Previously, I argued in favor of low cost manned lunar missions using a single launch of the 53 mT payload capacity Falcon Heavy launcher:
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for low cost trips to the Moon.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/05/spacex-dragon-spacecraft-for-low-cost.html
In a follow up post I'll show it can be done even cheaper than discussed there using smaller, currently available upper stages. This might allow manned lunar flights at
three orders of magnitude cheaper cost than the estimated $100 billion total cost of the Constellation program, at least for single missions.
Note also the Falcon Heavy would also allow Bigelow-style space hotels to be transported to the lunar surface thus allowing long term stays on the Moon, also at much reduced costs than earlier estimates. I'll write about this as well.
However, for supporters of the SLS, in another follow up post I'll show a single launch of the interim 70 mT version could carry the Orion capsule to a lunar landing and back using Centaur-style Earth departure and landing stages. This argument depends on the ca. 20 to 1 mass ratio ULA suggests can be produced by switching to lightweight aluminum-lithium alloys.
This is important because it means rather than the interim 70 mT just making test flights, it can actually be used for manned flights to the Moon.
Note that Lori Garver at the recent AIAA meeting said the SLS will indeed be used to make manned flights to the Moon:
NASA's Garver lists moon as goal for astronauts against Obama space policy.
LORI GARVER SEPTEMBER 11, 2012 BY: MARK WHITTINGTON
“The truth is, we have an ambitious series of deep space destinations we plan to explore, and are hard at work developing the hardware - and the technologies - to get us there.
“In fact, we just recently delivered a comprehensive report to Congress outlining our destinations which makes clear that SLS will go way beyond low Earth orbit to explore the expansive space around the Earth-moon system, near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately, Mars. Let me say that again: We're going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars.“
http://www.examiner.com/article/nasa-s-garver-lists-moon-as-goal-for-astronauts-against-obama-space-policy
NASA is considering lunar flyby missions with the interim 70 mT version of the SLS:
NASA Weighs Early Deep-Space Tests With Orion.
By Frank Morring, Jr.
September 13, 2012
Planners in NASA’s human exploration and operations (HEO)
missions directorate are studying whether it would be possible and
worthwhile to expand the first three planned tests of the Orion
multipurpose crew vehicle, including the first flight with a crew, to
evaluate the capsule’s performance beyond low Earth orbit.
Architecture studies of potential deep-space missions using Orion also
are being used to consider ways to use the big capsule to collect data
on how it would perform beyond low Earth orbit, in lunar flyaround
like the Apollo 8 mission, and perhaps early flights to the Earth-Moon
lagrangian points under discussion as destinations where human
explorers could prepare for missions to asteroids and eventually Mars
and its moons, according to HEO Associate Administrator William
Gerstenmaier.
http://m.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/asd_09_13_2012_p05-01-494215.xml&p=1
Then rather then just doing a flyby mission with the 70 mT SLS version or waiting until 2030 when the full 130 mT version will launch, a full manned lander mission can be launched sometime after 2017 when the 70 mT version becomes available:
Space Launch System.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Program_costs
Interestingly then, since the Falcon Heavy can also do such single launch Moon missions, the next Moon race may be between the commercial space providers and NASA.
Bob Clark
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