[Orin Kerr, December 4, 2006 at 11:22pm] Trackbacks
NASA Shoots For the Moon:
Maybe I'm just too skeptical about our federal government, but I have a feeling that NASA's announcement today of a plan to set up a permanent base on the moon won't go much beyond NASA's announcement today of a plan to set up a permanent base on the moon.

Related Posts (on one page):

  1. Moo with me:
  2. Building a Cheese Factory on the Moon:
  3. NASA Shoots For the Moon:
18 USC 1030 (mail):
Do the Geneva Conventions apply on the moon? I think this is the new location of detainee prisons.

/tin foil hat off
12.5.2006 12:37am
Ilya Somin:
I hope we will be as luck as Orin suggests. More likely, the plan will only be shelved after billions have been spent on pork barrel spending for moon base contractors.
12.5.2006 12:43am
Chumund:
Wasn't a permanent moon base already part of Bush's plan to send people to Mars?

And on Ilya's point--how much have we spent on this plan so far?
12.5.2006 7:39am
Adam K:
Won't someone please think of the sentient supercomputers and libertarian revolution?
12.5.2006 7:41am
PersonFromPorlock:

Won't someone please think of the sentient supercomputers and libertarian revolution?

Not easy things to think about, but I'm willing to try:

Given that anything times zero is still zero and that computers have all the sentience of a table radio, a sentient supercomputer is almost as unlikely as a libertarian revolution.
;^)
12.5.2006 8:16am
pilight (mail) (www):
If they did an environmental impact study of what will happen when they remove that much of our atmosphere, they'd scrap the project in a second.
12.5.2006 8:29am
FantasiaWHT:

Do the Geneva Conventions apply on the moon? I think this is the new location of detainee prisons.


The world's equivalent of Britain's Australia? I'd pay for that.
12.5.2006 8:54am
Anderson (mail) (www):
I think this is the new location of detainee prisons.

Actually, if anything could get them to spend the money ...
12.5.2006 8:59am
lucia (mail) (www):
PersonFromPorlock,
Is that a quote of Heilein? (I can't find it on line.)
12.5.2006 9:02am
Jeek:
Eh, what else should NASA do? Fold its tent and go home? The public is bored with manned missions to LEO - nobody even notices them unless there's a disaster.
12.5.2006 9:20am
Rue Des Quatre Vents (mail):
Maybe there's a monolith up there.
12.5.2006 9:45am
PersonFromPorlock:
lucia,

Nope, pure Porlock. But I did read a lot of Heinlein as a kid.
12.5.2006 11:54am
KeithK (mail):

Eh, what else should NASA do? Fold its tent and go home? The public is bored with manned missions to LEO - nobody even notices them unless there's a disaster.

NASA should give up the idea that manned spaceflight can only be done using the government centric, command and control model. That worked for Apollo but only because there was a national defense rationale for it that maintained public and political interest. NASA should promote private development of space through research and prizes.

I've long since given up on the idea of NASA getting us off this rock.
12.5.2006 12:48pm
Chumund:
NASA should focus on unmanned missions, which may be relatively boring to most people, but they are far cheaper and far more efficient at generating basic science.
12.5.2006 1:20pm
corwin (mail):
Maybe we can get DD Harriman to do this?
12.5.2006 1:51pm
Syd (mail):
Chumund:
Wasn't a permanent moon base already part of Bush's plan to send people to Mars?

This is a followup to his plan, which was more of a mission statement. I think they're doing it too slow. Fourteen years to land another man on the moon when it only took eight years the first time, starting from when there were no people in space at all?
12.5.2006 2:14pm
Aaron:
+1 for Adam K, PFP, Lucia.
+3 for corwin!

(Viva Luna!)
12.5.2006 4:07pm
TM Lutas (mail) (www):
I wouldn't have a problem with NASA's plans for a moon base if it would explicitly open the gates for private participation of both old and new private space flight companies. Virgin Galactic should have no barriers to providing as much of the puzzle as their capable of.

If we built highways the way we built spacecraft, there would be government formulas for cement.
12.5.2006 4:17pm
plunge (mail):
Now that the war in Iraq doesn't look so hot as a legacy for GW, he's probably thinking having something on the moon named after him is not such a bad way to go...
12.5.2006 5:36pm
Jacobus:
HEY!

Why hasn't a private company put somebody on the moon yet? Is it illegal (I can't see how?) or is it just really really reallyreally expensive?
12.5.2006 8:27pm
Jacobus:
Whoop, let me answer my own question, a bit:

TransOrbital of California has become the first private company in the history of spaceflight to gain approval from the US authorities to explore, photograph and land on the Moon.

...

TransOrbital and LunaCorp hope to find the money for their missions by selling pictures and video taken by their spacecraft. One use of their images could be for immersive video games that give players the feel of going to the Moon and back.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2249064.stm

Wow, financing a trip to the moon at $39.95 a pop. It's a wonder their website hasn't been updated since 2004.

Still...you need US government approval to land on the moon? Isn't that kind of arbitrary? Why not ask the Canadians, or the Kenyans, or the Kazakhstanis (whose country their lunar orbit mobile was supposed to be launched from)?
12.5.2006 8:37pm
Enoch:
That is a good question... why do they need NASA and State Department permission?

I do recall reading that NASA vehemently opposed Dennis Tito's trip to the ISS, which really seemed like childish petulance to me.
12.5.2006 11:19pm
Gerry:
Mr. Kerr, you're joking of course. Ok, sorry, NASA is joking of course.

An American gov't institution like NASA simply MUST find a new intiative for a new source of funding. They very well know that their present initiatives, now 20+ years old, are dreck (rather deadly dreck at that).

It's possible to argue that in the whole of human history, the voyages/trecks of discovery have been made mostly by men who discovered nothing, while dying in the attempt. We can honor that, in the very few attempts that we actually know of, successful or not. Or even to discuss the endeavors of lots of dead men/women who launched out on projects that we either then or now know were cockamamie.
A base on our Moon, positing some real chance of long term success there, is probably 50 years out, perhaps more, and only if the basic scientists and engineers pay close attention to detail. Sure, work the problems, but get real. Mars Station is out there perhaps 100 years or more.
The gravity well we live in is our problem to solve, and we are not doing all that well at the solutions. Probably chemical rockets are not going to be much a part of the solution.
Wish our progeny good luck, they'll need it. Gerry Leonard
12.6.2006 2:25am
Robin Burk (mail):
The point of going to the moon -- and the reason the timeline is so long -- is that the mission is longterm habitation there, vs. a quick tourist trip. Not a trivial objective or an easy one to plan and execute.

I disagree with Mr. Leonard about the time required to solve the more pressing engineering issues. 50 years is a bit pessimistic, based on initial studies I've seen. He is correct, however, that there are major technical challenges to be met -- one of the biggest payoffs from such a project is exactly the spinoff technologies that will be created.
12.6.2006 8:26pm
Harold Ellon (mail) (www):
One I'm about to tell you is the truth about a lie protected by truths. And the one person who is albe to put it all together will likely pass(die,of natural causes) before the opportunity presents itself; plausible deniability. All the pieces are there except one, always has, always will from my vantage. Here it is: "We did not go to the moon when we said we did. All the astronauts would be dead, no ticker tape parade, billions of dollars lost, and the lost of face in the international world arena, given the cold war, vietnam, cuban missile crisis, etc,etc, we were in a bad way and needed this. It was not a hoax as much as a world wide public realtions fiasco. I repeat we did not go to the moon in 1969! 20,000 system faults, the right technology wasn't there and wouldn't be availabele to test for about a year. Now, we did go to the moon, eventually...once again, just not when we said we did. The best part of this story is not the fact we didn't go in 69, but what we found when we finally did go and the exact reason why we haven't returned since our technology has jumped in leeps and bounds since that commercially produced day. Or, have we? We now have the ability to make several runs a month to the moon, right now! Just ask your self why the Space Shuttle is being retired in 2010; Here's a clue, most of the technology in the shuttle is switches and pentiometers. The space shuttle replacement already exist, just as the SR-71 replacement already existed at its retirement. And, at the time of the SR-71 retirement, it 'was' the highest, fastest flying air craft we possessed! Was...Same goes for the space shuttle (it wa the 'worlds' best). As a matter of fact, both the newer craft's technology was synonomous. Think this isn't true. Remember that missing piece? Our media, books, TV, film and the like tell us everything we want to know. You just need to pull it out and make the connecction. Our goverment does it, foreign governments do it. It's a starting point and fill in the blank. You already have the technology to seach and retrieve, coerce, intimidate, monitor, and track, that part is easy; knowing where to look and make the connection can get a little dizzying if you never realize it's right in front of you. Careful, don't get to close or it'll put you on the map/grid and can be tracked......Watch a great movie called 3 Days of the Condor...........
12.18.2006 9:59pm