We, first loosers for 100 years.

James Nicoll wrote:

If the US lasts as long as the Western Empire did, it should
see the year 3000.


Whoa, wait a minute. Rome is just the city proper and the land about
fifty miles around it in 380 BCE. they don't even get to the heel of the
Italian boot till 272 BCE.
Assuming the fall to be 476 CE as Gibbon did, then we have a total span
of 652 years maximum.
1776 plus 652 years equals 2428- not 3000.

If it lasts as long as the Eastern Empire, it should
see AD 3,900.


Dating the fall of the Byzantine Empire at 1453, then its total span was
from 330 CE (the founding of Constantinople) till then.
1,123 years.
1776 plus 1123 years equals 2899, not 3900.

pat

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Voyagers 1 and 2 returned far more interesting scientific data than
Apollo ever did.
Same goes for Hubble.

That's streching the point. Apollo was not primarily a scientific
programme. Had it been followed by one, it would have given any
unmanned programme a run for its money (Moon astronomy comes to mind).

Of course, one of the big differences between today and back then was that
people dreamed really BIG dreams back then.

The really big dream being to put people on the Moon before the Soviets did.
After that was accomplished, we realized that when you get right down to
it the Moon is a pretty boring, expensive, and largely useless place to go.

All space cadets of the time talked about "spacefaring" nations/human
race. Planting national flags was definitely lower on their lists.

You can't go to the moon by staying home. NASA has had 35 years to answer
those questions. We have years of data from Skylab, from Mir, from Shuttle,
from LDEF, and we do NOTHING with it. It's not a lack of data. It's a lack
of leadership, it's a lack of nerve, it's a lack of vision, but it's NOT a
lack of data.

It's the lack of any particularly good or pressing reason to go there.

I can name a few good reasons. IMHO, what it boils down to is the lack
of - or non-adherence to - long term goals.

Note the Chinese- are they sending people to the Moon ASAP?
No, the are building the world's largest hydroelectric dam.
Why? because it will serve many useful purposes, including controlling
flooding, producing hydroelectric power, and allowing cargo ships to
journey hundreds of miles inland.
Want to do something big and worthwhile?
That's the sort of project to think about, not going back to the Moon.

Chinese would send their people there in a flash had they the
capability/funds.
I also noticed that citizens of said country have relatively little
influence on their government.
Hydroelectric plants WAS a worthwhile goal for the US 100 years ago.
How about something more in tune with the times?

Hyperboreea wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:


Voyagers 1 and 2 returned far more interesting scientific data than
Apollo ever did.
Same goes for Hubble.



That's streching the point. Apollo was not primarily a scientific
programme. Had it been followed by one, it would have given any
unmanned programme a run for its money (Moon astronomy comes to mind).



And that program is? Build a manned base on the Moon? For what reason
precisely?
Any optical astronomy that could be done from the Moon can better be
performed by a unmanned observatory in space itself than by one on the
lunar surface, if for no other reason than on the lunar surface half the
sky is obscured at any time by the Moon itself.

All space cadets of the time talked about "spacefaring" nations/human
race. Planting national flags was definitely lower on their lists.



Didn't LBJ (who was a bigger Space Cadet than JFK was by far) state that
he "didn't want to go to sleep by the light of a communist Moon"?

It's the lack of any particularly good or pressing reason to go there.



I can name a few good reasons. IMHO, what it boils down to is the lack
of - or non-adherence to - long term goals.


When "long term goals" mean ten or twenty years down the road then that
concept makes sense.
But when long term goals mean a century or so in the future then the
argument fails due to the (anticipated) continual advancement in
technology in the century to come.
What would be extremely expensive to do today might be very cheap to do
a century down the road, and it makes sense to wait for a new technology
to emerge that allows that to occur.
Columbus could have set sail westwards in an oar driven galley; but
sails made it a lot easier.
The future is in far too much flux to allow reasonable planning at the
moment of a "long term" program that has any realistic basis in reality
over a period of over a period of a decade or two at most.



Note the Chinese- are they sending people to the Moon ASAP?
No, the are building the world's largest hydroelectric dam.
Why? because it will serve many useful purposes, including controlling
flooding, producing hydroelectric power, and allowing cargo ships to
journey hundreds of miles inland.
Want to do something big and worthwhile?
That's the sort of project to think about, not going back to the Moon.



Chinese would send their people there in a flash had they the
capability/funds.



Oh, they've got the funds thanks to WalMart, but there's no tangible
payoff on the investment at the moment.
If they are so desperate to send some of their populace to such an
inhospitable environment, then they could start building underwater
cities on the continental shelf along their coast far easier and more
economically than lunar cities.
In fact, save even more money than that; start building cities in the
Gobi Desert. Not only does it have a breathable atmosphere, but you can
get there in a pickup truck rather than a spacecraft.
Even if the Moon were hanging around in LEO, the cost of getting things
there would be very high per pound.

I also noticed that citizens of said country have relatively little
influence on their government.
Hydroelectric plants WAS a worthwhile goal for the US 100 years ago.
How about something more in tune with the times?



Okay- we rebuild all of our crumbling infrastructure, and connect our
national regions by a set of electrically driven giant railways and
their new wide tracks capable of moving cargo point to point inside of
our nation at very low cost per mile.
We throw as much money proportionality at that as we did at Apollo and
we can have superconducting trains whipping point-to-point inside of our
nation inside of a decade with a far higher efficiency than either
current train or truck traffic.
It's not that sexy; but it will be a major asset to our nation, and one
that turns a profit from the moment of its completion.

Pat

"Lou Adornato" wrote:

Me: son of an Apollo-era engineer, lifetime space "nut", hired into my
"dream job" at NASA in 1990, quit in disgust 366 days later.

Not untypical of someone who goes into a career with the thought of it
being a dream. Slightly unusual, but not untypical.

I remember walking out of the Mission Operations Center after a night shift
on the avionics console in the spring of 1991, feeling like a true
steely-eyed missile man because I'd written a patch for a BFS problem in
"real-time" (that is, during the mission in which the problem occurred. It
was never flown, but I had it available as hip-pocket backup while Downey
worked on the official fix). As I was driving out of the center past the
old Rocket Park, the Saturn V/Apollo 18 "lawn ornament" was pointed almost
directly at the rising moon. It was a rare, hazeless day for Houston, and
for a moment I could swear that the face of the moon was laughing at me.
What should have been the height of my career suddenly tasted like ash,
because compared to my father's contributions, it was meaningless. Two
months later I turned in my resignation. Don't tell me we haven't lost
anything.

*yawn* Poor spoiled child - reality could not match your dreams, so
you shifted the blame somewhere else.

multiple lines of rant and acid snipped

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Pat Flannery wrote:
And that program is? Build a manned base on the Moon? For what reason
precisely?

Science. I'm sure you appreciate the value of pure research. Also, a
lot of technologies needed for further space exploration/colonization
could be tested.
Finally, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to get at least
O2, H2O or fiberglass from the Moon. IMO they could be useful in LEO.

Any optical astronomy that could be done from the Moon can better be
performed by a unmanned observatory in space itself than by one on the
lunar surface, if for no other reason than on the lunar surface half the
sky is obscured at any time by the Moon itself.

Better in LEO than on the Moon? I though exposure time was crucial.
Maintenance would be easier too.

All space cadets of the time talked about "spacefaring" nations/human
race. Planting national flags was definitely lower on their lists.

Didn't LBJ (who was a bigger Space Cadet than JFK was by far) state that
he "didn't want to go to sleep by the light of a communist Moon"?

I was thinking of the likes of von Braun.


When "long term goals" mean ten or twenty years down the road then that
concept makes sense.
But when long term goals mean a century or so in the future then the
argument fails due to the (anticipated) continual advancement in
technology in the century to come.
What would be extremely expensive to do today might be very cheap to do
a century down the road, and it makes sense to wait for a new technology
to emerge that allows that to occur.
Columbus could have set sail westwards in an oar driven galley; but
sails made it a lot easier.
The future is in far too much flux to allow reasonable planning at the
moment of a "long term" program that has any realistic basis in reality
over a period of over a period of a decade or two at most.


Again, IMO long term goals do not depend strictly on available
technology. Deciding to GO (if at all possible) is a matter of ...
doctrine, ideology, pick your word. I'm not advocating a break-neck,
ruinous race to space just rational, steady development.

Chinese would send their people there in a flash had they the
capability/funds.



Oh, they've got the funds thanks to WalMart, but there's no tangible
payoff on the investment at the moment.
If they are so desperate to send some of their populace to such an
inhospitable environment, then they could start building underwater
cities on the continental shelf along their coast far easier and more
economically than lunar cities.
In fact, save even more money than that; start building cities in the
Gobi Desert. Not only does it have a breathable atmosphere, but you can
get there in a pickup truck rather than a spacecraft.
Even if the Moon were hanging around in LEO, the cost of getting things
there would be very high per pound.

I was talking about an Apollo facsimile.
No, they don't have the $10-$15 BN / year / 6-10 years.


Okay- we rebuild all of our crumbling infrastructure, and connect our
national regions by a set of electrically driven giant railways and
their new wide tracks capable of moving cargo point to point inside of
our nation at very low cost per mile.
We throw as much money proportionality at that as we did at Apollo and
we can have superconducting trains whipping point-to-point inside of our
nation inside of a decade with a far higher efficiency than either
current train or truck traffic.
It's not that sexy; but it will be a major asset to our nation, and one
that turns a profit from the moment of its completion.


Why not vacuum tube maglev? Why throw govmint $ at it? Give the PRIVATE
SECTOR a 10 year tax exemption.

Hyper wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

And that program is? Build a manned base on the Moon? For what reason
precisely?


Science. I'm sure you appreciate the value of pure research.

Science cannot justify setting up a manned base on the moon,
any more than it could justify Apollo (or, in my opinion,
the unmanned planetary program). Per dollar spent, scientific
research conducted on Earth yields far more knowledge.

Science is the *rationalization* for space activities. It's
a lame rationalization, with the saving grace that it's less
lame than the other rationalizations.

Paul

Hyper wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:


And that program is? Build a manned base on the Moon? For what reason
precisely?



Science. I'm sure you appreciate the value of pure research.


Yes I do; and if that research is to cost tens of billions of dollars it
had better yield some pretty impressive results.
I don't see the Moon doing that anytime soon.
It sort of like this: "Kids, it's time for our summer vacation!" "YAY!
Where are we going!?" "The Mt. Erebus in Antarctica! It'll be wonderful
to see, and who knows, maybe we'll find something interesting and
unknown there!" "Isn't this going to be kind of expensive?" "Well,
yes....it's going to set us back around thirty thousand dollars, but how
many people do you know who've been to Antarctica, much less than a
active volcano in Antarctica?" "Thirty thousand dollars? We could buy a
really nice new car for that amount of money..." "Well yes, but the old
Studebaker is still running, so why worry about new cars now? You'll
never forget this trip, and if the car does break down you can think
about all the fun you had on the trip as you walk to school every day
until we can afford a new one."

Also, a
lot of technologies needed for further space exploration/colonization
could be tested.



Everyone keeps going on about space colonization without noting that
there are vast areas of the Earth that are largely uninhabited and are
still far more hospitable than either the Moon or Mars- and yet there is
no great rush to start building cities in these regions.

Finally, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to get at least
O2, H2O or fiberglass from the Moon. IMO they could be useful in LEO.



The glass fiber itself would be doable, but you aren't going to find
fiberglass resin on the Moon.



Any optical astronomy that could be done from the Moon can better be
performed by a unmanned observatory in space itself than by one on the
lunar surface, if for no other reason than on the lunar surface half the
sky is obscured at any time by the Moon itself.



Better in LEO than on the Moon? I though exposure time was crucial.
Maintenance would be easier too.



Remember that electrostaticly levitated lunar dust that the Surveyor
spotted? Picture that stuff settling onto the mirror.
Again, you could take wonderful long exposure photographs during the
lunar night of extremely distant and faint cosmic objects...and other
than the curiosity value of the photos, they wouldn't do zip as far as
any practical purpose is concerned.
It's an expense, not an investment.



All space cadets of the time talked about "spacefaring" nations/human
race. Planting national flags was definitely lower on their lists.


Didn't LBJ (who was a bigger Space Cadet than JFK was by far) state that
he "didn't want to go to sleep by the light of a communist Moon"?



I was thinking of the likes of von Braun.



Von Braun was willing to go to sleep anywhere and with anyone providing
the funding was there. :-)



When "long term goals" mean ten or twenty years down the road then that
concept makes sense.
But when long term goals mean a century or so in the future then the
argument fails due to the (anticipated) continual advancement in
technology in the century to come.
What would be extremely expensive to do today might be very cheap to do
a century down the road, and it makes sense to wait for a new technology
to emerge that allows that to occur.
Columbus could have set sail westwards in an oar driven galley; but
sails made it a lot easier.
The future is in far too much flux to allow reasonable planning at the
moment of a "long term" program that has any realistic basis in reality
over a period of over a period of a decade or two at most.




Again, IMO long term goals do not depend strictly on available
technology. Deciding to GO (if at all possible) is a matter of ...
doctrine, ideology, pick your word. I'm not advocating a break-neck,
ruinous race to space just rational, steady development.


Well in that case we can wait around a few decades and see if something
new arrives on the propulsion front.
Our destination will still be the same when we get there.
You want to see a budget space program? Look at China- at the rate
they're going they might have a man on the moon around 2030, and they
don't really care that it might take that long, as it's not really a
national priority.



Chinese would send their people there in a flash had they the
capability/funds.




Oh, they've got the funds thanks to WalMart, but there's no tangible
payoff on the investment at the moment.
If they are so desperate to send some of their populace to such an
inhospitable environment, then they could start building underwater
cities on the continental shelf along their coast far easier and more
economically than lunar cities.
In fact, save even more money than that; start building cities in the
Gobi Desert. Not only does it have a breathable atmosphere, but you can
get there in a pickup truck rather than a spacecraft.
Even if the Moon were hanging around in LEO, the cost of getting things
there would be very high per pound.



I was talking about an Apollo facsimile.
No, they don't have the $10-$15 BN / year / 6-10 years.



Have you seen the figures on their economy? At the moment there biggest
problem is trying to figure out where to spend all the money that's
rolling in from the sale of their products worldwide. Wisely, they are
investing it in infrastructure to make them yet more productive and
efficient.

Pat



Okay- we rebuild all of our crumbling infrastructure, and connect our
national regions by a set of electrically driven giant railways and
their new wide tracks capable of moving cargo point to point inside of
our nation at very low cost per mile.
We throw as much money proportionality at that as we did at Apollo and
we can have superconducting trains whipping point-to-point inside of our
nation inside of a decade with a far higher efficiency than either
current train or truck traffic.
It's not that sexy; but it will be a major asset to our nation, and one
that turns a profit from the moment of its completion.




Why not vacuum tube maglev? Why throw govmint $ at it? Give the PRIVATE
SECTOR a 10 year tax exemption.



If the Moon is so important and worthwhile, lets give the private sector
a ten year tax exemption on exploring it and developing new industries
there. I'm sure they'll jump at it. :-)
Back when Apollo was going full tilt, we topped out at around 4% of the
entire federal budget being used toward it.
You throw one dollar in five at anything and you will see some very
impressive results- hopefully more impressive than 840 pounds of rocks
after ten years. It's reminiscent of Caligula returning to Rome with his
bags of seashells as booty after his failed campaign in Britain.

Pat

On Sat, 27 May 2006 12:37:34 -0400, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Everyone keeps going on about space colonization without noting that
there are vast areas of the Earth that are largely uninhabited and are
still far more hospitable than either the Moon or Mars- and yet there is
no great rush to start building cities in these regions.

And similarly, everyone keeps going on with this lame argument without
noting the key element lacking in these places that space offers--no
existing government, allowing people to form their own societies.

Rand Simberg wrote:

And similarly, everyone keeps going on with this lame argument without
noting the key element lacking in these places that space offers--no
existing government, allowing people to form their own societies.


One: Antarctica. Nations can't claim parts of it, but does that mean
that a group of individuals couldn't go there and set up a small
society of their own?
Two: the Continental Shelf beyond the twelve mile limit of national
sovereignty over the oceans. Wanna see a lot of free real estate? Have a
peek up by Alaska: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/foci_tour/shelf.gif
Unlike space flight where everything has to be as light as possible,
here all you need to do is either sink it, or if you wish, build a
artificial island using offshore oil platform technology. Presto! Behold
New Atlantis, the world's newest country, and the first one where the
inhabitants can really say that they built their nation into what it is
today with their own two hands. The climate may be a bit cold up there,
but not as cold as Mars or the Moon gets....and the place even has air
and water in abundance, and free food swimming all around it.

On Sat, 27 May 2006 14:05:25 -0400, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

And similarly, everyone keeps going on with this lame argument without
noting the key element lacking in these places that space offers--no
existing government, allowing people to form their own societies.


One: Antarctica. Nations can't claim parts of it, but does that mean
that a group of individuals couldn't go there and set up a small
society of their own?

Yes. They will be subject to *someone's* laws, of an existing state.

Two: the Continental Shelf beyond the twelve mile limit of national
sovereignty over the oceans. Wanna see a lot of free real estate? Have a
peek up by Alaska: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/foci_tour/shelf.gif
Unlike space flight where everything has to be as light as possible,
here all you need to do is either sink it, or if you wish, build a
artificial island using offshore oil platform technology. Presto! Behold
New Atlantis, the world's newest country, and the first one where the
inhabitants can really say that they built their nation into what it is
today with their own two hands. The climate may be a bit cold up there,
but not as cold as Mars or the Moon gets....and the place even has air
and water in abundance, and free food swimming all around it.

There have been various plans to do things like this over the years
(Freedom Ship is the latest, I think), but you can't legally create
new territory de novo that's not part of some existing sovereign
entity, and if it's a ship, then it's subject to the laws of whatever
country flagged it (I believe). Governments, and the international
(mostly socialist) community don't take very kindly to upstart states,
particularly individualistic ones. It might set an unhappy example.