Space Tug to the Moon and Beyond
An anonymous reader writes "Andrews Space and SpaceDev, a contributor to SpaceShipOne, are building a cargo transport called SmallTug to travel to the Lunar L1 point using a Hall Thruster and running off of solar power. The final craft will be capable of attaching to and transporting satellites 85 percent of the way to the Moon for use in interplanetary missions. The launch date is scheduled for 2008 and it is being designed to be quite inexpensive. The Inquirer has more details."
Ha, could they come up with a more porno sounding name?
Of course it comes as no suprise that "Andrews Space is a privately held company"
Replying is troll feeding, and frankly I'm surprised you spent the energy to type all that out ( unless you're trying to be funny ), but I was reading this just the other day :
Romeo
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon
by William Shakespeare, 1597
Ah, of course, how foolish of me.
Also, tides are caused by special machinery installed for the purpose. ;)
Let me get this straight though - could the giant balloon not also be responsible for the tides ? No need for what would have to be some impressive machinery ( and associated maintenance, salt water can be rough on things ) if it were just a side effect of the giant balloon flying about. Those nuclear reactors would probably have a quite a bit of mass after all.
We also have the moon here in New Zealand. We're pretty liberal already, and we don't have the same issues with guns as the US does, so what could the liberal moon pilots be looking for ?
Food for thought...
Short version of parent: "That's no moon!"