Re: Why 13 years?

In article <1127968132.818942.214320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
zoltan <zoltanccc@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>...What are NASA and contractors going to do
>for 13 years? I would want to see it all happen in the next three years
>or maybe five.

Three years to develop a major chunk of new hardware is feasible only as a
crash program with unlimited funding and freedom to ignore red tape.
Roughly speaking, you need a year to get the design about right and build
up the organizations needed, a year for detail development and subsystem
work, and a year for testing and fixing. And the result is likely to be a
bit flaky, more a lightly-shaken-down prototype than a finished product.

(In favorable circumstances you can sometimes beat that, but the current
situation isn't especially favorable.)

Note that Apollo took eight years, despite generous funding, a new
organization with minimal red tape, and a strong sense of urgency.

>If it were up to me I would just put a newly designed vehicle into the
>shuttle and go to the moon with it. This new vehicle (we could call it
>ZML -Zoltan's Moon Lander) would consist of two halves, both capable of
>life support for the crew. One half would be destined for Moon orbit
>the other for landing. Just like the Apollo.

Small problem: the shuttle's payload is 20-25t, and an Apollo stack at
TLI ignition was about 140t. Even quite aggressive designs with minimal
lunar payload and quite limited lunar-surface operations have found it
necessary to use 2-3 shuttle payloads.

>Of course the whole exercise seems pointless if all we do is repeat
>apollo.

Unfortunately, that is very much the way things are headed right now.
It's probably fortunate that they aren't likely to get there.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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