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NASA Weighs Moon Plans

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-of-these-days-alice dept.

mknewman writes "Space.com is reporting that NASA is set to roll out next month a U.S. national strategy for lunar exploration, one that outlines both robotic exploration needs and the rationale for sending humans back to the Moon. This has been sorely missing in Bush's Vision for Space Exploration."

3 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Weigh less, yes - but Mass is the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Remember, the weight may be less, but the mass remains the same.

    So busty chicks will have more "perkiness", but retain the same nice tactile qualities...

    Posted AC, of course!

  2. ummm yeah by J05H · · Score: 5, Informative

    The real action is going to be on Phobos and Mars, in that order. Don't look for the next Iceland, look for the next New York City, the slam-dunk locations in space. The Lagrange points in the Earth-Moon system, Earth-crossing "dead" comets and Mar's small moons are good candidates. Phobos allows both resource extraction including actual water (not maybes in polar shadows), Phobos also offers realtime contact with Mars and the convenience of working in familiar freefall. The moon has a lot of unaddressed operational issues that a Phobos/Mars orbitter and mine scheme doesn't possess. Admittedly there is a lot of handwaving in this, but we discussed the tradeoffs here:

    http://uplink.space.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Boar d=businesstech&Number=503952&page=&view=&sb=&o=

    Josh

    --
    gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
  3. Re:What NASA really needs... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Informative
    Interestingly enough, the congress that authorized the money for the development of the shuttle also made a stipulation that the plans of the previous generation of Apollo rockets had to be destroyed - in other words, go forward or don't go.

    That may have happened in some alternate universe - but in this one, the plans are in a variety of archives.