Back to the Moon on what? Saturn V, Magnum, Ares launcher, Shuttle Z

In article ,
Charles Buckley wrote:

Mike Rhino wrote:
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...

(TKalbfus) wrote:


So what will it be. Do we build new Saturn Vs, Magnum rockets, Ares

launchers,

or Shuttle Zs?

Why not start from first principles and determine if LOR, EOR, or
something else entirely is the most logical methodology for the
planned mission, available resources, and probable constraints?


That's what this newsgroup is for. Stopping halfway involves overhead and
we would need big boosters to put something at the halfway point.


We went with the S-V last time because it was cheap and easy, not
because it made sense.


Doesn't cheap and easy make sense?



Back in 1962, there were essentially no viable launchers for payload
of the sizes we needed, even for EOR.

Wasn't Von Braun already developing the Saturn line by that stage?

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

In article ,
(TKalbfus) wrote:

*The* lander? Are we doing Apollo again?

The Lander flies from Low Earth Orbit, not Lunar Orbit, to the Moon's
surface and back. The heavy launcher merely lifts the nuclear lunar
lander to Low Earth Orbit. The lander itself can go the rest of the
journey. Chemical rockets should only be used to deliver it to
low Earth Orbit and no further.

In other words what you envisage would be a combination of Apollo's CSM
plus LM in the one vehicle (with I guess The Lander's equivalent of the
SM engine uprated to give The Lander the necessary boost out of Earth
orbit which the Saturn third stage gave Apollo).

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

In article ,
(Derek Lyons) wrote:

(TKalbfus) wrote:

The ISS is an example of the opposite of the Apollo program.

LOL. If the situation were so simply black and white, you'd have a
point. But it isn't. There is nothing intrinsically expensive or
difficult about building a station with the capabilities of ISS.
(These things are relative of course.) Tie it however to a
questionable booster design, partners of variable quality, tie it down
with bureaucracy, and rescope it a dozen times...

On the other hand, if building a station "with the capabilities of ISS"
was intrinsically INexpensive (relatively speaking) one might reasonably
expect half a dozen to now be sitting either in Earth orbit or at least
on the drawing boards for launch in the not-too-distance future.

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

"Andy Cooke" wrote in message
...
TKalbfus wrote:
So what will it be. Do we build new Saturn Vs, Magnum rockets, Ares
launchers,
or Shuttle Zs?

I've seen one concept mooted in the past (by Buzz Aldrin, I believe) for
Mars missions - a permanent station in a "cycler" orbit between Earth's
and Mars's orbits. Could this concept be applicable to a Moon landing?

Possibly. The idea is more useful for Mars than the moon. I see a Martian
ship as being huge. It makes sense to leave Earth on a small ship, switch
to a bigger ship and then switch to a small lander. It only takes 3 days to
reach the moon. Anything that can survive 3 days in LEO can survive the 3
day journey to the moon. If your design requirements are not different for
the two ships, then there may be no point in switching. Any ship travelling
with a cycler has already expended enough rocket fuel to reach the cycler's
destination.

If there is a lot of traffic between the Earth and the moon, then it makes
sense for ships heading down to swap momentum with ships heading up. That
can be done with tethers.

"Charles Buckley" wrote in message
...
Mike Rhino wrote:
"Charles Buckley" wrote in message
...

A launcher in the 25,000kg payload to LEO and then design
around Earth Orbit Rendevous.

This is what I am talking about. a launcher system in the 25,000kg
range for the Earth surface to LEO. Then, a second vehicle to transport
from LEO to the Moon and back.


You could dock with the ship in LEO or lunar orbit. Is there some
reason
for preferring LEO? It means hauling lunar landing gear back and forth,
unless you plan to have a third ship.


Well, reasons for preferring LEO:

1) Allows for an infrastructure buildup that is leveragable into other
mission architectures, such as to asteriods and Mars.

2) LEO itself is a destination point with discernable cashflow
potential.

3) LEO assembly, as opposed to direct-throw, has the potential to be
scalable to higher payload.

4) Lunar orbit is inherently unstable.

I was envisioning something that would use lunar rocket fuel to take off
from the moon when needed, dock with another ship and then return to the
moon. It wouldn't stay in lunar orbit. If lunar rocket fuel is highly
efficient, then it could fly all the way to LEO. If not, then lunar orbit
may be the best we can do. For rocket fuel from Earth, I would prefer to
launch that with the ship that is going to the moon.

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 13:08:04 +1100, in a place far, far away, Stephen
Souter made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
(Derek Lyons) wrote:

(TKalbfus) wrote:

The ISS is an example of the opposite of the Apollo program.

LOL. If the situation were so simply black and white, you'd have a
point. But it isn't. There is nothing intrinsically expensive or
difficult about building a station with the capabilities of ISS.
(These things are relative of course.) Tie it however to a
questionable booster design, partners of variable quality, tie it down
with bureaucracy, and rescope it a dozen times...

On the other hand, if building a station "with the capabilities of ISS"
was intrinsically INexpensive (relatively speaking) one might reasonably
expect half a dozen to now be sitting either in Earth orbit or at least
on the drawing boards for launch in the not-too-distance future.

Who would have paid for them?

No one who actually wanted to build a space station could afford it.
The government wanted to have a space station program, but whether or
not a space station ever actually got built was secondary, as long as
jobs were created/preserved, and we had lots of international
cooperation.

TKalbfus wrote:

*The* lander? Are we doing Apollo again?


The Lander flies from Low Earth Orbit, not Lunar Orbit, to the Moon's surface
and back. The heavy launcher merely lifts the nuclear lunar lander to Low Earth
Orbit. The lander itself can go the rest of the journey. Chemical rockets
should only be used to deliver it to low Earth Orbit and no further.

It just seems like people are talking about doing Apollo again. When we
go back to the Moon, it should be to stay. That is a completely
different mission profile from that of Apollo and requires different
systems. Leveraging our new abilities to automate systems could allow us
to send many supply landings to the Moon base before any people were
sent.



--
"Throw me that lipstick, darling, I wanna redo my stigmata."
+-Jennifer Saunders, "Absolutely Fabulous"

So what will it be. Do we build new Saturn Vs, Magnum rockets, Ares
launchers, or Shuttle Zs?

This seemt to be the hot topic at this time so I'll give it a try myself
(waiting to get flamed).

Develop a Shuttle-C variant. This is propably the shortest route to heavy
lift vehicle. Perhaps not the cheapest, but has the advantage of using
known technology and infrastructure.

Build a refuelable (nuclear or solar powered) space tug that is capable of
lifting something out of the radiation belts in a reasonable time and do a
LOI for its cargo. This will require substantional development of
autonomeus docking (and eg. Xenon refueling).

Make a decent(/accent) vehicle with a standart interface to cargo. Make it
an option to develop a reuseable version (LO docking to cargo and fuel).

Develop a cycler for the human transportation. Make it have a backup reentry
capsule attached and as a standard aproach use the older one for Earth
reenty. The accent vehicle carrying the people (and decent capsule) from
Earth to the cycler should be made as simple as possible and a docking
failure must be tolerated (or avoided).

The lunar landing part consists of detaching a lunar lander (or lunar
orbiter) and braking into orbit and landing (or from orbit use the Lunar
Lander infrastructure).

The short version: Make it an infrastructure. Standardbased, simple (?) and
reusable (where fitting).

Sincerely
Bjørn Ove

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 05:32:08 +0100, in a place far, far away, Bjørn
Ove Isaksen made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

So what will it be. Do we build new Saturn Vs, Magnum rockets, Ares
launchers, or Shuttle Zs?

This seemt to be the hot topic at this time so I'll give it a try myself
(waiting to get flamed).

Develop a Shuttle-C variant. This is propably the shortest route to heavy
lift vehicle. Perhaps not the cheapest, but has the advantage of using
known technology and infrastructure.

The premises are false. We shouldn't seek the shortest route, we
should seek the most cost-effective one. And it's not at all obvious
that heavy lift vehicles are desirable, let alone necessary.

Stephen Souter wrote:

On the other hand, if building a station "with the capabilities of ISS"
was intrinsically INexpensive (relatively speaking) one might reasonably
expect half a dozen to now be sitting either in Earth orbit or at least
on the drawing boards for launch in the not-too-distance future.

If there was a commercial need for them, or a clear-cut goverment need
for them, *and* a decent launcher, *and* a non-dysfunctional
organization in charge, yes.

However, exactly none of these conditions apply.

D.
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