What will we do on the Moon?

[quasar2]

it`s a wonderful concept, but:. people haven`t gotten over this ridiculous business of; we`ve been there, so why go back. that`s a big hurdle to get over. & they assume we would use exactly & precisely the same techniques as apollo. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spayss]

People and taxpayers are intelligent beings. The question comes back to the allocationof money from a finite pot. It's all fine and dandy yo want to return to the moon just as it's fine to want , free university, transportation rail infrastructure between every 2 points, no pollution, billions in alternative energy, billions and billions more for better health services..etc.<br /><br /> So? What is going to the moon going to offer that should make it a 'priority' over othe noble expenditures. Why should the mother with 4 children want her taxes spent on a new Moon mission rather than a special education teacher for her disabled child?<br /><br /> I always hear lots of reasons for going to the Moon and Mars. I just don't hear how those dollars have should have a higher priority over other needs. <br /><br /> Give an argument that 'convinces' the mother with 4 kids that the Moon should be a priority. Not 'should' convince her but 'does' convince her. Otherwise it's all just more jammering of a special interest group wanting more money for our pet project: space exploration.

 

[quasar2]

spacester i think the reason halman`s perspective may seem limited is because of several things. Earth`s Gravity Well being chiefly one of them. there hasn`t much progrees towards making space access cheaper. i think this would fall under the heading of crumbling infrastructure. so really all we have is Space Access. because once orbit is reached, the rest is "easy". i say easy because all ya gotta do then is: dock w/ ISS, orbit the Moon, go to L1 & return. quite a few choices really providing you carry sufficient equipment to orbit. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[quasar2]

people may be intelligent, but that still don`t mean they can`t be forgetful. we`ll still be enjoying Space Spinoffs for another 50 yrs. & people seem to forget that OuterSpace isn`t as large of an expenditure as other things. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[quasar2]

another thing too is that alot of money as well goes into illegal activities. some of this could be funneled into a Space Program. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[halman]

spacester,<br /><br />If someone wants to say that a few minutes above 100 kilometers means access to space, fine. Then we will have to come up with a seperate definition of what the ability to reach a stable orbit, perform work there, and return is.<br /><br />A pilot let me take the controls for a minute or so, which means that I know how to fly a plane. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

spayss,<br /><br />If you ask a parent if they want the future to be better for their children than the present has been, I think that the majority would say "Yes." Of course, the easiest way to make the future better would be for the majority of people to not have children. That way, there would be resources enough to go around.<br /><br />Imagine what the world be like if everyone had the same standard of living as the United States. Much as we would like to make that a reality, the probability is slim. Would it be better to say that the United States must lower its standard of living? We can pretend that the Earth is a closed system, and that what is available here is all that there is for us to use. Or, we can expand our theater of operations to the entire Solar System. In doing so, we would be creating wealth. Making money. The more money there is to go around, the more money there is to pay for special education instructors, mass transit, free healthcare, and big screen televisions. <br /><br />The Moon doesn't have any special, invaluable resources, just low gravity and no atmosphere. That combination means that exporting the Moon's resources will be eaisier than from Earth, Mars, or Mercury. The Earth-Moon system is a minature replica of the Solar System, in that getting back and forth here is a learning model for the larger journeys we will face later. We will have immediate feedback on our mistakes, instead of waiting months to find out what went wrong, if ever.<br /><br />Perhaps it all comes down to faith. Do you believe that the future can be better than the present? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>If someone wants to say that a few minutes above 100 kilometers means access to space, fine<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Well, it is access to space. Black Brant rockets for instance very definitely provide access to space. Alan Shepherd very definitely flew to space on Freedom 7.<br /><br />And note that there are countless different suborbital trajectories, some of them just a little short in delta-V of achieving stable orbit. Yes, SS1 is at the lower end of the spectrum, meaning it has just barely enough delta-V to make it to space, but the Wright Flyer didnt go transantlantic either.

 

[najab]

><i>Yes, SS1 is at the lower end of the spectrum, meaning it has just barely enough delta-V to make it to space, but the Wright Flyer didnt go transantlantic either.</i><p>SS1 is a space vehicle, but it doesn't provide access to space. To my mind, the key in providing access to space is the ability to <i>do</i> stuff while you are there. SS1 only provides a few minutes of zero-gee - hardly enough time to do anything useful. You can't <i>go</i> anywhere either - it's just up and down.<p>To use your analogy - the Wright Flyer was an aeroplane, but it wasn't air transport.</p></p>

 

[spacester]

Of course there's time to do something useful!<br /><br />There's time to BE THERE. That's good enough for me.<br /><br />Have you been there?<br />Dont you want to be there?<br />Wouldn't it be the highlight of a lifetime to be there?<br /><br />People will BE THERE and in so doing will open up the final frontier for all of us, and y'all think that's not useful?<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>Have you been there?</i><br />Nope.<p><br /> /><i>Dont you want to be there?</i><br />You betcha!<p><br /> /><i>Wouldn't it be the highlight of a lifetime to be there?</i><br />You better believe it!<p>I still wouldn't say that I've "been to space" after a SS2 flight though, after all I only visited briefly. Saying you've travelled in space after a SS2 trip would be like saying you've explored Asia because you changed planes in Hong Kong once.</p></p></p>

 

[no_way]

So, najaB, are you saying Black Brant's are useless ? That those dont provide access to space ? <br />

 

[grooble]

err. <br /><br />Lets build that Lunar power plant, make all cars air powered / electric, and eliminate pollution from the earth.

 

[spayss]

If the special interest group is veterans wanting better health care? Single mothers wanting more money for their inner city schools? Environmentalists wanting more funds allocated to cleaner butning fuels.<br /><br /> How do we space keeners (I'm one of them) make the case for more dollars? I've written to my Senator, etc. I'm just not sure how to make my voice any louder other than getting naked and sitting on top of the Capitol Dome with a sign that reads 'Mars or Bust'.

 

[najab]

><i>So, najaB, are you saying Black Brant's are useless ? That those dont provide access to space ?</i><p>Useless, no. Sounding rockets are <b>very</b> important and useful - even essential. They allow experiements to be carried out in short periods of microgravity and for many scientists they provide a low-cost means to investigate the space environment.<p>However, much like SS1/2 does for humans, they don't provide more than a few fleeting moments of space time. I go back to the analogy of the Wright Flyer - yes it was an aeroplane, no it wasn't air transport.<p>SS1 <b>is</b> a SpaceShip and its passengers and crew deserve their astronaut wings. It isn't, in my next-to-useless opinion, a space <i>vehicle</i>, and it isn't the solution to affordable, regular access to space.</p></p></p>

 

[mooware]

To answer the quesiton.. <font color="yellow">"What will we do on the Moon?"</font><br /><br />We could say hello to the Chinese and ask them if there are any good restaurants there.<br /><br />

 

[propforce]

<font color="yellow"><i>We could say hello to the Chinese and ask them if there are any good restaurants there. </i></font><br /><br />I wonder if they serve the dish Sum Yung Chicks over there?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mooware]

Hmm, Maybe. but for the Gaynaut's they'll have Creme of sum yung guy.<br /><br />

 

[spacester]

<font color="yellow">. . . . would be like saying you've explored Asia because you changed planes in Hong Kong once . . . </font><br /><br />You know that's a real good point and I saw no point in trying to dispute the logic, but then I thought about it some more.<br /><br />If you think about it, if you came from the USA and changed planes in Hong Kong, what are the odds that the second plane will land in Asia? I betcha they're pretty high odds. So in at least some small way, you will be exploring Asia. And who can say they've explored Asia in full anyway?<br /><br />The point being, that location is everything, and suborbital tourism will locate non-professional human beings in space for periods of time sufficient to generate the public enthusiasm for space in general needed to make everything else happen.<br /><br />They're not going to just be going up in space briefly. They will be experiencing an extended space adventure. A very large number of these very rich people will be clamoring for orbital access. Pent-up demand like that does not stay unserved very long.<br /><br />Presto! Suborbital turns out to be the gateway to orbital tourism, which in turn is the gateway to the solar system. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[halman]

no_way,<br /><br />Okay, I will admit it: I am being pedantic. I have a bad problem with semantics, mostly because I believe that confusion results from sloppy semantics.<br /><br />We could have 1500 sub-orbital flights a day carrying 12 passengers each, yet would that mean that we have the ability to fix the Hubble, or reach the International Space Station, or send a payload to the Moon?<br /><br />I do not mean to belittle the importance of SpaceShip One, especially as I see it being a test bed for a superior form of launching spacecraft. But I think that it is going to take about 2 billion dollars before a private spacecraft is able to acheive orbit, and return safely.<br /><br />As I suggested to a young poster a while back, it is time to create the 'Foundation Of Space', a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the private exploration of space, to gather private donations, grant money, corporate investment, and surplus government hardware to facilitate the advance of space flight. If all of the various private operations interested in creating space access were to pool their resources, progress would come a lot faster, I believe. If American dollars could be used somehow to support the Russian space program, progress would be accelerated by a factor of at least 3, and perhaps as much as 10.<br /><br />But I am a dreamer, I am told, and would be wasting my ample supplies of time.<br /><br />"We must not dismiss any novel idea with the cocksure statement that it can't be done. We are pioneers in a new science and a new industry. Our job is to keep everlastingly at research and experiment, and let no new improvement pass us by. We have already proved that science and hard work can lick what appear to be insurmountable difficulties." William Boeing, founder of the Boeing Airplane Company. (From "Vision: The Story Of Boeing" by Harold Mansfield) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

kadetken,<br /><br />Well said! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

kadetken,<br /><br />Many of my ideas are derived from G. Harry Stine's "The Third Industrial Revolution." Others from Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlien, and various science writers. But history tells me that frontiers are essential to growth and prosperity, and Earth is about out of frontiers where resources are there for the taking, and taking them will not harm others or our home among the stars.<br /><br />To see our home from another place is the most powerful way to alter our perspective on living with each other. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[scottb50]

All good and well in an altruistic way, but if we can't get and use the resources in a way we can expect to profit from them then there is no reason to seek them. The problem is lumping profit with frontiers and expecting instant gratification. I think the norm has been going into the frontier expecting untold wealth and being disappointed, until someone figures what to do with it. The explorers lead basically fruitless lives, it's those who push into the areas they explore that reap the wealth. <br /><br />Columbus was looking for a faster way to the Far-East and it took hundreds of years before the Americas were exploited. <br /><br />The main problem we have is getting into LEO, once we can do that reasonably economically we can get anywhere, with enough time and energy. $10,000 a pound or even $1,000 a pound to LEO won't solve the problem.<br /><br />Mining the Moon is a long way off and will be an offshoot of science and tourists driving the cost down, there is little if anything onthe Moon we can't get here for next to nothing, relatively. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[thecolonel]

<i>$10,000 a pound or even $1,000 a pound to LEO won't solve the problem.</i><br /><br />It is difficult to put a price tag on the generation of hope and inspiration.

 

[halman]

Scottb50,<br /><br />As I have stated before, we (the United States,) have tha ability and the wealth to make this dream a reality in a generation or so. The capacity to reach Low Earth Orbit for a reasonable cost is attainable right now, if we were to go about it properly. We will spend several times the amount needed to begin a real expansion into the high frontier, in a vain search for security. We seek strength, but true strength comes from a vital research and development sector, and a robust manufacturing sector, not large standing military forces.<br /><br />Think of the people who WALKED from St. Louis to Oregon, not in search of wealth or fame, but merely for a place to call their own, where they could do what they wanted. Without the railroads, the American West would still be largely undeveloped, and uninhabited. Government made the railroads to the West possible, which created a huge explosion of expansion, and creation of wealth.<br /><br />Tourisim will drive a certain amount of development in this new frontier, but what tourisim will do pales in comparision to what the private sector could do with easy access to space. In a world where marketing tries to squeeze a few percent of new profit out of products which have been on the market for decades, no one can tell me that there would not be investment into the processing of materials in space to create entirely new products, as well as getting in on the ground floor in the creation of the industries which ultimately would support the development of the Solar System.<br /><br />Earth is becoming a crowded place, with many rules and restrictions which hinder the free flow of capital. Entrepaneurs are always looking for a place with few, if any rules, and little, or no government, to allow capital to flow freely, which allows the rapid creation of wealth. Within a short time of the government making Cheap Access to Space feasible, there would be a number of private enterprises takring advantage of the sit <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>