"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message

"Jon S. Berndt" wrote in

Don't know if this has been discussed before, but I noticed some time
ago that the LSAM will be discarded after it performs its duties. What
are some thoughts on a less wasteful approach:

1) An LSAM that travels between lunar orbit and lunar surface in one
piece (reusable),

Depends on the lunar orbit. Low lunar orbit is not stable enough for
long-term storage due to lunar mascons. It could probably be made to work
if in-space propellant resupply were economical enough. Otherwise, Earth-
Moon L1 is probably better, and can double as a jumping-off point for
planetary missions as well.

I started the train of thought when I contemplated just leaving the LSAM
ascent stage in orbit at the end of a lunar stay. Why crash it into the
surface? Leave it in a "parking" orbit. I thought it might be conceivable
that there could be an extended use for it down the road. The next step from
there is to have some kind of bus that it could attach to ... some kind of
station-keeping device. Maybe with solar panels. The possibilities from that
point a

1) Since there is an ascent stage in lunar orbit, only need to send descent
stage and fuel from earth.
2) There may be some robustness issues for the ascent stage, so don't try to
use it again, but instead keep it attached to the bus (and also any future
ascent stages) as the beginnings of a space station in lunar orbit. It might
simply be an additional place to store stuff, or a possible safe haven. I
can think of a number of potential uses.

The point is, don't intentionally destroy stuff. Sell it. Use it. Whatever.

The related, larger, question I have is, is it better to build a few
vehicles that are single purpose, or a single vehicle for a few purposes?
The latter approach gave us the shuttle.

Jon