Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

news.nationalgeographic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 284 posts

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#121

Post by neaden »

valuearb wrote: post #117
neaden wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but this is just silly. Just because something happened in a novel published more than 50 years ago does not at all make it likely to happen in real life. The Moon is much less habitable than we thought it would be in the 60s, meaning any moon colony will be very dependent on the Earth for the foreseeable future and the rock launcher wouldn't be bulidable with the kind of infrastructure in the novel.

The point is it's really hard to impose laws and forms of government on peoples living days or months away from you. Sooner or later they'll want to make their own.

Says who? Plenty of empires had people living that far without rebellions breaking out. Yeah the US rebelled against Britain but Canada, Australia, and a bunch of other places didn't. Hell, most of England was more than a couple days away from London for most of English history without breaking away. Let alone a larger country like China.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#122

Post by alansammarone »

drostie wrote: post #108
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not poles?

I'm glad you asked! So there's an important physics reason why the equator is warm and the North and South poles are cold on this planet, and it has to do with how you point a surface. If you ever find yourself in a dark office with a bright desk lamp (or maybe your home office or kid's bedroom might be suitable) you might even try this experiment: take a flat surface, a notepad or steno pad, and hold it up facing th…

That's a very interesting point, thank you for the explanation!

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#123

Post by andyfal12 »

andars wrote: post #36
munificent wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People way underestimate how far away Mars is. To give you a sense of scale, the settlers of Jamestown came from London. As the crow flies, that's about 3,790 miles. If we treat that as equivalent to settling on Mars, then for them to settle on "the moon" would have been a mere 26 miles from London. Perhaps Canvey Island on the River Thames. If we can't manage settlements that close, we really aren't ready yet for th…

In terms of distance, sure. In terms of delta-v, the budget for the moon is upwards of 50% that for Mars. EDIT: The 50% figure is from memory, and upon further reflection is probably not quite right, so take it with a grain of salt. I just wanted to point out that distance is not the only relevant metric.

Yes, so those two metrics boil down into time cost and fuel cost? Any other costs for just the transit?

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#124

Post by logfromblammo »

ribosometronome wrote: post #88
kbenson wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the backup option is only for the wealthy, leaving the rest in a worse state. Like most technology, it flows from the rich to the poor eventually as it becomes cheaper. The important part you omitted is that it leaves the rest in a worse relative state. Their absolute state is no worse, and likely better. Arguing against a backup for civilization (or more appropriately, a backup for the species) because it will be…

Why is humanity's survival important?

To date, humanity has been the only species with a demonstrated ability to reliably lift portions of the Earth ecosystem out of the planetary gravity well.

It is therefore essential to creating self-sustaining spores filled with Earth-life.

Humanity must survive if Earth-life is to survive.

As such, humanity also gets to pick the species (or subspecies) that get included in the spores. Autotrophic algae will likely get a guaranteed berth on the ship, whereas elephants are going to have to breed themselves down smaller and smarter if they want off this rock.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#125

Post by quotha »

hutzlibu wrote: post #105
quotha wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adj. 1. bone dry - without a trace of moisture; as dry as a weathered bone

metapher - something not allways meant to be literal in a scientific sense. Bone dry is a very good description for a desert for a ordinary human beeing, as it means you wont find water you can use

No, he is using the word incorrectly. They are not bone-dry.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#126

Post by deathhand »

Devid2014 wrote: post #116
wellboy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survival of humanity isn't important universally. The universe doesn't care. But it's the most important thing for humans.

I care and I am part of this universe, like you and every other human on this planet. So at lest partially universe care about humanity.

"We are the universe experiencing itself"

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#127

Post by andyfal12 »

tjmojo wrote: post #102
Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mars has atmosphere for aerobraking and ISRU possibilities that the moon does not. In many ways, it is much more practical from a spaceflight standpoint. That's not to say that there aren't possibilities for both, but Mars is seen as the preferred choice for a variety of sound reasons.

"Mars' atmosphere is in the perfect goldilocks zone of being a total headache" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2nqgKL2JQU

Thank you, i couldn't remember where I had heard this before.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#128

Post by logfromblammo »

valuearb wrote: post #117
neaden wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but this is just silly. Just because something happened in a novel published more than 50 years ago does not at all make it likely to happen in real life. The Moon is much less habitable than we thought it would be in the 60s, meaning any moon colony will be very dependent on the Earth for the foreseeable future and the rock launcher wouldn't be bulidable with the kind of infrastructure in the novel.

The point is it's really hard to impose laws and forms of government on peoples living days or months away from you. Sooner or later they'll want to make their own.

Same lesson as KSRobinson's Mars series. Same lesson as the United States secession and rebellion against Great Britain.

You make the government local, or the local government that eventually forms will rebel. Then it will beat you, because it can react to the local situation more quickly.

You might be able to control the Moon from Earth, but Mars will definitely be self-governing. It's all about the latency.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#129

Post by jacobush »

rory096 wrote: post #56
andars wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of distance, sure. In terms of delta-v, the budget for the moon is upwards of 50% that for Mars. EDIT: The 50% figure is from memory, and upon further reflection is probably not quite right, so take it with a grain of salt. I just wanted to point out that distance is not the only relevant metric.

>The 50% figure is from memory, and upon further reflection is probably not quite right, so take it with a grain of salt. You're actually underestimating. Mars has an atmosphere, so spacecraft can use aerobraking to significantly reduce the delta-v required to get there. The moon has no such benefit — propulsion is required all the way to the surface. The advantage of the moon, of course, is that it's not limited to…

ACKSHULLY - aerobraking on Mars is a chore. The atmosphere is dense enough to burn you to a crisp, thin enough it won't help you slow down - much.

Look at the marvel that is the Skycrane. Not needed for the Moon.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#130

Post by neaden »

logfromblammo wrote: post #128
valuearb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is it's really hard to impose laws and forms of government on peoples living days or months away from you. Sooner or later they'll want to make their own.

Same lesson as KSRobinson's Mars series. Same lesson as the United States secession and rebellion against Great Britain. You make the government local, or the local government that eventually forms will rebel. Then it will beat you, because it can react to the local situation more quickly. You might be able to control the Moon from Earth, but Mars will definitely be self-governing. It's all about the latency.

Why didn't Canada rebel? Australia? Falkland Islands? Malta? India? Nigeria? Belize? Tunisia? Samoa? Puerto Rico? The Philippines? Guam? Most of the Caribbean? In fact, off the top of my head the only times that you saw a colony rebel in a circumstance like that was the U.S and Haiti. Now you can point pout that most of the countries I mentioned are independent or quasi-independent today but most of them got that status after WW2 when it was actually much much easier to travel. And all of those countries also had the benefit of being able to have a breathable atmosphere, a magnetic field, and land which you can grow crops on none of which Mars or the Moon have which would make them much more dependent on their home nation.
Post reply on HN