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It's a shame that the lunar gateway is useless and itself a jobs program like SLS. Since NASA decided not to fund the version of the asteroid retrieval mission

It's a shame that the lunar gateway is useless and itself a jobs program like SLS. Since NASA decided not to fund the version of the asteroid retrieval mission (ARM) that included de-spin there are no near earth asteroids that can be brought back to the proposed space station. All it can do is uselessly orbit the Moon, getting full cosmic radiation dose instead of less than half in Earth orbit in the magnetosphere. In terms of resources the moon itself only has water. But it's down in a difficult to access gravity well. There's no nitrogen. Far, far, better would be fully funding ARM and starting to despin and drag asteroids to the lunar gateway for study, resources, and eventually living space in space protected from radiation and, if you build sub-surface tracks, enough acceleration to live normally.

generalizations 6y ago
A simple first step done sooner is better than a complex first step done later. Also, seems like there's a lot to learn about space habitats just by building another one - we haven't made that many yet.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  11? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations
  - generalizations 6y ago
    Most of those things were largely too tiny to count as much more than practice runs for building actual space stations - in that list, the majority were less than 1/30th the size of the ISS - did you see the column on the side listing the cubic feet of space in them? 100m^3 is a ~4.5m box. So yes, we've put 11 space stations in orbit: only if you count a one-room flying can as a space station. I think we have a few more practice steps to go before we start hollowing out asteroids as GP was suggesting we do next.
trhway 6y ago
>It's a shame that the lunar gateway is useless with the number of billionaires walking around, it probably can make a decent money as a tourist destination. Especially if there is an option to get down for a walk on the surface. Though it can become quickly at least partially outdated once one can just charter a Starship to make a quick long weekend trip around the Moon.
- rektide 6y ago
  Oh great, the jet-setting class destroying the earth wasn't doing it fast enough: now the rich jerks are going to ruin the planet & burn gobs of energy going to into space. What a dark evil Neuromancer 'the rich floating above the problems of earth (that they have created)' prospective.
  - zitterbewegung 6y ago
    You have just stated the plot for Elyssium .
- JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
  Just to clarify, are you suggesting NASA should make a lunar gateway so billionaires can walk on the moon?
  - trhway 6y ago
    Otherwise taxpayers have to fully pay for the station.
    - manderley 6y ago
      Or maybe don't build the station. Also, the way the US government is funded, printing money is paying for things, not taxpayers.
      - ALittleLight 6y ago
        Printing money is paid for by people who hold US currency. More money created means diminished value of existing money.
ithinkso 6y ago
How do you get enough fuel to the asteroid to bring it back if even sending a 'measly' rover to Mars is a multi-year endeavor. Asteroids weight a lot more than a rocket and you need to change their velocity by the same amount
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  https://www.space.com/20610-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-infographic.html https://www.space.com/20610-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-in...
  - superkuh 6y ago
    This is the low cost version of the ARM program that funding was chosen for. It is kind of marginal because there are literally only 3 near earth asteroids with little enough spin that this design would work.
- chaps 6y ago
  Yes, but you don't need to use chemical propulsion for 100% of the needed energy -- just a well-timed and well-aimed change in angle to slingshot it off of a gravity well.
  - manderley 6y ago
    The real answer: It's entirely beyond our capabilities and not achievable at all.
    - gary_0 6y ago
      The energy cost of changing something's orbit is not just mass times distance, otherwise launching a 1 metric tonne probe to Mars would have been impossible. Thanks to orbital dynamics, there are a lot of opportunities to get huge bang for your delta-V buck.
    - fallingknife 6y ago
      Not true. Well timed gravitational slingshots have been used on many existing missions. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe
nickik 6y ago
Absolutely disagree, and I think the waste majority of space nerds do so as well. ARM was a mission literally designed so Obama so NASA would have something to do with SLS and Orion. It was a pretty terrible mission that basically nobody wanted except the president. The actual ARM that they settled on would only pick up a small bolder from an asteroid and bring it to earth orbit. Not large enough to live in, not even close. And not even useful for resources. Water is by far the most useful thing you can find, and its what makes everything else possible. The moon has a huge amount close to each other. Almost every expert I have heard talk about is, think getting water from the moon is the best way to use space resources early on. >In terms of resources the moon itself only has water This is completely false. Just FYI. There is lots of different useful materials on Mars. Check out this video by former NASA engineer who has work on in Space manufacturing for many decades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-RTBGnzNks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-RTBGnzNks You can literally build solar panels, batteries, and many other things with martian resources.
- spiritplumber 6y ago
  It was a test of: * Asteroid redirect tech in case of, you know, a dinosaur killer coming your way. * Asteroid harvesting.
  - nickik 6y ago
    It would do some gravity stuff that now other missions are doing already. It would have picked up a single small bolder and brought it to LEO. Non are relevant for resource mining.
leblancfg 6y ago
>In terms of resources the moon itself only has water It has vast amounts of Helium 3. This could potentially be very valuable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Lunar_surface_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Lunar_surface_2
- lumost 6y ago
  As there are no commercial fusion reactors using helium-3 or not. Why would we believe this resource has direct value within the next 5 decades?
- rektide 6y ago
  Sci-fi author Charlie Stross had a wonderful take-down of He3[1] a decade ago. It's alas not very technical. The short of it is that there are no reactors, if we do make them they are going to be insanely fantastically hot (a billion degrees), there's only ~10 parts per billion (according to your wikipedia link) on the moon & mining that will be hard, and then we'd have to transport the stuff too. I'd read something else about the challenges of reactor design, but not sure what it was. I haven't been enthused about He3 since. I feel like the one interesting use would be a Project Orion / Nuclear Pulse Propulsion system, but wow, boy does that seem like an expensive way to do propulsion: what's the use case? [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshine.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshin...
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  That's science fiction with no grounding in reality. You may as well be going on about transporters and transparent aluminium. Every time a Moon mission comes up, Helium 3 gets trotted out, but it's just absurd. For one, billions of tons of rock would have to be mined to extract any reasonable amount of Helium 3. Even with heavy machinery and robotic miners operating 24/7, this is a stretch. But much more importantly, Helium 3 is utterly useless. It was proposed as one possible fusion fuel but then a much cheaper alternative was developed almost immediately: breeding the required fuel from a blanket of Lithium. Last, but not least: There are exactly zero fusion power plant operational on Earth right now. There will be exactly zero commercial fusion power plants operational on Earth for at least a decade, no matter what new technologies are developed. At the current pace, according to current plans (e.g.: ITER/DEMO), there will be one (1) power plant generating a trivial amount of power staring in 2048. Likely well into the 2050s there won't be many more. So to summarise mining lunar He3: We should spend trillions of dollars digging up the Moon for power plants that won't exist for three decades and don't need need the helium anyway.
konjin 6y ago
The moon is a body with enough stuff to sustain heavy industry, is easily accessible from the Earth in a few days all the time, and a gravity well weak enough that a space elevator, or even a rail gun, can be build with todays material science. Long term all of those make it a very valuable place for exploring the rest of the solar system.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  Usually the goal of having source of anything outside Earth is to use it to build (spacecraft, stations, etc.), not to bring it to Earth. The Moon gravity well is weak but still significant. On the other hand you could catch an asteroid and bring it back to Earth orbit and exploit it here or even completely remotely, by automated means.
  - manderley 6y ago
    But also, we don't have the technology to do that, either.
    - lmilcin 6y ago
      Sure we have. We have rockets to get there and we have nuclear reactors to vaporize stuff. Asteroid itself can be used as reaction mass. The amounts of energy can be as little as you want if you go far from the sun where orbits are very slow and very little energy needs to be used to move an asteroid in any direction you want.
      - manderley 6y ago
        This is pure sci-fi. We don't have the technology to travel within our solar system in any reasonable amount of time, let alone to bring back and mine an asteroid.
        lmilcin 6y ago
        Again, that is simply not true. The technology already exists. Need a modest rocket that can bring a nuclear reactor to an asteroid and heat up part of its mass as exhaust for a long enough time to deflect it by couple cm/s to maybe 1 m/s. The only thing you need to do is to be patient. A lot depends on how greedy you are, if you want a smaller one it gets exponentially easier. Just read this 10 year old report: https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into-earth-orbit/ https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into...
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
> and eventually living space in space protected from radiation and, if you build sub-surface tracks, enough acceleration to live normally. Can you clarify what you mean by that please? What protects from radiation? What are "sub-surface tracks" and the "acceleration" they provide?
- sgarman 6y ago
  I don't know exactly what the OP means but putting something big and sold between it and the sun is a good way to limit radiation. Maybe the moon in this case?
- chaps 6y ago
  The earth's magnetosphere protects from radiation.
- kristianp 6y ago
  They're talking about living inside an asteroid that has been moved to the lunar gateway. You can imagine a looped track dug inside, to provide simulated gravity. I don't think that's very feasible, I prefer the "Islands in space" idea from Gerard O'Neill. To provide artificial gravity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
  - blackrock 6y ago
    That must be a giant rock that you must carve an internal loop out of. And then, how much energy would it even take to spin such a huge rock? I think you’d need a new exotic propulsion system just to rotate it. Maybe nuclear or a sustained ion propulsion.
- superkuh 6y ago
  Sorry I wasn't clear. Being beneath the surface provides radiation protection. Specifically by digging out tunnels beneath the surface of moderates size asteroids, putting down butyl ruber tubes, and laying tracks within. By having the cars on the track go around the curved track an artificial gravity is induced. But you can stop the space train cars, step outside, and there's no deep gravity well to make getting things to and from there so expensive. ---- I'd also like to make it clear that the Asteroid Retrieval Bus, the mission that was canceled, is the reason the lunar gateway concept exists. Having the lunar gateway but not asteroid de-spin and retrieval is putting the cart before the horse without intentions of getting a horse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_and_Propulsion_Element#Asteroid_Redirect_Vehicle_bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_and_Propulsion_Element#A... >The Asteroid Redirect Vehicle... ...mission was cancelled in early 2017 and the spacecraft's propulsion segment became the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) for the Deep Space Gateway, now known as the Gateway.
TrainedMonkey 6y ago
Lunar gateway is a first space station that will not be orbiting Earth. While current approach is inefficient, I assure you the challenge of building, launching, and operating such a craft will definitely push overall space capabilities further.
- manderley 6y ago
  Maybe. But what does that get us? We'll never be a spacefaring species, the universe is way too big (we can't even explore our solar system in any meaningful way) and energy requirements for faster travel are simply too high. Not to think of all the issues with spacetime at fast speeds. There are tons of serious problems to solve here on earth, no need for another huge waste of money.
  - echelon 6y ago
    Not everyone agrees with you, which is why humans are capable of a wide range of behaviors and investments. If we didn't have interest in space, there would be no SpaceX, Starlink, Mars rover, planetary missions, etc. I personally think we're about to reach the terminal generation in 100-200 years with advancements in ML, and we won't be worried about sending human bodies anywhere. Just engines, sensors, and computers.
    - doublerabbit 6y ago
      Personally, I dislike all this interest in space. What has it done for the actual planet we live on? Day by Day we destroy this planet wasting resources that are finite and yet we dream to live on another planet. Why? Just so we can do the same? How much toxic waste is in the world today? How much obsolete technological waste is there in this planet and why are we not investing the same amount of money on cleaning this planet? I'm sure I'm going to be down-voted for being pessimistic but its the truth. Outer space is for the rich who've outgrown expensive yachts and will be that way if not forever. If we can't handle society on this planet how are we suppose to handle it on a new planet? You really think once technology is supportable they're going to let us use it? --- Called it, first downvote. If your going to down vote, at least post and justify why rather then hiding behind a click of a button because you can't face the truth. Second downvote. Only proving my point. To those who downvote your the problem in this world. Are you afraid to accept that we are destroying the planet we all live on? Third downvote, Why are you living in denial? Stop being a coward and justify why. What has the rich ever done for us? Forth downvote. Yep. Seriously, no one's going to rebuttable? Fifth downvote, And people ask me why I am cynical. Does no one on HN actually care for this planet? I do, I spent all evening picking up litter in my own time. It's raining and cold, but I'm still out there tidying the mess that folk make of the planet. Why the flag? -- There's nothing offensive, nor crude in this. It's my personal opinion that I can't seem to shift for the reasons in my reply. I thought HN was a less-bias platform then others. I thought HN allowed you to post your views to encourage discussion in a balanced fashion.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
We're at Beta and you're talking about features for version 10.0. Let's ship first.
godelski 6y ago
> a jobs program Why is funding into technological advancement a "jobs program." We don't call research a jobs program. Rome wasn't built in a day.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Because it was selected on the basis of what spending it could justify (in particular, that it would give the SLS something to do), not on the basis of the value of any technology produced.
  - adolph 6y ago
    I’ve come to see this as a feature not a bug. To get a significant amount of money from elected officials there has to be a there, preferably their district. SLS was the giant scaffold that allowed for the effective seed of commercial resupply missions to occur and grow. Without SLS’ distributed network of Government friendly contractors and contracts all lined up in an immaculately conceived waterfall the focus would be on the commercial efforts which have to be run a different way to get better results. Imagine instead of Joe Rogan, Musk is spouting off to some committee of crusties. That wouldn’t be pretty, and success means avoiding that conflict in world views by funding SLS. In some ways it is kind of like funding a semi-fake cathedral in order to attract and develop the bazaar you really want.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      It's a feature if you're feeding at this particular trough. It's not a feature for the nation as a whole. It leads to money being squandered. The goal should be to benefit the nation, not maximize a budget line.
      - adolph 6y ago
        Is the effort to build a scaffold squandered since it is used to build something but is not the thing being built? I'd rather see economically sustainable off-Earth enterprises built without a scaffold but I'm not so loss averse to take nothing over something.
SEJeff 6y ago
For starters, the moon has helium-3, which is incredibly rare on earth and would be very useful for nuclear fusion should we ever figure that out.
- edgyquant 6y ago
  The process of mining helium-3 won’t be cost efficient for a long time. It’s an overhyped material that requires sifting through kilometers of lunar regolith for grams of H3
  - blackrock 6y ago
    It’s not the destination, but the journey. Mining for He3 would require all kinds of new technology to be invented. And necessity is the mother of all inventions.
    - edgyquant 6y ago
      For sure and I don’t agree with the GP that the Lunar Gateway is useless. Even it just existing and people going to and from the moon will breed new systemic knowledge and inventions we otherwise wouldn’t have or need. Plus having a constant group of people living in orbit around another celestial body is just sexy in its own right.
namibj 6y ago
Well, maybe SpaceX ends up providing free near-earth Starship operations for an advanced ARM. Basically, launch a probe that goes to the asteroid, spins up to match, collects it in a net/blanket, and maneuvers to meet up with a Starship in an highly elliptical or maybe lunar flyby orbit. The Starship would rendezvous, match spin, load the cargo in it's payload bay, and proceed to de-orbit. As long as you engulf the asteroid, the spin shouldn't be more than a minor nuisance (e.g. pulsed thruster firing control systems, reinforcement to endure centrifugal loads). You might even be able to de-spin on your way back to earth. My understanding is that Starship is capable of landing with full 100+ t payload, thanks to the aerodynamic reentry. Also, with no passengers, it could easily spend a few orbits getting the apoapsis from "almost Earth-Sun L5" down to a LEO before re-entry.

generalizations 6y ago

A simple first step done sooner is better than a complex first step done later. Also, seems like there's a lot to learn about space habitats just by building another one - we haven't made that many yet.

ethbr0 6y ago
11? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations
- generalizations 6y ago
  Most of those things were largely too tiny to count as much more than practice runs for building actual space stations - in that list, the majority were less than 1/30th the size of the ISS - did you see the column on the side listing the cubic feet of space in them? 100m^3 is a ~4.5m box. So yes, we've put 11 space stations in orbit: only if you count a one-room flying can as a space station. I think we have a few more practice steps to go before we start hollowing out asteroids as GP was suggesting we do next.

trhway 6y ago

>It's a shame that the lunar gateway is useless with the number of billionaires walking around, it probably can make a decent money as a tourist destination. Especially if there is an option to get down for a walk on the surface. Though it can become quickly at least partially outdated once one can just charter a Starship to make a quick long weekend trip around the Moon.

rektide 6y ago
Oh great, the jet-setting class destroying the earth wasn't doing it fast enough: now the rich jerks are going to ruin the planet & burn gobs of energy going to into space. What a dark evil Neuromancer 'the rich floating above the problems of earth (that they have created)' prospective.
- zitterbewegung 6y ago
  You have just stated the plot for Elyssium .
JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
Just to clarify, are you suggesting NASA should make a lunar gateway so billionaires can walk on the moon?
- trhway 6y ago
  Otherwise taxpayers have to fully pay for the station.
  - manderley 6y ago
    Or maybe don't build the station. Also, the way the US government is funded, printing money is paying for things, not taxpayers.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      Printing money is paid for by people who hold US currency. More money created means diminished value of existing money.

ithinkso 6y ago

How do you get enough fuel to the asteroid to bring it back if even sending a 'measly' rover to Mars is a multi-year endeavor. Asteroids weight a lot more than a rocket and you need to change their velocity by the same amount

toomuchtodo 6y ago
https://www.space.com/20610-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-infographic.html https://www.space.com/20610-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-in...
- superkuh 6y ago
  This is the low cost version of the ARM program that funding was chosen for. It is kind of marginal because there are literally only 3 near earth asteroids with little enough spin that this design would work.
chaps 6y ago
Yes, but you don't need to use chemical propulsion for 100% of the needed energy -- just a well-timed and well-aimed change in angle to slingshot it off of a gravity well.
- manderley 6y ago
  The real answer: It's entirely beyond our capabilities and not achievable at all.
  - gary_0 6y ago
    The energy cost of changing something's orbit is not just mass times distance, otherwise launching a 1 metric tonne probe to Mars would have been impossible. Thanks to orbital dynamics, there are a lot of opportunities to get huge bang for your delta-V buck.
  - fallingknife 6y ago
    Not true. Well timed gravitational slingshots have been used on many existing missions. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe

nickik 6y ago

Absolutely disagree, and I think the waste majority of space nerds do so as well. ARM was a mission literally designed so Obama so NASA would have something to do with SLS and Orion. It was a pretty terrible mission that basically nobody wanted except the president. The actual ARM that they settled on would only pick up a small bolder from an asteroid and bring it to earth orbit. Not large enough to live in, not even close. And not even useful for resources. Water is by far the most useful thing you can find, and its what makes everything else possible. The moon has a huge amount close to each other. Almost every expert I have heard talk about is, think getting water from the moon is the best way to use space resources early on. >In terms of resources the moon itself only has water This is completely false. Just FYI. There is lots of different useful materials on Mars. Check out this video by former NASA engineer who has work on in Space manufacturing for many decades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-RTBGnzNks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-RTBGnzNks You can literally build solar panels, batteries, and many other things with martian resources.

spiritplumber 6y ago
It was a test of: * Asteroid redirect tech in case of, you know, a dinosaur killer coming your way. * Asteroid harvesting.
- nickik 6y ago
  It would do some gravity stuff that now other missions are doing already. It would have picked up a single small bolder and brought it to LEO. Non are relevant for resource mining.

leblancfg 6y ago

>In terms of resources the moon itself only has water It has vast amounts of Helium 3. This could potentially be very valuable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Lunar_surface_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Lunar_surface_2

lumost 6y ago
As there are no commercial fusion reactors using helium-3 or not. Why would we believe this resource has direct value within the next 5 decades?
rektide 6y ago
Sci-fi author Charlie Stross had a wonderful take-down of He3[1] a decade ago. It's alas not very technical. The short of it is that there are no reactors, if we do make them they are going to be insanely fantastically hot (a billion degrees), there's only ~10 parts per billion (according to your wikipedia link) on the moon & mining that will be hard, and then we'd have to transport the stuff too. I'd read something else about the challenges of reactor design, but not sure what it was. I haven't been enthused about He3 since. I feel like the one interesting use would be a Project Orion / Nuclear Pulse Propulsion system, but wow, boy does that seem like an expensive way to do propulsion: what's the use case? [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshine.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshin...
jiggawatts 6y ago
That's science fiction with no grounding in reality. You may as well be going on about transporters and transparent aluminium. Every time a Moon mission comes up, Helium 3 gets trotted out, but it's just absurd. For one, billions of tons of rock would have to be mined to extract any reasonable amount of Helium 3. Even with heavy machinery and robotic miners operating 24/7, this is a stretch. But much more importantly, Helium 3 is utterly useless. It was proposed as one possible fusion fuel but then a much cheaper alternative was developed almost immediately: breeding the required fuel from a blanket of Lithium. Last, but not least: There are exactly zero fusion power plant operational on Earth right now. There will be exactly zero commercial fusion power plants operational on Earth for at least a decade, no matter what new technologies are developed. At the current pace, according to current plans (e.g.: ITER/DEMO), there will be one (1) power plant generating a trivial amount of power staring in 2048. Likely well into the 2050s there won't be many more. So to summarise mining lunar He3: We should spend trillions of dollars digging up the Moon for power plants that won't exist for three decades and don't need need the helium anyway.

konjin 6y ago

The moon is a body with enough stuff to sustain heavy industry, is easily accessible from the Earth in a few days all the time, and a gravity well weak enough that a space elevator, or even a rail gun, can be build with todays material science. Long term all of those make it a very valuable place for exploring the rest of the solar system.

lmilcin 6y ago
Usually the goal of having source of anything outside Earth is to use it to build (spacecraft, stations, etc.), not to bring it to Earth. The Moon gravity well is weak but still significant. On the other hand you could catch an asteroid and bring it back to Earth orbit and exploit it here or even completely remotely, by automated means.
- manderley 6y ago
  But also, we don't have the technology to do that, either.
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    Sure we have. We have rockets to get there and we have nuclear reactors to vaporize stuff. Asteroid itself can be used as reaction mass. The amounts of energy can be as little as you want if you go far from the sun where orbits are very slow and very little energy needs to be used to move an asteroid in any direction you want.
    - manderley 6y ago
      This is pure sci-fi. We don't have the technology to travel within our solar system in any reasonable amount of time, let alone to bring back and mine an asteroid.
      - lmilcin 6y ago
        Again, that is simply not true. The technology already exists. Need a modest rocket that can bring a nuclear reactor to an asteroid and heat up part of its mass as exhaust for a long enough time to deflect it by couple cm/s to maybe 1 m/s. The only thing you need to do is to be patient. A lot depends on how greedy you are, if you want a smaller one it gets exponentially easier. Just read this 10 year old report: https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into-earth-orbit/ https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into...

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago

> and eventually living space in space protected from radiation and, if you build sub-surface tracks, enough acceleration to live normally. Can you clarify what you mean by that please? What protects from radiation? What are "sub-surface tracks" and the "acceleration" they provide?

sgarman 6y ago
I don't know exactly what the OP means but putting something big and sold between it and the sun is a good way to limit radiation. Maybe the moon in this case?
chaps 6y ago
The earth's magnetosphere protects from radiation.
kristianp 6y ago
They're talking about living inside an asteroid that has been moved to the lunar gateway. You can imagine a looped track dug inside, to provide simulated gravity. I don't think that's very feasible, I prefer the "Islands in space" idea from Gerard O'Neill. To provide artificial gravity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
- blackrock 6y ago
  That must be a giant rock that you must carve an internal loop out of. And then, how much energy would it even take to spin such a huge rock? I think you’d need a new exotic propulsion system just to rotate it. Maybe nuclear or a sustained ion propulsion.
superkuh 6y ago
Sorry I wasn't clear. Being beneath the surface provides radiation protection. Specifically by digging out tunnels beneath the surface of moderates size asteroids, putting down butyl ruber tubes, and laying tracks within. By having the cars on the track go around the curved track an artificial gravity is induced. But you can stop the space train cars, step outside, and there's no deep gravity well to make getting things to and from there so expensive. ---- I'd also like to make it clear that the Asteroid Retrieval Bus, the mission that was canceled, is the reason the lunar gateway concept exists. Having the lunar gateway but not asteroid de-spin and retrieval is putting the cart before the horse without intentions of getting a horse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_and_Propulsion_Element#Asteroid_Redirect_Vehicle_bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_and_Propulsion_Element#A... >The Asteroid Redirect Vehicle... ...mission was cancelled in early 2017 and the spacecraft's propulsion segment became the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) for the Deep Space Gateway, now known as the Gateway.

TrainedMonkey 6y ago

Lunar gateway is a first space station that will not be orbiting Earth. While current approach is inefficient, I assure you the challenge of building, launching, and operating such a craft will definitely push overall space capabilities further.

manderley 6y ago
Maybe. But what does that get us? We'll never be a spacefaring species, the universe is way too big (we can't even explore our solar system in any meaningful way) and energy requirements for faster travel are simply too high. Not to think of all the issues with spacetime at fast speeds. There are tons of serious problems to solve here on earth, no need for another huge waste of money.
- echelon 6y ago
  Not everyone agrees with you, which is why humans are capable of a wide range of behaviors and investments. If we didn't have interest in space, there would be no SpaceX, Starlink, Mars rover, planetary missions, etc. I personally think we're about to reach the terminal generation in 100-200 years with advancements in ML, and we won't be worried about sending human bodies anywhere. Just engines, sensors, and computers.
  - doublerabbit 6y ago
    Personally, I dislike all this interest in space. What has it done for the actual planet we live on? Day by Day we destroy this planet wasting resources that are finite and yet we dream to live on another planet. Why? Just so we can do the same? How much toxic waste is in the world today? How much obsolete technological waste is there in this planet and why are we not investing the same amount of money on cleaning this planet? I'm sure I'm going to be down-voted for being pessimistic but its the truth. Outer space is for the rich who've outgrown expensive yachts and will be that way if not forever. If we can't handle society on this planet how are we suppose to handle it on a new planet? You really think once technology is supportable they're going to let us use it? --- Called it, first downvote. If your going to down vote, at least post and justify why rather then hiding behind a click of a button because you can't face the truth. Second downvote. Only proving my point. To those who downvote your the problem in this world. Are you afraid to accept that we are destroying the planet we all live on? Third downvote, Why are you living in denial? Stop being a coward and justify why. What has the rich ever done for us? Forth downvote. Yep. Seriously, no one's going to rebuttable? Fifth downvote, And people ask me why I am cynical. Does no one on HN actually care for this planet? I do, I spent all evening picking up litter in my own time. It's raining and cold, but I'm still out there tidying the mess that folk make of the planet. Why the flag? -- There's nothing offensive, nor crude in this. It's my personal opinion that I can't seem to shift for the reasons in my reply. I thought HN was a less-bias platform then others. I thought HN allowed you to post your views to encourage discussion in a balanced fashion.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

We're at Beta and you're talking about features for version 10.0. Let's ship first.

godelski 6y ago

> a jobs program Why is funding into technological advancement a "jobs program." We don't call research a jobs program. Rome wasn't built in a day.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pfdietz 6y ago
Because it was selected on the basis of what spending it could justify (in particular, that it would give the SLS something to do), not on the basis of the value of any technology produced.
- adolph 6y ago
  I’ve come to see this as a feature not a bug. To get a significant amount of money from elected officials there has to be a there, preferably their district. SLS was the giant scaffold that allowed for the effective seed of commercial resupply missions to occur and grow. Without SLS’ distributed network of Government friendly contractors and contracts all lined up in an immaculately conceived waterfall the focus would be on the commercial efforts which have to be run a different way to get better results. Imagine instead of Joe Rogan, Musk is spouting off to some committee of crusties. That wouldn’t be pretty, and success means avoiding that conflict in world views by funding SLS. In some ways it is kind of like funding a semi-fake cathedral in order to attract and develop the bazaar you really want.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    It's a feature if you're feeding at this particular trough. It's not a feature for the nation as a whole. It leads to money being squandered. The goal should be to benefit the nation, not maximize a budget line.
    - adolph 6y ago
      Is the effort to build a scaffold squandered since it is used to build something but is not the thing being built? I'd rather see economically sustainable off-Earth enterprises built without a scaffold but I'm not so loss averse to take nothing over something.

SEJeff 6y ago

For starters, the moon has helium-3, which is incredibly rare on earth and would be very useful for nuclear fusion should we ever figure that out.

edgyquant 6y ago
The process of mining helium-3 won’t be cost efficient for a long time. It’s an overhyped material that requires sifting through kilometers of lunar regolith for grams of H3
- blackrock 6y ago
  It’s not the destination, but the journey. Mining for He3 would require all kinds of new technology to be invented. And necessity is the mother of all inventions.
  - edgyquant 6y ago
    For sure and I don’t agree with the GP that the Lunar Gateway is useless. Even it just existing and people going to and from the moon will breed new systemic knowledge and inventions we otherwise wouldn’t have or need. Plus having a constant group of people living in orbit around another celestial body is just sexy in its own right.

namibj 6y ago

Well, maybe SpaceX ends up providing free near-earth Starship operations for an advanced ARM. Basically, launch a probe that goes to the asteroid, spins up to match, collects it in a net/blanket, and maneuvers to meet up with a Starship in an highly elliptical or maybe lunar flyby orbit. The Starship would rendezvous, match spin, load the cargo in it's payload bay, and proceed to de-orbit. As long as you engulf the asteroid, the spin shouldn't be more than a minor nuisance (e.g. pulsed thruster firing control systems, reinforcement to endure centrifugal loads). You might even be able to de-spin on your way back to earth. My understanding is that Starship is capable of landing with full 100+ t payload, thanks to the aerodynamic reentry. Also, with no passengers, it could easily spend a few orbits getting the apoapsis from "almost Earth-Sun L5" down to a LEO before re-entry.