This is Ground Control to Major Tom...............

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104800,00.html

The part about the 'permanent presence' is slightly disturbing. But why would anyone want that? Is space turning into a war theater soon; if so, why wasn't I informed? I know the recent Chinese mission fuelled some paranoia, but after Columbia, you would think the administration would try to avoid using the phrase 'manned missions' for some time..

Oh well.







[Edited on Dec 04, 2003 by Allister]

[Edited on Dec 05, 2003 by Allister]

I think him, Cheney, and Rumsfeld would be perfect permanent moon residents.

I think its about time we did something to invigorate the space program. Maybe its because I grew up dreaming about going into space or because I live across the river from NASA but none the less I think its a good idea.

I have to agree with you though Allister, I too think that this might have something to do with the Chinese.

I think one of 'em might already be there

Dear god no, I wouldn't want Cheney and Rumsfeld running the moon! Just give them Mercury. They can do less harm there *nods*

A little off topic but I'm all for seeing what else is out there. With that said though I think we should be putting forth more funding towards companies like Fermilab. We're never going to get anywhere by tradition propulsion. Fuck these baby steps.

I think Sadaam is hiding his weapons of mass destruction up there

Sorry, it's just a bad habit. I'd been listening to 'Space Oddity' a few moments before I read the article so it just stuck.

That's 'peeve' to you, lady.

go to gooogle and type "miserable failure" and hit "i'm feeling lucky"

does he think that this will make us feel less bad about him?

Personally, I think the only way we are going to get people into space on a permanent, on-going basis is through private, commercial space travel. Government ain't going to get us there, at least not based on the history of the past four decades. Of course, I'm biased -- I'll be working for a startup on exactly that premise come spring. Of course, this initiative should break loose plenty of small grants for interesting space development work.

she is abs ^
olutely rig / \
ht!!!!!!!!!!! | |

Hooray Plonk! Good, clear thought is all too often missing from these boards.
Just think of it: SPACE... The Final Free Trade Zone...

All good hard science fiction recognizes that the first step towards making any real progress in exploring the depths of space is to get off this planet and build quality space stations or build on the moon. The earth's gravity makes it a huge pain in the ass to get stuff in orbit, the atmosphere screws up our view, and a vessel built to withstand the atmosphere would not necessarily be the best vessel to fly around space in no atmosphere. The moon has a shitload of minable metal, very low gravity, and no atmosphere, making it much better for building a decent spaceship on.
The trouble with the space program now is that it is a government venture. It takes the kind of capital that only private corporations and individuals can muster to make truly visionary concepts like hotels on the moon a reality. Only someone like Bill Gates has that kind of financial leverage. Sadly, building on the moon makes no sense to anyone financially.
I would love to see a serious interest in lunar construction. If Bush makes it happen, it would be one of the few good things to come out of his term.

That's what I love about the Brits. They think they can spell words just any way they want and when you call them out on they just simply reply, "I'm British and we spell things a tad differently aroung here."
You try going to http://merriam-webster.com and typing in "peave". It does not exist! You can try all of the other dorky words to which you Brits tend to add useless letters such as "flavour" and "colour" but peave is not one of them.


Consider yourself warned there little missy!

It looks like the hypothesis that there is polar water on the moon is wrong. Therefore, the value of the moon as a place to build a base is sharply reduced, since it will have to import hydrogen, instead of providing it to spacecraft going farther afield under solar or nuclear thermal propulsion. It's also much harder to mine for metals, at least from a purely technical POV, than near earth asteroids (NEOs). NEOs have next to no gravity and are often just piles of small rubble, tenously held together by gravity and electrostatic forces. Sunlight is continously available, unlike most of the moon, which operates on a 4 week day/night cycle. This makes power and thermal management, for equipment and life support, much easier to arrange. Basically, you can just electrostatically hoover rubble into some sort of solar furnace to smelt into shippable metal.

However, human factors may argue for starting out with lunar mining, because keeping humans alive on the moon is probably marginally easier. This is mostly because the Moon is close to Earth. It's hard to know, and all very academic right now anyhow. The long pole under the tent is cheap, quick, and regular access to low earth orbit. Once you've got that up and running, everything becomes much, much easier.