Next unmanned lunar landing -- when?

Next unmanned lunar landing -- when?


I'm doing a short essay for the 40th anniversary
of the Luna-9 moon landing, and will speculate
on when unmanned lunar landings will resume.
Any crustal ball inputs or insights would be
much appreciated -- thanks in advance!!

JimO

"Jim Oberg" wrote:

Next unmanned lunar landing -- when?

I'm doing a short essay for the 40th anniversary
of the Luna-9 moon landing, and will speculate
on when unmanned lunar landings will resume.
Any crustal ball inputs or insights would be

Nice Freudian slip there....

much appreciated -- thanks in advance!!

My prediction? (At least for the NASA side.) Son-of-Surveyor will
repeat the path of it's parent - it will be cut after one or two
landings to provide funds for son-of-Apollo. NASA seems terrified of
having a significant unmanned lunar exploration program.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

When I was having dinner with Buzz Aldrin on Friday night I asked about the
new plans for landing on the moon.

He isn't quite sure that it will happen and after the shuttle fleet is
retired in 2010 he said if NASA hadn't done anything within 4 years of that
he feared for the US space program especially as the Chinese were now up
there too.

Was great to meet a legend though he did look a bit tired though Lois was on
form

Cheers

Andy


"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Jim Oberg" wrote:

Next unmanned lunar landing -- when?

I'm doing a short essay for the 40th anniversary
of the Luna-9 moon landing, and will speculate
on when unmanned lunar landings will resume.
Any crustal ball inputs or insights would be

Nice Freudian slip there....

much appreciated -- thanks in advance!!

My prediction? (At least for the NASA side.) Son-of-Surveyor will
repeat the path of it's parent - it will be cut after one or two
landings to provide funds for son-of-Apollo. NASA seems terrified of
having a significant unmanned lunar exploration program.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Namedropper !


"Andy" wrote in message
...
When I was having dinner with Buzz Aldrin on Friday night I asked about
the new plans for landing on the moon.

He isn't quite sure that it will happen and after the shuttle fleet is
retired in 2010 he said if NASA hadn't done anything within 4 years of
that he feared for the US space program especially as the Chinese were now
up there too.

Was great to meet a legend though he did look a bit tired though Lois was
on form

Cheers

Andy

LOL I wish,

Meeting the astro's was fantastic Buzz semed to be really tired though

Cheers

Andy

"adam bootle" wrote in message
...
Namedropper !


"Andy" wrote in message
...
When I was having dinner with Buzz Aldrin on Friday night I asked about
the new plans for landing on the moon.

He isn't quite sure that it will happen and after the shuttle fleet is
retired in 2010 he said if NASA hadn't done anything within 4 years of
that he feared for the US space program especially as the Chinese were
now up there too.

Was great to meet a legend though he did look a bit tired though Lois was
on form

Cheers

Andy

Adam you were there this weekend too weren't you?

Your site is great by the way, a great collection

Cheers

Andy


"adam bootle" wrote in message
...
Namedropper !


"Andy" wrote in message
...
When I was having dinner with Buzz Aldrin on Friday night I asked about
the new plans for landing on the moon.

He isn't quite sure that it will happen and after the shuttle fleet is
retired in 2010 he said if NASA hadn't done anything within 4 years of
that he feared for the US space program especially as the Chinese were
now up there too.

Was great to meet a legend though he did look a bit tired though Lois was
on form

Cheers

Andy

(Derek Lyons) wrote in news:436abf1a.1540102
@supernews.seanet.com:

"Jim Oberg" wrote:

Next unmanned lunar landing -- when?

I'm doing a short essay for the 40th anniversary
of the Luna-9 moon landing, and will speculate
on when unmanned lunar landings will resume.
Any crustal ball inputs or insights would be

Nice Freudian slip there....

much appreciated -- thanks in advance!!

My prediction? (At least for the NASA side.) Son-of-Surveyor will
repeat the path of it's parent - it will be cut after one or two
landings to provide funds for son-of-Apollo.

Huh? There were seven Surveyors launched, five of which landed.

NASA seems terrified of
having a significant unmanned lunar exploration program.

In the case of Surveyor, perhaps NASA was merely keenly aware that its
Presidential goal was to land a *man* on the moon within a decade, and
therefore that NASA's mandate for Surveyor extended no further than
supporting that goal (proving that the moon's surface could be landed
upon).

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
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In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
My prediction? (At least for the NASA side.) Son-of-Surveyor will
repeat the path of it's parent - it will be cut after one or two
landings to provide funds for son-of-Apollo.

Huh? There were seven Surveyors launched, five of which landed.

Surveyor *was* somewhat curtailed, however; originally there were going to
be 20 of them, with much more science instrumentation on later ones. But
the loss of the "scientific" Surveyors -- ameliorated a bit by the
addition of some basic science to the later "engineering" Surveyors -- had
much more to do with schedule and launcher problems than with budget.

The schedule problem was simply that JPL had taken until mid-1964 to make
Ranger work, and Surveyor had been very much a back-burner project until
that was accomplished -- partly management problems, partly just the fact
that after so many failures, JPL's survival was riding on Ranger -- while
Apollo's schedule was *not* slipping. There just wasn't that much time
left before Apollo started doing much more ambitious surface science than
anything Surveyor could hope for. Had the most optimistic pre-fire Apollo
schedules come true, Surveyor 7 might have been roughly simultaneous with
the first manned landing. Even as it finally turned out, there would have
been time to fly only a few of the scientific Surveyors before they were
hopelessly outclassed.

And the launcher problem was that Centaur was running way behind schedule
and significantly below predicted performance, so the mass budget couldn't
acccommodate most of that instrumentation anyway. As it was, Centaur was
only barely ready for Surveyor, and there was no real chance of doing a
significant performance upgrade in time to get scientific Surveyors to the
Moon before Apollo.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In other words, you're going to lie your stinking butt off again and
again.

GOT FLY-BY-ROCKET LANDER?

GOT KODAK MOMENTS?

GOT LUNAR ATMOSPHERE?

GOT MAGIC CLUMPING MOON DIRT?

GOT TBI PROOF ASTRONAUTS?

GOT HALF A BRAIN?
~

Kurt Vonnegut would have to agree; WAR is WAR, thus "in war there are
no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal
with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules,
such as GW Bush.
Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm

On Tue, 1 Nov 2005, Jim Oberg wrote:


Next unmanned lunar landing -- when?


I'm doing a short essay for the 40th anniversary
of the Luna-9 moon landing, and will speculate
on when unmanned lunar landings will resume.
Any crustal ball inputs or insights would be
much appreciated -- thanks in advance!!

JAXA's LUNAR-A is supposed to drop a pair of penetrators, but its launch
seems to have been delayed indefinitely. "No earlier than 2006," according
to the NSSDC site. It still seems a good bet to be the next lunar landing.

--
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Fermilab | Bob and Ray Giant Overstocked Surplus Warehouse
| in one convenient location
Internet: | and save money
| besides being open every evening until 9."