I can't go?
Posted on 08/03/2007 6:54:15 AM PDT by Fitzcarraldo
Water on the Moon remains unconfirmed. (It could be confirmed with a relatively inexpensive unmanned landing mission to the lunar poles.) There is little or no carbon dioxide there, either, and there is no other source of carbon. You need to use rockets to brake to a landing on the Moon, hence additional fuel.
For a relatively small addition in escape energy, you can get to Mars, brake to a landing using its atmosphere, and have all the chemical components at hand to begin industrial operations - from what we know already.
I can't go?
Unconfirmed.
“M A R S Mars, Bitches!” - Dave Chappelle
007, I couldn’t help but think of Black Bush.
Have a great weekend!
IMO in the case of manned exploration of Mars, unless you put a very high "non-monetary" value on "being there", the answer is no: it's easy to think of more productive scientific, economic and military uses for the money.
Nobody cares. NASA funding remains what it was and the excitement has been totally gone since the second Shuttle disaster.
Some water vapor might be venting from a couple of craters. You'd have to get really serious about mining to recover any He3 and there is still no commerical use for it.
The Moon is a diversion on the critical path to space resource self-sufficiency beyond Earth. Mars has all the components, in large enough quantities necessary to sustain an independent human colony without resupply from Earth. The Moon cannot ever hope to match Mars in terms of resources and hence will always be a resource sink in space operations.
The "might" could be verified with relatively inexpensive unmanned landers - instead NASA comes up with a multi-billion dollar Moon program, and uses that "might" as a teaser, instead of quickly sending out the probes (it could be done cheaply in less than a year) to check.
During Clinton’s administration Neil Armstrong said we should return to the moon. During the Bush Administration, Neil Armstrong said we shouldn’t bother returning to the moon. It’s not hard to tell that Armstrong is a Democrat, is it?
Amazing that next to no spacecraft have been sent to the moon since Apollo. It’s like it doesn’t exist. It could be done cheaply and by any country with any kind of space program. They could even check up on Hoagland’s glass skyscrapers—yes or no.
The moon is a military foothold.
Mars may get PC eliminated.
aaahahahaaa! I love the Pres., but that is some funny shizzle!
Have a great weekend, too!
Mars does not have a magnetic field like the earth and is not protected from solar winds like earth.
Only Jupiter has the same type of van allen belt, hence the consistent statement of scientists that Jupiter moons might be the only other place in the solar system to find life.
Unfortunately NASA has proven time and again that it can commit endless resources and time to reinventing the wheel.
Instead of making incremental changes to the Mars rovers, to send more and more rovers to Mars to find much the same thing, the entire emphasis on the space program to both the Moon and Mars missions should concentrate at first, not on exploration, but on “infrastructure”, which in the long run will significantly increase the amount of exploration that can be done.
By this, I mean some very straightforward, “brute force” missions, to create a permanent foundation on both the Moon and Mars that, with every subsequent mission, will be improved upon.
Such a foundation should use large and powerful construction robots, probably built by Caterpillar, powered by a small nuclear reactor, to dig tunnels suitable for human use.
Horizontal rock tunnels with pressure doors would radically increase the amount of time all subsequent missions could be on the Moon or Mars. Instead of having to ship habitats with the astronauts back and forth every time, for brief stays, they can take far more oxygen, supplies, equipment, experiments, and everything else they need.
Rock tunnels would protect them from vacuum, cosmic and enhanced radiation, extremes of heat and cold, extremely abrasive dust, and also give them a LOT more space in which to work and live.
And using construction robots would save vast amounts of time, in that they could work continuously for years without there having to be humans present. The humans would just need to bring replacement parts for things like drill bits. And no need for the robots to stop working once humans have arrived or left again. They could just keep improving on the habitat.
Since such robots would be on a one way mission, even their landing craft could be cannibalized for things such as pressure doors, reinforcing rod and flooring. And once they had completed the basic tunnel, they could prospect for and mine water ice, both for water and to generate gas they could use to test the tunnel for pressure leaks. Finally, the robots could be reprogrammed and maybe retooled by the astronauts for new labors.
The short and long term advantages of doing it this way are profound, compared to endless repeats of two week long missions of the Apollo type, or endless variations of Mars rovers be-bopping around taking pictures of rocks.
The robot ships, being very large and heavy, would most likely be made in 100 ton modules, each of which could be sent into orbit on a heavy lift rocket, then assembled in orbit before going on their main mission.
The question becomes "Whose money?" I think it's a complete waste of money, but obviously you have a diametrically opposed opinion. Why should I pay for your pipe dreams? If you and your like minded friends think it's a good idea then YOU pay for it.
No, it's like it isn't worth the expense or effort.
A. The Apollo program was terminated leaving potentially interesting lunar exploration undone. Despite its success, this program was criticized in some quarters as "a huge expense to bring back a couple of bags of rocks." Many of the early Mars studies (patterned after Apollo) and especially the 1992 "90 day" study by NASA appeared very complex and many times more expensive than Apollo.
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