Posted on 03/11/2009 5:50:15 PM PDT by KevinDavis
HAMPTON, Va., March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA is working on the building blocks to return humans to the Moon by 2020, then send them onto Mars.
It's part of the national Vision for Space Exploration established five years ago. Just what is America's plan and is it the right one? Four international experts will address those questions and others in a special Moon-Mars Forum, March 17, from 7-9 p.m. at the Virginia Air & Space Center in downtown Hampton.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.prnewswire.com ...
We should go to Mars, but we should bring any Muslims.
Because we can and it would be wrong to live forever in the cradle.
One day the sun will die. Our descendants had better be seeded throughout the galaxy by then.
I agree.. It is about the future..
I don't think there's the kind of generational interest to support the endeavors necessary for advanced space travel. We currently have the technology that we could set up a permanent base on the moon, but the question remains, why? EVERYTHING would have to be transported from earth for survival, and it would be a bleak existence. It makes as much sense to set up colonies under the ocean.
We should go there to make money. Its the New World without the pesky natives.
Don't discount human ingenuity; consider what we are both doing right now; posting comments instantaneously on a website from anywhere on earth would have been unimaginable to my grandfathers.
All we need is air to breathe, water to drink, and life we can eat.
If Obozo has his way, NASA’s next ship will be a used Cessna 172 fitted with external bottle rockets.
It'll take time, but we can do it. There's just a few obstacles to test and overcome. Like:
We need to be able to build an extremely large self-supporting unit for the people, where they could grow their own food and have enough water to survive a LONG flight. This would have to built in space.
We need new materials to withstand traveling at such immense speeds (can you imagine hitting a small pebble in space at 100,000 miles per second? That's some explosive power there!)
As much as going to the Moon and Mars, we need to do so in a way that builds on what we do, so we do not end up reinventing the wheel.
A long term solution is found by hard rock mining horizontal tunnels to make into habitats. A nuclear powered, unmanned robotic tunneling vehicle could slowly and methodically mine into hard rock over the course of years. Even tunneling at the rate of 1 inch a day, in just a year it will have made a substantial tunnel.
A tunnel provides a shelter out of the cosmic and enhanced radiation on the surface, vacuum, extremes of heat and cold, and the abrasive lunar dust. It can also give a lot more space and lasts far longer than a small surface habitat.
As the robot tunnels, it can at intervals drill reinforcing rod into the rock ceiling. When pulling out it can spray the walls with sealant against micro fissures.
Since the robot would be on a 1-way mission, its lander could be cannibalized for parts. This would include insulation, walls, flooring, ceiling, support members and pressure doors. Before the astronauts arrived, it could even do a pressure check on the sealed tunnel.
Even when the astronauts arrived, its nuclear power plant would provide them with all the energy they needed, both for life support and to extract He3 from the Lunar dust.
In between missions it could go back to digging secondary tunnels, mining water ice, or continue to harvest and purify Lunar dust.
The US should have a permanent human presence on the Moon, and do it first.
The US should only send a human mission to Mars if it plans to plant the US flag.
The US should not engage in any more “international” efforts in space.
That said, the only two reasons to go back to the Moon are to A) establish and maintain a permanent base (or more than one) on the Moon, and B) to develop and practice the skills and technology to make very long duration spaceflights (to Mars, obviously) achieveable.
The reasons for a lunar base are probably numerous, but in particular should be done to A) enable human missions to Mars, B) “far side” radiotelescopy, mostly for the identification of solar system debris potentially threatening to Earth, C) assay the lunar surface for useful materials which are rare on Earth, and D) build a giant [quote fingers] laser [unquote fingers] to blackmail the OPEC nations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.