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

of the 21st Century” ed. by W.W. Mendel, Lunar and Planetary
Institute, Houston 1984, pp. 825-7.
In what we hope is an improvement on this idea,
Doug Armstrong and I published an article on “Enhanced
Harenobraking” [sand-braking] in MMM # 55, cited below. It
is conceivable that some limited application of this trick could
be used to shed some of the momentum of an incoming
personnel carrier.
• Cushioning Farings of non volatile material - e.g.
metal and ceramic foams might land G-hardened payloads on
the Moon intact, in specially restricted landing zones where
they can then be “harvested”.
• Chicago inventor Ed Marwick has put forth an
elaborate proposal in which guided payloads enter a sloping
chute dug into surface and encounter ever denser sprays of
regolith dust, slowing the capsule down to a halt. Such a
facility would have to be as long as a mass driver per level of
Gs to be tolerated.
Loading and Unloading Facilities
The earliest ships coming to the Moon to set up operations
in any given development area will be “self-unloaders”
weighted down with the cranes and winches needed to unload
and reload themselves. Landing on and launching from the
Moon will take less fuel and be cheaper, once such equipment
is set up on a site, thereby establishing a “port”. “Go anywhere”
craft will operate at a competitive disadvantage as
compared to craft designed to trade via an established lunar
surface port facility. Population will follow, so that port-establishment
will tend to be outpost and settlement site preemptive.
(The same applies to the establishment of fuel processing
facilities and fuel depots, harenobraking smoothways, electromagnetic
launchers and catchers, etc.)
Electromagnetic Launchers
Mass Drivers have been principally investi-gated for
the regular continuous shipment of unprocessed lunar regolith
into space for production of building materials for Solar Power
Satellites and Space Settlements. Such devices provide very
high G launch over relatively short mag-lev tracks.
Other elaborations are possible:
• value-added pelletizable processed materials
• G-hardened small size manufactured items
• Larger items (cargo holds, personnel pods) in more potent,
longer, slower accelerating launch tracks
Reversing mass drivers or Mass Catchers which catch
and brake landing payloads have been mentioned and need
further investigation for high traffic situations. In most cases
this will not require a new facility, just a new “reverse” mode
use (where launch demand allows) for an existing mass driver.
Mass Drivers-Catchers are expensive big ticket items.
They will lower costs to and from the lunar surface only when
amortized over a long period of high traffic use.
Relevant Readings From MMM Back Issues
MMM # 6 JUN ‘87 “Bootstrap Rockets”
MMM # 55 MAY ‘92 “A Better Slide-Skid Lander?
Enhanced Harenobraking”
MMM # 56 JUN ‘92 “Harbor & Town
by Peter Kokh
Early Orbit-Based Shuttles
The first expeditions to Mars will have to use orbitbased
self-unloading, self servicing and self-launching shuttles.
There are no ready to use port facilities on Mars. An aerobraking
shuttle cannot land like Columbia and siblings. It can
glide-in only to lose most horizontal momentum, but then must
either finish the job by using retrorockets to land on its tail or
vectorable thrust to land like a harrier.
Preparation of a runway for wheeled horizontal
landing and take off would make sustained operations easier,
but is a down-the-list priority.
NIMF shuttles and hoppers {nuclear rockets using
indigenous made-on-Mars fuels like methane and oxygen) will
be enormously cheaper to fly than those that must carry launch
and return fuel down with them from orbit, indeed, all the way
from Earth.
The NIMF scenario is versatile. Shuttles that will be
on a location long enough to process their launch and return
fuel can land anywhere. For quick trips, a fuel processing plant
must be pre-landed on a selected site. A depot network of
NIMF plants around the Martian globe at well chosen sites will
accelerate the opening of the planet.
Early traffic to Mars would also benefit from a fuel
processing plant on Deimos or Phobos, at least marginally.
This would be an early high priority item, especially for traffic
(processed hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon volatiles such as
liquid methane and ammonia for trade to the Moon in exchange
for made-on-Luna equipment / provisions) to the Martian
moonlets themselves might be a major development on which
Mars surface operations are economically piggybacked and
subsidized.
Later Ground-based Shuttles
If sustained traffic warrants (a decision to establish a
permanent exploration base etc.) a true port facility can be
established. In effect, this would change “Home Port” from
Earth to Mars. Such a full-function port facility would be site
preemptive, in that by making it far cheaper to land and take
off from that location, traffic to other “undeveloped” sites on
Mars would struggle at a major competitive disadvantage.
Infrastructure is a strong magnet and activity polarizer. First
site to establish it, wins.
Any Martian spaceport could also double as an
airport. Cargo and passenger aviation on Mars, perhaps with
hydrogen-buoyancy lift assistance is a strong feasibility. Its
early development will be crucial to opening up the planet.
Up/Down Western/Eastern Pavonis
One of the most specially advantaged pieces of real
estate in all the solar system is the very high (15-23 km?)
extinct shield volcano Mons Pavonis (“Peacock Mountain”)
which sits astride the Martian equator on the Tharsis uplift. Its
Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 10 - Republished January 2006 - Page 88