21–30 of 246 posts
We can't because the USA prefers to create more bombs and other war machines rather than invest in science.
We would never have done it the first time if not for military competition with the USSR.
(Though there is potential for another military race there too - the first country to put a deorbiting system on a near-Earth rock wins.)
We can't because the USA prefers to create more bombs and other war machines rather than invest in science.
We would never have done it the first time if not for military competition with the USSR.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lunar resources could have great value just by their location. The energy cost to lift them into space is much lower than from Earth. Doing anything ambitious in space would require a lot of material, which has limited our ambitions since the 1970s. (Asteroids might serve better, though: a wider variety of stuff, comparable in energy cost but farther away.) I wish the damn article would link to this new report, or at…
>Doing anything ambitious in space would require a lot of material, which has limited our ambitions since the 1970s. We go to the moon because materials are cheap because... we want to build what?
For example, the last resupply mission of Space X to the ISS included an experiment to product optical fibers onboard the space station, the goal is that these fibers will have a much lower number of defects in their crystalline structure then their earth produced counterparts, this means less refraction, which results in less signal loss over a longer distance which reduces the number of repeaters which reduces increases the overall signal speed.
Now, of course if you wanted to deploy these things on a world wide scale you'll need to set up a bigger shop then the ISS - which most likely will go out of service within the next decade anyway...
And while the moon does not provide a free fall environment such as LEO, the gravitational influence is still much lower than on earth itself and scaling up on a surface will most likely prove easier in the long term than doing so in orbit around the earth.
THere is little POINT in putting a man on the moon after you've done it. We have plenty of moon rock to run experiments on. Any micro/low gravity experiment can be run cheaper in LEO. There aren't any valuable resources there to exploit. It's a bit like asking why we don't build a habitat on the bottom of the Marians Trench - we COULD, but why WOUDL we?
True for one side of the moon. The Far Side of the Moon (the part that never faces the Earth) is still mostly an enigma. It looks very difference from the Near Side and while we have mapped it, we don't have samples from it.
I would say a lunar mission is still called for, but for the Far Side.
That is what China's upcoming moon mission might be aiming for [1]: Chang'E 5 will conduct a sample return mission late in 2017, and Chang'E 4 will carry a rover to the far side of the Moon, the first mission ever to do so, about a year later.
[1] http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2017/20170920-cha...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lunar resources could have great value just by their location. The energy cost to lift them into space is much lower than from Earth. Doing anything ambitious in space would require a lot of material, which has limited our ambitions since the 1970s. (Asteroids might serve better, though: a wider variety of stuff, comparable in energy cost but farther away.) I wish the damn article would link to this new report, or at…
>Doing anything ambitious in space would require a lot of material, which has limited our ambitions since the 1970s. We go to the moon because materials are cheap because... we want to build what?
Barring drastic efficiency increases in launch technology (to a Star Wars style level of ease) a lunar base is essential to enabling a space economy not suffocated by heavy shipping and transaction costs incurred by the cost of fuel and launches. When the cost of shipping materials around in space isn't drastically more expensive than Amazon sending you a package, then you'll find out exactly what we want to build.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We would never have done it the first time if not for military competition with the USSR.
Doesn't mean we have to keep competing militarily if we could go to space instead. (Though there is potential for another military race there too - the first country to put a deorbiting system on a near-Earth rock wins.)
I agree with you when we get to the offensive use of weapons. Though the US is only one of a number of players in that field.
Because capitalism, as religion while in its optimization frenzy- cripples the ability's of mankind? Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, sudde…
Though this is not caused by the religious aspects of modern capitalism, but by its core mechanism of work - people are forced to work on what earns them and protects their short-term profit (poor people to eat, rich people to not become poor people).
There seem to be only few people on the planet with simultaneously enough wealth and focused will to tell the market where to go, as opposed to being directed by the market - I'm thinking about people like Gates and Musk. Fortunately, one of them is hell-bent on getting to Mars; without that forcing function, we'd probably be talking about scrapping ISS by now.
(I don't feel like you can blame situation in NASA purely on capitalism though, at least not directly. They don't play the capitalism game. But they are controlled by politicians, and politicians play the capitalism game.)
Because capitalism, as religion while in its optimization frenzy- cripples the ability's of mankind? Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, sudde…
NASA can’t put a man on the moon, but Elon soon will make putting two lambos into lunar transfer orbit with the falcon heavy
You sure it's not Tesla Roadsters?
(Actually, the Tesla is 'just' going into a heliocentric orbit with it's apogee around the Mars orbit. That is sufficient to prove that it can get to Mars because it's just a matter of timing, which is relatively trivial, but it doesn't crash into another Planet and upsets planetary protection officers - yes, that's a job)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't mean we have to keep competing militarily if we could go to space instead. (Though there is potential for another military race there too - the first country to put a deorbiting system on a near-Earth rock wins.)
Military competition is always necessary. You need to be able to defend yourself, and for that, you cannot fall too far behind. I agree with you when we get to the offensive use of weapons. Though the US is only one of a number of players in that field.
Military competitions is what gave us microwave tech. Doesn't mean that if world peace suddenly happened, we would stop producing microwave ovens.