Author Topic: ESA leading us back to the Moon  (Read 102548 times)

Offline igorek7

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #100 on: 01/11/2016 09:58 am »
EAC is participating in a session with DG @janwoerner and 11 other Centre's discussing the new Moon Village concept. https://twitter.com/ESA_EAC/status/686501109754650624

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #101 on: 02/16/2016 01:54 am »
Here's a video from ESA on some of their activities. They say 20 years to a Lunar mission.

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline woods170

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #102 on: 02/16/2016 09:02 am »
Here's a video from ESA on some of their activities. They say 20 years to a Lunar mission.
<snip>
(Renewed) manned missions to the moon are always 20 years into the future. Much like manned missions to Mars are always 20 - 40 years into the future.
« Last Edit: 02/16/2016 09:02 am by woods170 »

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #103 on: 02/17/2016 06:16 am »
Here's a video from ESA on some of their activities. They say 20 years to a Lunar mission.
<snip>
(Renewed) manned missions to the moon are always 20 years into the future. Much like manned missions to Mars are always 20 - 40 years into the future.

By refuelling Centaurs manned lunar trips may only be 15 years away.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #104 on: 02/29/2016 02:12 am »
Euronews on ESA's Moon landing "plan". At this stage, its probably more an idea than a plan, but its good to see leadership from ESA's Director General on this.

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline woods170

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #105 on: 02/29/2016 06:22 am »
Euronews on ESA's Moon landing "plan". At this stage, its probably more an idea than a plan, but its good to see leadership from ESA's Director General on this.


Multiple sources within ESA indicate that the support for moon village is (at best) lackluster. It is mainly the DG pushing this.
« Last Edit: 02/29/2016 06:22 am by woods170 »

Offline Patchouli

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #106 on: 03/03/2016 05:39 pm »

By refuelling Centaurs manned lunar trips may only be 15 years away.

With a fuel depot lunar trips become a lot easier.

As for needing new technology they could have done a moon base as far back as the late 1970s all that is lacking is the political will.
« Last Edit: 03/03/2016 05:40 pm by Patchouli »

Offline woods170

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #107 on: 03/04/2016 11:07 am »

By refuelling Centaurs manned lunar trips may only be 15 years away.

With a fuel depot lunar trips become a lot easier.

As for needing new technology they could have done a moon base as far back as the late 1970s all that is lacking is the political will.

Not quite. The money isn't there either. Even if there was sufficient political will there would still be no moonvillage, given the appalling financial situation of many of the ESA member states. Other international partners, such as the USA and Japan have similar problems. I won't even start about Russia.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #108 on: 03/23/2016 04:50 am »
Another ESA Moon Village video. Still with an annoying "could be 20 years before the technology will be ready" at the end.

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #109 on: 03/23/2016 10:47 am »
Another ESA Moon Village video. Still with an annoying "could be 20 years before the technology will be ready" at the end.

{snip}

Annoying but probably accurate. The official planning of the Orion spacecraft started in 2004, under the name Crew Exploration Vehicle. It is now 2016 and Orion still has not flown a person. Since they have to support full life support lunar buildings have a similar complexity.

Online redliox

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #110 on: 03/23/2016 08:52 pm »
Another ESA Moon Village video. Still with an annoying "could be 20 years before the technology will be ready" at the end.

{snip}

Annoying but probably accurate. The official planning of the Orion spacecraft started in 2004, under the name Crew Exploration Vehicle. It is now 2016 and Orion still has not flown a person. Since they have to support full life support lunar buildings have a similar complexity.

The idea has merit, it just needs funding.  The video is also right that there's interest in the Moon internationally.  NASA's priorities will likely be reshuffled again within a year, but even a conservative president might be persuaded in a joint operation with ESA.
"Let the trails lead where they may, I will follow."
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Offline fvandrog

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #111 on: 04/28/2016 08:28 am »
There is some new information on the ESA website with regards to their Lunar ideas. Jan Worner has a video of a presentation up on his blog:



In addition, they have launched a separate website. I have not had time to explore that in depth.

The Moon.

« Last Edit: 04/28/2016 08:31 am by fvandrog »

Offline robertinventor

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #112 on: 06/21/2016 01:55 pm »
I think the idea of the ESA is not to "go it alone" but to encourage an international "lunar village". So they would partner with Russia and with NASA and anyone else interested in taking part.

I think this ESA proposal has quite a decent chance of success. It's come at the right time, next year we get many robotic missions to the Moon with the lunar X prize and I think when they do cool things like exploring the lunar caves (astrobiotics / team Hakuto from Japan - the Hakuto team plan to lower a rover into the cave) and eventually the lunar ices too.

NASA and the US could have lead the return to the Moon but the current US administration is just not interested.

The ESA also has the advantage that they can co-operate with China which the US can't do. I think myself that it's best if China is involved in the lunar village rather than having its own base somewhere else on the Moon. And that also is a nice thing about the plan, that you can have different habitats there from different countries. Like the way the ISS has modules from Japan / US / Russia etc, but on the Moon can be separate habitats joined together. That way the Chinese for instance could be involved with a separately landed habitat.

ESA does collaborate with Russia, has done so all the way through the Ukraine problems. We have just sent the ExoMars demo lander and its trace gas orbiter to Mars using a Russian rocket. That was a partnership with the US originally, but the US pulled out of it. So I think future partnership with Russia is definitely possible for missions to the Moon. The US also if the new administration is interested in sending humans back to the Moon.

So, I think ESA does have a chance of pulling this off. Mainly because it is a space agency that other space agencies can collaborate with easily and because it has lots of connections with shared missions already (e.g. for China, ESA already has experiments that fly on Chinese spacecraft).


Offline gospacex

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #113 on: 06/21/2016 02:16 pm »
Like the way the ISS has modules from Japan / US / Russia etc, but on the Moon can be separate habitats joined together.

I would like to remind you that having ISS built from several countries' components is one of the reasons it was built so much behind schedule. Does not feel like a positive experience.

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #114 on: 06/21/2016 06:46 pm »
Like the way the ISS has modules from Japan / US / Russia etc, but on the Moon can be separate habitats joined together.

I would like to remind you that having ISS built from several countries' components is one of the reasons it was built so much behind schedule. Does not feel like a positive experience.
A village concept is different from international base. It could be individual self contained bases near to each other. They may share power and even transport systems, eg Chinese cargo flight carry a few essentials for ESA base.

This similar to how NZ and USA Antarctica bases operate, they share power and transport systems but are total independent.


Offline robertinventor

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #115 on: 06/21/2016 07:14 pm »
A village concept is different from international base. It could be individual self contained bases near to each other. They may share power and even transport systems, eg Chinese cargo flight carry a few essentials for ESA base.

This similar to how NZ and USA Antarctica bases operate, they share power and transport systems but are total independent.

Yes that's how I understand it also. May even have corridors between them. But each of the "houses" in the village is able to function independently of the others, unlike the ISS where basically it is one system, with multiple redundancy agreed, for the whole place. For instance you don't need to do any raising of orbit, no propulsion to move the entire village.

I suppose one question would be, do they have a shared environment control system, or a separate one for each habitat? I kind of assumed that it would be separate for each habitat, but it might be an interesting question to ask. Maybe some of the habs have a shared system, and others are separate? I expect it would be like that, some habitats more closely tied together and sharing more assets than others. And a fair number of assets in common with everyone.

For instance the idea for the ESA to use 3D printing - if someone has a 3D printing machine up there, using regolith as feedstock (or whatever), then it's useful for shielding for all the habitats and it would be no longer needed for the first habitat, once the first habitat is shielded, so I assume they would just continue to use it to 3D print all the other regolith shielding as it is needed as new habitats are added.

That's also an incentive for new partners to join the village rather than to build their habitats somewhere else, that they have access to already installed assets like 3D radiation shielding printers.
« Last Edit: 06/21/2016 07:17 pm by robertinventor »

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #116 on: 07/13/2016 07:49 pm »
It not very clear from this article but I'm guessing ESA is paying for a series of communication satellites to be placed in lunar orbit. This first step to opening up moon.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/07/13/surrey-satellite-goonhilly-call-lunar-orbit-payloads/#more-58846

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk


Offline robertinventor

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #117 on: 07/13/2016 09:40 pm »
Interesting, thanks! There's more about it here, a plan to send a fleet of lunar cubesats to Moon orbit every two years to help with communications back to Earth using a renovated system of radio dishes in Cornwall
Cube sats in lunar orbit to help communciations with landers on the surface.
Resurrected radio dish could guide GPS on the moon

Online oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #118 on: 11/11/2016 07:29 pm »
The Lunar village may have a another member/advocate (Trump administration).

http://spacenews.com/what-a-trump-administration-means-for-space/

Offline Oli

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Re: ESA leading us back to the Moon
« Reply #119 on: 11/13/2016 02:13 am »
The Lunar village may have a another member/advocate (Trump administration).

Reading that makes we wanna puke. Rather go it alone.

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