If the money was there, we could be on the moon in five years and be there a hell of a lot more safely than in the 60s.

This really pisses me off. On the one hand, conservatives are going out of their way to bemoan government spending. Then on the other hand, they complain that we aren’t spending money on flying to the moon!

Fucker! Maybe if your boy king hadn’t flushed the economy down the toilet, started so many wars, and EATED the budget surplus left by Clinton, we might have some extra change to give to NASA so they can do some cool ass stuff again.

Yeah, I bring nothing to the table.

When it comes to the moon, Obama is not in Kennedy’s league let alone Guy Whitey Corngood’s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csj7vMKy4EI

Yes, butin another thread.

C’mon, we can reach lightspeed by rendering down hate objects into combustible briquettes.

Where’s MY wingnut welfare check?

There’s talk of letting the space station die in 2015. Oh c’mon – that thing was damn expensive to build. It’s worth keeping it going.

On account of my bewilderment by Spanish cuisine I intend to eat only in McDonalds.

That’s certainly been considered, and the issue of the political and geographical problems with the equator are very much in the minds of the people advocating the space elevator.

The good news is, there’s no reason you have to put the space elevator on land at all. Mounting it to a sea-based platform has multiple advantages: you don’t need another government’s permission, you don’t have unstable regions around you, and it potentially makes the elevator mobile, which is useful if you need to avoid some floating space debris or something.

These kinds of things are discussed in the Edwards report, which you must, must read if you have any interest at all in the space elevator. It also discusses the best construction material (hint: it’s carbon nanotubes).

Edwards report

And here’s another one I’ve been waiting for for ages, and I can’t be bothered waiting any more: Smut. This band provided the soundtrack for my teen years, which probably answers a great many questions as to why I am like I am.

Back on topic:
Sirius Lunacy said,
You see, the “perfect” president is the one who proclaims that we will do something big, like go to the moon and mars or leave no child behind while at the same time not spending any taxpayer money to accomplish that. That’s good Presidentin’!!

Sums up Kraphammer pretty well – tain’t the doin’ of the thing, it’s the tellin’ us so we can start wanking about it! (See Smut above).

I admit I’ve always been a big space groupie, and have been extremely disappointed that we haven’t been carvorting about in space for decades (although not for the reasons of mini-skirted lunar babes as mentioned by some). Space is groovy, it’s exciting, and it produces boggins of useful technological spinoffs.

And space travel provides the option for a Kornbluthian solution – let’s start with Kraphammer.

The real question to me is: where the fuck are you going to PUT it? It would have to be fairly equatorial to be useful, and there’s really not a whole lot of landmass at the equator. But even if it doesn’t, there’s still the issue of where you’re going to build a mile-diameter structure that is in no particular danger of earthquakes or hurricanes/gusty weather in general, and has a land composure that could support the several million-ton structure.

Basically, I think you’re only real hope is somewhere in Africa, and we all know THAT’S not going to happen. If noting else, this thing will take decades to build, so in addition to strict atmospheric and geographic requirements, the geo-political stability required to oversee the structure’s construction and administration even FURTHER limit the potential zones.

But on the other hand, Star Trek is awesome…

The “liberal” anti-space bastards like Amitai Etzioni collaborated with the Nixons and Proxmires of the world to discard four decades of opportunities for my generation; now some of them are determined to deny it to my daughter’s generation as well.

2. There are at least two ways developed to turn regolith into oxygen for breathing and liquid propellant. One is basically similar to molten salt electrolysis on earth — melt the regolith and hit with much energy, break bonds make oxygen. The other is hydrogen reduction of specific minerals on the moon surface. This is called in situ resource utilization (isru) and is one of the major initial research areas of the program. I do not where the energy would come from, although I assume there are people working on this

3. The LRO/LCROSS (lunar reconnaissance orbiter/lunar crater observation sensing system) mission that went up last month is beginning it’s mission — just having sent back it’s first pictures last week. LCROSS is designed to determine if there is water in permanently shadowed craters at the South (I believe) pole. This should give results in October (IIRC)

4. The effort is already somewhat international, working with some closeness to Canada, Germany, Japan and possibly South Korea

5. IMO, robots in space work about as well as robots in military service. Good for certain initial jobs, but not that useful for many of the final needs.

6. I have spent more or less all my time this sumer working at a NASA facility on some of these issues, so a) I do know something about this and b) may be biased toward a return to the moon, but I don’t see that as being involved in what I wrote above.

7. I do not what methods of getting to Mars were considered in addition to the moon base. From what I have read (in the newspapers, press releases etc., not in any secret documents [which they don't let me have anyway]), Obama was more reconsidering the current rocket system versus other systems that were initially not selected, as the current rocket system (of getting to the moon) has been overbudget. Also, Obama is likely to financially prioritize terrestrial science (like the climate science) over the space science, but is still likely to fund space science sufficiently to continue the Constellation program. In the end much of NASA funding goes to jobs too (over half a million in 2004).

8. NASA funding payback is typically about 5-7:1, much better than military payback (1.7:1)

just the thing the oil companies are searching for: an expensive form of energy.

wind power, solar power, thermal power are all too cheap to make huge profits. they can be created in your home and sold back to the power company. nuclear fusion will only be produced in a power plant and sold to the customer.

thar’s money on that thar moon!

Goddam t00bz gotz no video for “Space Junk”, except for the “E-Z listening” version.

Dibs on Romana.