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Recent College Grads Aim To Land A Robot On The Moon (thehindu.com)
Sunday the Indian Space Research Organization successfully test-launched a scramjet rocket, propelled by "an air-breathing propulsion system which uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen from the atmosphere air as the oxidizer" rather than carrying a tank of liquid oxygen. "if the need for liquid oxygen is taken away, the space craft can be much lighter, hence cheaper to launch," notes one newspaper, adding that India is only the fourth country to flight-test a scramjet engine after the U.S., Russia and the European Space Agency.
But in addition, 15 former ISRO scientists are now helping Team Indus, one of the 16 teams remaining in Google's $30 million Lunar XPRIZE competition, who will use ISRO's polar satellite launch vehicle to send their spacecraft to the moon. GillBates0 writes: An official designated as "Skywalker", said that such space missions used to be limited to extremely elite people and PhDs in the past. That stereotype is now breaking. "I was just a college student a couple of years ago and now I am working on an actual space mission, how cool is that," said Karan Vaish, 23, who is helping the team to design the lunar rover. Eighty per cent of the team is reported to be less than five years out of college.
But in addition, 15 former ISRO scientists are now helping Team Indus, one of the 16 teams remaining in Google's $30 million Lunar XPRIZE competition, who will use ISRO's polar satellite launch vehicle to send their spacecraft to the moon. GillBates0 writes: An official designated as "Skywalker", said that such space missions used to be limited to extremely elite people and PhDs in the past. That stereotype is now breaking. "I was just a college student a couple of years ago and now I am working on an actual space mission, how cool is that," said Karan Vaish, 23, who is helping the team to design the lunar rover. Eighty per cent of the team is reported to be less than five years out of college.
There are actually FIVE countries that have successfully tested scramjets in flight - the list should include Australia. What is more, the Australian project (HySHot run from the University of Queensland) was the FIRST successful scramjet flight (in July 2002).
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyShot
They already put a satellite in Mars orbit... and only spent $74 million putting it there. Who knows, they might go for a rover next.
As long as it does not involve humans, they are fine. Once you put humans in the picture, they will have to develop toilet technology - something that they yet have to crack.
I just do not see why people keep trying to eliminate the weight of oxidizer and propellent. IE scram jets or space elevators when the cost of propellants is so small. The propellent cost for a Falcon 9 launch is only $250,000. The Falcon 9 can put 50,000 lbs of cargo in low earth orbit that's just $5 per pound for propellent. Propellent does not matter. What matters is the cost of the vehicle. We need 100% spacecraft reusability for 1,000's of launches to get the cost of space travel down. Space X is working towards that goal. The current engines that use Kerosene will wear out rather quickly because the engines need to run with excess oxidizer to prevent them from being fouled by carbon build up. The oxidizer causes the engine to rust out(titanium rust). The new Space X engine uses liquid methane fuel. It can be run with a more perfect oxidizer/ fuel ratio and eliminate the corrosion problem so much longer life.