So what ARE habitats good for anyway?

Combs, Mike wrote:

>
> *From:* Ian Woollard [mailto:ian.woollard@...]
>
> There is a NASA project underway with a landing in about 5 years
> to investigate lunar ice. The project documentation says that they
> expect upto 58% reduction in costs for their space missions
> and they have rough plans for exploiting the ice.
>
> That's very interesting, given that Jim Benson, who's very much in favor
> of extracting water from NEOs, seems to feel that the difficulties of
> using lunar ice are insuperable. I wonder about his pessimism here,
> when NASA seems to be cautiously optimistic, at the very least.

Here's the link:

http://niac.usra.edu/studies/study_template.jsp?id=341&cp_num-02&phase=I&last=Rice&first=Eric&middle=E&title=Development+of+Lunar+Ice+Recovery+System+Architecture&topic=In-Situ+Utilization&sub_topic=+&organization=Orbital+Technologies+Corporation+%28ORBITEC%29&active=false&begin_date=May+1%2C+1999&end_date=Oct+31%2C+1999>

Actually its NIAC: Nasa Institute for Advanced Concepts. Presumably they
are funded by NASA in some way.