Will / Should we goto the Moon? (Again?)

[Vegeta]

CNN says it is possible that it will happen.. but if it does.. it wont be for another 15 years.

which is total BS.

I guarentee 75% of the American public thinks the US should go on a large scale space mission (Moon, Mars).

And I don't know about you guys but I don't want to wait 15 years for results. The space shuttle is fine for flight IMO... rockets are dangerousand events like the Columbia happen... there would be many more astronnauts if it was guarenteed 100% to work all the time. It would take about a year or so to engineer a new landing craft for the moon with proper funding. I don't know where the US space division gets this idea that it takes 5 years to engineer, 5 years to test, and 5 years to put into production one freaking thing. If they had funding they could probably do it in 6 months.

If we had to suddenly build some sort of "Armageddon"/"Deep Impact" earth saving space shuttle to intercept some asteroid or something to save earth... be damned sure we wouldnt take 15 YEARS to build it... so why take 15 years to do this?

Over-Engineering IMO.

So what will it be?

[i_baked_cookies]

the usa better as hell not go into space... this country is in so big of debt with this worthless war. we defentally dont need to spend several billion dollars to launch another rocket to the moon. whether the reason is research or usa's "im better that you" pride, we shouldnt go into space. the only reason that we should go into space (right now, in this time of debt) is to either make contact with big green aliens or save this desaster of a planet from being completely destroyed by a giant peice of molten iron.

if we do go into space, the people who ultimatly made the decision are outright crazy and merging with that brink of plain old-fasioned stupidity.

[gamarada717]

Yeah...unless we actually do something that shows results, I don't think we should go. And I don't mean finding a new moon rock. I mean something BIG, that will make history, type thing.

[UltimatePaintballer]

i think we should work on all the problems we have down here first, THEN expand

[spazzed]

I say go, easy decision.. It's been what, 20+ years since we were there last? How much more do we know (technologically speaking).. who knows what we could learn.. odds are it wouldn't be historical, atleast not immediately, but you never know

Sorry I got a little astronerd on ya, has always been a hobby of mine

[MayAMonkeyBeYourPinata]

IF we go anywhere in space it better be to Mars where we can actually learn something.

But knowing Bush and his propensity to spend money, and US Pride I think we might end up going

[Bad_Dog]

wait 15 years so I can go!

[RetroEclipseMan]

If it's not going to be for 15 years then I could care less at this point cause I'm sure the economy will be back by that time. You know the only reason Bush is so interested in the moon now is the fact that China has said they're going to the moon. I would think that in 15 years though that they'd be able to put together some kind of manned mission to Mars rather than what a few day trip to the moon?

[Southpaw]

Is N.A.S.A. A civillan entity now I thought it was?

[sneakyhacker420]

we have more technology now and can do more things on the moon than we did in the 60's

i say go for it

[AFRaven]

If we do go to the moon, it would require a new form of transport. I.E. not the Space Shuttle. Which is good. The space shuttles have been around since 1979, and much of the technology on board is from the same era. We have needed a new vehicle to go into space for a very long time, moreover; the Shuttle missions have not been accomplishing much. Going to the Moon or Mars would be a whole new scientific endeavor, and would be much more rewarding with the potential finds. In other words, we should go. Not now perhaps, but soon.

[Sir_Brass]

I was talking about this with a few of my fellow engineering majors (they were AE's, I'm an EE) last night, and the chief question brought up is:

We do not have the technology to haul enough equipment to the moon to build a moon base, and make that trip economically viable. So, why should we go if it is to do more than just say that we went there?

My answer: Necessity will bring about the needed developments. The necessity being exploration. Before we can send a manned expedition to Mars, I think we should build a scientific outpost FIRST on the moon. It, as well as the International Space Station, can be used as launch points for the Mars mission, especially if the craft going to mars was built and only used in space, then the engineering difficulties would be less, because the craft would only have to be effective in one kind of enviroment: cold, hard vacuum.

Also, there's only so much we can find out about what possible riches the moon has for us, by looking at it through a telescope. A moon base would allow us to investigate what there really IS up there. Also, considering it is the moon, we can have much larger scientific facilities than we can on a space station, and thus have a more complete scientific staff with much more effective and wide-ranging labs and facilities.

The possibilities for scientific discovery and technological development are HUGE.

Still, the question of "Why is there a necessity?" Comes up. The answer: the necessity of exploration. If we don't suck in our guts and take that risk, we'll never get far off of this planet and we'll never really explore what's out there. But we have to start exploring one little bit at a time. That means, start with the moon. THEN Mars, then go on from there.


I think we should allow 15 years for the technology to haul large amounts of equipment and building facilities to the moon effectively, as well as to carefully plan out what we will be doing up there, and to train the engineers and scientists who will be doing work up there. After all, they will need to not only focus on becoming specialists in their respective fields as they apply to development in space, but they need astronaut training, and training in how to live for extended periods of time (6 months to a year or two) in heavilly reduced gravity, and still keep in good enough shape to return to Earth in good health.

[Sir_Brass]

Originally posted by UltimatePaintballer
i think we should work on all the problems we have down here first, THEN expand

If that was the mantra of the civilizations of old, then we never would have even FOUND America, and we'd all still be living under the old European monarchy's.

That answer of "We need to fix our problems first" is self defeating, b/c we'll ALWAYS have problems. But it comes to the point where you either expand or take your place in the back row with the rest of the has-beens.

[logamus]

well i fully support space exploration. as far as having the ability to get the required hardware to the moon to build a base or outpost, i think we have that now. if not right this instant we could have it in a relativly short period. the first outpost doesnt have to be the waldorf-astoria, something along the lines of the iss but on the lunar surface would suffice. i realize there is a difference between putting the stuff for the iss in low earth orbit and getting it to the moon, but the hardest part is getting it in space and we can do that now. the manufacturing of space craft in space is well more than 15 years downt the road, but you have to start somewhere. besides without a real presence on the moon how do we know what we can use it for? contrary to vegeta, space travel is not like building a car for the new model year. it does take some amount of time and while i think 15 years is a tad on the long side i think 10 years is doable and reasonable. space travel does inspire national pride, the kind a few of you could use.

[Sir_Brass]

Not exactly. Trust me, I was talking AE majors who are going the astronautical engineering route. They know what the current state of technology is (they have to if they are to get the jobs they want), and we don't have the technology to transport that amount of material to the moon in any economically feasible way. Rockets carry too small of a payload, and a space shuttle doesn't have the capability. We'd need something like a bulk freight moon shuttle, that has it's own rocket engines (not like the guidance rockets the space shuttle has after it's dropped the booster rockets), and extremely large payload bay to carry massive ammounts of materials. This would probably be something that would have to be built in space, as it's size would make it nearly impossible to get off the ground and into space reasonably. The space shuttles could carry up the materials to the ISS and from there transfere the cargo to the Freighter. Then the freighter would make it's trip to the moon.

This would also require the ISS to turn not just into a scientific research station, but a massive solar depot for solar exploration and material transport. The mass of the station would then be as such that it'd have to move farther away from the Earth's gravitational field in order to not decay in orbit extremely rapidly. It'd also need attitude adjuster jets to keep it in a stable orbit as well.

All of this would take AT LEAST 15 years to develop, then even longer to implement. THEN we'd have to design a moon base. I can see this being the work of the current engineers in college and future engineering majors still in high school and middle school. This'll be our undertaking, and not the current AE's, ME's, and EE's of today.