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Space Science

Glenn Urges Direct-to-Mars Trip 685

Geno Z Heinlein writes "Reuters reports that astronaut John Glenn testified March 4 before the President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond, saying that Bush's plan 'pulls the rug out from under our scientists' and that 'It just seems to me the direct-to-Mars [route] is the way to go.' Referring to the Moon as an 'enormously complex' Cape Canaveral, Glenn said that NASA might spend all the money getting to the Moon and never get to Mars."
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Glenn Urges Direct-to-Mars Trip

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  • by nokilli ( 759129 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @09:59AM (#8474424)
    Spending all our money on the moon, that is. The moon has military value. Mars doesn't. If anything should serve as a base between here and Mars it should be ISS (after all it's a big reason we built the thing.) ISS should also be exploited as a place where returning astronauts (or samples) can be studied, safely, without risk to life on Earth (as low as that risk might be.)
    • by samcentral2000 ( 753077 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:04AM (#8474468)
      How does the moon have military value? I'm no expert, but doesn't it take like six days to go up there? Not to mention the costs. From a military perspective, wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?
      • by trinitrotoluene ( 713170 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:08AM (#8474497)
        The only obvious thing I can think is of is the fact that the Moon is high up in Earth's gravity well. So you can shoot a big chunk of rock from the moon and have it hit somewhere on Earth. Then you get lots of destruction with no risk to friendly troops and without resorting to nuclear weapons.
        • I used to think the same thing, but then I realized - you'd need a hell of a rail gun to launch a rock at the Earth, and get it to target quickly enough that a superpower wouldn't have time to nuke your ass off the planet. You might think, "Yes, but the Moon rocks wouldn't be nuclear" to which I'd respond - "When you're about to get wiped out anyway, do you care if your enemy's remains glow in the dark?"

          It's much easier to maintain your ICBM array locally than to build, maintain, and operate something les
          • by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:32AM (#8474707) Homepage
            The problem with MAD, though, is we've lost both the M and the A. Who else can match our arsenal? Who else can deploy an ABM system?

            All your other points are excellent.

            The point of a moon base, though, would be a resupply base for all your orbital death stars. It's cheaper to get material out of the moon's gravity well than the earth's. It'd take a while to establish the industrial base needed on the moon, though; I'm thinking a permanent manned facility with a population of around 50,000 would be necessary to supply a ring of battle stations in low earth orbit.

            "Fear will keep the third world in line...fear of our Orbital Death Lasers!"
            • by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:26AM (#8475274) Homepage Journal
              M: No one else can match our arsenal, but who gives a shit? China, Russia, and probably France and the UK have enough nukes to kill off tens of millions of Americans in one strike. That's really all anyone needs for an effective deterrent.

              A: We will never, ever have an anti-missile system that can stop enough incoming ICBM's and/or SLBM's to fend off a massive strike. Period. And if we ever go to war on the assumption that we can, odds are decent that you and everyone you know will die.
              • by x0 ( 32926 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:55PM (#8476322) Homepage
                You are making the assumption that ABM systems are designed to stop all of the incoming ICBMs. While it may have been sold to the public on that premise, I think there were two more important (and successful) reasons for the ABM research:

                1. Stop enough incoming ballistic missiles to make strikes less than a sure thing for some percentage of the number launched.
                2. Make the other guy spend more money to make more missiles, including maintaining those missiles, at a higher percentage of the GNP.

                In short; Outspend them until they fail.

                Seems like it worked to me...

                • by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:24PM (#8476607) Homepage Journal
                  Note that I didn't say "all," I said "enough." And my belief -- one that I think is well borne out by the numbers involved -- is that we will never be able to stop enough incoming ICBM's and/or SLBM's launched by any other major power to keep a significant portion of America's population from being killed in a nuclear war. "Outspend them until the fail" is an interesting proposition (and the collapse of the USSR is much, much more complicated than that) but the simple fact is that missiles are cheap and ABM is expensive.

                  You know, in some other countries, this might not be the case -- consider the great conventional battles of the past, in young men's lives were spent like pennies for a mile or two of ground. But Americans don't fight that way, and never have. (Gettysburg pales in comparision to the Somme, or Stalingrad.) There are governments which would probably regard the loss of a Chicago-size metropolitan center or two, or ten, as an acceptable risk. But traditionally, we don't think that way, and that's a Good Thing. I will be very saddened, and rather disturbed, if this changes.
          • Doing some sums (and wouldn't it be nice if someone checked them - don't trust me to remember where the decimal point goes...):

            1 kg of iron going at 2/3 * c has 2E16J of kinetic energy (about 4.8 megatons of TNT) and will take approx 2s (1.925s by my calculation) to cover the distance from the Moon to Earth. Most 'battlefield' nuclear weapons are about 25 kilotons, so you'd probably only need a mass of about 0.5g (plus whatever you expect to burn up in the atmosphere) to enable a very, very capable artille
            • by Macgruder ( 127971 ) <chandies.williamson@gm a i l .com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:30PM (#8476038)
              2 seconds? Dude, the lightspeed delay between earth and the moon is just over 1 second. How the heck are you going to launch a projectile at 50% of c?

              At this point, the military believes they can build an EM-cannon that will (in a vacum) give a muzzle velocity of about 2 miles (3.2km) per second. Not counting accelaration, that's 34 hours.

              I'll leave it to someone else more motivated than I to calculate the velocity added by the rock 'falling' to the earth.
            • "In the shade" doesn't help, does it? As I recall the moon's atmosphere is so thin as to be nonexistent, meaning you will have no significant cooling. We don't know anything about temperatures inside the moon that I could find easily, so I don't know if burying will carry heat away or not. Presumably if it's dead, and it radiates more energy than it absorbs, then it will work.

              One nice thing about lunar structures is that the lower gravity enables you to build things just not feasible on earth, so you coul

        • Ahhh... The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, isn't she.
      • by Trigun ( 685027 ) <evil.evilempire@ath@cx> on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:09AM (#8474503)
        wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

        As opposed to that giant thing orbiting the earth called 'The Moon'? And you can shoot down something like the ISS with less difficulty than blowing up the moon.
        • by Eccles ( 932 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:13PM (#8475809) Journal
          As opposed to that giant thing orbiting the earth called 'The Moon'?

          The moon is a significant gravity well. Once you get there, you're going to have to overcome gravity again, not to mention you have to land slowly enough in the first place. While it may be possible to mine the moon for materials to help enable a launch, or to build a linear accelerator that would do so, a near-zero gravity way station might be better.

          I'd like to see if it is possible to redirect and capture a moderate-sized asteroid for this purpose. Said asteroid might itself be selected for having the sorts of raw materials that could be used for spacecraft launching.
        • by AeroIllini ( 726211 ) <aeroillini&gmail,com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:28PM (#8476016)
          wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

          As opposed to that giant thing orbiting the earth called 'The Moon'?

          You seem to be forgetting about orbital distances. The ISS orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 500 km. The moon orbits at an average altitude of 378,000 km. (Analogy: the difference between traveling three miles to the grocery store or from Chicago to Los Angeles.)

          Any weapon fired from the moon would have tremendous difficulties. A rocket-based weapon, such as an ICBM (IPBM?), would take 3 to 4 days to reach the Earth. One we fire from Earth could reach its target in a matter of minutes. Any laser-based or beam-based weapon would also have big problems, since the Earth, seen from the moon, only covers about 2 degrees of the sky. Aiming at a target on the Earth would require an instrument of incredibly high precision, and any such sensitive equipment would be exceedingly difficult to set up on the moon.

          The moon is not strategic militarily. But I would agree that going to the moon as a jump-off point to Mars is a bit pointless, and it only made sense in the 1950s scifi books. Why leave one gravity well, just to land in another and have to overcome it again? The surface of the moon is every bit as unforgiving as orbit, since there's no insulating atmosphere. True, it has gravity, but that dust gets EVERYWHERE. It would make far more sense to do everything in orbit: build the spacecraft, fuel it, launch it, return it. Just stay out of the gravity well as long as possible.
          • It doesn't even make much sense to build the thing in orbit. Especially not for the first few exploratory missions. Orbital construction costs are still exorbitantly expensive. In a few decades, when it's significantly cheaper, it might make sense. But it doesn't right now.

            In his book The Case For Mars, Dr. Robert Zubrin explains his plan for Mars exploration, called Mars Direct. Zubrin does a much better job of explaining it than I could, so I'll just say this: he figures that getting to Mars is doa

      • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:17AM (#8474571)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:28AM (#8474671)
        25 years ago it only took 3 days (and less than a decade to develop and test the technology, but thats another story). One problem with a base in orbit is the lack of available raw materials - everything has to be brought up from Earth.
      • by corbettw ( 214229 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:31AM (#8474697) Journal
        From a military perspective, wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?

        That's no moon. That's a space station!
      • by R.Caley ( 126968 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:32AM (#8474705)
        How does the moon have military value?

        Strategic deterrant value of the ability to control the international cheese industry. The Swiss and the French would be eating out of your hands for a start.

      • You said: " How does the moon have military value? I'm no expert, but doesn't it take like six days to go up there? Not to mention the costs. From a military perspective, wouldn't a base in orbit around earth be more practical?"

        Its like a man on a hill versus a man downslope. On the moon you have the ability to see every point on the Earth in time, but the 'dark side' (of course its not always dark) of the moon is never seen from Earth. It would be possible to stockpile weapons on the 'dark side' and the
        • by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:26PM (#8475998)
          Are you suggesting that we exploit the "dark side" of the moon to realize a "large moon-like space station, capable of destroying an entire planet"!?
          That plot can easily be thwarted by a number of small spacecraft which would be small enough to bypass your large defenses and exploit your criticalities. Duh...
      • by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum@@@gmail...com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:33AM (#8474714) Homepage Journal
        Pretty simple, really:

        a) The moon is easy to defend from Earth-based attacks. It takes a looooot more effort to get something to the Moon from Earth than it does to get something from the Moon to Earth.
        b) Anything launched from the Moon can reach any target on the planet, easily enough, using Gravity.
        c) The moon has tons of resources for constructing weapons, especially new kinds of nuclear weapons. There's no Greenpeace, no protestors, and no life to destroy, so the Military-Industrial complex can do a looooot of things on the moon that they wouldn't stand a chance doing here on Earth.

        This was, incidentally, a hot topic in the 50's and 60's, and I seem to remember more than one sci-fi author getting into a lot of trouble for suggesting that the moon be used militarily in the Cold War ...

        A moon base would be the Top of the Hill for the Pentagon. Its very, very difficult to defend against moon-launched attacks ...
        • Woozle-wozzle. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:28AM (#8475304) Homepage
          The moon may have been a military resource in the 60's, but it's hardly one now.

          Soldier 1: "We're taking fire from that alley!"
          Soldier 2: "Quick, deploy the moon missiles!"

          It's hard to argue that the US has any problems controlling the top of the hill these days. ICBM's still work. US planes have operated pretty much undeterred for a long time. And MAD, on the other hand, is less viable than ever as a strategy (given enemy psychology).

          The moon has tons of resources for constructing weapons, especially new kinds of nuclear weapons

          That's silly. Constructing weapons would be a ludicrously costly, stupid thing to do on the moon. New kind of nuclear weapons? The old kinds work perfectly well, thank you - they are perfectly capable of supplying any kind of abomination the military might demand of them, even if they must be dropped out of a plane rather than launched from the moon.

          The US military needs more precise ways to blow small things up that they can't see - not bigger ways to blow big things up that they can see from the moon.
          • Re:Woozle-wozzle. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by b-baggins ( 610215 )
            OK. A little lesson on military strategy.

            The American military today is worried about pinpoint precision precisely BECAUSE we have the ability to wipe out any nation on the planet if we need to, and they know it, so they attack us in different ways (a lot of it pscyhological, which, after listening to many of the people on slashdot, they seem to be doing quite well at).

            That psychological aspect is a vital part of any war (read some Sun Tzu). A strong US Military (or more likely allied presence, since Brit
        • USAF and the Moon (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rjh ( 40933 )
          The moon has tons of resources for constructing weapons, especially new kinds of nuclear weapons

          The surface of the moon is overwhelmingly composed of worthless and/or low-value materials. You're not going to find anything there that'll be useful for a nuke. The surface of the moon is awash in helium-3, which is very useful for fusion power, but is not all that useful for nuclear weapons.

          While your first two points are bang-on right, your third point sounds like a paranoid Nader rant against the "milita
      • The Apollo spacecraft made the trip there in three days. Six days is a round trip.
      • How does the moon have military value?

        Rail guns. Low gravity makes shooting them up (then back down) the well pretty feasible. And you can build them pretty much as big as you like with less structural support needed in the moon's low gravity. And if you want superconductivity then you just dig a big pit and stick it in the shade at the bottom (approx 118K out of the sun, or -155 deg C).

        And you won't be waiting 3 days for the projectile to hit its target either...
      • How does the moon have military value?

        Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein.

        Main points:
        1) The moon has a lot of rocks.
        2) It's relatively easy in terms of technology and cheap in terms of energy to throw them at any target on Earth.
        3) Um, big profit? No, that's not right...
    • by zoney_ie ( 740061 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:11AM (#8474518)
      Is there any kind of International treaties governing use of the Moon? I'm thinking particularly of the situation with the Antarctic here. There certainly should be some kind of International agreement that it's "common ground".

      If not, I suggest ESA had better at least mount some similar type of mission to NASA, making sure that there is more than one "presence" on the moon.

      Yeah, OK, it's just a ball of rock - but it's a tad upsetting to think someone else might single-handedly "claim" the entirity of that pretty disc in the sky.
      • by xtal ( 49134 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:22AM (#8474618)
        Is there any kind of International treaties governing use of the Moon? I'm thinking particularly of the situation with the Antarctic here. There certainly should be some kind of International agreement that it's "common ground".


        Kinda like the ABM treaty? [fas.org]

        *cough*

        I've never been accused of being an optimist, but for some reason I don't think international agreements not to militarize space are going to mean a whole lot in the next 15 years unfortunately. The ABM treaty issue is being hotly debated in Canada and will be an issue in the next election. (US Plans call for ABM sites in Canada, leading to space-based weaponry)
      • by joshmccormack ( 75838 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:23AM (#8474629) Homepage Journal
        Here's a page that describes the international treaty covering Antarctica:
        http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/Pages /Internationa l/ATCM.msa

        Here's part of it:

        " The key elements of the treaty are:

        1. Antarctica is to be used for peaceful purposes only. All military activities are banned, although military personnel can be used to support scientific programmes in such things as transportation of people, and equipment to Antarctica
        2. There is freedom of scientific investigations and discoveries. Scientific plans, information and staff are regularly exchanged. This scientific cooperation has been genuinely successful among the treaty nations. The Cape Roberts Drilling Project is an example of successful collaborative scientific work.
        3. All political claims for territory are frozen for the duration of the treaty and no new claims or enlargements can be made
        4. Nuclear explosions or dumping of nuclear waste in Antarctica is banned
        5. All stations/bases and equipment are open to inspection be observers appointed by Antarctic Treaty nations."
      • There is a UN treaty banning the militarization of space. I'm pretty sure the US signed on as well.
    • by Cyclotron_Boy ( 708254 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:22AM (#8474613) Homepage
      You missed a big physics fact. The orbit that the ISS sits in is totally wrong for launching anything. Originally the orbit was to be just off the equator, but in order for the Russians to help and launch from the Cosmodrome in Khazakstan, the orbit was changed to 51 degrees. That meant a change in the mission of the ISS from a "jumping off point to outer space" to an international scientific outpost. Here's a NASA quote: "NASA spokesperson Phil West says the ISS' inclination of 51 degrees was chosen as a compromise to accommodate all of the international partners who will be launching from different latitudes. For example, Russia's launch site in Kazakhstan is further north than the Florida site, making lower inclinations difficult to achieve."
      ISS History article [exn.ca]
      Space Station History [centennialofflight.gov]
  • Goals (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FTL ( 112112 ) * <{slashdot} {at} {neil.fraser.name}> on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:00AM (#8474434) Homepage
    Most people seem to agree that going to the Moon is a silly thing to do if your goal is to get to Mars. But I don't think that's the goal here. I think the goal is to go to the Moon. The word "Mars" doesn't even appear in the executive order [moontomars.org]. Bush just added the "and at some point on to Mars" to the end of his speech to keep the Mars camp happy.

    Frankly I don't care where we go, Moon, Mars or asteroids. Let's just get off this rock.

    • Re:Goals (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Bushcat ( 615449 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:11AM (#8474520)
      Frankly I don't care where we go, Moon, Mars or asteroids. Let's just get off this rock.

      Absolutely. We should send robots all over, but we should send humans, too, because it does us good to listen to people who have "been there, done that". I have a greater affinity for our fellow humans who have stood on the Moon, than for the manufactured tools we have sent there. When Armstrong stepped onto the Moon, I thought "gee, I could have been there." Now, I think "gee, my kids or my grandchildren could do that", and it's a nice thought.

      I think, as a species, we're designed to go look for ourselves.

    • Re:Goals (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:19AM (#8474592) Homepage Journal
      And I totally agree with that. I would much rather see money used for some lasting, useful space infrastructure than blow all the cash on a one-shot firecracker to put a bootprint in red dirt.

      Let's try for some logical progression here. The giant leap was when a man first set foot on something other than Earth. Now let's start walking. There are no lasting benefits right now from a massive Mars bootprint operation, let's go there when it's cheaper and we have some practical Moon colony experience to build on.
      • Re:Goals (Score:5, Insightful)

        by demachina ( 71715 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:21PM (#8475927)
        Easy solution. DON'T follow the Apollo mission profile when you go to mars. A profile where you are expending a massive effort to do a round trip with the dubious returns of a short stay on Mars, bracketed by a massively long, expensive, dangerous, debilitating trip there and back.

        Instead start launching large cargo containers with water, food, nuclear reactors, habitats, bulldozers and rovers. Use the same craft to transport this cargo you will use to fly astronauts there. When the cargo ships are arriving reliably and there is a critical mass of resources on the surface launch people as colonists, not astronauts, on a one way mission to Mars. It will be a lot easier to fly people on a one way flight than it will be to do a round trip. The ROI will be immense on a colonizing mission versus miniscule on a short stay round trip. You could send real geologists who would spend a life time exploring the planet and would have a motivator in they are trying to find the resource to free themselves from cargo flights from earth. You also wouldn't need to continue expensive manned flights from earth if and when a self sustaining colony is established. Mars is better for a colony than the moon because gravity is higher, its not a hard vacuam, and it probably has a lot more resources than the moon. It is only marginally worse than what the scientists living at Antarctica experience (the four added problems being radiation, no air, limited water availability, and long expensive supply runs).

        The technology spinoffs form a Mars colony would probably be huge because you would, for example, need to establish a society with zero dependence on fossil fuels and you would need significant advances in food production and manufacturing.

        The human race desperately needs a frontier colony with a fresh start. A colony where we might try to lose a lot of the economic and social baggage all the nations on Earth currently carry. The 20th century was the first one where mankind stopped having frontiers on Earth and that is not a positive change.

        Moderators probably should mark this redundant because I post the same thing everytime a Mars thread comes up.
        • Re:Goals (Score:3, Insightful)

          by 0123456 ( 636235 )
          "A profile where you are expending a massive effort to do a round trip with the dubious returns of a short stay on Mars, bracketed by a massively long, expensive, dangerous, debilitating trip there and back."

          Uh, you don't have the _option_ of "a short stay on Mars". By the time you get there you're probably looking at a minimum of a six month stay just waiting for the planets to be in the right position to get back. This is one of the reasons why a trip to Mars and back is so difficult, you _have_ to spend
    • Re:Goals (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JWW ( 79176 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:04AM (#8475042)
      I personally believe that if we can't make it back to the Moon and establish a base there that we will NEVER get to Mars.

      The moon needs to be the proving ground for the technology needed to get to Mars.

      This weapons platform gibberish is just the rantings of Bush haters.

      If you really want NASA to succeed it needs long range plans like Bush's proposal. AND it needs the opposition party not to fight them. The timelines for going to Mars are so long that political machinations need to be kept out of the equation or Mars exploration just becomes something to kill off the next time the opposition party takes office.
  • by baryon351 ( 626717 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:03AM (#8474458)
    So. why doesn't John Glenn want the rest of us to go to the moon? what's he hiding? WHAT DO THEY KNOW IS UP THERE.

    whoops. ignore I said any of that. tinfoil hat slipped
  • by Neuropol ( 665537 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:04AM (#8474466) Homepage
    A moon base is just a way to get people thinking about votes.
  • Hero Gone Politician (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iammrjvo ( 597745 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:07AM (#8474489) Homepage Journal

    John Glenn lost all credibility with me when, as a US senator, he pulled that garbage line about "exploring the effects of age on space travel" as an excuse to get NASA to launch him back to space.

    He was once part of a band of heros. Now he's just another politician.
    • by YetAnotherAnonymousC ( 594097 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:14AM (#8474541)
      Amen. This is just more of the usual "criticize the other side" partisan bickering.

      Nothing to see here. Move along.
      • by kisak ( 524062 )

        This is just more of the usual "criticize the other side" partisan bickering.

        Well, except one partisan is a president desperate to get re-elected even though his record is less than impressive, while the other partisan is an engineer, US senator, and astronaut who has worked closely with NASA for many years.

        The partisan bickering is part of democracy, but that is not an argument not too listen to the arguments and what the politicians are saying. Especially when the arguments are from such a relevant

    • by PMuse ( 320639 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:29AM (#8475324)
      John Glenn lost all credibility with me when, as a US senator, he pulled that garbage line about "exploring the effects of age on space travel" as an excuse to get NASA to launch him back to space.

      Yes, of course it was an excuse. Can you blame him for wanting to see space just one more time? Can you blame him for wanting to experience space in something a little less confining than than the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule? Can you blame him for wanting to spend more time up there than the ~5 hours of his 1962 flight?

      Well, I suspect that some here can blame him, but I can't. After a lifetime of government service, one ticket on a shuttle flight was as fitting a reward as we could have given the man. And, as other posters have pointed out, he made himself a real part of that crew and did real work while he was up there. I'll never earn a reward like that, but I can't begrudge it to anyone who does.
      • After a lifetime of government service, one ticket on a shuttle flight was as fitting a reward as we could have given the man.

        How much did that ticket cost? 20 million. Shit, I think he could have been given another medal, a million and let somebody who has never been in space up to enjoy the experience. And do some real work. A 70 year old geronaut was about as useful on the mission as I would be. Selfish old man.
    • Funny thing is, a Republican senator [nasa.gov] did it first. And he wasn't an experienced astronaut.
      • Funny thing is, a Republican senator did it first. And he wasn't an experienced astronaut.

        He was an experienced pilot in the navy and air force, though. And he went up as a payload specialist on a shuttle satellite launch mission, not as a test subject for a bogus scientific experiment. Studying the effects of space on old folks? If the old folks are healthy enough for NASA to let 'em go up, the effects are nada.

    • John Glenn lost all credibility with me when, as a US senator, he pulled that garbage line about "exploring the effects of age on space travel" as an excuse to get NASA to launch him back to space.

      Can't say I blame him. I I could pull some strings for a shuttle ride, I would. Wouldn't you?

      I thought it was totally dumb, but also totally understandable.

      ...laura

  • China (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ultraexactzz ( 546422 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:08AM (#8474498) Journal
    Though Mr. Glenn's arguments are sound, they fail to take into account one of the most pressing reasons for a permanent moon base - China intends to build one in the next 12 years. Though it smacks of the Cold War, could the president really allow a (communist) foreign power unlimited access to the moon?
  • by -dsr- ( 6188 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:08AM (#8474500) Homepage Journal
    For serious manned space missions, the moon is not a particularly good waystation. What's needed is a serious long-term space station for interplanetary vehicle construction, industrial micro-gravity operations, and scientific research. (This implies a two-part station, incidentally, with a rotating section for living quarters and office space and a stationary section for labs, factories and docks.)

    The moon is a gravity well. It may be shallower than the Earth, but it still takes a lot of energy to slow descents and then escape again. Eventually it may be a useful source of material resources, but there's nothing particularly attractive about it now.
    • by stevelinton ( 4044 ) <sal@dcs.st-and.ac.uk> on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:26AM (#8474652) Homepage
      I think the "useful source of material resources" is kind of key. Using a space station for interplanetary vehicle construction means that the vehicle, the station, the scaffolding, the blast shield in csae the fuel goes up, etc. all have to be hauled up from Earth, at huge cost.

      With a moonbase, you have space, a stable framework, and ample supplies aluminium silicate dirt, from which you might be able to refine something useful. Even if you can't, you can pile it up to provide bracing, shielding and the like.

      If you just want to dock three or four pieces of Mars mission together you might as well just do it, in LEO with no station. If you really want to start building, you want to be somewhere with some ground to lean on.

      Of course if Earth->orbit costs come down by a couple of orders of magnitude, for instance with an elevator, then it's a different game entirely, but I think we're probably 20-30 years away from that, if we're lucky.

    • Surely it would be easier to build a space elevator on the moon than it would be on the Earth?
      Especially since gravity on the moon is 1/5th that of Earth's?
    • This post is ridiculous. First off you will need a 3 part facility to do what you're talking about. You aren't going to be doing an serious micro-gravity industrial operations in the same station where you have large numbers of people, factories and docks. You would have to have a free floating or otherwise very well isolated zero G module otherwise your zero G manufacturing would be trashed every time someone uses a jack hammer in the factory.

      Its also completely absurd to think you are going to build s
    • The Earth is very fortunate to have the Moon. The only better things for space manufacturing are asteroidal moons and even a rubble ring (like Saturn has).

      A waystation is generally better served in an orbit, yes, but the Moon is a currently unparalleled manufacturing site for space development. It has only 1/6g; is abundant in sunlight, oxygen, aluminum, silicon and iron (with calcium, titanium and other traces); has no atmosphere; and is about a 3-day journey from the mother world.

      The problems of the Lunar well are solved by mass drivers built on the surface. With no atmosphere to stop it, an iron bucket carrying cargo (usually basic materials mined from the Lunar regolith) can be flung off the Moon at Lunar escape velocity -- you just have to build the linear accelerator long enough. Then you have to have mass catchers in Cislunar space to capture and make use of said materials.

      Really, reaching for Mars without first preparing a Lunar manufacturing site is such abominable stupidity that I can only predict the Mars Adventure will end as Apollo ended ... memories, rocks, lost billions and finally piles of equipment rusting in the Florida sun. A "straight to Mars" mission is almost entirely political -- with the remaining portion being some scientific intent.

      With a well established Lunar base, all other planetary tours can take place as a side-effect of Lunar manufacturing activity. And once asteroidal missions return a sufficient chunk of volatiles to Cislunar space, shipments from Earth can be reduced to personnel and other small, specific cargoes like medicine, special equipment, biologicals and trace elements.
  • by CrackedButter ( 646746 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:10AM (#8474509) Homepage Journal
    what better time to join up with the other countries of the world and create starfleet early.
  • by QuickSilver_999 ( 166186 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:17AM (#8474569)
    a lot on the type of vehicle to be used? If we start looking at NERVA rockets and such, the moon would be a much better place to launch them from than Florida. A standard chem rocket to get to the moon, then something nuclear to get to mars.

    Or, if the rocket is refuelable, you use a tank getting to the moon, escaping the 1G gravity well, then you refuel and use a lot less fuel getting out of moon's gravity field (isn't it 1/6th of earth?). This puts you in orbit for Mars with a whole lot of fuel left in a tank of the same size, right?
  • by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:22AM (#8474617)
    First of all, I completely disagree with the Bush agenda. However, there is at least one compelling reason to go back to the moon, and that's to put a radio telescope on the far side.

    One of the big problems with radio astronomy is noise interference from Earth and the many satellites we have in orbit. The nearest zone free of this interference would be the far side of the moon.

    Building a radio telescope on the moon would likely require a full-time manned base for handling repairs and maintenance. One of the disadvantages of having a radio telescope on the moon is that radio astronomy has been advancing along with other technological areas and upgrades would be needed periodically in addition to repairs.

    I think Radio Astronomy would benefit enormously from such a project, but I doubt that's on the Bush agenda...
    • Radio Astronomy is an interesting field but can it possibly be worth the untold $100G that would be spent to build a lunar antenna farm just to be free of noise? What science returns are we missing due to noise? Arguably, not much. If noise free environment is really needed I would suggest that a free flying telescope, similar in mission design to SIRTF, would make a lot more sense.

  • Ohio constituents (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:23AM (#8474626) Journal

    Bush's plan 'pulls the rug out from under our scientists' and that 'It just seems to me the direct-to-Mars [route] is the way to go...

    Which translated means Lewis Reasearch Center in Ohio has entrenched interests in the Space Station and stands to loose funding in the short term with President Bush's initiative. What Senator Glenn doesn't make clear is how a direct Mars effort can be funded concurrently with Shuttle/IIS. It can't.

  • by dan dan the dna man ( 461768 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:24AM (#8474643) Homepage Journal
    In "The Case for Mars". Moon bases and space stations increase cost and complicate missions and crucially will push back the date by which we get there. Direct to Mars is clearly the best approach but who is going to convince Nasa? Or Bush?!
  • by nattt ( 568106 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:27AM (#8474661)
    A space station in earth orbit, where you can get fueld up for a powered journey to the moon. In moon orbit, another space station that has a shuttle down to the moon, where cheap solar energy is farmed, and used to fuel the stations, the shuttle, and to put together enough fuel for sending a fuel barge to mars.

    The fuel barge docks with a small station in mars orbit. This is reserve fuel to get you home.

    Now you take a powered journey to mars from moon orbit. You use the fuel from the fuel barge to return to earth.

    You go powered all the way. This is the future of space travel, not the current coasting, taking years to arrive anywhere, but it needs a moonbase where fuel can be manufactured.
    • And what kind of fuel, exactly, are you going to manufacture on the moon from 'solar energy'? Most of the chemicals used in the kind of fuels a Mars flight would probably use (if it's not using a nuclear or solar-powered ion engine) _do not exist_ on the moon.
    • by SB9876 ( 723368 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:27PM (#8476647)
      OK,
      I keep hearing this idea of using the moon as a refueling station. If you haven't looked at the numbers, t seems like a good idea. However, a quick look at the actual orbital mechanics shows that the Moon is a big waste of time. Here's the breakdown for ow much Delta V is needed to get to the Moon and Mars:

      Moon.........Mars
      LEO to Moon/Mars..3.2.........4.0
      Orbital Insertion.......0.9.........0.1
      Orbit to Surface.......1.9.........0.4
      Total.............. ......6.0.........4.5

      Yes, it actually takes LESS fuel to get to Mars primarily because it has an atmosphere you can use to aerobrake. The Moon has no atmosphere and so you have to carry fuel to bleed off your transorbital speed. Furthermore, Landing on Mars is assited by being able to use the aerobrake to bleed off speed on the way down unlike the Moon. Those figures even assume that you don't use a parachute and rely upon retrorockets to come to a stop.

      OK, what about the idea of the Lunar refuelling station? You now lose the 1.9km/s of energy you need to get back off the lunar surface. (you still pay for it but the refuelling barge now pays that cost) The problem is that the cost of getting to the Moon and in and out of Lunar orbit is as expensive as getting to Mars to begin with. Sure, you now havea refuelled ship that can go to Mars from lunar orbit which is cheap BUT you just spent as much fuel getting to the Moon as it would have taken to go to Mars without stopping!

      To use an analogy, I want to drive to New York from Seattle. Now, would it a be a good idea to send a bunch of my friends out to Washington DC to build a gas station for me so that I can drive there, gas up and then drive up to New York? NO! The only way it would make sense is if we were building a spaceship in lunar orbit which is simply insane - we can't even do that in LEO right now. Hell, we have enough trouble doing it on the ground right now.

      Furthermore, as the other respondant mentioned, you can't make fuel on the Moon. All rockets that aren't ion drives (which have no need to refuel at the Moon anyways) need an oxidizer and fuel. There's plenty of O2 on the moon in the form of metal oxides. The Moon's something like 70% oxygen. There's plenty of metal and O2 if we want to expend the energy to get it. However, O2 is the oxidizer - we still need the fuel. All our fuels use (to my knowledge) carbon, nitrogen or hydrogen. That includes everything from gasoline and candle wax to hydrazine and liquid H2. The moon has no large supplies of H2, C or N. You'll have to haul all of those in anyways. It really makes no sense to refuel there.

      There's plenty of good reasons to go to the Moon, refuelling on the way to Mars is NOT one of them.
  • by ChuckDivine ( 221595 ) * <charles.j.divine@gmail.com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:28AM (#8474665) Homepage

    The real point of the Bush policy changes is to promote reform at NASA. Terminate the shuttle program -- and redirect resources to achieving lower costs to orbit. Terminate ISS -- it's not turning out to be a real benefit for science or much of anything else.

    I can easily support a manned mission to Mars. But it must be part of a space effort that is more broad based than the current work is. To achieve that, we're going to have change the way we do things. The spectacular project that sometimes succeeds, sometimes doesn't, offers little hope for this style of action.

    NASA's predecessor, NACA, helped make revolutionary progress in aeronautics by sticking to technology development and working with nascent aeronautical companies to develop real airplanes that could be used for a wide range of activities by a wide range of organizations. We need the same kind of work from NASA.

  • I remember, a few years ago (5?) that the various Mars programs being fronted by the U.S. government were in direct opposition to the way Zubrin and his Mars Society were proposing we do it - with the "Mars Direct Program" [marsdirect.com].

    Now, it seems that there are a significant number of Washington players who are getting behind the scientific thinking that Zubrin's program has produced for us ... and thats good news.

    When I think about where we are currently at, evaluating the Mars situation, and where we've come as a result of an independent organization, it warms my heart. The Mars Society have done a lot to get humans thinking about going to Mars properly, and finally it seems like their momentum is having a great effect.
  • Space Elevator (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cflorio ( 604840 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:30AM (#8474687) Homepage
    If they would just fund research [amazon.com] on the Space Elevator [www.isr.us] They could have both the Moon and Mars!
  • by bigjnsa500 ( 575392 ) <bigjnsa500@ y a h o o . com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:30AM (#8474690) Homepage Journal
    I respect Glenn, but he is completely wrong. Going to Mars we need lots of water, air and rocket fuel. The Moon has a huge supply of Helium3 which we already know can be converted to a fuel.

    I support that Mars fanatic's way of going there. First send an unmanned supply ship that will land with all the equipment to make air and water. Then something like a year later, send the crew so when they get there, they already have a liveable platform and enough H20 and oxygen to live.

  • Eventually. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Raven42rac ( 448205 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:31AM (#8474699)
    I agree with Mr. Glenn, but I do not believe that we have enough expertise built up on the idiosyncrasies of the Martian atmosphere or the planet itself. We have been having a educational, albeit difficult experience with unmanned rovers on Mars' surface. We had to h4x0r the rovers! I would not want to have to h4x0r an actual shuttle. We also now know we need wiper blades on the solar panels of any vehicle that would potentially be sent to Mars, on account of the dust. I think it would be more prudent to send crews back to the moon, get that down, then maybe stretch to Mars. Any manned Mars mission before we are absolutely ready for one is suicide for the astronauts aboard. The amount of time/fuel it would take to get to Mars for a manned, fully loaded shuttle, complete with life support systems, testing equipment, rovers, etc, would be astronomical (pun intended).
  • Space Elevators (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mbone ( 558574 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:40AM (#8474779)
    If you really want to make the USA into a Space Faring Nation again, we should put our money into space elevators [spaceelevator.com].

    In just 2 decades, this idea has gone from being impossible to far-out to design studies [sciencentral.com].

    By comparison, the ISS is a waste and the Moon would be an expensive diversion. Space elevators would really open the solar system up for human - not just robot - exploration.
  • by zeux ( 129034 ) * on Friday March 05, 2004 @10:45AM (#8474831)
    Because you really think that NASA will go to the moon or Mars like Bush said?

    Because you really think the Congress will let him do that with a half trillion deficit?

    Well, it's election year guys. NASA will go nowhere, the Congress will never vote for it and one year from now we won't even talk about it.
  • Issues (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NickRuisi ( 643726 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:05AM (#8475056)
    I'm not a rocket scientist, but I've spent a fair amount of time as a virtual astronaut using the Oribiter Space Flight Simulator [orbitersim.com], and I can't help but to ask "Why The Moon?"

    It already takes a lot of energy to climb out of Earth's gravity well. Granted, on the moon, it takes less to achieve orbit, but why decend into a gravity well at all unless theres a good reason? The ideal place to launch into transfer orbits (in the Earth-Moon system) is LEO. Right now, it costs an arm & a leg to get things into LEO. In addition to that, Hohmann transfers, while energy efficient are painfully slow. If a spacecraft could ride 1 G of accelleration for extended periods of time, journeys around the solar system could be measured in weeks, not decades.

    If I were the President, my priorities would be:
    • Fund space elevator research, and other low-cost LEO launch technologies
    • Propulsion systems
    • "Living off the land" technologies for other locations in the Solar System.
    • Search for extrasolar earth-like planets
    • Unmanned interstellar probe technologies

    However, due to the nature of the government in the US, the office of chief executive can only be held for 8 years. I have serious doubts as to wether or not the US can commit to any kind of timeline longer than that in this day and age. It's a shame really.
  • by jguthrie ( 57467 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:32AM (#8475373)
    I happened to sit in the audience on a panel at ConDFW whose topic was "Man on Mars by 2030?" or some such. At that session, it was pointed out that NASA is a political beast by its very nature, (and how can it be otherwise as NASA is an arm of the US government, itself one of the most political of beasts,) and does what it does for political reasons. That's why they haven't managed to get anyone out of low earth orbit in 32 years. There's been no goal that a politician has had that requires NASA to do that.

    In fact, my opinion is that essentially no progress has been made in spaceflight in those 32 years. After all, it doesn't matter to me if a very select few gets to occasionally ride into space because I want to go, and I think that there are lots of people like me. Our interest in space is derived, not from a desire to read about or watch the exploits of a Glenn or an Armstrong, but to go ourselves. However, it appears as if the folks at NASA don't want that. They still view flying in space as being something only for the, well, few that they've selected. I'd like to see that change. Establishing a lunar base gives us the possibility of seeing that change.

    There are a number of companies that have been established to exploit space commercially. However, none have really been successful so far. The primary reason is that the income from that exploitation has been uncertain at best. NASA now has the opportunity to change that. If they were to call for a request for bid on, say, five contracts: For providing transfer of personnel from the earth's surface to low earth orbit, for providing transfer of cargo from the earth's surface to low earth orbit, for providing transfer of personnel from low earth orbit to the lunar surface, for providing transfer of cargo from low earth orbit to the lunar surface, and for the construction of a lunar base, this would be the sort of guaranteed income needed to get commercial space ventures really going.

    And once those contractors become established, they're going to look around for other ways to make money. One of those ways will be tourism.

    In fact, in order to do business those contractors will have to build just the infrastructure you need to send human explorers off to the other planets. It is the establishment of the infrastructure that makes the cost of launching a Mars mission from a lunar base larger than going the Mars direct route. If NASA can get others to build the infrastructure instead, then the numbers look a lot better for launching from the moon or from a space station than for Mars direct.

  • by wisebabo ( 638845 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:19PM (#8475895) Journal
    One thing repeated over and over in this topic is using the moon as some sort of Uber military space station. Please stop and really think about it. What kind of attacks do you think you'd be launching from the moon? Precision tactical attacks that would knock out targets like the size of buildings? The U.S. already has excellent essentially unstoppable relatively CHEAP weapons for doing that including B-2s, cruise missiles, F-117s, and hypersonic cruise missiles soon that will do the job in under an hour. Even the most powerful railgun on the moon would take much longer to cross the quarter million miles to attack and that's if the moon is visible from that hemisphere at that time! Lasers? You still have to hope the part of the earth is viewable and radiation based weapons are subject to the inverse square law. (Laser on moon would have to be 1 million times more powerful than one in LEO). How about using the moon for a strategic attack? (Dropping big rocks?). Well the strategic supremacy of the U.S. is so far from being challenged (submarines, ICBMS, bombers) by any other power that I question the need. We already have extremely formidable weapons that can reach anywhere on the planet in half an hour, they are called H-bombs. Won't it be cheaper to launch these weapons from the moon? Only if you build them there (otherwise you'll be dragging them from here to there and back again). The costs of building an infrastructure of the sort to build any of these weapons (rail guns, lasers, bombs) is so huge it defies comprehension. (Ten's of thousands of people, industrial scale operations in vacuum and hard radiation). Remember that the moon is still a very hostile place. Just one problem: unless they can find ice at the pole (which is now in doubt) there is NO WATER. (If there was concrete on the moon, astronauts would mine it for water!). Also all this talk of Helium 3 is just talk. Seen any nuclear fusion reactors working in your neighborhood? How much effort would it take to refine this He, on the moon, found in mere parts per million (billion) in the lunar dust? The moon may be a great (good?) place for astronomy but not for the military.
  • by prisoner-of-enigma ( 535770 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:36PM (#8476727) Homepage
    If the (Democratic) Senator wishes to say that getting to the moon is "enormously complex," then precisely how would he define a trip to Mars? It's a six day journey to the moon, but it's a six-to-nine month journey to Mars, followed by an almost mandatory one year stay, then a six-to-nine month return trip.

    If complexity and danger are enough for Senator Glenn to rule out a moon colony, just how in the hell can he claim a Mars run is an easier choice?

    Perhaps the Senator has, in his old age, forgotten Apollo 8, which did a dry run of the entire Apollo CM/LM setup all the way around the moon before an actual landing was attempted. Many claimed it was a waste to send the whole damned setup to the moon and not land, but NASA (rightly) decided that a shorter hop was safer than a massive leap. By establishing a moonbase first, we are in a far better position to send manned expeditions and, more importantly, colonization efforts to Mars.

    The last thing I want to see happen is for NASA to blow its wad on a Mars trip, bring back a few rocks, and then sit on its thumb for the next fifty years like we did post-Apollo. We need permanent offworld settlements, not rock gathering missions. A moonbase gets us a toehold, but with an election year dawning and the Democratic Senator Glenn wishing to derail Republican Bush space initiatives, I guess politics wins out over safety of astronaut lives. Thanks, Senator. You're such an American hero.

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