Why not return to the Moon? (Part 1)

All trussed up, with nowhere to go? NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift launcher compared with the Saturn V used to send Apollo to the Moon, forty years ago.

Anthony Young
The Space Review

For the first time in nearly half a century, the United States will, in a matter of a few years, have the launch capability to send crewed spacecraft to the Moon. The launch vehicle that could make that possible is the Space Launch System (SLS). However, while the Moon was once a goal of exploration under the Vision for Space Exploration and Project Constellation, much further destinations are currently under consideration by NASA.

 There have been several incisive articles in The Space Review against the SLS, primarily against the cost of its development and projected operation. Even the former deputy administrator of NASA, Lori Garver, has now publicly come out against the SLS, stating the launch vehicle design embraces decades-old propulsion technology (which it does) and that America can do better.

For better or worse, the heavy lift launch vehicle in America’s future will be the SLS. There is, as yet, no funded mandate—that is, program—to send crews to a near Earth asteroid, and the cost of mounting a crewed mission to Mars would give the Congressional Budget Office fits. Funding for such programs are for future congressional hearings to debate.

Under NASA’s website heading “Human Spaceflight Missions” is the subheading “Future Exploration Plans” with the following items: Asteroid Redirect Initiative, Commercial Space, Orion Crew Vehicle, and Space Launch System. Only the first item is a mission: the remaining three are not. You will not find a definitive mission goal for the SLS, only nebulous statements about taking astronauts deeper into space than ever before.

The Constellation Altair lunar lander (as conceived in 2010) After the scrubbing of the Constellation program, the only vehicle still missing from it renamed replacements was a manned landing vehicle, along with plans for "extended human activity on the Moon."

NASA also has an impressive science website. The tabs to go to specific pages regarding the space agency’s primary scientific thrust. They are (bypassing the Big Questions tab) Earth, Heliophysics, Planets, Astrophysics, Missions, Technology, and Science News. Conspicuously absent is a tab for the Moon. It is only under the Heliophysics tab one finds information related to lunar scientific exploration, in the form of a 2007 report titled “Heliophysics Science and the Moon: Potential Solar and Space Physics Science for Lunar Exploration.”

However, prior to this heliophysics-centric publication, the National Research Council (NRC) published “The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon”. The interim report was published in 2006 and the final report was released in 2007. It laid out the scientific rationale for the resumption of exploration of the Moon. There have, in fact, been many such strategy documents published over the decades since the end of Apollo by NASA, the NRC, and other organizations supportive of America’s return to the Moon.

It is clear, judging from the above-mentioned websites and documents, the current emphasis for scientific exploration is focused on the Sun, the Earth, and the planets, with seemingly cursory attention to the Moon. However, with the development of the SLS, the Moon may yet come back into favor.

Read the full article at The Space Review, HERE.

Golden Spike taps Northrup Grumman to design manned lunar lander

The Altair lunar lander, shelved by Congress together with most components of the late Constellation program, in one of many manned and unmanned configurations [NASA/Frassinito & Associates].

Ben Evans
AmericaSpace

Officially revealed to the world barely a month ago, the Golden Spike Company last week announced a contract with aerospace giant Northrop Grumman to begin design work on a lunar landing vehicle which could see astronauts back on the surface of the Moon by 2020. Although Golden Spike—founded by Alan Stern, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in 2007–2008 and Principal Investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, and including former Apollo Flight Director Gerry Griffin as Chair of the Board—remains in what it calls “Phase A” of its forward path, the contract with the only company to have a proven track record of building human-rated lunar landers is a significant advance and brings the goal of bootprints on the Moon closer.

Read the full article HERE.

Lunarcrete, transforming hazard into habitat

Fine as talcum, abrasive as jagged glass, clinging and ubiquitous, lunar dust mitigation is on everybody's list of the biggest challenges facing extended human (and robotic) activity on the surface of the Moon. One essential strategy involves sintering, or otherwise transforming, regolith into native pavement. In a NASA simulation above the shelved Altair manned lander concept is shown landed and parked near the lunar South Pole where a permanent landing pad has been constructed [NASA].

Keith Veronese
io9.com

So, you are on the moon and need to build a new structure. As one of the first lucky colonists there, what are you going to use? Lunarcrete of course.

Lunarcrete is a mixture similar to concrete that could be created using the loose layer of dust and rock covering the surface of the moon. Creating structures from lunarcrete will be one of the keys to cutting colonization costs and increasing self sufficiency of colonies. Terrestrial experiments show that creating a concrete-like substance from lunar rock is possible, but is it practical?

Continue reading the full article HERE

White House won't fund NASA moon program

[Ed. Note: Coming as the following story does, from two Orlando Sentinel writers of note, and good reputation, it leaves little ambiguity as to what will be in the White House budget proposal for federal Fiscal Year 2011, which begins November 1, 2010. It's important to remember, however that "the president," as they say, "proposes, but Congress disposes." NASA is a "creature of Congress." In the end, if heat can continue to be brought to bare Congress is likely to restore some or all of this funding for FY '11, especially as the present fiscal year ends within a week of the mid-term federal election and coming, as it does, with the end of the Shuttle program.

I can and will speculate further, later, on motivations and ideologies, etc. - those of interest groups and such, but I will stop there, as I should, for the moment. In the end this kind of policy decision is up to the American voter. They can be prevailed upon to take up that responsibility if they are made to understand this.

- Joel Raupe for Lunar Pioneer]

Robert Block and Mark K. Matthews
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington and Cape Canaveral - NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there, if President Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases its budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was to return humans to the moon by 2020. The Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to return to the moon. There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases.

"We certainly don't need to go back to the moon," one administration official said.

Instead, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's plans, NASA will look at developing a "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low-Earth orbit. That day will be years away.

Read the full story HERE.

NASA ARC Moon landing simulations (2)

John Millus

Astronomy - Space-About.com

If this doesn't get the conspiracy theorists talking, I don't know what will. NASA is currently undergoing simulations of what it will be like for astronauts to return to the moon. This is not to say that they are taking Moon landing footage to be used later to fake a Moon landing (although, I fear that it will be taken that way). Instead, NASA is using a Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS) to test how the new class of lunar lander will behave when landing on the Moon's surface. And I must say, it does look pretty realistic at times.

These kinds of tests are important as they allow NASA to begin testing technology and training astronauts earlier on in the project's development. And it will also save money in the long run.

Looking almost like a video game, astronauts have the ability to control a simulated landing craft as it moves through the 10 story building where the VMS is held. The data that is collected will allow NASA to make refinements to the landing craft design as well as anticipate any potential problems. Above all though, it is simply quite an impressive technological achievement.

Informal poll shows support for return to Moon

Altair nears the end of Terminal Descent, and slows for a notional landing near the northeastern rim of the Lorca-Aratus vent (24.58°N, 11.24°E) in the western Mare Serenitatis. A snap to accomplish using garden variety home computer software, on the fly and more than a decade before such a thing might be possible in reality, if ever. The vista was made even more realistic with new LRO Narrow Angle Camera images pegged to the digital elevation model available in Google Moon.

Jack Kennedy over at Spaceports is reporting results from a non-scientific blog poll showing, "Seventy-two percent (72%) of the 251 blog poll respondents said: "US astronauts should proceed with plans for a lunar landing by 2020 by adding more money to the NASA budget."

Wild ride on NASA's massive simulator

NASA Ames' Vertical Motion Simulator, the largest-such simulator in the world, has been used since 1980 to help train pilots to fly helicopters, fighters, and space shuttles. Now, it is being used for training on the next-generation lunar lander.

Daniel Terdiman
geek gestalt - CNET

Mountain View --There I was, staking my claim to a pilot's slot in one of NASA's next-generation lunar landers, and to be perfectly frank, I think I'd better not quit my day job.

"I think we probably walked away from that," said NASA aerospace engineer Eric Mueller, after one rough touchdown. It was an overly charitable assessment of my performance. I'd hate to know what he was really thinking.

Read the story HERE.

Analysis of on-board hazard detection and avoidance for safe lunar landing

Johnson, Huertas, Werner & Montgomery, JPL
2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky

"Landing hazard detection and avoidance technology is being pursued within NASA to improve landing safety and increase access to sites of interest on the lunar surface. The performance of a hazard detection and avoidance system depends on properties of the terrain, sensor performance, algorithm design, vehicle characteristics and the overall all guidance navigation and control architecture. This paper analyzes the size of the region that must be imaged, sensor performance parameters and the impact of trajectory angle on hazard detection performance. The analysis shows that vehicle hazard tolerance is the driving parameter for hazard detection system design."

Review the Conference Paper, HERE.

Review of Human Space Flight Committee: NASA Constellation program unaffordable

Robert Block
The Write Stuff
Orlando Sentinel

The Augustine Panel re-examining NASA's human spaceflight plans has concluded that the agency's current Constellation Program to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 will not fit into the current presidential budget.

In fact, the panel has found that President Barack Obama's current budget does not allow for any significant human exploration program.

"We are on a path right now for a system on a close order of just double the budget to operate," said panel member Jeff Greason of Constellation, which stemmed from President George W. Bush's 2005 "vision" to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and then move on to Mars.

Greason added that if Santa Claus gave the program to the country fully developed, NASA would still have to cancel it because the agency could not afford to launch it.

Read the Post HERE.

U.S. return to Moon in 2028?

General Lester Lyles and LeRoy Chiao, of the U.S. Human Spaceflight Review Committee continue to listen and consider, here as seen in Cocoa Beach by Red Hubers of the Orlando Sentinel. The Aerospace Corporation claims U.S. return to Moon within budget constraints "all but impossible before 2028."

Mark K. Matthews and Robert Block
Orlando Sentinel

NASA's goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020 is all but impossible to achieve, a presidential panel was told Wednesday.

An independent analysis concluded there is little hope NASA could replicate any time soon what Apollo 11 accomplished 40 years ago. And sources said an undisclosed part of the study showed it may take until 2028 — nearly 60 years after America's first moon landing — to get back.

"We can't see [the gap] closing," Gary Pulliam, an analyst with Aerospace Corp., told a near-silent audience in Huntsville, Ala., where engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center have spent the past four years designing new rockets for NASA's Constellation program.

One NASA analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on behalf of NASA or the review panel, said astronauts might be able to return to the moon by 2028, although another source said 2035 was more likely.

Read the full Article HERE.

A look at NASA's Side-Mounted Shuttle

Presentation to Human Spaceflight Review Committee, June 18
(NASA/John Shannon 2.35 mb pdf)

Too soon to give up Constellation

In 1999, the International Space Station project was just getting off the ground.

The first two pieces were linked together in orbit, but the station wasn't ready for residents. Around the world, headlines told people how construction was almost two years behind schedule. The project was on track to run billions of dollars over budget. The outpost faced technical problems from contaminated breathing air to clanking fans so loud they could damage residents' hearing.

In Kazakhstan and Florida, nagging launch woes for Russia's Soyuz and America's space shuttles threatened more delays for staffing the new space lab. The new station orbited Earth unoccupied for about a year.

Some critics howled that this proved the project was too difficult and not worth the investment of the world's time, treasure and talent. Should it be canceled? Or scaled back? Was it a boondoggle buoyed by politicians trying to protect high-tech jobs?

Well, the space station's challenges continued through the decade since. The space lab is over budget and, upon completion, it will not include all of the capabilities once planned. Cost-cutting by Russia and the U.S. forced compromises. A space shuttle disaster in 2003 led to a lingering supply-line crisis that easily could have forced the partners to evacuate the station because of shortages of food, water and spare parts.

Read the Rest of Florida Today's editorial HERE.

Boeing: Contrators face layoffs unless NASA moves faster on Constellation

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

Colorado Springs - March 31 (Reuters) - A senior Boeing official said March 31 American contractors working on manned spaceflight capabilities will have to lay off up to 10,000 workers unless NASA accelerates orders for Constellation.

"The Gap," the period between the end of the Shuttle program in late 2010 and the follow-on Constellation program's first flight in 2015 is a challenge for the companies involved, said Brewster Shaw, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration.

Shaw said the five biggest contractors in the sector faced combined layoffs of 8,000 to 10,000 workers, the largest among them Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Alliant Techsystems, United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and United Space Alliance (a Boeing-Lockheed joint venture.

The companies and their smaller suppliers were urging lawmakers and NASA to accelerate work on Ares 5, the cargo heavy-lift booster, as well as Altair, the Constellation's lunar lander., Shaw said.

Read the Story HERE.

Lunar lander Altair office opened in Houston by Lockheed-Martin

With design competition underway to win the lion's share of the contract to build the long-sought successor to the Apollo lunar module, the Constellation Altair, defense and aerospace giant Lockheed-Martin is making an attempt to demonstrate their seriousness.

The company has announced the location of its Altair program office conveniently in Houston, in "it's bid to provide support for the next-generation human lunar lander system for NASA." Lockheed-Martin "submitted its proposal to NASA last month for the Altair Conceptual Design Contract and the agency is expected to award several contracts for the first phase of the program later this spring."

The announcement, by way of PR Newswire, reiterates the role Altair must eventually play, first as heavy-lift cargo, flying on-board the Ares V (probably) to rendezvous with a crewed Orion command-service module prior to Tran Lunar Injection. Lockheed-Martin is obviously anxious to be awarded the next phase in Altair's design, if not a bit transparent in the perhaps-premature gesture of opening an office so close to the Johnson Space Center.

"We recognize that locating key expertise and program management support in Houston adjacent to NASA's Johnson Space Center, where the Constellation Program and Altair Project offices are located, allows us to provide responsive and comprehensive support to NASA on the Altair Conceptual Design Contract," said Brian Duffy, vice president and program manager of the Altair Lunar Lander program for Lockheed Martin. "Utilizing the existing facilities and our experienced human space flight team in the Houston area provides significant synergy that we are bringing to bear for NASA's next-generation lunar missions."

Duffy, a four-time Shuttle astronaut and commander of two of the missions, executed four rendezvous maneuvers with other spacecraft and docked with the International Space Station. He also participated in the development and testing of displays, flight crew procedures, and computer software to be used on Shuttle flights, all of which have given him unique and valuable expertise that will be useful in assisting NASA in designing the elements of a new generation of Altair lunar spacecraft and successful lunar missions in the future.

Lockheed-Martin then reminds news writers and readers everywhere that the company is already prime contractor for the Orion CEV, schedule to take its first manned flight in 2015.

"Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.

LO2 & LCH4 Ascent Main Engine Technology

Joel W. Robinson & David D. Stephenson
NASA Marshall SFC - Huntsville

NASA has identified Luquid Oxygen (LO2/Liquid Methane (LCH4) as a potential propellant combination for future space vehicles based upon the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). The technology is estimated to have higher performance and lower overall systems mass compared to existing hypergolic propulsion systems. The current application considering this technology is the lunar ascent main engine (AME).

AME is anticipated to be an expendable, pressure-fed engine to provide ascent from the Moon at the completion of a 210 day lunar stay. The engine is expected to produce 5,500 lbf (24,465 N) thrust with variable inlet temperatures due to the cryogenic nature of the fuel and oxidzer. The primary technology risks include establishing reliable and robust ignition in vacuum conditions, maximizing specific impulse, developing rapid start capability for the descent abort, providing the capability for two starts and producing a total engine burn time over 500 seconds.

This paper highlights the efforts at Marshall in addressing risk reduction activities for this technology.

Download the paper (pdf) HERE.

Boeing offers Altair lunar lander design revisions

Boeing Company, through its Space Exploration division, submitted a proposal to NASA Thursday, for the Constellation Altair lunar lander design support. (NASA is expected to award multiple contracts this spring.)

If present plans continue, now supported in the Obama administration's FY2010 budget request made to Congress last week, Altair will eventually be launched into Earth orbit aboard an unmanned Ares V heavy-lift booster stack and later provide astronauts with life support for a temporary base or unmanned cargo landings on the Moon.

Like the Apollo lunar module flown between 1969 and 1972m an ascent stage will also return crew to an orbiting Orion CEV that will transport crew back to Earth.

The Altair Conceptual Design Contract calls for NASA-directed engineering tasks to support evaluation of conceptual designs, maturation of the vehicle design, and preparation of products for system-requirements and system-definition reviews.

"Boeing is uniquely positioned to provide great design support now, as well as to support Altair development, test and evaluation when the time comes," said Keith Reiley, lunar lander project manager for Boeing. "Our ability to transition a skilled space shuttle work force ensures we can distribute the necessary expertise where it is needed as NASA transitions from the shuttle program to Constellation. We plan to support NASA with a local core team, enterprisewide specialty engineering experts, and a range of suppliers, including small and innovative high-tech companies."

The Altair lunar lander is envisioned with two stages: The descent stage will house the majority of the fuel, power supplies, and breathing oxygen for the crew. The ascent stage will house the astronauts, life-support equipment, and fuel for the ascent stage motor and steering rockets. The lander will carry a crew of four and be able to stay on the moon for up to six months. Altair will be capable of landing with 15 to 17 metric tons of dedicated cargo. The first crewed flight is scheduled for 2020.

NASA issued its request for proposal on Jan. 28 and will manage the Altair Conceptual Design Contract out of Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Designing America's Altair at Ames

By Mike Swift
Mercury News

Aiming at a tiny landing pad on the gray surface far below, astronaut Charlie Precourt banked the spacecraft to the right. A mottled blue and white orb hung in the black sky — the Earth.

Precourt, a veteran of four space shuttle missions, deftly flared the thrust to kill the craft's momentum. Far below, a tiny American flag grew in size as the ground swept up to meet the ship. Precourt braked to a gentle touchdown.

Once again, human beings had landed on the moon. But Precourt and his two passengers had never left Silicon Valley.

At NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, a group of former astronauts, including several Apollo astronauts who flew the original Lunar Module in space, are helping design America's next lunar lander. NASA engineers are using the world's most advanced motion-based flight simulator at Ames to help create Altair, the next-generation lunar lander that NASA hopes to land on the moon by 2020, returning humans to the moon for the first time in nearly half a century.

Over and over in recent weeks, in a concrete building deep in the Ames complex, some of NASA's best pilots have been landing — and frequently crashing — on the moon, painstakingly logging data with each descent on the Vertical Motion Simulator, or VMS. The information they are collecting will help determine everything from the amount of thrust the lander's engine will have, to the design and function of the cockpit instruments.

Read more HERE.

Hyperbola: Altair Ascent CH4 fueled?

In an informative posting Rob Coppinger at Flight Hyperbola, after hearing NASA engineers discussing the possibility Altair, the eventual Constellation lunar lander, might end up designed as a single-stage vehicle, is now asking if the Ascent Stage (illustrated above) may be fueled by liquid methane (CH4).

If so, will XCOR Aerospace get the contract?

NASA considering Single-Stage lunar lander design for Constellation's Altair

Rob Coppinger, at his excellent Flight Global blog Hyperbola, features a Podcast interview with Wendell Mendell, a lunar scientist who has worked for NASA for 45 years.

Coppinger spoke with Mendell on Saturday at Astrofest 2009 in London.

"Listen to him talk about the work done to evaluate lunar surface needs and NASA's interest in the possibilty of reusable lunar landers that have descent stages that return to space," Coppinger recommends.

Download the Podcast interview at Hyperbola and go there also for a link to JAXA interview with Mendell.

NASA sets out Altair lunar lander timetable

From Rob Coppinger, Flight International

NASA has sketched out the development timetable for its return-to-the-Moon Constellation programme's Altair lunar lander, aiming towards a long-term target of an unmanned June 2018 in-orbit propulsion test in preparation for a manned Moon mission in 2020.

An Altair conceptual design contract request for proposals, published on 28 January, calls for submissions from industry by 27 February.

Read the story HERE.