[extropy-chat] SPACE: Back to the Moon (?)

Greg Burch gregburch at gregburch.net
Thu Oct 30 13:48:19 UTC 2003


The space policy nerdo-sphere is buzzing with rumors that Bush will use
the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight to
announce a return to lunar exploration as a goal of U.S. manned space flight.
 See:

 http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beyondleo-03a.html

NASA could have a sustainable (although not constantly manned) presence
on the moon by 2015. On that schedule, the work done to build the ISS would
not be wasted: The design and construction of the various elements of the
ISS could be turned to building modular "hab modules" and other components
of a reusable translunar vehicle and a surface base. If my physics isn't
too off, even the ISS's cockeyed orbital inclination wouldn't be too much
of a handicap, since the cross-inclination vectoring could be leveraged
during translunar trajectory insertion so that the missions originating
at the ISS could still get into a lunar-equatorial orbit without too much
delta-vee.  Is this latter conjecture on my part true?

My blog: http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html

   "Every question we answer leads on to another
      question. This has become the greatest  
          survival trick of our species."
                -- Desmond Morris




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