Today NASA laid out its plan for a return to the Moon. The goal is to establish a Lunar colony. The main page is here. If you scroll down and click on Launch Flash Feature, you will see a page with some preliminary ideas for the new Crew Exploration Vehicle and the plans for the first landing. Basically they will be using the solid rocket boosters from the current Space Shuttle along with the external fuel tank and the Shuttle engines. The capsule part of it would be a super-huge Apollo type capsule that would hold five occupants and would land on dry land rather than in the water.
There has been plenty of discussion on this already in various areas, with the usual arguments about whether it's more important to move out into space or End World Hunger or some other non-space goal. The people who think it's a good idea will talk about how exploration is good and generates spinoff products, while the opponents say that we already know what's on the Moon and the money is better spent on terrestrial projects. These are the same arguments that were made back in the days of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo and continued on into the Space Shuttle and International Space Station era. But the main reason I can see for this project is much different and much more important.
Archaologists have determined that five times in the history of the Earth there have been mass extinctions that caused the death of many species of plants and animals, including the dinosaurs. The main theory is that these extinctions are caused by comets striking the Earth, causing "nuclear winter" events that kill off most plants and animals. Scientists further theorize that these "comet storms" are caused by a small companion star to the Sun (they call it "Nemesis") that moves through the Oort cloud of comets every 25-30 million years, sending many comets swarming toward the Sun. Several of them strike the Earth, causing the mass extinctions. The "Nemesis" theory is discussed here. Another interesting page that discusses mass extinctions is located at the excellent Wikipedia website. That page talks about five postulated mechanisms for mass extinctions, including impact events, climate change, volcanism, a gamma ray burst, and plate tectonics.
Remember Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that struck Jupiter in July of 1994? If you read the Q&A about the effects of the collisions you'll see that the largest fragment of the comet hit Jupiter with "an estimated energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (about 600 times the estimated arsenal of the world)." Obviously that would cause the extinction of all life on earth and would be the end of the human race. If we never establish a self sustaining offworld colony, we're keeping all of our eggs in one basket, which makes us vulnerable to planetary extinction from any number of rocks or iceballs that are flying around out there. So ultimately it comes down to Spaceflight or Extinction. The Moon colony is just the first step, but it is a vital step and it is cheap at twice the price.
I know in my heart that man is good.
That what is right will always eventually triumph.
And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.
- Ronald Reagan
There has been plenty of discussion on this already in various areas, with the usual arguments about whether it's more important to move out into space or End World Hunger or some other non-space goal. The people who think it's a good idea will talk about how exploration is good and generates spinoff products, while the opponents say that we already know what's on the Moon and the money is better spent on terrestrial projects. These are the same arguments that were made back in the days of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo and continued on into the Space Shuttle and International Space Station era. But the main reason I can see for this project is much different and much more important.
Archaologists have determined that five times in the history of the Earth there have been mass extinctions that caused the death of many species of plants and animals, including the dinosaurs. The main theory is that these extinctions are caused by comets striking the Earth, causing "nuclear winter" events that kill off most plants and animals. Scientists further theorize that these "comet storms" are caused by a small companion star to the Sun (they call it "Nemesis") that moves through the Oort cloud of comets every 25-30 million years, sending many comets swarming toward the Sun. Several of them strike the Earth, causing the mass extinctions. The "Nemesis" theory is discussed here. Another interesting page that discusses mass extinctions is located at the excellent Wikipedia website. That page talks about five postulated mechanisms for mass extinctions, including impact events, climate change, volcanism, a gamma ray burst, and plate tectonics.
Remember Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that struck Jupiter in July of 1994? If you read the Q&A about the effects of the collisions you'll see that the largest fragment of the comet hit Jupiter with "an estimated energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (about 600 times the estimated arsenal of the world)." Obviously that would cause the extinction of all life on earth and would be the end of the human race. If we never establish a self sustaining offworld colony, we're keeping all of our eggs in one basket, which makes us vulnerable to planetary extinction from any number of rocks or iceballs that are flying around out there. So ultimately it comes down to Spaceflight or Extinction. The Moon colony is just the first step, but it is a vital step and it is cheap at twice the price.
I know in my heart that man is good.
That what is right will always eventually triumph.
And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.
- Ronald Reagan
