Hey, Maybe Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are hidden there. Could be worth a look.
Here’s an interesting Greg Easterbrook article criticizing the “moon base as part of Mars exploration” idea (he also criticizes Mars exploration as too costly, but that’s just an individualized judgment call IMO).
The basic argument is this: we don’t save anything by using the moon as a launching point for a Mars mission, because every component for a Mars mission – fuel, air, equipment, etc – has to be initially sent from Earth in the first place. By sending it to the moon first, we unnecessarily increase the cost of the trip because we have to pay the fuel costs for the same total weight of equipment to escape two gravitational pulls instead of one. It’s cheaper, sez he, to just launch everything from the Earth directly to Mars.
Are there any holes in this line of reasoning?
(BTW, I’d love to see us explore space for purely sentimental reasons – stuff like this sets my geeky 'lil heart aflutter – but I’m also interested in assessing the validity of more practical arguments for and against, as in the case above.)
Can’t you one-trick ponies at least pick appropriate threads to leave your clever witticisms?
Definition of a fanatic: Someone who can’t change his mind, and won’t change the subject.
The flaw in this reasoning is that a moon base is an end unto itself, not just a waypoint to Mars.
The big problem with programs like Apollo is that they were really one-shot deals. They weren’t sustainable, and didn’t really build upon each other (i.e. one mission leaving resources behind for the next one).
The better way to go to space is to do it progressively. Build vehicles that can be used to move from the orbit of one planet to another. Test them on the earth-moon run, and fine-tune the design. Eliminate the unknowns. Eventually, you have a robust earth-moon space program that you can build upon for Mars. If the transfer vehicle is designed correctly, you can just add extra fuel and head to Mars with it - and once at Mars, you can use the knowledge you learned in the Earth-Moon system to do things like rendevous with Phobos and Deimos. And the same craft can also be used to visit near earth asteroids, move telescopes into the Lagrange points, and do other useful work.
Sure, it might be cheaper to just fly a dedicated, one-shot mission to Mars. Cobble together a big booster from Shuttle boosters and go. “Mars Direct” would no doubt be a lot cheaper than a robust ‘building block’ approach.
But once it’s done, all you have is a Mars mission. You’re still no better at doing stuff in Earth orbit, you still can’t get to the moon or asteroids, etc. It’s like Apollo all over again - done that way, in 50 years our kids will be going, “You know, it’s been 30 years since we walked on Mars, and the space program has done nothing since.”
Anyway, I think Easterbrook doesn’t understand what’s going on here. No one’s talking about sending all the materials to the moon, and then blasting off from the moon to Mars. When it’s time to actually go to Mars, I imagine the material would be shipped up from Earth, assembled in orbit, and then shipped to Mars. It’s just that by going to the Moon first, we’ll be really good at doing those things, which is very important because a Mars mission will have much tighter tolerances and higher risks. So shake the bugs out first.
Easterbrook’s argument would be like saying that the Gemini mission was a waste of money, because it would be cheaper to just build Apollo first. It would be, but without Gemini the risks of Apollo failing would have been much greater.
Its a great idea Sam…I only hope they follow through with it as you are suggesting. An interplanetary type vehicle, once built, would be an incredible asset. As it would never enter a planets gravity well, simply moving between planets or staying in orbit, the only future costs would be stocking, maintenance and refueling the craft. In the long run, it would give us a great capability, if used in conjunction with a space station (which could house storage and return vehicles, maybe a enhanced version of NASA’s ‘life boat’ de-orbiter, which could be shipped back up between missions for the next crew).
I would love to see a nuclear powered perminent interplanatary shuttle that could be used over and over again for manned exploration of the solar system. I would even vote for Bush (or Dean…yikes) if they had the actual vision and the balls to both propose such a long term venture and the guts to make it happen.
I agree with you btw that the moon should be a mission for its own sake, not as some stepping stone to Mars…except in the way that it becomes a test bed for the new technology and methods to be used later on.
I try not to get all starry eyed (lol) about these kinds of proposals though, as in the end I usually end up disappointed. I’ve wanted the US to take the lead with a slow but steady program with REAL goals and milestones for exploration (especially manned) with the ultimate goal of establishing perminent scientific outposts on the Moon and maybe even other planetary bodies like Mars. I’m dieing for real exploration of Europa and some of the other interesting moons out there. There is so much for us to learn and explore in our solar system…and its a real shame we aren’t doing it, as we COULD be.
Robots can certainly do some of it (and are doing some of it as we speak), but as we’ve seen, they fail almost as often as they succeed (and when they fail, it sets back the time tables on learning and exploring, sometimes by years), and even when they work perfectly, they just can’t do what humans can do on the spot…IMO.
-XT
One thing I found interesting is that the proposal sets a target of 2018 for the Moon trip. Kennedy made his famous speech in '61, Armstrong took his steps only 8 years later. Why would it take 14 years to make it happen now, considering all that we’ve learned about space travel, not to mention the level of current technology vs. the 60’s?
But, if all we are doing is basically doing this as a publicity stunt so we can get money to fund the real science being done by robotic missions, isn’t this a freakin’ expensive way to do it. It is like spending $5 to earn a $1 you can spend.
It seems to me that the money…or a small fraction of the money…would be better spent “sexing-up” the robotic missions so people could relate to them more.
At least, we need to have an honest debate where people don’t make the sort of outlandish claims for the scientific benefits of manned space exploration which have pretty much been nil compared to the benefits (at much lower cost) for the unmanned missions.
I also question this view that NASA “withered” after the moon-landing program. They did a lot of good science on small budgets in the unmanned missions after that. It’s only with the manned program that they wasted lots of money with little to show for it.
Well, the good news is that he is getting most of the money that they will waste from programs where it is being wasted already. And, I might even agree that going to the moon again might be marginally less of a waste than shuttle and ISS missions (although the idea of international cooperation there…and particularly keeping Russia’s high-tech folks paid to do something so they don’t get into selling weapons technology is surely the strongest justification for the ISS). But, I am worried about this other 1.8 billion…Is it coming from the unmanned missions at NASA that actually do the good science? That would be sad indeed.
And, I don’t want this to be a political thing because I am not opposing this just because GW proposed it. There are surely plenty of Democrats who have voted to throw money down the sinkhole of the ISS.
Actually it’s a serious point , agreeing with the first three posts in this thread about making big “feelgood” vanity announcements that aren’t necessarily followed up, particularly in the light of a coming election and international/Foreign/“war on terror” issues. That seems to have been lost on you. Time will tell if your President “Who does what he says” actually follows through.
Because the Apollo project required a tiny capsule with tiny capabilities landing on the Moon for a few hours. This project is far larger and greater in scope, and the end result is going to be a permanent habitat. It’s like the difference between pitching a tent and building a house.
Further, the '60s had the Great Red Scare to fuel the initiative. Now we’ve gotta make do on the hope that most people are capable of viewing the course of humanity from a big picture perspective.
Buddy, you make me laugh, but only because the other alternative would be to cry.
From yawndave
Also, they used a huge percentage of the GNP to do it in that time table. Money was not an object. I’d rather see them do it slow and steady…and actually have a program at the end thats a first step to something really great, instead of a foot prints and flags mission that is self contained, and that is dropped when its done so we have to wait 30 more years for the next single step.
-XT
Only when I have trouble sleeping.
Where did you hear 2018? The date I read was 2013. Perhaps there was a typo in my article or yours?
The date is important - as we’ve learned with other grand schemes, if you hang the date too far in the future it’ll never happen, or it’ll become an excuse to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the project.
For this to succeed, it has to have short-term benchmarks for concrete milestones, and very well defined goals. And “internationalization” is NOT one of them. A big mistake with ISS was to get away from engineering goals and add political goals. If you can include other countries, great, as long as they can fit into the engineering plan. The Canadarm is an example of good international cooperation, because it was focused on the goal of the arm itself. But, “Ensuring cooperation between nations” sucks as a goal, because it becomes an easy way to override good science and engineering with fuzzy plans.
I can see using a moon base as learning how to live where you can’t breathe or grow your food, but surely you wouldn’t waste energy going from Earth to the Moon and the Moon to Mars?
Regarding not building Apollo first, Mercury was to keep a guy alive in a spacecraft and Gemini was to develop rendevous techniques. Perhaps things learned from these programs influenced the Apollo design?
Of course - that’s my whole point. The Moon is a proving ground for things like orbital rendevous with landers, transiting from one celestial body to another, etc. Sure, we’ve done that before with Apollo, but tools and techniques would be very different now. Plus, it would allow you to shake the bugs out of a long-distance transfer vehicle, much like the first Apollo missions did.
Why is this important at all? Robots are far more cost efficient, and they can do things and go places that humans can’t. Sure, they aren’t as flexible, but their flexibility is increasing at an incredible rate.
Putting humans in space has very little of worth at the moment other than learning how to put humans in space… which isn’t vey important, since very few people do or ever will live in space for centuries at the very very least. It’s essentially a technical problem that really isn’t worth solving at the moment, because solving it doesn’t get us anywhere else. In 100 years, we’ll likely have energy sources and medical technology that will make putting lots of humans in space much easier and more feasible.
This can’t be emphasized enough really. I mean, the equipment we’ve been using is PRIMITIVE. Without lots of new funding we probably aren’t going to see bleeding-edge military-grade technology either, but the shuttle is laughably outdated in terms of its computer systems.
Furthermore, humans aren’t that flexible in space to begin with. They can’t do much lugging around a life support system and radiation shielding. And it’s not like we’re going to ship a complete biochem lab to another planet for their use. The most they’d be doing is elementary tests and sample collection. These are not things robots have trouble with.
They can, however, move air bags out of the way.
Touche.