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Site for Moon Base Determined
Deinhard writes "Going hand-in-hand with the recent discussion on Moon Bases, Space.com is reporting that the perfect spot for a moon base has been found. According to the article, 'the best spot to settle on the Moon may be on the northern rim of Peary crater, close to the north pole.' What makes the location so important is that it is permanently lit, with a balmy -58 Fahrenheit (-50 C)."
Record debt and deficits, and the Senate is right now discussing removing the Estate Tax. There is no money for this in your lifetime, it is scifi.
Up at camp in the mountains in Feb. couple of years ago it was -40 in the daytime. Which is almost bearable if the wind isnt blowing... so as long as the wind isnt blowing on the moon... hmmmm well then there ya go:) no wind blowing on the moon
11 years for the data to be analyzed.
In another equally insightful phrase...
"That fits in neatly with the White House vision of using the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars."
No wonder.
Build it in parts here, assemble on the moon. Easier to launch a bigger ship from there.
EH? What fscking environment? There's nothing there but fine dust!
The moon is just a big rock
Yes, just a big rock, chock full of raw materials we need for your trip to Mars, and with only 1/6 the gravity and no atmosphere, it's easy to get those materials into orbit.
"Skipping" the moon is sheer lunacy (pardon the pun). Once established, the Moon Base will py for itself countless times over.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Huh? Are you sure your not talking about lava tubes on Mars? I don't know of any volcanic activity on our moon...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Growing up in Alaska, I've been outside in -60F weather, and it's not so bad (you can always put on more insulation). You just have to keep every part of your body covered, including wearing a face mask. Once you solved the problem of a total lack of oxygen, solving the problem of keeping warm should be trivial.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Record debt and deficits, and the Senate is right now discussing removing the Estate Tax. There is no money for this in your lifetime, it is scifi.
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Ah, but you assume they actually intend to pay for it.
We all know that Moon Base Alpha will be paid for with money borrowed by China.
After all, it's not like they have a space program
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You DO get taxed on birthday presents if they are bove a certain level.
And estate taxes prevent riches from piling up ad infinitum in one family. You shouldn't have an unassailable advantage over everyone else just because your parents are richer than everyone else.
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Have lower taxes ever kept politicians from spending money they don't have?
Especially considering the current administration is spending money like a drunken democrat?
Congress just has to write a check. They'll let someone else (i.e. the American taxpayers) figure out how to pay for it.
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TFA claims there are no constantly sunlit spots near the south pole, but remembering an article I saw a few years ago, I looked up Malapert Mountain, also in a space.com article. Same story..constantly lit, on a crater rim, and the inside of the crater is constantly dark, so it would be perfect for an optical telescope with a short cable run to the moon base at the crater rim. They even suspect strongly that there's water ice in the crater there. So, what gives? Is the previous article wrong or are the people in the current article suffering from amnesia/not-discovered-here? They seem to both be using data from Clementine. Here's another, more informative site on Malapert with lots of pretty pictures.
What you've got at Mars is the potential for a small base that will forever be completely dependant on Earth for supplies. It's water-poor, the dust is an extreme health hazard, there's no significant atmosphere to protect you from solar radiation or run internal combustion engines in.
I'm not te AC, but: Mars (presumably) has a reasonable amount of water , and the dust has faced at least some erosion, so it won't eat through space suit seals and kill you if it gets in your lungs (moon dust is sharp).
I'm not sure that a Mars colony could become self-sustaining, but it could get a *lot* closer to that than the moon. Either the moon or Mars would be a far better place to launch rockets from than Earth, as you have less gravity to fight, but still enough to avoid the hassles of 0G construction.
Plus, smash enough comets into Mars and it would retain an atmousphere for quite some time. The moon is a lost cause for terraforming.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I tried your formula to convert -50C back to F, and get the right result(-58F). It looks like you did F = C(9/5) + (-32) instead. :)
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
"No offense, but that's complete horseshit."
We can barely keep a simple space station in orbit with a couple of astronauts, let alone a full orbital construction bay for spacecraft.
"What you've got in the moon is the potential for a small base that will forever be completely dependant on Earth for supplies."
And what of Mars? I suppose we'll just plant some seeds, spread a little water and have a full fledge hdroponics garden.
The fact is it takes a lot more than water and dirt to make the supplies necessary for human planetary colonization.
"It's water-poor, the dust is an extreme health hazard, there's no atmosphere to protect you from solar radiation or run internal combustion engines in."
Aside from the martian dust being less toxic, how is this any different from Mars?
"Unless you're there to harvest H3, there's no point in being there."
That would be until precious metals or heavy elements were discovered to reside relatively close to the surface. Or if we ever needed another source of titanium, the moon would be it.
And let's not forget that the moon has 1/6 the gravity of Earth. Using the possible water stores that reside at the poles, this makes an ideal launch platform.
Not to mention the lack of atmosphere would be great for all sorts of astronomical purposes.
Basically, you don't know enough about the moon to state whether or not a base there would be fruitless. And why is Mars more likely to not be fruitless? Is there proven resources there?
"If you're planning on going to Mars, it's worse than a wasted step -- it's not a good financial move, it's not a good place to practice techniques for Mars and it's a far more hostile environment."
Potentially, all exploration is a wasted financial step. There are no guarentees that any risk will pay off, which is why it is called a risk.
And how is the moon not a good place to practice for Mars? Mars has almost no atmosphere (and what it does have is comprised of carbon monoxide), has a 1/4 gravity of Earth (the moon has a 1/6), has a negligible magnetic field and is very cold (just like the moon). As an added bonus, Mars has planet-wide sandstorms which blocks the sun for days.
Both environments are hostile. That's why it so difficult for us to live there.
"That's why we're no closer to Mars now than we were then."
We're no closer to Mars because of physical, biolgical, logistical and psychological hurldes that we haven't cleared yet. We can't get a fscking space station together in the span of a decade, let alone build an all out orbital construction platform for building space craft. There are few countries that even have the capabilities to put satellites into orbit. Building an orbital space dock is orders of magnitude more difficult than a simple space station. Not to mention the sheer amount of money it would take to orbit and maintain the whole damn thing. Then you've got to deal with the fact that a group of humans will be packed in like sardines for a minimum 12-month round trip, and all the supplies that will entail. And the fact that said humans will be exposed to a far harsher environment just trying to get there is another matter. Just getting to Mars would be an achievement.
"The fastest, easiest and cheapest way to get to Mars is to skip things like the moon and on-orbit assembly and to use heavy lift vehicles directly from earth."
The fastest, easiest, cheapest way to get to Mars is to wait for us to get a better grip on interplanetary technologies and there's no better target for this than the moon. Whatever we can do for our jaunts there, we "should" be able to scale up. Even if the moon contains "nothing useful", it would at least be good target to practice with.
"Use as much existing off-the-shelf tech as you can..."
I agree with this.
"... and then launce opposition missions to spend large amounts of time on the Martian surface with the specific objective of finding a good
~X~
I personally don't want to see the development of a new noble class based on the ability to pass down accumulated wealth indefinitely. If this were the case in the US, Bill Gates' knighthood would be the real deal and we would all have to bow down before him and refer to him as "Your Excellency." The estate tax is as you say the primary method that US society uses to prevent this. The framers of the Constitution had seen the evils perpetrated by the feudal/noble system and wanted to make sure that this would never happen in the United States.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."