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NASA's New Mission to the Moon
mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics has a new, in-depth preview of NASA's Orion spacecraft, tracking the complex challenges facing the engineers of the CEV (which NASA chief Michael Griffin called 'Apollo on steroids') as America shifts its focus away from the Space Shuttle and back toward returning to the moon by 2020. After yesterday's long op-ed in the New York Times concerning NASA's about-face, Popular Mechanic's interview with Buzz Aldrin and podcast with Transterrestrial.com's Rand Simberg raise perhaps the most pressing questions here: Is it worth going back to the lunar surface? And will we actually stay there?"
no
Yes.
-- Alastair
Will we go back to stay? not if it's for science only, IMHO it will take private companies to make space travel, including exploting the moon for it's resources, to make this 'permanent'. NASA has no where in it's mandate to do anything except research.
who cares about the MOON!
The space race is over, and America won. Now America should race to end poverty.
If we went back to the moon, I assume NASA's plan to would be to discover water so eventually the moon could be a docking station for trips to mars!
Mabye?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Is it worth going back to the lunar surface?
What do you mean "going back"? That assumes we were there a first time.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The initial estimates are that this time around the mission is going to be far less expensive. One NASA official, who wished to remain anonymous, said, "CGI has really matured to a point where shooting a return to the moon is now viable. Instead of a sandy soundstage we'll simply have our guys in front of a greenscreen. In fact, some of the more optimistic estimates posit that by 2020 we won't even need live bodies in the studio."
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
who cares about the MOON!
The boston police?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Even in this marvelous age of whiz bang doodads and fancy flashing lights and such, Buzz recommends Orion astronauts still take a sextant with them. I wonder if a roll of duct tape might be prudent as well.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
As the folks at Goddard expained it during the Moon Math student competition, "When you go camping, isn't it a good idea to try setting up the campsite in your backyard first, 600 inches away, so you can try out everything, or run back in the house if you forgot your flashlight, make sure you remember to bring everything, and *THEN* go camping for real to somewhere 600 miles away?"
That's a largely non-obvious reason for using the same basic vehicle for both mission sets.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Funny how after 30 years of listening to people say "when will we go back and who will that be?" now people are saying "Is it worth going back to the lunar surface?" How did this reversal of thinking happen?
We have a lot more information than the last 3 moon attempts. Time was the only answer you could know about right and wrong was what you could think of on your own based on what you saw in the sky and how much spare cash you had.
Now the answers for everything are downloadable. You don't need to come up with your own answers because the internet has the answers for you. The change in where our information comes from has changed our opinions.
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and leaving him safely there."
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
The original capsule was remarkably resilient and well-protected. I'm glad to see they're reusing the design and not trying for something brand new. If Burt Rutan wants to have new systems, he can finance them himself.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I agree completely with Prof. Hawking--We need to establish life outside of Earth.
Deep space scientific observation is nice, but until we have a self-sustaining colony off of earth, manned space technology should be our #1 priority.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
FTFA
it's hard to see the pitfalls so far ahead, but I worry that once we establish a base on the moon, we might get bogged down there.
I thought for the moment there, is he was talking back some foolhardy contemporary military adventure.
I wonder what he meant by this, how could we get "bogged" down on the moon?
Aside: Anybody know what the ROM price tag for an established moon based is compared to say the price tag for the Iraqi war?
There's an interesting article on what the space program could've look like if the Saturn V rocket program wasn't cancelled. The new program will be just a shadow in comparison.
Can somebody better acquainted with the mechanics of sending a vehicle to the Moon and back please explain why Buzz Aldrin recommends taking a sextant? Or does the tried and tested technology to be used this time involve lashing the Captain to the aerial to take the latitude while the crew pile on the solar sails?
Pining for the fjords
We got the transistor on Roswell, but we wanted more gadgets so we wen't for more and we only got the cellphone... It's time to go for the next big new tech.
I for one welcome our new time-space-warping overlords.
Ave Maria
They also had a couple of failures - and the failures/sucesses were dotted pretty evenly across the attempts. Zond was a percursor to a Soviet attempt to perform an Apollo 8 flyby to steal NASA's thunder - in fact, it was the Zond tests that lead to Apollo 8 being a lunar mission rather than a high earth orbit mission so as to steal the Russians thunder!
Before the budget cuts of 65/66 and the Fire, NASA planned on as many as *6* manned flights in LEO and an indeterminate number of lunar flights before committing to a landing attempt. Those budget cuts, the time lost after the fire, and the growing realization that the Soviets might be able to trump them forced their hand.
So much for the myth of Apollo-era NASA being the brave and bold agency they are so often portrayed as of late. Until forced, they were just as conservative as they are today.
Would it be worthwhile to launch space missions from a lunar base? It would seem to me that because of the lower gravity you would need less power to reach escape velocity - or am I incorrect in this? That could be one potential bonus of going back to the moon.
http://www.roflcat.com/images/cats/astronaut.jpg
I can't wait until we get the current generation of engineers out and replaced with some younger engineers and some fresh ideas.
The Moon is like Iceland - easier to get to from Europe but there's not much there besides scenery. The Mars system (Mars, Phobos, Deimos) are New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. I guess this makes Mars-Earth L1 the Hudson River?
The resources to build an entire civilization exist on/around Mars. The moon is a fossil world.
We can learn some from Luna, and probably take the first steps to colonization there, but the real action is going to be on Mars. There is a lot of planet-specific engineering that needs to be done for either location. Lunar spacesuits won't work on Mars, there will be huge differences in sealing technology and energy generation (you can burn silane as internal combustion on Mars, for instance). We can learn as much in high orbit or at a NEO about colonizing Mars as we can on the Moon. Almost all technical development for any near-term colonization is going to be developed on Earth, though.
If I had several Billion $$ right now, I'd commision a Russian-Bigelow spacecraft for a human mission to Phobos or Deimos. This is the ideal target for early development, energetically close to Earth, resource rich and within telepresence range of Mars. We can mine water and ship it back to LEO using technology we have now, or nearly. Russian companies have decades worth of human habitat experience, Bigelow would provide the main living space, custom tools purchased from best providers. The project would mine water and provide realtime control for robots throughout cis-Mars.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
I never knew Popular Mechanics was such a space power.
building a colony at a Lagrangian point makes a lot more sense than going to the moon especially as a way station to Mars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point
This could be considered slightly offtopic, but I would add one more benefit of NASA Moon mission: the resurrection of public interest in space science (in general) and Space Science Fiction (in particular). Did you notice that during recent decades the theme of science fiction shifted significantly from space exploration plots to fantasy and alternative history? As a big fan of space science fiction, I feel my favourite trend is neglected. The reason is obvious - the whole space research both in USA and Russia/Europe fell into stagnation and public interest was lost. Remember how excited the science fiction writers were about space technology back in 60s? They were expecting humans to fly around solar system by 2000 and to distant stars in the beginning of this new century. Where are their hopes? Ruined. Now I really hope NASA mission will bring back the long-forgotten public excitement about space exploration, and the science fiction will once again picture the starships instead of dragons and elves. I hope.
would require a bog.
If there's a bog, there's water.
If there's water, there's oxygen.
If there's oxygen, then Dan Quayle could breathe there.
Then it's not really all that mutual, now, is it?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
We were supposed have moonbase Alpha on the moon BEFORE 1999 so that the moon could get ripped out of Earth's orbit. It's too late now.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
NASA is dumb if they think so. If this is the case, say I jump from the Golden Gate bridge, the water will be nice and soft when I get down there right? Wrong. When you approach terminal velocity and make contact with water, it doesn't have time to "move" out of the way. In essence, you are hitting concrete.
I would say that NASA's mandate, as a government agency, is whatever the people democratically choose for it to do. More tangibly, the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which founded NASA, declares:
Plan, direct, and conduct aeronautical and space activities is rather open to interpretation, but exploration has always been considered an element of this. Actually, this does not counter your research point, because research involves both exploration and the development of necessary infrastructure (such as a moon base) to support it. I could detail some of the 100+ research proposals NASA has for the moon, but I'll leave it for another post
Number 3 and 4 are very relevant to your post, and also very clearly supported in the Exploration Systems Architecture Study, which guides much of the current development work. NASA is very open to cooperating with other friendly nations and private industry to use the systems they're developing to land additional payloads on the moon.
As far as how a permanent stay would pan out, since the article doesn't detail it, the Constellation program would conduct a handfull of missions up to two weeks in length to points of interest. One of these will likely be an already identified crater rim near one of the poles that receives almost constant sunlight. The constant sunlight simplifies many things.
NASA would then conduct several follow up missions to the same site, each one bringing more equipment. The proposed design for the lander makes the return stage as small as possible, which maximizes the amount of hardware left behind. Being modular, the lander could also fly missions to land several tons of cargo without a crew, such as prefabricated laboratories.
After 4 or 5 missions to the same location, there would be sufficient resources on the surface to support a permanent crew. From there NASA could conduct research that may really jumpstart commerical development, such as in situ resource utilization and low gravity excavation and health effects.
. . . Al Gore and his vegan neo-luddite worshippers are screaming we're destroying the Moon's delicate ecological balance?
When I was a kid in Jr. High School..... 1978, NASA claimed they'd launch a Mars mission by 2013. Instead
they built a shuttle and sunk all sorts of money into OLD technology. Let face it, they didn't innovate. I would have loved to
see a spacecraft that took off like a jet. So imagine, instead of a rocket liftoff you take off like a jet, accelerate into space.
Instead it's a gliding brick that' soon to be retired. Now a manned Moon mission is deemed a worthy trip again? If we were to
tunnel into the moon and build a moonbase where we could launch a spacecraft that was powered by a nuclear reaction.. man that
would be cool. I doubt I'd see a manned Mars mission in my lifetime.
How much do you want to bet there is already a Virgin Megastore there by the time NASA makes it back?
why can't we put a man with AIDS on the Moon? And pretty soon, we can put everyone with AIDS on the Moon." — Sarah Silverman
Even under the most dire/optimistic scenarios a lunar facility isn't gonna be much of a viable 'lifeboat' for generations yet. Indeed if things go seriously awry it's probably the most untenable place to be for any calamity except a fast-acting/highly-virulent/fatal terrestrial biohazard, and then you'd likely just get to live somewhat longer and die a premature death of a different cause. After a terrestrial catastrophe a lunar facility likely won't contribute much to future generations but an interesting monument. Rather a planet of 6 billion with a huge biosphere has so much more in the way of odd nooks & corners for refugees & resources.
Except a lunar facility is going to be markedly different then anything space-based. Significant gravity, a surface, 2 week bright/dark cycles, huge dust & debris issues; except for lack of atmosphere they're almost entirely different problem sets. A space station is certainly the better R&D environment for spacefaring development. As to Martian R&D Earth as good, and substantially cheaper/more-amenable venue then the moon offers.
Except that asteroids are probably a far better materials supply source and can be got roboticly, with their materials easier separated, refined, and then sent on to Earth in space then from the moon. Furthermore while He3 is promising we've yet to achieve fusion that could take advantage of it and those power sats would probably do as good a job with less complexity then a lunar-fueled terrestrial fusion system anyhow.
Except any manned base is going to be fouling up the local environment and require far more support then just installing spares & alternatives for everything. Again, the moon is good, space is likely better.
Because the moon is the only possible frontier? Not our oceans, deserts, mountain ranges, arctic & antarctic regions? Not more abstract frontiers like science, technology, sociology, psychology, diplomacy, etc.?
I'm honestly not trying to be contrarian but your reasons strike me more as rationalizations. Nearly all could be done better/cheaper using unmanned systems or directly in space. I'd hate to see a lunar base become another dead end like our hopelesly compromised space station, doing expensive science of minimal import or quality.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Outside of obvious military motives, there is no worthwhile reason to go back to the moon in this way. think about it.
2020: robotics will be much further along. Probes and robots are better and cheaper than humans and the case only gets stronger with time.
BioSphere: a failed project in habitation. More work along these lines would be a better use of money. The low gravity issues can largely be tested remotely if need be. Building a spinning space module for the space station for testing moon gravity would be cheaper.
Resources: power or material transport is an issue. robots have been encroaching on manufacturing for some time... Long term changes in mass are an issue; it may sound nuts but mankind is short sighted and willfully underestimates its' impact. One thing could be the slight change could alter a Meteor's path altering the odds of impact.
How about we look into how to cheapen space transport? (elevator?) How about we look into energy transport for space based solar power? How about we look at some clever Meteor defense plans or space JUNK?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The idea of landing a man on the moon was initial conceived in 1960. Kennedy made his famous speech in 1961. By 1969, NASA had launched and recovered Apollo 11.
Flash forward to 2007. Presumably, we know how to get to the moon, since we've done it before. Computing and aerospace technology have both advanced considerably in the intervening 46 years. But now, instead of getting there in less than 10 years, they want to take 13?
Something is seriously wrong with this situation.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
It probably won't change your mind, but I thought it would be useful to throw out a few numbers:
NASA budget: $16.8 billion (2007)
US Military budget: $532.8 billion (2007)
I'll admit that the numbers were actually closer than I expected. OTOH, when it comes to the military, there's the budget and then there's what's actually spent. (Yes, this can be true with NASA, too, but to a much smaller extent.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Two part question:
1) How far would the money in the B&MGF go towards creating a permanent settlement in space (moon, Mars, etc.)?
2) Is it completely selfish to think this would be a better way to spend the money than on world health? (I say this as a relatively well off Canadian with no one I know dying from starvation or AIDS.)
NASA is talking about going to the moon in order to open up funding streams for all of the precursor projects which will then be used for some other purpose, ostensibly a revenue generating one. Sorry to crush your moon rocks but we are not going to back to the moon this century. If anyone gets there before the year 2100 it will be India or China, if only to say YAAAAY FOR US !!!!
But manned spaceflight out of the orbit of the earth is in fact dead and over, forever, or if not, for the next 100+ years. No one wants to do it. Governments don't want to pay for it and we don't have the attention span for it. In fact I'd put money on the complete elimination of manned spaceflight by the year 2015. We will have officially spent enough money to piss everyone off by that time.
Phase 2 is the complete elimination of all space science, in space, by 2020. Expect that orbital telescopes, research satellites etc will all be defunded by then. Unless there is a commercial or military purpose for space science, it will be killed.
It was a pretty good run but now it's over. I grew up pouring over every detail, every photograph, every newscast, every lay science paper for everything associated with the Gemini and Apollo programs. I had a family member who worked in both programs. It was magic.
But by the time Skylab was discontinued it was clear that NASA was looking to get into the commercial heavy lifting business, ergo Space Shuttle. But NASA didn't bank on the expense and complexity of Space Shuttle, nor did they anticipate smaller payloads becoming the norm. So the Air Force became NASA's only paying customer. They're the only people who have a need for the capacity of Space Shuttle. So NASA is just treading water until Space Shuttle and ISS are killed off. They hope to have another heavy lifter online by then but if they don't then that's that. End of story. We'll be able to go the ESA or India, Japan, Russia or China for launch capability by then and NASA will have ceased to have a purpose.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that no one on slashdot is willing to disavow a Moon/Mars trip. I'm a techie with a hardon for space exploration too, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to blow all this money on a trip seriously lacking in scientific merit. Remember, it wasn't a scientist's idea to go to the Moon on the way to Mars, it was George Bush's. Also remember that NASA's real scientific programs are going to be seriously underfunded as a result of all this money going into the manned program.
In time we'll make it back to the moon and to mars, but lets not rush it. Our money is better spent on basic research, robotic missions, and problems on the home planet.
So, what are we going to do with the billions of dollars in infrastructure that supports the space shuttle, not to mention the space shuttle itself? That kind of stuff can't be sold on Ebay you know....
Every time I hear NASA refer to it as Orion, somehow I just feel cheated out of my galactic destiny as a human being.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
The shuttles will prolly be claimed by the commercial sector just like the old backup shuttle launch facilities out at vandenberg AFB were. The real question to ask is....why is NASA still around when a commercial entity with government ties could do it for cheaper and make a profit off of it?
I'd mod you up, but I can't, so instead I'll just argue the opposite.
Let's assume that all the money in the OECD spent by space agencies gets pumped into working on the aid shortfall, assuming the 0.7% GDP goal is the proper goal. That's about a $24 billion drop in a $50 billion bucket. The rest could be made up by a goodly chunk of Microsoft profit money, leaving them $10 billion. However, this is only assuming that the 0.7% is the only goal. There's also the problems of health care (that leftover $10 billion could give the 45 million uninsured Americans about $218 per year). Afterwards comes education, housing, and the impoverished in the OECD that would be overlooked by our 0.7%.
So the $24 billion would be a step in the right direction, but you forget what we buy with that money: a look over the next hill. The Chinese explored for a bit, arriving as far afield as East Africa and beginning colonies around their area of the world. They nearly dominated the East. After 30 years of this, they turned inwards and burned their fleets trying to achieved Confucian inner perfection. That insular behavior undid the progess achieved under their age of exploration. The Chinese never achieved the perfection they sought. In contrast, Europe achieved the wealth and power it sought, whether for good or ill, and now it and its transplant nations (the rest of the OECD) are the most prosperous in the world.
The $24 billion we spend wouldn't eliminate poverty if spent on poverty, but it may if it's spent on reaching upward and outward.
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
Most of Africa would kill to get what the poor in the US have.
The only people starving in the US are nuts (anorexics, bulimics, crazy street people that won't take help).
We spend millions per year on free health care for fat 'poor' people. There are no fat poor people (truly poor).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Look how much energy it takes to get a space ship into space. So someone actually thinks they can fool the masses into making everyone think that they're going to have a manned mission to mars? How in the hell do they take us for? The insult is beyond belief!
If they care at all to bring back the astronauts alive, they'll have to figure out a way to get a space ship there in the right condition and with the right amount of energy in order to be able to take of from Mars, escape the orbit and then make it all the way back to earth. It's *NOT* the trip *TO* mars that's the problem, it's the trip *BACK* to *EARTH* that is the problem.
So, until they figure out a better propulsion system, or a way to carry more energy more easily, they should *NOT* waste our money on such frivulous BS money wasting trips to the Moon.
It's unfair for them to spend other people's money that way - it's PURE THEFT I tells ya.
My land on the moon will gain some value.
, not in the command module.
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A lot of the development of the Ares launch vehicles is being tailored to try to reuse shuttle infrastructure and keep the shuttle workforce employed. Frankly, this is probably making the entire process much more expensive because it precludes NASA from launching with one of the ELVs already developed and in use.
..to go back to the moon (farside) and discover a seroiusly beat-up Battlestar hanging there in orbit.
I claim first dibbs on Starbucks hot ass!
If you live on the Moon, you don't feel that scared about complying with certain orders. After all, Earth is no longer home...
/ 2006-12-18-why-go.png
http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive
Just a PS) there's the same thing about Linux usage...
- My PC went astray with some virus... bummer...
- Hey, what about trying Linux?
- Why?
- *sigh*
Economists have a concept called 'Opportunity cost'. This means that the money that you spend on one thing can't be spent on something else. If the utility gained from spending money on something else is greater than that thing that you did spend the money on, then you have lost money.
Tech people and other Slashdaughters, however, have absolutely no sense of Economics when it comes to the concept of space and especially the Moon. So, allow to be brief....
There is NO WAY that the money spent on lunar exploration justifies its opportunity cost. ANYTHING upon which you spend the same amount of public funds will bring more benefit to society than spending it on lunar exploration.
No doubt everyone on this site disagrees with the above statement. But that doesn't change the fact that it is true.
The allocation of the public funds is a public trust. To spend billions and hundreds of billions of dollars on lunar exploration (at this time) is a betrayal of public trust. People who advocate this massive but unjustifiable expense should not and will not be taken seriously by the taxpaying public at large. In other words, techies shouldn't 'chain their bikes to the lunar-exploration signpost', because they will end up losing their bikes. You will lose whatever credibility you have by pushing this program.
Nobody in their right mind wants it. No one except the people who read Slashdot.... and the people who stand to make billions of dollars in profit from this 'lunacy'.
Thank you for taking the time to read the truth.
Have a nice day.
The only good reason to send people outside of low Earth orbit is to establish a self-sustaining continuous human presence off the Earth. We would do this for many reasons, for example expanding the economy, or insuring against global catastrophe.
The problem with Apollo was that it was focused on a different goal, that of beating the Russians to the Moon asap. It was a big success in this regard but did a very poor job of advancing the colonization goal. NASA investigated Apollo-style missions to Mars but they were frighteningly expensive and so the program died.
I believe a properly-conceived return to the Moon should focus on advancing the goal of human colonization. Most important is gaining practical experience with In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), NASA's fancy term for living off the land. If we develop good techniques to extract the water near the lunar poles it would be a huge step toward self-sufficiency, and a stepping stone for further missions (like Zubrin's ISRU-based Mars Direct concept).
Beyond ISRU, achieving real self-sufficiency will require at least two other problems to be solved: (1) How to create self-sufficient biospheres of modest size that can support human life without frequent supplies replenishment from Earth (think Biosphere 2 in space), and (2) how to generate positive economic returns from space-based activities, to fund all of the things that will need to be imported from Earth to a colony during the (possibly long) period of partial self-sufficiency.
Gee - I got no idea what to do with 10^22 kilo's
...
of lunar stuff, none at all!
But I do think that:
1. The mass used for orions emergency escape system might
be reused for a boost when it's no longer used. Perhaps
in a later design rev.
2. They should ditch the reuse concept for the capsule.
Instead sell them to museums, arcades, mall's, private
collectors. Turn them into simulation machines so us
earthlings can get a thrill. Simplifies design since
you don't have to worry about environmental wear
and tear causing rework. Also some wear and tear may be
unknown!
3. Keep the capsules in steady but slow production. Allowing
incremental mods.
4. Do a water landing with chutes. Simpler design, less
risk in heat shield. Build a couple of ships for this
purpose, allow them to be re-used for oceanographic work
in between missions.
5. Build a modular and mobile base. On first mission plant
some transponders for automated landings. Send at least
a couple of moble transporters on robotic landers. Each
module should be able to sit on top of transporters.
Make it possible to slide modules off descent stage onto
transporter. Make it possible for the transporters to
pickup and move the descent stage/module bases. Let
the transporters with pressurized modules dock with
stationary modules.
6. Allow the mobile transporters to go on manned and
unmanned away missions for weeks or longer. Useful for
exploration, material gathering,
7. Return the ascent module to near the base. Design
the module so some components survive. Especially anything
with water onboard.
6. Build descent stage so it can be reused on the moon as
either module base or as material to create other structures.
Pfff! The moon is just big chunk of iron, titanium, oxygen, and magnesium. Nothing that could *EVER* be mined in the future at a huge profit or anything.....
Ya know, this is a giant mineral deposit that that is 3,474.206 km in diameter. Not only that, but you don't ene need to really 'dig' to get at the stuff - scoop it up, and load it into a furnace.
If they push hard at a serious colonization of the moon, there is a *lot* of money to be made.
But wait... there is probably gonna be some group of "Moon Huggers" who will want to declare the moon some kind of "preserve" or something..... definitely nothing useful for humanity.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
With all those silly ideas about Moon they're gonna build a reasonable spacecraft. If only they could be stopped halfway...
"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever."
k y
"Men are weak now, and yet they transform the Earth's surface. In millions of years their might will increase to the extent that they will change the surface of the Earth, its oceans, the atmosphere and themselves. They will control the climate and the solar system just as they control the Earth. They will travel beyond the limits of our planetary system; they will reach other Suns and use their fresh energy instead of the energy of their dying luminary."
"Man must at all costs overcome the Earth's gravity and have, in reserve, the space at least of the Solar System."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovs
Colonizing the moon would be an excellent first step. Mars is not the only planetary body out there, and neither is Titan (Titan is going to be absurdly difficult to land on and colonize due to that 700 km thick atmosphere). Almost all of the moons in the solar system are airless. Colonizing the moon would be an excellent first step to practicing techniques for living with and protecting against solar radiation, and if they can manage to make decent dust seals that don't break down in the lunar dust, then they probably won't break down in the martian dust either, because people are going to go for walks on both. The moon would be an excellent place to practice living in a colony for extended periods (although the ISS has done that too), and will pave the way for many technologies that eventually will be needed when people finally go to places like Triton, Enceladaeus, Cassiopea or live in the asteroids (Ceres is 1000km in diameter).
Granted, machines will do almost all of that better, but people will eventually move out to the solar system, and adapt. The sooner they practice that, the easier the adaption will be.
What a waste of money, we're still burning oil and coal for our power needs, place the equivalent money NASA is going to spend into R&D for renewable energy and alternate energy!
Bush has spent enough on the Afghan and Iraq war to fully replace America's addiction to oil, the equivalent money could have built a bio-desiel algae infrastructure and made America independent!!!
Solve our problems here on Earth first before going to the moon!
I don't think the flaw in Apollo 13 was _fatal_. If I recall correctly, some geeks saved the day with a sock and some duck tape, and Tom Hanks made it back alive. I also believe the queen alien was killed at the end.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Er... maybe "Winona" was bigger and frickinger than "Vera"?
Or perhaps having the ship get pregnant attracted the female demographic?
No? Darn! So make that "Big fricking guns, a sonic screwdriver or Muppets" then (hey, yes, "pigs in space" did well!).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Yeah, my dad was in the military and has told me the same stories. Thing is, if you can go below zero (whether you can probably depends on what you're doing - e.g., having a war on "terror") then that proves that you need even more money next year!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Two Funny Cartoons About This: http://www.unripe.com/pages/cartoon%2082%202020%20 vision.html
http://www.unripe.com/pages/cartoon%2083%20growth% 20of%20bureaucracies.html
Hillary Clinton will cancel all manned (and most unmanned) space exploration programs as soon as she get in the White House. The money will be handed out to social programs.
It's over, deal with it. You won't see another moon landing in your lifetime. You won't see a Mars mission. You'll never see the Orion fly. The Russians can't go, the Chinese can't go despite the big talk, the Europeans won't go, they're only interested in money.
Suicide now. It will be less painful.
My letter to Carolyn:
...NASA will now spend our space budget repeating a previous endeavor of questionable utility.
I just read your New York Times opinion. Congratulations on the article!
The first paragraph, though, seemed to twist and end unnaturally. The line:
After spending our space budget building things of questionable utility...
seems to cry out for a completion of:
Your next claim is that propulsion is the great challenge in exploring space. I think ground telescope crews who consistently produce good science, and those scientists for whose instruments current propulsion systems have more than adequate lift and range, would disagree.
For those missions which would benefit from greater lift, must the cost of manned spaceflight back to the Moon be the price tag? Would this not repeat the wastes you see in the shuttle program?
I am interested in the science you see from continuous (read: expensive) habitation of the moon "where sunlight is persistent and water ice may be present", apparently at the expense of other space science.
I am also curious as to why you think the competitive endeavours of several countries will share costs, when explicit cooperation on the ISS did not.
Perhaps this essay was a teaser, and answers for most scientists are coming in the next installment of your essays?
Lies about crimes
Well, it certainly killed the MISSION, and nearly killed the crew in the process. If the failure happened at any other point in the mission, they most likely wouldn't have survived. If it happened closer to the moon, they may not have had time to adjust their trajectory for a return to earth. If it happened during or after the lunar landing, they wouldn't have had any "lifeboat" to get home in.
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Defining Statistics and Social Research
If they are seriously going back to the moon, I hope they take the opportunity to do some astronomy. Wouldn't it be a good place for experiments in higher wavelength interferometry, for example? One thing I have been wondering about is whether you could line one of the smaller craters in a wire mesh and turn it into a radio telescope? A primitive Arecibo, if you will.
Most plans I've seen call for sub-terranian colonization of Luna or Mars. Some people want this to be the human "lifeboat" in case of a meteor strike. Guess what, we can dig subterranian "lifeboats" fueled by nuclear reactors for order of magnitude less. As far as colonizing available real estate, Antarctica is still relatively untaken. It is pretty cold (like Mars) but it does have the benefit of a breathable atmosphere and plentiful water supply. Again, the colonization efforts would be orders of magnitude cheaper. But who wants to live in a cold/barren landscape world like Antarctica, Mars or Luna? If you want a telescope ... build a robot. We have no need for a manned space station to take pictures, robots can do that just fine.
Convince the general American populace (or at least Bush and half of congress) that terrorists are on the moon and could strike with orbiting lasers from any moment.
You'll be amazed at how fast NASA will get funding (in joint with the Air Force) and get troops up to the moon.
The sad part is that I'm only half-joking.
3000+ dead in persuit of taming Iraq, but we're too repulsed by death to have any substantial risk of 6 people going to mars. Going to moon is nice, but its kind of like setting your sights on crossing the ocean, but deciding you need to paddle across the lake out back a few times first. We should forget the moon for now, and begin finding a way to get people to mars, even if there are good chances they won't return or survive. I know there are many astronauts and scientists who would go on a one way mission if given the opportunity, even if it meant certain death. Yet we continue to waste the lives of our people in Iraq, despite congress denouncing any further deployments of troops, and despite the public ousting the Republicans from congressional power.
Its just embarassing to be part of this history. We all dreamed that 2010 would bring us into space travel and colonization of the moon and planets, but we're still killing one another on the ground in 3rd world countries over natural resources. We should at least be killing each other in space over natural resources by now!