Mars Rovers....How about Moon Rovers?

It's a shorter trip. The moon is only 235,000 miles away.
Send 3 there with 12"Meade Telescopes inside a dome on
the rover. Travel to the dark side of the moon and take some
CLEAR astronomy pics!
Any volunteers to live in a dome on the moon?

Problem is there is nothing interesting at the moon. Astronauts have been there and found nothing more than dust and rocks.

The reason we sent rovers to mars is because we still didn't have the technology to send humans and bring them back alive, while the rovers can be left to 'die'.

You may want to read this about the moon:
www.nasa.gov...
Seems that by 2020 we will start building a lunar outpost of some sort. The lunar rovers that are beign developed rigth now will be able to carry astronauts with them. Looks like it will be fun times

[edit on 11-1-2008 by daniel_g]

Any volunteers to live in a dome on the moon?

Yeah ok...i'll do it.....sounds fun.....i just need to be payed $50 million and i'll do anything....."anything....."

There will be telescopes over there eventually anyway but a little commercial rover wouldn't be a bad idea at all. The delay isn't terrible so it could be pretty dumb. Like a souped up RC car with a camera. Maybe just make it stop if it senses any instability so the controller can deal with it. Roam time could be sold and would initially be expensive, but with a healthy investment and funding from advertisements it could become moonrover.google.com (Google: hint hint).

Originally posted by apc
There will be telescopes over there eventually anyway but a little commercial rover wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

Well, the Soviet Lunokhod did all of that a while ago. Similar to Predator UAV, it was piloted remotely by small teams of drivers. What's the big deal? Been there, done that.

One question -- I don't see any immediate advantage of putting a big telescope on the Moon. It's easier to keep it in the Earth's orbit because servicing it would be 1000 times easier. And you can deliver fuel for power, if necessary, using drones.

What's the big deal? How cool would it be to be able to pilot a rover on the moon for a few minutes? Or at least provide destination requests?

An optical telescope yeah but a radio telescope might be handy on the far side. It would be in our shadow so there has to be some useful result, right? Any rovers going to it would have to have some brains but once a human presence is reestablished it'd be a piece of cake.

There is an X-prize challenge for putting a rover on the Moon. link

reply to post by andre18


$50 Million?
How about $3 Million plus your own reality TV Show.
Wait a minute. Could you watch Direct TV on the moon?
Don't forget the big advantage living on the moon. No global warming
on the moon!
When will the first child be born on the moon???

reply to post by jra


Wow!! $30 Million Prize.
If i could team up with a few venture capitalists and make it to
the moon and create Moon Base Alpha 1 for less than $20Million,
that would give me a profit of $10 Million and a Nobel Prize!
Does the technology exist to make this happen?

P.S. Thank you Google!

[edit on 12-1-2008 by Eurisko2012]

There might not be much of an advantage putting an optical telescope on the dark side of the moon, but putting a radio telescope on the dark side would block out noise generated on Earth.

reply to post by mattguy404


How about NO atmosphere to blur the image.
How cold is it on the dark side of the moon?

The rovers might have to run over there take an image
and run back to the sunny side.

Yeah, that's the thinking behind the Hubble Space Telescope - no atmosphere to distort the image. But it would be good to have Moon-based telescopes of both kinds. Any dark side rovers would probably have to use RTGs instead of solar panels to keep their heat/power up.

[edit on 12-1-2008 by mattguy404]

reply to post by mattguy404


RTG? You must work at Nasa.
I think the TG stands for Thermoeletric Generator.
Hmmmmm. R?
How about Radioactive?
Plutonium is warm.
Am i close?
If a team of scientists lived in a big dome, could they
refuel a Hydrogen Fuel Cell on the rovers?
How about my Direct TV question?
Long delay for the signal to get there?
The satellites are 22,300 miles out there already!

No, I just read too much Wikipedia

Wiki entry for RTGs

I'm guessing a fuel cell on the dark side would probably freeze?

Hey guys,

There is no dark side of the moon, only far side. We only see one face of the moon from earth but the moon spins so if you parked a rover on the far side it will get day and night but the earth will always be behind it.

I think we should put a rover there now, with all the gizmos and gadgets, like x-ray telescopes and live transmissions, heck it should get a tv channel dedicated to it, JUST 'COS. No need for any other reason except we should!

Rovers on the moon could be used to prove once and for all that Americans did walk on the moon, drive a car and play golf. Truly the first step in Terran domination of the galaxy.

reply to post by doctormcauley


Domination of the galaxy?
You make us sound like a gang of Klingons.
First things first, lets explore the solar system and mine the
asteriod belt.

Originally posted by Eurisko2012
reply to post by mattguy404

 

How about NO atmosphere to blur the image.
How cold is it on the dark side of the moon?

The rovers might have to run over there take an image
and run back to the sunny side.

Dark side is not dark. Its just the side we can not see. Ill put it this way... if we can see 50% of the moon (half moon), then 50% of the dark side is lighted. If we see nothing of the moon, then 100% of the moon's dark side is lighted.

I think that money put into a Lunar rover can be recouped, with time, by renting it out to amateur pilots, by the minute. I mean, how cool is it, to be able to snap your very own, custom panorama of the Moon and have it framed!

reply to post by buddhasystem


How much would it cost to put a rover on the moon?
Maybe Google would help pay for it.
Microsoft might kick in a few bucks.