Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brian Sullivan who wrote (21112)	12/22/2003 7:33:51 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793878

OVER THE MOON PART II: Momentum seems to be building for a ridiculous United States commitment to return to the Moon. (What NASA should be spending its money on is finding an affordable means of getting pounds into low-Earth orbit, then we can talk grand space adventures.) The normally astute science writer Timothy Ferris, whose fine new book Seeing In the Dark Easterblogg is currently reading, yesterday took to The New York Times op-ed page to advocate a sure-to-be budget-busting manned Moon base. The Moon, Ferris opined, would be a great place to establish deep-space telescopes. It would, but NASA already has its four Great Observatories (the Hubble for visual light, the Compton for gamma rays, the Chandra for X-rays and the new Spitzer for infrared, with the Webb, an advanced replacement for the Hubble, under construction) performing well in Earth orbit for a fraction of the cost of placing them on the Moon. Next, Ferris supposes that since it's so incredibly expensive to put weigh into low-Earth orbit--at least $10,000 per pound at current NASA launch prices--what you could do that makes economic sense on the Moon is manufacture rocket fuel. Then the fuel could be relatively easily rolled down the gravity hill to low-Earth orbit, where it would be used to power spacecraft outbound for the Moon, eliminating the need to spend fantastic amounts lifting into orbit the fuel for Moon trips. "Cheap rocket fuel could become the Moon's first profitable export," Ferris supposes. But wait. At incredible expense, you build a rocket-fuel refining plant on the Moon. You then send the fuel made on the Moon back down into Earth orbit, where spacecraft use it to boost themselves to the Moon, to maintain the Moon base that supports the rocket-fuel manufacturing plant. Maybe this is the budget-justification equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. tnr.com

To: Brian Sullivan who wrote (21112)	12/22/2003 7:35:59 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793878

Pending approval from the head of the axis of weasels Russia offers to wipe bulk of Iraqi debt Mon 22 December, 2003 15:21 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has offered to write off 65 percent of Iraq's $8 billion (4.5 billion pound) debt to Moscow but the offer is conditional on approval by the Paris Club of creditor nations, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council has said. "(President Vladimir) Putin has made an offer of Russia exempting Iraq from 65 percent of their debts. That is a decision made by Russia to be confirmed within the Paris Club," Samir Sumaidy told reporters after attending a meeting on Monday at the Kremlin. reuters.co.uk