The L.A. Times has a lengthy article about the multi-nation effort to get back to the Moon.
You can bet I have a lot to say about this, but I don’t have the time right now. Just read the article and you’ll get a sense of what a lot of different people are saying about this. My own thoughts are complicated, and perhaps a multi-part blog entry will be forthcoming once I get them organized.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
 |
"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
February 12th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Interesting article. I was not even aware of other countries, aside from China, aiming for the moon.
I hope such missions come to fruitation. We must leave the Earth. We cannot just be stuck here.
February 13th, 2006 at 4:01 am
Where did I read about NASA proposing a site on the moon for future Olympic Games? And how is Hilton coming along with their hotel plans?
Grand Lunar:I’d rather stay here for a while, if I can - we just have to get a grip on these environmental issues.
February 13th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Hilton, ha ha.
In 50 years are we gonna hear about Tycho Hilton and his lunar orbital exploits recorded on the 3D-Vision memory cubes and accidentally leaked onto the SWW (Solar Wide Web)?
February 13th, 2006 at 8:38 am
According to the article, the total cost of the Apollo program (from Kennedy’s anouncement that we would go to the Moon through Apollo 17) was $150 billion (in today’s dollars). That is less than we have spent so far on the war in Iraq. It is also less than the total projected cost of rebuilding New Orleans.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:35 am
I do not know how to verify this, but in the final episode of his TV show Connections, James Burke pointed out that during the same time period Apollo was an active program, American women spent as much money on cosmetics as NASA spent going to the Moon.
Ah, Connections. Now there’s a show I’d like to see for the first time again.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:39 am
And re the Hilton thing. . . .
I can hear the system-wide webcast now: “Next up, a shocking and titillating development — Tycho Hilton caught in zero-g with a ‘barely legal’ Olsen clone! Film at 11, now this.
“Going now to science news, researchers are divided over what to name the two newly discovered quark particles. Republican physicists favor fair and balanced, while the small yet vocal Quantum Gonzo community favors fear and loathing.”
February 13th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Tycho Hilton, huh?
They should beware of powerful magnetic field anomolies, produced by 4 million year old alien artifacts in the shape of a rectangle that is 1×4x9.
To Berkley:
What we learn in space on other worlds can be applied to helping the Earth. So, it’s a mutal venture.
February 13th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Why bother with the moon? It’s a dead place.
Why not start developing Mars? It’s much more interesting and ultimately more useful.
February 13th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Sue: The moon is closer to Earth and will allow us to test the technology we need for interplanetary travel without sending a ship with untested and potentially faulty technology to Mars.
Also the astronauts chances of survival are greater due to the close proximity of the moon and Earth.
February 13th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
I kind of agree with OptimusShr, going to mars up front, spectacular as it might be, might be biting off more then we can finiancially chew. It’s tempting to rush ahead, forgetting current problems, just for the glory of it. This is essentially what happen in the old moon missions. It was possible, but it wasn’t really, deep down, perhaps the best spent $150 billon ever. Don’t get me wrong, it was (and still is) thrilling beyond description to see the results. But really, it wasn’t something that could reasonably be supported on an ongoing basis. The moon, at this point, is getting to the point where it actually might be.
In this era of fast forward, I think it would be reaonable to go back to the moon as a more permanent venure. If it’s not possible to keep a presence that close by, even with a fairly sparse environment requiring unmanned deliveries of carefully planned supplies, I don’t think Mars if feasable. People are so enamoured with “the new frontier” that they may not remember that the old frontier hasn’t really been settled yet. I’m thinking establish a permanent presence on the moon, not necesarrily continually manned, but continually functioning and often supporting humans. Then go for a permanent or semi-permanent base on Ceres. *Then* go for Mars. Going to Mars now would certainly bring some PR benifits, but it would essentially be equal to the original moon missions - we’ll walk on it and the get the hell out of dodge, trying to stay is just not even on the radar.
February 13th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I agree with larry but shouldent we get the ISS up and running?
February 13th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I want to go back to the moon, there’s a lot of new things to explore, the poles, the far side, it would be great to have a moon base there the way we have people in antarctica. Low earth orbit is halfway to everywhere else in the solar system, but the Shuttle has been a road to no where. I think killing the shuttle and space station will be great and begin going places will be great. A better idea? How about a manned visit to a near earth asteroid? The energy requirements will be easier, distances more akin to a Mars shot, water possibly easier to find than on the moon. I imagine Nasa waking up the astronauts with the Disney tune ‘It’s a small world.’ Bush of course doesn’t have the imagination to conceive of it, but it is a better plan. And sending men (or women) stirs the imagination, and at least americans seem to be much more open to it, but cancelling missions like the Europa probe (Jupiter Icy Moons orbiter) and DAWN missions to me is unacceptable.
February 13th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
I agree with Sue Mitchel.
NASA should skip the moon and head directly for Mars. We don’t need the moon as a test bed, it one of the most un-mars like bodies in the solar system.
Mars has an atmosphere and a 24 hour day. The moon has no atmosphere and a 670 hour day. The soil compositions don’t match, and the temperatures? Lets just say their not similar. If you want a testing bed, just use Antarctica. It’s a lot closer, more realistic, and much cheaper.
February 14th, 2006 at 9:01 am
The idea of the moon as a martian test bed is has a modicum of truth, but not much. Most of the technology required for actually going to the moon could just as easily be developed in orbit. The one big if, and I admit, its pretty big, is solar radiation and background cosmic rays. Reason of course being that when you are in LEO, you still have some protection against the radiation (not as much, but some)
Of course, a much better option would be to push for colonization, not exploration. We need to seriously start considering and discussioning that
February 14th, 2006 at 9:08 am
We could also spend the money on robotic missions. We could get a log more science for the dollar if we don’t have to design in protection for humans. Of course, I believe eventually we do need to send people into the void. Any mission as far as Mars needs to be fully self sufficient because rescue beyond Earth orbit (and even there) can be considered currently impossible. Robots don’t need rescue - maintenance, perhaps, but not resuce.
jbs
February 14th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Returning humans to the Moon would be a fine goal if it weren’t so hideously expensive and likely to drain resources entirely from what should be higher-priority tasks that NASA does and that capture the imagination of the public–from Mars rovers to Kuiper belt probes to space telescopes. This doesn’t even mention the crucial role NASA missions play in learning about the great changes that our Earth is undergoing and what they may mean for us who have to live on this planet.
As I currently understand, NASA’s projected budget only funds enough for a handful of manned flights to the Moon, 10-15 years down the road. And even that is starting to bite into all these other important and inspirational activities. This bite is only going to get worse in coming years.
As it did in the Apollo days, the public will likely grow very tired of watching space-suited figures bounce around on a barren world. It is hard to imagine funding to do anything beyond those few, temporary, missions.
Going to Mars appears to be a pipe dream.
And without its other activities to sustain public interest, the space program may be in for a long dry spell like the one we went through in the 1970s.
February 14th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Again, here is the fundemental issue - what is Nasa? A science Agency? A space colonization agencey? A boondogle that shoudl be killed right now?
Part of the point of expense (not entirely, but a good chunk of it) is cost to orbit, something which we are right on the cusp of breaking through. The key thing is nasa has to be willing to embrace the small scale groups like SpaceX and Rutan, and get away from Boeing and Lockheed
February 14th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
E.A.D.S. Has a magazine with a good article focusing on going back to the moon and what role Europe will play. I might find it online somewhere.
February 15th, 2006 at 1:50 am
How feasible is the space elevator/bolas idea? The start up cost will be much higher, but if we start mining other worlds, we end up with a near zero running cost. Needs carbon nano-tube embedded materials though. Then colononising the moon should be reasonably possible, and much cheaper compared to rocketry.
(Sorry about any bad spellings)
February 15th, 2006 at 9:45 am
Ferris Valyn Said:
>Part of the point of expense (not entirely, but a good chunk of it) is cost to orbit, something which we are right on the cusp of breaking through. The key thing is nasa has to be willing to embrace the small scale groups like SpaceX and Rutan, and get away from Boeing and Lockheed
Permit me to dissent. The drivers that make Boeing and Lockheed so expensive are primarily the regulations and procedures and oversight imposed by NASA and the government. Cost to orbit is a big factor, and certainly the Shuttle never lived up to the predictions, much less the dream. But the bureaucratic burden is largely from the government side, not the contractor side.
AntiQuest Said:
>How feasible is the space elevator/bolas idea?
The bolas (spinning cables, skyhooks) idea is kind of scary, but the space elevator concept has some great potential. The carbon nanotube embedded materials for long cables is already being developed for other purposes, so the technology to build cables can be grown from industry. I read the Space Elevator book that was essentially the feasibility study paper that NASA paid for. It is surprisingly well informed, detailed, and concerns not just the technical and design challenges to a Space Elevator, but also discusses the economics and develops a growth plan that proposes how the Elevator project could begin to pay for itself in 5 to 10 year, and how the original expenditures and investment could be in the ballpark of other major corporate investments (~$5 Billion U.S.) This brings it out of the realm of purely government projects into something that could be done commercially, if motivated.
There are a number of technological challenges that still need to be developed, such as power systems for climbing, designing a tether system that can be built and grown or repaired while in place. Also questions about the use life of the tether material under the conditions of use (such as the friction of the climbers wearing it down). There is currently a competition sponsored for developing the aspect of power beaming to power a tether climber from the ground using light. This is an important element to the design proposed in that study. My impressions from the book was that a dedicated 5 year effort into investigating the design challenges with real financial backing could produce a solid design plan or show the concept broken. Their financial model does a good job of showing how the cost breakdown would drive the incremental cost to orbit down to the magic numbers of an order of magnitude lower and beyond. Try $10 per pound instead of $1000.
February 15th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
First things first; if NASA has a spare few billion lying around, they should invest it in bringing down the costs of moving materials to space (like space elevators!), then we can send all the people we want to other worlds.
February 15th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Wait, a space elevator would only cost $5 Billion USD?
February 16th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Okay, I looked stuff up. From http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/
“Our estimate is that the space elevator could be operational in 15 years for $10B.”
http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/521Edwards.pdf
Sorry, I had the order of magnitude correct but was off by a factor of two.
That website starts from the book and provides more information. Anyone interested in space elevators should check it out.
February 16th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Thanks. But, wait, a space elevator would only cost $10 Billion USD?
Incredible.
February 16th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Let’s concentrate on making this a scientifically-productive set of missions. Ideally, with the end goal of producing a permanent prescence in space.
The first Apollo missions were basically just a giant publicity stunt. NASA’s manned programs have done little of substance since then (other than build the entirely pointless Freedom).
If we had to choose between putting billions into reaching the Moon again, and giving that money to the roboticists, planetologists, and computer scientists to produce more advanced probes and close-to-realtime telepresence bots, I think the second option would be the better choice.