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

NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 168 posts

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #62
Ididntdothis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apollo was lucky that Johnson came in after Kennedy. I think if a republican had won in 1964 probably there wouldn’t have been a moon landing. By the time Nixon came in there was already too much momentum to cancel it.

The country, the Democratic party and Kennedy for that matter were lucky Johnson wound up in the oval office. Johnson was very good at actually making deals and getting stuff done (e.g. ensuring the budget that gets to his desk includes NASA). If it weren't for Johnson Kennedy would only be remembered for getting us into Vietnam then getting shot.

> If it weren't for Johnson Kennedy would only be remembered for getting us into Vietnam then getting shot.

Well, getting shot. Kennedy wasn't all that important in getting is into Vietnam, that was mostly before and after Kennedy.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#82

Post by Causality1 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #67
reallydude wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going back the moon is the logical next step in going to Mars. You don't send off materials and bodies in the hope that years later it will work out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon It took many attempts to get a successful moon mission where we landed. How many more before we could dig into the rock for a habitat? Now multiply the time by the round trip to Mars. The fantasy of being on Mar…

Indeed, the Moon is the best location to develop and perfect technologies to settle on another planet and to live there autonomously. Because it's very near it's obviously much faster and cheaper to ship things there, and it allows near-instant communication back and forth. Once the technologies are mature it will just be a question of longer shipping to mars or anywhere else.

No, earth is the best place to develop technologies to settle on another world. Planning a moon base when we can't even build and run a sealed biosphere on earth is like looking for sponsors for your F-1 team before learning how to drive a car.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#83

Post by wongarsu »

jandrese wrote: post #75
wongarsu wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was fear that if the Russians got to the moon first they might set up a base, and having a base they could shoot down any other landing attempt (literally, with guns mounted in their moon base). Thus the moon could become Russian domain, which would not just grant them great research opportunities but also a virtually unreachable weapons platform. (Remember that the first crewed space station was 2 years after…

Shooting people from the moon is probably the least practical military endeavor ever seriously contemplated, and that is saying a lot. The Cold War resulted in a lot of really nutty thinking so I can't rule it out entirely, but it's hard to imagine what such a base would look like, especially with 1960s tech.

Getting from the moon to earth is trivial when compared to launching anything from earth. Using some back-of-the-envelope calculation a Atlas B ICBM from 1959 has enough fuel and thrust to deliver over 5 tons of warheads from the moon to earth. If you launched from the far side of the moon I imagine early warning and interception aren't on the table with 1960/70s tech, providing excellent first strike and second strike capability.

Of course actually getting ICBMs on the moon is a whole other endeavor.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#84

Post by mytailorisrich »

Causality1 wrote: post #82
mytailorisrich wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the Moon is the best location to develop and perfect technologies to settle on another planet and to live there autonomously. Because it's very near it's obviously much faster and cheaper to ship things there, and it allows near-instant communication back and forth. Once the technologies are mature it will just be a question of longer shipping to mars or anywhere else.

No, earth is the best place to develop technologies to settle on another world. Planning a moon base when we can't even build and run a sealed biosphere on earth is like looking for sponsors for your F-1 team before learning how to drive a car.

Earth is a good place to develop and simulate but at one point we need to put this into practice and learn a lot in the process.

To use your F-1 analogy: At one point you need to build and an actual car and to drive it on an actual track.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#85

Post by greglindahl »

avmich wrote: post #51
goodcanadian wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost down voted you in a knee jerk reaction. I believe that manned space exploration serves a very important purpose in advancing humanity . . . however, from the typical Congress critter's point of view, I suspect you're right.

I suspect GP underestimates the scientific value of Apollo missions. It's so much difference to e.g. study samples brought from the Moon (and taken with reasonable care) in Earth labs than to send robots to do the same. There is a POV that robots are good for scientific missions up to certain price point. After that manned missions become more cost effective.

The money spent on Apollo would support a large number of robotic missions, including sample return. And they could visit a bunch of different areas.

If we were trying to maximize science per dollar, every manned program would have a lot of robotic preparation. Are we doing that? No. We've spent almost nothing on the Moon and only a tiny, tiny fraction of the manned budget on robots to Mars.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#86

Post by ticmasta »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #65
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country, the Democratic party and Kennedy for that matter were lucky Johnson wound up in the oval office. Johnson was very good at actually making deals and getting stuff done (e.g. ensuring the budget that gets to his desk includes NASA). If it weren't for Johnson Kennedy would only be remembered for getting us into Vietnam then getting shot.

I guess Johnson then took the honor of being blamed for getting the country into Vietnam:). And it broke him.

Johnson accomplished a lot and, more importantly, in the correct order to make sure things got done. I think you're right though (and that he probably felt the same way) that he'll always be the Vietnam president. That may be a little unfair but it happened on his watch so that's what history will rightfully focus on.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#87

Post by jandrese »

ansible wrote: post #68
magashna wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total conjecture, but seeing as how the private space industry has ramped up, it would make sense to leave during such a hostile administration

Where are people going to go if they want to do science? OK, the ESA, Japan, India. Maybe China. But is there anywhere else to go in the USA?

SpaceX? Or if your science isn't specifically on materials for rockets/physics for rockets/etc... you could be funded by a university or research institute and simply pay for (part of) a launch on a SpaceX rocket.

NASA still does quite a bit of science work though, so I wouldn't count them out entirely. Administrations come and go. Sometimes you just gotta keep your head down and keep doing your job until someone better is voted in.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#88

Post by jemorya »

Retric wrote: post #63
rtkwe wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a lot of value in the research NASA/JAXA/ESA/Roscosmos does in space. Some experiments are only really doable under long term microgravity The US runs it as a national lab and many companies use it for experiments. Maintaining it that way makes it way easier for companies to run experiments in space, with out the ISS each company would have to design, build and launch their own satellite for each experim…

The catch 22 is any experiment that you can only do in microgravity is also only really relevant in microgravity. That’s fine if we have a larger goal, but not really useful on it’s own. Sure simply learning this stuff is interesting, but the costs are so extreme it’s effectively a vanity project.

I'm not sure that the information from such experiments is only really relevant to applications in microgravity environments. (Hopefully I'm not misunderstanding your point too much.)

The data points from microgravity experiments don't exist in isolation; presumably there are data points for similar experiments at surface gravity. Removing gravity from a system could say very much about how gravity affects the system, and thus how the system works on Earth.

We also might discover effects so important that it would be worth going to microgravity to get them. Stepping out into the unknown just to learn how it works is important.

(Disclaimer: I know jack about what kind of microgravity experiments are going on.)

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#89

Post by ticmasta »

smaddox wrote: post #31
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #13

The thing about the original moon landing programme was that it had a great clarity of outcome and timeline. What: Land a man on the moon and return him safely When: Before the decade is out That meant NASA could really focus and throw out everything that wasn't directly on that path. Reusability - take too long, we'll build each craft from scratch. Permanent mission - Too complicated, keep the missions very short. M…

As far as I can tell, the primary purpose of manned space missions is to redirecting taxes to congressional districts and defense contractors. The secondary purpose might be to inspire interest in STEM, but it seems much less successful at achieving that objective.

especially when you look at the scientific pay-off from relatively cheap unmanned space exploration vs. what we get from shooting humans onto the space equivalent of the front step of the house.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#90

Post by ticmasta »

smaddox wrote: post #70
avmich wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect GP underestimates the scientific value of Apollo missions. It's so much difference to e.g. study samples brought from the Moon (and taken with reasonable care) in Earth labs than to send robots to do the same. There is a POV that robots are good for scientific missions up to certain price point. After that manned missions become more cost effective.

I don't see how it would be cheaper to send a human to the Moon to retrieve samples than it would be to send a robot.

and that's really just the cost the actual mission. Consider the impact of having to prepare a program that meets acceptable risk levels for humans vs. machines. This is a huge consideration. I'm not suggesting unmanned exploration can take a trial and error approach, but losing a robot is sad & expensive while losing a human astronaut can terminate the entire program.
Post reply on HN