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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."
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.
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!!!
...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.
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, hands up. Who would accept this mission if it was offered?"
I would in a heartbeat. Seriously.
One of the unspoken truths about NASA (and probably about manned spaceflight in general) is that they'll run out of hardware long before they run out of volunteers.
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.)
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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?
...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.
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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.
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 private market, if left uninhibited by tariffs, regulations, and restrictions, could do a better job of getting us to the moon."
Nothing is preventing a private business from doing this except for the massive up front costs involved. It is apparent the no company has yet been able to convince enough investors of a return on investment to front the cash needed to make it happen.
However a few private companies are trying to do the much smaller step of edge of space travel and that is because the costs are vastly smaller and the potential returns for investors are closer at had and at lower risk.
NASA and like education/government entities exists to take on high risk space travel, space exploration and related projects that no company is likely to attack themselves because no direct returns are expected. Sure they are more bureaucratic then some would like but they are far more then what you believe them to be.
By the way your definition of mercantilism is a little off from the norm.
There are other baskets out there, and I want to see our eggs get spread out, dammit. This becomes doubly important as we start getting the potential ability to wreck this place enough that we'll need to spend millenia crawling back to the stars. We're not simply staring at eons of easy future that we can take our time with; this is probably more likely a dangerously narrow window of opportunity, and we need to take a chance while we still have a chance to take. We can worry about the (highly overrated, usually) cost later.
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke