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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."
My bias would be to land on the dark side of the moon (cue music) in order to build an observatory that will be uninfluenced by the earths, radio/tv/light/RF pollution. It could be powered by a small nuclear reactor eliminating the need for solar panels and there may in fact be larger ice deposits on the far side of the moon anyway.
Also, what is this fascination with things on the moon that we can see? I would be much more interested in the things that we do not see as much of.
But I am a neuroscientist and not a rocket scientist, so what do I know?
While we are talking about the moon, I can understand and see the scientific payoffs of sending people back to the moon, but I am much less clear on the whole Mars thing. What is the scientific end game of sending people to Mars?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Wherever it has the best/most cheese. Therefore, if the astronauts get stranded, they won't go hungry.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Redundancy is always key and it is more efficient to built two highly probably successes than one extremely probably success.
There should be a "-1:Groupthink"
I saw we aim for the Moon's eye, pfff.
http://www.filmsite.org/voya.html
There should be a way to deliver (in the same mission)astronauts to the location that would deliver the most scientific benefit, and also deliver an instrument package to the other location. It is not rocket scie ... hmm, never mind.
I guess there won't be a breaktrough discovery if we land in either place. But if a decision has to be taken, why not using some relatively cheaper technology to have a look of whats on the poles... If the private sector can reach outer space, there shouldn't be a problem for NASA to come up with a low-cost survey method of the poles...
You have a funny definition of the word 'finally'.
"Congress voted Saturday to give NASA all of the $16.2 billion it sought for 2005"
"Congress on Wednesday approved a $16.5 billion budget for NASA, fully funding the administration's moon-Mars exploration initiative for a second consecutive year."
If we make a commitment to return to the moon we should be prepared to explore, armed with airplanes (both manned and UAV), MPS (GPS on the moon) constellation, multiple bases, regular supply drops and greenhouses. We made it to the moon in the 1960s with technology that is downright scary by todays standards, we should prepare to return to the moon with a vengence on July 20, 2019.
Swing and a miss... it was congress that was holding stuff up..Bush wasnt the issue. (but then again i bet you dont go a single day without griping about him (cause god knows he actually effects you in a meaningful daily basis)
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
...when did the Poles get to the moon ahead of the Americans and why are we considering landing on them? Let's make it the equator and take second place. Go Poland!
Huh? Oh.
Nevermind.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
They should land near where the man on the moon lives. Then the astronauts could have a friendly little chat with him to find the best cheese, the best moon rocks, and the best place to land on their next visit.
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Is that a joke? First off, most rocket exhaust (it varies on the rocket type, of course) is steam. Secondly, the amount of exhaust gasses put out by rockets is incredibly miniscule compared to the amount put out by cars or industry. Rockets are so expensive to make that they simply cannot currently comprise a major portion of our atmospheric pollution. Third, NASA is involved in the alternative energy business, with nuclear and solar research. Fourth, if you have cheap electricity (there are good reasons why lunar He-3 is a silly idea, but that is neither here or there), you can have cheap cars; batteries already exist, and cars don't *have* to run on combustion. Lastly, the premise is wrong, that one is either for manned lunar exploration or for cutting NASA's budget. I, for one, wish we'd focus far more effort on *robotic* exploration, which is much cheaper and more productive.
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
Simply because we now can. We've already landed along the equator in the 60's because we had no choice. Now we have the technology and extra "delta-v" to land anywhere.
To quote Robert Heinlein
"Here is a way to spot space-research spinoffs: If it involves microminiaturization of any sort, minicomputers, miniaturized long-life power sources, highly reliable microswitches, remotely-controlled manipulators, image enhancers, small and sophisticated robotics or cybernetics, then, no matter where you find the item, at a critical point in its development it was part of our space program.
The most ironical thing about our space program is that there are thousands of people alive today who would be dead were it not for some item derived from space research--but are blissfully unaware of the fact--and complain about 'wasting all the money on stupid, useless space stunts when we have so many really important problems to solve right here on Earth."
Land at 45 degree latitude. Hmmm...that gives an unfair bias towards the poles because there's less are at the equator. Ideally it should be at whatever latitude splits the area between 0 degrees and 90 degrees equally.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
so true. I wonder how they can make this real trip coincide with all the flaws they had in the last mission (to make the old one still somewhat believeable).
At first I thought this was an "Ask Slashdot" entry, at which point I thought, "I'm not sure I want to trust NASA with a shuttle program."
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
Yeah Helium-3, we can use it to run our fusion reactors
Oh that's right, we don't have any or even any real idea how to build them... I forgot.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
Mons Venus is so huge it reaches up out of the atmosphere. A great place for an asteroid (mineral) processing plant and launch facility. Mars is also close to the mineral-rich asteroid belt.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
after all, if we've travelled all the way to the moon, we might as well get an Earthtan for all our trouble, and break out the Virgin Daquiris in their squeeze tetrapacks all round.
... um, wait, last time I checked we were at a negative savings rate as a nation because of Tax Cuts for Billionaires so they can buy jewelry for their teacup chihuahuas ....
Heck, we should think about making a Club Med on the Moon - we'll have lots of Lunar Tokens to buy water with - ok, dirty ice crystals from crevices, but the same concept.
And we should put up a big neon sign that says "UFOs Land Here! Interplanetary Spaceport! Have your Binary Passports ready!"
But whatever we do, let's just borrow the money for it from the overflowing national treasury built up by all those savings we've been saving
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Meh. The problems of today are political, not practical.
It's not a lack of agricultural production or transportation capacity that causes famines anymore, it's politics. In recent times, India has had food supply shortages but no famine due to good management of available resources. And Somalia has had food supply surpluses but rampant famine due to bad management of available resources. And that's just one example.
I figure, politics is good for solving a lot of problems in the world, but not all of them. It also causes a lot of problems. And since it's not going away, at least it can give us some space research as a side effect.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
So where is the best spot for the mass driver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver/? We need to get construction started on that.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
The polar circumfrence of the moon is ony about 3500 km, so any point from the equator to either pole is approximately a quarter of that, 875 km. The original lunar rovers used in the first lunar exploration had a top speed of just under 13 km/hr and very limited ranges, so they would obviously be unsuited to take a "lunar road trip." But it seems to me that we could build a vehicle that was more like a "lunar RV" that could make the trip. Say we improve rover speed to a modest 45 km/hr and assume we can't take a perfectly direct course to a pole...call it 900 km. So it would take 20 hours in your VW lunar rover. As long as they pack enough ganja and doritos, they should be fine. It seems that with the low gravity and cloudless skies, that kind of performance could be achieved with solar power, perhaps boosted by some chemical propulsion. It would have to be capable of carrying enough oxygen for the crew to survive for several days, but it seems like this would be possible.
At first I thought this was an "Ask Slashdot" entry, at which point I thought, "I'm not sure I want to trust NASA with a shuttle program."
...
Heck, I'm not even that sure how many space shuttles we have left, they keep blowing them up all the time
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "Moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1980.
Is your whole post a joke? And if you think that the moon hasn't been mentioned before the 80's then you need to become a little more educated on mythology. Oh wait I forgot that is just an elaborate ploy by the government to.
Infact disregard my whole post, I am just another secret agent working for the government.
While we are talking about the moon, I can understand and see the scientific payoffs of sending people back to the moon, but I am much less clear on the whole Mars thing. What is the scientific end game of sending people to Mars?
We need to take out those pesky martians before they invade us. Do you think those little green men want peace? No way! First Strike against the Martians, it is our only chance.
Jihad vs. the Martians!!!
The moon is great and all. It does, in the long run, in fact help things like sustainability. And I'm not sure about other reasons like H3. But I just don't think it's realistic anymore. Going to the moon will get us advances in rocketry, robotics, and solar panels. And, with NASA, the focus is always on doing things the best way regardless of cost. Does anybody really need more expensive robots and solar panels to make their lives better?
Perhaps we would get more out of sending a few people into the middle of the Pacific and keeping them there for a few years. Let's see how cheaply we can pull off something like that. Instead of expensive electronics, equip them with basic, indestructible technology. We'd get advances in cheap renewable energy, micro-manufacturing, more efficient farming, and affordable, reliable technologies to perform basic tasks like water purification and waste treatment. Perhaps even self-replicating machines would benefit.
I'd rather see research in giving people with nothing more than air, water, and sunlight a standard of living higher than subsistence than figuring out new ways of extracting water from moon dust and building solar panels that work in the arctic. But, like you, I'm probably in the minority here on Slashdot in that regard.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
"Doctor, it hurts when I go like this . . ."
Now that we've got that science out of the way, can we go to the moon now?
KFG
Heck, I'm not even that sure how many space shuttles we have left, they keep blowing them up all the time.
Once every ten years or so, you mean?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Wouldn't it be warmer there? The poles on the other hand, would be too cold!
And I have just the man for the job, Yukon Cornelius:
- rudolph01.htm
- rudolph09.htm
http://actionfigures.about.com/library/tf01/ntf01
Only he will be able to find the existing but somewhat misfit labor force needed to begin Moon mining operations:
http://actionfigures.about.com/library/tf01/ntf01
It is my opinion that a program that eats so much of a country's research budget for so little immediate benefit should be examined. I am merely questioning why the US is willing to spend so much getting to the moon yet is unwilling to devote money and effort to reducing their contribution to the greenhouse effect.
Little benefit. Such as: pacemakers, scratch-resistant lenses, nitinol for dental braces, improved fire-retardant materials, composites, teflon, smoke detectors, battery-powered tools, "memory" metals, shock-absorbent footwear, improved cell culturing, implantable heart pumps, improved diagnostic aids, electric cars, emmisions controls, etc?
Feel free to browse the NASA Spinoff Database to understand where all of that money goes. The funds invested in space technology repay themselves at least a hundred-fold in my opinion. If we weren't so short-sighted we would be investing (publicly and privately) at least 10 times what we do now.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
You know, I happen to be a mechanical engineer at Electric Boat in Groton, CT, where we design & build nuclear subs for the US Navy. The focus of design in the past several years (post cold-war) has been centered around special operations forces capabilities, like sending out Navy SEAL frogmen and the like.
And occasionally, I think... a screen door really would help keep the fish and seaweed out of the lockout chamber when the frogmen are out on the mission.
And then I just shake my head and say "How would I ever suggest to someone that it might be useful to put a screen door on the submarine?" I'm not even Polish, so I don't even have an excuse.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
I say go for the mountaintop landing. It's much harder, but if you survive you score way more points, and you get an extra fuel bonus.
In the Mythbusters interview, among other places, it has been suggested that the best way to counter the myth that the moon landing was faked is to go back to the moon and bring back something from the previous astronauts.
I've always wondered why the hell we can't prove or disprove the moon landing myth by just pointing a friggin' telescope at it? I mean, if there is any such astronaut junk...couldn't the Hubble or even some small terrestrial telescope pick it out? There's no wind on the moon, so shouldn't the footprints and tire tracks still be visible? Did Neil Armstrong leave the flag planted or bring it back?
Why have I never seen pictures of these features? We can see planets a brazilian light years away but we can't pick out a landing zone a few hundred thousand miles away? The pictures on moon.google.com don't appear to have any better resolution than my digital camera can produce.
So maybe someone can answer this question for me. What prevents us from looking at the moon's surface with any sort of detail, and since the moon is our next big destination resort, why haven't we sent a probe to do the same kind of high-resolution imaging of the surface like we have for every other planet in our solar system? We might need to know where the best places are to build those hydrogen refineries or whatever.
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
so, you are honestly trying to tell me that more can be achieved in "minicomputers, miniaturized long-life power sources, highly reliable microswitches, remotely-controlled manipulators, image enhancers, small and sophisticated robotics or cybernetics" as a side effect of space travel than could be achieved if these things are reseached independently with the same money?
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
We land on the equator! Am I a scientist? No, but I did stay at the holiday inn express last night...
For the sake of simplifying the argument into a single narrow viewpoint, which I can later defend to the death (don't we all love to do that?):
Go to which ever place is most likely to yield the most short term benefits. In the long term, we can go to both. It's only right now, in terms of specific missions, that we have to choose.
I predict many a boring paper being submitted arguing the case one way or the other.
As I said in another comment, there is no way that more is achieved as a side effect of research than could be achieved by researching these things directly. The "NASA Spinoff" stuff is self-justifying propaganda. If 18billion dollars (or whatever the budget is currently) was spent on medical research, for example, that science would get all the benefits not just a side-effect.
Besides, I said "direct benefit".
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
We need to do a study of where the richest cheese deposits are and land there.
Already found it.
Look here zoom in completely on point D.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Can we just get BACK TO THE MOON ALREADY?!. Sheesh. Before I'm collecting social security, please?!
Seriously. Rebuild the launch technology first, then follow it up with improvements and start planting bases and solar arrays and observatories like cigarette butts in the park.
The united states military budget is almost 500 billion dollars, not including the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan incursions which I have heard to be around 50 billion dollars (although it is hard to find an exact number) or the funding of the homeland security department. I think there are better ways to cut money than from the paultry 16.5 billion dollars that NASA was approved for this year (And considering that the defense department also benefits from NASA's activities, such as with spy sattelites, GPS, etc etc etc, although I'm sure NASA does benefit from a lot of the research done by the military aerospace industry as well.)
I really don't think the United States really needs to increase the defense budget much when it spends about as much money on defense as THE REST OF THE ENTIRE WORLD COMBINED. Especially not when we are in a budget nightmare and drastically cutting funding to education and just about every other social program.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
We shouldn't even bother landing a crewed vehicle on the moon; been there, done that. It is a total waste of time, money, and resources. How about we spend the limited resource dollars available on doing useful science instead of some halfwit's recycled 1960's 'vision thing' (or more accurately, the 'aerospace industry welfare thing'). Either than, or just don't spend it at all and try closing the deficit.
Okay, why exactly are we considering going to the moon again? I'd much rather finish the ISS Space Station and use that as an orbital platform for future exploration. From there we can then go to the moon, Mars, or start mining the Kupier Belt for Vespium Gas. Seriously, let's finish one multi-billion dollar project first. I think about how much money was poured into Skylab, only to watch it become red-lined and burn like a match on reentry.
I agree with you on the military budget there. I am totally anti-war and generally anti-military (although I believe most countries need some defensive forces).
Let us not forget though that some people still believe that the entire justification for travelling to the moon was an extension of the cold war.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
Since there were 10 minutes between your post and mine, I assume you did not go to the site.
Instead of researching on handful of technologies, the NASA budget delivers over 30,000 separate spinoffs over the last 30 years in fields such as health and medicine, environment, public safety, consumer/home/recreation, transportation, computer technology and industrial productivity. I call that a pretty damn good investment. By the way, you are aware that NASA's budget is less than %0.5 of the total federal budget right? I mean we spend more than that on the Farm Service agency in this country (source).
I wish more research would deliver that kind of return on investment.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
With frieds risking the lives to fight an illegal and needles war he started, yeah, he does effect me.
Of course giving money to NASA makes up for all the other terrible situations he has caused.
Also, to pay gor his little oil protection war, the feds want to take 247 million of fed funding from the state I live in, so again, he impacts me on a real and meaningfull way. Every fucking day.
Anyone who says they wil lower taxes whilee allocating money for a war is an idiot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There's always lots of talk about velcro and other space-related spinoff technologies, but no one ever seems to mention the main one -- ICBMs. That's the real reason why the US and the Soviet Union were interested in the moon in the first place.
If we spent our money on an alternative energy program instead of manned space flight, we'd still get spinoff technology. Those spinoffs just wouldn't happen to include things that blow people up.
Send half of the crew to each location. Use 2 landing craft. If we can land with one, we can land with two. Since we're spending billions to go to a place we've already been, why not spend the extra money and really make it worth while?
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
OTOH, the technology used to protect and keep astronauts alive has been some of our most profitable* returns.
*Meaning for every tax dollar spent, it has returned around 15 in tax dollars.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Someone remind me why we're spending billions to go to the moon again? Is there any real reason other than a presidential mandate? Don't get me wrong -- I'm all in favor of the space program.. bigger, better, faster, and more -- but what's the point in targetting a barren rock covered in very static, highly abrasive, and possibly toxic dust? Previous expeditions have suffered mechanical failures, seal leaks, etc. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, there's the little issue of all the craters. More specifically, the lack of atmosphere that contributed to their formation. The (common?) estimate of 70-150 impacts per year would seem to ignore the 1,400 to 10,000 impacts per hour during Leonid meteor storms. While any lunar landing expedition would almost certainly avoid such periods, it doesn't bode well for any sort of permanent outpost which, again, makes me wonder what's the point of going back to the moon.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
However, I don't think we should go to the moon at all. I think we should get our house in order first.
"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!"
-- Larry Niven, quoted by Arthur Clarke in interview at space.com, 2001
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
If you wanted to put an observatory on the moon and keep the moon between it and the interference from the Earth, it would be best to have your observatory on a rail transport system so that when the moon rotates, the observatory can move away from the earth towards whatever side of the moon happens to be the "dark side of the moon" at that time.
Using the same system, you would also want a comms station on rail always pointing TOWARDS Earth so you can keep constant communications with your lunar base(s)
-------------
Alternatively, you could put your observatory out at one of the Lagrange points where gravity between the Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars pretty much hold a station in place at the L point - however, this would not give you the mineral mining capability that a genuin lunar base would.
I think you meant Olympus Mons. Mons Veneris is something completely different...
You can not know what would have been invented had we used the money for other purposes.
Whether you think NASA's budget warranted or otherwise, once you allocate resources one way, you can't continue figuring down any other path.
Anyone who speaks in any detail about what we (c|w)ould or (c|w)ould not have accomplished had the government not spent this money on NASA is simply making stuff up or guessing.
Who goes on holiday when their house is a mess eh?
I do! Who wants to hang around a messy house?
-g.
The real question is can we get back to the moon at all? The US govt is likely to cut funding rather than increase it as the Hubbert Curve begins to bite.
I'm with you, I think the moon is a waste of time.
Mars, however, is the place humans will go to live next. Most of the problems you describe are either a) indelible aspects of the human condition and b) mitigated by the availability of a frontier.
Don't you think that somebody who lives on Mars is going to become a King Kong Jedi badass sustainability engineer? Don't you think that some of those techniques will be exportable back to Earth?
NASA's budget is peanuts. The return on investment is literally incalculable.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Taxes from industries that would not exist except for satellite communications pay NASA's budget dozens of times over. Who's to say where the next breakthrough economic windfall will occur?
Space is hard. Doing hard things creates interesting solutions to problems. Doing that a lot is a good idea.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Yes to the above questions. Just get humanities collective butt off this dirt ball. 30 years ago would have been a time to start...
Is your whole post a joke? MOD PARENT UP +1 INSIGHTFUL!!!!1!
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
The place where we landed last time on the moon - in some studio near or in Hollywood.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
" Doing hard things creates interesting solutions to problems. Doing that a lot is a good idea."
So, you'd be all in favor of spending billions of taxpayer dollars to fund my proposal to get a goldfish to survive while swimming in a uranium-lined-bowl-of-kerosene-fired-at-Mach-4 into-an-active-volcano.
I promise you, lots of interesting technological snin-offs are bound to occur.
I don't think it hurts to explore space in a reasonable way.
We can learn something and extend out senses our into the
universe.
I agree with your sentiment however, that before we think about
going into space ourselves we ought to get the Earth in some
kind of sustainable situation.
It just gets worse and worse and the stupidity of man unless we
start thinking is going to kill the planet dead at some future
date.
The other thing is that humans were born and evolved to live on
this planet, with this air, with this amount of radiation, eating
plants and animals that evolved and grew here as well.
The idea of living in space may be romantic for some people, but
the reality I am sure would be so depressing and sad
animal in a cage, killing the last vestige of wildness and Earthly
organic contact in our beings before we become as ants in a nest or
bees in a hive. It is sad how some people rush headlong into something
they have not thought about.
I would just aim for the middle and hope we hit it!
Maybe he's been to SE Asia and met a few "women" in his day?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Also, I believe that there's another type of fusion reactor under construction somewhere in the US. Though I can't find a link to it, I think it's at Lawrence-Livermore National Labs.
Resistance... is futile.
not everything technological came from the space program,
and besides would you argue as vehemently for war as you
would for space exploration when you find out how much
war made our technology progress??
Agreed... sadly, I think most of the /. community doesn't get the joke.
Mons Veneris, AKA Mons Venis is the pubic mound.
"In females this fleshy area above the vulva is also called the mons veneris (Latin, mound of Venus)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mons_veneris
no comment
I should have figured out it was a joke myself, I just take /. posts to allways be informative
3 59638
btw he has posted this before http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172442&cid=14
It's much easier to get back into orbit from the equator due to the moon's rotational speed. This is the same reason those floating satellite launch pads travel all the way to Earth's equator before launch.
It is infact a joke. After checking the parent's history it has been posted before, check http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172442&cid=143 59638
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html
Educate yourselves.
For those of you that are too freakin lazy to go to the site here is a sample of what we get from the space program:
- Computer Technology - NASA Spinoffs
- Advanced keyboards, Customer Service Software, Database Management System, Laser Surveying, Aircraft controls, Lightweight Compact Disc, Expert System Software, Microcomputers, and Design Graphics.
- Consumer/Home/Recreation - NASA Spinoffs
- Dustbuster, shock-absorbing helmets, home security systems, smoke detectors, flat panel televisions, high-density batteries, trash compactors, food packaging and freeze-dried technology, cool sportswear, sports bras, hair styling appliances, fogless ski goggles, self-adjusting sunglasses, composite golf clubs, hang gliders, art preservation, and quartz crystal timing equipment.
Now quit whining and go back to your boring job like the rest of us. Quit wasting your employers money here whining."Who goes on holiday when their house is a mess eh?"
Why do you think early man migrated from continent to continent? Because their caves were a mess!
It has been the desire to not clean up our own messes which has driven mankind to the ends of the Earth. It only makes sense that getting out of cleaning up our messes should be what drives us into the solar system.
"Clean out the gutters? But honey! I'm going to the moon!"
Why is there a 300 million difference between those two figures if it's the same budget?
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
your logical fallacy is known as a 'false dichotomy' or a false choice.
you see, you assume that we EITHER go to the moon OR 'get our house in order first'. Why can't we do both simultaneously...hmmm...
And, this is definitely not a budget issue. DoD spending vs. Nasa spending...it's a joke.
Who goes on holiday when their house is a mess eh?
You're not joking, are you? Some (most?) slashdot readers ALWAYS have a messy house, holiday or not...I know I wouldn't let a messy house keep me from going on a weeklong heli-boarding trip in Alaska...
Thank you Dave Raggett
.... a magnetic track that circles around the moon designed to launch probes and non-manned ojects at hyper-velocities because there is no atmosphere. I believe I calculated that the maximum speed you could send manned spacecraft on such a track is only about 4km/s which would have a 9G "upward" force as you circled around the moon. 1,750km radius and using the centripetal acceleration formula of acceleration = (velocity^2)/radius ==> (4000m/s^2)/175,000m = 91.43 m/s^2. Unless I made some kind of huge error, that's just over 9G and the tolerance of humans with special equipment to maintain bloodflow to the brain.
Unless it's far easier to get this kind of velocity or greater with a space elevator. I believe that at 73,600km which is twice as high as geosynchronous orbit, you could only get just about 1.8km/s of velocity if you were stopped at the end of the tether and just "let go".
You could always bring rocket fuel along to achieve even faster speeds as you "fly" away.
Variations of this post have been around for years. It was very funny for the first few months, but the trolls should really get some new material.
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
Should We Land on the Moon's Poles or Equator?
Yes!
Direct benefits never are. We have spent 100's of billions doing Nuclear Fusion. We are now being told that by 2035, we will have a profitable reactor on-line. If I had to guess, it will have cost us trillions of dollars to do that and will not be until about 2050. It is easy for us to target one thing to research. But in all research, it is almost never what you are looking for, that yields the greatest benefits to mankind. It is normally some side thing that we did not think about, that comes along and is suddenly created. Consider how much has come from the Lowly PC? THat is a side benefit of doing huge computers for ballistics, followed by research for the military and NASA. Now, you wish to push money into medical research. Cool. So we solve major issues here. Imagine if we solved all virus tomorrow. What condition would this planet be in? Over-population in under 20 years. We would not have enough time to adjust. Basically, if you focus all your efforts in just one area, you will neglect the balance of life. 16B to go to space is absolutely nothing. We are spending far more just to service reagan's debt, let alone GWB's (I do not count Poppa Bush and Clinton, because both were responsible and worked towards balancing the budget). Likewise, we are spending a fortune on medicare/SS/etc. If you want to afford those, then we need to create jobs. The best jobs are never from direct things, but from side things. Even now, the X prize is a direct branch from NASA (more like frustration with NASA, but still...). The number of jobs that will be created because of NASA will be enormous over the next 5 years. BTW, those jobs will enable us to fund more projects that you would like to see happen.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Becasue technologies developed for space flight can help with the problems here.
Think about it. What do you have to do to travel through space? Clean air, recycle waste, use energy efficent designs, and improve communications.
To go farther then the moon, or stay on the moon longer, better batteries and improved techniques for creating electricity will be needed.
What we have is an agency that can have the opportunity to create technologies to help 'clean our house'.
Plus, tyhe governemt got back more then it spent for the moon trips. The amount of taxes spent by the companies and workers of companies who make there money selling products whose RnD effort go directly back to NASA is staggering.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
However, I don't think we should go to the moon at all. I think we should get our house in order first.
Are you talking about exporing this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_earth
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I mean can't we build a vehicle that is not only capable of landing on the moon, but also capable of traveling around the moon once its landed? I know there would be a limit to the amount of fuel you could take, but maybe you could take enough for say 500 miles of lunar transit.
I found these two wikipedia articles really informative...
... the far side has a different texture compared to the near side - it is battered and densely-cratered, and doesn't have the dark spots (maria) that the near side has. The crust of the Moon is 40 km thicker on the far side.
... because of the way the moon rotates, we can actually see 59% its surface -- not the 50% you'd expect. See this excellent graphic for an explanation.
Far side of the moon
Libration
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
ITER is a big political game to see who can get how much of the research money. There is a concept, that may or may not work when implemented, and literally billions being spent on the project. Most of the expenditures are around lobby efforts to get various parts of the program located into various political pork pens. Another big chunk is spent on beurocracy to satisfy the lobby. What little is left over, may actually get spent on real research, assuming there is anything left over after all the pigs have fed at the trough.
Well, if you're talking about sending probes, I'd say do both (though I'd start with the mountains). I read the articles and the one that discusses the mountains makes some very good points about the habitability of the mountains.
First, you get much more solar power by sitting up there. Second, you are always in communication with the Earth. Third is the possibility of water ice which--if confirmed--could supply water and oxygen to the base. This is the winner, in my book. Of course, if there is no water ice, then all bets are off.
While the "manufacturing" possibilities are better at the equator, the first requirement to me is to get people to the moon and figure out how to keep them alive without having to ship everything they need from Earth. Once that's done, we can start thinking about other sites for doing other things. Heck, there might be a migration away from the poles if the hydrogen/oxygen potential of the rocks at the equator are realized. Though you'd probably still want that sunlight from the poles for power, that could be beamed via satellite eventually.
We can screw up the other planets later.
the moon rotated fast/slow enough to change which side faced the earth, and people just referred to the dark side as whichever side happened to be facing away from the earth.
however, it couldnt much hurt (aside from money) to have the observatory on a rail system to make it more versatile as far as which direction in space it is pointing from the moon relative to earth (so you could have it point parallel or perpendicular to the earth)
E---M-S, or E---M|S, where E represents Earth, M=Moon, and S=Station/observatory
Joke? You disagree that that's a good place for an asteroid processing plant and launch facility?
Now add up the cost of creating all of that crap without shooting it into space?
1 is the 2005 budget, 1 is the 2006 budget.
This is where reading the linked articles helps.
The SRB use ammonium nitrate, aluminium and some rubber binder. The bulk of the exhaust will be nitrogen oxides, nitrogen, water, and alumina, nothing very toxic. The main engine gives similar stuff from liquid fuels. If it were highly toxic, where are the deaths of wildlife and people upon each launch?
I do believe restraining population is a more urgent priority, but it is in our nature to explore everything no matter how dangerous or expensive. We can temporarily afford space because of the benificence of our planet and industrial agriculture. I believe disease or war will take care of the population problem if we do not, so why not explore space?
A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
If you are looking for "investors" or "funding" you better damn well have an "end game". People don't spend money because "it's a good idea". They spend money because there is a purpose, a goal, a DIRECT benefit, or a DIRECT return.
Libertas in infinitum
We should not even be thinking about going to the moon. We went before. Been there, done that. There's nothing there that can justify the cost of going there.
It's hard to constantly do this, but it is necessary. Americans need to be reminded that they live in a fantasyland. They are 5 percent or so of the world's population and use 60+ percent of the world's annual resource output. This can't continue forever, or even long enough to sustain the enormous cost long enough to return some credible and tangible worthwhile result from a lunar or extra-planetary space program.
In addition, there is looming on the horizon for the world:
-global warming and the climatic and envirnomental changes which credible scientists tell us may be catastrophic.
-peak oil. Where the energy cost of getting oil into useful form is a significant percentage of the energy returned from that oil's usage. This will drive up the price of oil to the point where typical American lifestyles (including space exploration yearnings) are no longer feasable.
-the switch from the use of the US dollar to either the Euro or a 'currency basket' as the world's medium of wealth storage and exchange. This could cause severe inflation of the US dollar, since the US economy is overextended and its government bankrupt in real terms.
-severe overpopulation and near-free global telecommunications. Everyone can see how rich the Americans live and how poor they are. They can talk to each other and coordinate their responses, either terrorism or more effective economic focus actions.
None of these conditions existed when the Americans went to the moon in the 1960s. They are all too real now.
Best leave your space exploration yearnings to Hollywood or virtual-reality simulators.
This is not a troll. It is serious stuff. Try talking to non-geeks (especially non-Americans) about the need for further space programs to get a more balanced perspective on this issue before making too many technical plans.
Thank you.
http://it.is.rice.edu/~rickr/goddard.editorial.htm l
Well, more like lack of something. Lower gravity means that it's much easier to launch something off the moon. Lack of atmosphere means that you get a lot more bang for your solar panel buck.
The Raven
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I'd rather skip the goldfish and the uranium and just work on a scramjet. Oh yeah, NASA is.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
needs to be built at the equator. Easier access to space.
I dont do meaning of life questions.
"Should We Land on the Moon's Poles or Equator?" Answer: No. We've got more important things to do.
No.. No, we should not land on the moon's poles or equator. Thank you.
Did I miss the announcement where we're going back to the moon? I thought that had to come before we decide where we're going to land.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I'd feel a lot more comfortable if the stats used in that report were consistant. 13 Billion in 1966 would is certainly worth more than 16 Billion even in 2001; I'm thinking more like 50 Billion?
The problem is that NASA is viewed as a prestige part of the US government. We waste much greater amounts of money every year on welfare, and other social spending programs. These programs seem to be justified even when all they produce is MORE social problems. If we expect NASA to produce a product there will have to be changes; changes like opening information to the public, things that will show an average american that research is worthwhile.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Being an astronaut sounds cool when you're 12 years old, but really, we shouldn't go back to the moon at all. People don't seem to understand how expensive it is to get humans to the surface and back safely. There is no conceivable way to make money (or even break even) by going there, so an economic argument is right out. There aren't any valuable or useful minerals there. Even if there were, it would cost a ridiculous amount of money to get significant quantities back to Earth. The moon isn't a good place for a base of any kind. It doesn't even have an atmosphere -- space junk will pulverize anything big that's there for a long period of time.
The most valuable things you can get on the moon, we already have: nice pictures of Earth.
Good idea: Going to the moon in 1969. It showed the Russians who was in charge.
Bad idea: Going back. The moon is dusty, boring, and useless.
Oh and lets not forget if it was not for the US Military, you would not be posting here, because the Internet would not of existed. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) created the Information Processing Technology Office to further the research of the Semi Automatic Ground Environment program, which had networked country-wide radar systems together for the first time, which in turn lead to the development of the Internet. History shows the Military/NASA spending and research spurs technology development time and time again.
Talk about biased, unfair, and illogical liberal statement!!! Geeez!!!
PS added you as a Foe. WHY IMHO and to put it simply! "your an idiot!" MOD me as a troll on this one if you want it will not effect my karma, but I had to get that off my chest.
Sig
no, poles... oh slashdot! I already have enough to worry about. Now this!
More money is spent and less is performed when the money just goes to research without a goal. Giving the research an overall goal or project, focuses development and makes the research more efficient.
This is human nature. People will work better and be more creative if they have something to work together on as a team, rather than just a bunch of independant unrelated tasks.
Also the goal causes unintended benefits. No one sat down and said - "lets invent carbon-fibre!". Some larger project needed a lightweight but strong structure and carbon-fiber was the discovered solution.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
It's not like it matters where we land, we all know the moon is really a sound stage somewhere in New Mexico. Why do you think we only have still photos and very short video clips from the moon? Keep a camera going long enough and there is always someone to stick their face in front of it and shout "Hi Mom!"
Forget the Moon or even Mars, I think we should land on Uranus! I bet people would pay to see that, you could make millions.
Can you imagine being the first man on Uranus? Sure it's a gas giant, I say even better that Uranus is all gas. I wonder what momentus words would be spoken? Imagine being asked what it was like to walk on Uranus!
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It's ALL dark.
let's use enough to turn the moon on its side. That way the poles would be on the original equator, and both those that want to land on the poles for their position and those wanting to land on the equator for its geology would be happy. And move it closer so we can go over the weekends.
Free return trajectory.
Thats only possible with a landing site close to the equator.
And for a first mission it seems prudent to use belt, suspenders, duct-tape and a liberal ammount of armor plating.
When I read the headline, I first wondered why NASA would ask slashdotters where to land, but then I remembered how well researched and considerate a group we are... ...by the way, I vote for the dark side of the moon, cuz it sounds so cool!
"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price? "
if we are actually to chart/explore the moon and such... shouldn't we explore it as a whole? what does it really matter at this point the spot that we explore first? it's not like we are going to find precious silicon.
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.
e r_Collider).
The dynamics of sunken costs are interesting, but not fool-proof. Consider the SSC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Sup
I bet he can spell better than you.
Who run Barter Town?
Amazing that we did it in the 60's (and many times)and today we are debating how and when we should go back.
I'm just reading the book of Kranz (flight director of Apollo mission for the first man on the moon, and other missions as well). It's amazing how fast they were putting together a new mission at that time, and not just repeating the last mission but adding new complexity to it.
Today it takes months if not years to prepare the next shuttle flight, and it does the same as the last flight, nothing more complex.
How did they do it back in the 60's, it's amazing, considering the technology they had. And finally without so many casualties, with all due respect to the families of the crew which has burnt on the pad.
Thumbs up for these guys of the 60's, I guess the race against the russians was the driver. What's the driver today to go back to the moon ?
Yes.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Right?
NASA still has a tiny budget, less than 1% of the entire federal budget and that budget has been shrinking, in real terms, for the past several administrations. NASA doesn't have any clear mission that is actually feasible with the current funding levels. Their scientists aren't allowed to speak on any controversial matters without having an administration handler present.
When JFK announced that we were going back to the moon, people believed him, because it was clear he meant it. How many of you really believe that Bush has any intention of us going back to the Moon? He seems to have some fantasy about going back to the Apollo days, one that apparently now involves scraping decades of advancement and retreating to using the original engines designed for Apollo.
What does it say about our space program when we are going backwards in terms of the technology we use, rather than forward?
I believe that NASA should be used to reach for the stars and develop technology that can be exploited by private enterprise to create a viable economic interest in space and space exploration. NASA should be offering prizes for development of specific technological goals that will eventually allow us to exploit the resources available on asteroids and the Moon. Once we can do that, the rest of space exploration will take care of itself. There are enough resources available in space that if we can develop economically viable access, it will transform the world economy.
Just a single average-sized metallic asteroid has enough iron to supply the world industries for years. Comets can supply water. The Moon can supply Helium-Three, an isotope that may promise clean nuclear fusion. The Moon might also have water at the poles, and definately has plenty of silicon and oxygen.
The problem is we need a leader that actually understands the economics involved and is truley capable of motivating people.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
.... Ecuador != Equator ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Spaceflight indeed chews up so much fuel that through using chemical rockets we are just barely capable of getting to the Moon. This also required the development of the F1 Engine that was used on the 1st stage of the Saturn V rocket, which is still considered the most powerful rocket engine that has ever been developed by any rocket engineer. And that took five of those engines to power the first stage. The Russians had a smaller rocket engine for their lunar vehicles, and that was indeed one of the points of failure for their program because they had to have close to 20 engines firing simultaneously to get their lunar vehicle off the ground.
As far as going into Lunar orbit first before landing... well, what do you think the Apollo spacecraft did? The problem is that you have one shot to land until you get some fuel resupply depots in Lunar orbit. It is also going to be much cheaper and easier to manufacture the fuel on the Moon than by hauling it up from the Earth, with the one problem of trying to collect hydrogen for the typical LOX/H2 rocket fuel.
Once you get onto the surface of the Moon, it will be much easier to get around with some sort of surface transportation than trying to fly around with rockets. These can even be solar powered so you don't need to worry about obtaining fuel from the Earth to keep them going, and have electric motors simply pushing against the surface with designs roughly like cars on the Earth. With nearly two weeks of continuous sunlight even on the Equator, I'm sure you can travel a fairly large distance before you run out of daylight and need to build even an emergency shelter from the lunar night.
You also forgot to mention that the gravity well on the Moon is going to be considerably less, which means that impacts on the Moon are going to be weaker than comparable impacts on the Earth, and it simply won't even attract as much stuff as normally impacts the Earth.
I'd also like to challenge the original poster to show how many people have been struck by a meteor on the Earth recently? Meteor landfalls do occur often enough that you can purchase them from collectors and hobbiest. I've seen some of the collections at universities that have a not insignificant number of them. I know of only two credible news reports of meteor crashes into people's houses, and even with one hitting somebody didn't do any fatal damage. And that is with the increased delta vee due to the much higher gravity on the Earth.
Far more damaging for people on the Moon will be Solar Storms, where you will have to seek some sort of radiation shelter if it gets too ugly. The Apollo missions were fortunate to have occured during a solar minimum of the sunspot cycle, so this never became a major issue for the astronauts at the time. You do not want to be in just a spacesuit when a solar flare hits the surface of the Moon. On the Earth it just creates spectacular Aurora.
Totally incorrect yourself. Most rocket exhaust is *Not* from SRBs. Most rockets burn either kerosene/LOX (CO2+H2O) or LH2/LOX (H2O only).
If I had specified "The Shuttle System", you might have a point. I didn't, nor did the parent poster. And even if solid rockets *were* how most launches got to space, the pollution would still be insignificant compared to industry or automobiles.
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
They should land near the entrance to the secret alien base on the far side of the moon, that way they can just walk up and knock on the door...
Don't forget Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize winning propaganda about Stalin's Soviet paradise.
If you are going to make such blanket statements, you should do you homework, and know the stuff.
:)
Oh, this is hilarious, you are going to lecture *me* on rocketry!
While it's true, most upper stage engines used for space maneuvers are LH/O2 engines, the heavy work of lifting off the ground is rarely done by those types of engines. Reality is, lets take a look at some common launch vehicles.
Yes, worldwide, lower stages of reasonably sized orbital rockets are various forms of kerosene burned with LOX. Assuming an average hydrocarbon chain length of eight carbons and 18 hydrogens, that's 8CO2 and 9 H2O. Volume per volume, even LOX/Kerosene produces more H2O than CO2. LOX/LH (increasingly common in lower stages) is pure H2O.
Space Shuttle uses the Main engines to produce roughly 25% of it's launch lift, and a couple of SRB units to produce the rest.
And it's the only large payload launch vehicle on the planet to do so, thus pointing that out is pretty silly of you. Ariane uses solid rockets, but they're more fueled by HTPB, and smaller; they only provide about half of the Ariane's thrust. The overall Ariane system balance is still toward H2O because of the H2O produced by burning of the HTPB. Apart from these two (okay, Ariane is a series, but same difference), there are no large rockets that use solid boosters. The hyperactive Russian launch system is focused on Proton/Soyuz and their derrivative series', which are based on LOX/Kerosene. The Chinese Long March rockets are also liquid fueled. The new entries into the market typically use solid rockets, but as they scale up, they switch to liquid; this is already happening in India, we've watched it progress in Japan (the H-2A is already mostly LOX/LH), and it is likely to follow suit in Israel. Solids are low performance, but popular in missile programs because they require little prelaunch prep, and space programs typically evolve from missile programs.
SRB stands for 'Solid Rocket Booster'.
Why don't you define the word "for" while you're at it? You're defining the most elementary vocabulary to someone who's written rocketry simulators.
Go do a chemical anlysis of the exhaust from one of those things, it's a rather toxic mix of substances.
Apart from the aforementioned fact that the shuttle is the only large launch system worldwide to use its design of SRBs for the first stage, SRB exhaust is not particularly toxic unless you're breathing it in directly. The aluminum oxide becomes a particulate very quickly (which is why SRBs are so smoky when they burn), which precipitates out quickly. It's nontoxic and settles to the seafloor along with plenty of natural aluminum oxide. Most of the gaseous exhaust is CO2, H2O, N2, N2O, NO2, and HCl. N2O and NO2 aren't great, but in the quantities produced are miniscule compared to that of industry and automobiles. The HCl, while it sounds nasty, tends actually lead to global cooling by encouraging cloud formation, and is released in far smaller quantities than even natural volcanism, let alone industry.
Take a good deep breath of SRB exhaust, and even without the heat, it'll be your last
Wrong, as previously discussed (although if you haven't let the aluminum oxide precipitate first, you'll get quite a cough. Breathing in dust isn't fun). Now, if you were talking about a LH2/FLOX engine, that's a different story. That's the reason that FLOX isn't usually used except in experiments despite its very high ISP (that, and it tends to corrode the heck out of anything you put it in, and is an explosion risk).
Areanne and delta
Can't you even spell Ariane? And modern delta-series rockets use LOX/LH2 boosters, not solid boosters. You have to go back to the early deltas to find solid stages. Hint: just because it uses boosters doesn't mean that they're solid propellant.
Part of the political hurdle, is the environmental hurdle.
The "environmenta
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
No one believes that the trips to the moon never happened (especially the guy that moded my first post as a Troll). They think its just a big conspiracy theory. I read up on it though, and I'm very convinced that most of the info from those Apollo missions of the 60's and 70's were fake. The pictures were fake the video is fake and the sound is all faked. Once you stop and accept it, things make a lot more sense. They had such bad technology back then, and so very few problems. Yet somehow the perfect view and camera angle always seemed to exist to capture the best moments in man history in such an inspiration way. Stop and think about Apollo 13. What a herioc story. Problems happened and man overcame it. It made us proud to be Americans. They used their wits and genius to get their way out of such a dire position. It is such a movie script. Its too perfect. Once I watched an interview of James Lovell. He seemed way more interested in talking politics of how the mission affected U.S. people than in the technical details of the mission and how he solved the problems at hand. Why? Because in 1995 we have the knowledge and resources to call his bluff if he said anything wrong. So he'd rather not speak about it at all than be called out as a liar. I could write on it forever, but other already have. The Apollo missions were faked, and that is all there is to it.
023AD01("Child", "Evil");
If, as the site states, this is part of a larger initiative to get to Mars, then clearly the equatorial landing is a no-go precisely because we have a better understanding of what's there. Determining the presence of water at the poles is going to be necessary for any attempts at permanent or semi-permanent basing at the moon (which will most likely be necessary to make a Mars launch feasible). Thus, it is imperative we do a little legwork up front to determine the best location for a base.
It may turn out that the abundance of mineral resources, used as part of the argument for an equatorial landing, is homogeneous across the whole of the lunar regolith and below (if modern theories of lunar formation are correct, this is quite likely).
But if there is water at the poles and equal abundance of minerals, this is just the sort of necessary information that an equatorial landing will not reveal.
Of course, I'm no NASA scientist. Then again, I don't use metric and imperial measure together without appropriate conversions, so they have more experience losing things and crashing things into other things than I do.
Before deciding where to put us humans, its obvious we need to go where the water is first and foremost.
Otherwise, that ashtray we call the moon is going to be pretty darn inhospitable.
Send the rovers to explore the possibilities.
Another issue to consider is that since there are areas around the poles of the moon that haven't been exposed to the hard radiation from the sun there may also be a different environment that can contain specimens not found anywhere else. I'm thinking of the possibility to find traces of life. With traces I'm at most thinking about dormant bacteria and spores, and at least amino-acids and other carbo-hydrates and other basic building-blocks of life.
The chance of finding that around the equator is slim since all the hard radiation from the sun during the millenias has probably broken up all complex molecules.
Anyway - If that is found on the moon it may arise the question whether life actually has formed on earth or if it has begun somewhere else. For most of the time in the history of earth there haven't been around anything else than single-cell life. It's only in the last billion years that we have had more complex life-forms around.
One interesting theory around reasons for the evolution of life on earth is actually corresponding to the fact that we actually have a comparably large moon. Relate that to other planets in our system where all moons are significantly smaller compared to the planet they orbit. Mars has two small moons that are more captured asteroids than anything else - Jupiter has a large variety - as has Saturn, but compared to the bulk of those planets the moons are still minor. Pluto has a moon that is relatively large compared to it's size - but then some argues that Pluto isn't a planet - and anyway it's too cold out there for any life as we know it. (which doesn't exclude life, but would we recognize it?)
The point here in the moon as a cause for evolution is that the moon is creating tidal water and that life that lives in shallow water gained an advantage if it was able to live in an environment that was lacking water for periods. Now - every planet actually "suffers" from tides due to the star they are circling, so life may evolve there too. This altogether assumes that the planet we study actually is similar to earth. But how unique is earth? We have a planet that is geologically active - which is necessary for land to be present - if it werent we wouldn't have any land - it would have eroded and at best there would have been coral reefs. Neither Mars or Venus are geologically active. This is interesting - so why is Earth? It may actually depend on the cause that we have a large moon - not that we have a moon that is large, but why it was created - a theory assumes that the moon was created by a collision between early earth and another large object during the birth of the solar system. This undoubtedly added a large amount of kinetic energy and mixing of material in the earth all the way to the core. But until we fins another planet that is earth-like we can't really tell if we are unique or not. Considering the large number of stars out there and the possibility that the majority of them has a planet system (no reason why not) there are undoubtedly planets that are resembling earth. Some may lack water - others may have too much water and yet others may be like Venus - hot atmosphere and no water. But can we be sure that a hot planet can't sustain life? Just look at the extremophile bacteria found in places like Yellowstone or around deep-sea volcanic smoke-vents. There is life in the ice at earths polar caps too - it lives at a very slow rate - but it is there.
Personally I think that any chance that we have to gain more knowledge about the world around us (including the moon) should be probed. Since the early moon-landings all were in areas that have been exposed to the sun it may be time to check other areas. You don't know what you will find until you have turned over that stone.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
So they decide with the coin flip at the superbowl? Heads pole, Tails equator.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
That's because the religion says one should give to the church. When people do this they are considering it something that will either benefit others directly, or themselves in the afterlife (or whatever).
Libertas in infinitum
You make an excellent point, I hadn't completely thought through the problem, and your suggestion certainly has a large impact. Although social programs may tax the rich in some way to punish them for their cuelty, these programs hardly ever actually help the problem they are trying to address. Most of the problem with SSI is that the federal government has "borrowed" for "surplus" SSI to pay for other programs. Of course, there never was any surplus, and now we have a huge deficit of what SSI has, and what SSI will be responsible to pay. Another social problem that fails is welfare. Welfare allows non working people to collect money from the government, however once that injured or lazy individual gets a job, welfare cuts their pay. Its a very unfortunate circumstance, where the recipeint is encouraged not to move on with their life, but instead keep on being lazy. Of course none of the people affected by this problem were ever really capable of being responsible, hard workers, but they would certainly not be as big a drain if there was no welfare system.
The problem with social programs is that they are opt-in. Money could still be spent on the poor by using taxes more productively, such as building better sports related parks (realize, most of these parks are used by the lower-middle class as things are now). Theres always something to throw money at, the problem is finding a just cause. Most of our contry has road systems that are overloaded, and in disrepair, we could spend more federal income tax on roads, and spend less gas tax on roads. The current tax system is not fair, and is not efficient. It would be trivial to make the tax system more efficient simply by cutting totally unproductive programs.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14