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NASA Chief Says a Falcon Heavy Rocket Could Fly Humans to the Moon

posted by chromas on Tuesday April 02 2019, @06:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the bang...zoom...straight...to-the-moon dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

NASA chief says a Falcon Heavy rocket could fly humans to the Moon

[...] Until now, it was thought that only NASA's Space Launch System could directly inject the Orion spacecraft into a lunar orbit, which made it the preferred option for getting astronauts to the Moon for any potential landing by 2024. However, [NASA Administrator Jim] Bridenstine said there was another option: a Falcon Heavy rocket with an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage built by United Launch Alliance.

[...] This plan has the ability to put humans on the Moon by 2024, Bridenstine said. He then emphasized—twice—that NASA's chief of human spaceflight, William Gerstenmaier, has yet to bless this approach due to a number of technical details. His reservations include the challenge of integrating the Falcon Heavy rocket in a horizontal position and then loading Orion with fuel in a vertical configuration on the launchpad. The Falcon Heavy would also require a larger payload fairing than it normally flies with. This would place uncertain stress on the rocket's side-mounted boosters.

"It would require time [and] cost, and there is risk involved," Bridenstine said. "But guess what—if we're going to land boots on the Moon in 2024, we have time, and we have the ability to accept some risk and make some modifications. All of that is on the table. There is nothing sacred here that is off the table. And that is a potential capability that could help us land boots on the Moon in 2024."

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 02 2019, @10:58PM (4 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday April 02 2019, @10:58PM (#823843)

    Falcon Super Heavy would look awesome, with a Soyuz-style Korolev cross of four boosters and four simultaneous landings (or two times two if that helps the mission profile).
    But the payload fairing is definitely too small to single-handedly achieve the Moon mission, and stacking much more weight up there might just be structurally impossible, even with better vacuum ISP.

    Did Elon trash that big drum yet ? The answer might have been four (or 6!) F9-as-FH-side-boosters strapped around an empty 9-meter shell, with the human-rated capsule and the moon lander at the top (because not-a-shuttle).
    Sounds crazy, but with enough struts...

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 02 2019, @11:43PM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday April 02 2019, @11:43PM (#823859) Journal

    Falcon Super Heavy would look awesome, with a Soyuz-style Korolev cross of four boosters and four simultaneous landings (or two times two if that helps the mission profile).

    That's what I was thinking, though I forgot the words "Korolev cross".

    Feasibility would probably come down to the stresses exerted on the center Falcon Heavy core/booster, and that component has been made significantly stronger [teslarati.com]:

    A step further, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has indicated that one major section of Block 5 upgrades – moving from a welded to a bolted thrust structure (i.e. octaweb) – was expected to be a boon for Falcon Heavy, while also making octawebs far easier to manufacture, assemble, and even disassemble. According to Musk, new bolted octawebs are also “dramatically” stronger, a boon for Falcon Heavy boosters – particularly the center core – that need to survive forces multiple times stronger than those subjected upon Falcon 9 first stages.

    Bonus: Air Force funded research into using Raptor engines for Falcon 9/Heavy upper stage [wikipedia.org]. This could be a path to squeezing a little more performance out of the whole rocket.

    As you say, the payload fairing volume is a limiting factor. Payload fairing concerns should be thoroughly eliminated by Starship, although I still hope we see a 12-meter diameter rocket [wikipedia.org] in the future.

    Did Elon trash that big drum yet ?

    If you're talking about Starhopper, it has been used for several tests already [teslarati.com] and will be used for hover tests, just without the nosecone. It should probably be considered a big, dumb test platform for the Raptor engine. The orbital version of Starship is already under construction and will hopefully fly this year.

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    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 02 2019, @11:58PM (2 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday April 02 2019, @11:58PM (#823864)

      No, that [arstechnica.com].

      Sadly, i think I read it has been destroyed because of the stainless steel change.

      I can't help but wonder what results one would get by making an empty 9m cylinder with this drum, just to link enough F9 cores to throw something really big at the moon (people + lander+ gateway), before return each of the 4/5/6 boosters back to the ground..
      Probably less efficient than Super Heavy, but that launch would redefine the word Awesome.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:34AM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:34AM (#823873) Journal

        Yes, it was destroyed and there are photos:

        https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-all-in-steel-starship-super-heavy/ [teslarati.com]

        Ars comments speculated that there are good reasons to scrap it:

        https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/rocket-report-spacex-scraps-costly-tooling-vandenberg-lull-starliner-slip/?comments=1&start=40 [arstechnica.com]

        Accounting, probably. If they felt confident enough that the tooling would never be used again, then they could scrap it and write it off. Since it was so new, it's likely that very little depreciation had already been taken and so they could write off most of it, as opposed to keeping it "for a few years" and then writing it off. They also save the storage cost and protect any proprietary design attribute(s) that may have existed.

        According to GAAP, if you don't actually scrap the tooling, then you really can't write it off. If that's not enough, it's also a way (maybe the best way) of sending up a clear message of confidence in the new direction to both internal and external interests.

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        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:48AM

          by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:48AM (#823877)

          Yup, that's the one I had read. :_(

          Back of the envelope math says you can fit 8 5m F9 around a 9m core (made of carbon fiber and really a lot of struts). 72 engines takeoff... drool...
          Can we get another billionaire to commission that? Either shatter all launch records, or make a $500M fireball ...
          It would "just" need a bit of engine control software, and one hell of a launchpad. The rest is ready to send us to the moon/Mars/Saturn by the end of the year. That's how you do quick-turn reuse, NASA !

          /dreaming