Return to the moon - send ahead

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dannydare

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Recent articles on the 40th anniversary of the moon landings talk about returns to the moon limiting weight that the astronauts take with them. None of these articles seem to suggest sending material ahead to the landing site so the astronauts can land and walk into a shelter with lots of necessary supplies and equipment.

A useful technique, and one that would work for Mars as well, is to first send a landing pad making device that will deploy a nice level landing pad on the surface and set up a transmitter to guide in the bulkier robot vehicles and eventually the manned vehicle.

There is no need to send the astronauts until it is known that all the prep equipment has arrived correctly and is waiting for them.
 
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Boris_Badenov

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Bigelow wants to land a complex consisting of 3 BA-330 modules on the Lunar surface. I doubt very much they could do this without some kind of a Pathfinder Mission that at the very least picks the landing site if not physically prepare it.
While I can see the point of sending supplies ahead, I just don't think it'll be the "Magic Wand" that'll make any setup so easy we should have done it yesterday.
 
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SteveCNC

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I agree that prep missions need to happen long before we can send people , need to send some electric remote controlled D8's (ok bobcats) to scratch out some nice flat spots and start prepping roadways for laying power grid cables and access to one of the poles . I assume it would be easiest to take off and land from the equator although personally I would think it would be better to live near one of the poles , at least at first . The poles are the most likely place to find ice below the surface so for oxygen/water production it seems like a better choice of places to start with .

One more thing living near a pole would give is easier access to 24/7 sunlight for solar arrays to power everything . The Japanese propose to make a solar array all the way around the moon at the equator but that seems a bit excessive to me . So with landing and takeoff at the equator it seems like it would be easiest to make a transport tube or similar system to go from landing area to living area . All of the dirt moving can be done ahead of time although if it's not already there , we should have a GPS system up for the moon asap to aid in the grading effort .
 
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