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

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
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.

In the alternative universe named If We Had More Money.

You do seem to have an appropriate email address.

Stop ****ting in your space-diapers and get back to work.

I still have a hard time understanding how to get through the Van
Allen radiation belt. I'm not doubting the Apollo missions to the moon
at all. Is the radiation not so bad when going through the belt at a
high speed? Does anyone know how fast the Apollo spacecraft was
cruising through it?

There are many conspirators against the Apollo missions, and this was
one of the points they made clear. I was very skeptical about the
propoganda they fed me, but I would really like to believe we went to
the moon.


Going back to the topic, I think before we do anything more in space,
we need to set up a base on the moon, maybe even terraform it a little
and give it a slight CO2 atmosphere to give some shielding from
pelting rocks and make it a little warmer. I think it will give us a
little experience before we go onto Mars or Venus. Seems logical to
me, especially since it is so close.

On 20 Feb 2007 12:43:47 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Z 1 Y 0 N 3
X" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

I still have a hard time understanding how to get through the Van
Allen radiation belt. I'm not doubting the Apollo missions to the moon
at all. Is the radiation not so bad when going through the belt at a
high speed?

If you spend little time in the belts, then it's not a problem. High
speed = Little time.

Does anyone know how fast the Apollo spacecraft was
cruising through it?

The belt extends to about forty thousand miles from the earth. When
they injected into lunar transfer orbit, they were going about 24,000
mph. So they were going fast enough that they only spent a couple
hours in toto, and they had shielding from the spacecraft. The most
intense part is 10-15 thousand miles, and they only spent a few
minutes passing through it .

There are many conspirators against the Apollo missions, and this was
one of the points they made clear. I was very skeptical about the
propoganda they fed me, but I would really like to believe we went to
the moon.

Then believe it. The moon hoax people are stupid, or nuts, or both.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On 20 Feb 2007 12:43:47 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Z 1 Y 0 N 3
X" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

I still have a hard time understanding how to get through the Van
Allen radiation belt. I'm not doubting the Apollo missions to the moon
at all. Is the radiation not so bad when going through the belt at a
high speed?

If you spend little time in the belts, then it's not a problem. High
speed = Little time.

Does anyone know how fast the Apollo spacecraft was
cruising through it?

The belt extends to about forty thousand miles from the earth. When
they injected into lunar transfer orbit, they were going about 24,000
mph. So they were going fast enough that they only spent a couple
hours in toto, and they had shielding from the spacecraft. The most
intense part is 10-15 thousand miles, and they only spent a few
minutes passing through it .


Well about 30 minutes (given the velocity you mention above, and assuming a
course perpindicular to it, not at some angle) is a bit more than a "few"
;-)

That said, as you say, it's still not really an issue.

There are many conspirators against the Apollo missions, and this was
one of the points they made clear. I was very skeptical about the
propoganda they fed me, but I would really like to believe we went to
the moon.

Then believe it. The moon hoax people are stupid, or nuts, or both.

I think some are just ignorant. Some really are nuts. And some really I
think chose NOT to believe for a variety of reasons.



--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting
sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com

On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:43:14 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Greg D.
Moore \(Strider\)" made the phosphor
on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

The belt extends to about forty thousand miles from the earth. When
they injected into lunar transfer orbit, they were going about 24,000
mph. So they were going fast enough that they only spent a couple
hours in toto, and they had shielding from the spacecraft. The most
intense part is 10-15 thousand miles, and they only spent a few
minutes passing through it .


Well about 30 minutes (given the velocity you mention above, and assuming a
course perpindicular to it, not at some angle) is a bit more than a "few"

Well, for some values of "few..."

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
Hee-Hee! Moon Mormons!:
http://www.nowscape.com/mormon/mormons5.htm

Do you have a problem with the Church of Jesus Christ of Lunarian Saints?

"Bama Brian" wrote in message
. net...
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

Of course not, Brian! Sheesh!

Everybody knows the earth is hollow, not flat!

"Patriot Games" wrote in message
news:a6DCh.1489$4J4.198@trnddc01...
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.

This is the worst summary of Apollo/Saturn I've ever read.

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

Ditto for the space shuttle.

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.

That's nowhere near what they're proposing. Get a clue.

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

Funny you should say that, because I was just thinking you're full of $#!^.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
"Patriot Games" wrote in message
news:a6DCh.1489$4J4.198@trnddc01...
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.
This is the worst summary of Apollo/Saturn I've ever read.

Hey! I even included mercury and Gemini!!!!!! All in one sentence...

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

I said that.

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.
That's nowhere near what they're proposing. Get a clue.

You're just sore because has become the laughing stock....

They SHOULD be wanting to build a REAL spaceship....

Its a cool idea. But maybe they need to graduate from crapping in their
diapers first?
Funny you should say that, because I was just thinking you're full of
$#!^.

I ain't wearing diapers......

On Feb 19, 6:14 pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
wrote in message
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.

Yes, and the moon constitutes new land and new resources.
And a new scientific and technological platform.

The moon is almost entirely made
of basalt and various forms of feldspar.

So is the Earth.

90% of all volcanic rock on earth is basalt, and
we use it primarily for gravel.

There's a lot of it, yeah.

60% of the earth's crust is forms of feldspar, which
we use primarily for ceramics.

Ditto.

It should be noted, most of the more expensive, useful
and sought after minerals and metals on earth are
formed by processes ....of life.

Name some, I don't have my periodic organic table handy.

A planet with no
or little life would be geologically boring and
unprofitable.

Boring? And the same minerals as exist on the Earth are unprofitable?
Do try to think these thing through more thoroughly before you post.

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???

No, you are the only one who is saying that. (see above)
Though you are definitely getting increasingly boring by the second.

Rational means science based. Show me the numbers....

Show you the numbers??? Ok. 1,2,3,4,5,.. it goes on like that there,
tweety.

To justify going back in a rational way... please
explain exactly ...

For just having met, you do seem to be overly demanding... don't you
think?
What is it? *That* time of month, again?

which moon resources/land we are
intending to exploit?

Whichever ones are worth exploiting, tweets.

And exactly how am I, as a
taxpayer, going to benefit? In dollar terms please.

I don't know how you personally might benefit at all... seeing as you
have the more immediate problem of having that large corn-cob stuck up
your nether region.

- Will more rapidly generate new technology and new science.

For instance?

For instance everything analogous developed during the US space
program. And more.
And that's a lot.

This program is nicnamed by Nasa as
"Apollo on steriods". Meaning no new breakthroughs
just redo the old stuff.

Umm.. not quite.
As your above limited basaltic understandings indicate.. neither you
nor anyone else ( in public) exactly knows what is on the Moon to
discover or develop. Gotta go and find out.

No new X-33-like reusable rockets.

No new Georgia moon-pies, either.

No single stage to orbit, no big reduction in price to orbit.
Just another great big Saturn 5-like rocket etc etc.

No dummy.. try rail guns.. electromagnetic launchers impelling
operational modules into orbit for free (Solar arrays to power the
rail guns)

For that matter make the operational modules out of native moon
silica. (fused fiberglass)

- New resources.

For instance, please name them, how much they are worth.

For instance.. please kiss my boodie.
I already told you that you demands have overstepped the bounds of
propriety and sanity.

How much they will cost to return to earth and how much I
as a taxpayer will benefit. And when.

Gravity wells are free.
And again. I don't know how you personally might benefit at all...
seeing as you have the more immediate problem of having that corn-cob
stuck axially up your nether region.

- Insurance for the human race - in case something goes wrong on
Terra.

Such as an impact? Perhaps the only plausible reason I can
see.

Impact, gamma jets, solar flares, nearby nova, genetically manipulated
plagues, nuclear war, global warming, runaway nano-technology, etc
etc. Time lays new monstrosites on the doorstep every morning.

But isn't it true new technology can be used to spot
and divert such things sooner and at a far lower cost?

Only if the people (if any) tasked with such responsibilities are
competent, and are inclined to do so.
You would rely on the kindness of strangers to babysit your children?

Aren't we already in the process of doing just that?

It's your turn to answer that impossible question for me. But no, we
are not.
That's why we have to go to the moon.

- Economical springboard to Mars.

Why go to Mars?

The most earth-like planet we know of.
Most compatible. Has water. Probably holds LIFE. (methane production)
Very much *not boring*.
Because it is there.

- Relatively cheap. Entire Appolo program cost was $135 billion (in
2006 dollars).
Constrast that to the anticipated $1,000 billion dollar cost for
Iraq.

We'll end up with a shelter for four or six astronauts in the end.

And with only your ingenuity applied - they would probably end up in
an empty refrigerator cardboard box.
With plastic wrap.

Lockheed will reap great profits.

It already does.
But I would rather see US workers employed in peaceful endevors.

And Nasa will become a national
joke in the process.

NASA is not the only way to get into space.
(And that's a good thing. They devote all lot of time to 'non-
scientific' stuff)

An example of how to waste money.

Hubble was not a waste.
Geo-location is not a waste.
Planetary communications are not a waste.
Mineral surveys are not a waste.
Weather monitoring is not a waste.

Intelligence is not a waste.

And there goes our space faring future, down the tubes
along with our hundred billion dollar 'colony to nowhere'.

Have you ever considered retirement in a cave? I think it would suit
you.

Instead we could give that hundred billion to the best
and brightest to take this program to it's limit.http://space-power.grc.nasa.gov/ppo/publications/sctm/

Just flip-flopped on me, didn't ya?

Which could end our dependence of fossil fuels.
Which could end wars over oil.
Which could be the primary solution to global warming.
And could make America the next energy "Saudi Arabia".
Ensuring American dominance and high standard of
living for another century.

Sure - just like all of the myriad posts I've made indicate we could.
But we don't even need to research that... *The requisite technology
is already sitting on the shelf*.

But we've decided...no...Lockheed has decided it's far
easier and more profitable to put a shelter for six on
the moon twenty years from now. And without having
to break any new ground.

Don't contradict yourself.
And don't make up wacky crap.
Learn to be precise in meaning. And always speak the truth.
It's the only way that personal or human progress can be made.

How convenient for them.

To be able to milk the taxpayer cow for a couple
of decades building something that is designed
to fix or do ....nothing at all.

Psst.. I don't know where you are posting from, but it's rather clear
that you do not understand that the miniscule amount required for us
to go to and stay on the moon and reach the next level of civilization
would cost less than six months of blood-letting in the middle east.

And that such an endevor would be a very much better thing to do.

PS: I will attempt to leave small offerings at the mouth of your cave,
when possible.