"Dispense with precursor rover missions entirely, they really aren't needed. We've got good area maps and terrain elevation data from orbiters, including composition maps showing where various substances on the Moon are located. "No, ground truth is wayyyy better that orbital remote sensing for composition. Apart from anything else, orbital data are always an average of every grain in the area of regolith. You need to get APXS or LIBS on individual rocks to get useful composition. What we have now is only good enough to suggest very generally where interesting things might be, and much is completely unknown. So if you want to understand lunar resources you need to get on the surface. I would almost go so far as to say that orbiters have little purpose after LRO except for comm relay.
Something that would interest the science community is getting some astronomical resources (optical, and particularly radio telescopes) on the far side. These do not have to be manned full time once constructed, but do require some infrastructure work for power and for communications around the edge back to Earth.You could do some interesting things with long-baseline interferometry between a few widely spaced facilities back there for pure research, SETI, and deep space radar looking for rogue asteroids.
Quote from: Phil Stooke on 06/10/2016 04:55 pm"Dispense with precursor rover missions entirely, they really aren't needed. We've got good area maps and terrain elevation data from orbiters, including composition maps showing where various substances on the Moon are located. "No, ground truth is wayyyy better that orbital remote sensing for composition. Apart from anything else, orbital data are always an average of every grain in the area of regolith. You need to get APXS or LIBS on individual rocks to get useful composition. What we have now is only good enough to suggest very generally where interesting things might be, and much is completely unknown. So if you want to understand lunar resources you need to get on the surface. I would almost go so far as to say that orbiters have little purpose after LRO except for comm relay.Whatever resource is intended to be harvested from the Moon will require the processing of tons of regolith to accomplish. General maps of composition is perfectly fine to get to an area rich in whatever it is you want.
Quote from: ThereIWas3 on 06/10/2016 04:36 pmSomething that would interest the science community is getting some astronomical resources (optical, and particularly radio telescopes) on the far side. These do not have to be manned full time once constructed, but do require some infrastructure work for power and for communications around the edge back to Earth.You could do some interesting things with long-baseline interferometry between a few widely spaced facilities back there for pure research, SETI, and deep space radar looking for rogue asteroids.You need a lander first. Nearly everything on this thread so far doesn't happen without a lander. Build the lander first.
My opinion: Until SpaceX puts a lander on the lunar surface there will be no Americans on the moon. NASA is not going to do it - no money. Nobody else is going to do it - no money. Except the Chinese might do it. It's either going to be SpaceX or the Chinese. NASA's best days are behind them because of its funding profile. NASA is funded by people who don't give 2 craps about NASA. End of story.
But you need a lander. NASA won't be building one anytime in the foreseeable future.
Quote from: clongton on 06/12/2016 01:22 amMy opinion: Until SpaceX puts a lander on the lunar surface there will be no Americans on the moon. NASA is not going to do it - no money. Nobody else is going to do it - no money. Except the Chinese might do it. It's either going to be SpaceX or the Chinese. NASA's best days are behind them because of its funding profile. NASA is funded by people who don't give 2 craps about NASA. End of story.The internet meme that NASA's funding is small irks me more than just about any other. NASA's funding is equal to the Austrialian Defense budget..an entire military. It is roughly equal to what the rest of the world spends on their space agencies combined. If NASA fails, it has more to do with cancelling projects before they are able to succeed than budget. You get 0 babies if you have 100 women but terminate the pregnacies before 9 months because it is taking too long. You are suggesting that having more money to support more women will lead to any other result...but abortion because you actually didn't want it in the first place is the real problem.NASA also had a tendency to try to accomplish technologically un-accomplishable goals because in doing so it MIGHT develop new technology thus making the goals accomplishable. There are no technological hurdles with a lander. There really isn't a budget hurdle either. It would cost ~1 billion per year over ~8 years which is 5% of NASA's budget. It is almost in the noise.
When you say "NASA does X" what you really mean is "Congress directed NASA to do X".When you say "NASA wasted money on X and didn't complete it" what you really mean is "Congress directed wasteful spending and then didn't complete it"My view of NASA is that when they are allowed to do things, given good budgets, and aren't micromanaged to get the pork sliced up to the satisfaction of every influential congresscritter, they actually do things for reasonable cost in reasonable time. The problem is they are never allowed to.
Quote from: Lar on 06/13/2016 02:51 amWhen you say "NASA does X" what you really mean is "Congress directed NASA to do X".When you say "NASA wasted money on X and didn't complete it" what you really mean is "Congress directed wasteful spending and then didn't complete it"My view of NASA is that when they are allowed to do things, given good budgets, and aren't micromanaged to get the pork sliced up to the satisfaction of every influential congresscritter, they actually do things for reasonable cost in reasonable time. The problem is they are never allowed to.I would like to agree with you. I usually do. However I don't forget that NASA destroyed singlehandely all on their own a chance for Mars by coming up with the Battlestar Galactica concept, that was designed to feed all NASA centers as prime objective.
By December 1990, a study to estimate the project's cost determined that long-term expenditure would total approximately 450 billion dollars spread over 20 to 30 years.[3] The "90 Day Study" as it came to be known, evoked a hostile Congressional reaction towards SEI given that it would have required the largest single government expenditure since World War II.[4] Within a year, all funding requests for SEI had been denied.