Russia Pledges To Go To the Moon

I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:40 · Score: 3, Funny

I bet Vladimir Putin isn't man enough to leave next month and travel to the moon, then plant the Russian flag on the surface of it.

Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:43 · Score: 5, Funny

It's not an Invasion.
It's a humanitarian effort to bring supplies to the lunies.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Nidi62 · 2014-09-24 01:45 · Score: 5, Funny

I bet Vladimir Putin isn't man enough to leave next month and travel to the moon, then plant the Russian flag on the surface of it.
Wouldn't work. When they show the picture of him planting that flag on the moon while not wearing a shirt everyone will know it was photoshopped.

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The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by NotDrWho · 2014-09-24 02:02 · Score: 2

He would go, but all the extra Soyuz seats are currently occupied by American astronauts.

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by GameboyRMH · 2014-09-24 02:06 · Score: 1

Well now he has to do it. And you know he's gonna do it shirtless.

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by macson_g · 2014-09-24 02:10 · Score: 1

He would need a special space suit with transparent upper section.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by thieh · 2014-09-24 02:15 · Score: 1

Perhaps the time between now to 2030 is to develop technology that will let him go essentially/almost shirtless on the moon. Maybe some spray-on or something. I mean they have technology to go to space, what else is stopping them to go right now?
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by SpzToid · 2014-09-24 02:17 · Score: 2

...[U.S. astronauts] who pay for their seats using United States dollars. Many millions of U.S. dollars actually. (Of course these seats were probably agreed to under some form of contract well before the spectacular and glorious Sochi Olympics started).

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by meta-monkey · 2014-09-24 02:23 · Score: 3, Funny

Incorrect. Putin would plant the flag, on the moon, shirtless, and the moon would explode from exposure to his supreme manliness.

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by gstoddart · 2014-09-24 02:28 · Score: 2

LOL ... since when did Putin replace Chuck Norris for that meme?

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:33 · Score: 0

No - he really is that *hard* ..
A real man doesn't need oxygen ..
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by qwijibo · 2014-09-24 02:55 · Score: 4, Funny

In Putin's Russia, Chuck Norris copied him.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 03:00 · Score: 1

Considering the sheer amount of failures of Apollo program before its eventual success, all while program itself was consuming a gargantuan ~5% of US GDP at the time, I would wager this isn't a one month project. Especially when you consider that baseline space technology like rocket engines hasn't seen much development since 70s.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by BringsApples · 2014-09-24 03:05 · Score: 2

I mean they have technology to go to space, what else is stopping them to go right now?
It's a good question, one of which everyone would probably have their own answer, all of which could be refuted by many others. It's almost as if this question isn't supposed to be asked without meeting friction.

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by ArcadeMan · 2014-09-24 03:06 · Score: 1

Chuck Norris doesn't need a stinkin' rocket to go to the moon, he just jumps.

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by MiniMike · 2014-09-24 03:14 · Score: 1

They have workable spaceship technology now- the delay ("by 2030") is to allow for research into transparent spacesuits for Putin and the bear he will ride while planting the flag.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by pushing-robot · 2014-09-24 03:16 · Score: 2, Funny

sorry guys watched iron sky with vlad now hes raving about moon nazis gtg my bad

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by The+Grim+Reefer · 2014-09-24 03:46 · Score: 1

Chuck Norris doesn't need a stinkin' rocket to go to the moon, he just jumps.
Chuck Norris doesn't jump to the moon. The landing would knock it out of orbit. He simply points at the ground and the universe shifts around him by 385,000 km (give or take).
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:05 · Score: 1

3 memes, 1 post....nice.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by slashtivus · 2014-09-24 04:33 · Score: 5, Informative

NASA peaked at 4.41% of federal budget in 1966. That is nowhere near ~5% of GDP. Also what other than Apollo 1 disaster are you referring to as "sheer amount of failures"? It was overwhelmingly successful by most any reasonable assessment.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by schlachter · 2014-09-24 04:43 · Score: 2

Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, has announced it intends to bring humans to the Moon by roughly 2030
In the USA, Astronauts WENT to the moon, but in Putin Russia, humans are BROUGHT to the moon.

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:46 · Score: 0

Holy shit! This is like there are no outs, two runners get on base, and then the batter grounds to the third baseman and suddenly the inning is over. END OF THREAD, qwijibo wins.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:51 · Score: 0

In Chuck Norris' case, the universe would shift by 240,000 miles. But only in his case.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by NeverVotedBush · 2014-09-24 05:21 · Score: 1

Wonder if there are bears up there he can wrestle?
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by TWX · 2014-09-24 05:24 · Score: 1

Given that Yuri Gagarin didn't pilot his craft when he was the first man in space, and at the time the consensus was that records for achievment in flight required the occupant to be the operator/pilot, your statement is more accurate than you probably realized.

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by TWX · 2014-09-24 05:26 · Score: 1

Yes, but Who's on first?

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by davester666 · 2014-09-24 05:56 · Score: 1

by 2040, they plan to have a mission to bring humans to the moon and then return them back to earth, possibly alive for the entire process.

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 06:23 · Score: 0

It's a humanitarian effort to bring supplies to the lunies.
We prefer the term Selenites
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 06:27 · Score: 1

Considering the sheer amount of failures of Apollo program before its eventual success, all while program itself was consuming a gargantuan ~5% of US GDP at the time, I would wager this isn't a one month project. Especially when you consider that baseline space technology like rocket engines hasn't seen much development since 70s.
let us instead consider the sheer amount of failures in your post. atlas rockets are still in continual development.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 07:13 · Score: 1

"Continual development" without "replacement" for that long of a time tells you everything you need to know about how little development there has been in rocket engine technology.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 07:15 · Score: 1

It was in the end. But like the most successful space projects, it required a massive amount of failures to succeed. In space exploration, success generally rides on tens, in some cases hundreds of failures. It's part of that particular field.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by avgjoe62 · 2014-09-24 08:10 · Score: 1

Putin. And he's on second. And third. And he's playing in left field. And center field. And right field. And he's the catcher. And the pitcher. Medvedev was the shortstop, but when he missed a ground ball he was replaced by Putin.

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Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Cyberax · 2014-09-24 09:32 · Score: 1

It's incorrect. The first Vostok capsule had a lockout requiring Gagarin to enter a code to unlock the controls, because nobody was sure that humans in space won't go mad. As another precaution, the capsule was on a fast-decaying orbit. Fortunately, Gagarin felt just fine and unlocked the controls.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by MrKaos · 2014-09-24 12:55 · Score: 1

Chuck Norris doesn't need a stinkin' rocket to go to the moon, he just jumps.
Chuck Norris doesn't jump to the moon. The landing would knock it out of orbit. He simply points at the ground and the universe shifts around him by 385,000 km (give or take).
Actually "The Moon" is Chuck Norris mooning the whole earth. That's why it is called "The Moon", no other mooning comes close.

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 14:34 · Score: 0

That's because they're using the sets for Star Wars and Star Trek. * ducks...
Re:I bet Putin couldn't go to the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-25 01:41 · Score: 0

It doesn't match The Narrative, so it can't have happened in at least their mind.

Most promising places by i+kan+reed · 2014-09-24 01:41 · Score: 2

It's odd. We just checked, but there's some kind of large metallic object and a flagpole blocking the best few candidate positions.

Re:Most promising places by NotDrWho · 2014-09-24 02:03 · Score: 1

Don't worry, those are just props.

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Re:Most promising places by halivar · 2014-09-24 02:08 · Score: 2

There have been so few because, as it turns out, the moon is a terribly uninteresting place with really annoying dust.
Re:Most promising places by i+kan+reed · 2014-09-24 02:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm glad people like you exist.
No matter how unthinking and stupid I am sometimes, I will never, ever, ever say something as dumb as this argument is right now.
Re:Most promising places by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:39 · Score: 1

Empirical proof, absolutely. "Proof" that someone of your mental caliber would accept? Nope.
Re:Most promising places by master_kaos · 2014-09-24 02:40 · Score: 2

Can you present proof that no one hasn't? Your the one arguing against the norm.
Re:Most promising places by i+kan+reed · 2014-09-24 02:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yes. It won't matter though.
Here's a couple hundred pieces of evidence.
But that's not what you said.
What you said that was particularly dumb is the fact that no one is currently doing X is somehow evidence X never happened.
Re:Most promising places by Thanshin · 2014-09-24 02:56 · Score: 2

I agree. And I'm also starting to think it's not even made of cheese.
I mean, come on! We saw no rats in any of the videos! Are they trying to convince us it's some kind of magical cheese that rats dislike? It simply makes no sense.
Re:Most promising places by BringsApples · 2014-09-24 03:09 · Score: 1

Can you present proof that no one hasn't?
That sounds like you're trying to trick Pinocchio into lying.

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Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Re:Most promising places by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:45 · Score: 0

Can you present proof that no one hasn't?
How can one prove that? It would be a lot easier to prove if someone did land though?
Re:Most promising places by damien_kane · 2014-09-24 05:21 · Score: 1

I mean, come on! We saw no rats in any of the videos! Are they trying to convince us it's some kind of magical cheese that rats dislike? It simply makes no sense.
The rats were all hanging out with Chewbacca
Re:Most promising places by sudon't · 2014-09-24 05:26 · Score: 3, Funny

There have been 29 Moon landings. Six manned, twenty-three unmanned. The US hasn't gone since then because, it's fucking expensive, and the pissing war with the Soviets ended. But even if they flew your dumb ass to the Moon and rubbed your face into one of the many footprints on the surface, you'd think up some convoluted way that they must of faked it.

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-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Re:Most promising places by Jane+Q.+Public · 2014-09-24 06:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

There have been so few because, as it turns out, the moon is a terribly uninteresting place with really annoying dust.
"Terribly uninteresting"? How quaint.

The moon is the single best opportunity for the expansion of space exploration.

Guess what? Rockets large enough to send out to the asteroid belt with people in them, as a practical matter, are too damned big to launch from Earth. Did I hear "build them in orbit"? Nope. Too difficult, slow, and expensive. At our current level of technology you really need gravity to do practical construction on a very large scale. 1/6 the gravity? Perfect! Rockets built there don't have to be very large at all.

The moon has vast natural resources; they merely need to be extracted from the rock. Oxygen is one of them. There is also a surprising amount of fissionable material available. So... given some initial energy and material input, you can probably have sustained output, without too much "resupply" coming from Earth. And while energy requirements of a colony might be high, there are vast amounts of solar energy available, and plenty of silicon and trace elements to make solar cells.

Etc., etc. Our current U.S. government administration might be clueless about these things, but in the long run, the moon is our greatest hope for the future.
Re:Most promising places by itzly · 2014-09-24 07:16 · Score: 1, Interesting

So your plan is to use the moon as a base to explore the terribly uninteresting asteroid belt ?
Re:Most promising places by Immerman · 2014-09-24 08:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

Even better - I'll let you collect your own: Get a nice powerful telescope and look at the moon, specifically the site of the "alleged" landing. See the flag? See the footprints? See the remnants of the landing module? If we didn't go to the moon that suggests that either:
1) Robotic technology of the time was far in excess of anything the public knew about, and we landed robots on the moon to walk around with a human-like gait
or
2) Those sneaky consipirators have managed to hack the lenses of every sufficiently powerful telescope on the planet to overlay a faked landing sight image when pointed at a specific point on the moon's surface.
Honestly I don't understand the popularity of this particular conspiracy theory - getting to the moon is basically pretty simple - shove a giant bottle rocket up your ass and hold on tight. Even factoring in the fact that you have to take a second bottle rocket with you to ride back home on it's not all that technologically impressive - by the time of the moon landing we already had pretty well worked out the engineering for making giant fucking rockets to rapidly deliver massively heavy bombs anywhere on the planet, and had used said rockets to deliver people to orbit and bring them down again, alive even. That's the hard part - energetially speaking once you've made it to orbit the moon is a lot closer than the Earth. You need to carry more rockets with you, but the only truly challenging engineering problem remaining is the whole vertical landing issue, and that's a far easier nut to crack on the moon than on Earth, thanks to the moon's much lower gravity and complete lack of crosswinds.

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Re:Most promising places by Immerman · 2014-09-24 08:08 · Score: 1

Yes. Surely if they had landed there would be some evidence on the moon - footprints, the remnants of a landing module, maybe even a flag some bozo planted in the ground, and anyone who wanted to rent time on a sufficiently powerful telescope could look at the moon and see them for themselves.

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Re:Most promising places by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 08:27 · Score: 0

Russia wants to setup a moon base, so they can extract the helium-3 and setup a new energy dependency for the West.
Re:Most promising places by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 09:41 · Score: 0

Only on Slashdot would a circular fallacy get +5, because as long as it's about space, you can say any nonsense you want and get +5.
"The moon has vast natural resources; they merely need to be extracted from the rock"
Um, considering the Earth masses something like 83 times the Moon, and all we need to do is DIG, we have all the natural resources we need right here.
And your "merely" paints over such a vast, enormous complexity it's laughable. Your mind has been poisoned by sci-fi, and your emotions prevent you from looking at reality objectively.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...
No one's mining the Moon, no brave homesteaders are going to the asteroids to bring back rocks worth 15$ a ton, no one's colonizing Mars. It's delusional and laughable.
Re:Most promising places by 50000BTU_barbecue · 2014-09-24 09:43 · Score: 1

I think WWII never happened. You have proof that half the world fought each other with jet engines and nuclear bombs when ten years prior most people didn't even have running water or electricity in their homes and still used horse?

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Mostly random stuff.
Re:Most promising places by richlv · 2014-09-24 09:47 · Score: 1

"must have". like. seriously. how the fuck did you guys get to the fucking moon with that spelling? (yes, i'm assuming you are american)

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Rich
Re:Most promising places by Livius · 2014-09-24 10:31 · Score: 1

There was rocket technology to reach the moon in the 1960s, but cinematographic technology to fake the moon landing was not available until the 1970s.
Re:Most promising places by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 11:06 · Score: 0

Besides the fact that there is no He-3 fusion technology, and if we did have it we'd for sure be able to fuse deuterium, "setup" is a noun.
"That's a nice setup!"
"Thanks, it took me a while to set up!"
Re: Most promising places by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 12:28 · Score: 0

By training engineers, not grammar Nazis.
Re:Most promising places by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 13:19 · Score: 0

Get a nice powerful telescope and look at the moon, specifically the site of the "alleged" landing. See the flag? See the footprints?
The fucking hubble telescope isn't powerful enough to view the supposed moon landing site.

getting to the moon is basically pretty simple
Yeah it's dead fucking easy...that's why last decade when NASA announced they were heading "back" it would only take 20 years of development to "return".

And another hoax will be borne! by Flavianoep · 2014-09-24 01:43 · Score: 1

Only now they have enough tech to stage a faux moon landing! :-P

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Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.

Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

Finally, the USSR is back! Going to the moon while the economy is crumbling, foreign countries are invaded and human rights are being trampled.

Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:59 · Score: 1

It makes perfect sense. Toss a couple projectiles out of the moon's gravity well at Earth, and who needs nukes. Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" does have accurate physics in that regard.
The moon is the ultimate high ground, which is why Russia and China want to go there so badly. One Kessler Syndrome later, and they will be the only ones there for centuries.
Re:Because that makes sense by NotDrWho · 2014-09-24 01:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Going to the moon while the economy is crumbling, foreign countries are invaded and human rights are being trampled.
Are you talking about the U.S. or Russia?

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Re:Because that makes sense by TheCreeep · 2014-09-24 02:08 · Score: 3, Funny

Going to the moon while the economy is crumbling, foreign countries are invaded and human rights are being trampled.
Are you talking about the U.S. or Russia?
Russia, obviously.
The US is not going to the moon anytime soon with NASA's budget.
Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:09 · Score: 0

The ultimate high ground is certainly not the moon. Anything you lob at the Earth from there must first get out of the lunar gravity well, which would require a pretty significant expenditure of fuel. This type of launch should be quite visible from the Earth, providing ample warning, unless you launch from the away-facing side of the moon and use some kind of gravitational slingshot to get targeted correctly. Also, landing on the moon with enough fuel to make it back to Earth would be a very tricky business - even the Apollo missions left their return vehicles in orbit.

If you really want some good high ground, park your weapon at a Lagrange point.
Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:10 · Score: 0, Troll

Spoken like someone who wasn't actually alive during the Space Race.
The US is pretty bad now as far as foreign invasions and local human rights, but have you any fucking idea how they treated much of the population in the '60s? Or maybe you were an upper-middle class white boy, in which case, congratulations, you now have nearly all of the power instead of all of the power.
Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:10 · Score: 1

Are you talking about the U.S. or Russia?
Yes
Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:16 · Score: 0

No, you don't understand. With the wealth gap accelerating being in the top 3% isn't the same as it used to be. Those 1% ers are eating our lunch!
Re:Because that makes sense by tehcyder · 2014-09-24 02:23 · Score: 1

The vast majority of people on slashdot are in effect upper-middle class white boys. Even if they're black working class lesbians.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Because that makes sense by ColdWetDog · 2014-09-24 03:04 · Score: 1

If you really want some good high ground, park your weapon at a Lagrange point.
You can't do that - the TV transmitters are there!

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Re:Because that makes sense by MightyMartian · 2014-09-24 04:26 · Score: 1, Insightful

Isn't it amazing? An economy fueled by little more than energy exports, a population still in decline, an economic war with a bloc of nations whose GDP in a bad year dwarfs its own by almost an order of a magnitude... and yup, it's going to enter the moon race.

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Re:Because that makes sense by camperdave · 2014-09-24 04:38 · Score: 1

Are there enough rocks at the Lagrange points? The thing about the moon is that you've got plenty of rocks to throw.

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:Because that makes sense by camperdave · 2014-09-24 04:52 · Score: 4, Funny

By the time NASA arrives on the moon, its astronauts would be able to get chow mein, vodka, AND tandoori chicken from the locals.

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:Because that makes sense by Immerman · 2014-09-24 08:49 · Score: 4, Interesting

>The ultimate high ground is certainly not the moon. Anything you lob at the Earth from there must first get out of the lunar gravity well, which would require a pretty significant expenditure of fuel.
Not really - the moon's gravity well is radically shallower than the Earth's, far shallower than the difference in surface gravity would suggest (the moon's surface is far closer to it's center, and thus gravity falls off far faster with altitude.) I can't be bothered to do the math, but if xkcd is to be believed the energy to launch a given rock from the moon launch would be about 20x lower than from Earth. Meanwhile that rock would have 20x more kinetic energy when it slammed into Earth than if it were being slammed into the moon.
More to the point the Moon offers shelter, concealment, an essentially unlimited supply of rocks to throw, and plenty of nuclear fuel as a root energy source. High ground involves more than just altitude after all - there's a world of difference between "having the high ground" and "being treed". If you're in open space you're pretty much treed - everyone can se *exactly* where you are, and you have no resources except those you tak with you.
As for lauching from the far side of the moon, that would probably be wise if you wanted to take your victims by surprise, and if you want to hit something specific you'll have to precisely navigate the non-trivial gravitational field of a binary planet regardless of where the launch point is, circling half way around the moon isn't going to make things that much more difficult when you're trying to throw a dart and hit a bulls-eye hundreds of thousands of km away across a constantly shifting gravitational landscape.
But then again, why would you need to take them by surprise? What good does it do to get a few hours warning that a city is about to be reduced to a smoking crater? You can't even begin to evacuate in that amount of time. At best you could try to intercept the incoming projectile with a high yield missile, presumably nuclear - in which case if you were successful then instead of vaporizing the city you end up covering the state with radioactive buck shot - after all blowing up an projectile doesn't significantly change it's trajectory. Plus that interceptor was probably a hell of a lot more expensive to build and launch than the rock it hit. Now multiply that by the fact that it's 20x cheaper to throw a rock at the Earth from the Moon than vice versa, and you get 20x the yield on impact, and the Moon has a 400x gravitational force multiplier on it's side. For every rock we could throw at them they could throw 400 smaller rocks back, each of which would do just as much damage as ours.
And of course they would have every bit as much warning as us about incoming projectiles crossing the 385,000km void - launch a missile at the moon and they can launch a cloud of gravel to intercept and destroy it. Make it heavy gravel and the interception doubles as a counterstrike.

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--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 16:15 · Score: 0

Honestly, I was thinking the exact same thing... there just isn't any distinction between them anymore. Come to think, I believe the U.S. is pioneering the first NAZI-Socialist government [citation needed].
Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 16:19 · Score: 0

Yum. I like the moon already. I just hope the Swiss make it up there as well!
Re:Because that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 23:14 · Score: 0

Finally, the USSR is back! Going to the moon while the economy is crumbling, foreign countries are invaded and human rights are being trampled.
And what is Russia going to do while the US's crumbling economy is doing all that invading and trampling of rights?
Re:Because that makes sense by ToddInSF · 2014-09-25 05:24 · Score: 1

Then i makes sense to wait !

Mmm, tandoori chicken !
Re:Because that makes sense by Duhavid · 2014-09-25 06:18 · Score: 1

"after all blowing up an projectile doesn't significantly change it's trajectory"
Or it's mass/kinetic energy.
That is what bothers me about some of the "Asteroid about to hit Earth" movies.
10^32 grams of rock or 10^32 grams of dust, probably not going to make a large difference in the damage below.

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emt 377 emt 4
Re:Because that makes sense by Immerman · 2014-09-25 12:59 · Score: 1

Yeah - when I get roped into watching one of those I try to subtly reinterpret them as blowing up the asteroid while it's still well away from Earth, rather than minutes before impact, so that even though the Earth still passes directly through the center of mass most of the material passes to one side or another.
Of course the countdown clock becomes a lot less dramatic that way - At best it's counting down to the moment when blowing up the asteroid will do more harm than good, and a few hours either way is unlikely to significantly alter the damage inflicted to Earth.
On the other hand dust is unlikely to be a major problem - so long as you can break the thing into bits small enough that they'll burn up in the atmosphere you'll likely reduce the damage considerably. You may still have firestorms and all sorts of freaky weather effects to deal with, but you won't have impact damage or the resulting massive clouds of terrestial dust thrown up into the atmosphere - and those clouds are the likely culprits for an extinction event.
Unless you're talking 10^32 grams of course - that's 100x more massive than Jupiter, or a tenth the mass of our sun. Massive enough that it's almost certainly a star in its own right and would incinerate the Earth long before impact. Heck, even if it crossed our orbit on the opposite side of the sun the gravitational disruption would likely permanently alter the orbits of every planet in the solar system, quite likely causing massive extinction event due to the resulting change in solar illuminance, even if it weren't bright enough to do much damage directly. Plus there's the fact that it would scramble the orbits of all the asteroids as well, including those far beyond neptune's orbit, potentially resulting in a drastic increase in asteroid impacts for the next several millenia, at least.

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--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Re:Because that makes sense by Duhavid · 2014-09-25 14:00 · Score: 1

I pulled a number out of thin air. It had to be a bad one, eh?
But about dust, if you had the mass equivalent of a moderate asteroid in dust, I'm not sure it all would burn up in the atmosphere.
And if it did, how much heat would that transfer to the earth ( as a system ). I don't know that the difference would be appreciable by us.

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emt 377 emt 4
Re:Because that makes sense by Immerman · 2014-09-26 03:39 · Score: 1

I figured, but the scenario was too good to pass up a comment on.
Well, Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event) says an impact from an asteroid a few kilometers in diameter could release the equivalent energy of several million nuclear weapons, though they fail to mention whether they're talking "Little Boys" or "Tsar Bombas", which offer several orders of magnitude difference. I'm guessing Fat Mans, as that's more typical of the size of weapon that's actually been used. That still sounds like a lot, but an average-sized hurricane expends about a million times that every day. So assuming the dust cloud were big enough to be spread across most of the facing hemisphere I imagine we'd get some really dramatic weather that day as several hurricane-days worth of energy was dumped into the atmosphere in a matter of moments, but without impacts or air-bursts from large meteors we'd probably avoid any really catastrophic effects.

--
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.

Lil' Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:44 · Score: 5, Funny

Vladimir Putin: I wanna invade the United States!
Advisor: Your majesty, that is most unwise at this point in time. I think you ...
Vladimir Putin: Then I wanna invade Georgia!
Adviser: Your majesty, as you recall we tried that already and ...
Vladimir Putin: Then I wanna invade Ukraine!
Adviser: Your majesty, that is already in progress as your ordered on your birthday ...
Vladimir Putin: *looks around the dinner table for invasion inspiration* I wanna invade Turkey!
Adviser: Your majesty! What has come over you? You know you're limited by doctrine to one invasion per year!
Vladimir Putin: *pouts and looks out the window* I wanna invade ... THE MOON.
Adviser: *murmurs quietly with other advisers* And, you promise this will be the last invasion? This will use up all your invasion credits, you know.
Vladimir Putin: Yes.
Adviser: Okay then finish your peas and we'll make a press release tomorrow.
Vladimir Putin: But I don't wanna finish my peas! I hate you, I hate you! You never let me do anything fun! I wish I was never born!

Re:Lil' Putin by jez9999 · 2014-09-24 03:16 · Score: 3, Funny

Why did I read the Putin lines in a George W Bush voice?

--
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Re:Lil' Putin by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 03:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

A nice summary of modern Western propaganda, sadly and a good show of just far out it is. Soviet Pravda was closer to the truth in its analyses at its prime time than our media is today.
When you consider that if Putin actually wanted to do what our pundits claim he wants to do, he would have easily done it. For example, Russian Army pointedly pushed all the way to the established border of South Ossetia and Georgia with incredible rapidity, pushing attacking Georgian forces out about as fast as they could flee and then the Russian Army stopped like it hit a wall, even through Georgian army's fighting capability was completely destroyed by that point and going to Tbilisi just meant moving the armour about a hundred kilometers more.
Same thing with Ukraine. If Russia wanted to conquer it, it would have already, back in February. Considering that they didn't directly attack even after Ukrainians accidentally (?) shelled some towns on Russian side, killing a few people, or after a few hundred Ukrainian soldiers crossed onto their side only to find that locals just invited them in, fed them and sent them back, it's pretty silly to suggest that Russians "didn't invade Ukraine because they couldn't".
The entire demonisation as "undemocratic" of the leader who enjoys more genuine democratic support among his people than most Western leaders are enjoying among theirs is telling of just how entrenched the ability of established order in our media to spread blatant lies is today, almost two and a half decades after the end of Cold War.
Re:Lil' Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:23 · Score: 0

Because that's what you've been taught to do..
Try imitating Obama, quiet hilarious that they both work huh?
Re:Lil' Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes, comrade. Western propaganda is truly the most despicable of all. But they have Coca Cola and Adidas, and we have not.
Re:Lil' Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:28 · Score: 0

I'm not sure why I actually read all of this.
Re:Lil' Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:14 · Score: 1

Good job, comrade. Here's 30 roubles for you.
Re:Lil' Putin by wonkey_monkey · 2014-09-24 04:37 · Score: 1

Your Majesty? Putin's not a King. He's not the ruler of a kingdom. Nor is he a Prince, not being the ruler of a principality.
He's just in charge of a country.

--
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Re:Lil' Putin by ericloewe · 2014-09-24 05:41 · Score: 0

Attention everyone! We have a Russian shill over here!
According to your logic, it's totally cool if Russia doesn't invade the whole country.
Your claim that they didn't attack Ukraine is absolute bullshit. Even if we were to take Putin's word at face value (which is a stupid thing to do, as he's admitted to lying about this before, besides all the other evidence from secret burials of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine to the infamous Buk launcher that was hurried back across the border after they realized they'd shot down a 777), he's admitted to have had military operatives in Crimea (which he'd previously denied). If that's not an act of war, nothing is.
Re:Lil' Putin by NoImNotNineVolt · 2014-09-24 05:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

My 2 kopeks:

Russia "could" have done those things in the same sense that the USA "could" nuke Iran. It seems plainly evident that Russian aggression is being stopped not by the military might of Georgia or Ukraine but by the fact that Russia would join the "axis of evil" if they actually followed through with any such plans.

Putin does want to do those things. And he easily can do those things. However, the expected political fallout from doing those things is sufficient to discourage him from actually doing so. Pointing to the fact that he hasn't done those things does not prove in any way that he doesn't want to. The subjugation of Georgia or Ukraine would be a great boon for him in domestic politics if it didn't go hand in hand with ostracization from the rest of the civilized world.

I don't think anyone's saying that Putin is undemocratic because of a lack of domestic support. I think most objections today revolve around his refusal to respect the sovereignty of neighboring states. These are two orthogonal issues.

--
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Re:Lil' Putin by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 07:23 · Score: 2

Of course it is. The moment someone dares to point out the obvious propaganda in the Western media, he's a "Putin shill". The moment that same person points out the obvious propaganda in Russian media, he's "Obama shill".
You people are just tiring in the same countless rebuked claims, like that "Putin admitted to military operatives in Crimea", "Crimean vote was rigged", "There are fascists in power in Kiev", "Polish are openly attacking Eastern Ukrainians" and other propagandist bullshit.
All of these claims have been shown to be either false or taken out of context. No, Polish PM didn't admit to sending troops to Eastern Ukraine. No, Putin didn't admit to having anything other than military already present in Crimea as per contract with Ukraine in Crimea during the annexation.
Tired. So tired. You should just go fight it out with Russian shills directly. You deserve each other, and maybe in the mean time we could get some objectivity in our mass media instead of overwhelming wave after wave of bullshit where Ukrainian sources are quoted daily saying hyperbolic bullshit, and then debunking is posted on last page in small the next day as facts become available. All while front page is full of new bullshit.
Even Pravda at its peak wasn't quite as obvious in its propagandist lies.
Re:Lil' Putin by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 07:25 · Score: 1

Russia already is on the "axis of evil" as its head as far as US operations are concerned, and has been so ever since the 1990s. They have little to nothing to lose on that front.
The far more obvious reason why Russia has no interest in invading is the fact that its military resources are limited and it could only make one such invasion happen at best. And it has no interest in tying up its entire military capacity in such an invasion for decades.
Unlike US, it doesn't have the capability to invade and occupy multiple countries at once and still have significant military capability left over for maintaining other operations.
Re:Lil' Putin by NoImNotNineVolt · 2014-09-24 07:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

The far more obvious reason why Russia has no interest in invading is the fact that its military resources are limited and it could only make one such invasion happen at best. And it has no interest in tying up its entire military capacity in such an invasion for decades.

Unlike US, it doesn't have the capability to invade and occupy multiple countries at once and still have significant military capability left over for maintaining other operations.
Last I checked, they still have a sizeable stockpile of nuclear arms. They "could" liberally nuke Georgia and Ukraine, thereby eliminating any ground opposition (and human population) in these territories and allowing them to annex them with minimal military commitment. It's not that hard to occupy a country when it's totally devoid of all life (and quite irradiated to match). The Tsar Bomba had a fireball radius of 4km and was capable of producing third degree burns 100km from ground zero, and it was only 50% of the max yield of a bomb of this design.

Of course, conversations like this (about what "could" happen) are ridiculous, as they ignore the reality of political factors being of primary consideration. Putin "could" do a lot of things, but talking about them as though they're remotely plausible isn't likely to yield any valuable insight into anything. That's the only point I was trying to make.

--
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Re:Lil' Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 08:08 · Score: 0

Something I read recently:
Q: What's the difference between God and Putin?
A: God doesn't think he's Putin.
Look some of the clips on how Vladimir treats anybody from the Russian government who's not his pal. That should be all you need to get a vague, if educated, idea about his personality.
Re:Lil' Putin by Kartu · 2014-09-24 09:02 · Score: 0

Less than a half of "South Ossetia" was within joint Russo-Georgian peacekeeping forces mandate, so very kind of Russians to stop at the borders of entire "South Ossetia" a "country" with whopping 35 thousand population, which was offered wide autonomy and vice-president position with veto rights by Georgian authorities.
About 27 thousand Georgian internally displaced persons certainly appreciate the kindness of Russians.
I'm pretty sure they've also welcomed recent bulldozing their houses on "liberated" territory, it's certainly was done just to build new, more comfortable houses for them and not to cement ethnic cleansing.
Or, say, Abkhazia, with pre-war population 97 thousand Abkhazians and 246 thousand Georgians, no wonder Georgians wanted to flee the territory to let it become Russian protectorate.
Re:Lil' Putin by richlv · 2014-09-24 09:51 · Score: 1

anybody following the russian invasion in ukraine will spot the crap you are claiming. it seems so lame to me, but i do suppose you will catch some poor, stupid bastard. you are a sad remain of a person.

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Rich
Re:Lil' Putin by dunkelfalke · 2014-09-24 20:42 · Score: 1

Well, on the other hand USSR had Pepsi.

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap

Have they seen the Apollo 18 footage yet? by JudgeFurious · 2014-09-24 01:44 · Score: 3, Funny

There's a reason we didn't go back you know.

--
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.

Re:Have they seen the Apollo 18 footage yet? by schlachter · 2014-09-24 04:44 · Score: 1

yah, cause we proved our point! 'Merica.

--
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.

We choose to go to the moon... by tlambert · 2014-09-24 01:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

"We choose to go to the moon in the next two decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they will take attention away from what's happening with the Ukraine." -- V. Putin

Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Agares · 2014-09-24 01:55 · Score: 1

Good one, wish I had points to mod you up.
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:59 · Score: 1

...." and the other upcoming invasions"
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:15 · Score: 0

Please give us the name of these ultra right-wing Nazis who apparently have the power in Ukraine.
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by jedidiah · 2014-09-24 02:18 · Score: 1

It's Ukraine. Regimes change like the weather in other places. If you don't like the one now, all you have to do is wait awhile. It will change soon enough.
They're like the Iraq of the former USSR.
No grand conspiracies are really needed. Although that doesn't stop Putin from going out of his way to make it look like there is one.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:21 · Score: 1

Actually it was initiated when Russia put it's puppet into power.
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-09-24 02:51 · Score: 2

Finally! Will he also get shot in two years?

--
Ezekiel 23:20
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 03:21 · Score: 1

There were exactly two coups in entire post-Soviet history of Ukraine which encompasses 23 years of history. First one was early one, and after that every single regime change (until the last one) was through massive dissatisfaction of masses with incumbent powers enacted through the democratic process.
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 03:27 · Score: 2

"Russian puppet" was actively pushing for its own country's benefits by pitting EU and Russia against one another in what essentially amounted to a bidding war. I recommend actually familiarizing with Yanukovich's actions and why Russian leadership didn't attempt to seriously push to reinstate him as a result. He was anything but pro-Russian, as his tough bargaining significantly reduced Ukrainian gas bill and he was negotiating actually good terms from Ukraine's point of view with EU instead of total economic surrender of Ukraine to EU given by Poroshenko.
I'm guessing that West just figured it was cheaper to overthrow him and install a puppet that would economically surrender their country than to actually accept his terms, like they did during Cold War with Latin American leaders that tried to push for better lives for their citizenry.
Considering the ultimate result, I suspect that most in EU are hitting themselves and Fule was banned from quite a few of old boys clubs for his apparent idiocy, while Nuland got a lot of pats on the back for preventing any political alliance between EU and Russia in foreseeable future.
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:57 · Score: 0

If by his country you mean some sort of gangsta state his son had in Eastern Ukraine then you are completely right.
Just extortions from coal mining brought them tons of money.
But it was mostly at the expense of Ukraine - not UE and Russia.
Also it was not his negotiation skills but Russian plan to help him buy more public support.
Re:We choose to go to the moon... by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 07:17 · Score: 1

Let me get this straight: you think that Ukraine was something different or is something different under pro-Western duo that lead the country before him, or the current oligarch president?
Excuse me while I facepalm at your naivete.

Oh a space race! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:50 · Score: 0

One can only hope...

In Soviet Russia .... by enjar · 2014-09-24 01:53 · Score: 0

Moon comes to you!

I can already see by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 01:56 · Score: 0

Putin revealing his masterplan of placing a giant laser on the moon and having a maniacal laugh...

Re:I can already see by mu51c10rd · 2014-09-24 02:18 · Score: 1

Putin revealing his masterplan of placing a giant laser on the moon and having a maniacal laugh...
Nothing James Bond can't fix...where is Roger Moore these days...

Can they take Newt Gingrich? by damn_registrars · 2014-09-24 01:58 · Score: 0

He wanted to start a moon base, let's volunteer him to work on that with the Russians. Really, truly, nothing could possibly go badly with that plan.

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Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.

In Putin's Russia by some+old+guy · 2014-09-24 02:00 · Score: 1

Moon lands on you!

--
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.

So wait by kilodelta · 2014-09-24 02:04 · Score: 1, Troll

They'll get there 61 years after American boots have been all over the surface of the moon. We can tell them been there, done that, got the space suit.

And think - the Apollo space program came up in approximately seven years. The Russians are going to take sixteen years to do theirs. Best wishes! I wonder if they'll salute the American flags we've left behind?

Re:So wait by gstoddart · 2014-09-24 02:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

We can tell them been there, done that, got the space suit.

And, they will correctly point out that you've not been there in decades and are resting on your laurels.
Want to impress us? Beat them there again.
Otherwise you're just reliving glory days.

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:So wait by oodaloop · 2014-09-24 02:17 · Score: 1

Tell them that, and they'll point out that they only reason we went was because the Soviet Union was way ahead in the space race for several years and it took many years for us to catch up.

--
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Re:So wait by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 02:51 · Score: 1

We are more concerned with going to Mars than the Moon. There are still over 200k people that would be willing to go on a one way trip there.
We are more concerned with learning how to mine asteroids than the Moon. Companies are planning this out to test how it would work.
The Moon is cute. It will at best be a depot for mining operations for the next hundred years to land asteroids on or around. After that, it might be useful as a glorified gas station when these other plans work out.
Re:So wait by kilodelta · 2014-09-24 03:01 · Score: 1

We'll wave to them from Mars.
Re:So wait by torkus · 2014-09-24 03:02 · Score: 1

'All over' is relative...and last I checked the US didn't even have the capability of getting astronauts to their own* space station much less the moon.
It's pretty pathetic how far backwards we have slid in some regards. The /original/ space race took 14 years to land a man on the moon and now they're aiming for roughly the same time frame to do it again?

--
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Re:So wait by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:30 · Score: 0

Yea all over a whole 2 square mile stretch. Moon's pretty huge bro, try again. We've never been to the side facing away from earth.
Re:So wait by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:31 · Score: 0

You think the US is going to put people on Mars before Russia could put people on the moon?
You think the US is willing to do what that takes?
I'm betting it won't happen.
When so many of your politicians and populace are drooling, anti-science idiots I don't think you have a chance.
Re:So wait by CrimsonAvenger · 2014-09-24 03:44 · Score: 2

Tell them that, and they'll point out that they only reason we went was because the Soviet Union was way ahead in the space race for several years and it took many years for us to catch up.
Many years to catch up? Seems to me we managed to pass them in just eight years.
As to "way ahead for several years", if you look at the details, they were about a year ahead for several years. They stopped being ahead considerably before the aforementioned eight years were up.
And what's with the Russians taking 16+ years to do this? It's not like they're doing it from scratch, since they saw how we did it 45 years ago. And it's not like they don't already have large rockets operational....

--

"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Re:So wait by schlachter · 2014-09-24 04:46 · Score: 2

we already beat them there 6 times! how many, times do we need to "do it again?"

--
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Re:So wait by camperdave · 2014-09-24 05:05 · Score: 1

Why would you land asteroids on the moon to mine them, as opposed to just mining the asteroid where it is?
Why would you put a fuel depot on the moon when there are perfectly good places to put an orbitting fuel depot that doesn't have a pesky gravity well to deal with?

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:So wait by MMC+Monster · 2014-09-24 05:08 · Score: 1

Once.
Just once more, to again inspire the children of the world for a generation.

--
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Re:So wait by bluefoxlucid · 2014-09-24 05:16 · Score: 1

Waste of time and money, but a good way to drain an economy and help keep a people compliant with distraction and hardship. Heil Oceania!

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:So wait by bluefoxlucid · 2014-09-24 05:16 · Score: 1

200,000 people plus all the D-class.

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:So wait by NeverVotedBush · 2014-09-24 05:33 · Score: 2

Sadly we do have a lot of drooling, anti-science idiots. But I don't think that precludes going to Mars. It just means we'll have a lot of idiots running around misinterpreting photographs and video and claiming it was all a hoax.
Re:So wait by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 05:46 · Score: 0

As the GP said .. resting on your laurels.
This is kind of like an old man claiming he can beat an Olympian because he was fast in his day.
If you can't do it now, you're just a has-been.
"Has-been" seems to sum up the US quite well. Sitting around pretending all of the good things you've done in the past still count for anything.
The reality is, nothing about your self image is still true.
Re:So wait by painandgreed · 2014-09-24 07:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

The Russians are going to take sixteen years to do theirs. Best wishes!
Pretty much, but I doubt they'll actually go. Sixteen years out is a pretty long time to take. I bet they don't even up their space spending this year. ...or the next. Sixteen years from now will be somebody else's probably rather than Putin's most likely. My cynical take is that it will go exactly where all of Bush's talk in each Presidential address about going to Mars went, nowhere past the news reporters.
Re:So wait by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 07:11 · Score: 0

Want to impress us? Beat them there again.
Re-re-re-doing the same thing over and over whenever someone else says they'd like to do what you did decades ago?
This must be some usage of the word "impress" I was previously unaware of.
Re:So wait by Gavagai80 · 2014-09-24 11:47 · Score: 1

Given the cut-rate nature of the Russian space program in recent decades, the odds of Russia getting to the moon by 2030 are quite low. It's just something to try to inspire.

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This space intentionally left blank

All they need is some money by macson_g · 2014-09-24 02:17 · Score: 1

Great plan. Now all they need is 10 consecutive years of oil prices above $200/barrel to finance the enterprise.

Re:All they need is some money by Charliemopps · 2014-09-24 02:28 · Score: 1, Insightful

Great plan. Now all they need is 10 consecutive years of oil prices above $200/barrel to finance the enterprise.
Or... stop invading neighboring countries. One or the other.

Militarization of the Moon by kheldan · 2014-09-24 02:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

Regardless of what anyone 'agreed' to 50-odd years ago, that's what's going to happen in the next 50-odd years, and it looks like China and Russia are going to be competing to see which one breaks the seal first. If the U.S. wants in on the party, we'd better get off our increasingly large asses and get moving.

--
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!

Re:Militarization of the Moon by BringsApples · 2014-09-24 03:24 · Score: 1

If the U.S. wants in on the party...
Party? A large empty fine-sand pit of nothing to do? Nothing to build with? In order to militarize the moon, they'd have to build everything out of glass, or move all of their military components to the moon. Although it's been attempted before, it took 7 failed missions. I mean, at least preparations A through G were a complete failure...

--
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Re:Militarization of the Moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:28 · Score: 0

Replace Moon with Antarctica, and I agree.
Re:Militarization of the Moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:41 · Score: 0

Party? A large empty fine-sand pit of nothing to do? Nothing to build with?
Well, that hardly keeps us out of the middle east...
Re:Militarization of the Moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 05:30 · Score: 0

Militarization of the Moon is as simple as capturing a few mid-size asteroids into lunar orbit, then threatening to use them as kinetic weapons against countries you don't like. All your (moon) base belong to us!
Re:Militarization of the Moon by Mysticalfruit · 2014-09-24 05:47 · Score: 2

I agree, now that we've got the shuttle out of the way we should start investing money in reliable, reuseable man rated launch systems. Maybe we could get that guy whose making those fancy electric cars to do it!

Maybe we should build a space station and man it continuously and learn tons about spending months at a time in space. I know, we'll talk to the Russians! We'll call it the "International Space Station!" It'll be awesome!

You know what would be really awesome? We should send a bunch of rovers to Mars to learn about it's geology and ecology, maybe figure out why it doesn't have an atmosphere. We could learn all about the long term effects of materials on Mars so when we want to send people we'll know what to build the habitats out of.

On a serious note, we've got a HUGE jump on everybody else. The Chinese are easily 20 years behind us, the Russians are quickly falling behind. In the near future we're going to have at least one totally man rated launch system (Dragon) with another CST-100 coming along behind them. NASA has plans for the HLV as does SpaceX. My money is on SpaceX actually launching a HLV first.

As for the moon, the question is why would we go there? The argument is that setting up a long term settlement on the moon would require that we engineer materials and technologies to shield humans from cosmic rays and figure out food production, long term habitation, etc. with the safety net of being able to bail back to Earth.

My feeling is that if we were to settle the moon it would be merely as a stepping stone to Mars and then outward to Ganymede, etc.

--
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Re:Militarization of the Moon by Kjella · 2014-09-24 05:48 · Score: 2

At the bottom of a gravity well? Check. Ages of warning that an attack is incoming? Check. Horribly fragile base where any crack in your pressure dome will kill you? Check. Something tells me the moon will be as militarily relevant to a battle of earth as control of the ocean floors. If you want to get spectacular, I'd rather go out to the asteroid belt and find a suitably big rock (read: not a dino killer, not just a light show) you could aim at earth. The timing had better be just right though, if you're off by just a matter of hours that crater might end up on the wrong side of the planet. Bonus points for drilling into and blowing it up at a suitable distance, it'll do more damage as buckshot.

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:Militarization of the Moon by cavreader · 2014-09-24 16:18 · Score: 1

China and Russia,like most countries, are good at making grandiose plans but so far they have not fulfilled their lofty sounding goals. They seem to be stuck in the "Linux will dominate the desktop next year" prediction model. The last Chinese-Russian joint effort to send a satellite to Mars blew up in the atmosphere. Of course the US has had their share of failures but both China and Russia have not displayed any ground breaking technology advances that surpassed US efforts and capabilities in space. The US may need to hitch a ride to the ISS but at $70 million a seat it is a lot cheaper than maintaining the old shuttle program.
Re:Militarization of the Moon by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 19:31 · Score: 0

The parasites have us. It is all downhill from here. :(

War over the moon's resources is inevitable by 0xdeadbeef · 2014-09-24 02:23 · Score: 1

I can't wait to kill commies with a rave gun!

The fact checkers by blueshift_1 · 2014-09-24 02:33 · Score: 1

At least we know that the latest nVidia graphics cards will be verifiying all of the video and images

Re:The fact checkers by oneandoneis2 · 2014-09-24 03:06 · Score: 1

Or generating them ;)

--
So.. it has come to this
Re:The fact checkers by blueshift_1 · 2014-09-24 03:20 · Score: 1

What a twist!

Cooling Relations = More Spaceflight by lazarus · 2014-09-24 02:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Seems like the cooling relations between the US and Russia are already resulting in a lot more spaceflight initiatives. It's a shame that we cannot "yearn for the stars" out of wonder instead of conflict and competition.

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I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.

Re:Cooling Relations = More Spaceflight by Luckyo · 2014-09-24 03:32 · Score: 1

The problem being that none of the countries alone likely has the resources for deep space exploration. Some sort of cooperation will be required, especially as it became apparent with ISS that US has a massive lead in some technological aspects and Russia in others.
Re:Cooling Relations = More Spaceflight by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 05:14 · Score: 0

It's a shame that we cannot "yearn for the stars" out of wonder instead of conflict and competition.
Yearning is always on the table, but when you want to make someone else pay for it, you need more urgent motives.
Suppose you were a contractor who financially supported Senator Lindsay Graham's election ad campaign. You want the American taxpayers to pay you back for your investment in the Senator's election (the whole point of supporting Republicrats instead of political idealists, is to make a net profit). What orders might you give to your Senator? Would you have him speak conservatively, telling people "Perhaps your community should get on _____ if y'all are sure you have the conviction to put your money where your mouth is," or do you want him saying "they're gonna come over here and kill us all, so we need to spend more tax money on ______"? You're going to go with the Government Is The Best Way To Do Things approach that was popularized in the mid-1930s and mid-1960s. And for that, you need to frame the issue in a way that legitimizes government's larger expanded role at the peoples' expense. And the best way to do that is to frame it as a defense issue, since defense is one of the few things most people agree, government should be in control of.
Putin almost certainly is controlled by the same forces. He's just a man, and most of his power is by means of the support he obtains from others. Those others will want things. We should just be happy that what they want, is something as interesting and possibly-tangentially-useful as being paid to build space ships.

.. but what about the return trip? by ThatsDrDangerToYou · 2014-09-24 02:35 · Score: 1

Sure, they plan to bring humans to the moon by 2030, but when will they come back? Better read the fine print on those fancy brochures..

Rather vice versa by estestvoispytatel · 2014-09-24 02:52 · Score: 1

Ukrainian coups (exactly two in 23 years) were unique and effective measure to stop typical for ex-USSR countries creeping into some sort of gulag. It's quite sad that almost every one of former Soviet republics (except Baltic states and maybe Georgia) has abandoned their checks and balances and early attempts to build functional free market rule of law democracies and went into 'strict power vertical' aka dictatorship of variable mildness. But not Ukraine. It's chaotic, yes, but free and democratic as hell.

Re:Rather vice versa by GodGell · 2014-09-24 05:11 · Score: 1

But not Ukraine. It's chaotic, yes, but free and democratic as hell.
LOL. You couldn't be further from the truth. They have a "free market", sure, I'll give you that, but it's a free market in the American sense. Quality of services and products do not matter beyond some bare minimum, as friendships, kickbacks, manipulative marketing practices and sheer piles of money have orders of magnitude more influence than anything else. They have such a free market that you can't even buy proper food in many places, because nutritional content is a rather expensive thing and it's been optimized out where possible. That is perfectly in line with a functioning free market, by the way, and I'm not exaggerating here. The milk you buy in stores is almost entirely made of milk powder (you can increase milk content by paying more, but you can't just *get milk* like you can anywhere just accross the border), and that's just normal. 2-to-3-ton SUVs are the *majority* of traffic (!) in the capital and if you see a Hummer driving down THE SIDEWALK people are just getting out of the way because they are more afraid of the asshole driving it than they are of getting run over. Money just elevates you out of the population without any sort of need for control. You open your mouth against any random asshole, that happens to have a lot of it (and they are all over the place), and you get rammed off the road and beaten to a pulp or simply shot by members of the armed forces. Is that your definition of freedom and democracy?
This country needed the EU a lot more than the EU needed it; it is run by barbarians, and is still a place where might makes right. The parallels to the USA are hard to ignore but the Ukrainians simply never even experienced what freedom is. In the USA, at least in the past, some people did get that chance, and can now remember what it was like.
(Disclaimer: I just got back from there. The above applies to the - comparatively Western - capital. Everywhere else the divides are hundreds of times worse, and that's before you even consider the conflict.)

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[SHOW SOME LENIENCY TOWARDS ... I mean, FUCK BETA] Eat. Survive. Reproduce. GOTO 10

Save Russian speaking Moonites? by gelfling · 2014-09-24 02:55 · Score: 1

Time for an invasion

Been there, done that. Move on. by Streetlight · 2014-09-24 02:56 · Score: 1

NT

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell

Well that escalated quickly by Culture20 · 2014-09-24 03:08 · Score: 1

First they're invading Georgia, then Ukraine, now the Moon!
But seriously, Putin, if you leave Earth, don't come back.

The Moon is a weapons platform by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:11 · Score: 0

It has to be said. The moon is the new 'high ground.' Weapons launched from the moon (nuclear missiles, conventional weapons, or even just plain old moon rocks) would drop down the gravity well to Earth needing only a modest amount of liftoff fuel from the low-gravity moon and a little guidance to go to any spot on the Earth. The difficulty is not the weapons but the logistics of delivering the necessary pounds of material to the moon and supporting a base there. Once there, though, they would be practically invulnerable to any Earth-based attack.

Re:The Moon is a weapons platform by Streetlight · 2014-09-24 03:25 · Score: 1

I assume these comments are an attempt at black humor.

Immediately after noticing from any place on earth a weapons launch from the moon a laser beam of sufficient energy from the earth might be able to destroy the slow moving moon launched weapon. The speed of light is very high. Of course if the moon based weapon is a laser beam, well, things would be different.

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Re:The Moon is a weapons platform by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:35 · Score: 0

Your earth-based laser beams would be better put to use targeting inbound meteorites, such as the one that dropped on Russia. First, though, a means will have to be found to send the laser beam with the sufficient energy through the Earth's atmosphere and a way will have to be found to create the necessary quantity of the sufficient energy, which would be very high for a 100m meteorite.
Re:The Moon is a weapons platform by captain_nifty · 2014-09-24 08:03 · Score: 1

It would take a lot of laser energy to destroy a good sized rock, and the moon has no shortage of rocks.

Good luck with that by ArcadeMan · 2014-09-24 03:12 · Score: 2

The aliens on the dark side won't like that one bit. They made deals with the U.S.A., not Russia.

--
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Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 14:14 · Score: 0

That's no moon.

Great idea by rlp · 2014-09-24 03:17 · Score: 1

They could establish a gulag there and ship prisoners to it. Then have them grow wheat to be sent back to earth. And have a warden run the whole thing with the aid of a sentient computer named 'Mycroft'.

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[Insert pithy quote here]

Re:Great idea by camperdave · 2014-09-24 05:13 · Score: 1

They could establish a gulag there and ship prisoners to it. Then have them grow wheat to be sent back to earth. And have a warden run the whole thing with the aid of a sentient computer named 'Mycroft'.
Riiight! And lasers can whistle!

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!

Already there by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 03:26 · Score: 0

There are hundreds of russian astronauts already on the moon - but it's not official, they're just on vacation.

NASA's budget will now explode. by Dega704 · 2014-09-24 04:01 · Score: 2

Because nothing spurs congress to action faster than a chest-thumping contest with the Russians.

sounds like the past four US presidents by peter303 · 2014-09-24 04:37 · Score: 1

They proclaim a grand goal for NASA and starve its funding.

I can give the exact address by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:40 · Score: 0

Luna Tancyuvalna Studya
ulitsa Nikolaya Vasilenko, 15
Kyiv

Re:I can give the exact address by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 04:47 · Score: 0

And directions for lost special forces soldiers on vacation:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir//%D0%9B%D0%A3%D0%9D%D0%90+%D0%A2%D0%90%D0%9D%D0%A6%D0%AE%D0%92%D0%90%D0%9B%D0%AC%D0%9D%D0%90+%D0%A1%D0%A2%D0%A3%D0%94%D0%86%D0%AF,+ulitsa+Nikolaya+Vasilenko,+15,+Kyiv,+Kyiv+city,+Ukraine/@50.4528256,30.4667692,12z/data=!4m12!1m3!3m2!1s0x0:0x1150cc6fb36c4e60!2z0JvQo9Cd0JAg0KLQkNCd0KbQrtCS0JDQm9Cs0J3QkCDQodCi0KPQlNCG0K8!4m7!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x40d4cc16a2fd4a65:0x1150cc6fb36c4e60!2m2!1d30.42329!2d50.443768

"Interantional Moon Base 2030" by peter303 · 2014-09-24 04:44 · Score: 1

Rather than a bunch of silly independent races, designate an interesting single area of Luna to accumulate missions and habitable equipment from all countries. Kind of modeled after Antarctic bases. Remember Antartica was uninhabited for 34 years between the inital polar races (1904-1911) and its first long term bases (1945). World Wars didnt help the situation.

Thank you, Mr. Putin by Control-Z · 2014-09-24 04:56 · Score: 2

NASA will now get more funding and we will see more space exploration.

Re:Thank you, Mr. Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 12:35 · Score: 0

The bare minimum of science gets done. Funding goes only to the most expensive 'biggest penis race'.
Re:Thank you, Mr. Putin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 16:23 · Score: 0

I applaud you! You're the only person in here that actually sees the good that's coming from all this :)

Russians pledge to got to your mom by bluefoxlucid · 2014-09-24 05:14 · Score: 1

nt

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Got the T-shirt by NoImNotNineVolt · 2014-09-24 05:55 · Score: 1

Vista

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Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.

why is it always 20 to 30 years away? by k6mfw · 2014-09-24 06:28 · Score: 2

For past 50 or so years, US says it will send a man to Mars in 20 years. For past 50 (uh wait, 30) or so years, USSR/Russia says it will send a man to Moon in 20 years. Like we will have fusion power in 10 years like they've been saying for past 50 years. And next year we will have Hover-Cars, including conversion kits for people with vintage '80s DeLorean. But then these days we do have Picture-Phones.

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mfwright@batnet.com

Russia's little green men by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 06:39 · Score: 0

Expect Russia's little green men to be the first colonists if Putin holds true to form. By 2030 Russia population will have dropped 30 million from its current level. More Putin's predations chase more people out.

1969 called... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 06:45 · Score: 0

It wants its' moon landing back.

After they "went" to Ukraine, by gshegosh · 2014-09-24 07:11 · Score: 1, Insightful

After they "went" to Ukraine, I prefer them going to the Moon than going to Poland.

No one does anything major unless the have to by zildgulf · 2014-09-24 08:33 · Score: 1

The harsh truth is that few people do anything unless they have to. We didn't send men back to the moon because we didn't have to. We will not send men to Mars because we don't have to. Faster-than-light communications will not be developed in my lifetime not because physics say that it is impossible, quantum physics says it should be possible, but because we have no need for such technology yet. We will not develop interstellar travel until we have no choice but to develop it.

Coldwar era russian moon mission joke Always valid by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 08:59 · Score: 0

Aide: Mr. President! The Pentagon reports russians communists are lauching a manned moon rocket right now.

POTUS: I have no problem with that.

Aide: Mr. President! NASA reports seeing the russkies land at the Moon. They are disembarking right now.

President: Keep calm and stay put.

Aide: Mr. President, please look out the window! Those russian communists are painting the whole Moon red. We must do something!

President: Well, wait until they are finished, then lauch our astro boys, with a bucket full of white enamel. All over the red Moon, they shall paint "Coca-Cola"

Two minutes of hate. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 09:32 · Score: 0

- I think swiss clockmaking companies should set up shops on the Moon quickly and advertise to lunar aboriginals:
Have your wristwatch ready to hand over to that invading russian soldier at gunpoint!

( Cue famous propaganda photo, looted wristwatch retouched-disappearated from russian soldier's wrist:
http://static.keptelenseg.hu/p/313293076b8ef4b47ec4d86ca0934ef3.jpg )

- Abortion clinics should also be set up and advertised to selenites:
Schedule a dilation and curettage for your daughter, after you will have handed her over to that invading russian soldier at gunpoint.

(There is a famous and totally banned late WWII era wallpaper, printed by baltic nazis. It shows drunken soviet army personnel rape at gunpoint, blonde teenage girls laid on the tombs of a village cemetery. Problem is, it was propaganda, but not fantasy. Most of the baltic people fled to Germany and then further west to avoid the undescribable terrors of the soviet army. Furher south, over 200k women and girls, age 9-99 were raped by soviet troops in Hungary. All nun's religious orders there ceased to exist overnight, since women penetrated cannot serve as a nun any longer in the catholic church. Cue vow of perpetual virginity.)

- But what if the lunians have no wrists, nor daughters, since their anatomy lacks limbs and they are hermaphroditic? Those syphillis-maddened, vodka-soaked asiatic barbarians called russian army will then round up all the boys and take them to the mines of Siberia for forced labor.

Russia is imploding, by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-24 15:17 · Score: 0

All the young are leaving for the west and taking their fertile bodies and minds with them, leaving behind a bitter sterile scab of a nation that will struggle to even care for it's own elderly let alone explore the cosmos with manned missions.

Cool. Please visit the BA gift shop. by WindBourne · 2014-09-24 16:07 · Score: 1

Upon arriving at the moon, They can visit the Bigelow Aerospace gift shop that will be there by 2030.

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I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.

In soviet russia by LocutusOfBorg1 · 2014-09-24 17:36 · Score: 1

moon goes to russia!

Perhaps as a tourist... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-25 01:43 · Score: 0

...but the raw resources on the Moon, including the Titanium and He3, are worth bothering with. Especially the He3 impinged in the rock and regolith. It's the short, easy path to fusion power.

I'm all for this, but... by ToddInSF · 2014-09-25 05:22 · Score: 1

Is the moon even large enough to put Russia on ?

Re:Least Promising by sudon't · 2014-09-29 07:45 · Score: 1

Good catch for someone who can't tell the difference between a spelling error and a grammar mistake. But, if you're going to criticize the writing of others, you ought to first be sure to capitalize and punctuate properly, and learn to form complete sentences yourself, (yes, I'm assuming you're a none-too-bright teenager). After all, if your own writing is atrocious, you don't come off as too smart while criticizing the writing of others, do you?

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-- sudon't

Air-ride Equipped

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Russia Pledges To Go To the Moon

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