Lots of talk lately concerning the moon

[halman]

RadarRedux,<br /><br />I suspect that one of the reasons why going to the Moon is not any cheaper today than it was in 1969 is because we have to to so many things over that we have done before. Right now, we do not have a booster capable of launching a manned vehicle to the Moon, we do not have a manned vehicle capable of going to the Moon, and we do not have any designs which have been accepted for either.<br /><br />The Saturn rocket was already in development when it was chosen for the Apollo program. Much of the infrastructure that you speak of was created in the 1960's for Apollo, and needs updating or replacement.<br /><br />Again, what we are proposing is the same kind of minimal activity that we had in the Apollo days, with little or no provision for building the infrastructure needed to support a permanent base on the Moon. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

kadetken,<br /><br />Many people are worried that John Kerry may scuttle the Moon-To-Mars concept if he wins the election. Even though this is the first positive declaration by an American leader regarding space flight in years, it is still a sham. Without a significant increase in funding, NASA is very unlikely to meet any of the goals set forth in MTM. No design for a Crew Exploration Vehicle has been choosen yet, we do not have a booster capable of launching a large enough payload to accomadate a CEV capable of supporting 4 or 5 people for two weeks, we have no plan to build a Lunar shuttle which could carry the crew from Low Earth Orbit to the Moon and back, thus relievng the CEV of the prolonged life-support requirement, and the funding President Bush has asked for is inadequate to do any of these things.<br /><br />But I want to believe in the future, and I know that I am not the only person who believes that space will be our salvation. Without significant investment in some new frontier or technology, the United States is very likely to see an erosion of the standard of living. We have been spending money faster than we are making it for too long. The only chance we have to avoid sinking into debt is to create new wealth, in a very big way. The only activity we can engage in which holds that kind of promise is developing resources off-planet.<br /><br />I am probably a fool, but whenever I hear John Kerry talking about creating jobs, I think to myself, "Spend money in space, John. The paybacks are better than any other investment known to the human race." Free energy, free raw materials, no Environmental Protection Agency to worry about, because you can't pollute space! For corporations struggling with energy costs, scarcity of raw materials, and environmental restrictions, space is the Promised Land. All we have to do is figure out how to get there cheaply. There are lots of ways, but they all require a big investment at the start, which is what the go <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[lunatic133]

Very well written. You ought to write to Senator Kerry, and tell him that!

 

[grooble]

You'll be a rock forever like me <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />

 

[arobie]

kadetken,<br /><br />This is also one of my favorite threads as well. I revisit all the time as reference about the Moon. I absolutely love all the information you posted.<br /><br />Looking back now, It seems to me that the general attitude in this thread (on the Lunar side of the debate) was that we go to the Moon for resources to export to Earth. This helps the environment because we are not tearing up the Earth to get to them. While this is noble, it strikes me as uneconomical to go the the Moon for resources for the Earth. I've always seen the Moon as a resource spot for our future expansion rather than as a resource for terrestrial uses. We will use the Moon to provide the resources and to manufacture them to support our future endeavors (for example SPS) in space, but to export the resources to Earth?<br /><br />While I understand using aluminum for parts needed space, I don't understand exporting it from the Moon to the Earth.

 

[frodo1008]

Like Halman I believe in first things first. We need to even go back to the moon at all (in particular the poles of the moon) before we can even begin to establish a base on the moon of any kind of permanent nature. This in turn must be done before we can even begin to think of exploiting the considerable resources of the moon for the expansion of both lunar and Earth to the moon space facilities enough to even think of safely going further out into space to Mars or anywhere else for that matter. Note, that I said safely! Without giving ourselves the best possible chance at safely and reliably getting to Mars, ANY kind of a Mars mission is a suicide mission, and this is what is wrong with going to Mars first. Wherner Von Braun like so many other things in space, knew this.<br /><br />It is NOT just a difference in the delta velocities that is important it is the enormous difference in the DISTANCES involved, and thus the times of transit involved. To send a few human beings into space for months at a time for distances where any kind of break down will NOT result in any kind of an Apollo 13 type of rescue is just insane! Can you imagine the media circus over slowly watching these great people die? What do you then think the average person is going to think about further human exploration of the solar system after that?<br /><br />But we know that truly sending out people to such distances is going to require far greater vehicles and resources to do it safely and reliably. This kind of investment will be impossible with launching the necessary equipment from the Earth itself. Only by developing the resources to make such equipment in space itself with the materials from the moon (and possibly even NEO's) can such exploration be both safe, reliable, and inexpensive enough to even contemplate doing!<br /><br />Is this really so difficult to understand?<br /><br />AFTER such a development of the resources of the moon is used for making the infrastructure of near space

 

[JonClarke]

<i>Besides, I get a real laugh out of those that seem to think that we have explored the moon with Apollo (and nobody has any more respect for what we did than me, as I was a part of this great effort myself, a small part, but a part, never the less). Even the astronauts themselves knew how very small an area that we explored. Tell me, those that are so confident that we have actually explored the moon, how many people have we put on the dark or unseen from Earth part of the moon? For that matter how many people have actually visited the poles of the moon, where we suspect that water ice is probably available in deep craters protected from the sun?</i><br /><br />So true! The Moon has the area of Africa. How much of Africa could we say we had explored if all we had was Landsat coverage and 14 day trips in 6 places (say Cape Town, Zanzibar, Dakar, Timbuktu, Cairo and Marakesh)?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[3488]

Hi all & a Happy New Year, all the best for 2007.<br /><br />Jon is correct. Whilst Apollo was hugely successful in demonstrating technology & was highly productive particulalrly Apollos 15, 16 & 17 (they had the LEVs & also the most interesting sites), they were limited to landing sites relatively close to the equator (I think 15 landed furthest away, about 20 deg north). <br /><br />Apollo explored the landing areas very well indeed, but this MUST be built upon. The lunar farside & both poles have only been seen from orbit. <br /><br />The poles & the farside should first be visited by unmanned craft, communicating with Earth through simple relay satellites.<br /><br />The LRO will fill in many gaps however with the lunar equivalent of the HiRISE on the MRO.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[3488]

Perhaps the below may be of some interest????<br /><br />This image, taken by the advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA's SMART-1 spacecraft, shows crater Shackleton on the Moon. <br />AMIE obtained this image on 13 January 2006 - close to the time of lunar southern Summer - from a distance of 646 kilometres over the surface and with a ground resolution of 60 metres per pixel. <br /><br />Shackleton crater lies at the lunar South Pole, at 89.54° South latitude and 0° East longitude, and has a diameter of 19 kilometres. <br /><br />Credits: ESA/Space-X (Space Exploration Institute)<br /> <br /> <br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>