Everything Moon

[Dantheman62]

nevermind, couldn't post a picture, LOL

[Orion11]

i will for sure Brook!

yea, what is with all of the crashing things into the moon recently? lol

anyone remember some of the old tests done , where the moon would "ring" like a bell when struck, and that suggests the Moon is actually hollow?

what if it really is hollow? lol

they just keep crashing enormous things into it at enormous speeds,

maybe they should be more careful. lol

I used to have dreams about stuf like this,
and in the dreams a huge part of the moon actually broke off
and things got crazy. lol

i hope they dont break the Moon... i would cry.

then we'd all die. lol

[Orion11]

http://www.impactlab.com/2009/06/18/...into-the-moon/

[BROOK]

Originally Posted by Orion11

http://www.impactlab.com/2009/06/18/...into-the-moon/

You know, that has got to be one REALLY BIG bomb to create a
6 mile high explosion !

[Orion11]

mmhmm

crazy i say!

[BROOK]

Originally Posted by Orion11

i will for sure Brook!

yea, what is with all of the crashing things into the moon recently? lol

anyone remember some of the old tests done , where the moon would "ring" like a bell when struck, and that suggests the Moon is actually hollow?

what if it really is hollow? lol

they just keep crashing enormous things into it at enormous speeds,

maybe they should be more careful. lol

I used to have dreams about stuf like this,
and in the dreams a huge part of the moon actually broke off
and things got crazy. lol

i hope they dont break the Moon... i would cry.

then we'd all die. lol

what if it really is a big UFO

I would cry too

[Luminari]

Originally Posted by BROOK

what if it really is a big UFO

I would cry too

[Luminari]

After hundreds of years of detailed observation and study, our closest companion in the vast universe, Earth’s moon, remains an enigma. Six moon landings and hundreds of experiments have resulted in more questions being asked than answered. Among them:

1. Moon’s Age: The moon is far older than previously expected. Maybe even older than the Earth or the Sun. The oldest age for the Earth is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old; moon rocks were dated at 5.3 billion years old, and the dust upon which they were resting was at least another billion years older.

2. Rock’s Origin: The chemical composition of the dust upon which the rocks sat differed remarkably from the rocks themselves, contrary to accepted theories that the dust resulted from weathering and breakup of the rocks themselves. The rocks had to have come from somewhere else.

3. Heavier Elements on Surface: Normal planetary composition results in heavier elements in the core and lighter materials at the surface; not so with the moon. According to Wilson, "The abundance of refractory elements like titanium in the surface areas is so pronounced that several geologists proposed the refractory compounds were brought to the moon’s surface in great quantity in some unknown way. They don’t know how, but that it was done cannot be questioned." (Emphasis added).

4. Water Vapor: On March 7, 1971, lunar instruments placed by the astronauts recorded a vapor cloud of water passing across the surface of the moon. The cloud lasted 14 hours and covered an area of about 100 square miles.

5. Magnetic Rocks: Moon rocks were magnetized. This is odd because there is no magnetic field on the moon itself. This could not have originated from a "close call" with Earth—such an encounter would have ripped the moon apart.

6. No Volcanoes: Some of the moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions.

7. Moon Mascons: Mascons, which are large, dense, circular masses lying twenty to forty miles beneath the centers of the moon’s maria, "are broad, disk-shaped objects that could be possibly some kind of artificial construction. For huge circular disks are not likely to be beneath each huge maria, centered like bull’s-eyes in the middle of each, by coincidence or accident." (Emphasis added).

8. Seismic Activity: Hundreds of "moonquakes" are recorded each year that cannot be attributed to meteor strikes. In November, 1958, Soviet astronomer Nikolay A. Kozyrev of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory photographed a gaseous eruption of the moon near the crater Alphonsus. He also detected a reddish glow that lasted for about an hour. In 1963, astronomers at the Lowell Observatory also saw reddish glows on the crests of ridges in the Aristarchus region. These observations have proved to be precisely identical and periodical, repeating themselves as the moon moves closer to the Earth. These are probably not natural phenomena.

9. Hollow Moon: The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 (3.34 times an equal volume of water) whereas the Earth’s is 5.5. What does this mean? In 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated, "If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere." Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested the moon’s reduced density is because of large areas inside the moon where is "simply a cavity." MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote, "the Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field . . . indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow." In Carl Sagan’s treatise, Intelligent Life in the Universe, the famous astronomer stated, "A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object."

10. Moon Echoes: On November 20, 1969, the Apollo 12 crew jettisoned the lunar module ascent stage causing it to crash onto the moon. The LM’s impact (about 40 miles from the Apollo 12 landing site) created an artificial moonquake with startling characteristics—the moon reverberated like a bell for more than an hour. This phenomenon was repeated with Apollo 13 (intentionally commanding the third stage to impact the moon), with even more startling results. Seismic instruments recorded that the reverberations lasted for three hours and twenty minutes and traveled to a depth of twenty-five miles, leading to the conclusion that the moon has an unusually light—or even no—core.

11. Unusual Metals: The moon’s crust is much harder than presumed. Remember the extreme difficulty the astronauts encountered when they tried to drill into the maria? Surprise! The maria is composed primarily illeminite, a mineral containing large amounts of titanium, the same metal used to fabricate the hulls of deep-diving submarines and the skin of the SR-71 "Blackbird". Uranium 236 and neptunium 237 (elements not found in nature on Earth) were discovered in lunar rocks, as were rustproof iron particles.

12. Moon’s Origin: Before the astronauts’ moon rocks conclusively disproved the theory, the moon was believed to have originated when a chunk of Earth broke off eons ago (who knows from where?). Another theory was that the moon was created from leftover "space dust" remaining after the Earth was created. Analysis of the composition of moon rocks disproved this theory also. Another popular theory is that the moon was somehow "captured" by the Earth’s gravitational attraction. But no evidence exists to support this theory. Isaac Asimov, stated, "It’s too big to have been captured by the Earth. The chances of such a capture having been effected and the moon then having taken up nearly circular orbit around our Earth are too small to make such an eventuality credible."

13. Weird Orbit: Our moon is the only moon in the solar system that has a stationary, near-perfect circular orbit. Stranger still, the moon’s center of mass is about 6000 feet closer to the Earth than its geometric center (which should cause wobbling), but the moon’s bulge is on the far side of the moon, away from the Earth. "Something" had to put the moon in orbit with its precise altitude, course, and speed.

14. Moon Diameter: How does one explain the "coincidence" that the moon is just the right distance, coupled with just the right diameter, to completely cover the sun during an eclipse? Again, Isaac Asimov responds, "There is no astronomical reason why the moon and the sun should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion."

15. Spaceship Moon: As outrageous as the Moon-Is-a-Spaceship Theory is, all of the above items are resolved if one assumes that the moon is a gigantic extraterrestrial craft, brought here eons ago by intelligent beings. This is the only theory that is supported by all of the data, and there are no data that contradict this theory.

Greek authors Aristotle and Plutarch, and Roman authors Apolllonius Rhodius and Ovid all wrote of a group of people called the Proselenes who lived in the central mountainous area of Greece called Arcadia The Proselenes claimed title to this area because their forebears were there "before there was a moon in the heavens." This claim is substantiated by symbols on the wall of the Courtyard of Kalasasaya, near the city of Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, which record that the moon came into orbit around the Earth between 11,500 and 13,000 years ago, long before recorded history.

Ages of Flashes: Aristarchus, Plato, Eratosthenes, Biela, Rabbi Levi, and Posidonius all reported anomalous lights on the moon. NASA, one year before the first lunar landing, reported 570+ lights and flashes were observed on the moon from 1540 to 1967.

Operation Moon Blink: NASA’s Operation Moon Blink detected 28 lunar events in a relatively short period of time.

Lunar Bridge: On July 29, 1953, John J. O’Neill observed a 12-mile-long bridge straddling the crater Mare Crisium. In August, British astronomer Dr. H.P. Wilkens verified its presence, "It looks artificial. It’s almost incredible that such a thing could have been formed in the first instance, or if it was formed, could have lasted during the ages in which the moon has been in existence.

The Shard: The Shard, an obelisk-shaped object that towers 1½ miles from the Ukert area of the moon’s surface, was discovered by Orbiter 3 in 1968. Dr. Bruce Cornet, who studied the amazing photographs, stated, "No known natural process can explain such a structure."

The Tower: One of the most curious features ever photographed on the Lunar surface (Lunar Orbiter photograph III-84M) is an amazing spire that rises more than 5 miles from the Sinus Medii region of the lunar surface.

The Obelisks: Lunar Orbiter II took several photographs in November 1966 that showed several obelisks, one of which was more than 150 feet tall. ". . . the spires were arranged in precisely the same was as the apices of the three great pyramids."

[Luminari]

Originally Posted by Luminari

the moon is a gigantic extraterrestrial craft, brought here eons ago by intelligent beings. This is the only theory that is supported by all of the data, and there are no data that contradict this theory..

..symbols on the wall of the Courtyard of Kalasasaya, near the city of Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, which record that the moon came into orbit around the Earth between 11,500 and 13,000 years ago.

[Orion11]

..symbols on the wall of the Courtyard of Kalasasaya, near the city of Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, which record that the moon came into orbit around the Earth between 11,500 and 13,000 years ago.

that is interesting for sure!! thanks!

got some stuff to look up.. lol

[BROOK]

Moon secrets revealed John Lear and Richard Hoagland


Part 1

Part 2

[BROOK]

Mining the Moon

BY William Stone // June 2009
This is part of IEEE Spectrum's Special Report: Why Mars? Why Now?
Planetary geologists speculate that the moon’s polar craters may hold billions of tons of hydrogen, perhaps even in the form of water ice. Intriguing evidence returned by the Lunar Prospector and the Clementine probes in the 1990s seemed to support this idea. The latest raft of lunar missions, including Chandrayaan-1 and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, may confirm it. In situ prospecting could then determine the quantity, quality, and accessibility of the hydrogen.
Discovering rich concentrations of hydrogen on the moon would open up a universe of possibilities—literally. Rocket fuels and consumables that now cost an average of US $10 000 per kilogram to loft could instead be produced on the moon much more cheaply. For the first time, access to space would be truly economical. At last, people would be able to begin new ventures, including space tourism, space-debris cleanup, satellite refueling, and interplanetary voyages.

Lunar prospecting will cost a lot of money—perhaps $20 billion over a decade. Rovers would have to descend into the polar craters to sample the deposits and test for ice, and then move on to other spots to form an overall map, much as wildcatters do every day in oil fields. At the moment, no country seems eager to foot the bill. But where governments fail to act on a vitally important opportunity, the private sector can and should step in.
Two years ago, I and a group of like-minded businessmen, expeditionary explorers, and space-systems managers and engineers formed the Shackleton Energy Co. in Del Valle, Texas, to conduct lunar prospecting. Should we find significant reserves of ice, we would then establish a network of refueling service stations in low Earth orbit and on the moon to process and provide fuel and consumables. Like modern highway service stations, these celestial stations would be able to refuel space vehicles of all kinds and would be positioned at key transportation nodes; an obvious spot would be near the International Space Station.
Such stations would radically change the way nearly every space system is designed. No longer would you have to carry your fuel and water into orbit with you. Entirely new classes of space vehicles would become possible, ones that operate only at and beyond low Earth orbit, such as vehicles for orbital transfer and satellite repair. Today launch systems must be designed to withstand the punishing effects of high-speed atmospheric drag, pressure, vibration, and heating that occur on the way to space. Protecting the rocket and its payload adds enormously to launch costs. But a vehicle that is designed from the start to operate only in space—say, between low Earth orbit and the moon—is not bound by the same design rules.
We would also be able to clear up the ever-growing space debris problem. There’d be plenty of fuel for maneuvering satellites and other spacecraft to avoid debris, and you could also deploy cleanup vehicles to remove obsolete materials from orbit. Within a decade or two, we would soon see the dawn of a new age of space exploration, space tourism, and space business ventures.


So where exactly is the raw material, and how will we retrieve it? The most likely place to look is within the regolith—the loose surface material—at the bottom of lunar craters, such as Shackleton Crater at the moon’s south pole. The cold interior of this crater may act as a trap that captures volatiles like water and hydrogen, which scientists believe may have been shed by comets and asteroids that collided with the moon. In the 1990s, the Lunar Prospector spacecraft sensed unexpectedly high amounts of hydrogen in the polar regions, which may indicate the presence of water ice. NASA has considered Shackleton Crater as the site for the first lunar outpost under its Constellation program, which envisions returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.
Assuming the ice exists and can be extracted, our plan calls for establishing a fuel-processing operation on the lunar surface. The first step would be to melt the ice and purify the water. Next, we’d electrolyze the water into gaseous hydrogen and oxygen, and then condense the gases into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and also process them into hydrogen peroxide, all of which could be used as rocket fuels. Should other volatiles like ammonia or methane be discovered, they, too, would be processed into fuel, fertilizer, and other useful products.
Getting the fuels and other consumables from the moon into low Earth orbit will be relatively cheap. Because of the peculiarities of celestial mechanics, such a haul requires just 1/14th to 1/20th of the fuel it takes to bring material up from Earth.
Prospecting within the crater won’t be easy, of course. It’s extremely cold (a steady −173 °C) and perpetually dark—like an Antarctic winter but worse, because it’s constant. Also, the moon’s low gravitational field makes excavating that much trickier than it is back on Earth. Our plan therefore calls for developing a new generation of highly reliable, human-tended robotic machinery that would be built to withstand even that harsh environment. We think it can be done. We won’t know unless we try.


hree elements are essential for the commercial success of our operation. First, to save about $1 billion during the initial staging of the lunar mining base, the first human team will take only enough fuel to land and establish the base—not enough for a return trip to Earth. This may sound radical, but the human crew who will undertake this mission will do so knowing that their success and survival depend on in situ fuel generation for the return. Should they fail, theirs will be a one-way trip; the risk is theirs to take. For government-sponsored space agencies, such a concept is unthinkable; they cannot tolerate the political risk of failure. Yet it is the only viable business choice. Centuries of explorers made the same hard choice in pushing the limits on land, sea, and air. It’s time to carry it forward into space. This is not reckless bravado but calculated risk management to satisfy mission needs and affordability.
Second, we need a relatively inexpensive means of returning to low Earth orbit. To do that involves the dissipation of nearly 3 kilometers per second of excess velocity. Decelerating with rocket propellant alone would be prohibitively expensive—we’d be ”eating the seed corn.” So we plan to do it with actively controlled aerobraking. The water-laden spacecraft will repeatedly dip into and skip out of the upper atmosphere, losing some velocity with each dip, until it ultimately ends up in the orbit of the fueling station. This same maneuver was previously used only for much smaller planetary robotic missions, such as Magellan and the Mars Global Surveyor, but the physics and engineering are well understood. We intend to take the concept to an industrial scale, which would have obvious applications for other space missions.
Third, we plan to rely on inflatable structures. Constructed of multilayer fabrics shielded with Kevlar or other strong materials and banded by steel exoskeletons, these structures could provide most of our habitation, storage, and transportation requirements. They would be both lighter and less expensive than traditional spacecraft. A number of companies have done extensive R&D on such inflatable space structures, including Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace, which has even lofted two test modules to low Earth orbit.


Reliance on such technologies will decrease the cost of our operation, but it still will not be cheap. We estimate that establishing a lunar mining outpost and low-Earth-orbit fueling network will cost about $20 billion and take about a decade to put in place. That may sound like a lot, but in terms of complexity it’s comparable to a North Sea oil production complex. And it’s just a third of what the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco said it will spend on oil and gas projects over the next five years.
We live in interesting times. Right now, the technology, opportunity, and need to undertake such a mission are converging. Global tensions over resources, energy, and the environmental balance will only intensify in the coming years. New technologies may solve some of these problems, but ultimately we must look further afield for answers.
The Shackleton project offers a solution. We seek the boldest and most imaginative managers, policy makers, investors, engineers, and explorers to partner with us and to ignite the Earth-moon economy. It is time for the private sector to take the lead in creating new markets and expanding humanity’s presence in space. Governments cannot and will not do it by themselves anytime soon. Our company is prepared to open up space to those who have the vision, stamina, and wherewithal to make it a reality. Join us!
For more articles, go to Special Report: Why Mars? Why Now?
About the Author

William Stone is an aerospace engineer and explorer. He serves as the chairman of Shackleton Energy Co., based in Del Valle, Texas.


http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aerospa...ining-the-moon

[BROOK]

The Moon

XVIII – Here we see dogs barking at the Moon, one is light and one is dark, the crab comes from the water to join them. Two towers in the background, the creek running through the land into the mountains. Quite a lovely and calming scene, this describes what the Moon brings us. The quiet calm, the Moon and the water both reminds us of the tides and the fact that we are all of us very dependent on the ebb and flow of life, as well as the polarities such as negative and positive. The Moon is a reminder of these things and how they are necessary in life.

The Moon is also a reflection of the Sun; it is the reflective or the female side. Often the Sun is thought of as masculine and the Moon then represents the feminine. The Moon is said to be associated with dreams and the night. It also indicates a sensitivity that can be very psychic or intuitive, particularly when it comes to emotions. With this energy there is a mediumistic or psychic ability. We all have this in us, but there are times when each of us will be more sensitive then others.

In the right side up position, the Moon can indicate that the person being read can count on their gut, that their own intuitive ability could be very clear at this time. This is when you can assure or be assured that you already know on a visceral level what is going on or what it is that you need to do.

Upside down, you would have the opposite situation. Here the person being read is going through some kind of storm or turmoil and as a result they have no intuitive ability, they cannot trust what they are feeling inside, if they even feel anything of any clarity at all. These are usually those times when we feel that there is no clarity to what is happening to us. We feel like a ship that has done a drift and how things will work out is beyond our understanding.

This is a great card for meditation to deepen your clarity or understanding. It can be a great meditation to work on your dream life, (the ones you have while sleeping.) This can be a good card for understanding not only the cycles of life, but also how the unconscious level or the intuitive level of ourselves can have a greater strength in our evolution as humankind. To understand the power and the greatness of what can sometimes be called the darker realms of our existence. How being reflective and sensitive can greatly enhance our lives and help us to remain even more conscious an awake in our daily lives.

Return to the Major Arcana article list
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...a%3DG%26um%3D1

[Luminari]

Lunacy! Moon Madness I say watson, what brings on this sudden Lunar Obsession of Lunaphilic Luminosity?

I vaguely remember a dream (or was it) from last night involving a beautiful starship in the sky and lights moving and blinking on the moon. Wish I had full recall.

[BROOK]

Originally Posted by Luminari

Lunacy! Moon Madness I say watson, what brings on this sudden Lunar Obsession of Lunaphilic Luminosity?

I vaguely remember a dream (or was it) from last night involving a beautiful starship in the sky and lights moving and blinking on the moon. Wish I had full recall.

It's the first step out into the universe Lunatic Fringe

YouTube - Red Rider - Lunatic Fringe

[Humble Janitor]

Originally Posted by BROOK

Mining the Moon

BY William Stone // June 2009
This is part of IEEE Spectrum's Special Report: Why Mars? Why Now?
Planetary geologists speculate that the moon’s polar craters may hold billions of tons of hydrogen, perhaps even in the form of water ice. Intriguing evidence returned by the Lunar Prospector and the Clementine probes in the 1990s seemed to support this idea. The latest raft of lunar missions, including Chandrayaan-1 and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, may confirm it. In situ prospecting could then determine the quantity, quality, and accessibility of the hydrogen.
Discovering rich concentrations of hydrogen on the moon would open up a universe of possibilities—literally. Rocket fuels and consumables that now cost an average of US $10 000 per kilogram to loft could instead be produced on the moon much more cheaply. For the first time, access to space would be truly economical. At last, people would be able to begin new ventures, including space tourism, space-debris cleanup, satellite refueling, and interplanetary voyages.

Lunar prospecting will cost a lot of money—perhaps $20 billion over a decade. Rovers would have to descend into the polar craters to sample the deposits and test for ice, and then move on to other spots to form an overall map, much as wildcatters do every day in oil fields. At the moment, no country seems eager to foot the bill. But where governments fail to act on a vitally important opportunity, the private sector can and should step in.
Two years ago, I and a group of like-minded businessmen, expeditionary explorers, and space-systems managers and engineers formed the Shackleton Energy Co. in Del Valle, Texas, to conduct lunar prospecting. Should we find significant reserves of ice, we would then establish a network of refueling service stations in low Earth orbit and on the moon to process and provide fuel and consumables. Like modern highway service stations, these celestial stations would be able to refuel space vehicles of all kinds and would be positioned at key transportation nodes; an obvious spot would be near the International Space Station.
Such stations would radically change the way nearly every space system is designed. No longer would you have to carry your fuel and water into orbit with you. Entirely new classes of space vehicles would become possible, ones that operate only at and beyond low Earth orbit, such as vehicles for orbital transfer and satellite repair. Today launch systems must be designed to withstand the punishing effects of high-speed atmospheric drag, pressure, vibration, and heating that occur on the way to space. Protecting the rocket and its payload adds enormously to launch costs. But a vehicle that is designed from the start to operate only in space—say, between low Earth orbit and the moon—is not bound by the same design rules.
We would also be able to clear up the ever-growing space debris problem. There’d be plenty of fuel for maneuvering satellites and other spacecraft to avoid debris, and you could also deploy cleanup vehicles to remove obsolete materials from orbit. Within a decade or two, we would soon see the dawn of a new age of space exploration, space tourism, and space business ventures.


So where exactly is the raw material, and how will we retrieve it? The most likely place to look is within the regolith—the loose surface material—at the bottom of lunar craters, such as Shackleton Crater at the moon’s south pole. The cold interior of this crater may act as a trap that captures volatiles like water and hydrogen, which scientists believe may have been shed by comets and asteroids that collided with the moon. In the 1990s, the Lunar Prospector spacecraft sensed unexpectedly high amounts of hydrogen in the polar regions, which may indicate the presence of water ice. NASA has considered Shackleton Crater as the site for the first lunar outpost under its Constellation program, which envisions returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.
Assuming the ice exists and can be extracted, our plan calls for establishing a fuel-processing operation on the lunar surface. The first step would be to melt the ice and purify the water. Next, we’d electrolyze the water into gaseous hydrogen and oxygen, and then condense the gases into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and also process them into hydrogen peroxide, all of which could be used as rocket fuels. Should other volatiles like ammonia or methane be discovered, they, too, would be processed into fuel, fertilizer, and other useful products.
Getting the fuels and other consumables from the moon into low Earth orbit will be relatively cheap. Because of the peculiarities of celestial mechanics, such a haul requires just 1/14th to 1/20th of the fuel it takes to bring material up from Earth.
Prospecting within the crater won’t be easy, of course. It’s extremely cold (a steady −173 °C) and perpetually dark—like an Antarctic winter but worse, because it’s constant. Also, the moon’s low gravitational field makes excavating that much trickier than it is back on Earth. Our plan therefore calls for developing a new generation of highly reliable, human-tended robotic machinery that would be built to withstand even that harsh environment. We think it can be done. We won’t know unless we try.


hree elements are essential for the commercial success of our operation. First, to save about $1 billion during the initial staging of the lunar mining base, the first human team will take only enough fuel to land and establish the base—not enough for a return trip to Earth. This may sound radical, but the human crew who will undertake this mission will do so knowing that their success and survival depend on in situ fuel generation for the return. Should they fail, theirs will be a one-way trip; the risk is theirs to take. For government-sponsored space agencies, such a concept is unthinkable; they cannot tolerate the political risk of failure. Yet it is the only viable business choice. Centuries of explorers made the same hard choice in pushing the limits on land, sea, and air. It’s time to carry it forward into space. This is not reckless bravado but calculated risk management to satisfy mission needs and affordability.
Second, we need a relatively inexpensive means of returning to low Earth orbit. To do that involves the dissipation of nearly 3 kilometers per second of excess velocity. Decelerating with rocket propellant alone would be prohibitively expensive—we’d be ”eating the seed corn.” So we plan to do it with actively controlled aerobraking. The water-laden spacecraft will repeatedly dip into and skip out of the upper atmosphere, losing some velocity with each dip, until it ultimately ends up in the orbit of the fueling station. This same maneuver was previously used only for much smaller planetary robotic missions, such as Magellan and the Mars Global Surveyor, but the physics and engineering are well understood. We intend to take the concept to an industrial scale, which would have obvious applications for other space missions.
Third, we plan to rely on inflatable structures. Constructed of multilayer fabrics shielded with Kevlar or other strong materials and banded by steel exoskeletons, these structures could provide most of our habitation, storage, and transportation requirements. They would be both lighter and less expensive than traditional spacecraft. A number of companies have done extensive R&D on such inflatable space structures, including Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace, which has even lofted two test modules to low Earth orbit.


Reliance on such technologies will decrease the cost of our operation, but it still will not be cheap. We estimate that establishing a lunar mining outpost and low-Earth-orbit fueling network will cost about $20 billion and take about a decade to put in place. That may sound like a lot, but in terms of complexity it’s comparable to a North Sea oil production complex. And it’s just a third of what the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco said it will spend on oil and gas projects over the next five years.
We live in interesting times. Right now, the technology, opportunity, and need to undertake such a mission are converging. Global tensions over resources, energy, and the environmental balance will only intensify in the coming years. New technologies may solve some of these problems, but ultimately we must look further afield for answers.
The Shackleton project offers a solution. We seek the boldest and most imaginative managers, policy makers, investors, engineers, and explorers to partner with us and to ignite the Earth-moon economy. It is time for the private sector to take the lead in creating new markets and expanding humanity’s presence in space. Governments cannot and will not do it by themselves anytime soon. Our company is prepared to open up space to those who have the vision, stamina, and wherewithal to make it a reality. Join us!
For more articles, go to Special Report: Why Mars? Why Now?
About the Author

William Stone is an aerospace engineer and explorer. He serves as the chairman of Shackleton Energy Co., based in Del Valle, Texas.


http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aerospa...ining-the-moon

Oh come on! A decade?

That's TPTB's way of saying "Fuhgettaboutit! Not happening!"