* Changing the astronomical designation of the moon from satellite to sister-planet will cause people to want to go there?
Once the moon is gone plate tectonics will slow and eventually stop. Nobody really knows what will happen then, but things we can probably look forward to are landmass erosion (no new material being spewed up from the depths) and the Earth cooling (the moon's tidal forces help keep the planet's core molten). That is probably a global extinction event.
I will try and run the numbers, but my intuition (which has been known to be wrong) says that in order to change the moon's orbit enough for it to leave the solar system (forget about a few years, how about ever) you'll need so much mass that it will throw the Earth into the Sun or out of the solar system or the speed of the comets needs to be an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Otherwise there just isn't enough force involved.
I think the greatest missed opportunity with this one was to pull in three narrators. I think that would have shortened the time for listeners to understand the frame, and really added some depth.I think that certainly would have improved the experience.
As for cooling, the warmth we enjoy for all practical purposes all comes from the sun. Only those creatures that live on ocean vents would go extinct if the core cooled.
I am sure that if you had told people in 1969 where humanity's space program would be in 2015You mean private industry is building a new generation of reusable spacecraft and one company is run by a billionaire who has decided to use his money to get humanity to Mars so he can retire there? SpaceX has said they will get to Mars one way or another (they're building the engines for their 'BFR' now even while they get true reusability in their boosters nailed down) and aren't waiting for Congress to wave its hand towards NASA. That's why NASA has vaguely defined ideas about maybe visiting Mars in the 2030s/2040s while Musk has hinted at very specific inside plans to get there earlier.
I share the author's longing for a time when humanity cared enough to dream to go to space. The story where aliens stole the moon and we decided not to even try to stop them because it would be too expensive was depressingly realistic. I am sure that if you had told people in 1969 where humanity's space program would be in 2015, they would not have believed you. I'm sad that, as a species, we stuck our toe in the cosmic ocean 40 years ago and decided, "meh, let's just stay on Earth and play with iPhones instead."
We spent 40 years trapped in LEO because a generation was taught that NASA was the only way to do anything instead of being a valuable component in a bigger human space program. Now NASA is working together with companies like SpaceX that are less interested in feeding at the federal trough than they are in doing things for the sake of getting them done and going places.
The State Of The Space has been pretty dismal for a while, but it just got a LOT better.
You mean private industry is building a new generation of reusable spacecraft and one company is run by a billionaire who has decided to use his money to get humanity to Mars so he can retire there? SpaceX has said they will get to Mars one way or another (they're building the engines for their 'BFR' now even while they get true reusability in their boosters nailed down) and aren't waiting for Congress to wave its hand towards NASA. That's why NASA has vaguely defined ideas about maybe visiting Mars in the 2030s/2040s while Musk has hinted at very specific inside plans to get there earlier.
We spent 40 years trapped in LEO because a generation was taught that NASA was the only way to do anything instead of being a valuable component in a bigger human space program. Now NASA is working together with companies like SpaceX that are less interested in feeding at the federal trough than they are in doing things for the sake of getting them done and going places.
Side note for science fiction lovers: You may have heard that SpaceX has an floating autonomous spaceport ship for their first stage boosters to land on, right? Did you know that it's named "Just Read the Instructions" after one of the autonomous starships in the Culture series by Iaine M. Banks? Also, they're building a west-coast based autonomous spaceport ship named "Of Course I Still Love You" (same origin).
The State Of The Space has been pretty dismal for a while, but it just got a LOT better.
(http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iss4.jpg)
This is not as sexy as going to the moon, perhaps. I would argue that in the long term, this is the more important project. The ISS is a giant modular space station that dwarfs everything that came before it in size and capability. It is a village in space, and it has been a huge turning point in developing technology for a manned space exploration, and it will continue to do so in the future.
And then there's two Mars rovers, and a very robust Mars program. No other nation on Earth has a program like this. Or the DAWN asteroid mission, New Horizons, the James Webb Space telescope...
Companies like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences are very exciting, and I completely agree with you on that. It's also important to realize that without a NASA and without an ISS, there wouldn't BE a SpaceX. SpaceX only exists at all not only because there's a giant space station for it to go to, but that NASA outright gave SpaceX $400 million and then gave them a $2 billion dollar contract for a launch vehicle that SpaceX probably couldn't have built if it didn't get the contract.
And SpaceX wouldn't be building a manned version of the Dragon capsule if it hadn't, once again, landed the NASA contract to build it in the first place. Not to argue with you, but just saying...
I don't like corporations. I don't trust them in space.
I don't like corporations. I don't trust them in space.
You can totally trust corporations in space. These guys have your best interest at heart: http://www.weylandindustries.com/
I don't trust either corporations or governments, but I distrust them a lot less when they have to balance each other.
I don't like corporations. I don't trust them in space.
You can totally trust corporations in space. These guys have your best interest at heart: http://www.weylandindustries.com/
I don't trust either corporations or governments, but I distrust them a lot less when they have to balance each other.
Oh, I don't trust the government. The only difference is that the government I can fire if I want to.
And I've got to admit, I find that attitude disturbing. Corporations are not a natural check to the power of the government. They aren't accountable to anyone. They don't balance anything. They just accrue money.
I see that there seems to be some confusion between bad science and science fiction.
I have no problem with science fiction handwaving. Give me a warp drive or portable wormhole generator any day. But I will not accept bad science where the author was too lazy to actually read the entire article, not just the headline.
If you say "they moved the planets using a reactionless, non-inertial drive capable of moving entire planets" (Fleet Of Worlds) I will hands down believe you and totally flow with the story.
But if you say "this is based on actual science that I read on Buzzfeed" (17 Science Things You Didn't Know) then I will expect the science to almost work. To be grounded in reality.
There is a world of difference (several worlds, actually) between science fiction (zero point modules) and bad science (F***ing magnets how do they work? Must be magic").
Science fiction is making a way for things to work, to fit with the story (hyperspace, blinky handheld medical cure-alls). Bad science is taking scientific principles that we know and understand today and just ignoring it.
When I see a story where the science is fanciful and made up, I totally flow with it, because that's what science fiction is all about. But if the story starts off from a plausible point of entry and then just handwaves away actual science that we know and understand today I get upset. It means that the author either hasn't bothered to do the research (allow me to introduce you to the internet) or has such a low opinion of their readers that it's just insulting.
The multiple infractions in that department, compounded with the odd method of storytelling is what made this story a miss for me.
....not to mention, regolith (the material of the moon) is already extremely dark.
I don't mind the science in the stories, as I assumed they were both throw backs to turn of the prior century views of space. I'm thinking of the move "A trip to the Moon" where the rocket lands in the moon's eye. ;-) I just didn't think the two stories fit so well together. Two stories of the moon being removed don't necessarily work unless they have some tighter connection. I get the themes, but if you are going to have two separate stories intertwined, they have to resonate more with each other. Tough to pull off.
And yes, the science is to a large extent nonsense - but I don't see the point where we were asked to take it seriously ...
And yes, the science is to a large extent nonsense - but I don't see the point where we were asked to take it seriously ...
I think that's one of those things that's just a matter of taste and a matter of how much time you spend focused on the discipline getting screwed up in a story. As a software engineer it is hard to let it go when plots revolve around programming yet have none of the details right--this is especially true of stories with a hacking component. That thing you see in so many movies where a hacker hooks up a widget to a control panel and it finds the password digit by digit--that's garbage, and drives me nuts. I can forgive it IF the story/action/whatever surrounding that dumb moment takes up the slack for that lazy garbage. I'm not a physicist so that physics doesn't bother me unless it gets really bad--I agree that the tone of this story didn't give me the impression it was aiming for plausibility so I didn't think about it too much, but I can understand how someone (especially someone who works with physics for instance) still couldn't get past that. If it drives you nuts, it drives you nuts.
I just reviewed this, never have time to look back on posts. I did not realize there were three moon stealing stories. There was the one where aliens are taking the moon, and one where the billionaire is having it painted dark. I don't recall the third.
....not to mention, regolith (the material of the moon) is already extremely dark. Covering in ash is likely to *lighten* it. The reason we perceive the moon as at all bright is
a) The sun shines on it and the sun is REALLY BRIGHT
b) We see it when the sun is down, and NOT lighting up our atmosphere, and we see it against a black background with superfaint stars....