I noticed one thing that is lacking in the SSI that a lot of similar
organisations seem to have and that is some form of roadmap. Is there
a reason for this?
has become apparent over the years that funding for such a large and
complex project is unlikely to say the least. Would the SSI consider
a scaled down plan along the lines of the original O'Neill plan as a
roadmap? Gerard O'Neill himself realised his original plan would be
too ambitious.
It seems at the present time there are four different alternative
routes to the O'Neill vision, two of which were not considered back
in the 70's:-
Solar Power Satellite development before space settlements
(considered by O'Neill himself).
Space Tourism - This would promote cheap access to space and the
development of small habitats in the form of space hotels which could
then lead on to larger space habitats along the lines of O'Neill
style habitats. Also the general increase in space activity would
promote other areas of development related to O'Neill/SSI ideas.
Defense against asteroid impact - a project could be promoted to
demonstrate the feasibility of using mass drivers to move asteroids
to prevent impact with Earth. This is a very popular idea at the
moment and would develop many of the technologies that the original
O'Neill plan required.
There is of course the original O'Neill idea of return to the Moon to
use it's resources. This could be promoted on a smaller scale than
the original plan and in conjunction with the Moon Societies own
plans for a return to te Moon.
These are of course just my own ideas, I'm sure within SSI these
ideas have already been thought about many times. The only reason I
bring this up is that I feel a roadmap of some sort would make SSI
membership more attractive and would promote the O'Neill vision.
Definite direction and achievable near term objectives would attract
more interest in the SSI and it's ideas and research.
Does anyone agree with this/disagree with this line of reasoning? Can
Bettie comment on the SSI's point of view on this?
Thanks
Regards, Mark
I would suggest that the ideal road map should be based upon a document that
O'Neill produced in the late 1980's. The initial step would be the deliverance
of a seed facility to the lunar surface. The facility would consist of a small,
Mars direct type habitat, a chemical processing facility, a mass driver and a
small 'job shop', for producing various items, such as pressure vessels, mass
driver coil rings, e.t.c. The habitat, chemical processing facility and Job
shop, may well be combined into a single large vessel, that would be landed on
the moon. The entire facility might weigh between 50 and 100 tonnes. A similar
facility would be delivered to high Earth orbit, probably L-5.
The initial task for both facilities would be simply to expand themselves.
High-tech tools, computers, people, etc, would be lifted up from Earth. Heavy
items, such as pressure vessels for production of habitable volumes, heavy but
simple machine parts, chemical processing vessels, solar panels, food & water,
e.t.c, would all be produced from lunar materials. O'Neill estimated that the
seed facilities would have doubling times as short as two months.
This requires a very detailed reply. At this time I am spending 14+ hours a
day preparing the proceedings to go to thr printer and trying to help Space
Frontier Foundation with some organizing duties for their conference in
July. I am afraid that it may be several weeks before I can reply in depth.
As soon as I have the time I would be happy to respond. Bettie
A roadmap can be confining - witness the fact that NASA has been
trying to follow Von Braun's raodmap to Mars since the 1960s, and
wasting copious amounts of money because the map doesn't match the
political realities.
possibly useful tools and techniques, and letting the map dynamically
evolve as information and technologies become available.
......Andrew
Andrew Case
acase@...
Institute for Plasma Research
University of Maryland, College Park |
I was going to write a long reply about history of SSI and what its charter is about but what Andrew wrote is better. I would also point out that limiting to a single roadmap would also eliminate a significant percentage of SSI membership whos perfered methods vary a lot.
Mitchell James
A roadmap can be confining - witness the fact that NASA has been
trying to follow Von Braun's raodmap to Mars since the 1960s, and
wasting copious amounts of money because the map doesn't match the
political realities.
Frankly, IMHO, SSI would be better off putting effort into developing
possibly useful tools and techniques, and letting the map dynamically
evolve as information and technologies become available.
......Andrew
Andrew Case |
acase@... |
Institute for Plasma Research |
University of Maryland, College Park |
>
> Obviously the original O'Neill idea was a roadmap in itself, but it
> has become apparent over the years that funding for such a large and
> complex project is unlikely to say the least. Would the SSI consider
> a scaled down plan along the lines of the original O'Neill plan as a
> roadmap? Gerard O'Neill himself realised his original plan would be
> too ambitious.
chicken-and-egg problem right now in that the costs for launch to NEO
are far higher than they should be, because the size of the market is
too small; the market is however limited because the cost of launch is
so high. I think what we really need is a realistic future roadmap for
size of market and cost to orbit that can demonstrate where we could be
with constant steady improvement, as has happened in the semiconductor
industry (perhaps not quite as fast).
For example, let's play with the following two assumptions of
not-outrageous improvement rates, starting with this year:
(1) Cost to LEO per kg drop by 30% every year
(2) Yearly dollars for launch increasing 30% per year => Total mass
launched increasing 86%/year
At those rates, we should expect to be getting total mass launched to
grow from about 300 tons a year right now, to 150,000 tons in 2011, 75
million tons by 2021, and 35 billion tons by 2031. At 5 tons per person
(approximate overhead for current systems) the 100 million person mark
comes at about 0.5 billion tons, or around the year 2025.
1000 tons in LEO should be enough to get us a bare-bones lunar base of
100 tons or so, enough for a crew of perhaps 5. If that costs us $2
billion right now, it'll be just $100 million in 2009. But what market
will the other 42 thousand tons in LEO serve? A few thousand tourists at
$1 million each, and some SPS stations make most economic sense. Perhaps
also a start on some asteroid and Mars missions.
By 2020 following the 86% growth rates our lunar settlements could have
2500 people; we'd be able to handle hundreds of thousands of space
tourists at about $10,000/trip and we should have capacity for perhaps
an O'Neill-type colony of 10,000 people. A manned Mars mission to
establish a base there should be easy in this environment.
By 2030 we could have lunar settlements totalling over a million people,
5 million people in O'Neill "islands", a thousand people starting to
settle Mars, and manned expeditions to the main asteroid belt and outer
planets. And perhaps a billion tourists coming out every year, at $200
per trip to LEO, with millions going to the Moon or the L5 colonies at
$2000 per trip.
I don't see these numbers as way off base. There must be thousands of
millionaires who would pay $1 million to vacation at an orbiting hotel.
Hundreds of millions of people who would pay $1000 for the experience,
once it was a proven tourist destination. And the SPS market is pretty
clear... The only question is can we actually continually improve the
launch costs, given such a planned growth in capacity, to reach those
cost levels? 30 years of improvement at 30% per year means cutting
launch costs by a factor of almost 50,000. Perhaps that's out of range,
but the 20-year factor of about 1000 has been bandied about before...
So, does something like that work as a roadmap? How do we get everybody
else on board?
Arthur Smith (apsmith@...