* relative to 1969.

Would it be a relative piece of cake with all of our computers and high tech? Or, were slide rules adequate and computers overkill? Would today's geeks have the same stuff the 60's guys had? Would it be worth the money today? Is there really even a reason to go now?

There is no reason for humans to actually go to the moon. Let machines do it.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

It would take being Chinese or Indian.
[www.spacedaily.com]

The more interesting question is if we have to do it exactly the way it was done in 69? Do we have to have a lunar module and a circling craft for it to dock with?

We couldn't do it today - not because of any technical issues, but because of all the bureaucracy...

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Speedy
There is no reason for humans to actually go to the moon. Let machines do it.

Truth.

1969 offered 1969 technology and the fact a cold war wasn't yet over played a big part. If we can kill innocent mid-east civilians with unmanned drones, why would we invest the $ to put another person into space?

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Avenger
The more interesting question is if we have to do it exactly the way it was done in 69? Do we have to have a lunar module and a circling craft for it to dock with?

If the the entire focus is landing on the moon, It would still make the most sense for the same reasons it did in 1962 when Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was chosen as the "mode". It's the most efficient from a weight/fuel perspective so that you don't have to transport the fuel needed to return to earth all the way down to the lunar surface and then back up.

[en.wikipedia.org]

But if there were other goals/uses envisioned for the hardware, then other methods might make sense.

Our computers and high tech are not the technology that is needed to go to the moon. The technology available in 1969 was totally adequate to the task. Newer, smaller processors would not get you anything that wasn't available then. We're lost much of the expertise and capability needed to boost very large payloads out of earth orbit and conduct a manned soft landing and relaunch at the moon. Those systems would have to be developed and manufactured from scratch, which would undoubtedly take years. They took almost a decade to develop and put into service back in the '60s. I'm sure they would take almost as long today, even if we had the budget available.

Why did you post this on the political side?

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"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2012 09:25AM by davester.

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davester

The technology available in 1969 was totally adequate to the task. Newer, smaller processors would not get you anything that wasn't available then.

Why did you post this on the political side?

That's what I was wondering.

It was a toss-up as to which side to post. I had a thought that it might take a turn to a budget argument, so I went with this side.

The PR/Public intolerance for mistakes make it highly unlikely Nasa is willing to take the risks involved in trying another moon landing. If it is tried, the multiple safety backups would become hindrances to success.

When there is a death at the ISS, that will likewise be questioned by politicians and vocal members of the public (and it is a question of when, not if).

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You can tell a lot about a woman by her hands...
- For example, if they are wrapped around your throat she's probably slightly upset.

It's curious how some of us project the fear of failure onto the whole idea, and point out that bureaucracy would make the project impossible etc etc. At the time of the space race, NASA had become a pretty formidable bureaucracy, right down to doing extensive R&D on every tool and device that was going to go to the moon. At the same time, NASA wasn't anything close to the inept bureaucracy that US Army weapons development was (and remains, apparently). The scandal about the M16 rifle (some bureaucrat arbitrarily insisted on changing the cycling rate, which resulted in turning a well designed weapon into something that was subject to jamming under the worst possible conditions), the failure to design an IED resistant transport vehicle until well into the Iraq conflict etc etc etc.

Meanwhile, the US designed and built the space shuttle, knowing full well that it is a complicated system that can be subject to failure. There were 2 catastrophic failures of shuttles over the life of the project, resulting in the loss of 40% of the entire fleet and the loss of many lives. The result was that there were inquiries, but we kept flying them and people kept fighting to become shuttle astronauts. If we were still flying them, people would still be fighting to become astronauts.

As to a future manned trip to the moon: It would be more interesting to follow classic science fiction scenarios -- Bulk up the low earth orbiting space station, stockpile it with fuel, moon-capable transports, and supplies to drop on the moon by unmanned vehicles. Then, send a human crew to land on the moon in an area where prefabricated supplies had already been dropped, so that they would be able to survive long enough to assemble a real moon base.

Scientists and science fiction fans pretty much agree that the moon landings were a stunt, in the sense that they were of limited duration, and the scientific gains might very well have been accomplished using unmanned systems. On the other hand, we do have samples of the moon itself, and they were collected by human hands using the technology of the time.

The recent unmanned Mars landing shows how incredibly smart and capable our space exploration group continues to be. I think that they have just gone on to questions that they think are of more interest scientifically.

But to quote some anonymous blogger from a few years ago, "As a matter of actual fact, we cannot now send a man to the moon." This was in response to some typically trite remark about "We can send a man to the moon, but we can't cure the common cold" or some such.