Lunar landing emergencies

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willpittenger

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* In this post-Columbia world, is NASA building plans as to what to do if a lander ascent stage fails on the moon?<br />* I assume the lander's lifeboat will be more robustly tested and thought out this time. Stuff like using the same carbon dioxide filter would help. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
 
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alokmohan

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Manned mission or unmanned mission.Answer will be different in two cases.
 
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drwayne

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Tangential comment - ignore if you feel it drifts too far from your question<br /><br />One thing to keep in mind. If some component of a vehicle fails, then the fault can be some random failure, or it can be systematic to the vehicle type. <br /><br /> Any "rescue" process that uses the same vehicle type as the one suffering the failure must insure that the failure is random and not systematic. That means that the fault needs to be isolated to some degree remotely.<br /><br />And if it is systematic, then it needs to figure out the fix, test and implement it. If possible, the fix *might* be applied to the stranded vehicle.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>
 
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davf

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Good question. My guess is that it's too early in the design stage to answer the question since their actions will likely depend on the expected failure modes.<br /><br />I think it would be hard to approach the simplicity of the LM. The APS was an extremely simple and robust design.
 
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themanwithoutapast

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If the ascent stage during flight fails, the crew is obviously dead.<br /><br />If the ascent stage fails to take off from the moon, the crew is dead in all of the short sortie moon scenarios. Even if NASA would be able to send a rescue CEV/LSAM the same minute they discover the ascent stage failure, oxygen supply would probably run out before they arrive at the moon. <br /><br />In the case the ascent stage fails and we are in the post-2020 world and the VSE is still up and running, the crew would probably have to wait at the moon base, while NASA tries to ready a new Moon mission to send either a new LSAM or a 'rescue mission'.<br /><br />The lifeboat option of the LSAM for contigency life support if the CEV fails has been mentioned in the ESAS several times, NASA will be making sure this will work. <br /><br />There are a myriad of other possible failures on the way to the Moon, where there is no possibility to rescue the crew. Hope we won't be witnessing one of those, as this might well be the end of the VSE then.
 
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willpittenger

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I only know of manned missions. Besides, only bean counters and scientests would be upset at a failed unmanned sample return mission. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
 
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JonClarke

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"Only"? There is nothing "only" about bean counters or scientists. Besides, other people who would be upset would include engineers, managers, politicians, the general public <br /><br />Maybe you are too young to remember the angst at the failures of Deep space 2, CONTOUR, MPL, Mars Climatology Orbiter, and Mars Observer, or the near failures of Galileo and Hubble.<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>
 
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steve82

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"If the ascent stage during flight fails, the crew is obviously dead. "<br /><br />Not necessarily. If the ascent stage cuts off within a couple seconds of liftoff, the stage will certainly fall back and alight the lunar surface in some god-awful attitude with lots of damage on the outside no doubt. But the total decelerations experienced by the crew would indeed be survivable, suggesting some sort of lifeboat mode that would require them to have enough supplies in the launch stage to wait for rescue. I can't wait to hear the system engineers argue about rescue consumables mass and the impact on mass fraction of the lunar launch vehicle over that scenario.
 
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alokmohan

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It does dampen spirit.If Hubble failed we would be 15 years back!!
 
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yoda9999

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Maybe NASA should put a spare lander in lunar orbit incase a lander fails during ascent and the crew survive and manage to land back on the moon?<br />The new lander carries enough fuel to land anywhere on the moon, so it doesn't matter where the astronauts wind up.<br /><br />I don't know if NASA has any "lifeboat" procedures for the new lander.<br /><br />Let's say the astronauts can abandon the lander during an ascent failure. Can they carry individual rocket packs to travel back to the moon or rendeveous with the CEV? They probably have to bring along some oxygen tanks.
 
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willpittenger

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By "beancounters," I was including everyone upset about wasted taxpayer dollars and the beaucrats whose heads might roll if a mission failed. Besides, most people would be far more upset if Apollo 13 had killed 3 crewmembers than Hubble.<br /><br />Imagine what would have happened if Apollo 13's service module failed 5 days later. By then, Aquarius probably would have landed and would be useless as a lifeboat. I think the public reaction would have been to demand that NASA return to being NACA. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
 
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willpittenger

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The new lander carries enough fuel to land anywhere on the moon, so it doesn't matter where the astronauts wind up. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />It may not be able to have that much fuel. Apollo-era landers needed to be in the correct orbit. Remember that Apollo 11 almost ran out of fuel during descent. Such landers would need to be moved by a "tug" of some sort or wait for the existing orbit (or an intermediate orbit) to bring them around to a point where a landing would be possible. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
 
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willpittenger

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In just two seconds, Apollo-era ascent modules were already out of sight of cameras that failed to tilt in time. In fact, it was not until Apollo 17 that they managed to keep the craft in view more than about a second. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
 
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JonClarke

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More people would have been upset if a manned mission failed. But the failure of an unmanned mission is still very painful. It effects thousands of people, sometimes tens of thousands of people, often in many countries, who have invested a decade or more of their lives. There are always inquiries and its not just bureauocrats whose head roll. Saying that nobody would care except a few beancounters and scientists is both factually wrong and insulting in the implication that those people don't count.<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>
 
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