Well, they still really really like to put Ares V as best for everything. And they still really really don't like fuel depots. But I'm waiting for people with far better understanding of issues than me to give their views.
Interesting, I genereally noticed a lot of people here and round the net have a similar mindset.Create a huge HHLV that dwarfs Saturn V, no problem. Use docking on a mission, way too complicated.Fuel depots, ISRU, thats crazy science fiction talk, now where was my 150 ton to LEO stick...
if it's so simple why did costs balloon out of sight
Not sure if you're talking about a crewed landing, but if you are I doubt you can make any lunar lander which will be significantly more efficient than the Apollo LM was.The completely dry Ascent Stage of the LM alone massed 2.2 mT. With propellant it was 4.5 mT.The dry Descent Stage was another 2.0 mT. With propellant it was over 10.1 mT.Minimum landed mass on the lunar surface was around 7.0 mT and that only enabled two people to land, perform a few hours of EVA, and stay for a maximum of 3 days. Improving on that, even a little, is not going to be easy.Ross.
I would like to hear some discussion of about what they are saying fuel depots and atlas-or-delta could achieve in the way of lunar missions. It seemed quite substantial to me, but I might be missing important details.When they say 4-6 tons can be landed instead of 1-2 tons without depots, does that mean of cargo? That sounds like quite a lot. I mean you could surely land a couple of people with abort/ascent capability with that mass. Plenty if you already have infrastructure in place.
I agree with the minimal landers idea... permanent infrastructure is landed, like habs or rovers (could be used as makeshift pressure vessels... equipment designed to last decades), ahead of time.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 05/09/2010 07:19 amI agree with the minimal landers idea... permanent infrastructure is landed, like habs or rovers (could be used as makeshift pressure vessels... equipment designed to last decades), ahead of time. Personally, I feel that this is a later-phase element. You don't want to pay for permanent infrastructure until you know where you want to put it. So a degree of 'excursion'-style survey will be required at once. ...
On this subject, I would be very interested in people's views of commercial lunar resupply. It strikes me as you only need a cargo lander to go one way - to the surface - It would be somewhat easier to build a cargo lander to put multi-tonne supply shipments within range of a lunar surface laboratory using 50t IMLEO commercial launchers (the EELV/ACES and Falcon-9/Raptor). It would certainly make it easier to deliver bulk supplies like LiHO canisters, LOX tanks, water and concentrated foodstuffs if you could divide it up over multiple providers rather than have to focus everything onto a small number of launches where one failure could lead to having to abandon the outpost.