Comments on: Moon, Bitches

By: Bugboy

Bugboy — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:28:15 +0000

@Iceman: If you think they have a hard time getting the public enthused about sending a man to the moon, what makes you think they can get popular support to send tin cans? Manned space travel has one objective: to generate interest in space exploration. A tin can can’t do that.

By: Bugboy

Bugboy — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:23:15 +0000

All I have to say is we better get there before China claims squatter’s rights, if you think China will honor the international treaties on claiming territories on the Moon, I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya.

By: zak822

zak822 — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 16:31:32 +0000

Using solar satellites to produce electricity and transmitting by microwave to Earth was considered feasible even in the mid-seventies. I wrote a term paper on it for a tech school class.

A moon base, where manufacturing can be done in an environment that you can’t pollute, would greatly cut costs for the construction and maintenance of the satellite system. And it would greatly reduce the costs for placing them in orbit. The Moon 1/6 G is a lot easier to overcome than is a full Earth gravity and it’s a smaller gravity well in the bargain.

The real world benefits of our not having to depend on oil for electricy production are obvious.

And it would be a perfect springboard to Mars and the rest of the Solar System. Exploration in the hope of finding riches is as old as the human race.

By: RedBastardGod

RedBastardGod — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:39:47 +0000

There has to be an economic reason to return to the Moon. One incentive is to mine Helium-3 from the lunar soil as fuel for fusion reactors. Given the Peak Oil and fossil fuel – global warming problems, a working fusion reactor might be doable by the 2020s.

Forget about Mars. We won’t be going there for a long time.

By: Southern Quaker

Southern Quaker — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 22:21:45 +0000

The *only* reason we are thinking about going the Moon/Mars route is because Bush was casting around for something legacy-like to inspire folks the way his war-on-terror hasn’t managed (for some reason).

As a result, we have the politico managers at NASA forcing this stuff down scientists throats and cutting funding to some very important, scientifically valid missions. The astronomical community is publicly making the best of it, but it sucks.

Thanks for the legacy, W.

By: Iceman

Iceman — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:26:22 +0000

It doesn’t sound cool at all as far as I’m concerned – it’s a huge waste of money. Unmanned space flight can accomplish virtually all of the scientific advances of manned space flight at a tiny percentage of the cost, let alone the cost of a permanent moon base. They should put these Mars and Moon fantasies aside, and send only machines into space from now on.

By: Lettuce

Lettuce — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:06:45 +0000

A Moon base to aid the trip to Mars.

Excellent.

They can balst all that materiel from Earth to the Moon so they can launch from the Moon and thereby avoid Earth’s gravity.

Except…

How they getting the stuff to the Moon factory so they can build it?

This is stupidity raised to the highest level.

By: Sirkowski

Sirkowski — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 12:24:09 +0000

The Moon Liberation Front is pleased.

By: jerry

jerry — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 03:28:59 +0000

If they had planned this 14 years ago for today, I would have thought this was cool.

But now, 2020, 14 years from now? This idea is crap. Complete crap. Um, unless they plan on letting 60 year olds live up there. Then it’s cool, really really cool!!!!