You would have to design the rocket and a remote control system to launch it out of orbit at exactly the right time, and you would have to calculate the trajectory very carefully. Since you wouldn't have a communication system to make course corrections as it approached the moon, it would be a pretty long shot. Or maybe you could build in some kind of navigational smarts and attitude adjustment thrusters that would keep it pointed at the moon. All of this would take some expertise and some time and money, but we're not talking Apollo Project or Mars Rover bucks here. If you had ten or 20 million, and were willing to waste it just to take a shot at getting your name on the moon, it would be an interesting project.
You need to buy a jet turbine engine from an aviation junkyard. Then with some sheet metal, rivets, a little welding, plexiglass, rubber strips and tons of heavy duty silica, you are all set to go......... Also you need some heat shield paint. You will have to call NASA and see where to get that...........
NASA might send you some drawing plans and specifications if you contact them.
Here you go:
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/Rocket...
The Apollo series that went to the moon are reasonably easy to understand by ignoring the details. It is a sort of minimalist way to do it, using the concept of expendable components, dropped along the way to minimise weight. I seriously doubt it could have been done much cheaper by a private corporation. Most of the work was in fact done by private corporations under contract.
Amateurs may be able to claim lesser costs in a project by ignoring the costs of part of a project, typically volunteer labour. I doubt this is on a scale that can be done by a few individuals though. The costs may be reduced by economies of scale if some sort of business model was able to be implemented (mining rights to the moon, there you go). Anyway the actual initial development of such things is already there for all to see how it was done, so there is no need for the long and expensive discovery efforts to provide an acceptable but still high risk..
"Blueprints and other Saturn V plans are available on microfilm at the Marshall Space Flight Center."
There needs to be enough thrust to cause enough acceleration for the mass of the fuel and the rocket and its load to exceed acceleration due to gravity. This changes with time as fuel is used. Even the force of gravity changes. The vehicles path is not a straight line. This means the machine eventually must achieve "orbital velocity", the result of this acceleration, as it gets to orbital distances from the earth, around 18,000mph. The Apollo series provided something like 34 mega-newtons of thrust at the start, and took about 11 minutes to get to escape velocity. At the start the mass was like 3000 tons. The payload was around 120 tons to low earth orbit or about 45 tons to a trans-lunar injection point. If you wanted a bigger payload there could be economies of scale, in that only one bigger stage might be suitable up to low earth orbit.
With 9.81N of force can just cancel gravity for 1kg. Thus 34MN / 9.81 = 3465 tons. As you can see that is about right for 3000 ton or slightly more, as it is right at the start. The thrust is excess as it goes up, in fact one of the 5 engines was turned off towards the end of the first stage flight.
This rocket was called the Saturn V, an expendable design. All the main parts dropped off. The fuel was RP-1 (like kerosene) and oxygen for the first stage. Most of its mass was the fuel, more than 2000 tons of RP-1 and oxygen. It climbed to around 67km and used all the fuel, achieving around 8000km/h velocity. The first stage had 5 large F1 engines. The thrust required decreases as it climbs because the mass is reduced by burning fuel, and gravity also reduces a little. Three stages are necessary to get to orbit. That is not to say multi stages are essential, there was a proposal for a rocket with 8 engines from the Saturn V instead of 5, to go directly to orbit. The multi stage is so expended parts can be discarded so reducing mass so fuel needs, and also so engines optimised for the situation at different stages can be used. Additional lunar mission vehicles were launched from orbit, though there are various possible ways to conduct the rest of the mission. One idea involves having an orbital space station and bringing up stuff using a number of flights to allow the mission to be completed. You can find more details about these things easily enough. Your system will need the same sort of performance or better to succeed. There are a lot of calculations that need better maths. All this stuff needs control equipment on board and arguably a communications network around the world so it can keep in touch. It must operate in space conditions of temperature and pressure, and endure the vibration during launch, and also the temperature of recovery as a vehicle (with you on board) re-enters the atmosphere at 18000 mph. Details become excruciating, right?
The cost of the Saturn V series of 13 launches was about $46.56 billion in present day money. Thus 3.6 billion in today's money each. One of these was the Skylab mission, the rest were Apollo missions. It is not clear whether it would be cheaper now. Nobody makes them, so it is a new start from scratch really, with the past design details available. The rockets might not change much, but the control stuff would be cheaper. A different mission profile might be used, say using the space station. The guys that designed them are retired, but there are plenty of capable engineers around. This involves many disciplines, and good systems management.
Also look up the F-1 (rocket engine). Just the fuel pump was 41 MW (55,000 horsepower). There are 5 of these on the first stage.
If you want to make a smaller payload, say 1kg, things change but not that much. You still need a lot of mass to get it there, and it all takes fuel and that means more thrust, more fuel etc.
US astronauts reached the moon in 1969. Google for Apollo or see wikipedia for extensive information. You will not be able to do it.
people who wish to build rockets, and claim they have *possible* access to millions of dollars to get the job done aren't usually seen asking questions on yahoo. get real, with this primitive knowledge and science you can't possibly do it.
... Using thousands of those massive rocket engines you see on youtube that go 20 miles high? How would I get a license (If I could at all- I wouldn't want a rocket half a mile high (2,640 feet) to blow up and become the largest non-nuclear explosion ever, or fall on a building and kill someone)? Would it cost millions of dollars? How would I design a multi stage rocket that detonates the engines one after another? Would it have to have hundreds of stages? I would need lots of technical expertise. I would need to have landing gear and crap. Is this possible? I can *possibly* find a millionaire who would want to spend a few million on something cool like this? The Ariane 5 takes 500 million to launch though right? But I hear amateurs and private corportions do things 100x times cheaper than NASA? This would be pointless but awesome. I don't care if I have to cut expenses so it takes 5 years to get to the moon. I just want to see if it's *possible*. Thanks!
