Lifeboat Foundation

Mars is the worst place to go. A deep gravity well to climb in and out of. A case of too much gravity and no protection from radiation.

Ceres is a much better deal. A multi-year mission is a multi-year mission and if you are going to Mars it makes more sense to go farther to Ceres. No problem landing as it has very little gravity, but may have liquid oceans. Solar resources on Mars are not very good.

The Moon has ice and is the first place to go for the simple reason that any human missions outbound will require massive shielding and that shielding will require nuclear propulsion.

Building and lighting off a nuclear spaceship in earth orbit is not acceptable and bringing up all that water is problematic. The moon has water for shielding and no restrictions on nuclear activities.

The safest way to transport fissionables to lunar orbit is a direct launch of a human-rated HLV with an escape tower and the material packaged in a capsule.
My essays on Lifeboat also talk about nuclear energy in space.

Water and Bombs talks about nuclear propulsion,

Plowshare in Space talks about nuclear excavation of colonies,

How to Build a Spaceship is self-explanatory.

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There has been a lot of discussion about a lunar colony or at least a base as a precursor to sending humans to Mars. The advantages cited are its proximity to Earth, the use of telerobotics for construction, and the fact that we’ve been there before. My position is that it would be far easier to establish a self sufficient colony on Mars with existing technology.

One thing everyone agrees on is that local resources will have to be used. We now know that There has been a lot of geological and hydrological activity on Mars that has segregated and concentrated useful ore bodies that can be exploited with current extractive technology. One type of mineral of interest is the occurrence of iron and magnesium carbonate formations on the surface. Magnesium carbonate is easily converted by heating to magnesium oxide, the primary component of a type of cement that I am researching as a construction material for Mars. The widespread occurrence of sulfate salts also gives reason to believe that metal sulfide ore bodies are also available there. This type of ore can easily be refined with simple electrolytic equipment. The same metal refining on the Moon would require grinding and processing basalt with a lot of heavy equipment.

I would argue that Mars also has a more friendly environment. First, it has higher gravity than the moon, at 38% of Earth’s gravity. This may prove to be significant in minimizing the health effects of reduced gravity. The higher gravity would also aid in many industrial processes such as ore separation and concrete consolidation. Mars also has an atmosphere, however thin. While 4 to 8 millibars may not sound like much, it is enough to burn up a lot of micrometeorites before they reach the surface, reducing the danger of micrometeorite damage. It may also help reduce the danger of galactic cosmic rays, but that will need to be tested. One thing that is certain from my own research is that the thin atmosphere is enough to allow magnesium oxychloride cement to cure before a significant amount of water has evaporated from it, and prevent boiling during the curing process. On the airless Moon, this type of cement would boil violently and the water would evaporate before it would cure. The total lack of atmosphere on the Moon would preclude the use of any cement that depends on water for curing.

Dust will be the biggest challenge to machinery in either place, and I argue that it is much less of a challenge on Mars. We have already studied lunar dust, and it is composed of fractured particles that retain sharp edges and points, with no mechanisms for smoothing the surfaces such as wind or water movement. This makes Moon dust very abrasive to machinery (and air seals) and very irritating to human tissues on contact. Mars has annual wind storms that blow dust around the planet, and has had flowing water recently in it’s history. This would serve to smooth out Martian dust particles to something more closely resembling the kind of material found on Earth, which we can more easily deal with. As further evidence, we have had rovers survive multiple dust storms and keep operating. I would say this is as much a testament to the Martian environment as it is to NASA engineers. Additionally, the dust has been found to be largely magnetic, meaning that magnetic filtration could be used to keep it out of habitable spaces.

Some would argue that solar power is more abundant on the Moon, but the problem there is that it intermittent. 14 days on, then 14 days off. Power either has to be stored for two weeks at a time, or produced from other sources. On Mars, you just need to get through a single night. The dust storms can cause problems of course, but that is at most a month out of every 22.

Finally, there is the question of water. On the Moon, water ice is probably at the bottom of some deep craters near the poles. It can probably be mined beneath the surface, we are just not sure how far down we need to go. On Mars, snow has been observed made up of water ice, and water ice has been seen just beneath the surface in rover tracks. It appears to be everywhere, just below the surface.

The Moon may be closer as the bird flies, but in terms of energy to get there, Mars is not much further. The biggest challenge will be getting humans there alive, but once that is done the learning curve once we get there is much shorter. Instead of developing new and untested industrial processes to exploit lunar resources, we can use proven technology to exploit Martian resources with much less effort. The prize is there for the taking, and there is no point in stopping on the way to build a temple to Luna.

Now I ask you as your only fidel (in the old sense) son to save the planet by officially quitting CERN until they no longer refuse to provide evidence against the proven fact that they are attempting to turn the planet into a black hole in a few years’ time.

There must be one person in Israel who believes me.

presently offer the world the unique chance that a high-ranking personality on the planet has the courage to ask to be officially informed about CERN’s legal status before the International Court of Crimes against Humanity before which it was accused more than 3 years ago without any defense ever having come forward.

The issue on hand concerns scientific ethics: CERN refuses to offer a counterargument for nearly 4 years. And, to the best of the present writer’s knowledge, no scientist speaks up in person on behalf of CERN by offering a scientific counterargument that he or she would be ready to defend. The much simplified 2010 theorem proving the danger was not even attempted to be defeated by a scientist.

Einstein’s famous gravitational frequency shift is accompanied by an equally strong change in particle mass and particle charge, both locally undetectable too. The new-found corollaries to Einstein’s famous “happiest thought” endow black holes with radically new properties. These properties not only render CERN’s detectors blind to its most hoped-for product (black holes) but do simultaneously enhance the probability of the successful production of black holes – an ominous combination. The first sufficiently slow specimen produced will take lodging inside earth – to grow there exponentially leaving nothing but a 2-cm black relic of our planet after a few years’ time.

The decisive “Telemach” theorem is maximally simple as mentioned and therefore maximally easy to refute if false, but no one has come forward. The visible physics community refuses to discuss the proven results while the very few best are on my side.

Although the highest administrative bodies on the planet chose to rely on an invisible science pope’s word given to them with the kind request not to be mentioned by name, the planet has after a year of maximum-energy operation by CERN perhaps earned the right to learn about the identity of the father figure who took the responsibility for everyone into his able hands. And: What is his precious argument so we all may learn from it?

To return to the beginning: I can only say that I trust a man who with the greatest personal sovereignty survived Dr. Joffe’s mercilessly punching questions 9 days ago in a live “Zeit” interview. The planet is waiting for a personality of this caliber demanding to be publicly informed.

Please, do not refuse to help the planet, dear Mr. President Dr. Christian Wulff.

Recently, Newt Gingrich made a speech indicating that, if elected, he would want 10% of NASA’s budget ($1.7 billion per year) set aside to fund large prizes incentivizing private industry to develop a permanent lunar base, a new propulsion method, and eventually establishing a martian base.

THE FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY OF A LUNAR BASE
Commentators generally made fun of his speech with the most common phrase used being “grandiose”.  Perhaps.  But in 1996 the Human Lunar Return study estimated $2.5 billion from NASA to send and return a human crew to the Moon.  That was before SpaceX was able to demonstrate significant reductions in launch costs.  One government study indicated 1/3 of the cost compared to traditional acquisition methods.  Two of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavies will be able to launch nearly as much payload as the Saturn V while doing so at 1/15th the cost of the same mass delivered by the Shuttle.

So, we may be at the place where a manned lunar base is within reach even if we were to direct only 10% of NASA’s budget to achieve it.

I’m not talking about going to Mars with the need for shielding but rather to make fast dashes to the Moon and have our astronauts live under Moon dirt (regolith) shielding while exploiting lunar ice for air, water, and hence food.

IS A SMALL COLONY WITHIN REACH?
But the point of this post is this.  If a small lunar base is within our reach, how much more would it take to achieve something that most of us realize would be the single most important step in ensuring the survival of the human species should a truly existential event strike Planet Earth.  So I’m describing a small, self-sufficient colony.  I would say that the difference between a base and a self-sufficient colony is fairly small.  Small enough to make it worth our while to attempt to achieve.

THE MOST ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS
So, what are the requirements for a self-sufficient colony?  The most critical would be air, water, and food.  But understand, oxygen and water can be produced from the 600 million metric meters of water ice estimated to exist at the north lunar pole.  So there’s no shortage.  And with recycling, the amount of daily required input could be pretty small — small enough to easily be within a day’s task for mining.  But food also requires fertilizer.  Fortunately for us, the LCROSS results showed that there is also methane and ammonia in the ice and the regolith contains other minerals such as phosphorus and potassium.  So, the most critical components for a colony would already be present with a manned base at a lunar pole.

HABITATS
Besides this, the colony would also need protection from the vacuum and cosmic radiation — i.e. a sealed habitat.  This should not be too difficult.  For a base, options include inflatable habitats and using fuel tanks as durable, sealable compartments.  Radiation protection is as simple as piling regolith over the structures or even digging trenches or caves into the sides of hills or craters.  That’s fine for a base.  But a self-sufficient colony requires that future colonists be able to construct their own habitats.  This could be achieved in the intermediate term by simply caving out habitats, supporting them, and then inflating a liner.  Many such liners could be delivered in a single 5,000 kg payload.  In the long term, such liners could be produced as plastics from volatiles resulting from the production of water from lunar ice.  Broken liners could be patched or even melted to produce new liners.  Alternately, metals can be fairly easily produced from the regolith.  Run a permanent magnet through the soil, extract iron, melt it using solar concentrating mirrors and then process the molten metal to sheets, wires, cast forms, etc.  Glass could be made the same way along with fiberglass.  Natural lighting could supplement electrical power by using aluminum mirrors and glass.  Supplemental heat could be provided in a similar manner along with locally derived insulation.

ELECTRICITY
Thin film solar panels can provide > 1,000 W/kg.  So a 5,000 kg payload could provide a very large amount of onging power (if my math is correct, enough for perhaps 500 colonists).  Excessive solar panels could be stored under ground and then used as needed thereby giving the colony decades of power.  Eventually, a self-sustaining colony would need to produce its own power from silicon in the regolith.  Storage of energy during the lunar night could be accomplished through the use of electrolysis of water to oxygen and hydrogen.  These could then be recombined in a fuel cell to produce electricity and heat. Alternately, the colonists could simply travel every two weeks to the other side of the hill near the pole to another sunlit habitat.

CLOTHING
Again, to buy the colony time to be able to develop the ability to produce its own space suits, many years’ worth of thin airproof liners to space suits could be delivered in a single 5,000 kg payload.  Again, a self-sustaining colony would need to eventually produce their own.  Between the use of fiberglass, metals, and locally produced plastic or silicon sealants, eventually the colony could produce their own.  Of course plants could be grown to provide fibers for clothing.

EQUIPMENT
To avoid day-long exposure to cosmic radiation while mining surface ice, mining could either be conducted underground or telerobotically.  But regolith is very gritty and can wear out teleoperated mining equipment.  But if a colony is able to produce its own metals and had machining equipment which could be used to produce more machining equipment, then the colony could stay ahead of equipment wearing out. 

High-tech equipment (computer chips, cameras, and radio equipment) is certainly useful but I believe that there are ways around needing them.  Still, in the interim, a single 5,000 kg payload delivery could provide centuries worth of computer chips, camera chips, and critical radio equipment components.  For example, the Voyager craft have been exposed to 30+ years of 360 degree space radiation yet still work fine.  So, an apple box worth of computer chips could last centuries.  Eventually the colony would need to produce its own high-tech equipment.  Perhaps they could use 1940’s technology such as vacuum tubes.

GRAVITY & PREGNANCY
The Moon’s 1/6 gravity is probably not enough to prevent bone and muscle loss.  Experiments on the international space station (ISS) show that an exercise program can do much to prevent bone loss.  A recent study indicates that Fosamax prevents bone loss in astronauts.  A 5,000 kg payload could give 83 million doses of Fosamax.  Stored in a permanently shadowed area, it could provide for a very large number of future colonists.  But also, a basic centrifuge or even a tether ball-like contraption could provide artificial gravity for colonists for part of the day.  Trenches dug along its path could provide partial protection from cosmic rays.  Alternately, space forums have discussed completely underground centrifuges using various ingenious approaches.

Of particular concern is how fetal children would develop given limited gravity.  Studies of animals on the ISS indicates that this is a real concern.  We don’t know enough about this issue.  Perhaps pregnant women would need to spend significant amounts of time in a centrifuge perhaps in all trimesters.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
I have started with the most essential requirements and have worked down.  I propose that there are technologic solutions for each of the requirements but perhaps I have been unrealistic in one or more areas or perhaps have neglected to address an important requirement.  Feel free to comment below.

GENETIC DIVERSITY
For a truly self-sustaining colony, for humans, the Minimum Viable Population (MVP) is in the realm 1,000.  I personally suspect that it is actually less than that but a solution here could be for a single payload delivery of frozen embryos for surrogate parenting to be frozen long-term in permanently shadowed areas.  Although this may strike some as being unethical, these would only be needed in the event of a truly existential event on Planet Earth. 

PRESERVING THE BIOSPHERE
I envision the colony as not only securing the human species but a good representation of Earth’s entire biosphere.  But discussing the details of that topic would extend this post much longer than it has already become.  More on that later.

Every high-school student can confirm this conclusion, but the Albert-Einstein-Institute says this conclusion is false. For it implies if true that CERN is building a planet-buster – a fact which must perhaps not become known at the time of a planned new war.

“The house is burning but no one takes notice” (Buddha).

I write this post on specific request from Anthony, who kindly asked that I write a bottom line summary of what I found through my research which leads me to suggest the points should be cleared up in a safety conference on the LHC.

1. As HR is an unproven theory, it may prove to be inffective compared to the math model. This regardless of Rossler’s Telemach therom which attempts to prove this.

2. The G&M calculation on theoretical MBH accretion rates is fundamentally flawed, as it bases the analysis on one single MBH and fails to consider about MBH aggregation.

3. As HR is an unproven concept, it cannot be relied upon to detect MBH. The only method to be certain no MBH are created is to monitor unaccounted loss of mass/energy.

As concerns raised in the public domain were not being answered sufficiently, there is a  moral duty for a public safety conference to discuss likely MBH decay/accretion rates.

I dismissed what I would consider the more colourful risks. I’m considering writing a follow-on whitepaper on the topic of MBH aggregation. If two MBH aggregate at any point it would halve the G&M calculated time-frame, and further aggregation would reduce the accretion time-frame accordingly. If frequent MBH aggregation was a typcial expected occurrence, then you would have a run-away effect, so this requires an analysis.

If one of the following three elements can be defused, the black-hole danger is over:

# 1: Black holes possess radically new properties in general relativity that make them both much more likely to arise and undetectable at CERN.

# 2: A new chaotic attractor (rotation-symmetric Shil’nikov-Kleiner attractor) exists in real space which implies exponential growth of black holes inside matter.

# 3: The presumed safety guarantee provided by neutron stars’ persistence is disproved by quantum mechanics.

Three different fundamental sciences (general relativity, chaos theory, quantum mechanics) are needed jointly to help humanity evade nature’s trap. Very few scientists are up to the combined task. Is this our death sentence?

“From highly centralized to highly decentralized societies” describes the dramatic changes that will likely occur when photovoltaics (solar electricity from solar panels) reaches the key price point that many call “grid parity.” In short, Adam Smith’s famous “invisible hand” will take over and make electricity production highly localized. People will tend to generate their own power on their roofs. Burning coal far away to make electricity will dwindle, and that will be good: less CO₂ and less reliance on centralized electricity generation with expensive, vulnerable distribution infrastructure. Highly centralized essentials of life are risky: if distribution breaks down for whatever reason, society is at risk. How can we live without electricity nowadays? Or food trucked in on highways? So I believe the future prospects for localized production of essentials like electricity are both bright, and highly desirable.