How think you about the plans to go to the Moon with only four aboard?

My below comment on the last post prompted a reply from Bill about his concern that the plan to only take 4 people back to the Moon seemed to be much like the Apollo missions and not one for really exploring the Moon.

I have included a snip from his e-mail and my reply for your consideration as well.
- LRK -

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How would you like to spend 02d 23h 17m 08s in a Volkswagen without being able to get out and stretch your legs? My knees hurt just sitting here with the laptop. Hope you have a little more space in going back to the Moon and Mars. :-)
- LRK -
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Bill had an earlier input about signing up for Jonathan's Space Report (JSR) on a Majordomo list server. He discovered that anything you have in your e-mail that is in addition to the subscribe request gets commented on by the list server as not valid commands.
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To receive the JSR each week by direct email, send a message to majordomo@host.planet4589.org , with a blank subject line and message body containing the single line "subscribe jsr".
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I was also surprised by this the first time I signed up on a Majordomo list server. When it says "Blank", that means no hidden characters as well, like you get in HTML pages or Microsoft Word Docs. Plain text messages without any tag lines make it easier to find that you have successfully subscribed.

The upside from feeding Majordomo more than it wants is that you usually get an email on how the list server works. I suppose that is a hint to do it their way the next time. :-)
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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Snip of Bill's e-mail, and then my reply. - LRK -

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Larry, here you bring up a point that has been bugging me a lot concerning the next generation NASA human spaceflight vehicle (or whatever schmancy moniker they're putting on it). I'm sure you know by now it's just a scaled up and teched up version of Apollo. I find that scary and disconcerting.
In this day and age, we should be looking for the B2 Bomber version of the shuttle, maybe something that's HTOL, SSTO. Without doing a lot of research, I don't know if that's possible, but my intuition says some version of it should be. Maybe TSTO with a mother ship that climbs the initial 50,000 or 100,000 feet. My knowledge base is extensive, but not overly in depth in most areas, but it seems to me that NASA should be able to do a "Better, Stronger, Faster" version of something like what Burt Rutan did that will get us to LEO. Heck, I think with some modifications, Rutan's bird could do that. He'd have more to worry about (heat shields, orbital maneuvering and what not), but the basic craft could get there.

Snip

Ok, sorry, I'll get off my soap box now. My intuition tells me NASA is looking the wrong way on this one. We are the only country on the planet with a viable, if old and cranky, reusable spacecraft, and I think we should be looking to extend that legacy, not squash it. Even if they wind up reusing the new Lockheed Martin vehicle, it's still got to have a whole landing team go get it instead of it landing at its home base.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Bill
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Let me share what I answered and maybe some of you may care to vent some about our plans to go back to the Moon.
- LRK -

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Venting is good, Bill.

Our hot water tank did that after the temp got turned up to max.
Shocked some flowers outside from the discharge but saved me a hot water tank explosion. :-)

Soap boxes used to be made of wood and standing on them let you see over the crowd. Not sure I would want to stand on cardboard one today.

My thought about bigger would be better is that I feel we will be lucky if we get anything to the Moon with humans aboard. It is all about money (or lack of) and the changing politics with each administration change. We have had plans to go back to space before and when the cost estimates came in congress dumped them.

When the first charts came out for the Vision for Space Exploration they showed how as the shuttle flights quit the launches to the Moon could take place and not increase the budget by much. Now with the war in IRAQ and Katrina costs, there have been cuts in budgets so the squeeze is on even more.

Our government is borrowing money to pay the day to day expenses. That isn't the way I was brought up. The talk about not enough money in the Social Security fund is partly due to borrowing the money from the fund that could have been invested to grow. Now they don't want to raise taxes to pay it back because the public would cry out. Spending a bundle of money to fix the problem in New Orleans from Katrina is a drain on government money but it has been indicated that the original dike building money was misspent as well, so now you spend it again. The money spent and the lives lost in Iraq would certainly fund a lot of going to the Moon, but you probably would not get the authorization to spend that kind of money JUST to go to the Moon.
The Lunites haven't bombed any trade centers and we don't need to go get them.
http://os.jointhesaga.com/OSWiki/mediawiki-1.4.6/index.php/Lunite

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http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/explore_main_old.html
NASA's new spaceship is the key to making the Vision for Space Exploration a reality. The Vision, announced by President Bush in January 2004, will extend humanity's presence across the solar system, starting with a return to the moon by the end of the next decade, followed by journeys to Mars and beyond.
Snip
Building on the best of Apollo and shuttle technology, NASA's 21st century exploration system will be affordable, reliable, versatile and safe. The centerpiece of this system is a new craft designed to carry four astronauts to and from the moon, support up to six crewmembers on future missions to Mars, and deliver crew and cargo to the international space station.
Snip
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I think the operative word here is "affordable". Unless the individual states get their share of pork keeping the funding coming is always iffy.

When you start talking about setting up a Lunar Base you will be talking big bucks and probably some International cooperation. All while we dump our obligations for the ISS, an International cooperation exercise.

Four to the Moon doesn't a Lunar Colony make, but then the taxpayers may baulk at paying for others to go live there.

If the desire to develop the Moon after we get some folks there again continues, there will still be problems of putting larger masses into space.


You dump empty fuel tanks and hardware by stages so that you have a chance at accelerating the remaining mass to the required speeds to make it to the Moon with the relatively short kick near Earth. The Russians didn't get the
N1 to work with all those engines firing. Here we are trying to use what we have seen work without having to spend the money to think of something completely new. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1883348.stm

There has been a suggestion to launch several stages to Earth orbit, mate them, refuel them, and do the trans lunar insertion burn. When you look back at the Gemini missions you see that sending two vehicles up to later mate up, presented problems and aborts. Florida weather is just one of the variables. Hardware failures and sensor failures come to mind as well.
Launch pad accommodations for more than one vehicle at a time is there as well.

All of these can be worked on if you have the money and the will to do so.

I did get to see the shuttle Atlanta launch on TV this week but watched a lot longer on the Internet. When the buzz drops to just a sound byte on the 6:00 o'clock news, you probably don't have a lot of public support. When you scan the cable channels and see the trash being showed one wonders just were the public interest is. I don't think it is on setting up a Lunar Colony or even a research outpost. You need to have a special interest group large enough to swing votes since that seems to be the way our government works. Just put the envelope in my re-election fund box, please, and I'll see what I can do.

Let the Chinese orbiter find Platinum on the Moon and send a robotic Lunar lander and return scoop of rare earth material and maybe a remote mining consortium will be set up. When the landers break down, maybe a field rep will need to be sent up to fix it. The Russians have already run rovers on the Moon and had rocks returned robotically. No loss of life when they broke down, just loss of face and money.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1970-095A
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/Luna.html

Ok, let me get off my soap box.

Maybe something here for the lunar-update list to chew on. :-)

Thanks for your ideas and looking up with me.

Larry

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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