NASA's Moon Mission

SpaceNut · 2005-12-28 12:02:35

The plan for the creation of the CEV and of its exploration vision use took some interesting topics into what was use to produce what has become known as Apollo on steriods.

page 4 of 156 lunar Architecture

Each architecture study emphasized one or more critical aspects of human exploration in order to determine basic feasibility and technology needs. Example architectural areas of emphasis include:
• Destination: Moon ↔ Mars ↔ Libration Points ↔ Asteroids;
• System Reusability: Expendable ↔ Reusable;
• Architecture Focus: Sorties ↔ Colonization;
• Surface Mobility: Local ↔ Global;
• Launch Vehicles: Existing ↔ New Heavy Lift;
• Transportation: Numerous stages and technologies traded;
• LEO Assembly: None ↔ Extensive;
• Transit Modes: Zero-gravity ↔ Artificial-gravity;
• Surface Power: Solar ↔ Nuclear;
• Crew Size: 4 ↔ 24; and
• ISRU: None ↔ Extensive.

EuroLauncher · 2006-03-11 21:41:40

CEV vs. Apollo
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/ … vs.apollo/
Notable differences between new CEV and Apollo moon capsule

NASA closing in on naming new fleet
2/27/2006 8:55:00 AM
By: Chris Bergin
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?id=4333
Sources have revealed the latest list of the names NASA has given to its new fleet, with a Greek goddess, a Roman mythological god, and a near-by star winning through as the identities of the new ships that will send America back to the moon and on to Mars.
In the next decade, Altair, Artemis and Ares (I and V) could well become space community household names, as NASA returns to exploration past our own orbit.

NASA: Cleveland center can't handle major role in moon mission,
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/13856525.htm
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindeal … xml&coll=2
Glenn could get work on shuttle replacement - But management needs improvement, reports say

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-17 06:38:01

Firm plans 1,000 space jobs at KSC
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.d … /603160353
ASRC work may lead to new craft to replace aging shuttle orbiters

Mars_B4_Moon · 2006-03-28 19:39:31

Here is rthe Russian take on the Moon, Mars mining 'a must' - Sevastiyanov
The flamboyant - yet influential - president is under no illusions about the 2012-2014 timeline it would take for his company to support Russia’s first manned mission to the Moon, including the mining of isotope helium-3 by 2020.
'We could make a landing as early as 2012-2014 using the Soyuz-type technology,' said Sevastiyanov, in a wide-ranging interview with Vedomosti magazine.
'With a budget within $2 billion, we could land on the Moon in three missions.
'The first would be just a lunar fly-around mission, the second would involve a circumlunar orbit injection with automatic landing of the lunar module, and the third would be the manned landing on the Moon.

Thanks for that, but some of those Russians say lot's of stuff - they said Energia would take 'em to Mars but where are they now ?

SpaceNut · 2017-03-15 18:03:12

Another old topic for the moon and why we are going back

SpaceNut · 2018-03-13 20:39:33

Moon bases being planned now may show us how to live off-planet

Moon bases being planned now may show us how to live off-planet; Half a century after the last humans walked on the lunar surface, the moon is looking ripe for a new round of exploration and development. President Trump has ordered NASA to plan a return.

knightdepaix · 2020-05-05 13:27:25

Austin Stanley wrote:

In the case of Titanium however, there is some promise. The two earliest methods of refining Titanium the Hunter and the Kroll process, both rely upon pyrometalurigal techniques and so are not very usefull to us in space. However, the new FFC Cambridge Process does hold much promise for use on the moon. This electrochemical method uses less energy, is more efficent, and faster then the current Kroll process. And like most electrochemical process, it is possible to recycle nearly all of it's important chemical componets. The only element that is potentialy wasted is the evolved oxygen which on the moon will can be captured as a usefull gas.

The Metalysis-FFC-Cambridge process for the efficient production of oxygen and metals on the lunar surface.B. A. Lomax,M. Conti2,N. Khan2, M. D. Symes1;1University of Glasgow, UK; Metalysis, UK

SpaceNut · 2020-06-21 17:57:42

NASA's selection of Kathy Lueders to become the new associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate Kathy Lueders now has the job of making NASA's 2024 moon landing happen with her former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, who is on record as wanting to cancel the Artemis return to the moon program, was quite effusive.

While trying to keep Artemis on track for the planned 2024 moon landing, Lueders has an even bigger problem: convincing Congress to provide enough funding to make that happen. A recent article in Axios suggests that making the 2024 landing would be difficult. Congress is spending a great deal of money on the coronavirus pandemic and may want to cut rather than increase funding for Artemis. On the other hand, it can be argued that fully funding Artemis would aid in the economic recovery from the pandemic.
The sort of uncertain future that Artemis faces has bedeviled long term, large scale NASA projects from the very beginning of the space age. The last two return-to-the-moon programs, both started by presidents named George Bush, were unceremoniously cancelled by their Democratic successors. The International Space Station was almost stillborn, except that President Bill Clinton restructured it, brought in Russia as a partner and then threw his support behind it.
The 2024 landing date was President Trump's attempt to forestall what happened to the previous return-to-the-moon programs. The theory was that if the first woman and the next man were to walk on the moon, Artemis' momentum would be unstoppable.

Of course the selection of Doug Loverro was forced to resign, reportedly because he violated the Procurement Integrity Act by secretly favoring Boeing during the down select for the lunar lander contract. The matter is a subject of an ongoing investigation by the NASA Office of Inspector General.

tahanson43206 · 2020-07-02 18:43:06

This is an attempt at a follow up to #158 by SpaceNut ...

The article at the link below includes a suggestion that the current NASA administrator might well be retained if a new administration takes over in January.

I have the impression (from what I can glean from news reports) that Jim Bridenstine has negotiated the potential pitfalls in Washington with some skill, and the steps he has taken (that I've learned about) are generally ones I approve of.

https://qz.com/1876645/what-is-joe-bide … for-space/

I deliberately posted this in a NASA related topic because I'm not interested in stimulating a political discussion.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-07-02 19:33:58

Well if you looked at past course change from when he was in the second seat and look to where we are now one would think that the secondary path for space travel would be continued with more small chunks of funds for fledgling companies to get a hand into the billions of dollars that the government is dolling out each year. These companies make profits once they have a product to sell.
So while we want competition one can not make the companies fight to reduce prices as that could cause the industry to collapse that we are trying to foster.
Nasa has tried to walk that line by keeping the bloat ware companies in the hunt for contracts just as much as they have the new faces for capsules, launch vehicles, cargo deliveries but we need more since we are not staying in LEO forever.
We will need surface habitats, equipment for surface and under ground use, landers for all of the different destinations...ect…
Point is we need many things from a commercial priced industry to come on line for the future to be successful.
.

kbd512 · 2020-07-03 07:04:19

tahanson43206,

It doesn't matter who is in the White House unless the people in Congress are actually interested in real space exploration. That said, former Vice President Biden appears to have little interest in space exploration, if his past record is any indicator. The article you posted even hints at that fact, stating that Congress would have a bigger role to play in space exploration if he becomes President. Moreover, the article also contains a link stating that today's mission for NASA is not going back to the moon or even to Mars- it's solving climate change. Unless you could somehow link solving the climate change problem with Mars exploration, then NASA won't be going anywhere else, except back to the ISS, and maybe not even that.

China is only interested in theft of US space technologies for military purposes. That's abundantly clear at this point. Russia is an actual partner when it comes to space exploration, but we would be "colluding" with them to do something worth doing, which is why that would probably never happen under a Biden Presidency. The Europeans have yet to send anyone into space using locally developed technology because they're also more interested in ideology than actual feats of technology and engineering. I actually think India is a good country to partner with. They're like Americans were back in the 1950's. They have real drive and ambition, an educational system still interested in math and science over political ideology, and a massive industrial base. Much like the Chinese, their space program is a point of national pride, the way NASA used to be a point of national pride for Americans before both the Republicans and the Democrats hijacked it for self-serving political purposes.

In any event, space exploration is only economically feasible with a strong economy. Unfortunately, the appeal of the rhetoric of the merchants of despair, and their anti-human agenda / false solution to our human problems, is gaining traction. They want us to revert back to the agrarian system that existed prior to industrialization. The anarchists also seem to think that means they'll get to sit on their hands, rather than working them raw. I'm not sure why simpleton solutions to complex problems are so appealing to people who proclaim to believe in science, but we have a growing number of young people being "educated" into stupidity by unscrupulous agenda-driven control freaks.

Where does that leave us?

Unfortunately, not in the direction all of us here want to go in. Still, I maintain hope for better times to come. It's going to be a bumpy ride along the way.

Oldfart1939 · 2020-07-04 17:19:18

kbd512--The last speeches I've heard from President Trump. he has specifically mentioned GOING TO MARS! The Moon is, as Robert Zubrin has frequently said, is an attractive nuisance and distraction. Maybe once Senator Shelby of Alabama retires, Ted Cruz can take his place and get some support for Boca Chica Spaceport?

SpaceNut · 2020-07-04 20:53:34

That only changes the pork delivery location and not an end product as they will want to partial out work on all of the pieces to other states which will just rise the overall costs to make a space x supplied rocket....

Calliban · 2020-07-04 23:09:56

Oldfart1939 wrote:

kbd512--The last speeches I've heard from President Trump. he has specifically mentioned GOING TO MARS! The Moon is, as Robert Zubrin has frequently said, is an attractive nuisance and distraction. Maybe once Senator Shelby of Alabama retires, Ted Cruz can take his place and get some support for Boca Chica Spaceport?

Not sure I would agree. It takes several months to reach Mars and a round trip takes over 2 years. The moon is three days away and a round trip would take a couple of weeks. A spacecraft could carry out 100 round trips to the moon in the time it takes for a single round trip to Mars. What does that mean for the comparative ticket price for transit between the two bodies? The moon is going to be cheaper and generally much easier to maintain a human presence upon.

Now consider also, that the moon is a huge store of raw materials in near Earth space. If you want to start making things in Earth orbit, like interplanetary spacecraft, orbiting space stations or solar power satellites; the moon is your most promising source of materials. Could we ship Martian raw materials back to Earth orbit to support space manufacturing? Much more difficult, I would suggest. It is much further away, has more mass and an atmosphere. There is no business model where going to Mars is going to make any money for anyone. There are good reasons why the Chinese and Indians are interested in the moon.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-07-04 23:12:39)

GW Johnson · 2020-07-05 08:30:27

The rocks and minerals on the moon are pretty much the same as those on Earth. They contain desirable things like titanium and aluminum, yes. but these are generally spread pretty thinly. Here on Earth we do not just pick up a rock and apply the enormous energy required to destroy that rock and extract the tiny amount of metal it contains. Nor do we ever try to extract water (or its source elements) that way.

Instead we go looking for those rare places where the item we seek has been concentrated. It is "high grade" versus "low grade" ore that is the make-or-break thing that makes any sort of mining worthwhile at all. No doubt about that, either. There is a VAST DIFFERENCE between what might be scientifically possible, and what might actually be feasible enough to be attractive in some way. That's just real life.

Those processes that concentrated the metals (or the water, or the oil-and-gas, or whatever) here are largely sedimentary processes, which apparently never ever existed at all on the moon. An example would be the banded iron formations that we prefer to mine for iron ore. So I have to ask: just what makes one think that lunar mining might in the least be attractive enough to pay the spaceflight costs to get there? Just where might there be any "high grade" ore, and why should we think so?

Same applies to Mars to one extent or another, except as Calliban said, it is far harder (and more expensive) to go there. And similarly, the asteroids, except that the really big ones might (MIGHT!!!) have some volatiles inside as ices. The little ones probably will not! Based on the few we have seen up close so far.

What is it, specifically, that you seek out there, and what makes you think it might exist in any of those places as any sort of "high grade" source? If it is iron you seek, we have zillions of tons of recycleable scrap here, far easier to get a hold of, than going to any conceivable metallic asteroid (and they are a minority of all asteroids).

I kinda doubt that mining is going to be the economic justification for widespread space travel. I don't really think we know what that ultimate justification is yet. The reason we go, for now, is exploration (finding out what all is there, and where exactly it is). It will be something we find that catches us by surprise, that will provide the continuing justification for widespread space travel.

Might not be mining at all, might be food production. Who knows?

GW

elderflower · 2020-07-05 09:25:10

Surely we don't need to justify our own curiosity. We go and have a look because we are curious, because we have an urge to acquire knowledge and this urge is part of what makes us human and what makes humans such a successful species.
There is another reason, though. We were caught with our pants down by the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013 and might be again. The dinosaurs were wiped out by a big one of these things, and the Younger Dryas has been blamed on one. These are not the only possible cases of global catastrophe- there are still risks of vulcanism, disease, famine and war which could set us back to the early iron age at least, or maybe wipe us out on this planet. A plan B might be handy!

SpaceNut · 2020-07-05 09:46:55

The game stopper is not that we can not succeed or do but how much money is required...

Oldfart1939 · 2020-07-05 09:47:07

Any business model involving the moon should first refer to Zubrin's "Entering Space." There really isn't much there other than He-3, which would require huge equipment to process from lunar regolith. Maybe the water (from polar ice deposits) is sufficient to sustain a human presence, but must be treated as a limited resource at this point, but not used for conversion to Hydrogen and Oxygen as rocket fuel.

GW is quite correct about picking up rocks randomly for conversion to Aluminum and Oxygen extraction. It would be laughable, were people actually to present this in a business plan to obtain financing.

GW Johnson · 2020-07-05 12:26:51

While understated, I did say in post 165 just above that the motivation for space travel is "exploration".

I personally define "exploration" as "going somewhere to find out what all is there, and where exactly it is". And I mean that definition exactly as it is stated, word for word.

Think about it: just how comprehensive is finding out "what all is there", and just how comprehensive is finding out "where exactly it is", referring to all of "what all is there", of course.

What I didn't say is the other great justification for a space program: protection of Earth from celestial body impacts. All by itself, that is more-than-sufficient justification for both manned and unmanned space flight programs and projects.

"Exploration" is the other justification, which gets back to what Elderflower said in post 166. That is just our curiosity, which is hard-wired into us. My definition above relates to "how best to explore", not "why explore". The "why" is self-evident to me: and that has to do with curiosity.

GW

Oldfart1939 · 2020-07-05 16:57:17

I personally have that ingrained sense of curiosity deeply embedded in my DNA. I go to Mars, because Mars is there begging to be explored. The scientist within me can't resist the challenge. Same with the Asteroid belt; ditto Callisto. But Mars is Primo! Look for the existence of fossils! Life HAD to develop there, and possibly before life on Earth.
My major questions as a scientist is: are we truly alone in the universe, and is life specific to Earth?

kbd512 · 2020-07-05 17:26:35

Oldfart1939,

Exactly. Mars is there and therefore beckons us to explore it. We don't need any other reason. Making money off of space exploration is a desirable secondary after-effect of developing the technology required for exploration. Our own solar system contains incomprehensible riches, which have always been there for the taking, yet "the taking" will only occur after we determine what's there, which places contain the most of whatever resource we're after, and what the relative difficulty is of obtaining the resource from Target Location X vs Target Location Y.

Oldfart1939 · 2020-07-07 19:56:51

kbd512-
At this juncture, the only real reason to find a way to "make money" is really a polite way of saying "defer the cost," or maybe "make affordable." Elon Musk is driven by his dreams of making Mankind a Multiplanetary Species. He's finding a way to bootstrap the efforts.

SpaceNut · 2020-07-12 17:12:41

Seems that someone is not happy House appropriators cut NASA's moon landing funds; will Senate do better?

SpaceNut · 2020-09-22 22:12:26

The cost for Artemis program calls for $28 billion in funding through 2025 for Phase 1
NASA Plans Mission To Moon By 2024,and estimated the cost of meeting that deadline at $28 billion, $16 billion of which would be spent on the lunar landing module...

SpaceNut · 2021-01-27 21:23:30

Finding the Perfect Landing Spot for NASA’s Moon Mission Will Be Tricky

BB1a7PP3.img?h=450&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

For the pending Artemis missions to the Moon, NASA has already selected the southern polar region as the destination for its astronauts, but an exact landing spot has yet to be determined. Given the needs of the Artemis program, this won’t be easy.
Mission planners at NASA are currently mulling over the needs of the mission and evaluating possible landing spots and locations for the basecamp. As NASA explains in a recent press release, the chosen destination should provide ample access to sunlight, which will be used to power the basecamp, as well as easy access to spots rich in water ice. Ideally, the location should also feature moderate temperature swings, to make things easier on the equipment.
Thankfully, the rugged topography of the Moon should provide such a location. NASA thinks it might be possible to land along the edge of an impact crater, which would also provide access to the perpetually dark areas inside. Indeed, given the low angle of incoming sunlight at the poles, the interior portions of deep craters never get touched by sun. It’s within these dark pockets that scientists expect frozen water to reside.

With out a source of ice we are going to have a hard time staying....

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#151 2005-12-28 12:02:35

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#152 2006-03-11 21:41:40

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#153 2006-03-17 06:38:01

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#154 2006-03-28 19:39:31

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#155 2017-03-15 18:03:12

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#156 2018-03-13 20:39:33

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#157 2020-05-05 13:27:25

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#158 2020-06-21 17:57:42

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#159 2020-07-02 18:43:06

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#160 2020-07-02 19:33:58

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#161 2020-07-03 07:04:19

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#162 2020-07-04 17:19:18

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#163 2020-07-04 20:53:34

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#164 2020-07-04 23:09:56

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#165 2020-07-05 08:30:27

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#166 2020-07-05 09:25:10

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#167 2020-07-05 09:46:55

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#168 2020-07-05 09:47:07

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#169 2020-07-05 12:26:51

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#170 2020-07-05 16:57:17

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#171 2020-07-05 17:26:35

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#172 2020-07-07 19:56:51

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#173 2020-07-12 17:12:41

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#174 2020-09-22 22:12:26

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

#175 2021-01-27 21:23:30

Re: NASA's Moon Mission

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