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VaBeachGuy

Why should we go back to the moon?

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As far the mining goes, who owns mining rights on the moon? Would it only be countries who have been involved in space exploration, or all the countries of the earth?

 

It could work like Antarctica - a joint project. But in the end - no one is going to invest the time and money to get there and mine if they don't get a profit from it.

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Why go back? I think Neil Armstrong left his wallet there and he wants it back....... :laugh:

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Well I think we should go back if we are planning a trip to Mars, the reason is that its the best training for a trip to Mars

 

but wait I just saw a commercial of Tiger Woods golfing on the moon, I guess he found those Golf balls Kor!

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Hell yeah coz i wanna be a member of the "238.855 mile high club* :laugh:

 

No really i think it would be great and the tv ratings would go through the roof for that live event...there is a old saying that"everyone knows where they where when armstrong walked on the moon"..i wanna be able to say something like that...not "i know where i was when we sent a toy to mars and the battery was flat"..lol

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I'm all for going back to the moon.

The Lunar Landings that I watched on TV as a kid were the best things on TV back then.

When Armstrong first stepped onto the moon was one of my favorite childhood memories.

 

I agree. The moon landing was one of the good memories of my entire family gathered around

the television.

 

As for the naysayers.....well all those who didn't support Christopher Columbus were wrong also.

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It is probably like Antarctica, an international consortium "owns" the moon.

 

How would solar power gathered from the moon be useful? Sure it would be useful for those living on the moon, but how would we transport that energy to Earth and use it? It's not like we can just run an electrical cable.

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As far the mining goes, who owns mining rights on the moon? Would it only be countries who have been involved in space exploration, or all the countries of the earth?

 

No one owns the moon, by international agreement.

 

Well I think we should go back if we are planning a trip to Mars, the reason is that its the best training for a trip to Mars

 

but wait I just saw a commercial of Tiger Woods golfing on the moon, I guess he found those Golf balls Kor!

 

Alan B. Sheppard was the moon's first golfer, so there is a golf ball and golf club up there at the Apollo 14 landing site.

 

 

It is probably like Antarctica, an international consortium "owns" the moon.

 

How would solar power gathered from the moon be useful? Sure it would be useful for those living on the moon, but how would we transport that energy to Earth and use it? It's not like we can just run an electrical cable.

 

I see that the original link to the article that I read is dead now so I went to http://www.archive.org and found the article, which will explain how it could work.

 

Again though, since no one owns the moon (via international agreement) I would assume that anyone that got there and set up a base or mining colony would "own" that specific spot that they're in.

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20021023231630/...solar_power.htm

 

Moon-Based Systems Could Supply Solar Power to Earth

 

 

David Criswell, director of the Institute for Space Systems Operations at the University of Houston

 

 

The key to a prosperous world is clean, safe, low-cost electrical energy, according to University of Houston physicist David Criswell. And his idea for how to get it is literally out of this world.

 

For more than 20 years, Criswell has been formulating the plans and the justification for building bases on the moon to collect solar energy and beam it through space for use by electricity-hungry Earthlings.

 

“Prosperity for everyone on Earth requires a sustainable source of electricity,” Criswell says. The World Energy Council, a global multi-energy organization that promotes the sustainable supply and use of energy for the greatest benefit of all, agrees. The WEC’s primary message is that affordable modern energy services for everyone –including the two billion people who have no access to commercial energy – are a key to sustainable development and peace throughout the world.

 

Criswell estimates that by the year 2050, a prosperous population of 10 billion would require about 20 terawatts of power, or about three to five times the amount of commercial power currently produced.

 

The moon receives more than 13,000 terawatts of solar power, and harnessing just one percent could satisfy Earth’s power needs, he says. The challenge is to build a commercial system that can extract a tiny portion of the immense solar power available and deliver the energy to consumers on earth at a reasonable price.

 

“A priority for me is getting people to realize that the lunar power system may be the only option for sustainable global prosperity,” Criswell says. He contributed a chapter to a new book, Innovative Solutions for CO2 Stabilization, published in July, which addresses major aspects of sustainability and global commercial power.

 

Criswell’s lunar-based system to supply solar power to Earth is based on building large banks of solar cells on the moon to collect sunlight and send it back to receivers on Earth via a microwave beam. Solar cells are electronic devices that gather sunlight and convert it into usable electricity. The microwave energy collected on Earth is then converted to electricity that can be fed into the local electric grid.

 

Such a system could easily supply the 20 terawatts or more of electricity required by 10 billion people, Criswell says. The system is environmentally friendly, safe to humans, and reliable since it is not affected by clouds or rain, either on the Earth or the moon, which essentially has no weather.

 

The moon continuously receives sunlight, except once a year for about three hours during a full lunar eclipse, when stored energy could be used to maintain power on Earth, Criswell adds.

 

The system could be built on the moon from lunar materials and operated on the moon and Earth using existing technologies, he says, which would greatly reducing the cost of the operation. He estimates that a lunar solar power system could begin delivering commercial power about 10 years after program start-up.

 

Technology under development at UH increases the options for successfully building a lunar power base. UH researchers at the Texas Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials (TcSAM) are developing nanotechnology techniques that could transform the lunar soil into solar cells.

 

“The raw materials needed to make solar cells are present in the moon’s regolith,” says Alex Freundlich, research professor of physics, who has examined lunar material to determine whether it contains the necessary ingredients for making solar cells. He, research scientist Charles Horton, Alex Ignatiev, director of TcSAM, and a team of NASA-JSC and industry scientists also have used “simulated” moon soil to determine how to go about manufacturing the solar cell devices on the moon.

 

“Our plan is to use an autonomous lunar rover to move across the moon’s surface, to melt the regolith into a very thin film of glass and then to deposit thin film solar cells on that lunar glass substrate. An array of such lunar solar cells could then be used as a giant solar energy converter generating electricity,” Freundlich says.

Criswell, who has a Ph.D. in physics from Rice University, began thinking about lunar-based power systems more than 20 years ago when he was an administrator at the Lunar Science Institute, now the Lunar and Planetary Institute. For about seven years at the institute, Criswell was responsible for reviewing nearly 3,400 NASA proposals for lunar science projects.

 

“I really got to know the peer-review process and I learned about all aspects of lunar science,” he says.

 

For the past 10 years, Criswell has been director of UH’s Institute for Space Systems Operations, which receives funding from the state for space-related research projects conducted by faculty and students at UH and UH-Clear Lake in conjunction with NASA- Johnson Space Center. See http://web.archive.org/web/20021023231630/...://isso.uh.edu/.

 

Contact: Amanda Siegfried

713/743-8192 (office)

713/605-1757 (pager)

asiegfried@uh.edu

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The only thing that Bush 43 ever said that I agreed with is that we SHOULD go back to the moon.

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That's another thing that would be of great use, a radio telescope on the back side of the moon would have no interference from transmissions from Earth and no interference from light. The possibilities for this would be the ability to see land formations on planets orbiting other stars.

 

Well if you really want to see the part of the moon where the sun don't shine I think I can accommodate you. :clap:

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