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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 ther
by ErrantX 17y ago
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).
- hvs 17y agoI 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.
- ErrantX 17y agooh 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 :)
- gaius 17y agoDoes NASA even do that? I thought the USAF launched US military satellites?
- roundsquare 17y agoBut 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.
- philwelch 17y agoCan you think of any strategic value to the moon? I can't.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y agoThere'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.
- philwelch 17y agoIt'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?
- TheSOB88 17y agoI 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.
- philwelch 17y agoWhat advantage does the moon give to fabrication plants other than, say, building fabrication plants directly in high orbit as space stations?
- ErrantX 17y agospace - easier to expand (within reason)
- rglovejoy 17y ago1) 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.