The Moon: A perfect orbiting Space Station. Why have we not gone back??

I think the moon should be towed away for good.

Not allowed to leave low earth orbit except for probes and non-manned craft.

you would think given the rate of technology that we would have had a station on the moon years ago.

there is no reason for us to build a base up there.... it costs too much and there would be NO return on the investment...

We never went in the first place, hence the 50 plus year absence makes sense.

cant say that I disagree but the same could be said for why we went in the first place (other than to piss on the USSR)

I understand we are "Not Welcome" there again.

Plenty of towers and bases there already, just not man made.

I have a close friend that works at Nasa and until recently was deeply involved in the creation of hardware for the (now cancelled) revised moon missions.

According to him, the largest hindrance to returning to the moon and doing ANYTHING other than short stints outside a lander is because of the extreme abrasive nature of moon dust.
Suits returned from Apollo missions showed that even in the short walks they did, critical seals on every joint were close to failure due to the damage caused by the dust. He said that it truly was a miracle that there eren't fatalities in the Apollo moonwalks based upon what the suits looked like afterwards.

Nasa has continued work since the 70's on developing hard seal technology that works but to no avail.

Interestingly enough, one solution they mused was sending nuclear powered robots to the surface first that would use very powerful focused microwaves to turn the dust into a glass-like material. These pre-landing robots would then in essence "pave" sidewalks and pads and such for the later-arriing humans to construct their shelters and such on.

You fool, the astronauts received death threats from the Aliens occupying moon bases!

Money and public interest.. The moon.. been there, done that, as far as the public is concerned.. not much excitement there

No...the real truth to be seen on THIS thread is that people like yourself, with weak reasoning skills and a seemingly complete lack of common sense, believe all the BS conspiracy crap.
You make the world weaker.
You do nothing to improve your lot in life or that of those around you.

And when did that ever stop us from wasting money?.....I personally i think that we should have went back......and even if we did not make a full return in our investment in raw materials...We would at the very least be able to get some kind of compensation for the technology that was developed to get over there....

Please read the above concerning a REAL reason why manned missions to the moon were not continued.
The tech to get there exists.
The tech to exist there safely does not.

well not be able to do it safely is a good enough reason for me.

I would like for us to go back though and do some more exploring...maybe drill to see what is under the surface

The real reason we haven't been back, is because the High Russian Space Command now holds the Title on that piece of property!!!

Actually, there is helium, water, and oxygen in the rocks. Considering helium is finite on the earth, given enough time, it may be economically viable to have a self sustaining moon base.

But honestly, it is beyond irresponsible for us NOT to have a functioning city on the moon yet.

Any ELE could come along at any moment.

Exactly, They know why. We got Kicked off the moon.(we know too,now)

erm... in a word santa...

[link to www.1minpages.com]

Mmmm, Van Allen Radiation Belts? Read an article in Popular Science that stated the reason they (NASA) couldn't go to Mars currently was because of radiation issues. Well gee, Mars is further out from the Sun (less radiation?) so.....?

Take a peice of bacon or a hamburger and place it in your microwave oven and turn it on for say 8 hours. Than think thats what the assholenauts should look like after slipping through the van allen radiation belt on there way to the moon. Now they claim they did it twice, once going to and once coming from.

Than we have that little problem with the moon dust. If it damaged the gear and suits, think what it did to the lungs of the assholenauts back at the capsule when they unsuited. Whats that, all the assholenauts were fine upon returning and no one came down with moon lung or any other lung disease.

Course not, they never went to the moon.

Yet, you can stand right next to that microwave and watch that bacon turn to cinders... it's called shielding.

Thank God the dopes that thrive on this forum aren't in charge of anything other than their own do-nothing lives. Its a miracle we made it this far technologically with such idiots in abundance.

That you equate the radiation from a Microwave oven with the extreme radiation found in space is laughable....

Not really.

About 40% more fuel to get there (depending on how you stage things.)

WHEN you get there, you are at the bottom of a gravity well, meaning you have to pay gravity in order to get anywhere else.

And the Moon is also far enough to make communications with Earth more power-intensive.


On the plus side, you can use the Moon itself to shield extremely sensitive instruments (aka an Aricebo style radio telescope) from the hash and noise of the Earth (natural and human).

You can use the lunar material to build (lunar-crete), grow plants, even mine for lighter metals. Harder to find is water (for, among other things, cracking for hydrogen fuel and breathing oxygen), but it does look like there is sufficient at the poles...now you just have to figure out how to site your base so you can use that resource and not pay penalties in solar constant for power generation, communications, and landing/takeoff maneuvers.



Which is to say; the advantages of the Moon begin to show up when you are talking hundreds of people staying on the surface, and a year-round permanent base (like Amundsen-Scott South Polar Station). As long as you are piddling around with a handful of people visiting for a few weeks each, it doesn't make sense to send them to the Moon instead of to LEO.

Yes...Mars is further. The risk is not sitting on Mars, the risk is spending months in a spacecraft going TO Mars.

And the risk is not the VARB -- you pass through them in hours. It is (primarily) solar flares.

God,how stupid are you? Then we would have no seasons or tides.

Well what is the ROI on the ISS? Honest question, cause I would think it would be cheaper to maintain a space facility on the moon, rather than an orbital pattern around the earth. You know? I really think a moon base would have been way cheaper AND more sustainable.

But in response to another poster, that would seem logical to argue we never went. Not that I personally believe we didn't go, but I wouldn't rule it out either. That would be very similar to what Regan did to the USSR in the 80's...told them we were building lasers in space, so they'd go bankrupt trying to catch up to something we never did. Like global poker