 |
||
| Monday / 17 July 2006 | ||
History Points
to Next Big Thing -- Piloted Circumlunar Flights.
The success of Bigelow Aerospace's
Genesis-1 spacecraft has some thinking about its initial announcements
back in 1998, which included Robert Bigelow's unabashed desire to
have a lunar spaceline taking passengers on circumlunar flights
by 2013. Historically, there were already other plans for circumlunar
travel when Apollo 8 made the first piloted
trip, tracing the pattern of its mission number around Terra and
Luna (pictured, top).
NASA could have used the Gemini spaceship
to become first to the Moon had Apollo failed -- the Americans were
never sure where
the Soviet-Russia circumlunar efforts were. As it turns out, they
were more behind than expected, but were still developing capable
circumlunar craft, including the still operational Soyuz.
Unlike the USA, Russia continued developing piloted
lunar craft through the early 1980s, some of which might be refurbished and
used in this century. In early 2003, China space
officials, confident in the success of the upcoming first piloted
Shenzhou launch,
declared China could use it to send humans
around the Moon by early 2007. Then, shortly after US President
Bush directed NASA to return humans
to the Moon, Russia revealed the new Kliper
spaceship intended to replace the Soyuz and fly around the Moon.
Around the time the
Kliper
was introduced, Constellations Services International reminded everyone
of the Soyuz's lunar capabilities by unveiling its Lunar Express
plan.
Then, in 2005, Roscosmos gave exclusive
marketing rights for Soyuz
around the Moon missions to Space Adventures, which hopes to do
its first DSE-Alpha Moon
mission before 2010. Meanwhile, the
Kliper
appears to be abandoned, NASA is years
away from having its CEV prototype,
and
China is deciding
how
soon
it
wants to
shoot for
the
Moon.
There is also a global push by private industry to have its own orbital
capability, which could transfer into private circumlunar
flights not long afterward. Info
LED Yr
5, #142 and #153.
|
||
