Posted on 04/27/2019 4:55:35 PM PDT by BenLurkin
NASA has updated a planned call for proposals for lunar landers to enable a human mission in 2024, broadening the scope to include integrated lander concepts.
In a procurement filing issued late April 26, NASA updated an earlier notice published April 8 that announced plans to solicit proposals for an ascent stage for a human-rated lunar lander. Instead, the upcoming procurement will seek proposals for a complete integrated lander that includes an ascent module as well as a descent module and transfer stage.
A formal call for proposals, part of NASAs Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships, or NextSTEP, program and formally known as Appendix H, has yet to be released by the agency. NASA said on the NextSTEP website that it anticipates issuing that it anticipates issuing that solicitation by the end of May, and will include both studies as well as options for vehicle development.
NASA changed course after Pences speech, announcing plans for the ascent stage work in the April 8 presolicitation notice. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, in an April 9 speech at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, said that notice was developed within a week. He added that he expected the lunar lander systems to be built as public private partnerships.
The updated plans provide a second chance for those who did not participate in the earlier lander studies solicitation or who do not get awards. Appendix H offerors who are not awardees on Appendix E will be afforded the opportunity to propose similar work, to the extent it is necessary for their Appendix H proposals, NASA stated in the revised procurement filing.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacenews.com ...
The previous missions only explored a very tiny bit of the Earth-facing Lunar surface and all of those were generally in the same area. 99.9% of the moon remains unexplored by man, and unmanned missions have mapped the surface but never explored it.
There are more than just rocks on the moon. There are valuable minerals and other things we do not have on Earth like Helium-3 for safe fusion reactors.
Exploration seems to be a dirty concept these days. Everyone just wants to be safe and comfortable. Its sort of like running a business: it takes money to make money; it takes exploration to discover new things. Exploration entails risk.
Exploration is the mission.
Perhaps you are too young to remember the time of the Apollo missions, but it was a time of worldwide Hope. Hope for the future hope for mankind - you could feel it, hear it anywhere you went in any country. It was a good time to be alive. Kids wanted to learn to be engineers, explorers pilots, mathematicians, scientists of all sorts. Now kids are changing sexes, learn false history - if they learn anything, reading is a lost art, books are too difficult to read, and so on. Dismal.
Without manned missions, without hope, we will continue to get more of this self-defeating navel gazing until the whole culture/country is lost in a miasma of recriminations and petty squabbles, children will become common place sex objects for adults, and so on - with the most undesirable things happening everywhere; the most dystopian of futures becoming reality. We need HOPE. Restarting manned space flight gives us hope again. Exploration gives the human race Hope and Purpose again.
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