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Guest: Dr. Martin Elvis; Topics: lunar commercial governance, building larger towers for solar power energy at the lunar south pole, lunar resources, competition for finite lunar resources, lunar water quantity and more.
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We welcomed back to the program Dr. Martin Elvis to discuss lunar power needs, specifically from solar energy plus we talked about commercial lunar resource development, possible competition for the finite lunar resources at the south pole, lunar governance, as well as both the quantity of both lunar solar energy and water deposits on the Moon. Dr. Elvis mostly talked about the lunar south pole but near the end of our 64 minute program he was as about the lunar north pole which also has potential resources applicable for commercial development. Note that I posted links on the blog to three recent papers/articles by Dr. Elvis and others that were the subject of discussion during our program. I strongly urge you to download and read the articles as our discussion was based on them.
Many topics were addressed during our program with several listener emails and a call by Marshall. We talked about why it was essential to return to the Moon and what was meant by returning to the Moon. For example, did returning to the Moon have to include humans, did it only mean a robotic return or a combination of both. Don't miss what Dr. Elvis said in response to this listener question. Artemis, the Artemis Accords and the efforts of other groups and nations to get to the Moon were discussed in detail. A big part of this discussion was the fact that most lunar players wanted to get to the lunar south pole which our guest said presented not only governance challenges, but challenges on how to share resources such as water ice and solar power. Part of the challenge would be to avoid interfering with another parties installation.
Our guest was asked to separate out government lunar plans from commercial and NewSpace plans along with space tourism for the Moon. Our guest also spent significant time talking about the need for very tall towers at the south pole to collect enough sunlight for the needed amount of power. The links to the papers mentioned above address tower construction, mass, height, stability and how the power available becomes dependent on the height of the tower. Nuclear power was discussed as a possibility for lunar power so don't miss what our guest said about it plus the size of needed nuclear facilities on the lunar surface.
Marshall called to ask about beaming solar power from an orbiting position to the lunar south pole for commercial and scientific usage. Our guest pointed out that there were no GEO lunar orbits so listen to how this impacted Marshall's ideal. Listen to what our guest said about potential power loss going through the atmosphere referring to Earth. In addition, Martin talked about the cost for space qualified solar panels compared to the type of solar panels we put on roofs here on Earth. Quite startling!
The subject of lunar surface development and innovation came up so our guest mentioned the ongoing Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium Study. Martin was then asked about our readiness and capabilities once on the lunar surface to our capability to get to the lunar surface. This was an interesting discussion so don't miss it. you may want to offer comments about it on our blog. Our guest talked about a low TRL at this time but said their were programs addressing the challenges.
An email listener asked our guest about what seemed to her to be increasing opposition to human spaceflight and lunar development. Dr. Elvis repeated that it was absolutely crucial we return to the Moon over the next ten years. He talked about the US space leadership position which he said was not an entitlement. The challenges we face, specifically from China were talked about. This discussion was followed by a question from a New York City listener wanting to know if the huge quantities of water ice talked about on the Moon were actually confirmed quantities. Our guest seemed to indicate so based on neutron spectrometer analysis. He said lots of hydrogen seemed to be there but what was not known for sure was the form it was in or the distribution. Listen for all the details. In this context, our guest mentioned the NASA Lunar Flashlight project. In terms of water usage for a facility, Martin talked about per person water consumption for the ISS and the estimate that there being enough water for a 10 million person settlement on the Moon for 100 years. Before leaving this topic, we talked about a lunar surface centrifuge to get to 1G plus the need to determine the level of partial gravity that would be Ok for humans.
Final program discussion topics centered around student interest in returning to the Mon, beaming solar power from the Moon back to Earth and reasonable timeless for our getting back to the Moon with people. The final program question dealt with resources at the lunar north pole.
Please post your comments/questions on the blog for this show. You can reach Dr. Elvis through his Harvard - Smithsonian faculty page or me.