I'm dubious of a LLO station. The moon has a very lumpy gravity field, so you can't orbit too close without needing lots of station-keeping delta v. Likewise, if you raise the orbit high enough that the lunar gravity field is smooth, you get so far that perturbations from the Earth (and Sun) again add lots of station-keeping delta v. L1 and L2 also need station-keeping, but much lower amounts of delta v. Halo orbits around L4 and L5 (or circulating between them) are the only naturally stable orbits that are close to the Moon in delta v space.
And, "Galactic Cosmic Rays: Exposure to Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) may represent a show-stopper for human exploration in deep space [10]. The only known solution is to provide sufficient radiation shielding mass.(?) One of the potentially earliest uses of the returned asteroid material would be for radiation shielding against GCRs. Astronauts could cannibalize the asteroid for material to upgrade their deep space habitat with radiation shielding."From: Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility StudyAt: http://kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf
Since this private moon landing is allegedly planning just short forays onto the lunar surface, the last post seems to be irrelevant to the conversation.There is no requirement for more shielding from cosmic rays for the private mission than for the Apollo landings.
Quote from: Danderman on 11/27/2012 02:09 pmSince this private moon landing is allegedly planning just short forays onto the lunar surface, the last post seems to be irrelevant to the conversation.There is no requirement for more shielding from cosmic rays for the private mission than for the Apollo landings.Yes, we agree: the repeat of the flags and footprints mission of Apollo, or IOW, the private moon landing is similar to the Constellation Missions sets: go to the moon twice per year for 6 day lunar sorties with a crew of 6 and make no provisions to head Beyond a lunar orbit.So best wishes to the private moon landing, but please be prepared to justify how your landing would require any taxpayer dollars, e.g. helps meets NASA's exploration needs, if it neglects GCR protection.So I completely disagree that the post is irrelevant. But would clearly have no objections for the police to create a topic or move the posts to the correct location. how fair would it be to allow a post with misinformation to remain and no way to respond?
Quote from: muomega0 on 11/27/2012 02:27 pmQuote from: Danderman on 11/27/2012 02:09 pmSince this private moon landing is allegedly planning just short forays onto the lunar surface, the last post seems to be irrelevant to the conversation.There is no requirement for more shielding from cosmic rays for the private mission than for the Apollo landings.Yes, we agree: the repeat of the flags and footprints mission of Apollo, or IOW, the private moon landing is similar to the Constellation Missions sets: go to the moon twice per year for 6 day lunar sorties with a crew of 6 and make no provisions to head Beyond a lunar orbit.So best wishes to the private moon landing, but please be prepared to justify how your landing would require any taxpayer dollars, e.g. helps meets NASA's exploration needs, if it neglects GCR protection.So I completely disagree that the post is irrelevant. But would clearly have no objections for the police to create a topic or move the posts to the correct location. how fair would it be to allow a post with misinformation to remain and no way to respond?no, no, and noWe don't know ANYTHING about the details of this private moon landing. The statement about a short stay, flags and footprints, is without basis. Are there any statements from the involved parties to the effect that they would be "similar to Constellation missions"? No there are not.The only thing we DO know is that this thread is titled "Private Moon Landing". There is no evidence to support the contention that NASA money is involved. We also have no information on how they plan to deal with GCR. So yes, it IS irrelevant. Hypothesizing without evidence and criticizing those hypothesis is useless. Can we wait until we have some piece of information, instead of churning on conjectures? (I tried to get some new info but failed.)
From Chris' latest article:http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/11/exploration-alternatives-propellant-depots-commercial-lunar-base/The details make direct reference to the potential use of propellant depots and fuel transfer technology.Additional notes include a plan to park elements in lunar orbit, staging a small lunar lander that would transport two commercial astronauts to the surface for short stays.The architecture would then grow into the company’s long-term ambitions to establish a man-tended outpost using inflatable modules.
Here we go! NASAWatch with the find (they tweeted it)....6 Dec 2012: Golden Spike Company Debut 2:00 pm Bloomberg Room National Press Club Washington DC http://press.org/events/golden-spike-company-debut
National Press Club?!? Does that mean we can watch it on CSPAN?
http://goldenspikecompany.infoGoldenSpikeCompany website placeholder?