Secret NASA Plans for Moon Missions Leaked Online

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Problem is the SLS is years behind schedule and billions over budget

Was supposed to flight ready b 2017 ……….

Then 2018 ……….

Then 2020, said 2020 probably not going to happen

Maybe 2021 , now saying that may not happen …

Even if SLS is ready estimate costs at 750 million - 1 Billion per Launch

Falcon Heavy estimates launch in expendable mode (no booster recovery) at 150 million

Still FH would require extensive modifications

To launch Orion module and service module from Falcon Heavy would

Need to modify payload adapter from 4.2 meters to Orion 5 meter Concern is that the wider payload fairing may cause shock waves which could effect FH heavy side boosters

FH to Lunar trajectory is about 40,000 lbs (18000 kg) - Orion and service module weigh over 50,000 some 12000 lbs over max lunar launch capability

Would need 3rd stage = only viable contender is upper stage from Delta 4 Heavy Would require modifications to transporter - erector, called Strong back by Space X Also ground service equioment

Musk has said not man rate FH , instead would use Starship (formerly BFR) which is not estimated to be flight ready until 2022 at earliest

originally posted by: putnam6
www.spacesafetymagazine.com... y-life/china-helium-3-program/


Heres an old article about China and H-3. Who knows how far a long they are,but common sense and not being beholden to political parties and congressional oversight means they are likely proceeding like they know they can solve the issues. China isn't chasing the moon for PR. They got plans and are likely farther along than ours and can likely make them work.

Likely, likely, likely, and your conclusions about their motivations are based on what? Their long-term goals are to supplant the US as the dominant hegemon. Doing something only the US has done in history would have tremendous value in that regard.

a reply to: face23785

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There just might be something out there flying around using said tech.

originally posted by: face23785

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: face23785

That we know of.

Though to be honest. I'm more interested in the anti matter technology that the USA has. Hopefully that can power stuff.

That would be great if we could get it working too. There's the tiny obstacle of not being able to economically produce enough anti-matter for it to be useful though.

For folks so "into" this kind of tech, ya'll don't seem to know much about the current state of it.

You honestly think they are built with money? They are not paper planes.
And you honestly think, that with every new invention, the first thing they will do, is report it on the news or internet?

Nothing wrong with that, as it is exactly what is expected of a citizen, but we are on a conspiracy site after all,

Anyway, have a nice day, i hope the weather is sweet around there, and i hope all the best for you.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
Telescopes and satellites are getting pretty good now days.

Gotta' get up there and clean up some of those (staged) landing sites before anyone finds out!

JUUUUUST KIDDING!

Interesting!

There was that missile NASA launched into the moon just before the Chinese decide to drop a lander on the surface. The excuse was they wanted to study the dust the missile would toss up from the impact. Ya, right!

Never made sense to me, a missile would not disappear evidence, it would just scatter it all over the place in smaller parts. How could they be sure nothing will be left? Even if the main parts were completely vaporized, the entire zone would be full of materials and other stuff that can't be hidden away no matter what you do

So it doesn't make sense to send a missile with a couple bombs to do that job, the contamination of the zone would only increase if you explode one or two bombs out there

a reply to: Malisa

You can also add that it wasn't a missile, it happened nowhere near China's landing sites, and that this happened years before China's lander got there.

a reply to: strongfp

May not be the best idea to mine an object who's mass shares a symbiotic relationship with not only our planets oceans but our bodies as well..just a thought

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
It's not really "leaked" info that NASA is planning to go tp the Moon by 2024. That's been the publicly-promoted plan for at least a year now. The Gateway Project (a lunar orbital space station) is part of it, as are surface exploration missions.

They've had web pages on their website for a while now dedicated to providing details about going to the Moon by 2024.

Here's a ink to NASA's Moon to Mars webpage "We Are Going...To Stay"

They've invited companies to partner with them for the hardware necessary for the Lunar gateway and surface exploration. Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin have tentative designs for lunar landers that NASA could use.

The video below is Lockheed's version of the Lunar Lander, which can stay on the surface and act as a base for two weeks at a time. It is reusable and can act like a back-and-forth shuttle between the Lunar Gateway orbital station and the surface

I was under the assumption that the actual plans were leaked. Thats different than just knowing there IS a plan.

I usually get the feeling that "leaks" are intentional.

originally posted by: face23785
linky

This is apparently in response to comments from VP Pence that NASA should return astronauts to the moon. NASA has confirmed the authenticity of the documents.

Big takeaways:

According to this, NASA has plans to return humans to the moon by 2024.
They want to start building a moon base by 2028.

No real shocks in the document really, but still news I guess.

Kinda suspect this is just to slowly reveal the hitherto secret space program. It tells me they are going to do this as a cover for what they've been doing for for a long time.

originally posted by: AquaAscending
a reply to: strongfp

May not be the best idea to mine an object who's mass shares a symbiotic relationship with not only our planets oceans but our bodies as well..just a thought

True. We should counter balance the relationship by shipping all our trash, radioactive waste, and (enter humorous reference here) to the moon.

Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from which operation "each year, three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."[59] In January 2006, the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020,[60] if funding can be found.[61][62]

Wiki

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: face23785

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There just might be something out there flying around using said tech.

Do you think they're flying planes with anti-matter engines?

originally posted by: solve

originally posted by: face23785

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: face23785

That we know of.

Though to be honest. I'm more interested in the anti matter technology that the USA has. Hopefully that can power stuff.

That would be great if we could get it working too. There's the tiny obstacle of not being able to economically produce enough anti-matter for it to be useful though.

For folks so "into" this kind of tech, ya'll don't seem to know much about the current state of it.

You honestly think they are built with money? They are not paper planes.
And you honestly think, that with every new invention, the first thing they will do, is report it on the news or internet?

Nothing wrong with that, as it is exactly what is expected of a citizen, but we are on a conspiracy site after all,

Anyway, have a nice day, i hope the weather is sweet around there, and i hope all the best for you.

Yeah, it's a conspiracy site, but there's a difference between a conspiracy theory and just making something up out of thin air. We're not talking about some proprietary aircraft design, we're talking about a physical process. If there was an economical way to make a fusion reactor with a net-positive power output or to generate usable quantities of anti-matter, it wouldn't just be the gubment's uberscientists who figured it out. For example, the Manhattan Project was super secret, but the knowledge that you could build a bomb using uranium or plutonium that would be many times as powerful as a conventional bomb spread around the globe like wildfire. Within a few years, dozens if not hundreds of physicists had done the calculations. It's all there in the physics and the math to be found by anyone willing/able to do the work.

ETA: I used to have that child's awe faith in government like they could do anything and had these ultra-futuristic tech. Then I worked for the government and found out how incompetent it is.

a reply to: face23785

Oooooh! It was "Leaked!"

originally posted by: prevenge
a reply to: face23785

Oooooh! It was "Leaked!"

[sarcasm]I nominate this post for the top contribution to the thread. [/sarcasm]

originally posted by: 3n19m470

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
It's not really "leaked" info that NASA is planning to go tp the Moon by 2024. That's been the publicly-promoted plan for at least a year now. The Gateway Project (a lunar orbital space station) is part of it, as are surface exploration missions.

They've had web pages on their website for a while now dedicated to providing details about going to the Moon by 2024.

Here's a ink to NASA's Moon to Mars webpage "We Are Going...To Stay"

They've invited companies to partner with them for the hardware necessary for the Lunar gateway and surface exploration. Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin have tentative designs for lunar landers that NASA could use.

The video below is Lockheed's version of the Lunar Lander, which can stay on the surface and act as a base for two weeks at a time. It is reusable and can act like a back-and-forth shuttle between the Lunar Gateway orbital station and the surface

I was under the assumption that the actual plans were leaked. Thats different than just knowing there IS a plan.

There was nothing really new mentioned in the "ars technica" article. I don't think the information they mentioned was "leaked" online as much as it was simply "found online".

The SLS launch manifest they have shown there regarding specific launches for the Lunar Gateway Hardware may (or may not) be slightly different than tentative launch manifests NASA has published in the past , although maybe a few details are different. The idea of using several SLS and private industry launches to put the parts of the Lunar Gateway in place, construct the gateway, and build and use the hardware needed to get from the gateway to the lunar surface it is not new.

What IS new in the ars technica article was that they also plan other launches and other mission (37 total) prior to and as part of the Artemis Program, which is NASA's new name for their lunar exploration program, which is meant as a proving ground for a future Mars mission.

But NASA has provided public detail for years about the other stuff in the article.

NASA's NextSTEP-2 set out to gather detailed concept information from private industry on the Lunar Gateway/Lunar Exploration program as a whole, including (as you can see from the different appendices of the NextSTEP document in the overview linked below), habitat modules, lab modules, power and propulsion of the Gateway, a manned Lunar Lander, and other requirements:

NASA NextSTEP Overview

Separate Appendices from that Overview (these links take you to the synopsis page, upon which can be found several PDF files providing detailed information):
NextSTEP-2 Appendix A: Habitation Systems
NextSTEP-2 Appendix B: FabLab
NextSTEP-2 Appendix C: Power and Propulsion Studies
NextSTEP-2 Appendix D: In-Situ Resource Utilization
NextSTEP-2 Appendix E: Human Landing System
and even...
NextSTEP-2 Appendix F: Trash Compaction and Processing System

NextSTEP-2 Appendix E deals with the Lunar Lander, and earlier NASA held a "NextSTEP 2" Industry Forum with potential private sector partners to discuss NASA's vision and requirements for the Human Landeing Systems. Here is an overview of the items that were to be discussed at the forum:

Human Landing Systems BAA Industry Forum

Out of NASA's solicitation to the private sector companies that were involved with that forum came 11 companies that would preliminarily work toward providing manned lander capabilities. This was announced last week:

NASA Taps 11 American Companies to Advance Human Lunar Landers

Earlier, NASA was engaged with industry partners in the original NextSTEP for habitation modules concepts for the Lunar Gateway. Four companies were selected to provide concepts for the Gateway habitation modules, and NASA has begun testing these concepts:

NASA Begins Testing Habitation Prototypes


Having said all this, I think 2024 is too aggressive a schedule to get boots on the ground, unless more funding can be found (and that would be difficult, because that means funding cuts elsewhere in the gov't), but I can definitely see the orbital Lunar Gateway beginning to be in place by 2024 with people on the lunar surface a few years after that.

originally posted by: face23785

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: face23785

Helium-3 is supposed to be in abundance on the moon.

Maybe when that stuff becomes useful, but right now it's not.

H3 is incredibly rare on Earth and required to line current sustainable nuclear fusion reactors.

A few tonnes of the stuff will supply the world's energy needs for around 50 years at 2010 consumption levels.

originally posted by: bastion

originally posted by: face23785

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: face23785

Helium-3 is supposed to be in abundance on the moon.

Maybe when that stuff becomes useful, but right now it's not.

H3 is incredibly rare on Earth and required to line current sustainable nuclear fusion reactors.

A few tonnes of the stuff will supply the world's energy needs for around 50 years at 2010 consumption levels.

Welcome to 2 pages ago. We've been talking about this. Current fusion reactors still aren't economical. It makes no sense to pay the enormous expense of going to the moon to get an element for a reactor that is a net consumer of energy. Someday, when fusion technology advances to the point where it's practical, I would say go get it if that's the only way to do it.

H3 is incredibly rare on Earth and required to line current sustainable nuclear fusion reactors.

A few tonnes of the stuff will supply the world's energy needs for around 50 years at 2010 consumption levels.
.

a reply to: bastion

Problem is you still have to get there and setup the mining operation and processing plant ……..

originally posted by: firerescue

H3 is incredibly rare on Earth and required to line current sustainable nuclear fusion reactors.

A few tonnes of the stuff will supply the world's energy needs for around 50 years at 2010 consumption levels.
.

a reply to: bastion

Problem is you still have to get there and setup the mining operation and processing plant ……..

That's what people seem to be stuck on. Even if someone figures out fusion reactors, is going all the way to the moon and mining He-3 to bring back to run a fusion reactor more economical than just running a fission reactor or traditional power production methods? I doubt it, not with today's spaceflight technology.

It's not just a matter of can we do it, it's whether it's cost-effective.