Vacation: The Moon

[Bj]

http://www.bing.com/travel/content/search?q=Expensive+Vacations:+The+Moon


Only

Two seats are available for $100 million each.

Ill take one please :thumbup:

 

[Artlav]

Cramped along with a farting billionaire and a grumpy pilot in a tiny spacecraft for seven days? Thank you, i can build my own for the money.

Seriously, what will they use to put it into a translunar?
If Orbiter is right, Apollo CSM could have reached the Moon from LEO on it's own, and Soyuz is better than CSM, so no additional booster is needed?

 

[Arrowstar]

Is the Soyuz TPS capable of performing under the increased heating loads that a direct re-entry from the moon would involve? Or is the plan to get back into Earth orbit before coming home?

 

[Ark]

Cramped along with a farting billionaire and a grumpy pilot in a tiny spacecraft for seven days? Thank you, i can build my own for the money.

This. Also, aren't they selling ISS missions for $20m? I get that circumlunar will be more expensive, but five times more expensive?

 

[adamb193]

Well I guess I'll hop on one of Russia's routine circumlunar missions then. Seriously though would they launch a private trip around the moon?

 

[Ghostrider]

If Orbiter is right, Apollo CSM could have reached the Moon from LEO on it's own, and Soyuz is better than CSM, so no additional booster is needed?

Maybe it could have gone circumlunar, but not much else. Also, the Apollo CSM SPS is much more powerful than Soyuz's engine AFAIK. Soyuz is "better" in the sense that is more spacious and less expensive, but Apollo was more powerful in terms of delta-V. Again, AFAIK.

 

[Bj]

Cramped along with a farting billionaire and a grumpy pilot in a tiny spacecraft for seven days? Thank you, i can build my own for the money.

At least for the STS program isn't it somewhere around 1bn a launch? (including development, processing, and everything else) Much cheaper for a ticket.

This. Also, aren't they selling ISS missions for $20m? I get that circumlunar will be more expensive, but five times more expensive?

They are greedy more realistically, they probably don't even have the hardware capable of making the journey, so the 200mil will help fund overhaul on Soyuz ...maybe

Well I guess I'll hop on one of Russia's routine circumlunar missions then. Seriously though would they launch a private trip around the moon?

Probably not, they probably think no one is crazy enough to spend 100mil for a ride to the moon. If someone is, well, then that's more money for them if they accept it right?

Maybe it could have gone circumlunar, but not much else. Also, the Apollo CSM SPS is much more powerful than Soyuz's engine AFAIK. Soyuz is "better" in the sense that is more spacious and less expensive, but Apollo was more powerful in terms of delta-V. Again, AFAIK.

Seriously, what will they use to put it into a translunar?
If Orbiter is right, Apollo CSM could have reached the Moon from LEO on it's own, and Soyuz is better than CSM, so no additional booster is needed?

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/199/1

The key to this “Lunar Express” approach is addition of a new component, a logistics module, to the Soyuz. In the strawman mission architecture Anderman outlined in his conference presentation, the logistics module and an upper stage are launched into an ISS orbit by a generic launch vehicle.
...
Once the module and upper stage were in orbit, a Soyuz spacecraft that had completed its half-year stay at the ISS would undock from the station and dock with the logistics module. The upper stage attached to the other end of the logistics module then fires, sending the complete spacecraft on a free-return circumlunar trajectory. The upper stage is jettisoned after the translunar injection burn, leaving the Soyuz and logistics module to complete the six-day round-trip mission. Back at Earth, the Soyuz return module separates from the rest of the spacecraft, as normal, and performs a double-dip reentry to handle the higher velocity of returning from the Moon.

I see an addon coming on

But this was from mid 2004, I wonder what has become of this proposal? If it would be so simple as to send a logistics module and an 'upperstage' to ISS by an Atlas V or Ares (whenever that gets started) and strap a Soyuz to it, you would think it would have been done already?

Though that proposal is circumlunar trajectory only, what would be the point of only getting to the moon, when you could also land and explore like the constellation program?

How about this, put a altar module in with the 'upperstage' and logistics module assembly. Also send an external tank of fuel. Send the whole apparatus to the moon, land, spend a few days, take off, come back, do the double dip reentry and land/splashdown. What could go wrong? :lol:

 

[SiberianTiger]

Is the Soyuz TPS capable of performing under the increased heating loads that a direct re-entry from the moon would involve? Or is the plan to get back into Earth orbit before coming home?

No to both. A special reinforced capsule has to be built and tested. Along with an autonomous rendez-vous system for the Block DM. That's just not counting interplanetary navigation, heat and electricity balancing the new 'craft and dusting rats in stations of DSN-equivalent Russian network.

But still, the Soyuz is a closest existing approach to a lunar-bound spaceship.

 

[Unstung]

Such a mission is still (obviously) far off...

 

[Arrowstar]

How long will the consumables in a typical, modern-day Soyuz last? Will those need to be upgraded, as well?

 

[SiberianTiger]

How long will the consumables in a typical, modern-day Soyuz last? Will those need to be upgraded, as well?

Not sure about the modern-day model, but the record is held by Soyuz-9 in 1970 (18 days long flight, with disastrous health effects on the crew, however). I assume the TMA can't be dramatically worse than that with aspect of consumables. Relying on solar power helps to save a lot on what otherwise would be consumables for fuel cells.

 

[N_Molson]

The Soyuz7K-LOK design could be an interesting possibility. Some were even built, but they never flown because the N1 rocket never worked...

It relied on fuel cells instead of solar panels.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soy7klok.htm

Anyway a lot of different designs for a lunar mission existed. It could be interesting to simulate a Soyuz circumlunar flight with Orbiter. Maybe a Proton/BlockDM rocket could do the job.

 

[Tycho]

It would be possible to simulate a soyuz circumlunar mission in Orbiter if you rendezvoused with a super tanker in orbit and docked. You could also use that for TEI, as I don't think that the addon Soyuz TMA has enough thrust by itself.

 

[Shadow Addict]

Is the Soyuz TPS capable of performing under the increased heating loads that a direct re-entry from the moon would involve? Or is the plan to get back into Earth orbit before coming home?

Well it WAS designed with direct lunar reentry in mind (granted, that was 50 years ago; I'm not sure how much elements like the TPS have changed since then).

 

[Ghostrider]

It was designed for that, but judging how the Zond fared maybe it's good they didn't try with real living crash test dummies in it.

 

[Shadow Addict]

IIRC the Zond had at least one completely successful test flight, so it's not like the design was totally flawed. I'm sure they would have ironed out the kinks if the program had continued.

 

[Wolfer]

Well Zond 6 succeeded in it's double dip reentry only to carsh due to a parachute failure.

 

[Shadow Addict]

And then Zond 7 was a complete success.

 

[Artlav]

Yet noone dared to fly this thing to the Moon, or give permission to.
USSR was one permission away from being first to fly around the Moon instead of Apollo 8.

So, these could have been done by cosmonauts, not robots:

It could have been a nice, cheap and reliable spacecraft, but catching up never gets you ahead, especially when paid in thank you's.