[NukeNet] NASA's Nuclear Moon?

[Bill Smirnow]

   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/science/21nasa.html
   NASA Presents Details of Plans for Moon Base

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By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 21, 2007
NASA announced new details yesterday about its plans for a Moon base that
included a pair of small, pressurized rovers with a range of nearly 600
miles.

The space agency plans to return astronauts to the Moon around 2020. Agency
officials first described proposals last December for a polar lunar base
powered by near constant sunlight on solar panels.

Earlier proposals to carry small habitation modules to the Moon in stages
might be supplanted by a proposal that would heave a single large module to
the Moon on an unmanned cargo ship, Doug Cooke, the NASA official leading
the lunar study group, said.

The new rover would not be much larger than the buggies the Apollo
astronauts drove, but would be pressurized so that astronauts could drive in
shirt sleeves and be protected from radiation - probably by a layer of water
in the rover's body, said Geoff Yoder, an official working on the lunar
plans. To explore on foot, astronauts would put on spacesuits and leave the
vehicle, Mr. Yoder said. The cost? "More than a Ferrari," he joked.

The scientists said they had also discussed nuclear energy as a power supply
for the habitat, since that might be necessary for building a successful
encampment on Mars. But, Mr. Cooke said, the initial power source for the
lunar base "should be solar." They have also discussed making the lunar
lander and habitat mobile so that the base could be moved for exploration of
other areas in what is being called "super sortie" mode, he said.

The updated plans were discussed at a conference of the American Institute
of Aeronautics and Astronautics on Thursday in Long Beach, Calif.
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