# Obama cancels Moon project **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 9, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495 "2010-04-09T04:01:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/81 "2010-04-09T22:24:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Wrong. > > [Here is a partial list](http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html) of technology with its roots in space travel development. I looked at the Computer Technology section of your link, and that is really feeble. There are a few simple software packages. The most important item is 3d packaging, and every semiconductor maker is working on this area, and I suspect throwing more money at it than NASA is. I’m not very interested in this, but I have been exposed to it, and NASA has never been mentioned. In fact ICs for space probes, far from pushing the state of the art, are a few generations behind it, because they must use fairly gross design rules to be rad hardened. I worked with people in a government lab fabricating chips for space missions, among other things, and they had to license designs from Intel because the stuff they wanted had been end of lifed years before. It was the kind of stuff sitting in your garage waiting to be recycled. I’ve seen plenty of releases desperately trying to make research money sound like it paid off (and have even written one or two) and that is what this sounds like. This is a terrible reason to spend a lot of money on manned spaceflight. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/82 "2010-04-09T22:27:22Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Why should our sole reason for going to the moon be based on whether and how economically we can strip-mine it? Dude, there are no people to enslave or habitats to destroy. What other reason can there be? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/83 "2010-04-09T22:29:18Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The question isn’t manned spaceflight versus unmanned spaceflight - it is government run manned spaceflight. if the government had controlled aviation in 1903, there would be a two year pause for investigation every time a pilot crashed a plane and was killed. We be flying biplanes at best. Aviation took off 🙂 because lots of individuals and later companies build lots of different planes, and the market and physics decided which designs were successful. And no one tried to cross the Atlantic a few years after the first flight, which is what a Mars flight would be. > > We’ve got so many satellites up because industry builds them. Government will be involved in spaceflight, to support national security needs and some research, but the advances are going to come from the private sector. I"m not an aviation history fan or anything, but I think a lot of the money to drive aviation innovations came from government contracts and war efforts. The government didn’t control the aviation industry, but I think it’s fair to say it pumped huge amounts of cash into it. NASA and the government do still pump huge amounts of money into the aerospace industry, and NASA has these X-Prize type competitions to help stimulate innovation. Private industry alone isn’t going to build a moon base anytime soon. Apparently there is the feeling that if private industry doesn’t do something, it’s because they are wise and it’s not worth doing, which I don’t always agree with. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/84 "2010-04-09T22:30:39Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The real problem is that NASA has forgotten how to build cost effective man rated rockets. I’m not certain that any of the CLV systems used by NASA could properly be considered "cost effective’. There is no way the Redstone and Atlas boosters used for Project Mercury could be man-rated under modern standards even if they were significantly relaxed. The Titan II GLV used for the Gemini program were technically purpose built but were largely similar to operational systems save for the guidance telemetry system and the removal of TVC and retro systems necessary for post-boost RV deployment; further use of the Titan system as a post-_Challenger_ heavy lift booster indicates that while the system was reliable and reasonably scalable it was not cost effective (though given the cost of ULA missions to launch the Delta IV and Atlas V EELVs, it is arguable that it would have been better to stick with incremental improvements to the Titan family). NASA’s only truly purpose build launch systems, the Saturn family and the Space Transportation System (Shuttle) were not cost effective per pound of payload, though it can be argued that had Saturn production continued planned improvements and commonality along with a scale of economy with the Saturn INT and improved Saturn V and Saturn V ELV would have resulted in a substantial decrease in manufacturing costs. Vehicle integration and launch operations costs, however, are relatively fixed and end up being the majority of overrun costs, and don’t benefit much from a scale up of launch volume. (Boeing, which manufactured the massive Saturn S-IC and performed many of the vehicle system integration and system engineering tasks, never charged the government a dime over contract estimates.) The only manned crew launch vehicle I would consider to be even approaching cost effectiveness is the Soyuz rocket family, which benefits from almost five decades of continuous evolution and the cheap labor for processing and launch operations. Despite having relatively poor performance for its size, it is proven to be extremely reliable and apparently relatively inexpensive to manufacture. NASA has never had a vehicle comparable in terms of cost. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Saganist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Saganist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saganist)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/85 "2010-04-09T22:34:24Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > NASA and the government do still pump huge amounts of money into the aerospace industry, and NASA has these X-Prize type competitions to help stimulate innovation. I’d rather someone on your side here point out that the X-prizes are not funded by the government. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/86 "2010-04-09T22:38:07Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > NASA and the government do still pump huge amounts of money into the aerospace industry, and NASA has these X-Prize type competitions to help stimulate innovation. The Ansari X-Prize is offered by [X-PRIZE Foundation](http://www.xprize.org/). NASA has nothing to do with this. NASA has issued the Commerical Orbital Transportation Servies and Commerical Resupply Services contracts to private industry, but these are milestone-based performance contracts, not prizes for demonstrating a complete capability. So far, only Orbital Sciences–an existing commercial launch vehicle with extensive government and military contracts–and SpaceX have completed significant milestones. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/87 "2010-04-09T22:44:25Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I"m not an aviation history fan or anything, but I think a lot of the money to drive aviation innovations came from government contracts and war efforts. The government didn’t control the aviation industry, but I think it’s fair to say it pumped huge amounts of cash into it. > > NASA and the government do still pump huge amounts of money into the aerospace industry, and NASA has these X-Prize type competitions to help stimulate innovation. > > Private industry alone isn’t going to build a moon base anytime soon. Apparently there is the feeling that if private industry doesn’t do something, it’s because they are wise and it’s not worth doing, which I don’t always agree with. Government was a customer for the aircraft industry, and competition did rapidly accelerate the quality of the designs. I’d expect government to be a big customer of private space vehicles also. The trick is to not award contracts to a single company, but to purchase the best of what is out there - and help the business cases of rocket developers by having a bigger market than what is initially feasible with private enterprise only. X prizes are great things - they spur far more development than they pay for. There were similar things in early aviation also - something like an X prize is what Lindberg won. I’d love to see a good reason to go back to the moon. Hardly anyone loves Apollo more than I do. I had a party for Apollo 11, and I saw the Apollo 17 launch. But it makes no sense at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/88 "2010-04-09T22:57:44Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The Ansari X-Prize is offered by [X-PRIZE Foundation](http://www.xprize.org/). NASA has nothing to do with this. NASA has issued the Commerical Orbital Transportation Servies and Commerical Resupply Services contracts to private industry, but these are milestone-based performance contracts, not prizes for demonstrating a complete capability. So far, only Orbital Sciences–an existing commercial launch vehicle with extensive government and military contracts–and SpaceX have completed significant milestones. > > Stranger I said “X-Prize TYPE” competitions. Here’s the wiki on the [Centennial Challenges](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Challenges). Besides past or current challenges some proposals include: > [@](#): > > Very Low Cost Spacecraft Missions > Micro reentry vehicles > Lunar robotic landings > Mars and asteroid microspacecraft missions > Solar sail missions. > Breakthrough Robotic capability competitions > Robotic triathlon. > Telerobotic construction race. > Robotic insects. > Rover survivor. > Antarctic rover traverse. > Revolutionary Technology demonstrations > Lunar resource utilization > Long-term propellant storage > Precision landers > Autonomous drills > Battery breakthrough > In situ life detector > Extreme environment computer > Nanotube based materials > Tether propulsion > Very low cost suborbital launch. And: > [@](#): > > The Centennial Challenges are based on a long history of technology prize contests, including the Longitude prize (won by John Harrison), the Orteig Prize (won by Charles Lindbergh), the Ansari X PRIZE (won by Scaled Composites), and the DARPA Grand Challenge (won by Stanford University in 2005 and Carnegie Mellon University in 2007). A key advantage of prizes over traditional grants is that money is only paid when the goal is achieved. A 1999 National Academy of Engineering committee report [10] recommended that “Congress encourage federal agencies to experiment more extensively with inducement prize contests in science and technology”. A 2003 NASA Space Architect study, assisted by the X PRIZE Foundation, led to the establishment of the Centennial Challenges. The prize contests were named “Centennial” in honor of the 100 years since the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903. One could hardly claim Ansari X PRIZE and NASA have nothing to do with one another. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/89 "2010-04-09T22:58:51Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > What does a moon base have to do with light speed? Fuck all, but I was responding to Bricker’s romantic nonsense about the universe, etc. (as a justification for you all wasting money on a manned mission to Moon in the near term for some romantic sci-fi dreaminess, ironic given his approach to American domestic policy - although in the abstract I often agree with that). Do try to keep things in context, eh mate? > [@](#): > > Whether or not we go to the moon ever again really doesn’t have much to do with plans to populate the universe, which is indeed fantasy. Our plans are not: > > 1. Go to moon. > 2. Go to Mars. > 3. Go to Pegasus Galaxy. > > Does Obama really think we should just hold off on space until #3 magically happens? No bloody clue, but you might invest in some proper low cost exploitation on the most economic efficient basis first. That is clearly robotic. Which can be leveraged up. > [@xtisme](#): > > Why would you need to exceed light speed to populate the universe? Because the cost benefit requires it, and the idea of sending out slow tugs to ‘populate the universe’ given a reasonablly expected mortality rate - drawing attention to the ongoing destructive value of space dust - without some really bloody advanced materials sciences, but even more important bloody well bio-engineered ongoing food and life support mechanisms is pure fantasy. Never mind that whatever Sci Fi fan romantics desire, there is no real chance of this happening within any human time scale (that is, talking about it now is like a classic era Greek whanking on about visiting Greece, pure whankery). > [@](#): > > You’d only need to do so if you wanted to populate the universe in a few thousand years. And this has nothing to do with either exploring our own solar system or with the possibility of going to other solar systems that aren’t thousands of light years away. See above re Greeks. (never mind that planning on a thousand year time scale is pure fantasy and magical thinking given humans can’t bloody properly plan on a ten fucking year plan…) Re exploring the solar system, I was responding to Bricker’s wet-eyed reaction about universe or galaxy or whatever the bloody fuck he said. Exploring the solar system - roboticlay on a cost effective basis until technology renders a “Wright moment” effective - is very sensible for medium term planning. That does not require the Americans pissing away scarce resources on useless, emotion driven projects. And jaysus, you know I can’t give much credit to the American Right here on their critiques of the American Left when the moment something appeals to them they bloody well dump logic and go all Emo… > [@](#): > > Then, of course, there is nothing in physics that says you can’t bend space and time so that, even if you aren’t in fact exceeding the speed of light, your apparent speed can be many times that of light. Right mate, and there is nothing in physics that says I can’t find a way to punch a hole via some undiscovered means into a hypothetical parallel universe and draw power to play magician. However, in any human relevant timespan, it’s fucking fantasy and not a fucking basis for an argument for a current expenditure of resources. Jaysus, this kind of argument is worthy of the general Leftist blithering on about achieving global peace. I can imagine all kinds of wonderful Sci Fi, doesn’t make it plausible or relevant in any relevant time frame. Otherwise, I agree with this: > [@CurtC](#): > > . **The question is - given a limited amount of money, how do you spend it?** Human exploration, or robots? To me, the answer is perfectly clear, but then again, my priority is on the knowledge we get. The romance of having a human in space isn’t important to me. … The deal is, we can send thousands of robot missions for the same budget as a single human mission, and do it decades sooner. … If your goal is knowledge, robotic missions are the clear answer. If you want romance, which I don’t, then go with humans. But be honest about what your goal is in that case. And > [@CutterJohn](#): > > Manned spaceflight is useless, mostly. We need to research better ways of getting off this rock. Until we can get launch costs reduced by an order of magnitude, theres nothing we can really accomplish there. > > … Space is difficult because its so hideously expensive it places a premium on the amount of materials we can use to build vehicles, and we must push the envelope of materials and engineering to get the vehicles as light as possible. > [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > Your analogy breaks down because Kitty Hawk was performed by two guys with rudimentary engineering skills working out of their garage. … And no-one’s “holding off on going into space”. … NASA has even more money for unmanned launches and actual _science_ programs than they ever did. > > **Many sci-fi fans have a mistaken belief that launching as many manned chemical rockets as possible somehow advances technology toward alpha centauri and the U.S.S. Enterprise sooner. It doesn’t. It pushes that dream farther away.** All of the above is spot on. I find it ironic that many of the same posters here that are pretty rigorous on on-earth spending, get all romantic, misty eyed and fuzzy relative to space. Doubtless the weighting to nerds and sci fi fans (and I am a Sci Fi fan), but get bloody serious. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/90 "2010-04-09T23:00:46Z")
There’s an “h” in “wankery/whankery”? Wo knew? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/91 "2010-04-09T23:07:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > And it can’t always be just equipment. It’s got to be people, because man needs to leave this planet and spread out to the universe. Well, that’s the problem. As Jerry Pournelle has said, there is no physical reason why the human race cannot survive another ten billion years – **if** we establish a permanent, self-perpetuating human presence off the Earth’s surface. But nobody is going to go live on the Moon or in an L-5 colony, and no corporation or even government is going to fund such a thing, just for the sake of something as remote and abstract as “racial survival.” If it’s a matter of overcrowding, we’ll fill up Earth’s deserts and Antarctica a whole lot sooner; at least you don’t have to manufacture air to breathe or worry about cosmic radiation. No, before space can be colonized, there has to be some way to make a lot of money or get a lot of strategic advantage out of colonizing space, and **in the short run.** And, so far, no such way is apparent. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/92 "2010-04-09T23:14:34Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Do try to keep things in context, eh mate? Context? You take anyone pro-manned space exploration and paint them with the “sci-fi fan romantic” broad brush and you want context? Here’s some context: go look up the word and leave your hate-on for sci fi fans in some thread that pertains to it. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/93 "2010-04-09T23:35:12Z")
China, dudes. If the Chinese manage to launch a few big, flashy, smashingly successful manned space missions, like (pulling an example at random) a _moon shot_, then American funding of manned space exploration will shoot upward again. This is entirely unrelated to the practicalities of such spending. National pride is an end unto itself. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/94 "2010-04-09T23:40:16Z")
[QUOTE=wmfellows] Because the cost benefit requires it, and the idea of sending out slow tugs to ‘populate the universe’ given a reasonablly expected mortality rate - drawing attention to the ongoing destructive value of space dust - without some really bloody advanced materials sciences, but even more important bloody well bio-engineered ongoing food and life support mechanisms is pure fantasy. [/QUOTE] Please…drop all the Brit bonhomie, and also try and read what I’m actually saying, which is quite different than what you think I’m saying. The question asked you is what in physics makes exploring or colonizing the universe IMPOSSIBLE. I realize that in your rush to try and straw man what I am saying, you didn’t actually read any of it, but could you try and answer the question asked you? > [@](#): > > Never mind that whatever Sci Fi fan romantics desire, there is no real chance of this happening within any human time scale (that is, talking about it now is like a classic era Greek whanking on about visiting Greece, pure whankery). And, again, what in physics makes it impossible, which you seemed to be claiming? Let’s not get into ‘Sci Fi fan romantics’ here, since that’s just a straw man…let’s talk reality. Which part of physics makes it impossible, ehe? Mate? > [@](#): > > See above re Greeks. (never mind that planning on a thousand year time scale is pure fantasy and magical thinking given humans can’t bloody properly plan on a ten fucking year plan…) For comprehension sake, and since you don’t seem to be grasping what I’m saying (I don’t think it’s a comprehension issue, I think you just didn’t bother to read it), I’ll translate into English for you: > [@](#): > > You’d only need to do so if you wanted to populate the universe in a few thousand years. And this has nothing to do with either exploring our own solar system or with the possibility of going to other solar systems that aren’t thousands of light years away. In English, this means that you only need to try and break the light speed limit if you wanted to populate the universe in a couple thousand years. I’m responding here to your assertion that you HAVE to break the light speed limitation if you wanted to to expand into the universe at large in so quick a time scale. Here’s the thing, um, mate…humans have been expanding on this mud ball of ours for 10’s of thousands (really, hundreds of thousands) of years now. So, assuming there is nothing in physics that makes such expansion out of this solar system impossible (the original question you were asked, recall?), then there is no reason we’d HAVE to fill up said universe in only thousands (or 10’s of thousands, or millions…or ever) of years. > [@](#): > > Right mate, and there is nothing in physics that says I can’t find a way to punch a hole via some undiscovered means into a hypothetical parallel universe and draw power to play magician. So, if it’s all magic, then you should presumably be able to state what in physics prevents it, yes? So…why don’t you do so, instead of handwavage about magic and such? Let me help you out here…there ISN’T anything in physics that makes it impossible, and if you were wise, you’d just admit that and say something along the lines of ‘but it’s not practical at this time’. Then I’d agree with you, and point out that this has nothing at all to do with manned. explorations of the moon or Mars or anything else in this solar system. See? Wouldn’t that be easier than all this dancing around you are doing? > [@](#): > > However, in any human relevant timespan, it’s fucking fantasy and not a fucking basis for an argument for a current expenditure of resources. What’s a ‘human relevant timespan’? Is it, 1000 years? 10000 years? 100000 years? What is it…and how are you calculating it? It took humans 10’s of thousands of years to spread out from Africa, after all (not even counting that ‘we’ did it several times), and it took more 10’s of thousands of years for us to spread to every corner of the globe. Is that a ‘human relevant timespan’? Let’s say that a ‘human relevant timespan’ equals the time it took for homo-sapient to spread from Africa at the start and spread to every habitat they currently occupy, just to give us a ball park. Then let’s take a quick look at the progress humanity has made in the last, oh, say 150 years. Where will we be in the next 150 years? In the next 1000? Pure ‘fucking fantasy’? Like the folks who said that going to the moon at all was something along the lines of pure fucking fantasy? As to your other point about the current exploration having nothing to do with any of this, that’s true and false at the same time. It’s not going to get us to Alpha Centari next year, that’s for sure. But it will increase our incremental knowledge of space flight, of the engineering necessary to support human exploration, and also give us real experience in doing so. We didn’t just sit around doing nothing until suddenly discovering how rockets worked and the build Apollo…it was an incremental and slow process of discovery and trial and error, all the way back from the first black powder rockets, through the early testing of different liquid and solid fuels, up to Apollo. If no one ever developed any kind of rocket at all because it wasn’t exactly what was needed (i.e. if the Chinese had said ‘well, this black powder rocket sucks, so let’s not use anything like this until we can get a rocket that’s good enough to go to the moon!’) then we would NEVER have developed the things. Same goes for every other invention the humans use…they all start off as barely functional (or even non-functional) but are incrementally developed over long periods of time until they eventually become MORE functional. In the end, it really doesn’t matter if the US continues with it’s manned flight program or not. Not in the long run. SOMEONE will (or we’ll manage to kill ourselves off, or be killed by any number of natural disasters). The Chinese have a manned program, and if they manage to get to the Moon or to Mars, then it will be they who carries the banner at that point. Or it will be some other country years, decades or centuries down the road who will do it. To me, that will be sad, but I’m pretty confident that those who say that manned flight and exploration are worthless or a waste are completely wrong. I probably won’t live to be vindicated in that, but I’m pretty confident it will happen. -XT ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/95 "2010-04-09T23:47:12Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > They aren’t better than a human by a long shot. They creep along slower than a snail and heaven forbid they hit a rock. They’re astoundingly good at that, but so? But I’d figure that what they lack in speed, they make up for with their ability to persist. (By the way, thanks for the PhysOrg link. That was an interesting read.) > [@levdrakon](#): > > Here’s a [timeline of satellites and space probes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_artificial_satellites_and_space_probes) where you can count the failures and partial successes yourself. When you look at partial successes, ask yourself if a human onboard would have failed. Agreed, but by the same token, how many human lives would have been claimed by the failures? Ultimately, it sounds like we are in agreement that there are legitimate reasons for both manned and unmanned missions - we just differ on where the line is (or, perhaps, should be) drawn. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/96 "2010-04-09T23:48:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > before space can be colonized, there has to be some way to make a lot of money or get a lot of strategic advantage out of colonizing space, and **in the short run.** And, so far, no such way is apparent. An Earth-based launch loop could cost as little as $3 per kilogram of payload. But if we’re mining the Moon, it’s the cost of getting stuff back to Earth that’s the real question. With gravity one sixth of Earth’s, a Lunar launch loop might cost more like $0.50 per kilo. About 100 kilograms of helium-3 is worth about $141 million. So for a $50 launch cost, we’re talking easy money. The only issue is building proper mining facilities and the launch loop on the moon to begin with. But at $3 per kilogram that seems pretty feasible. What’s not feasible is the operating costs of a rocket, where we’re talking something more like thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram of payload. > **[Mining the Moon, by Harrison H. Schmitt, #70012 (2004).](https://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/2004/schmitt/index.htm)** ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/97 "2010-04-09T23:52:11Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > An Earth-based launch loop could cost as little as $3 per kilogram of payload. But if we’re mining the Moon, it’s the cost of getting stuff back to Earth that’s the real question. With gravity one sixth of Earth’s, a Lunar launch loop might cost more like $0.50 per kilo. About 100 kilograms of helium-3 is worth about $141 million. So for a $50 launch cost, we’re talking easy money. > > The only issue is building proper mining facilities and the launch loop on the moon to begin with. But at $3 per kilogram that seems pretty feasible. What’s not feasible is the operating costs of a rocket, where we’re talking something more like thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram of payload. > > [Mining the Moon, by Harrison H. Schmitt, #70012 (2004).](http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/2004/schmitt/index.htm) Mining the Moon? **Why?** Oh, I’m sure there is untapped mineral wealth on the Moon. There is untapped mineral wealth in Antarctica; it remains untapped because nobody has found a way to conduct mining operations profitably in an environment where you have to dig through a mile of ice before you can scratch the dirt, and pay the crew extra-high wages for working there, and ship the ore to market with no roads or railways. But those are trivial problems compared to those of mining the Moon. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/98 "2010-04-10T00:03:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, that’s the problem. As Jerry Pournelle has said… Jerry Pournelle! Jerrry _Fucking_ Pournelle! Slooooowly I turned! Inch by inch, step by step… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/99 "2010-04-10T00:09:24Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Jerry Pournelle! Jerrry _Fucking_ Pournelle! Slooooowly I turned! Inch by inch, step by step… Jerry Pournelle is that rarest of animals, a paleoconservative with a brain. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/100 "2010-04-10T00:16:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Mining the Moon? **Why?** Oh, I’m sure there is untapped mineral wealth on the Moon. There is untapped mineral wealth in Antarctica; it remains untapped because nobody has found a way to conduct mining operations profitably in an environment where you have to dig through a mile of ice before you can scratch the dirt, and pay the crew extra-high wages for working there, and ship the ore to market with no roads or railways. But those are trivial problems compared to those of mining the Moon. Well so, what’s the comparative cost of mining Antarctica versus the value of what can be mined? Presuming a $90 billion project for mining the moon, if you can send back a few tons of helium-3 per year, we’d be making a few billion dollars every year. Adding in other resources, I suspect that the project would have paid itself back within 20 years. More likely, it would pay itself back sooner than that as costs dropped and further operations were opened on the Moon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495.md?page=6)