Marching to MARS!

[quade 3]

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>Hum...and nuclear fusion will give us hot robot chicks right?
Yep. And they will, quite literally, be hot.

Unless Fleischmann and Pons are involved in which case it will be room temperature. There's no risk of pregnancy involved as it will be unreproducible. Of course the downside is it might just lay there doing nothing, in which case it might also be indistinguishable from some women I've known.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 2,463]

>Unless Fleischmann and Pons are involved in which case it will be room temperature.

True. Although helium-3 fusion runs at about 800 million degrees Kelvin. That's not just hot, that's smokin'. She'd really be a shining star.

[SkyDekker 1,150]

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I find it funny that you think that is a lot of money.

I find it disturbing anybody would think that is not a lot of money.

[winsor 187]

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>Hum...and nuclear fusion will give us hot robot chicks right?
Yep. And they will, quite literally, be hot.

Unless Fleischmann and Pons are involved in which case it will be room temperature. There's no risk of pregnancy involved as it will be unreproducible. Of course the downside is it might just lay there doing nothing, in which case it might also be indistinguishable from some women I've known.

"What are you doing, Monsieur? That woman is dead!"

"Mon Dieu! I thought she was an American!"

[quade 3]

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I find it funny that you think that is a lot of money.

I find it disturbing anybody would think that is not a lot of money.

Lakshmi Mittal, a person you've probably never heard of, is the Chairman of ArcelorMittal, a company you've probably never heard of.

Yet, he could have financed this all by himself out of his own money and still be one of the richest people on the planet.

It's a lot of money, but it's not so much a single, rich person would suffer by financing all by himself. This goes back to my Queen Isabella analogy.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[SkyDekker 1,150]

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It's a lot of money

I agree.

[lawrocket 3]

Shah – facetiousness aside…

Apollo 17 came down a little over a month before I was born. In my lifetime I’ll never see anything like Apollo. Visionary. Bold. In fact, I am convinced that today there is simply no way the US could go BACK to the moon before 2030. We don’t have the confluence of events necessary for it. We don’t have the vision.

One of the most disheartening things, in my mind, is that we are losing the knowledge. The continuity. The moon program ENDED 39 years ago. The youthful engineers of that period are now old men. Going back to the moon would require re-learning how to do it because the knowledge base has been evaporating for decades. If you don’t use it you lose it. And we’ve been losing it for some time.

Part of the reason WHY Apollo 18 and 19 were cuts was because the People lost interest. Apollo 11 was a demonstration that we could do it. Apollo 12 and 14 (which did what 13 should have) demonstrated pinpoint landing. Apollo 15 on were lunar geology. Dedicated science missions. The public has no little interest in such things and thus the boosters for Apollo 18 and 19 are static displays now.

There is so much to be learned. Can you imagine what a radio telescope on the far side of the moon could find? Shielded from electromagnetic interference from the earth and a half month in darkness from the sun every month? The technologies are available. The knowledge can be relearned. But the will to do so ain’t there and it’s based upon the cost of $200 billion over a decade – more than the inflation adjusted cost for the Apollo program from inception through 1972.

So we’re always stuck now with unmanned probes because they are cheaper (aka, weigh less) (no need for the weight of life supporting equipment). And we lose something with that. The probes can send back pictures. Can do some analysis and look around a little bit. But can they describe where they are? Can they take a look around and say, “Whoa! What’s that?” Would it spot a lava tube on Olympus Mons and sample it? Bring it back? Find a spring and bring back some Martian water? A probe finds something that is interesting to scientists on earth and it may take over 30 minutes for the communication signal to hit the earth. Then another 30 minutes for the ground controllers to tell it to sample. Over an hour! Versus a man on there able to make the judgment to do things.

There’s a whole universe out there and it’s a shame we are just sitting here.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[lawrocket 3]

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2.5 BILLION DOLLARS (probably more) spent by a nation in dire financial straits....

I find it funny that you think that is a lot of money.

It is a lot of money. It's just a drop in the bucket because the US government borrows more than that every day.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[dks13827 3]

Nasa is part of the system of research in the physical sciences. My daughter does research in the biological sciences, and we all pay for that, as well.

[shah269 0]

So you agree with my other post about how much these new engineers suck?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[lawrocket 3]

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So you agree with my other post about how much these new engineers suck?

Absolutely not. The engineers haven’t had the same type of opportunity to prove themselves with manned space flight in low earth orbit as those in the past. The whole Apollo program – and the unheralded Gemini program before it – was a conglomeration of hundreds of thousands of people who put their hearts and souls into the program. The engineering and technical aspects necessary for the program were monumental. Think of the physics and mathematics needed to figure out the location, velocity and trajectory of a vehicle in space between the earth and the moon. And then the development of the hardware and software to process that information. And the engineering and ergonomics to make the hardware useful to the astronauts and the ground controllers. Then making it smaller, more lightweight and more efficient.

The engineers today have done an admirable job with the unmanned programs – and even with the manned programs. The shuttle and the ISS used these same technologies and worked to master them. No doubt the engineers of today and since have been making constant improvements. (Take the Space Shuttle Main Engines, which had a required thrust. The first engines made 100% of that thrust. The SSME’s were improved at measured out at 104.5% of rated thrust and then could obtain 109% of the rated thrust. That was some great engineering).

The engineering isn’t done with slide rules like in the old days. There is so much more available to use now. Think of what these engineers could do now with the technologies of today AND the knowledge of the old heads to focus and guide. It’s the loss of the latter that I am ruing, as well as the will to achieve the grandiose.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 2,463]

>So you agree with my other post about how much these new engineers suck?

Have you really taken a look at the space shuttle? The Mars rovers? The ISS? Deep Space 1? Deep Space 1 had an ion engine that fired for two years continuously to get the probe to rendezvous with a comet. The Dawn probe is currently at Vesta. It will soon fire up its engines again and move on to Ceres, and then after that perhaps Pallas.

For decades, science fiction has featured spaceships with advanced enough engines that their missions were not tightly constrained by the fuel available, measured to the ounce - they dreamed of spacecraft that could go wherever they wanted to, constrained not by fuel but by "what's interesting." The Dawn spacecraft can do that, and can do it without needing a human to care for its day to day operation.

Right now it's headed to Ceres next. If we wanted to look at a comet instead? Or perhaps do a flyby of Jupiter? Or send it by Phobos? It could do that.

Now _that's_ engineering. Try to do that with 1960's technology.

[PiLFy 0]

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>No wait I thought we found H3 on the moon and that's gazillion dollars an ounce

Yes, it's more common on the moon than on earth, but we don't have a use for it yet. If we ever get nuclear fusion working then it could be a useful fuel though.

Hum...and nuclear fusion will give us hot robot chicks right? I mean that is why we do ANYTHING! To get some epic ass! Be it real or robo loving!

Oh yeah! Cherry 2000! Now that's what I'm talking about!

Well, that took long . You're slowing down, Shah.

[PiLFy 0]

My last post on this, & then I'm out.

Yes, space exploration is really cool stuff. Of course it has merit, & yields benefits that trickle down throughout society. I never said it didn't. We no longer live in caves as Hunter Gatherers. We have fire, now. We even have Prometheus' fire. I think we're pretty comfortable as a species w/the current level of technology. People of my camp feel we could much better spend a percentage of monies from NASA's, the DoD's, & other fed programs. Our country faces very serious fiscal problems that can't be ignored much longer. It's time to refocus that money, & our energies on US. Before it's too late. I don't think backing off the space expenditures for a decade will set us back that far. Dat's all I'm sayin...

BTW, where did you find that Aussie PSA pic you have for your avatar? It's sooo you.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Going back to the moon would require re-learning how to do it because the knowledge base has been evaporating for decades.

You mean they didn't write all that shit down? That was dumb.

[Calvin19 0]

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In my lifetime I’ll never see anything like Apollo. Visionary. Bold. In fact, I am convinced that today there is simply no way the US could go BACK to the moon before 2030. We don’t have the confluence of events necessary for it. We don’t have the vision.

Awesome. 100% agree

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One of the most disheartening things, in my mind, is that we are losing the knowledge. The continuity. The moon program ENDED 39 years ago. The youthful engineers of that period are now old men. Going back to the moon would require re-learning how to do it because the knowledge base has been evaporating for decades. If you don’t use it you lose it. And we’ve been losing it for some time.

I disagree with that, It sounds dangerously close to "they lost the blueprints for the Saturn V" and other truther BS.

The same organizations you say are "forgetting" how to land a man on the moon are the ones that designed the rocket sky crane that is autonomously landing a CAR on MARS.

There has been lots of long term/long distance manned spaceflight experiments done since the early 70s. The scientists and explorers are working with what limiting funding they have.

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Part of the reason WHY Apollo 18 and 19 were cuts was because the People lost interest. Apollo 11 was a demonstration that we could do it. Apollo 12 and 14 (which did what 13 should have) demonstrated pinpoint landing. Apollo 15 on were lunar geology. Dedicated science missions. The public has no little interest in such things and thus the boosters for Apollo 18 and 19 are static displays now.

I think 18's was used for Skylab. , but yeah, the other one is a garden gnome.
***
There is so much to be learned. Can you imagine what a radio telescope on the far side of the moon could find? Shielded from electromagnetic interference from the earth and a half month in darkness from the sun every month? The technologies are available. The knowledge can be relearned. But the will to do so ain’t there and it’s based upon the cost of $200 billion over a decade – more than the inflation adjusted cost for the Apollo program from inception through 1972.

So we’re always stuck now with unmanned probes because they are cheaper (aka, weigh less) (no need for the weight of life supporting equipment). And we lose something with that. The probes can send back pictures. Can do some analysis and look around a little bit. But can they describe where they are? Can they take a look around and say, “Whoa! What’s that?” Would it spot a lava tube on Olympus Mons and sample it? Bring it back? Find a spring and bring back some Martian water? A probe finds something that is interesting to scientists on earth and it may take over 30 minutes for the communication signal to hit the earth. Then another 30 minutes for the ground controllers to tell it to sample. Over an hour! Versus a man on there able to make the judgment to do things.

"Our curiosity will force us to go there ourselves, because in the final analysis, only Man can evaluate the Moon in terms understandable to other men."-Grissom

[quade 3]

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"Our curiosity will force us to go there ourselves, because in the final analysis, only Man can evaluate the Moon in terms understandable to other men."-Grissom

"God damn it! Where'd that roll of dimes go? Oh, there it is over by the hatch handle." -- Grissom







(Yes, that was totally unfair and made up.)

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Bertt 0]

If I'm not mistaken, the vertical wind tunnel came about during development of parachutes for space capsules.
I like space exploration.

You don't have to outrun the bear.

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

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oh geeze!

Please don't move this thread to the SC!

DAMN!

[Andy9o8 0]

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Better than the half billion given to Solyndra, or mailing out more food stamps or in the case of New Orleans, handing out debit cards for girlie bars !

Nice selective list. I don't suppose you want to include pouring trillions into Iraq or giving millions in sweetheart deals to Halliburton, do you?



Thought so.

[ShcShc11 0]

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2.5 BILLION DOLLARS (probably more) spent by a nation in dire financial straits....

I like science & space exploration. It's cool stuff. I'd also like to take a year off work, & spend a few thousand per week on whatever I want to. I don't because I know I can't afford it. I'll stop there. This isn't SC.

The worst thing we can do is get ourselves austerity package and not spend any money.

See U.K business confidence when politicians try to implement idiotic austerity measures.

Just my 2 cents.

[winsor 187]

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Going back to the moon would require re-learning how to do it because the knowledge base has been evaporating for decades.

You mean they didn't write all that shit down? That was dumb.

As the twilight of the Space Shuttle approached, the idea was bounced around to simply produce a new round of Saturn V rockets.

Unfortunately, in order to save a few bucks for storage, the drawings had been discarded some years back.

As it stands, the existing versions on static display are the only means of reverse-engineering the system.

In the '60s it was assumed that by, say, 2001 such technologies as the SR-71 and the Apollo program would have been leapfrogged by new and exciting technologies, making the old stuff passe. Bad guess.


BSBD,

Winsor

[winsor 187]

I disagree with that, It sounds dangerously close to "they lost the blueprints for the Saturn V" and other truther BS.

The disposal of the drawings was described as a problem to me by personnel at the Johnson Space Center, but the information was admittedly anecdotal.

Wikapedia indicates that microfilm of the Saturn V drawings is available at the Marshall Space Center, so perhaps the issue as perceived in 2005 was resolved by locating the documents, or it is possible that the NASA employees were misinformed at the time.

If drawings exist, making a new round of Atlas V boosters is probably the most effective way to get meatware back in space.

BSBD,

Winsor

[mnealtx 0]

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If drawings exist, making a new round of Atlas V boosters is probably the most effective way to get meatware back in space.

The upcoming SLS seems to be an acceptable replacement, with the ability to deliver up to 129,000 kg to Low Earth Orbit vs. 119,000 kg for the Saturn V.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Calvin19 0]

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If drawings exist, making a new round of Atlas V boosters is probably the most effective way to get meatware back in space.

The upcoming SLS seems to be an acceptable replacement, with the ability to deliver up to 129,000 kg to Low Earth Orbit vs. 119,000 kg for the Saturn V.

I thought the SLS funding was being redistributed to commercial developments? Just what I heard, I have nothing to back that up.

regardless of the fact that Earth orbit rendezvous will be the backbone of any interplanetary flight, big(er) rockets are needed. The Saturn V is old, even if it is the coolest rocket ever made. Modern integration of that monster might be just as expensive as developing newer awesome. Delta IV Heavy, Falcon Heavy and other proposed heavies would probably also be ideal candidates.