Man on the Moon.

[JoBelle]

Heard this on Paul Harvey this morning.

Pres. Bush wants to put a man on the moon. The final choice has not yet been made, though it's a tie between Osama Bin Laden and Former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill!

😀

On a bettter note, I am happy to at least HEAR about future space exploration being on the table. It makes conversation material among the masses and that's always good! Apparently right now it is supported by only 50 % of the U.S. population. That's about the same number who supported American's FIRST round of moon exploration.

Then of course, there are the ones who think it never happened the first time!🙄

And on yet another hand, I've always been a freak for the oceans right here at home. There is so much yet to discover here, that I feel torn between exploring other worlds when we don't even fully know our own!

Ah well...all in due time,
Jo

 

[Deleted member 2452]

damn girl, you beat me to it!

i was going to post a thread about this topic.
i'm against it. i thin kit's a horrible waste of mulla
a permanent base on the moon, and then on mars is something for my grand kids to worry about, or try for if you will. we have enough important stuff going on right here at home, and the rest of the earth to occupy our efforts, and resourses.
truth be told ,i fear he's worried about his present political situation, and is trying to pull a bill clinton, and re-direct the pulics/media's attention.

this is one issue i disagree with pres. bush. another would be stem cell research, but that's another thread.😱

steev

 

[BigJim]

Stem cell research? I think we might agree on that subject Steve.

So President Bush wants to be shot into space, eh? Well if his father had only pulled out on time he WOULD have been. 🙁


*Jim --- who is fast degenerating towards the level of an audience member on the Jerry Springer show*

 

[Haltickling]

Oh, they should shoot up a lot more than one man! How about all corrupt politicians? Okay, that's definitely not within the NASA transportation capacity... 🙄

 

[JoBelle]

Oh, they should shoot up a lot more than one man! How about all corrupt politicians? Okay, that's definitely not within the NASA transportation capacity... 🙄

THAT is funny! Very good Hal. Very good! I say we deport them all to an island and let them fight it out!

J.

 

[WraithTickler]

Being a Sci Fi buff, I think this idea is neat, might be of great interest to future space exploration, and is probably a waste of money in the time being, but I can say I'm actually enthused by it. Assuming NASA gets it right (I have my doubts), this could years and years lead to the exploration terraformation of other planets with greater ease. It has to start somewhere I suppose, though I wish the budge might be a bit more reasonable before chosing such a time.

Who knows though, future generations might look back on George W the way we look back on the others presidents for their bold steps towards space exploration.

 

[Shem the Penman]

I suspect this will be a typical Bush administration move -- make a grandiose pronouncement, then underfund it and forget about it. I'm not holding my breath.

In any case, they seem to be angling to pay for this by cutting the rest of NASA's budget, which raises the question of what's going to happen to NASA's contributions to planetary science and astronomy. Just today it was announced that the Hubble Space Telescope will no longer be serviced; will there be any money left to replace it when it finally breaks down and falls, or will it all be going to Dubya's moonshot?

 

[JPie1]

personally although I think space exploration is interesting can you imagine how much money it will take to accomplish all that Bush is talking about, wow its a grand statement by a man that loves to make grand statements but there is so much else that needs funding that is so so much more important. And who do you think would get alot of the contract money for building what it takes to make this work...I am sure alot of big business croonies...I just don't trust Bush, not one bit. I think its another ploy. I say forget about it.

 

[JoBelle]

*sigh*

Space exploration is a fact in human developement. Whether it's Dubya or someone else, I think the merits of science are worth accomplishing what we can.

It may very well be poli-hype as I like to call it, but just think about the possible outcome. Of all the things to spend money on....this ranks high for me. Unfortunately, in my eyes, there is just too much potential to say forget it. If he doesn't follow through on his own, perhaps what so many assume is an obvious con trick (and it may well be) could actually turn out to be a stepping stone that a future preseident (or other country for that matter) can build on!!


Jo

 

[Fairfeather]

The question in my mind is...if we are suddenly changing course to build a base on the moon, what becomes of this half-finished white elephant called the international space station that we spent the last decade harping on? Does it's funding get cut too?

 

[Deleted member 2452]

The question in my mind is...if we are suddenly changing course to build a base on the moon, what becomes of this half-finished white elephant called the international space station that we spent the last decade harping on? Does it's funding get cut too?

yup! all funding on that feeding trough gets cut.
plus fundingthe space shuttle program is drasticly reduced.

steve

 

[Knox The Hatter]

Yet another round of meaningless, stupid bushshit...

 

[His Divine Shadow]

While it may cost loads of money to actually get to the moon and beyond, there are ways to make it back. For example: the asteroid belt. Those rocks are chock full of valuable elements, including some that are almost nonexistant on earth. If we actually get to the moon and Mars, someone could set up a mining operation, and with any luck, make back the money spent tenfold. Of course, there are still a whole lot of advances needed, but my point is that space doesn't have to be a purely scientific venture, it can bring something back. And of course, there is always what will happen when we exhast the earth's ability to support us, and the earlier we find a place to stay while it recovers, the better.


Well, that's my take, believe it if you wish.
HDS

 

[Dr. Bill Kobb]

I think it'd be neat if that Martian robot rover that landed was able to reach that dried lakebed/crater, scoop out a dried cell of some Martian lifeform, bring it back to Earth, and we could, given the recent advances in DNA research, bring the lil' green guy back to life(like a sea monkey!). Don'tcha just know there'd be some drastically bad consequences, though. He'd probably keep growing and growing....or he'd have some terrible virus that we're not immune to or something equally awful. Then again, maybe I've just seen way too many bad 50's sci-fi flicks.

 

[BigJim]

I think space exploration is as inevitable as was the spread of European peoples into the Americas and the Oceanic region. Like that ever westward spread I think it will be an immense commercial sucess and the space race will be very much for minerals and heavy elements present in rocky planets like Mercurey, Pluto and Venus. When we eventually go interstellar the stars that corporations will love the most will be the teeny red ones that are pretty much invisible in the sky. "Type M's" as they're known will probably host necklaces of planets very much like Mercury and the larger asteroids like Ceres and Juno. This means that they'll be the richest in mineral deposits and precious metals. (Think entire planetary systems like the Witwatersrand and Kimberly in South Africa.) There's loads of these stars within spitting distance of Sol: Wolf 424 at about 5 LY, which is a binary; Barnard's Star at between five and six LY; Ross 154 at just over 9 LY, Lalande 21185 and Lalande 25372 at around 4 1/2 LY each... etc. None of these stars are visible with the naked eye, because they're so dim; which makes you appreciate hugely bright stars like Rigel and Betelgeuse (among the brightest ones visible) when they're about 700 and 900 LY distant respectively. These stars are so bucking fig it beggars the imagination!

The nearest stars that could have a temperate zone that would be similar to Sol's would be Tau Ceti at about 8 1/2 LY (Type G yellow like Sol), Epsilon Eridani at about 12 LY (Type K orange) and Alpha Centauri at 4.25 LY. (Might be difficult to live in because it's a ternary system. It was originally a binary consisting of a Type G primary and a Type K seconday; but these two captured a third Type M red star, which has orbited them at around 950 AU distance ever since. The first two were named Alpha Centauri A & B, with the interlope being monikered Proxima Centauri, for obvious reasons.)


One thing we don't know about yet (at least, WE don't know about it; I'm certain plenty of research on the black budget has gone into it) is the effect that interstellar space travel would have on our bodies. Our bodies use the rythyms of the sun and the moon to control their biological routines. Travelling out of the area of their influence would cause our body clocks to alter with possible ramifications on our base DNA. Living on a planet with no moon for instance, would have long term effects on the female menstrual cycle. Icky eh? But work needs to be done to find out about it.

 

[Haltickling]

Quite right, Jim. But there's still a damn long way to go till we're able to do interplanetary travel, let alone interstellar trips.

At the current state-of-art technology, a one way trip to the nearest neighbor Alpha Centauri would take 36000 years! Even to Mars, it'd take over 3 years, with no chance of just turning around in case of problems. They only fair chance to do it safely would be at least two spaceships, each big enough to house all crews. The first rule of desert crossing: Never try it alone!

We'd have to develop something like artificial gravitation to prevent muscle atrophy and osteoporosis, which inevitably happen during prolonged space trips in weightlessness.

We'd have to develop something like a very powerful magnetic shield to deflect cosmic radiation and micro-meteorites (which have the destruction power of an airplane crash, even if they are not bigger than a dust particle). No one knows how to transport and fuel the necessary generators for sufficient electricity supply to build such a strong magentic field, and we have no experience whatsoever about the effects of such strong fields on the human body (remember the "Philadelphia Experiment"?)

We still haven't got the knowledge to build a closed, self-supporting ecosystem on our own home planet, because we don't know enough about the complexity of climate and the ecosphere. Several years ago, such an experiment was abandoned because it didn't work (I can't recall the project name though). But we'd need this knowledge to build a station on the moon or Mars, because otherwise the logistics would quickly become unmanageable.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try it; even the longest journey begins with the first step. But it's nonsense to promise the invention of a car even before we have invented the wheel, which is exactly what Bush did to distract from more pressing problems, and maybe boost his reelection on the way. That's irresponsible.

And I have no doubt that we will finally overcome all these obstacles, but I doubt it will happen in this century. Maybe a moon station, yes, that's still in our backyard.

Before we'll be able to manage such immense projects, we will need to stop wars, hunger, most diseases, poverty, overpopulation, and the destruction of our home planet. Otherwise mankind will not exist long enough to get halfway through the problems a long space trip would pile up.

Just the thoughts of a sci-fi fan with a little scientific knowledge and a lot of scepticism... 🙄

 

[BigJim]

They only fair chance to do it safely would be at least two spaceships, each big enough to house all crews. The first rule of desert crossing: Never try it alone!

They didn't do the Apollo landing that way though, did they? I agree with you as it happens, but I don't think it'll happen. Not till it's commercially viable anyway.

We'd have to develop something like artificial gravitation to prevent muscle atrophy and osteoporosis, which inevitably happen during prolonged space trips in weightlessness.

That's the highest on a long list of priorities. They better come up with something better than that centrifugal force idea, where the ship keeps turning end over end and cartwheels it's arse all the way to Mars!

We'd have to develop something like a very powerful magnetic shield to deflect cosmic radiation and micro-meteorites (which have the destruction power of an airplane crash, even if they are not bigger than a dust particle). No one knows how to transport and fuel the necessary generators for sufficient electricity supply to build such a strong magentic field, and we have no experience whatsoever about the effects of such strong fields on the human body (remember the "Philadelphia Experiment"?)

I remember it very well! Now consider the pace of human evolution. Consider that said experiment was about invisibility and interdimensionality. Now also consider that it was done 61 years ago...

Black budget anyone?

And I have no doubt that we will finally overcome all these obstacles, but I doubt it will happen in this century. Maybe a moon station, yes, that's still in our backyard.

A moon station and a planting of the flag on Mars, is my guess. I think there'll also be a lot more construction in orbit. A ship big enough to fly people to Mars with all the supplies and oxygen, not to mention bulky artificial gravity machinery, couldn't break from the surface without a shit-load of energy being wasted. Such ships would be built in orbital dockyards and never actually touch a planet's surface. Even on arrival at Mars they'd drop a landing shuttle.

Before we'll be able to manage such immense projects, we will need to stop wars, hunger, most diseases, poverty, overpopulation, and the destruction of our home planet. Otherwise mankind will not exist long enough to get halfway through the problems a long space trip would pile up.

Not at all. It's perfectly possible for these infantile attitudes to be carried in the colonial-galactic era. The only thing is they'd be magnified in space.

I find your lack of faith disturbing... 😀😀😀

 

[Haltickling]

I find your lack of faith disturbing... 😀😀😀

And I find your lack of reality disturbing! 😛

Seriously: Given that we still have no idea about the true nature of gravity, your faith in finding some means to artificially create it in the near future is quite astounding.

As to comparing the Apollo mission of a few weeks with a mission to Mars, that's more than just one step further. You may cross the Mojave desert or the Sinai in just one vehicle, but not the Sahara.

Okay, let's agree to a moon station. Did you know there's already one man in USA who sells big real-estate on the moon? The prices per acre is quite small, but think of the development cost! 🙄 He found a loophole in the international space treaties: No single state must take possession of the moon. But that treaty doesn't say anything about private claims, so that American claimed large areas of the moon privately, and he even has an international patent on this idea!

In a former company I worked for (Thomas Cook Travel), we sold NASA certificates which entitle the buyers to fly on the first thousand commercial trips to the moon, and we even sold travel guidebooks along with it. Mostly those things were bought as some extravagant birthday presents... 😎

 

[BigJim]

And I find your lack of reality disturbing! 😛

Damn deja vu again.......

Seriously: Given that we still have no idea about the true nature of gravity, your faith in finding some means to artificially create it in the near future is quite astounding.

Ah, I didn't mean one would be available in the near future; I meant one would be available eventually. On top of that, scientific breakthroughs enter the public arena many years after they are first discovered and put to practical use. I'll make a point of explaining that after I post Part 5 of my seires. It delves a lot into the technology available outside the public areana.

We don't need to know what creates gravity or how it does it. We just need to know that it does happen under certain circumstances. Mass attracts to mass because of gravitons. That's about the limit of my knowledge. What mainstream science has to do is find some way of artificially raising the relative mass of a heavy (and probably artificial) element so that it becomes the relative gravity source to the people in the ship. Switching it on too soon would stetch em somewhat.

As to comparing the Apollo mission of a few weeks with a mission to Mars, that's more than just one step further. You may cross the Mojave desert or the Sinai in just one vehicle, but not the Sahara.

Not a bad point actually, I hadn't thought of it that way. But one man's Sahara, is another's child's sand-pit. If the vehicle I was crossing the sahara in was a Eurofighter-Typhoon, I'd be quite comfortable doing it unescorted; if it was a camel, I'd suddenly develop monophobia.

Okay, let's agree to a moon station. Did you know there's already one man in USA who sells big real-estate on the moon? The prices per acre is quite small, but think of the development cost! 🙄 He found a loophole in the international space treaties: No single state must take possession of the moon. But that treaty doesn't say anything about private claims, so that American claimed large areas of the moon privately, and he even has an international patent on this idea!

And his claim stands up to international law? I could understand if it was just valid in American law, because after all, one state there declares it illegal to walk down a street with an ice-cream cone in your coat pocket.

Personally I don't fancy the idea of buying lunar real estate. Not firm enough to shag on baby, yeah! 😀

In a former company I worked for (Thomas Cook Travel), we sold NASA certificates which entitle the buyers to fly on the first thousand commercial trips to the moon, and we even sold travel guidebooks along with it. Mostly those things were bought as some extravagant birthday presents... 😎

I think commercial trips to the moon are a way off yet. 🙁 It'll be some time before Robert Hayes and Julie Haggerty can save our butts. 😀

 

[Deleted member 2452]

what makes gravity happen

it was taught to me back in high school, that gravity was created by the mass of the planet, AND the atmosphere around it. hence the moon having so little gravity.

in nasa's infinate lack of wisdom, only one ship will make the trip to mars. i agree it should be a ship built in space, for space travel, and haul a shuttle for trips to the surface.

steve

 

[Haltickling]

Sorry areenactor, there must have been a misunderstanding: Gravity is solely determined by mass, and the Earth can only hold the atmosphere because of the gravity created by its mass. The moon can't hold an atmosphere because it has just 1/6 of the Earth's mass.

Jim, the current scientific model of gravity is that of mass creating a space deformation around itself. Imagine a stretched rubber sheet, and several iron balls lying on it. The heavy balls create bumps in the normally two-dimensional surface. Now transport the model one dimension higher: Mass creates a "bump" in three-dimensional space, and it even influences time: Super-precision clocks on high mountains show a very slight difference in time if compared to the same clocks on sea level, where they are much closer to the gravity center. The clocks in the spacelab are constantly corrected by computers.

According to current physics, all kinds of force happen through exchange of quantum particles, in gravity's case the gravitons. Some scientists doubt the existence of such gravitons, thinking that gravity is not a force like the other three (weak and strong nuclear, and electromagnetic force), but an inherent geometrical component of space and therefore a mere mathematical influence. Anyway, there's no experimental proof for gravitons yet.

Gravitation is by far the weakest force, and you'd need a huge mass to create a substantial gravity on board a spacecraft. Due to the principle of mass inertia, you'd need an enormous amount of energy to accelerate a spacecraft like this, similar to moving a planet!

The only theoretical solution would be to invent another method to curve space, some technics like an artificial black hole. Until then, we'd have to stick to the centrifugal method.

 

[BigJim]

Re: what makes gravity happen

it was taught to me back in high school, that gravity was created by the mass of the planet, AND the atmosphere around it. hence the moon having so little gravity.

The complete and utter brainlessness of some teachers never ceases to amaze me, although given my experience of them, it should have done by now.

Atmosphere is made up of gaseous components (Duuuuuuuuh😀) such as oxygen, argon, hydrogen, helium, nitrogen etc etc etc. Because these elements are so light compared to metals and rocks, only the largest and most massive planetoidal bodies, can generate the gravitational pull to hold on to them. This is why the moon has no atmos; because it has one 6th the mass and thus one 6th the gravity of Earth. It doesn't have the strength to hold onto gasses around it; they just float away. A planet like Jupiter (a planet so massive, it is bigger and more massive than all the other 8 known planets put together) has an atmosphere immensely thicker than ours.

in nasa's infinate lack of wisdom, only one ship will make the trip to mars. i agree it should be a ship built in space, for space travel, and haul a shuttle for trips to the surface.

steve

Definately seems to be the wiser choice. Even Mars at a third the mass and gravity of Earth would cause huge amounts of energy to be spent getting of it's surface.

 

[BigJim]

Jim, the current scientific model of gravity is that of mass creating a space deformation around itself. Imagine a stretched rubber sheet, and several iron balls lying on it. The heavy balls create bumps in the normally two-dimensional surface. Now transport the model one dimension higher: Mass creates a "bump" in three-dimensional space, and it even influences time: Super-precision clocks on high mountains show a very slight difference in time if compared to the same clocks on sea level, where they are much closer to the gravity center. The clocks in the spacelab are constantly corrected by computers.

According to current physics, all kinds of force happen through exchange of quantum particles, in gravity's case the gravitons. Some scientists doubt the existence of such gravitons, thinking that gravity is not a force like the other three (weak and strong nuclear, and electromagnetic force), but an inherent geometrical component of space and therefore a mere mathematical influence. Anyway, there's no experimental proof for gravitons yet.

Gravitation is by far the weakest force, and you'd need a huge mass to create a substantial gravity on board a spacecraft. Due to the principle of mass inertia, you'd need an enormous amount of energy to accelerate a spacecraft like this, similar to moving a planet!

The only theoretical solution would be to invent another method to curve space, some technics like an artificial black hole. Until then, we'd have to stick to the centrifugal method.

Hmmm, I saw that program too. Good wasn't it?

 

[phatteus]

OK back to the point, and away from the theoretical science lesson:

We are slightly forgetting why President Kennedy wanted to go to the Moon; Because the Russians wanted to go there too!
The Space race was an illegitimate child of the Cold War. THe Russians put a satellite into orbit first, and put a man into Space first. There was no way in Hell that Jack was gonna let the "Commies" beat him to the Moon! So, he swore to the American People that the United States of America would send a man to the moon and return him safely to the Earth. Thus "began" the Space Program as we know it. The Saturn V rocket was conceived, The Lunar Module was built, and for several years, over the course of ten Apollo Missions, some of them successful in what they were meant to accomplish, some of them not so successful, some of them not even meant to leave the atmosphere of Earth, the American Space Program tried to get to the Moon.
If memory serves, the Russians actually shot a man "to" the moon, but miscalculated the trajectory, and the unfurtunate gentlemen were lost. (I don't know how true that story is, I am recalling a story I heard long ago.)
But, in 1969, the Apollo 11 mission succeeded in finally landing two men on the lunar surface. Several missions following that also brought men to the moon, but to this day, only members of the Nasa Space program have set foot on the Moon, and the Russians (as far as has been told) never made it there.
THis is not to say that I am opposed to the further exploration of Space. In fact, quite the opposite. Now we can get on with the real reason for Space Exploration: The exploration of Space, and start to get away from the politics. There is no doubt in my mind that Pres. Bush has his own interests in mind when he says he wants to send people to the Moon and Mars, but Nasa (hopefully) will use the extra funding and time to develop GOOD space stations, and worthwhile missions. Let's all hope and pray!

 

[TickledToDeath]

Space exploration......fine........so much out there and so much to learn HOWever........Ponder This: A space station IS indeed built on the Moon or some other planet close by........a station large enough to be a "City" Who will be put there and who will be left here.
Eventually, stations may be constructed on Mars or moons there around and then other planetoids etc. Again, who goes and who and or what will be left here?


Just a thought.🙄


TTD