why no space colony - Did we go to the Moon for the wrong reasons??

[WiredPlanet]

Look back on that era of spaceflight you can name so many top names John F. Kennedy, Robert Seamans, Aldrin, Armstrong, Glenn, von Braun...and some amazing visions and speeches by JFK
However one thing you sometimes hear from people is the USA went up their for the wrong reason, it wasn't about science, building a space base or really about regular spaceflight and colonization...it was about beating Ruskies, getting the Stars and Stripes and a Christian god loving nation ahead of communists, beating the USSR

I always wondered when the USA would have its base on the Moon and on Mars but its always 5-10 years away and any plans are always cut by the next recession or the next budget. China today might seem like its space program is at glacial speed, but they are doing all the right things they just take their time and do it at a slower pace, the Chinese have put probes on the Moon, the Chinese have their own space station, men and women in space, they have robotic instruments exploring and have done space walks
The USA has currently no access to space and now needs a lift from the Russians to get to the ISS
and there are other players to Japanese, Private Sector start ups, India joining, and the Europeans have massive programs to study sub-atomic particle science, gravity waves and the Euro space groups may one day launch their own hubble...So with America have no current access to space
Was the race to the Moon the wrong reason to put so many manned missions on the Moon

Why has the USA never tried to push that little extra and put a base on the Moon or Mars?

 

[Romo Lampkin]

It's really difficult to build structures in space and survive. It seems to me that you're importing a low entropy environment into a comparatively higher one so it's a constant struggle to maintain it. The Americans got to the moon but it wasn't routine, the first landing almost went wrong and they had to fix a serious problem with the lander before they could lift off, then Apollo 13 was a near disaster. And that's just travelling to the moon. To build a moonbase would be orders of magnitude more difficult. The ISS took ages to construct and is the most expensive structure ever created by humans, it's in LEO. How much more difficult and expensive would it be to construct a moon base. There's nothing on the moon that we particularly need right now, helium 3 I think can be used in fusion reactors but we don't even have a working tokamak, well there was a proof of concept recently which is encouraging but power stations are way off. If we cracked fusion we could adapt that to rockets, which would be a major game changer . But in summation the reason we haven't got these cool bases is that the cost-benefit doesn't add up, there's simply no political/economic incentive.

 

[MANT!]

Please be correct..the Chinese Space Station isn't really a Space Station, just an extended mission module for the spacecraft..
like the Spacelab launched as part of the Shuttle program.

Compare with the real space stations orbited before.

BTW China has flown 5 manned missions since 2003, with no extended stays in orbit beyond 14 days. a Glacial pace to be sure

As long as NASA is running the I.S.S. (and the lion's share of the budget for the I.S.S belongs to NASA) NASA can't afford to even think about landing on the Moon..orbit around it..yeppers, catch and look over a near Earth asteroid, yes..but Lunar base? ..no unless the budget is freed up enough to afford it..heck NASA can't afford to make it's next manned spacecraft unless they stop all NASA originated flights (See Post Apollo and now Post Space Shuttle manned spaceflight gaps) I do think NASA is looking to dump government involvement in the I.S.S. beyond 2020 (passing it along to the private sector has been mentioned).


Moon base in my lifetime perhaps..Lunar colony?, probably not, unless there happens to be a good economic reason for doing so.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I've heard that if we unleashed a shitload of CFC's into the Martian atmosphere, in something like a hundred years, the greenhouse effect would be enough to start "terraforming" the planet, to where starting a colony might become a little more feasible. What would be involved with such an undertaking, I haven't the faintest idea. The recent hoax of all of these duped people going on a 1-way ticket to Mars, because they want to explore, or whatever they're thinking ... kind of surprised me.

I never expected so many people to actually voice a willingness to risk their lives like that, knowing there's no good end in sight. But ... there'd be some half-assed colony started and maybe they'd even be considered some kind of martyrs for Human Exploration or some shit, I don't know. If I was born into a world where Space Travel wasn't necessarily commonplace, but accessible, I'm sure I would've at least wanted to orbit the Earth and experience - first hand - that stirring of the soul that the early astronauts felt.

 

[USS Triumphant]

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CHROUS:
I blame you for the moonlit sky
And the dream that died with the Eagle's flight
I blame you for the moonlit nights
When I wonder why are the seas still dry?
Don't blame this sleeping satellite

Did we fly to the moon too soon?
Did we squander the chance? In the rush of the race
The reason we chase is lost in romance
And still we try to justify the waste
For a taste of man's greatest adventure

CHORUS

Have we lost what it takes to advance?
Have we peaked too soon? If the world is so green
Then why does it scream under a blue moon?
We wonder why the earth's sacrificed
For the price of its greatest treasure

CHORUS

And when we shoot for the stars
What a giant step have we got what it takes
To carry the weight of this concept?
Or pass it by like a shot in the dark
Miss the mark with a sense of adventure

CHORUS

 

[2takesfrakes]

 

[sojourner]

CHROUS:
I blame you for the moonlit sky
And the dream that died with the Eagle's flight
I blame you for the moonlit nights
When I wonder why are the seas still dry?
Don't blame this sleeping satellite

Did we fly to the moon too soon?
Did we squander the chance? In the rush of the race
The reason we chase is lost in romance
And still we try to justify the waste
For a taste of man's greatest adventure

CHORUS

Have we lost what it takes to advance?
Have we peaked too soon? If the world is so green
Then why does it scream under a blue moon?
We wonder why the earth's sacrificed
For the price of its greatest treasure

CHORUS

And when we shoot for the stars
What a giant step have we got what it takes
To carry the weight of this concept?
Or pass it by like a shot in the dark
Miss the mark with a sense of adventure

CHORUS

it's funny, I researched it once, and Tasmin claims she has no idea what the song is about. Even though she wrote it. It always seemed blatantly obvious to me that it was lamenting our not going to the moon to stay.

 

[USS Triumphant]

You (2takesfrakes), Romo Lampkin and MANTI had covered the reason for the question asked by the OP fairly well, so I thought I would add the song that expresses how PO'ed I am about the situation. Political and economic concerns should not rule *everything*, and we'll all find out about "economic concerns" and lack of foresight when we get hit by a giant space rock without having taken all of humanity's eggs out of one planetary basket first, now won't we?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yeah this really bugs me.

We went to the Moon between 1969 and 1973 and then just stopped. Just like that. It's as if we decided it was all too hard. In that time the technology hasn't even improved that much. The space shuttle was awesome, but it still relied on chemical and solid rocket boosters which was technology that hadn't changed at all. You'd think in that time we'd have another kind of engine or such. It just seems to have slowed and almost stagnated.

I keep wondering if we will end up in the world like Interstellar where we just give up.

 

[sojourner]

Rocket science is hard. There are no new magical engines out there that will get us to space. Chemical engines are the best answer right now. There are some other options but they have heavy political (NERVA is a great engine, except for that whole "nuclear" thing) or resource costs.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Rocket science is hard. There are no new magical engines out there that will get us to space. Chemical engines are the best answer right now. There are some other options but they have heavy political (NERVA is a great engine, except for that whole "nuclear" thing) or resource costs.

Well I don't know why it would be so political it's a nuclear engine, not a WMD. But yeah the greenies and other fruity types would not like that.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

base in my lifetime perhaps..Lunar colony?, probably not, unless there happens to be a good economic reason for doing so.

What about Helium 3? The Moon has stocks of that, surely some greedy fat cat could see the benefit in mining on the Moon hence a base? The govt. won't do it so let the private sector.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Why has the USA never tried to push that little extra and put a base on the Moon or Mars?

Three reasons:
1) The only reason we went to the moon in the first place was so we could stick it to the Soviets
2) We used an HLV-based "direct ascent" mission profile which was neither sustainable or efficient
3) The system that immediately followed ("replaced" isn't really the word for it) the Apollo program had no capacity whatsoever to support a deep space exploration program, so even if they DID build a moon base, they had no way of keeping it supplied and operational.

What about Helium 3?

What about it? It's basically worthless until we have developed the technology for practical fusion power generation. WHEN that happens, Helium-3 will eventually become useful for second-generation, highly advanced fusion reactors.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

The USA has currently no access to space and now needs a lift from the Russians to get to the ISS
and there are other players to Japanese, Private Sector start ups, India joining, and the Europeans have massive programs to study sub-atomic particle science, gravity waves and the Euro space groups may one day launch their own hubble...So with America have no current access to space

Yet at the same time we are now doing some of the best science we have done in space. Look at the various rovers on Mars, and how much we are learning about Pluto and Ceres. And don't forget about all the discovered exoplanets and what we are learning about them thanks to Kepler and others. When it comes to telescopes advancements across the board, I am sure many of you could write pages here!

On the books in the realistic future are great things such as the Webb telescope and Europa flybys.

Granted, I would love more manned missions, but a manned mission to Mars wouldn't get me as excited as a rover on Europa, even if there is no drilling involved.

 

[Magellan]

What about it? It's basically worthless until we have developed the technology for practical fusion power generation. WHEN that happens, Helium-3 will eventually become useful for second-generation, highly advanced fusion reactors.

Isn't that more of an IF? Everything I read always says practical fusion is 50 years away minimum, but that's assuming it ever becomes practical. Haven't some scientists doubted it will ever happen? And even if it is, isn't seawater a more practical source of helium-3?

I'm asking. I have no idea myself really.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Isn't that more of an IF? Everything I read always says practical fusion is 50 years away minimum, but that's assuming it ever becomes practical. Haven't some scientists doubted it will ever happen? And even if it is, isn't seawater a more practical source of helium-3?

I'm asking. I have no idea myself really.

I don't think so, at least not sustained fusion for more then a few seconds. Basically you are trying to recreate the processes that happen inside stars on a small scale. Sure we can get fusion happening for like 2 or 3 seconds but it would require a huge amount of energy input to sustain the process. At the moment I don't think it's possible.

 

[2takesfrakes]

We went to the Moon between 1969 and 1973 and then just stopped. Just like that. It's as if we decided it was all too hard.

I don't know about having "just stopped" missions to the Moon, per se. Go back and watch how NASA presented itself and its mission to the Media. Going into Space is everything common sense dictates it is: difficult and dangerous and exciting. And yet ... NASA made the Apollo program appear almost completely uninteresting ... terribly boring. There was absolutely nothing about it that so completely captured people's imaginations, outside of Apollos 11 and 13.

With funding as an ongoing thing, appealing to the public in a "sexy" way is paramount. And NASA just wasn't very good at that, back then. And - in my view - it still isn't, but at least it has much more direct say in how it presents itself. It comes off as so wholesome and squeaky clean that there just aren't any surprises there, until some astronaut decides to put on a disguise and drive a thousand miles, wearing adult diapers, to threaten, or kill, their rival for someone else's affection.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I don't know about having "just stopped" missions to the Moon, per se. Go back and watch how NASA presented itself and its mission to the Media. Going into Space is everything common sense dictates it is: difficult and dangerous and exciting. And yet ... NASA made the Apollo program appear almost completely uninteresting ... terribly boring. There was absolutely nothing about it that so completely captured people's imaginations, outside of Apollos 11 and 13.

With funding as an ongoing thing, appealing to the public in a "sexy" way is paramount. And NASA just wasn't very good at that, back then. And - in my view - it still isn't, but at least it has much more direct say in how it presents itself. It comes off as so wholesome and squeaky clean that there just aren't any surprises there, until some astronaut decides to put on a disguise and drive a thousand miles, wearing adult diapers, to threaten, or kill, their rival for someone else's affection.

OK I gather that. I think had they sold the whole thing well the space program might have been extended beyond Apollo. Sigh. One can't change history.

 

[HIjol]

I know how this is going to sound, but it really was a simpler time in many ways, "back then". We were not involved in so much that distracted and detracted us from The Space Race, and what it took to fund and support/expand it; and then there was the fact that we "won it". As if it were a game to play for a finite time.

Alan Sheppard went into space in his Mercury capsule on my 4th Birthday. I have clear memories of thinking it was for my birthday party! I have many memories of our spacefaring days. But PurpleBuddah and Squiggy are correct. There are no new miracle propulsion engines, and we are doing some of the best Science we have ever done Out There.

But, it was a lot cooler and had a lot more Wow when we sent people.

 

[sojourner]

I know how this is going to sound, but it really was a simpler time in many ways, "back then". We were not involved in so much that distracted and detracted us from The Space Race, and what it took to fund and support/expand it; and then there was the fact that we "won it". As if it were a game to play for a finite time..

<cough, cough> Vietnam<cough>


Squiggy???