Europe Heads for the Moon in July

Orlando writes "The BBC are reporting that Arianespace are all set for sending Smart1 to the Moon in July. The mission's primary objectives are testing planetary exploration technologies. This is particularly good news after the recent Arianne rocket explosion." China's also planning a moon mission. The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

Comments

First?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch. "

Do you ever just sit here and read slashdot and think, "Man, that's a little too easy to troll."

Re:First?

[matguy]

it's more of a "Been there, done that" stance.

Re:First?

[matguy]

oops, looks like I'm a little bit redundant today. Maybe I should learn to read down further before posting.

Re:First?

[Anonymous Coward]

We may have been the first, but we haven't even left LEO for more than 20 years. Our space program has become a joke. On Columbia's last flight, the payload consisted of experiments designed by students, including one that involved ants in zero-g. Fortunately, they weren't sorting tiny screws. Nevertheless, our space program has ceased to do anything innovative. Every attempt that has been made to breath new life into the program has failed, and so nothing happens.

Re:First?

[mysticgoat]

[The USA attitude re: Moon exploration] it's more of a "Been there, done that" stance.

At its time, the "Moon Race" was an effective political ploy. Maybe not the best cold war strategy, but an effective one.

But to regard lunar exploration as something the USA has already accomplished is dumb. While there was some good technology fallout, and some good science, they were incidental to the thrust of the USA effort. Which was simply to establish "First Post" bragging rights on the Moon. Which gives the USA all the enduring value of "FP!" claim on slashdot.

I don't disagree with your assessment-- it does seem like most of my fellow Americans do think that way. Which I think is a pity.

Re:First?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Do you ever just sit here and read slashdot and think, "Man, that's a little too easy to troll."

Not this time, I read the headline and thought one of my suggestions finally got through.

Re:First?

[matguy]

Well, what do we really expect to learn from it that we already haven't? We know what's up there, we know how to get there, we know how to get back. We learned all that over 30 years ago. Also it's kind of unfair to discredit some of the residual accomplishments of the race to the moon because they were discovered in the process of getting somewhere else.

Did you take credit away from Christopher Columbus when you learned he was actually trying to go to India? He took a leap and landed somewhere no person from his continent or any continents he had ever known before had landed before (yeah, that's a confusing line, but it's correct.) His accomplishment(s) changed the world. Of course someone else would have done the same thing eventually, but he still get's credit for being the first we know to have made the trip (how other people were already on the continent is still in debate.)

Re:First?

[mysticgoat]

We know what's up there, we know how to get there, we know how to get back.

Well, to get snide about it, we don't know what's up there (but we do know that a golf club can be used in a space suit, and that funny wheels make an effective lunar go-cart, and we collected enough rocks that I think a strong man would have a problem lifting them all at once-- but I'm not sure). We knew how to get there, but like Goldie Hawn frequently said at the time, "I used to know all that stuff." Now we don't have a clue as to how to get back. We threw all that technology away.

Yes, I mean that. The Apollo program was based on technology that used (get ready for it) sliderules. The total amount of computer power that was used in the entire Apollo program is dwarfed by the desktop machine that you turn off without giving it a second thought, when your done with your evening's slashdot entertainment. You couldn't muster up enough people in the workforce today who know how to use a sliderule to repeat what was then done, or even understand the notes that were written about it. The technology of the Apollo program was never carried across into computers. To remake the heavy lift Saturn rockets or reconstruct the Apollo heat sheilds, we would have to redo everything from scratch. We orphaned the whole thing as we moved on to better technology.

Terribly shortsighted, that was.

In response to another of your comments: I did not discredit what you call the "residual accomplishments". Re-read my post.

As to Christopher Columbus-- he made several repeat voyages to the New World. He stuck to his program, even though it failed in the long run. His program was designed to return spices and gold-- the keys of that age. Our space adventure had no pragmatic purpose, and so was shut down before it accomplished anything of lasting significance. It was truly just a "First Post" effort.

Re:First?

[hplasm]

After we get done watching "europe" reach the moon, the U.S. will insert an orbiter around Iraq and land a probe on the surface of Saddam.

Seems more likely.

Re:First?

[K3lvin]

The lander is actually European, the orbiter is American.

Re:First?

[PissedOffGuy]

To remake the heavy lift Saturn rockets or reconstruct the Apollo heat sheilds, we would have to redo everything from scratch.

that doesnt make any sense. i went to the kennedy space center and they have a saturn V just sitting there.

in fact, who cares? if we were to remake ENIAC right now it'd probably cost millions and require infrastructure to make vacuum tubes that we might not have nowadays, but nobody would say we can't match the feats of ENIAC, or that we're behind where we were in the 40s.

if we really had a reason to go to the moon (and hence a budget to do so), then we'd go. to say otherwise is ridiculous, "Now we don't have a clue as to how to get back." give me a break.

Re:First?

[ColaMan]

"The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch. "

Hmm, I thought the US was going to send Iraq to the moon Real Soon Now. Or large portions of Iraq, anyway.

Re:First?

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> Which was simply to establish "First Post"
> bragging rights on the Moon. Which gives the
> USA all the enduring value of "FP!" claim on
> slashdot.

I don't know. "First dick" bragging rights on Britney is a comparably pretty awesome thing to getting to the moon. RESTRAINTS FAILING! NOTHING CAN HOLD HULK! MUST TROLL! Not that anyone around here would know about penis usage literally, not figuratively, vis-a-vis. HULK CALMING DOWN. CHANGING...Changing...Banner again...ahhh....

Anyway, remember that much of the cold war was a populist war with governments, improperly, defining who was greatest by which one could spend the most on the largest show projects. Robert Heinlein wrote of a trip thru the USSR in the 1960's and being shown stadium after stadium in the various cities. woo. hoo.

Of course, any freedom-loving capitalist worth their salt knows you don't define the success and goodness of a country based on how gigantic a project can be made from money taken at the point of a gun.

Re:First?

[juhaz]

We know what's up there

Huh? We do?

Sorry pal, but we've squatted here on Earth for over hundred thousand years and we still don't know everything that's here.

And you think you know everything that's up in the moon by spending what, few hours, there. Get real.

And what comes to Columbus, funny that you took him up in an effort to try belittle this when it's perfectly the opposite ... people had been to America before him - Columbus is not a forerunner, he came after others and still he was the one that initiated the real change, not those that were first - he is equal to the EU and China in this one not the US.

Re:First?

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> but nobody would say we can't match the feats
> of ENIAC, or that we're behind where we were in
> the 40s.

Exactly! In fact, the US's problem is that it dumps too much money into the fanciest, best equipment. For a human moon mission, the money might be better spent sending lots of low-cost supplies to the moon, using a robot or two to set up a base, then sending people there. Much safer and cheaper.

Re:First?

[Maeryk]

Well, to get snide about it, we don't know what's up there (but we do know that a golf club can be used in a space suit, and that funny wheels make an effective lunar go-cart, and we collected enough rocks that I think a strong man would have a problem lifting them all at once-- but I'm not sure). We knew how to get there, but like Goldie Hawn frequently said at the time, "I used to know all that stuff." Now we don't have a clue as to how to get back. We threw all that technology away.

To be pretty exact, 842Lbs.. yeah.. I'd say a strong man would have a hard time with that. And they were moved in boxes carved out of solid aluminum. (I have a neat book on treasure chests that goes into the rock boxes).

Yes, I mean that. The Apollo program was based on technology that used (get ready for it) sliderules. The total amount of computer power that was used in the entire Apollo program is dwarfed by the desktop machine that you turn off without giving it a second thought, when your done with your evening's slashdot entertainment. You couldn't muster up enough people in the workforce today who know how to use a sliderule to repeat what was then done, or even understand the notes that were written about it. The technology of the Apollo program was never carried across into computers. To remake the heavy lift Saturn rockets or reconstruct the Apollo heat sheilds, we would have to redo everything from scratch. We orphaned the whole thing as we moved on to better technology.

Yes, mostly true. ANd also remember, a lot of the people involved with designing the project, (Especially Von Braun and his team of crack naz^h^h^hgerman scientists) are dead now. We still have a couple of SV's layign around, and the knowhow to _probably_ build new ones. But part of the issue is that almost none of that rocket was actually BUILT by Nasa. Boeing did one section, IBM did the telemetry/guidance ring, and I _think_ Morton Thiokol (but I am probably wrong) did the first stage.

There is a REALLY good DVD out.. Spacecraft Films "The Mighty Saturns" that follows the program nicely in a one hour Dolby program, and then contains all the footage of all the launches.

As to Christopher Columbus-- he made several repeat voyages to the New World. He stuck to his program, even though it failed in the long run. His program was designed to return spices and gold-- the keys of that age. Our space adventure had no pragmatic purpose, and so was shut down before it accomplished anything of lasting significance. It was truly just a "First Post" effort.

here is where I think you are mistaken. Our program met its goals perfectly. THose goals were A) put men on the moon, and return them.. we did it several times, safely, proving it was not just a fluke. B) get something BIG ENOUGH built to get them there and back. The SV weighed 6.5 million pounds, and only had 7.7 million pounds of thrust.. it was engineered right to the edge of that bell curve, and had just enough to do it.. which is why the next plan was orbital assembly of the vehicle. And C)we beat those damn commie ruskies, which was something this country needed at the time, a sense of good feeling and accomplishment to Joe SixPack.

These days, the moon could be viewed (as the CHinese obviously are) as a potential place for resources, outposts, etc. But I dont think NASA was thinking of that.. we didnt have the knowhow to even use what we found up there, and are STILL learning things from the stuff brought back 30 odd years ago.

Maeryk

Re:First?

[carlos_benj]

...but nobody would say we can't match the feats of ENIAC....

Yeah, but why bother. The feets on that thing had to be huge to hold it up. Them little rubber feets on my desktop work just fine now and we have some bigger feets on the server racks in the other room....

Oh, sorry. Since this was /. I assumed you misspelled your post.

Re:First?

[Alsee]

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

Yep. All the guys lounging around the 54 inch high definition TV, beer, popcorn, chips, dips. Maybe we'll get to see something will blow up!

-

Re:First?

[The_K4]

I hate to admit it, but your wrong. It would take the US atleast a year if not 2 to get back to the moon. We DO NOT have the equpment/knowledge to build a saturn V (or even to get the parts outside kennedy spaceworthy). We would need to design a WHOLE new craft. Remember getting to the moon is easy, it's being able to get BACK that's hard. The shuttle, which is the ONLY current re-launchable craft requires MAJOR overhaul between a landing and a take off. You would need a craft that could land and take off with NO maintanence. This is not an easy task.... If one of these other governments launches a team to the moon and they get stranded, the US wouldn't be able to mount a rescue mission even if we wanted to....we would need to design and build a craft from scratch. Remember no shuttle has ever even ORBITED the moon.

Re:First?

[Keebler71]

Yeah...the US will watch...or just read about it American History books.

Re:First?

[Keebler71]

What do you mean by "we haven't left LEO"? If you mean human space flight, then I challenge you to name another country that HAS left LEO. If you mean unmanned, I would direct your attention to the wide assortment of MEO/GEO experiments, lunar probes, solar probes, planetary probes, comets, asteroids, etc.

Re:First?

[matguy]

But what would we do up there that we already haven't done?

Re:First?

[matguy]

I don't see why a small lunar vehicle couldn't fit in the cargo bay of the current shuttle. Even with the original Apollo missions there were two crafts that joined, seperated for lunar landing, then rejoined after the lunar "experience," and then re-seperated for landing back at Earth, discarding the lunar vehicle alltogether.

With the current shuttle fleet one could keep and possibly re-use a lunar vehicle. Sounds fairly cost effective to me.

Re:First?

[sjanich]

I belive all of the technical plans and designs were all deystroyed at the end of the Apollo project.

Re:First?

[Newander]

Build a space program that can get to Mars cheaper than we can now.

Re:First?

[The_K4]

Great plan, excpet that the Shuttle is designed for eath orbit, many NASA experts believe that it would be unable to traverse the distance between the earth and the moon safely.

Re:First?

[Guppy06]

Then let me put it this way:

"The mission's primary objectives are testing planetary exploration technologies."

NASA, on the other hand, actually goes out and explores planets. The Deep Space probes are about the only US space project I can think of whose primary objective was to act as a proof-of-concept, and that was because most of the technology on them were a leap ahead of what was in use until then.

The ESA says "let's see if we can do this." NASA and Rosaviakosmos say "let's do this." You don't see us having to test things out on the moon before, say, mapping Venus or dropping probes into Jupiter. Or should we have just said "Oh, wait, we can't land on Eros, we haven't tested that idea yet! It's not in the mission parameters!"

Re:First?

[Keebler71]

Alright, someone please tell me how my post was "trollish". Did I post too may facts?

Re:First?

[Grishnakh]

If we wanted to go to the moon again, we wouldn't be able to do it for the simple fact that all the engineers who were in NASA during the Apollo program's time are now retired or dead, and since the US has had no focus on space exploration since then, there's no newer generation of engineers with that expertise who could replace them. In fact, there's no engineers at all since, over the years, everyone has seen what a terrible career field aerospace engineering is (especially in the space program), and no one bothered to study it.

If there's no engineers in the US who are qualified to design spacecraft, how exactly do you propose it could be done?

Answer: contract it out to the Russians. As with most things, America, in its infinite short-sightedness, just gets other people to do all its technical work for it since native-born Americans have been discouraged by society from doing anything technical.

Re:First?

[Cromac]

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=8061 claims that much of the space shuttle is based on obsolete technology. I've also read a couple articles recently about how much of the US space program is using technology from the 70's, hardly the fanciest best equipment. Considering how tight they claim the budget is at NASA how do you figure they're dumping money into the fanciest, best equipment? Other than that I agree with you that sending robots/probes there is much cheaper and safer than sending people.

Re:First?

[Pooua]

i went to the kennedy space center and they have a saturn V just sitting there.

Not useable, for a variety of reasons. Due to the processes of time (corrosion in the salt water environment and the natural electrolytic action of the metals of all the components, etc), any Saturn V still around might as well be made of wood, for all the usefulness it would be in flying.

in fact, who cares? if we were to remake ENIAC right now it'd probably cost millions and require infrastructure to make vacuum tubes that we might not have nowadays, but nobody would say we can't match the feats of ENIAC, or that we're behind where we were in the 40s.

There are significant differences between progress in computer technology and progress in rocket technology. The most obvious is the astounding progress of computer technology compared to any other technology (the old joke about the capability of cars if they had advanced as much as computers applies).

Consider the International Space Station. Despite a half-dozen nations contributing to it, despite the US sinking several billion dollars a year into it, despite advances in technology, despite the relative simplicity of just orbiting a structure around LEO, we may never see ISS completed, especially now that our "superior" technology fell apart over Texas.

If we wanted to put men on Moon now, we would have to re-design the vehicles from scratch, and convert some launch facilities. We don't have very much technology or materials that we could leverage to cut the cost. We might have better ways of doing things, but don't expect the costs to be any less than for the first ones we launched, or for the time required to be any shorter. I doubt we could put a man on Moon within 5 years, assuming even an all-out crash program to do so. Considering our other priorities, we aren't going to focus on putting someone on Moon.

Re:First?

[Pooua]

Well, what do we really expect to learn from it that we already haven't?

I'm certain there is much more to learn. You know, we only recently discovered the remnants of a magnetic field on parts of Moon. We think there might be a vaste field of sub-surface ice around the poles, too. We've only been able to take samples from a dozen landing sites on one side of Moon, all around the middle latitudes.

Does or did Moon have a liquid core? How big is that core, and is it spinning? Is it practical to extract helium-3 from moondust? Would it be practical to extract water from Moon?

We have hardly scratched the surface!

Re:First?

[mysticgoat]

I've been following the debate my posts kicked off with interest, and found that others have been expanding so well on my original points that I haven't needed to say anything more.

But I do want to thank you for contributing the exact weight of the lunar material that was brought back by the Apollo program. 842 lbs-- probably even my hero Arnie couldn't lift that much all at once. But if none of the individual rocks was more than fifty pounds, I could hand load them into my pickup truck in under 20 minutes, and have room enough left over for a cord and a half of firewood.

[It would be sort of interesting to multiply the weight of the average astronaut by the number of astronauts who have visited the Moon, then divide the weight of the lunar rocks by that result. That would yield a "rock to meat" ratio, which I think would be less than 1:5. That is, I think it took more than five pounds of live meat to bring back every pound of lunar rock.]

Hmm, it seems I can't write anything more without it sounding bitter, so I'll stop at this point.

Re:First?

[TangoCharlie]

Tell that to the Europeans currently living on Europa. I doubt they'll be impressed!

Re:First?

[mikerich]

By the way, have fun with the Mars expedition. Oh wait. That wonderful Ariane you mentioned - the one that "does what's needed" - is pooched. See you in two years!

Mars Express? It's flying on a Fregat/Soyuz. Your point was what precisely?

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:First?

[morridx]

Are you sure? Can you prove it? Because, actually, I believe we do know how to build at least the heatshields.

Since I began work at Lockheed Martin (back then it was Martin Marietta), we have made a number of heatshields. If you go to the article linked to above, you will see a picture of the aeroshell. The white cone is one of the backshells we completed for the Mars Exploration Rover missions about this time last year. (The ablator is actually gray, they painted it in Denver.)

A cursory examination of informal records and pictures shows that we've been building them for many of NASA's planetary probes, going back to the Viking probes. I have no doubt that we could make at least Apollo Command Module-class heatshields.

dm

Re:First?

[mysticgoat]

Of course I cannot prove it: it is an engineering issue and proof is a mathematical term. Trying to prove engineering methods is like trying to taste the colors of a sunrise. : )

Now whether a thing works or not is a matter of engineering, but that is another question entirely...

On a more serious note: my authority on this was my father, who was the thermodynamics engineer on the design team for the Apollo heat shield in the mid 1960s, when I was in high school. We had a couple of relevant conversations in the 1980s, after we had each started playing around with personal computers. I think he would agree with the following summary-- though I'm sure he would find fault with the wording (such was our relationship).

Much of the basic work that was done by his team was in finding methods that would allow the complex thermodynamics problems (that sometimes involved matrices with 11 dimensions) to be approximated in three or four dimensions. These approximations could be handled by sliderules and published (hardcopy of course) lookup tables. A lot of work went into assessing whether the approximations were good enough, which involved developing cross-checking methods that were on the same order of complexity as the original problems.

Computers will yield the same kinds of results, but the heuristics are entirely different-- rather than busting the problem up into things that can be handled by sliderules, trig tables, and so on, the computer approach involves reshaping the problems into things that can be handled by its engineering math library, which knows how to solve some of the higher order equations. So the methods that the Apollo team came up with for solving the problems they faced have no relevance to a computerized approach. Worse, there is often no way to tell whether a design decision was made because of the intrinsic qualities of the materials or because it reduced the complexity of the math. It would take someone familiar with the techniques of the time to make that kind of determination-- and Kueffler+Essler stopped making sliderules a decade ago. The youngest people around who have the kind of expertise and experience to understand the Apollo development notes would now be in their 60s, and their applicable skills would be quite rusty.

Basically much of the knowledge that was developed by the Apollo project has about as much relevance to rocket science today as the techniques used 2.500 years ago at Stonehenge have to today's civil engineering.

That isn't to say we don't know how to make heat shields-- clearly we do. But we don't at the moment know how to build the equivalent of the Apollo / Saturn, and I doubt we could even replicate it from the blueprints. I have no doubt that we could come up with something better. But we don't seem to be doing that.

I think my original point, that we've lost the Apollo program technology, stands. We could replace it with something better, but at the moment we don't have anything like it at all.

BTDT

[IvyMike]

Hey, America's already Been There, Done That.

Here's what we discovered.

Re:BTDT

[sinucus]

not according to some people

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb _2 .htm

Re:BTDT

[WindBourne]

Yes, but we can not get back there. In fact, we can not even get back into space.

Re:BTDT

[EvanED]

Yeah, according to people who apparently know nothing about either astronomy or photography.

Re:BTDT

[FunWithHeadlines]

Hey, America's already Been There, Done That.

Really? Wow, I must have missed it when America did this:
"Smart 1's primary objective is to test new technologies that can advance future planetary exploration. The craft is using an innovative form of propulsion - an ion thruster - that will take it on a 15-month spiral to the Moon. "

I totally forgot about all those cool ion drive Apollo missions.
------

Re:BTDT

[SamBeckett]

OMFG THAT IS SO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111

WE LIKE THA MOON
BUT NOT AS MUCH AS CHEESE

these lowecase letters are provided for your benefit

Re:BTDT

[IvyMike]

Not only is the moon landing a hoax, but I've just been informed the moon itself is a hoax.

Best quote from the site: But don't all qualified scientists and astronomers agree that there is a moon? Indeed, but shouldn't one be suspicious of such unanimity, when universities are supposed to be forums for open debate of controversial issues. Sweet.

Re:BTDT

[WindBourne]

Actually, we only took a couple of days to make it to the moon. As to our 5 year old ion drive, it is heading out of the solar system. Don't get me wrong, I am hoping that if USA does not get a base on the Moon, that Europe does. But in all fairness, USA and Soviet had the inovation. Now, if we can simply get back into space, let alone the moon. The X-33 was our best bet and Bush killed it.

Re:BTDT

[mas]

Deep Space 1 used an ion thruster.

Ion Thruster Used to Propel the Deep Space 1 Spacecraft to Comet Encounters

Re:BTDT

[Rufus211]

Hey, America's already Been There, Done That.

Except RatherGood is most certainly not American. Watch any of the animations, particularly the Blode series and they're full of odd little things us Americans would never say/do. Don't believe me?

Who are you? I'm Joel Veitch. Hello. Where do you live? London.

Re:BTDT

[stinky wizzleteats]

It's hard to pin the "down on space" tail on Bush. Especially when he's talking about building nuclear powered interplanetary exploration craft that will use ion impulse engines and magnetic shielding for ultra-high energy transfer flights to Mars taking weeks rather than months.

I did some testing, and found that if we are successful in building a ship that can sustain 1 g of acceleration over six days (Prometheus calls for constant thrust to keep astronauts under 1 g of gravity to maintain bone and muscle mass, so it could go a hell of a lot faster), I can send a manned mission to Neptune that will take 40 days to get there. This trip would take 14 years on a Hohmann transfer.

Re:BTDT

[fucksl4shd0t]

Especially when he's talking about building [space.com] nuclear powered interplanetary exploration craft

Um, actually Bush is talking about building "nukilur po'erd inta pranerary explodation craft"

Re:BTDT

[Corgha]

I can send a manned mission to Neptune that will take 40 days to get there.

Then what are you still doing here?

Re:BTDT

[Lemmy Caution]

I attribute the moan hoax to the schemings of the cheese industry. If we knew the truth, international cheese prices would plummet.

Re:BTDT

[WindBourne]

It actually is easy to pin bush.
The research was being done before over in Califonia. It got increased and moved to Texas. The problem is that the next admin will most likely shoot it down as "pie in the sky". Sadly, it is a very good use of nukes.
The real problem, though, is that Bush killed the X-33 nearly as soon as he got into office. It was already doing the testing on engines, which proved successful. The shuttle must be replaced and as Columbia has shown, sooner rather than later. The X-33 was supposedly parted out, which never made sense. Personally, I suspect that it was moved to DOD. Better there then being dismantled.
The last US president with a vision was probably Kennedy. This is sad.

Re:BTDT

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

I did some testing, and found that if we are successful in building a ship that can sustain 1 g of acceleration over six days (Prometheus calls for constant thrust to keep astronauts under 1 g of gravity to maintain bone and muscle mass, so it could go a hell of a lot faster), I can send a manned mission to Neptune that will take 40 days to get there.

Somehow I doubt that the Prometheus design will 'keep the astronauts under 1g' by accelerating the entire craft at 1g for days on end, because that would require lots of propellant (probably many tens of times the mass of the actual vehicle) and energy. Maybe if I get energetic after I finish my homework and real work I'll run some numbers just for fun.

I rather expect there's some sort of centrifuge setup in the plans to maintain 'artificial gravity.'

Re:BTDT

[matusa]

Don't be ridiculous. Bush only glanced favorably at space travel following the Columbia disaster and the subsequent (immediate and temporary) surge in the mob's interest in space. His pollsters (puppetmasters, whatever) told him it was time to throw a little care in the direction of NASA, and for the first time in his administration, he gave them some funding, rather than slashing and slashing, which he has been doing (including shuttle related projects). And gee look, the project he picked to help has craploads of direct relation to weapons research. What an ass.

Re:BTDT

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Rough numbers: An ion engine with an exhaust velocity of 30km/sec would have to use up 327g of propellant per second to push a 1000kg vehicle at 1g. At 100% efficiency, this engine would require about 147MW of input power.

To push this vehicle for 1 hour at 1g, it would need an initial propellant load of 2245kg, and an initial power input of 477MW. For 2 hours, it would need 9531kg of propellant and 1.54GW initial input power. The initial propellant load goes up exponentially with the amount of time you want to accelerate at 1g.

Disclaimer: These numbers might be wrong; I'm a bit rusty on my differential equations. And, of course, all these calculations go out the window if someone (other than sci-fi writers) comes up with propellantless propulsion. But I'm not holding my breath for that one.

Re:BTDT

[kingkade]

heh, the first of the 12 questions about why one would believe there exists a moon: "You can see it".

Re:BTDT

[abolith]

the X-33 is VERY dead. it was being done at Skunkworks and after MASSIVE budget overruns it was finally getting somewhere...but as you said bush killed it within weeks of getting into office.

the biggest bitch was of course the massive costs, but if you look at the other truley great space/aerospace inovations they all cost a fricking boatload.. B2 and F117 stealths, going to the moon(it is estimated that it would cost in the trillions to replicate that effort today)..it was truly sad when the x-33 went away..

Re:BTDT

[Khazunga]

if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Mahatma Gandhi

Re:BTDT

[ColaMan]

Because he hasn't figured out how to get *back* yet. Otherwise it'd be :

Astronaut : "Ok, Mission Control, all mission objectives have been completed, we are ready for the Neptunian / Earth transfer orbital calculations. (Peep!)"

Mission Control : "Er, hang on a tic, I haven't done the numbers yet. Er, lessee here... 2 tons of nuclear fuel remaining... 1g acceleration....er... (Peep!)"

Mission Control : "hmm,no,that's not it...(Peep!)"

Mission Control : "maybe if we...(Peep!)"

Mission Control : "Ahah - hey, did I ever tell you guys about the time I decided to drive down to Texas and ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere? (Peep!)"

Re:BTDT

[WegianWarrior]

soooo... the proof that there is no moon is that everyone with their heads screwed on right think there is a moon?

The day that makes sence to me, I'll put on my tinfoilhat, leave a message for Chutulu and head over to the universe next door...

I can see the moon. If I can't believe my own eyes, whose eyes should I believe? -Me

Re:BTDT

[techstar25]

Ah, but they all also agree the Earth is round . . .

Re:BTDT

[A Bugg]

ummm not quite talk about the promethius project was happening before his state of the union speech, which was a few weeks before the columbia disaster. but i dispute little else.
a bugg

Re:BTDT

[Himring]

Oh lighten up alice. Did you ever hear LBJ pronounce Vietnamese names and places?... His way of saying Dien Bien Phu was a tear jerker. Something along the lines of "Damn Ben Poo."

Re:BTDT

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Better that the whole world be blind than the good be sightless and the evil being sighted, or so I say. If someone is intent on taking me down, I'm going to do my damndest to stop them. Failing that, I'll make damn sure I take them with me.

Re:BTDT

[GNUman]

>I attribute the moan hoax to the schemings of the
>cheese industry. If we knew the truth,
>international cheese prices would plummet.

Oh! So what China wants is to mine cheese from the moon, so they can have another product to sell us!

Now everything seems to fall into place...

Re:BTDT

[friendofafriend]

Don't forget too that you need to stop when you get there! It is all very well to accelerate at 1g the whole way, but stopping will require the same amount of energy as it did to get up to speed!

Re:BTDT

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Someone must have revised the speed of light since I last checked, because I get (ignoring relativistic stuff because the speeds are so small):

1 hour: 3600sec x 9.81m/sec^2 = 35,316m/sec or 0.011772% of c.

2 hours: 7200sec x 9.81m/sec^2 = 70,632m/sec or 0.023544% of c.

So you'd need to manage 1g for about 3 and a half days to get to 0.01c. Perhaps you used c=186,000m/sec instead of 3x10^8 m/sec?

Re:BTDT

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

True about the stopping part, although the energy/propellant required to decelerate at the end of the trip will be less than that required to accelerate in the first place. That's because you only have to stop the vehicle's mass at the end, whereas you had to accelerate both the vehicle and the deceleration propellant at the beginning of the trip.

Re:BTDT

[Newander]

Yeah, but Bush is using english words.

Re:BTDT

[Himring]

Yeah, but Bush is using english words.

True. Now let's see if bush can muck up a war like LBJ....

Btw, you know what mexican prostitutes called LBJ?... "El B.J.!"

Re:BTDT

[Himring]

Btw, only in since the birth of the "boob toob" do we care so much about how a leader looks/sounds. Free your minds. Kant was said to look like hell in body, patton had a laffable, high-pitched voice that'd make mike tyson hold his ears. Lincoln had no chin (he started a beard due to it) and also had a hilarious voice. Milton was blind. Only in modernity do we place profile and acting over leadership. Wanna run for president? Be sure to get some good head-shots and lose that southern accent hillbilly!...

Re:BTDT

[mfrank]

And I'm sure that Gandhi would be the first to tell you that non-violent protests only work against societies with consciences (i.e. Western democracies like US or England). I'm sure that the Jews in 1939 Germany would have been able to make non-violent protest work.

Re:BTDT

[pclminion]

And, of course, all these calculations go out the window if someone (other than sci-fi writers) comes up with propellantless propulsion. But I'm not holding my breath for that one.

It already exists. It's called light pressure. Just divide watts by the speed of light to get force. E.g., if you shoot a 150MW laser out the back, the craft will experience 150e6/3e8 = 0.5 newtons of thrust.

It should be obvious at this point that although propellant-less "propulsion" is a physical possibility, it is nowhere near practical...

Re:BTDT

[Guppy06]

"Especially when he's talking about building nuclear powered interplanetary exploration craft"

On top of that, he's a B5 fan:

In one of his posts, Straczynski recounted a conversation he had had with fellow B5 producer Doug Netter, who in turn recounted a conversation he had had with B5 star Bruce Boxleitner. It seems that Boxleitner had accompanied his wife, Screen Actors Guild president Melissa Gilbert, to the White House. The occasion was to discuss acting roles moving north of the border to Canada. In the middle of the conversation, the door opens and White House strategist Karl Rove walks in. He says to Melissa, "I hope you will forgive me, but I'm actually here to see Bruce." And, no, it wasn't to give him a hard time about how the Night Watch subplot on Babylon 5 was an eerie foreshadowing of the War on Terrorism.

According to Straczynski, Rove tells Boxleitner, "I just wanted to tell you that I'm a big science fiction fan, and that Babylon 5 is the best science fiction television series ever." After a pause, he adds, "And the president thinks so too."

Re:BTDT

[br0ck]

Accoding to this article from NASA, Ion engines don't create anything near 1g of thrust. In fact, the acceleration is so slight that scientists have to test in a vacuum to measure it. Like you mentioned, they get their efficiency from the speed of the ejected ions, however this article states that 80 kg of fuel would last 1 to 2 years and could accelerate a rocket up to 22,000 mph.

And for propellantless propulsion we have the space tether, solar sails, and (for a good laugh) vacuum propellers which are big props that are supposed to push against the 'quantum vacuum'.

Re:BTDT

[the_bean42]

It's wonderful how you manage to compare the bombing of a few boats to the dropping of an a-bomb on millions of civilians.

Re:BTDT

[ShadowcatBlue]

I did some testing, and found that if we are successful in building a ship that can sustain 1 g of acceleration over six days (Prometheus calls for constant thrust to keep astronauts under 1 g of gravity to maintain bone and muscle mass, so it could go a hell of a lot faster), I can send a manned mission to Neptune that will take 40 days to get there. This trip would take 14 years on a Hohmann transfer.

Constant thrust would use a lot of fuel wouldn't it? While this sounds fun, I think cost would be too much of an issue.
The Hohmann transfer takes a long time only because it's the most efficient method of interplanetary flight. It requires the least total delta v's, thus requires least fuel (and therefore weight) which makes it ideal for unmanned spaceflight. [Just regurgitating what (I think) I learned in Propusion Systems lectures]

Re:BTDT

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Bombing of boats? I haven't the foggiest notion what you're referring to.

As for dropping an A-bomb on "millions" of "civilians":

1. The high-water mark for the population of Hiroshima was around 380,000, but that was prior to the war. At the time of the bombing, civilians had been increasingly leaving metropolitan areas, and there were about 255,000 people living in Hiroshima. (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/abomb/mp06.htm) . Your claim of "millions" shows that either you don't know how to count or you're more interested in spouting anti-US propaganda than you are interested in facts. That, however, is no surprise.

2. Classifying the entire city as "civilians" is idiotic. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had significant strategic importance to the Japanese war effort. Both were home to significant concentrations of Japanese ground troops (see previous link to Yale study) and war industry. At a time when almost the entire population of the country was ordered to meet an invading amphibious army with sharpened bamboo poles and swords, the distinction between civilian and military was tenuous at best. Again, you have chosen to interpret this in a fashion that "backs up" your otherwise-unworkable, illogical, unprovable argument.

3. I would point out that the Japanese initiated hostilities against the U.S. at Pearl Harbor with no military provocation by the U.S., but that would likely send you into a catatonic fit of denial.

4. The Japanese were responsible for some of the most reprehensible war crimes to be carried out during all of WWII. Captured U.S. military personnel were beheaded, starved, shot, mutilated, and put into forced labor camps, all in violation of the Geneva Convention treatment of POW's. In contrast, Japanese POW's were treated according to international accords like the Geneva convention. Few were taken prisoner, though, because their government had informed them that we'd treat them as badly as they treated us.

5. During the occupation of China, the Japanese practiced wholesale "ethnic cleansing" of the Chinese. Further, thousands of women were herded into camps and forced to become "comfort women" -- slave prostitutes. To this day, the Japanese government continues to deny any responsibility for these actions, and no formal reparation has ever been made to the survivors.

But hey! Let's not forget, it's the Americans who are the evil bastards in this world, right? We need to stand up against the tyranny of the U.S. of A and respect those who stand for freedom, individuality, and love of liberty...folks like Hitler, Mussolini, Togo, Stalin, Ghaddafi, Hussein, and Mugabe.

Bah, who am I kidding? Liberals like you live in your own little dream world, and no amount of facts and logic will ever drag you away from it.

Re:BTDT

[ShadowcatBlue]

That's because you only have to stop the vehicle's mass at the end, whereas you had to accelerate both the vehicle and the deceleration propellant at the beginning of the trip.

What? Last I checked the change in velocity required to decelerate to a planet's capture velocity wasn't necessarily less than any other delta v you might make during flight.

As an example, I once calculated the delta v's for a Hohmann transfer to and from Mars. The greatest delta v coming back from Mars by far was getting to the capture velocity once you'd reached Earth. And that's only decelerating from the relatively low velocity of a Hohmann transfer orbit. Now, I could be wrong, but if you've been accelerating for several days continously wouldn't it take a lot more energy to decelerate into a capture velocity? Changes in velocity are what translates into fuel and mass (or energy, if you prefer) costs. Acceleration costs just as much as deceleration, I don't think it's just a matter of making the vehicle mass "stop".

On the other hand, depending on the means of propulsion the vehicle is very likely to be lighter as the trip goes on, so the amount of thrust you'd need to apply a change in velocity might be smaller.

[Disclaimer: I'm a bit sleep-deprived today so it's possible I've made a silly error somewhere. If I have, I apologize.]

Re:BTDT

[danila]

Stupid. Americans haven't landed on the Moon, I agree, but not because the Moon is a hoax. It is ridiculous! You can see the Moon in the sky every night. The actual reason is that America itself is a hoax, perpetrated by one suspicious Genoa seafarer... I thought you should know - there is no such thing as America. If you sail to the West, there is only ocean. All the way to China.

Re:BTDT

[TheMadReaper]

Thrusting at 1g for 6 days simply isn't practical. Assume an engine that ejects propellant at 100000m/s (this is more than 10x what is practical with the best ion drives). Your delta velocity over 6 days at 1g will be 9.8*86400*6=5 million m/s (typical missions are in the thousands of m/s, generally). That means that your initial mass to payload mass will be exp(5e6/1e5)=exp(50)=5.18e21. So for a payload weighing one ton, you would need a mass of propellant equal to the mass of the earth!

Fortunately, there is a much more practical way to provide astronauts with gravity: rotation. You can put them in a spinning ring, as in 2001, or you can have a ship and a counterweight tethered together, and spinning around each other. And this won't cost you any propellant at all (except to get things started).

Re:BTDT

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

The delta-v's at the beginning and end of the trip could very well be the same, but if the total mass of the vehicle is not be the same at both ends of the trip because of propellant usage, then the actual energy expenditure to slow to capture velocity at the end of the trip will be less than the energy required to accelerate to escape velocity at the beginning of the trip. (Holy run-on sentence, Batman!) I can give some numbers to demonstrate if necessary.

Re:BTDT

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

That's close enough to propellantless for me, I suppose, so thanks for the correction. :) For some reason, when I think "propellantless," the things that come to mind are "push-against-the-quantum-foam" and "zero-point-energy" and "warp drive" and such. Can you tell that Coast-to-Coast AM helps keep me awake while I'm working to meet a deadline? :P It's easier to stay awake when you're ROFL.

Re:BTDT

[CAIMLAS]

Any philosphy professor would quickly state that Gandi's statement doesn't compute. An eye for an eye might make the whole world blind, but not if the first one-eyed man chopped off the arm of the offender first.

Re:BTDT

[tgrigsby]

I believe the exact quote was something like, "nukular parred"...

Come on! Bush can't pronounce "interplanetary", much less use it properly in a sentence. The only way he'd support NASA is if NASA came up with gasoline powered shuttles that would put more money in his oil buddies' pockets.

Have you read about how NASA was used as a giant flying pork barrel? Congressmen were making deals with NASA lobbyists to secure funding, but only if the Congressmens' home states saw some kind of kickback.

And Bush had just released a budget that curbed growth at NASA. George could care less if the solar system's other planet's potential is realized.

So yeah, I can definitely pin the "down on space" tail on the donkey... er... elephant... um, Bush... you know....

Re:BTDT

[SpaceJunkie]

To furthar that and maintain the balance - I think the real figure of deaths in Nagasaki was closer to 120,000.
One word- Nanking. In China, more 300,000 people were butchered, tortured, raped to death, in a system of ethnic cleansing only rivaled by the NAZIs.
But it still does not justify the nuke, it just made Americans and Chinese feel better.
The Japanese and Chinese have been having a go at each other for centuries. Although, that said, no more vehemently than the English and the French, or the Spanish.
Unfortunatley when lead by a lune, men can be conditioned into savage beasts. Lets not forget Americans in Vietnam were not known for their restraint.

Who here really understands what Vietnam was all about and what Americans were even doing there in the first place?

Re:BTDT

[prisoner-of-enigma]

But it still does not justify the nuke, it just made Americans and Chinese feel better.

Armchair quarterbacking is a nice pasttime, but it has no bearing on reality. The Japanese were not planning on capitulation. Evidence gathered after the surrender indicates that Japan's military generals were advocating mass human wave attacks, on the scale of millions of men, women, and children, to defend against an amphibious invasion of their islands. The slaughter that would've been created during such an attack would've made D-Day look like a picnic, and would have radically dwarfed the casualty figures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Conservative Allied estimates put the body counts in excess of one million over a one month period. It still would've ended with Japan losing, but it would've been much more horrendous without the A-bomb.

No, despite the knee-jerk reaction to condemn the bombing, sensible individuals understand that it actually saved lives, both Japanese and American. In war, people die. It's that simple. The Japanese had to know that when the started the whole thing at Pearl Harbor, and accepted the consequences of their actions. You can choose to fight a war in many ways, but the way that defeats your enemy the quickest is almost always the "cheapest" in terms of human life. "At one point, a memo would've stopped Hitler", said Winston Churchill after the war, and he was absolutely right. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were required to show the Japanese that resistance was futile. After all, conventional bombing had not broken them, nor had a blockade. Only by showing absolutely overwhelming force, and the will to use it, could we force them to accept surrender.

By the way, the parallels with today's Saddam Hussein are almost deja vu-like: Hussein knows that in any conflict with U.S. forces he would lose, but the lack of resolution on the part of the U.N. emboldens him to thumb his nose at the U.N. and the rest of the world. If petty dictators and thugs worldwide knew that such actions would result in swift retribution, history has shown that their tendency towards violence is greatly curbed.

All that said, the atomic bombing of Japan was a horrible event, but I cannot condemn it. If you embrace the danger of stealing honey from a beehive, you also accept the consequences of being stung. Japan wanted the honey, but got stung instead. I feel nothing but sorrow for the Japanese people during that time, but they allowed their leaders to start the war, and are thus involved to the hilt. Responsibility is a tough thing to have to deal with, but it cannot be avoided in the real world.

Re:BTDT

[abolith]

get over it

push me down the stairs.

[OwlofCreamCheese]

they won't think its so cool when they go up there and find the terrible secret of space!

Re:push me down the stairs.

[mfrank]

Which monkeys, the NASA ones or the cheese-eating surrender ones?

Good, that settles it then...

[AEton]

With all those veiled Internet trolls to whom Art Bell &c. give a voice.
I hope they figure out who owns what before it touches down, too, or we'll end up with frivolous lawsuits aplenty over lunar property rights.

Glad to see space programs moving forward

[coday]

I for one am glad to see a continued interest in the space program especially after the the recent shuttle disaster. Funding could have easily been reduced out of fear for safety and lack of profitability.

Re:Glad to see space programs moving forward

[coday]

ahhhhhh....nationalism

Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moon?

[groman]

Planetary exploration is all well, but disregarding the current economics of space mining, is there anything on the moon worth mining?

Profit?

[knightinshiningarmor]

With everyone going to the moon these days, maybe I should get there first and sell moonland to the new guys. Instant profit! :-)

King of the Hill!

[jvarsoke]

Wonder if Europe and China will start a "king of the hill" by knocking over the U.S. flag and posting their own when they get there.

Re:King of the Hill!

[jvarsoke]

Nah. The Froggies will burn the US Flag.

That would be a pretty good trick -- in space.

Re:King of the Hill!

[Theaetetus]

Oooooh, sweet! If they're really good, they could aim their landers to land right on top of it! :)

-T

Re:King of the Hill!

[letxa2000]

... Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Re:King of the Hill!

[rjamestaylor]

• Wonder if Europe and China will start a "king of the hill" by knocking over the U.S. flag and posting their own when they get there.

Not sure, but dollars to doughnuts they hotwire the Lunar Rovers for some joy riding.

Re:King of the Hill!

[ShadowDrake]

Don't they have an EU flag-- something like a ring of 12 white stars on blue?

Re:King of the Hill!

[jan0sch]

Yep, but the stars are yellow, IIRC.
But I like the UN flag more (blue with the continents on it).
http://www.theodora.com/flags/

Re:King of the Hill!

[BLAG-blast]

Does Europe have a flag, anyway? Ok, so I'm showing off my ignorance, but if the European Space Agency plants a flag on the moon, which flag will it be?

Yep, it's ignorance alright. ;-)

The European Flag for you enjoyment. For those watching in black and white, it's a blue flag with a ring of 12 gold stars.

Now, I'm going to take a guess that there is a high chance you don't know what the Iraqi flag looks like. In fact, very few Americans seem to know what the Iraqi flag looks like, yet they will bomb the country anyway... I wonder if this is how America always manages to bomb it's allies when they go to war.

Re:King of the Hill!

[lordsid]

provided they can find our flag =/

Re:King of the Hill!

[antaeogo]

"In fact, very few Americans seem to know what the Iraqi flag looks like" ...

Not surprising; Plenty of Americans don't even know what the American flag looks like.

Being American (living in or near small/isolated towns, so I know what it's like), you can live your entire life without ever needing to worry about foreign oppression, lack of resources, politics and worldly events, or even what the government is up to.

Re:King of the Hill!

[GothChip]

We'll probably just capture it and return it to our base instead

Re:King of the Hill!

[kingkade]

Not surprising; Plenty of Americans don't even know what the American flag looks like.

Maybe your def of 'plenty' turns out to be less than the number of stupid/ignorant people you can find in any country on the face of this planet?

Re:King of the Hill!

[antaeogo]

"Maybe your def of 'plenty' turns out to be less than the number of stupid/ignorant people you can find in any country on the face of this planet?"

Yea, I'm sure you can find more people in X country that are ignorant of B, than the number of Americans that can't even recognize their countries' flag.

(X and B are completely your pick).

Re:King of the Hill!

[stienman]

"My fellow Americans. Today we were attacked. The terrorists have become brazen in their efforts to show us up. Today our flag on the moon was knocked over and burned. The perpetrators must and will be punished! Just minutes ago I signed an order to bomb the heck out of... Well, pretty much everyone else in the world."

-Adam

Re:King of the Hill!

[Ratso Baggins]

"there is a high chance you don't know what the Iraqi flag looks like."

I do - but only from playing BF1942 Desert Combat....

Re:King of the Hill!

[DavidpFitz]

This picture of the European flag must be a couple a years old. There are now 15 stars, three have been added for Sweden, Finland and Austria which joined the EU in 1995 IIRC.

Actually, no this is not the case. Unlike the USA, the number of stars on the EU flag does not represent the number of members. According to the official EU site "The number of stars is fixed, twelve being the symbol of perfection and unity."

Say what you like about 12 being the symbol of perfection and unity, but there is (and will only be) 12 stars.

Re:King of the Hill!

[Richy_T]

I understand that the Palestinians were planning a moon landing but they couldn't work out how to keep the American flag lit when they got there.

Rich

Re:King of the Hill!

[BLAG-blast]

Use your mind for once, please? If we bomb iraq and kill a couple hundred people, that is nothing compared to what Saddam has done to the iragis and you support him.

How is this year different from the other 20 years that Saddam has been doing this. When he using chemical weapons agains minorities in Iraq that supported Iran, all we said was "that wasn't nice", but we certainly didn't care to invade his country because of it (and we didn't stop supplying more weapons to him either). So who supported him then? Oh! we did!

Now our oil is getting low and we need a lot more of... so we will take a Iraq and make it into a country similar to Saudi, problem the people of Saudi don't like this, because it's effectively a US supported dictatorship. If we really think Arabs should have democracy, why don't we start with Saudi?

Now as far as the "it's about France wanting the oil", because they want the oil embargo lifted, we people seem to have forgotten why Iraq invade Kuwait in the first place. Saddam was trying to stop the Arab world selling all it's oil, because once it runs out they ain't any more. Arabs should save there oil for future Arab generations and not sell it all to over seas oil companies in one mans life time. Rumailah oil field is mainly in Iraq, with 5% of it under Kuwait, and Kuwait was going to pump it dry (compare the number of people in Kuwait to that of Iraq? is it fair the Kuwait get's to sell all the oil while future Iraqis get none?).

Re:King of the Hill!

[j-b0y]

It would be the ESA symbol, certainly not the EU one, since there are members of ESA who are not EU members and vice versa.

Re:King of the Hill!

[mfrank]

Well, I know what an Iraqi flag looks like; one of my friends had an Iraqi flag-burning party about 12 years ago. It went up real nice.

Besides, the only flags the Iraqis will be waving will be the little white ones. Must come from buying the Mirages and nuclear reactors.

Re:King of the Hill!

[danila]

Apparently, Americans are among the worst in finding their own country on the world map. IIRC, in one global survey about 10% of Americans failed in this intricate task, compared with less than 1% in such countries as Sweden and Japan. BTW, Swedes and Japanese were pretty good in finding the US too.

Re:King of the Hill!

[danila]

And on this photo you can see the ESA flag, floating on some experimental habitat.

Re:King of the Hill!

[Banjonardo]

Yeah, you know, that country Europe!

Because they all go by one flag....

, I know there's an EU flag, but I don't think anyone's ready to show "continent pride" for it yet.

Re:King of the Hill!

[The J Kid]

Nah-uh-uh!

All your base are belong to us!

*ducks*

no mention

[lingqi]

That SMART-1 is a solar-plasma-hall-effect propelled... thing? (I don't know what to call it. "technology demo" would be most fitting)

Anyway, with US short a shuttle, I'd think there should be more of europe stepping up to support the ISS; you know, the *international* space station? of which they are also a part of?

Granted, it'd be the day when you see muslim (like, say, from Saudi) or chinese (as in, from Beijing) flying to the ISS on a regular basis, so maybe it's not that international...

Re:no mention

[Mekanix]

Like the UN?

Re:no mention

[g4dget]

Anyway, with US short a shuttle, I'd think there should be more of europe stepping up to support the ISS; you know, the *international* space station? of which they are also a part of?

Do you have any concrete indication that the Europeans are not "stepping up"? Last I looked, ESA seemed very enthusiastic and supportive of the ISS.

Re:no mention

[letxa2000]

You mean by standing around watching, applauding the effort? I know the Shuttle arm was built by Canada, some part of the ISS was built in Russia, the US did the ferrying via the shuttle, and Russia did resupply missions with their rockets. What exactly has Europe done? This is not a rhetorical question, I honestly don't know.

Re:no mention

[g4dget]

The US calls the shots when it comes to the ISS, and the limited role the Europeans play is because the US is miffed at European foreign policy and thinks that European engineers are dolts (see here).

If you want to know what parts of the ISS the US has assigned to other nations, you can find it on Google (e.g., this and this). Ariane rocket launches also are used for a lot of components, although US media don't seem to have much interest in reporting this (e.g., here).

The main reason for NASA to favor international involvement in something like the ISS is because it makes it harder for Congress to cancel the project; otherwise, it looks like they'd just as soon go it alone.

Re:no mention

[antaeogo]

I could have sworn the acronym stood for United Nations...

But, hey, what do I know. Maybe everyone keeps accidently hitting the "U" key instead of "I".

;)

Re:no mention

[Anonymous Coward]

Equipment racks (the glove box, for example), the Columbus node (not yet launched), the cupola, one of the *two* robot arms, launches of equipment on Ariane rockets, astronauts, and of course the ATV (Autonomous Transfer Vehicle)... ESA also pays for some of the Russian launches.

Work on ATV has certainly been stepped up. Having it available earlier would free up Russian launchers for manned flights (instead of Progress flights).

Re:no mention

[meringuoid]

Granted, it'd be the day when you see muslim (like, say, from Saudi) or chinese (as in, from Beijing) flying to the ISS on a regular basis, so maybe it's not that international...

Sure you would see that - the US would even put them up there. All NASA needs is a qualified Muslim or Chinese to step up to the plate. From what I understand, it takes many years for the training, so don't expect it to happen tomorrow, unless these people are already waiting in the wings.

In a gratuitous effort to keep their oil pusher friendly, the US sent Prince Sultan Abdul Aziz Al-Saud into orbit aboard STS 51-G, Discovery, on 17 June 1985. The official excuse was that Saudi Arabia was having a satellite launched by this mission, and the prince went up as a 'payload specialist'.

Re:no mention

[Diabolical]

Europe has no manned space programm nor experiency with that kind of thing. There have been a few astronauts from europe but they were guestson either a russian or american spacecraft. These two countries are the only ones (i guess China now has as well) which have a manned space programm anyway.

Re:no mention

[p3d0]

This kind of crap is so frustrating. Do you think that "Europe" can only plan one space mission at a time? If they're planning this moon shot thingy, they therefore must no longer be supporting the ISS, right?

Good grief.

Re:no mention

[Eunuchswear]

Pledge of Allegiance: One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all...

Surely you mean:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty, equality and justice for all.

Re:no mention

[Mekanix]

Bingo!

Re:no mention

[Keebler71]

Maybe you should look at your own link Take a close look at that picture. There are exactly two non-Russian European components.

Re:no mention

[mfrank]

Well, the Canadians and Europeans pretty much have to pay zilch for defense because America takes care of it.

Re:no mention

[g4dget]

Maybe you should read the posting you are responding to:

The US calls the shots when it comes to the ISS, and the limited role the Europeans play is because [...]

In different words, I'm not arguing that the Europeans are contributing huge chunks to the ISS, I'm just saying that whatever they contribute is what the US wants them to contribute, and the US apparently doesn't want them to contribute more.

Re:no mention

[geoswan]

Anyway, with US short a shuttle, I'd think there should be more of europe stepping up to support the ISS; you know, the *international* space station? of which they are also a part of?

And would you be happy if the ISS partners insisted that the next shuttle be an international effort, built to an international design?

Re:no mention

[lingqi]

Actually I typo'd my post, I really meant "I'd think there should be more *NEWS* of europe stepping up... ..."

Everybody seem to be pissed at me on this, but - what in the world would an international shuttle standard would have to do with it either way around?

Re:no mention

[letxa2000]

No, believe it or not I'm referring to the version that's been actively used and taught for more than a generation. Perhaps you salute the British flag because that's what we used 250 years ago, too.

Re:no mention

[geoswan]

...what in the world would an international shuttle standard would have to do with it either way around?

"what in the world?" Well, we are talking about outer space, actually. :-).

Seriously, stupid US budget politics caused the design of the Space Shuttle to be compromised. All space partners suffer because of this.

If the design of the next generation shuttle, used for the international space station, is going to be compromised by stupid budget politics, why shouldn't they be international stupid budget politics?

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[happyhippy]

Well theres the supposed ice in the perpetual shadows of some craters.
And they could only mine to see whats down there to start with, to see how the moon is made up and to determine if it was part of the earth once.

spacer.com

[suhit]

Though space.com has good articles, I think http://www.spacer.com (also going by the name spacedaily.com) has some very nice write-ups. Check out the following three articles on the Chinese space ventures -
i. China to shoot for the moon after sending man into orbit - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030302075956.spawz6 fq.html
ii. China may launch unmanned moon mission in 2005 - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030303030843.54odg9 c7.html
iii. Shenzhou's Changing Face - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-03j.html

Suhit

What?

[s0rbix]

This isn't a race. In case you forgot, we visited the moon over 30 years ago. The value of a trip now wouldn't justify the cost. I fully support the space program and realize its importance, but realistically the only reason it's around is for the boost it gives to nationalism.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, just as the first trips resulted in nothing of value. No technological innovation, no knowledge gained, a total waste of effort. Let all just sit on our asses for the next thousand years making a case for exploration we can justify to the bean counters, for they truly are the engines of civilization.

Re:What?

[EvanED]

Kind Ferdinand: "In case you forgot, we visited the Americas [which aren't named yet but whatever] last year. The value of a trip now wouldn't justify the cost. I fully support the ocean program and realize its importance, but realistically the only reason it's around is for the boost it gives to nationalism."

ha ha

[xao gypsie]

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

I think it is good that the US government is finally seeing it the way the average joe sees it. them them do it this time...
xao

U.S. will wave as it flys by

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been there. We're going to Mars with 2 rovers in May and July.

That's not sitting and watching.

Re:U.S. will wave as it flys by

[jkcity]

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/beag le_lander_000522.html

we are going there too.

Re:U.S. will wave as it flys by

[Sinus0idal]

Well, if you are sending rovers... surely all you are doing is watching? :-)

Probably not sit around...

[Ieshan]

We'll probably be bombing people at that time. We wouldn't want to divide our brilliant minds between science and bombing, would we?

Re:Probably not sit around...

[Cramer]

Indeed. What th f*** do you think got us into space? It wasn't about scientific discovery; it comes down to national pride and politics. (with a bit of paranoid sprinkled on top.)

What exactly did we get for all the trouble and expensive of going to the moon? A few tons of moon rocks... do those rocks cure cancer? Can we feed, cloth, and/or power the 3rd world with those rocks? Are we making weapons out of those rocks -- we turn everything into a weapon? (I'll add, the rocks already on this planet were sufficiently leathal for hundreds of thousands of years. Do we really need a "space-age hand axe"?) Yes, it lit a fire under the heals of technological innovation. However, I feel all the technologies developed during the "space race" would have eventually been developed without the push. (things like plastic, velcro, flourecent lights, the LED, "a computer that can fit in a single room"...)

Re:Probably not sit around...

[TGK]

My understanding was that the moon missions were undertaken to communicate one thing and one thing only.

If we can land a little tinfoil lander on at target some 380,000 (and change) kilometers away, we can damn sure land a warhead on Moscow.

Re:Silly Europe

[Amorpheus_MMS]

Insightful flamebait? You see something new every day...

Just what the US needs.

[bluyonder]

A little competition to get us back on track. We need to take NASA away from the politicians and give it back to the engineers.

Re:Just what the US needs.

[DarthWiggle]

Or to the test pilots.

Why does space travel have to be as safe as going down to the CVS to pick up teeth whitener? I mean, it's dangerous stuff. We should respect the hell out of the men and women who keep going up and back (and bless the ones who didn't make it back).

Engineers... Yeh, they're better than politicians, but I don't think they are as in touch with the visceral spirit of exploration that drove the early space program. I'm not knocking engineers... Good lord, if you had test pilots in charge of everything, we'd just duct tape an F-15 until it was airtight, attach a few rockets under the wings, and see if the thing would fly in space. ("RCS? What the hay-ull do we need that fer?")

Engineers, test pilots... we could put NASA under the command of a bunch of trained chinchillas for all I care. Just bring back the spirit. Bring it back to us out in the mundane world. Get us fired up.

And for God's sake, give us more to feed on than the tragedies. Even if NASA needs to scare up some fluff (read: marketing) missions, give us SOMETHING to get excited about...

And I'm not talkin' space rovers and asteroid piggy-backers, though for space-interested folks like me, that stuff is AMAZING. No, I'm talking cheap one-person missions out to farther and farther orbital points. "Test pilot Bucky Bergstrom today orbited the earth farther than any human ever has!" So, there's no scientific value, but it gets positive coverage.

*sigh*

This wasn't supposed to be a rant.

Re:Just what the US needs.

[praedor]

And I'm not talkin' space rovers and asteroid piggy-backers, though for space-interested folks like me, that stuff is AMAZING. No, I'm talking cheap one-person missions out to farther and farther orbital points. "Test pilot Bucky Bergstrom today orbited the earth farther than any human ever has!"

...and was fried and dead within 3 hours of entering and orbiting within the Van Allen belts.

Re:Just what the US needs.

[Galvatron]

"Test pilot Bucky Bergstrom today orbited the earth farther than any human ever has!"

If that's the kind of announcement that you think will get people interested in space again, you are out of your mind. I like space, and even I don't give a good god damn that some guy orbited higher than anyone ever has before. That's just stupid.

As an aside, so long as NASA is a government program, it will always be ruled by the politicians. That's what a government program IS, a program run by politicians. You've got the same problem with public schools, look at the amount of time we spend arguing about whether the 10 commandments should be posted.

american moon missions

[KavanaghNY]

It's great that Europe and China are making their first attempts to send robotic probes to the moon. The United States has some experience in this area. Yes, Americans can sit around and watch to see how well the Europeans and Chinese do something that NASA achieved over four decades ago - and repeated dozens of times since.

A bulleted history of US missions to the Moon:

1998 - Lunar Prospector
1994 - Clementine
1972 - Apollo 16,17
1971 - Apollo 14,15
1970 - Apollo 13
1969 - Apollo 10,11,12
1968 - Apollo 8, Surveyor 7
1967 - Lunar Orbiter 3,4,5, Surveyor 3,4,5,6
1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1,2, Surveyor 1,2
1965 - Ranger 8, 9
1964 - Ranger 7

Re:american moon missions

[cranos]

Yes the Americans have already been to the moon, so what? They dropped the ball. Instead of moving forwards and instigating semi-permanent to permanent settlements and benefiting from the exploration and discovery that would entail, they decided the ratings weren't good enough and limited themselves to earth orbit.

You can't afford to sit on your laurels for too long, because some one else is going to come along and knock you off the perch.

Re:american moon missions

[NotAnotherReboot]

In all honesty, a manned mission to the moon by another country would be great. It would finally shut up all of these conspiracy theories about how the manned missions to the moon by the U.S. were elaborate hoaxes.

Not that anyone should continue to believe any of that trash considering the huge amount of evidence that we did land on the moon.

I see nothing wrong with human progress, even if it's not my own country. I suppose we should have flying cars right now because those darned Chinese are starting to get more and more of them.

If anything, competition encourages increased effort into projects.

Re:american moon missions

[mark-t]

IIRC, Apollo 13 never made it to the moon.

Re:american moon missions

[AmigaAvenger]

it didn't make it to the surface, but it did a gravity assist around it to come back.

Re:american moon missions

[Your_Mom]

Neither did Apollo 8 or 10. However, they did orbit the moon, so I assume that is what they are counting.

Re:american moon missions

[KavanaghNY]

Apollo 13 made a flyby of the moon like the first robotic probes. The crew did contact photographic observatoins of lunar surface while they were repairing the command module.

Re:american moon missions

[jmv]

And when was the last time the US sent a man on the moon? What, more than 3 decades ago? Maybe it's because it still costs way too much, even for the US? My other guess is that the risks are very high and that NASA is no longer willing to take them.

Re:american moon missions

[Timesprout]

Its not a question of trying to emulate the previous achievenments of NASA. The European attempt in particular is a test bed for new technology eg the ion thrusters. 4 decades is a very very long time in technology years. Its now time to test the new stuff before deploying it on serious missions.

Re:american moon missions

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, honestly, this is starting to get on my nerves.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that Russia had:

• The first rocket in space
• The first animal in space
• The first man in space
• The first woman in space
• 
  and
• The first probe on the moon

And probably some other stuff I can't remember

Then a US president decided that having a man on the moon was important... So the US won an arbitary race they contrived.

I have often heard that Americans won the Space Race. It was not the "Space Race", the Russians won that. It was not the "Moon Race", the Russians won that too. It was the "Man on the Moon Race". So well done, have a gold star.

It reminds me of the claim that Americans built the first computer... It depends on what properties are necessary for a device to be classed as a computer: That it's electronic? That it has Randomly Acessable Memory? That it operates on a stored program? (This last one seems most plausible to me.) I am tempted to suggest that one of the requirements implicit in some people's lists is that it was built in America.

Re:american moon missions

[EvanED]

The Russians orbited a man before we even got Shepard up into "low" space (there's a term for that, but I forget what it is).

I don't mean to go on a patriotic rant because I'd be the last person to go out waving the flag and whatnot (walk past my dorm door and you're virtually guranteed of seeing some anti-Bush anti-Iraq war propaganda), but the US won at one very important goal: the Russians were the first to give up. They had a moon program, in fact for a bit they were ahead. But when they suffered the loss of one of their crafts not long after we lost Apollo 1, they abandoned their program, either because they didn't think it was technically feasable, or they thought that by the time they got back on track we'd be ahead and wanted to be able to claim they were not trying. (I don't know which option I think is more likely; the first I think is unlikely because of the technical merits of the Soviet space program, while I don't see anyone doing the second option...)

Re:american moon missions

[cranos]

America, once you had the pioneering spirit, the need to go out and actually stand on new places, see sights with your own eyes never before seen. Now you couldn't be bothered getting off your arse to change the channel.

Re:american moon missions

[terrymr]

The Russians orbited a man before we even got Shepard up into "low" space (there's a term for that, but I forget what it is).

I guess you'd call shepard's flight a sub-orbital space flight. Still space just not orbiting the earth.

Re:american moon missions

[DavidBrown]

I think that it's less an issue of the risk involved rather than it's a question of "What's the point?". We've been to the Moon. Until we start construction of Moon Base Alpha and start shipping nuclear waste to the Moon there's little reason to go pick up a few more rocks other than to say we can. And we know we can, so why bother?

Re:american moon missions

[DavidBrown]

Good point. I propose that we adopt the Sid Meier's Civilization test - the Space Race will be won by the first nation to establish a permanent off-world colony. Anything less than that is simply theatrics.

Re:american moon missions

[rjamestaylor]

And the Vikings made routine trips to North America (Vineland) centuries before Columbus. Yet, it is with the Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, German and Dutch we ascribe the discovery of the New World--because they didn't just visit, they took possession of it. Sitting on our laurels just means we're sitting uncomfortably. Don't you want to do something bold, today? Get to the Moon, stay on the Moon, go to other places. Just a thought.

Re:american moon missions

[DavidBrown]

"In all honesty, a manned mission to the moon by another country would be great. It would finally shut up all of these conspiracy theories about how the manned missions to the moon by the U.S. were elaborate hoaxes."

What do you mean by "another country"? You're making that up. There are no other countries, and any "moon" missions that they accomplish are as made up as they are.

"those darned Chinese"? There you go again...

Re:american moon missions

[fucksl4shd0t]

America, once you had the pioneering spirit, the need to go out and actually stand on new places, see sights with your own eyes never before seen. Now you couldn't be bothered getting off your arse to change the channel.

I agree with you completely, 100%. I would just like to point out that ending your post with the sentence Now you couldn't be bothered getting off your arse to change the channel. and then quoting an English tv show probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.....

Re:american moon missions

[fucksl4shd0t]

Good point. I propose that we adopt the Sid Meier's Civilization test - the Space Race will be won by the first nation to establish a permanent off-world colony. Anything less than that is simply theatrics.

We can't do that. Some warmongering armor units will show up out of nowhere and conquer us all while we're building for the space race, the entire time saying "There's two ways to win this game..."

Re:american moon missions

[DarenN]

Actually, this post bring a question to mind...

I wonder how expensive it would be to load a cheap module with rubbish and fire it into the sun. Because that'd cut down on all the dangerous industrial waste that's lying about.

Re:american moon missions

[ausgnome]

From memory , Didn't some germans help out a great deal in the early pionerring days ?

Re:american moon missions

[devonbowen]

Wasn't it LEO, Low Earth Orbit?

No, Shepard didn't get into orbit on his first flight. He just went up, crossed the line, and fell back. It was like a 20 minute flight.

Devon

Re:american moon missions

[G. W. Bush Junior]

It probably wouldn't convince them that it wasn't a hoax... They'll just say: "look, it took 40 years before the technology was advanced enough to ACTUALLY do it. Why wouldn't they have gone back back before if it was really so easy?"

Re:american moon missions

[antaeogo]

"new technology eg the ion thrusters."

Deep Space 1 - Launched 1998-10-24 12:08:00 UTC - xenon gas ion propulsion engine. American.

Re:american moon missions

[Anonymous Coward]

Since America is the greatest nation in the world, we must have built the first computer. And won the space race. And be the very symbol of all that is honest and good. There you see what a great nation we are!

Re:american moon missions

[ColaMan]

Let's see:

$200 million to launch 10 tons of hazardous waste to LEO, where if things don't go right in the launch or the next transfer stage, it might end up de-orbited in teeny-little hazardous pieces over some continent. Maybe even *your* continent!

$10 million to buy an abandoned salt mine and dump 10,000t of waste in it for someone else to deal with later (much later - hopefully after you're long gone from the scene with the remainder of the cash you saved from not launching crap into the sun.)

Which one would you pick if you were a corporation that needed to show a profit to worried investors?

Re:american moon missions

[KillerLoop]

Prohibitivly expensive since you have to get the waste out of Earth's gravity well. We are talking thousands of dollars per lb here for just NEO, and that's notwithstanding the fact that you probably don't want to spray your ultra-toxic waste all over the landscape when one of the boosters blows up.

Re:american moon missions

[10Ghz]

There's an old joke from the fifties or the sixties:

An American and Soviet spacecrafts meet in space. The crews greet each other... in german.

Re:american moon missions

[GregWebb]

Wasn't the first rocket in space probably a V2? Anyway, Sputnik was definitely the first in orbit.

Anyway, they also got the first spacewalk (Alexi Leonov from Voskhod 3) and the first flight with more than one person on board (Voskhod 1), and I'm pretty sure the first in-orbit docking, too. Certainly _tried_ it before the US. US probably built a craft that returned people to earth safely before the USSR, though, because Vostok (Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova et al) didn't land with them on-board. They parachuted out in descent.

Oh, I was looking for decent pics of Sputnik recently and couldn't find _anything_. Can anyone help?

Re:american moon missions

[blibbleblobble]

I propose that we adopt the Sid Meier's Civilization test - the Space Race will be won by the first nation to establish a permanent off-world colony.

How about a permanently manned space station for 15 years?

Re:american moon missions

[EasyTarget]

Ah! So it will be the second ion powered craft. Being second to achieve a major space milestone is something you should really identify with.

Re:american moon missions

[KingTank]

Man walking on the moon was "the big one". If you can't understand that, then you don't have a heart. It was something people had dreamed about since the cavemen. Besides, the Soviets were working very hard on their own manned moon mission.

Re:american moon missions

[drudd]

From the Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Sputnik

Doug

Re:american moon missions

[antaeogo]

"And Russians invented the ion propulsion engine."

Who cares, I was pointing out that ion propulsion isn't new.

Re:american moon missions

[zipwow]

Yes, and we also have *always* been at war with Oceana. :P

-Zipwow

Re:american moon missions

[cobbaut]

And probably some other stuff I can't remember

first pictures of dark side of the moon
first spacewalk

cheers,
pol :)

Re:american moon missions

[mfrank]

Maybe a century from now people will be able to profitable use what is now considered to be hazardous waste. Easy to get out of a salt mine, kinda hard to get out of the sun.

And he's probably talking about nuclear waste, in which case it's the government's responsibility to take care of the waste (they've been collecting all sorts of tax on nuclear-generated electricity for the last few decades specifically for that purpose).

Re:american moon missions

[GregWebb]

Thanks, but too dark to print which was what I wanted.

For some reason, you just can't get printable pictures of Sputnik. Why no-one's built a replica for that sort of thing I don't know.

Re:american moon missions

[mikerich]

the USSR's feverish 'race' that claimed the lives of a lot of their astronauts.

If any country did things at a feverish pace, it was the Americans. The Apollo project short-circuited everything by building one very big rocket that was good for one purpose - taking three men and a lunar module to the Moon. Saturn V was practically useless for anything else.

So when Apollo ended the rockets were no longer needed - instant crisis - what was going to replace them?

The Soviets took the long term approach of reusing their hardware time and time again and building families of rockets that complemented one another. Even their 'Moon rocket' the N1, was not just intended to take men to the Moon, it was intended to lift up to 100 tonnes into low orbit. What was stacked on top was irrelevant - the Soviets had plans for Moon missions, space stations, weapons, space probes the lot to go up on N1s.

That design failed, but the workhorses of the 1960s are still going strong. And that's because they're damned good designs that can be used for almost anything. Soyuz not only puts men into orbit, it launches communications satellites, can throw a payload to the Moon and in July it will be carrying a European probe to Mars.

And Soviet missions lost four men in two missions - Soyuz 1 (1967) and Soyuz 11 (1971). Since then, none.

There are no 'missing' or 'secret' cosmonaut deaths, the Soviet Union simply had a better strategy for getting into space. It worked hard and there is no point in taking that achievement away from them.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:american moon missions

[The J Kid]

Ah ! I see though you again!

Europe _is_ a moon !

Dan Quayle is cheering

[arvindn]

We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.
--Dan Quayle

Re:Dan Quayle is cheering

[donutello]

How long before we hear that quote again - this time attributed to Bush?

But what about

[irving47]

The aliens and their demand we stay off the moon?

WMTS??

[Xandar01]

>Hey, America's already Been There, Done That.

Where's My Tee-Shirt then? Huh??

Re: soviet moon missions

[KavanaghNY]

Soviet Lunar Missions
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lun ar/lunarus sr.html

Recent interplanetary missions
http://www.stellarlink.com/css/

Re:It needs to be said.........

[Pyromage]

I think it'll be good for us. When the Ruskies got sputnik up there, it really riled us up. A lot of people stepped up and said, "I can do better than that!". "I'll see your satelite and raise you the Moon," they said.

So Europe wants to go to the moon? Good for them. They can have second place, and if it motivates us a bit, we'll see Mars, astroid mining, and the Space Hilton long before I'm visiting the Lunar Beni Hana.

I hope they go there; it'll light a fire under our ass to get back into the swing of things.

Soviet moon missions

[AEton]

There were two, Luna and Zond. (See that link if you trust the federal government). The Soviet missions ran from 1959 to 1976 overall; Luna was the ground mission which picked up three lunar ground samples (Luna 16, 20, 24) and Zond was the satellites that flew over the moon (probably trying to set up a laser defense array or something).
The important thing isn't that moon travel has happened before; it's that it's being seriously considered again.

Re:Soviet moon missions

[mikerich]

Luna also landed two rovers (Lunokhod), whilst the Zond missions to the Moon were unmanned test flights for a Soviet circumlunar flight.

(Zond was one of those catch-all terms used by the Soviets. It means 'probe' and was also used for missions to Mars, Venus and Earth orbiting flights)

The Zond probes to the Moon were modified Soyuz capsules that would have carried a single cosmonaut around the Moon and back to Earth.

The original plan was to send the first mission to the Moon in November 1968 (which would have just pipped Apollo 8), provided that three or four unmanned missions proved successful.

After a series of unsuccessful launches (which were given the designation Kosmos), Zond 5 and 6 both successfully completed their missions - until the last few minutes. Zond 5 suffered a gyroscope failure and re-entered pulling some 20G, whilst Zond 6 depressurised during re-entry and suffered a parachute failure.

Zond 7 flew unmanned in 1969 and returned safely to Earth. The last mission, Zond 8 suffered another 20G re-entry and was recovered from the Indian Ocean instead of inside the USSR.

Apparently more capsules were built, but were allocated to the Soviet Union's ambitious plans to construct a lunar base. That came to nothing because of the failure of their N1 booster.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Well, with that attitude

[Ars-Fartsica]

Quit your bellyaching and get a reality check. The cool tech most people in China are waiting for is running water. All empire fall, but it is going to be a while still before China uniformly leaves the U.S. in the dust....that is assuming they themselves aren't subverted economically by labor and intellectual capital even cheaper than themselvs. So far they are the low cost choice, but once standards start to rise there, they will also hear that "giant sucking sound" from cheaper locales like every other producer in the free trade world.

Re:Difference btwn communists and America

[kernelkrisp]

That's right. You are indeed a dick.

But it eventually bites them in the ass

[Ars-Fartsica]

The Russians lost dozens of men due to shoddy safety standards, but they also lost equipment and time. Engineering for safety is not about being cautious, it is about conserving your resources - your trained staff, your equipment, and your time.

Re:But it eventually bites them in the ass

[anonymous cupboard]

Actually, the Soviet's main problem in the space program was a scewed sense of priorities. The most important things were to prove your superior's right and to CYA. Safety came a poor third. Everytime something went wrong, someone would whisper "Sabotage" and the best answer that anyone could say was "We were following orders".

Doesn't sound a million miles from the direction a certain other space agency seems to be taking, does it?

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[nihilvt]

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

Are we supposed to go do it again? Considering we did this four decades ago?

Re:The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[Iguanaphobic]

Are we supposed to go do it again? Considering we did this four decades ago?

Yes. Or admit that the USA has passed its prime as a society and is now on the slow slide into cultural and moral decay. It is not what you did in the past, it is what have you done lately that counts.

Re:The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[money_shot]

If you want to count only recenty accomplishments, that pretty much discounts everything Europe has ever achieved.

How recent do you want to get? How about the last 5 or 10 years... mmmm.... do I really need to draw a picture for you? Space? Biotech? Computer Science? Europe can claim a few achievments, but they pale in comparison to the US. Maybe one day Europe will be relevent again.

Re:The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[Iguanaphobic]

Let us try not comparing to anyone for a moment. From the perspective of decades out into the future, do you really think people will be talking about the new improved Swiffer Mop and the 2003 season of Survivor? The US has lost interest in anything that is not related to a higher GDP, more money in the old IRA and a decent BLT with extra mayo.

Europe can claim a few achievments, but they pale in comparison to the US.

Killing your own and your allies troops? Yes, the US is much better than the Europeans at that.

Re:The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[Iguanaphobic]

It never ceases to amaze me how people who would be offended to be lumped in so silly a stereotype regarding their own nationality/ethnicity/interest group will cheerfully make those types of accusations about the US or its citizens.

Where do you think I live??

I suppose its a part the same urge that makes the you an self-proclaimed "expert" on US politics and policy.

Never proclaimed myself an expert. I did say that I refuse to take what the US media feeds me at face value.

I hate to break it to you, but that vey fact you think you have interesting opinions about the motivations of the US citizenry is a pretty solid argument that the US is still very much relevant in all the areas you might conceive being important decades in the future.

I despair at the motivations of the US leadership and the apathy of the US citizenry that allows the leadership to get away with it.

Right or wrong US policies and economics will shape the world to come more substantially than anything likely to appear in Europe in the next "decades out into the future". China, on the other hand, has s shot at relevance, but they have to avoid an economic collapse first.

Relevant to who? The country that makes the largest missiles with the biggest warheads? Or countries that learn to live together and get along? How do you measure relevance?

Re:The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[error0x100]

So let me just make sure I understand you right. If we're talking about the accomplishments of a country, then its OK to keep blowing your horn about it for centuries after the event. But if we start talking about ugly stuff, like slavery or segregation or McCarthyism then its OK to argue, "hey, that stuff happened so long ago, its history, stop harping on about it!"?

Re:The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[rrobles]

ROTFLMAO Sure indeed, with all the "precision" bombing mistakes that they are going to make, killing innocent civilians, like 12 years ago. Now, I'm sad.

To be expected

[KalvinB]

The same reason Michael thinks it's worth noting that the US is "just" going to sit and watch is the same reason this article will probably be duped in an hour or two like so many others.

Welcome to 40 years ago.

Isn't amnesia fun?

Ben

Re:Skewed Priorities

[Iguanaphobic]

humankind won't be able to progress if it's destroyed or held hostage by criminally insane dictators with WMDs.

So when is the next US federal election anyway?

They will really be bummed because:

[commodoresloat]

1. China will already be there and will have mined all the good moon rocks
2. They will read slashdot and find out that European life is in doubt anyway!

No..

[Adam9]

the editor's comments did the trolling for you.

Allrite...I am late,but....

[whazzy]

...How many of you expected to see the discussion hijacked by the single sentence about Americans opting to Sit and watch,Please, Raise My Hand:-)

Re:Allrite...I am late,but....

[mobets]

Raise My Hand

I would, but I can't reach.

Plans for the USA

[DarkHelmet]

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

Nope, the US is planning sabotage. We can't have all those euro-socialist scumbags find out that we didn't really go there in the 60's. Of course not!

I hear they're planning to send Buzz Aldrin by himself to Europe to personally pummel the ESA's people.

And I hope they get it on tape again!

When do we go to L4 and L5

[einhverfr]

The thing I am wondering is when a country will decide to build a space station on L4 or L5 so that they can more easily go to Mars, or other places.

(For those that don't know, L4 and L5 are the stable Lagrange points, where the gravity of the Earth and Moon are equal. Can be said for any other set of orbiting bodies too, but I am talking about the moon)

Whoever controls L4 and L5 would have the capability to control all travel to Mars,Venus, etc. Not like we will have a manned visit to Venus any time soon ;^)

Re:When do we go to L4 and L5

[DavidBrown]

Exactly, we need to build Side 7, and some giant robots to go with it.

We have a giant robot gap.

There was once a BBC space detective drama, in which the large US-built satellite was called "Space Station Ronald Reagon" and the protaginist had a voice-interface computer named "Box".

Re:When do we go to L4 and L5

[spudmonkey]

Good idea, but doesn't debris tend to collect at the Lagrange points? -would that be a problem?

Re:When do we go to L4 and L5

[einhverfr]

Good idea, but doesn't debris tend to collect at the Lagrange points?

Yes-- and we have seen that there are asteroid clusters on the L4 and L5 points relative to Jupiter and the Sun.

-would that be a problem?

Probably not-- what causes problems with space junk is that there can be orbits in which space junk is moving at a satalite with incredible speed. With the L4 and L5 points, debris tends to orbit these points relativelly slowly.m So debris would be a lot less dangerous than it would in LEO.

what we really need

[TaoTeCheese]

What we really need is some kind of international space agency that any country could contribute to. We'd be able to claim things for humankind rather than bickering about country lines. Plus, we could get alot more done with resources from many countries. Of course, this is unfeasible as all hell for the world to get along.

you're full of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is totally offtopic until Iraq threatens to nuke the moon. But let me answer your idiotic points -- yes Iraq has not accounted for chem weapons; we know this not because they declared it (since you're so anxious to believe them) but because we (i.e. the USA) SOLD THE FUCKING WEAPONS TO THEM. Then we stood idly by and watched them gas their own people with them, and Rumsfeld didn't miss the chance for a photo-op shaking hands with Saddam at the time. For the US to get high and mighty about this shit 20 years later is fucking ridiculous. And finally since when is mere possession of chem weapons grounds for war? Hussein is no more "criminally insane" than Musharaff (whose country, don't forget, has had NUKES as well as chems since the 80s, and has openly threatened to use them against India in the very recent past), or any other fucking tinpot tyrant with access to nasty weapons. Hussein may be a cruel dictator but he's not suicidal and like most state leaders, he will do what is in his best interest -- threatening the US with an unprovoked chemical attack is not there. Now, using chems or whatever else in response to a US attack on Iraq -- that's a much more likely scenario. And its one that the criminals currently in power in the US had better start taking seriously otherwise American lives will be sacrificed to their shortsightedness.

Re:Skewed Priorities

[the gnat]

'scuse me? I missed the part where Bush gassed Northern California, or sent the entire DNC to slave labor camps. Fucking moron.

of course there is!!!

[commodoresloat]

Like they say about California -- it's the cheese. Miles and miles of green cheese. Mmmmm, cheese.....

offtopic

[dmszero]

try this one...

i like my women like i like my coffee

in a plastic cup

dms0

Re:offtopic

[Theaetetus]

Bah.

I like my women like I like my coffee - available 24 hours a day for a buck-fifty.

Or in response to someone else...
You like your women like you like your coffee? Handled by several Columbian men??

-T

Re:offtopic

[secolactico]

For more sugestion on this wonderfully offtopic post, please visit here.

Re:offtopic

[fucksl4shd0t]

Ok, fine. I like my women like I like my coffee - sweet, with a lot of milk.

Re:Hey America!

[the gnat]

Actually, I suspect the mission will be held up indefinitely will they invent new words in French for all the equipment involved.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[commodoresloat]

Well theres the supposed ice in the perpetual shadows of some craters.

Which is important because after a long day of working in the mines, nothing is better than a nice cold beverage, preferably scotch on the rocks. We need that ice!!!

Re:Skewed Priorities

[Iguanaphobic]

The most dangerous person on the planet to other human beings today is... not Saddam Hussein. The poster also said nothing about Americans, he mentioned humankind. Are you a member?

Who needs the Moon

[allrong]

When you can make your own craters in Iraq?

Now if there was oil on the Moon...

it would imply life

or a leaky spaceship

or astronauts frying food...

What's your point?

[g4dget]

Yes, Americans can sit around and watch to see how well the Europeans and Chinese do something that NASA achieved over four decades ago - and repeated dozens of times since.

It's funny to see how cold war thinking still infects US minds. The "space race" was only a "race" because the US desparately wanted to prove that US society was superior; in part, this was because right after WWII, the Soviet model actually seemed to be working pretty well in terms of economics and science, and it looked for a while as if the Soviets were going to take over pretty much the rest of the world. In contrast, after WWII, Europeans didn't really care about anybody proving superiority to anyone anymore, they just wanted to live in peace and prosperity. Big guns, big rockets, or big words stopped impressing Europeans. This is perhaps also why Bush finds it so hard to get much support for his current adventures.

The moon isn't going anywhere. Missions to it (as all space exploration) should be driven by available technology, resources, and scientific goals, not by some horse race mentality.

Re:What's your point?

[freeweed]

And never mind the fact that a goodly portion of Europe was pounded into the dust. Tattered industry, millions dead, and the USSR just waiting to occupy Western Europe..

Yup, looks to me like Europeans could have easily gone to the moon, they just chose not to.

Re:What's your point?

[Evil Adrian]

Yes, the US Shield! The myth that the United States of America does Everything for Everybody! The USA is the modern day Jesus Christ Superstar of nations!

I am sick of blind patriotism. Just because the United States does some things right, doesn't mean it does everything right. In fact, it does some things horribly, horribly wrong. Turning a blind eye to it is irresponsible, sheep.

Re:What's your point?

[g4dget]

"after WWII, Europeans didn't really care about anybody proving superiority to anyone anymore, they just wanted to live in peace and prosperity"

behind the u.s shield.

What does that have to do with anything? Does one need to prove one's societal superiority with flashy megaprojects in order to defend oneself?

sometimes i think a lot of slashdot'ers would have liked to live under Soviet rule.

Any US/Soviet conflict in Europe would have meant the death and destruction of large parts of Europe. If it had come to a conflict, faced with certain death, many Europeans might well have preferred to live under Soviet rule and work for peaceful change from within (which is how the East Block finally did fall apart). But the US pretty much had made a commitment to "live free or die" on behalf of the Europeans.

Ask yourself this: given the choice between death or moving to Hungary or Poland in the 1970's, which would you personally have picked?

Re:What's your point?

[Lurkingrue]

"Ask yourself this: given the choice between death or moving to Hungary or Poland in the 1970's, which would you personally have picked?"

Although it antedates your hypothetical '1970s Iron-curtain' scenerio, the frightening American slogan of "better dead than red" might be the answer you'd get from many USians, even today.

Re:What's your point?

[geirhe]

behind the u.s shield

This is true, but Europe had already seen its share of war at the time. In the battle of the Somme alone, 400000 people died. Most of these were british and french.

As an aside, about 2800 people died in the attack on the twin towers. This has stirred up the US populace, under the leadership of president Bush, to the point where an attack on another country seems to be a good idea and a "must-have" for any upright, right-thinking individuals. I cannot help but ponder what would happen if the US "homeland" saw about 9 years of war during a 40-year period, with death counts in the millions. It seems the current answer to this question is "we can beat them". The answer was the same in Europe before both of the world wars. I am afraid this is history going in cycles, with the current generation having forgotten what war is _really_ like, but thinking that jet fighters look cool when they are shown on CCN. What they are doing at the time is unimportant - it is all happening far away, and to people I don't know.

I do know that my uncle didn't want another war if it was at all avoidable. His outlook was relatively unique. He had to go around with a bucket after the germans bombed Narvik in 1940, picking up bits of his friends. I can only bear in mind the descriptions he provided me of what a war was like when he was still alive, not having experienced a war myself. After five years of war, he was sick and tired of it, and seemed to think every other conceivable option should be tried before letting the dogs of war out of their cages.

At the risk of being an arrogant bastard - I think it is unintelligent of people who have never experienced a war to tell other people that they are cowardly bastards for not wanting a war, and that they are hiding between the legs of other people. This goes double for people who have always lived behind a shield provided by two huge oceans, even if the cause is the noble art of flaming.

War is a serious business. You shouldn't start one because someone trod on your toes, especially if he is about to tell you he is sorry.

Re:What's your point?

[jawtheshark]

+5, Insightful in my eyes. Welcome to my friends list.

Re:What's your point?

[SuperMario666]

If it had come to a conflict, faced with certain death, many Europeans might well have preferred to live under Soviet rule and work for peaceful change from within (which is how the East Block finally did fall apart).

Only part of the explanation. Lech and company certainly pushed pretty hard, but it was the willingness of Reagan to "stick his foot out" or directly confront the S.U. that that ensure its fall.

Re:What's your point?

[gorilla]

By the time of the space race you were an entire generation after the war. Industry had been rebuilt, and there are many examples of very expensive projects being started at that time. For example, the project which eventually delivered Concorde was started in 1956, and the treaty for it was signed in 1962. The european aircraft industry was in quite good shape at the time, with Aerospatiale, Bristol, De Havilland, Fokker, Hawker Siddeley, Saab and Vickers all producing successful aircraft. I don't think that Europe could have produced a moonshot in the time of the spacerace, but that had nothing to with WW2.

Re:Difference btwn communists and America

[BTWR]

an early American rocket that met with disaster on the launch pad but didn't slow the space program

You're talking about Apollo 1, which burned on the launchpad. Apollo 2 thru 7 were then made completely robotic. You are right in that it did not slow the untimate moon-by-1970 deadline, but it did slow the manned space program a lot.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[happyhippy]

Which part of the water atom goes bang and makes rockets move?

Re:Skewed Priorities

[the gnat]

The most dangerous person on the planet to other human beings today is... not Saddam Hussein.

Okay, I agree on this, but who would you like to nominate for that position? Do I even need to ask?

In New Zealand...

[Anonymous Coward]

we are planning just to do the staged moon landing thing and save a few bucks.

Our alternative plan is to secretly sew our flag inside another countries flag (with the outer flag being UV sensitive).

Wonder what they are doing in Soviet Russia?

Re:In New Zealand...

[happyhippy]

LOL If I had mod points I would gladly waste them on this

We saw this coming....

[Lord_Slepnir]

Europe Heads for the Moon in July

Damn, they never told me continental drift was that bad.

Re:We saw this coming....

[Maniakes]

And unless they can take the atmosphere with them, then I guess European Life is in Doubt

Yay...

[badasscat]

Apparently, the Chinese are going up there to mine - they don't have enough dirt in their country. As if that weren't bad enough, here's a not-so-subtle dig at us:

"I should point out that some powers in the world are on the way to militarizing outer space, not peacefully exploring outer resources," Huang Huikang, an official from China's foreign ministry, told the China Daily.

Umm, yeah. I think Huang's been watching too many Austin Powers films. I'm surprised he didn't mention the "reckless" and "provocative" Alan Parsons Project, which threatens the peace of the whole world. They may be disappointed when they reach the moon only to find that we haven't turned it into a "Death Star" (finger quotes) and that there is no secret moon base, just a big pile of space dirt.

Meanwhile, western Europe's got to try to prove to themselves that they still matter to the world by getting in on the action. Whatever they need for their own sense of self esteem, I guess. When's Canada going to the moon?

Go ahead, moderate as flamebait... my karma can stand it.

Re:Yay...

[cranos]

I think Huang's been watching too many Austin Powers films.
Or maybe he's talking about the Shrubs plans for Son of Starwars. You know that little idea that its really okay to send up killer sats and all that jazz.

Re:Yay...

[praksys]

I should point out that some powers in the world are on the way to militarizing outer space...

The US is seriously planning to deploy orbital weapons. One part of the current missile defense program is a space based laser system. First tests are due in 2012, so it is still a fair way off.

Take a look here for details:

http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/boost. ht ml

Although you will not find any mention of this at the MDA webstite, it is a fair bet that one function of such a system will be to defend US intelligence asets in space. Now that the US military is so heavily dependent on these asets, countries like China are starting to look at such asets as a potential weak link in US military power. Satelites are relatively easy to kill, and hard to replace at short notice.

Of course all talk of "peaceful exploration" in space has to be taken with a grain of salt. The technology that you need to launch to orbit and return to Earth is exactly the same technology that you need to build ICBM's. "Peaceful exploration" is a convenient way to test new missile systems without attracting bad press.

Re:Yay...

[praksys]

Here's a little hint, buddy. Anything in the US governement with a launch date further than 2 years from now is entirely speculative.

Thanks for the hint. Here's one for you. Weapons systems usually take at least a decade to go from from first funding to first deployment. Some programs do get canceled along the way, but not that many. A prmoise of tax cuts ten years from now is not worth the paper that it is printed on. A promise to deploy a weapons system is an entirely different thing - just consider how much trouble Rumsfeld has had trying to cancel one new artilery system.

Re:Yay...

[Saturnlcs]

The funny part about you comment is that we(the us) cannot launch more rockets to make up for russia's decision to cut funding to the iss Because of a Peace Treaty specifically limiting the number of launches by a country. I'm not sure what the treaty name is, but a quick google search could probably find it. ( eg. the idea: why can't we have separate missions to the iss just to bring h20 so that more astronauts can stay in the iss even with the space shuttle program is on hold--because of the treaty limiting the number of flights)
So, when you say "'Peaceful exploration' is a convenient way to test new missile systems without attracting bad press," i just have to smile.

Re:Yay...

[praksys]

...a Peace Treaty specifically limiting the number of launches by a country.

Couldn't find any sign of this agreement on google, and I have never heard of it. There is an agreement concerning launches to the ISS that is intended to ensure funding for the Russian space program. Is that what you were thinking of?

As fas as I know there is no treaty that limits the number of launches for comercial or scientific reasons.

So, when you say "'Peaceful exploration' is a convenient way to test new missile systems without attracting bad press," i just have to smile.

Glad I could make someone's day.

BASH USA for fun and profit

[DonFinch]

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

no the US is going to figure out what killed seven of our astronoughts before we kill any more. Plus continue other projects into deeper space than the moon. I just love the way the comment is phrased. Bash us for our genuinly stupid foreign policy, you can point to good fodder with Bush and his "kill all brown people" policies without making up ways to poke the space program. But of course bashing the US for anything and everything is an internatial pastime, some of it well deservered. NASA however, is the least deserving of bashing.

Re:BASH USA for fun and profit

[cranos]

NASA maybe least deserving of the bashing but it is also a sympton of what is wrong. NASA's budget has been slashed time and time again because no one can see the benefits both in terms of science and in terms of "Man we went to the MOON" type feelings.

That sort of thing is becoming deeply embedded in the American spirit, the attitude of "Well we've done it a couple of times why would we want to do it again." Its a shame you can't apply that thinking to Iraq.

Re:BASH USA for fun and profit

[euxneks]

no the US is going to figure out what killed seven of our astronoughts before we kill any more

I don't think the accident is going to prevent nasa from sending *unmanned* flights into space... And besides, haven't they already figured out what caused the failure?
Isn't the question now not what killed them, but what they can do to prevent anything like that in the future? Or how to fix the ailing space shuttle program? Or whether we should send any astronauts into space at all until we have a viable means of transportation to get them there?

Re:BASH USA for fun and profit

[mdielmann]

But of course bashing the US for anything and everything is an internatial pastime, some of it well deservered.

For example, your education system...

Re:BASH USA for fun and profit

[fucksl4shd0t]

NASA maybe least deserving of the bashing but it is also a sympton of what is wrong. NASA's budget has been slashed time and time again because no one can see the benefits both in terms of science and in terms of "Man we went to the MOON" type feelings.

Moreover, (to continue the essay, if you don't mind) NASA is now stuck in a typical catch-22. They can't get more budget without proving that it's worthwhile to explore space and colonize the moon and so forth; they can't prove that it's worthwhile without getting more budget. While it is true that NASA did some screwing around for awhile, there's plenty of well-wishers backing NASA at this moment. They have a lot of popular support, if only for the fact that people are feeling guilty about the Columbia. In any case, I'd really really really like to see NASA with some real money right now. Give 'em the torch and see what they'll do. RIght after somebody dies is when the US usually gets energetic (ref: pearl harbor, the world trade center, etc).

That sort of thing is becoming deeply embedded in the American spirit, the attitude of "Well we've done it a couple of times why would we want to do it again." Its a shame you can't apply that thinking to Iraq.

Ah hell. I wouldn't stay married that long if I applied this philosophy to my wife, and I've still got decades of exploration left on her. (no, she's not fat)

Re:Skewed Priorities

[Iguanaphobic]

who would you like to nominate for that position?

At the moment, the single person who has the potential to kill the most human beings through one irrational act would have to be the leader of North Korea.

At the moment, the single person who has the potential to kill the most human beings through coldly calculated, profit motivated war would be the leader of the United States of America.

You didn't have to ask, you already knew it.

Re:Skewed Priorities

[badasscat]

At the moment, the single person who has the potential to kill the most human beings through coldly calculated, profit motivated war would be the leader of the United States of America.

You mean as opposed to simply for the thrill of it, like Saddam Hussein?

I often wonder how people would react if George Bush killed 150,000 New Yorkers with mustard gas because we were getting on his nerves. Protesting against the war? Hit 'em with some VX!

How long do you think Bush would last in power? About 5 minutes. How long has Saddam Hussein lasted? 15 or more years since he did it. He did it to the Iranians as well as to his own people too. And the only reason he didn't do it to us is because we threatened to nuke Baghdad if he did. Sounds harsh, but that's war. It saved a lot of American lives in the end.

You're trying to tell us all that George Bush is more dangerous than Saddam Hussein. I'm sorry, but much as I hate Bush (and I did not vote for him, nor would I again), that is simply offensive. Completely offensive. Not just as an American, but as a human being. People who use mustard gas on their own countrymen are not to be defended, however much you dislike their enemy's policies. Saddam Hussein is not the lesser of two evils.

And this whole oil argument was used in 1991 too. Try to come up with something original. The results of that war should have been pretty conclusive proof that it's not about oil - we wouldn't even let him sell it afterwards. Use your freakin' head.

But I already did it once...

[deathcloset]

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch

why is everyone like, "well, we already did it."
sure we already did it. And I already backed the server up last week, so why do it again?

we sure didn't learn everything we could from a mere 7 landings!

On behave of America...

[ScriptGuru]

Welcome to the 1960s.

Re:Silly Europe

[money_shot]

That would be the conflict where NATO's management system became a total joke and targets were selected by commitees (Kosovo to you uninformed.)

Funny thing is, it was still the US doing most of the work. Seemed to end the conflict too, even if it wasn't pretty. Wonder why NATO wasn't invited to go to Afghanistan with us? There's your answer.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[mobets]

apparently, the bang comes from both parts when you put them together.

Re:Silly Europe

[money_shot]

Why does every non-American think the only news channel we get if Fox? I realize that Murdoch has the money to get that channel into nearly every market. This is usually just another example of Euros thinking they know something and providing evidence of their own ignorance.

BTW, I get pretty much all the same channels you do above and probably many more. There's this recent technology call Digital Cable that allows about 800 channels to beam straight to my living room (and we aren't even going to start counting web sources.) My personal favorite is ITV, but also get a kick out of NHK.

What media outlet in the US is state controlled anyway? The closest you can get to it is NPR, which is pretty liberal.

What? All of them.

[cyril3]

that's a big rocket.

Why don't they just send the french ahead to check the place for truffles or something.

Security Council

[Snoopy77]

Well if Europe goes to the moon then that will help the US get the full support of the Security Council .... won't it?

We might be going, but why?

[Marton]

Oh, hang on, I get it.

1. Go to the Moon.
2. ???
3. Profit!

After all, it worked for the US.

Re:We might be going, but why?

[fucksl4shd0t]

Um, actually that was DD Harriman's business plan, one of the few Heinlein characters I wish was a real man. :(

Re:Skewed Priorities

[Iguanaphobic]

People who use mustard gas on their own countrymen are not to be defended, however much you dislike their enemy's policies.

And what of the country who sells it to them? What is their moral position?

The results of that war should have been pretty conclusive proof that it's not about oil - we wouldn't even let him sell it afterwards.

It's not about oil, I never said it was. It's about taking US taxpayer dollars and laundering them via shares in munitions companies and landing the residue in the accounts of a who's who of the rich and powerful in America.

Use your freakin' head.

I do. I use it to look behind the scenes, never taking what the media feeds me and thinking about the real motive behind things. Take the current situation. Saddam Hussein is the leader of a country. He is a heinous human being and the leadership of the US has repeatedly told the public through the media that the US needs to do something about that. That something is war.

Why not simply send in a 3 man assassination squad and get it done? Not enough media, no profits for United Defense and no innocents die. Do you think this would ever happen? What world are you living in?

You're trying to tell us all that George Bush is more dangerous than Saddam Hussein.

Who has the potential to order the deaths of more human beings over the next 6 months? That's the only point I'm trying to make.

Re:It needs to be said.........

[money_shot]

The first cut? Nope. Science benefits in times like these. The US government is the biggest VC in world history. Of course, it depends what you're researching. You can map technological innovation almost directly to the time leading up to conflicts and the conflict itself. It's only in very recent history that commerical use has been a driving force (and that doesn't pay for big research, high-risk research.)

The history books

[rjamestaylor]

One day the history books will read,

• "While the conquest of space began with the colonization of the Moon by the joint Eurasian Space Agency, a little known fact is that the United States of America actually was the first government to land a man on the Moon in the latter part of the 20th century. Although the USA was first to visit the Moon, it did not have the resources or the vision to stay and make a enduring presence there (Moon jeeps notwithstanding)."

This is basically what the history books say about the Vikings and North America--technically first, but who cares. Columbus and the English (and French, Spanish Germans, Dutch in descending order) get the recognition.

That, of course, begs the question as to what indeginous Moon people Eurasia will replace when they do colonize the Moon, but let's not go there, shall we?

Re:The history books

[Hobobo]

Except....colonizing America was actually profitable...

Arianne won the space race

[Anonymous Coward]

While the US gave all their thrust to the Space Shuttle, Arianne has proved to be a LOT cheaper way of putting new satelites in orbit.

With all the security risks in the Shuttle program it's really nice to see ESA take over.

You Need to Get Out More

[fuzzykitty]

Sci-fi tech has nothing to do with it. Ion drives have been around for over 30yrs. Just check JPL or NASA Glen. While Ion drives are cool, they're not as neat as Hall Thrusters.

The French?

[NerveGas]

Wow. This might be the first new land they've set foot on without surrendering!

Re:The French?

[stud9920]

This is not funny. This must be the most overrated joke ever. AYBABTU jokes are funnier. So are 12?P and ISR jokes.

There are many reasons why the French surrendered in 40. Most are wrong. For instance I think they should have transferred much logistics to England, which would have happened, hadn't Darlan gotten a nice position in the Petain puppet regime.

But remember before them the Poles, the Checks (however you write that), the Danes, the Norwegians, the Dutch, the Luxemburgers, the Belgians had surrendered -Yet you never mock them.

Days before the English HAD to go back to their island to save their ass. The Americans wouldn't enter the war (this is not a blame).

They chose to surrender and payed a very harsh prize for that in the four next years. Thousands of jews through the chimney, thousand more dead in the resistance.

The French (and the Brittish) had lost the war far before 1940, for instance by not preemptively invading Belgium. Belgium was neutral and the king with autocratic pretentions Leopold III wouldn't let them in, but everyone knows we would have let them in with no fighting.
For instance by not letting Hitler invade the Rhine in 37, or to gain air parity in 36. (Hey modern day warmongers, don't try to pull a Hitler-Saddam parallel to me, I do more believe in a Bush-Saddam parallel, after all it is the USA who has the nukes, the gas payloads and it is the USA who invades foreign countries, something Saddam wouldn't do in 12 years, but I digress)

The French couldn't win the battle of France with the Brittish, I don't see how they could have won it after Dunkirk. Would England not have been an island, I'm not sure they wouldn't have been beaten too.

So stop your stupid jokes about the French surrendering. They're not funny.

Re:The French?

[WegianWarrior]

But remember before them the Poles, the Checks (however you write that), the Danes, the Norwegians, the Dutch, the Luxemburgers, the Belgians had surrendered -Yet you never mock them. (my emphasis)

Just to make one little thing clear... Norway did not surrender; we were occupied. Our armed forces - ie what little remained after a two month long campaing of what little wh had to start with - was transfered to the UK to keep on the fight shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Trainingcamps for our Army and Navy airforces were set up in Canada. The Norwegian goverment paid in full for two complete fightersquadrons, one ASW-skvadron and a fightewrbomber squadron, all of who fought along the british forces. Norwegian naval forces opereated alongside british naval forces. A major part of the supplies brought to britan during the war was floated on norwegian keels.

The dutch, belgian and polish goverment did the same btw, so I'm not bragging here. The fact remains however, that the french did not... and that the leader of the Free French - de Gaulle - was sentenced to death in absintio in Vichy France.

Re:The French?

[stud9920]

The dutch, belgian and polish goverment did the same btw, so I'm not bragging here. The fact remains however, that the french did not... and that the leader of the Free French - de Gaulle - was sentenced to death in absintio in Vichy France.

No, the Belgians did not. Belgium officially capitulated on may 28. The king "stayed in captivity with his soldiers" (he was the chief of the army). The government did flee to London, but was militarily powerless. The only soldiers from Belgium in the Brittish islands were volunteers (my grandfather was one of them, rode by bicycle from Charleroi to Bordeaux) who had fled illegally (in military terms). IIRC he did not fight, he just partied in Ireland for some years. The Belgian army was in captivity in Germany -after a while Flemish soldiers were freed in a German attempt to split the Flemish and Walloons against each other.

As for De Gaulle, of course he was sentenced to death. Did you expect Petain to buy him a cookie ? Technically as the Third Republic had fallen, it can be argued he was as much the legal (and legitimate) leader of France as was Petain.

Re:The French?

[WegianWarrior]

Belgium officially capitulated on may 28. The king "stayed in captivity with his soldiers" (he was the chief of the army). The government did flee to London, but was militarily powerless.

I stand corrected... but then I'm not afraid to admidt that. Thank you for teaching me something new today.

Re:The French?

[stud9920]

You're welcome. Thank you for that norway thing. btw that "stayed in captivity with his soldiers" meant living in his castle, marrying while breaking the law with the daughter of a collaborator (he married in the church before civil marriage, a big no no since the French revolution), going to visit Hitler, and making plans for a revised Belgium under his firm rule after the war. He could only return in 1950 and that was even so controversial he had to abdicate in favour of his more-catholic-than-the-pope son.

Re:The French?

[stud9920]

They did not fight on the Germans's side. They collaborated with the Germans. On no place did the Allies fight against the French. The French fleet would have been disarmed (that was the deal in the armistice protocol) had it not been sunk. Not to be used against the Allies (I do believe the Germans would have broken that agreement later). At no point did Vichy declare war upon their former ally, eventhough Churchill was at a time afraid they would. I do believe Vichy France did make the war last longer by not sabotaging the German war effort.

And then again as I mention lower, the legality of Vichy France was more than doubtful.

And then again they are not the only ones. There WAS collaboration in the Netherlands, as there WAS in Belgium (google Gallopin Doctrine), as there WAS in France. I don't know for the other countries but I don't doubt a second...

If I remember correctly, the Americans had less problems recognizing Vichy France than they had ever giving credit to De Gaulle, at least before Pearl Harbor.

hey, I've got an idea ! Let's all mock the Americans for Pearl Harbor ! That would be so funny !

Re:The French?

[WegianWarrior]

Sounds kinda like our Quisling... difference was, we shoot him once the war was over, along with the rest of his 'goverment'...

Re:The French?

[p4ul13]

Whoah, whoah, lets not get our baretts in a twist there Jaques! We're just having some fun here, no need to beat somebody with a baguet.

Anyway, I'm pleased by the idea of other countries making an attempt to further explore the moon. This will more information for us all, and probably give the US some motivation to care about this sort of exploration again (If nothing else to keep up with the neighbors).

Re:The French?

[stud9920]

You don't shoot a king. Especially not when 50pc of the population is ultra catholic and wants him back. As for a government, he didn't have one, Belgium was under a German occupation administration.

Re:Hey America!

[fucksl4shd0t]

Actually, I suspect the mission will be held up indefinitely will they invent new words in French for all the equipment involved.

Nah, that won't hold it up too long. What'll really hold it up will be trying to spell the new french words.

Re:Hey America!

[BLAG-blast]

Actually, I suspect the mission will be held up indefinitely will they invent new words in French for all the equipment involved.

OR if America is going to change all it's French words for some what less French words, the Shuttle will never rendezvous with the Space Station again. What's your high in meters?

Re:Skewed Priorities

[MoThugz]

Or maybe it's because Israel is a Western, democratic civilization who occupies the land it acquired through defeating Arab aggression, in order to attempt to control acts of terrorism against its citizenry, that have been carried out for decades.

Israel is located around the same neighbourhood as its Arab neighbours, and yet they are Western? Assuming this is so, is it then absolutely fine for a Western civilization to invade their non-western neighbours?

How many times has Israel attempted to conquer its neighbors?

Last I checked about half of Israel is conquered land.

How many times has it used chemical warfare against foreign or domestic parties?

How the hell would you know? I mean, seriously... While Americans keep a very close watch on Communist and Arab states, they don't give a rat's ass about what Israel are doing. They kill unarmed women, children and old folks just because they happen to live in the same neighbourhood of some wanted terrorists.

Sure the UN is not at war with Israel... the US owns the UN... the US also happens to be good friends with Israel. Israel will be free to do whatever the hell it wants as long as good old Uncle Sam is up there. But as the saying goes, every dog has its day... you just won't know when the day will come.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[RodgerDodger]

Well, power is cheap for starters. There's a lot of He3 for fusion, or you can just roll out a bunch of solar panels (made locally, of course!).

Once you've got power, you can do a lot. Shipping stuff into orbit is easy; a laser-based propulsion system will lift stuff of the Moon readily. Heck, even if all you can lift off is moon rocks, you can use that as construction material, you know.

Furthermore, the Moon is thought to be geologically like the Earth's mantle. You know, the top bit where we get all of our metals and minerals from. If that is the case, the Chinese could reasonably expect to mine metals up there, and use those for construction materials.

The point here is that you don't have to ship the stuff back down to Earth to be useful. You can leave it in orbit and use it there; orbital shipyards, anyone?

Of course, if you can ship it back to Earth, then you've got a weapon of enormous potential. A few tons of rock coming in at orbital velocities makes a big splash. And don't think that hasn't been thought of by the Chinese, either. Ever read "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"?

US was on the moon?

[koinu]

Most of the people there are saying "no!". Aren't you supposed to be democratic about this thing, too?

Europeans will be the first ones! :D

Why So slow?

[spoco2]

"The craft is using an innovative form of propulsion - an ion thruster - that will take it on a 15-month spiral to the Moon."

I don't know what an ion thruster is, but it sure seems slow to me.

Why is this innovative? Why is it so slow? How will this be a good propulsion mechanism if we really need to go faster, faster, faster to get anywhere in any kind of reasonable time?

Re:Why So slow?

[timerider]

You haven't heard of DS1?

anyhow. The key benefit of an ion thruster is that it needs very little fuel. So, it can be left thrusting for very long times, so generating very high end speeds.

Best case so far: the DS1 probe was the first spaceship running on an ion thruster. Even with the force of a running ion thruster being not much more than the pressure that a sheet of paper makes on the ground, DS1 has long overtaken the older probes which were launched with regular chemical engines.

bye,
[L]

Re:Why So slow?

[jpmorgan]

Ion engines don't have the impressive flames of chemical rockets, or the raw thrust, but they have much better specific impulse which is all that counts once you get out of Earth orbit.

But, since the moon is in orbit, thrust is an issue. But the question is, why waste a lot of money getting their fast when you're just sending a robot? It sounds like the ESA is going to get valuable ion engine experience out of this, and at the same time get to the moon cheap. And that's what going to the moon should be; cheap.

If going to the moon isn't cheap, how can we reasonably expect to go to Mars?

Re:Why So slow?

[DarenN]

Interestingly enough, after the second last ESA launch "problem", the artemis satellite which was on board was brought from low ellipitical orbit to geo-stationary orbit using the only system available, its ion thrusters. Pretty impressive achievement, especially when 20% of the satellites command and control software had to be rewritten to allow the fine control of the engines required.

This is valuable experience for the ESA. They also did some other pretty nifty stuff, like image transfer using an optical link

Story here

Re:Why So slow?

[DarkMan]

Just another perspective on the above.

In space, energy is cheap (solar panels), and mass is expensive (very expensive).

An ion thruster is essentially a partical accelerator pointing out to space. This accelerates a very small quantity of mass to very high velocities, using electrostatic methods.

It's the best (currently known) method for converting all that cheap solar energy into thrust, for a minimum of mass.

Re:Skewed Priorities

[Melantha_Bacchae]

dpete4552 wrote:

> Israel has violated UN declarations as well, you never see
> us huff and puff about them. Probably because there is
> no significant amount of oil, if any, in Isreal.

Israel has great religious significance to the religious right, a strong faction of the republican party, and the part of it currently in the White House. Not only do we not huff and puff, we send them aid and sell them many weapons. But then we helped Iraq obtain the very biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons we now accuse them of still having.

> North Korea readily admits to developing a nuclear
> program and defying the US, and we don't care too much
> about them either (no oil).

North Korea was a major blunder on Bush's part. North and South Korea are in the process of reuniting into one Korea, which Bush didn't approve of. Bush made a bunch of warlike rhetoric, talking about taking on Iraq, "axis of evil", blah, blah, blah. N. Korea got scared, and started making nuclear noises. It isn't clear that they actually have any working nukes, but fear that they exist has thus far deterred the US from attacking. The US had their fuel oil supplies cut off, leaving them only nuclear plants to heat their homes, which they started up. Unfortunately, we did not keep our 1994 promise to build nice peaceful light water reactors, so the only ones they have to heat their homes with also make the material for nuclear weapons. And up and up it escalates. Bush has been told repeatedly by N. Korea's neighbors to sit down and talk to them, but I guess that would ruin his plans for Korean War II.

> China launches takes and uses its army to kill its own
> people, including children, it is broadcast live to our
> livingrooms, and they just get scoled by Bush Sr. "Bad
> china! Don't do that again!" (No oil).

China produces oil, about the same amount as the US itself. China is too big to swallow whole, making diplomacy the route that the US has chosen to deal with this situation. Of course, diplomacy could solve most of the stuff Bush wants to go to war over, even Iraq. In diplomacy, you have give and take. In war, you have conquer and rule. The latter is more fun, but only if you are the president of the conquering nation.

> Now when we are in a very depressing economic
> situation isn't it convenient that the Bush Administration
> is pulling Iraq out of their hat again. Nothing like
> bringing up Iraq changes the subject so well eh?

You think this is depressing, just wait. The new budget has a $300 billion deficit (mostly Homeland Security, as a lot of other stuff got cut), not counting Iraq costs. The war could be $50 to $200 billion (depending on who you talk to) without reconstruction costs. State and local governments are in deep financial trouble, with no help coming from the federal government.

What does this mean to you and me? Well, not only is the US not going to the Moon anytime soon, but between insane gas prices and badly maintained roads, we are going to have a heck of a time getting to work. Assuming we have jobs...

> Well at least Bushinomics are bringing tax cuts for the
> rich.

So the rich get richer, and the rest of us have billions more government debt, no decent government services, and all of our own problems to boot. Great system for a feudal kingdom constantly running off to the Crusades (if you don't mind an occasional Robin Hood), but very bad for a 21st century USA.

> Of course the masses are too busy being destracted by
> Bush and all of his war mongering.

Public opinion worldwide, including the US, is against this war. In every member state of the coalition of the "willing", the leaders are joining in defiance of their people's wishes, and at risk to their careers. The peace movement is huge, organized, and extremely active: whether it's getting 10+ million people to protest on the same day in 60 countries and 600 locations, or organizing a call/fax/email your US senator and president day for 400,000 people (with, oops, over 1 million actually participating)! The unions in the US have come out against the war, so I would expect a lot more people to get undistracted quite quickly.

And, yes, those against the war know what it is doing to our economy. That is one of many, many reasons to oppose the war.

"All our tomorrows, Great Sun, by the Light, are very forgotten.
The Light dies. We pray and it sleeps."
"Oh Peace Oh Light Return" (national song of mourning) from "Gojira" (Godzilla) 1954

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[tqft]

if launch costs from earth come down to $10/kg, the estimated 1 trillion litres of water at the pole ==> $10trillion worth of water sitting waiting for someone to sell to wandering space explorers.

Echelon

[maody]

"The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch. "

With all those Echelon surveillance gear installed in almost every european country the U.S. will have at least a bright and clear picture of what is going on up there. ;)

Read this
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/692 9/1.ht ml
for more information.

Says a lot about americans really...

[G. W. Bush Junior]

So, you think the slashdot crowd is interested in science for the sake of science?

The first thing that happens when some other country tries to go to the moon is that there's nooo reason to do it, it's been done... the us has already won...

and we all know that science is about winning right? ...RIGHT?

not about the pursuit of knowledge.

America won science 40 years ago...

and of course ESA is planning to test equipment on the moon for nationalistic reasons...
becuase Europe is a nation?

If this story tells us anything, it'd have to be that technology is at a point where it's economically feasible to go to the moon for scientific reasons...
of course we can do incredible things if there are political reasons to do it... but what can we do for purely scientific reasons?
In my mind a far more interesting question.

Would have thought the slashdot crowd had the same interest in science.. but I guess I was wrong.

Re:Says a lot about americans really...

[analog_line]

and of course ESA is planning to test equipment on the moon for nationalistic reasons...
becuase Europe is a nation?

Which world have you been living in for the last few years? Ever hear of the European Union? Did you know that they're working toward electing a President of the European Union? The Euro? Have you heard any of the complaints that it is eroding national sovereignty? Europe now looks a lot more like the way the former British colonies used to look like before the Constitutional Congress drafted our constitution. Hell, most European nations have finally shucked foreign sovereignty after the end of the Cold War. The US' allies (former and current) are getting some balls with dealing with our administration, and Eastern Europe is finally getting the gumption to break with their former Russian masters. Sounds like a revolution to me. If you think the USA is any more unified just because there's a federal system bestriding the states, you should do some actual research before you make yourself look like an idiot. The United States are only barely united. Look at our political division in our House of Representatives and our Senate. Yes, the Republicans "control" both, but by dangerously bare margins. There are DEEP political divisions within the US, both across parties and across state lines. Common political rhetoric within the US compares unfriendly state governments to this or that unfriendly foreign dictatorship. Hell, in certain regions, the American people have a lower opinion of Californians than Europeans, which is hard to do these days. And more than a few people who wouldn't mind if their state ceceded. The vocal militant minority are a symptom of the larger body of people who might not think it's such a bad idea, save a lot of the dire consequenses that would occur. If you think there aren't bitter fights between state governments over basic issues, you're not looking. It's certainly under the radar with the so-called War on Terrorism and Bush's war on Iraq outshining almost everything in US public life, but "states rights" as we call it here, is a real deep down issue that has NOT been resolved. It's even intruding into the War on Terrorism. Several states have recently refused to implement various new regulations handed down from the Bush administration, and have had legislation pass through at least one state legislatures (New Mexico, I believe) asking people to not cooperate with the FBI trying to use the new tools it was given in the recently passed Patriot Act, and the main argument for not having to do it is states rights. The only thing that hold the United States together at all is our constitution. Once that piece of paper gets rejected/thrown away, the gods only know what the cartographers might have to deal with.

So yeah, Europe is a nation...at least in as much as it counts for the political intent in their space exploration.

but what can we do for purely scientific reasons?
In my mind a far more interesting question.

If you truly believe that the ESA's surge of space exploration has no goal other than pure scientific discovery, you're seriously beyond naive. I have lots of coffee and black tea here, you're welcome to as many cups as you like. You've been asleep too long, need to get that blood pumping.

Space exploration like this fosters unity in a people, which is something those running the ESA are very much interested in promoting. Once they do it, they're going to present it to the people of Europe and say "We did this. We should be proud of this, because we are now leaders of pushing the human race into space." As an American, I'd caution you from personal experience not to underestimate the effect that can have on people. I don't know if the people who control the ESA are an arm of the EU government, but they certainly share the same interest in fostering unity across the borders of the EU states. It keeps the ESA running (because the individual states within it certainly couldn't do this all on their own) and it gives a sense of community to the larger EU. At least that's the idea. Whether it works out in practice that way is anyone's guess, but you can bet your ass (or "arse" for the non-American English speakers among us) that's what they're trying to do.

The only pure scientific impulses are the simple questions, how, what, where, when, and why. Anything beyond that is biased. Your decision on whether the bias is good, bad, honorable, or dishonorable.

Re:Says a lot about americans really...

[G. W. Bush Junior]

ohhh... where to start...

A European president?!?! It's true that Chirac would like to have a french president of the European Union, but france is one member state, and if you'd done your homework (before calling me an idiot).
You would have seen that the small states are overrepresented in european parliament. A european president would never go through, especially after Schroder has taken the side of the small nations.

If you ask a californian(?) wether he considers himself a californian of an american, my bet is he'd say american.
A european indentifies himself with the country he's born in, and with his native language.

The flag means something to an American... The European flag invokes no emotions in a european.

You cannot compare Democrat vs. Republican to French vs. German.

If you truly believe that the ESA's surge of space exploration has no goal other than pure scientific discovery, you're seriously beyond naive.
I never said anything like it, I'm sure that the main motivation for ESA is primarily economic, and to a lesser degree scientific.
I assure you, ESA has nothing todo with bringing the European people together. There is no glorification of european astronauts in the media, the only times you hear about it is when the local university has built something for an upcoming mission.
It's understandable that you try to impose your frame of reference onto your understanding of Europe... But you couldnt possibly be more wrong.

It is not possible for you as an american to make any analysis on how ESA is being used internally in europe.
You have a simplistic perception of how Europe works because you've blindly accepted the propaganda fed to you by the american media.

If you didn't believe european policy in the "war against terror" was motivated by some sort of european rebellion, you'd be forced to consider the fact, that europe (and the rest of the world) could have a valid point.

But the main point you seemed to miss in my post was this: I did NOT try to argue as to wether ESA is economically, scientifically or politically (it isn't) motivated... I merely reflected on the fact that the relatively scientific minded readers of slashdot couldn't see the postive in space exploration, but has to make it into a pissing contest with the chinese and europeans. Why it mattered more to them that the europeans would be second, and that the americans are better than the europeans, rather than just be glad that somebody want's to take space exploration beyond ant farms in low earth orbit.

Re:It needs to be said.........

[wardred]

Hmm... What about the railroads? Automobile industry? Telephone? Utilities? Printing press.... Any industrial process related to mining... Navies, even those driven by conquistidors Were driven for economic reasons first. If there was a barren wasteland in the new world, you can bet that the old world would've stopped sending ships to it...it would've cost too much for no return. And, if you look at war, there are a number of things that start it, and certainly economic factors take a big part of this. They have more money than us, let's raid them. They have control over a parcel of land that has X natural resources, let's take it from them...

Apollo 13?

[Hodr]

I saw that movie, they never go "to the moon" they go around it. And while I am too lazy to look the rest of these missions up, I am not convinced they all landed on the moon and then returned.

CTF!

[freek254]

nuff said!

Fredrik

Riiiighhhhttt....

[jpmorgan]

How about high energy particle physics. If you're going to do any cutting edge high energy particle physics research done, you've got to work at CERN. The US government cancelled CERN's only real competition, the SSC. And who's ever heard of the Max Plank institute?

Or that little place in England... what's it called. Cambridge. I heard there's a guy there, name's Stephen Hawking? Oh, and we can't forget David Deutsch, he's also there... created quantum computing and all.

Biotech? Dolly the sheep, first successfully cloned animal. That was in Europe. And then there's the Oxford AIDS vaccine. And with the current attitude towards stem cell research, a lot of the American resarch is moving towards Europe and other areas of the world more friendly to it.

Computer Science? Tim Berners-Lee creating the web while working at CERN? Opera is a company in Norway. I suppose that's all pretty unimportant. And I don't think there's any good wireless stuff coming out of Europe either. I mean, there's that little Nokia company, but what do they do?

I heard this guy, called Linus Torvalds, was a Fin (okay, he's moved to the US now). And there's Alan Cox, in the UK.

And what about the brand spanking new American Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to replace the aging DES, well, that's also known as Rijndael, and was developed in Belgium, I believe.

Or how about major engineering projects? How about the Channel Tunnel?

You know, I can go on like this for ages.

Re:Riiiighhhhttt....

[WinterSolstice]

Well, yeah, but I think he meant what things like making fuel-efficient cars, safe nuclear energy, and really good beer.

No, wait. Wrong there too.

Hmmm, the US has got to be best at something, darn it!

Well, we're still the land of innovative companies like Starbucks, McDonalds, and Microsoft!

Hmmm. Well, that didn't go so well, now did it?

-WS

off limits?

[PjotrP]

doubt they'll let europe and china use the same movieset to plant their flags...

Same lame arguments for decades....

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Yes. Or admit that the USA has passed its prime as a society and is now on the slow slide into cultural and moral decay. It is not what you did in the past, it is what have you done lately that counts.

People like you have been declaring the "death of America" for the past hundred or so years. Our slide into "cultural and moral decay" is the reason why Japan thought we wouldn't fight back after Pearl Harbor, the reason why the USSR thought we needed to be forced into Communism, the reason why everybody thought Japan was going to whip our butts in the 70s and 80s and why on September 11th a bunch of terrorists thought that they could blow up the Twin Towers without any retribution.

Heck, you can even go back to the founding of this nation when the wise Europeans didn't think we would last more than a couple years at best.

America has been underestimated for pretty much its entire existence.

NASA's "focus" for the past two decades has been to build a space station and a shuttle to get to it. After the moon landings this is a pretty logical next step.

Unfortunately we have ran into more technical and engineering challenges that we would have liked. But we tried. Now we have to move forward and figure out what to do next. However, you cannot start comparing us to the Chinese and Europeans until after they have landed on the moon and asked themselves "what's next?".

BTW, we have sent up a ton of different mission including the Hubble Telescope and the Mars Pathfinder. These have generally been "side projets" in comparison to the grand vision, but any one of these would be considered a "tremendous accomplishment" to China or Europe.

Brian Ellenberger

Re:Same lame arguments for decades....

[smash]

People like you have been declaring the "death of America" for the past hundred or so years. Our slide into "cultural and moral decay" is the reason why Japan thought we wouldn't fight back after Pearl Harbor, the reason why the USSR thought we needed to be forced into Communism, the reason why everybody thought Japan was going to whip our butts in the 70s and 80s and why on September 11th a bunch of terrorists thought that they could blow up the Twin Towers without any retribution.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Japan was fully aware they'd be waking the US up when they attacked Pearl Harbor, however their options were not very good at the time. Either a) get a surprise attack off, and enter the war on their terms, with the hope of gaining the upper hand due to surprise, or b) wait for the US to step in and declare war/attack when they were fully ready to.

With regards to Russia, the cold war was just as much about the USA doing retarded shit (eg, Korea, Vietnam) in the efforts to "stop the spread of communism" for the sake of it, as it was about the USSR expanding their influence.

As to bin Laden's cronies - I'm *quite* sure they expected a reaction. That was the whole point of the exercise.

So far, 3000 deaths, for the cost of a handful of terrorists and a few of AlQuaeda's leaders ... pretty good trade from their perspective if you ask me.

The fact that the USA decided to bomb the shit out of Afghanistan hasn't earned them any brownie points with the international community at all, and this retarded "war on terror" is just furthering the ridicule that most civilized nations have for the current US administration.

Given that the US has not managed to kill or capture one outlaw in the last 12 months, the chances of removing Saddam from power using the same sort of "tactics" is about the same as me sitting in a spa with Laetitia Casta, Milla Jovovich and Marilyn Monroe.

smash.

Re:Same lame arguments for decades....

[Pooua]

As to bin Laden's cronies - I'm *quite* sure they expected a reaction. That was the whole point of the exercise.

FWIW, OBL decided that the US did not have the stomach to fight after Clinton pulled our troops out of Somalia following the botched raid (raid portrayed in "Blackhawk Down").

Even on the Moon...

[indigo78]

OMG!!! Europe is already so infested by Smarts that we are sending some on the Moon!!!

the bigger perspective...

[PjotrP]

How nice of you to mention the first man to the US race... kinda puts the "we did that 40 years ago" attitude into perspective doesn't it? Europe was murdering indians loooooong before you guys even thought of killing iraqi's.... (and Europe is putting on their "been there, done that" stance?)

Re:the bigger perspective...

[KillerLoop]

indeed they do, that's the exact reason why those "cowards" are opposing war at all costs.

Of course

[stud9920]

We all know the French cheese reserve will be empty in 2017. They've got to find a replacement source before.

SMART-1 and other planned missions...

[r0d3nt]

Nice page on what else is going on with space missions...

I must admit the first thing that came to mind...

[Doctor Hu]

...when I saw this was to wonder why ESA was sending an automobile to the moon.

How quickly we forget...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Anyway, with US short a shuttle [...]

Correction: The U.S. is short two shuttles...

Re:How quickly we forget...

[slittle]

Wasn't Endeavour built to replace Challenger? -1 +1 -1 = -1

Then again, they're down like ten or something compared to what the fleet was supposed to be..

Re:How quickly we forget...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Ahh, yes... You are correct. Stupid me. Heh.

Why the bitching?

[Tokerat]

I think it's really disgusting how some people can actually say: "Oh, that's been done already. Fsck the Chineese and Europe, America rules!"

Folks, America is dying, and at the risk of being offtopic, this story is just more proof. Here, the rest of the major countries of the world with the resources to fly missions to the moon are finnaly going to go ahead with it, and all you can do is scoff? Laugh, and pretend you look so cool because you're "American"? Everyday there are a buttload of articles right here on /. with things like "Another American company patents something that shouldn't be", "Another lame rights-infringing American law is passed", "Another stupid American politician says something stupid about technology because he was bought off"....every single day.

Not to oversimplify too much, but I don't think the rest of the world sucks dispite all this, simply because we sent some guys in a rocket to the moon. America is great, we have lots of cool things and privilages many other places in the world don't. And every single day we come closer and closer to losing it, because we're too busy worrying about what everyone else is doing.

Wake up, I can actually smell your hypocrisy.

Feel lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

that the US isn't threatening war against nations researching space travel in the name of 'national security'

Re:Feel lucky

[boogy nightmare]

you mean national in-security

Re:Silly Europe

[Goth Biker Babe]

"Funny thing is, it was still the US doing most of the work. Seemed to end the conflict too, even if it wasn't pretty. Wonder why NATO wasn't invited to go to Afghanistan with us? There's your answer."

We didn't need to send the whole of NATO, just John Simpson of the BBC!

Anyway aren't the US part of NATO. And I know the Brits were definitely there.

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[spakka]

No, the US is planning to create its own lunar surface in the Middle East

About your .sig

[lingqi]

Peace in Iraq has left 2 million civilians dead. Give war a chance.

Offtopic, but I have seen your sig quite a few times now, and I have a little karma saved up...

I am not sure if it escapes people's memory, but the US did give war a chance. Remember the war a little while back in Iraq? What did that leave us with? In fact, what did ANY WAR that US has fought since WWII leave us with?

So, that's not leaving a very good track record. Before anybody start spewing off stuff about Afganastan being a successful lil excursion, I'd like to remind everyone that a) the US trained the taliban - something people tend to forget conveniently for some reason, and b) Bush's energy certainly does not seem to be focused on Afgan restoration, or locating Bin Laden, who is still at large, after nearly a year and half being supposedly the most wanted man on the planet.

Even if we assumed that the US can get some kind of act together and indeed do things properly - overthrow Saddam, rebild Iraq, etc. It is also something to mention that muslim countries often were never accustomed to democracy and it isn't something that's wanted anyhow - there are examples of citizens voting themselves a new king, whose whole campain was "I will do away with this democracy shit if I get elected." That's not to mention US's nonchalance toward other non-democratic countries, a good example being, say, Kuwait.

Moreover, I am sure most people are familiar with the UN weapon's inspector's stance of "golly, nuclear weapons is not exactly an easy thing to hide, and we can't find any of them" right? Even US's "strong" allie, UK, admits that from the evidence available, it is quite impossible for Sadam to get anything near nukes for quite some time (several election terms, if you don't mind).

Now, back to the point - If US was able to do things properly, and for the right reasons, does the war has to start, NOW? When the stock market takes a plunge at every mention of war? when the economy is not seen as recovering? Spending a few hundred billion waging a war for no logical reasons is, frankly, beyond description.

The only real intention I can conclude about Bush is that he is either incredibly stupid and don't realize this, or he realizes this but don't care as long as there is good for himself and his few good friends. Enron execs gets off to a nice retirement with 200 millions but MCI / A.Anderson execs gets jail time? Bush simply does not come off as the most morally straight person, which, again, puts doubts into me that he is doing this for moral reasons.

So, yeah, I would give war a chance, if only this president has demonstrated either some capability of analysis, foreign policy, morality, etc. You know, presidential stuff. It's a shame that he runs head-first into this and seems so sure of himself that a large portion just goes with the flow and assumes that this is leadership, when it's in fact something awful and repugnent, be it stupidity or corruption.

Re:About your .sig

[praksys]

Remember the war a little while back in Iraq?

I remember a war to liberate Kuwait. I also remember that a choice was made not to liberate Iraq at the same time because too many of the coalition members would not support it (most of the resistance came from Arab countries).

In fact, what did ANY WAR that US has fought since WWII leave us with?

Korean War - result was a democratic South Korea.
Invasion of Grenada - result was democracy in Grenada.
Invasion of Panama - result was democracy in Panama.
Gulf War - result was liberation of Kuwait.
Kosovo - result was an end to a campaign of genocide, and indirectly democracy in Serbia.

Apart from Vietnam, I can't think of any post-WWII US wars that did not have reasonably positive results.

a) the US trained the taliban - something people tend to forget conveniently for some reason

Perhaps because it is not true. Some members of the Taliban may have recieved US training or funding, but the Taliban itself barely even existed during the war against the USSR. Until some years after the war it was strictly a religious organisation and it played no part in the war itself. It turned into a political and military organisation during the civil war that followed.

b) Bush's energy certainly does not seem to be focused on Afgan restoration...

There is no reason why his energy should be focused there. He very sensibly chose to let the UN and others take care of most of the reconstruction effort. That is most of the reason why the Afghan people do not view US military forces in Afghanistan as an ocupation force - the US government has tried to keep its involvement to a minimum while still ensuring security.

It is also something to mention that muslim countries often were never accustomed to democracy and it isn't something that's wanted anyhow

Japan and Germany had almost no history of democracy when the US invaded those countries and turned them into democracies. Also a number of populations in the middle east have shown a great deal of interest in democracy. Iran is the most obvious example, but in fact you can find pro-democracy movements in almost every country in the region.

That's not to mention US's nonchalance toward other non-democratic countries, a good example being, say, Kuwait.

On a global scale Kuwait is not particularly free, but acording to World Audit it is the most free country in the Arab league.

it is quite impossible for Sadam to get anything near nukes for quite some time

Prior to the Gulf war the Atomic energy agency assured everyone that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program. After the gulf war we found that they were perhaps a year away from producing their first nuke. Pakistan managed to completely surprise the US with its nuclear weapons program in spite of close surveillance by the US.

does the war has to start, NOW?

The situation in the middle east is slowly getting worse, and every day that weapons programs go unchecked is a serious risk. Time is not on our side. Would you prefer it if Bush waited a year and fought the war during an election year? Should he wait two years, and just hope that nothing bad happens in the mean time?

Keep in mind that the inspectors are only in Iraq because there is a vast US army camped on Iraq's borders. When that army leaves, the inspectors leave as well. The alternative to war now is not a period of close surveillance by weapons inspectors, it is a return to the situation in the 90's. Once the troops are gone saddam will go back to doing whatever the hell he feels like.

Why so nationalistic?

[squaretorus]

Shouldn't it just be kinda cool that we are going to the moon again - instead of all this 'us and them' shite?

Re:Why so nationalistic?

[TopShelf]

Not if this means that instead of Green Cheese, we're going to find out that the moon is really made of some obscure French speciality that smells like old sweatsocks. Thank goodness there's no atmosphere up there!

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[borgdows]

Well... the money has gone from NASA to DOD :-/

Re:Skewed Priorities

[labratuk]

Israel has not killed 150,000 of its own people with mustard gas and VX.

You do realise that the U.S. helped him do this, don't you?

This was a while back when the current enemy flavour of the month was Iran, and the U.S. would aid anyone who would oppose Iran.

Re:Skewed Priorities

[labratuk]

However, we're not stupid enough to start a nuclear war by attacking a country that's ruled by a madman.

There seems to be a big fashion for people to call certain world leaders they don't like 'madmen'. Now, while I'll agree this is a nice easy way of demonising someone without having to explain it, you should also consider this.

I know of another country where, if you asked to inspect their weapons, you would go away with laughter spittle on your face. They are known to have chemical weapons, biological weapons and nuclear weapons. Hell, they even turned away U.N. inspectors, who they seem to be acknowledging as an authority right now. Not that this country believes in an idea of authority which is not them and only them.

This country has stuck its nose into foreign affairs, starting wars in its interest, at a rate of about 3 a decade, ever since the fifties.

This country is also led by a bunch of religious fanatics.

And they blatantly have an ambition to extend their control over the world.

And unlike other countries, this country is waving its weapons in a threatening manor.

You may have guessed that this country is the U.S.

Re:Skewed Priorities

[labratuk]

I missed the part where Bush gassed Northern California.

Westeners seem to not like the fact that the U.S. had a part in the gassing of Kurds.

Re:Difference btwn communists and America

[mikerich]

When america loses astronaughts their manned space flight shuts down untill years later after an investigation is done. In SOVIET RUSSIA they just kept sending man after man after man up into space. I have a feeling china would do the same damn thing. I'm sure they'll get there eventually.

Sigh.

No they didn't. First the Soviets managed to kill just four cosmonauts during their manned missions. After each failure their was a long stand down whilst the ships and procedures were checked thoroughly.

The first disaster was Soyuz 1 in April 1967. Soyuz had been under development for several years, but the programme had been thrown into confusion by the death of the Chief Designer Sergei Korolev. He was replaced by Vasily Michin - a fine engineer, but not up to the job of controlling the Soviet space programme, which was in itself in crisis. There were too many competing programmes vying for attention and too little money. It was during this time that the Soviet Moon programme completely lost its way - for which Michin would eventually take the blame.

Soyuz was a highly advanced craft and needed a lot of testing. That testing was nowhere near complete. However, the manned Soyuz 1 was launched under political pressure to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The engineers complied despite the failure of three unmanned versions of the craft.

Had Yuri Gagarin lived, it was almost certain he would have flown the mission. Instead, Soyuz 1 was piloted by Vladimir Komarov it had a succession of failures whilst in orbit, including the failure of one solar panel to deploy correctly. The craft re-entered the atmosphere as planned, but with a slight rotation. The parachute lines became entangled and the craft crashed to Earth at a high speed killing Komarov.

It had been planned that Soyuz 2 would be launched one day after Soyuz 1 and they would rendezvous in orbit. The launch was cancelled. The Soyuz 2 spacecraft was dismantled and found to have identical problems to the ship that flew. Had it been launched, it would have killed its crew.

(By horrible coincidence the flight of Soyuz 1 occured just six months after the Apollo 1 fire that killed three American astronauts.)

Soyuz was grounded whilst the entire manufacturing and quality control process was reorganised. Only when that was complete did the Soviets launch five unmanned Soyuz craft as part of their Kosmos series. When these were considered successful they then launched a second Soyuz 2 completely unmanned.

Soyuz 3 was the first successful manned mission in a Soyuz which flew in October 1968 - 16 months after the disaster.

The second cosmonaut disaster was Soyuz 11, which suffered decompression during re-entry after a mission to the Salyut 1 space station. The disaster killed three men in June 1971. The craft landed automatically and the technicians were able to see that a valve had been opened during undocking.

The Soyuz 12 mission which would have used the same design of Soyuz module was cancelled. No further flights were made with this model of ship.

It was already due to be replaced by a new Soyuz design which flew eight unmanned missions before Soyuz 12 became the next Soviet manned flight in September 1973; more than two years after the loss of Soyuz 11.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:Skewed Priorities

[labratuk]

You're trying to tell us all that George Bush is more dangerous than Saddam Hussein.

Quiz: since 1950 which country has started more unprovoked attacks?

Re:The French? Short memory...

[Taurim]

Did you remember the name of the Country who helped America during it's independance war ? :-)

Re:Skewed Priorities

[labratuk]

...we will stop at nothing to achieve our goal!

And that is why their goal is so clever. It's completely undefinable or measurable. Who's to say when the war on terror is won? When the people responsible for the WTC attacks are brought to justice? When every last terrorist is dead? When all potential terrorists are dead? Until we say so we can go and attack whoever the hell we want and have it supported by the public hidden under the banner of 'patriotism'. It's just such a brilliant plan!

Re:Damn right the US is a part of Europe

[meringuoid]

Actually, had the US not intervened it's probable that Europe would have been on the Moon long ago, well ahead of the US. German rocketry was superb. Both the US and Soviet space efforts depended to a great extent on the expertise of captured German scientists; the mastermind behind the Apollo rockets was Wernher von Braun, the man responsible for the V2 ballistic missiles that pounded London towards the end of the war.

Of course, a Nazi Moon would be no fun at all. I don't even want to imagine the ways they would have found to militarise space.

*sigh*

[labratuk]

...The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

No, no. They're far too busy trying to take control of this planet.

We Should Be Going, But I'm Glad Someone Is

[Brown Line]

Humanity needs to get off this planet, and a permanent mission on the Moon will be a good first step. If it does nothing more than mine fuel and put it into lunar orbit for use by other missions, it will have paid for itself.

I'm old enough to remember the Apollo missions; how vividly I recall that day in July 1969, when the words "Tranquility Base here: the 'Eagle' has landed." came crackling over my transistor radio. Years later, when I took my own children to see "Apollo 13", I tried to explain to them what it was like back then, when we used to fly to the Moon. They asked me why we were going any more, and I didn't have a good answer. Still don't.

So, three cheers for the Chinese and the Euros, and God speed to them.

Re:It needs to be said.........

[Tim C]

So Europe wants to go to the moon? Good for them. They can have second place

Second? Surely you mean third, at least as far as unmanned missions go. The Russians had unmanned probes on the Moon before the US did.

Re:Silly Europe

[K3lvin]

America has the most free press in the world. There is absolutely nothing state controlled about it.

Actually the US ranks 17th in press freedom. There are 13 European countries with more press freedom than the US:
http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=411 6

A quote from the article:
"The poor ranking of the United States (17th) is mainly because of the number of journalists arrested or imprisoned there."

U.S. Missions

[Badmovies]

I watch as everyone jumps on the bandwagon that the United States' space program sucks. All because we have not returned to the moon.

Okay, our manned missions have become fairly lax, but NASA's unmanned missions are doing a fair job of making up for it. Just check the current list: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/

Plus, the Hubble and Chandra are doing real good work - in Earth orbit.

ENIAC already re-created?

[Black Rabbit]

Wasn't there a project a few years back to create ENIAC-on-a-chip as part of some sort of anniversary celebration?

Re:ENIAC already re-created?

[Black Rabbit]

I knew there was!

http://www.ee.upenn.edu/~jan/eniacproj.html

Re:ENIAC already re-created?

[Black Rabbit]

...and apparetnly there's an ENIAC emulator somewhere out there, but I haven't managed to dig it up yet.

the first we know to have made the trip...

[nickos]

...was actually the Scandinavian, Leif Ericsson, and he wasn't trying to get to India, but to lands reported to be to the west of Greenland. A viking colony called Vinland (due to the new lands wine-growing potential) was established, and lasted for some time before being wiped out by hostile natives.

Re:Skewed Priorities

[dpete4552]

Israel has not killed 150,000 of its own people with mustard gas and VX. This is what boggles my mind when people make these ridiculous comparisons between Iraq and any other country, or between Saddam Hussein and any other world leader.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/tiananmen/
"Twelve years ago the Chinese Government lost patience with a student movement calling for democracy in Tiananmen square. They ordered the peoples army to turn their weapons on the people. he bloody suppression of the students effectively smashed the pro- democracy movement and drove dissent underground."

China killed thousands of people, including chilren. They ran the protesters over with tanks, including a pregnent woman, and sprayed the croud with automatic weapons. And the whole while it was being broadcast live to our living rooms via CNN (and other networks). Thousands upon thousands of people died in that attack. The only thing that Bush Sr. did was scold China and he stopped us from buying military hats from China for a few months. Now Iraq kills its own people, and suddenly we want to declare ourselfs the saviors of the world's people *puke* Yeah, right. No altierior motives involved in that *rolls eyes*.

Re:woo history

[juhaz]

Well, the "natives" had it easy - they could WALK into there, if the same land bridge would have existed into our times there would've been no need to "discover" anything, either.

It's bit harder to find something when you need to sail for months, and not even know there is something than when you can just follow the ground and wonder, what's after THAT hill and the next and..., no?

Re:Skewed Priorities

[dpete4552]

The best thing for oil prices and the economy would be for us to cool it and say "ok, Iraq's complying, everything's fine". If this were about oil, that's what we'd do - that's what would make our own oil companies happy.

No, the best thing for us economically, and our oil companies, would be for us to occupy Iraq and have our oil companies control the oil found in the region.

Re:Difference btwn communists and America

[Amroarer]

Lt Col Virgil Grissom USAF, Lt Col Edward White USAF and Lt Cdr Roger Chaffee USN. All died, as a previous poster stated, in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. Apollo 1

On the friendly fire issue - no, not yet. The Canadian casualties (Canada's first combat losses since Korea) were in Afghanistan. Friendly Fire in the Afgan Campaign

In Iraq the US has only yet managed to kill American, French, British and Turkish personnel. Operation Provide Comfort

Re:Oxymoron?

[MrBlint]

slashdot entertainment?

Surely some mistake!

Re:Columbus NOT first!

[Carnivorous Carrot]

Vikings? Vikings?

Didn't they die out a long time ago, their precious New World knowledge being pretty much lost and thus of no good to anyone?

Much more interesting is that Columbus may have had an inkling of a New World from rumors floating around those islands (?) way east off the coast of Africa, and used "I'm goin' ta India!" as a cover story to get funding.

Re:Columbus NOT first!

[Carnivorous Carrot]

West coast! West coast!

An edit button would be nice, but Slashdotters would probably misuse it to craft and recraft their messages to make responders look like buffoons. I know I would!

True...

[Repran]

...the US was first on the moon. Just like Christopher Columbus was first to the US - but he didn't stay. It where the pilgrims that repeated the trip and stayed.

Actually, a US company (not NASA) is too

[apsmith]

Why is it these great stories about the Moon appear in the middle of the night when I'm sleeping! Oh well...

TransOrbital's lunar mission has actually been featured here on
slashdot a few times but nobody seems to remember private space ventures when public projects come up. Sigh...

Anyway, if you'll peruse those links to past /. articles you'll see that they had a long delay due to regulatory issues, but finally got the approvals they need around the middle of last year, and actually launched a test vehicle last December. The schedule is to do it for real later this year... so it should happen! Along with Smart-1.

Re:Hey America!

[the gnat]

OR if America is going to change all it's French words for some what less French words

Thanks, dude, that was hilarious. For the record, I oppose all incarnations of this sort of nonsense- I don't think the restaraunt owner grasped the concept that "liberty cabbage" is now nothing more than a punch line. However, the French are the ones with an entire ministry devoted to creating French-sounding words for (largely) American inventions, to preserve the purity of their language. Assramps.

Ah Ha!

[flimflam]

...flights to Mars taking weeks rather than months.

So that's what he meant by "Weeks not months"!

Re:Ah Ha!

[Tackhead]

> > ...flights to Mars taking weeks rather than months.
> So that's what he meant by "Weeks not months"!

Great. Now our space program is anything like our war on Iraq. A nice idea, long overdue, but it'll never happen in our lifetimes. The UN^H^HNASA guys will issue plenty of resolutions calling for flights to Mars by... umm... sometime... and if we don't actually build a spacecraft, we'll... umm, how about we issue another resolution calling for a trip to Mars? We're good at that issuing resolution stuff.

not correct

[IndependentVik]

Look, I dislike Bush as much as the next guy (actually, probably more than the next guy), but I'm afraid your assertion that he only increased NASA's funding after the Columbia disaster is not correct.

President Bush released his proposed 2004 budget Monday. Prepared before the Columbia tragedy, Bush calls for increasing the NASA budget by roughly $500 million to $15.47 billion, about a 3 percent increase. Funding for the space shuttle program itself would rise from $3.2 billion to $3.9 billion under Bush's proposal.
source

I think this is great

[Monofilament]

There needs to be a different perspective on space. Up until now.. its been Russia and the US.. and thats really it. As far as the moon goes the US got their. But we didn't do anything more than just get there.

It seems they're taking a different turn. They're going there because its the closest planet like rock that you can test out planetary travel with... make it better safer and all that jazz.

Hey if other countries and corps get involved in space exploration.. maybe it'll fire up our programs a little more.. maybe make this cheaper. I mean hell the reason why everything is so expensive is we've been doing it first.. and there has been no outside perspective. Well, besides the russians... but they've been hurting as of late. But we got the space station out of that.. so i'd say even more good can come from other people doing stuff to progress.

plus I'm such a Sci-Fi freak I wanna see people living in space and traveling to other planets.. that would rock.. though I'm not quite so optimistic it will happen in my lifetime..

But...

[MrBlint]

first you have to assertain that he patient actually has cancer.

I suppose the important question is...

[ColoradoZippy]

...are they coming back, and will they bring us anything cool? ;D

Image transfer using an optical link

[shadow_slicer]

They also did some other pretty nifty stuff, like image transfer using an optical link

Funny...I do this everyday when I look out a window....

Re:well

[brokenbeaker]

You (anonymous) coward. Take the easy way out and snuff out your little life eh? How about sticking around and trying to make wherever a better place to live?

The United States will probably do it first.

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is already seriously considering building a second station at the Earth-Moon L1.

This wouldn't be a science station, unlike ISS. This would be an staging "gateway" for missions to asteroids, the surface of the moon, Mars, and to construct huge space telescopes. (Because it wouldn't be a science station, it would be simpler that ISS in many ways. This, combined with the experience gained developing ISSfar higher than the shuttle can.

All of this has been discussed heavily on the web in discussions of the NASA Exploration Team's (NExT's) planning for expanding joint human-robotic exploration.

Re:The United States will probably do it first.

[einhverfr]

L1 is unstable though, is it not? If so, wouldn't it eventually drift into a very high earth orbit or a lunar orbit?

Hmmm... This seems strange to me.....

Re:Skewed Priorities

[stanmann]

Last I checked about half of Israel is conquered land.

And do you recall the circumstances of that "conquering"? ...

something about an invasion, 5-1 odds against?...crushing a vastly superior enemy in less time than most nations take to notice an attack.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[Enigma2175]

Which part of the water atom goes bang and makes rockets move?

Is this a rhetorical question or am I simply too dense to get your humor? If you split apart a water molecule you get 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom. Hydrogen is a highly flammable gas that has been used in a high number of space vehicles. All you have to do is add an oxidizer (like the other half of the water molecule we split apart) and you have yourself a rocket. If you use solar power on the moon to split water, you can get the fuel to orbit for much less cost than you can lift it from earth. This could be critical for sending missions to other planets. On most space missions, the fuel massively outmasses anything else. If the fuel were produced in space, it would make it much less expensive to undertake the exploration of our solar system as you would have to lift less mass out of Earth's gravity well. The Hydrogen and Oxygen would also be handy around the moon base as well for power and respiration, respectively.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[Glock27]

why is this +4? it certainly isn't informative, insightful, underrated or funny. Really, its just political bashing with baseless facts. Absolutely baseless.

It is +4 because 4 people with moderator points didn't bother to check the facts. Shocking. ;-)

I mean, nobody just bashes the President as a knee-jerk reaction - do they?

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

[dinog]

No, actually, we are going to Pluto. Pluto is about 6 billion kilometers (or is that 6 trillion meters ?) away. The moon is about 384,400 kilometers away. You do the math.

Oh, and if I recall correctly, we should get there before Pluto's atmosphere completely freezes. If someone else goes 40 - 50 years later, it will be far less usefull from a scientific standpoint.

Either way, good luck to Europe, China, Japan, and anyone else with a space program. I'm interested in all of them, as any one of them, including the US, seems to move at a glacial pace. Now if only someone would start a permanent colony somewhere. That would be a new accomplishment worthy of history books.

Dean G.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[Enigma2175]

Furthermore, the Moon is thought to be geologically like the Earth's mantle. You know, the top bit where we get all of our metals and minerals from.

Although most of your post was accurate, I think this is a little off the mark. I believe what you meant to say was the Moon is thought to be geologically similar to Earth's crust, not mantle. The mantle is molten material beneath the crust. IIRC, the Moon is geologically stable and has no liquid core (and hence no magnetic field to shield solar radiation). The earth's crust is so rich in heavy metals because it is constantly being replenished from the mantle via upwelling at tectonic plate boundaries (i.e. volcanoes, ocean vents, etc). AFAIK, the moon is made from much lighter material (mostly silicates) and does not have the abundance of heavy metals that the Earth possesses. There will be some heavy metals due to asteroid impacts, but I think our 'gold mine' on the moon will be He3, O2, and H20.

World particilation in Europe

[John Bayko]

"after WWII, Europeans didn't really care about anybody proving superiority to anyone anymore, they just wanted to live in peace and prosperity"

behind the u.s shield.

And Canada's.

Don't laugh, Canada had a potent military when it counted. In World War II, about 10% of Canada's population - yes, that's 1/10 of everyone living in the country - were in the military. Canadian military might was respected around the world (but gradually the military was cut back because, frankly, who would want to attack Canada anyway? It's a country without enemies).

There's also the U.K. While the U.S spends about 5% of its GDP on the military, the U.K is close at a bit more than 4%. During the first Gulf War, Britain sent 50,000 troops, compared to 250,000 U.S troops - since it's about 1/5 the population of the U.S, that works out to the same commitment per capita. Britain has always been prepared to defend Europe during the Cold War.

And don't discount the European armies that made up NATO were quite heavily armed when an actual threat existed.

The U.S might have been the largest Western military power, but it was not the only one. The difference is, once the military threat disappeared, most countries sensibly spent less on defense (sometimes to extremes - see Canada and helicoptors). The U.S, by contrast, seems to have done its best to make more enemies...

BTW, military force is useless against terrorism - terrorism is designed to bypass military confrontation, and succeeds. Israel has seen more military deployments in the past year than some countries have in the past century, and still...

Yeah...NASA does/hasn't done anything.

[Keebler71]

Under study ABE ARES AIM ASCE Constellation-X Dawn EUSO GEC Geospace GLAST JIMO Kepler LISA Mag Constellation Mag Multiscale Mars 2007+ MARVEL NetLander New Frontiers New Horizons (Pluto) NGSS NGST Phoenix SCIM SDO Sentinels SIM Solar Probe Space Tech 7 SPIDR THEMIS TPF preliminary concepts In development AMS ASPERA-3 Astro-E2 CINDI Deep Impact GALEX Gravity Probe-B Herschel Hubble SM4 Mars '03 Rovers Mars '05 Orbiter Mars Express MESSENGER Planck Rosetta SIRTF SOFIA Solar-B Space Tech 5 Space Tech 6 STEREO Swift TWINS Operating ACE Cassini Chandra CHIPS Cluster FAST FUSE Galileo Genesis Geotail HETE-2 Hubble (HST) IMAGE INTEGRAL MAP Mars Global Surv. Mars Odyssey Nozomi Polar RHESSI RXTE SAMPEX SOHO Stardust Starshine SWAS TIMED TRACE Ulysses Voyager Wind XMM-Newton Deep Space Network Space Science Data Past missions Ended after 1989: ASCA Astro-1 / Astro-2 Astro-E BBXRT Clementine CGRO COBE CONTOUR CRRES DE-1 Deep Space 1 Deep Space 2 DXS Equator-S EUVE HALCA / VLBI Hipparcos Hubble SM3B Hubble (past) IEH-3 ISEE-3/ICE IMP-8 IRTS ISO IUE Kuiper (KAO) Leonid MAC Lunar Prospector Magellan Mars Clim. Orb. Mars Observer Mars Pathfinder Mars Polar Lander NEAR ORFEUS Pioneer 10/11 Pioneer Venus ROSAT SAC-B SNOE Spartan TERRIERS TSS-1, TSS-1R WIRE Yohkoh

Re:Yeah...NASA does/hasn't done anything.

[j-b0y]

Hmm; seems to be a fair sprinkling of ESA projects in there, not to mention national agency projects.
Not wanting to picky, or anything, mind. NASA certainly contributes elements to many of these projects but to imply that they are NASA projects is a little disingenuous.

Take note

[John Bayko]

Take note of that group. Interesting things to note are:

• About half of the members now have significant positions in the current U.S administration (there's that Rumsfeld guy for one...).
• They have explicitly advocated conquering Iraq since at least 1996 (possibly earlier), during the Clinton adminstration.

Take a look - the open letters give some of the real reasons for the Iraq war (note that merely disarming Iraq is not one of the options).

Re:Take note

[labratuk]

Yeah I was just talking with a friend about this the other day. Pretty scary stuff.

Re:Damn right the US is a part of Europe

[aiabx]

The US didn't intervene in Europe in WWII. Britain, France and the Commonwealth nations intervened. The US and USSR didn't do anything* until the Germans had declared war on them.

*I know about the actions of the US Navy in the Atlantic before December 1941, but they were actions on a small enough scale that they wouldn't have prevented the completion of a Nazi Moon program. I could also quibble that the Atlantic convoy routes weren't "in" Europe.

Thank you for trolling. I will have a nice day.
-aiabx

NASA is extinct

[michaeltoe]

NASA died 30 years ago. I don't think we should expect anything special from them until they get into another tirade about 'beating out the commies'

Regan had a vision.

[orichter]

And unlike Kennedy, he actually lived to see his vision come to fruition. One of his primary goals was to bring an end to the Cold War. Many will claim that he had nothing to do with the execution of that vision, but at any rate, he had a vision, and set about achieving it. I think he was quite successful.

Re:Columbus NOT first!

[matguy]

what I meant as "correct" was the arangement of the sentence, which was confusing with the "from his continent or any continents he had ever known before" directly followed by "had landed before" part, which was somewhat redundant, but necisary to forumulate and convey the idea correctly.

We haven't lost all that technology at all

[CausticPuppy]

We knew how to get there, but like Goldie Hawn frequently said at the time, "I used to know all that stuff." Now we don't have a clue as to how to get back.

Oh come on now. It's just rocket science.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[BinaryForces]

Helium-3

Here is a excerpt from a space.com story:

Scientists estimate there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, according to Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt.

Here is the link:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/heliu m3_0006 30.html

I'd say that is a pretty good reason to go.

Getting the USA back to the moon?

[niagaracyber]

Let's start a rumor that there's OIL in them thar lunar hills. Cheney's hand will be up GW's ass within seconds to have him "articulate" a new national priority of lunar exploration. They will invoke all kinds of lofty ideals, and use the lunar program to justify more coal-fired power plants here on earth. Oh, and of course, the need to invade Iraq.

The US has other destinations for its rocket...

[Quixadhal]

...and most of them are in the Middle East.

Hopefully not, but I'm not the only one who sees Bush as the guy riding the Atom Bomb like a bucking bronco as it falls from the bomber (sorry, blanking on the name of that movie!).

We should take the billions we're spending on the "War" and use it to further the idea of not being tied to a single planet. Yeah, it's a long way off, but the sooner we start, the better chances we'll finish before someone or something (big rock from space, environmental meltdown, aliens who have to kill us for making the X-Files...) smokes the Earth.

US Planning to Watch?

[Bob Uhl]

The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.

Well, yeah. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. We're like the big brother watching his little brother climb a tree--we feel no need to bother anymore.

Plus--and here's a big secret--we know what they don't know: it's not worth doing. It's just a lot of money with no return. It'd be cheaper to burn a pile of $100 bills. Heck, it'd be cheaper to burn a pile of $1,000,000 bills!

Re:US Planning to Watch?

[rholland356]

It's not worth going to the moon? The hell you say!

Moon shots are part and parcel for developing long range ICBM technology, friend.

To the moon, Alice...

[Bowie J. Poag]

We're not bothering this year because we'll have enough craters to look at in Iraq.

What will they find on the Moon?

[rholland356]

When the Chinese explorers arrive at the Apollo landing site, they'll find, inscribed in the side of the lander, the word "First!"

Re:wow

[dpete4552]

Go take economics 101, then explain to me how bush's tax cuts are bad for the poor.

Because when a rich guy gets a $40,000 check, and a poor guy gets a $20 check, and in exchange for that $20 check, government services, which he (being average joe poor guy) relies on get cut. That's how it is bad for the poor.

Not only that, who gets to decide who is rich(evil) and who isn't.

Well it's simple really. I am surprised you, having taken economics 101, do not know this. You take the top 10%-20% or so of the incomes of the people, and those people could be determined rich. Now nobody is implying that the rich are somehow evil, although it is funny that is a word that you would bring into the conversation when refering to the rich. Anyways, the richest people are very good, mostly due to the fact that they provide jobs. But when you are giving those people new BMW worth of a tax rebate, and giving the poor a few extra value meals at McDonnald's worth of money, and in exchange government services that those people rely on are cut, it is not good. The rich could care less, they can afford their own services, but it is the poor who rely most heavily on the services that end up getting cut.

I think it is very bigoted to basically have the additude that it is bad for a government to help its people. I happen to be proud of our government for the help it has provided for its less fortunate citizens.

Of course I think we should just go bad the the fudual days where there were no government services and if you were born a pesent, tough luck, you can't afford school, medical care, etc... you are just shit outta' luck. Yeah those were the days. That's what a *real* American would strive for. Government services are just communist!

laff

Also, just for reference, there is not now, nor has there has been, a communist country. There have been dictatorships that like to call themselfs communist, but there has been no truely communist country. I would suggest you read Animal Farm by George Orwell. So there is really no communist country that has "built walls to hold the people in" because there is not, and has never been, a communist country.

Chinese Moon Manufacturing News

[rholland356]

The year is 2037 and in this edition of Chinese Moon Manufacturing News we discuss China's recent abandonment of all manufacturing on the Moon.

Because of the economics of the situation and recent acceptance of the UN Free Trade Agreement, all Chinese Moon Manufacturing positions have been exported to Mexico.

CMM management will remain on the moon for a transitional period, before the doors are locked and the lights shut off.

That is all.

Conspiracy Update

[bill_mcgonigle]

In all honesty, a manned mission to the moon by another country would be great. It would finally shut up all of these conspiracy theories about how the manned missions to the moon by the U.S. were elaborate hoaxes.

That's no longer the in-vogue conspiracy. Now we admit that they went to the moon, but it's what they found there that's being covered up.

But Deep Space IX...

[Iowaguy]

Deep space nine just re-routed the deflectors to provide enough push to get to worm whole in mere minutes! We should do that too..... -Iowa

Obligatory MST3K reference

[Guppy06]

"they won't think its so cool when they go up there and find the terrible secret of space!"

Could be worse: They could find the Prince of Space.

Re:Silly Europe

[Pharmboy]

Actually the US ranks 17th in press freedom.

Well, its linked to a French server, so it must be true. Everyone knows the French are very objective when it comes to Americans.

"The poor ranking of the United States (17th) is mainly because of the number of journalists arrested or imprisoned there."

You failed to quote this: Arrests are often because they refuse to reveal their sources in court. Also, since the 11 September attacks, several journalists have been arrested for crossing security lines at some official buildings. which is an unsubstantiated claim that sounds more like American bashing than fact. Crossing over lines to contaminate a crime scene doesn't qualify as 'gagging' the press. The press's rights to not reveal sources is so strong in America as to be bordering on aiding criminals. And we tolorate it anyway.

Nothing personal, but I have good grounds to compare freedom on press, as well as personal liberty in France vs. America. No contest. I notice they rank their own country very high, too. After reading it, and looking around at this groups mission statement, the fact that they appear to be full of shit on many counts is quite obvious to any objective person.

Yes, its easy to bash France. Their arrogence and incompetance is what made it so easy, tho.

Re:The French? Short memory...

[mfrank]

They most certainly did not do it for the colonist's benefit, it was done solely to hurt England.

Re:It needs to be said.........

[mfrank]

Fourth, actually. The Japanese orbited their "Hiten" probe around the moon about 10 years ago.

+5 for parent please

[andr0meda]

Well said, well formulated, and generally insightfull. Me and my journal agree completely.

Re:The French Collaborators?

[stud9920]

Thank you. I hadn't read that far in Churchill's "The second World War". You gave me the occasion. According to the Wikipedia, the English attacked French territory to gain a base in North Africa. From what I read they did a defence that was hardly more than formal (hahaha surrendered ! that's so funny). That's what's you're supposed to do when your territory is attacked. The Germans were not too pleased with the surrender as they then occupied Vichy France. Did the French declare war to Brittain after Torch ? I think not. That's what's your supposed to do when you get attacked.

Re:Facts:

[stud9920]

4) There was no french resistance.

Fuck you. I demand your sincere apologies on behalf of my grandmother. My grandmother was in the Resistance. She lost many friends. Granted it was in Belgium, but if there hadn't been a French resistance I would know. And YES, I do know most French were singing "Marechal nous voila".

5) It was a myth created by degaulle after the war to help fuel french nationalism.

Fuck you again. Ever heard of Casablanca ? It was not filmed after the war I believe, but in 1942. Was Viktor Laszlo a unicyclist ? Was he a newspaper boy ?

Re:The French? Short memory...

[Taurim]

In 1778 France and the United States entered into an alliance against Great Britain, which thereupon declared war against France.

It was done to hurt England of course. But Lafayette for example really served the American cause.

Better priorities

[bmantz65]

NASA and the government have higher priorities in the space program than toying with the moon again e.g. space shuttle issue

Another way to waste money.

[$criptah]

Before China or India or any other no-septic-systems-and-our-kids-are-starving country wants to go to the moon they have to get their goddamn economies straight. The only way Chinese would ever afford going to the Moon is if they start burning their own people as fuel. I am sick and tired hearing about some countries that are alomost at the bottom of the shitter have big plans for space exploration. Would not spending money on improving the quality of living be more reasonable?

Re:that movie ...

[tarragon]

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0057012

Z3

[danila]

The last writeup here says:

Contrary to popular belief, ENIAC was not the first general-purpose computer. In 1973 the patent for ENIAC was invalidated by the Judge Earl Larson of the US District Court in Minneapolis. Larson found that ENIAC was based on the ideas of John Vincent Atanasoff, who constructed ABC, the first electronic computer, around 1940 [1].

John Atanasoff was finally acknowledged as the true inventor of the electronic computer. However, ABC also wasn't the first general-purpose computer, because actually it wasn't general-purpose, as it wasn't programmable. It was hardwired for solving systems of linear equations [2].

The real first ever digital programmable general-purpose electronic computer was built around the same time in Germany. In 1941 Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, built Z3, a binary computer, controlled by perforated strips of film. The machine was fully programmable and in fact it contained almost all features of a modern computer, as defined by John von Neumann in Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronical Computing Instrument (1946) [3]. The only exception was that the program was not stored in the internal memory of Z3, but on the perforated film strip. However, ENIAC also did not posess this ability - the programming was done by manually rewiring part of the computer.

Now let's give our due respect to Konrad Zuse [4].

Sources (to back my claims):
1 http://www.computer.org/history/development/1973.h tm
2 http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff_Berry_Comp uter
3 http://www.epemag.com/zuse/part4a.htm
4 http://www.bionomics.org/text/resource/articles/ar _015.html

Re:well

[Lurkingrue]

Personally, I think that stand is insane. If you're living in a so-called "communist country", there's still an infinite number of ways to have a fulfilling, satisfying life experience. You can make love, eat good food, exercise your body, think deep thoughts, travel... What is it precisely you feel you can do in the US that you cannot in a communist society?

Even if you warp the definition of "communist country" to include the most repressive current regimes that are (mistakenly) tagged with that title (Cuba, N. Korea, etc.), you're still talking about a situation where a citizen can live a decent life, or work for change within the system. And millions of people do.

Conversely, if you're dead, well...you're dead.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[RodgerDodger]

No, I'm pretty sure I meant mantle.

IIRC, the Moon is currently believed to have been made by a large asteroid slamming into the primordial Earth. This smeared a large chunk of the Earth's crust and mantle (the crust is essentially solid mantle, and back then it was a lot thinner) out into space, where it coalesced into the Moon. Initially, the Moon's core would have been liquid as well, but being smaller and less dense it would have cooled fairly fast.

Could be wrong, of course... :)

Unfortunate how this article turned out.

[RobinH]

It's unfortunate that this article had to turn into a bunch of Americans debating their governments' priorities. The real story here is some interesting new technology that going to be tested that will expand science for everyone's benefit.

To the Americans out there - we in the rest of the world are very impressed by your past accomplishments. The fact that other nations are also developing their own space programs does not mean it's an insult to you guys.

You will benefit from everyone else's space exploration, just as you benefit from Japan's semiconductor research, Canada's telecommunications research, and Europe's alternative energy research. Yes, other nations benefit from U.S. research too. It's a team game we're playing here, and it's time we stopped with the us/them frame of mind.

Think for a second where the U.S. rocket technology came from. Was it strictly a U.S. invention, or was is based heavily on German technology?

My point is that countries can accomplish more working together than in isolation.

Re:Hmm

[dpete4552]

lol, yeah I was obviously having an issue there.

Propellantless propulsion: sailing into space

[dido]

Off the top of my head, I can think of solar sails and laser sails. These are at least two propellantless propulsion technologies being seriously studied by scientists. Obviously, neither requires 'propellant' in any shape or form.

Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo

[Enigma2175]

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have tried to put words into your mouth. I have a nasty habit of doing that....

However, from the Projects to Employ Resources of the Moon and Asteroids Near Earth in the Near Term (PERMANENT) website:

First, the Moon is made of lighterweight material blown off of the Earth's surface, and is poor in materials from the Earth's mantle and core. We see this in the aluminum-rich lunar highland geologies. We also know by measuring the mass and density of the Moon by Apollo and other scientific instruments. Overall, the Moon is not very dense.

The mantle has heavy metals that are carried by convection from the core. While the Moon has some heavy metals, it certainly isn't close to the concentrations the the mantle.

Wait'll they find our...

[mtec]

movie sets up there... and that we just faked it...

signed,
Confused

Re:Ha ha ha ha

[tumbaumba]

And best of all, we invented and own most of the internet.

I always wonder, how come people take pride in someone else's deeds.
Mind if I ask. Did you personally contribute to invention of the internet or may be you were working on Appolo project? If not then don't say 'we'.
This whole discussion reminds me of current Russian state of affairs. Movies on a past glory of Soviet space program are very popular over there.

OT (was:The French?)

[Moskit]

But remember before them the Poles [...] had surrendered.

False. Poland has NOT surrendered during WWII.

Our Future Lies in Space!

[burnunit0]

I'm quite dismayed by the "we went there a generation ago, big deal" responses. The moon IS a big deal!
Luna should be considered a science-critical, mission-critical, humanity-critical resource that's just aching for our close attention and more manned and unmanned missions.
1. Astronomy. Hubble is great. But can you imagine a ground telescope on the dark side of the moon? We could image back to the beginning! We could discover more extrasolar planets, prove or disprove more theories, unlock the secrets of the cosmos. The stability of a ground based scope is so great; and the total lack of an atmosphere would permit such fantastic resolution! Think of Keck _on the moon_. Wow.
2. Further solar exploration. Creating a staging area on the moon for missions to mars, jupiter, io, saturn, ganymede, titan, uranus, the asteroid belt, ceres, venus, the oort clouds-- all these things at which we need more looks-- it would make launches to them faster, more efficient and less energy intensive. Especially when we employ
3. Lunar Mining. There are significant lunar resources from which we can truly benefit. Robofactured propellents. Building materials. Water? People if there's water under the lunar surface (still only theoretical, I know) we MUST get there and SOON.
There's more, I know there is. I just can't believe we'd cast aside the moon so easily because "we done that afore hyuck hyuck!" There's so many ways further lunar exploration would assist all other space exploration that it's foolish to ignore it.
J

The Pusher robot is wrong

[shfted!]

The humans must be shoved!

Worse than sit around and watch

[Airegin]

The US is willing to spend massive ammounts of resources in a senseless war against so called "evil countries", instead of concentrating on productive and positive activities.

That's even worse than just sitting around.

I completely dissagree

[themusicgod1]

I'm not sure about you but I've never tried to cross a large area of tundra region by foot. I can assure you however that it's not quite as simple as you make it out to be. These peoples have crossed mountainous terrain and frozen wasteland alike in order to have discovered and colonized the known world here. One of the things that was made very clear to us in high school which I should have taken far more seriously is the knowledge that the land is always more powerful than you are. Don't try to master nature - it will master you. Perhaps that's just here in Canada, though, where I won't walk home outside for fear of freezing to death. But seriously, there is much to the environment and discovering most of this land than just simply 'walking across'...

Re:I completely dissagree

[juhaz]

Well, I didn't mean to imply they were on a sunday walk and accidentally stumbled upon a continent. It certainly wasn't easy.

Yet, those people did probably live on that tundra even before they started this particular journey and had to had previously learn how to survive there and people of that era were nomads, crossing large distances by walking wasn't strange to them either.