NASA Moon Plans After LRO

[nibb31]

Thanks for running the numbers on what I was (clumsily) trying to say. <br /><br />Note that 220 tons is at least 2 CaLV lanches for 1 mission!

 

[chriscdc]

Haven't you heard of Radar? A person manually landing on the moon via purely optical instruments is frankly hilarious considering the capabilities of technology we have now, or have had for decades for that matter. <br />Of course you don't land on a place with 1/2meter high boulders every couple of meters , but there is no evidence that the poles are covered in these areas. Anyway satellites will have mapped a potential landing site down to a resolution of cm. They will also send unmanned probes to the same area.<br /><br />So you want Oblique lighting conditions? So you want to limit it to the day/night twilight zone? The poles will give you continous oblique conditions all the time.<br /><br />A lunar catapult is irrelevant. It will take years to construct and you will hardly get any boost to dV from the rotation of the moon. It isn't the earth where the equator shoots around at a few 1000km/hr. It has a circumference is 10900km and it goes around in 28days. You get 240m/hr which is a near useless benefit. You could probably gain efficiency back from the cool temperatures at the poles. You might even be able to use high temp superconductors there.

 

[brellis]

My thoughts remain in a "Near-Ion Orbit", hehe. If there aren't any people onboard doing expensive things like breathing, drinking and eating, can't we nudge the hardware from LEO to LLO and back slowly and cheaply with ion propulsion and either solar panels or some kind of nuclear engine? It's going to take years to build these space stations/bases anyway. [I'm studiously avoiding the conditional verb tense <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />]<br /><br />It took the SMART-1 about a year to get from launch into Lunar orbit. I think they experimented with some tricky moves flirting between earth and lunar gravity in the process. One could therefore presume that linking an unmanned ion-propelled station/base module with an LEO-LLO Cycler would take less than six months. That's faster than those super shuttles can build the ISS even under ideal conditions, and we'd barely need any propellant beyond launch. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>

 

[josh_simonson]

Actually, we can be almost certain that the first venture will be to a relatively easy location. That'll provide a lot of margin in the event of trouble. Then they'll work their way to the more challenging sites.

 

[no_way]

" if water is shown to exist at the poles" actually, water is not directly relevant, the existence of hydrogen is. in whatever form it exists, its immensely useful. if its water ice, this will make its utilization just simpler, but in whatever other form it might be, its still useful. and its existence is pretty conclusively proven. what remains to be discovered is the exact difficulty of _utilizing_ it, and that involves in situ tests by definition.

 

[radarredux]

Here is a little more information on the Lunar robotic program leading up to humans landing there (again). Not much detail, but it gives insight into their general thoughts:<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Simon "Pete" Worden, director of the Ames Center, said Monday he envisions a whole series of "cool" missions that his team of experts will be developing and building in partnership with aerospace companies. The missions would be "low cost and fast paced," he said.<br /><br />In space-agency talk, that means the small spacecraft coming out of Ames will weigh only a few hundred pounds, cost only tens of millions of dollars rather hundreds of millions, and be developed, built and launched in as little as two years.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/06/BAGTRJ94I01.DTL

 

[radarredux]

Here is a little more information on the Lunar robotic program leading up to humans landing there (again). Not much detail, but it gives insight into their general thoughts:<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Simon "Pete" Worden, director of the Ames Center, said Monday he envisions a whole series of "cool" missions that his team of experts will be developing and building in partnership with aerospace companies. The missions would be "low cost and fast paced," he said.<br /><br />In space-agency talk, that means the small spacecraft coming out of Ames will weigh only a few hundred pounds, cost only tens of millions of dollars rather hundreds of millions, and be developed, built and launched in as little as two years.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/06/BAGTRJ94I01.DTL

 

[vulture2]

I think we need a serious and realistic debate on human flight to the Moon and Mars.<br /><br />It would be interesting to know if there are any definite plans for a permanent lunar base. Only such a development would differentiate it from Apollo. However logistics for such an installation would not be cheap; at least four flights/yr for resupply and at least two for crew rotation. Can the funding be obtained without cancelling valuable research programs? After Apollo 11 public support collapsed; how can we avoid this? Should we develop lower cost access to LEO first? Should technology development be abandoned to pay for the lunar program, as Mr. Griffin has suggested?<br /><br />Manned flight with expendable rockets is very expensive, $50-70 million per seat just to LEO. Having lived throught he post-Apollo crash, I am skeptical that the public will support a new lunar program without a much more compelling rationale.

 

[nacnud]

<font color="yellow">It would be interesting to know if there are any definite plans for a permanent lunar base.<br /><br /><font color="white">Yes there are, but the architecture study and the design of a base are well into the future for now. Here is some of what the ESAS had to say on the matter see more at spaceref<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Dedicated Cargo Lander Strategy<br />The initial ESAS outpost deployment strategy deployed the core outpost in three dedicated “cargo” flights and a fourth mission that prepositions a backup LSAM. The fifth flight to the outpost delivers the first crew in an LSAM that will be used to return the second crew complement to Earth. The outpost is completed after five dedicated cargo flights, and is shown in Figure 4-44.</font></font></font>

 

[adzel_3000]

"What have they got in New York, aersospace-wise, besides perhaps a branch of Northrop-Grumman at Bethpage?"<br /><br />I'm afraid I have to disagree. Actually, matt, aerospace is quite big in NYS. <br /><br />A short list includes...<br /><br /><br />Honeywell International Inc. <br /><br />Science Applications International Corporation <br /><br />Parker Hannifin Corporation (materials and flight hardware)<br /><br />Corning (glass and mirror systems, including the SALT)<br /><br />Textron Inc. (materials)<br /><br />Lockheed Martin (Radars, missiles, and avionics)<br /><br />Harris Corporation (Avionics)<br /><br />BAE Systems, Inc. (Avionics)<br /><br />ITT Industries/ Space Systems Division (formerly Eastman Kodak Federal Systems....makers of the Chandra space telescope optical bench and main mirror, Lunar Orbiter hardware, and other advanced satellite systems)<br /><br />Calspan (wind tunnel facilities in Buffalo)<br /><br />CIDTEC (maker of advanced imager systems for aerospace)<br /><br />Moog Group (turbines and actuators for aerospace)<br /><br />Air Force Research Lab-Rome (IT, electronics, and advanced studies)<br /><br />Various military bases and centers...all branches<br /><br />Major centers for commercial and general aviation<br /><br />Centers for recreational aviation including glider and hang glider manufacturers<br /><br />University of Rochester Laboratory for laser Energetics<br /><br />Rochester Astrophysics Consortium<br /><br />SUNY-Buffalo Gregory Jarvis Engineering Research Center<br /><br />....as well as several dozen leading universities including Cornell and RIT which are quite active in aerospace research, nanotechnology, and space science studies.<br /><br />...again, that's just the short list....<br /><br />Any poltician from NYS would be harming his/her home state if they cut funding for aerospace. Its considered part of the state's future growth initiatives and several aerospace companies have been favored with Empire Zone (and incentive package) inclusions.<br /><br />A3K<br />

 

[radarredux]

In the June 12, 2006 issue of AW&ST there is an article that talks about future unmanned missions to the Lunar surface. The primary point of the article is that the same platform that NASA wants a single lander to put manned and unmanned missions on the Moon, and they want to make several unmanned landings with it before the first manned landing. That opens the door for some pretty big rovers.<br /><br />Here are some excerpts from the article (warning, I am typing this in manually, so there may be some typos) (emphasis added):<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>Lunar Lander</b><br />NASA is taking first steps toward developing single descent module for Moon crews, gear<br /><br />Frank Morring, Jr./Washington<br /><br />NASA is moving toward using the same venerable rocket engines to power both its planned robotic lunar lander and the generic descent module that will deliver crew and supplies to future Moon bases.<br />...<br />The agency assigned the job of setting requirements for the descent module to Marshall Space Flight Center, which has been studying a robotic lander large enough to handle the RL10 since last year. For trade studies on options for a planned robotic precursor to the human lunar lander, Marshall and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) proposed a <b><font color="yellow">9-metric-ton spacecraft</font>/b> as a way to test the technology needed to use a big cryogenic engine to land on the Moon.<br /><br />It would make sense "to land with a cyrogenic engine <b><font color="yellow">three or four times</font>/b> before you put a person on it," says John Horack, assistant director of Marshall's Science and Missions Systems Office.<br />...<p><hr /></p></b></b></p></blockquote>

 

[crix]

Yes, I believe their will be extensive robotic missions on the Moon's surface utilizing the same engines that will eventually land humans there. <br /><br />I believe that NASA should get right to it: each lander prior to human arrival should be a technology validation while simultaneously a piece of a future manned base. First lander should try make MoonLOX with a simple scooper arm or we could be more ambitious and try a duo, a little robotic backhoe/dumptruck that would return to the processing station.<br /><br />I used to be a proponent of a nuclear reactor on the surface however now I would prefer to see inexpensive solar farms erected by robots. I can picture a robot that extracts tubes from a magazine that are threaded on one end for screwing them a foot or so into the ground. Each is wired to the next and the tubes would expand with simple spring mechanisms to release 2 or 4 arms that solarcells would slide out onto like curtains. It wouldn't be super fancy but a fairly simple robot could create some neat arrays of these.<br /><br /><br />Oh, one kinda random question: Is there any decelleration burn to enter the Moon's orbit after the TLI burn? Or is the coasting speed and trajectory set such that the CEV will simply enter a circular lunar orbit?

 

[crix]

Which motor is that done by? That burn is not shown on the quicktime animation at NASA.gov<br /><br />Either the craft does a 180 and uses the J-2X (right?) or it uses the same motors that control the lunar surface landing (have these been decided upon?)

 

[nacnud]

LOI is to be done by the LSAM, so RL-10 maybe?

 

[crix]

Just saw this on digg.com<br /><br />NASA is definately thinking robots in a big way:<br /><br />http://www.freshcreation.nl/comments.php?id=372_0_1_0_C

 

[nibb31]

Which is a change compared to Apollo, right? Was the LOI burn done by the SM or the Saturn IVB ?<br /><br />Why do it differently now? wouldn't it be smarter to save some propellant weight on the LSAM ?

 

[crix]

They could seat themselves in the LSAM before the burn. Isn't TLI to LOI transit time like 3 days? That would not be fun... hopefully the CEV will be spacious enough to give 4 people some breathing room. <br /><br /><br />Oh, sorry, I misread your post, I think you have it backwards. I believe the LSAM is already positioned for LOI burn. The crew would be hanging from their straps if they were still in the CEV.

 

[nacnud]

<font color="yellow">Why do it differently now? wouldn't it be smarter to save some propellant weight on the LSAM ?<br /><br /><font color="white">I think the idea is so the LSAM LOI burn and LSAM decent burn can be done with cryogenic propellants, thus reducing the total mass needed to be put into a transfer orbit by the EDS considerably. The LSAM assent stage and CEV Luna departure burn are baselined to be with storable propellants as there could be considerable time between arrival and departure, six months or more.<br /></font></font>

 

[qso1]

On Apollo, the LOI burn was accomplished by the SPS which was located on the CSM. <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>