Exploring The Moon

[provedroved]

i wonder what gonna happened if they crush into the earth

[Snowman374th]

I wonder if the ride they left up there still works.. lol

[Redhawk2300]

its alright i guess...

[Beamshipcaptain]

We enjpoyed spending more money on the Vietnam War, than exploring the moon and Mars. Nixon axed the manned-space program budget, increased spending on the War in Vietnam, and started FOR PROFIT health-care in America.

[madzyzome]

Senator Proxmire curtailed NASA funding during it's heyday (this is where the term "Proxmired" came from), by heyday I mean when NASA budget was a whopping 0.5% of our GDP, as a reference national defense is around ~40%. Using existing Apollo technology and the newly developed Nuclear NERVA rocked NASA was 80% complete with a mission to Mars planned for 1983.

[Beamshipcaptain]

And both the NERVA (Nuclear Engine For Rocket Vehicle Application) system, which was compact, and the fission version delivered hundreds of times the specific impulse of any chemical rocket, and the fusion version had thousands of times the thrust of the shuttle, and the missions to Mars, planned since the 195-s and 60s, weere curtailed because of these short-sigheted elected fools. Delaying the future depicted 42 years ago in 2001: a Space Odyssey, and the wondrous advanced way of life delayed.

[madzyzome]

I am not aware of any fusion NERVA rocket and unfortunately no working frying prototype of the fission rocket was ever made. A flightless test rocket was constructed (affectionately named Kiwi) was tested and only produced about 40% of it's theoretical thrust making it less powerful than contemporary conventional chemical rockets. So the project never got off but undoubtedly had mush promise.

[Beamshipcaptain]

I've been studying the NERVA project since 1972. The fission version was the size of a packing trunk and had hundreds of times the thrust of any chemical rocket. The fusion version had THOUSANDS of times the thrust of any chemical rocket. Dr. Stanton Friedman worked on them. The project, thousgh successful, was inexplicabley canceled in the mid 1970s, along with the rest of the public space programme.

[madzyzome]

I have been looking for any information about a fusion version and I cannot find one. Can you link to some documents or something? Where did you get "hundreds of times more powerful" from? The specific impulse that I got was about twice that of LH LO rockets.

[Beamshipcaptain]

I found info about it in space propulsion books I read at the Yonkers Public Library in New York in 1972, and Stanton Friedman talks about working on them, and how they had long burn durations, and the fusion version was the size of a large refrigerator, and had THOUSANDS of times the specific impulse of any chemical rocket. Go to Stanton Friendman's website. You could build fusion rockets that could get you up to half the speed of light with a 20 minute burn duration.

[madzyzome]

20 minute burn duration and 0.5c!? Since it would take 38 days at 1g acceleration (9.80665 meters/sec^2) to reach 0.1c and 190 days to reach 0.5c. To reach 0.5c in 20 minutes you would need ~13680g acceleration. What material can take that kind of acceleration?

[Beamshipcaptain]

Obviously rocketry is impractical for deep-space propulsion. Field effect propulsion now comes int play, because there is no inertial mass, inertia or G-forces in forcefield propulsion.

[H5LL2O25]

Amazing video. I've been a NASA fan since watching the first lunar landing live broadcast as a kid. I hope they return in my lifetime.

[LogicalSanity]

HD does this video justice. 5/5

[freethink15]

i thought nasa was focusing on mars not moon..

[shadowshian]

i think they are with ESA thou i think theyr planning on building somekind of waystation on the moon since it has a lower gravity so launching stuff up is whole lot easier. not to mention there are prolly millions of tons of raw materials on the moon. along with some helium-3 i think for a fuel if needed if they get means to refine it of course.

[xxxchaindrive]

We have the technology, why haven't we gone back? It's been almost 4 decades since the first moon mission, and we've only been there 6 times total. Could we have possibly garnered everything of scientific importance, in only 6 trips?

[calvinhobbesliker]

unfortunately, the only point of the moon mission was to beat the russians in the space race. after 1972, we were running out of money because of the vietnam war. i think the problem is that we don't have enough money

[xxxchaindrive]

Being the old fart that I am, I know "why" we went there. I just can't believe that further exploration would not be worth the price. If not for the scientific knowledge we would gain, then for the "national pride" we would all have for the achievement and realized advancements.

I sincerely believe that the wealth to be gained in those things alone, would be worth almost any price.

Just my opinion

[LordTyrannus]

Why stop at national pride? An event such as this would be another major step for our civilization as a whole. In the few years we have existed(from an evolutionary point of view) we have the means to leave our planet(more than once). Something like this is absolutely awe-inspiring.

[methinxaweezil]

...or too many wars.

[Beamshipcaptain]

The entire NASA manned space program is a supercollossal theatre, done with 1950s and 1960s technology. The 1970s, 80s, 90s, and 21st century technology and the real manned space program has been done for over 50-years by the MILITARY. We are being kept in technological obsolescence, and also the physics they teach in schools is similarly artificially being kept decades behind.

[FFreeThinker]

YES, they really went to the moon. Without ANY doubt! Watch shanedk's Bogosity series:

watch?v=v2qEEoQCb2I

[deliciousonionsoup]

Thanks, Ffreethinker, Thanks for the pointer - I'm looking at that series now. The thing is that there is so much of this conspiracy theory stuff about - so much so that we are flooded with it constantly but we come to forget that after a while. Then we see clearly again but then we forget it yet again and we start being convinced by the conspiracy theorists yet again. It's just all about us constantly and it gets at us when we are low. They are good at talking too.

[methinxaweezil]

The laser retroreflectors installed by the crews of Apollo missions 11, 14 & 15 beginning in 1969 continue to be used to measure the distance between the earth and moon with increasing accuracy. FYI: The moon is spiraling away from Earth at a rate of 38 mm per year.

[snarf66]

Yes they did. Yes they did. Not much, just some 6 places on the moon have been visited by people, so there are some landing stages and moon buggies. That's about it.

[TehBloggaar]

Is there a way I can see NASA's leftover gear on the moon via a telescope?  I have never heard of a telescope that can look at the surface of the moon from Earth.

Does anyone know?

[yahyahtoopy]

its too small to see with a normal telescope

i think they have a building in la with a one that can

[methinxaweezil]

To see the 1.2 meter long flag left on the Moon, an Earth-based telescope would have to be 200 meters wide. The largest telescope on Earth is about 10 meters.

The Hubble Space Telescope can see objects on the Moon as small as 60 meters across. Had NASA plowed a 100 meter "Kilroy Was Here" into the surface of the moon there probably still would be people who question the moon landings.

[TehBloggaar]

I was actually wondering because of conspiracy theorists that claim America never went Lunar. I figure it would be easy to prove, or disprove, NASA's official story once and for all.

[jpsousa4]

It's very easy. Every couple of weeks we fire a laser up at an experiment left on the moon by apollo. The experiment shines the laser back nearly precisely where it came from. We measure the time it takes this laser to go to, and come back, and use the known speed of light to measure the distance of moon.

There are also hundreds of pictures, thousands of people who saw the rocket take off, the russians who listened in on radio chat, etc.

And if it /was/ faked, why did we go back 5 more times?

[AsG1989]

2nd comment! just kidding. Interesting stuff

[Mahagawaga]

Impressive!