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Dreams of the Moon
Iron Sun writes "The Mars Institute has an interesting overview of past studies into sending people to the Moon, ranging from pre-Apollo plans by Werner von Braun to NASA studies just a few years old. Timely, given the continuing speculation as to whether the US is going to go back."
Timely, given the continuing speculation as to whether the US is going to go back.
Of course no one with the power to make it happen is thinking of going back to the moon. All the speculation is based on what the USA's reaction might be if the Chinese space program looks like it could credibly establish a permanent manned presence.
So far a space race is only impetus that has pushed man to make those giant leaps. But is that a good thing ?.
Yes, go back. The mainstream media has been doing pieces on this for months now.
If you haven't, read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (by Robert Heinlein) for a war between a lunar colony and Earth story...
Reading through the rest of the article, it seems the aerobrake would be used at the end of the return journey, to get the LOS into a similar orbit to the ISS - i.e. in Earth's atmosphere.
I suppose they could try using aerobraking to adjust the orbit around the Moon, but given the extremely low density of its atmosphere (someone more knowledgable can provide numbers ...), it's unlikely that it would have a noticeable effect.
My favorite plan
audio discussion of the project
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
If you go to a space station now, there's no guarantee that the return flight won't be months late. People have been stuck on both Mir and the ISS due to budget cuts.
Nothing is preventing a private business from doing this except for the massive up front costs involved.
Not true at all.
As the X-Prize competitors have been documenting step by appalling step, our oh-so-helpful goverment has strewn a vast and willfully undocumented collection of regulations, structures, and plain old misinformation meant to keep space travel in the hands of the, yep, it's that thing again, military-industrial complex of major contractors and government departments.
Ever since they shut down Ford Motor's space programs (really - I'm not kidding) the U.S. Government, the major contractors, and dozens of fuzzily defined entities like Intelsat have been jeaslously guarding their monopoly.
Look into Beal Aerospace and what happened to them. The path to space is laid with many traps. Most of them laid and maintained by the same sorts put in charge of overseeing Haliburton's Iraq contracts.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Short answer; No
Long answer; Read this excelent artcle about the various soviet lunar programs.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.