Anniversary of an amazingly enduring design

>>> That is a distinct possibility. But probably not for quite some

Which is part of the illustration. When you go to Mars or Earth,you can use "low tech" means to de-orbit and land "for free" (for certain values of "free".) In those cases, you do not need to be under power all the way to the surface. (I have a story which involves a "dead stick" (no power) from orbit... it is weird.) But to land on the Moon, you need to power all the way down. On the Moon, you can "almost miss" the ground and get away with it. "orbit one meter above the surface" - but not on Mars or Earth.

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

I got the book back, now I have numbers. Bewahahaha - I have Numbers!

_The Case for Mars_, Robert Zubrin, c 1996 ISBN 0-684-82757-3

It starts there. It is also the amount of delta V required to get from low earth orbit to the surface. To get to the surface of the Moon requires a total delta V of 6 km/s. That's 3.2 for trans lunar insertion, 0.9 km/s for low lunar orbit capture, and 1.9 km/s to land on the surface. To get to the surface of Mars requires 4.5. km/s (4 for trans Mars injection, 0.1 km/s for a post aero capture orbit adjustment, and 0.4 km/s to land using an aerosheild but no parachute.

As a good first goal, to get us off the planet.

Two weeks of the month. The rest of the time, you're going to have to run on batteries, or nuclear power.

But no carbon. Which means that you have to import that. Even for making Aluminum, you need Carbon.

And without carbon, you have to import it for any other manufacturing. Like steel, plastics, or fuel.

But, and this seems to be a constraint, there is no Carbon on the moon. Mars has lots of Carbon Dioxide. Import six tonnes of Hydrogen, run it through an automated 19th century level technology gasification plant, and you can produce a hundred and eight tonnes of methane and oxygen. Thus you can have an Earth Returned Vehicle ready and fueled on Mars, before the humans leave Earth. Prying Oxygen out of the Moon requires a much more complex installation. So the first several expeditions will have to carry their fuel, oxygen, water and food with them.

It is do able, and it was do able in 1990.

As a science outpost, yes. As a future habitat for humanity, it lacks certain advantages that Mars does. Atmosphere. Carbon. Twenty four hour days. I'm not saying Mars will be a walk in the park. It's going to be like living in Tibet, but you can go outside in Tibet and not need a space suit. Greenhouses work on Tibet, will work on Mars, not a real option on the Moon.

Yep. Of course, there is the small problem that you're working in a very small gravitational field. One of the regular issue of space exploration is shipping costs. What can the Moon produce which can't be done on earth for less, including transportation costs?

You can't really grow crops on the moon - the power requirements are excessive. And you are going to have to use grow lights, because no plant that we know of can handle a 672 hour cycle. On the moon, you are going to have to import the carbon dioxide to make the plants grow, too.

That is possible. But a Moon base is going to be a high tech operation all the way. What I'm now thinking is that the difficulties of operating on the Moon will make people think that going to Mars is going to be even more difficult. Secondly, the technologies necessary for a base on the moon are not going to be easily transferred for a Mars base.

If only Christopher Columbus had waited until he had had available steam powered iron ships ...

The point of the book, and the author, is that the technology existed (in 1990) to go to Mars, without first having to build a monster Space Ship, invent ways of transferring liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen in Zero G, develop the techniques for orbital assembly of components, and wait for the perfection of nuclear thermal rocket on the scale to move the 'Battlestar Galactica' sized ship necessary to carry all the food, fuel, parts, materials and crew necessary to build a Mars orbital facility in order to land an expeditionary team for a brief deployment before returning to Earth. It is the Massive, high tech, Starship Enterprise vision of space travel which is killing the space program.

When I get finished with grinding the numbers, I'll post a more coherent article.

tschus pyotr

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

I'm all for everything you said, pytor.

All I'm trying to point out is that the 1970's technology that took us to the moon - has been lost. We don't _have_ that capability any more.

And without it, Mars is just another bright dot in the sky.

It's is the base technology needed for any further exploration.

Have you figured out the trip time that comes along with that minimum delta-V profile?

For how many people?

If we can't live comfortably on the moon for that long, how can we expect to survive and interplanetary trip?

And come back!

cavelamb"

cavelamb wrote in news:rLSdnY5C_rAJcibWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

I'd like to think that the technology from the moon shot is probably still out there. The various wisdom needed to manufacture rockets is likely archived in a government building, stored safely on IBM punch cards.

Somewhere, there are probably a couple old guys who remember how. If they get thier daily Metamucil and fed properly, with plenty of naps. They could probably direct another missile shot.

It was all done with slide rules...

Let the Record show that "Stormin Mormon" on or about Tue, 6 Apr 2010

23:50:51 -0400 did write/type or cause to appear in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

To use an expression "It ain't rocket science. Even rocket science isn't rocket science!"

We're still making rockets. We still have the plans. Setting up the production lines will take some doing. Mostly it will take Will, political and otherwise.

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

We do have the capacity. Shuttle B, Ares (the next heavy booster)

- not impossible. What we are losing is the human capital. Not just the engineering geeks who did Apollo, or the Shuttle, but those who wanted to see it happen. And, sad to say, the Obamacare bill means there will be no money for any such projects. The progressives are killing the dreams for the future.

Zubrin figures he can put four people on Mars with 180 days travel time, have them work on the planet for 550 days and then return for another 180 days. Yeah it is a long assignment. So??? The Hab they worked out at about 1083 sq ft - about the size of a double wide. "Cozy" but not impossible. And remember, these are guys - give them a room and an Internet hookup, they'll be fine. B-) Coming back, they'll be reviewing the data they collected. And making plans. To use another old saying "The world was explored by iron men and wooden ships." Now we have iron ships and wooden men.

There's a difference between traveling to the Moon, where you have to haul everything, and going to Mars. Which does have exploitable resources.

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

I built a new coax design two years ago. With modern equipment and an improved design, it developed 30 percent more thrust and because it had been designed on a computer, we were able to eliminate the acustic chamber needed on the original. That alone reduced the weight by half.

Believe me, during the entitre build I was thinking about how some guy on a manual Jig Bore had done what we were doing on a 5 axis milling machine. They went through a lot of set up parts in the old days.

pyotr filipivich wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

$20B??

Nobama blew more than that in his first 6 months in office just on vote- buying schemes!

Eregon on 07 Apr 2010 17:07:01 GMT typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Which tells you where we can hide the money. Just put it in "Extraordinary Community Organizing" and the Progressives will never question it.

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

Oddly enough, I still have a couple slide rules. And know how to do some simple functions on them.

If you have good programming, and good data.... otherwise, you don't get much that's useful.

I have a feeling we still know how to lift things into space. We launch satellites, we work on systems to take out abm's and a year or so ago, we demonstrated a quick and dirty ASAT weapon to take out a falling satellite. I still think that was a shot across the bows to any nation that thought we couldn't back up our words.

We can still build launch vehicals.

A whole lot of fixturing isn't needed now due to CNC.

I wonder if the desire to put a man on the moon for the first time was made by our current President, given our current state of technology if it would have taken even half the time from when JFK made his statement? The only think I believe would cloud or hamper progress is the quicksand of federal regs impeding progress of all sorts of projects.

The Pentagon was inhabited in 11 months, finished in 17 months. Could we get an enviromental impact study and the lawsuits settled in 17 months now?

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

What I see is that Republicans are criticizing President Obama for not funding the Mars mission. And if Obama was funding the Mars mission, then Republicans would be criticizing Obama for funding it.

i