[Keith_McClary]

Lava tubes on Moon could be huge enough to hold cities
Clive Thompson - BoingBoing
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/lavatubes.jpg[/img]
We don't know if the moon actually has any subterranean lava tubes, but if they do exist, a new analysis suggests they could be enormous.

Scientists at Purdue have crunched data from the GRAIL spacecraft that are mapping the Moon's gravitational field -- and they argue that lava tubes on the moon are big big big. They have a conference paper about it here, and as they note in a Purdue press release:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;We found that if lunar lava tubes existed with a strong arched shape like those on Earth, they would be stable at sizes up to 5,000 meters, or several miles wide, on the moon," Blair said. "This wouldn't be possible on Earth, but gravity is much lower on the moon and lunar rock doesn't have to withstand the same weathering and erosion. In theory, huge lava tubes -- big enough to easily house a city -- could be structurally sound on the moon."

[Keith_McClary]

xkcd

[Keith_McClary]

The new head of the European Space Agency has a plan – for humanity to build a ‘village on the Moon’.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��We should look to the future beyond the International Space Station,” he tells me. “We should look for a smaller spacecraft in low-Earth orbit for microgravity research and I propose a Moon village on the far side of the Moon.”
Yes, a village on the Moon.
Just the sort of daring vision that took Nasa from a standing start to the Moon in the 1960s, but today – possibly constrained by its political masters – the US space agency appears to be lacking ambition.
“A Moon village shouldn’t just mean some houses, a church and a town hall,” says Woerner. “This Moon village should mean partners from all over the world contributing to this community with robotic and astronaut missions and support communication satellites.”
...
“The far side of the Moon is very interesting because we could have telescopes looking deep into the Universe, we could do lunar science on the Moon and the international aspect is very special,” he explains. “The Americans are looking to go to Mars very soon – and I don’t see how we can do that – before going to Mars we should test what we could do on Mars on the Moon.”

[C8]

But Captain Kirk, What is love?

[SeaGypsy]

Why the far side? So everything can actually happen in a frigging studio perhaps? Get real. If it can be done it should be visible with a telescope by a non owned or owner non specific human.

[Tanada]

The far side is in the radio shadow from Earth so astronomers can do work without having interference from terrestrial broadcasters.

[Withnail]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '
')“The far side of the Moon is very interesting because we could have telescopes looking deep into the Universe, we could do lunar science on the Moon and the international aspect is very special,” he explains. “The Americans are looking to go to Mars very soon – and I don’t see how we can do that – before going to Mars we should test what we could do on Mars on the Moon.”

[Keith_McClary]

Free Range by Bill Whitehead

[onlooker]

Beam-me-up-Scotty.....jpg

I consider myself practically a trekkie. But unfortunately, interstellar space travel seems at this point total science fiction. This linked article explains that $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd manned interstellar space travel is so difficult that it might never be achieved.

[Tanada]

Russia announced the crew of the ISSA has received an advanced copy of The Force Awakens in the cargo ship that just arrived. You can skip forward to family reactions at 1:30 in the clip.

https://www.rt.com/news/325793-soyuz-la ... e-british/

[Subjectivist]

It already is a massive leap forward. It actually started with the Pegasus launch system that did away with the first stage by using a large jet to carry the rest of the rocket to high altitude and air launch it at 500+ miles per hour.

By making the first stage a large jet they get to use it over and over.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(rocket)

Now there are a couple systems including Spaecex that reuses actual ground launched rocket stages.

[Tanada]

With all the talk about Donald Trump making big changes starting in January it set me to wondering, whither NASA in the future?

Back before the administration of President Obama the USA had the capability to launch humans into space basically since Alan Shepherd took off in May 1961 right up through the last shuttle mission in July 2011. Currently there are three competing civilian space launch companies that are at least talking about providing humans to space capability, but the cold hard reality is for the last five years the USA has been fully dependent on Russia to put our people into orbit and bring them back from the ISSA.

Will the civilian companies get big enough contracts to kick them into gear actually launching humans? Will NASA be ordered to resume human launches via some alternative method? The brutal truth is American launches have been paused four times, after the Apollo fire in 1967, After the Apollo XIII accident in 1970, after the Challenger disaster in 1986, and after the Columbia disaster in 2003. None of them were even half as long as this hiatus during the Obama Presidency.

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'W')ith all the talk about Donald Trump making big changes starting in January it set me to wondering, whither NASA in the future?

Back before the administration of President Obama the USA had the capability to launch humans into space basically since Alan Shepherd took off in May 1961 right up through the last shuttle mission in July 2011. Currently there are three competing civilian space launch companies that are at least talking about providing humans to space capability, but the cold hard reality is for the last five years the USA has been fully dependent on Russia to put our people into orbit and bring them back from the ISSA.

Will the civilian companies get big enough contracts to kick them into gear actually launching humans? Will NASA be ordered to resume human launches via some alternative method? The brutal truth is American launches have been paused four times, after the Apollo fire in 1967, After the Apollo XIII accident in 1970, after the Challenger disaster in 1986, and after the Columbia disaster in 2003. None of them were even half as long as this hiatus during the Obama Presidency.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'W')ith all the talk about Donald Trump making big changes starting in January it set me to wondering, whither NASA in the future?

[AgentR11]

The Russians are just having fun yoinking our chain. They are perfectly able to lift supplies and astronauts to the ISS without any US cooperation. I really think they enjoy the heck out of it because they can get us to go ape-xxxx with just Lavrov making an off hand comment. I suspect wagers are made at the number of hits the topic gets after a comment like that. lol.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'T')he Russians are just having fun yoinking our chain. They are perfectly able to lift supplies and astronauts to the ISS without any US cooperation. I really think they enjoy the heck out of it because they can get us to go ape-xxxx with just Lavrov making an off hand comment. I suspect wagers are made at the number of hits the topic gets after a comment like that. lol.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')hat was TWO YEARS ago.. and the sanctions are STILL on Russia and in the meantime Elon Musk has started delivering food, so nobody up there went hungry after all.

[DesuMaiden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'N')ot a chance. Our colonization of this planet is turning in to quite a disaster and we have plenty of food, air and water here.