Moon exploration dead?

[halman]

MannyPim,<br /><br />The only folks who can put a lot of mass into orbit on a regular basis RIGHT NOW are the Russians, and they can do it just about as cheap as anyone can. Sign a contract with them for a number of launches, and start building habitat, storage, rovers, and a lunar shuttle. Build a space station to support the lunar effort, but don't launch it until the lunar shuttle is ready. Once the lunar shuttle is checked out, start launching mass as rapidly as possible. Drop supplies in a designated area, then a habitat, then a crew. Rotate the crews out on the shuttle while bringing in excavators, batteries, and other heavy equipment on expendable automated rockets.<br /><br />Meanwhile, NASA should be building the shuttle that they wanted to build back at the beginning, a self-contained orbiter launched from a fly-back first stage. In the long run, people will be the biggest cargo into space, not mass, and a reusable space-plane will be the cheapest way to get them there. Cargo coming down will be sent in unmanned entry vehicles. Bringing down the cost to orbit for passenger service is going to be imperative. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

JO5H,<br /><br />First off, let me say thank you for the level-headed, rational debate! I appreciate the time involved in your responses, and I admire your knowledge of the subject. I have been a generalist most of my life, and space exploration is an interest which I have not pursued diligently since it became apparent that the government was not interested in off planet exploration back in the early 1980's.<br /><br />We talk a great deal about what the man on the street thinks, but the reality is that what Dick Cheney and his buddies believe is what is really important, because what they want will get done. If we can convince the rich that there is more money to be made in off planet exploration and development in the long run than there is in manipulating the oil supply, we might have a chance at seeing something happen out there. Diverting the military-industrial complex away from starting new wars to create markets for their products will not be easy, but it is the best hope of getting big money into space exploration.<br /><br />The economic environment for any action in space is looking grim, but it should be pointed out that any long-term growth in the U.S. economy is going to have to be in very high-technology fields, because we simply cannot compete with developing countries for labor costs, even using robots. Building more cars is not going to help the economy for any length of time, nor will giving consumers a few hundred dollars to spend on more luxury goods. We have got to invest in the future, if we are going to have one.<br /><br />I advocate the Moon because it requires little explanation to describe, because building a base there would create the kind of environment where private industry is likely to get involved, and because I believe that it is the key to making space exploration a going concern. Not for the resources that we will find there, not for the technologies we will develop by going there, but for the psychological impact of having a ba <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[grdja]

OK, my 2c.<br /><br />USA government should dump VSE, and create a new stronger COTS as a national challenge. A nice number of billions to be invested till 2019. (Apollo aniversary and all that) in goverment research and prizes for private enterprise, in goal of dropping $/kg cost of LEO transport 2-5x , and at least 10x by 2030.

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>USA government should dump VSE<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Why ? VSE in itself did not mandate much else than retiring the Shuttle, completing the ISS and going beyond LEO.<br />This could be entirely complementary and synergistic to COTS.<br /><br />Its not the VSE that was botched. Its the implementation of it.

 

[MannyPim]

<font color="yellow"> Its not the VSE that was botched. Its the implementation of it. </font><br /><br />Exactly right!!<br /><br />But it is maddeningly frustrating seeing the slow motion catastrophic failure of what is essentially the first real Vision proposed for our future in Space. Even Apollo was not really a vision.... it was merely a program.<br />But VSE had a chance to succeed and much talk was done about how NASA would have to undergo a radical transformation in order to achieve it. Unfortunately what NASA itself considers a "radical transformation", to outside observers is indistinguishable from "business as usual". How sad.... how very very sad.<br /><br />To be sure, VSE has some major flaws. But it still deserved an all out effort to be made in service of the Vision. <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[j05h]

<i>> First off, let me say thank you for the level-headed, rational debate! I appreciate the time involved in your responses, and I admire your knowledge of the subject. I have been a generalist most of my life,</i><br /><br />Thanks. I'm a generalist as well, but space is something I've been studying since childhood. The space community has to have rational discussions about the future instead of just tearing into each other. And for all of you reading this, go vote for the space questions in the politico.com and cnn.com debate questions:<br /><br />Politico Debate questions<br />CNN Dem debate<br /><br /><i>> We talk a great deal about what the man on the street thinks, but the reality is that what Dick Cheney and his buddies believe is what is really important, because what they want will get done</i><br /><br />Someplace above in the thread I discuss convincing the "tastemakers" - it sounds elitist but it's true. Get the investors, movie stars, politicians and trendsetters on your team and you win. Joe Sixpack and Soccer Mom matter, but they won't get it started. Convince the leaders, the trendsetters and elite, and the followers will follow. It's not just political leadership like Cheney, it is erasing the "giggle factor" about space among those who make decisions by demonstrating new, attention-worthy space products/projects. <br /><br />From a realist view, this just is - the military is a large chunk of our economy. The goal for government-space should be getting the military interested in cheaper/responsive commercial launch, something AFRL is deeply researching. NASA is focused on it's goal. Otherwise from here on outward space funding should come from investors and adventurers. <br /><br />My root policy suggestion: make NASA human-spaceflight into an expedition organiz <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[halman]

JO5H,<br /><br />One of the basic premises of every space transportation system I have seen proposed is that the vehicle used to get people of off Earth travel the shortest distance possible into space, for the reasons that the higher it goes, the more energy it needs to lift off. How do you deal with this in your proposal? The need for a 'transfer point' is probably the earliest justification for space stations, a place where true space ships could be docked for service, freight could be consolidated from multiple launches, and passengers could wait for the next shuttle down.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[j05h]

<i>> One of the basic premises of every space transportation system I have seen proposed is that the vehicle used to get people of off Earth travel the shortest distance possible into space, for the reasons that the higher it goes, the more energy it needs to lift off. How do you deal with this in your proposal? The need for a 'transfer point' is probably the earliest justification for space stations, a place where true space ships could be docked for service, freight could be consolidated from multiple launches, and passengers could wait for the next shuttle down. </i><br /><br />My concept isn't fully formed, but the idea would be to have a "Parom" or "Turtle" type space tug meet cargo/crew modules in LEO, then transfer them to the L1 waystation. The tugs would refuel from simple depots in LEO and the main station at L1. Main assembly, storage and other activities happen at the L1 base.<br /><br />Any LEO Fuel depots would consist of 1-5 "wide-body Centaur" (WBC) upper stages docked to a Node, it's an infinitely expandable architecture that takes advantage of the materiel already being launched - upper stages and residual propellant. 4 WBC docked to a node, docked to another node with 4 stages. If they live up to Lockheed's long-duration promise, they can be undocked and used as tugs as needed, too. These would receive excess propellant from incoming launches and (eventually) trans-shipped ISRU prop from various space destinations. The LEO points don't need to have fuel depots but it helps - otherwise the tugs just come down to whatever inclination LEO they need to pick things up and bring them to L1.<br /><br />This kind of architecture doesn't cancel the Moon initiative - it refocuses any Lunar activities to the essentials (exploration) while using what would be Lunar-only overhead (the Base) to create access to the Inner Solar System. I'm glad to see that people in the know like Wes Huntress are talking it up, too.<br /><br />The thing that doesn't make sense is bas <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>As the space community, how do we work toward being more relevant to the rest of the world<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Saving the planet would be a good start <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />I honestly dont think that drives to for example reduce carbon emissions by 5% here and there are going to work. We are just going to end up with more and more inane rules that really just amount to "please breathe less" while some fat slob of a nation next door decides they all need to drive hum-vees and go fishing with bazookas in the weekend. In the end all you have done is transfer resources from yourself to the nations that dont give a damn. By the time everyone is running into trouble and even the greedy are suffocating they will find it easy to convince themselves they have a right to other people's resources because humans are very good at rationalisation, and the punch up between the Hum-Vee driving, Bazooka weilding fatties and the Pasty Anoxics will be short.<br /><br />Any solution that is less than 100% is just delaying the inevitable. What we need is to prove a 100% percent solution on a small scale with no possibility of politics fudging the results. This means an entirely self sufficient environment capable of supporting humans. Cooincidentally this is also the primary unsolved problem to maintaining permanent cost effective off planet habitats. <br /><br />It is vital that we demonstrate we can maintain such artificial biospheres before we dream of fiddling with our own on a global scale.

 

[halman]

JO5H,<br /><br />I think that you may have stated clearly the aspect that causes us to differ on destinations:<br /><br /><br />"This kind of architecture doesn't cancel the Moon initiative - it refocuses any Lunar activities to the essentials (exploration) while using what would be Lunar-only overhead (the Base) to create access to the Inner Solar System."<br /><br />All of your emphasis is on continued exploration, either on the Moon, or in the inner System via L1. Where do we learn how to excavate on a planet without sufficient oxygen for combustion, in a low gravity environment. We may discover that using nuclear warheads to open large cavities to be the easiest, cheapest, and safest way to create underground habitat. We may discover that raw sunlight won't grow Earth style plants. We might discover that the chemistry of the regolith changes dramatically a meter or so below the surface, revealing a totally different resource base then expected, or that some other premise based on a small number of samples is invalid. We would probably start learning how to capture and store solar energy, having the real thing to work with, and the ability to spread large panels easily.<br /><br />But most importantly, we would be learning how to utilize off planet resources, in some limited fashion, perhaps, but the beginning of shifting the load away from Earth. This is what we hold up to the public, the idea that life as we know it might be able to continue without large-scale disruption as a result of environmental damage caused by our activities. This won't be about exploring the Last Frontier, this will be about sending dirty industries off-shore, while making lots of money doing so.<br /><br />Already, China and India are experiencing the kinds of pollution that make people angry enough to sacrifice their lives to effect change, because their lives are becoming worthless. In China, air pollution is so bad that it is killing people almost daily, young people who should be hea <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[willpittenger]

By "rocket," I was talking about any propulsion device on the satellite or probe. <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>

 

[willpittenger]

A program of that size without major flaws? What have you been smoking or drinking? <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>

 

[MannyPim]

<font color="yellow"> A program of that size without major flaws? What have you been smoking or drinking? </font><br /><br />That's a rather ungenerous comment on your part...<br /><br />I never said that it should have been a perfect program.<br />I acknowledged the reality that it does have major flaws. The point I was making is that it deserves a full a complete commitment in spite of its flaws. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>