Nice suit.
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Posted on 04/11/2019 12:41:18 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Lockheed Martin is unveiling new designs for a human lunar lander concept that can take people to and from the lunar surface. And the company says it can be ready within the next five years....
The vehicle consists of two elements: a lander portion that can travel down to the ground, and an ascent vehicle that can lift astronauts off the Moon’s surface. The lander is meant to travel to and from a new space station that NASA wants to build around the Moon called the Gateway. If all of these elements are created, astronauts would travel to the Gateway from Earth and then take the lander from the station to the Moon. The ascent vehicle would then bring them back to the station.
This new lander is separate from another lander concept that Lockheed revealed last year at the International Astronautical Congress. That design called for a much heavier, reusable lander that could take astronauts to the Moon and back in one piece — without the need of a separate ascent element. But...Lockheed has been working on a design that could be developed much more quickly.
A big advantage of this new Lockheed lander concept is that the company won’t be building the vehicle completely from scratch. Many of the elements needed for the vehicle are derived from Orion, a crew capsule that Lockheed has been working on for the last decade. Orion, which is nearing its first flight, is meant to fly astronauts into deep space and dock with the Gateway in the future. Some of the same materials and systems used in Orion could be incorporated into this new lander, such as a lot of the internal equipment, flight computers, life support systems, and more.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
Nice suit.
Grumman has a design already tested. All that needs to be done is to update the flight computer with a bit more memory to eliminate those pesky 1201 alarms on final descent.
First of all the space station needs to be in earth orbit. Use it as the way station to construct the crafts to get to lunar orbit. Then build the second space station. From that station build the lunar base.
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We should have been doing this for the last 50 years!
Nice video screen. Will astronauts also be forced to watch CNN along with airport travelers?
Need a robot that builds robots that build the space station.
That design presumes a 1960s US industrial base, which no longer exists.
The real problem, here, is that we quit going to the Moon back in 1972. This means we have to start from scratch in many respects. We know it can be done, but we still have to (re)invent things. We should have been flying around the Earth-Moon system, and beyond, all these years, and gradually improving our spacecraft. We should have spacecraft right now, with evolutionary heritage back to Apollo ... but we don't. We have a cradle-to-grave welfare state, instead. That's what the democRATs wanted. Can't have Whitey on the Moon; that's racist.
Got to be better than the Israeli lander, it crashed today trying to land on the moon.
That dude needs to workout those arms.
What a peculiar take on this.
How about a highspeed rail to the moon?
Space women?
We’ve had 50 years of “if they can put a man on the Moon, then why can’t they ...” (fill in your favorite pet social welfare project.)
I frequently see things from a different angle ...
Is there something you disagree with? Something you’d like to discuss?
don’t make fun of old noodle arms
Dude looks like a lady
Looks too much like a fire hydrant, moon-doggies will be peeing all over it.
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