January 6, 2006

Good day - or is it?

Picture this - I know, you are getting tired of my frame of reference
pictures, but I want your imagination engine working, - You are a door to
door salesperson and the person at the door has just said NO! What do you
do?

There was a time - 27 years back - that we had an Amway distributorship
while stationed in Guam. We learned that "NO" was an opportunity to answer
questions about the products. You really weren't supposed to hear "NO" as
more than a request for more information. Well, maybe after hearing it 7
times you let it sink in a bit.

If you knew your products, and you knew they worked, then finding out where
they could help your potential customer was your job and obligation. No, I
don't have enough money. I can save you money, you would like that wouldn't
you? No, I don't have the time. Let me come back when it is more
convenient and I can show you how to save you time so that you will be able
to do the things you really want to do. When would be a good time, 6:30 pm
or 8:00 PM?

You look up at the Moon and you think how exciting it would be if we could
be up there looking back at this Blue Marble. The person next to you says a
cloud is crossing in front and anyway you would probably spoil the view even
more by stirring up the dust.

Do you know your subject? Do you have the answers? Answers to your friends
questions, not just a canned patter. Do you think of "NO" as an opportunity
to get to know your friend better and to share some excitement? Seven times
"NO", with a smile, and an offer to come back at a more opportune time.
Would 7:30 AM in the early morning, with the Sun just coming up and a full
Moon just setting in the West, be better? How about tomorrow, same time,
and you can see the Moon is about a fist width higher in the western sky.
Go walking with your friend the next day, and see the Moon is another fist
width higher in the sky. How late in the morning will you be able to see
the Moon before it sets? (we are talking day time viewing of the Moon) Did
your friend know that the Moon actually went around the Earth, and that you
can't always see the Moon at night?

Now, if you are on the Moon, where will you see Earth in your Lunar sky?
Where will you see the Sun?

I have copied two posts from the return_to_the_moon@yahoogroups.com and
thought you might like to find rebuttal answers to the reasons given for why
going back to the moon would be a loony endeavor.

If you can't find reasons, then maybe we should just lay down in our warm
bed. I need to go to the store. Some TV add caught my attention and pushed
on my picture frame. The moon slid out of view. :-(

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/features/blue_marble.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/051101_blue_marble.html
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Moon&Display=Kids
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_landing_map.jpg
http://www.smeter.net/propagation/views/earth-from-moon.php
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo_11_30th.html

Turn crater Coopernicus on edge, that is how high Lunar Prospector was
orbiting over the Moon.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010809.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010513.html

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg
Web Site http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
Blog Spot http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
News ltr https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
The Study of the Pioneer Anomaly: New Data and Objectives for New
Investigation - http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0512121
Authors: Slava G. Turyshev, Viktor T. Toth, Larry R. Kellogg, Eunice. L.
Lau, Kyong J. Lee
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Copied from return_to_the_moon@yahoogroups.com - LRK -
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There are 2 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:

1. 8 Reasons Why Going Back to the Moon Is Loony
From: Keith Wetzel

2. Re: 8 Reasons Why Going Back to the Moon Is Loony
From: Robert Juliano
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 04:22:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Keith Wetzel
Subject: 8 Reasons Why Going Back to the Moon Is Loony

Hi All

I found this article, would anyone care to take a shot a writing a rebuttal?
My first reaction is to No1, the $100 Billion is spread over 13 years and it
is suppose to be a readjustment of funds within NASA with very little new
spending. But then again need to take a budget estimates/projects with a
grain of salt. A GAO study of government spending, found that NASA as well
as DOD projects tend to only go over budget by only 30%, so in the worst
possible case it could end up costing $130 Billion.

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/06/07/feuilletons-reasons.php
8 Reasons Why Going Back to the Moon Is Loony
by MARGARET WERTHEIM

In January 2004, President Bush committed the U.S. to returning to the moon by 2020. No human has set foot on our celestial satellite for 30 years, but many space enthusiasts believe the moon should be our staging post for journeys to Mars, a destination Bush has also made a NASA priority. Space wayfarers dream of establishing a permanent colony on the moon and of mining
the lunar surface for materials to build the local infrastructure and to provide power for long-ranging spacecraft. Others imagine sifting through the lunar dust for helium 3 to fuel fusion power stations here on Earth, or placing giant telescopes on the far side to scan the cosmos for clues about the Big Bang. The vision is mighty, but so are the barriers. During the last three decades, the furthest man has ventured into space is 386 miles, about the distance from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Though the Starship Enterprise effortlessly cruises the galactic byways, in real life getting to the moon is really, really hard. Building there will be even tougher. Below are eight good reasons we should think seriously before indulging our Seleneum dreams:

1. Cost. Though no official figures have been given, knowledgeable pundits
put a return to the moon at around $100 billion. But NASA’s track record on
fiscal restraint invokes skepticism even among hardcore fans. Arizona
Senator John McCain has quipped that the agency’s acronym stands for "never
a straight answer." In 1984, when Ronald Reagan announced that we would
build a space station to rival the USSR’s Mir, the estimated price tag was
$8 billion. By the time the International Space Station (ISS) is finished in
2007, the bill will stand at over $100 billion, despite being scaled down in
size and scope. By comparison, the USSR built Mir for $4.3 billion and its
operating costs were just 3 percent of the ISS. Prudence suggests that if we
do go back to the moon we should recruit the Russians as partners.

2. There Is No Atmosphere. With just one-eightieth of the Earth’s mass,
the moon has commensurately lower gravity, which is great if you want to
play trampoline but lousy if you need to breathe, not to mention work. Too
gravitationally weak to hold an atmosphere, the moon’s face is a vacuum, so
moon colonists will have to make their own air.

3. Radiation. The lack of an atmosphere means the lunar surface is
bombarded by powerful radiation from cosmic rays. No human could ever spend
more than a few months on the moon during his or her entire life. It will be
a settlement of continual newbies.

4. Lack of Water. Again, due to low gravity and no atmosphere most water
long ago evaporated into outer space. Some scientists believe there may
still be pockets of ice hidden deep in shadows around lunar mountains, but
moon colonists should be planning to bring or make their own H2O.

5. The Gravity Well. Proponents of space travel, including President Bush,
tout the moon’s low gravity as a boon for launching crafts to other
planets — lunar escape velocity can be achieved for just 1/22nd of the
energy required to send a vehicle from Earth. But before you can launch a
craft from the moon you have to get it there. Either all the parts have to
be shipped from Earth, annihilating any energy saving, or you have to make
components on the moon itself from resources found naturally there — a dim
prospect considering the barren nature of the lunar terrain.

6. Lack of Accessible Resources. Space enthusiasts are increasingly
championing In-Situ Resource Utilization — to wit, mining and processing
lunar materials. Specifically, they are interested in using lunar regolith,
the fine dust covering the moon’s surface, as a construction material.
Unfortunately, moon dust is akin to a glassy volcanic ash — to do anything
with this stuff we’ll have to radically reinvent the building code. But who
knows what wealth lies beneath the lunar surface? In his 2004 speech, Bush
enthused about the moon’s untapped and unknown mineral potential: "We may
discover resources . . . that will boggle the imagination," he declared. In
practice most mining relies on huge quantities of water for separating
different mineral components. In the absence of H2O, mining on the moon is
going to require a major technological revolution.

7. The Myth of Helium 3. Of all the moon’s advantages, none is touted more
than its high concentration of helium 3, which is an ideal fuel for nuclear
fusion reactors. A helium 3 reactor would make an excellent propulsive
source for a Mars-bound spacecraft, but there is only an estimated 10
kilograms on Earth. On the moon there’s tons of the stuff, so why not mine
it in-situ? Proponents suggest that we could use helium 3 not just for
spacecraft but also to fuel terrestrial power stations. The problem is that
in order to get one pound of helium 3 you have to sift through 200 million
pounds of moon dust. If you are willing to pay for that kind of
infrastructure we’d be far better off developing solar-power technology.
Like helium 3 (which also comes from the sun), there’s enough sunlight to
power all of humanity’s needs and it’s freely available here on Earth.

8. The Moondoggle Factor. When President Bush launched his moon-Mars
vision, he justified the endeavor by claiming that "the fascination
generated by further [space] exploration will inspire our young people to
study math and science and engineering to create a new generation of
innovators and pioneers." Is the moon really that inspiring? NASA’s annual
budget ($16 billion) is already three times that of the National Science
Foundation, and American children’s science proficiency continues to slide.
In 2005 Congress actually cut the NSF’s budget and refused to fund another
round of national Science and Technology Centers because, in this age of
burgeoning budget deficits, the nation supposedly can’t afford them. If we
really want to inspire kids to study math and science, investing in these
areas directly would make a whole lot more sense than sending spam in a can
to mine ash in a waterless vacuum.


Moon Society - St. Louis Chapter
http://www.moonsociety.org/chapters/stlouis/
The Moon Society is a non-profit educational and
scientific foundation formed to further scientific
study and development of the moon.
[This message contained attachments]


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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 06:55:29 -0800 (PST)
From: Robert Juliano
Subject: Re: 8 Reasons Why Going Back to the Moon Is Loony

Keith,
I'll take a shot at it.

1.) $130 Billion, over 13 years works out to $10
Billion. $10 Billion divided among our fellow tax
payers works out to about $100 per tax payer, per
year, assuming each tax payer is making about 45,000
per year.

2.) No atmosphere is not a problem. There's one
hellacious amount of oxygen bound up in the fines.

3.) stopping radiation is easy, especially in dealing
with a stationary object: either pile enough loose
fill on top of it, or plate the thing over with about
10 inches of aluminum. (Now, where could we get enough
aluminum, on the moon? Gee, she's got me beat on that
one. I just can't figure out where I'd get aluminum on
the moon.)

4.) Assuming that all of the water possibilities are
specious, we still have the largest part of the combo
for making water: the oxygen itself. If pressed, we
could run scoop missions into earth's upper atmosphere
(via tether orbiter, if you like) for the hydrogen.

5.) It would appear that friend wertheim created her
6th point, before she wrote up her arguments to this
point, but I'll endeavor to treat them seperately.
assuming that we are digging in the fill (dirt) for
bulk materials, and then shipping said materials off
to earth orbit. Horrors, we have to use a ship built
on earth, and then moved to the moon! Big deal. We can
use that ship again, and again, and again, and... A
simple oxy - aluminum reaction will provide enough
specific impulse to do the job. (Did she really
consider this to be a daunting problem? what kind of
science writer is this lady?)

6.) While I am far from the leading authority on lunar
materials, books from my own humble library state that
the moon has iron, aluminum, titanium, cobalt, sodium,
silicon, oxygen, molybdenum, etc, etc, etc. The things
that are a problem for an in-situ moon base are:
copper, carbon, nitrogen, and the elements that plants
tend to chew on. You wouldn't need all that many trips
to earth, to collect enough of those materials for the
moon base.

7.) 100,000 tons of "other" per ton of helium 3? okay,
I'll take that action!
7.1.) that "other" stuff gives us oxygen for
breathing, and a fuel component to lift that HE3 to
our buyers.
7.2.) that "other" stuff gives us aluminum, iron,
titanium, cobalt, molybdenum, etc, etc for building
materials for:
7.2.a.) living structures
7.2.b.) fuel component to lift that HE3 to our buyers
7.2.c.) materials to build extra HE3 miners
7.3.) slag for the HE3 extraction process gives us rad
shielding material
7.4.) simply having the mining machine moving around
gives us the biggest bulldozer in the system. need a
clear track for a mass driver? use the HE3 miner. dig
a trench for a new moon base? use the miner.

8.) Ahh yes, the crux of the matter. "why don't we
just spend the money down here on earth, instead?" I
taught High school and Junior High school Special Ed
classrooms for 10 years. I never once heard "the money
they've sunk invested in our school has inspired me to
reach into myself for greater performance." Not once
did I hear anything that could be considered in that
vein. I _HAVE_ seen kids, inner-city kids, court
adjudicated youth, and spoiled rich kids, completely
go silent when you turn on a video showing a launch, a
moon base, or a mission report. I've seen archetypical
jocks wading into swamp-water, retrieve a model rocket
that the "geeky rocket club" lost into the marsh.
The problem is, that doesn't make a counselor look
good. (I could go on about the problems in our
national school structure, but why bother?)

Look, this lady has already won my twit of the day
award. If she's a science writer, how come she
couldn't be bothered to look up these topics? Just
find a few related facts?
Grumble. Feel free to edit, and/or add to this, to
make me look brilliant.
Bob
--- Keith Wetzel wrote:
> Hi All
> I found this article, would anyone care to take a
shot a writing a rebuttal? My first reaction is to
No1, the $100 Billion is spread over 13 years and it
is suppose to be a readjustment of funds within NASA
with very little new spending. But then again need to
take a budget estimates/projects with a grain of salt.
A GAO study of government spending, found that NASA
as well as DOD projects tend to only go over budget by
only 30%, so in the worst possible case it could end
up costing $130 Billion.
>
>
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/06/07/feuilletons-reasons.php
> 8 Reasons Why Going Back to the Moon Is Loony
> by MARGARET WERTHEIM
>
> snip
>
> Moon Society - St. Louis Chapter
>
> http://www.moonsociety.org/chapters/stlouis/
>
> The Moon Society is a non-profit educational and
> scientific foundation formed to further scientific
> study and development of the moon.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
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