Return to the Moon

I don't think anyone has a solution for space junk, and Toby is right, the momentum of these small objects is deadly.

 

Why is returning to the moon important especially since we've already been there? Because it's a stepping stone in the larger overall picture of why space travel is important.

(this is a copy and paste of a post I made in another forum, so don't mind if it seems to bring up random points at first)
It must be noted science is guided by social responsibility to a point. This is why cancer research, attempts to find a cure for HIV, ect as a whole around the world get substantially more funding then space programs do. It is a shame it issue is politicized, but the problem is people are too short sighted for it not to be. People get pissed when the government spends money on anything and everything, let alone something they're not going to get direct results from. NASA just gets in the spotlight often because their missions are often big things that can be reported on, but I mean if all the science labs around the country were constantly in the news anything that wasn't cancer related would probably have it's funding slashed too. It may have been poliitcized in the 60's and have been nothing but a dick waving contest, but the point is in 9 years we made technology jump by leaps and bounds to go from rockets that barely made it into space to manned flight to the moon, came out with all kinds of technology and inspired a generation to go to school for science. Then we got there, people stopped caring, NASA had it's budget slashed, congress told them to build the space shuttle instead which I agree was a ginormous waste(both in what it can do and literal money, the space shuttle was supposed to be a money saver, it's used more money then Apollo did) and stifled innovation both in programs and technology.

Things like healthcare, health care is important, hence why over the next 10 years we're going to spend nearly $800 billion just to reform our broken system(keep in mind $800 billion is just the restructuring cost, the money spent on health care yearly would make this number around $9 trillion) and this is why in the same time frame NASA at it's current budget will get around $180 billion. Heck, the $700 billion used to bailout banks that were "too big to fail" in the course of a few months would've got us to Mars, with $500 billion left over after 10 years.

Science like this is about discovery, technology and innovation. The results don't come right away, NASA isn't going to announce tomorrow they've discovered the cure for cancer, but their robotic/magnetic/radiation research from 40 years has now been further developed into cutting edge technology that gives hospitals and doctors ways to detect and treat, along with microscopic surgery not dreamed of 25 years ago to treat illness. This is just for the point most science is a game of innovation, something is made/discovered for something else then down the line someone else realizes "Hey, wait a minute, this might have practical uses in the purification of radioactive water"

It could be argued that all these advances and such would be made anyways eventually in the future, but science is best developed sooner then later, when we desire it as an effort to expand our knowledge of the universe and physics, vs trying desperately to develop something because the fate of millions of people are resting on it at a moment in the future.(This can be applied to genetic engineering example, it was seen as a waste of money when research first started by some on one side, and as playing god by others, but now tens of millions of people aren't facing starvation today because of it, and in 70 years maybe people will be able to regrow limbs) Focusing too much on the present and not looking to what money spent now on research can hold for the future is horribly short sighted.

Remember NASA(and when I say NASA I mean space programs in general, but NASA is by far the most advanced of them all) isn't about throwing money at them and just blasting people into space, it's one giant, never ending research effort, be it researching a better propulsion system, a better way to purify and recycle water, or in an effort to see light from the very 1st moments of the universe. Space is the final frontier, it's where we will go next, it's where we live now, it's where we came from, it's where every known thing in the entire universe comes from.

Remember, what many people in the 60's also considered a waste has given us or laid the ground work for telecom satellites, GPS, Velcro, Microwaves, Fuel Cells, Water Purification technology, solar technology, Teflon, robotics both in industry and medicine, new forms of cancer treatment, MRI's, fire resistant materials and suits, the list goes on, from helping to greatly improve a technology like water purification that is helping millions in the third world, to MRI's and CT scans which are near directly because of NASA's need for crystal clear pictures of the moon.

The main problem is NASA has no direction, then they were given a goal but were basically told "Hey, go to the moon, and go to mars, we demand you do it but we're not going to give you the money to do it, now figure it out!"

Just for example of what going to Mars can accomplish, one very small aspect of it that can keep branching out, in interplanetary space our travelers would require radiation protection. From there you can study possible drugs to aid it, lighter materials to create protective shields, and potentially repairing damaged genetic structure which would have huge implications on cancer research, while at the same time having huge implications on everything else that had to be studied to get the best results. Then getting there and setting up a colony. The research alone into terraforming a planet with soil/atmosphere like Mars, our knowledge of geology/botany and are ability to manipulate both especially in terms of food growing/

As for robots compared to maned flight, it's often said but just not true. Robots and probes do not give more for cheaper. The initial probe is cheaper, but a human can do more in 20 minutes then a probe in it's entire life can probably do. Probes are expensive, really expensive, a fleet of probes would defeat the purpose cost wise of not sending people into space. Probes can collect data, but the amount of data you can collect is severely limited and basic, it's like flying over the Amazon jungle 500 different times vs just sending a team into it for a week. Manned missions vs probe missions in their goals and programs are far different and generally manned ones are far more intensive in terms of what is expected to be done. It's apples and oranges, if we're sending men out there to duplicate a probe we have serious leadership issues. Manned spaceflight is now about research, seeing what's up there, testing out the waters ect. It's like the very early explorers to the Americas, but the eventual goal is permanent human habitation of space/moon/Mars. Everything must start from scratch at some point, we can't just keep saying "eh, we'll do it later" Plus if anything goes wrong, what so ever, it's done, all that money is gone, you can't fix a probe once it's off the launchpad. Humans are great at making the best out of the impossible.(i.e. Apollo 13)

To sum up, not having a space program in favor of direct research for other fields is simply shortsighted or posited by people who would rather conduct research in their direct interest. Space programs take nothing away from the existing funding sources for science. The free market is not providing it so the government must step in. Sure we could fund cancer research but we are already plus there are private companies trying to solve the problem as a vaccine for say the common cold has dollar signs written all over it, in maybe 400 years when the technology has given us a sustainable colony on Mars and a way to get there which is both safe and economical then the private market can step in on that too, and the federal government can go about researching how to build a floating sky city in the clouds of Saturn so we can extract resources from it's atmosphere/core, or and underwater amusement park on Europa.(You gotta admit that'd attract most people's attentions more then saying "Hey, you know there's a good chance there might be life under the frozen outer layer of Europe's oceans maybe we should look into this)



The LHC is looking for a particle that may not even exist.

The fusion reactor being built in France while based on known physics which means it should act exactly how we expect probably won't have any practical uses in terms of electric generating technology for at least 50 years.

Money is being thrown at cancer to fix it. Cancer is an unpredictable random error in replication. To cure cancer is to have dominion over random chance. Not going to happen any time soon.

Conversely, I can see Mars through a telescope(and the naked eye for that matter) and the technology already exists to get there. Not even thinking about science or technology for a minute, this is a place with obvious and vast resources and possible benefits for both the human economy and geographic livable space.

All four will provide enormous scientific benefit. We are not talking about diverting money from R&D in other sciences, but from defense spending (which is already primarily aerospace) and social programs (which are currently ineffective and will continue to be ineffective no matter what new label of change are slapped on them). Remember people when we talk about long term, as in the case of the LHC, yes there will be some discoveries and advances in the not so distant future, and some in the long term that most people think of when they hear the term(i.e. 5-15 years), but we're talking about the groundwork for long term projects and advancements that will happen over the course of 150 years, ect.


The human experience from the moment we jumped out of the trees and made our first tool has been a never ending push of exploration, both geographically and technologically to expand the range of where we can call home, our supply of resources, and our knowledge of the physical world around us. We can't stop because we think something is too hard or too expensive.

 

The tokomak reactor is trash.

We need more hydrogen3, the moon has it.

the moon also would be an ideal place to build low grav everything (proteins for medications that are now being manufactured in terribly expensive ways to mitigate the effect of gravity on them would be dead cheap to make on the moon, they'd be expensive to manufacture in open space <as opposed to the moon>, because we'd need a massive platform and de-orbiting vehicle, a "return to earth" vehicle is easier than a de-orbiting vehicle for a few reasons, mostly scale)

The moon is a good place to launch missions from.

The moon may have water

a real moon base would allow us to displace things we just don't want down here.

it's a good stepping stone in the VERY long term (very very long term)

but in the short term it's useful because of the benefits we will reap.

 

Not only is there now good odds there might be a way to extract water from the lunar soil, but because of it's lack of atmosphere/low gravity, using the moon as a base for missions to Mars has the potential to launch much larger payloads.

 

The problem may not lie as far into the future as you might think. Every time that two sizeable items collide in space, thousands or tens of thousands of small objects are created, each following a slightly different orbital path. This significantly increases the odds of future collisions. The laws of probability predict a sudden, exponential increase in the number of orbiting objects, once a small number of major collisions have taken place. The situation could quickly become unmanageable.

The mechanics of this process resemble the way in which the rings of Saturn were created from a few larger objects. There is by no means enough mass currently in earth orbit to create rings that could be seen with an ordinary telescope, but there is enough out there to eventually render the most popular and useful orbits completely useless to us for thousands of years. Atmospheric drag could clear the lower orbits of debris in hundreds of years.

This was a rationale originally given for the development of space stations. Would the assembly of large space vehicles not be easier in zero gravity?

I agree that spinoff technologies are good for the economy and for science in general, but targeted direct subsidies for high-tech R&D could be far more efficient. The primary problem with the Altair vehicle is the total number of dollars involved. It is out of proportion with national budget priorities. We don't need to spend that much to keep a healthy space program alive.

 

Our national space program can't do what it's been told to do by congress with it's current budget. To do plans as currently planned NASA needs an extra circa $3 billion a year, and it doesn't solve the problem that either we don't have the money to build both Ares rockets for low earth orbit and moon/Mars plus the fact currently the space shuttle is going to retire unless it's expanded to 2014(in which case NASA still needs more money) and that we're going to have to pay Russia to take our astronauts into space.

For being generally pro free market, NASA is one of the few things I think the government should pump money into, as it's one of those things that just currently doesn't have a free market solution as there's no real prospect of short or even long term profit unless we're talking decades

 

Then privatize it and let it take decades. It's not that important compared to lots of other things needing taxpayer money.

 

Even if Russia is willing to cover our obligation to share the responsibility of servicing the International Space Station for the long term, it would be an embarrassment to the USA to go this route. We legitimately need to have a way to get people into orbit, and I believe that the only cost-effective way to do this in an open-ended fashion is for the Ares I / Orion technology to replace the Shuttle as soon as possible. The Shuttle fleet was not safe or reliable when it was new. What can we expect its performance to be like in its old age?

When I first saw sketches of the Altair concept, I thought NASA was dreaming. I never thought the idea would get this far down the pipeline.

 

This is a complete lack of understanding how the free market works. Nothing needs taxpayer money more then science. No free market company has the capital to begin an investment like that/no investor is going to invest in something that they'll be long dead before they see a return from. Same thing with the experimental fusion reactor being built in France, in 100 years this could solve all of our energy problems, but no free market company has the initial capital/will power to do something like that

 

If I felt that NASA was about science, I might agree with you. But the history of the International Space Station shows that it is not. It's mainly about politics. Most scientists were not in favor of the project, but it went ahead anyway and became a boondoggle.

I also suspect that there are secret projects involving the Defense Department and that is the real reason for crazy ideas like going to Mars. Also the defense contractors are big political contributors and they love that corporate welfare.

 

Well the defense thing seems paranoid, but yes a good deal of scientists were against the ISS, but what else could they do, Russia's economy fell to shit in the 90's and their space program barely got anything, and NASA has had it's budget demolished since the early 90's when compared to inflation, if they were given the money to actually do things we could've been working on setting up a permanent base on the moon since the 90's with plans being put into action by now vs the ISS. How is going to Mars crazy? It's entirely feasible with our current technology and human settlement on Mars has the potential to unlock a wealth of new resources, technologies, advancements, and above all giving humans a footing off our planet.

Again this goes into long term investments, going to Mars will probably take 20-30 years if funded properly. You're 56, to you this an investment that will never pay off, you'll never see anything from it most likely unless you live to at least 90. To me man walking on Mars and having a permanent base on the Moon are entirely possible and easily done in my life if given the funding.

 

Crazy in terms of values, priorities, not technology.

 

How is opening up the resources of an entire planet and humans being able to colonize not a land across the ocean on our Earth but a whole new planet for settlement crazy? This is the future.

 

Well, if the resources are so great, then that's another good argument for privatization.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

The reality is that for many centuries to come, if ever, regardless of the self-made prison we are creating around this earth with our high velocity space pollution--there will be no federation of planets and mankind will never reach the stars until we overcome our avarice ignorance and blatant stupidity.

 

But can't you do all those things with next-generation, super-smart robots? What would be the benefit of sending a manned mission where robots would do just as well, and be a zillion times cheaper and safer?

I can appreciate the achievement that landing men on Mars would represent. I just don't think it's necessary. And given the time frames involved, there's no question of manned missions to the outer planets or beyond, unless some really exotic science came into play. So Mars would basically be the end of it. Not to sound overly negative, but that being the case, what's the point?

 

Robots can't do what people can do, robots can never do what people can do unless we find a way to give robots full consciousness. Robots aren't cheap either, and you can't fix a robot 9 million miles away. Robots don't serve the point of all this either, making permanent human settlement outside of the Earth.

The point is the advancement of human kind. What was the point in settling the Americas 500 years ago? People moving out of Mesopotamia? Settles going across the Oregon trail for a land they knew nothing about?. What's the point in humans doing anything that seems like a pipe dream in the future? People are always in search of new lands to settle and use, because generally this concept has been working out pretty well for 6,000 years. Mars isn't the end of it, Mars is the beginning. This isn't some pipe dream, we have the technology to do it right now. We had the technology to do it 30 years ago, all we need is the will power. You can't wait for the future to come, you either make it happen or it never will happen. Imagine if people said what's the point in trying to fly, it'll never happen, it'd be dangerous, clumsy and slow. And yea, it totally was at first. Within 65 years of the first flight that lasted 120ft in what was basically a box with wings and a bicycle chain motor we landed and returned a man to the moon.

 

Last Friday's lunar impact experiment raises more questions than it answers for me. First, the impact was supposed to create a dust cloud that could be seen from a midsized telescope, but there was no visible dust at all, and NASA still declared the mission a complete success. Second, several days later, there is still no preliminary finding as to the presence or absence of ice from the raw data. What is the holdup? It's not like analyzing DNA. Third, they scheduled this mission after most of the design work had been done for Altair, even though the presence of lunar H2O would surely be a game changer of the highest order. Did NASA not do these two tasks out of order?

Madcap: Who would want to live permanently in a place where a space suit is always required outdoors? This problem applies equally to Mars and to the moon. By the time that living conditions on earth deteriorate to the point where the moon or Mars looks like a better option, we will probably lack the capabilities (industrial & socio-political) to relocate a number of people to either place. Can you think of a scenario in which there is a way around this issue?

Sunfighter: Assuming that the International Space Station remains operational for many years to come, do you think that it has any serious potential as a science platform? Or, are its flaws too deeply imbedded in its fundamental design?

 

Last week's mission was considered a success because, well it is. The public got pissed off because there was not a giant cloud of smoke like they were promised. The data the mission is trying to collect though is in fact being collected. It's only been a few days, this shit takes time to analyze. This is what I mean when people won't get off NASA's back, good god give them a few days, they're analyzing science, from space. They're not going to say "we're pretty sure we found water in the lunar soil" without being damn sure of it otherwise the public will throw a shit storm against NASA again.

As for not being able to live outside on the moon? Yes so? What's your point, obviously we can't live outside on the moon. But we can still build self sustaining bases. The moon's best ability is that of resources and launch pad for missions, the moon has no atmosphere and 1/6 the gravity of Earth, any mission launched from the moon would take far less fuel and be able to carry a much greater payload then from Earth. We wouldn't lack the ability, the main problem right now is any mission to Mars would probably only be able to carry 5-6 people at most, at least per rocket. There's plenty of people who would love to go to Mars though, the only main problem is physically getting them there. This is why it's called exploring though, the technology to get there in mass numbers will never exist if we don't do baby steps first. Back to the plane example, 100 years ago planes were boxes with wings and wires basically, now we the shuttle that can carry thousands of pounds to and from space.

As for Mars, same deal, but Mars we might be able to terraform to a point some time in the future. It's not about waiting until the earth is crappy, it's about doing it now to expand humanity's reach. Waiting until there's no other option is bound for failure and a bad plan for the future. Imagine had humans just not left the fertile crescent until the soil was fully depleted.

 

Yes, but the question to ask is ... what can people do on Mars that's worthwhile and that robots can't do?

Remember I'm not talking about those mechanized shovels and stuff they have now ... I'm talking next generation robots with artificial intelligence. And you don't need consciousness, you just need intelligence specialized to the tasks. Obviously, they're not as smart as humans would be, but like draft animals, they could do many things that humans could not, at a fraction of the cost and risk. And the technological fallout to Earth-bound industry would be tremendous.

And I'm totally for that. I'm not saying scrap the entire space program, nor even scrap missions to Mars. I'm just saying do it intelligently and efficiently.

If a robot can do 80% of what a human could do for 20% of the cost/risk, then I think that's a smart tradeoff. When I said Mars is the end of it, I meant in the sense of manned missions. We certainly won't be sending manned missions to Pluto anytime soon.

Again, I'm not saying we should stop the exploration of space. I agree with you that exploration is a huge part of what makes us human. We can't stop now.

But trying to send men to Mars and setting out on the Oregon Trail aren't entirely analogous ... they're different in kind as well as degree. For one thing, if you run into trouble on the Trail, you can always fall back on the cavalry or the next wagon train behind you. You can find your own water, hunt your own buffalo, make your own shelter, fix your own broken wagon wheels.

In order to adequately cover the risks of a manned Mars mission, the cost would be so incredibly over the top that it would hinder our efforts to do anything else.

And the risk management would be huge. If we lost an astronaut to Mars, it would set the whole program back a decade or more, vs. losing a robot.