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To the Moon and Beyond
isorox writes "The BBC is reporting that 'Europe is considering sending humans to the Moon, Mars and beyond within the next few decades', although the UK government 'does not support human space flight and will not fund UK citizens to go through the official European astronaut training programme'. However while plans are made for the next 30 years, Rosetta is due to launch in 2 weeks time, ready to rendevous and land on a comet in 2011. Assuming it doesn't blow up on launch."
And the Europeans would be the first to step on the Moon (according to some). Wow! That would be quite an accomplishment! :)
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
How does the ESA decide which projects to pursue, how much to spend, and who will contribute what or get which contract?
Give the political tussles that go on in the United States over such things, I can only think Europe with rivalries running back centuries would be quite challenging. On the other hand -- they seem to be doing quite well!
Can someone from the UK answer this please? Is it the people or just the government that is so opposed to doing anything that involves the European Union? I'm German and spent a good deal of my life there, and i still try to keep up to date with European politics. The UK didn't want the Euro, they don't agree with the EU when it comes to war.. What gives?
Carpe meam simiam!
... about it blowing up, just a tad rude. I don't see the point in critizing someone when they are trying. *shrugs*
thats what we need. More interest in getting mankind somewhere instead of trying to kill a man of another kind.
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Support Indy Music. Buy
Any chance they'll do a fly-by on the original moon landing site so we can STOP hearing from these types?
That WOULD be a giant leap for mankind.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
It's good to see more interest in space travel and exploration. Doesn't anyone else think it's a bit stupid that nations spend so much money on weapons/military, just to cause that extra human suffering that makes life so grand... while we pass up the opportunity to explore what is undoubtedly the most fascinating and wonderful thing out there: space.
Holy crap, aren't we a dumb bunch of talking apes. There's probably some pretty neat stuff out there beyond Earth...
the UK government 'does not support human space flight and will not fund UK citizens to go through the official European astronaut training programme'.
This is the same UK Goverment that scrapped subsidies on University Tutor fees so that the load on the students doubled, the same UK government that doesnt support our athletes, all athletes have to get private sponsorship. This is the same UK Government which supports illegal asylum seekers better than its OAPs or people who really need the money! No wonder the UK is going down in the world.
I think it's great that Europe is working on manned space flight, however that "blowing up" snide comment was a little rude. (And NO, this ISN'T offtopic you dumb moderators.)
Why isn't NASA interested in sending people to Mars?
Cheers
The UK is wary of the EU, because it wants to maintain it's excellent economic relations with the US. I don't believe that the UK wants to be embroiled in some of the trade disputes forming on the horizon between the EU and the US. I think the UK is being wise in choosing the role of middle-man/mediator.
As for not going along with the Euro, well that makes good sense to me. The UK is correct (IMHO) in wanting to be independant financially from the rest of Europe.
In closing, to prevent myself from being offtopic, let me just say, moontrip good. Go EU.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
While the UK is not adopting the Euro, they will be converting their currency to something called the Canadian Euro. The coins will look about the same, toll clerks on the Alpine pass tunnels will try and palm them off on you for change only they won't work in most vending machines.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
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Credit your source.
It is supposed to be launched by a "classic" Ariane 5G which, rumor says, is not affected by whatever broke the last one (main stage nozzle cooling system, according to said rumor; this was supposed to increase the Vulcain's thrust by 20%).
But then, I'm the one who predicted this new Ariane 5 would send both the Atlas 5 and the Delta 4 back into the starting-block--and submitted the story right after its failure :-(.
As for this Aurora project, as long as the funding isn't there, I don't see how anything else than noise could come out, apart from a very cool logo--unfortunately I can't find a link: from left to right, da Vinci's "corkscrew" flying machine, a clipper sailboat, and some figurative solar sail spaceship; and the background fades also from left to right, from an old sailing map below a sky chart, to a satellite view of the Earth below the stars, the Moon and Mars.
Isn't the moon claimed as a United States territory?
In that case, the euros would have to go through customs and pay import duty fees every time they travel to the moon?
Oh, and what about smuggling out American moon rocks? Seems to me that the Euros are intending to ANNEX united states property! After all people, the moon is clearly marked by several US flags.
If we allow other claim OUR moon than the terrorists have already won.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
Why isn't NASA interested in sending people to Mars?
NASA has plenty of stuff on the Mars menu as it is. Personally I hope they take a pass on sending humans, there's just so little point to it. Odds are Europe will come to the same conclusion. On the other hand, if they want to pay for it, go for it!
Send the robots, you don't even have to pay them and they can be programmed to say historic things like, "This is one small step for [a] man-bot, one giant leap for man-bot-kind." I just don't think it's cost-effective to send humans with all their frailties -- and send enough extra stuff to get them back.
These folks disagree and these guys are already colonizing Mars/Utah. Certainly the idea captures the imagination.
In the meantime, part of Mars has been conveniently discovered in Canada.
I grew watching the all of the Mercury launches. Most of Gemini. I stayed up pass midnight for the first time in my life to wait for Armstrong and Aldin to take a walk on the moon. I was a True Believer in human spaceflight and a human presence in space.
But now that I am older and with our new computers, I just wonder. I see millions of homeless in America that we never tolerated before. My older friends are all in fear of not being able to afford healthcare. The American empire is ready to start preemptive wars to maintain the right to pollute the earth and to maintain the monolopy on weapons of mass destruction.
I am totally opposed to going to Mars. It is just too soon and too much else needs to be done. I would like to a program that works toward building O'Neil colonies but that type of planning and cooperation is just not going to happen. Any exploration can be done by robots. The resources for a human base on the moon or a trip to Mars is just misplaced resources.
Now, if you are going to build mass drivers and then build solar geneator transmitters in orbit, then I would dearly love to stop burning carbon. And if a few monarchies lose there billions in the process, that can only be a Good Thang.
> we should have been ready to set up a base on Mars already!
I know! I remember reading Sci-Fi [stories] about the Moon / Mars being colonized and thinking "WOW - What would it take to do that kind of terraforming?!" Its a shame that that noble goal [of living on other planets] gradually fall by the way side. Maybe in the next entury...
Speaking of terraforming, has anyone (scientists,etc) actually thought about how to [realistically/practically] terraform one of the planets, say Venus, Mars, or the Moon?
Cheers
Your article dates from September. A more recent one reports that Beagle 2 is about to be delivered. OK, that doesn't mean the bugs have actually been ironed out, but at least it should launch.
A 1 in 10,000 chance of dying....not bad. About the odds of a lightning strike during a storm, if I recall correctly.
However, when you go through a cycle of far more than 10000 operations in the course of your trip, those odds suddenly become less remote...
Guess the moderator's funny bone is broken or something.
Troll? Seems a perfectly reasonable question. Stupid moderators....
Anyway, a bit of googling tells me:
The ESA's space programme has been going on since the 70's, with some input from the French space programme about a decade before. It appears to bepretty much based on the pilotless Ariane 4 and Ariane 5 rockets which can carry about 5 tonnes into space. These are not as powerful as the shuttle (which manages about 22 tonnes I think), and have had the occasional problem, but are being developed at a leisurely pace. They are designed in a highly adaptable component manner, and also aim for low cost and adaptability.
Many European countries have been producing satellites for some time. I think these often have to be launched by the US or Russia.
I think its very cool that countries and governments are spending money on the advancement of science, and as I have posted here before, for example on the troubles in the Russian space program, it's all good (or, in their case, bad when science programs suffer and scientists are forced to find other work).
Can't we all work together? According the the article, political squabbling is a problem. To me, then, ignorant, closed-minded politicians and bureaucrats are holding back the progress of humanity. A way should be found to remove them from the process, and one would do any impediment.
The moon belongs to America and proudly awaits the arival of our Astromen. Will you be among them?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
and I have a bridge on Mars I would like to sell you too! Of course, we're not sure yet whether there is water on Mars, but with this bridge you will be prepared.
cpeterso
Actually there is pretty reliable evidence that there is at least frozen water on Mars. Large quantites of it, too.
e m/ odyssey_update_020301.html
What is unclear is whether or not it ever turns liquid. I say that the best policy is to be prepared and buy those bridges.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsyst
> if this is to be a Euro deal, well then I see your point, why does the article mention GB?
Because the ESA can't force its members to follow and pay for a program. The ESA merely coordinates the national space policies of its member states.
Some background: the ESA has 2 budgets, a mandatory budget and a discretionary budget. The mandatory budget is set in proportion roughly to each member's GDP. The discretionary budget is made up of each member's additional funding.
Projects funded under the mandatory budget have to have very broad-based benefits (and no, "mankind" doesn't count) because they take money from every member and therefore require the vote of every member. Usually, this is made possible by dividing up the industrial support base into every ESA member country, so that Germany makes control systems, France makes engines, Italy makes SW, etc. If a country's Space Minister doesn't think that his/her country will receive direct (scientific) or indirect (industrial) benefit from a project, he won't vote the the budget allocation.
If all the Space Ministers won't vote for a program, individual Ministers can do a project anyway, but pay for it themselves. Thus Italy, which has a vested industrial interest in getting its small-launcher program off the ground, is paying for the entire program on its own, using its discretionary budget. France, which has a major vested industrial interest in launchers, is fighting hard to get major launch programs on the mandatory budget, but will probably go through the discretionary budget if the other members veto.
It'll be very difficult for a ESA human-spaceflight program to be supported by all ESA members. That is why this article, which highlights England's valid objections, is so important.
Yeah yeah, I know cheap shot. But if you think about the purpose and outcome of most of those prior British explorations of the 18th century..
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But on the subject of the euro; the problem with adding the euro is much more subtle than it appears.
If the UK gets the euro, then that means that there has to be a single bank throughout europe that controls the number of euros in distribution.
It also means that central control of interest rates is essential. That means that the interest rates are controlled centrally for the good of europe (i.e. probably by the Bundesbank; which constitutionally has to act for the good of Germany, rather than the good of Britain, or even Europe; since it is by far the biggest bank).
Since the economies of Germany and UK tend to do move in rather different ways, tying them together is going to cause some issues; as well as benefits. But it is honestly unclear to most people who have studied it in detail whether the benefits or the issues are going to dominate.
And this is putting issues of sovereignty to one side... there are lots of people with very firm opinions on that, to say the least.
Personally, I think we need to go for the euro, but I'm fairly nervous about it.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Jon.
We, the US of A, were the first to land people on the moon. We shouldn't have stopped going. And now, the technology used to take us there in the first place is the near equivalent to a pocket calculator. Why the hell aren't we going back?
There are plenty of reasons. Political BS, as Congressfolk just want to line their own pockets. Bumblin' Dubyah and his wannabe wars on Terrorism (not terror, can't have a war against an emotion) and his "you tried to kill my daddy" vendetta with Saddam. Economic breakdown in the wake of Enron and company (BTW, Bushie and Cheney have their hands in that, too). Lack of interest in the Space Program (thanks to all of the above, it can't get any press).
You conspiracy theroy nuts can go to hell. We went. We have the capability to go, stay, and colonize whether you want to believe it or not. That's what we should be doing: spearheading an international effort to get to the moon and establish a permanent human presence there. Once we get there, then we can worry about Mars.
Launching to Mars from the Moon would be cheaper, since the force needed to break the moon's gravity is alot less. The benefits of sitting on the moon extend to the "collision asteroid" alarmists, since we could watch for them from a nifty vantage point. With the ISS as a jump-off point, missions to the moon would go alot smoother (in theory, anyway) than the Apollo missions went.
This is going to sound totally chichè, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the moon is someplace we should be.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
How much did you donate to getting a space elevator built then? $zero? You could at least buy the book instead of just pontificating!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Yah: roods, perches, pecks, puncheons, barleycorns, chains, seams, hundredweight, gill, minima, kips, kilderkins, sacks, kor, chenises and periots expressed in at least English, French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Russian, Spanish and Polish at every locus. On the upside, the OpenOffice.org document standard will be used for shipping all of this around.
The British do use light-nanoseconds, it's call `a foot'. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Not really.
First, there's no particular reason to pick the 18th century - most major British colonies were established in the 17th, and most economic development was in the 19th.
Second, the outcome (an empire) is irrelevant to a discussion about plans and motives. This is important when looking at British expansion, since the evidence for grand imperialist plans is surprisingly thin on the ground for the key periods. Rather, the pattern was a trading arrangement that morphed into an administration (India), or a colony that eventually managed to conflict with the indiginous population, so dragging in the mother country (Africa).
The pivotal year for British imperialism is often quoted as being 1857, when the Indian uprising occurred. Until then, India and other territories were controlled via a haphazard collection of treaties, usually in collusion with local maharajahs, chiefs and princes. After 1857, imperialism took hold in earnest, with much more control exerted from London, suppression of indiginous rights and imperialist 'management' schemes such as pan-African railroads.
With regard to enslavement, it should be fairly obvious that you can either capture slaves or buy them. In fact, nearly all slaves were bought - by European traders, from African merchants. Control of slavery was never a significant motive in British imperialism, and of course it was abolished in 1838, well before the empire peaked.
The brave men and women of the NSDF are already there in force.
Seriously, your girlfriend got shafted. Lunar property will basically belong to whoever inhabits it first, puts up a fence around what they consider theirs, and takes action to keep other people off.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
when you can change yourself?
Kim stanley robinson's mars series portrays a successful terraformation, and how the first colonists mourn the loss of the red planet, even though they can now walk about without helmets.
Which leads me to ask, why not leave the planet looking and feeling much the same, but make plants and animals altered to survive the low pressures, cold, lack of a magnetosphere etc. Then make genetically modified humans to populate the place and go forth and subdue it.
In the whole history of life as we know it, life has always adapted to the environment. Why change the winning formula?
Also, to get slightly more on topic, it's interesting that the more famous explorations (finding the source of the Nile etc.) were effectively motivated and financed by an audience back home that had a fascination with exploration, with Africa and for adventure stories in general.
Henry Stanley was sent to find Dr Livingstone by James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the New York Herald. Other explorers enjoyed colossal book sales. One hopes that interest would be as great, and as lucrative, in future explorations.
The ESA Human spaceflight budget is a bit harder to pin down due to multi-year authorizations and various breakdowns, but appears to be about 1 billion euros for the four year period from 2002-2006, so roughly 250 million euros per year. Note from the link that the bulk of this figure is contributions to the ISS, not human spacecraft development.
Since the euro and dollar are roughly equivalent lately, at current levels the ESA would need to increase it's human spaceflight budget by 24X just to match NASA spending on the same. However, at that level, NASA isn't even vaguely contemplating a return to the Moon, much less going to Mars.
Given the current economic situation in Europe, I'd put the chance of any of this happening at just about zero.
When (if?) mankind finally returns to the moon, it will most likely be via a private company in some sort of for-profit venture. Unless there is some sort of new political goal to be gained, governments will not (and should not, IMHO) be part of the picture. Its just too damn expensive for taxpayers to stomach. - Necron69
However, if we'd understand how brains work and carry on intellectual and soul functions - then we don't need any brain. Just download my copy into central computer of any exploring device and I am ready to go. I won't need any oxygen and I'll be very tolerant to any temperature and pressure. But keep my backup copy at some safe place or I'll sue you!
Less is more !
Then I'll be impressed.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
The last Tory government and the current Labour(?) one only seem to think that there is one industry in Great Britain, the Financial Services.
Manufacturing has been sacrificed to feed the bankers. As a result we have seen an increase in the number of accountants and MBAs coming out of our universities, but a phenomenal drop in the number of engineers and scientists.
It is not just the sciences that have suffered. Any course that is not seen to have an immediate payback is at risk. This is not just a student loans issue, it is part of the creeping corporatism that seems to be affecting most of the West. The attitude that nothing is worth doing unless it makes a profit within 18 months blights any long term view.
Makes me wonder why Bill, Scott, Larry etc haven't jumped at the chance. Money by the Energiafull would seem to be right up their collective alleys.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If I were intelliforming myself, I would make at least one of my bodies capable of mining, or at least doing complex fabrication operations. Any explorers need to be able to at least heal themselves, and optimally be able to reproduce unaided, using just the indegenous materials.
Which then begs the question: if you have a reproducing robot, is it just another form of life?
intelliforming and bioforming may simply be two paths to the same thing.
If we really wanted to go back to the Moon we could do it cheaply, easily, safely and pretty much now. The Russians still have the Soyuz spacecraft, which was originally developed during the moon race, and has since evolved through thirty years of upgrades.
They don't have the N1 rocket, which was cancelled and never worked anyway, nor do they have Energia which worked beautifully, launched the Buran then got mothballed, but they do have Proton; two of those and a rendezvous at ISS ought to be fine for a moonshot.
Launch one with the ship - the Soyuz and the lander - and another with the fuel, probably a Progress drone - and you're away. All we need to do is write the Russians a nice big cheque and they can do a moon mission just fine, with off-the-shelf hardware.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Robotic exploration seems to make much more sense, but in terms of scientific results (you can explore more with robots because it is cheaper), with regard to commercial potential (again, robots are cheaper, thus likely to be useful for later profitable space enterprises), and with regard to generally useful technological development.
Eventually humans should return to the Moon and reach Mars, but let the robots pawe the road for us first.
For all of you who posted back, I welcome you to slashdot.
Some American: "Hey guys, can we, like, uh, catch a ride to the moon, dude?"
Pilot: "Go away, you filthy swine!"
Some Other American: "Don't bother with them. I got on once. The food is great, but the service just plain sucks... and its all in some dead language. Let's go try flying standby on the German one with the hot chicks."
Enough... ...of this off-topic crap. I think everyone is tried of it. Can you quit?
I doubt anyone is paying attention at this point, but fine with me. I didn't really expect a "good God I now see the light!" reaction from you.
But wouldn't it be a great world if I did get that reaction? :)
Mostly I like to make detailed posts like that to correct misinformation for the benefit of the younger, impressionable Slashdotter, not so much out of an expectation that the person I'm responding to is going to suddenly change their whole outlook on life. The latter usually happens slowly and painfully.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.