MMM Classics Year 10: MMM #s 91-100 - Moon Society

Permanence has to be earned, not proclaimed
by Peter Kokh
“Permanent!” You would think its is a cut and dried
word. But like all adjectives, its denotation can be justified in
degrees. Sure, it’s not at all what we mean when we use the
term with reference to our presence on the Moon, but in a sense
our presence is already permanent. Even if we never return,
indeed especially if we never return, the Apollo astronauts will
have left a relatively “permanent” human presence on the
Moon. Their bootprints, tire tracks, and assorted left behind
equipment and paraphernalia [lunar museum hope chest]
should outlast all of us individually, outlast, indeed the most
long-lived of the current family of terrestrial nations. It will
simply take that long for the process of micrometeorite rain to
“garden” the surface at the landing sites to remove all traces.
But that’s not what we mean. The Apollo crews were
just on “scientific picnics”, our happy campers taking their
lunar module “tents” with them when they lifted off. The next
“small step, giant leap” (to use the slogan of the upcoming
New York International Space Development Conference - you
all come , now!) is for the next returning crew to leave behind a
habitable structure, protected from the elements by a blanket of
moon dust (regolith) shielding. That goes much further to merit
the description “permanent presence”.
Let’s quibble no more. What we all mean, want, is to
plunge into a new era, one in which from that day forward,
there will never again be a sunset on a moon without humans
working and living there somewhere. For the more easily
satisfied, the less expectant, that means no crew will ever
return to Earth without first being replaced.
But to the rest of us, this is a wooden nickel. What we
mean, want, by “permanent presence” is real settlement
communities in which a significant part of the population has
come to (and someday been born on) the Moon fully intending
to live out their lives there, raising families, having children,
working for their livelihood, and doing the whole spectrum of
human things we call living. Now, in that sense of the term, we
are talking about an era of much more ambitious activity on the
Moon than are those folks happy to have an Antarctic style
government/science outpost with rotating crews.
Our point in this essay is that we can’t get to this
higher realization of the term “permanent” from day one of our
return with a habitat module, without the right set of plans,
without the right official (government, multi-national industry,
or private undertaking — i.e. the chief responsible party in
charge) “philosophy”. Philosophy, shunned as irrelevant or
useless by self-styled pragmatists, is, whether its principles are
sound or loony, the most powerful force on Earth. Everyone
operates with an implicit philosophy, even criminals and
misfits. As hard to pin down as it may be, as difficult to agree
upon as we know it is, is still the ultimate fuel that powers and
drives (steers) everything in human activity and history. So it
is worth paying attention to, worth trying to get it right,
appropriate, and productive of results.
We must sell, and buy, “the ladder” of permanent
presence on the Moon, as such — as the whole ladder. It has
been, is, and forever will be, a failure-guaranteeing philosophy
to attempt to neutralize potential opposition by selling the
dream one seemingly innocuous rung at a time. When we do
so, the rung gets designed by a committee with many of the
players oblivious of the nature of the rung to serve as a step to
another rung, and on and on. Look at our recent past. First, not
to alarm anyone, we sold the idea of a space shuttle. That in
place we introduced the idea of a space station. That now
seeming to finally have a momentum of its own that will lead
to its at-long-last realization, many of us are beginning to
agitate for a return to the Moon and a first expedition to Mars.
The trouble is, the space shuttle we ended up getting
was designed by a committee many of whom did not consider
the need to maximize its design so it could best serve as a
shuttle to a station. Repeating our mistake, the station, in each
of its design iterations, has again been designed by a
committee, most of whom have not considered it important to
maximize the station as a platform whose primary function is to
serve as a springboard for deep space missions beyond LEO
and GEO to the Moon, to Mars, to the asteroids.
And so we have an ultra expensive shuttle with which
we have to make do, and will get an even more expensive
station downward looking in design and function (an easier sell
to those to whom we were too timid to close the real ladder).
If we follow suite, the first lunar outpost will be an
end all in itself, poorly designed for expansion, or to support
the kind of ambitious experimentations and demonstrations
needed to properly design expansion phases. If we do sell the
outpost, once again it will become a self-halting step forward.
We will indeed have gained only an inadequate high tech
shelter that will be abandoned at the next budget crisis. So
much for “permanence” - a permanent “ghost townlet”,
eventual “ruin”.
That’s why it is difficult to see the sense of political
space activism, aimed at programs rather than at legislative
facilitation. The political process by its very nature cannot
produce anything intelligent.
A commercial, industrial undertaking has much more
of a chance, even with myopic MBAs running the show. A for
profit enterprise or multinational is far more likely to design
and plan in a way that leads to growth - and real permanence.
Who has the deepest pockets is an irrelevant consideration.
Rather the question is who has the drive, the persistence, the
absolute need to succeed?
A government operation would put primary stress on
science while doing token experimentation in the practical
arena of learning to live off the lunar land. It will have saved
money up front, and the resulting “mule station” will indeed be
sterile, in no way pregnant with the future.
So agitate not for a “permanent outpost”. See to it
instead that legislative and treaty roadblocks are removed, that
economic incentives are in place. Then we will get a town built
brick by brick, settler by settler for the long haul. Not just a
permanent ruin-to-be.
Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 10 - Republished January 2006 - Page 19