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Moon or Mars? It isn't a mutually exclusive choice but we'd be idiots to ignore the ideal staging post.
NASA engineer, Wingo, makes a detailed, costed argument that the current best-of-breed technology should be directed to the Moon. Specifically, the Saturn program should be continued in preference to SLS. The reason is quite simple. With advances in manufacturing, materials and guidance systems, a known quantity with known corner cases can be made safer and cheaper. (It would also avoid launchpad upgrades and other superfluous costs.)
As a matter of international co-operation, this could be augmented with Russian technology and suchlike. Yes, redundant airlocks or airlock adaptors may be required. However, does it really matter if a substantial structure requires seven payloads or eight payloads? From our current position eight is cheaper and more certain even if seven would be better in the long-term.
What would this structure be? A waystation in high Earth orbit for fueling and crew transfers. Fueling of what? Initially, craft to bootstrap a permanent base on the Moon with solar and nuclear power. Fueling is also needed until there is sufficient infrastructure on the Moon to produce fuel locally. Even then, fuel is required in high Earth orbit for emergencies. Overall, this is a plan to go from zero presence to an economic break-even point and beyond.
[Continues...]
A mineral mining expedition to the Moon has an estimated ROI of 22 years. More worryingly, the total cost is dwarfed by student loans, mortgage fraud and bank bail-outs - and that's just counting US figures. That's the most damning part. If we never get off Earth it will be due to the soul-sucking 1%ers and the legions of B-Ark space-cadets. On that basis, we deserve to not get anywhere.
Admittedly, figures for mineral mining assume that a glut in the market won't cause a price crash. There is a certain irony that a mining expedition to the Moon may never be economically feasible if it makes resources too plentiful. But seriously, that is a risk worth taking because it provides opportunity to move the majority of heavy industry outside of the biosphere. Even ignoring this, it would be possible to drop titanium airships into the atmosphere with a cargo of tritium from the Moon's South Pole. Or lithium. Or neodymium. Do you think there's enough lithium or neodymium for everyone to have an electric car? There is if we mine the Moon. (Or maybe that's why we don't go? Would we use the resources sensibly prior to mass population reduction and careful management of MTE?)
The typesetting is a bit dodgy but the message is clear. Until transport to the Moon becomes routine, human missions further afield are a work of speculative fiction. Actually, there comes a point when sending robotic probes further into the solar system becomes cheaper when sent from the Moon. And that's the point where we should seriously consider further expansion. Not before.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @03:36AM
My guess is that it isn't easy to recreate the Saturn 5 booster. While drawings might survive(?), pre-CAD/CAM, there was a huge amount of work done by expert toolmakers, machinists, fabricators, etc...to actually create the parts as intended. Nearly all those experienced people are gone now, and it will take a lot of R&D to recreate what they contributed to the space program in their day.
One small example from that period. A retired friend from the tire industry volunteered as part of a team to recreate the steel wire tires used on the Apollo moon buggy. I think it took them about a year, details here, http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-120508a.html [collectspace.com]
Another problem is environmental. Chemicals/materials that were commonly used in the 1960s are no longer available--too hazardous for people/environment/both. All these will need substitutes which will have to be tested and qualified.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @06:30AM
https://www.quora.com/How-did-we-lose-the-technology-to-go-to-the-Moon [quora.com]
The tech ecosystem today is different from 50 years ago. The tools, machines, materials, processes, regulations and factories are different.
I'm sure there was tons of undocumented stuff now gone. Especially since it was kind of a rush job and the quantities for many parts could be quite small. You could have a batch that finally met the specs but 50 years later nobody knows what they did to get that batch that way, nor was it documented anywhere.
See also: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/26/science/hunt-is-on-for-scattered-blueprints-of-powerful-saturn-moon-rocket.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 11 2016, @07:55AM
Somewhere there is a warehouse.... Not of parts, but of tools and dies and all sorts of interesting things. There is always such a warehouse it seems. Boeing has hundreds of them all over the pacific north west.
And there are machinists still. Young ones. Not everything is built with 3D printers you know. The thing wouldn't be built from the memories of old geezers. Modern production methods could produce these cheaper faster and more precisely than what we had back then.
I doubt it would take that long to spool that back up. Operational sub assembly lines in 4 to 5 years, and full assemblies in 7 to 10.
A better page for the Saturn is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V [wikipedia.org] as it gives comparison capabilities.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 11 2016, @01:03PM
I notice that even SpaceX's Falcon Heavy will fall far short of the Saturn V payload, although Mars Colonial Transporter may be able to beat it (Saturn V = 310,000 lbs to LEO, 107,100 lbs to "trans lunar injection", Mars Colonial Transporter = 100 tons to Mars).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday August 11 2016, @03:53PM
Unfortunately it costs more to piecemeal redesign a half century old design where every piece has to be compatible with legacy systems than it costs to just make a new clean sheet system.
Look at the onboard engine control computer, for example. You'd like to think a computer thats 1000000 times faster would be lighter, but its not like pressure vessels and coolants and connectors are smaller or lighter. In fact the "denser" source of heat might be harder to cool... Its just cheaper to redesign.
Hydraulics would be a nightmare, the original engines did some weird funky stuff because the hydraulic system operated at a lower pressure than the engine chamber pressure so it bled chamber pressure to operate hydraulics after liftoff or some crazy stuff like that. Which works well because regulators are small and light. Back then a typical engine chamber pressure was 1000 psi and hydraulics were lower (maybe 500?) but that industry has really taken off and commercial airliners run 3000 now. We'd have to reinvent the entire aerospace hydraulics industry to make old fashioned 500 psi actuators. I mean you can run 3000 psi gear at 500 psi (mostly, although valves will be higher friction etc) but they'll be heaver than hell. Why not redesign to use cheap cheap cheap 2016 era COTS aerospace hydraulics and a modern pressurization system? Its gotta be cheaper than trying to re-enact an entire industy sector from 1960.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 11 2016, @04:42PM
But you see, they don't have to be compatible with legacy systems. Nobody is going to mate a saturn V with a lunar orbiter any more.
The design of the sheet metal, ribs, mating collars, engines tankage, pumps don't have to interface with anything new. And making them (other than the engines) isn't particularly hard.
Computers? Yeah. Start from scratch.
And these rockets are a lot simpler than the car in your driveway.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:55AM
I think all that stuff could be made noticeably lighter. Modern metallurgy, composites, and manufacturing techniques could significantly improve strength to weight ratios of a lot of components.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @12:12AM
> Operational sub assembly lines in 4 to 5 years, and full assemblies in 7 to 10.
Isn't this about the same amount of time as the Saturn V program took the first time around?
I take your point that with modern processes & machinery it will be much easier to make many of them...once the design is adapted for the new methods.