I’m thinking about how damn big the Saturn V rocket was, and how little material it actually sent to the Moon. Just enough stuff to sustain 4 people for a couple of weeks, and bring them home that’s it. If one would like to put a base up there, you’re going to need a whole lot more raw materials than that.
The ISS is unbelieveably expensive, and it’s 10x easier to get that stuff into orbit than it is to get it to the moon. With our current technology, a lunar base is folly. I think you need a whole new delivery system before you can even think of creating something that big.
For those who speculate about the mining resources of the moon, etc.:
Given the expense of getting things to and from the moon, wouldn’t the potential value of anything you’d find “out there” be totally negated by the cost of obtaining it? Isn’t mining the moon for anything then like trying to extract the gold we know is in seawater?
Thus, as I said before:
The military, comercial, or scientific advantages to be derived from space exploration aren’t in just getting to the moon or anywhere else (not regarding effort and expense), but in being able to get a useful payload into (and back out of) earth orbit at will.
To make it more plain, you COULD walk from San Francisco to New York and back to do some important business. But if walking coast-to-coast was your only option, the business would have to be damned important to justify the effort. But since nowadays we have in place relatively easy, accessible, and inexpensive ways to make the SF-NY round trip, going to NY from SF to do business is an economical and credible thing to do.
So… China CAN go the moon, but should they? But given the resources available to them, once they are there, how could they possibly exploit their presence against the US or anyone else? If the US were somehow “against” China (perish the thought), then the US might encourage China to go to the moon so as to divert China’s resources from activities that might otherwise be spent more advantageously against the US.
…And if you were going to actually use it on the surface of the moon (to build structures in which to live), then it’s by far the cheapest available resource, surely.
“It is much easier to move things to orbit from the moon than from the earth.”
Not necessarily. I am sure you are referring to the lesser gravity of the moon, but there are other significant factors to consider.
I am no rocket scientist, but it seems to my simple mind that the materials to make rockets and rocket fuel are much more easily had and processed into a device to “move things into orbit from the moon” here on earth than on the moon. For instance, it may be possible to turn moon rocks into hydrogen for rocket fuel, but it is most likely easier (all things considered) to get hydrogen here either via distilling some of earth’s oil or via some of earth’s abundant seawater. And of course, on earth we have or at least can easily build the infrastructure to do this distillation; you’d have to build it from scratch on the moon (and prior to that build a building materials industry from scratch).
JCHeckler, using solar power, an electromagnetic rail gun, and naturally occuring materials on the Moon, it’s incredibly cheap to drop rocks from the Moon on to the Earth. (Full details of how this would work can be found in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein.)
China will also benefit from the massive technological boost that will come from developing the items necessary to go to the Moon and live there. Damn near everything you can point to today has been impacted by the space program in some manner. Remember also that the long term benefits of exploration can’t be predicted in advance. No one knew that something like half the worlds edible plants could be found in the Americas before Columbus set sail.
Heck, China could make a fortune off a lunar venture if they built an electromagnetic rail gun (to cheaply send things to the Earth) and just sent rocks back here (with parachutes so that they didn’t burn up/vaporize the impact point) as people would pay through the nose for a hunk of the Moon (or for something that had been made on it).
Not to mention the rise in international stature it will give the Chinese. So far, the US is the only nation to have ever sent people to the Moon. If China does it, and we fail to follow with a more successful program, people will look to the Chinese for technological innovation and not the US.
Imagine the reaction it would cause if news leaked that China was building a rail-gun on the moon pointed towards Earth.
[sub]Where else would you point it to, anyhow?[/sub]
Well, in my ignorant opinion (IMIO?), I don’t see much reason for various countries to have permanent bases in Antarctica, but they do.
Mostly, having a base on the moon would just be so cool! Imagine what people would pay for a two week vacation on the moon? And how long would it be before McDonald’s & Starbucks felt the need to open up shop there? How much would people pay for a cup of home grown “Lunar Roast?”
If it is determined that there is in fact water ice at the polar regions of the moon, a Chinese base may be the only practical and affordable route for manned exploration of the solar system.
Anyone want to place bets on China’s willingness to share?
Someone better set up a base on the moon before that lunatic (sorry couldn’t resist) Dr. Evil takes over the moon and threatens to blow it up for one quadrillion dollars.
I figure, the best place to put up a scientific base is the far side
of the moon. The entire mass of the moon would shield the base from electromagnetic emissions from Earth, especially radio.
Imagine a super-sized Aricebo type radio dish installed in a
crater a few kilometers wide. Also, with 1/6 earth’s gravity and
zero atmosphere, optical telescopes with house-sized mirrors
could be constructed.
Data could be transmitted between the earth and the base via
a network of lunar orbiting relay satellites.
The naysayers will always find a reason why things shouldn’t be done. History generally doesn’t remember the naysayers. How many people thought that Columbus or Magellan were totally insane? Visionaries are the ones that will drive us forward - dragging some, kicking and screaming, into the final frontier.
As far as the cost of getting into orbit, how much did it cost to fund Columbus and his trip? How long did the trip take? How long does the same trip take by airplane, and how much does it cost?
Has anyone else seen a news-service photo of the three-person capsule the Chinese are currently using? It is to laugh. In a story dated, ahem, April 1, 2002, it was reported that they sent a miniature zodiac’s worth of critters into 108 geo-orbits: a monkey, a dog, a rabbit… And when they landed safely, there was much rejoicing.
But seriously – I only wish well to the intrepid taikonauts (twelve are currently being trained for a moon mission), but given China’s luck with their rocket launches etc., I’d say they’re more likely to become a firework or crater on the moon than land & takeoff, let alone set up a permanent lunar base anytime soon.
And as for Realpolitik on earth, I’d just as soon they blow their excess billions on grandiose dams and space programs as opposed to the military per se, and nationalist expoits on their periphery. I think they’ll find that imitating/surpassing a superpower’s space program is considerably more intricate than copying a state-of-the-art spy plane, or pirating an entertainment industry’s worth of CDs.
And re. astronomical applications – I thought our Hubble Space Telescope was doing just fine.
I think there should be some sort of law which mandates that before a nation decides to undertake space travel, at least 75% of their population should have flushing toilets.
Yes, China is a poor nation, but they have money. They give out a substantial amount of monetary aid to many smaller countries in Southeast Asia, yet a huge number of their own people live in squalor.
I think China has some serious issues to iron out, before setting its eyes on putting Party Members on the moon. Can you picture a huge visage of Mao, imprinted on a red flag, planted in the surface of the moon?
China should work on the cessation of criminal executions for spare body parts, and taking steps to use chemical agricultural pesticides other than DDT, before building any new rockets.
Obviously, they (the Chinese who are pushing moon exploration) are looking for glory, and something to make their citizens proud.
In an ideal world, spending time and money on cleaning up their abyssmal air pollution output would make a country’s citizens proud. But, unfortunately, since no other country is putting any serious effort into cleaning up and/or preventing different types of pollution, rockets and men on the moon do a much better job at making people proud of their country and government.
