Lunar lander could involve multinational effort: NASA

Flight International ^ | 07/11/06 | Rob Coppinger

[KevinDavis]

I don't mind a mission back to the moon, however, I don't think it should be an international mission. Us yanks should control the moon, Mars and beyond..

[KevinDavis]

[tet68]

I wonder what the North Korean Lander would look like?

[Kakaze]

If we are going back to the old tried and true way of getting to the moon, then lets remember that was a American effort not a international one. Keep the construction in house.

Look at the current iss and then look back at Skylab.

[oxcart]

Don't cha know that that moon stuff was made on a Hollywood set./Art Bell/sarc/off

[RadioAstronomer]

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.

[af_vet_rr]

International cooperation and design by committee has done wonders for the ISS, can't wait to see this applied to a lunar lander.

Did I sound sarcastic? No really, did I?

[KevinDavis]

Of course if Jimmy Carter had allow NASA to send a booster to keep Skylab in orbit, well things might have been different..

[KevinDavis]

I'm too young to remember Skylab...

[Bean Counter]

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.

[markman46]

Skylab was made out of a Saturn V SIVB third stage launched in 1974 manned by 3 different teams of astro's.

[demlosers]

International - Barf! Noway.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

The United States should try to go it alone as much as the country can. Even more so when the United States is in the lead.

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.

[FierceDraka]

Given how the ISS has gone, I'd say internationally building a lunar lander is a BAAAAD idea.

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.

[Brett66]

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.

[Calvin Locke]

We didn't learn anything from our "partnership" with the Russians...

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.

[free_at_jsl.com]

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.

[RandallFlagg]

I know you already know about this, though....
Coming Soon: 09/19/2006

[Vaquero]

No Quarter......

.....the moon is ours...time to regain control.


Screw the rest of the world!

[Calvin Locke]

I didn't say that the Russians couldn't design stuff right.

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?