|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#521
|
|||
|
|||
Does an elevator have an incredibly long cable system that reaches the moon?
"Brad Guth" wrote in message oups.com... George Evans; I'm confused, so we're talking about an elevator at the moon? Join the club because the answer is YES, as with most such silly notions regarding "elevators", in this instance we're also talking about an elevator that's going up from the surface of the moon, as per that elevator riding the rails or whatever upon a suitable tether that's going nearly straight up, as in up, up and away until it reaches the massive counter mass(CM/ISS) ball in the sky that's going to nicely reside itself at being somewhere external to the gravity pull of the moon. In this instance it's known as the near zero-G realm or somewhat of a gravity zone of relative calm as also having been called a mutual gravity-well or nullification zone at ME-L1/EM-L2 that's a wee bit interactive with it's terrestrial and solar associations. Now then, this isn't quite so simple as you'd think because, there needs to be a moderate degree of interactive elements involved, and/or a little R&D over-kill, but that's entirely manageable. I hope you appreciate the fact that I am taking you seriously. I do very much appreciate your honest feedback, even if it's not entirely focused nor all that positive. However, the hell I'm hoping that you don't say "seriously" within the same context as per believing that we've walked upon the moon? I'm also confused about the prospects of whatever snow or ice that's within nearby space, as to how such an essential raw element would have managed to exist/coexist, for how long and at what likely sorts of density are we talking about. I'm also confused about our somewhat radioactive moon that's also a little more than just somewhat reactive, as to how humans can manage to safely coexist anywhere near the solar illuminated side of that nasty sucker. I'm also confused about the surface-tension of moon-dust, as to how it can become much greater than 5 g/cm2 (if that much) and as to why there shouldn't otherwise be 10+meter deep portions of that composite dust in places. It seems of the local bedrock that's supposedly in the realm of being worth 3.35 g/cm3 as having been compacted at 1.623 m/s/s isn't all that likely to exceed 5.437 g/cm2, that is unless there's a touch of something that's binding and/or otherwise compressing upon such a dry-quicksand worth of moon dirt. If we're talking about the arriving sorts of pumice and/or the sorts of solar/cosmic contributed dust that's of even less density/cm3 (such as carbon/soot), how the heck could that substance possibly amount to even a surface-tension of 5 g/cm2? As to my LSE was simply proposed in retrospect/revenge as to countering the absolute ESE/Liftport fiasco that has been publicly funded and thus at least indirectly supported by status quo folks exactly like yourself. Are you saying that this kind of fiber can theoretically support itself vertically in the gravitational field of the earth no matter how long it is? YES indeed because, at 2r (1738 km off the lunar deck) we're only talking about 0.04166 G and, do trust me on this one, it only gets better off the further away one exits from the moon, and especially if the direction you're going is directly aligned towards mother Earth. I suppose if one wants to seriously nitpick this concept to death, what's needed is a km by km 3 body equation of a software program which can then establish upon the exact tether requirements each and every km step of the way, then tossing in the solar element as the 4th body tease for good measure and obviously taking into account the interactive aspects of the well known variables as pertaining to the Earth/Moon orbital distance considerations that makes life and certainly any LSE R&D quite interesting but certainly not insurmountable. It just so happens, at least long before I came along with my having discovered that other life as having been upon Venus and subsequently having learn as to why that was entirely possible, there have been more than a sufficient number of formal notions and serious proposals of establishing the likes of a Lunavator, Rotovators and of Electrodynamic Tethers as having been technically doable within the available GPa of existing products. Of course, up against the typically intellectual incest form of mainstream applied conditional physics and evidence exclusions resolves such matters into their not even existing, just like all of their LLPOF perpetrated cold-wars and so forth is exactly playing fair. Even the ESE/SSTT (Earth Space Elevator/Liftport Tethers) R&D has recently been suggesting that as little as having a 35 GPa as a tapered format of tether could be sufficient for their initial ESE/Liftport application. Thus my imposed estimates of having merely divided that by a factor of 36:1 for the lunar space elevator is what gets that very same tapered tether as applied down to as little as one GPa on behalf of the LSE, although with having to take on viable payloads and with reserve capacity is where the 3+GPa seems perfectly fine and dandy. Even at eventually establishing my 50e6t CM(counter mass) as easily accommodating the 1e6 m3 ISS abode within at perhaps 64,000 km off the lunar deck is I believe within sufficient spec because of the extremely slight amount of Earth gravity plus having a little centrifugal g-force to work with is what I believe represents exactly what the LSE R&D doctor ordered as for establishing the necessary tether tensioning, that plus taking whatever the extended dipole element of a somewhat interactive 270,000 some odd km worth that's getting its sizable termination platform/pod of those nifty 100 GW laser cannons to within 50,000 km of mother Earth can manage to accomplish. Quite frankly, I've been getting more than a little sick and tired of such all-knowing wizards and brown-nosed spooks (perhaps such as those you've seen and/or confronted before) as having suggested that the LSE-CM/ISS isn't entirely doable. Whereas others have long before known better and, now myself firmly believes that the LSE is being entirely doable within essentially off-the-shelf specs of what has been available as of decades. Even though I've since learned of there being numerous research and respected authors before I ever so much as realised such existed. As for an example, here's yet another somewhat updated topic summary that's offered by Paul Lucas, although this page doesn't specifically address the LSE configuration that I've had in mind. Cosmic Rope Tricks: involving the likes of Space Tethers, Rotovators, Electrodynamic Tethers and Lunavators at 3.25 GPa http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030414/rope.shtml Therefore, I have to keep offering onto my dear anti-everything under the sun friends, and upon their fellow incest cloned brown-nosed borgs of their suck and blow mainstream status quo cult, that's been hell bent upon bashing and/or banishment upon whatever I have to say, whereas in spite of their warm and fuzzy all-knowing pompous and sanctimonious arrogance from hell, it seems that the standard old and reliable as well as continuous basalt fibers of 4.84 GPa (certainly better GPa yet if that were produced upon the moon) are just perfectly fine and dandy. In other words, these absolute lying *******s that have for nearly 6 years pretended that they know of absolutely nothing, or because they somehow can't possibly appreciate nor much less understand whatever I've been talking about, yet apparently smart enough to be insisting that there's nothing of truth nor value in whatever I'm providing, whereas it seem these folks are individually and as a perverted Skull and Bones collective nothing but clearly sucking and blowing as brown-nosed Third Reich retards at the same time because, without question the LSE-CM/ISS has been a challange that's technically a done deal that just rocks their pathetic good ship LOLLIPOP something terrible, that plus rocking their entire fleet of mainstream boats as per having to take a few other nasty waves as derived from my icy proto-moon, other life as having been coexisting upon Venus and, there's always my notions of boat rocking notions as to what the nearby Sirius star system has to do with much of what long-term cycles our environment and even impacts much of the life upon Earth. Their incessant focus upon playing word games, syntax and math games, and of their taking whatever cloak and dagger actions and/or orchestrated inactions, applying MOS disinformation plus excluding whatever evidence rocks their boat and thereby, of our having to continually deal with their collateral damage as having been created from so much of their media dog-wagging and infomercials as having been necessary per supporting their grand ruse/sting of their extremely brown-nosed and bloody as well spendy as hell century is absolutely appalling, rude and certainly downright dishonest to their very Godless soul that obviously hasn't a speck of remorse going along with any of it. As such, they've made myself and humanity sick to the very bone. I'm terribly sorry George; did my closing rant somehow manage to leave out a few superlatives upon my describing what I personally think of certain folks? Many parts of the moon mission are in place and working already. That's odd, because I know of nothing of hard-science that's been interactive from the lunar surface, and SMART-1 has certainly been a joke, thus what parts are you talking about? ~ Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush. ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- |
#522
|
|||
|
|||
It's relatively clumping moon-dirt cheap/kg to robotically deliver beer
and pizza to the moon, however keeping those deliveries from vaporising upon impact needs a little R&D. Fortunately, there's always been enough of an atmosphere to utilize extremely large parachutes. However, soon the Russians or Chinese will be able to lower tonnes at a time from the safety and secutity of their LSE-CM/ISS, eventually 100+ tonnes at a time with nothing more than a pod that'll ride efficiently any one of the LSE tethers to the surface. BTW; basalt sodium is less than 3.5%, whereas sal****er/seawater is typically 30+%, and there's certainly lots of nifty stuff that grows just fine and dandy at 30+% sodium. Raw as nearly pure terrestrial an/or lunar basalt of 3.1 g/cm3 (as having been processed into a basalt fiber density = 2.7~2.75 g/cm3), contains little if any carbon, but offers these primary elements: SiO2 58.7 Al2O3 17.2 Fe2O3 10.3 MgO 3.82 CaO 8.04 Na2O 3.34 K2O 0.82 TiO2 1.16 P2O5 0.28 MnO 0.16 Cr2O3 0.06 ~ Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush. |
#523
|
|||
|
|||
elevator to the moon.
The solution is quite simple really. Build a large hoola-hoop in LEO. From there, you string a long cable to the moon anchored to the hoolahoop with some wheels, letting it go around the hoolahoop to match the rotation of moon around earth. Then, you string another cable from the hoolahoop (also on rollers) going to surface of earth. So to get to the moon, you first go up to "hoolahoop" level and wait for the cable to the moon to get near where you are and then grap onto it and climb to the moon. This would give the possibility of many elevators from earth to the hoolahoop from different countries. In fact, with enough earth-hoolahoop links, it would make for an extremely strong structure, akin to how a bicycle rim is held by spokes to a hub. And thsy may also have to put up some flags along the spokes, a bit like kids do to their wheels, in order to ensure no commercial aircraft bumps into a spoke while flying. This concept has potential for the future as well. The same hoolahoop could also act as an anchor point for a rope going to Mars. (this rope would have to be very elestic though since Mars's orbit has *slight* variations in distance from the earth, and the elastic would have to be fireproof since there are times where the most direct path between earth and Mars would take it right through the sun). (Not sure how much royalties NASA would have to pay Hasbro for the rights to the "hoolahoop" concept. |
#524
|
|||
|
|||
On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 23:34:36 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote: George Evans wrote: NASA uses the phrase "living off the land." That would suggest a decrease in the need for supply missions. You still need food and water; you might find water at the poles, but I wouldn't count on it. The food means growing things, and that means turning Moon soil into fertile soil...and I don't know what its fertility is minus any added minerals. IIRC, moon rock returned by Apollo was found to make fertile soil, but had too much of certain elements like sodium to use as is. -- Roy L |
#526
|
|||
|
|||
in article , Josh Hill at
wrote on 9/28/05 6:34 PM: On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 23:46:52 GMT, George Evans wrote: in article , Josh Hill at wrote on 9/28/05 5:49 AM: snip What I see there is vagueness: "With a minimum of two lunar missions per year, momentum will build quickly toward a permanent outpost. Crews will stay longer and learn to exploit the moon's resources, while landers make one way trips to deliver cargo. Eventually, the new system could rotate crews to and from a lunar outpost every six months." Too many "coulds" for my taste, particulary since if Apollo and ISS are a guide, and I think they are, the public and the politicians will rapidly lose interest. You are just one of these NASA is half empty kind of guys, aren't you? I just reread the page to make sure I hadn't misunderstood. There are dozens of "will's" and "are going to's" but only two "could's". I can see why you didn't use the other "could", which says, "Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months." If you had used this quote in which the uncertainty is in length of stay and not about it happening in the first place, it would have explained the one you did quote. Correctly understood, in context, your statement means that stays at the outpost will start shorter and build to six months. If you are honest you will have to admit that NASA is at least talking positively. You can still say they're lying of course. I don't know what a "NASA half empty" guy is. "Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months" is, well, ungrammatical, and reading it is a bit like reading tea leaves. I don't know that a web page can be read like a carefully-drafted policy statement, but had they wanted to express a solid plan, they could have said ""Once a lunar outpost is established, crews will be able to remain on the lunar surface for up to six months" or something of the sort. How is the phrase "will be able to" different from the word "could" in this context? It seems you are being extremely picky. George Evans |
#527
|
|||
|
|||
Lynndel K. Humphreys;
Does an elevator have an incredibly long cable system that reaches the moon? Actually it's the other way around. However, no matters what it still doesn't reach from one to the other unless you're asking for real serious trouble in RIVER City, as in having teravolts arcing from the moon attached cable off the other end that's getting anywhere near Earth. From the surface of the moon (call it the elevator pit or lobby, or perhaps the tether underground anchor/foundation), a composite tether or perhaps a set of such tethers heads directly towards mother Earth, however stopping at roughly 64,000 km above the surface of the moon where these tethers enter and attach to the massive borg-like 50e6t sphere that's essentially acting as a rather considerable CM(counter mass) and otherwise accommodating a fairly large/spacious ISS abode of perhaps 1e6 m3 within. Now you're roughly a little less than 17% of the way towards Earth, safely away from the terribly reactive moon and quite safely surrounded by a great deal of mass, but otherwise at nearly absolute zero G. Your final return to Earth leg has two basic options. Option (a); from this point on you can either thumb a ride upon a passing spacecraft or merely park your butt into a mostly basalt/JB-WELD composite "return to sender" pod and push the button that says "Earth". With as slight of effort as you'd care to apply is going to get this pod headed for Earth, although a good ten second TJ magnetic impulse should make the return trip happen in a whole lot less time and probably clear your sinuses as well. Option (b); is to merely change pods within the CM/ISS, getting yourself situated into the tether metro bus that's associated with the 270,000 km tether dipole element, as that'll get you to within 50,000 km of Earth (possibly within 25,000 km if you like to live a bit more on the edge), although you simply can't stay there for very long without getting all of your DNA/RNA totally TBI to death. Thus having to promptly exit away from the tether dipole termination platform in a fairly conventional reentry capsule becomes the last leg of your return trip to Earth, whereas upon landing is where if need be the banked bone marrow that you'd cashed away before going to the moon can be re-injected into your dying body that got perhaps exposed to greater than a hundred rads(1+Sv) somewhere along the line. BTW; at 10+Sv you don't even have to bother coming home, thus you and/or your family should save big time by only requiring a one-way ticket to ride. Whereas the return ticket can go directly into eBay for auction and, or as yet another sub-option, as long as you're logged into your eBay account, you might even be able to auction off a few of your body parts that you're not going to have much need of since they've become so nicely sterilized, thus ideal for certain transplants, thus either way it's a win-win for the family fortune. Just kidding folks, as having more than sufficient shielding and of otherwise spending only earthshine time upon the moon unless working underground and/or safely within the CM/ISS should keep the worse possible case TBI dosage below 50 rads, with 5 rads being the typical month tour of duty unless the sun decides to spit some of that nasty 2400 km/s stuff your way. Basically, once within the Van Allen zone of death, the faster you can manage to get yourself through them badlands the better. ~ Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush. |
#528
|
|||
|
|||
360. r;
IIRC, moon rock returned by Apollo was found to make fertile soil, but had too much of certain elements like sodium to use as is. First of all, there's megatonnes worth of perfectly good moon-rocks upon Earth. Where otherwise would all of those horrific impact shards have migrated to? Secondly; it's relatively moon-dirt (apparently clumping none the less) cheap/kg to robotically deliver the likes of beer and pizza to the moon, however keeping those deliveries from vaporising upon impact needs a little R&D polish. Fortunately, there's always been enough of an atmosphere to utilize extremely large parachutes. Perhaps a 1000 m2 per m3 of water delivery if it wewe well enough packaged and or in a solid form (perhaps as having been surrounded by a layer of dry-ice) that could at least somewhat survive the fairly high velocity arrival. However, soon the Russians or Chinese will be able to lower lots of tonnage at a time from the safety and security of their LSE-CM/ISS, eventually 100+ tonnes at a time (one of those every hour right after the other) with nothing more than a locally fabricated basalt composite fabricated pod that'll ride efficiently upon any one of the LSE tethers to/from the surface. After all, we're only talking about a 64,000 km run that's 100% robotic. BTW; basalt sodium is less than 3.5%, whereas sal****er/seawater is typically 30+%, and there's certainly lots of nifty stuff that grows just fine and dandy at 30+% sodium. Seawater can become a little as 1% O2 saturated to that of slightly better off than 10% with the average near surface supporting 5+% O2 (gets another percent or so better off just a few meters below the surface). Ocean dead zones (besides depth related factors or their getting chemically and/or biologically polluted to death) are also becoming those of dead-zones a typically offering less than 1% O2 and, fortunately for the jellyfish populations that have darn few predators nor all that much human nutritional appeal seem to thrive within such zones of low O2 saturation, and thanks primarily to us humans as having been getting their wish of not only much larger habitat areas but, lots MOS ocean dead zones within which to thrive. Thus an underground/sequestered pond of a salty moon-lake or geode pocket along with some artificially piped in photons of 350~450 nm should do quite nicely if having something better than 1% O2 saturation to work with. Add and then allow few billion diatoms/m3 and that O2 saturation should easily exceed 10% if not better than 25% at 0.1 bar. Otherwise, at least moon jellyfish should like it even if there's hardly enough pressure for keeping that sort of environment from vaporising. Therefore 0.1 bar (1.47 psi) should more than do that trick unless it gets too damn hot, of which being sufficiently underground should keep that water (especially salty water) from boiling or freezing solid. Raw basalt fibers of 4.84 GPa as easily extracted from nearly pure terrestrial and/or of lunar basalt of perhaps 3.1 g/cm3 (as having been processed into a fiber density of 2.7~2.75 g/cm3), contains little if any carbon, but still offers these primary elements: SiO2 58.7 Al2O3 17.2 Fe2O3 10.3 MgO 3.82 CaO 8.04 Na2O 3.34 K2O 0.82 TiO2 1.16 P2O5 0.28 MnO 0.16 Cr2O3 0.06 ~ Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush. |
#529
|
|||
|
|||
Roy L;
IIRC, moon rock returned by Apollo was found to make fertile soil, but had too much of certain elements like sodium to use as is. Sorry about all the reply updates and additions (it's the best I can do under pressure). First of all, there's megatonnes worth of perfectly good moon-rocks as samples upon Earth. Where otherwise would all of those horrific meteor impact shards have migrated to? Secondly; it's relatively moon-dirt cheap (apparently clumping dirt cheap none the less) per kg of robotically delivering the likes of beer and pizza to the moon, however keeping those deliveries from vaporising upon impact needs a little fly-by-rocket R&D polish. Fortunately, there's always been enough of an atmosphere (starting off with the upper most worth of what's mostly comprised of sodium, at 18r being at times sunnyside-up worth better than 100 atoms/cm3 and arriving near the surface with something better than 1e9 atoms/cm3 that should include the likes of radon(Ra-222) as to utilize such extremely large parachutes to their fullest advantage. Perhaps a chute opening of 1000 m2 per m3 of water delivery if it were well enough packaged and or in a solid form (perhaps as having been surrounded by a layer of tightly compacted dry-ice) that could at least somewhat survive the fairly high velocity arrival. Within that ball of ice could be the frozen pizzas and of course another keg of beer. However, soon the Russians or Chinese will be able to lower lots of tonnage at a time from the safety and security of their LSE-CM/ISS, eventually 100+ tonnes at a time (perhaps one of those every hour, as in a tethered caravan of one pod right after the other) within nothing more than a locally fabricated basalt/JB-WELD composite fabricated pod that'll ride efficiently upon any one of the LSE tethers to/from the surface and that of their CM/ISS (borg like sphere or just "pie in the sky"). After all, we're only talking about a 64,000 km run that's 100% robotic. At an average trek of 6.4 km/s = 2.78 hours from top to bottom. BTW; basalt sodium is less than 3.5%, whereas sal****er/seawater is typically 30+%, and there's certainly lots of nifty stuff that grows just fine and dandy at 30+% sodium. Terrestrial seawater can become a little as 1% O2 saturated to that of slightly better off than 10% with the average near surface supporting 5+% O2 (gets another percent or so better off just a few meters below the surface). Ocean dead zones (besides depth related factors or their getting chemically and/or biologically polluted to death) are also becoming those of dead-zones a typically offering less than 1% O2 and, fortunately for the jellyfish populations that have darn few predators nor all that much human nutritional appeal seem to thrive within such zones of low O2 saturation, and thanks primarily to us humans as having been getting their wish of not only much larger habitat areas but, lots MOS ocean dead zones within which to thrive. Thus an underground/sequestered pond of a salty moon-lake or geode pocket pool(s), along with some artificially piped in photons of 350~450 nm should do quite nicely if starting off by having something better than 1% O2 saturation to work with. Add microbes and then allow a billion diatoms/m3 to coexist and I believe that O2 saturation should easily exceed 10% if not better than 25% at 0.1 bar. Otherwise, at least moon jellyfish should like it even if there's hardly enough saturated O2 or pressure for keeping that sort of environment from vaporising. Therefore 0.1 bar (1.47 psi) should more than do that trick unless it gets too damn hot, of which being sufficiently underground should keep that water (especially salty water of which the moon should already have a wee bit left over from when it was once upon a time an icy proto-moon of 4000 km) from boiling or freezing solid. Raw basalt fibers of 4.84 GPa as easily extracted from nearly pure terrestrial and/or of lunar basalt of perhaps 3.1 g/cm3 (as having been processed into a fiber density of 2.7~2.75 g/cm3), contains little if any carbon, but still offers these primary elements: SiO2 58.7 Al2O3 17.2 Fe2O3 10.3 MgO 3.82 CaO 8.04 Na2O 3.34 K2O 0.82 TiO2 1.16 P2O5 0.28 MnO 0.16 Cr2O3 0.06 ~ Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush. |
#530
|
|||
|
|||
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 23:45:51 GMT, George Evans
wrote: in article , Josh Hill at wrote on 9/28/05 6:34 PM: On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 23:46:52 GMT, George Evans wrote: in article , Josh Hill at wrote on 9/28/05 5:49 AM: snip What I see there is vagueness: "With a minimum of two lunar missions per year, momentum will build quickly toward a permanent outpost. Crews will stay longer and learn to exploit the moon's resources, while landers make one way trips to deliver cargo. Eventually, the new system could rotate crews to and from a lunar outpost every six months." Too many "coulds" for my taste, particulary since if Apollo and ISS are a guide, and I think they are, the public and the politicians will rapidly lose interest. You are just one of these NASA is half empty kind of guys, aren't you? I just reread the page to make sure I hadn't misunderstood. There are dozens of "will's" and "are going to's" but only two "could's". I can see why you didn't use the other "could", which says, "Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months." If you had used this quote in which the uncertainty is in length of stay and not about it happening in the first place, it would have explained the one you did quote. Correctly understood, in context, your statement means that stays at the outpost will start shorter and build to six months. If you are honest you will have to admit that NASA is at least talking positively. You can still say they're lying of course. I don't know what a "NASA half empty" guy is. "Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months" is, well, ungrammatical, and reading it is a bit like reading tea leaves. I don't know that a web page can be read like a carefully-drafted policy statement, but had they wanted to express a solid plan, they could have said ""Once a lunar outpost is established, crews will be able to remain on the lunar surface for up to six months" or something of the sort. How is the phrase "will be able to" different from the word "could" in this context? It seems you are being extremely picky. The former establishes a capability, and, by extension, intent. The latter suggests a possibility. I can't say with certainty what they mean because as I said the statement seems to be ungrammatical, and it's just a web page. But I have the sense that they're avoiding any kind of solid commitment. After all, if they planned to establish a permanent moon base rather than just leaving it open as a possibility, they'd presumably want to brag about it. -- Josh "This is a devastating storm. This is a storm that's going to require immediate action now." -George W. Bush, four days after Hurricane Katrina |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide | Steven S. Pietrobon | Space Shuttle | 0 | July 4th 05 07:50 AM |
Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide | Steven S. Pietrobon | Space Shuttle | 0 | August 5th 04 01:36 AM |
The Apollo Hoax FAQ (is not spam) :-) | Nathan Jones | Misc | 6 | July 29th 04 06:14 AM |
The Apollo FAQ (moon landings were faked) | Nathan Jones | Astronomy Misc | 8 | February 4th 04 06:48 PM |
The Apollo FAQ (moon landings were faked) | Nathan Jones | Misc | 8 | February 4th 04 06:48 PM |