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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
In sci.space.policy Kaido Kert wrote:
"Sander Vesik" wrote in message ... In sci.space.policy Joe Strout wrote: In article , Sander Vesik wrote: No more Galileos or Cassinis or Pluto probes or Space Telescopes? What if this means "No more galileos, cassinis and space telescopes UNTIL" those can be launched from lunar surface ? But this is essentialy the same as never, as things stand or are even projected. You must have a very limited definition of "never". We could be launching craft from the lunar surface in 20 years easily. If in a hurry, then 10-15 years. Not what I would call "never." Just as you cannot call ISS a "earth orbit manufacturing base" it is extremely unlikely that anything NASA will create on moon would in some way help launching satellites. *Even* if there was actual manufacturing base, to actually *make* a staellite starting with raw materials you hundreds of people to be there. And there is no way that is going to happen in the next 20 years. It would not even happen if you could pour as much money as you wanted into it. Um .. you are confusing a port with a shipyard, or a garage with automotive assemly line. There is basicly no benefit to launching a satellite from Earth and then adding to it a booster that was lifted up from Moon. If you spent even a fraction of what going to be wasted in this PR excercise on Moon on developing better propulsion you would get radicaly better results. -kert -- Sander +++ Out of cheese error +++ |
#92
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
Precicely what how did you imagine going from "ore comes out of mine" to "and here is a satellite ready to be sent to Jupiter" ? Oh, I don't know.... Maybe the same way we do it here? Only without the mammoth levels of ineptitude and government bloat. Hopefully, at least. This just means you have no idea what "making things" (never mind making something complex) means. Why don't you tell me? Better yet, why don't you tell me how NASA is going to do anything more than futz around with dead end projects without some sort of assistance? Without some sort of corporate interest in space exploration, we're not going anywhere.We're just going to continue lobbing money at NASA in exchange for a few "Gee Whiz"-probes and some nifty pictures of places we're never going to go. Doc |
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
-- "I'm at peace with my lust. I can kill because in God I trust. It's Evolution, baby." Pearl Jam "Do the Evolution" "Jon Berndt" wrote in message ... "john doe" wrote in message "Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote: Remember, just to develop the industrial base on the Moon to make this possible you're going to have to have cheap launch from here on Earth. And more importantly, have a way to return to earth the ore that you have mined on the Moon, and all of this should be cheaper than the ore that is mined on earth. I'm not sure that is the point. My question is: is it cheaper to mine and process materials on the moon, and use them there in finished products, than it is to fly finished products there? Or, are there materials on the moon that cannot be gotten on earth? Jon I remember reading something about titanium being up there in appreciable quantities, but that might have been wrong. And mining effeciency depends a great deal on the quantity mined. Let's say you send up a crew with supplies to mine a ton of titanium on the moon. This wouldn't really pay off that well. Now let's say you send up a crew with supplies to mine 500 tons of titanium on the moon. See the picture yet? An industrial base on the moon would probably take the better part of this century to establish. There's no denying that. And it'll be harder than hell to persuade the corporate types to do it. And I'm quite sure that a great many business ventures on the moon will fail miserably. In fact, most of them will. But some will prosper. And those that prosper will be what takes us to the stars, not NASA. NASA is great for blazing trails and testing materials and techniques that only a governmental agency could get away with wasting money on. But I'll guarantee you that the first permanent, self-sustaining base on the moon will not belong to NASA. It'll belong to a corporation. If I had to find a terrestrial analogy for the moon, I'd pick Alaska. Remember that for years the territory of Alaska was considered a business screwup par none. Nothing but endless expanses of dense forest and frozen tundra. And when Alaska was purchased it was worthless. Sure, timber was valuable, but there was nobody there to exploit it. The infrastructure to use this natural resource simply did not exist. Flash forward a hundred and fifty years and Alaska is booming. Alaskan timber is shipped all over the Pacific rim. Not to mention petrochemical resources which have been tapped by virtually every oil company in the US. There are incredibly valuable resources out in the solar system just waiting to be accessed. There's metal in the belt. The moon would be a much easier launch platform than Earth, not to mention a much better location for heavy industry. In vacuum, air pollution is an oxymoron. Doc |
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
"Sander Vesik" wrote in message
... There is basicly no benefit to launching a satellite from Earth and then adding to it a booster that was lifted up from Moon. If you spent even a fraction of what going to be wasted in this PR excercise on Moon on developing better propulsion you would get radicaly better results. You said "there is no benefit ... " hm.. so you already know what the purely theorethical launch from lunar surface will cost ? You already know how much lunar-produced solar panels will cost ? You already know how capable theorethical lunar version of deep-space network will be ? You already know that "this" is a PR excercise ? You are making quite bold assertions here... As there is no pressing need or particular hurry to get those close-up photos of Plutos surface, deferring such "missions" say .. a couple of decades should be a no-brainer, if this money is needed for somewhat more practical developments closer to current frontier. -kert |
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
On 10 Jan 2004 22:19:46 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote: No detail on whether NASA would extend ISS capability beyond "International Core Complete" (i.e. 6-7 crew). I assume not, since a comparable level of detail was used in other areas of the article. This also assumes that ESA, CSA, JAXA, and RSA continue ISS afterward. Russia's economy would have to improve somewhat in order for them to be able to do this long-term. It also raises the possibility of the revival of Transhab. We've gone from "nothing at all to do with Mars on ISS, please" to "the only ISS stuff we'll support will be things for moon/Mars." Brian |
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
"Kees van Reeuwijk" wrote in message elft.nl... chimera wrote: The second thing that is lacking is--a reason. Back in the '60s, as we all know, it was reason enough that the Soviets might take command of space away from the U.S. But today the reason to spend all this money is . . . ? There is nothing so critical, so pressing, that the money won't be siphoned to other more pressing concerns first. I look at things like this as sporting events, and I for one would be willing to pay a few extra euros tax each year to see *Europe* get there first. That's mainly just rooting for the home team, but I expect that such an accomplishment would have benificial side-effects as well. If the USA joins this race, I'm sure there will be quite a number of people rooting for *that* team :-). Go Europe. |
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:45:03 +0100, "Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote:
The Project Prometheus nuclear powered engine seems to have a key role in the Bush deep space proposals. If we get nuclear engines, the time scales drop radically. AFAIK Prometheus isn't usable for human space missions, only for deep space probes. Like I already said: NASA shouldn't fall into the trap of using the newest a greatest unobtanium technology to accomplish the goals set out by the President, or the whole program will simply get cancelled due to cost overrurns. http://www.space.com/news/bush_update_040109.html "Another existing NASA program, Project Prometheus, would continue to be focused on developing nuclear propulsion for interplanetary spacecraft and new long-lasting power sources for future bases." Brian |
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
"Kaido Kert" wrote in
: As there is no pressing need or particular hurry to get those close-up photos of Plutos surface, deferring such "missions" say .. a couple of decades should be a no-brainer, if this money is needed for somewhat more practical developments closer to current frontier. It's not the pictures of the surface that are important. Pluto is moving away from perihelion and its atmosphere will soon freeze out. Deferring this mission a couple of decades means we won't get measurements of Pluto's atmosphere until the next perihelion, which is over 200 years away. -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
#100
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UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
Brian Thorn wrote in
: On 10 Jan 2004 22:19:46 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote: No detail on whether NASA would extend ISS capability beyond "International Core Complete" (i.e. 6-7 crew). I assume not, since a comparable level of detail was used in other areas of the article. This also assumes that ESA, CSA, JAXA, and RSA continue ISS afterward. Russia's economy would have to improve somewhat in order for them to be able to do this long-term. It also raises the possibility of the revival of Transhab. We've gone from "nothing at all to do with Mars on ISS, please" to "the only ISS stuff we'll support will be things for moon/Mars." That makes logical sense, but it was not in the initial leak, while other aspects of the proposal at the same or higher level of detail were present. That makes me doubt that Transhab is part of the proposal. But again, we are dealing with a leak here, and not the proposal itself. -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
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