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Ares V Rocket Bigger and Stronger For Moon Mission
wooferhound writes "In a move to make the heavy-lift vehicle more robust (predicting an increased launch thrust requirement) to send four astronauts, a lunar lander plus supplies, NASA has announced the
Ares V rocket will be beefed up to cater for our future needs to get man back to the Moon. This huge vehicle is now designed to carry payloads of over 156,600 lb (71,000 kg), some 15,600 lb (or 10%) more than the original concept. Ares V was originally designed to be approximately the same length as the original Saturn V lunar rocket (361 feet or 110 metres long), but to accommodate an extra booster engine and extra payload volume, Ares V will be 381 feet (116 metres) long. This upgrade will be capable of sending far more instrumentation into space, an extra 15,600 lb (7,000 kg, or the equivalent mass of a male African elephant)."
As long as it's not someone you care about that is.
Yes. Launchpad.
And source of materials out of which to build larger vessels and simply bulk matter to provide more shielding for stuff in space. (If we're ever going to have real settlements at L5 we're going to need many tons of matter of whatever the frack is cheapest to protect them from radiation.
And, if we can mine it and refine it cheaply enough, even "sparklers", low Joule but cheap supplementary rockets.
And, if nothing else, a place to stop and "catch our breath". If you're planning to climb a mountain, it makes it easier if you have a place to stop a third of the way up to refuel, do repairs, etc. The moon provides that.
I just don't understand why we have to keep going over this again and again and again any time the idea of going back to the moon is raised. This is basic logistics, people. A base near the top of the gravity well makes it easier to reach anywhere beyond that gravity well. It's just that simple.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
We allow devices to be used that we absolutely KNOW will kill hundreds of thousands of random people every year. They're so dangerous that if you accidentally twitch your hand, it's entirely possible you will die and take other people with you. They're called cars.
Hell, using your BBQ slightly increases the risk of a random person getting lung cancer from the fumes.
Everything we do creates some amount of risk. Not to say we shouldn't work to minimize the risk, but it's absurd to worry about this level of statistical significance. Unfortunately, Mr. Dyson dramatically overestimates the public's understanding of risk and probability. He thought he was reassuring people, but most people have the same reaction as you, "OH NOOOOS, SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE????"
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Dear Topspin: It's not mission creep - it's the way of world. Paper projects are light and cheap, real world projects are neither. Let's take the Saturn V for example - it's paper version had four F1 engines. In the last revision before bending metal, they had to add a fifth F1 (a 20% increase in 1st stage thrust) and despite this Saturn V performance was still barely enough.