Newt Gingrich Is Right About Having A Permanent Moon Base
Yes, “Gingrich” and “right” in the same sentence is very strange: Saturday Night Live managed to successfully mock this derided idea in a recent well received sketch (which I thought was reminiscent of that show’s style from the ’70s). Here is a differing perspective presented by Robert T. Gonzalez on io9.com:
Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has promised us a permanent Moon base by 2020. Many people have been calling Newt’s vow a publicity stunt, while others have chimed in by attacking the idea of a lunar base in and of itself, with assertions like “real scientists know [a Moon base] is fantasy.” We won’t speak to Newt’s political maneuverings, but we’re sure as hell not going to sit idly by while people bash the feasibility or scientific potential of a lunar settlement. In fact, we’ve got 185 reasons we should set a course straight away …
An Off-World Energy Source: We spoke to astrophysicist Michael…
Gingrich’s Path To Statehood For A Space Colony
Wondering if the Constitution still applies when gravity does not? Newt Gingrich believes so. Buzzfeed dug up Newt’s 1981 bill laying out rules of governance for a future 20,000-person U.S. colony on the moon or Mars. At the moment he’s being bashed from all sides for this, but I think it’s fantastic:
Yesterday Newt Gingrich revealed his “weirdest idea ever” — to provide a path to statehood for a hypothetical lunar colony.
With the help of the skilled research librarians in the Library of Congress Law Library, BuzzFeed tracked down the bill, which Gingrich called the “Northwest Ordinance for Space,” or formally the “National Space and Aeronautics Policy Act of 1981.”
“The Congress declares that the United States is committed to the expansion of free people and free institutions into space,” the bill stated, calling for an array of near earth and solar space travel vehicles to be completed by 2010.
It also called for…
Earth Always Has Two Moons
A group of Cornell astrophysicists say that at any given time, Earth always has a very small second moon orbiting. That’s the moon I like most. Phenomenica writes:
The Earth has always had a temporary second moon, new study has claimed. When astronomers caught sight of a mysterious titanium white object circling around the Earth in 2006, they assumed it was a spent rocket. But it was actually a small asteroid captured by the Earth’s gravitational field that rotated around the Earth until June 2007.
In the new study, astrophysicists at Cornell claim that this little moon was not an anomaly as these asteroids come and go so often it means our planet always has a temporary second moon.
According to Cornell University’s Mikael Granvik, Jeremie Vaubaillon and Robert Jedicke, they have calculated the population of “irregular natural satellites that are temporarily captured” by Earth.
In their study, researchers say that while these moons are…
Earth (Usually) Has Two Moons
So reports MIT’s Technology Review:
Back in 2006, the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona noticed that a mysterious body had begun orbiting the Earth. This object had a spectrum that was remarkably similar to the titanium white paint used on Saturn V rocket stages and, indeed, a number of rocket stages are known to orbit the Sun close to Earth.
But this was not an object of ours. Instead, 2006 RH120, as it became known, turned out to be a tiny asteroid just a few metres across–a natural satellite like the Moon. It was captured by Earth’s gravity in September 2006 and orbited us until June 2007 when it wandered off into the Solar System in search of a more interesting neighbour.
2006 RH120 was the first reliably documented example of a temporary moon …
Who Stole The Moon?
Olivine basalt collected by Apollo 15. Photo: Wknight94 (CC)
Dan Vergano writes in USA Today:
NASA hauled back loads of rocks and dust from the moon, but apparently hasn’t kept good track of those samples on Earth. The space agency has lost or misplaced more than 500 pieces of the lunar rocks and other space samples, NASA’s inspector general reported Thursday, making the case for better inventory controls.
Astronauts on the Apollo moon landings from 1969 to 1972 returned 842 pounds of lunar rock and soil to Earth. The space agency now loans samples, along with meteorite and comet dust, to about 377 researchers worldwide.
The space agency now lists 517 moon rock samples as missing or stolen. However, the inspector general audit suggests much more is missing, based on inquiries to a sample of 59 scholars loaned moon rocks, comet dust or meteorites. The audit found 19% could not locate all of their…
Large Asteroid 2005 YU55 to Pass Earth — Closer Than Moon
Edward Lovett and Ned Potter Report on ABC News:
We have a visitor — a large asteroid called 2005 YU55 that is expected to come within approximately 201,700 miles of Earth on Tuesday, according to NASA. That’s slightly less than the distance from Earth to the moon.
Asteroids often pass this close, but most are tiny. Countless thousands of pieces come plunging into the atmosphere, but they burn up without doing any harm. If they’re as large as grains of sand, we may, if we’re lucky, see them in the night sky as shooting stars.
But 2005 YU55 is at least 1,300 feet wide — larger than an aircraft carrier, according to radar measurements. The last time an asteroid this big passed by was in 1976, and the next one scientists know of won’t be until 2028, NASA says. (There have been some rude surprises in between, but not involving anything remotely as…
Before War of the Worlds, the Great Moon Hoax of 1835
Lunar man-bats, unicorns, bipedal beavers and a triad of mysterious solar temples featured in a sensational hoax perpetuated by the New York Sun in 1835. This from Victorian Gothic:
Imagine that you wake up one morning, sit at your computer, and you are bombarded with links to a developing story from a major news outlet: Stephen Hawking, by making novel use of Cambridge University’s new quantum supercomputer to analyze data from SETI’s telescope array, has discerned that the universe is awash with signals from intelligent life. It reads like a regular science story, at first, but soon it is revealed that Hawking and his colleagues have tapped into an extra-terrestrial television transmission, and are even now watching, breathless, as the first, dream-like images of alien civilizations display themselves on the Q-computer’s tiny monitor.
You and your friends refresh your browsers compulsively, talking over each new description that emerges of strange alien races and the exotic…
Former NASA Employee Claims Alien Moon Cities Exist
Via Before It’s News:
Former National Aeronautics and Space Administration Data and Photo Control Department manager, Ken Johnston, who worked for the space agency’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory during the Apollo missions has been fired for telling the truth.
Johnston asserts NASA knows astronauts discovered ancient alien cities and the remains of amazingly advanced machinery on the Moon. Some of the technology can manipulate gravity. He says the agency ordered a cover-up and forced him to participate in it. Over the past 40 years other scientists, engineers and technicians have accused NASA of cover-ups and obscuring data.
The growing number of accusers’ allegations range from hiding information about anomalous space objects and lying about the discovery of artifacts on the surface of the Moon and Mars, to denying the evidence of life reported back by the Viking lander during the mid-1970s.
Moon to Have No-Fly Zones
R. Prasad writes in the Hindu:
No-fly zones will come into effect on the moon for the very first time by the end of this month! Why, even buffer zones that spacecraft may have to avoid will come into existence. The reason: avoiding any spraying of rocket exhaust or dust onto certain historical sites and artifacts on the moon.
The historical sites are of course the Apollo landing sites and artifacts present on the moon. And the “recommendations” are for preserving and protecting these historical sites. There are currently more than three dozen historical sites that preserve the more than four-decade-old remains.
“Apollo 11 and 17 sites [will] remain off-limits, with ground-travel buffers of 75 meters and 225 meters from each respective lunar lander,” states the July 20 guidelines of NASA. Science journal had obtained the guidelines.
According to Science, by the end of this month NASA is expected to come up with a…
Lunar Orbiter Find Footprints On The Moon
Some people were in awe as they watched to first men walk on the moon in 1969. Others still remain in skepticism of the lunar landing. Taken by NASA’s lunar orbiter, new photographs have been released of landing sites, including footprints left on the surface. Via Reuters:
The Apollo 18 Moon Conspiracy
It’s probably just hype around the release of the “documentary” Apollo 18 that just opened in theaters across America, but Space.com is reporting on a purported conspiracy about the astronauts finding signs of alien life and that being the reason we never again sent humans to the moon:
Apologies to anyone whose bubble will burst, but “Apollo 18,” the film opening Friday (Sept. 2), is fictional.
The film, purporting to be produced from footage kept secret by NASA and leaked to the media, chronicles a NASA mission to the moon that went awry when astronauts encountered signs of alien life there.
Whether because the studio actually believes anyone will be fooled or simply because it makes for a fun marketing angle, the Weinstein Co., which produced the picture, is calling it a “documentary.”
“Decades-old found footage from NASA’s abandoned Apollo 18 mission, where two American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition, reveals the reason the…
After Earth: Where Will Humanity Go?
If and when Earth is no longer able to sustain human life, where should we go? NASA says that a colony could be dug several feet below the surface of our moon (with a cover to protect residents from high-energy cosmic radiation, which can damage our DNA and lead to cancer).
Or we could head for the resource-rich moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Mars is very Earth-like, with enough carbon in its soil to grow plants, and daytime temperatures that reach 70°F. And that’s only the start of our options. Popular Science explores:
Earth won’t always be fit for occupation. We know that in two billion years or so, an expanding sun will boil away our oceans, leaving our home in the universe uninhabitable—unless, that is, we haven’t already been wiped out by the Andromeda galaxy, which is on a multibillion-year collision course with our Milky Way. Moreover, at least…
Volcanoes On The Moon
You knew there was more on the far side of the Moon than we were told. First up: volcanoes. From International Business Times:
Among mysteries lying on the far side of the Moon, which cannot be seen from Earth, are volcanoes as well, new photos from a NASA orbiter have revealed.
The volcanoes that litter the Moon’s ‘other side’ are of the rare silicate types, not the basaltic volcanoes seen on the visible side of the moon.
According to researchers, the new findings reveal that the Moon is home to more complex geological activity than initially thought. The findings also reveal that the Moon has not stopped throwing surprises after all!
A team led by Bradley L. Jolliff, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, has reported the latest findings in the journal Nature Geoscience.
According to Jolliff, the primary author of the report, most of the volcanic activity on the moon has…
How Buzz Aldrin Answers Moon Landing Conspiracy Theorists (Video)
42 years ago today Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, and Buzz doesn’t enjoy anyone saying otherwise:
Here’s more on what got Buzz so worked up.
Super-Long Lunar Eclipse Today!
Schematic diagram of the shadow cast by the Earth. Within the central umbra shadow, the Moon is totally shielded from direct illumination by the Sun. In contrast, within the penumbra shadow, only a portion of sunlight is blocked.
The longest lunar eclipse in a decade is going to happen later today, but unfortunately it won’t be visible in North America. If you’re in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, though, you can spend nearly two hours viewing it. National Geographic has the details:
Wednesday night the full moon will plunge into the longest and deepest total lunar eclipse in more than a decade.
Sky-watchers across most of the Eastern Hemisphere will be able to watch the lunar disc turn stunning shades of orange and red as the moon becomes engulfed within the darkest part of Earth’s shadow for almost two hours.
“The path that the moon is taking through Earth’s shadow is almost directly through [the…
Woman Selling Million-Dollar ‘Moon Rock’ Arrested
The wackiest part of this chain of events? That NASA has undercover agents who orchestrate stings to crack down on space crimes. Via the Guardian:
A woman who tried to sell what she said was a rare piece of moon rock for $1.7 million was detained when her would-be buyer turned out to be an undercover NASA agent, officials said Friday.
The gray rocks, which are considered national treasures and are illegal to sell, were given to each U.S. state and 136 countries by then-President Richard Nixon after U.S. moon missions and can sell for millions of dollars on the black market.
NASA investigators and Riverside County sheriff’s deputies detained the woman after she met Thursday with an undercover NASA investigator at a restaurant in Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the sheriff’s office said. The investigation was conducted over several months.
NASA planned to conduct tests to determine whether the…
Space Adventures Offers Moon Tourism At $150 Million Per Seat
What are you doing this summer? Via io9:
If you’ve got a lust for space travel, a desire to go where only a couple of dozen people have gone before, and $150 million to spare, Space Adventures needs you.
The space tourism company—it’s the one that organizes the ISS trips via the Russian Soyuz—has mapped a potential tour around the moon that could lift off within five years.
The company has already secured a nine-digit commitment from one customer for a potential lunar sightseeing tour. And the logistics are already in place as well: aboard a three-seat Russian Soyuz spacecraft (the third seat is for a Russian mission commander), the tourists would launch into orbit where they would rendezvous with a separately-launched unmanned rocket, which would jet them the rest of the way to the moon.
Round trip: eight or nine days.
Silicon Valley Start-Up To Mine The Moon
A new lunar gold rush? Via Phenomenonica:
A Silicon Valley start-up, founded by an Indian-American entrepreneur, plans to mine the moon and is in the process of building robotic rovers that will search the lunar surface for precious metals and rare metallic elements.
Moon Express Inc or MoonEx, co-founded by Naveen Jain, is building the robotic rovers alongside scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Centre near San Jose, a report in the Los Angeles Times said. “MoonEx should be ready to land on the lunar surface by 2013,” Jain said.
While there is no guarantee that the moon is “flush” with these materials, MoonEx thinks it “may be a gold mine of so-called rare earth elements.”
“From an entrepreneur’s perspective, the moon has never truly been explored,” the report quoted Jain, chairman and company co-founder, as saying. “We think it could hold resources that benefit Earth and all humanity.”
MoonEx’s machines are designed to look for materials…
Will March 19 ‘Supermoon’ Trigger Natural Disasters?
Natalie Wolchover asks some disturbing questions at Space.com:
On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On top of that, it will be full. And one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet.
Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com, has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closest approach during its orbit) an “extreme supermoon.”
When the moon goes super-extreme, Nolle says, chaos will ensue: Huge storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth. (It should be noted that astrology is not a real science, but merely makes connections between astronomical and mystical events.)
But do we really need to start stocking survival shelters in preparation for the supermoon?
The question is not actually so…
