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Should the US ReCalim the Moon

Should the US Reclaim the moon?

  • Total voters
    21
there is nothin on the Moon worth the expense of retrieving it, as we found out last time. --Just more Tax payer money to keep NASA doing "busy work." And the "we found 25 gallons of ice" don't wash. I got more than that in my rain barrel, if we need it. ---do people get the idea that we as a Nation are Broke! We continue to act like teenagers at the Mall, with Moms credit card. ---there is a reason they call it space
 
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Scarecrow Akhbar said:
1) Claim discovered H2O assets for future use in space exploration and lunar colonization. Beleive it or not, one of the thnings the expanded westward settlement from the coastal colonies was the discovery of salt in Syracuse.
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It was something like a couple liters per tons of soil. Ok yeah, still cheaper than trying to import it from Earth; but it can't sustain any significant population. How are you going to get the water out of the soil? Machines? Processing? How does all that **** get there?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
2) Claiming military high ground. Study history, do not discount the value of having a nearly unassailable offensive base to deter potential enemy action.
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There is already treaties against that. Secondly, military high ground...for what? It's the moon, what can we do on the moon that we can't do with these things called satellites?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
3) Aluminum, titanium, silicon, oxygen, all to be found in lunar regolith, all essential for space construction. None of it would have to be lifted from the Earth, once the industries are established.
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Once the industry is established. Brilliant. And the time scale for that? You'd need mining, smelting, and production capabilities in the least along with machining. Where's it all come from? How many people do you need to run all this ****? Can that number of people be supported with the EXTREMELY low life sustaining resources on the moon?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
4) Vacuum, a vital manufacturing asset that we can't get enough of on earth.
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WTF are you talking about? We can achieve ultra high vacuum on earth. My vacuum chamber is at 10^-12 torr.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
5) Solar Damn Power.
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Extremely high radiation

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
6) 1/6 Gee.
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Solar flares, solar winds, etc. **** that can cook a human. What are you going to do about that? Long term exposure isn't good. Everything lined with lead? How are you getting all that to the moon?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
7) Farside Radio silence. Forever out of sight and sound of earth, an astronomical research treasure.
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For what? You don't think we have discriminators now? There could be some gain from it, but the costs well outweigh any gain at this point.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
8) Inspiration for our youth and the end of relying solely on "spaceship Earth".
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Read a ****ing book. Why do they need us to go to the moon, spend HORRENDOUS amounts of money for **** that's most likely not going to produce much and not be sustainable? relying on spaceship Earth? If you're going to start talking that way, it's about colonization of space and that is orders of magnitudes more complex and expensive than even just talking about putting stuff on the moon.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
9) New experiences for art and the expression of the human soul.
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New expressions for the numbers it will take to represent our debt.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
10) Simple lebensraum.
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We're not out of space, and colonization of space is WAY more complex and in no way shape or form do we have the technology to do it right now. And to even invent that technology, ridiculous amounts of money and research has to be poured in. So much so that we're going to decrease research in other areas which are cheaper and would have a more dramatic, immediate impact on us.

People need to think about this crap before they start running their mouths about space travel and colonization.
 
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Better take lots of chewing gum, to patch up all those tiny holes in your Buck Rogers space suit. People--you been watchin to many reruns of "Star Trek" It would cost millions to bring back a loaf of bread from the Moon.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Do you recall the major catastrophic shooting war between the US and the USSR?

That's funny, it never happened.
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Actually there have been several proxy wars with the Soviet Union since WWII.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
He's cancelling investment into essential national assets.

He's an idiot.



So, you don't have any visions of the future, any concept of what can be done with a dead planet whose soil is made of titanium and aluminum and silicate dusts, and you're really not certain what use to manufacturing access to a solid foundation and a perfect vacuum can be for human technological progress?

Well, a bunch of us are fully aware of the possibilities and the commercial potential for such a place, and many of us are also aware of the military threat presented by allowing potential enemies to establish primacy on the moon, also.

Seriously, the potentials outweigh the costs. What's needed now to exploit the solar system, starting with the moon, is basic engineering applications, not scientific breakthroughs.



So. Explain how that life is going to be found if we don't get our sorry asses out there looking for it?

What is the first necessary step in getting out there to find alien life?

Oh, that's right, the first necessary step is colonization of and exploitation of a major airless sterile rock orbiting the Earth.
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Supporting any sort of colony on a lifeless body such as the moon is a logistical nightmare. As far as carbon-based life within our reach, look around, this is it. We reside on the only hospitable planet that we know of. Any other such planet is in solar system beyond our reach.

We have all we need here. Our only problems as a race are that our numbers are approaching carrying capacity of our planet and we will be running out of fossil fuels, probably in this century.

The Chinese are limiting their numbers and are probably smart enough to be trying to come up with alternative fuels.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Natually. Of course.

I wonder why Athens sent out colonies around the Mediterranean? And colonies were so damn bad the British never established any, right?
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I don't know about Greece, but the British colonies were certainly a financial drain on Great Britain.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
The future is here, now.

LCROSS proved the existence of H20 on the moon.
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So? We have plenty of H2O here too. Much more than there is on the moon.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Should the US claim the bits and pieces it can grab and hold onto, like areas with H20 and commercially viable ore deposits? You bet your ass it should.
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Why? How will these be commercially viable? Natural resources as a source of national wealth are grossly overrated anyway.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Because...we're not going there now, we're going there "a few decades hence"....but if that idiot Messiah stops the program, that few decades lost will make the difference and someone else (China) will grab the best real estate for themselves.
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Do you really think the Chinese are anywhere close to being able to send astronauts to the moon, let alone establish a base there, let alone defend that base with military force if necessary?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Know one of the reasons Germany felt inferior before WWI? France and Britain and the Dutch and Spain were centuries ahead of them and colonized all the good spots. By the late 19th Century, Germany made some forays into Africa, and that was about it. Germany never became a significant world power, and never will.
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Swell. You're forgetting how despite all those supposed disadvantages, Germany managed to devastate its "world power" neighbors on two separate occasions. It took the US (which had comparatively few colonies) to defeat them, with some help from Russia (which also had comparatively few colonies) the second time around.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
The US is not a major world power, the US is THE major world power, and it won't stay there unless it's plans ahead and ACTS on those plans.
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Again, colonies are almost always a financial drain on the empire. Besides, I thought you were so opposed to socialism. If water on the moon is a commercially viable resource, why can't Dasani go to the moon and claim it? Why does the US government need to get involved? :roll:
 
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Ikari said:
There's no military or commercial viability on the moon.
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Oh.

Having the ability to destroy an enemy country from 250,000 miles out of his reach doesn't have any military potential?

You sure about that one?

Using lunar resources to explore the asteroid belt to convert a nickel iron asteroid into strain-free single-crystal, and hence superstrong iron cable has no commercial value? What about having access to a cubic mile of iron with zero environmental impact on the Earth? No commercial value there?

What about using solar power to electrical separate the aluminum oxide in the lunar regolith, providing both aluminum for construction purposes and oxygen for both breathing and rocket propellant? No commercial value there?

Ikari said:
First off, getting **** there is going to be damned expensive.
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Depends on how it's done. Will we be foolish enough to use man-rated vehicles to ship mass produced cargo to the moon? Will we continue to use the expensive disintegrating totem poles of the past, exemplified by both the Apollo program and the Shuttle?

Ikari said:
Secondly, supporting life there is going to be damned expensive. There's not enough water,
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One shot, in one crater picked at random on the South Pole of the Moon, yielded definitive proof of water on the moon. There's enough water.

Ikari said:
we don't have the tech to set up all the **** we'd need yet, you'd continually have to be receiving shipment from Earth.
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The word you're looking for is "investment".

Ikari said:
The moon is a barren dust ball.
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No, it's a barren rock.

With potential.

Ikari said:
It's not like you can run up there, throw down a tent, and be all good to go. There's no protective atmosphere, you have to deal with extreme changes in temperature,
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The word you're looking for here is "troglodyte".

Ikari said:
there's no fertile soil
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Oh, ****.

There will be fertile soil, given time.

The word is "investment".

Ikari said:
or large source of water
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Wrong.

Ikari said:
so it's impossible to independently support life there.
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"Impossible"?

And you're a member of an equatorially evolved species that has colonies of people living in the highest latitudes? Who didn't so much acclimate to these environments as much as they used technology to survive in them?

Shame on you. Believing something is impossible is often the only reason it becomes impossible.

Ikari said:
And all for what?
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national security, interplanetary resources that don't damage the Earth environment, wealth, and freedom.

Ikari said:
Minimal gains at best, when all the money, scientists, and research which would have to go into this could be better utilized elsewhere.
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Where? What? 120" TV screens? Flying cars? Better football helmets?

Ikari said:
I really don't think some of you think this through.
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But I have.
 
I enjoy the statement, "that Man was meant to explore"--well pack up your Kellty, and grab yer walking stick, and head on out.---Just don't expect tax payers to fund your venture. We have serious pressing matters here at home, that need out full attention. No time for star gazing. Keep your feet on the ground, and lets get this thing straightened out. Then in 30 or 40 years, you still think it is such a good idea, space and all it's emptiness, will still be there. We have enough Velcro to last us awhile I believe.
 
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Kandahar said:
I don't know about Greece, but the British colonies were certainly a financial drain on Great Britain.
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OF COURSE they were. I mean the US declared it's independence and the British said, "thank good those rubes are gone".


Kandahar said:
So? We have plenty of H2O here too. Much more than there is on the moon.
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Right.

The problem with it is that it's DOWN here, not up there.

Should you be entering this discussion if you dont know the economic value of gravitational potential energy?

But I'll explain....with today's primitive technology it costs over $50,000 a lb to put something on the moon. Water is heavy, and if water is already there, we don't have to pay to get it there. A gallon of water weighs over 8 lbs, which means it costs over $400,000 to put a gallon of orange juice on the moon.....but shipping Tang and using local water drastically cuts the cost of doing business.

Kandahar said:
Why? How will these be commercially viable? Natural resources as a source of national wealth are grossly overrated anyway.
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Not so for water.

Water monopolies have historically created some of the most stable societies ever.

Also, there's the He3 asset...that does not exist on Earth.

Kandahar said:
Do you really think the Chinese are anywhere close to being able to send astronauts to the moon, let alone establish a base there, let alone defend that base with military force if necessary?
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The Chinese are working towards that goal. I'm not going to insult their intelligence, or yours, by claiming they can't do something in 2020 we can do today with current technology.

Kandahar said:
Swell. You're forgetting how despite all those supposed disadvantages, Germany managed to devastate its "world power" neighbors on two separate occasions.
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I am?

I don't think so.

Nor is it relevant.

Destruction is easy.

What has Germany created, cuckoo clocks and gas chambers?

Kandahar said:
Again, colonies are almost always a financial drain on the empire. Besides, I thought you were so opposed to socialism. If water on the moon is a commercially viable resource, why can't Dasani go to the moon and claim it? Why does the US government need to get involved? :roll:
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Becuase I am opposed to socialism, especially when the threat of it being imposed from the outside is so great. The colonization of the moon would be a principally military venture disguised as a commercial process to bootstrap the finances. Ensuring the national security of the US, by preventing the establishment of a military monopoly on the moon by another nation, is the goal.

And hence, it's Constitutional.
 
If the moon was such a critical military or commercial asset, operations would have already been setup there. The benefit has to outweigh the cost in any economic project and that is the basic reason why nothing has been setup there.

A missle program won't be installed up there. It costs $10,000 to send one pound of material into Earth's orbit and at least double that to get it to the moon. It wouldn't make any sense to install a missile program 250,000km from earth because you'd also have to invest in the fuel to propel the missiles all the way back. Military satellites are much more practical if anything like that were to happen, and there is a detection net setup in space to detect new and potentially volatile satellites.

There is no point in going to the moon just to be the one to claim it. Also, there is no justification to claim it. The moon is everyone's. It has been in our sky since the dawn of humanity. It's not an "asset". It's a celestial body.

By the time humanity is organized enough to even put a colony on it, we will probably have a lot of our social issues resolved on this planet, which means it would likely be a joint effort anyway. Space is a rough gig and we'd need as much help as possible. We should be dedicating those resources to research to terrestrial problems. We won't be able to make meaningful and major progress in space until we fix stuff down here.
 
Orius said:
If the moon was such a critical military or commercial asset, operations would have already been setup there.
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Ah! The Circular Argument. Always useful when you want to bite your tail.

Orius said:
The benefit has to outweigh the cost in any economic project and that is the basic reason why nothing has been setup there.
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No, there's no "benefit" to unconstitutional social programs, but we have them anyway....because tax dollars aren't spent for direct benefit, but to buy votes.

Orius said:
A missle program won't be installed up there. It costs $10,000 to send one pound of material into Earth's orbit and at least double that to get it to the moon. It wouldn't make any sense to install a missile program 250,000km from earth because you'd also have to invest in the fuel to propel the missiles all the way back. Military satellites are much more practical if anything like that were to happen, and there is a detection net setup in space to detect new and potentially volatile satellites.
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Really?

Rocket propulsion is the only way to get material on the moon back to Earth?

Orius said:
There is no point in going to the moon just to be the one to claim it. Also, there is no justification to claim it. The moon is everyone's. It has been in our sky since the dawn of humanity. It's not an "asset". It's a celestial body.
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Right now, it's a night light.

When men walk it again, it's a rock, and rocks are assets. Ask David.

Orius said:
By the time humanity is organized enough to even put a colony on it, we will probably have a lot of our social issues resolved on this planet, which means it would likely be a joint effort anyway. Space is a rough gig and we'd need as much help as possible. We should be dedicating those resources to research to terrestrial problems. We won't be able to make meaningful and major progress in space until we fix stuff down here.
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If "humanity" waits until "humanity" is "organized", "humanity" will never establish extraterrestrial colonies.

So the United States should allow "humanity" to run it's course, and take the lead in acting independently.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Oh.

Having the ability to destroy an enemy country from 250,000 miles out of his reach doesn't have any military potential?

You sure about that one?

Using lunar resources to explore the asteroid belt to convert a nickel iron asteroid into strain-free single-crystal, and hence superstrong iron cable has no commercial value? What about having access to a cubic mile of iron with zero environmental impact on the Earth? No commercial value there?

What about using solar power to electrical separate the aluminum oxide in the lunar regolith, providing both aluminum for construction purposes and oxygen for both breathing and rocket propellant? No commercial value there?



Depends on how it's done. Will we be foolish enough to use man-rated vehicles to ship mass produced cargo to the moon? Will we continue to use the expensive disintegrating totem poles of the past, exemplified by both the Apollo program and the Shuttle?



One shot, in one crater picked at random on the South Pole of the Moon, yielded definitive proof of water on the moon. There's enough water.



The word you're looking for is "investment".



No, it's a barren rock.

With potential.



The word you're looking for here is "troglodyte".



Oh, ****.

There will be fertile soil, given time.

The word is "investment".



Wrong.



"Impossible"?

And you're a member of an equatorially evolved species that has colonies of people living in the highest latitudes? Who didn't so much acclimate to these environments as much as they used technology to survive in them?

Shame on you. Believing something is impossible is often the only reason it becomes impossible.



national security, interplanetary resources that don't damage the Earth environment, wealth, and freedom.



Where? What? 120" TV screens? Flying cars? Better football helmets?



But I have.
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This is nothing but fantasy and wishful thinking. Most of which isn't even remotely grounded in reality. The one crater was picked because it was the spot on the moon with the highest probability of having any water, meaning that the water density isn't uniform. And even then it was a few liters of water per tons of soil. Think about that. Don't talk about terraforming because that's ridiculous. The moon (remember the 1/6 gravity you quoted) doesn't have the gravity to maintain an atmosphere. So you're not going to make the moon fertile. Mining the astoroid belt is unbelievably out of reach currently and the money and energy necessary to do that well overcomes any potential gain we could get from it.

What you've posted here is nothing more than flights of fancy. The reality of the situation is that it will cost unfathomable sums of money and would rob research from other areas which can more immediately have positive impact for us. At some point, this all may become feasible maybe; but we're not currently at that point. We can gain well more with significant less money by researching other sciences and medicine and technologies on earth first.
 
winston53660 said:
Here is an idea for the moon:

Researchers and space enthusiasts seehelium 3 as the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, withvirtually no radioactive by-product. Proponents claim its the fuel ofthe 21st century. The trouble is, hardly any of it is found on Earth.But there is plenty of it on the moon.

SPACE.com -- Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium-3 as the perfect fuel source.
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You've gotta come up with transportation which doesn't cost more energy than you'd save by using He-3. It doesn't currently exist because you'd have to be able to ship up to the moon and carry back from the moon. But getting anything to the moon is an extremely energy consuming act.
 
Ikari said:
You've gotta come up with transportation which doesn't cost more energy than you'd save by using He-3. It doesn't currently exist because you'd have to be able to ship up to the moon and carry back from the moon. But getting anything to the moon is an extremely energy consuming act.
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Yeah I wasn't sure how economically viable it would be at this time. It makes more sense to me at least than putting missles on the moon. Or going to the moon just because we can.
 
winston53660 said:
Here is an idea for the moon:

Researchers and space enthusiasts seehelium 3 as the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, withvirtually no radioactive by-product. Proponents claim its the fuel ofthe 21st century. The trouble is, hardly any of it is found on Earth.But there is plenty of it on the moon.

SPACE.com -- Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium-3 as the perfect fuel source.
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It is a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to manufacture Helium 3 on earth than mine if from the moon.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
The problem with it is that it's DOWN here, not up there.
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Ay, there's the rub. You're forgetting that every human who has ever lived is also down here, not up there. :roll:

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Should you be entering this discussion if you dont know the economic value of gravitational potential energy?

But I'll explain....with today's primitive technology it costs over $50,000 a lb to put something on the moon. Water is heavy, and if water is already there, we don't have to pay to get it there. A gallon of water weighs over 8 lbs, which means it costs over $400,000 to put a gallon of orange juice on the moon.....but shipping Tang and using local water drastically cuts the cost of doing business.
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The base you are proposing has no reason for existing aside from the water. And the water has no commercial use aside from the base...which makes the whole idea ridiculous.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Becuase I am opposed to socialism, especially when the threat of it being imposed from the outside is so great. The colonization of the moon would be a principally military venture disguised as a commercial process to bootstrap the finances. Ensuring the national security of the US, by preventing the establishment of a military monopoly on the moon by another nation, is the goal.
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You just acknowledged a couple posts ago that if we establish a base somewhere on the moon, any other country could still establish one elsewhere. The reverse is true as well, so the threat of some other nation establishing a "military monopoly" on the moon is nil. And even talking about a country monopolizing the moon before there is a single person living there is absurd.
 
USA-1 said:
Yes it is, but since we don't have the technology for a functional fusion reactor it really doesn't matter anyway.
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I think I would rather put some NASA budget towards developing that.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Ah! The Circular Argument. Always useful when you want to bite your tail.
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Good for you... you can spot when something is circular. Doesn't change the truth of what I said, which you are refusing to rebut. If the moon was so important there would already be major operations underway to go there. But it's a low priority, in reality.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, there's no "benefit" to unconstitutional social programs, but we have them anyway....because tax dollars aren't spent for direct benefit, but to buy votes.
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They're only unconstitutional because you don't like them, and that's not the subject we're discussing. I suggest you keep your eye on the ball.

What the U.S. does domestically is different than claiming celestial bodies. Apples and oranges. And if those programs are so unconstitutional, why would you support an even bigger portion of money going into a program to build a base on the moon that only a few will occupy? It has no practical benefit for the nation.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Really?

Rocket propulsion is the only way to get material on the moon back to Earth?
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Are you suggesting nuclear propulsion to get those weapons back to earth? That sounds like nuclear weapons to me, and that would be illegal under international treaty. Arming space is against the law.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Right now, it's a night light.

When men walk it again, it's a rock, and rocks are assets. Ask David.
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Types of rocks are assets. Why would we mine the moon when rock and mineral assets are still fairly abundant on earth? The need to mine the moon won't become pressing during Obama's administration, that's for sure.

If it takes more resources to get the rocks off the moon than the rocks are worth, then it's a total waste... unless of course they discover some new, super duper useful material that can only be found on the moon.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
If "humanity" waits until "humanity" is "organized", "humanity" will never establish extraterrestrial colonies.

So the United States should allow "humanity" to run it's course, and take the lead in acting independently.
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The U.S. is part of the human system, fighting wars over resources that cost hundreds of billions of dollars and large portions of the GDP; it operates in the same system of scarcity. Even though the media loves reporting on war, the number of wars that are being fought around the world have decreased in the past century. If humanity can stay that course, it will lead to more collaboration and less hostility.

A single domesticity cannot hope to colonize space, not even the U.S. It's a pipe dream until we collectively get our priorities in check.
 
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