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Thread: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

  1. #1
    Titanic Struggles Caveat Emperor's Avatar
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    "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Per CNN.com :
    (SPACE.com) -- NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion and the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018.

    The space agency now expects to roll out its lunar exploration plan to key Congressional committees on Friday and to the broader public through a news conference on Monday, Washington sources tell SPACE.com.

    U.S. President George W. Bush called in January 2004 for the United States to return to the Moon by 2020 as the first major step in a broader space exploration vision aimed at extending the human presence throughout the solar system.

    NASA has been working intensely since April on an exploration plan that entails building an 18-foot blunt body crew capsule and launchers built from major space shuttle components including the main engines, solid rocket boosters and massive external fuel tanks.

    That plan, called the Exploration Systems Architecture Study, was presented by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, his space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier and several other senior agency officials Wednesday afternoon to senior White House policy officials, including an advisor to U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney and the president's Deputy National Security Advisor J.D. Crouch.

    NASA's plan, according to briefing charts obtained by SPACE.com, envisions beginning a sustained lunar exploration campaign in 2018 by landing four astronauts on the Moon for a seven-day stay.

    The expedition would begin, these charts show, by launching the lunar lander and Earth departure stage (essentially a giant propulsion module) on a heavy-lift launch vehicle that would be lifted into orbit by five space shuttle main engines and a pair of five-segment shuttle solid rocket boosters.

    Once the Earth departure stage and lunar lander are safely in orbit, NASA would launch the Crew Exploration Vehicle capsule atop a new launcher built from a four-segment shuttle solid rocket booster and an upper stage powered by a single space shuttle main engine.

    The CEV would then dock with the lunar lander and Earth departure stage and begin its several day journey to the Moon.

    NASA's plan envisions being able to land four-person human crews anywhere on the Moon's surface and to eventually use the system to transport crew members to and from a lunar outpost that it would consider building on the lunar south pole, according to the charts, because of the regions elevated quantities of hydrogen and possibly water ice.

    One of NASA's reasons for going back to the Moon is to demonstrate that astronauts can essentially "live off the land" by using lunar resources to produce potable water, fuel and other valuable commodities.

    Such capabilities are considered extremely important to human expeditions to Mars which, because of the distances involved, would be much longer missions entailing a minimum of 500 days spent on the planet's surface.

    NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle is expected to cost $5.5 billion to develop, according to government and industry sources, and the Crew Launch Vehicle another $4.5 billion. The heavy-lift launcher, which would be capable of lofting 125 metric tons of payload, is expected to cost more than $5 billion but less than $10 billion to develop, according to these sources.

    NASA's plan also calls for using the Crew Exploration Vehicle, equipped with as many as six seats, to transport astronauts to and from the international space station. An unmanned version of the Crew Exploration Vehicle could be used to deliver a limited amount of cargo to the space station.

    NASA would like to field the Crew Exploration Vehicle by 2011, or within a year of when it plans to fly the space shuttle for the last time. Development of the heavy lift launcher, lunar lander and Earth departure stage would begin in 2011.

    By that time, according to NASA's charts, the space agency would expect to be spending $7 billion a year on its exploration efforts, a figure projected to grow to more than $15 billion a year by 2018, that date NASA has targeted for its first human lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
    I'm one of the biggest advocates of the manned space program you're going to find. I think that the benefits recieved often far outweigh the costs, when you consider technological advancements made that have direct impact on our daily lives.

    However...my only question is why the deadline is set at 2018? That's thirteen years...when Kennedy set his original challenge, in an era where technology was outright stone-age by comparison, we fulfilled the dream in under a decade. Now, to go back, it's going to take us 13 years? It just seems like a boondoggle waiting to happen.

    So...what do you guys think? The space program: Worth it, or a waste of money?
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  3. #2
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    The Moon... America's Space Programs answer to vacationing... every year Myrtle Beach.....Lot #16 at the Pines Campground, lunch atPatricks Pirate Cove and Dinner at the Beach Comber.

    The kicker is you can bring your clubs to both places.

  4. #3
    Member RollyInRaleigh's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    I heard that they were going to have to lengthen the par 5's on the moon because of driver and ball technology.

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    Member traderumor's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    I've always thought it was a waste of money, which when I say it around the house triggers something akin to a creation vs. evolution debate with my wife. She tells me that we have many reasons to be thankful for, from inventions to scientific reasons, but I've always viewed it more as "because its there" as the primary reasoning. I could use some enlightening, I'm sure, but on the priority list, when we have people throwing millions of dollars toward Katrina victims (rightfully so) that the recipients would not have gotten except for a natural disaster hitting their back yards, I'm a little uneasy about our Fed spending on other worlds when we do not appear to be adequately taking care of people in our own neighborhood. That wasn't a political answer was it?
    "Rounding 3rd and heading for home, good night everybody"

  6. #5
    Rally Onion! Chip R's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    I'm not sure why we're going to the moon since we've been there and done that.
    Quote Originally Posted by Raisor View Post
    I was wrong
    Quote Originally Posted by Raisor View Post
    Chip is right

  7. #6
    Member traderumor's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip R
    I'm not sure why we're going to the moon since we've been there and done that.
    I'm sure there is a 1000 page "brief" somewhere on the internet explaining why we need to go back.
    "Rounding 3rd and heading for home, good night everybody"

  8. #7
    Ripsnort wheels's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    I don't think we should blow up the moon...There are plenty of things to blow up on our own planet.
    "Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?" ~ Jim Bouton

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    Ripsnort wheels's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip R
    I'm not sure why we're going to the moon since we've been there and done that.
    Do you really believe that we actually went to the moon in the first place?
    "Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?" ~ Jim Bouton

  10. #9
    Member pedro's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Quote Originally Posted by wheels
    Do you really believe that we actually went to the moon in the first place?
    Yes I do. But when we got to the moon there was a Nazi flag already there.

    Oh, and some giant space monsters.
    School's out. What did you expect?

  11. #10
    Smooth WMR's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip R
    I'm not sure why we're going to the moon since we've been there and done that.
    The article made it sound like it's a necessary stepping stone to a manned space flight to Mars.

  12. #11
    Joe Oliver love-child Blimpie's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Quote Originally Posted by wheels
    Do you really believe that we actually went to the moon in the first place?
    Carl Everett just swerved off the road....

  13. #12
    Churlish Johnny Footstool's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    I don't think we should blow up the moon...There are plenty of things to blow up on our own planet.
    We're Earthlings, let's blow up Earth things.
    "I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful

  14. #13
    The Lineups stink. KronoRed's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    How many times since the late 70's has NASA announced plans to return to the moon or go to mars? once every 5 years it seems, it'll never happen, it's expensive and nobody can find a good economical way to do it.
    Go Gators!

  15. #14
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Can we send Eric Milton and DanO to the moon?

    And forget to bring them back.


  16. #15
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: "We choose to go to the Moon": NASA Unveils Moon Plan

    Melies got there over 100 years ago, it's already been done.



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