Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

why did the staurn rocket program get dropped if it could leave low earth orbit wouldnt it have made sense to try and keep that going?? probably cost again :(

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

did he really?

spoiler: not.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

The big difference between us and other animals, is other animals very much in the main, are adapted the environment.

We take the environment and adapt it to us, so it could be said we have evolved the ability to adapt the environment to us, which is why we are despeciating the planet by evolving it to our needs.

If we take life to the moon and beyond, how will we be ruining these at the present, totally lifeless environments, unless of course you think life itself a pollution?

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Because we went to the moon before we really knew what we were doing. We took huge risks and spent big bucks to beat the russians and it was partly due to dumb luck that we never had a disaster on the moon. Sooner or later we would have.

Once we beat the russians, LEO was seen as an affordable place to learn how to live in space for extended periods of time so that when we did go back to the moon, we could stay there.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Not verbatim no, what he actually said was "I have to say that in 1981, making those decisions, I felt like I was providing enough freedom for 10 years. That is, a move from 64k to 640k felt like something that would last a great deal of time."

From http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Until recently the U.S. and Russia were the only two countries that could put men in space. In the last few years, China has launched their first few manned space flights - and they have lunar ambitions.

I really hope China secretly develops a huge lunar program. Because the reaction from the U.S. would be the same as it was in the 60's - spend huge amounts of money to one-up them!

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

I reckon Steve Jobs will be the first to Mars with his iPhone 5.0 OS :D

Seriously though I hope they do find alternate ways of getting into Space, the elevator does look like a good concept

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

the thing is china are probably the only country out their right now that can afford big space programs and in all likelihood they are creating a massive space program we just dont know about it lunar hell i hope they have ambitions for mars as well :)

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Yeah the big draw is helium 3.

Personally I would like to see the UN do it, but that is just a silly dream.

May I remind you, the true cost is work, money never fed anybody, farmers feed most of us.

All money does is motivates people, the problem is, some people want to make money without doing anything for it.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Not so silly. The international space station is a cooperation between the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, Italy, Germany, France... lots of countries.

American, Russian, European, and Japanese vehicles launch and dock to the space station.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

I like the idea, but it has problems. Like what happens if a plane crashes into it (accidentally or intentionally)?

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

functionality over form perhaps?

I have been rootling around in it for the past 3 days and it is a little treasure trove of unusual delights.

so on this one... +1 for dollyknots aesthetically painful website :D

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Thx :)

The Chinese used to cripple their women by crushing their feet 'coz they thought women with smaller feet looked sexier.

Aesthetics is a minefield, but the sad thing is at the moment, in the main it seems to run human affairs, in as much as - if it looks all right, it is all right, never mind the quality, feel the width.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

It does have lots of problems

like what happens if the tether snaps, its not just the people in / on the elevator that would perish, but how much damage would be caused by the whiplash of the tethers

What if it gets stuck (at the top or half way)

In principle it does seem a logical solution though, once you get your head round the concept that it may actually work

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

you would have to make sure that it has multiple tethers i suppose and that each are constructed out of an extremely durable material to be honest its benefits far outweigh its negatives, also we cannot let terrorists dictate what we do or dont do for that is exactly what they want

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

I hope you realize this proposed elevator would have to be 35,786 km long to work.

Use the rocket fuel on the moon to open the door, far simpler.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

no the elevatoe only needs to leave the earths gravitational pull, to some orbital station type thingamybob. then launch from there uses... (does some quick maths using the formulae posted earlier) ...a lot less fuel!

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

It would have to be longer than that because you would need a counter-balance extending farther into space.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Erm 35,786 km is geostationary orbit, perhaps we have a different understanding of Newtonian celestial mechanics, your statement to wit -

" Well, mass cancelled out in the equations. So the mass of the vehicle doesn't matter. However much energy it takes to get to orbit, it will take 90% of that energy to slow back down."

Your understanding of mass seems to differ from mine, in terms of the economics of the equation.

To my limited understanding, the more mass you have, the greater the cost to get it to orbit, sort of dollar * Kg, if part of the mass exists up there already, you need less fuel, to get less fuel up there already.

To understand recursion, first you must understand recursion, lol.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Yes and I agree with myself

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

It's hard to explain without getting into an entire lesson on orbital mechanics.

A satellite experiences two forces, centrifugal and gravitational.

When a satellite is in a circular orbit, these two forces precisely cancel out.

The elevator cable adds another force pulling down, in the same direction as gravity. Without balancing that force, the elevator will fall back to earth.

You have two options for increasing centrifugal force to lift the elevator - either increase altitude or increase angular velocity.

Obviously you can't increase angular velocity or the cable will wrap itself up around the earth.

So you increase altitude.

(this is over-simplified as centrifugal force isn't real, but it illustrates my point)

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

That was a nice explanation. lol @ increasing angular velocity. its V^2, so just a small increase is all we need, no one will notice :D

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

I think the notion of new coastlines from climate change are more intriguing for kids to follow than things like space.

No kidding. I actually heard this guy in the hallways of my school talking to his friend: "Did you hear that when all the ice in Antarctica and Greenland melts, we'll have different shaped coasts? How cool is that!"

I had to go to the bathroom after that...

I'm in High School by the way...

And @ the problems of the Space Elevator, remember, it's from Michio Kaku: Theoretical Physicist

(And a semi-serious comment: ) What about towers that extend into near space like in 3001: The Final Odyssey?

Massive initial and maintenance cost, a target for terrorism, widespread destruction of habitat (both wildlife and/or human). Not to mention the material costs (if we even have enough...)

But oh, so cool.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

are we in the moon yet?

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

nah we visited there a while back but havnt gone back because we lack the technology :) or motive or money or "insert other lame reason here"

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

We haven't gone back, because of who runs human culture.

We most certainly do have the ability.

Since the 2nd world war, the amount of design skills, materials, titanium, steel, precious metals all kinds of stuff and all kinds of motivations to efficiently kill other human beings.

Had have been employed in the task of terraforming the moon, instead of the minor killing sprees we keep indulging in, I have little doubt there would be millions of people living up there by now.

All you have to do, is ask who runs the Media?

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Why do patzers run the planet?

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

true this deserves an internet........here you go 1 internet

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

We aren't adapting the enviroment to our needs. On the contrary, we are destroying the enviroment and making it unsuitable to us.

We should concentrate on mending our ways. Escaping somewhere else is the usual technocratic pipedream out of trouble. Humanity acts so immaturely that we shouldn't even be allowed to step out of our homeplanet until we start acting like a proper grownup civilazation.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

what is the expected outcome of manned moon mission?

-probably near zero.

no way to harvest resources, probability of major discovery can be rounded to nice number: 0%


a bit like I would fetch beer from south pole, wheres the logic?!?

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

Thanks very much, but some say it is not one internet but many and so call it the 'internets'.

So if you know where this one internet is, I will go there and tell them about the rocket fuel on the moon and that it is no longer necessary to expensively lift rocket fuel up out of the earth's gravity well.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

You can make the same argument about a foetus in the womb.

Human beings terraforming the moon and Mars, would be like mother earth, giving birth to life in the universe, using us as the agent.

I'm starting to wonder how old you are and curious as to how many children you have bought
up?

So how does a proper grown up civilisation work then?

Your statement puzzles me somewhat, all the evidence I know, suggests the human race is a very young species, like Crocodiles are over 300 million years old as are sharks, how old do you think the human species is?

Perhaps part of the process of the human race growing up, is for us to put the earth back the way we found it.

As there is going on to be 7 billion of us, how do you propose we achieve this wonderful dream - a mass cull?

There is another route, is it an accident that we have evolved the ability to change the environment to an enormous degree?

Why not use this ability where it does not destroy a biosphere but creates one?

After all, nearly all of the raw materials are up there already, just waiting for us to get to work.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

I'm glad you say probably, it means you accept the fact you could be wrong.

When people say NASA did not go to the moon I say yes it is possible, that the whole thing is a giant fraud - I find this highly improbable but possible.

This begs the question - do you think it probable or possible, that Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969?

For the time being, let us send robots to the moon only, till we have terraformed the moon using our n900's.

But NASA did harvest stuff on the moon, they found water in the moon rock they bought back and assumed it got there by contamination - fools.

40% of moon rock is oxygen, most of the atoms streaming from the Sun in the solar wind, are hydrogen, I would be very surprised if the hydrogen streaming from the Sun, didn't sometimes interact with the oxygen in moon rock and create water.

If there is water on the moon there is potential beer on the moon, the idea of going to the south pole for a pint is far less attractive than going to the moon for a pint.

Re: The moon is the door to the solar system
 

You could just tell NASA directly. (or maybe you already have!)

I will let you in on a little secret.....

(i work in mission control)