Space Transportation - mmmt_transportation.pdf - Moon Society

This proposal is a cleaver bit of "space strategy” in the context of the US political climate.- D. Dunlop
An L2 Mission and the new “Flexible Path”
Instead of a Manned Space Program focused on the Moon, the new space paradigm is a “Flexible Path” that
would use deep space missions of increasing difficulty to advance our capacity to operate beyond Earth orbit. Missions
to near Earth asteroids, then to the moons of Mars have been identified as consistent with this goal.
But there just may be a neat way to sneak in a manned Moon Mission. LockMart would not send its craft and
crew to the Moon’s surface but rather to the stable L2 point some 40,000 miles above the Moon’s Farside,. Here the
crew would be able to stay in contact with Earth but also teleoperate rovers on the Moon’s farside surface that would
investigate some of the Farside’s secrets and mysteries. These science goals are at the top of the wish list of many, if
not most, lunar scientists, as Farside is notably different from Nearside in several ways.
Lockheed-Martin cites these mission plusses:
• It could sharpen skills and technologies needed for a trip to an asteroid
• It showcases techniques useful for exploring Mars by teleoperation as astronauts orbit the red planet.
• It would serve as a "shakedown cruise" to practice medium duration missions and the higher-speed reentry needed
for exploration missions before the next step - missions to asteroids.
• It would demonstrate additional capabilities for longer and more distant exploration before the Mars orbit mission.
• It would prove out the Orion capsule's life support systems for a one-month duration
• It would measure astronauts' radiation doses from cosmic rays and solar flares to verify that Orion provides
sufficient protection, as it is designed to do
All of these demonstrations need to be done at any rate, and doing them from a point beyond the Moon,
increasing our knowledge of the Moon and our operating abilities on its surface seem to this writer as a bouquet of
plusses. Not to support this mission, because it is not the lunar human return mission we want, would be foolish.
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