Lunar projects

[neubjr]

I have been working with MIT SEDS to start up a Lunar Research Group and project. The main goal of this project is to aid and encourage lunar exploration and development.

To do this we are trying to do several things:
our main project is designing a system to stockpile resources for future construction and habitation on the moon. Our idea is basically to have a phased sequence of missions to build upon each other ultimately resulting in a system that will create/stockpile resources (metals, oxygen, water, power capability).

secondly, we are starting several small research projects, the first of which will be crop growth experiments for the lunar environment. We have not actually started this yet but will be soon.

I am looking for comments or ideas on this. Also I am interested in seeing if anyone else is working on similar projects or interested in starting similar projects.

[Daniel]

Hi,

Just let me introduce myself,
I'm daniel, head of maslul - Israel seds, the project you are proposing sounds very interesting, I wanted to know whether there is an option to make it somekind of a multi-chapter project - maybe as an inter-national project?
If so please send me details of the project to my email - maslul@tx.technion.ac.il
TIA
-daniel

[SEDShead]

Neat idea for a project! A while back, I had gotten some tomato seeds flown aboard LDEF in the 80's, and distributed them to interested chapters.

NASA Johnson Space Center has a group which makes Lunar and Mars simulant soils, and they make them available to interested parties.

Instructions for getting the Mars simulant are at this webpage (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/education/resources.html) .

Here is the link (http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Exploration/EXLibrary/DOCS/EIC050.HTML) for the lunar simulant -- you only need pay the shipping.

[neubjr]

Sorry for the long time in replying. I got a little bogged down with end of the semester work.

In response to an earlier question I would like very much to try to expand our Lunar Research Project to include other SEDS chapters if there are any interested.

The main purpose for my posting this thread was to see if other people were doing similar projects or if anyone was interested in trying to help out with ours or create a joint project.

Right now we have been a little short-handed as far as man power goes which greatly saddens me. I think that the project we have initiated could really take off and be something given the proper attention.

I will be devoting my whole summer to getting the project really going. So far we have basically been doing some simple trade studies involving generating power on the moon. How one might create solar cells, how much energy it takes to do so, and how much solar panel (or other energy source) would be required from the earth. We can move on to work through plans of using the power system to create a regolith processor, etc....

If you would like further information about the project or are interested in trying to make this more of a multi-chapter SEDS project, please email me (neubjr@mit.edu). I am very interested in getting this going in all ways possible.

neubjr.

[Daniel]

Hi neubjr,
Is there more information available - I didn't get a follow-up letter from you...

-daniel

[JohnWright]

Hi All,

If anyone can make it to Houston next month, the Space Frontier Foundation is holding the Return to the Moon IV Conference from July 18th to the 20th. All the important Moon people from Johnson Space Center and NASA HQ will be there as well as other noteable American Lunar people.

Honorary Co-Chairs: George Abbey and Wendell Mendell

http://www.space-frontier.org/Projects/Moon/rtm2002.html

Speakers will include:

George Abbey * Former head of the Johnson Space Center
John Young * Apollo 14 Astronaut
Wendell Mendell * Lunar Science Expert
Mike Duke - Apollo Program Manager
Paul Spudis - Lunar Science Expert
William Burrows * Author of "This New Ocean" and "Deep Black"
James Oberg - America's Premiere Russian Space Expert
Rick Tumlinson * Founder of the Space Frontier Foundation

It should be a good time and a great place to hang out...

John

[neubjr]

Unfortunately I will not be in attendance for the Return to the Moon Conference although I would truly love to go. I hope all with the conference goes well.

As to the Lunar research project let me go into a little more detail for those interested...

The main goal of our project -- designing a system to place on the moon to most effectively aid lunar development by stockpiling needed resources -- can be split into several sections based upon the different resources that can be produced on the moon:

1. power production:
- is it feasible to create solar cells on the moon? Will manufacturing panels on the moon provide a benefit to constructing a lunar base above that provided by sending a power system to the moon from Earth. This is basically an initial cost/benefit trade study.


2. Oxygen/water Production:
- what benefit can an oxygen production plant provide to the construction of a future lunar base. The methods for producing water and oxygen are are very related so their benefits can easily be calculated together. This will be a second initial trade study.

one very simple thing to look at with just oxygen and water is this:
Humans need about 4kg of water per day, under extreme working conditions this would increase much so we'll just say on the moon you'd need probably 5 kg per day. From the lunar base designs I've read up on the smaller ones call for 5-8 persons. Most water can be recycled in space but there will still be some loss. We'll just assume a 5% loss of water and a $15000 cost for launch to the moon.


5kg * 5people * 0.05loss = 1.25kg lost per day
1.25kg * $15000 * 365days = $6.8million per year

add this to the initial cost of bringing water to the moon: say initially want 30kg of water for use then 30 * $15000 = $450,000

a simple oxygen plant on the moon would save ~$7million to $11million (with 8 people) per year. This is not a whole lot in terms of spacebucks, but then there is money saved from Oxygen and other materials as well. I have not yet looked at how much Oxygen is consumed by humans....I'm also not sure the cost of sending things to the moon, but for now I though $15000/kg was a good estimate. And then there water needed to expand the base.... over time it adds up.


3. Metals production:
- determining what metals can be produced by different processes. Then comparing the cost of creating useful metal materials for construction versus the benefit they provide to creating the base. This is the third initial trade study.


4. Once the three above mentioned initial cost/benefit studies have been compiled, they can begin to be integrated so that a cost/benefit study of a system as a whole can be done. This study will take the results of the last there and basically determine how much money will be saved by incorporating different methods together. Then the best system can be determined based upon how much money is saved and how much benefit is provided to the future lunar base.


We have currently been working on compiling the Power production trade study, and have also done some simple research on oxygen/water processing methods. So far it has been much harder finding information on Solar Panel Production on the Moon than Oxygen production.

The ultimate goal is of course to take the resulting system design and find funding to get it up to the moon, but we'll wait until we get a little further to go there.

If you are interested in working on the project in anyway, or know of recent resources that you think would be useful to the project please let me know (most of my resources so far are from the early 90s or 80s). We are a bit underhanded on manpower here. Hence the slow work. But it'll keep coming along... The moon isn't all that far away, we'll get there before too long :)

Joshua.

[neubjr]

Over the summer I have been here at MIT trying to dedicate my time to analyzing different concepts for this lunar research project.

I have been working through mass and power specs for various in-situ resource utilization options for the moon to see what types of things could be done on small scales on the moon -- as precursor missions to really help future development of the moon. This work has been a little slow but I have been getting somewhere. Most of the data and information I have has been for very large scale development of the moon, while what I am really interested in is the initial small scale steps that need to be done to get everything started.

This is all fine and dandy of course, but I am also looking at how to get more people involved with this project. Come the next school semester I would hope to get more students involved. Do you think that working through a small scale actual mission design would be better for this? Would more people be interested in getting involved in a project that is doing a real lunar mission(s) design? (I'm just asking this as a general question now, not really for specific answers whether you are interested or not, but feel free to tell me if you would be more interested this way). Instead (or ontop of) just analyzing different ideas for lunar development?

NASA has many opportunities for Universities to get involved and is actually trying to push more university involvement in missions etc (maybe less now that when Golden was around) so there could definitely be some good opportunities for a Lunar Mission design project like this.

-Joshua.

[neubjr]

Its just me again asking another little question about what kind of stuff people are interested in.

Being from MIT I have found that most people here are interested in actually Engineering projects, like designing a regolith processor or something like that. But I was wondering if this was true at other schools as well? Or are people at other universities or businesses more interested in other aspects of projects (i.e. political, or something else?).

Just wundering what gets people's space minds running :)

Joshua.

[JohnWright]

I don't think it's just MIT...I think engineering students are very interested in space projects (a la SEDSat @ UAH, GAScans at Caltech, etc).

Then some engineering types and non-engineering types have gotten really involved with space education outreach. Solar System tours for high school students, public star parties, road trips to NASA centers....you get the idea.

So go nuts! Or should I say "Nauts" !

J

[neubjr]

One thing that we tried last year with out Lunar Research project was to submit a proposal to NIAC (National Institute for Advanced Concepts) http://niac.usra.edu

Unfortunately our proposal was not accepted for NIAC funding due to the fact that we simply had not had enough time to really research enough or sit down and write a really good proposal.

We plan on submitting a proposal to NIAC again for this coming year's call for proposals. Given the fact that we have had muich more time to research the subject and really nail down our idea I think that we have a much better chance at getting accepted now.

Submitting some sort of project proposal to NIAC for SEDS would be a good idea as well. It will show that we are trying to really get some stuff done, and what is the worst that can happen? It gets rejected. NIAC is an excellent opportunity for an organization like SEDS to get funding for a project (be it the Lunar Research Project, or some other idea we may come up with). Of course before we really submit something from SEDS we would have to have a little more organization going I suppose... incorporation... yeah, I'm working on that.

There are probably many other opportunities out there for SEDS to pursue but I just don't know of them yet.

-Joshua.