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Space Exploration Act of 2002
orn writes "Rep. Lampson introduced a bill (pdf) (H.R. 4742) to the House on May 16th for a human space exploration initiative. I haven't heard a peep about it from the popular press, just a few articles on various space sites: SpaceRef's, the Planetary Society's, the Mars Society's. If you're interested in the sort of thing (and you live in the U.S.), contact your representative and let them know! While you're at it, figure out how to get the popular press aware of this..." On a related note is a story dicussing the controversy over whether the Moon should be developed, which seems a little premature to me.
the simpsons clearly said in a movie shown to lisa's class "By 1959 man will have established 12 colonies on the moon, perfect for galactic vacations"
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
We can get a cleanup crew to erase "CHA" off of it.
With its absence of atmosphere, temperature extremes and such, it would be prohibitively expensive to develop the moon. Furthermore, to transport building materials roughly 250,000 miles has to be difficult.
For that matter, why don't we develop Antartica as well? At least it has an atmosphere, and in parts, some wildlife.
I am the evil aardvark!
im guessing bush will shut this down and say it would endanger national security..
Carpe meam simiam!
Here.
...The time to declare the Moon a scientific preserve is BEFORE there are serious vested interests trying to develop it.
We already have some litter and junk up there... it took less than thirty years for junk orbiting Earth to become a serious problem.
I am sure there are corporations reading "The Man Who Sold The Moon" right now and wondering whether Heinlein's scheme for putting a visible corporate logon on the Moon is feasable.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Where should they go first? Mars...Europa? Maybe they could go to Uranus and plug the analog hole. Maybe take their big media bosses with 'em and plug each others analog holes.
the bill is just a political move designed to funnel money into Johnson space center.
Sending humans to an asteroid is not a "logical step" before going to Mars. It's much harder to land on an asteroid than on Mars. It's just as hard or harder to get to an asteroid as Mars... plus, it's really hard to stop at an atseroid as you have little gravity to help you capture into orbit at an asteroid, at mars you have gravity and an atmosphere..
Other things in this bill are silly too...
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a manned mission to Mars... but this bill is just a political trick, it specifies too many details designed to funnel money to the right places.
Could this be a response to China's initiative to put a base on the Moon? ANOTHER SPACE RACE!
Cool! It seems to be the only way to get funding for the space program.
What will make it happen is if there is money to be made by doing it. Otherwise no amount of lobbying and whining will make it happen.
The old saying, show me the money... that's what'll work.
And as for developing the moon? The first question that comes to mind is will the telco's have a flat rate for evening and weekend calls? Cuz I sure as hell ain't payin' $9.95 a minute to talk to my relatives on the moon, and I don't wanna sign up MCI MOON friends and family either...
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
That's just what we need, a bunch of money-hungry real-estate magnates cutting down all the trees on the moon and polluting all the pristine streams and rivers with their construction runoff.
Not to mention all the wildlife that is displaced by this kind of thing. And why? I mean, sure, housing may be more affordable further out, but the commute is always worse...
Phil
While you're at it, figure out how to get the popular press aware of this
Easy: explain to journalists that, if space travel really takes off, they stand to bag some of the best press junkets ever.
Information from the Planetary Society is here Also, the full text (not PDF) is here Also Florida Today has something here There's more, also. Just check Google.
All things in moderation.
If you were strong enough, do you think that a golf ball could escape the gravity of the moon? Does anybody know the math to that? How much force would need to be exerted on a golf ball at a 45degree angle to become free of the moons gravity?
The bill is a really good idea, unfortunately, it HAS to be kept quiet to succeed. Contact your representatives, yes Get your friends to contact their representatives, yes. Shout it from the rooftops, put it in the paper, get it on the nightly news, unfortunately, no. If the screaming whining masses find out there is a bill being proposed that actually involves spending money on something OTHER than doubling their welfare check, or throw the cash down some other bottemless pit of no-returns for society, all hell will break loose. To ensure the bill passes, make sure that your congressmen and women and vile creatures only hear heaps of praise and support for this.
...when my immediate reaction to hearing about a new, potentially very cool bill is to wonder how long it will be before the likes of Adam Schiff tacks on a digital rights management/copy protection rider.
"Astronauts will turn to music and movies for diversion during long space flights... we must act now to prevent rampant IP theft on the space stations and deep space ships of the future!"
Silly, I know... I don't normally wear a tinfoil hat, but nothing suprises me lately.
In most cases, unmanned exploration is cheaper, safer, and the better research tool.
However, human missions in space are a lot more exciting to the non-science community, and when it comes to getting funding, Congress doesn't care as much about good science as it does about good publicity.
So we underfund non-sexy stuff like supercolliders, oribiting telescopes, etc and yet we're always willing to dig deep to shoot John Glenn back up just for old times' sake.
Well, there's really nothing sexy about John Glenn, but hopefully you get the point.
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Long-term effects of Bush deficits
When obvious repeats appear on the main page, there's the urge to post that...
and I was all exited that there was actual developments to the story..
The Moon would make an excellent staging area for interplanetary trips.
1) The low gravity offers tons of advantages, including a way to simulate, say, the gravity on a moon of Jupiter.
2) The low gravity also allows boosters to be much smaller since they don't need to escape earth's atmosphere/gravity, and thus cheaper.
3) You can build much bigger things in 1/6 G since you've got 1/6th of the forces to deal with.
4) more volatile and thus more powerful fuels can be used because in the lack of an atmosphere, the threat of explosion is much, much lower.
Just some thoughts.
Frankly, even though we may be a little far off technologically, I think as a species a very important thing for us to do is set up a self-sustaining colony on mars. I know you'll say "fix your problems on earth too" but I think by then maybe it'll be too late. I'm not a paranoid guy or anything, but when you consider nuclear weapons, stellar objects, and now some people talk about self-replicated nanobots being a possible source of our doom, you should realize that we should have some sort of a backup solution. Think of it like backing up your hard drive. All this time we've been living here without any backups. A self-sustaining colony on Mars will probably cut the odds in ten of our entire species being wiped out in the next thousand years.
We can strip mine the other planets later
That is Bush Sr's Space Exploration Initiative? Bush Sr went to NASA and wanted to do something exciting in space. NASA came back with a hugely expensive proposal. Bush Sr *KNEW* it wouldn't get through Congress and only lukewarmly supported it. As predicted, Congress smacked NASA telling them 'uh uh no!'
We all love the idea of space exploration and colonization (or at least most of us here at slashdot do), but NASA really needs to have some fiscal and technical responsibility in order to do this.
re X-33: choosing the one with the niftiest tech and not one that had the best chances of success (MacDAC's proposal)
X-34: forcing the FastTrac engine into the program and killing it that way when the engine fell behind schedule. X-38: where NASA designed the thing and then told the contractor's 'build this now' instead of simply saying, 'We have a requirement for a vehicle to do this, that and the other. Build one and we'll buy it.'
ISS: NASA admits it doesn't have a handle on the costs here, not the least due to the fact that their accounting sucks rotten eggs.
While I would LOVE to see the NASA's logo on the Mars lander and the ole Stars and Stripes planted on Martian surface, the new administrator ahs his work cut out for him already cleaning up NASA. Throwing more money at NASA RIGHT NOW might be a bad mistake. After we see whether or not NASA has been cleaned up, oh yes indeed, go for it.
Before though might be a less than wise idea...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
I can see it now. Just funneling the money through a bunch of confusing loops and then have it come right back into our black hearted representatives pockets.
Well until they offer broad band on the moon, its going to be pretty dern boring up there. Maby someone will pull a Prince Roy and provide hosting up there with no laws.
Microsoft is advertising on slashdot AGAIN!
All those fucking source forge adverts are annoying too!
I thought Slashdot was the popular press. I feel so misled.
Read any good sonnets lately?
While you're at it, figure out how to get the popular press aware of this...
/. of course....
As opposed to
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
But she's worth the trouble.
As already stated - you don't transport construction materials there - just initial tools to use materials already present.
Developing more of earth is constantly under fire. The moon may not be less expensive in the long run. Especially if you put some value on maintaining the atmosphere around earth. Apparently we are currently damaging it w/all of our current development.
If nothing else it would be a good penal colony. (unless they revolt and sling rocks at us down the gravity well- nah! that could'nt happen!)
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
If you're interested in the sort of thing (and you live in the U.S.), contact your representative and let them know!
Sure, reply & tell them NOT to consider the measure.
First of all, look at the sponsors - almost all Lampson and a bunch of other Texans looking for a pile of cash ($50 mil next year & $200 mil in 2004, if you care to read the bill) to pour into Houston, Huntsville, Canaveral et al. I can smell the pork from here.
Second, $250 mil is NOT sufficient to get us to the aims of the bill (orbit an asteroid, orbit mars, etc), so this is just the key opening the door to more expenditures. This also relies on the idea that, for whatever reason, we NEED bipeds making orbits around asteroids & Mars.
Why? If anyone can tell me what in hell a human is going to do while orbiting an asteroid or Mars, other than look out the window and say "Cool" they win a cupie doll. I believe in sending up good satellites. I believe in innovative instrumentation. What I don't believe in is risking human life and probably tens of billions of dollars in toto for a damned boondoggle while we've got terrorists bombing buildings and one in six of us without health care.
Between the stupidity in general of hurtling someone out to Mars to do things machines to do very well without him and the whif of ham drifting across the plains of Texas I'm completely against it. Looks like Houston wants to beef up the space program to make up for the loss of Enron.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
After many and many stupid acts, this is an intelligent act. Space technology can always be applied down here on the surface, not talking about the experiments that can took place only in 0g.
To show how far the technology can advance, imagine the advances in the fisiotherapeutics when a group of astronauts stays 9 months in 0g and then another 6 monthsin 1/3g and back 9 months in 0g again.
Well, this is just an example. It's very important for the humanity, not just for US.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
My group is looking for investors in what is going to be a money making machine.
I don't want to divulge too much now - but just imagine this. A few strategically places nukes, used to hollow out massive caves inside the moon.
Then we build some lakes and condos in the caves!
Old people w/hip problems pay big bucks to live in a low grav pleasure world!
I'm gonna be rich.
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
When I look up "crazy" or "foolish" in the dictionary, I get "NASA"!
proof
Will I retire or break 10K?
I agree the moon is the perfect staging area and launch platform to the rest of the solar system.
With regards to those who want the moon kept "pristine" like Antartica, why don't we do this:
1) Develop half the moon in an industrial, commercial, and scientific manner (not in order).
2) Leave the other half untouched.
The moon rotates on its axis once every 28 days, it also happens to make one orbit around the earth every 28 days. Thus, we only ever see one side of the Moon from earth (light side / dark side does not refer to solar illumination)
So, the side we see, we keep pristine. The side we don't, we develop.
Added bonus, the dark side on the moon (the one we never see) is in the earth's RF shadow. All the better for radio astronomers, scientists, etc...
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Everybody interested in this should read John Budzinski's article of a few years ago on this topic. His optimism in this article sprung from the surprising turnaround in annual federal budgets from deficits to surpluses. In the last years of the Clinton Administration the Government took in more than it spent for the first time since 1969 and actually looked like we would start paying off the Federal debt accumulated during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s - a total of SIX TRILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT. But hey, Dubya won, tax cuts passed, and now the US is back in deficit spending. Now the GOP has got bills in Congress to raise the debt ceiling and it's back to business as usual... Not many people remember that the real thing that made Apollo possible was a net federal SURPLUS in the treasury from the boom in the 1950s - we had to spend the money on SOMETHING, and part of what we spent it on was going to the moon. We also spent it on Vietnam, touched the tarbaby, and BANG we haven't seen a net federal surplus in the Treasury since. Currently we have a net Federal deficit of SIX TRILLION DOLLARS and it is going UP. With Social Security threatening bankruptcy in the 2020s or 2030s, we probably won't ever get back to a surplus in the Trasury for a very long time... This basic structural difference in the US Treasury from the 1960s and the 2000s is why any talk now of getting to Mars is just a sham. I get very depressed on this subject. During the late 1960s and early 1970s as a teen, it seemed the sky was the limit and it was VERY exciting. Now, as a middle aged man, I truly believe I will go to my grave without ever seeing humans on another world again. I truly feel sorry for those alive today that never have seen humans walking on other worlds for real, not in the movies, and have NO IDEA of the uplift to the heart and soul it brings...
On the other hand, perhaps human missions in space are considered to serve purposes other than research. After all, a whole planet (I know. The moon isn't really a planet) has to have some use...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
As far as I can tell, the argument goes like this: "Let's see...we can move our pollution problems to a lifeless rock in outer space, learn more about life in space than we've ever known before, and advance the human race....or we can keep that lifeless rock looking purty and avoid all of the former. Hmmm, what to do?"
I don't know about you, but I think the guy trying to preserve the "pristine environment" of space is completely off his rocker. Space is not pristine, and never has been. Space is dirty, cold, dead everywhere we've looked, and full of things that can destroy organic life.
Human life, in any area, almost always alters the way things were before. If we have to, let's do our dirty work in space rather than here.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
Following the link from the article verifies that humans have spent less than 96 hours on the Moon's surface. Lunar Missions? Yes! Colonization? Sadly, I think that's a bit premature. As long as we're realistic about our goals I believe we can sell the general public on them. It's so easy for naysayers to point out the problems from the past, why not set some realistic goals and then accomplish them?
Why do I never get a fortune in my fortune cookies?
They don't seem interested in space or anything productive nowadays. Crime, terror, or sex is what the media likes.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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How much of that money do you think would actually have anything to do towards forwarding our space technology? You better believe our government and their buddies are gonna want a BIG piece of that pie.
No fucking way can you trust today's government with anything more than absolutly neccessary because they will steal it!
You can wax poetically about the marvels of discovering new things about space until you turn blue in the face. They will steal the money. And very little of consequence will be accomplished.
The turn of the century is gonna go down in the history books as a period of time controlled by self serving bastards. I've been wondering how many months a year I have to work to support the corruption in the government. How much of life is burnt away in accumulated scenerios like California buying 80 million dollars worth of 40 million dollar software. You want to give more moeny to these bastards? You go right ahead, I'm giving too much already.
When I was a youngster, I dreamed of zooming around in spaceships and meeting aliens.
Then I turned into an Angry Young Man and felt that we must tread lightly in the cosmos, and not pollute and exploit other planets the way we've plundered terra.
And then I started thinking about starting a family, and realised that as a human, my prime motivation is actually to make more humans. And then I thought about ice ages and planet-killer asteroid impacts (which are inevitable, not fantasy) and decided that we should say "Screw the fragile cosmos!", get our species' eggs out of our one fragile little basket and damn the cost in money and lives and ruined scientific study.
Who knows what I'll think as an old man. But right now, I reckon we should declare open season on other planets and start terraforming now. Because when the next ice age or asteroid hits, it'll be way, way too late to start, and as we've already plundered all of the easily available fossil resources, we can pretty much forget bootstrapping ourselves back out of the stone age.
Am I so very unusual in thinking that we should get real worried about these things now, while we've got the resources to do something about them?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It seems like this is the US reacting to China's Plan to create moonbases by 2010. It would be a MAJOR setback for the US if the Chinese were able to do it before the Americans. I mean, the US, the most scientifically advanced country lost the moon to the chinese.
But this brings up another problem. Who's jurisdiction does the moon fall under? It's just like legistlating the internet. Legistlators have to realize that just because there is a law doesn't mean that people will follow it. What they have to do instead is work with other nations and trying to come up with a consensus.
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"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
They have a lunar base in development, and will leapfrog the US just as Russia did with Sputnik.
You snooze - you lose.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
From there it's just a matter of time.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"You know," he says, "the moon is a stunningly beautiful place, and it shouldn't be defiled."
Good thing they think about protecting the beauty of a rock pile. Isn't the earth a beautiful place too?
It's the moon for god's sake. I say we do as he wants, but replace "moon" with "earth".
I doubt it'll ever hold up in any court, but could you imagine someone trying to develop the moon and having to deal with a lawsuit from this guy? Or worse, criminal trespassing charges!
Check out Chad's News
I agree that alot of good science is underfunded, but I don't think that manned missions are benefitting from it. I mean look at the space station, Congress is trimming billions from the program, as well as forcing them to scale back the number of shuttle launches a year. Add to that the fact that had funding stayed at levels from the mid 80s, a Mars mission would likely be already well under way. It just always seems like the first manned mars mission is like 15 years away. In the 80s they said we'd do it around the turn of the century, then in the 90s it was somewhere between 2005 and 2010. Now it looks like 2020. Well thats enough of my ranting.
While I'm all for science, the exploration of space et al., I'd still consider far more important to spend your time getting your representative in the senate to realise the insanity of such laws such as the DMCA and the SSSCA, and to hinder further steps down that lane. If you make your voice heard, better do it about someone worth being heard about.
The moon is a treasure trove of construction material which we can use to build a space infrastructure. Rick Steiner demonstrated that he has no idea what the issues are when he suggested building power stations in lunar orbit. Where is the material going to come from? Earth? Developing the moon is our next, most effective, step into space. Effective because with a little investment it would solve many of the problems keeping humans from staying in space. Because with a little investment companies could turn a profit from their operations in space, starting with selling lunar material here on Earth. Gone would be the argument that space exploration is a waste of money, that we have nothing to show for it.
On the other hand, the just introduced bill will do nothing to remove the waste of the national space program. It's just a continuation of the same program that only really worked when it was a race against the enemy. A program that treats space like a playground for scientists, keeping companies from actually doing something useful with it. Don't be swayed by the romance of space exploration, this bill will only keep you on the ground.
Foozone.org
didn't I read somewhere recently that China is in the process of building up their manned space exploration drive as well?
how much of this bill is the USA responding to such a clear challange to our championship on space exploration.
don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see man on the moon in 15 years. but hello, why don't we COOPERATE with teh chinese, instead of starting another space race...
that's right, I've been falsely accusing links of being goatsex for months. i dont know who this punk stealing my line is, but i hope you all recognize he's full of crap. the link in question goes to an actual text copy of the article on someone's personal site. if the link were actually to goatsex, it would look like this.
... maybe we should use some of these funds to clean up our own planet first.
No matter how much time and money we invest into space research, the earth still our home and we still need it to last quite a while longer.
Why all the talk about colonizing planets when space colonies seem such a more elegant solution? (more info here and here)
Before modding this as troll, please read the argument.
Summons images of Paul Revere, freedom, people standing up for what they believe in.
And what did the Patriot Act contain besides the heartfelt and emotionally powerful name? The constitution was more or less gutted like a fish. Would I be mistaken to assume the Constituion was something of significance in this country? If I am not mistaken, then calling that legislation the Patriot Act, was a purely insincere action.
And now, these jokers come up with something called Space Exploration Act of 2002, and all the sudden you're falling all over each other in support of the thing. When will you learn? Earth to "smart people". Hellllloooo..anyone home?
Nothing caught this kid's imagination like seeing Armstrong and Aldrin hopping around on the moon, back in 1969. For that matter, not long before I was glued to the TV on Christmas Eve listening to the reading of Genesis. Nor does that mention the Mercury and Gemini flights.
Maybe I'm not an astronaut, or a payload specialist, or anything like that. But doggonnit, I *AM* a professional in the technology industry! Reading science fiction as a kid, following NASA and Cousteau, and a general bent toward science, math, and machines led me that way.
The greatest value out of NASA is to engage the imaginations of a new generation, and give them one more gentle nudge toward the technological professions. Robots just don't do that quite as well as people.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Minor quibble, but "if you live in the U.S. contact your representative" ought to be "if you can vote in the U.S. contact your representative". We expatriate Americans can still vote, if only in federal elections.
Microsoft has $10 billion or so in cash lying around. Why settle for being the biggest monopoly in the history of Earth, when they could be the biggest monopoly in the Solar System? Actually they have enough cash - maybe this is their destiny. All future space exploration will be controlled, owned and managed by Bill Gates and co. They could even use their own software to manage their spacecraft, flight center, and bases. (Further saving costs.) "MS Moon"
O=='=++
It's not too early to come up with laws that will preserve the moon. Better too early than too late. Hell, we already had one large fast food corporation that wanted to have a pair of golden arches orbiting space so that everyone on earth could see them. If someone seriously proposed that idea, what do you think they would do to the moon if no one stopped them??
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
i am all for Space exploration, with Planet earth's track record of previous mass extintions, like the meteor that crashed in to the yuccatan peninsula 65 million years ago and killed off all the dinosaurs, and other mass extintions before that it is only a matter of time before it happens again and we will be the ones to go extinct, so we should setup a colony on Mars and work outward from there if the human race ever wants the chance to outlive planet earth, or some extraterristrial will someday dig up our bones and speculate what we were like...
So let's not go and explore. Let's go and /stay/. Robots don't make good colonists, and telescopes are just dreamin' of it.
:-)
We've got to get off this planet
"The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth." -- Bene Gesserit Precept
When you go to testify before the Congress, do not go in your Star Trek uniforms like your parents did!
They will not take you seriously unless you are wearing AUTHENTIC Star Wars gear. Make sure you keep those light sabers holstered too, that Capital security is pretty jumpy these days.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Well, it's either going to be the states or China that will colonize the moon first.
Perhaps, this senator realized that.
(This might also be an informative article)
~ kjrose
When Columbus and the rest started the wave of exploration that led to the settling of the Americas there were plenty of problems in Europe.
Their reason for heading west into the Atlantic were venal. They thought they would get rich hauling a couple of tons of pepper via a shorter route. They hit a much bigger mother load than Sumatran pepper.
Solve our problems first? There will be poverty, violence and heartbreak well into the future, regardless where we spend our money today. However, ya never know what might show up besides a hold full of spice...
Where have you been?
Everybody knows that the Moon landings were faked on Mars. We have already been there, so let's look at the Moon for real.
Let me think about this for a second. You insist on sending automated machines, that have to be preprogrammed by men for any and all possible problems that can occur on a remote mission to another planet millions of miles away, and you expect it to outperform a being who by design is able to react to unpredictable environments and abstract situations?
You Obviously haven't had much experience with automated machinery have you?
the worries about the mooon being totally overdeveloped are, in my opinion, unfounded. The moon is geologically dead, and there may be trace amounts of water located on the surface somewhere, but any development that will be done there will be with resources coming from other locations (i.e. Earth, Mars) and by the time that technology is around that converts geologically dead moon into viable construction material, we'll have little problems with garbage as well.
Right now, our need to accomplish has been turned inward, and our businesses are eating their own seed corn (shoddier products, more layoffs, bigger bonuses), while everyone else is looking for constant distractions, like what's at Blockbuster on Friday.
Working together to achieve something like landing on or colonizing the moon or another planet would only bring out the best in our society. Maybe all these highly technical people that our corporations seem to have no use for could contribute? Perhaps being a team player could be a positive goal instead of a cynical job "requirement."
We could use the advances in energy, information technology, engineering, biology and chemistry right about now anyway.
Hope is a powerful thing.
Robotic probes would still lead to the development of better launch and propulsion systems, so even going the robotic path, we would acquire the capabilities that make manned space travel affordable. In the long run, the use of robotic probes would not hold back manned exploration very much, but it would yield much more scientific data in the short run.
Actually I've been thinking about something like this for a while. I decided that if I had the $$ that BGates has, I'd hire NASA or the Ruskies to fly a dump truck load of sand and rocks into space and have them create a meteor shower for my kids' birthdays... what the hey, why not do SOMETHING with more money than you can spend in a lifetime.
Oh, and others could watch the show for free!
isn't even going to be enough to pay for all the digital watermarking cop-chips they're going to need on the A->D converters needed to get there...
3 7&mode=thread&tid=97)
(re: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/23/23552
I see posts here encouraging passing laws to prevent certain uses of celestial real estate.
Earth laws don't apply off earth, since ain't none of it anyone's territory.
Therefore, if one can get there and live, by default it's yours until someone comes along to kick you off of it.
And I tell ya, given the choice of living in space (with all it's cramped, dirty, dangerous conditions) or here on earth, I'd still take space. Call it an extreme anti-social attitude, but I just don't like %95 of humanity, and would rather not share air with 'em if I've got a choice.
Robotic probes are damned useful, got to figure out where to plant the mining charges and there's no reason why I should risk my ass in that process. Oh, you want me to preserve the pristine condition of this here ball 'o' rock? Sure thing pardner, just ship me a hundred tons a month of water and we'll call it a deal.
This is the golden age for scientific exploration, as far as contamination is concerned. One major breakthrough in fundamental physics, one world-shattering 'Eureka!', and we're off this rock. Your clock is ticking.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
Space Propulsion Engine for Flying Saucer - New Physics
Rumor in Silicon Valley -
Inventor of 3D volume holographic optical storage
shopping his concept for Space Propulsion Engine
to US and other countries.
for further look at biography background goto
www.colossalstorage.net
he is working in top secret and will not patent, publish or share concepts as he says no physicist or scientist he has ever studied or researched had this approach and knows his concept will work to give near light speed
travel thru Galaxy.
he says it is a mankind first concept !!
> I suspect there are technical issues they can work out with more manned missions to the Moon, however, there are a number of others they can only really scratch the surface of. How do you answer issues like bone density being lost, or muscle mass being lost?
The same way they've been addressing them for going on three decades now. Your comment about the first man on Mars not being able to walk is so inaccurate it's silly. Firstly, bone density loss and muscle atrophy are real problems in spacefaring, but they're long term problems, and a trip to Mars doesn't qualify as long term (although living on the Moon may present some of these problems, and living in an orbital station certainly can). More importantly, Simple physics and ship designs have made this whole problem moot. Design a ship with a rotating part (see "2001: a Space Odyssey" or "Mission to Mars" for good visual examples) and the people involved won't have to deal with low-grav-induced health problems, since the human body reacts the same way to inertia as it does to gravity.
Also, if you really, really, really want to pick nits, your legs wouldn't need to be as strong on Mars to support you as they would on Earth, so even with some loss of bone mass you'd be doing fine. 8)
Virg
China has plans to develop on the Moon.
The reason the US is now more interested is they don't want to be second on the Moon.
I love science fiction, but human exploration is definately less science than fiction. What a waste of time and money. If we really want to advance space exploration we should support bills that demand unmanned exploration, for farther reaching, more cost efficient, and more scientifically important results.
Once we do enough unmanned probes and actually understood more about space travel we can move on to humans in space.
manned space missions is nothing more than political pork-barrel meets photo-ops.
Or maybe you really believe in the necessity of Star Wars WWII-style dog fighting. Give me the swarms of attack satellites...
Vegan Assassin.
Remember what happened on Alderaan? Once nations develop the weapons capable of destroying planets there will be a massive arms race anyway.
Once there's an independent population of humans on the Moon, let them decide. Terrans can legislate the behavior of people who live on their planet, but they don't have the right to legislate for humans on the Moon, or elsewhere.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
mod the parent as informative
i loved the tick cartoon and i did not get the reference either (i think the joke was badly told).
I dunno, I've always been quite happy with Moon 1.0
"Space will be colonised - although possibly not by us. If we lose our nerve, there are plenty of other people on this planet. The construction crews may speak Chinese or Russian - Swahili or Portuguese. It does not take "good old American know-how" to build a city in space. The Laws of Physics work just as well for others as they do for us." - Robert A Heinlein
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
If we (as in the people of Earth, not just those from the United States) are going to explore, exploit, and colonize space effectively, we're probably going to have to do it cooperatively.
An international organization should be created now so that details and rules of exploration can be established. If we don't do this, we could end up with countries (or corporations) saying "I got here first, and I'll do what I want with it, and I don't have to share anything with you."
Space offers nearly limitless possibilities, many of which could be used to the benefit of everyone here on Earth. If we allow secrecy, greed, and selfishness to get in the way, not only will space exploration itself suffer, but the benefits available from space will be denied to many of us.
We plan to go there AND STAY THERE.
It's not about exploration. You might be able to make a case for unmanned vehicles for research (I would argue that you'd be wrong), but not for development.
Any arguments you might have about inhospitability, etc., apply equally well to Utah.
It's not like the Earth hasn't become an eye-sore to anyone looking at it from space.
I know I'll get flamed by all you space geeks, but dammit! The bastards in Washington continue to take money out of my paycheck to send to Israel, to study snail darters and send gabillion dollar rockets into space. How about letting me keep MY OWN MONEY and invest it as I see fit as a free man, or at a bare minimum, why not feed hungry people and clean up environmental waste and useful stuff like that!
In most cases, having sex within marital wedlock is cheaper, safer, and the better research tool.
However, human copulations in space are a lot more exciting to the non-science community, and when it comes to getting funding, Congress doesn't care as much about good science as it does about good copulation.
So we underfund non-sexy stuff like supercolliders, oribiting telescopes, etc and yet we're always willing to dig deep to shoot John Glenn back up just for old times' sake.
Well, there's really nothing sexy about John Glenn, but hopefully you get the point.
The fuel on rockets used to put people into space is some of the weakest rocket fuel around, if I remember right. That's a GOOD THING. If we powered the Space Shuttle (or future equivalent) with something akin to the fuel on, say, a Sidewinder missile, the accelerations involved would probably give us problems with dead astronauts.
/is/ still room for increases in power. As a recent Slashdot article pointed out, the accelerations your normal Joe/Jane experiences on a rollercoaster are much greater than the kinds of forces astronauts have to deal with.
Granted, there
Your post is the exact shortsighted cowardice and stupidity that has stopped us from being able to buy a ticket to the Moon in the year 2001.
Columbus would be so proud.
Your misguided belief that space is a waste of money is patently false:
Space has already proven to be profitable.
If you think not, get off of the Internet, which space technology makes more readily available, turn off your cable or satellite TV, hang up the phone, turn off your computer, and air conditioner, all of which were made possible or more practical through space projects.
Lets not forget all of the medical advances that microgravity could make possible. So much for your "lack of health-care" assertion.
Face the basic fact that Earth is essentially a closed resource base.
The more people on Earth means more demand for fewer and fewer resources. Do the math: a finite amount (resources) divided by the amount of people...
Lets not overlook the wars that will inevitably be fought over whats left as resources dwindle.
Think not? In the early 90's, did a UN coalition free the people of Kuwait from Iraq, or their oil? Even the answer "both" makes my point.
Colonization of a space is the only viable *long-term* future humanity has.
Start with solar power satellites, factories, and colonies in orbit. Use them as a staging point to colonize the Moon and strip mine the far side.
Leave the near side alone, I like looking at it.
Then on to Mars, the asteroids, and even the outer planets. Don't ever stop. Don't ever look back.
As for your needless fear of risking human life, I see no shortage of volunteers, including myself.
I just don't understand how you can be so hypocritical as to say you don't mind having satellites, then sabotage the very means that make them possible.
You want to reap the benefits of space?
More expenditures are what makes more technologies you take for granted possible.
"No bucks, no Buck Rogers."
It is said "the meek will inhereit the Earth."
Well, they can have what's left after humanity has moved outward.
Get your head out. Colonize space now.
Robots will NEVER be rockhounds, and that's who we need in space at this point.
Robots (hey this is just like on earth!) are great at helping humans, but they are lousy at figuring things out.
Wouldn't it have been great to just get up and WALK to that ridge beckoning in the background of the Pathfinder photographs? I bet the view was pretty amazing from there. I bet you could have seen some features that would (yet again) totally change our models of what happened on Mars, and in the process take another great leap forward in our understanding of planetary science.
Ask a robot to do that? Fugeddaboutit. If its batteries don't run out or it doesn't turn itself upside down trying to cross a boulder or its engineers didn't forget to convert inches to centimeters, then maybe in a week or two it will get to the top of the ridge and "image" the view. Want to look closer at that big boulder on the next ridge? The one with the line of lighter coloured material on it that looks like it was shaped by liquid flow? Wait for the next mission, sorry. The rover can't go out of LOS to the lander. Bah.
The problem was the Hydrogen slurry fuel tank design, not the linear aerospike engine.
Of course, there was no real need for making the fuel into a slurry -- that *was* blantant "niftiest tech".
Also, the selection of vendors was incorrect: I agree that the SSTO DC-X (Delta Clipper) was a much better design... and part of the reason it wasn't selected was the "cool engine" of the competing craft.
Too bad they couldn't have combined the technology; I guess that will have to wait 20 years for the patents to run out, or it can be done by a country that ignore U.S. patents (China?).
Any Moon/Mars mission would probably involve ESA, Japan, etc. Wouldn't the UN flag be more appropriate? I would hate to see a flag post planted on Mars with six flags on it.
Give me one example from history where we stopped expanding our horizons and benefited. A chinese emperor (forget which one) decided to stop exploring, dismantled the fleet, and waited for others to come to him. They did, in battleships. Until recently, to which country did Hong Kong belong?
Europe OTOH, embarked on a huge era of exploration (1400s and up) and to this day they (and their colonies) are the most powerful and wealthiest countries on Earth.
Now, do we stay home or do we expand? Without a frontier human societies stagnate.
P.S. Yes, I know the Native Americans (North and South) got the raw end of the deal. In space (our system at least) there is no one to suffer from our expansion.
they propose. Get a job and a life congress !!
The amount of money you have proposed for
mars research still has me laughing.
China and others more serious about spending
some money will see success.
Secondly, NASA needs to get their brain engaged
as I have never seen a bunch of comic physics
applications for propulsion !
As far as protecting the Moon or any other heavenly body away from Earth is unenforceable.
Whomever develops the propulsion of tomorrow will
be our master !!
"spent here instead of in space" (what a stupid idea... like the companies who build rockets are themselves already in space, and not "here")...
Keep my idiot neighbor from pouring his used oil down the storm drain?
Until you can solve that, the idea that the money needs to be spent on Earth won't really fix the problems on Earth.
You can't fix problems merely by throwing money at them (unless you are proposing to fund Seal Team 6 to assasinate the leaders of the military government in Ethiopia, in order to prevent them selling off food shipments before they get to the people who are starving?).
I had dinner last Thursday with one of the NASA engineers who actually built, with his own hands, one of the modules that has already flown to the ISS (International Space Station).
The ISS is a stunning example of why "International Cooperation" is absolutely the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a space program.
The only positive spin either of us could put on the multinational nature of the ISS is that, so far, the U.S. has been unable to stop space tourism, like they would have, had they been the sole proprietor of the place.
8-(