"Fly Me To The Moon" --- Belbruno

11/25/24:

Here's a resource that can be exploited. Yep, that's not politically correct. You must not exploit anything, by golly by gosh. But here is something that can be exploited which doesn't harm anything at all. Or does it? Methinks no, how can it? Nothing gets used up, but that is always the case anyway. For you to think that things can be used up only means that you haven't learned your science lessons.

But wait! Your body can be used up. You only get one of those. However, experiments on the ISS have shown that stem cells get supercharged in space. Maybe they can build you a new body in order to replace your old one. Someday, maybe. But I digress. Let's get back to the subject...

Anyway, to go to the moon would take longer. It says 3 months, as opposed to 3 days. Better to take your time and save on the the launches than to worry about the time taken to move a lot of mass from the Earth to the Moon and back again. If Elon Musk is going to Mars, he is going to have to wait 2 plus years between launch windows, anyway. During that time, he could be collecting mass on the moon and transporting it back and forth between Earth and the moon in order to reduce the number of launches needed from the ground.

Since the moon is loaded with resources for the taking, it makes sense to process as much as you can within the 2 year launch window, and get it into position so that it can aid in getting a bunch of mass to Mars. Also, there's no impediment in using the same techniques to get to Mars, but that trip could take even longer. The moon will suffice for now.

9/17/13:

The book has just arrived.  It is a signed copy, which surprised me.

Anyway, I have read through the first five chapters.  It is an easy read.  Not too technical, but you still have to be something of a space geek to appreciate it.

I do appreciate it.  If there's one thing that I've learned over the past three years since I got interested in space, is that mass is your biggest hurdle.  The less fuel that you use, the better, since it means less mass.  Less mass means better economics.  To make it more popular and accessible to the public, it needs to be cheaper.   This should be quite helpful towards that objective of leaping that hurdle.  We'll need to know about these techniques if the promise of space travel is to reach its potential.

I am excited to finish reading this book.  But, as usual, I don't have time to read it all in one sitting.  Other things to do.