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NASA Plans Lunar Mobile Phone Network
Posted by
samzenpus
on Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:34 PM
from the dark-side-of-the-moon-minutes-cost-more-money dept.
from the dark-side-of-the-moon-minutes-cost-more-money dept.
If NASA and the British National Space Centre succeed in their 'MoonLite mission' you won't be able to say, "In space no one can hear your ringtone." They plan on building a satellite system/phone network that would provide full four-bar signal coverage for colonists living in the base NASA wants to build at the south pole of the moon after 2020.
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Telecoms reap millions (Score:5, Funny)
Obsolencense is f(time, money) (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it amusing that just this morning I read that the Air Force is in an uproar about needing $100B dollars over the next five years [omaha.com], just to prevent it's fleet from becoming anything less than cutting-edge.
Yet, NASA receives a mere $16.2B per year [nasa.gov] - and even with planned increases will not exceed the amount the Air Force is asking for in addition to what it already gets.
In short; I find it ridiculous that you can call anything "obsolete" that is barely funded, but has a much more sophisticated task to do. When NASA is as well funded as the Air Force, and can still not perform to par, then you can complain about it being obsolete.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if it would be this hard to have a battle with the core of Al-Qaeda if it wasn't so obvious that fighting the US military head-on is a futile effort in the long-term. This whole, war on terrorism shit probably would have been dealt with by now... instead
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I used the airforce in part because I saw an article regarding it, but in part because it's job - a government aeronautic agency - is probably as similar to NASA as any other government program. You are correct; they are not identical. But note that my goal was to examine the scope of what we're dealing with; you can't say that NASA isn't doing it's job when it gets, in the grand scheme of things, a pittance to do what it needs to do. There are other government agencies, though, whom we barely question when
What are the data rates (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What are the data rates (Score:5, Funny)
You seem to be having a problem with your keyboard.
Anyway, I corrected the text for you.
Parent
Re:What are the data rates (Score:5, Funny)
You seem to be having a problem with your keyboard.
Anyway, I corrected the text for you.
Parent
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o/~ Proud cascade keep on rollin'... o/~
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I could see it as something of a quarky attraction "talk to the moon: call 2-XXX...) to help fund research. But really what colonist is going to want to be in the middle of digging up dirt only to stop and answer a phone with some silly questions like "what's the weather like up there?"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Figures... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Figures... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
In space (Score:5, Funny)
4 bars? (Score:5, Funny)
It had better be a small colony, then. Or they'd better be really big bars, hopefully without annoyingly trendy kitsch, and hopefully with some really good whiskey.
FIrst things first. (Score:2)
Unless you want to sell AnyTime Lunar Minutes to other countries that would already be there.
Which standard? (Score:2)
(I had to ask)
Lagggg (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You have to learn to listen until the other person has finished saying what they were saying before replying. It's actually good for conversing because you are forced to really listening to the other
Unless Obama wins (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unless Obama wins (Score:4, Insightful)
He also argues that a Moon base is a poor use of resources, since "science can be done for far less money by robotic missions--which also don't put human lives at risk."[5] The Los Angeles Times seconded that in an editorial, saying "Manned moon flight may appeal to baby boomers, but it makes little scientific sense for most space missions these days. Robots can now perform, or be developed to perform, most of the tasks people would do at a moon station." [6]
Columnist Gregg Easterbrook has criticized the plans as a poor use of resources. He writes that
Although, of course, the base could yield a great discovery, its scientific value is likely to be small while its price is extremely high. Worse, moon-base nonsense may for decades divert NASA resources from the agency's legitimate missions, draining funding from real needs in order to construct human history's silliest white elephant. [7]
According to Easterbrook, the billions of dollars that a lunar colony might cost should instead be devoted to exploring the solar system with space probes; space observatories; and protecting the Earth from Near-Earth asteroids.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_outpost_(NASA) [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Unless Obama wins (Score:4, Insightful)
Many of us don't think the gee-whizz eye-candy coolness factor of watching someone bounce round the moon on TV is actually worth the enormous opportunity cost of what could have been done with that money if it wasn't wasted on manned missions. The Shuttle's landing tomorrow morning after a ten day mission that cost $1.3 billion. Consider that the incredibly successful Mars Exploration Rovers cost less than half that over the entire four years and counting mission, and have made fantastic breakthrough scientific discoveries as well as producing some amazing [flickr.com] eye-candy [usyd.edu.au].
(And incidentally those are all "amateur" images produced from the raw data stream, thanks to JPL/Cornell/Steve Squyres' wonderful policy to release it as it arrives [exploratorium.edu].)
Parent
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The fact is, no matter what we (as people) do, there are going to be problems with whatever. I know some people cannot accept "problems". The fact is, Problems exist, because we don't live in a perfect world. Trying to create a Problem Free Society is HUGELY expensive and impossible to boot. There will always be "problems" and pouring money into "solutions" will NEVER fix them all.
There will always be people who fail
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Why is "kill it completely where it stands (and be hailed for saving children from that horrific fucking monstrosity)" not an option?
An excellent question.
One only has to refer to the impact of the right-wing noise machine to see the answer. After all, it was the conservatives that created this monster, and they control the loudest of the media outlets. If one were to kill off "no child left behind", the right-wing media would jump all over it and label the people behind its killing as being "anti-child", "anti-education", "anti-progress", "anti-jesus", and of course "anti-america" and hence "anti-patriotic".
Hell, just look
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
but will you have to go outside to use it? (Score:2)
Let's see who trumps this one by offering a 5 bar service for Mars.
Re:but will you have to go outside to use it? (Score:4, Funny)
Exactly what I was thinking. This is precisely why NASA is going down the drain. They can't even get full cellphone signal, let alone get their units right.
Parent
verizon (Score:2)
NASA, you have just brought us at least another two months of pain.
You thought AT&T locked you in (Score:2)
But, we do offer the Android. Not the google one, a real one
Can you hear me now? (Score:4, Funny)
AT&T Marketing Department Rejoices! (Score:2)
But at least I can look up the size of Texas and the volume of the LoC, and I can even take a guess as to the length of a Fortnight. "Bar" is an utterly meaningless and arbitrary measurement. Heck, m
Satellite satellites? (Score:2)
Oh, the heck with it. (Score:4, Funny)
"In space no one can hear your ringtone." (Score:3, Informative)
This is actually a very clever plan (Score:4, Funny)
As soon as there's any hint of a mobile phone mast getting installed all the NIMBY's start moaning, writing to their MP's, holding protests and petitioning the phone company.
If there is life on other planets, all we have to do to find it is to announce that someone will errect a mobile mast - then just wait for the protests from the aliens. No protests means we are truly alone, afterall.
Actually, this is good for UK (Score:2)
That's no moon. (Score:4, Funny)
HELLO! I'M ON THE MOON! (Score:4, Funny)
NO, ITS SHIT!
Sorry, had to be done.
Oh yeah? (Score:3, Funny)
4 bars on the moon (Score:3, Funny)
A little.... Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see it working that well due to the lag, and the costs are incredible.
Are we really trying to put bandwidth (that is what is essentially being done) on the Moon?
Isn't the whole reason why we are having problems with bandwidth/transfer caps in the US due to a lack of bandwidth? Maybe we should be investing in our infrastructures at home and solving the problems we have here with our current bandwidth before trying to place some incredibly expensive bandwidth on the moon for possible colonists.
Now I understand this might be done for national pride, just like the space race in the 60's. Are we really going to have that much pride that we were the first to offer cellphone service on the Moon?
brilliant (Score:5, Funny)
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Bummer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:lag time (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:lag time (Score:5, Funny)
Nope, the article says any lag time would fall either below 20 or above 20,000 Hz. If you were trying to talk to fido, he might notice a delay, however.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
DANGER! Do Not Touch! 100,000,000 Ohms!