Should We Land on the Moon's Poles or Equator? 408
Cujo writes "There is at present a lively controversy about sites for a crewed lunar landing. Advocates for landing near the poles, possibly on a mountain, point out the advantages of much higher sunlight availability and possible water resources in nearby cold traps. However, there may be more interesting geology and better mineral resources near the better-explored equator. NASA's Exploration Systems Architecture report lays out some of the tradeoffs."
Dark Side of The Moon (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, what is this fascination with things on the moon that we can see? I would be much more interested in the things that we do not see as much of.
But I am a neuroscientist and not a rocket scientist, so what do I know?
While we are talking about the moon, I can understand and see the scientific payoffs of sending people back to the moon, but I am much less clear on the whole Mars thing. What is the scientific end game of sending people to Mars?
Contact (Score:5, Interesting)
Redundancy is always key and it is more efficient to built two highly probably successes than one extremely probably success.
Re:Dark Side of The Moon (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the most earthlike planet in the solar system barring earth, and it appears to have formerly supported an atmosphere and liquid water, meaning it could possibly do so again. It's the only planet in the solar system that we could have a reasonable expectation of terraforming on a reasonable timescale. I'd say that's the long-long-long-term purpose.
On a shorter timescale, we'll certainly learn a lot, and a lot of it will be stuff we can't learn on the moon. However, we need to step up operations on both of them. What we learn from comparing similar surveys of three planets (or at least, two planets and a moon) will tell us a lot more than what we'll learn looking at two, and it won't be linear, because of the added basis for comparison.
Why Not Have Both? (Score:4, Interesting)
I just about agree... (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps we would get more out of sending a few people into the middle of the Pacific and keeping them there for a few years. Let's see how cheaply we can pull off something like that. Instead of expensive electronics, equip them with basic, indestructible technology. We'd get advances in cheap renewable energy, micro-manufacturing, more efficient farming, and affordable, reliable technologies to perform basic tasks like water purification and waste treatment. Perhaps even self-replicating machines would benefit.
I'd rather see research in giving people with nothing more than air, water, and sunlight a standard of living higher than subsistence than figuring out new ways of extracting water from moon dust and building solar panels that work in the arctic. But, like you, I'm probably in the minority here on Slashdot in that regard.
I've always wanted to know the answer to this: (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always wondered why the hell we can't prove or disprove the moon landing myth by just pointing a friggin' telescope at it? I mean, if there is any such astronaut junk...couldn't the Hubble or even some small terrestrial telescope pick it out? There's no wind on the moon, so shouldn't the footprints and tire tracks still be visible? Did Neil Armstrong leave the flag planted or bring it back?
Why have I never seen pictures of these features? We can see planets a brazilian light years away but we can't pick out a landing zone a few hundred thousand miles away? The pictures on moon.google.com don't appear to have any better resolution than my digital camera can produce.
So maybe someone can answer this question for me. What prevents us from looking at the moon's surface with any sort of detail, and since the moon is our next big destination resort, why haven't we sent a probe to do the same kind of high-resolution imaging of the surface like we have for every other planet in our solar system? We might need to know where the best places are to build those hydrogen refineries or whatever.
-JoeShmoe
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Re:Dark Side of The Moon (Score:5, Interesting)
put a radio telescope array or use a nuke to carve out a crater that makes arecibo look like a childs toy.
Imagine the sensitivity and possibilities with a dish the size of France unencumbered by the twits on the planet broadcasting at massive wattage AND having a nice big RF sink to your back between you and the noisy planet.
That would rock, be relatively easy compared to a regular observatory and probably only take very few launches to get all the parts on location.
Lunar rail transport... (Score:1, Interesting)
Using the same system, you would also want a comms station on rail always pointing TOWARDS Earth so you can keep constant communications with your lunar base(s)
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Alternatively, you could put your observatory out at one of the Lagrange points where gravity between the Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars pretty much hold a station in place at the L point - however, this would not give you the mineral mining capability that a genuin lunar base would.
Re:Dark Side of The Moon (Score:5, Interesting)
Although science is a nice side-benefit, the main reason for going to the Moon this time around is to learn how to live there and make use of the local resources, as a step towards making humanity a space-faring species.
It's easier to LEAVE the moon from the equator (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:promise me the moon (Score:1, Interesting)
Probes vs. Astronauts (Score:3, Interesting)
First, you get much more solar power by sitting up there. Second, you are always in communication with the Earth. Third is the possibility of water ice which--if confirmed--could supply water and oxygen to the base. This is the winner, in my book. Of course, if there is no water ice, then all bets are off.
While the "manufacturing" possibilities are better at the equator, the first requirement to me is to get people to the moon and figure out how to keep them alive without having to ship everything they need from Earth. Once that's done, we can start thinking about other sites for doing other things. Heck, there might be a migration away from the poles if the hydrogen/oxygen potential of the rocks at the equator are realized. Though you'd probably still want that sunlight from the poles for power, that could be beamed via satellite eventually.
Re:Dark Side of The Moon (Score:3, Interesting)
Focus, schmocus; even assuming that 100% of the energy yield of every nuclear bomb on earth goes into shifting the Moon, with none at all wasted in light or heat, it wouldn't affect it noticeably. The Moon is really, really heavy.
Sit down some time and work out the kinetic energy of the Moon. It masses 7.36E22 kilos, and is moving at about 1 km/s. That's 7.36E28 joules, or 1.75E13 megatons. The entire population of the earth is only some 6E9 people, so perhaps if every single person on the earth had a few thousand H-bombs and we let them all off at once on the Moon, we might just affect its orbit significantly...
Been watching Space 1999 and Dragonball lately, I suppose? Sorry, guys: moving small planets around (and the Moon is not far off the size of Mercury) takes a lot of energy. Presumably Muten Roshi was able to unleash an energy blast comparable to 10,000,000,000,000 hydrogen bombs when he blew up the moon at the Tenkaichi Budokai...
Amazing that we did it in the 60's and today... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm just reading the book of Kranz (flight director of Apollo mission for the first man on the moon, and other missions as well). It's amazing how fast they were putting together a new mission at that time, and not just repeating the last mission but adding new complexity to it.
Today it takes months if not years to prepare the next shuttle flight, and it does the same as the last flight, nothing more complex.
How did they do it back in the 60's, it's amazing, considering the technology they had. And finally without so many casualties, with all due respect to the families of the crew which has burnt on the pad.
Thumbs up for these guys of the 60's, I guess the race against the russians was the driver. What's the driver today to go back to the moon ?
Problems with spaceflight and Fuel (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as going into Lunar orbit first before landing... well, what do you think the Apollo spacecraft did? The problem is that you have one shot to land until you get some fuel resupply depots in Lunar orbit. It is also going to be much cheaper and easier to manufacture the fuel on the Moon than by hauling it up from the Earth, with the one problem of trying to collect hydrogen for the typical LOX/H2 rocket fuel.
Once you get onto the surface of the Moon, it will be much easier to get around with some sort of surface transportation than trying to fly around with rockets. These can even be solar powered so you don't need to worry about obtaining fuel from the Earth to keep them going, and have electric motors simply pushing against the surface with designs roughly like cars on the Earth. With nearly two weeks of continuous sunlight even on the Equator, I'm sure you can travel a fairly large distance before you run out of daylight and need to build even an emergency shelter from the lunar night.