But they also had evidence that they WOULD find SOMETHING. For example, Columbus had evidence that said he could find India if he sailed West (he believed the circumference of the Earth was smaller than it really was). Magellan had evidence that suggested that he, too, could sail to India (and, additionally, back to Europe), which was, of course, Columbus’s voyage.
Those two explorative endeavors were NOT the result of somebody sitting around, thinking, “Hey, there might be a cache of weaponry just sitting out there!” They were NOT the result of whimsical thinking. They were NOT the result of lack of evidence. They were the result of People With Money wanting to get More Money, i.e. a better trade route with India (which would have resulted in LOTS of money). They had evidence that such a route existed, and they planned their journey accordingly.
P.S.- Columbus did NOT set out to prove the world was round…
Um, we proved pretty successfully with the Bio-Dome experiments that we can’t even live well for very long in a self-contained environment here on Earth. The Mir cosmonauts faced disaster several times, and we have to constantly resupply the ISS, which is in LEO. The logistics involved in creating, building, supplying and maintaining a lunar base a quarter of a million miles away would never, ever get the support of the American people.
That money spent on the cosmetics industry is money earned on the sale of products by the cosmetics industry. NASA is taxpayer supported. Nice try.
Oh yeah you can. One could imagine gravity weapons, extremely high powered laser weapons, antimatter weapons, extreme biological weapons, planet killers, sun killers, solar system killers, and a slew of others. All far-fetched (like the whole damn topic), but we wouldn’t know till we got there. Do we really want to risk someone else finding the biggest baddest weapon humanity has ever seen? MAYBE Nasa is doing this, and that’s why they started the moon rumors. “Yeah, go ahead and argue whether we ever got to the moon, meanwhile, we’ll be mining mars for weapons.” Either way, it’s unlikely as hell, but not impossible.
DaLovin’ Dj
“Just cause your paranoid doesn’t mean there not out to get you.”
Really? Name one important Soviet mission after Apollo-Soyuz other than Mir? Mir, I grant you was an important step in space exploration. But the Russians could barely keep the thing in the sky, and only did so as long as they did out of national pride. Our space exploration has been largely converted to commercial uses (satellite launch and maintenance), with most exploration these done by “better, cheaper, more” probes. A design philosophy that might have something to do with those lost Martian probes BTW. I say the Russians started the space “circus” with Sputnik, Laika, and Yuri Gegarin, and gave up when we reached the moon, for 2 reasons. 1, finacially, the cold War was costing them buckets of rubles, and 2 all the readily reachable landmarks had already been reached.
False. By Apollo 13 the public had already lost interest. It was been there, done that and couldn’t even get primtime coverage on tv.
I actually agree with this, although probes are important, it is manned space travel that grabs the public imagination.
True, however most of the benefits of the space program have been relatively intangible thus far, being primarly in the areas of materials science and satellite communications. Important, but not sexy.
JFK was a lawyer too, and he was the impetous behind the Moon shot.
bleh
You do realize that most of the delta-v required to reach the moon is used up escaping the Earths atmospehere? That means that a space craft that weant directly from the Earth to the moon would be limited in size by the largest booster we could build. That was the Saturn V, yes is could have been improved, but it was disposable. By having a resuable shuttle and space station we could build a much larger craft in orbit and send it to the moon. That way the fuel consumption is spread out over several missions, is easier, cheaper and safer than lighting one big candle and praying, the way we did for Apollo.
I think I shall face up to the reality that my words are probably wasted.
I think we should start a program for the moon like the one proposed for Mars where we start sending unmanned supply crates and stuff. You can use cheaper rockets and just drop the stuff on the moon so when we DO go back we got some stuff there to wrok with like tools, habitats, generators. Just put the stuff up there piecemeal and when we’ve got enough stuff waiting, go ahead and send some people up there to put it together. You could do it over 5 or 6 years and I think it could be kept to resonable costs (although with Nasa, maybe I’m wrong).
I am definately of the opinion there should always be someone in space, someone on the moon, and someone on mars. 1 outta 3 aint so good. Goddamit will one of you folks figure out how to make it cheaper to get out of earths gravity well!!!
[sarcasm] Let us all just cycle: Home, Work, McCheat’s| Home, Work, McCheat’s| Home, etc. Then we would never have to worry about hard problems. [/sarcasm] ( :rolleyes: )
I don’t want to admit that I’m very, very wrong because I think that I am very, very right!!
(Thanks for the hint on the “sacrasm” symbol, Ser Monster. )
First, chances are (very) good that “The Face” is a geological formation.
Second, you are wise (in my opinion) to think about “too many” probes disappearing or otherwise meeting bad fates. You would be even wiser were you to know that almost everybody who has been sending robot-explorers to Mars have had similar problems.
Finally, I was talking about “within the past couple of decades”, not about archeological-time!
Not at all: Sometimes you just have to provide justification/reasoning. Sometimes in those sometimes, the reasoning is real; other times, its just something you have to do to keep complaints down (or to get funding, etc).
The fact that NASA provided reasoning means nothing, in itself.
My apologies: My last reply was trite, almost silly.
We started serious weapon-making only about 200 years ago, with the cannon. (One cannon ball or one blast of grape-shot, many deaths.) Two hundred years. Science and technology, (all of which is yeilding “weapons grade material” in the form of ideas and abilities), is advancing very quickly.
Sea Sorbust (–me–) had asked “Why is there no Moon Base?”
SPOOFE responded:
I admit that I am not a big fan of a Moon Base. (Mars! We need to go to Mars. “Better sooner than later!”) On the other hand, I suspect that there would be LOTS of mining prospects on the Moon (although asteroids might prove to be a better investiment: no lift-off cost).
You are missing, I suspect, an important aspect of an industrialized civilization: When you run out of materials, it’s way too late to talk about venturing extra-Terrestrial to go exploring for new sources.
You believe that “we’re getting all we need…on Earth”. While that’s true, even the oil guys (and most of the metal guys) say that it’s becomming harder and harder to find new sources. It’s also becomming harder and harder to get/mine those resources.
If we are to “prospect” for resources anywhere in space, now is the time to do it; not when we are getting desperate.
As to what else is on the Moon (or Mars, or Eros, or Toutatis, or Callisto, or . . . ): That is exactly my point. We don’t know! Probes can only tell us so much; and that, not very much! Even modern geophysical explorations (here on Earth) require HUMAN work-crews—and not from a remote distance!
We didn’t do a very good job on the Bio-Dome experiments. Everyone seem to admit that it was more publicity than real-life. On the other hand, we did do Mir and we are doing the ISS. Bio-dome, I think, did live self-contained except for extraneous luxuries (or did they??).
You also wrote:
The first goal in any of this will be to operate self sufficiently. We must aim for that. Even the Moon might be able to produce most-all of real requirements: Working/building materials, water (and, thus, O[sub]2[/sub] ), shelter from most-all asteroids, etc. Mars shouldeasily be able to do that. (Self sufficient asteroids might be a different thing—unless there are enough smallish ice-asteroids to satisfy water/air needs.)
You might be interested to know (Alas! I don’t have the reference.) that almost everyone has had similar “unfortunate” experiences with Mars missions----even those who were not operating under the “better, cheaper, more” philosophy! :o
Also:
In truth: JFK was indeed a lawyer, too. But what’s your point?
My point was that JFK, like Nixon, was a lawyer and did not follow the “path of least resistance” as you say Nixon did. His leadership was the reason we went to the Moon when we did rather than playing it safe, like NASA originally planned. Nixon did what he did (whether you like him or not) for complex social and political reasons, not becuase he followed the path of least resistance. One does not become president by following the path of least resistance. Hech, one doesn’t even become a lawyer that way. In other words, I’m pointing out a logical fallacy on your part.
), shelter from most-all asteroids, etc. Mars should easily be able to do that. (Self sufficient asteroids might be a different thing—unless there are enough smallish ice-asteroids to satisfy water/air needs.)