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Hasselblad liked to advertise that there were a couple free ones on the moon, you just had to pick them up. To save weight for more sample returns, the Apollo a

Hasselblad liked to advertise that there were a couple free ones on the moon, you just had to pick them up. To save weight for more sample returns, the Apollo astronauts did the logical thing and kept the film, but chucked the cameras out on the moon.

LorenPechtel 3y ago
They chucked a lot of stuff--anything intended for surface use went out the airlock. The cost per pound to bring something back from the moon was higher than the cost per pound of basically anything they brought.
- benj111 3y ago
  Depends. If the primary point was to put a man on the moon, the cost of bringing things back is basically free. If on the other hand the primary mission was bringing back as many rocks as possible, then yes, the return would be very expensive.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    > the cost of bringing things back is basically free. No, because they'd still have to pay to bring all the extra fuel to get the junk back up off the moon and back to Earth. And before that spend the cost of that extra fuel getting it up there. When every pound is like thousands of dollars it really adds up.
    - benj111 3y ago
      But at that point the price has already been paid. If you bring back rocks, or air. Same cost. If I take a first class flight, how much does it cost to take my phone? Yes I could apportion a fraction of the cost of the ticket to the phone, but most would say free. Now if the whole purpose of the flight were to get the phone from London to new York, the entire cost should be attributable to the phone, it is the reason for the journey. Was extra fuel specifically brought? Or was it just safety margin? The Landers had spare fuel when they landed, is that waste, or safety margin?
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    It's interesting to think about: The stated mission for the Space Race has often been "put a man in orbit", "put a man on the Moon", "put staff in the space station for X period". But implicit in all of those mission designs has been the goal of returning the crew alive and in one piece. The record is rather favorable in that regard, and it's always a tragedy when we lose someone. So that's one of the reasons a crewed Mars missions is a daunting prospect: because even with improved technology, it may be a one-way trip.
    - imtringued 3y ago
      Well, it's more of a pyramid scheme. You can send more people to mars than you can send back to earth. So nothing prevents Elon Musk from sending "100" people to mars and 10 person back. Then the people who want to return can lie about how awesome it is on mars and convince more of them to come to secure their own return trip.
    - blt 3y ago
      Kennedy said "and returning him safely to the earth" in his moon landing proposal speech. It wasn't implicit (on the USA side at least).
  - LorenPechtel 3y ago
    A few years back I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on lifting stuff off the moon. At the time there was a company offering $200k/kg to lunar orbit, $1.2M/kg to the lunar surface. The Δv to climb back up is pretty much the same as the descent so I would expect the cost ratio to be similar: Thus $7.2M/kg returned to lunar orbit. At the time I wasn't concerned with going farther, but the escape/injection burn is about half the launch burn--thus you're looking at something like $17M/kg not counting the heat shield and chute (numbers I can't even back-of-the-envelope.) How many objects are worth $17M/kg?

LorenPechtel 3y ago

They chucked a lot of stuff--anything intended for surface use went out the airlock. The cost per pound to bring something back from the moon was higher than the cost per pound of basically anything they brought.

benj111 3y ago
Depends. If the primary point was to put a man on the moon, the cost of bringing things back is basically free. If on the other hand the primary mission was bringing back as many rocks as possible, then yes, the return would be very expensive.
- vel0city 3y ago
  > the cost of bringing things back is basically free. No, because they'd still have to pay to bring all the extra fuel to get the junk back up off the moon and back to Earth. And before that spend the cost of that extra fuel getting it up there. When every pound is like thousands of dollars it really adds up.
  - benj111 3y ago
    But at that point the price has already been paid. If you bring back rocks, or air. Same cost. If I take a first class flight, how much does it cost to take my phone? Yes I could apportion a fraction of the cost of the ticket to the phone, but most would say free. Now if the whole purpose of the flight were to get the phone from London to new York, the entire cost should be attributable to the phone, it is the reason for the journey. Was extra fuel specifically brought? Or was it just safety margin? The Landers had spare fuel when they landed, is that waste, or safety margin?
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  It's interesting to think about: The stated mission for the Space Race has often been "put a man in orbit", "put a man on the Moon", "put staff in the space station for X period". But implicit in all of those mission designs has been the goal of returning the crew alive and in one piece. The record is rather favorable in that regard, and it's always a tragedy when we lose someone. So that's one of the reasons a crewed Mars missions is a daunting prospect: because even with improved technology, it may be a one-way trip.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    Well, it's more of a pyramid scheme. You can send more people to mars than you can send back to earth. So nothing prevents Elon Musk from sending "100" people to mars and 10 person back. Then the people who want to return can lie about how awesome it is on mars and convince more of them to come to secure their own return trip.
  - blt 3y ago
    Kennedy said "and returning him safely to the earth" in his moon landing proposal speech. It wasn't implicit (on the USA side at least).
- LorenPechtel 3y ago
  A few years back I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on lifting stuff off the moon. At the time there was a company offering $200k/kg to lunar orbit, $1.2M/kg to the lunar surface. The Δv to climb back up is pretty much the same as the descent so I would expect the cost ratio to be similar: Thus $7.2M/kg returned to lunar orbit. At the time I wasn't concerned with going farther, but the escape/injection burn is about half the launch burn--thus you're looking at something like $17M/kg not counting the heat shield and chute (numbers I can't even back-of-the-envelope.) How many objects are worth $17M/kg?