Ok, we have done the whole hubble thing and the MIR and all, why not go back to the moon and create a long term base with a super large Telescope consisting of multiple mirrors spread out over the moons surface all focusing on a single point? In addition the moon base could be used as a launch pad to further parts of the solar system or even beyond it. A large electric rail gun or solid fuel launch pad from the moon would enable much higher speeds than launches from earth. How about a solid fuel launch precluding a nuclear ion drive system? Or a rail gun to Ion drive?
While we are at it, the moon can be used for research for long term, we could also bore down under the moons surface to shield us from Solar Flares and radiation.
Personally I think we should do stuff like this today, and not leave it to our great grand kids.
2006-07-05 17:19:38 · 7 answers · asked by ColvinBri 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Yeah, we could afford 40b a month to fight in Iraq, but we can't afford a few billion here and there to make a moon base...
nice.
2006-07-05 17:40:51 · update #1
When Man landed on Moon in 1969 the funding was done by cold war and an egocentric population. Now we have made advances in the electronic field in the last forty years but our Propulsion devices are the vestiges of German V2 program. The Space shuttle program is in its dying days. Revival of the space program like in the sixties will take another forty years if the will persists. Sorry to say whatever advances we made in the last century has literally gone down the drain in the last few years.Its the Dark Ages for Space Exploration now.
2006-07-06 00:29:50 · answer #1 · answered by CARLOS_TINCO 2 · 4⤊ 1⤋
"Yeah, we could afford 40b a month to fight in Iraq, but we can't afford a few billion here and there to make a moon base..."
You're talking about trillions upon trillions of dollars, not a few billion here and there. Do you even know how much it costs for 1 shuttle mission just to put her in orbit? It would be the worlds yearly economical output many times over. To put things in perspective, the ISS has cost roughly $100 billion. Of course, this doesn't take into account the roughly $5 billion its cost to maintain the thing and send missions to it. And this is just to have a orbiting space station. How about the HST? Well that's looking upwards of $10 billion so far.
So think of the costs that you would be talking about to basically setup a moon base capable of housing humans indefinitely, manufactor things necessary to survive and create things (unless you want to ship every single thing up to the moon that you need!) necessary to make the base function. Compare the ISS to basically a small city's size and then think of how much it would cost.
2006-07-06 04:20:22 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, you are right. I am not sure why NASA and other space admidistrations don't try to do that. We do have a lot of money and we spend it on other things but there is a reason for that. We have to do things on Earth as well as the moon. I'm not saying that I don't agree with what you say, I just think that we should concentrate more on the Earth and the space close to it right now since we are closer to it.
2006-07-06 00:47:55 · answer #3 · answered by Eric X 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You know, I think you're right! It would cost a lot of money, but if you think that true wealth is resources that people can use, money is only the exchange value for acquiring resources, it seems clear that there could be a huge pay-off from investments in space. By acquiring new resources in space that meet needs on earth hence are marketable, investment could be paid off in the long term. In the long term, we are all dead, of course, but, just as our grandparents left us generally more prosperous, it would be good to open the door to limitless wealth to our grandchildren by "exploiting" space. Then, instead of concentrating on using more of earth's scarce resources, we could concentrate on improving our environment, controlling population, perhaps in part by bleeding off excess population into space colonies. Results might be small at first, but, then, again, so is a newborn baby.
2006-07-06 00:40:57 · answer #4 · answered by John (Thurb) McVey 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
okay look it would cost billions to the us have other countries help then you have how will it be built and and the enourmus counts of accidents that could happen during the duration of construction and over all go for it do what ever you feel like it
2006-07-06 05:41:58 · answer #5 · answered by daniel.gzmn 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nice ideas, but we have to afford them somehow. You can't make people WANT to be poor!
2006-07-06 00:27:32 · answer #6 · answered by cdf-rom 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Go for it.
2006-07-06 00:26:50 · answer #7 · answered by Scott R 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋