2018 Moon Launch? 104 Billion. Wow!!, page 2


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reply posted on 20-9-2005 @ 11:16 PM by Frosty
For you helium-3 fanatics (as I am sure there may be some), there is helium-3 here on earth found within mantle rock and basalt. Oodles of it in the ocean. It is also attainable through tritium decay.

The question arose because the rocks of ocean islands like Hawaii contain relatively large amounts of helium-3
www.physorg.com...


Tritium is an anthropogenic tracer produced by atmospheric nuclear bomb tests which enters the ocean at the surface. It differs for other anthropogenic gases (e.g., the chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs) in two ways: tritium is not stable, but decays into helium-3 (half-life 12.43 years)
www.met.ed.ac.uk...


Here are some maps of where to find it: www-pord.ucsd.edu...

It is also interesting to note that the ignition temperature of a helium-3 reactor is about 10 times hotter than a conventional fusion reactor, making it harder to fuse. This means it is only a potential power source. The amount of helium-3 underneath the upper layer of regolith has not been determined, so there is no way to know if mining this would be economical at all and to place on top of that the fact a helium-3 reactor may never be built.
en.wikipedia.org...

Other links: www.nature.com...
stommel.tamu.edu...



reply posted on 21-9-2005 @ 10:16 AM by Frosty
Originally posted by Ambient Sound
Originally posted by Realist05
2. Build remotely operated rovers. Sort of "Spirit and Opportunity on steroids."
3. Fly them to the moon and let 4000 researchers explore instead of 4. Don't say it's not as good as a human being there, because with machines we could use multispectral and sensor capabilities beyond the senses of astronauts.
[snip]
These are the things I'd like to know IN MY LIFETIME instead spending money duplicating a feat accomplished 36 years ago for cold war purposes.


Your approach is certainly the most efficent, except we don't just want to know what out there, we (the human race "we") want to go out there and live. Robots can go and look, but can robots design and build? It's not about what's in space, it's about humans eventually living in space. Every attempt we make, every manhour spent in space teaches us something. If "all that out there" is ever to be of any use to us as a species, we have to get out there with it. No, it's not as efficent and probably not even as quick, but for those who dream of space, this way is a lot more meaningful.

I'd go up in the shuttle tomorrow if they would let me.


But why would we want to design and build? There is no point, nothing on the moon. We can launch rockets from here on earth. Probes and rovers cost less to put in orbit and take up less cargo space so more instruments can be sent out.

So say if we have a base on the moon, now what? We have people, probably a half dozen, living on the moon at a cost of billions per year for what?


reply posted on 21-9-2005 @ 10:49 AM by ShadowXIX
Originally posted by Frosty


So say if we have a base on the moon, now what? We have people, probably a half dozen, living on the moon at a cost of billions per year for what?


Well besides He3 which we all know your against for whatever reason. There are many other benefits to a lunar base. A lunar base would have access to the materials and resources of the Moon. Metals can be extracted from the lunar soil. More importantly, significant deposits of water have recently been found on the Moon. NASA's Clementine Lunar Explorer found between 110 million to 1.1 billion tons of water ice at the lunar poles.

Thats water could be used to sustain thousands of people for several centuries without recycling. Or even better that water could be turned into Rocket fuel.

The Moon could then be turned into a "gas station" for future missions to the outer planets. Having fuel and water already up in space could vastly lower the cost of a mission since you have a much lower launch weight when leaving earth.

The Moon would also provide a stable platform on which to build any structures. In space, everything must be done in zero gravity under perilous conditions. On the surface, engineers can dig foundations for added support, and could work in relative safety. Buildings on the surface can also be expanded very easily, allowing room for future growth.

Then there is always the benefits we cant predict yet as we learn more about the moon. We have found out alot about the moon since we landed (water) chances are theres much more we dont know.


reply posted on 21-9-2005 @ 12:33 PM by Frosty
Originally posted by timski
Originally posted by Frosty
So say if we have a base on the moon, now what? We have people, probably a half dozen, living on the moon at a cost of billions per year for what?


Because it is mankind's inherant curiosity to see what's round the next corner...

The cost for any project in a wholly new scientific field has always been expensive...the cost (in today's terms) for Magellan's global circumnavigation fleet would have been similarly vastly expensive to the Portugese...they could have equally said "sail round the world....for what??"

...but they did anyway!



We already know what's on the moon, that is the only problem with this arguement. We can send probes and rovers to discover at a much cheaper cost what men could do.

This isn't even new, we went to the moon 36 years ago.

If Magellan and the Portugese were able to send out unmanned boats at a much cheaper cost they most certainly would have done this.

Setting up a base on the moon is a stationary tactic, not exploritary.


Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Originally posted by Frosty


So say if we have a base on the moon, now what? We have people, probably a half dozen, living on the moon at a cost of billions per year for what?


Well besides He3 which we all know your against for whatever reason. There are many other benefits to a lunar base. A lunar base would have access to the materials and resources of the Moon. Metals can be extracted from the lunar soil. More importantly, significant deposits of water have recently been found on the Moon. NASA's Clementine Lunar Explorer found between 110 million to 1.1 billion tons of water ice at the lunar poles.

Thats water could be used to sustain thousands of people for several centuries without recycling. Or even better that water could be turned into Rocket fuel.

The Moon could then be turned into a "gas station" for future missions to the outer planets. Having fuel and water already up in space could vastly lower the cost of a mission since you have a much lower launch weight when leaving earth.

The Moon would also provide a stable platform on which to build any structures. In space, everything must be done in zero gravity under perilous conditions. On the surface, engineers can dig foundations for added support, and could work in relative safety. Buildings on the surface can also be expanded very easily, allowing room for future growth.

Then there is always the benefits we cant predict yet as we learn more about the moon. We have found out alot about the moon since we landed (water) chances are theres much more we dont know.



I am not against helium-3, I just can't see the fascination with it as there are no current fusion reactors using helium-3! Besides in my above post I made mention that there are oodles of this stuff in our oceans and if we can find an economical process to decay tritium in or out of a fusion reactor we will have the helium-3 we need. But what's the point when there aren't any He-3 reactors? I at least can't find any links saying there are any.

We can use water here on earth and make our own rocket propellants here on earth, we don't need to go to the moon to do this. There are also other forms of space propulsion that could potential put this trillion dollar project out of business such as nuclear, laser, plasma or microwave.



reply posted on 21-9-2005 @ 07:13 PM by jra
I'm all for going back to the Moon. It may cost a lot now and the short term benifits will be minimal, but if we want to start getting out into space and doing more manned space exploration, this is how you start it. It will be rough, basic and cost a lot of money, but the more we do it, the better and cheaper it will become.

I also really hate the "been there done that" attitude. Yes we've been there and we should continue to go there for as long as we can. Start building an infrastructure to allow future projects to develop there. Once their is an infrastructure, i'm sure more corperations would find it easier to set up industries on the moon (and in space in general). One could have all sorts of mining operations going on (and not just for He-3), you could also set up refineries right there as well. One could even eventually have factories on the moon building spaceships or at least spaceship parts. Also, setting up telescopes on the far side of the moon would be great. You'd get a much better picture from there than anything you could get from on Earth or in orbit.

Frosty: You want better rocket engines? Well i'm very sure better engines would be developed sooner and faster, if space travel were to become much more common. Their would be a much higher demand for something better and more efficient. Their isn't an urgent need for something better, yes it would be nice of course, but there just isn't a strong need/demand for it at the moment.

Originally posted by QuietSoul
104 billion dollars.. to drive around on a big rock we've already driven on.. Wow.

What a waste

Meanwhile, back on Planet Reality, people are starving, people are dying to diseases, and every school in the nation is running in the red..


Yes, world peice where everyones happy and everything is fine. It's a nice fantasy and a very unrealistic one. As ShadowXIX implied,(which I think you missed), it would take forever to solve all of the worlds problems.

If you really want try and solve a lot of those problems. Why not take the money from the War budget, use that to feed and shelter the poor and give them a better education so that they can get jobs to support themselves? Why kill an industry and already employs many thousands of people already? (Not just NASA, but all the companies that get contracts through NASA to develop things for NASA).

All the money that is spent on war seems like much more of a waste. It would seem to be much more logical to take from that then from NASA, but that's never going to happen either.
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