Moon Landing Question

[waxy]

We will be using the Shuttle's large feul tank for cargo in the <br />future (or so it appears to be planned)<br /><br />I have a question concerning this main feul tank:<br />Would it be possiable to land this tank on the moon using the <br />airbag system that was used for landing the rovers on mars?<br /><br />I'm curious because if this is possiable then we could <br />simply retrofit this cargo tank for various things:<br />feul, water, air, living quarters, air locks, hallways, ect...<br />and then launch them to the moon. later, astronauts could<br />land and assemble entire moon bases with parts, tools, <br />and even prefab buildings already on the moon's surface.<br />

 

[qso1]

Waxy:<br />We will be using the Shuttle's large feul tank for cargo in the future (or so it appears to be planned)<br /><br />Me:<br />Actually there are no plans to use the tank itself for cargo that I'm aware of. They plan to manufacture a new launch vehicle with the tank as a baseline for the first stage of the Ares rocket. The plan appears to be to manufacture the Ares first stage using existing External Tank (ET) tooling, probably some of the main structural elements from the ET and the inner tanks.<br /><br />The Ares payload section may be manufactured in the same manner but I'm not sure if it actually will be.<br /><br />As for landing an ET on the moon using the airbag landing system, probably possible though I'm not sure, but currently not practical. The ET would have to have external and structural mods to support the bag system. Its also an enormous structure to be utilizing the airbag system which has only been used for the relatively small mars rovers and pathfinder missions.<br /><br />Outfitting an ET for use on the moon would also entail utilizing a Saturn class or larger booster for launching from earth, and a TLI stage to get it to the moon. The dry mass of the ET is approximately 66,000 Lbs (29,937 Kgs). Internal outfitting would raise this mass to at least 100,000 lbs and probably closer to 150,000 pounds. which by comparison, the Saturn V sent about 90 to 100,000 lbs to the moon.<br /><br />The main problem is expense. This would be an expensive proposition under the current method of NASA contractor procurement and management arrangements. However, private enterprise/industry may one day be able to do this kind of project economically.<br /><br />Air bag landing is probably not the best way to get this size and configuration of payload to the ground. The airbags would be enormous (Unless composed of many small ones, also not practical) and may be outside our ability to produce economically. Another thing, the airbag system is not one for landing payloads in <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[christine16]

hmm interesting, but not for todays exp

 

[juwong]

Waxy, <br />i think in the future plans for the heavy missions the landing gear and some kind of loading/unloading mechanics would be employed but not the air bag which is used more for the lighter cargos. <br />however, landing gear technique is more suffisticated and its reliabilities are much more higher.<br />yeap, that's what i mean.