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NASA Tests Hardware, Software On Armadillo Rocket
porcinist writes "On June 23 NASA successfully tested hardware and software on an Armadillo Rocket. With the end of NASA's Constellation program in sight, NASA is starting to focus on new, innovative exploration programs like Project-M. This project is meant to land a robotic humanoid on the moon in a thousand days. To meet this goal NASA teamed with Armadillo Aerospace and Draper Labs (the lab responsible for creating the original Apollo Guidance Computer) to integrate and flight test a real-time navigation system in only seven weeks. This might be the fastest thing NASA has done in 30 years. Maybe NASA is taking Obama's new vision to heart."
This is a good thing for all concerned !!
First Flight?
There's a charming video of him giving a talk at nasa about how really rocket science isn't as hard as people claim.
Surely there are designs that can meet the demands of the environment better than the human form.
Until human beings actually go somewhere "out there", it is not exploration. It is investigation.
Sending a robotic device to the moon is good preliminary investigation, but until people go back there, exploraion will not have restarted.
Mars is completely unexplored. A lot of time & money has been well used on investgating it but the next stage needs to start.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
They probably just replaced their Waterfall software development process with something agile, like Scrum. :)
What's that, three two-week iterations with one one-week pre-launch crunch?
Seriously, the VTVL are actually designed for the moon. The amount of energy to llo is about the same as to hit 60 m/100 km on earth. That means that if the vehicles (including armadillo, new shepard, and masten's) are able to hit 60 m, then they can come back from lunar surface. What is the use of that? Send a large fuel depot and then we have a truck that can send cargo down to the surface and then return.
BTW, the fact that this was done so quickly, hints to me that this is the second vehicle. I am guessing that the first vehicle IS the new shepard.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The robot is not new, the "robonaut" has been around for many years... it's what you get when the government throws some R&D cash at the auto industry
Since a robot will be sent, the launch vehicle and lunar lander will not be man-rated, so they are not in the path to sending humans at a later date. The joke is that Obama says we have no need to return to the moon, so then his boys plan a robotic moon landing to show the public that they are doing something in space. If successful, the robot in the moon will give ammunition to Obama's anti-space supporters who have wanted to redirect all NASA money into the welfare system for many years.This mission will signal the end of American manned space exploration.
It's not exactly brain surgery.
3 years !!! I would hope we could put a small robot on the moon in 3 years - NASA/JPL designed/built and launched Spirit and Opportunity Rovers to Mars in 3 years
Is that you Sen. Robert Byrd?
I can see engineers and scientists loving the challenge of this project and others to come. The human spirit is always in need of a challenge to bring out the best in everyone. I think this is a terrificly exciting thing they're doing.
Maybe NASA is just trying to acomplish something before the economy tanks and the money runs out. If they hadn't wasted the last 30 - 40 years on the shuttle ( 115 odd launches total ) we'd be living on the moon now. They squandered our best chance to get off this planet.
Cool my physics teacher works for Armadillo Aerospace :D
With the mandated end of NASA's old, tired, bureaucratic programs, all the desk jockey administrators are out looking for a better free ride. Who knows, maybe they'll go to Wall Street.
In any event, NASA is being left with a bunch of frustrated old farts who were then, and are now, Engineers (capital "E" on purpose). When you turn Engineers loose, and don't saddle them with endless paperwork, they start thinking up things.
And sometimes these things are total disasters. That's the way engineering works.
And then, sometimes these ideas are completely and totally brilliant. "Hey, Joe, what if we take this soggy wheat, grind it up, and bake it into loaves?"
Never forget NASA's greatest disasters were predicated upon management overruling their own engineers. "Too cold to launch? Don't be Silly." "We had a meeting and decided that that big chunk of ice didn't cause any damage, so why should we ask the military to photograph it?"
If we fired 80% of NASA's management, we might have a Space Agency back. You know, people who do jaw dropping things, as opposed to people who print nice glossy viewgraphs of hypothetical jaw dropping things. Just consider, if the Russians hadn't launched the first ISS module, NASA would likely still have an Origami space station -- all paper and cleverness.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I think it's pretty funny that they mention Draper Labs was "the lab responsible for creating the original Apollo Guidance Computer", and seem to think that is a positive thing.
Doesn't anybody remember that it failed ? The Eagle has to be set down by hand.
All this planet are belong to us.
"Maybe NASA is taking Obama's new vision to heart."
Do you really believe that community organizer/Chicago corrupt politician knows/cares ANYTHING about technology?
Give me a break!