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

Expensive and hard may lead to an abandoned project.

Better abandoned and half done right than a completed remake of
something done nearly forty years ago. All flags 'n footprints will
do is lead to temporary chest puffing, and leaving actually *worse*
off than we are now.


Better to have an abandoned project where we've accomplished something, than an
abandoned project were we've accomplished nothing. I'm not proposing that we
redo Apollo. The original idea of Apollo was to build one vehicle that can land
on the Moon and return to Earth. This would have required an enormous rocket if
the fuel was to be Hydrogen and Oxygen, to cut costs, the command Module was
introduced and a smaller lander that separated leaving the CM behind with an
astronaut onboard, this is a waste of resources. All three astronauts should
have been on the Lunar surface! I think we should go back to the original idea,
since were not in a race, we can take time to develop nuclear rockets. Nuclear
rockets are of environmental concern only on Earth, so the first vehicle we
develop is an enourmous chemical booster like the bottom stages of the Saturn V
rocket, this vehicle lifts a 110 ton payload to low Earth orbit. this 110 ton
payload is a single vehicle that can then land on the Moon from low Earth Orbit
and return to Earth, it has a dual use rocket that can function as both a
nuclear rocket and a chemical rocket, it is powered by both a nuclear reactor
during most of its mission and by fuel cells during its return to Earth. The
nuke is disposed of after take-off from the Moon. The Nuke can also be used to
power a Moonbase during the night. Perhaps being plugged into the base for 6
months at a time, and then replaced by then next lander from the next mission.
There is no nuclear waste disposal problem since the waste leaves with each
lander and is ejected into space.

Tom

For the past 20 years, the US has had a system that was essentially
a system of launching a temporary space station that had about 2 weeks
endurance. We'd launch one of these every few months, recover it, then
launch another. Don't see where it markedly made a difference in terms
of permament manned presense in orbit over another system that just
ferried crew to a long term station.


Yes, except in this case we'd be doing missions on the Moon rather than just
orbiting the Earth. I'd like lunar missions to be as common now as Shuttle
missions were before the Columbia disaster, this would be progress. The ISS
would then provide the permanent presence in space and we would then expand
upon than. We could build a Moon base that is powered by each nuclear powered
lander that arrives with each mission. Perhaps solar power would supplement
this, but this is available only during the Lunar day. A permanent nuclear
reactor sited at the base is a bad idea in my opinion, mainly because we'd then
have to worry about disposal on nuclear waste. If the reactors are temporary
and brought in and out with each lander, we don't have this problem. The waste
is ejected into space before the lander returns to Earth.

Tom

I was 2 years old when the first landed men on the Moon. I'm now 36, and I'm
all out of patience for doing it the "slow and sure" way.

I see. You want your entertainment like you want your pizza, in half
an hour or it's free.

I believe progress should follow our first lunar mission in 30 years not be a
prerequisite for it. We know how to get to the Moon; we should not get so
bogged down in trying to do something new and better that we never get to the
Moon. I believe 10 years is a reasonable timeframe to get this accomplished. We
should have time to improve upon Apollo, but we should not let these
improvements become the primary focus of the first mission. The most important
thing is to get back to the Moon and reestablish our presence there.

Tom

NASA's human spaceflight program has concentrated on low
earth orbit for so long and many of the leading brains of the Apollo-era
are
gone.

We've devolved since then, you mean?


No, but it's quite likely that the said brains, or the next generation
thereof are now in the IT sector, and won't be enticed back to space until
they can be paid equivelant salaries. Or consulting rates for that matter.

..spade.

Rand Simberg wrote:

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.

And cost effective means less dollars spent. I hope you have a accurate bill
for some hypothetical vehicle. Right down to the last penny. Rand, do you
know the element risk in new designs?

Of course we could do without heavy lift capasity, it would just mean a lot
more integration in space. Would'nt that reduce both risk, complexity?

Sincerely
Bjørn Ove

Mike Rhino wrote:
"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?

What I'm thinking is - there is one unmanned heavy lift (Saturn V class,
possible Shuttle C/Z/Magnum) to throw a well equipped station to a
cycling orbit (difficulties in adjusting the orbital parameters on every
orbit to ensure that it goes past the Moon every time are hereby airily
handwaved away :-) )


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.



The benefits (as I see them) are that:
1. The cycler can have more radiation shielding - a couple of trips to
the Moon and back may be acceptable for astronauts, but if traffic gets
heavy, and any given astronaut goes frequently, minimizing the radiation
exposure over the career could be good.

2. The 'motorcycle', which carries out the TLI from the ISS (admittedly
very costly when the plane change is factored in) or the Shuttle bay,
could have a very low dry mass if it is structured like a LM ascent
stage (but without the life support and cabin - astronauts use EVA suits
when using it).

3. With the cycler and lunar station in place, we have a standing
infrastructure - maybe easier to convince various Administrations to
keep going (I know, I'm optimistic there :-) )

4. Anything for resupplying (fuel, consumables, replacement parts) can
be launched on unmanned lifters with less capacity to LEO, and use any
clever perturbation orbits or ion-drives to get to the required orbit
(Lunar transfer or lunar orbit, depending on which station you need to
resupply).

5. Any given lunar mission then becomes use of consumables, launching
consumables on unmanned lifters, and sending 2 or 3 astronauts up on a
Shuttle that is doing another mission.

6. Astronauts can go to the toilet properly and have a decent shower en
route to the Moon :-)

--
Andy Cooke

On 08 Dec 2003 16:02:48 GMT, (TKalbfus) wrote:

Saturn V was neither cheap nor easy. What it offered was the only
realistic chance of achieving Kennedy's deadline, and only then if
NASA adopted the high-risk "all up testing" process and LOR.


Cheap and Easy compared to what? There were alot of things that were harder
than sending people to the Moon. You seem to think that there is a cheap and
easy way to get to the Moon, well if your so smart then by all means go to the
Moon, but you have yet to prove your case. the burden of proof is on you. The
only proven way to get to the Moon is the way we got to the Moon.

Tom

What the devil are you talking about?

Brian

On 8 Dec 2003 14:50:17 GMT, in a place far, far away, Andrew Gray
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

In article , Rand Simberg 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.

Who would have paid for them?

No one who actually wanted to build a space station could afford it.

He did stipulate "intrinsically inexpensive"... which presumably means
it might be closer to affordable.

"closer" != close.

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 22:05:25 +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:

Rand Simberg wrote:

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.

And cost effective means less dollars spent.

No, cost effective means more value for the dollars spent.

I hope you have a accurate bill
for some hypothetical vehicle. Right down to the last penny. Rand, do you
know the element risk in new designs?

Yes.

Of course we could do without heavy lift capasity, it would just mean a lot
more integration in space. Would'nt that reduce both risk, complexity?

There are different kinds of risk, but if we don't learn to operate in
space, then we're wasting our time. We did it the wrong way forty
years ago, because beating the Russians to the moon was more important
than putting useful infrastructure into place. We shouldn't repeat
the mistake a second time.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...

Aerobraking from a lunar return trajectory to LEO is not significantly
less
stressful than direct reentry to the ground. So just do that, and skip the
needless complexities of a retrieval shuttle.


works for me, thank you sir

--
Terrell Miller


People do not over-react. They react, by definition, appropriately to the
meaning a situation has for them. People have "over-meanings," not
"over-reactions."
- Martin L. Kutscher