Chinese moon landing with lm5's

[xenomorph555]

I was thinking, could China launch a manned moon mission with 2 long march 5's (25 ton).

One would carry the lander to orbit and dock it with tiangong 2 or just leave it in space.

The second would carry a possibly modified shenzhou+powerful propulsion module.

This would dock with the lander and travel to the moon and do the whole flag thing.

So could it be done...

[sgt_flyer]

i think you'll need at least 4 long march 5's (and maybe even 5 long march 5 rockets) to get a manned mission to the moon. + a shenzou launch.

50tons to LEO won't be enough by far to get to the moon

the N-1 was planned to have 93tons of payload to LEO, Saturn V had 120 tons to LEO.

the moon is very far from earth compared to mün from kerbin

you need around 4000 m/s of delta-V to get to a low lunar orbit, + around 2000 m/s of delta-v to land, and the same to get back up. then a few delta-v to get back to earth with an aerobrake return.

also, the shenzhou would need to have an additional transfer stage to come back from the moon. (you'll need roughly 700m/s of delta-v to get back from the moon, shenzhou only have 380m/s of delta-v.

you'll have a 8 tons shenzhou + it's return transfer stage, a very heavy lander (a two man lander like apollo's LEM weights 15 tons) - so you're already looking at something of at least 28 tons to get to the moon, not counting the stage used to brake into low lunar orbit. (assuming they use a Fregat analog stage to get the needed transfer delta-v back from the moon - around 5t)

Edited May 31, 2014 by sgt_flyer

[xenomorph555]

Well, long march 9 it is then

[Reddragon]

I would rather say in 3 launches. Transfer module - Lander - CSM. It would allow the CSM to have a SM with enough delta V to conduct the deceleration burn at the moon and a CM with comfortable space and proper life support system. I don't think 2 launches would be enough. And all this with the maximum of 2 crew members.

[xenomorph555]

I guess they could do it LK style... er no scrap that!

[xenomorph555]

Actually an LK type lander/system could be very useful and cheap.

Small 1 man lander with limited life support, 3-10 hours. This could be a cheap and easy way to get "first steps" with basic technology and move to more advanced stuff when their ready.

[Elthy]

I doubt that they would do something "smaller" than Apollo for political reasons, since everyone would just say "Wow, but the NASA did that 45 years ago"...

[Reddragon]

I think it's better to save for a larger lander. Developing an earlier smaller design would require more funding. Maybe it's the better way as you said but hard to decide. Landing techniques and technologies could be practiced on an unmanned mission. As far as I remember the Chinese are thinking about doing one before manned missions. In a space race environment I bet they would consider doing it the way you portrayed. The competition for the domination of lunar surface exploration is going to ramp up again soon.