What do you think about it?

(I'm going to leave my own views held back for a time)

What are the possibilities around it?

 

Seemed like a waste to me but then I really don't know the reasoning behind it so I guess I shouldn't say anything.

 

It cost us taxpayers something like $79,000,000 to shoot the moon. And if there is water on the moon.... I mean who really cares? Earth is covered 75% water, I don't think we're running out anytime soon. We're in a huge recession, who approves the financing for this stuff, what a joke and a huge waste.

If anything, lets use the moon for our landfill. Launch all them clunkers to the moon.

 

I'm for it. If there's enough water, it could make the moon more useful as a base for further space travel. This is some really long range stuff, and it's done in small steps.

In other news (spending money -- not politics)

- My state just built 2 stadiums, and I'm pretty sure that they're going to go for a 3rd. I like sports, but these things are welfare for billionaires.

- There has been a little reported issue during this financial crisis. Extra legislative sessions to solve budget issues are apparently quite spendy. Legislators have not volunteered to work at reduced rates.

I support 'to the moon' in comparison.

 

I think they want to land on the moon again to possibly build a station on it.

If there's water, there's the possibility of extracting air from it.

The cost of transporting water from here to the moon would astronomical,
and very expensive to boot.

It could also be a jumping off point to other planets, etc.

Also, there could be military applications for having a moon base.

The advantage would be in favor of whoever builds there first.

Would you feel comfortable with a foreign military power there?
79 mil, though it sounds like a lot, is basically a drop in the bucket.

Though water does cover 75% of the earth, only about 2% (I think) is fresh
water, and dwindling down.

We're not trying to find water to supplement what we have here;
we're trying to find water so we can build and sustain people on the moon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bottom line----we're explorers.

 

This study is almost 10 years old, but it gives a good idea of what the cost per pound is to get cargo into orbit: http://www.futron.com/pdf/resource_c...unchCostWP.pdf

Multiply the figures by 8# per gallon and it adds up pretty quick.

 

I got clued into the whole thing the other night listening to Art Bell (who for once was back on AM C2C). The "LATE NIGHT WACK SPIN" on the air molecules ALLEGEDLY detected by the China probe was of course that "SOMEONE" has had a base on the moon all along, and over time traces of air have leaked out sufficiently to be detectable

There was even more bizarre stuff - I frankly didn't believe there was even an impact mission until I verified it at the NASA website considering where I heard it!

The prospect of Lunar air and water sources has been a frequent plot device in many sci-fi books and films over the years. Clarke, Heinlein, and many others postulated it. If true, it would be key to a lunar settlement of some kind since power could be entirely solar-based.

The logical extension though is what do spacecraft use for reaction mass once they are there?

 

That's the whole idea. Break the water apart into H and O and use it for propellant.

Then, when/if fusion becomes viable, use the H as fuel and the O as atmosphere.

The whole key is that it's NOT within Earth's gravity well, thus you no longer have the problem/expense of lifting it out.

Also find it funny about how folks were bellyaching about how it wasn't the "show" that was "promised". "Real" science is anything but flashy. "Boring" often comes to mind.

-blaine

 

I'm all for funding space exploration in general and a return to the moon program in particular.

 

I'm not really sure what to think on this? But I do know that if we mess up the moon and do what we do best is make a mess of things. It could destroy the earth. If we lose the moon our world from a human standpoint is destroyed. Gravitational pull on the oceans and the ripple/tsunami would probably be huge. Their are things going on here that are just beyond my knowledge. Most people dealing with this situation would probably do find like scientist and related people. But once the political people get involved it all goes downhill form their. I need to learn more on this subject and messing with the moon. If the moon is a big chunk of Ice hope we don't crack it from the bombs and drilling if water is to extracted from it. We have accidents all the time here on earth and I know it won't be much better up their. This subject has got me thinking of all the what if's. Talk to you guys later.

 

Post #5 (sierraben) and Post #9 (Clux)......I'll just second the motion(s).

I'm a long-term space hound anyway...(shrug)

 

Use your best Dale Gribble voice from "King of the hill" here.........

" Its a pre-emptive strike on the aliens!!!!!....They've been watching us for years from their moonbase!!...... It wont work!!..I need to stock my bunker with more cigarettes and Mt. Dew!!"

 

I think it may very well have been Carl Sagan who put it that elements are randomly distributed throughout the Cosmos, and therefore any body coalesced from stellar or galactic matter must have a reasonable amount of all of the same "STUFF" if they are formed within the same neighborhood.

That having been postulated, the after effects of low gravity as compared to larger masses may cause some types of matter to escape or dissipate, but frozen (if it were not subjected to sunlight) water ought to acrete on any available surface.

It is the "AFTERAFFECTS" or "ANCILLARY" actions that happen after mass collects that determine what happens to them all.

Some amount of solar energy is enough to make molecules and atoms drift in a "free state" - "HEAT", or the theorems of thermodynamics...

"STUFF CHANGES STATE" (or "CONDITION")

The moon has no atmosphere 'per se' however, 1/6 the gravity of earth, no ozone layer at all, and approaches the sun considerably closer than the tropical regions of earth in it's orbit around the earth - all of which tends to support a conclusion that any water (even if "ICE") that were present on the moon would vaporise from solar ray heating and be carried away into space at various times. Other than the lunar poles and THE GEOLOGIC INTERIOR of the moon, there is little or no place that it would be credible for water to have acreted and remain in any measurable volume.

BECAUSE the moon is in what is called "TIDAL LOCK" with the earth (it always presents the same face to the earth, since it rotates at the same speed as its orbit AROUND the earth) every side of the moon is radiated by the sun at one time or another, and from every concievable angle. It predicates that there can't really be any pockets or craters that have not been subjected to considerable solar heating - UNLESS THEY ARE HOLES OR CRATERS AT THE AXIS (or very near it) OF ROTATION. ~Thus to so remain in shadow...

You have to figure that the earth's atmosphere itself provides a layer that BLUNTS solar radiation. The moon has no such protection (or "INSULATION") so solar radiation is DIRECT and would not be reduced.

ON GEOLOGIC ("Lunologic" ?) ice or water - MASS is the basis of gravity as far as is known. The moon of earth is one sixth the gravity of earth, and yet gravitic pressures within the moon even though less than of earth must cause compression of molecules and therefore heat. How this may effect water retention (and also the formation of molecular structures), or if in fact the temperature gradient per hundred feet of depth beneath the surface of the moon might work is a speculation on anyones part. We just don't know, it has never been confirmed - nor will it be anytime soon.

* We DO NOT KNOW if the moon has a "MOLTEN CORE". It is not proven whether or not the moon has any "LUNO-THERMAL" heat reserves under its surface. How would we have tested for that?

As far as I can tell anyway - now MARS is a completely different situation...

Mars IS far enough from the sun to accumulate some ice - and is thought to have polar ice caps. MARS is also fairly comparable to the mass of the earth, and we DO KNOW that the largest volcano we know of is Mount Olympus on the planet of mars - so there is CONSIDERABLE 'geothermal' core activety within mars. And yet STILL no atmosphere sufficient to support earth-like life...

The EARTH ITSELF is the ANOMALY in all of this! Think about it....

WHY does the earth have any atmosphere at all???????

~ Conditions on Earth are totally different....

I hope this provokes a few thoughts out there. I do NOT intend to pre-empt AM C2C (like I think they are a "Learned Body" ), I had taken a rather more serious outlook on this discussion but feel free to post whatever trips your trigger

* I'm not a scientist - shoot my comments down all that you want to.


~Dutch