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Exploration

Everyone Wants To Go Back To The Moon

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 22, 2019
Filed under
Everyone Wants To Go Back To The Moon

NASA Selects Experiments for Possible Lunar Flights in 2019
“NASA has selected 12 science and technology demonstration payloads to fly to the Moon as early as the end of this year, dependent upon the availability of commercial landers. These selections represent an early step toward the agency’s long-term scientific study and human exploration of the Moon and, later, Mars. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) initiated the request for proposals leading to these selections as the first step in achieving a variety of science and technology objectives that could be met by regularly sending instruments, experiments and other small payloads to the Moon.”
NASA Administrator Statement on Israeli Moon Mission
“In July, I was in Israel and was very impressed with their commitment to expanding their role in the world’s space community. As we better understand Israel’s capabilities and the innovative work of their private industry, we know they’ll be an even stronger international partner in the future, one vital to the success of extending commercial space to the Moon and eventually on to Mars and beyond. There are terrific opportunities awaiting Israel and all of us in advancing the space frontier.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

7 responses to “Everyone Wants To Go Back To The Moon”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    About time!

    • Vladislaw says:
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      Keeping up with the Jones’es at the State level ..

    • fcrary says:
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      That depends on what model you want NASA to follow, or perhaps the are trying several things.

      It’s worth noting that all the selected experiments are developed by NASA centers and seem primarily to be about engineering, technology and determining the operating environment for future missions. That’s very much in keeping with NASA going back to its NACA roots as a technology development organization. Doing things in house is also probably best if they want to fly something by the end of the year; NASA often has trouble getting contracts in place in less than six months, which wouldn’t leave much time to build anything…

      In contrast, there is also a “Lunar Surface Instrument and Technology Payloads” solicitation, with proposals due this week and selections sometime this spring. That seems to have more of a focus on scientific observations and is open to universities, private companies, etc. That’s more in line with NASA doing business like the NSF, where they simply fund research through contracts and grants, and outsource things like transportation and logistics.

  2. My 2¢ says:
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    Been there. Done that. Let’s move on.

    • DJE51 says:
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      Haha, no. We have been to the moon’s surface relatively near to the equator, but not the poles, where there are some interesting possibilities for in-situ resource utilization, mainly water (producing hydrogen and oxygen of course) but also continuous sunlight, which would be of real use to a permanent science station, where we could really study the moon, not just with experiments left from 6 landings using 60s (maybe early 70s) technology. A moon base near the poles is a doable proposition, and is a noble goal for NASA. There are a number of Antarctica science stations, why not one on the moon?

  3. DougSpace says:
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    Imagine a transport system to the Moon using a Falcon Heavy, Dragon, and a reusable XEUS/ACES lander. ($135 M + $30 M + $100 M / 5 reuses) / 6 seats = $30.8 M/seat. Being particularly conservative, let’s push that to $80 M/seat. If other countries set aside the same % of their GDPs as we do for our civilian space program (only 1/10th if 1%) and did so for four years, then about 70% of the countries could afford to purchase at least one seat for one of their astronauts in a mission exploring the surface of the Moon. I suspect that there would be a whole lot if countries that would purchase those seats.

    • fcrary says:
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      Not unless those astronauts had some sort real work to do on the Moon. National prestige is one thing, but a paying passenger who is only going there for the ride is a tourist. The governments of many of those countries would have real problems if they tried what you suggest. If they spent that large a fraction of the GDP on sending one tourist to the Moon, they’d be facing riots. I think your list of countries includes many with huge income disparity and populations who aren’t happy about it. Sending one of the top 1%, or whatever, on a trip to the Moon would not be popular. Now, if they had some real job, and if the position were open to anyone, that might be more popular. Say the scholarship prize of the lifetime for the nation’s very best college geology student. On the other hand, you might have better luck tapping the top 1% directly.

      On a technical note, however, about 40% of your cost is from the XEUS/ACES lander, and that’s not cheap. Let’s see, at least one seat for 70% of the countries in the world is at least 144 seats. At $80 million per seat, that’s a good $11.5 billion. Investing a couple billion on a lower cost lander might easily improve the bottom line.