I am curious and quite stupid so please tell me.
If we went to the Moon in the sixties then why have we never gone back.

A. Too expensive

B. Nothing worth going back for

C. We never went in the first place
( girlinthehole, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:54, 29 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

The answer is:
ALIENS.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:55, Reply)

Also, there is another mission planned within the next few years.
I heard that Ed will be the lead astronaut, assuming his knee holds out.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:56, Reply)

He is going to raise money for charity?
Where can I sponsor him?
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:58, Reply)

you can sponser him here
www.justgiving.com/Eds_not_at_all_far-fetched_moon_trip
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:01, Reply)

Wow Vipros linking to
I love horses. Stop the press!

I clicked it anyways because I like the song
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:02, Reply)

I get upset if I click a link and it's not I love horses.

( girlinthehole, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:04, Reply)

it's been a long time since I've done that
and I really didn't expect anyone to click it :-P

I've never actually heard the song. not been to the site on a non work computer
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:04, Reply)

You are actually missing out
Have a listen later!
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:05, Reply)

The answer is
D: We have a natural and cheap source of cheese on planet earth.
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:56, Reply)

Too expensive
Although it may be worth going back in a while if we can crack nuclear fusion. There's a hell of a lot more helium-3 on the moon than there is on earth. A shuttle-full would power the USA for a whole year.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:57, Reply)

Have we not cracked nuclear fusion yet?
Lazy buggers. Too many tea breaks and not enough calculus.
( girlinthehole, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:03, Reply)

Oh, we can get it to work pretty well
Problem is, we're still putting in more energy to the reactor than we're getting out of it.

Hopefully ITER will sort that out, but it's not built yet.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:05, Reply)

Get Enzyme to fix it.
He's a clever chap.
( girlinthehole, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:06, Reply)

Hahaaa
He's got you fooled.
Also, he can't do science.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:10, Reply)

looking forward to the scare-mongering that goes with them turning that on
it'll be the LHC all over again.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:06, Reply)

Oh yeah
I forget the world still hadn't imploded. When they turning that on again, or have I missed the panic?
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:08, Reply)

Pfft!
We'll all be dead with swine flu before that happens.
( girlinthehole, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:08, Reply)

The problem now
lies with engineers, rather than scientists. Scientists have proved fusion will work. Now we need some clever engineers to build a machine to make it happen.




Sorry - some HMHB just came into my head there - "Make it happen, bass player"
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:09, Reply)

K2k6 is quite right...
...moom missions are on the agenda for India, China, the USA, Europe and Japan who are all a tad strapped for future reserves of clean energy.

He³ on the moon could cover all of humanity's energy needs for the next millenia - if we get the engineering problems for fusion cracked of course. $100 per barrel of oil should provide the incentive for that.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:58, Reply)

Not as simple as that,
They went from the one use rockets to the reusable shuttle.
The shuttle is not capable of going to the moon. So the focus changed to earth orbit missions like hubble, ISS, comunications satellites, GPS etc etc.
Next moon missions are going to be in about 10 years and they'll be using two one use only rockets. One for crew one for equipment. They'll meet in earth orbit and then head out to the moon attached together.
There is a possible reason to go to the moon in that there's a lot of H3 there which could be invaluble to large scale fusion power generation.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:08, Reply)

I think it's He3
As opposed to H3.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:10, Reply)

nah, it's tritium which is a hydrogen atom with 2 neutrons attached.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Controlled_nuclear_fusion
(PsychoChomp, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:12, Reply)

Actually you're right,
both are used in fusion reasearch but He3 is the one they need to get from the moon.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:14, Reply)

Yes, but
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

Look at the 'Extraterrestrial Sources' section down the page a bit.

Edit - posted at the same time as the above
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:15, Reply)

Already did ^^^

(PsychoChomp, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 11:15, Reply)

The moon mission was a massive PR exercise
It wouldn't have happened were it not for the Cold War and had Kennedy not been assassinated. It became a symbol for the dying wish of a dead president, hence the political weight behind the Apollo project.

The results were staggering. Although 0.5% of the GDP of the USA was consumed in FY 1966, the USA went from being unable to launch a simple rocket into space to sending the heaviest object that has ever lifted off the ground 250,000 miles away and back, together with three men and 1,000,000 separate moving parts in just eleven years.

The economic outlay was unsustainable, a major advance in actually getting the amount of payload required off the ground and into space cheaply has yet to be made, however I am strongly critical of the closure of the shuttle programme, it's shortsighted in the extreme.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 20 Jul 2009, 12:07, Reply)

Wasn't the Shuttle always a compromise?
Certainly sitting the shuttle on the side of the rocket, instead on top of it has proven to be a poor decision.
( monkeybananaraffle, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 12:30, Reply)

Yeah, it was a vast compromise...
... on a bajillion levels. Defence shuttles on, off, on, off, must have this cargo space, then not, then you end up with the shuttle. A truly amazing machine - those main engines are spectacular in every way - but hugely risky. Sticking the people bit on the side is, as you point out, not the wisest of moves: there is quite literally no escape from a disaster and furthermore you open yourself to issues that would not affect traditional approaches such as suitcase size chunks of foam blowing holes in the wings (RIP, Columbia and your crew).

The biggest nightmare with the shuttle, btw., is that at T-0 only one of the solid rocket boosters lights. Under those circumstances, you lose the shuttle, the crew, the launch pad and potentially a lot of people in the surrounding area depending on what ends up where after the explosions. I understand that they have five separate igniters on each of the fuckers to avoid this situation.

It might be a dangerous vehicle, but it's still a sexy one. Pity that Apollo Applications didn't get cooking in the 70s, though; the cost of those Saturn Vs and derivatives might have really crashed.
(Deadly Octopus no deaths since, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 12:38, Reply)

Yes....
...the shuttle was designed to cater for both the needs of NASA and the US Airt Force which forced the compromise design.

It's very versatile though, it carried both crew AND cargo that would require more than one launch otherwise. It'll also bring cargo back to Earth too.

The Saturn V were truly awe inspiring though. It's worth remembering that the takeoff weight of the Apollo 11 rocket was around 33,000 tons or considerably more than the weight of the HMS Ark Royal.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 20 Jul 2009, 12:56, Reply)