NASA plans to send 4 to the moon in 2018

[troutman]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/15/n...moon/index.html

NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion and the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018.

NASA's plan envisions being able to land four-person human crews anywhere on the Moon's surface and to eventually use the system to transport crew members to and from a lunar outpost that it would consider building on the lunar south pole, according to the charts, because of the regions elevated quantities of hydrogen and possibly water ice.

I barely remember the first lunar landings. This is very exciting. I think China is planning to put men on the moon too. A new space race?

NASA is building towards a manned mission to Mars.

[Cowperson]

I would still wonder "why?"

Obviously, from previous posts, folks know I'm a big science fiction fan but from a practical point of view, robots can do pretty much all you need to get done for a fraction of the cost.

All the great discoveries since the early 1980's have generally come via robots exploring our region of space. There have been failures but generally they're inconsequential in cost compared to what might have been the case if men had gone to do the same job.

In the late 1960's, there was certainly a hew and cry over the billions that were going into the space program at the time.

"With so many problems on earth, why are we spending so much on this?" was the classic question at the time.

"Well, you couldn't leave the moon to the Commies!!!," was the usual answer and fairly, that was a pretty popular answer at the time.

The USA beat the Commies to the moon . . . . . it wasn't for the good of mankind necessarily.

Spend $100 billion to go to the moon? In all seriousness, why?

Tell me you're going to Alpha Centauri or somewhere interesting like that, a place that would push the discovery of brazen new technologies out of sheer necessity.

Send robots. They don't scream when they die.

Gurgle.

Cowperson

[Table 5]

no kidding. Id get excited about this article if that was, say 1955. Im sure there will be lot of small practical benefits to this objective, but i think there are more bold ventures NASA could be shooting for. How about we shoot for Mars by 2020?

[ken0042]

I suppose one could argue that we'll never get to Alpha Centauri or even Mars if we can't make the short trip to the moon.

The technology used in the 60's and 70's to get us to the moon has ramifications even today. How many of us wear digital watches? Guess how those were invented? For Lunar exploration. (Something about variable gravity fields and analog watches didn't work.)

[troutman]

Space Exploration Is Human Nature
By Phil Smith

We have about a million years of evidence showing that humans (and our near-ancestors such as Homo erectus) have roamed extensively across the globe. Migration is a key aspect of human behavior.

http://www.space.com/opinionscolumns/opini...ith_000412.html


What Space Needs: the Human Touch

President Kennedy made sense of it in 1962. Addressing a crowd at Rice University, he exclaimed, "We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and our skills ... we do not know what benefits await us ... [but] space is there and we are going to climb it."

"As we explore the ocean --like we explore space-- the human presence is a must," says Cousteau. "No matter how well we program a machine we cannot give it a heart. It's what makes us humans unique."

"You see, exploration isn't merely about finding things, it's about being moved [spiritually and emotionally], it's about making connections between things that, to a machine, might seem to have no relation at all!"
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast30may_1.htm

[Ozy_Flame]

C'mon Cow! If NASA settles in on the Moon, then they're accomplished two very pressing matters in our recent history! Containment of communist expansion and a comprehensive SDI program! See how well this will benefit us?

[peter12]

Cool. Not very practical. Does the US really need to drop another $100 billion into another project that will see very little positive dividends? Maybe re-building New Orleans should be a priority for that chunk of cash.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by troutman@Sep 15 2005, 02:07 PM
Space Exploration Is Human Nature
By Phil Smith

We have about a million years of evidence showing that humans (and our near-ancestors such as Homo erectus) have roamed extensively across the globe. Migration is a key aspect of human behavior.

http://www.space.com/opinionscolumns/opini...ith_000412.html


What Space Needs: the Human Touch

President Kennedy made sense of it in 1962. Addressing a crowd at Rice University, he exclaimed, "We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and our skills ... we do not know what benefits await us ... [but] space is there and we are going to climb it."

"As we explore the ocean --like we explore space-- the human presence is a must," says Cousteau. "No matter how well we program a machine we cannot give it a heart. It's what makes us humans unique."

"You see, exploration isn't merely about finding things, it's about being moved [spiritually and emotionally], it's about making connections between things that, to a machine, might seem to have no relation at all!"
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast30may_1.htm

"Imagine winning a trip to Paris. You're filled with excitement, anticipating the food, the wine, the city's ambiance. Then, just as you're packing your bags, you get this brown envelope in the mail. It's filled with pictures of mouth-watering cuisine, of people talking and lights glistening from the Eiffel Tower. This is your prize! They didn't send you to Paris. Oh no, they sent a robot with a camera instead."

The quote above reminds me of a line from one of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels . . . . where the rich Victorian age people would travel to exotic places, stay on board ship "and live the adventure through the eyes of their servants" whom they sent onshore.

Hey, I'm all for exploring. Don't get me wrong.

In the case of deep space though - or colonization of the Moon - humans are expensive to place, are overly fragile and the work they do can be done by a robot multiple times in case of failure and at lesser cost even then.

The only thing missing might be a description like this, one of my favourite adventure quotes, from Sir Francis Chichester, the first man to circumnavigate the globe by sail alone, with this description in 1967:

"As I approached the Horn, the weather got steadily worse. I could not get a fix on either the sun or the stars and had to rely completely on dead reckoning . . . I had seen no land since Sydney Head 50 days before . . . .

"I spent one of the most anxious nights of my life, Sunday, March 19, under my storm staysail and storm jib only. Every few minutes I peered ahead, but I doubt I would have seen an island 300 yards away on that violent, pitch-black night.

"Monday's dawn was a magnificent and terrifying sight. Across the heaving seas, with black clouds low overhead and bursts of rain, I made out, 30 miles to the northeast, the landfall I was looking for - Cape Horn itself. Just where it should have been. It was shrouded in rain but as unmistakeable as the Rock of Gibraltar. I have an unfailing sense of humility and amazement whenever I successfully put my trust in the mysterious and life-saving art of navigation. To me the most important achievement of my voyage was navigation. I went around the world seeing land at only four places . . .

"The waves were tremendous. They varied each time, but all were like great sloping walls towering behind you. The kind I liked least was like a great bank of gray-green earth 50 feet high and very steep. Imagine yourself at the bottom of one. It was eerie. I understand now why clipper ship captains always instructed their helmsmen never to look over their shoulders when rounding the Horn. I looked over my shoulder, of course."

Will a robot send back a report like that, a report that would place you in the shoes of the person there? Of course not.

If you tell me that is why we are sending humans, then I would agree with you. We want to live vicariously through the eyes and experiences of others. I'd believe that.

But I don't know if I'd believe a human can do the things in space that a robot can. . . . . not now.

Therefore I wonder at the expense of it. I wonder at the necessity. I don't wonder if man should explore. I wonder if he should do it in a mode other than the first person, seeing foreign places "through the eyes of our servants."

Too Victorian?

Cowperson

[RougeUnderoos]

As ridiculous as it sounds, what's 8 billion a year? A hundred billion over 12 years sort of doesn't sound like a big deal to me, considering what the Feds do spend down there.

The military alone will get nearly 5 trillion in that time.

If they are ever going to go to Alpha Centauri or Mars or wherever, they are going to have to start somewhere. Might as well be the moon, no?

Doesn't having a base on the moon make it a lot easier to go further out? I think I read that somewhere. Defeating earth's gravity or some such thing.

This is kind of funny if quite unrelated... An American Idol style method of picking Malaysia's first astronaut

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/4244214.stm

[evman150]

Originally posted by RougeUnderoos@Sep 15 2005, 08:18 PM
If they are ever going to go to Alpha Centauri or Mars or wherever, they are going to have to start somewhere. Might as well be the moon, no?

You speak of Mars and Alpha Centauri like they are similar distances from earth and would require similar technology to get there.

Alpha Centauri is about 600,000 times further away from Earth than Mars.

Getting to Mars we are talking about ~100 years, or on the order of 100 years. Getting to Alpha Centauri probably won't be feasible for millenia.

In my opinion, it is sad that at this juncture in time we are still talking about getting to the Moon in the FUTURE. If NASA hadn't been fataing around for the past quarter century we would be talking about getting to Mars in 2018 instead of the Moon.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally posted by evman150@Sep 15 2005, 11:50 PM
You speak of Mars and Alpha Centauri like they are similar distances from earth and would require similar technology to get there.

Actually, I speak of Alpha Centauri and Mars as if they were the two destinations brought up in this thread, which they were.

[evman150]

Originally posted by RougeUnderoos@Sep 15 2005, 10:01 PM
Actually, I speak of Alpha Centauri and Mars as if they were the two destinations brought up in this thread, which they were.

Okay. Just saying.

Alpha Centauri should not even be mentioned in the same breath as space exploration at this point in time.

It is so far out of our reach that it might as well be a billion parsecs away instead of the 1.5 it is.

[CaptainCrunch]

I think the idea behind returning to the moon is pretty prudent. NASA has focused on earth orbital missions for the past quarter century, they need to prove that they can safely go beyond that.

The moon offers the ability to pursue zero G manufacturing which can be used in the drug and other industries to cheaply build things that would cost a fortune on earth. Besides theres that cheap source of labour in those damn martians who will flock to the moon for minimum wage jobs and cheap housing.

Launching deep space missions from the moon is easier and cheaper then launching deep space missions from earth and a lot more environmentally friendly

Just my two cents

[HOZ]

Sending robots to space is like watching other people have sex. It's exciting for a little while but eventually you want to get into the action.

Like climbing a mnt Everest: It is safe and better for your health not too. But people do it anyways because it is there.

That said to send a person to the moon is just practice for the big event to Mars. We need to know if WE CAN DO IT!

[Trujew]

Originally posted by Cowperson@Sep 15 2005, 07:52 PM
I would still wonder "why?"

Obviously, from previous posts, folks know I'm a big science fiction fan but from a practical point of view, robots can do pretty much all you need to get done for a fraction of the cost.

because having a robot take a picture and having a human there are 2 totally different things. Call me what you will, but sitting on our asses sending out probes to do all the exploring is boring to say the least. People want to imagine the possibilites that it could be them out there exploring the unknown, putting a human touch on places like the moon and (eventually) Mars.


Would you rather read an encyclopedia entry on the amazon with a picture or 2, or have the opprotunity to experience it?

[Table 5]

Originally posted by HOZ@Sep 16 2005, 01:58 AM
That said to send a person to the moon is just practice for the big event to Mars. We need to know if WE CAN DO IT!

But we've already done it. Many times.

Im confused why this is such a new and exciting venture. Did NASA lose all their notes from the last moonlanding?

[Frank the Tank]

I don't understand why they don't invest this kind of money into sea exploration. I mean, there is so much we don't know about our own planet, most of it being in the oceans.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Trujew@Sep 15 2005, 11:58 PM
because having a robot take a picture and having a human there are 2 totally different things. Call me what you will, but sitting on our asses sending out probes to do all the exploring is boring to say the least. People want to imagine the possibilites that it could be them out there exploring the unknown, putting a human touch on places like the moon and (eventually) Mars.


Would you rather read an encyclopedia entry on the amazon with a picture or 2, or have the opprotunity to experience it?

I believe I said that. . . . . and then said, yes, I would rather send out a probe.

Cowperson

[troutman]

But I don't know if I'd believe a human can do the things in space that a robot can. . . . . not now.

It depends on the mission. For some tasks (ex. geology), Humans are far more useful. Consider the Mars Exploration Rovers. These robots have done amazing work, far surpassing NASA's wildest dreams. Spirit has been on Mars for about 600 martian days, but has only travelled 3 miles. A human explorer is far more flexible.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Will a robot send back a report like that, a report that would place you in the shoes of the person there? Of course not.

There has been serious talk about sending poets and artists with the scientists, to describe to mankind the significance of the experience.

[ken0042]

I do understand the vast difference between sending a man to Mars, and sending one to Alpha Centauri.

However you cannot build a boat to cross the ocean if you don't first master crossing a river.