On Jul/18/2020 at 10:35, David Spain wrote :
Robert Zubrin proposes using a modified crew Dragon and two SpaceX
launches (F9 and FH) with a rendezvous and dock in LEO with the Falcon
Heavy upper stage in order to do a crewed lunar flyby or a lunar orbital
mission this year.

The goal is to keep space alive in the public's imagination in order to
prolong the political will to do Artemis post-election regardless of the
winner.

OTOH it is hard to see, unlike with Apollo 8 and in the absence of any
follow-on hardware, where this is anything more than a publicity stunt.
In lieu of actually being able to land crew on the moon, in fact, having
to wait years more to accomplish this, might not reflect well on
Artemis. Compared to the Apollo Program. Which did exactly that 6 months
later.

There is also (always) the element of risk to be factored. In pressing
ahead to do this quickly.

We are at this strange stage in crewed space however. With some
acceptance of risk (and not that much more than that we faced with
Apollo) we actually have now IN HAND the ability to access cis-lunar
space with very little additional hardware or difficulty.

Its strange to be in a place where we no longer have to ask how only why?

Dave

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3980/1

Personally, I don't see the point. I'm waiting for Starship and New
Armstrong to fly. Once those rockets are flying (at least one of them),
making plans for Lunar missions will be much easier. If those rockets
work as expected, it seems to me that someone somewhere will obviously
decide to plan a mission, if not to the moon, then to Mars, probably both.


Alain Fournier