​China wants to quickly win the space race ● How will the future lunar base be refueled? ● Solar sails may become a method of space travel in the near future

China wants to win the space race quickly

The space race to build the first permanent lunar base is on. And China seems determined to win it, despite the cost and effort involved. Thus, more than 100 Chinese researchers recently met at a conference organized in the city of Wuhan to determine how future infrastructure will be built on the moon, Reuters reports.

A team of specialists is already designing a robot to create bricks from lunar soil. The robot will reach the moon’s surface in 2028, just three years after China also receives its first soil sample from the dark side of Earth’s natural satellite.

Chinese officials have already announced that the base they are planning will be permanent, and that the taikonauts they will send there will live on the moon long-term. While Russia’s role in the far-reaching project was not mentioned, both countries said the effort would be joint. Recently, Venezuela was invited to join Russia and China in the lunar base project.

China has never hidden that it wants the BRICS member countries to be partners in the space race together with Latin American countries. Bolivia has officially announced its interest in joining the lunar base project, and Brazil is already in talks with Chinese officials.

How will the future lunar base be fueled?

As I mentioned in the previous news, the lunar base, whether American or Chinese, will be permanent, and the astronauts who go there will use it for a long time. But there is an economic problem. Specifically, which variant of feeding the base is the most appropriate? Should the fuel be delivered from Earth or produced locally, directly on the moon?

To that end, a group of Italian researchers from Bocconi University in Milan recently published a study in the journal Acta Astronautica in which they calculate the feasibility of future fuel compositions to power spacecraft that will travel to Mars and beyond.

Italian specialists took into account two scenarios and calculated how economically feasible they are in future space expeditions. The first scenario involved refueling ships with fuel delivered directly from Earth. The second involves the production of fuel on the Moon, using frozen water there.

In both cases, the cosmic composition of fuel rotating at the Lagrangian point L1, located approximately three-quarters of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, was considered. The composition, which the aforementioned researchers consider indispensable in future space missions, as it will be used to refuel rockets. From the mathematical calculations carried out by Italian specialists, it turns out that it is much more expedient to supply the deposit directly from the Moon than from the Earth.

In fact, the Italians say, this is another mandatory step that competitors in the space race must take into account if they want their missions not to burden public or private money. But, most likely, both China and the USA have already made the necessary calculations.

Solar sails may become a method of space travel in the near future

Speaking of calculations, if today we mentioned only the news related to the space race, then we cannot fail to mention a study, albeit at the stage of preparation for publication, published so far only on the Arxiv platform. The study, co-authored by a large number of astronomers at the Cal Institute of Technology, advances an older idea that is still under the microscope of researchers about future methods of space travel. More precisely, solar sails.

As I said, the idea is not new. Solar sails have been discussed over time, but not seen as a viable option. At most, it’s an interesting thing to keep in mind as the technology evolves. In short, the motion is provided by the force with which the photons act on the respective sails. The problem is that given the development of technology, the sails had to be huge, making it difficult to move through space using this approach. Not to mention the problems that would arise from the distance from the sun or objects floating in space that could destroy the corresponding sails.

What the authors of the study came up with in addition to what is already known is precisely technological progress. They claim that there are already very light materials with significant reflectivity, but also that we have the technology to shrink sails down to acceptable sizes. Based on these data, the expediency of solar sails again comes into question.

According to the aforementioned researchers, not only do we have the technology to create an innovative powerplant, but we can also do it at a much lower cost than current ones, which involve both heavy fuel and the need for bulky engines. What’s more, they say, if NASA funded such a project, in just a few years it would have a fleet of ships with solar sails traversing our entire solar system. Not to mention the space race.

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