Should we go back to the moon?

[Guest LahaskaFlyer]

well one thing we can all agree on, moon travel or ocean depths lets hope the government keeps on spending lots of money.

[Guest Charlie]

Ok, now I'm a little confused. In your post above you said:"All the blueprints, rigs, computer data, everything was DESTROYED on orders from on high (like white house high) to prevent the project from ever being reactivated".Now it seems you're backing away from "white house" with "Whether that decision was made at NASA level or government level doesn't matter, it was political".With all due respect, sir, I do not believe you have first hand factual knowledge on this subject. You and some guy on a forum called Apollohoax saying it doesn

[Guest Shalomar]

Donny AKA ShalomarFly 2 ROCKS!!!My idea about geothermal energy would not necessarilly require underwater rigs. We already go miles down and get oil at over a hundree degrees out from dry land. Go further, drop and circulate water thru pipes and get steam back up. Or, there is always the promising technology of fuel cells.The minerals from the ocean floor will run out- you are right. We do have a long way to go on recycling. But by the time they do run out, technology will exist to facilitate an elevator- Boeing was playing with advanced carbon technology in the JSF compeititiin- or rockets will be a lot cheaper.Perhaps I am thinking even more long term than you.Part of any long term plan involves the right moment to swing from planning to action, and realisically attainable goals. One of those factors in realism is what the taxpayers are willing to finance and sacrifice- period. The government did not directly finance the growth of comercial aviation. Yes, carrying mail could be considered a "hidden subsidy", but comercial air travel was almost exclusively built by companies hoping to make a profit. Major advances in design were often the result of expertise gotten while working on military contracts, but the major expenses of running an airline (other than ATC) have been borne by the airlines. Why should space travel be any different? The government has no gain from sending anyone out of orbit, if we ever want to spy on E.T. we can send a probe. The government interest is surveilance satelites and their maintenance, and remember the original goal of the shuttle was to make it cheaper for launches mainly by earning a profit from civilian launches.Wakeup call: Had the scientific community been at the wheel, we would never have sent men to the moon in the first place. There would have been a heck of a lot more Rangers, Voyagers and things like Hubble. And cheap ways to get men to orbit to service things like Hubble.There are three views toward space travel that I known of:The Star Trek theory- Space travel is so exhorbitantly expensive that only governments and major companies can participate. Preferably the whole world collaborates on it.The Skunk Works aproach- Space travel is so expensive BECAUSE of big governments and buearacracy. Get some smart people together, say you have X much $ to do XYZ and get it done.The Shalomar theory: Major government research provides the data, innovative companies run with it. We are at the point where a guy with smarts and some cash can build a plane in his garage and fly it across the Atlantic. The most creative AND practical aproaches to space travel these days aren't coming from NASA- but NASA is starting to listen and collaborate.Isn't it premature to think of a possible evacuation of the planet when the most powerful nation in the world can't guarantee the ability of all people to leave an area of regional disater? And who decides who gets to ride the few ships we can muster if it does come to that?The colonization of space brings in some powerful social questions. Had a Pilgrim decided to leave the colony to try life on his own, all had the option. Where do the ideas about freedom and pursuit of happiness go when an individual in a group forced to be together for years at a time and leave behind many they care about can endanger the whole group by putting his own interests first?I don't question the EVENTUAL colonisation of space- just the timing and Government financing of it.Hey, I got the first flames in a topic I started!Best Regards, Donny:-wave

[Guest]

I'm thinking even longer term than you..."The minerals from the ocean floor will run out- you are right. We do have a long way to go on recycling. But by the time they do run out, technology will exist to facilitate an elevator"And there's the problem. Once the mineral resources run out it doesn't matter whether the technology exists, the resources to build the thing won't be available.They'll have been be eaten up by wars being fought over the control of those resources and even if not won't be there in the first place because they've run out.I agree with your theories about space travel but I think governments have a role here.NASA (the chief agent of the US government in this) can create technology and provide infrastructure for others to use to run with it and make it profitable.Look at the Delta and Atlas series boosters. These were originally created for the space program (and in case of Atlas as a military rocket, later adapted for the space program) and are now a commercial success.I envision the same thing for permanent space settlements and factories.Let NASA create the basic idea and build a prototype, than go to industry and let them run with it.I'm not sure how much money NASA needed to launch Friendship 7 to a suborbital hop, but I do know it was a lot more than what Burt Rutan spent on his SpaceShip1 and that one was reusable so he could launch again a few days later.But without the government (through NASA and DARPA among others) spending more money than most any company has at their disposal on research and development of materials and stuff SS1 would never have existed.And no, it's certainly not premature to start thinking about evacuating the earth (or at least ensuring some part of the race survives its destruction).Those are very longterm plans, that will take centuries if not millenia to come to full fruition.Left to people who wait until the last minute they'll never work. Such a venture isn't like you see in the movies where they decide something needs to be done today, they build it tomorrow, and the third day they launch the mission which is instantly successfull.And I'm not thinking of evacuation anyway. I'm thinking of ensuring the human race is spread far and wide by the time disaster happens so no localised (read, planetary or systemwide) event anywhere can wipe out the entire human race.I'm thinking big, I'm thinking longterm, and I'm indeed thinking of the entire human race and not of any individual carbon-based unit that may make up part of it at any one time.And that's the answer to your last question. This is of necessity a team effort. People who can't work as part of a team are in such an effort detrimental to the continued existence of the team.Either they're given positions in which they can be useful to the team in some way (typically that will be things like scientific research or factory production jobs) or they're disposed of somewhere where they can do no harm.If that sounds harsh, it is but it's the survival of the species we're dealing with here and that requires that the survival of the individual be subjugated to the survival of the group.That's one reason I think western civilisation is on the way out. We've become too much bent on individualism to survive as a group. This is nowhere more apparent in my experience than in the USA where people will happily kill or sue each other over such trivialities as not wanting to turn down the volume on the stereo, where there's no more understanding of and interest in the needs of others.Asia has the future, where cultures have always have far more of a hive mentality. When we reach the stars the travellers will likely speak Japanese or Mandarin Chinese, not English or Russian.

[Guest mattreamy]

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[Guest Shalomar]

Donny AKA ShalomarFly 2 ROCKS!!!The first big uh-oh in our STS came from the solid rockets. Is it possible to simulate in "orbiter" how Challenger would have fared if she had ridden "Energia"? What payload, etc...? No need for main engines, and 3 feet shorter- less speed/stress on reentry.I'll buy it if I can...Best Regards, Donny