By-Pass the Moon?

Greetings all,

I have not been following the newsgroup of late - I've
been rather ill. But I couldn't help but notice the
title of this thread, "By-Pass the Moon?" and had to
put my 2 cents worth in.

I sort of agreed with the title, after all we've been
there, done that. Wouldn't it be far more
advantageous to find a nice Silicon-Iron Asteroid and
go there? But then I realized that would better be a
robotic mission. So I guess the moon should be next.

Then 2 weeks ago I saw a TV program on "Global
Warming" and it changed my outlook a lot. Here is a
copy of a speech I gave at Toastmasters (Club #111)
last night:

Global Warming Revisited

Toastmaster Club # 111
Presented by: David Handwerk
February 7th, 2008

Did anyone here watch the story on the History
Channel, on Sunday evening 01/27/2008, on Global
Warming?
It was sobering. There are not many of us who dont
believe Global Warming is real, although we may not
agree on exactly what is causing it. Does it really
matter if it is caused be Greenhouse gasses, increased
solar radiation or by some other cause(s)? Well,
maybe a little so that we can try to reverse it.
However the results of Global Warming make it
irreversible. Let me explain. The melting of the
Tundra in Siberia, Alaska and Canada is releasing
Methane from frozen hydrate in and under the ground
and lakes. Methane is a Greenhouse gas 5 times more
potent than Carbon Dioxide. Further Methane hydrates
in the ocean, will boil off as the oceans warm. This,
I my opinion is an irreversible, chain reaction that
will increase Global Warming (whatever its initial
cause), until all the frozen Methane is in the
atmosphere. This chain reaction will speed up over
the years; I guestimate a 60-foot sea-level rise in
the next 100 years. Make no mistake, this is serious,
and it may lead to the extinction of life on earth,
other than a few Extremeophilic single cell lifeforms.
This is just my estimate based on an average of what
I have read, it could be much sooner, or later. So
since nothing on heaven or earth can stop it, I
recommend selling your beachfront home and buying in
the mountains.

WAIT, did I say on heaven or earth? Lets look at it
one more time from heaven. Global Warming occurs
because sunlight from our slightly variable sun passes
through 93,000,000 miles of space, then strikes the
earth and is partially absorbed by the earths land,
oceans and atmosphere. There doesnt appear to be
much we can do at the earth end, but might it be
possible to attenuate some of the sunlight between the
Sun and the Earth?

What do you think of this idea? We put up a partial
reflector at the Sun-Earth-L1-Lagrange-Orbit (Ill
just call it L-1). L-1 is a very stable location that
stays between the earth and the Sun with very little
effort. So what will it take to do this?

To accomplish this remediation (and to provide at
least 2/3rds of Earths Energy needs) in the next 20
years, with my estimated Sea-level rise of 4 to 5
feet, we must do the following steps:
1. Realize that we will be able to resolve these
problems from space, and to spread the word.
2. Quickly develop the political will to make this
happen.
3. Increase the space budget by a factor of 11 or
more, to $2B / year (about what the Iraq War costs).
4. Persuade other nations to join in this effort,
(Perhaps we could remind them of the costs that
sea-level rise will have on their nations) and begin
updating our space program.

As money becomes available here is what NASA, or
whoever runs the project should do:

A. Improve our launch capability tonnage by a factor
of 1,000 while lowering the cost to orbit by a factor
of 1,000. This could be done be adopting various
Electromagnetic & Tether Launch Systems, in as little
as 5 years.
B. Establish a dozen or two Lunar Colonies to Strip
Mine lunar regolith from the Moons surface then to
electromagnetically launching it in a stream of
buckets to L-1 (as defined above).
C. Establish a dozen Solar Powered Space Factories at
L-1, to process this dust and cause it to form a
controllable cloud to attenuate the sunlight headed
for Earth.
D. Allow commercial interests access to space to build
Space Solar Power Satellites to provide at least
2/3rds of Earths Energy needs. The rest could be
provided by on-earth Solar, Wind, Fusion, Geothermal,
etc. (Access to low fixed cost supply of electricity
could further persuade other nations to join in this
effort.)
E. This needs to be studied and acted upon as quickly
as possible. If we could get the entire system
operational in 20 years, plus another year or so to
cause actual reversal, sea-level rise may max out at
only 4 5 feet. Cities could build dikes and the
land loss may be acceptable.

The scientific and engineering effort is huge; we have
a lot of work to do. This includes:

i. Quickly developing various ElectroMagnetic Launch
Systems(EMLSs).
ii. Test the suitability and properties of lunar
regolith for this purpose and design machinery to
re-powder and disseminate the compacted lunar soil.
iii. Rapidly develop lunar colony and mining plans.
iv. Rapidly develop Solar Powered Space Factory plans.
v. Automate the entire project, as it may need to
operate for decades or centuries.

This huge project has other benefits that may not be
obvious. Very fast, very low cost transportation
between points on earth and/or space destinations.
The relocation of many polluting mining and
manufacturing plants to space. The opening of vast
energy sources, vast material resources and vast new
land areas in space. Adventure, exploration,
expansion, and colonization of the solar system and
eventually the galaxy.

I for one think this project is extremely important
and plan to spend my remaining life on its
realization.

Thank you.

So as you see, we really need to go back to the moon,
and soon.

We really need to bring down launch costs, and bring
up launch capabilities, each by a factor of ~1,000
times. This can be done via Electromagnetic launch
systems, Electromagnetic Assisted Launch systems,
Tether Assisted launch systems and/or some combination
of these three. Rockets will still be very important,
just less in the earth to orbit phase. Chemical
rockets will still be our prime movers for people, but
Solar-Thermo and Solar-Electric propulsion will also
compete for both cargo and human payloads.

So how do I persuade NASA and U.S. political leaders
and the International community to listen to these
ideas? Letter writing? Maybe a book? Well, I'll try
these and whatever else I can think of. Do you guys
(and gals) have any ideas on this? Maybe someone
could help me make a YouTube movie?

Best Regards,

Dave Handwerk