[X] My Assistant

[Phil Stooke]

I need a list of Discovery missions from each of the competitions since the Discover Program commenced. Not including Lunar Prospector, for which I have plenty of information already. Can anybody help me out?

At a minimum I just need a list, I guess, but other information or sources would be very useful as well, as eventually I have to go there as well.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

There was a fascinating proposal about the time of the end of Apollo to go back to the Apollo 15 site... Harvest Moon, it was called, planned by "The Committee for the Future" based in Connecticut, I think (I'm doing this from memory, my notes are all in my office, so I may be off). It was written up briefly in Aviation Week in 1973.

The plan was to solicit donations from around the world to fund a mission using left-over Apollo hardware. It would have set up an observatory, a greenhouse experiment, deployed a long-range remote controlled rover and so on at the Hadley-Apennine site. I think some samples might have been sold to help pay for the mission. The site might have been chosen especially because it was so visually appealing rather than for science purposes.

Personally, I'd love to know more about this proposal. It went nowhere of course.

I have found a few references to Interlune-1 now, not very detailed, but they seem to have been directed at Mare Tranquillitatis, Apollo 11 rather than Apollo 15. Schmitt has long been interested in Helium-3, and Mare Tranquillitatis seems to be a good place for it. Interlune-1 was specifically designed to further the study of Helium-3, at least in part. Am I getting this right, Bruce?

Garybeau - Since the landing would be completely different there would be no need to have a foldable rover... so wheels need not be so small... power is different... could be driven by real-time commands... I'd say there is so little in common that MER doesn't help lunar rovers very much.

Phil

[dvandorn]

There was a fascinating proposal about the time of the end of Apollo to go back to the Apollo 15 site... Harvest Moon, it was called, planned by "The Committee for the Future" based in Connecticut, I think (I'm doing this from memory, my notes are all in my office, so I may be off).  It was written up briefly in Aviation Week in 1973. 

The plan was to solicit donations from around the world to fund a mission using left-over Apollo hardware.  It would have set up an observatory, a greenhouse experiment, deployed a long-range remote controlled rover and so on at the Hadley-Apennine site.  I think some samples might have been sold to help pay for the mission.  The site might have been chosen especially because it was so visually appealing rather than for science purposes. 

Personally, I'd love to know more about this proposal.  It went nowhere of course.

Slightly OT here, the thing I always found fascinating about Harvest Moon was that it proposed to use the leftover CSM and LM from the *original* Apollo 15 mission, the H mission (45 hour stay time, no rover, two EVAs) that was canceled during the final round of mission cutbacks in 1970.

One reason it went nowhere was that the people who were trying to sponsor it costed it out by referencing declassified NASA budget lines, but they never discussed the possibility with NASA itself. They quickly discovered that while they *might* have a shot at buying surplus Apollo hardware, they'd have to arrange for the NASA Apollo "Army" to support such a flight, from the launch preparations and support at KSC through the crew training, flight operations support, etc., at MSC (now JSC), not to mention the millions of dollars worth of support NASA got from the Navy and Air Force. Not only was NASA unwilling to fly surplus hardware for a private company interested in profits, the armed forces weren't interested in supporting such a thing, either. So Harvest Moon died a-borning.

It also didn't help that the Harvest Moon people wanted to return the Apollo 15 crew itself to the Hadley-Appenine site, announcing that Scott, Irwin and Worden would fly the mission, and just after their announcement, the stamp scandal hit. NASA was NOT going to allow Scott and his crew to fly in space for them again, much less support anyone who was going to use their skills to make profits from sending them back to the Moon.

-the other Doug

[MizarKey]

It also didn't help that the Harvest Moon people wanted to return the Apollo 15 crew itself to the Hadley-Appenine site, announcing that Scott, Irwin and Worden would fly the mission, and just after their announcement, the stamp scandal hit.  NASA was NOT going to allow Scott and his crew to fly in space for them again, much less support anyone who was going to use their skills to make profits from sending them back to the Moon.

-the other Doug

Doug, could you post some links to info about the 'Stamp Scandal' (in a new thread?), I don't remember hearing about it.

Eric P / MizarKey

[dvandorn]

Doug, could you post some links to info about the 'Stamp Scandal' (in a new thread?), I don't remember hearing about it.

I'll reply in a new thread in the EVA forum for Manned Spaceflight.

-the other Doug