Today: Iraq

[--Pete]

Hi,

That program? The fabrication and utilization of a very large optical telescope on the far side of Luna.

And not just optical. While a much larger optical scope could be made on the Moon, and that combined with the two week observing period would allow us to look much further back, the optical regime is not the only one that would benefit. Earth's atmosphere is mostly opaque to electromagnetic radiation (sure, there's a hole in the visible and in some other bands, but pretty much all short waves are absorbed and long waves mostly reflected). Everything from gamma ray to ELF could be received by observatories on the Moon. And the reduced gravity and lack of weather would make structures much easier to construct.

Besides, the far side of the Moon is the only place in the universe that we can get to that is not polluted by the (man made) electromagnetic radiation of the Earth :)

Indeed, many of us were hoping that the establishment of an observatory would be the next step following the manned missions of thirty some years ago. Unfortunately, the opportunity was wasted (not enough *political* gain for the supporters) and thus most of the space program's achievements through the late 50s and the 60s was pissed away.

So, yes, observatories make a lot of sense for a permanent Moon base. But are they sexy enough to garner votes -- for without that payback and without the "cold war" oneupmanship, the political support required to see a program of this type to fruition is probably lacking.

--Pete

[Chaerophon]

Im sorry, I should have clarified - merely responding to nonsense with nonsense. My post made as little sense as you attributing military paranoia to the (vaguely defined) liberal establishment in the wake of recent examples of Republican support for preemptive, and, many liberals would argue, ridiculous, protective measures: e.g. the Wolfowitz doctrine. (I'm not expressing an opinion with that statement - I have no desire to get into that)

A simple example that should highlight why your sidenote was nothing more than an ignorant soundbyte: who would you deem to be the "worst" mainstream political critic of a liberal bent? Most likely Michael Moore or someone of his ilk. Last I checked, such critics were not particularly supportive of the Star Wars program. Where does support for such initiatives rest? On the exact OPPOSITE side of the political spectrum. I have yet to hear of a democratic candidate (granted, I have not heard them all) who supported such militarist space initiatives.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Many observations take time. Presently, about eight hours is the longest uninterrupted observation that can be made on Earth (low angle observations are bad because at low angles one is looking through more of the atmosphere). Once an observation is interrupted, it is can be difficult to impossible to resume it because of the extreme pointing accuracy required (a single error is just a baseline shift that can be compensated for, multiple errors would cause interference phenomena that can completely swamp the data).

Astronomical observations are all about gathering light without losing clarity to artifacts. More light is gathered by increasing the size of the mirror or by increasing the length of the observation. We are at pretty near the limit of both of these in Earth based observatories. A bigger space based telescope would be a major help, but unless a way is found of manufacturing the optics in space, it is not likely. The Moon is the best bet we have of improving astronomical observations in a reasonable manner.

--Pete

[Bun-Bun]

Ah, I was assuming it would be possible to resume an observation with sufficient accuracy. I stand corrected.

[jahcs]

Just wondering, what sort of manufacturing and support facillities would be required to construct a large scale optical observatory on the moon. As long as we are there we might as well throw in a large radio telescope array too. Would a good portion of the raw material be available on the moon or would we have to haul most of it up there. Once the project is constructed what other use could these manufacturing facilities serve, long term?

[kandrathe]

The reality as I've seen it analyzed is that there is only a meager increase to NASA's budget until 2013.

That is when our current fiscal commitments to the space station end, and all the shuttles will be too old to fly. So unless the private sector finally rises to the challenge, again, we will be behind and needing to catch up. So, in 2013, as I understand the proposal, we will start to build the next generation of reuseable space vehicles to replace the shuttles.

I did a study while at the University about 20 years ago for a futeristics class. This was prior to the huge scale downs in space funding during the 80's, when NASA's big plan's included trying out things like;

1) a reusable space vehicle that would take off and land like an airplane.
2) a nuclear moon base and mining/manufacturing colony to collect aluminum and make lightweight structural components
3) a railgun launching system to cast pods with components from #2 towards a collection point near the space station
4) a permanent space station with shuttles running back and forth from the moon base
5) expeditions to mars and nearer asteroids.

I suspect this announcement has more to do with positioning candidate Bush for the 2004 election.

[Cryptic]

Actually, the strategic value of having lunar-based nuclear weapons would be that their placement there could partially circumvent the tenets of Mutually Assured Destruction - which is one of the foundation stones of our entire defensive strategy. It has nothing to do with nukes being "safe to use" - I believe most nukes are actually exempt from the "Hey, you can't use that thing, you might hurt babies!" kind of issues that are we attach to the use of, say, mattress tags.
;)

(The difficulty of building an accurate launch and delivery system would be harder to overcome, but I don't think people who already had the technology to build a permanent base on the moon would find the challenge insurmountable.)

And yes, it's all currently just ridiculous science fiction - just like manned moon bases, manned voyages to Mars, and a reusable shuttlecraft that doesn't blow up ~1% of the time. :blink:

[Guest]

Nice try - you know your talking gibberish, probably because you cant help it.


The main disunity in your dialectic is still there.

This isnt a debate about weapons in space, or about liberals vs. conservatives.


I reasonably called him "paranoid liberal" because he made a fantasic construct that forsaw the moon potentially being used as a weapon.

It is a historically liberal perspective to be against playing the weapon "trump" game.
It was paranoid because the idea is absurd, as the moon is a terrible weapon base for nukes.
What I said was as simple as that.

If he had said we "should be putting nukes on the moon" - then I would have called him a stupid conservative(or maybe hawk).


For what ever reason, you made sense at all.

[Cryptic]

>>>For what ever reason, you made sense at all.

Umm... thank you.
:lol:

[Chaerophon]

There is no "disunity in my dialectic"; it is perfectly coherent and understandable.

If you carefully read your quote once more...

But your nukes on the moon stuff is half-banked liberal paranoia.

...you will realize that this comment is quite open to interpretation. Clearly you meant to say that "the fear of Republicans placing nuclear weapons on the moon is nothing more than half-baked liberal paranoia". However, one could also easily construe from your less-than-complete sentence that you believe the notion of placing nukes on the moon to be a "half-baked liberal notion" in response to their paranoia at the prospect of international incident. Seeing as how "the liberal establishment" has become a broad misnomer utilized by rednecked and/or fundamentalist morons everywhere as a knee jerk response to any voiced opinion with which they disagree, I took offense. I suppose in hindsight that I could have ignored the post as unclear and simply moved on. Then again, you could have written a clear and complete sentence.

[Guest]

You appearently didnt read the ppost I was responding to before flaming me.

Taken in the context of a response, the intent is clear.

[Guest]

I did have a seperate response for you - but either I failed to post it as intended - or the love fairy removed it.

[Occhidiangela]

1. Expense versus pay off versus "likelihood" that some one would launch by surprise.

2. Bilateral ABM treaty model, now defunct, founded on a complex series of agreements, bluffs, and understandings between USSR and US. The trust established between US and USSR over 40 years that allowed eventual, substantive and verifiable disarmament action is nowhere in evidence with the nations about whom a defensive missile system is set up against, nor is the bilateral model anywhere in evidence now or in the future.

Hell, you can't even get any number of nations to sign up for and comply with far simpler mutual security and weapons limitations treaties. A new ABM Treaty is a chimera you cannot count on to protect you from attack.

The mutual "trust" is not there.

[Cryptic]

My apologies for the misunderstanding. I'll have to switch back to threaded. But I'm not invested enough in the issue to defend a point a see as purely hypothetical myself, so I'm not going to worry about it! Take care.
:D

[Occhidiangela]

Are not "real" liberals, in the classic sense of Liberalism, in the first place. They are "elitist Socialists" or in some cases no fooling neo-Marxists. :lol:

Classic Liberalism was far less Socialist in its approach.

[Jester]

Way too far, Occhi.

Socialists believe in state ownership and wage equalization, and not the weak versions either. Socialism is taken no more seriously in mainstream US politics than Fascism. And Neo-Marxism? That's just dreaming. Historical determinism? Forcible redistribution of wealth through revolution? Dictatorship of the proletariat? Nobody in the mainstream is even close to these ideas.

Classic Liberalism had Imperialism and Monarchy as its opponents, so of course the arguments sounded different from that perspective. The basic view has changed little, though, considering the amount of time that's passed. Free education has always been a part of liberal theory. It's not too far a stretch to include health care in the same vein. What else is there? Roads? Utilities? Pension plans? I don't think any classical liberal philosopher would have objected to any of that.

What else is there? Welfare? The reasons for liberals supporting welfare systems are entirely within the original philosophy. It exists to prevent people from reaching a level of economic dependence that would result in their unfair exploitation, therefore depriving them of liberty. That's straight from the grand road of liberal thought. You might say that new-deal type plans represent socialism, but this has largely passed from the world since the war, except in the form of armaments production. That could legitimately be called "socialist", although in a sense that no self-respecting socialist would support. Unfortunately for your comment, weapons spending is greater on the right than the left. Is Reagan a socialist then?

Sorry, Occhi, I don't buy it. I've read a fair number of Marxists, and a lot of Socialists. Nothing in the US mainstream resembles either in more than minute ways.

Jester

[Assur]

Hi

It's been a long time since my physics lessons :huh: , but the way I understood it there is a dark side of the moon, i.e. not touched by the sun, which would make an observatory (automatic/robotic?) a viable solution. Most observatories in Earth are complaining about light pollution, so that would be another advantge!

On the other hand, given the current account deficit and the debt run up by the federal government I see no way of getting the money necessary for those projects! The ISS has cost up to 100 billion $ and has not achieved a decent return.

good hunting

[Bun-Bun]

There is no "dark side of the Moon". The Moon is locked in synch with the Earth so that its "day" corresponds to its period of rotation around the Earth, or a Lunar month. Actually, there's a slight difference in the Lunar day since the Sun's apparent position varies as the Earth-Moon system revolves around the Sun, but that's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Maybe one of the LL astronomers can give correct technical terms - I've forgotten them. :(

So the Moon has a day-night cycle of about 28 days.

There is a "far side" of the Moon that we don't get to see on Earth, since the same face of the Moon is always facing us.

[Rhydderch Hael]

WPS.

What Pete Says.

[kandrathe]

The moon was ruled out long ago as a nuclear launch platform (at least against earthlings).

1) sub launched nuclear missiles are much speedier
2) bunker based nuclear weapons are much speedier
3) getting a missile out of moth balls, arming the warhead bringing it to a silo, and then launching it is still speedier

than the 3 days it would take to get a missile from the moon to earth.

Also, the cold war is over and if no one noticed most everyone is disarming and scaling back nuclear stockpiles (except the terrorists).