Chace Smith

AP English Language

2/5/24

Nasa Artemis Plan Document

“National Aeronautics and Space Administration ARTEMIS NASA’s Lunar Exploration

Program Overview.” Artemis Plan, May 2020, p. 78,

www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/artemis_plan-20200921.pdf?emrc=f4

3185.

The NASA Artemis Plan pdf covers a wide variety of topics, as well as the setup

process for a moon base. It starts off with the timeline of the Artemis missions and gives

a brief overview of what each mission will accomplish. The first couple of pages mainly

focus on the process of making the gateway between the moon and earth with HALO

and CLPS. With all of these processes in place, NASA could then use its HLS(Human

Landing System) to get astronauts on the moon. The overview of the entire Artemis

missions are; First CLPS missions, which survey the lunar surface for further

investigation in the future. Second VIPER mission, which is a rover to assess the

composition of the lunar polar soil. Third is the CAPSTONE CubeSat. This is a small

satellite which will set the basis for the HALO outpost. Fourth is the Artemis 1. This

rocket is to test most of the future rockets that are going to be launched to the moon.

Fifth is the PPE and HALO launch. These two components are the beginning of the

human outpost orbiting the moon. Sixth is the Artemis 2 launch which will put humans

the farthest away from earth we have ever been. The final stage of the Artemis plan is

the launch of the Artemis 3 rocket. This rocket will carry our astronauts to land on the

moon once again and for the first time, the first woman on the moon. The rest of the
document provides detailed information on how each of those steps will be enacted.

What NASA said its main goals were for going back to the moon were

“• Understanding planetary processes • Understanding volatile cycles • Interpreting the

impact history of the Earth-Moon system • Revealing the record of the ancient sun •

Observing the universe from a unique location • Conducting experimental science in the

lunar environment • Investigating and mitigating exploration risks to humans”(pg33)

This piece of evidence would prove to be very useful to me because it has plenty

of useful information such as: the plan for the Artemis missions including NASA’s plan

for a moon base. All of this proves my point for furthering a base on the moon for a long

period of time due to the information being from NASA.

The author is very credible due to it being NASA who wrote it. The document is

biased for going to the moon due to the nature of the company and its goals, however, it

should not be ignored that this was posted 2 years ago and the plan still holds true with

only a year in delays.

Reasons to Not send Humans back to the Moon

Levesque, Dan. Reasons to Not Send Humans Back to the Moon. 25 July 2019,

badphilosopher.com/reasons-to-not-go-to-moon/

This article attacks any organization trying to go back to the moon. They start it

off with saying we have been there already and would gain “nothing” from going back.

Then saying that there is nothing to discover there and that we should redirect our

efforts somewhere else. They say going back would be “foolish” and that no one would

ever want to live there and that we could just send robots back instead. They then end

the article by saying “But we don't celebrate the achievement of climbing Everest

anymore—the first confirmed summit was achieved in 1953. Every summiting of Everest
since then has built on the achievements of the past: what was once difficult has

become easier and commonplace.” Which is inferring that we went to the moon once,

so why should we even go back in the first place.

This piece is a great counterclaim against my argument. With this piece going

over why we should not go back to the moon, let alone put a moon base on it. They go

over multiple reasons why we should not go back to the moon, and they even throw in

that we should put a base on Mars instead.

Dan Levisque is a credible author of Bad Philosophy. He has some good points

in his argument but it is mostly opinionated. The article was published 5 years ago

which was a year before NASA posted their Artemis plan document.

Extraction of Metals and Oxygen from Lunar Soil

Extraction of Metals and Oxygen from Lunar Soil. 9 Jan. 2009, p. 12.

This article goes in depth about the process of extracting metals from the lunar

surface. There are many different graphs and charts going over the different ways and

strategies to extract metals and oxygen from the lunar soil. The article goes over the

more prominent minerals on the surface. The highest content of minerals are: “Silicon

22%, Aluminum 8%, Iron 8%, and Titanium 1%.” The means of extracting the materials

are slightly easy in theory. It is mostly heat and a potential atmosphere of carbon or

argon. Carbon is the cheaper option which still works in extracting the materials. All of

these strategies for getting these materials are very energy intensive and require a lot of

it.

This article can be useful to me for my essay because it gives me what materials

are on the moon, and how to acquire them. The process for getting the materials are not

that complicated but requires a fair bit of energy.

Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. It is very unbiased because it is

simply stating what is there and ways to acquire it. They Also work closely with NASA.

Space Faring, The Radiation Challenge

Space Faring The Radiation Challenge. p. 20. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

This article covers the challenge of radiation in space. It talks about different

building materials and how radiation works. It is a rather short, but useful article. It

details how we could use lunar surface material to shield astronauts and equipment

from radiation on the moon since it is higher than on earth. They have an ionizing and

magnetic shield that could be used to shield astronauts from radiation alongside dietary

needs and supplements.

This article addresses radiation and how to protect against it. This is useful to me

because it can pair with the previous source about what we can use to protect ourselves

from radiation.

This article is trustworthy since it was published by NASA. It is not biased

because they are just reviewing information about space radiation and how to best

combat the issue.

ISRU PILOT EXCAVATOR DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMOUS EXCAVATION

ALGORITHMS

Buckles1, B. C., et al. B. C. Buckles1, J. M. Schuler2, A. J. Nick3, J. D. Smith4, T. J.

Muller5, NASA Kennedy Space Center, [email protected],

[email protected], [email protected],

[email protected], [email protected]. p. 2,
 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20220005125/downloads/SRR-Autodig-2022-v

3.pdf. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.

The article covers the strategies that NASA uses to come up with a rover that

can dig the regolith on the moon autonomously. The rover can collect mass that is

required very accurately. The robot can function autonomously and can be controlled

from the safety of the moon base(testing site). The rover collects mass wildly in the

beginning of the mining with large amounts of error in the mass wanted; but then when

it reaches the end of the requested amount of material, it has a 0% error margin and

collects exactly how much was wanted. Even if the rover encountered a problem, it

would be as simple as going out there and moving some small rocks out of the way.

They may have an auto correcting script to be played when the rover is in trouble.

This article is useful to me because it shows me that autonomous rovers can be

operated on the moon and can be used to harvest material from the lunar soil with

minimal astronaut involvement. This supports my claim that a permanent human

presence on the moon can be achieved, and made easier with help from robots.

The article is very credible coming from NASA and their engineering department.

They are unbiased because they are simply making a robot to harvest the lunar soil and

collect it for later. They mostly just have data and what type of programs they used to

make the robot work.

Farming on the Moon

Farming on the Moon. ESA,

www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2023/02/Farming_on_the_Moon. Accessed

22 Feb. 2024.
 This article talks about the ways to farm food on the moon. It covers the topic of

processing regolith and taking those extracted minerals and dissolving them in water to

then feed a hydroponics farm. This would help my point because it shows that we can

obtain food on the moon from lunar soil. Hydroponics is a very efficient way of getting

varied food and nutrients from a simple system. ESA members have also successfully

grown beans from lunar soil to prove that it was possible.

This will prove useful to me because it provides information on how to farm on

the moon using lunar soil. This will be vital to any longer term presence anywhere;

especially on the moon.

The source is credible because it was published by the European Space Agency.

It was published about 2 years ago.