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Back to Moon in 2015?
Mistress.Erin writes "NASA has announced they may send astronauts back to the moon as early as 2015, and may build an international base once they get there. From TFA:"The next mission to land a man on the moon will take place in 2015 at the earliest, the new chief of the United States' space program said on Monday, adding the mission could be followed by the construction of a multinational space station there. But NASA has not yet decided what vehicles will be used to reach the moon, or what will succeed the aging space shuttle fleet, which is due to be retired in 2010.""
Why the moon?
Babysteps. Since the 1960s we've lost the capability to send anything large on an interplanetary cruise. In fact, we shelved most of the technologies that would allow us to perform such cruises quickly and efficiently. As a result, we need to rebuild our space infrastrucutre. Part of that rebuilding is an inexpensive method for getting to and from the moon. CEV Spiral two will most likely use nuclear engines for moving passengers to and from the moon. As we gain real world experience with those engines, we can begin contemplating the task of sending a manned mission to Mars.
The key thing to remember about the current CEV program is that it's built on real technology we have today. This is a big change for NASA which has always expected some sort of miracle technology for their next vehicle. The bright side of this change is that we'll have the CEV completed in a relatively short period of time, and it will cost a reasonable amount compared to the $$$ that went into the Shuttle program.
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Not true. The Saturn V was a superb super-booster that was capable of lifting just about anything into orbit. For example, a Saturn V was used to lift the entire Skylab Space Station in one flight. Von Braun was also a big proponent of using a Saturn V to lift a Mini Orion into orbit for interplanetary travel.
The reason why the Saturn V *seems* useless is that the primary focus of the Apollo and Gemini programs was to develop the technology and execute a plan to reach the moon. If the Saturn V was still flying today, you can bet it wouldn't cost several billion dollars to get the ISS up there. We'd launch the stupid thing in two or three pieces, only minor assembly required. Compare that to the dozens of shuttle flights and Russian launches necessary to get the current structure up there. And it's not even done!
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The Saturn V wasn't the only piece of technology we used. There's also the landing vehicle, the lunar orbitor, etc. We don't have any of those things laying around and the people, facilities, and processes involved in engineering them are dead, retired, or demolished. Kennedy's moon mission was just about getting there and bank so we could thumb our noses at the Soviet Union. Neener neener neener. If we go again, the mission is different. This time it's about conducting science and testing vehicles and technologies for taking us to Mars and beyond.
Kennedy's moon landings were a stunt for international bragging rights. If that's the only reason we wanted to go again, it'd be much easier. Also, we know much more about the hazards of space travel now, and have to re-engineer ships to deal with it. The attitude of this nation is MUCH different now than it was in 1960. Government regulations are far stricter, and the loss of crew is less acceptable (not that people ever ACCEPTED the loss of a crew but the flak NASA catches for it now is far worse than what they got 40 years ago).
Computer technology is different and probably incompatible with the hardware systems of those old monsters, and the launch facilities in Florida aren't big enough to launch a Sat-V anyway (they never were, either, the Sat-V had to be rolled out with its own tower).
So you can't just rebuild everything, it's not that simple.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I was under the impression that the reason we don't currently have nuclear outfitted space technology (not counting decay powered satelites i.e voyager) was that if the Challenger/Columbia thing happens again it sprays the planet with refined nuclear material.
That impression is quite wrong. Nuclear technology has not been used because:
1. It hasn't met the mission profiles. (It was even considered for the Shuttle upper stages.)
2. People are afraid of nuclear.
In the case of CEV Spiral Two, the engines would be used for pure orbital work, so there would be little to no concern of any materials reaching Earth.
If anyone knows of a way to get thrust from fission I'd love to hear it.
Man, I thought I'd gotten everyone around here trained in how Nuclear Thermal Rockets work. Here's the short of it:
Most nuclear reactors derive their power production from the thermal aspect of the reaction. As the core heats up, the heat is pumped into a generator where a turbine is turned. During the push to reach the moon, some enterprising engineers figured that if you could heat a propellant using a nuclear reactor, you could dump as much thermal energy into a working fluid as the materials could withstand. The result is that massive amounts of thrust can be obtained by simply heating a stream of hydrogen, oxygen, or even plain old air. (See: Project Pluto; rather nasty weapon that was.) Since hydrogen and oxygen can't become radioactive, there would be little issue of spreading nuclear materials. Unfortunately, there was a Graphite Ablation problem from the heat, but the modern TRITON engine fixes that by utilizing Tungsten cladding.
Does that answer your question?
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