Mastodawn

Stern also said that the initial capability would be to land at nearside sites up to 75° latitude in either hemisphere, with longer stays and polar and farside site capabilities added later.

A more serious effort commenced with a workshop held at LPI in October 2013. I attended it, with a poster. It happened during one of those periodic US government shutdowns so some folk were only on screen. Lots of sites were discussed.
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Phil Stooke 17h ago

One reward for participating in the Indiegogo event was to choose a landing area from a list of eight: Aristarchus, Copernicus, Davy crater chain, Marius Hills, Schröter’s Valley, Tycho, Plato and Dionysius, and the winner was Aristarchus. I don't know how the list was compiled.

Stern said at LPSC in 2013 that a Russian response to the Golden Spike concept had been that they could land by one of their old landers, and NASA suggested the same later.
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Phil Stooke 17h ago

You found $1.5 billion under a couch cushion and purchased a Golden Spike flight. Where are you going to go? You get to choose - landing sites would be chosen by each customer, but Golden Spike initiated discussion through a crowdfunding exercise on Indiegogo.com in the spring of 2013, not to fund lunar missions but for outreach and public participation. The goal was to raise $240,000 US ($1 per mile to the Moon) but only $19,450 was collected. We call this foreshadowing!
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Phil Stooke 1d ago

...they would return to lunar orbit, dock with the crew vehicle and return to Earth. By 2013 studies showed that the 4 launches could be reduced to 2 using the Falcon Heavy or an upgraded Atlas 5. A flight test in about 2017 would check things out in Earth orbit. A second test would send a crew to lunar orbit. A third test would keep a crew in lunar orbit but send the lander down on its own, testing landing and return to orbit. The first revenue flight would be in c. 2020.
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Phil Stooke 1d ago

Golden Spike flights were expected to cost about $1.5 billion each. At first 4 launches would be needed for each mission. 2 put the lander and an upper stage in low Earth orbit. They dock and the upper stage would send the lander to lunar orbit to wait for its crew. 2 more launches put the crew vehicle and an upper stage in orbit where they would dock and go to the Moon. The crew would dock with the lander and descend to the surface. After two Earth days on the Moon ....
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Phil Stooke 2d ago

Capabilities were intended to be comparable to Apollo 12 or Apollo 14, with a pinpoint landing capability and two walking EVAs which might last up to 7 hours. Two or three flights per year might be possible. The customers for these missions would mainly be national space agencies, possibly including NASA but also any other agencies around the world, but other wealthy institutions or even individuals might also purchase a mission. What would a flight look like?
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Phil Stooke 2d ago

GS would use existing rockets and crew vehicles then being developed but needed a landing vehicle and EVA suits. Northrop Grumman designed a 2 crew lander nicknamed Pumpkin, with a very small return capsule taking off with small thrusters. A 2nd lander concept by ULA and Masten was called XEUS. GS designed a ‘GoldSEP’ ALSEP-like instrument package for some sites. It would work for at least 2 years powered by batteries recharged by solar panels on the lander.
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Phil Stooke 2d ago

I am an optimist so I told Stern in 2012 that this was the best thing to happen to the Moon in a long time. But I was mistaken, as usual, and it fizzled out around the end of 2013. Its goal was to conduct private crewed lunar missions using hardware already existing or in development at that time. The first Golden Spike meeting at Telluride, CO in Aug. 2010 examined feasibility, and a 10 week study concluded it was possible. The company was set up in Delaware in Nov. 2010.
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Phil Stooke 2d ago

Golden Spike... not the transcontinental railroad one but a space company begun by Gerry Griffin and Alan Stern. Griffin was a former Apollo Flight Director and JSC Director, and NOT the person Astrobotic's big lander is named after. Stern was a former NASA Associate Administrator for Science. Work began quietly in 2010 and it was publicly announced in 2012. I think this episode in lunar history is not as well known as GLXP so I will give more detail on it.
#moon #goldenspike

scinexx - das wissensmagazin Aug 20, 2024

Ein „Golden Spike“ für den Schneeball Erde. Geologen finden vollständigste Schichten der Eiszeit vor rund 720 Millionen Jahren. #SnowballEarth #GoldenSpike #GSSP #Geologie #Erdgeschichte #Cryogenium #Stratigrafie
https://www.scinexx.de/news/geowissen/ein-golden-spike-fuer-den-schneeball-erde/

Ein "Golden Spike" für den Schneeball Erde

Einzigartiges Zeugnis: Auf einer schottischen Inselgruppe haben Geologen die vollständigste Gesteinsabfolge aus der "Schneeball"-Phase unseres Planeten

scinexx | Das Wissensmagazin