www.thespacewriter.com/wp

The launch of Apollo 11 to the Moon on July 16, 1969, carrying three astronauts: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Courtesy NASA.

Fifty years is a long time in space flight terms, although a very short time in the span of human history. But, a half-century ago this week, humans changed history in a few short minutes. They blasted off to land on the Moon. That seems like ancient history to the people born since that time. To those of us who watched it happen (no matter what our age at the time), it’s like it happened just a few years ago. It is very hard to believe that 50 years have gone by since that momentous week.

Most of us expected that we’d be much further along in space missions by now, although none of us could have predicted the current state of the world’s space programs from that vantage point so long ago. There are more than 75 countries with the capability of sending satellites to space, but only a handful can send humans. That will change, of course. But, our future in space — as imagined from that date in the 1960s — is not quite what we hoped it would be.

Spinoffs from the Apollo Missions

The run-up to the Apollo landings on the Moon required the Gemini missions, plus the precursor Apollo missions. But, it also required a lot of technological development. I’m not talking about the usual spinoff citations such as Teflon and so on. Those happened and we’re better for most of them.

To get to the Moon, there are whole fields of technological expertise and manufacture that didn’t exist before John F. Kennedy pointed us there. In addition, going to the Moon required a huge ramp-up in science education. There simply weren’t enough scientists and engineers to do the work that needed to be done.

Last week I was invited to appear on a radio show to talk about the buildup to Apollo. (The show didn’t happen for technical reasons at their end.) I prepared a lot of background material to discuss. One of the aspects that I really didn’t think too much about WAS that ramp-up in education. I think that’s, in part, because I was in the middle of it. My generation of kids who started school in the 60s benefitted from this vastly improved science education. That was thanks to the space program in the U.S. I wrote about that in my book called Space Exploration (see the link to the left).

In it, I wrote:

“During the Space Race, it was clear that more science and technical education was needed as the countries ramped up to meet the personnel needs of a space infrastructure that was being built almost overnight. In the U.S., the government passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), in 1958. Not only was it a response to Sputnik, but it became very clear the nation – which already had a very good educational system — needed to train even more scientists and technical experts than it already had. So, money flowed to school districts for curriculum upgrades and science teachers, to colleges for advanced courses of study. The National Science Foundation (NSF) was granted a half billion dollars over twenty years for math and science curriculum upgrades and teacher development.”

Education and Domes

One of the more interesting things that I found out in my research for the book is that the space race spurred the building of large numbers of planetarium facilities in the U.S. There was a big jump in the numbers of facilities built, particularly in the U.S. It starts in the early 60s and topped out around 1973 — with installations slowing down after that. This coincides fairly well with the rise of space development through the Gemini and Apollo programs.

We also saw planetariums play a part early in the space race. Places such as Morehead Planetarium in North Carolina and the Griffith Observatory in the US hosted astronauts for training. There were similar programs for cosmonauts at the Moscow Planetarium in the then Soviet Union.

Of course, planetarium facilities existed before the race. They continue to be built (albeit at a much slower pace than during those years). And, they remain in the public mind as places to learn the sky and about the space programs, which is a function they still serve today.

We Got to the Moon, Then What?

In the years after the successful Moon landings, for a variety of reasons, the Moon wasn’t quite such an inviting target for human exploration. Sure, we’ve been sending very successful robotic landers and orbiters and that continues today. But, going BACK to the Moon for good hasn’t been quite the draw it used to have. That will also change, of course. Not because someone in the U.S. White House (who can’t tell the difference between the Moon and Mars) said so. It’s bigger than that. It’s because the place is an interesting scientific (and very likely political) target. That’s what I’ve been talking about in my previous entries.

Obviously, I think we need to put some focus on lunar missions. It’s still the next logical step in outward exploration. We can quibble about whether a fabulously expensive lunar gateway should be part of the equation. In the end, just getting to the Moon is important. We can use it for its resources and scientific revelations, and as a steppingstone “out” to the rest of the solar system.

Mars and Beyond?

As for whether we SHOULD go to Mars, that has been a long-term goal since the earliest days of the space race. Wernher von Braun cited it as a goal. I took part in studies in the 1980s that looked at possible scenarios for Mars missions. Some of them included many of the robotic precursors we see today.

So, yes, I think we should go. We need to do it in a measured way, learn to live and work in space near Earth where we can make rescues if we need to during the early phases, and then when the tech is workable and we know we can subject humans to these missions, send them along. I have long said that the first generation of Mars explorers is among us — around the world. If we’re going to send them, we owe it to them to do good planning for safe, effective missions.

Celebrate Apollo

While what we are seeing today in terms of space exploration may not be what people expected when Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins made their journey 50 years ago this week, it’s still that step outwards. The questions we will want to answer for ourselves as time goes by are many and varied. The biggest one is, “Will we succeed in taking the big steps for humanity that Armstrong spoke of when he set foot on the lunar surface?”

I’m hoping we will, but there’s a LOT of work to be done. Science education is under attack, as its science itself, in the U.S. NASA is constantly underfunded. It is criticized for nearly everything it does, good or bad. Some complain it’s just a jobs program for wealthy defense and aerospace contractors. Others feel that it’s not doing enough to engage MORE people in the workforce. The list goes on and on. Yet, NASA still remains a good return on investment, and is one of the few programs that should remain in place. Perhaps it needs to change somewhat with the times, but that’s a subject for another discussion.

The world we work in today is not the world of the 1960s, and the incentives for space exploration are somewhat different. The cost of space flight is high, both in terms of money and human risk. Even the private space industry feels constrained by these factors. In the case of safety, it should be. Can we beat these (and other) challenges? Of course. If we want to. That’s the operative idea.

Take some time this week to celebrate the accomplishments of the 1960s space efforts. They put us on an interesting path. It’s worthy of your attention.

Back from a refreshing long weekend and some more thoughts about future lunar bases and colonies. As a science-fiction reader of long standing, of course, I’ve enjoyed fictional accounts of what it would be like to live and work on the Moon. Writers in the Golden Age of science fiction (Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and others) never imagined that we wouldn’t consider going to the Moon as a next major step. It seems natural — why NOT go to the next nearest body in space and learn to exist there? It’s not much stranger (although likely as difficult and definitely more spendy) than doing a space station. We’ve had a few of those since the start of the Space Age.

I know there’s something of a debate going on in “official” circles about whether we should go to the Moon next. Or, should we build a lunar gateway? And, of course, there’s the argument that we just head straight to Mars. In my opinion, the first two make more sense. As a Mars fan from early childhood, the Red Planet beckons to me, too. But, as I’ve mentioned in other entries here, we need a training ground for Mars. The Moon and near-Earth space are good, relatively “safe” places for that. I say “safe” because they’re still close enough to mount rescue missions to the trainees if something goes wrong. Trying to “rescue” folks on Mars (or halfway there), is a whole other problem.

A 1.5-ton building block 3D printed using simulated lunar dust. Made at ESA, it’s part of research into using in situ materials on the Moon for habitats. Courtesy ESA–G. Porter, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Why Live and Work on the Moon?

Lunar colonies present a very good chance to accomplish a number of scientific and sociological aims:

learn to live and work in very low gravity environment;
devise ways to use lunar materials as resources for the outposts;
find out more about the Moon from in situ long-term studies, which (in turn) helps us understand more about Earth;
plant humanity’s flag on another world. This would be a perfect salute and follow-up to the men who landed there in the late 60s and early 70s and planted their country’s flag there while declaring that they came in peace for ALL people on Earth;
build a stepping stone to other places in the solar system, using lunar resources;
providing commercial expansion possibilities for space sector businesses around the world;
use the Moon as a scientific outpost, particularly for astronomy and astrophysics.

Those are a few of the many reasons I’ve read about for a return to the Moon. Of course, the sociological issues include political considerations. Those mainly boil down to showing off a country’s technical and financial prowess in getting to space and the Moon. Politicians may not say it that way, but flag-waving is a huge consideration and not one to be taken lightly. Just look at what flag-waving gets used to “sell” in the U.S., and other countries. It’s part of humanity’s makeup to “tribalize” and be proud of our “clan’s” achievements. That’s fine, but as we’ve seen with the ISS, such flag-waving usually takes a second seat to mutual accomplishment and cooperation. And, of course, safety. However, no frontier is completely safe. If we wait until things are safe, we’ll never go anywhere.

The Moon: Not Much Atmosphere

Of course, there are cons to living and working on the Moon. The physical ones are all pretty self-evident. The biggest issues revolve around that word: safety. How safe is it to take up residence on the Moon? In a few words: not very. The environment is far more extreme than any we have here on Earth. There’s no air to breathe, so we have to bring our own (and eventually figure out how to synthesize it from local materials). There’s also no flowing water. BUT, there IS water ice at the lunar poles. And hydrated minerals in the rocks. So, theoretically (since this hasn’t been tried yet ON the Moon), people living there could get their water from lunar sources. There’s the potential for a LOT of water.

A very good article in Air & Space Magazine from 2018 describes the possible amounts of water at the lunar poles. It also describes in detail how scientists know about the water). In essence, there could be up to 200 billion metric tons (estimated) just at the poles. The problem with that number is that it’s a good estimate. We really don’t KNOW yet how much there is. That argues for further study, including some human exploration to do some good old hands-on “geology” on the Moon. But, if all this water is there, that’s a good news scenario for future missions. The bad news is: they have to get there and figure out a way to harvest it. That’s not even really bad news, but it is a technological challenge.

Radiation and Impact Hazards, Shields Up!

The Moon is a radiation and impact hazard zone. There’s no way around that. Not much of a magnetic field to fend off incoming solar radiation. There’s very little to no air to vaporize incoming impactors. Plus, the lunar surface tells a tale of continuous bombardment from meteors and fragments of asteroids since its formation some 4.3 billion years ago. It’s tough to maintain fragile human life there without some kind of shielding.

The best studies I’ve seen suggest that the human inhabitants of the Moon will live underground most of the time. Their homes will be shielded with several meters of regolith and rock to prevent radiation damage to their cells. Of course, when they go out to work on the surface, they’ll wear shielded suits. Even then, I suspect their time working “outside” will be limited to a few hours a day. That will slow down the creation of lunar bases quite a bit.

People have lived and worked on the Moon for short periods; the Apollo astronauts so far are the first and only ones to do so. They have been exposed to radiation while going through Earth’s Van Allen Belts, as well as during their time on the Moon. While not severe, their exposure has exposed astronauts to higher amounts of heart disease. (See this article in Nature from 2016 for more details). Future lunar inhabitants could face much more significant risk both on the way TO the Moon and while living there. So, if we’re going to live and work on the Moon, we have to take health risks into account and design accordingly. Again, this is easily said but presents a technological challenge.

We didn’t evolve to live and work on the Moon in its low gravity environment and heavy bombardment from radiation. Can we figure out a way to do so? I’m sure we can. We can adapt our methods, if not our bodies.

What’s it Worth?

In the final analysis, we have to look at what we gain from living and working on the Moon. What it will cost us financially, politically, and personally? It’s never going to be as easy as the SF stories used to paint it. Nor is simply a matter of sending people as Elon or other visionaries like to make it sound. It’s going to take a LOT of work, a lot of money, and a lot of personal ambition to accomplish lunar bases. And, when we get there? We start to build for the next expedition, out to Mars or an asteroid.

What we learn by doing it at the Moon will almost certainly make those next trips less complex to accomplish. That’s because we can learn valuable lessons from the building of Lunaropolis or whatever we’re going to call our moon outposts. Billions of dollars/Euros/RMB, etc will get spent to get to the Moon and beyond. Whatever we do, we’d better spend that time and our talents wisely.

The Spacewriter's Ramblings

On the Way to the Moon