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gunsandrockets
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Having recently read the Aviation Week & Space Technology article on NASA's plans for a polar Moon base, I noted some factoids buried in the story I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere. The NASA plans for lunar operations are already shaping the LSAM in interesting ways.<br /><br />[The decision to work from a base on the Moon, instead of dispersed sortie missions on the Apollo model, is already shaping hardware planning for surface exploration. From the beginning, each human mission to the Moon will leave behind hardware that future missions will incorporate into a larger base. That approach will guide the design of the lunar lander NASA plans to build as the final leg of the surface-to-surface U.S. lunar transportation infrastructure.] <br /><br />["We thought it was important to really maximize the capability to bring payload down to the Moon when you brought crew, and to leave that payload there after you left," says Tony Lavoie, head of the NASA team that developed the lunar surface architecture. Unlike Apollo, the new strategy will be "to make the ascent module small, to make the descent module small, and to maximize the payload-carrying capability. From a notional point of view, from a point of departure, we're on the order of 6,000 kg. (13,228 lb.) in that landed-mass envelope."] <br /><br />http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/search/autosuggest.jsp?docid=362108&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationnow.com%2Favnow%2Fnews%2Fchannel_space_story.jsp%3Fview%3Dstory%26id%3Dnews%2Faw121106p2.xml<br /><br />NASA administrator Griffin once boasted that a key feature of the LSAM/Ares V combination would be the ability to land more than 20 metric tons of cargo on the lunar surface. That assumed a cargo-only unmanned version of the LSAM to supplement the 7-day s