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The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

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Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#31

Post by WalterBright »

olivaw_daneel wrote: post #30
WalterBright wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shipping factories The idea is to ship the factories that build the factories that build the factories that build the factories that can build large ships in large quantities.

If only life were an RTS game :) If we are talking about taking advantage of resources not available on Earth, the untold riches of the Asteroid Belt are eminently more accessible from Mars.

Asteroids present other major difficulties, such as being much, much farther away, and having no gravity.

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#32

Post by hutzlibu »

WalterBright wrote: post #23
gozur88 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the moon doesn't make any sense. It's a big, dusty, radiation-blasted rock. Sure, we could build bases there, but why would we? That's the question Apollo managers could never answer and why the program was ultimately shut down.

> It's a big, dusty, radiation-blasted rock. So is Mars. I do think we should be seeking out extremophiles on Earth and seeding Mars with them to see if anything takes hold, but I seem to be in a minority of one on that notion. :-)

Ah ... I doubt it would work and be worth the effort and I doubt we should do that, before we explored mars for indiginous life first!

("probably terran!" ... reference to the the mars chronicle from K.S.Robinson)

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#33

Post by andyfal12 »

WalterBright wrote: post #12

The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…

100 percent agree.

The most logical plan I heard was the following: Solar power works way better, and potentially nonstop at the poles of the moon. Use that energy to cook moonrock into building materials and lauch it all into orbit on an electromagnetic mass driver. Then design and build Oniell cylinders, once we have rigorous tests of artificial gravity on humans. If you want a Mars base after the fact, go for it. Put a station in orbit around Mars that recieves deliveries from the moon.

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#34

Post by hutzlibu »

gozur88 wrote: post #15
WalterBright wrote: post #12

The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…

No, the moon doesn't make any sense. It's a big, dusty, radiation-blasted rock. Sure, we could build bases there, but why would we? That's the question Apollo managers could never answer and why the program was ultimately shut down.

Besides what all the others have said in favor of moon, I would add: https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/

Seriously, I bet there are many rich people willing to go to the moon, if reasonable safe and fast. And this probably could be done with the moon quite soon ... and all of that would be a BIG push for everything else in space.

(especially if we manage to build rocket factorys on the moon...)

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#36

Post by avian »

WalterBright wrote: post #21
olivaw_daneel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moon is certainly more accessible, but the purpose of having a base there is more less clear from both a practical and a scientific perspective. The scientific/engineering (and cultural/sociological) gains from a human return to the moon would be tiny compared to a Mars mission, and any funding (think tens of billions) allocated to such a mission will necessarily push a Mars mission back by a decade or more. Firs…

The purpose of being on the moon is having it as a massive manufacturing place for building things to move outward in the solar system. Lifting things out of the earth's gravity well is just too expensive. Compare the size of the Saturn 5 rocket to get to the moon with the size of the rocket needed to come back. I do not see the challenges of building a habitat on the moon that much different from Mars. You have (ess…

> Compare the size of the Saturn 5 rocket to get to the moon with the size of the rocket needed to come back.

That is not fair comparisson. Saturn V needed to also lift the rocket that came back.

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#37

Post by sdrothrock »

reed1 wrote: post #35

Ok I'm a complete idiot on astronomics. Seeing how difficult it is to land on moon even with recent technology and such, also keeping in mind that no manned moon landings was made on 21st century, can we say that Neil Armstrong landing was a fraud?

> Seeing how difficult it is to land on moon even with recent technology and such, also keeping in mind that no manned moon landings was made on 21st century, can we say that Neil Armstrong landing was a fraud?

Seeing how difficult it is to circumnavigate the world in a wooden ship with recent technology and stuff, also keeping in mind that nobody has circumnavigated the world in a galleon in the 21st century, is it safe to say that Magellan was a fraud?

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#38

Post by moemoeg »

curtis wrote: post #24
WalterBright wrote: post #12

The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…

Mars has some stuff that the Moon doesn't: volatiles. According to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatiles ): In planetary science, volatiles are the group of chemical elements and chemical compounds with low boiling points that are associated with a planet's or moon's crust or atmosphere. Examples include nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen, methane and sulfur dioxide. Of these the only on…

One thing worth noting is the soil, if memory serves, the moon soil hs been described as being very sharp and clingy with some properties of asbestos, as in its very problematic. This is because there has been no water, winds etc to grind the sand as on earth.

Now on Mars the soil has been moved by winds and other natural phenomenon, so it should be far less problematic to just brush it off, not to begin on the more useful composition of it, I can imagine the iron will come in handy when the habitat gets to the point where they can start refining and producing.

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#39

Post by WalterBright »

hutzlibu wrote: post #32
WalterBright wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a big, dusty, radiation-blasted rock. So is Mars. I do think we should be seeking out extremophiles on Earth and seeding Mars with them to see if anything takes hold, but I seem to be in a minority of one on that notion. :-)

Ah ... I doubt it would work and be worth the effort and I doubt we should do that, before we explored mars for indiginous life first! ("probably terran!" ... reference to the the mars chronicle from K.S.Robinson)

> before we explored mars for indiginous life first!

We already have. It's a liveless rock. How much more do we keep moving the goal posts and beating that dead horse?

Re: The Next Moon Landing Is Near, Thanks to Pioneering Engineers

#40

Post by slededit »

gozur88 wrote: post #15
WalterBright wrote: post #12

The foreseeable future for man in space is the moon, not Mars. The moon is close - orders of magnitude easier to get there and back again. Its gravity well isn't a prison. You can probably launch stuff from there to earth with a linear accelerator. It's full of natural resources that can be used to build colonies and space ships. There's no environment to degrade. Mars doesn't make any sense. The moon does. And besid…

No, the moon doesn't make any sense. It's a big, dusty, radiation-blasted rock. Sure, we could build bases there, but why would we? That's the question Apollo managers could never answer and why the program was ultimately shut down.

The "dark" side of the moon is shielded from earth's considerable RF emissions. It's a great place to stick a massive radio telescope.
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