Moon 2.0 dead?

[dbhost]

Since my house is about 10 miles south of the Johnson Space Center, you could say I am biased... But even without my local economy being at grave risk... I am also very aware of the many, many spinoffs of space agency technology that have fueled many of the technological innovations of the last 50 years. Would we all have personal computers, or laptops for that matter had it not been for the need to minatureize integrated circuits for spaceflight? I seriously doubt it. And if you look at the budget "bite" that the entire organization gets, I am pretty sure we give away more each year in foreign aid to countries like Elbonia.

[Uncle Cracker]

Actually, many of the materials and technologies developed in the name of the space program were actually obsolete before they ever flew. That's how long it takes to get anything done in such an enormous bureaucracy. R&D today is driven by profit, and the need for instant gratification. The space program has long since made people look elsewhere for this.

[RobertB574]

My 2 Cents

We first went to the moon over half a century ago. Foolishly I thought that space travel would be possible for the average person in my lifetime.

I was sad and disappointed to see the moon abandoned and our country instead concentrate on the Low Earth Orbit Shuttle. I believed that the shuttle kept us earth-bound and left no resources for man to go further.

Then a couple of years ago a new thought came to me as I was driving to Atlanta with my wife. She was on her cell phone talking to her sister while we were driving on the interstate. Nothing unusual with that except that my wife's sister was in Bangkok - a half world away.

I remember trans-Atlantic phone calls on the underseas cable. That usually took the operator a couple of hours to set up. Then the call when made was very short because of the expense.

So there we were on our way, guided by the GPS, traveling 70 mile per hour, my wife on her cell phone and I thinking my thoughts. I enjoy technology - the internet, my iPhone, living in Georgia yet staying in close contact with my brothers living in Texas and California.

All of that was not possible 50 years ago. And maybe if our country had concentrated on establishing a presence on the moon back then, the technology I enjoy would not be possible today.

So now I think that it is a good thing that NASA went with the shuttle. The knowledge gained from that may have helped in the developement of artificial satellites. The world has shrunk; Middle Class America benefits from more accurate weather forecasts, enjoys cable tv and more.

We were not ready for the moon 50 years ago. And maybe there is another step or two between us and the moon. What's the next step after Hubble scope - an observatory on the far side of the moon? Industrial pollution - relocate it to the moon? Another 50 years before we are there? Who knows, but eventually man will go to the moon to stay. And I hope that it is America that does it.

[dkerfoot]

The thing that gets me P.O.ed about it is that NASA is THE pinnacle of the engineering mountain. This takes away some of the interest in the field of aeronautical engineering. Just when this country is in need of more scientists and engineers they take away the one thing that you can point at and say this is what you can aspire too if your good.

Ummmm.... If we are in need of scientists and engineers, this should free some of the best ones to help where the real need is. As for inspiration, I don't think something that was accomplished 40 years ago using vacuum tubes has the same drawing power today as it did back then. There are plenty of exciting challenges to be solved.

[Kristofor]

Exploration for exploration's sake has value to me. I think the bang for the buck factor is certainly much higher with unmanned missions. That is of course true of watching a PBS show about Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, or a Coral reef when compared to actually going there too.

However, if you have been there your may still find the TV program interesting and informative, but you probably realize that it does not, and likely can not convey the same sense of wonder and awe. I think that there is some fundamental component to humanity that will always want to see what's over the next mountain or on the next planet.

On a more long-term survival perspective. Airplanes don't crash often but they still have escape slides. Oceanliners almost never sink anymore yet they still have lifeboats.

There is a 100% chance that the Earth will be rendered uninhabitable for humans, probably multiple times. Sure, many of the likely causes are millions or billions of years in the future, but there are at least a handful of possible (though incredibly unlikely) spiecies ending scenarios that could play out next month or next year. So long as we're in one solar system, or to a greater extent on one planet, we have all of our eggs in one basket.

Now I have no actual "worry" about this happening, but if I put on my 4X-style gamer hat and took the long view it is something I would want to start hedging against once the option was available...

[Uncle Cracker]

There is a 100% chance that the Earth will be rendered uninhabitable for humans, probably multiple times.

And it is many times more likely that we will do it ourselves than fall victim to some cosmic cataclysm... We are summarily irresponsible, and financing a search for a new planet to live on is ridiculous, since we will just be taking our problem with us.

[billwmeyer]

Exploration for exploration's sake has value to me. I think the bang for the buck factor is certainly much higher with unmanned missions. That is of course true of watching a PBS show about Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, or a Coral reef when compared to actually going there too.

However, if you have been there your may still find the TV program interesting and informative, but you probably realize that it does not, and likely can not convey the same sense of wonder and awe. I think that there is some fundamental component to humanity that will always want to see what's over the next mountain or on the next planet.

On a more long-term survival perspective. Airplanes don't crash often but they still have escape slides. Oceanliners almost never sink anymore yet they still have lifeboats.

There is a 100% chance that the Earth will be rendered uninhabitable for humans, probably multiple times. Sure, many of the likely causes are millions or billions of years in the future, but there are at least a handful of possible (though incredibly unlikely) spiecies ending scenarios that could play out next month or next year. So long as we're in one solar system, or to a greater extent on one planet, we have all of our eggs in one basket.

Now I have no actual "worry" about this happening, but if I put on my 4X-style gamer hat and took the long view it is something I would want to start hedging against once the option was available...

I agree with you somewhat. I have been disapointed in the space program for years. Man needs to expand his boundries. If we would have worried about taking our problems with us, our ancestors would still live in the old countries. The Mayflower would have been used for firewood.

We need to see what is out there. We need an asteroid observation point on the moon. We need to find out if Mars is a ruined planet or just a dust bowl. It is like snow. It can be described to you forever, you can read about it, and see it on tv, but you don't know what it is like until you get a snowball in your face.

Bill

[cabinetman]

It is like snow. It can be described to you forever, you can read about it, and see it on tv, but you don't know what it is like until you get a snowball in your face.

Bill

I haven't had a snowball in the face since I was 5 years old. It's unforgettable.
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[tseavoy]

I have lived off the NASA space exploration programs for much of my working life, starting out in navigation, guidance, and control for launch vehicles, satellites, and even the Lunar Rover.
In 1962 I worked on the Apollo command and service module control system. In 1964 I worked on the Lunar Orbiter program, an unmanned moon orbiting satellite taking detailed high resolution photographs of the moon. I was a member of the Apollo fire analysis team in Houston. I also worked on design of mars exploration satellites. Here are my opinions:

Sending humans into space is stupid. Most of the cost is in life support.
Unmanned planetary exploration satellites have provided the world a lot of data that lies mostly in some dusty NASA archives (recently, they just rediscovered the Lunar Orbiter photos).
The moon is just a lifeless rock with no atmosphere -- period!
Nowadays, the technology spawned by space exploration is far surpassed by that gained from commercial ventures.
Orbiting communication, navigation, and TV satellites are a good thing.
A gallon of pond water holds more life secrets than can be gathered by sending people into space.

There I've said it and I'm glad.

Tom on Marrowstone

[LCHIEN]

there are no raw materials we can get on other planets that we can't get here that would be worth the cost to go get them and refine them and return them to earth.

The semiconductor industry was not driven by the space program. Even into the late 90's the space shuttles were still using 1970's era computer technology. Space projects just don't have the volume to drive semiconductors development like cell phones, personal computers, digital cameras, DVD players, flat screen tvs etc.

Launching ourselves selfllessly towards far away locations has always been a hallmark of mankind... we do it on purpose. Other species also tend to do it although propogation of species to new lands seems to be more of a haphazard journey taken without thought, just a matter of chance that a lizard gets a ride on a log across some ocean straits.

I'm a great fan of space exploration - its a source of national pride. However I don't think that China duplicating the 1969 moon landing feat 50 years later in copies of Soviet era space capsules is a great threat - although the Chinese seem to take pride in spaceflight. Moon landings are surely an exclusive club and they are still a couple of years away??

So how much of our precious national treasury should we spend on space exploration? Froma pure economics standpoint we can accomplish so much with robotic spacecraft now. Robots are one-way and need little in the way of life support. A manned flight requries mulitple levels of safety redundancy, more critical components, heavier lift on takeoff for supplies and life-materials (Food, water, air) living quarters and don't forget it has to travel twice as far to get there and back intact. Easily costing 10-100 times as much.

Consider this: it takes 4.5 million pounds of rockets, mostly rocket fuel and spacecraft to put a 5,000 lb payload into Geostationary orbit. that's about .1% of the takeoff weight. Granted Mars is a little less gravity than earth, but assume it takes 5 million pounds of rocket stuff to send a 5000 lb manned capsule from Mars back to Earth. Given the .1% ratio then we'll need to expend 5 billion pounds of rocket fuel to send the 5 million pound rocket to mars so that it can return. That is if we want to fly directly to the Mars. That's why they want to fly to Mars from low gravity moon base, so they don't have to put a 5 billion puound rocket. But they will have to take 5 million pounds of fuel and spacecraft to the moon in about 1000 or more trips to assemble that 5 million pound rocket to Mars.


We could send a lot of robotic missions for the cost of one manned mission. I really find it hard to justify manned spaceflight to Mars. If we don't go to Mars, then we don't really need to have a moon base, either. No moon base, no moon return.

[Uncle Cracker]

Simple question: Why should the money I very much need to live here be taken away from me, so that somebody else can go to the friggin' moon? Somebody 'splain why I am forced to make that sacrifice...

[cabinetman]

Simple question: Why should the money I very much need to live here be taken away from me, so that somebody else can go to the friggin' moon? Somebody 'splain why I am forced to make that sacrifice...

You're just a very generous giving person.
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