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Moon Exploration: Manned Missions & Moon Bases

Lockheed Martin proposes a mega-lunar lander: 62 tons and an elevator

"What we chose to do is jump to the end game."

by Eric Berger - Oct 3, 2018 10:15pm JST

With the Trump administration setting lunar exploration as the principal human spaceflight goal in the near-term, NASA has begun devising a plan for how best to meet that goal. As part of this development process, companies have begun pitching ideas to the space agency's human exploration program about how they could help (and why they should be funded).

Some companies have talked with NASA privately about their proposed spaceflight hardware, while others have been more publicly forthcoming. Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin is one of the latter—the company is already building the Orion spacecraft for NASA to carry its astronauts into deep space and says it can extend the utility of this blueprint down to the surface of the Moon.

The company's proposal for a "crewed lunar lander" is fairly ambitious. The 14-meter, single-stage spacecraft can carry up to four astronauts to the lunar surface, where they can stay for up to 14 days before the vehicle's engines blast it back into lunar orbit. This vehicle would be twice as tall as the Lunar Module used during the Apollo missions to the Moon nearly half a century ago. That vehicle carried two astronauts for short stays of no more than a few days.

"There is a lift elevator platform to get the crew down from the cabin to the surface," said Lockheed Martin principal space exploration architect Tim Cichan in an interview with Ars.​

More specifics follow:
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...s-a-super-sized-lunar-lander-for-four-humans/
 
It's not clear whether Lockheed's concept proposal matches the basic specifications NASA described. The concept is much bigger and heavier than NASA's suggested usage profile would require.

In any case this isn't simply a two-story version of the Apollo era Lunar Module (LM; LEM). That earlier craft was a disposable - and notably fragile - rig shaved down to minimum features and weight.
 
Coal said:
This seems more practical and sensible than heading to Mars.
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It's not an either / or proposition. NASA has made it pretty clear they believe an extensive program of moon visits will be necessary to prepare for any eventual manned Mars mission.
 
EnolaGaia said:
It's not an either / or proposition. NASA has made it pretty clear they believe an extensive program of moon visits will be necessary to prepare for any eventual manned Mars mission.
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I'd not noted that, but that does seem the blindingly obvious strategy.
 
How feasible are lunar colonies?

Growing up, my brother and I couldn’t get enough of Space: 1999, a mid-’70s series that hypnotized us with cool special effects, the crush-worthy Barbara Bain, who acted alongside her real-life husband Martin Landau, and its portrayal of the Moon as the main character in an action-packed 48-minute weekly episode. The premise of the show is bit far-fetched: an explosion at a moon base knocks the Moon out of Earth’s orbit and into a voyage to explore strange new worlds across the galaxy. The show was set a mere 15 years in the future.

It’s a reminder that in those post-Apollo years, we fully expected NASA or some international space force to be working on space bases in real life. More than four decades later, we’re still waiting for our Moonbase Alpha — though that’s not for a lack of interest. Ex-astronauts, entrepreneurial dreamers and short-lived sci-fi shows like Space: 1999 have kept alive the dream of a moon colony, and now, the confluence of technology, money, and political interest is pushing this idea out of the realm of sci-fi and closer to reality.

In my interviews with space scientists, industry officials, and futurists it appears that there’s an unofficial blueprint that is slowly shaping up for moon colonization. First, private space companies find ways to reduce the cost of launch. Right now, SpaceX says that it costs $62 million every time its Falcon 9 rocket is launched, while the more powerful Falcon Heavy costs an estimated $90 million per launch. Satellite companies and others wanting to get something in orbit get a discount for bulk purchases. SpaceX is bringing food and supplies to the International Space Station, it hopes to ferry U.S. astronauts by sometime in late 2019.

Then come fly-arounds and orbiting platforms. The Chinese plan to launch an Earth-orbiting space station by 2020, while NASA has asked private companies to develop a “Lunar Orbital Platform — Gateway” near the Moon by 2022. This could be NASA’s launch pad of sorts for future expeditions and settlements on both the Moon and Mars.

At the same time, private firms like Moon Express, as well as China, India and the European Space Agency are moving forward with robotic landers and rovers. The final step, supporters say, will be a permanent human presence on the surface. Maybe a government base first, followed by a private Moon resort.

https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/ar...e-or-the-fantasy-of-billionaires-e2d5cace7249
 
Taking the piss - how to build moon bases.

Future astronauts could make lunar buildings out of moon dust and pee.

That’s the suggestion of chemist Anna-Lena Kjøniksen and her colleagues, who made a cement from urea — a major component of urine — and faux lunar soil.

When humans take up long-term residence on other planets or the moon, they will need to pack light, in part because shipping materials from Earth is expensive. NASA has estimated that every pound of material sent into orbit around the Earth costs around $10,000.

Tapping into local resources could keep costs down. Researchers have suggested using lunar soil to make concrete or cement to 3-D print dwellings for astronauts (SN: 2/21/13). But most cement recipes require a lot of water, which is scarce on the moon and awfully heavy to blast into space (SN: 4/15/19).

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/astronauts-lunar-exploration-cement-urine-urea-3d-printing
 
We mentioned elsewhere didn't we that space travel is dependant on the recycling of urine etc to conserve water, so if astronauts use their pee to make cement.....what are they then expected to drink? Unless they find a reliable water source on the moon.
 
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Trevp666 said:
We mentioned elsewhere didn't we that space travel is dependant on the recycling of urine etc to conserve water, so if astronauts use their pee to make cement.....what are they then expected to drink? Unless they find a reliable water source on the moon.
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There is apparently some ice on the moon.
 
Space Force On The Moon.

In December 2019, Donald Trump signed the U.S. Space Force Act, peeling off an orbit-and-beyond branch of the military, much as the Air Force grew out of the Army in the 1940s.

For now, the Space Force still resides within the Air Force, but nearly 90 of this year’s approximately 1000 Air Force Academy graduates became the first officers commissioned straight into the new organization. Some of those graduates were members of an academy group called the Institute for Applied Space Policy and Strategy (IASPS). Featuring weekly speakers and formalized research projects the students hope to turn into peer-reviewed papers, the group aims to game out the policies and philosophies that could guide military space activity when they are old enough to be in charge. In particular, these young cadets are interested in whether the Space Force might someday have a military presence on the Moon, and how it might work with civilians.

That activity could put the Space Force in conflict with scientists, who typically view the cosmos as a peaceful place for inquiry. But part of the club’s mission is speculating about that interplay—between the military and civilian scientists, civil space agencies, and private companies. Cadet J. P. Byrne, who will graduate in 2021, is the group’s current president. He chatted with ScienceInsider about the institute’s work. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/us-air-force-cadets-study-idea-space-force-bases-moon
 
hunck said:
How would you accomplish this?
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NASA was considering ways to capture an asteroid into Earth orbit, and the same methods would work for a comet.
One possibility, albeit a slow one, is anchoring a solar sail.
Another is attaching a mass driver that can be aimed, using material from the comet itself.

Of course a comet would be off-gassing much more than an asteroid, which could counteract the attempts to steer it. An interesting challenge.
 
Life on the Moon: how long will you lsst?

Moonwalkers take heart—China’s Chang’e 4 lander has made the first detailed measurements of the intense radiation that blasts the lunar surface and found that it’s safe for human exploration. The results give researchers a better idea of how much protective shielding future crews will need.

Astronauts on the Apollo missions of the 1960s and ’70s carried dosimeters to measure their radiation exposure, but the devices captured total exposure from their entire journey—not merely their time on the Moon’s surface. Ever since, scientists have had to estimate the radiation doses of crews bounding around on the lunar surface “from extrapolation and modeling,” says physicist Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber of the University of Kiel, a co-author of the study. “We’ve never actually measured them exclusively on the Moon.”

But there is renewed interest in taking such measurements, with NASA’s Artemis program intending to land crews for long-term stays by 2024 and the China National Space Administration eying human missions sometime in the 2030s. The robotic Chang’e 4 made history last year when it touched down in Von Kármán crater on the Moon’s far side, bringing a suite of instruments along for the ride. ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...ly_2020-09-25&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=3498743
 
Heading back.

One of these astronauts may be the first woman on the moon
Eighteen U.S. astronauts have been chosen to train for the Artemis missions, which aim to return humans to the lunar surface.

NEARLY 50 YEARS have passed since we last landed on the moon, when the three-person crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 mission touched down near the edge of an ancient lava sea called Mare Serenitatis.

Now, the space agency is again bound for the lunar surface, revving up a program called Artemis that could send humans back to the moon within this decade. This time, though, it won’t be only men making the journey: NASA promises that the first woman to press her boots into the razor-sharp moondust will be on the inaugural Artemis flight to the surface.

Today, the agency finally revealed which of its 47 active astronauts have been assigned to Artemis, to train for humanity’s historic return to the moon.
“Our goal is to go to the moon sustainably, to learn how to live and work on another world,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a meeting of the National Space Council, announcing the names of the 18 astronauts selected for training. ...

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...stronauts-may-be-the-first-woman-on-the-moon/
 
Wanna free trip to the moon?
Japanese billionaire seeks eight people to fly to moon
Published5 hours ago
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Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has invited eight members of the public to join him for a trip around the moon on Elon Musk's SpaceX flight.
"I want people from all kinds of backgrounds to join," he said in a video via Twitter, where he also shared a link to application details.
He said he will pay for the entire journey, so those who come onboard will fly for free.
The mission, called dearMoon, is scheduled to fly in 2023.
Applicants need to meet two criteria: they should advance "whatever activity" they are in to "help other people and greater society in some way", and are "willing to support other crew members who share similar aspirations", he said.
"I have bought all the seats, so it will be a private ride," he added.
etc
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56261574
 
There's no such thing as a 'free' moon trip
 
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