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Topic: Join NASA's Return to the Moon (Read 676 times) |
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Fritz
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Join NASA's Return to the Moon
« on: 2008-05-12 12:42:20 » |
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Andrew Warhola eat your heart out 
NASA is inviting everyone to send their name to the moon on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Right now you can log onto a special NASA Web site that is collecting names, which will be put on a microchip that will be integrated into the LRO.
The LRO mission is the first step in NASA's plans to return humans to the moon by 2020.
The deadline to add your name to the microchip is June 27.
http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php
I wonder if we can get CoV as a name entered ?
Cheers
Fritz
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Join NASA's Return to the Moon
« Reply #1 on: 2008-05-12 13:18:53 » |
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Other than mere symbolism (which might be good enough if we will just be honest about it); what would be the practical goal of sending humans to the moon? It seems to me that with only slightly more fuel and planning that we could almost as easily send a man to Mars. I'm not sure what the point of that would be either, although for symbolism sake I'd like to consider the whole enchilada rather than just 3/4. What worthwhile things can a manned project accomplish that an unmanned project couldn't accomplish for a fraction of the cost?
Certainly in terms of the sun swelling into a red giant and frying us all, we ought to consider to begin leaving this planet in a some millions of years. And in terms of spreading out in case the evil aliens or an errant asteroid arrive, perhaps a few thousand years would be a worthy window for departure. However sending humans into space doesn't practically compute in terms of the year 2020. On a cost effectiveness basis, it seems to me that expanding our unmanned missions to all near-solar destinations by many-fold has its merits. Even the pursuit of artificial intelligence for the purpose of such missions has its merits. But what are the practical merits of further manned missions at this point?
At first blush, I like the symbolic enthusiasm of shooting live humans into space, but when it comes to using tax dollars, the economy of scientific knowlege gained seems to make this prohibitive. Indeed in terms of spending any dollars (private or tax), it almost makes more sense to genetically engineer a more cost effective species of space monkey better adapted and neo-coritically enhanced for the mission. Even if it has its space-exploratory downsides, it can at least double up as a biological and genetic experiment in addition to space exploration. Plus monkeys are generally cuter than your average human.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Prime example of a practically perfect person
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Re:Join NASA's Return to the Moon
« Reply #2 on: 2008-05-12 23:43:21 » |
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The whole project is crazy stupid. Like every other Bush notion, it displays zero vision, implies huge costs and offers no conceivable benefits except to his buddies in the companies that will be contracted to implement this long delayed action replay of a 30 year old achievement. And will likely not come to fruition anyway, due to the likelihood that Congress will not allocate the required funds and the strong possibility that if it the US is sufficiently stupid to continue investing in this risky, expensive, short-term blind alley, that the US will collapse before it achieves it anyway.
Mars would be even more stupid, much more expensive, and definitely much more risky. Absent easy access to space and the consequent boost of cheap power, in the short time that modern civilization has left, we can't hope to establish a viable colony there, and so there would again be no conceivable benefit to mankind from such a journey.
What mankind needs - in the very near term or it will not get it at all and in consequence will be planet bound and have no significant future, is a cheap, non-fossil fuel dependent gateway to space. This has to be completed before the chaos which will accompany the end of cheap fuel destroys our ability to engage in complex projects. The good news is that if we build space elevators in parallel with solar satellites and microwave and or laser power delivery systems that they could inaugurate an era of effectively unlimited prosperity, renewable eco-friendly energy and an effective planet temperature management system for very little additional cost. The problem is that the money vision and will to do this is likely absent and will likely remain so until it is too late to do anything effective about it.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Fritz
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Re:Join NASA's Return to the Moon
« Reply #3 on: 2008-05-13 13:48:34 » |
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Quote:| [MoEnzyme] At first blush, I like the symbolic enthusiasm of shooting live humans into space, |
[Fritz] I have an A and B List I would like to submit to this end .... :-)
I believe that as gas prices rise we will hear the words come from Public Officials, through the Media, that the Moon can solve our energy problems and we just have to go there; the ultimate blackmail.
Quote:| [Hermit]What mankind needs - in the very near term or it will not get it at all and in consequence will be planet bound and have no significant future, is a cheap, non-fossil fuel dependent gateway to space |
I agree with both your views that the current NASA politically Bush driven agenda is misguided and silly, yet I have a Meme embedded into my being from early childhood on that demands we get out there and that is what the Spin-Doctors at NASA are feeding into. Rutan and the X crew have done some to shift he government centric view of space flight but also limited the options in my view, since the space tether and microwave beaming technologies will I think require public purse endorsement to get off the ground. (probably not North American funds, I suspect)
"To the Moon Alice.. to the Moon"
Cheers
Wally
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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