Next in the test sequence, the uncrewed Artemis 2 mission gave a shakedown cruise for the Pegasus upper stage and the cargo/hab lander in Earth orbit.
The last test flight in Earth orbit, Artemis 3 saw an Apollo crew meet with a crew lander and take it around the block a couple of times.
Turtledove nominations
Regarding the nominations of my illustrations for a Turtledove (and thanks to everyone who's nominated, it's a real honour!), we've had a message that only individual images can be submitted, not whole portfolios, so that means narrowing it down a single image (or a few multiple images, but probably best to try to avoid splitting the vote). Of course, everyone is welcome to submit their own favourite for consideration, but I thought it would be interesting to get a view from the readers of ETS as to which you think should go forward as the best representative for my work. So if you get a chance, please take a look in the next couple of days and let me know which is your favourite.
Regarding the nominations of my illustrations for a Turtledove (and thanks to everyone who's nominated, it's a real honour!), we've had a message that only individual images can be submitted, not whole portfolios, so that means narrowing it down a single image (or a few multiple images, but probably best to try to avoid splitting the vote). Of course, everyone is welcome to submit their own favourite for consideration, but I thought it would be interesting to get a view from the readers of ETS as to which you think should go forward as the best representative for my work. So if you get a chance, please take a look in the next couple of days and let me know which is your favourite.
Again super artwork
There second nominations for Nixonhead illustrations for a Turtledove award !
and Eyes Turned Skywards got also nominated under --Continuing Cold War Period (1946-1991 AD)
There second nominations for Nixonhead illustrations for a Turtledove award !
and Eyes Turned Skywards got also nominated under --Continuing Cold War Period (1946-1991 AD)
If they can't escape Enterprise, let's think about a set of Star Trek-themed names, perhaps for the test mission or perhaps not:
Apollo: Enterprise
Crew Lander: Galileo (the Enterprise's most-used, most-abused shuttlecraft)
Cargo Lander: That's tougher. Botany Bay could be used, but let's think about some other ideas.
There are at least two Federation freighters featured in TOS: The SS Dierdre, from "Friday's Child", and the Antares, from "Charlie X".
Maybe a starbase: K-7 ("The Trouble With Tribbles"), Starbase Six (several TOS and movie references). This option is hobbled by the fact that the Federation gives its space stations really unimaginative names.
A lunar colony called Lunaport was mentioned in the animated episode "Yesteryear", a follow-up to "The City on the Edge of Forever"; that script could easily have made TNV. Other lunar colonies mentioned in later Star Treks IOTL that could've been in TNV ITTL include Copernicus City, Tycho City, New Berlin, and Lake Armstrong. (Some of these are actually named after potential landing sites, and could be used for missions to those locations.)
On the other hand, you could always make up a name for something from an episode of The New Voyages or one of the movies. There are more TNV episodes than TOS ones, after all.
For the latest batch of pics, I really like the last one the most. Ascent Stage kinda looks like two hemispheres stuck on either end of a cylinder, but that's gotta be because of that shape being the overall best for strength relative to mass while still giving enough room for four to move around in - if only just.
As for ship names, here's a handful more: Hermes; Vega; Atreus; Aerope; Agamemnon; Vespa; Perseus; Pisces; Leo; Taurus; Sagittarius (Gemini and Aquarius having already been taken).
As for ship names, here's a handful more: Hermes; Vega; Atreus; Aerope; Agamemnon; Vespa; Perseus; Pisces; Leo; Taurus; Sagittarius (Gemini and Aquarius having already been taken).
Fantastic renders, Nixonshead.
You make every Monday morning one to look forward to.
You make every Monday morning one to look forward to.
Thanks Athelstane, and everyone else! I'm afraid next Monday I'll have to disappoint you a bit, as I'll be travelling. Illustrations will return on Tuesday
No doubt about it.
Of course, it's also true that NASA has become, over the decades - well, in principle - more risk averse.
Interesting idea.
That would have the advantage of making the emergency lander available for every sortie, not just one. Of course, it would need to be highly robust in terms of long-term storability of those hypergolics, and dormancy for other systems.
Of course, once a permanent lunar base site is selected, it can make more sense to put the emergency escape vehicle on site there. On the other hand, it's also less likely NASA will make the investment in an escape vehicle until such a base is selected. There are always tradeoffs.
Thanks Athelstane, and everyone else! I'm afraid next Monday I'll have to disappoint you a bit, as I'll be travelling. Illustrations will return on Tuesday
Noooooooooooooooooo....
Because the delta-V to orbit or escape the Moon's surface is so much lower than that needed to lift off of Earth and the maximum thrust needed to reduce gravity losses to a low percentage of the theoretical minimum is also low, people have a tendency to dismiss the cost of moving around ballistically from point to point on the moon; case in point being the enthusiasm some have shown for manufacturing aluminum-oxygen rockets or rocket fuel from lunar materials, not worrying about the low ISP.
But whenever I do the math of point-to-point travel on Luna, even with as high an ISP as hydrogen-oxygen would offer, the cumulative mass ratio is daunting! To go from one point to another, the rocket must first take off and achieve suitable ballistic speed, then land by reversing that same delta-V--it has to do it twice, and unless we have rockets with very high ISP indeed, that costs a whole lot of reaction mass.
It would be much better to have it parked in an orbit that can reach the stranded party, but of course that is very tricky both because any close orbit limits the terrain it can reach, and that ground track will change as the moon rotates. And of course a really close orbit suffers from the mascon perturbations that can result in the thing crashing unless it is constantly correcting its course.
The Lagrange points are so distant that getting to or from them requires velocity changes comparable to escaping the Moon completely, and also the transit takes considerable time. But a rescue vehicle parked there can, after that long time elapses, reach any point on the Moon equally well. This is why the long-duration Artemis missions want to park the CSM at L-2.
I still think they'd do better to go for L-1--L-2 has a significant advantage in minimum delta-V to reach it, but only if you go from Earth on the most economical path, which is much slower than the travel times the authors have given or would be desirable for manned missions--it would be fine of course for unmanned stuff, such as materials or supplies for a fixed base there, or a reserve rescue vehicle such as I propose. (In fact I should review the figures to see whether the savings in delta-V for a slow economical path to L-2 are so great that a single Saturn Heavy launch could put a big rescue ship there, one big enough to compensate for the inefficiency of hypergolic fuels without compromising the already spartan standard ascent vehicle). For the manned Artemis though the need for greater speed would pretty much negate L-2's theoretical advantage, and with comparable delta-V needed to reach either point promptly I like that L-1 is significantly closer to Earth and communications are easier. L-2 is better for future space stations, and a better staging area for interplanetary missions--assuming we continue to use high-thrust, relatively mediocre ISP rockets to get from LEO to the Lunar neighborhood. I suspect if we use ion rockets, whether powered by solar energy or pulsed fusion--any system that uses low mass flows at very high ISP and thus does not travel on impulse-determined orbits but rather sort of spirals out, then the fact that L-1 is nearer would again tend to predominate--we'd reach it significantly sooner.
But for whatever reason, L-2 is it for Artemis. On second thought I think the reserve rescue ship should be parked at L-2 also, so that it is convenient to the Artemis crew should problems with their own LEM develop before they even try to land on the moon. I even think it would be smart to provide an alternative CSM while we are at it, also parked there, perhaps docked to the LEM. This could be more like the standard Block V CSM, except of course that everything aboard is designed or chosen to sit waiting for years, hopefully never to be used at all. But if we are going to invest in fail-safes like this, we need to consider the possibility that it will be the CSM that is stricken, not the LEM, after all this is exactly what happened with Apollo 13!
Having a backup for every component of the mission seems reasonable to me--that's two more Heavy launches there, but if the two craft can be relied upon they will cover the whole program. They'd have to be monitored closely to make sure they are ready, that something hasn't gone sour--if that happens a replacement would have to be launched, as would be necessary of course if either were ever used.
There would be many modes in which they might be used--say the mission LEM ascent stage can't make it back to L-2 but it can abort to lunar orbit, then possibly either the rescue LEM or the Rescue CSM can come down, rendezvous, and push the Artemis stage back to its own CSM--the difference between near-escape velocity to L-2 and a low Lunar orbit is small compared to the total velocity needed, so the rescue lander should have fuel to spare to start the boost, and the rescue ascent module can finish the job handily even pushing a double mass. Or if the economy of using the slow unmanned path to L-2 from LEO allows the rescue CSM to be much heavier, it can have ample fuel to make that descent and rendezvous and still boost back to Earth from LLO. (I haven't looked at the figures for that at all though).
And perhaps at the end of Artemis, the rescue lander can be used to place a large robotic station or rover on the surface. If its habitation mass can be detached, and either left at L-2 or shifted onto a trajectory that will crash it on the Moon, and the ascent module fuel piped into the lander stage's supply to stretch its burn, a final payload of that type, slow-launched from LEO, can attach itself in place of the ascent stuff except its tankage. So the manned Artemis might end but a leave a very large and long-duration robot behind.
This is a nice, meaty update. I especially like how the Artemis descent stage is basically an autonomous cargo lander waiting to happen.
Now I don't see it mentioned anywhere, but will the hab lander require solar panels for its long stay on the Moon? Given the necessary launch tempo to support Freedom (figure that takes up two high bays in the VAB at any given time and I doubt NASA would spring for more than two MLPs capable of handling the Heavy stack) the habitat is going to have to go up at least two months before the crew launches so its going to have to endure at least two lunar nights. That seems like a lot to be asking of batteries or fuel cells. On a slight tangent from that, would surface EVAs even be possible during lunar night?
Really looking forward to seeing where you target the landings. There's too many interesting spots for just six missions.
Now I don't see it mentioned anywhere, but will the hab lander require solar panels for its long stay on the Moon? Given the necessary launch tempo to support Freedom (figure that takes up two high bays in the VAB at any given time and I doubt NASA would spring for more than two MLPs capable of handling the Heavy stack) the habitat is going to have to go up at least two months before the crew launches so its going to have to endure at least two lunar nights. That seems like a lot to be asking of batteries or fuel cells. On a slight tangent from that, would surface EVAs even be possible during lunar night?
Really looking forward to seeing where you target the landings. There's too many interesting spots for just six missions.
I can only speculate; that rarely stops me though...
Of course, solar panels can help, but only to cut the basic problem in half. Ideally I'd think one would want to avoid letting the habitable interior fall below freezing temperatures but only the authors can let us know whether the module will radiate so much heat as to get that cold or not. If insulation alone (that is, minimizing heat radiation--the craft is surrounded by the best insulator known to science, vacuum! And heat conduction through the landing legs will surely be quite low and can be cut further with purpose-designed insulation) will not keep it above freezing over two weeks, then some sort of power supply will be needed in the dark; that can only be batteries, fuel cells, or a radioactive source of some kind. I'd think they'd have mentioned a miniature reactor!
Though perhaps a radioisotope power supply is not totally out of line, if it doesn't pose a significant extra source of irradiation to the crew.Letting the cabin get pretty chilly but above the freezing point of water might save a lot of power versus keeping it at "shirtsleeve" temperatures.
It all depends on the absolute amounts of power needed; if that is low, then batteries with solar panels to recharge seem reasonable, but then again fuel cells would not require a lot of reactant either and the water output is drinkable. And a rather puny radioisotope source might also serve. If it is high--the thing might have to be designed to deep-freeze and be thawed out in daylight. Then of course night time mission operations would be very challenging, requiring a specially designed habitat with beefed-up power supplies not needed for day missions.
I'd think that insulation would be pretty good and the power demand to stay warm would be low. But of course there is always the example of Apollo 13 to consider--when their power supply was low, they got cold, never mind being in full sunlight most of the time. The crew was chilled badly at relatively warm temperatures because their clothes were not designed to keep them warm to be sure, but from what I remember of Lovell's book Lost Moon Ron Howard was not exaggerating in his movie showing frost forming, and the condensation problem was pretty severe.
I wonder whether you might know more than I do about the realities of keeping things warm or cool in space, and while standing on a solid body that has chilled down. I gather all space suits that have been used up to now have been designed to be worn in full sunlight, and perhaps the problem there is more keeping the astronaut from overheating--from their own body heat, and considering that only half their surface is available to radiate it away. Again I'd think it would be easier to keep an astronaut warm when the surface is chilled down to its lowest temperature than to keep a Terran warm when the air is just at freezing temperatures, since the cold air on Earth conducts heat away more rapidly than I expect a suitably insulated astronaut would radiate it. Obviously standard spacesuits would have to be adjusted, with well-insulated foot, knee, and glove coverings at least (and other areas protected too in case they fall over on their sides or back) and most likely an extra layer of covering would be needed.
There's another hazard that the Apollo suits did not fully address-moon dust. I think the authors may have mentioned this. I wonder whether a loose outer layer should be worn in any case, coveralls to not only add more insulation but to catch most of the dust; before entering the airlock they'd remove this coverall. (And since they will want to do many EVAs and I don't think the weight budget can afford carrying a new covering for every excursion, then it would have to have most of the dust shaken off it somehow). That ought to keep most of the dust out of the habitation.
There could be an extra-warm garment for missions that go into Lunar night, or the same one might do for night and day, with the suit heat management system either engaging radiators presumably on their backpack or not depending on circumstances.
If just retaining more body heat by radiating less is not sufficient the suit could obviously be heated but that's another power draw of course.
As for lighting, on the Nearside, Earthlight should be pretty bright, much brighter than the full moon on Earth--at least sixteen times brighter, and the Earth's albedo is higher too so brighter than that. When the Moon's nearside is in shadow, it should see the disk of Earth at least half-lit and generally more so. I suspect that is enough light to walk around with without tripping over unseen things.
The trick might actually be to avoid spoiling their night vision with overly bright lights! I'm imagining that what spotlights or flashlights they carry might be red-filtered as red light is less apt to spoil dark adaption--it should be possible to remove the filters and turn the lights up brighter should they need a strong light to get a good look at something!
Anyway I suppose that Artemis missions can generally avoid operations at night, in low latitudes anyway. Near the poles, an obvious target for at least one mission, the challenges will be greatest because one would often be walking from brightly lit places into deep shadow.
Farside at night would be worse in that there would be no natural light to speak of, so arranging illumination would be entirely up to the astronauts in their suits. Which I suppose for such a mission would have headlights. Most likely all Artemis missions to Farside would be in full daylight.
I'd forgotten they plan only that many! That certainly makes my suggestion of preceding them with two launches to position reserve rescue craft more awkward; either they raise the budget by almost 15 percent (and more, to purpose-design specialized versions of all the moon modules) and push back the date of the first manned mission--or they repurpose one of the six planned pairs of launches, falling back to just five manned excursions, and again delay the first one of those.I still think given the caution of Apollo 13, they ought to do that (the former, I'd hope) anyway.
Shevek,
We've given it some thought, but a rescue lander is sadly entirely entirely non-viable. The main issue isn't the cost of launching the lander itself, which as you note requires only one launch and could serve any number of Artemis missions. Rather, the problem is that the lander's descent and ascent stages would have to be totally separate designs from the main Artemis LCLM, and thus a separate program costing several billion dollars in development and a couple more in test and launch. That's up to a 25% increase in the cost of the Artemis program, to cover some very low odds scenarios--less than 1 in 10000 or more. Considering the fact that NASA IOTL was making no such plans for Constellation even after Challenger and Columbia, we just can't see the expense being spent. A "spare" CSM is about the only viable addition, since that could be flown to L-2 on a single M02-Centaur, but that's really only covering the case of a CSM failure during loiter at L-2--and they're had two decades of experience with long-duration quiescent storage of Apollos at Spacelab and Freedom that have allowed them the chance to get that down! Thus, the only part they could realistically provide a backup for is the one that's the single lowest probability of failure in the entire mission. Given that, I think the hardware will be as on Apollo--no redundant spacecraft, just redundancy and reliability built into the design of each craft so you don't need them.
We've given it some thought, but a rescue lander is sadly entirely entirely non-viable. The main issue isn't the cost of launching the lander itself, which as you note requires only one launch and could serve any number of Artemis missions. Rather, the problem is that the lander's descent and ascent stages would have to be totally separate designs from the main Artemis LCLM, and thus a separate program costing several billion dollars in development and a couple more in test and launch. That's up to a 25% increase in the cost of the Artemis program, to cover some very low odds scenarios--less than 1 in 10000 or more. Considering the fact that NASA IOTL was making no such plans for Constellation even after Challenger and Columbia, we just can't see the expense being spent. A "spare" CSM is about the only viable addition, since that could be flown to L-2 on a single M02-Centaur, but that's really only covering the case of a CSM failure during loiter at L-2--and they're had two decades of experience with long-duration quiescent storage of Apollos at Spacelab and Freedom that have allowed them the chance to get that down! Thus, the only part they could realistically provide a backup for is the one that's the single lowest probability of failure in the entire mission. Given that, I think the hardware will be as on Apollo--no redundant spacecraft, just redundancy and reliability built into the design of each craft so you don't need them.
Shevek - As far as spacesuits go. The current EVA spacesuits have to perform in both light and dark as astronauts circle the Earth. So the current EVA spacesuits have lights and a camera built into them. I would assume that the new Lunar EVA suits would have at least a Camera and the ability to add a light if necessary. However with the current mission durations as planned in this ATL I am not sure if they will really need to work in darkness. Dust is a big issue. However the AirLock will help a lot because they will not have to track dust throughout the Cabin of the LM. One thing that I heard mention by the Apollo astronauts is that usually by the 3rd EVA the spacesuits where starting to really suffer with the helmets and glove rings being difficult to work. However oiling everything really seemed to help the function of these items. One possibility is maybe a rear entry suit, that way you don't have glove rings that are exposed to lunar dust. I think the proptype Lunar Rover for the Constellation program before it was canceled featured rear-entry spacesuits with no airlock that the suits just stayed outside the vehicle. However dust will be a problem with any lunar EVA.
Here is a picture of Schmitt on the Lunar Surface and you can clearly see how much dust they got on the SpaceSuits, especially during the J-Missions. Also realistically I don't think it is possible for astronauts to keep up doing EVA after EVA every day for a entire surface stay on the moon. EVA work is really hard. The suit is inflated against you and to even to hold something you have to flex your hands. From the books I read that even after 3-EVA's during the J missions the astronaut bodies where fairly beat up. Gene Cernan talked about how his hands where beat up with Lunar dust under his finger nails and it felt like nails had been pounded under his finger nails from the Lunar Dust. This is probably where in this ATL someone like John Young can assist. He would be able to offer the suit designers a lot of real world experience on what works and doesn't work on the moon.
Here is a picture of Schmitt on the Lunar Surface and you can clearly see how much dust they got on the SpaceSuits, especially during the J-Missions. Also realistically I don't think it is possible for astronauts to keep up doing EVA after EVA every day for a entire surface stay on the moon. EVA work is really hard. The suit is inflated against you and to even to hold something you have to flex your hands. From the books I read that even after 3-EVA's during the J missions the astronaut bodies where fairly beat up. Gene Cernan talked about how his hands where beat up with Lunar dust under his finger nails and it felt like nails had been pounded under his finger nails from the Lunar Dust. This is probably where in this ATL someone like John Young can assist. He would be able to offer the suit designers a lot of real world experience on what works and doesn't work on the moon.
Just a note on this, the moon suits we've been working on so far pretty much directly borrow the helmets from Freedom, so have lights and cameras built in. Regarding a need to work in darkness, don't forget there are plans for missions to the poles, with a major objective presumably being to investigate the content of those permanently shadowed craters (whether it be ice or alien rock-critters). This is on top of the long shadows that will be present even around the (presumably sunlit and/or Earthlit, but from a low angle) landing sites, so the astronauts will certainly be using those lights.
[EDIT]: Sorry, I'd missed the earlier point in the discussion where it was clear that the need for lighting on polar missions was brought up. Suffice to say the moonsuits will have lights.
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I have a question about EVA timing. From what I understand you are having 4 astronauts land on the moon. Are you going to have the astronauts rotate EVA's with 2 going out at a time with the other 2 staying in the Lander? Basically a rotation similiar to what NASA does with back to back EVA's, they don't usually send astronauts out on EVA's on back to back days.
I just noticed the combination of the "meatball" and "worm" NASA insignias!