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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."
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.
It's not exactly brain surgery.
It's not exactly solving the poincare conjecture.
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
Yes, Obama is all about killing NASA. In his first year, he bumped up the budget 2 billion. He has taken NASA back to its roots of doing the RD and advanced systems that private companies do not want to do. And he has focused NASA on doing the ground work for monster projects; Such as a fuel depot. Or an inflatable Space Station (lowering costs a great deal, and increasing safety). Automated docking for the fuel depot. Multiple types of space-rated engines;
OTH, W bumped the budget in 2006, while pushing a nightmare system starting in 2004.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Since a robot will be sent, the launch vehicle and lunar lander will not be man-rated
No manned launch vehicle or lunar lander has been man-rated either.
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.
Cool my physics teacher works for Armadillo Aerospace :D
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.
The silliest thing about this tired, predictable troll is that none of the complaints that I've read about NASA's manned space program are calling for the government to spend less money on NASA. If anything, most of us would prefer that NASA's budget be increased substantially, but for more robots and deep-space probes, instead of massive money pits like Constellation and the ISS. (It's always funny how "redistribution of wealth" is acceptable when it's directed towards bloated aerospace contractors.) Personally, I'm not sorry to see the shuttle being retired, and I think a manned Mars mission is a waste of money right now, but I also really hope SpaceX is successful, and I'd probably wet my pants with excitement if Obama resurrected the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. (For the unfamiliar, this probe would have had multiple ion engines powered by a nuclear reactor, and thus wouldn't have been totally dependent on gravity assists - perhaps a good test case for future manned ships, but Bush canceled it in favor of a Mars trip, presumably using conventional chemical rockets. Ugh.)
Hows that working out for you?
You wrote that Obama want's to "redirect all NASA money into the welfare system". If you analyze his past priorities based on his first year in office he most likely will be using the money for big money corporate bail-outs and defense (war) spending.
Those people who like to paint Obama as an old line welfare-state liberal need to actually read and pay attention to what the man is doing, he (Obama) is, in fact, just as much of a right-wing warmongering, fascistic, corporate/big money stooge as the Shrub ever was.
He ain't Black, he's Wall Street beige!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
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.
That Russia's system. And of course, the same one that the Chinese stole as well. What I said is that NASA is developing their own (or they might consider working with ESA).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There is this thing called "risk". It means that things don't always work out as you expect. Space activities remain among the riskiest human endeavors. So just because something didn't work out one time on a Progress flight, doesn't mean a thing to me.
You should have posted the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I