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

[Trigun]

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.

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

[squiggleslash]

Well, the obvious military use for it is to put a huge number of rockets on it that'll, if fired, cause its orbit to be slowed. Then you'd have the ultimate deterent.

Any tin-pot third-world dictator threatens you, you just threaten to crash the moon into their country. Not only will they not want that, but their neighbours will probably overthrow said dictator on your behalf as the moon crashing into a country is likely to have severe repurcussions for anyone nearby.

I can clearly see Bush's reasoning on this.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Cyclotron_Boy]

You missed a big physics fact. The orbit that the ISS sits in is totally wrong for launching anything. Originally the orbit was to be just off the equator, but in order for the Russians to help and launch from the Cosmodrome in Khazakstan, the orbit was changed to 51 degrees. That meant a change in the mission of the ISS from a "jumping off point to outer space" to an international scientific outpost. Here's a NASA quote: "NASA spokesperson Phil West says the ISS' inclination of 51 degrees was chosen as a compromise to accommodate all of the international partners who will be launching from different latitudes. For example, Russia's launch site in Kazakhstan is further north than the Florida site, making lower inclinations difficult to achieve."
ISS History article
Space Station History

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

[HullBreach]

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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

It's certainly somewhere some mad dictator could, say, stock up pairs of beautiful humans while sending a volley of glass spheres filled with poisonous gas designed to wipe out the entire human race, returning to earth for sexy parties in paradise.

Hmmmm. Where do I sign up?

"No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die...."

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[corbettw]

From a military perspective, wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

That's no moon. That's a space station!

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[R.Caley]

How does the moon have military value?

Strategic deterrant value of the ability to control the international cheese industry. The Swiss and the French would be eating out of your hands for a start.

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

[darkmeridian]

The Apollo spacecraft made the trip there in three days. Six days is a round trip.

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

[garyok]

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...

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[blue_adept]

Yes, the moon crashing into the earth would cause a catastrophic drop in cheese prices everywhere. The swiss, normally neutral, would be furious.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[jguthrie]

Running out of room in space? Well, Douglas Adams put it fairly well: "Space is really big! You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemists but that's peanuts compared to space."

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.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Neil]

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".

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

[garyok]

Doing some sums (and wouldn't it be nice if someone checked them - don't trust me to remember where the decimal point goes...):

1 kg of iron going at 2/3 * c has 2E16J of kinetic energy (about 4.8 megatons of TNT) and will take approx 2s (1.925s by my calculation) to cover the distance from the Moon to Earth. Most 'battlefield' nuclear weapons are about 25 kilotons, so you'd probably only need a mass of about 0.5g (plus whatever you expect to burn up in the atmosphere) to enable a very, very capable artillery battery.

Nuclear reactor + big-ass capacitors + -155 deg C in the shade = superconducting electromagnetic projectile launcher capable of taking out cities. 4-minute warning?! Bwahahahahaha!

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[b-baggins]

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.

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

[CXI]

How does the moon have military value?

Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein.

Main points:
1) The moon has a lot of rocks.
2) It's relatively easy in terms of technology and cheap in terms of energy to throw them at any target on Earth.
3) Um, big profit? No, that's not right...

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

[Macgruder]

2 seconds? Dude, the lightspeed delay between earth and the moon is just over 1 second. How the heck are you going to launch a projectile at 50% of c?

At this point, the military believes they can build an EM-cannon that will (in a vacum) give a muzzle velocity of about 2 miles (3.2km) per second. Not counting accelaration, that's 34 hours.

I'll leave it to someone else more motivated than I to calculate the velocity added by the rock 'falling' to the earth.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Kirkaiya]

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.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Tablizer]

Any tin-pot third-world dictator threatens you, you just threaten to crash the moon into their country.

Mooning dictators? What have we stooped to?

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

[eofpi]

It doesn't even make much sense to build the thing in orbit. Especially not for the first few exploratory missions. Orbital construction costs are still exorbitantly expensive. In a few decades, when it's significantly cheaper, it might make sense. But it doesn't right now.

In his book The Case For Mars, Dr. Robert Zubrin explains his plan for Mars exploration, called Mars Direct. Zubrin does a much better job of explaining it than I could, so I'll just say this: he figures that getting to Mars is doable with a low-earth-orbit mass of 70-100 tons. This is in the same range as the Saturn V's heavy lift capabilities, so it's achievable using common rocketry knowledge.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[hesiod]

I am going to pray for you tonight, in hopes that your rabid anti-American ignorance & FUD/lies clear up soon. And I'm an atheist.

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.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[good soldier svejk]

In short; Outspend them until they fail.

Seems like it worked to me...

Not really. Soviet military budget growth was moderate, about 4-7% anually, from 1965-1975. Then it dropped dramatically to about 2% between 1977-1982. After 1982 it hovered between 1-2%. From 1977 on there was no growth at all in spending on new weapons.

The Reagan administration's massive increases in military spending had no impact on Soviet spending at all. They tied their military budget growth rate to their GDP growth. When economic growth slowed, so did military spending increases.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[WNight]

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...)

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[rk]

The formula for escape velocity is Ev = sqrt((2*G*m)/r). Given the moon's mass and radius, we have to be certain your hypothetical rail gun has enough oomph to even achieve escape velocity.

In MKS, G is 6.67e-11 m^3/kg-s^2, the mass of the moon is 7.349e22 kg and the radius is 1.736e6 m. Plug and chug gives us about 2.4 km/sec from the moon's surface. So, it would be feasible as long as the direction of launch is within about 41 degrees of zenith (acos(theta) = (V/Ev)).

The problem of accurately striking the earth remains a three-body problem, though it's easier to approximate since the projectile mass is insignificant next to the mass of the earth and moon. There is no neat numerical answer to flight time, since there are a variety of paths that could be used to reach the earth, in addition to some trajectories that would never get you to earth. You could also put things into lunar orbit, earth orbit, or leave the earth-moon system entirely. The escape velocity of earth at the moon's perigee is about 1.4 km/s.

So, no matter how motivated one could be, the correct answer to your problem is "not enough information to answer".

Just to put the kinetic strike weapon concept to bed for now, accurate strikes would be a difficult problem to solve at best, especially since there's no mid-course correction available. Vagaries of the system's gravitation, perturbation by other celestial bodies, and atmospheric contact would all work together to increase the uncertainty of the problem.

Now, that railgun has some real potential to launch guided spacecraft cheaply (well, once the cost of construction has been amortized!), but as an unguided weapons platform, it's not too useful. Now, if you *could* accelerate something to .5c like the grandparent post suggested, you're onto something.

Re:I fear that's the whole point

[Idarubicin]

1 kg of iron going at 2/3 * c has 2E16J of kinetic energy (about 4.8 megatons of TNT) and will take approx 2s (1.925s by my calculation) to cover the distance from the Moon to Earth. Most 'battlefield' nuclear weapons are about 25 kilotons, so you'd probably only need a mass of about 0.5g (plus whatever you expect to burn up in the atmosphere) to enable a very, very capable artillery battery.

Apologies to the parent; I'm going to be a bit brutal...

You were going to get this 25 kT of energy to put into the system from where? And you're going to give it to the projectile how?

Two thirds of the speed of light is pretty damn quick. You'll get a few miles per second of that from falling down the gravity well, but that leaves you short by two hundred thousand kilometers (~120,000 mi.) per second.

Let's assume that your launcher is a linear accelerator a hundred miles long, built on the moon. If we assume a roughly linear acceleration, our rock will spend 0.001 second from rest to launch. On average over each mile of the launcher, you need to transfer to a half gram of material the energy equivalent of 250 tons of TNT, and you need to do it in ten microseconds. Roughly, that's ten to the sixteenth watts flowing, delivering ten to the eleventh joules.

Using as-yet-undeveloped capacitors with diamond dielectric, you might get an energy storage density of 2.5E4 J/kg. To store 1E11 J comes out to 4E6 kg, or four thousand tons of capacitor. (Existing technology is probably about an order of magnitude worse.) Per mile of accelerator. I haven't worked out the mechanical stresses on the accelerator imposed by Newton's third law, but you can bet they'd be brutal, too.

So...to store the energy to fire once will require four hundred thousand tons of capacitors. At best. To charge them, let's say we have a good-sized nuclear power plant churning out 2000 MW. To collect 1E13 joules will take 5000 seconds, or about ninety minutes...assuming no losses.

What does that give us? A weapon located inconveniently on the Moon that costs a fortune to build and maintain, and can fire a 25 kT 'bomb' once every hour and a half. Oh, and it's useless at least twelve hours per day when the targets are on the opposite side of the Earth.

By the way, did you think any country is going to stand by and let any other country build one of these things? Yeah, I know--it's a fun idea...but totally impractical unless we have some real engineering miracles. And you'd probably be better off militarily building smaller versions for use on the battlefield.

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

[Bushcat]

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

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.

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

[malsdavis]

I would rather see a large base/settlement built on the moon and then a later trip launched to mars rather than simply a trip to mars.

If we look at the apollo missions, although they were cool in that they went to a heavenly body and all, the actual contribution to science and the benefits to us these days of those missions was little for the money spent.

I think a mission to mars would be similar in that although there is prestige in getting there, what would be the major benefit to us earthlings?

A permanently inhabited base on the moon however would be the first step to unlocking the many benefits it can provide to mankind.

If they made it so I could go play superman-golf on the moon it would be even better!

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

[AKAImBatman]

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!

Re:Goals

[Geno Z Heinlein]

Ahh, asteroids. Personally I think that that's the way to go. Hollow out one of those, make it livable, self sufficient, then whip the fucker out into the blackness. Send hundreds out in all directions, and humanity can spread like cancer!

You forgot to say, "Mister Anderson".

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.

Re:Goals

[the_2nd_coming]

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.

John Glenn doesn't want the rest of us to go moon

[baryon351]

So. why doesn't John Glenn want the rest of us to go to the moon? what's he hiding? WHAT DO THEY KNOW IS UP THERE.

whoops. ignore I said any of that. tinfoil hat slipped

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

[Neuropol]

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

Hero Gone Politician

[iammrjvo]

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.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't John Glenn one of the Keating 5 ?
(savings & loan scandal)
Talk about the WRONG stuff ...

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.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[PMuse]

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.

Yes, of course it was an excuse. Can you blame him for wanting to see space just one more time? Can you blame him for wanting to experience space in something a little less confining than than the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule? Can you blame him for wanting to spend more time up there than the ~5 hours of his 1962 flight?

Well, I suspect that some here can blame him, but I can't. After a lifetime of government service, one ticket on a shuttle flight was as fitting a reward as we could have given the man. And, as other posters have pointed out, he made himself a real part of that crew and did real work while he was up there. I'll never earn a reward like that, but I can't begrudge it to anyone who does.

Re:Hero Gone Politician

[kalidasa]

Funny thing is, a Republican senator did it first. And he wasn't an experienced astronaut.

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

[Dun Malg]

Funny thing is, a Republican senator did it first. And he wasn't an experienced astronaut.

He was an experienced pilot in the navy and air force, though. And he went up as a payload specialist on a shuttle satellite launch mission, not as a test subject for a bogus scientific experiment. Studying the effects of space on old folks? If the old folks are healthy enough for NASA to let 'em go up, the effects are nada.

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

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:China

[Mascot]

That reminds me of a Futurama episode I saw recently (season 2 episode, but new to me). Paraphrasing since I have crap memory.

Fry "The president of the world? What's he to us, thus is the United States!"

Leela "Fry, the United States is part of the world"

Fry "Really? Wow, the future really is different"

Re:China

[orim]

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.

The moon is a silly waystation

[-dsr-]

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.

Re:The moon is a silly waystation

[stevelinton]

I think the "useful source of material resources" is kind of key. Using a space station for interplanetary vehicle construction means that the vehicle, the station, the scaffolding, the blast shield in csae the fuel goes up, etc. all have to be hauled up from Earth, at huge cost.

With a moonbase, you have space, a stable framework, and ample supplies aluminium silicate dirt, from which you might be able to refine something useful. Even if you can't, you can pile it up to provide bracing, shielding and the like.

If you just want to dock three or four pieces of Mars mission together you might as well just do it, in LEO with no station. If you really want to start building, you want to be somewhere with some ground to lean on.

Of course if Earth->orbit costs come down by a couple of orders of magnitude, for instance with an elevator, then it's a different game entirely, but I think we're probably 20-30 years away from that, if we're lucky.

Re:The moon is a silly waystation

[-dsr-]

I can see you aren't an astrophysicist. The dark side of the moon is called that because it faces away from the Earth, not from the Sun. It gets the same semi-lunar worth of daytime as the near side.

Re:The moon is a silly waystation

[demachina]

This post is ridiculous. First off you will need a 3 part facility to do what you're talking about. You aren't going to be doing an serious micro-gravity industrial operations in the same station where you have large numbers of people, factories and docks. You would have to have a free floating or otherwise very well isolated zero G module otherwise your zero G manufacturing would be trashed every time someone uses a jack hammer in the factory.

Its also completely absurd to think you are going to build space craft in space. It would be enourmously expensive because you would have to support a huge number of people on the space station and everytime you need a new part or a tool it would have to be flown from earth at a massive cost, or manufactured in space from materials on the moon or asteroid also at mammoth expense. Maybe if there was a space elevator or a truly reusable SSTO craft so launch costs were ridiculously low this plan might be slightly more viable, but you still have to compare the probable costs of an aerospace worked on earth to one in space and realize its not economicly viable to manufacture big things in space. You might do it if you are building a big structure that had to be built in space, because its big or fragile, but it would still be better to design modular craft on earth, launch them and then dock and connect the modules in space.

Everyone needs to realize space stations are sitting in a vacuam. They have no resources you dont fly there, and it currently costs a fortune, as in a wrench will cost more than its weight in gold, to get in to space.

If the US is short on cash...

[CrackedButter]

what better time to join up with the other countries of the world and create starfleet early.

Political Motivation for the Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

George W Bush's scientific advisors have been urging him to go to the Moon first, as a stepping-stone to Mars. The politics are only just hotting up. More soon.

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"

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like Antarctica you cannot own the moon.

And just like Antarctica you can have a base there and thereby stop others from having a base on top of yours. Just like the US base on the very south pole itself.

And there is one particularly strategically important point on the moon. I wrote about it in detail on an earlier thread and got it modded to zero so I am not wasting more time on it. Look for it.

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"

[joshmccormack]

Here's a page that describes the international treaty covering Antarctica:
http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/Pages /Internationa l/ATCM.msa

Here's part of it:

" The key elements of the treaty are:

1. Antarctica is to be used for peaceful purposes only. All military activities are banned, although military personnel can be used to support scientific programmes in such things as transportation of people, and equipment to Antarctica
2. There is freedom of scientific investigations and discoveries. Scientific plans, information and staff are regularly exchanged. This scientific cooperation has been genuinely successful among the treaty nations. The Cape Roberts Drilling Project is an example of successful collaborative scientific work.
3. All political claims for territory are frozen for the duration of the treaty and no new claims or enlargements can be made
4. Nuclear explosions or dumping of nuclear waste in Antarctica is banned
5. All stations/bases and equipment are open to inspection be observers appointed by Antarctic Treaty nations."

Re:Moon having "military value"

[Chess_the_cat]

There is a UN treaty banning the militarization of space. I'm pretty sure the US signed on as well.

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:Moon having "military value"

[torpor]

Both Cheney and Rumsfeld have been called before the World Court for War Crimes committed during Gulf War One, and the US has refused to enforce International Law regarding the conduct of War in not handing them over for trial.

Its not surprising that you know nothing about the War Crime charges currently standing in International Court against US' government executives. The US currently doesn't recognize the very Treaties it has signed to create such a Court in the first place ... thus ...

(I would suggest you take your interest in drugs and apply them to a little literacy.)

Re:Moon having "military value"

[demachina]

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.

Re:I don't get Glenn

[prgrmr]

Isn't it obvious why $800billion of stuff sitting on the moon is better than $800billion of stuff sitting on Mars?

No, it's not. Military-related paranoia aside, the potential for long-term residency is far better on Mars because of the higher gravity and existing atmosphere--even if it's not breathable, it still provides some protection from solar radiation.

Re:How about telling the truth, Glenn?

[prgrmr]

The ISS budget is not 2.5 million, but 2.5 BILLION!

Glenn wasn't talking about the complete ISS budget, just the science portion that's projected to be cut.

Re:I grow weary...

[Omega1045]

Wow, that is a really uniformed opinion. All of the early astronauts participated (to a greater or lesser extent) in the actual engineering and planning of the missions. Please note that in addition to being a pilot, Glenn is an engineer. I found the below facts just from a simple Google search:

From His NASA Bio Page

He attended Muskingum College in New Concord and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering.....

When astronauts were given special assignments to ensure pilot input into the design and development of spacecraft, Glenn specialized in cockpit layout and control functioning, including some of the early designs for the Apollo Project.

Wouldn't it depend...

[QuickSilver_999]

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?

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!

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

[dinog]

If he believed in it, he would fund it.

Quick note about silly consitutional matters : The president cannot "fund" anything. The US Constitution expressly gives that power (funding) to Congress alone. Given that, perhaps you should write your congress-critter and ask them to fund any space ambitions.

Of course the president could divert existing funds to a space program, but such a plan as this would require more funding that could easily be diverted.

Finally, many think such a program will not be funded, and normally I would concur, but China is now looking at a similar program and this, from a government standpoint, is the greatest motivation. Too bad that kind of motivation leads to flag and footprint missions....

Dean G.

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

[PMuse]

The president cannot "fund" anything. The US Constitution expressly gives that power (funding) to Congress alone. Given that, perhaps you should write your congress-critter...

Indeed, I should. So should we all. In addition, I believe the president should ask the congress-critters to fund it. They will, one hopes, pay more attention to what he says than to what I say.

Plus, he has ready-made opportunities to do this. As I suspect you know, the U.S. budget process begins each year with the executive submitting his budget proposals to congress, where the respective budget committees debate them, negotiate them into bills, pass the bills through the houses, reconcile them into one, submit it to the executive, and then hope he doesn't veto it. (Somewhat oversimplified, but close enough for the moment.) In many respects, the budget is a congressional bill like any other -- i.e., it has the usual executive involvement. All of which leads to this: the executive "funds" something by proposing funding for it to congress. To announce a space initiative and then not to propose adequate funding is something of a hollow gesture.

Of course, the power to lay and collect taxes resides in congress (Art. I, Sec. 8) and such bills begin in the House of Representatives (Art. I, Sec. 7). However, the budget isn't a tax bill, and even tax bills require the usual executive interaction: signature, veto, or override. So they're not all that different.

There are some reasons to go to the moon

[Pedrito]

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...

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?

[kolbeinn]

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

Well for one they can die a horrible death from hunger or asphyxiation, give me a few minutes and I will think of a few more things.

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).

Re:One question: why?

[kisak]

We've run out of horizons on Earth.

The deep oceans are still unmapped areas of the earth, with unknown resources and inhabitants. Can probably think of other also, but it does not take away the reason to explore space.

Re:One question: why?

[J05H]

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

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

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.

Also Robert Zubrins argument

[dan dan the dna man]

In "The Case for Mars". Moon bases and space stations increase cost and complicate missions and crucially will push back the date by which we get there. Direct to Mars is clearly the best approach but who is going to convince Nasa? Or Bush?!

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.

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.

Zubrin's Mars Society seems to be doing well ...

[torpor]

I remember, a few years ago (5?) that the various Mars programs being fronted by the U.S. government were in direct opposition to the way Zubrin and his Mars Society were proposing we do it - with the "Mars Direct Program".

Now, it seems that there are a significant number of Washington players who are getting behind the scientific thinking that Zubrin's program has produced for us ... and thats good news.

When I think about where we are currently at, evaluating the Mars situation, and where we've come as a result of an independent organization, it warms my heart. The Mars Society have done a lot to get humans thinking about going to Mars properly, and finally it seems like their momentum is having a great effect.

Re:Oh Come on...

[superdan2k]

Um, John Glenn never went to the moon. His only flights were on Friendship 7 (as part of the Mercury program) and on STS-95.

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.

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.

Military Value

[jwthompson2]

The military value is in creating a "death star" by placing a giant "laser" on the moon and deploying two units to run the facility...moon unit alpha and moon unit zappa....

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.

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.

Issues

[NickRuisi]

I'm not a rocket scientist, but I've spent a fair amount of time as a virtual astronaut using the Oribiter Space Flight Simulator, and I can't help but to ask "Why The Moon?"

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:

• Fund space elevator research, and other low-cost LEO launch technologies
• Propulsion systems
• "Living off the land" technologies for other locations in the Solar System.
• Search for extrasolar earth-like planets
• Unmanned interstellar probe technologies

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.

Re:The Emperor Has No Spacesuit

[MtViewGuy]

You've got to be kidding.

Samples of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions show large amounts of aluminum, titanium, and several other metallic elements that could be used to build spaceship components easily.

Besides, by having a Moon base, we could set up laboratories and living facilities there to support missions to Mars, including safe testing of soil and rock samples returned from Mars.

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

Re:The Emperor Has No Spacesuit

[0123456]

"Samples of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions show large amounts of aluminum, titanium, and several other metallic elements that could be used to build spaceship components easily."

_Easily_? You can just fly up there and build a spaceship from moon rocks?

The original poster was wrong in claiming that there are no raw materials, but it's, frankly, idiotic to claim that we can build entire complex spacecraft on the moon more easily than we can launch them from Earth. The cost of sending a whole factory infrastructure and thousands of people to man it to the Moon would be immense: probably at least tens of trillions of dollars.

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 ...

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:How about telling the truth, Glenn?

[HanzoSpam]

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.

Stupid idea to use the moon militarily

[wisebabo]

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.

Wait a second there

[Tibor the Hun]

Are you suggesting that we exploit the "dark side" of the moon to realize a "large moon-like space station, capable of destroying an entire planet"!?
That plot can easily be thwarted by a number of small spacecraft which would be small enough to bypass your large defenses and exploit your criticalities. Duh...

Further Thoughts

[virg_mattes]

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

It's harder to get to the Moon than Mars

[SB9876]

OK,
I keep hearing this idea of using the moon as a refueling station. If you haven't looked at the numbers, t seems like a good idea. However, a quick look at the actual orbital mechanics shows that the Moon is a big waste of time. Here's the breakdown for ow much Delta V is needed to get to the Moon and Mars:

Moon.........Mars
LEO to Moon/Mars..3.2.........4.0
Orbital Insertion.......0.9.........0.1
Orbit to Surface.......1.9.........0.4
Total.............. ......6.0.........4.5

Yes, it actually takes LESS fuel to get to Mars primarily because it has an atmosphere you can use to aerobrake. The Moon has no atmosphere and so you have to carry fuel to bleed off your transorbital speed. Furthermore, Landing on Mars is assited by being able to use the aerobrake to bleed off speed on the way down unlike the Moon. Those figures even assume that you don't use a parachute and rely upon retrorockets to come to a stop.

OK, what about the idea of the Lunar refuelling station? You now lose the 1.9km/s of energy you need to get back off the lunar surface. (you still pay for it but the refuelling barge now pays that cost) The problem is that the cost of getting to the Moon and in and out of Lunar orbit is as expensive as getting to Mars to begin with. Sure, you now havea refuelled ship that can go to Mars from lunar orbit which is cheap BUT you just spent as much fuel getting to the Moon as it would have taken to go to Mars without stopping!

To use an analogy, I want to drive to New York from Seattle. Now, would it a be a good idea to send a bunch of my friends out to Washington DC to build a gas station for me so that I can drive there, gas up and then drive up to New York? NO! The only way it would make sense is if we were building a spaceship in lunar orbit which is simply insane - we can't even do that in LEO right now. Hell, we have enough trouble doing it on the ground right now.

Furthermore, as the other respondant mentioned, you can't make fuel on the Moon. All rockets that aren't ion drives (which have no need to refuel at the Moon anyways) need an oxidizer and fuel. There's plenty of O2 on the moon in the form of metal oxides. The Moon's something like 70% oxygen. There's plenty of metal and O2 if we want to expend the energy to get it. However, O2 is the oxidizer - we still need the fuel. All our fuels use (to my knowledge) carbon, nitrogen or hydrogen. That includes everything from gasoline and candle wax to hydrazine and liquid H2. The moon has no large supplies of H2, C or N. You'll have to haul all of those in anyways. It really makes no sense to refuel there.

There's plenty of good reasons to go to the Moon, refuelling on the way to Mars is NOT one of them.

Re:The Emperor Has No Spacesuit

[Chief Technovelgist]

Sorry, I should have been more clear about what I meant by "useful resources." Maybe I should have said "reliable resources that are usable with technology that we actually have."

It's true, the surface of the moon has lots of minerals, including interesting metal ores. (Keep in mind of course that our practical knowledge - actual samples - of the composition of the surface of the moon is largely derived from 6 short visits.) However, as far as I know, the moon did not have the same kind of "geological" history as the Earth (water flow, plate tectonics, vulcanism and many more) and therefore does not have the same kind of concentrated mineral deposits, where it is possible to extract minerals in a known, economical way. There is a lot of speculation about what lies under the surface, but we haven't spent enough time there to know for sure. We have a small number of surface samples that are promising, but again our samples are limited.

All of the proposals I've ever seen to extract these resources from the moon seem to involve creating an entirely new constellation of skills and technologies for every phase of metal and fuel production. And remember, all of this work and development must be done in a very harsh environment - low gravity, vacuum, very fine dust, temperature extremes from +100 to -170 Celsius. Not to mention doing all of this very far from home. And then you need to learn how to build every last component of your spacecraft in the same environment.

Personally, I'm all in favor of exploring, building and doing science and engineering on the moon. But if your goal is Mars, why spend the time building an industrialized society on the moon? Because that is what it would take to build spacecraft on the moon. And isn't Bush just fooling himself (and us) by implying that we just need to go to the moon, build a base, and then start shooting for Mars?

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: Silly waystation - space elevator on the moon?

[fredmosby]

Of coarse the length of a space elevator depends on two things. The mass of the planet it's orbiting, and the rotational period of that planet. The moon has 1/5 the gravity of the earth, but it has a rotational period 30 times as long. So an elevator on the moon may not be that feasible.

Re: Silly waystation - space elevator on the moon?

[SmackCrackandPot]

I found a link in First Science, The Audacious Space Elevator

Later, Jerome Pearson thought about building a tower on the Moon. He determined that the center of gravity needed to be at the L1 or L2 Lagrangian points, which are special stable points that exist about any two orbiting bodies where the gravitational forces are balanced. The cable would have to be 291,901 kilometers long for the L1 point and 525,724 kilometers long for the L2 point. Compared to the 351,000 kilometers from the Earth to the Moon, that's a long cable, and the material would have to be gathered and manufactured on the Moon.

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.

Anyone Who Wants to Live on the Moon is Nuts!!!

[rocker_wannabe]

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.

Re:Nuclear propulsion

[AKAImBatman]

I highly suggest starting with wikipedia's information on propulsion. It should give you enough knowledge to plug into Google. After that, visit my topic on the Nuclear Space message board to find out why heavy lifters aren't a big deal.

I started with the, "we can barely get to LEO" idea as well. Turns out we can put as much tonnage into LEO as we want. Once LEO is achieved, that acts as the staging point for more advanced engine designs.

I've heard of bomb-rates in the 60/sec, which clearly doesn't square with the descriptions of intermittent back-slamming in Lucifer's Hammer, but even a good strong 60Hz buzz in the butt would get tiring, fast. (How well can it really be absorbed?)

If you're referring to "Footfall", I haven't had the chance to read it. You would not be getting a 60hz buzz however. You have to remember that the pusher plate moves so that the acceleration to the rest of the craft is gradual. Thus you'd feel just a constant push. M2P2 Orions would be similar. The M2P2 field "gives" a bit, and basically would accelerate the craft as if it were inside a water balloon.

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.

Re:Problem with that plan

[Chibi Merrow]

The bright side is in a vacuum you can't hear them screaming. Plus they won't be there to bug me while I'm pushing the detonator's plunger, since they won't have rockets to get to the moon.

I can't wait until people are upset that we're screwing up Mars by terraforming it.

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.