Posted on 07/10/2006 5:51:10 PM PDT by KevinDavis
Despite NASA’s decision to keep its Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and Ares 1 and Ares 5 launchers solely US systems, it is considering international co-operation for the lunar lander.
The US agency is currently discussing a global exploration strategy with other agencies, such as the European Space Agency. Following a workshop in April there is a synthesis team working on an international architecture for exploring the Moon and Mars. NASA is determining what its Constellation programme will do and what international partners can do. “If internationals came up with a lander, that’s good,” said NASA Constellation programme manager, Jeffrey Hanley, speaking last week at the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Florida.
(Excerpt) Read more at flightglobal.com ...
I wonder what the North Korean Lander would look like?
Look at the current iss and then look back at Skylab.
Indeed. Skylab actually accomplished something beyond the study of flea fornication in zero gee.
Of course if Jimmy Carter had allow NASA to send a booster to keep Skylab in orbit, well things might have been different..
I'm too young to remember Skylab...
great.
Another partnership that we can spend money supporting, instead of really doing something meaningful, in something besides low earth orbit.
We didn't learn anything from our "partnership" with the Russians on building ISS.
Skylab was made out of a Saturn V SIVB third stage launched in 1974 manned by 3 different teams of astro's.
International - Barf! Noway.
The international Space Station has allowed China to sort of catch up, and has allowed Russia to catch that nation's breath after the break up of the Soviet Union.
Hell, it's not like we'd have to start from scratch. For a even a month-long mission on the lunar surface, most of the components could be "off the shelf" tech, with minor modifications.
This bears the stink of globalist politickin', methinks.
About the only benefit to making something like this international is that congress tends to support it over long periods of time.
It's not about going to the moon in congress' eyes, it's about maintaining "good international relations with our partners".
This is the only thing that spared the ISS the congressional chopping block in the 90's.
It's only value is in symbolic posturing internationally.
On the contrary. We know Russian oxygen generators work less than necessary to sustain human life,
Russian oxygen candles have a high failure rate, the Russian SM is hazardous to occupants'
hearing, and Russian design engineers didn't meet the clearance specs for adding whatever is left to add to the ISS.
What a waste of time and money.
I hate to break it to you but the Russians are pretty good at building heavy lift boosters and they have shared their technology with us.
No Quarter......
.....the moon is ours...time to regain control.
Screw the rest of the world!
But I do find it suspicious that for all of the their vaunted space/space station experience, there's
an awlful lot of sophmoric things wrong with the ISS.
What did we get out of it?
What did any of the other "partners" get out of it?
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