NASA Wants Fast Moonbuggies and Solid Lunar Lander

coondoggie writes "NASA may have its eyes on the Sun and Mercury this week but it is clearly focusing on the moon for the future. NASA is soliciting proposals from the scientific and aerospace communities for design ideas for its next lunar lander. NASA officials said the Altair spacecraft will deliver four astronauts to the lunar surface late during the next decade. According to NASA Altair will be capable of landing four astronauts on the moon, providing life support and a base for weeklong initial surface exploration missions, and returning the crew to the Orion spacecraft that will bring them home to Earth. And while they won't be flying to the moon but rather flying around the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., the space agency has set April 4-5 as the dates for 'The 15th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race'. The race is for high school and college teams where they build and race their lightweight, two-person lunar vehicles. More than 40 student teams from 18 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada and India have already registered." My proposal just features a domo-kun mouth and giant pink ears attached to an El Camino. Money please!

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Airlocks?

[jbeaupre]

Dust is going to be a big problem for these designs that's going to require a different idea about airlocks. Aerospace engineers have gotten pretty good at designing equipment that operates in vacuum, extreme temperatures, etc. But they spend a lot of effort to keep them clean. You can try to seal all the systems, probably with good success. But astronauts are going to bring a lot of dust indoors every time they reenter. Apollo astronauts were filthy at the end of missions.

The designs I've seen for this don't really use airlocks . Suits similar to Soviet designs dock with the capsule or buggy. Astronauts climb in from the back and undock to work outside. Samples and equipment go through a smaller lock. Makes for some funky looking craft.http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/09/rvs-in-space-lu.html