Moon Ferry

Hi,

I was thinking about a cheap way to get a lot of stuff to the Moon and
back. I considered an idea which I would like to bounce around a
little for your comments.

The idea is based on using gravity assist trajectories to constantly
slingshot a very massive spacecraft, the Moon ferry, between Earth and
Moon. In order to get it built it would be initially sent up in small
sections with the very first one being sent around the Moon. On the
way back it would pick up another section from Earth orbit and so on
until it was all built.

The Moon ferry could thus continually transit every few days between
Earth and Moon, intercepting a relatively small mass of passengers or
cargo, from Earth orbit, to be dropped off at the Moon to de-orbit.
Similarly return fares sent into Moon orbit would catch up to the
ferry on its way back to Earth.

The payoff comes in that because the Moon ferry uses a gravity
assist then only a small amount of propellant would need to be
replenished for correcting its trajectory. From Earth the only
propellant needed would be that to get into orbit. The Moon ferry
could be a completely unmanned automated system or remote controlled.

Would this Moon bridging project be possible with current technology?
Would the orbital math work? Has this already been thought of?

A*s*i*m*o*v

.... "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world." -- Archimedes

Asimov wrote:
Hi,

I was thinking about a cheap way to get a lot of stuff to the Moon
and
back. I considered an idea which I would like to bounce around a
little for your comments.

The idea is based on using gravity assist trajectories to constantly
slingshot a very massive spacecraft, the Moon ferry, between Earth
and
Moon. In order to get it built it would be initially sent up in small
sections with the very first one being sent around the Moon. On the
way back it would pick up another section from Earth orbit and so on
until it was all built.

The Moon ferry could thus continually transit every few days between
Earth and Moon, intercepting a relatively small mass of passengers or
cargo, from Earth orbit, to be dropped off at the Moon to de-orbit.
Similarly return fares sent into Moon orbit would catch up to the
ferry on its way back to Earth.

The payoff comes in that because the Moon ferry uses a gravity
assist then only a small amount of propellant would need to be
replenished for correcting its trajectory. From Earth the only
propellant needed would be that to get into orbit. The Moon ferry
could be a completely unmanned automated system or remote controlled.

Would this Moon bridging project be possible with current technology?
Would the orbital math work? Has this already been thought of?

A*s*i*m*o*v

... "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world." --
Archimedes

Asimov,
Here is some answers ... perhaps not the answer you require but one
your namesake would have loved.
from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

CYRANO (beaming with joy):
I have shot back to Paris!
(Quite at ease, laughing, dusting himself, bowing):
Come--pardon me--by the last water-spout,
Covered with ether,--accident of travel!
My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs
Encumbered by the planets' filaments!
(Picking something off his sleeve):
Ha! on my doublet?--ah, a comet's hair!. . .

(He puffs as if to blow it away.)

DE GUICHE (beside himself):
Sir!. . .

CYRANO (just as he is about to pass, holds out his leg as if to show
him
something and stops him):
In my leg--the calf--there is a tooth
Of the Great Bear, and, passing Neptune close,
I would avoid his trident's point, and fell,
Thus sitting, plump, right in the Scales! My weight
Is marked, still registered, up there in heaven!
(Hurriedly preventing De Guiche from passing, and detaining him by the
button
of his doublet):
I swear to you that if you squeezed my nose
It would spout milk!

DE GUICHE:
Milk?

CYRANO:
From the Milky Way!

DE GUICHE:
Oh, go to hell!

CYRANO (crossing his arms):
I fall, Sir, out of heaven!
Now, would you credit it, that as I fell
I saw that Sirius wears a nightcap? True!
(Confidentially):
The other Bear is still too small to bite.
(Laughing):
I went through the Lyre, but I snapped a cord;
(Grandiloquent):
I mean to write the whole thing in a book;
The small gold stars, that, wrapped up in my cloak,
I carried safe away at no small risks,
Will serve for asterisks i' the printed page!

DE GUICHE:
Come, make an end! I want. . .

CYRANO:
Oh-ho! You are sly!

DE GUICHE:
Sir!

CYRANO:
You would worm all out of me!--the way
The moon is made, and if men breathe and live
In its rotund cucurbita?

DE GUICHE (angrily):
No, no!
I want. . .

CYRANO:
Ha, ha!--to know how I got up?
Hark, it was by a method all my own.

DE GUICHE (wearied):
He's mad!

CYRANO(contemptuously):
No! not for me the stupid eagle
Of Regiomontanus, nor the timid
Pigeon of Archytas--neither of those!

DE GUICHE:
Ay, 'tis a fool! But 'tis a learned fool!

CYRANO:
No imitator I of other men!
(De Guiche has succeeded in getting by, and goes toward Roxane's door.
Cyrano
follows him, ready to stop him by force):
Six novel methods, all, this brain invented!

DE GUICHE (turning round):
Six?

CYRANO (volubly):
First, with body naked as your hand,
Festooned about with crystal flacons, full
O' th' tears the early morning dew distils;
My body to the sun's fierce rays exposed
To let it suck me up, as 't sucks the dew!

DE GUICHE (surprised, making one step toward Cyrano):
Ah! that makes one!

CYRANO (stepping back, and enticing him further away):
And then, the second way,
To generate wind--for my impetus--
To rarefy air, in a cedar case,
By mirrors placed icosahedron-wise.

DE GUICHE (making another step):
Two!

CYRANO (still stepping backward):
Or--for I have some mechanic skill--
To make a grasshopper, with springs of steel,
And launch myself by quick succeeding fires
Saltpeter-fed to the stars' pastures blue!

DE GUICHE (unconsciously following him and counting on his fingers):
Three!

CYRANO:
Or (since fumes have property to mount)--
To charge a globe with fumes, sufficiently
To carry me aloft!

DE GUICHE (same play, more and more astonished):
Well, that makes four!

CYRANO:
Or smear myself with marrow from a bull,
Since, at the lowest point of Zodiac,
Phoebus well loves to suck that marrow up!

DE GUICHE (amazed):
Five!

CYRANO (who, while speaking, had drawn him to the other side of the
square
near a bench):
Sitting on an iron platform--thence
To throw a magnet in the air. This is
A method well conceived--the magnet flown,
Infallibly the iron will pursue:
Then quick! relaunch your magnet, and you thus
Can mount and mount unmeasured distances!

DE GUICHE:
Here are six excellent expedients!
Which of the six chose you?

CYRANO:
Why, none!--a seventh!

DE GUICHE:
Astonishing! What was it?

CYRANO:
I'll recount.

DE GUICHE:
This wild eccentric becomes interesting!

CYRANO (making a noise like the waves, with weird gestures):
Houuh! Houuh!

DE GUICHE:
Well.

CYRANO:
You have guessed?

DE GUICHE:
Not I!

CYRANO:
The tide!
I' th' witching hour when the moon woos the wave,
I laid me, fresh from a sea-bath, on the shore--
And, failing not to put head foremost--for
The hair holds the sea-water in its mesh--
I rose in air, straight! straight! like angel's flight,
And mounted, mounted, gently, effortless,. . .
When lo! a sudden shock! Then. . .

Pale.Pink

" bravely wrote to "All" (20 Feb 05 12:00:18)
--- on the heady topic of " Moon Ferry"

Pa From:
Pa Xref: aeinews sci.astro:10803 alt.alien.research:14854
Pa alt.usenet.kooks:81057

Pa Asimov,
Pa Here is some answers ... perhaps not the answer you require but one
Pa your namesake would have loved.
Pa from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Who is Edmond Rostand?

A*s*i*m*o*v

.... He can open his mail with that nose!

In article ,
Asimov wrote:
Pa Here is some answers ... perhaps not the answer you require but one
Pa your namesake would have loved.
Pa from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Who is Edmond Rostand?

Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac/

"Greg Hennessy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Asimov wrote:
Pa Here is some answers ... perhaps not the answer you require but one
Pa your namesake would have loved.
Pa from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Who is Edmond Rostand?

Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac/


Hennessy cognac and Bergerac blanc ... neighbors.

"Greg Hennessy" bravely wrote to "All" (21 Feb 05 15:35:09)
--- on the heady topic of " Moon Ferry"

GH From: (Greg Hennessy)
GH Xref: aeinews sci.astro:10888

GH In article ,
GH Asimov wrote:
Pa Here is some answers ... perhaps not the answer you require but one
Pa your namesake would have loved.
Pa from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Who is Edmond Rostand?

GH Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac/

Wasn't it some French fellow who wrote that first?
The three musketteers too or something?

A*s*i*m*o*v

Dear Asimov:

"Asimov" wrote in message
...
"Greg Hennessy" bravely wrote to "All" (21 Feb 05 15:35:09)
--- on the heady topic of " Moon Ferry"
....
GH Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac/

Wasn't it some French fellow who wrote that first?
The three musketteers too or something?

URL:http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rostand.htm
He was French.

Three Musketeers
URL:http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/adumas1.htm
Alexandre Dumas Sr. (or pere)

David A. Smith

A*s*i*m*o*v

Asimov wrote:
" bravely wrote to "All" (20 Feb 05
12:00:18)
--- on the heady topic of " Moon Ferry"

Pa From:
Pa Xref: aeinews sci.astro:10803 alt.alien.research:14854
Pa alt.usenet.kooks:81057

Pa Asimov,
Pa Here is some answers ... perhaps not the answer you require but
one
Pa your namesake would have loved.
Pa from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Who is Edmond Rostand?

The author


A*s*i*m*o*v

... He can open his mail with that nose!

His nose could function as a rudder for a vessel propelled by solar
winds.
Pale.Pink.

Asimov wrote:

Hi,

I was thinking about a cheap way to get a lot of stuff to the Moon and
back. I considered an idea which I would like to bounce around a
little for your comments.

I believe I've seen this idea proposed for interplanetary shuttles.
They called them "castles", I think. The idea was that for such
a long trip, the castle provided an accommodation, and could be
reused as they orbited back around.

The moon is too close for this to make much sense. There is no
gain in efficiency of transport in physical terms, just the
energy-cheap access to the larger accommodation during the trip.

Lew Mammel, Jr.