40 Years ago today

[Paratus]

If the telescope is on the far side of the moon, how are you going to send signals back to the Earth? How are you going to manage the wild swings in temperature? (It varies by roughly 600 degrees F depending on day/night on the moon.)

Hmm, lunar relay satellite maybe?

Temps? How about with heaters and cooling loops like we've used on most space vehicles? Radiation, as I'm sure you are aware, is not nearly as effective as conduction/convection for moving heat around.

I would make it a radio telescope however, as the dark side of the moon should be pretty radio dark. Lagrange points would be just fine for optical telescopes.

Hope this helps

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Oh, nooooooooooooooo!

When did that happen?

LOL, the one where you lied, and then claimed I said things I didn't, and then bailed out and refused to answer when you got proved a troll.

Hmm, just like almost every other thread I guess.....but really, even a troll shouldn't bail and be too afraid to answer in his own thread that he started.

You asked for proof, I gave it, and you ran away. Typical.

 

[a777pilot]

LOL, the one where you lied, and then claimed I said things I didn't, and then bailed out and refused to answer when you got proved a troll.

Hmm, just like almost every other thread I guess.....but really, even a troll shouldn't bail and be too afraid to answer in his own thread that he started.

You asked for proof, I gave it, and you ran away. Typical.

I never lie.

That's a lie, I do.

I never bail out of a discu

 

[ichy]

What was really said was Apollo 18 cancellation. We had all the hardware. They cancelled the mission to just save operation costs. Talk about a waste.

What happened with Skylab was even more wasteful. The station could have supported at least one more crew, plus there was a whole second Skylab station that was built but never launched. We had a couple more Saturn Vs to launch the second station plus several Apollo CSMs and Saturn 1Bs for launching crews. Instead Skylab B ended up in the Smithsonian and the various rockets and capsules went into tourist exhibits rather than into space.

 

[alzan]

I don't know what the religion of this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, has to do with NASA or sustainable non-fossil fuels.

But, he is by muslim law a muslim. You might want to do some research.

Off Topic: Neither do I. I think he was just pointing out that since Muslim law is not codified into US law; while technically correct, you are simply using your "my I'm so amusing" posting tactic that quite frankly has gotten old. By the way, we all get it; you don't like President Obama. Repeating your same tired "Turtle" line just reinforces the idea that you're a joke. And a very bad one at that.

And you might want to do some research of your own and show where it is codified into US law that children must follow the religion of their father.

On Topic: Manned exploration is very expensive and of minimal benefit at this point for Mars, there's a lot we can learn about the moon from robots though; the Opportunity and Spirit rovers (I love those little robots!) have given us more information about Mars than we originally thought, a few more robotic missions can give us even better information for a future manned visit to Mars.

As someone else pointed out, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that have atmospheres are great candidates for robotic missions and possibly a manned mission (although a manned would be decades away.)

Ion pulse power systems as well as nuclear seem good candidates for missions to the outer planets and their moons; we may even figure out along the way how to incorporate ion power into the energy needs for Earth and it's peoples.

Long term energy solutions should encompass all possible non-fossil fuel possibilities: I don't know the name of the technology, but they are generators that use wave motion to create electricity; Scotland has been using them for their coastal towns for a few years. Some of our coastal towns could benefit from those systems.

Hydrogen fuel cells and closed loop systems look promising as well but more research is needed for better efficiency and greater power generation.

Solar power would best be used in areas of the southwest that get a lot of sunlight: storage systems for nighttime power needs more R&D to make them practical.

Nuclear will certainly have it's place, but I think 1,000 plants is a bit extreme. We also need more R&D into fusion as opposed to fission; as well as different fuel sources. Thorium looks promising as a future source.

NASA and it's missions have shown us what we can accomplish when thinking inside and outside the box. And that is it's greatest and enduring contribution.

alzan

 

[a777pilot]

Off Topic: Neither do I. I think he was just pointing out that since Muslim law is not codified into US law; while technically correct, you are simply using your "my I'm so amusing" posting tactic that quite frankly has gotten old. By the way, we all get it; you don't like President Obama. Repeating your same tired "Turtle" line just reinforces the idea that you're a joke. And a very bad one at that.

And you might want to do some research of your own and show where it is codified into US law that children must follow the religion of their father.

On Topic: Manned exploration is very expensive and of minimal benefit at this point for Mars, there's a lot we can learn about the moon from robots though; the Opportunity and Spirit rovers (I love those little robots!) have given us more information about Mars than we originally thought, a few more robotic missions can give us even better information for a future manned visit to Mars.

As someone else pointed out, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that have atmospheres are great candidates for robotic missions and possibly a manned mission (although a manned would be decades away.)

Ion pulse power systems as well as nuclear seem good candidates for missions to the outer planets and their moons; we may even figure out along the way how to incorporate ion power into the energy needs for Earth and it's peoples.

Long term energy solutions should encompass all possible non-fossil fuel possibilities: I don't know the name of the technology, but they are generators that use wave motion to create electricity; Scotland has been using them for their coastal towns for a few years. Some of our coastal towns could benefit from those systems.

Hydrogen fuel cells and closed loop systems look promising as well but more research is needed for better efficiency and greater power generation.

Solar power would best be used in areas of the southwest that get a lot of sunlight: storage systems for nighttime power needs more R&D to make them practical.

Nuclear will certainly have it's place, but I think 1,000 plants is a bit extreme. We also need more R&D into fusion as opposed to fission; as well as different fuel sources. Thorium looks promising as a future source.

NASA and it's missions have shown us what we can accomplish when thinking inside and outside the box. And that is it's greatest and enduring contribution.

alzan

I could not agree more.

Well said.

 

[a777pilot]

The closest I ever made it to the NASA Space program was having as my First Officer for a three day trip, a retired Air Force Colonel that had six missions into space. His last mission was as Mission Commander of the SST that returned Senator John Glenn (COL, USMC-Ret) to space.

A very impressive gentleman. It was an honor to fly with him.

 

[Brovane]

What happened with Skylab was even more wasteful. The station could have supported at least one more crew, plus there was a whole second Skylab station that was built but never launched. We had a couple more Saturn Vs to launch the second station plus several Apollo CSMs and Saturn 1Bs for launching crews. Instead Skylab B ended up in the Smithsonian and the various rockets and capsules went into tourist exhibits rather than into space.

I agree with that. Skylab was a Fiasco. They had a Saturn IB to send a crew up to the station with a Command Module. Instead they cut every where they could to support the Shuttle program which was running over budget and years behind schedule. The original intention was to use the shuttle to boost Skylab back up into a higher orbit. However with the high sun activity and the fact that the Shuttle was behind schedule means the orbit decayed faster than planned.

 

[Brovane]

Sorry, but you are going to have to explain that one to me. NO green house gas emissions? How is that even possible? What is that fuel cell powered by? Magic beans?

I got it wrong for no green house gases. It is actually signficantly reduced green house emissions. We have 2xUTC Power 400kw Fuel Cells. We also have 100kva PV Solar System on the roof of the buildling. Kind of crazy that a good part of our building is powered by fuel cells. Originally technology that was used by the space program.

Link to what is being used below.

http://www.utcpower.com/products/purecell400

 

[Brovane]

The closest I ever made it to the NASA Space program was having as my First Officer for a three day trip, a retired Air Force Colonel that had six missions into space. His last mission was as Mission Commander of the SST that returned Senator John Glenn (COL, USMC-Ret) to space.

A very impressive gentleman. It was an honor to fly with him.

I take that is was Colonel Curtis Brown? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Brown_(astronaut)

 

[ichy]

I agree with that. Skylab was a Fiasco. They had a Saturn IB to send a crew up to the station with a Command Module. Instead they cut every where they could to support the Shuttle program which was running over budget and years behind schedule. The original intention was to use the shuttle to boost Skylab back up into a higher orbit. However with the high sun activity and the fact that the Shuttle was behind schedule means the orbit decayed faster than planned.

The story of what happened to Skylab is pretty interesting. There were enough supplies left on the station for at least one more crew to visit, plus as I mentioned there was Skylab B on the ground that could have been used for a whole additional series of missions. The higher ups at NASA wanted to go full speed ahead with the shuttle though so discussion of additional Skylab flights was quickly quashed.

If the shuttle hadn't been so delayed there were some interesting potential shuttle/Skylab missions, although there were significant challenges and complications with those as well. Check out http://www.astronautix.com/articles/skyyfate.htm if you want more details.

 

[DrPizza]

Why not put a large scale telescope in orbit around the moon?

Or a large scale telescope in High earth orbit, say 50,000 miles out.

The Hubble is one of the all time great scientific marvels. I would love to see one at the minimum ten times its size. Now if we can just figure out how to manufacture a mirror that size in zero gravity.

As I said above, the stable Lagrangian points are much more suitable for the placement of a telescope. Putting one in orbit around the moon would be absolutely pointless, except for one with the intention of actually studying the moon.

 

[a777pilot]

I take that is was Colonel Curtis Brown? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Brown_(astronaut)

Yes, it was.

 

[a777pilot]

As I said above, the stable Lagrangian points are much more suitable for the placement of a telescope. Putting one in orbit around the moon would be absolutely pointless, except for one with the intention of actually studying the moon.

I like your plan better than mine.

Now how do we get a Hubble type telescope up there that is at least ten times bigger than the original Hubble? Can you imagine what discoveries could be made. It's mind boggling.

 

[Brovane]

I like your plan better than mine.

Now how do we get a Hubble type telescope up there that is at least ten times bigger than the original Hubble? Can you imagine what discoveries could be made. It's mind boggling.

Yup to bad we don't have a Saturn V production line then that would be real easy to get done. You need to put a 100+ Metric ton object into orbit. No problem. I will have to look when I get home some of the Saturn V improvements that where being locked at. Some where fairly crazy and would have involved raising the roof of the VAB. I remember one design I think would have been under 400 feet tall but still able to put almost 100 Metric tons into TLI (Trans Lunar Injection). I think it used strap-on boosters. It would have been interesting to have a actual Space Station at the Langrangian points and then have the telescope attached to the Space Station or nearby. Would make repairs and upgrades easier.

 

[DrPizza]

I like your plan better than mine.

Now how do we get a Hubble type telescope up there that is at least ten times bigger than the original Hubble? Can you imagine what discoveries could be made. It's mind boggling.

I take it that you're not aware of the James Webb Space Telescope. As long as funding doesn't get cut, it's supposed to be launched about 6 years from now. It's big enough to get the job done. For what it's worth, (and I've never verified this) but the Hubble isn't large enough to make out detail on the moon at a level where we could make out the stars and stripes on the flag planted there by the first Apollo astronauts to reach the moon. What I've read is that in order to be able to resolve to that scale, a telescope would need to be multiple kilometers across. If we built a Hubble like telescope with ten times the area, I'm not sure that it would really be that much of an improvement to make it worth it.

 

[ichy]

JWST is going to be an infrared rather than an optical telescope. Adaptive optics have done a lot to help ground based telescopes get around the limitations of being inside Earth's atmosphere, and at this point the value of another orbiting optical telescope is questionable. We're better off launching observatories that look in other parts of the spectrum (infrared, x-ray, gamma-ray).

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

I never lie.

That's a lie, I do.

I never bail out of a discu

Sure you do, all the time...everytime you get called on your lies, you bail and go start another thread. It's what trolls do.

 

[ichy]

Yup to bad we don't have a Saturn V production line then that would be real easy to get done. You need to put a 100+ Metric ton object into orbit. No problem. I will have to look when I get home some of the Saturn V improvements that where being locked at. Some where fairly crazy and would have involved raising the roof of the VAB. I remember one design I think would have been under 400 feet tall but still able to put almost 100 Metric tons into TLI (Trans Lunar Injection). I think it used strap-on boosters. It would have been interesting to have a actual Space Station at the Langrangian points and then have the telescope attached to the Space Station or nearby. Would make repairs and upgrades easier.

Some of the proposed Saturn V variants were insane. My favorite one used four liquid strap-on boosters that each had a pair of F-1 engines. That would've made for a total of 13 F-1s firing at launch. Obviously that kind of a booster was a space cadet fantasy but the idea was still cool, albeit absurd.

Re: a space station for telescope repairs, sadly it's just not worth the money or risk. No oribital observatory since Hubble has been designed for in-flight repair.

 

[Darwin333]

You're not the only one. Sadly, we as a country care far more now about tax cuts for the wealthy than we do about national pride in our space program.

We care more about everything than we do our space program or pure science in general. Whats NASA's budget, one half of one percent of our budget or something absurdly small like that?

 

[Darwin333]

Embarrassed? WTF? Roscosmos and NASA are partners on multiple projects. They have already completed ISS together (bigger than Mir or Apollo/Soyuz). SpaceX Dragon is making great progress which should replace the aging Soyuz. Cold War ended 20 years ago.

We are no longer the leaders in that particular science. Just like we used to be the leaders in particle physics and we gave that up as well. That is why you can look at the bottom of the periodic table of elements and see names like Americium, Berkelium, and Californium. We didn't want to continue funding that science either so now Europe will be the leader.

Its not about the cold war or any bullshit like that, its about science. Those who are first to discover it are almost always the first to profit from it as well. We have had a really good run doing exactly that, unfortunately it appears that those days will soon be over.

PS: The commercial sector does not do the kind of pure science research that we are talking about so comparing SpaceX to NASA is foolish. Frankly its an embarrassment that we currently can't get well beyond LEO much less not being able to get to LEO.

 

[fskimospy]

I take it that you're not aware of the James Webb Space Telescope. As long as funding doesn't get cut, it's supposed to be launched about 6 years from now. It's big enough to get the job done. For what it's worth, (and I've never verified this) but the Hubble isn't large enough to make out detail on the moon at a level where we could make out the stars and stripes on the flag planted there by the first Apollo astronauts to reach the moon. What I've read is that in order to be able to resolve to that scale, a telescope would need to be multiple kilometers across. If we built a Hubble like telescope with ten times the area, I'm not sure that it would really be that much of an improvement to make it worth it.

The reason why no telescope can make that out is that the US never landed on the moon, duh.

 

[Jaskalas]

Solar power would best be used in areas of the southwest that get a lot of sunlight: storage systems for nighttime power needs more R&D to make them practical.

You're behind the times. The answer was salt, molten salt to be exact.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57373508-76/solar-tower-will-power-las-vegas-at-night/

 

[Darwin333]

The shuttle was supposed to deliver cheap, reliable and safe transportation to low-earth orbit. It failed at all three of those goals.

The Hubble servicing missions were an amazing accomplishment, but that's also pretty much the only unique capability that the shuttle had. It pains me to say this but in the grand scheme of things we would've been better off just building new orbital telescopes rather than servicing the existing one.

I'm a supporter of manned spaceflight but I think that we need to be honest about the fact that it is not and never will be the most efficient way to accomplish science in space. The reason I support sending people up is because I believe that human exploration of the unknown is a worthy goal in and of itself, even if it's not the most efficient way to gather data. The problem with the shuttle was that it couldn't explore anything.

Absolutely.

I think the absolute biggest problem is that NASA has not had a hard goal (that doesn't change with the political wind) nor the funding to accomplish anything reasonably exciting as far as manned space travel.

The shuttle was a noble idea but as you said it was ultimately a failure. We should have been developing the capability to get out of LEO (I would have been happy updating our 40 friggen year old system) and not just be content with floating around in LEO. When I was growing up a lot of kids where excited about NASA and the space program. Kids wanted to be astronauts and scientists and engineers because of the excitement of pushing the boundaries of our knowledge. Not so much these days.... NASA provided so much more than just the science that they developed back in its glory days. People just don't seem to get that for some reason.


NASA needs a clear mission that won't change with the next Congress or President (I don't know how you accomplish this) and the funding it requires to accomplish it. We could double NASA's budget and it would be a rounding error on our current deficit/budget, instead we are cutting it. Its a damn shame.

 

[a777pilot]

Sure you do, all the time...everytime you get called on your lies, you bail and go start another thread. It's what trolls do.

The classic definition of a "troll" is a post one does not understand or one disagrees.

LOL!