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What Shall We Do With the Moon Once We Get There?
MarkWhittington writes "For the first time in over thirty five years, the Moon has become the next frontier. The United States has committed to returning human astronauts to the Moon by the end of the next decade. China has hinted that it intends to do this also. A variety of countries, including the United States and China, but also India, Europe, and Japan, have either sent robotic probes into lunar orbit or are on the verge of doing so." Contribute your favorite moon ideas below; I'd like to see it used as the set to film The Moon is a Harsh Mistress .
I do believe that "dark side of the moon" means in this context the side unseen from earth.
The moon does rotate, but it does so at such a speed, that the same side always faces the earth.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The ones we'd be observing with the telescope. I wouldn't call that "interference" - it's the signal.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
This is a problematic approach given the current direction in fusion energy research. The problem of D-He3 fusion is that the cross section for reactions is more difficult to attain than D-T fusion. Sure, there are neutrons involved in the latter, but obtaining satisfactory plasma conditions is the main reason we don't already have fusion power. To jump over to D-He3 and up the temperature and density requirements would push the plasma capabilities further still. Additionally, there's still the issue of fuel dilution, which in the case of D-T fusion, only a single He4 is left over to (somehow) remove. The neutron removes itself not being confined. In the case of D-He3, there's an He4 and a proton diluting the fuel, essentially, twice as much as in the D-T case. Dealing with fueling and fuel dilution issues is part of the mission of the ITER project, but there are still a lot of issues remaining in this area and it doesn't get easier with D-He3 fuels. Finally, claiming that the fuels will be aneutronic is not entirely correct. Namely, one still has a bunch of He3-He3 reactions as well as D-D reactions occurring whenever these species are in the same plasma. While having lower cross-sections than than the D-He3 reaction, they still occur and still produce neutrons. So even though the single D+He3 reaction is aneutronic, a reactor based on that fuel combination still will not be and will still have a non-zero activity level associated with it.
Obama wants to slow the space program down to spend it on welfare.
Education, actually.
It's one thing to be critical of decreasing space program funding to pay for math & science education, it's another thing to imply that the funding will be diverted to handouts.
Tweet, tweet.
Someone has already pointed out that the proposal was to fund education, not welfare, so I'll skip the blatant lie and instead comment on the gross distortion: he doesn't want to slow "the space program" -- he wants to delay the Constellation program, arguably the biggest and most pointless waste of money in the space program. He's all for continuing to fund and advance the actually useful parts of the space program.
Hmm. A gross distortion, an outright lie, and then a made up statistic about how long the money would last in its other function. How does something like that get modded "Informative"?
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
That's somewhat true. Pre-WWI, they were called German fries. We rechristened them French Fried in honor of our allies. No doubt, they were too polite (and desperate for our help) to object to denegrating their cullinary reputation.
And then 100 years later we think they will be insulted. Kinda sad.
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