Comments on: From Lunar Return to the First Colony https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony Safeguarding Humanity Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:05:37 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: JohnHunt https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-155035 Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:05:37 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-155035 Niklas, I tend to agree with you. Clearly, we can’t be sending metal from Earth but should obtain that in situ on the lunar surface. After melting and separating the metal from the regolith, it can be cast and then processed. The imprecision of 3D printing means that things such as robotic joints might have a roughness which would make joints stick. Whereas a relatively simple lathe could produce smooth surfaces naturally. In order to get the equipment to the lunar surface, a lunar lander would need to be designed, tested, and launched. After a number of cargo landings, a human-rated version of the lander could deliver humans who could then intelligently work with the machining equipment. That would save a lot of development and testing work of telerobotic machining.

]]> By: Niklas Järvstråt https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154839 Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:59:26 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154839 Apart from Dr Shrunks book, there other good reads are Peter Eckarts “The Lunar Base Handbook”, Mark Prados http://www.permanent.com/, and obviously the moon society webpages.
However, I’d like to comment on the 3D-printer idea, often put forward as the perfect solution to any manufacturing problems. If a 3D printer would be that easy to use for manufacturing “anything”, you would have one at your desk at work and several at home by now. The accuracy of any 3D printer is less than perfect, and certainly not good enough for manufacturing the spare parts for a 3D printer that would soon be needed if it was used extensively. And rather than shipping sets of spare 3D-printer parts from earth, I believe that incorporating more humans into a versatile small-scale production unit is by far a quicker, safer and more direct solution. By all means, ship a 3D printer as well, but a metal deposition welding unit could most of that at a fraction of the cost, weight and complexity of a 3D printer. And you’d get a human for the colony rather than a ton of metal in the cargo hold of the moon-bound shuttle.

]]> By: JohnHunt https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154713 Tue, 02 Oct 2012 05:46:24 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154713 “People are Von Neumann Machines”

Best quote yet. Not only humorous but also profound.

““How do you get rid of the radiation fallout within the sphere?” First you wait for a few months for it to cool down”.

Dr Krone, yes, I know about Dr Strunk and have recently purchased that book. I think highly of Dr Strunk.

Obviously. My duh.

]]> By: Gary Michael Church https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154697 Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:50:50 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154697 “Give me individual liberty or give me death. I mean it.”

You are free to step off the lifeboat and into the black anytime you want.

]]> By: ken anthony https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154680 Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:45:11 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154680 GaryChurch,

I happen to agree with you (in part, you covered a lot of ground and made quite a few false assumptions about me.)

The government should not be picking winners and losers and should not spend taxpayer dollars as if they were their own. It’s theft and we should never tolerate it.

Musk is no angel. But if you look at the Mars One plan you see that he is an enabler of others. Give me individual liberty or give me death. I mean it.

]]> By: GaryChurch https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154660 Sun, 30 Sep 2012 19:05:32 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154660 “The real problem is.…“
The real problem is our tax dollars being poured into spaceX shareholder pockets for building hobby rockets designed to carry billionauts to Low Earth Orbit playboy clubs.
You are just another New Space infomercial hack blabbering about his companies false advertising claims.
You and the rest of the Musk Worshipers will have to shut this site down like Once and Future Moon if you want to stop the B.S. flag from flying. You are all a bunch of crooks.

]]> By: ken anthony https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154645 Sun, 30 Sep 2012 05:49:39 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154645 GaryChurch, did you even consider that basic thought?

»Your economics do not agree with basic physics.

Two separate subjects, but let me explain further. What you refer to as basic physics an economist would call barrier to entry. You are absolutely right that the barrier to entry is high and will probably remain so regardless of what some optimists are saying.

In this case, that barrier to entry is the cost of transporting a starter colony to the surface of mars. While I disagree with the particulars, the ‘Space Settlement Initiative’ demonstrates that it could be financed today.

Once you have that starter colony with enough people (as little as four dozen) and an industrial ecology designed for mars (which allows anything to be manufactured from martian resources) your economic model goes into a new state which has unlimited expansion potential. In a hundred years, all the good jobs may be on mars.

The real problem is a can’t do attitude, not physics.

]]> By: Bob Krone https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154631 Sun, 30 Sep 2012 00:51:34 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154631 John, and commenters. A leading scholar on this subject is Dr. David Schrunk. See his, et al, book, The Moon: Resources, Future Development, and Settlement, Springer, 1989, 2nd Edition 2008. His article “Planet Moon Philosophy”, will be inTHE JOURNAL OF SPACE PHILOSOPHY, to be published online 15 Oct 2012. You can subscribe free at:
http://www.keplerspaceuniversity.com

Bob Krone, Provost, Kepler Space Institute

]]> By: GaryChurch https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154621 Sat, 29 Sep 2012 17:08:33 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154621 “This is an ignorant argument clearly exposed by just a simple thought…”

Uh huh. Your economics do not agree with basic physics. But since all is ignorance except for your all knowingness, you and your ROI are safe from reality.

]]> By: ken anthony https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/from-lunar-return-to-the-first-colony#comment-154602 Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:47:23 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5426#comment-154602 People are Von Neumann Machines.

»No solar, deep gravity well, no real protection from radiation

Mars has plenty of solar. Gravity is a good thing. Radiation mitigation is trivial.

»Reusability is a myth.

Ha! This is self evidently false except under tightly regarded cases. Cases that are not absolute.

»space flight is inherently expensive

…and will probably remain so for quite some time, possibly forever. The good news is that cost is only one side of the equation. Return On Investment (ROI) is the other half. Some would point out there is no unobtainium export possible and therefore state, case closed. This is an ignorant argument clearly exposed by just a simple thought…

Which is the bigger economy? One planet alone or a solar system filled with people? The resource that pays for any level of development, right now, is property ownership and that’s just the tip of the economic iceberg. One out in the solar system, many other marginal areas of economics become possible.

See (http://planetplots.blogspot.com/2012/05/philosophy-of-life-in-space.html)

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