Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Shuttle round trips to the moon?
Message-ID: <1989Jan15.051052.15244@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <14549@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 89 05:10:52 GMT

In article <14549@oberon.USC.EDU> weiss%neuro.usc.edu@oberon.usc.edu writes:
>Can the shuttle fly to the moon, land, and take off again to return
>to the earth.  Keep in mind the moon has 1/6 the gravitational pull
>of the earth.  Let's assume for the moment that there is adequate
>solid flat landing surface prepared on the moon for the landing.

No.  It can't carry the fuel to get into a lunar trajectory, its main
engines are not restartable in space, its auxiliary engines almost
certainly won't suffice, it can't make a rocket landing (no air on the
Moon, remember), it can't take off horizontally (or indeed at all, without
elaborate facilities), its landing gear cannot be retracted in flight, its
thermal protection isn't built for the extra heat of reentry from deep
space, and various subsystems (navigation, life support, etc etc) would
need substantial modifications.  It's a dedicated Earth-to-low-orbit
system.
-- 
"God willing, we will return." |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
-Eugene Cernan, the Moon, 1972 | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu