The US needs to get itself into gear again... or else we might wake up to find that Mars is Red. *pun*
Posted by Flower Man (Member # 780) on :
I agree that NASA needs to get its shit together. I have heard that after China becomes the third nation capable of launching manned missions, China will be going for the title of being the 2nd nation ever to have landed a Human on the moon.
Who knows? If they do, it might spark another space race.
[ March 25, 2002, 19:45: Message edited by: Flower Man ]
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
quote:Shenzhou 3 is comprised of several elements: .... and an "additional module", according to reports.
Maybe it's the Chinese Goldeneye. Posted by Flower Man (Member # 780) on :
ahhhhh. Hide in your bunkers!!!
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I wonder what the US would do if the Chinese went up there to the Sea of Tranquility, knocked over our flag, and put their own up...
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
If I woke up tomorrow and China had landed men on the moon, might anyone tell me how my life would be different/better/worse?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
That WOULD be an interesting scenario...
You know, I don't think China ever signed the treaty disallowing claims of ownership of celestial bodies. They could CLAIM the moon.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
And who'd recognize the claim? The Klingons?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
That would throw a monkeywrench into the political scene.
Anyway, Tom, your life would change not one whit. Not immediately, anyway. If the Chinese could come up with a way to profit from the Moon, then we might see something fun.
Posted by Flower Man (Member # 780) on :
That treaty is going to be flushed down the toilet sooner or later anyways. As the population rises, and our natural resources dwindle down to nothing, we're going to have to begin mining operations on the moon and on the other planets of the solar system. This cannot be possible if it is illegal to stake claims on parts of other celestial bodies. The same can be said for Antarctica in all honesy. You cannot tell me that that entire continent doesn't have any deposites of useful minerals or metals.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Mining the moon won't be economical until mining the Earth becomes bazillions of times more expensive than it is now. That'll only happen when we start to see wholesale resource scarcity. And considering that there's no shortage of whatever the moon's got on the Earth, I wouldn't get your hopes up for seeing a need to extract minerals from the moon in your lifetime.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Not entirely true, I think, Tom. Mining on the Moon becomes far more economical than mining on Earth when you change the ultimate destination of the materials. Which is to say its much cheaper to send 100 kg of ore to Earth orbit from the Moon than it is from Earth.
Of course, that too is dependant upon there being some industry in space that needs those materials. So, we'll see.
Posted by Flower Man (Member # 780) on :
I never said that it would happen within my lifetime. I'm just saying that when it does happen, that treaty will be flushed down the toilet.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
"The United States Ambassador to the Moon today reported...."
Posted by U//Magnus (Member # 239) on :
Well, I'm pleased that space travel has finally become a somewhat international feat, rather than a purely amero-centric one, as it has been for the past hundred million years. Except for Marc Garneau. And the CanadArm.
I hate Garneau. And Bondar. The Americans have like Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck as their Astronauts, not to mention John Glenn. I wonder if Garneau spilled nutmeg in the controls.
"Aw, jeez, eh. Hooston. It looks like we got a problem aboot the controls, unh."
And, if China can do the things that the USA does not, because the USA spends money on Shaquille O'Neal's basketballing and Britney Spears' Breast Augmentation, instead of paying the NASA men lots of the money, I say China == THE FUTURE.
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
quote: I wonder what the US would do if the Chinese went up there to the Sea of Tranquility, knocked over our flag, and put their own up...
Tranquility's Stars and Stripes are already on the ground. To quote Dave Foley as Alan Bean, "They can send a man to the moon, but they can't think to put a flag fifty feet away from a rocket engine so it won't get knocked over by the blast."
But it would be quite a feat if they knocked down the other five...
Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :
The Chinese Gov't has decided to build their own space station.
If the Chinese land humans on the Moon, the United States would not a new space race, IMO. The people in NASA have the belief that the American people's view of returning to the Moon is, "We been there, done that. What's new?" NASA is guided by popular perception. This is not an issue for the Chinese or the Russians in their glory days.
The trip to Mars is proving more difficult than originally thought. Radiation is a very large issue. A majority of Mars, especially the highlands, are bathed in deadly cosmic radiation. This leaves a very small portion of the Northern Hemisphere safe for humans.
Scientists say there is a good site for a lunar colony, the Malapert Mts. located north of the southern pole.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
quote:The Chinese Gov't has decided to build their own space station.
Source?
quote:If the Chinese land humans on the Moon, the United States would not a new space race, IMO. The people in NASA have the belief that the American people's view of returning to the Moon is, "We been there, done that. What's new?" NASA is guided by popular perception. This is not an issue for the Chinese or the Russians in their glory days.
Aside from the general shortage of verbs, there's not a whole lot of sense here. Of course the Soviets put cosmonauts in orbit because of public perception. It was an exercise in propaganda, with sizeable spin-off benefits for the nation's defence and scientific infrastructure. If the Soviets just wanted to develop ICBMs and didn't care about capturing the popular imagination, they'd have dispensed with the whole manned flight thing and been building exclusively missiles by 1960 or so. Instead they raced the Americans in the most popular-perception-guided aspect of the Cold War.
What the space program boils down to is this: If the US or China spends $100 billion and puts people on the moon, my life doesn't change, in Sol's words, one whit. If they spend that same sum of money on alleviating poverty or fighting disease, on the other hand, my life does.
Mercury/Gemini/Apollo had spin-off benefits largely because there was so much R&D involved. Sending people back to the moon (indeed, even sending people to Mars) is essentially using off-the-shelf technology. So long as you're a fan of capitalism, you've got to deal with the good ol' fashioned cost/benefit analysis.
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
quote: The Chinese Gov't has decided to build their own space station.
If the Chinese land humans on the Moon, the United States would not a new space race, IMO. The people in NASA have the belief that the American people's view of returning to the Moon is, "We been there, done that. What's new?" NASA is guided by popular perception. This is not an issue for the Chinese or the Russians in their glory days.
The trip to Mars is proving more difficult than originally thought. Radiation is a very large issue. A majority of Mars, especially the highlands, are bathed in deadly cosmic radiation. This leaves a very small portion of the Northern Hemisphere safe for humans.
Scientists say there is a good site for a lunar colony, the Malapert Mts. located north of the southern pole.
Christ, TE. Please figure out logic and the application of fact in debate.
Mars is not "bathed" in "deadly" radiation. The numbers are there, though I'll refrain from them. However, I will point out that Mars offers significant more radiation protection than the moon. You know, that whole atmosphere/no atmosphere thing?
I honestly don't understand why you think humans on Mars is such a long shot. I've explained it many times, rebuked every poorly thought out point you've ever made. How is your brain still functioning? The only possible answer is that you are literally not reading what I write.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:How is your brain still functioning?
Many people have asked this question, yet no one has an answer. Methinks it has something to do with that slightly bleachy smell one detects when entering a Target store.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
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