Best way of going to the Moon?

[Artlav]

With the current proven technology and nothing nuclear, what's the best way of getting people to the Moon and back regularly? Say, a Moon base with some research, surveying, tourists and rotating crews.

Best as in cheap and reliable, something that can be done within NASA budget with a spare, or a commercial endeavour having a surplus.

The old way - SaturnV or Orion - gives the problem that this big and expensive vehicle is both destroyed entirely on each flight, and is not of much use for anything else.

What about a orbit-orbit vessel assembled once, ISS as a starting point on Earth side, it flies to the Moon, lets a lander go down and up, and flies back.
Refuelling might need one or two launches of large commercial rocket, another launch with the payload, and we have a Moon trip.

What's the problems with such scheme?
Any better ideas?

 

[Loru]

Whole idea is very good especially when this vessel's plane is aligned with moon and doesn't change it's plane - it rejects ISS as construction site but we may start from scratch using hab module as a start point.

 

[jinglesassy]

I think a on-orbit vessel like iss with a re-usable heavy lift launch vehicle for refueling the vessel on orbit and loading cargo or unloading cargo for a return trip to earth

 

[T.Neo]

Launcher of some kind that can lift to LEO.

Booster for flight to and from the Moon.

The lander can perhaps be the habitatation module used for the whole trip, leaving the booster in lunar orbit.

You will still need conventional rockets for crew and propellant though. Perhaps shipment of fuel for the lander or return booster could be done by an ion engine propelled craft.

The booster will still be destroyed though, and the habitation module/lander might be hard to make reusable.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

What about mining water from the moon and splitting it into LH2 and LOX and shipping that into LEO? Wouldn't that be more efficient because you're only operating in an airless environment? Perhaps the Earth Departure Stage is what is shipped from the moon to LEO.

 

[T.Neo]

Good... because now you have to launch the LH2/LOX from the Moon, boost it towards Earth, and then put it into LEO. You can reduce the amount of Dv required to enter LEO by aerobraking, but it is not a trivial matter.

In the end though, you have to mine and refine the LH2/LOX on the Moon, which requires infrastructure- at least at the start, making fuel from lunar regolith would be too costly. And shipping fuel to go to the Moon to LEO is more trouble than it is worth, IMO.

 

[zerofay32]

But having refueling capabilites at the moon is a good idea. You go on a car trip, you don't fill your car with all the fuel needed for the whole trip. You refuel when you need to. Thus in a Earth->Moon->Earth trasportation system you gain payload by having the ability to launch from the Earth (expending all prop getting to the moon) filling up at the moon, then returning to Earth expending most of the fuel on the way back. Having some left to require less fuel at the next fill up. This creates either smaller craft in the system (removes the unsastainable HLV from the equation) or gives you a good deal of payload for a mid to large vehical.

Thats what I come up with but you still have the problem of creating the infrastructure required.

 

[Bloodworth]

The problem with the water idea is that while there may be water on the moon, how much is there? In a hard vacuum, I can't see there being very much of it (even trapped in the regolith). There simply isn't enough there to make it worth it to harvest the water for use, maybe 2 or 3 million gallons...total.

 

[T.Neo]

This creates either smaller craft in the system

There are other issues with the size of the craft though, it is not all dependant on fuel.

unsastainable HLV

HLVs are perfectly sustainable if you have payloads that justify their existence. :lol:

There simply isn't enough there to make it worth it to harvest the water for use, maybe 2 or 3 million gallons...total.

And even if there were considerable amounts of water (which research seems to suggest, apparently), is it relatively easy to mine and extract?

 

[Cairan]

Whole idea is very good especially when this vessel's plane is aligned with moon and doesn't change it's plane - it rejects ISS as construction site but we may start from scratch using hab module as a start point.

Yeah everything ISS-related was one bad decision after another... At 28.5 it would have been usable as an assembly site for missions to the Moon and other planets, but at it's current inclination it's useless for anything of that sort.

And with the cancellation of the Centrifuge Accommodations Module, it -is- completely useless for research into long-term effects of low-gravity environments, such as the Moon or Mars.

 

[2552]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009...ng-solution-via-eelv-exploration-master-plan/

 

[Hartmann]

One reusable spacecraft like venture star or hotol for LEO or ISS

A reusable spacecraft that go and return to the moon with a lander cargo, or pressurised modules , it can use solar sails, vasmir, or ion engines, nerva nuclear or perhaps use conventional fuel and be refueled when it needed.
Solar sails is interesting because it don´t use fuel but is very slow

A reusable lander that can lan in the moon and return to orbit,
the moon gravity is weak , so it can be lauched easily from the surface to orbit using conventional fuel or for free with a railway sistem that speed up the spacecraft and lauch it using a ramp

 

[Ark]

Assemble a tug in orbit basically consisting of a rocket nozzle and some fuel tanks bolted to a truss with a large inflatable aerobrake shield on the front end and a small airlock tunnel and docking system for a capsule and landing craft. Use an expendable booster to refuel it before each flight, then fly the crew up in a Dragon or some other commercial capsule. Fly to the moon, land, accomplish the mission, then fly home and aerobrake into orbit. For safety I'd plan two or three aerobrake passes to minimize heat and stress. The crew returns home in the capsule after an extensive inspection of the tug, and the tug sits in orbit to await the next crew.

 

[Unstung]

Maybe cheaper in the long run: make another space station at the right inclination, unlike the ISS, and create another space station orbiting the moon at the right inclination.
The ship would travel to the first space station, refuel, go on to the second, attach to the LEM at the second, land and return.

 

[T.Neo]

I think these stations are just complicating things- a station in lunar orbit is unstable, for one.

 

[Moach]

a large enough vessel can be used as a station... think of an oil tanker ship, those are LARGE... large enough to hold an active crew for as long as supplies keep coming in...

so if there was a large-ish transfer vessel, there would be no need for any in-between stations, since the vessel itself can do that job....


i thought of something like this while developing some concepts for my G42 starliner... although fictional, i didn't want it to be impossible, so ideas started to flow...

to get the transfer vessel to the moon, a few flights on ships like the G42 *cough*skylon*cough* could be done to fuel and supply it up... then whoosh it goes...

this large vessel could carry one or more smaller landing craft, like the LEMs from the golden days... which could then rendezvous with it for the ride back to LEO...

lather, rinse, repeat...

and we have a sustainable moon operation... in theory... :blahblah:

 

[River Crab]

I kind of like the 2001-esque idea of docking a reusable spaceplane to a station in LEO, transferring supplies and passengers, and then sending a lighter reusable lander to the moon. The same way back around but in reverse. The station would keep a few landers docked so they would have flights available and could service them, extending their on-orbit lifetime. Much less wasted, and no de-orbiting after one use.

The Ananke tether-sling (http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=684&) sounds even better though. Using two huge sources of energy (earth's magnetic field and solar radiation) seems like such a good idea, although probably hard to pull off and completely untested/unproven. Developer does insist it's near future though...

---------- Post added May 22nd, 2010 at 04:16 ---------- Previous post was May 21st, 2010 at 08:37 ----------

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/opsek.html
This sounds fun.
Especially the part about changing the plane.