E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Gene Cernan / NASA file
Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt faces the American flag on the lunar surface with Earth in the black sky above, during a moonwalk on Dec. 12, 1972.
In the 40 years since NASA's last lunar landing, the moon has had its ups and downs as the target for humanity's next giant leap — but the idea of returning to the moon is on the rise again.
Even though President Barack Obama dissed the moon a couple of years ago as a "been there, done that" destination, there's an enduring appeal to our closest celestial neighbor. Part of the appeal comes from planetary science, part of it comes from the moon's potential as a close-in gateway to the solar system — but a big part of it has to do with the moon's hold on our imagination, which took root before the pyramids were built.
When Apollo 17 touched down on Dec. 11, 1972, marking the final lunar landing of the Apollo program, the moon was the agreed-upon finish line for the Cold War's space race. But now the world has changed, and the case for going to the moon is more complicated.
"I've been referring to the moon as the Rodney Dangerfield of the solar system," said Andrew Chaikin, author of "Man on the Moon," the definitive history of the Apollo space program.
The moon hasn't gotten much respect in the past couple of years: After Obama's comment, the White House effectively canceled NASA's Constellation back-to-the-moon program. Instead, NASA set its sights on a visit to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, and manned trips to Mars in the 2030s. Today, however, there are signs that the idea of going back to the moon isn't that loony after all:
- Two dozen teams are bearing down to try winning the multimillion-dollar Google Lunar X Prize, which goes to the first private venture to send a rover to the moon for a trek to be broadcast on live TV. Two of the teams, Odyssey Moon and SpaceIL, joined forces last month in hopes of taking the grand prize by the end of 2015.
- Last week, the Golden Spike Company proposed sending two-person expeditions to the moon on a commercial basis for $1.4 billion each — which is more than $100 billion less than what NASA was proposing back in 2005.
- China and Russia say they want to put their astronauts on the moon sometime after 2020, with or without NASA. As an initial step toward that giant leap, China is planning to send a robotic lander to the lunar surface next year. India also aspires to send spacefliers to the moon someday.
- NASA has floated the idea of setting up a new space station at a gravitational balance point beyond the far side of the moon, known as Earth-moon L2. The concept is currently stuck in political limbo, however.
Lunar comeback?
A report from the National Research Council faulted NASA last week for lacking a solid strategy for space exploration beyond Earth orbit, and said specifically that NASA's plan to visit an asteroid hasn't gotten enough support from international partners, or the American public, or even within the space agency itself.
John Logsdon, former director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, says Obama's next presidential term could provide the opening for a lunar comeback.
"It's certainly in the air here, that changes in the planning for exploration are coming," he said. "There's enough negative pressure that this asteroid goal isn't working, and enough positive pressure to work with the international community that wants to go back to the moon, that the White House will at some point approve the beginnings of a shift in exploration strategy — in which the moon, or at least the space between the earth and the vicinity of the moon, gets a much higher profile."
One of the early test missions for NASA's next-generation heavy-lift rocket — the Space Launch System, or SLS — would involve sending an unmanned Orion capsule all the way around the moon and back in the 2017 time frame. The first crewed mission, set for 2021, would put up to four astronauts into lunar orbit. "It could just as well be an initial mission to this Earth-moon L2 location," Logsdon said.
In September, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver declared that lunar missions would be part of the agency's grand scheme. "We're going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars," she said.
Why go?
Chaikin, who has taken on the back-to-the-moon concept as his next crusade, said lunar missions could serve three purposes.
The first aim would be to study the preserved history of the solar system — following up on a scientific story that the Apollo missions were just beginning to uncover. "I really think the moon deserves to be called a Rosetta stone, because it has unlocked our understanding of how we interpret the clues that we see on other worlds," Chaikin said.
Just as importantly, the moon serves as an "Outward Bound" school for farther space exploration. If a mission goes wrong, NASA could bring the astronauts back in a matter of days — rather than the weeks that an asteroid mission would involve, or the months required for a trip from Mars.
And then there's a phenomenon called the Overview Effect, which could conceivably attract lunar tourists a generation or two from now. "The moon is the only place in the solar system where you can stand on another world and have a consciousness-raising view of Earth," like the view that the Apollo 17 astronauts marveled at 40 years ago, Chaikin explained.
But Chaikin also warns against getting bogged down on the moon. That was the problem with the Constellation program. It called for a permanent settlement to be established on the moon in the 2020s. The cost? You don't want to know. Chaikin said it's better to use the moon "to learn about living off-planet" — to learn how to make use of the moon's water, dirt and rocks, for instance — and then move on to Mars.
The way Chaikin sees it, Apollo 17 was a beautiful ending to one era. Now it's time for the next one.
"Apollo 17 ended the program on a spectacular note," he said. "You can interpret that one of two ways. You can say, wonderful, they found a great way to end it. To some people at NASA, it was just the right time to get out. But on the other hand, here it is, 40 years later, and we're still waiting for someone to pick up where Apollo 17 left off. If we can do that, with the same level of scientific exploration, we'll be in great shape."
NASA
Click through historic photos from humanity's last trip to the moon, the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
More about the Apollo anniversary:
- Apollo 17's Blue Marble leaves its mark on our memory
- Harrison Schmitt remembers Apollo 17 like it was yesterday
- Flashback to 1997: Last moonwalkers look ahead
- Flash timeline: Glory Days on the Final Frontier
- Panoramas.dk: 360-degree view from Apollo 17
- Audio slideshow: Voyage of the Millennium
In addition to marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17's lunar landing, the picture of astronaut Harrison Schmitt with the American flag beside him and a tiny Earth above him serves as today's offering for the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from outer space on a daily basis from now until Christmas. Check out these other holiday goodies:
More space calendar entries:
- 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
- Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
- Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
- Day 3: Typhoon stirs awe — and alarm
- Day 4: Glittering nighttime view of Riyadh
- Day 5: Night lights shine on 'Black Marble'
- Day 6: Holy sites seen at night
- Day 7: Blue Marble still leaves its mark
- Day 8: Satellites look into a volcano's hell
- Day 9: Jack Frost nipping at Alaska's nose
- Day 10: Cosmonaut looks down on peaks
- 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
- 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other science and space news coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered via email. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about dwarf planets and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
We never went to the moon in the first place. Its all been an elaborate hoax to keep funding for NASA intact. In the year 1969, there wasn't enough computer power or electronic know-how to accomplish the very complex space flight and lunar landing, let alone having a return trip possible. Also, the Van Buren Radiation Belts would have essentially fried the astronauts who would have had to make two trips through them. We did orbit the earth which was a very huge accomplishment for that time. Think about it, a simple handheld calculator has more computing power than 64K memory of the lame computer Apollo 11 had. Its retarded to believe we landed on the moon
Yep. All dem complycated stuff like the Ifel Tower and Empirical State Building really don't exists. You know, sophistoricated mathamatecs didn't exist back then.
Our government can't hide who is playing hide the sausage. Even the CIA gets caught with it flapping in the breeze or selling coke. You can't get 5 film industry types in a room without crucial plot elements leaking to the public. These are the people you claim have covered up a hoax for all these years? Loosen the tin foil hat a bit, it's cutting off your circulation.
I've seen the place out in the desert where they faked it, there's an Applebee's across the street now. It's a very popular tourist destination for space alien visitors to Earth, they get quite a kick out of it.
Yeah. Colombus never discovered the New World too - the world is flat.
In fact, there is no evidence that you possess a brain, either.
It might take a good while to establish a base on the Moon that could build rockets but patience is worth it. Once in operation, there would be a sustainable human population beyond earth. The trip to Mars would be a lot safer if lunar orbit were the starting point. Intercepting killer asteroids would be a real possibility too. On this point, Obama needs to forget about the glory of history and come to grips with reality. We need a sensible approach to reach the stars and that doesn't include joy rides to oblivion.
The Apollo 11 mission was meant to go to the moon. The decision to fake it wasn't made till just months before the launch date. The radiation belts were too powerful (operation starfish prime didn't work out as expected) and the lunar lander was uncontrollable. There was a relay satellite set up for communication testing purposes that was used to broadcast the audio and video from the proper location in space, and the soviets didn't yet have the technology to track us well enough to expose the fakery. We cancelled the Apollo 18 mission when it was discovered they could now track us via TIROS, in late 1972.
I would like very much for us to go back to the moon BUT who is going to pay for it?
I worked for NASA way back when-exciting? bet your back side! BUT there is no way we can even hope to discuss such a trip when the FISCAL CLIFF and Congress is about to tank the world economy, so lets come back down to Earth and deal with the Space Cadets in Congress first.
bob doug, how did they get the blue marble image? It's really quite a piece de resistance of the whole production, no?
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/07/15755286-40-years-later-apollo-17s-blue-marble-leaves-a-mark-on-our-memory?lite
We couldn't control the lander because of radio interference so we set up a radio relay to fake it?
If we wait for congress to be reasonable we are gonna die here when the sun blows up. Just because you are neurotic doesn't mean you shouldn't treat your appendicitis.
Er -- Van Buren Radiation Belts? That'll come as a shock to Dr. Van Allen, so please don't tell him.
tracontech - you are a moon nutter. Of course we went to the moon.
The responses to this article exhibit, rather glaringly, the two extremes of perception in the average person:
One formed through genuine education with a focus on critical thinking, and the other fed by falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and quackery.
If nothing else, someone should submit this thread to the powers that be in their local government as undeniable proof of the astoning need for proper education. Wow.
So, who's buried in Van Buren's tomb? Is it Lincoln? I don't think so.
Proof the US landed on the moon... can you explain these away?
1) Can you explain away why the Soviets have 0.7 pounds of moon rocks from 3 missions while the US has 842 pounds from 6 missions?
2) Can you explain away the pictures of the 3 lunar rovers, the landing sites... the flags?
3) How about Apollo 13... care to explain why NASA would choose to hoax a failed landing on the third mission?
4) Why the Soviets (or any other government, for that matter) never protested that the US did not land on the moon?
5) Why, of the FIVE Lunar Laser Ranging experiments, where we still bounce lasers off of get on the moon... do the two Soviet ones have a 14cm a side mirror array while the US versions are over 35 cm a side while the Apollo 15 one is 104 x 61 cm? Could it be because... you need PEOPLE to position such devices?
6) The independent confirmation of telemetry by radar by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and Australia?
7) The Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK tracking the various Apollo missions with it's telescope?
8) The Japanese SELENE program's photos of the Apollo 15 site being exact matches at the same altitude?
9) The TD-1A photographs of Earth (TD-1A was an ESA satellite) that match those taken by Apollo 16?
10) The Chinese Chang'e 2's photos of the moon, clearly showing Apollo artefacts?
11) ...and how did parts from Surveyor 3, which landed on the moon in 1967 COME BACK TO EARTH if Apollo 12 was faked?
I mean, it's pretty impressive to have a lunar picture of Conrad standing next to it, film of him removing the camera, AND the lunar dust attached to it! To this day, it's the only time humans have visited a probe previously sent out of the Earth's orbit.
12) Why would NIXON of all people, call to congratulate the astronauts and play a fake which only helped to cement the memory of KENNEDY, his bitter rival?
13) How do you fool billions of people with TV footage?
14) How do you keep tens of thousands of people to keep secret such a conspiracy to dupe the world?
15) Heck, how do you keep even one of the 30 astronauts that went to the moon from giving away the secret? The book deal alone would be worth millions!
It was a waste of money in 1969. It would be a waste of money now. Why bother? Nut cases (see above) won't believe it anyway...............
We got much better computers from the last push to the moon, like the one I am posting from and you are reading on. Going back to the moon will create another tech leap and I'm hoping for holodecks.
Comment typed on a computer that is a direct spin-off of technologies developed during the first moon landing. Brilliant!!
Jeff: a little post secondary education would do you some good!
I'm a fiscal conservative to the bone, and yet, I can't bring myself to call this a waste of money. It's just too damn interesting. More moon for me please.
Why, you ask?
*Ahem*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
I would like very much for us to go back to the moon BUT who is going to pay for it?
I worked for NASA way back when-exciting? bet your back side! BUT there is no way we can even hope to discuss such a trip when the FISCAL CLIFF and Congress is about to tank the world economy, so lets come back down to Earth and deal with the Space Cadets in Congress first.
All those "NASA spinoffs" that keeps getting mentioned? Those came from basic research, not from manned spaceflights itself. We could have the same "spinoff benefits" at a fraction of the cost if we'd paid for basic research but cancelled the manned spaceflights.
The only economic benefits from manned spaceflights was the entertainment value of watching astronauts cavorting in zero gee and bounding around on the moon - and repairing the Hubble space telescope. The costs for moon missions far outweighed the benefits, that's why it all ended and why nobody has gone back since.
Actually things like, oh, the water purification technology, and LED technology either were used or are still in use today by NASA. Freeze drying technology too. Its not so much that it was done for basic research, it was done because there was a necessity for those technologies for the space program. As the old saying goes "Necessity is the mother of all invention"(by the way, keep in mind that NASA has done this on a total budget that equals less than 2 years of the DoD base annual budget. The most money NASA ever had allocated to it was during the Apollo years, and that still equaled less than 5% of total spending at its peak. Given the hundreds of billions if not trillions that have been made from NASA R&D, I would say that spending a little extra to put it to use in space is money well spent, never mind the jobs that are created to make the componets for everything needed to go into space in the first place)
I think you may be on to something. Entertainment value is not the point of basic research but is often a side effect. It's a good thing there are no valuable resources to be had in space or we might have to put up with this entertainment for a long time.
Uh, why do you think the "basic research" was done in the first place? It was in support of the space program. Penny pinching corporations are not going to do speculative research unless they think there is going to be an immediate payoff or if government will fund their research.
Sure we would eventually have all the technology we have today, but it would have been a hundred years from now if left to normal market forces.
Unless we had a war, that forces development too, but you know, I'd rather it be from peaceful goals instead.
There is only ONE who knows about the moom.
Well, I've certainly never heard of it
...and he's a zombie, right?
Newt?????
David Bowie?
Robin Williams?
Al Gore? Who is it? The suspense is killing me?
@ DingleB.....it's me! I'm the only one who knows.
Hope that clears that up for ya! lol
What's a "MOOM"? Is it like a Room, or a Doom?
Massive Ovoid Orbiting Meteor. For some reason, people started saying MOON, and it stuck. But it's rong.
Moomimpappa knows all about the moom, obviously..
Obviously "moom" is a palindrome. It's a metaphor for typo philosophy not meant to be taken literally but as a mere slip of the rhetoric that supports it.
Actually, the Mooms invaded Spain in the 8th Century. The "Moops" answer on the Trivial Pursuit card is just a typo.
It's Moops!
"rong" it's moops....
Why is the flag upright and flapping around? There's no wind in space right? This is a serious question. I'm not joking around. Any insight would be great!
Because it's on a pole that's shaped sort of like an upside down L. it's not stretched out all the way on the top part so it's a little crumpled.
Daniel5,
Google this: Mythbusters Moon Hoax Flag Flapping
They reproduce the same flag flapping effect in a vacuum chamber.
In fact, this video tends to validate that the astronauts are indeed in a vacuum because the pendulum like effect of the flag would have been dampened quicker by air.
Why are there fenders on the dune buggy? Seems like a waste of weight and materials.
The fenders was to keep the dust and dirt kicked up by the wheels from landing on top of the rover - and the astronauts. Not a big problem, but one worth preventing.
Okay, but since they were faking it, and didn't really have to drive it around, they didn't really need the fenders.
(I'm just practicing my riffs on inept illogical incredulity here.. I know I suck, but someday I might get good enough to be a moon-landing denier)
Daniel, Mythbusters did a great show on this. We went to the moon folks. Maybe we'll go again. I'm amazed at all the conspiracy theorists out there who believe we can keep something involving thousands of people and several counties secret for 40+ years, yet don't believe a sign that says Wet Paint.
CM-6969: Actually, it was a big problem. The lunar "dust" is really like tiny pumice rocks with sharp edges and electric qualities. It gets into everything. By the end of each Apollo lunar stay, the astronauts could hear the dust grinding in the seals and connectors of their suits. Fenders on the rover were mandatory. In fact, going back to the moon for any extended period (beyond just a few lunar walks) makes conquering the dust issue a higher priority. They got away with it on Apollo because they weren't staying long. Longer stays will require better methods for dealing with the dust.
The NASA scientists who prepared for the Moon landing/s were not idiots. They knew full well a cloth flag would hang limp and lifeless straight down from its pole in the vacuum that exists on the surface of the Moon. (There is sufficient gravity there to pull a cloth flag down against its pole).
Not much of a photo op; a dead flag. So they designed an American flag that would stand out proud from the pole and look more "natural", as the eye expects to see a flag (here on Earth).
The flag was a affixed to a rigid spine sticking out away from the pole. Also, if you so much as touch a pole sticking out of the Lunar dust "soil", it will reverberate back and forth for quite awhile with only 1/6th the gravity of the Earth, and no air to apply friction to slow it down.
About the stars not being visible on most shots of the Astronauts on the Moon's surface; it's called EXPOSURE. The Moon's surface is a very bright and reflective gray, and the Astronaut's uniforms were mostly white. To iris a camera - ANY camera - down to the point where you could see the background stars, the Moon and Astronauts standing on it would be featureless overexposed blobs of pure white, and/or blurry every time they moved even the slightest bit. Since they were the subject - the point of being there in the first place - all camera's exposures were set to show the best detail of the Lunar surface and the Astronauts.
And, this can still be seen today if you look at footage of space walks from the shuttle and the space station. No stars.
"Why is the flag upright and flapping around?"
Stiff rod across the top to hold it out horizontally. Just like you could do down here, if you wanted. Think the longest elements of a Yagi TV antenna. (That's right, there was a time when we didn't all have cable or a parabolic satellite dish, and these funny metallic things were on most roofs...)
Also, things still can vibrate in vacuum. One can easily see ISS solar arrays doing so in some videos. Indeed, they tend to vibrate longer, precisely because there's no air to help damp it down...
(And if it were a fake, don't you think someone would be smart enough to say, "Hey, turn off the fan! This is supposed to be the MOON we're shooting!")
"The fenders was to keep the dust and dirt kicked up by the wheels from landing on top of the rover - and the astronauts. Not a big problem, but one worth preventing."
Oh, it was more of an issue than that. On Apollo 17, Gene Cernan used duct tape to do a makeshift (and absolutely necessary, given the dust problem they were having even before breaking it) fender repair.
They might well have had to limit their travel distance to that which they could walk back, without it. Gene's assessment of the problem, before devising a fix:
"Oh, man, I tell you, it's going to take us half a dozen Sundays to dust. Look at that fender; that's terrible. Boy, that one fender just [creates] an order of magnitude more of a dust problem."
See: science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/21apr_ducttape/ (no w.w.w.)
That is why they have fenders, Doug...
My fear is that, in this day and age, America will go to the moon (and/or Mars) and treat it in the usual, selfish, utilitarian way. We have already screwed this planet up. Now they are considering going elsewhere. Of course, once we're there, we'll screw that up too.
Here's an "out-of-this-world" thought: Focus on population control and conservation to limit how badly we're screwing up the one and only world we're ever going to have.
But what about the sister planets that are a gazillion light years away ? We can start over right ? Just kidding Troy. You are absolutely correct ....
Harvesting asteroids will take humans further and further out from the sun until we are getting closer and closer to nearby stars. Moon by moon, comet by comet, asteroid by asteroid we will get there with current tech. It's just gonna take a LONG time without some break through propulsion tech.
Actually we used to live on mars - we screwed that planet up came to Earth started over again and now we are killing Earth so we had better make a few really big shuttles in space and spread the virus that is US to another planet.
I'm sure we wont exploit anyone for the unubtanium on there planet. It's just not in our nature! /sarc
With our current propulsions a trip to other inhabitable planets would play out like this:
OK, Joe, we're gonna send you to planet Zenobe, but before you go we have to tell you that you will die on the trip, your children will die on the trip, your grandchildren's grandchildren will die on the trip. Ok, any questions?
Yeah, like when are you gonna take the gun from my head?
FED UP BOOMER, yeah, the next hop would be Venus, right? Surface conditions of fire and brimstone sound somewhat appropriate.
Troy, are you saying America screwed up the whole planet?? Wow, I didn't realize we were THAT powerful!
Great article Alan... Ty... So this article is saying that we can do this... I think we should. We need a "workable" vision not pie in the sky... No offense to President Obama but he has no imagination and our leadership in space is an after thought.
I say lets do the doable... Be first at it.. develop the tech for it and make it a mission.. a permanent base on the moon may be costly BUT a orbiting laboratory and observatory... well you can't get better than that. L2 position for a lab would be a great alternative and we can De-commission the ISS to save money.
And what does it matter if we treat it in a "utilitarian" way? Barring any wars starting over astral bodies, these are totally inert bundles of frozen rock. I think it's a great idea to focus our "selfish, utilitarian" ways on the moon and asteroids where there's nothing to damage than here on Earth, where we have a delicate atmosphere and billions of people who have to live with it. Bring on the asteroid mining. Suck the moon dry. Who's it going to hurt?
A much more reasonable proposition than so-called "population control". That's a non-starter if I've ever heard one. Not only is it counter-productive to limit progress for the sake of your backward ideals, it's impossible. We're going into space!
'Screwing up' the Moon.
Dead, dry, vacuum, extreme heat, alternating with extreme cold every two weeks, meteor battered for every second of its existence (even the little stuff that would burn up on approaching Earth), naked to solar and galactic cosmic radiation.
Oh, and did I mention dead? Lifeless?
Screw that up. My, what an interesting concept, Troy...
Now, Mars does deserve care and protection, but pretty much all of what I said of the Moon applies to the asteroids, too.
Make more and more sophisticated rovers. Make them where the pilot can walk into a room at JPL, strap himself into a VR suit and feel like he is there. It's not romantic and it's not as exciting but it is the scientific way and it is progress. Sending people to do what a robots can do is just wasteful theatrics.
Eventually we need to get people off this planet but it makes sense to let the robots build and test the house first...
There is this annoying thing about space....signals have to transverse it from source to objective. You might not walk of a cliff with the rover on the moon with a 3 second lag, but try mars or one of the outer planets and you are gonna go high speed dirt and wont even know it for minutes. Robots are a little better, combination robot/remote like is on mars now is not at all like the experience you are thinking of. Time is ultimately a way to gauge how fast something goes from point A to point B in space, the interval is time.
I agree that we should have more telepresence. Right now only a very few get to go into space, let alone the moon. If we built a gazillion teleoperated robots (no, I don't mean a man shaped device) we'd get economy of scale and loss of a device or two would not be catastrophic. Each time we lost someone in the space program, missions were halted for at least two and half years while we figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.
With Internet access to the teleoperated devices almost everyone could go to the moon. That will generate interest in going there for real.
As long as the speed of light is what it is, there will be limits to what telepresence can do.
A large radio telescope on the moon would be of enormous value! In the moon's weak gravity, and the lack of wind a dish of great size could be build and still skimp on materials, after all the shipping costs are right steep.
And the working condition are rather challenging.
That's the one goal of a moon mission that I could easily get behind. Planting a radio telescope on the far side of the moon, shielded from the radio noise generated by all of our technology, might well provide the kind of scientific bonanza that Hubble has created.
That's what's lacking in most the Moon mission proposals - the promise of being able to carry out some real science. Most of the proponents of a lunar return offer little more than, "It would be neat to go back and look around some more." That's a little vague, given the cost and danger involved.
That's a cool idea. And probably the best reason I've heard so far for the possible uses of a moon base.
Unfortunately, it will take lower-cost spaceflight to make projects on that scale possible, and it will take a larger market/demand than science projects to make the development of it worth the effort.
(Earth radiotelescopes benefit from the fact that we already knew a great deal about steel framework structures before building any. That technology wasn't developed for them. Same for cheaper space travel.)
Unfortunately, no article about the moon would be complete without a visit from the worst of the trolls: people touting moon landing conspiracies. The fact these folks show up doesn't bother me as much as that lately they've been convincing a small number of young people that their junk science has merit. It's so unfortunate: in the early 70's, I was privileged to attend a lecture given at a local university by Dr. Werner von Braun just before I left for my freshman year at engineering college - where I had 2 professors who had worked on the Apollo program. Later, I got to visit both the Kennedy Space Center and the National Air and Space Museum, seeing the Apollo 11 moon capsule and a restored Saturn 5 vehicle. It was so educational to see the ingenuity of the people on the program. They truly accomplished something special and should serve as an inspiration to us all. I sincerely hope to see an economical, safe return to the moon by humans in the next decade.
Agreed. Couldn't have said it better myself.
The Saturn V display is breathtaking. Walking in that room and seeing the business end of the Saturn V rocket,you have to know the skeptics are crazy.
@Chris: I know what you mean; when I got in front of the Saturn 5 IMU, I must have stared at the wiring for 30 minutes. I seem to remember reading that if each wire on the system had been a 1/4" longer, they wouldn't have had the margin to make the journey (but can't find the reference at the moment). The command module alone had 15 miles of wiring in it. The other thing that stood out to me was the machining on the inside of the hatch and locking mechanism of the Apollo 14 capsule that was on display. When you think of the job it had to do, it's easy to see why they built something so robust. I suppose they didn't cover the mechanism so they could easily get at it if something wasn't working (and didn't want the weight penalty). And the LM was a marvel of functional design.
The thing that struck me throughout the displays was the workmanship and attention to detail that was evident. Every solder joint, wire tie, nut, and clip looked perfect. The great thing for the country was when the program ended, that expertise and knowledge found it's way into countless industries. And now we hope that it comes full circle, as people are bringing commercial sector techniques into new space ventures.
Even the skeptics can't deny that Saturns were launched in front of God and everybody. It's after that that their fantasies come in. Never mind that an effective hoax requires doing most of the real thing, anyway...
do you really believe man has been to the moon? You really need to do some research on it, they would have all died before they reached the half way mark, NASA knows this, I know this, But if you want to believe they went then thats ok too the facts speak for them selves.
@silver:
Answer my questions in #1.14 or STFU.
Somebody explain to me why going to the surface of the moon is valuable. There is nothing there of any value.
OK, I've heard the idea of building a radio receiver on the far side. But, it would be more cost effective to build a very-long-baseline radio receiver system using a fleet of satellites that stay in low-moon orbit, and 1/2 the time are shielded from earth radio noise.
If we are willing to accept the fact that robots are much better adapted to carrying out missions in space, then we can have a SUSTAINABLE, AFFORDABLE space exploration program. The Augustine Commission got it right in this regard. Personally, I have no problem in thinking of robots as extensions of humans, and saying "we are exploring the surface of Mars" currently with Curiosity.
Here are the advantages of robots vs. humans on the Moon:
- robot can stay indefinitely - no return trip to Earth
- energy supply is sunpower - no need to take air, food and water
- very close communication to humans back on Earth - 2.5 sec round-trip
- cost of a mission is 1:2000 compared to sending humans
Why is gained by sending humans?
Because we need to send all the moon landing deniers. I wonder if they'll think they're just being taken for a ride?
I would like to see an estimate for the cost of returning to the moon. Perhaps a semi permanent outpost. If you can spend a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war well what the heck.
@Doug: and since none of them believe you can return successfully, you can send them for half-price.
@Doug: and since none of them believe you can return successfully, you can send them for half-price.
Why is gained. If you had been reading you would know what is gained.
I wonder how much scientific knowledge we'd be missing out on if every time someone had a theory or idea somebody shrugged and said "and how is that valuable"? A lot of research makes discoveries that turn out to be valuable in ways no one expected (because entrepreneurs and engineers are better at monetizing science than scientists, in most cases). And a lot more research doesn't turn out to be "valuable" by any measure except knowledge gained. I kind of think that's enough.
I'm usually quite market-minded and corporatist, but space is one area that we need to pour more funding into, damn the economic expectations. If we need the extra money there's plenty of useless departments we can cut instead, and I'd much rather we be senting automated drones to the moon than the Middle East...
Given sufficiently low cost transportation, platnium-group metals known to be readily available there, could be the first profitable Lunar export.
All the talk of Helium-3 for fusion power means nothing, until and unless there are commercial fusion power plants that can use it...but some believe an economic case can be made for supplying the non-fusion He3 market (and I was surprised to find that there is one) from there, as well.
Is there more? Can't say, until critics stop pretending Apollo told us all there is to know about the Moon, and we get back there.
And there simply may be other known possibilities that I'm simply unaware of...
I cant believe that we are trillions of dollars in debt and the government is seriously considering cutting health care for the elderly - But we can even consider borrowing money to go to the moon. Clean up the mess, ten spend money on "Toys". America can't afford this right now.
Because NASA is a huge economic boon. NASA has done all of its accomplishments on a life time budget of about $1.3 trillion dollars(that is over a 54 year time frame). We give the DoD acquisitions budget(which is essentially a $1.8 trillion dollar credit card for the DoD to buy new toys) to NASA, they could operate for another 60 years, if the continued operating as the do now, without another dime allocated to them, probably still have money left over and have far, far, far more to show for it.
It's funny how you show concern for the budget in the same sentence that you decry cutting spending on the demographic that has the greatest, most frequent, and most pointless health care costs. If we're trillions of dollars in debt and we're thinking of cutting back on medical handouts to people at the end of their lives, well, why do you think that is? It's impossible to address one problem without making the other worse.
I'd much rather spend the money on space research and exploration. Look to the future rather than trying (in vain) to preserve the past.
cheezeweggie Since NASA gets 17 billion and Defense gets 650 billion (more than the next 17 countries combined) lets cut some defense.
You know, if we give NASA even half of the Defense Budget, we could be back on the moon by the next Presidential election. I would love to see what a very well funded NASA could accomplish.
...or, indeed, 1/3rd of the entitlement budget.
Whichever. More money into space, less money to wars and/or freeloaders.
I agree we take it from Defense - especially since they are the ones that would directly benefit from a reallocation of their funding to NASA. The two organizations have a close working relationship over history on projects and understand their mutual security considerations, so it's a good fit. I would suggest shifting (taking) most of the money from the Missile Defense Program, with 10% or so from the Osprey program. Both of these would benefit from the technology development that NASA does and both are horribly over budget for their current performance. There are other smaller DOD programs related to EELV and redundant NASA activities that should have their funding moved as well. I would agree with many that the first updated budget for NASA should be 1% of the federal budget (not by increasing, but by reallocating from Defense). Eventually, I'd like to see NASA achieve a funding level of 2-2.5% of the federal budget, but that would take some time to arrive at the right partnerships with industry and a better roadmap for the US in aerospace. Most of the same players on the Defense programs would retain a significant amount of funding, but now they would be doing different projects on the space program. The entitlement budget is certainly ripe for some realignment, but NASA's programs are not a good fit at this time .... IMHO.
Wow, that was a nice breakdown. Good post, Node!
Thanks. I know these would be difficult conversations to have, but they are coming. We all have to face facts that we cannot continue to spend all our time fighting over money we don't have in the first place. It's time to look for creative ways to share resources --- and kill two birds with one stone. I also think there is a play with the Energy Department and NASA in the areas of power transmission and space-based power generation, but it's likely not a significant amount initially. At it's best, NASA excels at solving very difficult problems in a challenging environment. Involving other entities, who have some of their former budget (and hopefully talent) tied up in space programs, would encourage them to follow that technology development closer and to disseminate faster in their domains.
"...lets cut some defense."
If that happens, it'll be to service the debt. Period. Do not assume that NASA (or any other government agency) will get one dime of it.
I was too young then to be an astronaut and I am too old now. Damn!
Never too young, nor too old, to dream.
Please read my following comment in full dont let the first line scare you off. I consider my self a religious man, Christian, I know Jesus is my savor. With that said, I also believe in all of science and history, I am a science buff. With that said, Being a man of moderately high intelligence, I know there is only one option for mankind to survive a long time, longer then the dinosaurs were hear, that is to be a multi-solar system species. With current technology, and some new abilities that we know how to or have conceived how to but dont have the funds to do, we can still be on mars and other bodies. The moon is important, is should be a place that we focus on at the same time as mar. Personally i believe if people can get by the who ha, and realize god created everything for our use, but with respect, that some day we will have the ability to live somewhat forever. I say somewhat because there are still things what will be able to kiss us, such as the sun, or an a-bomb or no air. Reverse aging is already in theory possible, with huge amounts of funds, and of course guinea pigs. With this possibility no government would allow this to come to market. It would easily cause over population. "Yea hi, i have 500 grand kids and a 1500 great grand kids, but look like im 25". Only with respect of nature, and getting off earth and expanding out, will many things more become possible. The moon should be the first wave of immigration and mining. No the moon is not going to fall apart if we mine, that movie was just that a movie. Next, we need to go to multiple targets, moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune, Pluto , and Yes mars. The problem is , scientiest think that if there is some kind of single cell organism that we will contaminate it and ruin it. I say, i would rather respect earth, and ruin a single cell system that has no hope of evolving past what it is. I also think man kinds biggest restriction, and why no alien race would ever interact with us, is that we fund everything with money. Money really on has value if you place value on it. I hate to say it , but star trek had it right, if people worked just for the betterment of mankind , and everything's was shared throughout , without the need for money, we would easy be a space bearing race. I hope our next step in evolution cures these selfish flaws. We have created our own limitation. Now forgive my rant, for some odd reason I felt like pointing out my opinion, Freedom of Speech!
Not a bad bit, but you miss the point of money.
Star Trek conveniently takes place in a utopian future where resources are magically infinite. Thus economics has been completely turned on its head: the first law of econ is scarcity. There is never enough of anything to satisfy everyone. Ownership and currency is a vital way of rationing resources. Flawed, like everything else humans have to work with, but it's by far the best system we have because it works in conjunction with the state of the world (limited resources and knowledge, with effort and capital needed to exploit them) and our own biological imperatives (so-called "selfish" behavior and the need to support yourself and your family/social group/tribe/country above rivals).
So money can never NOT be a part of mankind's astro-expansion. In order for those resources to be turned skyward, people either need to be convinced that there are more resources in space worth getting, or they need to be so filthy rich that they can construct or support the construction of space craft and infrastructure because they have nothing better to do with the money. It's nice that you believe in Christ, but space exploration is going to take more than faith.
Yes, we're in bad shape here on Earth. In many ways. But we were born to look out and dream...to explore...we went to the moon...we have rovers on Mars...one working years after it was supposed to die. Voyager 1 is reaching the end of our solar system, and will soon be beyond it - OUR first UFO. If we don't go back to the moon...go to Mars...go beyond that some day when we solve our petty differences here on Earth and put our minds to developing the mechanism to go outwards into the unknown, what do we have to look forward to? What do young people have to dream about? When I stand outside on a clear night and look out at all the stars, I often wonder if anyone is looking back. Looking back and dreaming of places unknown and things never before seen, just as I am.
More to the point, it's absurd to expect our problems on Earth to ever be "fixed". It hasn't happened in all the thousands of years civilization has been chugging along, and I don't see the prospect for it now. "Fixing" Earth is a pipe dream.
Why don't they do flyarounds for a lot less money. 500 mill each would be a bargain.
For detailed mapping and those other things you can do from above, that's fine.
But if your goal is to understand, and ultimately economically develop a place (if what you learn suggests that that can be done), then sooner or later, people must be on it to do things up close and personal...
All the money we spend on space stays on earth. Considering all the fraud, waste and abuse experienced in the government, and the cost of seemingly endless wars in the Middle East, going back to the moon is a relative bargain. It would also spur economic development in high tech industries right here in the USA. I would argue that we cannot afford NOT to go back to the moon. There is still much to be learned from the effort, both in how to get, live and work there, as well as in the scientific discoveries of the moon itself. Sending humans to Mars in my lifetime would be awesome, but I don't think that will happen for cost and technical reasons. However, the moon is completely within our grasp, technically and financially. The only real question is: do we have the determination -- the grit -- to do it? Can we make a better sequel than the original? I say we can. Apollo was amazing, but we can do better.
A few years back, Congress asked NASA to assess the benefits and profits from the moon landings. Congress rejected the number. Most people do not know that the contractors, scientists and engineers who developed all the advances for our flights to the moon created more money than they spent. Many of the devices in use today came about because of developments at NASA, and run the gamut from satellites and communication systems to avionics and material science. The media does us a great disservice by pretending that NASA is more cost than surplus. Every patent developed by NASA is sold to industry and individuals, and has created thousands of jobs. Read "NASA Tech Briefs" just once, and you will see what the news never tells us.
Our government says it is broke, and wants to cut entitlements. So how could the GOV have any money to spend on the space programs? Or money for defense. Is this just double talk, or what? The GOV has money to give other countries, but says it is broke. Could someone explain broke? Our politicians use the word broke all of the time.
Whelp, imagine that the whole federal budget is $1.
$0.0053 (yes, just over half a penny) goes to NASA (NASA is 17th out the 29 major government spending pools).
$0.04 goes to pay the interst on the national debt. (The 6th biggest spending item on the fed budget).
$0.19 goes to defense.
$0.55 goes to "entitlements".
So: save half a penny, spend a half dollar & nickel? I don't care for that logic...
Sadly SNG, government budgets don't work like simple household budgets. We are "broke", but that doesn't mean we can't spend more money, since the government can borrow. In addition, there are many things that are considered essential spending, things that aren't essential but which the government is legally required to spend on and can be sued for, other things that are neither essential nor legally required but which look good politically, and then you have things which aren't any of those, but which are kind of a good idea (these tend to include research, infrastructure, and many kinds of investment projects).
It's kind of complicated, but feel free to blame politicians for mucking it up.
It's clear that NASA is focussed on stunts and not on building infrastructure. The major cost of going into space is the rocket they throw away on every launch. They have to stop doing that. NASA's only priority until the job is done should be a completely reusable launcher that can be turned around in a few hours by a half a dozen A&P mechanics. Once that's done space will become so cheap that private businesses and wealthy individuals can do the rest.
But instead NASA is focussing on more and more vastly expensive throwaway rockets because they screwed up the Space Shuttle royally and to their way of thinking that "proves" that reusables aren't viable.
That's what the shuttle was supposed to be. Didn't quite work out that way. I hear that a NASA engineer crunched the numbers and noticed that building big dumb boosters like the Saturn V would become economical with economies of scale. The Russians went that route and they are still flying. We lose a shuttle and we are grounded for about 2 1/2 years, the Russians just roll out another booster and launch two weeks later.
Once they discover the anti-graviton, nobody will even WANT to go to space anymore - it'll be too crowded.
I tend to trust astrophysicists as to what kind of vehicles are best for space travel. It seems we're still a long way off from fully reusable spacecraft. We should invest in trying to find a new way to get vehicles into orbit, but that doesn't mean we should neglect space travel until then.
Doug, gravitons, like photons, have no anti-particle counterpart...
"I tend to trust astrophysicists as to what kind of vehicles are best for space travel."
?? What would those who specialize in natural bodies and phenomena in deep space know about that? It's like asking a meteorologist about airplane design.
You trust engineers and technicians for this.
That's why the phrase 'rocket science' has always been wrong...
I remember the night that we took the "giant leap for mankind".
I remember when Apollo 13 broke through the clouds, igniting a wave of emotion in humanity that spanned the continents,(I was abroad at the time, saw the reaction).
I remember the first successful privatization of spaceflight by Elon Musk's team. (Zephraim Cochran?)
That's in my lifetime. We've come a long way since Gallileo was forced to say the earth did not revolve around the sun.
I think we should go on.
“About the stars not being visible on most shots of the Astronauts on the Moon's surface; it's called EXPOSURE. …... Since they were the subject - the point of being there in the first place - all camera's exposures were set to show the best detail of the Lunar surface and the Astronauts.”
Uhhhh…………..No.
It’s called lack of DISCLOSURE.
Many of these photos were modified, tampered – and thankfully some not in a very perfect way.
We did go to the Moon, folks. But that is not where the conspiracy lies (so to speak). It is about what happened while we were there – and why we have not been back (in person) for years.
People who accept NASA’s line on all of this remind me of folks who look out a window and see birds squatting on power lines and only think of how pretty the view is – while I see power lines and telephone poles (which have been around for decades and decades and decades) as an example of how technology is kept stagnant and new technology is suppressed.
We split the atom in the 1940’s. That was almost 70 years ago. Even better than that, about a century ago Tesla was experimenting with free energy.
“We can’t allow your device to be used, Mister Tesla, because we can’t put a meter on it.”
We need to open our eyes, and our minds. Just because you make enough money to pay for the meal you are having tonight does not mean that all is right with the world.
The world is controlled by those few individuals and corporations that have a lot of wealth and power – and almost none of these are our elected government officials. Our tax money is being siphoned off to projects that function well outside the limits of our Constitution. Our forefathers are rolling in their graves, and have been for a long time.
Is this acceptable to you?
Question everything.
Tesla was not experimenting with free energy.
And where's your proof the photos were tampered with?
Mitchell
I tried questioning a tree once, but it was a waste of time.
You're right that the world is "controlled" (to the laughable extent it can be controlled by anyone) by the elite. You should be commended on realizing the blindingly obvious.
But they are not "few", they are not unified, and they DO include our highest elected officials, who are almost invariably well-educated and rich. Your assumption that there is a magical source of power that was discovered by Tesla but never investigated thanks to pressure from corporations handily ignores all the corporations and wealthy elite who didn't make their living selling electricity and would have profited considerably from free power. It also ignores the many times that rich, vested interests have suffered thanks to technological progress - were those all flukes?
If I'm going to question everything, I'm going to start with your absurd theories.
quite collapsing comments, I may not like em, put it's speech dammit, and research data as well!!.....
So many of us on the cosmic log have been saying moonbase, moonbase for decades now!!....put public at large keeps electing fools for leaders. China is determined to lead the world, the moon is theirs if they can keep their pace, it's obvious we sure as hell can't keep ours.