The Moon

[Eric Mc]

If anyone is listening to Radio 4 this morning, Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time" is all about the moon. Starts immediately after the 9.00 am news headlines.

[Eric Mc]

PaulG40 said:

I wonder if we'll ever go back to the moon as a manned mission? Im somewhat doubtful, budgets and all that, now that the 'go there because we can' has been fulfilled. There's no real reason anymore especially that robots couldn't do.

Of course we'll be back. Just don't know for sure.

And there is plenty that robots still can't do.

The next human on the moon will probably be Chinese.

[Eric Mc]

I hope you are being facetious.

The programme was actually about the moon itself so can we stick to the topic of the moon and the programme rather than making idiotic Lounge type comments?

[Eric Mc]

Robot explorers have their uses - but they should serve as pioneers, advance guards for the humans to follow.

Look at the two Martian rovers. They have been fantastic and have given us great new insights into that planet. But in 7 years of exploring they have covered just over 20 kiloneters each. The Apollo astronauts covered 30 kilometers in a few hours in their Lunar Rover.

[Eric Mc]

Bedazzled said:

I think robotic explorers are the way to go, not humans. Imagine if they put the same money into building an advanced robotic explorer, as they did into Apollo. With a heavy-lift rocket, they could send something quite rugged which could explore the entire surface of the moon. It would be vastly superior to the little Rovers they sent to Mars.

Why send man back to the moon, other than to show we can (still) do it? I think there are much more interesting targets in the solar system.

The moon is as interesting as anywhere else and its close. It is an ideal place to learn how to explore other planetary bodies "on foot" and its only three days away.

We have barely begun to explore the moon. The Apollo missions only explored six sites, all near the equator. They are no more typical of the entire moon as six sites in the Sahara would be of earth. It's still worthwhile going there - and, of course, the real benefits of going to the moon will be those derived from the unexpected discoveries. And these are often the most likely types of discoveries to be found by on the spot humans. Robots are great, but they can only look for what they have been programmed to look for.

Sadly, the thread is yet again descending into a man v' robot argument - which is not why I started it. I wanted to talk about the moon, not about the technology to explore it.

[Eric Mc]

PW said:

Eric Mc said:

I wanted to talk about the moon

Yes, It is fascinating. It would be great if we knew a lot about it.

But

Eric Mc said:

We have barely begun to explore the moon.

Because

Eric Mc said:

The Apollo missions only explored six sites, all near the equator.

As I said - $24bn for 100hrs of exploration.

And then no one bothered to even look for decades afterwards, then when we sent some probes - the interesting and potentially useful discoveries came flooding in....

The point about the $24 buillion is a bit specious. That money had essentially been spent and further missions could have been carried out for relatively little addition to that amount. Each Apollo mission cost around $400 million in 1972 terms so another ten missions would have cost $4 billion. The bulk of the $24 billion was spent on the constructioon of the infrastructure - a large chunk of which remained in use until last July - and no doubt will be used again.

[Eric Mc]

Bedazzled said:

jmorgan said:

Always though that the Moon offers a sand pit to test, close to home, ish, and an environment to long term test. Lava tubes seem a good place to build habitation. Benefits from this can also be brought back to Earth for help here.

Not sure about launching though, unless you mine the fuel there? You still have to loft a lot of gear.

What is the point of sending people to the moon, just so they can live in a hole in the ground? It would be an interesting experiment, if they can create a breathable atmosphere and drinking water from nearby ice and moon rocks, but they'd still need a regular supply of food and other materials and it's not scaleable; I can't see how we would benefit.

It's literally a whole new world that we haven't even begun to explore properly. The earth/moon system is effectively a double planet system and we should be making the most of BOTH planets in that system.

The REAL usefullness of the moon as a place to live and work and to exploit isn't really known yet. The way to find out how worthwhile it might be is to go there and find out - with people.

[Eric Mc]

I am still pretty hopeful that I will see a human standing on the moon's surface again in my lifetime. We have the technology to get there - all we need is motivation and will.

[Eric Mc]

Use Psychology said:

may as well spaff endless money into a space programme than into greece.

Absolutely. People don't realise how LITTLE is spent on space. The Apollo moon programme was cancelled partly because many were screaming from the sidelines that the money would be better spent on more "people" orientated matters, such as medical research or famine relief. Well, the money WAS cut. But was the "saved" money immmediately transfered to these more "worthy" projects? Of course not. It was frittered away - as it always is - on projects, schemes and general government costs that no one even noticed.

[Eric Mc]

Bedazzled said:

What would you do when you got there? Play golf? Although it's interesting to look at, it's just a dead rock in space; we can't live there without constant resupply. If rare Earth elements were found we may be able to exploit them, but how would you best locate them? Send a couple of blokes to hop about and kick up the dust, or an army of automated probes and radar satellites? The recent Moon Mineralogy Mapper found traces of water, but the costs of drilling on the moon would be enormous.

If we send man to the moon, again, I think it will just reinforce the view that space exploration is a waste of money. I think we should invest in something which has more potential benefits; I agree wholeheartedly money should be spent on space exploration, but there are far more interesting places to visit and things to do.

You seem to know a lot more about the geology of the moon than geologists and lunar scientists.

Have you been there?

[Eric Mc]

Sorry, just because geological activity is less than it was billions of years ago does not mean that geology as a science cannot be conducted. Geology is the study of rocks and their history. It does not require that geological processes are still happening.

However, one of the key findings of Apollo was that the moon was NOT geologically inactive. It does have moonquakes and it does have some heat flow from its core. Indeed, the theory BEFORE Apollo was that the moon was completely dead. We now know that this is wrong. The moon still has internal activity going on - but it's obviously at a low level.

Are you suggesting that because we have samples from nine limited sites (six Apollo and three Luna) that we know everything there is to know about the moon?

We haven't had a single sample from the far side - which has obviously had a very different geological history to the near side.

Finally, you seem to think that going to the moon precludes doing other things. Of course it doesn't. Go to the moon AND do the other things.

[Eric Mc]

As I keep saying, you have obviously decided that we have learned all there is to know about our nearest celestial neighvbour. Why aren't you leading NASA's or the ESA's or the Chinese/Russian planetary exploration teams as you seem to know more than all the other professionals in this field?

[Eric Mc]

Apollo was created for the wrong reasons perhaps, but in the end, the science became by far and away the most important part of it and will be its lasting legacy.

Sometimes, the reason something gets done is not that important. What is important is that it DOES get done.

I have absolutely no doubt within 50 years there WILL be human beings living and working on the moon - and possibly on asteroids and Mars too. Within another 50 years the moons of the outer planets will be part of man's sphere of activity.

HOW these things come to pass I do not know, but they will.

[Eric Mc]

I'm reading Gene Kranz's book "Failure is BNot an Option" at the moment, so I'll let you know them mission plan when I've finished.