Hydroxyl is not a molecule.

GODS UFO

Removed_by_a_moderator.

AND WHAT WOULD THE NAVY SAY ABOUT THE ORION SENATE

Well, Goddard's loss is SMD's gain.

To those who would say that we have already been to the moon so why do it again I would say, no, we haven't really been there. If you go to a ball game, figuring out the traffic, parking, public transportation, walking, etc then get a ticket, enter the stadium and stay for one pitch, have you really been to a ball game ? If you plan a trip to a distant location, go on the trip, then stay for an hour and return, have you really experienced the location. In both of the examples, you learned how to get somewhere and perhaps one fact about the experience, but you really haven't been there. So too with the moon. We know how to get there and what there might be to see, do and expand, but we really haven't been there. My opinion only

Can you elaborate what you're including in your calculation regarding the facilities costs of operating an inline vehicle vs the Shuttle-C concept? I cannot fathom that your math is correct. Are you including the infrastructure changes at KSC (i.e. VAB, pads, etc?). There's more to it than just the tooling. Also, while I can see your rationale regarding Horizontal landers, I do not understand why you cannot simply take the parts for a single engine lander and rearrange it once at ISS. Please add more data to you criticisms to make them more enlightening. Educating the common folk can only be helpful and should not take that much time if you truly have the level of expertise you seem to be expressing. First of all, I am not suggesting that this is the one true path to glory. Since the Shuttle C was around the RS-68 has come into production. It may well be that the RS-78 in an expendable fashion is a lower cost option. At the power point stage you can't truly trade the difference between and RS-68 and SSME recoverable. Beyond that the whole point is that there are no changes in the VAB, no changes to the MLP/transporter, and only minimal changes (payload swing arm) to the pad. Also, with the Shuttle C form factor you retain the relatively benign loads environment of the Shuttle and since the system is volume limited and not performance limited you can even add further dampening to the payload carrier to further reduce loads. There is a tremendous difference in loads at 4.5 g and 7-9 g as with an in-line design. That long cargo area inside the fairing of an inline system is a great amplifier for axial loads. Not many people remember this but one of the problems with the First Ariane V launch was that the loads environment was 50% worse than what was calculated in the models, which drives payload costs considerably. As for the lander, I guess I could spell it out further but the professionals who do this for a living understand what I am talking about. We can precisely navigate at any altitude below 63,000 km with GPS as has been tested by Surrey satellite in orbit. Above that altitude an active ranging transponder coupled with an earth, sun, and star sensor gets you any level of precision that you desire in position and velocity in the earth/moon system. With today's computers is is fairly trivial to use on board processing power to adjust the orbit to aerobrake with the right energy. The station itself is a great monitor of the atmospheric conditions at 400 km altitude so as long as you leave the Moon at the right time, there should be no issue at all with doing the right level of aerobraking for ISS orbit matching. The system could be easily tested in unmanned mode before committing a crew for the cislunar cycler. As far as the lander is concerned, it is again just one idea, but one that has a lot of merit. If you look at the deorbit decelleration profile there is no place in the deorbit where an engine failure is going to happen instananeously and modern control systems have a cycle rate in the tens of MHz, far faster than a any possible mechanical system change. I just checked on the latest DSP RTOS using the blackfin processor from Analog devices, which is a DSP that runs at GHz speeds. Anything dealing with controlling a lander would only use a fraction of the processing power of the DSP, which is actually a desirable condition. Mechanical systems are glacially slow in comparison to the processing power of DSP's today. The link that I provided indicates that the RL-10 has no problem throttling over a large range of power levels. You could do what you are suggesting as well. What we are talking about is to develop a system that can survive the next administration, something that did not happen in 1993. What I am suggesting can easily be improved upon, as long as those improvements don't cost billions of more dollars. There are other architectures that are considerably more efficient in technical specifications but have significant political, financial, and or schedule issues.

A few things: Can you elaborate what you're including in your calculation regarding the facilities costs of operating an inline vehicle vs the Shuttle-C concept? I cannot fathom that your math is correct. Are you including the infrastructure changes at KSC (i.e. VAB, pads, etc?). There's more to it than just the tooling. Also, while I can see your rationale regarding Horizontal landers, I do not understand why you cannot simply take the parts for a single engine lander and rearrange it once at ISS. Please add more data to you criticisms to make them more enlightening. Educating the common folk can only be helpful and should not take that much time if you truly have the level of expertise you seem to be expressing.

Addendum From NASA http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/16jul_cece.htm "We're considering modifications to the injector and valves to improve performance," Kim says. Already, CECE has demonstrated stable combustion (no chugging) down to 5-to-1 and operability (some chugging) at 11-to-1 throttle ratios. I would suggest that an update of your knowledge base about RL-10's would also help.

Impossible is a very strong word. I know of nothing in either orbital dynamics or modern navigation of spacecraft that would make Aerobraking impossible. NASA seems to think that it works just fine for Mars. We have also successfully used Aerobraking at Venus and Mars as well with extremely precise navigation. To even suggest that leaving from ISS and transferring to a translunar injection orbit would be news to the Russians who launch spacecraft into LEO 51.6 degree orbits and then higher orbits all the time, including much greater plane changes than going to the Moon (in delta v terms). I would suggest that an update in reading relating to modern space navigation would be in order. Please go into detail why 50% power is a terrible operating regime for an RL-10 or a pressure fed engine. I know of no known reason why this would be a problem. As for the opposed engines, well airplanes do it all the time, flying across the planet. As for instantly throttling up, that seems highly unlikely to be the case as during the descent from high altitude there is plenty of time and at the point of landing, the engines are throttled down anyway so that does not make any sense either.

Going back to SEI cannot be the right answer. We actually DO learn some things over 15 years. There was some stuff about SEI (truly a "90-Day Study") that simply would not work. The orbital mechanics involved with leaving from a Space Station (specific orbit) getting to the moon and returning to the same Space Station (through aerobraking as you suggest) is nearly impossible. At best, you must stay at least a month on the moon and have a single return opportunity. We have also learned something about Shuttle-Derived launch vehicles. When all is said and done, the differences in DDT&E, unit, and facilities costs of an in-line vehicle (e.g., Ares V) vs. side-mount (e.g., Shuttle-C) are negligible. The in-line has the advantages of growth potential AND utilizing COMMERCIAL, cheap expendable engines, like the RS-68. The horizonal landers, while interesting, are forced to be multi-engine configurations. They also have TERRIBLE engine-out implications. The scenario usually involves FOUR engine operating at 50% throttle (a TERRIBLE operating point for most engines), then if an engine fails, you must SHUT DOWN A GOOD ENGINE (to balance thrust) and instantly throttle the other two up to 100%. I hever NEVER heard anything good about such a scenario. Going to the moon is hard. Engineering for politics can be done with some things, but I don't think this is one of them.

Hmmm… The old "Space: 1999" television show may actually have had something with its Eagle lander. The similarity of the Brand Griffin Shuttle-bay lunar lander to it is eerie. Or perhaps it was inspiration for Brand.

"This site is also like candy to scientists because it is rich in hematite, a mineral that usually forms in wet conditions over long periods of time." The martian hematite-water story is a widespread misconception. It is inaccurate. Hematite is Fe2O3. It contains no structural water. It is a secondary mineral that usually forms by the post-depositional dehydration of other primary water-containing minerals such as goethite or ferrihydrite. Widespread hematite, especially coarse-grained, platy grey hematite such as is found on Earth in the Precambrian banded iron formations, is a metamorphic mineral. As such any water it may have represented is long gone and such rocks are unlikely to have much to do with any RECENT evidence of life. No point in going to such places to look for life... unless you want to stumble on really old, probably graphitized, carbonaceous fossils; rare in hematites, even on Earth! It would be analogous to looking for evidence of plant life in anthracite coal deposits. The swamps where the plant life accumulated to form the coal are gone...long gone. Forget the hematite. Look for goethite or ferrihydrite, or even clay minerals. Much better chances of finding life on Mars, the odds of which are long anyhow.

First para of article says M106 is 22 light years away--not to quibble, but factors of 1,000,000 are important! Perhaps someone can contact JPL and have the error corrected.

Since the ancestral time, world space research is progressing on wrong concept because we unknown about space mirror which is a great mystery and creator of lots of mysteries viz. milk ways, galaxies, nebulas, white dwurfs, black holes etcs. Hence without study of space mirror the space research has no future. In sort it can not explain in short. Therefore it invites to visit http://www.spacemirrormystery.com to know the original truth. Mirror reflects frontier. Mirror functions like a wall. There is nothing ahead of mirror but reflection makes lively atmosphere into mirror. If two mirrors face each other in parallel position the concerned area between mirrors is converted to a biggest atmosphere because the concerned area reflected unlimitedly as front side and backside into each mirror frequently. Space mirror is based on above rule and we are unknown about space mirror. From sun the objects of area 225 million kilometer to 300 million kilometer of solar system reflects unlimitedly, we find a very deep space and through giant telescopes we watch mystery after mystery. Telescope enlarges view not closes near view. Following may clear the concept. “A visitor of a desert often find mirage. If he moves, mirage also moves. He can never reach near the mirage. If he tries he can see enlarge view of mirage as smoky atmosphere through a telescopic instrument”. Giant telescope like Hubble and others may be the milestone of our technology but it can not help the real space research.

Since the ancestral time, world space research is progressing on wrong concept because we unknown about space mirror which is a great mystery and creator of lots of mysteries viz. milk ways, galaxies, nebulas, white duffs, black holes etcs. Hence without study of space mirror the space research has no future. In sort it can not explain in short. Therefore it invites to visit http://www.spacemirrormystery.com to know the original truth. Mirror reflects frontier. Mirror functions like a wall. There is nothing ahead of mirror but reflection makes lively atmosphere into mirror. If two mirrors face each other in parallel position the concerned area between mirrors is converted to a biggest atmosphere because the concerned area reflected unlimitedly as front side and backside into each mirror frequently. Space mirror is based on above rule and we are unknown about space mirror. From sun the objects of area 225 million kilometer to 300 million kilometer of solar system reflects unlimitedly, we find a very deep space and through giant telescopes we watch mystery after mystery. Telescope enlarges view not closes near view. Following may clear the concept. “A visitor of a desert often find mirage. If he moves, mirage also moves. He can never reach near the mirage. If he tries he can see enlarge view of mirage as smoky atmosphere through a telescopic instrument”. Giant telescope like Hubble and others may be the milestone of our technology but it can not help the real space research.

Its imperative that we save the Space Shuttle if we are ever to have a future in space ! http://nlspropulsion.net

The vision died several years ago when the NASA Administrator edicted that the Apollo Steroid architecture is the vision. No it isn't. The vision was moving human civilization into the solar system to stay. The edicted architecture was poorly conceived and has now put at risk the entire human space flight program. First, we need the space station. It is the basis for the first Mars space craft. It has most of the same systems that will be required, and is the same size as what will be required. It is here now and it is the result of our collective intelligences and we'd better show the nations who have paid for it that there is value in what has been produced already. In order to maintain and utilize the space station, we needed assured access to space. Assured access is not an Apollo on steroids with no launch vehicle available. It is not continuing and increasing Soyuz assembly lines when the Russian have not been replacing their old workers and the assembly lines were stretched to the breaking point already - and we are now seeing exactly this as one Soyuz after another suffers quality and reliability issues. Assured access could have been provided by Atlas 5, Delta 4, or Ariane 5, and perhaps in time we might have been able to develop something based on the Shuttle SRB, although this was not a critical need. Assured access was needed in 2010. Assured access on any of the existing boosters needs to weigh in at about 50000 lb. Apollo CSMs were 70000 lb. By using the same framework as the Apollo and reducing the mass of some systems, you could have gotten to a six person CEV vehicle and you could have done it in 5 years or less (2009). Instead we had to go off and try to invent the new planetary program all at once - we are now further from flying CEV than we were 4 years ago when it was announced. We needed small tiger team activities to develop CEV. Instead we got a bunch of ex-Fligh Directors and Space Station managers none of whom had ever developed anything, and who tried to emulate the unweildy and inefficient organization that is the space station. They ar oriented around the process but not around progress. Is it no wonder we are making no progress ? Instead of talking the vision and trying to sell the idea of moving human civilization into the solar system, we got sidetracked to trying to sell an Apollo-like moon program. Is it any wonder no one is really interested ? The population of the world lost interest in Apollo missions in 1969. If you can give them a visionary roadmap to the future when they or their children will live and work in space, they might care. Sending a hand full of astronuts really does not fulfill the vision. Its about step 4 or 5 on the way there.

Mark I absolutely agree that we need a resource survey of the inner solar system. I did a design a few years ago of a spacecraft that could take advantage of the knowledge of the orbits of NEOs that we have now and would do a "grand tour" of different spectral types. It is interesting that there is an indication that our friend Apophis is a metallic asteroid. That being said, the Moon, being three days and a few seconds away is the place that I advocate that we learn how to do things. Even the best asteroid mission takes several months round trip for even a short stay. Also, just about all of the techniques needed to access the resources from an asteroid need to be developed on the Moon as the Moon is just a really big asteroid in real terms. We also need resource missions to land at the lunar poles and get some ground truth data. All of our current remote sensing data sets are dependent upon the ground truth from the Apollo landing sites, which may not be globally applicable to the level that is currently the case. Another factor is that there is a recent paper from the LPSC conference that confirms my hypothesis related to low velocity impactors. This has a bearing on the water at the poles in that if the energies are lower than what has been expected in the past, then more water may be at the poles as well.

Excellent choice, Barack Obama for President! He will make changes that will unify us gloabally. Support and vote for Barack Obama!

Dennis, Developing a self-sustaining off-planet foothold is indeed the better goal for potentially realizing long-term benefit from tax-payer investment in our human space activities. Like any great challenge, it does not have a fore-ordained outcome. One problem is that we are over-constraining the problem to the Moon. In looking for resources such as water, a more cost-effective source may be near-Earth asteroids (some of which are significantly hydrated and avoid the expense of moving up and down the gravity well of the relatively dry Moon). Homework needs to be done, however. To assess this, some resources (small compared to a single robotic mission) need to be assigned to survey and characterization work to understand the frequency of such asteroids and dormant comets with low delta-v orbits that also afford quick access. Then a trade study could determine whether a lunar or non-lunar resource utilization would offer the path with the greatest return on investment. This was at the center of a slightly iconoclastic VSE architecture proposal to NASA by Raytheon Missile Systems back in 2004. Unfortunately, NASA was already locked into a Moon then Mars objective and timetable.

I will tell you what amazes me more than anything since I have started talking in this vein, it is the old professionals that are saying that this focus is misguided and that there is no opportunity out there for economic development of the Moon or other locations. In space development it is imperative that we revisit our beliefs once in a while as technology changes and the problems that confront our civilization change as well. This is not the 1960's nor is it even the early 90's. We live in a different world today, with different problems, a much much higher level of technology, and much better tools for doing these types of developments. Additionally, we have a brand new $100 billion dollar space station, one that can be used to help lower the cost of a cis-lunar architecture.

Dennis, Great job laying it out. It seems that some of the economic, environmental and security issues could be handled by solar power satellites (SPSs). Gerard K O'Neil analyzed in the 70's that when oil topped $100 a barrel that SPS's would become economically attractive. That time is now. It's too bad that some other company can't be allowed to build external tanks and solid rocket boosters based upon the plans that we all payed for. A company that was not so entrenched in government contracting and one or more that could build and launch large vehicles for less than the $1B price tag of a shuttle launch. And why in the world does it take $10B to develop an new launch vehicle largely based upon hand me downs? Seems like NASA could have awarded the contract to someone else to develop it.

Consider this your first sale when published Dennis. Excellent work - as usual.

an excellent article. however, I do think it misses one point. While a congresman can at this time say: "If the sole purpose of the NASA program to send mankind to Mars is simply to get them there and back safely, then the program will not be funded and the hundreds of billions of dollars that it costs will be better spent solving problems here on the Earth." That reality will change once the Chinese announce that they are going, economic and other realities will not count. Only political prestige will. At that point, NASA will get funded to the hilt and more. I do not think America will allow the Chinese, Russians or anyone else for that mater to get to Mars 1st. E.G.; Mars landing will happen but not for rational reasons that you advocate, but for all the wrong reasons, once again...