Posted by Raimondo Pictet | 0 comments
An alternate plan for NASA
John Hunt lives in Southern California. He is a frequent contributor to the development of sustainable space development concepts. He sent me this letter following my article about NASA’s new plan.
Hi,
I just got done reading one of your posts from shortly after Obama announced his new plan. I understand Constellation’s problems and so agree with you that it needed to be replaced with a better plan. But if water ice from the Moon could be returned to LEO (lower earth orbit), then this would completely open up the solar system. Constellation wasn’t going to do this but neither will Obama’s plan. But I think that there is a way to achieve this while still achieving the inspiring first act of sending humans to an asteroid. The key is to not send humans to the moon (initially) but to develop and bring back lunar resources using only medium-lift rockets and telerobotics.
What I am talking about here can be called “sustainable space development”. This means developing in-space resources and so reduce the cost of fuel in LEO thereby reducing the quantity of mass you need to get to LEO and from LEO to everywhere else.
The new plan should heavily emphasize extending the COTS/CRS/CCT concept to beyond LEO. It is a concept that seems to be working; seems to keep development costs down; and seems to have resulted in a commercial rocket that beat the Ares I to orbit even though they had less money to work with. If this approach is already showing early success, why not expand it beyond LEO in those areas where there are potential markets to be developed. Why should commercial space development only get less than 2% of NASAs budget? The budget should reflect a greater balance especially when it comes to sustainable development which can facilitate the other goals. I think that the amount should be about 15% of the budget. Initially, these funds should be drawn from the heavy lift vehicle (HLV) development and operations. After lunar water ice is being brought to LEO then we can examine whether an expensive HLV is needed after all.
Regarding robots, robonauts can repair other robots and set up a worksite. The way that I see it is that teleoperated robots will precede a human return to the Moon because they can launch on smaller craft, can go on one way trips, require less massive life support, can survive better when exposed to the elements, and their “deaths” don’t launch multi-year investigations. They set up power and ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) systems, start basic mining operations, prepare habitats, and maybe prepare (sinter?) landing sites. They do most of the industrial labor but also prepare the things for a low-mass delivery of humans. We still eventually need humans in commercial operations if only for hotels. I would add that establishing a self-sustaining manned base should be an important goal recognizing that we’ll likely see the development of self-replicating and accelerating technology in a number of fields by about mid-century.
I would like to suggest that there may be a way of returning to the Moon for far, far less cost than Apollo. A rendez-vous of two Falcon 9 Heavy LEO payloads would mass to about 64,000 kg. I believe that this would allow the delivery of about 3,000 to 5,000 kg to the lunar surface. With a proper plan, we could funnel any number of things to the lunar surface with this mass of payload. Project M shows a robonaut being delivered to the lunar surface on something that looks to be within this range. Solar panels would fit as would modest-sized regolith extractors, ISRU equipment, and small earth movers. None of these things would need to come with an ascender and fuel. If fuel could be extracted from the lunar water ice or regolith in quantities sufficient to provide enough fuel for ascension then this would mean that fuel wouldn’t need to be delivered to the lunar surface. At that point, I believe, one could begin to return lunar resources to the Earth or to LEO using aerocapture.
Obama’s plan for a manned mission to an asteroid could still continue. The Orion capsule is far less massive than the Altair lunar lander and so the amount of fuel needed for earth departure should not require a HLV. A couple of Falcon 9 Heavies should be able to provide enough fuel.
Thanks for your time and I hope to hear back from you,
John
