The race to space that is going on by private industry might help going to the Moon.If there was an orbiting ship that just made the run back and forth in space and the private craft launching into orbit might make it a lot cheaper

Originally posted by Murcielago
Flaws Flaws Flaws

How would it be eisier to build spacecraft on the moon? No atmosphere and 1/6 gravity, THATS IT! We would have to pre manufacture everything on earth and then use a rocket and launch it up there so they can build it and launch it into space, Ummmmmmm hows that eisier?

I'm glad were gonna go back to the moon, but were not gonna build warehouses and everything, you have no idea of how big of an infastructure you would need to do that.

A Russian astronaut has a record of over 2 years in space and he's fine. long as you work out while on board the ISS or the moon you wont loose much bone and muscle loss. Nasa has never had a astronaut in space for over 1 year, just to play it safe (and keep there astronauts from going insane).

Why dont we colonize the moon? Because there is no reason to. Sure, we could do it, but what would be the point? It would be just like colonizing the Sahara desert, but at an exponetially higher price. The bottom line is, there is no money to be made. Even if there were some metal deposits that could be mined, the cost of doing it would make the effort pointless.

But if we were sent to mars for some reason, we would just be pollutiing another planet, besides the amount of money to take all of the world to mars is well crazy.

Ok lets say you get a moon base going and through time a mars base with that level of tech you could easily start mining the asteroid field. I read in another thread yesterday that one asteroid in particular was worth 20 billion dollars surely thats a goal worth going for.

Just a thought.

Originally posted by Munro_DreadGod
I read in another thread yesterday that one asteroid in particular was worth 20 billion dollars surely thats a goal worth going for.

Just a thought.

i like that idea. especially cuz theres a lot of asteroids.

the moon isnt pointless. the sahara is a desert. lots of sand. the moon is rock. lots of other stuff. beyond the scientific aspect, which i believe justify it on their own, the supposed H3 deposits wud be fantastic. if it could be refined there, one shuttle payload wud power the US for 5 years or so, clean.

if we were to live on mars, the last thing wed do is pollute it. a terraformed world would naturally want to return to its original state, so any changes made wud be relatively fragile, copmpared to earth. anyone living there, prob scientists to start with, and mostly wealthyish/intelligent people, wud be highly aware of not polluting. if not, wed make em aware.

whats h3? as in what would we use it for here?

i can definately see some private enterprise backing the moon or mars exploitation, um, i mean colonization... it gives them somewhere to hide once they are done raping and abusing this planet ad the fat cats realise theyve destroyed the clean air and are gasping like fish out the water... then i guess a select million or so can migrate to mars, assuming theyve found more efficent means of transport by then.

Originally posted by el_illumbrato
whats h3? as in what would we use it for here?

i can definately see some private enterprise backing the moon or mars exploitation, um, i mean colonization... it gives them somewhere to hide once they are done raping and abusing this planet ad the fat cats realise theyve destroyed the clean air and are gasping like fish out the water... then i guess a select million or so can migrate to mars, assuming theyve found more efficent means of transport by then.

Im sure that any government on mars/moon would prevent eco disasters. Yes I can see millons of people living on mars/moon it would be all the poor people from thrid world countries looking to escape poverty led by a group of westerns out to make themselvs very rich. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Originally posted by xpert11


Im sure that any government on mars/moon would prevent eco disasters. Yes I can see millons of people living on mars/moon it would be all the poor people from thrid world countries looking to escape poverty led by a group of westerns out to make themselvs very rich. Sounds like a good idea to me.

yes but will they be able to afford a trip out there? I think that the private industry will prob control the means of transportation when space travel does come into its own in terms of been able to ship people to and fro mars regularly and you can bet there'lll be huge quarantines and also a lot of red tape involved with permits and visas etc.

Plus, in the first few years (decades?) of any colony, only qualified specialists and pioneers will prob be allowed to off planet colonies, i.e. people who can actually benefit the colony.

Originally posted by el_illumbrato

Originally posted by xpert11


.

yes but will they be able to afford a trip out there? I think that the private industry will prob control the means of transportation when space travel does come into its own in terms of been able to ship people to and fro mars regularly and you can bet there'lll be huge quarantines and also a lot of red tape involved with permits and visas etc.

Plus, in the first few years (decades?) of any colony, only qualified specialists and pioneers will prob be allowed to off planet colonies, i.e. people who can actually benefit the colony.

I sure there would be systems in place to ensure people could make the trip. No one quite knows what its going to be like so having a degree wont do much good in affect it will be like a gold rush boom or bust.

Problem comes back to:

1. How to move obects "upwards" from gravity well.
2. How to move objects through space.

These are essentially the same problems of acceleration and reduce further to a question of efficiency. Assume 100% efficiency for the sake of the argument, it is simple to calculate how much energy is required to produce an acceleration for a given mass. Fuel has weight. How much available energy in 1kg of, say, plutonium? How much available energy in 1kg og chemical fuel?

Please forgive poor spelling

Oddfellow

H3 or Helium-3 is an isotope of Helium that might be a key ingredient in future fusion reactors. The benefits outweigh all other fusion reactions, due to the very very small amount radiation released compared to D-T(Deuterium-Tritium) and D-D(Deuterium-Deuterium) reactions. The only other process that may be more practical is the Boron-Hydrogen reaction, which also produces very small amounts of radiation.

The moon is calling humanity, it is our stepping stone to the stars! If we were to spend the money we are using on the ISS, instead on the moon we would have an enormous return within a few decades. We could always build Space stations later, especially when you have the biggest space station right next to you... the moon!

Here are a few links that you may be interested in:

www.fireships.com

^This guy is on to something here, could be the next "airplane".

www.focusfusion.org

^Great site talking about the pros and cons of current fusion design; as a practical "hot" fusion, boron-hydrogen seems to be the way to go.



[edit on 17-9-2004 by Sigma]

Interesting, the energy released in the H3 fusion reaction presumably is released as heat.
Mankind's limitations[...on Earth as it is in Heaven... as it were!] is essentialy the limitation of available and controllable energy. Solve that one, then the fun can begin!!

Why not use nuclear power to drive our space craft?
We already have parts of the jigsaw puzzle now we just need more bits to complte the picture.

Originally posted by Murcielago
A Russian astronaut has a record of over 2 years in space and he's fine. long as you work out while on board the ISS or the moon you wont loose much bone and muscle loss. Nasa has never had a astronaut in space for over 1 year, just to play it safe (and keep there astronauts from going insane).

every month you lose roughly 1% of you total bone mass. that's a lot. you can take calcium supplements, but at a certain point they seriously increase the risk of heart failure/attack. It end sup not being a feasible option. Exercise helps, but not nearly enough.
Asthenia (the feeling you get in space from being lonely) is no small problem. It a huge issue we have to contend with, especially on a long journey to mars.

the problem with nuclear power is a few things.
1. people are inherently scared of em, and for relatively good reason. who the hell wants a nuke strapped to their butt?
2a. should something go wrong, the effects on earth would be devestating
2b. should something go wrong in space, not a single thing would be salvageable, although other effects would be minimalized
2c. should something go wrong on or near any planet, the effects would be devestating as well. if were lucky, itll work out. we wouldnt be able to reach it to do much, and the chances of ruining our shots at the planet are high, especially since we'd need a powerful nuke.
3. its dirty
4. its expensive
5. we get there. then what? youve still got a nuke.

i remember reading somewhere here, though, about the navy testing or thinking about doing tests with nuclear power in space w/ NASA. a number of people, including me, were adamently opposed as i recall. i say keep the stone age here. lets save the good stuff for space.

Originally posted by Amorymeltzer

Originally posted by Murcielago



the problem with nuclear power is a few things.
1. people are inherently scared of em, and for relatively good reason. who the hell wants a nuke strapped to their butt?
2a. should something go wrong, the effects on earth would be devestating
2b. should something go wrong in space, not a single thing would be salvageable, although other effects would be minimalized
2c. should something go wrong on or near any planet, the effects would be devestating as well. if were lucky, itll work out. we wouldnt be able to reach it to do much, and the chances of ruining our shots at the planet are high, especially since we'd need a powerful nuke.
3. its dirty
4. its expensive
5. we get there. then what? youve still got a nuke

If anything gose wrong in a spacecraft unless there going to be beyond help it wont matter if the spacecraft is nuclear power or not.
Providing nuclear power is properly maintained the risk of disaster is very low.
The nuke stays in the space craft it is souce of power like petrol in a car you dont remove it. Wouldnt we be living in an artificial atmosphere ? If so the Im sure the artificial atmosphere would be desgined to withstand more then some minor nuclear disaster.

whoa, this thread has gotten aways, since last time I checked in.

SpaceAlienatic88 - I was refering to not launch our nuclear waste at the sun until we dont use rockets anymore, like we would do it in a few hundred years, not like a dozen.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The nuclear spacecraft your refering to is called JIMO (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter).

Nuclear whatever being launched into space is 99.9999% safe, you can't judge it until you know about it, they use a container that can withstand the explosion in case the rocket fails, its not like this is taken lightly, there are several goals and standards and regulations that they have to meet.

Humans would not polute any other place, because by the time living there is more mainstream we wont de driving around in natural resource consuming cars. When we do build moon buildings in a dozen years or so we will use either solar or nuclear, but i bet both, then Mars you can use both of those plus one more, wind turbines, But i'm sure theres other i havn't mentioned like H3, but i'm talking about ones that exists today.


[edit on 18-9-2004 by Murcielago]

Amorymeltzer
i'd always heard our clock was 25 hours, reset each day by the light. i remember this was especially advantagous for mars since their day is closer to that length than earth is.

thats just stupid, everyone knows theres 24 hours in a day, as for mars its 24 hrs 39 mins.

And when we launch nuclear spacecrafts into space they make sure everything is 100% secured, they know the after effect if something isn't done right. I'm totaly fine with nuclear spacecraft being launched to space. (But with that said I should also say that I live in a non nuclear state)

if we can harness efficent rail gun technology then we could gather up every piece of waste on the earth and shoot it out of our galaxy. lol wasnt that an episode of futurama? either way i think it is a practical solution to the growing problem of waste in our world. as for the moon it will definatly be colonized sooner or later in our future. go check out the latest popular mechianics they have a report on the benifits of harvesting helium-3 a very valuable isotope. 1 ounce is worth something like 50000$ too bad the bush nazi administration is wasting all of our money on killing iraqis. instead of something so fundamentaly benifical to the human race arrrggghhh!!!!