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Author
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Topic: Alternate history: Moon instead of shuttle
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Paul78zephyr
Member Posts: 675
From: Hudson, MA
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 01-14-2010 11:03 AM
  
If all the money that was ever spent on the space shuttle program and all that was associated with it since its earliest beginnings had been spent on a moon base (and all that would be associated with that) where would we be today? |
ilbasso
Member Posts: 1522
From: Greensboro, NC USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 01-14-2010 11:50 AM
In bounding the answer to the question, does "all that was associated with it" include the International Space Station, Hubble launch and repair missions, launch of Galileo and Magellan planetary probes, etc.? I think your question is, "How much of a moon base would we have been able to build for the money?" But another question to ask is, "What would have been the scientific (and technical capabilities) returns of building a moon base vs. what we have learned and the capabilities we have developed by flying the Shuttle and the missions it supported?" |
Paul78zephyr
Member Posts: 675
From: Hudson, MA
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 01-14-2010 12:11 PM
I should have been a bit more specific to include ISS but perhaps not the planetary missions. But I'm open to everyone's answers based on their own interpretation of my originally vague question. |
tegwilym
Member Posts: 2331
From: Sturgeon Bay, WI
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 01-14-2010 01:56 PM
The monolith would have been found in 2001! |
moorouge
Member Posts: 2454
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 01-14-2010 02:01 PM
Bearing in mind the waning public support at the end of the Apollo programme I think that one has to consider how much the American taxpayer would have been prepared to sanction the building of a Moon base. The answer, I suspect, is that they wouldn't and NASA would have shrunk even further, fighting tooth and nail to keep even its planetary programmes going.The other question to ask is - without the constraint of public opinion to hold them back, would the Russians have gone ahead with a Moon base? |
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