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Would you be okay with russia or china owning the moon?
Nope.
That's why the US has to get back there firstest and fastest.
Would you be okay with russia or china owning the moon?
You do realize that the Orion project involved setting off nuclear bombs right? It wouldn't work in the atmosphere, and even if it did, you would have to be alunatic to use it. I was thinking of something practical like white knight 1 from scaled composites.
I agree its more fun to make people, but its a hell of lot cheaper to make robots. Astronauts are filthy expensive.
Would you rather people die when we screw up?
Thankfully post cold-war foreign policy is based on something other than childish competitiveness (sort of).
Nope.
That's why the US has to get back there firstest and fastest.
Orion-style spacecraft can be launched just fine from the ground, so I've no idea where you're getting the notion that they won't work in the atmosphere.
Okay, astronaut, you take this box, put it on that shelf.
Okay, robot, you take this box....oh, "what do I mean by 'take'?" "What's a box?" "What shelf?"......(six months later)..."a we finally got that job done. Okay, now take that other box there and brin it over".
If they don't want to risk dying on the job, they should choose a profession that doesn't involve commuting to work on top of a million pounds of flaming hydrogen.
You mean childish surrender.
Given that we won't have a launch vehicle at the very least between 2010 and 2014, supporting nations' right to claim space as their own is a bit of a gamble. The reasons why China owning the moon would be bad are exactly the reasons why nobody should own the moon.
Solar panels are immensely more effective is space, and would be more than capable of generating enough energy.
As opposed to building a robot that can drive around on mars? Robotics is one of the fasting progressing technologies we have. Its an unknown to be sure, but sayings its impossible has no basis.
Why not? Mining is being able to separate the stuff you want from the stuff you don't. Telling a robot to collect chunks of asteroid with say a high platinum density isn't unrealistic.
None of those are insurmountable problems. They are well known issues we have dealt with for years.
The nice thing about the asteroids is that they are already out of our gravity well. It takes zero energy to send mined materials back down.
yes, as I've said many times, socialism sucks. If it weren't for socialism, the US wouldn't have sunk ten trillion dollars into welfare programs between 1965 and 2005, and we would have had that money to do useful things with. We wouldn't have had to throw away our ELV fleet for something as useless as the shuttle, for example. We could be exploiting lunar resources right now, including those almost impossible to find on earth, like cheap vacuum and He3.
That was my bad, there are two designations for space programs called Orion. One is a space shuttle replacement you mentioned, the other is space-propulsion system that uses nuclear bombs as fuel with impressive theoretical performance. Still, the program is far less cost effective that white knight. Using rockets to get into the stratosphere rather than wings and jet engines is far less efficient and more expensive.
Except when your astronaut dies because of radiation problems.
A specialized mining robot its meant to be versatile.
Furthermore, humans still have remote control over the robot. Ideally, the system would work on its own autonomous functions with a human monitoring. Anything strange happens that the robot can't handle, and the human can take over.
Sure, but why risk human lives if you don't have to?
Because America has to win at everything forever or you won't be able to sleep at night.
Fact is, the way to "win" is not be the person wasting pointless resources.
America managed to win WW1 and WW2 because we were the last ones in the war and didn't destroy our country in the process.
And you're going to have to rely at least in part on some form of rocket propulsion, which means **** from Earth.
It'll take major advancements before we can even consider seriously talking about the possibility of robotic space mining.
You're talking about a technological feat which is currently well out of hand. And you are talking of economic and political forces at work too. How much money is it going to take to start? How much money is it going to take to maintain? How much money will you make from the process? You may find the cost well outweighs the gains in this case.
Here are both the space programs named "Orion"I don't recall mentioning a replacement for the shuttle. When I say "Orion", I am referring to the 1950's concept of nuclear propulsion by intermittent high energy thrust devices.
Yes, high-energy ionizing radiation presents no problems to today's high performance electronics.
You just said specialized. "Specialized" means "focused on a specialty", which is the antithesis of versatility, which means being able to excel at a multitude of diverse tasks.
Outside of one girl having problems with an open manhole in New York, even the most ignorant of the Valley Girl types and walk and text message at the same time, while chewing gum. Imagine what an elite astronaut can do?
Study the concept of simultaneity, okay? In particular, how the speed of light affects our knowledge of distant events, like when the Huygens probe was launched, and no one noticed that the super-stable oscillator wasn't turned on until after the probe had touched down, because that's how long it took for the signal to get here.
You have to have the man close enough to the 'bot to give timely instructions.
You have to have the man on hand to rescue the 'bot or get the job done when the 'bot fails. It all depends on the complexity and importance of the mission, of course. But if we never put men in space, we'll never overcome the limits truly remote 'bot ops imposes on our abilities.
Because America is the first nation in the entire history of the world to have the power to dominate the rest and declined to use it to that effect. Why on earth would I trust any other nation, knowing their histories, with the military high-ground the solar system represents?
That means having one hell of a military force on the moon. This would include not only fair size nuclear arsenal and electric launcher (no IR signature to track from satellites), but laser and particle beam weapons that can fry enemy C3I orbital assets. Moon based equipment can have the mass and power that precludes their effective deployment in LEO.
Nobody is intrested in discussing scramjets, the Delta Clipper concept, metahelium-64 propulsion, or skyhooks? Gosh, that's disappointing.
There is nothing that human astronauts can do on other worlds, which robots can't do more efficiently, cheaply, easily, and safely.
There is no need we need to send humans to other worlds right NOW, when we have pressing concerns here at home.
And that close to home, and still the damned machines couldn't do their job until a human came along to fix their little tin guts.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:Right. Develop your arguments about capabilities tomorrow with expostulations about what we can't do today.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:What a human has that no current feasible extrapolation of robot can provide is creativity.
So if Earth becomes uninhabitable, there is no need for us to research and move to other planets, because the robots can do it more efficiently, cheaply, easily, and safely.
Cilogy said:I agree, but there are many who are saying we should back off for a while. I say not entirely, I say continue the research and then boost after we have solved some of our problems here.
I see.
You can't wait the scant minutes needed for the poll options to be posted.
IMO the moon should be claimed as US territory, if the natives don't protest, and used as a military installation for national defense and subsequently developed into an civillian commercial industrial playground.
Your assumption that space isn't useful is illustrative of your ignorance, and not a reflection of reality.
Here are both the space programs named "Orion"
Imagine how much education and training an astronaut needs.
Imagine how much oxygen is used, how much water is drunk and how much food is eaten. Imagine how much space they need, imagine their muscles deteriorating, and the psychological problems from being in space too long.
Its a problem yes, but not insurmountable. We drove a rover around on mars, on the very complex martian surface. Space is much simpler by comparison.
No you don't. Pretty much every spacecraft that ever exited orbit except for the moonlandings were not manned.
Actually, you do.
A man could have horsed Gallileo's high gain antenna into position, since the apparent failure mode was dried lubricant (thanks to NASA's success with Challenger, Gallileo had to sit for years longer in storage before launch, and then without it's Centaur booster). Just having the ability to do an inflight check of all systems before sending it off on it's own would have saved billions right there. So much for the glorious robots. Relying on them has resulted in seriously compromised missions many times.
Overcoming the problems of robots using technology is practical, look at how far robotics has come. Explain how we are going to fix humans needing to breathe, eat, sleep and drink.
We don't.
People are going to die in space, just like they died at Jamestown and on the Oregon trail. It's something pioneers are good at. What we try to do is mitigate known risks to manageable levels, and make sure there's enough redundancy and flexibility in the systems to meet anticipated crises and unforeseen events.
Could a robot have coped with something similar to Apollo 13? Not bloody likely.
There is zero advantage to controlling the moon.
Oh, yes, that's true. No general ever made any effort to control the high hills in the back of the town where the enemy could put cannons to shoot at him from. Not ever.
No military value in the moon whatsoever, no, of course not.
You have an absurd logistics trail that puts you millions of miles away from anything useful, and no beneficial capabilities.
You are aware that the moon's orbit has a semi-major axis of less than 250,000 miles, right? And that cities always start out as swamps or cross roads or harbors, and have to be built by men who have to provide their own logistical solutions to the problems at hand, right?
How would being on the moon give any kind of useful military advantage?
Rail gun launch of stealthed ballistic weapons at extreme high velocities with practically zero infrared signature.
Solid siting of heavy high energy particle beams and laser weapons, including x-ray lasers for interception of earth launched enemy ballistic missiles and destruction of enemy C3I assets in orbit and in the air, possibly using orbital mirrors for over-the-horizon targetting.
Implementing and supplying Project Thor, which consisted of orbitting solid bars of DU with re-entry packages and guidance systems to target enemy assets on the ground and hitting them with massive 20kps kinetic energy weapons from the sky.
To name just a few things.
Why not just base it on earth? Getting it into the atmosphere is tough, but not nearly as tough as trying to maintain a functioning military outpost on the moon.
The issue is a legal issue wherein wimps object to setting off nukes on earth.
I"m an ex-submariner, I'm familiar with the logistics of loading a ship for a cruise. And of course, I'm advocating a return to the moon just exactly so we gain operational experience and develop technological competence for practical returns before attempting more hazardous extended missions deeper into the solar system.
Rail gun launch of stealthed ballistic weapons at extreme high velocities with practically zero infrared signature.
Solid siting of heavy high energy particle beams and laser weapons, including x-ray lasers for interception of earth launched enemy ballistic missiles and destruction of enemy C3I assets in orbit and in the air, possibly using orbital mirrors for over-the-horizon targetting.
Implementing and supplying Project Thor, which consisted of orbitting solid bars of DU with re-entry packages and guidance systems to target enemy assets on the ground and hitting them with massive 20kps kinetic energy weapons from the sky.
Because earth based weaponry isn't as effective or as frightening to the enemy. The sniper from the high hill is a foe no one likes to confront, especially when he can fire both nuclear weapons and pin point lasers.
No its a laws of physics issue. Using Orion on earth would kill the crew without question.
Most likely, the spacecraft would get torn apart as well.
Thats assuming would could design something that even worked in the atmosphere.
Even if you somehow got around all those problems, you would have an extremely expensive dangerous launch system with absolutely no benefits
and a crappy means of re-entry.
Then you should know just how much crap it takes to have a functioning human crew. Getting rid of that would dramatically aid in efficiency.
Railguns on earth work fine, plus they have the advantage of hitting targets, instead of hitting where they were 30 minutes ago.
If mirrors can redirect a weapon, than our enemies will simply mirror any targets of interest.
Without mirrors, our enemies will simply fire missiles when the moon is on the far side of the earth.
You are better off using already existing earth missiles or deploying orbital assets actually near the fighting.
Except they now have a moon based system with 100x the logistical problem and a huge flight time delay.
Except the high ground if its so far away from any battleground, its pointless. Nobody cares about a sniper in the Rockies, if you are fighting a war in Iraq.
...stuff and things...
Larry Niven is a older science fiction writer, who leans more toward "hard" sci-fi and often consults with engineers and scientists on his books. He's been invited to many NASA events and is one of the "old masters" of sci-fi literature. His frequent collaborator, Dr. Jerry Pournelle, is even more of a hard-science-in-my-fiction writer, and former military officer.
Together they wrote "Footfall", an alien-invasion story with many facinating twists.
One aspect of the story was the conversion of a mothballed battleship into a spacegoing warship, using the nuclear version of Orion, and launching from a platform on the shoreline. If the whole concept of launching an Orion from the surface was ludicrous, I doubt Niven and Pournelle would have used the idea at all. It's an easy-money bet that they researched the idea carefully and consulted with relevant engineering experts.
Would it be desireable or practical to do this unless we were in some sort of desperate situation? Well, probably not... but I wouldn't mind having one built and ready to go up just in case. :mrgreen: