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Japan Considering Moon Base, Shuttle Projects
ScentCone writes "A brief article at Newsday mentions a Monday report that JAXA, Japan's counterpart to NASA, is looking at robotic probes on the moon by 2015, and construction on a solar-powered manned research base starting there by 2025. The (very) big bump in the agency's budget will also get spent on tsunami warning technology and other terrestrial communications technology development."
There's the 1979 Moon Treaty - see wikipedia.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
Yes, titanium sponge is a lot harder to work with than aluminum. It pushes the difficulty to the initial costs. You still get the lower maintainence and greater payload, however. Plus, the new method of direct electrolysis can easily produce titanium metal powder for powder metallurgy.
Good quality titanium welds are doable; you just need people properly trained and with proper equipment - you need to weld in very pure argon (applied both front and back), you need to clean the area with good solvents beforehand, you need to keep the argon flowing until the metal is relatively cool, etc. Plus, at all times, you want to use gloves when handling the titanium to be worked (to prevent chlorine corrosion from perspiration) and avoid contamininating it by using aluminum tool surfaces (frictional heat from working with tools can cause localized alloying). In short, you need to use clean conditions and use good tools - something NASA excells at.
Also, a nice thing about titanium is that impurities produced marked discolorations, making a poor weld or corrosion easy to spot. This is a whole lot better than aluminum fatigue, which you need specialized equipment to determine.
T
Don't take a knife to a gunfight, or even a knife to a knife fight. Take a gun to a knife fight.
There is a reason's Columbus' home country of Portugal refused to fund his voyage. (Portugal was a major power at the time, they had the money, perhaps more than Spain) In fact, it is the same reason Spain's King refused to fund the mission until his wife got interested.[1]
The kings were well aware that the earth was round, and they knew how big the earth was. This was calculated about 200BC(IIRC). Columbus calculated the earth's size at about 1/4th the correct size. With the correct size it isn't worth sailing around the world to get to Asia, with Columbus' size it was.
When Spain finally gave Columbus sponsorship they gave him junk ships and essentially prisoners as crew. As they watched him leave they were fully expecting that he would starve to death on the trip. (And if you read the accounts it is clear they came close) Spain was surprised when he came back reporting he found land.
[1]Those who are married can understand why you would pay for a stupid mission if you wife was interested.