Lunar Lift Alliance Applauds New ESA Director General proposal for Lunar Farside Base

[Charles Radley]

Bucharest (Romania), July 15, 2015. On 29th April 2015 Dr Johann-Dietrich Woerner, former head of DLR, announced his intention to align the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop a base on the far side of the Moon for radio astronomy and other purposes. On 1st July 2015 Dr. Woerner assumed his new office as Director General of ESA.

We believe this plan is an excellent foundation for a major expansion of space innovation within Europe.

We encourage ESA to consider the benefits of the lunar lift which will greatly reduce the cost of construction of the far side lunar base.

A lunar lift investment pays for itself after twenty payload landing cycles.

The far side of the Moon is recommended as a radio quiet zone by the International Telecommunications Union under ITU-R RA.479. A high priority to enable a lunar far-side radio astronomy facility is for the international community to legally adopt the ITU recommendation to protect the radio environment of the far side of the Moon.

The Earth is a major source of radio noise and interference, from TV, radio, electric motors, car spark plugs, etc. This makes Radio astronomy on Earth difficult. The far side of the Moon is permanently shielded from human radio transmissions, and is the best place in the solar system for a Radio Astronomy Base.

The far-side lunar radio astronomy base would be located near the lunar equator at the 180 degree longitude point, which is an ideal location for anchoring a lunar lift tether.

The Lunar Lift Alliance is working to pursue all the above objectives. We invite collaboration of all interested parties.

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About the Lunar Lift System

The Lunar Space Lift (LL) is an extremely long tether extending from the lunar surface through the Earth-Moon L1 or L2 Lagrange gravity balance point (EML1/2) and relatively deep into Earth’s gravity well.

The major components of the LL prototype include the Ribbon, the Anchor Platform on the lunar surface, the Supply Depot at EML1/2, and the Counterweight (CW) at the far end.

This revolutionary first space lift structure in the solar system can be built of existing polymer materials and can be launched on a single vehicle.

The LL prototype, would be able to lift roughly 2 tons of lunar samples per year, and deploy a similar quantity of equipment onto the lunar surface, revolutionizing the transport of material to and from the Moon.

It will provide:

· Two-way transportation from LEO to the lunar surface using solar-electric propulsion

· 2400 kg of lunar material to LEO, and 2400 kg of supplies soft-landed on the Moon each year

· Capability to enable low cost construction of ESA Lunar Farside Radio Observatory

· Commercial lunar mining of valuable minerals and commodities

· Geodetic and seismic networks for precise laser ranging and Moon quake studies

· A whole-Moon telescope at L1 and/or L2 for constant monitoring of transient lunar events

· Delivery of lunar rovers for extensive robotic exploration of the lunar surface, and

· Opening the way for low-cost lunar exploration, development, and resource recovery

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About Dr. Johann-Dietrich Woerner

Johann-Dietrich ‘Jan’ Woerner became the ESA Director General on 1 July 2015.

Before joining ESA as Director General, Jan Woerner was head of the German delegation to ESA from 2007 to 2015 and served as Chairman of the ESA Council from 2012 to 2014.

Detailed bio: http://www.esa.int/…/Johann-Dietrich_Woerner_ESA_Director_G…

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About the Lunar Lift Alliance

The Lunar Lift Alliance was formed in June 2015 and comprises several organizations and individuals who support the goal of five-fold reduction in lunar landing costs using a lunar lift tether system.

Current members of the LLA include:

Asteroid Initiatives LLC, USA

Global Space Organization, USA and international

International Space Elevator Consortium, USA and international

Leeward Space Foundation, USA and international

Space Society of Silicon Valley, USA

BT Public Relations, Romania

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About Charles Frank Radley

Charles Radley is a NASA consultant who has made recently multiple appearances on TV and radio in Romania describing the Lunar Lift, including: The News Program of the National Romanian Television (TVR1), ProTV, Nasul TV, Radio Romania, ProFM Radio:

http://stirileprotv.ro/…/ilikeit-in-viitor-am-putea-avea-un…

http://stiri.tvr.ro/un-savant-american-cauta-in-romania-tal…

http://www.nasul.tv/specialist-nasa-la-nasul-tv-in-citiva-…/

http://www.profm.ro/…/lsquo-liftul-pana-la-luna-rsquo-expli…

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Please contact:

Romania: Geo Scripcariu, Email: geo.scr...@gmail.com Telephone: +40745-09.61.91

USA: Charles Radley, Email: cha...@ava.st Telephone: +1-551-579-4686

[Michael Abramson]

Hmm, interesting. I helped Al Globus a few times in judging his student space settlement competition, and noticed that the teams from Romania are consistently among the strongest. Perhaps, there are reasons for this unknown to me.

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Michael Abramson

[jedc...@kestsgeo.com]

An anchored tether linear space elevator through the Earth-Moon L-2 would have advantages including if it got severed, the far-end part would head off into space and not head toward the Earth, as would such a structure through L-1. But A space elevator through L-2 might become a thermal and perhaps EMF contaminant to the far-side quiet telescope  environment. If the tether material ihas strength to density ratio enough for a constant-width strucruture, then a triple pulley lift could be quite efficient; otherwise, if climbers are involved, means of actively delivering energy to the vehicles moving along the structure needs to be created. The team might consider the hoop type internal centrifugal force supported transpoartation structure (see the facebook group "Moon Space Escalator") anchored at the same location as an L-2 elevator, and its high end could be at L-1 on the near side of the Moon, with or without also an anchored thether through L-1, enabling L-1 to be a transportation termina; the centrifugal hoop escalator does not have the strength to density requirements of a linear anchored tetherelevator, and the hoop delivers lift energy all along the structure by vehicles lightly dragging electromagnetically on the upward-bound protion of the hoop. 

Jim Cline

[AsteroidGuy]

There is a Formal Proposal that was submitted by one of the actual Inventor of the Space Elevator, Mr. Jerome Pearson, that is currently available, and totally "doable" if funding is available, using today's technologies, with many actual pieces of hardware already built and operational right now: 
According to Mr. Jerome Pearson, who is one of the foremost expert on that subject, the optimum location for the Lunar Elevator (LE) is at the moon's pole, simply because it has the most solar power available, which will be a requirement for the base of the elevator as well as for the top.  That eliminates the potential "contamination" of the far side that is mentioned herein, but does create the problem of transporting the "goods" from there to their ultimate destination, and vice-versa. 

That problem exists anyway, wherever the LE ends up being built, but the very low lunar gravity allows for relatively easy and simple "hoppers" to span whatever distance there may be between the two points. 

Fuel/water/air are not a problem if you have near-continuous sun-power at the pole - It is a unique location that provides all the necessary ingredients for success.

Michael Buet

"Asteroid Guy"

"Everything we need to live and thrive in space is already up there, and we now have all the technologies we need to extract it from asteroids, the moon and comets:  LET'S GO!!"

[Charles Radley]

 

Dear Michael Buet,

 

I am a little puzzled by your post, you make some claims which are

contrary to my understanding, and I would appreciate some clarification.

 

I know Jerome Pearson quite well,  we have met a few times at conferences, and we have

collaborated on various proposals.

 

According to Pearson’s 2005 NIAC report, it is not possible to attach a lunar elevator to a lunar pole.

 

The ideal location to attach a lunar lift is at the equator, at the 0 longitude  or 180 longitude point.

At these locations the payload capacity of the lunar lift is at a maximum.   To attach the lunar lift at a different point results in a considerable reduction in payload capability, which is the key figure of merit.

 

According to the 2005 Pearson NIAC report, the maximum latitude for attachment is about 30 degrees, above that the payload capacity of the lunar lift is zero.

 

The 2005 Pearson design weighed over 1,000 tons, and is much too heavy to be commercially viable in the near term.

At LifPort group we developed a much smaller design which weighs only 30 tons, and could be built for under $1Billion and using a single  Commercial rocket launch.

 

If you know of data from Pearson which is  different than the above, please provide links or copies of the relevant analysis reports.

 

Thanks,

 

CFR

 

 

[Michael Buet]

Charles,

I stand corrected:  You are right:  The ideal location for a life-support production is the pole, but the elevator has to be at the equator...  Please delete my post - I will re-post.  My apologies.

Thanks,

Michael

Michael Buet, 

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 Consultant​

 

Dana Point CA 92629
(843)489-6505

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