Will a Secret Private Manned Mission to the Moon Be Announced This Week?

Enough of the conspiracies:

Here's the truth.

the-moon-base-project.webs.com...

reply to post by MCCXLIV


Because we have to walk before we can run. We can barely get to Mars as it is, and you want us landing on multiple moons deeper in the solar system? You go planet by planet. We started with the moon, and have proven that we can get there pretty easily. Now we're working on Mars, with rovers, and exploring. Half the probes we've sent haven't gotten there, or have failed. When we get to where most of our probes are making it, we move on.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Mars has turned out to be much like the moon in that it's a dead body. It's time to stop wasting time and money on it and to commit those resources to more interesting destinations.

We've spent a sufficient amount of time perfecting technology and technique. We need to be more assertive in investigating planets and moons that will yield better science.

The commercialism of space is inevitable.Mining,tourism,habitation will more than pay for the R&D needed.There are fortunes to be made in space.My question is are these companies advanced enough to land on the moon?

I hope they use the famous secret TR-3B Astra triangle ship to get to the Moon in. Or some 'private' variation of it. It would be nice to have some progress in spaceflight, after 4 decades of rockets.

reply to post by MCCXLIV


We've perfected travelling to Mars? Seriously?


Failed Probes:

Mars 1960A & B
Mars 1962A & B
Mars 1
Zond 1964A
Zond 2
Mars 1969A & B
Mariner 8
Kosmos 419
Mars 2
Mars 3
Mars 4
Mars 6
Mars 7
Mariner 3
Mars Observer
Beagle 2
Fobos-Grunt
Nozomi
Mars Polar Lander
Mars Climate Orbiter
Mars 96
Mars Observer
Phobos 2
Phobos 1

There have been a total of 26 failures out of 43 attempts. That's a 60% failure rate. That's not even close to "perfecting the technology". Even the more recent attempts had some pretty spectacular failures. We have a long long way to go before we have perfected the technology to get to Mars, let alone any other planet.

Originally posted by Larryman
I hope they use the famous secret TR-3B Astra triangle ship to get to the Moon in. Or some 'private' variation of it. It would be nice to have some progress in spaceflight, after 4 decades of rockets.

It always amazes me how such a secret craft supposedly has so much known about it. And what is supposedly known about it both contradicts itself, and doesn't make sense.

reply to post by Zaphod58


The Voyager probes are still transmitting. Cassini continues to send data. Look at the successes instead of the failures. We can wring our hands over the loses or we can learn from the failures and move forward.

We could have given up during the early space program when rocket after rocket failed, but we didn't.

Better science, bigger targets. Io is waiting. Don't you want to see inside all that gas "on" Jupiter?

reply to post by MCCXLIV


I realize that we've had some amazing successes. We've had some spectacular failures. But probes that are designed to go into orbit, are actually much easier than probes designed to land. We are talking probes that would have to land on some of these moons. Mars and the moon are great testing grounds allowing us to perfect the technology.

Not to mention how expensive the technology is as well. We don't have the money to be launching probe after probe. Several recent NASA probes to Mars were killed due to budget constraints.

The reason to go back to the moon is helium-3
The unique atomic structure of helium-3 promised to make it possible to use it as fuel for nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun, to generate vast amounts of electrical power without creating the troublesome radioactive byproducts.
www.popularmechanics.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


I think some of the probe "deaths" might be due to the Big Picture aspect of Mars. So many attempts have been made that the people with the money get disgusted and say "no more". Some of the failures have been embarrassing manmade failures, so there's that to consider.

Truth be told I'm ready to climb on a rocket ala Dr. Strangelove and make the trip myself. I'm tired of waiting for everyone to wade through the red tape. As far as I'm concerned we're years behind schedule.

Originally posted by MCCXLIV
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

Can you direct me to the resources for the science and photos?

TY

The Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter Cameras have returned 817,358 (and counting) images of the lunar surface - most of them at ~50cm/pixel resolution.

Originally posted by ANNED
The reason to go back to the moon is helium-3
The unique atomic structure of helium-3 promised to make it possible to use it as fuel for nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun, to generate vast amounts of electrical power without creating the troublesome radioactive byproducts.
www.popularmechanics.com...

For more information on this, read Return to the Moon by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt.

What? NO!

It is one thing to announce the plan for a moon landing, and a whole other thing to really get there. We had numerous press conferences from both government and private companies announcing the plan for some breakthrough in space exploration (i remember a company that wanted to build a space elevator around 2020). But so far only marginal progress has been made.

Private or commercial organisations have only successfully gotten as far as the earth orbit. Private manned missions have only been sub-orbital. I'll wait for a private deep space mission (even if its robotic) and then I can get excited. For a manned mission, I think they will have to start with a full orbital mission first.

Originally posted by HowSoYouSay
reply to post by MCCXLIV

 

It's pretty much a "dead rock". There is no atmosphere to speak of, there were no oil deposits to be found, it served no monetary purpose so why return to it? The goal was for the US to get there before the Soviet Union did. They succeeded.

Other than "because it's there", there really isn't much reason to return.

H3, gold, platinum, silver, possibly diamonds in the bottom of deep craters, quite possibly many rare earths, we wont know until we take a long hard look.

reply to post by pikestaff


Mining it isn't feasible. It takes too long to get there. We are limited in payload by weight and methods of propulsion. Manned missions there are unlikely. There are a number of obstacles.

Mining Mars sounds cool but we are decades from accomplishing that. Meanwhile other planets and moons go unexplored.

Originally posted by pikestaff

Originally posted by HowSoYouSay
reply to post by MCCXLIV

 

It's pretty much a "dead rock". There is no atmosphere to speak of, there were no oil deposits to be found, it served no monetary purpose so why return to it? The goal was for the US to get there before the Soviet Union did. They succeeded.

Other than "because it's there", there really isn't much reason to return.

H3, gold, platinum, silver, possibly diamonds in the bottom of deep craters, quite possibly many rare earths, we wont know until we take a long hard look.

If the Moon was made of nothing but gold, platinum, silver, & diamonds, it still would not be anywhere near profitable to go and mine them. Only He3 offers the possibility of profit...

...IF it is really there in worthwhile quantities.
...IF it can be found easily.
...IF it can be mined easily.

(And last and most importantly)

...IF we can build a working fusion reactor that puts out more power than it uses.

Of course, once we have the infrastructure to mine the surface of the Moon, that opens to door to a lot of other things. With that sort of off-world industry, we can mine the Moon for more prosaic elements, such as aluminum & titanium for construction of space colonies & space vessels. With that sort of infrastructure in place, it would become cheaper to get raw materials for such projects from the Moon instead of lifting it through Earth's atmosphere and out of its gravity well.

reply to post by TheHistorian


I thought we've been warned off?