Question: Could we have ever had a Space Shuttle land on the Moon?

[Taverner]

Out of the box, could it do a touch-down landing on the moon? Wouldn't have to have anyone in it - could be unmanned.

[ret5hd]

1. No.

[Taverner]

2. Why not?

[ret5hd]

3. cuz

[CJvR]

12. Power?

Not enough power to get there unless you exchange the two boosters for a pair of Saturn V.

Saturn V lifted 119 tons into Earth orbit - or 45 tons to the Moon.
The Shuttle only manages 25 tons into Earth orbit and in addition it masses almost 70 tons empty.

After that you have the issue of an aerodynamic landing without air, and after that landing on something looking like a WWI battlefield...

[ret5hd]

17. cuz i said so godammit! now be quiet, i'm watching my stories!

[CommonSensePLZ]

4. No tarmac runways on the Moon? lol

[LLStarks]

5. The shuttle is a low earth orbit machine. Besides, shuttle didn't exist during moon landings. nt

[ipfilter]

7. There's no air on the moon.

The Shuttle needs air to land.

[Roland99]

8. +1

[Thunderstruck]

27. *WINNER*

[JVS]

40. They need a runway to land on.

[doc03]

6. We could crash it on the moon I guess. Where you gonna land

it? Where is the landing strip?

[damntexdem]

9. How would we get it there?

It is not set up to go that far, nor could we just "strap on" more rockets.

No landing strip on the moon -- and no tow trucks in orbit. ;-)

[doc03]

10. It can't go into moon orbit? n/t

[El Supremo]

11. Only if Bruce Willis was there.

[customerserviceguy]

31. Or the newfangled Buck Rogers, with 1980's hair n/t

[11 Bravo]

13. Bernoulli's principle says it ain't happening.

[TheKentuckian]

14. Can't even make a high orbit, much less get to the moon.

It would also need a launch system to get back since they just glide down to a landing in our atmosphere.

The shuttle is maybe equivalent to a tugboat or some such thing. The whole purpose is to ferry personnel and equipment to low orbit but we have nothing to take it from there and the space station is just a hair better than a joke. It certainly isn't a hub to the final frontier or anything.

[ipfilter]

22. It can get to high orbit...coming back is another thing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. No, the thrust was designed for near orbit

it never had enough oompth to get there.

As to unmanned it be far smaller and you need something like an Ariane rocket and a few tricks in using gravity assit.

[Kennah]

16. No, the Ascent Stage Lunar Module only weighed 10K pounds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_module

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Only WW2 bombers can land on the moon

http://www.ufo.no.nyud.net:8080/artikler/gif/bombefly95-2.jpg

As reported in an ultra-reliable British newspaper:

http://www.appbrain.com/app/sunday-sport-classics-advent/biz.webcomms.sportadvent2010

[SidDithers]

37. Heheh...

"ultra reliable" :rofl:

:thumbsup:

Sid

[RT Atlanta]

19. Energy/Fuel is the biggest issue

as other folks have noted.

Huge amount of engery (like 2 Saturn 5s as someone suggested) to GET to the moon; then the orbiter would have to have a commensurate level of fuel to slow down from orbit and bring it down at a 10ft/sec or less rate of descent to touchdown softly.

Cool question to ponder.

[Johonny]

20. probably

if you really wanted to and really wanted to spend the $$. You'd have to independently send boosters into orbit. Assemble a shuttle in near earth orbit and then send it off to the moon. I don't think the landing approach would work well on the moon. It would probably just smack into it. But since no one need be on it, I guess that's ok.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. No. Only battleship Yamato can land on moon. n/t

[Old Troop]

23. It's made for atmospheric landings. With no air, it would simply crash.

[Kennah]

24. The Nazis did put a base on the moon

[pokerfan]

44. Nazis have been living on the Moon for over sixty years

In 1945, they went to the Moon. In 2018, they're coming back!

[spanone]

25. no. a space shuttle needs atmosphere to land...it would crash into the moons surface.

[ReggieVeggie]

26. need some sort of runway

it's the way it's designed

[Poll_Blind]

28. If Willie Nelson and Jimmy Carter can smoke weed after stowing away on STS-1...

...anything is possible!

PB

[rdking647]

29. no

the shuttle lands like a glider. gliders need air flowing over the wings to land. no air on teh moon. so a shuttle landing on the moon instead of gliding to a stop on a non existing runway would instead drop like a rock and crash

[Nailzberg]

30. Yep. Saw it in "Airplane 2"

[Recovered Repug]

32. Even if it were possible, it's still a bad idea.

The aliens base on the dark side of the moon might view it as an act of war.

[ladjf]

33. No. For lots of reasons. The shuttle is a glider. There is no

atmosphere on the moon, hence no gliding. Only retro thrusters could stop it. It would take more fuel to stop the shuttle than what is now possible or feasible.

[Taverner]

34. What if it had 9 engines?

9 seperate saturn 5 rockets propelling it, unmanned

And four of those rockets will be for landing and taking off from the moon

[ladjf]

35. Theoretically it's possible. But, the power/weight combination

is beyond the scope of any planned missions. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. You wouldn't be able to control the landing

It would need a downward-facing rocket engine like the lunar lander had, and the small rocket nozzles for fine control. A Saturn 5 rocket would be no good for landing on the moon either - too much power, not enough control. Basically, you have to design something special to land on the moon (a lander for Mars might be similar, I suppose).

[slackmaster]

36. It would have been a hard landing

With damage that would not simply buff out.

[Baclava]

38. Shuttle simply doesn't have the delta-v (change in velocity).

The shuttle is far too heavy to make it to the Moon using only its standard propulsion. If it were set atop a much larger rocket, it would be possible, but no such rocket currently exists. Even so, it could only crash into the Moon. It could never land. (the whole 'landing in no atmosphere' thing.)

To break earth orbit and head to the moon you need to change from 17,000 to the 25,000pmh. And the shuttle's main engines are not able to be restarted in space and the main thrusters are designed for the upper atmosphere and the nozzles do not work efficiently in the vacuum of space - you'd need to redesign those too.

A fresh exterior tank of fuel at the space station would not be enough to get the shuttle out of Earth orbit, let alone to the Moon and back. There would have to be several fuel tanks prepositioned in orbit around the Earth and Moon. (and of course, no way to refuel a shuttle in space exists either). The shuttle was designed only to get to low Earth orbit and back. Period.

Then, once you leave the Moon, by the time you have fallen all the way home, you’re doing about 25,000mph. The Shuttle would simply vaporize when it hits the atmosphere.

The amount of fuel, and the sort of engine, required to slow the Shuttle from 25,000 MPH to a safe speed would stagger the imagination. AND, you’d need to propel all of that extra weight TO the moon in the first place, requiring even more fuel, and even bigger engines.

[meow mix]

39. Full Reverse-Thrusters! Brace for Impact!! Yeaaaaarrrrgh!!!

i imagine it would go something like that

[leeroysphitz]

41. Possibly. If the shuttle could be retro-fitted with a pair of efficient fusion thrusters or

a gravity lens generator a landing on Earth's moon could easily be achieved.

You can find them on Ebay.

[MilesColtrane]

42. Yes,...

if by "touch-down landing" you mean "high speed impact".

[anarch]

43. depends...did you want to use it for anything afterwards?

I mean, you know, define "land". I can "land" an egg on the street...once.

[Erose999]

45. Not enough fuel to get to the moon. No fuel on the moon for a return trip. No runway or launch pad

on the moon either.

Also, the landing phase of the shuttle is designed to land using the wings, and that would require air. Theres very little atmosphere on the moon.

And theres no runway for it to land on... just craters and dust.

Now we could probably CRASH a shuttle on the moon no problem. But that'd be wasteful and foolish.

I expect the Republicans to be all in favor if it, actually.

[Travelman]

46. Land? Maybe.

But it's a one-way trip, assuming it could even get there in a reasonable length of time.

And by "land" I pretty much mean "crash into," because there's no atmosphere to slow the thing down, and there's no runway upon which to land, and there's no air to fill up the drag chutes to slow it down once it's on the ground.


So, if you're interested in making a suicide run at the moon, NASA will soon have just the equipment for you, selling cheap!