That's how you do it. Good. Not completely forgotten the recipe. We have progress.Gawdzilla wrote:No, they kludged a bunch of fixes together and flung humans at the satellite while hoping they made it home.Crumple wrote:They solved all the probs using 60s thinking.....Gawdzilla wrote:Crumpet, L.O.E. is useful for research, if nothing else. It's reachable and sustainable. Add 230,000 miles to the trip and you have a whole different set of logistical issues.
See, there's where you don't understand. The cost of moving the mass to the moon from the ground is a minimum number not matter how you do it. And the moon ship would have to escape Earth's gravity to get to the Moon.mistermack wrote:Actually, the extra distance isn't a problem.Gawdzilla wrote:Crumpet, L.O.E. is useful for research, if nothing else. It's reachable and sustainable. Add 230,000 miles to the trip and you have a whole different set of logistical issues.
A space craft uses no energy, once it's up to speed. The energy requirement is just for acceleration and deceleration.
The return from the moon uses very little fuel. It's only take-off from the Earth which is fuel hungry.
And now that they've found water on the Moon, you can actually make your own fuel, and store it there for future missions.
I can't see that it's a fuel problem. I would have thought that the shuttle could have carried a craft capable of going to the moon and back.
Actually, we have sent plenty of things to the moon since, so, no, it can't be a fuel problem.
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Moving you to the top of the short list.Crumple wrote:That's how you do it. Good. Not completely forgotten the recipe. We have progress.Gawdzilla wrote:No, they kludged a bunch of fixes together and flung humans at the satellite while hoping they made it home.Crumple wrote:They solved all the probs using 60s thinking.....Gawdzilla wrote:Crumpet, L.O.E. is useful for research, if nothing else. It's reachable and sustainable. Add 230,000 miles to the trip and you have a whole different set of logistical issues.
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Yeh, but you can't deny that plenty of rockets HAVE been sent to the moon since.Gawdzilla wrote:See, there's where you don't understand. The cost of moving the mass to the moon from the ground is a minimum number not matter how you do it. And the moon ship would have to escape Earth's gravity to get to the Moon.mistermack wrote:Actually, the extra distance isn't a problem.Gawdzilla wrote:Crumpet, L.O.E. is useful for research, if nothing else. It's reachable and sustainable. Add 230,000 miles to the trip and you have a whole different set of logistical issues.
A space craft uses no energy, once it's up to speed. The energy requirement is just for acceleration and deceleration.
The return from the moon uses very little fuel. It's only take-off from the Earth which is fuel hungry.
And now that they've found water on the Moon, you can actually make your own fuel, and store it there for future missions.
I can't see that it's a fuel problem. I would have thought that the shuttle could have carried a craft capable of going to the moon and back.
Actually, we have sent plenty of things to the moon since, so, no, it can't be a fuel problem.
Also, you have to have a hell of a lot of equipment, proportionally, to mine water on the moon and separate the elements and store them. Or do you have a Lunar Mining Facility in your boot?
I don't know why expenditures on turtle crossings and other nonsense would be considered a good use of Stimulus money, but manned space flight would not?Gawdzilla wrote:Only if it would directly benefit the private sector and there were no tax increases. Besides, we'd have to send someone who would be expendable if they didn't come back. I have a short list...Coito ergo sum wrote:Would be a nice "jobs bill" to drop a $100,000,000,000 per year more on NASA and direct them to get us to the Moon in five years. Hire the best folks, expand Cape Canaveral and the Johnson Space Center and give our kids some inspiration to get a science education at the same time.Gawdzilla wrote:By now we could have walked there.
Kinda like what they did with the battleship in Star Blazers...Crumple wrote:I'd use ingenuity and fortify a civilian helicopter - send it up in parts and use that as a landing module. Replace the rotors with thrusters and fly it like the flying bedstead. They used to be ingenious like that in the early days of flight. No thought about personal safety. If it had been left to the cautious we'd still be dreaming of manned flight today.Coito ergo sum wrote:There are no such shelf components in the private sector.Crumple wrote:I'm sure it could be done with off the shelf compoents in the private sector for very little.Coito ergo sum wrote:Especially considering that you'd have to go there in something other than a Space Shuttle.Clinton Huxley wrote:A mission from the ISS to the moon wouldn't be Apollo- expensive but would still cost a bob or two
Define "plenty". And compare them to the Lunar Module and Command Capsule.mistermack wrote:Yeh, but you can't deny that plenty of rockets HAVE been sent to the moon since.
Just unmanned rockets. So escaping earth's gravity didn't stop them.
They could be mining the moon for water now, using robots, if they don't want to risk a man.
The signal lag is only 1.3 seconds from Earth. You could control a digger from here.
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Do me a favor. Sit in the pilot seat of a Chinook and I'll accelerate it to 25,000 mph.Crumple wrote:Use three chinooks launched in pieces. Two will orbit the moon and one land(multiple landings should be possible over a few weeks). One will be for the return journey and contain fuel for that. Another for the journey there. The one which lands can be brought back. Two will dock with the ISS or some smaller structure from which the astronauts will return to earth....
Yes, the fortified battleship was my original inspiration.
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The definition of "plenty" is "numerous".Gawdzilla wrote:Define "plenty". And compare them to the Lunar Module and Command Capsule.mistermack wrote:Yeh, but you can't deny that plenty of rockets HAVE been sent to the moon since.
Just unmanned rockets. So escaping earth's gravity didn't stop them.
They could be mining the moon for water now, using robots, if they don't want to risk a man.
The signal lag is only 1.3 seconds from Earth. You could control a digger from here.
And you're grossly over-simplifying the issues with robot miners and processing facilities. Fire a factory at the Moon, but first consider the cost of doing so.
One, to build a space station, and learn how to build space stations.mistermack wrote:Yeh, but, what has been the point of going to the space station all those times then?Gawdzilla wrote:Post coitus depression, sort of. We'd done it and it was time to move on. Remember that it wasn't about going to the Moon, it was about beating the Russians to the Moon for most people, so support for the missions waned quickly. There were missions planned after XVII, but they were scrubbed. We had other things to do, like dig ourselves out of S.E.A.mistermack wrote:So if you can go to the space station, what's the problem with going to the moon?
Yes, because a moon mission would require the development of completely different craft and rockets.mistermack wrote:
Would a moon mission cost more than two space station missions? I can't see why.
Not really. We missed our chance, I think, with Constellation to use the experience of living astronauts and engineers to give us the benefit of their experience. Since we've foolishly tossed that opportunity aside in favor of turtle crossings and other pork-barrel spending projects, we will lose all that experience, and we will be starting from scratch. The technology improvements will likely add somewhat to safety, but there is no substitute for human experience.mistermack wrote: And it should be hundreds of times safer now, than in the sixties.
The trip is 500,000 miles, and requires a heavy lift rocket. We may almost have that again with Atlas, but i'm not sure where that stands with the murder of Constellation.mistermack wrote:
That's what I really would like to know. Why is a Moon mission so much more expensive.
There is no easy way to use the stuff on the moon. Water doesn't just sit there in pools that you just need to slurp up. Minerals need to be mined and processed. You can't just use Moon rocks without proper mining and refining equipment any more than you can do the same on Earth. Go out behind your house and dig up rocks in the ground and use the minerals - whatever you will need to extract and process the minerals in sufficient quantities to make them useful, you would need on the Moon.mistermack wrote: You have to remember that there is STUFF on the moon. Like water, and minerals. Stuff that you could use. There is nothing on the space station that wasn't launched from Earth at HUGE cost.
It's attractive, but for different reasons. The space station is important, but for various other purposes. To me, the Moon is necessary as a stepping stone to Mars. Having gone 5 or 6 times 40 years ago is not sufficient experience, in my view, to send humans on a six month mission to Mars. This is a difficult, unforgiving environment and it is high risk. You can't just go.mistermack wrote:
So I would have thought that the moon was a far more attractive destination than the space station.
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Many are crashed deliberately.Gawdzilla wrote:MM, check out the frequency of the use of the word "crashed" in your post.
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