[aldo_14]

al-Queda in space!

[karajorma]

That's exactly how the shivans got started.

[Clave]

I want everything to be made of titanium in future....

[EtherShock]

Originally posted by aldo_14
I can guess of a few possible consequences; accidents from the returning of ore (it's been theorised rail-guns could be used for this IIRC), the superpowers getting in a pissing match over who has the rights to mine the moon, and the fairly unlikely(IMO-?) consequences of reducing the moons' mass or in some way affecting its orbit and thus the tides.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

[Ghostavo]

We aren't going to make the moon hollow, so that's a bit... exageration...

[Mongoose]

I agree; I highly doubt that humanity could manage to extract enough minerals from the Moon in any reasonable amount of time to cause any noticeable change in its orbit.  While the Moon is only about one-eightieth of the Earth's mass, that's still a helluva lot of matter; it's not going to disappear anytime soon.

[Flipside]

How about the Collaberative Resource Acquisition Program? We could all send crap to the moon

[Swamp_Thing]

What about that guy who started selling chunks of land on the moon, because of a lapse in regulations? I don´t see it getting any real value, but if we take history as our teacher, wouldn´t we be open for hard litigation and maybe even territorial wars?
Back in the 15th century, the first european to reach new land would plant his country´s flag and claim it as their own. Would this mean the US would claim the moon, since it arrived first? Or is the moon property of all Mankind? How will it work?
If, for example, the chinese develop a new cheap means to mine the moon, and start mining it, would the US try to injuction it on the grounds they were there first? If the US is willing to go to war to protect their energy resources (as it did in Iraq, Kuwait, etc), what would happen if they find a new energy source on the moon?
I perceive some rough legal battles, maybe even military battles, to settle this. I just don´t think i´ll be alive to see it.

[karajorma]

The countries of the world signed an agreement saying that no country could claim other planets as belonging to them.

The guy who was selling bits of the moon claimed that the agreement didn't say anything about private individuals and promptly claimed the rest of the solar system and started selling it off. Obviously the claim only has validity in his mind.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by Andreas

But what we really need is unified political will from the major parties (USA, EU, Russia and China) to work together to achieve our goals. ISS is a good start, but what we would really need would be a permanent base on the Moon (not to mention actually going there again, after all these years). Expensive, yes, but well worth it.

The US would not go along with that. China's space program and the EU's space program do have a partnership, IIRC. I know for certain they have one to at least get their own GPS system in place.

Not sure about Russia. If it is smart it would jump onto the EU-China bandwagon.

[aldo_14]

Russia & the ESA have already signed a co-operation agreement IIRC.

[Kosh]

So essentially the US is on its own. With the debt the way it's going, I wonder how long that will last.

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by karajorma
Obviously the claim only has validity in his mind.

That didn´t stop him from selling parcels of the moon to people like Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, someone from the english royal family, Bill Clinton, and other VIPs, along with other more average Joe personalities.
At least according to him. Allthough i don´t hear anything about these people filling lawsuits against him for unwarrented use of their name, wich means there is some truth to the matter...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Kosh
So essentially the US is on its own. With the debt the way it's going, I wonder how long that will last.

I think the US also co-operates with the ESA and Russians, though.  ESA satellites/probes have travelled along with US ones (Huygens & Cassini, for example), and US astronauts will have travelled to and from the ISA on Soyuz.

[Kosh]

Oh yeah, forgot about that......

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
That didn´t stop him from selling parcels of the moon to people like Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, someone from the english royal family, Bill Clinton, and other VIPs, along with other more average Joe personalities.

Yeah but they are almost certainly worthless for anything other than decorative purposes.

[Trivial Psychic]

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/050503_cev_nasa.html

The first CEV concept.  More to follow.

[Mongoose]

About time. This new administrator seems like just the type of person that NASA needs.  Not only is he pushing the CEV concept forward, but he's re-evaluating the decsion to abandon Hubble.  My fingers are crossed...

[EtherShock]

When I saw this guy was reconsidering Hubble's fate, I know he was the right person for the job.

There were a few articles I read that credit Bush with motivating NASA to get its act together, which is total bull****! If anything, he inhibited NASA, because after droning on about going to Mars, thinking it will make him sound like some great president, he slashes NASA's budget.

[Unknown Target]

Originally posted by Ghost
hopefully that X-Prize thing'll go through.

Burt Rutan and his SpaceShip One already won that.

EDIT: Also, the US already has close ties with the ESA and the Russians. It's just a big deal that the latter two were signing a co operation pact because they didn't have one before, not that the US didn't already have one with both of them.