Can NASA return to the Moon by 2019?

Paul Foley wrote:
Frank Glover wrote:

Six manned landings (and assorted probes) does not full
understanding make. There's a constant presence of humans in
Antatctica...


The mission to the moon wasn't about fully understanding the geology of
the moon. It was about beating the Russians. We did so, and everyone
promptly lost interest.

If the nation were chomping at the bit to study the moon, there would be
hundreds, nay thousands, of instruments sending back data from there.

Researchers don't seem on the verge of running out of new things to
learn there. Why should the Moon be any different?


There are no cute penguins there?


After the second or third Mars expedition, will you be saying;
"Screw this, we've done it. What about Jupiter?"


After two spectacularly successful Mars Rover missions, I'm eager to see
the next generations of remote vehicles on Mars. I don't want those
resources diverted, and squandered, on Buck Rogers fantasies. That's
because I'm interested in science, not interested in seeing some
American astronaut whacking golf balls on Mars.


Ah, you believe the Universe should be reserved only for robots. Why
didn't you say so in the first place?

And it doesn't change what I said. You got a problem with more
unmanned lunar missions, too? Even your way, we're *still* not finished
with the Moon.



--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"Man who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt man doing it."
- Chinese Proverb

In article . net,
Paul Foley wrote:
Didn't we already go to the moon, like, in the 1970s?

Indeed we did. So if we're going to resume manned space exploration,
that's the right place to start -- picking up where we left off.

(The complaint that many of us have about VSE/ESAS/etc. is precisely that
it's trying to re-do Apollo, rather than trying to take the *next* step in
lunar exploration -- reusable transportation and a sustainable program of
ongoing activity.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article 2VmDg.5027$zc2.2045@trnddc06,
Douglas Holmes wrote:
Personally I am becoming concerned the answer is no.

There is, at least, some room for doubt.

The technology is there if they just keep it simple but NASA
seems incapable of doing things the easy way.

One problem is that VSE/ESAS/etc. is as much a jobs program as a return to
the Moon, and its technical side is hamstrung by the requirement to keep
all those people employed and not offend any politically-powerful
contractors.

The number of different rockets that are possible in
the 50 to 80 ton range using existing technology are amazing.

As is the fact that none of them is actually required -- or even
particularly desirable -- for a return to the Moon.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Sure, if they buy tickets.

Can NASA return to the Moon by 2019?

Not actually, and live to tell about it. Besides, WW-III is soon going
to get in the way of honest science.

I totally agree that we need to focus upon those new and improved
missions as per sending off the sorts of robotic probes. However, what
we have here is a serious priority need as to kick Usenet butt, then to
kick a few other sorry butts that have been nothing but liars and
systematic intellectual bigots of the worse possible kind.

Don't suppose there's any honest Usenet intentions of these insider
folks, as for their ever being the least bit open mindset, any more so
than hearing from our resident LLPOF warlord(GW Bush) that his actions
and of those closely associated and of a few too many before his
administration were nothing short of having imposed their crimes against
humanity and of otherwise continually raping our global warming
environment to boot.

As to the excluding of whatever's evidence that doesn't happen to please
your mainstream status quo or bust mindset, whereas it simply isn't
working, now is it, any more so than is their perpetual denial of denial
being of any further use.

We need to think along the lines of affordable and fully expendable
rad-hard robotics rather than pushing our frail DNA over the edge. As
of today's capability, of what micro-probes and/or of relatively small
robotics can obviously survive in extreme places that are otherwise
taboo/off-limits as to even the most advanced forms of applied
technology that's intended for sustaining our frail DNA.

For the old gipper, here's one more of my somewhat dyslexic alternative
reviews, at considering the cosmic radiation impact upon your frail DNA
while situated on or anywhere near that moon of our's, thus making my
argument for having the 50t/m2 available to the CM/ISS abode as being
within spec of what long-term survival at even 60,000 km away from our
physically dark and nasty moon has to offer, as being not such a bad
idea.

According to our NASA certified science with regards to cosmic influx of
roughly one hit per second per cm2, the following is extrapolated in
order to estimate the lunar surface environment that's without benefit
of having a magnetosphere, thus by rights and if anything the naked moon
unavoidably receives more than it's fair share of merely one cosmic
hit/cm2/sec.

However, at taking on merely those 36e6 cosmic hits/m2/hr, and for using
the conservative square root of that amount = 6e3 mrem or 6 rem/hr. A
TBI(total body irradiation) of .06 Sv/hr is obviously survivable for
several hours worth of exposure, that is if that were the one and only
amount of dosage your DNA had to worry about.

Of course, outer space and essentially that of our naked moon is not 2D,
but rather 3D/cubic, whereas your 3D body is therefore not limited to
the m2 worth of cosmic influx. Instead, your 3D body might be worth
roughly 0.1 m3 which equals 100,000 cm3, making it into a cosmic target
that's 10 fold as bad off. Therefore taking on 360e6 cosmic hits/hr,
and if we're using the same conservative conversion into mrem of taking
the square root makes that dosage of DNA trauma worth 19e3 mrem or 19
rem/hr.

Unfortunately you're not alone while moonsuit walking about, whereas
you're entire body and frail DNA within are continually surrounded by at
least 3.14e6 m2 of that physically dark and nasty lunar anticathode
terrain of matter that's roughly half again as dense as aluminum and
otherwise better than 3 times the density of your body, and thereby
unavoidably more reactive in a bad sort of way of generating those
nastier forms of secondary/recoil energies of gamma and hard-X-rays.

Since the lunar atmosphere is supposedly so sparse, the amount of mass
or atmospheric shield density that's between yourself and any of those
surrounding 3.14e6 m2 that are naturally being anticathode at doing
their thing, of each m2 emitting humanly lethal dosage, whereas this
outcome is not by any means a good sign.

3.14e6 * 0.06 Sv = 188.4e3 Sv/hr, whereas if your body were only getting
0.1% of that surrounding dosage is still worth 188 Sv/hr. This is where
being a rad-hard robot gets looking as a really good idea.

Of course, if we'd ever established those interactive science probes on
the lunar deck, or even having established that science platform as
efficiently station-keeping itself within the interactive LL-1 zone
would have long ago eliminated all of the swag of such speculations that
myself and others have had to make do with.

Unfortunately, each and every time I've taken the initiative upon myself
having suggested as to deploying extremely low cost alternatives, for
getting small/micro science probes or of those within my JAVELINs as
implanted into our moon, whereas this is when all the usual mainstream
status quo of their wag-thy-dog flak started to fly. Instead of getting
a community think-tank of folks honestly sharing in the best available
science that's replicated, and of sharing other viable ideas and/or
alternatives, instead we get MOS anti-think-tank of their Usenet
naysayism in the forms of topic/author stalking, bashings and wherever
possible banishments applied, along with whatever's the evidence that's
on behalf of our arguments getting excluded if such evidence represents
the least bit of whatever rocks their good ship LOLLIPOP. If that's not
bad enough, we also get to receive an extra good PC infecting dosage of
their GOOGLE/Usenet server accommodated gauntlet of absolutely pesky
spermware/****ware to continually deal with, plus that of our email
accounts trashed with further butt-loads of their worse possible
infected files, and otherwise for years I've had hundreds of those pesky
hang-up phone calls that are obviously intended to impose as much damage
as possible by remote means, that which our cloak and dagger MI/NSA
spooks have entirely at their disposal and within their instruction as
to utilize every means available without spilling any of their precious
nondisclosure beans.

In other words, there's apparently so much that I'm right about that
it's getting a wee bit hot and nasty to be sharing whatever without
involving yet another round of status quo flak. So, if you're at all
interested in our moon, Venus or our orbital association with the Sirius
star/solar system, as such I'd advise being prepared for taking on the
absolute worse of the worse sorts of nasty things to happen, and so much
so that it could become a whole lot safer for those Venusians or
visiting ETs as having existed/coexisted on Venus than it is for those
of us right here on this polluted and subsequently global warming Earth
that's about to go WW-III postal in order to further cover thy
perpetrated cold-war butts.

As I've said before, the geothermally active surface environment of
Venus is simply a whole lot safer than Earth when it comes down to the
solar/cosmic levels of Sv. That Venusian environment is obviously not
Earth like (more hell like), but it also isn't all that humanly
insurmountable if a gram of intelligent common sense gets applied. The
ESA Venus EXPRESS mission is helping to prove this to be true,
especially once their PFS instrument gets into action (as by rights it
should), that will better map the surface of geothermal terrain to a
much greater resolution and extent than previously obtained (as limited
only by the highly elliptical polar orbit).
-
Brad Guth


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