Hacker News Reader

Comment by hvs | Hacker News Reader

We have a government spending trillions of dollars with plans to spend more and he suggests spending billions more on space travel? The real solution is to eliminate the regulatory barriers to private space travel and sell off NASA to interested private parties. The Moon might not be their first priority, but we would have a much more vibrant space program and the costs for larger missions would drop dramatically.

View on HN

The problem is that they worry foreign companies will muscle into the picture.

Imagine if China landed the first Moon Base in 2020 and was wellestablished there before the US even landed another astronaut. Highly unlikely BUT the fear is there - and with that fear comes the other one; strategic habitation of the Moon establishes something of a superiority over other countries.

Summary: the US govt. will guard NASA as long as it can. It can use it to make sure that it holds onto much of the tech (or at least controls who makes it).

Can you think of any strategic value to the moon? I can't.

Helium-3

In a nutshell human beings have depleted helium reserves on planet earth to the point that within 20 years we run out. Now you say, big deal, no more party balloons. But little do you realize that the manufacturing processes for just about everything super technical requires helium. It's a big enough deal that both Russia and China are developing standalone robotic systems to harvest helium-3 from moon rocks where its found in great abundance due to the suns constant bombardment of the surface rocks which creates the substance. Helium-3 is also a core ingredient in fusion reactor processes and as such is required in great quantities to sustain the fusion reactor operations.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/helium.html

So there is a strategic value which while not important at this moment, will likely be a driving force in space economics in 20 years...

Can't you get Helium-3 from Asteroids (or so) in case someone blocks the moon?

Can you think of the strategic value of $Bn stealthy air superiority fighters to fight guys living in caves?

Yes--they ensure that guys living in caves are our biggest threat. If we did not have stealth fighters and stealth bombers, actual countries might think a war with the US would be a fair fight, and they might start shit.

Switzerland has a decent army, but nothing like the US. When were they attacked the last time?

Unlike Switzerland, the US is actually worth attacking. Not that Switzerland isn't, but it's in an easily defensible position. It's easy to make attacking Switzerland a bad cost-benefit. Not so much the US.

Plus we have obligations to protect foreign allies.

Yes. Americans have chosen to take on those obligations in the past.

yes. A moon base established by any one country would be a massive massive coup. Your on the very frontier of space and if you get a foot hold chances you will be at that fore-front for decades.

From the economic perspective there is a massively lucrative tourist market to sell.

And above all of that you have proof of the countries dominance over the earth. Some of their residents are literally untouchable :)

EDIT: if China makes it to the Moon that would establish them and the next biggest super power. Chances are it will be them anyway but still...

All very vague. What is the actual strategic value in this? What would you be able to do that other spacefaring powers couldn't, and why would it matter in a strategic context?

"Some of their residents are literally untouchable"

It's trivially easy to stop shipments to the Moon. How long can a lunar biosphere last?

The trick is the ability to build everything and due to the cost of transporting stuff to the moon means CPU's are probably the last thing to be manufactured on the moon. So, once we start building chip fab's on the moon a lunar biosphere could last for millions of years.

It would "prove" that Communism is superior to Capitalism and lead non-aligned nations into China's sphere of influence. That's what the original space race was about - impressing countries that hadn't made their minds up yet.

There's always the "drop giant rocks on your enemies" approach, if you like the blunt end of things.

On the other hand, once you're out of Earth's gravity well, you're halfway to anywhere.

It's far more cost-effective to bomb people from the Earth, or from low-earth orbit, than going to the fucking moon.

As for gravity wells, why not just build a space station outside of the Moon's gravity well?

Lots of cheese.

I can think of a few.

There's supposedly fuel on the moon. He3, if I'm right.

You'd be much more easily able to control space (orbital space), because you'd have fabrication plants on a place with about 1/6 of the gravity, making escaping that gravity much, much easier.

It would bring you a lot closer to the goal of space colonization.

Plus, lasers.

What advantage does the moon give to fabrication plants other than, say, building fabrication plants directly in high orbit as space stations?

1) The Moon contains metals that can be used to make useful things. In the long run, it would be cheaper to make the parts for orbital colonies there, instead of making them on Earth and boosting them into orbit.

2) There is evidence that there is water and oxygen on the Moon. Again, it is cheaper to collect these on the Moon and send them out to the orbital factories and space-based solar collectors than it would be to do so from Earth.

space - easier to expand (within reason)

You can employ robots to draw ads on the lunar surface...

If the Russians had painted the moon red during the cold war, the Americans would have written Coca-Cola on it..

But isn't that self defeating? If China decides that they want to go to the moon for strategic purposes and that private enterprise is the way to do it, then they will loosen up restrictions and tell the American engineers to come over and help. I'd imagine a lot of them would go to China because they see NASA getting less and less prominent. I don't see how this helps strategically.

I don't disagree, and considering the amount of military hardware that NASA puts up, they will be keeping NASA for quite some time. What should be done and what is actually done are usually two completely different things when it comes to the U.S. gov't.

Does NASA even do that? I thought the USAF launched US military satellites?

oh hell yeh agreed.

I said fear. should have said irrational fear. Such things can do much for furthering tech (example: the space race) but also hamper it (example: the current NASA situation).

Catch 22 :)

This idea isn't a bad one. In case anyone is interested, the most successful private space company so far is SpaceX, started by a co-founder of PayPal. It recently (December 2008) won a contract from NASA to resupply the ISS. I believe the X is because the goal of the founder is to improve the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 10.

http://www.spacex.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

There's also http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/ started by a crazy friend of mine.

From their mission statement: "Our mission is very simple. We are working towards launching a human being into space. This is a non-profit suborbital space endeavor, based entirely on sponsors and volunteers."

They've done a number of successful booster tests and are well on their way to the goal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com