Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Shuttle round trips to the moon?
Message-ID: <1989Jan19.030159.20911@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <14549@oberon.USC.EDU> <2443@phred.UUCP> <373@atlas.tegra.UUCP> <13440@bellcore.bellcore.com> <10366@well.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 89 03:01:59 GMT

In article <10366@well.UUCP> tneff@well.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>Note to whoever started musing about sending up landers and tanks of
>fuel in the cargo bay: Remember Challenger and the Flying Bomb Phobia.
>If they refuse even to take a Centaur up, they're sure not going to
>take a lander or a load of hydrazine up...

NASA has no major objection to hydrazine and the like in the cargo bay;
the Lacrosse/KH-12/whatever on Atlantis undoubtedly had quite a bit of it
aboard for maneuvering and orbit maintenance.  The problem with Centaur
was a combination of cryogenic fuels and a very heavy load (which meant,
for example, that an abort would have required dumping the Centaur fuels
before landing).

However, it probably is a better use of limited shuttle tonnage to take
a lander up dry, and fuel it in orbit using fuel taken up by expendable
tankers.  Sigh... there was a proposal, which quietly got forgotten, to
take the Centaur up dry and fuel it in orbit from leftovers in the
External Tank.  No cryogenics in the payload bay, no weight problems
on an abort, and a high-performance upper stage.
-- 
Allegedly heard aboard Mir: "A |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
toast to comrade Van Allen!!"  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu