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One way space missions
notes for L-5 article solicited by Jerry Pournelle

	Could you do a short article on damned near anything
relevent to space for the L-5 News? I am trying to up grade the
L-5 News and get some good discussions going in it.  It should
be the "respectably far out" journal of space, but it hasn't
always been that.

	Net mail to ota or TAW will I am sure cause it to be
printed on paper and forwarded to the proper editorial maw for
printing. 

	We could really use som high grade articles...

How would you like an article advocating one way missions to the moon
and possibly Mars?  These aren't suicide missions, because we are
committed to resupply the astronauts, but they are committed to stay
there for a long time - perhaps even the rest of their lives.  The point
is that the rocketry required for one way missions plus resupply is
vastly less than that required to return people, and people who are
there permanently can do vastly more exploration.  The risks are no
greater than those endured by nineteenth century explorers.  The trouble
is the fear of being blamed by the media - so nothing must go wrong.
We need to overcome this fear.

Another possibility is some version of my article on the feasibility
of interstellar travel based on present science.
1. costs

	When we compare the space exploration of the 1960s and 1970s
with the exploration of our own planet between 1492 and the present,
one fact stands out - the extreme caution of NASA to minimize risk
to the astronauts.

	We can ask astronauts to bear risks and make commitments
 of the same magnitude
as those endured by explorers of the 16th through 19th centuries
and those endured by mountain climbing and other expeditions today.
Moreover, there may be a big payoff in accomplishment from doing so.

	If our society cannot bring itself to ask these risks of
its paid employees, then it is better that individuals be encouraged
to go into space privately - say as contractors - and bear those
risks that seem to them worthwhile.  The slogan can be deregulating
space.  It will drive the communists wild.

	Can the shuttle launch one way manned missions to the moon?

	I remember your citing Frosch as having said that it would
be impossible to return to the moon in the 1980s.  Of course, a giant
space program could do it, but there may be a way to do it for a cost
the Reagan administration would pay.  The question is whether the
Shuttle could land enough payload on the moon for a one way mission.
Naturally, supply rockets could land first and there would be
additional supply rockets afterwards.  Do you know or do you have
a reference to the payload the Shuttle could land on the moon?
While I was thinking about including this in my article, it might
be worthwhile to consider launching the trial balloon in a better
way.  Perhaps even the Citizens' Space Council might risk its
prestige by suggesting it first.  Or maybe it would be better
for them to support it rather than initiate it.  Anyway apart from
the politics, I will work up a draft, but it will be light on
details.

	One of the journalistic cliches of the 1960s and 1970s
is that the public will not stand for risk - that any loss of life
in space exploration would end space exploration.  Remember how
Neil Young was endlessly badgered by the press asking, "What if
this fails?  Yes, but what if the backup fails?"  This cliche
also infected NASA itself, perhaps to the detriment of accomplishment.


ONE WAY SPACE MISSIONS


	The purpose of this article is to advocate one way manned
space missions in which the astronauts are committed to stay for
years or for life on the moon, on Mars or on an asteroid and
NASA is committed to keep supplying them but not to return them
on any fixed schedule.  Because of the pyramidal nature of fuel
requirements for rockets, such missions can be much more effective
than missions in which return is provided for.  In particular,
a permanent manned presence on the moon would have cost much less than
the Apollo missions.  The first requirement for carrying out
such missions is psychological and political; we must overcome
the ideology that everything done must be entirely safe.  We
need an attitude more like that taken at the time of eighteenth
and nineteenth century exploration.

The rocket pyramid