Thinking about a 'new' Apollo 8

I've been thinking about the odd history of Apollo 8 and what it
actually represented in terms of breaking earth orbit and testing many
of the systems that were needed later. It was psychologically and
technically very important.

So...what do people think about a precursor manned CEV mission to orbit
the moon in a low *polar* orbit. The 'service module' could be loaded
with a bunch of sensors to survey for polar ice etc and in general all
the mapping that unmanned orbiters could do would be undertaken (cancel
them and save the cash) but the mission would also test the CEV
architecture and human crew in a lunar environment for a reasonable
length of time (2 weeks?).

The mission would actually prove that the VSE can break orbit, and it
would do useful work, unlike a cheaper, easier Zond-like loop around the
moon. It could even deploy small sub satellites or drop penetrators. Oh,
and here's the nub - it wouldn't require the heavy lifter, or the lunar
lander, just 2 sticks or 1 stick and and 1 EELV and one earth orbital
docking. And it could be done years before (2015-16?) any all up landing
could be attempted considering the timelines that are being thrown
around atm that suggest no landing until 2020 at the earliest.

Any comments? Is this mission possible (I'm thinking about that plane
change to get into polar orbit and back, is that going to be a show
stopper?) and useful, and when I mean possible I mean
politically/psychologically as much as technically.

P

"Phil Bagust" wrote in message
news
I've been thinking about the odd history of Apollo 8 and what it
actually represented in terms of breaking earth orbit and testing many
of the systems that were needed later. It was psychologically and
technically very important.

So...what do people think about a precursor manned CEV mission to orbit
the moon in a low *polar* orbit. The 'service module' could be loaded
with a bunch of sensors to survey for polar ice etc and in general all
the mapping that unmanned orbiters could do would be undertaken (cancel
them and save the cash) but the mission would also test the CEV
architecture and human crew in a lunar environment for a reasonable
length of time (2 weeks?).

The mission would actually prove that the VSE can break orbit, and it
would do useful work, unlike a cheaper, easier Zond-like loop around the
moon. It could even deploy small sub satellites or drop penetrators. Oh,
and here's the nub - it wouldn't require the heavy lifter, or the lunar
lander, just 2 sticks or 1 stick and and 1 EELV and one earth orbital
docking. And it could be done years before (2015-16?) any all up landing
could be attempted considering the timelines that are being thrown
around atm that suggest no landing until 2020 at the earliest.

Any comments? Is this mission possible (I'm thinking about that plane
change to get into polar orbit and back, is that going to be a show
stopper?) and useful, and when I mean possible I mean
politically/psychologically as much as technically.

P

Interesting proposal. American Experience (PBS) program Race to the Moon
was aired on October 31st -- the story of Apollo 8. Written and Directed by
Kevin Michael Kertscher
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/moon/index.html

Technical Consultants
Andrew Chaikin
Mike Gentry
Roger Launius
Alan Anders, for animation

Note that the Bill Anders Foundation was one of several sponsors to help
underwrite this special. The Apollo 8 crew was just in Chicago 2 weeks ago
(the CM capsule is at the Museum of Science and Industry here).

Gallery of nine Apollo 8 photos
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/moon/gallery/index.html

Let me "add" an item to this mission (or related missions)

Why not land small robotic explorers (e.g. Spirit, Opportunity) on the moon
at selected sites (Apollo back-up sites or still deemed to too dangerous for
human exploration). IF this level of technology existed in 1967/1968 - it
is not unrealistic to consider that this may have been one method of landing
site determination for Apollo -- in addition or instead of Ranger and
Surveyor.

gb

"Phil Bagust" wrote in message
news
I've been thinking about the odd history of Apollo 8 and what it
actually represented in terms of breaking earth orbit and testing many
of the systems that were needed later. It was psychologically and
technically very important.

So...what do people think about a precursor manned CEV mission to orbit
the moon in a low *polar* orbit. The 'service module' could be loaded
with a bunch of sensors to survey for polar ice etc and in general all
the mapping that unmanned orbiters could do would be undertaken (cancel
them and save the cash) but the mission would also test the CEV
architecture and human crew in a lunar environment for a reasonable
length of time (2 weeks?).

The mission would actually prove that the VSE can break orbit, and it
would do useful work, unlike a cheaper, easier Zond-like loop around the
moon. It could even deploy small sub satellites or drop penetrators. Oh,
and here's the nub - it wouldn't require the heavy lifter, or the lunar
lander, just 2 sticks or 1 stick and 1 EELV and one earth orbital
docking. And it could be done years before (2015-16?) any all up landing
could be attempted considering the timelines that are being thrown
around atm that suggest no landing until 2020 at the earliest.

Any comments? Is this mission possible (I'm thinking about that plane
change to get into polar orbit and back, is that going to be a show
stopper?) and useful, and when I mean possible I mean
politically/psychologically as much as technically.

P

Interesting proposal. American Experience (PBS) program Race to the Moon
was aired on October 31st -- the story of Apollo 8. Written and Directed by
Kevin Michael Kertscher
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/moon/index.html

Technical Consultants
Andrew Chaikin
Mike Gentry
Roger Launius
Alan Anders, for animation

Note that the Bill Anders Foundation was one of several sponsors to help
underwrite this special. The Apollo 8 crew was just in Chicago 2 weeks ago
(the CM capsule is at the Museum of Science and Industry here).

Gallery of nine Apollo 8 photos
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/moon/gallery/index.html

Let me "add" an item to this mission (or related missions)

Why not land small robotic explorers (e.g. Spirit, Opportunity) on the moon
at selected sites (Apollo back-up sites or still deemed to too dangerous for
human exploration). IF this level of technology existed in 1967/1968 - it
is not unrealistic to consider that this may have been one method of landing
site determination for Apollo -- in addition or instead of Ranger and
Surveyor.

gb

Phil Bagust wrote:
I've been thinking about the odd history of Apollo 8 and what it
actually represented in terms of breaking earth orbit and testing many
of the systems that were needed later. It was psychologically and
technically very important.

So...what do people think about a precursor manned CEV mission to orbit
the moon in a low *polar* orbit. The 'service module' could be loaded
with a bunch of sensors to survey for polar ice etc and in general all
the mapping that unmanned orbiters could do would be undertaken (cancel
them and save the cash) but the mission would also test the CEV
architecture and human crew in a lunar environment for a reasonable
length of time (2 weeks?).

The mission would actually prove that the VSE can break orbit, and it
would do useful work, unlike a cheaper, easier Zond-like loop around the
moon. It could even deploy small sub satellites or drop penetrators. Oh,
and here's the nub - it wouldn't require the heavy lifter, or the lunar
lander, just 2 sticks or 1 stick and and 1 EELV and one earth orbital
docking. And it could be done years before (2015-16?) any all up landing
could be attempted considering the timelines that are being thrown
around atm that suggest no landing until 2020 at the earliest.

Any comments? Is this mission possible (I'm thinking about that plane
change to get into polar orbit and back, is that going to be a show
stopper?) and useful, and when I mean possible I mean
politically/psychologically as much as technically.

One question would be whether or not such a mission could usefully
test hardware for subsequent heavy-lift missions. Would it be possible

to test the Earth Departure Stage this way, for example, or would EDS
be too heavy to be launched by Stick? Is CEV going to be designed to
do the lunar orbit insertion, or is the lunar lander descent stage
going to do that burn? If so,could this stage be tested in a
Stick-based
circumlunar flight?

The initial mission planning, shown in the following link, doesn't
show any Stick-based circumlar missions.
"http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/nas.esas.23.l.jpg"

- Ed Kyle

In article ,
gb wrote:
Why not land small robotic explorers (e.g. Spirit, Opportunity) on the moon
at selected sites (Apollo back-up sites or still deemed to too dangerous for
human exploration)...

There is one technical snag: it's hard for a small rover to survive the
lunar night, unless it is at least partly nuclear-powered. The MERs
charge batteries to keep their electronics warm overnight, but batteries
good for the much longer lunar night are very heavy. Note that Mars
Pathfinder died a few days after its short-working-life battery expired.
And the temperature swings on the lunar surface are, if anything, worse
than those on Mars.

That said, it's not a bad idea, especially for places like Tycho where
manned landings are iffy. It's just harder than it looks.

IF this level of technology existed in 1967/1968 - it
is not unrealistic to consider that this may have been one method of landing
site determination for Apollo -- in addition or instead of Ranger and
Surveyor.

In practice, Ranger and Surveyor were used more for general reporting on
lunar-surface conditions than for surveying specific landing sites. The
only Apollo landing to go to a Ranger/Surveyor site was Apollo 12, which
went to Surveyor 3 specifically as an unambiguous demonstration of
precision landing. The only unmanned precursors specifically used for
scouting landing sites were the Lunar Orbiters.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article ,
Phil Bagust wrote:
...The 'service module' could be loaded
with a bunch of sensors to survey for polar ice etc and in general all
the mapping that unmanned orbiters could do would be undertaken (cancel
them and save the cash)...

A large chunk of that cash goes to instrument development, actually, so
you don't save as much as you might think. And not all of the desirable
instruments are compatible with each other, or with a manned platform.
(Farside gravity mapping, in particular, really needs to be done from
something that doesn't outgas or fire RCS jets very much.)

That said, although it's not as attractive as you might first think, it
does have its points. But politically it might be hard to sell.

and here's the nub - it wouldn't require the heavy lifter, or the lunar
lander, just 2 sticks or 1 stick and and 1 EELV and one earth orbital
docking.

This isn't necessarily an advantage. It's quite conceivable that two
launches of White Cane (aka stick) will cost more than one launch of the
White Elephant. And in any case, the overwhelming majority of the cost of
such things is in the development and in the salaries of the operations
crew, neither of which goes down if you lower the launch rate.

And it could be done years before (2015-16?) any all up landing
could be attempted considering the timelines that are being thrown
around atm that suggest no landing until 2020 at the earliest.

One question is, how much will it delay the landing or increase its cost?
There *will* be extra money involved, because you're flying a new
configuration only tenuously related to the one needed for the landing.
(One big lesson from the post-fire reviews of Apollo was that far too much
effort had been going into dead-end configurations aimed at single test
flights, and henceforth all tests should use the final lunar-landing
hardware configuration, or the closest possible approximation to it.)

This is especially pertinent because the reasons for the prolonged
schedule are financial and political, not technical.

...Is this mission possible (I'm thinking about that plane change to get
into polar orbit and back, is that going to be a show stopper?)...

The plane change to get into lunar polar orbit is essentially made at
extremely high (lunar) altitude -- it's a detail of the Earth-Moon
trajectory, accomplished during the TLI burn -- and so it costs
essentially nothing. Likewise for return... *if* you are willing to wait
for a return window, which comes once every two weeks (when, roughly
speaking, Earth passes through the orbital plane). If you want to be able
to return any time, that's a bit more costly, although not a lot if you're
willing to accept a day or two of delay. If you want to be able to return
promptly at any time, that gets quite a bit more costly.

and useful...

There's quite a bit that could usefully be done from lunar orbit... but a
fair bit of that will have been accomplished (although possibly not by the
US) by the time such a mission could be flown, and some of it really wants
a longer stay time.

and when I mean possible I mean
politically/psychologically as much as technically.

I think it would run into the same problem that proposals to do manned
Mars-orbit missions run into: however useful it might be as a precursor,
people balk at going that far and not landing. (And the Mars-orbit
mission has advantages that this one lacks.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

In practice, Ranger and Surveyor were used more for general reporting on
lunar-surface conditions than for surveying specific landing sites. The
only Apollo landing to go to a Ranger/Surveyor site was Apollo 12, which
went to Surveyor 3 specifically as an unambiguous demonstration of
precision landing.

I thought they went to it to find out what condition it was in and
to bring back some parts for analysis on Earth.

On Mon, 7 Nov 2005 16:29:55 -0600, Mary Pegg wrote
(in article ):

Henry Spencer wrote:

In practice, Ranger and Surveyor were used more for general reporting on
lunar-surface conditions than for surveying specific landing sites. The
only Apollo landing to go to a Ranger/Surveyor site was Apollo 12, which
went to Surveyor 3 specifically as an unambiguous demonstration of
precision landing.

I thought they went to it to find out what condition it was in and
to bring back some parts for analysis on Earth.

Ranger and Surveyor were not sample-return missions. Ranger was a
crash-lander and Surveyor was to develop and test soft-landing
technology.

--
"Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever." ~Anonymous
"I believe as little as possible and know as much as I can."
~Todd Stuart Phillips
www.angryherb.net

Henry Spencer wrote:
The
only Apollo landing to go to a Ranger/Surveyor site was Apollo 12, which
went to Surveyor 3 specifically as an unambiguous demonstration of
precision landing. The only unmanned precursors specifically used for
scouting landing sites were the Lunar Orbiters.
--


While it's brought up, Henry, was there any particular reason for the
selection of Surveyor 3 to be revisited? I can see the difficulty of
landing at Tycho (Surveyor 7), and that the crash sites of S2 & S4
being rather imprecisly known, but why wasn't Surveyor 5, for instance,
not the one picked?

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
gb wrote:
Why not land small robotic explorers (e.g. Spirit, Opportunity) on the
moon
at selected sites (Apollo back-up sites or still deemed to too dangerous
for
human exploration)...

There is one technical snag: it's hard for a small rover to survive the
lunar night, unless it is at least partly nuclear-powered. The MERs
charge batteries to keep their electronics warm overnight, but batteries
good for the much longer lunar night are very heavy. Note that Mars
Pathfinder died a few days after its short-working-life battery expired.
And the temperature swings on the lunar surface are, if anything, worse
than those on Mars.

That said, it's not a bad idea, especially for places like Tycho where
manned landings are iffy. It's just harder than it looks.

My thought was you could have the landers as part of the test stack sent to
lunar orbit (or circum-lunar).

I did consider the thermal cycling on the Moon, but if this program is just
a rehash of Apollo without sufficient new challenges - that are
achievable -- what's the point?

Tycho was one of the possible targets I was thinking about.

IF this level of technology existed in 1967/1968 - it
is not unrealistic to consider that this may have been one method of
landing
site determination for Apollo -- in addition or instead of Ranger and
Surveyor.

In practice, Ranger and Surveyor were used more for general reporting on
lunar-surface conditions than for surveying specific landing sites. The
only Apollo landing to go to a Ranger/Surveyor site was Apollo 12, which
went to Surveyor 3 specifically as an unambiguous demonstration of
precision landing. The only unmanned precursors specifically used for
scouting landing sites were the Lunar Orbiters.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |