Return to the Moon?

Billo_Really · Jan 29, 2006

Should we go back to the Moon for a lunar landing?

Thinker · Jan 29, 2006

I voted no because going to the moon achieves little. It's a poor base for further
exploration as almost everything needs to be brought from Earth.

A direct mission to Mars must be the next step; going via the moon would be
wasteful in time and energy.

Comrade Brian · Jan 29, 2006

Billo_Really said:
Should we go back to the Moon for a lunar landing?

Depends:

-Recreational/no reason: my answer is no.
-Scientific: yes.
-Other: Depends

But then again it all depends, depends, depends.

tecoyah · Jan 29, 2006

Thinker said:
I voted no because going to the moon achieves little. It's a poor base for further
exploration as almost everything needs to be brought from Earth.

A direct mission to Mars must be the next step; going via the moon would be
wasteful in time and energy.

And I voted Yes...because using the moon will achieve a good portion of what we need to learn to make a Mars trip. Done properly much of the needed equiptment for a safe exploration of Mars can be field tested close to home, rather than watching a failure of technology with a twenty minute delay, and a six month return trip. As an example:

"Try this: Run your finger across the screen of your computer. You'll get a little residue of dust clinging to your fingertip. It's soft and fuzzy--that's Earth dust.

Lunar dust is different: "It's almost like fragments of glass or coral--odd shapes that are very sharp and interlocking," says Metzger.

"Even after short moon walks, Apollo 17 astronauts found dust particles had jammed the shoulder joints of their spacesuits," says Masami Nakagawa, associate professor in the mining engineering department of the Colorado School of Mines. "Moondust penetrated into seals, causing the spacesuits to leak some air pressure."

In sunlit areas, adds Nakagawa, fine dust levitated above the Apollo astronauts' knees and even above their heads, because individual particles were electrostatically charged by the Sun's ultraviolet light. Such dust particles, when tracked into the astronauts' habitat where they would become airborne, irritated their eyes and lungs. "It's a potentially serious problem."

Dust is also ubiquitous on Mars, although Mars dust is probably not as sharp as moondust. Weathering smooths the edges. Nevertheless, Martian duststorms whip these particles 50 m/s (100+ mph), scouring and wearing every exposed surface. As the rovers Spirit and Opportunity have revealed, Mars dust (like moondust) is probably electrically charged. It clings to solar panels, blocks sunlight and reduces the amount of power that can be generated for a surface mission."

Using the resources actually on the Moon will also help us understand the technology needed to do the same on Mars, and allow for a permanent science base to be established, far safer than the current ISP, and much more capable:

"The Moon is also a good testing ground for what mission planners call "in-situ resource utilization" (ISRU)--a.k.a. "living off the land." Astronauts on Mars are going to want to mine certain raw materials locally: oxygen for breathing, water for drinking and rocket fuel (essentially hydrogen and oxygen) for the journey home. "We can try this on the Moon first," says Metzger.

Both the Moon and Mars are thought to harbor water frozen in the ground. The evidence for this is indirect. NASA and ESA spacecraft have detected hydrogen--presumably the H in H2O--in Martian soil. Putative icy deposits range from the Martian poles almost to the equator. Lunar ice, on the other hand, is localized near the Moon's north and south poles deep inside craters where the Sun never shines, according to similar data from Lunar Prospector and Clementine, two spacecraft that mapped the Moon in the mid-1990s.

If this ice could be excavated, thawed out and broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen ... Voila! Instant supplies. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, due to launch in 2008, will use modern sensors to search for deposits and pinpoint possible mining sites.

"The lunar poles are a cold place, so we've been working with people who specialize in cold places to figure out how to land on the soils and dig into the permafrost to excavate water," Metzger says. Prime among NASA's partners are investigators from the Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). Key challenges include ways of landing rockets or building habitats on ice-rich soils without having their heat melt the ground so it collapses under their weight.

Testing all this technology on the Moon, which is only 2 or 3 days away from Earth, is going to be much easier than testing it on Mars, six months away.

So ... to Mars! But first, the Moon.

Source: Science@NASA (by Trudy E. Bell, Dr. Tony Phillips)"

http://forums.hypography.com/space-news/2063-why-colonize-moon-before-going-mars.html

robin · Jan 29, 2006

Billo_Really said:
Should we go back to the Moon for a lunar landing?

Why would anyone, other than for entertainment purposes, want to go to the moon ?
Rocks have been collected. How much more do we need to know about the place ?
Though there is one reason... If there's water there, then that's a source of oxygen & hydrogen to use as rocket fuel that is not in as much of a gravitational well as the earth, meaning if launched from the moon then more of a rocket's fuel would go towards velocity rather than overcoming gravity.

Engimo · Jan 29, 2006

robin said:
Why would anyone, other than for entertainment purposes, want to go to the moon ?
Rocks have been collected. How much more do we need to know about the place ?
Though there is one reason... If there's water there, then that's a source of oxygen & hydrogen to use as rocket fuel that is not in as much of a gravitational well as the earth, meaning if launched from the moon then more of a rocket's fuel would go towards velocity rather than overcoming gravity.

It's a good base for solar exploration, a good place to test technology for a Mars expedition, and because of its lack of atmosphere telescopes are much more efficient.

robin · Jan 29, 2006

Engimo said:
It's a good base for solar exploration, a good place to test technology for a Mars expedition, and because of its lack of atmosphere telescopes are much more efficient.

I'm not sure the cost of a telescope on the moon would be any less than one orbiting the earth. In fact probably dearer & you then have the problem the moon spinning so you can't point the telescope in one direction 24/7.
An unmanned telescope orbiting earth is cheaper & more efficient I'm sure. It's a shame there will be no replacment for Hubble as good at optical wavelengths in the near future.
We gain more scientifically from such telescopes rather than bouncing around on barron spheres... not that that isn't entertaining of course.
If deforestation carries on at these rates then you won't have to go to the Moon or Mars to wind up on a barron sphere. There'll be one right here. Perhaps that says something about how we should prioritize the spending of hundreds of billions on conservation rather than space missions.

jamesrage · Jan 29, 2006

Billo_Really said:
Should we go back to the Moon for a lunar landing?

Is there a educational value for going back to the moon?I think not.
There are better things that money could be spent on.

Kandahar · Jan 29, 2006

No, we shouldn't. At least not in the next few decades. I'm sorry but the benefits of sending humans to the moon (or Mars) does not justify the incredible expense. That money can be better used to address problems here on earth.

We'll learn almost nothing new from going to the moon (or Mars) that we couldn't learn from sending robots, but we will significantly increase the cost of the mission. Simply going for the sheer hell of it, because we believe it's our "destiny" to do so, is a selfish irrational reason. If it's our species' "destiny" to do so, there's no reason we can't wait a few more decades when the cost of doing so will be significantly lower.

imprtnrd · Jan 29, 2006

Going to the moon? No big deal! We have a craft on the way to Pluto and it will take 10 years to get there!!!!! Now tell me the moon is a waste!

galenrox · Jan 29, 2006

This is a waste of money. We've been to the moon, and nothing came of it either than "HEY! We went to the moon, and we beat the Ruskies there! I guess that's kind of cool!"
I am really not a fan of the government spending billions of tax dollars on doing something that's a little cool but we've already done it before. This is just proposterous, our education's underfunded, almost every state is pulling a huge budget defecit, our federal government has record defecits, and we're gonna spend billions of dollars to walk on the moon.
please try to understand the sound I am making: ppptttttthhhhhhhhhhbbbbbbbb :spank:

DeeJayH · Jan 29, 2006

aBsolutely YES

we have to have somewhere to go when we are finished destroying this little blue marble we call home :lol:

Kandahar · Jan 29, 2006

imprtnrd said:
Going to the moon? No big deal! We have a craft on the way to Pluto and it will take 10 years to get there!!!!! Now tell me the moon is a waste!

The moon is a waste. Do you not understand the difference between an unmanned exploratory spacecraft, versus transporting a few humans to the moon for no reason?

Kandahar · Jan 29, 2006

DeeJayH said:
aBsolutely YES

we have to have somewhere to go when we are finished destroying this little blue marble we call home :lol:

That doesn't mean we have to start sending people to the moon right now.

KCConservative · Jan 29, 2006

Heck ya. We'vegot a perfectly good used car up there.

Scarecrow Akhbar · Jan 29, 2006

Yes, of course. The reason to justify going is to establish a nuclear missile base that's not subject to a surpise attack. Man it with men who've got families living on prime American targets. Place it near the North Polar region where there may be water available, and claim all that water for the United States alone.

Then the US has the advantage in further exploitation of solar system resources.

While we're sitting on our thumbs now, the Chinese are moving ahead with their own space program, the goal of which is the moon. Be a real damn shame if we let them do what I suggested we do.

Mars? Whatever for? If we need water after we have the moon, let's grab a comet. The delta-v would be cheaper than getting it from Mars. Mars ain't no good, leave it alone.

jfuh · Jan 29, 2006

Absolutely, and I think it on two fronts, one moral, the other scientific.
Moral? Why you ask? Well this country needs something other than just bad news every single day, fear of another terrorist attack, something to look forward to, a dream to look towards and spawn the imagination.
Science, well more than simply what we can gain from after we get there, how of the science of better, safer more reliable means of getting there? I'm talking of more efficient means of rocket launches, ie maglev assisted, orbital assembly of larger space crafts. On the lunar surface then there would be the requirement of automated base assemblies, and so on, all such technology and ideas only limited to the imagination.
I mean what ever happened to people such as Van Braun, or even Burt Rutan who would not limit themselves to the dream of opening up the heavens. Of course I agree of the inefficiency and overly beaurcratic nonsenses and ass kissing involved with governmental projects of this scale, however there needs to be someone that can foot such a large bill. Which is what I believe the only delima over.
I think that most people would like to be able to make a trip even into orbit if it were possible and as safe and cheap as getting an intercontinental flight.

kal-el · Jan 29, 2006

Kandahar said:
No, we shouldn't. At least not in the next few decades. I'm sorry but the benefits of sending humans to the moon (or Mars) does not justify the incredible expense. That money can be better used to address problems here on earth.

We'll learn almost nothing new from going to the moon (or Mars) that we couldn't learn from sending robots, but we will significantly increase the cost of the mission. Simply going for the sheer hell of it, because we believe it's our "destiny" to do so, is a selfish irrational reason. If it's our species' "destiny" to do so, there's no reason we can't wait a few more decades when the cost of doing so will be significantly lower.

Agreed. I think it'll be a monumentous waste of money. The earth is filled with many problems, we shouldn't worry about going to the moon. How many people are suffering from AIDs? How many people face famine? If we would divert all the resources towards bettering humanity, opposed to space travel, we could make some interesting advances in the future.

DeeJayH · Jan 29, 2006

Nonsense

kal-el said:
How many people are suffering from AIDs?

people changing their behavior will stop AIDS, not government
or a pharmaceutical company that actually creates a cure ( i know, that last one is laughable)

kal-el said:
How many people face famine?

we could spend all the money activists want to stop famine or starvation
but until Corruption is eliminated, we would only benefit the powerful & corrupt

kal-el said:
If we would divert all the resources towards bettering humanity

Actions by the government that have 'bettered humanity' have been accomplished due to pressure from the public sector. Politicians dont just wake up and do the right thing. they are pressured by their constituents

kal-el said:
we could make some interesting advances in the future.

do you have any idea how many advancements, in science alone, as a result of space travel?
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9811/02/space.medical/

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N66/mattsilver.66c.html

First, money spent on space research and development does not disappear into thin air. It goes toward creating knowledge, jobs, new businesses, and technologies, many of which have direct application to other activities. This is the spin-off argument. A moon initiative will require increased sophistication in, to name a few areas, solar-power generation, cryogenic technologies (cooling and storing liquefied gas), and human-robot interaction. These advances in the state-of-the-art will benefit energy, environment, health care, and many other areas. Many of the capabilities required for human exploration are synergistic with defense needs. Bush’s initiative will likely lead NASA and the Department of Defense to pool resources, lowering development costs for both agencies.
There will also be important scientific returns. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has literally changed our understanding of the universe. A telescope on the moon, shielded from both solar and earth radiation, has the potential to see further into the universe than anything previously built. During the Apollo moon landings, we arguably learned more about lunar geology and the solar system in general than we could have in many decades of robotic probes. This kind of science merits government funding.
An often-ignored benefit of space activities involves its capacity to increase international cooperation and generate goodwill. A return to the moon will bring the international community together in an activity that pits man against the cosmos. An international effort will not only lower costs through the pooling of resources, it will create concrete links between the U.S., Russia, Japan, Europe, even China; and this will have tremendous symbolic over-tones. Last, but certainly not least, while space enthusiasts often point somewhat apologetically to the benefits described above in order to justify space exploration, there is a deeper reason for their fascination. It is the same reason that gives space exploration its great symbolic weight -- the innate human desire to learn more, to see more, to explore the unknown. While this need does not easily find its way onto a budget sheet, it has an important place in society. ...

http://www.stars4space.org/Benefits.html

These common secondary uses, called space spinoffs, have continuously enhanced the lifestyle of Americans and strengthened the U.S. economy since the 1950s.
The technologies that led to the computer bar codes in retail stores, quartz timing crystals and household smoke detectors were originally developed for NASA.
NASA technology has provided many benefits to the medical field. The pacemakers used to treat cardiac patients as well as the remote monitoring devices for intensive care patients were derived from the telemetry systems that first monitored astronauts and spacecraft. Much of the portable medical equipment carried aboard ambulances has its roots in NASA's needs for such portable equipment in space. These are but a few of the more than 30,000 secondary applications of space technology providing daily benefits in Earth-bound hospitals, offices and homes.

Vandeervecken · Jan 29, 2006

No question about it, yes.

We should build a permanent base that includes a rail-gun for launching payloads around the solar system. Such a rail gun could be used to preposition supplies for a Mars mission or beyond as well. A side note, such a rail gun is also a potent weapon if need be. Hurling rocks at earth targets from the top of a VERY tall gravity well. Such rocks would hit with the power of atomics without the radiation.

There are many things that you can do in a low gravity environment that you cannot do in 1 G.

Lastly the Chinese a e going. I do not want the USA to be the next centuries Portugal.

Per Adura Ad Astra

Atheist · Jan 29, 2006

I agree going to the moon is a waste of tax payers dollars.

Lets use it as target practice instead. Make some new craters.

kal-el · Jan 29, 2006

DeeJayH said:
people changing their behavior will stop AIDS, not government
or a pharmaceutical company that actually creates a cure ( i know, that last one is laughable)

Bedlamite articulation. This is one of the FDA's top priorities. New drugs, home blood tests, HIV antigen test, and a viral load test are among the most recent in a long line of products the FDA has come up with to treat/prevent HIV/AIDs. http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1997/197_aids.html

http://www.thebody.com/fda/newprev.html

we could spend all the money activists want to stop famine or starvation
but until Corruption is eliminated, we would only benefit the powerful & corrupt

Haha, I guess this "god" fellow of the bible was corrupt:

Genesis 41:29-31
Seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the land of Egypt, but seven years of famine will follow them. Then all the abundance in Egypt will be forgotten, and the famine will ravage the land. The abundance in the land will not be remembered, because the famine that follows it will be so severe.

I guess since you are basically saying we have famine because of corruption, so I take it you do not believe in the god of the bible? Surely he was a corrupt individual, cause he loves money. Famine is caused by shortages of food plus shortages of cash to purchase food, natural disasters, other countrie's monetary aid, and poor government management of resources.

Actions by the government that have 'bettered humanity' have been accomplished due to pressure from the public sector. Politicians dont just wake up and do the right thing. they are pressured by their constituents

Of course you are correct, but if not for the extravagent expenses incurred for space travel, we might be able to achieve "heaven on earth."

do you have any idea how many advancements, in science alone, as a result of space travel?
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9811/02/space.medical/

Yes, it seems we are perfectly happy to spend the money waging wars, and making us "safe and comfortable". I'm not saying space travel is a bad thing, I'm only saying the earth has priority over our egotistical desire to conquer space.

Billo_Really · Jan 29, 2006

I want to see a moon shot and I have no logical reason why.

Atheist · Jan 29, 2006

Billo_Really said:
I want to see a moon shot and I have no logical reason why.

The best firework show anyone has ever seen. As for a logical reason I don't know either.

Kandahar · Jan 30, 2006

DeeJayH said:
people changing their behavior will stop AIDS, not government
or a pharmaceutical company that actually creates a cure ( i know, that last one is laughable)

That's the two-cent answer. That's like saying that the best way to cut down on crime is for criminals to stop committing them. It's a trite, meaningless tautology.

DeeJayH said:
we could spend all the money activists want to stop famine or starvation but until Corruption is eliminated, we would only benefit the powerful & corrupt

And this same corruption is non-existent in space programs, which are also government-run?

DeeJayH said:
Actions by the government that have 'bettered humanity' have been accomplished due to pressure from the public sector. Politicians dont just wake up and do the right thing. they are pressured by their constituents

What's your point?

DeeJayH said:
do you have any idea how many advancements, in science alone, as a result of space travel?

As a matter of fact I do. Very few, especially compared to the enormous cost of manned space exploration. The new science/technology benefits don't even come close to recovering the costs.

Return to the Moon?

Should we go back to the Moon?

Yes.

No.

Billo_Really

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Yes.

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