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Send the ISS To the Moon
jmichaelg writes "Michael Benson is proposing that NASA send the ISS to the moon instead of leaving it in low earth orbit. (While we're at it, we should re-brand it as the 'International Space Ship.') He points out that it's already designed to be moved periodically to higher orbits so instead of just boosting it a few miles, strap on some ion engines and put it in orbit around the moon instead of the earth. That would provide an initial base for the astronauts going to the moon and give the ISS a purpose other than performing yet more studies on the effect of micro gravity on humans. Benson concludes: 'Let's begin the process of turning the ISS from an Earth-orbiting caterpillar into an interplanetary butterfly.'"
Send that POS into the sun. Good riddance.
We better move quick, the Chinese are going to do this in 2010 if I recall.
Why don't we just rename the ISS 'Alice'. Then Jackie Gleason can send it there.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
FTFA:
"The ISS, you see, is already an interplanetary spacecraft -- at least potentially. It's missing a drive system and a steerage module, but those are technicalities."
On that basis my house, next-door's cat and G.W.Bush's arse are also "potentially" interplanetary spacecraft. It's only "technicalities" that prevent them from being so.
We've already been to the moon.
Careful... There might be a few around here that disagree with that :)
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
One thing that I've wondered is why can't the space shuttles be refit for moon missions? I know they are designed only for low orbit.
How to answer your own question.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
And while we're at it, we can replace the space shuttle with ordinary airplanes by FLYING HIGHER. How come noone has ever thought of this before?
It's obvious we never went to the moon. The whole budget went to building movie studios to fake the moon landings. Why the expense? To simulate lower gravity, they had to film it on Mars.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
I can think of several valid reasons why moving the ISS to lunar orbit is a horrible idea. This is merely one of the little ones. The current routine for disposing of trash and waste on ISS is to load it into an empty Progress resupply module then deorbit it and let it burn up in the atmosphere or return it to Earth on the Shuttle. Since the Moon has no atmosphere, doing the same thing there might very well bring down several tons of empty MRE wrappers and busted toilet parts onto some very unhappy taikonaut's head on the Moon.
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
Just don't fall in.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That's no moon....
It's the space station!
Anybody want my mod points?
Think outside the box!
Take a wire rope that gets hooked when the ISS flies by. On the end of the wire is a supply container. The ISS pulls the container in, docks it and transfers goods out and trash into it.
Then it can throw the container back at earth again at the most appropriate time (e.g. when it can gain the speed back).
The container would "land" at sea, for a ship to pick it up.
New containers would be launched like satellites, and to propel the wire out, a small cap would be blasted off, extending the wire
I think this would work nicely, with a maximum amount of re-usage and a minimum energy loss, to get a "moon express ferry".
Okay, for humans you'd have to make the "satellite containers" start and land softer, but this got solved a long time ago. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Mr. Benson is also probably the type to build a house and move in before the carpets are laid or the plumbing is connected. 'Cause hell, the floor is going to get dirty anyways and there's a hole in the bathroom floor you can shit through. "The ISS, you see, is already an interplanetary spacecraft -- at least potentially. It's missing a drive system and a steerage module, but those are technicalities." (From Article) Perhaps he doesn't grasp the concept that just because something is able to be maintained operational in orbit, doesn't mean that you can strap a rocket on it's ass and expect the same level of reliability while moving it further away from it's maintenance source. Alot more spare parts would have to be packed, alot more food stored on it as well as much greater volumes of water. The logistics of getting those things to something in low earth orbit are much easier than pushing it out to the moon so you would have to ensure resonable reserves. While he's making comments like, that he might as well say you can stick a snorkel on it and turn it into a submarine. After all, it's likely water tight.
Can't we fill it with concrete, let it gradually build up to an obit around Earth and Mars using Ion power - perhaps over a decade or two, and then lasso it as it passes Earth (with a stretchy lasso obviously). Perhaps another job for the space cowboys.
When we get to mars we just re-enter to slow down.
Repeat for the journey home.
Then again, perhaps I should leave the rocket science to the brain surgeons...
Nullius in verba
Hey, they laughed at Louis Armstrong when he said he was going to go to the moon. Now he's up there, laughing at them.
Hey Mr journalist with an English major. Leave the thinking to someone who understands basic stuff like gravity, energy etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Buy the General Lee, and get a job at a day care.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Instead of putting it in to standard orbit around ether the Earth or the moon can we put it into a orbit where it orbits both? That way it could be used as a spaceship traveling between the earth and the moon. It could be refueled and resupplied as it pass around earth. It could then carry passengers to a moonbase or whatever is up there.
Try standing on the side of the highway and handing a hamburger to someone who's driving past at 70 miles per hour.
If the ISS was orbiting the moon+earth, it would always be going fast enough to get all the way to the moon. Any resupply ship would have to be going the same speed to make contact, which would mean that the resupply ship would also have to be capable of making it all the way to the moon. Which means that things wouldn't be any cheaper.
The trick is to fire the burger at the car from an air cannon. They just phone in their order, roll down the window and open their mouth.
A similar system could be used for launching burgers and drinks at the ISS. The tricky part is rolling down a window on the ISS.
All those Lagrange points are filled with litter and wrecks of past Gundam fights.
Go big or go home.
Hey, they laughed at Louis Armstrong when he said he was going to go to the moon. Now he's up there, laughing at them.
Yup! It sure took a lot of effort to get to a studio in Texas!
* Ducks *
How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
Everyone knows it's in Nevada. Why do you think Area 51 is still off limits. They don't want to dismantle the set, they may have to use it again. :)
*Ducking with you*
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Dead Bull wrecks your wings?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Am I gonna get a well-deserved "whoosh" for this reply?
Don't worry, there's not sufficient atmosphere in space to make a 'whoosh". And even if there were, there's no medium to carry it.
Or...
If a joke flies through space, and there's nobody there to hear it, it still doesn't make a sound.
Until we tera-form Mars there will be no populating the solar system.
well, no. but moving on:
Think of it like living in Las Vegas: everything has to be trucked in or the whole thing dies.
That to me doesn't sound like populating the solar system as much as staking an extended out-post dependent on cheeseburgers trucked in from the home-world.
I like your metaphor for at least two reasons.
Las Vegas is real; it can be done.
2d, you seem to be saying Mars would be colonized based on an an economy of gambling, prostitution, money laundering, and low regulation.
Heck, it worked for the internet.