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On 19 September 2005 (doi:10.1038/news050919-1) NASA spewed its vision of humans on the Moon by 2018. Not A Space Agency was passing certain of success since it was done from scratch in eight years for $25.4 billion in the 1960s, with slide rules, before the Russians sheathed their ICBMs in aluminum/scandium alloy skins.
NASA has Columbia (aptly named, too): 10,240 Intel Itanium-2 CPUs clustered into the world's most expensive rebuilt room heater. (Columbia built with original Itaniums was a do-over, but only because it didn't work. Its cost exceeded all expectations.) NASA quickly advanced behind schedule and surpassed budget. Studies are proceeding in a compassionate, feminist, culturally diverse milieu. (AMD dual-core Opterons were rejected for having unknown hazards - faster throughput and much larger bandwidths at lower power consumption and lower unit price. "256 terabytes of addressable memory space is enough for any man." Opterons play Tetris in flawless x86 compatibility. Where are the hidden flaws?).
$104 billion (100% unanticipated cost overruns are anticipated) will return humans to the Moon, offending Muslims everywhere. This is much more ambitious than successful Apollo missions. One quivers with delight pondering precocious visions harnessed toward victory! Moving one's bowels in Apollo was done into sealable plastic bags with internal finger projections, the process being aided by crew members. NASA avidly exercises an unnatural fundamentalism.
"Think of it as Apollo on steroids" (atrophied testicles?) said NASA chief Mike Griffin. He dropped off the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (moon trip) to White House officials on 14 September 2005. A concurrent "Drug-Free America" rally took to it with perceptible coolth.
The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will be NASA's flagship after Space Scuttle retirement in 2010, upping the ante with 267% more syllables and an acronym. Lockheed Martin is competing against Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Early indications hint at rockets, though renewable alternative technologies are greener. Boosting mass into low Earth orbit costs $30/gram in the Space Scuttle. A Saturn V cost about $10/gram to visit the moon and safely return.
As an emergency cost-saving measure, NASA engineers put an Apollo capsule on-screen and clicked "1.5X zoom" under close managerial scrutiny. Aspiring ass-tronaughts keep the faith that plastic bags for their solid excrement were included. Lock and load! Brown target shooting is not something they want to practice in simulation.
Specific impulse (Isp) measures rocket performance. Low average molecular weight (MW) exhaust increases Isp. Cryogenic liquid oxygen is a choice oxidant and demonstrated fool-proof mature technology (after Apollo 13). Liquid hydrogen is the preferred fuel, but it is finicky (-423° F boiling point), bulky (7% the density of water), and expensive (alriiight!). Fuel-rich mixtures can have exhaust MWs of 10 with Isp = 528 seconds on paper and 460 seconds in steel.
Kerosene (RP-1) is your daddy's rocket fuel - dense (81% of water), well-behaved, cheap, and merry in an open bucket. It has an exhaust MW around 23 and Isp = 300 seconds. The Saturn V would have made Otto Diesel proud. Space Scuttle solid rocket booster propellant has Isp = 242 seconds at sea level.
Decahydronaphthalene (90% water density) or tetrahydronaphthalene (97% water density) are commercial camping stove kerosene fuels. They are safe, effective, and inexpensive. A national decalin-tetralin shortage would have camping Enviro-whiners burning wood. Nobody wants that. CEV engines will burn liquid methane (-259° F boiling point, 42% water density) plus liquid oxygen, achieving the inefficiency of kerosene with the hazards and expense of liquid hydrogen. NASA experts hope that methane and oxygen will be harvested from other worlds for refueling. In 2005, liquefied natural gas rockets are a sop thrown to Enviro-whiners and oil companies.
Griffin wants each CEV to do 5-10 voyages before being retired. Nobody aboard will need No-Doze on Trip 9. The CEV will be "ten times safer than the Space Scuttle system," but that is NASA management talking. The CEV will sport a massive escape tower "that should allow the crew to bail out in the event of a launch failure." Should?
The first scheduled destination, in 2012, is International Space Station Freedom FUBAR Space Hole One Alpha. An unmanned version of the CEV is planned. What part of CREW Exploration Vehicle eludes NASA conceptualization? If you are shipping out, check that you hold a round trip ticket. Departure for ISS FUBAR is already delayed as passenger security screening is debated.
"We didn't set out to make this look like Apollo," said Griffin. That wild and crazy NASA! Will Apollo II be coed and retain those defecation bags? There isn't any place to put a Human Factors Biffy Module. "Teddy bear bags are for the boys and daisy bags are for the girls. If a girl wants to use a teddy bear bag we celebrate her endeavor. If a guy wants to use a daisy bag we respect his sensitivity."
Luggage travels separately. A colossal heavy lifter booster will be jury-rigged from two Space Scuttle solid rocket boosters and six liquid fuel main engines. The space tubby boosts an unmanned lunar lander and a small upper stage rocket into Earth orbit, best two out of three. Apollo II's motto is being shrewdly chromed for consumer delight... ARE WE THERE, YET?
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