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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?"
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.
who cares about the MOON!
The boston police?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Modern space ships don't have to be docked in water.
Wasn't sure if you knew that or not.
They fly around in the sky.
Lol. Many, many reasons.
Yes, there's the lifeboat argument.
There's doing research and rehearsals for manned exploration further out. I certainly wouldn't want to venture to Mars or the asteroids without technology tested a little closer to home first.
Raw materials -- He3 (as fusion fuel) is one possibility. As a source for raw materials (silicon, aluminum, etc) for building solar powersats is another.
Astronomical research -- lunar farside is the best place in the solar system for radio telescopes, it's shielded from Earth's noise. It's also a pretty good place for telescopes at all other wavelengths, especially if there's a manned base to swap out instruments, repair cameras, etc.
A frontier. People need one, even if only a few actually pioneer it. Earth will go crazy even faster without one.
Whole books have been written on "why", a Slashdot comment isn't going to do it justice.
-- Alastair