Why go back to the moon?

Many people say they see no reason to go back to the moon and want
to go on to Mars without a lunar program. However, it is probably
easier to make a case for going to the moon than for keeping the ISS.
Remember, the moon is not a small place, it is a WORLD. We have not
seen much of it and it isnt just a pile of uninteresting rocks but an
entire world of strange things and places to be explored. It probably
has vast lava tubes that can be used for habitats much easier than
making large habitable spaces in orbit. We still do not know if the
moon is geologically a "dead" world but observations of lunar transient
events hints that it isnt.
The moon has resources; granted we dont know about most of them but
at least we know about the composition of most outer regolith and of
the probable existence of water ice near the poles. With the water
that was delivered by comets, is there also abundant hydrocarbons from
the comets? The gravity of the moon along with its lack of atmosphere
is a real resource by itself for various manufacturing processes.
Imagine being able to make huge electron beam evaporated coatings
unlimited in size byt he size of a vacuum chamber while being able to
count on gravity to hold things in place.
Having a world like this so close to earth is really fortuitous and
I can see far more reasons for going there than going to Mars. Arguing
that "we've been there and done that" would be like someone arguing
that once Columbus did his first voyage and found nothing of importance
that Europeans had "been there and done that" so there was no reason
for further voyages.

Ya know, weightlessness is all well and good, and the view of earth
from ISS is really nice, but after about a week of it you get to
thinking "Is this all we get for a billion dollar shuttle flight to
ISS"? I happen to think ISS is a good thing and we oughta keep it but
for my money the moon is a heck of a lot more interesting than ISS and
potentially more useful than Mars.
So, it seems our disagreement is about money then. However, if you
want to be certain that you make it to the moon AND have a serious
manned capability to show for it AND a serious cargo lifter to show for
it, I'd bet on NASA before underfunded pvt people. I like pvt space
efforts but NASA happens to be closer than any pvt company to achieving
this.
I'd like to see NASA stop doing stupid things that undercut pvt efforts
while achieving nothing. NASA should not ever compete with pvt
enterprise and should also use pvt if they truly have the capability.
Space vaporware does not impress me.
Going to the moon generates enthusiasm among young people while just
going into orbit gets a sort of "is that all" look from them. My kids
all ask why people dont go to the moon anymore but never ask about
orbiting the earth. People see the moon as a real goal while they see
orbit as just a part of the trip.

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 03:39:54 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote, in part:
On 21 Sep 2005 16:25:11 -0700, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Many people say they see no reason to go back to the moon and want
to go on to Mars without a lunar program. However, it is probably
easier to make a case for going to the moon than for keeping the ISS.
Remember, the moon is not a small place, it is a WORLD.

A WORLD, that to first order remains unexplorable because it costs
several billion dollars each time for four people to visit it.

The main use for the Moon is clear. Cheap aluminum, delivered to space.

Is this going to make exploring the solar system really cheap?

Look at a rocket on the launch pad. The rocket engine is made from
exotic metals. But the tanks and the fairings (the latter not needed in
the vacuum of space as much) can be made from aluminum. How much of the
rocket's weight is the thin aluminum of its outside cylinder and tanks,
as against the fuel itself?

One can make oxygen from moon rocks - and one can burn aluminum for
thrust, it is said.

I can see Zubrin's reasons for preferring Mars. Almost everything is
there, although nitrogen is kind of rare.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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http://www.usenetzone.com to open account

On 21 Sep 2005 16:25:11 -0700, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Many people say they see no reason to go back to the moon and want
to go on to Mars without a lunar program. However, it is probably
easier to make a case for going to the moon than for keeping the ISS.
Remember, the moon is not a small place, it is a WORLD.

A WORLD, that to first order remains unexplorable because it costs
several billion dollars each time for four people to visit it.

I can see Zubrin's reasons for preferring Mars. Almost everything is
there, although nitrogen is kind of rare.
I'm afraid that's only as long as we've managed to deploy what has to
become a fully robotic trillion dollar nuclear power plant and all of
the machinery as for extracting and processing whatever Zubrin needs,
then another trillion as for their first class to/from travel package
that'll get a half dozen souls to Mars in a state of prematurely dying
off from excessive TBI dosage and, having those 6 body-bags for their
return flight.

I suppose that's worth a couple of trillion just to get rid of such
intellectual morons.

BTW; I totally agree with your;
One can make oxygen from moon rocks - and one can burn aluminum for
thrust, it is said.
I believe there's so much more that our moon has to contribute without
our ever setting foot upon it.
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush

On 21 Sep 2005 21:01:17 -0700, "Brad Guth"
wrote, in part:

I believe there's so much more that our moon has to contribute without
our ever setting foot upon it.

Yes, it's a source of light at night without using electricity; it
inspires lovers... and retroreflectors on its surface can be used for
sensitive measurements. Perhaps it can even be used for gravitational
propulsion.

Still, setting foot on it gives it a chance to do more, such as serve as
an astronomical platform.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
_________________________________________
Usenet Zone Free Binaries Usenet Server
More than 140,000 groups
Unlimited download
http://www.usenetzone.com to open account

John Savard wrote:

Still, setting foot on it gives it a chance to do more, such as serve as
an astronomical platform.


make a nice spot for a an extention of a long base array radio
telescope, or a great veiw of the galaxy,

Brad Guth wrote:

I'm afraid that's only as long as we've managed to deploy what has to
become a fully robotic trillion dollar nuclear power plant and all of
the machinery as. for extracting and processing whatever Zubrin needs,

a solar furnace would be less expensive, mirrors don't have to deal
with weather, cheep rc servo's could easy handle the task of moving
the very light reflectors,

E.L.

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 03:39:54 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On 21 Sep 2005 16:25:11 -0700, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Many people say they see no reason to go back to the moon and want
to go on to Mars without a lunar program. However, it is probably
easier to make a case for going to the moon than for keeping the ISS.
Remember, the moon is not a small place, it is a WORLD.

A WORLD, that to first order remains unexplorable because it costs
several billion dollars each time for four people to visit it.

Just as well your not in charge of NASA then, we'd still be sat on the
launch pad nearly 50 years later. And the same goes for most others
in this newsgroup.



--

Christopher

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 01:50:44 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

The main use for the Moon is clear. Cheap aluminum, delivered to space.

That remark shows a remarkable lack of imagination.

The moon offers so much more. Its rocks can be refined into not just
aluminum but oxygen and light alkali metals for rocket fuel, titanium
and magnesium for machine components, silica glass for structural
forms, etc., etc.

It is an ideal place from which to do full-spectrum astronomy, as well
as other scientific work. Think of this: if, beginning in 1960, all
the money that was spent on building earth-based observatories and
large government-operated astronomical telescopes had instead been
invested, how much would it total today? I'm guessing enough to start
putting an observatory on the moon that would outstrip all the
earth-based astronomy of the last four decades in its first year of
operation. People just don't think long-term, is all.

-- Roy L

John Savard,
Why go back to the moon when it'll be so much easier to safely
accomplish Venus?

Again with those phony baloney "retroreflectors" that plain old math
proves they couldn't possibly be detected as for their scant few
contributions of whatever returning photons that are in any way
different than the multi-millions other photons derived off the
relatively good (25+%) IR albedo of the raw moon itself.

Actually, our moon is all about the rather nifty amount of earthshine
that's 50 fold better off while moonsuit walking upon the reactive and
nearly coal dark by way of carbon soot, titanium and iron dusted moon,
that which represents what's safely though still short-term capable
once someone gets around to inventing a well documented and most
certainly easily proof-tested fly-by-rocket lander. Otherwise the
LSE-CM/ISS has also been sufficiently doable, as such would keep our
astronauts at 64,000 km away from that nasty radioactive and highly
reactive sucker as well appropriately shielded within a fairly massive
1e6 m3 CM/ISS abode that'll provide the 50t/m2 worth of physical and
radiation shielding (roughly 16 basalt meters worth) that's good enough
for the long haul.

Still, setting foot on it gives it a chance to do more, such as serve as
an astronomical platform.
I agree that perhaps at least at first our moderately risky earthshine
illuminated surface expeditions of the future may require a few humans
in moonsuits in order to fully deploy a few of the larger and more
complex science/astronomy instruments. However, if and when we actually
manage such a fly-by-rocket deployments of humans, whereas by the very
same token we could robotically deploy more than a thousand fold/kg/$
by way of merely excluding the human factor, especially since the
purely robotic deployments need be one-way tickets to ride, and those
tickets shouldn't cost 0.1% per deployed kg if you take into account
that such deployed robotics should function for many years at a time
unless they sink out of sight or get summarily pulverised by whatever's
incoming.
-

According to the likes of anti-ET and thus anti-God Art Deco, Bookman
and most other incest cloned brown-nosed minions of their mainstream
status quo borgology that clearly sucks and blows at the same time,
whereas the truth and nothing but the truth is nothing but a "perverted
fantasy";
If our moon, Mars and beyond are canceled; what's next for NASA?
In spite of those intellectual as well as biological bigots that would
just as soon repeat history exactly as scripted (nailing the likes of
Christ upon the cross and exterminating those Cathars to boot), there's
always the not so geologically old Venus that gets as nearby as 100
fold that of our even newer arrival and clearly once upon a time icy
proto-moon, whereas at least Venus certainly has by far the most viable
aerobreaking worthy atmosphere plus just about everything else you can
possibly think of to start off with.

Even without the observationology of my interpreting upon what 36
reaffirming 8-bit looks per pixel has suggested as being most likely
artificial and thus indicating the workmanship of locals or perhaps ETs
as having been camping out on Venus, plus indicating upon many other
extremely interesting items of natural formations and active fluid/mud
like flows that would have made their site selection more desirable
than not, whereas it seems the growing amounts of so much other
hard-science and of applying the regular laws of physics are what's
giving Venus it's greatest potential of having supported other life
that's natural as well as otherwise the possibility of ET/imported
forms of intelligent life.

Of whatever's pressure, even if that's 100 bar isn't in of itself
insurmountable to well known forms of life as coexisting here upon
Earth. Even humans can eventually adapt to our surviving within such
extreme pressure without applied physiological technology, other than
for our having to artificially create the pressurized atmospheric cell
environment in the first place, that which should only required an O2
basis of not more than 1% and the remainder as 99% H2.

Of whatever's temperature isn't all that insurmountable for three
reasons. 1) temperature is directly related to pressure, in that the
greater the pressure the greater the amount of heat that life can
survive within. 2) even though there's a limit as to what human
tissue/cells can take as heat, exoskeletals are not nearly as limited
and, if need be a insulation barrier of local basalt and/or silica
micro-balloons would become more than accommodating as for creating the
necessary R-Factor of providing a thermal isolation formula of a viable
conductive and even as a radiated heat barrier. 3) thermal energy
heat-exchanging isn't the least bit technologically limited, especially
within such a nicely conductive mode of mostly dry CO2 and, all other
factors seem perfectly surmountable via evolution and/or applied
technology. This isn't to say that where-is as-is Venus is directly
suitable for us humans, especially the dumb and dumber portions of
humanity that still can't seem to tie their own shoe laces without
going absolutely postal over something.

Of course, if any of this is being suggested to the all-knowing usenet
gangs of mostly social/religious and political correctness, as then
nothing of science, physics and especially of observationology matters
because, apparently it just might otherwise rock a few too many of
their precious mainstream status quo boats, and we simply can't have
that much good ship LOLLIPOP rocking no matters what the consequences.
Thus only a flat Earth that's populated by extremely bigoted and
otherwise brown-nosed folks as having been surrounded by nothing but
their God's eye candy is permitted.

To put this into yet another perspective;
It seems that we humans have become the Earthly sort of ETs that have
been out and about as taking our technological first-hand and mostly
robotic look-sees at whatever other planets, moons and a few
meteor/asteroids have to offer, thus if we can manage to accomplish
such within the extremely limited scope of our physics and science,
then it's entirely possible that other life as having been much older
and thus most likely of some intellectual level of expertise better off
than our's, as having been capable of their going to/from the sorts of
places that seem inaccessible as well as unlivable for our kind seems
perfectly doable, that is unless you're another Godless anti-ET bigot
that can't accept change. What's unfortunate about the sorts of mutated
life via incest cloning upon this Earth is that our limited
understanding of what's even situated upon Earth is staggering to say
the least, in that we don't seem to even know our own physiology well
enough to save our own souls, much less appreciate and support other
more complex forms of mature life that has up until our arrival
outlived humanity by millions of years in spite of their having only
their DNA/RNA smarts of applied physics and thus their internal
biological programmed intellegence as to account for their survival.
Perhaps at some future time we humans well evolve into becoming born
with all of our physical skills and intelligence, simply emerge as
intellectually whole and thereby ready to work efficiently and
diligently at a given task without a stitch of learned arrogance,
bigotry and/or greed outside of whatever it takes for managing our
basic survival as a collective whole. Though as it is, we're rather
easily molded by the framework that's established by others, programmed
into becoming everything from serial killers to the likes of LLPOF
warlords as having been running humanity amuck, whereas few have
managed to escape being formally assimilated into the human borg like
collective of what's continually taking advantage of so many others in
order to benefit so few.

It seems we've created our own worse enemies and subsequently we've
turned ourselves into various forms of intellectual as well as
biological bounty hunters and somewhat arrogant opportunest as a
result, including the sport of hunting down whatever intellect that's
the least bit outside the box, and otherwise having pointed out the
likes of Cathars and Jesus Christ so that their elimination could be
accommodated via some self proclaimed and thus remorseless authority
that's supposedly upon our bigoted and greedy behalf, and then some of
us wonder why ETs are keeping a safe distance.

If you could imagine having been cosmetically altered so as to look,
dress and act the part of a visiting ET that had arrived upon Earth,
chances are you'd last all of a day before getting hunted down,
terminated or otherwise sequestered and dissected nearly on the spot.
And by the way, ETs that should be at least as smart if not a whole lot
smarter than us humans certainly do NOT have to remotely look like us
humans, as whatever shape and form are somewhat irrelevant factors with
regard to ET or even local intelligence. If we humans are as smart as
it gets, now you're taking serious trouble in River City, whereas
there's nothing other than more of the same wars upon wars based almost
entirely upon anything but the truth. We hardly have the resources for
sustaining the sorts of phony baloney wars we've created thus far, and
the Earth simply isn't getting any bigger, in fact Earth for humanity
has been shrinking by measurable factors and at the same time requiring
a greater amount of artificial energy and other resources per soul at
that.

Without the viable to/from capability of what the lunar space elevator
and thus access to the energy resources of our moon has to behold,
chances are we're not going to have whatever it'll take for defending
our Earth from ourselves, much less from invading ET's that have long
since pillaged and raped their home worlds to the point of no return if
not total demise (Mars gives us a reasonably close look-see at what the
worse outcome might involve if we manage to extract the last joule of
energy from Earth).

If our moon and that of Venus offers viable alternatives as to
improving our quality of life while otherwise moderating our global
suffering and, if those two external globes open other doors so that
our Earthly ET capability can grow and expand, then so be it. However,
if the likes of this usenet that has a license to kill can't even
manage to cope with the honest prospects of what's entirely possible,
then we're entirely up against a firery wall that offers no possible
redemption or the slightest amount of remorse for humanity, and as such
we more than deserve the consequences of our actions as well as from
our inactions that have long since contributed to the ongoing
collateral damage and demise of humanity.

Without accepting change and without accepting the truth there's no
hope of our long term survival, at least not for the lower 99.9% of
humanity that's having to perform as brown-nosed minions to the upper
most 0.1%. Clearly the rich have been getting richer and the poor
becoming less than worthy of being allowed to live much less prosper.
For those of you looking for whatever can be taken out-of-context just
so you can avoid the truth by pointing and smirking like our resident
warlord(GW Bush), be my guest.

For those the least bit interested in whatever else others and myself
have had to say all along, stay tuned in and/or aligned with the
program of sending us your moral and whatever other support so that our
lose-cannons and butt-kickings can become even more effective.
Donations of technology or gifts of cold hard cash are certainly
welcome and entirely legal as long as I've acknowledged my having
received such, or perhaps taking the "high standards and
accountability" road of our "so what's the difference" warlord policy
and entirely like the oil/energy ENRON sorts of dealings having
involved GW Bush, whereas I wont tell if you don't tell can also be
arranged. If I had a minion staff as perhaps a cloak of a certified
ministry and offshore bank of my ET God, then I could even apply for
some of the matching funds and/or grants being forked out by our
resident warlord(GW Bush) himself, and as such I'd just have to bet
that would push a few more of those *do NOT push* bigotry-R-us buttons.

Send your support directly to my attention: 4410 SE Nelson Rd. Olalla
WA 98359-8517 or just call: (253) 8576061 and I'll put your name along
with others as listed on my lose-cannon notch/kill plate.
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.