What If NASA Had Continued Its Lunar Program?

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-21 08:59:16

What If NASA Had Continued Its Lunar Program?
960x0.jpg?fit=scale
In this handout photo provided by NASA, U.S. astronaut Edwin E. ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr., Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, poses for a portrait taken in July 1969. He and mission Commander Neil Armstrong were the first persons to land on the Moon. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)

This question originally appeared on Quora – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Robert Walker on Quora:

Could we have established a colony on the moon if NASA’s lunar program had continued?

Oh, I think quite possibly. They’d have found the ice and carbon dioxide and ammonia and other volatiles in the permanently shadowed craters at the poles. Also, the lunar caves, which may be up to 5 kilometers in diameter, and the peaks of almost eternal light at the poles, ideal for temperature and solar power.

The moon actually looks rather favorable indeed, compared to Mars nowadays, now that we know of those resources.

There may be hundreds of millions of tons of ice there, and also many millions of tons of CO2 and ammonia. And the peaks of eternal light have the most continuous sunlight available on any large body in the inner solar system (apart from possibly Mercury), and they have steady temperatures, varying by only ten degrees C either way. The average temperature may seem rather chilly (at -50° C), but that’s warm enough to let you keep a habitat at a comfortable temperature of 20° C with aid of a solar collector.

The caves on the moon are also a unique resource, as they have the potential to be far larger than caves on Earth or Mars due to the low gravity. Larger even than city domes.

There are also many metals available. And 0.5% of the soil is pure iron, which can be separated by a magnet. The soil is very fertile, tested by growing plants in actual real lunar soil.

So — they wouldn’t know any of this, of course, but I think that if they’d continued with the explorations after Apollo 17 in this alternative past history, they’d have found it all out in the 1970s. We can never know what would have happened then, and can’t say if it would have been a better history, but yes, I think that this might well have led to permanent long-term bases on the moon by now.

I think it’s also the obvious place to go next today.

Mars does have ice, but — if you think about melting it all — do remember that it has large areas of desert, dry for a long way down in the equatorial regions. Though there is water chemically locked in the sand, it’s still as dry as our Sahara, and is not just a smooth ball. Much of the water would drain away into the desert sands. And it doesn’t have much ice compared to Earth. Not only does it have much less than the water in our oceans, it’s got only a fraction of the total amount of ice in Antarctica too. It had oceans in the past. Nobody really knows what happened, but the latest evidence from the Maven spacecraft suggests that most of it was lost into space. A small amount might have ended up in the deep hydrosphere kilometers below the surface.

There is also ice in the equatorial regions of Mars, deep underground, and again we are not sure how much. I’m not at all sure you could create oceans there if you raised the temperature somehow. Also, that would need large planet-scale mirrors or massive industrial levels of production of greenhouse gases as part of a project that would last thousands of years – and with much that could go wrong. There is no way you’d change the planet over a decades-long timescale or even a century or two by these methods. On Earth it took hundreds of millions of years, and that is in an orbit much closer to the sun than Mars.

The moon at any rate has many advantages over Mars. It’s much closer, far easier to supply, and easier for rescue efforts if they are needed. As rich in resources as Mars, I’d say, for up to thousands of people at least, and the peaks of eternal light particularly are amongst the most hospitable places you could hope for outside of Earth. The long-term effects of lunar gravity is a big unknown, but that’s also true for Mars, and you can’t just draw a straight line between Earth and zero G. The human body is complex, with many interacting systems that would respond differently to different gravity levels. So, it could be that lunar gravity is better for you than Mars G, or worse, or that different gravity levels may be optimal for different age groups or health conditions, or there may be individual variation. There is no way to know except with experiments.

So, I think based on these recent discoveries about the moon, which they could have discovered in the 1970s if they had kept going — you can present as good a case for near-term settlement of the moon as for Mars, and perhaps a better case, since it is so close to Earth.

So yes, they could have set up a moon settlement. Not sure if you would really call it a colony, as it would surely be dependent on Earth for many things. Nowhere in space is anything as hospitable as Antarctica or our driest, coldest, harshest deserts, and we don’t colonize those. I think it would have been more like a settlement-type base, not a colony — and not approaching self-sufficiency, at least not yet. Like an Antarctic base, you’d have many people on Earth to support each person on the moon. But the explorers and scientists in the base would be finding many things of value on the moon by now, making it worthwhile for us to support them, just as we do with scientists and others in Antarctica.

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Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-04-21 09:00:52)

RobS · 2016-04-21 11:33:16

The obvious issue this posting doesn't address is the reliable of the Saturn/Apollo transportation system, or its expense. If we had continued launching two per year, the cost wouldn't have been that different from the shuttle and space station programs, but there's a very good chance that a Saturn would have exploded or a LM would have crashed. We really don't know how reliable that system was. Also, it was quite expensive in today's terms; each launch would have been a billion or two. With a weak commitment to lunar exploration, a mission failure might have ended the whole effort.

On the other hand, we would have never needed ISS, because we could have reboosted Skylab, added more supplies to it, maybe added more modules, etc.

Regarding the comparison with Mars, I find it strange to argue that the moon is better than Mars because the moon has plenty of volatiles and Mars can never be terraformed. The moon can never be terraformed, either. If the goal is a small colony, both provide water and volatiles. The moon is closer and has a smaller gravity well; Mars is farther away and has a bigger gravity well. For understanding the origin of the Earth, both are important. The moon will tell us about the very beginning, but Mars may very well tell us about how life evolved on Earth. If life never evolved on Mars, the prebiotic soup will still be there fossilized in the rocks. If life evolved there and went extinct, it may tell us how cells arose, or nuclei, or some other basic steps that are unavailable to us here. So Mars has a lot to teach us about ourselves and the early history of our home world.

louis · 2016-04-21 11:53:49

I think if the Apollo programme had continued, everything would be different: there would have been inbuilt focus on human off-planet colonisation. Far less money would have been wasted on the Space Shutttle, because the need for regular supply would have forced NASA to look for cheaper alternatives. By now we would have lunar hotels and lunar tourism with the super-rich paying tens of millions of dollars to visit the historic Apollo 11 landing site. And because of the inbuilt focus on human colonisation, we would progressed to the first stages of Mars colonisation by now, making use of the experience garnered on the moon.

Sadly a lot of ignorant comments about Mars there! Exactly how much water does a community of say 100 on Mars actually need? Answer - hardly any with water recycling. But there is plenty of evidence for huge ice glaciers and the like. And energy will be so abundant that the Mars settlers can afford to expend far more energy than we would on securing a basic resource like water.

Some rather silly comments about resources on Mars there.

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

What If NASA Had Continued Its Lunar Program?
http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/im … ?fit=scale
In this handout photo provided by NASA, U.S. astronaut Edwin E. ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr., Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, poses for a portrait taken in July 1969. He and mission Commander Neil Armstrong were the first persons to land on the Moon. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)
This question originally appeared on Quora – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Robert Walker on Quora:
Could we have established a colony on the moon if NASA’s lunar program had continued?
Oh, I think quite possibly. They’d have found the ice and carbon dioxide and ammonia and other volatiles in the permanently shadowed craters at the poles. Also, the lunar caves, which may be up to 5 kilometers in diameter, and the peaks of almost eternal light at the poles, ideal for temperature and solar power.
The moon actually looks rather favorable indeed, compared to Mars nowadays, now that we know of those resources.
There may be hundreds of millions of tons of ice there, and also many millions of tons of CO2 and ammonia. And the peaks of eternal light have the most continuous sunlight available on any large body in the inner solar system (apart from possibly Mercury), and they have steady temperatures, varying by only ten degrees C either way. The average temperature may seem rather chilly (at -50° C), but that’s warm enough to let you keep a habitat at a comfortable temperature of 20° C with aid of a solar collector.
The caves on the moon are also a unique resource, as they have the potential to be far larger than caves on Earth or Mars due to the low gravity. Larger even than city domes.
There are also many metals available. And 0.5% of the soil is pure iron, which can be separated by a magnet. The soil is very fertile, tested by growing plants in actual real lunar soil.
So — they wouldn’t know any of this, of course, but I think that if they’d continued with the explorations after Apollo 17 in this alternative past history, they’d have found it all out in the 1970s. We can never know what would have happened then, and can’t say if it would have been a better history, but yes, I think that this might well have led to permanent long-term bases on the moon by now.
I think it’s also the obvious place to go next today.
Mars does have ice, but — if you think about melting it all — do remember that it has large areas of desert, dry for a long way down in the equatorial regions. Though there is water chemically locked in the sand, it’s still as dry as our Sahara, and is not just a smooth ball. Much of the water would drain away into the desert sands. And it doesn’t have much ice compared to Earth. Not only does it have much less than the water in our oceans, it’s got only a fraction of the total amount of ice in Antarctica too. It had oceans in the past. Nobody really knows what happened, but the latest evidence from the Maven spacecraft suggests that most of it was lost into space. A small amount might have ended up in the deep hydrosphere kilometers below the surface.
There is also ice in the equatorial regions of Mars, deep underground, and again we are not sure how much. I’m not at all sure you could create oceans there if you raised the temperature somehow. Also, that would need large planet-scale mirrors or massive industrial levels of production of greenhouse gases as part of a project that would last thousands of years – and with much that could go wrong. There is no way you’d change the planet over a decades-long timescale or even a century or two by these methods. On Earth it took hundreds of millions of years, and that is in an orbit much closer to the sun than Mars.
The moon at any rate has many advantages over Mars. It’s much closer, far easier to supply, and easier for rescue efforts if they are needed. As rich in resources as Mars, I’d say, for up to thousands of people at least, and the peaks of eternal light particularly are amongst the most hospitable places you could hope for outside of Earth. The long-term effects of lunar gravity is a big unknown, but that’s also true for Mars, and you can’t just draw a straight line between Earth and zero G. The human body is complex, with many interacting systems that would respond differently to different gravity levels. So, it could be that lunar gravity is better for you than Mars G, or worse, or that different gravity levels may be optimal for different age groups or health conditions, or there may be individual variation. There is no way to know except with experiments.
So, I think based on these recent discoveries about the moon, which they could have discovered in the 1970s if they had kept going — you can present as good a case for near-term settlement of the moon as for Mars, and perhaps a better case, since it is so close to Earth.
So yes, they could have set up a moon settlement. Not sure if you would really call it a colony, as it would surely be dependent on Earth for many things. Nowhere in space is anything as hospitable as Antarctica or our driest, coldest, harshest deserts, and we don’t colonize those. I think it would have been more like a settlement-type base, not a colony — and not approaching self-sufficiency, at least not yet. Like an Antarctic base, you’d have many people on Earth to support each person on the moon. But the explorers and scientists in the base would be finding many things of value on the moon by now, making it worthwhile for us to support them, just as we do with scientists and others in Antarctica.
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SpaceNut · 2016-04-21 18:09:43

Nice topic Tom.. Robs hit one of the spots of price of mission and another is the tonnage capability to the moons surface is also another short straw issue....Yes Skylab could have been more but for all that we have heard of it there seems to be no meantion of any work with it or beyond to continue the reasearch with it that I remember.

You are right Louis in that the mars facts are now different than what Edwin E. ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr., remembers as we have had all of what was said turn out as not totally correct...

At the time of the moon we did have a nation pride in it while Russia was the cold war enemy but that was changing at the end of the apollo program....that left the nation without the desire to continue onward as we had proven that we were capable....and that they had fallen short of achieving the same goal as they never did send there mission which could have happened....What could have and should have are in the past but what we need is a future that moves us back into space and if the moon is a proving ground lets get it done.....

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-21 23:38:46

RobS wrote:

The obvious issue this posting doesn't address is the reliable of the Saturn/Apollo transportation system, or its expense. If we had continued launching two per year, the cost wouldn't have been that different from the shuttle and space station programs, but there's a very good chance that a Saturn would have exploded or a LM would have crashed. We really don't know how reliable that system was.

If it did, then the Saturn program would have been less delayed than the Shuttle program was when the Challenger exploded or when the Columbia burnt up in the Earth's atmosphere, as subsequent Shuttle missions depend on prior shuttles being returned to Earth intact, but if a Saturn V blew up, that Saturn was expendable anyway, there would have been other Saturns waiting to be launched. An investigation would have been opened up as to what went wrong of course, but if we were determined to continue the Moon program, we would have found out what went wrong, fixed it for the next mission and then proceeded. That would have been true for the Saturn as it was true for the Shuttle.

Also, it was quite expensive in today's terms; each launch would have been a billion or two. With a weak commitment to lunar exploration, a mission failure might have ended the whole effort.
On the other hand, we would have never needed ISS, because we could have reboosted Skylab, added more supplies to it, maybe added more modules, etc.

Skylab is comparable to Mir, it would have been used until it was decided to build a second generation space station that was bigger, probably one which used multiple Saturns to launch all the components and assemble them in space. Probably at some point Zubrin would have noted that the Saturns could be used in a manned Mars mission, by this time the prospect of landing men on Mars would have to compete with a Lunar Base that NASA and its international partners would be maintaining and operating on the Moon's surface. The Space Telescope would have been bigger than the one launched in the cargo bay of the Shuttle.

Regarding the comparison with Mars, I find it strange to argue that the moon is better than Mars because the moon has plenty of volatiles and Mars can never be terraformed. The moon can never be terraformed, either. If the goal is a small colony, both provide water and volatiles. The moon is closer and has a smaller gravity well; Mars is farther away and has a bigger gravity well. For understanding the origin of the Earth, both are important. The moon will tell us about the very beginning, but Mars may very well tell us about how life evolved on Earth. If life never evolved on Mars, the prebiotic soup will still be there fossilized in the rocks. If life evolved there and went extinct, it may tell us how cells arose, or nuclei, or some other basic steps that are unavailable to us here. So Mars has a lot to teach us about ourselves and the early history of our home world.

The Moon would make a great Space Station, anything on the Moon is basically in space. Space begins at the Moon's surface. Mars has an atmosphere, so the environment at the surface of Mars is not Space. The Moon also provides a much more stable platform, than any space station we could build in low Earth orbit. The Moon also provides a heat sink, the average temperature of the moon is about 0 degrees Celsius, so if we had a reactor or a bank of solar panels, we could just dump the waste heat into the Moon's surface and the Moon would conduct the heat away, instead of relying on radiators.

RobertDyck · 2016-04-22 00:46:26

I have described the proposals for space stations, one from 1968, the other from the early 1970s. The '70s one was two Skylab workshops, but they would be new modules, not the Skylab that was launched. There was intent to keep Skylab in space longer, in fact there was strong debate whether to launch a reboost module with Saturn 1B or Shuttle. NASA management decided to focus on completing Shuttle and hoped to do so in time to rescue Skylab. They failed. But Skylab had limited water and oxygen, and those tanks were not designed to be refilled. When it ran out, Skylab would be de-orbited.

Skylab had water for 400 days, using consumption estimates at the time. It had oxygen for more days, exact number depends on leakage and how much required for initial pressurization. The three missions occupied Skylab for a total of 171 days, so it had a lot left. But it was limited.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-22 07:56:29

RobertDyck wrote:

I have described the proposals for space stations, one from 1968, the other from the early 1970s. The '70s one was two Skylab workshops, but they would be new modules, not the Skylab that was launched. There was intent to keep Skylab in space longer, in fact there was strong debate whether to launch a reboost module with Saturn 1B or Shuttle. NASA management decided to focus on completing Shuttle and hoped to do so in time to rescue Skylab. They failed. But Skylab had limited water and oxygen, and those tanks were not designed to be refilled. When it ran out, Skylab would be de-orbited.
Skylab had water for 400 days, using consumption estimates at the time. It had oxygen for more days, exact number depends on leakage and how much required for initial pressurization. The three missions occupied Skylab for a total of 171 days, so it had a lot left. But it was limited.

The Shuttle definitely was not worth their attention, it would have been better to attempt to land the bottom stages of the Saturn V, and place a winged orbiter on top of the stack. Simply abandoning the Saturn V in favor of the Shuttle was a big mistake!

RobertDyck · 2016-04-22 08:13:38

Don't rewrite history. There's no way you could land a stage with 1960s technology. It took SpaceX several attempts with 2015/2016 technology.

louis · 2016-04-22 15:44:40

I think it's that sort of attitude that stymied space development. Robotically controlled VTOL aircraft were around in the mid 1950s. Are you really claiming that if we hadn't thrown billions of dollars and our best minds at the problem we couldn't have cracked it. I just don't believe that. The point for me is that because of the way NASA's priorities went it was never an economic necessity to get a stage landing in place. It would have become one if we (or the USA to be more specific) had gone for a lunar colony policy.

RobertDyck wrote:

Don't rewrite history. There's no way you could land a stage with 1960s technology. It took SpaceX several attempts with 2015/2016 technology.

RobertDyck · 2016-04-22 16:24:56

That is optimistic; and yes it is the kind of thinking that allowed NASA to achieve what it did. I just don't think 1960s computers or alloys were up to it. They didn't have friction stir welding. Didn't have aluminum-lithium alloy. Didn't have graphite fibre composite for landing legs. Yes, the modern F-1B engine proposed for advanced boosters of SLS perform exactly the same as F-1A engines available in 1969. Yes, the F-1A was just as good. But, these other things were necessary to get it to work.

GW Johnson · 2016-04-22 17:12:15

There were rockets and capsules for Apollo moon missions through 22. I don't know how many Saturn 1B's there were. The last moon mission Apollo was 17. That leaves 5 sets of Saturn 5 stuff, and 5 capsules.

One Apollo and one Saturn 1B was used for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in which Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton finally (!!!!) got to fly.

3 Apollo capsules, 3 Saturn 1B's, and one modified Saturn 5 got used for Skylab. The S-IVB stage on that Saturn was modified into the Skylab station. That leaves 4 Saturn 5's "unaccounted for", except that they are all on public display in various rocket parks. One is in Houston, I've been there.

You have to understand that the Saturns were not originally NASA manned space program rockets. The original designs came from von Braun working for the US Army at Huntsville, AL, long before there was a NASA at all. These things were war rockets. The original Saturn 5 design was a "troop-ship" rocket for delivering combat teams of 100 men per rocket to Soviet Russia for a takeover achieved by gassing the population with LSD-25 (also a US Army weapon). Everything about them is one-shot throwaway weapon stuff. There is zero reusability there.

NASA used these rockets for the moon landing program, because (precisely) they were the largest things we had available. When NASA got formed from the old NACA, the operation "Paperclip" German rocket scientists (von Braun's group at US Army Huntsville) got included simply because they were the best, most experienced, that we had.

NASA's original scheme for Apollo was to land the entire capsule/service module cluster on the moon. I saw this in the news and the trade journals at that time: from 1962 to about 1964. It wouldn't work because Saturn 5 was not big enough. They needed two Saturn-5's per mission to the moon, one as a tanker to refuel the other. And NO ONE AT THAT TIME knew how to transfer LOX and LH2 on-orbit.

THAT was why the outsider-to-NASA's suggestion of lunar orbit rendezvous was accepted by NASA (quite reluctantly!!!!) by about 1965. It was the only way they could use only one Saturn 5 per moon mission, and avoid all the risks of transferring LOX and LH2 on-orbit. Simple as that, and just as short-sightedly sordid.

There is just no f***ing way any of that 1960-vintage hardware could have ever been made reusable. They were doing really good to get crews onto the moon and back at all (remember Apollo 13?). Before Gus Grissom died in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 (known then as Apollo 204), he was asked about their chances of getting to the moon alive. His answer was about 1 in 3. I remember that TV interview.

Beware 20-20 hindsight. It makes things in the past seem clearer than they really were.

GW

louis · 2016-04-22 17:13:52

Well, Robert, I have to accept your technical understanding is far superior to mine. But I look at this in more broad brush terms. If the Nazis had shown no interest in rocket development by 1945, rocket development would have gone nowhere. It was only because there was that intense voluntary effort that rockets went from something like toys in the early 30s to almost game changers by the mid 40s. Take away the Nazi rocket development programme and from 1945 it would probably have been impossible to land someone on the moon until maybe the late seventies. Application of effort is crucial in my view.

RobertDyck wrote:

That is optimistic; and yes it is the kind of thinking that allowed NASA to achieve what it did. I just don't think 1960s computers or alloys were up to it. They didn't have friction stir welding. Didn't have aluminum-lithium alloy. Didn't have graphite fibre composite for landing legs. Yes, the modern F-1B engine proposed for advanced boosters of SLS perform exactly the same as F-1A engines available in 1969. Yes, the F-1A was just as good. But, these other things were necessary to get it to work.

SpaceNut · 2016-04-22 17:49:41

Yes the past history did pass its hands over what happened but that is not today so where is the effort to voluntarily go after the brass ring via corporate efforts...they will not as all they want is profits.....

RobertDyck · 2016-04-22 20:12:33

GW Johnson: I had looked up what happened to Saturn V rockets. When the Mars Society was new. I thought if Mars Direct required a new rocket as powerful as a Saturn V, why not use a Saturn V? Of course the issue is they were left outside in the rain for years. Corrosion.

Serial numbers:
SA-500F: Facilities integration
SA-500D: Dynamic testing (vibration)
SA-513: originally Apollo 18, reassigned for Skylab
SA-514: originally Apollo 19, reassigned Apollo 18 after decision for Skylab
SA-515: Apollo 20

1st & 2nd stages of Apollo 18: launched Skylab
3rd stage of Apollo 18: on display at Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas
1st stage of Apollo 19: on display at Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas
2nd stage of Apollo 19: Apollo/Saturn V Center, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
1st stage of Apollo 20: still at the factory where it was made, on display: Michoud Assembly Facility, Louisiana
2nd stage of Apollo 20: on display at Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas
3rd stage of Apollo 20: converted to backup Skylab, on display at National Air and Space Museum

1st stage of SA-500F, with 5 real engines: Apollo/Saturn V Center, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
2nd stage of SA-500F: converted to SA-500D
3rd stage of SA-500F: Apollo/Saturn V Center, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
1st stage of SA-500D, 1 real engine and 4 boiler plates: U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville Alabama
2nd & 3rd stages of SA-500D: U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville Alabama

Where is S-IV-514? 3rd stage of Apollo 19? Wikipedia claims it's at KSC, but the reference document it cites does not actually say.

Interstages were used as storage sheds at KSC for years, but one historian wrote they "disappeared" at some point. Probably hauled away as scrap metal.

"Instrument Unit" was the flight computer and sensors (gyros & accelerometers) used to control the rocket. It was installed on top of the 3rd stage. No idea what happened to them, but they were 1960s technology.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-04-22 20:14:15)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-22 20:38:13

RobertDyck wrote:

Don't rewrite history. There's no way you could land a stage with 1960s technology. It took SpaceX several attempts with 2015/2016 technology.

Even so, would we have lost much if we kept the Saturn V and its cousins and never developed the Shuttle? Imagine LBJ looking at plans for the Space Shuttle on his desk, and him rejecting it, saying it was not worth the cost. Imagine Werner von Braun agreeing with him, saying the Saturn V works fine, and with the Saturn family, we could launch all we need to launch and explore the Solar System too! With the Saturn V, we could have built the ISS, though it would look different, we could have launched a larger version of the Hubble Space telescope, we could have built a base on the Moon, we could have sent astronauts on missions to explore the asteroids, We could have launched a larger version of the Voyager Space Missions, then called the Grand Tour. The Shuttle was over sold, it advertised airline like prices to orbit, and that advertising was false, just because it has wings, doesn't mean it was a jumbo jet!

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-22 21:02:44

GW Johnson wrote:

There were rockets and capsules for Apollo moon missions through 22. I don't know how many Saturn 1B's there were. The last moon mission Apollo was 17. That leaves 5 sets of Saturn 5 stuff, and 5 capsules.

The question was, when was it decided to pursue this "mirage" called the Space Shuttle? When was it decided to shut down production of the Saturn V rocket? The Shuttle ended up as an excuse to discontinue the Saturn V rocket production line! Some idiots wanted to exchange a concrete rocket for a pie in the sky space shuttle which didn't exist yet! It was a classic bait and switch, and the Shuttle was the bait. The public was asked, whether they wanted to continue the Apollo program, or whether they wanted to go into space themselves onboard the Space Shuttle?
the_future_of_space_tourism.6.jpg
Do you remember this? I count 34 passenger seats in this module, now just imagine, for only $10,000, you can buy a ticket into space onboard this shuttle, we can make this a reality if we choose to fund the shuttle, or you can continue to watch a hand full of astronauts continue to collect rocks on the Moon on television! Ho hum! Which would you rather spend your tax payer money on? Just look at that image of the Space Shuttle hauling passengers into space! Just imagine what kind of space hotel we can build once we lower the cost of space travel with the Shuttle! You've seen 2001 A Space Odyssey right? Well the Shuttle can make that a reality, everything follows from the Space Shuttle!
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we can build this space station.
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we can build this Lunar Shuttle!
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And we can build this Clavius Moon Base, and all we need to do this is the shuttle! Unfortunately in these hard economic times, we have to get the money to fund the shuttle from somewhere - so unfortunately we have to cancel the Apollo Program to do this, but isn't it worth it? Just look at all we can accomplish with the Space Shuttle!

And just look at these space colonies Gerard O'Neill has proposed we make out of lunar materials. In 20 years we all could be living in space, building Solar Power Satellites, and beaming the power back down to Earth, and it all begins with the Shuttle!

One Apollo and one Saturn 1B was used for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in which Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton finally (!!!!) got to fly.
3 Apollo capsules, 3 Saturn 1B's, and one modified Saturn 5 got used for Skylab. The S-IVB stage on that Saturn was modified into the Skylab station. That leaves 4 Saturn 5's "unaccounted for", except that they are all on public display in various rocket parks. One is in Houston, I've been there.
You have to understand that the Saturns were not originally NASA manned space program rockets. The original designs came from von Braun working for the US Army at Huntsville, AL, long before there was a NASA at all. These things were war rockets. The original Saturn 5 design was a "troop-ship" rocket for delivering combat teams of 100 men per rocket to Soviet Russia for a takeover achieved by gassing the population with LSD-25 (also a US Army weapon). Everything about them is one-shot throwaway weapon stuff. There is zero reusability there.
NASA used these rockets for the moon landing program, because (precisely) they were the largest things we had available. When NASA got formed from the old NACA, the operation "Paperclip" German rocket scientists (von Braun's group at US Army Huntsville) got included simply because they were the best, most experienced, that we had.
NASA's original scheme for Apollo was to land the entire capsule/service module cluster on the moon. I saw this in the news and the trade journals at that time: from 1962 to about 1964. It wouldn't work because Saturn 5 was not big enough. They needed two Saturn-5's per mission to the moon, one as a tanker to refuel the other. And NO ONE AT THAT TIME knew how to transfer LOX and LH2 on-orbit.
THAT was why the outsider-to-NASA's suggestion of lunar orbit rendezvous was accepted by NASA (quite reluctantly!!!!) by about 1965. It was the only way they could use only one Saturn 5 per moon mission, and avoid all the risks of transferring LOX and LH2 on-orbit. Simple as that, and just as short-sightedly sordid.
There is just no f***ing way any of that 1960-vintage hardware could have ever been made reusable. They were doing really good to get crews onto the moon and back at all (remember Apollo 13?). Before Gus Grissom died in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 (known then as Apollo 204), he was asked about their chances of getting to the moon alive. His answer was about 1 in 3. I remember that TV interview.
Beware 20-20 hindsight. It makes things in the past seem clearer than they really were.
GW

SpaceNut · 2016-04-22 21:23:36

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V
Project cost $6.417 billion in 1964–73 dollars ($41.4 billion in 2016)
Cost per launch $185 million in 1969-1971 dollars, of which $110 million was for vehicle (inflation adjusted US$ 0.71 billion in 2016).

http://www.asi.org/adb/m/02/07/apollo-cost.html
TOTAL COST PER APOLLO MISSION:
-----------------------------

Year ($M) (94$M)
Apollo 7 1968 $145 $575
Apollo 8 1968 $310 $1 230
Apollo 9 1969 $340 $1 303
Apollo 10 1969 $350 $1 341
Apollo 11 1969 $355 $1 360
Apollo 12 1970 $375 $1 389
Apollo 13 1970 $375 $1 389
Apollo 14 1971 $400 $1 421
Apollo 15 1971 $445 $1 581
Apollo 16 1972 $445 $1 519
Apollo 17 1972 $450 $1 536
---------------------------------

RobertDyck · 2016-04-22 22:17:28

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

We could have launched a larger version of the Voyager Space Missions

V'ger!

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

The question was, when was it decided to pursue this "mirage" called the Space Shuttle? When was it decided to shut down production of the Saturn V rocket?

Shuttle was not supposed to replace Saturn 1B or Saturn V, it was supposed to be addition. Shuttle was supposed to provide inexpensive access to space. Saturn 1B or its successor was intended to launch bulk cargo. Saturn V would be reserved for future missions that need it, such as a manned mission to Mars.

Richard Nixon slashed NASA's budget. Since Shuttle was supposed to reduce cost and provide continuing manned access to space, NASA didn't want to lose it. So they cut it down, actually reducing development cost at expense of increased operational cost. Nixon also said NASA and the military couldn't have separate launch systems, despite the fact NASA was specifically created as a separate civilian space agency. So Shuttle had to serve too many masters. When cost increased so budget to complete Shuttle was in jeopardy, NASA management decided to shut down Saturn launch vehicles in order to focus on Shuttle.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-23 07:41:15

RobertDyck wrote:

Tom Kalbfus wrote:
We could have launched a larger version of the Voyager Space Missions
V'ger!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fx2Ac_2OYbc/maxresdefault.jpg
Tom Kalbfus wrote:
The question was, when was it decided to pursue this "mirage" called the Space Shuttle? When was it decided to shut down production of the Saturn V rocket?
Shuttle was not supposed to replace Saturn 1B or Saturn V, it was supposed to be addition. Shuttle was supposed to provide inexpensive access to space. Saturn 1B or its successor was intended to launch bulk cargo. Saturn V would be reserved for future missions that need it, such as a manned mission to Mars.
Richard Nixon slashed NASA's budget. Since Shuttle was supposed to reduce cost and provide continuing manned access to space, NASA didn't want to lose it. So they cut it down, actually reducing development cost at expense of increased operational cost. Nixon also said NASA and the military couldn't have separate launch systems, despite the fact NASA was specifically created as a separate civilian space agency. So Shuttle had to serve too many masters. When cost increased so budget to complete Shuttle was in jeopardy, NASA management decided to shut down Saturn launch vehicles in order to focus on Shuttle.

Nixon was a crook anyway, and I hope we don't elect one. (not to name names) The Shuttle was originally supposed to supplement the Saturn. If anything was to be cut, it should have been the Shuttle. Existing launch systems should have been maintained in preference to launch systems that didn't exist yet. The Nixon Administration made the mistake of swapping a launch system which did not exist yet, for one that already existed. So the Nixon Administration made the decision to end the manned space program in order to free up the funds to develop the Shuttle program, which I think was a big mistake! And guess what? We had to end the Shuttle program in order to free up the funds to build the SLS!. Now lets compare the Kennedy-Johnson Administrations with the Obama Administration. Both had 8 years to develop their respective rockets. By the end of the Johnson Administration, the Saturn V rocket was operational, by the end of the Obama Administration, still no SLS! I think the Trump Administration will either complete it or scrap in in favor of the Falcon.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-04-23 07:42:36)

RobertDyck · 2016-04-23 07:54:22

Nixon also called Apollo a ridiculous stunt. He was elected on a platform that he had a secret plant to end the Vietnam war early. His secret plan was to raid NASA, give that money to the military. His surge in Vietnam didn't work. NASA never recovered.

Richard Nixon was Republican, but he was not the Republican nominee. He ran independently. Sound familiar?

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-04-23 07:55:44)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-23 08:32:52

What if we elected Ronald Reagan in 1968 instead of Richard Nixon? That might have led to a sequence of events which led to the continuation of the Apollo Program. Or perhaps Barry Goldwater in 1964? Nah, I think electing Ronald Reagan in 1968 would have been the best chance for continuing the Apollo Program. After all Ronald Reagan did continue the Shuttle Program, I think if he were elected in 1968 he would have continued the Apollo Program, just like he continued the Shuttle Program in the 1980s, and Reagan was President for 8 years, now a two-term President starting in 1969 would have lasted to 1976, Apollo 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24! By the time our Nation's Bicentenial rolled around, we might have had two Apollo 24 Astronauts walking around on the Moon collecting rock samples. George H. W. Bush would then begin a Mars Program during his Administration from 1977 to 1980. I'd say in 1979 the Soviet Union collapses instead of it doing so in 1991.

louis · 2016-04-23 17:06:24

Would you like to justify your statement that Nixon was not the Republican nominee in 1968? Everything I have read states clearly he was.

RobertDyck wrote:

Nixon also called Apollo a ridiculous stunt. He was elected on a platform that he had a secret plant to end the Vietnam war early. His secret plan was to raid NASA, give that money to the military. His surge in Vietnam didn't work. NASA never recovered.
Richard Nixon was Republican, but he was not the Republican nominee. He ran independently. Sound familiar?

RobertDyck · 2016-04-23 17:43:14

louis wrote:

Would you like to justify your statement that Nixon was not the Republican nominee in 1968? Everything I have read states clearly he was.

Sorry. Heard he wasn't. Several times. Online sources all say he was. I was young and in Canada, but did see TV campaigning at the time. Didn't have a way to verify that. But stand by everything else. I have low opinion of the president who killed Apollo.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-23 20:31:41

RobertDyck wrote:

louis wrote:
Would you like to justify your statement that Nixon was not the Republican nominee in 1968? Everything I have read states clearly he was.
Sorry. Heard he wasn't. Several times. Online sources all say he was. I was young and in Canada, but did see TV campaigning at the time. Didn't have a way to verify that. But stand by everything else. I have low opinion of the president who killed Apollo.

Interesting then that while the Democrats impeached Nixon, they didn't stop him from killing JFK's Apollo program, why is that? You'd think if they could have impeached Nixon, they could have also restored funding for the Apollo Program, but they didn't. Not even Ted Kennedy stood up for his fallen brother, the coward!

Maybe what confused you was that Nixon often acted like a Democrat.
1) He was pro-choice
2) He started the EPA
3) He lied, cheated, and stole, trying some of the same dirty tricks that his predecessor JFK had, the only problem is the press couldn't cover for him like they did for JFK. Nixon didn't realize that the rules worked differently for Democrats than they did for Republicans.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-04-23 20:34:28)

SpaceNut · 2016-04-23 20:32:45

This topic is not only bordering on politics and name calling but looking into the future with what we did in the past is just that in the past and unless we recreate it we are just mizzing about what could have been....

Lets focus on what we have and how to get it to what we want it to be for the future....

The lunar shuttle is interesting but can the companies making commodities that Nasa and the world needs decide to make them without the contracting.....lets go do it... as we are waiting for just this item to make a moon mission possible....

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