British mission to the moon

Well, it seems that spaceflight has now become inexpensive enough for Britain to consider it's very first solo missions to the moon.



These first two planned missions will be unmanned exploration projects but will be looking towards establishing some kind of Moonbase within the next 20 years.

From the article:

So they want to investigate the possibility of what's been known for 35 years?

Apollo 12, 14, 15, and 16 seismometers radioed moonquake to Earth from 1969 through 1977


woof.

British astronaut food...yum.

My professional opinion is that the Brits will not be part of the 2020ish manned moon mission which is unfortunate. 1st, Britain would have to reverse its "astronaut ban" which also applies to contributions to manned spaceflight other than actual people. 2nd, metal is already being cut on the (prototype) next generation of manned vehicles and the world's space agencies are already batting around distributed participation. The ball is already rolling.

My prediction is that the next few temporary crews to the moon will be American followed by an American and Japanese "permanent" crew. Europe (sans the UK) will likely be represented a few rotations later. This assuming that NASA/USA* decides not to go it alone which is very possible (and probably the best decision from a practicality standpoint).

* it's probably going to be a political decision rather than one based on science or engineering.

What kind of rocket are they gonna use? A yellow submarine?

Lots of choices: French, Russian, Amercian are all likely with even Indian or Chinese a possibility. Politics and would probably dictate an Ariane, however.

I would be curious to know what kind of food they would be eating... Lots of meat? Spicy food?

I agree with all you said DW, effectively Britain dropped out of all space programs at the start of the 1970's right after becoming the 6th nation to launch a satellite.

GB suddenly realised it would be chuffing expensive to compete with the likes of USA and USSR and that the days of great power and the empire were gone.

I understand the economics of the decision but as an engineer bemoan the lack of opportunities due to xenophobic political decision making by the British government in relation to the European Space Agency ( ESA ).

I think it made sense to not try and compete on the manned vehicular level back in the day but there's no good reason why Brits shouldn't be able to fly under the Union Jack as ESA members. The opposition was/is just an ideological "manned space is not worth the cost."

Anyway, I think the Brit unmanned moon mission is intriguing and I applaud the discussion. If the data obtained or simply the exercise itself are useful then I'm all for it.

The Guardian Science podcast had an item about this and is was quite clear that quite a few in science community think money is better spent on unmanned space science.

There's no doubt that the return on investment is higher with unmanned vs. manned. The problem is the capability of unmanned missions is dramatically less than manned (no on-orbit repair, assembly, etc., etc., etc.). The cover charge is far greater but you do get access to the champagne room.

Not to mention:



is badass.

That's be a neat trick. The Saturn V had a peak thrust of over 34 MN and a lifting capacity of more than 118,000kg. Are the British planning to strap a couple dozen Ariane 5s together and launch them simultaneously or will their crew pool be limited to anorexic dwarves?

woof.

Part of the argument is that the amount of money the UK would or could afford to devote to this would only cover getting the people into space with none left over for the actual science. This worst possible outcome would be for the UK to try to do it on the cheap and spend a lot on achieving very little.

One view is manned space flight is similar to having Nukes, it is much more about prestige and saying your in the big boys club than actually about the supposed intended purpose.

I think the question was directed towards the unmanned mission. At least that's what my reply was to. If anything, the Ariane V may be too big (read: expensive) for an unmanned mission unless they stack multiple payloads (which has worked well so far).

huh ?

Edit : DW beat me to it.

On another note just read that India launched another PSLV and that we are about 8 years away from a manned flight to the moon! Wow, had no idea. this thread got me thinking of what were doing so I googled it and lo and behold we seem to be doing a lot.

news here

The British already tried to get someone to the moon once, mice in this case, as every reader of the book "the church mice and the moon" will know. One of my favorite books.

Didn't Wallace and Gromit made it to the moon already? They are British...

If the Brits chose a French/Russion rocket, the Brit space-cowboys should be extremely cautious when reading all the gauges and readings as the values will be in metric and NOT British Imperial Units! I vaguely remember that this minor error was due to a major crash (if I was not dreaming).

There's good stuff going on in India but you guys are far more than 8 years away from a manned moon mission! I'd say it's closer to 8 years at least for the 1st manned orbital mission.

I bet curry would work well as a freeze dried food.

Yes indeed. So did Marian, the Bounty Hamster. He is also British...

I think that was a American/European cooperation project. I would be surprised if there are any hi-tech industries in the UK that are not working in metric.

I know it makes me sound like a luddite (I'm not), but aren't there more worthwhile things to fund like the search for new cures to disease? Can anyone explain what benefit there is in space travel for man that legitimises its huge cost to public purses.

<awaits DW's furious response>

I think, in essence, that the exploration of space has created quite a few quite handy technological spin-offs like, for example, electric toothbrushes.

Some argue that AIDS drug drug research is a total waste of money when a fraction of what is spent on it could be used to save far more people from diseases like malaria. Besides, curing diseases is a total waste of money - people are gonna anyway right? Kidding... kidding...

If we wait for problems A, B and C to be fixed before doing X, Y and Z we'll be waiting forever.

Bell the cat, a lot of medical equipment are a spin-off from technology used in spacecrafts.

loads of reasons

so that we meet some cool aliens who teach us cool things and the cure for some diseases
search for a place suitable for mankind to inhabit and send all the tossers there
take some cool piccis of earth when in space
colonise some other primitave races that we discover
maybe discover a planet full of hot nymphos
many many more...

Jimbo is correct. The space race has maintained the USA technological advantage in such areas as weaponry. This is what has allowed them to successfully win the war in Iraq.
This is also why for example the Japanese, who have never been to the moon, are so crap at technology and building cars etc. You must have a huge fucking space rocket to be able to maintain your lead in these things.

it was a genuine question: what will be the benefit?

and weapons technologies: but I would not advocate endless war as a means of developing new technologies

the technological advances achieved through developing equipment for space travel or for war is a direct function of the money thrown at both.Money that could more costeffectively have generated those technologies with out bothering about spacecraft or guns on the way.

You ever brushed your teeth electrically BTC? yeah? Then why even ask. Some people are never fucking happy.

If you're genuine about wanting to really know I'd suggest The Case For Space.

look I have no problem with people developing spacecraft or flying about in space. Really I don't. And if they can develop better weapons, medical applications and cars from it then great. But I do have a problem with the public purse fundiung it, when the public purse starves universities, hospitals and schools.

Manned (and unmanned) spaceflight is a spin-off of weapons technology, not the other way around.


That's not how it works. You're assuming at the start that you know what you want to get in the end. Spin-off technology comes about from having a defined goal and developing the technology to obtain it and then figuring out what else that technology might be useful for.

Aha! So it's like learning Latin at school then?

Cuz spacemen and women are cooler!

Everyone will cheer their countryperson who went off to Planet Zola or whatever and will give hope, know how many uni profs, teachers or docs are public idols?

Small clue to the puzzle but important...

although I guess it is probably a two-way street




ah yes, but there is a vast panoply of blue sky research that never sees the light of day because funding ois tight. Why should apce travel, that is billions of times more expensive, be a special case. I am not saying that it shouldn't but I AM waiting to be convinced that it should.

Honestly, not really. I'm sitting here trying to think what military technology came from civilian (NASA/ESA/JAXA) spaceflight and I'm really at a loss. There's probably something but it's not significant.


I suspect you think it's more costly than it really is. I gotta run but I'll be back later.

as noted before, many British scientists believe unmanned exploration woulkd be money better spent. Manned missions are commensurately MUCH more expensive and IMHO not value for money.

Research into the technology required to explore space IS a university. (Actually, I suppose it's more of a technical college. We don't need poets to get into space.) The public purse hardly starves universities and schools. At least not in the US, at any rate. The amount of money spent on education likely dwarfes (dwarves?) that for space technology. What someone in the States spends on property tax is likely a large multiple of their contribution to NASA's annual budget. Research into space travel has lead to technological advances that were unforseeable when such research began. Moreover, it facilitates international cooperation, helps us all to better appreciate our place in the universe and nurtures my child-like sense of wonder more than any other publicly funded program could.

Taking the human race beyond the confines of this planet is a good thing and I will happily contribute money to it.

The space industry in the UK is present and very active and therefore there are many businesses and jobs created from the industry in the UK. It inspires young people to study science and engineering, which the UK lacks in skills. It also keeps the UK on the map in terms of technology advancement. There are so many young engineers that have had to move to europe to pursue their careers in the space industry (me included) that it would be great to see the UK invest some proper money in space. Maybe then the skills (and people) would stay in the UK and not move aboard.

The US spends massive amounts on space every year, to understand the principle they could spend as much on some ground equipment to test a satellite that europe would spend building an entire satellite. The europeans have learnt to make satellite cheaply, unlike the US (sorry if this isn't true i don't have a lot of visibility of the US satellite budgets) so I think that the engineering has to be better to compensate for the lack of funding. It makes engineers more creative.

I would love to see this moon mission work out, it's very ambitious but just what the UK space industry needs to show what it can do.

I love vague bollox like this! Here is one of mineI just made up as well:

So lets pump all the space race money into funding drugs to save the worlds population..

World gets over populated... So lets go to the moon!!

Erm... How??


Now on the other hand.. lets stop the drug research, pump it into space travel..

No Over population.. due to natural selection..

We get more hi-tech Tooth brushes and some place to deport Bush and his cronies to!

Not according to James Randerson. Okay, he's a Guardian journalist but he usually doesn't make things up. And neither do I.

They should send an old dustbin lid like they did to Mars. It would have worked, if there had been a dustbin there!

My issue is with your use of the word "many".

Its like saying "many" people in the UK thing Saddam Hussein was a great chap. Yes, in fact, there are many that do think that - but many could still be 0.1% of the population.

It's like when the newspapers say "an insider said...", or "unnamed source...". It's total bollox.

Like mine is also true. Because the burnt part of toast is carciogenic many scientists do indeed believe that cheese on toast can cause cancer - but the way I worded it was absurd (like yours).

For example. Could you disagree with this statement?



Could you? No you couldn't 'cos sure as eggs is eggs there are also MANY that think manned is better.

Wallace and Gromit aren’t simply British, they’re from Yorkshire. And they proved that the moon is made of Wensleydale cheese.
It would be neat if Arshoo’s lot got up there and discovered that the dark side is made of chocolate. Something for everybody up there then.

You mean there really is a moon?

I agree with that totally. For anyone that doesn't, the V-2 Rocket from these parts ring any bells ?

THAT made me day, the dark side is chocolate!!!

We will have a whole star wars theme with welcome to the dark side ad campaign!