About three months or so ago I found this article on the Internet about “Why we have not been back to the moon”. In it one of the premises put forward was that the 1962 discovery of “Solar Pulses” (by a group headed by Robert Leighton of the California Institute of Technology). It was stated that this discovery and the subsequent data brought back from the Apollo 11 flight confirmed that it is impossible for man to actually colonize planets that lack the protective layer we enjoy here on earth. I have been unable to find anything more about this subject any place else even though I have searched now for months. What truth is there in this theory? Several other reasons for not returning, one even is on the NASA site itself stating that the booster rockets have been dismantled and are on exhibit and the research plans are difficult to find…stuff I am very skeptical that I believe, but the MAIN question is about these Solar Pulses and the eventual effect on any future plans to colinize ANY planet, let alone the moon.
The main reason we went to the Moon in the first place was to beat the Rooskies there
The space program costs an awful lot and people are very short sighted as a whole…easy enough to galvanize the public into getting behind us going to the Moon back then but now? Too many people would say spend the money here first…as though Earth has to become a paradise before we try the Moon again
Apart from the terrorists the current boogie man(at least we blame THEM for everything nowadays) is France so…
What Nasa ought to do is whisper to the bigwigs here that France is preparing a Mars mission then get their counterparts in France to tell THEIR big shots WE are going to Mars…get a little old fashioned competition like the old days
I guess the reason why NASA did not re-launch the lunar landings are:
- Too expensive
- They have fulfilled their purpose - beating the Russians
- It’s not really useful, because exploring the moon is not very high on the priority list of the space guys any more
- The general public somehow lost interest in it. The first landing more missions followed, people began to get bored in some way
Of course this is all IMHO, without any cites available.
Are you talking about solar flares? It’s true they (and all other types of solar and cosmic radiation) pose a threat to planetary explorers/colonists. Astronaut Jim Collins, when writing of plans for a possible Mars mission, goes into great detail re: what type of shielding might be necessary to protect a crew from a large solar flare (and a particularly noteworthy flare could, indeed, kill them).
On Mars, etc., it’s assumed long-term residents will need some sort of radiation-proofing–perhaps simply living in caves.
But the problem of flares (if this is indeed what these pulses are all about) are dealt with on a daily basis by current astronauts (and unmanned satellites) in Earth orbit. They are not the reason why we didn’t go back to the moon (or on to Mars) since the 1970s. Simple economics and lack of interest is why.
BTW, the Chinese are still intent on going to the moon. I imagine that if they successfully and regularly land taikonauts there, it might just be the kick in the ass we need to go back (or, if we do not return, it will be looked back on as the official end of our nation’s reign as a superpower).
Yes I meant solar FLARES (I guess). But the answer as to the astronauts and their protection-current “doings” is of course understandable. Individual persons on individual missions and in a limited space station are one thing. It is the actual COLINIZATION of the planets, meaning many people more then the astronauts and much more equipment needs was the reason and question I had.
I guess that does bring up a new thought though. In my “surfing” and trying to find answers to these questions I did coma across an idea some scientist had in South America. I guess there is a Lichen that lives in the south pole that supplies most if not all of our air on earth. It is their proposal that if we launch a bunch of this stuff and drop it on say Mars, this will eventually, and yes I mean centuries, build an atmosphere there. This same technique could be used on any hard bodied planet (meaning Jupiter is out of the question). Anybody have thoughts on this?
Found out more about Robert Leighton and Solar Pulses–not about flares at all, and nothing to do with colonization either. The solar pulses are basically 5- to 160-minute (the latter being typical) oscillations in the diameter of the sun (due to the sun’s own seismology, and possibly due to the ever-conflicting forces of gravitational compression and explosive expansion that the sun’s fusion reactions generate) that cause corresponding waves through the solar wind. These waves travel only a few miles an hour, and seem as though they’d have no appreciable effect on human life.
I found more info also. I was talking about the Solar Flare. This site http://www.sel.noaa.gov/primer/primer.html has a good explanation and states that if an astronaut was on the surface of the moon in his or her space suit they would probably die. Even seeking shelter undergroud they would be exposed to the effects of radiation. So I guess this is ultimately what the original article I read three months ago was trying to elude too. I just confused the issue by calling it “Solar Pulse”.
a. I would highly debate that any single plant supplies most of our air (oxygen, presumably), esp. an antarctic lichen.
b. plants (whether lichens, algae, leafy plants, grasses, etc.) have long been considered for terraforming, and while plants could make use of Mars’ CO2 atmosphere…
c. There still doesn’t seem to be enough oxygen available there to make a big enough impact on a planetary scale. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, so there just isn’t much gas to work with in the first place. Also, even if we could generate a suitable atmosphere
d. it’s not clear that it would stick around; Mars has less mass than the earth (so it’s easier for light gases to escape up into space, never to be seen again) and no magnetic field to speak of (so the solar wind is less likely to be deflected, and more likely to blow those gases away into space).
I believe Kim Stanley Robinson covers all of this terraforming stuff in his Red Mars/Blue Mars/Green Mars series. (I think he proposes capturing and dropping comets onto the surface of Mars to supply more water/oxygen and to heat things up–since increased volcanic activity would result in even more gases being liberated into the atmosphere and the planet being warmed slightly). I’m sure someone who has read the (quite popular) series will be along to correct/confirm this.
I would guess that the reason that Antarctic lichen was proposed is that Antarctica would be the closest thing we have on Earth to a Martian climate. Antarctica is extremely dry and cold, just like Mars.
Right … but I still doubt that it supplies most of our oxygen.
Maybe if some PRIVATE concern got interested in space exploration…think Bill Gates…he could probably fund it enough just from the money under his sofa cushions
Long enough until some countries decided they didn’t want a private company getting all the potential goodies that would come about…I really doubt Heinleins’ future would come to pass for that very reason
Until someone or some country shows an interest I doubt we(USA) will go all out just the dribbles and drabs we’ve seen in the past few years moneywise
The private companies aren’t going to be particularly interested in going back to the moon, because there’s no money in it. This isn’t just a casual dismissal; there’s really nothing on the moon that makes continued exploration cost-effective.
Physical resources? Next to none. No valuable minerals to mine, no ores to refine, or anything like that. There’s some helium in the regolith, which could be useful if the technological breakthroughs for a viable fusion-power industry finally arrive, but it would take serious effort to get it out.
Staging base for deeper exploration? Overrated. To launch something from the moon, you have to first bring it there from Earth, since there’s very little on the moon from which to manufacture either a vehicle or fuel. And why waste fuel making all the orbital corrections for landing something on the moon if you’re just going to take off again? Seems counter-intuitive, but it’s much simpler and resource-effective to lift off directly from Earth.
So, in a practical sense, there’s really no reason to go to the moon. The real money, in the future, will be on Mars, and in the near-Earth objects like comets and asteroids. Read John S. Lewis’s book Mining the Sky; there’s trillions of dollars of nickel, iron, and other similar commodities just floating around waiting for somebody to go get them. The metal in one medium-sized asteroid would pay for the mission to retrieve it, fifty times over. The problem is, such a mission would take a minimum of ten years from start to finish, probably longer, and would be an awfully big investment for any corporation to justify to its shareholders and capitalize over a long period of time, regardless of the potentially huge payoff at the end. The market’s current profit cycles operate in the short term, and discourage that sort of far-out thinking. (Caveat: Lewis is a planetary scientist, and some of the economic models in his book don’t really hold water over the long term. The principles are sound, though, for what it would take to start the ball rolling.)
As others have said, the only reason we went to the moon in the first place was prestige. (Check out the History Channel’s current documentary Failure is Not an Option for insight into the mindset that made the mission such a priority.) It was an easy-to-understand, concrete goal; it would have been far more difficult to sell to Congress and the public something vague like “setting up an interplanetary mining and resource collection industry that will be wildly profitable at some point in the next forty years, probably.” While that would probably have been a better goal in terms of economic health, it’s far too nebulous to make a sound-bite case, and success cannot be easily claimed. Landing on the moon, though, is hugely symbolic, and victory is unambiguous. (Unless you’re talking to one of the moon-hoax morons.)
Now, as toadspittle suggests, the Chinese are ramping up their space program in a serious way, with one goal being a moon mission. Again, there’s no economic reason to do this; it’s purely to demonstrate the viability of the technology and the human expertise. And if they do make progress toward that goal, you can bet the U.S. will suddenly find a few extra dollars to throw at its space agency. It’s possible we’ll shoot for the moon again, but if reason prevails we’ll go for Mars this time. It’s technologically within our grasp, it provides long-term economic opportunity, and politically it’s the Big Story that will make the Chinese effort look like small potatoes. (Read Zubrin. Yeah, he’s kind of a hand-waving evangelist, but he makes a pretty good case.)
I don’t think many Americans at all would be willing to spend the money to back to the moon now. Then, it was worth it to say, “Stick it, Leonid.”
I certainly can’t see the point in sending people to Mars when we could do so much more for people right here.
“Let’s spend billions of dollars to send a few people to another place so we can eventually colonize it. Each trip will extremely dangerous, extremely expensive, and consume enormous amounts of time of some of our most brilliant people. Oh, and the new place has no atmosphere at all, and no water. What a place to live!!”
Cervaise, supposedly there are large deposits of Palladium on the moon. IIRC, the high cost of Palladium on Earth is what’s keeping fuel cells from becoming cheap commodities (the other components of a fuel cell are as common as sand and water…)
IIRC both India and China are planning moon missions. They are included under “we” right?
Hopefully they’ll find out it is in their best interests to pool resources, but another space race would be cool too. Hopefully they’ll do something worth wild while they’re up there. Moon colony, moon mining, moon starbucks and so on.
As for reasons why, cost is the big one. It costs billions upon billions to send a shuttle to the moon and back. And with the recent Columbia disaster some are still weary of space travel.
However as soon as the war thing is over and done with, a new space age would be a viable option.
The moon is a bore. The buffet closes early and the only have two shows on Saturday. Also, no towel stewards on the family class deck.
It’s a wonder we went at all.
It’s explained perfectly in one of those “Behold the Power of Cheese” commercials: we went to the moon, discovered it wasn’t made of cheese, and we haven’t been back since.
Is there any petroleum on the moon?
Any more questions?
Oops… sorry! Since this is General Questions, I should post that in the form of an answer…
(ahem!)
There isn’t any petroleum on the moon.
That should answer your question.
In a book called ‘Beyond Top Secret’, which basically is about UFOs and government cover-ups; Neil Armstrong is attributed as having stated that there were no more moon missions because “they were warned off”. It was asserted that there were giant alien spacecraft watching the moon explorers, although if I recall, Armstrong denied this further on in the book.
Still…has you thinking all the same.