Why don't NASA?

Question

There is talk about going back to the moon in 2020, why don't NASA update the old saturn five( from the 60s )and use this this proven technology that worked fine back to get man to the moon and back, rather than spend billions of dollars on a new unproven space craft?

Answer 1

Simply put, noone here gave you a good answer. So I'll take a shot.

You are right that NASA plans to be back on the Moon by 2020. However, we do not want to bring back the saturn V rockets because, frankly, the mission has changed.

We are not just looking to go to the Moon any more. The new Ares rocket system will be America's replacement for the Shuttle program and our ticket back to the Moon. There will be 2 rockets used in the Ares system. These are Ares I and Ares V. Ares I (or the CLV) will be a crew launch vehicle. It will be capable of delivering a crew to low earth orbit (LEO). This will allow us to go to the space station, or perform experiments, or wait for the Ares V rocket. Ares V will be capable of delivering about 300,000 lbs of payload into LEO. It's payload for Moon missions will include the lunar module, service module, and TLI rocket (Trans-Lunar Injection) which will all dock with the crew capsule and then fire off to the Moon.

You may have known all that, but what I bet you don't know is that we ARE salvaging saturn V technologies as well as shuttle technologies to create these new rockets.

The Ares I first stage will be a solid rocket. This solid rocket will be the EXACT same rocket as is used on the space shuttle. (The big white ones on the side). The only difference is that instead of a 4-segment motor, it will have 5 segments. Giving it more fuel and more power. However, since it is directly descended from the only human-rated solid rocket motor in existence (ATK's RSRM), it will be very easy to qualify it. The second stage will be a single J-2X liquid rocket engine. This is a direct descendant of the J-2 engines used in the Saturn V's upper stages. Basically, it will be the same engine with a few design updates for efficiency and power.

The Ares V rocket will utilize 2 of the 5-segment ATK RSRM's on the side (much like the shuttle). These will be assisted by 3 J-2 engines during Ares V's 1st stage. When the RSRM's burn out they will drop away from Ares V (again like the shuttle) and come back to be reused.

So, you see, we are re-using much of the past technologies. Many things have advanced since the 60's and 70's, especially computer technologies. Things like this, and a new capsule, lunar module, and service module must be designed with new safety, life support, and other such technologies.

Ares will be a mutli-tasking rocket system capable of doing everything the shuttle does, but also taking us back to the Moon. NASA and its contractors aren't stupid. They know what they are doing. They are the least wasteful, and the most giving of all government agencies. So, just trust us and we'll get America back to the Moon.

Answer 2

Why DON'T you learn something about the new launcher (and the English language)? Guess what? After the Saturn V, we developed the Titan class of rockets. They've been around for more than twenty years. The new launcher design will be based upon the very successful and very reliable Titan III rockets. Why do [some people] just assume that scientists will never consider reliable and proven technology when designing spacecraft for a new purpose?

Furthermore, the Crew Exploration Vehicle is going to be a glorified version of the Apollo capsule...again, going with proven and reliable technology. Redesigns would be needed no matter what we did, to implement the latest technology and safety measures.

Answer 3

Because we have no working Saturn 5 rockets right now. So instead of building a new Set of those for billions they want to build safer more reliable and cheaper ones for billions.

Also they had a 1 in 7 failure rate for getting to the moon. remember Apollo 13. They made a movie about it.

It is sort of like why do they make new models of cars when the Ford Model A would get people from one place to another without breaking down most of the time.

Answer 4

Because the tools to make a Saturn V have been scrapped long ago, because the factory space has been switched over to other activity, like shuttle external tank manufacture, because the technology is old and we can do better now, because it would take more money to rebuild the old Saturn V than build a new design just like it took over a million dollars to build a duplicate of the Wright brothers first airplane recently, while they could have bought a new light airplane for a couple hundred thousand. But mostly because using a shuttle derived vehicle preserves jobs at the same factories that now support the shuttle.

Answer 5

Saturn 5 is a monster rocket - My PC has more processing power!
Nasa spent 3 trillion dollars putting a man on the moon 20% of GNP over a 10 year period - huge waste of money. The best thing to come out of the space program was Velcro and Teflon!!
Not withstanding the pollution as 3 million gallons of fuel per second went up in flame s- Yes i know it was hydrogen and oxygen combined - but it takes a huge amount of energy to liquify these elements and that comes out of the national grid ;

Nano-technology will be with us soon and we will build stronger and lighter spacecraft with carbon nanotubes as well as have atomic scale machines doing the repair in real time.

Computers will be much smaller and as powerful as a Cray supercomputer the size of a desktop. Electromagnetic tracks on the moon will relay the space craft back to earth at fantastic speeds with little energy cost - Solar Farms.

With mining on the moon and robotic assembly lines - the habitation modules can be built without recourse to Earth based resources. Water in the moon's polar regions can be mined and transported to sustain life. Hydroponics will grow food using the suns light and and everything will be recycled.

Thats why we have to wait 20 - 30 years - it will happen.

Answer 6

It would be taking an unnecesary risk. The rockets that took man to the moon had computers working back on earth that had less computational power than the average cellphone. Would you be happy taking such a risk if by taking your cellphone with you you doubled the amount of processing power in the whole mission? NASA will probably use all the stuff they learnt from the Saturn rockets and the space shuttles and use it in their new program. They were developing a new mode of transportation anyway - the shuttles are too out of date and risky themselves.

Answer 7

The new rockets will have double the crew of the Apollo\Saturn V rockets. It is also 'new' technology. The moon is but a stepping stone if NASA gets the funding the constellation program will be capable of going to Mars.

Answer 8

The Saturn V was a cobbled up technology and is way too old and inefficient. It was great at the time but not now. For example the Lunar module computer had about 8 K of memory and ran at 1 MHz. We could never use something that old safely.

Answer 9

Firstly....Whats the matter with these moon conspiracy people?
Would you fly from your home town, or city, overseas in a circa 1930's airoplane? Would you drive across the USA in a Ford model T? Besides there are no Saturn rockets left.

Answer 10

Your question, I think, has been most adequetly answered by others. I am here to slap the moon haox idiots.

WE WENT TO THE MOON. The guy who did that documentary for FOX was a self promoting, attention seeking MORON who doesn't understand the first thing about the "science" he claims proves we never went to the moon.

Further, the moon "hoax" has been so thoroughly debunked, that people who still believe it are just plain ignorant. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, please stop perpetuating this ridiculous claim. Go read a book for crying out loud, and stop believing conspiracy theories. It's pathetic.