Moon Plans Unveiled...a new Apollo?

[drumrguy]

What I'm really dissapointed in is not necessairly the technology used to get to the moon, its the fact that there is no permanant base being planned at this point.<br /><br />We go, tool around for a few days, and come back leaving all the useless crap behind.<br /><br />Why dont they send some kind of equipment there before we arrive so we can actually do something worthwhile. I find it hard to believe we are going to be able to do much more than the Apollo astronauts on the moon if this is the plan.

 

[jatslo]

<font face="verdana">"<font color="yellow">moon plans that I had hoped to see was the construction of a permanent outpost, or base on the lunar surface for permanent human presence.</font><br /><br />What? They are taking 500-TONS to the Earth's Moon to build a chemical plant. Do you have a bill of materials or something the rest of us do not have access to? Sounds as if, the robots are going to do most of the work.</font>

 

[nacnud]

The docking ports are probably an updated APAS-89 (androgynous peripheral attachment system) like LIDS (low impact docking system). This already exists and APSA is used on the ISS and shuttle.<br /><br />More reuse of good ideas <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" />

 

[rfoshaug]

"What I'm really dissapointed in is not necessairly the technology used to get to the moon, its the fact that there is no permanant base being planned at this point."<br /><br />What we do not need is an International Moon Station that ties up enormous resources for decades and prevents NASA from going to Mars and beyond. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>

 

[jatslo]

<font face="verdana"><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Who needs a lifting body in space? A capsule still beats it in terms of dry mass.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>Why wouldn't a winged craft like the shuttle not be able to land like a Harrier Jet?</font>

 

[nacnud]

It wouldn't have the fuel available.

 

[rfoshaug]

Are you going to haul huge lifting turbofan engines to the moon? Doesn't make sense to me. <br /><br />Edit: Aaahh, you probably meant a vertical landing on the moon. I thought you meant vertical landing on Earth at the end of the mission. <br /><br />But still, hauling wings to the moon and back means using a lot of fuel on a component that will only be used for landing on Earth. Parachutes are a cheaper, simpler and just as effective way of achieving the same thing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>

 

[jatslo]

Fans wouldn't work on the Moon very well.

 

[vt_hokie]

"Are you going to haul huge lifting turbofan engines to the moon? Doesn't make sense to me."<br /><br />Especially given the lack of air! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[rfoshaug]

Sorry, I shortcircuited (see my post above). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>

 

[jatslo]

What? And why wouldn't they build a fuel tank, it shouldn't be too difficult to fly off the Moon, and then glide back down to Earth.

 

[nacnud]

Well until we come up with a more efficient combination than LOX/LH2 that can be made available at the same price wings are a waste of payload.

 

[jatslo]

I heard something about airbags. Where is all this information coming from, or what is the source?

 

[nacnud]

Try here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4261522.stm<br /><br />Or here: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/cev.html

 

[yurkin]

I don’t see anything about this proposal that is at all similar to Apollo program except for the fact that they both go to the moon.<br /><br />Most importantly the Launch vehicles are completely different. The heavy launch vehicle uses SSME that are very different from the F1 engines of the Saturn V. Also only Apollo the crew module is launched separate from the others. Using single solid rocket is entirely different from the method used during Apollo. Also if you look at the requirements keeping people on the moon for 7 days takes enormously more capability then for the few hours that Apollo required. <br /><br />A single mission is going to mean more man-hours on the moon then all of the Apollo missions combined and then some. So just one VSE launch is the equivalent of launching dozens of Apollo missions. Calling it Apollo revisited seems more like media nonsense then an actual critique.<br />

 

[jatslo]

I thought the new shuttle was going to be universal, with respect to the Space Station, the Moon, Mars, and the Earth; parachutes; wings, airbags, and vertical lift capabilities in the package you wouldn’t you think? I mean you are going to lobbing it into space anyway, so we might as well lob it to the Titan Moon.

 

[rfoshaug]

Of course, it would be possible to build a winged or lifting-body craft that could land on the moon as a rocket powered lander, lift off from the moon under its own power, do a trans-Earth-injection burn and perform a glide landing on Earth.<br /><br />But because of the wings, it would be heavier, which means that it would need extra fuel to perform its back-to-Earth burn. That fuel would make it even heavier for the takeoff from the Moon, so it would need even more fuel and larger engines to take off from the moon. But these engines and fuel would be so heavy that it would need even larger engines and more fuel during landing (so it would not plunge into the moon too fast). But this extra fuel and even more powerful engines would require an even bigger boost to get from the Earth to the moon, so it would need even bigger engines and yet more fuel. All this fuel and those large engines would be really heavy to launch, so that the launch vehicle would have needed an even bigger engine and still more fuel.<br /><br />That's why the proposed lunar lander (and the Apollo lunar lander) will leave all un-necessary equipment behind at any time. It leaves the lander's legs and descent engine/fuel tanks behind on takeoff, and leaves the rest of the lander before accelerating back to Earth. Weight saving is everything in space flight. That's why they won't bring wings all the way to the moon. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>

 

[jatslo]

WTF? We are talking about 500-TONS worth of equipment and resources. And who said anything about 7-days, I thought I saw that is was going to take 7-days to get there? I going off to read those sources now. TY

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>hey, google 'lifting body'</i><br /><br />You mean lifting body - Google Search?<br /><br />The first link is dead. Perhaps that was your point? The next link, however, brings up the Wikipedia entry for 'Lifting body.' Not a bad article, which concludes with a link to the Kliper - Wikipedia entry. Sort of a hopeful note on which to end a write-up on the history of the lifting body approach.<br /><br />Their time will come.

 

[jatslo]

We got to wait 15-years for that to happen? I am very disappointed indeed! Some other country is going to do this thing faster.

 

[enricofermi]

I think what you are talking about is more like what bigelow aerospace makes. The inventor left NASA and his design never saw the light of day. Now it has a home.<br /><br />http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/ <br /><br />They are expandible space stations. I would like to see a base on the moon as a "proof of concept" for more ambitious planetary bases. I was incredibly unimpressed today to see the $104 billion price tag which was called "inexpensive" by NASA. I am well aware of unmanned projects in the works with SpaceDev and Lunar Enterprises for $50 million, but lacking funding. A manned mission is being developed for 2010-15, but getting funding is another issue.<br /><br />I suggest writing and emailing Congress to let them know about these alternatives. I think we should be outraged with the plan unveiled today. It is ridiculously expensive. I have my bet that it will cost more too. The usual suspects, Boeing and the rest, are ripping us off.<br /><br />If this is ever going to happen as anything other than a pet project, it is companies like Bigelow, SpaceDev, and Scaled composites that will get it done. Make sure to tell everyone you know about the choices that are out there. This can happen, and it will cost less than a billion to get it done. People just need to know it's an option.

 

[nacnud]

Did you listen to Griffins questions and answers after the press conference? He answered criticism like this well there. Basically NASA, because it is publicly funded, can't risk everything on new companies like Bigelow, however good the designs look on paper. If it went badly the US would not have any manned space flight capability, something congress wouldn't be happy about. However Griffin is more than happy to open up NASA markets to commercial ventures if they can prove themselves capable.<br /><br />Expect proposals before the end of the year for ISS resupply and crew exchange.<br />

 

[enricofermi]

That's because Griffin is narrowminded and biased towards big business. The all eggs in one basket approach to space can fail even with the biggest of companies. Try funding some of the other smaller companies with a mere $100M a piece and watch them get the same thing done, but cheaper. Bigelow cannot cost that much and I know that SpaceDev talked about $15M for the vehicle portion of the Dream Chaser (based on HL-20). I mean, what is $400M total for the competition, compared to $104B or more for the proposed solution?<br /><br />Isn't it worth a try?

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">First, its going to take them another 10-15 years just to get there</font>/i><br /><br />Don't forget, the shuttle/ISS program still eats up most of the budget for the next 5 years, so the Moon program is primarily a 5-7 year plan starting around 2011.<br /><br /> /> <i><font color="yellow">Pretty pathetic if you ask me.</font>/i><br /><br />I agree, it wasn't sexy, but we have had a lot of sexy and very little substance over the last 10-20 years (e.g., X-33/VentureStar, National Aerospace Plane, etc.). The focus today was on the basic infrastructure. Think of it as the plumbing for your house or the TCP and IP protocols for the Internet -- neither is sexy but both are critical for everything that use it (from Jacuzzi tubs to video conferencing).<br /><br />Griffin has laid out the plan to build the infrastructure -- how we get somewhere. Someone else will need to come along and design and build the applications on top of this infrastructure. These might be simple scientific habitats, large colonies, radio telescopes on the far side (i.e., radio quiet side) of the Moon, oxygen mining facilities, He-3 mining facilities, etc. But before these sexier applications can be deployed, a reasonably efficient and reliable infrastructure needs to be built.</i></i>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">That's because Griffin is narrowminded and biased towards big business.</font>/i><br /><br />I believe Griffin has worked at an aerspace start-up, he has been laid off several times, and he was Chief Operating Officer for In-Q-Tel, the venture capital firm funding startups that have technologies of interest to the intelligence community.<br /><br />Griffin is also earmarking several hundred million dollars for commercial supplies and crew services to ISS -- this will be a good bootstrap business for companies like SpaceX and t/Space.<br /><br />I think Griffin is open minded to consider various options.<br /><br />The architecture laid out today says nothing about how, when, or where habitats will be built on the Moon. In fact, they were pretty vague about what the lander will look like. Assuming Bigelow stays on schedule with his inflatable technology for orbit, I am sure it will be considered a candidate for a habitat on the Moon circa 2018-2020.</i>