The return to the moon

According to Bush's new space policy, astronauts will return to the moon by 2020. Is NASA up to the task?

On December 14, 1972, the Apollo 17 crew left the moon. They said goodbye to the lunar landing unit, a flag, antennas, tools, bags of urine and feces and other items, which would not be needed on the journey back to Earth. Most likely the footprints and tires they left behind in the dust are still there and will probably remain so for millions of years to come. It seems that time is like a queen's ruling on the surface of the moon - and so is the human exploration program on the moon.

In accordance with the new space policy of George W. Bush, astronauts will have to return to the moon by 2020. Exactly how they will get there is not yet clear, but many experts are united in their opinion: similar to the footprints on the moon, the changes that have taken place in the technology of manned space flights during the past 30 years are remarkably few. Improvements in materials, electronics and power from a solar source lightened the weight of the spacecraft, and compared to the days of Apollo, made it smarter and more efficient, in terms of energy utilization. But in the field of propulsion technology only a few major inclusions were recorded. And the manned spacecraft's speed and cost have not improved significantly since the 70s.

The White House and NASA must still decide how they will meet the following goals expressed in the new policy: sending robotic explorers to the moon by 2008; completion of the International Space Station and retirement of the Space Shuttle by 2010; Development of a manned space vehicle and its launch for the first manned flight by 2014; and launching an extended human expedition to the moon by the year 2020. So far, only 12 people have been allowed to set foot on the lunar soil, and none of them stayed there for more than three days.

If astronauts are to spend weeks or even months on the moon, they will have to increase their supplies - from food and water to machines for exploring the lunar surface and extracting valuable resources. The durability of the expedition equipment will also have to be strengthened compared to the equipment used by the Apollo generation, whose space suits are now crumbling in museums. Bush proposed to start his plan with an additional budget of only one billion dollars - spread over 5 years. But no one believes that NASA is capable of establishing a manned base - without a launch - on the surface of the moon, without a much more generous budget than the one proposed by Bush. But in spite of this, the new policy awakens an appetite, long suppressed in the American people, to extend the limits of human settlement.

The idea underlying the base on the moon merged over the course of several decades into a fairly clear vision: in the first stage, robots will map the surface of the moon, look for frozen water in shaded craters at the lunar poles, and identify a suitable site for the base that would be suitable for settlement. Astronauts will come for short visits, no more than two weeks, and will install scientific instruments and experimental equipment in order to exhaust resources from the lunar soil, and will begin to build a residential area. Robots will help astronauts in their work. The base will later expand to include larger systems for air and water circulation, a plant to process ice on the moon for rocket fuel, and a nuclear power plant that will provide electricity for the base - which will be able to sustain six astronauts, or more, during extended visits. Finally, the base may become a permanent settlement, and may even be able to host tourists or settlers.

Currently, we are very far from realizing the dream and NASA does not even have a transport vehicle capable of taking astronauts on their equipment to the moon. President Bush ordered NASA to start developing a space vehicle called the Crew Exploration Vehicle, or CEV for short, and to the same extent it could have been called the "concept spaceship", since no specifications were defined regarding the appearance of the vehicle or its operation. Therefore, there is no shortage of ideas on how to build CEV. But considering the time constraints imposed by Bush, and NASA's lackluster past in the field of developing an alternative to the shuttle, it is likely that NASA will settle for a relatively outdated vehicle, known as Apollo Mark 2. Most space engineers agree that the crew will most likely fly in a simple drop-shaped capsule, And not in a winged aircraft. Apparently, this capsule will be propelled to the moon by a conventional, two-stage chemical rocket, rather than a nuclear rocket or a single-stage vehicle.

The Apollo spacecraft was, in fact, composed of several spacecraft that were piled onto a launch vehicle called Saturn 5. The facility lifted off using massive engines, which burn a mixture of liquid refined petroleum (kerosene) and oxygen. When the fuel supply was exhausted, the first stage was ejected from the rocket, and the second rocket stage - five engines burning a mixture of liquid hydrogen - ignited. Farther out in space, in the third stage, a single engine took the place of the second stage. After detaching from the last rocket, Apollo entered lunar orbit. An expedition going to the moon in the 21st century does not need such a huge rocket. Instead, NASA is supposed to launch the CEV in parts using small rockets, assemble them in a low orbit above the Earth, and from there go towards the Moon.

Boeing engineers drew up a plan for an airplane to assemble a CEV in three units: two rocket stages and a third section consisting of a resource unit that would provide the thrust for the return flight, and a launch-escape system. Another idea in the matter of how to bring the CEV unit to the lunar orbit, is by means of shuttle C, a derivative of the current space shuttle. Shuttle C will be able to carry two small CEV rocket stages in a single cargo container, and thus it will be possible to assemble each CEV in low Earth orbit in just two launches. However, many obstacles still stand in the way of this CEV script. One of them is the location along the route where the assembly of the CEV will take place, since the International Space Station makes the orbit with a significant deviation from the path to the moon, and the price for this is fuel. Besides this there is the problem of size.

Due to the lack of a serious breakthrough in the field of propulsion, the only hope of building a lunar base rests on exploiting resources in their original location - finding frozen water at the poles where the sun does not shine, and separating it into hydrogen and oxygen to produce rocket fuel. The lunar soil also contains useful elements such as aluminum and oxygen. The process will not be simple. Engineers will be forced to build mining and processing equipment that will be resistant to extreme cold conditions, and of course light enough to be transported on the moon. And in addition to that, a nuclear reactor will be built as a source of power.

In order to finance the lunar program, budgets will be cut from other parts of NASA - in scientific programs that are not directly related to the manned exploration of space. And so, although in his announcement, Bush specified specific dates for the development of the CEV-return to the moon, the surprise - if the dates pass without the plan being carried out - will not be great. And while the United States sets its sights on the moon, the European Space Agency is talking about a manned landing on Mars in 2033, in its much more detailed program, "Aurora."