Comments on: Moondoggle

By: Crooked Timber » » Tax and Spend. Or Just Spend

Crooked Timber » » Tax and Spend. Or Just Spend — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 03:07:21 +0000

[...] About a year and a half ago, the White House floated the moondoggle. Remember that? Casting about for some legacy or other, Karl Rove came up with the idea of a permanent base on the moon. (And a pony.) At the time I wondered whether the initiative would be funded by a series of aggressive tax cuts. After the President’s speech yesterday, it’s clear that while the moon is no more (so to speak), the payment plan for Katrina-cleanup is the same. “You bet it’s going to cost money,” the President said, “… It’s going to cost whatever it costs.” Reported estimates are that it’s going to cost at least as much as the War in Iraq has so far. [...]

By: casino

casino — Sun, 18 Jan 2004 21:35:07 +0000

” she urges early on

By: Stewart Kelly

Stewart Kelly — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 07:06:46 +0000

Using the moon as a place to build a craft to go to Mars will not save money. Building and maintaining a simple moonbase will be expensive enough. Building construction facilities for a Mars craft up near, or on, the moon will be massively more expensive, and I’d suggest logistically impossible at this point in time. All the parts for constructing the craft, and constructing the construction facility, would have to be sourced on earth, and then boosted up there, which means there’s no saving by getting around the gravity well problem because, well, you don’t actually get around it. If you think these problems can be gotten around by constructing the parts on the moon using the moons natural resources, then you need to consider the even more massive costs of setting up multiple whole industries on the moon to suuply parts and the raw materials for the parts. How do you build the first factories? Again, you’d have too source equipment from Earth and you’re again faced with the gravity-well problem. Sounds like a lot of time, money and effort to build just one Mars craft. If you want to build a Mars craft then you need to do it the old-fashioned way: build it on earth and simply wear the associated gravity-well costs of launching. If the craft is really big you might have to build it in sections and stick them together in earth orbit, ala ISS. But using a moon base for construction will just be a massive waste of money and, I’d guess, is technically and logistically unfeasible at this time.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 02:14:28 +0000

I believe the Norse failed due to climatic changes, rather than being premature about the attempt. Rather as though a modern attempt to colonize the Moon failed due to abnormally bad solar flares. In any event, about the only thing a lunar colony would really contribute to colonizing Mars would be experience in closed life support systems.

By: BruceR

BruceR — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 18:16:03 +0000

I disagree that’s what’s intended: a “permanent human presence” can mean other things besides colonization… a South Pole style research station being the most obvious one. If Bush actually comes out and says “we need a thriving moon city, first, because it’s those colonists and their descendants who will build the ships that will navigate for us some day in the next century to Mars,” then everyone will know he’s cracked. The closest long-term historical parallel might be the Norse colonization of Iceland, and then the Icelanders’ attempted and failed colonization of Greenland and North America, as opposed to the successful English/French direct Atlantic route. If the intermediate colony is already marginal (as the Moon would certainly be), it will not have sufficient surplus resources to extend new sub-colonies itself.

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 15:28:35 +0000

“If we’re talking about settling the Moon (ie, with permanent habitation) as a likely precursor to any permanent settlement of Mars, that would make sense, but that’s really not what’s being discussed.” Actually, that’s exactly what’s being discussed. What pretty much everyone here seems to be ignoring is that the shuttle program is at a dead-end, and this proposal doesn’t really involve devoting a lot more money to the space program. It’s mostly a transferral of funds to a different project, one with more long-term prospects. Both of these facts were prominent in the first couple articles that came out discussing this. I haven’t been closely following what people have said since then, but I’m unaware of anyone contradicting those statements.

By: Jeffrey Kramer

Jeffrey Kramer — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:53:55 +0000

The most crucial fact about this project is, that it is a bold, bold project. Even its critics must concede that it is BIG, and it is bold. And its mighty big boldness allows us to see, by contrast, the pettiness, the pessimism, the impotence, the inadequacy, the smallness, in short the crying need for Viagra which plagues the Democratic field. Expect at least six pieces along those lines from Townhall in the next 24 hours.

By: Andrew Boucher

Andrew Boucher — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:01:19 +0000

Well, no one anywhere has seemed to remember or to know that Europe, with its Aurora project, has stated its ambition to send men to Mars and back by 2030. I would have expected the omission from Stateside blogs, but I thought Crooked Timber was supposed to be trans-Atlantic.

By: BruceR

BruceR — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 20:47:47 +0000

The comment about the Moon being a stepping stone only makes sense if there is significant value-added in constructing or assembling your spaceship on the moon, as opposed to earth or in earth-orbit. Both earth and moon have a gravity well to escape, and if you’re shipping stuff to the moon just to send to Mars, you have to then escape it twice. The moon base could only be more than a metaphorical stepping stone if a Mars ship could be assembled with less than half the effort needed to do it at Canaveral, or if the parts, fuel, etc. for could be extracted and refined/manufactured on the Moon for less than half the energy it would take here. Given the adverse conditions, that would seem unlikely. The analogy might be 18th century sailing ships. Despite the fact their wood was largely extracted in North America and other hinterlands, they were still constructed in European ports, not in place at the lumberhead, at least until America itself was more heavily settled. If we’re talking about settling the Moon (ie, with permanent habitation) as a likely precursor to any permanent settlement of Mars, that would make sense, but that’s really not what’s being discussed.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 19:38:52 +0000

Paraphrasing Richard Pryor: “The Bush Administration wants to go to the moon. What’s wrong with that? Let them all go!”

By: Mary Kay

Mary Kay — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 19:12:21 +0000

Brett: It isn’t a moon mission that would help a Mars mission, it’s a moon base. If you build and dispatch the Mars bound ship at a moon base, you save enormously. Getting up out of the earth’s gravity well is both very difficult and very expensive. This is assuming a scenario in which we have an active and viable space program of course. Ahem. The in house rocket scientist says the whole thing is ridiculous as things currently stand. As far as libertarians on the moon. Has someone been giving them copies of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? MKK

By: Patrick Rogers

Patrick Rogers — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:55:21 +0000

C’mon guys, this isn’t political, or some plan to dominate space. I’m sure the Carlyle Group has recently bought some company with new rocket technology, or something else which really only has use for a Mission to Mars.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 17:22:34 +0000

Wow. Deja Vu. This isn’t the first time a chimp has led us into space.

By: Mikhel

Mikhel — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 16:43:41 +0000

I have questions about the economic aspect of this, too. If we weren’t in the hole billions of dollars, and if medicare and social security weren’t running an 18 trillion dollar deficit—sure, I’d say: go for it. But we are running deficits, and SS and medicare are going to be in trouble when they’re needed most, so why now? I say: go to mars, not to the moon. We’ve been to the moon.

By: fouro

fouro — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 16:26:34 +0000

Yeah, but imagine the technology transfer possibilities: New fuel cell developments for the energy industry to resist. New medical breakthroughs and medicines developed with taxpayer money then resold to us through the for profit healthcare system. New and amazing ways for Republicans to speak out of both sides of their faces about “profligate government spending.” How about a mission to Appalachia first—it’s closer, our chances of payoff are better, and they have their own satellite dishes.