NASA Estimates It Will Need $20 Billion To $30 Billion For Moon Landing (cnn.com) 241
NASA has touted its bold plan to return American astronauts to the moon by 2024 for months. Now we're starting to get an idea of how much it will cost. From a report: The space agency will need an estimated $20 billion to $30 billion over the next five years for its moon project, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told CNN Business on Thursday. That would mean adding another $4 billion to $6 billion per year, on average, to the agency's budget, which is already expected to be about $20 billion annually. Bridenstine's remarks are the first time that NASA has shared a total cost estimate for its moon program, which is called Artemis (after the Greek goddess of the moon) and could send people to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century. NASA wants that mission to include two astronauts: A man and the first-ever woman to walk on the moon.
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Yeah, it's not so bad, but I'm not sure I believe it. The SLS has been such a ridiculous boondoggle, and I'm not sure why anyone would expect it to suddenly produce a working rocket after so many years and billions of failing to do so. When congress picked the SLS over commercial launch (don't think that was NASA's decision), they were clearly focused on launching taxpayer dollars into their districts, not men to the moon.
Still, maybe there's hope for the rest of the components. NASA has always been bett
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It is cheap. The Apollo program cost around 25 bil.
The rumor was that Armstrong got about 18 dollars for travel expenses.
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That was the estimated cost in 1974. Adjusted for inflation, its closer to 100B. So yeah, cheap.
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Hell with that -- I say we send more rovers. Best post-warranty longevity I've seen in a while.
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Why would it be good for the sciences? Men went to the moon a bunch of times already. What is there left to learn from doing it again? Mars, sure.
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It's an opportunity to develop the technology to get to Mars, and space technology in general.
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Viking vs Spain (Score:2)
Why would it be good for the sciences? Men went to the moon a bunch of times already. What is there left to learn from doing it again? Mars, sure.
The Vikings discovered the new world and didn't go back. They were basically forgotten. Reduced to old stories that even their descendants doubted were true.
... admittedly poorly managed at times, especially the new peoples, but we can learn from these mistakes and seek progress in a better way.
Columbus went to the new world, there were followup voyages, followed by even more explorers from Spain, France, Britain and the Dutch. New lands, new resources, new foods, new medicines
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You're talking about Leif Erikson? He did go home. He just didn't find tons of gold and slaves so his stories weren't that exciting.
They found the sort of farmland they wanted, the sort of land they invaded and settled in part of England over. What they found was of immense value to their culture but it was a lost opportunity because they did not follow up.
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In Greenland they tried to settle. But conditions changed to harsher weather.
In Vineland/America they plundered the indian settlements, and you can not plunder against a few thousand inhabitants with three boats over a longer period of time. Unlike later, when Christians arrived in the americas, at that time america was densly settled with dozens of millions inhabitants.
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There's lots that can be learned. For one is the effects on materials after of 50 years of exposure to the lunar surface. I'd really like to know if there is any truth to the claim that the old lunar rovers could still work today if only given a fresh battery.
When going to the moon 50 years ago the missions were very short and limited in scope. All the devices used to get there were highly experimental, and we have a lot of experiments we can run yet. Let's put a telescope up there to look at the stars.
Ask SpaceX for a Quote (Score:2)
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It'll be good for space sciences, but probably not for the economy. You're incorrectly comparing to a zero base state ($0 spent vs $25 billion spent). The correction comparison has to take into account opportunity cost [investopedia.com] - comparing a moon shot's return on investment versus the next best alternative. In other words, to be good for the economy, that $25 billion spent on a moon shot has to result in more economic benefit than $25 billion sp
Re: Go for it (Score:2)
Given that there's very little scientific or commercial gain to be had from returning to the moon
And that's where your argument falls apart. Even just going for a single hop would have downstream benefits as far as science and technology are concerned, but that pales in comparison to the economic and scientific gains which could be realized from a sustained presence (and a continually expanding commercial involvement in space).
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They're still uneconomic for transporting goods, except for a niche overnight delivery market.
Nevertheless the cargo/freight air plane traffic dwarfs passenger traffic.
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Well, cynics would ask: how many percents of the school budget is that?
And if you would want to sell it better you would say: it is about one super carriers see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Republicans have always, very consistently been in favor of ballooning the military budget. It's not that hard to sell a bunch of slightly dotty elderly guys on the moon being a military objective. Then to sell Democrats on it we have the equality angle of sending a woman.
You thought Elon's estimates were way off ... (Score:2)
Nope (Score:2, Insightful)
"NASA wants that mission to include two astronauts: A man and the first-ever woman to walk on the moon."
NASA is a government funded organization and is not legally allowed to discriminate on the basis of gender or race (or and this is a social issue that actually does need fixed orientation). Declaring the gender of the astronauts in advance means they are doing exactly that.
All else being equal they should select the two best qualified astronauts, whether that is two white men or two minority women is irre
Re:Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends what you think the mission is. It's not (yet) discrimination on the basis of gender to only interview actresses to play a female role. Do you think the mission is actually to do science? No. The mission is to inspire a new generation, and that makes astronaut selection a casting decision.
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No but it is discrimination on the basis of gender to alter a role from male to female or vice versa or alter the race etc. Government agencies aren't allowed to discriminate on the basis of race and/or gender for mission selection either.
Just because blatantly unlawful discrimination is ignored or even praised on a daily basis as if white and male isn't a protected class or doesn't count doesn't make it lawful or mean it should be tolerated.
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But the right crew here is a man and a woman, because you want to inspire a new generation of both, and people identify better with others who look like them.
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How does it inspire someone to suggest they couldn't actually earn a spot without a handicap? Also, this isn't sports and about creating role models or inspiring someone, this is a scientific mission for the purpose of advancing (or reclaiming previous advancement) the human race.
It isn't the governments job to inspire people, its their job to promote our common interests. Men and women both have the common interest of knowing if they become an astronaut and can claim an achievement it is actually an achiev
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How does it inspire someone to suggest they couldn't actually earn a spot without a handicap?
Anyone in the astronaut program is amazingly qualified. The Apollo 11 astronauts were chosen simply because it was their turn in the rotation. Also, young people aren't that cynical.
It isn't the governments job to inspire people, its their job to promote our common interests.
You should at least finish a sentence before contradicting yourself.
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Ha! That's the way to send 'em to /dev/null!
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It isn't the governments job to inspire people,
Yes it is, what else would be its job?
its their job to promote our common interests.
Wow, is that not a contradiction to the first half of the sentence?
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P.S. the new generation doesn't need to see people with the same junk accomplishing things to be inspired, they are all people and people accomplishing things inspires them. All you have to do is keep your daughters away from people who are trying to beat them over the head with the message that girls can do things too and they won't have the idea that they couldn't do them in the first place. You also have to shelter your sons from the message that the girls can do everything they can do, only BETTER and t
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Or, you could create that new generation during the flight ...
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Do you think the mission is actually to do science?
Yup. "The effects of microgravity and low gravity on african-american males and hispanic lesbian women." Done.
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and that makes astronaut selection a casting decision.
Exactly. One reason Neil Armstrong was chosen to be the first man on the moon was because he was a civilian. Sure, he flew fighters while in the US Navy but at the time he was a civilian employee of NASA. Previous missions had military men "on loan" to NASA. The mission to the moon was (at it was supposedly such) a civil mission of space exploration, not a military beachhead to the high ground on the moon.
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They need to test all the systems for getting to the Moon, landing, EVA etc. with women. So far they have only tested with men.
Most of it will be similar, but the suits will be a bit different, and the spacecraft will need to support women's bodily functions (i.e. toilet, and for longer missions menstruation).
That's all very important for the longer missions to Mars.
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Elon Musk (Score:3)
Elon Musk can do it for $1 million and with cost savings the mission will pay for itself.
Falcon Heavy + Crew Dragon-Repulsive (Score:2)
Seriously, give SpaceX $200 for a technology demonstrator and this project may be done.
Without the NASA-enforced seawater contamination the hypergolics should work better.
Oh, right, this needs to spread $50M around fifty-five senators' districts. Nevermind, then. Wave to the SpaceX mining outpost when you arrive in eleven years.
Bounties are a better idea (Score:5, Interesting)
The article suggests that Space Launch System will be the workhorse vehicle that will be at the heart of this project. SLS is massively over budget, very much behind schedule, and has never flown.
SpaceX has shown that they can reliably and predictably and affordably deliver stuff to orbit. So I would favor a program where SpaceX rockets are the work horses for the moon project. If Blue Origin or anyone else can get their stuff flying reliably, they are welcome to the party also.
There is an old saying, attributed to Heinlein, that goes something like this: "Once you are in Earth orbit you are halfway to anywhere in the solar system." If you can reliably put stuff into Earth orbit, you can accumulate supplies there, assemble modules there, and launch a well-equipped setup from there.
The Apollo program was trying to win a race and put everything on one, single rocket. That's the most expensive and risky way you could possibly do it. Instead, send up some fuel tanks, and launch enough rockets to fuel them up. Send up the space equivalent of a shed and stock it with dried food and other stuff. Send up the oxygen and water.
Send up a "moon shuttle" in pieces and assemble it. It could be ridiculously stark and simple: a long stick with points for attaching things and with rockets at one end. It doesn't have to be pretty. Also send up some kind of moon landers, maybe even two different designs made by two different companies, and send both on the mission. (In fact, before the first moon shuttle leaves, maybe build a second one and have it ready as a rescue craft in case something goes wrong with the first one!)
When it's time to go, you just attach landers, supplies, living modules, and fuel modules to the moon shuttle, and it leaves Earth orbit and goes to Moon orbit. Landers drop and return. Then the shuttle returns to Earth orbit. The shuttle can be reused many times; if designed right, maybe the shuttles can be reused many times (or maybe those really need to be disposable, I don't know).
I am not any kind of expert but it seems to me that this plan is way better than getting a heavy-lift cargo rocket built, and launching a moon mission on it.
And I would propose that the government finance all this with a series of bounties. Pay some large sum for the first company to put a fuel tank in orbit. Pay a smaller sum for the second and third companies. Pay a nice amount for each kg of fuel delivered to a fuel tank in orbit. Pay a really large chunk for the first lander to safely land on the moon and return. And so on.
The best thing about bounties is that the government is only paying for success. (Dumping money into big government projects like SLS doesn't guarantee success.)
The above program would require developing expertise in assembling things in orbit, but once all the pieces were in place visiting the moon could become as routine as SpaceX launches are now.
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the shuttle can be reused many times; if designed right, maybe the shuttles can be reused many times (or maybe those really need to be disposable, I don't know).
Whoops, brain fault. I meant: "if designed right, maybe the landers can be reused many times (or maybe those really need to be disposable..."
The moon shuttle should last approximately forever. All the shuttle does is switch between moon orbit and Earth orbit. But maybe there aren't any near-term practical moon lander designs that are reusable;
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Uhuh, just send some parts up and assemble them in a space factory.
You do realize ISS was assembled on orbit, right?
This is why you get called a troll. 'cause you're a troll.
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Uhuh, just send some parts up and assemble them in a space factory.
You do realize ISS was assembled on orbit, right?
This is why you get called a troll. 'cause you're a troll.
TBH, his trollings are usually better. This was a limp knee-jerk; I was astonished when I looked to see who wasted their keystrokes on such a wimpy statement. I wonder if he is depressed?
That's cheap (Score:2)
Hugh Dryden told JFK that a moon landing would cost between 10 and 20 billion. In today's dollars, that's between $85 and $170 billion.
$20-30 Billion? (Score:2)
What's $10B among friends? How about funds for a border wall that can be diverted?
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That sounds logical. It sounds like Trump did in fact get Mexico to pay for the border wall.
Total fail? (Score:2)
Oh and the funding is still not allocated, the engineers are on easy-going mode until funding is
Artemis? (Score:2)
Artemis (after the Greek goddess of the moon)
Artemis is not he goddess of the moon. She is the huntress, sister of Apollo.
The goddess of the moon is Selene.
*facepalm*
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Artemis is the goddess of the moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis). Selene is as well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selene).
Greek mythology didn't have a pope to tell everyone what to think, so people mostly did their own thing. Although even with a pope christianity ended up with a trinity, so yeah.
the fuel costs have gone way up! (Score:2)
the fuel costs have gone way up!
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You can if you shield it decently.
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Or something like creating permanent bases in order to start mining titanium
I'd like to see your cost projections of setting up facilities, and mining 100,000 metric tons of titanium on the Moon, and shipping it to Earth surface.
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just aim the packages at your production facilities
Re: But... but... (Score:2)
No problem; SpaceX has the landing covered with Mr. Steven!
Re: But... but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Space mining won't be about extracting resources to use on Earth. It will be to extract resources to use in space so we don't have to launch them from Earth. When you're talking about reducing transport costs instead of increasing them the economics change drastically.
Re: But... but... (Score:2)
Eventually it will be. Initially yeah the biggest cost savings will be realized from being able to build stuff in space instead of launching it, but once you have the manufacturing capacity established you may as well throw some stuff back to earth, too, so that we can stop strip mining our wilderness.
Mine locally, manufacture locally, use locally (Score:2)
And FWIW, shipping down the gravity well is far less expensive than shipping things up.
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the real use is use the materials to build infrastructure and spacecraft in orbit or on the lunar surface
Why would you consider that a "real use" ? What's the point of having spacecraft orbiting the Moon ?
And FWIW, shipping down the gravity well far less expensive than shipping things up.
Well, you first have to build an industrial base on the Moon, requiring many tons of equipment shipped from the Earth. Why not just ship the things straight from Earth, and skip the Moon altogether ?
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the real use is use the materials to build infrastructure and spacecraft in orbit or on the lunar surface
Why would you consider that a "real use" ? What's the point of having spacecraft orbiting the Moon ?
Infrastructure/spacecraft in orbit can be a transportation hub. No landing capabilities need to be built-in, just the ability to fly between orbital hubs. Earth orbit, lunar orbit, mars orbit, phobos or deimos orbit, etc.
And FWIW, shipping down the gravity well far less expensive than shipping things up.
Well, you first have to build an industrial base on the Moon, requiring many tons of equipment shipped from the Earth. Why not just ship the things straight from Earth, and skip the Moon altogether ?
Bootstrapping. You don't have to send a complete base from earth to the moon. You just need the minimal equipment to make the tools that you need for local construction using local resources. A small 3D printer make a larger 3D printer, repeat until you have one that can make modules.
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We could seal huge caves for warehousing and living quarters that would also serve to protect the 'loonies' from cosmic radiation.
Unfortunately, there are already some folks living in the caves under the Moon:
Nude on the Moon [wikipedia.org]
But definitely a reason to stay on the Moon.
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The dilemma is: the moon has basically nothing to support a colony (yes, somewhere is water ... ok), but is easy to reach.
Mars is harder to reach but has everything we need to support a colony (yes, probably not everywhere).
Very little of the earth's crust is accessible (Score:2)
The Earth's crust is .66% titanium, the expense is in refining it not mining it.
How much of that is accessible? The material has to essentially be on the surface of the crust for us to get to it. Various geologic processes keep some material deeper in the crust than we can access.
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SpaceX isn't getting anyone anywhere on time, on budget, or alive.
I think you misspelled ULA.
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SpaceX is rarely on time, but under budget, and we have no real data for the alive part.
ULA is never on time, always severely over budget, but alive.
NASA is never on time, always severely over budget, and frequently dead (the space shuttle being about the most dangerous thing that ever flew).
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NASA is ... frequently dead (the space shuttle being about the most dangerous thing that ever flew).
Are you for real?
Of the 135 launches of the Space Shuttle, 14 people have died in two missions; Challenger and Columbia.
For an experimental platform that was horribly compromised by the competing demands put on the designers, the shuttle flew exceptionally well.
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The Challenger explosion shouldn't have happened. The upper management over-ruled the engineering team due to optics to get it flying. If they had waited for things to warm up everything probably would have been fine.
Re:But... but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Columbia probably wouldn't have happened either if they'd continued using the foam that was first used rather then changing to a more environmentally safe foam.
Re:But... but... (Score:5, Funny)
Just buy a $50 smartphone second-hand and blast them there rockets already!
Who needs $30 billion?! For what?!
Roaming charges for that smartphone.
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You have a Canadian plan too?
Yes. Once they build a new robotic arm, they will stick an electronic thumb on the end of it and hitch a ride.
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The NASA budget has stayed the same when accounted for inflation since 1960 and the technology and fuel costs have gone down. What has gone up is pork spending and interdepartmental expenditures and inefficiencies.
Tolerance risk and passion for exploration (Score:5, Interesting)
The NASA budget has stayed the same when accounted for inflation since 1960 and the technology and fuel costs have gone down. What has gone up is pork spending and interdepartmental expenditures and inefficiencies.
What has gone up ... err, sorry ... what has gone down is our tolerance for risk and our passion for exploration. I grew up around an aerospace engineer who worked on part of the Apollo project. People talk about the space race with the soviets, that may have loosened the wallets of congress, but on the scientific and engineering side there was this incredible enthusiasm to get mankind into space and to explore. That is what drove the 1960s geeks. Now our engineering talent dreams of a new social media platform for society to waste their time on, and they complain about their personal fulfillment. You know what those 1960 Apollo geeks did not lack? Fulfillment!
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Now our engineering talent dreams of a new social media platform for society to waste their time on, and they complain about their personal fulfillment.
Would you really be surprised? The law of diminishing returns has made manned exploration of space far more difficult, unless you enjoy the full-filling work of just going back to the same place you've been before. Except that it's not really true at all. Your generalisations only serve to show that you know a single engineer and get the rest of your talking points from the news. There is no lack of fulfillment or enthusiasm at JPL or NASA for any of their current missions and the constant and continuing de
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Now our engineering talent dreams of a new social media platform for society to waste their time on, and they complain about their personal fulfillment.
Would you really be surprised? The law of diminishing returns has made manned exploration of space far more difficult, unless you enjoy the full-filling work of just going back to the same place you've been before.
I don't know if you looked closely but space is hardly filled with a diminishing number of places to go, explore, exploit, etc.
Except that it's not really true at all. Your generalisations only serve to show that you know a single engineer and get the rest of your talking points from the news. There is no lack of fulfillment or enthusiasm at JPL or NASA for any of their current missions and the constant and continuing development and work they do.
Actually I know the type at JPL and NASA quite well, including numerous current engineers. Robots are fun and useful, but there isn't any shortage of support for manned missions amongst these engineers. Offer them the chance to work on a manned mission and they'd likely be very excited. And robotic missions are nothing new, they were part of the Apollo era effort too, Surveyor for e
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Well yes, the deaths of tens of millions in WW2 and the threat of global thermonuclear war may put losing a few astronauts in a different perspective. Today long life is less of a gift and more something that's expected, even though a few are cut short. It's not just medicine but product safety, road safety, work safety, food safety, building codes etc. and the only place we really accept lethal risk is in extreme sports. Plus that we're not really exploring all that much anymore, any landing site will prob
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Plus that we're not really exploring all that much anymore, any landing site will probably have been surveyed by robots and a base pre-built before any humans arrive.
Robots are not that versatile as explorers, its more that's all we can send at the moment. With respect to close in exploration, say on the surface, humans are far more versatile. Humans will do far more science once they get there. Our mars rovers are miraculous, but a human with a hammer, drill and sample case will do more.
False (Score:2)
This is so easy to disprove with a simple google search that gives you multiple sources. During the Apollo program the NASA budget peaked at 4.5% of the federal budget (which is the most useful metric). It sharply fell after Apollo and has been declining to around 0.5% in recent years.
Now, as a government organization NASA is of course a lot about pork spending (not as much as the military probably), so they could go a lot "further" with their budget if they worked like, say, SpaceX or just stopped trying t
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Just buy a $50 smartphone second-hand and blast them there rockets already!
This idea was floated already in the movie Iron Sky where an astronaut named Washington lands on the far side of Moon and discovers a secret Nazi base:
Nazi scientist Doktor Richter examines Washington and obtains his smartphone, which he later recognizes as having more computing power than the 1940s-style computers of the Fourth Reich, enabling its use as a control unit to complete their giant space battleship Götterdämmerung.
Iron Sky [wikipedia.org]
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Everyone is walking around with computers in their pockets that are infinitely more powerful than the ones in the 1960s that put Man on the Moon, right? So what's the problem?! Just buy a $50 smartphone second-hand and blast them there rockets already! Who needs $30 billion?! For what?!
Actually, there aren't any rockets that can go there yet. Those will have to be built. There are some that could put a lander on the moon, but nothing capable to putting a human occupied lander down. They probably have a handle on the electronics but what they are sending up will probably have more electronics than a couple of sattellites which can run into half a billion each. On top of all that, they'll most likely need to build a new command center capable of running a moon landing and the communications
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There's absolutely no need to do it in one launch when 2 is cheaper. A couple of Falcon Heavy launches can get the hardware where it needs to be.
The only things that need to be built are the lunar lander and ascent module. Those aren't simple, but they can be easily funded by canceling the SLS program.
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There's absolutely no need to do it in one launch when 2 is cheaper. A couple of Falcon Heavy launches can get the hardware where it needs to be.
Ya, we could probably make due with just Falcon Heavies if that was the plan, but that's not the plan they're trying to pay for is it? Even discounting multiple launches would make for more complexity and more cost, the main issue is that there is the plan for a large crew section that will require a heavy lifter. Just like the SLS us designed by congress, this plan is also designed to do certain things that are not a hard requirement for getting to the moon, and some of those things can't be done by a Falc
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Trump could not get 5 Billion for his wall. They are certainly not going to give him 20-30 Billion for this. That would make him look good, and we can't have that.
The wall was more of a vanity project. The left didn't want a long standing vanity project to a right wing president. It's a lot harder to sell a $5bill per year vanity project that glorifies one man than a $4-$6bill science project that glorifies the country. (remember the $5bill was just for first year of wall building- this was going to take several years- and the $5bill was in addition to the $2bill he was already granted)
I could be wrong and the democrats may block it but they'll be more likely to b
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In theory, yes... certainly getting something off the surface of the moon doesn't use as much fuel as getting something off of the earth.
And of course, if we can manufacture fuel on the moon with the raw resources that we can find there (which I understand there is some hope for), then the whole thing starts to make even that much more sense.
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Fuel is dirt cheap compared to the hardware, especially compared to hardware on the Moon.
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Fuel is dirt cheap compared to the hardware, especially compared to hardware on the Moon.
Sure about that? If you need 1 launch to put a crew into orbit & on their way to Mars, but (for example) another 9 launches to put enough fuel in orbit, then that fuel isn't cheap. Even if it were 'free' to manufacture on Earth.
Besides: given enough time, even a relatively small installation may do to produce the fuel required for a Mars mission. Launch fuel production unit first, get it working, launch Mars mission a while later. If that installation is cheaper to launch & operate (on the Moon)
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another 9 launches to put enough fuel in orbit, then that fuel isn't cheap
A few million dollar per launch, with fully reusable launchers, compared to a few trillion (at least) to build a fuel factory on the Moon.
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Probably not what we're going to send to Mars, because you have to send an equally big rocket to get back, piggybacked on your initial thruster. That makes it HUUUUUGE. Now imagine keeping people alive on that for a year.
Much larger than that. The rocket that takes off and sends you to Mars needs to be 15-20x the size of the rocket that brings you back, unless you can make fuel on site, so the whole thing is 20x the one-way size, not 2x. It becomes prohibitive without either some sort of ISRU, or launching a bunch of fuel to Mars separately.
Given the months you'd have to hang out at Mars waiting for the launch window to return, ISRU makes a lot of sense. But trusting that it will actually work, the first time we try it?
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... to get to Mars.
You're wrong. The moon is part of Mars! :)
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Do you know how many people died sailing to the Americas only a few hundred years ago?
Not that I'm saying that we should disregard the safety of the people that we send into space, but how unsafe it might be should not be a deterrent to actually doing it, it should only provide an incentive to make it as safe as we technogically can.
That said, I believe th
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Are you suggesting that a woman may not necessarily be as able as a man to get just as much science and engineering done?
GP suggested sending the best two people regardless of their race or gender.
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While it might be true that women in the field happen to be statistically rare, that is not necessarily a reflection of any hard correlation between sex and actual ability.
In other words: just send the best candidates.
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As a taxpayer, I don't feel good about so much money being spent to get to the moon and then instead of sending the people who will get the most science/engineering done, they're insisting that one of them be a member of a protected class.
The whole thing is a publicity stunt to begin with. The point is to inspire people, not to get science done. Therefore it actually makes sense to pick the crew that inspires the most people, instead of the crew best at science. Sometimes the diversity hire is the right choice!
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In that case I don't think it's prudent to spend 20 to 30 billion dollars for the sake of inspiration.
What a bizarre claim. If it inspires people to be 1% more productive for a decade, we come out way ahead (and the morale effect of the the Apollo missions was much larger than that).
Re: Billions to appease feminists? (Score:2)
I will say this. I have no idea what the significance of explicitly sending a woman to the moon it as O see that goal as being directly counterproductive as it makes it seem as though it is different to send a woman than a man. I would instead suggest just sending a qualified crew of scientists, pilots and engineers. I do not believe that if you were to look for the best qualifi
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If it were possible to develop advanced robotics with AI we would be doing it.
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Drones are not advanced robotics with AI and there is no such thing as self driving vehicles. There is already tons of money being spent on that.
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That's a lot of money for a 'green screen'.
C'mon, no one believe the moon landing was shot using a green screen! They used yellow screens back then.
Fun fact: Doctor Who was a very early adopter of "colour-separation overlay", which used a yellow screen, but the earliest seasons actually composited some special effects "live in camera" using a half-silvered mirror. The first seasons are pretty amazing once you discover their special effects budget was something like $500/episode, and it was shot like theater, with almost no cuts in editing.