The Dark Side of the Moon.

[OP ED]

We'll never really know.

The lingering questions seem to be, why are we the only country to have "made it" there and why haven't we been back since the 60's? Seems like we'd want to put a lot more study into our own moon.

why?

i can see it from my yard.

the only reason to go back would be when we were ready to properly exploit its resources, which we weren't in the 70s.

[waugs]

are you kidding? you can see it from your yard and we haven't had, since our last visit, a need to exploit its resources? How about just going back and LOOKING for resources!

sheesh.

you gotta do better than that!

We'll never really know.

The lingering questions seem to be, why are we the only country to have "made it" there and why haven't we been back since the 60's? Seems like we'd want to put a lot more study into our own moon.

why?

i can see it from my yard.

the only reason to go back would be when we were ready to properly exploit its resources, which we weren't in the 70s.

[Penguin]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9659C8B63

Reaching for Moon, China Works to Put Astronauts in Orbit

[slomo]

are you kidding? you can see it from your yard and we haven't had, since our last visit, a need to exploit its resources? How about just going back and LOOKING for resources!

sheesh.

you gotta do better than that!

We'll never really know.

The lingering questions seem to be, why are we the only country to have "made it" there and why haven't we been back since the 60's? Seems like we'd want to put a lot more study into our own moon.

why?

i can see it from my yard.

the only reason to go back would be when we were ready to properly exploit its resources, which we weren't in the 70s.

Am I the only one who finds this sentiment incredibly ugly? I don't mean to pick on anyone (least of all you, Op Ed), but an ideology that treats beings of great beauty as so many "resources" to be exploited is how we got ourselves so fucked in the first place.

[Penguin]

I found it to be OP EDs way of pointing that same thing out. Or thats how I read it. Which is to say - yes.

[crikkett]

Am I the only one who finds this sentiment incredibly ugly? I don't mean to pick on anyone (least of all you, Op Ed), but an ideology that treats beings of great beauty as so many "resources" to be exploited is how we got ourselves so fucked in the first place.

You're not the only one, but I didn't bother saying anything because simply ignoring OpEd's cynical negativity allows it to fade into general noise...

[orz]

I guess I'm one of the useful idiots on this matter.

don't you mean "less" rather than "ful"?

are you kidding? you can see it from your yard and we haven't had, since our last visit, a need to exploit its resources?

Yes because GOING TO THE MOON to do a bit of mining is gonna be sooooo cost effective.

[Mx32]

I'm more interested in the nature of the moon.

Various theories out there: artificial, hollow etc etc

[orz]

I love the Hollow Moon theory but it does basically seem to stem entirely from a 70's conspiracy pulp paperback based on a probably a joke paper by possibly made-up russian scientists, so best taken with a pillar of salt.

It's definitely interesting that so many otherwise intelligent people really want to believe moon hoax stuff even tho it's so patently illogical and absurd. Depressing how easily people can be made to parrot blatant rubbish as their own opinion... experienced and talented photographers smugly demanding to know OH YEAH WELLLLL HOW COME THERE ARE NO STARS IN THE PHOTOS EH? etc.

[OP ED]

Am I the only one who finds this sentiment incredibly ugly? I don't mean to pick on anyone (least of all you, Op Ed), but an ideology that treats beings of great beauty as so many "resources" to be exploited is how we got ourselves so fucked in the first place.

You're not the only one, but I didn't bother saying anything because simply ignoring OpEd's cynical negativity allows it to fade into general noise...

what i was saying was that in the 1970's it wasn't cost effective for oil companies to build refineries on the moon and import personnel. now it is. that is what is changing, is that the super rich can now afford things that once only nationstates could afford.

the postmodern space race is corporate.

the moon has little practical value for either living space and/or strategic importance. (although corporations will change both of those)

do you think my personal feelings of how beautiful the moon looks over Lake Michigan are at all relevant to British Petroleum and GE?

...

way to miss the point.

[waugs]

are you kidding? you can see it from your yard and we haven't had, since our last visit, a need to exploit its resources?

Yes because GOING TO THE MOON to do a bit of mining is gonna be sooooo cost effective.

about as cost-effective as every other NASA or USG endeavor!

[waugs]

what i was saying was that in the 1970's it wasn't cost effective for oil companies to build refineries on the moon and import personnel. now it is. that is what is changing, is that the super rich can now afford things that once only nationstates could afford.

the postmodern space race is corporate.

the moon has little practical value for either living space and/or strategic importance. (although corporations will change both of those)

thank you. that makes more sense to me than your original post.

[orz]

Another lunar phenomenon, NASA said. Because the sun was so bright, and the surface so reflective, the stars would be too dim for a camera to capture, or an astronauts eye to register.

Terrible article. this is not a 'lunar phenomenon' and it's not some esoteric theory which 'NASA says', it's simple photography. If you expose for a moonlit or streetlamp-lit landscape here on earth you won't get any stars either. Disingenous rubbish. Typical media anti-science bafflement.

SO telling that tabloid media are always willing to give a 'balanced' look at moon hoax theories but totally deride 9/11 ones or even mainstream anti-war politics at every opportunity.

Come on you moon hoax fence sitters... you REALLY wanna give credence to an idea which was most popularised by a FOX NEWS DOCUMENTARY???

[KeenInsight]

You'd think with all those UFO's flying about NASA would have something better to do than fake space exploration.

[OP ED]

are you kidding? you can see it from your yard and we haven't had, since our last visit, a need to exploit its resources?

Yes because GOING TO THE MOON to do a bit of mining is gonna be sooooo cost effective.

about as cost-effective as every other NASA or USG endeavor!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_3

Extraterrestrial supplies
The Moon's surface contains helium-3 at concentrations on the order of 0.01 ppm.[33][34] A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986,[35] have proposed to explore the moon, mine lunar regolith and using the helium-3 for fusion. Because of the low concentrations of helium-3, any mining equipment would need to process large amounts of regolith,[36] and some proposals have suggested that helium-3 extraction be piggybacked onto a larger mining and development operation.[citation needed]

The primary objective of Indian Space Research Organization's first lunar probe called Chandrayaan-I, launched on October 22, 2008, was reported in some sources to be mapping the Moon's surface for helium-3-containing minerals.[37] However, this is debatable; no such objective is mentioned in the project's official list of goals, while at the same time, many of its scientific payloads have noted helium-3-related applications.[38] [39]

Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from which operation "each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."[40]

[ or build a lot of upper scale bombs --OP ED's note]

In January 2006, the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020,[41] if funding can be found

...



Helium 3 is currently worth, by conversion about $1.7 million per kilogram (give or take a million) as compared to something like, say gold, worth maybe $15,000

maybe a million tons of helium 3 on the moon that can be harvested economically.

easy math.

how much is a space shuttle?