Lunar Surface Instrumentation (1966)

[Graham1973]

I was looking for information on the Lunar Surveying Staff, an instrument proposed for the first series of Apollo flights and stumbled across a report into the proposed lunar surveying instrumentation intended for the lunar flights carried out under Apollo Applications.

What is of interest (aside from the proposed instrumentation), is that it appears to be deployed from what is described as the LSSM, however the vehicle depicted seems to be an unpowered trailer.

Lunar Geophysical Surface & Subsuface Probes For Apollo Applications Program, Volume One. Detailed Technical Report

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19670009582_1967009582.pdf

 

[blackstar]

I don't know if this has been answered in any of the science books about Apollo (I've got Toward a Rocky Moon around here somewhere, I think), but I wonder how the science instruments would have evolved if the landings had continued past Apollo 17.

Certainly there were more things they wanted to do, but how would lessons learned from the earlier flights have affected the standard instrument kit?

 

[Graham1973]

I don't know if this has been answered in any of the science books about Apollo (I've got Toward a Rocky Moon around here somewhere, I think), but I wonder how the science instruments would have evolved if the landings had continued past Apollo 17.

Certainly there were more things they wanted to do, but how would lessons learned from the earlier flights have affected the standard instrument kit?

That is something I've always wondered myself, but I've found very little on the NTRS about proposed lunar survey instruments, although studies must have been carried out.

The unflown Lunar Surveying Staff is a case in point, there is only one document on the NTRS relating to it, the pictures inside indicate a clear relationship between it and the devices in the OP, but I've been unable to find out more.

Experimental study of the application of penetrometer technique to the lunar surveying staff concept

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19670014490_1967014490.pdf

 

[blackstar]

By the way, last year I was talking to somebody involved in current spacesuit design. He had been looking at new lunar suits for the now canceled lunar part of the Constellation program. He said that when they started working, they talked with some of the Apollo-era engineers still around and had looked at the actual suits used in the late Apollo missions, the ones that had been used the most. He said that the suit joints had been abraded by the lunar dust. I'm trying to remember what he said, but I think he said that they determined that the suits would not have lasted much longer than what they did on the missions--maybe only twice the duration (I'm forgetting details, but if you assume maybe 22 hours of lunar EVA for Apollo 17, they would not have been safe past 44 hours total).

So a lot of the plans for extended duration missions would have required a lot more work/equipment. Perhaps even backup spacesuits?

 

[Graham1973]

By the way, last year I was talking to somebody involved in current spacesuit design. He had been looking at new lunar suits for the now canceled lunar part of the Constellation program. He said that when they started working, they talked with some of the Apollo-era engineers still around and had looked at the actual suits used in the late Apollo missions, the ones that had been used the most. He said that the suit joints had been abraded by the lunar dust. I'm trying to remember what he said, but I think he said that they determined that the suits would not have lasted much longer than what they did on the missions--maybe only twice the duration (I'm forgetting details, but if you assume maybe 22 hours of lunar EVA for Apollo 17, they would not have been safe past 44 hours total).

So a lot of the plans for extended duration missions would have required a lot more work/equipment. Perhaps even backup spacesuits?

I personally have not seen much from the Apollo-era discussing the effects of lunar dust on equipment, for example of the three moon base studies linked to on the page below, two (Boeing, Stanford-Ames) are pre-Apollo, only the North American/Rockwell study of 1971 ("Lunar Base Synthesis Study) incorporates the findings of the Apollo missions.

http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/Moonbases