© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/retired/back-to-the-moon/
This article is marked as 'retired'. The information here may be out of date, incomplete, and/or incorrect.
The cost of Project Apollo, which ended in the early 1970s, was $25.4 Billion (US). Now NASA says it can do it again, and better, for $104 Billion (US).
Going back to the moon has long been talked about as a jumping off point for future manned Mars missions, but now that talk is condensing into a plan. That plan is still somewhat basic, but it outlines a new space vehicle, new moon lander, and the goal to put someone on the Lunar surface in the year 2018.
Some of the details:
New, reusable, and yet to be designed capsules that will house the crew for the trip. By placing the capsule on the top of the launch vehicle, they avoid problems like that what occurred with Challenger. Implementation will allow for the capsule to return to Earth, separate from the engine module, and use a system of parachutes and retrorockets to land in California. The engine module will follow near the same trajectory, but without the landing system, and splash down in the Pacific.
The CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle) will replace the LEM from Project Apollo. Using all of the lessons learned by its predecessor, it’s a better, tweaked out, bigger brother to its predecessor. It will double the number of personnel on each landing—meaning 4. It can be reused 10 times, is equipped with solar panels, and can use liquid Methane in the engines—not that Methane makes for great fuel, but it is in abundance in the atmosphere of Mars, so might as well get some good out of it. All that, and the lander can keep the crew on the alien surface for more than a week before taking them back home again.
With a planned minimum of 2 Lunar launches per year, this equipment will get plenty of use and testing, but that’s the biggest part of the plan … the moon is just a stepping stone after all. It’s design is meant to be safer than either the space shuttles or Apollo vehicles, and over-engineered for the task.
One shortcoming in the plan, however, is PR. In the 1960s the country was excited to get to the moon. It was a golden fleece, and there was an ambient glory in the quest. Maybe now we lack a competitor to make the passions flare. Maybe we’re all so wrapped up in earning our daily bread that we can’t look up at the moon anymore and wonder when we’ll get our own chance to get up there, and the work it would take.
RedNova article on the CEV
Yahoo! article on the launcher
© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/retired/back-to-the-moon/
Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://www.damninteresting.com/donate ?
One of the cool features of this new design is that it lifts the mission’s cargo and fuel on a separate heavy rocket, which the crew module retreives in orbit. This allows the crew rocket to be much smaller and safer. The design also includes an Apollo-style escape tower that will allow the crew capsule to pop off the top of the rocket in case of emergency.
The whole design is very Apollo-ish, but that’s a good model to follow… Apollo was a great design engineered by some absurdly smart people.
aside from the exploration benifits “the moon is just a stepping stone after all” and never more so with the polution problems and global warming soon enough just like in lost in space “the earth will be unable to suport human life” it only a matter of time before we stuff up the planet so thouroghly that we will need another planet to ruin. the next thaught is wil science spliting molecules, atoms and chenicals wel will a self sustaining habitat on the moon be posible……………………
It seems a good idea for the supplies rocket to be different from the fuel and crew, but what if something happens to it? Isn’t it almost as bad to be stranded without supplies as anything else? Emergency supplies could be sent, I’m sure, but hopefully they’d take enough with the crew rocket to allow for that. Then again, NASA people are genius…I’m sure they’ve thought of that.
They would launch the cargo/supplies first, and ensure its in a stable orbit and where they want it to be, then have the crew follow. Plus, even if something were to happen to it, the crew could simply ditch and return to earth. They don’t immediately set out for the moon.
Just a few thoughts from a conspiracy nut, if we never went to the moon the first time, what we will see when we actually get there.
Will there be evidence that we are not the only ones to have walked on its surface?
Will we drill into the moon?
What kind of wonders, if any are buried under lunar soil?
Will this time be plagued with failure too?
Is this venture worth over 100 billion dollers?
Like I said, just a few random thoughts from a conspiracy nut.
Hmm…
> Will there be evidence that we are not the only ones to have walked on its surface?
No
>Will we drill into the moon?
Yes
>What kind of wonders, if any are buried under lunar soil?
That’s the million dollar question! Ice, hopefully, so we can someday build self-sustaining colonies. But one wonder that would be interesting is organic material. There are a lot of theroies about comets having rained organic material on the primordial earth, possibly even complex amino acids and more. Since the moon is a relatively inert environment, they could drill down and take samples of exactly *what* was raining down on earth 4 billion years ago. Some good surveys and core samples (from the right spots) could provide a timeline of what kinds of material has been falling on us from space throught our planet’s history! That gives me the shivers.
>Will this time be plagued with failure too?
Lets hope the country is doing well enough that NASA can abandon the “better, cheaper, faster” paradigm and put some cash into security and safety.
I don’t think of Apollo as “plagued by failure” when you consider the technology they had to work with. The entire NASA computer system was less powerful than a modern cell phone! Remember, conspiracy theorists often complain that Apollo didn’t fail *enough*.
But they also were able to pour incredible amounts of resources into it, and today a similar program would probably use as much cash and resources as the Iraq war. And as Alan Bellows points out, Apollo had some absurdly smart people behind it. The US really cleaned up in the “rocket science” department after WW2 (IIRC Werner Von Braun designed a similar rocket project called “Jupiter”, but the US decided to go with the more humble “Saturn” for Apollo.)
>Is this venture worth over 100 billion dollers?
That’s the 100+ billion dollar question. :/ I’d say yes, if we can afford it. Right now there are other $100+ billion projects currently gobbling up the budget. :(
It makes one wonder… will we discover that the moon really is green cheese, and if so would it be a hard or soft, spreadable cheese? Will we be able to get crackers and wine up to the astronauts soon enough if this is the case?
Or will they discover when they drill into the moon that it will deflate like a balloon let go before it has been tied shut, to fly and careen wildly in the sky above the Earth?
The landing would be screwed if it’s soft cheese…
If you have ever seen a moon rock, then you would know that the moon is definetly made of a salty, crumbly cheese, possibly feta, or brie.
Then we can all have a hunk of moon cheese with a slice of apple pie…
Enter your reply text here. OK
conspiracy theorists are: they should stick to being vitamin / free radical pill > sales people.
If we need fuel for outer space travel we are limited to nearby planets. Discovery of using actual energy occuring everywhere is what’s needed. Like a nomad in the desert carring a small water bottle & filling up from ground water.
You better hope we have global warming. Otherwise the planet will die like mars. Colonization of the moon is fine but not to escape global warming.
Stupid idiots there is no cheese on the moon. But if you look closely someone left a Coke can half burried in the sand. All right nobody is stupid.
The shuttle was just that concord with a heat shielded belly pan and cargo bay straped to those rockets.I can`t see why they don`t do a 2nd generation as they don`t have any evo designs.Going it was sratch is going to lead to major setbacks.The seals should get a remake and the belly pan heat sheild so be one casting.I hated those tiles from day one and wrote to nasa for two years trying to stop them.
One last point no solo fights every space ship should have backup and a relay system in place to save lifes and place fuel for pickup.We can place what we will need BEFORE we go food on the trail fuel more space craft just place them and use them when we need them.Three team relayer system to help go forward or go back and save.The solo fight system is crazy like going onto the open seas without a flootia.Built the system before than branch out to deep space plan WAY AHEAD learn from the past evo 2nd generational space crafts.Trash those DAM TILES and put on a ONE casting belly heat sheild as I asked about 40 years ago.Double or triple seals on the fuel tanks better way to adject the crews faster and safer.