The CIA thought the Soviets were going to establish manned lunar bases.

[Jara sang]

From the Directorate of Science & technology. These guys really thought they Soviets were going to land on the moon. This report screams of the CIA jacking up their estimates of Soviet capabilities to justify their cold war budget. What a crock 'o shit. Been rootin' around in the CIA's FOIA reading room it is scads of fun.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/search.asp?pageNumber=2&freqReqRecord=undefined&refinedText=undefined&freqSearchText=undefined&txtSearch=lunar+base&exactPhrase=undefined&allWords=undefined&anyWords=undefined&withoutWords=undefined&documentNumber=undefined&startCreatedMonth=&startCreatedDay=&startCreatedYear=&endCreatedMonth=&endCreatedDay=&endCreatedYear=0&startReleasedMonth=&startReleasedDay=&startReleasedYear=&endReleasedMonth=&endReleasedDay=&endReleasedYear=0&sortOrder=DESC

[rwenos]

1. "We Must Not Allow A Mineshaft Gap!"

And in the next scene, the Soviet Ambassador blew up the world.

"Mein Fuhrer -- I can WALK!"

[tocqueville]

2. any X-files ?

it reminds me of friend who told me while we were listening to a local politician complete bullshit program for our town developement :

"if he doesn't believe in what he is saying, that's bad, but if he does it's worse"

[Technowitch]

3. Actually, that *was* the Soviet plan

Unfortunately, a series of spectacular failures of their heavy-lift rocket boosters put the whole program in jeopardy. Their launch systems were great at getting small capsules into orbit, but every time they tried to scale up... BOOM.

Meanwhile, the U.S. got ahead of them and landed Armstrong and Aldrin. The Soviets continued to consider plans for permanent bases -- because it would be something the Americans could not yet do -- but they still could not get around the fact we had the Saturn V and Saturn 1B -- and they didn't.

Eventually, they decided to concentrate instead on Earth orbit, hence all the space stations. And to pretend they never really were serious about the moon in the first place.

[Hardrada]

4. I think we should have the lunar bases

but without nuclear weapons aimed at Earth.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. Damn straight. How about with giant fields of solar panels

beaming energy back to earth via microwaves, 24/7.

[Hardrada]

7. How would we collect this energy though

and what about when it's only a half-moon?

[Warren DeMontague]

11. The panels would have to be 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

Ring them around the equator of the moon, and beam the microwaves from the poles- which would be a good place for permanent bases anyway, if the water ice we suspect is there, actually is.

Here's info on someone else's take on this idea.. admittedly, it's far-fetched. But no more far fetched than thinking we can continue what we're doing with fossil fuels indefinitely.

http://greennature.com/article701.html

[Crayson]

9. Better wear a tinfoil hat then

Else you're going to be cooked.
Hehehe....
(You can't build pyramids before you invent stone working.... still the idea isn't bad, but probaly for the generations to come, we still lack the technology for space elevators and other basic stuff to enter the "space faring" age... we fly to space on top of giant BOMBS, that can't be very civilized)


By the way, we see more and more of the sci-fi literature of my youth come true right under our noses, maybe not space ships and aliens but many many things in our daily lives that would have been thought impossible 10 or 20 years ago, like mobile phones and the internet, miniaturization and new chemical compunds that nobody would have thought of in their sci-fi phantasies.
Lets see what the next 50 years bring.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. I agree, it's a ways away. But solving our energy issues is going to

require some outside the box thinking IMHO.

Also, our discretionary budget for the M/I complex is something like half a trillion a year (that we know about)... with those kind of clams directed into productive, forward thinking research and development along peaceful lines, I'd wager you could ramp up some serious pyramid-building in a relatively short period of time.

Here's more info on the idea;

http://greennature.com/article701.html

[sofa king]

10. I concur.

The project was serious enough that some of the equipment is on display at the National Air and Space Museum. Check out Mark Wade's amazing site for the full skinny.

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/ciah1967.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/lk.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpart1.htm

That however does not negate the possibility that the CIA and others were overestimating Soviet capabilities. They have a habit of doing that.

[Jara sang]

13. Yeah and I have plans to build a cabin on one of Jupiter's moons.

Io per haps.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Naw, man, it's all about Ganymede.

Io smells like crap (literally) this time of year.

[TheMadMonk]

6. Their problem with their early heavy lift vehicles ...

... was their lack of a sufficiently powerful rocket motor. Unable to do it with five big muthas like the US, the USSR were forced to cluster huge numbers of smaller motors together for the same boost. There were just far, far too many bits to go spang during the most critical initial boost phase. And when things go spang on rockets, spontaneous rapid disassembly (bang) almost inevitably follows.

[Crayson]

8. China is dreaming of it right now

What did they say? in 10 years or something?

Of course this is all about nuclear weapons.
The whole space race was about having nukes in the orbit on satellites and having killer/hunter satellites annihilating the enemies satellites.
There have been nukes detonated in space creating huge aurora borealis effects.

Death from above.

And there have been treaties not to bring nukes to space or other planets.
But then again there was also the non proliferation treaty... who knows what's currently up there, ready to drop.