INTERPLANETARY EXPLORATION - GENERAL DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR MANNED SPACE VEHICLES

摘要

The aim of this paper is to provide a series of guidelines for the design of manned space vehicle devoted to space exploration. This paper should serve as starting point for the identification and discussion of the technical issues , eviden-tiating risk areas and anything necessary to be studied , analyzed and deepen. The man on board is posing additional and important requirements for the design of the space vehicle because they have to travel and safely return as J.F. Kennedy stated when opening the moon conquest era. While considering the system architecture there are important implications due to the duration of the travel, number of persons composing the crew, the environment to be maintained during the mission in the cabin, the services on board including food and other provisions and the protection from cosmic rays . The system will not forget about main and secondary propulsion systems accommodation (a possible enrichment should be to consider nuclear power in addition to conventional chemical apparatus ) and related impact on the configuration with their requirements. The paper will propose a series of requirements based on the past experience with the aim to analyze and discuss them, to collect other updated information for providing the designers with modern and suitable files of information in support of the design development work.