Sci/Tech Why We Need a Supercomputer on the Moon

[tom_mai78101]

Should we build a supercomputer on the moon?

It would be a mammoth technical undertaking, but a University of Southern California graduate student thinks there’s a very good reason for doing this: It would help alleviate a coming deep-space network traffic jam that’s had NASA scientists worried for several years now.

Ouliang Chang floated his lunar supercomputer idea a few weeks ago at a space conference in Pasadena, California. The plan is to bury a massive machine in a deep dark crater, on the side of the moon that’s facing away from Earth and all of its electromagnetic chatter. Nuclear-powered, it would process data for space missions and slingshot Earth’s Deep Space Network into a brand new moon-centric era.

“Once the physical infrastructure backbone is laid out, I suspect it would look much like the monolith excavation site in Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey,” says Chang’s course supervisor Madhu Thangavelu, of USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering.

Why We Need a Supercomputer on the Moon

Should we build a supercomputer on the moon? It would be a mammoth technical undertaking, but a University of Southern California graduate student thinks there’s a very good reason for doing this: It would help alleviate a coming deep-space network traffic jam that’s had NASA scientists worried...

www.wired.com

 

[Accname]

Yeah, and how do you do the maintenance?
Wanna send a spaceshuttle with a bunch of tech/it guys to the moon every other month?

 

[FireCat]

Uhm okay lol.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Yeah, and how do you do the maintenance?
Wanna send a spaceshuttle with a bunch of tech/it guys to the moon every other month?

My assumption is that when we achieve the milestone of setting up a super computer on the Moon, we would already be able to set up a lunar base. There probably will be monthly shipments of supplies and equipments sent to the lunar base unmanned, and that the lunar base will have a dozen or so scientists busy working here and there.

 

[Accname]

My assumption is that when we achieve the milestone of setting up a super computer on the Moon, we would already be able to set up a lunar base. There probably will be monthly shipments of supplies and equipments sent to the lunar base unmanned, and that the lunar base will have a dozen or so scientists busy working here and there.

Sounds reasonable.
Who is going to pay the 13 brajillion dollarz?

 

[Varine]

We'd have a base there for repairs....

 

[FireCat]

Who is going to pay the 13 brajillion dollarz?

The "taxpayers", of course.

 

[Varine]

I would prefer to fund this than the vast majority of what my taxes go to. This at least reaches for a real achievement, rather than some moronic illusion of progress that most of the world has put up with for the past several decades.

 

[tom_mai78101]

The "taxpayers", of course.

No, only those who are able to fund such an expedition will go forth with it. The way I see it, if the Lunar Base has been planned by major countries, then, instead of taxpayers, they will start claiming lands on the Moon. Antartica will get lonely.

 

[Accname]

I'd say this whole "lunar base" and "supercomputer" stuff is only really useful if you go all-in with it.
We dont need such a "lunar base" with our current space programs. But we might need it if we expand the space programs more.
If you build that lunar base/super computer now but dont send any more space shuttles or probes out its pretty pointless, a waste of money and labour.
If you do it, do the full program, everything less will be a waste.

 

[FireCat]

No, only those who are able to fund such an expedition will go forth with it. The way I see it, if the Lunar Base has been planned by major countries, then, instead of taxpayers, they will start claiming lands on the Moon. Antartica will get lonely.

That depends on what kind of people you are talking about! Well, I'm pretty sure, The government would provide some financial support. And that's does mean "your money!"
Anyway, It's a crazy idea. And Imagine, It would "brake down after two minutes!" LOL LOL

 

[Varine]

That depends on what kind of people you are talking about! Well, I'm pretty sure, The government would provide some financial support. And that's does mean "your money!"
Anyway, It's a crazy idea. And Imagine, It would "brake down after two minutes!" LOL LOL

Interplanetary colonization has to start somewhere.

 

[FireCat]

Interplanetary colonization has to start somewhere.

Maybe, but now it's Just a dream.. And It won't happen in the near future.

 

[Varine]

Because people have attitudes like that.

 

[-OverpoweR-]

Interplanetary colonization has to start somewhere.

I'd voulenteer for that

 

[Accname]

Maybe, but now it's Just a dream.. And It won't happen in the near future.

You can probably fly there with your self-driving cars!
On your flight you can watch movies and play 3D games on your smartphone.
Dude, sign me in! Starwars is a joke compared to this.

 

[Varine]

Are you high?

 

[BlowingKush]

Are you high?

yes.