[HN Gopher] Walking on the Moon in Cologne: Europe's lunar life ...
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       Walking on the Moon in Cologne: Europe's lunar life simulator
        
       Author : rustoo
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2024-09-25 18:14 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (today.rtl.lu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (today.rtl.lu)
        
       | 7373737373 wrote:
       | With which rockets does the EU intend to set up the colony?
        
         | edm0nd wrote:
         | >European astronauts will train inside the unique simulator and
         | test equipment that will one day travel to the Moon --
         | including potentially on NASA's upcoming Artemis programme,
         | which plans to send humans there on a mission in a few years.
        
         | seabass-labrax wrote:
         | The research facility in the article is operated by the ESA and
         | the DLR (the German space agency), not the European Union. The
         | member states overlap but are nonetheless different; the UK is
         | a member of the ESA but not the EU, for instance. That said,
         | the EU and the ESA do work together on some things[1].
         | 
         | As for future lunar missions, the ESA doesn't yet have any one
         | rocket powerful enough to facilitate a manned mission to the
         | Moon. The third stage of NASA's Saturn V had a mass of about 90
         | tonnes in Earth orbit prior to going to the Moon[2]; the ESA's
         | most powerful rocket, Ariane 64, can only lift about 20 tonnes
         | into orbit[3]. A modern lunar lander could be much lighter than
         | the Apollo-era equipment was, but this would be a relatively
         | minor factor compared to the mass of the fuel. The ESA could of
         | course launch a mission to the Moon with four or five Ariane 64
         | rockets, assembling the full lunar spacecraft in Earth orbit.
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/ESA_and_the_EU
         | 
         | [2]: http://www.braeunig.us/space/specs/saturn.htm
         | 
         | [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-28 23:00 UTC)