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Should We Skip Mars for Now and Go to the Moon Again?

posted by martyb on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the build-a-space-elevator-on-the-moon dept.

Gaaark writes:

NASA seems hell bent to go to Mars, but can't afford to on its own.
Its international partners have no stomach for that — they would would rather return to our moon and build a base there for further exploration.

Doesn't going back to the moon make more sense? Build a base on the moon, and use its low gravity and possible water at the poles as propellant for further space exploration?

Why not the moon first?

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/7/11868840/moon-return-journey-to-mars-nasa-congress-space-policy

Links:
From NASA itself, in 2008: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/series/moon/why_go_back.html
The all-knowing, ever-trustworthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 08 2016, @07:24PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 08 2016, @07:24PM (#356954) Journal

    SpaceX could drive launch costs to low earth orbit below $1000 per pound this year and down to $10 per pound by 2025

    No. $10 per pound is completely ignorant of the cost of rocket fuel. SpaceX has already reduced the cost of the launch (at $1000 per pound) where the cost of the propellant becomes a significant fraction. It takes something like 25-50 pounds of propellant to put something in orbit with a Falcon 9. Most of that propellant mass will be diesel fuel (which I believe is well over a dollar a pound for high quality jet fuel plus some contribution from the considerably cheaper liquid oxygen (LOX)) and hence you're looking at something like $25-50 of fuel cost per pound of payload.

    Even airlines, which have a reusability that Falcon 9 will never be able to achieve, have fuel costs which are a third of total marginal cost of a flight roughly. So a similar cost multiplier yields cost per pound around $75-150 per pound as the absolute floor for the cost of any chemical powered rocket based on the particularly cheap choice of diesel fuel and LOX.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:41PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:41PM (#357021) Journal

    Not that I am not skeptical of the $10 number, but it looks like they are trying to cheapen it with a new methane mix. From the link:

    Raptor is the first member of a family of cryogenic methane-fueled rocket engines under development by SpaceX. It is specifically intended to power high-performance lower and upper stages for SpaceX super-heavy launch vehicles. The engine will be powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen (LOX), rather than the RP-1 kerosene and LOX used in all previous Falcon 9 rockets, which use Merlin 1C and 1D engines. Earlier concepts for Raptor would have used liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel rather than methane.

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    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 09 2016, @02:52AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 09 2016, @02:52AM (#357146) Journal
      Sure, SpaceX will find all sorts of ways to make orbital launch cheaper. I still think $100 per pound (in current dollars) will be really tough to break without either a vastly cheaper source of energy or a new paradigm in launch infrastructure (like a space tether or magnetic rail launch).