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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?
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
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.
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.
All those Lagrange points are filled with litter and wrecks of past Gundam fights.
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.