What's the problem
Couldn't they just copy the technology used in the apollo missions and land on the moon rather than just circle it...It's already been tested a couple of times?
NASA will miss its deadline for the first flight of the Orion capsule and the Space Launch System, with the launch moved from 2018 to 2019. The agency's Bill Gerstenmaier also told media in a briefing last Friday that as well as delaying the first flight (designated Exploration Mission One, EM-1), the EM-2 mission that will …
can't rebuild Saturn V. Factories were sent to China and the blueprints ordered to be shredded so the worst possible design that would actually work could fly. This is why USA bought a lot of USSR 1950s developed rocket engines. The world of bean counters as PHBs {S}
In case one doubts engineering assessment of shuttle, ask why the Russians launched their Buran once.
Notably, he tplans are only part of the build - the plans are predicated on a whole supply ecosystem that no longer exists, ways of making things (eg welded rocket motors) that have been utterly superceeded, and rely on the skills of craftspeople who are long retired.
"Notably, the plans are only part of the build - the plans are predicated on a whole supply ecosystem that no longer exists, ways of making things (eg welded rocket motors) that have been utterly superceeded, and rely on the skills of craftspeople who are long retired."
Also, all those Nazis with slide rules are long dead.
(Mine's the one with Wernher von Braun's biography in the pocket.)
We don't have that technology any more.
The Apollo program used the Saturn V lifter which had a cargo capability of 120 tons. That rocket is not available any more.
As you can see here, nothing currently available has that capacity. One or two lifters are slated to have comparable or better abilities, but they are in the planning stages and not available before 2020 in any case.
It's not that we don't have the technology. We certainly do. And better.
We don't have the ability.
We don't have the people that took responsibility and did stuff to the best of their ability. In Apollo, the techs said "by god, it's not going to be MY bolts that kill an astronaut" and nobody cares today.
We don't have management that proactively looks for problems and assigns people and resources to solve them ahead of time. In Apollo, they did spacecraft assembly flows until they ironed out the bugs. In Apollo, they had two engines from two companies compete to be the critical LM descent engine. NASA doesn't have that kind of money any more.
We don't have people that are proud of the work they do. In Apollo, you had companies paying money to advertise they were part of Apollo, no matter what tiny piece of chintz they were building. Shoot, I'm sure people would be embarrassed to admit they're on SLS.
There's been so many NASA projects shitcanned just as they were starting to accomplish things that people no longer assume their project is real. I know several of the SLS folks, and they're just mostly marking time. They're assuming it'll be canceled like FASTRAC, X-33, X-34, Constellation, and a TON of others.
Those that are optimistic enough to think it'll fly, figure it'll only happen once, like Ares 1-X. It won't fly twice, and it won't fly with crew. And those are the OPTIMISTIC ones.
Actually, since the original Apollo project was run as a military-style, highly compartmentalized one, the contractors who developed the tech were under certain legal obligations.
As was covered in the now-defunct Omni magazine back in the 90s, after 25 years in storage, the documentation on How To Go To The Moon was ... destroyed. Presumably to prevent it falling into enemy hands. Keeping such documents carried and still carries heavy penalties.
So as was pointed out in the Omni article, if we wanted to go back to the moon we'd have to do huge chunks of the R&D over again, all because no-one in power thought it worthwhile to archive the records somewhere centrally.
Now it is true that there have been huge leaps in materials science since Apollo, but a quick trawl through the NASA histories shows that we currently still hold our breath when firing unmanned rockets to the ISS in low earth orbit (the irony of having the Roosies take up our astronauts in a vehicle older than the decommissioned space shuttle must be making JFK and Nixon spin in their graves).
Lofting a booster capable of ramming a payload into a seriously businesslike trans-lunar injection is probably beyond our power right now. Hell, the one we used back in the day was barely fit for purpose. The wonder is that more people weren't lost riding it into the sky.
The truth is that for the average tax payer space is boring. No-one has ever explained why it is important in terms Joe Public can relate to. And for all the blabber coming from the White House in the last twenty years, not one dollar has been sent to fund the pie-in-the-sky Mars Shot. Not "Mars, Ho!" GWB, Not "Mars or Bust" BO, and certainly not "Mars - I could use a candy bar right now!" OPOTUS.
....A NASA that can get 5% of the USG entire budget to solve this problem.
...An Administrator who was as effective a political operator as James Webb. IE a political insider, not a NASA insider.
..As effective an overall project manager (with the breadth of understanding and the necessary authority to trade things off against each other) of a Von Braun.
And the odds on bet is none of those losses is going to be replaced anytime soon.
The problem is that the technology you speak of no longer exists. And the people who developed it are long retired, if not as dead and buried as the program.
Too many of the schematics and engineers drawings are missing for us to even attempt a new component for old substitution. And even if we had them, trying would almost certainly run into component saving shortcuts that relied on highly specific characteristics of those components. You'd spend as much time trying to figure out why they did something, as sorting out what it was they actually did.
A VERY good question with a simple answer:
Apollo didn't work and never went beyond LEO. It's debatable they got to LEO, all the highly accurate splashdowns were the CM being pushed out of the back of a plane.
They will never get to the moon, they will always stall, remember Orion started in 2003 so they've been at it 14 years now and look what they have been developing in that time: An American Soyuz, but not even ready for a man to use it. Apollo vs Orion is the difference between fiction and reality,
No development on any type of craft to travel to the moon or land on it: at all.
If you watch the Orion videos you'll see why too: Too much radiation.
They will never build a lunar lander and Mars is just a cover for their attempts to combat the radiation, they will never take off for mars. Also a big rocket is not the answer, even back in 1957 Von Braun knew that which is why he proposed a space station and assembling rockets in orbit for the moon and mars.
OK, any bets on whether Robert M. Lightfoot Jr. makes it to the full NASA administrator position, or will be replaced with somebody who can listen to his master's voice a bit better?
No more space roombas.
Humans, multiple, in a proper Moonbase. No landing two people in a machine made of chicken wire and Cadbury's Old Jamaica tinfoil and claiming that as a moonbase. No sheds that are occupied for two weeks and abandoned in place. Proper domes and landing pads for the Eagle transports.
Keep the robotics where they belong: Realdoll fembots.
Hang on there...
...I'm no fan at all of the Orange One. But at the end of the days he's the head of the executive branch and therefore boss of the guys saying that our manned space program cannot be manned... because tens of billions of dollars pissed down the drain hasn't been enough. WTF over? Doesn't matter if you are the Orange One, Black One, or Cuckholded One... You have the right to be pissed. If I'm in the executive position ... I'd definitely start shitchanning every man, woman, and child walking into NASA HQ until I cull down to where I find either a capable cadre or a building I can close. As a taxpayer I'm not amused.
But this is only a symptom of the problem. The real problem is that it's not obvious why we need a manned space program in the first place.
Am I happy the space program is just some sort of PR program for the administration? Heck no. But at the end of the day that's all a manned program is good for. If you really want science and exploration, double down on your robotic program. Seriously, other than political grandstanding what does manned spaceflight do for me? Great scientific discoveries and advances in tech? Please.
Human water bags are so delicate we must be cocooned is a perfect little atmosphere of just the right O2 partial pressure... just enough H2O to keep the lungs hydrated... we don't like radiation... built-in sensors are painfully narrowband... low operational duty cycle... bizzare failure mechanisms. If I'm in space interacting with a deadly environment through remote manipulation, sensors, and multiple layers of pressure suit, how is that different from doing the same back in my lab on earth 'experiencing' space through a highly capable robot.? A robot that never sleeps, eats, poops, or has any needs at all beyond power and propellant... Am I any "closer" somehow so that my feeble sensors can somehow achieve magnificent insights? As an astronaut... is my training so amazingly comprehensive and vital that there is no way discoveries are going to happen unless my and my beloved todger are there IN PERSON? That's taking fighter pilot syndrome to unhealthy levels. Even for a pilot.
The only difference between telepresence and what id call 'local telepresence' is tens of $B and "being weightless ". And I know a couple of good psychopharmacologists who can get you the weightless effect in a very economical manner right freakin' here...
-BC
"... changing the EM-1 mission, planned as an uncrewed jaunt into cislunar space between Earth and Luna, to instead carry human cargo around the moon."
So they wanted to change it from cislunar to translunar? I thought the Trump administration was very much against that sort of thing.
It may be less expensive than building an impenetrable wall around it... and maybe you can also ask Canada, Mexico and other countries to contribute under the pretense of science and exploration...
Also, importing foreign goods and workers will be much, much more expensive, and while India and China has a space program, I guess they won't invest that much (although, if the their population keeps on increasing, sending some into space may be the only solution).
Atmosphere is already made of CO2, thereby adding more is not really an issue, actually it could improve the planet surface temperature. You won't find dinosaurs and other evidences the planet is much older than 6000 years or so, satisfying creationists as well. Alternative facts about rocks age can be easily created.
And the president hairs will match very well with the planet itself. Maybe only Palin & friends may be upset because of the lack of local fauna to shoot at, but I'm sure they'll found a solution. After all, criminals would use precious oxygen and water....
A win-win situation, I'd say...
Elon, hallowed be his name, grew weary of USA and NASA's continual do nothing a while ago. Once he gets his dragon operating "anyone" will be able to go to the Moon, and hopefully Mars. It'll simply be a matter of stumping up the cash (and I hear he's already selling tickets to the Moon).
Upvote for Werner Von Braun's build em in space, its the way, however that would take Elon & Jeff co-operating and I cant see it happening.