Because they won't fight back...

[bluesdave]

tw: Bluesdave - you clearly are young.

I rest my case. As I said, tw never reads carefully, other people's posts. I would have thought that when I said that I listened to JFK's famous speech in 1961, and watched Neil Armstrong live on TV in 1969, that it was obvious that I could not possibly be young (I know that you know this is true, and that you are using those words as an insult). You think it is quite OK to say that you are urinating on my Bible, yet you feel insulted when I call you a bigmouth. I said right at the beginning that I agreed with some of the things you said - ie. the use of robots, and all I did was try to point out that science is always at the mercy of politics, and that at least some good has come from the space programme. If you choose to ignore NASA's own documentation, then that says more about you than it does about me.

BTW, I never said that Bush's Moon base was a great idea, or that the ISS was either. I think that a small base on the Moon does make some sense, and at the time NASA was pushed to build the ISS there were many people at NASA who argued against the expense, saying that they could build a Moon base for less money, and do more robotic/automated research. Politics *did* override logic, but that does not mean that "man" has not benefited from the tools and materials that NASA has developed. You would have us throw this all away, just out of sheer petulance.

As a researcher, I have had to deal with political pressure on budgets. I understand from first hand experience how difficult it is to carry on research while keeping your political overlords happy. My background *is* in science. What's yours?

[Happy Monkey]

There's enough room for everyone who can get there...

...at the moment.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Somewhere, the shades of Heinlein and Ley are smiling.

[Happy Monkey]

2020? Not a chance! I'd love to be proven wrong, but materials science will have to have some pretty amazing breakthroughs. A rope thousands of miles long, much stronger than anything we've got, that doesn't degrade in either the humidity of atmosphere or the hard radiation of outer space. I'd be surprised if the planning stageis near completion by 2020.

But I hope I'm wrong.

[busterb]

The only material we need to work on is how long we can braid carbon nanotube strands, right now we can make them a few tens of centemeters long.

Last night was full moon. Just guessing, but I think someone is a few centemeters short.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by busterb

Last night was full moon. Just guessing, but I think someone is a few centemeters short.

out loud laughter! sweet
I so want us to pull it off though.



The point is to get our eggs out of this single basket. Personally I don't have any robot blood in my veins so I advocate getting some of my own kind off planet for the survival of the species.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Somebody doesn't quite understand that the "space elevator" is from surface to low Earth orbit, not to the moon. The savings comes from having this sky-hook get mass to orbit with far less expenditure of energy than pushing it up with a rocket. From LEO, departing from higher in the gravity well takes, well, a lot less gas to do.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Somebody doesn't quite understand that the "space elevator" is from surface to low Earth orbit, not to the moon.

Well, it's obviously not to the Moon, but it's well past LEO. Unless we want the orbiting end to be constantly expending fuel just to stay in the sky, it's gotta be in geostationary orbit almost 36000 miles out. And that's where the center of mass has to be- half of the weight has to be past that.

[glatt]

Someone's read their Arthur C. Clarke, and someone else hasn't.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Well, it's obviously not to the Moon, but it's well past LEO. Unless we want the orbiting end to be constantly expending fuel just to stay in the sky, it's gotta be in geostationary orbit almost 36000 miles out. And that's where the center of mass has to be- half of the weight has to be past that.

Oh, right right right -- I sit corrected. Wasn't remembering all I could've.

Geostationary or geosychronous, you can do it either way. Synch needs a ... quite substantial hinge, and doubtless in order not to be a nuisance, only a very modest total angle of sweep -- a geo-not-quite-stationary, if you will.

This sort of thing also helps cure the geostationary satellite crowding problem, too, which is slowly getting worse: collecting the various comsat and navsat services into fewer, somewhat larger platforms gets the jobs done and clears the way for more later. This Jacob's Ladder makes one helluva cell phone antenna, no?

Btw, since when has tw any business objecting to being called a bigmouth? Is this not one of his most prominent traits, even more than his anti-Americanism? I offer the suggestion that his primary reason for down-talking a manned Lunar base is solely that Americans would be about the only people who could do it. Tw is never happy at any prospect of American success.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

This sort of thing also helps cure the geostationary satellite crowding problem, too, which is slowly getting worse: collecting the various comsat and navsat services into fewer, somewhat larger platforms gets the jobs done and clears the way for more later. This Jacob's Ladder makes one helluva cell phone antenna, no?

If the geosynchronous crowding problem was due to too many physical bodies, then Urbane Guerrilla would be correct. But then we apply realities.

The space between many satellites in the same slot is so large as to make that claim completely irrelevant. Meanwhile, as satellites aged (and lose functions), then multiple satellites moved into the same slot.

Restrictions on satellites are due to some factors listed below:
Slot size. Last time I looked, a satellite dish typically focused only to something like 2 degrees. That meant there were geosynchronous 180 slots around the earth.
Frequency: In each slot are specific frequencies which were divided into channels. For example, C band had twelve channels.
Polarization: each transmitted signal on each channel is polarized in horizontal and in vertical - for a total of 24 channels.

12 frequencies times 2 polarizations times 180 means a maximum 4320 transponders were available around the world just for C band. We do same for S band, Ku band, etc.

Satellites were limited by number of frequencies and by how focused antennas on both bird and earth could be focused. Those who only assumed would believe a larger platform would solve the congestion problem. No matter how large that platform (the bird), limitations of frequency and antenna pattern are the congestion.

Just another example of learning details so that speculation does not become fact.

[JayMcGee]

ha, somebody hasn't read Phillip Hose Farmer....

[Happy Monkey]

Arthur C. Clarke, Kim Stanley Robinson, and any number of science news items. I'm a big fan of the idea, but people have to realize that this is one hell of a massive object, orders of magnitude more difficult than anything mankind has done before. But instead of a reason not to do it, I'd say that's a reason to try.

UG's LEO elevator would have to be a freestanding tower over 60 miles tall, and that would be an engineering feat even more difficult than the tether.

Everything about space exploration helps our species and should be encouraged.

As for a moon-base, it must be done & we need to do all we can to keep the military as far from this endeavor as possible.

[tw]

Originally Posted by bluesdave

Just take a breath, and cool down.

Which one posted example after example suggesting that bluesdave has fallen for classic myths. bluesdave - where are your examples? How do you know when not one example is even posted? Where is your proof? Why do you keep posting speculations without even a single supporting example? Bluesdave - I say this with the cold blooded attitude of one holding a gun to your head - or urinating on your bible.

Meanwhile we could build more 'space shuttles' or we could explore space. Which did we do? We can spend billons of dollars - as others advocate for our greater glory. Doing no science building another ISS? Or we can spend $hundreds of millions doing science advocated by innovators; using state of the art technology (especially robotics) to even advance mankind. Let's see. Ten+ useful science missions for same dollars that put people working on useful endeavors – ie all that technology currently exploring Mars. Or do work that only serves a political agenda. Which one do you advocate?

Posted many times previously were examples of science after science trashed only for the glory of that George Jr political agenda. Did you read those many and previous posts? Or do you just know a moon based, instead, is better science?

Based upon facts provided, a moon base apparently is not for science. A moon base for a political agenda? Where did the proposal come from? Scientists? Or from the White House? Little hint. The latter. Previously posted are numerous science experiments already canceled only for this political agenda. Did you read the list?

Which one has a history of doing things only for a political agenda and therefore making decisions we all regret? Too many good reasons why George Jr is nominated for worst American president. I fear this moon base is but another example especially because the idea comes from a leader whose tendencies are so similar to those found in communist governments. Why is working for the glory of a political agenda more important than the nation? As rkzenrage posts:

Everything about space exploration helps our species and should be encouraged

which is why a George Jr legacy memorial moon base is being created at the expense of all those now canceled science missions.