Affordable Lunar Return

Tony Lavoie (1), Paul D. Spudis (2)

(1) NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville AL., (2) Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston TX

Abstract

We present a human and robotic lunar architecture that changes the current paradigm of bringing everything required for space activity up from the Earth's surface to a more cost - effective (within the NASA cost envelope provided to the Augustine Committee) paradigm of beginning to use the in - situ resources of the Moon to dramatically lower cost for space activity. While we concentrate on first using converted lunar water for propellant, the overall architecture builds up an infrastructure and propagates the philosophy of local use of resources to lower the cost of space activity. Our plan is affordable, flexible, friendly to both international partners and commercial participants and is not tied to any specific launch vehicle solution. Individual surface pieces are small, permitting them to be deployed separately on small launchers or combined together on single large launchers. Schedule is our free variable; even under highly constrained budgets, the architecture permits this program to be continuously pursued using small, incremental, cumulative steps. Initially, we use robotic assets on the Moon that are teleoperated from Earth to prospect for and then test, demonstrate and produce water from lunar resources before human arrival. Once the propellant pipeline is in place (starting at 50 and expanding to 150 metric tonnes of water per year), humans return to the Moon to further expand the propellant production to support flights to all of cislunar space as well as begin to investigate and develop local metal resources for basic structural components and assemblies, on our way toward reducing the Earth footprint for space activity. The end stage is a fully functional, affordable, human - tended lunar outpost, investigating and testing the philosophy of local use of resources for human adaptation and growth on massive planetary bodies, coupled with a sustainable cislunar transportation infrastructure.

Presented at ISDC 2011 - Huntsville. Paper and presentation charts are not available.