Three minutes to talk about popular science
At the recent meeting of the US National Space Commission, US Vice President Harris announced that two American astronauts and one astronaut from other countries will be sent to the moon at the end of the third decade of the 20 th century.
Please pay attention to Harris's wording, the original United States return to the moon program is to implement the first manned moon landing in 2025, but there have been a number of recent news that the plan is a foregone conclusion, and it was previously rumored that it may be postponed to after 2027, and this time Harris directly announced that it will be completed before 2030, and China has announced that it will complete the manned moon landing before 2030, directly competing the Artemis program with China's manned moon landing.
In 2005, NASA proposed a "constellation plan" to return to the moon, and NASA set the goal of returning to the moon no later than 2020.
Of course, no one would have thought that China would one day stand on the same track as the United States to compete for a manned landing on the moon!Because China's manned space program at that time only reached Shenzhou 6, both the carrying capacity of the rocket and the long-term work experience in space were seriously insufficient, so NASA's return to the moon program had no competitors at all, a one-person track, a self-fired starting gun, and a self-pulled finish line!
NASA didn't expect it to be planted on a grand goal.
The constellation program "is not only to return to the moon, but also to use the moon as a starting point to go to Mars, NASA has this ambition is not surprising, after all, it is to return to the moon, this second time to go can not be stagnant, right, it has to be a little progressive, so the Mars manned program is also included."
Just when NASA was in full swing and various studies were in full swing, Obama took office, and after the 2008 financial crisis, the United States cut spending, so it recalculated the "Constellation Plan", and it was found that if the plan was successfully implemented, it would cost at least $230 billion by 2025, and it was still the value of 2004, and Obama did not hesitate to cut this plan.
Of course, the Constellation program is not without gains, such as the launch vehicle and Orion spacecraft technology is still retained, and part of the technology is used in SLS (Artemis Project Launch Vehicles and Spacecraft), which have been researched since 2010, but have been updated from the Ares 1 launch vehicle to the SLS rocket (Space Launch System).
Don't be surprised, NASA is back on your toes!In order to ensure the smooth development of the SLS rocket, this rocket uses the legacy of the Space Shuttle era: the booster uses the solid rocket booster technology of SRBS in the Space Shuttle era, the main engine of the core first stage uses the RS-25D E engine technology of the Space Shuttle, and the core second stage uses the RL10B-2 C-2 engine technology, which is a hydrogen-oxygen engine developed in the Apollo era.
You really don't want to spray old antiques, the level of these two goods is very high, for example, the RS-25 engine is a hydrogen and oxygen engine, and the use of a rich combustion staged combustion cycle has reached 2064 MPa, thrust of 190 tons, specific impulse of 366 seconds vacuum 452 seconds, this level is very stressful even if China is engaged in it now, but the SLS rocket overturned under the mature booster technology and main engine technology.
The SLS rocket is planned to be launched for the first time in 2016, but what is unexpected is that this jump has jumped 17 times in a row, and it will not be successful until the end of 2022 before the first flight, the author would like to explain that the second-hand space shuttle engines used in the previous SLS rockets have been developed for nearly 12 years, you try to experience it, the engine and transmission control system are given to you, so let you build a shell and add a fuel tank, it actually took 12 years!
This is how the time of the United States is wasted, China has completed the transition from the Shenzhou series of spacecraft to the Tiangong target vehicle in this time, the Chang'e program has also progressed to the return of samples from the moon, and the Mars exploration has also been successfully implemented, and more importantly, the Tiangong space station has also been built, at this time China has naturally proposed a plan to complete a manned landing on the moon by 2030.
However, if the U.S. lunar landing program is completed on schedule, there will be nothing for China, because as early as 2016, the United States officially proposed the second version of the return to the moon program, which was later known as the "Artemis program", when the plan was to launch the Orion spacecraft around the moon for the first time in 2019 and implement a manned lunar landing in 2024, this arrangement is actually no problem, because China has been in the news at the end of 2022 to complete a manned lunar landing by 2030.
China really does not plan to compete with the United States, the reason is very simple, the Chinese have their own rhythm to do things, from the beginning of the 921 manned space project project is carried out in an orderly manner, and the completion of the manned lunar landing before 2030 is also a scientific and reasonable arrangement, so the Americans will land on the moon in 2024, China will land on the moon in 2030, and the big brother of the United States will go first!
But here comes the problem, the launch of SLS was postponed from 2019 to 2022, a full three years!However, NASA's independent audit department found that the SLS rocket research and development funds were seriously exceeded, and according to the current view, NASA's Artemis program cannot be completed before 2027, which is almost basically a new timetable for the postponement of the SLS rocket to the moon!
However, this time, the US vice president has postponed the US moon landing schedule again to 2030, which is really unexpected, isn't this directly competing with China's moon landing program?The U.S.-Soviet race to the moon ended with the United States winning, so will China win or the United States will win this time?
The problem with the Artemis Project is inSLS rocket delays are one of the reasons, but the problem isn't just that, as the Artemis program includes the SLS rocket, the Orion spacecraft, the Lunar Gateway space station, and the Starship lunar version of the lunar spacecraft. In these systems, the SLS rocket + Orion spacecraft has the highest maturity, and the lunar portal space station has not yet been built, so it doesn't matter if this is there or not, because the first moon landing on the moon returns does not use this thing, and the Starship Moon version has not yet started.
Here's the problem, the first manned lunar landing SLS rocket only took the Orion spacecraft to the lunar orbit, and then the starship relay was sent to the moon, but now the starship has jumped the ticket, and it is impossible to complete the launch before 2025, so the NSA has enabled the spare tire, the Blue Moon moon moon spacecraft of Blue Origin.
But here comes the problem again, the Blue Moon moon spacecraft uses the New Glenn rocket, and in August 2020 it was announced that it was not selected as the *** space launch program, so the development of the New Glenn rocket has been delayed a little, and there is no news of the first flight yet. If the Blue Moon wants to use the SLS rocket to launch, there are two problems, one is the problem of fairing adaptation, because the Blue Moon is a bit large and completely unsuitable for the slender core of the SLS two-stage launch;Another reason is that the Blue Moon is a bit heavy and will not be carried until the Block 2 Cargo version of the SLS rocket.
So all kinds of problems came together, which led to the US plan to return to the moon being pushed back again and again, and it is not particularly reliable until now. Of course, China is not without problems, for example, the CZ-10 for manned landing on the moon is also under development, and it is currently planned to launch the moon in two launches after docking in lunar orbit, which is more pragmatic, risk-controllable, and has a much higher probability of completion on time than NASA's Artemis program.
Of course, it is still too early to say who will lose and who will win, and the more important thing is that the pressure is not on our side, NASA is Alexander, China was still playing mud when it was planned, but now it has to compete with him, it is right to win, and it is too embarrassing to lose, this is the burden of NASA.
On December 22, the American media spacenews released a report that in order to defeat China in the new space race, NASA must speed up the pace of cooperation with the Department of Defense, the report said that in addition to the manned landing on the moon, China has ambitiously begun to plan the lunar base, planning to complete the site selection in 2025, and put into full operation in 2036, while the United States previously planned to complete the manned lunar landing plan in 2024 has been repeatedly delayed, this is not the space race that Western countries want to see, if it continues like this, the United States is likely to lose its dominance in the field of space.
The authors argue that the U.S. Department of Defense's extensive experience in doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, education, personnel, facilities (DOTMLPF) has formed an important infrastructure for strategic understanding and subject area knowledge that could be useful for NASA to facilitate a return to the moon and establish settlements on the moon.
With the support of the Department of Defense, NASA will form a research ecosystem in research, development, theory and materials, just like in the Kennedy space race, although the Department of Defense did not take the lead, but under the leadership of NASA Director James Webb, a military man, strengthened cooperation and set priorities with **, and the United States finally won the final victory in this space race with the Soviet Union.
The authors of this article are Colonel Matthew H. Beverly and Alpan Beverly. Colonel Patel, both of whom are soldiers, is very nostalgic for the vigorous NASA in the 1960s, and thinks that the current NASA is procrastinating, various plans have been repeatedly postponed, funds are consumed excessively, and a good hand of cards from planning to return to the lunar era has been played by NASA, and I really can't stand it, and I hope that the Department of Defense can directly intervene in NASA and put it back in orbit, but in fact this is impossible, because this is not just a problem of NASA, but a problem of the entire United States.
NASA doesn't want to do things well, but NASA is no longer capable, and the current NASA is different from NASA in the 1960s.
You must have discovered the fact that NASA's contractors and the contractors of the Department of Defense overlap very much, and companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Motors and United Technologies are not only a leader in the military industry, but also a top player in the aerospace field. In recent years, investment in the field of research and development in the United States has been increasing, and the equipment is even more frighteningly high, with a Zumwalt destroyer worth $4 billion and an aircraft carrier USS Ford $13 billion.
In the space sector, the SLS rocket with the old rocket engine mentioned above has cost nearly $30 billion so far, or $2 billion per launch, compared to SpaceX's Falcon Heavy which costs only $1 per launch$500 million, and the manufacturer of the SLS rocket is Deep Space Transport LLC, a joint venture between Boeing and Northrop Grumman, and it seems that if you call out, the United States will pay.
The ability of these military-industrial complexes to make money is really strong, and the United States has retired or left the country to enter these enterprises, which is the famous revolving door incident, the left hand is approved, the right hand is in the pocket, and the loss is the wool money that the United States has collected from all over the world, and it is not any hard-earned money, so I don't feel distressed.
It is estimated that this is the original intention of NASA to support SpaceX, the power of SpaceX has moved some people's jobs, and only SpaceX and others are the hope of the United States, but SpaceX cannot be involved in the field of military industry, if Musk dares, it is estimated that he may really die, which is N times greater than the crime of opposing Jews.