Working on the Moon

BBC ^ | January 26, 2004 | Sean Blair

[sam_paine]

Why not use lunar concrete for interplanetary spaceship hulls? There could be thin steel or poly pressure badder inside, but just a thought. Seems like steel reinforced concrete might even be a little safer out there in all the solar radiation? Plus it doesn't take as much energy to create as does steel or aluminum.

Regular concrete weighs about 150 lbs/cuft and aluminum weighs about 165 lbs/cuft on earth. (Steel is about 500).

So steel on the moon weighs about 1/2 what aluminum weighs here, and concrete (by volume) would only weigh 25 lbs/cuft. Obviously, you need more volume of concrete to make stuff, and you need a lotta steel in it to get tensile strength, but for compressive qualities and raw sheilding, it's pretty good stuff, right? They're always making canoes out of it at the Universities....!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Aren't the possibilities exciting?!

[Louisiana]

Moon worship - you need to study the origins of Islam. Moon goddess worship that he melted together with his idea of being connected with the God of Abraham, Ishmael,... (not Isaac, Jacob)

Historical study is your friend.

[BipolarBob]

It's been a longtime dream of mine to colonize the moon. You can imagine my dismay when I went down to Immigration Services this morning to apply for a lunar work visa and was turned down. Even though I showed them a reprint of this article, they acted like I was crazy. When I started shouting my taxes pay your salaries they really went ballistic and threatened to call the cops on me. They don't realize I pay their salaries too. Gee, how dumb can some people be.




oh yeah sorry/humor

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Cute. :^)

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Historical study is your friend.

Yes, it is. I associate the words: "moon-worship" with ancient cults to the Goddess Hecate etc. Islam simply uses a lunar calendar (so do a lot of other cultures.) If you're argument is that Islam is a "moon-worship" cult now based on its ancient roots, then by the same argument, you might as well claim Christianity to be Pagan, now based on its the Greco-Roman influences.

[American in Israel]

Islam does a lot of moon-worship.

So, that means we would be building bathrooms on the face of their god right?

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Those at the south of the equator (Australia, New Zealand, etc), see a slightly different view of the moon. The Tycho Crater (that big crater at the bottom) is actually seen at the top of the moon in the southern hemisphere.

Its always a fun little nit of mine when viewing a Hollywood movie whose location is supposed to be the Southern Hemisphere, to be greeted with a shot of the northern Hemisphere moon.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

And the Earth appears topsy-turvy in the same fashion from the Moon.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Its always a fun little nit of mine when viewing a Hollywood movie whose location is supposed to be the Southern Hemisphere, to be greeted with a shot of the northern Hemisphere moon.

Very often they flip the image.

[Flightdeck]

Not to split hairs, but a more meaningful percentage would be mass; then oxygen makes up 89% of water.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

I saw a movie the other day - I trying to think which one it was-- Joe vs The Volcano? -- In any event, a moon was featured, the setting was meant to be the southern hemisphere, but the moon that Hollywood showed was the northern hemisphere moon.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

In "Apollo 13" there were wrong views of the Moon used and they also used the NASA "worm" logo (etched in the glass) which wasn't being used then. They don't care because they don't think the general public knows the difference. And they're right.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

ABC Online

Russia, US can collaborate in Mars exploration: Putin. 27/01/2004. ABC News Online

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1031972.htm]


Last Update: Tuesday, January 27, 2004. 1:03am (AEDT)
Russia, US can collaborate in Mars exploration: Putin
Russia and the United States can collaborate in exploring Mars, Russian President Vladimir Putin told US Secretary of State Colin Powell in talks on Monday.

Congratulating the envoy on the US mission that has seen two probes land on the surface of the Red Planet in the past three weeks, Mr Putin said that Russia "has noted with interest President Bush's ambitious plans for the conquest of Mars," the Interfax news agency reported.

"I believe that in this area there are things we can do together," Mr Putin said.

Mr Powell for his part said that he was "pleased with the developments that are on the horizon with respect to continued cooperation in space."

Mr Bush earlier this month said his administration planned to send American astronauts back to the Moon as early as 2015, perhaps to set up a base to provide a springboard for a manned mission to Mars, and invited other space powers to join in the initiative.

The initial response from Moscow was cool however.

Russian space officials hinted that Moscow was capable of launching its own Mars mission at considerably lower cost than the US proposal, but Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin said last week that "the time is not right" for such a mission.

The US probe Opportunity landed on the Mars surface on Saturday with a similar exploratory mission to Spirit, which landed on Mars on January 3 but broke down last week.

Opportunity began transmitting pictures back to Earth that US space officials described as a "scientific jackpot."

--AFP

[demlosers]

Well, the Russians want to hitch a ride.

[demlosers]

Russian space officials hinted that Moscow was capable of launching its own Mars mission at considerably lower cost than the US proposal,...

Then do it and quit smack talking.

but Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin said last week that "the time is not right" for such a mission.

Ooooh Surrrrre...What's wrong Boris, ya don't want to pay for it?

[Brett66]

I kind of like the idea of Islamists worldwide seeing the moon in the night sky and realizing we have Americans on it. Just another reason for them to be ashamed.

[Crazieman]

All the same, water is made up of two volatile elements, when combined, becomes largely inert. =)

[Louisiana]

obviously you don't know very much about Biblical Christianity.

[Ahban]

I'd like to be the first to welcome both of you to Free Republic.