NASA to Send NEW Rover to the Moon in 2018 to Mine Water

Yep, the NASA RESOLVE mission is a go and will go there to carry out the tests of the steps we'd need to live off the land by mining water ice to make potable water and fuel (hydrogen and oxygen) to power other vehicles, spacecraft and potentially a base.

NASA Planning for Mission To Mine Water on the Moon

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Following a series of reconnaissance missions that found hydrogen and then water on the Moon, NASA is laying the groundwork for a lunar rover that would scout for subsurface volatiles and extract them for processing.

The heart of the proposed Resource Prospector Mission (RPM) is the Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) payload, a technology development initiative that predates its official start two years ago in NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division.

Notionally targeted for launch in 2018, RPM would be NASA’s first attempt to demonstrate in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) beyond Earth. The agency has spent just north of $20 million on the project to date, but expects its investment to top out around a quarter of a billion dollars.

“The concept of RPM came up out of the need to fly RESOLVE and the near-term, close way to test that would be on the Moon,” said Jason Crusan, director of Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA headquarters in Washington.

“A lot of the technologies have broader use than just lunar, so RPM is not about a lunar mission per se. It’s just a convenient location to be testing the ISRU technology,” he said.

All NASA’s planning for eventual human missions to Mars depends on tapping the indigenous resources to make propellant for launching the return ship back to Earth.

More at Universe Today

Considering how important the moon is to life on earth...

Who gave anyone the right to tamper with it?

I hope there is a nation sane enough that is capable of shooting down any drilling devices heading for the moon.

reply to post by MALBOSIA


And what kind of damage do you think this rover can do to the Moon

gortex
reply to post by MALBOSIA

 

And what kind of damage do you think this rover can do to the Moon

It is a slippery slope. Who is going to asses and regulate the damage

reply to post by JadeStar


Over the past few decades I've seen many claims and statements by either NASA or the Government in regards to NASA missions and as always until there is substantial reliable funding it's just a nice wish list of things to do.

MALBOSIA
Considering how important the moon is to life on earth...

Who gave anyone the right to tamper with it?

I hope there is a nation sane enough that is capable of shooting down any drilling devices heading for the moon.

SNIP

Drilling abit of water and mining a few resources wont affect the mass to any significant degree,

Most the moons mass (please correct me if im wromg jade) is useless silicon rock. Likely only thousands of a % could be minned and used.

Theres no climate to destroy on the moon, and it would be next to impossible to move the moon from its orbit. Hell even if we detnotated every nuke we had at once it wouldnt shift the thing.

Fact is humans need resources off world so get with the program.

MALBOSIA

gortex
reply to post by MALBOSIA

 

And what kind of damage do you think this rover can do to the Moon

It is a slippery slope. Who is going to asses and regulate the damage

This won't do # to the moon. I sincerely hope you don't come anywhere near the launch.

Looks like the Chinese Moon mission gave them a spur

MALBOSIA
Considering how important the moon is to life on earth...

Who gave anyone the right to tamper with it?

I hope there is a nation sane enough that is capable of shooting down any drilling devices heading for the moon.

Our moon has helped the Earth in many ways since it's and Earth's formation billions of years ago. As the moon has slowly moved away over that time, much of what it did in the past is not their or has changed.

Currently, the moon only provides the following:

1) It's an anchor: the moon helps keep the Earth's rotational axis close to the 23 degrees that it is at now. With out it, the Earth would wobble around a lot more and we would have extreme climates here on Earth.

Mining the moon for water and minerals will in no way change it's mass enough to change this. Even if we mined for thousands of years, the moon's mass is just too big, and most of the material would not be useful to us down here.

2) Tides: The moon helps provide the majority of our tides with our oceans here. Tides have many different things that are good for life and for humans.

Again: the moon's mass would have to change radically for this to be effected, and that is not going to happen.

3) Plant and Fauna here on Earth has evolved with the moon (IE it's reflected light).

Again: mining the moon is not going to effect this. not with the surface area the moon has.

The moon's mass is 7.3477×10^22 kg and it's volume is 21,990,642,870 cubic kilometers.

Do you really think that we're going to have a major impact on that by mining water and minerals?

The answer is: No.

gortex
reply to post by MALBOSIA

 

And what kind of damage do you think this rover can do to the Moon

How much damage does a gnat do to your car by landing on it and sucking a bit of moisture from it's roof?

eriktheawful

MALBOSIA
Considering how important the moon is to life on earth...

Who gave anyone the right to tamper with it?

I hope there is a nation sane enough that is capable of shooting down any drilling devices heading for the moon.

Our moon has helped the Earth in many ways since it's and Earth's formation billions of years ago. As the moon has slowly moved away over that time, much of what it did in the past is not their or has changed.

Currently, the moon only provides the following:

1) It's an anchor: the moon helps keep the Earth's rotational axis close to the 23 degrees that it is at now. With out it, the Earth would wobble around a lot more and we would have extreme climates here on Earth.

This is old thinking which many of us were taught.

It however is likely incorrect.

New research (2011) shows that we'd be just fine without the moon.

Is A Moon Necessary For A Planet To Support Life? - AUDIO

For years, a theory has held that Earth's large moon played a critical role in stabilizing the planet's tilt, damping down differences between the seasons. Now, astronomer Jason Barnes says that life on our planet would endure even without a moon, a finding that might increase the number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy.

Mining the moon for water and minerals will in no way change it's mass enough to change this. Even if we mined for thousands of years, the moon's mass is just too big, and most of the material would not be useful to us down here.

Correct.

2) Tides: The moon helps provide the majority of our tides with our oceans here. Tides have many different things that are good for life and for humans.

The sun provides tides as well. As does weather.

JadeStar

gortex
reply to post by MALBOSIA

 

And what kind of damage do you think this rover can do to the Moon

How much damage does a gnat do to your car by landing on it and sucking a bit of moisture from it's roof?

how much damage can one drill hole do on earth? Just messing with you jadestar.
This is great news ,cant they bring it forward a couple of years?

crazyewok

MALBOSIA
Considering how important the moon is to life on earth...

Who gave anyone the right to tamper with it?

I hope there is a nation sane enough that is capable of shooting down any drilling devices heading for the moon.

Stop being so ignorant.

Drilling abit of water and mining a few resources wont affect the mass to any significant degree,

Most the moons mass (please correct me if im wromg jade) is useless silicon rock.

Correct.

But i wouldn't call that silicon rock useless. It can be made into lunar concrete fairly easily.

Likely only thousands of a % could be minned and used.

Theres no climate to destroy on the moon, and it would be next to impossible to move the moon from its orbit. Hell even if we detnotated every nuke we had at once it wouldnt shift the thing.

Fact is humans need resources off world so get with the program.

edit on 18-2-2014 by crazyewok because: (no reason given)

100% agree.

crazyewok

MALBOSIA
Considering how important the moon is to life on earth...

Who gave anyone the right to tamper with it?

I hope there is a nation sane enough that is capable of shooting down any drilling devices heading for the moon.

Stop being so ignorant.

Drilling abit of water and mining a few resources wont affect the mass to any significant degree,

Most the moons mass (please correct me if im wromg jade) is useless silicon rock. Likely only thousands of a % could be minned and used.

Theres no climate to destroy on the moon, and it would be next to impossible to move the moon from its orbit. Hell even if we detnotated every nuke we had at once it wouldnt shift the thing.

Fact is humans need resources off world so get with the program.

edit on 18-2-2014 by crazyewok because: (no reason given)

Define how what i said wad ignorant? By being concerned about willy nilly exploration on the only moon we have? It isn't even conclusive how the moon came to be ( actually i am sure will claim to know conclusively lol)

Ignorant would be failing to live sustainable and then making the same stupid mistake on another rock. Actually sounds more retarded than ignorant.

Like I said. It is a slippery slope. It will start with "a little water" just like we started with a little oil or a little plutonium.

It is funny though listening to you tiny people talk like you have our planet and moon under control. What are you going to do if you find out your wrong? Say sorry?

I wonder what has happened that we are allowed back on the Moon? After nearly 50 years of igoring the surface of the Moon why can they start to send back spacecraft now? I do not think this mining will ever happen or at least the operation will 'break down' very soon after landing due to "technical difficulties". I realise that alien civilisation on the Moon is not a popular theory among those who do not see the signs, but there has to be some rational reason why we have ignored landing rovers on the surface of the Moon for so long.

If I was living somewhere peacefully minding my own business and someone else sent robots to mine my area, I think I would have a problem with that. In fact, it might cause me to fight back.

ATTENTION! Please keep to the topic and knock of the insults. You can post opinions without making it personal, so do so please.

reply to post by MALBOSIA


What exactly is it that you are so afraid of? You have yet to make a statement on that, other than some vague fear.

Come on out with it and tell us what it is you think humans will do to "mess up" the moon.

Are you afraid they are going to mine it all away?

At 7.3477 x 10^22 kilograms of mass, even if they removed 100 metric tons (that's 100,000 kilograms) per day, it would take us
734,770,000,000,000,000 days (about 2,013,068,493,150,684 years....that's right, over 2 QUINTILLION years) to make it disappear.

Let's say they get REALLY industrious and are able to mine 1 million metric tons per day.

It would still take 201,306,849,315 years. That's 201 TRILLION years to mine the moon to nothing.

And that is not what they are going to do.

So come on. Tell us. Tell us EXACTLY what it is you fear that humans will do to the moon.

MALBOSIA
Considering how important the moon is to life on earth...

Who gave anyone the right to tamper with it?

I hope there is a nation sane enough that is capable of shooting down any drilling devices heading for the moon.

ye remember the remake of the time machine where the moon brakes up when getting drilled

nasa also said it rang like a bell space was also a vacume and water will explode in a vacume

I never thought I would live to see the day where we would have "moon huggers" I remember tree huggers and it was a nasty business..