Howdy everybody. Though I was gone? Nope! It's been a somewhat hectic two months for me. I enter college at CU Boulder, so I've been focusing on adjusting to this new climate. Now that I'm more or less adjusted, I can now resume with writing these entries. I'm back, and in honor of the recent Mars discovery, I am going to talk about... the Moon. What? I begin this entry months ago, it's not like I could change the subject to Mars, given I had already done the research for this. Anyway, remember my Daedalus overlook? Well, in that, you probably remember me talking a little bit about the British Interplanetary Society's proposal about a moon mission in the 1930's. Well, I'm going to write about it. Enjoy
In 1938, the BIS commissioned a study about a vehicle that would carry a crew of three onto the Moon, as well as a ton of payload, and safely bring them back to the Earth, with only half a ton of final payload. It was meant to show that a mission to the Moon was both physically and economically viable at the time. The moon rocket would have been using powder as a fuel, as was common in model rockets at the time. However, there was a major problem. The velocity required to actually reach the Moon would be in excess of 16 km/s. If it would be built in a single rocket, 90 % of the mass of the rocket would be propellant. To solve this, they decided to create a step rocket, with multiple boosters. Basically, since the booster would have a very low yield, there would be approximately 2,490 mini honeycomb based boosters, which would be immediately discarded. (Such an idea can be traced back to the multiple stage rockets proposed by Kostatin Tsiolkovsky in the late 19th Century.) It would be launched from a high altitude lake near the Equator (possibly Lake Titicaca). It would be about one metric ton, and could send a crew of three to the Moon. There was shielding for the descent to the Moon, though no shield for the descent back to Earth. Also strange was the use of solid fuel, since liquid fuel was considered impractical, due to the power of pumps needed to actually produce the force to push each booster. (Of course, this problem was eventually solved, by a German rocketeer named Werhner von Braun). The lunar lander itself looked like a gun shell, about 11 ft tall, and 13.5 ft in diameter. The landing would bear some resemblence to the eventual landing of Apollo 11 in 1969. The hull would be a glass like aluminum oxide, but the cabin would be plastic, with a ceramic covering. The cabin is also attached to boosters, which would create a spin for artificial gravity. The rocket, despite being the center piece of the mission, was actually not the only part of the mission studied. They also studied how the Astronauts could survive the mission. Along with the aforementioned heat shielding, the food was supposed to be high in calories (such as bread, butter, cheese, honey, etc.). The crew would carry an assortment of scientific equipment and protection, to study the Moon, including sunburn lotion (apparently, spacesuits weren't conceived of yet), a telescope and microscope, and geological hammers. Air and water for the mission would be extracted from a single tank of To communicate, they would use "flashes of light." (Presumably using it for morse code), which would be broadcast by the BBC (ironic, given their coverage of Apollo 11 30 years later.)
The design, led by J. Happian Edwards, and including Arthur C. Clarke as the astronomy consultant, was published in January of 1939 in the Society's journal. Even then, they noted that they didn't actually have the resources to actually go through with this mission at the moment (given that even experimenting with rockets was illegal in Britain at the time.) However, they hoped to send out a survey to gather public support, to actually begin with this mission. This attracted a lot of attention to the Society, both positive and negative. It had gotten attention in Time Magazine, and publications as far away as India. Despite this, most modern analyses of the mission do deem it ultimately implausible, due to the large number of boosters, and the lack of heat and radiation shielding. After World War II, the Society turned to lesser targets, such as organizing the first conference on planning the first orbiting artificial satellite. However, it is still held as a seminial study, as the first serious attempt to plan a mission to the Moon, using (then) modern technology, and some of it would later recall the later Apollo missions.
So, thanks for reading. A shame I couldn't do something Mars related. Maybe the BIS did something with Mars...
Sources:
The Union Jack on the Moon, by Ron Miller- io9.com
http://io9.com/the-union-jack-on-the-moon-1262867212
The BIS Lunar Spaceship- The British Interplanetary Society official website:
http://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/bis-lunar-spaceship
HMS Moon Rocket, by Tony Reichhardt- The Air and Space Magazine, March 1997:
http://www.airspacemag.com/space/hms-moon-rocket-3143/?all
BIS Lunar Lander- Encyclopedia Aeronautica
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/bisander.htm
In 1938, the BIS commissioned a study about a vehicle that would carry a crew of three onto the Moon, as well as a ton of payload, and safely bring them back to the Earth, with only half a ton of final payload. It was meant to show that a mission to the Moon was both physically and economically viable at the time. The moon rocket would have been using powder as a fuel, as was common in model rockets at the time. However, there was a major problem. The velocity required to actually reach the Moon would be in excess of 16 km/s. If it would be built in a single rocket, 90 % of the mass of the rocket would be propellant. To solve this, they decided to create a step rocket, with multiple boosters. Basically, since the booster would have a very low yield, there would be approximately 2,490 mini honeycomb based boosters, which would be immediately discarded. (Such an idea can be traced back to the multiple stage rockets proposed by Kostatin Tsiolkovsky in the late 19th Century.) It would be launched from a high altitude lake near the Equator (possibly Lake Titicaca). It would be about one metric ton, and could send a crew of three to the Moon. There was shielding for the descent to the Moon, though no shield for the descent back to Earth. Also strange was the use of solid fuel, since liquid fuel was considered impractical, due to the power of pumps needed to actually produce the force to push each booster. (Of course, this problem was eventually solved, by a German rocketeer named Werhner von Braun). The lunar lander itself looked like a gun shell, about 11 ft tall, and 13.5 ft in diameter. The landing would bear some resemblence to the eventual landing of Apollo 11 in 1969. The hull would be a glass like aluminum oxide, but the cabin would be plastic, with a ceramic covering. The cabin is also attached to boosters, which would create a spin for artificial gravity. The rocket, despite being the center piece of the mission, was actually not the only part of the mission studied. They also studied how the Astronauts could survive the mission. Along with the aforementioned heat shielding, the food was supposed to be high in calories (such as bread, butter, cheese, honey, etc.). The crew would carry an assortment of scientific equipment and protection, to study the Moon, including sunburn lotion (apparently, spacesuits weren't conceived of yet), a telescope and microscope, and geological hammers. Air and water for the mission would be extracted from a single tank of To communicate, they would use "flashes of light." (Presumably using it for morse code), which would be broadcast by the BBC (ironic, given their coverage of Apollo 11 30 years later.)
The design, led by J. Happian Edwards, and including Arthur C. Clarke as the astronomy consultant, was published in January of 1939 in the Society's journal. Even then, they noted that they didn't actually have the resources to actually go through with this mission at the moment (given that even experimenting with rockets was illegal in Britain at the time.) However, they hoped to send out a survey to gather public support, to actually begin with this mission. This attracted a lot of attention to the Society, both positive and negative. It had gotten attention in Time Magazine, and publications as far away as India. Despite this, most modern analyses of the mission do deem it ultimately implausible, due to the large number of boosters, and the lack of heat and radiation shielding. After World War II, the Society turned to lesser targets, such as organizing the first conference on planning the first orbiting artificial satellite. However, it is still held as a seminial study, as the first serious attempt to plan a mission to the Moon, using (then) modern technology, and some of it would later recall the later Apollo missions.
So, thanks for reading. A shame I couldn't do something Mars related. Maybe the BIS did something with Mars...
Sources:
The Union Jack on the Moon, by Ron Miller- io9.com
http://io9.com/the-union-jack-on-the-moon-1262867212
The BIS Lunar Spaceship- The British Interplanetary Society official website:
http://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/bis-lunar-spaceship
HMS Moon Rocket, by Tony Reichhardt- The Air and Space Magazine, March 1997:
http://www.airspacemag.com/space/hms-moon-rocket-3143/?all
BIS Lunar Lander- Encyclopedia Aeronautica
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/bisander.htm
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