By-Pass the Moon? Forum: Spacesettlers
Thread: By-Pass the Moon?
# 10476 bysailorbarsoom@... on Feb. 20, 2008, 7 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers, "ANTIcarrot" wrote:
Not you, obviously. Others do.
> What difference will it make to tax payers on the ground who are
> paying for all this?
Any plan you care to advocate, somebody will be asking, "Who cares?
What difference will it make to tax payers on the ground who are
paying for all this?"
Of course, if you knew in advance what all the discoveries were going
to be, you could skip all those expensive experiments and observations
and go straight to development.
> Lunar exploitation could pave the way for SSPS generated power,
> global warming sun shields, Island colonies, or other large
> structures, like NASA's asteroid miner designs. Or indeed martian
> colonisation; for those who want it.
See? No matter what you want to do...
> And for a third opinion...
> Personally I'd favour shelving both for about 5 years to finally
> solve the cost problem of launching things into orbit cheaply and
> reliably. Whatever ends up replacing the shuttle (an issue I believe
> is far from finished with) it's R&D costs could pay for several CATS
> designs. Pick a winner, refual it in orbit, and send it to moon or
> mars for one tenth the cost. :P
>
> John
Now we're talking. Don't fight about Moon vs. Mars vs. Asteroids; do
all three. After all, we probably won't do ANY until the cost comes down.