Mars, riches!

You're right Kevin, Cheney does have a mind ray. And it runs on moon-rock fuel.

It will be cheaper to manufacture all the laser beams for the army of sharks we're sending after Iran up there.

They're dead serious. They know that the Earth doesn't have an infinite supply of raw materials, and the stuff that's going to be necessary to fuel the endless economic expansion that is key to sustaining the lifestyle that more of the Earth's residents have become accustomed to has to come from somewhere.

I can envision a future where the Earth's poorer classes are sent out to work camps throughout the solar system, extracting the materials needed to sustain the lifestyles of the elite who get to live the good life back at home.

Does Cheney have some kind of diabolical mind ray that actually makes them believe this stuff?

Yes, and the only reason that more people haven't succumbed to its power so far is that he hasn't been able to secure enough cheap oxygen to run the damned thing.

Kev, Kev, Kev. If we go to Mars, the terrists will follow us! We'll fight 'em out there so we're not fightin' em here! And the terrists can't even get to Mars! They'll suffocate halfway!

No mind ray, but Cheney does have a shot gun:

"Son, we are conserned about that speech you gave last week. We want you to meet VPOTUS at his ranch. Do you have an orange hat?"

This makes as much sense as anything else the Bush administration has come up with.

Going to the Moon is necessary in order to get to Mars. We need Mars because we might be able to mine stuff on asteroids.

Of course we all know that science fiction has taught us that mining asteroids is how you wake up dormant space cretures that will come devour the entire planet. So we must premetively attack the aliens on the asteroids before they attack us! Have you learned nothing from 1938?

Oh, I just thought Bush wanted to go to Mars to harvest all them dilithium crystals he remembers reading about back at Harvard. Or saw on the news back then, or something.

It would make sense to collect mass (iron, silicon, perhaps carbon) among other things from the moon if we plan to build solar light collectors in stationary orbits to beam microwave energy to earth. The idea of solar powered electricity beamed to earth has been discussed at great length at least a quarter of a century ago; the issue has to do with getting stuff up there against the gravity well. The White House discussion you mentioned is a little weird, but there would be uses for that mass provided it is applied to something realistic.

Creating a working industry on the moon that is involved in supplying energy needs would also allow for the extension to planetary exploration; again, this would be contingent on being able to extract and process useful materials from the moon. Still, when you are 5/6 of the way out of the gravity well, the space ships that you build don't have to be quite so leanly constructed.

The oxygen would be for the people who live there.

PS: One young politician raised the idea of building solar power collection stations in earth orbit in a keynote speech to the L5 society back in about 1982 or so. His name was Newt Gingrich. Apparently he went on to a different sort of career over the later decades.

Unless they were in total butt-kissing mode (like Rice), how do you think Bush would treat anyone in his office who was demonstrably smarter than himself?

Bush genuinely hates anyone with more on the ball than he does.

(Moreover, I think it's also why you've got that "yellow elephant" thing going on among neocons in their 20s and 30s. Ordinarily, a stint in the service is gold on a political resume. But for the current crop of neocons, it's a career-killer; the Right is dominated by these old chickenhawks who don't like to be around men ballsier than themselves. These guys aren't so much cowards as responding to cowards.

China just put the fear of God in Bush and he's afraid they'll beat the US to the moon and then to Mars. Bush's ego just wants credit in case 20 years from now we do go to Mars. They're not serious about this nor anything else, it's just PR.

Ummm, John, I hate to break it to you, but the moon isn't outside Earth's orbit. It's that big white sphere you sometimes see in the sky, but that's not important right now.

If M. hadn't chucked 'science and exploration' out from the start, those would be good reasons to go to Mars and beyond. (Whether they'd be good enough to justify the enormous cost is, of course, another matter.)

This is more about gutting NASA's space science programs in order to give mo' money to those aerospace corporations that donate money to the GOP. It's not called "transactional lobbying" for nothing, guys.

Many of us in the Mars mission advocacy community think this logic is nutz as well.

I know going to Mars ("within a reasonable cost envelope") is possible but not by doing things the Oldline Aerospace Community way. It can be done for something ~$100x10^9 (much less than "We the fleeced..." are being charged for Dick & George`s Excellent Iraqi Adventure). Going to Luna (da Moon) can be justified on completely different grounds that have little to do with Mars though there are things we can do at Luna that would make a Mars mission safer & more productive.

Creating fuel for a Mars mission on Luna and carrying it to Mars is absurd and mostly PR. So ignore these pseudo logical arguements.

No mind ray needed, just good old mental mind games focused on need for acceptance & praise (we are primates ya know) by those with smaller than desired male members.

"The only barrier to a successfully sustainable planet is ignorance." - R. Buckminster Fuller

To quote DNC Chair Howard Dean, commenting a few minutes ago on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann about the incompetence and ineptitude that has come to define the Bush Administration: "This is nuts."

I heartily concur. How would these lethal buffoons ever find a way to the moon, when they apparently can't even find their own ass in broad daylight with a mirror and a map?

Russia and China have announced a joint Mars Probe in 2007.

dr. sardonicus sez:

I can envision a future where the Earth's poorer classes are sent out to work camps throughout the solar system, extracting the materials needed to sustain the lifestyles of the elite who get to live the good life back at home.

Bob G: Do you really think that the great expense of putting those collectors up in orbit, especially via the moon, would make up for the slight inconvenience of just building the solar collectors on the earth - like dopey hippies have always wanted to do?

As for the concept of a Mars mission in general: it pains me to say this, given my boyhood interests and affiliations, but we really can't afford an extravagant space program when we are under such challenges in our planet (terrorism/rise of Islamism, environmental change, keeping our population educated and able to compete with foreigners, etc.) The Bush administration and its entire support system (i.e., the Republican House and Senate) must be dismanted ASAP.

"Go up, young man, and grow with the country!"

Having gorged on pulpy science fiction magazines in my youth it's natural for me to want us to go zipping around in space. It's just that I can't think of any good reason to do so. But then I can't think of any good reason to get an iPod, either, so what do I know?

A) The entire administration is on-board with Instapundit's vision of the Singularity, aka Techno-Rapture, the advent of super-intelligence which will result in humans (not all humans -- just some) developing virtually infinite, godlike powers. I think the Amazing Roy has accurately predicted the results (fewer robowhores than expected!) and I'm willing to put down a five-spot in some cyber-OTB to back it up.

B) Marburger is just another incompetent crony and so he's perfectly happy to spout crazy stuff, non-crazy stuff, stuff in Esperanto -- whatever stuff is put in front of him for him to spout.

Take your pick.

And speaking of incompetent cronies (hey, Brownie!) -- how weird is it that another crony* has the horse connection? Are these 13-year-old girls, or what?

*Okay, maybe he's not incompetent but he's sure crooked. Maybe even feloniously so! These guys make Tammany Hall look like the Soddy Daisy, TN, Rotary Club.

Saying you want to go to mars is >10,000 votes in florida.

The best reason I can think of going to the moon is to find a way to collect all the Helium3 that is supposed to have collected in the soil. If we could get a system to collect decent amounts of the stuff and get it back to earth we might have a sustainable economic system at last.

Upon building the reactors on earth, and the infrastructure to collect it off-planet, we could then dedicate our time and energies in new ways of ruining the planet and exterminating the people we disagree with.

This is defiantely a top ten Bush Co.-ism:

'Earth-oriented markets.' as apposed to what, Alpha Centari oriented markets.

They must be salivating at the idea of expanding the "free market" into outer space. Think of all the potential Martian customers for American corporations. But of course first we have to liberate Mars and spread Democracy across the solar system. Don't worry we'll be greeted with flowers and parades. Halliburton is already lined up with the no-bid rebuilding contract.

Neil' >"...but we really can't afford an extravagant space program when we are under such challenges in our planet (terrorism/rise of Islamism, environmental change, keeping our population educated and able to compete with foreigners, etc.)..."

Oh hogwash

Are you suggesting "We the fleeced..." CAN afford Dick & George`s Excellent Middle Eastern Adventure ?

BTW...remember that none of the money actually leaves the planet ever (can you say from one hand to another ?)

Neil' >"...The Bush administration and its entire support system (i.e., the Republican House and Senate) must be dismanted ASAP."

Dismantled or dismissed ?

Either way you & I agree on that

"space is the moral equivalent of war for earth" - myself

http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/moral.html or
http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/james/James_1911_11.html or
http://www.constitution.org/wj/meow.htm

Kevin, by now, every liberal thinker should know to look at every topic raised by a neoconservative through the lens of greed and power. This moon base crap is a cover story for the militarization of outer space. These sick perverts get a hard-on thinking of new ways of killing people. If there ain’t oil there, it’s about military conquest. What did you think? They were going to set up a soup kitchen for the homeless there???

I heard they have already set up a restaurant on the moon. The food is great, but no atmosphere...

Nobody here gets it. It's all military; the High Ground. Any program that goes into space will be pushed if they can hide the military gain somewhere.
I was for Star Wars, NOT because we need it, or because it would work. I don't ever think it would work, but it would drag us into space. We need the science, the skill, and maybe the resources. What I supported was a huge mess that didn't work, but THAT fact was a secret. So we send repair guys that want steaks and movies after hours. Voila! we are in space, whether we like it or not! :)

Now, with the NeoCons in charge, I'm against Star Wars. I don't think their reputation will make the world comfortable with them (THEM, not US!) owning space. It still won't work, but I don't like the driver.

I am in favor or terrafarming Mars. I don't care about "virgin" microbes or other possible life up there. I want bacteria, and lichens and algea that will make oxygen. I want an atmosphere that in a couple hundred years might approach ours at 40,000 feet. Something we can work with.

we're going to the mooon so we can go to mars. We're going to mars so we can use the stuff we make on the moon.

Ok. Mind Ray it is!

daCascadian has got it right. Going to the moon to make fuel for a Mars exploration mission is BS.

And science and exploration (which a crewed mission will do in ways that are simply not possible with robots) is a perfectly legitimate reason to explore Mars and beyond. Economic exploitation will come later.

People have talked for centuries about digging a hole to China. Imagine the prestige gained from doing that!! China could just bundle up all those clothes and athletic shoes and electronics, drop them in the hole, and a couple days later out they plop onto the ground in the good old U.S. of A.!!! I think I'll update my resume' and call the WH personnel office...........

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, I'm embarassed for you (and the rest of the mindless dittoheads who followed him on this one). Geez, to quote Al, CLICK THE LINK.

From the link...

Anything that can be made from Lunar material at costs comparable to Earth manufacture has an enormous overall cost advantage compared with objects lifted from Earth's surface.

There are lots of orbiting satellites around Earth, and it is not impossible for one to have a ton of liquid oxygen (LOX) on board. Most satellites are limited in their life by maneuvering propellant. To get that 1 ton of LOX up there requires 10 tons of LOX just as propellant to claw its way out of the gravity well of Earth, along with the huge 1st and 2nd stage, etc.

For example, the Space Shuttle and tanks, boosters, etc. at launch weigh about 4.5 million LBs. It can carry about 60,000 LBs of payload, and comes home weighing about 200,000 LBs. That's a lot of weight to get 260,000 LBs into orbit.

It would seem to make sense to not throw away a billion+ dollar satellite because it is out of gas. But the cost of shipping more LOX up is fricking insanely expensive. If they can manufacture it on the lunar surface where it is far easier to get it into orbit...duh. Launching is insanely expensive. We are in a very deep gravity well.

Too many eyes are clouded here by Deranged Bush Hatred. Crack a beer and relax.

It's all Clinton's fault.

A candidate yells at a campaign rally and he's crazy.

I'm a stupid hack.

Kevin said...
it's plainly absurd to produce oxygen on the moon for use on earth

AROUND Earth, Kevin. AROUND earth.

...so Marburger is proposing instead that it be produced to lower the cost of fuel for a mission to Mars.

Bzzzzt!

This moon base crap is a cover story for the militarization of outer space. These sick perverts get a hard-on thinking of new ways of killing people.

Of course it is. Haven't you all read the PNAC document "Rebuilding America's Defenses"? Among its findings is that the United States must "control the new 'International Commons' of space and 'cyberspace,' and pave the way for the creation of a new military service--U.S. Space Force--with the mission of space control."

It goes into detail, talking about "the emergence of space as a key theater of war," opining that "the ability to conduct strikes from space appears on the not-too-distant horizon," and that "an America incapable of protecting its
interests or that of its allies in space or the “infosphere” will find it difficult to exert global political leadership."

More: "Given the advantages U.S. armed forces enjoy as a result of this unrestricted use of space, it is shortsighted to expect potential adversaries to refrain from attempting to offset to disable or offset U.S. space capabilities. And with the proliferation of space know-how and related technology around the world, our adversaries will inevitably seek to enjoy many of the same space advantages in the future."

And so on and so forth. A must-read.

Sorry I don't know how to make linkies, but here's the URL:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

As opposed to blindly supporting everything Bush does like a smitten schoolgirl. If Bush supports it, then it is without a doubt a great idea.

It took years of genetic engineering to create someone as stupid as me.

Red State Mike >"...There are lots of orbiting satellites around Earth, and it is not impossible for one to have a ton of liquid oxygen (LOX) on board..."

Bzzzzzt !

Incorrecto !

LOX (liquid oxygen) is NOT used on orbit by satellites for control/station keeping, it is used in the boosters to get those satellites into their orbits

The rest of your perspective about refueling satellites is fairly solid (pun intended)

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence

it's simple: Bush is trying hard to find something both innocuous and grand that can serve as his legacy.

Sorry, Mr. Drum, but I genuinely don't think you're being fair here and the commenters are mystifying me. _Every_ administration's space people have been nutty in this way. It's not a Bush thing and I don't think it's defensible to say it is.

cleek >"...Bush is trying hard to find something both innocuous and grand that can serve as his legacy."

Well he will have that "embassy" in Baghdad, isn`t that enough ?

*sigh* silly me, probably not

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain

As a pro exploration guy, yeah the reasoning being given is nuts. All you have to do is look at the advancements in everyday technology that occured directly because of the space race to see the benefits of a robust and active space program with long-term and difficult goals. Personally I don't see much use for a Mars mission outside of prestige & development of new tech but do see the benefits of a permanent moonbase used as a staging area for industrial mining of asteroids.
Expensive? No doubt about it but we are talking about a long game with the potential for substantial economic windfalls that should make it worthwhile for everyone.

PS: One young politician raised the idea of building solar power collection stations in earth orbit in a keynote speech to the L5 society back in about 1982 or so. His name was Newt Gingrich. Apparently he went on to a different sort of career over the later decades.
Posted by: Bob G on August 30, 2006 at 8:23 PM | PERMALINK

I'm not sure who's idea this was, but back as early as 1975, at a meeting of CSSS at the Chicago Adler Planetarium (CSSS=Chicago Society for Space Settlement - eventually merged with L5 Society) - Dr. Gerard O'Neil gave a talk about lunar bases, mass-drivers, and orbital solar power stations beaming microwave energy back to earth.

1975, bitches.

We space geeks are plenty pissed about the Newt Gingrich thing. Even more pissed that it's 30 years later, and this is still cocktail-napkin talk.

By the way, in 1975, I was 8.

I have not lost my enthusiasm for this kind of thing. Just my patience.

Neil et al: The short answer to your questions is: I don't know exactly. I'm just speculating a bit on direct advantages of having a human presence on the moon. If (and this is a difficult question) there are materials on the moon's surface that can be processed to make steel, aluminum, carbon, oxygen, etc, and if the processing could be done at a practical cost in equipment getting transported to the moon, then it would ultimately more than pay for itself in terms of delivering products to high earth orbit, L5, etc. This of course depends on there being sufficient demand for products delivered to high earth orbit, but the idea of having lots of power more or less continuously in a post-petroleum world is worthy of thought. The cost in reaction mass and energy for getting mass off the moon is way less than from the earth.

And for everyone else: of course we distrust Bush and his cronies; nothing they say is trustworthy, their motives are questionable at best, and their record is obvious. That having been said, the question is engineering and physics to some extent, and there is that huge ball of rock already past the gravity well up there.

Good think Isabella and Ferdinand weren't liberal Democrats.

Has anyone talked of how to make O2 on the moon? Just because the SiO4 silicates have lots of oxygen atoms available doesnt mean that you can extract them easily. The Moon is not exactly a mining company's paradise.

Hey now, if we focus on renewable and clean sources of energy, perhaps we won't have to send millions of slaves into space to the salt mines on distant planets.

If you built a bunch of these, or something like, in the desrt between Barstow and Las Vegas, you could have solar-powered factories churning out PV cells, ribbons, blankets, etc. It would not take that long to use PV power to provide all the air conditioning and much winter heating for America's one and two storey houses.

http://www.konarka.com/products/

The production of oxygen in particular, the major component (by mass) of chemical rocket fuel, is potentially an important Lunar industry.

I'd like to see the plan for verifying that accessible volatiles exist on the moon first; everything I've seen indicates that what little may exist is likely from comet impacts in prepetual shadow.

Kevin - the larger question is why you spend hours a day - every day - obsessing about this stuff. Seriously, the more you whine and complain, the more pathetic YOU become.

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Oops, wrong on the LOX for station keeping. I know there are bi-propellant station keepers, but checking shows they use a non-cryogenic oxidizer.

If they use any fuel or propellant at all it would be to change their orbit, maybe. This type would be a massive high orbit communications platform and use something like Mono-Methyl Hydrazine and Mixed Oxides of Nitrogen, as an example.

The big satellites carry upwards of 1,5000 LBs of propellant for station keeping, which is required as the Sun and Moon tug on the satellites. I know the GOES-N carries 3,500 LBs of propellant, but I think a bunch is for transfer.

I'd like to see the plan for verifying that accessible volatiles exist on the moon first; everything I've seen indicates that what little may exist is likely from comet impacts in prepetual shadow.
Posted by: has407

They aren't counting on volatiles being present.

http://www.asi.org/adb/02/02/03/

"...And of course, the advantage of not acting against the moon would be that no one could say that you acted. They would say, `Isn’t that good? You didn’t do anything against the moon.’ The other side of the coin of not acting against the moon in the event that the moon posed a serious threat would be that you then suffered a serious loss and you’re sorry after that’s over." - Donald Rumsfeld on NPR

So now you see. The moon is an imminent threat to the security of the United States and like we did with Osama in Afghanistan we will attack Mars by convincing the public that it is actually a greater threat to us than the moon! Viva Bush! What a dick...

There's a great story that assumes the real work/energy picture of massive stuff on the moon as a resource, which of course utterly mocks Bush's play-scientist. And we don't want $10/liter O2, either, by the way. But don't worry, technical questions like this will normally be handled jus' like nuclar' power.
The book is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein, 1966. It turns out the moon is way up high, and they could easily throw stuff at us.
Is this a secret military thing, where the bases are built for some other temporary purpose, in a space-shuttlely-expando fashion, or is it high-grade boondoggle?

Too late for legacy building.

GWB's legacy will be the 102599 deaths of people who met their fate for his lies.

The garb forcibly put of the Abu Ghraib prisoners will forever be the symbol of the man's presidency.

Volatiles arriving to the lunar surface via comets wont stay there for long. Who knows how to extract volatiles from material near the lunar surface? It aint like Earth, you know. No lunar banded-iron formations, no bauxites for aluminum ores, no hydrothermal sulfides. What is there of mining potential? I worry that all the lunar resource speculation (the "what if" statements in this comment thread) originated in the early 60s before geologists figured out the big picture how Earth's ore bodies got formed.

Osama_Been_Forgotten >"I'm not sure who's idea this was, but back as early as 1975..."

And the answer is Peter E. Glaser in the late 1960`s

Gerard O'Neil picked up on this, had a lot of graduate students do some research on his ideas in the early 70`s & Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth folks published a book on all this [Space Colonies, Whole Earth Catalog, 1977, ISBN 0-14-004805-7]

(yea, San Francisco "hippies" in love with space colonies... : > )

Late in the 1970`s NASA spent buck$ on detailed studies of the feasibility of actually building solar power satellites (~1GW size as I recall) and couldn`t justify them given the technology of the time & the political atmosphere

There are still studies being done on solar power satellites but not so much the huge ~1GW ones in the NASA study (developing & placing a revenue producing one on orbit would require the investment of about the same amount of cash as bringing a major oil field "on line"); they are doable but a gutsy bet still

Could be done w/o Lunar materials

"There's this peculiar asymmetry in time which is that you can know
everything you want about the past and you can't change a bit of it
and you can know absolutely nothing about the future but what you
do changes everything." - Stewart Brand

No lunar banded-iron formations, no bauxites for aluminum ores, no hydrothermal sulfides. What is there of mining potential? I worry that all the lunar resource speculation (the "what if" statements in this comment thread) originated in the early 60s before geologists figured out the big picture how Earth's ore bodies got formed.
Posted by: troglodyte

We've actually got quite a bit of lunar rock to look at from Apollo. Not sure the total poundage, but it's from a lot of places. We know what's there.

The Artemis site linked to in my reply to has407 covers a lot of the questions.

Red State Mike -- It looks like they're counting on volatiles, just not in a simple-to-access form.

"Marsburger"? Come on, what's his real name?

Let me get this straight. They're going to heat lunar rocks up to 1600 C, suck off the oxygen into a giant still, condense it out and use it to exothermically oxidize silicon slag to heat more lunar rocks?

We can certainly afford a manned Mars mission. We could probably do it for less than $100 billion. Less than the cost of the International Space Station.

And less than a fraction of the cost of any of this administration's military ventures.

Why is space exploration or science considered 'too expensive' when it costs several magnitudes less than a new piece of military hardware or venture?

Wrong pockets get lined?

Jason, facts have a liberal bias.

GOP's greatest hits:

Space-based solar power has two big advantages over Earth-based systems: solar intensity is eight times as strong in space, and a space-based system could deliver a reliable, fixed amount of power to the grid.

Plus, it would allow a really neat death ray like in not one but two different James Bond films. Who says these guys have no ideas?

If Bush supports it, it must be stupid. QED. Can't you see the airtight logic?

We're only going by past evidence. It's not as if this statement takes a great leap of, um, faith, to accept.

If you don't trust the Republican Party with the space program, then a GOP-controlled national health care system must be your worst nightmare.

That's actually a good point. Luckily, there is a solution - don't allow the GOP near the government again. And if you are going to helpfully admit that your tenure has been a non-stop clusterfuck, that becomes much easier to achieve.

If you don't trust the Republican Party with the space program, then a GOP-controlled national health care system must be your worst nightmare.

There are worse nightmares. Contracting HepA with no healthcare at all, for one. Or fighting with your insurance company while undergoing chemo. You might want to try either one, just for kicks, you supercilious ass.

Why are you assuming that the Republican Party will always control the space program, national health care, or anything else? Are you a Diebold preferred-stockholder? Have you already invested in jodphurs and boot polish?

Oh, if we're blaming Presidents for things that they didn't do, then Bush is responsible for all the deaths in Sudan as well as Iraq and 9/ll--so he actually doesn't compare favorably to Clinton.

In other news, I'm a dumbshit.

And if you are going to helpfully admit that your tenure has been a non-stop clusterfuck

...Well, it's impossible to deny.

"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

Not as many as Nixon.

It sucks to be a Republican apologist, too hard to spin anything in our favor.

craigie >"...Plus, it would allow a really neat death ray..."

You, obviously, have no clue about the technology involved

"...it's the ideas that count, not the number of trees you kill to print them." - Phil Carter@Info-dump.com

daCascadian, a little touchy around the lunar bits, no?

Anyone who's read Robert Zubrin knows these guys have no friggin clue what they're talking about

The purpose of the Mars project (which will never happen) is to excuse the ending of the exploration of the solar system by all those expensive robots. Once they are ended, the money will be doled out as tax breaks for the wealthy.

Political Chipmunk >"...a little touchy around the lunar bits, no?"

No idea what you are talking about; care to explain ?

"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." - Ansel Adams

Plus, it would allow a really neat death ray like in not one but two different James Bond films.

They actually plan to use the microwave beam to control crowds in Iraq: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725095.600

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept

I don't know what you are trying to imply about chipmunks, but I'm certainly insulted.

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, your eyes have been clouded by Deranged Bush Hatred. All of NASA's intelligence experts have concluded that that the Moon possesses rocket fuel-related chemical activity. Geez, even the Clinton appointees say this is a "slam dunk."

Liberals claim that a base on the Moon will be a "distraction" from our mission to Mars, because they don't support our men and women in spacesuits. In fact, to get one ton of lox up to our astronauts from the surface of the earth costs *10 times* as much as it would cost to ship the same amount of lox from the Moon. Currently, there is no room left over in the budget for bagels. And let me tell you, eating lox without a bagel is a fricking waste.

It may not seem to make sense to spend 100 billion+ dollars to put a deli on the moon, just to save 5 billion dollars on a mission to Mars in the distant future. In fact, some Bush haters even claim that a manned Mars mission isn't worth the cost at all. But they haven't learned the lessons of history. In 1938, Neville Chamberlain didn't think war with Germany was worth the cost. We all know how that turned out.

The simple fact is that our planet is under assault from a fascist gravity well, and those who seek to appease gravity suffer from moral and intellectual confusion. We must build permanent bases on both Moon and Mars, and our astronauts must stay there until their mission is completed.

I seem to have come to this conversation a bit late, but I'll add my own input. Believe it or not, it is actually possible for someone associated with BushCo to actually be right about something once in a great while. (Whether or not you can actually trust them to act correctly on that is another story...)
Also, don't forget to whom Marburger was speaking: people who've spent years working on concepts like this, doing hard science. For them there's not much new in his message - he's trying to frame up a coherent explanation of BushCo space policy.
Personally, I expect BushCo is trying to kill off NASA by setting goals it can't reach without funding it won't get so that failure will be the only option - while still taking credit for having a space program. (The Vision thing)
In any case, Marburger is correct that significant oxygen can be found on the moon in various forms, and it can be extracted and used. (Further, there's some reason to hope there may be hydrogen too.)
The point isn't to build a large complex to extract it - the point is, it's what would make Possible building such a complex. Consider the colonization of North America by Europeans and how that would have turned out if they'd had to bring every single thing with them from Europe, including air and water!
As to why we should be thinking about it, well....

1) The expense argument doesn't wash when you look at it. All of the money would be spent on earth. Here. Creating jobs. And more. According to a wikipedia article on Project Apollo [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Apollo],

"The cost of the entire program is estimated at $135 billion (2006) Dollars ($25.4 billion in 1969 Dollars). The Apollo spacecraft cost $28 billion (2006) dollars to develop: $17 billion for the command and service modules, and $11 billion for the Lunar Module. The Saturn I, IB and V launch vehicle development cost about $46 billion."

At about 1.5 billion a week in Iraq which gets us nothing good, that works out to less than 2 years of the occupation to fully fund the equivalent of the Apollo program - and that ran from 1961 to 1975. Where would we be today if Nixon hadn't slashed the space budget, if we'd kept that level of investment going into space and related technology? How many aerospace and tech companies would we have today, if they weren't all consolidating to chase a decreasing pool of Defense Department dollars?

2) The halo effect: The Apollo program didn't just put a man on the moon: it inspired a generation to study science and develop new technologies which in turn led to new industries and fields of knowledge. What do we have today that compares? Nothing. We outsource our brains to Asia, and wonder why our kids don't take school seriously. Why should they? What are we as a country doing that really needs brains these days? Go rent a copy of "October Sky" if you've forgotten what it meant to be inspired by what you might learn to do.

3) It's good for the planet. Global warming is not something that can be solved overnight. It's going to take decades. So will a serious space program - and the two can be mutually supporting. Space monitoring of the earth is needed to understand what's going on. Solar Power Satellites might be a viable way to meet a growing demand for carbon-free energy. Space-based manufacturing in low earth orbit, on the moon, and in-between can reduce industrial activity on the earth, preserving resources, and reducing the growing human burden on the earth. (It's way past time for someone to reissue The Third Industrial Revolution (1979) by G Harry Stine. We were just on the verge of making it happen - then we lost our focus.)

4) It calls for a sustained effort over the long haul. Too much thinking is short term these days - the next quarter, the next election, etc. As a country we suffer from collective attention deficit disorder. Not that there aren't those looking at the long view. We're now living in the world of PNAC - the neocon fantasy of a century shaped by American military supremacy - and it's obvious how that's working out. How about a counter vision based on peaceful co-operative effort over the century to lessen our 'footprint' on the earth by spreading out into space?

One of the standard retorts from BushCo about criticism is "You have no alternative." Well, a REAL space program is one - and it might just be a way for America to rehabilitate itself from the damage done by BushCo. And- we wouldn't have to invade anybody to make it happen.

More about it here,

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000682/

In a little publicized speech last March, the President's science advisor, Dr. John Marburger, declared, "…we want to incorporate the Solar System in our [the U.S.] economic sphere…" and then went on say "The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program.…It subordinates space exploration to the primary goals of scientific, security and economic interests." Whoa -- what happened to exploration? What are the American economic and security interests in human exploration of the Moon and Mars? What happened to "we came in peace for all mankind?"

Marburger has gone further. In testimony to Congress he asserted, "The greatest value of the Moon lies neither in science nor in exploration, but in its material ... The production of oxygen in particular, the major component (by mass) of chemical rocket fuel, is potentially an important Lunar industry." This is ludicrous -- we could probably not devise a more expensive way to make rocket fuel than by producing it on the Moon -- especially with oxygen which we do not know how to extract, or at what cost.

Venality and paranoia are the only appeal to the Republican mind. That and giving everything the stupidest least interested names possible like 'Freedom' or 'Endeavor', names that would give Glenn Beck a pause for thought.

Has anyone checked the Bible to see if it mentions Mars? There has to be an insane religious justification for this crap.

Get this,

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=24344

The original Star Trek series is to be rereleased in high definition with all the special effects shots redone, but, alas, One source characterized the overall nature of this undertaking as “incredibly cheap”.

Jesus on Mars,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_on_Mars

Think of all the potential Martian customers for American corporations.

Think of all the room for parking!

--Now, now. Don't rain on their parade. If Bush supports it, it must be stupid. QED. Can't you see the airtight logic?

Posted by: GOP --

it's just factual, not logical, that everything Bush supports is stupid. Logic would lead one to believe that he could get something right at some point; it just hasn't happened.

Then, of course, there's Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam....

"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

And the war finished him, didn't it? Is that your point?

And you might want to try contracting a serious illness and waiting weeks or months to get treatment, or being denied treatment altogether, when you're dependent on government-run health care, you condescending dick.

After you, Alphonse. You're spouting talking points, I'm describing reality. Really, please do try negotiating payment terms between your oncologist's office and your insurer when you're too sick to lift your head.

This is the thing you don't want to know, little boy -- it will happen to you. This, or something like it, to you or someone you love. Even if you vote Republican. Even if you have good insurance. Get sick, and you'll be amazed at how crappy your insurance is, how little it covers, how hard you have to fight to get even that. No single-payer plan puts anyone through that. No single-payer plan forces people to go without healthcare until the symptoms are too severe to ignore, and the disease is quite possibly too far-gone to heal.

If you know of any single-payer plan that makes people with serious illnesses "wait weeks or months to get treatment" or "denies treatment altogether," please give details. I doubt you can. I strongly suspect you're talking out of your fat flabby ass. (FYI: If you don't start losing weight and exercising now, you're at risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many other severe and chronic physical ailments. If you're on my insurance plan, why the fuck should I subsidize your lard-assed laziness? Go buy the expensive fat people's insurance, if you can get it.)

'm pointing out that if you think the GOP is grossly incompetent, it's pretty stupid of you to favor handing over control of the nation's health care system to the government.

You must be, what, seven years old? Does Mommy know you're online this late? The current administration is vastly more incompetent than anything seen, from either party, at least since Harding. (Look him up in wikipedia, sweetpea. Or google "Teapot Dome.") "Government" does not equal "Bush," much as you might wish otherwise.

dr. sardonicus sez:

I can envision a future where the Earth's poorer classes are sent out to work camps throughout the solar system, extracting the materials needed to sustain the lifestyles of the elite who get to live the good life back at home.
"A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies! The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!"

Posted by: Rand Careaga on August 30, 2006 at 8:41 PM

"Sail Away" meets "Star Trek," or "Little Wogs in Outer Space." Have Randy Newman's grandchildren update the lyrics...

Larry Roth, read and learn:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars

That is the right way to go to Mars. And I quote:

"Zubrin decisively rejects suggestions that the Moon should be used as waypoint to Mars or as a training area. It is ultimately much easier to journey to Mars from low Earth orbit than from the moon and using the latter as a staging point is a pointless diversion of resources."

GOP "You can't have it both ways, you know. Can the GOP be trusted to run big government programs, or can't it? Make up your mind."

95% of Republicans campaign on the premise that government doesn't work. Once again, upon their [s]election they've tried like hell to prove it.

On a sad note, one of that minority 5% of decent Republicans passed on today -- former Hawaii Gov. William Quinn, who was the islands' last territorial governor (1957-59) and the first elected state governor (1959-62).

Gov. Quinn led the islands through an incredible political transition from territory to state, and through several tumultuous events -- a 128-day sugar workers' strike in 1958 (he surprisingly supported the striking workers and ultimately forced the plantations to settle), a west coast longshoremens' strike (again, he sided with the longshoremen and successfully secured federal intervention on their behalf) in 1959, Hurricane Dot in late '59, and a hotly contested 1960 presidential election, in which Kennedy beat Nixon in Hawaii by a scant 182 votes. It was Gov. Quinn's official recognition of Kennedy's victory -- over the objections of the Nixon campaign and the Republican Party -- that tore asunder the local GOP, ultimately dooming his re-election chances in 1962. He never held public office again.

"I really had in mind that I might well pursue political life again, but a couple of things happened," Quinn said. "I guess you could say I was a liberal Republican, and these were the days of the birth of real conservatism in the Republican Party, the Goldwater days. I guess my days had passed."

Aloha, Brother Quinn. Rest in peace.

GOP: "You can't have it both ways, you know. Can the GOP be trusted to run big government programs, or can't it? Make up your mind."

95% of Republicans campaign on the premise that government doesn't work. Once again, upon their [s]election they've tried to prove it.

On a sad note, one of that minority 5% of decent Republicans passed on today -- former Hawaii Gov. William Quinn, who was the islands' last territorial governor (1957-59) and the first elected state governor (1959-62).

Gov. Quinn led the islands through an incredible political transition from territory to state, and through several tumultuous events -- a 128-day sugar workers' strike in 1958 (he surprisingly supported the striking workers and ultimately forced the plantations to settle), a west coast longshoremens' strike (again, he sided with the longshoremen and successfully secured federal intervention on their behalf) in 1959, Hurricane Dot in late '59, and a hotly contested 1960 presidential election, in which Kennedy beat Nixon in Hawaii by a scant 182 votes. It was Gov. Quinn's official recognition of Kennedy's victory -- over the objections of the Nixon campaign and the Republican Party -- that tore asunder the local GOP, ultimately dooming his re-election chances in 1962. He never held public office again.

"I really had in mind that I might well pursue political life again, but a couple of things happened," Quinn said. "I guess you could say I was a liberal Republican, and these were the days of the birth of real conservatism in the Republican Party, the Goldwater days. I guess my days had passed."

Aloha, Brother Quinn. Rest in peace.

LBJ was a Democratic president from the Democratic party. And he lost his JOB because of the war, dumbass, as he should have, and his party lost power, turdblossom, as it should have. Nixon lied about what he was going to do and made it worse.
And Vietnam lasted 11 years at peak involvement with 5 times the number of American troops on the ground. Do the math, if you can. Both wars were DISASTERS.

Red State Mike -- Spent a bit more time exploring the rest Artemis Project site. Interesting stuff (although it seems like a source of oxygen is still a question mark). Thanks for the link.

A little perspective:
http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

The Sun is SO tiny!

Then, of course, there's Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam....

"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
Posted by: GOP

Hey, dumbass...your side SUPPORTED LBJ with respect to the war. The Republicans were the hawks, remember? If anything, your side believed he didn't kill enough kids, so Tricky Dick expanded the war and knocked off another 15,000 or so. Read your history.

Step One: Go to Mars.

Step Two: ??????

Step Three: Profit.

GOP: "My point was that far more Americans died in Vietnam under LBJ, a Democrat president backed by a Democrat-controlled congress ..."

During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, 30,844 American service personnel lost their live in Vietnam combat operations. Additionally, a further 4,644 military personnel lost their lives in non-hostile incidents, i.e., illness, accidents, etc.

Therefore, 35,488 Americans died in Vietnam during the period 1961-68. The greatest loss of life occurred in 1968, when U.S. forces suffered 16,513 deaths.

Keep in mind, however, the concept of scale and proportion when comparing Vietnam and Iraq. The United States was engaged in a very large-scale war in the former, while the latter conflict is a classic example of military occupation and a simmering native resistance. Also, Vietnam has had throughout the 20th century about four times the population of Iraq.

By 1969, the United States had committed over 550,000 combat troops to Vietnam, and most were engaged in full-scale combat operations against a well-provisioned and determined North Vietnamese enemy that possessed a significant amount of armor, modern combat aircraft and relatively sophisticated weaponry like surface-to-air missiles (supplied by their communist friends in China and the Soviet Union). The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was also frequently equal or superior in numerical strength to U.S. forces.

Further, the average NVA soldier in 1969 was 27 years of age with over four years' combat experience, while the average American soldier in 1969 was 19 and a draftee with six weeks+ of basic training.

I don't believe that we've had any more than 150,000 in Iraq at any one time, and the fighting -- with a few exceptions like Fallujah -- is much lower in intensity.

One must further take into account vast technological improvements in the weaponry that Americans can now deploy against any real or potential foe as compared to 30-35 years ago, when we sought to bludgeon North Vietnam through sheer weight in battlefield ordinance delivered by ground and air. In fact, more tons of American ordinance were dropped on Indochina than were spent by American forces in all of World War II in both the European and Pacific Theatre of war!

Keep in mind, also, that the quality of battlefield and post-combat medical care has improved so dramatically in the 30+ years since the Vietnam War ended that current death rates are estimated to be about 10% of what they were in Vietnam.

While the Vietnam War and the Iraq War do have at least one significant logistical similarity, i.e., our failure to correctly identify from the outset the nature of the conflict and plan for attendant contingencies accordingly, the respective wars themselves were vastly different in the manner in which American forces conducted operations.

GOP >"Then, of course, there's Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam..."

Yea, another war in which the U.S.A.`s involvement was started by a Republican (Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed the first combat troops there in the late 50`s) & drawn out (increased deaths) for political reasons by another Republican (Richard M. Nixon)

One really notable thing about L.B.J.`s part in this is that his Texas home boys (Brown & Root etc) made TONS & TONS of money off his Excellent Vietnam Adventure.

Remind you of any more recent Texas corporate behavior ?

"Eventually, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall." - Robert C. Byrd

Donald from Hawaii >"...Aloha, Brother Quinn. Rest in peace."

May his eternity be everything his life wasn`t

Mahalo Donald for posting about this

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf the Grey

"Now, now. Don't rain on their parade. If Bush supports it, it must be stupid. QED."

Like a lot of people on the left, I could see arguments in favor of a war with Iraq, although on balance I didn't think they were very GOOD arguments.

We all know what happened, though, although a few die-hard righties still refuse to acknowledge it pubically--the Bush Administration took a dubious idea, and executed it so incompetently as to produce a dsaster of world-historical proportions.

What lesson should we take fromt hat?

Well, as it happens, I've long been a supporter of space travel--in the long run. I think we'll eventually exploit the resources of the rest of the solar system, terraform Mars, mine the asteroids--over the course of a few hundred years.

One of the keys to making space travel economically viable is to get resources necessary to support such projects without the cost of boosting them out of earth's gravity well.

That's a century-long project though, not something likely to work if undertaken on a crash basis.

And just like Iraq, even if you beleive in the project, you have to acnowledge that it will work only if undertaken with careful planning and great skill and finesse--not traits any rational person associates with the Bush adminstration.

Any attempt by THIS adminstration to jump-start exploitation of the solar system's resources will, inevitably, turn out to be a multi-trillion dollar fiasco aimed at enriching its corporate supporters and provding poltcal soundbites--just like Iraq.

If you find yourself in agreement with a Bush adminstration spokesperson--rethink your ideas.

The conventional wisdom is that they want government to fail; therefore they hire hacks, incompetents, or plainly direct them to impersonate same. That way, gov't programs don't work, leading the populace to give up on same.

As I have been saying, eventually all will work for Wal-Mart wages and benefits, selling crap to each other.

Testimony to Congressional Committee investigating why the lunar mission failed...

".I am not here as Space Cadet Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of space cadets in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony...except for the ones I left on the surface of moon. You see, I got a booboo on my butt from a sharp moon rock and had to go home early. I'm sure someone can do my work for me.

I would like to talk, representing all those space cadets, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 very highly moon explorers who bought their medals off of eBay testified to crimes committed on the moon, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....

They told the stories at times they had personally raped the regolith and razed craters in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan at a Hoss's all you can eat buffet after after an all day ride on his mongolian pony, eating cattle and dogs for fun.

It pains me, much like Genghis Kahn's hemorrhoids pain him after an all day ride on his mongolian pony, to have to share this with you. I would more rather be raped by Genghis Kahn than pretty much anything else in the world, including giving this testimony to you. However, if I can turn this opportunity into a presidential run in 2024, it will have all been worth it.

And with that, I must now go watch John Wayne star as Genghis Kahn in that black and white movie, and dream about the steppes of mongolia while cuddling with my little stuffed mongolian pony.

Space Cadet Kerry—don't try to be witty. You'll only hurt yourself.

Mars, bitches!
- Black George Bush

I did not know about the late Gov. Quinn. Thanks for sharing that moving story, Donald.

Bush has a secret plan to make contact with the inhabitants of the moon...he has these intelligence photos you see...

It's worth pointing out that this reorientation of the space program to lunar exploration is killing science at NASA. It's damaging climate monitoring (oops!), astronomy, and planetary science (even Mars science!). This has caused some short-term setbacks, but it's also now moving talent out of these fields in a way that could take decades to repair.

It's worth pointing out that this reorientation of the space program to lunar exploration is killing science at NASA. It's damaging climate monitoring (oops!), astronomy, and planetary science (even Mars science!). This has caused some short-term setbacks, but it's also now moving talent out of these fields in a way that could take decades to repair.
Posted by: Charles

Amen. Although I will say that Marsburger had a point in mentioning that there are 55 ongoing science missions operating right now. Opportunity is about to get to Victoria Crater which should be really, really cool, but spends the weekends hanging out because the operators work 5 day weeks like normal human beings. Leaving space buff whining, "Are we there yet?"

I always wondered what planet Bush was on.

The benefits of moon mining isn't oxygen, per se, though this would be useful for fuel production - and launching rockets, manned or not, from the moon or earth orbit is FAR easier and economical than doing so from the earth's surface - the real benefit of moon mining is helium 3. Helium 3 is of huge benefit and use to fusion power research (and production). It would be useful for fusion power research/production on earth and on spacecraft headed farther out in the solar system where solar power becomes problematic (and inadequate).

Bush-bootlicker Don P, posting as "GOP", wrote: "Space-based solar power has two big advantages over Earth-based systems: ..."

It has another big advantage that is appealing to the Bush administration and their corporate-criminal cronies and financial backers, and of course their neo-brownshirt mental slave shills who infest blogs like this one with their robotic regurgitation of right-wing extremist propaganda.

It ensures that the means of energy production will continued to be owned and controlled by huge Stalinist-fascist state-subsidized corporations, rather than owned and controlled by communities and individuals, as would be the case with ground-based distributed photovoltaic installations.

What does a "service call" to fix a busted space based solar collector cost?

Why not just cover several hundred square miles of land here and get our pollution-free electrical needs met for housing and transportation?

The multitude of living creatures, plants, bacteria, etc. that have evolved over 4 billion years to live on our planet cannot be transplanted to a hostile world. We do not have the skills to understand the interwoven intricacy of living matter in it's environment. We cannot live outside of this web of life. Experiments like the bio-dome have proven that.

The vast distances of time and space prevent us from finding another blue-green world.

Our efforts should be placed on preventing the ecological and fratricidal destruction of this one and only home for humans.

All the rest is commentary.

The key to this nonsense is Lockheed-Martin. These fantasies usually end up with LMart, who then proceeds to spend billions making vu-grafs until a more intelligent administration takes power.

My reading indicates tat even NASA considers this a fake mission, a mission just enough to fill in the manned space platform for the Republicans.

Ultimately the problem lies with the ignorant males whose science education came from the Star Trek series, secret WIlliam Shatner fags, the same kids who were running around the living room with model airplane saying "Zoom Zoom" at the late age of 21.

Why politicians cater to this group I will never know.

deejays wrote: "The multitude of living creatures, plants, bacteria, etc. that have evolved over 4 billion years to live on our planet cannot be transplanted to a hostile world. We do not have the skills to understand the interwoven intricacy of living matter in it's environment. We cannot live outside of this web of life."

Very well said. The very notion of "self-sustaining human settlements" on other planets such as Mars, as promulgated by commenters like Don P (posting as "GOP"), is in my view symptomatic of the toxic delusion that humans are somehow separate from the wholeness of the Earth's biosphere, which is at the very root of humanity's "ecological and fratricidal destruction" of the web of life on Earth.

The same toxic delusion of separateness that leads humanity to destroy the life of the Earth leads people to the delusion that humanity can survive apart from it.

The fundamental fact about any space program is that, 50 years into the space age, nobody has figured out how to make money from space projects. There were a lot of comparisons to Columbus and Magellan back in the 60s, but Columbus and Magellan made it possible for a whole lot of gold, sugar, tobacco, etc., to go to vastly enriched European powers. Until somebody figures out how to produce something in outer space that's worth more than the cost of production, the space program is a subsidy on a par with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Kevin,

I know that you like science fiction, so I assume that means you like speculating about possible events a hundred, two hundred years out. Way beyond the current political horizon.

With that in mind, let's consider Titan. There are more hydrocarbons sloshing around on the surface of Titan than you could find on several Earths. Enough to last for tens of thousands of years, if you could transport them economically to Earth.

Well, I said this was speculative.

By the way, do you agree with the folks here who think that mankind will never be able to move off of Earth? "Never" is kind of a long time, IMHO.

wally
The fundamental fact about any space program is that, 50 years into the space age, nobody has figured out how to make money from space projects.

That is one of the most magnificently incorrect statements I've seen posted here. Space is big $$$ with a bunch of zeros, and if they ever get the launch costs down, it will be orders of magnitude bigger.

Hey, dumbass...your side SUPPORTED LBJ with respect to the war.

Hey, fuckface...whatever "my side" supported or didn't support, it was your side, your Democrat President and your Democrat congress, that sent tens of thousands of Americans to die in Vietnam in the 1960s, and killed millions and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian civilians in the process.

Very well said. The very notion of "self-sustaining human settlements" on other planets such as Mars, as promulgated by commenters like Don P (posting as "GOP"), is in my view symptomatic of the toxic delusion that humans are somehow separate from the wholeness of the Earth's biosphere, which is at the very root of humanity's "ecological and fratricidal destruction" of the web of life on Earth.

You really think humans will never be able to move off the Earth?

Talk about delusions...

secularhuman.

LBJ was a Democratic president from the Democratic party. ... dumbass...

Yes, fuckface. That's the point.

Red State Mike: Opportunity... spends the weekends hanging out because the operators work 5 day weeks like normal human beings.

At least it makes more DSN time available for other missions--the most critical and neglected piece of the infrastructure. grumble grumble

50 years into the space age, nobody has figured out how to make money from space projects

Broadly speaking true, wally, with one footnote -- that not all economic value shows up as making money. It's likely that the economic benefit of improved weather forecasting attributable to satellites has greatly exceeded all space expenditure since 1957.

Trouble is, that benefit is global and diffuse, so weather data was already defined as a public good when TIROS I went up, and there's no mechanism to monetize it. It's taken for granted, effectively invisible -- but should be remembered when people argue at cartoon level that space is a fiscal black hole, end of story.

Red State Mike wrote: "You really think humans will never be able to move off the Earth?"

Humans have been "moving off the Earth" for over 40 years, into near-Earth orbit or to the Moon, for short periods of time, after which they return to the Earth.

I really think that there will never be self-sustaining permanent human populations off the Earth. I see no evidence that we have or are anywhere near to acquiring the scientific understanding or biotechnology that would be needed to create the viable, self-sustaining, self-contained (in an otherwise extremely hostile environment such as Mars) ecosystem that would be needed for long term human survival outside of the Earth's biosphere. And the more that science learns about the complex and interwoven nature of the Earth's biosphere and our deep connections to and utter dependence on it, the more I doubt that such a thing is even possible.

Independently of that, I also think it likely that the human species will fail to adequately deal with the grave problems we are creating for ourselves here on Earth, and that we will within a few decades be overwhelmed by the consequences of our irresponsible and destructive behavior, and that as a result a techologically advanced human civilization capable of space exploration is unlikely to exist beyond the end of this century.

If my admittedly pessimistic view of humanity's future proves to be wrong, and a technologically advanced human civilization manages to survive into future centuries, then I suppose that humans may continue to venture out into the solar system, perhaps in considerably larger numbers than today. But I think that humans will travel into the solar system and return to Earth, and that any long-term facilities built on other planets will remain dependent on the Earth. I don't think we will ever have permanent, self-sustaining colonies on other planets.

If my admittedly pessimistic view of humanity's future proves to be wrong, and a technologically advanced human civilization manages to survive into future centuries, then I suppose that humans may continue to venture out into the solar system, perhaps in considerably larger numbers than today. But I think that humans will travel into the solar system and return to Earth, and that any long-term facilities built on other planets will remain dependent on the Earth. I don't think we will ever have permanent, self-sustaining colonies on other planets.

Well, that's an opinion. My opinion is humans are going to be around for millions of more years, spread out all over the place, and will look back on this time like we look back at Neantherdals (sp?). If anything, leaving the planet will kickstart further evolution by having small populations that can undergo rapid change, as opposed to current state.

Out of curiousity, have you ever browsed the book, "The Singularity is Near"?

"If you don't trust the Republican Party with the space program, then a GOP-controlled national health care system must be your worst nightmare."

Yeah, and we already have it. It's called "private, for-profit health insurance."

I'm sorry but as much as I think the current dipshit-in-chief will find a way to screw it up, I support a far more robust space program in principal. We talk about the cost and our earth bound needs but we are forgetting the value of our past space program. Economic study after study has confirmed that the first space program more than paid for itself in terms new materials, new technologies, new medical advances, and new manufacturing techniques.

What is just as important is the opening of new exploration for the sake of exploration. As much as we hate to admit it, with the exception of the deep oceans, we now live in a world without a frontier. That missing element to our country, as with anyother former empire, can only lead to some form of colapse. Without some form of frontier to act as an escape valve, we are simply a closed system with its inherent entropic forces leading to the death of the system.

Too bad the folks that want to run it now are such corrupt, dishonest and utter fuck-ups. Ah well, perhaps the next sentient species on the planet will do better.

It's a dead thread i know, but for the edification of the simple-minded GOP, I was correcting your snot-nosed, juvenile references from Democrat to DemocratIC. I suspect your dumb ol' dad taught you that cheap trick slur. And as someone above already noted, the Republic Party backed LBJ's Vietnam debacle, a Republic president widened that war and made it much worse, and a Republic president quit before he was impeached for multiple felonies. At least Nixon had the decency to leave unlike the president criminal occupying the Oval Office.
You incredible twit.