NASA Exploration Roadmap: A return to the Moon’s surface documented

[Ben the Space Brit]

Thanks again guys, and John - I can imagine you'd come up with a 50,000 worder

Meanwhile, General Bolden actually did acknowledge the moon potential at last:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28395.msg874982#msg874982

It's good to see NASA at least acknowledge different points of view.  Rigid adherence to orthodoxy isn't really appropriate in a situation like this, especially with the objectives still quite vague (which NEA?).

[Robotbeat]

Thanks again guys, and John - I can imagine you'd come up with a 50,000 worder

Meanwhile, General Bolden actually did acknowledge the moon potential at last:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28395.msg874982#msg874982

It's good to see NASA at least acknowledge different points of view.  Rigid adherence to orthodoxy isn't really appropriate in a situation like this, especially with the objectives still quite vague (which NEA?).

The lunar option has always been shown in flexible path roadmaps.

When he gave his famous speech, did JFK know exactly where on the Moon the landing site would be? Given the scales, etc, different lunar landing sites are analogous to different NEAs, and I suspect anyone who makes too big of a deal about rigidly defining which NEA probably is trying to prove a point (and probably isn't interested in NEAs, either).

[Ben the Space Brit]

Thanks again guys, and John - I can imagine you'd come up with a 50,000 worder

Meanwhile, General Bolden actually did acknowledge the moon potential at last:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28395.msg874982#msg874982

It's good to see NASA at least acknowledge different points of view.  Rigid adherence to orthodoxy isn't really appropriate in a situation like this, especially with the objectives still quite vague (which NEA?).

The lunar option has always been shown in flexible path roadmaps.

When he gave his famous speech, did JFK know exactly where on the Moon the landing site would be? Given the scales, etc, different lunar landing sites are analogous to different NEAs, and I suspect anyone who makes too big of a deal about rigidly defining which NEA probably is trying to prove a point (and probably isn't interested in NEAs, either).

Oh, I'm interested in NEAs, I just think that, as time moves on, there seems to be less and less likelihood of finding a suitable candidate object, especially with sufficient lead-time to properly plan the mission.  BTW - The 'location on the Moon' anology doesn't work because the Moon is broadly the same distance in engineering terms irrespective of where you wish to land.  Different NEAs have massively different delta-v and other requirements.

[Robotbeat]

Thanks again guys, and John - I can imagine you'd come up with a 50,000 worder

Meanwhile, General Bolden actually did acknowledge the moon potential at last:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28395.msg874982#msg874982

It's good to see NASA at least acknowledge different points of view.  Rigid adherence to orthodoxy isn't really appropriate in a situation like this, especially with the objectives still quite vague (which NEA?).

The lunar option has always been shown in flexible path roadmaps.

When he gave his famous speech, did JFK know exactly where on the Moon the landing site would be? Given the scales, etc, different lunar landing sites are analogous to different NEAs, and I suspect anyone who makes too big of a deal about rigidly defining which NEA probably is trying to prove a point (and probably isn't interested in NEAs, either).

Oh, I'm interested in NEAs, I just think that, as time moves on, there seems to be less and less likelihood of finding a suitable candidate object, especially with sufficient lead-time to properly plan the mission.  BTW - The 'location on the Moon' anology doesn't work because the Moon is broadly the same distance in engineering terms irrespective of where you wish to land.  Different NEAs have massively different delta-v and other requirements.

...yet there are classes of NEAs with roughly similar requirements.

There are quite practical reasons why it makes sense not to prematurely fixate on a single NEA at a high level. You want to target a class of NEAs and use individual NEAs as mission-planning examples, which is being done. An SEP vehicle (possibly in combination with a CPS for initial boost) can then be developed so that you can visit several different NEAs. Why the heck would you fixate on a single NEA right now, especially since we haven't even mapped all of the NEA population of significance? It'd be like selecting the Apollo landing sites in 1961, before orbital surveys were even started (Lunar Orbiter 1 was launched only in 1966, just 3 years before Apollo 11). No, IMHO this argument is mostly just a tool to try to discredit NASA's change of direction, though I don't think that's what you're doing.

[CNYMike]

Thanks guys!

 I threw various lander graphics into the article, as they certainly haven't picked one. This is mission DRM baselining. "Altair Redux" was something mentioned by the exploration guys, but I couldn't add that to the article, as it wasn't written down in documentation.

As others have said, thanks for the great article; good to see the Moon is kinda sorta maybe back on the table. 

[Hernalt]

"Are Robotic Surveyors to an Asteroid Before a Human Mission Justified? Presented to the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) Working Group December 7, 2011"
http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Smith-Weisbin_12-7-11/Smith-Weisbin-12-7-11.pdf

Page 25
"Surveyors provide low cost insurance against sending a human mission only to find the asteroid unsuitable for landing.
– Difference in “costs” between surveyors and human mission so large that, “Why not send surveyors?” Cost of 2 surveyors = 1/390th of human mission cost."

Will the deferral cabal's NEO temporal boondoggles be protected like JW$T... There will be zero non-Leno public engagement during the return HSF NEO flight, and not much non-Leno treatment during the outbound. Osiris Rex expects to return 1kg for $1b, << HSF NEO. The NEEMO work in progress can be leveraged into any number of construction EVAs in the deep space of our own back yard, a place well in reach of bandaids, well in sight of nations who can derive the proximity of hard power. We can HSF Atlas V / Delta IV for << SLS and << two decades. Commercial won't step into a cislunar frontier until a legal and infrastructural cislunar perimeter is secured. The dollars burned getting a 5 day photo op at a 30 meter rock are not going to translate - correction, will be completely unintelligible - to the Tweeting Ghost Hunters Project Runway American Idol voting public. Sun Tzu says 'avoid what is strong, strike what is weak'. I don't buy the single lander-free rationale as justification for jumping two / three / four quanta in multiple comprehensive capabilities with diminishing abort methods. We lose the public, we lose the ability to exploit the crisis of an abort - there won't be a finest hour, cinematic option to fail, any Lovells championing STEM. The risk here is LOC after $10b(s) and 3+ months opportunity cost for the incalculable Holy Grail of a few kg sample for planetary science and the war stories of maneuvering around baleen microplanitessimals in the middle of nowhere at high delta v, when you cannot inhabit, maneuver, farm or mine them for many decades yet. Bold and Daring are not in doubt; NASA can do those. It is wiser to leverage the available Better bells and whistles, while we still have a non-trivial egg-yolk of hydrocarbon bonds and uranium atoms and cohesive First World government, towards retiring snags in modularity, repeatability, reusability, replaceability, redundancy, robustness, and (some kind of nascent) energy independence in a solid cislunar infrastructure. That's a frontier inside which the young mother commercial can safely manage new oeconomy.

[JohnFornaro]

Will the deferral cabal's NEO temporal boondoggles be protected like JW$T...

Excellent.

You sound like a graduate from my non-existent online school of sarcasm...

Now to read the rest of your post.

[JohnFornaro]

Holy moly Batman!

A magnum cum loud graduate at that.  Basically dead on, albeit my quibble that Hernalt's comments were not presented in scientific terms. 

It is as if King James were to have proposed, "We've been to Virginia and done that.  Now on to the Moon!"  I am reduced to responding in Latin:

Semper ubi sub ubi.

[clongton]

I am reduced to responding in Latin:

Semper ubi sub ubi.

Bonum dolor Charlie brunneis. Quid censes tum?
Nos qui sunt de mori pudor cum sordidum vestimentum te salutant!

[strangequark]

I am reduced to responding in Latin:

Semper ubi sub ubi.

Bonum dolor Charlie brunneis. Quid censes tum?
Nos qui sunt de mori pudor cum sordidum vestimentum te salutant!

Snoopy for NASA admin.

[JohnFornaro]

Bonum dolor, indeed!

[HappyMartian]

Russia and Japan aim for the Moon  By Eric Hand   May 22, 2012
At: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/05/russia-japan-aim-for-the-moon.html

"It was a rare confluence — the heads of the space agencies for Europe, Canada and Russia, along with senior representatives from the space agencies of India and Japan — all up on the dais together at a hotel in Washington DC, where they were on hand on 22 May to talk about the benefits of international collaboration at the Global Space Exploration Conference."

And, "Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said that Russia will pursue extensive, long-lived operations at the Moon’s surface. 'We’re not talking about repeating what mankind achieved 40 years ago,' Popovkin said, through a translator.  'We’re talking about establishing permanent bases.'"

And, "Similarly, JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, issued a clear pronouncement about targeting the Moon.  'We are looking at the Moon as our next target for human exploration,' said Yuichi Yamaura, an associate executive director at JAXA."


Russia Sees Moon Base As Logical Next Step   By Frank Morring, Jr.
At: http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/asd_05_23_2012_p05-01-460939.xml
"Mankind’s next objective in space exploration should be the establishment of a permanent international base on the Moon, in the “professional opinion” of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, instead of the near-Earth object (NEO) visit that is the stated goal of U.S. space policy."

And, "'It’s a new Moon,' Popovkin said of his agency’s concept during a panel appearance with other space agency chiefs. A long-term permanent base could take advantage of the water-ice at the lunar poles, continue exploring the lunar surface, and prepare for the next leap into the Solar System, he says."


Will Mitt Romney Fire Space Advisor Michael Griffin For Proposing Permanent Moon Base?  May 24, 2012
At: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=37170
"While speaking to Global Space Exploration Conference in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, Romney Space Advisor Michael Griffin renewed his calls for a 'permanent base on the moon.' Given Romney's promise to fire anyone who proposed putting a colony on the moon, will Romney keep his promise by firing Griffin?"


Roscosmos, JAXA Officials Advocate Lunar Exploration  By Dan Leone
At: http://www.spacenews.com/civil/120522-roscosmos-jaxa-officials-advocate-lunar-exploration.html
"NASA is setting its sights on an asteroid as the next big landing destination for astronaut explorers, but senior officials with two of the agency’s international space station (ISS) partners say the Moon should be the goal."


Where are humans going? Oh, I get it. Everywhere. Moon first, right? Build a Lunar Base, yes? Good. I'm glad that goal is finally clear...

 

[JohnFornaro]

"Will Mitt Romney Fire Space Advisor Michael Griffin ..."

Good call there, HM.

[HappyMartian]

"So even though the agency and most of the media seem to be blissfully unaware of it, NASA has been charged by Congress to develop space systems capable of conducting missions to and throughout cislunar space, including to the lunar surface.  Our international partners agree with this intended direction, convinced that the Moon is the appropriate next destination for humans in space."

And, "NASA’s reluctance to go in this direction, even while other nations are making plans, forfeits the opportunity for our international leadership in space.  Our space program has to demonstrate the feasibility of using lunar resources to secure us a place as participants and entrepreneurs in the vast economic future of space."

From: Everyone’s Gone To The Moon  By Paul D. Spudis June 5, 2012
At: http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/


Yep. Paul D. Spudis knows what is happening in the world.

Cheers!!!

Edited. 

[JohnFornaro]

From: Everyone’s Gone To The Moon  By Paul D. Spudis ...

What!  I thought traffic was a bit light this morning.  I musta missed the memo...