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A rough guide for going back to the Moon

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Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#91

Post by ehe78qhe »

bdamm wrote: post #61
wavemode wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> space has practically infinite everything - land, resources, energy The Earth has more land than mankind will ever need. The Earth has effectively infinite energy from the Sun. And most of the resources we need are derived from biological matter, which Space lacks.

Ah, but humanity is an expansive and consuming force, as is natural since most forces in the universe are entropy increasing ones. And since amino acids have been discovered on asteroids and tardigrades and fungus have been shown to survive space travel, we can't even say that Space provably lacks biological matter. Expanding (back?) into space is our manifest destiny, and good for the price of real estate too since…

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Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#92

Post by ehe78qhe »

Planktonne wrote: post #54
bryanlarsen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> endless money poured into innovation The US put 5% of the federal budget into the original moon mission. NASA and SpaceX and the US Space Force combined don't spend anywhere close to that on R&D.

That's part of my complaint. More and more money is poured into 'innovation' across our society, but what do we have to show for it?

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Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#93

Post by WalterBright »

bluGill wrote: post #90
WalterBright wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the point in having a colony of maybe dozens of people completely dependent on shipments from Earth? The Jamestown colony relied on shipments from England. > Building a self-sustaining colony is so far outside the realm of possibility that it isn't worth thinking about And look at what America became.

Jamestown went to a place where humans had lived for thousands of years. They used shipments from England, but they didn't need them at any time.

The colony would have failed without those shipments. They desperately needed them.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#94

Post by roryirvine »

WalterBright wrote: post #84
roryirvine wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the finish line did keep changing: first satellite in orbit, first living mammals in orbit, first human in orbit, multiple humans in orbit, spacewalk, moon landing, human moon landing, planetary landing, space station, reusable space plane, modular space station. I think both sides broadly agreed on all of those as their "next big goal" (with slight question mark over the space plane, as you could reasonably say…

> first living mammals in orbit And left to die in orbit.

Sure. So you could maybe add the first animals to safely return from space into the list too - the first win on the American side if you're counting sub-orbital flights, otherwise it'd've been Sputnik 5.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#95

Post by dhosek »

somenameforme wrote: post #29
bluGill wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going to the moon is a publicity stunt. Been there done that. There are very few good arguments for putting anything on the moon, much less a human (which generally can do much less because all the life support needed can't be put into science). All the arguments for going to the moon need to be considered against everything else we can do - opportunity cost is real, but investing in the moon we are not investing in…

I think this sort of view is quite myopic. In general space has practically infinite everything - land, resources, energy, and more. It has the potential to enable, in turn, infinite expansion of humanity. But we're not going to get to the endgame without playing the opening first. The path to international air flight began with often suicidal attempts to flap our arms with various instruments attached and act like b…

Infinite distance and travel cost too!

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#96

Post by xfact192 »

heaney-555 wrote: post #8
Planktonne wrote: post #2

It's hard not to see this as a consolation prize. In 1969, we went to the moon. In 2026, with all the benefits of a tech industry that has become ever more powerful, with endless money poured into innovation, our 'rough guide back to the moon' is an AI model that maps it. It's powerful and impressive, of course, and doubtless very useful to researchers, and space exploration is not a priority--all of that is true, su…

You should look into the Artemis program! Not only are we going back, but we're building a base, which will effectively be the spiritual successor to the ISS.

Another good program to watch is Space: 1999. Just sayin'... :)

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#97

Post by no_multitudes »

somenameforme wrote: post #29
bluGill wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going to the moon is a publicity stunt. Been there done that. There are very few good arguments for putting anything on the moon, much less a human (which generally can do much less because all the life support needed can't be put into science). All the arguments for going to the moon need to be considered against everything else we can do - opportunity cost is real, but investing in the moon we are not investing in…

I think this sort of view is quite myopic. In general space has practically infinite everything - land, resources, energy, and more. It has the potential to enable, in turn, infinite expansion of humanity. But we're not going to get to the endgame without playing the opening first. The path to international air flight began with often suicidal attempts to flap our arms with various instruments attached and act like b…

We'd be much better off building colonies on the bottom of the ocean than on the moon or mars (or a cylinder floating at a lagrange point.)

After we run out of space on the ocean I suppose it will make sense to consider space colonies, but I think you are really underestimating the technical challenges.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#98

Post by bee_rider »

roryirvine wrote: post #41
bee_rider wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, in Russia do they have a pitch for where they’d rather draw the finish line? I admit it is probably influenced by having a US upbringing, but “landing on the Moon” does seem like a natural finish line for a space race. The move of picking an advantageous finish line is easily countered by… picking an obvious successor finish line. If they’d stuck a base on the moon that’d have been a pretty compelling “actu…

But the finish line did keep changing: first satellite in orbit, first living mammals in orbit, first human in orbit, multiple humans in orbit, spacewalk, moon landing, human moon landing, planetary landing, space station, reusable space plane, modular space station. I think both sides broadly agreed on all of those as their "next big goal" (with slight question mark over the space plane, as you could reasonably say…

> But the finish line did keep changing: first satellite in orbit, first living mammals in orbit, first human in orbit, multiple humans in orbit, spacewalk, moon landing, human moon landing,

I agree here, but it’s not really a game with declared rules or something. I think the US won in a game of oneupsmanship. Rather than try to make up rules, we can observe that the US always lost by little enough to plausibly claim that there was another more interesting goal right there. Then, won on the goal where, for whatever reason, there wasn’t a natural follow-up.

Of course, getting people to believe that the next thing you go for is a natural follow-up is itself an exercise in PR or propaganda. That’s why I’m mostly curious about how Russians saw

> planetary landing, space station, reusable space plane, modular space station.

There are definitely candidates for what could have been the “next target.” In my perception these just weren’t something people were excited about. But I wasn’t born at the time and I’m American so I know I got a biased telling.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#99

Post by jimbokun »

Planktonne wrote: post #2

It's hard not to see this as a consolation prize. In 1969, we went to the moon. In 2026, with all the benefits of a tech industry that has become ever more powerful, with endless money poured into innovation, our 'rough guide back to the moon' is an AI model that maps it. It's powerful and impressive, of course, and doubtless very useful to researchers, and space exploration is not a priority--all of that is true, su…

The show For All Mankind is a truly bittersweet look at how space exploration could have turned out differently.

I’m sure the technical challenges are much greater than how they are portrayed in the show. But certainly there has been a lack of will and optimism and imagination as well.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

wavemode wrote: post #48
somenameforme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this sort of view is quite myopic. In general space has practically infinite everything - land, resources, energy, and more. It has the potential to enable, in turn, infinite expansion of humanity. But we're not going to get to the endgame without playing the opening first. The path to international air flight began with often suicidal attempts to flap our arms with various instruments attached and act like b…

> space has practically infinite everything - land, resources, energy The Earth has more land than mankind will ever need. The Earth has effectively infinite energy from the Sun. And most of the resources we need are derived from biological matter, which Space lacks.

That's 3/3 complete bullshit, and first two doesn't even take high school level math to disprove completely.

I get it though. This is just how naturalism looks like when runs out of arguments in its favor.

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