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Landau-Strange baseline design

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Snidely

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Jan 31, 2012, 5:03:22 PM1/31/12
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Any comments? Anybody have links to other documents of this plan?


Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> scribbled something like ...

> Have we discussed the plan championed by Landau and Strange? I'm
> catching up with my print reading, and when I saw their article in the
> Dec 2011 Scientific American, I thought it was strange that I didn't

oops, should have used a synonym.

> recognize it as an SSP topic.
>
> Their plan involves a capsule ride to a deep-space ion-drive ship,
> used in a kind of powered-shuttler scheme, and to support EV tasks
> with pods. Test flight would be to an orbit above the lunar south
> pole to control a fleet of robotic explorers.
>
> "Focusing on an easier mission could stunt exploration by setting a
> dead end for technological capability. Conversely, striving for a
> harder mission could perpetually delay any meaningful exploration by
> setting targets too far out of reach. Our desgin baseline falls
> between these extremes. It is a one-year round-trip that launches in
> 2034, with 30 days spent exploring asteroid 2008 EV5."
> (pg 62)
>
> What's the reaction of SSP to the 3 principles they use: flexibility,
> not having to newly invent everything, and to design a program that
> can maintain forward momentum even if one component runs into problems
> or delays.
>
> /dps

David Spain

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Jan 31, 2012, 10:20:41 PM1/31/12
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Snidely wrote:
> Any comments?

>> Their plan involves a capsule ride to a deep-space ion-drive ship,
>> used in a kind of powered-shuttler scheme, and to support EV tasks
>> with pods. Test flight would be to an orbit above the lunar south
>> pole to control a fleet of robotic explorers.
>>

I suppose that's an interesting 'test'. But robotic lunar exploration is just
as easily accomplished from Earth as it is from an "ion-drive ship". And
likely for a whole lot less $$$ and for a lot longer period of time.

Dave

Snidely

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Jan 31, 2012, 11:26:24 PM1/31/12
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David Spain <nos...@127.0.0.1> scribbled something like ...
The idea of doing the lunar trip is to do a shakedown cruise near enough to
earth for safety, and the robot control is just a serving of gravy on top
of the rest of the mission objectives.

The trip to 2008 EV is the centerpiece of the baseline plan, hence my
original subject line.

/dps

Snidely

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Feb 2, 2012, 5:31:52 PM2/2/12
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Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> scribbled something like ...

> David Spain <nos...@127.0.0.1> scribbled something like ...
>
>> Snidely wrote:

SciAm has supplemented the December article with a Skype Interview
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=deep-space-landau-
strange>



>>> Any comments?
>>
>>>> Their plan involves a capsule ride to a deep-space ion-drive ship,
>>>> used in a kind of powered-shuttler scheme, and to support EV tasks
>>>> with pods. Test flight would be to an orbit above the lunar south
>>>> pole to control a fleet of robotic explorers.
>>>>
>>
>> I suppose that's an interesting 'test'. But robotic lunar exploration
>> is just as easily accomplished from Earth as it is from an "ion-drive
>> ship". And likely for a whole lot less $$$ and for a lot longer
>> period of time.
>
> The idea of doing the lunar trip is to do a shakedown cruise near
> enough to earth for safety, and the robot control is just a serving of
> gravy on top of the rest of the mission objectives.

It is also approximately the starting point for the Oberth maneuver for
the trip to Mars or 2008 EV

>
> The trip to 2008 EV is the centerpiece of the baseline plan, hence my
> original subject line.

So nobody here has been reading about the Landau-Strange-et-alia plan?
(Merryl Azriel apparently has, with a brief mention in Space Safety
Magazine at
<http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2011/12/08/robotics-engineers-
explain-roadmap-crewed-mars-mission/>)

Here, by the way, is a set of slides at seti.org providing some
additional data, with Jonathan Battat as an additional author:

<http://tinyurl.com/LandauSEPslides>


There a short list of potential asteroid destinations at ESA:
<http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/MAD/pub/ACT-RPR-MAD-2010-(DPS)
Humans2Asteroid.pdf>

Those two seem to come together at
<http://targetneo.jhuapl.edu/pdfs/sessions/TargetNEO-Session3-Landau.pdf>




/dps

David Spain

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Feb 3, 2012, 1:14:51 PM2/3/12
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Snidely wrote:
> So nobody here has been reading about the Landau-Strange-et-alia plan?

No sorry, the day job has been keeping me busy.
Thanks for the links, I'll try to take a look over the weekend.

Dave
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