“Blogging the Moon” by Paul D. Spudis. Published in 2011 by Apogee Prime, it weighs in at 328 pages, plus a DVD of his talk “Luna Nova” and a slideshow of his personal Moon quest over the past three decades. Well edited, with the only noted errors in the included commentary.
It might seem counterintuitive to publish a print book of web content, but it’s not new in the space community. The first notable example of web content collected into book form would likely have to be the PERMANENT book, drawn from the www.permanent.com website which addresses Projects to Employ the Resources of the Moon and Asteroids Near-Earth, Near-Term. Which sounds an awful lot like what Dr. Spudis is talking about.
The book opens with a brief preface describing how the author came to have a blog at Air & Space Magazine online entitled The Once & Future Moon, which name is taken from his 1996 book, its title an homage to the T.H. White book that all future leaders should read as a young lad. As so often happens with blogging of substance, the frequency of the blog posts may not have been what management expected, the posts themselves were usually worthy of their episodic (rather than periodic) nature. (Paul has admitted that blogging is a lot more involved than he had anticipated. Amen to that)
The original offer was to have Dr. Spudis “live-blog” the launch of India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe, which carried Dr. Spudis’ Mini-SAR instrument to the Moon, recounted here as “India Aims for the Moon”. The story continues with “Hitting a Bull’s-Eye on the Moon”, where he recounts the thoroughly modern story of sitting in his hotel room at 4am, having just gotten images from Chandrayaan’s Moon Impact Probe (MIP) that evening, and live-streaming the upcoming Endeavour launch and seeing a full Moon slowly rising above the horizon in the Florida twilight, from Bangalore. This is also the first post to include the article’s comments.
Readers want constant novelty (for free!) and so there is a constant pressure on bloggers to generate new posts to try to get the traffic numbers up. This leads to Dr. Spudis posting on a variety of topics, in many cases policy-related, but also regarding legal issues, Lunar water, myriad reports on space issues, and a host of other things, for a total of 65 chapters dating from October 21st, 2008 to July 23rd, 2010.
Over that timeframe, NASA “bombed” the Moon with LCROSS, and the President released a new prescription for NASA, one involving less work on a custom new launch vehicle system (that was apparently too expensive to actually do anything with once built) and more work on moving the technologies useful for doing things in space, like fuel depots, rendezvous & docking, on-orbit assembly, radiation shielding, many-restart rocket motors, and so on. Which technologies can be used by the private sector to serve not only their own ends, but also those of NASA.
Dr. Spudis doesn’t quite see it that way, and spends much of the latter part of the book detailing his views on the shortcomings of the President’s directions to NASA. His argument seems to boil down to “NASA needs to have a specific target and direction before they can achieve great things”. The danger therein, however, is that NASA’s results tend to be optimized to that particular target/direction, with little cross-adaptability to any other application in space activities.
Including the comments that people leave at the blog expands the context of each post to that of a dialogue with both the author and other commenters. In some instances this aids in understanding each post, in others the thread can be drawn astray from Dr. Spudis’ intent, and has to be shepherded back on topic. Even these diversions, though, often have their own value.
Overall, the book is an interesting foray from Lunar science in India, to rocket design in the halls of Congress. It’s readily accessible to the layman, but given Dr. Spudis’ position in the forefront of Lunar science it also offers numerous insights on the advantages of the Moon for more informed readers. The book format allows for easier flipping back and forth between related blog posts, as well as the ability to jot notes in the margin to capture important points. I’ll have to be sure to get the Paul to sign the review copy in the Lunar Library at the next ISDC, where he is slated to receive the University of Luna award from The Moon Society.
A solid work in every way, this one gets a Full Moon rating.
“Back to the Moon” by Travis Taylor and Les Johnson. Published in 2010 by Baen Books, it weighs in at 303 pages with Afterword. Three editing errors noted.
The time is the near future,sometime late in the 20-teens or early 2020s. NASA is engaged in an a dry-run of the Altair system for a Lunar return. Probes are mapping the surface with increasing resolution in preparation for the next landing. On the private sector side, Space Excursions is about to embark on their first free-return trip around the Moon with paying tourists in the Dreamscape. Things are looking up for the space industry, and that has some folks jealous.
China launches their own probe to the Moon, but it apparently crashes. This leaves the media free to focus on the Dreamscape flight. Five paying customers, each for their reason, are going to where few others in the human race have been - out to the Moon. It’s a fairly run-of-the-mill trip with various and sundry egos jostling for position, until they start passing behind the Moon. The pilot forgot to turn up the squelch on his radio, and in the static he hears a faint voice:
“sssssssss Emergency! Please help! ssssssssssss SOS! This is the crew of the Chinese exploration ship Harmony calling for help! We’ve crashed and are ssssssssssssssssssssss”
WTF? That wasn’t in the mission briefing. (the pilot is a Millenial, or Gen Y) They make brief contact, and a passenger is able to spot the crashed vehicle. Four people, little power, depleting air. It seems hopeless, as the Dreamscape can’t land on the Moon (yet), and its homeward-bound trajectory was set three days prior. And why did no one know there were people on board the Chinese craft?
Well, the Yankees, or at least Uncle Sam, is here to help. That Altair that was set to fly in a month? You’ve got a week. If anyone can do anything to help save the day, it’s the Americans. We’re just crazy like that. And off to the Moon scrambles a desperate rescue party from NASA.
Certainly an interesting premise. I think it takes the Chinese philosophy of “saving face” a bit to the extreme, first in their silence regarding the presence of a crew, and second in the rebuffing of U.S. offers of assistance. We’re assured of a technically accurate description of the Constellation transport architecture (Ares I, Ares V, Orion, Altair) by both authors’ close association with NASA, but the assumption at that all of the components would be available in the early 2020s seems to strain credulity a bit given that the Augustine Committee looked at the budgets and progress and didn’t see the Altair coming online until the late 2020s, early-to-mid 2030s at best.
The storytelling also suffers a bit from the focus on technical accuracy. Character development is okay, but really not much more than is needed to move the story. Pretty much every crisis or moment of danger is foreshadowed well-prior and easily spotted by astute (orISU-trained) readers. At times the prose was dry enough that I felt like I was reading an engineering debrief rather than a fiction story.
I think the focus on the Constellation architecture works against the book, in that it will quickly date it as ‘just another Moon story’ (of which there are hundreds), rather than as a timeless work to be enjoyed again and again by succeeding generations. Sort of like with Erik Seedhouse’s “Lunar Outpost” (wait, or was that Michael Carroll’s “Seventh Landing“?), which was less about setting up a Lunar outpost and more about the Constellation project. Which is effectively de-funded, and moribund at best at the moment. Something that Mr. Taylor has words about in the Afterword.
Unfortunately, Constellation was an answer to a question that wasn’t being asked. The Vision for Space Exploration promulgated by President Bush in 2004 specifically stated that NASA was not going to build a new rocket. By September 2004 there were a number of industry players promulgating transport solutions for crew and cargo to the ISS through the Concept Exploration & Refinement (CE&R) studies which were supposed to have led to a flyoff amongst at least two solutions in the 2008 (prob. 2010) timeframe. That was all out the window when Michael Griffin came on board and announced ESAS in early 2005. The Ares I and Ares V were around in 2004 (check outSafeSimpleSoon; I have a marketing CD from ATK with videos of the stuff dated August 2004), but didn’t compete in the CE&R studies (although there is an Ares I in the Boeing presentation). In essence, with the adoption of Constellation, NASA was building their own rockets that no one else could use, or perhaps dare to use in the case of Ares I. The Russians had a 100 mT to orbit rocket they used for the Buran, but seeing no other market for the rocket in the world they mothballed it. Ares V would serve only NASA, with the taxpayers footing the bill for something they couldn’t have - a chance to go to space.
The reader should definitely check out the CE&R studies, as they are going to start looking familiar again (as with the CST-100 from Boeing).
Mr. Taylor reaches different conclusions in the Afterword, though his professional proximity to the Constellation project may influence him as much as my personal dislike of the Constellation architecture (engineering optimization gone overboard, giving us an expensive system for limited tasks, with little applicability to any other purpose) may influence the tone of my writing when reviewing books that tie their objectives to that particular architecture. Let’s just say that I found the Afterword a bit of a sour pill after an otherwise okay story.
And okay kind of sums it up. I’ll go with a waxing half Moon for “Back to the Moon”.
“Luna” by Garon Whited. Published in 2007 by Xlibris, it weighs in at 340 pages. Some editing and fact errors noted, but not bad for a self-published work of that length.
Sometime in the near future, there’s a crew on the way to the Moon to check-out and turn the key on an extensive Lunar facility that will eventually house thousands of residents. 300,000 km en route, they get to see the end of the world, consumed by nuclear fire. For all they know, they are the last survivors of humanity. Two men and three women and a well-stocked Lunar base designed for many many more people. So begins another slow climb back from the ashes of destruction for humanity.
The time is far enough in the future that there are other orbital facilities scattered between LEO and GEO. A Mars-bound craft is being constructed at Heinlein station, and there is an orbital colony at L-5. There’s also a rogue orbital weapons platform waiting to blast anyone who tries to communicate from Earth. Which becomes increasingly unlikely as they learn that some bioweapons got loose on Earth as well, wreaking havoc amongst survivors.
Their first rescue mission is to Tchekalinsky Station, where they learn that the struggle for the survival of humanity is far more primal than they first realized. They do get some more women out of the experience, but at a terrible cost. Being the last vestiges of a legal government carries some heavy burdens.
Next up is the Liwei Habitat at EML-5, trailing 60° behind the Moon in its orbit around the Earth. This is home to the last vestiges of the wealthy and privileged, and those burdened with seeing to their needs. Things have kind of gone downhill on the habitat, and the team only rescues some 100 of what they hope are reasonably healthy and sane individuals, including many technical staff. It’s when they get to the relative safety of the Moon that the wealthy and privileged start getting uppity. They expect to have things their way, and so take it upon themselves to hold an election to put themselves in charge of the military officers of the base. Why shouldn’t they? They’re the wealthy and privileged.
And so begins the battle for the future of humanity. One founded on the just application of laws, or one ordained by a privileged elite that expect you to embrace your providing of their life of privilege? Forget the fact that their “wealth” is radioactive dust blowing through the atmosphere of Earth, and the only real value they can provide is in maintaining a livable environment for everyone who’s left. The question is can they recognize that?
Overall an interesting speculation of humanity surviving the reaping of sown technological seeds, by using technology to take humanity out of the cradle, to the Moon and then onward to the asteroids, Mars, the moons of Jupiter and rings of Saturn, and the fuel depots of Uranus and Neptune, which will not only supply ample He-3, but also fuel the leap into the Oort Cloud.
A possible future, but we would need to get our act together in the present to achieve it, and that doesn’t look likely in the near future at least (yea though some of us are trying).
Back to the story, the Deus Ex Machina is provided by robotic technology, and the fact that once you get a certain ‘critical mass’ of equipment on the Moon, robots can make robots. For whatever need one might have, and they are put to ample use in the unfolding of the story.
In some respects Max, the protagonist of the story, reminded me of an old story that I read on my Palm Pilot while taking the subway to work about a decade before this whole Kindle/Nook thing. The main character was a muscle thug, but had a heart of gold and wins the dame in spite of his mug. I wish I could remember the title… The interaction between Max and the various ladies of the post-apocalypse has a certain Heinleinian feel to it.
Overall, lots of thrilling action and suspense. Having only a handful of human survivors trapped on a hostile planet sets a claustrophobic tone early on, with an undercurrent of omnipresent concern for the security of the air supply. The Moon is a harsh place. Like the harsh frontiers of Texas it can be turned into a place of prosperity, but it is going to take discipline, which the military generally has and civilians generally don’t. It is also going to take some harsh justice (as was once served up on the harsh frontiers of Texas, out around the Pecos, as I recall), though it is blunted with compassion in the story.
One of the better Moon-based stories out there, I’m going to go with a waxing three-quarter Moon for “Luna“.
Published in 1965 by McGraw-Hill, it weighs in at 138 pages plus a short but excellent glossary, and index. Old school, so no editing errors noted.
Folks on the LEAG mailing list recently received news that one of the early pioneers of modern Moon science, Ralph Baldwin, had passed away. He is most noted for two prior works, “The Face of the Moon” in 1949, and “The Measure of the Moon” in 1963. As neither of those tomes are yet in the Lunar Library, I’ve decided to pay my respects with a review of his one book that is in the Lunar Library.
“A Fundamental Survey of the Moon” begins with a preface wherein the author summarizes the work as a comprehensive view of what was known up at that time, and more importantly notes that sufficient historical background has been given to understand the conclusions and assumptions about the Moon. In many regards, this makes the work also an exposition on the application of the scientific method to the Moon, rather than just a straight conveyance of facts.
Mr. Baldwin is regarded as a bit of a “gentleman scholar”. He was trained as an astronomer, but worked in the family business at Oliver Machinery Co. in Grand Rapids, MI. In his first book, he made the case that most of the craters we see on the Moon couldn’t have been volcanic, even if everyone assumed they were. We just don’t find volcanic craters that big on Earth, nor anywhere even approaching the size of those found on the Moon. There were also physical features more akin to those one would find in an impact rather than in a volcanic eruption. Problem was, everyone assumed that the craters were all volcanic, so his book was largely ignored in the scientific community. As folks started to look more closely at the Moon, however, his conjectures proved increasingly accurate. The race into space, and to the Moon, was unveiling surprise after surprise about our little sister, and more and more assumptions were being thrown in the rubbish bin. Mr. Baldwin didn’t work from assumptions, though. He worked from basic scientific principles.
In chapter one, he introduces historical perspectives. The author explains how knowing the resolving power of telescopes by diffraction of light tells us that most terrestrial telescopes are limited to seeing objects larger than about half a mile across, and then lays out other gaps in knowledge regarding the nature of the Moon. Ancient names are dredged up: Democritus, Aristotle, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy, many of whose discoveries were almost lost to time under the burden of commonly held assumptions over the next 14 centuries. The story then picks up with Brahe, Kepler, Newton and Galileo, who laid the groundwork for our growing knowledge of the Moon until the modern era.
The next chapter looks at the law of gravitation and the orbit of the Moon. We step back to Tycho Brahe, who spent years and years meticulously tracking the position of the planets. He spent his entire life trying to make the data fit within the ‘circles within circles’ perfection demanded by the church. The frustration must have been terrible. His assistant, Kepler, decided to analyze the data and see what it told him. To this day, orbital mechanics is based on Kepler’s 3 Laws of Planetary Motion, though with much refinement. No one understood why they worked, but they did, and it took Newton to make the connection with the Law of Gravitation. Putting together Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion with Newton’s Laws of Motion gives us the formula:
f=GMm/r²
where G is the Constant of Gravitation, M is the mass of the big object, m is the mass of the smaller object, and r is the radius from the center of mass (CoM) of the big object to the CoM of the smaller object.
At first the formula didn’t work for the Earth and Moon. It was off by about 20%, which was no good. Turns out that everyone’s assumption in 1665 about the length of a degree on the great circle of Earth was 60 miles (which affects your calculation of the radius). Oops. In 1671, the Frenchman Picard pointed out that it was actually 69 miles. So Newton went back and reworked the formula, and bingo the observation matched the theory. Score one for the scientific method team.
The author then goes on to explain how it is determined where the Moon is (and will be) in its orbit around the Earth, and notes some of the difficulties particular to the Moon. He cites E. W. Brown’s book “Tables of the Moon”, which filled over 360 magazine-sized pages with calculations of the Moon’s motion. It notes over 155 terms in the expression of the Moon’s longitude whose coefficients are more than 0°0′0″0.1, and over 500 with coefficients less than 0°0′0″0.1. That’s a lot of calculating. A tidbit that was unearthed during the exercise was that the perigee of the Moon’s orbit advances, while the ascending node (where the Moon passes up through the plane of the ecliptic) was regressing. This is complicated by the fact that the line of apsides (aka the major axis along the long part of the ellipse, half of which, the semimajor axis, is used in orbital calculationa) is advancing, but not continuously. Oh, and the angle of inclination of the Moon’s orbital plane to the plane of the ecliptic actually varies between 4°59′ and 5°18′, and the eccentricity moves between about 1/15th and 1/23rd, only averaging about 1/18th. There’s other stuff too, like the tides, the Earth’s fat middle, and the Moon’s receeding from the Earth at about 3cm or so per year.
Speaking of tides, the next chapter takes a closer look at them. The author walks through the theory of the geometry of it, and then explains why it’s not quite that simple. He also notes an ingenious experiment by Michelson in 1913 to measure the tide-raising forces, and explains how all of the bodies of the Solar system have their own particular affect on the tides.
From tides, the next chapter moves on to tidal friction and the shape of the Moon. The author notes the difficulty of extrapolating orbital positions in the future or distant past. We have records of eclipses from the Bible, and the Chinese have records dating back thousands of years. We can calculate when an eclipse should have occured on any particular date in history, but it always ends up earlier than when the records said it happened. Deduction? The Earth was rotating a wee bit faster back then. Turns out the Earth is slowing down by about 1 second per day per 120,000 years, so back in New Testament times the day was about 1/60th shorter than today. One of the more esoteric consequences of this is that the orientation of the Earth in its rotation has shifted a bit.
We then look at how the affect of tidal motions effects the slowing down of the Earth’s rotation, and where that energy gets dissipated to (the Moon) and the effects thereof, such as slowly inching farther and farther away from Earth. Nothing to worry about though. What’ll happen is that eventually the same side of the Moon will face the same side of the Earth, it’ll be about 550,000 km away, and the day/month will be 47 days long. This is estimated to take about 50 billion years. Given that the Earth and Moon have only been around about 4.5 billion years, I don’t think we have to dwell on it.
Now if the Moon is getting farther away, that means in the past it was closer in. Hard to tell how much closer in with current data, but it was probably in close enough that there would have been tidal effects on the shape of the Moon. This seem to bear out as the Moon is a triaxial ellipsoid, meaning the length of the axis that goes through the center of the face of the Moon is different from the one going across which is also different from the one going up and down. Using some simple math for the moment of inertia, we discover that the Moon seems to have a fat bulge facing towards Earth.
A slight aside. I was at the Lunar & Planetary Science Conference a couple years back, and at the poster session some of the young guys from JAXA showed me a 3-D ‘printed’ Moon created using laser altimetry data from Kaguya. The surprise was when you held it sideways and the Aitken Basin just pops out as a big old slice out of the rear end of the Moon. Absolutely stunning, and something that isn’t conveyed in most globes or videos. Something that goes a long way towards explaining the apparent ‘bulge’ facing towards Earth.
To try to get a better sense of this, the next topic is contour maps of the visible face of the Moon. The author explains the difficulty of putting them together with the tools of the time, but once done they further demonstrate significant variations from a normal sphere.
Then, and now…
Kaguya topographical map of the Moon
The question of where the Moon might have gotten started, which affects the nature of the bulge, is explored in the next chapter. The author explores a number of the ‘Moon sloshed off from a molten Earth’ (or fission) hypotheses, most of which break down for angular momentum reasons. There’re the ‘Moon and Earth formed in the same region of space’ (or coaccretion) theories, which break down mainly for density reasons, and the ‘Moon formed elsewhere and wandered into the Earth’s gravity well’ (or capture) theories. Of which the latter is closest to the current ‘Big Whack’ theory of cataclysmic impact by a Mars-sized planetoid named Thea, which sloshed off a good part of itself and the Earth’s crust into space.
Chapter six looks at the major surface features of the Moon, detailing the different features of increasingly larger craters, and their effects outside the crater. We learn of features associated with the impacts that later became the maria, and then of the maria themselves, features like rilles and wrinkle ridges and mountain ranges and chain craters, as well as what little was known of the far side.
Next up is “What caused the Moon’s craters”, where the author walks through the reasoning leading to the conclusion that the Moon’s craters were formed by impact. Terrestrial astroblemes and crater-like structures are examined, as well as the results of studies of explosive cratering. Relationships are drawn from the data, and then compared with Lunar observations to see if the patterns fit. Serendipitously, they do.
In the next chapter the author describes the mechanical process of forming a crater. Lots of descriptions of violent processes tearing at the surface of the Moon, scarring it again and again. This is followed by a chapter on the formation of the dark maria, wave after wave of lava flowing across the Lunar surface.
Once the nature of the surface is established, it’s only natural to wonder how hot it is, and the next chapter looks at the thermal cycling experienced during the long Lunar ‘day’. The book concerns itself primarily with the brutal variations seen in the more equatorial latitudes. Thankfully our knowledge base has progressed significantly over the succeeding forty-five years, and folks are looking at setting up shop at the Lunar poles, where the low angle of the sunlight is thought to create an ambient surface temperature of about -40° (F or C, I can never remember which), which is much easier on the engineering requirements for the machinery.
Now that we have a sense of the temperatures at the Lunar surface, what is it like in other regards? The author looks at reflection spectra, polarization, light backscattering and other indirect methods that scientists were limited to at the time. Temperatures aren’t the only thing that changes on the Moon’s surface, and in chapter 12 the author considers phenomenæ like transient Lunar events (TLEs), particularly Alphonsus and Aristarchus. Given that these TLEs are usually assumed to be gases venting from the Lunar interior, the next chapter looks at the vanishingly thin Lunar atmosphere. He calls it an exosphere, but I’ve also seen it refered to as a collisionless gas (where the molecules rarely if ever bump into each other). Chapter 14 looks at the mechanics of Solar and Lunar eclipses, and the book finishes off with an update regarding the Ranger photographs of the Moon.
So, all in all a comprehensive overview for the time, much of which is still relevant. The book is also a useful reminder of the kinds of scientific thinking that help expand the frontiers of knowledge. It’s written in an engaging style that makes it easy to digest, even when dealing with some college level mathematics and calculus. I’ve been trying to think of a more modern equivalent, and probably the two closest works are Chuck Wood’s “The Modern Moon”, and Paul Spudis’ “The Once and Future Moon”, which is also the name of his blog. Dr. Spudis pays his respects in “A Founding Father of Lunar Science“.
I enjoyed reading it again for this review, and while I would like to give it top marks I do have to recognize that a fair amount of the material is well outdated, enough so that it’s probably best read by someone with a fair degree of current Moon knowledge already; the state of the art has changed significantly in the last forty-five years. So I’ll go with a waxing three-quarter Moon for “A Fundamental Survey of the Moon”.
“The Next Continent” by Issui Ogawa. Translated from Japanese by Jim Hubbert. Published in 2010 by Haikasoru, it weighs in at 416 pages. No editing errors noted.
The year is 2025. Tae Toenji is a 13-year old college graduate with a plan. Think Doogie Howser but totally precocious. Her grandfather, Sennosuke Toenji, is the head of Eden Leisure Entertainment, a phenomenally successful company that runs resort paradises around the world for a fair price. This gives Tae a certain amount of leverage when it comes to getting her way.
What she wants is a Moon base as a luxury destination for weddings. It’s not as silly an idea as it may first seem. She’s got her reasons, and the bid from Gotoba Engineering & Construction, which specializes in building facilities in impossible places, while pricey is still something that ELE can swing. Tae decides to pay a visit to the Moon to see the Chinese facilities at Kunlun where they are trying to mine Helium-3, though not terribly successfully. She is accompanied by 25-year old Sohya Aomine, who carries her in his lap to help save seat costs. Though the Chinese base is anything but luxurious, Tae has decided to proceed with her vision.
What follows is the story of how that happens. Transportation logistics have to be worked out, and luckily there’s a brilliant Japanese company, Tenryu Galaxy Transport, that has worked out a formula for cermet (ceramic metal) that vastly improves the reusability of rocket motors and allows cutting edge advances like feasible scramjets. A non-descript crater at the Lunar south pole is chosen as the site and christened Eden crater to establish their presence on the Moon. Robots are developed, transport elements shaken out, the crater assayed and site prep begun outside the crater, while back on Earth there are corporate and governmental interests with which to be dealt and Tae travels the world putting out fires.
Facilities have to be established and power supplied. Surfaces graded and equipment to be installed. Design elements have to be considered, and of course there are tragedies. Once the setting shifts to the Moon, risk and danger are ever-present.
This book is an excellently crafted science “faction” tale of private interests setting up shop on the Moon. It’s not action driven, but rather a long rumination on the manifold aspects to be considered in actually establishing a presence on the Moon. There were things I disagreed with, though they were on the philosophical side.
The first instance was in the “wrestling with international treaties” section of the story, when the U.S. (of all countries) drags Japan before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for (of all things) violation of the Moon Treaty. The author ascribes more consideration to the application of the extent to which “custom” would apply in law concerning Lunar activities. In the author’s favor, enough countries have not only signed but also ratified the Moon Treaty so that by its own provisions it is “in force”. My difference lies actually in the application of the Vienna Law of Treaties. By those terms, the Moon Treaty is in effect on those countries who have ratified it, and they have to abide by its terms. What’s interesting, though, is that those countries which have or are conducting Lunar activities have not, for the most part, either signed or ratified the Moon Treaty. Given that custom is best derived from actual practice (as opposed to ivory tower ponderings), how then can the Moon Treaty be held to be customary practice?
The other instance was in the “wrestling with religious authorities” section of the story, wherein the Pope decrees that nothing in the Bible indicates that the Moon has been given to Mankind by G-d, and therefore no Catholic ceremonies performed at “Sixth Continent” would be considered valid. (The Japanese count their continents differently. For ‘Western’ readers that would be “Eighth Continent“) It’s during times of friction with religion that I draw comfort from one of the Psalms of David:
“8:3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
8:5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
8:6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet”
Hello! How much clearer can it be? Sure the next section lists a bunch of stuff that made sense for folks of the time. No sense in confusing folks with a pipe dream of going to the Moon and/or stars, which has a far, far longer history in human culture as an unattainable thing. Seriously, though, how much clearer can “have dominion over the works of thy hands” be? Besides, Buzz performed a Catholic [Edit: Not Catholic. Presbyterian? Episcopalian?] ceremony on the Moon already, so a bit of precedent has been established.
So the book is based on lots and lots of real-world considerations that would go into actually building a facility on the Moon. The author has clearly done his homework, and as a result has crafted a powerful tale. The editing is impeccable. I can’t speak to the quality of the translation, as I don’t read Japanese, but the language flowed fine, and turns of phrase are used correctly. I was quite happy to see “fit of pique”, having seen both peek and peak in online commentary and at least one book.
There are a lot of teaching and learning moments in the book. At one point the two protagonists save themselves from a particularly tight spot by working through the mathematics of a Solar eclipse. I highly recommend the book for high schoolers, though it’s really more of a college-age/young adult level book and requires a bit of patience. I also see it as ideal for brighter middle schoolers, as it may spark in interest in any one of the many fields touched upon in the story. It’s fine for older readers, though there may not be enough character development to suit some. Interestingly, though, the focus is more on the relationships between characters, rather than the characters themselves. The climax is climactic,and the denouement opens up a new chapter in the story of humanity.
It’s not a whiz-bang action thriller, though there are some nail-biting moments. Still, I haven’t been this pleased and contented with so solidly good (like, wholesome and meaningful and morally good) a story since “Moonwake“.
As a particularly outstanding example of its genre, “The Next Continent” has definitely earned a Full Moon at perigee rating.
“The Seventh Landing” written and illustrated by Michael Carroll. Published in 2009 by Springer Science+Business Media, it weighs in at 174 pages all in. About a half-dozen editing errors noted, including the rather unusual “tikonauts” for “taikonauts” (the name for Chinese astronauts, like the Russian cosmonaut or French spationaute).
One way that NASA’s Constellation program was sold to the public was that it would provide a return to the Moon, which became conflated in the media and public’s minds as Constellation = Back to the Moon. Never mind that the rockets were named after the Greek god of war, Ares, better known by his Roman name - Mars. In “The Seventh Landing”, the author attempts to explain the broader context of the Constellation effort, but once again it is couched in terms of a return to the Moon.
The book opens with acknowledgements, a brief background on the author’s extensive background in science writing and space art, and a foreword from the go-to guy for Apollo quotes, John Logsdon. The introduction is subtitled “Doing it Right”, and provides a brief on the transition from Apollo to Constellation and the basic elements of the program. After some inspirational quotes, we dive into the main body of the work.
The first chapter is a summary of what has gone before, from the first robotic probes to crewed missions to the surface of the Moon, with a fair amount of detail on the equipment and crews. The backgrounder takes up the first 20% of the content. The next chapter looks at getting there the second time around. It touches on existing launch vehicles, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles, or EELVs, better know as Delta IV and Atlas V, but through extensive quoting of NASA sources dismisses them as viable, especially when compared with the certain success of the Ares I and Ares V rockets, which the author covers extensively.
So we’re 40% of the way through the book before we start focusing on the Moon. Chapter three looks at Shackleton crater at the Lunar south pole, NASA’s designated baseline go-to site for Lunar return architecture design. The author looks at the various advantages offered by a location at the south pole, although one comment did throw me - “The Moon’s axis is tilted 5 degrees off the Earth-Moon line of sight”.
Orbital mechanics is a tricky thing, a weird combination of geometry and calculus. Basically, the Earth orbits around the Sun and that creates the two dimensional Plane of the Ecliptic. It is called the ecliptic because eclipses only occur when the Moon crosses this plane. Relative to this plane, the Moon’s rotational axis is inclined about 1.5 degrees, or basically straight up and down compared with the Sun. This is what allows for there to be everdark craters at the Lunar poles - the Moon isn’t tilted enough for the Sun to shine down in there.
The Earth is tilted relative to the plane of the ecliptic by about 23.5 degrees. This much greater tilt is what creates the six months of light/dark in the polar reaches. So the two dimensional plane created by the Earth’s equator extended out to infinity, the Equatorial Plane, is inclined 23.5 degrees to the Plane of the Ecliptic.
The two dimensional plane created by the orbit of the Moon around the Earth is inclined a bit over 5 degrees relative to the Ecliptic Plane. Sometimes the orbit is above the Ecliptic Plane, and sometimes below it, which means that relative to the Plane of the Equator that inclination ranges from a max of about 28.5 degrees (23.5 + 5 when above the ecliptic plane), which is about the latitude of Kennedy Space Center which makes it an excellent launch site for direct-to-the-Moon mission architectures and easy launch window calculations, to a min of about 18.5 degrees (23.5 - 5 when below the ecliptic plane). [Edit: corrected the backward ecliptic/equatorial]
Not from the book
Things are further complicated by the fact that “line of sight’ is also a function of where one is on the surface of the Earth. Far northern or southern latitudes have a different view from equatorial locales, and Moon on the eastern horizon offers a different view from the Moon on the western horizon (also known as the ‘librations’ that allow us to peek around the edges)
So the Moon’s axis is tilted X degrees off the Earth-Moon line of sight, where X is a function of where the Moon is in it’s orbit relative to the plane of the equator (23.5 ± 5 degrees relative to the Plane of the Ecliptic) and the Moon’s axial tilt (± 1.5 degrees from the Plane of the Ecliptic) and a fudge factor for where one is on the Earth. Oh, and how far away the Moon is from the Earth, as the about 5% eccentricity in the Moon’s orbit gives it a perigee of about 354,000 km and an apogee of about 404,000 km (only averaging 384,404 km, the number ususally seen for the distance of the Moon).
Then of course you also have to allow for the perturbations which nudge the Moon from where it would be in its orbit in an isolated system. The two biggest perturbers are the Sun and Jupiter, by virtue of their huge masses, but all of the planets have a minor affect, and even the pudginess of the Earth around its middle. Calculations of where the Moon is going to be in its orbit involve over 150 variables. Which only highlights how important a solid knowledge of math is if you want to be into orbital mechanics.
Back to the book, the chapter spends the last half looking at the kinds of spacesuits NASA is thinking about for surface operations. Chapter four looks at the tools that humans will use in their return to the Moon, the robots, as well as basic habitats and sorties out on the surface. Chapter five looks at the scientific rationales for a Lunar return, but doesn’t really go deeply enough into why they’re important.
Why do we want to study the impact record on the Moon? Sure it will give us insight into the history of impacts here on Earth, but we already know that rocks have struck Earth throughout history, so it’s easy to assume that they will continue to strike the Earth in the future.
One example of why we want to study the impact record is to look for cyclicality in the impact record. Why? Well, there’s one scientific theory that in the course of the Sun’s orbit around the galactic core, a trip of roughly some 225 million years, very very roughly, the sun bobs up and down like a carousel horse through the galactic plane and whatever cosmic debris is in that galactic plane. The crater record here on Earth is giving off strong hints of minor big impacts every 30-odd million years, and major big impacts every 60-odd million years. The widely acknowledged (but not yet ‘proven’) dinosaur-killing impact was about 65 million years ago, and the one that gave rise to the dinosaurs was about 4x as long ago at about 250 million years.
So, is there cyclicality in the impact record (and if so, where are we in that cycle?) is a valid scientific question, and upon consideration a reasonably important one. The dynamic processes of Earth make reading the past difficult, while the Moon’s largely static nature has preserved a history of impacts. When we go back to the Moon we can start analysing craters - when they were made, how big they are, what was the impactor made of, and so on, and start filling in the impact record with much better data, and from that derive better scientific theories for the impact history.
Here’s another one - the Sun is vitally important to the health of the Earth. During its functioning, the Sun blows off a constant stream of lighter particles (basically everything up to oxygen in decreasing amounts) into the Solar system called the Solar wind. In the vicinity of Earth these particles either flow around the magnetosphere, or get bound up in the Van Allen belts giving us pretty aurorae. The Moon lacks a global magnetic field, and so the Solar wind goes barreling into the Moon’s surface at full speed and gets trapped in the regolith. These Solar Wind Implanted Elements, or SWIEs, are foreseen as an industrial by-product of things like oxygen-extraction, but they also provide a history of what the Sun’s output was over the course of its history. It will be very important to understand the impact record (see above) to understand which layer of regolith was exposed when to the Sun’s rays, but the benefit will be a much better ‘medical history’ of the single most important factor of life on on Earth.
But the reader doesn’t get that kind of reasoned rationales for the science, they get the usual ’scientists are looking for insights into basic questions’ gloss that has become so common in space books. So even at 20 pages, it’s a rather superficial treatment of the topic.
The last chapter spends the last 20% of the book talking about “THE GOAL”, going to Mars. It covers the history of dreams of travel to the red planet, as well as current rationales. This is followed by an afterword from Chris McKay of NASA Ames, chapter notes, a gallery of some beautiful paintings by the author, a list of all of the Moon missions through Chandrayaan 1, Mars and asteroid/comet missions through Rosetta, and an index.
The book is squarely positioned for the lay person market, and is suitable down to about the middle school level. Overall, I was disappointed in the book, as it could have been so much more.
Like Erik Seedhouse’s “Lunar Outpost“, it focuses too much on the Ares launch vehicles, which dates the book even though it’s fairly fresh off the presses. The book also relies heavily on quotes from NASA people involved with the Constellation program, which at times gave the text the feel of a press release, or a propaganda exercise. For a book about going to the Moon to stay, spending less than 40% of the text on the Moon itself seems a bit disjointed. Why is so much time spent on Mars (1/5th of the text) in a book ostensibly about going to the Moon permanently?
In its favor, the art is wonderful. There are a number of pieces by the author reproduced throughout the book, and I would love to get an original of one for the Lunar Library. Additionally, given the overall educational level most people in the U.S. have regarding space (basically middle school level, unless they took astronomy in college), it is in fact informative and will give a better perspective on the reasons to do Lunar activities.
Ultimately, though, I can’t do better than a half Moon for “The Seventh Landing”.
“Shadow on the Moon” by Charles Lee Lesher. Published in 2010 by Writers Cramp Publishing, it weighs in at 485 pages all-in. This book combines an updated version of his previous novel “Evolution’s Child” with his new story “Revelation’s Child”. Some editing errors noted, though this time around I sent him a list and they’re being corrected. Noteworthy is the fact that Chuck also runs the Moon Society’s Moon and high frontier short-story periodical “Moonbeams“.
The year is 2092. Lazarus Sheffield is an unsettled Senior Analyst for the Department of Homeland Security in the hyper-religious Christian fundamentalist nation that the U.S. becomes, the North American Federation. His job is to determine threats to the Federation, primarily from the Islamic Brotherhood, the hyper-religious Muslim fundamentalist counter to the Federation. He thinks something’s up, but the threat seems to be to the Republic of Luna on the Moon. The Federation is bound by treaty law to alert the Lunarians to the threat, but upper management seems bound and determined to ignore the threat to the godless mutant troublemakers.
His conscience drives him to a desperate plan to go rogue and warn the Lunarians himself, at great personal and mental risk. Having sent people to re-education camps himself, he’s well aware of the consequences of failure. Somehow, he manages to get onto a LEO-bound transport, and a friendly Lunarian helps guide him through the perils and pleasures of microgravity as they transfer at Heaven’s Gate in LEO to a Moon-bound transport. Arriving on the Moon, an entirely new culture awaits him.
The Moon is a surveillance state, but one where everyone surveils through the use of visors, which record the environment around the user, as well as enhance the transfer of visual information. I picture them as kind of like the visors on the TV show “Caprica”. Everything is recorded and stored in public databases and is accessible by everyone. The Lunarians use an amalgam of databases and AI to create a kind of system overseer named Magi (pronounced Maggie). To lie, prevaricate, dissemble, or otherwise convey untruths is severely frowned upon in Lunar society. Transgression is met with ostracism. The watchmen are watched by everyone, and everything is recorded. Individuals can also use their visors to piggyback on what someone else is seeing.
There are scattered communities around Aldrin Station, which is the central presence for the Lunar Republic. Most serve specialized functions, like hydroponic farming or metals production, and are linked by shipping companies. Life is tough on the Moon, and everyone is supposed to contribute to their community. They don’t have a military per se, in fact all public records are publically available, but they do have a specialized paramilitary unit, the Quan Kiai, who embrace the warrior ethos.
Lazarus is a stranger in a strange land, and few trust him. But the threat he has uncovered is real, and soon the Moon will know all out war. A war that will grow to encompass all of cislunar space, but also carries the seed of a different tomorrow.
It’s hard to know where to begin with this one. The elements of the story are deeply interwoven, and the influences range from 19th Century cultural discovery stories to battle scenes from “Battlestar Galactica”. Even the death chant from “The 13th Warrior” (Lo, there do I see my Mother and my Father…). The concept of the cultural ramifications of a technologically advanced society aided by AIs, genetic engineering and advanced physics is explored, and raises questions about the nature of our own society and where we want it to go.
Lazarus provides an interesting contrast - raised in an asymmetric surveillance state, he’s used to being one of the watchmen. Being on the receiving end is not something he’s comfortable with, though he was more than happy to inflict it on the Federation citizenry. He’s also steeped in the kind of duplicity that Lunarians revile, though in the end they use it to their advantage. He also serves the role of the outsider, looking in, trying to grok this new and different and wonderful culture.
The religious side of the story is presented in stark contrasts. The Lunarians are a-theists, with theism absent from their mainstream culture except as a historical lesson in psychological abberation. The U.S. has become a fundamentalist Christian super-state, carefully controlling the dogma of its citizens to ensure their wholesomeness and adherence to strict moral values. The Islamic Brotherhood is a fundamentalist Muslim super-state, strictly inculcating their adherents in the strictures of the Qu’ran, making them good footsoldiers in a plan for global domination.
Speaking of soldiers, once the story enters act two the fighting starts increasing in frequency and intensity. I don’t read much militaristic fiction, and so can’t speak to the quality of the descriptions of the battles, but they kept the pages turning and the different aspects of the battle were relatively easy to follow. The author does include some maps in the front of the book to help keep track of the changes in locale. The scale ranges from guerrilla assaults on convoys to hundreds of space fighters engaging in cislunar space around massive battlestations.
So overall it’s a good read that pleasures the brain while also challenging it. Moral choices that may have seemed easy in the beginning are revealed to be far more ambiguous than first anticipated. While the Federation and Brotherhood have their obvious flaws, the Lunar Republic is revealed to be not as pure as the driven snow either. The author starts each chapter with a quote from a historical figure of our times, and the one that has been just an incessant burr in my saddle is this:
“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God” George H.W. Bush
That just…I…the…grrrrrr!
Look, I’m used to being, effectively, a second-class citizen in the U.S. by virtue of my a-theism. But to call into question my citizenship (I was born at Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania to a USAF Private and a nurse) and my patriotism (I was dragged around the country and across the pond during my childhood while my father served in defense of this nation, from town to town and school to school. When the family got back from England in the late 70s I was so, so happy to be back in the U.S., back in the U.S., back in the U.S. of A. that I got down on my hands and knees and kissed the ground when we got off the plane) because there is an absence of theism in my life is patently absurd, and comes mighty close to insulting my honor. But the quote does highlight the kind of thinking that goes on in the world, and why escape valves, like access to space destinations, are so important. So that reasonable folk can get away from self-important blowhards trying to tell everyone how they should live and think. And in 2092, the Moon just isn’t quite far enough away anymore.
“Red Moon” by Chris Berman. Published in 2010 by Xpress Yourself Publishing, it weighs in at 298 pages. A variety of editing errors, mainly in the last third of the book. My favorite was Atkins Basin for Aitken Basin.
The time is the near future, 2017. A joint Russo-American mission travels to the Moon in a mission of peace as a prelude to efforts to exploit the ice fields of the Lunar south pole. And maybe catch a peek at the Chinese base that is already there for the same ends, ostensibly. The spacecraft passes behind the Moon, and mission controllers on Earth anxiously wait for the re-establishment of signal. And wait. Then watch in horror as a debris stream is revealed by radar. The Chinese base relays the unfortunate message that they saw the craft struck by an asteroid while it was over the far side. So sorry.
At least on the surface it appears that way. It turns out the Americans have slightly better intel than the Chinese give them credit for, and they know the truth - a missile was launched to the far side from the Chinese base that destroyed the international mission. But to what end?
The Americans suspect there’s more going on than meets the eye, and so begin a crash program to make sure they can get to the Moon and establish a foothold to counter the threat. Disgraced astronaut John McGovern, chased out of NASA for too vocally espousing a view of a strong Chinese threat to global space interests, is asked to return by the the President to cobble together a mission to the Moon within 60 days, with his good friend Norm Taggert (a clear nod to astronaut Norm Thagard) leading the charge at NASA.
Little do they know that the plans and machinations are far more complicated than they could ever imagine, as a deranged psychopath has worked his way into a position of significant power in the Chinese hierarchy, and has hatched a triple-blind plot to establish sole Chinese mastery of the Lunar surface, and thereby set the stage for Chinese domination of the entire world. Moves and countermoves position the pieces around the world, and government leaders find themselves on the terrifying precipice of nuclear holocaust.
Positioned squarely as a techno-thriller, this work makes extensive use of cislunar space (which the author misnomers as trans-lunar space), out to and including the Moon and its sphere of influence. The Chinese are there to harvest the metals of the Moon and sell them at a fair price to the ‘third world’ nations of Earth, or at least that’s what they try to sell the U.N. on, and almost get away with it thanks to some black ops. There’s devious sabotage, spies and moles at all levels everywhere on the hunt for the generous amounts of money that the Chinese can dole out, traitors and thugs, and a mad psychopath with access to a nuclear arsenal both on Earth and off.
It reads at a brisk pace, with lots of twists and turns. It does make extensive use of NASA’s Constellation rockets Ares I and Ares V and assumes that both would be ready by the late 20 teens. I do like the idea of cobbling together pieces of hardware internationally - a Salyut from Russia, a docking node from Europe, some American Lunar landers, and a “Bellamy Aerospace” inflatable hab to create a cislunar spacecraft.
The science is generally right, like the part with the vacuum breathing or the awkwardness of movement in 1/6th G, but some parts seem off, as when the spacecraft seems to loiter over the near side while a spycam takes a peek around the far side. The characterizations are sufficient to advance the plot, and it was interesting how the author tapped into elements of Chinese culture in developing the plot. Not merely the concept of “saving face”, but also folk elements like the idea of the rare individual, usually aided by a motley crew of supporters, who can rise up against overwhelming tyranny and do the right thing against unbelievable odds for the Chinese people.
There’re certainly pulse-pounding action sequences with lots of risk and high danger. Those wanting a little romance are also accommodated. The only real issue I had was with the increase in editing errors in the last third of the book. Some were obvious, like Navel magazine for Naval magazine or Atkins Basin for Aitken Basin (how much you want to bet that was an auto-spell-check change?), others the kind of thing only my Aspie brain would pick up on.
I’m going to go with a three-quarter Moon at perigee for “Red Moon“
“Lunar Settlements”, edited by Haym Benaroya. Published in 2010 by CRC Press, it weighs in at 783 pages all told. A handful of errors, the most notable the use of decent for descent in a number of papers, a typical spellcheck oversight.
These are the conference proceedings of the Rutgers Symposium on Lunar Settlements, held in June 2007, and which I unfortunately missed as it was right after my ISDC and I was still in recovery mode. I should have been there, as it looks to have been a good conference.
The overwhelming volume of content (45 chapters and many, many abstracts) is divided into seven main sections:
I. The Past and Future
This section opens up the proceedings with a bit of looking back to look forward. Harrison Schmitt makes his pitch for Helium-3 as an energy source, one that he thoroughly outlines in his book “Return to the Moon“. Paul Lowman, whom I met at NASA Goddard during my summer with the NASA Academy and who nurtured my Lunar interests, gives an overview of the conference and some background on a few of the speakers. Marsha Freeman gives an overview of the work that Krafft Ehricke did on Lunar settlements as part of his Extraterrestrial Imperative, and the basis for her book from Apogee Books. Next up is a series of extracts from H.H. Koelle’s weekly notes to Wernher Von Braun back in the day. Then there’s Dennis Wingo and Charles Lundquist addressing the issue of preserving knowledge gained during the Apollo years, a project that Dennis is working on right now. Last up, Terry Hart gives an overview of the challenges of working in space.
II. Lunar Development
Paul Eckert, who was instrumental in getting the Lunar Commerce Roundtables started, outlines some of the lessons learned from the LCRs. Ida Kutschera and Mike Ryan from Bellarmine University give an unusual perspective on the Human Resource management issues that might be faced in non-terrestrial settlements. Walt Kistler, Bob Citron and Tom Taylor give a thorough overview of Lunar Commercial Logistics Transportation and suggest solutions for some of the challenges, such as a Lunar ‘Burro’. Mary Lynne Dittmar and a bunch of folks from the Astronaut Office at JSC look at using robots for the initial stages of resource development and how they might be tasked to that end. This is further explored by Alex Ignatiev et al in the context of solar cell fabrication and how the Moon can supply the basic components.
III. Outer Space Habitat Design
The Italians have long been known for their design work, and Irene Sclhacht argues in her paper that by applying a multi-disciplinary approach to Lunar habitat design can provide for much higher levels of user reliability. Melchiorre Masali et al look at the human body in outer space, and how the their research has identified the Madagascar Lemur as a model for adaptation to 1g/0g and how that might affect design considerations. Ms. Schlacht returns, with Henrik Birke, to highlight the importance of visual design in promoting a sense of well-being in outer space facilities, and provides some sample color schemes. Ayako Ono, an ISU alum, talks about art as a further enhancement to the quality of life of future Lunar dwellers, and provides a number of specific examples of how that could be achieved. Some of these ideas are further explored by Bates and Marquit of USU, who have looked at the psychological benefits of plants in enclosed facilities. I, for one, am 100% in favor of having an abundance of growing things at a future Lunar base. Ms. Schlacht closes this particular section with perspectives on how applying a multi-disciplinary approach to Lunar habitat design can provide for much higher levels of user well-being to future inhabitants.
Section IV. The Human Condition
One way to try to figure out what will happen to people over the longer term on the Moon is to work up a digital model of human systems, and then change the environmental parameters. This is what Richard Summers et al have done at the University of Mississippi Medical School. They have adapted an existing model for over 4,000 biologic interactions in the body, as well as conditions particular to spaceflight. Running these for presumed Lunar condition does raise a number of concerns. There are more than biophysical processes to worry about, and Chester Spell from the Rutgers School of Business addresses the mental health of workers in a Lunar settlement. Jesper Jorgensen of SpaceArch notes that humans are both the strongest and the weakest link in the chain of Lunar development, and some of the lessons we’ve learned from extreme circumstances here on Earth. Sheryl Bishop of UTMB looks at psychosocial factors that will be important for long-term and permanent residents, and some potential design solutions. From a physical health perspective, François Lévy of synthesis international looks at the issue of Radon in the Lunar regolith, which may have implications for its use as a construction material. Claudio Maccone talks about an issue that I am in favor of, that of the creation of an area on the far side of the Moon that is protected from radio wave “pollution”, what he calls a “protected antipode circle” that would be shielded from even activities at L-4 and L-5. Last up, Dr. David Livingston of The Space Show takes a 2×4 of harsh reality to the upside of the heads of dreamers in “Developing the Moon with Ethics and Reality”, whose thesis basically boils down to “there’s currently no transportation to the Moon, so talking about Moon business is fantasy”. It’s couched in slightly more sophisticated terms, but comes across as rather harsh. This was a time when David was hanging out with the Space Cynics, so the tone doesn’t particularly surprise me.
V. Planning and Analogues
In this section the focus moves into moving Moon bases from talk to action. Jim Burke, whose Lunar work dates back to the Ranger/Surveyor days and for whom I have an enormous amount of respect, takes a high level view of what it takes to move Lunar base living beyond the pioneering stage. Marc Cohen of Northrop Grumman takes a look at a workshop conducted by the Space Enterprise Council, previously of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in August 2006 to evaluate NASA’s candidate Lunar objective. Attendees plowed through some 87 objectives in 18 scientific and technical groupings to find priorities and provide some structure. This was a complex paper, but there were a lot of interesting nuggets to draw out of the content. Niklas Järvstråt from Sweden talks about field testing future Lunar equipment, and the Moon-Mine he is setting up to that end. Olga Bannova from the Univ. of Houston Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture covers some of the lessons of extreme terrestrial environments in preparing for Solar system exploration. Larry Bell, also of SICSA, looks at some of the infrastructure planning they’ve done and some suggested solutions. Gregory Konesky of SGK Nanostructures suggests a series of hierarchical rovers devoted to specific tasks which work together to achieve exploration goals like site selection for a base. Lastly, Jerome Pearson et al from Star Technology and Research describe a Lunar space elevator for the transport of Lunar resources to cis-Lunar and/or trans-Lunar space.
Section VI. Lunar Bases
Moving on to setting up shop on the Moon, Florian Ruess et al from Habitats for Extreme Environments (HE2) look at the greyfield development of a Lunar base site and some of the equipment requirements. Jablonski and Ogden review some of the technical requirements for Lunar structures and the materials from which they are composed, with lots of bibliographical references. Giorgio Gaviraghi of eDL offers up a design concept for a first crewed base, the Bidu Guiday (local Charruan for ‘Beautiful Moon’), as does Werner Grandl , who takes a more modular approach. Haym Benaroya looks at robotic construction of a future Lunar facility, and how local materials can be used. Braun and Ruess from HE2 undertake an extensive mathematical analysis of reliability-based design in Lunar habitats, some pretty advanced stuff. Phil Metzger from NASA and Lane et al from ASRC Aerospace look at how the Lunar dust behaves in proximity to rocket motor operation, a talk I got to see at a subsequent LEAG meeting. Glassifying the landing pad and building up berms around the pad will go a long way towards solving the problem. A bigger threat is meteoroid impacts (a question raised during my Moon talk at Moon Day), and William Schonberg of Missouri University of Science & Technology and Putzar and Schäfer of Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics look at shielding and mitigation strategies to deal with the issue. Lastly, Rygalov and Stoffel from the UND Dept. of Space Studies look at some of the important factors in setting up a greenhouse on the Moon, and include an appendix on some past efforts at closing the life-support loop.
VII. Lunar Soil Mechanics
One of the most important considerations for construction and long term living on the Moon involves dealing with the dust and soil. The last section of the book explores this topic in great detail. Chang and Hicher develop a mathematical model for the physical properties of the Lunar soil. Arslan et al from the Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, Laboratory of Atmosphere and Space Physics look at the the geotechnical engineering properties of Lunar soil simulants, which are growing in popularity as a research tool, and something that NASA is looking closely at. Jason Florek of Baker Engineering and Risk Consultants looks at extending terrestrial models for soil penetrating and excavating to Lunar conditions. Martina Pinni takes a close look at Lunar concrete. And lastly, Satadal Das of the Peerless Hospital and B.K. Roy Research Centre speculates on how silicon-utilizing organisms can be used to treat Lunar soil.
Subsequent to this section are the abstracts submitted by all of the speakers in the symposium, in order of appearance, not all of which ended up as papers. Nevertheless, there are a lot of interesting nuggets buried in the abstracts, so they definitely merit a review.
Overall, a very chunky work that digests slowly. As can be seen, the book covers a broad range of Lunar related topics, and in many ways can be considered a spiritual successor to “Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century“, but it works very well in conjunction with the much more current “Lunar Base Handbook” and “The Moon: Resources, Future Development, and Settlement“. I imagine if someone were to offer a university course on Lunar studies, this would be a good candidate for one of the textbooks.
This one is definitely not for the lay person. A number of the papers are clearly written at the graduate level, and some of the math left me behind. Anyone who spends any time at conferences like LEAG and LPSC will be familiar with much of the content, but it is still useful for the many bibliographic references throughout.
Hopefully Haym will be putting another one of these together for the not too distant future. There’s a lot more Moon interest out there than most people realize, but folks are starved for good information. Many are the times that people have come up to me after my Moon presentation and said they had no idea there was so much to know. The more Moon conferences the better as far as I’m concerned.
“Platinum Moon” by Bill White. Published in 2010 by Higher Hill Publishing, it weighs in at 299 pages. A handful of editing errors - surprisingly few for a self-published title.
Just what I like, some near-future, near-Earth science fiction for summer. Some folks call it Solar Sci Fi, to distinguish stories set within our Solar system (which tend to have a slightly more ‘real’ flavor) from the galactic empire/battlefleets burning off the shoulder of Orion space opera fantasy which tends to be the norm these days.
Author Bill White sets the story at some point in the near future, where Soyouz and Shenzhous are somewhat available for purchase, but the U.S. still seems to be fixated on NASA as the end-all/be-all of space. The PGM-1 Lunar landing vehicle is in low Lunar orbit (LLO) after departing from the EML-1 Gateway station. An American ex-astronaut is at the controls, accompanied by a French and an Indian scientist, for the first human return to the Moon since 1972. Their goal: try to find chunks of asteroid remnants on the Lunar surface that could serve as a source of platinum for an energy-hungry Earth.
The enterprise is directed by one Harold Hewitt through his company Lunar Materials LLC (LuMat). Part D.D. Harriman, part P.T. Barnum, and all-entrepreneur-all-the-time, Harold Hewitt is an American citizen who has made more than a few enemies back home in his global scramble to assemble the pieces for his enterprise, and some of those enemies are in government. Nevertheless, across the globe people celebrate as humanity renews its path outward.
While venal politicians plot to thwart Hewitt’s efforts, an obligatory problem with the PGM-1 sets the stage for drama as now the crew is stuck on the Moon, destined to die a slow death as the oxygen is slowly consumed. Hewitt scrambles to not only try to figure out what happened on the Moon so it doesn’t happen again, but also what elements exist to try to cobble together a rescue mission to save the enterprise from the ignominy of losing its first crew on the Lunar surface.
And so the stage is set for thrilling international drama on both the Moon and Earth. The story is draped not only in NewSpace commercial finery, but also is endowed with new space concepts like international efforts and EML-1. Which is not necessarily a new idea, but scientists are coming to an increasing appreciation of just how much of a gift the 1st Earth-Moon Lagrange point is not only for cislunar space activities, but also trans-Lunar exploration efforts. Here, the author has done his homework, creating an architecture where there is a station, of sorts, in a halo orbit at EML-1 that serves as the logistics node for Hewitt’s efforts, as well as a comm sat in a large halo orbit around EML-2, on the other side of the Moon, that serves as a communication relay. For those who are all like EML-huh?, I suggest a trip over to the High Frontier section of the Lunar Library, where I’ve got a category set aside just for papers and books on the topic called HF EML-1. I suggest starting with ‘a sort of L-1 primer‘ by some guy Ken.
From the Time-Life book “Spacefarers“
There is also a sub-story on what might be considered something akin to a suborbital Rocket Racing League that involves the Dark Skies Flying Circus, and a young woman pilot with much potential, nicknamed ‘Frog’. Her story interleaves with the dramatic events unfolding on and near the Moon, and provides one of the many perspectives on what’s happening. It also fills out the book’s NewSpace creds by rightly pointing out the suborbital hops are going to space too (and could lead to something more).
All-in-all some nice summer reading, with a relatively brisk pace but long enough that it doesn’t go too quick. The character development may not be Hugo-esque in scope, but it’s adequate for the purpose. It introduces a lot of hardware, like Centaurs and Fregats, and describes how a few simple elements, like Bigelow Nautilus inflatables and Block D modules, can start us on the path that will carry us not only to the Moon, but to the asteroids and beyond. Propellant depots at EML-1 will enable all kinds of commercial activity the likes of which we can’t imagine, but will benefit therefrom nonetheless.
It’s just the sort of story I’ve been looking for, about the kinds of things we could be doing in space, but aren’t, at least for the moment. I rather enjoyed it, so I’m going to rate this one a Full Moon.
“Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration” by Brian Harvey. Published in 2007 by Springer/Praxis, it weighs in at 317 pages all in. One or two minor editing errors. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the Russian details.
Most everyone knows about Apollo. There has been an endless stream of books published since that august achievement all those decades ago, and the Moon and Apollo are thoroughly intertwined in the American mythos. Less is known about Soviet efforts in that same timeframe, given the secretive and paranoid nature of that regime, and has mostly come out in dribs and drabs over the years through a variety of often surprising means. The definitive treatise on these efforts is most likely Asif Siddiqi’s “Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945 - 1974“, but its dense 1011 pages and scholarly tone make it a challenge for most.
A much more accessible primer on Soviet, and now Russian, Lunar efforts is definitely Harvey’s “Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration”, which also fills in the post 1974 years. It’s lavishly illustrated with B&W images, tables and maps, and is a veritable who’s who of names both familiar and previously unheard, and some of the Russian acronyms are finally explained.
The story begins with a story published in Pionerskaya Pravda, a one-time Soviet youth indoctrination magazine, in October 1951. Written by a veteran of the first round of rocket enthusiasm in the 1920s and ’30s, Mikhail Tikhonravov outlined a trip to the Moon in a 1,000 tonne rocket that could be achieved within 10 to 15 years (or so he asserted). This led to an invitation to contribute to the Great Scientific Encyclopedia. He was posted at the Nauchno Issledovatelsky Institut #4 (NII-4, or Scientific Research Institut 4), which had no formal connection with the Opytno Konstrucktorskoye Buro #1 (OKB-1, or Experimental Design Bureau 1) (at least in the early years) but certainly had informal relations. It was at OKB-1 that Sergei Korolev, the Glavnykonstrucktor or Chief Designer of Soviet space efforts, headed their efforts in space exploration. More familiar names like Mstislav Keldysh and Valentin Glushko are introduced. The events and circumstances that shaped the early years are described, and how Tikhonravov became the father of the Soviet Moon programme, as well as rocket efforts up to 1957.
The next chapter looks at the first Moon probes. It offers frequent reminders that the early U.S. rockets were not the only ones to blow up on an irregular basis, but as with the U.S. programmes the use of telemetry allowed the failures to move higher up the rockets, and the Soviets were soon racking up first after first, and conducting a serious scientific programme in the process, like learning of the Solar wind. Their Cosmic Ships flew within 6,000 km of the Moon and impacted in Palus Putredinis. Their Automatic Interplanetary Station provided the first images of the Lunar farside, giving the Soviets first dibs on naming farside features.
In the third chapter we learn of early plans for a Moon landing, as the Soviets under Korolev’s guidance looked at ways to make their systems extensible to Lunar efforts. In the late 1950s and early ’60s Soviet efforts were focused primarily on Korabl Sputnik (Fellow Traveler Spacecraft) and Vostok, which was succeeded by Soyouz, which is used to this day. From the beginning the Soyouz complex was designed to be applied to Lunar efforts, and if Space Adventures can find another $100Mn passenger there will be an around the Moon flight in the not too distant future in a Soyouz capsule. Even as the engineers toiled at solving complicated hardware problems, other forces like geopolitics were at work, thereby complicating the task, and so it wasn’t until late 1966 that the Soviets came to a consensus on a plan to reach the Moon.
Just as the U.S. evolved from Pioneer flybys to Ranger impactors to Surveyor soft landings, so too did the Soviets evolve to a soft lander, although their engineering approach was quite different. Where the American Surveyors were gangly and a bit awkward looking, the Lunas were egg-shaped with petals that folded out. Rocket development efforts continued, and Lunas 4-6 proved problematic as well, but with Zond 3 the Soviets were able to fill out their farside maps. Lunas 7 and 8 had issues near the Moon, and it was about this time that the Soviet space program suffered a crippling blow, the death of their Chief Designer, Sergei Korolev. This seemed to redouble the efforts of the engineers, and the last two landers, Lunas 9 and 13, were successes. The next Lunas were devoted to working out the mechanics of Lunar orbit for eventual crewed missions (oh who am I kidding, they were going to be manned missions). Luna 10 announced the first arrival in Lunar orbit with a broadcast of the Internationale. Luna 11 had issues, but Luna 12 continued the mapping efforts and the list of potential landing sites was narrowed down. Luna 14 did some communications tests, and so the groundwork was laid for a crewed trip to the Moon.
Chapter five lays out the basic architecture of how the Soviets were going to fly around and land their cosmonauts on the Moon.
-The Universal Rocket - 500 (UR-500) would eventually become the Proton rocket, used to this day to deliver cargo to orbit. While considered rather reliable today, it did suffer many teething pains and had 14 failures in its first 29 launches.
-The L-1 Lunar orbiter, or Zond (probe), which led to confusion in the West with the previous probes that had flown to Venus, Mars and the Moon. These would carries the Soviet’s first computer, the Argon, on a spacecraft. It is described as a stripped down Soyouz.
Together, these two would provide the around-the-Moon part of the program.
-The other rocket to be used was Korolev’s N-1 rocket, which in 1960 could theoretically deliver 50 tonnes into Earth orbit, although the Lunar program would call for 95, leading to an upsizing in the number of rocket motors at the end of 1964. There’s speculation that Korolev had a more distant destination in mind when designing the rocket, and the hectic pace of the Apollo program may have contributed to the cutting of some corners. Suffice it to say that the N-1s had a 100% fail rate.
-The Luniy Orbitalny Korabl (LOK, or Lunar Orbital Spacecraft), which had many similarities to the Apollo Command & Service Module, and would remain in orbit and provide the return craft. It is described as a beefed-up Soyouz.
-The Luniy Korabl (LK, or Lunar Spacecraft) lander which would descend to the surface.
Together, these would provide the Lunar landing part of the program.
Also described are the Soviet spacesuits and communications network, as well as the many cosmonauts who would undergo training for these missions.
Chapter six tells of the the race before the race to be the first to land on the Moon, the race to be the first to fly humans around the Moon. The Soviets sent turtles and such on the Zond 5 as the first emissaries of Earth’s ecosystem to travel beyond the orbit of the Moon and return, followed soon thereafter by Zond 6, which awakened the Western press to how far along the Soviet efforts were. Still, the Proton rocket was proving fickle and difficult, and so to this day people around the world remember the Earthrise photo from Apollo 8 as the souvenir picture from the first flight around the Moon. This took the wind out of the sails of the Zond program, though both it and the N-1 rocket program continued to be funded. Renewed vigor was put into robotic probes. The Lunokhod (Moonwalker) series would rove the Moon to conduct its research. Luna 15 would provide an automated sample return mission, possibly before Apollo 11. But problems continued with the development of the N-1 rocket, and the Zond program was being wound down, though Zond 7 did fly. Political maneuverings led to the end of the N-1 program, and Soviet efforts shifted to space stations as the focus of their space efforts.
While American Lunar efforts quickly wound down after the Apollo program as scientists retired to their labs to digest and cogitate on what they had learned, the Soviets, on the contrary, continued their robotic efforts. While Luna 15 failed, Luna 16 did not and returned samples, all of 105 grams. Luna 17 delivered the first Lunokhod rover to the surface, and the world got its first taste of virtual near-real-time travel on another world. The mission lasted from 17/11/1970 to 04/10/1971, nearly a full year of results from traveling some 10.5 km across the Lunar surface. Towards the end of Luna 17s mission, Luna 18 was dispatched, but crashed into the Moon. Luna 20 soon followed, and would provide the Soviets their second sample return from the Moon, while Luna 21 delivered the next Lunokhod to the Moon in January 1973. Luna 19, in 1971, provided orbital imagery and data on sites of interest, as did Luna 22 in 1974, orbiting the Moon at the time of a joint Soviet/American Lunar conference. Luna 23 had landing issues in late 1974, and it wasn’t until the summer of 1976 that Luna 24 landed near Fahrenheit crater to provide the Soviets with their third sample return, of a much heftier 170 grams. And with that triumph, the Soviet Lunar program began to wind down. They proclaimed the 1970s ‘the decade of of the space robot’, and both Soviet and American scientists seemed to embrace the concept wholeheartedly, with a slew of missions to many of the planets.
The last chapter looks at some of the concepts that the Soviets studied in the late 1960s and early ’70s like Galaktika and Zvezda. Some interest was expressed by Soviet scientists in the 1980s and ’90s for a Lunar polar orbiter, but nothing ever materialized. In the first decade of the 21st century a Luna Glob mission was studied by the Russians, but to this day Russia has yet to return to the Moon, but running the most reliable crewed transport to LEO system in the world is a pretty big job, and luckily the Russians haven’t figured out yet that the wealth they’re acquiring from their natural resources should be invested in securing access to off-Earth natural resources. Unfortunately we Americans haven’t figured that out yet either, although the Chinese are certainly talking about it in the long run (though for the Chinese the word long can mean really looooong, like decades). Japan has always had issues with natural resources, energy resources in particular, which is probably why they seem to be focusing a bit more on solar power from space.
The book is rounded out with a list of all of the Soviet Moon probes, and where they are now. While each of the chapters is thoroughly footnoted, there’s a bibliographic note that covers some of the more authoritative sources, followed by a five page bibliography. Last up is the index. The only thing I can think of that I would ask for would be a short Russian-English glossary as well.
Overall, I’m very impressed with this book. It’s comprehensive, but not fluffy. The exposition is geared towards conveying facts and information, and it just pours out. I’d say written at about the undergrad level, it would be ideal for a course that covers governmental efforts to go to our Moon. While dense, I can see where it would be interesting to a broader audience interested in our Moon and curious about efforts other than Apollo. It provides a lot of detail on the scientific aspects of the missions, and provides many engineering details to chew on.
A must-read introduction for scholars in the field, as well as historians interested in what was happening on the other side of the Iron Curtain in space activities. For researchers it provides an extensive bibliography, and for others a gripping tale from a different perspective on the race to the Moon. I wholeheartedly give this one a Full Moon rating.
“The Big Splat, or How Or Moon Came to Be” by Dana Mackenzie. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in 2003, it weighs in at 232 pages all-in. No errors noted.
Having looked at the origins of the Moon from a Christian creationist perspective, I figured it would be a good idea to take a look at what the scientific community thought about Lunar origins. So I turned to the Selenology (or Moon science) section of the Lunar Library and The Big Splat seemed to be a perfect choice.
In the Introduction, the author looks at Genesis Revisited, quickly summarizing the history of thought regarding Lunar origins, and the noting how the application of the tools of science changed the way we approach the idea of the source of our companion Moon. On our first visit to the neighborhood of the Moon, Apollo 8’s circumlunar swing on December 24th, 1968, the crew read from the text of Genesis, imparting a call to the spiritual nature of humanity’s endeavors, wherever they may occur.
In the first chapter, we look at how our companion Moon has waned from an integral part of timekeeping and spirituality in human culture to a marginalized object supplanted by the advent of science. Technological lighting methods diminished the Moon’s role as a nighttime guide. A better understanding of the Earth’s place in the Solar system led to the adoption of a Solar calendar, though there are still many cultures that abide by the Moon’s guidance. We learn of notable figures in history who helped divine her secrets, her characteristics and her cycles.
Chapter two continues the recounting of history, and we learn of Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Aristarchus and Aristotle,as well as lesser known Lunar-associated figures such as Plutarch, Lamprias, and Pharnaces.
Chapter three moves the story to the early 17th Century, as science and reason were blossoming throughout Europe. Two gentlemen are the focus of the discourse - Kepler and Galileo, who did more to popularize space science amongst a broader audience than any other of their time. We end with Riccioli, whose basic nomenclature for Lunar features is the methodology we use to this day.
Later in the same century, science and mathematics took a big leap when Newton burst upon the scene, and in the next chapter we examine how his principles led to a leap in understanding the seemingly clockwork nature of our Solar system. By the next century the questions were moving away from how it works to where it came from. Folks like Buffon and Kant were postulating ideas on how the grand forces of physics could have led the Universe to today, but it was Laplace who became known for the ‘nebular hypothesis’, whereby the planets and their moons formed from a nebula surrounding and providing the feedstock for the nascent Sun. Also noted is the role of navigation in uncovering the fact that the Moon’s orbit is not as clockwork as one would assume it should be.
It was in the 19th Century that the next major hypothesis for the origin of the Moon was promulgated, by George Darwin, son of the more commonly known Charles. George worked on the science of tides, specifically tidal bulges, which occur when one massive body is in the vicinity of another. Everyone knows the Moon pulls on the water of the oceans to create the tides (in conjunction with the Sun), but it also pulls on the ground. He worked through the mathematics and realized that months were getting slightly longer, which begged the question of what happens when you run the time arrow backwards? This implies an intersection at some point in the past of the Earth and Moon, which implies that the Moon came from the Earth. What would be the physics that would make that happen, where the Moon would fission off from the Earth and escape to orbit. It was a tough slog to try to make the mathematics work, and the idea of a Daughter Moon never really found favor.
Another compelling theory is visited in the next chapter, that of the Captive Moon. This idea holds that the Moon formed elsewhere in the Solar system, went on an errant journey (perhaps nudged by Jupiter), and ended up captured in orbit by the Earth. In this chapter we learn of Thomas Jefferson Jackson See, who championed this explanation for the Moon’s origin. T.J.J. See may not have been the most pleasant of individuals to deal with, but his theory had a certain elegance of orbital mechanics to it, if only the numbers could be made to work, something that scores of scientists pursued over the next century. We’re introduced to the concept of the Roche limit, the distant from a large mass at which a smaller mass begins to feel gravitational differences between the point nearest the large mass and the point farthest from the large mass sufficiently large that it begins to tear the smaller mass apart. This is what is believed to have torn apart Comet Shoemaker-Levy-9 prior to its plunge into Jupiter. Ultimately, the mathematics of capture couldn’t be reconciled with reality, and it remained a plausible, but not proven theory.
Next up is the concept of a Sister Moon, where the Earth and Moon co-accreted near each other in space. We learn more about the work of Roche, as well as others that worked out the physics of accretion in early stellar systems including Safronov, who worked out many of the details of how accretion works.
So by the dawn of the space age there was still a lot unknown about our closest neighbor in space, let alone destinations beyond. It was widely held that the craters of the Moon were largely of volcanic origin, and that vast seas of ash and dust would swallow any spacecraft that presumed to pose upon the surface. It was during this popular wisdom that Baldwin published a book that threw a monkey-wrench into the works, alleging that the craters were actually the result of collisions. Being an outsider to the Ivory Tower of academic knowledge, his theories were controversial, but he had solid evidence on his side, as we had learned much about cratering from two worldwide wars. One scientist inspired by this book was Shoemaker, another Urey, both of whom would have a significant impact on Lunar science. On the eve of Apollo, the ideas were flying fast and furious as more and more bright people took the time to cogitate on the topic of our Moon.
Chapter nine covers the Apollo missions, and provides an overview of some of the bigger questions that seemed to be answered, like “How old is the Moon?” and “What is the Moon made of?” As the scientists worked over the samples, a general consensus began to arise as to the general steps the Moon took once formed to arrive at its present state. Left unanswered was the question of what caused the Moon to form.
In the next chapter the clues start to come together. A paper had been written in 1946 that called into question whether the Moon may have had some kind of glancing blow with the Earth. 1950 saw the publication of Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision”. Apollo proved definitively that most of the craters on the Moon were of impact origin, and as we looked around the Solar system we could see evidence of impact everywhere. Four scientists, Hartmann, Davis, Cameron & Ward, started homing in on the theory that reconciles so much of the evidence on hand that for many it is “the” way that the Moon formed.
It wasn’t until the mid-80s that all of the pieces started clicking into place, and the next chapter explores the Kona Consensus that developed out of a conference on selenogony, or the origin of the Moon. As paper after paper was presented, scientists realized that a cogent and rational explanation for the Moon’s origin was coming together. A report card prepared about the different theories shows why it was so compelling. The mathematics of the event had been well worked out in computer modeling. The chemistry was favorable, and readers get an introduction into the chemistry and mechanics of rock dating techniques.
The last chapter introduces us to Theia, the alleged impactor and mythical mother of Selene. Since no one was around to observe it (yet, time travel may not be beyond the realm of possibility, although I believe it is), there are many unknowns. One obvious question is ‘Where is the hole?’, to which George Darwin would probably answer ‘The Pacific’, but in reality the impact totally rearranged the Earth, incorporating both original bodies (proto-Earth and Theia) into both subsequent bodies (Earth and Moon). The author lays out the timeline of events, from impact to about 3.2 billion years (gigayears, or Gy) ago, when the Moon finally became somewhat quiescent, and then the present.
In the appendix, the question of ‘Did We Really Go to the Moon?’ is addressed. I am so over this particular topic, but like a parasite it seems it will evermore be rediscovered by new generations and need refuting time and time again, which is a complete waste of resources. The Lunar Library has a number of the Moon-hoax titles, which are bunk, and management would rather not waste acquisition budget on any more of them. The author presents several compelling examples, including the fact that it’s possible to actually contact the scientists with questions. Not mentioned is the fact that we found five (5) new minerals on the Moon which had not been seen previously (though Tranquillityite was later found in South Africa).
Rounding out the book are a nice glossary, some references, acknowledgements and an index.
What’s nice about this book is that it is written for a general audience. The author is completely frank about the fact that the science sometimes went over his head, and he is careful to frame things as ’scientists explain-this is how it’s done’. It makes a nice counterpoint to the Moon origin books previously reviewed, as the explanations are laid out at the end of a chain of logical steps. Objective evidence is offered in support of assertions, evidence that exists in physics irrespective of the presence of humans. The flow of the writing is easygoing and engaging, making for a pleasurable read. The author prefers the term Big Splat to the more commonly known Big Whack, and he has good reasons why.
I needed a break from the Lunar mineralogy, so I decided to delve into the Cultura Lunaris section of the Lunar Library to see if I could find something interesting. I’m not terribly interested in reviewing the Moon-hoaxer books, in part because I have no desire to attract that kind of commentary to my website. I probably should have gone with one of the “Moon in human history” books, but decided that it might be interesting to look at a Christian perspective on Moon science.
For full disclosure purposes, let it be noted that I was baptized at St. Eleanor’s in Collegeville, PA (and my dependent dogtag notes Catholicism as my religion), went to Anglican Church (on occasion) while dad was stationed in England, and was confirmed at Palm Valley Lutheran Church in Round Rock, TX. Still have the Bible, too. That having been said, let it also be noted that I have been an atheist since about the age of 12. I’ve done varying degrees of study of various religions from around the world, and have tried to guide my path through life using the ‘best practices’ that I’ve found therein. I do not see the ‘hand of a creator’ in our universe that others see, although I have to tell you that quantum mechanics does baffle me.
So I pulled a pair of tomes from the bookshelf by Mssrs. John C. Whitcomb and Donald B. DeYoung. We’ll start off with the first of the two, “The Moon: It’s Creation, Form, and Significance”, published in 1978 by BMH Books and weighing in at 180 pages all-in.
We begin with a foreword by a Mr. Larry Redekopp, PhD, an Assoc. Professor of Aerospace Engineering at USC. He summarizes the premise of the book as follows:
“By the title alone, the authors manifestly declare their underlying tenet which is carefully and distinctly elaborated in the text; i.e., they accept the entire Biblical record as authoritative in regards to beginnings, history, science, and ultimate meanings. The Bible teaches explicitly that the Moon was created instantaneously as a functioning body in the heavens and at a time simultaneous with the sun, planets, stars and galaxies, but three days subsequent to the creation of the earth. Furthermore, the Bible states clearly the intended purpose for the moon’s existence and its proximity to the earth. Their literal acceptance of these truths is amply evident in the text and comprises the cornerstone on which the geology, lunar data, observable phenomena, and origin of the moon are discussed.”
“The Once and Future Moon”by Paul Spudis. Published in 1996 by the Smithsonian Institution Press, it weighs in at 308 pages all-in. No errors noted.
I decided to re-visit this one for a review when I realized that I couldn’t remember when I first read it, having read so many Moon books subsequent to this one. Paul autographed the copy in the Lunar Library on October 17th, 2002, which IIRC was at the World Space Congress, where he had just gone head-to-head with Bob Zubrin on the relative merits of our Moon and Mars respectively. So I would have read it before then. I’m pretty sure it was back in ‘99 that I picked it up, back when I was still working the Wall Street Desk as a credit analyst for BNP, juste nouvellementBNP Paribas. This is an important point that will touched upon later.
“Lunar Mineralogy” written by Judith Frondel, published by Wiley-Interscience, and weighing in at 323 pages with index.
Whereas the last Moon rocks book reviewed here at OotC, “The Lunar Rocks” was in large part the story of the study of the first samples from the Moon, by the time this book was published there had been copious amounts of supplemental materials to study, and many early hypotheses had been dropped. Really, this one is best described as a catalogue of what was found in the samples.
The book begins with a chapter on the Geochemical and Geological History of the Lunar Rocks, and a general overview of the Moon’s environment, such as the atmosphere so tenuous that it can be considered a collisionless gas, or the frequent small Moonquakes that occur about 800km down, which appear to have a tidal association. Don’t worry though, there are no plate tectonics on the Moon.
Moon 3-D by Jim Bell, published in 2009 by Sterling Publishing, it weighs in at 148 pages. One edit error noted.
This book bills itself as bringing the Lunar surface to life, and boy is it not kidding. Through a variety of techniques the author presents a large number of 3-D anaglyphs relating to our Moon exploration of generations past and present. As I noted in this book’s filecard in the Lunar Library:
The craters - wow!
They just pop out at you, and your eyes start wandering across the view, trying to judge the relative elevations, looking for features of note, and generally just enjoying a more natural perspective on things.
The book facilitates this by building the blue-red 3-D glasses into the cover, so that the image will always be the correct distance from the glasses, and a convenient nose hole makes the process comfortable. A large number of 3-D images are presented throughout the book, accompanied by a lengthy text by the author
The first chapter looks at the Moon Lore associated with our Lunar companion, from ancient times to modern media, while the second looks at the Space Race, from Kennedy’s challenge, through the robotic probes that reconnoitered the Moon prior to Apollo’s arrival. The third chapter, Shoulders of Giants, takes an extensive look at the Apollo missions, visiting each one in turn and highlighting notable details. Next up is Old Moon, New Moon, which describes the aftermath of the Apollo program, the science being done, and follow-up missions that rounded out the 1970s.
The ‘Modern’ era of Moon exploration began with the Galileo fly-by of the Earth-Moon system, which offered a serendipitous opportunity to test out the instruments with a little Lunar science. In Back to the Moon, the author looks at the series of probes that started with Clementine, then Lunar Prospector, using the chapter to talk about some of the resources that have been identified, and finishing up with the latest round of spacecraft - SMART-1, Chang’e-1, Kaguya, Chandrayaan-1, and LRO. We end up considering the Future Moon, which chapter explores many of the considerations for moving forward and poses the question:
“Can we seize this moment to eventually become citizens of the entire solar system? Let’s find out!”
The next hundred or so pages are the photo galleries. While some 3-D images were scattered through the text, the Gallery goes hardcore, with the left page showing a smaller Lunar photo, two columns of descriptive text underneath, and on the facing page a 3-D image. Page after page after page. Craters and tools and rocks and machines and astronauts and more craters and oblique views and more craters and scientific instruments and even some ISS and Shuttle shots. Just mesmerizing stuff, and sure to keep the kids occupied for hours.
It finishes up with a bibliography and brief index.
At the Moon Day celebration here in Dallas, NSS of North Texas had a copy of this book as part of their Moon display, and time and again I heard the same response - Wow! Grown-ups, kids, it was all the same - Wow! I would like to note that Sterling Publishing was kind enough to donate two copies to our event to be given away as door prizes to a couple of very lucky individuals. Their support of our community was a part of the success of the event.
Alan Boyle over at the Cosmic Log recently featured a story recently entitled Space in 3-D that features links on where to procure/make a pair of 3-D glasses. If you’d like to check out some more Lunar anaglyphs, you can wander over to the National Air & Space Museum website where they have a number available for your viewing pleasure.
Not as many as in Moon 3-D, though. I counted 59, enough to keep you occupied for a while. Going on a family road trip? You might want to think about a copy for the back seat. At less than 50¢ per image it’s great value for the money.
I really can’t think of any reason to give this delightful book anything other than a Full Moon rating.
Written by Brian Mason and William Melson of the Smithsonian Institution, The Lunar Rocks was published in 1970 by Wiley-Interscience and weighs in at 179 pages all in. A couple of errors noted.
The book describes itself as:
“an attempt to provide a concise and coherent account of the scientific effort on the lunar [sic] samples and the interpretation of the results.”
Which it is, in spades. The Apollo program marks a definitive leap in our understanding of our Moon, and so what came before usually gets lumped into a single chapter, as is the case here. We start with the first great leap in Moon understanding when Galileo trained his instrument on the Moon and saw some unusal things that no one had noticed before. This started an optical arms race to try to produce better instruments to better see the Moon. In the early 1960s, the U.S. Geological Survey did some Lunar cartography, and identified four main periods in the Moon’s past:
While the mainstream media fixates on history from two generations past (what most would call the Apollo program), I thought I’d offer up some forward-looking visions of our Moon. One of the neat things about having an enormous collection of Moon-related materials is that I can just pop over to the media section of the Lunar Library and start pulling DVDs and VHS tapes.
We’ll start out with a trilogy of suspense movies which remain available only on VHS tape. Given the B-movie nature of these titles, it is questionable as to whether they will ever become available on DVD.
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and oft told is the tale of when Galileo turned his telescope from terrestrial objects to heavenly bodies, an ongoing view of amazement and wonder that helped to change the nature of astronomy forever.
Most astronomers have wandered far afield from Galileo’s first celestial destination, our Moon, and spend their time with black holes and galaxies and supernova and other objects far, far away. In many respects the Moon becomes the enemy of the deep-space astronomer, as it light pollutes the night sky and blocks a fair-sized chunk of it.
Some of us, though, become enamored of the ever same yet ever changing Moon as she circles us in the sky, and tend not to wander too far afield. This surprisingly large bunch of folks is typically found over at the Lunar Photo of the Day, run by the world-famous Charles Woods.
The study of heavenly bodies is of course a global phenomenon, and while I was in France back in 2000 for my studies at ISU, Bordas published the book ‘Découvrir la Lune‘, a debutant level guide to Moongazing that is now out-of-print. I was, unfortunately, too poor a grad student at the time to afford both it and Rükl’s ‘Atlas de la Lune‘. Years later, as my infatuation with our Moon grew along with the Lunar Library, I would oft regret that unmade purchase, and could sense there was something missing from the La Lune section of the Library.
To be released on May 19th, 2009, it weighs in at 124 pages. No errors noted.
I first learned of Jim Ottaviani’s work when I picked up a copy of the graphic novel Two-Fisted Science. Later I found Dignifying Science, and was quite pleased to learn that there was someone out there using the comic form as a way to teach about some of the scientists of history. Adding to his oeuvre, Mr. Ottaviani now brings us a fact-based graphic novel of the inside story of the first trip to the Moon, just in time for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. As with his previous works, he takes full advantage of the medium to teach all kinds of facts that sharp young minds will gobble up.
We open at T-minus 12 years. The location is the NACA facilities in Langley, Virginia. (Great place, by the way, and still doing interesting research, and with the coolest urinals I have ever seen) The department head is fiddling with the radio knob to get a good signal from the orbiting Sputnik, noting that President Eisenhower had called a Rand Corporation report on the ‘Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship‘ hooey. Not all the engineers saw it that way, and were already pondering the possibilities.
We open with a launch of a Saturn V, forever an emblem of the Apollo program. Space activist Rick Tumlinson provides his view of why it ended, and author Tom Clancy notes what we’ve foregone. A whole host of individuals in space business and activism were interviewed for this documentary, from James Muncy to Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria.
We’re introduced to the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (RSC Energia), which has been operating the Russian space program since the beginning, and we learn of the precarious position of the Mir space station subsequent to NASA’s practice runs for ISS in the 1990s. (which, admittedly, had left NASA a bit spooked about the aging Russian station)
Russia was still recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a small group of entrepreneurs shows up on the doorstep with a basket of cash. Their goal - commercialize the Russian space station and save a tremendous asset that’s already in orbit. Thus is born MirCorp.
Richard Branson, as you might guess, is on my list of people who I would love to interview for EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Age™. I haven’t yet asked him to be my guest as I have a few glitches in the process of conducting these interviews that I need to work out. Until then, I thought you might be interested in a taste of what such an interview might be like with a review of his latest book Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur.
So the LPSC conference threw me off my stride, and I forgot that the movie Moon was being screened in Dallas at the AFI film festival until Chris, one of my fellow NSS of North Texas chapter members, sent out a reminder that there was going to be a second showing last night. The tickets were sold out, but there was something called a rush line where I could wait to see if there would be any empty seats. Arriving about an hour before the show I was about number 30 in the line. This was not looking good. The line wouldn’t open until five minutes of eight after everyone else was seated. By quarter of eight there were about 50 people and some young lady came around with a camera to record us losers who hadn’t gotten tickets. The AFI coordinator came down to announce that there was a 99.9% chance that no one would get in…but we do have these other fine movies with plenty of room that are starting right now. Now I’m down to about number twenty. Folks behind me start peeling off, but hardly anyone in front.
Quarter after eight and I’m down to about fifteenth in line. The coordinator pops back down to announce that they are still seating folks with AFI passes and it looks like a full house…but these other fine movies are just starting, so if you can hurry you can see them. More of the cineastes peel off. Tenth…seventh…fourth. The trio in front of me is talking it over. I tell the guy I am here until the bitter end because the only reason I am there is to see Moon. Finally, it’s down to me and the young lady behind me. Are we together? Um…no, but we can be. He announces that there is one single seat left. Every fiber of my being is screaming that it is my duty as a gentleman to allow the lady to see the film. I… She allows that I was before her in line. I thank her profusely and bolt for the escalator. I got the last seat on the far left of the front row. Thank you again, Miss, if you’re reading this.
Continuing the recent spate of Moon-related movies, director Duncan Jones brings us the philosophical musings of Moon, starring Sam Rockwell as Helium-3 miner Sam Bell stationed on the far side of the Moon at Sarang Station. He’s nearing the end of his three-year contract, and good thing too, as he’s starting to get a little loopy from the isolation and lack of human companionship.
The work is not too bad. The mining machines, reminiscent of the spice harvesters from Dune, are largely automated, and Sam only needs to go out to visit them every now and then to collect the full canisters of He-3. On one such trip he starts seeing things, a strange dark-haired girl near the harvester, and the distraction leads to an accident.
Sam awakens in the infirmary, and that’s where things start getting convoluted. The plot is fairly complicated, and I don’t want to give too much away, but it has been revealed that one of the twists is the fact that Sam has to deal with a clone. There are plenty of plot twists and turns after that to keep you guessing as to just what exactly is going on, but slowly Sam puts the pieces together and the truth is rather ugly.
The bloodline of this movie spans the science fiction genre, and it pays homage to and evokes more films than I can name. The opening of the movie is an advertisement for the corporate operator of the Moon facilities, Lunar Industries. The structure of it gave me a wicked flashback to GaiaSelene: Saving the Earth by Colonizing the Moon. I don’t know if it was intentional, but just like the documentary, the ad’s first half talks about the energy issues we face here on Earth, and then the second half on how the resources of our Moon can address those issues, with the corporation claiming to supply 75% of Earth’s power from their Lunar Helium-3 operations.
Moving into the film, the design of the sets strongly reminded me of sci-fi classics like Space: 1999, Outland, and 2001: A Space Odyssey (the Director also mentions Silent Running and Alien in his Space Center Houston Q&A). There was a strongly industrial and corporate feel to the scenery that seemed very appropriate. When Sam was taking the rover out to the crawlers I was remembering scenes from Star Cops. There was one interior scene that might well have been lifted directly from Space: 1999, the similarities were so striking.
The main plot delves deeply into the director’s interest in philosophy, in this case as applied to clones. Here the film pays homage to films from Blade Runner to, dare I say it, Metropolis. There’s a fascinating sci-fi twist to it that I don’t think I can discuss, as the gentleman speaking before the movie said there’s a twist that we’re not supposed to disclose, and I honestly am not sure which particular twist he was talking about, but that they would hunt down and find anyone who did so.
There’s comedy hearkening back to Dark Star. There’s disquieting horror, and more than once you’re just like, whoa, dude, that’s inhuman. But oh so terribly corporate.
I should mention GERTY, since it’s voiced by Kevin Spacey and acted via emoticons. It’s Sam’s robotic assistant, traversing the base by means of tracks in the ceiling. This is one of the areas where they used CGI, and it’s quite discretely done (at least from the perspective of the far left seat of the front row). Mostly, though, the equipment was real life heavy-duty industrial type stuff.
I rather enjoyed it, and will certainly see it again when it comes to theatres this summer to delve a bit more into the philosophical side of it. The science was fairly high-fidelity, and it’s obvious that film-makers are starting to learn about the benefits of using the silence of vacuum space to their advantage. Still, a hatch does not make a clanging sound in a vacuum, and there are a few other inconsistencies as well. You have to admit that it is tough to replicate things falling in 1/6th gravity in terrestrial movie studios. Maybe they should rent out the Zero-G plane like the Mythbuster guys did.
As good as Moon is, it’s not quite a Full Moon (subject to revision when I can see it from a decent perspective). I’m going to go with a strong waxing three-quarter Moon rating for this fine film.
“Who Owns the Moon” by Virgiliu Pop. Published in 2009 by Springer as Vol. 4 in their Space Regulations Library, it weighs in at 175 pages all in. A handful of editing errors, mainly in the last half.
While this could be considered a follow-up to Virg’s earlier work “Unreal Estate”, which was as thorough a Title Search on who owns the Moon as you’ll find, really it stands alone by taking a different approach. While the prior book looked backwards at who was trying to do a land grab of Lunar real estate over the years, this one instead looks at how we can move forward by taking a look at how the law stands now, its context, including historical, and how it is interpreted.
After my last review, I wanted to read a bit of Moon science. As I perused the titles in the Selenology section of the Lunar Library, my eyes paused upon “The International Atlas Of Lunar Exploration“ by Philip Stooke, but I hesitated. It’s a big book, weighing in at 440 pages all-in. I was daunted, and that’s what decided it for me, so I dove right in.
I’m glad I did. This is a fantastic book. The volume of data conveyed is just stupendous, purveyed in a straightforward, no-nonsense and factual manner. The large volume of images is just overwhelming, showing the gradual accumulation of better and better images that helped pathfind the way for Apollo.
