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From: brwk@doc.ic.ac.uk (Bevis King)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Shuttle trips to the Moon
Keywords: shuttle moon
Message-ID: <566@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk>
Date: 16 Jan 89 15:49:50 GMT
Sender: brwk@doc.ic.ac.uk
Reply-To: brwk@doc.ic.ac.uk (Bevis King)
Organization: Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London, UK.
Lines: 37

I assume by now that most people realise that sending the Shuttle itself
to the Moon is largely pointless.  Instead, the more sensible approach is
to use an OTV (Orbital Transfer Vehicle) with attached lunar lander
craft brought up in the shuttle payload bay.

This debate brought me to wondering if even that apparently straight
forward method would in fact not be possible with the US Shuttle as it
stands.  From what I remember of the Apollo shots, the round trip took between
two and three weeks.  This I believe is about twice as long as a shuttle
can stay up (being some 7 or 8 days).  Hence if they went, they couldn't
get back because the Shuttle would have had to return to Earth because
of shortage of power and other supplies.  NASA are also nowhere near
up to the turn-around required to launch a second shuttle in time to
pick up the returning crew.

The possibility of deactivating the shuttle in orbit (unmanned of course)
occured to me; the idea being that the crew would "park" the shuttle for
their own return.  However, the more I thought about it the less feasable
it appeared, since the US shuttle remote control doesn't appear to be up
to the required abilities (to correct orbits, etc).

The ultimate answer appeared to be that without a permanent space station
or a shuttle with a better duration in space; a return to the moon by the
US could not be undertaken using any part of the much vaunted 'STS' space
shuttle.  The US could therefore only return to the moon if they could
"drop in" on the Russians in MIR, and hitch a lift home on a Soyuz!

What a sad day for American space travel.
What a great opportunity for international co-operation.

Regards, Bevis


Bevis King, Systems Programmer        |   Email:  brwk@doc.ic.ac.uk
Dept of Computing, Imperial College   |   UUCP :  ..!mcvax!ukc!icdoc!brwk
180 Queens Gate, London, SW7 2BZ, UK. |   Voice:  +44 1 589 5111 x 5085
          "Never argue with a computer" ... Avon (Blake's 7)