New plans not too dissimilar to SEI?

Come to think of it, this new plan of Bush's reminds me quite a bit of his
fathers SEI - the Space Exploration Initiative from 1989.

The most prominent difference is that the manned spacecraft bound for Mars
are no longer to be assembled in LEO, but on the surface of the Moon. Which
makes even less sense to me than the SEI did. This way, any hardware or
people headed for Mars must first land on the Moon, and then take off again,
making everything more expensive and complicated.

As I see it, this is not the way to do things, if you want to go to Mars.
But maybe Bush doesn't want to go to Mars?

It looks as if this new plan has one primary objective: the establishment of
a new ISS on the Moon. Sending people to Mars is something that *might* come
later, and if it does, it *must* involve the Moon base one way or another,
even though it looks crazy from an engineering point of view.

But what do you think?

--
Steen Eiler Jørgensen
"Time has resumed its shape. All is as it was before.
Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway."

"Steen Eiler Jørgensen" wrote in
:

Come to think of it, this new plan of Bush's reminds me quite a bit of
his fathers SEI - the Space Exploration Initiative from 1989.

But what do you think?

The funding profile differs greatly - SEI would have doubled the NASA
budget while sustaining current programs, while the current proposal is
financed mainly out of the existing budget.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 13:12:18 +0100, "Steen Eiler Jørgensen"
wrote:

Come to think of it, this new plan of Bush's reminds me quite a bit of his
fathers SEI - the Space Exploration Initiative from 1989.

The most prominent difference is that the manned spacecraft bound for Mars
are no longer to be assembled in LEO, but on the surface of the Moon. Which
makes even less sense to me than the SEI did.

Some people just have short term insights...

This way, any hardware or
people headed for Mars must first land on the Moon, and then take off again,
making everything more expensive and complicated.

Someone miss the point of a Moon Base? As the Moon is a destination
itself you know, when there is lots of cool stuff there, even if Mars
is much better.

Also NASA will have a lot of things to learn about a Mars mission
first, where the Moon is the ideal place to obtain that knowledge.

Before human conquest of Mars (Mars's life be damned), then the Luna
conquest must come first.

As I see it, this is not the way to do things, if you want to go to Mars.
But maybe Bush doesn't want to go to Mars?

Now you have it. Moon first, Mars is second.

It looks as if this new plan has one primary objective: the establishment of
a new ISS on the Moon.

And one day following an ISS on Mars as well. The good news here at
least is that these worst case scenario ISSs' won't fall out of orbit,
where these resource can be used by better people (like the Chinese)
later on.

So it is all good, where the key here is for NASA to not screw up and
build another ISS in the first place.

Sending people to Mars is something that *might* come
later,

You can rest assured that it will come one day, unless the whole space
exploration idea is abandoned.

I can tell that you are a Mars supporter, where I would recommend that
all Mars supports also support a Luna base. After all when that
objective has been completed, then unless NASA has made a total mess
of it, then Mars will certainly be their next key objective.

and if it does, it *must* involve the Moon base one way or another,
even though it looks crazy from an engineering point of view.

It does not look crazy to me, if you actually think of the Moon as a
viable destination first.

Sure the President was all on about building spacecraft on the Moon,
where we will have to see if that idea comes about. The resources for
doing so are certainly available (the Moon is not a ball of useless
dust), which makes this idea possible.

What I would most like to see, long before any Mars craft come about,
is for them to simply build a road on the Moon.

But what do you think?

Mars is like 2030 to 2040 time frame, where 2014 to 2030 is all about
our Moon Base.

So lets blast off and kill all the Lunar natives! ;-]

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 13:12:18 +0100, "Steen Eiler Jørgensen"
wrote:

.... the manned spacecraft bound for Mars
are no longer to be assembled in LEO, but on the surface of the Moon. Which
makes even less sense to me than the SEI did. This way, any hardware or
people headed for Mars must first land on the Moon, and then take off again,
making everything more expensive and complicated.


On the other hand, after assembly and checkout on the Moon, you get to
start your mission farther out of the Earth's gravity welll than you
would be if you assembled in LEO. Fuel savings, anybody?

Michael Gallagher wrote:

On the other hand, after assembly and checkout on the Moon, you get to
start your mission farther out of the Earth's gravity welll than you
would be if you assembled in LEO. Fuel savings, anybody?

But the mission started on Earth. Everything that's been assembled on the
Moon was first launched from the Earth. All personnel and hardware behind
the checkout on the Moon has been launched from the Earth at one, earlier,
time. So where's the total fuel saving?

I'm not a total opponent of a lunar base, but don't we agree, that it takes
more delta-v to go from the surface of the Earth to LEO to lunar orbit to
the surface of the Moon to lunar orbit to a heliocentric transfer orbit to
Mars, than it takes to go from the surface of the Earth to LEO to a
heliocentric transfer orbit to Mars?

--
Steen Eiler Jørgensen
"Time has resumed its shape. All is as it was before.
Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway."

{{From: Cardman
What I would most like to see, long before any Mars craft come about,
is for them to simply build a road on the Moon.}}

The word "road" could have multiple meanings at different times:

First, we'd map the local terrain and plan optimal routes from one
place to another. For example, a tele-operated rover might land in a
relatively safe (flat) place close to the edge of a polar crater. Then
we'd map the terrain between the landing place and some spot along the
edge of that crater, and drive the rover up some path that was suitable
direct while suitable hazard-free. For quite a while, as our rovers
study the cold material deep inside the crater, looking for hydrogen
and trying to identify how it's combined with other materials (as
water-ice frost or crystals between grains of dust, as hydrated
minerals, as cometary residue such as ammonia or Miller-Urey tar,
etc.), any "road" would be nothing more than a planned path along the
natural terrain.

As Lunar-polar infrastructure is built up, some such "road" might be in
such heavy use that it's useful to make minor improvements, such as
shaving off an immediately-neighboring obstacle to widen the path and
make it safer for faster traversal, or shaving off mountain passes to
reduce the up/down motion needed. Navigation transponders might be
installed alongside often-traveled roads to reduce errors in navigation
and thereby allow high-speed transit. On the other hand, due to the
lack of water and wind and other major sources of erosion, paving of
Lunar roads probably won't ever be necessary. Instead, fixed-rail roads
might eventually be built along major routes, or elevated-rail roads
might be built as shortcuts directly between two points, mostly
ignoring the constraints of small-scale terrain.

Note that building these "roads" would be part of normal usage of
Luna's surface to get between places, rather than as a special demo
just to prove roads can be built.

On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 22:09:03 -0800, wrote:

The word "road" could have multiple meanings at different times:

Yes, depending on the environment and available technology.

First, we'd map the local terrain and plan optimal routes from one
place to another. For example, a tele-operated rover might land in a
relatively safe (flat) place close to the edge of a polar crater. Then
we'd map the terrain between the landing place and some spot along the
edge of that crater, and drive the rover up some path that was suitable
direct while suitable hazard-free. For quite a while, as our rovers
study the cold material deep inside the crater, looking for hydrogen
and trying to identify how it's combined with other materials (as
water-ice frost or crystals between grains of dust, as hydrated
minerals, as cometary residue such as ammonia or Miller-Urey tar,
etc.), any "road" would be nothing more than a planned path along the
natural terrain.

What you describe I would more term a "path", when the "road" I refer
to consists on a human plan to make this same "path" easier to
navigate by the alteration of the surface of this new "road" in order
to make driving upon it easier.

The first real road I imagine will be between the officially
designated landing site and the Lunar Base a short distance away.

This will most likely be constructed through either simply flattening
down and smoothing out of the Lunar surface, or more likely slabs made
from this same material will be laid down to provide a solid covering.

On the other hand, due to the
lack of water and wind and other major sources of erosion, paving of
Lunar roads probably won't ever be necessary.

You may have noticed that this regolith tends to get everywhere, where
driving upon it poses quite a problem. In fact driving on it at speed
is rendered close to impossible, which is why creating an artificial
surface on popular routes would be an idea.

Since NASA is quite concerned about this dust getting into their Lunar
Base, then maybe they will even go as far as paving over the entire
area around the Moon Base.

Stay away from this dust and it poses much less of a problem.

Instead, fixed-rail roads
might eventually be built along major routes, or elevated-rail roads
might be built as shortcuts directly between two points, mostly
ignoring the constraints of small-scale terrain.

That may be useful if the mining of these Lunar resources ever reaches
such a point that it needs to be moved in vast volumes.

Note that building these "roads" would be part of normal usage of
Luna's surface to get between places, rather than as a special demo
just to prove roads can be built.

More likely they will be built in order to create a usable and stable
surface suitable for navigation and work. Since this will be "useful
construction", then it is all a matter of how to make your ideal
"slabs" as cheaply as possible.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

"Steen Eiler Jrgensen" wrote in message . ..
Michael Gallagher wrote:

On the other hand, after assembly and checkout on the Moon, you get to
start your mission farther out of the Earth's gravity welll than you
would be if you assembled in LEO. Fuel savings, anybody?

But the mission started on Earth. Everything that's been assembled on the
Moon was first launched from the Earth. All personnel and hardware behind
the checkout on the Moon has been launched from the Earth at one, earlier,
time. So where's the total fuel saving?

I'm not a total opponent of a lunar base, but don't we agree, that it takes
more delta-v to go from the surface of the Earth to LEO to lunar orbit to
the surface of the Moon to lunar orbit to a heliocentric transfer orbit to
Mars, than it takes to go from the surface of the Earth to LEO to a
heliocentric transfer orbit to Mars?


The point is processing Lunar dirt into rocket fuel and other materi-
als. Otherwise stopping over at the Moon does indeed make no sense.
If we succeeded, however, it would make lots of sense. And it
wouldn't make just a journey to Mars cheaper if we could pull it off.
Even satellites in Earth orbit could be easily resupplied from the
Moon.

Granted, it's a big "if!" But it's worth looking into.

Testing out survival in a base on the Moon for practice, however,
makes sense for going to Mars later no matter if we ever manage to
build a mining industry on the Moon or not. If something goes badly
wrong the astronauts can be evacuated and returned to Earth in days
rather than months.


Just what chances *do* you give a Mars base considering we haven't
even been able to set up and maintain a Moon base yet? And just what
is it you want on either world if you never even attempt to learn liv-
ing off of the land there?



--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiii :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 23:30:39 +0100, "Steen Eiler Jørgensen"
wrote:

.... All personnel and hardware behind
the checkout on the Moon has been launched from the Earth at one, earlier,
time. So where's the total fuel saving?


The savings would be for the Mars spacecraft, since it wouldn't
require the fuel to get from LEO to the Moon. And the Moon has a
lower escape velocity than Earth. Plus I imagine you get a "boost"
from the Earth's orbital velocity around the Earth.

Also, if the vehicle returns to the Moon instead of Earth, you don't
have to worry about a part of the spacecraft making reentry; it just
has to "rendezvous" with the Moon and be caught by its gravity.

Michael Gallagher wrote in
:

Also, if the vehicle returns to the Moon instead of Earth, you don't
have to worry about a part of the spacecraft making reentry; it just
has to "rendezvous" with the Moon and be caught by its gravity.

No free lunch here. Not being able to aerobrake means needing to carry
much more fuel to land in one piece.

--
Coridon Henshaw - http://www3.telus.net/csbh - "I have sadly come to the
conclusion that the Bush administration will go to any lengths to deny
reality." -- Charley Reese