Why are people not interested in space, or dont even care?

I think it will give a lot of people many new dreams
http://www.spacefellowship.com/News/?p=1722

Soon we'll talk about the IMS (International Moon Station) or IMB (International Moon Base)

Regarding this, why the moon? Everybody says that it requires more energy, and thus more money, to go to the moon then to any near earth asteroids. The only reason i can think of is that a trip takes less time....

Hello, Stefan,

you are right I think and only would add that asteroids are seen as sources of water and raw materials merely. Their disadvantage is to have nearly no gravity in comparison to the Moon. People as well as most of the beings known prefer environments with more gravity than an asteroid I suppose.



By the way - it's positive to see you posting again after a long time.

Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Hello Ekkehard,

Gravity is a problem in the long term, yes, but the gravity of the moon (according to wiki its 0,1654g) isn't very helpfull either. It is probably an easier testing ground since there is gravity, but eventually those asteroids are the most logical places to go to.

I hope they will take it seriously this time and start running the show as a normal company would do it and not with the pure need to maintain the current workforce and status quo. Everey price is going up, especially that of energy, so it would be 'wrong' to spend so much energy if they're not building something thats cheap an easily maintainable.

Maybe they will consider a space elevator on the moon. Wouldn't be that hard with current technology i bet.

I hope i will post on a bit more regular bases from now on

The main advantage to using the moon for a bases compared to nearby asteroids IMO is its orbit. The time and energy required to reach it is pretty constant so planning becomes much easier. With an asteroid trajectories would have to be planned much more and allowing for things like rescue missions is much more complicated or may be impossible for certain times in an asteroids orbit.

Also one of the reasons for going to the moon is to learn more about how the Earth was originally formed as they were both made from the same material and the moon has remained largely unchanged for 100s of millions of years.

One reason for chosing the moon is communications have a round trip delay of less than 3 seconds. An NEA will vary from at least 10 seconds to half an hour or more:

"Houston we have a problem.."

(five minutes later)

"...Don't push the red button..."

(five minutes later)

"D'OH!"

Also the moon is a whole world, ok a small world, but huge compared to any NEA. It has massive resources at the bottom of a quite shallow gravity well. It has free solar energy, heat, cold and vacuum, with enough surface gravity to make things stay put.

And, depending on the lunar base location, ocean views.

Why the Moon and not an asteroid? Because the Moon is a real planet. Or would be if it didn't orbit the Earth. And it is close. Asteroids are too small an too far away and you can only go to them once a year or less, as they pass Earth in their orbit. But if useful resources were found on one that has an orbit requiring less energy to reach than the surface of the Moon, then by all means we should exploit those resources. But for my space vacation, I want to go the Moon, not some crummy little asteroid!

I for one am very excited. NASA is in good hands if the quacks like Tumlinson would quit the backbiting.

It is quite a bit easier to reach Mars than the Moon. Closer asteroids actually have MUCH LONGER trip time! Why not “bite the bulletâ€

NASA says that some asteroids can be visited with a round trip time of only three to four months. Clearly we are not talking about departing Earth at one opposition and returning at the next, it would have to be some kind of direct flight to an asteroid that was passing close enough and slowly enough to do that. If that is really true, then it is a really good mission that I think we should do.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/2292.pdf

I agree, it would be good! I just haven't run into any plausible orbital data for such an effort.

I think having some form of infrastructure or method to send energy and/or goods from orbit to the earth is better, so in fact staying in orbit in a space station or whatever. That case you wouldn't even have to border with getting into orbit since you're allready there.

Btw, if all the formula one teams would combine their yearly budget, they could send a hell of a lot of kg's into orbit or to the moon. So, perhaps should this be in another topic, is ads not something to think off right now?

Unfortunately none of the sources I have been able to find online name the asteroid(s) being considered, but asteroid 3753 Cruithne would qualify for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3753_Cruithne

I'm a bit late to this topic but my answer would be another question.

Why are we not interested in fly fishing?

I know it sounds odd, but the answer to it is the same with regards to space. For many, it's simply not in their radar. Those who are into fly fishing will wax lyrical about the metaphysical aspects to soaking yourselves in waist deep water casting their lines etc etc but the rest of us will wonder what's the big deal.

Hello, koxinga,

may be that their environment is directing their radar to other points by others - like politicians and the like. In so far it might be a matter of education - not education regarding space but regarding education in general or education regarding other topics and subjects: the structure of education. The mataphor you are using includes that also - radar can use different frequencies, can have limited horizons and limited ability to change the direction it's looking to.

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Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)