Slashdot Mirror
Dreams of the Moon
Iron Sun writes "The Mars Institute has an interesting overview of past studies into sending people to the Moon, ranging from pre-Apollo plans by Werner von Braun to NASA studies just a few years old. Timely, given the continuing speculation as to whether the US is going to go back."
My personal favourite is the One Way Manned Space Mission scheme from 1962 that would involve putting a man on the Moon and then launch supplies to him for the several years needed to develop a two-way retrieval system. All in the name of planting a flag first.
So, hands up. Who would accept this mission if it was offered?
Now that they are reaching for the stars
What the hell do those dorks at the Mars Institute know about the moon? Pfft. Our telescopes are bigger than theirs!
Love,
The Moon Institute
...going _back_?
This isn't technically a plan, but pretty entertaining and fascinating considering when it was written
I like this bit;
;)
"Early July 2001: A Space Shuttle delivers to the International Space Station (ISS) components for the reusable 15.6-ton Lunar Orbit Stage (LOS) vehicle - a 30-foot-diameter aerobrake in seven segments..."
So they are going to use aerobraking to help the lunar descent? What kind of crack do they smoke at NASA?
oh maybe I just misunderstand, not being a rocket scientist...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I find it interesting that these old plans are being dusted off and re-evaluated. I remember seeing an article on Space about how NASA was going to scrap their "Space Plane" research in lieu of another Apollo style vehicle. I wonder how this makes today's spacecraft designers feel with the potential of being overridden with plans older than themselves...
crazy dynamite monkey
My late uncle, who I cannot name,
left me an inheritance of $50Bn
(yes, fifty billion USD) worth of
diamonds which are unfortunately
trapped in a space capsule on the
surface of the moon. I am seeking
investors who will help me recover
this capsule, and in return for
their investment I will be able to
reward them richly. A trusted
friend gave me your address and I
hope you will be discrete with my
message. The budget for a small
one-man expedition to the Lunar
Surface is approximately $30m, or
$18m if a Chinese rocket is used.
I am therefore inviting you to
join in this unique opportunity
with a guaranteed return of %1000
on your investment, which can be
as little as $1m. Yes, if you
will provide me with just one
million USD, I will on recovery
of the lunar diamonds, repay you
with TEN MILLION USD. We are
also selling one excursion trip
to the Moon, a round trip with
unlimited stopovers, for the low
low price of $12m.
Yours sincerely,
Abubakar_Ibrahim@yahoo.ng
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Timely, given the continuing speculation as to whether the US is going to go back.
Of course no one with the power to make it happen is thinking of going back to the moon. All the speculation is based on what the USA's reaction might be if the Chinese space program looks like it could credibly establish a permanent manned presence.
So far a space race is only impetus that has pushed man to make those giant leaps. But is that a good thing ?.
Nasa wants us all dead!
Nasa sent up monkeys. Are they all accounted for?
Nasa sent up robots. Where are they now?
"We can defeat the monkeys. We can defeat the robots.
BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME!!!"
- Lewis Black
I think we need to ask what are we going to do with the International Space Station. Ever since NASA grounded all space flights, the load has kind of fallen to the Russians, right?
I think we need to finish what we started, and then figure out what we are going to do with the Moon.
Also, let's pretend for a minute that we do go back, what would be the point? The cost of running an installation would be far to great of a cost to make it worth it. In the 60's & 70's we forked over the money to prove something to the Soviets -- which is no longer a valid goal...
Dear Sir,
Use a robot, it's cheaper. It will be even chepaer if you LAUNCH THE ROBOT FROM NIGEREA.
Sincerely,
Carl Sagan (postumous)
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Yes, go back. The mainstream media has been doing pieces on this for months now.
I'm waiting for this one. Feasible compared to fusion and a nice alternative to earth pollution. Sim City 2000 anyone? And without the microwave-zapping incidents too.
All of which presently reside inside a Hollywood soundstage.
Let's imagine a hypothetical situation 50-100 years in the future. Will it be America that controls all access to the moon, and housing properties there.
What WILL housing facilities be like on the moon once we're there? As human beings, we've always been very territorial with our property. Will there be a war between Americans and the American "colonists" that now inhabit the colonies of the Moon? Will they want sovereignty, do to the oppressive nature of the Americans? Doth history repeat itsself everytime we find new bits of land and opportunity to overtake?
A little more morbid and twisted to think about; I'm guessing there would be some sort of master controls for the moon's life support, etc, that Mission Control would have down on the planet. Just shut off life support for 2 hours and choke the bastards, or what? Also, nukes wouldn't be so much an issue to us, as it wouldn't be on the planet. It'd also make one hell of a light show.
Suddenly I think of The Time Machine. Hmmmmm...
Can you ping me now? Gooood! | Manhappenin.Net - Things to do
...because the US may be considering going back. It's timely because the rest of the world is moving on while we sit on out butts. Our manned space program in a sorry state. If we do go back to the moon, it will only be because of the threat of a Chinese or European mission might get us off out fat asses.
I'm more proud of my country and NASA on this day than most, but this US-centric view of everything is tired.
They were able to accomplish the entire trip over a single weekend, including building the rocket.
Of course, the best reason for going is the replentish our supply of Cheese!
In case you didn't see before, a previous Slashdot article on returning to the moon.
The only danger is if they send us to[ominous] that terrible Planet of the Apes. Wait a minute...Statue of Liberty...that was our planet! You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell! [weeps]
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Can't go back to the moon. Nobody can make a "business case" for it. The skeptics and cynics will whine "what do we need THAT for?" and since nobody can demonstrate a 20% cash ROI in the latest version of Excel, complete with pie charts and a "whoosh" sound in PowerPoint, it won't happen.
In other words, nobody has written an elevator pitch.
Hope and progress are quaint notions which have no place amongst the cubicles. Now get back to work. Rent is due.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
So you mean we're really going to send people to sneak into the Beijing soundstage that the Chinese are gonna use and plant this stuff there?
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
True, but depressing, -1
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The ISS serves no current purpose other than to wrap a little bit of U.S.-Russian diplomacy in a patina of pseudo-research. In other words, it is a make-work project.
It ought not to be.
The only reason -- a compelling reason --for people to be in space is to Go Somehere Else. That's why it's called "Space Travel, not "Space Science Lab". The purpose of a space statoin in low-Earth orbit is this: Serve as a way station on the way to Somewhere Else: fuel depot, construction yard, launch and rendevous point.
We've spent billions of dollars, pounds, yen, euros, rubles, etc., building a station that helps us accomplish nothing. It's time to change things.
It is now more than 40 years after the first human flew to low-Earth orbit and returned. Having a space station go in the same low-Earth orbit pretending to do research is akin to having no aircraft flying in 1943, save for one flying in circles over Kitty Hawk.
(Kennedy's impetus re: Apollo may well have been to thwart the Soviets, but the accomplishment transcended that, and will again, when we return. It's also worth recalling that sound strategic and military reasons existed to prevent Soviet dominance in space.)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
He's a fucking tool. Get it right!
When are we going to learn that these tax dollars are not being spent wisely? The private market, if left uninhibited by tariffs, regulations, and restrictions, could do a better job of getting us to the moon. NASA is just a government stamping agency that shovels money to the protected few -- mercantilism at its "finest."
I'd like to see other reasons to get into space. Scientific altruism is not in my pocketbook, so I'm sick of my dollars being forced from me through coercion and wasted on NASA.
The movie Destination Moon was released in 1950, before anything on the Mars Institute's list, and tried to accurately show what a trip to the moon would be like. It is based on a novel by Heinlein, and he was also the technical director of the movie. Not a great movie, but very interesting since it was made 20 years before we actually went to the moon.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
And even as a previous slashdot comment, here.
It would have been nice had the original poster cited the original source....
Yes...cover our asses. In so doing we will prevent the Chinese from ever getting to the moon! Ha!
Curious that none of these previous plans to reach the Moon mention utilizing a space elevator for most of the journey to orbit.
I suppose that this demonstrates one of the more fundamental problems with most proposals to go to the Moon: they clearly aren't sustainable, at least with today's prices for rocket propulsion. One of the earliest draws for moneymaking on the Moon will clearly be tourism, which cannot flourish at current launch costs.
On the other hand, a space elevator would make it not only very possible to go back to the Moon cheaply, but also just about anywhere else in the Solar System!
As many other comments have pointed out, there is little immediate financial impetus to go back to the Moon. If NASA were to permanently ground the Shuttle fleet, and suspend their manned spaceflight program, would the money they would save be enough to accelerate the development of space elevators to the point of useability?
Working link here (Flash). Parent link doesn't work for me for some reason.
My favorite plan
audio discussion of the project
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Everyone always assumes that was earth.
;-)
Instead NASA could simply could have sent blueprints for a trans-solar subway on-ramp to the Ape planet. It would, of course, be shaped like the Statue of Liberty. It's very natural since she is pointing towards the stars.
It's a little known fact that the french originally built lady liberty in order to reach Mars. Once they figured out it didn't work, they gave it to America as a "goodwill" gesture
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
...when we never went there in the first place.
...and this is a very bad thing. Yes. For YOU. For me also. And for our children, those of us who have, or intend to have them.
Unless one of the worlds space programs starts to show some genuine progress and stop fsck-ing around, the governments of the world are going to pull the plug. Why should they not? Expensive, largeley fruitless and frought with schoolboy errors in calculation and execution. The fate of space programs around the world currently hangs in the balance, in the aftermath of the latest in a long series of these unforgivable multi-billion dollar errors.
I have been a geek, a nerd, a propellerhead, call me what you will, for most of my life. My views on many things have developed in accordance with this. As a child, and as an adult I have read the novels of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others, as I am sure that most of you will have. As the vast majority of us also have, I have been exposed to successive variants of Star Trek, and Babylon 5. These fictitious sagas, and many others have shaped my mind through the years, and they have instilled a belief that to go out and visit the stars, and to interact, whether peacefully or otherwise, with those who may live on distant planets is nothing less than the manifest destiny of humankind. These stories could be described as cheesy, corny, cliched melodramas, and it would not be untrue, but they are also an expression of their writers beliefs in the nobility of such endeavour.
It fills me with genuine, heartbreaking pain to think that our efforts to make these dreams a reality are subject to the political agendas of men who have no concept of magnificence in their soul. It makes me weep to see the ruins of NASAs once glorious space program. Oh, to have lived in those days, when the men who went to the Moon genuinely had 'The Right Stuff'. It's time that the politicians of the world forget their differences, and finally deliver on the promises of yesteryear. I may be misquoting, but I believe that the phrase was, "We come in peace, for all mankind."
Imagine what we could acchieve if all mankind were to work together! I believe that furthering our progress into space is the only way that we can progress as a species. If we don't progress, then what else is there to do, but retrogress. Oh, I forgot, most of the population of this planet have already chosen the latter option!
I am fully aware that not only is this little rant of mine somewhat off-topic, but is unlikely to provoke agreement. On the other hand, I for one, am sick of being though of as a crank for endorsing the value of space exploration.
Thank you all for listening while I have unloaded a lot of pent-up feelings.
Sign the FSF's Anti-DMCA petit
No, I don't actually mean what I just said. What I really wanted to say was, that the money spent or space programs doesn't just vanish into thin air. It gives many people jobs, for instance. But.
Yeah, that was kinda the idea underlying my sarcasm.
;-)
But I do agree with you. Even if you are an Anonymous Coward
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Oh, my goodness, they didn't even mention the brilliantly satirical piece that appeared in MAD magazine in... the late fifties? By whom? Jack Davis, perhaps? Oh, dear... I can see the style of the drawing in my head so clearly.
It brilliantly lampooned the "dreams of the moon." I think it may have been specifically targeted at those inspired by Wernher von Braun.
One of the running gags was "the press of a button jettisons another section." It is a huge multistage rocket. Every time the press of a button jettisons another section, the jettisoned section is seen to be full of jettisoned spacecrew. As each section is jettisoned the caption says something like "Jettisoned section falls onto house which Mr. and Mrs. Potrezebie of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin have been building for five years." Eventually it comments "Note that this is only article which actually tells you what happens to jettisoned sections."
When the press of a button has jettisoned all but the final section, we are shown an astronaut on a bicycle pedals pedalling madly to get the rocket those last few feet.
Perhaps they say "just kidding" and rewind a bit, because I also remember (this is all from memory folks, don't expect high accuracy) the same article as showing the rocket, with extended tripod legs and landing pads, gently descending onto the exact pointy summit of a lunar mountain. The captions had just explained how the cleverly engineered legs could absorb shock; the next one says something like "Uh-oh, guess we never figured out how to land a point."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
First there is a matter of 4 Billion 1960's US dollars, of which only 4 to 10 Million was actually used. Where did the rest of this money go?
Source? Besides even were it true the rest went to funding Area 51.
The abundance of all kinds of unfriendly radiation, inluding extraordinary heat, exists outside the earth's protecting magnetic field requiring a suite to contain many protective layers, which would make it quite bulky.
you mean as bulky as space suits are? They're not exactly speedos.
What is well known from the MIR and International Space station it that the body slowly starts turning into slush the moment it is in a weightless environment, so even if they could get a man to the moon (1st hurdle), develope a adequately protective suite (2nd hurdle) they need to provide an artificial gravity on the body of the travellers to maintain bone and muscle density (3rd hurdle) so that they have enough strength to crawl, let alone walk on the moon even though the moon has eight times less a gravitational pull than the earth!
They wen't for a week. People have lived in space for over a year.
The Moon does have an atmosphere depending on your definition of the word, but it's not a significant one because its gravity isn't strong enough to hold one for long periods of time.
The "atmosphere" of the Moon is restricted to dust particles that may have been thrown up from time to time by meteorite impacts and haven't yet fallen out of orbit, and possibly a minescule portion of gases that were released by the lunar landers from Earth during the late 60's and early 70's.
There is often mention of the expense of the moon missions, but the truth is they cost hardly anything - less than a fraction of a percent of the gross national product of the USA at the time.
The USA could easily fund new moon missions and mars missions, using a fraction of the current defense budget.
1) Tell Bush tha Osama has been spotted hiding in a cave on the moon.
2) Tell Bush that there is oil in them there rocks!
Given either choice, youd be there by the end of the summer!
Thanks!
We carry all the fuel we need to reach a planet/moon with us along with our underwear. We should use simple "shuttles" (as originally proposed, not what we actually developed) to put people/payload up there. The fuel should arrive separately, via "dumb projectiles" that are fired up using gauss canons or some other "mass driver" technology ("big ass gun up the side of a mountain"). A small fleet of robotic "canister retrievers" can bring the fuel to you once you obtain orbit. You can stage the fuel delivery weeks in advance of a trip.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
One of the main reasons for returning to the moon is Helium-3 .
0 06 30.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0006 30.html
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
If it is worth more than oil, they will be interested .
0 06 30.html
, .
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0
Purely for the sake of science and mankind, no, not this time.
And in fact last time it was a race against russia
not any altruistic gesture
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Another reason besides the Chinese ...
0 06 30.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
A better plan from Space.com ....
0 06 30.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
German movie from 1929, (here or here), made with the help of German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth. Director Fritz Lang introduced the countdown to make the start more dramatic.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I will help fund it if I can get 1% of the value of .
.
0 06 30.html
the Helium-3 up there , LOL
So I can buy a country of my own , hahaha
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Chk it out :
0 06 30.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
My friend, who likes to discuss this subject (claiming there never was a moon landing), asked a question that I couldn't answer.
Since the astronauts could see the earth from the moon, we should have line of sight of the landing site, from earth. Is it possible to see the moon rover from here, using a significantly strong telescope?
Can anyone enlighten us? He wants to see the pictures and/or go to an observatory.
It's not oil , but it would be used for similar reasons, .
.
0 06 30.html
and will make whatever country achieves it the superpower
of all time
I think it is foremost in China's reasons for going to the moon
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
This explains why you cannot see the gear on the moon, .
h tm
something akin to ocular resolution
http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/noluncon.
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Don't forget India, they are reworking part of their missle program towards human space flight....
Just saw a documentary on TV today about manned moon mission (and if the US really went there ;-).
They said that the USSR never did any manned missions.
-- Truth suffers from too much analysis.
But when I read about manned journeys to the moon I feel like those people.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
... he was the original source!
Thanks for the correction.
If you go to a space station now, there's no guarantee that the return flight won't be months late. People have been stuck on both Mir and the ISS due to budget cuts.
That's not true. James Cook travelled half way round the world on the behest of the Royal Society with scientific goals, much vaguer than that of any space mission, and without the benefit of preliminary surveys by unmanned space probes. Along the way he and his crew did the first anthropological surveys by Europeans of many South Pacific cultures, expanded the number of known species of plants and animals by huge numbers.
Or, if you like, what about the voyage of HMS Beagle, which also explored the area to survey the wildlife, and whose resident naturalist's observations directly led to the theory of evolution?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The short time I knew Gene Shoemaker
- famous now for his comet and asteroid impact discoveries and theories,
you could tell his early dreams of being the first scientist to the moon were still a motivation
- helping others reach out to space...bringing space closer.
A health problem prevented him from completing his lunar assignment during Apollo.
He did run the geology program for the missions.
And Gene eventually made it to the moon - posthumously.
- the only human whose remains are partly *buried* on another world... so far.
Speaking as somebody who was actively watching (and in a tiny way involved in) the space program in the early eighties, that, in fact, is just about what happened.
It was actually partially a manifestation of a tendency that we, as fellow geeks, must watch out for. A belief spread and has never dispersed since within NASA that congresscritters are brainless scum and the public is a bunch of childish twits.
Thereby all programs are designed to appeal to an audience for which they have contempt.
Kinda as if sysadmins simply decided to give up once and for all on educating CEOs/COOs, etc. and went ahead and bought and built BOTH a stack of M$ boxen and a stack of open source boxen, putting big M$ stickers on all the open source gear and giving up on any project that couldn't be so concealed.
When techies have contempt for the people who sign off on their projects but they don't have the balls to leave or stand up for themselves or route around, their results will be, well, contemptable.
Think about the memory bus design of the original Mac. As the story goes, Steve J. was being a pain in the ass (again), they knew he wouldn't pay attention to every little detail, so they routed around and built a better design then specc'ed. When it came time for expanded memory to come on stage, well skippy! Cut one lead and there ya go.
Can't do that on a moon lander.
So we got a bunch of "will this keep you idiots happy?" designs from a bunch of round-shouldered organization men.
Just more proof that it's time to privatize space.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Okay, I'm kinda kidding here but not entirely. How many of you have ever looked at a Saturn 5? In person, I mean. In my case I spent some time (in '83?) walking around and checking out the one at the Cape.
Man, that's some seriously primitive gear there by modern standards.
As my old boss when I worked for a consulting firm used to say,"Best is the enemy of good enough". In other words, if you've got a solution that you know will do the job and you find yourself wanking about trying to find the best of all possible solutions, then it's time to give serious thought to going with the "good enough" and get the job done instead of watching the years go by as you aspire to "best".
Okay, so we know that Saturns work. We know how to build them, we know how to launch them and we know how they act.
How much would it cost to just bloody well build some more of the f*ckers? I mean, if they were doable in the Sixties, how much can it possibly cost now?
-Use modern electronics but just match function with the prehistoric gear you're replacing.
-Use composites where convenient but just as lighter "aftermarket" versions of the original metal.
-Propellant? Criminy. Have it made in India and launch from near there. Kick in five million for assorted environmental reclamation and biology training for locals.
-What to launch? Not my department, cobber. That's a whole other discussion. What I'm addressing here is why aren't we going back right now.
Basically I'm talking about building something that is to an original Saturn 5 what a kit car is to a Model A. Original "lines", original basic design, built with off-the shelf modern parts. Maybe some tweaking of nozzle geometry but don't get het up about the one true optimum, just rebuild the old one with standard, off-the-shelf modern ceramics.
So, anybody got a guess on what that would cost to do?
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Short answer; No
Long answer; Read this excelent artcle about the various soviet lunar programs.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Hilton. On. Luna.
(and I'm not talking about Paris Hilton, either - altho that might be interesting as well.)
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
unfortunate that competition brings out the best in man; the space race compounded by the cold war got man into space and on the moon
now, we're realizing the dream of mars, as NASA and ESA have been trying to get their probes on the martian terrain
AND,we already have x p r i z e happening, which i'm sure will succeed in achieving their objectives.
achtung space! the humans are coming!
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
Not strictly a moon mission, but my favourite 50's spaceship idea is Project Orion. Powered by thousands of mini thermo-nuclear bombs, this enormous spacecraft would have sent a crew of 50 to Mars and then on to the outer solar system.
This was one of those plans that is so crazy it just might work. The bombs were to be ejected out the back of the spacecraft and explode a couple of feet away from a thick steel pusher plate. Only about 9 inches of steel would be vaporized to get into orbit, and because a nuclear bomb unleashes thousands of times the energy of a the equivalent mass of chemical fuel, the weight & mass of the spacecraft no longer becomes an issue. Successful experiments were carried out using a scale model and high explosives & this became Von Brauns favourite idea for a time.
Freeman Dyson, who was one of the project leaders worked out that the nuclear fallout would kill between 5 and 10 civilians per launch. Later proposals were scaled down to be launched by chemical rocket, with the bomb propulsion taking over when a little higher up.
It's not about the Moon, but don't neglect Kim Stanley Robinson's marvelous trilogy Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. Another marvelous analysis of colonists and settlers vs. Earth.
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
You're kidding. You didn't think the suit Neil Armstrong wore was bulky? He was like the kid in "A Christmas Story" that fell in the snow and couldn't get up.
p.s. there is some gravity on the moon... much more, in fact, than found on MIR or the ISS. And the astronauts that landed on the moon were there for a much shorter time than some of the astro/cosmonauts on the space stations.
Take off the tin foil hat and stop listening to Coast to Coast.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
I'm scratchpadding my figures here, but a space elevator would give a substantial boost to a moon flight. Depending on the length of the cable (which depends mass of the orbital "anchor" at the cable's end), you can give a vehicle a launch velocity of upwards of 7,500-12,000 mph (yes, I'm an American), just by letting it fly free on a tangent.
But it's still going to need fuel for orbital adjustments and landings. The elevator is going to hold a large fuel reserve, all shipped up from the surface.
In other words, an elevator will be a major terrorist target. Blow the orbital anchor, and the cable's center of gravity suddenly drops below the geosynchronous point. Down falls a cable long enough to wrap completely around the Earth's equator! (See Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars for an appalling description of such a disaster.)
I'm in favor of an elevator myself--anything to get us back into space--but I won't be moving to Ecuador any time soon after it opens...
(Incidentally, one possible explanation of why the US and Russia haven't been boosting elevators too much: Neither one of them has any strong control over any equatorial real estate.)
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
The problem is that the moon and mars are a horrible places to live.
Of the two, Mars seems like a better place to colonize, but it would be miserable.
Colonist would look to the blue speck at dawn and forever pine away for the green hills of earth [tip to rh].
Northrop Grumman have a stake in it, with Grumman's prior experiance in building the Command Module.
Lockheed-Martin have a stake in it, with Lockheed's prior experiance in building the Landing Module
Hey moron, you got it backwards. Grumman built the Lunar Landers. North American built the Command Modules.
you're too democratic in your thinking, China won't need to build a soundstage at all.
.
"Today is a great day! We have landed on the moon!"
bystander - "no you haven't! You don't even have a rocket built to do that!"
*bang* thump .
"Today is a great day! We have landed on the moon!"
over....and out !
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Sure, it talks about hubble. What about a telescope of sufficient size, as the poster asked?
Do you mean to tell me the Evil Empire, Great Satan, Dumb Rednecks, Litiguous bastards, Broken Electroral and Justice System are the only ones to put men on the moon? I mean WTF have you guys been doing all these years killing jews or something or are you to busy bitching and moaning about the US? HAHAHAHA YOU SUCK!!!
The U.S. space program's motto : "Designed in Peenemunde,
tested in London."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
But for some reason, people still have them. Even in the hyper-"capitalist" West.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
None of those things came from the space program. With the exception of specific space technology, rockets, for instance, practically nothing was developed for the space program that wasn't in commercial use, or in the commercial use development pipeline at the time.
Intel was developing microprocessors independently of the space program, for instance, and would have made its stuff recursively smaller no matter whether we went to the moon or not. Same for everything on the list you mentioned. Satellites were launched before we even thought about putting a man on the moon. Clarke figured out geosynchronicity in the proceedings of the British Interplanetary Society in the late 1940's, for instance. Even Telstar was planned long before Kennedy's speech, and it's a safe bet the Comsat, one of the only companies to be chartered by the U.S. Congress, would have gotten off the ground without that particular bit of window dressing.
Just Going Out There is a good thing. It's just that with the exception of hurting people and breaking things, (they don't call them force monopolies for nothin') government "programs" are an *effect* not a *cause* of progress.
I would even bet that science itself would be farther along if most of it wasn't paid for by governments, but that's just a WAG...
---------- Financial Crypto is the Only Crypto That Matters