India is preparing to land on moon for the first time in the country's history
businessinsider.comNot that there are many here that believe that NASA faked the moon landings, but if you are, I've got to say: I'd have thought that Bollywood would have landed them on the moon at least a decade ago.
If space transportation costs were to fall dramatically, would there be any commercial value in traveling to the Moon, or building a base on the moon? The only one I can think of is Tourism. Are there any others, such as rare minerals perhaps?
Andy Weir (author of The Martian) has a new book coming out that explores tourism to the moon. He has done a ton of research on the topic, definitely worth checking out.
He was recently on StarTalk Radio [1] give it a listen
It just came out and is a great read. He goes into the issues of tourism, industry, and which countries will be driving efforts on the moon.
In the book, is the tourism is driven primarily by the inherent novelty and wonder of being on the moon, seeing Earth, experiencing the weaker gravity, etc., or is the draw primarily based on facilities that have been built there, like casinos, resorts, amusement parks, etc.?
My guess is that you would need to have a lot of the latter, because while the former would be undoubtedly cool, I’m afraid the novelty would wear off quickly if the living and entertainment facilities themselves were anything less than spectacular.
This is a fascinating thoughtsploration. Tourism on the moon will be a real version of the Jurassic Park narrative concept:
Enterprising, wealthy, and somewhat eccentric genius opens space theme park, pushing the boundaries of the possible whilst simultaneously exposing your crew and visitors to near infinite risks because it has never been done before and is almost the definition of unnatural.
If resurrecting dinosaurs via ancient DNA could possibly be a thing (pretty sure it can't), I wonder how big dinosaurs could get on the moon. I believe gravity was the limiting factor in how big land based dinosaurs could get, so how big could get in Lunar Jurassic Park in ~1/6th Earth gravity.
Assuming mass scales linearly with volume, the cube root of 6 is 1.817ish
So moonisaurs would be roughly 82% larger if you just scaled them up until they weighed the same as they did on Earth.
It's a really sloppy estimate, but think more on the scale of twice their size on Earth than six times their size.
The low gravity is probably what I would have the most fun with. I can imagine all sorts of activities could get a lot more fun. I could learn to do a standing backflip, or even manage to finally break 400lb on my deadlift. :)
Wouldn't trying to deadlift more than 400 pounds be the same amount of effort on the moon? Granted, it would have to be that much more massive, so it would certainly LOOK more impressive.
No. 400 lb is 1779 newtons on Earth, but 294 newtons on the Moon. Newtons are really what defines the effort needed to lift an object.
That's what I was commenting on though; I very well may be wrong, but my understanding was that the weight of things like barbells is measured in pounds-force, not pounds-mass, so if you were going to follow that on the moon you'd need a much more massive set of weights.
Though, I suppose if you're saying "I'm taking these exact same weights to the moon to lift" then you're right. I was being unnecessarily pedantic.
I see :)
Picking it up is the only part that gets easier.
Can't wait for humans to trash the moon with their plastic Cocacola bottles.
Also a manned mission to moon is a terrible use of Indian resources. Just send a one way robot and stay on the moon for years.
The Moon has a fair bit of Helium-3. It sounds like that is partly what this mission is about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Extraction_from_extra...
I didn't know people were allowed to exploit the moon ..
If you want to build anything really big in space, lunar materials would be much cheaper to put there than materials from Earth. Asteroids might beat them both out, though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5137359/Boy-18-inv... is more interesting from India today
That's pretty cool, but you should see a shrink. Something's wrong with you.
I thought Nasa suddenly stopped going to the moon since 1972 is because they found an alien base on the far side of the moon. That or we are in a computer simulation and there's not enough processing power to simulate another planet.
To be clear this is rover landing planned around March 2018. This is not landing man on moon.
I think that would be the first time in any country's history except the US....
I think that reading the article before posting usually leads to more relevant comments.
The article is talking about unmanned moon missions, and mentioned that China sent a rover to the moon in 2013.
Maybe provide basic supply with fresh water for the whole country first. But yeah, whatever.
Pssst, I heard the last country to land people there laughable still hasn't even made it to the level of free health care for all! They still might, of course, it's not like any of these goals are mutually exclusive.
"free" is a broad term, as someone obviously has to pay for it, either from his pocket or via taxes or whatever. Nevertheless, everybody has access to health care after all which isn´t true for India and water supply.
Beg to disagree. If you have money in India you can get water supply. Even if you're located in a remote village with no plumbing, water trucks will deliver weekly and fill up your domestic water tank.
So...the analogy to healthcare in the US isn't too far off. If you have money and/or a good job you can get healthcare in the US and water in India (healthcare too).
Free healthcare? That'd sure be amazing. Oh, you mean non-free healthcare provided by taxes, paid for by anyone earning an income and only actually free for anyone not earning an income.
Anyone not earning an income in the US gets 'free' healthcare and has for decades. It's anything but free, it's very expensive.
Just ask any developed nation with socialized healthcare just how free healthcare is, as they all universally struggle to afford it (which is why Canada's wait times are so atrocious despite being held up as a good system).
One can make a great argument for socialized healthcare without pretending it's free. Claiming it's free is just an absurdity, as it's extremely expensive.
> Anyone not earning an income in the US gets 'free' healthcare and has for decades. It's anything but free, it's very expensive.
My impression was that the only way it's "free" is if you walk into an emergency room with no money. And the fact that uninsured people can only go to emergency rooms (routine issues fester and become serious) is in part what drives up the cost.
In places like Canada the wait times are atrocious due to triaging. If your problem is serious you will get looked at immediately. If it's not, you have to wait. And if you can afford it, you're still free to go to a private clinic. But it does seem like overall health outcomes and costs are better than the US.
So...yeah it's true calling it "free" healthcare is a bit of a misnomer but no one actually thinks it costs $0 to provide. Think of free healthcare like freeways: paid for by tax money for the public good, and occasionally you'll have to pay a nominal toll (co-pay or whatever).
You make some very good points.
I think people use the term "free" in the same way that the term "free" tricks people into spending more than they would have otherwise. Calling it "free" let's you mentally sidestep the details.
I mean free as in if I chop my arm off, no worries, no bills, I get fixed up. I mean free as in my wife is pregnant, no worries, no bills, my baby is delivered in a hospital. I mean free as in my kids gets cancer, no worries, no bills, they get chemo or whatever they need. I mean never going into debt because I need my life saved. I mean never not going to the doctor because it'll ruin me. I mean everyone pays consumption tax here, nobody gets a free ride, and everyone gets looked after. I mean not looking down on another country because they're not perfect when your country isn't either.
You can say that it's practically free given how much US spend for a non-free healthcare vs how much countries with universal healthcare spend.
It helps when another nation pays for your defense, frees up money for other things.
I can't understand your comment. Regardless of military expenses a lot of countries with universal healthcare spend less per capita than US where is not universal. Can you please explain me how military expenses affect the amount of money spent in healthcare?
Just for reference, the biggest (med-high, annually recurring) expenditures of Westernized Democracies tend to be social welfare (penchants and such), agrarian supply chain, healthcare, and security/defense. Water figures heavily depending on geography. The unifying factor is the need for continuing, consistent investment just to maintain, non inclusive of repair, renovation, or improvement. This is why these things are so expensive.
The European Bloc has benefitted from defense/security being bolstered by US equipment/investment since the Marshall Plan. I believe this is what the other poster was referencing.
I think that "free" does generally mean that someone else paid.
It seems like a specious claim that they're struggling to afford it, when so many do manage to afford it.
The cost of this mission is 93 million dollars. If you can come up with a plan to provide basic supply with fresh water for the entire country for 93 million dollars I'm sure the Indian government will be greatly interested in your services. Heck you may even be offered a billion dollars to solve this problem. Maybe then you'll realise the logistical nightmare of getting supply of fresh water to 1.25 billion people.
If you do not understand the dynamics of how developing countries function it's best you not comment. The same "poor people" for whom you feel sad for (in another comment you posted below) sport a smartphone in their pockets. This is the irony of living in a developing country. Technology advances faster and ends up becoming cheaper than building last mile connectivity and basic services. Infrastructure building is always slower and more expensive than tech adoption.
Thanks for looking out for India. I'm sure they appreciate that. You make a good point, all of us should get our own country fixed. Hopefully you're doing something about yours too..
Countries don't generally operate on the myopic principle of addressing issues one at a time.
When America first began the Apollo program, it was almost a full decade before the United States addressed a lot of the racial issues that have plagued it since its inception.
By many measures, such as access to healthcare, incarceration rates, and even basic literacy, the United States still has severe equality issues. If the United States was operating according to this principle, they would still be waiting to send anyone to space. I'd be happily surprised if there was actually any country that had fully conquered this issue.
Point being that every country, all the way up to the largest economy in the world, has unresolved issues. Issues which are fundamental to human rights and equality.
Is your umbrage with India specifically, or are you promoting the idea of singular focus as a global concept? If the latter, I'd be interested (genuinely!) in seeing your reasoning and evidence. If the former, I'd encourage you to reflect on what you are saying, and discover why you are (I assume, and hope, inadvertently) applying your criticism in a discriminatory manner
Clearly by that rationale, because of Flint NASA should scrap all its programs
_You_ may want that. However, _India_, as the biggest democracy in the world, chose to do a moon landing instead.
What makes you believe you know better about what is best? Unless you are an astrophysicist specialized in economic development (not sure that exists) odds are not in favor of your judgement being the correct one.
I don´t need to be either of that to see that a country should have an aspiration to provide a certain standard of living (water that is safe to drink, basic health care and lots alike) for everybody before landing things on the moon.
But India has a deeply fucked up society which gives a shit about people from "the bottom" of that society, so I am not really wondered that they do some publicity stunt instead of getting their country fixed.
Yes, and the United States should cut all funding to NASA until power is restored in Puerto Rico.
It seems like the cost of this program is a rounding error in India's budget. Getting rid of it won't give the poor water to drink.