Glenn Urges Direct-to-Mars Trip

Geno Z Heinlein writes "Reuters reports that astronaut John Glenn testified March 4 before the President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond, saying that Bush's plan 'pulls the rug out from under our scientists' and that 'It just seems to me the direct-to-Mars [route] is the way to go.' Referring to the Moon as an 'enormously complex' Cape Canaveral, Glenn said that NASA might spend all the money getting to the Moon and never get to Mars."

Comments

I fear that's the whole point

[nokilli]

Spending all our money on the moon, that is. The moon has military value. Mars doesn't. If anything should serve as a base between here and Mars it should be ISS (after all it's a big reason we built the thing.) ISS should also be exploited as a place where returning astronauts (or samples) can be studied, safely, without risk to life on Earth (as low as that risk might be.)

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[samcentral2000]

How does the moon have military value? I'm no expert, but doesn't it take like six days to go up there? Not to mention the costs. From a military perspective, wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[trinitrotoluene]

The only obvious thing I can think is of is the fact that the Moon is high up in Earth's gravity well. So you can shoot a big chunk of rock from the moon and have it hit somewhere on Earth. Then you get lots of destruction with no risk to friendly troops and without resorting to nuclear weapons.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[airConditionedGypsy]

The moon is a more stable platform for this type of thing. I can't see the ISS as something that anyone has faith in staying up and functional for a long time. On the other hand, the moon is gonna stay in orbit for a long time.

(yes, I know it's moving away from us at the astounding rate of 3.8 cm/yr)

Google for "earth moon orbit unstable" for more on the decay of the moon's orbit.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Baron_Yam]

I used to think the same thing, but then I realized - you'd need a hell of a rail gun to launch a rock at the Earth, and get it to target quickly enough that a superpower wouldn't have time to nuke your ass off the planet. You might think, "Yes, but the Moon rocks wouldn't be nuclear" to which I'd respond - "When you're about to get wiped out anyway, do you care if your enemy's remains glow in the dark?"

It's much easier to maintain your ICBM array locally than to build, maintain, and operate something less effective on the Moon. The Cold War idea of MAD means we don't need a base on the Moon for military purposes.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[CrazyTalk]

25 years ago it only took 3 days (and less than a decade to develop and test the technology, but thats another story). One problem with a base in orbit is the lack of available raw materials - everything has to be brought up from Earth.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Aglassis]

You said: " How does the moon have military value? I'm no expert, but doesn't it take like six days to go up there? Not to mention the costs. From a military perspective, wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?"

Its like a man on a hill versus a man downslope. On the moon you have the ability to see every point on the Earth in time, but the 'dark side' (of course its not always dark) of the moon is never seen from Earth. It would be possible to stockpile weapons on the 'dark side' and then move them to a suitable base on the other side to attack the Earth. Additionally, if you are trying to defend the dark side, there is a very narrow cone-ring that you'd have to survey. But on the Moon you could easily attack any point on the Earth with a gigantic area that they'd have to defend against. And, of course, I haven't even started to talk about gravitational advantages.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[dillon_rinker]

The problem with MAD, though, is we've lost both the M and the A. Who else can match our arsenal? Who else can deploy an ABM system?

All your other points are excellent.

The point of a moon base, though, would be a resupply base for all your orbital death stars. It's cheaper to get material out of the moon's gravity well than the earth's. It'd take a while to establish the industrial base needed on the moon, though; I'm thinking a permanent manned facility with a population of around 50,000 would be necessary to supply a ring of battle stations in low earth orbit.

"Fear will keep the third world in line...fear of our Orbital Death Lasers!"

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[torpor]

Pretty simple, really:

a) The moon is easy to defend from Earth-based attacks. It takes a looooot more effort to get something to the Moon from Earth than it does to get something from the Moon to Earth.
b) Anything launched from the Moon can reach any target on the planet, easily enough, using Gravity.
c) The moon has tons of resources for constructing weapons, especially new kinds of nuclear weapons. There's no Greenpeace, no protestors, and no life to destroy, so the Military-Industrial complex can do a looooot of things on the moon that they wouldn't stand a chance doing here on Earth.

This was, incidentally, a hot topic in the 50's and 60's, and I seem to remember more than one sci-fi author getting into a lot of trouble for suggesting that the moon be used militarily in the Cold War ...

A moon base would be the Top of the Hill for the Pentagon. Its very, very difficult to defend against moon-launched attacks ...

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Short Circuit]

Don't thank NASA, thank the corporations that find it cheaper to leave their dead satellites in orbit rather than pay to have them de-orbited. And the federal government for not passing a law that dead US satellites had to be deorbited.

What we need is some numbers as to how much cheap space is really left up there, and point out to congress that once it's gone, the economy will have lost a boosting factor.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, lets see, doom everyone on earth to imminent death and destruction of the ecosystem...
hmmm, thats not a good idea.

besides, have you checked the thrust requirements?

No, the mayor reason to NOT go for a direct to mars route, is that if it IS done, it will not accomplish anything long term.

We will be in the same shape in 2050 as we are now after the 1960-70s moon landings.

We need a permanent presence off earth. ISS is an outpost, not a settlement. there are no resources to make use of, everything has to be taken there.
On the moon, you have mass and energy. with those two, you can make everything else (just a case of engineering! hehe)

We need to make permanent steps, not fleeting visits.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Daniel Dvorkin]

M: No one else can match our arsenal, but who gives a shit? China, Russia, and probably France and the UK have enough nukes to kill off tens of millions of Americans in one strike. That's really all anyone needs for an effective deterrent.

A: We will never, ever have an anti-missile system that can stop enough incoming ICBM's and/or SLBM's to fend off a massive strike. Period. And if we ever go to war on the assumption that we can, odds are decent that you and everyone you know will die.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[ckaminski]

If your enemies only have dozens or hundreds of warheads, you can *INDEED* field a system (at great cost no doubt) that can protect against them. That's why everyone's so pissed at U.S. for backing out of the ABM treaty. To maintain the MAD doctrine will require countries to pour money into nuclear deterrance that they'd rather spend on Internet infrastructure.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[kir]

Ahhh... The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, isn't she.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Eccles]

As opposed to that giant thing orbiting the earth called 'The Moon'?

The moon is a significant gravity well. Once you get there, you're going to have to overcome gravity again, not to mention you have to land slowly enough in the first place. While it may be possible to mine the moon for materials to help enable a launch, or to build a linear accelerator that would do so, a near-zero gravity way station might be better.

I'd like to see if it is possible to redirect and capture a moderate-sized asteroid for this purpose. Said asteroid might itself be selected for having the sorts of raw materials that could be used for spacecraft launching.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[AeroIllini]

wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

As opposed to that giant thing orbiting the earth called 'The Moon'?

You seem to be forgetting about orbital distances. The ISS orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 500 km. The moon orbits at an average altitude of 378,000 km. (Analogy: the difference between traveling three miles to the grocery store or from Chicago to Los Angeles.)

Any weapon fired from the moon would have tremendous difficulties. A rocket-based weapon, such as an ICBM (IPBM?), would take 3 to 4 days to reach the Earth. One we fire from Earth could reach its target in a matter of minutes. Any laser-based or beam-based weapon would also have big problems, since the Earth, seen from the moon, only covers about 2 degrees of the sky. Aiming at a target on the Earth would require an instrument of incredibly high precision, and any such sensitive equipment would be exceedingly difficult to set up on the moon.

The moon is not strategic militarily. But I would agree that going to the moon as a jump-off point to Mars is a bit pointless, and it only made sense in the 1950s scifi books. Why leave one gravity well, just to land in another and have to overcome it again? The surface of the moon is every bit as unforgiving as orbit, since there's no insulating atmosphere. True, it has gravity, but that dust gets EVERYWHERE. It would make far more sense to do everything in orbit: build the spacecraft, fuel it, launch it, return it. Just stay out of the gravity well as long as possible.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[x0]

You are making the assumption that ABM systems are designed to stop all of the incoming ICBMs. While it may have been sold to the public on that premise, I think there were two more important (and successful) reasons for the ABM research:

1. Stop enough incoming ballistic missiles to make strikes less than a sure thing for some percentage of the number launched.
2. Make the other guy spend more money to make more missiles, including maintaining those missiles, at a higher percentage of the GNP.

In short; Outspend them until they fail.

Seems like it worked to me...

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[kwan3217]

Are you sure you are not thinking of Mir?

Anyway, ISS is pretty safe. The small stuff is like bullets, and ISS has a pretty good layer of armor plate on the front facing surfaces. The large stuff is impossible to survive an impact with, using any reasonable amount of armor, but all the large stuff is tracked by the Air Force and the station can steer around it.

There may be a middle range, large enough to be dangerous, but small enough to not be trackable, and this is the dangerous stuff. But, it is worth noting that ISS has been inhabited for almost 4 continuous years, and Mir for over 10 years before that, and in all that time, there has never been a problem except for that docking incident which you wrote about, and that one was an intentional rendezvous and collision anyway. They just intended to impact the docking port, not the hull and solar panels of the ship.

In fact, I believe that there has only been one satellite ever lost due to collision with another object.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[drinkypoo]

"In the shade" doesn't help, does it? As I recall the moon's atmosphere is so thin as to be nonexistent, meaning you will have no significant cooling. We don't know anything about temperatures inside the moon that I could find easily, so I don't know if burying will carry heat away or not. Presumably if it's dead, and it radiates more energy than it absorbs, then it will work.

One nice thing about lunar structures is that the lower gravity enables you to build things just not feasible on earth, so you could indeed make such items. The only problem is, you either have to get the mass to the moon in the first place, or spin up manufacturing... Let's worry about just building a little habitat first :)

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Note that I didn't say "all," I said "enough." And my belief -- one that I think is well borne out by the numbers involved -- is that we will never be able to stop enough incoming ICBM's and/or SLBM's launched by any other major power to keep a significant portion of America's population from being killed in a nuclear war. "Outspend them until the fail" is an interesting proposition (and the collapse of the USSR is much, much more complicated than that) but the simple fact is that missiles are cheap and ABM is expensive.

You know, in some other countries, this might not be the case -- consider the great conventional battles of the past, in young men's lives were spent like pennies for a mile or two of ground. But Americans don't fight that way, and never have. (Gettysburg pales in comparision to the Somme, or Stalingrad.) There are governments which would probably regard the loss of a Chicago-size metropolitan center or two, or ten, as an acceptable risk. But traditionally, we don't think that way, and that's a Good Thing. I will be very saddened, and rather disturbed, if this changes.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Performer Guy]

No, because launching from a suitable orbit is much less complex and risky than launching from the bottom of Moon's gravity well, with all that hard "ground" stuff below you waiting for your failure. A Mars mission would require a huge vehicle (probably vehicles). You're talking about a massive ammount of supplies, fuel etc and a complex mission. Landing all that hardware on the Moon only to take off again is just dumb.

Goals

[FTL]

Most people seem to agree that going to the Moon is a silly thing to do if your goal is to get to Mars. But I don't think that's the goal here. I think the goal is to go to the Moon. The word "Mars" doesn't even appear in the executive order. Bush just added the "and at some point on to Mars" to the end of his speech to keep the Mars camp happy.

Frankly I don't care where we go, Moon, Mars or asteroids. Let's just get off this rock.

Re:Goals

[cybermace5]

And I totally agree with that. I would much rather see money used for some lasting, useful space infrastructure than blow all the cash on a one-shot firecracker to put a bootprint in red dirt.

Let's try for some logical progression here. The giant leap was when a man first set foot on something other than Earth. Now let's start walking. There are no lasting benefits right now from a massive Mars bootprint operation, let's go there when it's cheaper and we have some practical Moon colony experience to build on.

Re:Goals

[JWW]

I personally believe that if we can't make it back to the Moon and establish a base there that we will NEVER get to Mars.

The moon needs to be the proving ground for the technology needed to get to Mars.

This weapons platform gibberish is just the rantings of Bush haters.

If you really want NASA to succeed it needs long range plans like Bush's proposal. AND it needs the opposition party not to fight them. The timelines for going to Mars are so long that political machinations need to be kept out of the equation or Mars exploration just becomes something to kill off the next time the opposition party takes office.

Re:Goals

[demachina]

Easy solution. DON'T follow the Apollo mission profile when you go to mars. A profile where you are expending a massive effort to do a round trip with the dubious returns of a short stay on Mars, bracketed by a massively long, expensive, dangerous, debilitating trip there and back.

Instead start launching large cargo containers with water, food, nuclear reactors, habitats, bulldozers and rovers. Use the same craft to transport this cargo you will use to fly astronauts there. When the cargo ships are arriving reliably and there is a critical mass of resources on the surface launch people as colonists, not astronauts, on a one way mission to Mars. It will be a lot easier to fly people on a one way flight than it will be to do a round trip. The ROI will be immense on a colonizing mission versus miniscule on a short stay round trip. You could send real geologists who would spend a life time exploring the planet and would have a motivator in they are trying to find the resource to free themselves from cargo flights from earth. You also wouldn't need to continue expensive manned flights from earth if and when a self sustaining colony is established. Mars is better for a colony than the moon because gravity is higher, its not a hard vacuam, and it probably has a lot more resources than the moon. It is only marginally worse than what the scientists living at Antarctica experience (the four added problems being radiation, no air, limited water availability, and long expensive supply runs).

The technology spinoffs form a Mars colony would probably be huge because you would, for example, need to establish a society with zero dependence on fossil fuels and you would need significant advances in food production and manufacturing.

The human race desperately needs a frontier colony with a fresh start. A colony where we might try to lose a lot of the economic and social baggage all the nations on Earth currently carry. The 20th century was the first one where mankind stopped having frontiers on Earth and that is not a positive change.

Moderators probably should mark this redundant because I post the same thing everytime a Mars thread comes up.

Re:Goals

[0123456]

"A profile where you are expending a massive effort to do a round trip with the dubious returns of a short stay on Mars, bracketed by a massively long, expensive, dangerous, debilitating trip there and back."

Uh, you don't have the _option_ of "a short stay on Mars". By the time you get there you're probably looking at a minimum of a six month stay just waiting for the planets to be in the right position to get back. This is one of the reasons why a trip to Mars and back is so difficult, you _have_ to spend several years making the trip, with current rocket technologies.

Bush's Moon Plan is a 'shock and awe' tactic:

[Neuropol]

A moon base is just a way to get people thinking about votes.

China

[ultraexactzz]

Though Mr. Glenn's arguments are sound, they fail to take into account one of the most pressing reasons for a permanent moon base - China intends to build one in the next 12 years. Though it smacks of the Cold War, could the president really allow a (communist) foreign power unlimited access to the moon?

Re:How about telling the truth, Glenn?

[Anonymous Coward]

_What_ shuttle launches? They don't launch anymore. ISS is currently services exclusively by Russians.

Moon having "military value"

[zoney_ie]

Is there any kind of International treaties governing use of the Moon? I'm thinking particularly of the situation with the Antarctic here. There certainly should be some kind of International agreement that it's "common ground".

If not, I suggest ESA had better at least mount some similar type of mission to NASA, making sure that there is more than one "presence" on the moon.

Yeah, OK, it's just a ball of rock - but it's a tad upsetting to think someone else might single-handedly "claim" the entirity of that pretty disc in the sky.

Re:Moon having "military value"

[xtal]

Is there any kind of International treaties governing use of the Moon? I'm thinking particularly of the situation with the Antarctic here. There certainly should be some kind of International agreement that it's "common ground".


Kinda like the ABM treaty?

*cough*

I've never been accused of being an optimist, but for some reason I don't think international agreements not to militarize space are going to mean a whole lot in the next 15 years unfortunately. The ABM treaty issue is being hotly debated in Canada and will be an issue in the next election. (US Plans call for ABM sites in Canada, leading to space-based weaponry)

Re:Moon having "military value"

[torpor]

Since when has the U.S. given a fuck about International Treaties?

If it did, Rumsfeld & Cheney would be sitting in a Belgian prison right about now, with the child molestors, where they belong ...

Re:Moon having "military value"

[xtal]

even though the government with which the treaty was signed no longer existed?

There is always a difference between the spirit and letter of the law. The intent of the ABM treaty was to stop nuclear prolifertion and hold the status quo of power. While the Soviet Union has been dissolved, Russia and it's friends still have ICBMs in silos - and if their effectiveness is reduced, alternatives WILL be found. Nations do not have friends.

The agreement to not militarize space is supposed to represent a understanding amoung nations that our conflicts here on this planet should not exend elsewhere. Perhaps this is a naive view of the world, but I'd like to think that others might share it. The USA is in a position to militarize and dominate the theatre of space; At least until the LGM decide to show off their superiority in weapons.

Never forget, that this is a slippery slope - once it starts, it -will- end with nuclear weapons in space pointing down on us. I don't want to have to explain to my kids that there has to be MIRV orbital warheads aimed at the planet because we're really miserable to each other. Space is the last hope left for man working together as a species, and once it is gone, I fear it is gone forever.

It is likely the inevitable outcome of the USA's emerging world dominance. It will accellerate the development of (american) space initiatives. The USA will be making many moves in the next 10-20 years to solidify it's military power before world oil reserves become a problem. Having a monopoly on the heavy hydrogen reserves on the moon may be a justification down the road as well. Alas, I am an engineer, and not a military strategist.

My $0.02cdn.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

Amen. This is just more of the usual "criticize the other side" partisan bickering.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

GW Bush: A man in search of a mission

[nysus]

We choose to have parades because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit. --GW Bush

Bush has got to be the worst cheerleader for the cause. He likes to talk up his strong leadership qualities but what it really means is strong-arming policy decisions. That's just not enough to push a space mission of this magnitude through. We need someone who truly understands and has internalized the need to explore space and isn't repeating words put in his mouth.

Re:GW Bush: A man in search of a mission

[PMuse]

Bush has got to be the worst cheerleader for the cause.

If he believed in it, he would fund it. A committed leader would have set a goal, given a timeline, and stated that we would spend whatever money and effort it takes to reach the goal. A believer in having a space program would not cut the funding to the work we've already begun in space on the promise that maybe, years from now, there might be some money for a Mars trip.

How bitter that the Mars rovers have succeeded so well, only to see the opportunity to pursue still greater goals being squandered!

Oh Come on...

[DelawareBoy]

Just because the man made it to the moon does *not* mean he is an authority on the economic / social / political needs to make a manned trip to Mars. I use the American Economy every day.. I don't get asked to testify before congress, etc., on economic matters.. -DB in 2004

Re:Oh Come on...

[prgrmr]

Just because the man made it to the moon

Glenn never went to the moon. NASA wouldn't let him go, they didn't want to risk losing their hero.

does *not* mean he is an authority on the economic / social / political needs to make a manned trip to Mars

Having served in the US Senate, I'm sure he's much more of an authority on those matters than you would belive.

One question: why?

[PingKing]

This talk of trips to the moon and Mars makes me ask: why?

What can people on the moon or Mars do that a robot can't?

The answer is, of course, nothing. Robots are even better suited because, well, they can be specially built to be suited.

Bush announcing these plans felt, to me, like he was announcing a return to the Cold War. Then, and now, space travel exists merely so nations can demonstrate that their country is the most advanced.

Re:One question: why?

[Atrahasis]

This talk of trips to the moon and Mars makes me ask: why?

Because man always has and always will seek to further his horizons. We've run out of horizons on Earth.

What can people on the moon or Mars do that a robot can't?"

Experience it first hand. Describe being there in a qualitative as well as a quantitative manner. In short, FEEL what its like to be there. If you fly a kite, you can hardly say you flew, can you? Similarly, putting a robot on the moon or Mars does not justify the statement that man has been there.

Robots are even better suited because, well, they can be specially built to be suited.

No, robots are actually LESS well suited becuase they MUST be built to suit. Being specialised is not a good trait when you are unsure of the circumstances in which you might find yourself. The ability to adapt to changing circumstance is not one that the field of robotics has yet mastered. Thankfully nature has done the work for us, and we are natural adaptors.

Re:One question: why?

[gosh_d]

For the most part, you're right that robots/rovers are better suited and certainly cheaper than humans in space. You fail to address the serious problem of obtaining adequate funding for these missions, though. Frankly, the public finds humans in space far "sexier" than their metal counter-parts. Without public interest, no politician will support allocating the necessary money. Though theoretically less efficient, manned-missions get the support they need (and all too often even they don't manage to).

Ohio constituents

[amightywind]

Bush's plan 'pulls the rug out from under our scientists' and that 'It just seems to me the direct-to-Mars [route] is the way to go...

Which translated means Lewis Reasearch Center in Ohio has entrenched interests in the Space Station and stands to loose funding in the short term with President Bush's initiative. What Senator Glenn doesn't make clear is how a direct Mars effort can be funded concurrently with Shuttle/IIS. It can't.

Cost comparison

[Turd Rippleton]

I think it would be a lot cheaper to conduct a mission from earth than the moon. Think about it, how much money will it take to construct a platform on the moon? Ship materials? Fuel? How much time will this actually take?
Considering the answers above, utilizing the time and materials needed to deploy a mission from the moon will be better spent conducting a mission from earth.
That being said, the moon has become a political tool and could provoke another cold war... this time with china (they are planning on building a moon base).

~Turd

Method of exploration should be

[nattt]

A space station in earth orbit, where you can get fueld up for a powered journey to the moon. In moon orbit, another space station that has a shuttle down to the moon, where cheap solar energy is farmed, and used to fuel the stations, the shuttle, and to put together enough fuel for sending a fuel barge to mars.

The fuel barge docks with a small station in mars orbit. This is reserve fuel to get you home.

Now you take a powered journey to mars from moon orbit. You use the fuel from the fuel barge to return to earth.

You go powered all the way. This is the future of space travel, not the current coasting, taking years to arrive anywhere, but it needs a moonbase where fuel can be manufactured.

Re:Method of exploration should be

[0123456]

And what kind of fuel, exactly, are you going to manufacture on the moon from 'solar energy'? Most of the chemicals used in the kind of fuels a Mars flight would probably use (if it's not using a nuclear or solar-powered ion engine) _do not exist_ on the moon.

The Real Point of the Bush Plan

[ChuckDivine]

The real point of the Bush policy changes is to promote reform at NASA. Terminate the shuttle program -- and redirect resources to achieving lower costs to orbit. Terminate ISS -- it's not turning out to be a real benefit for science or much of anything else.

I can easily support a manned mission to Mars. But it must be part of a space effort that is more broad based than the current work is. To achieve that, we're going to have change the way we do things. The spectacular project that sometimes succeeds, sometimes doesn't, offers little hope for this style of action.

NASA's predecessor, NACA, helped make revolutionary progress in aeronautics by sticking to technology development and working with nascent aeronautical companies to develop real airplanes that could be used for a wide range of activities by a wide range of organizations. We need the same kind of work from NASA.

Space Elevator

[cflorio]

If they would just fund research on the Space Elevator They could have both the Moon and Mars!

He's completely wrong

[bigjnsa500]

I respect Glenn, but he is completely wrong. Going to Mars we need lots of water, air and rocket fuel. The Moon has a huge supply of Helium3 which we already know can be converted to a fuel.

I support that Mars fanatic's way of going there. First send an unmanned supply ship that will land with all the equipment to make air and water. Then something like a year later, send the crew so when they get there, they already have a liveable platform and enough H20 and oxygen to live.

Eventually.

[Raven42rac]

I agree with Mr. Glenn, but I do not believe that we have enough expertise built up on the idiosyncrasies of the Martian atmosphere or the planet itself. We have been having a educational, albeit difficult experience with unmanned rovers on Mars' surface. We had to h4x0r the rovers! I would not want to have to h4x0r an actual shuttle. We also now know we need wiper blades on the solar panels of any vehicle that would potentially be sent to Mars, on account of the dust. I think it would be more prudent to send crews back to the moon, get that down, then maybe stretch to Mars. Any manned Mars mission before we are absolutely ready for one is suicide for the astronauts aboard. The amount of time/fuel it would take to get to Mars for a manned, fully loaded shuttle, complete with life support systems, testing equipment, rovers, etc, would be astronomical (pun intended).

Glenn has a point,, but the moon should be 1st

[spidergoat2]

We should prcatice setting up a manned installation on the moon first. It's the perfect technology testing area. If problems develop, people could be rescued, or, supplies and repair equipmnent could be somewhat quickly shuttled to the moon. Face it, Mars is a long way from a 7-11. There's only going to be one chance to get it right. If a Mars mission is successful, there will be plenty of return trips. If it's a disaster, funding will be cut and it'll be decades before anyone tries again. Small steps, but quicker steps.

Space Elevators

[mbone]

If you really want to make the USA into a Space Faring Nation again, we should put our money into space elevators.

In just 2 decades, this idea has gone from being impossible to far-out to design studies.

By comparison, the ISS is a waste and the Moon would be an expensive diversion. Space elevators would really open the solar system up for human - not just robot - exploration.

Re:One question: why? because...

[adzoox]

Is a digital camera or a DVD better than your eyes? Would you rather be at the Duke basketball game or watch it on TV?

Can you look at a mountain range on a video or in a picture and see it context to your height, surroundings, atmosphere?

The answers to all thos questions and more is no.

Manned missions are important to the entire human race as accomplishment and to be cliche, "To seek out new life and new information" - Experience moves the human race forward - Robots confine us to to the earth - limit our boundaries. Both are useful - but one is only a step for the other - each is an enhancement to the knowledge gathering.

...This ain't one of them

[amightywind]

Radio Astronomy is an interesting field but can it possibly be worth the untold $100G that would be spent to build a lunar antenna farm just to be free of noise? What science returns are we missing due to noise? Arguably, not much. If noise free environment is really needed I would suggest that a free flying telescope, similar in mission design to SIRTF, would make a lot more sense.

Because you believe it?

[zeux]

Because you really think that NASA will go to the moon or Mars like Bush said?

Because you really think the Congress will let him do that with a half trillion deficit?

Well, it's election year guys. NASA will go nowhere, the Congress will never vote for it and one year from now we won't even talk about it.

Science Fiction Classics as Reality Indicators

[stuffduff]

In the majority of Science Fiction movies, there is either a fly-by or stop at a Moonbase. Several others have a large orbital Space Station that is the start of the trip. Of the few which are direct, one is a missed moon shot.

The point is that a strong space culture, technologically advanced and experienced is percieved as having a greater chance of success. Skipping these intermediate steps IMHO will produce a more fragile attempt, focused on what we want to accomplish; but not as prepared for the unknowns. We reached the moon largely due to carefully thought out 'staged' successes. The consequence of a single catastrophic failure of an over-extended Mars mission would IMHO be far more devistating and could possibly lead to a single point of failure for the whole space program.

Re:I grow weary...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was still working day-in-day-out with the top people at NASA. He was probably friends with plenty of engineers, scientists, etc. from the old days.

Only, unlike those scientists and engineers, he is a public figure. He can speak and it will get posted (for instance) on Slashdot.

Suppose he is/was "nothing more than a flyboy".

Maybe now he's "nothing more than a mouthpiece"...but he might very well be the mouthpiece of people with very informed opinions. Just a thought. It might be worthwhile to hear him out.

Besides, he probably knows more about all of those things you've listed than *you* do...engineer or not.

Re: Silly waystation - space elevator on the moon?

[SmackCrackandPot]

Surely it would be easier to build a space elevator on the moon than it would be on the Earth?
Especially since gravity on the moon is 1/5th that of Earth's?

Woozle-wozzle.

[JMZero]

The moon may have been a military resource in the 60's, but it's hardly one now.

Soldier 1: "We're taking fire from that alley!"
Soldier 2: "Quick, deploy the moon missiles!"

It's hard to argue that the US has any problems controlling the top of the hill these days. ICBM's still work. US planes have operated pretty much undeterred for a long time. And MAD, on the other hand, is less viable than ever as a strategy (given enemy psychology).

The moon has tons of resources for constructing weapons, especially new kinds of nuclear weapons

That's silly. Constructing weapons would be a ludicrously costly, stupid thing to do on the moon. New kind of nuclear weapons? The old kinds work perfectly well, thank you - they are perfectly capable of supplying any kind of abomination the military might demand of them, even if they must be dropped out of a plane rather than launched from the moon.

The US military needs more precise ways to blow small things up that they can't see - not bigger ways to blow big things up that they can see from the moon.

Re:Woozle-wozzle.

[b-baggins]

OK. A little lesson on military strategy.

The American military today is worried about pinpoint precision precisely BECAUSE we have the ability to wipe out any nation on the planet if we need to, and they know it, so they attack us in different ways (a lot of it pscyhological, which, after listening to many of the people on slashdot, they seem to be doing quite well at).

That psychological aspect is a vital part of any war (read some Sun Tzu). A strong US Military (or more likely allied presence, since Britain, Poland, Australia, and other US allies will be up there, too) will have a VERY powerful psychological effect against our enemies. Just KNOWING we could drop a rock on, say, Syria, would do a lot to keep that country in line in the smaller things. Esp. when we can create a nuclear explosion without the nasty radioactive fallout.

Re:Woozle-wozzle.

[Free_Meson]

If we told the muslim world that attacks against the US like 9/11 would result in the assured destruction of the arab or muslim world, we wouldn't have attacks against us by those people. Terrorists and other rogue elements in the arab and muslim world are not immune to pressure from their own kind, since many of them are secretly supported by other more visible members of their communities.

These people know that if we choose to escalate this war into total warfare against the larger target (the Arab world, for example) that they cannot win and in fact, face the a high risk of losing their entire civilization.

You, sir, are an idiot. Such a threat of obliteration would be impossible to carry out, and it assumes that the muslim civilisation is somehow monolithic -- it isn't. There are plenty of muslims living in the caves of afghanistan, for example, who would prefer to see the rest of the muslim world destroyed because they believe that these "other muslims" are defiling the religion. There are plenty of groups that have political conflicts with specific groups who happen to be muslim and would gladly launch a fake attack against the U.S. in an effort to obliterate their enemies.

More importantly, though, the "muslim civilisation" is intertwined with our own. If I had a slightly better arm I could throw a rock and hit a nearby mosque with a 100 car parking lot that overflows at worship times every day. These people had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks in 2001, but you'd have them, and perhaps me, killed because they share some religious beliefs? Should we threaten to kill all people of Scottish descent because of McVeigh?

The "muslim world" is also heavily populated by non-muslims. One of my roommates in prep school had family working in Saudi Arabia. Egypt and Lebanon have strong secular presences, not to mention countries like Bosnia, Georgia, or Azerbijan. In other words, your statements are stupid because there would be no way to attack the "muslim civilisation" with nukes without taking out a substantial other population that you care about.

You either aren't thinking, or have some sort of repressed racial hatred. These guys were terrorists first and muslims second -- Islam was their excuse to commit terrorism, and their goal was the act of terrorism itself, not the furthering of Islam. Terrorism is about frustration, not political activism, and threatening to destroy someone's home and culture will only increase that frustration. These people were brainwashed into killing themselves in the hopes of bringing down the U.S. because they hated the U.S., not because they thought that their actions would help Islam. They no doubt thought the latter as well, but that's not adequate motivation for suicide.

Just sit back and think a bit before you spout off about wiping out more than a billion people. If the terrorists had just happened to be Irish, or Japanese, or Puerto Rican, or whatever your nationality/ethnicity, would you so quickly embrace the obliteration of that race/ethnicity/culture/etc?

Re:Woozle-wozzle.

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

These people know that if we choose to escalate this war into total warfare against the larger target (the Arab world, for example) that they cannot win and in fact, face the a high risk of losing their entire civilization.

Actually it's the opposite. Groups like Al-Qaeda would LIKE to have a clash. Usama bin Laden has been trying to set traps for USA to fall into (in particuarl, force USA to invade Saudi Arabia and hence start a holy war).

It serves the interest of small groups, like Al-Qaeda, to escalate the war.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Good practical reasons to establish a lunar base

[jguthrie]

I happened to sit in the audience on a panel at ConDFW whose topic was "Man on Mars by 2030?" or some such. At that session, it was pointed out that NASA is a political beast by its very nature, (and how can it be otherwise as NASA is an arm of the US government, itself one of the most political of beasts,) and does what it does for political reasons. That's why they haven't managed to get anyone out of low earth orbit in 32 years. There's been no goal that a politician has had that requires NASA to do that.

In fact, my opinion is that essentially no progress has been made in spaceflight in those 32 years. After all, it doesn't matter to me if a very select few gets to occasionally ride into space because I want to go, and I think that there are lots of people like me. Our interest in space is derived, not from a desire to read about or watch the exploits of a Glenn or an Armstrong, but to go ourselves. However, it appears as if the folks at NASA don't want that. They still view flying in space as being something only for the, well, few that they've selected. I'd like to see that change. Establishing a lunar base gives us the possibility of seeing that change.

There are a number of companies that have been established to exploit space commercially. However, none have really been successful so far. The primary reason is that the income from that exploitation has been uncertain at best. NASA now has the opportunity to change that. If they were to call for a request for bid on, say, five contracts: For providing transfer of personnel from the earth's surface to low earth orbit, for providing transfer of cargo from the earth's surface to low earth orbit, for providing transfer of personnel from low earth orbit to the lunar surface, for providing transfer of cargo from low earth orbit to the lunar surface, and for the construction of a lunar base, this would be the sort of guaranteed income needed to get commercial space ventures really going.

And once those contractors become established, they're going to look around for other ways to make money. One of those ways will be tourism.

In fact, in order to do business those contractors will have to build just the infrastructure you need to send human explorers off to the other planets. It is the establishment of the infrastructure that makes the cost of launching a Mars mission from a lunar base larger than going the Mars direct route. If NASA can get others to build the infrastructure instead, then the numbers look a lot better for launching from the moon or from a space station than for Mars direct.

USAF and the Moon

[rjh]

The moon has tons of resources for constructing weapons, especially new kinds of nuclear weapons

The surface of the moon is overwhelmingly composed of worthless and/or low-value materials. You're not going to find anything there that'll be useful for a nuke. The surface of the moon is awash in helium-3, which is very useful for fusion power, but is not all that useful for nuclear weapons.

While your first two points are bang-on right, your third point sounds like a paranoid Nader rant against the "military-industrial complex". It undercuts the other two points, which, as I just said, are exactly correct.

Its very, very difficult to defend against moon-launched attacks ...

No harder than defending against an ICBM, mostly.

The reason why the Air Force was, at one time, making plans to put nuclear silos on the moon has nothing to do with how devastating lunar-based attacks can be. Instead, the moon would be the ultimate defensive weapon.

How long does it take a nuclear missile to arrive on Earth after it's been launched from the Moon? A few days at the very least. So what happens if you do a launch from the moon? Everybody else sees you launch and turns your country into rubble days before the missile arrives.

That's why the Moon is useless offensively. And that's why the Moon is useful defensively. Because even if America were to be totally wiped out in a nuclear first-strike, the lunar silos would still be safe for a minimum of a couple of days while the ICBMs launched from Earth were en route to it. And in those couple of days, the lunar silos could mount a pisser of a counterattack.

Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD. While I'm no fan of plans to militarize the Moon, I have to say in some way I'm vaguely pleased that the Air Force was considering turning the Moon into the ultimate defensive weapon, one which would be utterly worthless for offense.

Re:USAF and the Moon

[torpor]

On the moon, you can test the crap out of whatever you want, and nobody will get upset. There's no delicate ecosystem to be rampaged by your killer virus, were it to escape, and you've got tons and tons and tons of vast, empty spaces in which to test your new 'smaller, lighter, cleaner' nukes without upsetting world governments (presumably).

While your first two points are bang-on right, your third point sounds like a paranoid Nader rant against the "military-industrial complex". It undercuts the other two points, which, as I just said, are exactly correct.

Well, you're being reactionary and wanting to defeat my argument before even thinking about it really. What resources do you think I might have meant?

As for MAD, I don't think you understand it as well as you might feel you do ... the Moon gives the USAF a pretty big place within which to safely develop -extremely- dangerous weapons. This would not be a 'deterrent' policy, but an overt "we are there, we're going to use that resource to make mega-weapons in sanctity, and there's not much you can do to stop us".

I can think of a few world governments who would consider such a program entirely offensive. But its no surprise to me that an American couldn't see this simple fact ...

Re:USAF and the Moon

[rjh]

considering that there's a near-infinite supply of energy to be directed ...

Right. All we have to do is discover fusion first, and then we have to figure out an efficient and totally automated way of mining He-3 from lunar regolith (we're talking grams of He-3 per ton mined), then we have to build a very large base, then we have to... etc.

Your statement is somewhat akin to saying "it's easy to create a universe: first, you have to become God..." You're assuming the very thing you're trying to demonstrate the existence of: amassing enormous power on the Moon is easy only if you've already solved the problem.

We simply must -not- weaponize space. That is all. And those of you with the power to vote in America had better make sure your country doesn't do it.

We simply must weaponize space.

Look, I'm sorry if it offends your sensibilities, but like Thomas Sowell said, "reality is that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it."

Space will be commercialized. It will be weaponized. It will be developed. It will be colonized.

History shows us that there has never been a natural resource that has not sooner or later had some crafty person figure out how to make use of it. Not one resource--not ever--has been an exception to this rule. Reality says we need to believe space will be the exact same, even moreso, given the spectacular amount of wealth waiting for us out there. (You ever seen the numbers for the amount of precious metals in a good-sized asteroid? One single good-sized asteroid, brought back to Earth, would have so much precious metals in it that it would collapse the world economy.)

History also tells us that natural resources are always in contention. Or, put bluntly, people fight wars over natural resources. It's been this way from time immemorial. (And please stow any cheap responses about "yeah, Bush has proved this".)

Space is going to be no different. There's natural resources out there, those natural resources are going to be utilized, and wars are going to be fought over them.

"We simply must not weaponize space!" is great as a moral statement. Unfortunately, it totally fails the Santayana test.

You are failing to pay any attention to the lessons of history.

History tells us people who don't learn from history the first time get to pay the tuition all over again.

I am not interested in the "we must not weaponize space!" taboo. It's balderdash, trivial tripe, easily refuted by history.

The question I'm interested in is "how does one morally and ethically weaponize space, under what civilian controls, under what laws, and under what political systems?"

Moon base

[Insipid Trunculance]

While a moon base is a good place for launching things cheaply it costs a lot more energy to land something on moon than on earth.

On earth all we need to do is to place a robust heat shield and let the atmosphere do the job but on the moon we need to reduce the velocity using fuel all the way.

Moon does have an atmosphere but it sabout a million times less dense than our own.

So a moon base will be more or less one way.

waystation != mfg. center

[LaCosaNostradamus]

The Earth is very fortunate to have the Moon. The only better things for space manufacturing are asteroidal moons and even a rubble ring (like Saturn has).

A waystation is generally better served in an orbit, yes, but the Moon is a currently unparalleled manufacturing site for space development. It has only 1/6g; is abundant in sunlight, oxygen, aluminum, silicon and iron (with calcium, titanium and other traces); has no atmosphere; and is about a 3-day journey from the mother world.

The problems of the Lunar well are solved by mass drivers built on the surface. With no atmosphere to stop it, an iron bucket carrying cargo (usually basic materials mined from the Lunar regolith) can be flung off the Moon at Lunar escape velocity -- you just have to build the linear accelerator long enough. Then you have to have mass catchers in Cislunar space to capture and make use of said materials.

Really, reaching for Mars without first preparing a Lunar manufacturing site is such abominable stupidity that I can only predict the Mars Adventure will end as Apollo ended ... memories, rocks, lost billions and finally piles of equipment rusting in the Florida sun. A "straight to Mars" mission is almost entirely political -- with the remaining portion being some scientific intent.

With a well established Lunar base, all other planetary tours can take place as a side-effect of Lunar manufacturing activity. And once asteroidal missions return a sufficient chunk of volatiles to Cislunar space, shipments from Earth can be reduced to personnel and other small, specific cargoes like medicine, special equipment, biologicals and trace elements.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[Dusabre]

After a lifetime of government service, one ticket on a shuttle flight was as fitting a reward as we could have given the man.

How much did that ticket cost? 20 million. Shit, I think he could have been given another medal, a million and let somebody who has never been in space up to enjoy the experience. And do some real work. A 70 year old geronaut was about as useful on the mission as I would be. Selfish old man.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[Dun Malg]

He participated in 83 science experiments over 9 days while up in the shuttle. (That's an average of 9.2 experiments per day, for those having trouble with the math as well as with history).

So what? The tests were pointless because, as the linked story says:

Glenn, 77 at the time and the oldest person ever sent into space, was so healthy and the mission so short that the results weren't much different from tests done on men and women half his age.

Then is goes on to quote Glenn saying we need to send more old folks up to get more varied test results, but that'll never happen. NASA won't send anyone up who isn't in excellent physical health because they don't want the risk.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[kisak]

This is just more of the usual "criticize the other side" partisan bickering.

Well, except one partisan is a president desperate to get re-elected even though his record is less than impressive, while the other partisan is an engineer, US senator, and astronaut who has worked closely with NASA for many years.

The partisan bickering is part of democracy, but that is not an argument not too listen to the arguments and what the politicians are saying. Especially when the arguments are from such a relevant source as senator Glenn, even though he is a democrat and all.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[spaceyhackerlady]

John Glenn lost all credibility with me when, as a US senator, he pulled that garbage line about "exploring the effects of age on space travel" as an excuse to get NASA to launch him back to space.

Can't say I blame him. I I could pull some strings for a shuttle ride, I would. Wouldn't you?

I thought it was totally dumb, but also totally understandable.

...laura

Re:Also Robert Zubrins argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Direct to Mars is clearly the best approach but who is going to convince Nasa? Or Bush?!

Since it's your tax dollars, you and me. Look to the Mars Society and their Political Task Force to get active.

Glenn being a bit shortsighted, two-faced...

[prisoner-of-enigma]

If the (Democratic) Senator wishes to say that getting to the moon is "enormously complex," then precisely how would he define a trip to Mars? It's a six day journey to the moon, but it's a six-to-nine month journey to Mars, followed by an almost mandatory one year stay, then a six-to-nine month return trip.

If complexity and danger are enough for Senator Glenn to rule out a moon colony, just how in the hell can he claim a Mars run is an easier choice?

Perhaps the Senator has, in his old age, forgotten Apollo 8, which did a dry run of the entire Apollo CM/LM setup all the way around the moon before an actual landing was attempted. Many claimed it was a waste to send the whole damned setup to the moon and not land, but NASA (rightly) decided that a shorter hop was safer than a massive leap. By establishing a moonbase first, we are in a far better position to send manned expeditions and, more importantly, colonization efforts to Mars.

The last thing I want to see happen is for NASA to blow its wad on a Mars trip, bring back a few rocks, and then sit on its thumb for the next fifty years like we did post-Apollo. We need permanent offworld settlements, not rock gathering missions. A moonbase gets us a toehold, but with an election year dawning and the Democratic Senator Glenn wishing to derail Republican Bush space initiatives, I guess politics wins out over safety of astronaut lives. Thanks, Senator. You're such an American hero.

Re:Huge value for the right purposes as with anyth

[Ars-Fartsica]

How nice of you to limit it to such a historically short period, but I'll still play along. Do you honestly think a new precision targeted crater in the desert of Iraq wouldn't have an impact (pun intended) on relations with that country and the Middle East?

UGH! Is everyone here illiterate? We can ALREADY level the Middle East. Anything you can do with a rock from space I can do for 1% of the cost here, and the difference is my threat is tangible, yours is scifi.

Lunar rocks don't have plausible deniablity

[Baron_Yam]

A few checks with military radar and the course can be traced back to point of origin.

As long as the rock was observed (by people who survive the impact) for several seconds before impact, the origin would be well known.

If it was suspected that there was anything like a loaded military mass driver on the Moon pointed at Earth, you can bet it there would be radar watching it 24/7.

Re:Wuh?

[torpor]

Slashdot ratings are meaningless.

Oddly enough, your "posts to +5's" stats don't prove that you really believe this.

And, if you're wondering, my Karma dick is undoubtedly bigger than yours. :)

I have no interest in dicks other than my own ...

• Did the Pentagon fail to protect the country or not?

My argument was that this was irrelevant.


Well, all I'm saying is that Bush' 'new space program' being motivated to 'put bases on the moon' may not be such a wise idea for geeks to get so hippy-dippy 'behind the leader' about, given the moons military potential, and especially given recent proven American aggression in places it feels it has a right to control.

I'm really not sure I'm comfortable with anyone having a military base on the moon, personally, and ESPECIALLY not America, whose people have a proven track record of letting its leaders abuse its almighty military powers, carte blanche ...

Re:BUILD on the moon

[kippy]

I'm afraid you don't understand. The Moon is only useful for a Mars mission as a testbed for hardware. It's cheaper to launch directly from Earth to Mars. However, it's easier to test the hardware you're going to use on the Moon. Even Zubrin supports that and he's about as frantic as you can get on skipping the moon.

The Moon is a harsher environment than Mars so if your equiptment works there, it should work betters on Mars.

Building on the Moon means decades of preperation. During that time, the space program could be derailed by some future Nixon. Getting to Mars ASAP is the best hope for making a human persence in the solar system outside of Earth permanent.

Technological spin-offs - resource conservation

[sarahtim]

I'm a Mars nut and have been for many years. It got a lot worse after reading Zubrin's The Case For Mars which convinced me it will not cost a trillion dollars but could be done inside the current NASA budget.

The most frequent argument against going to Mars seems to me to be that it costs too much and doesn't fix problems on Earth. Supporters usually mention the technology spin-offs but this doesn't really address the concerns of the fix-Earth-first brigade.

For 10 biillion or so people to live happily on Earth we are going to have to improve our resource utilisation and recycliing technologies. These technologies will be critical for the success of a Mars base and the necessity of being super-efficient on Mars will lead to breakthroughs that can be used on Earth. It would be a crucible for pushing the state of the art in recycling.

Dock Worker

[*SpOoNdRiFt*]

I used to work on a truck dock, and we had a philosophy that we lived by when loading and unloading trucks: never move your freight twice. It's double work. I'm with Glenn.

Re:BUILD on the moon

[kippy]

Actually, it's cheapest to go from the MOON to MARS, which is the idea with the Lunar base.

Not really. From an energy standpoint, it is cheaper to go from the Earth to Mars than Earth-Moon-Mars. But if you have a self-sustaining base on the Moon, it's cheaper right? Well yes but there's a difference between a scientific outpost and an industrial complex/mine/power plant/farm/foundry that you would need to make Cape Canaveral on the Moon. That would take decades and hundreds of billions (possibly trillions) to make. I find it questionable that it would ever pay for itself.

You start out with Earth-Mars missions (which are shorter, and you have the free-return trajectory in case things go wrong). Once you have a small construction system set up, you stop bringing people back every time, and just start doing more and more one-way trips to deliver work and supplies that can't be grown/built/mined on-site.

I'm assuming you meant Earth-Moon in that last paragraph. First, Mars has a free-return trajectory too. Second, the only things you'll be able to get on the moon are sunshine and rocks. You'd have to ship everything from Earth. Why not just send it to Mars where you can synthesize everything you need in-situ?

You're also thinking of only ONE mission. Hopefully when we get off our cans and start doing something useful (or at least interesting) in space again, we won't just do it once or twice and go back to piddling around in low-earth-orbit like we did last time.

The moon base would be the building, training, and launching point for NUMEROUS missions to Mars, as well as serving it's built-in scientific and economic potential as a permanent low-gravity (as opposed to our current permanent micro-gravity) installation.

I'm not thinking of one mission. Read up on Mars Direct. It outlines a cheap, repeatable way to do return missions that lead into a self sustaining colony within the current NASA budget.


Heck, once it's running well, Earth-Moon missions would become less and less necessary. The cool thing about human resources is that if you leave them in a confined area long enough, they tend to build more human resources for you.

They are not necessary now. They are useful as a hardware testground and that's about it. This isn't Warcraft or Civ where you start a colony and it magically grows. It costs money, time, life and votes. If we can't go to Mars in a timely and intelligent fashion, it will be doomed from day one.