US Eyes Robot Moon Missions as it Prepares For Astronauts' Return (reuters.com) 88
The United States wants to send robotic explorers to the moon as soon as next year as a preparatory step toward sending astronauts back there for the first time since 1972, a NASA official said on Monday. From a report: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is planning a series of lunar missions beginning next year aimed at developing the capacity for a return to the moon, said Cheryl Warner, a spokeswoman for NASA's Human Exploration Directorate. NASA will work with private companies, which have not yet been chosen, on the missions, Warner said in a phone interview. U.S. President Donald Trump in December signed a directive that he said would enable astronauts to return to the moon and eventually lead a mission to Mars. Last month he ordered the government to review regulations on commercial space flights.
"Review regulations on commercial space flights" (Score:2, Insightful)
Like holding SpaceX to a higher standard than NASA to hold them back?
NASA deserves to be embarrassed. They wasted all the years between Apollo and now.
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Re: "Review regulations on commercial space flight (Score:2)
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Your ridiculous reply shows that you are part of the problem.
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An ecosphere is a more delicately balanced thing than you apparently think it is.
So how are we going to set one up on another rock that doesn't have liquid water and an atmosphere ?
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Trollololololol
Go back to 4chan.
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If plastic is so cheap that mankind is throwing it into the ocean, how do you think it will be profitable to harvest it from there?
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At the moment we don't mine asteroids for it.
My point is simple: the plastic in the oceans is a problem right now. But plastic is still to cheap to mine it from the ocean, so the problem remains.
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Trollololol.
Not impressed.
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We'll just sit on our asses on this one ball of rock until we use up all it's resources, poison it to the point where we can't even exist on it anymore, then our entire species will just die
Finding a second ball of rock where we can repeat this procedure isn't really helpful.
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Just to screw with Jeff Bezos perhaps?
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Then all Elon needs to do is cram 14 people on a rocket and blow it up.
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NASA had to learn the hard way so far as safety goes, and they're not motivated by profit like a private corporation is, so I'm perfectly okay with them keeping everyone on a short leash until they prove they can be at least as safe as NASA operations.
*cough*Challenger*cough*
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Which is why, when another problem recurrent problem arose, seen on multiple launches, of ice forming on the liquid fuel tanks, and breaking off, causing near accidents NASA quickly halted all further launches until a fix could be put in place, thus avoiding the repeat of a lost shuttle and crew.
Oh wait, that's not what happened. They kept launching, and ignoring the videos of ice chunks passing close to the shuttle until one fatally compromised the wing of the Columbia resulting in the loss of shuttle and
Re:"Review regulations on commercial space flights (Score:5, Insightful)
There's NASA, and then there's congress. Congress is pushing SLS, which is at this point an albatross around NASA's neck, because of its profit production for various companies in the states of various congress people.
In fairness to NASA and congress, we didn't know SpaceX would do so well when SLS was proposed and approved. But it's time to kill it.
Cut cost in half? (Score:2)
> because of its profit production for various companies in the states of various congress people.
Absolutely. That was and is a significant problem.
> But it's time to kill it.
What if it could be completed for half as much money? Would it be a good idea to kill it if instead of $16 billion, it only cost $8 billion?
I ask because that's where we are now - halfway done. $8 billion has already been spent and it's gone. We can't get that back. It'll cost $8 to complete it.
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It'll cost $8 to complete it.
Plus another $8 billion for unexpected cost overruns.
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What if it could be completed for half as much money? Would it be a good idea to kill it if instead of $16 billion, it only cost $8 billion?
I ask because that's where we are now - halfway done. $8 billion has already been spent and it's gone. We can't get that back. It'll cost $8 to complete it.
Kill it unless it is recognized as a welfare program and the results are never used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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There's NASA, and then there's congress. Congress is pushing SLS, which is at this point an albatross around NASA's neck, because of its profit production for various companies in the states of various congress people.
The SLS has the virtue of being able to carry all of Congress into solar orbit in one shot. Let's keep it and hope.
Where the blame lies (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA deserves to be embarrassed. They wasted all the years between Apollo and now.
NASA takes their marching orders and gets their budget from Congress and the President. The fault lies with the owner of the purse strings if it lies with anyone. The Space Shuttle was a reasonable idea that failed because it had to satisfy too many groups and it sucked all the oxygen out of the room for decades. Then each President tries to give NASA a new priority but never pursues the funding to make it happen during their administration. Basically they make it impossible for NASA to do their job properly.
NASA has their faults to be sure but they are quite competent at many things. Cutting edge research, scientific exploration, technology development and transfer, and more. Though the Space Shuttle was a boondoggle it also was an amazing piece of technology that shows how capable NASA is. The problem for the last 30 years is that NASA has basically been stuck being a bus service to space instead of being tasked with pushing the boundaries of exploration and technology.
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space exploration for the our species is doomed
Fixed that for you. Also only true if governments are the only ones involved. Average citizens can't reliably see past the end of their own noses let alone 100 years down the road. The private sector will have to take up the task. I hope.
Just another hole (Score:2)
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Hopefully, CONgress moves fast (Score:2)
As to these private landers, the best thing that can happen is for NASA to put several on the moon and then have them repeat the feat on Mars.
Finally, if Trump/GOP really want to help new space, they would quit arguing over ISS and simply
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Tell me this: how do you explain the retro-reflective prism on the Moon's surface, that you can bounce a laser off of, and prove it did a round-trip to the Moon by measuring the lightspeed delay?
Isn't the standard answer to that that it was placed there by a rocket later? I don't think the argument was that we couldn't and still can't get to the moon, but rather that we didn't send people there back in the 60s.
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It was pretty amazing the way they launched a 10,000 square mile movie screen to fly over Florida so that they could project the Saturn V launch - not to mention the awesome sound system.
The clear path ... (Score:2, Insightful)
... should be to mine asteroids.
Talk about "security issues," like placing tariffs on imported cars because what if there's hostilities and we have all these foreign vehicles, how about our national dependency on those same foreigners for metals and minerals?
Had we not lost our goddam minds, we would have hospitable habitats for launching miners and for refining the ores before shipping to Earth or even manufacturing on the Moon and then using Amazon Prime, taking advantage of its free shipping.
Asteroid mining = fools gold (Score:1)
... should be to mine asteroids.
Mining asteroids is one of those stupid ideas that sounds great until you actually think through the economics of it and the practical realities of actually doing it. It requires technology substantially more advanced than any we have or are in danger of developing any time soon. It requires an economically sustainable space based economy and infrastructure. And even if we solve that problem by pretending such technology is within our grasp, the economics of asteroid mining still don't make any sense.
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TL;DR because I've already experienced such unimaginative thinking.
For reference, see shale oil mining.
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nope, read your kinetic energy link
A tungsten rod weighing 11 ton has the impact energy of only 9 tons of TNT...in other words, it's better to just use explosives on earth than waste time with any stupid wimpy-energy kinetic impactor from space. and the stuff can't be accurately targeted with its pathetic yield.
Weight from space in quantities humans could mine and refine is NOT like a nuke. Sure, a 1 kilometer wide asteroid is...but we're not talking about that.
Let's be real (Score:2, Interesting)
A mission that the government hasn't yet selected the vendors for isn't going to launch next year.
Of the vendors, only SpaceX has the technical capability to launch a payload to the moon on a few month's schedule, using the Falcon Heavy. However, there is no landing vehicle in existence at this time. Note that this has to be a cryogenic rocket, because it has to spend days in space before landing, unlike all of the existing SpaceX boosters. SpaceX boosters use a kerosene-based fuel and would freeze in the t
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Couldn't they try their hypergol engines for landing?
Re: Let's be real (Score:2)
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yes, I was just recalling something that might be more marketing spew than anything else, but there was talk of bigger system that would be appropriate for Mars landing.
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When Elon introduced Dragon 2, he said something about it being able to land on any body in this solar system. He didn't mention it needing a separate landing vehicle. But Dragon 2, as it's being built, doesn't have close to the necessary amount of delta-V. The Red Dragon that was formerly contemplated would have added fuel capacity, since it didn't need to carry people, but it also used aerobraking.
At this point, any proposal from SpaceX would be based on BFR.
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Robots/rovers can do everything humans can at 1/10 of the cost
..except get humans off this planet and living somewhere else.
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Odd. Life evolved here for billions of years with no need for space.
Tell that to the dinosaurs
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Odd. Life evolved here for billions of years with no need for space.
Tell that to the dinosaurs
Well, according to ST:VOY, the dinosaurs left. Into space. And they're more advanced!
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Trollololololol
Go back to 4chan or reddit, the adults are trying to have a conversation here.
We need both manned and robotic missions (Score:2, Insightful)
Manned missions are a deadend and a huge waste of money.
I could not disagree more. You can never declare any form of exploration a dead end before you have actually done the exploration. There are literally entire worlds to explore and things to discover that cannot be learned unless we actually send people there to learn them.
Robots/rovers can do everything humans can at 1/10 of the cost
They demonstrably cannot do everything humans can do nor can they do it anywhere near as fast or with similar flexibility. We don't have robots that capable here on Earth so your argument is dead before it even starts. A geologist dro
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Spirit and Opportunity took 8 years to cover the distance the Apollo astronauts covered in 3 days
It would take more than 8 years, and a lot more than a couple billion $$$, to get astronauts on Mars, so the robots still win.
good luck studying the effects of space travel on humans just using robots
If we don't send humans to space, we don't have to know the effects.