Farside landings

[voyager3]

I've often read about how some of the Apollo astronauts and scientists wanted to try a landing on Farside but NASA's managers thought it was too risky. Did NASA carry out any detailed mission planning for a Farside landing? The landing would have had to have been carried out beyond radio contact with Earth and the astronauts wouldn't have had the MOCR to advise them on any problems such as the 1201 alarm, could they have put satellites in lunar orbit to act as relays?

[PhantomWolf]

I know that none of the oringinal 20 were aimed for the far side, however it looks like they are planning some far side landings on the up coming missions.

[PeterB]

According to Andrew Chaikin in "A Man on the Moon" (highly recommended, by the way), Apollo 17 LMP Jack Schmitt wanted to try for a farside landing for A17. His plan included using a couple of Tiros satellites launched on a Titan rocket into either orbits of the Moon or Earth-Moon LaGrange points to act as comms relays. Therefore, there would have been constant contact between the mission and Mission Control (incidentally, this suggests the CMP would have had contact on the farside too).

However, no serious planning was done beyond what Schmitt did. NASA was never likely to take the chance of a farside landing.

[acpinto]

i think that would be needed to stay longuer on the moon, therefore reduce the ratio between cost and time spent on the moon.

[PeterB]

The problem is that to stay longer on the Moon, you need more oxygen, water and other supplies. This weighs more, and means the spacecraft needs more fuel. This means the rocket lifting off from Earth needs to be larger.

The type of Lunar Module used from Apollo 9 to Apollo 14 allowed a maximum of two moon walks. The Lunar Module was then redesigned, and the type of LM used for Apollos 15 to 17 allowed the astronauts three moon walks.

[acpinto]

i know it is more than questionable!

But if you take an apollo "look alike ship" and don´t take there everytime the LM, you get some space for oxigen and other supplies. My question is if it was difficult to leave the LM in orbit and the moon rover on the moon?

Just an idea or thought!

Going to mars although "different" atmosphere, could be a way to minimize costs.

[Al Johnston]

The Lunar Roving Vehicle was left on the Moon: to get there it was mounted on the LM descent stage.

The descent stage of the LM also stayed behind, with just the ascent stage returning the astronauts to the CSM in lunar orbit. Once the astronauts had transferred back to the CSM, the ascent stage was usually crashed into the Moon for seismic experiments.

I'm not sure leaving a lunar module in orbit for future missions would help much, as the next mission to use it would have to bring along at the very least fresh propellants for their descent (assuming a new single-stage design). Doing this with the original design LMs would be impractical, as the two stages were connected by explosive bolts: making attaching a fresh descent stage something of a problem....

[Data Cable]

alasdhair said:

the two stages were connected by explosive bolts: making attaching a fresh descent stage something of a problem....

Bring along a few explosive wrenches, too.

[Count Zero]

I've dated a few explosive wenches. Oh, wrenches. Never mind!

[Glom]

Yeah, Schmitt wanted to visit that great Mare crater Tsiokolvsky.

It could have been possible under Apollo X. With the LM truck delivering extra supplies ahead of time to the surface as well as the Lunar flying vehicle, the sejourn could have been extended to make the cost of the Titan II's worthwhile, not to mention the follow on benefit of this established infrastructure.