Slashdot Mirror
The New Moon Race
An anonymous reader writes "News.com has a pictoral and editorial look at the quickly-heating second race to the moon. A Japanese orbital probe is expected to reach orbit of the satellite sometime today, just one of the dozens of projects now aiming to exploit Earth's orbital partner for scientific and business gains. 'The next lunar visitor may come from China. The Chang'e-1 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off near the end of October. It is slated to study the moon's topography in 3D and also investigate its elements. Chang'e-3 is a soft lunar lander that is scheduled to fly in 2010 ... If all goes as planned, the United States and India will have astronauts on the moon by 2020, China by 2022, and Japan and Russia by 2025.'"
Did you even read the article?
China is expected to launch its first lunar exploration satellite later this month; India has plans for a moon launch in April 2008; the next U.S. moon mission is slated for 2008; and Russia could be flying private citizens around the moon and back as early as 2009. All of those countries are making plans to land a spacecraft on the moon by 2012--with astronauts and cosmonauts to follow soon after. Reports say Germany is also interested in joining the space community. Meanwhile, Google is offering $30 million to encourage private teams to land a rover on the moon by December 2012.
New energy sources...plain old space exploration progress...a moon base...the possibilities are endless and all you can come up with is "depressing"? Maybe you should consider therapy.
Well, I think I know why China is doing it. Their manufacturing sector has grown markedly in the last few years and they need materials. They're currently dropping a few billion $AU in our west coast up in the Pilbara region above Perth, just for iron ore. And I've seen research (from my own firm, a global engineering SI) that says there's more than He3 available. They're going to see what they can mine.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
has massive implications for technological innovations for the rest of the century.
When you consider how much modern tech was a byproduct of the space race, only good can come of another one, regardless of who "wins".
Imagine if there were an open-source entry for such a project. The implications of an open-source license covering the emerging tech that shapes the next century are astounding. Could it ever happen? Not in the opinion of a hardened capitalistic cynic, but, if it did, it would cause a fundamental shift in our technology paradigm.
All they are asking for right now is a robot to a) get to the moon and b) send data back. This is for every geek who has ever reviewed the tech that they used in the 60's for the Apollo mission and thought, "We could do that today a lot faster with a lot less money."
Do you think that you could do it for $5 million?
Now its just time to buck up and do it. Do it with open source. Now that's a picture I wouldn't mind seeing plastered all over the Associated Press, a picture of a lunar robot with a huge-ass penguin logo on it.
"I do not avoid women, Mandrake . . . but I do deny them my essence." - Gen. Ripper
100 years changes pretty much everything given the current and past rates of change and development, but the change is gradual, people forget what things were like 20 years ago. If people are looking back in 100 years and realising that the choices that were made in the past toppled the US as a dominant super power and didn't provide them with all they hoped and dreamed about then they will only be in the same position as the UK or France today. Things change, you have to make those choices now and hope that they stand the test of time. Personally I think that 5 or more independent efforts to get back into and develop space travel and associated technologies are not the ideal solution, much better to have one concentrated use of our combined efforts. Saying that rivalry goes a long way to spur people on, and not engaging in it at all may enable one to reap the benefits without the risks (if others do try). Which is the best option will be clear in 50 years, and will appear to have been obvious in 100.
It's not just a lack of progress. We're going backwards.
I see a few basic, more obvious causes for the slower time table: Higher standards in mission goals and safety, A thickening bureaucracy. Less national pride in the project and more monetary interest. Any of these things would drag out the process of getting the moon again. Higher standards in safety and mission goals has to play at least some part or we could just rebuild the Eagle and launch in early 2008, probably in time for the elections. Thickening bureaucracy is obvious in everything our bloated government does and we don't have a JFK to push through it. Less national pride and more monetary interest is just a reality about people motivations in the here and now. There isn't going to be anyone working overtime off the clock so we can be the first, but there will be plenty of people willing to cash fat government checks for the next 13-30 years. Seriously, when is the last time a project with an open ended budget finished ahead of time?
We are all just people.
Fortunately that isn't an issue. You can, today, remotely verify the existence of the laser retroreflector arrays installed on the moon by the Apollo missions.
DNA just wants to be free...
we don't have a JFK to push through it
It wasn't JFK that pushed it through, it was LBJ. Most of Jack's legislation was dead in the Congress, but once Jack died, Lyndon went to work.
Now, Lyndon Johnson wasn't much of a popular guy like Jack. There wasn't an ounce of Camelot in him. But Lyndon had a few advantages, in that, he was a physically big guy, a real bear of a man, and, he was really a lot more connected in with the still important Roosevelt wing of the Democratic Party - much more so than Jack did. He was relentless on the phone, cunning as a lobbyist, could cut deals with the best of them, and if none of that worked, he was a frigging big guy and he could just hover over you and intimidate you.
LBJ was one of the most powerful President, legislatively, that this country has had, until the current President George W Bush. It's a Texas thing. No President between LBJ and W got asserted the executive nearly as much, both utterly dominated their own political parties like no other leader could (Carter comes to mind), and both, well, were very divisive presidents in times of great national consequence.
This is my sig.
What risks are those? Their manned space program is derived from a Soyuz. Their first flight was in 2003. Their third won't be until 2008. They are flying a lunar mission to NASA's lunar orbiter of the early 1960's. The US has an absolute armada of spacecraft scattered around the solar system. I'd say China's space program is pretty moribund in comparison.
an ill wind that blows no good
That's exactly the kind of thinking that NASA is trying to get away from, because it leads to a very uneven budget.
A direct mars mission would give them lots of cash, and then when its completed, interest will almost drop to zero because NASA has no proposals that are both cheap, fast and interesting enough. Going to the moon will generate a modest interest, and that will give NASA a modest budget. During this time, they can develop a lunar program and at the same time silently develop a mars program. When they've gone to the moon, they can immediately propose going to mars quickly and for a modest sum, since all the basic technology has already been developed. Then the mars mission will work the same way: It will have a current goal, but will also plan ahead for the next goal.
This is really much better than just doing a fast mars mission now, because that will effectively end the current race that we're seeing. We're not even close to having the technology for a manned trip to the outer planets moons for example. Expecting a permanent mars base after a direct mars mission is just silly. It's the same kind of thinking that expected a lunar base after the apollo missions. The moon wasn't interesting anymore, and mars won't be either after we get there. Slow and steady achievements, that's what's good for NASA. Infrastructure and standard procedures are more important than individual projects and missions.
I know what I'm about to say is anathema to many geeks, but just hear me out before you open the can of napalm. With our limited budget and socio-political 'attention span', I say that research money is much better spent doing research here on earth.
Understanding the true nature of the heavens, getting off of our own planet, and traveling to the stars has been a dream of mankind probably since the beginning. But as we learn more about it, we also learn how inhospitable and impractical is it to make a living out there. The cool factor is off the scale, but the idea that we are going to colonize first our solar system, second the galaxy, seems a little bogus to me.
I don't forsee any self-sustaining extra-terrestrial colony in the near future. The moon is dead; Mars is dead; those places have nothing to eat and nothing to breath. Our closest experiment, Biosphere 2, needed imports of oxygen. The vertebrates and pollinating insects died. Any people living out in space would be totally dependent on resources constantly shipped in from the earth. Anything they might mine and ship back would be extremely unprofitable due to costs of launch and shipping. Can you imagine the cost of blasting rocks off of Mars and shipping them to Earth?
We would see a lot of cool things, learn a lot of great things, do some wonderful experiments, understand the solar system better, etc. etc., but with our limited budget, I think we might have more pressing needs.
Here on earth, we are living in a cornucopia of biodiversity. We are living in the midst of a great library of genes, compiled over the past several million years. Sadly, there is a four-alarm blaze in the library, happening right now, and we are doing very little to stop it. We won't be finding any new medicines or genes on Mars. They are already right here on earth, right under our noses, in the rainforests and deserts.
I know we need to get off this rock if we have any hope for long term survival. But I think, as Biosphere 2 showed, we also need to have an understanding of the biosphere in order to have any long-term prospects in space, especially in the case that convoys from Earth are not available. Mars and the moon will always be out there, quietly waiting for us... We are in the middle of an emergency, and those celestial bodies can wait another few centures.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
With the current Google X-prize competitions, the goal of development on the moon is opening up more to commercial enterprises. This means that it will not be exclusively a governmental goal, allowing the US to keep prospects for future use of the moon, while NASA can wisely spend its limited budget pushing the envelope of space exploration by trying for the untested ground of Mars. By allowing the commercial entities to work toward the moon, which will very likely lead to a profit-driven moon base arising, NASA can continue its most important task of advancing science and furthering space exploration, without the risk of being surpassed by other governments or by commercial entities.
The Mars plan that I outlined would be an ideal candidate for this task, as it is possible within the same time window as the current moon mission, and its price tag of $55 billion dollars is about half of the moon missions projected $100 billion cost. This savings will allow NASA to finance and plan even more future missions in other areas, studying Titan more thoroughly, for example, which will allow it to keep the enthusiasm for exploration that has so often been lost.
We are made wise not by the collection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. -George Bernard Shaw
Shouldn't there be some kind of Moore's Law in effect with regard to space travel.
There is, the cost.
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
I agree with what you've said, however, I believe the indignation expressed here is a result of the fact that many here believe that we should ALREADY be prepared to do this - that we shouldn't be starting from scratch at the end of 2007; that the framework should've already been in place years ago. Yes, we've built many amazing unmanned probes since the first moon landing which can do things no man can do, but the progression of manned space travel is important to many people.
I have mixed feelings, myself. I always thought that the benefits of research into manned space missions trickle down into the general scientific body and thus have clear justification; however, that justification is tempered by the fact that a manned crew is exposed to fairly high risk factors. Nobody gets injured in space, it seems - they either make it there and back again, or die trying.
And, our probes keep getting better. In a few generations they'll be able to perform any task and gather any data that a man carrying his environment with him in a bubble could do. When all that information is fed back to the controllers on Earth, isn't that the same as actually being there? Aren't these creations, these tools, an extension of our nervous system in the same way our hands - or the tools in them - are? Does it make a difference if you're looking at the surface of the moon through wireless relay versus through a plexiglass visor? Any argument made that states that physically being there is important or different somehow is analogous to saying that a person wearing a cochlear implant to hear, or those new retinal-implant CCDs to see, isn't really 'here' and experiencing the world.
I think a debate needs to be opened within the branch of the scientific community that concerns space exploration, with the intent of laying down a framework of ideals and determining what the justification for a manned mission is.
Personally, the only way I see justification for another manned moon mission is to do habitat research; but I have a feeling that this return might be closer to a saber-rattling exercise, lest lesser-industrialized nations damage our power-hungry leaders' charter of 'manifest destiny'.
It's especially sad, because you know damn well that even if we DID make it back to the moon, and even if we did "beat" China/Japan/India, we'd just abandon it again. Because the US has no interest or intent in staying.
The problem here is that as long as there's no reason to stay, then they won't stay. China/Japan/India will have the same problems the US does. Every country is using the same failed approach. A huge government program that plants flags and footprints.
This is particularly disappointing in the case of the US because it's strength has always been economic. NASA should be engaging in projects that build space infrastructure and employing private industry when it can. Not building its own launch vehicles and doing more of the same stuff that we already know leads to failure in the long term.
It's not such a really big step back for two reasons;
First, Apollo took much longer than most people think - some parts of it were started as much as six years before Kennedy's speech, though as basic research programs without specific applications. Apollo (the moon version) was only possible at all because the trade studies had already been largely done on Apollo (the general purpose earth orbiter version) and hardware design and development (not research) was already well underway. This is why the pacing item to the landing was the LM - which had to be started essentially from scratch. (The CSM was already well underway, as were the F1 engines.)
Second, because this time (nominally) we aren't devoting such a large fraction of the federal budget to the project. The Apollo era motto was 'waste anything but time', todays motto is 'waste anything but money'. (Even though they aren't doing too well at that.)