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If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

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Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#41

Post by olalonde »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
TylerE wrote: post #8

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?

Because it's awesome. :) I mean, we burn piles of money just for fun. May as well burn a pile of money to put someone on the moon again. Doing it just because we can is a fine reason. "Still got it!" One tweak, though. Rather than forcing them to find a reason to go, i.e. gathering moon rocks, they should just let the astronauts play around. That's the goal. Go there, then turn on a webcam and romp around for a few d…

> That would get the world thinking.

It might get some baby boomers excited but I'm not sure about younger generations. It doesn't feel like an exciting, impossible mission today.

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#42

Post by thaumasiotes »

TylerE wrote: post #8

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?

> It's a bit like asking why we don't build a habitat on the bottom of the Marians Trench - we COULD, but why WOU[LD] we?

This is overstated. We could build a habitat on the moon. We cannot build a habitat on the bottom of the ocean; that's much, much more difficult.

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#44

Post by phillc73 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #18
gozur88 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

An industry in space. To send larger probes around the Sol system. To build larger orbital laboratories, LEO or otherwise. To build all supporting infrastructure for that. To manufacture things that benefit from microgravity conditions (like optical fibers, see [0]) to be used both on Earth and elsewhere. To enable large-scale Mars missions, including eventual habitation. To eventually access more raw resources than…

If the benefit of manufacturing optical fibre cables in a low gravity environment was so great, would it be more economically viable to build a 'low gravity' factory on earth?

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#45

Post by RikNieu »

phillc73 wrote: post #44
TeMPOraL wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An industry in space. To send larger probes around the Sol system. To build larger orbital laboratories, LEO or otherwise. To build all supporting infrastructure for that. To manufacture things that benefit from microgravity conditions (like optical fibers, see [0]) to be used both on Earth and elsewhere. To enable large-scale Mars missions, including eventual habitation. To eventually access more raw resources than…

If the benefit of manufacturing optical fibre cables in a low gravity environment was so great, would it be more economically viable to build a 'low gravity' factory on earth?

How would one produce low gravity on earth?

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#46

Post by smoll »

RikNieu wrote: post #45
phillc73 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the benefit of manufacturing optical fibre cables in a low gravity environment was so great, would it be more economically viable to build a 'low gravity' factory on earth?

How would one produce low gravity on earth?

Go to its center?

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#49

Post by maccam94 »

Animats wrote: post #43

Because, half a century later, it's not any cheaper to do it than it was then.

It's recently gotten way cheaper.

Cost per kilogram delivered to LEO:

Saturn V (used for the Moon landing mission): $8,250

Falcon 9: $2,700 (price for an expendable launch)

BFR (hypothetical, in development rocket): $500

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#50

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

This seems to happen to a lot of things.

In my city (random Spanish mid-sized city, around 250K population) there is often debate about building a light rail or tram public transport line. But it is always dismissed by the administration for being too expensive, pharaonic, disproportionate for a city of this size, etc.

Doing some research on the history of the city, I discovered that not only there were several tram lines in the early 20th century, but there was even a tram line that went all the way to a nearby town of population around 15K, 22 km away. If anyone proposed a tram line like that today, I think they would be dismissed as being kidding for proposing such extravagant spending.

This, in a context where Spain is a much richer country than it was back then. I often wonder what went wrong.

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