No part of the world has been more impacted by Donald Trump's election than the Middle East. For some, such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, the UAE, and other Gulf states, Trump's election brings hope for peace…

With Republicans in control of the next Congress and current Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stepping down from the post at the end of this session, the party is already thinking about which…

Well, what a glorious and exciting week it has been! After months of stressing about this election, it is finally over. Trump not only won in a Electoral College landslide; he also won the popular vote,…

The American people have returned President-elect Donald Trump to the White House. And his decisive win in the Electoral College and the popular vote serves as a mandate to do all the things he promised…

Another conspiracy theory has turned out to be hard, cold fact: Turns out FEMA was, indeed, denying life-saving assistance to Trump supporters in hurricane-hit areas. And the Daily Wire has the proof.…

Israeli Jewish football fans were targeted by attackers shouting ‘Free Palestine’ slogans.Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is looking to deslist Pershing Square Holdings (PSH) and Universal…

A quiet residential street in New York City was rocked Friday morning after a plumber’s truck violently exploded. Footage captured the moment an unoccupied Infiniti QX56 unleashed a fireball in South…

President-elect Donald Trump is projected to win Nevada’s six electoral votes, becoming the first GOP presidential candidate to win the state since 2004. According to The New York Times, preliminary…

The Harris-Walz campaign raised a staggering amount of money during this election cycle. Over a billion dollars. While it would be easy to admire such an impressive feat, it really does speak to the fact…

Placing a mass driver on the Moon has long been a dream of space exploration enthusiasts. It would open up so many possibilities for the exploration of our solar system and the possibility of actually living in space. Gerard O’Neill, in his work on the gigantic cylinders that now bear his name, mentioned using a lunar mass driver as the source of the material to build them. So far, we have yet to see such an engineering wonder in the real world, but as more research is done on the topic, more and more feasible paths seem to be opening up to its potential implementation.  One recent contribution to that effort is a study by Pekka Janhunen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute and Aurora Propulsion Technologies, a maker of space-based propulsion systems. He details how we can use quirks of lunar gravity to use a mass driver to send passive loads to lunar orbit, where they can then be picked up with active, high-efficiency systems and sent elsewhere in the solar system for processing. Anomalies in the Moon’s gravitational field have been known for some time. Typically, mission planners view them as a nuisance to be avoided, as they can cause satellite orbits to degrade more quickly than expected by nice, simple models. However, according to Dr. Janhunen, they could also be a help rather than a hindrance. Mass drivers have been popular in science fiction for some time.Credit – Isaac Arthur YouTube Channel Typical models of using lunar mass drivers focus on active or passive payloads sent into lunar orbit. Active payloads require some onboard propulsion system to get them to where they are going. Therefore, these payloads require more active technology and some form of propellant, which diminishes the total amount available for use elsewhere in the solar system. On the other hand, passive payloads will typically end up in one of two scenarios. Either they make one lunar orbit in about one day and then deorbit back to the lunar surface, or they end up in a highly randomized orbit and essentially end up as lunar space junk. Neither of those solutions would be sustainable for significant mass movement off the lunar surface. Dr. Janhunen may have found a solution, though. He studied the known lunar gravitational anomalies found by GRAIL. This satellite mapped the Moon’s gravity in great detail and found several places on the lunar surface where a mass driver could potentially launch a passive payload into an orbit that would last up to nine days. These places are along the sides of mountains, and three of them are on the side of the lunar surface facing Earth. Importantly, all of them have their gravitational quirks. The Artemis missions might be our best chance in the coming decades to build a mass driver on the Moon – Fraser discusses their details here. More time in orbit would mean more time for an active tug to grab hold of the passive lunar payload and take it to a processing station, such as a space station at the L5 point between Earth and the Moon. This active tug could be reusable, have a highly efficient electrical propulsion system developed and built on Earth, and only need to be launched once. All that would be required for the system to work would be a mass driver that could accelerate a payload up to a lunar orbital velocity of about 1.7 km/s. That is well within our capabilities to build with existing technologies, but it would require a massive engineering effort far beyond anything we have built-in space so far. However, every study that shows a potential increased benefit or lowered cost to eventually exploiting the resources of our nearest neighbor to expand our reach into the solar system takes us one step closer to making that a reality. Learn More:P Janhunen – Launching mass from the Moon helped by lunar gravity anomaliesUT – Moonbase by 2022 For $10 Billion, Says NASAUT – NASA Wants to Move Heavy Cargo on the MoonNSS – L5 News: Mass Driver Update Lead Image:DALL-E illustration of a lunar electromagnetic launcher The post Launching Mass From the Moon Helped by Lunar Gravity Anomalies appeared first on Universe Today.