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Back to the Moon
starexplorer2001 writes "Space.com is reporting that NASA's planned trip back to the Moon isn't without a significant amount of science and technological innovation. Simply 'sponging off Apollo' won't do it. Among the issues: safer human spaceflight, lunar ice, sustainability, robotic scouting missions and more. This won't be easy."
"The Apollo program cost $25 billion, equivalent to about $125 billion in today's dollars."
[Source: http://www.waltercunningham.com/op_ed_0204.htm%5D
They actually put 3 reflective mirrors for the LLRE (Laser Lunar Ranging Experiment), during Apollo 11, 14 and 15. The mirrors are still in use today.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Well... the thing is, yes, technology has advanced. It hasn't advanced by the leaps and bounds that we would like it to have advanced by, however, and that is the crux of the problem. The Apollo program cost $135B in modern dollars. Even if we consider the overall effect of technology advancements to have doubled our access to space for the same dollar, the concept of a lunar base will require at least double the landing and liftoff payload (in addition to regular trips). Probably much more. It'll take serious money.
The public tolerates out of control spending on wars because the rhetoric is so heated on it - it's either an abomination or essential to the survival of our way of life, depending on which side you listen to. The level of discourse for space missions just isn't that extreme, and so people look a lot closer at the financial aspect. Apollo-level funding just isn't politically realistic. That's why they're stretching this out over the long run. The longer it takes, the less blatant it is that we're spending as much money as we are on this single program.
Lastly, something that I should mention: CEV design is not going well 2. I agree with Jeff Bell, who's been very critical of the whole proposal.
I tore these out of your symbol, and they turned into paper.
Sadly not, while space is "considered" quite cold the only way to cool is through heat radiation, which is pretty fucking inefficient, especially in near-vacuum. That's why satellites are usually shielded against heat: they can't dissipate it.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
It's called a corner reflector: three mirror surfaces mutually perpendicular. It has the interesting property that light striking it from any direction will wind up going back exactly the way it came -- after reflecting off one, two or three surfaces depending on where it hits first.
Make it from sheet metal and it works for radio waves...hang one from the mast of your sailboat and vessels with radar will see you as easily as they can see the Love Boat.
rj
Last I heard they'd only use 486s. But this was in 2000.
r s/Ch4-3.html or http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shut ref/orbiter/avionics/dps/gpc.html or even
No, not 486s. The CPUs in the 5 shuttle computers are AP-101S, which are upgrades from the AP-101B. iirc, the upgrades were circa 1991.
This CPU has its lineage in IBM 360 mainframes. See http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/compute
Helium-3 is a good reason to return to the moon .
6 30.html
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r ia_and_candidates_for_terrestrial_reactions
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It is theorized that there are over 1 million cubic tons,
with oil over $50 a barrel, and helium-3 then being worth
about 8 billion USD a ton, the total worth equalling 8,000 trillion USD .
It could smash the US deficit with 7,991 trillion USD to spare .
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
Also keep in mind most of the "other" moons have this as well .
Here are some photos of the reactor at the University of Wisconsin :
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/GeneralOpPics.htm
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/GeneralOpPicsII.htm
25 tons could power the US electrical needs for a year :
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000
I don't need to tell anyone that the US is the largest user of electricity on
the planet at present, and slated for massive growth .
The current immmigration bill sets aside for 100 - 200 million new citizens .
Kulcinski adds that, if it sold for $4 billion a metric ton, helium-3 would still be a
good energy value: "That's the equivalent of paying $28 a barrel for oil."
It will be a cold day in hell before we see oil at $28 a barrel again
So adjust the math accordingly
It becomes more viable with every passing day .
If we can make solar mining robots for the moon to process the soil, and
then use a mass driver to fling a projectile canister into lunar orbit for pick up.
Then a lunar orbit robotic satellite mass driver to fire it into earth geo-sync orbit .
Then have either a new space station, shuttle, or satellite prep it for re-entry
into the ocean for pick up much like the apollo capsules .
The robotic equipment could be tested here on earth prior to deployment on the moon .
It might be possible to make robots that could build it all via remote control, but
most likely we would initially need ppl to go to the moon to build the mass driver
and support facilities .
Building some or all of the support facilities underground would protect it to some
degree versus leaving it exposed on the surface .
At some future point 3HE+3HE fusion will be achieved and it will have zero nuetron emissions
and thus be truly clean as per the following link .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#Crite
Hope for the future
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"