Re: Back to the moon? When?

On Nov 15, 7:21 am, "Jeff Findley" <jeff.find...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" <mooregr_deletet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:13jn24lfus7amfb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Neither China nor Russia has a booster they've qualified for a crewed
launch, and even then you'd have to make major modifications to the
existing Soyuz and Shenzou. (Soyuz especially has since been optimized for
taxi flights to a station. Shenzou may have legs long enough for a
circumlunar flight.)

Russia could have flown this mission any time from the early 70's to today,
but given the mixed success with the unmanned Zond test flights, it may not
have been very prudent. As history played out, flying such a mission so
many years after Apollo 8 wouldn't have gained them much, so they certainly
lacked the motivation to do so. Instead, they turned their manned space
funding to LEO space stations (partly military and partly civilian).

I don't believe China has a launcher big enough for such a mission.

Only more than sufficient for a fully robotic and thus rad-hard kind
of moon landing and exploration mission, but otherwise overkill for
accomplishing a station-keeping platform within the moon's L1.

Of course, you'd bet if they actually had a viable fly-by-rocket
lander, they'd be showing off its easily gravity scaled prototype in
action (as something that not Japan, Russia or even NASA can
provide).
--
Brad Guth
.

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