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Should We Land on the Moon's Poles or Equator?
Cujo writes "There is at present a lively controversy about sites for a crewed lunar landing. Advocates for landing near the poles, possibly on a mountain, point out the advantages of much higher sunlight availability and possible water resources in nearby cold traps. However, there may be more interesting geology and better mineral resources near the better-explored equator. NASA's Exploration Systems Architecture report lays out some of the tradeoffs."
armed with airplanes (both manned and UAV),
you do realize that airplanes don't work without air, right?
Blasting expensive stuff like landers to the moon or Mars costs just as much as blasting a chunk of rock though and it is not a negligible cost.
Even space launches are not immune to the economics of scale. A large portion of operating costs stem from ground crews and service techs who work to get these birds in the air. The more you can launch in a shorter period of time, the more money you save on labor. The Space Shuttle was intended to take advantage of those economics, but fell down for political (no customers) and technical (long turnaround) reasons. That's why the price of a Shuttle flight increased from 200 million to 500 million as the number of flights declined.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The advancement of the species.
Not everything has to have an "end game."
What is the scientific end game of sending people to Mars?
Robert Burns figured it out in the 1700s.
"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Hmm, I'm curious, where does this technology actually exist (other than on paper and figments of engineer imaginations). The last time I checked 'we' dont have the technology to get humans reliably to/from low orbit, never mind anywhere near the moon.
So many folks seem to think that just because it was done in the 60's, it's easy, trivial, and a no brainer to go land on the moon. It's hard, expensive, and currently the technology to do it doesn't exist except on paper and in sci-fi literature. The closest thing the usa has to a manned lunar capabable piece of hardware is some rusty old Saturn V hulks sitting outside of some museums that relish 'the good old days' when america was actually a leader in the space race.
In the 60's the landing was equatorial for a lot of technical reasons. Today, moon landings are sci-fi, for a lot more technical (combined with political and financial) reasons. Politicians may talk about going to the moon, but follow the money, it's not going to the moon, it's going to wars overseas. The talk of moon landings is nothing more than political rhetoric designed to gather up votes from folks that cant see the forest for all the trees, and actually believe that such things are in the plans of the administration. If it was actually in the administration plans, the mandate would be such as it was in the 60's, to get far enough into the program that it could NOT be cancelled at the expiry of the 8 year term, to much already invested. In reality, this administration is neatly talking the talk that allows for more talk, but not actually allocating funds to make it happen, then putting on schedules such that all the talk becomes a financial responsibility for a future administration. In laymans terms, that means, not gonna happen.
This article on /. is a perfect example of the propoganda working. So many folks seriously considering where a moon landing should occur, keeps the grassroots talk happening. Reality is, talk is cheap, and if the hardware is not being designed and built at this stage of the game, there is no program that needs to survive the change of administration coming in a relatively short timeframe (next election). That's when reality will start to hit home, talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy rockets, and, there isn't going to be any money for rockets. This administration is so adamant about that, they have neatly scheduled the shuttle out of existance to happen in the early years of the next administration, and, there is nothing of substance happening on a replacement.
This administration has neatly set the stage to wash the manned space program out of existence. Big noises about safety, and shedules for shuttle retirement, virtually guarantees the shuttle will be history after 2010. Potential replacements are not yet under construction, and, the big bills to be paid for that construction are scheduled to be postponed into the next administration, where somebody else will be responsible for axing the program. The end result, no manned capability at all, and the USA will be on par with Europe for space exploration ability. The current administration is pouring just enough money into the shuttle program that it can limp along on the occaisional launch, so that they dont get the brand as the ones that axed it. At the same time, they are creating a political and financial environment where it's impossible for the program to survive, and impossible to get a replace ment program into the phases of actually doing something other than talk and paperwork. That talk and paperwork will continue until the cost of actually constructing hardware is somebody elses problem.
I'm old enough that I was able to watch the lunar landings of the 60's live on tv. As a child, I thought it was the beginning of a whole new world, and I would be able t