Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!oliveb!pyramid!octopus!avsd!childers
From: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Shuttle round trips to the moon?
Keywords: shuttle moon
Message-ID: <426@avsd.UUCP>
Date: 26 Jan 89 03:20:09 GMT
References: <14549@oberon.USC.EDU> <972@isieng.UUCP>
Reply-To: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Organization: die Edelstahlratte
Lines: 28

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, I don't think it has room for all the fuel it would need to manuever,
accelerate, deccelerate, land, take off, maneuver, accelerate, deccelerate,
and touchdown.

But I don't see why, given that all of the control surfaces are superfluous
in vaccuum, one couldn't weld on massive, perhaps detachable, fuel tanks, as
well as lifters for controlling descent and ascent, and make the trip in a
shuttle, using it for its spacetight properties alone ...

>For an Earth-Moon shuttle I think a totally different concept is needed.

Eventually, yes, but in an emergency physics reigns supreme ...

-- richard


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