Big Sky Debate Page
THE PURPOSE OF LUNAR BASES AND EXPLORATION IS JUST TO PROVIDE MONEY FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS AND CONTRACTORS-Easterbrook ‘06
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- MOON BASES ARE NOT NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE MARS-Easterbrook ‘06
- THERE ARE NO VALUABLE RESOURCES ON THE MOON-Beattie ‘07
- MARS EXPLORATION IS SO FAR IN THE FUTURE THAT LUNAR EXPLORATION WILL BE OF NO VALUE-Beattie ‘07
- WE ALREADY HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE MOON-Beattie ‘07
- FOCUSING ON THE MOON IS A DEAD END FOR SPACE EXPLORATION-Aldrin ‘09
- THE US NEEDS TO FOCUS ON A BOLD MARS MISSION AND LET OTHER NATIONS EXPLORE THE MOON-Aldrin ‘09
- SOLVENCY: TOO DANGEROUS/DIFFICULT TO DO IT THE CONSTANT BOMBARDMENT OF METEORS MAKES LUNAR COLONIZATION IMPRACTICAL-Donahue ‘10
- NASA DEPENDS ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND OTHER NATIONS WANT TO TARGET MARS-Beattie ‘07
- MICRO-FINE DUST PARTICLES POSE INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS RISKS-David ‘06
- MOON DUST WILL POSE A SERIOUS OBSTACLE TO HEALTH AND CONSTRUCTION ON MOON-O’Neill ‘08
- MOON DUST IS DANGEROUS AND PERVASIVE-David ‘06
- WE KNOW FAR TOO LITTLE ABOUT MITIGATING DUST ON THE MOON-David ‘06
- Lunar Helium-3 Mining Negative
- GOVERNMENT ACTIVELY SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVES TO HE-3-Goodwin ‘10
- SOLVENCY: LUNAR HELIUM-3 PLAN IS ENTIRELY INFEASIBLE THE LUNAR HE-3 PLAN IS FANTASY AND CANNOT WORK-Technology Review ‘07
- HE-3 FUSION IS NOT EVEN FEASIBLE-Williams ‘07
THE PURPOSE OF LUNAR BASES AND EXPLORATION IS JUST TO PROVIDE MONEY FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS AND CONTRACTORS-Easterbrook ‘06 [Gregg; senior editor of The New Republic; Moon Baseless;Slate; 08 Dec 2006; http://www.slate.com/id/2155164/; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] NASA itself can't really offer an answer, though it does offer a free, downloadable "Why the Moon?" poster. According to the poster, a moon base would "enable eventual settlement" of Earth's satellite—which might happen someday, but represents an absurd waste of tax money in the current generation. (No one has any interest in settling Antarctica, which is much more amenable to life than the moon and can be reached at far less than 1 percent of the cost.) NASA also says there might be commercial opportunities on the moon. Ha! The agency justified the space station partly with the claim that commercial enterprises would pay hefty fees to use the it for microgravity manufacturing; instead, there's been no revenue-generating activity on the space station, other than a golf ball commercial and the space-tourist fees paid to the Russian space agency. If businesses have no profit use for low-Earth orbit, how would they make money on the moon, with at least double the launch expense? Hilariously, NASA says another purpose of the moon base would be to "create international lunar heritage sites." We'll preserve that dust for future generations! And the moon base would be the risk to the "lunar heritage" in the first place. So, what is it for? Transparently, the true goal of the moon base would be to keep budget lines and contracts flowing to the congressional districts and aerospace contractors wired in to current NASA spending. MOON BASES ARE NOT NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE MARS-Easterbrook ‘06 [Gregg; senior editor of The New Republic; Moon Baseless;Slate; 08 Dec 2006; http://www.slate.com/id/2155164/; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] Don't we need a moon base to go to Mars? No! When George W. Bush made his Mars-trip speech almost three years ago, he said a moon base should be built to support such a mission. This is gibberish. All concept studies of Mars flight involve an expedition departing from low-Earth orbit and traveling directly to the red planet. Stopping at the moon would require fuel to descend to the lunar surface, then blast off again, which would make any Mars mission hugely more expensive. The launch cost of fuel—that is, the cost of placing fuel into orbit—is the No. 1 expense for any manned flight beyond Earth. The Lunar Excursion Module, the part of the Apollo spacecraft that touched down, was two-thirds fuel—all exhausted landing and taking off again from the moon. Rocket technology hasn't changed substantially since the 1960s, so a large portion of the weight of any Earth-to-Moon-to-Mars expedition would be dedicated to the fuel needed for just the layover. This makes absolutely no sense, and the fact that administration officials get away with telling gullible journalists that a Mars mission would use a moon base shows how science illiteracy dominates the big media. (It is imaginable that a moon facility could support Mars exploration by refining supplies from the lunar surface and then using automated vessels to send the supplies to the red planet, or to rendezvous with an expedition en route. But that's pretty speculative, and at any rate, the cost of building a moon base would far exceed that of simply launching the supplies from Earth.) THERE ARE NO VALUABLE RESOURCES ON THE MOON-Beattie ‘07 [Donald; former NASA manager; Just How Full of Opportunity is the Moon?; The Space Review; 12 Feb 2007; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/804/1; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] There are no lunar resources that, when processed, would have any economic value if utilized on the Moon or returned to Earth. Lunar in situ resource utilization has been shown by several analyses to not have a positive cost benefit. Enthusiasts who have made claims to the contrary have done so by using questionable and very optimistic projections of what would be required. They would be well advised to reopen their chemistry and physics textbooks and spend some time with real-world mining and drilling operations. MARS EXPLORATION IS SO FAR IN THE FUTURE THAT LUNAR EXPLORATION WILL BE OF NO VALUE-Beattie ‘07 [Donald; former NASA manager; Just How Full of Opportunity is the Moon?; The Space Review; 12 Feb 2007; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/804/1; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] Human missions to Mars, if and when they might occur, are so far in the future that lessons learned on the Moon will have little relevance. If humans eventually travel to Mars, technology that would be used will be far advanced over that which NASA would employ on the Moon in the next twenty years. The first humans who might travel to Mars will probably not have the immediate objective of establishing a settlement. Rather, they will go as explorers and spend only that amount of time required to meet initial objectives, with their staytime defined by orbital mechanics. Determining how to utilize lunar resources to supply a lunar base will not have applicability to a Mars base as the technology and processes needed to use Mars raw materials will be unique to Mars resources. Other surface conditions on Mars that human explorers will have to cope with will also be much different than those found on the Moon and will require specific technology to ensure safe operations. Costly and risky human exploration of Mars may never be needed. As robots become more capable, the major scientific and philosophical question that drives Mars exploration—does life exist or has it ever existed on Mars—may well be answered by robotic missions. The need to establish human settlements on Mars in the future is problematic. WE ALREADY HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE MOON-Beattie ‘07 [Donald; former NASA manager; Just How Full of Opportunity is the Moon?; The Space Review; 12 Feb 2007; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/804/1; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] Scientific investigations, discussed in the recent National Research Council (NRC) report “The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon” define an extensive exploration program. If pursued, the program would add additional information to our present knowledge of the Moon’s early history and current state. However, we already have an excellent understanding of the Moon’s history and composition compiled from data returned from Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter, and Apollo missions. The more recent Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions also contributed to our understanding. Added detail is only of interest to those who have spent most or all of their professional lives studying the Moon. It is unlikely that any new information collected during detailed lunar exploration will resolve fundamental questions being asked regarding the origin and evolution of the solar system. Making this theme even more suspect in terms of its importance, a successful implementation of NRC program would require numerous robotic missions complimented by many human missions. The robotic missions would have to be more capable than the present Mars rover missions for, in addition to making detailed chemical and mineralogical measurements, many would require deep drilling and sample return from both the Moon’s near and far sides. To date, there have been no estimates of how much such an ambitious campaign would cost. NASA has dodged the question of cost for both robotic and human missions, including establishing human settlements, by hiding behind the slogan that returning to the Moon is based on an “open architecture.” Or in other words, to defuse the critics, it is whatever you want it to be. Not a very strong position on which to ask the Congress to commit to spending huge sums. FOCUSING ON THE MOON IS A DEAD END FOR SPACE EXPLORATION-Aldrin ‘09 [Buzz; former Astronaut; Forget the Moon; Edmonton Journal; 19 Jul 2009; pg. A14] Neil and I walked its dusty ancient soil, becoming the first humans to stand upon another world. Yet today, no nation--including the U. S.--is capable of sending anyone beyond Earth's orbit, much less deeper into space. For the past four years, NASA has been on a path to resume lunar exploration with people, duplicating (in a more complicated fashion) what Neil, Mike and our colleagues did four decades ago. But this approach-- called the Vision for Space Exploration--is not visionary; nor will it ultimately be successful in restoring U. S. space leadership. Like its Apollo predecessor, this plan will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies. Instead, I propose a new Unified Space Vision, a plan to ensure U. S. space leadership for the 21st century. It wouldn't require building new rockets from scratch, as current plans do, and it would make maximum use of the capabilities we have without breaking the bank. It is a reasonable and affordable plan--if we again think in visionary terms.
[Buzz; former Astronaut; Forget the Moon; Edmonton Journal; 19 Jul 2009; pg. A14] Our next generation must think boldly in terms of a goal for the space program: Mars for our future. I am not suggesting a few visits to plant flags and do photo ops but a journey to make the first homestead in space:an American colony on a new world. Robotic exploration of Mars has yielded tantalizing clues about what was once a water-soaked planet. Deep beneath the soils of Mars might lie trapped frozen water, possibly with traces of still-extant primitive life forms. Climate change on a vast scale has reshaped Mars. With Earth in the throes of its own climate evolution, human outposts on Mars could be a virtual laboratory to study these vast planetary changes. And the best way to study Mars is with the two hands, eyes and ears of a geologist, first on a moon orbiting Mars and then on the Red Planet's surface. Mobilizing the space program to focus on a human colony on Mars while at the same time helping our international partners explore the moon on their own would galvanize public support for space exploration and provide a cause to inspire students. Mars exploration would renew our space industry by opening up technology development to all players, not just the traditional big aerospace contractors. If we avoided the pitfall of aiming solely for the moon, we could be on Mars by the 60th anniversary year of our Apollo 11 flight. SOLVENCY: TOO DANGEROUS/DIFFICULT TO DO IT THE CONSTANT BOMBARDMENT OF METEORS MAKES LUNAR COLONIZATION IMPRACTICAL-Donahue ‘10 [James; Lunar Meteor Strikes May Obstruct Moon Colonization; 2010; http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/storagej/id59.html; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] With all the talk of someday colonizing the Moon . . . and with nations like China, Japan, the United States and the European Union all planning to send astronauts back to that desolate place . . . few appear to be considering the effect a constant bombardment of meteor showers might have on a permanent Moon base. The American Apollo Space adventure to the Moon from 1969 to 1975 brought astronauts to the Moon for brief visits and safely back home again. Now with problems of global warming, an overpopulated Earth, and a growing shortage of natural resources, there is renewed interest in space exploration. This time there is talk of colonizing the Moon and then going on to Mars . . . we suspect as a wild last-ditch effort to find a place in our solar system to relocate if things get too unbearable on Earth. There was great excitement at NASA late in 2009 when three lunar probes found evidence that water exists at the polar caps on the Moon. This was a key component necessary, researchers said, before serious consideration of colonization could begin. In all of their excitement, we wonder if NASA engineers and other workers have noticed all of the blasted pock marks that scar the surface of that Moon. Similar impact markings are found on Mars, Jupiter and the moons circling the other planets in our solar system. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these holes were created by large objects from space that collided with the moons and planets. We have a few of them on Earth, but not many. NASA DEPENDS ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND OTHER NATIONS WANT TO TARGET MARS-Beattie ‘07 [Donald; former NASA manager; Just How Full of Opportunity is the Moon?; The Space Review; 12 Feb 2007; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/804/1; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] Recent press releases seem to indicate that international interest in cooperating with NASA on returning humans to the Moon does not exist. Some, such as the British, have clearly indicated they have other plans. Based on statements made by NASA it would appear that in order for the initiative to return to the Moon to be successful, international cooperation will be required. A meeting has been announced in the spring to explore the interests of the international space community in joining the Vision. How many nations may sign up is problematic, with good reason, considering how the ISS international partners have been treated in the past. Meanwhile, some are leapfrogging ahead to send missions to Mars, the indisputable scientific prize. ESA’s ExoMars rover will be able to drill two meters into the Martian soil to look for signs of life and Russia is planning sample return from the moons of Mars. Some nations will undoubtedly send robotic missions to the Moon in the future. That will allow them to catch up, technologically, with the programs we successfully ran some forty years ago. However, it will be surprising if such missions will add significantly toward understanding our closest planetary neighbor. MICRO-FINE DUST PARTICLES POSE INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS RISKS-David ‘06 [Leonard; space reporter; Lunar explorers face moon dust dilemma; MSNBC; 7 Nov 2006; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15607792/; retrieved 11 Aug 2011] Taylor emphasized that the most critical effect of lunar dust, however, may be on astronaut health. With each Apollo mission to the Moon, Taylor said that astronauts remarked about the "gun powder" smell when they took off their helmets inside their lunar lander after climbing back in from a moonwalk. Several astronauts reported respiratory or eye irritation. It was evident that there was something unusual about the lunar dust, Taylor pointed out. "We've got one hell of a lot of it that's going to be dangerous on the Moon." Taylor flagged the possibility that ultra-small particles of the lunar dust are capable of moving from human lungs directly into the blood stream. Moreover, these fine particles consist almost entirely of glass containing myriads of nanophase metallic iron—a constituent that might interact with a person's hemoglobin and spur oxygen-depravation effects. MOON DUST WILL POSE A SERIOUS OBSTACLE TO HEALTH AND CONSTRUCTION ON MOON-O’Neill ‘08 [Ian; Building a Moon Base: Part 1 – Challenges and Hazards; Universe Today; 07 Feb 2008; http://www.universetoday.com/12726/building-a-base-on-the-moon-challenges-and-hazards/; retrieved 01 Aug 2011] The actual construction of a base will be very difficult in itself. Obviously, the low-G environment poses some difficulty to construction workers to get around, but the lack of an atmosphere would prove very damaging. Without the buffering of air around drilling tools, dynamic friction will be amplified during drilling tasks, generating huge amounts of heat. Drill bits and rock will fuse, hindering progress. Should demolition tasks need to be carried out, explosions in a vacuum would create countless high velocity missiles tearing through anything in their path, with no atmosphere to slow them down. (You wouldn’t want to be eating dinner in an inflatable habitat during mining activities should a rock fragment be flying your way…) Also, the ejected dust would obscure everything and settle, statically, on machinery and contaminate everything. Decontamination via air locks will not be efficient enough to remove all the dust from spacesuits, Moon dust would be ingested and breathed in – a health risk we will not fully comprehend until we are there. MOON DUST IS DANGEROUS AND PERVASIVE-David ‘06 [Leonard; space reporter; Lunar explorers face moon dust dilemma; MSNBC; 7 Nov 2006; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15607792/; retrieved 11 Aug 2011] The Moon is dusty, grimy, and potentially hazardous to your health. Ultra-tiny dust grains can gum up the works of vital hardware on the Moon. And there's also a possible risk to health from gulping in the lunar dust—a toxicological twist to "bad Moon rising." Thanks to the Apollo program there's firsthand knowledge about the Moon being a Disneyland of dust. Moonwalkers were covered from helmet to boot with lunar dust. Also tagged as the "dirty dozen," astronauts on the various Apollo missions worked long hours in the lunar environment, setting up science equipment and collectively bagged 840 pounds (382 kilograms) of rock and other surface material for shipment back to Earth. WE KNOW FAR TOO LITTLE ABOUT MITIGATING DUST ON THE MOON-David ‘06 [Leonard; space reporter; Lunar explorers face moon dust dilemma; MSNBC; 7 Nov 2006; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15607792/; retrieved 11 Aug 2011] The surface of the Moon charges in response to currents incident on its surface, and is exposed to a variety of different charging environments during its orbit around the Earth. Those charging currents span several orders of magnitude, he said. Dust adhesion is likely increased by the angular barbed shapes of lunar dust, found to quickly and effectively coat all surfaces it comes into contact with. Additionally, that clinging is possibly due to electrostatic charging, Halekas explained. "I think it would behoove us to understand the lunar dust plasma environment as well as possible before we try to come up with detailed dust mitigation strategies," Halekas told SPACE.com. "This would mean characterizing the dust, electric fields and plasma around the Moon and understanding how they interact." Halekas said that he advocates science experiments either in lunar orbit or on the Moon's surface — preferably both — in order to gauge the problem. "At this point, we know so little about the near-surface electrodynamic environment and its effect on dust that we can't do much more than conjecture and try to predict the most likely scenario," Halekas said. Just knowing that the dust is there, Halekas added, tells us that we need to deal with it. "But without more detailed knowledge than we currently have, I think we're handicapped in coming up with effective mitigation strategies." Lunar Helium-3 Mining Negative HARMS: THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES TO HE-3 NEW TECHNOLOGIES ARE COMING ONLINE TO MEET HE-3 DEMAND-McElroy ‘10 [Molly; AAAS Workshop Explores How to Meet Demand for Helium-3 in Medicine, Industry, and Security; AAAS; 23 April 2010; http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2010/0423helium3.shtml; retrieved 20 Jun 2011] “While the demand for helium-3 from the post-9/11 homeland security sector is pretty large, we’ve seen dramatic growth in the uses of helium-3 in several different industries,” said Tannenbaum, the workshop organizer. “It’s unfortunate that all of these demands came online at about the same time, and all well after we stopped making the tritium that decays to helium-3. “In the short-term, things may look bleak for the sectors that rely on helium-3. However, several exciting new non-helium-3 technologies are coming on line in the next 12-18 months that will significantly decrease demand, and we should soon see some new helium-3 supplies come on to the market.” GOVERNMENT ACTIVELY SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVES TO HE-3-Goodwin ‘10 [Jacob; DNDO cites possible alternatives to Helium-3 for use in neutron detection devices; Government Security News; 6 May 2010; http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/20667/dndo_cites_possible_alternatives_helium_3_use_neut; retrieved 13 August 2011] Faced with decreasing supplies of Helium-3, even as the demand for this non-radioactive isotope of helium is on the increase, DHS is searching for new technologies that could be used to replace the current Helium-3 related components used in many of the department’s neutron detection devices. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) has issued a presolicitation notice that describes the technical approach it will pursue in its “Neutron Detector Replacement Program,” including the possible use of Boron Trifluoride, boron lined tubes, coated wavelength shifting fibers, doped fibers or other technologies. “The Government anticipates issuing a RFP resulting in one or more contracts utilizing multiple technologies…,” says the presolicitation notice, which was released on May 4. The shortage of Helium-3, which is becoming acute, as more and more nuclear detection devices have relied on this isotope, came to the public’s attention only in the past two years. A House subcommittee on investigations and oversight held a hearing in April that, in part, criticized the Department of Energy for allowing this worrisome shortage of Helium-3 to develop. “This solicitation does not cover research & development of [radiation portal monitoring systems] components,” said the DHS announcement, “but covers development of near term commercially available [neutron detection modules] for RPMS using technologies other than [Helium-3].” DHS pointed out that radiation portal monitoring systems are currently being deployed at U.S. borders and ports of entry. Among the possible alternative technologies that DNDO would like to explore are Boron Trifluoride, which has reportedly one-fifth lower neutron sensitivity, but a greater toxicity, than Helium-3; boron lined tubes, which could directly replace the Helium-3 tubes and could avoid the hazardous characteristics associated with Boron Trifluoride; and doped fibers, which reportedly have poor neutron-gamma separation and, thus, might not work well in border security applications because the gamma-ray background rate is many orders of magnitude larger than the required neutron detection sensitivity. During Phase 1 of DNDO’s program, the successful contractors will be expected to deliver four neutron detection modules, which utilize their particular technical approach, for government testing at the Nevada Test Site. During Phase 2, at the direction of the government, successful contractors will be asked to deliver an additional 70 detection modules. SOLVENCY: LUNAR HELIUM-3 PLAN IS ENTIRELY INFEASIBLE THE LUNAR HE-3 PLAN IS FANTASY AND CANNOT WORK-Technology Review ‘07 [Mining the Moon; Technology Review; 23 Aug 2007; http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19296/; retrieved 20 Jun 2011] Second, Close rejects the claim that two helium-3 nuclei could realistically be made to fuse with each other to produce deuterium, an alpha particle and energy. That reaction occurs even more slowly than deuterium-tritium fusion, and the fuel would have to be heated to impractically high temperatures--six times the heat of the sun's interior, by some calculations--that would be beyond the reach of any tokamak. Hence, Close concludes, "the lunar-helium-3 story is, to my mind, moonshine." HE-3 FUSION IS NOT EVEN FEASIBLE-Williams ‘07 [Mark; staff writer; Mining the Moon; Technology Review; 23 Aug 2007;http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19296/?a=f; retrieved 27 Jun 2011] Helium-3 advocates claim that it, conversely, would be nonradioactive, obviating all those problems. But a serious critic has charged that in reality, He3-based fusion isn't even a feasible option. In the August issue of Physics World, theoretical physicist Frank Close, at Oxford in the UK, has published an article called "Fears Over Factoids" in which, among other things, he summarizes some claims of the "helium aficionados," then dismisses those claims as essentially fantasy. 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