Space Transportation - mmmt_transportation.pdf - Moon Society

Thinking quickly on his feet, the other missionary spoke out saying, “if it is good soup you
want, we have a much better recipe!” The chief, his interest piqued, demanded that the missionaries
tell him about this splendid recipe.
“Well first, you must free us so we can help you find just the right stones to put in the pot
first. The right stones are the secret ingredient that makes our soup so good.”
Their bonds loosened, the missionaries led a group of young warriors into the forest where
they pointed out the stones that the warriors should pick up and put in the pot.
Now, they said to the women who were watching with much curiosity, “we need to add
vegetables. Let’s add all the various kinds of vegetables you have on hand.” After that the
missionaries supervised the adding of spices.
The soup, it turns out, was very good, and happily did not include themselves as a special
ingredient.
The morale of the story
Sometimes we have none of the ingredients needed for a project, nothing, that is, except the idea itself.
But if you leverage that idea wisely, and play your cards right, others will contribute the things you don’t have
and can’t get.
Can we apply this lesson to space enthusiast efforts to get pet projects started and see them through to
completion? Why we already have! Space enthusiasts had the idea of a Lunar Polar Orbiter that would look for lunar
polar ice. And back at ISDC 1988, that’s all we had. An idea and a few hundred dollars. But we called a conference in
the spring of 1989 in Houston, and as a result of that, Al Binder was “hired,” Lockheed picking up his salary, to design
a probe, which we named Lunar Prospector. Now you know the rest of the story.
The Lunar Reclamation Society and the Moon Society are small organizations with big ideas but without the
resources to make those ideas real. Not quite! Ideas can be powerful. But it does take some work to articulate them
well enough to attract the attention of others who can contribute other needed resources. It takes leveraging
connections, diligent networking, and not missing too many tricks. But if we did it once, we can do it again, and again,
and again.
The Stone Soup route to the Stone Moon! Never underestimate the power of an idea!
MMM #159 - October 2002
Expanding the Manned Space Envelope
The Earth-Moon L1 Gateway
www.space.com/news/beyond_iss_020926-1.html
NASA’s New Plan for the Moon, Mars & Outward and
http://utstaging.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/moon_next_020923-2.htm (*)
Article & Commentary below by Peter Kokh (*)
“NASA is developing a progressive plan for placing humans back onto the Moon. NASA Exploration Team
(NExT) members at the Johnson Space Center have scripted a breakthrough strategy ... [that] makes use of existing
launch capability and existing technology to establish a staging point at a so-called Earth-Moon Lagrangian Point, L1.
“Here’s why L1 is important: In each system of two heavy bodies (the Sun and Jupiter, or Earth and its Moon)
there exist five theoretical points in space at which a third and small body, under the gravitational influence of the two
large ones, will remain approximately at rest relative to them.
“From the Earth-Moon L1 point [between the Earth and the Moon],
a window to any spot on the Moon is reachable with minimal rocket energy.”
Note: the distances given between L1 and the Moon and L2 and the Moon are calculated from the Moon’s
center. For mean distance to the nearest point on the Moon’s surface, subtract 1,089 mi = 1,728 km.
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