At the Institute of Aerospace Sciences in Los Angeles in 1962, the pair unveiled their “One-Way Manned Space Mission” proposal.
The plan called for a one-man spacecraft to follow a direct ascent path to the Moon. Ten feet wide and seven feet tall, the empty spacecraft weighed less than half the much smaller Mercury capsule. Inside, the astronaut would have enough water for 12 days, oxygen for 18 with a 12-day emergency reserve, a battery-powered suit and backpack, and all the tools and medical supplies he might need.
He would land on the Moon after a two-and-a-half day trip and have just under ten days to set up his habitat. As part of his payload, the astronaut would arrive with four cargo modules with pre-installed life support systems and a nuclear reactor to generate electrical power. Two mated modules would become his primary living quarters, while the others placed in caves or buried in rubble — a feature Cord and Seale assumed would dominate the lunar landscape — would provide a shelter from solar storms.
With his temporary home set up, he would wait a little over two years for another mission to come and collect him.
This is how I feel a one-way mission to Mars ought to be conducted. Send an astronaut first, with at least enough supplies to last until the next launch window for a second mission to Mars, which would deliver more supplies and perhaps additional astronauts. The program would consist of a long and expensive series of missions, some manned, most unmanned, with an eventual goal of providing enough equipment and supplies for the first astronaut(s) to return home, while the most recently arrived take their place to continue the study of Mars (and of living on Mars) - a sort of interplanetary shift-rotation.
“We need the courage of starting a new era,” Europe’s director of human spaceflight, Simonetta Di Pippo, told the BBC News. For sending a mission to the Moon from the ISS, De Pippo said, “The idea is to ascend to the space station the various elements of the mission, and then try to assemble the spacecraft at the ISS, and go from the orbit of the space station to the Moon.”
With this type of mission, the future of spaceflight actually be as Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield describes in the video below. “This is the great stepping off point of to the rest of the universe,” says Hadfield, who will be commanding an upcoming expedition on the ISS. “This is an important moment in the history of human exploration and human capability,… and the space station is a visible sign of the future to come.”
"Moon" was really, really great - especially for the tiny budget and the return to using miniatures in the shoot.
Having grown up on "Space:1999", I may have been indoctrinated with the idea of a permanent space base. It's a shame that the US space programme failed in that regard, but I have no great problem with China being the new leader in space. I do hope that the Canadian Space Agency won't let it's ties to the US programme blind it to the possibilities of joining Chinese efforts. We can't go into space ourselves, and should be cultivating relationships that allow us some future ability to contribute.
Speaking of financial stupidity, what exactly would be the benefit of returning to the moon via the SST or otherwise? Would not those billions be better spent trying to fix the economic and environmental problems right here?
I can see both sides. But the technology and the means to fix our problems are here. The need is here, the money is as well. However the impetus for those n charge to get what needs to be done isn't there. There is far too much greed and petty infighting for things to effectively get done. Like all great "empires" they all fall. The American rise to prominence was far to quick to be sustainable. Thus its fall will be all the more painful for the world to watch and be effected by as well.
"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily mean we must do that thing." Hmmmm 50 points to the first one who correctly pegs where this quote is from!
China is making major headway in its mission to land a rover on the moon — a big step forward in the nation's ambitious lunar exploration plans.
At China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center, the moon-bound Chang'e 3 spacecraft is undergoing its final tests ahead of a planned launch in early December. Meanwhile, a Long March 3B carrier rocket, reportedly modified with new technologies and improved reliability, is set to reach the launch center via train from Beijing on Friday (Nov. 1).
The touchdown target for the Chang'e 3 mission — a lander and a lunar rover — is thought to be Sinus Iridum, known as the Bay of Rainbows, a plain of basaltic lava on the moon, according to reports by China media outlets.
China is aiming to become only the third nation ever, after Russia and the U.S., to land a spacecraft on the moon.
The Asian nation successfully launched its Chang’e-3 probe, its third lunar mission, early on Monday morning, Beijing time. The spacecraft is set to make the first soft landing on the moon in nearly four decades, on or around December 14.
The Chang’e-3 is named after the Chinese goddess of the moon. It follows on the heels of two previous lunar orbiting missions launched by China since 2007, ones that surveyed and mapped the entire moon, including a potential future landing site for the current mission.
The four-legged lander—the size of a sports utility vehicle—is now on course to arrive in lunar orbit by the end of this week. After firing its rockets to slow its speed and go into orbit around the moon, it will next initiate a landing in mid-December, and finally release a 140-kilogram (300-pound), six-wheeled rover on the moon’s surface.
As scary to us as U.S. space dominance was to them in the past. These emerging issues - China and India both advancing rapidly with their space programmes (India just launched a probe to Mars!) – are another reason why it is important to engage and form agreements through bodies such as the United Nations, so that any developments are for the good of all humankind. China in particular has the economic and resource capabilities to put the U.S. to shame in space over the long term. Canada in particular should be exploring partnerships for our astronauts, since the U.S. continues to be incapable of even launching its own people into space.... and if U.S. / Russia relations continue on their current path, U.S. astronauts looking to hitch a ride into orbit may find the answer is nyet.
China has also in the past decade been investing very heavily in Africa and Latin America... while the U.S. continues to be distracted with its adventures in the Middle East. Mandarin would be a good idea....
Tomorrow (Saturday 14 Dec) the Chinese are hoping to become the third nation to "soft land" on the moon with the Chang'e-3 spacecraft and the Yutu (Jade Rabbit) rover...
China's first lunar rover is expected to land on the moon on Saturday, less than two weeks after it blasted off from Earth,
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Chang'e-3, the unmanned spacecraft carrying the rover, is due to touch down on a lava plain named Sinus Iridum, or Bay of Rainbows, shortly after 3 p.m. GMT (10 a.m. ET) on December 14,
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On landing, Chang'e-3 will release Jade Rabbit (called Yutu in Chinese) -- a six-wheeled lunar rover equipped with at least four cameras and two mechanical legs that can dig up soil samples to a depth of 30 meters.
The solar-powered rover will patrol the moon's surface, studying the structure of the lunar crust as well as soil and rocks, for at least three months.
On landing, Chang'e-3 will release Jade Rabbit (called Yutu in Chinese) -- a six-wheeled lunar rover equipped with at least four cameras and two mechanical legs that can dig up soil samples to a depth of 30 meters.
Jade Rabbit has a pretty cool tool onboard... ground-penetrating radar. As it moves around, it's "seeing" deep underground as well, part of the search for minerals and whatever other resources they can exploit on their future visits.... and make no mistake, the Chinese are definitely intending to set up a base and do what the USA is no longer capable of doing.
Chinese TV released video of the Chang'e lander arriving at the moon, and the deployment of the rover. Pretty cool:
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