NilsGLindgren wrote:

horacerumpole]Two words:

Space elevator.[/quote]
Indeed.
Three words: Made of what?

[quote=horacerumpole wrote:... the question was what we might find useful on the Moon. Helium 3 is one of those things ...

In our present circumstances, "usefulness" would be subservient to cost, is what I mean.
The investment cost for producing lunar helium-3 would be staggering.

That's why the government ought to fund the mission, because there is no immediate commercial benefit.

But, the mission isn't just a mining expedition. There are a myriad reasons to go, not the least of which is getting humanity's eggs out of one basket. Another is as a launching pad to Mars. Another is as a stepping stone to not only the harvesting of lunar resources, but the utilization of the solar system.

If it was economically feasible to harvest Helium-3 from the moon, then some conglomerate of speculators would do it.

"The question to ask is whether the risk of traveling to space is worth the benefit. The answer is an unequivocal yes, but not only for the reasons that are usually touted by the space community: the need to explore, the scientific return, and the possibility of commercial profit. The most compelling reason, a very long-term one, is the necessity of using space to protect Earth and guarantee the survival of humanity."

William E. Burrows, The Wall Street Journal, 2003

"There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation; why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years?"

Isaac Asimov, speech at Rutgers University

"Knowing what we know now, we are being irresponsible in our failure to make the scientific and technical progress we will need for protecting our newly discovered severely threatened and probably endangered species--us. NASA is not about the 'Adventure of Human Space Exploration,' we are in the deadly serious business of saving the species. All Human Exploration's bottom line is about preserving our species over the long haul."

Astronaut John Young,"The Big Picture"

"Colonization means potential immortality for the human genus. Man's safety on Earth was never great, and it dwindles hourly. Disarmament, even world government, will not guarantee survival in an age when population presses natural resources to the limit and when the knowledge of how to work mischief on a planetary scale is ever more widely diffused among peoples who may grow ever more desperate."

Poul Anderson, Is There Life on Other Worlds?, 1963

"I would not see our candle blown out in the wind. It is a small thing, this dear gift of life handed us mysteriously out of immensity. I would not have that gift expire... If I seem to be beating a dead horse again and again, I must protest: No! I am beating, again and again, living man to keep him awake and move his limbs and jump his mind... What's the use of looking at Mars through a telescope, sitting on panels, writing books, if it isn't to guarantee, not just the survival of mankind, but mankind surviving forever!"

Ray Bradbury, Mars and the Mind of Man, 1971

The smartest minds overwhelmingly support space travel -- Sagan and Asimov did. Stephen Hawking Does. Freeman Dyson. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Governor Jerry Brown. Paul Erhlich. Arthur C. Clarke. SCOTUS Justice William Brennan did. John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan. Neil Armstrong. You name it.

"People who view industrialization as a source of the Earth's troubles, its pollution, and the desecration of its surface, can only advocate that we give it up. This is something that we can't do; we have the tiger by the tail. We have 4.5 billion people on Earth. We can't support that many unless we're industrialized and technologically advanced. So, the idea is not to get rid of industrialization but to move it somewhere else. If we can move it a few thousand miles into space, we still have it, but not on Earth. Earth can then become a world of parks, farms, and wilderness without giving up the benefits of industrialization."

Isaac Asimov, speech at Rutgers University

horacerumpole wrote:The smartest minds overwhelmingly support space travel -- Sagan and Asimov did. Stephen Hawking Does. Freeman Dyson. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Governor Jerry Brown. Paul Erhlich. Arthur C. Clarke. SCOTUS Justice William Brennan did. John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan. Neil Armstrong. You name it.

"People who view industrialization as a source of the Earth's troubles, its pollution, and the desecration of its surface, can only advocate that we give it up. This is something that we can't do; we have the tiger by the tail. We have 4.5 billion people on Earth. We can't support that many unless we're industrialized and technologically advanced. So, the idea is not to get rid of industrialization but to move it somewhere else. If we can move it a few thousand miles into space, we still have it, but not on Earth. Earth can then become a world of parks, farms, and wilderness without giving up the benefits of industrialization."

Isaac Asimov, speech at Rutgers University

Ronald Reagan, a one-time small time B movie actor, should hardly be put in the same class as Carl Sagan, Stepehen Hawking, and some of the others you mention.

Even Neil Armstrong isn't the brightest bulb in the package, nor Jerry Brown.

Be that as it may, it's quite easy for people to prognosticate about "industrializing" space and its absolutely silly to think that could be done "a few thousand miles into space," the moon alone is several times that distance from Earth.

And there are any number of resources that humans absolutely rely upon that cannot be obtained from any extraterrestrial body that we know of, fresh water for one, clean air for two, topsoil for three, and all of these have been placed in great jeopardy by rapacious exploitation by the corporate world, which continues as we speak.

Despoiliation of Earth's biosphere and its many ecologies has occurred mainly since 1950 and has been largely caused by consumerism, a lifestyle that consumes enormous quantities of resources in the form of junk products and trinketry and low quality shoddy products that are often used once and thrown out, to become part of the enormous waste streams this lifestyle produces.

If we were really smart, we'd make only high quality products that were durable and reliable and would last far longer than the junk we now produce and thus reduce our consumption of resources. But as simple as this seems, our Capitalist economy prevents us from doing it and keeps us trapped in doing the wrong thing, and pillaging the Earth in the process. And we've just about pillaged earth to death, so the game can't go on much longer.

I expect we'll wake up to this insanity before all is said and done and change our economy up from an archaic 17th century system to a modern functionally based one that allows us to do the smart thing, assuming this happens before climate change hits us like a freight train and changes the whole ballgame into something we'll wish we'd never brought down upon ourselves, a big assumption.

So these kinds of prognostications are hardly more than a joke, and a bad joke at that.

For an interesting depiction of what a moon base might look like, see at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/0 ... ce#s658114

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:The smartest minds overwhelmingly support space travel -- Sagan and Asimov did. Stephen Hawking Does. Freeman Dyson. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Governor Jerry Brown. Paul Erhlich. Arthur C. Clarke. SCOTUS Justice William Brennan did. John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan. Neil Armstrong. You name it.

"People who view industrialization as a source of the Earth's troubles, its pollution, and the desecration of its surface, can only advocate that we give it up. This is something that we can't do; we have the tiger by the tail. We have 4.5 billion people on Earth. We can't support that many unless we're industrialized and technologically advanced. So, the idea is not to get rid of industrialization but to move it somewhere else. If we can move it a few thousand miles into space, we still have it, but not on Earth. Earth can then become a world of parks, farms, and wilderness without giving up the benefits of industrialization."

Isaac Asimov, speech at Rutgers University

Ronald Reagan, a one-time small time B movie actor, should hardly be put in the same class as Carl Sagan, Stepehen Hawking, and some of the others you mention.

Even Neil Armstrong isn't the brightest bulb in the package, nor Jerry Brown.

Be that as it may, it's quite easy for people to prognosticate about "industrializing" space and its absolutely silly to think that could be done "a few thousand miles into space," the moon alone is several times that distance from Earth.

Dude - remove the issue from politics for a second.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

And there are any number of resources that humans absolutely rely upon that cannot be obtained from any extraterrestrial body that we know of, fresh water for one,

There is abundant water in the solar system - on both the Moon and Mars.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

clean air for two, topsoil for three, and all of these have been placed in great jeopardy by rapacious exploitation by the corporate world, which continues as we speak.

So what? So we don't go and arrange for those things? Not going doesn't fix problems on Earth.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Despoiliation of Earth's biosphere and its many ecologies has occurred mainly since 1950 and has been largely caused by consumerism, a lifestyle that consumes enormous quantities of resources in the form of junk products and trinketry and low quality shoddy products that are often used once and thrown out, to become part of the enormous waste streams this lifestyle produces.

So, you want to do what Isaac Asimov said is the alternative? Give up our modern lifestyles? You want to give up a spacious house, food from all over the world, air conditioning, roads, planes, and all that?

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

If we were really smart, we'd make only high quality products that were durable and reliable and would last far longer than the junk we now produce and thus reduce our consumption of resources.

I will wait for the study that shows the numbers on how that would improve matters, taking into account the manufacturing processes and costs associated with each option.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

But as simple as this seems,

You think that "seems simple?"

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
our Capitalist economy prevents us from doing it and keeps us trapped in doing the wrong thing, and pillaging the Earth in the process. And we've just about pillaged earth to death, so the game can't go on much longer.

Got it. And, you think not going to the Moon or engaging in manned space exploration will fix this?

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

I expect we'll wake up to this insanity before all is said and done and change our economy up from an archaic 17th century system to a modern functionally based one that allows us to do the smart thing, assuming this happens before climate change hits us like a freight train and changes the whole ballgame into something we'll wish we'd never brought down upon ourselves, a big assumption.

When you know what it'll change to, then you'll let me know. If it's "planned, centralized, authoritarian economy which tells everyone what to make, buy and sell," well, count me out. If not that, then what?

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

So these kinds of prognostications are hardly more than a joke, and a bad joke at that.

They sound more reasonable than your "sky is falling" doomsday prophecies, and your suggestion that refraining from manned space exploration will in any way fix the problems you identify.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

For an interesting depiction of what a moon base might look like, see at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/0 ... ce#s658114

Huffpo.

The poor man's Faux News....

But, that moon base looks AWESOME! Let's do it!

Or, we could let our emotions run wild and anthropomorphize the Moon and worry that we're despoiling a rock with no real atmosphere and which is pocked by millions of asteroid impact craters already. No room for a base.

Water is ubiquitous in the Universe, and also in the Solar System. By setting the snow line at its condensation level in the protosolar disk, water was responsible for separating the planets into the terrestrial and the giant ones. Water ice is a major constituent of the comets and the small bodies of the outer Solar System, and water vapor is found in the giant planets, both in their interiors and in the stratospheres. Water is a trace element in the atmospheres of Venus and Mars today. It is very abundant on Earth, mostly in liquid form, but it was probably also abundant in the primitive atmospheres of Venus and Mars. Water is found in different states on the three planets, as vapor on Venus and ice (or permafrost) on Mars. Most likely, this difference has played a major role in the diverging destinies of the three planets.

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10 ... 407.145229

Ubiquitous: existing or being everywhere; omnipresent.

LCROSS found "significant" water on the Moon. Not just evidence of water - it found "water."

But after a year of analysis NASA today announced that its LCROSS lunar-impact probe mission found up to a billion gallons of water ice in the floor of a permanently-shadowed crater near the moon's south pole.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/water- ... yv488W0zdU

horacerumpole wrote:

Water is ubiquitous in the Universe, and also in the Solar System. By setting the snow line at its condensation level in the protosolar disk, water was responsible for separating the planets into the terrestrial and the giant ones. Water ice is a major constituent of the comets and the small bodies of the outer Solar System, and water vapor is found in the giant planets, both in their interiors and in the stratospheres. Water is a trace element in the atmospheres of Venus and Mars today. It is very abundant on Earth, mostly in liquid form, but it was probably also abundant in the primitive atmospheres of Venus and Mars. Water is found in different states on the three planets, as vapor on Venus and ice (or permafrost) on Mars. Most likely, this difference has played a major role in the diverging destinies of the three planets.

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10 ... 407.145229

Ubiquitous: existing or being everywhere; omnipresent.

LCROSS found "significant" water on the Moon. Not just evidence of water - it found "water."

But after a year of analysis NASA today announced that its LCROSS lunar-impact probe mission found up to a billion gallons of water ice in the floor of a permanently-shadowed crater near the moon's south pole.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/water- ... yv488W0zdU

Any idea at all how heavy water is?

Any idea of the weight of the water consumed daily by the world's people?

I'll let you do the math, but thinking we can supply the world's water needs from the moon or Mars is, well, a very heavy lift, as it were. It'd cost anything upwards of a thousand dollars a gallon, or more.

Warren Dew wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:I'll let you do the math, but thinking we can supply the world's water needs from the moon or Mars is, well, a very heavy lift, as it were. It'd cost anything upwards of a thousand dollars a gallon, or more.

You want to ship the water back to earth before shipping it back up to the moon to supply a moon base? Why?

That wasn't the context of my comment.

Horace and I were debating whether resources needed on Earth could be supplied from space or from bodies in space, and I mentioned three that were fundamental to human life that I didn't think we could obtain from extraterrestrial bodies, water, air, and topsoil. He replied with a bunch of documentation regarding the discovery of water on the moon and on Mars, whence came my reply to which you refer.

No, I don't want to ship water to Earth just so we can lift it up to a moon base, there appears to be sufficient water on the moon to supply a base there.

What stretched my credulity beyond its breaking point was the sheer volume of water that would have to be gathered from extraterrestrial bodies and flown home to provide Earth's water supply. I referred to weight but really meant volume. We'd do better by perfecting the art of desalinization of ocean waters.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:

Water is ubiquitous in the Universe, and also in the Solar System. By setting the snow line at its condensation level in the protosolar disk, water was responsible for separating the planets into the terrestrial and the giant ones. Water ice is a major constituent of the comets and the small bodies of the outer Solar System, and water vapor is found in the giant planets, both in their interiors and in the stratospheres. Water is a trace element in the atmospheres of Venus and Mars today. It is very abundant on Earth, mostly in liquid form, but it was probably also abundant in the primitive atmospheres of Venus and Mars. Water is found in different states on the three planets, as vapor on Venus and ice (or permafrost) on Mars. Most likely, this difference has played a major role in the diverging destinies of the three planets.

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10 ... 407.145229

Ubiquitous: existing or being everywhere; omnipresent.

LCROSS found "significant" water on the Moon. Not just evidence of water - it found "water."

But after a year of analysis NASA today announced that its LCROSS lunar-impact probe mission found up to a billion gallons of water ice in the floor of a permanently-shadowed crater near the moon's south pole.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/water- ... yv488W0zdU

Any idea at all how heavy water is?

Any idea of the weight of the water consumed daily by the world's people?

I'll let you do the math, but thinking we can supply the world's water needs from the moon or Mars is, well, a very heavy lift, as it were. It'd cost anything upwards of a thousand dollars a gallon, or more.

Is it only worth it if we use the water for people to drink on Earth? I didn't suggest it was going to be sent to Earth. It's to be used on the Moon. For space exploration, we need water up there.

horacerumpole wrote:
Is it only worth it if we use the water for people to drink on Earth? I didn't suggest it was going to be sent to Earth. It's to be used on the Moon. For space exploration, we need water up there.

You may not have suggested it but that was the implication, we were, after all, talking about Earth-based resources and their ever dwindling supply, and you chimed in "Oh not to worry, we'll get resources from extraterrestrial bodies," to which I replied there are three resources we can't get from space, 1) water, 2) air, and 3) topsoil.

To which you responded with a post in which you cited water as being "ubiquitous" in the Universe, thus inferring that we could supply Earth's water needs from other bodies out there in space, in contention of my remark that we couldn't..

Which I why I asked if you knew how much water weighed, going to the question of the sheer volume of water that would have to be shipped to Earth to supply our needs..

I'm not going to let you off the hook here, Horace. We can all go back and track this in preceding pages, but that was the nature and the context of our discussion about water.

Now, since you do appear to agree that we can't supply Earth's water needs from bodies in space, I think I'll keep it on my list of the resources we need but can't get from "out there," if you don't mind.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:
Is it only worth it if we use the water for people to drink on Earth? I didn't suggest it was going to be sent to Earth. It's to be used on the Moon. For space exploration, we need water up there.

You may not have suggested it but that was the implication, we were, after all, talking about Earth-based resources and their ever dwindling supply, and you chimed in "Oh not to worry, we'll get resources from extraterrestrial bodies,"

You must be quoting someone else, since I didn't say that.

Although, down the line, in the long run, we likely will learn how to utilize extraterrestrial resources. I have no illusions that what seems staggeringly difficult now will one day be commonplace.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

to which I replied there are three resources we can't get from space, 1) water, 2) air, and 3) topsoil.

We can't get it now. And, I don't see those things as the reason to go into space. I don't forestall the possibility that one day we will develop technology to produce those things from elements in outer space.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
To which you responded with a post in which you cited water as being "ubiquitous" in the Universe, thus inferring that we could supply Earth's water needs from other bodies out there in space, in contention of my remark that we couldn't..

You misread me. My quoted source stating that water was "ubiquitous" in space was in response to the comment that water was nonexistent or scarce or at least not yet clearly discovered on other worlds.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Which I why I asked if you knew how much water weighed, going to the question of the sheer volume of water that would have to be shipped to Earth to supply our needs..

I'm not going to let you off the hook here, Horace. We can all go back and track this in preceding pages, but that was the nature and the context of our discussion about water.

Let me off the hook? You've misquoted me. I have not now, nor have I ever, stated that harnessing water resources for use on Earth was the reason we need to be exploring space. I outlined many other reasons for doing it, and you know it.

That being said, in the long, long run, many resources will be harvestable from space, and there are conceptual possibilities for energy production and resource development, as well as even possible terraforming of other worlds. We can't even begin to imagine the possibilities, as any attempt to predict what the future will hold seems to invariably fall short of reality.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Now, since you do appear to agree that we can't supply Earth's water needs from bodies in space, I think I'll keep it on my list of the resources we need but can't get from "out there," if you don't mind.

"Can't?" --- well, let's be clear on the question. Right now we can't, yes.

Might it never be feasible? Perhaps.

Do I forestall the possibility? No. What becomes possible when we are standing with an operating Moon base and men trodding on Mars will, inevitably, be far more expansive than what seems possible right now.

You can keep it on your list all you want. What good is your list? Let's assume you are right, and we can never, not in 100 years, and not in 1,000 years, get water from outer space sources. is that an argument for not going to outer space? Of course not. Not going to outer space doesn't provide us with anything. At least if we go to outer space we will have moon bases, craft and humans living in outer space for periods of time, perhaps missions to Mars, and hopefully beyond. We will develop new technologies and perhaps find extraordinary ways to energy production and one day, maybe, we may be able to find resources in outer space and actually bring them here. But, I repeat, I never advanced that as the reason for going. Even if we can never bring water from outer space to the Earth, there are still limitless benefits to going and reasons to go.