Homer Hickam, a NASA shuttle engineer, wrote a book called “Back to the Moon” in which he proposed a scenario for getting a shuttle to the moon and back. It’s pretty far-fetched, but a fun read. He’s also the guy who wrote the book, “Rocket Boys” which was turned into a great movie called “October Sky” - the true story of how he and his friends won the National Science Fair and used that to leave their poor coal-mining town and go to college.
Anyway, in the book, if I remember correctly, the shuttle was commandeered, and then an additional engine was added in orbit and extra fuel was used from a drop tank that was brought into orbit. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember all the details. But it seemed reasonably plausible.
I’d like to be able to cite this properly, but I do recall an article a few years ago that I think is an apt analogy. There was a great international race to be the first to the South Pole a hundred years ago. Lots of attention, ample budgets, hero worship, the whole bit. But afterward, Antarctica was simply abandoned. Little useful information had been obtained, because that wasn’t the purpose - it was a race.
It took about 50 years for humans to return to Antarctica with a real purpose, in the International Geophysical Year program, but the bases were established and the work has been done, continuously, under arduous circumstances, but with less attention and less funding. It’s now fair to say that human presence on Antarctica is pretty much permanent, tenuous though it is.
I don’t think the return to the Moon will take place in the same time frame; for obvious reasons the practical barriers are just too high. The international political imperatives that created the South Pole race and the Moon race are gone, too, and aren’t likely to return soon. But I don’t think, either, that there will never be an International Selenophysical Year or whatever - just probably not in my lifetime.
You probably provided the most convincing reason. People like the idea of it. Tourism alone is potentially profitable if the technology can be worked out (and made less expensive). kingpengvin gave some of the other good reasons for a Moon base (but let’s not forget the additional reason of all that Helium-3 on the Moon to be used in fusion reactors that we may someday invent…maybe), but I agree with your counterpoints. If people wanna go, and money is to be made, then it might happen.
The recently released audio tapes reveal in Kennedy’s own words that he didn’t care for the space program at all. He didn’t want to fund it unless it served a political purpose. He had no grand vision for Man in Space. His public speeches on the subject were pure political propaganda. His sole goal in funding the moon race (above objections from NASA) was to beat the Soviets. Period. let’s let this “Kennedey - Space Visionary” stuff die the death it deserves. That said, I am glad that the Apollo program went forward, no matter what the reason. Although I dislike Kennedy, it took a man of his will to get the ball rolling.
Coincidentally, I was just reading today a chapter of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot where he discusses the “Gift of Apollo”, as he calls it. He acknowledges that the moon landings were purely for the purpose of national pride, with science goals being very secondary (though we did learn a lot about the geology and evolution of the moon from those missions).
Sagan’s contention is that the true benefit of the race for the moon was the rise of the space program as a primarily civilian, not military, endeavor. Prior to Kennedy’s speech there were several space programs in the works, all run by the military–weapons platforms in space, and so on. These were pretty much shelved to concentrate on the moon landings.
Once the public’s interest was captured and the new infrastructure was in place, interplanetary exploration could begin in earnest. Sagan seems to have thought that the spectacularly successful interplanetary missions of the 1970s and later (the Vikings, Mariners, Voyagers, and others) would not have taken place or had public support without the Apollo program having first been undertaken and completed, and that public support for the space program would otherwise never have grown very large.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. And certainly I can see far more enthusiastic support from the public for a stated goal of “we’re going to put a [person] on the moon by the end of the decade, even though we haven’t so much as gotten someone in orbit yet”, than for a prolonged series of baby steps towards some nebulous goal of building a moon base.
When I was a kid, I remember seeing artist’s depoictions in a book of a lunar base, using some sort of slingshot to propel mined products into orbit towards Earth.
Is a lunar mining operation feasible?
I have argued in another thread that subsea mining is a much more feasible and practical option.
I remember a while back, someone asked how big a rail launcher (using the same technology found in railguns) would have to be in order to propel an object into orbit, from Earth. It was found that in order for the apparatus to work properly, it would have to be several hundred kilometers long.
However, perhaps a similar construct can be put on the Moon… at 1/6th gravity, with a much lower escape velocity, such a launcher would only have to be a fraction of the size. Also, you don’t have the hurdle of worrying about friction with the surrounding air.
Would Man have a base there by now? I don’t think so.
I think that the idea of sending a man to the moon would be thought of in the way we that we think about manned Mars missions today - something that’s always just a few years in the future.
It really is difficult to think of a good rationale for crewed spaceflight. Von Braun and the others just didn’t foresee the advances in electronics, etc, that made it possible for robotic probes to do the job without risking human lives.
On the other hand, if the moon had looked the way it did like those old Chesley Bonestell paintings…
In response to Kingpengvin, I wanted to add that, although the moon is an excellent location for observatories, the Hubble Space Telescopes has all the same advantages and the new telescope that they’re building (Next Generation Space Telescope, planned for an orbit past Jupiter) has all those advantages and then some, all for a much cheaper price.
In response to the OP, I think without JFK we would never have made it to the moon at all - we needed the space race mentality to get us there. I do think we’ll eventually make it to mars, even without the political drive, but it’s going to take a heck of a long time before that happens. As for a moon base, I have to agree with the several in this thread that have said there aren’t enough reasons to make one. Kingpengvin and others gave several good suggestions - I particularly vote for space tourism - but none of them are overwhelming enough to get taxpayers/congressmen to shell out that much money. Unfortunately. But if I ever get really rich, you’ll definitely see me up there.
