New AW&ST CEV article [Pow! Zoom! Straight to the Moon!]

[gunsandrockets]

It's interesting to compare the direct moon flight architecture of the First Lunar Outpost (FLO) plan of 1992...<br /><br />http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/Station/Slides/sld051f.htm<br /><br />to the 2005 ESAS architecture for reaching the moon.<br /><br />The FLO vehicle is 95 tonnes. It takes that much mass to take four people direct to the moon and then back to Earth. No wonder NASA has gone with the modified Apollo style LOR flight plan. By leaving the Earth reentry capsule and TEI fuel in lunar orbit instead of dragging it down and then back up out of the moon's gravity well, the ESAS architecture can still put 4 men on the moon for a mass of around 55 to 60 tonnes.<br /><br />But here is an interesting bit of trivia. The mass of the FLO vehicle Earth return stage (the lander ascent stage) is 30.5 tonnes, and while using hypergolic propellents at that. Wheras the LSAM of the ESAS plan supposedly can land 21 tonnes of cargo on the moon.<br /><br />What that means is, it's possible for NASA to do the same direct moon flight plan as the FLO by using the smaller LSAM. The main difference is the theoretical Earth return stage of the LSAM would be smaller, carrying only 2 or 3 crew, compared to the FLO vehicles 4 man crew. <br /><br />Maybe the moon direct achitecture isn't so dead after all, since the only addition to the current ESAS architecture would be a different ascent stage for the LSAM. The SDHLV with modified LSAM could be a pure Saturn style one shot launch moon vehicle without any need for EOR. While the CLV and CEV could be a pure LEO shuttle for supporting the ISS.<br /><br />Interesting...<br /><br />Then there's the LUNOX plan of 1993. A method of cutting down the mass of FLO by partially refuelling the spacecraft on the moon. The estimated mass of the LUNOX vehicle was less than 40 tonnes. So what could a LSAM do if it were refueled on the moon?<br /><br />I haven't crunched th

 

[ragnorak]

<br />I find it hard to believe the architecture will be changed again. I think the whole ESAS work was just a political tool for Griffin to justify his own plan within the budget constraints (which seem to be getting worse) and the need to separate crew and cargo.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">I find it hard to believe the architecture will be changed again.</font>/i><br /><br />I think the ESAS is still fairly open to modifications for the Lunar lander portion. When Griffin unveiled ESAS he did point out that the lander presented in the plan was only "notional" at that point. The most concrete points are the CEV, CLV, and HLV. The rest, including exactly what will be done with these capabilities (what I call "ESAS Applications"), are relatively fuzzy.<br /><br />Since I doubt there will be much of any money for the lander part of the plan until after STS retirement, detailed decisions for that portion can probably be put off for another half dozen years.</i>

 

[holmec]

yes nice article.<br /><br />but about the moon lander, obviously this set to NASA managers are relearning what the managers and planners found out during Apollo times.<br /><br />So this news was to be expected. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>