Date: 2017-11-16 02:54 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Dilute! Dilute! OK!

Date: 2017-11-16 03:07 pm (UTC)
wendelah1: (Sure. Fine. Whatever.)
From: [personal profile] wendelah1
Did that article originate with the Onion staff?

Date: 2017-11-16 03:13 pm (UTC)
philrm: (Default)
From: [personal profile] philrm
Treaties, shmeaties.

Date: 2017-11-16 03:52 pm (UTC)
thewayne: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thewayne
The comments on the article were quite telling.

I remember a bumper sticker/t-shirt/whatever for sale at one time that said "Stop the production of nuclear weapons (until we use the ones that we already have)". I thought it funny at the time, youthful ignorance.

Date: 2017-11-16 03:54 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] keith_morrison
The fact he thinks the moon is a rational place to place nuclear weapons to attack places on Earth (else why the assurances his base isn't being used for that) pretty much tells me everything I need to know.

Date: 2017-11-16 05:53 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] izeinwinter
Well, if your primary concern is to eliminate all possibility of your deterrent being used for a first strike, putting it 3 days flight away by missile would be an excellent way to do so. The entire logic of MAD would work so much better if everyone concerned would put their bases in translunar orbits - Cant first strike the bases, because they would see any attack coming days away, cant first strike earth based targets, because, again, would see it coming days in advance.


... Only problem is, this is a just a tad more expensive than nuclear subs. (extreme understatement)

Date: 2017-11-16 06:10 pm (UTC)
graydon: (Default)
From: [personal profile] graydon
Gotta say my reaction that article stopped at "why do you think that's a good use of money in addition to the half-trillion for updating the arsenal?"

Date: 2017-11-16 04:23 pm (UTC)
kedamono: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kedamono
Perhaps he watched too many Gerry Anderson shows.

"There's no problem stockpiling all those weapons in one place! It's not like they'd go off and make the Moon go out of Earth orbit!"

Date: 2017-11-16 06:47 pm (UTC)
timgueugen: (Default)
From: [personal profile] timgueugen
My thinking is that he didn't watch enough Space: 1999, or he know a nuclear explosion on the Moon is a bad idea.

Date: 2017-11-16 04:48 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
"Welcome to Alexander Abian Memorial Base, Luna"

Date: 2017-11-17 05:25 pm (UTC)
bunsen_h: (Default)
From: [personal profile] bunsen_h
I had some "interesting" "discussions" with Abian, back in the day. Where "interesting" and "discussions" have large error bars.

My second thought was Heinlein's "The Long Watch".
Edited Date: 2017-11-17 05:30 pm (UTC)

Date: 2017-11-17 02:27 am (UTC)
glaurung: (Default)
From: [personal profile] glaurung
In the comments, someone trots out a variation on the old helium-3 stupidity, except he thinks that mining the moon for thorium and uranium would be a good way to fuel all the nuclear thermal rockets humanity will ever need. Never mind that the moon, lacking an active hydro geology, lacks proper ore deposits, which would make mining for rare radioisotopes an even more futile exercise than mining it for helium3.

Date: 2017-11-17 06:26 am (UTC)
glaurung: (Default)
From: [personal profile] glaurung
Thanks, I had not seen that before. One or two parts per million does not make for a profitable mining enterprise. That’s one or two grams per tonne, whereas on Earth, miners consider a kilo per tonne as economically viable to extract. (http://www.mining.com/web/making-the-grade-understanding-exploration-results/ )
Edited Date: 2017-11-17 06:43 am (UTC)

Date: 2017-11-17 02:26 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I wonder whether a similar map, at similar resolution, of the Earth would be revealing of its uranium deposits.

Although viable ore deposits are much more concentrated than this map shows, they are relatively small compared to the patch of land that contains them.

If the resolution of the map is much coarser than the size of the ore body, all the mundane rock also counted in the pixel will dilute the concentration of the ore body by several orders of magnitude.

Date: 2017-11-18 05:05 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
It would show that some areas have much higher U concentrations. Granite is like 12 ppm, and black shales can be 100 ppm or higher. These are subeconomic on Earth, but they'd show up over large areas.

Date: 2017-11-17 04:28 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
"Should we not be certain that we are getting our bang for the buck? "

He really said that.

--AwesomeAud

Date: 2017-11-17 06:20 pm (UTC)
magedragonfire: (Default)
From: [personal profile] magedragonfire
...Are we sure this isn't some kind of modest proposal?

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