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07/31/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
"Global citizenry" will probably start helping out with this one right after every one of them has enough to eat, reasonable shelter, and security of person on a pretty regular basis . . . oh, wait, they'll probably want to wait until they have actual disposable income, too.
It's ridiculous really . . . I have always loved the thrill and romance of space exploration, but there's no way it should be any kind of priority for humanity, or for any individual nation, at this point in history.
It worked nicely in the cold war era as an ideological tool with which the West (with U.S. as spokeseperson and proxy) 'proved' the superior ability of capitalism / individualism to push progress and innovation. Ironically, they did that by creating a gigantic government bureaucracy that they no longer wish to fund . . . and the presumption that actual capitalist enterprises can take over the whole of the task remains unproven.
But today, nobody's even interested in more demonstrations of U.S. supremacy . . . they've seen where the last few demonstrations (in Iraq, Afghanistan, and on Wall Street) have actually gotten them.
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07/31/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Sure there are higher prioritys, food and shelter etc.. But that has always been a problem and always will be, people are people, but space exploration is more. We use science to get there and once we are there we use science to learn more. Only our generation in the history of the world(as far as we know?) walked on another orbiting planet/moon. Never before, and the guys that did it are still alive, you can ask them about it! Pretty cool stuff and is truly an amazing accomplishment. These exploits of man prove drive and the thirst for knowledge, and it is inspiring and we should go, go, go. The problem is we have an expensive, dangerous method of getting in and out of orbit. Space shuttles designed in the 70s. It cost too much money to keep this thing going the way it is. It should be up to the private sector now, creativity and new looks at "how" we are doing space is the answer. I would like to see us all over the solar system and at high speed!! Go, Man Go.
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08/01/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
It's a shame that short sighted people tend to forget that a very large percentage of the high-tech items that we enjoy today are direct outgrowths of the problem solving of NASA.To just name a few: Tang, ziploc bags, solar cells, the advances in robotics, the advances in computers and computer controls, quite a bit of medicine, and serious advances in electronics reduction in size/weight and immunity to radiation, advancements in communications resulting in cell phones and wi-fi.
The nay-sayers will insist that it is too difficult and too expensive. They are the ones afraid of any change, that have no sense of exploration or of the absolute necessity of our expansion to the rest of the solar system simply to ensure the survival of our species.
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08/03/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
The moon is not the target! The collateral products of such endeavors are
what benefits humanity. Integrated Circuits where developed to solve
NASA's problems. Can you imagine your earthy life without them?
Could you convince Congress to support a project with an unknown
outcome? ICs would have taken 20 years more to be at your home, if so.
Dreams are the drivers, inventions are the products, better living is
humanity?s benefit. Don?t you agree? Lets fly to the moon, in our dreams
at least.
Jose Lezama, Mexico
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08/03/09 | Report as spam
There are many wealthy nations
There are many wealthy nations and nations growing in wealth who
could, among them, contribute mightily to a shared exploration of
space.
Europe. Japan, China, India. Brazil. To name a few.
It will take diplomacy to get these folks on board.
Or, alternatively, we could do what they do in the old Allen Steele,
which is create a private corporation capitalized from people around the
world interested in exploiting space for profit.
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08/03/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
My kids won't land on the Moon because there's too much radiation for a 500 day trip to Mars. It doesn't make sense.
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08/03/09 | Report as spam
Don't count on help from overseas.
With the way the population is changing across the world (and not for the better), we will NOT be able to count on other countries for help. Too many of these countries (the European Union, Indonesia, Russia, etc.) are being taken over from within by fanatics that will not allow any technology. These "cancers" from within will destroy the traditions, the knowledge, the very foundation and culture that brought most of our civilization into existence. These "backward-looking" miscreants cannot envision anything constructive and would plunge the world into a permanent "dark age" that would make the "Dark Ages" of European history seem more like the Renaissance. The problem is that there would not be any "dawn" of a new day, ever again.
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08/03/09 | Report as spam
Don't count help from overseas.
With the way the population is changing across the world (and not for the better), we will NOT be able to count on other countries for help. Too many of these countries (the European Union, Indonesia, Russia, etc.) are being taken over from within by fanatics that will not allow any technology. These "cancers" from within will destroy the traditions, the knowledge, the very foundation and culture that brought most of our civilization into existence. These "backward-looking" miscreants cannot envision anything constructive and would plunge the world into a permanent "dark age" that would make the "Dark Ages" of European history seem more like the Renaissance. The problem is that there would not be any "dawn" of a new day, ever again.
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08/03/09 | Report as spam
Short sighted
" NASA administrator, Charles Bolden Jr. has stated in a recent article
that he plans to extend the lifetime of the International Space Station
beyond 2016, the year in which the Bush administration proposed to
abandon it."
The InterNational Space Station doesn't BELONG to the USA, so we
can't just decide to abandon it.
The rocket motors are on the Russian modules, so we couldn't de-orbit
the station if we wanted to.
BTW, you're missing the biggest reason why we'll go back to the
Moon.
Profit.
Mars has nothing but useless sand. But the Moon is covered in
Helium 3, a very useful Fusion power source.
He3 is worth $15,000 per gram here on Earth.
A mining operation at the Moon's South Pole would easily pay for itself
and provide a priceless scientific base of operations.
And if you're worried about going to Mars, a spaceship with a He3
fusion drive, shielded with a meter-thick layer of moondust, would be
able to get you there in three days at 1/10th gravity acceleration.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
finally
Very good article. This is the first time I've ever seen the radiation problem mentioned in the press. The comment about maneuvering to Lagrange points and a first target being a very low gravity object are dead on as well.
Face it, it's going to be boring, plodding slow progress for the remainder of our lives in this department.
To me the exciting area is the the private sector, eg SpaceX launching the first privately designed.built liquid fueled rocket into orbit.
SpaceX is an interesting story in itself.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
My Son at 17
Space exploration is a great endeavor for mankind. My belief is that our children, including my 17 year old, will find a way to overcome all obsticles and continue the slow push into space.
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12
08/04/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Space exploration the the biggest waste of money this government is involved in. Dirty, political, money grubbing game. Make me ill.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Space exploration the biggest waste of money this government is involved in. Dirty, political, money grubbing game. Make me ill.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
Sending people along for the ride is expensive
I'm a big believer in scientific exploration. The men on the moon were
great political gamesmanship. But the Mars Rovers have shown us the
huge advantage of NOT having people on board: much better missions
and much lower costs. I've discussed this with many people in the
business, and it is very hard to find anyone who thinks there is ANY
genuine scientific payoff for adding people to the payload, despite the
huge increase in cost. Cool as all get-out, for sure, but I don't think the
taxpayers are willing to foot the bill to make a few more people into
super-cool heroes.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
NASA
NASA's money comes from the military budget and represent only a fraction of that total budget. Go for Mars! Build a base on the moon.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
Government interference
The problem is that all governments hate the idea of heavy lift vehicles in civilian/private hands because it's easy to either have an accident that causes mass destruction, or deliberate attacks doing the same.
The only reason why there are a few of space tourism companies like Space Adventures, Virgin Galactic, Starchaser, Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace, Rocketplane Limited operating is because their vehicles are mostly gloried rocket planes that aren't much more destructive than an airliner crash. They don't have the power to orbit a vehicle, much less fly to the moon, lagrange, or beyond.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
At its current rate of progress I think China will put men and bases on the moon before the US or any other international group. Do we individually or as a nation want China to claim the best areas or the whole moon before we arrive?
I say get the cost of the moon race back in the publics hand and assist the financing directly with donations from children (like the original moon race), space supporters, even the movie/television industries could donate a percentage of royalties from space movies, etc. But don't let those politicians in Congress reduce the current spending for NASA exploration just because the public helps with the financing to get us back on schedule.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
I am having a hard time seeing that there is anywhere productive to go that makes the risk of flesh and bone worth it. There are no planets anywhere near by that even begin to be habitable. There may be some value in space manufacture but only for a few things that would benefit from the conditions that can only be found in space.
My bet is that technology will get so good at bringing the experience back to us that we won't send flesh and bone. We will live it virtually from here.
And if that one doesn't win, heck, even if it does, my second bet is that "machines" that have become more intelligent than we are, and are more suitable to the environments to be encountered, will be sent out, or will send themselves out, to begin spreading intelligence around the solar system and then beyond.
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19
08/04/09 | Report as spam
uhhhmmm...
I'm kinda bemused here; other space programs, notably China, Russia, and the EU are more proactive than the US...
If its about money, how come the Chinese are still blocked from the 'International' Space Station? (We won't even let the Russians use the American toilet!:])
The Bush Space Plan ? It was fundie funding cuts and for PR's benefit- a return to Spam in a Can.
The main thing that NASA has shown us is that our own Solar System is far more hostile than we thought even 50 years ago (Martian canals, Venusian jungles, etc.)
Even if we discover Earth2, it'll be far more practical to terraform Antarctica or the Gobi- you can catch a bus home from the Gobi- than to ever transport our millions of excess humans offplanet. Migration is not an option, even if we had StarTrek level technology.
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08/04/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Space travel can never be; Einstein proved it with his work. Impossible to exceed the speed of light; there cannot be a "warp speed". Star Trek and it's ilk is nothing but a fantasy. Even at near light speed, the closest star would take more than 6 years to reach. To find what? Nothing more than exists in this planetary system? Where the most amenable planet, Mars, makes the Antarctic in dead winter look like Bermuda? Earth is our Island Home, a fragile, tiny lifeboat in an infinite ocean of desolation. Nothing we can find in the universe would be more wonderful than what we already have. We need to treasure and care for it, heal its wounds and our own. We should do this before wasting our energy, time and treasure on fantasies that cannot come to fruition.
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08/05/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Yeah - Right!
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke's first law
English physicist & science fiction author (1917 - )
I can remember sitting at my desk in grade school with a copy of the "Weekly Reader" (remember that?), reading about the upcoming attempt to break the sound barrier. There were a number of opinions from learned men printed there. Some held that it was impossible and a waste of money.
Don't worry about the tech side - if theres a buck in it, it will be solved or sidestepped. Worry about staying on Earth. All humanities eggs are in one small, fragile basket. This particular basket has a long and violent history of killing most of it's life.
Read up on it, Earth has seen massive volcano outbreaks, ice sheets at the equator for longer than the human race has existed, disease outbreaks, meteor strikes, etc ad nauseum.
This is NOT a safe place, I don't really think that there are many of those. We can spread the risk by living (as a race) in different places. Other planets, moons, asteroids, stations, etc.
The last super volcano knocked humans to less than 20,000 population, do you think we would fare better? Gaia has here own agenda and humans don't have any special place in it.
If we survive as a race it will be because we as a race made it possible. Hiding in a hole won't get it.
BobJ
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08/08/09 | Report as spam
Great Discussion
I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread, even the nay-sayers. It's good to read threads where people bring good arguments to the table on both sides.
Advocates of a space elevator insist they're close to developing carbon nanomaterials that are strong enough the stresses of running a line to geosynchronous orbit. An extraordinary claim that demands extraordinary proof, but an intriguing one as well.
Now if we can just find an answer to the radiation problem....
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08/10/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Some realism here. I'd suggest you get hold of Wallace Stegner's fine biography of John Wesley Powell. As Stegner makes abundantly clear, the only entity that could ever have gotten the Western US settled was the Federal government. Why? The public did not have the resources to build the sort of monumental water works that allow human settlement in this part of the world. All attempts to build those works using private investment failed, and failed miserably.The absurdist notions of Ronald Reagan and his friends aside, there are certain projects that can only be undertaken by government. Is that a good thing? Here in the West it depends on how you feel about such things as overpopulating deserts, sucking up all the fossil water, and salting over at least a few hundred thousand acres of prime farmland. It's done now, but the point is only the Feds could have event attempted it, that's why capital went, hat in hand, to DC to get it done. Thus has it been forever, right to this day. The people with the money go as far as they can, then they get the mega-machine involved to finish the job.
In short, that's why there won't be any private investment to get us to the moon anytime soon. I can see individual nations, or a consortium of the same doing it. But without all our taxpayer dollars footing the bill, it isn't going to happen. And as the first poster mentions, there may just be more pressing needs at this point.
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08/12/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
I guess it all stopped when the Cold War was over.
However the mankind's spirit was the one of expansion. Since the Earth is all done with it - the only way is up there.
It does not really matter whether it is radiation, or cold or whatever there. We either go there - having the great purpose - reach the stars, or will slowly degrade.
There will always be those needing the shelter and food. Feeding them may be one of the global tasks, but it cannot be the goal of mankind.
It is a typical logical confusion - mixing urgent and important.
Long story short - with the end of Cold War humankind lost one of the great ideals (Communism). Now, with the upcoming crisis and further degradation of international markets, another great idea - Liberal Capitalism seems to be losing its momentum too. There may be an end to a history in Fukuyama's sense.
Unless humankind finds a new idea - we are doomed to slow degradation and decline. Reaching stars may be such an idea.
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08/12/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
While the Cold War was part of the driving force for spacial exploration, Humanity's thirst for knowledge was also a good part of that force. The biggest problem came with the distraction of the Vietnam War, and certain "social programs" that turned our energies inwards rather than outwards. This is also part of the reason that our country has lost the manufacturing and technological edge that not only got us to the Moon, but helped us survive the Cold War, Korea, and World War 2. While those "social programs" are nice for those who need them, too many people have become dependent ON those programs. With that dependency came a laziness that is strangling this country and will continue until those "drones" are once more a productive member of our country. They need a "hand up", NOT a "hand out"!!
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08/13/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Space race is on in the rest of the world. China and India are the ones making new headways into this space. China is targeting to build a space station by 2020 and India is targeting a manned mission to moon around the same timeline.
The endless space around our earth will continue to fascinate us and we as humans will continue to explore wondering what's beyond. The troubling US economy might have slowed down the plans but my dream to retire on Mars in still on the plans 
Also, in recent years, space as developed as a profitable industry. Not space travel, but developing technologies to deploy satellites in space which is another reason advanced developing countries like China and India are investing in this business.
Dating for single professionals
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09/10/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
Why doesn't the moon rotate like every other 'moon' ?
I think it is constructed and is hollow like the Russian Cosmonauts are saying on mainstream Russian TV!!! There is a book worth reading "who built the moon" it may answer some questions not raised here 
Richard C. Hoagland has some interesting info you won't see in mainstream media
http://www.enterprisemission.com/
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09/18/09 | Report as spam
RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
If America landed on the moon, why is the international space station not on the moon?
Radiation and the cost of getting out of a gravity well are keeping us from reaching other planets, and a Presidential commission looking into NASA’s future sees no easy answers.
