What I understand from this was that NASA wanted to take a “slow but sure” scientific approach to studying the moon. Do you think that if that happened, that would have been more of a stepping stone of setting a “base” up there, as opposed to rushing headlong into sending a man there and then more or less abandoning it?
I guess my reasoning would be that we would have approached the moon more like we are Mars now. Sending an “armada” of probes there (albeit slowly), gradually building our knowledge up for hopefully set up a “long term” manned presence. I am aware that Mars is in order of magnitude further away than Luna, but I just get the idea from the director of NASA’s comments that would have just been the idea he/they would have wanted to do it.
Any thoughts? Or am I just thinking way too much again?
I’m not an expert on the space program, but from what I’ve read, a lot of the people working for NASA during this period were inspired by Kennedy. One of the most famous flight directors, Gene Kranz, talks about Kennedy a lot in his book. He considers Kennedy’s leadership to be a big factor in what brought the best and brightest engineers to come work for NASA. Without Kennedy, I think we would not have made it to the moon in '69. In that case, assuming the Soviet Union did not press further towards landing on the moon, we might not have felt any rush to get their either.
I think general apathy from the public, and budget stress from things like the Vietnam War did the most to kill grand plans for the moon. Besides, a reusable craft was a reasonable next step since you need something more practical than building a capsule every time you want to send someone to the moon. But priorities have changed.
The top brass at NASA may have favored a slow route, but it seems the guys who were making it happen looked up to Kennedy and agreed with his view.
But “That’s one small step for a Human, one giant leap for Humankind” doesn’t have the same ‘ring’ to it.
You know, I’ve heard a little grousing from techie types along the same lines- they sort of imply the Moon landings were a cold war stunt that had a bit of tunnel vision and once we met JFK’s mandate, we pretty much quit.
I remember being seriously upset as a kid when I discovered the Shuttle couldn’t go to the moon.
Actually, with a bit of work, I would guess that the shuttle could go to the moon. We’d have to ferry up lots of fuel for the main engines, and figure out a way for the shuttle to land on the Moons surface. Taking off again would probably be the biggest problem, but not insurmountable in the Moons weak gravity. Getting there, orbiting and coming back would be no problem, though. (relatively speaking)
I think a moon base would be totally cool. Cooler than all get out. The coolest thing ever. 'Way beyond mega-ultra-cool. If I could take a vacation on the Moon, I’d save my entire life if I had to, to buy a ticket.
But, to be honest, there’s really no good justification for it. The cost of climbing all the way out of the Earth’s gravity well to put stuff up there, then climbing out of the Moon’s gravity well to get anything back down . . . Just too steep, compared to the relatively small gains we’d get from it.
There are some pretty fine arguments that the International Space Station is a big waste of money, too. However, I think it’s worth while to maintain a continuous human presence in space, particularly if we’re serious about going to Mars. Nonetheless, it’s pointless to go any farther than Low Earth Orbit. LEO is a better staging ground for Mars than the Moon, anyway.
I believe the Shuttle is much, much too heavy to leave earth orbit. It was never designed for anything but. In fact, from what I understand there are satellites which are too high for the shuttle to retrieve. Is it even capable of true earth orbit?
I won a fairly good bar type bet from a buddy this way. We were talking about the ‘moon shots’ and I casually mentioned how the shuttle can’t go to the moon. For some odd reason, he was convinced it was capable of doing so.
Considering that the Saturn V required all of its power just to propell a tiny can with a few people inside away from the surly bonds clinches it for me.
According to the 60’s era time line, we should be just now finishing up our Mars Colony… or at least our Moon Colony…
you are kidding right? The gains we’d get are enormous. 1st we would have bigger and better observatories unobstructed by the atmosphere or light pollution. Plus it could have almost unlimited Solar energy depending on it’s location on the moon.
We would have an early warning for asteroid collision, especially if the object in question is coming from the direction of our sun.
On top of that it would prove to be a better area for the construction and launch of interplanetary spacecraft
such as probes and possible manned missions.
If we ever plan to actually travel beyond our own system we have to test long term living conditions outside of our own atmosphere and in low gravity environments. That is why The ISS and a future moon base are important.
These are just baby steps in a very long term goal of exploration. However if you want to look at a limited short term version I guess it would not make sense.
I’m sure it can’t in it’s current configuration, but possibly with lots of extra fuel or strap-on boosters. Thye’d have to be brought up over the course of several missions, or by Delta/Titan II/Arianne missions. I’ll have to check on the true-earth orbit.
Ok, so some real answers. The shuttle can reach an altitude of 643 kilometers or 400 miles, carrying cargo up to 63,500 lbs. It reaches orbital velocity, around 17,500 mph.
Now, the shuttle is up there, but needs to reach 24,500 mph for translunar velocity, that’s lots of extra fuel. It has been proposed that the shuttle could reach orbit without ditching the external tank, which would get us a place to put all that extra fuel. But we’d have to bring it all up separately, and that would be mondo expensive. Several shuttle or other launch vehicle missions, plus the expense of a mechnanism to refuel the shuttle in space. So, real expensive, but probably less in today’s dollars than the original Apollo missions.
Another real problem is that same translunar velocity when we get back. We either have to brake (more fuel), or we have to use the atmosphere to brake, creating considerably more heat than usuall for reentry. 36,00 feet per second vs the ordinary 25,000 ft/s. So the heat sheilds have to take a lot more abuse.
However, for the mission we’d have a heck of a lot better vehicle than the Apollo LTV, more robust, better tested and a lot bigger. 230,000 lbs, vrs about 7,500 lbs.
So, it may not be worth it, but it is possible.
My sources http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/basics/index.html
I did a term paper on this subject (that was a fun one!), and I agree that the Moon’s a great place for an observatory. The question is are the astronomical gains great enough to justify the prohibitive costs? The money can be better spent on ground-based telescopes, or telescopes in orbit.
Er, except that everywhere on the Moon yet get about two weeks of daytime and two weeks of nighttime.
Uh, do you want to explain your reasoning on this to me? Even if the observatory’s on the Moon, the Sun will still be there.
You’re not getting confused over the much-mangled term dark side of the Moon, I hope?
I disagree. Constructing interplanetary spacecraft in low-earth orbit makes much more sense. The only way constructing spacecraft on the Moon would be superior to working in LEO is if you could obtain raw materials from the Moon. This is difficult because then you need to establish mining facilities (tremendous infrastructure costs!) in low gravity, without an atmosphere. Much cheaper to simply boost terrestrial materials in to LEO.
I posted my comment about language when this thread was still in MPSIMS, so I’m sorry if it offends the sensibilities of this forum.
I have no desire, Tedster, to try to go back and edit quatations from the past. Languages and common usage evolve. That was my point in the first place: sexist language choices are no longer going unquestioned. Rather, they now can detract from the credibility of the statement. This reflects my own experience, as a professional in an academic field.
Scylla, I really enjoy your presence on the board, you are one of the few people whose posts can make me laugh out loud, at work even. However, your refusal to admit how ‘traditional’ language can support the sexist status quo just chaps my ass. Since this thread is not supposed to be about language usage, can we leave it at that? I get your goat, you chap my ass - it might even be fun.
I think it’s entirely possible that the space program today would be much more advanced had we not diverted all resources to the ‘cannonball’ approach to spaceflight.
Specifically, the Air Force was well on the way to flying an honest-to-god space plane by the end of the 1960’s. The X-15 program had taken the concept to the edges of space, and had solved many of the problems required. The next plane on the drawing board, the X-20, was supposed to be able to attain orbit and come back to a gliding landing like the shuttle. That program was dismantled because NASA became the only game in town.
And while we did learn many valuable things from project Mercury, it’s main reason for existance was simply that it could conceivably get a man into space quicker than any other approach. Advancing science and engineering were mere byproducts. I have no doubt that other approaches could have produced better science.
And unfortunately, a lot of the science and engineering that was used up to the Apollo flights has been completely abandoned, and turned out to be dead-end technologies. It has been said that it would take us longer to send a man to the moon today than it took when Kennedy made his famous speech.
“Man” is universally recognized as including everyone. As in “Mankind”
The shuttle isn’t configured for leaving earth orbit, and no amount of strapping fuel tanks on it is going to change that- IANARS, but at some point the extra weight of the fuel will prevent the shuttle from being able to get off the ground. It’s extremely heavy, basically.
The bet I had with the fellow was with the Shuttle as advertised. Ferrying fuel up into space beforehand wouldn’t count. His claim was “What if the shuttle crew just said ‘screw you, Houston, we’re going to the moon’ and just point that sucker out into space” which, although unlikely, seemed to be fairly amusing.
Some satellites are launched with a rocket type assist from the Shuttle bay, and once installed in the proper orbit, are forever unreachable by the shuttle.
Given what we know now about the Soviet space program, maybe our concern was a bit over dramatic, but they did seem to have a pretty big lead in a lot of areas at the time. And, we received so many spinoff technologies from the research that it was a good investment. Tang and Space Sticks immediately come to mind, but I’m sure there are others.
The shuttle isn’t configured for leaving earth orbit, and no amount of strapping fuel tanks on it is going to change that- IANARS, but at some point the extra weight of the fuel will prevent the shuttle from being able to get off the ground. It’s extremely heavy, basically.
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I understand that. What I’m talking about is a two part mission. You launch the shuttle as per normal, then configure it in orbit to go to moon. You have a big leg up here, because you already have 17,000 of 25,000 mph of velocity you need to get to the moon. I agree the shuttle cannot go from the ground to the Moon. What I’m am saying is that it could possibly go from orbit to the Moon. 'Kay?
They are unreachable becuase the shuttle can’t normally carry enough fuel to reach them. With extra fuel available in orbit, you can reach any altitude, or escape velocity
