Slashdot Mirror
Back to Moon in 2015?
Mistress.Erin writes "NASA has announced they may send astronauts back to the moon as early as 2015, and may build an international base once they get there. From TFA:"The next mission to land a man on the moon will take place in 2015 at the earliest, the new chief of the United States' space program said on Monday, adding the mission could be followed by the construction of a multinational space station there. But NASA has not yet decided what vehicles will be used to reach the moon, or what will succeed the aging space shuttle fleet, which is due to be retired in 2010.""
I've also decided to go on a huge roadtrip in 2015, but I too have no idea how I'll get there... Nor do I know what I'm going to do with my current vehicle (a 1975 Honda civic) once it is scheduled to be retired (2010 at the latest). But don't you worry, I'll manage to pull it off somehow... ;)
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
"Today the moon, tomorrow the universe"
Or
Today the Moon, 45 years from now the Moon again...
Though it pains me to ask this (I'd love for us to be doing more space exploration), is building a base there really a good idea? From what I've read, the lunar dust is incredibly hard on mechanical things (gears, seals, etc)...that would make maintenance of any lunar base very difficult, and prohibitively expensive.
For all of that effort (both in the initial build, and in the launch/materials costs for maintenance)...what do we get? Not much, even in terms of science.
I'd love for us to do more space exploration, but honestly, I think a really big station at L4 or L5 would be a much better idea. Locally stable gravitiational point, but not a deep gravity well, far less dust, very low g environment, etc.
It's not as sexy as the moon, but really...L5's the place to be, not the moon.
If they are talking about working on a permanent base, why wouldn't you want to start with the moon? Any sort of extra-terrestrial base, be it a space station, moon base or planetary colony - is going to require a lot of supplies from Earth on a regular basis. The proximity to Earth is a big plus here.
If things go well and a Luna base becomes well established, it becomes a much easier launching pad to form other bases/colonies elsewhere. The gravity well on the moon makes regular launches much less cost prohibitive.
My UID is the product of 2 primes.
Not true. The Saturn V was a superb super-booster that was capable of lifting just about anything into orbit. For example, a Saturn V was used to lift the entire Skylab Space Station in one flight. Von Braun was also a big proponent of using a Saturn V to lift a Mini Orion into orbit for interplanetary travel.
The reason why the Saturn V *seems* useless is that the primary focus of the Apollo and Gemini programs was to develop the technology and execute a plan to reach the moon. If the Saturn V was still flying today, you can bet it wouldn't cost several billion dollars to get the ISS up there. We'd launch the stupid thing in two or three pieces, only minor assembly required. Compare that to the dozens of shuttle flights and Russian launches necessary to get the current structure up there. And it's not even done!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade