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Project Orion to Bring U.S. Back to the Moon
ganjadude writes "Thirty-seven years ago yesterday, Project Apollo put the first humans on the surface of the Moon. The next time the U.S. launches its astronauts to Earth's natural satellite, they will do so as part of Project Orion." From the article: "Under Project Orion, NASA would launch crews of four astronauts aboard Orion capsules, first to Earth orbit and the International Space Station and then later to the Moon. Two teams, one led by Lockheed Martin and the other a joint effort by Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Co., are currently competing to build the CEV. NASA is expected to select the winner in September."
ah, the moon, the stepping stone to Mars. for me, this is a subject of much ambivalence. it's nice to see some actual money being spent on science, but at the same time, I struggle to really identify what benefit there is going to the moon, or to Mars. Other than public relations benefit, of course. But really, what will we find? That a few simple organisms once existed on mars, and that Mars once had water? But don't we know this now?
The Europeans focus much more heavily on aero-sciences, and we seem to be a lot more captivated by reaching the moon (etc). The Europeans are busy doing piles and piles of research (which will ultimately find many useful things), and similar research in this country is largely the burden of private organizations. All the tangible benefits we've reaped from space travel (tang, velcro, etc) could have been discovered much more cheaply (or if you prefer, in greater abundance for the same price) if we were simply focusing on inventing and not reaching some milestone out in space.
I guess what i'm saying is that I'm not sure how to feel about this; It's science, and exploration, and both are good (imo), but if we want to prioritize, wouldn't billions of dollars be better spent focusing on fixing our own messed up planet? Assuming there is some inherent benefit to going to the moon/mars/wherever, is it really necessary to send *HUMANS*? Could we not fund 10x as many unmanned missions and learn probably close to 10x as much?
I promise this post isn't a troll, I am a filmmaker, and interested in science, but obviously I have some question as to the science-value of putting men on a rock in space.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
"NASA is expected to select the winner in September."
Alice is going to the moon.
Didn't Apollo manipulate the goddess of the moon (Artemis) into killing Orion?
Not exactly the most auspicious name...
I read that as Project Onion.
Either way - something to cry over, I'm sure
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I read it as Project Orion, the old plan for building spaceships powered by nuclear explosions. Not even this administration is quite that insane (though I did need to go check the article).
It got my hopes up too. My first reaction was, "How'd they manage to pull THAT off."
And then I read the article. Definately need a new name, maybe Project Hercules or something like that.
The question that is going to define everything about the future missions is the Ares V. We already have a decent idea on how the Ares I is going to work. But the payload capacity of the Ares V will determine the scale and speed of our future work. Can we only put ~70 mT on the Moon or can we put more? Currently the Ares V has specified ~130 mT (slightly larger than the Saturn V). Theoretically, with moderate advances in engine efficiencies and additionaly strapon SRBs (which would require a launchpad redesign), it could lift 170 mT. This would put ~90 mT on the Moon (with CEV). Or 2 Ares V could be launched with 1 Ares I to put ~130 mT on the Moon.
It is all about weight. A sustainable habitat needs to have all the pieces and parts. The Moonbase will only grow as fast as the heavy lift rocket can build it.
... and cutting Shuttle flights and ISS funding and space telescope funding ...
I predict we will get some nice, new expensive exhibits for Space Camp and not much else.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I was also really annoyed at the name. They take the name for a project to get man to a planet on another solar system, and use it for this much much smaller project. :(
"Fall heavy towards the moon, and the moon falls also towards you." -- Nietzsche
Hammer and feather are dropped simultaneously from equal heights (as measured by distance from the center of the moon), separated laterally by a distance substantially less than the moon's diameter. Both hammer and feather experience force from the moon's gravity proportional to their mass, and hence both accelerate at the same rate. Meanwhile, the moon is also accelerating towards the other two objects, but unevenly so: the hammer exerts a greater gravitational pull due to its greater mass. The moon is therefore subject to a torque, causing it to accelerate more rapidly towards the hammer.
The hammer is first to hit the ground.
Anyone who denies this truth is a spatially absolutist lunocentric whose refusal to recognize the validity of hammer mechanics/experience places him wholly beyond the help of Galilean metaphysics. Such hammer (feather) rejectionists ought to be banished to the stars, for their own good and for the good of not only hammers and feathers but all subjugated smaller objects, everywhere, who find themselves victims of this scientifically perpetrated emassculation.
--
a756f345ec354225c08ff1a10a43162a
Alternatively, we could revise the name of the original nuclear pulse propulsion version of Project Orion. I vote for "Project KABOOM" :-P
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
I vote for a name change
No kidding. Naming in Orion is travsity. The real Orion would open up the entire solar system. This return to Apollo style capsules is an embarassment, a belated acknowledgement that we went down the wrong path and now must back up and start again. Nothing at all like the great leap forward that a nuclear pulse rocket would be.
To me, and I admit I am a small individual, I see a waste of resources by this admnistration. It is even worse that if it (the moon idea) has managed to get this far, so many in administration do not see the waste that we are about to encounter.
Wasn't Orion the name of the project for using nuclear propulsion in the rockets? If so then I wonder if reviving Orion will revive research into this as well.
Project Orion has been used in a lot of sci-fi stories. The basic premise is that nuclear warheads are dropped below the ship, where the detonate and the blast lifts the ship. Relatively cheap way to lift immense masses.
:)
It'd be the easiest way to establish a permanent moon base or make a trip to Mars, but of course people don't like the idea of thousands of nuclear warheads going off in their backyard.
Obviously only the name is the same with this latest version.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Apollo 18 was killed by budget cuts shortly after 19 and 20 were. :(
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On the other hand, I agree that the Shuttle was the wrong path. It is/was an expermiental vehicle, neutered by politics. Who knows what it might have been had they stayed true to the original vision. Alas, politics is the fountain of compromise, and compromise is the enemy of engineering.
Not really. In order to use a nuclear pulse rocket (or any realistically sized method of nuclear propulsion) you need a heavy lift rocket. Currently there is no heavy lift rocket that could realistically put a nuclear pulse rocket into LEO (and a nuclear pulse rocket would have to be in a very high earth orbit or in interplanetary space before any politician would allow it to be activated). Rebuilding our heavy lift capability with the CaLV or Ares V is essential.
Second, we need a cheap way to put humans into space. The CLV or Ares I will do that.
The only part that you should consider a waste would be building the lander (and perhaps the CLV if you are one of those machine-only supporters). The Ares architecture will be extremely useful for future technologies. Even large rockets like the Delta IV or the Arianne V are kids toys compared to real heavy lift rockets like the Saturn V and the Ares V. Having a 100 ton class rocket makes a lot of projects possible, not just Project Orion.
how about instead of going to the moon, we tax the rich to pay for single payer healthcare? ya damn sheeple....
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
You've already gotten the usual answers: dubious claims of technological advances (always a very short list, usually stuff that was being worked on already), and utopian ideas of being able to provide a backup of human life (which would cost hundreds of trillions and doesn't really seem necessary, especially to a cynic like me who thinks that if we manage to wipe ourselves out then we're not worth backing up). Plus the usual "It could produce all kinds of stuff you don't know about" (which hardly seems like justification for spending a quarter-trillion dollars) and a vague notion of manifest destiny.
All of which are lies. They're obviously justifications because they don't want to tell you the real reason: because it's cool. And arguably, that's the best reason.
The US reached its position of power in the world largely on the back of its inventiveness. (Immensely fertile land didn't hurt, but we'd have long since tapped that out if we hadn't invented a huge array of technology to prop it up).
If a high-profile "scientific" mission (there's actually little scientific value to manned space-flight) inspires the things that bring money into America today, from Sergey Brin to Dean Kamen to Craig Venter, perhaps it's money worth spending.
Other than that, it's mostly a way to funnel vast sums of money to prop up the military contractors. Guess what Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, and Lockheed do when they're not building space-ships? And they do it in practically every Congressional district in the country.
Why would other civilizations be angry about our no bid contracts? They're costing us, not them.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
grandiose ideas like moon trips are used by the overclass to manipulate and control us, just as nationalism, manifest destiny, and so forth, were used in the past. Those at the top are always searching for powerful symbols to use to control us. I say eat the rich. Ignore their maniulative symbology, then indict and try them in a court of law, then hang them by rule of law and then eat them. Yummm.....rich people /homer
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
The design work is already done ( which saves years and bucks ), the testing is done ( which saves years, bucks, and probably lives ). Is Orion going to be that much better to be worth all the extra costs?
If you bother to look past the short term expenses I think you will start to realize how beneficial it would be to establish modes of efficient travel and a permanent presence on terra luna. There are physical characteristics there that make it ideal for a number of different industries, most obviously, an inconsequential atmosphere, and relatively low gravity.
For example, how big and how perfect of a pure silicon crystal could you grow there? And how much energy would it require? The low gravity means that you could make one much bigger (6 times as big? or is there an exponential factor there?). The near-nothing atmosphere means that probably all the energy you would need would be available via solar panels. Energy collection could be a business in itself (you want to stop using hydrocarbons, right?). And what about transport of these goods? What would it cost? How about almost nothing to any location on planet earth? I imagine even small towns would have a designated delivery port where lunar cargo could be dropped with the accuracy of a smart-bomb... cheaper and faster than a cargo ship from China.
Sure, it's incredibly expensive to establish a presence there, but in the long term, it's more expensive not to.
AHA! Martin The Martian shows his new name! :p
Finally...humans are going to the moon :) Maybe the Apollo missions were simply fake films and the ISS was built to go to the moon !
By the way, what are they gonna do once they land there ? Just hop around and collect some stuff ? If we humans did infact land there 30 yrs ago, how have we used that knowledge ?
D'ya mean like just type "project orion" into google and see if you get any hits?
Like this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
marVin
/pedant
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Well, strictly speaking, you *dont* need any lift rocket
at all. You are assuming a start from LEO.
emt 377 emt 4
You'd think they could come up with a better name, I mean it's not rocket science.
How about we land in earnest and setup a permanent base, really hedging humanities bets against any astronomical catastrophe short of a supernova.
We need to head up there and build a glass factory and an iron factory, is what needs to happen. Then we need to start building all types of stuff that will be very inexpensive to launch because the moon's gravity is so much less than the earths.
I mean, is there a point to these missions? Or are they just more little go and take picture expeditions?
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Yes its the Bush Administration's grand plan to make you look at what's in the right hand while they screw the planet with the left hand.
... as only NASA can."
All funding is being stripped from projects that look at the earth - all dissent at NASA is being muuzzled so we can explore the moon and Mars.
This administration's grand plan to benefit those (oil companies and others) who would reap dollars by denying that we in the US are part of the global warming problem and the main generator of CO2 from emissions must be stopped.
Science geeks say "Wow - yeah the moon and Mars - cool!" are having theie attention diverted as to what really is going on here.
You have to ask yourself - who stands to make the most money and get the most political long term gain here?
Its all a smoke screen to divert dissent.
Check out the latest article from the New York Times - 7/22/06 - "NASA's Goals Delete Mention of Home Planet" by Andrew Revkin - in the Science section:
"From 2002 until this year, NASA's mission statement, prominently featured in its budget and planning documents, read: "To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers
In early February, the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" deleted. In this year's budget and planning documents, the agency's mission is "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research."
David E. Steitz, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the aim was to square the statement with President Bush's goal of pursuing human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars.
But the change comes as an unwelcome surprise to many NASA scientists, who say the "understand and protect" phrase was not merely window dressing but actively influenced the shaping and execution of research priorities. Without it, these scientists say, there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
"We refer to the mission statement in all our research proposals that go out for peer review, whenever we have strategy meetings," said Philip B. Russell, a 25-year NASA veteran who is an atmospheric chemist at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "As civil servants, we're paid to carry out NASA's mission. When there was that very easy-to-understand statement that our job is to protect the planet, that made it much easier to justify this kind of work."
Several NASA researchers said they were upset that the change was made at NASA headquarters without consulting the agency's 19,000 employees or informing them ahead of time.
Though the "understand and protect" phrase was deleted in February, when the Bush administration submitted budget and planning documents to Congress, its absence has only recently registered with NASA employees.
Mr. Steitz, the NASA spokesman, said the agency might have to improve internal communications, but he defended the way the change was made, saying it reflected the management style of Michael D. Griffin, the administrator at the agency.
"Strategic planning comes from headquarters down," he said, and added, "I don't think there was any mal-intent or idea of exclusion."
The line about protecting the earth was added to the mission statement in 2002 under Sean O'Keefe, the first NASA administrator appointed by President Bush, and was drafted in an open process with scientists and employees across the agency.
In the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established the agency in 1958, the first objective of the agency was listed as "the expansion of human knowledge of the earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space."
And since 1972, when NASA launched the first Landsat satellite to track changes on the earth's surface, the agency has been increasingly inv
I'd do the same for you.
As he already mentioned it really isn't realistic to start blowing up nukes in the atmosphere to get the rocket off earth.
One day you will wake up and realize that these corporations don't care what country they are in. It is all about them. Not all about you. They control things. Not you. If everything blows up they are going to profit. It's a win win for them. A loss loss for you. Country, boundaries, say what? You are either with corporation or against army. Make up your mind.
Maybe the U.S. had better bring the White House back to reality first.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Zaphod: Who would bomb a publishing company?
Marvin: Another publishing company...
Share and Enjoy
I thought that Griffin "got it". Now I'm not so sure.
Seastead this.
I keep thinking of that old Wild Wild West dude.
Can we get back to NASA looking UP and OUT and let NOAA handle looking IN and AROUND?
Personally, I want NASA to come up with good spacecraft and ways to foster getting those spacecraft up cheaper and faster. I'd prefer to let NOAA concentrate on things like global warming and CO2 impact.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
"Martin the Martian"? I thought Martians had alien-sounding names like "K'Breel". ^_^
No kidding??? You've got to be kidding!
The original Orion engine design specified detonating ONE BOMB PER SECOND. Making it feasible to manufacture tiny atomic bombs in the quantities required would be an industrial feat to rival anything ever done by mankind. For two weeks of acceleration the engine would consume over a million bombs. As others have pointed out, the ship itself would be enormous, and the bombs would have to be ferried up to it with numerous orbital flights. Every single mission would be a stupendous undertaking. I can't believe anybody still takes this concept seriously.
A much more practical way to build a nuclear engine would be to use a gaseous core reactor to vaporize a nonradioactive propellant. For example, here is an article about a hypothetical design for a fully reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that would take off from the ground and haul 1000 tons of cargo into orbit, and could return an equal size cargo to a powered landing. A rocket with such carrying capacity could make interplanetary flights directly from Earth, with no need to manufacture, store and transport millions of atomic bombs.
So the US is moving from a 7 person reusable space plane to a 30 year-old-idea 4 person capsule. A giant step for mankind.
A Blender3D user made a 3D concept video of Project Orion as it was originally thought up. Of course, the voyage to Mars never happened, but it's pretty cool to watch how the propulsion would have worked:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=V1vKMTYa40A
The Apollo capsules were designed for a meaningless, stupid stunt. Put a man on the moon, bring him back, and do it before the Russians. Spend $30 billion ($180 billion in today's money), and don't create any space travel infrastructure while you're at it.
Heard an interview with Chris Kraft recently. He didn't directly criticize the Apollo project (he did run the damn thing), but he made it pretty clear he thought it was a mistake. He thought if we'd stopped to develop the basic technology first — resuable spacecraft, a serious orbital platform, etc., we'd be on Mars by now.
And that's what the shuttle was supposed to be: the beginning of serious reusable space transportation. We've been hearing a lot of crap about the basic design being flawed, but that was never the problem. The problem was always that they didn't want to spend enough money to make it work. There was no prestige or political karma in funding the first space truck, so they just went through the motions. The result was a nasty kludge that should have been abandoned years ago.
And we're doing same thing all over again with this bullshit about the "tried and true" Apollo designs. They didn't stick with them for one simple reason: there were ungodly expensive and wasteful. Each launch vehicle was a 360 foot monstrosity that cost something like $100 million to put together, and was used precisely once. Except that this time, they're never actually build the stupid thing, they'll just waste tons of money on "planning" so that Bush can pretend he's another JFK. By the time everybody realizes the money just ain't there, he'll be long gone.
Mmmmm..... badly rehashed Foucault....
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
Once upon a time, this nation was comitted to putting the best and the brightest forward, and creating the most we could with the technology available to us at the time.
Sadly, those days are behind us.
Now it seems, every project is a bad compromise, and it seems to have started with the Shuttle Program. Originally intended as a fully reuseable system that took off like a plane and landed like a plane, it then became a boondoggle of wildly incompatible systems that culminated in a bad hack where you strap the orbiter/glider to a fuel tank and two sticks of TNT and cross your fingers.
NASA still had high hopes for a full resuable system with the VentureStar, which sadly, never got beyond computer animations and little plastic models. The DCX, which had a 1/3 scale flying prototype, was scrapped after a few tests.
And now here they are again, with a bad compromise, using existing parts from the shuttle program and haphazardly slapping them together and crossing their fingers.
It would save a ton of money to design a good system from the start, even if it's more expensive up-front, than to build a system that's awful to start with and hope you can improve upon it with time.
It's funny that sci-fi from the 60's and 70's was so hopeful about where we'd be by this time, because we were making so much progress back then. If only they could have forseen how much time we'd wasted by going backwards, and designing lousy systems that can never really fulfull their mission requirements.
It's hard to believe that even before Yuri Gagarin was launched, America was reaching the edge of space in a rocketplane called the X-15, a simple, durable design that worked stunningly well, and, had we continued along that path, we'd all probably be living in space right now.
But no, we took two steps backwards with "spam in a can", sticking a capsule on top of a missile, and we've been making the same mistakes since then. And now, here we are in 2006, talking about using essentially the same technology from the 60's, when we should have already been reaching the outer planets in long-distance exploration vessels as seen in Stanley Kubrick's "2001" film.
America no longer puts its best and its brightest on top. America no longer prizes doing the best it can do. It's embarassing, that's what it is.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I'm a capitalist. I hate Wal-Mart, true, but I'm a capitalist economically speaking. I see nothing wrong with people driven by profit, I believe in the "invisible hand", although I recognize its flaws.
But I also support various programs that produce no profit (directly) and cost a great deal of time and money, including space exploration.
Why?
Because I'm a human being. I like that we're exploring. I like that we're pushing beyond these bounds placed upon us. I am fascinated by the idea that man could do something so complex as leave this earth and visit the Moon, or Mars, or beyond. It's not just the money - it's the fulfillment of a human desire. Something we were "made" for - to reach out and extend ourselves beyond this sphere and to travel to new lands. I must admit - my thoughts are based purely on ideology, not "reason". But I think I'm not alone in this.
There's something about space exploration that should set off that spark in all of us - something beyond money, beyond mere profit. It's the advancement of the capabilities of an entire species - it's not merely that Americans have been on the moon, but man has been there.
If (when) it costs hundreds of billions to go to Mars and back, with no economic returns, it will still have been worth it. We will then be able to say that man has gone to the moon, that mankind has made yet another massive acheivement.
Are there things on earth that need to be fixed? Yup. But if we wait for things to be perfect here before we leave, we'll never go. In any case, simply giving away money has rarely had a positive effect on most social problems - it's often made them worse.
Why climb Mount Everest, when it gains you nothing and could cost you your life? Because it's there. That's a good enough reason for me to see us go to the moon, Mars, or anywhere else.
In any case, I think we all love the moon...
And of course that doesn't even *begin* to count the *serious* risks, like what happens if you develop nice convenient little Mr. Fusion Hand Grenades and an assembly line to produce them by the tens of thousands, or the risks that doing enough nuclear explosives research to get the right size Project Orion fuel charge means the Weapons Of Mass Destruction people get to reuse any test design work for whatever other applications they can think of.
Nonetheless, it was *way* *fscking8 *cool*.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yeah, i didn't realize I had made the mistake until I noticed that I had a reply to my reply. Oh well :)
My new baby boy, not even two months old - I was born a few weeks after the last apollo mission returned home, now a whole generation later we're going back and maybe the kids can get insterested in looking beoyd the earth.
Project Orion was a proposal from the 1950's headed by Freeman Dyson to drive a spacecraft by throwing nuclear baombs out the back end. I guess you could call that pulse propulsion. Even suggesting something like that today would have every anti-nuclear type going ballistic (pun intended.) Chemical rockets are clearly a dead end, but the eco-freaks will never allow nuclear, laser launch, beanstalks, electro-magnetic catapults, or any other alternative system. :(
Sorry, but facts are facts. When people are so desperate they would turn food into fuel so they can drive three blocks in their SUV for a pack of smokes, you can pretty much kiss manned space flight goodbye.
It was nice while it lasted. Too bad we used up all the fun.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I heard a story that the space ship, Discovery, in the movie 2001 was originally concepted to have an Orion-type nuclear propulsion system. Trouble was that Stanley Kubrick had just made a big splash with Dr. Strangelove. He decided that it was just too many nukes.
A quick google netted this web site that supports the story.
Oh, gravity. Need that, too. The body gets really messed up without it. Solve that one (a way to create artifical gravity--and no I don't mean centrifugal force) and you go a long way to solving propulsion issues as well. I guess it seems silly...sure we can put someone in a can and fire them at the moon...but the difference between that and something really long term viable is enormous. I don't even know why we'd bother going to the moon until we can do it in a safe way and have any hope of creating self-sustaining habitation that won't be destroyed by random meteor hits (no atmosphere remember and a seasonal meteor shower is risk).
Shielding is the big thing. The Earth has an atmosphere which is an incredible thing. It protects us from the sun (not just the radiant energy but also the sporadic emissions), cosmic radiation, meteors, you name it. It is an amazing thing, and if we want to go anywhere that doesn't have one, we need to make one even if it's very localized. We need them around our ships (the Earth is a huge ship in a real sense) and we need them around our settlements. Otherwise we're ducks in shooting gallery.
Well, what do I know. I've been hit over the head one too many times by old Star Trek episodes. Best movie I ever saw was Starman in which the ship was a gigantic sphere, which probably had a gigantic engine and gravity generator at the central core, with a thin habitable layer on the surface of the sphere and then a reflective shell of shielding around that. Which just goes to show you that to do anything useful in space, you need a lot of balls.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
i have looked into this... it was loosely used as a homage to the original orion project
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Wouldn't the feather also accelerate towards the hammer (and vice versa) negating the effect of the torque on the moon?
Our green cheese supply is indeed running low.
the fact that we could be going back to the moon because..... we havent been to the moon... (i dont nessasarily believe this just sayin) if we havent been to the moon and other countries are trying to get there... .its in our best interest to get there and plant new flags, rovers etc.... this IS slashdot, im just bewhiled that no one approaced this yet
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
If you read the Wikipedia article, you'll see that a launch would be about the same as one 10MT weapon. They did plenty of tests in Nevada last century.
If you could get past the public hysteria over nukes, it would be quite feasible. A sufficiently big reason like a certain asteroid hit or China with weapons in space would probably do it.
Still, as a regular launch method that seems a bit much...
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Hey, if at first you don't succeed, claim that whatever you have already done was the goal in the first place and say "Mission accomplished".
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I dunno, maybe it wouldnt have as bad a long term effect as I'm thinking, even with super small detonations, but I wonder...
For the second time in my life the scientific-industrial-complex, supported by a wide-eyed US media, is going to force a massively expensive, incredibly useless journey to that desert called the moon. In order to do what exactly? Beat the Chinese? We haven't been back to the moon since we "beat" the Soviets in space. Why? Because there is no value to doing so. Let's stop this mindless waste of tax dollars and, instead, strive to get control of spending.
Scientific white elephants like the space program are threatening to bankrupt the USA and show a basic misunderstanding of the use of the governmental power to tax. Taxing steals standard-of-living from those taxed. The money belongs to those earning it, not to those spending it and forceably taking money from citizens with the threat of jail is justified only IN THE EXTREME. I see no extreme need to go to the moon.
E Proelio Veritas.
hummm.... maybe this time they really go there!!!
While I like the idea, any serious colonization will require us to move lots of material and people, not just a handful of astronauts.
So the "piles and piles of research" the GP mentioned might be a good idea to invest in transportation first. Start with developing a better shuttle that can fly cheaper, safer and more frequently. That will make it much easier to bring stuff into orbit in the first place. From there, further missions can start as mentioned in the article.
Parallel to the development of a better shuttle, some research into lunar mining may be OK, but keep it small until you are ready to start real mass transportation. No prestige projects please that are only meant as part of a pissing contest.
C - the footgun of programming languages
no. Foucault read me.
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
For vacuum and zero gravity, you don't need the moon. Build a space station in earth orbit, shipping costs to get your equipment up will be much smaller.
Minung on Luna may make sense someday, because lifting stuff out of the moon's gravity is much easier than lifting stuff from earth. But aside from that, I don't see how it would make sense to go all the way to moon.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Ahh yes, Lockheed Martin, the people who brought us environmentally safe foam for the Space Shuttle, and all the consequences that it bears.
When will the Colonel that keeps shoving this company down the space agency's throat go away!
Perhaps NASA can buy some (refurbished) Energia launcher from Russia far cheaper and faster than developing something new again. Configuratiations with a LEO payload lifting capability of 175 metric tons are possible according to the Wikipedia source.
Have a gander. [xvid 250MB]
(tip. If you're using Firefox on linux, drag the link to a xine window and stream it. If you're using windows, then you might have to copy the link and paste it into your player- vlc is good)Typically, Science and innovation is advanced in one of 2 ways; Either through the military during time of conquest (witness how DARPA increased during our invasion of Iraq) or an economy that is ungoing a very long-term large expansion (look for China to start producing some major science). Problem is, that most economies are not undergoing large expansions.
Once we start to the moon(or better, mars) for colonizing, we will see major expansion of sciences. Alsmost certainly, the first will be automation and robotics. Why? Because it will be needed to support a single human in the most hostile environments that we have known. In addition, colonization needs to be supported. Not only will the automation/robotics be used on Earth, but in addition, we will see manufactuering move off planet.
So, how do you want your Science's? Via the Kennedy approach of expansion off planet, or via the GWB approach of invasion?
I know I'm going to make myself unpopular, but bringing this to more awareness could help me clarify some of *my* misunderstandings too, so I rather do this now than regret later.
The hypothesis is that man never landed on moon, and everything in the Apollo missing was staged on earth. The facts are presented in this video "What Happened on the Moon." There are two parts to this video.
Part I: this part focuses on analysing NASA publicly released videos and photographs for fakeness. If the light shown in the scenes are lit only by sunlight, then all shadows should be parallel since the sun is so far away, that its rays are focused at infinity. Furthermore, moon does not have an atmosphere to diffuse ambient light, so shadow areas should be completely dark. The film is also constantly bombarded by solar wind and cosmic rays, so it would be badly exposed.
None of the above mentioned phenomenon are observed with publicly released photographs. Rather, contradicting observations are found, namely non-parallel shadows, well-lit shades, and studio quality exposed pictures. You can look at official NASA images and videos on your on and decide for yourself.
Part II: this part analyses rocket technology and radioactive shielding technology in the 1960's and concludes that these technologies are insufficient to actually bring human on the moon. Basically, they glued a German V-2 rocket to a space pod and claim that's what brought man to the moon.
As you can see, my summary is more detailed for Part I than Part II because I have some knowledge and interest in photography, and I do not have much to say about rockets and radioactive shielding.
I once had a signature.
What is the benefit of going somewhere else, if we havent really learned the lessons of messing up what we have here? It buys us the human race more time, but it doesn't give us a historical lesson. Although there might not be anyone to learn from it anyway.
Yours is a common argument. In an earlier era in the 1970s people were saying, why don't we spend that money here on earth where it's needed? Yet, every cent of that money is spent here on earth; it's not as though we launch tons of dollar bills into orbit and eject them into space. Thousands of engineers, scientists, physicians, space suit makers, rocket ship builders, computer programmers, astrophysicists, and others are employed by the space program.
:-)
By the same argument, wars are good for the economy. It is, however, a flawed argument, an example of the "broken window fallacy": "Throwing a baseball into the neighbour's window is good for the economy, because the glazier gets the money (by the insurance company), who then spends it at the baker's, or whereever."
It is a fallacy because the money that the insurance company pays has to come from somewhere. Overall, it is better for the economy if that money is invested productively.
The grandparent (poster)'s argument may well be that the same money could be spent more productively. Besides, part of the money really is burnt in space
It is a matter of discussion what percentage of the money spent at NASA could be called productive (in a similar way to "fundamental research").
Now, there may be all sorts of political reasons (and I don't mean this in a negative way, I mean it in the way "people want it") to go to the Moon and Mars (beside the fact that eventually we'll have to leave Earth, and we'll have to start some time before it's too late), but your economic reasoning is flawed.
Please let it be known that I love the idea of going back to the Moon etc., I'm just trying to be fair and not claim that there is more to it than there really is: A good idea, yes. Economically, probably not.
It's also worth considering that even if the U.S. doesn't travel back to the Moon, other countries will. Do you really want your grandkids to have to buy tickets on a Chinese spacecraft to visit the Chinese moon city fifty years hence? Or the EU moon base? Or the Russian Mars base? Not that our grandkids will be able to afford such things; we'll be the has-beens, the left-behinds who stand at night and gaze at the sky while other nation-states dominate the heavens. No way. The U.S. has got to maintain its leadership role in space or it will become an also-ran.
I have no problem visiting a Chinese, EU, or Russian base, just like I have no problem visiting a US base.
I do have a problem with excessive chauvinism, however.
I had to do a double take on that one. At first glance I thought it said "onion"
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33838
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Is it Election Year already?
Compromise is actually very important to engineering.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
The name to bring us back to the moon is Project Constellation. But why the name charging? The Crew Launch Vehicle is now the Ares I and now Cargo Launch Vehicle is Ares V?
I'd love it if they would just focus on finishing the International Space Station, with all of it's modules so that we can actually have it staffed with a full (read useful) crew, instead of a skeleton 3 person crew.
Except that it won't be 40 years better, just a little updated. NASA effectively scrapped all the design proposals that contractors submitted -- the ones based on 40 years of experience in space flight -- and "down-selected" to something of its own design, largely repeating Apollo.
Indeed, and Encyclopedia Astronautica's article on the CEV effectively clobbers any impressions that the CEV, aka Orion, is any different than the shuttle when it comes to that.
True. I like your meta-joke of nudging some people into the belief that this could be a factoid, thus exemplifying the strategy you are talking about. This is why you should always go after the premises before even looking at the logic of an argument, and why cracking a computer always involves getting it to accept certain false data as true (this is the code you should be running, I know the password, I'm really on your local network, etc.). In math, you can derive literally anything from an inconsistent set of assumptions.
Implanting and exploiting false beliefs is the most fundamental strategy there is in all con games and magic. There are advanced techniques in marketing, rhetoric, neuro-linguistic programming, psychology, religion and other fields which allow a high success rate in slipping false data into a person's beliefs which can then be further exploited. Counter-intelligence depends on feeding false information to the enemy as much as denying access. The Brits became so adept at this that they could construct information that would mess the enemy up whether he believed it or not.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
The original Orion team got the environmental impact down to an estimated one additional human death per launch (from cancer due to fallout) and felt they could do better with more time and money. With modern weapon design software, optimizing for launch purposes rather than destruction, the launch impact could be greatly reduced even over what they believed possible.
Would you accept Orion launches if they only killed one person per ten? Twenty? Hundred? The design of nuclear explosives isn't my field so I don't know exactly how low we could go right now. Neither can I judge how many launches per death is the justification limit. But I do know that _every launch to space_ has a distinct environmental impact. If an Orion launch which puts more mass than an entire Space Transportation System stack at liftoff into LEO has a lower environmental impact than the aluminum and other materials the solid rocket boosters disperse during an STS launch, would you accept it then?
I am not being snarky, here. These are legitimate concerns, and the cost to benefit balance a complicated matter. So is the public perception of these concerns. People have a distressing tendency to be more accepting of risk from non-nuclear sources than nuclear sources, through ignorance.
We have to thank Lee Harvey Oswald for putting people on the moon in the 1960s. Seriously.
JFK was a typical 20th Century U.S. President in many respect no different that George W. Bush or Jimmy Carter (to pick on both sides of the aisle here). The only significant act he did was die while in office, which meant that all of the programs that he initiated were pushed through and lionized as if it were ordained from God himself. I mean, who can beat a dead president in terms of getting votes?
This included Vietnam policy, Civil Rights legislation, and yes, NASA.
After JFK died, there was nobody willing to stand up and oppose most of these pet projects of his.
BTW, after the Apollo flights were successful, NASA was significantly scaled back and Presidents Johnson and Nixon both gutted most of what was built up for the moon landings.
Of course this did have an unintended side benefit: After NASA laid off most of its engineering team, there was a huge glut of Electrical Engineers who then went on to bigger and better things.... creating much of the infrastructure of what is now the computer industry in general. And creating much more demand for E.E.'s in the long term.
There was a time when NASA was at the leading edge of the computer industry, believe it or not, taking in something like 60% of all IC production in the world and building the first timeshare computer systems. NASA is no where near this level of technology bleeding edge any more.
Stated plans:
"Under Project Orion, NASA would launch crews of four astronauts aboard Orion capsules, first to Earth orbit and the International Space Station and then later to the Moon."
Expected progress:
Corporations compete for project.
Government pays both for development, picks one.
The corproation subcontracts the other, adding overhead.
They both subcontract out as much as possible to others, adding more overhead.
Development proceeds. Government pays.
Expected (ie. written into the contract) cost overruns occur. Government pays.
Unexpected cost overruns occur. Government pays.
Testing shows design to be faulty. Corporation(s) gets new government contract.
The above sequence repeats once.
After much C-SPAN posturing, congress pulls pre-election PR stunt of cancelling project "saving billions in wasted taxpayer money".
In the interim, the corporations are fat and happy on the corporate welfare of "billions in wasted taxpayer money".
Now the corporations wait for another administration to make bold statements and start the entire cycle again.
And it stays this way unless an administration comes along that has the balls to take NASA away from the adminimonsters and bureaucraps who live to crate cash flow for each other and put it back in the hands of the engineers who won't put up with this silly shit.
When engineers ran NASA: "Failure is not an option." (Apollo 13)
When managers ran NASA: "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch, next April?" (Challenger)
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
You might say the same thing about Antarctica. The moon and near Earth asteroids contain vast strategic metals resources.
It is very important to keep an eye on the Chinese even though their current space program is childish. It is simply not in the strategic US interest to see lunar travel dominated by them. Space travel is a powerful instrument of US national power. China's drive for cooperation with the US in space might influence their policies is ways that would be inpossible without the lure of technology and national prestige. I am all for a balanced budget. I'd like to see pork earmarks, farm subsidies, and middle class entitlements reduced not the NASA budget. Furthermore, the President's policy of low taxes have produced unexpectedly high tax receipts and cut the budget to $200 Billion. That is quite manageable given the T Bill demand of Japan and China.
an ill wind that blows no good
I was saving all my mod points just for this joker. Damn. They expired.
I guess you are technically correct as the equation F = G(m-earth*m-object)/r^2 does give you a slightly higher gravitation force on the hammer due to increased mass.
But the difference is so inconsequential that it isn't worth bothering to figure out, and we don't know G to that many places anyway. Proper scientific calculations would ignore this as within the margin of error and report the force on both objects as identical.
Of course, I don't know why I'm responding to such a silly post.
Since cancer does not kill instantly, I wonder how did they calculate that one additional fatality? Was it like shortening of life of 100 people by one year? Or maybe shortening of 1000 lives by one month? If the town of Springfield, population 1000, is in the danger zone, is it OK to shorten each and every life in it by one month per launch?
we went there in the first place.
>In early February, the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" deleted.
Not sure why you would post AC, as this is an informative post. With NASA's terrestrial mission deleted, the agency is free to spend its money in "the blackness of space," where stars do not shine, and missions cannot be verified except as a stream of numbers on a computer terminal.
Interesting note, today I was watching a show about asteroid impacts. They said NASA's asteroid mission generated data that was "exactly what we were expecting," and Japan's Hayabusa probe was "completely different" and "raised more questions than it answered."
Which one sounds like space exploration?
If you people come to realize one simple thing I feel I will have accomplished a great deal. THERE ARE NO COLONIES POSSIBLE ON EITHER THE MOON OR MARS. And yes, I'm shouting. A colony is a human expansion into unused resources of water, plant and animal life, arable land, and ECONOMICALLY recoverable minerals. That situation does not exist on the Moon. That situation does not exist on Mars. There will NEVER be colonies on either body. STOP USING THE WORD "COLONIES.!" At best there can only be established bases that create a vast sucking of resources FROM THE EARTH! Please put the simple enthusiasm aside and see that space is a vast desert and will never be anything else.
And since there are no self-sustaining colonies possible on either the Moon or Mars, neither the Moon nor Mars are useable as places to sustain mankind in case the Earth is wiped out. That is just idiocy. And I'm talking to YOU Professor Hawking. Get smart for crying out loud.
E Proelio Veritas.
There is no doubt that the Apollo design time got it right. What is in doubt is if NASA or any other quasi- technological developer has the technical smarts, the manufacturing capability or the intestinal fortitude, or political skill to do "big" science. The Apollo mission was the result of 10 years of research, development and deployment of countless successful missions. What has NASA done in the past 6 years that they can build on compared to the Apollo team building on the success of Gemini? They have done well on the smaller projects. (smaller only in physical scale) The Mars rover is an excellent example of what they are capable of doing now. As for going back to to the moon, I'll belive it when I see it.
Remember, this is George W. Bush's thing. The man couldn't care less about space, the moon, Mars, or science as a whole. The man has the intellect and curiosity of a dairy cow.
This is about funneling billions to defense industry cronies while starving other projects of funding. Conveniently for Bush's cronies in
industry, this includes cutting off funding for projects related to the global climate.
They even changed the NASA mission statement to remove reference to the study of Earth.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Unless we changed the political atmosphere somewhat, and managed to get approval to launch an Orion directly from the surface. It isn't physically impossible, just politically.
Given that "Project Orion" is a very well known name for Ted Taylor's idea for a heavy-lift-to-space vehicle powered by small nuclear explosions, this has to be one of the more confusing names NASA is going to work with. Oh, well.
I do recommend "Project Orion", by George Dyson, as an excellent overview of the project. Remember that when Freeman Dyson heard of it, he dropped everything and came and helped.
They dreamed big in those days. The moon in 1965, Saturn in 1970. And since nuclear fuel is one million times more energetic than chemical fuel, _they could have done it_. No one talking about Project Orion says anything about "Would not have worked".
I wonder if we have paid too big a price to not dream this big anymore.
Thanks,
David Small
Soooo missing the point. The proportionately larger force on the hammer is exactly offset by the greater inertia of the hammer, so they would impact the moon at the same instant.
The force on the two objects is very different - but their acceleration is the same. f = ma, a = f/m.
The grandparents notion (that the hammer would impact a wee bit before because the moon would have moved towards the hammer ever so slightly) I'm unconvinced of - the feather would accelerate a wee bit faster because it would be attracted by the mass of the moon plus the hammer. Maybe the feather would impact first, maybe information about their absolute masses and initial positions is required.
Anybody have enough time on their hands to solve this three-body problem in Newtonian mechanics, let alone General Relativity?
And there was me thinking that some of the engineers on Apollo were most definitely "imported".. html
http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/vonbraun/bio
As soon as I hit the "submit" button, I realized I screwed up here... but the point was the same.
I meant to mention the acceleration factor, which is most properly done as an integral using Newton's gravitational formula integrating over distance. Too bad slashdot doesn't have TeX markup to add the full formula.
To simplify matters, it is more
a=G(m-obj*m-moon)/(r^2*m-obj)
BTW, this comes from the a=f/m as the newtonian force (f) is divided by the object's mass (m).
With this the acceleration is the unit, not force. And you should note that m-obj listed twice cancels each other out of the equation so the only thing that really is affected here is just the acceleration.
While you might be correct that considered as independent systems the hammer might have a tiny, tiny bit more acceleration due to the combined mass, it is inconsequential when compared to the mass of the Moon or the Earth itself and would not even be measureable using current devices. To determine the exact different, let's solve the equation in two parts:
1) Calculate the Force
2) Calculate the actual acceleration due to that force
OK, here goes, even though the math is off in part.
G - Universal Gravity Constant (in mks system) - 6.6742 * 10^-11 m^3/(s^2*kg)
Mass of the Moon - 7.347 673 * 10^22 kg
Mass of Hammer - 100 kg (this is being very generous)
Mass of Feather - 0.01 kg (to give a contrasting value)
Radius of the Moon (assuming you are doing an experiment on the surface of the Moon itself) - 1.738 1 * 10^6 m
Before going on, note that the universal gravity constant is only good to 5 places. Some effort has gone to improve this calculation, but realistic calculations mean that you ought to note that is the limit of your calculations. I'm going to ignore this, and assume that G has infinite precision.
F-hammer = 162.33 Newtons
F-feather = 0.016233 Newtons
Yeah, you have some huge difference here, but lets divide these figures by the mass of the objects (you can take this to as many decimal places as you want, BTW. I'll leave that to you)
acc-hammer = 1.6233 m/s
acc-feather = 1.6233 m/s
That is exactly the same, to the precision of the calculations that are possible. That is exactly my point, and that you can't tell the difference. Of course this is naval gazing and doesn't matter anyway.
If they are going to start reusing project names, why not use one that had a better result? I propose the new moon missions be called Project Gemini!
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)