(Henry Spencer) writes:

In article ,
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
...If it had been necessary, and cost was no object, what would
be the earliest time that a lunar landing would have been possible. I
argue that the Germans could have done it with their 1940s technology.

Ultimately I think it comes down to, "how much brute force and money are you
willing to throw at the problem?"

Quite so. I can't immediately think of any technological issues that
couldn't be finessed by just throwing mass at the problems.

The other technical issue is that people are only so smart, just as steel
is only so strong, and propellants have only so much energy. The fastest
you can get any big technical project done is by taking the smartest
people you have and give them all the resources they can use. Apollo
had this combination, and still took about 8 years. So if you start
with 1940s technolgy, and even if cost is no object, it would presumably
be at least 1950 before you could have a moon landing.

Below, Henry provides 2 examples of things that were not known, or not
forseen, even by smart folks. These will require workarounds and re-designs,
and that one of the things that will limit even a "cost is no object"
schedule.

The one area where von Braun's original concepts might have hit a serious
technological snag would be the extensive reliance on orbital assembly
work done in spacesuits. 40s and 50s concepts were (in hindsight) grossly
over-optimistic about both working in free fall and getting adequate suit
flexibility. It wasn't until the mid-60s that we really understood how
big a headache this all was. The discovery of this might have required
replanning around either modular concepts or development of much larger
launchers to minimize dependence on orbital assembly.

(Well, and there would have been the small matter of his favored assembly
orbit -- the "two-hour orbit" -- being right in the middle of the inner
Van Allen belt...)

Lou Scheffer