Posts Tagged ‘lunar exploration’
New Bill Directs NASA Back to the Moon By 2022, With Permanent Habitation In Mind
“The National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall plan to return to the Moon by 2022 and develop a sustained human presence on the Moon,” the bill says, in no uncertain terms. The goal is to promote exploration, commerce, science, and American “preeminence in space,” the bill says.
In fairness, the bill spells out some convincing reasons why NASA should boldly go where it went 42 years ago — chiefly as a stepping stone for the future exploration of Mars and other destinations.
Also, “space is the world's ultimate high ground, returning to the Moon and reinvigorating our human space flight program is a matter of national security.”
A moon base had been NASA’s goal since 2005, you may remember, after President Bush directed the agency to develop a new rocket and crew transportation system that could go back to the moon and eventually to Mars. President Obama ordered a review of these plans upon taking office. The Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee, also known as the Augustine commission after its chairman, Norman Augustine, determined NASA didn’t have nearly enough money to accomplish the goal. Obama’s new course for NASA initially ditched the entire Constellation program, including the Ares rocket, but was later tweaked to include funding for a heavy-lift launch vehicle of some kind.
The problem is, there’s no clear destination for that heavy-lift rocket, and even the commercial spaceflight companies developing new crew vehicles on NASA’s behalf aren’t sure where they would go. Many space exploration advocates insist that NASA needs a destination, not just a journey. Obama has dismissed a moon mission, saying “We’ve been there before,” but some still believe the moon is a viable option for just that reason. Plus, it has — although this fact is strangely absent from the new bill, sponsored by Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla.
Cosponsors include Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah; Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas; Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas; and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. All of the above represent districts with an interest in ongoing NASA space exploration, but Wolf’s support is interesting because he chairs the appropriations subcommittee that covers NASA activities. H.R. 1641 has been referred to the House Science, Space and Technology committee.
The bill basically follows Obama’s vision, loosely defined as exploring elsewhere in the solar system: “A sustained human presence on the Moon will allow astronauts and researchers the opportunity to leverage new technologies in addressing the challenges of sustaining life on another celestial body, lessons which are necessary and applicable as we explore further into our solar system, to Mars and beyond,” the bill reads.
It simply states that NASA funding should be aligned in accordance with this goal.
With members of both parties still hammering out a federal budget, additional spending to go back to the moon seems as likely as, well, a trip to the moon. But Posey, advocating for the bill earlier this month, said a clear mission for NASA is necessary.
"Without a resolute vision for our human spaceflight program, our program will flounder and ultimately perish," he published in Florida Today.
Should the moon be part of that vision? What do you think?
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Private Company Wants To Put a Robot on the Moon Next Year
Astrobotic Technology Inc., a spinoff of Carnegie Mellon University, announced its contract with SpaceX Sunday. The Falcon 9’s upper stage will slingshot Astrobotic’s spacecraft on a four-day trip to the moon. Astrobotic’s lander will enter lunar orbit, align itself and land autonomously, using guidance systems designed for driverless cars.
The rover will explore the moon for three months, operating continuously during the day and hibernating at night.
Astrobotic is one of 21 teams competing for the $30 million . A $20 million prize goes to the first team to land a rover on the moon by Dec. 31, 2015, drive it one-third of a mile and transmit HD video and images. Other funds are available for other lunar landing feats, like driving three miles or finding water. Astrobotic’s payload will search for water and the rover will narrate its adventure while streaming 3-D video of its trip, according to the company.
Terms of the launch contract were not disclosed, but says a trip on a Falcon 9 starts at $49.9 million and goes up to $56 million, depending on payload weight. The X Prize website notes that SpaceX has offered all contest participants a discount. Astrobotic is the first to secure a spot, a major advantage over the other competitors — Falcon 9s already have a .
The rocket, which has made two successful test flights, is the same one NASA is buying to launch cargo to the International Space Station after the space shuttles retire this summer. And last summer, announced that starting in 2015, it would use Falcon 9 rockets to launch its next-generation communications satellites.
The rocket won’t need any modifications to reach the moon, according to , which quotes an email from SpaceX founder Elon Musk. It is already capable of sending a payload like the Spirit and Opportunity rovers as far as Mars, he said.
Astrobotic’s payload doesn’t weigh very much, so there’s extra room on the Falcon 9 for another 240 pounds of cargo. The company is selling the room for $700,000 per pound, plus a $250,000-per-payoad fee for integration, communications and other support services, Discovery News says.
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Lockheed Martin Proposes Manned Mission to the Dark Side of the Moon
The mission, Lockheed says, will serve several purposes. Most immediately, it would allow astronauts to study, via unmanned robots, some lunar real estate that hasn’t been seen with human eyes since the Apollo missions. But its real function is to test out technologies and skills that will be necessary to make a manned trip to an asteroid, and then on to Mars.
The idea is to park an Orion space capsule at the L2 Lagrange point about 40,000 miles above the moon’s far side, where the combined gravity from the Earth and the moon would allow the spacecraft to essentially hover in one place in sync with the moon. From there, the astronauts would deploy and conduct remotely-operated surface science, collecting rock samples and exploring the South Pole-Aitken basin, one of the oldest craters in the solar system. From the L2 point, the capsule would continuously maintain line of sight with both the Earth and the far side of the moon.
But the mission would also serve as a test bed for everything from the Orion capsule to the astronauts themselves. The medium-duration missions would test the durability of both the crew and the vehicle over several one-month spans before attempting an asteroid mission, which would likely last six months to ensure both bodies and capsules could withstand prolonged doses to deep space radiation. It would also allow NASA and Lockheed to demonstrate the high-speed reentry necessary for return trips from deep space – speeds reaching up to 50 percent faster than re-entry from LEO.
Lastly, astronauts on an L2-Farside mission would travel 15 percent farther from Earth than the Apollo astronauts did and spend nearly three times longer out in the vacuum. Essentially, the L2-Farside missions would be stepping-stones to prove that human stamina and technological wherewithal are both where they need to be to take the next big step out into deep space.
Of course, Lockheed isn’t going anywhere by itself. To get to the Lagrange point without resorting to a complicated multi-rocket scheme, Lockheed needs NASA to supply a new heavy lift launch vehicle – something that the space agency is working on but doesn’t have on the shelf. It a new heavy lifter does materialize, Lockheed sees an L2-Farside mission feasible as early as 2016.
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ISS Could Serve As Base Camp For Future Moon Missions
Officials at NASA, the ESA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos have circulated letters discussing the possibility of an Apollo 8-style lunar orbit mission. “We need the courage of starting a new era,” Europe's director of human spaceflight, Simonetta Di Pippo, told BBC News.
The idea is to assemble a small spacecraft on-site at the ISS and use it to ferry a team of astronauts around the moon. The mission would resemble Apollo 8, the first mission to carry humans around another celestial body. The spacecraft would likely go straight back to Earth, rather than returning to the ISS.
President Obama is expected to sign this afternoon, which calls in part for continuing space station experiments through 2020. But beyond that, unless the station’s partner nations extend its life, the ISS will become a huge piece of space junk.
To avoid that fate, the five ISS partners — the US, Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada — are already mulling how to reuse or repurpose the orbiting outpost. One proposal calls for using Node 3, the cupola-equipped new room, as for a long-distance spaceflight. A moon mission is just one more possibility.
A new study will examine how the ISS could be used for a space-based moon shot, as well as which existing systems could be adapted for new goals. As the BBC notes, any new moon mission would need some kind of command module and a departure stage, something to propel the astronauts out of low-Earth orbit and toward the moon.
ISS-based moon missions are of course a long way from reality. But the fact that it’s been discussed, apparently at high levels, is a sign that spacefaring nations can still see beyond politics and policy to dream big.
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NASA Introducing “Moonbase Alpha”, a 3-D Game Set on the Moon
A meteor strikes, damaging solar arrays and life support systems, and as you watch the billowing dust cloud move ominously toward your lunar camp, you have to restore critical systems and oxygen flow. Starting July 6, a new NASA video game will let you save the day, in 3-D.
NASA is releasing a multi-player game called , wherein players assume the role of a moon exploration team member living in a lunar settlement.
Gamers will have to get used to running with a moon-bounce loping gait while wearing a bulky moon suit -- atypical for first-person video game missions. You can play alone or with a team.
The game includes VOIP chat, text chat, and pretty cool 3-D graphics. It's only supposed to take about 20 minutes.
NASA's Learning Technologies division built the game to prove the space agency can make cool video games that will inspire kids. Ultimately, the game could be used in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education programs.
And if Congress decides to end NASA's moon-return program, this might be the only way to have a lunar adventure.