Interesting design. With a slight modification a Falcon Heavy can orbit ~55 tons of propellant. Then a fully loaded Dragon Capsule can dock with it and use it to launch into a Lunar, or Halo, Orbit. A landing vehicle, preplaced in Low Lunar Orbit, or the Earth-Moon L-1 Point, can then finish the journey. All without using a gargantuan booster. At ~$100 million per launcher, plus another $100 million for the lander, and a Moon mission can be done for ~$500 million. A steal compared to the multi-billions of the Ares V program that the USA had committed to under GWB. A properly designed lander can then be kept at the ready for repeat missions, tanked up as required.
Read more: Daily Mail News Item
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Very exciting! Even if the costs are off by a wide margin, it’s still relatively cheap.
Adam, I checked out the link to the article and it was pretty much like all of the other articles about the FH. Where are you getting your information about the low-cost approach to lunar landings?
I personally want to see lunar ice developed and brought to LEO for use as LOX/LH fuel. Then, as this tranforms the orbital servicing market and enables dreams that people have for NASA to go beyond LEO, I would also like to see a self-sufficient colony developed on the north or south lunar pole with the goal of establishing a back-up for the human race. I’d say, the sooner the better. So the FH is really an exciting development.
Hi John
The Moon-landing system I describe is purely my own extension of the basic Earth-Orbit Rendevous architecture which was proposed for “Apollo”. The L1 Depot concept has appeared in numerous discussions of commercial flights to the Moon, and featured fictionally as long ago as Heinlein’s 1947 story “Space Jockey”. The basic lesson is that Moon-landing vehicles have different trade-offs to inter-orbital systems shuttling between LEO and LLO.
The recent news that the holes spotted on the Moon’s surface might make for natural cold-traps is very welcome – non-Polar ice might be available. Currently we have no data on how much, but the study which discussed the holes suggested at least thousands of tonnes. A good initial start. Best thing about Lunar water and the cold-traps being used for propulsion is that most of the water produced by the rockets will remain in the Moon’s gravity and eventually refreeze. Thus the cold-traps need to be carefully managed to remain useful.
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