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Google Lunar X Prize Shirt Contest Completed September 8, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : brand, Google Lunar X Prize, Helium-3, silicon, solar power , add a comment

The folks over at the X Prize Foundation just wrapped up a T-Shirt design contest for the Google Lunar X Prize.

I was never personally a fan of the old “Moon 2.0″ shirts (with Moon 2.0 being the slogan of sorts for the Lunar X Prize), and I believe a strong brand could significantly amplify interest in the subject.

The new, winning design by Julian F. Bennett of Merritt Island, FL:


That meters diagram is awesome. And the second prize runner-up, by Claire A. Schaeffer of Clearwater, FL:

Expect me to me modeling that winning design on the streets of Portland (OR) in the near future… :)

If you’re wondering more about Moon 2.0 and that brand, here’s an informative (if mildly cheesy)video all about it (the bit about silicon and solar power is interesting…I was totally expecting that to be a helium-3 lead-up):

"The Future of Urban Planning": The Moon? September 5, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : China, Fusion Power, Helium-3, infrastructure, lunar land use planning, NASA, Roscosmos , 2comments

I, your beloved blogger, am a recent graduate with my Bachelor’s in Urban Planning, and part of why I started this blog (despite having a rather different background than your typical space enthusiast) is that I maintain that lunar colonization is, in fact, urban planning. My argument being, that the Moon’s surface is now land for all intents and purposes, and therefore any colony/mine, infrastructure, or other utilization of its surface is land use; and land use planning is the core of urban planning. NASA, Roscosmos, the CNSA, etc. are all well into programs to complete substantial built environments on the Moon by 2030, and so this has become a timely subject.

Once in a while, I find that I am (in fact) not the only one who thinks about these things, and here’s a case in point I came across today.

“In the future, these questions will likely be posed for cities that exist on the moon or Mars… You might think that such a city is unrealistic, but NASA has been planning a “city in the sky” for years.”
-”HowStuffWorks” article on Urban Planning by William Harris

A Wired.com article chronicles NASA’s ‘recurring dream’, with the first substantial and ‘modern’ looks (that included thoughts on industrialization of the moon, a key to current efforts) coming in 1972 and 1975.

Check out that HowStuffWorks article linked above, and keep an eye here for more and more content regarding just what the planning topics are for moon colonization in the next 10 years (the early phase) and beyond. :)

Magnetic Attraction July 22, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Constellation, Helium-3, hoax theories, Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter, radiation, Vision for Space Exploration , add a comment

One concern that gets voiced about lunar colonization is the levels of radiation colonists could be exposed to, and how much of a threat that is (and whether there is sufficient methods of protection against it).

“We really need to know more about the radiation environment on the Moon, especially if people will be staying there for more than just a few days.”
-Harlan Spence, astronomy professor at Boston University

Mapping out and investigating the levels of radiation is one the central goals of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, the first tentpole mission of the landmark Vision for Space Exploration/Constellation era.

Various remedies and shields have been suggested, including isolated magnetic fields (like Reiner Gamma, pictured above; these are speculated to be a result of crater- and other ejecta), spherical man-made shields (pictured below), and even the Earth itself.

I personally trust in human ingenuity to come up with something, and the lack of effects on the Apollo astronauts seems promising (though many seem to think that indicates the whole Apollo landing was actually a hoax). At the very least, the commercial motivation for a company to come up with something that could enable colonization (and therefore utilization of groundbreaking resources) could eventually (or very quickly) become too strong to be ignored.

To cap, here’s a segment on the subject from a NASA video (Destination Tomorrow), courtesy of Youtube:

MoonPop: "WALL-E" (News) July 13, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Apollo, Current News, Fusion Power, Google Moon, Helium-3, lunar land use planning, Mare Tranquillitatis, MoonPop , add a comment

“Outlet Mall, coming soon!”
-A ‘Buy N Large Corp’. billboard on the Moon, next to the American Flag at Mare Tranquillitatis, in the film “WALL-E“

I had a chance last week to finally catch Pixar’s latest masterwork, “WALL-E”. Much like with “Iron Man” earlier this summer, a movie that a whole heck of a lot of people ended up seeing happened to also be a movie with a look at the Moon; and in WALL-E’s case, a look specifically at the Moon colonization and the potential outcomes of it.

It’s a simple, and brief, moment in the film, but a memorable one: In a fly-by of the Moon, the site of the American flag in the Sea of Tranquility is seen as having a billboard adjacent to it advertising a future outlet mall (which, given the circumstances and setting of the film, the builders apparently never did get around to).

The placement of the sign directly next to the flag site could suggest that the fictional Buy N Large Corporation in the film was intending to plow right over the site for their new mall; or that they simply plopped that sign down there for attention.

The strange thing about all of this is that this isn’t really that far from the truth, as things are developing now. The Sea of Tranquility is rich in Helium-3, a resource extremely rare on Earth but plentiful on the Moon that could be valuable for fusion power. So within 15-20 years, we could very well be seeing mining operations going up right next to the Apollo landing sites.

With the generation of kids seeing WALL-E today being the ones who will have the newscasts of their lives dominated by Moon colonization, it should be interesting to see how this one moment in an extremely visible film gets referenced and remembered, as commerical development of the Sea of Tranquility and the rest of the Moon becomes an imminent reality (and potentially, a major public debate).

We have "Land"-ing? May 15, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Helium-3, lunar land, Lunar Land Ownership, lunar land use planning, Mare Tranquillitatis , add a comment

This budding era of Moon Colonization, like few eras in our history ever have before, brings up new frontiers not only in terms of land, but in ideas, concepts, and societal functions.

Now, wait– “land”? A quick look at the Wikipedia entry for that lovable dry space we call home (mostly) brings up an interesting note:

“Land may refer to:

That would lead one to believe that, since the surface of the Moon is in fact not part of Earth (or is it?), and therefore not a part of Earth that isn’t covered with water, it doesn’t technically have ‘land’.

A quick field trip to Dictionary.com, though, reveals more:

“land /lænd/ –noun
1.
any part of the earth’s surface not covered by a body of water; the part of the earth’s surface occupied by continents and islands: Land was sighted from the crow’s nest.
2.
an area of ground with reference to its nature or composition: arable land.
3.
an area of ground with specific boundaries: to buy land on which to build a house.
4.
rural or farming areas, as contrasted with urban areas: They left the land for the city.
5.
Law.
a.
any part of the earth’s surface that can be owned as property, and everything annexed to it, whether by nature or by the human hand.
b.
any legal interest held in land. “

When talking about ‘land’ on the Moon, numbers 3 and 5 are the most relevant here: an area with specific boundaries, and the legal definition of…well, technically, that’s defined there as Earth’s surface. So we’ll stick to number , and let the space law junkies duke it out over number 5.

So now that we’ve more or less established that land, as a concept, does exist on the Moon, what does that mean? So what?

Well, Mankind is about to gain an extra 3.793×107 km² , or 0.074 Earths’ worth of land. Mare Tranquillitatis alone is the size of the Phillipines (population: 92 million), never mind the entire surface of the Moon.

I got all excited to find a link in the Space Law article to a “Lunar Land Management Society“, but came away with nothing but a broken link. But, Google provides victory!–A link that works. The site remains pretty barren, though (much like Luna herself). One valuable piece of information can be wrought from it, though: they’re based out of the Mojave Space Port (or, were?).

The point here being, I’m not the only one who thinks lunar land management is not only a serious topic, but a timely and current one.

As a matter of fact, a little more digging reveals you can already be your very own Lunar land owner. That one surprised even me; even land in the Sea of Tranquility is supposedly available…which is rich in helium-3…which countries want. Their site has some amusing analysis of what happened with the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty; that looks like a thick treaty, and something I’ll have to cover in depth here another day.

For now, though, we can rest knowing that not only is the Moon ‘land’, it can already be bought. This, therefore, opens up the concept of Lunar land use and land use planning. Now, what end of the spectrum lunar land development ends up being on remains to be seen; and, in fact, could be decided by this very generation within the next decade. A little law and effort can go a long ways…

The Resource of the 21st Century April 27, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Fusion Power, Helium-3, Mare Tranquillitatis , 1 comment so far

“We will provide the most reliable report on helium-3 to mankind,” Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China’s lunar program, told a Chinese newspaper. “Whoever first conquers the moon will benefit first.”
–
Russian space geologist Erik Galimov told the Russian Izvestia newspaper that NASA’s plan to colonize the moon will “enable the U.S. to establish its control of the global energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out.”
–

Those quotes, from an article in Wired magazine by John Lasker, give you an idea of the seriousness of the race to mine helium-3 on the moon. As a matter of fact, helium-3 is a primary motivation for colonization of the moon in the first place.


Helium-3 is used in fusion power, seen as many (including Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator Jack Schmitt, the chairman of NASA’s Advisory Council) as the ultimate fuel of the future. As the Artemis Project notes, once a fusion plant is up and running (France is hosting a test facility, and the technology is expected to be in use by 2050), one shuttle’s worth of helium-3 would power the United States for an entire year. Mind you that this is without any greenhouse gases, or the risk of fission power. The perfect nuclear power (or energy resource of any kind), in other words.


Helium-3 is rare on earth, but plentiful on the Moon. Above is a map of Helium-3 on the Moon’s surface, with a lot of it concentrated in Mare Tranquillitatis to the middle-right.

Both Russia and China have stated in various places that helium-3 is a motivation, and the quotes at the beginning here attest to their awareness of its importance.

Helium-3 is a critical element (excuse the pun) of mankind’s efforts to colonize the moon this century, and could help solve a lot of problems. It’s going to be a headline-maker and a focus of our energies for a long time, and you’ll be hearing a lot more about it both here in the near future, and elsewhere over the long-term.

Atlas' Back: Mare Tranquillitatis April 19, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Apollo, Atlas' Back, Google Moon, Helium-3, Mare Tranquillitatis , add a comment


For the first edition of Atlas’ Back, a semi-regular series of features touring selenographic features of the moon, we have ourselves a look at Mare Tranquillitatis: The Sea of Tranquility.

The name being the latin form of “Sea of Tranquility”, Mare Tranquillitatis is the most famous of the Maria, the basaltic plains originally mistaken for actual seas by early astronomers (hence the name, which is latin for “seas”). The above map has the landing sites for Ranger 5, Apollo 11 (the first manned landing), Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 (the last manned landing up to this point) marked, illustrating the massive historical signifigance of this sea in the sky.

With the amount of attention and activity directed towards Mare Tranquillitatis, there’s plenty of images to go around. A few visual highlights to give you a feel for the mare:


Buzz Aldrin on Mare Tranquillitatis.

A view of the mare from the window of the Apollo 11 lander, right after landing.

An Earthrise photo, taken from Apollo 11 prior to landing (different from the famous “Earthrise” photo, featured recently and significantly in the film “An Inconvenient Truth” and widely regarded as having helped found the environmentalism movement; that was taken from orbit during the earlier Apollo 8 mission).

From a distance; Mare Tranquillitatis is the expansive dark patch in the upper left there, with the Apollo 11 landing site being in the lower left corner, as can be seen clearly via the handy Google Moon (a Google Earth counterpart currently geared around the Apollo landings).

The mare is about 300,000 sq km (roughly the same size as the Phillipines), and as that bit of size research turned up, is apparently also a very good site for Helium-3, with (as that abstract notes) about 50% of the mare being minable. Though, my initial reaction here would be to think of Mare Tranquillitatis as a site for the moon’s first protected historical park, and not, say, strip mining.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief tour of Mare Tranquillitatis; there’s many more tours of this sort to come, both from me here, and from many others elsewhere, as this last photo below (of the mare) illustrates pretty well. Stay tuned for the next edition of Atlas’ Back…

The Roster Grows: Europe and India April 18, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Base Race, European Space Agency, Fusion Power, Helium-3, Indian Space Research Organization , add a comment

In the midst of a little research, I discovered two more countries/efforts to add to the Base Race roster:

-Europe (European Space Agency)
-India (Indian Space Research Organization; check out that stylin’ website!)

While both have projects underway for manned/unmanned missions, it is noted that I don’t see a specific reference to lunar base plans. With all the other governments/governmental organizations making similar preliminary efforts (lunar orbiters, men on the moon around 2015-2016, etc.) also having an eventual base as part of their plans, though, it seems like bases for both the above organizations could be inevitable. Might as well build one while you’re there, right? You’ve already made the effort to get there in the first place, so you can go ahead and mine yourself some nice souvenirs (for the folks back home) that can also happen to potentially power your country for an entire year.

So now we’re up to the U.S. , China, Russia, India, Japan, Sweden, and Europe all joining in on the great big Lunar picnic that is the Base Race…and the party’s just getting started.