ESA: Building a Lunar Base with 3D Printing

For ESA's 3D-printed lunar base concept, Foster+Partners devised a weight-bearing ‘catenary’ dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a pressurised inflatable to shelter astronauts [ESA/Foster+Partners].

Setting up a lunar base could be made much simpler by using a 3D printer to build it from local materials. Industrial partners including renowned architects Foster + Partners have joined with ESA to test the feasibility of 3D printing using lunar soil.

“Terrestrial 3D printing technology has produced entire structures,” said Laurent Pambaguian, heading the project for ESA.

“Our industrial team investigated if it could similarly be employed to build a lunar habitat.”

Foster + Partners devised a weight-bearing ‘catenary’ dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a pressurised inflatable to shelter astronauts.

The UK’s Monolite supplied the D-Shape printer for ESA's 3D-printed lunar base study, with a mobile printing array of nozzles on a 6 meter frame to spray a binding solution onto a sand-like building material. 3D ‘printouts’ are built up layer by layer – the company more typically uses its printer to create sculptures and is working on artificial coral reefs to help preserve beaches from energetic sea waves. First the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide – turning it into ‘paper’ to print with. Then for structural ‘ink’ a binding salt is applied which converts material to a stone-like solid [ESA/Monolite].

A hollow closed-cell structure – reminiscent of bird bones – provides a good combination of strength and weight.

The base’s design was guided in turn by the properties of 3D-printed lunar soil, with a 1.5 tonne building block produced as a demonstration.

“3D printing offers a potential means of facilitating lunar settlement with reduced logistics from Earth,” added Scott Hovland of ESA’s human spaceflight team.

Sculpture produced by Monolite using 3D printing [ESA/Monolite].

“The new possibilities this work opens up can then be considered by international space agencies as part of the current development of a common exploration strategy.”

“As a practice, we are used to designing for extreme climates on Earth and exploiting the environmental benefits of using local, sustainable materials,” remarked Xavier De Kestelier of Foster + Partners Specialist Modelling Group. “Our lunar habitation follows a similar logic.”

The UK’s Monolite supplied the D-Shape printer, with a mobile printing array of nozzles on a 6 m frame to spray a binding solution onto a sand-like building material.

This 1.5 metric tonne building block was produced as a demonstration of 3D printing techniques using lunar soil. The design is based on a hollow closed-cell structure – reminiscent of bird bones – to give a good combination of strength and weight [ESA].

3D ‘printouts’ are built up layer by layer – the company more typically uses its printer to create sculptures and is working on artificial coral reefs to help preserve beaches from energetic sea waves.

“First, we needed to mix the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide. This turns it into ‘paper’ we can print with,” explained Monolite founder Enrico Dini.

“Then for our structural ‘ink’ we apply a binding salt which converts material to a stone-like solid.

“Our current printer builds at a rate of around 2 m per hour, while our next-generation design should attain 3.5 m per hour, completing an entire building in a week.”

Italian space research firm Alta SpA worked with Pisa-based engineering university Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna on adapting 3D printing techniques to a Moon mission and ensuring process quality control. The effect of working in a vacuum was also assessed.

“The process is based on applying liquids but, of course, unprotected liquids boil away in vacuum,” said Giovanni Cesaretti of Alta.

“So we inserted the 3D printer nozzle beneath the regolith layer. We found small 2 mm-scale droplets stay trapped by capillary forces in the soil, meaning the printing process can indeed work in vacuum.”

Simulated lunar regolith is produced for scientific testing by specialist companies, typically sold by the kilogram. But the team required many tonnes for their work.

“As another useful outcome, we discovered a European source of simulated lunar regolith,” added Enrico.

“Basaltic rock from one volcano in central Italy turns out to bear a 99.8% resemblance to lunar soil.”

“This project took place through ESA’s General Studies Programme, used to look into new topics,” Laurent commented.

“We have confirmed the basic concept, and assembled a capable team for follow-on work.”

Factors such as controlling lunar dust – hazardous to breathe in – and thermal factors will require further study.

3D printing works best at room temperature but over much of the Moon temperatures vary enormously across days and nights lasting two weeks each. For potential settlement, the lunar poles offer the most moderate temperature range.

Setting up a future lunar base could be made much simpler by using a 3D printer to build it from local materials. Industrial partners including renowned architects Foster+Partners have joined with ESA to test the feasibility of 3D printing using lunar soil.

The base is first unfolded from a tubular module that can be easily transported by space rocket. An inflatable dome then extends from one end of this cylinder to provide a support structure for construction. Layers of regolith are then built up over the dome by a robot-operated 3D printer (right) to create a protective shell [ESA/Foster+Partners].

Student demostrates thermal storage from regolith

Rock star ... Aaron Bonanno used powder from a local quarry to simulate moon dust as he looks to develop a solar energy system that could be used on the moon [Dallas Kilponen / Brisbane Times].

Jen Rosenberg
Brisbane Times

IMAGINE if you could harness the sun's energy to power the moon.

Aaron Bonanno has found a way to make the improbable possible and has designed a renewable energy system to power a futuristic moon colony.

The boy who soaked up anything to do with space, travel and exploration is now a fourth-year university student about to appear before a conference of some of the finest space engineers to present his findings.
Advertisement: Story continues below

The American Society for Civil Engineers has invited Mr. Bonanno to explain his research at the Earth and Space 2012 Conference in California this weekend.

Using basalt from a quarry on the central coast to simulate moon dust, he has developed solar thermal energy blocks that are lightweight and easy to transport and store.

Read the article HERE.

JAXA plans for robotic moonbase by 2020

Japanese Space Agency concept drawing of robotic lunar base [JAXA].

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today

The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has plans to build a base on the Moon by 2020. Not for humans, but for robots, and built by robots, too. A panel authorized by Japan's prime minister has drawn up preliminary plans of how humanoid and rover robots will begin surveying the moon by 2015, and then begin construction of a base near the south pole of the moon. The robots and the base will run on solar power, with total costs about $2.2 billion USD, according to the panel chaired by Waseda University President Katsuhiko Shirai.

Read the article HERE.

Foster and Partners bid for lunar construction

This is Money.uk

It is one of the world's most distinguished architecture firms, the design brains behind London's Gherkin, Millennium Bridge and Wembley Stadium.

But Foster and Partners has been hit hard by the global slump in construction on Earth and is hoping for better luck on the Moon.

It is part of a group hoping to win a contract from the European Space Agency to test materials for building settlements on the lunar surface.

The mission, to develop a 'more permanent presence on the Moon', is part of the Aurora space program.

Foster and Partners, founded by Lord Foster 40 years ago, is now backed by private equity firm 3i and has been having a tough time of late.

It posted an £18m loss in its latest accounts and axed 300 of its now 1,000-strong work force after building work dried up. So the lunar project will be a key contract.

Experts at Building magazine say Foster's consortium has a good chance of winning, partly due to the expertise of the team which includes Alta SpA, a space technology specialist.

ESA invited bids from firms willing to progress research initiated by the Apollo astronauts in the late Sixties.

The project is to adapt materials found in space to be used for building. Earth materials cannot be used because of the huge transport costs.

A spokesman for Foster declined to comment.

'What can we do on the Moon?'

Essential lunar architecture as still envisioned by NASA,
2020-2040 (NASA)

Hat Tip to Madhu Thangavelu and SGC

USC Division of Astronautical Engineering: Project Looking Glass (2008)

During the Fall 2008 semester, the students of the graduate astronautics class ASTE 527 (formerly AME 557), Space Exploration Architectures Concept Synthesis Studio, addressed the following question:

What precisely can we do on the Moon, with crew and robots, that can immediately (very short timeframe-2020-2040) benefit not only the science and engineering community, but also inspire humanity as a whole, on a permanent basis?

The team presentations can be found HERE, in PowerPoint format.

Robotic arm for lunar missions

NASA has developed a robotic device that can help astronauts live and work on the moon and eventually Mars. LSMS is moving a simulated lunar oxygen generation plant from a lunar lander mockup to the surface during a test in Moses Lake, Washington. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

Brittany Sauser
MIT Technology Review

It looks like a lightweight crane, but NASA's new robotic arm can do more than just lift objects. Called the Lunar Surface Manipulator System (LSMS), it could be a strong helping hand for astronauts living and working on the moon. It could, for example, move large payloads and precisely position scientific experiments.

NASA's plan is not just to return to the moon by 2020, but to build a lunar outpost there. To do so, astronauts will need help lifting large and sometimes awkwardly-shaped payloads, and getting to spaces too high for them to reach. The device is similar to the space shuttle's robotic arm, which has been essential for moving equipment and checking for damage to the shuttle's heat shield.

The LSMS will be able to carry loads between 100 to 3,000 kilograms, and the arm and forearm would be able to rotate up 45 degrees and extend as high as about 9 meters. When reach is more important, it can be configured as a 3.75-meter-tall horizontal boom capable of stretching out 7.5 meters. The system will be modular so that other devices can be added to it. And it will be made out of lightweight, high-stiffness graphite-epoxy composites.

The manipulator system, which is being built at Langley Research Center, was first tested in 2008. "The manipulator did everything we wanted it to, from lifting large simulated airlocks and habitats to more delicate tasks, such as precisely positioning scientific payloads," said John Dorsey, a senior aerospace engineer at Langley and a task led for LSMS development and testing, in a NASA press release.

Read the Article HERE.

Project Roony - Sweden's Malardalen University

From Robots.net - University Robot Aims
to Put a House on the Moon

Alper Aydemir writes, "This is a new robot prototype from Malardalen University in Sweden about a robot which can deploy a 10msq house. Much like IKEA on Moon, check out the video!" He sent a link to a story in the robotliving.com blog about Project Roony. A team of 14 students at Sweden's Malardalen University are building the robot as part of artist Mikael Genberg's House on the Moon. The idea is to put a scale model of a house on the moon as a symbol. If you're wondering about the name, here's the official explanation: "The name roony is a combination of ROver and moON, and the Y is just added to make the name a little bit more catchy.". Video of Roony deploying a prototype of the "house" after the break. For even more video of Roony's development see the Project Roony news page.

YouTube

And in further news... The latest episode of the Robots podcast talks with the father of field robotics, the director of CMU's Field Robotics Center, Prof. William "Red" Whittaker. Following his team's win of the Darpa Urban Challenge, RED's next goal is the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition for 20 million US dollars for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth. Listen to Red Whittaker for more information on the challenge and to see what he plans...

Considerations Regarding the Development of an Environmental Control and Life Support System for Lunar Surface Applications

Robert M. Bagdigian, NASA Marshall SFC, Huntsville

Department of Biological Sciences of the RAS Moscow
September 24 - 27, 2008

NASA is engaged in early architectural analyses and trade studies aimed at identifying requirements, predicting performance and resource needs, characterizing mission constraints and sensitivities, and guiding technology development planning needed to conduct a successful human exploration campaign of the lunar surface.

Conceptual designs and resource estimates for environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) within pressurized lunar surface habitats and rovers have been considered and compared in order to support these lunar campaign studies. This summarizes those concepts and some of the more noteworthy considerations that will likely remain as key drivers in the evolution of the lunar surface ECLSS architecture.

Presentation Slides (pdf.) HERE.

Kaguya Data: No 'Peak of Eternal Sunlight'

Hat Tip to Lunar Mark and (Nick Azer)
Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

In what seems to be a little-noticed but highly important development for lunar base planning, Japan’s SELENE (also known as Kaguya) lunar orbiter last month determined that the concept of a ‘Peak of Eternal Light‘ at either of the lunar poles does not exist.

The possibility of a Peak of Eternal Light at one of several locations, including the rim of Shackleton Crater or on Malapert (both at the South Pole), made those locations prime candidates for early lunar bases. Having eternal sunlight is, clearly, an advantage for any outpost relying largely on solar power.

Some of these points at the lunar poles do have as much as 89% illumination, though, so they remain very strong locations as far as near-constant solar power.

The pessimists of the universe, though, will rejoice in knowing that permanent shadow was confirmed to exist–leading to potential water ice.

The JAXA team’s findings were published in the U.S. journal of Geophysics last month.

Astrobiotics/CMU foresee role for micro-bots

Photo, above, by Mark Maxwell, Astrobotic Technology: Small commercial robots the size of riding mowers could prepare a safe landing site for NASA's lunar outpost by surrounding it with an eight-foot high semi-circle berm to block grit kicked out by spacecraft landings from hitting nearby habitats, according to research by Astrobotic Technology Inc. and Carnegie Mellon University, funded by NASA.

Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon Researchers Show Small Robots Can Prepare Lunar Surface for NASA Outpost

PITTSBURGH—Small robots the size of riding mowers could prepare a safe landing site for NASA's Moon outpost, according to a NASA-sponsored study prepared by Astrobotic Technology Inc. with technical assistance from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.

Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon researchers analyzed mission requirements and developed the design for an innovative new type of small lunar robot under contract from NASA's Lunar Surface Systems group.

The results will be presented Friday in Washington, D.C., at a NASA Lunar Surface Systems conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Space Enterprise Council.

"NASA faces a challenge in planning the layout for its outpost, which is expected to begin operations in 2020," said William "Red" Whittaker, chairman and chief technical officer of Astrobotic and a Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics. "For efficient cargo transfer, the landing site needs to be close to the outpost's crew quarters and laboratories. Each rocket landing and takeoff, however, will accelerate lunar grit outwards from the pad. With no atmosphere to slow it down, the dry soil would sandblast the outpost."

The research examined two potential solutions: 1) construction of a berm around the landing site, and 2) creation of a hard-surface landing pad using indigenous materials.

In the first solution, researchers found that two rovers weighing 330 pounds each would take less than six months to build a berm around a landing site to block the sandblasting effect. A berm 8.5 feet tall in a 160-foot semi-circle would require moving 2.6 million pounds of lunar dirt. Robots this size can be sent to NASA's planned polar outpost site in advance of human expeditions. Astrobotic Technology Inc. has proposed that landing site preparation be provided by commercial ventures.

In the second solution, researchers showed how small robots could comb the lunar soil for rocks, gathering them to pave a durable grit-free landing pad, said John Kohut, Astrobotic's chief executive officer. "This might reduce the need to build protective berms. To discern the best approach, early robotic scouting missions need to gather on-site information about the soil's cohesion levels and whether rocks and gravel of the right size can be found at the site."

Also at Carnegie Mellon, Whittaker is directing the development of Astrobotic's first lunar robot, which has been undergoing field trials for several months. The company's first mission, to win the $20 million Google Lunar X prize by visiting the Apollo 11 landing site and transmitting high-definition video to Earth, is set for December 2010.

Details of the study and lunar imagery are available at www.astrobotictech.com.

Virginia Tech Sinters Lunar Brick

A composite of simulated lunar regolith and powdered aluminum heats up via wires as part of the fusion process that forms a brick. A team of Virginia Tech students, under the advisement of Kathryn Logan, a professor in the materials science and engineering department, designed the brick as a potential building tool for future colonies on the moon. The NIA carved into the stands for National Institute of Aerospace, which includes Virginia Tech.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Dwellings in colonies on the moon one day may be built with new, highly durable bricks developed by students from the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Read more HERE.

Waterless Concrete, Just add S to Regolith

Dr. Houssam A. Toutanji of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is a true innovator in the ancient arts of public works. Applying his skills to the dry, dusty and radiation-baked lunar surface, he now certain shelter and cost savings can be harvested in situ on the Moon, mixing waterless concrete.

A report three years ago from UAH on Toutanji's work, said, "He has spent his research career studying the characteristics of concrete, including the last four years researching the possibility of making concrete on the moon. During those four years, he has had a share of scientists telling him that he was wasting his time — America would never go back to the moon. A wide grin spreads across his face. "Those are the same scientists who are calling me, emailing me and asking me about my research today," he said.

Another three year later, Toutanji has apparently made some breakthroughs, publishing an article, according to Science Daily, "that will demonstrate a concept of creating concrete structures on the lunar surface without the use of water."

Traditional concrete comprises a binder — cement and water — mixed with aggregates. While some parts of the Moon may have water, that resource may be more valuable for astronaut’s consumption rather than building structures.

His research shows that those astronauts can turn to a new type of waterless concrete that uses lunar soil as the aggregate and sulfur as a binding agent. Years of work must be paying off. In the recent past, Toutanji expressed concerns about sublimation, the slow deterioration of materials mostly from rapid thermal expansion and contraction and radiation-induced space weathering.

Toutanji was co-author in 2007 of an article along with Dr. Richard N. Grugel, a geological engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. According to the abstract, Toutanji & Grugel wrote:

Melting sulfur and mixing it with an aggregate to form “concrete” is commercially well established and constitutes a material that is particularly well-suited for use in corrosive environments. Discovery of the mineral troilite (FeS) on the moon poses the question of extracting the sulfur for use as a lunar construction material. This would be an attractive alternative to conventional concrete as it does not require water. However, the viability of sulfur concrete in a lunar environment, which is characterized by lack of an atmosphere and extreme temperatures, is not well understood. Here it is assumed that the lunar ore can be mined, refined, and the raw sulfur melded with appropriate lunar regolith to form, for example, bricks. This study evaluates pure sulfur and two sets of small sulfur concrete samples that have been prepared using JSC-1 lunar stimulant and SiO2 powder as aggregate additions. Each set was subjected to extended periods in a vacuum environment to evaluate sublimation issues. Results from these experiments are presented and discussed within the context of the lunar environment.

Does NASA sees salvation in ESA support for Shack Scenario?

Heads up from Rob Coppinger and Hyperbola

Video Link. Looks very much like the ESA is either an unofficial or seriously notional part of NASA's vision for the Shackelton SPA Lunar Outpost, or that's the way it appears in these videos uncovered by Rob Coppinger at Hyperbola. EU individual member states have already started committing to joining NASA in building the International Lunar Network.

Will this partnership naturally extend to the NASA's "semi-permanent" manned outpost, and its construction on the Shackleton sweet spot inside South Pole Aitken Basin ~2020?

Is tying NASA's long-term plans to US foreign policy the way to solve the short-term budgeting hassle tha is part and parcel of US congressional election cycles?

Or are these videos purely notional fantasies, or just part of Langley's long term sales?

Brick and Glass from Lunar Regolith

The road ahead for the Lunar Pioneer is already a carefully ordered and logical one. It will be a while longer before boots return to the ground, if NASA has its way. Reading the commissioned studies and tight budgets, however, shows us what may be a necessary discipline.

And, in the long run, proving possible what was once science fiction is also necessary if the tough road toward permanent settlement is going to be tolerable.

Among those things long hoped for has been the grinding of lenses from the Moon itself. Now, in one week, NASA has shown both glass and sheltering bricks can be made from lunar regolith.

Of course, these popular developments coming, as they do, as an ambivalent Congress deliberates a larger than expected budget is not by chance. But, however good fortune has proven it, what many of us have long known could and should be done on the Moon is manifest, and we're glad.

It is a hint, a momentary glimpse of a marvelous future astronomy that will make the benighted Hubble as quaint as Hale.

Read more HERE.

Who will own the moon and the worlds?

Yes, but... What about the "International Star Registry?"

Such was the power of the Will of Pope Alexander VI that in 1493, barely a year after the European discovery of the Americas, while still exceptionally ignorant of their true extent, their range or even their location, let alone their golden Empires, at that moment manifested in the Inca and Aztec, that he could still set upon the Globe a longitudinal Line of Demarcation separating the future claims of both loyal Portugal and Spain in the "New World."

Five centuries later, east of that Line is Portuguese-speaking Brazil while generally west of that Line, in the far larger part of South America, Spanish is spoken, even by descendants of the Inca and Aztec.

Such was the power of a man who, beginning with an abstraction, and who would never visit those lands or know more than next-to-nothing about their extent, could still have a very lasting effect on the course of history.

The law may be a metaphor, but it is "a metaphor with teeth."

This Demarcation, however, also included an area we know (and by the power of one mapmaker) as North America - which was included inside the Division given to Spain. One tribe of the hundreds of millions of aboriginal Indios, nomads of the North American Plains who had been Mountain Utes who would later learn the power of the horse and become known to the Spanish as Comanche, or "those who are always against us," kept the Spanish out of Texas for two centuries. Meanwhile, the Protestant English gradually became de facto owners of the eastern seaboard of North America.

Both groups simply failed to reconcile themselves to foreign ecclesiastical supremacy, and their long conflict, between Iron and Stone Age peoples, had its inevitable result. In the United States, English predominates, despite the Pope's declaration. The bloodiest battles in the subsequent history of all the Americas would be fought between English-speaking descendants and over the status of slaves imported from Africa.

Still further north, the French held sway, and in Quebec their language is spoken today. Thus, the range of Alexander VI's influence was indeed lasting, but it had its practical limits also, as did the dictates of European Empires over their colonies.

Now, in deciding who "owns" the myriad New Worlds in this star system alone, there are lessons to be learned from history about the long arm of recognized authority and the limitations of symbolic abstractions on ink on paper thousands of miles away, in both space and time.

The Winter 2008 Journal of Space Law & Commerce from Southern Methodist University School of Law, delivers a scholarly review of the notion of private claims on Lunar and other extraterrestrial Real Estate.

The authors make the case that an earth-bound authority could encourage space settlement by recognizing the apportionment of lands as incentive for people to act, a method used to hasten the completion of the Trans- Continental Railroad in the United States, and helped along by the recognition of parcels and townships on either side of the easement while deeding their Mineral Rights to private Trusts and corporations.

Claims that might have been made by some of my Indio ancestors were crippled, naturally, by their lack of any cultural understanding of a Chain of Title and by their genuine horror even at the thought of Mineral Rights.

There are other ways, more chaotic perhaps than may be comfortable to the authors or to the United Nations. In North Carolina, for example, the unchallenged squatting upon someone else's property for 17 years or more can become ownership when a claim is afterwards simply filed at the county courthouse. (The reparation later awarded Aboriginal Americans, however, after millennial "squatting" on parts of North America is apparently the right to operate a Casino.)

Gene Cernan at the beginning of the last EVA on the moon, in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, December 1972. (Image Credit - Jack Schmitt)

Selling the moon, like EM spectrum auctions which have netted the U.S. federal government $64 Billion, is also asking for trouble.

Extraterrestrial land transactions in general are almost certain to lead to ridiculous conflicts and/or impossible or expensive-to-enforce litigation, between absent owners, or nations and nationals, who mine anothers claim.

The Outer Space Treaty puts signatories under an obligation to share data collected by exploration, but no one said this would have to be done in "real time." This creates a market for "insider trading."

And so on... Frustration over such problems, however, along with the persistant, ancient illusions of a Collective, rationalized by terrestrial pressures to "share resources" with the less intrepid may eventually lead to such "hands-off" disincentives to settlement as is seen today in Antarctica, a terrible model for exploiting off-world resources - which might one day prevent the sale of minerals taken from the asteroids, for example, in the only market in this star system, down here in Earth's Gravity Well.

Putting outer space Real Estate in the hands of the United Nations would accomplish the opposite intented by the authors. It would be a disincentive.

The only incentive model that may be workable, in both the short run and the long run, is real people on real property, Boots on the Ground, and mutual agreements made in "township" by those parties in situ - with written agreements made on the land itself, by people who wear spacesuits, not suits and ties, to get to the bargaining table.

Agreements in Townships may exclude absent "authorities" from de facto Eminent Domain or specifically exclude claims by absent owners, and be accompanied by agreements to mutual defense. The latter may seem ridiculous today, but humans are adept at innovating warfare.

You may already see a "War for Lunar Independence" may occur and sooner rather than later. It may have already begun.

Authority, presumed or otherwise, on the part of any Nation-State or International Body, with a Monopoly of Force and written on paper to extend off-Earth must diminish in inverse-proportion to the square of its distance. Earth's Moon may, therefore, be too close for intrepid pioneers.

While the nations of Earth spend relatively little to "explore," history shows they will spend $10 Trillion to enforce proven claims to resources valuing $100 Trillion. When it comes to Power, "Zero-Sum Economies" are quickly tossed aside.

Declaring Space Entrepreneurs to be "privateers," and enforcing Trade Restrictions, preventing access to free markets, may be the best and perhaps the only practical way they might enforce their future treaties - a ball and chain on the speed of our becoming a space-faring species.

Then again, one other way would be to restrict access to Launch and Re-entry windows before they can foresee a loss of bureaucratic control over potential off-world resources; something already well-established in existing Space Law and Regulation.

Liquid Lunar Telescopes

Among the reasons NASA wasn't as enthusiastic as the general public and America's school-age kids, to perform a final Hubble Telescope servicing mission, now scheduled as perhaps the last scheduled mission of the Space Shuttle Altantis later this summer, is the James Webb Space Telescope, under construction and slated for flight and "first light" in 2013.

Naturally, following the decision to retire the three remaining Shuttles after the Columbia disaster in February 2003, both the risk and cost were considered too high. But NASA also knew, as magnificent as Hubble has been, even its astounding capabilities had long been overshadowed by those planned for follow-up missions such as the Webb.

The Hubble concept, after all, was born at the same time as that of the Shuttle itself, beginning in 1972. Originally both were supposed to be in service by 1976 and in time for the America's Bicentennial.

The Shuttle's cargo bay was planned around the dimensions of the Hubble, but the new technologies necessary for the eventual success of both projects, and endless budget cutbacks following the scrapping of Apollo, delayed both for many years. Columbia did not fly until 1981 and an additional decade, almost 15 years after its planned deployment, Hubble was finally carried into orbit, along with an embarrassing micro-flaw in the main mirror putting it in need of innovative corrective lenses installed in an "inherently dangerous" servicing mission, before it began to live up to its full potential.

Along with the easily ruptured spacesuits from wriggling pressurized fingers in places they weren't ever meant to poke, the Hubble flies more than 100 kilometers higher than the Shuttle's design, and closed to the Van Allen radiation belts, increasing the lifetime probability of "REID," or "Radiation Exposure Induced Death," which NASA protocols limit to 3 percent per astronaut, per career. While the Hubble flies closer to the Equator than the Space Station, even operations of the mission are limited during its passing though the fringe of the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the inner Van Allen Belt dips to its closest point to Low Earth Orbit.

Trips through the Van Allen Belt are hazardous, but not the killing field they are often made out to be by those who claim the Apollo lunar missions were frauds perpetrated on the world.

Yet another reason to eventually de-orbit the Hubble is the eventual erosion of the telescope due to prolonged exposure to Cosmic Rays of high energy and mass, particularly during Solar Minimums, when CR's are less attinuated by as much as 50 percent by a stronger solar influence during Solar Maximum. Space is wrongly considered not be an erosive environment, but more is constantly at work on humans and equipment than repeated exposure to stark heat and cold as the vehicle passes from dark shadow to full sunlight during most orbits.

This is another reason even the improved shielding built into the International Space Station cannot last forever. NASA now plans to decommission the Station, which is only 80 percent complete, in 2016.

Even so, Hubble's primary collecting mirror is "only" two and a half meters wide. The development of active, segmented and binocular earth bound telescopes have nearly overcome the very limitations of being down on Earth and under the shifting atmosphere that Hubble was designed to address, with the exception of baselines wider than any available on Earth or what can be constructed inside Earth's gravity well - the very limitations that once made the Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar in 1936 "the largest telescope possible."

By contrast, the James Webb Space Telescope will boast a mirror five meters in diameter, with seven times the light collecting ability. And beyond this, NASA is thinking even larger, with concepts using liquid metal mirrors stationed on the Moon.

"The (LMT) telescope would be anywhere from 66 feet to 328 feet wide," writes William Harris of "How Stuff Works."

"It would collect 1,736 times more light than Hubble and penetrate the depths of the (optical) universe," Harris explains, giving Webb the ability to resolve the very beginnings of the end of the "Cosmic Dark Age," and the first sudden proliferation of stars after the early Universe's beginning, and with unimaginable detail revealed of the "realm of the blue galaxies," today mere smudges on Hubble's famous and astounding Deep Field images.

Read more HERE.

Cat shoots for the moon

Company teams with NASA to build habitats, roads on lunar surface

By PAUL GORDON of the Peoria Journal Star

PEORIA - Caterpillar Inc. doesn't plan to stop at being the No. 1 construction equipment maker in the world. It's aiming for the universe, with NASA as its partner.

Caterpillar and NASA - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - are getting closer to having the right earthmoving - er, moonmoving - equipment available to put on the moon in less than a decade to build habitats, roads and other infrastructure that could sustain life on the lunar surface.

"We're pretty far along. I would say our partnership with Caterpillar is right on schedule," said Lucien Junkin, NASA's chief engineer of the Chariot project the two have been working on since 2006.

Chariot is the name given to the vehicle, which NASA calls
a "lunar truck" that is being co-developed using Caterpillar's robotics technology and NASA's knowledge of the surface, which Junkin describes as rocky and sandy, devoid of any moisture. "The moon 'dust' is more like crushed gravel, with fine, sharp edges," he said.

The technology is being developed in a Caterpillar skid steer loader and later will be transferred to the Chariot, which would be able to be operated through remote control or automation, said Eric Reiners, engineering manager of electronics and controls in Caterpillar's Technical Solutions Division.

The Chariot and the work Caterpillar and NASA are doing on the project is detailed - to date, anyway - in a pair of brief videos that can be viewed on Caterpillar's Web site, www.cat.com.

In the video, Junkin said NASA began renewing its interest in moon exploration when President Bush, in early 2004, called on the space agency to find a way for man to live on the moon.

Junkin said NASA, knowing that meant infrastructure would be needed where there is nothing but moon dust now, "turned to the people we believe are the best at doing things like building roads, berms, landing strips or digging and trenching, and that's Caterpillar."

Junkin, himself a nationally known expert in robotics, said NASA will tap Caterpillar's expertise not only in machine technology, but also the best way to make the machine do the tasks at hand.

"Mankind has never done construction or moved dirt on another celestial body. That's why we wanted Caterpillar's expertise," Junkin said.

Caterpillar, said Reiners, knew of NASA's interest in sustaining life on the moon from an earlier project. "So we got together and agreed to start working together again, exchanging intellectual property," he said.

NASA wanted help to find a way to make the machines work without a human operator, something Caterpillar has experience with, Reiner said. "Robotics and automation takes the human operator out of dangerous situations," he said.

Even if there are humans on the moon when work occurs, much of the moon dust moving will be done by remote control from the lunar habitat or from Earth, or through programmed automation.

That's because humans can be out in the elements of the moon only a short period at a time. Part of that is because of the extremes in a lunar day, which is the equivalent of 28 earth days: It can go from 270 degrees during the day to 250 degrees below zero at night.

"I would say we are at various stages in the technology development," Reiners said. One problem with trying to operate the lunar truck by remote control from Earth is the distance creates a time lag of several seconds between the time the command is given and executed and acknowledged. That's why work is being done so the machine can be programmed to execute certain functions on its own.

Junkin and Reiners said the Chariot project, part of NASA's Constellation Program, is on schedule to send equipment and begin doing infrastructure in 2016 or 2017, with humans returning to the moon by 2020 or 2021.

"It's very exciting," said Reiners, who has been with Caterpillar 21 years. "The people who are doing the day-to-day development work here at Mossville are very excited about what we're doing.

"It fits very well with what Cat has been doing around the world, and now we are looking at humanity expanding its presence to other places outside Earth. Some are calling the moon our eighth continent. It only makes sense Cat would be on hand to help make it happen," he said.

Paul Gordon can be reached at 686-3288 or pgordon@pjstar.com