169 replies to this topic

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

itsnotoutthere, on 17 October 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

And so he decided to become a writer of fiction.

does that mean that he need have no knowledge of what he wrote? A lot of the most knowledgeable people use the medium of fiction, and a lot of fiction writers know more about the subject than many "experts". see also Arthur C. Clarke.

[Lilly]

itsnotoutthere, on 17 October 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

And so he decided to become a writer of fiction.

Yeah, right along with being a Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University and a leading social visionary...and did I mention genius?

[Quaentum]

uprize, on 17 October 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

And just WHY do you think that is?
There is obviously reasons why, and cutting the Apollo programs isn't it. Moon missions could easily have been resurrected within the last 40 years.
So either:

1/ Humans ARE already on the moon (just secretly)
or
2/ The moon is already occupied by someone (something?) else
or
3/ We genuinely have no interest in visiting the moon again

I think its 2 or 1.

You forgot the most likely answer: #4  Funding was cut

Edited by Quaentum, 17 October 2012 - 02:11 PM.

[Quaentum]

Zeta Reticulum, on 17 October 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

We were "warned off" so to speak by a greater power...... this happened when the incredible so called camera malfunction was tauted... I think it was Apollo 13. And we never went back.

So they warned us off at 13 yet we went 4 more times.  Guess the warning didn't take

[TheMacGuffin]

In 1968, the original Star Trek featured an episode about a planet that was really a big spaceship called "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", which perhaps was trying to convey a higher truth to the viewers.  Who knows?

[TheMacGuffin]

Quaentum, on 16 October 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

Something that would have been detected with the lcross and other impacts

Yes, but then I have come across statements and theories similar to these from time to time.  This idea that some moons were artificial rather than natural satellites does seem to have been in vogue even in the 1950s and 1960s with Carl Sagan and others.

"The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 (3.34 times an equal volume of water) whereas the Earth’s is 5.5. What does this mean? In 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated, "If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere." Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested the moon’s reduced density is because of large areas inside the moon where is "simply a cavity." MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote, "the Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field . . . indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow." In Carl Sagan’s treatise, Intelligent Life in the Universe, the famous astronomer stated, "A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object."


http://www.google.co...Knvx1YCcNDIkQ6Q

[TheMacGuffin]

Shine on, shine on hollow moon, way up in the sky.....

[TheMacGuffin]

Maybe a moon could serve as a lifeboat if it could somehow be turned into a spaceship, but as is often the case, there may not be enough room for everybody in the boat.

That was the main point in this classic movie Abandon Ship (1957), which is seen very little today.  There was a "full house at the wrong time" and some of the tenants had to be "evicted", which the captain finally did--very reluctantly of course.  

Edited by TheMacGuffin, 17 October 2012 - 06:48 PM.

[MID]

TheMacGuffin, on 17 October 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

Yes, but then I have come across statements and theories similar to these from time to time.  This idea that some moons were artificial rather than natural satellites does seem to have been in vogue even in the 1950s and 1960s with Carl Sagan and others.

"The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 (3.34 times an equal volume of water) whereas the Earth’s is 5.5. What does this mean? In 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated, "If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere." Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested the moon’s reduced density is because of large areas inside the moon where is "simply a cavity." MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote, "the Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field . . . indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow." In Carl Sagan’s treatise, Intelligent Life in the Universe, the famous astronomer stated, "A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object."


http://www.google.co...Knvx1YCcNDIkQ6Q

And Dr. Sagan said that why?

Well, because, as a cosmologist, and astronomer, he knew how planets and moons formed, and realized (somewhat naturally) that a moon can't be a hollow sphere--as there's no planetary mechanics that allow such a thing.

Edited by MID, 18 October 2012 - 12:14 AM.

[TheMacGuffin]

MID, on 18 October 2012 - 12:14 AM, said:

And Dr. Sagan said that why?

Well, because, as a cosmologist, and astronomer, he knew how planets and moons formed, and realized (somewhat naturally) that a moon can't be a hollow sphere--as there's no planetary mechanics that allow such a thing.

Is that what he said?  Or I should ask if that was all he ever said on the subject?

[Lilly]

Carl Sagan taught astronomy at Cornell University. He was not into extremely 'out there' ideas, although he was open to the notion of life existing elsewhere in the Universe. In the 1970s I attended a couple of his lectures when he visited Syracuse University (my school). I never heard anything about the moon being hollow or being a spaceship.

[uprize]

Quaentum, on 17 October 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

You forgot the most likely answer: #4  Funding was cut

Come on, you REALLY think that???
The US military spends like $1 trillion a year and you say they can't afford to go back to the moon?
What would it cost? A few hundred million $$? Thats nothing in the total scheme of things.
Not to mention NASA have launched spacecraft to go explore other parts of space, so obviously they have money.

[Night Walker]

Junior Chubb, on 17 October 2012 - 09:48 AM, said:

Sorry Night Walker, the 'Far Side' of the moon is a better reference, in that case...

You don't understand the power of the Far-Side   (http://www.thefarside.com/)

Seriously you don't, its hilarious Dark-Side Far-Side comedy.

I love the Far Side. Do you not love the Floyd?

[synchronomy]

uprize, on 18 October 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

Come on, you REALLY think that???
The US military spends like $1 trillion a year and you say they can't afford to go back to the moon?
What would it cost? A few hundred million $$? Thats nothing in the total scheme of things.
Not to mention NASA have launched spacecraft to go explore other parts of space, so obviously they have money.

Your cost estimates are way off.
Robotic missions cost only a fraction of what it costs for manned missions.
In 2005, NASA estimated the cost of a manned mission to the Moon to be $104 Billion.

It's all about return on investment.  Military spending is more easily justified politically than sending mankind back to the Moon.

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

uprize, on 18 October 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

Come on, you REALLY think that???

Surely its' very easy to believe that, precisely because of the following:

Quote

The US military spends like $1 trillion a year and you say they can't afford to go back to the moon?
What would it cost? A few hundred million $$? Thats nothing in the total scheme of things.
Not to mention NASA have launched spacecraft to go explore other parts of space, so obviously they have money.

Well, exactly; the Military (the U.S. Military, at any rate) can always manage to find an unlimited budget for anything it wants; governments, meanwhile, have to try to find the money from somewhere to go toward the unlimited Military budget. Things that can't show the likeihood of an immediate return for the money, like Space exploration, will inevitably be the first to be cut. And robotic probes are a very cut price method of space exploration compared with manned missions; surely you can see that, can't you?

Edited by 747400, 18 October 2012 - 01:34 PM.