back to article NASA suggests robotic return to the Moon

A “return to the Moon” would need an almost unimaginable change in political thinking about the cost of space programs, but that doesn’t stop dreamers from dreaming. A group of researchers that includes members from NASA, Caltech’s JPL, Lockheed-Martin and a handful of high-profile institutions have proposed a human return to …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. VoodooForce
    Thumb Down

    Space Shuttle was an in-city delivery van

    I dont think the Shuttle gave anyone access to "deep space". It was a LEO delivery van.

    1. Richard Chirgwin (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Space Shuttle was an in-city delivery van

      Thanks - I have deleted that reference. It was spurious anyway.

      Richard Chirgwin

  2. AfternoonTea
    Pirate

    0.2 sec's lag could become a problem against the E.T's..

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    The manned aspect seems a bit spurious

    The paper is fairly frank about this:

    The proposed science objectives do not require teleoperation of a rover from L2 since this science might be better accomplished with the assistance of a human crew on the surface or less effectively via control from Earth using a relay satellite at L2. However, by using teleoperation of rovers by astronauts at L2, this mission would demonstrate human “virtual presence” from orbit to explore and deploy sophisticated science instrumentation on an extraterrestrial body (see also Lester and Thronson 2011b)

    Naively I feel quite confident that human virtual presence would work from orbit without needing to see it expensively demonstrated - this isn't wouldn't be like the decision to go "all-up" with Apollo 4 where an entire system was being tested for the first time, but instead taking things we already do well on and from Earth and doing them off-Earth. And while having a 0.4s signal RTT is better than a 2.4s one from Earth the latter seems usably fast at likely robot speeds - it's not like trying to control stuff on another planet.

  4. Richard Boyce
    Facepalm

    Dark Side of the Moon

    "...which will have landed on the dark side of the moon..."

    "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark."

    You did, of course, mean the far side, which gets as much sun as the near side.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Dark Side of the Moon

      It's still dark - blacker than coal dust, more or less.

      Imagine how bright nights would be if it had an albedo worth mentioning.

      "Pave the earth. Chrome the moon"

      1. Alan Firminger

        Question

        If the moon has a dark surface why could I take well exposed photographs exposed as if it was a mid grey subject in bright sunlight ?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    0.2 second ping

    is better than I currently get playing Battlefield.

    1. Alan Firminger

      Re: 0.2 second ping

      It is not an 0.2 second response because that is the time for a single transmission. Effectively there is 0.4 seconds delay between the signals going up ( or down ) and the reply going down ( or up ).

  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge

    0.2sec shorter than the delay on a satellite phone call.

    And what are those little red triangles all about.

    NASA is playing a 2-2-2 lineup?

    Note this has 2 good point.

    Experience of humans at the L2 point, which *could* be used as a staging point for various destinations outside Earth/Moon space

    Experience of teleoperation which could be useful if you went to one of the Martian moons *without* a full scale Mars landing. IIRC they are so small that it's less a landing and more a *docking* given their escape velocity.

  7. SuperTim

    Not AT L2...

    But in a Halo orbit around it...as this would allow line of sight back to the earth for comms. If you were just at L2, then you couldn't see (or communicate back to) the earth...

    1. SkippyBing

      then you couldn't see (or communicate back to) the earth...

      Well it's one way of avoiding calls from double glazing salesmen...

  8. Blofeld's Cat
    Coat

    Target...

    "... the Schroedinger basin ..."

    Presumably it will only be determined whether or not the target area will yield good information when the lander arrives there.

    It has a catnip mouse in one pocket.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Happy

      Re: Target...

      "Schroedinger basin" where there may or may not be a cat...

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Meh

        Re: Target...

        Yes but if there is a cat there, as it's near as dammit a vacuum, the temperature ranges from lethally cold to lethally hot and the radiation levels are fierce, it'll definately be dead. Probably quite messily so, in an asphyxiated, blood-boiling, exploded, fried, frozen and irradiated sort of manner.

        Maybe it's not such a great name?

  9. Alan Brown Silver badge

    L2 Halo orbit

    You'd need that to be able to communicate with the south polar area anyway - which means that 75% of the time you won't be able to communicate with it unless there's a set of orbiting comms sats (this was the proposed solution 40 years ago for darkside apollo missions)

    31 days life support isn't much of an issue. 31 days outside of the shielding provided by Earth's magnetosphere is a different matter with current space tech. Nothing we have _and which can be lifted that far with current tech_ will provide sufficient shielding. Water is the best moderator but it's HEAVY.

    FWIW, being in the path of a small-to-average solar flare will kill any unshielded organism, but even without those there are much higher energy bursts popping in from all directions - the longer someone's out there the more likely it becomes that something will get zapped and go cancerous.

    Those big-ass space navy ships so beloved by SF have a lot of practicality in terms of protecting the meatsacks inside.

    1. Bronek Kozicki

      Re: L2 Halo orbit

      One possible way to get around lack of shielding would be automated (robotic) excavation of water ice , before sending any humans there. Excavation of required amount of water would likely take a very long time, though.

    2. Beachrider

      Re: L2 Halo orbit

      The ONLY justification that I know for even sending folks to Luna-L2 is to use the Moon as a shield from the Sun...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Radiation exposure

      That the Apollo astronauts reported seeing flashes every 3 minutes while beyond LEO remains haunting - all those Cherenkov events, like a reactor cooling pond, only inside the eyeball (it could be a direct neural effect, but my version is even spookier :-) )

  10. Alan Firminger

    But why ?

    Curiosity and the Google driverless car show that we humans are redundant.

  11. Arachnoid
    Facepalm

    So ,,,,,,Nasa still cant get a man on the moon huh !

  12. Charles Manning

    Robots are the right way to do this

    Why send a meatsack to do a robot's job?

    Sure you want a person there if you're making a political statement or trying to make good TV (playing golf etc), but when it comes to doing science the robots can do it as well - or even better - for less money.

    About the only win in sending a man to the moon in the 60s was that it beat the Russians at something.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like