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30 Years Since Last Man on the Moon
Honeydipper Dan writes "December 14 marks the 30th anniversary of the last man on the Moon . I haven't noticed any hoopla about this. Perhaps this event raises the subtext of why we haven't been back a little more than the first Moon landing's 30th anniversary did over 3 years ago. The Apollo 17 mission was a great success, however, and deserves to be remembered. It marked the first (and last) time a geologist was on the surface of the Moon. Meanwhile, NASA is commemorating the Wright brothers' flight of December 17, 1903, getting ready for next year's Centennial of Flight."
Apollo 17 represents one of the largest missed chances in American scientific history. What would have been the "science" missions in the Apollo series (18-20) were scrapped because the American TV public didn't want to tune in anymore.
Ugh. It burns me up every time I think about it.
Well, the Space Shuttle is one of the main reasons. It can't go to the Moon, and NASA billed it as the ultimate wonder ship, the future of space travel. So, they can't really go back to capsules. Nothing as heavy and general-purpose as the Space Shuttle can make it to the moon in a reasonable amount of time without costing an arm and a leg. Maybe if we had something like a NERVA engine, but we don't.
If I remember correctly, the first and last man on the Moon were the only ones to be civilian. All the others were from the military.
:)
I find this interesting, but perhaps I'm wrong, so please correct me.
we celebrate 40th anniversary of first dog in space.
The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of real NASA achievement. Even the great advancements of the late 90's were just carry-overs from the CCCP vs NASA era. Until China or the EU becomes a real "threat" in the era of space exploration, we won't see any more moon landings.
I'm not really up with the history, but wasn't your good friend and mine Richard Nixon largely responsible for cutting the program, amongst the other acts of bastardry committed in his name?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
This is only a big deal if the government has pulled the wool over your eyes and made you believe that the moon landing wasn't a bunch of barbie dolls dressed up in tinfoil, in front of a painted moon backdrop, with a guy from NASA making rocket noises into a microphone!
Now to spread the message to the rest of the world before the black hel!@#!@$()@!*$()W*DAWDWAOIFHWAOIFJWEDOIKAW
NO CARRIER
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
The private market will more or less take over the moon, and NASA isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
The last mission was a treaty mission with the martians. I know, I know, martians on the moon? Really it was the best neutral ground to perform negotiations. We simply gave up a few insignificant earthly possessions. This included but not limited to: cow and other livestock mutilations, rights to human extraction and experimentation, and artistic grants with respect to indentures in agricultural area's. With the latter in mind we had no idea it would get so out of hand.... something about an open sourced method they spoke about.
In return for all of these great gifts the aliens gave us excellent insight into the mysterious and powerful microprocessor. While it has taken all of this time just to fully understand and develop from those early examples.
However, it seems to be time to renew the contracts being as the aliens added the Moores Law clause. Damned tricky devils.
Don't worry though, with our next encounter, we are a great deal more advanced now with regards to patent and contract law.
The scorn of the universe really is the lawyer!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I'd like to think that the "last man on the moon" is an event that won't happen for a few more tens of thousands of years. 30th anniv. of the most recent trip to the moon, I'd accept.
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
There's a good book called Moonseed by Stephen Baxter that involves the last moon landing. It's very interesting and the basic gist (to get you interested) is that Venus explodes in recent times and strange events start happenning on Earth.
internet like monkeys'
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I don't see how we (as citizens of all nations) will go to the moon again. Right now, the focus of the world is on war. Nobody wants to bring up expensive projects up: just look at the ISS, and how people are saying that it is a monstrous waste of money, for America, Russia, and everyone else who is involved. Going to the moon will not bring anything to America. As the saying goes, "been there, done that". It is no longer about a "race" with the Russians, there is nothing to prove.
The only people who might want to prove something, are nations like Japan, China, India and perhaps the ESA. They haven't been to the moon, and they want to prove to the world that they are at a sufficiently advanced technological level that they can do it. Plus they have the bright minds to think of a brilliant and probably cost effective plan.
As for America, I think that our generation (children of the boomers) is lost. We emerged from the greed-filled, "me-only" days of the late 20th century, but our attitudes have not changed. We still like our SUVs, our fast food, but at the same time we like to have our government "lean and cost-efficient". Perhaps our children will awake with a new sense of wonder and will realize the dream of returning to the moon, and perhaps of going beyond to Mars, etc.
Veni, vidi, vici.
Do we really need any more manned missions to the moon? What research can we do with live people that we can't do with cheaper, lighter remote probes? The only real purpose of sending men to the moon was an ego boost for the US during the cold war. Further manned missions to the moon would be an expensive and completely unnecessary venture, unless we finally get around to colonizing the moon. But then, what would be the point of that? Just for fun? Maybe build a huge observatory there that won't be obstructed by an atmosphere?
Repeal the DMCA!
I'm almost certain that the wackos that claim that the moon landing was a hoax see this as no suprise; why commemorate something that (according to them) never happened? Unfortuately, the real reason that it was forgotten was that with so much going on here at home (holidays/family/state of the world in general) space in general is low on my (and many others) priority list.
"Just yesterday, I met people who still believe that we landed on the moon and that the whole thing was real.
What's truly incredible is that such believably informed rationalism would still exist."
ok, i myself believe it, but just trying to show that the non believers arent stupid, what if they are right?
Surprisingly, since Apollo 17 left 30 years ago there were not only no further manned missions, but also almost no further robotic missions. The Moon became a "been there done that" world, when in fact there are still a huge number of mysteries about it.
Apollo could only scratch the surface: they had to be very careful about safe landing spots which favored the relatively rare Mare regions, they couldn't dig more than a couple of meters into the surface, they didn't go anywhere near the poles or the far side, which have quite different terrain and likely mineral deposits, etc. Despite some evidence of volcanic activity only Apollo 14 landed in one of the regions of volcanic interest, and the crew there were the least geologically educated of the lot so the samples taken were not terribly useful. etc. etc.
We have more high-resolution pictures of Mars than we do of the Moon - the only really high-res shots (1 meter or better) were from the Apollo command modules as they circled, and those cover just narrow strips of the Moon's surface.
Missions since Apollo amounted to a handful of Russian Luna missions through 1974, then a long gap, a Japanese experimental flight (HITEN) in the 1980's, and Clementine and Lunar Prospector in the 1990's. Clementine was run by the Dept. of Defense, not NASA, and Lunar Prospector was Alan Binder's baby at Lockheed Martin, done on the cheap for $60 million. That's basically the total NASA spending on the Moon since Apollo - less than 2% of the cost of the Mars missions that have failed!
NASA's negelect of the Moon seems to be continuing, but scheduled for next year we have at least 1 government (ESA's SMART-1) and 1 private (TransOrbital's TrailBlazer
) mission on track. The Japanese space agency also plans a Lunar-A mission that may launch next year. So things are starting to look up!
And for those interested in a exploration and development of the Moon, why not join the Moon Society!
Energy: time to change the picture.
we have not been back to the moon because we were never there
What reason do we have to go back to the moon? Please dont say to poplulate it yet.
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Last as in:
"3. Just past; most recent: last year; the last time I checked."
Not:
"1. Being, coming, or placed after all others; final: the last game of the season."
dictionary.com
To anymore who can make the moon would land on Soviet Russia.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
I hope a planet-killing asteroid hits the middle of the Pacific and vaporizes a few billion gallons of water right before cracking the crust of the planet, turning the entire surface molten. At least, that's how I feel before coffee.
It's the truth because it was on TV!
Remember people space still is a race, just not as hotly contested as before.
=If life was easy, i would be out of a job=
Losers keep whining about going back to the moon. To do what, take pictures of each other, play expensive golf, and bring back tons of useless rocks. We need to stop spending money on NASA period and start spending it on HUMANS. While people fuck around with billions of dollars with the useless international sex station single mothers are dying in the street homless and alone.
The only civilian to walk on the moon was Harrison Schmidt, geologist on Apollo 17, but not the last to step off the surface.
Later elected to the Senate
This space available.
that was some good LSD.
http://www.breakpointmedia.com/
But we can't spend that same $200 BILLION to open up space. You want to distract folks from the shitty assed economy? Spend that money on a space program. "We'll colonise the Moon!"
Pumping that much green into a space program and supporting programs (like EDUCATION) can fuel a renaissance in science and buck up the economy, realise orbital microwave power stations, and will spawn countless spin-off technologies.
Isn't that something to get patriotic about? Something to unify the country about? Something that will make our neighbors look upon us as friends rather than some dillhole bully that's going to whack them and steal their stuff?
We haven't been back and that's just fine because we have problems at home to fix.
On the other hand, I don't believe that's entirely right thinking. It might do us good to expand on other fronts a little and do some multitasking.
Start Running Better Polls
There is no forseeable need to go back to the moon in the immediate future.
The point of the original "space race" was a competition between the USA and Russia for "control of space". In that, to say, in a war between the superpower the moon would have been a dangerous site if one side were able to place milliles on it. For that reason, it was essential we demonstrate our ability to reach the moon whenever we want to. Now, if anybody attempts to "take over" the moon, we are confident we have the ability to send up people to shut down that operation if need be.
In its modern form, the reason why the US Government funds NASA is because in solving the problems faced by space missions, solutions are developed that have practical earth-bound operations. NASA's doesn't just do research for research's sake, they're doing research to hopefully discover things that improve the American way of life. Experiments that require microgravity can be done in earth orbit, why do we need to go back to the moon?
While going to the moon is a cool idea, the idea turning the moon into a Disney-like tourist trap for the common man is something many earthlings find repulsive. Let's leave the moon alone and not mess with it when we don't need to.
That's probably also how we should explore Mars: keep a control crew in orbit and only land mobile robots, controlled via telepresence from orbit.
They stifle our dreams and empty our wallets. They tell us it's wrong to risk our lives to achieve something great and that there are more important objectives than furthering the survival of our species through science and exploration.
-ISS shutdown in progress.
-Shuttle ages, replacement is where?
-budget goes to zero as perpetual war "against terrorism" kicks off and nation becomes more "secure"
-Centinial of flight!
Welcome back National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics! The future is much where you left it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"...that's no moon"
- Meanwhile, NASA is commemorating the Wright brothers' flight of December 17, 1903, getting ready for next year's Centennial of Flight."
Ha! Do you really believe in this stuff? If you look at the photos of the Wright Brothers' flight, you can see that they've obviously been faked with Adobe Photoshop. The shadows point in the wrong direction, and there are numerous other inconsistencies.Find free books.
Interferometers.
Discover water for fuel and life.
Geology.
And the thrill. Why?
Why not?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
It's interesting to see how long we'll have you conspiracy believers around.
I'd rather ask you what reasons we would have to return, or in your case why would you ever want to go there? It's a dead planet. If they planned on building something there, it might get interesting (albeit costly). But just sending people there for the heck of it? I don't think so.
I wouldn't mod you up, but I wouldn't waste points modding this down. The theory is interesting, just not *that* interesting.
There are a lot of scientific reasons to go back to the Moon - first a lot of questions about the Moon itself, and the early history of the solar system that can be learned from lunar cratering. Of most interest in this is the South Pole - Aitken basin, which is mostly on the far side; the south polar regions of this very deep basin have craters that may hold water ice and other cometary debris. But the basin material is itself of some geological interest, and a sample-return mission to this area was listed as one of the highest priorities in planetary science in the recent NRC decadal survey.
:-) Retirement to the Moon's low gravity might become a major draw as well.
Second, for science, is the potential of the Moon as a platform for observation of the rest of the universe. A lunar telescope has the same lack-of-atmosphere advantages of Hubble, but could be constructed much larger than is possible for a free-space telescope (with current technology) with use of in-situ materials. This is particularly important for infrared and ultraviolet/x-ray astronomy, for which much of the spectrum is almost completely attenuated in the Earth's atmosphere and space is the only real option. It makes a lot of sense to base the next generation of space telescopes on the Moon, though I have not seen much movement in this direction, other than some early-stage proposals.
Space solar power is considered by many to be the only long-term solution to Earth's energy needs that meets both global energy and environmental requirements over the next 50 years. Making use of lunar materials, possibly even generating the power on the Moon, is the only realistic option for building these things on the scale needed. If this globe could ever manage to get its act together and move beyond carbon-based fuels to invest in the future, the Moon has a major role to play.
Finally, space tourism has been in the news, and private companies are starting to look at orbiting hotels and lunar excursions - for those who can pay of course. With the right price, demand can be expected to be huge
So the Moon has a bright future - if we could just pay it a bit of attention with all the other distractions the world has to offer these days!
Energy: time to change the picture.
We try to land on the sun... after it sets. No, wait, that's a joke about Polish people (for some reason.) (Yes, this post was kind of politically incorrect... so it'll probably be modded down. Oh well.)
I've said it before here, and I'll say it again now: I think it's a disgrace that we've not been back to the Moon in 30 years.
I find it really annoying to read about these chicken-shit science experiments they conduct on the Shuttle or ISS about things like plant reproduction in zero gravity. Whoop-dee-do. If we had made a concerted effort to build and maintain a moon base over the past 30 years, I bet we'd have learned way more than we have so far.
The moon is there. It's an island in the sky. It's a natural satellite of our planet. It's begging to be populated.
I will be very excited the day I see another man step foot on the moon. I hope I live that long.
I just read the article and contemplated the photographs.
Wow.
My entire life has passed without a human stepping foot on the Moon.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
It's been 100 years and 9 months since the first man-made powered flight, made not by the Wright brothers, but Richard Pearse, a New Zealander. On March 31st, 1902, he flew a short distance with a primitive aircraft powered by a petrol engine. Some argue that this wasn't really technically a 'flight', however he made several more in the months before the Wright Brothers officially got off the ground, including one over 1km long. Resources are abundant on Google but here's an interesting one So the NASA Centennial of Flight will be 21 months late... unless of course they are merely celebrating coming second. Richard Pearse is relatively unknown outside of New Zealand, thanks largely to the United States who refuses to admit to the truth.
We're not safe. We'll never be "safe".
You cannot prevent another 9/11 type attack. You cannot make America "safe" no matter how many jackbooted thugs you put on the street, no matter how many unconstitutional patriotic-sounding acts you pass, no matter how many citizens you spy on, and no matter how many informants you recruit.
9/11 is a direct result of American foreign policy. The United States funded, armed, and trained the asswipes that planned that attack.
The best way to ensure that something like 9/11 never happens again is to (drum-roll) turn American foreign policy on its ear. Stop invading other countries, stop overthrowing other countries governments, stop murdering their leaders, stop stealing their natural resources.
I'm all for rooting out the ones responsible for 9/11 and seeing them receive a fair trial and just punishment, whether they lurk in a cushy Washington D.C. office or in a dank Afghani cave.
It's relatively easy to go back to Moon these days. Probably not yet in the reach of space tourists, but - almost...
Russians are selling tours to ISS for about $20 millions. If you'd take this approach, you can end up with something like this:
- Proton rocket (yes, I know, the booster failed lately), for about $70 millions
- Briz-M booster - about $10 millions?
- Soyuz-U rocket & Soyuz spacecraft - $65 millions
So for about $150 millions you can fly around the Moon with all existing components. Entering/leaving Moon orbit and, of course, landing on the Moon are extras, but $150 millions in 2003 are still better, than $25 billions (for the whole program) in 1969.
It is clear to me that moon exploration was abandoned not for political or scientific reasons, but because the critical resource sought--cheese--was found only in very small and unfonduable nuggets.
The 1953 development of Cheez-Whiz sparked an explosion in industrial demand for malleable cheese. Due to the perceived economic cheesemine in orbit, the space program was accelerated, principally by the ironically un-cheesy JFK.
By 1973, malleable cheese was reaching its zenith. Fondue pots outsold crockpots for the first--and last--time in US history.
Unfortunately, even with a trained geologist aboard and a specially-designed slightly cheesy vehicle at their disposal, the Apollo 17 mission was unable to find any sufficiently malleable cheese to justify future missions.
In a moderately successful effort to recoup their immense investment in cheese research, NASA leaked a derivative food-preparation technology to the market, leading to that year's introduction of the Cuisinart.
Subsequent experiments in using the Cuisinart to process traditional cheese have proven relatively disappointing.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing
In the immortal words of George Mallory: "because it's there"
Well, what would be the answer to the question "why do you want to climb a mountain again"? Because it's still there?
The simple fact is that the Moon isn't all that interesting a place. We can do all the science we need with satellites and robotic probes. The idea of a 'moonbase' is preposterous if you think about it a bit. Why spend the enormous amounts of energy to escape the Earth's gravity well only to drop your payload into another one? Earth orbit is a much better place for a 'base' to stage missions to other parts of the solar system.
Which really only leaves one reason to go to the moon: to prove that you can. Well, we did that already.
Now Mars, thats a different story. There is good science to do there that we can't realistically do with today's robotic probes. While implausible, the idea of a permanent human settlement is at least a lot more likely than one on the Moon. And perhaps the best reason to go to Mars: because we've never been.
Trouble is, we probably don't quite have the technology yet. But now would be a damn good time to start developing it.
NASA has the mission summary here.
I noticed this anniversary was comming up because I just wrote a report about human based exploration. From what I found on the web, it seems radiation is what is stopping us from going to Mars. Near Earth we are protected by a magnetic feild, however the Moon, and Mars don't produce this field, so we need to take shielding with us. [A new movie is based on the molten metal core of Earth; I noticed it in the theater today before ST X] Polyethyelene is a very good radiation shield, because it has so much Hydrogen in it.
I expect the next missions to the moon to be robotic. However we will go back and set up a lab there. It makes much more sense, than shooting for a 2 year mission to Mars with untested technology and ground crews.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I Agree With This Post
Writers imply. Readers infer.
The landings on the moon was a technological aberration that only occured at great expense in money, manpower and time. For example, if Queen victoria had thrown enough resources at Charles Babbage, they might have created a computer as powerful as the first electric computer. this would have been a technological achievement at the time as landing a man on the moon. Even if babbage and whatever people were on his team had succeeded, the technological underpinnings for a practical computer were not in place yet. Eniac may have been built in the 30s or late 20's instead due to the leaps from the project, but it wouldnt have started the revolution itself. The same can be said for the apollo program. Many technologies were advanced due to the program, fuel cells, computers, powder based drink mixes, but the ability to travel to other planets wasnt one of them. Also keep in mind that these things take time. The Americas werent colonized in 1493, or 1494 or 1524. The first real colonies came in the late 1500's and colonization began in earnest in the early 1600s, over 100 years after it was proven that america could be accessed reliably from europe by sea. Space is at least as hostile an environment to us now as the sea was to sailors in the 15th century. We will get into space, but i t will take time, and we will go there for the same reason europeans came to america: to get rich. Just as soon as they figure out how.
so there's no materials there to build things out of (like radiation shielding, for which the more mass, the better, basically...)
:-)
The reason for dropping in on the Moon is because the Moon has an enormous mass of material that is in a much shallower gravity well than Earth's (and twice as shallow as Mars' as well). The only reason for using lunar resources is to provide the materials needed for long-term habitation of deep space. That means mining, and industrial activity, on the Moon. It'll happen, count on it!
And join the Moon Society if you want to be a part of it
Energy: time to change the picture.
Why are you posting to slashdot when you could sell your computer and donate to a single mother? Clearly, you need to stop spending money on computers period and start spending it on HUMANS.
Get a clue. Not one person is poorer because the US went to the moon. Certainly not one person is dumber because the US went to the moon. Those who would argue that we should "solve problems here first" would have us live in a slate-grey, dead-eyed worker's paradise where nobody ever did anything inspiring or monumental for fear of wasting money. Nothing in the world galvanizes or inspires people like space flight. The Apollo program stands today and will stand for centuries alongside the greatest accomplishments of humanity, to inspire us and remind us that we can do amazing things if we put our minds to it. For however much was spent, that's a bargain.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Long ago, the 'evil' communists known as the Soviet Union dared to put a satellite, a dog, and a man in space. This was unacceptable! They might place nuclear weapons in space next! If that happened, why, they'd take over the world, and we'd all be drinking vodka instead of cheap american piss-water. Errm, I mean, Budweiser.
Anyhoo, some chap by the name of Kennedy, who was more of a man-slut than Clinton ever was, said, "Screw the Russians - we're going to the moon! Pow! Straight to the moon!" The people loved him for it.
The moon. Long has it been an object of speculation for humanity. Was it really made out of cheese? Were there aliens on it? Was that a man in the moon, or a lady in the moon?
Much like the ancient Romans cheered Caesar for his bread and circuses, Americans cheered Kennedy for his tang and rocket launches. And then he was assassinated, likely by members of his own government. He could do no wrong, and frankly, he could've probably declared himself Emperor. We all know Emperors are bad things to have if you're a senator.
Anyhoo, we got to the moon. And people were rejoicing and dancing in the streets. Aside from some nuts who insisted it was all a plot by the oligarchy of the commucapitalist far right and slightly to the side wing. Or something like that. They were largely ignored.
So we went to the moon again. And people cheered.
And again. And people did the golf clap.
And again and again. And people yawned. Except for the missions where astronauts came close to or were turned into fertilizer. The people booed then.
The fool's ideology eventually set into humanity. They no longer gave a rat's ass about space travel? Amidst endless wars and the constant threat of full nuclear strikes from the USSR, people cried, 'Shouldn't we fix things down here, first?!' A few religious nuts probably added fuel to the fire, insisting that a rocket might end up hitting God's pinky toe, causing him to destroy the earth. Ever have a stubbed toe? Their righteous ramblings made a lot of sense to those that have.
NASA tried to generate interest again. They revealed the space shuttle, which wasn't so much a shuttle as it was a ridiculously expensive inefficient platform for getting into space. But it looked cool!
People were kind of interested in this, because there had been a rush of science fiction movies over the years, and the shuttle looked kinda like an actual space ship. Then NASA got greedy, tried to leech off some more publicity, and sent a teacher up on one of the shuttles. It exploded in a rain of hellfire. And the people lost interest in space again.
This sort of thing continued to the present day. We now have the undermanned and useless ISS. Geeks often confuse it with Microsoft's IIS, which breaks down less often and is generally more useful to humanity. Sad, that.
Why haven't we been back to the moon? If we could do it so long ago, we could do it now. Why haven't we been to Mars? It isn't for lack of technology - have we become so cowardly that no one is willing to dare the unknown and risk their life for exploration?
I urge you all to help fund private space flight, or, at the least, pray to your respective deities that some other country beats the living shit out of NASA and builds a moon base.
And now, we'll play name that speaker! Tonight's quote is:
"There's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars."
Who said it?
Being a baffled Foreigner to American Humor and Customs, I won't presume to know for absolutely certain if the previous poster was very serious or not when suggesting that the gubmink dun pulled a fast one on the world for 30 years with the old Art Bell chestnut, THE MOON HOAX.
o rg/
If you listen to these people, Human Space Travel is impossible on account of astronauts getting microwaved in the Very Deadly Van Allen Belts.
Further, the lunar laser ranging reflectors placed on the lunar surface by astronauts on the six manned landings are fictious (albeit used every day by astronomers (no doubt "in on it") gauging the Earth-Moon distance), and the returned moon rocks from the same missions, studied in universities and research institutions all over the world (Including former adversaries China and the Soviet Union and East Bloc countries during the cold war) - are fake.
You getting the picture? According to the Art Bell people with tinfoil hats, all those research institutions, observatories and science labs worldwide are "In On It", and have for thirty years been faithfully colluding with the United States gubmink, to flawlessly stage and engineer this grand deception. Not to mention that the hundreds of thousands of people who built the Apollo project and the giant moon vehicles in the 1960s are all no doubt gubermink stooges.
Please visit this site for a solid debunking of all such speculation:
http://www.clavius.org/
More good stuff to unclutter minds:
http://www.badastronomy.com/
http://www.randi.
http://www.nasastooge.fsnet.co.uk/
Regds.
Misplaced modifier. Should read as follows:
I didn't understand why we hadn't been back more than the first moon landing's anniversary
Regards,
John, once again lamenting the human condition
Falling You -- exploring the beauty of voice and sound
Falling You - beautiful
Um. .
Some people won't back down to bullying, no matter the cost.
The reason we can't go back to the moon is simple. Our technology has advanced so much that the very equipment that was used to fake the moon landing is now so outdated that it would look absurd! If they tried it using new technologies, people would easily see the difference.
It's like the Star Wars remakes. Technology has advanced so much that watching the two side-by-side the new ones, though cooler looking are still more unbelievable.
Flame bait? Sure, but with on ounce of truth included.
Its all just smoke and mirrors.
The ISS can't build a fucking moon rocket. Have you read ANYTHING lately? The three people up there can barely keep the place running, and what little time they have is eaten up watching ratarded science experiments because some retard scientist in Penn State wants to know how fast lima-beans grow in zero-g.
Please send more earth men to the moon. If more earth men are on the moon the moon will taste good. Like seasoning on popcorn but on a cosmic scale. I promised Surfer I would not eat Earth but I said nothing of the moon!
need a test area
You got it wrong!
Not only have the Americans bee nto the moon, but they also made us believe that the Apollo program was cancelled to make us feel it was worthless to go there. That way they can continue the construction of their military space station* on the dark side of the moon.
*Why did you think NASA cuts budget for ISS? They don't want to spend too much money to help a toy project that may compete with their military space base but they couldn't refuse to participate, so they went in and tried to sabotage the project from inside, making it look like the incompetence that they have been faking since the 70's**. They even bribed the Russian space agency, now that they also are capitalist pigs, so that people wouldn't put all the blame on them.
**Why do you think that so many Mars missions failed in the last few decades? It's because they wanted to get ultra secret gear there and if people believe that what they sent there was destroyed it won't be suspicious like if they had sent something without a cover story and every astronomer would have asked what it was.
Note: It's supposed to be funny but it's 5.20 AM, I didn't sleep yet and I'm French, so if it isn't funny I got some excuses, so give me a break, okay?
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Good thing we're leting the Chinese take a shot at it so they can establish nuclear pre-emptive missive bases for the benefit of all mankind :D
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Another reason we don't explore the Moon is because we still haven't explored 75% of our Earth which are the oceans. Why establish colonies on the Moon when we can do it in our own backyard? I wouldn't mind living 2 miles underwater, just as long as I'm not on a fault line. As for the Moon, we will use it for its resources.
Land on a planet.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
ok, i myself believe it, but just trying to show that the non believers arent stupid, what if they are right?
Well, if they are right, then the rest of us will be shamed, laughed at, and made to look like the fools. Then hopefully life will go on.
Seastead this.
and the American Geophysical Union! Eugene Schumaker, comet finder extraordinaire and major player in the Apollo missions, spent his life with USGS.
:-)
Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets is a major journal on the study of the composition and geological history of the Moon and planets in our solar system.
So geology hasn't been restricted to study of the earth for quite a long time now
Energy: time to change the picture.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
Well, before 30 years, they made it clear that they could land on the moon. Several missions there fed the public's appetite till popular culture of mankind extended its jurisdiction to include the moon in our civilizations. That was worth spending billions of dollars, now they just dont need to do anything else there, at least nothing on the scale that would pin the whole planet to their boob tubes.
Theyre thinking of mining there or finding water. Or even better. I'm sure most of the slashdot crowd would accept paying slightly higher taxes to make that happen, but the tired factory worker or the bankrupt wall-st investor couldnt care less about the composition of rocks on moon.
Perhaps sending people to Mars will bring the same kind of thrill, but still would'nt be the first big break from gravity, going to the first heavenly body we were'nt born on.
If people paid taxes for big science, the ISS would'nt be having financial troubles. They need entertainment!
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Men on the Moon? What the hell are you talking about? Anything to do with the Moon is a load of nonsense, since it has nothing to do with k3wl 1nt3rn3t stuff, junk bonds, strip malls and of course the pervasive War on Terror.
... but what good is it all for all the billions that are lavished upon the program in general?
What is the return on the investment?
Why are hundreds of millions of dollars spent to make a spacecraft that cannot be fixed if it breaks millions of miles away?
Do Americans believe in equipment that doesn't break?
Businesses measure and enforce productivity, and government agencies are being increasingly pressured into doing the same ... so why can't these same considerations apply to NASA?
... there's no reason to assume that science is a cost and not an investment.
And if it's an investment, there ought to be a measure of its performance.
... which will be Chinese or Indian, or course -- not American.
Sarcasm aside, the Lunar missions are one (now defunct) aspect of the American Empire. That time has passed, and for whatever internal reasoning in the other nations, it is now up those other nations to actually pursue space policies. The American Empire has now turned inward in order to eat its own belly, and the only outward appearances will be general emigration and military actions.
American space missions were visionary but only served a transitory function in the evolution of the Empire. They couldn't continue no matter what value they returned to it. The problem lies in the definition of "value"; once enough billions were spent to prove the USA was the land of bigger penises that that of the Soviet landmass, the entire thing became obsolete.
At this point, I have a great many questions for Mr. Joe A. American. What does NASA actually do, anyways? Sure, we can all see the Shuttle launches, the ISS, placing satellites into orbit, and interplanetary missions
I'm sure there will be the usual blather about "that's not how you think about science", but
I think that that is a good summary of what ill has befallen the American Republic in order to transform it into an Empire. If spending on science is done with an investment mindset or expectation, perhaps we would have solar power satellites, two or more tiers of launch vehicles (at least "maintenance" and "heavy lift" types), and a thriving Cislunar industry.
I look forward to the 30th anniversary of the first solar power satellite
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
In the footsteps of alterslash comes another slashdot summariser - Hoping to ease your slashdot browsing.
This is the story with all links pointing to the google cached versions. See Merkac Dot for the full summary
30 Years Since Last Man on the Moon Space [G] | Posted by Hemos on Friday December 13, @10:23PM
from the what's-the-point dept.
Honeydipper Dan writes "December 14 marks the 30th anniversary of the last man on the Moon [G]. I haven't noticed any hoopla about this. Perhaps this event raises the subtext of why we haven't been back a little more than the first Moon landing's 30th anniversary did over 3 years ago. The Apollo 17 mission was a great success, however, and deserves to be remembered. It marked the first (and last) time a geologist was on the surface of the Moon. Meanwhile, NASA [G] is commemorating the Wright brothers' flight of December 17, 1903, getting ready for next year's Centennial of Flight [G]."
...is that the purpose of going to the moon was to beat the soviet union.
We often forget that we started out FAR behind in the space race: the USSR launched Sputnik before NASA even existed. At the time, the Army and Navy each had their own space programs which competed with each other. Sounds good in theory, but they never got anything into orbit.
Once sputnik was up there, we had to find the next milestone to beat them to. The first one was manned spaceflight, but they beat us to that one, too. However, once we beat them to the moon, we proved that no matter what the Soviets did, we could outdo them. It wasn't Regan who defeated the 'evil empire', but Kennedy. It was just a matter of time.
The lunar landing was great when America needed a great feat to beat the Soviet Space missions...when they got to the moon, and found that nothing was there, but flat empty space, people lost hope. After they kept doing it, nobody cared, cuz there was nothing cool or new to find out. It's like taking a family vacation to an parking lot, and not taking anything with you. It may be unique the first time, but after that, it's just torture!
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Everybody knows it was a Hollywood soundstage! Nobody ever actually went to the moon....
-psy
I totally agree with this article.
But, I have to wonder... What would happen if we sent a robotic bulldozer to the moon, paved a street, and put up a 'for sale' sign? Think that the commercial sector would go for it? People are clammoring for space tourism, and I bet that there are some crazy folks out there that might just through money at a public utilities company on the moon, if somebody were to design it.
Of course, there is the X-Prize Competition which is trying to do exactly what you mentioned: come up with a more efficient launch vehicle.
...the space agency moons YOU!
The Space Age is over. The age of superstition and mass domestication is in full swing.
I wonder if AAA would finance the recovery of the moon rover (was it insured?). It is still up there, isn't it? Didn't they crash it into a ditch or something? Now that I think about it, what the hell were the benefits of sending a car to the moon?
Link: Basically, there will be an harvester ant experiment on a space shuttle. It is supposedly to start on 1/16/2003 if plans go well.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
In the footsteps of alterslash comes another slashdot summariser - Hoping to ease your slashdot browsing.
This is the story with all links pointing to the google cached versions. See Merkac Dot for the full summary
30 Years Since Last Man on the Moon Space [G] | Posted by Hemos on Friday December 13, @10:23PM
from the what's-the-point dept.
Honeydipper Dan writes "December 14 marks the 30th anniversary of the last man on the Moon [G]. I haven't noticed any hoopla about this. Perhaps this event raises the subtext of why we haven't been back a little more than the first Moon landing's 30th anniversary did over 3 years ago. The Apollo 17 mission was a great success, however, and deserves to be remembered. It marked the first (and last) time a geologist was on the surface of the Moon. Meanwhile, NASA [G] is commemorating the Wright brothers' flight of December 17, 1903, getting ready for next year's Centennial of Flight [G]."
Well ... Pease is not well-known because it's most likely not true. I just double-checked on Google, and yes you're right that resources are abundant but they're far from unananimous or even supportive. (Interestingly, virtually all the pro-Pease sites are in Australia or New Zealand, suggesting an alternative conspiracy -- or merely the affliction of regional pride. I'm not a fan of hypothesized conspiracies.)
Pease appears to have left the ground, but he conceded it was uncontrolled and ended in a crash. He did not later pursue the "first flight" trophy, and it was one hotly desired. The flight is described as "undocumented" with widely varying estimates as to distance and such. Undocumented history means unreliable history, and of further suspicion is that his aircraft did not prove itself in the long run, either.
A question that interests me more than who was first is whose airplane led to productive development in aviation. That would be the Wright Flyer, though Europeans soon pulled far ahead. An odd bit of deja-vu is that engineers are looking again at Wright-style wing-warping (Java applet) as a method of controlling modern fighter jets. Also intriguing is the habit we all -- not just Americans -- have in taking nationalistic pride in the accomplishments of people we not only have never met, but who are quite dead.
Now, if you really want some baloney, it is NASA somehow taking credit for the first flight by celebrating it. When was NASA, or even NACA formed anyway? 1915?
Hell yeah! Geeks and supermodels!
*shudder* I have this vision of a race of Lunatics with the brains of the average supermodel and the looks and charm of the average geek...
This entire 'landing on the moon' thing was all just a conspiracy. Proof:
...and probably the most important single piece of evidence, this clearly genuine movie of the moon landing.
Moontruth
Moon Landing Hoax
Moon Landings Faked
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Selenology is the study of the geology of the Moon - hence the scientist that went to the moon was a Selenologist and not a geologist (although that's what he'd be called on Earth).
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
Whitehead (Weisskopf sp?), then Pearse, then the Wright brothers.
I know this will go against the Slashdot party line, but the Apollo missions were, in fact, hoaxes. There is a lot of evidence pointing this out, and while technology might reach a point where it might one day be possible to get to the moon, hoaxes should not be part of it. Why did the US government decide to do this? Probably to intimidate the USSR.
Several of the images show clear inconsistencies. A lot of people don't realize though is the "C" marked in the surface circled to the bottom of one picture. What this picture indicates is that they made this rock and marked a "C" in it, it was a prop on the set. So they first put a "C" in the surface so that they would know where to put the "C" Rock. The "C" in the surface just marks where the "C" rock is to be placed. Even in this exact same picture where NASA airbrushed the "C" on the rock out, one can still see the "C" in the surface.In another picture taken of the same scene, the background suddenly changes. The surface is rougher and filled with rocks, and then in the next picture (of the exact same surface) it becomes smooth and no rocks appear anymore. It is obvious that they took the picture and then superimposed another picture with a smoother background.
Crosshairs just disappear behind white objects, but in some of these pictures, it appears that the crosshair disappears behind not so white rocks and other non-white objects.In some of the pictures, one notices that the directions of the shadows are inconsistent, in fact, in some cases, impossible for natural light - more firm evidence that the pictures were taken on a set and later doctored.
The so-called moonrocks bear too much resemblance to meteors and other objects that have landed on Earth's surface to be dismissed. NASA claims that the moon rocks are "totally unique", but so meteor rocks are just as unique. Unfortunately the evidence points to the moon landings being hoaxed. Sorry.But just in case there is anyone reading this who does believe it was all a fake, you should read this site. It adresses every argument I have ever heard for the hoax "theory" and bings up an interesting point. How else can you explain that anyone with a big enough laser can bounce it off the mirror the astronauts put up there?
I know lots of things. Most of them are wrong.
... to these kinds of short-sighted actions. He was going after NASA, trimming a 100K here and a 100K there, while other programs were blowing millions of dollars.
It also didn't help that the space program didn't directly benefit dairy farmers. (Proxmire was a senator for Wisconsin, IIRC.) Anything not directly giving money to dairy subsidies got attacked or otherwise "investigated" by Proxmire.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
He was (is?) the president for the citizen's space advisory council. They get to talk to (and advise) the President about space exploration... or at least, they used to, back before America began to truly suck.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The lack of gravity in the ISS is not a bug: it's a feature!
You can "reproduce" gravity by spinning the spaceship: while it would be more confortable for humans, one of the goal of being up there is to lear what happen to people and material in 0G environement..
Beside on the moon there is gravity, just 1/6 of Earth's gravity, so the effect on the bone/muscle should be much lower.
Von Braun went to his grave thinking that manned spaceflight was the stupidest fucking thing he'd ever heard of. This was a guy who'd had his rocket program micromanaged by a syphlitic, speed-crazed Adolf Hitler who killed more unsuccessful underlings than Darth Vader, okay. LBJ and his fear of Commies dropping bombs on Nebraska from the Sea of Tranquility? Worse.
The Germans as a group wanted to send robots all over the Solar System; they took a very dim view of the Buck Rogers bullshit they had to cobble together instead to keep Congress happy.
In the end, it was a matter of waving the national dick at Ivan and saying "Check it out, we can launch these really large missiles into orbit, put anything we want up there and bring it back down anywhere we want on the Earth's surface. Isn't that an interesting capability, Ivan? We think so too."
There is no South Vietnam. Really. Try and show me it on the map.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I expect the next missions to the moon to be robotic.
Most of us have been expecting that since the middle of the 70's. However, with exception of 2-3 missions, we have not seen even coke cans being sent there. Frankly the problem is not how difficult is to send something or someone to the Moon. The problem is that 99% of the people only do care about Space when they check the day's prognosis for their sign... Probably, only when some astrologer will say that, sitting in the Moon, will make better predictions, we will see millions storming parliaments and congresses, demanding funds to set a ziggurath in the Moon.
Enron execs have a hell of a lot more in common with James Taggart than with Hand Rearden.
Or maybe you were busy sniffing glue when Rand was trashing government-subsidized crony corporations for being a poor parody of an actual free market.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
So Congress decided to pull the pursestrings shut on some dead rock-surveying 'missions'. So what? NASA isn't good at anything and never has been. Take a time machine back to the 60s, give any private scientist $500,000,000,000 of taken-at-gunpoint tax dollars and tell them to accomplish all NASA's accomplished since then and I bet they'd have a shitload of money left over (and likely a flag and footprints on Mars).
If NASA weren't so heavy-handed and protective of "their domain" thanks to their existence being based on them maintaining a virtual monopoly over spaceflight, the non-stick pans and new alloys could have been got probably years before by private enterprise. They are useless, and will continue to grow more useless as their budget continues to shrink, a cycle that will hasten itself. It makes me *happy* to see NASA withering on the vine and Congress showing sense. Let it die, end the useless cash drain, let the money-leaking boat called ISS sink like Mir, and let's see what people with real motivation (profit, not bureaucratic directive) can do with space. At the very least, make NASA a space tourism agency, cut off their funding and let them generate their own operating expenses. That would light a fire under their collective, collectivist asses.
we blew the moon up 30yrs ago accidentally. what's up there now is just a large plastic model we put there so nobody would find out.
Alberto Santos Dumont was born July 20, 1873, in the village of Cabangu, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. At the age of 18, Santos Dumont was sent by his father to Paris where he devoted his time to the study of chemistry, physics, astronomy and mechanics. His first spherical balloon, "Brasil," ordered from Maison LaChambre, with the capacity of 113 cubic meters, capable of lifting a ballast of 114.4 lbs, and having in its lower part a wicker basket, made its first ascension in Paris on July 4th, 1898. His second balloon, "America," had 500 cubic meters of capacity and gave Santos Dumont the Aero Club of Paris' award to study the atmospheric currents. Twelve balloons had participated in this competition but "America" reached a greater altitude and remained in the air for 22 hours.
Putting aside the aerostation, he began to devote himself towards solving the problem of steering the balloons. His first steered balloon, "Santos Dumont no. 1," ascended on September 18th 1898. Balloons "Santos Dumont no. 2," which wasn't successful, and "Santos Dumont no. 3," built at the Vaugurand workshop, followed. "Santos Dumont no. 3" ascended on November 13th, 1890. It circled a few times the Eiffel Tower, headed to the Park and from there finally headed towards the Bagatelle field where it landed flawlessly.
In view of the success of no. 3 balloon, the Aero Club of France was founded and Mr. Deutsch de La Meurt instituted the "Deutsch Prize" to be awarded to the balloonist who, taking off from Saint-Cloud, circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower and returned to the starting point in less than thirty minutes. This prize was conquered by Santos Dumont on October 19th, 1901, with dirigible no. 6. Besides this prize, Santos Dumont received the sum of 100,000 francs which he distributed in equal parts to his workers and the beggars of Paris.
Dirigibles nos. 7, 8, and 9 followed. With the latter, on July 4th, 1903, Santos Dumont maneuvered over Longchamps, where a military parade was being held in commemoration of Bastille capture.
Once he solved the problem of steering the lighter-than-air vehicle, Santos Dumont devoted himself to the heavier-than-air problem. Aboard the 14-BIS he made his first unsuccessfull attempt in July, 1906. On September 7th, the 14-BIS wheels left the ground for a moment; on the 13th it could reach the height of one meter; on October 23rd, the airplane flew 50 meters. It was on November 12th, 1906 that Santos Dumont's airplane, the 14-BIS, flew a distance of 220 meters at the height of 6 meters and at the speed of 37,358 km/h. Thanks to this flight the "Archdecon Prize" was awarded to Santos Dumont, who had thus, solved the problem of making a heavier-than-air machine take off by its own means.
Santos Dumont died on July 23rd, 1932, in Brazil. According to the law no. 165 of December 5th, 1947, enacted by the National Congress of Brazil and sanctioned by His Excellency President Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Alberto Santos Dumont was permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac with the rank of Lieutenant Brigadier. He was promoted to the Honorary rank of Air Marshall on September 22, 1955, according to the law no. 3636, and is permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac.
Yep, I know they're really cool, and very helpful for some high-tech industry, but they're also very expensive! I don't disagree with those prjects, but today there're lots of people starving or suffering from wars or crimes or diseases in the world, and they're in urgent need of money!! Aren't these far more important??
See this!
On 17 December 1903, the Wright brothers, in the USA, made use of a rudimentary catapult (with an inclined plan) to throw into the air their Flyer biplane, having flown close to the ground for a short hop of 40 metres (in subsequent flights they managed to fly for 200 metres). Santos-Dumont, however, would be the first to build and fly an aircraft "heavier-than-the-air" by its own means of propulsion.
For more
Look, the food there is terrible, the service is non-existant, prices are sky high, seating is severly limited, it's too cold and too hot at the same time, it's dusty as all get out, the parking area needs major improvement, and, well, there's just no atmosphere. The only thing to recommend it is the incredible view, and by now we've all seen that.
The BBC had an article on this, along with why it's time we went back..
I have to disagree. The Space Shuttle is a politically compromised vehicle with no place to go. It has failed to live up to its promise of reliable, cheap and frequent access to orbit. The capability to build and sustain a permanent human presence in Earth orbit should have come in the context of creating infrastructure to support missions to explore and exploit the Moon, Mars and the rest of the Solar System. Lacking the vision and the courage to actually commit to going someplace , we have instead conjured up the ISS, an expensive dead-end that appears to be little more than a more polished version of Mir.
While scientific research is a major and obvious component of space exploration, it is not and should not be the major motivation. Space exploration and exploitation should be driven by familiar human drives of wealth, power, greed, curiosity, freedom, etc., that have always sustained human expansion.
The greatest contribution the scientific and engineering community could make to space exploration right now is the development of propulsion technology that provides at least an order of magnitude increase in lift and speed capability. We aren't going anywhere as long as we're dependent on wimpy chemical rockets.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I was there for the launch of Apollo 17. Four of us piled into a Pinto (I remember that vividly - I was the smallest of the group, and had to sit in the middle of the back seat!) and drove down from upstate South Carolina to see it go up.
Apollo 17 was the first (and I believe only) night launch of a Saturn V - it went up just after midnight Florida time. There have been many Shuttle night launches, but that's not the same - the Shuttle has roughly the same thrust as the first stage of a Saturn V, but weighs much less, so by comparison it jumps off the pad.
When Apollo 17 fired up, it was like an instant sunrise, and it stayed that way while the rocket slowly clambered up the tower. It must have confused wildlife for fifty miles around.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
These folks have way too much time on their hands.
l
4 9a .htm
http://www.asi.org/adb/01/03/brief-overview.htm
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/Station/Slides/sld0
Now let us take a guess as to how long it would take to prep for the mission, what technology would be used, and how much of that would be reinventing what was used for the Apollo missions. Then let us look at the costs involved and compare them (with inflation and all that) to the costs of the Apollo missions. I am betting that it would be as if we had never even been near the moon. Worst of all, instead of starting from scratch they would take the worst of the "lessons" and apply the same incompetent government PM's and hire the same incompetent contractors. Your tax dollars hard at red tape.
On the bright side, it would be interesting to see how we fare without competition (the Soviets).
Got nothing out of it but a few pictures. Billions aren't pocket change, guys.
Aren't all astronauts civilians? It's true that virtually all of them came from the service, but they are all NASA employees while flying for NASA.
The greatest question of all time is: "Are we alone?"
...and yes I know the dark side of the moon isn't always dark, but we'd want to cut down on earthshine too probably... ...and imagine a beo [smack]
That's really the other ultimate goal of space exploration, isn't it? (The first goal is to find us a new place to live after the earth is used up).
But there is such a simple way to answer the question: Take all the cash we are using on rediculous stuff like the ISS and:
BUILD A GIANT TELESCOPE IN SPACE OR ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.
And I mean BIG.
One so Hugeomegagigantic that it can actually SEE the surface of extra solar earth sized planets in detail to pick out cities, roads, and lights.
And then, if we saw with our own eyes that there was another civilization -- imagine the space program we'd start to have then.
they never even planned for him to return
:) Yeah, the version i read when i was a kid had her dying "painlessly" on re-entry. As each story comes out her death turns out to have been even earlier. Next we'll learn she died of a heart attack when she learned they were about to send her into SPACE in that little deathtrap. Not wanting to be executed, the scientists loaded the body in anyway, and hooked up the biometric sensors to thesmelves.
"Her." Sexist pig.
Which had my mind reeling on the possibilities of what would have taken place had Mondale actually won in 1984 (yes, a near impossibility, but work with me here...). Had he won, he would have been President during the Challenger disaster, perhaps leading the U.S. to have killed the space shuttle program out entirely. That in turn would have practically killed Hubble (no humans in space to repair the broken lens) and all that we got from it, too...
Just some thoughts...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
dobedobedoo
Whoever set that title, "Centenial of Flight" seemed to have forgotten that we'd been flying in baloons since 1783, and gliders within 50 years of that...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
This year the National Research Council released the planetary science community's Decadal Survey. Congress asked for it as a "check list" basically of planetary science goals for this decade. (Astronomers have a similar survey.) It is expected that Congress will want to fly most of the missions called for in the report.
The survey calls for a mission to land in Aitken Basin at one of the Moon's South Pole. It will return samples, which will hopefully tell us more about the effects of impacts on solar system bodies. (Aitken is the largest impact basin in the solar system. It's on the far side of the Moon.)
man landed on the moon?
I was with my parents at a lake house during vacation and we watched it on television as it happened. Incredible moment. One of those unforgettable things, you know?
nt
...last fake landing on the moon? December 14th markes the day that the government decided they if they continued faking moon missions, that people would eventually catch on!
...wait...
Very well done page. Thanks, Dan Glover, etc.
The J-missions have been nearly invisible for the last thirty years and they deserve to be remembered.
It's probably been mentioned already, but Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon is a good general source on all the Apollo missions.
$20 billion (now) has the equivalent purchasing power of $3477685712.59 in 1961 dollars.
(Obligatory Simpsons reference, episode 4F21, The Secret War of Lisa Simpson)
Narrator: "The moon. For several years, she has fascinated many. But will man ever walk on her fertile surface? Democratic hopeful Adlai Stevenson says so."
[cut to a shot of Adlai Stevenson at some sort of press conference]
Stevenson: "I have no objection to man walking on the moon."
...
Narrator: "The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men. Will you be among them?"
Heh heh...
- MFN
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
yea, ... we went there acuple times... checked it out.... found out wed just spent a couple billion dollars too see if we could actualy make our way to a big dirt field in the sky.
basicly, there aint shit there.... there's nothing to do there except sit around taking pictures of earth, there aint nothing really worth taking back after the first few 4 billion year old moon-rocks came back.
until we find something worthwhile (read... profitable) in going to other planets, the journeys are gonna be few and far between.
BUT!!!! when money is to be found in space travel yu can garentee humanity will be moving off-earth in droves.... i can see the space trailor park campers now...
--Enter the sig--
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
You know, I think I just washed out of the Slashdot astronaut program.
*hangs head in shame*
"NewsMax.com - for all your right-wing news needs!"
Well duh, how can you commemorate something that never happened.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Yes, yes, I understand. It's the implication, not the definition that bothers me.
of course you fail to say what that reason was...like trying to subsidize our own brand of govt on people that were looking for any alternative? ...how weak.
The time: 1993. The place: America.
Tim McVeigh: YEAAARGH!!
[explosion]
The Left: Clearly, this is an indication that Tim McVeigh was a crazy asshole; his beliefs aren't even worth mentioning.
Now, eight years later...
Osama bin Laden: YEAAARGH!!
[explosion]
The Left: Clearly, this is an indication that the US drastically needs to rethink its foreign policy.
Wait, I'm confused. Why weren't McVeigh's actions reason enough to rethink our tax policy? Maybe if his goals were the same as the Left's, it'd be okay to run around backing his ideas.
(The correctness of these ideas is immaterial. I'm pointing out lies and hypocrisy in dealing with two analogous situations.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
No, it was NOT only Congress.
NASA administrators were worried sick of having a disaster strike that would embarrass the agency, and thus endanger its future programs. They came close to that with Apollo 13, and did not want to see it happen again. They flatly ruled out some of the more ambitious possibilities for later Apollo -- the far side, or crater Tycho -- and were not eager to keep flying lunar missions at all.
If Congress had been urging them to keep flying, and providing the funding to do so, then sure, maybe we would have seen 18, 19, and 20. But Congress didn't force NASA specifically to cut those missions; it was mostly NASA's choice (with the concurrence of the White House) to take the cuts there.
NASA could have flown 18 - 20 even with the budgets they were given if it had been a priority for the Agency. Almost all the hardware was already built; those Saturn Vs you see at Kennedy or Houston aren't mock ups, they are real flight hardware that were lacking only fuel. But, NASA chose to cancel the later Apollo missions and use the money for Space Shuttle development instead. Safer to keep people busy on the ground than actually risk someone dying up in space!
JFK just said go there and back, after all, not go there and keep going.
Don Rumsfeld was in Congress at the time, and he too was opposed to the whole Moon program. He considered the lunar program and scientific missions in general as a waste of money and a diversion of engineering talent.
He wanted to see the resources instead put into space military systems, such as the Air Force's proposed manned station (MOL), spy satellites, and space-based anti-satellite and anti-missile weapon systems.
On a side note, Mondale's former communications director was the professor for a seminar I was in a couple of years ago. I asked her about the HBO scene, and she said it greatly exaggerated his hostility to the program; he mostly was after the mismanagement that led to the Fire, not opposed to Apollo in general. Mondale was there one day, but not wanting to demonstrate just how geeky I am, I asked him about something else. Nice guy, but he seemed awfully old even in 1998.
What do you think the roads were for? In ancient times, having a well-maintained road system was the key to being able to move troops around, to supply them, and to maintain communications. Building roads was a military expense. I'll grant you the aqueducts, but they probably didn't seem wasteful to the thirsty people of Rome.
Armstrong had been a navy pilot during the Korean War, but he was out of the military when he landed on the moon. He had been an X-15 pilot for NASA at Edwards AFB.
Schdmit was the only one who was never military.
The rest still had some sort of commission at the time they landed. More Navy than AF, I think.
If a launch isn't to send the ISS spiralling off into some eccentric orbit, or crashing into the earth, it would need to be much, much, much more massive than any rocket that blasts off it. It would make much more sense to have disposable fuel tanks put in orbit first, and then rendezvois with it. This, btw was one of the five models initially considered when designing the lunar mission, and was called Earth-Orbit Rendezvous. It was scrapped in favour of Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous. (Two other alternatives were Direct Ascent and Lunar Surface Rendezvous.... I forget the fifth)
As if america ever landed on the moon! they are just a decitful aweful country! and when in 2004 the suttle is launched to view the moon the fraud knowen as america will be revield!!!
Four of us piled into a Pinto (I remember that vividly - I was the smallest of the group, and had to sit in the middle of the back seat!)
Hang on. How many seats in a Pinto?
face it, cultures die, cultural know-how dies, egyptians have long since forgotten how to build pyramids and same will happen with all science, the guys who knew how and cared enough to go to the moon are now dead dying and no one will replace them. so it goes. fodder for historians. nature has lots more interesting stuff going on in the nonlocal realms of psyche than masturbatory rocket fantasies pretending to be science, anyway.
http://engineering.eng.rowan.edu/~marchese/blr.htm l
Contrary to what the skeptics said, the thruster actually works! Now to measure the actual thrust and Isp, and see if it confirms the theory which says there will be orders of magnitude improvements over conventional chemical propulsion.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
The whole point of the Arms Race of the Cold War was to bankrupt the USSR. Some Sov leaders (like Kruschev) even understood that going head to head with the U.S. in a nuclear arms race would mean throwing away any chance to build a "peace-time" economy. Unfortunately for them, the adept brinkmanship and propaganda machine of the West was too good not to fall for it. End result: USSR and USA both have giant arsenals, and only the USA has a healthy economy. Exit the Communists.
The current thinking in the Whitehouse is the same: trick China, then Korea, India, Pakistan, etc. etc. into building a nuclear arsenal, anti-anti-ballistic missile systems, Star Wars tech, etc. and sit back and watch them chew through their GDP in a vain attempt to play catch-up. Then, when their economies are wrecked, move in and offer to run things for them (as in Russia now... here, let us help you... strings? what strings?).
The only problem being, Mutually Assured Destruction doesn't scale. Can you say "deer in headlights"?
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
I've been waiting since watching Star Trek as a child to see humanity build a space station capable of launching missions. Once we have a space station that is able to store raw materials and build components itself we'll be able to do all other forms of space exploration at a much lower cost.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's even in the minds of those working on the ISS right now.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
We need to go back to the moon ASAP! I think I forgot to set the e-brake on the lunar rover!
Moreover, a spacecraft factory doesn't manufacture all the components of a spacecraft from scratch -- it assembles the spacecraft from complex components manufactured elsewhere. Shipping up those components isn't any cheaper than shipping up assembled modules. At best, any foreseeable space station will be useful for assembling rather large objects, the size of which is dictated by the size of the launch vehicles. That's a far cry from assembling spacecraft from raw materials.
Two in the front, two in the back. What I remember most was the pain in my knees from sitting for hours at a time in what they call a rear "seat", where your butt is maybe six inches higher than your feet. OK, I wasn't sitting in the middle, but I never got to sit up front - I couldn't drive a manual shift at the time, and the other guys had to wedge themselves into either of the so-called rear "seats" to get into them at all.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.