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Lunar Dustbusters
Maggie McKee writes "Moon dust could be a source of oxygen and metals. But moon dust could also lodge in astronauts' lungs, possibly triggering long-term health effects. During the relatively short Apollo Moon landing missions nearly 40 years ago, astronauts reported difficulty breathing. So now, before astronauts return to the moon in 2020, NASA is working on a number of ways to reduce the amount of lunar dust astronauts are exposed to — from simple grates on the floor to magnetic wands and giant lint rollers."
Wouldn't it be more prudent to just take 1 billion of those dollars and spend it looking for near earth asteroids.
Lets say you spend hours/days in a tin can with very little room (and head-room) while your head is tethered to the wall and inside a fish bowl. Now lets try and not only sleep in that fish bowl, but carry out day-to-day activities. I think I do see a problem.
Demented But Determined.
They would need to bring samples, equipment, and suits into the habitat for research and maintenance. The dust is so abrasive that the outer surfaces of the suits wear away quickly and would need to be regularly replaced.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
A recent book (reviewed here) denounces the entire concept of manned spaceflight as the useless "madness" of boys who never outgrew childish games. Milder critics of the space program ask why we should send humans into space when automated probes are supposedly more useful for their price. Not too long ago, Discover Magazine had a cover article asking whether, maybe, space is so innately dangerous (with all that radiation) that we should avoid going back until we have robots or gengineered humans (!) able to cope with it. Others such as Vox Day, hater of humanity, begin using their word processors to declare that "science has outlived its usefulness to Mankind." And here, we have NASA saying hold everything; we're afraid of the dust.
(An excerpt from the book:
"If there is a lesson to be learned, it is in the futility of seeking fulfillment in outer space. We need to judge ourselves by who we are, not by where we go... Hubris took America to the Moon, a barren, soulless place where humans do not belong... If the voyage has had any positive benefit at all, it has reminded us that everything that is good reside on Earth.")
"We're not worthy, it's not safe, nothing we've ever done is worthwhile." I see this line of thinking as suicidal for the human race. If transhumanism is a supposedly unrealistic fantasy of doing more things than have ever been done before, then shall we call this sentiment "subhumanism," the desire for people to set their sights below what's been accomplished already?
Revive the Constitution.
Let's look at the guinea pigs we sent to the moon:
Still kicking:
Buzz Aldrin is still alive. He's 77.
Neil Armstrong is still alive. He's 76.
Alan Bean is still alive. 75.
Edgar Mitchell. 77 and counting.
David Scott. 75 and counting.
John Young, 77.
Charles Duke, 72.
Eugene Cernan, 73.
Harrison Schmidt, 73.
Died, accident:
Pete Conrad died in 1999 at age 69. (Accident, crash)
Died, disease
Alan Shephard died at age 75 from leukemia.
James Irwin in 1991 at age 61. (Heart failure, which may have been a preexisting condition and caused him to suffer a heart attack during Apollo 15)
Not bad, actually. They should be healthier than the normal person, sure, but I don't see rampant cancer, lung or cardiovascular disease running roughshod over the ranks of the men who've been on the moon.
I call Bullshit.
Get off my lawn.