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Moon Express Unveils Next Moon Lander
Velcroman1 writes "A U.S. spacecraft hasn't made a controlled landing on the moon since Apollo 17 left the lunar surface on Dec. 14, 1972. That's about to change. Moon Express will unveil the MX-1 spacecraft at the Autodesk University show in Las Vegas Thursday evening — a micro-spacecraft that will in 2015 mark the first U.S. 'soft' landing since the days of the Apollo program, FoxNews.com has learned. The craft looks for all the world like a pair of donuts wearing an ice cream cone, and the tiny vehicle clearly isn't big enough for a human being. But it is big enough to scoop up some rocks and dirt, store them in an internal compartment, and return it to Earth. After all, the moondirt Gene Cernan, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin once trod holds a king's ransom of titanium, platinum, and other rare elements. Moon Express plans to mine it."
Nice Slashvert for a "company" that has no hope in hell of doing anything near "mining the moon", though I'm sure that between grants and people that want to lose their money, the "leadership" will do very well for themselves. Seriously, these people are going to *try* and land a small beacon on the moon, and this is some proof of concept that they can mine valuable resources and fly them back? In any case, the Chinese are well on their way to this goal with both the technical knowledge to get there and the moo-la to do it first and claim most of the surface, long before these people figure out how to turn a small immobile beacon with an inner-tube for landing gear, into a machine that can mine resources and return them to Earth. Seriously, sounds like an MIT engineering grad student project, putting it in the same frame as Apollo 17 is a stretch.
But it is big enough to scoop up some rocks and dirt, store them in an internal compartment, and return it to Earth.
Return to Earth? Sure it will. And if it does, with what? A pound if that? Even a few pounds? Again, the Chinese will be there shuvelling ore into huge return crafts way before - er - long after these people move on to some other grad school project.
Outside of being crap it even contains what I would have thought would have killed any article on Slashdot "FoxNews.com has learned."
How do I down vote an article?!?!?
Senator: "What good is electricity in the house?"
Engineer: "Senator, in 20 years, you'll be taxing it."
In time, governments will try to tax and control it, perhaps even stopping colonization or private enterprise, probably even cheered on by some around here who, one presumes, were completely down with Europe looting the New World to feed their governments' voracious appetites for cash, dead-set against any colonies not their own, much less independence.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
is not a rare element - "There is more titanium in the earth's crust than there is nickel, zinc, chromium, tin, lead, mercury, and manganese combined!" http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/titanium/overview.php
> The craft looks for all the world like a pair of donuts
I can hear sleeping brits having nightmares. They are "all the world", and that craft is clearly a pair of Doughnuts.
Umm..the last controlled landing was when Luna 24 actually landed. The landing was August 18th 1976.
I suggest you listen to Planetary Radio, a fine source of ~~Random Space Facts!!~~
"A U.S. spacecraft hasn't made a controlled landing on the moon since Apollo 17 left the lunar surface on Dec. 14, 1972."
No. This doesn't make sense. You mean:
"A U.S. spacecraft hasn't made a controlled landing on the moon since Apollo 17 landed on the lunar surface on Dec. 11, 1972."
... pretty soon no romantic evening will ever look the same anymore.
I'm thinking we need a new version of Godwin's Law, whereby the first person to make an unprovoked (indeed totally unconnected) claim that someone is an Ayn Rand disciple automatically loses.
Can someone tell me how the parent gets from the GP to vomiting on a pathetic Ayn Rand Coo Coo face?
I've never read any of her books, and I only have the vaguest idea of her ideology! But I must admit, that's the only flaw in your argument - had I ever read a single one of her books, all the rest of your accusations would undoubtedly follow.
It must really suck to have the technology of an adult, the vocabulary of a teenager, and the reasoning capability of a toddler.
When a 10kg ingot of titanium is shot out of a solar powered linear accelerator on the moon and strategically lands in your bedroom, your surviving friends and relatives will understand the value of mining on the moon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B4suxQVUAQ
That looks just like an enormous... WANG, pay attention!
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
FoxNews.com has learned.
Oh, shit. How long before it becomes self-aware?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I don't have the assays handy and I'm not an ores or metals guy anyway, but if the various metallic ores on the Moon are of a nature that they'd be easier to smelt and refine that'd be a plus. If mining and refining can be scaled up and use the freely-available solar energy, then the issue boils down to cost of return.
Using anything from hydrogen-oxygen to mass driver, return of bulk would only need an ablative shield against re-entry. Better might be doing other useful things as well - use the metals to build a tug for LEO, LEO to GEO, and trans-lunar chores, for starters. It really shouldn't take much - a wee bit of imagination (extrapolation, really), some cold hard energy and costs analysis....it's just rocket science with a bit of a twist on materials exploitation.
Yeah, the food thing. What got me was when a few years back when many retailers made their containers smaller to as to keep price rises less spectacular. The thought of all that re-tooling against turning a wheel on a sticker machine struck me as really messed up.
Will someone please tell me how the fuck mining titanium or even platinum from 385,000 miles away is even remotely worth it?
Realisitically, it's not, at least until we start needing those things in space. Then, it will probably be much more economical to mine and refine such on the moon and then send them where they need to go instead of lifting that material out of Earth's gravity well. In the meantime, the rights to mining on the moon are going to be the big prize in anticipation of that time.