Lunar Polar Ice Not Present

Time for plan B by tekiegreg · 2003-11-13 03:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Granted there is no water on the moon, we'll have to bring it there ourselves I guess, presumably we're either importing from Earth, or how about nudging a comet towards the moon once the technology is feasible? As long as your aim is good (for the love of god don't miss and hit Earth), we could have a large supply of water available for long term moon usage indefinitely (when we run out, just nudge another comet, but control the landing of the comet if there's already people there).

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...in bed

Re:Time for plan B by pyr0 · 2003-11-14 03:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

"As the nice yellow "enemy" icon informs me. I happily made you a friend just for the hell of it. :-)"
Damn, and I've been trying so hard to get someone on my freaks list. What can you do though :P
"How do you know that they believed the world was flat? The Bible certainly doesn't state it. The "flat" world model was an invention of the middle ages. Many things had to be rediscovered due to the impact that the fall of Rome had on science and philosophy. Before that, the Egyptians were building pyramids, the Greeks were figuring out how to use a lever on the earth, and the Romans were building aqueducts and computational devices."
Regardless of who was building what, the people of that time still had nowhere near the concept of time, space, physics that we do now. Thus, any interpretations of the world using the technology of the time were constrained to what they did know. When something couldn't be explained rationally, it "must have been the gods" doing it. Hell, the motivation behind the Egyptions building those pyramids was so their dead kings could properly transition to their version of the afterlife.
> You say the big bang theory is completely random "Eh? I did? Where?"
I went back and looked. I admit I think I looked at so many posts and replies in this whole flamewar thread that I think I mixed that up with you. However you *did* say that evolution is a random theory. I could just as easily have plugged the world "evolution" in for "big bang" and my statement would not lose any of it's meaning.
"I agree. Do you know how to interpret them correctly? I'm glad you do, because there are a LOT of geologists fighting over that very point."
So what is your expertise that you can make this statment? I happen to be a geologist actually. Of course, there is always debate of how to interpret rocks. However that interpretation is always constrained within bounds of rational thought. Ideas like "God snapped fingers and *POOF* these creatures appeared" and "a catastrophic flood created all the Earth's sedimentary rocks" are just ludicrous. The arguments between geologists you speak of typically are something like this: "Hey, a fluid passed through these rocks during the Carboniferous, forming some ore." "No, you're wrong...the ore formed at the same time as those rocks 50 million years earlier." Each geologist typically has very sound scientific reasoning for thinking what they do. Perhaps you should read the link in my sig. It pertains typically to the evolution vs. creation argument, but the statement is valid for *any* related theory in "crisis" as the fundie Christians want everyone to believe.
"I have not and will not state that the Earth is 6000 years old. However, if we interpret the Genesis account correctly, human beings are probably about that age."
You see, that's the problem right there! Supporting an idea using unverifiable data. Ever heard the phrase "I read it on the internet so it must be true!"? Do those people annoy you as much as they do me? Substitute bible for internet in that statement, and it's the same. And don't even pay attention to the hominid fossil record that has been dated using scientifically sound and peer reviewed techniques? I suppose I can't even make that argument though, seeing as evolution doesn't occur, right? Therefore it doesn't matter how old our ancestors are?
"Good question. I'm game if you're ready to act rationally."
I'm always ready to act rationally. My question is, does taking the words of a 2000 year old book as literal truth qualify as rational thought?

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Project Steve

Re:Make up your minds... by jgabby · 2003-11-13 03:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

Skiing on the moon would be no fun at all....no wind blowing in your face, a very slow speed...perhaps the only enjoyable thing would be ski jumps with REALLY long slopes to build up speed, then jump over a canyon or something.

Little Off Topic by pvt_medic · 2003-11-13 03:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

I was just surfing the web and came across this Nova article about one of the possible theories over the creation of the moon. Its says that the moon is a result of a asteroid crashing into the earth and was formed by the pieces that were blasted off the earth. Here is a video animation they have on it.

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30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll

Re:Little Off Topic by AKAImBatman · 2003-11-13 03:37 · Score: 1, Interesting

That's one theory. Another theory states that the moon is a leftover chunk of a 10th planet that used to exist between Mars and Jupiter. That planet was destroyed in some major event, and its remains became the asteroid belt as well as several moons.

Back on topic, any settlement on the moon would do best to take various materials containing hydrogen and oxygen, and crack them. Once cracked, the raw hydrogen and oxygen particles could be combined to make water. Hydrogen is pretty easy to come by. A ram scoop mounted on some form of runabout may be able to collect quite a bit. I'm not sure what materials hold oxygen, but I do know that rocks tend to absorb it, and that the moon does have an atmosphere a few feet thick. Alternatively, an efficient enough engine could allow the runabout to scoop off the top of Earth's atmosphere in the same way it could gather hydrogen.

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Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Re:Little Off Topic by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2003-11-13 03:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

If you have a ramscoop capable of collecting any significant amount of hydrogen in deep space, that means you have propulsion technology that zips you around so fast that going to and from the Moon is child's play. We're talking about a significant fraction of c -- at such speeds, travel time between Earth and the Moon is measured in minutes. And honestly, though I'd love to be proven wrong, I don't expect to see such a thing any time soon.

I like the idea of scooping up chunks of Earth's upper atmosphere and taking it to the Moon, though. You still need an engine that's orders of magnitude more powerful and efficient than anything we have now, but something like that might at least be within reach.

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The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.

Well, more accurately by Space+cowboy · 2003-11-13 03:25 · Score: 4, Interesting

it said there was no sheets of ice at the poles. There could still be grains. The previous survey showed a lot of hydrogen up there, and the best guess for how you get lots of hydrogen to stick around is as ice.

Not sure why you couldn't have methane mind...

Simon.

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Physicists get Hadrons!

Re:Christian "myth"?!?!? by trick-knee · 2003-11-13 03:50 · Score: 2, Interesting

please note that there is no mention of truth or falsity in Merriam-Webster's entry for "myth", except in a secondary denotation.

entries 2b and 3 would seem to be the only ones that should be cause for offense. however entry 1a works just fine in the curent context, unless you want to object to "ostensibly".

Not complete refutation by amightywind · 2003-11-13 04:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

The radar astronomers admit that they were not able to probe Shackleton crater where Clementine got it positive reading. In any event, I doubt we are talking about much more than frost in the regolith. This is bad news for those who prattle on about stipmining the lunar south pole in order to manufacture rocket fuel.

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an ill wind that blows no good

Re:No such thing as permanent shade by ccpoodle · 2003-11-13 04:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

Permanent shade is about as common on the Moon as on Earth, as all parts of the moon get sun light on a different schedual, but about the same average as Earth. Permanent shade is rare small areas, and lasts a few million years as the geographic poles of both bodies move over the long term. In my opinion polar ice on the moon, even in permanent shade would be gone in a million years, likely much less, because of energetic ions and photons from beyond our solar system. Most of the Earth-shine photons are not energetic enough to decompose ice at minus 250 degrees f and more than half of the permanently shaded areas from the Sun would also be permanetly shaded from Earth-shine. Neil Please minimise the funny comments.

Shadows by Autonomous+Crowhard · 2003-11-13 05:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

I read this and I have a question... How can they be using Arecibo to detect into the bottoms of those craters? Given Arecibo's location (18.3) and Luna's orbital inclination (5 degrees) and the fact that they are looking at Luna's poles then the angle of incedence would be pretty low (4.13 degrees) for the south pole. From the article it sounds like they are only checking the sides of the craters and not the bottom. Not sure what good that does.

Also, so what if it takes a lot of processing to get the water out of the soil. It's not like you don't have a great source of energy just over the crater wall.

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