Advice to NASA: Skip the Moon

[E25280]

Mythbusters to Discovery magazines all kind of questions without answers about Moon landing.

I'd be very curious to know which of the "questions" have remained "unanswered."  Every "question" I've ever seen put forth by the deniers has completely explained.  And in fact, it's usually the deniers that show themselves to have shaky, if any, understanding of science/physics.

[soda72]

Here's a you tube vid covering the 'deep space 1' mission using the ion drive..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqU4MP03Rs0&feature=related


and another vid covering 'project orion'....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18L4E4myDAs&feature=related


 

[dkff49]

Personally I think we should start with the moon for the same reason someone else stated, because it has been done for short tiem periods already. Learning how to cope with problems of a long term base on another body could be very useful not to mention these are leasons being learned while much closer to Earth which equals a safer means of learning these lessons. I am not saying that it should be a place to stop over at on the way to Mars but I do think that it would be a good stepping stone. I would probably put this into the category of "baby-steps".

As far as terra-forming Mars as someone mentioned earlier, the one thing everyone seems to forget about when talking about that process is radiation. As far as I know Mars does not have the molten core that Earth does therfore there is no magnetic field to repell radiation from the Sun. This would mean that in order to have life existing out side man-made protective bubbles, we would need to engineer plant and animal life to be able to exist in high radiation enviroments. I know there are some bacteria and other small life forms that can survive such an enviroment but I don't think the are anything that alone would make any planet considered to be terra-formed.

I think that Mars should be explorered for the knowledge reasoning but to do it with the notion of terra-froming is a little far fetched.

[Anaxogoras]

I think that Mars should be explorered for the knowledge reasoning but to do it with the notion of terra-froming is a little far fetched.

I should mention that although the probability I gave for terraformng Mars may seem extremely skeptical at ~.001, I'm simply thinking of all the assumptions that go into it and multiplying their probabilities together.  For example, .001 is a little worse than nine coin flips, just to put things in perspective.

[Yossarian]

Idiots are those who believe without searching,  i've seen those 19th century quality pics above in news this year. There was technology 30 years ago,to read "Pravda" newspaper in Red Square,through thick atmosphere from satelite orbiting 200 miles above, and this blurry pics taken by NASA  in 2009  prove what?

Point of order: The satellite may orbit at 200 miles (well actually probably about 400, but whatever).  The moon orbits at roughly 250,000 miles.  Huge difference.

Also, you mention that 11% of Americans don't believe in the Moon landings, and thus why should you.  I would like to point out that 50% of all people are below average in intelligence.

[falcon23]

You need to do more research.  Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light years from our solar system.  Not "thousands of light years".  

  LOL,thank you fencer,I stand corrected.but my point still stands,we will NEVER get there,unfortunetly.



 GHI,The first landing laid out a reflector on the moon so that a laser could be shot at it and we can measure how far the moon is from the earth at any given time..And as I recall,the MYTHBUSTERS show basically PROVED we DID go to the moon.or at least what people said were reasons why we didnt were wrong.

[Die Hard]

Idiots are those who believe without searching,  i've seen those 19th century quality pics above in news this year. There was technology 30 years ago,to read "Pravda" newspaper in Red Square,through thick atmosphere from satelite orbiting 200 miles above, and this blurry pics taken by NASA  in 2009  prove what?

Fine. Be one of the idiots then.

[Angus]

Did you forgot about the loads of moon-rock and moon-dust that the astonauts brought back from the moon GHI?

[Plazus]

No i'm not sarcastic, i used to believe 100% in Moon landing, i still believe but i have some doubts,in last 5-10 years i've been watching and reading from  Mythbusters to Discovery magazines all kind of questions without answers about Moon landing. And about 11% of Americans don't believe it, why should i ?

Are you one of those guys who believe the earth is flat and hollow??? 

[Enker]

Additionally, there are physics models showing that warp drive IS a theoretical possibility, we just haven't reached that technological stage to be able to do it (subspace folding a'la Star Trek CAN work, we just don't have the technology to do so yet).

I never truly understood the subspace folding theory, though my rough understanding of it came from the "How William Shatner Changed the World" special from a couple of years back. I was never sure whether or not the folded subspace affected the entire universe, and thus wondered how we could have multiple ships traveling at the same time, as that would mess up their locations, similar to a person in zero-g environments that has applied both forward and leftward motions in an attempt to go directly forward, causing him to not arrive at the destination, but rather off by a certain amount. I still want a shuttle and that motorcycle from the recent movie though.

[Saxman]

When you fold subspace you're not folding it across the universe, only immediately surrounding your ship. Specifically, if I'm remembering the mechanics right, you're altering subspace to create a high-density bubble behind you and a less dense bubble ahead of you. The result is that the ship is drawn forward by the low-density bubble and pushed by the high-density bubble. The reason why the result is PERCEIVED faster than light travel by an outside observer is because of relativity. The ship never actually accelerates beyond the speed of light, but because of the interaction of the low-density subspace bubble with normal space-time, the ship reaches its destination at a much higher velocity than would be possible even though PRACTICALLY the ship is not traveling any faster than it would in normal space (think of it as taking a cutoff, rather than a road that loops around).

The beauty of this mechanism is that, if the theory is correct, there will be no effects of time dilation. If you leave earth on March 5th, 2010 at 9pm and make a five-hour trip in this manner, your clock and the clock of an observer back on earth will still be synchronized at 2AM March 6th when you arrive at your destination. Whereas if a craft travels at relativistic speeds (accelerating to a significant fraction of the speed of light within normal space-time) your clock may show only 5 hours passing, but to an outside observer 5 YEARS (if not more) might have passed.

[dkff49]

.

[Saxman]

Here's a more specific description of the theory:

Alcubierre Drive

[OOZ662]

.

Aww, I liked that post.

[soda72]

Here's a more specific description of the theory:

Alcubierre Drive

[play]star trek TOS theme[/play]



http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/Alcubdrive.html