ESAS Critics Beware: The Genius Of Dan Handlin!!!

[JonClarke]

NASA will give the contracts for the CLV and SDLV to private industry. Your problem is?<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[mattblack]

Flags & footprints? Gee, you're saying that like it's a BAD thing!! But seriously... Yes, there will be flags and footprints: what makes you think for a split second there wouldn't/shouldn't be after nearly FIFTY years of NOT going to the Moon?!!<br /><br />And after the flags & size 9's, there would be SO much more than Apollo: Quoting Dan Handlin --<br /><br /> />>This single LSAM would not only fill the role of all these separate Apollo spacecraft, but would carry more crew than would the LM taxi/shelter/truck concept (four instead of three), and for six months instead of one. The LSAM is truly a self-contained lunar outpost. If additional LSAMs were used to carry cargo to the surface, they could each carry the cargo of four separate LM trucks (two or four Saturn 5 launches!). The question of economy as compared to the Apollo lunar outpost plan clearly favors the ESAS. Once again, we see that the ESAS is *NOT* a rerun of Apollo!<br /><br />Considering that the (Apollo) LESA, which could have provided crew quarters for six for up to 18 months (supplemented by logistically flights), had a total mass less than half of what the cargo LSAM can deliver, it is plainly evident that a very large lunar base can be supported by ESAS. The crew size of the new lunar base may be limited by the rate at which crews can be rotated into and out of the base rather than by base capacity. Within ten years of the construction of the lunar base, even without a larger vehicle than the LSAM and its cargo version, the base should be able to evolve into a sophisticated Antarctica-like research station, with small crews of perhaps 10–15 astronauts manning the station for 6–12 months at a time, mining their own oxygen and water (well, maybe), and conducting experiments in lunar geology and astronomy. This will provide experience for operating Mars outposts, and the use of methane engines allows hardware testing for the Mars missions to be done on the Moon as well.<br /><br />$104 billion <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[gunsandrockets]

"This single LSAM would not only fill the role of all these separate Apollo spacecraft, but would carry more crew than would the LM taxi/shelter/truck concept (four instead of three), and for six months instead of one. The LSAM is truly a self-contained lunar outpost."<br /><br />Ugh. Mattblack did you have to go and bring up again the worst of Handlin's hyperbole? The quotation above should make it crystal clear just how much Handlin exaggerates the capability of a single LSAM. It wasn't just a simple error of sentence construction, Handlin goes on and on and on in the second part of his spacereview essay about the super-ooper-duper LSAM. Ugh <br /><br />"The LSAM is a truly self-contained lunar outpost", my *ss! The LSAM is a fine vehicle, and there is plenty to find admirable about the ESAS plan, but propaganda such as Handlin's based on obvious factual error is just too much to bear.

 

[gunsandrockets]

/* username distortion deleted */, I don't think you are going to find anyone other than yourself and Handlin who believes a single isolated LSAM can support a crew of four people for six months on the moon. I have provided links with direct quotes about the capability of the LSAM. The best you can find are references to bases. Good luck with that.

 

[dobbins]

The people who wrote the NASA items I referred to disagree with you, but facts don't seem to have the slightest effect on you. Like most armchair space cadets you know a little and think you know more than Von Braun, Faget, and Korolev combined.<br /><br /><br />

 

[mattblack]

I DID say in my earlier post (had you looked) that I think Handlin should have clarified that extended missions could probably only be with an additional Cargo/Logistics LSAM to plug into. However, bear in mind that Nasa has quoted what is very likely a provisional figure of 4-to-7 days for the first crewed LSAM-only missions. Don't forget; the original Grumman Apollo LM specs were only for a nominal 24 hour endurance. This was extended to a capability of 80 hours endurance by Apollo 17, a factor of 3.3 greater. Before the cancellation of Apollos 18 & 19, Nasa seriously considered stretching LM endurance to 100 hours, to accomodate 4x 6.5 hour EVAs. But this was cancelled early on for budgetary, safety and engineering reasons: <br /><br />One of them also being the need to stretch the CSM's capability, too. Why? To carry extra propellant for re-shaping it's orbit back to the correct orbital plane for rendezvous with the LM, after a ground-track drift of four days away from the LM's landing site.<br /><br />It would be quite feasible to extend a single LSAM's endurance to 14 days or more, with straightforward engineering methods learned during Apollo and elsewhere. <br /><br />And let's not forget: I KNOW this discussion is largely speculative at this stage, let's all NOT lose sight of that and get shirty. This is supposed to be fun!! If you don't like/want a return to the Moon, this design or not, please don't shoot the messengers! The devil details are being worked on now with each sentence we type, each scheme that we bat back & forth. That is OUR contribution. You HAVE to understand that most, MOST of Mr Handlin's facts are correct, and can be supported with empirical dissection and consultation. Any mistakes are his own, not Nasa's, and I'm told that many similar-themed arguments were made during the 60's about Apollo!! And you know what? Reality eventually took care of the grey areas and reinforced those things that were already FACTS and disposed of the ju <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

FYI, gunsandrockets, we have a very low tolerance for username distortions here. I will edit them out whenever I see them. Obvious exceptions, like calling me Calli, or accidental mispellings, don't count as username distortions. But when it's on purpose and in a very condescending post, it's pretty clear that it wasn't meant kindly. Don't do it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

<font color="yellow">"We can ALL go along for the ride, too."</font><br /><br />As one along for the ride, I was impressed and encouraged by NASA administrator Griffin's introductory presentation on the VSE and the CEV's role in it. I hear Griffin is a pretty good rocket scientist so I assume he knew what he was talking about.<br /><br />One point that is usually ignored by those proposing new programs involving new technologies: cost. Griffin proposed what I consider to be an abitious but achievable program to be done on a budget of a few billion dollars a year. (A billion doesn't go as far as it used to.) <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[radarredux]

Nyarlathotep wrote:<br /> />> <i>NASA's primary focus should be on aeronautic and propulsion technology development and pure research that would otherwise not be done by private industry. Not the bulk transport of cargo.</i><br /><br />JonClarke wrote:<br /> /> <i><font color="yellow">NASA will give the contracts for the CLV and SDLV to private industry. Your problem is?</font>/i><br /><br />One approach is to shape the 'S' part of NASA like the first 'A' part of NASA. For example, NASA still does R&D in aeronautics, but it does not design, specify, or build its own aircraft; industry still does that. Under such an approach, NASA would learn everything about spaceflight, but let industry take that knowledge (not specifications) and develop their own efforts. This would not preclude NASA (or some other organization) from buying services and products from industry, just as the government readily buys airplane COTS products and services today.<br /><br />A NASA whose 'S' was more like its first 'A' might devote more resources to:<br /><ul><br /><li>Rocket engines that could start and stop 100 times without maintenance.<br /><li>Two-stage to orbit approaches.<br /><li>Reliable and reusable scramjet technology.<br /><li>Re-entry technology such as:<br /><ul><br /><li>Use of rocket engines as heat shields for VTVL systems.<br /><li>Ballute technology.<br /><li>Various shapes comparisons (shuttle ****, lifting body, capsule, ...).<br /><li>Thermal protection systems technologies such as SIRCA.<br /></li></li></li></li></ul><br /><li>Oxygen generation systems that work in zero-G or 0.6-G.<br /><li>Robust industrial processes to be used in harsh conditions (e.g., Mars) to combine hydrogen seed stock with carbon dioxide to produce water and methane.<br /><li>Methane engines.<br /><li>Extracting Oxygen from Lunar regolith.<br /><li>Inflatable technologies to create working environments in zero-G or 0.6-G environments.<br /><li>Closed environment systems to limit the need for resupplies.<br /></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></ul><br />Certa</i>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">One point that is usually ignored by those proposing new programs involving new technologies</font>/i><br /><br />Also, Griffin is tasked with implementing policy, not creating it, and he has to do it in a very political climate. The "imagined NASA" I posted above would require an act of Congress, and I don't think that is going to happen.</i>