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"Golden Spike" revealed their architecture for a commercial return to the Moon this week:
How Golden Spike's Moon Landing Plan Works (Infographic )
http://www.space.com/18805-golden-spike … aphic.html
They estimated development costs in the $7 to $8 billion dollar range, less than 1/10 the cost of the Apollo or Constellation programs. However, even these numbers may be over inflated. The origin of the presented cost numbers were from NASA guys using NASA costing models. However, SpaceX has shown by following a commercial approach development costs can be cut by 1/5th to 1/10th that of NASA’s.
So what I think Golden Spike should do is bring SpaceX on board. With the development costs reduced to this extent, then we would have the really exciting possibility of the flight costs being brought down perhaps to the $200 million range, especially if using the Falcon Heavy launcher. This clearly would have a major impact on the prospect of profitability.
The only problem might be is that Elon appears to have no interest in the Moon, being focused on Mars as the ultimate goal. However the profitability motive may sway him. There is also the fact that these missions could serve to prove the capabilities of the Dragon even for BEO missions. It could also serve to prove the value of the Falcon Heavy for launching large payload at low cost, something Elon definitely wants for getting Air Force contracts.
As I discussed here the importance of what SpaceX has accomplished is that it will make clear that manned space flight can be accomplished at a fraction of what was thought necessary, thus making manned space flight routine world-wide. Combining this with small, low cost approaches to BEO flight, suggests such missions can also happen on a regular basis.
We are returning to the Moon, this time to stay.
Bob Clark
Proposes using the unmanned test flights of the Falcon Heavy to test low cost BEO missions to the lunar surface, near Earth asteroids, and the Lagrange points:
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for low cost trips to the Moon, page 3: Falcon Heavy for BEO test flights.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/1 … -cost.html
Bob Clark
The “Golden Spike” commercial return to the Moon plan will have its unveiling at a news conference at the National Press Club on Dec. 6th
Golden Spike to Unveil Plans Next Thursday.
Posted by Doug Messier on December 1, 2012, at 5:27 am in News
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2012/12/01/ … -thursday/
Bob Clark
This article by Amy Shira Teitel about the Chris Kraft piece discusses and links to a NASA report showing propellant depots can allow BEO missions without the SLS, saving billions:
EX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR URGES NASA TO KILL NEXT ROCKET SYSTEM.
Analysis by Amy Shira Teitel
Wed Apr 25, 2012 01:00 PM ET
http://news.discovery.com/space/mercury … 20425.html
So this is probably the report referred to by Chris Kraft:
"Propellant Depot Requirements Study Status Report"
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011/21.jul2011.vxs.pdf
The report discusses several scenarios for lunar, asteroidal, or Mars missions without using heavy lift vehicles by using propellant depots. It does discuss use of the Falcon Heavy in some scenarios, but others use the Delta IV Heavy. About this last, it's interesting they give the max payload of the Delta IV Heavy as 28 mT. But the highest I ever read it having was 25 mT. Anyone know what modifications to the Delta IV Heavy would allow it to have this high a payload capability?
A disadvantage of the approaches discussed however is the large number of launches required even for the lunar missions, 6 for the Falcon Heavy and 10 for the Delta IV Heavy. This is because the scenarios use the large, heavy Orion capsule, the service module, and a separate, large lunar lander, likely akin to the Altair lunar lander.
On the other hand if instead the Early Lunar Access (ELA) architecture were used it could be done with a single launch of the Falcon Heavy or two with the Delta IV Heavy:
Encyclopedia Astronautica.
Early Lunar Access.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/earccess.htm
Bob Clark
It would be helpful for the uninitiated, such as myself, if some explanation were given for the acronyms. I think I've got NASA, ICBM and LEO down pretty well, but what is
BEO - Banquet Event Order?
SLS - Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons?
LSS - Lutheran Social Services?
Then there's all the other stuff, even though it's defined once, one has to construct a glossary to keep tract: ELA, SEV. Fortunately RTTM was used just once and defined at the time.
Do you guys also have a secret handshake?
BEO is beyond low earth orbit. SLS is the Space Launch System, NASA's new heavy lift vehicle. LSS is Lunar Surface Sortie, described in the article I quoted above by Chris Bergin as a proposal by NASA to return to the Moon using the SLS.
Bob Clark
Just saw this article by legendary Apollo manager Chris Kraft mentioned on the NasaSpaceFlight.com forum:
Space Launch System is a threat to JSC, Texas jobs
By Chris Kraft and Tom Moser | April 20, 2012 | Updated: April 20, 2012 8:20pm
We are wasting billions of dollars per year on SLS. There are cheaper and nearer term approaches for human space exploration that use existing launch vehicles. A multicenter NASA team has completed a study on how we can return humans to the surface of the moon in the next decade with existing launch vehicles and within the existing budget. This NASA plan, which NASA leadership is trying to hide, would save JSC and create thousands of jobs in Texas.
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/ar … 498836.php
Since Kraft is opposed to the SLS and he says this plan uses existing launch vehicles, it can't use the SLS or the Falcon Heavy. It must then use something similar to the Early Lunar Access plan that uses orbital assembly, perhaps using two launches of the Delta IV Heavy.
Like the suppressed report that suggested orbiting propellant depots could accomplish the goals of the SLS at lower cost, this report will eventually also come out. So whose got the inside scoop?
Bob Clark
GW Johnson wrote:Falcon-Heavy is listed as 53 metric tons to LEO out of Canaveral. It's supposed to fly for the first time out of Vandenburg next year. Why not do the same mission even sooner with the rocket we already will soon have in hand, and at far lower launch cost?
Check prices: at full load, Falcon-Heavy is projected at $1000/lb ($2200/kg). Do you really think a government rocket will ever be that cheap? I don't. Titan-IV was not. Atlas (originally an ICBM) and Delta (originally the old Thor IRBM) had to be extensively "reworked" in the commercial launch business to be as cheap as they are today (full load about $2500/lb for 18-25 ton payloads to LEO out of Canaveral).
Just a thought.
GW
I agree the Falcon Heavy could do it much more cheaply. The problem is don't think NASA would fund it because it would undercut NASA's own BEO programs.
If there were a way to fund such lunar flights privately that would be ideal. One possible way it could happen would be if the companies planning on lunar mining after a robotic survey mission found high concentrations of valuable metals or minerals then you could have such manned missions being privately financed.Bob Clark
Just saw this:
Exploration Alternatives: From Propellant Depots to Commercial Lunar Base.
November 15th, 2012 by Chris Bergin
NASA managers have since created an option for a return, listed as a Lunar Surface Sortie (LSS) mission via the Exploration Systems Development Division (ESD) Concept Of Operations (Con Ops) document (L2), allowing it to become a Design Reference Mission (DRM) alternative, potentially at the expense of a NEA mission in the early to mid 2020s.
While this option remains on the cards, source information acquired by L2 this week revealed plans for a “game-changing” announcement as early as December that a new commercial space company intends to send commercial astronauts to the moon by 2020.
According to the information, the effort is led by a group of high profile individuals from the aerospace industry and backed by some big money and foreign investors. The company intends to use “existing or soon to be existing launch vehicles, spacecraft, upper stages, and technologies” to start their commercial manned lunar campaign.
The details point to the specific use of US vehicles, with a basic architecture to utilize multiple launches to assemble spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The details make direct reference to the potential use of propellant depots and fuel transfer technology.
Additional notes include a plan to park elements in lunar orbit, staging a small lunar lander that would transport two commercial astronauts to the surface for short stays.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/11/ … unar-base/
I first thought the commercial plan was going to follow the Early Lunar Access (ELA) proposal because it mentioned landing two commercial passengers on the Moon. ELA was a lightweight architecture that used a small two-man capsule:
Encyclopedia Astronautica.
Early Lunar Access. http://www.astronautix.com/craft/earccess.htm
But it is unlikely in the commercial plan they mean the passengers are to fly alone without one or more professional pilots. And also the article mentions the commercial plan is to use on orbit assembly. But by using the Falcon Heavy or the SLS you could launch the ELA architecture with a single launch.
Still, using two launches of the Delta IV Heavy both at its maximum payload to orbit of 25 mT we could launch the ELA architecture. Even if the Delta IV Heavy is not man rated, we could use separate launchers to take the astronauts to orbit and transfer them to the Moon vehicle after it is assembled.
For the NASA proposal, the article mentions the Lunar Surface Sortie (LSS) proposal. But this was still to use a 4 man capsule, which likely means the large, heavy Orion. It also would involve a separate lunar crew module, also at variance with the lightweight ELA architecture.
This lunar lander of the LSS proposal would then likely be akin to the large, expensive Altair lunar lander. So this proposal would be similar to the Constellation program whose high expense caused it to be cancelled. Better would be if NASA went small following the ELA architecture to use a single, small capsule that would carry the astronauts all the way from LEO to the lunar surface and back again. This would allow a NASA return to the Moon with a proportionally small additional cost above that of the SLS itself, and in less than a decade.
These commercial or NASA missions, if carried through, would allow a return to the Moon by the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missions if not of Apollo 11 itself.
Bob Clark
..
For a walking robot as for "Project M" there is also this:HRP-4C Miim's Human-like Walking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvbAqw0s … r_embedded
DARPA is sponsoring new research on robotics to enable more capable robots, for instance being able to walk over uneven terrain with obstacles:
Start Your Mad Science: DARPA's Humanoid Robot Challenge.
The Pentagon research arm wants you to build a robot that can drive a car, use hand tools, open doors, and perform other functions formerly reserved for us puny humans.
By Michael Belfiore
October 25, 2012 4:00 PM
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol … e-14095951
Bob Clark
In kim stanley robinson's mars trilogy One of the terraforming techniques that they use is a giant lens that carves out a massive cannal between the Northern basin end the hellas basin. Something I always found a bid sketchy nut for fun I've compared the numbres with something from zubrins works:
Zubrin says that by building a 125 km mirror with a mass of 200 000 tons could provide a 5°kelvin temprature rise for anything below 70° this is 20/180's (11%) of the martian surface a total area of 1,59E13m² (greater then the European continent)
But if you can double the temprature by halfening the surface area (a 10° rise for 7.96E12m²) you can actually get a 1280° rise by lowering your focus point to 6.22E10m² (the size of lake huron) or 40 960°K by 1.9E9m² If the reasoning fits then carving a canal wouldn't be all that impossible.
Heck, with a mirror that big we can find out what people are having for dinner on that planet around Alpha Centauri.
Bob Clark
I missed this story when it came out last month:
Weather On Mars Surprisingly Warm, Curiosity Rover Finds.
by SPACE.com Staff
Date: 01 October 2012 Time: 07:00 AM ET
"If this warm trend carries on into summer, we might even be able to foresee temperatures in the 20s [Celsius], and that would be really exciting from a habitability point of view," Gómez said. "In the daytimes, we could see temperatures high enough for liquid water on a regular basis. But it’s too soon to tell whether that will happen or whether these warm temperatures are just a blip.”
http://www.space.com/17828-mars-weather … overy.html
Bob Clark
This was posted on UMSF. No sol ref for ChemCam image. Eye candy for the Bio guys no doubt...... Reach for the sun.....
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7122/8157983024_c1c815d25f.jpg
CR0_1 by dfrank39, on Flickr
Thanks for that. Great pic.
Bob Clark
For the past several years, a group of optical scientists and engineers working at the UA Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory underneath the UA’s football stadium have been polishing an 8.4-meter diameter mirror with an unusual, highly asymmetric shape. The mirror has an unconventional shape because it is part of what ultimately will be a single 25-meter optical surface composed of seven circular segments, each 8.4 meters in diameter. The board for the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization officially accepted the mirror in Washington, D.C.
Work on the second mirror began in January of this year, and a third is expected to be cast next September. At the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Las Campanas Observatory in northern Chile, earthmovers are completing the removal of 4 million cubic feet of rock to produce a flat platform for the telescope and its supporting buildings.
The telescope, slated to begin operations late in the decade, will address critical questions in cosmology, astrophysics and planetary science, including getting a clearer picture of planets that orbit nearby stars.
The Giant Magellan Telescope partner institutions are the Australian National University, Astronomy Australia Limited, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Harvard University, the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, The Smithsonian Institution, Texas A&M University, the University of Arizona, the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin. Members are providing and raising the funding toward the $700 million project, with about 40 to 45 percent of the funding secured.
Thanks for that. Glad to see the project proceeding apace. It will perhaps be able to directly image extrasolar planets:
Big friendly giant: the Giant Magellan Telescope.
26 December 2008
by Heather Catchpole
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/2430/full
Bob Clark
Falcon-Heavy is listed as 53 metric tons to LEO out of Canaveral. It's supposed to fly for the first time out of Vandenburg next year. Why not do the same mission even sooner with the rocket we already will soon have in hand, and at far lower launch cost?
Check prices: at full load, Falcon-Heavy is projected at $1000/lb ($2200/kg). Do you really think a government rocket will ever be that cheap? I don't. Titan-IV was not. Atlas (originally an ICBM) and Delta (originally the old Thor IRBM) had to be extensively "reworked" in the commercial launch business to be as cheap as they are today (full load about $2500/lb for 18-25 ton payloads to LEO out of Canaveral).
Just a thought.
GW
I agree the Falcon Heavy could do it much more cheaply. The problem is I don't think NASA would fund it because it would undercut NASA's own BEO programs.
If there were a way to fund such lunar flights privately that would be ideal. One possible way it could happen would be if the companies planning on lunar mining after a robotic survey mission found high concentrations of valuable metals or minerals then you could have such manned missions being privately financed.
Bob Clark
Argues the SLS as early as 2017 can be used to launch manned lunar lander missions:
SLS for Return to the Moon by the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/1 … -50th.html
The argument for why this is doable is rather simple. The Early Lunar Access(ELA) proposal of the early 90's, which deserves to be better known actually, suggested that by using a lightweight 2-man capsule and all cryogenic in-space stages that a manned lunar lander mission could be mounted with only 52 mT required to LEO, half that previously thought necessary.
The only technical complaint about its feasibility was that it required a crew capsule of only 3 mT empty weight. But the kicker is NASA is planning a Space Exploration Vehicle(SEV) at that same low 3 mT empty weight. So the SLS at a 70 mT payload capability will be able to launch such a mission using the SEV as crew capsule following the ELA architecture with plenty of margin.
Bob Clark
Hi Bob:
The answer depends upon the ballistic coefficient of what you are trying to land, which in turn depends on the mass you are trying to land. That answer also depends very strongly on whether you do a direct entry from "deep space" vs an entry from low Mars orbit. The detailed "critical variables" are velocity and trajectory angle (relative to horizontal) at the entry interface altitude. I've been using Justus & Braun's interface altitude of 135 km, entered from a 200 km circular orbit, for which the entry angle is about 1.6 degrees and the de-orbit burn delta-vee is about 50 m/s maximum. The Mach at end-of-hypersonics (with severe heating) is about 3 (local). The M3 altitude ranges from near 30 km at around 100 kg/sq.m to around 5 km at around 1000 kg/sq.m...
Do you have a link for Justus and Braun? Keep in mind too that this is for a unmanned robotic mission, not for a manned mission, so will be much smaller. In fact we can consider the lander to be in the Mars Pathfinder range of less than 300 kg. We need to include also though the ascent stage propellant and dry mass. That will be much smaller for cryogenic but then we have to use special methods to minimize boil-off for such a long mission.
Let's say we first stop in orbit, then have a separate lander stage land on the surface. I think I can get a cryogenic stage of lightweight Centaur type of less than 3 mT gross mass, though none that small size have been built. What would the aerobraking and/or landing delta-V requirements be in that case?
For a hypergolic ascent stage I found this on Astronautix:
Delta P.
N2O4/Aerozine-50 propellant rocket stage. Loaded/empty mass 5,434/820 kg. Thrust 41.92 kN. Vacuum specific impulse 301 seconds.
http://www.astronautix.com/stages/deltap.htm
This would be enough to carry a Mars Pathfinder size lander back to low Mars orbit assuming a 4,100 m/s required delta-V. What would aerobraking and/or landing delta-V be then?
Bob Clark
GW, it might indeed be possible to do a Mars sample return using hypergolic in-space stages launched by the Falcon Heavy. I was doubtful there would be small enough hypergolic stages yet extant. However the OMS pods on the shuttle orbiters are detachable and mass in the range of 12 mT gross each. So these might work.
In my estimates of Mars missions I've been using all aerobraking solutions, i.e., no thrusters, to save propellant. Suppose this is not workable, how much do you estimate would be the delta-V needed for soft landing on Mars using currently doable aerobraking methods?
Bob Clark
Argues the SLS as early as 2017 can be used to launch manned lunar lander missions:
SLS for Return to the Moon by the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/1 … -50th.html
Bob Clark
New record high temperature in Gale Crater Mars. Since record keeping began over thirty days ago the new all-time record high temperature occurred on sol-35. It reached a balmy +5C or 41F. This is an equivalent September temperature. Expect temperatures to approach 90F in the lazy dusty days of Summer. I wonder if they have "dog days" on Mars.
Is this air temperature? I don't remember ever seeing for any other Mars lander air temperatures above freezing. Mars Pathfinder showed temperature drops as much as 20C between air temperatures and ground temperatures. So even if the ground temperature was above 0C, which does happen frequently during the day, the air temperature could still be below freezing.
Bob Clark
This is the reply received from a University of Arizona researcher, when asked the question "how much water vapor might be found on ground level at night?"
I get about 1.3e11 cm-3 for a nighttime temp of -120 C and a pressure of 2.7e-4 Pascals (the vapor pressure of water at that temperature).
That description looks like a calculation rather than a measurement. The water vapor content measured by previous Mars missions in absolute terms was only in the range of .03%:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars
Bob Clark
Perhaps the disagreement is coming from two different uses of the word "stable". One use of the word is whether or not water will boil away, another is whether or not it will evaporate away. Even on Earth where surface conditions won't have water boil away, the evaporation rate can be quite rapid on, say, a hot Summers day. Would you say water is unstable during Summer days on Earth because a puddle of water will evaporate away within hours to even minutes?
The now famous gullies on Mars led Mars scientists to further understand the conditions under which water can appear on Mars. They use the term "metastable" to describe liquid water on Mars. By this they mean water won't necessarily boil away, but it will be subject to a rather rapid, comparatively, evaporation rate. Note that by "rapid", this does not mean instantaneous.
Do a Google search on "metastable", Mars, and "liquid water" for more on this.
Bob Clark
If the Mars rover finds water, it could be H2 ... uh oh!.
By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times
September 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
Curiosity was first proposed in 2004 under a mission category that would have allowed it to explore a region with ice and water. That category called for sterilizing portions of the spacecraft that would contact the surface of Mars to avoid contamination of moist areas where microbes — from Earth or from Mars — have the best chances of survival.
On Nov. 1, after learning that the drill bit box had been opened, Conley said she had the mission reclassified to one in which Curiosity could touch the surface of Mars "as long as there is no ice or water."
Conley's predecessor at NASA, John D. Rummel, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, said, partly in jest: "It will be a sad day for NASA if they do detect ice or water. That's because the Curiosity project will most likely be told, 'Gee, that's nice. Now turn around.' "
If water is found, Curiosity could still conduct tests from a distance with instruments including a laser and spectrometers.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me … 5701.story
Bob Clark
I suppose the first thing I should say is... I'm back.
The second thing is the topic of the post. Anyone else played this? It's a fun little space simulator, where you put together rockets and fly into space - orbiting, landing on moons, etc. It's still in development, but they plan to have a whole solar system set up eventually, rather than the one planet/one moon (two if you've pre-ordered the full version) they have right now.
I've managed landings on both moons as well as the grand tour (hitting both moons in one mission, then returning) and have been practicing orbital rendezvous maneuvers, which are more difficult, by far, than landing on the moons.
Is there a tutorial on how to use it?
Bob Clark
There shouldn't be any more spam messages now since posters must be approved by me before they can post. This way we don't have a flood of spammers like last time.
Somehow this slipped though:
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6816
Warning! Porn spam with included x-rated images.
Bob Clark
Bob:
Why not a scaled-down design similar to my chemical manned lander concept? Conical aeroshell, blunt heat shield, ascent rocket on the core axis sticking out a bit. A fleet of small rovers tucked away inside amongst the rocket-braking propellant.
Do it as a direct descent from transfer orbit, launched by a Falcon Heavy. My guess is it'll come out of hypersonics too low for a chute or ballute, so just go for direct rocket braking from M3 on down.
Rovers scoot around gathering samples, and bring them back to the ascent rocket. It'll need a contraption to load the samples into the return capsule. Direct return to Earth, and a free entry from transfer orbit. Or, stop in LEO and go get it with the X-37.
GW
I was trying to get it from already existing components for the space traverse stage(s). You would need stages that totaled less than the 53 mT capacity of the FH to LEO using hypergolics. Or use the FH to do the trans Mars injection, and use smaller stage(s) for the landing and return. According to Zubrin, the Falcon Heavy can send 17.5 mT on a trans Mars injection flight towards Mars:
The Use of SpaceX Hardware to Accomplish Near-Term Human Mars Mission
posted May 16, 2011 6:50 AM by Michael Stoltz [ updated May 20, 2011 11:12 AM ]
Robert Zubrin, Pioneer Astronautics, 05.15.11
http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/n … arsmission
Doing it this way though does not leave much leeway for dense propellant upper stage(s) for the landing and return flight, as they would have to total 17.5 mT in gross mass.
Bob Clark
SpaceNut wrote:Dialup to slow to watch the youtube but google Asimo Mars Robots and here is...
Honda's ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility), : A robot that can walk on two legs like a person....
Asimo can walk up and down stairs and recognize faces and voices.
http://www.airventure.org/news/2011/images/asimo.jpg
http://www.airventure.org/news/2011/110630_asimo.html
http://www.glideidea.com/2012/05/24/asi … -mobility/
http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl … eanup-work
Of course Nasa is working on
http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/Thanks for that. Pretty cool. Keep in mind this too:
Project M Concept Animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us3NyJZQ … re=relatedBob Clark
For a walking robot as for "Project M" there is also this:
HRP-4C Miim's Human-like Walking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvbAqw0s … r_embedded
Robert Clark
