How long would it take to get to the moon in an "emergency"

[Simon_Jester]

I love the "bag on camera" idea.

[Borgholio]

I love the "bag on camera" idea.

For comedic effect, have the probe enter the alien base (say they're using a forcefield to keep air in) and see an alien eating lunch out of what is somewhat recognizable as a paper lunchbag. After noticing the probe, the alien looks around a bit, sees the bag, and puts it over the camera lens. When it's removed, the probe is a few miles away. That demonstrates intelligence, and the willingness to improvise a harmless way to disable the probe so it can be moved instead of simply smashing it.

[Simon_Jester]

Have this happen the FIRST time a probe-bot enters the base.

Subsequently, the base has security that intercepts or disables all probe-bots before they can even get inside. Because the alien chief of security is like "oh Zarquod, one more intrusion and I get fired" and actually takes some steps.

Also, my wife loves the idea that aliens with advanced force field technology would stoop to foil our probe with a paper bag.

[Borgholio]

Also, my wife loves the idea that aliens with advanced force field technology would stoop to foil our probe with a paper bag.

Alien speaking in subtitles when it first notices the probe bot, "What the..." *pause* "Oh...shit." *reaches for the bag*

[Darkrah]

Haha! While I was writing this three more posts were made and I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to like that cover the camera with a bag idea, and if the aliens do that people would be less likely to be freaked out by them. I sort of think that a chip bag might be funnier than a paper lunch bag but I haven't gotten past the stage where humans first notice the aliens yet.

Make that four posts...

Simon_Jester:

I hear your suggestion that I break my ideas up into smaller paragraphs. I suck at doing that, which is why I'm not going to be posting anything from the actual story on the forums, I need more than thirty minutes to make something even this long perfect and don't feel like putting my horrible work up here until I have the time to do such a thing. It feels to me like it would take less time than that just to get it published. As an example of why I make such bad posts in general I have actually spent well over thirty minutes on this post alone.

The whole point of my saying that the aliens could just wipe us out, is that for the past couple of days almost everyone that has replied to this post has been clamoring for me to have humanity nuke the aliens. I have just gotten tired of it and said screw humanity if they try to nuke the aliens. Honestly, the aliens probably wouldn't do anything if we tried to nuke them but I am too annoyed with testosterone riddled idiots at the moment to care. I definitely agree with you that the best thing to do though is to make it important that a few lives would be worth possibly preventing a war, and I don't think that they would show off superweapons.

Finally the whole dropping rocks thing was more about showing how far ahead of us the aliens are, and the fact they they can wander around the solar system with impunity. It would take them less than a month to reach the asteroid belt going at STL speeds and they can jump up into FTL whenever they want to. We live at the bottom of a gravity well and it would take us quite along time to get there. Even strapping a nuclear device onto a rocket and tossing it at the aliens, like a lot of people are suggesting, would probably take at least a month.

bilateralrope:
1. I would need to do more research on the properties of light before I would be willing to make a decision but my current thought is that they drop into another dimension in which it is possible to go faster than the speed of light, but I haven't done enough research to make a decision as to how it is actually going to work..

2. I like your idea that they physically come and move the probe in spacesuits, these aliens are there on a rescue mission and weren't expecting any intelligent life forms on Earth much less ones that would try and get in contact with them. I like your idea about them putting a bag on the camera, I think it would be funny if it was an alien chip bag or something like that.

[Adam Reynolds]

The moon lets you build a base that is close enough to Earth to observe it and interact with it, but far enough away from Earth to be reasonably secure from native counterattack. Plus, it is as rich in resources as any other space rock in the star system, so it's as good a place as any to build your initial beachhead base.

It would make sense if it was done solely for the purpose of observing humans, but otherwise Mars seems like a more logical location. Mars was actually used for this purpose in Mass Effect. Though in the case it was largely because it had to be somewhere where humanity would have failed to notice it until the time period of the game. A prothean base on the moon would have been obvious as soon as it was photographed properly.

That is the prudent response, but unless there's evidence that they're spreading rapidly, one last attempt to contact them might seem to be in order.

It just seems to me that if they are destroying probes, why would you then send people to presumably die? If they are destroying your probes sending humans seems like throwing good after bad. And if you are worried about starting an interstellar war that humanity would almost certainly lose, the best approach would be simply doing nothing and leaving them there. Sending people might also be seen as hostile.

I also agree that the bag on camera idea is a fantastic approach. It would be a good way to explain why humans seem like a reasonable approach as they have given no indication of actually being hostile.

[Darkrah]

I have been updating my idea from the launch point of: there are aliens on the moon and we want to go visit them, so several of the ideas that I had in the beginning of this conversation, like them destroying probes are now off of the table. This is a chance for me to hear people's ideas for what works and what doesn't as the author of the story which this is a discussion of.

[Edit]
Also the aliens are there because something of theirs got put there by mistake. They didn't even realize that we existed until they got close enough to see our signals.

[bilateralrope]

Have this happen the FIRST time a probe-bot enters the base.

Subsequently, the base has security that intercepts or disables all probe-bots before they can even get inside. Because the alien chief of security is like "oh Zarquod, one more intrusion and I get fired" and actually takes some steps.

Intercepting the probes can be as simple as digging a ditch in font of it that it can't cross. While the probe is in the bag, the aliens poke at it to figure out the limits of its suspension, which would send back some unusual telemetry to Earth. When the bag is pulled off the first probe, there is a ditch between it and the alien base for quite some distance. A ditch that is just deep enough that it's obvious that the probe can't cross it. As the probe travels along trying to get to the end of the ditch, it can see an alien bulldozer drive up and lengthen the ditch. A bulldozer that can dig the ditch faster than the probe can move.

Edit: The aliens aren't keeping the probe out because they don't want humans knowing what's happening. It's being kept out because having something moving around in their excavation site that they can't control is a safety risk in the same way a child wandering around a construction site is a problem.

At which point the humans have five choices:
- Leave the aliens alone.
- Send a second probe. Which they expect will run into the same ditch. Making it a more expensive version of option 1.
- Try to land the second probe closer to the alien base. Which might look hostile and/or harm the aliens by mistake. Not something anyone sane wants to do when the military capabilities of the aliens are mostly unknown.
- Try to design a robot that could cross the ditch. Which would be difficult and there is no guarantee that the aliens won't find some other way to stop it. For example, digging a deeper ditch.
- Send humans, who could easily get past the ditch by jumping. We are talking lunar gravity here.

The first option is right out as humans want to know what is happening. Options 2, 3 and 4 have obvious problems. Which leaves option 5.

But since this is a story from humanities perspective, all those options will be discussed. As will a discussion about what, if any, weapons the humans take with them.

Also, my wife loves the idea that aliens with advanced force field technology would stoop to foil our probe with a paper bag.

Glad to see that people like it.

[Simon_Jester]

Simon_Jester:

I hear your suggestion that I break my ideas up into smaller paragraphs. I suck at doing that, which is why I'm not going to be posting anything from the actual story on the forums, I need more than thirty minutes to make something even this long perfect and don't feel like putting my horrible work up here until I have the time to do such a thing. It feels to me like it would take less time than that just to get it published. As an example of why I make such bad posts in general I have actually spent well over thirty minutes on this post alone.

Practice makes perfect.

The whole point of my saying that the aliens could just wipe us out, is that for the past couple of days almost everyone that has replied to this post has been clamoring for me to have humanity nuke the aliens.

Not me. Not a bunch of other people.

LOTS of people will understand and approve of the idea that you don't just automatically shoot first and ask questions later, when dealing with a totally unknown and alien power whose capabilities you do not have precise information on. Especially when you are pretty sure that those capabilities are greater than yours.

So you can simply have in-story characters talk about this. Some General Ripper clone will say "we should just nuke them," everyone looks at him like he's nuts. Someone points out that who the hell knows what the aliens are capable of, and that starting a war with them would be a great shame just because they happen to have sabotaged a couple of space probes.

And the manned mission proceeds anyway.

2. I like your idea that they physically come and move the probe in spacesuits, these aliens are there on a rescue mission and weren't expecting any intelligent life forms on Earth much less ones that would try and get in contact with them. I like your idea about them putting a bag on the camera, I think it would be funny if it was an alien chip bag or something like that.

Agreed.

Also, the "chip bag" idea helps establish that the aliens aren't actually trying to destroy our stuff and aren't really enemies. They don't tolerate intrusion into their base, but if they're not gratuitously breaking probes, and are even going so far as to manhandle them away from their base with a potato chip bag over the camera. That suggests that they WOULD totally be open to negotiations.

The moon lets you build a base that is close enough to Earth to observe it and interact with it, but far enough away from Earth to be reasonably secure from native counterattack. Plus, it is as rich in resources as any other space rock in the star system, so it's as good a place as any to build your initial beachhead base.

It would make sense if it was done solely for the purpose of observing humans, but otherwise Mars seems like a more logical location. Mars was actually used for this purpose in Mass Effect. Though in the case it was largely because it had to be somewhere where humanity would have failed to notice it until the time period of the game. A prothean base on the moon would have been obvious as soon as it was photographed properly.

It was later revealed that the aliens DO have a specific reason for landing on the moon; that's where the ship they're trying to salvage is. Why the ship went there, we don't know.

That said, for desirability, the Moon and Mars are more or less tied as good real estate. Mars has more resources and more terraforming potential, but the Moon has a shallower gravity well.

Also, its 'climate' conditions are those of the ever-popular Generic Space Rock, and any alien from any star system will already know a lot about engineering for Generic Space Rock conditions. Whereas designing habitats for Mars (or Earth) would be considerably more difficult

That is the prudent response, but unless there's evidence that they're spreading rapidly, one last attempt to contact them might seem to be in order.

It just seems to me that if they are destroying probes, why would you then send people to presumably die? If they are destroying your probes sending humans seems like throwing good after bad. And if you are worried about starting an interstellar war that humanity would almost certainly lose, the best approach would be simply doing nothing and leaving them there. Sending people might also be seen as hostile.

The previous idea was that the aliens destroyed probes, but had already in some way acknowledged and NOT attacked a manned spacecraft in Earth (or lunar) orbit.

So there was some evidence that they might respond to human astronauts while being disrespectful of probes.

[Darkrah]

That is true that it wasn't everyone, you(Simon_Jester) and some others didn't suggest simply nuking them but it was repeated so often that it pissed me off anyway. Also thanks for all of the help, stardestroyer.net forums people my ideas work much better when I discuss them.

[Skylon]

A lot of stuff was referenced to using US hardware, and I did see a couple posts referencing the Soyuz, which would probably be in the best position since it was targeted for use around the Moon. Indeed, Soyuz spacecraft (minus the orbital module) were launched unmanned on circum-lunar flights to varying degrees of success, with a Proton rocket. However, it would require a lot of work to get back to that capability: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-L1

The Proton rocket is still in use. The Soyuz since it relies on solar panels should be able to handle the trip, although there are next to zero hygienic facilities in the Soyuz crew module (they are all kept in the orbital module, which is jettisoned right before re-entry). Also, the Soyuz-Zond flights were only fly-around's of the Moon and could not get into lunar orbit. So, the fuel to do so, and get out of lunar orbit, is the first big hurdle.

The second is getting it home. The heat-shield would need to be beefed-up to survive a high-speed lunar re-entry. Also, Soyuz-Zond had its share of screw-ups that led to it NOT beating Apollo to lunar orbit. One was a pressure loss during re-entry that would have killed a crew (I am confident the modern Soyuz wouldn't have such a problem), plus re-entries tended to pull extremely high-G's that would have killed or injured a human crew - I think only one Soyuz-Zond managed to fly the correct entry profile. But again, modern computing would probably handle this better.

[Simon_Jester]

Thing is, you'd have to design a new Zond module from scratch, plus a lunar lander, so this wouldn't necessarily gain you much.

[Korto]

I've been trying to come up with a reason for the manned mission to be a necessity and have decided that humanity tries sending probes up but the aliens simply scrap them and use the raw materials for construction. They might also be stealing satellites out of orbit but are ignoring anything that has living inhabitants which will be why the humans feel it is safe to send people up maybe I haven't decided yet. So the aliens are thieves as well as ignoring radio waves or other attempts at communications.

If the aliens are doing that, then I'm not sure we'd want to be sending manned spacecraft to them (as you're now making them out to be actively hostile.) In that case, it might be more prudent to figure out how to target the Moon with live nuclear warheads. That, or strap thrusters to old V8 blocks, and start pitching those at the alien base ...

Well if the aliens are hostile, there's really no reason for us to send manned spacecraft. As others have pointed out, attacking the alien outpost with nukes or Chevys would be a better idea. If you want an excuse to send humans, then don't make the aliens hostile. Why not remove them from the immediate equation entirely? Have the Lunar Orbiter discover evidence of an underground complex of some kind. If it's big enough, only humans walking around would be able to adequately map the place.

Actively hostile? They destroy a few unmanned probes and possibly satellites, while not touching anything manned, so we respond with nuclear missiles? Bloody hell, over-react much?

We actually don't know if that was meant to be hostile, or what their meaning was. Perhaps it disturbed their alien feng shui. What we DO know is that they out-tech us massively. They came from a completely different solar system then ours (unless we've been spectacularly unobservant for the last few hundred years), and set up a manned base on the moon. We haven't done that yet, and it's our fucking moon!
I suspect handling a few nuclear missiles could be well within their capabilities, particularly considering the time they'll have to see them coming.
How capable will we be to handle their possible response?
Are these really people we want to piss off possibly unnecessarily?
Perhaps a manned mission to say "Hey, hi! Can we talk?" might not be so stupid after all.

[Borgholio]

Actively hostile? They destroy a few unmanned probes and possibly satellites, while not touching anything manned, so we respond with nuclear missiles? Bloody hell, over-react much?

We actually don't know if that was meant to be hostile, or what their meaning was.

Exactly. "I" would not consider that to be actively hostile. Definitely worth investigating but it's not like they land on Earth and start kidnapping people or burning down cities. I would not want to attack them until I knew for certain they had it in for us.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Actively hostile? They destroy a few unmanned probes and possibly satellites, while not touching anything manned, so we respond with nuclear missiles? Bloody hell, over-react much?

As far as I could tell, the aliens in this scenario haven't touched anything manned because Earth doesn't have anything manned in the area ... hence the whole "get to the Moon in an emergency" OP of the thread. An unmanned probe originating from the planet the moon orbits is clearly artificial in nature and was probably intended as a means of investigation or communication. Especially since said planet is constantly blasting radio waves at you. It would be exceptionally difficult to confuse it for a natural object. Especially after you've gone out of your way to blow up the first couple of them sent in your direction.

In that scenario, from the perspective of us humans on Earth, we can't be certain a manned mission won't be obliterated in the same way. The risk is extremely high, given the incredible expense and risk we'd be assuming just getting the Moon mission off the ground. The sensible thing to do would be to continue to try to get their attention via unmanned methods.

I suspect handling a few nuclear missiles could be well within their capabilities, particularly considering the time they'll have to see them coming.

We don't have to land the first nuclear warhead, or kinetic impactor, right on top of the alien base. Somewhere relatively nearby will do (within a couple hundred kilometers ... it has to be close enough that they'll know we can aim at them, but not so close as to accidentally damage their surface assets,) and would send the message that we have some ability to object to their presence and would really appreciate it if they returned our calls.

Besides, if they shoot down the first impactor (even if it's intentionally off by a couple hundred kilometers,) that gives us further intelligence on their capabilities and intentions.

[Simon_Jester]

Actively hostile? They destroy a few unmanned probes and possibly satellites, while not touching anything manned, so we respond with nuclear missiles? Bloody hell, over-react much?

As far as I could tell, the aliens in this scenario haven't touched anything manned because Earth doesn't have anything manned in the area ... hence the whole "get to the Moon in an emergency" OP of the thread. An unmanned probe originating from the planet the moon orbits is clearly artificial in nature and was probably intended as a means of investigation or communication. Especially since said planet is constantly blasting radio waves at you. It would be exceptionally difficult to confuse it for a natural object. Especially after you've gone out of your way to blow up the first couple of them sent in your direction.

In that scenario, from the perspective of us humans on Earth, we can't be certain a manned mission won't be obliterated in the same way. The risk is extremely high, given the incredible expense and risk we'd be assuming just getting the Moon mission off the ground. The sensible thing to do would be to continue to try to get their attention via unmanned methods.

Arguably yes.

But if there is some other evidence indicating a manned mission would be treated differently, then it would make sense to consider a manned mission as an alternative to provoking a war we're likely to lose.

It approaches certainty that the number of deaths in a war with hostile interstellar aliens would be so large that the deaths of a couple of envoys in the opening round of the war would look like nothing.

And the original scenario was predicated on the idea that there WAS in-story reason to think a manned mission would be treated with some respect whereas unmanned missions just got blown up.

I suspect handling a few nuclear missiles could be well within their capabilities, particularly considering the time they'll have to see them coming.

We don't have to land the first nuclear warhead, or kinetic impactor, right on top of the alien base. Somewhere relatively nearby will do (within a couple hundred kilometers ... it has to be close enough that they'll know we can aim at them, but not so close as to accidentally damage their surface assets,) and would send the message that we have some ability to object to their presence and would really appreciate it if they returned our calls.

The biggest problem with that approach is that how the aliens respond to a threat display is very unpredictable. Depending on how they evolved to think, what success strategies work best among their own species, what philosophies they have about what threat displays will look like among other species...

They might respond to a warning shot as we hope they will. Or they might respond to it as a normal attack that failed attempt at a preemptive strike and launch a 'retaliation.' Or they might respond with a threat display of their own that might cause considerable collateral damage on Earth. Or they might respond in some other way that is totally unpredictable to humans. Who knows?

Besides, if they shoot down the first impactor (even if it's intentionally off by a couple hundred kilometers,) that gives us further intelligence on their capabilities and intentions.

To wit: they are able to defend themselves.

Which we already knew, more or less- nobody would waste time scrapping probes and satellites near them unless they were also willing to handle actual weapons coming their way. And it beggars the imagination that they would lack the means to handle incoming weapons fire.

[Borgholio]

The biggest problem with that approach is that how the aliens respond to a threat display is very unpredictable. Depending on how they evolved to think, what success strategies work best among their own species, what philosophies they have about what threat displays will look like among other species...

I immediately thought of Battleship, when the Navy fires a warning shot across the bow of one of the alien ships. We consider that to be a serious warning but not a deliberate attack. The aliens obviously thought otherwise.

[madd0ct0r]

the probe drives into the base. A recumbent form suddenly flows into action, fitting something over the probe. Telemetry indicates the probe being moved in an irregular manner to the outskirts of the base.

After the bag is removed, the probe is ordered to drive back to the base. This time, before even entering it, a strange form flows up, picks up the probe and places it facing the opposite direction. After repeated attempts, the form turns the probe onto its back, wheel spinning in the air.

An envelope is placed in front of the camera, propped up by a rock.

[jwl]

If the aliens are hostile then blast them, if not, then the simplest solution would be rovers until we can safely build a ship that can take a couple of astronauts over to the moon. No point really to throw oneself to get there until it is safe to meet them.

How about if there are aliens which want to form some kind of deal, but only in person and in "neutral territory" on a celestial body other than earth? Diverges from the OP, I know, but that would be reason enough to go there.

[Borgholio]

How about if there are aliens which want to form some kind of deal, but only in person and in "neutral territory" on a celestial body other than earth? Diverges from the OP, I know, but that would be reason enough to go there.

Interesting idea. Imagine that they actually do their homework before they arrive and watch our movies / read our sci-fi novels. They know in our fiction, we are terrified of aliens landing on Earth and would likely respond violently. So they set up shop on the Moon, where they're safer than landing outside the White House or whatever, but close enough to actually communicate once we calm down a bit.

[Caiaphas]

Why are we even sending probes as a first option? Why not start by sending signals to them?

I figure that given how expensive it'd be to send a rocket to the Moon, we would start with a transmitted message that clearly embodies some fundamental constant of the universe, like, pi or something. THEN, if transmissions fail, we'd send a rover to investigate.

EDIT: reconsidering the OP's conditions, I think that I should clarify that I still think it'd be a viable option for the following reason. Their lack of communication to us might just be a result of them not thinking us to be technologically advanced or intelligent enough to bother with; after all, the gulf in technology between us at present and the kind of tech needed to traverse interstellar distances is on the scale of us and chimpanzees. Therefore, sending an initial message might be a way of saying, "Hi, we are capable of understanding what you're talking about."

[Simon_Jester]

Sending them a radio message proves that we are capable of being talked to, not that we are worth being talked to.

I mean, if a bunch of oil workers or something set up shop in the middle of a remote wilderness area, and the local Stone Age tribesmen start trying laboriously to contact via smoke signals...

...The oil workers know that the locals are sentient. But they're there to fulfill a practical mission. They have better things to do than waste time trying to communicate with people who have nothing of value to offer them. As long as the locals don't pose a threat, the oil workers will probably ignore them.

In a similar way, while we would almost certainly send transmissions to an alien base on the moon, it is very possible that our transmissions might be ignored, if the aliens didn't specifically come here intending to contact us.

[Replicant]

Why land there?

Aliens travel an absurd distance and pick a completely boring rock (ie our Moon) to start a mining operation? The odds of them randomly picking a place that just happens to be orbiting a populated planet is so absurdly low that you might as well assume they are hostile.

That being the case you ramp up military like mad and debate sending remote probes to try and communicate while at the same time aiming a whole lot of really big nukes a them with the intent to obliterate them if they twitch wrong.

[bilateralrope]

We don't know what their military capabilities are. All we know is what we can guess from what they have demonstrated, which is still pretty scary, and they only sent a mining team. Not a warship. We don't know how many warships they have. As assumption that we would lose any war is reasonable.

If they aren't hostile, sending nukes is a good way to say that you are hostile. But you have no way to guarantee that you can get the nukes close enough because you don't know what, if any, capability they have to shoot your nukes down. If you do wipe them out, what do you think the rest of their species will do when the first ship fails to return home ?

All nukes are guaranteed to do is make them realise that we are hostile. A really stupid idea.

As to why a manned mission is needed:
- You don't want them mistaking a probe for an attack. So you want to land the probe far enough away from the aliens that you don't damage them by mistake.
- They are doing serious excavation work, they probably have the capability to dig a ditch that the probe can't cross.
So how do you plan on crossing that ditch ?

[Simon_Jester]

Right.

The point of the situation here is that by their actions, the aliens make it clear that they are non-hostile. Or at least non-destructive, which amounts to the same thing. But at the same time, they show unwillingness to communicate via long range radio or by doing charades in front of a remote-controlled rover or whatever.

Since they're too important to ignore, we send a human or three to at least try to communicate with them properly.

Everyone saying "they don't talk to our probes, so they're hostile, KILL KILL KILL" is entirely missing the point in a very risky way. There are many reasons to argue that even a large risk of losing a small team of astronaut/envoys is much better than even a tiny risk of getting into a "it's them or us" war with a bunch of aliens that have unknown technological capabilities.