NASA begins moon return effort

Exclusive: NASA begins moon return effort


By Frank Sietzen
United Press International


Washington, DC, Jul. 29 (UPI) -- Part 1 of 2


Editor's Note: Planners in NASA's Exploration Directorate recently
gave United Press International an exclusive briefing on the steps
they envision to fulfill President Bush's new vision for space
exploration. These steps include designing the vehicle to fly back to
the moon as well as the new fleet of atomic-powered spacecraft that
may open up astronaut visits to deeper in space. In Part 1, NASA
explains the different approach it is researching to achieve the first
human visits to the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. When
American astronauts make their return, some of their missions will
resemble the old Apollo voyages and some will be far more advanced.

--

WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) -- Inside NASA, planners have begun to
assemble teams that are looking deep inside President George W. Bush's
new vision of space exploration. Their goal: define the
characteristics of the first new piloted spaceship since the space
shuttle, and establish the initial steps and stages by which these new
craft will attempt a series of moon landings.

Inside NASA's Exploration Mission Directorate, a requirements group is
busily working to put substance into the new assault on the moon.

What are NASA's requirements for the new moonship? According to Mike
Lembeck, who heads the requirements group, they compose a soup-to-nuts
catalog of everything moonwalking astronauts will need on their
initial forays: How big will the ships be? How many astronauts will
they carry? How will their launching rockets get them there? When they
get to the moon, what will be the profiles of their explorations, and
what science will they seek?

Soon, the planners will call upon industry to start designing the
ships.

"We hope to get an RFP (request for proposal) out by January on the
CEV (crew exploration vehicle), and have a fly-off of two teams in
2008," Lembeck said.

The fly-off, a staple of contracting for military aircraft, will be
new to NASA's manned space efforts.

Lembeck described a process by which the space agency will choose a
pair of teams, each with a complete design for the CEV, its booster
rocket, and the method by which it would achieve Earth orbit and
become part of a manned moon flotilla.

Each contractor-led team would include subcontractors that would
provide the moonbound astronauts with equipment, life support, rocket
thrusters and onboard navigation systems. The Earth orbit fly-offs
would pit one complete design against another, with NASA choosing the
winner, who would build the final ships.

Reusability is likely to be a valuable component, but initially not
essential, Lembeck said. Rather, it is what makes the most sense in
designing the 21st century lunar craft.

Lembeck's group released an initial study request last month to begin
gathering issues and potential needs for the spaceships, clearing the
path so the actual contract request in January can be more focused.
They want the moon version of the CEV to contain systems that can be
evolved to sustain deeper trips into space, such as voyages to
asteroids or manned flights to Mars.

Right now, however, the shape of the craft is not a main priority.

"We aren't focused on the mouldline," Lembeck said, only what needs to
be inside. Current thinking, he said, is the lunar CEV might be sized
for four astronauts -- the Mars ship for six.

"We are thinking in terms of two-person teams for EVAs," he explained.
EVAs, or spacewalks, would be designed around a minimum of two
astronauts outside at a time. Studies will also determine by the end
of this year if the CEV and the lunar lander will be separate
spacecraft, or if they can be combined into a single ship. The current
thinking by mission planners is attempting a single lunar landing per
year, starting no later than 2020, but perhaps as early as 2017.

Lembeck said NASA is planning to have the fly-off winner design the
CEV ships in a series of "spirals," or complete packages of spacecraft
systems and subsystems:

-- Spiral one would comprise the early CEV capable of carrying crews
into orbit for testing flights.

-- Spiral two would consist of true moonships, able to stay on the
moon from a few days to a week.

-- Spiral three would be the most capable ships, which could extend
human presence on the moon up to three months, basically establishing
an initial lunar base.

NASA planners currently are focusing on a three-part plan to return to
the moon that they call trade studies.

During Project Apollo in the 1960s and '70s, astronauts flew into
Earth orbit aboard a giant Saturn V rocket carrying an Apollo command
ship and a separate landing craft. The top stage of the rocket blasted
the lunar duo to the moon, where the lander detached from the capsule
mothership and descended to the surface, remaining there for up to
nearly three days.

The first return flights under the new plan would strongly resemble
the most advanced Apollo missions.

"These first missions would follow a minimalist approach," Lembeck
said. They might employ separate transfer and landing systems,
carrying the spaceship elements together until moon orbit, as did
Apollo, then detaching for landing at relatively safe locations along
the moon's equator. Astronauts would then stay on the surface for up
to a week's duration.

The second wave of flights would be more complex. The elements for the
flight actually might be assembled at the L-1 point -- the Lagrange
point, about 930,000 miles up, at which the gravitational influences
of the Earth and the moon cancel each other out.

Following assembly at L-1, the craft then would embark toward the
moon, following a flight path that would cover virtually all of the
moon's regions and allowing landings in more scientifically
interesting, but more potentially hazardous, locales. Stay times would
also average as long as a week.

The third wave would consist of the most ambitious missions currently
being considered. These would require the most capable CEVs and
landers, with their components assembled either in low Earth orbit or
at L-1. The ships would land at the moon's poles, establish base
camps, and stay 45 days and longer. These outposts then would become
the first U.S. lunar bases.

Lembeck noted that astronauts on these later missions would bring
equipment and tools that would be needed on a Mars outpost, making the
first moon bases the testing grounds for the Mars assault.

While planners already are addressing CEV and moon-mission designs, a
team of researchers at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt,
Md., is completing an initial review of the scientific objectives of
the landings. For the return to Earth, the directorate is studying
various types of configurations, including a rocket-assisted setdown
on land, like the Russians use on their Soyuz capsules. Another option
involves descending directly to Earth from moon orbit, as did the
Apollo astronauts. The teams are studying the moonship's launching
rockets as well.

Lembeck said these reviews include the size of the boosters, the
methods by which the astronauts could escape a launching accident, and
whether an engine loss could be sustained and still allow the flight
to continue.

The planners also are reviewing the entire suite of space equipment,
including new designs for spacesuits, habitats that could be built on
the surface, what crews would need to construct them and the kinds of
robots they would need to accompany them on their traverses across the
moon's rocky terrain.

For longer journeys into space, however, future astronauts will need a
whole new kind of rocket power -- and the means to generate power as
well.

--

Next: NASA's new atomic rocket

--

Frank Sietzen covers aerospace for UPI Science News. E-mail

A truly looney idea.

There was only one reason for the Apollo mission: to beat the Russians.
Well, we beat 'em already.

Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing it.
Something we already did thirty years ago. A grand idea, fun to talk
about-- until the time comes to pay for it. It'll never get funded.

"curlyQlink" wrote:

Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing it.

Agreed. So the proper thing to do is consider *imaginable* costs.
People do spend serious money on things "just for the sake of doing it",
you know.

"Alan Anderson" wrote

"curlyQlink" wrote:

Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing
it.

Agreed. So the proper thing to do is consider *imaginable* costs.
People do spend serious money on things "just for the sake of doing it",
you know.

You beat me to it: "Imaginable costs". For many, many reasons involving more
than "just doing it", though. There are good reasons to do it that involve
international competitiveness. There are growing commercial reasons to do
so.

Jon

On Sun, 01 Aug 2004 17:07:25 GMT, "curlyQlink"
wrote:

Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing it.

False assumption. Returning to the moon won't cost "unimaginable" sums
of money. It can be done spending roughly the same amount of money
that the US has spent on Space Station, over roughly the same period
of time.

Something we already did thirty years ago.

We did a Space Station thirty years ago, too. That didn't stop
Congress from funding a new one.

Brian

In article et,
"curlyQlink" wrote:

Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing it.

Right. Fortunately, that's not what's proposed here.

Something we already did thirty years ago.

Agreed again. And again, not relevant to the proposed development of
the Moon.

A grand idea, fun to talk
about-- until the time comes to pay for it. It'll never get funded.

This may or may not be true, in the short term. (In the long term, it
doesn't much matter, as industry will step in soon and do it if the
governments don't.)

Best,
- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

Joe Strout wrote in message ...
In article et,
"curlyQlink" wrote:

Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing it.

Right. Fortunately, that's not what's proposed here.

Something we already did thirty years ago.

Agreed again. And again, not relevant to the proposed development of
the Moon.

A grand idea, fun to talk
about-- until the time comes to pay for it. It'll never get funded.

This may or may not be true, in the short term. (In the long term, it
doesn't much matter, as industry will step in soon and do it if the
governments don't.)

Best,
- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

How do you see this happening, what steps will industry take in,
say, the next fifty years?

curlyQlink ) wrote:
: A truly looney idea.

: There was only one reason for the Apollo mission: to beat the Russians.
: Well, we beat 'em already.

: Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
: unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing it.
: Something we already did thirty years ago. A grand idea, fun to talk
: about-- until the time comes to pay for it. It'll never get funded.


Why not an unmanned Lunar probe complete with rover like what is on Mars
and do a soil sample return? It is the logical follow on to the next Mars
mission.

Eric

Jon Berndt ) wrote:
: "Alan Anderson" wrote

: "curlyQlink" wrote:
:
: Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
: unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing
: it.
:
: Agreed. So the proper thing to do is consider *imaginable* costs.
: People do spend serious money on things "just for the sake of doing it",
: you know.

: You beat me to it: "Imaginable costs". For many, many reasons involving more
: than "just doing it", though. There are good reasons to do it that involve
: international competitiveness. There are growing commercial reasons to do
: so.

Such as?


: Jon

(Eric Chomko) wrote in message ...
curlyQlink ) wrote:
: A truly looney idea.

: There was only one reason for the Apollo mission: to beat the Russians.
: Well, we beat 'em already.

: Let's face it, there is no popular or political support for spending
: unimaginable sums of money to do something just for the sake of doing it.
: Something we already did thirty years ago. A grand idea, fun to talk
: about-- until the time comes to pay for it. It'll never get funded.


Why not an unmanned Lunar probe complete with rover like what is on Mars
and do a soil sample return? It is the logical follow on to the next Mars
mission.

Eric

Unfortunatly new lunar samples won't yield new science. The 842
pounds returned by the Apollo landings are ancient and bland. That
they are unique may be their saving virtue.
If it costs $10000/lb to LEO, it would probably be ten times that
for sample returns from the moon, once a system is installed. If NASA
were to auction off a few grams, it might inspire a commertial
venture.
The asent stage of Apollo 15 crashed within sixty miles of the
landing site. This mission found the oldest rocks, 4.2B years old. A
rover trip between sites, to recover lunar samples and pieces from the
crash, might be a media headliner and increase the perceived value of
torn, pitted, gold-mylar. The nostalgic remains of the baby boomer's
shared adventure.
Along the way, craters and boulders could be named for the highest
bidder, written in moondust by the sample arm.
At $1000/gm, it might take tons to saturate the market.
Just dreaming.

Stephen