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."
I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Insightful)
It's much easier to maintain your ICBM array locally than to build, maintain, and operate something les
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
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!"
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Insightful)
One nice thing about lunar structures is that the lower gravity enables you to build things just not feasible on earth, so you coul
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Informative)
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
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:4, Funny)
Mooning dictators? What have we stooped to?
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Funny)
That's no moon. That's a space station!
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Wait a second there (Score:4, Funny)
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...
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
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)
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
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Interesting)
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...
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3)
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...
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Interesting)
Enough gravity to be useful (it's way easier to build things in gravity than not). A large stable base (as in bedrock, anchors for building foundations, etc.), an enormous supply of raw materials, yet a low enough gravity to where getting into orbit is extremely easy.
You want to talk about space elevators? We could build them from the moon with today's technology.
You need space stations? Build them in Lunar orbit. It takes a fraction of the
Moon having "military value" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Moon having "military value" (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Moon having "military value" (Score:4, Insightful)
even though the government with which the treaty was signed no longer existed?
There is always a difference between the spirit and letter of the law. The intent of the ABM treaty was to stop nuclear prolifertion and hold the status quo of power. While the Soviet Union has been dissolved, Russia and it's friends still have ICBMs in silos - and if their effectiveness is reduced, alternatives WILL be found. Nations do not have friends.
The agreement to not militarize space is supposed to represent a understanding amoung nations that our conflicts here on this planet should not exend elsewhere. Perhaps this is a naive view of the world, but I'd like to think that others might share it. The USA is in a position to militarize and dominate the theatre of space; At least until the LGM decide to show off their superiority in weapons.
Never forget, that this is a slippery slope - once it starts, it -will- end with nuclear weapons in space pointing down on us. I don't want to have to explain to my kids that there has to be MIRV orbital warheads aimed at the planet because we're really miserable to each other. Space is the last hope left for man working together as a species, and once it is gone, I fear it is gone forever.
It is likely the inevitable outcome of the USA's emerging world dominance. It will accellerate the development of (american) space initiatives. The USA will be making many moves in the next 10-20 years to solidify it's military power before world oil reserves become a problem [dieoff.org]. Having a monopoly on the heavy hydrogen reserves on the moon may be a justification down the road as well. Alas, I am an engineer, and not a military strategist.
My $0.02cdn.
Re:Moon having "military value" (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/Page
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."
Re:Moon having "military value" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:4, Informative)
ISS History article [exn.ca]
Space Station History [centennialofflight.gov]
Re:I fear that's the whole point (Score:3, Interesting)
They're not exactly running out of room where "the corporations" usually put their satellites. Look, geosynchronous orbit is about 40 Mm from the center of the earth. That means that there's about 240 Mm of linear space in geosynchronous orbit. I say "linear" because they all want to be in a circular orbit in the
Goals (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly I don't care where we go, Moon, Mars or asteroids. Let's just get off this rock.
Re:Goals (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
Re:Goals (Score:5, Interesting)
Some excellent engine choices from low to high:
NERVA - 800-1000 Isp
Gas Core Nuclear Rocket - 2000-5000 Isp
Nuclear Salt Water Rocket - 4500-10000 Isp
Orion - 10000-100000 Isp
M2P2 Orion - >10000 ???
Orions are particularly interesting because of their ability to scale, and be made of traditional building materials instead of composites. (read: Steel) Since the efficiency of Orions climb as the size of the craft does (Thermonuclear H-Bombs give a better bang for the same mass as an Atomic warhead). The largest Orion calculated possible with 1960's technology is 8 million tons. A moving city in space!
John Glenn doesn't want the rest of us to go moon (Score:5, Funny)
whoops. ignore I said any of that. tinfoil hat slipped
Bush's Moon Plan is a 'shock and awe' tactic: (Score:5, Insightful)
Hero Gone Politician (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Hero Gone Politician (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? The tests were pointless because, as the linked story says:
Then is goes on to quote Glenn saying we need to send more old folks up to get more varied test results, but that'll never happen. NASA won't send anyone up who isn't in excellent physical health because they don't want the risk.China (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:China (Score:4, Funny)
Fry "The president of the world? What's he to us, thus is the United States!"
Leela "Fry, the United States is part of the world"
Fry "Really? Wow, the future really is different"
The moon is a silly waystation (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The moon is a silly waystation (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: Silly waystation - space elevator on the moon? (Score:3, Insightful)
Especially since gravity on the moon is 1/5th that of Earth's?
Re: Silly waystation - space elevator on the moon? (Score:3, Informative)
Later, Jerome Pearson thought about building a tower on the Moon. He determined that the center of gravity needed to be at the L1 or L2 Lagrangian points, which are special stable points that exist about any two orbiting bodies where the gravitational forces are balanced. The cable would have to be 291,901 kilometers long for the L1 point and 525,724 kilometers long for the L2 point. Compared to the 351,000 kilometers from the Earth to the Moo
Re:The moon is a silly waystation (Score:3)
Its also completely absurd to think you are going to build s
waystation != mfg. center (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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.
Re:The moon is a silly waystation (Score:4, Informative)
If the US is short on cash... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't it depend... (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
There are some reasons to go to the moon (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
...This ain't one of them (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Further Thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
Ohio constituents (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Also Robert Zubrins argument (Score:4, Informative)
Method of exploration should be (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Method of exploration should be (Score:3, Insightful)
It's harder to get to the Moon than Mars (Score:5, Informative)
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.............
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.
The Real Point of the Bush Plan (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Zubrin's Mars Society seems to be doing well ... (Score:5, Informative)
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
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)
He's completely wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Space Elevators (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Because you believe it? (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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:
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.
Good practical reasons to establish a lunar base (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Stupid idea to use the moon militarily (Score:3, Interesting)
Glenn being a bit shortsighted, two-faced... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:I don't get Glenn (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's not. Military-related paranoia aside, the potential for long-term residency is far better on Mars because of the higher gravity and existing atmosphere--even if it's not breathable, it still provides some protection from solar radiation.
Re:How about telling the truth, Glenn? (Score:5, Informative)
Glenn wasn't talking about the complete ISS budget, just the science portion that's projected to be cut.
Re:I grow weary... (Score:4, Informative)
From His NASA Bio Page [nasa.gov]
He attended Muskingum College in New Concord and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering.....
When astronauts were given special assignments to ensure pilot input into the design and development of spacecraft, Glenn specialized in cockpit layout and control functioning, including some of the early designs for the Apollo Project.
Re:Oh Come on... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oh Come on... (Score:4, Insightful)
Glenn never went to the moon. NASA wouldn't let him go, they didn't want to risk losing their hero.
does *not* mean he is an authority on the economic / social / political needs to make a manned trip to Mars
Having served in the US Senate, I'm sure he's much more of an authority on those matters than you would belive.
Re:One question: why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because man always has and always will seek to further his horizons. We've run out of horizons on Earth.
What can people on the moon or Mars do that a robot can't?"
Experience it first hand. Describe being there in a qualitative as well as a quantitative manner. In short, FEEL what its like to be there. If you fly a kite, you can hardly say you flew, can you? Similarly, putting a robot on the moon or Mars does not justify the statement that man has been there.
Robots are even better suited because, well, they can be specially built to be suited.
No, robots are actually LESS well suited becuase they MUST be built to suit. Being specialised is not a good trait when you are unsure of the circumstances in which you might find yourself. The ability to adapt to changing circumstance is not one that the field of robotics has yet mastered. Thankfully nature has done the work for us, and we are natural adaptors.
Re:One question: why? (Score:3)
The deep oceans are still unmapped areas of the earth, with unknown resources and inhabitants. Can probably think of other also, but it does not take away the reason to explore space.
Re:One question: why? because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you look at a mountain range on a video or in a picture and see it context to your height, surroundings, atmosphere?
The answers to all thos questions and more is no.
Manned missions are important to the entire human race as accomplishment and to be cliche, "To seek out new life and new information" - Experience moves the human race forward - Robots confine us to to the earth - limit our boundaries. Both are useful - but one is only a step for the other - each is an enhancement to the knowledge gathering.
Re:One question: why? (Score:3, Funny)
Well for one they can die a horrible death from hunger or asphyxiation, give me a few minutes and I will think of a few more things.
Re:The Emperor Has No Spacesuit (Score:4, Interesting)
Samples of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions show large amounts of aluminum, titanium, and several other metallic elements that could be used to build spaceship components easily.
Besides, by having a Moon base, we could set up laboratories and living facilities there to support missions to Mars, including safe testing of soil and rock samples returned from Mars.
Re:The Emperor Has No Spacesuit (Score:3, Interesting)
_Easily_? You can just fly up there and build a spaceship from moon rocks?
The original poster was wrong in claiming that there are no raw materials, but it's, frankly, idiotic to claim that we can build entire complex spacecraft on the moon more easily than we can launch them from Earth. The cost of sending a whole
Re:The Emperor Has No Spacesuit (Score:3, Interesting)
It's true, the surface of the moon has lots of minerals, including interesting metal ores. (Keep in mind of course that our practical knowledge - actual samples - of the composition of the surface of the moon is largely derived from 6 short visits.) However, as far as I know, the moon did not have the same kind of "geological" hi
Re:GW Bush: A man in search of a mission (Score:3, Insightful)
If he believed in it, he would fund it. A committed leader would have set a goal, given a timeline, and stated that we would spend whatever money and effort it takes to reach the goal. A believer in having a space program would not cut the funding to the work we've already begun in space on the promise that maybe, years from now, there might be some money for a Mars trip.
How bitter that the Mars rovers have succeeded so well, only to see the opport