International Effort Could Put First Canadian On the Moon 152
A long-term plan created by 14 cooperating space agencies around the world could mean that a Canadian astronaut may get to visit the moon sometime close to 2030. The International Space Exploration Coordination Group, of which Canada is a part, released last week an updated roadmap laying out intended projects, including a lunar visit.
"[CSA space exploration director Jean-Claude Piedboeuf] suggested astronauts could again be moon-bound in about 15 years. It would be the first human visit to the shining orb since 1972, when NASA astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt spent 75 hours there.
This time, there could well be Canadian visitors.
Their specialty: robotics. 'We're proposing a vision where Canada could have an astronaut, effectively a Canadian who will be in lunar space, either in orbit or on the moon and could operate a Canadian rover in the same way that Canadians operate a Canadarm on the space station,' Piedboeuf said."
May I suggest Justin Bieber? (Score:4, Funny)
Pleaaaaaaaaase....
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Although I agree with you wholeheartedly, I do believe that William Shatner deserves to be the first Canadian on the moon. If they can work it out that both can go, well, I'd click that 'Donate' button.
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There is a severe fuel cost for putting massive objects into orbit, on the order of 100 to 1 for fuel to paypload weight
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Throw celine dion in the mix and I will donate quadruple
however we can save weight by only shipping their ego's there.
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I believe their egos would be disproportionally heavier than their actual body weight.
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Considering how energetic he seems now at 82, I wouldn't count out seeing him still be around as a centenarian.
Re:May I suggest Justine Bieber? (Score:5, Funny)
Leave her alone!
15 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
from Kennedy's challenge to first man on the moon was 8 years. just from that, I'd say this is mostly not planning to go anywhere in the next 20 years.
Re:15 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
from Kennedy's challenge to first man on the moon was 8 years
Only because of the years and years of preparatory work already done. Development of the F-1 started in 1956. Much of the design and engineering for the Apollo capsule was already complete (although as a general purpose earth orbiter). The same goes for the engineering and development of the Saturn family of boosters.
One of the reasons Kennedy chose a moon landing as a goal (over the other options considered) in the first place was because so much of the necessary groundwork was already in work.
Re:15 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
One would think there is even more groundwork done now than there was in the 60s. The main difference is that between a president making a commitment and a committee making a presentation.
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Some of the groundwork has been done - but this project isn't getting the thing that made the real difference... a huge budget. Which wasn't a direct result of Kennedy's commitment - he was actually looking for ways to scale it back. The huge budget came because he died in Dallas and LBJ pushed for the program as a monument to Kennedy.
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Right, and we still have all that ground work and a lot more that has been developed in the mean time. If we put as much effort in to getting to the moon as we did then, like say the fate of the earth depended on it, I'm sure we could go in a year or two.
Re:15 years? (Score:5, Informative)
The V2 rocket is what really started the space age. It was the first thing humans ever built that reached space. It wasn't easy; the Nazis poured vast resources into that research. And there is a direct lineage from the V2 to the moon program.
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It's sad that going to the moon six times is worth less in preparatory work than what had been done up to 1961. We've lost so much knowledge and experience that we've regressed as a species, at least in terms of human space exploration. Hopefully this time around we never forget how to do it.
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Nonsense. We are so much more capable now in space travel than we were in the 60's that there's just no comparison.
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It's only "sad" if you're unaware that it's 2013 and that materials, processes, etc... have changed radically in the intervening fifty years and that impacts pretty much every aspect of the project. Not to mention being ignorant enough to not grasp that every major engineering projects requires considerable ground and preparatory work beforehand (roughly proportional to the size of the project), e
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not relevant at all, since the Apollo program had other goals and missions before the moon challenge. the technology hasn't gone away, we have more prep work now
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Um, care to repeat that in English, or at least in properly phrased English?
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In 1962 we took an existing space program and technology and made a new goal of reaching another world. We then reached that goal. We have in 2013 a bigger existing space program and even more technology. There is no reason we couldn't reach another world in less than a decade, for a price that is a tenth or less of a purposeless war or maintaining a nuclear weapons arsenal of obscene and uselessly huge size.
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Crash programs are very expensive and a budget like Apollo's may never happen again.
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Re:15 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
wrong! even if we take the entire Apollo program which had other purposes before Kennedy's challenge, that was $25.4 billion as reported in 1973. That's 102.3 billion dollars now. Or the cost of the U.S. nuclear arsenal which is two thirds of a trillion dollars every decade. A fraction of cost of a war with no purpose and no results (other than a few hundred thousand dead Iraqi citizens), for example. Space exploration is very cheap.
The really sad thing... (Score:3)
And I was born years before Gagarin flew.
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...about all this is that means we're farther from putting a man on the moon than we were the day I was born.
You are totally correct and somewhat wrong at the same time.
To put a man on the Moon, the first step is to wish to put a man on the Moon and to actually try to put a man on the Moon. In other words, those who decide how much money is put in which envelope must want to put a man on the moon. Otherwise it will never happen. As no deciding party actually wants that or sets that as a priority, for whatever reason, you are totally correct in saying we are further away from putting a man on the moon than sometim
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With enough money and a few years lead time, I suspect the Falcon-9 could probably get us orbiting the moon, and that there's enough talent in private space to also supply a suitable landing vehicle for a spacewalk.
The real trick is to plan to do something which gets us enough buy-in that we actually go there, and do something which keeps us in-space as a permanent - and ideally profitable (or break-even) endeavour.
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Re:The really sad thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even more sad is that someone your age can't let go of the symbolism of a dead era.
I wasn't born in that era, but I understand the sentiment completely. During the late 50's through the mid-70's, we experience the pinnacle of technology and humankind has been going down hill since. We had rockets that went to the moon. We had supersonic transport. We built the fastest airplane ever, we built several different airplane models that are still in production and have yet to be surpassed. We invented what eventually became the internet. Since then, we haven't done much of anything except squabble and fight and sue. One might also notice a correlation in the diminishing of funding for education and research to our newfound stunning lack of achievement.
Re:The really sad thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Since then, we haven't done much of anything except squabble and fight and sue. One might also notice a correlation in the diminishing of funding for education and research to our newfound stunning lack of achievement.
Yeah but the ultra-wealthy can enjoy thousand-horsepower all-wheel-drive supercars and cheap replacement organs from healthy, grass-fed South American kids...
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You all tend to forget that people receiving social aid have faster computers in their pockets than the whole world had during that "pinnacle of technology" time. The transition was from super government projects (flight to the moon, Concorde) to commercial developments, and from "cool stuff" to "convenience".
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people receiving social aid have faster computers in their pockets than the whole world had
Nothing wrong with a little Chinese prison labor so the plebes can play Angry Birds, eh? ;)
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America probably has more prison labour then China. Those private prison companies need to make money with their guaranteed prison population.
Correction (Score:2)
America probably has more prison labour then China. Those private prison companies need to make money with their guaranteed prison population.
Correction: America has more prisoners. It does not have more prison labor.
You can't force American prisoners to work, you can just make it mind-numbingly dull to not work at some mind-numbingly dull prison job. If you work at the mind-numbingly dull prison job instead, you get machine shop, telemarking, or other skills to use on the outside, assuming you stop shanking people long enough that your sentence doesn't get extended past your release date again,
PS: If their non-numb minds got them into prison i
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American prisons use torture (long term solitary confinement) to force the issue and some States such as Arizona do have laws requiring every able bodied prisoner to work with wages of 10 to 50 cents an hour. Googling "American prison labour" shows much horrible stuff, perhaps not as bad as China but the big difference is America pretends to be free as they get less free constantly whereas China does not claim to be free and things are generally improving over there.
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We had rockets that went to the moon.
And when we got there, we found lots of jagged dust.
We had supersonic transport.
Which we already knew was horribly expensive due to (a) the effort required to slice through the air that vast, and (b) the heat generated at such speeds.
We built the fastest airplane ever,
And retired it because flying that fast is so fscking expensive!
we built several different airplane models that are still in production and have yet to be surpassed.
Because in the real world, there are always engineering trade-offs between physics and economics, and it turns out that the sound "barrier" is in actuality an economics barrier.
Yes, it saddens me, but I've moved on from youthful sci-fi dreams
Politics not economics (Score:2)
Because we only had time to send one geologist before Nixon axed it and scrapped a rocket that was so close to launch that the fuel had been delivered. That's not economics. That's a political stunt.
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That's a political stunt.
Political stunts require political justifications. In this case, it was that enough people wanted the money spent on something else.
And that's economics.
Already paid for - thus not economics (Score:2)
Did I spell it out clearly enough for you this time?
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rocket built and the fuel delivered.
That strongly implies the rocket was assembled and sitting on the launch pad when canceled.
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Which mission?
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My main point is that only one geologist has been on the moon so we've had nothing but a quick look and whatever random samples happened to be near the landers and whatever has happened to fall down here from bits that have been kn
Scroll down to "surplus hardware" for details (Score:2)
Scroll down to "surplus hardware" to see how much stuff was left over after the sudden decision to make a political point.
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The political point that NASA's budgets were already shrinking even before Apollo 11?
I think you're missing the fact that missions cost is more than just building a rocket.
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Nowhere have I seen evidence that Apollo 18 was in the VAB when it was canceled.
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I didn't bother myself since the list of left over hardware makes my original point above VERY CLEARLY. Huge amounts of waste purely due to a quick political change of plan - thus a very bad economic outcome so very obviously not done for economic reasons.
Do you get it yet, or did you get it long
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It was a news item at the time and mentioned in documentaries
So what you have is hazy memory.
When I went looking for it the best I could find in two minutes was the above link.
Which you can't corroborate.
Maybe if you spend five minutes :)
I spent 20 minutes reading through 8 links.
just playing some sort of high school mass debating game
No, I'm not. But which is worse? H.S. debate or hazily-remembered undocumented claims.
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Besides the link I've provided is more than enough to make the point
No, you didn't.
why are you still bothering me?
Jesus F'ing Christ. Where's the gun pointed at your head threatening to evacuate your skull if you don't respond to me?
Oh, wait. There isn't one. You're replying because you want to!
Thus, not only are your "facts" uncorroborated, but your rationale is questionable.
casual anecdotes by strangers
/. isn't a cocktail party.
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Things die for business reasons, not technological reasons. And I'd say rovers that explore Mars on their own is far more advanced than having humans do everything like on Apollo. The Concord died yes, but there are supersonic jets in private ownership (ex-military) [spacebattles.com], it's all a matter of cost. Some things haven't changed much but smart phones, medicine, lots of things have become very much more technologically advanced. It just depends on where you're looking, I'd much rather be in a hospital in 2013 than 1
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the pinnacle of technology and humankind has been going down hill since.
Huge prestige projects and the accompanying techno optimism may have gone the way of the dinosaur in the US and Europe. They still build crazy megaprojects in the Middle and Far East.
Humanity has produced many unspectacular improvements in the intervening years that have had a much greater impact on the world than any big rocket or skyscraper ever had. Worldwide, the number of humans living in absolute poverty is at an all time low. Tod
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Yep, exploration, dreams, achievement, that's all old hat, gramps! All the cool kids know that breathlessly following the circle jerks of the latest reality show is where it's at!
This assumes the world isn't broke in 2030 (Score:4, Interesting)
With the way national governments keep piling up debt [economist.com], it's unreasonable to assume any of those governments will be funding space exploration in 2030.
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The world is already broke. the next big economic collapse will be governments who are massively over extended.(which is nearly all of them)
Re:This assumes the world isn't broke in 2030 (Score:4, Informative)
Democratic countries only. Most of the communist ones, including those that went through financial difficulties in the 80's/90's are in pretty good shape debt wise.
Re:This assumes the world isn't broke in 2030 (Score:5, Informative)
"With the way national governments keep piling up debt"
That debt is to private banks, you do know that each nation is supposed to have it's own national bank making that kind of debt impossible? The worlds banking cartel launched a coup against most nation states to keep them under their control via national debt.
Don't think so? Why not look at what even these canadian politicians have to say. Money is political fiction, the national debt exists because private power wants it to exist to prevent progressive social change under the fear mongering of national debt.
http://www.ohcanadamovie.com/ [ohcanadamovie.com]
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http://www.ohcanadamovie.com/
Too bad the production is so juvenile (sound effects, jokes, etc). I do respect the message and the impressive list of people he managed to interview. Still, it's just a Canadian-focused rehash of similar works, such as "Money As Debt" and "The Money Masters".
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The difference is, it's interviews with real politicians saying "yes we could do this but...(insinuating the majority of the public is too stupid/can't grasp this)", did you see what May and Layton said? skip to their interviews if you didn't.
The fact that the politicians know what is possible but they are stuck in a system that would never allow it and because the public is just too fucking stupid / brainwashed.
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did you see what May and Layton said? skip to their interviews if you didn't.
Quotes or times, otherwise I'm not going to skim through it searching for it. The two common themes seemed to be that the current system is good (the establishment), or that the system is entrenched (fringe parties).
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Ayn Rand just did it by living on government benefits and writing books printed via lead type.
Wouldn't that be (Score:1)
We're proposing a vision where Canada could have an astronaut, effectively a Canadian
Wouldn't that be an astronuck?
Don't stop there (Score:5, Funny)
How soon before we can send the rest of them?
Not only first Canadian. First human on the moon. (Score:1, Funny)
No more hollywood fakes. Nothing this time will hide from high definition cameras. Will have proof and can trace every step from the start to the moon. No more lying, no more fake Apollo flights.
Re:Not only first Canadian. First human on the moo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not only first Canadian. First human on the moo (Score:5, Funny)
Look, the moon landings were faked. Just not the way you think.
They were filmed on a sound stage on the moon. We've had a base on the dark side since the 50's.
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Fakery is much more advanced now than in the 60's. It would be MUCH easier to fake a flight to moon today.
Bart Sibrel, is that you? (Score:3)
Bart Sibrel, is that you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Sibrel [wikipedia.org]
No more hollywood fakes. Nothing this time will hide from high definition cameras. Will have proof and can trace every step from the start to the moon. No more lying, no more fake Apollo flights.
Add to your list: No more getting punched in the mouth by Buzz Aldrin for being an asshole.
And a Tim Horton's by 2035! (Score:2)
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That IS great news! If there's a Timmie's, then they'd have to set up regular deliveries from Maidstone.
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Commercial Spaceflight (Score:2)
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This all kind of hinges on the cost to LEO I suspect. Given the prices people pay for space tourism, I have been wondering what sort of improvements might make Lunar orbit tourism a thing instead. It's only a 3-day ride, and I suspect passage around the dark side of the moon would still be an incredible thing given that, what, about 30 people maximum have ever been there?
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There was a story about 2 years ago about Space Adventures marketing a possible flight around the moon in a Soyuz. But the price they were quoting was way more than the flight to the ISS. There probably aren't more than another 30 people who could afford it, want to go, and psychologically could deal with being in a small space capsule for 8 or 9 days with a decent chance of dying during the trip.
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I have been wondering what sort of improvements might make Lunar orbit tourism a thing instead. It's only a 3-day ride, and I suspect passage around the dark side of the moon would still be an incredible thing given that, what, about 30 people maximum have ever been there?
27 to be exact. Apollo 8 and 10 through 17 each sent 3 astronauts into lunar orbit. Apollo 7 and 9 stayed in Earth orbit conducting tests. Apollo 1-6 were unmanned.
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27 to be exact
Bleh, scratch that. The real number is 24.
James Lowell flew on Apollo 8 and 13.
John Young flew on Apollo 10 and 16.
Eugene Cernan flew on Apollo 10 and 17.
So in total, 27 trips have been taken around the moon, by 24 men.
You've missed one very big thing (Score:2)
What is it that you think will change to make someone other than a government pay for a trip to the moon?
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Canadian Article (Score:2)
14 cooperating space agencies around the world could mean that a Canadian astronaut.... The International Space Exploration Coordination Group, of which Canada is a part/quote
So what about the other 13 space agencies? I mean, it could be Canadian, but couldn't it just as well be one of the other countries? I just skimmed the article, but I didn't say where it listed what countries the other agencies were from.
International error? (Score:2)
A human Canadian? (Score:3)
Are they going to send a human Canadian? Ho-hum. Humans on the moon is a been-there-done-that kind of thing. Now, the first moose on the moon, that would be be cool!
International Effort Could could put me... (Score:2)
...on the moon aswell.
just saying.
So who is going to direct... (Score:2)
So who is going to direct this fake moon landing? It's a proven factoid that Kubrick directed the first (which is how he got access to those Carl Zeiss Planar f/0.7 lenses he used in Barry Lyndon). I think Ridley Scott will direct, though if lens flares are needed...
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If Canadians are on the Moon... (Score:2)
...does that make the Moon Earth's toque?
All well and good but... (Score:2)
International Effort Could Put First Canadian On the Moon
Do the Canadians in general (and the one in particular) have any say in this, or are they just expendable?
Well, all I can say is.... (Score:2)
It's aboot time!
Er, what Canada? (Score:2)
OK, I am Canadian so I think it would be cool to have one of us on the Moon and all however their rational makes about zero sense.
So a a Canadian robotics expert to drive a rover? Why can this not be done from the comfort of a couch whilst eating a poutine? I mean the whole point of a "rover" is the "remote" operation... I mean, yeah I get it if it were Mars and you have crazy time lag between commands because of the distances involved, but the moon?
I mean if they were to say it was to do repairs or somethi
Re:Tresspassing (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, since the flags are all white now, I guess we surrendered it all.
(Truth! The unfiltered solar radiation on the Moon has long since bleached all the flags we left up there pure white.)
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nope - the real truth (Score:2)
The flags were ordinary nylon ones picked up in a hurry from a local Sears (department store chain), which were modified with a wire to make them stand unfurled. They have disintegrated in the 40 years since by the very harsh thermal and UV environment of the moon, there is nothing but ash.
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back then the cheap crap was made in japan, but not flags
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Stupid Canadians... Don't they know the Moon is American property! We claimed it, planted flags there and all. Even left a couple old trucks parked out on the front lawn. Sign says "No Tresspassing", can't y'all read?
Don't make me laugh, eh? Hosehead.
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FIRST CANADIEN!
He's pretty old now - but there's no stopping his "going to the moon" business.
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tell them that country is Canada
Canada is a country? Then how come their queen lives in the mother country?
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