Moon Base Power

If we ever establish a base on the moon, we are going to need power, and for the projects I have in mind we are going to quite a bit of power. There are numerous ways to generate electricity: steam engines driving generators, nuclear power and solar power using solar cells are some of the ways we use. Solar cells are a popular method for inner solar system space exploration. There is lots of sunlight and solar cells do not weight very much, relative to the amount of power they generate. Nuclear power has been used for some satellites, though it has fallen out of favor due to environmental concerns. It is still a viable choice for unmanned deep space probes. Steam driven power generation is used on Earth because we have an atmosphere that supplies the oxygen needed for the fires under the boilers (steam generators in modern power plant lingo). Burning fossil fuels on the moon is probably not going to work because there is no atmosphere. There probably isn't any fossil fuel either, but you never know. The moon might be made of coal instead of green cheese. Of course, if we do find coal or oil on the moon, we are going to have to reconsider the appelation "fossil fuel".

I do not like solar cells because they are exposed to all the hazards of space: radiation and impacts from micrometeorites. Because of this solar cells have a relatively short life span, ten years maybe in Earth orbit, considerably less on the moon. On the moon, you are outside of the protection provided by the Earth's magnetic fields.

I prefer the idea of a steam driven generator set. Sunlight would be concentrated by mirrors and directed to a steam generator. The steam would drive a turbine which would in turn drive a generator. Very well understood technology here on Earth.

The steam generator and the power plant would be located under ground for protection from radiation and meteors. Sunlight would be collected from a large bowl lined with mirrors and directed thru a tunnel, either horizontal or vertical, to the steam generator.

I envision using robotic machines to do the excavation and some of the installation of this power plant. If we could devise a way to make flat surfaces from medium size rocks, they could be used for crude mirrors. The flatter they could be made, the better. Slate would be nice, but I doubt we will find any on the moon. They could even be spray painted with a metallic silver for better reflectivity. Anything we can build on the moon from materials we find there is mass we do not have to boost from Earth. Mylar mirrors would not have much mass, not much more than paint, but their life expectancy would not be that great. So I like rocks.

Unless we build this power plant at one of the poles of the moon, it is going to be exposed to sunlight for two weeks and in darkness for two weeks. Building a power station at one of the poles that would be constantly exposed to the sun could be a bit of a trick, and that might not be the where we will need the power. So we should plan for two weeks of light and two weeks of darkness.

One way to maintain power during times of darkness would be to have several power plants installed at different longitudes around the moon. Cables could be run to connect the plants, and so power would be available at all times all around the moon, at least at the same latitude as the power plants. Unfortunately, we would need thousands of miles of cables, and cables would have to be shipped from Earth, at least to begin with, and that would be expensive.

Other ways would mean storing power someway. Batteries and flywheels are possibilities. Both are heavy. Using electricity to generate chemicals that could later be recombined (burned, perhaps) to generate energy is another way, though probably less efficient. And then there is always nuclear power, which has a whole slew of problems, but might on balance prove to be the simplest solution.

In any case, I still like the idea of a solar driven steam generator. On Earth a day is only 24 hours long, so such an installation has to have a method of tracking the sun as it moves across the sky. On the moon, a day is two weeks long. You still need a method of tracking the sun, but it does not have to be quite so quick. So I imagine robotic machines going from one rock mirror to the next, giving each one a little tweak to adjust its' angle. By the time it gets done with each of the several hundred mirrors, it will be time to start over. When the sun goes down, it will make one last pass to repoint the mirrors toward where the sun will be when it comes up in two weeks, and then it can go to sleep until the sun comes up again.

Movie: "The Good German"

Cate Blanchett and George Clooney in a scene from The Good German. Credit Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Brothers Pictures

We watched The Good German (George Clooney and Cate Blanchett) the other night. Not bad. It was interesting seeing goody two shoes Spider Man (Toby McGuire) playing a slimeball. The story takes place in Berlin after the Allied victory over Germany, but before Japan was defeated. The Allies are meeting in Potsdam to carve up the spoils. The Russians want Eastern Europe. There are a couple of different groups from the U.S. One wants to prosecute all the Germans as war criminals. A second group is trying to locate all the scientists who worked on Germany's V-2 Rocket. Another group, which may be the same as the second group, or not, I am not sure, wants to locate any scientists who were working on Germany's atom bomb project. Nobody mentions this until the paper has news about the atom bomb being dropped on Japan. Anyway, some of the scientists are suspected war criminals, so we have two Allied groups competing to get ahold of these guys. Camp Dora was where the workers who made the V-2's were held. The V-2's were built in an underground complex. Workers were getting 800 calories a day. This was calculated as the most efficient use of resources. When they died of starvation, they were replaced. Evidently they had plenty of slave labor, but a real shortage of food. Anyway, we have plenty of intrigue with people trying to hide their past, people trying to get to the U.S. sector, avoiding the Russian sector. George gets beat up a lot. The plot is complicated. The movie is pretty good, except for the last scene. The last scene really looks a lot like the last scene from Casablanca, down to the hat. It didn't strike quite the right tone.

Update April 2017. Added the picture. The movie was based on the book of the same name, written Joseph Kanon, who also wrote Leaving Berlin. Potsdam, I now know, is a suburb of Berlin (map).

Motorcycle ride through Chernobyl

Elena and her Kawasaki Ninja. The most amazing website I have ever seen.

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html

Happy Birthday Ross

Ross has taken an interest in records, yes, the big old vinyl platters that were made obsolete by CD's. And he isn't the only one. From the number of record albums I have seen for sale in the last few days it seems this old technology is enjoying a revival. Last week we stopped in at Everyday Music on Cedar Hills Boulevard in Beaverton. They had an entire room (2500 square feet) given over to vinyl records.

When school was letting out for the summer, he picked up a turntable from someone who did not want to carry it home. It came with a preamp that allowed him to use it with his boom box stereo. But now he wants better speakers. My wife heard the name Paradigm from her hairdresser and a friend of Ross's recommended Fred's on Hawthorne boulevard so Sunday we drove over there to see what they had. I thought we were just looking. Silly me. Anne and Ross pick out a pair of speakers. I have been looking around the store while they were listening to speakers and now I think, well shoot, if Mom is buying him speakers, he's going to need an amp, and here is this gigantic Technics receiver (used) for $100 (here are some photos of a similar unit). We will just get that and he will be set, no more time wasted agonizing over (or shopping for) what amplifier to buy. That is worth $100 right there.

Two doors down there is a record store, and wouldn't you know, they have vinyl. Well shoot, you can't bring home a new stereo without some new music, and this is what we had originally planned on, so we bought a couple of records. Recordings on vinyl. Old style. Jazz mostly.

Airlocks

I have a couple of ideas on how airlocks might be improved. Both would remove more air more quickly than any current airlocks. Of course the only airlock we have right now is on the Space Shuttle, so the comparison is a bit unfair. They would add some complexity and mass, so the only place they would be useful would be where the air and time they saved would be worth the cost of boosting the extra material into space. Being as the cost of boosting the material is currently a couple of orders of magnitude greater than the cost of the material, we can neglect the cost of actually building these devices. The first device would use large plastic bags to force the air in the chamber out. The collapsed bags would line two opposing walls of a airlock. Inflated with air, they would meet in the middle and completely fill the chamber. To operate, a space suited person would stand in the middle of the chamber facing one of the bag lined walls with arms and legs spread. Evacuation of the chamber would begin. The bags would be inflated with perhaps double the current atmospheric pressure. This will encourage the air in the chamber to leave. When a satisfactory amount of air had been evacuated from the chamber, the pressure in the bags would be relieved, and the bags would drawn back to the walls by the means of straps attached to the insides and/or outsides of the bags. The bags would need to be made of a tough material to withstand the pressures involved. The tougher the bags, the higher the pressures could be and the quicker the airlock could be cycled. We would want to be careful not to exert too much pressure on the person in the lock, we would not want any crushing injuries. It would be nice if the bag could be made of a transparent material to alleviate any feelings of claustrophobia. The second device is simply a large diameter, long cylinder attached to the airlock. The cylinder would have about ten times the volume of the airlock. When the people entered the airlock, a piston in the cylinder would be next to the chamber. The other side of the piston would be vacuum. When the airlock was sealed, the piston would be released. The air in the chamber would expand and push the piston to the far end of the cylinder. The opening between the airlock and the cylinder would be sealed and the airlock could be opened to space. We would lose perhaps ten percent of the air with each cycle, but it would be very quick, a matter of seconds at most.

Space Habitat

Baring a breakthrough in physics, sending human beings anywhere in space beyond the moon is going to take a very long time. Even a trip to mars will take a year just to get there. Given this situation I think it would be a good idea if we got started with building a space habitat where we could learn how to live in space, not just survive. All the ideas I have seen about building a ship to go to Mars all look like they come from cheapskates. The bare minimum of equipment, the bare minimum of shielding, just enough that the crew, if they are lucky, will survive. It looks like a recipe for disaster. We should take a page from the Victorians and building something that could survive most anything the universe can dish out. Building a habitat at Lagrange point L4 (never mind L5, everyone else has already talked L5 to death) would give us a chance to see what it is really like to operate in space.

Lagrange Point Habitat

I am thinking we would want a sphere about one mile in diameter. Spin it at a rate of one revolution per minute and you would have one gravity of acceleration at the largest radius. I like the idea of making the surface of the sphere out of foot thick steel, but this may not be the right choice. The skin of the sphere will have several functions:

• Keep air and water vapor inside
• Keep dangerous radiation outside
• Absorb and/or deflect meteors and other debris
• Hold itself together, i.e. have some structural integrity

To do all this may require several layers of various materials and in fact may be a hundred feet thick and honeycombed with access passages. One thing to remember is that we probably are not going to want much on the outside of the skin near the equator. The skin at the equator will be traveling at about 200 miles per hour. Anything that is attached there that loses its grip is going to leave very quickly.

A large diameter cylinder would be fitted to the inside of the sphere and concentric with axis of spin. It would take up one third to one half of its' length. This would give us a large surface of even gravity on which which to house our people. A cylinder a third of a mile long and one mile in diameter would give us about one square mile of "land": 640 acres. We should be able to do something with this, perhaps farm, or even raise cows. The area between the cylinder and the skin of the sphere could be used for water tanks. In case of a breech of the hull, large valves could be opened into these tanks and quickly drain any surface water into the tanks before it all evaporated into space. Water in these tanks could also be transferred around the diameter of the sphere to compensate for any imbalance.

The large diameter offers several advantages:

• Low gravity gradient. There would little difference in the apparent force of "gravity" as you changed elevation. For instance there would a negligible difference between your head and your feet, and the difference would still be small for an elevation change of 100 feet.
• Slow spin rate. I would hope that an angular velocity of one revolution per minute would minimize any problems with vertigo either for permanent residents or visitors. As far as I know there is no way to tell. Research and testing will be necessary.
• High linear velocity. The high linear speed of 200 MPH means that any motion in the vessel, like walking, will have a minimal effect on your perceived weight. Running, either with or against the rotation, will no doubt have a noticeable effect, though it should be something most people should be able to deal with.
• Wide open spaces. Having a "ceiling" a thousand feet in the air would give people a feeling of wide open spaces like they have on the Earth's surface. It might help prevent attacks of agoraphobia in people returning to Earth, and attacks of claustrophobia in people arriving at the habitat.
• Large volume of air. This means that we can survive small leaks until they are found and a small amount of anything unpleasant or noxious would be diluted to the point where it is harmless.

A smaller diameter cylinder would also be fitted into the sphere, also concentric with axis of spin. This cylinder would be much smaller in diameter, perhaps a couple of hundred feet. This cylinder would be used for docking of cargo and passenger vehicles. This ends of the cylinder would be doors. Since the entire cylinder would be exposed to vacuum, the surface of this cylinder would need to have many of the same attribute as the surface of the sphere. The doors at the end of the cylinder would span perhaps a quarter of the diameter of the cylinder. Vessel docking would be accomplished by:

• contact with a long probe which would stabilise the vessel's position and relative velocity.
• with the aid of the probe the vessel would be maneuvered into position directly outside the sphere and in-line with its' axis of rotation
• a cage-like frame would close about the vessel and be secured
• the cage would be drawn into the sphere
• the cage, and the contained vessel, would be spun up to match the sphere's rotation
• the cage would be moved sideways, relative to the axis to a docking berth

We could have two kinds of berths. One would just hold the cage, and could provide an airlock for crew and passengers. The other could be enclosed so that it could be pressurized. A vessel a mile in diameter can expect to have a fair amount of traffic coming and going. Having this central cylinder devoted to docking would allow incoming vessels to enter at one end, be docked along the walls, and exit through the other end. A continuous stream of traffic could beaccommodated this way.

In most cases docking could be carried out in vacuum, but there will be cases where bringing the vessel into a pressurized chamber would make things easier. Emergency would be one case, and external repairs would be another. It is easier to build and seal a small door rather than a large door. If vessels where constructed as long cylinders, then they could enter a pressurized chamber through a relatively small door. So pressurized docking chambers would be cylinders perhaps three times the diameter of a vessel and slightly longer.

We would probably not need to accommodate winged vessels like the space shuttle. We would be a long ways from anyplace where wings would be useful. The expense of boosting them this far out would be very hard to justify. However, if this structure is going to be a mile in diameter, just how big are the ships going to be? Right now I find it difficult to imagine anything larger than about 30 feet, but I have seen numerous engineering projects that had to be revised to accommodate the bigger, larger and more powerful.

At one point I was thinking that sand would be the perfect material to use for shielding the outer skin of the sphere. Easy to transfer, simply pour from one container to another. Good for absorbing impacts from micrometeorites and cosmic rays. And it could be used as a raw material. Apply enough heat and you get oxygen and silicon. Oxygen is always handy for air breathing mammals. Problem is any small holes in the "underside" of the containing vessel would let the sand drain out and be lost. There are ways to compensate, like putting a chamber below the sand to catch any that leaks out, and allow maintenance to plug whatever holes show up in the floor of the sand chamber.

Pictures of Traffic For You

This is from an email exchange with my brothers.

Dan:

Well, it's slightly more interesting than that. I guess I could title it "Anecdotes Of the Business Cycle and International Logistics."

So our company is at the end of the 2nd quarter, and we have a big order shipping out to a customer. The bosses are frantic and hysterical to get the revenue booked in Q2. The rules say we can't book revenue until the product ships from the factory; more specifically, until we get a signed Forwarder Cargo Receipt from the forwarder.

Now we introduce a development from the world of international trade regulation. Apparently there goes into effect on July 1 a reduction in "duty drawbacks." My understanding is, if a US importer pays duty on an import, then takes that item and re-exports it (or something made from it), they can recover a lot of that duty. After July 1st, they can recover less.

Thus, all the buyers are pressuring the Chinese manufacturers to ship by June 30 to secure the higher duty drawback rate.

Thus, Chinese logistics are in gridlock. Thus, our $500K of mouse pads can't get to the forwarder, we can't get the receipt, and we can't book the revenue.

Our agent in Malaysia sent us pictures taken by the forwarder in Shanghai to document the traffic situation. Not particularly interesting in and of themselves, but interesting for me to see what's behind my personal torment.

Incidentally, my tongue-in-cheek comment on the situation was "we'll just book it next week." They looked at me with slack-jawed incomprehension.

Andrew:

Why is there such activity over there when I am finding it hard to find meaningful productive work here?

China & North Korea's success.

How do these countries with limited infrastructure grow so quickly?

The US preserved from the disruptions of war & famine has accumulated vast pools of cash (rich).

Technology has enabled the delivery of quality products, regardless of geography.

Seeking low price the US buys from the cheapest producers.

Why should this bother me? The rich sharing with the poor.

Years of xenophobic fueled propaganda of the inferiority of other nations and their peoples and the selfish (but logical) desire to invest in my community.

But cheap wins out.

What assurance do we have that this is not harming our interests?

Do the common citizens of these other countries enjoy life as much as we?

Net cash outflow, sort of like what I am experiencing.

Me:

I bought a book by George Soros a few months ago called "On Globalization". I have not read it yet.

According to sailboat people (cruisers) America has the best and cheapest food.

All the new semiconductor fabrication facilities (fabs) are being built in SE Asia at a cost $2 billion and up, each. Similar facilities are required to make LCD flat panel displays. When they built fabs here, it was a big deal, people blabbing about how many jobs they would provide. By my estimate, the cost of the fab was about equal to the gross wages paid to the entire workforce for the next 20 years. I doubt the fab will last that long. I imagine that to stay competitive, all the equipment will need to be replaced within five years, and that is at least half of the cost of the fab.

So building these fabs in Asia might be saving them a few percent on manufacturing costs, but I doubt it even reaches ten percent. Still, that could amount to 100 million dollars, which is still a considerable amount.

Nike (also headquartered here) was lambasted in the press for running sweat shops in SE Asia. What the protesters didn't say was that for every person working there, there were three or four more wanting the job.

On PBS last night there was a talking head saying that real wages in America are at the same level they were in 1974. Worker productivity has doubled.

We have been running a trade deficit with Japan for years, ten? twenty? I don't know how long. Salaryman gets ground to dust.

US is trying to get China to adjust their exchange rate. China is holding it artificially low. Not sure what this is all about. Keeping the populace down, keeping the commies in power?

We bought a Japanese SUV in January. Consumer Reports OK'd it. But you look at American SUV's, and they haven't changed in ten years.


Update March 2016 replaced missing pictures.