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EU and Russia Show Off New Lunar Spacecraft Design

Posted by timothy on from the it's-only-a-model dept.

schliz writes "Space flight planners have unveiled a new spaceship design for a joint EU/Russian trip to the Moon. The EU will be building the crew capsule, using technology developed for the automatic cargo system used to supply the International Space Station." First one to link to decent pics (the article has none) wins undying gratitude and a warm feeling inside.

145 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Take me to by spydum · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    your liter.

    1. Re:Take me to by MadMidnightBomber · · Score: 1

      Mods with no sense of humour. *sigh*

      --
      "It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
  2. About time by seeker_1us · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's been.. what nearly 35 years since we've been to the moon? About time someone (and not the US since the Iraq war has sucked up all our money) went there.

    Interestingly, from TFA it sounds like they will NOT use the separate landing craft approach of Apollo.

    1. Re:About time by Skrapion · · Score: 2, Interesting

      About time someone (and not the US since the Iraq war has sucked up all our money) went there.

      That's funny, if the US has run out of money, how can they afford to stay in Iraq?

      The war is costing $720 million/day. I say they scale that back to $700 million/day and give the rest to NASA. That should be more than enough for them to work with!

      --
      The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
    2. Re:About time by William+Robinson · · Score: 1

      Interestingly, from TFA it sounds like they will NOT use the separate landing craft approach of Apollo.

      So, are they going to shoot in desert of Siberia this time? :)

      --
      hilarious
    3. Re:About time by markov_chain · · Score: 1

      Yeah but a 100 million here, a 100 million there and pretty soon you're talking about real money!

      --
      Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
    4. Re:About time by david.given · · Score: 2, Funny

      The war is costing $720 million/day.

      Where do you get your figures from? According to nationalpriorities.org (which given its bias would tend to overestimate, if anything), it 'only' costs $340e6 per day.

      (You may be amused to know that that would pay off my mortgage in slightly more than 30 seconds.)

    5. Re:About time by Nimey · · Score: 1

      Funnily enough, the Vietnam War drained enough money that we couldn't afford to keep sending up Apollo or work on lunar colonies.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    6. Re:About time by holywarrior21c · · Score: 1

      No you insensitive clod! someone convince Dubya that there are terrorist links to Moon and Mars! hem! i say Cydoniansss innn uhhh Marsss Direct Threat sirr mr presidentttt! now that sound scary enough 4 him. not to mention having 300K men there in search of Bin laden in one of those 'pyramid' hills.

    7. Re:About time by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      you can afford it because you are lending money from the eu and china

      It's lend to and borrow from. Forgive me if that makes me think that you're a tripe spouting loon, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    8. Re:About time by Garridan · · Score: 1

      A tripe spouting loon? That sounds like a very tasty dish. What ethnicity eats such a thing, and where's their nearest restaurant?

    9. Re:About time by AmigaMMC · · Score: 1
      >if the US has run out of money, how can they afford to stay in Iraq?

      Actually it can't, but it's doing it with loans borrowed from China. This White House has decided that it's better to run the country down in a hole rather than admit that it was a poor choice to invade Iraq even if it's costing billions of dollars that we don't have. There was a very interesting article on Scientic American not to long ago, where a famous psychiatrist explained the dynamics of thought, related to Iraq, of not letting go of a situation even when the result is a huge loss, he attributed that to a person's brain always finding an excuse to justify their actions.

    10. Re:About time by sepelester · · Score: 1

      (and not the US since the Iraq war has sucked up all our money)

      Yeah, let's get someone else to do it so the US can continue warring

    11. Re:About time by Marcion · · Score: 1

      It is about time, however I am a bit scared we are building another shuttle:

      "The capsule will use rockets to land and take off from the lunar surface and to touchdown back on Earth so that it can be reused."

      Bringing the shuttle back and "reusing" it is far more expensive than ditching it in space. "Reusing" here actually means pulling the whole thing apart, checking every piece, and then putting it all back together again. This is why the Shuttle costs $1 billion per mission by the soyuz can do a mission for just $20 million.

      --
      My little Linux and tech blog
    12. Re:About time by D.McGuiggin · · Score: 1

      "It's lend to and borrow from. Forgive me if that makes me think that you're a tripe spouting "

      So what are you for threatening people over the internet, like you did to me?

      http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=606465&cid=24100855

      Oh, right, pathetic. Still.

      Now go ahead and toss out a silly little insult, in the hopes that you can distract people from the fact that you're a loser who threatens people over the internet.

    13. Re:About time by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      You said it, so that's you.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    14. Re:About time by D.McGuiggin · · Score: 1

      "You said it, so that's you."

      And now you're so beaten down and embarrassed by your idiotic threat that you can't even come up with a coherent insult, THAT is how much I own you.

      Why not just bust out "I'm rubber you're glue"? That about your speed, you pathetic little twat.

      I ALSO notice you haven't followed up on your threat, bitch. You were plenty tough when yuo though you could threaten people with impunity, but now that I'm here making it clear you can't, the best you have is "You said it, so that's you."

      God damn man, are you ever pitiful.

      By the way, bitch, weren't you whining about me "stalking" you? So you're a hypocrite now too, how sad for your sorry loser ass.

    15. Re:About time by D.McGuiggin · · Score: 1

      "What a sad excuse for a life you must have!"

      Maybe, but you're trolling me as an AC now after I shut you the fuck up, so I'd worry more about your own life if I were you.

      Of course, I'd shoot myself in the head if I were you, but that's beside the point.

  3. Looks to me like another space race by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    If the U.S. Government still has the balls for it. Personally I am not so sure, though I am not quite sure where they lost them.

    1. Re:Looks to me like another space race by fredrik70 · · Score: 1

      actually, they have, the war of independence, the civil war which wasn't pretty and the war of 1812, against canada/england. Maybe there have been more, dunno...

      --
      if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
    2. Re:Looks to me like another space race by fastest+fascist · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's only going to be a space race if there's a political reason to have one.

    3. Re:Looks to me like another space race by LingNoi · · Score: 1

      Are you seriously saying that the people of today can be compared to around 200 years ago?

    4. Re:Looks to me like another space race by gregbot9000 · · Score: 1

      I thought that I made it clear that it made no sense when I said "without one fact" just like the parent was without one fact and just a snipe at the US. Also towards your snide remark about debt. I only have 3k in student loans, because I live within my means and pay down my loans as soon as possible, instead of viewing extra income as the ability to have higher monthly payments. There is nothing wrong with debt if you know how to use it. The ability to get cheap credit is the only reason I am able to finish school.

      And despite what so many are quick to say, prosperity is so very attainable in the US. You're talking about a country where the poorest members have microwaves, color TV, internet, hot and cold potable water in their house, lots of food, new clothing, conditioned air, and relative safety.

    5. Re:Looks to me like another space race by gregbot9000 · · Score: 1

      "but what is the evidence that Americans use debt wisely?" Firstly some do some don't, I do. Those who didn't/don't can starve in the street while the rest of us who did buy their old house(except now uncle Sam is about to hand them a fat sweaty wad of cash = to .3 trillion $) for all I care.

      If you manage your finances well it wont help you find a job. But it will help you weather it a lot better. If you are making x dollars at the peak and you take debt out to that level then you've locked yourself in to having to maintain a basic level that is above your average earnings. If you spend wisely then when things slowdown you'll be able to spend out of your savings and weather the storm without losing all.

      That is pretty standard for an industrialized country but thats the point, most industrialized sociality are about on par with everything I've read form the "age of reason" to Marx with what a "utopia" will be like. It's just human nature to only want one thing: MORE.

      It seems to me that arguments about the rich having more hinge on jealousy rather than altruism, since the facts show that it is not "the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer." But The rich get richer faster than the poor get richer.

      Hopefully Wal-mart will get the federal government to let them open clinics, then we'll see attainable health care in the US, I'm only kind of joking on that.

    6. Re:Looks to me like another space race by fredrik70 · · Score: 1

      um, no, the statement in GP was that usa never had fought any war on their own soil, that is not correct.

      --
      if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
    7. Re:Looks to me like another space race by foniksonik · · Score: 1

      Have you read any American News about what happens in America?

      We kill more of our own people via gang shootings, revenge murder, random violence, etc. than all the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (both sides)... trust me, if the rest of the planet decided to invade the good ol' USA, you'd have hell to pay. We carry guns here... good guys, bad guys... normal average citizens.

      Think about Texas. Think about deer and boar hunters in Arkansas and the rest of the central south... think about all the organized criminals... now think about how you'll have to deal with our Navy first, Airforce and Army next... then if you get on our soil, we'll all be at the local gun store (we call them Wal-Mart BTW) getting outfitted for skirmishing.

      I seriously pity the military force that manages to get past our standard military forces.

      --
      A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
  4. Links to pics and the BBC article by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here

    --
    "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    1. Re:Links to pics and the BBC article by igny · · Score: 1

      The warm feeling award goes to submitter of this

      --
      In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
    2. Re:Links to pics and the BBC article by I+confirm+I'm+not+a · · Score: 4, Funny

      More pictures here. It's a Slashdot article from Thursday entitled "First Images of Russian-European Manned Spacecraft".

      --
      This is where the serious fun begins.
    3. Re:Links to pics and the BBC article by neumayr · · Score: 1

      Huh? Those 80s style 3D renderings actually qualify as "decent pics"?

      --
      Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
  5. Undying gratitude?? by conlaw · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'll just settle for the warm feeling, thanks. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/sci_nat_enl_1216739410/html/1.stm

    1. Re:Undying gratitude?? by ben2umbc · · Score: 2, Funny

      mod parent +1 for undying gratitude and warm feelings from swimming in the kiddy pool.

  6. Russia is the pioneer here... by bogaboga · · Score: 4, Informative

    "...The EU will be building the crew capsule, using technology developed for the automatic cargo system used to supply the International Space Station..."

    I thought it is important for Slashdotters to know that when it comes to automatic docking of spacecraft in outer space, Russians have been doing this for decades without much fan fare!

    I just do not understand why we in the west always appear to get "full of it" when it comes to technology issues. Why?

    Even when we 100% relied on the Russian Soyuz technology not many years ago, this fact did not capture headlines in Russia. If it were the other way round, I am sure CNN, ABC and FOX would inundate us with the story as if nothing else mattered.

    1. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not so very long ago -- though it has been a few years -- the U.S. had to take over and dock Apollo and Soyuz capsules that were scheduled to be docked by the Russians, because the Russian equipment failed to handle the job. The Russians tried for like 2 hours, and could not get the two capsules to meet up within tolerance. The U.S. crew took over with the American equipment, and the job was done in 10 minutes.

      Nothing against the Russians, but their technology is still not a match for our own. Even though that was some years back, that is still simply a fact.

    2. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Last time i checked Russian rockets and space capsules didn't explode on take off or re entry killing all the astronauts. Might want to reconsider what you just said.

    3. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nor is their lift capability anywhere near ours.

      Sort of like saying "My bicycle never careens into a wall at 100mph killing everybody riding it".

      The Soyuz module with a crew of 3 delivers about 1 ton of cargo. The Shuttle with a crew of 7 can deliver 57 tons of cargo. That means a Soyuz rocket would have to make 57 trips to do what the shuttle does in one. Something tells me even with a 2% failure rate for the shuttle I would say it out performs the soyuz. Unless your metric is number of millionaires launched into LEO.

    4. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sorry I'm calling bullshit on myself. It's too late.

      Divide Shuttle numbers by 2 I was operating on a nice easy 1000 pounds to a ton.

      Shuttle can take about 25 tons into LEO with 7 crew members and the Soyuz can take much less than a ton with 3 crew members.

    5. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Rakishi · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well they do explode on takeoff sometimes and they do fail almost catastrophically on reentry even more often. They however have a simple enough design that allows for enough safety features/margins to not kill the crew in the process. Some of the crew may get permanent injuries and never fly again (from the G forces) but they live.

    6. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Thagg · · Score: 4, Informative

      You know -- sadly what you are referring to was the Apollo-Soyuz mission of the mid 80's. The Russian KURS automated docking system is used all the time on the space station now, and it has worked flawlessly every time.

      It also worked perfectly on the Mir. They did have a docking mishap on the Mir, but that as when they tried to do a manual docking.

      Thad

      --
      I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
    7. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by S-100 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Flawlessly? It almost destroyed the ISS in October, 2004. The automatic system unexpectedly accelerated the Soyuz TMA toward the ISS and the only thing that saved the ships was disabling the automatic docking system and taking manual control.

      And lest you think manual docking is safe, don't forget the incident where an ISS crewman took manual control of the docking of a Russian cargo ship and ended up smashing it into the station, fortunately at low enough delta-v to cause only superficial damage.

    8. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why does cargo need babysitting? Use the Progress resupply vehicle - no human lives to endanger while delivering new toilet roll to the ISS.

    9. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by meringuoid · · Score: 2, Informative
      what you are referring to was the Apollo-Soyuz mission of the mid 80's

      1975, actually, the last American flight until the first Space Shuttle launch in 1981.

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    10. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by david.given · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Soyuz module with a crew of 3 delivers about 1 ton of cargo. The Shuttle with a crew of 7 can deliver 57 tons of cargo.

      24 tonnes to LEO, actually. And if you want to lift cargo, you're hardly going to use a Soyuz. Use a properly designed heavy-lifter instead, such as a Proton or an Ariane 5, and launch your astronauts seperately in a Soyuz; that way you don't have to man-rate your heavylifter, which saves you vast amounts of money. The Shuttle's main problem is that it's designed to be a man-rated lifter and a cargo heavylifter and an on-orbit habitation module and a heavy cargo return vehicle and an aeroplane, which means it does everything badly rather than doing one thing well.

    11. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by cheesybagel · · Score: 1
      Shuttle LEO payload is 60600 lb to LEO.

      The Russian segments for ISS were launched with Proton, not Soyuz. Proton launches 46000 lb to LEO.

      The Soviet Energia, if it was still in production, would have 194000 lb to LEO capability. The US Saturn V used to launch Skylab could put 165000 lb in LEO.

    12. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

      *sigh* The AC above me was trying to link to the List of Space Disasters article on Wikipedia. Which speaks of two major incidents resulting in the loss of crew. The first was a parachute failure which led to the death of the astronaut on board. The second was a valve failure that resulted in depressurization of the capsule and a loss of all crew members.

      Score Card
      ==========
      Russia - 2
      U.S. - 2

      Seems to be a parity to me. Also, there is the issue that the Soviet Union didn't always tell everyone when an accident happened. It's difficult to tell if there were further incidents that have gone unpublished.

      Regardless of that issue, there are more than enough near-fatal space accidents on the Russian side listed in the Wikipedia article to question whether the Russian space program really is safer. The truth is simply that space travel is risky business. It will continue to be risky business for a long time, unfortunately.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    13. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by TorKlingberg · · Score: 1

      The Russian crafts have done a lot of dockings. The European ATV uses the same docking system. Anyway, why are we debating whos docking system is the best? We are building the same space station anyway.

    14. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by S-100 · · Score: 1

      It's a valid critique of differing design philosophies. Russian spacecraft, since 1957, have had a heavy bias towards autonomous operation. Even their early manned capsules gave little manual control to the astronaut. This gave them an advantage in robotic missions, and it manifests itself in the autonomous docking systems that we are discussing here. It's valid to discuss whether a "more automatic" Russian-influenced design is more desirable than a "more flexible" American-influenced design.

    15. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by sponga · · Score: 1

      Just hopefully they don't use Russian docking technology.

      "ahhh our supplies are here....and they are not stopping....ahhhh"

    16. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 1

      Classic metric/imperial mistake. You accidentally used 1000 pounds since there are 1000 kg in a tonne.

      Do you work for NASA?

      --
      Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
    17. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Rakishi · · Score: 1

      The US Saturn V used to launch Skylab could put 165000 lb in LEO.

      This was not a full sized Saturn V and a fully loaded Saturn V could lift 200000+ lbs. Of course some Energia variants could have gone quite a bit higher but then again some planned Saturn V modification could surpass even that. The Ares V is if I understand correctly going to be somewhere above a Saturn V in lift capacity.

      Then again at that point it's almost a pissing contest since your failure rates and costs are probably much higher than doing individual launches (using a smaller rocket).

    18. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Progress (and ATV) can only dock to the APAS hatches on the Russian segment - which sharply limits the size of the equipment that can be delivered.

    19. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Not really a fair comparison since you are ignoring the Apollo deaths but including the Russian deaths at around the same time. The deaths may have been on the ground but they were part of the Apollo program. Pointless flag waving is futile here since space travel is risky with the best from anyone.

    20. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's only fair if you also include the Russian deaths on the ground. Who had the dubious honor of having the first space-related death? Why, the Russians with a training exercise in a pure oxygen environment. (Same issue that killed the Apollo astronauts.) Except that was 1961. Apollo wouldn't repeat that mistake until 1967. (Which was a perfectly avoidable mistake, and was a huge wake-up call to the NASA of the time.)

      Don't even get me started on the number of near-fatal collisions and separation failures the Russians had in space! All of which is nicely spelled out in the same Wikipedia article.

      I REPEAT. Space is dangerous business. Get over this idea that the Russians are inherently safe and the U.S. isn't. They're both as dangerous as you can possibly get. The different approaches to safety primarily yield different modes of failure rather than a superior safety record.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    21. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      So? Thats going to be academic in a few years when the Shuttles gathering dust in museums.

    22. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that would be true except for the HTV - which uses the CBM hatches on the US end. Then there's the private contractors NASA is working with, which will also use CBM.
       
      Then there's Constellation which will also use CBM.
       
      There's a lot of options that don't use the sharply limited APAS hatch.

    23. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by qazsedcft · · Score: 1

      Also, there is the issue that the Soviet Union didn't always tell everyone when an accident happened.

      Yeah, and the US government never lied to the public or tried to cover up any facts.

    24. Re:Russia is the pioneer here... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      The HTV (aside from being seriously behind schedule, as it was originally supposed to fly in 2001), can move 7,600kg to the ISS.

      The ATV can also carry 7,600KG, accessible through the 'severely limited' APAS hatch...

      Constellations cargo variant was deleted from the contract with Lockheed in April 2007.

      Now, the CBM hatch is good for bulky payloads, but its advantages are not head and shoulders above the currently available cargo vehicles.

  7. capsule by fragbait · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7519723.stm

    1. Re:capsule by Bazouel · · Score: 1

      Sorry, you are not the first to link pics, no warm feeling inside for you.

      --
      Intelligence shared is intelligence squared.
    2. Re:capsule by dave1g · · Score: 1

      another link from the comments: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_acts_origin.html

  8. ISS Mk.II? by geckipede · · Score: 1

    I haven't kept up with the finer details of NASA's moonbase plan. Is it meant to be a joint international project with several countries having independant means to reach it? If not it does seem rather odd for ESA to want to develop this, although I can imagine Russia wanting to play its part in another space race.

  9. Space Unity by inKubus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, large joint missions to space tend to inspire unity in disparate peoples. I think it's great that East and West are working with one another to see the moon again. And I was thinking that we in America really need to rethink our economic system to work when we're all just getting what we need, rather than what we want. Really, even with prices rising, everything is as cheap if not cheaper than it's ever been in history. And not just in America but world-wide. A family of four can eat like kings in America for under $200 a month, which is only 11 percent of their annual income (at the povery line, 20,500).

    We could easily go to the moon again. Things cost much less than the estimates when people actually care. That's the thing about the past 30 years, and especially the past decade in America. We all knew that we were going to work and really producing nothing meaningful. Perhaps we might do some sort of creative service, but were we really fulfilling any useful cause? NO! And it was all for selfish reasons. A COLLECTIVE goal, like space travel, inspires people to do more work than what they are paid for. That means more productivity and a lower overall cost for the same work.

    In fact, why not OPEN SOURCE the entire lunar thing to colleges and universities, high schools, geeks everywhere. Using version control systems you could allow everyone to put in a patch, and of course it would all be reviewed before anythign was built but why not? The real problem with space travel in America is NASA, because they are so convinced they are the only people who know how to do it. But guess what, it's all old military people mostly (there's some good science, I'm not going to deny that) in the administration, a vestige of the cold war. It's still run like a branch of the military, and the contractors know how to exploit that for maximum profit. What we need is the contractors to ACTUALLY COMPETE, rather than consolidate. We need people to actually care, to bill 10 hours and put in 20, not MILK THE SYSTEM. Actually care about what you're building.

    That goes beyond space, to the country itself. It's a radical idea, actually caring. Don't wait for someone else to do it for you. And be persistent.

    --
    Cool! Amazing Toys.
    1. Re:Space Unity by inKubus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People simply working for a common goal is "Communism"? EVERY great advance in history is a result of people sacrificing for a common goal. Take the Manhattan project, as a for instance. The inspiration, in this case, was a horrible war. Why, if someone mentions the mere possibility of doing something together, NOT because of a war, but because we're HUMANS and WE CAN, it's branded as "communism"? That couldn't be further from the truth. Your mindset is the result of brainwashing by the people who REALLY benefit from the so called free market. There isn't a free market here anymore.

      I call for a FREER market, where anyone who is willing or able can contribute, rather than sitting on our thumbs and watching our tax dollars flow into the pockets of the space oligarchy. History only proves what HAS happened, not what can. Free society works because people are rewarded for merit. What I'm saying is that people are discouraged because they are NOT being fairly rewarded for their merit. And a collective success, for all humanity, would be a mental reward, a turning point in human history. For money, yes, but also for everyone's livelyhood.

      We sit at a time where the basic necessities in life, WORLD-WIDE are less expensive in time and energy than ever before in history. The reason for this is technology. We HAVE time, especially in America, to spend thinking about the greater goals of humanity because we don't have to spend all of our time worrying about food, shelter, medicine, etc. This is a direct result of the free market, not because we all decided to collectively create a better standard of living. A FEW men, GREAT men, made these things possible through their hard work and ingenuity.

      The competing and crawling we are all doing now is simply to make more waste, not produce anything. To get more luxuries that are basically made by robots nowadays. And so people are discouraged. They are not seeing anything INSPIRING anymore.

      So there are two ways to go about it. Rally everyone around their fears, their unseen enemies, their negative emotions OR rally everyone around their hopes, dreams of peace for all, their positive emotions. That is not COMMUNISM. That's humanism at it's finest. Capital, human capital, money, rewards for those who succeed; these are all essential to the goals of humankind because you're right--people want to compete. But will it be a friendly game or a war? It seems to me that you have given in to the dark side, and no longer recognize that we--as humans--are all one, stuck on this planet with nowhere to run except together. In the melting pot that is America, there is no greater concept.

      So, why don't you stop looking at the past and start looking at the future and stop giving in to your fears (which were probably created by some newspaper anyway)?

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    2. Re:Space Unity by oodaloop · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think the parent merely forgot the SML (Sarcasm Markup Language) tags.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    3. Re:Space Unity by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      Woooooosh!

    4. Re:Space Unity by spandex_panda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you been watching that Enron movie? Geez some of those Americans are nasty bastards... De-regulation killed folks. European Union type regulation seems much more equitable and 'free' than American 'freedoms'.

      --
      like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
    5. Re:Space Unity by S-100 · · Score: 1

      There's already an open source Lunar-X project. Look up FredNet.

    6. Re:Space Unity by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Not really; as evident from his posting history, the parent is an avid Randian screw-everyone-except-me libertarian, so it is reasonable to assume that he was talking seriously.

    7. Re:Space Unity by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Deregulation of what killed who?

      I hope your not talking about Enron. It wasn't deregulation there. Enron was manipulating prices and scamming the system in ways that were already illegal. The so called deregulation in California which was only partial deregulation only exposed Enron's illegal activities and caused the bankruptcy.

      The EU type of regulation costs on average of 30% more to the consumer then American energy does before you add in taxes depending on where in the Eu you are. Average costs can be compared here. And yes, that is in US dollars already adjusted for the week dollar. Notice how the average in the US is 10.4 cents per Kilowatthour and England is 18.6 cents. Denmark doesn't have a 2006 listing but in 2005, it was 29.5 cents compare to 9.5 cents in the US. France seems to be a little better with 14.4 cents in 2006. Now, consider that on top of this rate, there is a 5% vat tax added on and then normal government taxes. Plus there are tariffs designed to combat global warming that add costs. Although I think most of the tariffs are voluntary at this state.

      These numbers only go to 2006 and in some cases, just 2004. If you think they are doing something better, I suggest you look again. Their rates went up again because of "global warming" measures and to get them in compliance with Kyoto accords and all. In 2005, Germany was paying and average of 21.2 cents per Kilowatthour and their rates supposedly jumped 25% in order to implement a solar program because of global warming. If my math works correctly, that should put them around 26.5 cents now.

      Now of course those numbers are the average for the country and some areas may be more or less. But the same wisdom holds true for all the countries in order to calculate an average. Imagine going from 10.4 cents to Frances 14.4 cents averages. That's a 38-39% increase automatically. My billing last month was for 786 Kilowatt-hours. I actually pay 7.9 cents but lets go with the averageof 10.4 cents. That's around $79.81 for the month at US average rates. If I was paying the France rate of 14.4 cents, I would be paying $110.60 instead. Using the UK's rate, $142.84. Germany ans Denmark respectively would be $162.81 and $226.56.

      As you can see, I wouldn't think their is anything sane with the EU's system. I much prefer my hypothetical average of $79.81 (the actual @ 7.49 cents was $57.52 for the month) over the EU's pricing and controls.

      Have you actually looked at the differences or did someone tell your which is better. Of course if the US starts a carbon trade, we will probably be in the same boat as the EU shortly. And I'm sure the averages have increased somewhat over the last 2 years or so. I'm not looking forward to that at all.

    8. Re:Space Unity by matt4077 · · Score: 1

      You should moonlight as a speechwriter.

      --
      Fleur de Sel
    9. Re:Space Unity by Woy · · Score: 1

      Go read a book. It won't hurt.

      --
      "If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
    10. Re:Space Unity by nw15062 · · Score: 1

      I couldn't agree more, but the change in this direction is slow and gradual, most people don't even know where to start.

      When you make the change in yourself you contribute to the greater change, more then talk or force ever could.

      Live your life by his philosophy and others will see it and do, like a pebble thrown in a pond our actions whether good or bad ripple across the surface reaching out to other pebbles on the shore.

      Let our actions be good, let our wave make a better world, one with purpose.

    11. Re:Space Unity by Jumpy · · Score: 1

      I'd like to see (As an American) the U.S.A. + E.S.A. + Russia work together to return to the moon. I also agree that NASA could open source certain aspects of it. It doesn't have to be communism. All these countries have free market economies. Perhaps even the Chinese could jump on that.

      --
      -- If there's one thing i can't stand, it's intolerance!
    12. Re:Space Unity by Super_Z · · Score: 1

      The EU type of regulation costs on average of 30% more to the consumer then American energy does before you add in taxes depending on where in the Eu you are.

      Actually, the numbers you quote are after taxes. I also see that the numbers are calculated using 2007 exchange rates and not purchasing power parity (PPP). Your comparisons are therefore probably invalid, as the exchange rates vary wildly.

      As a result, extrapolating any structural or regulation cost on top of these numbers makes no sense. As an example, the Nordic countries has a shared (and very deregulated) electricity market. The Nordic electricity suppliers can all buy their electricity on the same spot market. Despite this, your doe.gov page manages to present the electricity bought at the same market as $0.295 and $0.071 for Denmark and Norway respectively (2005).

    13. Re:Space Unity by neumayr · · Score: 1

      Woah, you went a little over the top for a funny mod there.
      Unless you aspired for an idiot mod - in that case you're right on track.

      --
      Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
    14. Re:Space Unity by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Actually, the numbers you quote are after taxes. I also see that the numbers are calculated using 2007 exchange rates and not purchasing power parity (PPP). Your comparisons are therefore probably invalid, as the exchange rates vary wildly.

      Actually, it doesn't matter if it is after taxes. None of the spot calculations I made took taxes into consideration. I am under the understanding that it is before VAT taxes though. But as I said, it doesn't matter if I am wrong. And no, ppp doesn't really effect anything because we are comparing "their brand of controls and regulation" compared to ours. If we implemented them, we would be paying more. Most of the recents costs come from recent regulation. You can see this by the drastic jump in costs around 2003 or so in almost all of the EU countries.

      As a result, extrapolating any structural or regulation cost on top of these numbers makes no sense. As an example, the Nordic countries has a shared (and very deregulated) electricity market. The Nordic electricity suppliers can all buy their electricity on the same spot market. Despite this, your doe.gov page manages to present the electricity bought at the same market as $0.295 and $0.071 for Denmark and Norway respectively (2005).

      Well, first off, your not taking into consideration, the differences in regulation. This is end price to consumers not costs to a country. Second, the DDK and NOK exchange rates are different which can also change the values. So the question for you to prove is that Norway has as much regulation and taxes and such so that the market represented to individual consumers is equal. I maintain it isn't and the differences don't pull anything into question.

      besides, when you look at the figures, (http://www.nordpoolspot.com/ look for area prices is the link doesn't work) you see that on average, Norway pay less for the energy then Denmark for some reasons. As of the time of this writing, on Sat 26.07.08 which was the last date to have peak numbers and all for a complete comparison, the two Denmark areas purchased power at DK1 81.47 and DK2 61.93. These are Euros per megawatt-hour. This comes out to an average of 71.70 Euros/MWh. In contrast, Norway which is divided into 3 areas, was NO1: 42.79 NO2: 55.57 and NO3 at 55.46. This averages out to roughly 51. 27 Euros for ever MWh. Now that's roughly 20 Euros difference between the two. But lets break this down to kilowatt-hours. Denmark comes out to roughly .0717 Euros /KWh while Noraway comes out to .05127 EU/KWh. At current conversion rates, that comes out to about 11 cents US per KWh for Denmark and 8 cents per KWh for Norway. Now this is in 2008 terms using the most current complete data and exchange rates as of this posting and this price only reflects wholesale rates. But as you can see, Norway is roughly 3 cents cheaper right off the bat. The rest is internal regulation and taxes respectively.

      Applying this same principle, then a $0.295 and $0.071 from 3 years ago has roughly a 3 cent difference or so coming from the same markets and the rest is imposed outside the market costs by countries and circumstances themselves. I don't think anything presented by the DOE link is out of context nor is my representation of it.

    15. Re:Space Unity by Super_Z · · Score: 1

      Applying this same principle, then a $0.295 and $0.071 from 3 years ago has roughly a 3 cent difference or so coming from the same markets and the rest is imposed outside the market costs by countries and circumstances themselves. I don't think anything presented by the DOE link is out of context nor is my representation of it.

      As you point out, the spot price difference ammounts to appx. 50%. The DOE numbers differ more than 415%. No amount of imposed market cost can account for such a difference.

      I would also like to point out that the Norwegian prices are lower than the corresponding US prices, even though the Norwegian market are exposed to the same regulation as the EU markets (through EEC).

      To be honest, I don't think you can read any positive or negative regulation effect from the DOE prices.

    16. Re:Space Unity by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      As you point out, the spot price difference ammounts to appx. 50%. The DOE numbers differ more than 415%. No amount of imposed market cost can account for such a difference.

      Those numbers were wholesale numbers. The DOE numbers would be retail to the consumer. And the point was that the differences weren't market imposed but governmental and regulation imposed. In other words, their local politics structure and regulations have caused the differences in price which counters the op's suggestion of "European Union type regulation seems much more equitable and 'free' than American 'freedoms'". If paying more for no reason other then regulation is free, then he is right, but I don't see it as better.

      I would also like to point out that the Norwegian prices are lower than the corresponding US prices, even though the Norwegian market are exposed to the same regulation as the EU markets (through EEC).

      It's different by 1 cent which could be close to a conversion factor. However, there just isn't enough information to accurately make that claim. But remember, I didn't says that the US was missing the the problems with regulation. On the other hand, keeping with the theme, Norway isn't a member of the EU and they aren't bound by the same regulations and/or restrictions. If you look at the DOE report, you will see that Norway's costs fluctuate quite a bit compared to Denmark's or the U.K.'s. More aptly, in 2003 there was over a 4 cent increase in costs and while Denmark and the UK continued to rise, Norway's separate from the EU allowed them to dip the prices back.

      To claim that Norway is exposed to the same regulation is a little disingenuous. They would be on the wholesale market but not on the retail market because of the sovereignty that Norway decided to keep. In other words, Norway has the ability to keep sane and reasonable approaches to their consumer markets and not drink the coolaid if they don't want to. Well, to a certain degree surrounding commerce, they can just not drink near as much but for the most part. But with situation like local utility delivery and consumer rates, no.

      To be honest, I don't think you can read any positive or negative regulation effect from the DOE prices.

      What you can honestly read from the DOE report is that for the most part, in the EU (European Union Not Europe itself), consumers pay more then in the US. And as you pointed out, there is really no market reason for this other then regulation, taxes which is still regulation, and policy which again is regulation.

      Now I would like to point out that most of this recent regulation is due to Global warming. You can also see a increase in costs relative to the performance of difference Kyoto countries.

    17. Re:Space Unity by Super_Z · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, keeping with the theme, Norway isn't a member of the EU and they aren't bound by the same regulations and/or restrictions..

      ..

      To claim that Norway is exposed to the same regulation is a little disingenuous

      Look it up - European Economic Area. Norway is bound by EU rules and regulations.

      What you can honestly read from the DOE report is that for the most part, in the EU (European Union Not Europe itself), consumers pay more then in the US. And as you pointed out, there is really no market reason for this other then regulation, taxes which is still regulation, and policy which again is regulation.

      Again - for any meaningful comparison, the prices should have been PPP adjusted and the prices did not include any taxes. As I have tried to point out, countries bound by the same regulation and accessing the same market should have the same prices. As the prices differ by 400%, the price effect you can see by regulation must then be dwarfed by other factors (whatever that may be).

    18. Re:Space Unity by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Look again. They (Norway) are only bound by some of them and more importantly, they only have to make laws resembling the EU's. They don't have to adopt EU laws. They are in no way required to impose the energy tax like the one the EU did in 2003 nor do they have to impose all of the laws. But more importantly, the energy tax was an environmental move not a EEA action to which norway would be obligated to.

      From the Site you linked to, "As a counterpart, these countries have to adopt part of the Law of the European Union."

      Again - for any meaningful comparison, the prices should have been PPP adjusted and the prices did not include any taxes. As I have tried to point out, countries bound by the same regulation and accessing the same market should have the same prices. As the prices differ by 400%, the price effect you can see by regulation must then be dwarfed by other factors (whatever that may be).

      First, the DOE report did include taxes. The Spot price calculations are wholesale prices and don't need taxes at that point. And no, you don't need to adjust for PPP in this sense because we are comparing the effects of regulation. If the EU is the same dollar value, and PPP isn't somewhat equal already, then unfair advantages exist in the EU.

      Anyways, as you can see here, costs vary within the EU. also, as seen here, There are tariffs in the open market to recover lines charges and so on. That report breaks down several brackets for the tariffs and as you can see, importing electricity from different markets can change the costs enormously.

    19. Re:Space Unity by Super_Z · · Score: 1

      Look again. They (Norway) are only bound by some of them and more importantly, they only have to make laws resembling the EU's. They don't have to adopt EU laws

      I never wrote that - I wrote that "Norway was bound by EU rules and regulations". The implication is that they have to pass laws that implements the said regulations.

      They are in no way required to impose the energy tax like the one the EU did in 2003 nor do they have to impose all of the laws. But more importantly, the energy tax was an environmental move not a EEA action to which norway would be obligated to.

      In fact both the environment and energy are covered by the agreement. See chapter 3 and chapter 4, article 24 of the EEA agreement. If you take a look at page 9 of annex 4 in the agreement, you will see that the 2003 EU directive is actually explicitly mentioned and in force.

      First, the DOE report did include taxes.

      Yes - I was actually contradicting myself there. As for the rest of your argument - line charges are not regulation.

  10. Examples by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Informative

    I do not think any of these are the circumstance to which I referred, but here are a few examples to back up what I say anyway. I believe one of them refers to the same situation as one of the others, but that still makes 3: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/11/28/failed.docking/index.html http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Soyuz_33 http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Soyuz_T-8?query=Soyuz+33 http://english.people.com.cn/200610/28/eng20061028_315800.html I do not know where you got your information, but the fact is that the United States has always had better docking technology than the Soviet Union. In fact, the Soviets have a rather poor record at it.

    1. Re:Examples by Ihmhi · · Score: 1

      <p> and </p>. Please learn to use them so we don't have to be subjected to a garbled mess.

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
    2. Re:Examples by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      No, I use
      instead. But I passed them up in this one case.

    3. Re:Examples by khallow · · Score: 1

      The US doesn't have an remote docking system in use. The Russians do.

    4. Re:Examples by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      Not sure if you're being funny or just forgot to escape the characters,
      &lt; = <
      &gt; = >
      http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/entity-escape-characters.php for a list of escape characters. Apologies if I ruined a joke.

      --
      http://marriedmansexlife.com/
    5. Re:Examples by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      A little of both. :o) Just having a of fun, but yeah, I could have escaped them if I'd thought about it.

    6. Re:Examples by bloodninja · · Score: 1

      Not sure if you're being funny or just forgot to escape the characters. Apologies if I ruined a joke.

      Hey, I am an escaped character, you insensitive clod!

      --
      Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
      Return one hour later.
      Who's happy to see you?
    7. Re:Examples by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      Hey, I am an insensitive clod, you escaped Soviet Russian character welcoming overlord!

      --
      http://marriedmansexlife.com/
    8. Re:Examples by khallow · · Score: 1

      I'm just pointing out the obvious. The Russians are remote docking while the US is not. That is a harder problem than manned vehicles docking. So of course, the Russians have more docking problems. I also believe the Russians do more dockings with the ISS than the US does. So to sum up, I think a lot of the claims that the Russians have poorer docking capabilities is based on observer bias. It's like claiming the Chinese have a superior launch vehicle to the US and Russia, because they haven't lost a man in space yet.

    9. Re:Examples by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Sorry to rain on the flag waving most readers of this site were not born when Apollo last flew. Improvements have been made in the decades since and have been put into use on many occasions. The most recent is a European group adding yet more improvements to the Russian system that has been steadily improving in the three decades or so since the incident you are talking about. Meanwhile the USA excels in other areas - so I suggest waving the flag about those instead.

  11. Simply not true by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2, Informative

    Looks to me that my food costs have been about 165% what they were last year, and I don't know about you, but most peoples' paychecks are not 65% higher than they were at this time last year.

    Not to mention gas prices, and other things as well.

    If you call that "as cheap as it has ever been", then if I were you I would pull out my calculator and start re-figuring.

    1. Re:Simply not true by inKubus · · Score: 1

      I don't really see the "dollar price" of things as being relevant, since it's been drastically diluted by, well, the government printing money. By "Cheap" I'm talking in terms of Time (work hours) and Energy (joules). Money is not a precise way to measure the cheapness of things in real life.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    2. Re:Simply not true by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 2, Funny

      Money is not a precise way to measure the cheapness of things in real life.

      Try telling that to the grocery store clerk.

      If you take the average price and subtract the average raise increase then you have a very very precise way of measuring the cheapness of something.

      In this case the cost is +.5 and the wages are +0 (.5-0)= +.5

      Unless you live in a fairy land costs adjusted for inflation and wage changes is an excellent means of determinig the cheapness of things in real life. Especially when the currency is practically tied to the cost of energy (Joules).

      By your own admission the goverment is causing inflation by printing money. That makes things cost more. Now... if you make $50 a day and the government causes the price of a meal to rise %100 because they're printing more money... but your boss doesn't give you a raise. The prices have risen but you have no more money to spend. I can't fathom any way to explain this except that the price has risen.

    3. Re:Simply not true by inKubus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but you're not thinking about the big picture. The ACTUAL cost to produce the food, house, clothing item, whatever, in energy and time (human time), is lower than ever in history. Because of the free market, the focus has been on efficiency. Tractors pretty much drive themselves nowadays on the big corporate farms. And they use less energy because their engines are more efficient. I can think of a thousand examples. I generalize it into basically robotics. A robot can give you time, in return for energy. Now we are at a point where a robot can do the work with less energy than a comparable human. Because they are efficently turning energy into pure work, not wasting it playing Gears of War or soemthing.

      What you're seeing is a temporary disruption in the free market because of lack of confidence in the paper we use to exchange. It doesn't change the fact that it is, physically speaking, cheaper. I understand that prices are higher, but the underlying physical concepts that "money" is just an abstraction of have changed for the better, and will continue to do so every year. It's a great leap to make, I understand, but I'm not a crackpot. I'm a scientist.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    4. Re:Simply not true by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It isn't the government printing money that is causing inflation. In fact, we aren't printing any more then enough to replace the damaged money anyways. It is the cost of energy that is causing it. You have it right when your said "Especially when the currency is practically tied to the cost of energy (Joules)". Everything from growing things to using electricity to transporting products is going up. That causes prices to increase which gets us to where we are now.

      We have far more money recycled on credit then we have printed. The big problem is that in the late 90's, we removed regulations that were put in place during the 1970's oil crisis and now speculators can buy contracts for oil that have no capabilities whatsoever at all to take delivery of it. This takes oil off the market and causes the spot prices to drop to almost the same amounts as the contract prices. There used to be around a 10-20% differences in prices, this is down to less the 3% in most cases now. Currently it is going at a 42 cent loss. But to give an idea of how much of the market is given to speculation, we were at $147/bbl and dropped to $124 or so on the mention of a government report that we are using less oil. That's about a 15-16% drop all the sudden and it is still shrinking. Now even with this, people are still expecting to make money which means that speculation is still driving the costs to some degree.

      Combine that with low dollar values and poof, there is the problem.

    5. Re:Simply not true by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Insightful
      i get what you are saying but you aren't communicating it that well. what i THINK you mean is that production efficency has gotten better. unfortunately the double edged sword of the free market is that costs have also risen, in part due to us being able to consume raw products so fast.

      what is needed is better economic policy and some smack down on the banks - we have made the mistake of letting too much of our economy rest in their hands.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    6. Re:Simply not true by Gonoff · · Score: 1

      Most "new" money only exists as an entry in a database somewhere. I believe that in the USA, the Federal Reserve (a private comany?) creates money and sells it to the government. In the UK, we have the Bank of England doing the same thing. Nothing is printed and no energy is used other than the negligable ammount used by swopping some ones and zeroes somewhere.

      --
      I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
    7. Re:Simply not true by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

      Money in the US is printed (for bills) by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, or minted (for coins) by the US Mint, and both are divisions of the Department of the Treasury. The Federal Reserve itself is not a private company; it is a quasi-public entity with a few private aspects but with its roots firmly as a government entity, subject to congressional oversight and with all directors appointed by the president.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    8. Re:Simply not true by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Actually, It isn't new money, it is new wealth that is created. There is a biog difference. The money is the same money that has been in existence. The wealth is something created by sectors and participants of the economy and the existing money is lent to people or banks for various reasons in which the money works for a profit.

      The idea is a complexed one and behind many conspiracy theories that just don't pan out.

    9. Re:Simply not true by Atari400 · · Score: 1

      Tractors pretty much drive themselves nowadays on the big corporate farms. And they use less energy because their engines are more efficient.

      But... that doesn't matter. If the cost of that energy has risen by more than the reduction of energy used, you're still worse off. OK, if the engines hadn't become more efficient you would be even more worse off, but using a resource more efficiently doesn't mean it's cheaper to use now than in the past. Just more efficient at using it. So, as a scientist, does that refute your argument?

      --
      IBM doesn't play chess with the Universe.
  12. Too soon by Mad+Hughagi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We've been there, and picked up enough rocks to last a while. What else is there to do...?

    Until we can build largely self-sustaining colonies and prove them on earth the fuel and resources would be better spent launching probes, satellites, telescopes, etc. - not sending people on moon vacations.

    --
    UBU
    1. Re:Too soon by mpeskett · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Baby steps, if we want to go on to bigger and better things then we need to build up some momentum... get the space programme rolling, inspire some more public interest in space, test the technology out and etc.

      Plus it can only help the people running the show to do a few relatively simple missions before trying anything ambitious.

    2. Re:Too soon by Original+Replica · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We've been there, and picked up enough rocks to last a while. What else is there to do...?

      We could start gathering/refining He3. It shows a lot of promise as a fuel source.
      We could use the moon as a last refining step to the habitat equipment we plan on sending to Mars.
      Let us not forget the real reason we went the first time: Prestige. We could use a bit of that right now, sure it would be better to improve America's reputation by once again being a leader in Human Rights, education, and freedom; but with our international street cred this low we should take what boosts we can get.

      --
      We are all just people.
    3. Re:Too soon by tftp · · Score: 3, Informative

      The lunar soil contains He(3) in 0.01 ppm concentration. If you want one gram of He(3) you need to excavate, process and dispose of 100 tons of regolith. This one gram will yield about 200 MW*h (per your link to Wikipedia.) This is also 272,000 hp*h which amounts to 1,000 hours of work of one machine with 272 horsepower engine. I am very much unsure if this budget is even enough to dig up and carry all this regolith to the processing plant - which also needs energy, which has to be taken from the mining allocation. So there is a good chance that use of He(3) on the Moon is cash-negative.

  13. If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

    family of four can eat like kings in America for under $200 a month, which is only 11 percent of their annual income (at the povery line, 20,500).

    Eat like kings for under $200 a month!?

    That's just over $6 a day for 4 people. No. Fucking. Way.

    Let's see you live on $1.60 per day for food. Get back to me on how that works out for ya'.

    You can barely buy an apple for $1.60.

    I would debunk the rest of your crazy ass bullshit but that sentence alone illustrated just how dellusional you truely are.

    1. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by inKubus · · Score: 1

      That's absolutely false. Starch, in small bulk quantities that are readily available at your local supermarket, is available at no more than 5 cents per ounce, even in today's dollars.

      45 grams of rice has approximately 160 calories.
      45 grams of rice = 1.59oz or about 8 cents.

      A normal human, doing real work, needs about 2000 calories a day. If eating only rice or potatoes or any of the other starch items available at your supermarket for 5c/oz, an American could "get by" with 562.5 grams or 19.84 oz or about $1 per day.

      I moved that up to $1.50 to include $.50 worth of beans or other complementing food group (or vitamin supplement) to make a complete meal.

      Of course, if you don't move an inch during the day, as most of us, you need far less than 2000 calories to survive. Eat like kings? Ok, maybe not, but survival? Easily. Of course, if you were willing to buy a whole YEAR of rice at once, you could get it substantially cheaper.

      Now, every other food in America is made from grain, or it's another vegetable, which you could easily grow yourself. Protein, such as beef, is basically made from corn, but it has a lot of middlemen collecting money so that .05/oz turns into a lot more, because of the cost of land, water, energy to move the cattle, etc. Not to mention the fact that due to the centralized nature of the cattle processing industry a lot of extra energy is wasted so the owners can make more money. In reality, ALL food would be much cheaper if you could grow it all locally.

      Obviously that would rid us of some choices, some opportunities to eat rare imported foods, wine, etc. But it would not really affect our quality of life that much. Eating enough is good enough. Everything else is luxury.

      I mean, people readily pay $4 for a cup of basically water at Starbucks. Doesn't that bother you? No! Because you're entitled to it, you work hard for your money and should be able to blow $4 meaninglessly. But in mechanical engineering, that's called WASTE.

      My example is just a test, really. I'm not proposing anyone change their lives. But I'm saying we waste SO MUCH, and with a proper leader we could put so much of that waste to good use, and barely affect our lives. And the adaptability of the human race is amazing. You would never miss it once you made it a week or two.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    2. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      I was gonna say... $6 a day is about my average for lunch. Family of four will burn through at least $10 for dinner ALONE. I guess the kids eat at school, and if you have food stamps it makes it cheaper. $6 per person per day perhaps? Well if you buy in bulk and make dinner for everyone, then yes that's feasible. Even in 2004 one of my friends decided to try to live on $400 a month for food, we all had a good laugh. Rice and beans can only take you so far before you go crazy and need a good steak.
       
      Prior to 1910 food was 35% of most people's budget - now it's around 15%. That is a pretty good improvement. Hell even a stoner making near minimum wage can afford mcdonalds (dollar menu), an Xbox 360, broadband connection, not to mention rent and his pot. Considering how low his economic contribution is, he's living pretty well for the (very) little he puts in 25-30 hours a week. But food is expensive and has definitely jumped about 20% (look at cheeses, fresh produce, etc) in the last six months.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    3. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      You spend $4 at starbucks and as a result 5 people are employed.

      Unless the cup of coffee actually depleted $4 worth of goods the waste is only the depletable resources expended to deliver it.

      You have to remove wages and renewable goods from the cost to determine the actual waste.

      If you pay a farmer for beans which will regrow then nothing was actually lost just redistributed. Starbucks is really a subversive organization redistributing disposable income from the wealthy to a little above minimum wage employees and poor south american farmers.

      There is suprisingly little waste unless a resource is actually consumed in the process of making it.

    4. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by inKubus · · Score: 1

      Ok, bad example. What about waiting in the McDonald's drive-thru with your car running?

      The hours that barista could have spent bettering humanity instead have been spent receiving a handout from the rich? Is that any less wasteful now that you've clarified there's no waste in the actual product?

      Man, this has digressed. NASA is the epitome of this. Except the handout is going to the shareholders of a contractor (a group I might be a member of) and the handout is coming from the taxpayer. But what if we could get the same work that the contractor does for less time and energy, through the power of inspiration? That's ALL I was saying.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    5. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by inKubus · · Score: 1

      It has jumped in price, but that cheese still takes the same (or less) Joules of energy and hours of human time to produce and deliver to your supermarket. And there's no shortage of Joules out there that I can see (i'm burning quite a few on this stupid thread, and these are expensive "Beer-joules"), so someone must be making some money at our expense.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    6. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 2, Informative

      I've worked with a large aerospace company's Advanced Research Group before. There is a LOT of waste involved. You will have no argument from me on that one. It's largely a question of management though not inspiration. They were all really excited about what they were doing... but completely lacking in focus. The Manhattan project succeeded because it had incredible leadership and a very clear directive. The amazing leadership directed a large number of theoretical scientists to focus their efforts on practical applications.

      If you know what you want and you actually work towards it you can save a lot of money. It's vague, objectiveness directives which often result in slow progress. That's the problem with the open source movement now. Designing by committee is spectacularly wasteful because everything gets reinvented 10 times. Ubuntu is bringing focus and progress to desktop linux by actually providing leadership.

      If you want to talk pure time/energy/efficiency open source development of a rocket is infinitely more wasteful than a handful of brilliant engineers working while all of those open source contributors sat on bicycles and powered generators.

    7. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by inKubus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's sort of what I'm talking about. Perhaps not doing actual calculations and stuff. People could contribute in any way they could. Some people might just make a logo for the craft, others might help write some code.

      I understand what you're saying; there's a lot of space travel that can't be done by ordinary people, and bringing those extraordinary people together safely is expensive. But there is a vast untapped reserve of undiscovered genius in this country, who don't think they will ever get a chance to change the world, or discover new things outside the planet, and that's a real shame. When there's more interest in basically anesthesizing yourself with drugs than contributing to a better future, it's a sign of a society's failure. History HAS shown that, although I'm not a fan of history. I see this apathy everywhere I go. Maybe I'm crazy but I think people want to be inspired, and for as long as anyone can remember we haven't been. Or if we have, it's about stupid war stuff and not something positive.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    8. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      I suspect most Dark Ages kings would be impressed by the vast quantities of government cheese and Super Extra Large fast food portions available to poor Americans.

      Plus you can go and pick that shit up, you don't need to organize an army to pillage Albania.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    9. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Actually, that the most nonsensical thing I have ever heard of. The dark ages kings would be the government. But we have left the dark ages haven't we.

      Also, I'm not sure what your attempting to accomplish with the fast food comment. There won't be much of that going on in a family of for which is only forking out $200 a month for food.

      Are you jealous of something? I mean I'm not sure why you would have made the statements you did otherwise. Unless your attempting to do one of those for the price of X, you could buy 20 of them 100 years ago things. But it still doesn't make sense.

    10. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by Rakishi · · Score: 1

      You need to manage such people and their contributions which is not trivial. In fact with something as sensitive (to fuckups) as a spaceship it'd essentially cost more effort than you gain. It works in areas where contributions aren't tightly controlled and mistakes aren't expensive. In this case that bit of code may cause an error by interacting with another system through purely hardware means that crashes the spaceship. That logo may be too dark, absorb too much sunlight, overheat a wire and explode the spaceship. Most people probably don't think in the proper way to prevent mistakes on their own or to simply not active induce problems (ie: they don't follow directions).

      The thing is that the US let's people go amazing things if they have what it takes and if they go after their dreams. Many people however expect their dreams to come to them or to have someone else tell them what their dreams are.

    11. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by timmarhy · · Score: 1
      "Eating enough is good enough. Everything else is luxury."

      i want you to eat nothing but beans and rice for a month and let me know how you feel about it. i'm betting you couldn't even last a week.

      this is a serious challenge. i want to see a video diary of it on youtube.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    12. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Yes, the oil producers who provide the resources needed to move all that food around.

    13. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by Alex+Belits · · Score: 1

      You need to manage such people and their contributions which is not trivial. In fact with something as sensitive (to fuckups) as a spaceship it'd essentially cost more effort than you gain. It works in areas where contributions aren't tightly controlled and mistakes aren't expensive. In this case that bit of code may cause an error by interacting with another system through purely hardware means that crashes the spaceship. That logo may be too dark, absorb too much sunlight, overheat a wire and explode the spaceship. Most people probably don't think in the proper way to prevent mistakes on their own or to simply not active induce problems (ie: they don't follow directions).

      Like umm... operating system. I know of some projects where large number of people wrote pieces of kernel code that had to work together. What a failure it was...

      The thing is that the US let's people go amazing things if they have what it takes and if they go after their dreams. Many people however expect their dreams to come to them or to have someone else tell them what their dreams are.

      The thing is, the less people are concerned about things they are supposed to "dream of" according to US ideology (money, fame, control over other people), the more contribution they make to worthwhile projects.

      --
      Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
    14. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by fastest+fascist · · Score: 1

      To derail an off-topic conversation even further, for a cheap protein source look into making seitan. Basically, you make a dough out of wheat flour and wash out the starch, leaving gluten. It's not a complete protein, so supplementing with legumes is advisable.

    15. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by Atari400 · · Score: 1

      I for one welcome our rice steaming overlords.

      --
      IBM doesn't play chess with the Universe.
    16. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by evilviper · · Score: 1

      i want you to eat nothing but beans and rice for a month and let me know how you feel about it. i'm betting you couldn't even last a week.

      Hell, that's a normal week in college.

      I'm not the OP, but I easily made it through several months eating similarly.

      And there's a lot more similarly cheap foods available: ramen fried noodles, (dried) potatos, oatmeal, corn flakes, powdered eggs, canned chilli, macaroni & cheese, spaghetti, peanut butter, bread, etc. You can even get dried butter, cheese, etc. You probably want to throw in some sugar, salt, and drink flavoring to fight the blandness, but it's easily do-able.

      I'm sure there's a lot more cheap food available as well, which should give an large enough variety for anyone.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    17. Re:If Kings Eat Nothing But Steamed Rice by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Starch, in small bulk quantities that are readily available at your local supermarket, is available at no more than 5 cents per ounce, even in today's dollars.

      I'd like to find out where you shop... I pay just under 11 cents per ounce of rice, and that's the cheapest stuff, at the cheapest supermarket around. It may be cheaper in bulk (Costco, Sam's Club), but I don't imagine it's less than half price.

      Now, every other food in America is made from grain, or it's another vegetable, which you could easily grow yourself.

      You can grow lots of things, but it damn sure isn't free to do so. There's substantial cost in water, fertilizer, pesticide, etc. Not to mention acquiring enough land to feed a family! A small yard isn't going to cover it.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  14. Re:Yo! USA did that FORTY FUCKING years ago !! by Hucko · · Score: 1

    // use a pic view smudger here...
    Yes, we heard this, but they never returned in quite awhile despite the promise of unprecedented wealth of resources.

    --
    Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
  15. Alien Verification by Hucko · · Score: 1

    Now we can have another source for our funny little comrades...

    --
    Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
  16. hehehehe by ILuvRamen · · Score: 1

    I hope they install a cannon to shoot frozen monkeynauts at us cuz it's a race now! I mean if they launch at the same time and we're neck and neck, I'm not NASA but I bet there might be some bumping and some scraping and some phaser fire lol.

    --
    Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
  17. haha... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Looks like it will not display all html characters after all.

  18. Paradox by ndnspongebob · · Score: 2, Informative

    Fact of the matter is, we live in a paradox, we compete for money, but also for technology, and power, it is all a competition. We hurt each other for it and the sense of having everyone work together is the highest ideal that we try to work through laws, but it just isn't the case because certain people want to be "better" than other people by having more material possessions and the social status that accompanies it. Why do we have money that separates us? the same reason we have achievement on xbox360 and trophies on ps3 and why we have different levels of degrees in college. In the end, just look in the mirror, although we do incredible things, we are from a family of monkeys but we are too proud to admit it.

    1. Re:Paradox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The thing is that people are not born equal and some are better than others. Treating everyone as if they were identical is how we get shit like the US k-12 education system.

  19. ESA != EU by Bromskloss · · Score: 1

    The European Space Agency (ESA) is not the same thing as, or even a part of, the European Union (EU). This iTNews are apparently clueless, and I can't believe that Slashdot fell for it! >-(

    --
    Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
  20. Link to further discussion of this vehicle by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    A popular tech website posted news about this a few days ago; there was a lengthy and interesting discussion: here.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  21. Pictures, drawings and specs by aysa · · Score: 1

    http://www.astronautix.com/craft/kliper.htm

  22. Different times, same reasons by mangu · · Score: 3, Informative

    not the US since the Iraq war has sucked up all our money

    And it would be interesting to note that the US stopped the Apollo moon project in the 1970s in part because the Vietnam war was sucking up all their money.

    1. Re:Different times, same reasons by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Actually, the Apollo project was stopped in 1967-68. Before we even landed on the moon Saturn V production had been capped and four of the planned landings canceled.

  23. Soyuz ACTS origin by MRe_nl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_acts_origin.html

    --
    "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
  24. Corrections by jeroen94704 · · Score: 1

    Sadly, another space related story by someone who is not well versed in the field. First of all, it is not going to be an "EU"/Russian craft. The EU does not have a space program. It's going to be an ESA/Russian craft. ESA membership does not imply EU membership and vice versa.

    Second, the europeans will NOT build the crew module, but the service module, which is the part of the whole thing NOT holding the crew.

    --
    He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
  25. This sounds like the Russian Klipper Spacecraft by bihoy · · Score: 1

    Initial information on the Russian spacecraft was reported on New Scientist in 2005 which includes the ambitious goal of a probes trip to Mars.

    "The Clipper, a six-person spacecraft similar to the U.S. space shuttle, is designed to replace the Soyuz and Progress carrier rockets in making regular flights to the International Space Station, and even the Moon and Mars. It will carry two professional astronauts and up to four passengers."

    It is said to have an aircraft style hull which is designed as a "Load carrying hull [which] will enable the spaceship to land on any flat ground with a parachute."

    Additional pictures can be found on Goolge.

    1. Re:This sounds like the Russian Klipper Spacecraft by bihoy · · Score: 1

      Here is additional info on the Russian Klipper on New Scientist.

  26. Aha! It's not the Kliper it's the CSTS! by bihoy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This fact was mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for the Kliper which in turn mentions the Crew Space Transportation System.

  27. Not here by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Interesting
    W. pissed off the russians, but the next president is far more likely to see the advantage of working together. All in all, we have learned things from Russia, and Russia has learned from us, and perhaps more important, the other nations (EU, Japan, Canada) have also learned to work together as well as develop some fo their own tech. When it comes to going to the moon/mars, I see three major efforts.
    1. China; who said originally that long march 5 would be ready in 2014, is now in testing. That alone should be of interest to the West.
    2. America/Russia/EU/Japan/Canada,and will probably Australia and India as well, will join together to pursue the moon and mars.
    3. American private enterprise combined with support from our DOD will hit the moon the soonest.

    The last warrents more explanations. The DOD wants up their before China gets there. They are already dumping money into spacex and bigelow (Spacex is missing launches, but they are there). My guess is that either Armadillo or Blue origin will join the effort for a lunar transport (I think BO will get the nod due to secrecy). I suspect that Spacex will be given a contract shortly after falcon 9 flies to build the BFR. I would further guess that the initial RD will be done elsewhere perhaps even Kwajalein. These folks will be going there before 2016.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  28. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  29. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  30. Call me the pessimist but... by tekiegreg · · Score: 1

    I've seen all sorts of people draw pretty pictures of capsules, shuttles, etc. they want to send to the moon, Mars, Alpha Centauri, whatever...at this point wake me up when one is launching. Thank you.

    --
    ...in bed
  31. Doesn't matter... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    As far as larger society is concerned, the cost to produce is pretty much irrelevant. It is the cost of goods at the retail level that matter.

    The "distortions in the free market" are largely due to government interference in the free market, not "lack of confidence". The public lacks confidence in it's government policies, which is sad, because if they were allowed to, they could have confidence in a free market instead. Unfortunately, they have not been allowed to.

  32. Misnomer by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    It's a bit of a far fetched claim - as the EU hasn't unveiled anything. Nor really have the Russians, just more powerpoints that they hope to talk the EU into funding. Someday.