Nuclear energy can power the Moon bases at night. Power day time manufacturing from sun light. Sun light can be used directly as heat, say to melt metals. Sun light can be converted to electricity using solar arrays, possibly containing ISRU silicon, or Stirling engines attached to generators. Stirling engines can be made out of ISRU iron and/or aluminium.

Rovers can be powered by burning aluminium or ISRU magnesium and use Stirling engines to convert the heat to electricity.

The Delta II launch vehicle does incorporate some Apollo program technology but mostly in engines that were descendants of pre-Apollo engines. The RS-27A fist stage engine is a descendant of the H-1 from the Saturn I but also the pre-Apollo Thor / Jupiter engines. Likewise, Delta II second stage engine is a derivative of the AJ-10, another derivative of which was used for the Apollo service module, but this engine goes back to Vanguard and Thor-Able in the fifties.

The only other direct contribution I can think of is that some geosynchronous satellites have used liquid apogee engines that are derived from an Apollo RCS thruster, the R-4D.

That is a surprisingly small contribution given the magnitude of the investment in the Apollo program and the percentage of space related spending that it represented in its heyday. Most US satellite launch vehicles have evolved from ICBMs whereas the Apollo/Saturn vehicles diverged on their own dead end path. This is more tragic given that we seem to be set to repeat this mistake with Ares I and V, which will both be single purpose vehicles with little or no utility beyond the manned space flight program.

Replacing Ares I with an EELV Heavy or Flacon 9 Heavy derivative to launch Orion makes much more sense from this standpoint. Flying four manned missions per year using heavy launch vehicles with three cores would require 12 cores per year. Considering that the EELV program has launched only 32 cores over the last seven years (16 Atlas V mediums, 7 Delta IV mediums, and 3 Delta IV heavies with three cores each), for an average rate of a little more than 2 cores per type per year, upping the EELV core production rate by an additional 12 cores per year would substantially improve the economics of the EELV program. The same would be true if a Flacon 9 derivative were selected. Periodically recompleting the launch contracts between Atlas, Delta, and Flacon 9 would further push the economics of space access. The decreased marginal cost per launch would not only benefit NASA’s manned program but also commercial customers, other government customers, and even NASA’s own unmanned programs.

If we don’t want to end up in another Apollo dead end, NASA’s launch purchases for manned space flight need to be integrated into the wider launch vehicle industry so the benefits of higher launch rates accrue to the whole industry.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/29945.html

Its long, but well worth reading the entire thing if you care about locating profitable revenue streams for human spaceflight, other than slurping at Uncle Sugar’s trough.

(1) The US government receives benefits from NASA unrelated to the development of genuine space-faring capability, such as prestige and jobs programs. There also is a large component arising from the “self licking ice cream cone” and related bureaucratic inertia even if Defense Department procurement boondoggles trumps NASA in that department. Defeating those who think like Senator Shelby would be a monumental task.

(2) NASA – at least imho – CANNOT be transformed into a profit motivated entity. It’s just not in the Agency’s DNA.

Therefore when Wingo and Spudis want NASA to engage in lunar resource development, I find myself thinking, “Huh?”

Therefore, leave NASA off the critical path. Find revenue streams not dependent on Uncle Sugar. In the short term?

I believe a LEO zero gravity sports arena could be profitable, supported by media rights and advertising and selling the name rights for the facility itself. However, given ITAR and NASA’s jealousy against anyone else attempting human spaceflight it might be necessary to flag such a facility overseas.

The failed MirCorp attempt shows the road forward, IMHO.

Such facilities would also consume more RLV flights that a NASA-centric fuel depot would.

Again, leave NASA off the critical path. But to do that we need to identify markets not dependent on Uncle Sugar.

My point was just that without NASA really doing the right thing, commercially the leap from where we are to a lunar transportation network is too big. But the leap from where we could be in 5-10 years (suborbital and orbital RLVs, tugs, commercial orbital stations, small LEO depots) is much smaller.

~Jon

Will anyone spend the money needed to deploy a “sufficiently evolved space transportation system” prior to viable markets emerging? If so, who?