Notes-1

Notes 2008 CE

· To facilitate lunar industrialization, propulsion modules should be rocketed up to the ISS and used to change its orbital plane to one more favorable for TLI. This will facilitate MALEO assembly and preparation of Moon bound vehicles at the ISS.

· The Shuttle should keep flying for another ten years at least, even if new orbiters must be purchased.

· Minor Correction: 310 tons “seed” cargo + 150 tons spent landers + 186 tons HTS wire + 90 tons HTS landers + 100 tons MALEO + 25 tons MALEO lander = 851 english tons of which 265 tons are spent landers to cannibalize for Al, Li, steel, H, C, N.

· If electric drives can be used to brake into LLO, payloads to lunar surface will be much greater.

· VASIMR might be the best electric drive. It’s thrust can be modulated. At high thrust it uses more propellant but can climb higher than LEO faster and escape from exospheric air friction. Once in high orbit, above 600 miles, it can go to low thrust and high exhaust velocity and use less propellant. VASIMR can use many different propellants. Hydrogen is most efficient.

· Much lunar construction and manufacturing can be done with simple arc welding of flat steel plates to make box shaped habitat and tram cars.

· Aluminum films reflect 92% of visible light and 98% of mid to far IR. Aluminized Mylar or aluminum foil is good enough for solar shielded of spacecraft and space radiators. Pricy gold foil is too expensive and there is no known gold on the Moon of any significance as far as mining goes.

· Rolls of aluminized plastic sheet might be included in 310 ton “seed” mass

· Ten tons miscellaneous mass of MALEO might include a telescope and digital camera.

· A robotic rover should be landed on Mt. Malapert to analyze the area, esp. the area on the NE slope that might be iron rich, before 2015 CE.

· Cobalt extracted from iron fines with CO gas will be used mainly for tool steels, though a little can be used for tinting glass for aesthetic reasons. Ten pounds Co will tint one ton of glass deep blue.

· Hot hi-speed cutting tools will not oxidize in the vacuum. Cooling will be troublesome. Within inert gas filled work chambers for robots and humans with O2 gear, oil could be used to lubricate and cool cutting tools like drills and saws. Dripped oil would be recovered. Oil would be upported at first. Once agriculture is going oil could be made by thermal depolymerization of animal scraps, chaffe and manure.

· Workers at early bases will eat dehydrated and freeze dried foods hydrated with recycled water along with some canned and frozen meats.

More Notes 2008 CE
By Dave Dietzler

1. Use Ariane launched rocket module to move the ISS to a more equatorial orbit suited for payloads to the Moon that would be assembled at the ISS before TLI; for instance, modular habitat. Raise the ISS orbit to so that less reboost is required.

2. Let the Russian launch Soyuz capsules from the French base at Khouro, Guiana, to the ISS in its new orbit. From Khouro 10-15% more payload can be sent to LEO or a higher orbit can be reached.

3. Keep the Shuttle Orbiter flying for decades. Build some new ones too. If the Orbiter is combined with the stretched 33’ x 180’ Ares V ET and ASRBs it could reach the ISS in a higher orbit. It could probably reach the ISS in a higher orbit now if the station was orbiting closer to the equatorial plane since it takes more OMS fuel to get into the highly inclined plane the ISS is in now.

4. The heat shield tile system must be improved either by developing better bonding methods or using the metallic inconel tiles on dynaflex insulation with glass rock insulators that were once planned. The foam problem on the ET could be solved with a thin coating of spray on plastic sealant and a thin layer of paint to make the Shuttle look better even if it reduced payload capacity a few hundred measly pounds. The SSMEs might be replaced by RS-68s that have far fewer parts and are therefore cheaper to make and refurbish and should be more reliable based on Murphy’s Law. If the Orbiter is combine with a larger Ares V ET that ET might reach LEO (100 miles) while the Orbiter used its OMS to reach the ISS moved to perhaps 200 miles up. The ET might then dock with an orbiting satellite that uses a solar powered electrodynamic tether to change orbits without fuel to boost it to a higher orbit where it is used for a fuel depot tank, spacecraft or space station hull, or just cut up for scrap metal or even send the ETs to the Moon someday. Satellites with solar powered ED tethers could also salvage old upper stages and dead satellites orbiting the Earth.

5. From a more equatorial orbit coplanar to the Moon’s orbit the Russians will have to land someplace besides Central Asia. Perhaps they could land in South America, the southwestern USA or even Florida. They might even develop a capsule that can splash down in tropical seas.

6. Since titanium has the highest strength to weight ratio of any metal, a capsule as strong or stronger than one made out of aluminum would be lighter. The American CEV and perhaps a new Soyuz capsule made of titanium should be developed. It would be reusable too.

7. Habitat and work modules using the MALEO (Modular Assembly in LEO) method should be assembled at the ISS, propelled to low lunar polar orbit with electric drives and use chemical rockets for descent. With modern computers and guidance systems and high resolution radar and optical maps of the Moon it will be possible to make pin-point landings on the Moon rather than just “hit the oval.” It will be possible to land within meters of other payloads landed on the Moon.

8. Manned lander descent stages will be cannibalized as will the single stage one-way landers used to land cargo on the Moon. Ascent stages and service modules might graze the upper atmosphere and go into highly elliptical orbits and someday be salvaged by solar ED powered satellites. The ascent stage would not be jettisoned in lunar orbit but stay attached to the command and service module during return flight so that it could serve as a “lifeboat” if something went wrong with the command or service module’s systems. In the worst case scenario the returning manned spacecraft would re-enter and burn up. In a milder case they would enter into an elliptical orbit that they could be rescued from by another CEV-service module spacecraft operated under remote control so that there would be enough room inside for all four or five astronauts.