The Prospects For Manned Lunar Base - Part Three of Three Parts
Part Three of Three Parts: (Please read Part One and Part Two first)
Part Three of Three Parts: (Please read Part One and Part Two first)
Part Two of Three Parts: (Please read Part One first)
Part One of Three Parts:
I have mentioned thermionic power generators that use plutonium-238 to provide power for space probes in past posts. Recently there have been some problems with obtaining sufficient Pu-238 for NASA deep space missions. Nuclear propulsion systems for large spacecraft have also been proposed for decades. With the recent expansion of private space industry, interest in nuclear propulsion has increased.
I have posted before about the problem with all the space junk in orbit around the Earth. It is estimated that there are over a hundred million pieces of space junk including old satellites, rocket boosters, fragments of rockets, and fragments of metal and paint. About twenty thousand pieces are more than four inches in diameter.
Last year, I blogged about Moon Express, the first private space company to be licensed for travel beyond Earth orbit by the U.S. government. Moon Express plans a lunar mission in late 2017. Recent developments have certainly been positive for ME.
Throughout the more than a century of observation through telescopes and the visits of orbiters and landers, Mars has fascinated the human race. Much smaller than the Earth, the surface area is about equivalent to the land area on Earth.
Once you go to the trouble of launching a spacecraft, you may be faced with the problem of landing it safely back on Earth or some other astronomical body with an atmosphere.
One of the big problems for the future of spaceflight is the growing amount of junk in Earth Orbit. The human race is certainly careless about littering space.
One big worry about space exploration is that hostile nations will deploy devastating weapons in space. The major international space treaty currently prohibits placing any weapons in orbit or on bodies is space such as asteroids, moons, etc. Recently the U.S.