that some people still seem to think NASA's budget's similar to the DoD's. (nt)

[Ash_F]

23. Oh also, some of that 17.7 billion is for the military portion of NASA. /nt

[daleo]

18. Radiation would be a concern that far out

It's an interesting idea.

[joshcryer]

20. Thank you President Obama.

Ending Cx was the best thing to ever occur to manned space.

[NickB79]

24. Better put in Braile control systems, because they'll all go blind halfway through the mission

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2039777/Nasas-mission-Mars-Scientists-fear-future-astronauts-blind.html

A mission to Mars may be high on NASA's wish list but the agency will have to solve a serious problem first.

Scientists fear astronauts could go blind after discovering an eye condition that erodes the vision of those who have spent months in space.

The illness has already been found among some astronauts who have spent months aboard the International Space Station and now doctors fear future explorers could go completely blind by the end of a long mission, such as a trip to Mars which could take several years.

Hopefully they can find a solution to this, but until they do, long-term space exploration by humans is not in the cards.

[Posteritatis]

25. Or it's the Daily Mail being vague and alarmist, like they are with everything under the sun.. (nt)

[NickB79]

26. Multiple news sources have reported on this. Google is your friend

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-studies-why-some-astronauts-suffer-vision-problems-during-spaceflights/2011/09/20/gIQAn9E1zK_story.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Astronaut_Vision.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/20/nation/la-na-blind-nasa-astronaut-20110921

[Ash_F]

27. Many mariners were lost at sea.

It doesn't mean human progress should be halted. Obviously it is problem on NASA's radar, among many others.

[bananas]

29. Interesting similarity, mariners got scurvy from vitamin C deficiency

and as I pointed out downthread, folate deficiency is likely the cause of the vision problems in astronauts.

"James Lind is viewed as the founding father of Epidemiology"

http://justhistory.hubpages.com/hub/James-Lind-who-discovered-a-cure-for-scurvy

James Lind who's experiment discovered a cure for scurvy

What was scurvy?

Scurvy was an illness that was prevalent amongst sailors on ships. The symptoms of the disease are exhaustion and feeling extremely unwell followed by spots which ooze and bleeding sores, especially on the gums. Sailors who caught scurvy were not fit enough to work and on long voyages the ship and the crew were put in danger as there were not enough fit men to crew her. Although the disease had been recognised since the time of the Romans, a cure was not found.

James Lind, a naval surgeon of board the 60 gun HMS Salisbury was responsible for one of the most important medical developments of the eighteenth century. Born in Edinburgh in 1816 he trained as a doctor before entering the Royal Navy as a surgeons mate. There had been theories, especially that of John Woodall in the seventeenth century that Citrus fruit might be a cure for scurvy.

<snip>

James Lind Alliance

James Lind is remembered today with the formation in 2004 of the James Lind Alliance, which brings carers, patients and medical experts together to address uncertainties in research and the effects of medical treatment- echoing James Lind’s experiments onboard HMS Salisbury. Today Epidemiology is a science where the causes of disease are investigated and solutions or cures found wherever possible using both statistical and environmental data. James Lind is viewed as the founding father of Epidemiology.

[bananas]

28. New research indicates it's folate deficiency, giving us another health spin-off from NASA

"While it’s not likely that you’ll encounter an astronaut in your waiting room anytime soon, these findings may have clinical import to those on Earth as well."

http://www.sciencebasedhealth.com/ContentPage.aspx?WebpageId=485

Folic acid, B12 & Vision in Astronauts | Omega-3s & Brain Volume

Visual Changes Post-Space Flight May be Due to Altered Folic Acid & B12 Metabolism

About 20% of astronauts who’ve been on International Space Station (ISS) missions have developed ophthalmic changes after flight, including optic disc edema, globe flattening, choroidal folds, hyperopic shifts, and cotton wool spots. But why are some but not other astronauts affected? NASA researchers in collaboration with several universities have conducted experiments on ISS since 2006 to answer this question.

The investigative team found biochemical differences in crewmembers with vision issues, which strongly suggest that their folate and vitamin B12 dependent 1-carbon transfer metabolism was affected before, during, and after flight. One-carbon metabolites, including homocysteine, were 25-45% higher (P, 0.001) in those with ophthalmic changes than in those without them, and crewmembers with vision issues had consistently lower serum folate during flight. Pre-flight levels of homocysteine and cystathionine, and in-flight levels of folate, correlated with changes in refraction observed after flight (1).

The researchers believe that common polymorphisms in enzymes of this pathway (e.g. MTHFR 677C/T) interact with the shift in cranial fluids encountered at “zero” gravity in space to cause these ophthalmic changes.

While it’s not likely that you’ll encounter an astronaut in your waiting room anytime soon, these findings may have clinical import to those on Earth as well.

One of the most studied polymorphisms in this pathway is MTHFR 677C/T, which has an allele frequency of 30% in many ethnic groups. Heterozygotes (C/T) have a 30% decrease in the activity of the enzyme MTHFR and homozygotes (T/T) a 60% decrease in this critical enzyme. Evidence suggests that individuals with these polymorphisms may require more folic acid to maintain their status of this B-vitamin.

While Americans are getting more dietary folic acid than ever due to food fortification, getting some extra folic acid via a multi-vitamin supplement may be a good idea considering the high frequency of the polymorphisms, and that elevated homocysteine is a risk factor for ischemic stroke, inter-cranial aneurysms, migraine headaches, and possibly occlusive retinal vascular disease and some types of glaucoma. Many could also benefit from supplemental B12 due to the difficultly of its absorption in older people.

<snip>