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Lockheed Martin Unveils Plans For Huge Reusable Moon Lander For Astronauts (space.com)
Lockheed Martin revealed its concept for a reusable, single-stage spaceship capable of ferrying four astronauts between lunar orbit and the surface of moon. Lockheed's craft weighs roughly five times more than the lunar lander NASA used during the Apollo program. When it's fully fueled, it will weigh 68 tons (62 metric tons). Space.com reports: The Lockheed lander would use as its home base the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a small space station that NASA aims to start building near the moon in 2022. The lander would depart from the Gateway, taking astronauts and up to 1.1 tons (1 metric tons) of cargo down to the lunar surface, according to a newly published Lockheed white paper. The craft (and crew) could stay on the surface for up to two weeks, then launch back to the Gateway without the need to refuel. (The lander would be refueled between missions -- eventually, perhaps, with propellant derived from water ice extracted from the moon or asteroids.)
Lockheed's proposed lander could be up and running by the late 2020s, in keeping with the timeline NASA has targeted for getting boots back on the moon, said Rob Chambers, Lockheed Martin Space's director of human spaceflight strategy and business development. The lander would also launch atop the SLS, at least for the foreseeable future, he told Space.com.
Lockheed's proposed lander could be up and running by the late 2020s, in keeping with the timeline NASA has targeted for getting boots back on the moon, said Rob Chambers, Lockheed Martin Space's director of human spaceflight strategy and business development. The lander would also launch atop the SLS, at least for the foreseeable future, he told Space.com.
The late 2020s, they won't have to worry about uneven terrain then because they can just land at the SpaceX moon base.
So NASA is now in a space race agains SpaceX ? Competition is good for business.
Those lying bastards
If it were funded, it would only be after 2024, so at best wouldn't exist till 2030. It would also require multiple SLS launches to fuel it, at $1bn a shot.
And it would be 1/4 the size of the BFS, with much less payload, less people, less endurance, and Elon might well go there himself, by 2024.
NASA would be nuts to fund this.
All that juicy delicious pork will be very useful on the moon also....
Listen folks, before you get all giddy with the possibilities presented in this article, take a long, hard look at Lockheed Martin's past involvement in the US Space program. Then, dig beneath the surface and see if anything has changed, if your tax money is being used effectively or efficiently...
NASA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to build a replacement for the Space Shuttle. The first test article was called the X-33, the final version was to be the VentureStar.
This was a high-risk program that integrated a lot of new technologies with the hopes of creating great new capability, namely single-stage to orbit and rapid, low-cost re-use, with a launch turn-around in the order of days. Lockheed got close, very close, but were ultimately thwarted by their own senior leadership who ignored their own engineers - repeatedly - and insisted on constructing fuel tanks that would never have worked. Not surprising, these fuel tanks failed in test. That leadership bungle ultimately cost them the program. The engineers came up with a stop-gap solution that would have worked, but by then Lockheed's relationship with NASA had soured, in part because they refused to pay for their own mismanagement, and they kept insisting on more money. Ultimately this led a former NASA director, Ivan Bekey, to testify before congress (emphasis mine):
What I would recommend is that NASA and Lockheed Martin face up to the risks inherent in an experimental flight program and renegotiate the X-33 cooperative agreement so as to delay the flight milestone until a replacement composite tank can be confidently flown.
Both NASA and Lockheed Martin should make the investments required to build another composite tank and to absorb the program costs of the delay, because only then will the X-33 program be able to meet its objectives
Lockheed refused to invest anything in the program and insisted that congress cough up everything to construct a new, proper set of tanks. Congress declined, the program was cancelled. Four years later Northrop Grumman demonstrated the composite tank technology needed to complete the X-33, and ultimately the VentureStar. But neither congress or Lockheed showed any interest in reviving the X-33 program. As a result, the United States abdicated it's manned space program to the Russians, a sad state of affairs that remains to this day.
If you read between the lines of Ivan Bekey's testimony before congress, only a small fragment shown above, you can see the seeds for a new type of development mentality in NASA taking root - instead of the hour-billing cost-plus bureaucratic boondoggle exemplified by Lockheed Martin and the X-33 (a situation that exists to this day, see the Orion Capsule), something resembling a market driven commercial enterprise.was needed. Ivan Bekey's testimony contributed to the death of the X-33/VentureStar, but it laid the foundation of NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program, or CCDev.
The CCDev program is what created SpaceX - which was created from the ashes of Lockheed Martin's X-33/VentureStar failure. I'm not going to summarize SpaceX's accomplishments over the last 10 years - this audience should already be quite familiar with what they've been up to.
Now, in closing: linked above is the funding section for Lockheed Martin's Orion Capsule. Here are the highlights:
funding through completion of development by 2023, is $20.4 billion (nominal).
and
There are no NASA estimates for the Orion program recurring yearly costs once operational, for a certain flight rat
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
for money for stuff that will never happen in the claimed time frame.,
Upgraded model Aries 1b to follow at a later time.
In the long run we are all dead. - John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)
Are we going to pay the Russians to build the LOP-G for us? We still havent been able to put one person in orbit in what, 6 or 7 years now.
Sure I understand there may be quite a bit of it and oxidizing the hydrogen generates new water but I don't know how much of that will reach the surface again and when.
I'd feel like if one wanna terrarform and shit one want to keep it?
Then again I guess you could argue without being there that won't happen.
Regardless we should had saved and not destroyed earth first.
"When it's fully fueled, it will weigh 68 tons (62 metric tons)."
Getting to the moon's surface is all about weight.
stupidest design... ever...
I do believe Taz00 was referring to this claim by Lockheed, dingus.
when we're so sure we will have water powered space ships on the moon?
If this lander is to be reusable, Lockheed Martin will have to do all the maintenance and repair in lunar orbit or on the surface. For example, either they can remove the engines and overhaul them in zero gee and vacuum or they can build clean rooms on the surface. The only way to avoid this is to build engines that can last a multiple cycles without being worked on. Ditto for every part and system in the ship. Mind you if they pull this off, they could do all kinds of wonderful things.
How is it easier or make more sense to have astronauts die on the Moon, rather than Mars?
Not really sure what you find confusing. It's a LOT easier to get astronauts to and from the moon alive. We already have life support systems that can deal with moon mission duration but not so much for Mars. Communications to the moon are a few seconds round trip. Mars communication averages around 27 minutes round trip. Regular resupply to the moon is feasible. Not so much to Mars. Rescue missions to the moon are feasible even if difficult. Far less so to Mars. We have no practical design for shielding against radiation on the trip to/from Mars or while there but that's not nearly as big an issue to/from/on the Moon. Landing on the moon is MUCH easier than on Mars because the martian atmosphere turns out to be a real pain - thick enough to be a hazard but too thin to be useful.
Neither place is a friendly warm place to visit but it's pretty obvious that the Moon is the easier trip of the two by a pretty wide margin if you care at all about bringing the astronauts back alive. I'd like to see us visit both but Mars is definitely the harder target of the two.
The only difference between having a human land on the Moon rather than Mars is that Mars has a slightly stronger gravity well, a sparse atmosphere, and it will take more time to send a manned craft to Mars rather than the Moon.
That is not even close to the only difference. That thin martian atmosphere is actually a huge problem for landing there. It's easier to land on Earth than on Mars because the atmosphere on Mars is thick enough to cause entry heating problems but too thin to provide much useful braking. And that time to get there is mostly time in deep space where radiation becomes a big problem for living beings if they aren't shielded and we currently have no practical shielding. That problem along with the substantial sum of money it would take to finance such a mission are the biggest hurdles to getting to Mars.
But humans have already landed on the Moon. There is nothing new to be learned engineering-wise by having a landing craft land on the Moon first.
Yes we've landed on the moon but claims that there is no more we can learn by going again are manifestly absurd. There is a ton of engineering and science we could learn by going again.
I have yet to read anyone who can explain how it will be safer or more rewarding to send humans back to the Moon.
The ways in which going to the Moon is safer are legion. Most of them have to do with the proximity to Earth and the advantages that affords. Frankly if we cannot handle a manned mission to the Moon, it's not at all clear how we would handle the more costly and challenging mission to Mars. That's not to say we shouldn't go to Mars but I think that particular journey is going to take a LOT longer to become a reality - predominately because of the life support systems we still have yet to develop.
... the goddam F-35.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
In order to bring under control cost and reliability which have been an issue for Lockheed Martin this past decade, the moon landing system is fully reusable. But under normal operation and mission parameters the astronauts are discarded instead.
Oh, look! Another friggin' white paper on space vehicles! Give me a friggin' break. The old-guard aerospace companies will never build a damn thing. Meanwhile, Elon Musk and friends have been kicking their technological ass.
If you want a juicy contract to build this lander, you have to suck up to the Big Guy!
Call it the Bigly Launch Executive Armored Transfer System (BLEATS). With gold tassels, and pre-grabbed flight attendants!
Contract assured!
(1) Assume it will take 5 times as many years as promised.
(2) Assume it will be half as capable as promised.
(3) Assume they'll be back later with an offer to fix all the problems in exchange for a new cost-plus contract.
The "fixes" will be so expensive, the US Govt will cancel the program and the vehicles in inventory will have problems supplying breathable air to the crews (See: F-22)