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Space Science

Back to the Moon? 170

Posted by michael from the nasa-will-probably-fake-this-one-too dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This BBC story discusses the prospects of probes returning to the moon. The article first mentions the ESA's SMART-1 probe, which will overfly the Apollo landing sites during 2003, and then talks with US scientists about why NASA should send probes back."
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Back to the Moon? More

Back to the Moon?

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  • The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

    Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

    Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

    Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
  • I'll be happy if they send the rest of N*Sync into space. Maybe send them to the dark side of the moon and, er, mission aborted.

    oops

    siri
  • What do you mean get back to the moon? Like they got to the moon in the first place.

    [cue Dr. Evil laugh]

    Muwahahahahaha...hahahaha...hahahah!!! Muwahahahahaha...hahahaha...hahahah!!! Muwa.......haha?

    [/cue Dr. Evil laugh]

    • Haha you are gone... Illimunati will send their UFO's from dark side of the moon to you!

      Better hide...

      Mwhahahah
      (no, read rest of moon conspiracy theory, its more evil I mean)

  • Are we running low on cheese? (Score:3, Funny)

    by FelixCat ( 594769 ) on Saturday July 27, 2002 @12:07PM (#3964570)
    The best reason for going back to the moon is to replentish our supply of cheese. It wouldn't be that hard to go back there. In Wallace and Gromit's [aardman.com] "Grand Day Out" they completed the project over a weekend.

    I don't know why this is such a big deal!

  • I've very happy to see a renewed interest in space by our governments (and hopefully people). It's crazy to think that we've expanded across this planet so quickly yet when it comes to rocketing into one of the last uncolonized frontiers no-one has any interest. You'd think we almost needed another cold war to get the super powers competing against each other for a goal like that.

    Though we probably should solve more of earth's own problems before seriously reaching from the stars, but that could take a long time and I've only got another 70 years or so to buy a vacation trip to mars!

    -Matt
  • Mining the moon for use on Earth is never going to be a winning proposition. Re-entry into earth's atmosphere is just too expensive.

    However, we should to move our space fabrication facilities to the moon. That's the way to lower our launch costs, in the long run. It is a lower G environment, it provides an additional slingshot for launches into the rest of the solar system, and, given a sufficient initial capital investment, energy on the moon will be cheaper than energy on the surface of the earth.

    Before that's practical, we need a thorough, ground based, resource survey of the whole sattelite. In order to do that, we need a permanent base with facilities to fuel, service and repair all of the robots doing the lunar surveys.

    We have the technology. We should stop dinking around, pony up the cash, and do it.
    • I think you're right on the money.

      It seems ludicrous to me that no one has returned to the moon for 30 years! The "giant leap for mankind" now seems to have been a giant leap backwards.

    • I don't think it's so expensive at all. Remember that the moon sits atop a pretty damn big gravity well. Getting stuff from the earth to the moon is hard, getting it back from the moon to earth is easy. Then all you need is to slow and control the descent...I'm sure something could be worked out. Reusable gliders, maybe.
    • Lunar generated solar power has the potential to replace every fossil fuel power plant on Earth [go.com]. And who cares about gravity? We export the electricity by beaming it down via microwaves to collectors on the Earth's surface.

      Solving the energy crisis could be the Great Reason we need to get back into space, and could turn the Moon into a moneymaker instead of a sinkhole. This is one of the few reasons I believe returning to the Moon is more important than colonizing Mars at this point. Off-earth manufacturing, energy, tourism, and science all show incredible promise. It's time we went back. I want to visit the Luna Hilton before I die.

    • It's unfortunate that the U.S. spent so much money beating the Russians to the Moon. Sure, it's a good thing that humans went there at all, but because we pushed so hard to go there for the wrong reasons, these days people look back at how quickly the U.S. space program was advancing c. 1970 and expect things to be much farther along than they are. The truth is, however, that we need to stop comparing Humanity's space presence to what it would have been if the Cold War hadn't ended. That doesn't mean I'm not anxious for faster space development. I'm just aware of the fact that politics, personal agendas, and other human maladies constitute only part of what makes going to space hard.
    • yes, we definately need a moon base, but only for mining purposes.

      1) space fabrication will benefit much more from microgravity: build them in orbit, then use centrifugal forces for whatever gravity you wish.

      2) solar-power-satellites can be built with much less resources (and less fuss) in microgravity: build them in orbit.

      3) the moon AFAIK is mainly made of Si, O, N and some C (not in that order) what is really missing is Hydrogen, which you can provide by bringing small asteroids/comets back to near-earth orbit. (landing them on the moon in one piece is much harder ...)

      so, to summarize: yes, the human race very much needs a moon base, but not as a standalone project, but as part of a larger free-space colonizaiton and industrialization effort.
      • 1) Everything I've read on the subject regards construction in space as the most difficult and expensive environs possible. Maybe you can point me at something that says otherwise.

        2) Your point about solar power satellites is incorrect. An article in more depth about this appeared in The Industrial Physicist [216.239.39.100] in May. A relevant quote from the article follows:
        Several types of solar-power satellites have been proposed. They are projected, over 30 years, to deliver approximately 10,000 kWh of electric energy to Earth for each kilogram of mass in orbit around the planet. To sell electric energy at $0.01/ kWh, less than $60 could be expended per kilogram to buy the components of the power satellites, ship them into space, assemble and maintain them, decommission the satellites, and finance all aspects of the space operations. To achieve this margin,launch and fabrication costs would have to be lowered by a factor of 10,000.
        There's more in the article.

        The Moon is the only practical place to build extraplanetary solar power, considering, as you note in point 3, that the Moon is made up of the very same materials in solar cells to begin with.

        At any rate, we both agree that the human race needs a moon base. I just happen to think that it will be considerably more useful than you do.

  • Not mentioned in the above brief, there is a CNN article here. [cnn.com]

    CNN seems to be under the impression that SMART-1 mission's priority is to determine the future site for a lunar base. While I wish that this were the case, I cannot help but think how neccesarily a long way off we are from this commendable goal.

    Really, if one thinks about it, we are not really much closer to this goal than the last apollo mission, and NASA has made it clear that it has no plans for a lunar base, let alone further lunar missions. As well, there interest in manned mars missions falls far behind other items *cough* ISS, pluto probe *cough*.

    Is it time to have a new space agency that will pursue more "commercial" goals in space? Can the ESA or China fulfill this role? I am encouraged by what we have already seen from Russia, but am not sure wheather the can move beyond simple space tourism to the ISS...

  • This poor guy [twistedmojo.com] has been waiting for 30 years for us to go back and get him.
  • "you and your third dimension"
    "what about it?"
    "oh nothing, its cute. we have five. thousand"

  • Moon base may make more sense than the ISS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ike42 ( 596470 ) on Saturday July 27, 2002 @12:46PM (#3964708)
    The jury may still be out on the International Space Station (ISS), but the primary problem with all zero-g environments its that they really screws up human physiology. On the moon you don't have this problem, making long term habitation a much better prospect.

    NASA does not like to publicize the extent to which even short space flights negatively effect an astronaut's health. We evolved in gravity and our bodies depend on it to function properly ... and no amount of research is likely to change this fact. However, low gravity environments (like the moon) are thought to be ok.

    The moon is not that hard to get to, and once there its much easier to get into a zero-g environment, if thats what you want (for research, manufacturing, etc). If the goal is to have long term habitiation off Earth, then going back to the moon is a very good idea.

    • You're joking, right? The distance to the moon is like 400,000 km. The distance to the ISS is like 400 km, which make the moon 1000 times further away. The logistics of making that trip is exponentially more difficult.

      Getting into a zero-g environment isn't an issue at all - you can't have a true zero-g environment whenever there is even one body of mass in your universe since its gravitation force will exert on you, no matter how small. Remember, the astronauts are orbiting the earth, which means that they are actually falling towards it because of gravity. The fact that their entire environment is falling at the same time as them is why it seems like they are in zero g. The balance between gravity (centripedal acceleration) combined with their motion perpendicular to gravity is what sets up the orbit. Pick up your high school physics textbook.

      You could simulate the same thing the astronauts are doing on a falling elevator, or a plane, which is what they do for astronaut training.
      • While you're technically right, you haven't addressed his point. You've just used a bit of sophistry to make yourself seem smart.

        The fact remains that living on the ISS for an extended period of time will leave you less fit to return to Earth than a similar stay in an environment with gravity closer to 1 G, (even 1/6 G, like the Moon). You'll be stronger after a year on the Moon than you will be after a year on the ISS, and no amount of doubletalk will change that.

        Of course the ISS has its place, but as a base for long term habitation and assembly of complex machinery, it, frankly, bites. The logistics of making a trip to the Moon are more difficult than making a trip to the ISS, but are offset by the advantages to construction. Construction in space is a maximally complex environment for machines that already have complex and difficult requirements. Quality control is virtually nonexistant. Just because it's close doesn't mean it's best.
      • You're joking, right? The distance to the moon is like 400,000 km. The distance to the ISS is like 400 km, which make the moon 1000 times further away. The logistics of making that trip is exponentially more difficult.

        No I'm not joking, but it really depends on what your goals are. I still think that most difficult part of going to the moon is getting off the Earth. Once in orbit the physics of getting to the moon is not that bad. Most of the distance is empty space, just point yourself in the right direction and wait (ok it is not that simple, but it almost is). Remember they did it in '69 with rather primative computers. Now you could argue that space flight is dangerous and the longer you are in transit the more you put yourselft at risk, but it seems to me that you have the same risks in Earth orbit. And once you are on the moon, the lack of atmosphere and low gravity makes it easy to get off again.

        Now the logistics of moving large amounts of mass (thinking moon factories here) back to Earth is probably not worth the trouble. But for doing long term research, moon would probably provide a less hostile environment for people (as long as you're ok with being serveral days away from Earth).

        Getting into a zero-g environment isn't an issue at all

        You really missed the point here, and your reasoning is a bit off. As far as the reasons for going into "zero-g", I'm just going by what the NASA types say (that "zero-g" research and manufactuing will save the world), and I agree that most of it could be done on Earth. However my point was that being in "zero-g" (or or whatever you want to call it) environment of space is not good for your health. In orbit you will not expernce a normal (Earth surface) "downward" force! Your body is ment to function on the Earth's surface; in space the lack of a net "downwand" force causes a number of bad side effects, most notably a loss bone mass, a redistribution of muscle mass, and cardiovascular changes (still not well understood). This is all well documented, NASA just prefers not to emphisize it.

        Now I'm going to cover my ass ... this whole argument depends on the low-g environment of the moon being the primary factor in maintain good health (comparied to zero-g). This is the theory, no one really knows ... and there are probably other hazards of living on the moon we have no idea about, :)

    • low gravity environments (like the moon) are thought to be ok

      Unfortunately we don't yet have any evidence whether or not this might be true and it is starting to rank as the most important question of the new (half?) century in determining our destiny.

      If, and it remains a significant "if", humans can operate (in suitably protected structures) on the lunar surface long term without seriously adverse health consequences, then the course that makes the most sense is to establish a serious lunar industrial complex before we worry too much about sending anything more than ever smarter robotic probes to explore other parts of the solar system.

      For quite a while yet, there are going to remain very serious constraints on what unattended robots can achieve. On the moon we can push that boundary to reach the point of confidence in sending off the robots that will be needed to prepare on Mars (and/or its satelites) sufficient supplies for the first arrival of human vistors/colonists.

      Not only will it be much easier to do this if humans can stay healthy for years rather than months on the moon, but that will also open the way to much greater development on the moon when we start to see the energy and environmental trade offs from a lunar perspective.
      • On the moon we can push that boundary to reach the point of confidence in sending off the robots that will be needed to prepare on Mars

        I think Mars is the real prize here. From the point of species survival we would probably be alot better off not putting all our eggs on one planet (hey is that a double pun?)

    • Speaking about gravity, an addition benefit of building on the moon instead of space, is trash collection. In one scenario the ISS gets taken out by junk becoming a cage/mini-asteroid field of ISS junk around the earth.

      Mostly hype, but the ISS taken out would create zones of trash giving cause of concern for future billion dollar space missions.

  • Look at http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/sep.html
    • To be fair, the BBC article brushes over the Ion Drive aspect of the mission in favour of the exciting return-to-the-moon side of the story.

      As the SMART-1 site itself makes clear:

      SMART-1 is to be the first European spacecraft to travel to and orbit around the Moon. It will also be the first time that ESA employ electric propulsion as the mission's primary propulsion. Electric propulsion on an interplanetary mission has been used only once to date, on NASA's Deep Space 1 probe launched in October 1998.

      ...

      The electric propulsion technology to be employed by SMART-1 was initially developed over 30 years ago, notably in Russia which, since 1972, has launched a number of operational spacecraft placed in Earth orbit. They used electric propulsion for attitude and orbit control in addition to the classical chemical propulsion. In the early 90s, agreements were reached between Russian, American and European industry, notably SNECMA, France, to pursue the development and commercialisation of such thrusters.

      ...

      In recent years commercial telecommunications spacecraft built in the United States using different types of electric thrusters have been launched. The first was the Hughes PanAmSat-5 in 1997

      source [estec.esa.nl]

      Now compared to chemical rockets, in terms of missions flown and experience gained, I'd accept ion drives as pretty 'new', so, while maybe a little clumsy, the BBC's text
      The main objective is to test a new type of engine technology - solar electric propulsion - which could power future missions very long distances into deep space
      seems OK, and ESA certainly don't claim to be the first with an Ion Drive themselves. They don't even claim to be the first to use the SNECMA PPS 1350 Hall-Effect thruster [snecma.com] in question (shame the SNECMA site doesn't seem to give an off-the-shelf price for one of these cuties!).

      Still determined to live in the Space Age

      TomV

      • Interesing NASA patent application that involves thrust:

        Link. [espacenet.com] (Life will be much easier if you have pdf reader integration in your browser.)

        Abstract:
        An assymetrical capacitor module for generating thrust includes two conductive elements of similar but different geometries seperated by a dielectric member. Improved embodiments provided in the construction of conductive elements of smaller axial extent include those where the element is formed by an annular wire or a dielectric supported ring. Other embodiments concern the dielectric member and involve change in the extend and shape thereof.
    • Its also interesting to note that in the FAQ off of that NASA link:

      "Ion propulsion is not of value for missions that require high acceleration, and it often will not be worthwhile for missions that can be done quickly using conventional propulsion systems (such as missions to the moon)."

      Guess the "often" clause does not apply to this one.

      T

  • People are always looking for ways for the private sector to get involved in space. IMO, A profitable one may be in going to the moon and back. It may seem silly, but moon rock is some of the most valuable stuff on earth. The value now is in the millions for relatively large chunks, and in the hundreds of thousands for small ones.

    While I realize that having more of the rare stuff will reduce its value, could you imagine selling small moon particles (100ths or even 1000ths of a gram) to private citizens/collectors? 1/100 of a gram * $500 * 10kg * 1000g/kg = 1,000,000*500 or $500,000,000 with 10kg and only 100,000 customers.
    500,000,000 may not be enough for a small robot mission to the moon (with the intent of returning) but it is getting close.

    -Sean

    • Sounds like the business plan for Applied Space Resources [appliedspace.com] - they haven't been able to raise much money yet though I hear.
    • IMO, you're vastly overestimating the value of "moon dirt". You'd need to ask a few interested people what they'd be willing to pay...

      Personally, I wouldn't want to own an encapsulated speck of moon dust, but I would want a good sized moon rock that I could hold in my grubby hands. *I* would value an average density 1cm moonrock at no more than $1,000, which is still a profit over the insane $/kg of chemical-rocket transportation costs.

      The reason I wouldn't pay any more than that is because its novelty value will drop to zero over time, just as if Columbus had brought back "American Soil!"...

      --

      • IMO, you're vastly overestimating the value of "moon dirt".

        You may be correct, *but* right now, moon rock that has fallen to earth as a meteorite is valued at 100,000 a carat (1/5 of a gram). According to this article [cnn.com], a finger tip size piece of moon rock (1.2 grams) is valued at $5 mil! I think you would get two types of buyers, the handful of wealthy people looking for mantle trophies and the masses looking for something for posterity. I don't think the value of moon rock would drop all that fast (at first).

        -Sean
    • It's only 'rare' and 'expensive' because there was so little of it brought back, and what was brought back is jealously hoarded by the government and scientists.

      Start bringing back dumpsters full of the stuff and see how quickly the price plummets.

      Imagine if one of those weird quantum probability seizures happened and all the quartz in the world was replaced by diamond. De Beers would go out of business - it'd be like trying to sell sand as the most precious substance in the universe.
  • Closer = Easier To Hit

  • return to the moon? (Score:3, Funny)

    by spongebobsquarepants ( 588438 ) on Saturday July 27, 2002 @02:16PM (#3964978)
    According to top level sources broadcasting out of Pahrump, Nevada (ie Art Bell), we've yet to make the trip. It will be embarrassing when some new lunar probe confirms this ;)
    • The Clementine probe did confirm the Apollo 15 site.

      http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/ap ol lo15_touchdown_photos_010427.html

      You can watch a film of the landing at:
      www.apolloarchive.com
      Click Multimedia on the left side and go to the realvideo file "Lunar landing filmed from LM window".

      If you play it a few times next to the Clementine image in the article you'll see that they're right on.

  • Lack of communication in the space biz (Score:5, Informative)

    by apsmith ( 17989 ) on Saturday July 27, 2002 @02:20PM (#3964989) Homepage
    It always amazes me how limited the picture most people seem to have, even in the media, of the huge variety of space-related efforts that are going on. If it isn't on NASA's list (even if NASA people are involved in it) or occasionally on a European or Japanese list, it's as if it doesn't exist. Here's a short list of lunar missions and projects currently in development, private and public: Many of these have received approval - some of the commercial missions seem to have had a bit of trouble finding funding or overcoming regulations and have announced delays of a year or so, but then the government missions have been delayed too.

    What's missing on this list? Where's NASA you say? Interestingly NASA has spent over 50 times as much on Mars missions as on missions to the Moon since Apollo 17 left in Dec 1972. But that may change [planetary.org] now that the NRC has put a lunar return among the highest priority missions.

    Want to be involved? Check out the National Space Society [nss.org] and the Moon Society [moonsociety.org] and you may help make some of these things happen!
  • First lets get rid of myths that very lame stupid pasters here wil use for this story:

    Lame Myths about Moon:

    1. Landing was staged..wrong rock my friend and wrong fiction as well..try Red One with OJ Simpson early 1970s movie about fake landing on Mars

    2. There is no chees on the Moon..However there is religion that bases their worship on the moon in fanatical portions they even put the lunar cresent on all their flags..not to mention they worship a rock that they claim came from the moon..

    3. No un manned probes went to the Moon...Russia has expertise at crashing un manned probes on the moon...Nasa are you ready for lessons?

    Truths:

    1. Nasa is looking for new funding sources to feed its monopolistic behavior and is looking at putting Bill Gates on the moon..no word as to whether this is with Oxygen supply or lacking an oxygen supply

  • WE NEVER WENT TO THE MOON!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by ashitaka ( 27544 ) on Saturday July 27, 2002 @09:26PM (#3966241) Homepage
    Never!

    Not once!

    You're a complete idiot if you believe for one friggin second we went to the moon.

    We didn't have an "accident" on lucky #13.

    We didn't bring back any dusty rocks.

    We didn't boot around in an electric buggy.

    We didn't slowly bounce up and down like Britney Spears on Qualuudes.

    We didn't make any "small steps for man."

    We didn;t drive golf balls "miles and miles"

    I AM CANADIAN! We didn't go to the moon!

    Bunch of Americans did though...

    • Wait! Ask yourself this:
      "How do you know that Americans actually exist?"

      You only believe that Americans exist because of the inflow of Data.
      Now! What if that Data is FALSE?

      That's right - if that Data is FALSE; Americans may not actually exist!
      And, if Americans do not actually exist then they can't have gone to the Moon!

      If fact, your whole knowledge of the Universe may be based on FALSE Data!

      And if you think on this some, you may come to the conclusion that I may not even exist?!

      Now, a FINAL question: how do YOU know that YOU actually exist?
      .
    • Didn't fall for this. Your accent gave you away :)
  • I watched Space Station for the first time the other day.

    I sat there either with my mouth hanging wide open or with a huge grin and thinking "oh, maaaannnn..".

    The only thing cooler than that would be an IMAX film taken from lunar orbit possibly with a low-level fly down as they did on Apollo 10.

    Next we send an IMAX camera to Mars.

    Hell, people don't need to go anywhere as long as you have IMAX.

    (And yes I know all about the technical limitations of IMAX having watched them since the very first in Toronto in 1971.)
  • The number of posts here from people who give credence to the lunar-landing-as-hoax nonosense is scary. Is this embarrassing, often willful, ignorance, representative of the
    Slashdot audience?
    • There are no luddites.

      Only trolls trying to get reactions like yours or jokers like me making fun of the whole thing.

      They are succeeding all too well. The guy who said there was only one landing was a classic! Look how many got sucked in.

  • Sometimes I Despair (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Peahippo ( 539266 )
    I read articles like that one on BBC News, and thus know that space programs are always in serious jeopardy from misdirection and emotional decisions.

    The word "manufacturing" wasn't used even once in the article, and only the main-picture caption had the word "industry". The main picture doesn't even show any equipment that can be identified as for manufacturing -- it just looks like a mission base.

    Manufacturing -- the activity of a real economy -- must be the main point of sustainable space development. Anything else is the masturbatory fantasy of the academic class. The academics (as unwitting dupes of the aerospace contractors) are clearly unfit for directing space programs, given their propensity for spending billions to get some kilograms of rock and megabytes of data back. As far as a space program is concerned, academics should be used as skilled labor, not managers.

    Well, what will these non-academic managers aim for? The Moon is an ideal site for space manufacturing. There's enough gravity to hold things down and keep Human bones from decaying too much -- while also being light enough to make it 22 times easier to deliver a load of material to LEO (low Earth orbit) than from Earth. There's plenty of solar power -- for heat and electricity -- due to no clouds, and no weather either to disrupt activity. The regolith is a fine powder that itself is a very useful ore, being oxygen, silicon, aluminum, magnesium, calcium, iron and then other trace elements. Scoop it up into foundries; melt it with your free solar energy; then use whatever extraction techniques are required to obtain materials. The vacuum even at the surface of the Moon (note that within ~30 feet of the surface, there is a dim but measurable "atmosphere" of sorts involving dust influenced by static charges) is finer than usually obtained on Earth in labs. Imports from Earth will be the qualitative counterpart (people, parts, volatiles) to the quantitative exports (aluminum, oxygen, steel) from the Moon. (Note the exports are for building Earth's orbital facilities.)

    The only things making the Moon a real problem for manufacturing are the hostilities of vacuum and radiation toward lifeforms. There is basically an inverted paradigm, where on Earth you live freely but undergo constraints in work environments, but the Moon requires constrained living methods while the work environment is everywhere. If only Earth-based manufacturing problems were so simple.

    Do we really want to throw more billions of dollars at socially-inept types to spend, to get JUST some rock and data in return? Why not spend the billions making an industry that returns products and investment margin, and then those academic types can charter themselves flights, housing and equipment. They can go out and do all the science they want while a real economy churns away at their backs, making it sustainably possible for them to do it in the first place. Necessities before luxuries, folks.
  • Just got done reading Chronoliths (Slashdot review Here [slashdot.org])
    Thought it was an odd coincidence this was mentioned just after I read it, as the book.. written from the perspective of 20-40 years in the future.. mentions in passing the second wave of moon expiditions.

    The irony being that the book is all about coincidences, time travel, and how the two don't play well together.

    Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's just late and my mind needs sleep. Maybe.. it's.. just... a coincidence..

    Ok, so maybe you had to read the book?
  • Yes yes its all another big space race to see who can claim the moon as theirs. America might have got their people there first (or not) but unless they get some guns and defense systems up there quick, those evil Chinese might take it, or, even worse the Europeans!! This is exactly the reason why America wanted to nuke the moon - to make it uninhabitable. Unless NASA gets up there fast, someone is going to claim it and start digging for rocks or all the incredible technology technology thats lying all over it.
  • Face it we're all a bunch of loonies. But seriously, I am so hoping that somebody starts to build a base on the moon soon, otherwise Im just going to be too old to try that zero-g karma-sutra I bought.
  • What's the hurry? We've got 'till 2019 [slashdot.org] to get there before the asteroid smashes into the earth.

    Chip H.

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