[meteorite-list] Send the ISS to the moon

From: Mike Bandli <fuzzfoot_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:32:56 +0000
Message-ID: <071620080132.4783.487D4FC80000CE97000012AF22070210539B01010096969A00_at_comcast.net>

The idea of re-using space hardware is great one and has been done before. Unfortunately the ISS cannot simply be ferried out of earth orbit. This would require a massive propulsion retrofit to slingshot it to the moon or elsewhere. Even then, the ISS could not handle the structural stress of such a task. It was designed to be a stationary satellite and cannot 'fly' without massive structural reinforcements.

Perhaps we can re-use some of the modules instead of the entire structure. Build a vehicle that can support the modules and travel to the moon and beyond. Shouldn't everything be modular anyway? That was the beauty of the ISS...

For now, I say let Lance Bass pay his 10 Million to float some cheesy pop records in space.

Best,

Mike Bandli

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Darren Garrison <cynapse at charter.net>
> Sounds good to me.
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102394.
> html
>
> It's All Decked Out. Give It Somewhere to Go.
>
> By Michael Benson
> Sunday, July 13, 2008; B03
>
>
>
> Consider the International Space Station, that marvel of incremental
> engineering. It has close to 15,000 cubic feet of livable space; 10 modules, or
> living and working areas; a Canadian robot arm that can repair the station from
> outside; and the capacity to keep five astronauts (including the occasional
> wealthy rubbernecking space tourist) in good health for long periods. It has
> gleaming, underused laboratories; its bathroom is fully repaired; and its
> exercycle is ready for vigorous mandatory workouts.
>
> The only problem with this $156 billion manifestation of human genius -- a
> project as large as a football field that has been called the single most
> expensive thing ever built -- is that it's still going nowhere at a very high
> rate of speed. And as a scientific research platform, it still has virtually no
> purpose and is accomplishing nothing.
>
> I try not to write this cavalierly. But if the station's goal is to conduct yet
> more research into the effects of zero gravity on human beings, well, there's
> more than enough of that already salted away in Russian archives, based on the
> many years of weightlessness that cosmonauts heroically logged in a series of
> space stations throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s. By now, ISS crews have also
> spent serious time in zero gravity. We know exactly what weightlessness does and
> how to counter some of its atrophying effects. (Cue shot of exercycle.)
>
> And if the station's purpose is to act as a "stepping stone" to places beyond --
> well, that metaphor, most recently used by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is
> pure propaganda. As any student of celestial mechanics can tell you, if you want
> to go somewhere in space, the best policy is to go directly there and not stop
> along the way, because stopping is a waste of precious fuel, time and treasure.
> Which is a pretty good description of the ISS, parked as it is in constant low
> Earth orbit.
>
> This is no doubt why, after the horrifying disintegration of the space shuttle
> Columbia in 2003, the Bush administration belatedly recognized that, if we're
> going to spend all that money on manned spaceflight, we should justify the risks
> by actually sending our astronauts somewhere. So NASA is now developing a new
> generation of rockets and manned spacecraft. By 2020, the Constellation program
> is supposed to take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since
> Apollo 17 returned from the moon in 1972. Yes, that'll be almost 50 years. Where
> will they go? To the moon -- the only place humans have already visited.
>
> Which leads us right back to the expensively orbiting ISS. It hasn't a
> fig-leaf's role left. The moon is the new "stepping stone," with Mars bruited as
> a next destination. Although NASA officials will never quite say so, their
> current attitude seems to be that the station is essentially a high-maintenance
> distraction, even a mistake. Their plan is to finish assembling the thing ASAP
> and hand the keys over to the Russians, Canadians, Europeans and Japanese, with
> minimal continuing U.S. involvement. This should happen by the shuttle's
> mandatory retirement in 2010. Meanwhile, we're still writing a lot of
> high-denomination checks and preparing the two remaining shuttles for risky
> flights to finish something we then plan to be largely rid of. This seems
> absurd. I have an alternative proposal:
>
> Send the ISS somewhere.
>
> The ISS, you see, is already an interplanetary spacecraft -- at least
> potentially. It's missing a drive system and a steerage module, but those are
> technicalities. Although it's ungainly in appearance, it's designed to be
> boosted periodically to a higher altitude by a shuttle, a Russian Soyuz or one
> of the upcoming new Constellation program Orion spacecraft. It could fairly
> easily be retrofitted for operations beyond low-Earth orbit. In principle, we
> could fly it almost anywhere within the inner solar system -- to any place where
> it could still receive enough solar power to keep all its systems running.
>
> It's easy to predict what skeptics both inside and outside NASA will say to this
> idea. They'll point out that the new Constellation program is already supposed
> to have at least the beginnings of interplanetary ability. They'll say that the
> ISS needs to be resupplied too frequently for long missions. They'll worry about
> the amount of propellant needed to push the ISS's 1,040,000 pounds anywhere --
> not to mention bringing them all back.
>
> There are good answers to all these objections. We'll still need the new
> Constellation Ares boosters and Orion capsules -- fortuitously, they can easily
> be adapted to a scenario in which the ISS becomes the living- area and lab core
> of an interplanetary spacecraft. The Ares V heavy-lift booster could easily send
> aloft the additional supplies and storage and drive modules necessary to make
> the ISS truly deep-space-worthy.
>
> The Orion crew exploration module is designed to be ISS-compatible. It could
> serve as a guidance system and also use its own rocket engine to help boost and
> orient the interplanetary ISS. After remaining dormant for much of the one-year
> journey to, say, Mars, it could then be available to conduct independent
> operations while the ISS core orbited the Red Planet, or to investigate an
> asteroid near Earth, for instance.
>
> But, the skeptics will say, the new Orion capsule's engines wouldn't be nearly
> enough; a spacecraft as large as the ISS would need its own drive system. Here,
> too, we're in surprisingly good shape. The ISS is already in space; the amount
> of thrust it needs to go farther is a lot less than you might think. Moreover, a
> drive system doesn't have to be based on chemical rockets. Over the past two
> decades, both the U.S. and Japanese programs have conducted highly successful
> tests in space of ion-drive systems. Unlike the necessarily impatient rockets we
> use to escape Earth's gravity and reach orbit, these long-duration, low-thrust
> engines produce the kind of methodical acceleration (and deceleration)
> appropriate for travel once a spacecraft is already floating in zero gravity.
> They would be a perfect way to send the ISS on its way and bring it back to
> Earth again.
>
> This leaves a lander. A lunar lander substantially larger than the spidery
> Apollo-era LEMs is currently on the drawing board. It's not nearly as far along
> in development as the Ares booster and Orion spacecraft components of the
> Constellation program -- which is a good thing. While I question the need to
> return to the moon in the first place, I wouldn't exclude it as a possible
> destination, so I think we should modify the lander's design to make it capable
> of touching down on either the moon or Mars and then returning to the ISS with
> samples for study in its laboratories. Such landers could also investigate the
> moon's poles, where we think water may be present, or one of the near-Earth
> asteroids -- which may have raw materials suitable for use by future generations
> of space explorers.
>
> But, our skeptics will sputter, this will all cost far more money than the
> Constellation program. Who'll pay for it?
>
> Actually, it will in effect save all the money we've already spent on the ISS.
> And the station is already an international project, with substantial financial
> and technological input from the Russians, Canadians, Europeans and Japanese. In
> recent years, the Chinese, who have developed their own human spaceflight
> capabilities, have made repeated overtures to NASA, hoping to be let in on the
> ISS project. They've been unceremoniously rebuffed by the Bush administration,
> but a new administration may be more welcoming. An interplanetary ISS -- the
> acronym now standing for International Space Ship -- would be a truly
> international endeavor, with expenses shared among all participating nations.
>
> How likely is any of this to happen? Not very. A lot depends on the flexibility
> of a NASA that hasn't always been particularly welcoming to outside ideas. On
> the other hand, the agency also collaborates with outsiders all the time. So
> it's not impossible. The reason the ISS went from being a purely American,
> Reagan-era project ("Space Station Freedom") to one including the Russians and
> many other nations was a political decision by the Clinton administration. A
> similar political vision will be necessary here.
>
> All the billions already spent on the space station would pay off --
> spectacularly -- if this product of human ingenuity actually went somewhere and
> did something. But it would also serve as a compelling demonstration that we're
> one species, living on one planet, and that we're as capable of cooperating
> peacefully as we are at competing militaristically. Let's begin the process of
> turning the ISS from an Earth-orbiting caterpillar into an interplanetary
> butterfly.
>
> michael.benson at pristop.si
>
>
> Michael Benson, the author of "Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes,"
> writes frequently on space science issues.
>
>
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Received on Tue 15 Jul 2008 09:32:56 PM PDT