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Space Science

Dreams of the Moon 216

Posted by michael from the green-cheese dept.
Iron Sun writes "The Mars Institute has an interesting overview of past studies into sending people to the Moon, ranging from pre-Apollo plans by Werner von Braun to NASA studies just a few years old. Timely, given the continuing speculation as to whether the US is going to go back."
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Dreams of the Moon More

Dreams of the Moon

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  • Some of the early plans are a bit out there (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Iron Sun ( 227218 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:34PM (#7874884)

    My personal favourite is the One Way Manned Space Mission [marsinstitute.info] scheme from 1962 that would involve putting a man on the Moon and then launch supplies to him for the several years needed to develop a two-way retrieval system. All in the name of planting a flag first.

    So, hands up. Who would accept this mission if it was offered?

  • How about a really old one (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brahmastra ( 685988 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:38PM (#7874907)
    This [amazon.com] isn't technically a plan, but pretty entertaining and fascinating considering when it was written
  • I like this bit;

    "Early July 2001: A Space Shuttle delivers to the International Space Station (ISS) components for the reusable 15.6-ton Lunar Orbit Stage (LOS) vehicle - a 30-foot-diameter aerobrake in seven segments..."

    So they are going to use aerobraking to help the lunar descent? What kind of crack do they smoke at NASA? ;)
    oh maybe I just misunderstand, not being a rocket scientist...

    • Re:Aerobraking for the moon? (Score:4, Informative)

      by BabyDave ( 575083 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:56PM (#7875020)

      Reading through the rest of the article, it seems the aerobrake would be used at the end of the return journey, to get the LOS into a similar orbit to the ISS - i.e. in Earth's atmosphere.

      I suppose they could try using aerobraking to adjust the orbit around the Moon, but given the extremely low density of its atmosphere (someone more knowledgable can provide numbers ...), it's unlikely that it would have a noticeable effect.

  • Back to the Future... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by decipher_saint ( 72686 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:40PM (#7874918)
    I find it interesting that these old plans are being dusted off and re-evaluated. I remember seeing an article on Space about how NASA was going to scrap their "Space Plane" research in lieu of another Apollo style vehicle. I wonder how this makes today's spacecraft designers feel with the potential of being overridden with plans older than themselves...
    • The capsule concept was oringinally abandoned because it received bad ratings. Apparantely, the cheap, dependable capsule model didn't look like a spaceship.

      Spacelab wasn't a spaceship either. And it got ratings equivalent to DS9 when compared with the svelt swashbuckling Enterprise.

      So a plan was hatched to create a vehicle that LOOKED like a spaceship and seeingly WAS a spaceship. It was a space-station that looked like a plane which was REALLY expensive to launch and retrieve. It was VERY complicate
      • Speaking as somebody who was actively watching (and in a tiny way involved in) the space program in the early eighties, that, in fact, is just about what happened.
        It was actually partially a manifestation of a tendency that we, as fellow geeks, must watch out for. A belief spread and has never dispersed since within NASA that congresscritters are brainless scum and the public is a bunch of childish twits.

        Thereby all programs are designed to appeal to an audience for which they have contempt.

        Kinda as if
  • My late uncle, who I cannot name,
    left me an inheritance of $50Bn
    (yes, fifty billion USD) worth of
    diamonds which are unfortunately
    trapped in a space capsule on the
    surface of the moon. I am seeking
    investors who will help me recover
    this capsule, and in return for
    their investment I will be able to
    reward them richly. A trusted
    friend gave me your address and I
    hope you will be discrete with my
    message. The budget for a small
    one-man expedition to the Lunar
    Surface is approximately $30m, or
    $18m if a Chinese rocket is used.
    I am therefore inviting you to
    join in this unique opportunity
    with a guaranteed return of %1000
    on your investment, which can be
    as little as $1m. Yes, if you
    will provide me with just one
    million USD, I will on recovery
    of the lunar diamonds, repay you
    with TEN MILLION USD. We are
    also selling one excursion trip
    to the Moon, a round trip with
    unlimited stopovers, for the low
    low price of $12m.

    Yours sincerely,
    Abubakar_Ibrahim@yahoo.ng

  • Space Race (Score:3, Informative)

    by EpsCylonB ( 307640 ) <eps&epscylonb,com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:41PM (#7874923) Homepage
    Timely, given the continuing speculation as to whether the US is going to go back.

    Of course no one with the power to make it happen is thinking of going back to the moon. All the speculation is based on what the USA's reaction might be if the Chinese space program looks like it could credibly establish a permanent manned presence.

    So far a space race is only impetus that has pushed man to make those giant leaps. But is that a good thing ?.

    • Re:Space Race (Score:3, Informative)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 )
      Actually, many of the stories in the last few months have been about President Bush talking about going back.

      http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104800,00.ht ml
      http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/12/04/us.moon /
      http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/05 /co ntent_287740.htm
      http://science.slashdot.org/scie nce/03/12/04/03122 14.shtml?tid=134&tid=160
      http://www.nationalrevie w.com/comment/powell200312 030858.asp

    • Re:Space Race (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Zibblsnrt ( 125875 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:11PM (#7875926)
      IMO, damn near anything, short of scorching large chunks of the planet, that leads to a permenant human presence in space at any level that could even make attempts at being sustainable, is worth it.

      There are other baskets out there, and I want to see our eggs get spread out, dammit. This becomes doubly important as we start getting the potential ability to wreck this place enough that we'll need to spend millenia crawling back to the stars. We're not simply staring at eons of easy future that we can take our time with; this is probably more likely a dangerously narrow window of opportunity, and we need to take a chance while we still have a chance to take. We can worry about the (highly overrated, usually) cost later.

    • Another reason besides the Chinese ...

      http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_00 06 30.html

      Peace,
      Ex-MislTech

    • So far a space race is only impetus that has pushed man to make those giant leaps. But is that a good thing?

      Good or bad, it's the way life works. The only reason our distant ancestors even left the oceans was that some other organisms had left first, and we wanted to go eat them.

  • Nasa wants us all dead!
    Nasa sent up monkeys. Are they all accounted for?
    Nasa sent up robots. Where are they now?

    "We can defeat the monkeys. We can defeat the robots.
    BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME!!!"
    - Lewis Black
  • I'm waiting for this one [go.com]. Feasible compared to fusion and a nice alternative to earth pollution. Sim City 2000 anyone? And without the microwave-zapping incidents too.

  • Some things to think about... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grioghar ( 228683 ) <thegrio AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:48PM (#7874968) Homepage
    Let's imagine a hypothetical situation 50-100 years in the future. Will it be America that controls all access to the moon, and housing properties there.

    What WILL housing facilities be like on the moon once we're there? As human beings, we've always been very territorial with our property. Will there be a war between Americans and the American "colonists" that now inhabit the colonies of the Moon? Will they want sovereignty, do to the oppressive nature of the Americans? Doth history repeat itsself everytime we find new bits of land and opportunity to overtake?

    A little more morbid and twisted to think about; I'm guessing there would be some sort of master controls for the moon's life support, etc, that Mission Control would have down on the planet. Just shut off life support for 2 hours and choke the bastards, or what? Also, nukes wouldn't be so much an issue to us, as it wouldn't be on the planet. It'd also make one hell of a light show.

    Suddenly I think of The Time Machine. Hmmmmm...

    • Re:Some things to think about... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:55PM (#7875013)
      If you haven't, read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (by Robert Heinlein) for a war between a lunar colony and Earth story...
    • Ignoring the American targeting of your post, they're fair points you've raised. What happens to space colonists as far as sovereignty goes? Will it be ther same old shit, someone gets there first then someone bigger comes along and has a small war followed by decades of bickering and restitution, or will individuals and countries be replaced by corporations with the wars fought in courtrooms? Or will Lunites think "Fuck It" and just get on with the business of living together, and turn their backs on Earth
      • Very simple actually. At least as far as MOON colonists go. They can want sovereignty all they like. As long as they need you to keep sending them water, they'll have to do with whatever it is you tell them to do. AFAIK, they haven't discovered water on the moon yet (though IIRC there might be some on the poles). Even then, I doubt they'll reach anything that even reminds of self-sufficiency anywhere in the foreseeable future. Think food, clothing, raw material such as plastics, rubber, silicon and metals,
        • Well, first of all, MIAHM assumes generations of moon presence by the time of the revolt, by which time they're pretty far along in self-sufficiency.

          Secondly, Check out the off-the grid folks, stereolithography, and the friggin Society for Creative Anachronism get-togethers and you'll see that modern techies are real damn good these days at building industrial infrastructure real fast.
          Chips, for now, are a bitch. But even there a deep reserve of Transmeta-style gear would give some solid breathing room.
          A
    • In the Heinlein book someone else mentioned (requred reading on the subject!), the colonists could outweaponize the arrogant earthlings by simply throwing huge rocks at their cities. If the rock is big enough, it is more destructive than any bomb. And conversely, nuclear bombs are less efficient in a vacuum.

      The ultimate controls of lunar life support on earth would have to be on the moon, so they could be serviced when broken.

  • The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the la

  • Probably (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @04:51PM (#7874990)
    Can't go back to the moon. Nobody can make a "business case" for it. The skeptics and cynics will whine "what do we need THAT for?" and since nobody can demonstrate a 20% cash ROI in the latest version of Excel, complete with pie charts and a "whoosh" sound in PowerPoint, it won't happen.

    In other words, nobody has written an elevator pitch.

    Hope and progress are quaint notions which have no place amongst the cubicles. Now get back to work. Rent is due.

    • Re:Probably (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 )
      There is a business case for it.

      Northrop Grumman have a stake in it, with Grumman's prior experiance in building the Command Module.

      Lockheed-Martin have a stake in it, with Lockheed's prior experiance in building the Landing Module

      Lockheed and Boeing both build rockets to get stuff to LEO and Lunar Orbit, Alliant Techsystems builds Solid Rocket Boosters...

      So the "business case" for it is getting jobs to enough States so Senators get behind it. A quick list of states that would make out on it are - Color
    • If there isn't a profit in it, it is not worth doing. Profit does not necessarily mean a fiscal profit -- but some worth to someone.

      If there was value in it, the private market would accomplish said goal. With excessive government regulations, restrictions, and other negative aspects, no one really has the ability to overcome those costs.

      Let's be real -- why do you want us to go to the moon? Just to clap ourselves on the back and say we did it? What a waste of my money. I can do so much more for myse

      • Re:Probably (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cubicledrone ( 681598 )
        If there was value in it, the private market would accomplish said goal.

        So the Apollo 11 landing was valueless?

        Let's be real -- why do you want us to go to the moon? Just to clap ourselves on the back and say we did it?

        The personal computer
        The microwave oven
        Satellite communications
        Food preservation
        Advanced fabrics
        Electronics miniaturization
        Advanced power storage technology
        Advanced materials composites
        Medical device monitoring technology

        All accomplished almost 40 years ago. The list goes on for seve
        • I'm waiting to see nuclear powered people.

          Seriously, install a little nuclear powered CO2 scrubber/regenerator in the abdomen somewhere and dump the carbon into the small intestine or somewhere (or reprocess into glucose or something useful). Imagine how much easier it would be if we didnt' have to send along all that oxygen and food.

          Make it really sophisticated and you could eliminate much of the ingestion/excretion part of the cycle and drasticly reduce or eliminate lung capacity. If you could figure

    • Can't go back to the moon. Nobody can make a "business case" for it... Hope and progress are quaint notions which have no place amongst the cubicles.

      With all due respect, I would be interested in hearing examples of historical undertakings on this scale (large numbers of people, measurable pieces of the national income involved, long-term time table) that were done on the basis of hope and progress, since I think they are few and far between. The Portuguese explorations in navigating around Africa we

    • H3 is the reason to go back to the moon .

      http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_00 06 30.html

      Peace,
      Ex-MislTech
    • Hilton. On. Luna.

      (and I'm not talking about Paris Hilton, either - altho that might be interesting as well.)


      • > (and I'm not talking about Paris Hilton, either - altho that might be interesting as well.)

        As with the internet, so with space exploration: it's probably zero-G porn that will first make it a profitable venture.

    • Any marketroid worth his salt would be able to easily make a set of slides that "prove" that going back to the moon will result in higher stock prices, bigger margins, lower TCO, and free moon-babes for all major investors.

      Don't believe it? Subscribe to one of the trade rags and read the ads.
  • When are we going to learn that these tax dollars are not being spent wisely [fff.org]? The private market, if left uninhibited by tariffs, regulations, and restrictions, could do a better job [fff.org] of getting us to the moon. NASA is just a government stamping agency that shovels money to the protected few -- mercantilism at its "finest."

    I'd like to see other reasons [fff.org] to get into space. Scientific altruism is not in my pocketbook, so I'm sick of my dollars being forced from me through coercion and wasted on NASA [lewrockwell.com].
    • "The private market, if left uninhibited by tariffs, regulations, and restrictions, could do a better job of getting us to the moon."

      Nothing is preventing a private business from doing this except for the massive up front costs involved. It is apparent the no company has yet been able to convince enough investors of a return on investment to front the cash needed to make it happen.

      However a few private companies are trying to do the much smaller step of edge of space travel and that is because the costs a
      • The "norm" definition meaning how Marxists and Keynesian economics tell it? I'd rather go with how mercantilism has always been defined before socialists changed it: the use of government to subsidize their friends to perform projects that others are restricted form performing.

        As for direct returns, what is the return that NASA brings to the table? Why do you want to take money from me by coercion and spend it on something that has no real return of any kind, other than false patriotism?

        As for how a few
      • Nothing is preventing a private business from doing this except for the massive up front costs involved.
        Not true at all.

        As the X-Prize competitors have been documenting step by appalling step, our oh-so-helpful goverment has strewn a vast and willfully undocumented collection of regulations, structures, and plain old misinformation meant to keep space travel in the hands of the, yep, it's that thing again, military-industrial complex of major contractors and government departments.
        Ever since they shut d

    • > When are we going to learn that these tax dollars are not being spent wisely? The private market, if left uninhibited by tariffs, regulations, and restrictions, could do a better job of getting us to the moon.

      Or would it just give us another expensive dot-com style bust?

      People attribute the most amazing powers to the private market, without any justification that I can see. (I suppose having worked for a few private companies and seeing how the sausage is made has made me rather cynical about their

  • Destination Moon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dnahelix ( 598670 ) <slashdotispieceofshit@shithome.com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @05:10PM (#7875093)
    The movie Destination Moon [imdb.com] was released in 1950, before anything on the Mars Institute's list, and tried to accurately show what a trip to the moon would be like. It is based on a novel by Heinlein, and he was also the technical director of the movie. Not a great movie, but very interesting since it was made 20 years before we actually went to the moon.

  • One missing... Space Elevator? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sailracer6 ( 262434 ) * on Sunday January 04, 2004 @05:15PM (#7875118) Journal
    Curious that none of these previous plans to reach the Moon mention utilizing a space elevator for most of the journey to orbit.

    I suppose that this demonstrates one of the more fundamental problems with most proposals to go to the Moon: they clearly aren't sustainable, at least with today's prices for rocket propulsion. One of the earliest draws for moneymaking on the Moon will clearly be tourism, which cannot flourish at current launch costs.

    On the other hand, a space elevator would make it not only very possible to go back to the Moon cheaply, but also just about anywhere else in the Solar System!

    As many other comments have pointed out, there is little immediate financial impetus to go back to the Moon. If NASA were to permanently ground the Shuttle fleet, and suspend their manned spaceflight program, would the money they would save be enough to accelerate the development of space elevators to the point of useability?
    • I yearn for the days when we as a people were excited about discovery for Discovery's Sake. Sigh.

      Every time I see "2001: A Space Odyssey", I get depressed. We won't have what seemed reasonable in 1968 for 2001 until the year 3000, at this rate.
    • There is often mention of the expense of the moon missions, but the truth is they cost hardly anything - less than a fraction of a percent of the gross national product of the USA at the time.

      The USA could easily fund new moon missions and mars missions, using a fraction of the current defense budget.
    • No, the money saved would not be enough to accelerate the development to the point of usability, simply because the things that we are missing to develop a working evelator are things that we know are theoretically possible to produce, but never have in a sustainable way. So you are basically looking at throwing more money toward researching production techniques, and because of that you cannot say that the extra money will be the impetus that provides a breakthrough next year, or the year after. Breakthr
    • The space elevator can only ever get things to geosynchronous orbit, which would help the moon shot here. However, for other things like the space station or any low-earth orbit stuff, the space elevator wouldn't be that helpful. Although it could take the stuff up to geosynchronous orbit (gaining angular velocity as it climbs) and then drop from that orbit to a lower orbit. The fun thing about a space elevator is if you jumped out at 300 miles above the earth, you'd fall straight down to earth because y

  • Nuke it! (Score:3, Informative)

    by jon787 ( 512497 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @05:19PM (#7875139) Homepage Journal
    My favorite plan [space.com]

    audio discussion of the project [199.34.53.66]

  • Space exploration is in a bad way... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by soluzar22 ( 219097 ) * <soluzar@hotmail.com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @05:31PM (#7875184)

    ...and this is a very bad thing. Yes. For YOU. For me also. And for our children, those of us who have, or intend to have them.


    Unless one of the worlds space programs starts to show some genuine progress and stop fsck-ing around, the governments of the world are going to pull the plug. Why should they not? Expensive, largeley fruitless and frought with schoolboy errors in calculation and execution. The fate of space programs around the world currently hangs in the balance, in the aftermath of the latest in a long series of these unforgivable multi-billion dollar errors.


    I have been a geek, a nerd, a propellerhead, call me what you will, for most of my life. My views on many things have developed in accordance with this. As a child, and as an adult I have read the novels of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others, as I am sure that most of you will have. As the vast majority of us also have, I have been exposed to successive variants of Star Trek, and Babylon 5. These fictitious sagas, and many others have shaped my mind through the years, and they have instilled a belief that to go out and visit the stars, and to interact, whether peacefully or otherwise, with those who may live on distant planets is nothing less than the manifest destiny of humankind. These stories could be described as cheesy, corny, cliched melodramas, and it would not be untrue, but they are also an expression of their writers beliefs in the nobility of such endeavour.


    It fills me with genuine, heartbreaking pain to think that our efforts to make these dreams a reality are subject to the political agendas of men who have no concept of magnificence in their soul. It makes me weep to see the ruins of NASAs once glorious space program. Oh, to have lived in those days, when the men who went to the Moon genuinely had 'The Right Stuff'. It's time that the politicians of the world forget their differences, and finally deliver on the promises of yesteryear. I may be misquoting, but I believe that the phrase was, "We come in peace, for all mankind."


    Imagine what we could acchieve if all mankind were to work together! I believe that furthering our progress into space is the only way that we can progress as a species. If we don't progress, then what else is there to do, but retrogress. Oh, I forgot, most of the population of this planet have already chosen the latter option!
    I am fully aware that not only is this little rant of mine somewhat off-topic, but is unlikely to provoke agreement. On the other hand, I for one, am sick of being though of as a crank for endorsing the value of space exploration.


    Thank you all for listening while I have unloaded a lot of pent-up feelings.

    • schoolboy errors? You're refering to the metric vs US futsup, i assume. Just so you know, that was Boeing's screw up, they did the math wrong, not NASA.

      I agree though. We need to start taking the hundreds of billions we spend on our 'defense' budget, (that budget DWARFES any other nation like a pumkin does a pea) and turn it to space, science, education, and the general evolution of our society.
  • Oh, my goodness, they didn't even mention the brilliantly satirical piece that appeared in MAD magazine in... the late fifties? By whom? Jack Davis, perhaps? Oh, dear... I can see the style of the drawing in my head so clearly.

    It brilliantly lampooned the "dreams of the moon." I think it may have been specifically targeted at those inspired by Wernher von Braun.

    One of the running gags was "the press of a button jettisons another section." It is a huge multistage rocket. Every time the press of a button je

  • You read those science fiction stories... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:04PM (#7876973) Journal
    ...set in some post-apocalyptic world, or whatever, in the far future, where technology has degenerated and people talk of a past age when things like space travel were possible. (Eg. I'm reading Wolfe's Book of the New Sun at the moment.) It always seemed implausible - just another variation on the old myth of the Golden Age that never actually really existed anywhere but in someone's imagination.

    But when I read about manned journeys to the moon I feel like those people.

  • unfortunate that competition brings out the best in man; the space race compounded by the cold war got man into space and on the moon
    now, we're realizing the dream of mars, as NASA and ESA have been trying to get their probes on the martian terrain
    AND,we already have x p r i z e happening, which i'm sure will succeed in achieving their objectives.
    achtung space! the humans are coming!

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