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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)."
...we've had the technology for years as Robert Zubrin points out in his book. The moon is just a big rock, and we've been there before.
;) )
(Seriously, read the book, and if you're not convinced, well, you should be.
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Wouldn't solar radiation be a hazard from the constant light?
This is going to be interesting to see how the man that "laid claim" to the moon is going to handle people that he's sold property to. I wonder how he will respond to the government building a base on "his" territory.. Hmmm wonder if this will turn into a court battle?
The Technomancer
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-
One proposal for a moon base I found interesting was using lava
tubes as pre-built bases. It provided radiation as well as
meteorite protection. They actually did a bunch of research in
lave caves in Oregon some time ago.
http://www.oregonl5.org/lbrt/l5ombrr1.html
--greg Vulcan quiescent... Q: What machine shutdown with this message?
Wouldn't putting a moonbase so close to the Moon's limb will cause line of sight communication problems during parts of the month due to lunar libration?
Possible solutions:
1) very tall antenna
2) relay satellite
Now that we have 'official' private space launches, I implore all those zillonaires-with-more-money-than -they-know-what-to-do-with, to come up and sponsor a x-prize like prize for the first moonbase!
The lack of atmosphere really changes the way heat flows. Our intuition about hot and cold is shaped by convection, where heat is transfered to gas molecules that bump against us and are then swept away. With no atmosphere, heat transfer slows down. The only heat loss on the moon would occur by conduction into the surface of the moon.
How "cold" is the moon in human terms? I don't have any idea. I'd imagine sunlight would be more important for constant solar power (well, barring eclipses).
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Any materials obtained here would still need to be sent to the moon, and then to Mars.
Except the tons and tons of hydrogen, oxygen, and water that you are going to extract from the ice frozen in the ice caps in the poles. In addition, they might be thinking of mining the ice, which would involve tunneling. To me this makes a lot of sense, as several meters of rock is wonderful protection from high speed rocks, is wonderful insulation to help maintain a constant tempature, and is a cheap way to add to the size of the space station without having to build entire new modules. The moon would be a good place to put a telescope, since it is massive enough to be stable, unlike an inhabited orbital platform, and could be the start of a massive Very Long Baseline array for looking at really distant objects. Plus, it could be the start of permanent off world colonies. Mars is a good idea, but it's kind of a long first trip. Plus, It will give us extra time, as invading aliens will probably stop to level the moonbase before attacking earth.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Now that the Chinese, Indian and Japanese all profess an interest in colonizing the moon.. the question is, will the first nation who reach the site claim its entirety, and how valid would that claim be?
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Easy way to deal with that (instead of cutting off outside light and imposing an artificial day/night cycle inside the base) is to change the kind of people NASA gets for astronauts. The Mercury through Apollo astronauts were mostly pilots, and a lot of space shuttle astronauts have been as well. But I think a permanantly-lit lunar base would be better suited for naval officer, particularly ones that serve on submarines.
People on submarines have to adapt to weeks and even months without any sense of time. No daylight, no night, sometimes not even a well defined schedule. Not everybody can handle it, but some people get by pretty well. Not to mention that submarines are cramped and uncomfortable places to be, which isn't uncommon in space travel.
The main requirement for a trip to Mars are volatiles for fuel and life support, and the moon has almost none of those.
Sure, there is lots of metal oxide laying around on the moon for building an empty ship out of ; but even then, the standard processes we have for making steel or aluminum require large amounts of carbon (to reduce the oxides) and water (to cool down the molten metals afterwards). Again, the moon just doesn't have those.
If we could find a Near-Earth asteroid with abundant volatiles like water ice and ammonia ice, it'd make more sense to build a base there than on the moon.
>;k
And just what claim does the government have on my family's money if it's been gained by doing honest work? "To prevent some families gathering too much money" is a just a sad excuse for class envy and socialism.
I'm sorry I have no modpoints today...
I can't figure out why this is flamebait while everyone else's comments are not...
You are, of course, correct. The estate tax is, primarily a way to redistribute wealth in an attempt to prevent permanent pseudo-nobility by limiting the number of generations across which nearly-infinite wealth can remain nearly infinite.
You can argue about whether this is a good thing or not (in my opinion, it is not), but you can not argue that this (and not "revenue generation") is the primary purpose of this tax.
What all of this has to do with the moon, however, is beyond me. Surely by now it has become obvious that the U.S. government is not going to be a major space player again. U.S. industry might someday, otherwise, I'm betting on the likes of Japan or China...
Maybe Japan... then the base could have a big earth in the middle of the flag instead of a big sun...
The US was never paying down the debt for any extended period of time (I believe our longest period of paying it down was 9 months.) Take a look for yourself, you'll see the number never goes down.
m
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.ht
Also, a large part of the "surplus" was unsustainable. To some degree the surplus was a result of cost cutting but mostly it was the result of increased revenue in the form of capital gains tax. Around the late 90's the government was collecting incredible amounts of capital gains tax due to stock market bubble. This was not a sustainable form of revenue.
The "debt holders" are a sundry group with many different agendas and motives. To suggest that they were all worried about the debt being paid off (which wasn't happening anyway) is misleading at best.
Considering how much misleading crap you were able to pack into your first sentence I think it is safe for people to disregard the rest of your hyper-biased post.
As an aside, I understand it is fashionable to hate Bush on this board and to suggest that he is somehow some evil genius/dumb monkey pulling all the strings to make the rich richer but you do yourself and your politcal cause a huge disservice when you exaggerate (and lie about) your claims.
IF a corporation builds it, it DOES, without argument, belong to the corporation (unless they donate it).
Not unless their property is seized forcefully!
Haven't you heard of Space Pirates? Yaarr!
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)