Space Goals For America: What Next?

Kernel Sanders said:

Would you be okay with russia or china owning the moon?

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Nope.

That's why the US has to get back there firstest and fastest.

rathi said:

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.

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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.

rathi said:

I agree its more fun to make people, but its a hell of lot cheaper to make robots. Astronauts are filthy expensive.

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Okay.

You start with your pile of raw material, I'll pick a babe. Let's see who has more fun starting their project.

Once we each have our robot and our astronaut, let's put them to work.

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".

Robots can't replace people, not when versatility is a factor.

rathi said:

Would you rather people die when we screw up?

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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.

rathi said:

Thankfully post cold-war foreign policy is based on something other than childish competitiveness (sort of).

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You mean childish surrender.

Wonderful stuff, that.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Nope.

That's why the US has to get back there firstest and fastest.

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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.

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.

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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.

Okay, astronaut, you take this box, put it on that shelf.

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Except when your astronaut dies because of radiation problems.

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".

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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.

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.

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Sure, but why risk human lives if you don't have to?

You mean childish surrender.

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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.

Kernel Sanders said:

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.

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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.

rathi said:

Solar panels are immensely more effective is space, and would be more than capable of generating enough energy.

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Once you get into space. But the energy necessary for propulsion is going to be great. Just because you're in space doesn't mean inertia no longer exists or that physics shuts off. You're sending massive objects ridiculous distances, especially if we're talking about the asteroid belt. The length and time scales are large, the technological feats needed to be surmounted are vast. The money and investment is astronomical. Solar panels may be more "effective" in space (nothing can overcome the actual limitations to the device, it's not 100% effective, and even on earth we're coming close as is to that limit...so once that limit is reached on earth, no it's not more effective in space), but the energy demands for propulsion on any reasonable time scale is going to be immense. And you're going to have to rely at least in part on some form of rocket propulsion, which means **** from Earth.

rathi said:

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.

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There is HUGE difference between a robot meant to run around on the planets surface and one which is designed for continued industrial mining. I didn't say impossible, I said the necessary parts to making something like that are outrageous and at this time it's nothing more than fancy. It'll take major advancements before we can even consider seriously talking about the possibility of robotic space mining.

rathi said:

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.

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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.

rathi said:

None of those are insurmountable problems. They are well known issues we have dealt with for years.

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Not on the scale necessary for industrial space mining, not by a long shot. Completely different ball park...hell completely different game. We have not dealt with these problems for years.

rathi said:

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.

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No it doesn't. First of all, all that crap doesn't poof into the asteroid belt, you have to ship it from Earth first. Which means, the costs involve include sending crap there; we'll always in some part have to overcome our gravity well before we do anything. Even with colonies and space ports on the moon (jesus...what sort of time scale would that even take), you have to get things there to start with. And once you're there, it doesn't take zero energy to send stuff back. You have to transport vast masses of rock back from beyond Mars to the Earth with accurate enough control to not hit the plethora of other crap we'd be bound to have out there by that point. That's going to take energy to propel the ship back. Zero energy....only if you're looking to crash the **** into Earth. Otherwise, you have to put in energy for a controlled environment.

I think people fantasize about this stuff, and it seems really cool. But no one actually has put thought into what it would actually take and what you'd actually get out of it.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

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.

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Let's assume that everything you say there is true. The reality is that we won't have our own launch vehicle for the next five years. Do you still support the right of nations to claim territory in space?

rathi said:

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.

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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.

rathi said:

Except when your astronaut dies because of radiation problems.

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Yes, high-energy ionizing radiation presents no problems to today's high performance electronics.

rathi said:

A specialized mining robot its meant to be versatile.

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No.

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?

rathi said:

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.

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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.

rathi said:

Sure, but why risk human lives if you don't have to?

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Because you need the men to be on the spot close enough to the remote tools to be efficacious. No one's arguing against using tools correctly, merely pointing out the limitations of those tools.

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.

rathi said:

Because America has to win at everything forever or you won't be able to sleep at night.

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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?

rathi said:

Fact is, the way to "win" is not be the person wasting pointless resources.

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Exactly.

End welfare now. End pointless farm subsidies. End pointless subsidies for the arts, for music, for the humanities, and non-defense research, including the cannibalization of babies for unprofitable medical experimentation.

Put the government back on it's constitutional feet, and recognize the economic and miltary advantages that come from space exploration for ourselves.

rathi said:

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.

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Right.

The best way to be the last ones in a war is to be so big that no one wants to fight you.

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.

And you're going to have to rely at least in part on some form of rocket propulsion, which means **** from Earth.

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Why would you rely on rocket propulsion? The most cost effective would be to use a solar powered linear motor relying on unwanted asteroid material for fuel. Rocket fuel is expensive and has crappy delta V.

It'll take major advancements before we can even consider seriously talking about the possibility of robotic space mining.

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What major advancements are needed? Robots have the capability to analyze materials for the needed elements, and than break off the desired portions. Sure it has to be engineered like anything else, but no reason why it can't be done.

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.

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I don't, but on the other hand neither do you. Like any project, you have to do cost benefit analysis. You have to calculate the cost of the robot, maintaining it, fuel costs vs the amount of material that can be gathered from asteroids and the value of what is gathered. However, to calculate that, you need data in the first place. You need to survey the asteroids and have a prototype to cost evaluate. Sure it might end up being too expensive, but we aren't even there yet.

The model-t may have failed to replace the horse, but you couldn't find out until you built it in the first place. I can't promise that asteroid mining will be lucrative, but it is promising enough to go far enough to figure out if it is.

Nobody is intrested in discussing scramjets, the Delta Clipper concept, metahelium-64 propulsion, or skyhooks? Gosh, that's disappointing.

There are three issues that need research(and I know they are currently being researched). The rigors of manned spaceflight, the ability to logistically exploit alien surfaces/atmospheres for our use, and further development in instruments dealing with research.

1. The rigors of manned spaceflight are many, and well documented. We can get to the moon relatively easy, anything beyond that and physical deterioration sets it. Factor in the length of time it takes to get anywhere else besides our moon, it doesn't make much logisitical sense to send people at this time.

2. Wherever we go to colonize, we need to have equipment developed to exploit the resources available, to our advantage. The logistics of shipping crap back and forth from earth is too expensive. We have to figure out how to make due with what is there. The moon, being devoid of many resources and being close, is a great place to start. If we can "practice" there and refine our techniques and instruments close to home, it will be beneficial to future missions where there might be a more abundant amount of resources to take advantage of. Of course, we will have to put up with the protestations of the "Red Peace" whackos whenever we decide to exploit Mars.

3. Further instrument development will give us a better idea of how to exploit resources and lead to new discoveries that could be beneficial in helping us understand how our solar system and universe is shaped.

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.

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Here are both the space programs named "Orion"

This one involves setting off nukes for propulsion. It has impressive space travel capability, but cannot be used to exit the atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

This one in the conventional space shuttle requirement. Although feasible, it lacks the economic efficiency of using jet engines for most of the travel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)

Yes, high-energy ionizing radiation presents no problems to today's high performance electronics.

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No, but you can shield a small number of electronics far more practically than the space you need for a human being. Plus you can use more robust if less powerful electronics if you want.

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.

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I typo on my part, I meant to say "Isn't".

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?

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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.

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.

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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.

You have to have the man close enough to the 'bot to give timely instructions.

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No you don't. Pretty much every spacecraft that ever exited orbit except for the moonlandings were not manned.

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.

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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.

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?

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There is zero advantage to controlling the moon. You have an absurd logistics trail that puts you millions of miles away from anything useful, and no beneficial capabilities. How would being on the moon give any kind of useful military advantage?

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.

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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.

Goshin said:

Nobody is intrested in discussing scramjets, the Delta Clipper concept, metahelium-64 propulsion, or skyhooks? Gosh, that's disappointing.

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Because a space elevator is a better idea. You build it once and essentially you're done. The cost per ton to get into space with a space elevator is exceptionally low. And it would be much more efficient to build spaceships in space.

Kandahar said:

There is nothing that human astronauts can do on other worlds, which robots can't do more efficiently, cheaply, easily, and safely.

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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.

There is no need we need to send humans to other worlds right NOW, when we have pressing concerns here at home.

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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.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

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.

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There is a subtle difference between sending a human 300 miles into space to fix a telescope, and sending a human (at minimum) 225,000 miles to the moon or (at minimum) 34 million miles to Mars. :roll:

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Right. Develop your arguments about capabilities tomorrow with expostulations about what we can't do today.

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If I understand you correctly, you aren't talking about which of those projects might be important in the distant future. You're talking about which ones we should focus on right now. Therefore it is perfectly legitimate to question the technological/economic feasibility of these projects with present-day or short-term future technology.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

What a human has that no current feasible extrapolation of robot can provide is creativity.

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And what makes you think that the benefit of "creativity" is outweighed by the huge costs associated with keeping astronauts alive in space and on other worlds for months/years at a time (depending on where they're going), and the cost of the return trip...to say nothing of the physical danger to the astronauts?

Please give me an example of a scenario where an astronaut might use his creativity on another world to solve a problem where a robot could not, and where it would be cheaper/safer to do this than to design another replacement robot to account for whatever unforeseen problem foiled the previous one. I really can't think of any.

Cilogy said:

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.

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If that happens anytime in the next few decades, all the space exploration in the world won't save the human race. If it doesn't happen in the next few decades, then it's a moot point because we wouldn't have any sense of urgency to go to space NOW.

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.

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I agree. Research is good. Robots are good. Manned "exploration"...nothing but a mindbogglingly expensive stunt.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

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.

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Claiming the moon for the USA invites a space war with Russia, China etc. to determine future "ownership."

rathi said:

Here are both the space programs named "Orion"

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Thank you for your info, but I was already aware of it.

Of course the original Orion project could be used to exit the atmosphere. Given our retarded socialist move, Orion may very well be the last best hope of mankind when the socialists have consumed all the resources and nothing is left to invest.

The issue is a legal issue wherein wimps object to setting off nukes on earth.

Resource depletion and starvation and possibly an extremely urgent need to put MASSIVE amounts of men and weapons in a strategically advantatgeous high ground, and Orion becomes feasible, wimpettes be damned.

Landing back on earth would be a bitch, there's not a lot of fine control for this system.

But enough of that, it's not like you're wrong on any significant point.

What the US needs for effective space exploration is a reliable unmanned launch system that can, for now, place unliving cargo on the moon using powered approach to reduce the force of impact to something reasonable, say less than ten or fifteen g's.

I would envision the initial loads to be heavy earth moving machinery, telerobotically operated (it's the moon, telerobots for specialized machinery is a cost effective option), with additional building materials for construction of human habitats and essential operating facilities. As any carpenter knows, the roughing in work can be done well enough by clumsy apprentices (the telerobots), the final setting up requires the master craftsman to make it work, and that would be the man on the spot in a spacesuit.

Those guys would need a more reliable vehicle than that used to launch the cargo. It's absurd to use an expensive man rated vehicle to launch cargo that can easily survive a hard landing on the moon. If the first launch fails, figure out why, fix it quick, and launch another. NASA spends WAAAAY to much money on "perfection". That's fine for manned launchs, but that's also why basic weather and com satellites cost so much.

rathi said:

Imagine how much education and training an astronaut needs.

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Yes, imagine that. All that training when they're going up to turn wrenches and horse things into place because robots are basically useless for real jobs.

They make too big a deal out of it. In two years the Navy can teach a high school educated recruit how a nuclear reactor works but the essential theory behind it, and teach him a specific trade in the field of reactor operation and maintenance, and does it on an asesmbly basis....after about a year of ship specific training in the fleet, has produced the world's finest reactor operators as a result.

Yet NASA takes PhD's, works them so they're super-totally competent in areas they have absolutely no need to know, and then uses most of them, the "mission specialists", pretty much for just one mission and that's the end of that. No, NASA is a massive government bureaucracy dedicated to the safe return of astronauts, and they've managed to kill fourteen astronauts in flight, and done their best to make sure they continue their hold on their monopoly of manned American space flight.

rathi said:

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.

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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.

rathi said:

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.

rathi said:

No you don't. Pretty much every spacecraft that ever exited orbit except for the moonlandings were not manned.

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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.

rathi said:

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.

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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.

rathi said:

There is zero advantage to controlling the moon.

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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.

rathi said:

You have an absurd logistics trail that puts you millions of miles away from anything useful, and no beneficial capabilities.

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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?

rathi said:

How would being on the moon give any kind of useful military advantage?

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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.

rathi said:

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.

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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.

The issue is a legal issue wherein wimps object to setting off nukes on earth.

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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.

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.

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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.

Rail gun launch of stealthed ballistic weapons at extreme high velocities with practically zero infrared signature.

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Railguns on earth work fine, plus they have the advantage of hitting targets, instead of hitting where they were 30 minutes ago.

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.

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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.

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.

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Except they now have a moon based system with 100x the logistical problem and a huge flight time delay.

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.

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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.

rathi said:

No its a laws of physics issue. Using Orion on earth would kill the crew without question.

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You mean outside of the engineering studies done to prove just the opposite.

rathi said:

Most likely, the spacecraft would get torn apart as well.

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What part of "big" and "massive" and "thick" and "heavy" and "shock absorbers" and all the other aspects of nuclear pulse engine did you miss, the fact that energy yield of the impulse devices would be in the low kiloton range, not the megaton range?

rathi said:

Thats assuming would could design something that even worked in the atmosphere.

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Not a problem. Been done already.

rathi said:

Even if you somehow got around all those problems, you would have an extremely expensive dangerous launch system with absolutely no benefits

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You mean outside of a million pounds of payload or more to orbit?

Those kinds of no benefits I can live with.

rathi said:

and a crappy means of re-entry.

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Gee, we'll have to leave the spaceship up there and return the crew on a smaller vehicle, and use smaller chemical powered vehicles to re-ascend...when we're not launching a million pound cargo. And then we'll have that vehicle up there for use as transport to some other destination.

What a shame.

rathi said:

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.

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Yes, we should have made our submarines unmanned robotic vehicles, after all, we all know absolutely nothing ever happens to unmanned vehicles in space, they work perfectly.

Y'all keep trying to pretend the crew is nothing but useless supercargo. The crew makes it possible to simply other parts of the ship. It makes it necessary in fact, since they have to have something to do to maintain their readiness.

rathi said:

Railguns on earth work fine, plus they have the advantage of hitting targets, instead of hitting where they were 30 minutes ago.

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How far does Beijing or Moscow travel in three hours? In general, how far does an earthly city move in three hours away from the spot it is predicted to be in?

WELLLL! I guess transit time isn't an issue.

rathi said:

If mirrors can redirect a weapon, than our enemies will simply mirror any targets of interest.

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You should read that sentence.

A mirror is a physical object that reflects beams and particles, it's not just a site on the internet intended to handle traffic overloads. Generally speaking, it's not difficult to determine if an object seen in a mirror is a real object or not, considering that one would usually be tracking these objects for significant periods until hostilities commence.

rathi said:

Without mirrors, our enemies will simply fire missiles when the moon is on the far side of the earth.

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Yeah, we'd never have any earth observation assets in orbit that would be in a position to see what the moon couldn't.

Not a chance of anyone ever figuring out how to do that.

rathi said:

You are better off using already existing earth missiles or deploying orbital assets actually near the fighting.

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Yes, it's must be much better to have assets at risk on the ground than to have them a quarter million miles away to act as a deterrent to aggression in the first place.

rathi said:

Except they now have a moon based system with 100x the logistical problem and a huge flight time delay.

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So, if we launch a stealthed warhead from a lunar solar-electric launch system at 20 mps, how long does it take that weapon to reach it's target?

250,000 mile/72,000 mph < 4 hours.

Or we launch them into long ellipses with impact times up to a week in the future and tell the enemy to surrender or die at our leisure.

Taken any courses in orbital mechanics?

rathi said:

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.

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You mean as opposed to that crazy guy with the terrawatt laser on the moon toasting your satellites from the moon at the speed of light?

It takes 1.5 seconds for a laser to hit a target on the earth from the moon, not much longer than the transit time for bullets on long range shots, and a hell of a lot faster than ICBM ballistic trajectories.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

...stuff and things...

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Some of these ideas interest me greatly. The nuclear propulsion system, for example. Although the side effects (without extensive work on reducing them), IMO, are too great.

The miThe various ideas for militarizing the moon, while sounding cool to a Sci-Fi/science fan like myself, are probably not a good idea. Starting construction of such a setup would probably start a war on earth. The only way to avoid that would be to use your million pound launch vehicle to land it on the moon in one piece, already set up.

And even then…

I don’t really think it’s a good idea, personally.

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:

I voted for everything except the last one...

I'm hoping for a deathstar being build between Earth and Mars within my lifetime.

Goshin said:

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:

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Dr. Pournelle IS a relevant engineering expert.

Footfall was massively entertaining, eminently realistic (outside the basic SF assumption of alien invaders), and perfectly consistent with known physical law.

Let's go to Mars!!!