From: seds%cspar.dnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Subject: Lunar Resource Mapper Information
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 05:00:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul20.041249.13663@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov writes...
>In article <19JUL199217191291@judy.uh.edu>, seds%cspar@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes...

>>How about posting something about Lunar Resource Mapper? Is it because it
>>is targeted to the moon that you don't care? JPL folks have been wonderfully
>>silent over this issue and the Congress Critters have cut the funding this
>>year by recission and have basically gutted Mike Griffin's budget for next
>>year. Where is the pleas from the likes of Allan protesting this injustice?
>> 
> 
>The Lunar Resource Mapper is not a JPL mission, and I myself would like to
>see more details about it.  It seems that Congress is very reluctant to 
>fund the Lunar Resource Mapper because it is associated with SEI.  There are
>other missions that haven't recieved any budget support and have fallen
>to the wayside, Lunar Observer and SIRTF come to mind.  Mike
>Griffin has been doing a great job since he has taken over in his new 
>position, but without the support of Congress, his plans are going to go 
>nowhere.  

Lunar Resource Mapper information that I give here is gleaned from presentations
that I have heard in the last few months at various conferences.

Lunar Resource Mapper (LRM) is the first of the new class of planetary missions
using a streamlined procurement policy adopted by NASA Headquarters
code X (Mike Griffin). The LRM is not a single spacecraft. To my knowledge there
are two spacecraft that will carry out the objectives of the single JPL
Lunar Observer spacecraft.  The TOTAL cost of the first LRM mission is capped
at 100 million FY 93 dollars. Yep you got it folks 100 million dollars. The
cost for two spacecraft total mission expenditures is capped at somewhere
under 200 million dollars exclusive of DSN support. This is a vast departure
from the Lunar Observer mission, which uses much Mars Observer heritage hardware
and from the last literature that I saw (JPL document on Lunar Observer dated
April 1991) the cost for LO was around 750 million dollars. I hope you correct
me if I am wrong on this one Ron, I do not have the book in front of me. The
high cost of LO was prime in the decision of Congress not to fund it as a new
start up in FY 91 or 92.  

Lunar Resource Mapper uses all of the research that was carried out by JPL on
Lunar Observer and its predecessor Lunar Polar Orbiter as a baseline for the
LRM missions.  The reason that you have not heard anything about the spacecraft
size, weight etc, is because NASA in this instance did not predesign the
spacecraft and then tell the Contractors to bid to that design specification. 
In this instance NASA simply said, "we want to fly these instruments, (supplied
by the Applied Physics Laboratory APL), and this is what we want to do with
these instruments. Tell us how you will carry out this mission, and YOU 
CONTRACTOR design the spacecraft". This is the equivalent of the launch 
services agreements that are touted as tools to lower the costs of launching
payloads by Allen and others.  Basically Griffin said here is what we want
delivered to Lunar polar orbit and this is what we want to do with the 
instruments once we get there. You provide a solution Mr. Contractor.  As
is obivious, this is a radical departure from the norm at NASA.

I know that some of the experiments for the two missions are a follows:

Gamma Ray Spectrometer. (Elemental distribution of Ti, Fe, Ni, and other metals)
X Ray Spectrometer. (Elemental or molecular distribution of materials on surface)
Infrared Spectrometer ( Molecular constituitants and Thermal Sources on Moon)
High Resolution Imager (Visible light mapping at 1 meter resolution)
Magnetometer (Required on all NASA payloads whether needed or not)
Gravity Experiment (Map the distribution and intensity of anomalies "Mascons")
Neutron Spectrometer (Water Ice at the Poles)

This is not all because I have not heard everything but these are the major 
ones. It is easy to be seen that LRM is for resource mapping and site 
prepartion for future landing missions. The Artemis mini lander program is also
out on RFP from Griffin & Co.  The importance of this mission is obivious for
anyone interested in the DEVELOPMENT of space. In my opinion (Bill you know that
I am never self righteous :-)) LRM is more important than CRAF, CASSINI and
Mars Observer put together. It is stupid that we have better information
on Venus and Mars than we do of our nearest celestial body. 

If our civilization is to survive (at least the propaganda from the gloom and
doomers) we must expand the resource base for mankind.  The rebuttals of the
resources posts that I have made recently simply do not realize how much the
popular media is about to push a major retrenchment of industrialization on
our planet due to the imminent exaustion of our planet's resources. If you 
doubt this go to a local bookstore and look for Al Gore's Book on the 
environment. It is right out of the club of Rome and their school of end
industry and go to a agrarian society of two billion people. With that is the
end of a harmful to progress little thing liker personal freedom. If you 
doubt this go get the book and read it.  

Lew Freidman told me a couple of years ago that the development of space
resources may happen in forty years. He wants to see us go to Mars so that it
can happen in his lifetime. Mars has no potential in the near term to assist
in aleviating the Earth's resource crisis. The moon does. The Planetary 
Society's obsession with Mars is hurting the true development of space. Mars
is a fine goal once we at least start the reaping of the harvest of a virgin
body such as the Moon, but it is not true to tout going to Mars as anything 
but Apollo II.

Ron I love JPL and the accomplishments that have been made there. These 
accomplishment will be remembered for thousands of years to your credit, but
times have changed. We can no longer afford the wow gee whizzes that accompany
the Planetfests that we have had in Pasadena. I have been to almost every one
and have loved it like everyone else, but we have to change course. We must
provide information to business and government regarding an alternative to
the gloom and doom scenarios that are painted for us by the underinformed.
We must return to the Moon with cost effective missions to scout for resources,
we must support the recon landers of the Artemis series that will follow. There
is a book called "For All Mankind" detailing the Apollo program. That is what
the Moon can be, a boon for all mankind. Let us begin now.

Lunar Resource Mapper is managed by Doug Cook's office at Johnson Space Center
in Houston. They have kept the lunar flame alive. This is all that I can tell
about the project from what I have heard. I know that Eight contractors bidded
on the mission and two, Boeing and Martin Marietta won the design study 
competition. From these two, a final contractor for construction of the 
Spacecraft will be chosen, based on the overall merit of the design proposed
at the end of the study period. I saw a rendering of the Martin Design at the
ASCE Space 92 conference in Denver in early June. Looks much like Mars Observer
of course. 

Support LRM. Griffin's office took a 28% budget hit in the recission effort of
the congress critters in June and not one person on here spoke up. Lunar 
Resource Mapper needs to fly if for no other reason than it will shake JPL
up and help them become saved to the gospel of faster cheaper better. It is 
sad, the overruns that have happened to the Mariner MK II bus that is the
heart of CRAF and CASSINI. That is the main reason for CRAF's demise. Mariner
MK II was promised as 400 million dollar per mission modular bus as late as
89. What happend? I don't know but it is costing us all of the future glories
of the planetfests to come if something does not change soon.

Congress remembers promises made on unmanned missions just like it does for SS
Freedom. To them, the unmanned community's bashing of Freedom is the pot
calling the kettle black and only gives them ammunition to kill both aspects
of the space program in favor of their bread and circuses approach to 
legislation. A house divided cannot stand. This is as old as the bible and as
true as the sun coming up tomorrow. Both community's need to get their house
in order or the dedicated ones in the pseudoscience of environmentalism will
eat our lunch and along with it our future. 

Dennis Wingo, University of Alabama in Huntsville 

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