I'm with bbehe on this one.

We are farther from the Moon than we were 45 years ago.

Apollo was the culmination of 2 decades of research, training and development. We may have the research done now, but the training and development part takes a while.

[Edited on October 9, 2007 at 4:32 PM. Reason : 2]

10/9/2007 4:30:50 PM

ok...give me a basic time table on how could get to the moon in 3-5 years.

10/9/2007 4:32:30 PM

IT'S EASY YO

Build another Apollo and throw Neil Armstrong in that sumbitch


DURRR

10/9/2007 4:33:58 PM

lol

10/9/2007 5:23:08 PM

yeah, going to the moon is really really hard. it takes us half a decade to pave the section of I-40 between Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

we have no technology leftover from apollo that is in working order.
we have no experienced engineers or astronauts currently working that have ever sent a person to the moon.

yeah, it would take more than 3 years.

10/9/2007 5:49:18 PM

anytime you want to get a proposed time table sarijoul

10/9/2007 11:48:39 PM

This seven years shit is idiotic. Read a fucking book sometime. Most of the original 8 years were spent proving we could do things that hadn't done before -- things that we do regularly today.

Transplanetary injection, maneuvers and burns, orbiting other planets, docking, long range communication, long-range sensing, landing, long-term manned missions, lunar mapping, navigation.

We don't even need a Saturn V-sized rocket because we can bring everything up in parts and assemble it in orbit.

Putting together all this shit that we already do today would take a significantly less time than discovering that knowledge for the first time. It wouldn't even require the same percentage of GDP to do this.


[Edited on October 10, 2007 at 2:16 AM. Reason : sdf]

10/10/2007 2:00:01 AM

I would have liked it if the shuttle had been designed to leave earth orbit.

Even a lap around the moon would have been nice.

10/10/2007 3:19:29 AM

^^^build the rocket. test it.
simultaneously: build the lander. test it.
also simultaneously: train astronauts.


it's not like we have to reinvent the wheel here. i'm saying if we HAD to go to the moon. we could get there that quickly. maybe i'm naive, but i think that if all we really had to do was build something that we've already designed before (albeit with some likely improvements from decades of experience in space). also if we were REALLY serious about it, we could probably pursue more than one strategy simultaneously a la the manhattan project, just so that we'd be more assured of our success.



[Edited on October 10, 2007 at 8:03 AM. Reason : .]

10/10/2007 8:02:46 AM

Three to five years seems a bit optimistic to me given the current situation. Assuming we even had a strong enough political will and the massive amounts of money to do so, there's a lot of infrastructure we'd need to rebuild. We'd have to re-establish a manufacturing facility to build the heavy lift capacity as well as the lander and other equipment. Even the contracting process to bid the project would probably take about six months assuming you don't have the endless series of appeals that's haunting the aerospace industry these days.

Of course, if we decide to go to the moon, they'd probably want to rebuild the equipment from scratch so we could incorporate modern technology into the mix. Developing the software and the whole systems integration dance would probably take a few years assuming things go without a hitch (which it almost never does).

The other question would also be whether or not we even have the manpower for such a project. We're suffering from a chronic shortage of aerospace engineers on a national level, and to staff such a project would probably require taking people from other high priority projects.

My two cents.

10/10/2007 10:10:06 AM

Quote :

"The other question would also be whether or not we even have the manpower for such a project. We're suffering from a chronic shortage of aerospace engineers on a national level, and to staff such a project would probably require taking people from other high priority projects."

of course we'd take people from other projects. this is assuming this is of critical importance (which of course there's no reason to believe it will be right now)

it would be a rush job, no doubt, but i think we could certainly do it. it just wouldn't have the deliberate character of nasa we've grown accustomed to in the space shuttle era.

10/10/2007 11:04:50 AM

Quote :

"build the rocket. test it. simultaneously: build the lander. test it. also simultaneously: train astronauts."

Thats not a time table

Quote :

" This seven years shit is idiotic. Read a fucking book sometime. Most of the original 8 years were spent proving we could do things that hadn't done before -- things that we do regularly today."

Capsule Re-entry
Capsule Landing
Earth Orbit Rendezvous/Docking
Lunar Landing
Launching Two Rockets within 90 minutes of each other

We don't have recent experience doing that.

Your also not just training a crew, you're training back up crews, engineers, and flight controllers. Also, you want to train the astronauts before the system is finalized...bahahaha

[Edited on October 10, 2007 at 11:23 AM. Reason : a]

10/10/2007 11:18:26 AM

i don't know what you're trying to prove with this time table BS. here's a time table:

Day 1: Begin
Day <365*5: Land on the Moon.

A lot of these problems we DO deal with today, just not with manned missions.

10/10/2007 12:19:46 PM

oh that make sense

day 1: Begin
Day <365*3: Land on Mars.

We've been to Mars before right?, just not with manned missions So we can be there in 3 years!


And I'm trying to prove with the time table shit that 3-5 years is IMPOSSIBLE.

[Edited on October 10, 2007 at 1:17 PM. Reason : a]

10/10/2007 1:13:59 PM

Ok, the quickest way we could get to the moon is to use the Orion/Artemis vehicles. Why? Because they're already in development, scrapping them right now and starting new would require way too much time/effort.

Orion (CEV) Craft:

This is going to be one hell of a spacecraft, I have very high hopes for it. However, there are still many things that need to be finalized before we can even begin building a prototype.

1. Heat Shield - The Orion craft will be deal with more heat upon re-entry than the shuttle. Right now, we're still performing tests on what the best material is, how much material we need, etc.

2. Landing - The debate has been going back and forth whether to land on land or water. Either choice is going to require testing again and again.

3. Avionics - We're pretty much making stuff up as we go along here. We're dealing with a completely different system from the shuttle.

4. The Craft itself - no design has been finalized..when there are year long debates on where the best position for the windows should be...yeah, this is going to take some time.


Artemis (Lunar Lander)

We haven't even gotten off the drawing board yet with this. Designs are being tossed back in forth regularly.

Ares I, IV, V Rockets

Have yet to be developed, however most of the research is done. This is the piece of the puzzle which is furthest along.

10/10/2007 2:03:14 PM

^I'm working on Ares I and design changes/ideas that need to be tested come out quite often.

10/10/2007 2:16:35 PM

compare it to Orion/Artemis though, you have to admit its a hell of a lot farther along.

Out of curiosity, you work with NASA, whats the quickest you think we could get to the moon

10/10/2007 2:25:20 PM

I've only been working here a few months, I don't have nearly the amount of experience that would be necessary to make a valid estimate. If we absolutely had to get to the moon though and the entire nation were behind it politically and economically I would say 2013 at the earliest.

10/10/2007 2:57:04 PM

Quote :

"We've been to Mars before right?, just not with manned missions So we can be there in 3 years!"

the problem with that logic is the fact that we've had manned missions to the moon before. if there was a dire reason for us to go to the moon, i think we could do it in five years and maybe less. we've done much more ambitious things in less time before. (ww2/manhattan project anyone?). i mean, at the very least if we had to, we could just rehash the apollo-era systems. if the idea is to get something onto the moon quickly, and not necessarily to get the BEST thing to the moon, then the time it would take would be reduced drastically.

the current funding and philosophy at NASA wouldn't allow the mission to be accomplished that quickly. but we're talking about a hypothetical dire situation here.

[Edited on October 10, 2007 at 3:48 PM. Reason : typo]

[Edited on October 10, 2007 at 3:48 PM. Reason : and another]

10/10/2007 3:47:55 PM

10/10/2007 4:12:11 PM

YAY! CHINA IS NOW NOT YET SORTA EQUAL TO ONE US ACHIEVEMENT ACCOMPLISHED IN 1969

10/12/2007 11:09:34 AM

China is currently at our 1965 accomplisment level

10/12/2007 12:00:43 PM

lol

10/12/2007 12:03:16 PM

10/12/2007 2:16:02 PM

THE PRESIDENT HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY THE MOON.

ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO RESCUE THE PRESIDENT IN 3-5 YEARS?

10/20/2007 4:48:58 PM

I wonder if the Chinese space module will melt on reentry due to the presence of lead in all their products

10/22/2007 12:09:23 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/china-space-program-ramping-capabilities-pentagon-says-111713186.html

China: Establish space dominance

5/23/2013 2:32:52 PM

Yawn.

5/23/2013 4:38:56 PM

My roommate in undergrad is working on this project.

5/23/2013 6:12:09 PM

You're married and have a roommate?

5/23/2013 8:43:27 PM

When I was an undergrad, I had some roommates.

5/23/2013 8:48:10 PM

from, not in.

5/23/2013 8:49:46 PM

Thank you.

5/23/2013 8:51:11 PM

China possibly weaponizing space? it's pure speculation right now as the article states, but i wouldn't take it lightly if they did.

(and yahoo news must have a vested interest in reporting on chinese space happenings... the last link i posted was from them as well)

http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-actions-chinese-satellites-experts-guessing-152458349.html

Quote :

"Mysterious Actions of Chinese Satellites Have Experts Guessing"

9/10/2013 11:15:15 PM

frankie says relax. that's why we have this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37

9/11/2013 5:34:03 PM

theyre after the biometal amirite

9/11/2013 6:09:50 PM

After they make it to the moon do they then have to say in Low Earth Orbit for the next 40 years like us?

9/13/2013 10:43:49 AM

China has surpassed the United States as the world's largest economy:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/12/06/china-surpasses-us-to-become-largest-world-economy/?intcmp=latestnews

12/6/2014 11:26:20 AM