Comments on: More questions about NASA priorities

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:01:09 +0000

“DCSCA wrote @ March 8th, 2011 at 5:59 pm
â€œZond was solely designed for lunar orbital missions”

True, but I never said otherwise. The Zond was intended to serve the purpose of the Apollo Command and Service Module, there was to be a separate lander (with the capability to deliver one cosmonaut to the lunar surface). The two vehicles would have been delivered (Apollo style) to LLO by the N1 booster. I know this is essentially what you said, but it is in no way contradicted by what I said. So remind me, what are we supposed to be arguing about.

By: DCSCA

DCSCA — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:59:31 +0000

@Joe wrote @ March 8th, 2011 at 9:42 am
Inaccurate. Zond was solely designed for lunar orbital missions, initially a top Proton- no landing.. And a manned circumlunar flight was stalled in 1968 due to several factors -bureaucratic and engineer, but they came close to eclipsing Apollo 8. Soyuz was a flexible-design spacecraft created for lunar landing missions a top the N1- with a lander nestled beneath. The failure of Soyuz 1- Komorov’s death in ’67- stalled it for a year as well. Soyuz was to carry two on a lunar mission with one remaining in orbit and the other making a spacewalk to enter to the lander for descent to the surface. Alexi Leonov was initially selected to be the cosmonaut to make the descent and trained extenstively for the mission. The failures of the N1 ended plans for their manned landing. But, as we know, Soyuz continues to soar successfully.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:43:50 +0000

Forgot to say, the mission were tests, flown without crew.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:42:36 +0000

“DCSCA wrote @ March 7th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
@VirgilSamms wrote @ March 7th, 2011 at 5:02 pm

The Soyuz was originally built as part of the Soviet Manned Lunar program.”

The intended Soviet Lunar Vehicle was called Zond. It was a stripped down version of the Soyuz (basicaly they left off the orbital module and reduced consumeables to support only 2 instead of 3 people). Do not know the exact details but it was flown twice in the late 1960s/early 1970s on lunar fly by (not lunar orbit) missions launched (I think) with the Proton Booster. The program was cancelled whe the Russians could not get their N1 Booster to work.

By: Matt Wiser

Matt Wiser — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:25:37 +0000

Scott, I think you and I are on the same wavelength re: your 6 March post. I’ve said before that if Obama had restructured the lunar program to say “We’re not just going to the moon, but we’re going to other places too, and in an affordable and sustainable way”, I think a lot of the acrimony and fury over canning CxP would’ve been avoided. And yes, I do think Bolden’s hoping Congress will let him go w/o heavy lift or lunar return, but from the rerun of the hearing on C-SPAN, some members were more than willing to put his feet to the fire on both and make him live up to the 2010 Authorization Act re: MPCV/Orion and HLV at least, and make lunar return more of an action item on NASA’s agenda (after PLYMOUTH ROCK at least), without committing to a specific deadline.

By: Scott Bass

Scott Bass — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:53:02 +0000

Space x may go for lunar orbit first, they contracted to deliver one of the xprize rovers and it seems like it is something Eli would like to do to demo dragons capabilities…long way off still though, he still needs to buy those oxygen bottles off eBay

By: DCSCA

DCSCA — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 01:48:30 +0000

@VirgilSamms wrote @ March 7th, 2011 at 5:02 pm

The Soyuz was originally built as part of the Soviet Manned Lunar program.

By: Frank Glover

Frank Glover — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:43:58 +0000

“I am not sure if Soyuz heat shield is rated for the higher reentry speed/temperature. That would cost money.”

The LEO Soyuz probably can’t, but the Zond circumlunar series shows that they knew how to do that in the late 60’s (though they had assorted other technology issues that prevented a manned flight back then):

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soyz7kl1.htm

http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/craft/soyz7kl1.htm

By: Coastal Ron

Coastal Ron — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:33:57 +0000

VirgilSamms wrote @ March 7th, 2011 at 3:48 pm

“As for Nautilus- it ignores the 800 pound gorilla…”

Gary, you alway assume that you’re the only one that is aware of radiation issues in space. You’re not.

If you’ve read anything about the Nautilus proposal (which I doubt), you would have read that they are addressing radiation in their design. In fact everyone addresses radiation issues in their BEO designs, it’s just that they are not coming up with your solution, which is a 1,000 ton nuclear-powered spaceship.

Read and research before you post, and if you really want a spacecraft built the way you think it should be built, become a spaceship engineer, get funding, and build you own. That way you can show everyone how wrong (or right) they are.

By: VirgilSamms

VirgilSamms — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:02:27 +0000

“should launch a Soyuz for a lunar orbit mission.”

I am not sure if Soyuz heat shield is rated for the higher reentry speed/temperature. That would cost money.

Getting that extra…what is it, 6000 mph?, needed for escaping earths gravity field is the trick. I don’t know how big a booster it would take using hypergolics- which is what you need so you can dock with it reliably. A problem with a liquid hydrogen stage that makes rendezvous longer than calculated will result in too much cryogenic boiling off to do the mission. I do not know what kind of booster the Russians have available for the trans-lunar injection burn. Maybe they could use two hooked together, burning one and then the other.

If they don’t have boosters available to adapt easily and have to build one that would cost more money.

They would probably send one unmanned first on a test mission. More money.

But I would say they could do it if they wanted- but why? It would be dangerous because outside LEO if there is a solar event it can easily kill the crew. Apollo narrowly missed one that would have killed one of the apollo missions; one of the reasons besides money that the later missions were canceled. So there is risk of death even if everything works right.

Not worth the risk.