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Moonbase Armstrong?

By all accounts Armstrong has never had any interest in politics or publicity, he did what he did because he was a damn good pilot and as far as I'm concerned he doesn't owe anybody anything. If he didn't want to spend the rest of his life doing interviews, campaigning for more funding for NASA then that's his prerogative and we should respect that.

As for naming the first base after him, they way it's been mandated it sounds more like a publicity thing than actually honouring the man and if what I've read about the guy is any judge I think he'd be more embarrassed than anything else.
 
TheMasterOfOrion said:
Squiggyfm said:
Budget cuts and the shuttle killed NASA's momentum, not Armstrong.
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We can't afford the Moon & Mars, so skip the Moon and go direct for a Mars mission.
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If you go that route, you risk us getting into the problem we had post-Apollo ... specifically, you don't have the infrastructure to support what you're attempting. Ideally, the moon campaign would have been AFTER a manned space station. Likewise, a mars mission SHOULD also be after a manned station and a moonbase, especially since the cost of lifting goods to orbit for assembly is going to be a lot cheaper if you can send it from the moon than earth, and a mass driver on the moon to ship raw materials back to earth orbit would be a wonderful tool (also a good weapon, if folks need convincing.)

Mars is a fine goal, but you have a better chance of making it happen if you do it with the right things already in place, rather than as a huge one shot rocket trip like Apollo. Man, if they'd repeal the space law stuff from the 60s, we could build a nuclear pulse driven ship in orbit and haul something like 100 men and 10,000 tons of supplies to mars in something like 6 weeks (including braking time) ... that ain't gonna happen, but even so, going to mars from Earth orbit IS the way to go, as is assembly of components, so you don't have to lift out of our gravity well.
 
(Lots of nodding)

Apollo almost killed manned space exploration. A direct Mars expedition in the early 21st century would probably kill it for good. Success in planting a flag on Mars would be the worst thing imaginable; even a glorious failure with lots of fatalities would be better for the space program, as it would inspire the construction of something beyond the barely functional minimum.

Ultimately, Mars is even less interesting than the Moon. It's just a consolation prize after the Moon has already been won, much like the Moon was a consolation prize for the losers of the space race. The downhill slope is difficult to hide: there's less and less of shock and awe, the farther we go plant the flag.

Now, Mars might be interesting if something lasting came of it - if it began something instead of ending it. With the straight-to-Mars approach, there's little hope of that, though, whether in technological or political terms.

Not that colonization of the Moon would be more likely to serve as inspiration. When it is possible to make permanently manned space stations sound dull, no aspect of space exploration will ever be a surefire publicity success!

Timo Saloniemi
 
Um, wouldn't a moonbase be an international project like the ISS... be it for the potential cost reduction alone?

The Europeans and Japanese might not object, but keep in mind that the name "Freedom" was dropped after the Russians joined the space station project.
 
Deckerd said:
I can't see anyone from any nation objecting to Armstrong as a name.
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Yeah, but... they're Russians! You never know in what kind of nationalistic mood they are. :lol:


As a related question, is it possible that somebody in the U.S. government would have objected to having the ISS (re-)named "Gagarin"? Serious question...
 
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