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

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

#151

Post by Animats »

The earth-orbiting ISS is only marginally useful. Who needs another money drain around around Luna?

Moon Direct probably makes the most sense. It needs only the Falcon Heavy (about $150 million per launch) as a booster. That's a real rocket that's flown. No need for NASA's vaporware Space Lanch System ($14 billion spent so far over 8 years, still unfinished, zero launches.)

Apollo did it with one giant launch, but now that assembling systems in orbit has been done many times, there's no real reason to build something the size of the Saturn V again.

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

#152

Post by toss1 »

philwelch wrote: post #140
Ididntdothis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. If he had been voted in four years earlier I bet there wouldn’t have been Apollo 11 either.

Nixon didn't run in 1964; Goldwater did.

Oddly enough, Nixon ran and lost against Kennedy in 1960. So for sure if Nixon had won in '60, there would have been no space program

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

#153

Post by WalterBright »

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.

Getting us through the Cuban Missile Crisis without a nuclear exchange makes Kennedy a great president, nothing else really mattered.

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

#154

Post by mulmen »

toss1 wrote: post #152
philwelch wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nixon didn't run in 1964; Goldwater did.

Oddly enough, Nixon ran and lost against Kennedy in 1960. So for sure if Nixon had won in '60, there would have been no space program

Moon program maybe but the space program was already in full swing by 1960. Space was immensely important to Eisenhower for national defense purposes and Nixon was his VP.

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

#155

Post by Causality1 »

0xffff2 wrote: post #149
Causality1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you need a fully sealed biosphere? It's not like we're going on a solitary one way trip. We've kept the ISS running for enough years to prove that, in terms of biosphere anyway, we have the technology to build a base on the moon or Mars.

>Indeed, the Moon is the best location to develop and perfect technologies to settle on another planet and to live there autonomously.

So which is it? Do we need to build a base on the moon to develop technologies to let us settle Mars or do we not need to go to the moon at all because we already have the technology to build a Mars base?

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

#156

Post by inflatableDodo »

mcguire wrote: post #77
yellowapple wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shouldn’t we listen to the experts here? When have politicians ever actually listened to experts?

The brilliant thing about experts is that you can pretty easily find one to say anything you want said.

The market is thriving right now for thinktanks that specialise in delivering policy based evidence.

Of course I could have shortened this by just writing, 'The market is thriving right now for thinktanks'.

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

#157

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

dTal wrote: post #129
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…

>Also the Soviet Union was winning most of the relevant milestones in space (first satellite, first animal in orbit, first human, first woman, first space walk, etc), and this was a great source of national pride. Beating them had great propaganda value. I would rather say that the Soviet Union was winning the irrelevant milestones, precisely for the propaganda value. First woman in space means nothing, really - you…

First satellite and first man in space are not irrelevant. They're very challenging engineering problems.

First woman in space is technically easy, but it does say something about the two cultures that the Soviet Union put a woman in space almost immediately, whereas the United States didn't do so for decades.

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

#158

Post by chrisco255 »

WalterBright wrote: post #153
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.

Getting us through the Cuban Missile Crisis without a nuclear exchange makes Kennedy a great president, nothing else really mattered.

Then again, there's that whole botched Bay of Pigs invasion that led to the capture of thousands of free Cubans and hundreds of deaths ... https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/th...

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

#159

Post by 0xffff2 »

Causality1 wrote: post #155
0xffff2 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need a fully sealed biosphere? It's not like we're going on a solitary one way trip. We've kept the ISS running for enough years to prove that, in terms of biosphere anyway, we have the technology to build a base on the moon or Mars.

>Indeed, the Moon is the best location to develop and perfect technologies to settle on another planet and to live there autonomously. So which is it? Do we need to build a base on the moon to develop technologies to let us settle Mars or do we not need to go to the moon at all because we already have the technology to build a Mars base?

I responded to something you said. You're quoting something that I never said at me while completely ignoring the substance of my comment. That's no way to have a rational conversation.

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

#160

Post by DuskStar »

jessriedel wrote: post #72

> Aware of such criticisms, NASA is defending the Gateway. In May, the agency quietly distributed a white paper titled “Why Gateway?” [PDF] that makes the case for the space station. Casey Handmer's take on that document, the best I know and strongly critical, is here: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/the-lunar-gate...

> The SLS is derived from the shuttle core propulsion system, but despite adding a stage and 30% more fuel somehow lost 40% of its lift capacity. If you know how this happened, please let me know.

That is a massively sick burn right there.

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