On 6 Aug 2005 04:14:16 -0700, "Alex Terrell"
wrote:

Cardman wrote:
It seems possible that they could go into orbit around the Earth and
to drop if off. That way they could reuse it, but that depends on
maintenance.

After it's burned up in the atmosphere? Actually, it would be left in
lunar orbit. Could be retrievable, but unlikely.

It sounds workable. It would be a shame to throw away such expensive
hardware, when it would only need a servicing.

Could be. My way, one luanch puts down a 10 ton hab module. The next
two launches put up a lunar orbiting CEV, and a ten ton pallet
consisitng of a 3 ton ascender stage and 7 tons of supplies and
provisions. That would enable a stay of several months.

Sounds nice.

To begin with though they won't bother with a hab module at all. Just
a usual land, look around, and depart. NASA I guess is unlikely to
think "base" until 2020. That is if they land on the Moon in 2018 as
planned.

Yes. A base should be established as soon as possible,

Yes, we know that don't we. NASA instead prefers to build up slowly.

I would much prefer to have the base all up and running even before
the first astronaut steps foot on there. They could have a rover do
some required assembly.

And the one thing that NASA won't grasp or do in a million years is to
actually keep people there to live and work. Construction seems like
the first priority. Communication, electricity, water (hopefully) and
to pave over the entire area to keep that pesky regolith out.

though they
might need a bit of exploration to establish the optimum site. Most of
this exploration should be robotic though.

Yes, where the first step is to find the water. A base on or near the
so called peak of eternal sunlight would be good. Although I hear that
NASA is planning on nuclear instead of solar.

No this is not a one shot mission. Whether you want to visit a place
once, or establish a base, the logic of taking off from the moon as
light as possible remains. i.e, don't take your house with you. Also,
when you visit a potential future base, it makes sense to leave behind
your hab module.

NASA certainly won't have more than two bases. These extra bases would
also need to be filled. So a main base and then a second base should
they find somewhere that they want to spend a lot of time at.

The Lunar Lander can be used as a back-up should the CEV break down.

Not really. The lunar lander would be stuck in lunar orbit till the
crew die. With my approach the crew would of course only leave the
lunar surface if the CEV reports all systems OK.

You overlook about what happens if the CEV breaks down only when it is
on it's journey. That is a lot more likely than something happening
while in orbit.

The crew of Apollo 13 would have died had they rode on your system,
which is my point. You need to send two entire craft that can keep
astronauts alive just in case one fails.

Ultimately of course,
a CEV arrives, drops a crew off and picks up another crew at the same
time. They just need to remember to leave the doors unlocked, or at
least hand over the "keys".

It could well be a long time before NASA does that.

You would also have to keep a backup plan in case your hab module
fails. One base, two hab modules.

Cardman.