Lunar Prospects

So, it seems NASA have found a bit of water on the moon. Naturally the
more enthusiastic elements of the press have siezed this as the story of
the week, and are proclaiming that we'll all be going off to the moon in
less than 30 years.

All this seems just a tiny bit optimistic to me. Don't get me wrong,
if they start offering tickets to the moon (real ones, not like the
publicity stunt Pan-Am pulled) I will be right at the front of the
queue. I just think that there are other issues at work here.

If the Americans do build a base on the moon, will they let everyone
else have a go with it (like Russia currently does with Mir) or will
they not let anyone near it?
Is it ethically right to colonise other planets? Even in our own solar
system? No doubt the green lobby will have something to say about that.
Could the multi trillion dollar budget needed to build and operate a
moonbase be justified?
What possible benefits would it offer?

My reaction if asked if a moonbase should go ahead is "Yes, don't be
so stupid". However, if asked why, I am at a loss. I guess that after
years of watching Star Wars, I have been sucked in by the romantic
vision of zooming off between planets at will without the need to worry
about the practicalities.


Anyway, enough of me rambling, feel free to file this in the bin with
the rest of the rubbish.

Andrew

Consider yourself filed.

Cwej

Same here.
Probably not (no don't start that argument agent Mr Dave Chilard)
Don't see why not.
(Devil's Advocate mode) We could send the green lobby to another planet
and see if they can do better than the rest of humanity did with the
Earth.
More resources to exploit etc when we start to run out on Earth.
And what's wrong with that?

Jon

Come on.. it's a barren lump of rock. Who wants to go there??? Hang on,
I used to live in East Anglia, it might be an improvement!!!!!
Of course they'll let others near it.... since when did Americans like
putting in the hard work? They get the rest of us to colonise it then
just barge their way in and try and take over!
Is it ethically right for us to do anything nowadays?
Why don't the rest of us go to the nice new clean planet and leave the
green lobby on the Earth to clean it up?
The Americans will build a MacDonalds there, and a Disney world, of
course it's justified..... plus there's the zero-g club to be
considered.
Nothing, laws of science and practicalities are there to be broken.
Cwej

Previously, James Hadwen wrote of what the Americans would build on the
Moon...
You say that like it's a bad thing! At least these are things which can
be enjoyed by the general public... the alternative would be some big,
stuffy corporate station (obviously it would be a little beyond commuter
distance) which could research biological weapons and the like. I know
which one I'd rather have... (if you're going to the Moon, it's nice to
know there'll actually be something there worth going for! And Disney
could make some new rides which benefit from lower gravity!)

Zero-G club? Well, come on, that sort of thing is the backbone of any
nation's economy (ph'nar, ph'nar)... they could have punny catchphrases
like "stimulate your Zero-G-nous zones"... apparently (I read somewhere
- and no, not Playboy or Penthouse or anything like that!), conception
is far less likely in zero gravity! I don't know about STDs, of course
(I mean, I don't know about them in relation to zero gravity!).

There, I haven't insulted the English once - happy? (Except Chris
"Death to my own race" Lyth, of course...)

Dave C.

I wouldn't use the word 'enjoy' in conjunction with eating a MacDonalds
It's very likely that the first dozen or so buildings up there will be
scientific research based. And you think just because there would be a
Disney world on the moon that would stop people developing chemical
weapons up there? Come on Dave, there's a Disney world on this planet
and there are still people developing weapons here! Unfortunately you're
never going to stop people finding more and more painful ways of killing
each other, no matter how many tacky American theme parks stuffed full
of giant mice, dogs and ducks there are.
So do I... the scientific one looking into making life easier for
humans, not the one designed to over-excite young kids and completely
stress their parents out and drain them of money.
And just think... the zero gravity edition of the Karma Sutra could
finally be published, probably adding a good dozen or more positions
along the way.
Cwej

PS: I note you didn't send this when you were at the computer next to
me, instead waiting untill you were a safe distance away.......

Hi all,
Sorry to bring everyone down to earth with a thud and a massive
hangover...

but I think that we should remember that some most of the world can't even
get a rocket off the ground without it exploding (like a certain space
rocket explosion a few months ago)

Living on the moon? It costs the US an absolute fortune to send the
shuttle up into space, so i very much doubt we'll have a moon base any
time soon.

Yeah yeah, all you daydreamers out there will scoff and wibble on about
the advance of technology etc...

But just remember, 30 years ago people we predicting that by the year
2000, we'd all have lunar space craft and cabins in space, where we'd shag
in zero - g.

And so far, the furthest we've got is having a space station fall apart on
us with the residents having to stick things together with bubblegum and
stick-backed plastic.

WAKE UP. Smell the coffee.

I wouldn't book that lunar holiday just yet....

<EVIL LAUGH>

Anyway, that's enough of my ranting

Cheers
Asan


===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@ <----- send mail here
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach <--- homepage here
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"Take the time to make some sense, of what you wanna say...
And cast your fears away upon the waves..."
===========================================================

Given the juddery way technology seems to develop amongst humans and
that we've been going through something of a dry patch recently, it
wouldn't surprise me if the Americans announced that they had plans for
this sort of thing in the near future. Just remember, it was at the
start of the sixties that Kennedy said he wanted a man on the moon
within 10 years, at a time when we were having trouble putting dumb
animals in space. And within the 10 years, Armstrong allegedy walked on
the moon, fluffing his lines as he got there.

Cwej

On Sun, 8 Mar 1998, Hadwen J wrote:
Yup, and what have we done since? We've brought some eggs and tomato seeds
into orbit, and watched them grow....

hmmmmmmm

all we need now are some piglets, and WAHEY! intergalactic fry-up...

:)

cheers
Asan

===========================================================
Asach Tu
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0956 151 141 <------- mobile here
"Take the time to make some sense, of what you wanna say...
And cast your fears away upon the waves..."
===========================================================

And given that we can now actually build matter teleporters (albeit only
ones that work on the scale of photons and atoms but larger versions aer
apparently being worked on) who says we'll need rockets to get things up
there?

On Sun, 8 Mar 1998, Hadwen J wrote:
ummmmmm yeah...
Apparantly, to transport the human body, and to atomise it's atomic
components, it would take the power of several dozen nuclear power
stations (I Did this in my a-level physics exam, so don't blame me if i'm
wrong :)

Sooooooooooooo

We'll all be being beamed off onto the moon then :)

I think i'll take the holiday to majorca please bob..


===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@ <----- send mail here
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach <--- homepage here
0956 151 141 <------- mobile here
"Take the time to make some sense, of what you wanna say...
And cast your fears away upon the waves..."
===========================================================

I wont, because it sounds feasible. However, there is also the minor
detail of getting all the components into the right positions again. The
book 'The Physics of Star Trek' pointed out that to encode the positions
and velocities of all the atoms in the human body, you would need a
stack ot hard drives approx 1 light year high.
Don't like their chances...

Andrew (maintaining his record of using the word approx in at least 50%
of emails sent tonight.)

On Sun, 8 Mar 1998, Wren A wrote:
sounds like the system requirements for windows 2000 :)


===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@ <----- send mail here
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach <--- homepage here
0956 151 141 <------- mobile here
"Take the time to make some sense, of what you wanna say...
And cast your fears away upon the waves..."
===========================================================

Given that there's more computer power in teh digital watch now than
there was in the whole world in the 50s (or it might even have been
60s), I think that worrying about size may be a little pointless. Okay,
so cutting down the size from 1 light year may take a little while, but
I'm sure that we'll get there eventually.

Cwej

On Sun, 8 Mar 1998, Hadwen J wrote:
errmmmmmmmmmm nope, unless we have some very creative construction
techniques :)

here's the problem.
Electronics is reliant on the movement of a sea of electrons between
atoms, hence a 'current'.
Now, I think for a 100mhz device, the light( and the electronic signal)
would travel about a foot in a nanosecond.
The problem comes up when you get up to gigahertz and stuff.
Then the signal travels in a much shorter distance.
Once you start getting into distances of atomic size, then you start to
run out of electrons which flow as current. So eventually, there will be a
limit as to how fast computers will compute, or so my digital logic
lecturer says.

Anyway, I've forgotten most of the details.
I bet gordon remembers, don't you gordon? :)



===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@ <----- send mail here
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach <--- homepage here
0956 151 141 <------- mobile here
"Take the time to make some sense, of what you wanna say...
And cast your fears away upon the waves..."
===========================================================

If your digital logic lecturer is the one I think that it is, I wouldn't
listen to too much that he says....

I agree that we're going to have to come up with some neat new physics
to get around the problem, but given that valves were once cutting edge
technology who knows what's coming up!

Cwej

PS I appologise to the people who hate science discussions on this chat
list. But just remember, I don't normally like them either and am
deliberately trying to avoid spouting techno-crap

I on the other hand am not trying to avoid techno-crap as it provides
the answers as to why some of these things cannot be done. (Matter
transport especially.) I do however apologise to anyone who hates
science arguments. (Quite why you've read this far in that case is a
complete mystery to me.)

Andrew

This is one case where size is most definately important. If the
computer sends a request for information from a hard drive even 1 light
minute high, it will be waiting up to 2 minutes for a response. In this
time, all the other atoms have now moved. Bummer. Time to start again.

As to science getting there eventually: I'm not holding my breath.

Andrew

that to encode the positions
body, you would need a
If you put all the exaggerated, inaccurate,
unprovable and meaningless statistics together in
a row, they would stretch to the moon!

8-)

---

Matthew Houghton

Previously Matthew Houghton said:
And if you lay all the hedgehogs in the world end to end, they would be
much easier to run over. Also, 73.4% of statistics are made up on the
spot.

Later,

Steve :-)
_
__
(oO)
/||\

Didn't Heisenberg say that you can know one or the other but never both at the same time?
That's what I remember of uncertainty principle anyway.


...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------

Previously on this channel:
No, aaarrrgghhhh! It's the return of the "Why teleporters are
impossible" topic! This subject was discussed to death a while back, I
don't think there are any further comments to make on it. Stop now,
before it's too late!

Later,

Steve :-)
_
__
(oO)
/||\ Power corrupts. Absolute power is kinda neat.

Presumably by 'one or the other' you mean 'position and velocity',
because that's the version I remember.

Andrew

Wren A said:
Or you start using something more dense than hard drives... Or you
don't store the information, you just zap it at fantastic bandwidth to
it's destination point.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

And to answer another point about the speed of computing having a
limit based on how small you can get wires and still have electrons
flowing down them...

You could stop using electrons and use something like photons
instead?

Also you can entirely redesign the architechture of these machines
anyway. If it's a problem getting a signal all the way from one side
of the chip to the other fast enough, you rethink the problem so that
you don't NEED to get the signal all the way across in one cycle - you
START sending it across and then whilst you're waiting for the answer
to get back, you start getting on with the next thing. It's basically
just a logical progression of the pipelining techniques that we're
already seeing. Processors are ALREADY, for instance, fetching the
next instruction before they've finished executing the current one.

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
The plural of spouse is spice.

On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Nick Waterman wrote:
The next major step up in Microprocessor technology will probably use
light intead of electrons. However, one the people who build these things
get their act together, we'll have Quantum computing and that will solve
all the problems (literally!)

I'll also point out that the time taken for a photon to travel a certain
distance will not be any orders of magnitude less than the time taken for
the electrons in a wire to do the same distance. /And/ you need to make
sure that the photons don't interfere (harder than with wires).

Martin

... would be impossible, because of Hisenberg (sp?). But I suppose I
don't have to tell you that!


James Hanley, It's not you I'm correcting, It's Star Treck ! :-)

what transport a human body that was clever!

Jon

If NASA ever wanted to return to the moon, this is the ideal way to do
it. Send a small, cheap(ish), expendable probe to take a few photos.
Then announce to the world that they had found water. NASA then use the
publicity to bulldoze the next round of applications for funding through
congress on the back of an announcement of a return trip.

Remember the alleged martian fossils? A few weeks after that NASA
announced the soil return mission, leading up to the first manned
mission. Where did that extra money come from?

Andrew (in cynical mode)

Previously, James Hadwen wrote...
Why not? You have no excuse - you ain't a vegetarian, you evil
carnivore, you! Ooh, I bet you bite the heads off of oxen and eat live
kittens for breakfast! ;-} (Actually, that would explain where those
two cat skeletons came from... but that's a chesnut so old it's drawing
pension!) McDonald's was all right when I was younger; however, I did
once find a whole chicken bone in a McNugget...! (I wonder: was that
meant for a child who would one day grow up to be the next Hitler, Khan
Singh, Lee Quan, Kodos the Executioner etc., to put him out of the way
early on?)
Ah yes, but they aren't developing chemical weapons in Florida, are
they? (Are they...?) Actually, I suppose you're right - who knows,
they might even test out some of those weapons on the unsuspecting
LunarDisney punters... (they may have already - when I was at Disney
World, I kept seeing these giant mice and ducks wandering around... oh,
sorry, you've heard that one?)
What's wrong with that? Up the theme parks, I say! (I've already got
one chum - a guy from school - who refuses point blank to go on the
rides on Brighton Pier, I don't need any more a' you evil kiljoys!
Aaaaaggghhhhh!!!!) Seriously, though, it would be a little much to
expect people to fork out all that money just to go to a lunar theme
park which probably isn't much better than the ones on Earth!
I've had an interesting thought... (loud chorus of "yeah, right, we'll
bet you have Dave!") You know how Disney are always being accused of
putting disgusting, perverted things in their films? Like Jessica
Rabbit having no underwear, a puff of smoke reading "SEX", a priest with
an erection and Aladdin saying "Good teenagers, take off your clothes!"?
Well, maybe the Club Zero-G would be a part of LunarDisney, then... only
the "you must be taller than my hand to enter here" signs would be a
little higher...
Do I look stupid? (Don't answer that!) Actually, I wrote it on an
entirely different day, so it's quite obvious why I wasn't still at the
next computer...! (Isn't it? Hmm, I suppose it isn't, the amount of
time I spend... etc.)

Dave C., vegetarian, rambling idiot and part-time megalomaniac (and if
you think you're eating my small white kitten, James, forget it!!!)

Given that I eat at Founders on occasions, eating kittens and oxen
really wouldn't surprise me (especially as they've started serving goat
on the menu now)
Actually that came about after one of my devil worshipping sessions.
No, it was meant for you to put you out the way (either that or to get
you to go to America where they serve boneless chicken)
<cut a lot of my crap to save space>
It's really not somethng that I see them advertising openly, you know
something along the lines of "Florida, famous for sun, grapefruit and
chemical weapons....."
I think that you'll find that's just a product of your deranged
imagination and that you're certifiably insane.*
Shouldn't that have been, BLOW up the theme parks?
Well, they couldn't be much worse than the ones on earth.
I thought I heard gears and cogs whirring last time I saw you.
See above comment about being certifiably insane.
Cruelty to midgets.
Okay, I won't.
Cwej


* please note: being certifiably insane was, I thought, part of the
requirements to be a member of IFIS

<HACK!>

And Disney
Like to see them try... Rollercoasters (which theme parks live or die on
no matter how many talking mice you shoehorn into them) are powered by
gravity. No-one is going to be impressed by a rollercoaster which runs
at approx. one sixth the speed they do here on earth. Even fewer people
are going to be willing to pay the equivalent of several lifetimes wages
to ride it.

Andrew.

BTW, I don't mind being called by my surname, so there is no point
trying to wind me up that way Mr Chilard.

I think that you'll find it was Dave Chilard talking about Disney rides,
I was the one saying that I didn't want them up there!

Cwej

Good point well made.

Andrew

The moon would be the perfect place for anything even vaguely connected to Disney. As long as the various space agencies promise never to bring any of it back to this planet. And as long as they promise not to give any of the Disney scriptwriters spacesuits.
We could answer the burning question of what happens to an unprotected human being in vacuum without even slight moral qualms.
...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------
From: Hadwen J
Sent: 08 March 1998 20:21
To: 'chat@'
Subject: RE: Lunar Prospects

Previously, that Wren person (there, how do you like being called by
your surname, you total git!) wrote...
Presumably this is a serious estimate, not just some offhand date like
certain sci-fi predictions (Earth being invaded by Cybermen in 1986, or
Khan ruling most of the planet in 1992). Seriously, though, is that 30
years before the extremely rich get to go on their stuck-up lunar
cruises, or will Billy Bluecollar and Joey Punchclock be able to afford
it as well?
Just to prove I'm not blindly standing up for Americans like all the
hateful racist scumbags in IFIS (about 99% of the society, come to that)
think I am, I'd like to point out that the Yanks would indeed let the
entire world travel to their moonbase. The same as the entire world
gets to play in the American World Baseball Series (and the World
Wrestling Federation)... ;-|)

What if it was an English venture? It would be a small semi-detached
dome with room for about five, yet it would control the entire planetoid
and dominate the natives it found! (Sorry, I know - the English are the
greatest, and I should never doubt their genetic superiority over all
other pathetic life-forms! Ein volk, ein reich, ein Blaihrer!)
If there is no life there, then certainly. (I was joking about the
natives! Honest!!) Of course, it would be stupid to pollute the planet
needlessly, as that would pretty much defeat one of the main objects of
colonising other planets (making a fresh start), to say nothing of
rendering it uninhabitable (well, more so).
Good point - why be so concerned with exploring outer space when we have
so many problems in inner space? Someone in geology told me (well, he
may have been lecturing to the class, I forget) that the only way we'd
ever get decent funding for space travel is if it were proven to be
economic - to mine asteroids for their minerals, for example. (Was this
a lecture? Help, Andy!)
A new challenge, for one thing! Something else we, as a race, can
totally screw up and leave for our children to sort out!
That's rather the point of sensationalising the whole water-on-the-moon
thing, I feel!
Oi! I'm the self-effacing one in IFIS, all right?!

Dave Chilard (now humming a certain song by REM)

<HACK>
May have been, I was probably asleep at the time though...

Andrew

Mr Wren wrote:
Unfortunately it's the water is not just lying about in a big rock pool,
ready for us to use. The water is scattered in small pockets over
a large area around the north and south poles. It is found in
craters, where deep shadow has protected it from direct exposure
to the sun.
The north pole appears to have about twice as much water
as the south, the results show. In total, there appear to be
between 11 million and 330 million tons of water spread over the
two poles.
If it could be exploited - a big if, as it appears to be rather
thinly dispersed - 33 million tons of water, towards the lower end
of the estimates, would support 1,000 two-person households for
over a century, without recycling. To lift the equivalent amount of
water into Earth orbit would cost at least $60 trillion (?36.5
trillion).
The water has been found using a neutron spectrometer
"Our data are consistent with the presence of water ice in
very low concentrations across a significant number of
craters," said DR William Feldman, a spectrometer specialist
from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The
estimate is that the ice is mixed with the rocky soil, at a ratio
of only 0.3 to one per cent. This would mean that it would
have to be "mined" from the soil, rather than simply collected
like ice.
At the north pole, the ice is found over an area of 18,000
square miles, while at the south pole it is dispersed across
about 7,200 square miles. The most likely source of the water
is comets, which are "dirty snowballs" containing a lot of ice.
Over billions of years, huge amounts of water could have
reached the Moon through cometary impacts, but the bulk has
disappeared.
DR Jim Arnold of the University of California at San Diego
has estimated that the maximum amount that could
conceivably be present on the Moon as a result of impacts
over the past two billion years would be between 11 billion and
110 billion tons. That assumes that the water lies in the top
two metres of soil.

Mr Chilard wrote:
It's a tabloid estimate, work it out for yourself.
Grow up, please. I've seen better trolls from an AOL user.

Mr Wren wrote:
Good point. I see no problem colonizing a lifeless rock like
our moon, however if we ever found an inhabitable it would be
a different matter. [Blatant Iain M. Banks plug] For an interesting
view on colonizing planets, read some of the Culture novels.
Yes!

Paul.


Paul Ilsley
Paul.Ilsley@ (Work)
Pauli@ (Home)
"The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard."

our moon, however if we ever found an inhabitable it would be

Whoops !

That was supposed to say
"however if we ever found a inhabited planet"

doh!
Paul.

Going back to the original question, what could we do on the moon?

Well IMHO, there are a number of things that wouldn't get done there,
certain weapons would not be developed there, mostly nuclear.
I don't think that any of the countries would let anyone else have
such a massive strategic advantage over them. Also any
cock ups would effect the whole world, and not just one little
country.

Chemical and biological weapons would be developed, ideal enviroment
if anything escaped, all it could kill would be the people there, and
they are miles away from us. (Not much chance of the stuff
spreading).

Possible the main advantage of using the moon, would be as a staging
place for manned/unmanned missions to the asteroid belt, where
ceratin of the ateroids could be put into an moon intercepting
orbit to allow the minerals etc to be harvested.

As Paul mentioned one of the problems with any plan, is the cost of
getting there, the lack of water for any heavy industries.

Most of the technologies to enable people to survive on the moon, do
exsist in some form or annother, but no where near advanced enough.

In thirty years, we may have a moon base, but I can't see people
being able to take holidays on the moon, at least for annother 100
years, or until we have a radical breakthrough in technology.


Andrew

The thrice accursed Americans already have a massive strategic advantage
over everyone else.
That's presumably why we put our Biological Warfare research centre (I'm
thinkinh of Aldermaston here) in the middle of Berkshire. Anything
escapes and the casualties can be counted in hundreds of thousands.
Or we could save most of the expense by harvesting the minerals that are
already there...
And thus was the radical breakthrough card played again...

Andrew

Wren A <A.Wren@> wrote on 9 March 1998 12:32
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You mispled Porton Down.

AWE Aldermaston is the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston.
Aldermaston is only a few miles from where I am writing this.

Dave "can't find it on any O/S map you know" Barlow

And then he edited it later...
OK, you got me. But then at least I didn't mispell mispell.
Quick, run away, there's still time!!!
Andrew

Dave Barlow said:
You know you've been computing too long when you wonder why
Aldermaston should be on any Operating System map in the first place.

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective.

Irrelevant stuff hacked.
Yes, I found that article too, I just thought it was a little long
winded to be quoted straight off... (sorry I can't do a smiley, the semi
colon key doesn't work) At a ratio of 0.3%, the question is whether it
could be mined and processed economically.
I think my point was that the press (not just the tabloids) were blowing
the whole thing out of proportion.
Might get around to it someday...
How?

In article <D0A9B8B85FACD11188DC0000C0F06ACF0EA8DC@>, Chilard D <D.Chilard@> wrote:
Depends if it's done right. The way I'd like to see it done, yes. They way
they'd do it, no.
Even the Cubans? Even the Iraqis?
If it was an English venture (if we had the funding) it would be far
cheaper, since we'd use the Concorde-derived HOTOL technology to get us
there, instead of the American "fireworks" approach.



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

Right, first of all I'm sorry for insulting 99% of IFIS. You are not
racist scumbags!! (The other 1% are, though... :-P)

Now, before we get back into the debate about matter transporters which,
you will remember, raged back in January, I'd like to point out that
Dr.Who had the idea of putting one on the Moon in a story called "The
Seeds of Death" (James Hadwen will vouch - but say it's long and boring,
James, and I won't let you see the re-drawn version of my comic book!).

This story involves a system called Travel-Mat (Jamie commented it
sounded like a flying carpet... gah!) whose relay station for
international travel is based on the Moon. I presume this would mean
only being able to use it when the Moon is more or less overhead (which
is why it was such a big thing that shipments were five whole minutes
behind schedule, thanks to an overworked technician!), but the whole
point was that rockets weren't used any more (except for satellites),
thus bringing the Space Programme (and, indeed, all other forms of
transport!) to a grinding halt and - worse still - leaving nothing to
use when T-Mat got taken over by the Ice Warriors, who wanted to beam
seed pods to major Northern Hemisphere cities which would grow, spray
BBC Special Effects Dept. foam everywhere, and remove all the oxygen!

Great story, in my be-it-ever-so-humble opinion (or IMBIESHO in
abbreviated form)!

More feasible is another story, "The Moonbase" (which, presumably, is
set earlier - 2070, to be precise), which has a Moonbase containing a
"Gravitron" which controls the Earth's weather by means of gravity
pulling on anticyclones and the like. And guess who come a-knocking on
the dome, planning to use it to devastate the Earth, but the Cybermen...
oh dear. (This story shows distinct racism - the French crewmember has
a horrid thick accent *and* an onion seller's neck tie, and the black
American guy dies in the first ten minutes! - and sexism - Polly ends up
making the coffee, again!)

If the Gravitron were ever switched off, the Earth's gravity field would
collapse, creating lots of nice typhoons (hurricanes) and tornadoes,
etc. (No, the Cybermen didn't think just to go to the Mains plug
outside the dome and pull it out, thereby saving themselves the trouble
of having to take over the dome!) Does this make any sense, or is it
technobabble?

Anyway, can anyone else think up anything wot has concerned the Moon in
science fiction? (Excluding Space: 1999, which had the groovy opening
sequence, of course...) Please give it a feasability score out of 10,
10 being "It'll happen as soon as Clinton gets thrown out of office and
no mistake", 5 being "Oh, yeah, that might happen by the next Liberal
government" and 1 being "It'll have the Devil juggling snowballs as an
opening act"!

(Owing to recent personal requests, I have refrained from making any
comments about the feasability of IFIS members buying rounds or anything
like that!)

Dave Chilard

science fiction? (Excluding Space: 1999, which had the groovy opening
sequence, of course...) Please give it a feasability score out of 10,
10 being "It'll happen as soon as Clinton gets thrown out of office and
no mistake", 5 being "Oh, yeah, that might happen by the next Liberal
government" and 1 being "It'll have the Devil juggling snowballs as an
Er um.
In Judge Dredd The proper version, they use the moon as a giant billboard.
They have a sattelite that projects the advertisements onto it. Companies pay millions of creds to do this, and then everyone stops looking up at night time.

Feasibility- 7.5, I can see this one working with some advances on todays tech.
I may of course be insane.

Other than that, there's the Asimov story where some astronauts fly all the way round the moon and find out it's just a stage prop.
Feasibility- equivalent of me buying everyone in the Ascot all week a round.
Do numbers go that low?
:-)
...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------
From: Chilard D
Sent: 10 March 1998 16:09
To: 'chat@'
Subject: RE: Lunar prospects



(Owing to recent personal requests, I have refrained from making any
comments about the feasability of IFIS members buying rounds or anything
like that!)

Dave Chilard

Doctor Who: The Moonbase. The moon housed a base for controlling the
Earth's weather. Feasibility 3, being able to control the weather would
indicate some understanding of what the weather should be. This has, of
course, been shown to be impossible by the met office on numerous
occasions.

Doctor Who: Seeds of Death. Moonbase (possibly the same one never
actually stated) used to house a T-Mat control station used to shift
supplies all over the Earth. Feasibility..... refuse to give one in case
someone decides to start up the argument for a third time

Doctor Who: Frontier in Space. Prison housed on the moon. Feasibility,
6. It would probably be quite difficult to escape from should it get
built.

Plus numerous bases and such on the moon in the new adventures which I
can't recall in detail. Mainly scientific though of some sort.
Feasibility from about 3 up to 7

Moonbase 3: Reseach bases (Moonbase 3 being the English / European one I
think). Feasibility about 8, it was a fairly accurate portrayal of what
it might be like to live up there.

U.F.O.: Some sort of base was definitely on the moon, probably to act as
an early warning station. Feasibility: 6 Haircuts: 2

That's all I can think of for now....

Cwej

Is that a threat or a promise?

Cwej

Previously (well, just now), James Hadwen wrote...
I don't know. I don't care. All I want to know is, why has this E-mail
only just been delivered when I sent it even before the first one of
mine that arrived today (the one about vegetarians)?!? It is not
logical! (No, it's Windows...)

Dave

It's windows as run by the people responsible for the computer
centre.... draw your own conclusions

Cwej

No, even worse, it's the rhbnc server being crap again. Sitting here in
the computer centre, I can hear it wheezing and groaning as the punched
tape spools around. I just hope to God it doesn't fall over again.

Later,

Steve :-)
_
__
(oO)
/||\

On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Dismukes S wrote:


just saw you walk past anyway :)
===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@ <----- send mail here
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach <--- homepage here
0956 151 141 <------- mobile here
"Take the time to make some sense, of what you wanna say...
And cast your fears away upon the waves..."
===========================================================

REALLY!?! I didn't know about that! I've been isolated from all media
for a while, but I just got back from a weekend at home, and I didn't
hear anything about it!
If it was ethically right to colonies other continents on Earth, I
can't see it being 'wrong' to colonies other planets.
Only if we go around f***ing up the environments of the other planets.
The moon doesn't even have an environment worth mentioning. In the short
term, you will probably hear more objection from religious groups.
Don't have such a downer on yourself, little doude! :-)

James Hanley, Moon Walker

Dear All,
Why don't we use the moon as a storage depot for all of the
world's nuclear waste? We could call the facility Moonbase Alpha and we
could have a load of cool ships that look like they've been built from
meccano and we could have Martin Landau as the commander. And stuff

Luke "yes, I have lost my grip on reality" Dalli

But if we put all the nuclear waste on the moon wouldn't there be
a risk of it blowing up... that migth put the moon right out of its
orbit.

Daniel

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Harlow,
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Previously, Daniel Celano wrote....
That would be very bad - what would all the werewolves howl at?

Chris

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

Even better put the nuclear waste up there as well as the Disney theme
park suggested by a certain person... that way when it blows the moon
out of orbit it takes all the people at the theme park with it!

Cwej