UrbanRedneck
Banned
But what would be the goal? What new products or science could have been developed on the moon that would have made it worthwhile?
Moonlab (1974-81)
- Thread starter The Kiat
- Start date
*shrug* If you want a big pressurized rover--which you'll need for long-distance exploration, beyond the limitations of a day's traverse, you'll need to put it somewhere on the launch vehicle and lander. They didn't think about horizontal landers like DTAL or Cargostar back then, so...on the roof it goes!
It's not as dumb as it looks, trust me.
Cook
Banned
Actually doing some Luna Geo-science in-situ would be a good start; the only geologist (Harry Schmitt)to set foot on the Moon did so on the final flight.
As to speculating on what would be the point and what could you find, that’s why you’re going there – to find out. Our knowledge of the Moon is currently derived from literally a few buckets worth of completely random rock samples and some (extremely) remote sensing. It is like thinking you know the net worth of the Pilbara and Kimberley from a bucket of sand from the beach in Broome. (Americans can substitute Texas and New Mexico here and a pale of sand from the beach in Galveston.)
That’s actually substantially understating it; the Moon is an entirely other world with a surface area as large as Africa, doubtless with mineral variation to match.
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Not really enough, to get an American moonbase you really need to have a Soviet push at a moonbase, maybe the Soviets land a couple of modules, a fixed 'base' to provide enough equipment to support a couple of cosmonauts for a few weeks and a half-disposable 'bus stage' (rather like the Apollo landers) to get the two cosmonauts down to the moon and up again, with enough supplies to last them a couple of weeks, just to prove that not only can they go to the moon, they can maintain a 'base' for at least a few months.
Oh I wasn't going to throw out the manned Soviet program. I just thought that shovel full of regolith would be more to embaress NASA than anything else. Their moon shot would just be slower. Maybe at the tail end of the Apollo landings, or even 1973. If their moon rockets would stop blowing up, they might have had a descent chance of early 70s.
I use a similar argument against the ISS. What can that hundred billion dollar trap learn than Mir hasn't? Actually my blast is more at the cost overrun, as I recall original estimates of the program being at $15 bin.
To add to what Cook said: there's actually something to find out on the surface of the moon. There's far more to find out there than in orbit of Earth (except debris.... Earth orbit has lots of that). Probably a lot of profit to be had on the moon too... except NASA and Moonlab isn't about being profittable!
Who knows; maybe a fly-over of the poles might find water earlier on. I am not sure if Apollo had the fuel capacity to make such a radical orbital change, so I'd go with orbiting probes if I wanted to explore the poles.
Archibald
Banned
Yes, Apollo could easily go into lunar polar orbit. Apollo mission types were named by letters - Armstrong Apollo 11 was a -G mission, further landings were -H (Apollo 12, 13, 14) and -J class missions (15, 16, 17)
As for the -i missions they were non landing flights that would go into lunar polar orbit. Unfortunately they were cancelled in 1968.
As for the -i missions they were non landing flights that would go into lunar polar orbit. Unfortunately they were cancelled in 1968.
Moonbase 3 a nice Tv series, sadly there made only a handful of episodes...
back to Moonlab
the LASS cargolander could bring 32000 kg to lunar surface.
that include the S-IVB
here the configuration 3 would be ideal for Moonlab
While configuration 1 for Lunar orbital Skylab
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/skylab-on-the-moon-1966/
back to Moonlab
the LASS cargolander could bring 32000 kg to lunar surface.
that include the S-IVB
here the configuration 3 would be ideal for Moonlab
While configuration 1 for Lunar orbital Skylab
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/skylab-on-the-moon-1966/
A rough outline of the Moonlab missions.
Moonlab I: Unmanned habitat module landing. 7/74
Moonlab II: Unmanned cargo landing, plus moon buggy. 9/74
III: 1st Manned Mission (I was thinking of having Lovell as commander for it, being one of the most veteran moon hands). 12/74-5/75
IV: Unmanned supply mission. 6/75
V: 2nd manned mission. 8/75-3/76
VI: Unmanned supply, plus moon dozer. 1/76
VII: 3rd manned mission, brought along first inflattable habitat. 6/76-12/76
I was thinking about having a stranded Cosmonaut on the moon saved by them, sort of a reverse Marooned (tell me I'm not the only person who has seen that movie).
VIII: 4th manned mission. 12/76-7/77
IX: Unmanned supply, with another inflattable hab. 3/77
X: 5th manned mission. 9/77-5/78
XI: 6th manned mission. 4/78-11/79
XII: Unmanned supply- crashed on landing, but most of the supplies salvaged. 9/79
XIII: 7th and last manned mission. Astronaut killed on surface ends mission early. Usually media and political hysteria, NASA worried about image, etc, etc. 1/80-4/80
Moonlab I: Unmanned habitat module landing. 7/74
Moonlab II: Unmanned cargo landing, plus moon buggy. 9/74
III: 1st Manned Mission (I was thinking of having Lovell as commander for it, being one of the most veteran moon hands). 12/74-5/75
IV: Unmanned supply mission. 6/75
V: 2nd manned mission. 8/75-3/76
VI: Unmanned supply, plus moon dozer. 1/76
VII: 3rd manned mission, brought along first inflattable habitat. 6/76-12/76
I was thinking about having a stranded Cosmonaut on the moon saved by them, sort of a reverse Marooned (tell me I'm not the only person who has seen that movie).
VIII: 4th manned mission. 12/76-7/77
IX: Unmanned supply, with another inflattable hab. 3/77
X: 5th manned mission. 9/77-5/78
XI: 6th manned mission. 4/78-11/79
XII: Unmanned supply- crashed on landing, but most of the supplies salvaged. 9/79
XIII: 7th and last manned mission. Astronaut killed on surface ends mission early. Usually media and political hysteria, NASA worried about image, etc, etc. 1/80-4/80
Can't recall the title but there was a science fiction story about an astronaut being sent on a 1-way mission to the moon to marry up with an unmanned cargo flight that preceded him, followed by monthly supply flights for about a year until "Apollo" got in gear. Capsule was an uprated Mercury type. Believe it was made in to a movie later - very "dramatic" but does make you think. Impetus was the USSR - they were going to get there first, in the book the Russian craft crash lands & crew killed just before the US astronaut sets down.
IMHO abandoning completely a decent size base (after 5 years of adding on bits and pieces will be decent size) on the moon is just to big a political "failure" cutting back yes, abandoning...no. Once you get some space & power you know they'll be growing stuff there both as an O2 source/CO2 scrubber and for some fresh food. Mixing human waste (easily sterilized in vacuum & with solar rays) with moon regolith dust you getting potting soil, kill 2 birds with one stone.
IMHO abandoning completely a decent size base (after 5 years of adding on bits and pieces will be decent size) on the moon is just to big a political "failure" cutting back yes, abandoning...no. Once you get some space & power you know they'll be growing stuff there both as an O2 source/CO2 scrubber and for some fresh food. Mixing human waste (easily sterilized in vacuum & with solar rays) with moon regolith dust you getting potting soil, kill 2 birds with one stone.
Yeah. Once Moonlab is going, that's the program of record. It's like how when Constellation (lunar return) faced down keeping the space station (ISS) for the same budget pie, Constellation gave. The resulting surviving pieces (SLS, Orion) are fighting for the money to work and to justify their role in the current program of record.
I think that's a lesson for what moonlab could be like ITTL: If it's Shuttle and orbital stations fighting for a piece of the pie, they'll only be able to do it if they can make do with the lunar leftovers, or find a solid justification as part of a continuing lunar program while avoiding diverting so much that the base has to be shut down entirely. For stations, this is easy--it's something similar in hardware, but different in the G conditions, it's a way station for maybe a reusable lander, all that. For shuttle...it'll need to either dig up extra money, or get by with less than OTL's money. Hard to do and still find a path towards flight. Maybe one of the early concepts using a Saturn 1C first stage as the boosters instead of solids?
How critical is this inflatable you're using? They don't seem to have bothered with them in the concepts of the period, at least not in the actual planning documents. There were some trials, but nothing that really was headed anywhere from what I can tell.
I remember that movie (and the actual last-ditch plan that somebody drew up at NASA), but I can't remember it's name either.
I do remember Marooned though. I'll have to take a look for it on DVD.
Not overly critical. It's just an experimental sort of thing. Basically, use the moon dozer to dig a trench, and then inflate a long tube structure in the trench, and bury it with regolith to protect it from micrometeors. As we all know, with current technology, it costs too darned much to launch stuff into space. It would be cheaper to have a collapsable structure that would weigh less and provide more internal volume. Best thing about building on the moon is that the air inside the structure will help hold it up against the weaker gravity.
And as I recall, initial plans for the shuttle had some lofty ideas that were scaled back due to cost. If it's sold as a national security project (which the space shuttle had certain capabilities for war time), then it could divert funding from Moonlab, causing it to be mothballed for the time being.
Might that be the 1968 movie Countdown? Sounds like the summary matches.
Cheaper, yeah, but they don't need the volume that much. The LESA shelters fit on a lander, and there's a lot of room in one of those. Bigger deal would be using regolith to act as radiation barriers--looking at LESA's mass allocations for radiation are kind of scary. But burying a little inflatable of a couple hundred cubic meters could be nifty--would it be connected to the rest of the base with pressure, or its own volume?
If it has national defense purposes, it's more likely that it could get funding under DARPA as well as NASA, meaning you're no longer just drawing on the space exploration budget. That way you can have both.
I'll just scale it back to one instead of two. It'd still be a valuable experiment for long-term occupation and eventual colonization of the moon.
And I think Countdown was the movie.
some note.
put the moon dozer on flight II, it could remote controlled pull the Habitat and cargo module in place and cover the Habitat with lunar soil.
Lovell quit NASA after Apollo 13, take Pete Conrad (Apollo 12 and Skylab 2)
Saving Cosmonaut is nice touch
Close down the Moonlab because one Astronaut killed makes no sense.
Here several factors has to be combine, high cost, age on hardware on moon, Reagan swing budget axe etc....
on Marooned, i have see the Movie twice
The Kiat said:
Outside of fiction, that's a stupid idea.If you're going to spend that much delta-v to get out of Earth's gravity well, what possible reason could you have to climb back down into another gravity well?
If you're going to spend that much delta-v on routine operations, why wouldn't you spend it capturing NEAs & building in L4/L5?
With the possible exception of a farside long-baseline interferometric radio telescope, & a small lunar surface research station, what possible benefit can there be to lunar colonization? (OK, maybe moon buggy racing. That becomes much less fun as soon as somebody copies a Chenoweth Class 10 & builds it at Moonlab with a pressure cabin & hydrazine Type 1 engine, & stops all over the competition...)Every single one of the NEAs is cheaper than an LEO-lunar surface-LEO mission--& there are thousands of NEAs of 1km & bigger.
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I can tell you right now that any attempt to move any near-Earth asteroids closer to Earth would freak out the public, send the press on a frenzy, and get itself shotdown by politicians, and then shot some more once the idea was on the ground. It don't matter if the risk of collision is low, there will be public opposition and that would pressure policians to get off their bums and actually represent the people who elected them. Just look at nuclear power and engineered crops. The former is relatively safe and doesn't cause any air pollution (radioactive byproducts are another story, but even those can be reduced), and the latter has a low probability of causing any great problems (like allergic reactions), yet they are strongly opposed by the public.
As for Apollo XIII; would it have blown a fuse if NASA had a bigger budget? Maybe, maybe not. I had to make a choice, so I decided to be optimistic for once and let #13 be successful. Besides I need a moon vet for Moonlab III, and since history treated Lovell so poorly, I chose him.
And the premature shutdown due to the death of an astronaut. You'd be surprised how little sense and public opinion have to do with each other. Even in a happier moon program world, there will still be a fair chunk of Congress that would think it a waste of money and would look for an excuse to force the issue. Reagan coming along and falling in love with the shuttle would also add budget pressures.
As for Apollo XIII; would it have blown a fuse if NASA had a bigger budget? Maybe, maybe not. I had to make a choice, so I decided to be optimistic for once and let #13 be successful. Besides I need a moon vet for Moonlab III, and since history treated Lovell so poorly, I chose him.
And the premature shutdown due to the death of an astronaut. You'd be surprised how little sense and public opinion have to do with each other. Even in a happier moon program world, there will still be a fair chunk of Congress that would think it a waste of money and would look for an excuse to force the issue. Reagan coming along and falling in love with the shuttle would also add budget pressures.
The original cause of the fuse blowing was that when the tank set was being removed from the Apollo 10 SM due to some electromagnetic interference concerns. During the removal, a technician failed to properly remove a restraining bolt, and the shelf fell 2 inches. This jolt is what damaged the fill/drain port that then lead them to try and use the internal heaters to boil off oxygen during ground testing. That, in turn, lead the fuse to short and the wiring to burn off its insulation to create the conditions for the accident. Butterflying this is easy--have the tech notice the bolts and properly remove it, and the tank set is never dropped. No drop, the fill/drain port isn't damaged, and they never have to try to boil off the oxygen with the internal heaters. Don't do that, and the insulation doesn't burn off the wires creating the explosion risk. There's a pretty solid chain of causality that can butterfly this if you want to.