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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

#101

Post by wavemode »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #100
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.

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.

Feel free to disprove them completely since you're so confident

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#102

Post by bryanlarsen »

WalterBright wrote: post #85
bryanlarsen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has the first finish line -- Sputnik. You can pick a successor finish line to diminish the American accomplishment, but Russia will always have that first one.

Nah, the V2 was the first rocket to reach space.

While true, the Germans don't claim that first for obvious reasons, leaving the Russians able to claim the first achievement.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#103

Post by teachrdan »

somenameforme wrote: post #33
1970-01-01 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That remains a ridiculous argument. The thing about a race is you can always think of excuses for not winning. Plans for Mars were being met by all accounts, however Nixon still cancelled them because the Apollo victory was so decisive.

Nixon cancelled them because he was increasingly worried about a catastrophic accident and felt it could damage his political career and ambitions. Seriously. [1] If he only knew... Outside of that you're correct. We were already set for progress onto Mars. In a parallel timeline where one man's political ambitions, and myopia, didn't override the interests of an entire species - we could already viably have multiple…

> we could already viably have multiple parallel civilizations scattered throughout the solar system

This is nonsense. A trip to Mars would take a minimum of 6 months and could only be resupplied every 2 years. Mars has a tiny amount of water, virtually no atmosphere, and receives 700x more radiation than Earth. Mars colonists would be forced to spend virtually all their time underground working hard to keep themselves alive, being bored senseless because there's nothing to do for fun (besides electronic entertainment, I suppose), or both.

Keep in mind that the Apollo program only gave us about two weeks of human time spent on the moon's surface total. In no way were we prepared to go to Mars after Apollo. We couldn't have managed a round trip around Mars, much less landing there and creating a permanent colony.

The idea that we would have "parallel civilizations" not just on Mars, the easiest other planet to inhabit, but "throughout the solar system" is delusional. Are we talking about also colonizing Venus, a planet where the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, the wind travels at hundreds of miles per hour, and the atmosphere is composed of sulfuric acid?

The sad (?) reality is that humans evolved to live on Earth and if we ever permanently live outside Earth, it will in all likelihood be in a form no longer recognizable as human, whether it's due to our physical bodies being engineered to withstand the rigors of life on a foreign planet or because our consciousnesses have been somehow uploaded to machines.

I cannot enough recommend the book A City on Mars. It's written by two giant space nerds who are nonetheless clear eyed on the many, many, many challenges to creating permanent space settlements of any kind.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/125084292-a-city-on-m...

https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/18xmkp0/a_city_on_ma...

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#104

Post by mmooss »

bluGill wrote: post #6
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…

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…

While I agree that repeating a 60 year old achievement is pointless, one of NASA's goals for Artemis, etc. is having a platform for R&D for human exploration of Mars. There aren't other nearby large bodies on which, and around which, to work out and shake out all the new tech for Mars. R&D actually at Mars would be very expensive and slower.

Then again, that could be NASA trying to justify or make the best of a pointless program imposed on them by politicians.

An aside: Did anyone in the 1960s wonder at the bizarre choice of Apollo for a moon program? How is it that Artemis is still available as a program name?

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#105

Post by mmooss »

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.

Yes, especially if you add up the ocean floors, Antarctica, Siberia and northern Canada ... all far, far more hospitable, useful, and cost-effective than anything in space.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#106

Post by pfdietz »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #32
ashika wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_rocket_propellant#Metha... cough

It’s still a chemical reaction

Now estimate how much that propellant will cost per kg of payload to orbit.

The problem with expensive launch in the past wasn't due to propellant cost.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#107

Post by WalterBright »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #102
WalterBright wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the V2 was the first rocket to reach space.

While true, the Germans don't claim that first for obvious reasons, leaving the Russians able to claim the first achievement.

It doesn't matter what they claim. It's a documented fact.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#108

Post by jiggawatts »

bluGill wrote: post #78
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…

You fail to comprehend just how large space is. Almost all of space is well out of reach. There is zero reason to think we will ever be able to overcome the laws of relativity, which in turn mean we will never be able to reach the stars. I know, this negative comment makes you mad, but there is every reason to think it is the case. A SciFi generation ship could maybe do that to the closest stars before it fails compl…

I just made a comment in another thread that Cape York, a huge chunk of northern Queensland has a mere 18,000 inhabitants. It's more sparsely occupied than northern Alaska by nearly a factor of two.

Why? Because it is low-value land due to monsoons turning the dirt into mud, and that dirt doesn't have enough minerals in it so agriculture is too difficult to bother with.

It has free oxygen. It has 1g gravity. You can fly there for about a thousand dollars instead of a thousand billion. The radiation might give you skin cancer, but won't kill you immediately. There's too much water. It has animals you can hunt and eat. Etc, etc...

Practically nobody wants to live there that wasn't already there for generations.

If the human race can't be bothered occupying land like that, then colonising Mars is so, so far down the list it isn't even on the same page, book, or library shelf.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#109

Post by avmich »

jiggawatts wrote: post #108
bluGill wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fail to comprehend just how large space is. Almost all of space is well out of reach. There is zero reason to think we will ever be able to overcome the laws of relativity, which in turn mean we will never be able to reach the stars. I know, this negative comment makes you mad, but there is every reason to think it is the case. A SciFi generation ship could maybe do that to the closest stars before it fails compl…

I just made a comment in another thread that Cape York, a huge chunk of northern Queensland has a mere 18,000 inhabitants. It's more sparsely occupied than northern Alaska by nearly a factor of two. Why? Because it is low-value land due to monsoons turning the dirt into mud, and that dirt doesn't have enough minerals in it so agriculture is too difficult to bother with. It has free oxygen. It has 1g gravity. You can…

The desire to fly to space can be compared with such for going to Everest, the place less hospitable than Cape York, yet having quite an interest from all sides. However, exploration of space could be way more practical than conquering the highest point on Earth - it serves scientific goals, and after science often come applications. There are many useful technologies which grew from space exploration and particularly from manned space programs, and we can expect those benefits to follow those who keeps studying space and learning to live close to the object of study.

We're just starting an energetic space exploration with appearance of better tools in the recent years. Getting to the Moon is relatively easy, and could be barely done with much more modest technology; now we plan a bigger scale program. Getting people to Mars is undoubtedly more complex, but still within reach of the existing - or almost existing - technology. Getting furter from Earth, while not immediately in the plans, may get just as possible and useful with time, and we shouldn't claim to know what could be our reasons tomorrow to visit, say, Ceres or Venus. There is no scientific impossibility for flying almist anywhere in Solar system - the matter is only in needs and economic costs. Our predecessors could be confused with our habits of flying between continents and islands the way we can and do today - similarly some of us may not see the immediate reason to leave Earth - that can pass, as past habits got changed to our current ones.

Re: A rough guide for going back to the Moon

#110

Post by GMoromisato »

bluGill wrote: post #86
GMoromisato wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that your litmus test--it has to have "value"? What's the value of Hubble? Of the Nancy Grace Roman observatory? Are you against those too? Maybe you prefer if they had left it as a spy satellite--at least that has real value. Humans are going to walk on the fucking moon! How can you not be excited about that? There is value in pushing the frontier, in doing things at the limit of human technology, in seeing new w…

> Humans are going to walk on the fucking moon! How can you not be excited about that? Been there done that. Last happened in 1972, there is nothing exciting about it anymore. I have other things in my life that are exciting - things that really are exciting.

Please share what you think is really exciting. Maybe I'll have something new to be excited about.
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