Well, a lot of people are having a ton of fun over Newt Gingrich's "Moon Base" idea. I just saw a clip with John McCain commenting on it.
I think we should send Newt Gingrich to the Moon, and Mitt Romney to the White House
Haaahaha. Yuck. Yuck.
It's such a big joke that Rachel Maddow spent the entire first portion of her show last night in a fake Space Suit.
It's clear to everyone that Gingrich is really just pandering to Florida and the Space Corridor. My brother-in-law used to be head of security at Cape Canaveral so I get it, there be Jobs in that rhetoric.
But here's the thing, it's not just pandering. Gingrich actually didn't just make all this up, not all of it. This isn't nearly the joke everyone thinks it is.
Maybe Gingrich just had a bit Honeymooner's on the brain.
One of these days Alice, Pow! Zing! To the Moon
In fact, I'm surprised on one has yet made any Space:1999 Jokes, since Gingrich's seems to be describing that 1970's show starring Martin Landau which focused on Moon Base Alpha, which became the center of the story after the moon was blasted out of earth's orbit by a chain reaction by a giant nuclear waste dump housed near the base.
Is that's where Gingrich got the idea? Or maybe he saw an episode of Space:1999 producer Gary Anderson's other show - UFO which also featured a Moon Base where space fighter jet defended the earth from alien invaders.
But then again, since both of these shows were produced in England, Gingrich is probably about as familiar with it them as he is Dr. Who and his T.A.R.D.I.S.
Besides watching these shows back in the 70's I read a book called "Space Colonies" (actually Gerard K O'Neill's "The High Frontier: Human Colonies In Space") that truly captured my imagination. Particularly because it wasn't fiction, it was a book about various actual ideas by NASA for the exploration, colonization and utilization of near space resources for the betterment of mankind.
Sadly, Gingrich seems to misunderstand the issue and mis-describes it. It's not about putting a bunch of mirrors on the moon in order to act as lighting to scare away criminals. Yes, that is ridiculous because that's not the plan.
The actual plan starts with Solar Power. Solar Power gathered by Satellites that would transmit and transfer that energy back down to earth using beams of microwaves.
The following artist concept isn't from Gary Anderson, it's from Boeing. When I visited the Rockwell plant in Downey, CA where principle construction on the Space Shuttle took place back in 1978 - the year before I started High School - they had a mural on the wall that looked like this. To get a sense of scale, like playing "Where's Waldo" -- find the Space Shuttle in this image.
Yes, that's right - Holy Crap that's big.
The theory was is that using heavy lift vehicles these giant miles-wide Satellites where to be constructed and assembled in space, in the same way that the current multi-national space station was built. They would then have more direct access to solar energy that hasn't be diluted and diffused by the earth's atmospheric shell.
In fact, this isn't just theory - it's beginning to happen for real.
From Consumer Reports:
Like something straight out of a science fiction novel, renewable energy company SolarEn plans to launch solar panel arrays into space to capture the rawest form of solar energy and send it back down to earth.
Solar energy innovations have been brewing across the board the past couple of decades; but it's recently been made known this week that solar technology company, SolarEn, has struck an agreement with California's Pacific Gas and Electric company to achieve something new and dynamic within the renewable energy industry. SolarEn has come up the zealous goal of launching solar panel laden satellites into orbit that will then capture the rawest forms of solar radiation from more than 22,000 miles above the Earth.
On earth a set of receiving antenna arrays would be place to catch the microwave beam from the PowerSats. Unlike the microwaves used in a common electric oven, which uses a pulse to vibrate the molecules and heat food, this would be a steady stream and wouldn't have the same heating effect. (Even Isaac Asimov got that one wrong)
This is essentially stage one, what Gingrich seems to be talking about is actually stage two - where instead of lifting all of the construction materials entirely from the earth - which is a highly costly prospect - that a base to mine materials and metals needed for the power-sats would be built on the moon which has a much shallower gravity well.
Rather than using rockets, the materials were to be lifted from the surface of the moon using a mass driver - which is essentially a bullet train that would accelerate raw minerals to escape velocity.
Here's how the National Space Society describes the issue of Lunar Settlement.
The Moon has unique significance for all space applications for a reason that to my amazement is hardly ever discussed in popular accounts of space policy. The Moon is the closest source of material that lies far up Earth's gravity well. Anything that can be made from Lunar material at costs comparable to Earth manufacture has an enormous overall cost advantage compared with objects lifted from Earth's surface. The greatest value of the Moon lies neither in science nor in exploration, but in its material. I am talking about the possibility of extracting elements and minerals that can be processed into fuel or massive components of space apparatus. The production of oxygen in particular, the major component (by mass) of chemical rocket fuel, is potentially an important Lunar industry.
The materials flung from the moons surface were to be collected by a Mass Catcher device that would be positioned in an L5 orbital position balancing it between the Earth and the Moon.
Now that you have a non-terrestrial source of materials, the last Stage is creation of an orbital processing facility to convert those materials for use in powersat construction. This is where the Space Colonies come into the picture, giant tube shaped rotating space craft, constructed entirely in space, where the Powersat construction crew would live and work in simulated (centrifugal) gravity, which would allow them to grow and harvest their own food hydroponically and yet again avoid having to receive constant supplies from the Earth in order to sustain the crew.
There were several different designs from large cylinders to wheel shaped stations.
In this design, work spaces and apartments would be contained at the ends of the cylinder at low to zero G - while open spaces for recreation and farming at 1 full G would be located along the sides. Giant mirrors would create a natural day/night cycle by reflecting the sun's natural light down onto the opposite sides. And, yes, those are clouds. Can you remember when America used to think and imagine this big?
In fact one of the most famous fantasy space stations in the world is actually based on a factual design. The giant rotating cylinder of Babylon 5 was actually a modified version of one of these NASA envisioned Space Colonies.
Since 1995 NASA has been sponsoring a Space Settlement Design Contest for Students around the world, so it's not like they aren't familiar with these ideas. They regularly post the winning design on the NASA Ames Research Center website.
But, we're still a very long way from fully implementing such a settlement particularly with the retiring of the Shuttle Fleet which as can be shown in the Boeing Concept image near the top of this diary was intended to be one of the lifting vehicles used to build the first generation of PowerSats. The basic concept of space construction has actually been proven by the completion of the Multi-National Space Station we currently have in place, but a real PowerSat or full scale Space Settlement/Colony is another kettle of catfish.
NASA has yet to select a contractor for it's planned heavy lift vehicle, which would be required to truly begin this process. So in the end I have to say that Gingrich's date certain of 2019 is still pie in the sky fantasy, but the goal of dramatically shifting us away from fossil fuels onto renewable sources in this way may not be wishful thinking as we grow closer and closer to the peak oil point where our consumption dramatically outstrips all of our remaining world wide oil reserves.
At a certain point, we're going to have to consider implementing a plan like this at least on a small scale starting with some basic PowerSats like those that are underway from companies like SolarEn.
The question is do we want to be on the sidelines sitting on our hands while other companies and other countries begin to capitalize on the potential of pure solar energy via satellites - or do we want to be at the forefront of this new frontier?
By turning this into a joke, into an American Vanity Project to have 15,000 Americans on the moon just to make it the 51st State rather than a project that accomplishes concrete understandable goals that are beneficial (and profitable) to everyone on Earth, Gingrich may have actually put us much further behind than we would have been, and we're we need to be, by damaging the credibility of aggressively colonizing not just the moon, but space itself.
And that's a shame, which is no joke.
You can read more about NASA's Space Solar Exploration Research and Technology Program (SERT) Here.
Vyan