Author Topic: FLO & Past Lunar Studies  (Read 4302 times)

Offline redliox

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FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« on: 03/03/2014 11:23 pm »
Prior to either SLS or Constellation, NASA had tried (the term used loosely) to reexamine a lunar return on previous occasions.  For the most part, it seems a combination of politics and lack of heavy lift doomed all these concepts.  While the use of SLS is clearly in the air, it's potential as a HLV is great, enough that it made reexamining 2 schemes from the '90s plausible:

FLO - First Lunar Outpost

http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/FLO.html
Looking like a mega-Altair with an Orion capsule, FLO was a large, single-vehicle direct lander.  Weighing approximately 94 tonnes it would be impossible to launch without a HLV, and even the Block I form of SLS would be unable to hoist it.  Later versions of SLS would be capable of launching such a lander, but obviously a second launch would be needed to provide a TLI booster.

Something about this scheme struck me as promising, provided the mass could be trimmed while retaining its straight-forward nature.  It doesn't take too much imagination to put an Orion in the capsule's place.  Otherwise the only ungainly thing about it would be the extra-long walk down the double ladders.


ELA - Early Lunar Access

http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/ELA.html
I recall seeing ELA written into an issue of Astronomy I still remember (though its design name wasn't named in the article).  It would have been a 2-launch architecture involving the space shuttle hoisting the capsule and lander while a Titan brought a Centaur to serve as the TLI stage.  The lander/capsule combo would have been 26 metric tons and conservatively designed to make use of the best launch vehicles of the time rather than developing a HLV.

Easily launchable by SLS or perhaps even a Falcon Heavy, but hard to imagine the assembly being easy.  I doubt an Orion capsule by itself would have the grace, once in orbit, to turn around and dock with the lander assembly.  On the other hand, perhaps Boeing's CTV-100 (or whatever it's name/number) would fit this well or even a Dragon capsule.


Sadly I imagine the same politics that aborted these designs 20 years ago will still haunt any plans for human flight.  However, I thought dredging these up might be refreshing, as there are always gems of usefulness in some plans.  We'll soon have a HLV and not just one but several capsules (Orion, CTS-100, Dragon, ect.) to utilize.  Much of the time I look at spacecraft and rockets not as projects, but legos that just need to be properly fit together.  Eventually something useful will get built!

As a final note, I did get this information from the National Space Society's website (along with Astronomy on a minor note) to credit sources.
« Last Edit: 03/03/2014 11:32 pm by redliox »
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Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« Reply #1 on: 03/04/2014 02:16 am »
If a spacecraft is too heavy to launch try sending the lander up dry.  The fuel could be launched on a second LV.

Offline redliox

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Re: FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« Reply #2 on: 03/04/2014 04:56 am »
If a spacecraft is too heavy to launch try sending the lander up dry.  The fuel could be launched on a second LV.

Possible, so long as it's economical.  I would doubt NASA could generate an orbital tug or even a fuel pod in it's cash-strapped state, but Progress, Cygnus, or Dragon could be used/modified for the job.

It would be simpler/cheaper to launch it as fully prepared as possible.  However a reusable lunar spacecraft could get refueled in LEO after its return trip.
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Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« Reply #3 on: 03/04/2014 07:17 am »
The Morpheus Lander may be aimed at the Moon but it could be modified for use as a reusable space tug.

Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« Reply #4 on: 03/04/2014 07:35 am »
The ELA design, while good, seemed to rely a bit on faith that modern composite materials could reduce the weight of the CM down to about 3 metric tons while still retaining the Apollo diameter of 4 meters. The Orion is deemed overweight partly because of it's relatively huge 5 meter diameter. Were it 4.5 meters in diameter and made largely of composites; maybe most of it's weight problems would vanish. ELA also was to use LOX/LH2 propulsion and maintain a single-stage configuration. Using hypergolics and a crasher stage might entail only having to use only a slightly more powerful EELV. Though it seems to me that a single-launch Falcon Heavy might get the ELA spacecraft to high lunar orbit where it could meet a pre-positioned crasher stage - placed there by another EELV - possibly an Atlas V-552. What payload could an Atlas V-552 place into high lunar orbit? About 8 metric tons? Enough for a small crasher stage with about 6 tons of propellant.

Keeping that crasher stage as a hypergolic fueled stage, but the ELA ship as LOX/LH2 - would it all close, delta-vee wise? My math isn't good enough to work this out.
« Last Edit: 03/04/2014 07:44 am by MATTBLAK »
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Offline gbaikie

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Re: FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« Reply #5 on: 03/09/2014 04:06 pm »
Prior to either SLS or Constellation, NASA had tried (the term used loosely) to reexamine a lunar return on previous occasions.  For the most part, it seems a combination of politics and lack of heavy lift doomed all these concepts.  While the use of SLS is clearly in the air, it's potential as a HLV is great, enough that it made reexamining 2 schemes from the '90s plausible:

FLO - First Lunar Outpost

http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/FLO.html
Looking like a mega-Altair with an Orion capsule, FLO was a large, single-vehicle direct lander.  Weighing approximately 94 tonnes it would be impossible to launch without a HLV, and even the Block I form of SLS would be unable to hoist it.  Later versions of SLS would be capable of launching such a lander, but obviously a second launch would be needed to provide a TLI booster.

Something about this scheme struck me as promising, provided the mass could be trimmed while retaining its straight-forward nature.  It doesn't take too much imagination to put an Orion in the capsule's place.  Otherwise the only ungainly thing about it would be the extra-long walk down the double ladders.

Just looking at drawing, it seems many stories high.
I think what is needed is robotic and manned exploration of the Moon to determine where and if there
could be minable lunar water.
Once the Moon has been explored in regards to whether there is minable water, then assessment can be
done to determine if the Moon can be profitably mined.
And it's not desirable for NASA to make such an assessment.
So NASA does the role of surveying the area- as would occur prior to any mining operation on Earth.
And a there is a separate process evaluates these findings and determine whether money should be invested to mine an area.
If don't do this, the process will be dominated by Groupthink.
You are not really exploring, you would be confirming your biases- as compared actual looking for areas which might be minable.

So the billions of dollars spent should be on exploration, rather than planning to mine the Moon, and looking for what you think is the best location. You should not have large program which all about mining the Moon when have not already explored the Moon.
You going have a hammer, looking for nails.
It's irrational. Non-scientific. And just straight crazy.

I don't see anything good about NASA mining the Moon. But if you believe in such things, at least Congress should have opportunity to examine the results of lunar exploration for minable water, and be able to make a decision based upon these results.
I think it would be much better to mine the moon commercially and if this successful, then congress and NASA could perhaps decide  buy what is mined and processed.
And if there is commercial lunar water mining, someplace near this source of water would a good location for a NASA or international base, which can have a wide range of lunar exploration and scientific studies that could be performed.

So sequence is NASA explores the Moon, and the results of this exploration is analyzed by various parties.
Meanwhile, NASA starts it's Mars manned program.
The purpose of Mars exploration would related to potential future human settlements on Mars.
An immediate priority in terms of Mars exploration should be to find Mars water which is easily available.
So not so much mining water but collecting it in some fashion. So location with 10% water concentration
may be minable on Moon, but is not what you looking for on Mars.  As it's an assumption that 50% concentration of water is quite commonly available on Mars- so one would look for better locations which has available water for early NASA exploration of Mars- and for potential future human settlements.
You also want to develop technology to how best to live on Mars- how to construct large and cheap structures which have low radiation levels for living on Mars for 10 or more years.

So Moon is about commercial activity- such as mining water and making rocket fuel. Teleoperation from Earth will probably be strongly related with such activity.
But there will be people going to the Moon. Once there is rocket fuel on the Moon- people can go to the Moon at very low cost.
And they can in particular leave the Moon at low cost. So this could be people going to moon and could be staying about 6 months [or 2 weeks] rather than years.
But with Mars it takes months to get there, and spending months getting somewhere and staying
a couple weeks is impractical- in terms of a person's life, and in terms of simple economics.

And basically if you have lunar water mining this would be a critical element in terms of human settlement of Mars.
But not a critical element of Mars exploration. So if the long term purpose of exploring Mars is to
possibly have human settlements on Mars, exploring the Moon to determine if there is minable water,
is a step in this direction.
Now if you don't think NASA should spend it's resources exploring the Moon, it's plausible that after Mars exploration begins, someone will explore the Moon and someone might mine lunar water without NASA doing this exploration.
Due to NASA exploring Mars and thereby being a potential market.
But that seems backwards to me.
And I think *how* you fund Mars exploration would related to exploring the Moon.
Because:
I think NASA can design a low cost lunar exploration program. So by low cost I mean less than 40 billion dollar spend over about 10 years.
I don't believe it possible or desirable for NASA to have Mars program which is as cheap as this.
So Mars exploration is around +100 billion and more than couple decades.
So NASA should be able to get funding for Lunar program which designed to be 30 to 40 billion, and after
it successfully does this program [and it does not cost much more than 40 billion] than Congress can have
more faith that NASA could manage a much longer and more difficult Mars program.
So I don't see Lunar exploration is not "robbing" funding from Mars exploration, it's is enabling such funding.

Unless you have no faith in NASA ability to actually successfully do such a lunar program.
   
« Last Edit: 03/09/2014 04:35 pm by gbaikie »

Offline Archibald

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Re: FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« Reply #6 on: 03/09/2014 06:16 pm »
The ELA design, while good, seemed to rely a bit on faith that modern composite materials could reduce the weight of the CM down to about 3 metric tons while still retaining the Apollo diameter of 4 meters. The Orion is deemed overweight partly because of it's relatively huge 5 meter diameter. Were it 4.5 meters in diameter and made largely of composites; maybe most of it's weight problems would vanish. ELA also was to use LOX/LH2 propulsion and maintain a single-stage configuration. Using hypergolics and a crasher stage might entail only having to use only a slightly more powerful EELV. Though it seems to me that a single-launch Falcon Heavy might get the ELA spacecraft to high lunar orbit where it could meet a pre-positioned crasher stage - placed there by another EELV - possibly an Atlas V-552. What payload could an Atlas V-552 place into high lunar orbit? About 8 metric tons? Enough for a small crasher stage with about 6 tons of propellant.

Keeping that crasher stage as a hypergolic fueled stage, but the ELA ship as LOX/LH2 - would it all close, delta-vee wise? My math isn't good enough to work this out.

ELA relied on a Titan IVA and an Ariane 5, both with a payload of 22 tons to Earth orbit. And indeed the margins were too thin. Now throw in a pair of Falcon 9 Heavies, each with 53 mt, and things should go better.
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Re: FLO & Past Lunar Studies
« Reply #7 on: 03/09/2014 07:09 pm »
I think two key aspects of ELA are:
 - crew size limited to 2
 - EOR, with crew launching before the EDS

If you can accept both of those (and I believe NASA can accept neither) then you can have a plausible lunar surface program.
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