Lifeboat Foundation

As we all know, Venus’s atmosphere & temperature makes it too hostile for colonization: 450°C temperatures and an average surface pressure almost 100 times that of Earth. Both problems are due to the size of its atmosphere — massive — and 95% of which is CO₂.

The general consensus is that Venus was more like that of the Earth several billion years ago, with liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect may have been caused by the evaporation of the surface water and subsequent rise of greenhouse gases.

It poses not just a harsh warning of the prospects of global warming on Earth, but also a case study for how to counter such effects — reversing the runaway greenhouse effect.

I have wondered if anyone has given serious thought to chemical processes which could be set in motion on Venus to extract the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The most common gas in the Universe is of course hydrogen, and if sufficient quantities could be introduced to the Venusian atmosphere, with the appropriate catalysts, could the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere be eventually reversed back into solid carbon compounds, water vapor and oxygen? The effect of this would of course not only bring down the temperature, but return the surface pressure, with 95% of its atmosphere removed, to one more similar to that of Earth. Perhaps in adding other aerosols the temperatures could be reduced further and avoid a re-runaway effect.

I’d like to hear others thoughts on this. It would be a long term project — but would perhaps make our closest planet our most habitable one in the future — one we could turn into a habitat that would be very accessible, with ample oxygen, water and mineral resources… The study of such a process would also greatly benefit Earth in the event that theorized runaway greenhouse effects start to occur on our own planet, the strategies learned could save it. Other issues to address regarding Venus: lack of magnetic field and  its slow rotation would have to be considered, though hardly off-putting, and 150ppm sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere would need to be cleansed — surely not insurmountable.

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.

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.

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.

Readers, let’s have at it. What do *you* think?

I wrote: “without faster-than-light travel and/or communication, meaningful interaction with intelligent aliens seems unlikely.”

Gary Church responds on January 22, 2012 12:39 pm:
I disagree Jared,
Since the power requirements go up in a sharp curve after about a third of the speed of light, consider .3c to be the practical speed limit for, let’s say, most of the next century. Considering acceleration and decelleration, let’s call it 4 years for every light year. “Meaningful” depends upon your own personal interpretation. Both life extension and cryopreservation will most likely redefine what is meaningful for most people– perhaps in the very near future. It might very well become meaninful for both of us.

The most likely form of star travel for the next millenium after a century of technological development is small singularity propulsion– perhaps near the end of the next century. This will boost speeds close to light where time dilation will make trips only a few years long (ship board time).
Though simplistic, my rough prediction is this century spent on colonizing the solar system and building up an infrastructure capable of manufacturing sleeper ships, the next century spent building up an infrastructure capable of manufacturing small singularity starships, and the third century will find us expanding into the galaxy in massive migrations.

We just need to consider longer time scales– and possibly living much longer. At least our children or their grandchildren may find intelligent life out there and interact with them in a meaningful way. But not considering them could mean stagnation– much like the often used example of the Chinese empire.
And of course, the reason for this blog; the possibility we might destroy ourselves or be destroyed.

I became interested in Beyond Earth Orbit– Human Space Flight by way of a college paper I helped my wife research some years ago. Her project for an ethics class was nuclear weapons. I stumbled upon the book “Project Orion, the true story of the atomic spaceship” by George Dyson and was hooked. I had been a science fiction fan in my youth but like most people I came to realize space operas were to be realized only in the far future. Project Orion changed my worldview. Since then my made-up mind has been unmade several times concerning most of the “common knowledge” floating around about space flight in this 21st century. Much of what is generally believed to be true about our space program is made up of recent hearsay used to hype products that further a business plan. When I read these infomercials endlessly repeated as fact I get pretty upset, mostly exposing these “facts” as not true results in vicious attacks. Private space cult members disgust me and I will not apologize for my hard feelings about these people. They mislead and obfuscate, and insult and dogpile anyone who disagrees with their dogma.

It was a step by step process but I came to realize the path to the stars is a narrow one. I found the U.S. space effort has been on what is called “the flexible path” and this turned out to be a contradiction of almost everything I found in my research. There is no Flexible Path. The path to colonizing the solar system is narrow and straightforward due to the laws of physics and materials science. Science fiction movies seem to have conditioned the public to believe such natural laws can be violated and technology that breaks these laws is possible and immanent. This kind of ignorance of natural limitations has led to much waste and many tragedies in the past decades by pushing said limits and there is soon to come great disappointment over breakthroughs that are far easier said than done. By way of political contributions and backroom deals, the flexible path scheme came into existence as a way of making money for a small group of investors looking to cash in on public ignorance of technology and influence peddling. It is a convoluted and confusing path and perhaps the best way to make my meaning plain despite this distraction is to start at the desired end and work backwards.

If the end goal is new worlds for humankind to inhabit, the earliest practical portrayal of a possible new world was in the 1929 work, “The World, The Flesh, and The Devil”, by socialist Joseph Bernal. I must say I am no socialist or capitalist, but I am someone who is sometimes very unhappy with people at either end of that spectrum. Space is not about politics– it is about survival. More than just surviving– thriving. Human beings need earth-like conditions to thrive– and a hollow moon can provide those conditions.Though the hollow artificial moon proposed by Bernal does not address artificial gravity, the hollow sphere concept does, if spun, allow for earth gravity on the inner surface at the equator. Hollow spheres in space can provide habitats for thousands, millions, billions, perhaps tens of billions of people. Space is big, with alot of sunlight and rock floating around waiting to be exploited. And tens of thousands of icy comets. Solar energy and low gravity resources in the asteroid belt mean that building on a much larger scale than we do on earth is practical. While we construct thousand foot supertankers and skyscrapers with some difficulty in earth gravity, the same masses of metal and concrete in space can form a shell many miles in diameter with many times less energy expended.

The most interesting fact of all about Bernal spheres is that building them is not much of a stretch of the imagination. It is the strongest shape and the energy to melt and refine ore and the various rocks and ices are available, and there are no engineering showstoppers. Fill a Bernal sphere with comet water and air and spin and humankind has created a new world to live “in.” New worlds capable of traveling for centuries to other star systems when the time comes. While we have the technology, amazingly, to build such hollow moons right now, we lack only a single medical procedure to allow for star travel with them– revivable cryospreservation. This one key piece of technology, which also breaks no laws of physics, is all that holds the human race back from colonizing the galaxy.

This future is not the hyperspace warp drive stargate winged starship fantasy the public has in mind. Though slowboats do not lend themselves well to screenplays and formula blockbusters, they are more exciting to those of us who understand what is possible in the near future. But before these new worlds can be manufactured, probably near the end of this century, humankind must first establish an infrastructure in deep space to enable that activity.

To live in space is different than to survive. Missions based on how much radiation and zero G debilitation a human being can survive on average are certain to fail. Providing earth radiation levels and gravity is certain to succeed. Radiation is the first killer, and lack of gravity as a debilitator is the second made even worse by the first. To set up an infrastructure that will allow colonies and eventually migration requires spaceships and these radiation and hypogravity hazards cannot be avoided. The only guaranteed shield against the heavy nuclei component of cosmic radiation is mass and distance. The only practical spaceship shielding is 14 or more feet of water. The only way to propel this much mass around the solar system is with nuclear energy. Nuclear activities in earth orbit are not acceptable. Lifting thousands and eventually millions of tons of water into earth orbit are also not acceptable. This path leads to the moon where nuclear activities are permissible and there is water. The only way to get to the moon is with Heavy Lift Vehicles like the Saturn V and the future SLS. The only way to transport fissionables to the moon safely is with Heavy Lift Vehicles. And this is where the private space agenda rears it’s ugly head.

HLV’s and anything needing massive governmental resources, such as nuclear energy, are blasphemy to the private space cult. While their dogma preaches that cheap lift can be had with smaller kerosene rockets with a high launch rate, they go on to enable missions beyond earth orbit by way of fuel depots and transfer in space. For a scientifically ignorant public this all makes sense. But it is the kerosene-hydrogen disconnect that exposes the private space flexible path as a business plan to fool taxpayers into subsidizing a Low Earth Orbit space tourism industry for the ultra-rich.

Liquid hydrogen does not store well and is very difficult to transfer. It is difficult on the ground but in space it has never been done because it is such a nightmare. The entire transfer system and recieving tank have to be pre-cooled with liquid helium and a perfect precool is physically impossible. This generates liquid hydrogen boil-off that must be re-liquified– which generates the exo-thermic form of hydrogen– that generates more boil-off. Compounded by space radiation and zero gravity effects, this is all a real mess that no one wants to talk about. Like radiation shielding, it is a topic avoided by private space advocates to the point of hurling insults. Not only is hydrogen hard to handle on the ground and much harder to deal with in space, an engine burning it requires a turbopump ten times more powerful than one for a kerosene engine. Which is why kerosene is hyped by private space as such a wonderful propellent– because both handling hydrogen and using hydrogen engines is much more expensive and cuts into projected profit margins.

So why does the orbital fuel depot and transfer concept specify liquid hydrogen? If kerosene is so much better then why bother with liquid hydrogen in orbital fuel depots? Because there is no substitute for hydrogen Earth Departure Stages when it comes to escaping earth’s gravitational field. Using other propellants multiplies the size of these stages several times. Any human missions Beyond Earth Orbit not using liquid hydrogen Earth Departure Stages look like Battlestar Galactica. Because of the Apollo program and every study done on any BEO missions, private space knows they cannot claim otherwise and get away with it. So private space advocates avoid this subject like the plague. Since it is not practical to store or transfer liquid hydrogen in space a direct launch out of orbit, like the Apollo program, is required. The laws of physics have not changed since the 1960’s. Since the inferior lift vehicles advocated in the flexible path are capable of boosting a few tons at a time out of orbit, Heavy Lift Vehicles become necessary.

Thus, there is no substitute for a HLV with hydrogen upper stages. There is no cheap; space flight is inherently expensive.

The resources necessary to build an infrastructure for BEO-HSF is unavailable to private space. HLV’s sending packaged fissionables to the moon are completely out of reach of “entrepreneurs” claiming the flexible path will open the solar system to colonization. In fact, private space claiming they are the future of space exploration is a lie, a deception being used to acquire taxpayer support for space tourism. Forty years of space stations going in endless circles at very high altitude is a dead end. The space tourism industry wants this truth suppressed and portrays LEO stations as the cutting edge of “exploration.”

The justification and source of funding for BEO-HSF is impact defense and survival colonies. It is the DOD that is spending money on useless cold war toys that guarantee huge profits for the defense industry while neglecting the most vital mission of the U.S. space program; safeguarding the earth and the human race.

There’s the Fermi Paradox and the Drake equation, which many readers are familiar with. There is also lots of action in the astronomy community currently on discovery of new planets. Potentially habitable ones in the “Goldilocks zone” (not too hot, not too cold, juust right!), are hitting the national news periodically these days. For example Kepler-22b, Gliese 581 d (only 20 light-years away which is really close but, also, really far…), HD 85512 b, and some “KOI” planets are pretty intriguing.

Really, astronomy is just getting started. Now we know there are many billions of planets in our galaxy, so there must be lots that *could* support life. Even Titan (a moon of Saturn) might possibly have life of some sort; at least it has lots of organic molecules and more petroleum than we could ever burn, and we have actually landed there and taken pictures from the surface! (See http://www.astronomy.org/StarWatch/January/1-05-titan-huygens.jpg.) I keep one of those pics framed in my office.

In my view the next major step in habitable planet discovery is to detect oxygen in their atmospheres. That is a sure-fire sign of photosynthesis, i.e., extraterrestrial life.

Twenty years ago, way back in the primordial soup of the early Network in an out of the way electromagnetic watering hole called USENET, this correspondent entered the previous millennium’s virtual nexus of survival-of-the-weirdest via an accelerated learning process calculated to evolve a cybernetic avatar from the Corpus Digitalis. Now, as columnist, sci-fi writer and independent filmmaker, [Cognition Factor — 2009], with Terence Mckenna, I have filmed rocket launches and solar eclipses for South African Astronomical Observatories, and produced educational programs for South African Large Telescope (SALT). Latest efforts include videography for the International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town October 2011, and a completed, soon-to-be-released, autobiography draft-titled “Journey to Everywhere”.

Cognition Factor attempts to be the world’s first ‘smart movie’, digitally orchestrated for the fusion of Left and Right Cerebral Hemispheres in order to decode civilization into an articulate verbal and visual language structured from sequential logical hypothesis based upon the following ‘Big Five’ questions,

1.) Evolution Or Extinction?
2.) What Is Consciousness?
3.) Is God A Myth?
4.) Fusion Of Science & Spirit?
5.) What Happens When You Die?

Even if you believe that imagination is more important than knowledge, you’ll need a full deck to solve the ‘Arab Spring’ epidemic, which may be a logical step in the ‘Global Equalisation Process as more and more of our Planet’s Alumni fling their hats in the air and emit primal screams approximating;
“we don’t need to accumulate (so much) wealth anymore”, in a language comprising of ‘post Einsteinian’ mathematics…

Good luck to you if you do…

Schwann Cybershaman

Throughout most of our lifetimes, there has been a lot of talk and speculation about Human colonies beyond Earth. I personally grew up reading about how we would send people back to the Moon, then to Mars and beyond. We would establish settlements and on other planets and build spacious habitats out of metals mined in the asteroid belt. We would send our grandchildren to the outer planets on nuclear powered rockets and reap the bounty of the Solar System!

All we need is cheap and reliable access to space. The Space Shuttle was going to launch every week and only cost $20 million per launch. It would ride atop a carrier craft above the atmosphere where it would blast into orbit, deliver it’s payload and any passengers, and glide back to earth, to be refit, refueled and mated to it’s carrier plane for it’s next trip a few weeks later. It just had to be approved by Congress, which they did: after making it one of the biggest jobs programs since the New Deal. The Space Shuttle had been repurposed from a space transport system to a massively expensive vote buying scheme. The extreme decentralization and patronage, to the point of leaving a Krushchev era Soviet planner in shocked amazement, drove the per launch cost close to a billion dollars by the time the program was finally shut down.

At least we have cheap and reliable Russian Protons now that the Soviet Union has fallen and the Russians are desperate for hard currency, except that they aren’t really that cheap or reliable. Well, we have some startup companies who are going to get us into space on the cheap using old NASA surplus hardware (Huh?). Only in the past decade are we seeing any real practical alternatives, in the form of Dot Com billionaires putting their own money into spacecraft development. The most promising is SpaceX founded by Elon Musk. He has had his eye on Mars for a long time and finally developed a cheap rocket that will soon carry humans into space. He did so by using the same technology that has been available for the past three decades, only without the political interference, and shown how cheap space travel can be. The base price: $53 million for a cargo capacity comparable to the Space Shuttle. Interestingly, this amounts to around $20 million in 1980 dollars. We are finally at the point we were supposed to be 30 years ago!

Unfortunately, it looks like this is about as good as it will get any time soon. The Space Elevator is going nowhere, with the laws of physics getting in the way and all, not to mention the problems posed by micrometeorites, space junk, and monatomic oxygen if it does get built with some as yet undiscovered wonder material. Theoretically, carbon nanotubes have the strength needed. Maybe. With no significant safety margin. Other alternatives such as space guns and space piers have the same problems of prohibitively massive initial costs, fragility, and they are still useless for carrying people into space due to either long travel times (= high radiation exposure) or high acceleration.

Back to the subject of colonies in space, the main obstacle is carrying enough cargo to sustain a group of people in the most hostile environment imaginable for an indefinite time. We have to bring our own air, water food, and shelter, and it has to be enough shelter to live in full time. No going outside for a breath of fresh air. The solution would seem to be a concept commonly called ISRU: In Situ Resource Utilization. We would go to another planet and use locally available materials to produce what we need on site. We now know that water ice is abundant on the Moon, Mars and probably even the asteroid belt. We can electrolyze water to produce oxygen and hydrogen for life support and fuel. We also have rovers and an imaging satellite on Mars that can be used to find useful ores before we get there to aid selection of an initial colony site. We can use locally available minerals to build habitats and eventually grow our own food. We just need to bring the tools to take advantage of locally available resources.

Taking the case of a proposed Mars colony, a lot of thought has gone into the construction and supply of a colony. Since beginning my own research, I have found that little has been done on some very important details. One of these “little details” is the nature of construction materials. I just completed my Civil Engineering and my senior project was a study on the curing properties of magnesium oxychloride cement in a simulated Martian environment. This looks like a promising material for construction of large structures on Mars that can be made with a minimal amount of energy input. I assumed that similar research had been done before and was surprised to find otherwise. Rudimentary studies have been done on “mooncrete”, but it has little utility in building a Mars colony. While there are many ideas on how to build all sorts of space habitats, little research has been done on the production and fabrication of basic materials. The proponents of space colonization have focused on the big picture, but nobody has gone through the effort of the boring basic research needed to make their dreams a reality.

My study showed promising results and my paper has been posted on the Mars Foundation web site. I am now working on a design study for a Mars habitat that can be built within a reasonable time with locally available materials and equipment that can be carried on a single SpaceX Dragon. This is not complicated stuff and does not require any great genius, just a lot of hard work. The technology is here, we just need to develop appropriate equipment to get the job done. If anyone else is actively engaged in research along the same lines please contact me so we can compare notes or collaborate.