P.S. MORON.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

I never quite understood the benefit of a moon station. I understand the moon has a sixth the gravity of earth, which greatly reduces escape velocity, which greatly reduces the propellant necessary to achieve it, but everything would have already been boosted there from the earth anyway, so where's the propellant savings? I guess the assumption is that you'd mine the resources from the moon, reducing the % of materials boosted up from earth, but if that's the case, that seems like a pretty damn big undertaking to me.

Though, if bringing that about is on the same financial scale as a mars mission, I'd definitely prefer a moon base. Imo, its proximity to the earth would actually increase the rate we explore our solar system in the long run.

Then a Mars moonbase or a Jovian moonbase (Europa baby!) would be a logical next step.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

But Uranis is much closer...

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Uranus is always closer when Spanks is around!

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

But Uranus is a planet several times the mass of earth! How could it be close to Spankling? The gravitational pull would disrupt all life on earth! The notion is ridiculous.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Spankling doesn't mind high-mass objects, so long as they're close and pull him in quickly. :D

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

My impression may be mistaken, but right now it seems to me that Bush wants NASA to just "find the money somehow" by pulling it from other projects in pursuit of his priorities, while receiving what (relative to cost) look like token increases in funding. I hope good science missions don't die in infancy along the way. What I'd really like to see in the coming decade or two is a stupid huge interferometer -- one with telescopes on opposite sides of the sun, to search for earth-like planets and help round out our inadequate understanding of how solar systems form. And a robot probe under the icy crust of Europa. And some other cool things that don't really require humans on-site.

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I was gonna send a robot back in time, but I got high.

I'm all for the probe under the ice of Europa. I still think 2001 was right, there be microbes under them there ice fields.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

I see no obelisk. :)

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Earth Escape Velocity: 11200 m/sec
Mars Escape Velocity: 5000 m/sec

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

http://popularmechanics.com/science/space/1996/12/jules_verne_gun/ So... fucking... cool...

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

If y'all wanna see an analysis of various heavy-lift versus orbital- or lunar-rendezvous scenarios for getting base components assembled, check out this example.

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What others say about boorite!

Ho ho ho. Uh, no, not that one. That's a job ad from the Library of Congress. I meant this.

I thought this wasn't supposed to be rocket science.

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What others say about boorite!

Well, initially, yes, but hypothetically, if there was a fleet of ships navigating the solar system over a long period, not all would have to return to earth before blasting back to elsewhere. You'd just have shuttles to take people and things to and from earth.

It's sort of the same logic that puts big airports in the middle of nowhere, rather than right downtown. It might be more convenient to more people if that jumbo jet were to land in Times Square. rather than the outer swamps of Queens, but the hassles of having the airport right there outweigh the benefits.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

So how much money will you pay me to not tell your library you are surfing for other jobs on the net boorite?

Kaufman is right. Also if you have limited space on a vessel you can refuel on a moon base, rather than wasting precious space holding more fuel than you need.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

I think the plan would be to take advantage of the low gravity, and launch from the moon using a slingshot device. Once up perhaps an ion drive could take over.

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Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball.

It'd be better to slingshot around the earth's gravity.

....PUNDIT.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

That was supposed to be one of the functions of Mir, actually. It was supposed to act as a refuelling station as well. I can't wait until I have my own Space Winnebago.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

I think the plan would be to take advantage of the low gravity, and launch from the moon using a slingshot device. Once up perhaps an ion drive could take over.

The problem with Ion drives as I understand it is that while the maximum speed is quite high, the acceleration is quite low.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Well, initially, yes, but hypothetically, if there was a fleet of ships navigating the solar system over a long period, not all would have to return to earth before blasting back to elsewhere. You'd just have shuttles to take people and things to and from earth.

Ah, I see. So you'd still have to boost resources up from earth (propellant, water, etc), but you wouldn't have to reboost the people and craft. I always hear of the moonbase being a good first step, which it really wouldn't in this scenario, since it assumes a fleet of craft able to explore our solar system even semi-efficaciously.

And even when we do have such a fleet, a better scenario than a moonbase might be to have a space station with some artificial gravity. That way the astronauts wouldn't have to return to the earth or the moon to escape the effects of zero g on their body. And also, you'd use a lot less propellant than even at the moon, since all you'd have to do is put yourself in a transfer orbit to head off exploring.

That's basically it. Electric propulsion in general has REALLY high ISP(like a miles per gallon rating but for rockets), but accelerates incredibly slow. You can still reach really high thrust values, it will just take you 10 years to do so.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

Right, and it's just not worth it to spend ten years accelerating. Possibly a mixture of fuel rockets and ion rockets would be best, that way you can bring yourself up to speed with the fuel, then continue at that speed with the ion rockets.

I still say more research needs to be done on warped space, quantum singularities, and wormholes in general, they could be the answer to exploration of space.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

You don't need fuel to maintain speed in space. As Newton might say in between hookers, "Objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force."

They have a kickass program called the Breakthrough Propulsion Program at NASA Glenn that considers that kind of stuff. It's not that large in scope yet, but it's still damn cool NASA's considering such options. I think some kind of spacetime manipulation will eventually be found possible and that's when we'll start some serious space exploration.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

FUCK, I completely forgot about newtonian physics when thinking about that model. I guess that explains why it isn't in use today.
I've actually heard of using fission bombs to propell a spacecraft through space... wouldn't this be a REALLY bad idea? Not just because it could potentially blow a ship up, but because if there was a human in there, the suddent acceleration would cause damage, and a machine would probably not work quite as well after several hard slams. Not to mention, there would need to be some sort of blockage system that would keep the ship from being turned into space dust. Also, how would that ship take off after landing somewhere? Finally, running around, firing off nuclear weaponry in space would probably have a detrimental effect to other planets, or even our own.

But it's still kinda cool to think of astronauts sitting there in the shuttle, talking as the bomb is released behind them... "So, Ted, how's the-" *BLAM* "Fuck, I think my nose is bleeding."

"Dammit, I want Warp Speed Mr. Bush!" "Aye aye Cap'n! Whatever'll get me re-elected!"

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.