# NASA formally unveils plans for going back to the Moon!



## AA Institute (Sep 22, 2005)

NASA today unveiled an ambitious blueprint for returning American astronauts to the moon by 2018 using new rockets based on shuttle propulsion technology and a new reusable crew vehicle Administrator Mike Griffin described as "Apollo on steroids." 

Full story:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0509/19exploration/

Flight plan graphic:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/125171main_flight_plan_graphic.jpg


AA


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 25, 2005)

Sorry to sound cynical, but the fact that NASA can barely get a craft into orbit means that plans to get to moon sound like outright media spin and naive optimism.

I'd love to say I was being overly-cynical, but check out when NASA expects the replacements for the shuttle to be ready for...


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## Foxbat (Sep 25, 2005)

I'm all for going to the moon and anywhere else that takes our fancy. It will no doubt take some time and I just hope I'm still around to see it happen


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## Rane Longfox (Sep 25, 2005)

You would have thought, so long after the original trip, it would be easy by now


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## dreamwalker (Sep 26, 2005)

caladanbrood said:
			
		

> You would have thought, so long after the original trip, it would be easy by now


yer

if star trek was written now, it'd be set 10,000 years in the future instead of a few hundred


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## Salazar (Sep 27, 2005)

We don't even know that NASA got to the moon before, those shows that show you the fake stuff the Moon Landing got to me


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## lazygun (Sep 27, 2005)

Onwards and upwards.


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## littlemissattitude (Oct 2, 2005)

Salazar said:
			
		

> We don't even know that NASA got to the moon before, those shows that show you the fake stuff the Moon Landing got to me


 
*sigh*  Of course NASA got to the moon before.  I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but sheesh....

As far as the new plans go, its great if they are really willing to put their money where their plans are.  But I just keep getting the horrible feeling that this is going to be just like No Child Left Behind...they'll mandate it and then refuse to appropriate a sufficient amount of money to carry it out.


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## dreamwalker (Oct 2, 2005)

Its something I also fear.
2018 is very distant planning as compared to the space race days where things where planned in months, instead of decades


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## NikG (Oct 10, 2005)

I find it depressing that there's still the Saturn V rocket on display that could probably be set up to take us back to the moon within half a year using sufficient safety checks.

The more depressing thing is that the ability to get to the moon means we would have been able to get to the La Grange points and harness the suns power. I remember calculating the energy for the L5 point as being around 670 times the energy consumption of the planet and we could have done this with the technology back then and some risk taking.

I thought humans were more ambitious than that. Imagine if our ancestors walked out of Africa and found a whole continent, walked back and told all their friends, "ah there's some land there, it looks alright, but I'm too lazy to walk back."



   Hopefully NASA will stop being moronic and work with other space services, they don't seem to realise that the cold war ended and their no longer fighting the Russians and we would probably be on the moon in a year or two if they just worked with the ESA and RASA who have a much better launch site in French Guiana.


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## Clangador (Nov 26, 2005)

I must point out NASA has to have enough funding to get there in the first place. I think it's more the American leadership that has failed than NASA.


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## littlemissattitude (Nov 26, 2005)

I think there's actually enough blame for both NASA and the government to shoulder some of it.  The government has never really been willing to give enough money to space exploration to do it right.  This was exacerbated from those on both the left and the right who complained that the money for NASA could have going for their pet projects.  But NASA has, I think, been afraid to ask for what they really need, fearing that they would be shut down altogether.  It seems like ever since the moon goal was reached, there have been too few people willing to stand up and say, "We really need to do this."  There is the Planetary Society, of course, but even they haven't been loud enough and obnoxious enough for anyone in the government to really listen to them.  There is also the fact that there is a split within the space exploration community between those who advocate that people need to go into space and those who feel that all further exploration should be unmanned only.  All of these factors have contributed to NASA and other initiatives to space exploration being underfunded.

Not that the billions of money NASA has spent are really necessary.  I read somewhere recently that the whole Space Ship One enterprise only took about double the X Prize money of $10 million to accomplish.


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## AA Institute (Dec 3, 2005)

Clangador said:
			
		

> I must point out NASA has to have enough funding to get there in the first place. I think it's more the American leadership that has failed than NASA.


 
Well said, and I concur. That old saying: "No bucks = no buck rogers!" 

But there may be hope for younger, more vibrant and thrusting companies with leaner, meaner attitudes and entrepreneaurial flair to jump onboard along the way:-

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0511/21spacedev/


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## ScottSF (Sep 8, 2006)

maybe once the private sector gets a good enough profit insentive for going to space, then the real race will be on.  Oooh they could have a space station that looks like a big coke can. . . burp.


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## Carolyn Hill (Sep 8, 2006)

NikG said:
			
		

> I find it depressing that there's still the Saturn V rocket on display that could probably be set up to take us back to the moon within half a year using sufficient safety checks.


I agree, Nik.  Your comment makes me think of _Fallen Angels_ by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn.  Maybe we SF fans have to haul that Saturn V rocket out and launch it, like the fans do in the book.  (OK, I'm not serious.  But sometimes . . . )


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## BookStop (Sep 8, 2006)

Maybe these folks'll do it first. 

http://spaceadventures.com/


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## El_L1 (Dec 6, 2006)

Support Independant Moon Shots and Moon Stations!


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## j d worthington (Dec 6, 2006)

The only real qualm I have about independent ventures of this sort is their viability. By which I mean: any way you approach it, it is an extremely expensive endeavor, and we don't want a repeat of what happened during the early days of aviation, where everybody and their dog either flew a plane, or had an aviation company, and the number of crashes threatened for a good while to put this new type of transportation out of business altogether, as people were (at the time, quite justifiably) rather skittish of the odds of surviving a flight. We need to make damned sure that the safety factors are (as much as is feasible) well taken care of to prevent a reaction against space flight (something we've already seen with the shuttle disasters, and the -- at best -- ambivalent public feeling from those). Otherwise this very important possibility may be shut down before it gets very far at all. Space, after all, is a completely unforgiving environment, and if we want to encourage independent travel out there, we're going to have to keep that in mind.


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## Paige Turner (Dec 6, 2006)

Oh, J.D., you alarmist. What could go wrong?


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## lou.mor432 (Dec 6, 2006)

I agree with the concept j.d. But maybe that's why NASA first landed on the moon, there was no thought for the dangers, or loss of human life. Everyone wanted to be involved in the spacerace back then.


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## j d worthington (Dec 6, 2006)

lou.mor432 said:


> I agree with the concept j.d. But maybe that's why NASA first landed on the moon, there was no thought for the dangers, or loss of human life. Everyone wanted to be involved in the spacerace back then.


 
As I've said before, people are going to die in this move out there. It's inevitable. My concern is for taking as many precautions as would be reasonably possible, rather than (I hate to use the term with something this complex, but we're likely to see something analogous) a sprouting of "fly-by-night" companies getting into it, here or elsewhere. And, eventually, we're going to have to gear the public up for the idea that people are going to die with this sort of pioneering, same as they always have when we've expanded for _lebensraum_. Except here the risks are greater, and the chances of making it safely somewhere if there are problems or mistakes are, if not nil, darned close to being so. But we do need to get out there. We've got all our eggs in one basket, and sooner or later, that "planet-killer" asteroid with our name on it is going to come along.... (not to mention the population growing exponentially, our running out of resources, the benefits of space exploration in our daily lives -- medicine, technologies, etc., including luxury items) So we _do_ need to take the plunge. Just do it as sensibly as possible, so that there's not a backlash.

And let's face it: We don't even have a destination for people to move to... The moon is out, without a very expensive artificial environment. To rig up an atmosphere on Mars capable of supporting life, if possible, will take decades (or centuries, depending). The various moons out there are either too cold, or have poisonous atmospheres or none at all.... And, from the evidence, not a one of the planets we've discovered would be appropriate for us... the closest may have the proper atmosphere, but (as I recall) its size, etc., indicate that the force of gravity there would not be particularly healthy.... So we need to establish space stations, yes, but the effects of radiation, lack of true gravity, etc., tend to be detrimental physiologically in any long-term exposure. Generational ships? Again, there are serious problems to be overcome (not least the orneriness of human beings cooped up together ... even in a miles-large space). All of these are things that need to be seriously considered and solutions found ... and we'll still have massive deaths from any major thrust into space.

In the end, if we want to survive as a species, we really have little choice... but we can, at least, taken reasonable precautions to _cut down_ on the casualties.....


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## lou.mor432 (Dec 6, 2006)

Shouldn't we then look at our planet first? There are things that can and should be done to lessen the "hole" in the ozone layer. The whole point is "apparently" this has happened before. We just have to decimate, then evolve as a species all over again. The Generational ships? Hmm... Doesn't that eventual lead to inter-breeding?


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## j d worthington (Dec 6, 2006)

lou.mor432 said:


> The Generational ships? Hmm... Doesn't that eventual lead to inter-breeding?


 
That depends on the initial size of the population of such. If you're dealing with a ship that is several miles each way, you could fit the population (at least, population ca. 1900) of a state like Rhode Island in there, so it's not likely to be any bigger problem than any isolated tribe such as we've come across over the years. And the effects of various forms of radiation on genes (even when highly shielded) will also have some effect (some detrimental, some beneficial, given a long enough period). But, unless we do find someway to achieve a viable "space-warp" (possible for information, perhaps some types of particles, but hardly for higher life-forms) ... it's our only choice.

As for fixing the problems on the planet ... by all means, we need to do what we can there. But, unfortunately, these problems are not going to be ultimately fixable as long as human beings are human beings, where the human-centered ones are concerned; and the naturally occurring ones we may be able to have some influence on, in the very long run, but others will always take their place (the eruption of the supervolcanoes also caused severe problems with the atmosphere, and there's not much we can to do prevent those going when it's their time ... not to mention aforesaid asteroid). Again, if we want to survive, we're going to have to get out there. It's very much a case of "having all your eggs in one basket", and said basket is on a cosmic billiard table.....


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## lou.mor432 (Dec 6, 2006)

j. d. worthington said:


> (the eruption of the supervolcanoes also caused severe problems with the atmosphere, and there's not much we can to do prevent those going when it's their time ... not to mention aforesaid asteroid). Again, if we want to survive, we're going to have to get out there. It's very much a case of "having all your eggs in one basket", and said basket is on a cosmic billiard table.....


 
The supervolcanos erupting, eventually, is down to global warming. As the earth heats the plates begin to move thus causing natural disasters. Can't we just send Bruce Willis and his team of merry men up to deal with aforementioned asteroid?  
Anyway, the cold war is over? Not as long as Russia have a nuclear warhead pointed in our general direction.


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## Paige Turner (Dec 6, 2006)

lou.mor432 said:


> The supervolcanos erupting, eventually, is down to global warming. As the earth heats the plates begin to move thus causing natural disasters.



I think there's a lump in your science, there, Lou.

Still, one day, some people are going to have to get off of this rock and find another place out there. But then, what if there were no other place, I wonder. Could the remnants of mankind live on in perpetuity on a gigantic spaceship with no cosmic Ararat to alight upon?


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## lou.mor432 (Dec 6, 2006)

Thus making the possibility of Generational ships all the more plausible. The need for new science and less science-fiction is becoming more likely as the eons go by.


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## j d worthington (Dec 7, 2006)

lou.mor432 said:


> Anyway, the cold war is over? Not as long as Russia have a nuclear warhead pointed in our general direction.


 
Eh? I don't recall mentioning anything about the Cold War... (must have been sleepier than I thought...)  That, I'd say, comes into the "orneriness of human beings" I mentioned, and is one of those things we are not going to settle as long as human beings are human beings. Such aggression, sadly, is one of our basic instincts, I'm afraid, and will periodically erupt in horrific violence without an eye for the consequences now and again -- at least, that's the indications we've had from history. Only time will tell whether that's correct or not; but I've been reluctantly driven to the conclusion that thinking this sort of thing will ever really be solved is, frankly, cockeyed optimism of a high order.

As for the supervolcanoes ... aren't you leaving out the other factors that cause the tectonic plates to move? From my understanding, those would be much more important in this area than global warming as such. Or has information come out that would belie that stance?


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## Urien (Dec 7, 2006)

I fink wee shud built moon barse, SO we kan hav miisiles and rain def down onn bard peepul.


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## AA Institute (Dec 7, 2006)

Hi Folks,
Seasons greetings to ya all  
Well, what do you know... every once in a while, there's always some journalist out there who'll try an keep the dream alive  

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US plans permanent base on Moon

This sorta news is very welcoming and the location choice, at the pole, 
I think would be a good one. After all the many debates and discussions 
I've had over the years:- 



http://tinyurl.com/ym327l 

The international participation sounds good too. Slowly, but surely, we 
make strides toward the vision of a Global Space Agency.... (we hope *sigh*)


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## Danny McG (Oct 15, 2019)

Salazar said:


> We don't even know that NASA got to the moon before, those shows that show you the fake stuff the Moon Landing got to me


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## mosaix (Oct 15, 2019)

dannymcg said:


>



Very funny, as usual.


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## J Riff (Oct 15, 2019)

They should tow the flat earth crowd up there and drop them off with some air and food, see how they make out.


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## Alex The G and T (Oct 16, 2019)

There is no dark side of the moon.  Matter of fact, it's all dark.


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