...Tom Hanks on going back to the moon....." WHY? "

In article ,
"Jonathan" wrote:

In this interview Tom Hanks suggests the public
quickly decided during Apollo the moon wasn't
worth going back to. And over /thirty years later/
Mr Hanks still believes a reason for returning
has yet to be found.

He's correct, of course, there isn't a rational reason
for going back to the moon.



The Magic Of The Moon
Tom Hanks Hopes To Recapture Wonderment
At Lunar Triumph


"Once humankind has been some place and found it
entrancing, they always go back," says Hanks, the
film's producer. "I think in the history of the human
race, the moon has been the first place we've gone to
and said, 'OK, we don't need to go back there again.'"

And maybe we should do it again?" Axelrod asks.

"Well," Hanks says, "the question would be why?"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in881421.shtml

So we can go skiing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6373383.stm

--
Timberwoof me at timberwoof dot com http://www.timberwoof.com
"Like this cup," the master daid, "you are full of your own opinions and
speculations. How can I show you anything unless you first empty your cup?"

"Timberwoof" wrote in message


Silly boys and gals, please get a fresh grip on your private parts.

Our moon isn't nearly as doable as is Mars, and Mars sucks pretty bad.
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

"the_Host" wrote in message


Not unless we can drop off Bush and all of his family and friends.

You've got my support, and then some.
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

The Mormons settled the Moon? Due tell Rand.


Hee-Hee! Moon Mormons!:
http://www.nowscape.com/mormon/mormons5.htm
There are people on the Sun also:
http://www.irr.org/mit/WDIST/wdist-s...teachings.html

Pat

"Jonathan" wrote in message
...
In this interview Tom Hanks suggests the public
quickly decided during Apollo the moon wasn't
worth going back to. And over /thirty years later/
Mr Hanks still believes a reason for returning
has yet to be found.
He's correct, of course, there isn't a rational reason
for going back to the moon.

The allegedly rational reason is to get our manned spaceflight capabilities
back on track.

We started with shooting astronauts off in little boxes. Learned how to
drop a little astronaut box from the bigger one, and collect rocks on the
Moon.

But NASA wanted an actual spaceship. We now have the shuttle. Except the
Shuttle can't land on anything off-Earth.

NASA wants a real spaceship now. One that can takeoff from Earth, fly to
the Moon, LAND ON THE Moon, collect more rocks and return - all reusable.

Its a cool idea. But maybe they need to graduate from crapping in their
diapers first?

On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:56:22 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Patriot
Games" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

We started with shooting astronauts off in little boxes. Learned how to
drop a little astronaut box from the bigger one, and collect rocks on the
Moon.

But NASA wanted an actual spaceship. We now have the shuttle. Except the
Shuttle can't land on anything off-Earth.

NASA wants a real spaceship now. One that can takeoff from Earth, fly to
the Moon, LAND ON THE Moon, collect more rocks and return - all reusable.

In what alternative universe is that what NASA wants? It's certainly
not what it's designing.

You do seem to have an appropriate email address.

Jonathan wrote:
In this interview Tom Hanks suggests the public
quickly decided during Apollo the moon wasn't
worth going back to. And over /thirty years later/
Mr Hanks still believes a reason for returning
has yet to be found.

He's correct, of course, there isn't a rational reason
for going back to the moon.

What would you consider rational?

How about ensuring the survivability of the human race WRT extinction
level events, such as the collision of an asteroid with the planet?

How about new resources being mined from an airless ball of rock, where
nobody complains to the EPA about the toxic sludge?

How about solar power satellites, beaming their power down to rectennas
via microwaves?

How about pure research?

How about maintaining a balance of power with the Chinese, who have said
they will be going into space and establishing a presence on the moon?

How about providing a new frontier for the creative energies of entire
generations of Americans?

Lots of rational reasons to go back to the moon - and stay there this time.

Cheers,
Bama Brian
Libertarian

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
"PerfectlyAble" wrote in message
oups.com...
Bert Hyman wrote:
In "Jonathan"
wrote:

He's correct, of course, there isn't a rational reason
for going back to the moon.
Do you think there a rational reason to go to the moon in the first
place?
America was won by people who went to stay, not the
Hanks of the world who return to Europe to enlighten
them about the barbarians in the New World and
couldn't see a reason to stay.

No, America was won by people who wanted among other things, a better
living.

This isn't found on the Moon.

Coming to Amerca took your life's savings, but you pretty much could life
off the land if you had to.

Getting to the Moon takes the life savings of about 100 Americans at a
minimum. And that gets you there. That doesn't support you.

To be cynical, it's too expensive to go to the Moon for any reason put forth
currently.

That may change in time. But right now, it's the truth.

That's because NASA is in the way. It went from a can-do organization
to a giant bureaucratic ossification. Ask yourself why very few of the
scientists and engineers employed by NASA have ever seen a launch pad,
and you'll start to understand why space travel is so horribly expensive.

Now if it took the almost total rebuilding of every commercial airliner
in the country after _each_ flight, how expensive would round-trip
tickets be for a cross country trip?

Cheers,
Bama Brian
Libertarian

Jonathan wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

To paraphrase a different and often seen quote here...

'We are presented with the civilization that those who went before us
created.
We either build on that - or we sink back into the inherent chaos of
lower human emotions'.

Some advantages a
- Gives new frontiers for new generations - rather than endless
fighting for old land and dwindling resources.


People fight over land and resources due to their
value and need. The moon is almost entirely made
of basalt and various forms of feldspar.
90% of all volcanic rock on earth is basalt, and
we use it primarily for gravel.
60% of the earth's crust is forms of feldspar, which
we use primarily for ceramics.

It should be noted, most of the more expensive, useful
and sought after minerals and metals on earth are
formed by processes ....of life. A planet with no
or little life would be geologically boring and
unprofitable.

I'm talking about ....rational...ie...real reasons for
going back to the moon. Are you saying we should
go back to the moon in order to lower the price of
...gravel???

Cite, please. Where do you get the idea that the moon is made solely of
basalt and feldspar?

Cheers,
Bama Brian
Libertarian

Ringmaster wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, "Jonathan" wrote:
In this interview Tom Hanks suggests the public
quickly decided during Apollo the moon wasn't
worth going back to. And over /thirty years later/

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Thirty?? More like forty, counting since 1969, thirty-five
since 1972, and those were all, at best, UNMANNED missions
as the evidence proves. A few hundred miles above sealevel
is as far above Earth's surface that JPL/NASA's "horseless"
carriages have ever been. Their "manned" moon landing back
in covered-wagon times was nothing but cold-war propaganda
for the unsuspecting masses, as all the evidence has shown...

Flags fluttering in the high-desert breeze, sand
buggies & actors running along in their deflated
monkeysuits-obviously recorded on highspeed film,
conspicuous absence of blast craters, impossibly
silent running under invisible exhaust emissions,
brazenly obvious backdrops that contrast sharply
against the nearby high-desert terrain ad nauseam!

The Moon is FAR BEYOND the reach of manned spacecraft, to wit:

ALTITUDE COMPARISON CHART
SHUTTLE VS. MOON & MANMADE SATELLITES
(not to scale)

x------Moon's mean geocentric distance ~239,000 miles---x
| |
| |
| |
| |
~ ~214,000 MILES ~
~ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ~
| |
| |
| |
x------High-altitude orbit ~25,000+ miles altitude------x
| |
x------Geostationary orbit ~22,300 miles altitude-------x
| |
| |
~ ~10,000 MILES ~
~ ~
| |
x------Mid-altitude orbit ~12,500 miles altitude--------x
| |
| |
~ ~10,000 MILES ~
~ ~
| |
x------Low-altitude orbit below ~1200 miles altitude----x
x------JPL/NASA Space Shuttle orbit ~300 miles altitude-x
x------Intl. Space Station orbit ~220 miles altitude |
x------Earth's sea level -0- miles altitude-------------x


To give you an idea of the scale involved, if each hard line
break in the chart below equals roughly 10,000 miles, to wit:

x------Moon's mean geocentric distance ~239,000 miles---x
| 230,000 |
| 220,000 |
| 210,000 |
| 200,000 |
| 190,000 |
| 180,000 |
| 170,000 |
| 160,000 |
| 150,000 |
| 140,000 |
| 130,000 |
| 120,000 |
| 110,000 |
| 100,000 |
| 90,000 |
| 80,000 |
| 70,000 |
| 60,000 |
| 50,000 |
| 40,000 |
| 30,000 |
x------Geostationary orbit ~22,300 miles altitude-------x
x------Mid-altitude orbit ~12,500 miles altitude--------x
x------Low-altitude orbit below ~1200 miles altitude----x

Thus the low-earth shuttle orbit would fit somewhere between
the center and baseline of the bottom 'x'--hardly visible at
all at this scale. And yet, that is the highest altitude any
manned flight has ever successfully sustained for any length
of time. But the "men to the moon" fairytale devotees don't
want to face up to these and other glaring facts in evidence.

And the earth is flat, right?

Jeers,
Bama Brian
Libertarian