Soyuz To The Moon?

colonist writes "The Americans won the first race, but the Russians might beat them back to the moon. The reliable Soyuz, currently the only means of transport to the International Space Station, may send tourists on a voyage around the moon (gallery of illustrations). Constellation Services International's plans call for the Soyuz spacecraft to dock with a logistics module and an upper stage. The upper stage fires to send the Soyuz on a free-return circumlunar trajectory."

Comments

503

[Anonymous Coward]

first post before a 503

Re:503

[JonBuck]

It would be nice if the site admins posted some kind of explanation of why it's happening.

Be sure to get...

[Black Parrot]

...the "free return" part in writing.

Unspecified Fee

[wayward]

The article says that they'll be charging an "unspecified fee." I'm curious how much that will be. Also, I wonder whether they'll have trouble with liability/insurance issues.

Intresting...

[deedude]

Maybe this will kickstart a new space race to the moon. Of course, they said the same thing when when the Chinese talked about a moonshot as well (though I havn't heard anything sense). Perhaps the Russians will force a new market on space travel, and (hopefully) it'll get cheap enough in the future to be affordable. After all, who hasn't dreamed of going to the moon at some point?

"Back?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't they have to get there in the first place to go "back"?

It might be a step in the right direction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Being 25 now I've been thinking what I consider likely things that I'll get the opportunity to do in life and i'm semi-sure that space tourism (in orbit) becoming affordable within my lifetime is likely and possibly trips to the moon as well. I'm not that sure about Mars - if a manned mission is likely within 25 years, a huge leap in technology might make it possible for the masses within 50. - I remember reading a (funny) prediction how Mars will be the favorite resort for senior citizens in 2050 because the lower gravity will be so much more pleasant. Who knows!

Space Race

[tpgp]

The Americans won the first race

Which first race?

Do you mean: (from Wikipedia's space race page)

The first artificial satellite?
The first animal in space?
The first fly by moon?
The first spacecraft on moon?
The first human in space?

They were the earliest space achievements - and all 'won' by the USSR.

The American's won the race to get the first man on the moon - no more, no less.

America did not win the space race.

America did not win the 'first' race.

Re:Space Race

[kfg]

America did not win the 'first' race.

Ok, yeah, but at least we did win the Battle of Pearl Harbor and capture the Enigma machine.

KFG

Re:Space Race

[shadowbearer]

America did not win the space race.

America did not win the 'first' race.

Hmmm.

Some other firsts:

First *guided* and piloted (as opposed to launched on similar orbits passing somewhat close at 4k mph) rendezvous in space: America, Gemini 6/7, which achieved rendezvous via onboard thrusters, computers, and radar.

First men around the moon, first men *on* the moon: America (Apollos 8 and 11) - if anyone thinks that wasn't a win, you don't know what you are talking about - the Soviets simply couldn't match our determination and engineering)

First human in space to move around with a device made for the purpose: Ed White, America ( the Soviet space walk was tethered and non-propelled; we developed something to allow him to move around and attempt the first useful work in orbit)

First serious use of Geosynch communications sats: America; also first "spy" sats that could transmit via encrypted video and not rely on de-orbited film canisters.

First unmanned docking with a booster which was used to boost our manned spacecraft into higher orbits: America (Gemini, with the Agena)

First Human-guided landing on the moon: America (Neil piloting the LM down after the guidance computers failed - also, mind you, we essentially *boasted* that we'd land a man on the moon within ten years, and we did it - the Russians did not and still haven't. )

First space "station": Skylab (yeah, not permanently manned, but it was the first, and very profitable knowledge-wise.) The Sovs profited a lot from the knowledge we gained from Skylab. Note that they didn't launch Mir for many years afterward.

First reusable orbital vehicle that could deliver cargo: America - the space shuttle (yeah, it's a clusterfuck now - but blame the funders, not the engineers, at least not the original ones. We could do better, if the idiots in the many layers of "oversight" had got the hell out of the way in the 70s. )

The Soviets won a lot of the unmanned contests back then, and some of the manned. We passed them by in the mid 60s and went higher and a *lot* further. (Yeah, we stagnated after that. But that's politics for ya; thanks for nothing, Nixon; despite your public support for the space program, you did doodly to stop it getting shafted by Congress.)

What it comes down to, tho, is that the Soviets had no "firsts" in space after Leonov's space walk; and despite starting way behind them, we passed them and beat them hands down in the "space race". It wasn't until Mir that they did something we hadn't done - and if we'd taken advantage of the infrastructure we had at the point of Apollo 11, they'd not even done that.

SB
(apologies, I've just finished reading Chris Kraft's excellent book "Flight", and I recommend it highly.)

Not a stretch, the Proton is made for this

[Chairboy]

The Soviets planned on launching a Soyuz atop a Proton launcher (currently used as a heavy cargo launcher, roughly equivalent payload to the Space Shuttle) to put a Soyuz into a free-return trajectory around the moon.

The Proton was soviet man-rated in the 1960s, and the design has been extraordinarily succesful over the past 30+ years, so it's not unreasonable to imagine that this process could be completed again.

The economical way to do this would probably be to man-rate it as part of a commercial launch. It wouldn't be free, but it would certainly be cheaper then developing a new heavy lift rocket or buying Titan IVB, the only other rocket in use with equivalent throw. Of course, this is complicated by the Titan IVB assembly line shut down, so you'd probably want to look at the EELV, but that's not flying yet.

The Soyuz is built for the high-g reentry that a lunar return entails, they just need to pull their old heatshield design out of mothballs and modernize it.

Crap.

[FrankieBoy]

"The Americans won the first race"

First satellite in space: USSR Sputnik

First Dog in space: USSR Laika

First Man in space: USSR Yuri Gagarin

First Woman in space: USSR Valentina Tereshkova

First Space Station: USSR Salyut

First Earth Orbit by a human: USSR Yuri Gagarin

First Space Walk: USSR Alexei Leonov

First Woman Space Walk: USSR Svetlana Savitskaya

Who won?

How about some important ones?

[Minwee]

First game of golf played on another planet or moon: USA, Alan Sheppard, 1971
First wheeled vehicle to be kicked because it wasn't working on another planet or moon: USA, Apollo 15, 1971
First mutant space fungus to be grown entirely in orbit: Russia, Mir, 2000. Bonus points to the USA for bringing the original strain up with them on the space shuttle.
First zero-gee sex in orbit: Still waiting for confirmation on this. Suspect a government cover-up of some kind.