Yeah, it seems to me the only reason for a moon station would be a tourist destination of the utmost caliber. And that is something for private industry. And as long as they don't have a proven system of blasting rocks out of the sky, I wouldn't take a free ticket.
I think the moon could easily serve as a jump off base. With the amount of space debris in orbit around our planet, it may be that it makes more sense to build on the moon than orbiting our planet. The lower gravity would still make construction of large objects easier, and escaping from the moon into space doesn't require nearly as much effort as leaving Earth.
I can see your logic, and think 7 billion humans would sacrifice life and limb to make that happen if, and only if, you could 1st find a place we could truly inhabit.
Basically, all space efforts should concentrate on human expansion. Then the means. Then the launch point. Only practical way to go about things. Especially if want support of all. We should be sending probes and rovers to all corners we can see with the eye.
The Age of Discovery in Western history began with the Portuguese and the Spanish. Then Dutch, French and British led the way. The Age of Space Exploration began with the Soviets and Americans. Which nation will lead humanity in the next stage of exploration?
I think it will be a joint effort, but we still have bad blood in our systems. Nations of earth are not equal enough for true cooperation, and robbing from one to give to another never works, whether you are talking individuals or collectives. We have at least one more dark age and one more world war in us. Sorry Star Trek fans, we have a ways to go yet.
That makes a lot of sense. The Chinese will never cooperate with an international effort. In this era their ego is too great.
So where is your unbiased, factual proof that flying to the Moon or Mars would benefit the American taxpayer in a tangible, monetary way. Oh you can't. What a shock. What's that you say? - 'the benefits of such events are immeasurable'. Translation: 'I am a gigantic mooch who believes that taxpayers should pay for all the things that I think are 'neat' because there is NO WAY the private sector will'. America is $15 trillion in debt and this mooching troglodyte wants American taxpayers that can barely find enough money for food and rent to fork over even more of their tax dollars so about a dozen people can go to Mars for a week at the cost of about a $50 billion per person. No wonder America is broke - on the one hand there are idiots who want to spend trillions on the military (even though America has no real enemies except a bunch of wacko's with home made pipe bombs) AND ON THE OTHER HAND there are idiots who want the government to do everything for them because they are so pathetic at taking care of themselves and creating their own dreams that they get others to do it for them - and then they whine like babies when they do not get what they want.
Indeed, Earth gravitational pull is not enough to completely shield the near side, but it does have less craters than the far side of the Moon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_side_of_the_Moon#Differences A layer of soil will be enough to shield it from smaller impacts and radiation. Larger impacts are extremely rare, there are so many craters only because of no erosion to erase them as on Earth.
That is a solvable problem; the lifespan issue isn't without radical advances in technology. Manufacturing can be miniaturized, put on board a large enough ship--parts can be replaced, as long as there are living, breathing people to do the work. It seems more likely that we could figure out methods of putting production of replacement parts on the ship than that we could figure out a way to travel faster than light.
This topic is pure sci fi. To the moonbase supporters. How do you believe it be created with current technology? Remember the cargo space is limited in rockets, and nasa won't complete the shuttle 2.0 for years, possibly a decade. If it has been given the funding.
Mars all the way! We already know we can undergo the stress of such a long trip: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/10/ff_marsmission/all/1
Where next for NASA? The dustbin of history. NASA was sold to the people on the basis of manned space travel. It has given up on that in favor of AGW. So we can do without it. Wanna go to space, pay a Russian.
A layer of soil? So the moon space station is a space cave? I just don't see the point. If nothing can be exposed what purpose would it serve other than to say we did it? It seems any function it might serve can be done cheaper by a satellite. I don't even know what the point of the space station we already have is. I guess practice for building one farther away but near a place we want to explore? A daisy chain to Mars?
Regardless of the way it was sold to the people, the benefits we've received from it are beyond question. Without NASA, we would never predict solar storms that can potentially disrupt electronics all over the world, and that's just one example. I don't think it's fair to say that NASA should be disbanded simply because manned space travel isn't happening. There's no reason for it to happen right now. And by the way, up until very recently, NASA was sending astronauts into space to work aboard the ISS. That's manned space exploration, fulfilling their duty as you say they are supposed to. Being in a transition period while a new more advanced shuttle is designed and built is not them shirking the responsibility you say they have.
You may as well ask what is the point of manned spaceflight in general. Well, primarily a great amount of prestige for the country and human race in general, inspiring future generations and some spin-off technologies. I think it is defintely worth the 0.3 % of federal budget.
Current technology? Moonbase could be created even with 60-70s technology. It is primarily a matter of money and political will, technology is there. Cargo space is limited? For one, SLS superheavy rocket is funded and in development. For two, we do not even need it, as limited space and mass capacity could be solved by simply launching more 20-50t pieces. Existing rockets are all chronically launch-starved. As for shuttle 2.0, if you mean Orion capsule, it is funded and in development, with first flight scheduled for 2014. Dragon capsule flew already, with another flight next month. Dream Chaser shuttle and Boeing CST-100 capsule are also funded and under development. I am not saying a Moonbase could be realistically build before 2025, unless much more resources are commited to this purpose. But beyond that date, it is no sci-fi, but quite realistic, with the sole problem being whether politicians will approve it or not.
Where are you going to get the raw materials in deep space? You're going to have to carry them with you. Do you understand how Reaction Engines work? You throw something out the back of a spacecraft, it moves forward. The propulsion must be strong enough to overpower the mass or else the acceleration will be very slow and the trip will take a long time. The more mass you have, the more reaction mass you need to propel yourself. The more reaction mass you have, the less payload you can carry. It's all governed by the law of diminishing returns. In the scenario you're proposing, you have to devote large amounts of payload mass to raw materials and machines to produce spare parts. That in turn increases your mass, which cuts into your r-mass budget. This means that your trip will take longer, meaning you'll have more stuff break down, meaning you'll need more payload mass for spare parts, which cuts into your r-mass budget, which means your trip will take longer, which means more stuff will break down, which means... Are you seeing the infinite regression? Short answer: without FTL, physics conspires to make interstellar space travel impossible.
I think it is time they seriously explore Mars, it is time to expand space ward for energy sources and most of all for a new civilization away from all of earth's ugly history of wars.
Nasa should be investigating asteroids for composition. Iron or other metal asteroids should be brought into orbit around Earth and harvested.
The moon is a very poor target for any sort of permanent residence. Unless there are existentially useful resources on site (water or materials for making water, useful volatiles, and structural materials if a pressure vessel is needed, etc) it wouldn't work. There are only a handful of places in the solar system where permanent colonization could theoretically work, and the moon isn't one of them. Neither is Mars. If we want to put some sort of permanent habitat somewhere, the only even vaguely feasible choice right now would be the upper atmosphere of Venus. That's at least theoretically achievable with present technology, mainly because it happens to have a zone in its atmosphere with the right combination of pressure (1 bar), temperature (Earth norms at 1 bar), gravity (close to Earth's gravity), and mix of useful volatiles. That and breathable air happens to be a lifting gas on Venus. Keeping the sulfuric acid out is a minor problem when you compare it to the difficulties of, say, maintaining pressure in a vessel in a vacuum. It's only science fiction, mind you, because no one really wants to devote significant resources or effort to such a project.
