Posted on 04/11/2019 12:41:18 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Lockheed Martin is unveiling new designs for a human lunar lander concept that can take people to and from the lunar surface. And the company says it can be ready within the next five years....
The vehicle consists of two elements: a lander portion that can travel down to the ground, and an ascent vehicle that can lift astronauts off the Moon’s surface. The lander is meant to travel to and from a new space station that NASA wants to build around the Moon called the Gateway. If all of these elements are created, astronauts would travel to the Gateway from Earth and then take the lander from the station to the Moon. The ascent vehicle would then bring them back to the station.
This new lander is separate from another lander concept that Lockheed revealed last year at the International Astronautical Congress. That design called for a much heavier, reusable lander that could take astronauts to the Moon and back in one piece — without the need of a separate ascent element. But...Lockheed has been working on a design that could be developed much more quickly.
A big advantage of this new Lockheed lander concept is that the company won’t be building the vehicle completely from scratch. Many of the elements needed for the vehicle are derived from Orion, a crew capsule that Lockheed has been working on for the last decade. Orion, which is nearing its first flight, is meant to fly astronauts into deep space and dock with the Gateway in the future. Some of the same materials and systems used in Orion could be incorporated into this new lander, such as a lot of the internal equipment, flight computers, life support systems, and more.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
Maybe if you whine more (and louder) that’ll change the last 50 years.
hopefully we are prepared
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jth4yATniS4
cause I am pretty sure our guys wont be armed
I'm glad we're thinking big again, but we have to kill the welfare state before it kills us.
agree...just don’t see how it will happen!
Hasn’t Abernathy has been dead for years?
Right. Let’s just forget history ... it’s so yesterday.
If you’re wondering WHY we can’t just dust off the Apollo LEM design, put a new computer in it, and rock on ... you need to understand history. And engineering. And industry.
But yeah, let’s just forget all that. Learning is so old-school.
Probably. That's OK, Occasional-Cortex will pick up where he left off ...
Just looked it up. He died in 1990. I hope he made peace with God before he went.
If this new Moon program actually gets going, we're going to have to fight the same breed of social-welfare leftists and race-baiters we did last time. This time, we better win. NASA, as it currently exists, may likely be as much hindrance as help.
Elon Musk has created a lot of stuff from scratch.
And has created liftoff modules that return to the earth and land upright. Unmanned.
I bet Musk could land one of them on the moon now if it wanted to. Get a bunch of corporations to sponsor it and it could be done with a profit.
Wow. I must look that up.
Dang Japanese stole my idea. ..hehehe.
One scary thought is the “replicators”
Not entirely. Knowing that it can be done is often half the battle. He's standing on Von Braun's shoulders. We all are.
I bet Musk could land one of them on the moon now if it wanted to.
No. But he could in 3-5 years, if he wanted to and could (as you suggest) round up the bucks. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. And he'd have to worry less about welfare-state idiots than NASA would.
yes I agree!
I think someone posted about it on this site.
Anyway an interesting read!
I was getting a sense of foreboding from the picture. It hit me. That looks like Ripley looking out the window.
Take off and nuke the site from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
That lander is a LOT bigger than the Apollo lander. IIRC, Von Braun originally wanted to launch the astronauts on one rocket and the lander on another. They would dock in Earth orbit, then head to the moon. We’re headed in that direction, especially if we want to use a lander like that.
BTW, the astronaut next to the lander leg: male or female?
(I know it’s just a drawing)
Is that what’s happening with your nonsense posts? Learning? I don’t think so.
Getting into space, getting to the moon and Mars are all well and good, and I’d much rather see my tax dollars go there than to support illegals and bums- but I think the real reason the space program died, or the main one, is no one being able to figure out how to make a profit. Even the great Robert Heinlein seemed to imply that while the government could provide the initial investment, to sustain the exploitation of space was going to require the ability to make it pay.
Piss off, kid. “The ‘60s” wasn’t some time of peace, love, harmony and understanding like your hippie school-teachers told you. The ‘Rats were every bit as evil back then as they are now.
I can only reiterate: The democRATs wanted to throw every penny they could beg, borrow, or steal, into social welfare programs. They succeeded. Destroying the space program was easy for them. It was utterly meritocratic, and therefore intolerable.
Tricky Dick ended the manned space program. Typical Nixon stunt. He didn’t see any more political gain in going to the moon but he could slice some millions off the budget if the program was ended. Nixon often had a wrong end of the telescope view as he constantly searched for some way to get himself the public stature he so desperately sought.
You first, gramps. This could be an interesting discussion of modern technology and how it can make this mission faster, easier, cheaper. Instead you bitch about hippies and welfare. All your bitching still hasn’t put Apollo 18 into orbit, I’ve noticed.
I sure hope you don’t think Tricky Dick did that all by himself ... The ‘Rats were absolutely itching to take NASA down a peg or three.
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