Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

EdwardHeisler · 2018-04-29 08:28:32

Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled
The Washington Post
by Sarah Kaplan
April 28, 2018

Months after President Trump signed a directive ordering NASA to return astronauts to the moon, the space agency has canceled its only lunar rover currently in development.

According to Clive Neal, a University of Notre Dame planetary scientist and emeritus chairman of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, members of the Resource Prospector mission were told to close out the project by the end of May.

“I'm a little shocked,” he said. Neal, who is not directly involved in developing the mission, said he did not know the reason for the cancellation.

NASA said Friday that it would be putting out a statement about the project.

The Resource Prospector mission, which was in the concept formulation stage for potential launch in the 2020s, would have surveyed one of the moon's poles in search of volatile compounds such as hydrogen, oxygen and water that could be mined to support future human explorers. It would have been the first mission to mine another world and was seen as a steppingstone toward long-term crewed missions beyond Earth.

The cancellation, first reported by the Verge, troubles many lunar scientists. They say the mission is vital both to human exploration and to scientific understanding of the moon. In a letter to newly confirmed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group — which conducts analyses for NASA and other space agencies — called for the mission to be reinstated and scheduled to launch in 2022.

“This action is viewed with both incredulity and dismay by our community,” the group wrote. Members pointed out that Trump's Space Policy Directive 1, signed in December, calls for the United States to “lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … &ocid=iehp

Void · 2018-04-29 10:42:27

This could be why:
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/jeff-bezo … igin-moon/
Quote:

SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk may have his heart set on building a city on Mars, but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space vision looks closer to home. He’s gazing at the moon.
“I think we should build a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon,” Bezos said today during a Q&A with kids at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. “It’s time to go back to the moon, but this time to stay.”
Read more: Moon rocket engines fill a place of honor
Bezos has talked about moon missions before, and he’s even told NASA that his Blue Origin space venture could make Amazon-like deliveries to the moon, as part of a program called Blue Moon.
Today he went into more detail about his space aspirations when students asked him questions at the Museum of Flight’s “Apollo” exhibit. Bezos’ backdrop for the event included the decades-old pieces of Saturn V rocket engines that he arranged to have recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, plus an intact, never-flown engine of the same type.
Bezos said his dreams of spaceflight were fostered at the age of 5 when he watched NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong take humanity’s first steps on the moon in 1969. Now he’s able to follow through on those dreams – in large part because of the success of Amazon, the online retail company he founded in 1994.
A couple of months ago, Bezos acknowledged that he’s funding Blue Origin to the tune of a billion dollars a year, fueled by his sales of Amazon stock.
Blue Origin is ramping up its employment count and making progress on two big projects: the New Shepard suborbital spaceship, which has made five successful test flights to space and back; and the New Glenn orbital rocket, which will make use of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine.
New Shepard could start flying passengers as early as next year, which would provide opportunities for suborbital space experiments as well as space tourism.
“There’s a long history of tourism and entertainment driving innovations in technology,” Bezos pointed out. For example, barnstorming and joyrides helped sustain pilots and airplane-makers in the early days of aviation. Today, advances in machine learning, computer vision and artificial intelligence are being driven by improvements in graphics processing units, or GPUs.
“Why were GPUs invented? For one purpose, and one purpose only: They were invented by Nvidia for playing video games,” Bezos said.
On the orbital front, Blue Origin is currently testing the BE-4 engine and building a multimillion-dollar production facility and launch center in Florida to accommodate New Glenn rockets.
“That vehicle will fly in in 2020 for the first time,” Bezos said. Blue Origin already has lined up its first customers for New Glenn satellite launches in the early 2020s.
Bezos is clearly thinking about frontiers beyond Earth orbit: When asked about the potential impact of artificial intelligence on space operations, he said AI will point the way for “even better robotic probes to explore the solar system.”
Today, Mars rovers have to wait for detailed instructions from mission controllers on Earth on how to avoid that potential hazards they come across. “That’s one of the reasons that you get to cover very little ground with those rovers,” Bezos said.
“But if you had really good self-driving technology, machine vision and other things, those rovers could keep themselves safe and they could go faster and explore much more in a given amount of time,” he said.
They could also help build that city on the moon.
“There, you would want to pre-position a whole bunch of equipment and supplies before the humans show up, and some of those things might need to be assembled on the surface of the moon,” Bezos said. “And that’s the kind of thing that could also be done by advanced robotics with machine-learning systems on board.”
Jeff Bezos talks with students at the opening of the “Apollo” exhibit at the Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
Bezos noted that the moon’s polar regions would be the best places to build a base, because some craters in those regions are thought to contain reserves of water ice that are shielded from sunlight. That ice could be converted into liquid water for drinking, hydrogen for fuel, and oxygen for breathable air.
During past talks, Blue Origin executives have made clear that it expects lunar settlements to be created as the result of private-public collaboration, rather than purely private-sector or purely NASA-funded undertakings.
Why go to the moon? Almost 55 years ago, President John Kennedy said America chose to embark on missions to the moon “not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”
Bezos’ moon ambitions are motivated by more down-to-earth considerations: He argues that in order to keep up with a global population’s growing demands for energy and manufactured goods, we earthlings will eventually have to take advantage of resources and territories beyond Earth.
“I want to see millions of people living and working in space,” said Bezos, repeating what has become a mantra for Blue Origin.
Read more: Jeff Bezos shares life lessons with kids
Love space and science? Sign up for our GeekWire Space & Science email newsletter for top headlines from Alan Boyle, GeekWire’s aerospace and science editor.
GeekWire aerospace and science editor Alan Boyle is an award-winning science writer and veteran space reporter. Formerly of NBCNews.com, he is the author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference." Follow him via CosmicLog.com, on Twitter @b0yle, and on Facebook and Google+.

......

Perhaps it is a "Why should you pay for the cow if you can get the milk for free?" situation.

......
Pictures of the proposed lander which would drop sophisticated rovers to the pole(s) of the moon to do construction and I would think scouting.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bl … ORM=HDRSC2

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-04-29 10:55:21)

louis · 2018-04-29 17:18:44

Blue Origin has quality written all over it. I think they will be on the Moon before you know it! Looks like there may be in the offing one of those "gentlemen's agreements" that often determine business practice: Musk gets Mars to play with, Bezos gets the Moon.

Bezos's vision is a bit weird - he really wants to get people off Earth into orbital living so that the Earth doesn't degrade environmentally. Musk's vision of simply creating a new playground for humanity makes a lot more sense to me. To have any effect on environmental degradation on Earth, you would have to ship out billions of people into orbit. Musk, much more realistically, is simply aiming at transplanting human civilisation, more or less, on to another planet. He's aiming at a million people on Mars, a much more doable proposition I would suggest.

Void wrote:

This could be why:
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/jeff-bezo … igin-moon/
Quote:
SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk may have his heart set on building a city on Mars, but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space vision looks closer to home. He’s gazing at the moon.
“I think we should build a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon,” Bezos said today during a Q&A with kids at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. “It’s time to go back to the moon, but this time to stay.”
Read more: Moon rocket engines fill a place of honor
Bezos has talked about moon missions before, and he’s even told NASA that his Blue Origin space venture could make Amazon-like deliveries to the moon, as part of a program called Blue Moon.
Today he went into more detail about his space aspirations when students asked him questions at the Museum of Flight’s “Apollo” exhibit. Bezos’ backdrop for the event included the decades-old pieces of Saturn V rocket engines that he arranged to have recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, plus an intact, never-flown engine of the same type.
Bezos said his dreams of spaceflight were fostered at the age of 5 when he watched NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong take humanity’s first steps on the moon in 1969. Now he’s able to follow through on those dreams – in large part because of the success of Amazon, the online retail company he founded in 1994.
A couple of months ago, Bezos acknowledged that he’s funding Blue Origin to the tune of a billion dollars a year, fueled by his sales of Amazon stock.
Blue Origin is ramping up its employment count and making progress on two big projects: the New Shepard suborbital spaceship, which has made five successful test flights to space and back; and the New Glenn orbital rocket, which will make use of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine.
New Shepard could start flying passengers as early as next year, which would provide opportunities for suborbital space experiments as well as space tourism.
“There’s a long history of tourism and entertainment driving innovations in technology,” Bezos pointed out. For example, barnstorming and joyrides helped sustain pilots and airplane-makers in the early days of aviation. Today, advances in machine learning, computer vision and artificial intelligence are being driven by improvements in graphics processing units, or GPUs.
“Why were GPUs invented? For one purpose, and one purpose only: They were invented by Nvidia for playing video games,” Bezos said.
On the orbital front, Blue Origin is currently testing the BE-4 engine and building a multimillion-dollar production facility and launch center in Florida to accommodate New Glenn rockets.
“That vehicle will fly in in 2020 for the first time,” Bezos said. Blue Origin already has lined up its first customers for New Glenn satellite launches in the early 2020s.
Bezos is clearly thinking about frontiers beyond Earth orbit: When asked about the potential impact of artificial intelligence on space operations, he said AI will point the way for “even better robotic probes to explore the solar system.”
Today, Mars rovers have to wait for detailed instructions from mission controllers on Earth on how to avoid that potential hazards they come across. “That’s one of the reasons that you get to cover very little ground with those rovers,” Bezos said.
“But if you had really good self-driving technology, machine vision and other things, those rovers could keep themselves safe and they could go faster and explore much more in a given amount of time,” he said.
They could also help build that city on the moon.
“There, you would want to pre-position a whole bunch of equipment and supplies before the humans show up, and some of those things might need to be assembled on the surface of the moon,” Bezos said. “And that’s the kind of thing that could also be done by advanced robotics with machine-learning systems on board.”
Jeff Bezos talks with students at the opening of the “Apollo” exhibit at the Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
Bezos noted that the moon’s polar regions would be the best places to build a base, because some craters in those regions are thought to contain reserves of water ice that are shielded from sunlight. That ice could be converted into liquid water for drinking, hydrogen for fuel, and oxygen for breathable air.
During past talks, Blue Origin executives have made clear that it expects lunar settlements to be created as the result of private-public collaboration, rather than purely private-sector or purely NASA-funded undertakings.
Why go to the moon? Almost 55 years ago, President John Kennedy said America chose to embark on missions to the moon “not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”
Bezos’ moon ambitions are motivated by more down-to-earth considerations: He argues that in order to keep up with a global population’s growing demands for energy and manufactured goods, we earthlings will eventually have to take advantage of resources and territories beyond Earth.
“I want to see millions of people living and working in space,” said Bezos, repeating what has become a mantra for Blue Origin.
Read more: Jeff Bezos shares life lessons with kids
Love space and science? Sign up for our GeekWire Space & Science email newsletter for top headlines from Alan Boyle, GeekWire’s aerospace and science editor.
GeekWire aerospace and science editor Alan Boyle is an award-winning science writer and veteran space reporter. Formerly of NBCNews.com, he is the author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference." Follow him via CosmicLog.com, on Twitter @b0yle, and on Facebook and Google+.
......
Perhaps it is a "Why should you pay for the cow if you can get the milk for free?" situation.
......
Pictures of the proposed lander which would drop sophisticated rovers to the pole(s) of the moon to do construction and I would think scouting.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bl … ORM=HDRSC2

Done.

Last edited by louis (2018-04-29 17:20:09)

Void · 2018-04-29 20:39:56

This is a very interesting topic to me.

Just looking at the New Shepard. A sub-orbital rocket, said to be for tourists, which I am sure it currently is.
But I have been thinking about two things that might be added to it eventually.
1) Skylon Air Breathing engines. Which are intended to burn Hydrogen.
I know you know what Skylon is but for visitors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)
2) Tether Skyhook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_(structure)
Quote:

Skyhook (structure)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Orbiting skyhooks)
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Skyhook (disambiguation).

How a rotating and non-rotating skyhook would appear in orbit
A skyhook is a proposed momentum exchange tether that aims to reduce the cost of placing payloads into space. A heavy orbiting station is connected to a cable which extends down towards the upper atmosphere. Payloads, which are much lighter than the station, are hooked to the end of the cable as it passes, and are then flung into orbit by rotation of the cable around the centre of mass. The station can then be reboosted to its original altitude by electromagnetic propulsion, rocket propulsion, or by deorbiting another object equal in mass to the payload.
A skyhook differs from a geostationary orbit space elevator in that a skyhook would be much shorter and would not come in contact with the surface of the Earth. A skyhook would require a suborbital launch vehicle to reach its lower end, while a space elevator would not.

Non-rotating skyhook

200 km long non-rotating skyhook, as proposed by E. Sarmont in 1990
A non-rotating skyhook is a vertical gravity-gradient stabilized tether whose lower endpoint appears to hang from the sky. It was this appearance that led to the adoption of the name skyhook for the construct.
Rotating skyhook

The rotating concept. If the orbital velocity and the tether rotation rate are synchronized, the tether tip moves in a cycloid curve. At the lowest point it is momentarily stationary with respect to the ground, where it can 'hook' a payload and swing it into orbit.
By rotating the tether around the orbiting center of mass in a direction opposite to the orbital motion, the speed of the hook relative to the ground can be reduced. This reduces the required strength of the tether, and makes coupling easier.
The rotation of the tether can be made to exactly match the orbital speed (around 7–8 km/s). In this configuration, the hook would trace out a path similar to a cardioid. From the point of view of the ground, the hook would appear to descend almost vertically, come to a halt, and then ascend again. This configuration minimises aerodynamic drag, and thus allows the hook to descend deep into the atmosphere.[16][17] However, according to the HASTOL study, a skyhook of this kind in Earth orbit would require a very large counterweight, on the order of 1000–2000 times the mass of the payload, and the tether would need to be mechanically reeled in after collecting each payload in order to maintain synchronization between the tether rotation and its orbit.[14]
Phase I of Boeing's Hypersonic Airplane Space Tether Orbital Launch (HASTOL) study, published in 2000, proposed a 600 km-long tether, in an equatorial orbit at 610–700 km altitude, rotating with a tip speed of 3.5 km/s. This would give the tip a ground speed of 3.6 km/s (Mach 10), which would be matched by a hypersonic airplane carrying the payload module, with transfer at an altitude of 100 km. The tether would be made of existing commercially available materials: mostly Spectra 2000 (a kind of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene), except for the outer 20 km which would be made of heat-resistant Zylon PBO. With a nominal payload mass of 14 tonnes, the Spectra/Zylon tether would weigh 1300 tonnes, or 90 times the mass of the payload. The authors stated:
The primary message we want to leave with the Reader is: "We don't need magic materials like 'Buckminster-Fuller-carbon-nanotubes' to make the space tether facility for a HASTOL system. Existing materials will do."[14]
The second phase of the HASTOL study, published in 2001, proposed increasing the intercept airspeed to Mach 15-17, and increasing the intercept altitude to 150 km, which would reduce the necessary tether mass by a factor of three. The higher speed would be achieved by using a reusable rocket stage instead of a purely air-breathing aircraft. The study concluded that although there are no "fundamental technical show-stoppers", substantial improvement in technology would be needed. In particular, there was concern that a bare Spectra 2000 tether would be rapidly eroded by atomic oxygen; this component was given a technology readiness level of 2.[18]

Having displayed all of that, I think that mastery of such a method if it is possible is a very long way off.

Still where the New Shepard appears to be more of a toy than the New Glen, and the New Armstrong would be, eventually perhaps a descendant of the New Shepard, upgraded, and associated with a skyhook would be the method of communicating people and objects between NEO and the Earths surface.

But I think that will be long after the New Glen and New Armstrong, and perhaps a Blue Origins interplanetary vehicle have been long established.

Still it asks the question "Ultimately what will be the cost of moving one person to LEO from the surface of the Earth. It is already projected to become less costly.

I like to speculate, and I don't mind trying to entertain you.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-04-29 20:52:44)

kbd512 · 2018-04-30 00:38:13

How much more prospecting for lunar resources could we do if we had humans on the moon?

Curiosity has been on Mars for years and even JPL has made the point that humans could do in a week what they did with the robot over the course of multiple years.

We need to build and test these Mars habitation concepts on the moon first. If it works on the moon, then it'll work on Mars, too. If something goes wrong, then there is at least the possibility of rescue. No such possibility exists when we go to Mars, so things had better just work when we go there or people will die.

elderflower · 2018-04-30 04:37:01

It is not much worse than the extended European exploration voyages under sail in ships that might do 5kn flat out! I cite these, not to belittle the efforts of the Norse, Arab, Malay, Chinese or Polynesian explorers, but just because they are better documented. Their voyages took years and many came to bad ends. We might hope to avoid bad ends, but they are always possible. That has not been and is not a reason for not exploring.

Void · 2018-04-30 11:23:49

The way I see it you both get what you want.

SpaceX is not going to wait for the Moon, and other including Blue Origins are going to the Moon.

It is not an or situation, it is an and situation.

kbd512 · 2018-04-30 16:44:30

At the end of the day, a notional rover program was cancelled that was intended to hunt for speculative resources before any hardware was built. I'm a fan of pretty much all space exploration, but some of these more ambitious robotic missions are meeting or exceeding the cost of crewed missions and NASA is constantly complaining about a lack of funding. Choose an exploration target, develop a technology set for that exploration target, and fly the mission when the technology is ready to go. This constant shifting of funding priorities is dragging out development and killing actual exploration opportunities.

SpaceNut · 2018-04-30 19:14:27

The rover cancellation of actual hardware that works as a prototype is little more than the previous kingdom statues being torn down.....

Maybe Nasa will sell the tech to Musk for a starter kit of what he can look to improve on as its no Telsa....

Void · 2018-05-01 14:42:32

This should help.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/05/01/n … n-landers/
Quote:

NASA cancels lunar rover, shifts focus to commercial moon landers
As NASA turns up support for future commercial lunar landers, the space agency last week canceled a mission that would have placed a rover on the moon to survey resources, such as water and helium, that could be used by future human explorers.
Officials at the space agency’s headquarters in Washington on April 23 directed managers of the Resource Prospector mission end development of the lunar rover by the end of May.
NASA said in a statement Friday that “selected instruments” that were to fly to the moon on the Resource Prospector mission will continue their development for delivery to the lunar surface on commercial landers.
Resource Prospector would have carried instruments to search for subsurface hydrogen on the moon, an indicator of water or water-bearing minerals, and a drill to extract samples from a depth of 3 feet (1 meter). Sensors aboard the rover would have analyzed the underground material heated in an on-board oven in search of water and other compounds, including helium, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfate, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide.
The planned rover would have prospected the moon’s polar regions for resources that future missions, such as a lunar base or commercial mining ventures, could refine into oxygen, drinking water and rocket propellant.
Jim Bridenstine, who took office as NASA administrator the same day as Resource Prospector’s cancellation, tweeted that the agency is committed to lunar exploration.
“Resource Prospector instruments will go forward in an expanded lunar surface campaign,” Bridenstine tweeted. “More landers. More science. More exploration. More prospectors. More commercial partners.”
NASA canceled the Resource Prospector mission as the Trump administration redirects the space agency to return humans to the lunar surface. Some scientists saw the Resource Prospector mission as a forerunner to crewed lunar missions, but NASA plans to partner with commercial companies and international space agencies for robotic precursors.
In a brief statement, NASA said a draft request for proposals released to industry Friday will help officials formulate a lunar exploration strategy.
“Consistent with this strategy, NASA is planning a series of progressive robotic missions to the lunar surface,” the agency said in a statement. “In addition, NASA has released a request for information on approaches to evolve progressively larger landers leading to an eventual human lander capability. As part of this expanded campaign, selected instruments from Resource Prospector will be landed and flown on the moon.”
NASA said a policy statement signed by President Trump, known as Space Policy Directive 1, which kept the space agency’s human exploration goals aimed at deep space — as during the Obama administration — but with new language directing NASA to return astronauts to the lunar surface.
“This exploration campaign reinforces Space Policy Directive 1, which calls for an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system, including returning humans to the moon for long-term exploration,” NASA said in a statement.
The Resource Prospector mission was planned for launch as soon as 2022, but the project never advanced beyond the early design and development stages. Engineers built a ground prototype for the rover to test remote operations concepts.
The updated robotic lunar exploration strategy would have NASA-owned instruments fly to the moon on privately-operated landers.
The draft request for proposals for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program released Friday is the first step in the solicitation for rides to the moon.
“NASA requires transport services to the lunar surface for instruments and technology demonstration payloads,” agency officials wrote in the solicitation document released to U.S. industry Friday. “This DRFP (draft request for proposals) is the latest step in a long-running effort by NASA to support the development of commercial lunar capabilities considering the moon as a destination for future human spaceflight.”
Representatives from companies interested in bidding for a NASA lunar payload services contract will offer feedback to the space agency before the release of a final request for proposals.
Several U.S. companies are in various stages of designing, developing and testing robotic lunar landers, including Astrobotic, Blue Origin and Moon Express.

So, I would think that both Blue Origins and SpaceX would be into delivering these rovers.

Seems like a progression of the original process of NASA encouraging private rocket companies.
Probably there will be cost savings with competition.

Last edited by Void (2018-05-01 14:50:14)

SpaceNut · 2018-05-01 20:59:10

The commercial resupply for when Nasa has a base on its surface, presume automated with no people request with maybe people under Nasa's rules of site landings as they are doing with the ISS.

As far as the companies that will be up to the test of resupply that depends on whether want to keep getting contracts filled with gravy and pork....

Void · 2018-05-01 21:15:12

Well as I see it, it is win win.

NASA will not have to commit to landing people on the Moon. Will not have to be primarily responsible for their safety.

They will apparently do the Lunar gateway, from which some of these rovers could be run by telepresence.

Mr. Bezos and Co. intend these rovers to be sophisticated A.I. however. To partially construct a base that humans could arrive to inhabit the base.

Then at that point operators of the rovers could be in that Moon base. They could also maintain, upgrade, and repair those rovers.

Humans and test organisms plant and animal then being at that base, we will get a data point for the effects of the lunar environment (Inside a base) upon Earth organisms. Very valuable.

And if Blue Origins or SpaceX want to make money by bringing scientific probes from various nations including ours to the Moon, I have no problem with that. I encourage it.

This is primarily money which would never have been devoted to a Martian mission anyway.

It looks like to me that we will get everything we want.

The Moon.

Synthetic gravity habitats in orbits,

Asteroid Mining,

And presumably a Martian settlement (And Synthetic gravity habitats in orbits around Mars)

And that will just be the start.

Once that is accomplished on to the Asteroid Belt / Trojans / Jupiter(Callisto) + Mercury and Venus.

*If all is optimal, that is no life on Venus or Mars. No take over of Earth by the Verbal and Violent.

Pork? Well that is part of the price which has to be paid to get what you want.

No engine is 100% efficient. You have to let part of the energy just fly off into the universe.

You guys seem always to go negative and pessimistic on this site.

The glass is half full!

Last edited by Void (2018-05-01 21:23:03)

Void · 2018-05-02 20:34:42

I have been puzzling over Elon Musk saying he was going to build a Cyborg Dragon.

https://inhabitat.com/elon-musk-says-he … ragon-btw/

Would it be for LEO? The Moon? Mars?

I don't think it would fit as a probe to Mars unless they modified their plans greatly.

For LEO? Maybe.

But I am wondering if you took two BFR's and some Dragons, could you have one BFR serve as a booster for the BFR that would go to orbit the Moon with some Cyborg Dragons (RED).

Then from Lunar orbit could you drop a dragon down into a shadowed crater at the poles and get a core sample very quickly, and come up fast. Possibly not cooling down so much that the dragon would be damaged?

The crew perhaps monitoring the operation from orbit.

Don't bother with rovers at first, just get a sample of the goods.

I might be beyond my abilities here, but so some extent to shake out BFR, in a lunar orbital mission, getting a core sample would be cool.

Hopefully not so cool that the dragon breaks.

The dragon should not have to get to a very high orbit for the BFR to retrieve it and it's sample.

Up close pictures with a strobe light (Sort of) and radar scans also I would hope.

Well it is a wish. Don't know if it is possible and yes I know that they don't have the thrusters in mind anymore, but they could change their mind.

Last edited by Void (2018-05-02 20:43:50)

tahanson43206 · 2020-02-18 13:53:14

The NewMars archive contains this story. It comes up again (for me at least) because I was curious to know what economic value the Moon might have.

Canceled mission would have helped to identify useful materials on the Moon

https://www.space.com/28189-moon-mining … ility.html

For example, NASA's Resource Prospector Mission, a concept mission aiming for launch in 2018, would verify the feasibility of lunar resource extraction, as would several other mission concepts from the private sector, Abbud-Madrid said. Such work, in turn, will pave the way to incorporating In Situ Resource Utilization, known as ISRU, in future exploration planning, he said.
"Thus, the time has come to demonstrate these systems on the surface of the moon," Abbud-Madrid concluded.
To read Ian Crawford's "Lunar Resources: A Review Paper," go here.
Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's 2013 book "Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic with a new updated paperback version to be released in May of this year. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Per Google:

Resource Prospector is a cancelled mission concept by NASA of a rover that would have performed a survey expedition on a polar region of the Moon. Wikipedia
Rocket: Falcon 9 (suggested)

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-02-18 18:41:55

For water ice in the poles is where we wanted the device to go so as to do more than a crash and burn test to look at spectrum of light wavelengths as positive proof not educated guess. Like what we are doing with the radar for mars ice and water as its a guess as well.

This has more to do with the changing president not wanting the name of the other on its success...

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2018-04-29 08:28:32

Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#2 2018-04-29 10:42:27

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#3 2018-04-29 17:18:44

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#4 2018-04-29 20:39:56

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#5 2018-04-30 00:38:13

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#6 2018-04-30 04:37:01

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#7 2018-04-30 11:23:49

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#8 2018-04-30 16:44:30

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#9 2018-04-30 19:14:27

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#10 2018-05-01 14:42:32

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#11 2018-05-01 20:59:10

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#12 2018-05-01 21:15:12

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#13 2018-05-02 20:34:42

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#14 2020-02-18 13:53:14

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

#15 2020-02-18 18:41:55

Re: Stunning scientists, NASA’s only moon rover just got canceled

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