Posted on 11/29/2018 10:47:26 PM PST by BenLurkin
The general idea is that these companies will be able to compete for contracts to deliver NASA science experiments to the surface of the moon by flying lunar landers on rocket launches purchased from other commercial space companies. Those individual contracts would substitute for NASA needing to build those capacities itself.
But under this approach, NASA won't be alone in hiring these companies — the agency hopes to spur development that the commercial sector can also utilize. "We want to be first customers, not only customers," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's head of the science mission directorate, said during the event.
The agency did not provide any details about the choices beyond what the selected companies were: Astrobotic Technology Inc., Deep Space Systems, Draper, Firefly Aerospace Inc., Intuitive Machines LLC, Lockheed Martin Space, Masten Space Systems, Inc., Moon Express and Orbit Beyond.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Bigelow Aerospace should be a company on the moon. They make inflatable modules for habitats.
Let’s see: US companies claim ownership. Chicoms come along and force them out. US must now go to war on behalf of their interests. Kinda like Viet Nam? Was Jefferson wrong vs. the Barbary pirates?
One has to wonder what it would cost to build a Saturn V / Apollo using today’s technology. How much could the entire package be lightened to increase its payload carrying ability. Why start from scratch?
Is one named “Alice”?
All the Saturn V infrastructure is gone. The research is gone. No one even knows how to make one anymore. It was a very impressive design however, or so they say. Even by today’s standards.
There is a complete Saturn V and Apolo rocket on display at NASA in Clear Lake, TX. - could reverse engineer one. It is a very impressive display and puts one in awe at the very sight of the spectacle...that man could build so complex and dependable of a system. Very awesome if you ever get the chance to go see it.
What? No Boeing?
I’m sure there’s lots of technical specs squirreled away in filing cabinets and in national archives. Heck lots of old encyclopedias have very decent drawings. The rockets we have now are all miniature versions of the same thing and their designs can simply be upscaled. Don’t forget what Tesla just did this year.
Quit the defeatist talk. It would just take political will, money and the necessity to do so to bring such machines back to life!
I seen pictures, does that count?
The realism part is that we probably don’t need something that large but we could probably build something as powerful but at much lighter a weight. The defeatist part is somebody saying...”the knowledge is lost...we can never do such a thing again....bring out your dead...”bong”!
...and stuff!
I just got a call from them about a job
England used companies to settle the New World.
The London Company paid for Jamestown (1607) and the Plymouth Company paid for the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. BTW, the Pilgrims were only half of the settlers the company had on the Mayflower.
Perhaps some day the Moon will be a mighty nation?
ass backwards
We used to hire contractors for NASA now we pay for it and they own it (and will sell it to other nations)
And these companies and their supporters boast NASA is no longer needed and private companies are doing it all.
I don’t see a lot of smart in giving free reign on missile technology of such firms (which don’t have a loyalty to America or American engineers).
>>I’m sure there’s lots of technical specs squirreled away in filing cabinets and in national archives.
NASA was buying back some of them from private hands a decade or two ago. Some publications (and they were publicly released) can run $800 or more.
No idea why they wouldn’t be in the Library of Congress or at least one aerospace section of a Harris County Public Library (except that ALA-taught librarians kicked out science and archives for more Jenna Jameson “how to sex” books when they were popular).
the knowledge that sent us to the moon is still lost, even if we can do “better” next time. Lost it within a few decades.
All the Saturn V infrastructure is gone. The research is gone. No one even knows how to make one anymore. It was a very impressive design however, or so they say. Even by today’s standards.
...
Yes it was impressive. Design work began on the F1 engines in the early 1950’s.
Falcon Heavy has two thirds the lift of a Saturn 5 for a lot less money. SpaceX’s next rocket will be more powerful than the Saturn 5 and completely reusable also for a lot less money. There’s no need to reverse engineer a Saturn 5, just get the government out of the way.
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