I'm going to write about NASA's plan to take the United States back to the Moon, and wondered if we had any engineers out there who had an opinion on it, but I need to go on a liitle bit of a rant about something first.
I've posted a couple of space related diaries recently, but I found a couple of diaries by FerrisValyn interesting. One diary asked about using the Space program as part of an agenda for 2006 & 2008. I noticed a fair amount of hostility to spending money on the Space Program by many people. Usually the argument is a variation of...
"If we weren't wasting billions on rockets & space suits, it could be used for social programs to help the poor."
It's an utterly ridiculous argument...
...I've always found that line of reasoning funny, especially among fellow liberals. In part, because it buys into a fallacy that if
NASA somehow didn't exist, its budget would automatically move to some
"good" cause, instead of being absorbed by the Department of Defense. That argument also accepts that NASA is some massive drain on the budget. While NASA's yearly budget is probably bigger than the GDP of Nicaragua, it's
less than 1% of the federal budget.
Also, remember that the 1st time we had a Moon program was in the 1960's under the Democratic administrations of Kennedy & Johnson. This country was ramping up spending on the "Cold War", fighting the "Vietnam War", creating "The Great Society" (Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), and in the middle of the "Civil Rights Movement".
Given all of that, how in the hell can you argue that it's too much for us to do now?
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I think that big programs like NASA, universal health care, and universal college education would be great political issues as part of an overarching Democratic vision. I think the objections to the space program & other big ideas are a symptom of the cynicism in this country & to some degree our party. There's a lot of things done by Bush & his minions to be cynical about, but we ourselves have stopped believing that great things can be done by government & people. Some of it is about being scared about being called a Liberal for proposing a "big" idea, some of it has to do with a lack of imagination, and some of it is about being a pussy & not wanting to offend anyone...
- We can't build skyscrapers that might touch the clouds, because terrorists might hit it. So the evil assholes are going to control architecture now?
- We can't propose a health care program that might help people, because our political enemies might run mean ads calling us Liberals.
- We can't research those stem cells, because people might get offended. Let's turn science over to those same people, who want to teach a ciriculum not based on science ("Intelligent Design") in schools.
- We can't send men to the Moon, because it's going to waste 1% of the federal budget. However, that $500 million to research the effects of pig semen on human skin for my state, make sure it's hidden deep in that appropriations bill.
People need hope. They need a reason to believe that if the day is dark, that tomorrow the Sun might shine. If you don't give them that, they'll take whatever they're offered, even the shitty ideas.
Now After That Little Rant...
At the end of December, it was reported that NASA has approved a final report on the architecture of how it will attempt to return to the Moon. It's estimated to cost $104 billion to do, and uses parts from the Space Shuttle. Right now, Boeing & Northrop Grumman are competing with Lockheed Martin for the contract. So some of these things might not look exactly like they are in the images, but they should follow the architecture.
The first flights are scheduled to begin around 2012, with a target date of landing on the Moon in 2018. All of this may have to do with the Chinese who are saying they might land people on the Moon around the same time.
However, there are strains of trying to pay for this & get it ready, and somehow get the Space Shuttle ready to fly in order to complete the International Space Station. NASA is saying they'll need an extra $3-6 billion if they are required to do both at the same time. One solution would be to shelve the Space Shuttle & divert resources to the new system, but that won't happen for 2 reasons. The International Space Station still needs completing. You would have to send American astronauts up in Russian craft in order to do it, without a Shuttle. The other is that the Space Shuttle's systems are manufactured, assembled, and maintained in states like Texas, California, and Florida. One red, one blue, and one purple. They're the same states to probably benefit from this new craft's development...
Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles
Unlike the Apollo Program's Saturn V, this plan envisions using 2 rockets & 2 launches to get to the Moon. Put simply, the small rocket puts the crew into space & the big one puts the lunar lander & payload up there. Both vehicles have been designed from parts of the Shuttle's systems. The external fuel tank (the orange parts), the solid rocket boosters, and the Shuttle's main engines. According to NASA...
...The launch system that will get the crew off the ground builds on powerful, reliable shuttle propulsion elements. Astronauts will launch on a rocket made up of a single shuttle solid rocket booster, with a second stage powered by a shuttle main engine.
A second, heavy-lift system uses a pair of longer solid rocket boosters and five shuttle main engines to put up to 125 metric tons in orbit -- about one and a half times the weight of a shuttle orbiter. This versatile system will be used to carry cargo and to put the components needed to go to the moon and Mars into orbit. The heavy-lift rocket can be modified to carry crew as well.
Best of all, these launch systems are 10 times safer than the shuttle because of an escape rocket on top of the capsule that can quickly blast the crew away if launch problems develop. There's also little chance of damage from launch vehicle debris, since the capsule sits on top of the rocket.
Now I'm guessing this was decided on for 2 reasons. One, it allows for a faster development process. A new design would require development & testing. The Shuttle's solid rocket boosters & main engines have been tested. There have been over 200 solid rocket boosters launched in the history of the Shuttle, and except for Challenger
(which arguably was the result of NASA not listening to the engineers at Morton Thiokol who were telling them it was too damn cold to launch), they've been reliable. Also, it's probably easier to modify systems like the launch pad & assembly areas for a variation of a pre-existing system. However, it probably has a political context too. I'm sure the jobs at the rocket plant in Alabama had something to do with it.
Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)
It's basically an advanced version of the Apollo Capsule...
...it will be three times larger, allowing four astronauts to travel to the moon at a time.
The new spacecraft has solar panels to provide power, and both the capsule and the lunar lander use liquid methane in their engines. Why methane? NASA is thinking ahead, planning for a day when future astronauts can convert Martian atmospheric resources into methane fuel.
The new ship can be reused up to 10 times. After the craft parachutes to dry land (with a splashdown as a backup option), NASA can easily recover it, replace the heat shield and launch it again...
Again, it looks like they went for updating something simple & known, rather than designing a new vehicle.
Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM)
The "spider" like LEM is replaced by the LSAM. Unlike Neil Armstrong's LEM...
...with the new lunar lander, the system sends twice as many astronauts to the surface as Apollo, and they can stay longer, with the initial missions lasting four to seven days. And while Apollo was limited to landings along the moon's equator, the new ship carries enough propellant to land anywhere on the moon's surface.
It will have 2 stages like the original lander, and without the ascent stage it is thought it could carry up to 21 metric tons to the Moon's surface. This could be used to drop supplies for any Moon base.
You can watch a video presentation of how all of this would work here. Also, for a more detailed analysis of all of these systems, look at these thumbnails below...