That New NASA Moon Plan
To the Moon – Again, Paul Spudis
“A NASA-sponsored study has been released which outlines a plan to return to the Moon with people and set-up an outpost at one of the poles to mine water for propellant. This report has drawn both attention and puzzlement within the space community, as the agency continues to make clear that they have no interest in human lunar missions. This disconnect is covered because NASA will not do these activities – instead, the agency will pay commercial companies to develop and implement the plan. The propellant produced at the outpost from lunar polar water will then be sold to NASA for use in future human missions to Mars.”
– A New Spin on the Journey to Mars – By Way of the Moon, earlier post
IN Business insider article Chris Kraft says we don’t know how much water is there or not??
I thought we knew about how much is there??http://www.businessinsider….
Spudis thoughts on the “Plan”
http://www.examiner.com/art…
And What this about Russia going to the moon first?
In the end, its not about going to the moon, but rather retaining all the
current hardware elements + FH, with ISRU being substituted for Orion and unfunded promises for all the rest. IOW: zero missions because the program spends all its cash buying 200mT/yr of propellant with no deep space mission hardware. deja vu?
The architecture excludes all LVs except HLVs to directly reach L2, and costs of the non sole source LVs are not considered.
The return to the moon plan does not require Shuttle nor its reassembled components, yet SLS is retained. A return to the moon does not require an ability to assemble large structures in space, nor the ability to service satellites, nor the ability for long duration space travel-lost in space indeed.
A lunar exploration program will once again distract from an economical architecture to explore all destinations. Prior to such an endeavor: LEO gas station–reduce LV size and increase flight rate, EP tugs to ferry propellant on more efficient trajectories, LV and transfer stages with reuse as the goal, DSH Voyager to extend crew duration in space and act as L2 communications and lunar safe haven, and Missions that avoid gravity wells.
With the ability to refuel in LEO and a focus on reuse of common hardware, the US can lead the way on a economical next generation Exploration with substantial IP participation that most agree would merit a plus up. The vision of depots and staging, in work for decades, points the space-fairing nations toward that limitless frontier.
“A return to the moon does not require an ability to assemble large structures in space, nor the ability to service satellites, nor the ability for long duration space travel-lost in space indeed.”
I am confused by the last part of this line here. Do you mean that a return to the moon does not require long duration space travel to succeed (very confusing), or that going to the moon does not allow for the ability to do long duration space travel?
Furthermore I do not think that this is necessarily meant to be a “lunar exploration program”, more a lunar exploitation program based on what the study concludes. A program designed to enable other programs (long term) by offering a cheaper alternative to HLV single shot missions from Earth’s gravity well or a fuel depot architecture that relies on fuel being shipped from Earth’s gravity well exclusively.
Don’t get me wrong I am not necessarily saying that this studies conclusions are the way to go for fueling long term space exploration (and even longer term exploitation) vice just using Earth based launchers to fuel the depots. Ultimately this study, like most dealing with space exploration programs, are just shots in the dark. At this point I think that anything is better than the “SLS/Orion no hardware to do anything” program that at best only offers an Apollo redux no matter the destination.
The moon is a 3 to 5 day trip so
-long duration (> 6mo) design and data is not required
-equatorial exploration will take the priority over space
landers, rovers, miners, surface power, dust,…..
when its not required…it loses its funding.
DSH(s) staged at L2 allows the crew/hardware to gradually demonstrate long term exposure in the proper space environment and could be sent to service telescopes or asteroids or depots, or simply act as a lunar safe haven. Variable gravity would be studied, not 1/6th g. Data for long duration travel will be obtained to make design decisions for this 200mT/yr of propellant. Rather than shots in the dark, NASA needs multiple technologies to make the destinations affordable, and ISRU is just one expensive piece of the puzzle.
In Von Braun’s 1955 Disney video he states he purpose for his Space Station with gravity was to be a fuel depot. 6 decades ago. With mighty SLS on the horizon we may not see fuel depots anywhere for forty more years! 🙁
Decades turning into centuries with little sign of ever building highways into Space.
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
You can’t treat Von Braun’s ideas as gospel of any sort. For example Braun wanted what would become the Saturn V to be an all kerlox rocket. Then those NASA Lewis guys came in with their hydrogen fuel ideas and upset Von Braun’s world. He was very put out. It’s said that is the reason why there is tension between NASA Glenn and MSFC.
There is tension between every NASA center with every other NASA center.
Don’t take his ideas as gospel at all.
I was simply pointing out that he was attempting to design a sustainable system that used refueling and reusable spaceships so long ago.
We never have even tried to build an affordable highway into space.
Highways to space? Really? We can’t even take care of the highways on earth because fearful politicians think we will turn them out of they dare raise the funds needed to keep infrastructure in repair.
Starve the beast will have results far different than envisioned by current practitioners.
Good point. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. As long as politicians are afraid of the “T” word we will not have an increase in funds. That said, if we could eliminate Congressional mandates and use only commercial LVs as the NSS study proposes, we could probably stage at the ISS and return to the Moon within the current budget.
Example of how terrified they are of taxes: when the current governor of Florida was first elected one of his first ideas was to privatize large sections of Florida’s highways, selling them to a private foreign consortium and leasing back to the state.
The blowback was huge.
The thrust of my comment though was that over time as we watch our great country continually fail to move forward because leaders are afraid to assess necessary funds those same leaders will be thrown out of office in favor of more moderate stances. Never ever forget that the right is driven by ‘starve the beast’ and has been for forty years or so. That’s the true motivation for ‘it’s our money’ and similar mantras. starve the government to force contraction.
Only problem is that government provides essential services. I suppose the argument is over the nature of what’s essential and what isn’t. Highways are.
Or not.
While seemingly sticking toes in the destination debate, it doesn’t need to seem that way
I recently RT’d @robotbeat Chris:
“Yes! I’m a Mars-firster, but I’d rather go ‘commercial crew’ to the Moon than Apollo-on-steroids to Mars”
I also feel it backs up Jeff Greason’s Space Policy statements with an “island-hopping” “to make gas” strategy for the goal of settlement.
Same strategy that won the war in the Pacific.
I always thought only reason everybody (except Spudis and Wingo) never talk about going to the Moon but advocate go direct to Mars is because if Moon is goal, then need to put up some money to build transfer stage and lander right now. So now they need to decide very soon to commit $B now. Or put it off to some others 20 years from now for Mars. This does present some interesting concepts (several from many years ago) and it got the attention of media outside the space forums. How long will we wait? How will general public perceive this? It seems the new tool is tele-operated robots to do stuff on the lunar poles as that’s where the water is.
congressional members from space states do not care if the rockets actually go anywhere. It is about jobs in their districts and endless long term, cost plus, fixed fee, sole sourced, FAR development contracts as far as the eye can see.
It seems to me that both Paul Spudis and the study participants are in total agreement about what the NEXT step should be, which is to send additional robotic probes to the Moon and confirm once and for all the quantity, quality, and other characteristics (especially accessibility) of lunar ice or other forms of trapped lunar hydrogen. Every other step is meaningless until that NEXT step is taken. So let us ALL focus on this critical NEXT step and put the rest of the report on the shelf for now, alongside all the others made in the past 40 years.
Technical Risk Assessment, Report Page 26 — “The most significant system-level technical risk of the entire ELA is the possibility we will not find abundant enough levels of accessible hydrogen, which is critical to enabling economical production of lunar propellant. While we have proven that there is hydrogen trapped in lunar polar craters, we do not know how deep the water/hydrogen is buried, or if it is locked up in some form that is uneconomical to release. To mitigate this risk, rovers and prospecting systems need to be developed, tested, demonstrated, and validated. The availability of readily and economically available water, or hydrogen, at the lunar poles needs to be proven before significant investments can be made in all the other ISRU systems and the reusable lunar module that depends on lunar propellant. To the extent national decision-makers value the economical production of propellant at the lunar poles, this objective needs to be a top priority.”
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launched in 2009, but was conceived/approved all the way back in 2004 — FIVE YEARS earlier, shortly after the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) was first announced. LRO was originally part of VSE’s Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP). It morphed into the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP) in 2005 when it got bounced around various NASA centers until management was given to NASA Marshall — when Paul Spudis and Tony Lavoie got involved.
So “we” (thanks to Paul and Tony) already have fairly detailed plans for the above NEXT step, yet it has been over SIX years since the LRO launch, and FIVE since the effective demise of the VSE. We clearly cannot get the next STEP approved in the 2016 NASA budget (already at the Appropriations stage), which means we need to focus our advocacy energies on getting it added to the 2017 budget request. That gives us only FIVE MONTHS to convince NASA to put it in. Even so, based on LRO’s history, it will likely not launch until 2022 — SEVEN years in the future. So before we get lost in day-dreaming of Moon bases and missions to Mars by 202x, let’s take The Matrix’s “red pill”, and start building the needed advocacy coalition to ensure that the NEXT step gets in the 2017 NASA budget request.
Using what launch vehicles?
The Mars folks will never allow it. Once folks see how capable teleoperated vehicles are on the Moon with near real time operation and high definition 3D imagesfor driving, how rovers on the Moon could do in weeks what it took the rovers on Mars years to do, Mars rovers will look primitive and unexciting. Both would threaten future Mars missions, and anything that threatens future Mars missions will be attacked and destroyed by the Mars advocates at NASA.
Plan all you want, Congress will just earmark dollars somewhere else.