US plans moon settlement before heading on to Mars

[timdog]

The US president, George Bush, will announce plans next week to build a human settlement on the moon, with a view to sending humans to Mars.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spacedocumentary/story/0,2763,1120100,00.html

Interesting.. the moon thing at least. I'm not sure about the manned Mars mission yet though.

[Sammich]

i wonder who would have the balls to go to mars.....

[Parasite]

:::Shrug::: Not sure...but all you have to do is call 1-940-484-2123 (http://www.androidpubs.com/serv01.htm)between the hours of 7 & 11PM Central US time and ask for Mr. Willis. I wonder what is in the complimentary Mars Explorer kit...hehehe...this guy is a trip. :lol:

Upon further review...his ideas on momentum transfer are rather interesting.

[Tsorovan]

I hope it will be Mr. Perma-Smirk Tim Robbins.

[timdog]

Possibly Tom Hanks?

[Sammich]

crap..no illegal drugs..

im out

[Ekstasis]

i wonder who would have the balls to go to mars.....

That would be no problem to find persons who are willing to go to mars.
The queue is long.

[grandpascorpion]

Hopefully, the queue will include Bush himself.

[arora]

i wonder who would have the balls to go to mars.....ill go,i dont got much to look foward to anyways. :|

[OrganicAnagram]

awww *sniff* poor thing........

[Tsorovan]

This would be more suitable in Politics and World Affairs since... yeah well... election year anyone?

[Desciple]

Why do humans spend billions of dollars to explore space? Because we wanna find out if we are alone in the universe or not.

IMO, this is a waiste of money, beacause there are only two options: aliens exist, or they don't. And even IF they exist, there are still two options: They are smarter than us, or they are dumber than us. If they are dumber than us, I don't want to get to know them, and if they are smarter than us, they will find US sooner!! 8)

[Tsorovan]

Desciple: Yeah, but consider the alternatives... where would the money go elsewise, if there were no space programs like this? Yeah, military. Don't let yourself be fooled, that's where it would go. And even then, NASA's budget (and Russia's and China's Space Agency too; the ESA and the Japanese Space Agency have almost no money at all in comparison to spend... and they concentrate more on Earth than outer space) is nothing if you compare with the US National Defense/Military budget. It wouldn't matter shit.

So I say, better to spend money on this (in any case, NASA deals with a lot of development of military applications) than more tactical nukes and other weapons of mass destruction (woo hoo, loaded word!).

In this I am a pragmatist.

I think there should be a full-fledged International Space Agency, but I'm such a commie, I hear.

[Tsorovan]

Oh, and another thing; if they want to pull this off, NASA sure needs to see over their manned space flight tech. A total redesign. Space shuttles have been deemed obsolete, monolithic and unsafe by all the other space agencies for over 10-15 years. Even Russia's tech is safer (they have great safety mechanisms for landing/lift-off). NASA don't know what redundancy systems and safeguard mechanisms are. Not to mention expenditure.

[Desciple]

Eh....it was a joke.

[Tsorovan]

Oh okay. I must confess I merely skimmed your post. My bad. Still, it's good info I suppose.

[Parasite]

I think there should be a full-fledged International Space Agency, but I'm such a commie, I hear.

:lol: Yeah that would work...just look at the United Nations. Not only would this not work, but the United States would end up footing the great majority of the budget. I do respect your utopist visions, Tsorovan, honestly I do; but, international amalgams simply do not work.

I agree with your assessment on where the disappropriated space exploration funds would end up - military accoutrements. However, I would like to see less emphasis on space exploration and more emphasis on researching our own earth, specifically the oceans. Man can send research vehicles over 3.5 billion miles into space and yet man has a difficult time descending to a depth of 3 miles into the ocean? The physical barriers shackling the hands of science relative to deep ocean exploration almost seem to connote some profound mysteries awaiting discovery. I say limit the funding of NASA and divert the monies to beginning NODEA - the National Oceanic and Depth Exploration Administration. And by all means...avoid any Internationalization of such efforts; although, deep ocean sovereignty is an interesting issue.

[Tsorovan]

Yeah that would work...just look at the United Nations. Not only would this not work, but the United States would end up footing the great majority of the budget.Last time I checked, the US doesn't even pay its membership fee in the UN so... I'm not so sure about that. [insert cute emoticon here]

Science shouldn't have anything to do with politics or silly races. Competition may sound good on paper but when scrambling to do something first, quality will suffer. Then again, you're probably right that it wouldn't work, since humans fucking suck altogether.

[Parasite]

Only 25 out of 185 or so countries honor their financial commitments to the United Nations (wow, we are really unique) - I am actually thrilled we choose to place UN funding low on the totem pole...let our arrogant and equally ignorant billionaires do that for us...

[Ekstasis]

Why do humans spend billions of dollars to explore space? Because we wanna find out if we are alone in the universe or not.
)

It's not only about that, we also need this kind of Science.
And that is really necessary to put even more money into space research.
We can not live on this planet forever, if we as human race want to surive in future, we really need to know where to go, and how to do it.

[Parasite]

We can not live on this planet forever, if we as human race want to surive in future, we really need to know where to go, and how to do it.

:retard:

Maybe you will do us a favor and sign up for the Mars mission?

[Ekstasis]

I probably would if I had the knowledge that requires.
Would be a very cool experience.

[Parasite]

I have long had a suspicion that facts do not matter to people in general, but specifically to Americans. People are too blinded by their robotic allegiance to a given political party that they ignore facts. For example, a Zogby Poll asked the same question framed in two different ways with eye-opening results. First, a sampling of Democrats was asked, "Do you support returning man to the moon followed by a manned mission to Mars?" Results: 57% Approval. A second sampling of Democrats was taken and asked, "Do you support George Bush's plan of returning man to the moon followed by a manned mission to Mars?" Results: 33% Approval. I am not singling out Democrats because I think if you found a different issue and asked Republicans in a similar manner the results would be similar. If asked either way then I would have to give my disapproval, George Bush's plan, Hillary Clinton's plan, Barney Fife's plan - I don't care...waste of money.

[grandpascorpion]

Parasite,

If they had a better recent track record, I might say the expense was worth it. But, the near-billion dollar failures are vexing.

P.S. Another way to look at those poll numbers:

The first question doesn't have a specific timeframe.

The 2nd question implies starting immediately. (I'm assuming this poll was taken before the rosy 8.2% quarterly figure came in and thereby when the recession was on everyone's mind.)

Of course, if the Republicans numbers were about equal, my theory is shot. :D

[Parasite]

The timeframe may have a small impact...but 24%?

[Shujin]

Very interesting, Parasite. I think this gives us all the proof we need to start killing people off.

[Tsorovan]

Maybe they just don't agree with Bush's plan (whatever that is)? I mean, the first question is very general. The second one is quite specific.

[Tsorovan]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994576
Great, let's kill the most successful scientific toy/instrument in trying to "understand the universe" so far, just so they can go to the stupid moon where there's nothing more than dust and rocks. Smart. Minus Hubble's first year (malconstructed mirror—idiot fuck-up), it's been more useful in trying to map the universe than any lunar/martian expedition.

[Mark]

Yeah, we just talked about this at school Friday. What a waste. Dissappointing.

"Hubble's planned replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is not due to be launched until 2011 at the earliest."

[Metalman]

I also heard about the Hubble space telescope being discontinued. They should keep that thing running until the new telescope is put into space. Also, they said that they're just going to allow it to deteriorate up there until it is rendered useless. They didn't say anything about bringing it to a crash-landing on Earth. I hope I'm not right by saying that I believe they're just going to leave a hunk of metal up there in space.

[Tsorovan]

That's usually what they do, and it's bad. You would be surprised to know just how crowded it's up there with decommissioned satellites and miscellaneous debris.

[bobsbag]

One thing to keep in mind is that NASA and the Military are both consumers of the High Tech industry
So wether it be weapons or space planes the money is going to the same corporations

The govenment intends on sealing space from the rest of the world
Weapons will be put in space by the US
and high resolution survalience systems as well
I have no proof of this but I think it will happen in the next 50 years or sooner

[Barry Clark]

One thing to keep in mind is that NASA and the Military are both consumers of the High Tech industry
So wether it be weapons or space planes the money is going to the same corporations

The govenment intends on sealing space from the rest of the world
Weapons will be put in space by the US
and high resolution survalience systems as well
I have no proof of this but I think it will happen in the next 50 years or soonerI think this is already underway. Just guessing though. This will likely be accomplished by our sheer ability to get there.

[Parasite]

That's usually what they do, and it's bad. You would be surprised to know just how crowded it's up there with decommissioned satellites and miscellaneous debris.
<Buh-dump-clunk> This statement was a joke, right? Space...crowded? Maybe we should stop calling "up there" space.

[Tsorovan]

No, it's not a joke. Take 2 minutes to check it up. Try searching for "stationary satellite orbit crowded" on google. I'm sure you'll get some hits. Maybe you can even believe some of them? Doubtful. I tried of course. Now, Hubble isn't on the geostationary low earth orbit, but I never said it was.

[Parasite]

:::Shrug::: Dr. Nicholas Johnson of NASA says it [space debris] is under control and William Ailor said, "I don't think anyone would say it is a significant problem". In fact, most of the space debris in LEO is the smallest category (under 1 cm - many times less than a millimeter in diameter: paint chips and such); though their speeds are dangerous, we have had the technology since the 1960's to protect our spaceships from these micrometeoroids.

Anyway, thanks for both the good reading - knowledge on yet another useless topic is nice to have - and the great laugh...space crowded...hehehe...you crack me up sometimes, Tsorovan. :wink:

[Tsorovan]

Control? 8,000-9,000 thingies ranging from paint flakes to satellites... zooming around at 17,000 mph... one tiny screw can tear a hole in a fuselage. Aaaaanyhow, control or no control, you can't just keep on leaving shit there, which was my point.

Now crawl back under your rock, mister pathetic.

[Parasite]

:::Lifts my rock to find the company of a NASA Scientist and some other guy who studies the threat of space debris for a living:::

[Tsorovan]

Correction: 8,600 known objects larger than 10 cm in diameter, around 35 million when going smaller (1998 numbers). http://www.jinjapan.org/trends98/honbun/ntj980630.html

It is a hazard, but it's not a SUPER DUPER hazard, which I never said it was (not yet at least). I said it's getting crowded up there in the GEO, you doubted it. So, mr. smartypants was appalled at being proved wrong and started diverting the attention. Good job again. Now shut the hell up, I was talking to Metalman.

[Parasite]

Hey...thanks for the cutting edge 1998 article on Space Debris, Tsorovan. Perhaps you could supply me with some high-tec 1970's info on Superconductors...hehehehe. Oh...I wonder if NASA could integrate the term super duper into their scientific lexicon. "Gentleman, we need to mitigate against not only problems, or super problems, but what some Swedish residents are calling super duper problems - for instance, some people in Sweden seem to think there are too many rocks on the moon!"

In all candor, six (6) year old articles being used to identify modern-day problems is just hilarious. Space debris is not at all a significant problem. Private companies already have low-cost, highly effective methods of tackling space junk: Space Tethers (http://www.tethers.com/TT.html). Anyway Tsorovan, thanks for the laughs and perhaps you could look into this super duper mode of transportation to carry around your solutions for yesterday's cutting edge problems: Tsorovan's Super Duper Idea Transporter. (http://www.livingpictures.org/imagescountry/amish%20pictures/amishbuggies1.jpg)

[Tsorovan]

Oh no, I used a silly expression like "super duper" for silly/comedic effect and now I'm a retard for it, because I obviously meant it in a totally high-brow and serious way!!!!!!!!1111111oneoneone~~~~ And the caps didn't have anything to do with it either. *LOR* :>

Go watch your precious Frasier or something.