In 2009,how can it take NASA longer to get to the moon, than in 1963?, page 1

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Topic started on 17-6-2009 @ 06:07 PM by kiwifoot

I've posted this story in BAN but from experience I know it will just get lost there.
So I'm going to post it here too and se if I can get the other one deleted.

So NASA are sending an orbiter to the moon to map the lunar surface in preparation for future manned missions.

Nasa heads to the moon as panel weighs its future

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - As NASA prepared to launch its debut mission in a program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon, a presidential panel on Wednesday began looking at alternative ways to get there and whether the United States should even go.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:12 p.m. (2112 GMT) on Thursday, is designed to map the lunar surface so NASA can find safe and scientifically interesting landing spots for future human missions.

The United States is shifting the focus of its human space program from research and technology development in low-Earth orbit with the space shuttle and International Space Station to an exploration initiative. That would culminate in the return of U.S. astronauts to the moon in 2020 -- a half-century after the pioneering Apollo lunar landings of 1969 to 1972.

OK I have a few issues with this:

1) Surely for the Apollo missions they would have mapped the surface?

2) Why will it take NASA eleven years in 2009, what it managed to do in 6 years in 1963 ( started in 1963, landed in 1969).

3) With all the technological advancement in the forty years since 1969 would it not be a quicker process.

Could this be one of the most telling articles with regards to proof of a Lunar Landing Hoax?

[edit on 17-6-2009 by kiwifoot]

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 06:13 PM by LiquidLight

reply to post by kiwifoot

I'm not sure why it would take them eleven years to get back to the moon, but, as for remapping it, I'm sure the surface as changed significantly due to asteroid impacts.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 06:29 PM by JaxonRoberts

The Constellation program is still on the drawing board and they cannot start to retool the facilities at Cape Kennedy until the Shuttle Program is completed. Unlike the 60's, NASA is not trying to rush the program through like they did with the Apollo Program. The new vehicles are much more technologically advanced, so it will take longer to test and approve them.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 06:32 PM by grapesofraft

reply to post by kiwifoot

During the first missions to the moon they were given top priority and huge budgets to accomplish their goals. Also, they did not live in a CYA world where any mistake leads to years of delays and hearings to discover why someone might have gotten hurt going to or coming from the moon.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 06:45 PM by TheCoffinman

Id say lack of funds this time around perhaps..

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 06:48 PM by kiwifoot

Originally posted by JaxonRoberts
The Constellation program is still on the drawing board and they cannot start to retool the facilities at Cape Kennedy until the Shuttle Program is completed. Unlike the 60's, NASA is not trying to rush the program through like they did with the Apollo Program. The new vehicles are much more technologically advanced, so it will take longer to test and approve them.

The Apollo program had to do everything from scratch. Everything. I don't care how much money they had, I simply cannot believe that the technology in the 1960's could deliver a man on the moon in nearly half the time, taking into account the forty years of knowledge gained. Especailly with what we already supposedly know about the moon from the Apollo missions.

Also the entire Shuttle program was delivered in 9 years!

Come on!

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 06:53 PM by BriggsBU

reply to post by kiwifoot

The original Apollo capsules were very advanced for their time, but these days they simply are laughably dated. A good scientific calculator has more processing power than the Apollo computers. I wager that they are going to need to redesign the entire vehicle from the ground up to make it safer and make use of more modern technology. Despite common beliefs, more advanced technology doesn't make it 'easier' to manufacture equipment/vehicles. The requirements of that technology might even make it more difficult as stronger power sources are needed, more computational power, etc.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:01 PM by JaxonRoberts

reply to post by kiwifoot

And even NASA was amazed that it worked! The best estimates were that the Apollo astronauts had a 50/50 chance of making it to the moon and back. The first casualties of the US space program were during the Apollo program. Quite simply, they got lucky given the pressure they were under to deliver. This time there is no pressure to deliver by a certain date, thus giving them the time to do it more safely. This program is 10 times more complex, even though they are using alot of the same systems as the Apollo program. I say they should take there time. Slow and safe is better rushed and risky!

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:07 PM by john124

Firstly yes technology has got more advanced, and because of that we have higher ambitions as to how capable our craft is. Therefore it will take us longer to develop them. Secondly funding is limited nowadays, and since it's more scientifically prudent to launch unmanned craft we will spend most of our funding on that. There may be other reasons for funding cuts, such as the recession. And in the 60's most of the funding was directly in a cold war race to reach the Moon first.

There's other points I could also make such as we didn't concentrate on the safety aspect as much in the 60's and this time we will. That means more time to develop various aspects of safety for the astronauts whatever they will be. Remember Apollo 1 was a disaster and Apollo 13 was almost a disaster. We don't want repeats of those.

[edit on 17-6-2009 by john124]

[edit on 17-6-2009 by john124]

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:09 PM by john124

Originally posted by LiquidLight
reply to post by kiwifoot

I'm not sure why it would take them eleven years to get back to the moon, but, as for remapping it, I'm sure the surface as changed significantly due to asteroid impacts.

The answer is for higher resolution imaging, so we can see the Moon in more detail.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:14 PM by FredT

It was a different time. You had an extension of the cold war, and a population that was supportive of what ammounted to an unlimited budget. A lot more restrictions on the budget now and space is not as exciting as It once was.

Also we are far more risk adverse as we were then.

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reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:31 PM by john124

Originally posted by kiwifoot

Originally posted by JaxonRoberts
The Constellation program is still on the drawing board and they cannot start to retool the facilities at Cape Kennedy until the Shuttle Program is completed. Unlike the 60's, NASA is not trying to rush the program through like they did with the Apollo Program. The new vehicles are much more technologically advanced, so it will take longer to test and approve them.

The Apollo program had to do everything from scratch. Everything. I don't care how much money they had, I simply cannot believe that the technology in the 1960's could deliver a man on the moon in nearly half the time, taking into account the forty years of knowledge gained. Especailly with what we already supposedly know about the moon from the Apollo missions.

Also the entire Shuttle program was delivered in 9 years!

Come on!

Well they did land 12 men on the Moon, and we have set a modest target this time round. What's the rush?! You won't be happy if American's are sent to their graves due to faulty or shoddy equipment. How close was the Apollo 13 crew to being lost due to electrical faults.

We have gained knowledge, but that's not the same as actually doing it. The physics of going to the Moon is not the same as the engineering aspects of it. The engineers who built the Apollo modules aren't around anymore, so we've lost the expertise to build them and even NASA admitted some stuff had to be thought of from scratch for their Ares rockets. They did have a failure when they tested an Ares capsule when its parashute didn't open properly and it just crash landed. It looks a silly failure, but nevertheless we learn from mistakes, and it's better to make those mistakes without any astronauts inside the modules at the time.

Funding issues that have arisen are due to in some cases a budget has been set too low, as asking for a higher budget would have been rejected by the Bush administration. Therefore they have had to downsize certain projects, which in essense also slows down progress, and making readjustments also costs more. Hopefully that's something Obama's administration will do better.

Anyway I read an article about this on BadAstronomy can't find it now, but I'm sure someone can. It gave many more reasons, you'd be surprised at how many times the system is just the problem. Maybe things were much simpler in the 60's and so easier just to get the job done.

Here's some amazing recent photos of the Ares rockets, and you can see they have indeed been busy at NASA.

www.boston.com...

[edit on 17-6-2009 by john124]

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:54 PM by jra

Originally posted by kiwifoot
1) Surely for the Apollo missions they would have mapped the surface?

Yes they did, but you don't want to rely on 40 year old data, you'd want to get the latest information. Plus the LRO is able to image the Moon at a higher resolution than the Lunar Orbiters.

2) Why will it take NASA eleven years in 2009, what it managed to do in 6 years in 1963 ( started in 1963, landed in 1969).

Actually, the Apollo program was conceived in 1960, with Government support starting in 1961.

As for why it will take longer. NASA doesn't have the budget it had back in the 60's. Plus they're not in a race against another Nation either, so there's no rush.

3) With all the technological advancement in the forty years since 1969 would it not be a quicker process.

Not at all. With access to new materials and technology that wasn't around in the '60's a lot of new research and testing needs to be done. Technological advancements don't speed up development timelines, if anything it makes them longer. Compare the development of the F-15 to the F-22 for example.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:55 PM by jkrog08

reply to post by kiwifoot

I found it funny that NASA admitted to "losing the blueprints to the Saturn V launch system"!LOL..........Speechless on that one...

Anyways a lot of the reasons already given are good ones, plus space is not a huge public priority anymore to be honest. Another huge reason for the lax efforts of NASA is the secret space program, NASA is not needed, it is just a cover and deflection now. It used to not be but that is really all it is now. They are not getting funding or support from the government because the DoD knows that NASA is stone age compared to what we really have, courtesy of Tesla, Germany, and ETs.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 07:58 PM by argentus

Well, the answer is quite simple. In the 60's, NASA didn't have to wait in a que or pay a toll.

reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 08:37 PM by skeetontheconspiracy

Maybe its because they are awaiting permission from the greys on the far side?

maybe because they didnt actually land on the moon in the 60's?

or it could be its the same ol same ol to them and they just aren't in a rush anymore?

If funding is the issue, offer tickets for a trip to the moon. 5-10 million USD each. I certainly would like to fly to the moon.

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reply posted on 17-6-2009 @ 08:47 PM by jra

Originally posted by jkrog08
I found it funny that NASA admitted to "losing the blueprints to the Saturn V launch system"!LOL..........Speechless on that one...

NASA has never admitted to such a thing. Quite the opposite actually. www.space.com...

Not that having the blueprints would be of much use today anyway.

reply posted on 18-6-2009 @ 09:24 AM by Solofront

Originally posted by LiquidLight
reply to post by kiwifoot

I'm not sure why it would take them eleven years to get back to the moon, but, as for remapping it, I'm sure the surface as changed significantly due to asteroid impacts.

How many asteroids, size/quantity would it take to change the surface significantly?

I wasn't even aware asteroids have hit the moon, in the past 40 years, much less, any significant surface-changing asteroids anyways.

reply posted on 18-6-2009 @ 06:54 PM by jra

Originally posted by Solofront
I wasn't even aware asteroids have hit the moon, in the past 40 years, much less, any significant surface-changing asteroids anyways.

Not asteroids, but meteorites do hit the Moon almost as much as they hit the Earth I would imagine. We go through a meteor shower about once every year. It makes for a nice light show when they streak through our atmosphere, but on the Moon, it would be a bit more devastating since there is no atmosphere. A small pebble sized meteorite can make a several foot wide crater.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I believe one of the reasons why NASA wants to look at the Apollo landing sites is to see if any of them have had any significant impacts and to get an idea of what to expect when staying for much longer periods on the Moon.

reply posted on 18-6-2009 @ 07:27 PM by Donnie Darko

The Moon Landing was a HUGE gamble in human life. They are lucky they didn't fail the mission and die.

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