Why? O Why?

[gamer_from_aust]

Why would they want to do this, first some russian or some scientest wanted to created a "bigbang". Now Nasa wants to shoot a rocket at the moon just to see if waters on it? Wat are you thoughts?, http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1391.html

[d_stilgar]

It's extremely likely that there is a large quantity of ice at the south pole of the moon. A moonbase is conceivable if an automated robot can be sent to collect and refine. The ice also contains the ingredients for rocket fuel, so this could be a first step to getting a mission to Mars. A taxi ride and a refuel would be a lot less expensive than taking all the fuel to get out of Earth's gravity, to mars, and back to Earth. We need fueling stations on the moon and on Mars to make that trip probable.

[slaveofconvention]

Americans like to blow sh** up? lol - hell HUMANS like to blow sh** up :P

[Oneslowz28]

America has been trying to create a big bang for over 30 years now. Most recently CERN had been trying to get their LHC back online so we can finally do it.

DStilgar hit the nail on the head. Water on the moon means lots of things for us. It means we can drink it while living on the moon base, we can grow food inside the moon base, and we could refine it for the hydrogen and oxygen and build a refueling station. Its also cool to find stuff like water on other bodies in space.

[mDust]

If NASA and/or other agencies could get a moon base up and running smoothly they could open the doors to private tourists and make bank. After capitalizing on that they will have the funds for further projects. As for shooting a rocket at the moon?..meh, thousands of meteors bombard it every day...I don't think it will care.

I don't care so much about their 'bigbang' as long as they stop trying to make mini black holes....that's the only thing anyone should really worry about. One slip up there and it's game over for everybody. "Oh, I forgot to carry the one...sorry planet earth..."

[d_stilgar]

We don't have to worry about tiny black holes. The particles that constantly enter our atmosphere create tiny black holes, each and every one. Extremely small black holes lack the mass to be self sustaining. They expand and evaporate quickly, and do even when they are around a lot of mass like the earth and sky.

[blueonblack]

Personally, I think the entire space program should be shelved, at least for the time being. It's like the decision-makers haven't looked around lately. We've got problems. Big ones. Right here on Earth. I have to wonder what kind of progress could be made on those problems (or just *one* of them, pick one) if the money and manpower we're spending on the space program were focused on the home planet. Don't get me wrong, I know there are benefits from the space program, obviously, but they are normally a long time coming, and there are a LOT of other very serious needs that are much more immediate. The people in power need to rethink their priorities.

[x88x]

I don't care so much about their 'bigbang' as long as they stop trying to make mini black holes....that's the only thing anyone should really worry about. One slip up there and it's game over for everybody. "Oh, I forgot to carry the one...sorry planet earth..."

Actually it's replicating the big bang that could conceivably cause the miniature black holes. That being said, the probability that they would actually be created is so astronomically small that there's really no reason to worry about it.



We don't have to worry about tiny black holes. The particles that constantly enter our atmosphere create tiny black holes, each and every one. Extremely small black holes lack the mass to be self sustaining. They expand and evaporate quickly, and do even when they are around a lot of mass like the earth and sky.

??Who did the what now??
What phenomena is that?

[knowledgegranted]

Why would they want to do this, first some russian or some scientest wanted to created a "bigbang". Now Nasa wants to shoot a rocket at the moon just to see if waters on it? Wat are you thoughts?, http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1391.html



Its probably been posted already but I thought I needed to say it because I was pretty disheveled when I read this.

Its not some, or one. Its many, and its called CERN. Trillions of dollars have been invested inorder to make it happen and I fully support it. We need discovery, we need development, we need to advance. We have been sitting without any "HUGE" breakthroughs for sometime and something needs to be done. I feel that either the rocket or this CERN operation is a brilliant idea; I also feel that if it were done in my lifetime it would be even cooler :p .

[x88x]

Its probably been posted already but I thought I needed to say it because I was pretty disheveled when I read this.

Its not some, or one. Its many, and its called CERN. Trillions of dollars have been invested inorder to make it happen and I fully support it. We need discovery, we need development, we need to advance. We have been sitting without any "HUGE" breakthroughs for sometime and something needs to be done. I feel that either the rocket or this CERN operation is a brilliant idea; I also feel that if it were done in my lifetime it would be even cooler :p .

++
Agreed.

[d_stilgar]

I read about it in my astronomy book, which I sold . . . and I found a link to a digital textbook, which of course I can't read. Nonetheless, here is a small snippet from about two minutes of google. http://www.universetoday.com/tag/black-hole/

[x88x]

An interesting theory. Do you know if results have been found yet by the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory? In the articles you linked, and those linked from there, it mentions that only "extremely energetic" cosmic particles have the possibility of creating such a scenario, and even then, they would have to come within 10^-35 m of a proton or neutron. Even in the article you linked to, which is only a couple months old, it still is talking about it as a possibility, not a certainty. Did your textbook have more recent data?

[d_stilgar]

I remember now. My teacher was talking about the Large Hadron Collider, and then we read the chapter that talked about particles entering the atmosphere. He said that the LHC would isolate and replicate (among other things) particles entering the atmosphere. He said we shouldn't worry about the LHC because it happens constantly on Earth all day.

So yeah, still just a theory that they make tiny black holes, but a probable one.

[Airbozo]

Personally, I think the entire space program should be shelved, at least for the time being. It's like the decision-makers haven't looked around lately. We've got problems. Big ones. Right here on Earth. I have to wonder what kind of progress could be made on those problems (or just *one* of them, pick one) if the money and manpower we're spending on the space program were focused on the home planet. Don't get me wrong, I know there are benefits from the space program, obviously, but they are normally a long time coming, and there are a LOT of other very serious needs that are much more immediate. The people in power need to rethink their priorities.

The thing is, if we stop doing everything else to focus on one problem, then nothing would get done. There has been so much that has come out of space exploration that benefits the humans on this planet. Medical research, physics, etc... If anything I feel we should increase funding. We should have already been setting up a colony on the Moon and Mars...

Most of the problems on this earth are caused by our governments and religion. And there, I hit two topics in one sentence that are no-no's on this board...

Get rid of both of the above and this world wouldn't have so many problems.

[x88x]

Yup, and how many of those problems would be fixed if we had more space that people could go to? (off-world colonies) Or if food production costs were drastically reduced? (hydroponics/synthetic food) Or if dirt cheap mass water purification were perfected? Or who knows, maybe we'll find that proverbial common enemy out there that will bind us all together...or many a common friend. We won't know till we get out there.

I think the problem we have is that a lot of people do get so caught up in the here-and-now problems, that they don't think of where we as a race will be in the future. The here-and-now problems will always be there, and political problems will always be there, but if we can look past those and grasp at the impossible, perhaps we can make the universe a better place in the process.

EDIT:
For example, if you take world population. In 1000, there was an estimated 310 million people in the world; in 1800, 978 million. Jump forward just 208 years, and we're sitting at 6.7 billion (2008 ). In another 200 years, we're gonna be long since out of space...or out in space :)

[gamer_from_aust]

I suppose you do raise a good point bout metoers hitting the moon and never really thought of it like that, and i suppose if it all works out as they plan if will have a great good impact on things.

[blueonblack]

Airbozo, x88x: I would have heartily agreed with you several decades ago, but it's gone too far. To keep pumping money in the space program while we have the problems we have here on Earth, hoping it will help is like trying to dig your way out of a mine with a spoon while the supports behind you that hold the whole thing up are cracking. Shore up the foundation, then you can get out your pretty little spoon if you want.

What about the ocean? You guys want to spend money on exploration, how about that? It's right here on Earth, covers most of the surface, and we haven't even explored the vast majority of it, much less tried to see what could be done with it to benefit the species. It's time to stop looking up and look around.

And you're right, the population is a HUGE problem. Your numbers are a little conservative though, and that's the problem. It's bigger than most people realize. In 1959 there were an estimated three billion people alive on Earth. In 1999 that figure was six billion. To put that in perspective, in forty years we added as many people to the current active population of the world as we did from 1959 back to the dawn of time. I don't know what exactly you think the space program is going to bring us in forty years, but it's not going to be enough. To think otherwise is simple dangerous idealism.

[x88x]

At the risk of verging on politics, I don't think we had any more or less problems on the Earth 'several decades ago' than we do now. Personally I don't think enough is going into the space program. If you look at the advances that were made in the first 40 years of its existence, if we put that much effort into it now, then yes, I think we could make very significant strides in the next 40 years. You do make a good point about the oceans though, and I think the same problem is there as is present with the space program. The long-term view that is required to justify the expense of research and expansion into the oceans is something that is not common in the people who make such decisions; and there's not much money to be made in either in the short term. There's also the problem of all the myriad political issues that you can be sure will pop up when some nation starts developing any part of the oceans. There's also, to my knowledge, no large group in any country that is investing any significant time or money in research into developing the oceans.

As for pumping money into the space program, the 2008 NASA budget was 'only' $17.3 billion; only ~2.7% of the 2009 US Department of Defense budget of $651 billion. Not to mention the $49 billion foreign aid bill that was passed in July. My point is not that the US spends a lot (proportionately) on foreign aid, or that we should spend as much as we do on our military (those two things, I feel go too far towards politics, so I won't discuss them here); my point is that compared to so many other things, the amount that we spend on the space program is pocket change.

Honestly though, I don't see the population problem being as large a problem as we think it is right now. If you look at world population density maps, something like 70-80% of the world population is currently located in something like 10% of the world landmass. I think the problem is not running out of space on the planet (or even on the natural landmasses), it's convincing people to use the space that's already there.

[d_stilgar]

The Earth's carrying capacity is way more than people usually estimate. We are way beyond the estimates of last generation and we're doing fine. In all honesty, we're doing better than ever as a planet.

The one year NASA budget could fund the current ocean research budget for 1000 years. That's really sad. The ocean is the place to expand first, and covers 3/4 of the planet. We have better maps of mars than our own planet. Let's study that unknown 3/4 of our planet.

Anyone want a mathematical breakdown of my solution to the so called "climate crisis" that has a positive return on investment? It's the only one I know of with a positive ROI.

[mDust]

The Earth's carrying capacity is way more than people usually estimate. We are way beyond the estimates of last generation and we're doing fine. In all honesty, we're doing better than ever as a planet.

The one year NASA budget could fund the current ocean research budget for 1000 years. That's really sad. The ocean is the place to expand first, and covers 3/4 of the planet. We have better maps of mars than our own planet. Let's study that unknown 3/4 of our planet.

Anyone want a mathematical breakdown of my solution to the so called "climate crisis" that has a positive return on investment? It's the only one I know of with a positive ROI.
Most of Africa isn't doing all that great...wide spread drought and famine.

And searching for life on another planet is way more interesting than searching for life in the ocean. Everyone already knows that there's a ton of creepy things swimming miles beneath the waves...leave em be. Although, floating cities or even independent nations drifting around the oceans would be cool.

My ears are open to your breakdown, but it would probably require it's own thread.

[TheGreatSatan]

For every $1 we spend on the Space Program we make $2. If we stop Space Research we lose those future discoveries like computers, cell phones and space foam beds

[Airbozo]

What TGS said.

Also one thing I remember from one of the Discovery programs, is that it is actually easier to get into space than it is to get to the bottom of the Marianas trench (which I had the pleasure of seeing the sonar echo's when I was in the Navy). I was reading a popular science recently that did an article on the next generation of underwater exploration vehicles. Cool stuff. Underwater exploration is also beginning to produce returns on investment as well. That has been a major roadblock to exploring the Oceans. Not many companies or governments are going to sink that much money into something that does not produce returns.

[x88x]

Actually, the first computers were build for the military, not the space program, but you make a very good point. I didn't realize the ROI was that large though.

[d_stilgar]

The problem with deep sea research is that the sort of vessels that can go to extreme depths are sent there. The vessels that can't go that deep are limited to maybe 300ft, so there is a gap of no research from ~300ft-800ft.

I'm not saying that there is no ROI from space research. I love space research, but we should try to really really understand our own planet before we think about terraforming another one. My +ROI refers only to plans people have proposed for removing excess carbon from the atmosphere. Most of those plans are really stupid and only cost money with no ROI.