Why not use Shuttles to fly to the moon?

[Alpha_Geek]

You guys need to keep a cool head till this silicon chip craze blows over! Magnetic core memory will be making a comeback soon, and those old CM and LM computers will once again be da chit! ;-)

Now, seriously... the question about dissassembly and reassembly of shuttle orbiters in orbit:

If you're talking about "The Space Shuttle" aka NASAs Space Transportation System, then no way. Everything done on EVA now has specialized tools, and parts made to be assembled in microgravity. There are tight confined spaces inside the shuttle, even for a person working in a shirtsleeve environment. The task would be several orders of magnitude beyond anything actually planned for on-orbit operations.


That being said, it would be less farfetched to design a modular craft designed for non-atmospheric operations that could be assembled on orbit. This would have to be a completely new vehicle, and nothing that's on the drawing board now.

 

[kitsune]

And although Ares/Orion look quite 'primitive' compared to the Shuttle, they have been designed from scratch using principles and experience gained on the Shuttle programme and the Apollo programme.

So it's not like we're throwing away 40 years of space flight and going back to Apollo, even though some of the elements of the design are slightly more similar to Apollo/Saturn than they are to the shuttle...

Except the Ares program is being designed the fast way instead of the proper way. For instance, the Ares-I is expected to vibrate violently enough to kill the crew. Instead of fixing the problem properly, they added shock absorbers to the design.

 

[JustAFriend]

Can't Shuttle parts be constructed on Earth and sent up to the ISS or whatever as payload and then assembled in orbit, then from there send the newly constructed Shuttle from Earth orbit to the Moon?

Why? To what purpose? To put a museum piece there?

Even from Earth orbit, you don't have ANY way to send a 240,000lb Shuttle to the moon.
The engines are NOT powerful enough.
The wings and landing gear and ceramic heat skins are too heavy and useless on the moon.
The engines cannot land the Shuttle on the moon.
The wings are useless to land a Shuttle on a atmosphere-less moon.

You still have no reason to do it and the technology does NOT exist to do it...

 

[John Picard]

And although Ares/Orion look quite 'primitive' compared to the Shuttle, they have been designed from scratch using principles and experience gained on the Shuttle programme and the Apollo programme.

So it's not like we're throwing away 40 years of space flight and going back to Apollo, even though some of the elements of the design are slightly more similar to Apollo/Saturn than they are to the shuttle...

Except the Ares program is being designed the fast way instead of the proper way. For instance, the Ares-I is expected to vibrate violently enough to kill the crew. Instead of fixing the problem properly, they added shock absorbers to the design.

Well, since you know so much about rocket science, perhaps you could trot down to NASA and render your expertise?

 

[kitsune]

Except the Ares program is being designed the fast way instead of the proper way. For instance, the Ares-I is expected to vibrate violently enough to kill the crew. Instead of fixing the problem properly, they added shock absorbers to the design.

Well, since you know so much about rocket science, perhaps you could trot down to NASA and render your expertise?

The criticism of the shock-absorber hack comes directly from NASA engineers who are unhappy with the compromises they're being directed to employ.

 

[Good]

At this point, there is really no telling what the Obama administration has planned for Ares. They reportedly heard a presentation from NASA engineers about using DIRECT as well as man-rating existing military boosters. I think the Orion capsule may survive, but the Ares I could be replaced. That might not be a bad idea, since it seems like they are designed more to keep the existing shuttle workforce employed.
I'm more concerned that we build either Ares V or direct so that we have heavy lift capability again.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

What is "Heavy" in this case?

 

[Dayton3]

What is "Heavy" in this case?

I've heard "heavy lift" defined by a NASA technican on one of the Mars mission forums as any launch vehicle capable of lifting 100,000+ lbs. to Low Earth Orbit.

That would be little more than double the shuttle capability. The shuttle was originally supposed to be able to lift 65,000 lbs. but for various reasons was never rated above 47,000 lbs. to LEO.

Although many people have defined heavy lift as being something larger such as 200,000 lbs. to LEO which would be something like 80% of the Saturn Vs capability.

IIRC, the LARGEST U.S. payload lifted to LEO was the Skylab space station which weighed about 156,000 lbs.

I think the largest Soviet payload was the Polus orbital weapons system that was lifted by the first Energyia flight. It reportedly weighed about 200,000 lbs. but burned up after a malfunction made it deorbit.

 

[Neopeius]

Logically, NASA already had a very successful way of getting to the moon in Apollo and the Saturn V rocket. The sensible thing is to take that design, incorporate new technology as relevant and use a similar design.

I believe this is similar to what NASA intends to do.

It's exactly what NASA intends to do. And it'll never happen.

 

[MANT!]

Speaking of spaceflight..the Orbital version of Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo is starting the design phase now..

It looks like a combination of an X-15 and the cancelled X-20 Dynasoar...
the configuration shown above would be an incremental approach..both to the orbital craft, the booster and the carrier aircraft...

I don't doubt that NASA will go to the moon..despite the naysayers above..after all ,it was done before..

 

[Good]

Speaking of spaceflight..the Orbital version of Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo is starting the design phase now..

It looks like a combination of an X-15 and the cancelled X-20 Dynasoar...
the configuration shown above would be an incremental approach..both to the orbital craft, the booster and the carrier aircraft...

I don't doubt that NASA will go to the moon..despite the naysayers above..after all ,it was done before..

Sweet! Do you know if the booster is reusable?

 

[Alpha_Geek]

If that design is like the other Scaled craft, there won't be much back there to be resused. on SS1 and SS2, the "engine" is mostly a solid propellant core inside a shell. There is a LOX tank as well, but most of the mass back there simply burns up getting the craft to altitude.

The new ship does harken back to the Dyna-Soar, which I've always thought was an incredible cool concept.

AG

 

[MANT!]

The booster being re-useable?..Unknown...

 

[tharpdevenport]

Aside from showing we can drink recylced urine, and making our matresses more comfy, what has NASA yielded from going to the moon? What does it hope to show (realitically, not "maybe") or get out of future trips?

Why not save this money for research on better, more technologically different drives and fuels, or help the population?

 

[FemurBone]

Aside from showing we can drink recylced urine, and making our matresses more comfy, what has NASA yielded from going to the moon? What does it hope to show (realitically, not "maybe") or get out of future trips?

The space race to the moon spawned many technologies that otherwise would not exist such as advancements in electronics, electronic communication and aerospace engineering.

 

[Maurice]

Aside from showing we can drink recylced urine, and making our matresses more comfy, what has NASA yielded from going to the moon? What does it hope to show (realitically, not "maybe") or get out of future trips?

Why not save this money for research on better, more technologically different drives and fuels, or help the population?

Like these for a few examples?

 

[tharpdevenport]

Yeah, yeah ,we already have that, I'm asking what we could possibly need from more countless millions of dollars on wastefuly projects like buildong a moon base or jsut going back to the moon.

 

[BrookeStephen]

Yeah, yeah ,we already have that, I'm asking what we could possibly need from more countless millions of dollars on wastefuly projects like buildong a moon base or jsut going back to the moon.

I don't know about you, but I'd settle for NASA creating more reliable grammar and spelling checkers... cause this is lunacy! LOL

 

[hyzmarca]

One day, everyone on Earth is going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day. And that some day might be tomorrow, or today. No one knows.

Extinction Level Events happen. At the very least, the Sun is going to expand and consume the Earth one day. But long before that happens a devastating asteroid impact is likely. So long as we have all of our eggs in one basket, humanity is doomed. There is no denying this.

Going to the moon is a step toward survival. Colonizing other planets in the Solar System should be a paramount goal, simply due to the extreme danger of having the entire human population stuck on a single rock. After that, we can move on to colonizing worlds around other stars.

 

[FemurBone]

An issue bigger than extinction level events is one of over population. There's going to come a point when medical science will figure out away to keep people from dieing. With no one dieing the human population will increase beyond the Earth's carrying capacity. Humans of the future may have to expand to the Moon and Mars simply for the realestate.