The Case for the Moon 641
apsmith writes "Continuing the flurry of recent hearings on the future of humans in space, a Senate committee on Thursday heard testimony in favor of a return to the Moon. Former senator and moon-walker Harrison Schmitt and physicist David Criswell see the lunar surface as an immense energy resource, just waiting to be tapped. Astronomer Roger Angel sees the lunar south pole as the ideal astronomical observatory, with locations for telescopes 100 times better than anything we've done so far. And geologist Paul Spudis sees a lot of unfinished business on the Moon, to develop it as the "feedstock of an industrial space infrastructure." TransOrbital also sent written testimony."
Another idea (Score:3, Interesting)
(A libertarian with karma to burn... whaddya expect...?)
Roger Angel (Score:5, Interesting)
Ideas like "faster" mirrors for sky surveys (and asteroid watching) - where the limitation is that the mirror would gather so much information at once, its too fast for modern computers to process, and modern busses to transport.
This is just one more example of ideas he's been dotting over.
Politicians Catch The Space Bug (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The moon (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:NOW it's time to go to the moon? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not? Competition is a good thing - competing with the USSR helped the US get to the moon in less than a decade. Competition from Craig Venter/Celera pushed the NIH to finish sequencing the human genome in half the projected time.
Without competition, the government will just lumber along, chewing up money and then maybe or maybe not get to a useful endpoint. External competition helps government agencies become much more goal-oriented.
I'm a big fan of Robert Zubrin's book... (Score:5, Interesting)
His arguements:
1) In terms of energy, it's easier to go to Mars from LEO than the moon. (Takes longer, though.)
2) Mars is a more interesting destination: because it has an atmosphere, a lot of engineering obstacles are solved because you can do all sorts of nifty engineering tricks to steal resources from the air.
3) The moon is dead, and has always been dead. Mars, on the other hand, perhaps even once supported life. With effort on our part, perhaps it could again.
Anyways, go to the Mars Direct [nw.net] site.
-Brett
Why we stopped going to the moon (Score:5, Interesting)
Though the Space Shuttle was supposed to reduce space travel costs dramatically and allow for low-cost LEO (Low Earth Orbit) launches, the costs proved so much greater than expected that NASA spends most of its budget maintaining the aging fleet and is hard-pressed to spare the cash for developing new launch vehicles. It was thought that space stations launched via space shuttle would be used as waystations to revisit the moon, but as the shuttles cost so much to move around, that plan became bunk fairly quickly.
We must return to the moon. Its natural vacuum and near-constant illuminated surface allow for massive energy and chemical manufacturing. Deadly plagues and other research requiring isolation could be done easily on our moon with minimal fear of contaminating the earth should their projects go awry. Telescopes on the far side of the moon would give us a new view of the universe uninterrupted by light (and for SETI et. al not so many electronic signals interfereing). If nothing else, the He-3 and solar resources could eventually help reduce our dependence on limited fossil fuels to run our economy. Some of the readers remember the OPEC crisis and no one wants those conditions to return. Finally, the moon serves as a waypoint to exploration of Mars and the Asteroid Belt, both of which contain abundant resources that could satiate our world's demands for resources far beyond the lifetimes of anyone reading this.
I'd like to hear from people who do not want to go back to the moon. Most of the soical programs they advocate funding in place of space exploration have their own difficulties, but maybe there are other reasons they have which get little/no attention.
the Chinese (Score:1, Interesting)
apparently they see a rabbit.
i checked it out the other night, and it does look like a rabbit.
Re:Why we stopped going to the moon (Score:3, Interesting)
Meh - Not worth it (Score:3, Interesting)
The Moon may be useful as a platform for observatories (both optical and radio), but it's important to recognize that those are not commercially viable enterprises.
Now, if you want to build things in space (solar collectors, colonies, etc), the best place to go looking for materials is the NEOs (Near Earth objects) that pass close to the Earth on a regular basis. About half of the NEOs out there are main belt asteriods that have had their orbits perturbed by Jupiter. The other half are extinct comets that have been pulled into short-term orbits and had all the ice in the first few meters of their surface removed. Between these two, you have everything you need: metals, organics, water, clays, salts, etc. All things that the Moon is severely lacking in. It has been remarked upon that the slag left over from processing the average NEO would be worht more than regolith.
Re:Next Step (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I personally know a certain $87 billion that was much better spent here.
Seriously though, this arguement is an endless loop. There will ALWAYS be problems here on earth. People will ALWAYS say things were better in the past/things need to be improved now, because many believe that eventually everything will be 'perfect'.
The effort must not be one of colonization, but of terra-forming. Mars has no atmosphere because it is too light.
In case you weren't aware, Mars does have an atmosphere [uoregon.edu] albeit light. There is 30 times more CO2 in Mars atmosphere than our own.
There are always going to be problems with planets other than mother earth, perhaps that is why there is no life anywhere else in the solar system. That stated, there is some sufficent evidence that there is water frozen underneath the poles which is at least a start, and probably our best chance for outer-earth colonization.
Re:Why we stopped going to the moon (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to hear from people who do not want to go back to the moon. Most of the soical programs they advocate funding in place of space exploration have their own difficulties, but maybe there are other reasons they have which get little/no attention.
The value of a resource has a formula attached to it.
If
$value_of_resource > $cost_to_harness_resource
Then
Harness()
Else
Ignore()
In other words most of those resources have little value to us on earth since we would expend far more resources to obtain them then they're worth.
Of course to space farers, the resource would be less expensive to use. Then this becomes a circular argument. We need to mine asteroids because it makes mining asteroids cheaper.
All the solar resources available on the moon would be inaccessible to us on earth. All the solar resources available on the moon would be accessible from Low Earth Orbit, yet still be inaccessible to us on earth despite being 100 times closer.
All the mineral resources available on the moon, are available here on earth in much greater quantity. The fact that they are much more accessible needs to be stressed despite the obviousness of the proposition.
Antarctica has thousands of times more resources than the moon. Yet despite being a thousand times more accessible, I see no great industrial push to harness mineral and water resources in Antarctica.
I have no problem sending robots to the moon for the sake of basic research. Their is very little that they cannot do in place of a man who is virtually helpless in that environment. I have no problem sending unmanned telescopes into space that collect data for man to analyze. If the moon is a legitamite target, so be it.
However, manned space flight has always been a pre-determined conclusion looking deperately for justification. There is no doubt that these are great adventures, but somehow we must justify the cost and weigh how that money could be spent here on earth.
In the meantime, there is another great effort that could make the journey more cost feasible: the Space Elevator project. The journey from the surface to orbit is by far the most expensive leg. The space elevator would make moving materials from earth to orbit thousands of times cheaper over it's lifetime. Instead of wasting money on planning boondoggle manned missions to Mars or the Moon, put the money into the space elevator that will yield returns across the spectrum of commercial and civil space exploration by both robots AND people.
Re:NOW it's time to go to the moon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Minor factual error: no "darkside" of the moon (Score:1, Interesting)
Just build whatever collectors you want near enough to the north or south pole of the moon that you can place one set of collectors on one side and another set on the other, or a "ring" of collectors. That way you'll always have some sun hitting some of the collectors all the time. And distance won't be much of an issue, transmission lines should be a piece of cake on the moon since there's 1/10'th the gravity and no atmospheric stress. However, you do have a near-vacuum, so any lines carrying high voltage will leak to a convenient ground.... i doubt you'll be running massive HV though, collectors are inherently low voltage devices.
Jerry Moonbeam Brown's Space Program (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue here is not whether Criswell's moonbeam project is the right project to pursue with public funds.
The issue is whether congress should be trying to buy off the technologists of the US, who are being outsourced into oblivion, with another sham space program -- especially when private efforts are starting to pick up steam on their own.
Just let NASA die a natural death.
The moon is our future (Score:3, Interesting)
He-3 is worth $4 billion/ton and there are over a million tons of it. That's $4 quadrillion dollars (yes, quadrillion). Not to mention the lower cost of solar array deployment and relatively easy delivery.
Let's not forget that the number of graduates in the science and math areas DOUBLED during the 1960's because people were inspired to study hard and do something amazing with their lives. For the past thirty years we've been inspired by "ancient" technologies of Apollo, including computers with CPUs slower than that in my PDA.
I would argue that the space program is what made America the technological epicenter that it is today, and a return to the moon and Mars would only rejuvenate interest in the sciences. I know it worked for me, and hell I have to watch Apollo 13 every few months to remind myself!
Let's just see what the nation's reaction is when a new NASA direction is declared. Also, the American MER landers are arriving this January, and from what I learned in my interview with lead scientist Steve Squyres, it's going to be quite a show. Get ready for the next space race, and America ought to take the lead. Why? I think it's in our nation's collective blood. America is a nation of pioneers and was founded as one, and there's a whole lot of universe left to explore.
Furthermore, I want my damn Millenium Falcon!
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
MoonCam! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its the 21st century and we're tooling with 20-40 year old equipment and dreams. SPACE IS STILL THERE! I'm literally getting pysically angry at this squandered future.
Are you sure they want to go? (Score:2, Interesting)
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"DEBATE ON REGULATING SPACE TOURISM HEATS UP
WASHINGTON, D.C., Novenber 5, 2003 - Commercial human space flight (space tourism) is a burgeoning industry in need of some degree of government regulation and oversight a panel of witnesses told the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee today. Witnesses varied widely, however, on the extent of regulations and the need for government indemnification of space tourism launches."
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"Space tourism?" In reference to "commercial human space flight?" Their mindset is all wrong here... "Goverment indemnification?" The government is indemnified for pretty much anything they want to be indemnified for. That's why they have these things called "insurance companies." "Regulation and oversight?" Please don't turn the commercial space race into NASA-II.
I thought the topic was most elequently covered (at least to my satisfaction) in James P. Hoagan's "Rockets, Redheads, & Revolution", in the chapter about the race to the moon in the 60's and what it did to the US's economy, focus, and other factors like abandoned projects. (Sorry, I can't recall the chapter name now, and the book is at home... and I call myself a geek! Sheesh!)
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