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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."
(Disclaimer: I don't think Nasa Lewis should have been changed Nasa Glenn)
Isn't it obvious why $800billion of stuff sitting on the moon is better than $800billion of stuff sitting on Mars?
...of people treating John Glenn as if he were some expert in space travel. He was sent to space but never had a damn thing to do with the scientific planning that was necessary to get there. To me he is no more an expert than those monkeys they sent up in flight suits.
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.
He was once part of a band of heros. Now he's just another politician.
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
For serious manned space missions, the moon is not a particularly good waystation. What's needed is a serious long-term space station for interplanetary vehicle construction, industrial micro-gravity operations, and scientific research. (This implies a two-part station, incidentally, with a rotating section for living quarters and office space and a stationary section for labs, factories and docks.)
The moon is a gravity well. It may be shallower than the Earth, but it still takes a lot of energy to slow descents and then escape again. Eventually it may be a useful source of material resources, but there's nothing particularly attractive about it now.
wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?
As opposed to that giant thing orbiting the earth called 'The Moon'? And you can shoot down something like the ISS with less difficulty than blowing up the moon.
what better time to join up with the other countries of the world and create starfleet early.
Jonathanjk.com
Absolutely. We should send robots all over, but we should send humans, too, because it does us good to listen to people who have "been there, done that". I have a greater affinity for our fellow humans who have stood on the Moon, than for the manufactured tools we have sent there. When Armstrong stepped onto the Moon, I thought "gee, I could have been there." Now, I think "gee, my kids or my grandchildren could do that", and it's a nice thought.
I think, as a species, we're designed to go look for ourselves.
a lot on the type of vehicle to be used? If we start looking at NERVA rockets and such, the moon would be a much better place to launch them from than Florida. A standard chem rocket to get to the moon, then something nuclear to get to mars.
Or, if the rocket is refuelable, you use a tank getting to the moon, escaping the 1G gravity well, then you refuel and use a lot less fuel getting out of moon's gravity field (isn't it 1/6th of earth?). This puts you in orbit for Mars with a whole lot of fuel left in a tank of the same size, right?
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
First of all, I completely disagree with the Bush agenda. However, there is at least one compelling reason to go back to the moon, and that's to put a radio telescope on the far side.
One of the big problems with radio astronomy is noise interference from Earth and the many satellites we have in orbit. The nearest zone free of this interference would be the far side of the moon.
Building a radio telescope on the moon would likely require a full-time manned base for handling repairs and maintenance. One of the disadvantages of having a radio telescope on the moon is that radio astronomy has been advancing along with other technological areas and upgrades would be needed periodically in addition to repairs.
I think Radio Astronomy would benefit enormously from such a project, but I doubt that's on the Bush agenda...
I always thought taking advantage of one of the Lagrange (sp?) points made more sense for this sort of endevor. That way your clear of the earths debris feild (cough...Thanks NASA...Cough) and the opposing gravity/centrifugal force influences effectively cancel eachother out. BTW the moon might not be useful as a platform for weapons, or the garrisoning of troops, but it would provide a handy platform for anti-satilite beam weapons.
"Hand me the bullet-shooty-thing and a box of little hurts" -Overheard on a USMC Rifle range
How does the moon have military value?
Rail guns. Low gravity makes shooting them up (then back down) the well pretty feasible. And you can build them pretty much as big as you like with less structural support needed in the moon's low gravity. And if you want superconductivity then you just dig a big pit and stick it in the shade at the bottom (approx 118K out of the sun, or -155 deg C).
And you won't be waiting 3 days for the projectile to hit its target either...
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
They're not exactly running out of room where "the corporations" usually put their satellites. Look, geosynchronous orbit is about 40 Mm from the center of the earth. That means that there's about 240 Mm of linear space in geosynchronous orbit. I say "linear" because they all want to be in a circular orbit in the plane of the equator. Since each satellite has to be about 3 degrees from its neighbor because of the beamwidth of the signals being sent to it, that means that there are only about 120 active satellites in geosynchronous orbit at any one time. Of course, there are dead satellites and spares, but each slot is 2000 kilometers wide. That could easily soak up ten satellites or so and they'd still be so far apart that you wouldn't be able to seen one from another. In other words, they're not exactly running out of real estate.
I once read a wonderful cure for insomnia that was a NASA report on the odds of colliding with space junk. The upshot was this: The odds of a significant collision was highest in those orbits closest to the earth. There are two reasons for this. First, even though lower orbits decay so there's a kind of a natural cleaning process, there's a lot more junk close to the earth and the fact that there's less volume near the earth, what with the volume of a thin shell of a particular thickness being roughly proportional to the square of the radius, so the density of stuff is a lot higher. Second, lower orbits tend to be inclined with the equator. That means that the closing speeds tend to be much higher and so the potential damage is much larger.
Now, if space travel to geosynchronous was routine, it seems likely that there would be an effort to salvage dead satellites, which would, in my opinion, be beneficial to many people, but NASA's big thing is that only "steely-eyed missle men" get to fly into space. Ragmen need not apply, so it'll never happen while NASA holds the keys to low earth orbit.
It already takes a lot of energy to climb out of Earth's gravity well. Granted, on the moon, it takes less to achieve orbit, but why decend into a gravity well at all unless theres a good reason? The ideal place to launch into transfer orbits (in the Earth-Moon system) is LEO. Right now, it costs an arm & a leg to get things into LEO. In addition to that, Hohmann transfers, while energy efficient are painfully slow. If a spacecraft could ride 1 G of accelleration for extended periods of time, journeys around the solar system could be measured in weeks, not decades.
If I were the President, my priorities would be:
However, due to the nature of the government in the US, the office of chief executive can only be held for 8 years. I have serious doubts as to wether or not the US can commit to any kind of timeline longer than that in this day and age. It's a shame really.
The Bush proposal demonstrates that he (Bush) does everything for political value; Bush doesn't ask scientists about science policy (see the recent news story about this) just like he doesn't ask experts from all sides about economic policy. Especially if he might get a dissenting vote.
That's how he comes up with patent nonsense like using the Moon as a way to get to Mars. Finally, someone with some experience exposes this nonsensical fraud for what it is.
Yep. Robert Heinlein's novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress features an excellent description of a lunar colony revolution where the "lunies" break away from Earth by "throwing rocks".
I think what Bush has in mind is nuclear propulsion. Various tree hugging organizations will do whatever they can to stop the launch of a nuclear craft from Earth, but they can't say anything if it's launched from the moon. The primary advantage of a nuclear craft is the surplus of energy. No matter your orbital inclination, you still have enough power for a short (3-8 months depending on the craft) flight to Mars. Of course, some types of craft could be lowered into the gravity well and launched on a more normal trajectory. However, if Bush is considering something extremely powerful like an Orion, he's got to launch it from high orbit. Otherwise the EMP could wreak havoc with our orbital infrastructure.
Some excellent engine choices from low to high:
NERVA - 800-1000 Isp
Gas Core Nuclear Rocket - 2000-5000 Isp
Nuclear Salt Water Rocket - 4500-10000 Isp
Orion - 10000-100000 Isp
M2P2 Orion - >10000 ???
Orions are particularly interesting because of their ability to scale, and be made of traditional building materials instead of composites. (read: Steel) Since the efficiency of Orions climb as the size of the craft does (Thermonuclear H-Bombs give a better bang for the same mass as an Atomic warhead). The largest Orion calculated possible with 1960's technology is 8 million tons. A moving city in space!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Actually, the moon has the best of both worlds (pardon the pun).
Enough gravity to be useful (it's way easier to build things in gravity than not). A large stable base (as in bedrock, anchors for building foundations, etc.), an enormous supply of raw materials, yet a low enough gravity to where getting into orbit is extremely easy.
You want to talk about space elevators? We could build them from the moon with today's technology.
You need space stations? Build them in Lunar orbit. It takes a fraction of the energy, and you can orbit them 10 miles up if you want to.
Folks, the moon makes enormous sense if you want to BE in space. If all you are interested in is SYMBOLIC GESTURES about space, then a dozen Apollo-like trips to Mars is what you want.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Glenn, a retired Democratic senator from Ohio
That might go a longer way in explaining Glenn's agenda than his previous career as an astronaut.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
One thing repeated over and over in this topic is using the moon as some sort of Uber military space station. Please stop and really think about it. What kind of attacks do you think you'd be launching from the moon? Precision tactical attacks that would knock out targets like the size of buildings? The U.S. already has excellent essentially unstoppable relatively CHEAP weapons for doing that including B-2s, cruise missiles, F-117s, and hypersonic cruise missiles soon that will do the job in under an hour. Even the most powerful railgun on the moon would take much longer to cross the quarter million miles to attack and that's if the moon is visible from that hemisphere at that time! Lasers? You still have to hope the part of the earth is viewable and radiation based weapons are subject to the inverse square law. (Laser on moon would have to be 1 million times more powerful than one in LEO). How about using the moon for a strategic attack? (Dropping big rocks?). Well the strategic supremacy of the U.S. is so far from being challenged (submarines, ICBMS, bombers) by any other power that I question the need. We already have extremely formidable weapons that can reach anywhere on the planet in half an hour, they are called H-bombs. Won't it be cheaper to launch these weapons from the moon? Only if you build them there (otherwise you'll be dragging them from here to there and back again). The costs of building an infrastructure of the sort to build any of these weapons (rail guns, lasers, bombs) is so huge it defies comprehension. (Ten's of thousands of people, industrial scale operations in vacuum and hard radiation). Remember that the moon is still a very hostile place. Just one problem: unless they can find ice at the pole (which is now in doubt) there is NO WATER. (If there was concrete on the moon, astronauts would mine it for water!). Also all this talk of Helium 3 is just talk. Seen any nuclear fusion reactors working in your neighborhood? How much effort would it take to refine this He, on the moon, found in mere parts per million (billion) in the lunar dust? The moon may be a great (good?) place for astronomy but not for the military.
And if the Chinese get there first, what exactly will happen? Will there we hordes of roving Chinese in our streets, raping our dogs and killing our women? Oh please, lead me on that acid journey where this is a bad thing.
Hell, at this point I say: wait for them to get there first. From the point of business (my business view is limited to the last decade or so), it's rarely the first company that succeeds in a market. Look at all the telecoms - they all wasted their money building the infrastructure, quite a few went under.
So they're gonna be the first to get there, so what? We'll see what they've done, adapt the process to do it in half the time/cost/whatever... and do it better.
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
I hate to be selfish - but if we spend the extra time needed to establish a waystation on the moon for a Mars mission, I'll be dead before I get to actually SEE humans land on Mars - so I'm all for the "direct to Mars" route. And about the Moon having resources - yes, but it would take a decade or two of research before humans on the Moon could begin to make some reasonable contribution to an Earth-Mars trip - it would probably be cheaper to lift material up from earth, assuming a drop in the launch price per kilo (using, say, a Big Dumb Rocket, or a EM cannon/railgun) Anyway - I think it should be obvious that Bush is just playing election-year politics; these are similiar to the promises his father made back in 1991 or 1992, and no mission to Mars has yet been explicitly planned.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ Roaming the real world (currently in Thailand) ~
See, this exhibits the reason why proposals like this are better than first blush would suspect. Firstly, we're discussing a manned (or locally maintained) array, so there's already something there if this plan is to work. That given, why send wires to the Moon? Why not send the current bottle-rocket space shot with big blocks of some conductive material (copper would work, but there are lighter materials that would work just as well)? You don't even plan for an entry vehicle, just let it tunnel in when it hits. Then the Moon base folks fly out in their Eagle (erk, sorry, obligatory "Space: 1999" reference) and fetch it, and roll the wire locally. Or, make wire out of local materials, and what difference if they're lower conductivity than copper? Even so, I imagine the best answer would be microwave towers, for servicing purposes (adding bandwidth just requires more transmitters, not more wire rolled out), but I think you can see the idea. The obvious advantage to a ground-based solution appears the first time one of the transceivers breaks, and a pair of astronauts can drive out in a buggy and fix it. How does one fix a lunar satellite? And before you suggest that it's the same for an Earth-orbit satellite, I put forth that there are still lots of wires on the Earth because of that very fact.
Virg
we cetainly do need a fronteer society, but would you be able to get anyone to go when they know that if there is a problem with a supply run (the odds of there being a problem on the trip is larger than one would like) then you are dead, unless we can find deep ground water and a cave system that we can excavate for the colony to live in while they bio-dome it and rappid trasit to the colony from earth.
I say, work on getting us into orbit faster, then work on getting a massive ion drive so that we can get the right amount of thrust in space and sustain it for the trip there and back. estimates are that a trip to mars in such a situation would take 6 weeks if you accelerate constantly with the thrust of a rocket half way and then decelerate equally.
all we need to do is perfect scram jet technology, then the cost of getting to orbit will be small. once that is accomplished, out high voltage ion drive run by a nuclear reactor can be turned on and the 30 pounds of fuel can be inserted into the drive. and off we go.
of course we will need something much more sustaining to get to Jupiter and such, but taking the same approach, Jupiter is only 9 moths away.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
As of a few weeks ago Putin, as part of his campaign to return Russia to what is effectively a one party state, and to its status as a superpower indicated Russia is going to develop manuevering warheads precisely to defeat the U.S. ABM's. ABM's are a lot easier to defeat with countermeasures than they are to make work reliably and it does have to work 100%.
He was also going start an ABM program of his own and Russia does still have the engineering talent to do it. Russia is strapped for cash but it does have huge oil reserves it can use to fund this.
At the same Russia indicated it was going to develop a six man successor to the Soyuz capsule so it can bring the ISS crew up to the point it might actually do something useful just as the U.S. abandons it. It kind of appears like Russia will inherit a very expensive space station on the cheap and I wager with their pragmatic approach to space, versus the U.S. wasteful approach, they might just do something with it.
@de_machina
Living on an environmentally hostile planet like the moon or Mars is just crazy at this point, never mind the technological feasibility, or the cost. When NASA can keep a group of people alive for 2 years in a TOTALLY self-contained environment on Earth then we might stand a chance.
The biggest obstacles, IMHO, are the psychological and physiological factors. There is no "going out for a breath of fresh air" on the moon or Mars. We take many things for granted on this earth and have no real substitute for the ocean, rivers, trees, bacteria, etc for renewing our environment. We would need to replicate big parts of Earth to make a distant planet habitable, in any real sense.
What needs to happen is the terraforming of Mars to see if it is feasible. If we have the patience to wait 100 years or so we could make parts of Mars much more hospitable, probably with the help of robotic factories to augment the environment. Of course in this "Short Attention Span" society of ours, 10 years seems like an eternity so what are the odds that anyone would consider a more long-term solution.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
Fuck. Raise kids, build things, fix broken robots. Write code, jerry-rig flaky experiments, build new societies. Create poetry about the places we've been. Did I mention that robots can't fuck?
there are plenty of things that robots can't do that all come naturally to us. Bush may only be talking about a develpment plan and modest re-arranging of NASA (desperately needed, IMHO). The real goal of space exploration must be the opening of the new frontier for all.
AD ASTRA!
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Look at the ABM treaty from another point of view. Not as a powerful country trying to get more powerful, but as a scared person looking for protection.
Imagine the world now as a collection of unstable people locked in a room with guns. Some people have bigger guns, and some smaller, but everyone is able to mortally wound anyone else. One person (country) is trying to put on a bullet-proof vest to avoid living in fear.
You're only looking at the short term, that they'll be armed and invulnerable and can then rule the room. (Not really true, even the best ABM system would have limits.) The long-term is that as people play nice and stop shooting each other they'll be encouraged and helped to build their own bullet-proof vests and everyone will be safe. (Against that threat anyways.)
If you think that the USA wants to do this in order to take over, ask yourself if they've showed any signs of this? Every time they go into a poor country to chase a dictator it costs them billions of dollars a day for little potential gain. They've tried to get the UN to help put a democratic system in Iraq, which should indicate that they aren't installing a puppet dictator who'll give them oil.
The truth of the matter is that the USA is old and tired. They'd just as soon build a really big force field around themselves (and maybe the Bahamas and Canada) and pretent the rest of the world doesn't exist. If they don't go into Afghanistan they get accused of being uncaring about the plight of women and religious minorities. If they do go in they get accused of wanting to kill "poor brown people". They're accused of being the great satan either way. The last thing they want is to rule the world. (That's Canada - they're the ones to watch, tricksedy devils...)