Civilian colonization of the Moon in planning stages

It seems kind of hard to believe, but apparently some private researchers and space corporations are teaming up to colonize the moon.

The press release for Synergy Moon does not go into all the legal barriers such a project will have to overcome. One cannot simply go out and lay claim to the Moon. International treaty law has extended some reservations to Luna similar to those covering Antarctica.

Permanent colonization and nationalistic claims are forbidden, believe it or not. So clearly the people behind this forward-looking project either believe they will be able to resolve the legal complications or else they are not yet aware that you cannot simply start building houses on the Moon.

I did write about a similar topic a few years ago when I proposed how to steal the planet Venus. The international treaty governing our use of the Moon and "other celestial bodies" stipulates that while the U.S. government cannot lay claim to the Moon it can grant you or me permission to go forth and colonize.

What's the difference? Well, legally, the U.S. cannot go to war with other nations over the Moon -- this country has no right to lay claim to the Moon. But we can still go to war with other nations in order to protect our citizens who may be colonizing the Moon.

Moon colonies are still the stuff of science fiction but the fact that anyone is seriously proposing to establish a permanent colony on the Moon raises some interesting issues. International law has been impacted by a small case in the United Kingdom in which the UK courts sided with a family that claimed sovereignty over an abandoned ship -- arguing that the United Kingdom had committed "dereliction of sovereignty".

In other words, the United Kingdom neglected to look after territory over which it originally had sovereign rights -- thus freeing up that territory to claim by any other source. While there probably won't be any intentional dereliction of sovereignty claims made for the Moon, as soon as people have the ability to launch their own space missions they will begin carving up the Solar System in an interplanetary land grab the likes of which will never be seen again.

Things could become very interesting over the next 20 years.

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Plasma rockets no longer just science fiction

Everyone knows our rocket technology sucks big time. How can we expect to go exploring the stars if we can't even efficiently move around the Solar System? Well, science and technology have begun catching up to our imaginations.

Scientists at MIT have developed the Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster, a propulsion system that produces ten times as much thrust as current rocket technologies using nitrogen instead of oxygen and hydrogen.

Although it would seem like we have an abundance of oxygen and hydrogen to burn in our rockets, two-thirds of our atmosphere consists of nitrogen. We'll be able to produce nitrogen fuels more efficiently than oxygen and hydrogen fuels.

We've only just introduced an Ion Propulsion System which is being used by the Dawn interplanetary exploratory spacecraft. Dawn's Ion drive is actually faster than the chemical rockets we've been using to fling stuff around the Solar System. It sounds like the Plasma drive will be even faster.

Maybe using a hybrid Plasma/Ion drive we'll be able to conduct space missions to the edge of the Solar System and develop a more efficient interplanetary transportation technology -- perhaps even one capable of supporting space colonies.

There is a slight long-term impact on our atmosphere. If we launched 1,000 nitrogen-burning rockets every day, we would gradually reduce our atmosphere, although most scientists would probably argue that we'll have an even more efficient propulsion system long before any significant harm comes of fueling 1,000 rockets a day.

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NASA interplanetary mission on schedule

Scientific American provides a timely update on NASA'a Dawn mission. Dawn is the first multi-destination probe to conduct missions of exploration within the Solar System.

What about the Voyager missions? Well, apparently since they headed out toward the interstellar regions of space, their missions don't count.

NASA launched the Dawn mission in September 2007. The probe just made a flyby over Mars in February, using Mars' gravity to slingshot itself toward the asteroid belt, where Dawn will explore two large bodies: Vesta and Ceres.

Dawn will actually orbit Vesta for six months starting around August 2011 before departing and moving on to Ceres, where it should arrive in 2012. After mapping Ceres Dawn will remain in orbit around the small planetoid/asteroid until some new mission can be devised for it. If left alone, the probe might orbit Ceres for up to 20 years.

Dawn uses a new Ion propulsion system that will accelerate the probe to a speed of about 11km/sec (about 6.6 miles/sec, I think). How fast is that compared to things we know about? Well, it's faster than a speeding bullet -- perhaps 10 times as fast as a speeding bullet, for what it's worth.

BTW -- that Scientific American article contains a fascinating video which reminds me of the "Genesis Project" video from the movie "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan". The article compares the Dawn probe's mission to Star Trek's missions of exploration. What really distinguishes Dawn from previous interplanetary missions is the fact that the probe will enter into orbit around more than one body -- that has never been done before.

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