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Countries Considering Circumlunar Flight From ISS

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the because-they-can dept.

FleaPlus writes "The BBC reports that the space agencies of Europe, Russia, and the US are in (very) preliminary discussions about a potential collaborative mission where astronauts would assemble a small spacecraft at the ISS, then fly it around the Moon and back. This is somewhat similar to previously-proposed commercial missions, with many elements adapted from spacecraft systems already in existence. This would also be a testbed for eventual asteroid and Mars missions, which would likely require modules to be launched on multiple rockets and assembled in space."

9 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Wow! by MozeeToby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Am I the only one who thinks that this could have been done 30 years ago with multiple shuttle launches. I know, I know, the shuttle engines are designed to perform multiple long burns without being inspected and rebuilt but come on, orbital refueling just seems like the kind of thing we should have been doing for decades now. I guess we haven't done much for manned (and therefor time critical) long range missions since Apollo but still, this seems like it's some pretty low hanging fruit as far as space exploration technology is concerned.

    1. Re:Wow! by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Exactly, the problem is though, we need agreements that governments won't interfere with private spaceflights which is what will probably happen. Already billions of dollars have been spent on spacecraft, R&D and research that is locked up in government hands and even though we, the taxpayers have paid for it, we can't access it.

      If the government would simply let citizens use what they have paid for, I think we'd see private spaceflight soar to new levels.

      But until we have a sane foreign policy that maintained lasting alliances without either sacrificing the sovereignty of the country or its citizens, I don't think that will happen because rather than use diplomatic means we want to attack anyone who might get a nuke in the unsustainable idea that no one is going to develop that technology independently so the US's citizens get harmed.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:Wow! by vlm · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The shuttle engines turned out to be brittle things, and the initial overhaul/life design goals were missed by a lot.

      Early on they fixed the size / mounting / weight. But the shuttle continually got in danger of cancellation, so they added more and more promises, until it attempted to do everything for everyone. Which made it fat. Only way to get more thrust is crazy chamber pressure, approaching 3000 psi. Which requires crazy injection pressure to keep the injectors stable. Which results in turbopumps that only last "about one mission, plus or minus one".

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  2. The ISS is in the wrong orbit for this! by cheetah · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The big problem with using the ISS to do this type of mission is that the ISS is in the wrong orbital plane to easily launch flights to the moon. While it's not impossible to fly from the ISS it will be far more costly(in terms of fuel) to do so. Basically as long assembling the mission at the ISS is less costly than a single launch into the correct orbital plane this might be feasible.

    1. Re:The ISS is in the wrong orbit for this! by profplump · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's in the wrong orbit to do anything other than be reachable by launches from mainland Russia. It's not like no one ever thought of using the space station as a jumping-off point before, it's just that such ideas were made more or less impractical as soon as we decided to put the space station in this silly orbit.

  3. Send the whole thing! by ddrueding80 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just send the whole ISS. Most of their experiments don't care where the station is, so long as it is space, and plenty of instruments are already onboard.

  4. Re:But why go back to the ISS? by 0123456 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So yeah, maybe the ISS is a good place to integrate a vehicle like this but the best way seems to fly it around the moon then straight to Earth.

    No, the inclination makes it a lousy place to go to the Moon from too. But using it is probably cheaper than building a construction shack in a sensible orbit if you're not planning to be going to the Moon on a regular basis.

  5. Re:Doing what we already did 40 years ago? Yawn. by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not if you have to change inclination like anything coming from the ISS would have to do.

  6. Orbital Moon Base by vvomero · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Instead of decomissioning the ISS they should just put it into orbit around the moon. It can be used as a base of some kind, store supplies, etc. at a later date.