Should we return to the moon first?

RobS · 2002-08-28 11:27:13

Probably the main reason to do Mars and the moon is because equipment developed on or for one could be adapted for use on the other relatively inexpensively. Consider the Earth Return Vehicle, which must achieve at least 6.5 km/second to return to Earth from the Martian surface. Low earth orbit to the lunar surface takes 5 km/sec, and the return flight would need an aeroshell, just like the ERV. If one wants to send an expedition by rocket from one spot on the lunar surface to another, it would take up to about 1.5 km/sec to launch onto a ballistic trajectory to get there; the same to land; the same to take off for home base; and the same to land there, a total of 6 km/sec. Clearly, there is synergy between the ERV and a moon shuttle. The same can be said for hab design, spacesuit design, reactor design, rover design, etc.

Doing both is inevitable because equipment designed for one will bring us half way to creation of the equipment for the other. Furthermore, once we have done both, we will have equipment for a staffed station in Venus orbit to oversee robotic expoloration of that world, and we will be 3/4 of the way to creating the equipment to land exploration teams on Mercury. The major difference is delta-vee; a one way trip to Mercury needs 10 to 15 km per second, double the delta-vee of a Mars trip. But the equipment is essentially the same as is needed at the lunar poles. Mercury's poles also have water ice, so any equipment designed to make rocket fuel at the lunar poles would work at the Mercurian poles as well.

Once humanity has done all four of these worlds, it will be ideally poised to visit the galilean satellites of Jupiter. The delta vee is probably less than Mercury's, and the temperature are similar to the Martian poles in winter. Mars exploration of the poles and engines for Mercury exploration together give most of the technology for a Jupiter voyage. And it is the beginning of exploration of the other outer planets. . .

-- RobS

quasar777 · 2002-08-28 13:02:46

in the past when we may have been a bit more serious about a moonreturn, people would`ve been more receptive about salvaging the equipment. now since it`s been 30yrs it`s become somewhat of a legend so many have come into this put in a museum idea. the truth is anyone who would finally setdown on the lunar surface after all this time would look around at all that equipment just sitting there. regardless of sentimentality, if it could be used in the capacity of a: moonbase, launchvehicle, pressurized rover, etc., let`s proceed. it may be meteordamaged or obsolete, so let`s meltreform it. since it would take awhile to make moontourism cheap, i don`t think there will be tourists there for awhile. the people moonreturning will be in a survival situation oweing to the fact of less g, no atmosphere or resources, etc., so any resources would be helpful & is not the real goal mars anyway. being sentimental at this point about moonjunk doen`t get us very far in the real world.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-08-28 23:01:24

From the various posts in this topic and elsewhere, it looks like most of us would have a wish-list like this (in descending order of popularity):

1) Mars and the Moon, together, all at once, no expense spared.
2) Mars.
3) The Moon.

Unfortunately, unless we get a good bit more in the way of political oomph, we could easily get none of the above.
???

C.COMMARMOND (FR) · 2002-08-29 03:44:05

I don't agree with Shaun,

1 Mars
2 Mars and the Moon
3 Moon

Moon has only scinetific interest, i think cheaper to make fuel on Mars and make it come back to LEO than to make it on the moon and i think the same for all other matters when we speak of return on investment.

Why? Moon water in on the pole, in very rocky places without light. So:
- you need to change rocket orbits from equatorial to polar around the Moon, it is 50% more expensive than to ground to equator (one time for landing on, and again when landing off).
- No sun, so you need a nuclear power supply.
- Rocky places so a small problem with landing computers = a lost rocket.
...

On Mars, you have free energy:
Sun and wind (when a storm with 600 km/h wind = a 40km/h wind on Earth) so when air is steady, use sun, when there is a storm, use wind.
Water and air (CO2 and some water) on equator so no extra cost.
From this we can do automatic plants, with human intervention only to refuel tanks.

And more, we have a lot of volunteers to stay 1.5 years or more on Mars, how much do we have for Moon ?

So i don't want moon, i want Mars.

CC

Merp · 2002-08-29 06:28:13

Clearly, there is synergy between the ERV and a moon shuttle. The same can be said for hab design, spacesuit design, reactor design, rover design, etc.

I think I disagree with you here, RobS. There is a practical limit to the amount of synergy you could expect between such radically different environments.

Environment suit, rover, greenhouse, expedition logistics, construction , life support and other technology designed for the moon would be completely different than that employed on Mars.

On the moon an environment suit is a minature spaceship. It would require total life support and protection from hard radiation. It would have to withstand huge differences in temperature. All this means a fairly bulky, limited suit. This is not a huge inconvenience, since Luna has only 1/6 the gravity of Earth.

On Mars, however, its doubtful the same suit would be practical. Mars has twice the gravity of the moon. The extremes of temperature such a suit must endure are significantly less, as is the exposure to radiation. Life support need not be total - instead of scrubbing exhalation you can vent it since there is an unlimited supply of O2 at the nearest rover or base camp. Of course a Mars-designed environment suit would be even more useless on the moon.

The same can be said about every other required technology. Do you think the flimsy lunar rovers would have been any use on Mars, if they were taken there? Do you think it wise to over-engineer for Martian gravity construction techniques bound for the moon? What size aeroshield should we use for capture into lunar orbit?

Sure, its possible to design systems suitable for both environments, but not economically. You would be wasting mass and limiting functionality for no good reason. Such systems would cost more and be over-engineered. And since the differences between the systems would originate at the core concept level, its difficult to find the synergy between distinct development projects.

There are similarities in some systems (like habitats that must meet the rigorous requirements of space travel regardless of the final destination) but in terms of R&D, the intellectual benefits of going to Mars before the Moon or vice versa seem purely psychological. Where is the cost saving?

--Merp.

quasar777 · 2002-08-29 09:20:47

at this point we have suits for neither moon or mars. really what we need is an inventory of all known equipment on the lunar surface, that wouldn`t be very expensive. the lunar rovers are obsolete, they may still be good as trailers for another rover or a tractor. yes, taking them to mars would be silly. most everything that could be used on the lunar surface should obviously stay there. anything that could be used on the martian surface would hafta be recycled.many speak of moonmining, there is already excellent materials in the form of equipment wouldn`t that be easier than mining? the fact that there is no stable lunar orbit makes an excellent excuse to explore possible L point stations. obviously this would be more expensive than MD. since there is really no clearcut plan for moonreturn much of the expense is based on an apollo approach. MR wouldn`t necessarily go straight to the South Pole region though i`m sure that would be desired. i would prefer one of the previous sites. i`d explore all of them as a ground expedition to the S. Pole, taking every available bit of equipment there. i understand there are at least two mountain peaks in S. Polar region where a melting apparatus could be installed. these peaks apparently constantly recieve sunlight. one is called malapert mountain & the other is the peak of eternal light. so much for the idea of the moon having no solar advantage.

quasar777 · 2002-08-29 09:29:50

in all actuality what is so bad about a manned mars flyby?or a phobos mission? this could be launched from just about anywhere. much could be accomplished w/ such & it would be safer. it`s what would`ve been done had we kept orbit breakouts going, but now we`re in so much of a hurry we`re forgetting many details.

RobS · 2002-08-29 10:11:29

As Merp quite rightly notes, the environment of Mars and the moon are not the same; just similar. The biggest difference probably is gravity. A -100 Centigrade wind blowing on Mars may be colder than a vacuum above -150 Centigrade regolith. Suits cannot be designed to protect significantly against radiation in either place. But overlaps do exist. Moon vehicles need heatshields if they fly to Earth orbit, as most would. If they only fly on the moon, it is easy enough to remove the heat shield, if it is so designed.

There is a site I mentioned about a week ago where an astronautical society studied three options: moon alone, Mars alone, and both. Both did not cost twice as much as either; it was something like 25-50% cheaper than the two separately.

-- RobS

RobS · 2002-08-29 10:22:17

Regarding a few other points:

I am no so sure that the moon is valuable only scientifically. There is an Artemis Society, just as there is a Mars Society. It is the object of the dreams of some people as well. I think it is the object of less dreaming than Mars, but the dreaming is not zero.

(By the way, "dreaming" is not meant to minimize the importance of nonscientific reasons for doing something. Human beings will return to the moon some day, and will go to Mars some day. Those decisions will not be purely scientific; they will be political, social, and popular as well. There is an excellent article on the SpaceToday website comparing Mars novels and movies to westerns, and it underlines the nature and changing forms of the dreams about Mars.)

Regarding equipment left on the moon, some probably can be reused and perhaps should. Some probably should be left alone; some will be utterly unusable. I wonder whether the Apollo 11 site should remain untouched, with no footprints ever placed there, other than those of the first arrivals. It will be a lot of work retriving equipment; it takes a lot of fuel to fly around the moon, and it will be some time before we have the technology for long surface trips. Certainly, let's put that golf ball in a future lunar museum!

Regarding flybys, Zubrin himself has proposed the idea in print; you can read it at the "Romance to Reality" website (which is really incredible; if you haven't looked at it, you should). Phobos landings are also proposed there. One of my first postings to this Board, in the spring, was about the value of such a mission. Russian scientists are keen to do a Phobos mission in a few years and have already tried one (which failed). For some reason, NASA is uninterested.

-- RobS

Mark S · 2002-08-29 11:35:19

There is a very compelling reason to return to the moon, one which will help alleviate the power crisis the earth will face in the near future. The idea is called "Lunar Solar Power." In a series of recent articles in "The Industrial Physicist" magazine, David Criswell explains the idea. Lunar materials are used to build solar panels, which beam energy back to the earth. The idea has advantages over space solar power. It's cheaper to fabricate the solar panels and get them in place, and the sun is constantly shining on them.

The moon may also hold deposits of Uranium, which will help to sustain nuclear power on earth. Unless we switch to "fast" or "breeder reactors," the current Uranium reserves will be depleted in 50 years.

RobS · 2002-09-14 01:24:17

Space.com has an interesting article about the conference that is now ending in New Mexico about returning to the moon. Quite a few very capable scientists were there.

One article I found on space.com from June or July of this year, I think, made the interesting point that the lunar surface should be littered with rocks and dust blasted off the Earth. They even gave an estimate of 11,000 pounds per square mile (!) of terrestrial material. And almost all that material comes from the Earth's first billion years. It may very well be that the earliest terrestrial rocks with microfossils may be on the moon, since all the pieces of the Earth from that era were recycled here by plate tectonics long ago. Fascinating to think that there is terrestrial geology to recover from the moon.

-- RobS

Shaun Barrett · 2002-09-14 07:35:16

Has all the returned lunar material been examined yet? Could any of it be from here, full of fossils, without us knowing?
:0

Josh Cryer · 2002-09-14 08:43:06

Ahh, that's brilliant. I would have never thought that the moon could contain remnants of Earths early crust. Can you imagine? Luna could well hold the key to life on Earth. Clues to pre-DNA lifeforms, life that lead to the creation of genes. It's amazing. I wish I'd thought of that.

And Shaun, I think they keep a few of the rocks for display, so they probably haven't been analyzed outside being dusted off, etc. I believe the good stuff would be inside the rocks.

quasar777 · 2002-09-14 14:52:41

yet another reason for moon return. they keep adding up.

RobS · 2002-09-14 22:15:41

The article said some of the researchers want to examine scoops of moon particles, as they could include tiny fragments of Earth in them. A lot of the lunar samples still have not been examined in detail.

-- RobS

Bill White · 2002-09-16 10:33:55

Ahh, that's brilliant. I would have never thought that the moon could contain remnants of Earths early crust. Can you imagine? Luna could well hold the key to life on Earth. Clues to pre-DNA lifeforms, life that lead to the creation of genes. It's amazing. I wish I'd thought of that.

I had thought the Moon essentially *WAS* the Earth's early crust - blasted into orbit when a Mars sized object struck the Earth at the precise angle needed to accomplish this trick. At least according to the impact theory of lunar formation.

Interesting geology, to be sure, but I am skeptical whether pre-DNA fossils could have been preserved given the impact forces and temperatures this material was subjected to.

Josh Cryer · 2002-09-17 00:21:55

Replying to some earlier comments first... I think the moon does absolutely offer a lot from a coloniztion perspective. If not a commercial perspective. I just think that ultimately, politically, it's not disconnected enough for a dissimilar society to emerge, and we'll be stuck with an Earth-like society, having Earth as our ?governing body.? So it doesn't appeal to me for those reasons, and those reasons alone. Physically, Mars does offer a lot more than the moon. For instance, quantities of water so vast, that they would easily fill the great ocean that was once there. Let's not forget the atmosphere is arguably on the verge of terraforming itself (although it won't happen without intervention, I'm sure).

And Bill, I'm just assuming that possibly, during Earth's early life, something could have occured that spewed pre-DNA lifeforms to the moon. DNA based lifeforms don't interest me that much, although there is probably a higher possiblity that they would exist on the moon. Early in the solar systems history, comets and asteroids were fairly common, or at least, that's what I understand of it. And I think a large soupy bit of pre-DNA fossils could certainly withstand an impact... they're essentially ?organized chemicals.?

I know the chance isn't that great, but still, the prospect does still intrigue me greatly.

SpaceNut · 2014-05-21 19:59:44

Wow what a time warp....Ya lunar outpost, moon base Alpha....since the VSE was announced then cancelled...

Should We Colonize the Moon? And How Much Would It Cost? in 16 years is even possible.

Russia, according to one report, is planning to colonize the moon by 2030. Sorry, Russia. Establishing a moon colony would require no less than tens of billions of dollars and the cooperation of numerous countries.
The cost depends on how many people you would send to colonize the moon and how many shipments of supplies and materials would be necessary to establish the colony. A typical cost to send humans and materials from Earth to the moon is about $50,000 per pound. The result, even if lunar resources are used to construct the habitat, usually has a lower estimate of several tens of billions of dollars to establish a colony on the moon.

RobS · 2014-09-02 21:44:34

With the first flight of the Falcon Heavy less than a year away, it is probably a good time to think about the capabilities it creates for a return to the moon.

A Falcon Heavy can launch 53 tonnes to LEO; if the 1.75 tonne fairing can be incorporated into the payload, 54.75 tonnes. Two of them are just 10% shy of the 118 tonnes the Saturn V could loft. With improvements in technology since 1969, surely we can do just about as well with two Falcon Heavies.

To keep things simple, all propulsion should use kerosene and oxygen and stages that are variants of the Falcon 9 v1.1's second stage. That stage has a dry mass of 4.9 tonnes (including the half tonne Merlin engine) and holds 90 tonnes of propellant. The second stage of the Falcon 9 v1.0 was 3 tonnes dry mass and 52 tonnes total; almost identical to the payload of a Falcon Heavy to LEO.

The first Falcon heavy launch would put a 54.75 tonne "third stage" into LEO. The second launch would include a 29 tonne "fourth stage" (2 tonnes dry mass, 27 tonnes propellant), the Dragon capsule and trunk (6 tonnes) and an 18-tonne lunar lander (2 tonnes capsule, 1.5 tonnes dry mass, 14.5 tonnes propellant). Note that the lunar module massed 14.5 tonnes, so this is plenty to land crew on the moon.

The payload of the second launch would dock to the "third stage" and it would burn its fuel, pushing the payload to 2.1 km/sec. The third stage would separate and possibly aerobrake back to LEO eventually. the fourth stage would then take over and accelerate the ship to Earth escape, then perform the lunar orbit injection burn. It retains enough propellant to push the Dragon capsule back to Earth at the end of the mission.

The crew would transfer to the lander (its "capsule" is identical in mass to the lunar module's), land the crew on the moon, then return them to orbit at the end. Essentially, the flight plan is identical to Apollo, with the lunar module and Dragon flying together on the way out.

In terms of development, if SpaceX developed this system, it would be relatively cheap. Space X developed Falcon 1, Falcon 9 versions 1.0 and 1.1, two versions of the Dragon, the Falcon Heavy, and reusability for about $1 billion. This system would involve creating three shorter versions of the second stage: the third stage, fourth stage, and the lunar lander. They would all have the same diameter as the first and second stages and therefore would use the same tooling. the third and fourth stages would use the Merlin engine. The lander might need a different, smaller version of the Merlin; that is one engine development they'd have to do. The lunar "capsule" would be stripped down Dragon with no heat shield, a different structure, but the same life support and pother systems. the lunar lander would utilize the landing technology of the Falcon reusable that is at an advanced stage.

How much would it cost Space X to create the shorter third and fourth stages, create a shorter "fifth" stage lander with Falcon landing legs and a stripped down variant of the Dragon, and design a smaller Merlin engine? This is much less work than they have already accomplished for a billion dollars! I suspect 300 to 500 million dollars and 3-5 years would do it.

GW Johnson · 2014-09-06 14:52:09

Dave Maasten might have an even better lander, which could still ride one of Spacex's big rockets. XCOR might even have a better engine than the RL-10 that is stock on Centaur, around which Maasten's lander is conceived.

GW

Tom Kalbfus · 2014-09-06 15:12:40

SpaceNut wrote:

Wow what a time warp....Ya lunar outpost, moon base Alpha....since the VSE was announced then cancelled...
Should We Colonize the Moon? And How Much Would It Cost? in 16 years is even possible.
http://d1435t697bgi2o.cloudfront.net/wp … colony.jpg
Russia, according to one report, is planning to colonize the moon by 2030. Sorry, Russia. Establishing a moon colony would require no less than tens of billions of dollars and the cooperation of numerous countries.
The cost depends on how many people you would send to colonize the moon and how many shipments of supplies and materials would be necessary to establish the colony. A typical cost to send humans and materials from Earth to the moon is about $50,000 per pound. The result, even if lunar resources are used to construct the habitat, usually has a lower estimate of several tens of billions of dollars to establish a colony on the moon.

Putin can do that, he is a dictator after all, and no one is going to question him. The Russians have lost their country to a dictator, if he wants to use slave labor to build rockets to get to the Moon, he can!

RobS · 2014-09-06 20:34:38

I saw your blog, GW Johnson, about using the Falcon Heavy, Centaur variants, and the Morpheus lander. It was fascinating. It may be even better than what I was writing about. All I wanted to point out that Space X could do a moon landing by modifying the equipment they are already developing, so it might be even cheaper than using Centaur and Morpheus.

GW Johnson · 2014-09-07 10:57:13

I think that was actually Bob Clark's blog. That's where I saw him post stuff about Maasten's lander ideas. Basically, they make a great deal of sense. More tonnage onto the moon with something no bigger than what we flew there before. Just done better.

I think Spacex's Falcon-Heavy will be the rocket-of-choice for going back to the moon, among other things. It can fling 53 tons to LEO, for a unit price currently projected to be about $1000/pound, under half what the current stable of commercial rockets can do in the 10-25 ton range. I think a really viable moon mission ship might be a Dragon v2, a big tank module or two of propellants for orbit-to-orbit departure and return (for reuse!!), and one of Maasten's landers (or something similar) and use its propulsion to fly you there and back, as well as landing on the moon as a single-stage vehicle. Why fly two sets of engines when one will do? (As long as it's a cluster for redundancy.)

One of the things we might ought to look seriously at is flinging hardened propellant tanks to LEO with a light gas gun for under $100/pound. It would require an LEO space taxi to retrieve them. You transfer the propellants to your vehicle, then send the gun launch hard tanks back for refill and reuse.

GW

RobS · 2014-09-27 11:32:35

Has anyone seen this very nice set of 57 slides of a two-Falcon Heavy mission to the moon? The slides don't have mass information, but the ideas is to land a Dragon V2 on the moon and return it to earth. The propellant of choice is hydrogen/oxygen.
http://imgur.com/a/as1FD/all

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-03-23 03:41:22

NASA delayed Artemis 3, its first crewed mission to the lunar surface since Apollo 17 more than a half-century ago, by nearly a year, a shift that is unlikely to be the final delay. Yet, arguably, plans to return humans to the Moon are more secure now than they have been since Bush’s speech 20 years ago.

Twenty years of chasing the Moon
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4725/1
2024

Jeff Foust

On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush went to NASA Headquarters and delivered a speech outlining what would become known as the Vision for Space Exploration. That strategy called for retiring the Space Shuttle after it completed assembly of the International Space Station at the end of the decade, restarting robotic exploration of the Moon by 2008, and returning astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2015, and no later than 2020 (see “Looking beyond vision”, The Space Review, January 19, 2004).

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/88/1

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-03-23 03:43:28)

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