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Biggest blunder in the space age?


Nordmann61

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After Apollo 17, the US administration and NASA announced the discontinution of manned flights to the moon, they had won the space race with the Soviet Union, and the lack of public interest (?) made them come to this conclusion.

Why did not the European space agencies, at the time in the infancies, come forward and say: -you just continiue the manned flights to the moon, and we will share the cost, if we can have one of the astronauts from a European country contributing, on the missions. One from Germany on one mission, one from France on another, one from Britain, one from Scandinavia, one from Australia and so forth.

European astronauts to the moon would have spurred an enormous interest for space exploration in Europe, and manned missions from Cape Canaveral would not have any problems with financing. 

If the USA and Europe agreed on that at the time, we would most probably had permanent bases on the moon now, much more worthwhile scientifically than the International Space Station, and as a stepping stone to a manned mission to Mars, made us much closer to a manned mission to Mars.

The blunder was repeated in 2008, when Obama surprisingly announced he would postpone the plans of a new manned mission to the Moon. Why did not the European space agencies suggest to make it a joint mission, and the manned mission programs would have been revitalized?

I think a manned mission to Mars would be less difficult if the US and Europe agreed to do it together, and a manned mission together to the Moon again, would have been a exellent start and stepping stone.

Cheers.

 

 

Edited by Nordmann61
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My guess is that it was initially driven by confrontation and fear.  People who are fearful are less likely to question the expense of such a project.  The follow-on effect of patriotism also helped.  Remember how quickly such things fade, also. By the Apollo 13 mission, the major TV networks wouldn't even live broadcast from space due to low viewership.  Finally, I'm pretty sure the money was redirected to social welfare spending by the "progressives" of the day.  You can't buy a reliable voting block with patriotism.  Historians may well place the moon landing period as the zenith of American power and positive influence in the world.

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2 hours ago, Nordmann61 said:

After Apollo 17, the US administration and NASA announced the discontinution of manned flights to the moon, they had won the space race with the Soviet Union, and the lack of public interest (?) made them come to this conclusion.

Thats incorrect. The Apollo program Moon missions have been scheduled in the 60s with missions up to Apollo 20 witch has been terminated due to financial reasons and not by the lack of public interest (nonsense).

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Why did not the European space agencies, at the time in the infancies,

First of all, there are no European space "agencies". There is only one, the ESA.

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... come forward and say: -you just continiue the manned flights to the moon,

The ESA has been founded in 1975, so 2,5 years after the last Apollo mission.

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... and we will share the cost, if we can have one of the astronauts from a European country contributing, on the missions. One from Germany on one mission, one from France on another, one from Britain, one from Scandinavia, one from Australia and so forth.

Would need to have all countries in the club. Impossible.

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European astronauts to the moon would have spurred an enormous interest for space exploration in Europe, and manned missions from Cape Canaveral would not have any problems with financing

The funding of space exploration is not subject to the level of the public`s benevolence, it driven by scientific needs and related decisions.

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If the USA and Europe agreed on that at the time, we would most probably had permanent bases on the moon now, much more worthwhile scientifically than the International Space Station,

This statement is cleary based on nescience about the on the ISS performed experimental research and the volume of the experiments conducted. In addition, the most experiments require micro gravity and there is no micro gravity on the Moon. Furthermore, scientific experiments in space require a high amount of logistics and a comprehensive network of (Earth based) labs, institutes and manpower and its impossible for various reason to have that on the Moon.

For your info, here a link to the experiments conducted on the ISS from the beginning of its operation.

 

 

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There are many inaccuracies and false assumptions in the original post. I am going to attempt to address them fully, but as it is gone midnight in the UK and I have to get up for work in a little over five hours that will have to wait until tomorrow.

 

Whilst I agree with most of what toast is saying I have to take issue with the following:

1 hour ago, toast said:

First of all, there are no European space "agencies". There is only one, the ESA.

That is simply not true.

There are several European Space Agencies as there are several European nations which have their own,independent, agencies as well as being members of ESA. The four largest of these (in terms of budget) are CNES (France), DLR (Germany), ASI (Italy) and UKSA (UK).

CNES was founded in 1961 and DLR in 1969, so these existed in the time frame that Nordmann61 is referring to in his post.

Further more, although ESA was not founded until 1975 it was formed by the merger of two previous European space organisations, the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), formed in 1960 and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), founded in 1964, so even if you ignore the national agencies there were in fact two European space agencies at the time the original poster is referring too.

So whilst there may be much wrong with what Nordmann61 says, referring to European space agencies is not one of those things.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
typo.
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8 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

Further more, although ESA was not founded until 1975 it was formed by the merger of two previous European space organisations, the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), formed in 1960 and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), founded in 1964 ...

Yes, but neither ELDO nor ESRO were exactly household names, and their budgets reflected the lack of serious governmental interest in a European space initiative during the 1960's. ELDO, for example, limped on with repeated failures to do what it was tasked to do, i.e. develop a European launcher comparable to NASA's small launchers. Only when a single agency in the form of ESA came into being in 1975 was Europe able to mount research and application projects that could be talked about in the same breath as NASA.

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13 hours ago, and then said:

My guess is that it was initially driven by confrontation and fear.  People who are fearful are less likely to question the expense of such a project.  The follow-on effect of patriotism also helped.  Remember how quickly such things fade, also. By the Apollo 13 mission, the major TV networks wouldn't even live broadcast from space due to low viewership.  Finally, I'm pretty sure the money was redirected to social welfare spending by the "progressives" of the day.  You can't buy a reliable voting block with patriotism.  Historians may well place the moon landing period as the zenith of American power and positive influence in the world.

"My guess is that it was initially driven by confrontation and fear." Well, Kennedy's challenge back in 1961 drew the support of the American public out of fear of the achievements of the Soviets, or, more precisely, how they were portrayed.

"Finally, I'm pretty sure the money was redirected to social welfare spending by the "progressives" of the day." True, if by "progressives" you mean President Nixon, and by "social welfare" you mean the Vietnam War.

"You can't buy a reliable voting block with patriotism." True. Pork barrelling works much better. Cutting the space program cost few votes. That money could then be redistributed much more efficiently into other programs.

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15 hours ago, Nordmann61 said:

After Apollo 17, the US administration and NASA announced the discontinution of manned flights to the moon, they had won the space race with the Soviet Union, and the lack of public interest (?) made them come to this conclusion.

Why did not the European space agencies, at the time in the infancies, come forward and say: -you just continiue the manned flights to the moon, and we will share the cost, if we can have one of the astronauts from a European country contributing, on the missions. One from Germany on one mission, one from France on another, one from Britain, one from Scandinavia, one from Australia and so forth.

European astronauts to the moon would have spurred an enormous interest for space exploration in Europe, and manned missions from Cape Canaveral would not have any problems with financing. 

If the USA and Europe agreed on that at the time, we would most probably had permanent bases on the moon now, much more worthwhile scientifically than the International Space Station, and as a stepping stone to a manned mission to Mars, made us much closer to a manned mission to Mars.

The blunder was repeated in 2008, when Obama surprisingly announced he would postpone the plans of a new manned mission to the Moon. Why did not the European space agencies suggest to make it a joint mission, and the manned mission programs would have been revitalized?

I think a manned mission to Mars would be less difficult if the US and Europe agreed to do it together, and a manned mission together to the Moon again, would have been a exellent start and stepping stone.

Cheers.

The problem with this idea is that it's based around knowledge of how the American space program developed in the 40+ years after Apollo 17. Hindsight blinds us to the decisions politicians had to make back then. Lack of public interest was only a secondary issue. The first issue was that Kennedy's original challenge applied only to getting to the Moon, not about extended exploration (as interesting as that is to us today); once the USA had achieved that target, public interest decreased. But other issues are relevant too.

For one thing, although Nixon was President during all of the Apollo landing missions, people have generally seen Apollo as Kennedy's legacy not Nixon's, and Nixon was well aware of that at the time. He therefore had no personal stake in wanting to continue Apollo the way Johnson did. For another thing, Apollo was fantastically expensive, and by cutting NASA's huge budget Nixon could free up a lot of money for things he wanted to do - things that would be his legacy. What this means is that the western European countries would have had to make very large commitments out of their own much smaller budgets to help Apollo along.

I think the same issue applies today. Space travel is still expensive, and we need to think carefully about exactly why we want people in space, particularly if it's to be paid for by governments (that is, taxpayers).

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36 minutes ago, Peter B said:

I think the same issue applies today. Space travel is still expensive, and we need to think carefully about exactly why we want people in space, particularly if it's to be paid for by governments (that is, taxpayers).

Good point, spending at Apollo levels was unsustainable, and unjustifiable. The way people dropped off following moon landings after Apollo XI, says taxpayers do not prioritize expenditure of their money on space programs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Are you asking if the programe you listed means America should have enough money to continue with the exciting space flights alone.Or......the countries listed that where asked to contribute.....if they didn't....means exclusion.....or if they did.....also justifies exclusion?????

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On ‎1‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 3:11 PM, Nordmann61 said:

After Apollo 17, the US administration and NASA announced the discontinution of manned flights to the moon, they had won the space race with the Soviet Union, and the lack of public interest (?) made them come to this conclusion.

Why did not the European space agencies, at the time in the infancies, come forward and say: -you just continiue the manned flights to the moon, and we will share the cost, if we can have one of the astronauts from a European country contributing, on the missions. One from Germany on one mission, one from France on another, one from Britain, one from Scandinavia, one from Australia and so forth.

European astronauts to the moon would have spurred an enormous interest for space exploration in Europe, and manned missions from Cape Canaveral would not have any problems with financing. 

If the USA and Europe agreed on that at the time, we would most probably had permanent bases on the moon now, much more worthwhile scientifically than the International Space Station, and as a stepping stone to a manned mission to Mars, made us much closer to a manned mission to Mars.

The blunder was repeated in 2008, when Obama surprisingly announced he would postpone the plans of a new manned mission to the Moon. Why did not the European space agencies suggest to make it a joint mission, and the manned mission programs would have been revitalized?

I think a manned mission to Mars would be less difficult if the US and Europe agreed to do it together, and a manned mission together to the Moon again, would have been a exellent start and stepping stone.

Cheers.

I don't know if I'd call it a blunder given the immense cost of manned missions.  In the interim we (many countries) built the space station and spent billions exploring and visiting all the planets including the since demoted Pluto and have landed an incredibly complex rover(s) on Mars.  We have put incredibly powerful observatories in space and have greatly changed how we view our universe.  We have also created an environment that allowed a robust commercial rocket market to blossom and grow.

That said, we did drop too far IMHO but are now rectifying that by building the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule.   This is the system that will get us to Mars in the next decade or two if we so wish it and will sling an unmanned capsule around the Moon in 2018 with a manned asteroid redirect mission just a few years later.  ESA does supply p[arts for the SLS and Orion.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/10/2017 at 6:32 PM, toast said:

Thats incorrect. The Apollo program Moon missions have been scheduled in the 60s with missions up to Apollo 20 witch has been terminated due to financial reasons and not by the lack of public interest (nonsense).

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53 minutes ago, internetperson said:

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There were originally 3 more Apollo missions scheduled to fly to the Moon in the initial Apollo plan, all were cancelled due to budgetary constraints. Apollo 20 was cancelled in January 1970. The flights planned for Apollo 15 and Apollo 19 were cancelled in September, 1970, the remaining missions were then renumbered 15 through 17

NASA

 

On January 4, 1970, NASA announced the cancellation of Apollo 20 so that its Saturn V could be used to launch the Skylab space station as a "dry workshop" (assembled on the ground), instead of constructing it as a "wet workshop" from a spent upper stage of a Saturn IB launch vehicle. Also, budget restrictions had limited the Saturn V production to the original 15.

Wiki

 

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In a cost benefit analysis of Apollo, we're all agreed on the high costs, and what were the benefits of continued manned missions to the moon?   I don't really see any blunders in what happened.

Was not Apollo a mission to find out what was possible?   To see if we could do the impossible?   Once the science, technology and astronauts proved themselves the value of further human presence on the moon for short periods of time didn't really justify the cost or risk.   Even today it seems to me that if we're going to return to the moon (or go to Mars) we need a "killer app" to make it worth the absolute cost, the opportunity cost, and the risk. 

With people in the '70s-'00s being aware of so much advanced technology on the horizon they would just as soon wait than to fly out there again.

We know we have the knowledge to go to Mars if someone put a gun to our heads, we could get it done.  It's more than I could ever ask for anyone to do though.  I think even now we should wait until technology has further evolved (and cheapened).

I wish there had been a 2nd generation space shuttle.  :(  The US should have held onto a serious space vehicle to stay completely relevant in space.   Retiring the shuttle was a much sadder day than ending Apollo imho.  :(

With all the money govt spends on so much other nonsense, having a proper spaceship with a bigger NASA budget is something I'd proudly pay for as a taxpayer.   I'd double NASA's budget with the stroke of a pen and that's if we're NOT going to the moon.

How about a spaceship that can fly astronauts to moon orbit, land on the surface, take off and return to orbit, land again, take off with all aboard and return to earth and land like the shuttle?

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Going to the moon now would be a waste of money for political purposes.  There's nothing there, and won't be for another century or so, and then just as a stepping off point.  We can get some science from such a venture, but unmanned ventures can do that.  Forget about mining outer space; the costs are way prohibitive.

Personally I think its too early too think about humans living in space off the Earth.  We don't have the technology to make it cheap enough, so when it is done it turns into massive expenses where the money is better spent elsewhere or returned to the taxpayer.  If the risks involved in sending men into outer space are worth it, let private enterprise have the job.

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Yamato said:

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Quote
 

 

Edited by Peter B
Aagh! The quoting system!
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1 hour ago, Yamato said:

In a cost benefit analysis of Apollo, we're all agreed on the high costs, and what were the benefits of continued manned missions to the moon?   I don't really see any blunders in what happened.

Was not Apollo a mission to find out what was possible?   To see if we could do the impossible?   Once the science, technology and astronauts proved themselves the value of further human presence on the moon for short periods of time didn't really justify the cost or risk.   Even today it seems to me that if we're going to return to the moon (or go to Mars) we need a "killer app" to make it worth the absolute cost, the opportunity cost, and the risk. 

With people in the '70s-'00s being aware of so much advanced technology on the horizon they would just as soon wait than to fly out there again.

We know we have the knowledge to go to Mars if someone put a gun to our heads, we could get it done.  It's more than I could ever ask for anyone to do though.  I think even now we should wait until technology has further evolved (and cheapened).

I wish there had been a 2nd generation space shuttle.  :(  The US should have held onto a serious space vehicle to stay completely relevant in space.   Retiring the shuttle was a much sadder day than ending Apollo imho.  :(

With all the money govt spends on so much other nonsense, having a proper spaceship with a bigger NASA budget is something I'd proudly pay for as a taxpayer.   I'd double NASA's budget with the stroke of a pen and that's if we're NOT going to the moon.

How about a spaceship that can fly astronauts to moon orbit, land on the surface, take off and return to orbit, land again, take off with all aboard and return to earth and land like the shuttle?

 

Was not Apollo a mission to find out what was possible?   To see if we could do the impossible?  

We-e-ell, not really. At its heart, Apollo was just another front in the Cold War - propaganda to encourage non-aligned governments to align themselves with the USA rather than the USSR. Sure, science and technology happened, but they were peripheral to Apollo rather than central.

We know we have the knowledge to go to Mars if someone put a gun to our heads, we could get it done.  It's more than I could ever ask for anyone to do though.  I think even now we should wait until technology has further evolved (and cheapened).

I sort of tend to agree with the idea of waiting. Although I think we won't have to wait much longer than the next decade or so. Witness the impressive advances made by SpaceX in just the last decade.

I wish there had been a 2nd generation space shuttle.    The US should have held onto a serious space vehicle to stay completely relevant in space.   Retiring the shuttle was a much sadder day than ending Apollo imho. 

Well, I have to disagree here. The Shuttle as built was inefficient and dangerous, and the money-strapped NASA of the 1970s told Congress quite a few whoppers about it (safety, operating costs, landing-to-launch turnaround times and satellite-launching efficiency among them) to keep it from being cancelled. When the Shuttle fleet was grounded after the Challenger accident in 1986, the USA was caught dangerously short of expendable (and much cheaper) rockets to launch satellites which had been queued up to launch on the Shuttles.

With all the money govt spends on so much other nonsense, having a proper spaceship with a bigger NASA budget is something I'd proudly pay for as a taxpayer.   I'd double NASA's budget with the stroke of a pen and that's if we're NOT going to the moon.

Agreed. (Although that's irrelevant as I'm not American. Instead I have the embarrassment of living in the richest country in the world without a space program of its own.)

How about a spaceship that can fly astronauts to moon orbit, land on the surface, take off and return to orbit, land again, take off with all aboard and return to earth and land like the shuttle?

Good grief no! The key to getting things done in space is not lugging everything everywhere. That's why Apollo was so neat - separating the jobs of landing on the Moon and landing on the Earth (two very different things) into two very different spacecraft; and why the Shuttle was so un-neat - a massive spacecraft, much of which went all the way up to space and back to Earth, to carry one or two satellites into orbit which could have been placed there by much smaller, safer, cheaper and versatile expendable rockets.

Lugging shuttle wings and thermal protection tiles and related stuff from the surface of the Earth to the surface of the Moon and all the way back again when they're only needed for the last part of the mission would massively increase the fuel requirements of the mission, requiring a honking great rocket for launching from Earth. Cool maybe, but incredibly large, loud, dangerous and expensive.

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16 minutes ago, Peter B said:

 

Was not Apollo a mission to find out what was possible?   To see if we could do the impossible?  

We-e-ell, not really. At its heart, Apollo was just another front in the Cold War - propaganda to encourage non-aligned governments to align themselves with the USA rather than the USSR. Sure, science and technology happened, but they were peripheral to Apollo rather than central.

We know we have the knowledge to go to Mars if someone put a gun to our heads, we could get it done.  It's more than I could ever ask for anyone to do though.  I think even now we should wait until technology has further evolved (and cheapened).

I sort of tend to agree with the idea of waiting. Although I think we won't have to wait much longer than the next decade or so. Witness the impressive advances made by SpaceX in just the last decade.

I wish there had been a 2nd generation space shuttle.    The US should have held onto a serious space vehicle to stay completely relevant in space.   Retiring the shuttle was a much sadder day than ending Apollo imho. 

Well, I have to disagree here. The Shuttle as built was inefficient and dangerous, and the money-strapped NASA of the 1970s told Congress quite a few whoppers about it (safety, operating costs, landing-to-launch turnaround times and satellite-launching efficiency among them) to keep it from being cancelled. When the Shuttle fleet was grounded after the Challenger accident in 1986, the USA was caught dangerously short of expendable (and much cheaper) rockets to launch satellites which had been queued up to launch on the Shuttles.

With all the money govt spends on so much other nonsense, having a proper spaceship with a bigger NASA budget is something I'd proudly pay for as a taxpayer.   I'd double NASA's budget with the stroke of a pen and that's if we're NOT going to the moon.

Agreed. (Although that's irrelevant as I'm not American. Instead I have the embarrassment of living in the richest country in the world without a space program of its own.)

How about a spaceship that can fly astronauts to moon orbit, land on the surface, take off and return to orbit, land again, take off with all aboard and return to earth and land like the shuttle?

Good grief no! The key to getting things done in space is not lugging everything everywhere. That's why Apollo was so neat - separating the jobs of landing on the Moon and landing on the Earth (two very different things) into two very different spacecraft; and why the Shuttle was so un-neat - a massive spacecraft, much of which went all the way up to space and back to Earth, to carry one or two satellites into orbit which could have been placed there by much smaller, safer, cheaper and versatile expendable rockets.

Lugging shuttle wings and thermal protection tiles and related stuff from the surface of the Earth to the surface of the Moon and all the way back again when they're only needed for the last part of the mission would massively increase the fuel requirements of the mission, requiring a honking great rocket for launching from Earth. Cool maybe, but incredibly large, loud, dangerous and expensive.

Landing on the moon was so much greater in human history than the political story of two governments that couldn't get along.   Two governments who couldn't use total war to solve their prob-lem with each other without practicing mutually assured destruction. If they were smarter they would have gotten along better.    Apollo may have occurred at what may have been the "height of the Cold War" I'll give you that.   But comparing moon landings with the politics of their day doesn't sound right.   Fear of the Soviet Union provided motive, but the motive doesn't compare to the accomplishment. 

If we never landed on the moon that would make an enormous difference in the history of mankind, obviously.   If all we were doing was scaring the Russians we might as well fake the moon landings and save the money. 

Some perspective on the costs though.  The almost 40-year history of the shuttle program costed $196B.   That's a drop in the bucket the way we spend money these days.   Aircraft carriers are $13B and the last thing we need is another one of those.   Shuttle missions were $450 million, that's over 26 shuttle missions.  

NASA wasn't so much cash strapped in the '70s compared to any other years since.  When Apollo was cancelled obviously they wouldn't need anywhere close to the same budget.  

The cost isn't going to be astronomical especially with private enterprise driving them down.  Ultra lightweight materials will keep weight down.  Wings can be folded or retracted.   Large rockets can easily and safely be used.   And we can and will put men on Mars.   It's going to happen.  The moon looks like a logical choice to practice on in the meantime. 

I don't want to send people back to the moon on 0.5% of the budget though.  That would be truly cash-strapped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg
 

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Hey Yamato, once again I agree with a lot of your points, particularly relating to American Government waste of money and NASA's tiny budget. But there are a couple of points I'd like to comment on...

If all we were doing was scaring the Russians we might as well fake the moon landings and save the money.

No, if the USA simply wanted to scare the Russians, then faking it would be the last thing the USA would want to do. The Soviets were masters of misdirection and deception, and on top of that it's known they had agents within NASA. If NASA had faked Apollo the Soviets would have known about it and revealed it. That would have been a propaganda disaster of the first order for the USA.

Quote

Ultra lightweight materials will keep weight down.  Wings can be folded or retracted.

No arguments about using lightweight materials. But for any level of the technology used, the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous technique (as used on Apollo) requires less weight (and thus a smaller honking rocket) than the Direct Ascent method you describe. And folding or retracting the wings doesn't alter their mass. It would provide a slight decrease in drag during the ascent through the Earth's atmosphere which would save some fuel, but lugging those wings all the way to the surface of the Moon and back is still going to take a lot of fuel.

Quote

Large rockets can easily and safely be used.

I like your optimism. I assume you'd like the SpaceX video of their planned honking large rocket, the Interplanetary Transport System?

Edited by Peter B
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18 minutes ago, Peter B said:

Hey Yamato, once again I agree with a lot of your points, particularly relating to American Government waste of money and NASA's tiny budget. But there are a couple of points I'd like to comment on...

 

 

No, if the USA simply wanted to scare the Russians, then faking it would be the last thing the USA would want to do. The Soviets were masters of misdirection and deception, and on top of that it's known they had agents within NASA. If NASA had faked Apollo the Soviets would have known about it and revealed it. That would have been a propaganda disaster of the first order for the USA.

No arguments about using lightweight materials. But for any level of the technology used, the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous technique (as used on Apollo) requires less weight (and thus a smaller honking rocket) than the Direct Ascent method you describe. And folding or retracting the wings doesn't alter their mass. It would provide a slight decrease in drag during the ascent through the Earth's atmosphere which would save some fuel, but lugging those wings all the way to the surface of the Moon and back is still going to take a lot of fuel.

I like your optimism. I assume you'd like the SpaceX video of their planned honking large rocket, the Interplanetary Transport System?

Failure with a loss of astronauts would have been an even bigger disaster.  And we took that risk.  The only surefire way to avoid a propaganda disaster is not to have the program at all.   I'm sorry I don't see Apollo as this fulfillment of Cold War propaganda before it's the epic triumph of mankind with the moon landings.  

The presence of Apollo drove Soviet research.  The lack of Apollo wouldn't have driven it any further.   Likewise the Shuttle only drove Soviets to spend (waste?) more on another Tu-4esque knock off the Buran shuttle.   USSR has a history of copycatting and getting much less value for their efforts. 

I agree with almost all of your points.  I think projects like ITS will help to make Mars an affordable reality.

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I have often thought the biggest blunder was to shut down the manufacturing facilities of the Saturn rockets. Rocket engineers such as Robert Truax had argued that a more sensible approach to spaceflight from the 1970's onward would have been to develop a small shuttle for carrying people and small payloads into space, and keep the Saturn IB and Saturn V for launching big payloads. He had in mind a shuttle that would have been only a third of the size of the actual shuttle, be crewed by four astronauts, and be able to carry a payload of 10 ton rather than 30 ton. Big payloads such as parts for a space station would be launched using Saturn Vs.

It seems an expensive error in strategy that the new Space Launch System developed at a cost of $35 billion by 2025 has a capacity only slightly greater than the very reliable Saturn V developed half a century ago.

I once read that the reason the shuttle developed the way it did was primarily because the military wanted to be able to return large payloads from orbit. I wonder how often this was done?

Hindsight is of course a great thing, and NASA had to optimize the shuttle design to satisfy demands made from the science, commercial, and military sectors.

But we are where we are, and by using the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft a new era in human space exploration is about to begin! 

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