Space race: Boeing CEO vows to beat Musk to Mars

Any reason why they're not starting with the moon first? Is there some unspoken reason like the aliens there aren't ready to introduce themselves yet?



i could see us using the moon as some sort of large mining facility/ launch pad for space ships to go from the moon to mars or the moon to earth. They had ideas of putting a mass driver on the moon.

what does that do? launch material from the Moon to Earth or ships



Also there a lot of helium-3 is on the lunar surface.



Lunar Mining
Samples collected in 1969 by Neil Armstrong during the first lunar landing showed that helium-3 concentrations in lunar soil are at least 13 parts per billion (ppb) by weight. Levels may range from 20 to 30 ppb in undisturbed soils. Quantities as small as 20 ppb may seem too trivial to consider. But at a projected value of $40,000 per ounce, 220 pounds of helium-3 would be worth about $141 million.

Because the concentration of helium-3 is extremely low, it would be necessary to process large amounts of rock and soil to isolate the material. Digging a patch of lunar surface roughly three-quarters of a square mile to a depth of about 9 ft. should yield about 220 pounds of helium-3--enough to power a city the size of Dallas or Detroit for a year.

Although considerable lunar soil would have to be processed, the mining costs would not be high by terrestrial standards. Automated machines might perform the work. Extracting the isotope would not be particularly difficult. Heating and agitation release gases trapped in the soil. As the vapors are cooled to absolute zero, the various gases present sequentially separate out of the mix. In the final step, special membranes would separate helium-3 from ordinary helium.

The total estimated cost for fusion development, rocket development and starting lunar operations would be about $15 billion. The International Thermonuclear Reactor Project, with a current estimated cost of $10 billion for a proof-of-concept reactor, is just a small part of the necessary development of tritium-based fusion and does not include the problems of commercialization and waste disposal.

The second-generation approach to controlled fusion power involves combining deuterium and helium-3. This reaction produces a high-energy proton (positively charged hydrogen ion) and a helium-4 ion (alpha particle). The most important potential advantage of this fusion reaction for power production as well as other applications lies in its compatibility with the use of electrostatic fields to control fuel ions and the fusion protons. Protons, as positively charged particles, can be converted directly into electricity, through use of solid-state conversion materials as well as other techniques. Potential conversion efficiencies of 70 percent may be possible, as there is no need to convert proton energy to heat in order to drive turbine-powered generators. Fusion power plants operating on deuterium and helium-3 would offer lower capital and operating costs than their competitors due to less technical complexity, higher conversion efficiency, smaller size, the absence of radioactive fuel, no air or water pollution, and only low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements. Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant. Financial breakeven at today's wholesale electricity prices (5 cents per kilowatt-hour) would occur after five 1000-megawatt plants were on line, replacing old conventional plants or meeting new demand.



http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a235/1283056/
 
So mankind can fast become a multi-planet spieces. It's also the door step to future deep solar system travel.
A lot of possibility's with that
That's not a reason, that's a line on a resume.
 
Just bumping this thread because it was the last about MARS

Sending a shout out to our European space brothers in there (almost) successful mission of the Schiaparelli Mars Lander and Trace Gas Orbiter - which separated from each other after a 500 million km journey to embark on their indivudal missions. The lander is scheduled to land tomorrow (19th)

Schiaparelli is a demonstration lander with some on board instruments to determine environmental properties. Essentially the purpose of it is to test their modern capabilities to landed their own rover (in partnership with Russia -- actually, the Russian's pretty much developed the entire rover) which is scheduled to complete the Euro/ russia exoMars mission in 2020.

This is significant because up to now - Team USA! USA! has dominated the success rate of successful interplanetary touchdowns with Mars. Russia has failed 3 times and have not tried since the mid 70's while the ESA allllllmost successfully landed the beagle 2 in the early 2000's but its solar panel did not deploy correctly and blocked its antenna (lulz)

Mars is about to get a taste of multiculturalism
 
That is going to be difficult to do when my union breaks Boeing's back when our contract is up in 2024.

Those arrogant fools have no idea the can of worms they opened with my union.

The Boeing board, and executive level resigns, or they can see how well they do trying to train 25,000 replacements for jobs that require an actual knowledge set. FYI, it will work out exactly as the disaster in South Carolina has worked out. 7 years in, and still can't push a plane through the field on schedule, with customers refusing to take planes from SC.

I don't want my pension back, I don't want a pay raise. I want to get rid of the people that are running the company into the ground. Boeing board, and executive level resigns, or watch Boeing stock price cut in half the first quarterly report that comes out with us on strike, with no end in sight.
PimpTight?!?
 
Just bumping this thread because it was the last about MARS

Sending a shout out to our European space brothers in there (almost) successful mission of the Schiaparelli Mars Lander and Trace Gas Orbiter - which separated from each other after a 500 million km journey to embark on their indivudal missions. The lander is scheduled to land tomorrow (19th)

Schiaparelli is a demonstration lander with some on board instruments to determine environmental properties. Essentially the purpose of it is to test their modern capabilities to landed their own rover (in partnership with Russia -- actually, the Russian's pretty much developed the entire rover) which is scheduled to complete the Euro/ russia exoMars mission in 2020.

This is significant because up to now - Team USA! USA! has dominated the success rate of successful interplanetary touchdowns with Mars. Russia has failed 3 times and have not tried since the mid 70's while the ESA allllllmost successfully landed the beagle 2 in the early 2000's but its solar panel did not deploy correctly and blocked its antenna (lulz)

Mars is about to get a taste of multiculturalism


Europe is going for setting up a base on the moon
 
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