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ISS in "Moon" role?



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 12th 04, 09:58 PM
Peter Altschuler
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?

Could the ISS be used as a go-between for future moon missions? I heard that
the inclination of the station makes this impossible. Is this true? If so,
could the ISS be moved to a more favorable inclination? Could the ISS be
used at all in helping future lunar, Martian, or asteroid missions?

Would such missions require a new space station in more of an equatorial
orbit? If you could map out "stepping" points to get from LEO to the moon,
what would they be? Would it be wise to build small space stations at each
of these points?

Considering the enormous cost of ISS, I have a feeling that building new
space stations would be prohibitively expensive. But if we recycle some of
the designs of ISS, costs could be decreased. If we use nuclear energy
rather than solar, that could save even more money. If we send it up with
less, but larger pieces, that too could save money. If we use ion
propulsion, that could help as well.


  #2  
Old January 12th 04, 11:25 PM
jeff findley
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?

"Peter Altschuler" writes:

Could the ISS be used as a go-between for future moon missions? I heard that
the inclination of the station makes this impossible. Is this true? If so,
could the ISS be moved to a more favorable inclination? Could the ISS be
used at all in helping future lunar, Martian, or asteroid missions?


In general, it's at a bad inclination for most launch sites (except
the one that Russia uses). If future moon missions will use Russian
launches, hopefully they'll be launching from French Guiana. You can
Google for "Russian launch site French Guiana" and find stories
related to this topic.

Would such missions require a new space station in more of an equatorial
orbit?


How about launch to the lowest inclination possible from KSC (without a
performance hit). That's something like 28.5 degrees.

If you could map out "stepping" points to get from LEO to the moon,
what would they be? Would it be wise to build small space stations at each
of these points?


I'd think the only one you'd need would be in LEO. Lunar orbits are
generally not stable over time, so you might not want to stop there.
Above low Earth orbit, you've got the Van Allen Radiation belts to
deal with (not a good place to stay).

Considering the enormous cost of ISS, I have a feeling that building new
space stations would be prohibitively expensive. But if we recycle some of
the designs of ISS, costs could be decreased. If we use nuclear energy
rather than solar, that could save even more money. If we send it up with
less, but larger pieces, that too could save money. If we use ion
propulsion, that could help as well.


Or you do as Rand suggested and move ISS to 28.5 degrees over time
using an ion engine, or other high efficiency engine. This could take
years, but may end up being cheaper than building something new.

On the other hand, a new station could be tailored to what is really
needed in LEO in order to support a lunar base.

Jeff
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  #3  
Old January 13th 04, 04:07 AM
Jorge R. Frank
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?

jeff findley wrote in
:

"Peter Altschuler" writes:

Could the ISS be used as a go-between for future moon missions? I
heard that the inclination of the station makes this impossible. Is
this true? If so, could the ISS be moved to a more favorable
inclination? Could the ISS be used at all in helping future lunar,
Martian, or asteroid missions?


In general, it's at a bad inclination for most launch sites (except
the one that Russia uses). If future moon missions will use Russian
launches, hopefully they'll be launching from French Guiana. You can
Google for "Russian launch site French Guiana" and find stories
related to this topic.


The trick is, the Soyuz pad at Guiana needs to support the Soyuz
*spacecraft*, too. That means facilities for handling the spacecraft,
loading the hypergolics, and pad ingress/egress for the crew. AFAIK,
there's no plans for that; the current plan is for the Soyuz satellite
launcher only.

Considering the enormous cost of ISS, I have a feeling that building
new space stations would be prohibitively expensive. But if we
recycle some of the designs of ISS, costs could be decreased. If we
use nuclear energy rather than solar, that could save even more
money. If we send it up with less, but larger pieces, that too could
save money. If we use ion propulsion, that could help as well.


Or you do as Rand suggested and move ISS to 28.5 degrees over time
using an ion engine, or other high efficiency engine. This could take
years, but may end up being cheaper than building something new.


And you can't even *start* doing it until the Soyuz pad at Kourou is ready
for manned launches, so that delays ISS arrival time at 28.5 by a few more
years.

On the other hand, a new station could be tailored to what is really
needed in LEO in order to support a lunar base.


Agreed.


--
JRF

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check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.
  #4  
Old January 13th 04, 04:44 AM
John Doe
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?

Considering the enormous cost of ISS, I have a feeling that building new
space stations would be prohibitively expensive.


Considering that all the R&D has been done, tooling exists to build the tin
cans, software/specs exists for all the inter module communication and
systems, would building a clone of ISS really cost that much ?
  #5  
Old January 13th 04, 01:57 PM
Hallerb
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?


Considering that all the R&D has been done, tooling exists to build the tin
cans, software/specs exists for all the inter module communication and
systems, would building a clone of ISS really cost that much ?


Better to start over with transhab.
  #6  
Old January 13th 04, 03:55 PM
Kleekamp
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?

At 2 points in the ISS's orbit, opposite each other, the velocity vector is in
the ecliptic plane. So, even at this 51 degree inclination, each orbit allows 2
launch windows to the Moon provided the Moon is close to the end of the patched
conic from that launch point.
  #7  
Old January 13th 04, 04:40 PM
Hallerb
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?


At 2 points in the ISS's orbit, opposite each other, the velocity vector is
in
the ecliptic plane. So, even at this 51 degree inclination, each orbit allows
2
launch windows to the Moon provided the Moon is close to th


why take the launch weight hit to only park something at ISS temporarily. The
station was NOT designed to assist in any add one progrms that was all cut toi
save $4
  #8  
Old January 13th 04, 11:37 PM
John Doe
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?

Hallerb wrote:
why take the launch weight hit to only park something at ISS temporarily. The
station was NOT designed to assist in any add one progrms that was all cut toi
save $4


While the launch weight is a factor, it is wrong to state that the station
isn't designed to assist in the building of a vehicle.

A large part of the station's design effort was in fact to help build itself.
That is why you have nodes, CBM hatches, a mobile arm that can position
itself in many areas of the station, russian Strela boom, airlock, mobile
transporter etc.

And just like FGB provided early orbit-keeping and comms to allow the USA to
deploy Unity, and just like Zvezda has been providing life support until the
US segment has its completed ECLSS systems, the ISS could provide the early
platform to assemble the mars ship and provide it with attitude control,
ECLSS, emergency escape pods, arm to assemble stuff, comms etc until the mars
ship is complete enough to be automomous.

This becomes more important if you ditch the shuttle and you use automated
rockets to send modules up. It becomes an egg or chicken issue: the arm or the
module ? Who is going to attach the modules that arrive by automated rockets ?

Right now, NASA has APAS and CBM hatch designs. Automated dockings would
require development of a Kurs system attached to the APAS hatches, but would
restrict movement of cargo and systems especially during the ship's outfitting.

If you build the mars ship at 28°, it will probably means that you'll need 2
launches for every module. The module itself, and then a manned rocket to
supervise the docking/berthing and connections, at least until the ship is big
enough to support permanent manned presence. So the argument that building
that ship at a lower inclination would save on number of launches may be moot
once the shuttle has been removed from the equation.

The other advantage of building the mars ship from the ISS is that you will
need a single supply line to keep both the ISS and mars ship running during
construction. And you get to use the Russian Progress/Soyuz as backup should
something fail either with the US launchers, or on the station.

Note that the USA has yet to build a complete , reliable, ECLSS system on the
ISS. It really needs to build the hab, the water portion of ECLSS, toilet and
complete the air portion and make damned sure they run reliably before they
can think of building a mars ship with those systems.

CDRA may look perfect on the ground, but would trust your life for one full
year with only CDRA technology on the ship, especially if you have no clue on
how many spare parts you will need during that period ?
  #10  
Old January 14th 04, 12:53 PM
Bjørn Ove Isaksen
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Default ISS in "Moon" role?

Explorer8939 wrote:
How many times a month does that happen?


As the article stated, 2 times per orbit. A full orbit is about 90 min.
Month of 30 days assumed:
30 days * 24 hour/day * 60 min/hour / 90 min/revolution * 2 times.

=21600 times.
 




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