Lunar lander challengers

joseph g gavin, jr amherst, ma (see info in google) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 12:22:06 GMT

We did all this with 100% success almost 40 years ago. This exercise, carried out under non-applicable conditions of gravity and atmosphere, seens like a waste of effort!

Lunar lander challengers

Alan Sheets, Loveland, CO — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 16:40:12 GMT

Some high school kids are going to end up winning this contest. Just wait and see.

Lunar lander challengers

Max Lee, Woodruff, Utah — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 16:55:57 GMT

I think that this is an excellent way of allow private competition to create the next 'line' of space vehicles that would be more efficient, and cheaper than anything that can be produced by our government. In the long run, these 'space competitions' may also save the government millions of dollars, by simply offering prizes that encourage any people out there with a good brain on there shoulders to influence mankinds future in space.

Lunar lander challengers

Matt, Boise, Idaho — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:03:45 GMT

It's about developing new technology more than anything, Joseph. Yes, we did this with 100% success almost 40 years ago, but 40 years is a long time. And yes, this contest involves conditions that are much different from the moon, BUT that doesn't mean that the technology developed by these companies won't be useful on the moon. Perhaps more importantly I think it's good for NASA to look outside itself for help.

Lunar lander challengers

Rick Wessels, Lewisville, TX — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:07:38 GMT

I personally think NASA is going in the wrong direction. With the new space systems they are proposing to replace the Shuttle with looking like a serious blast from the distant past. I think JFK would be horrified if he saw what we where doing. We might as well just pull the plans for the Saturn 5 out of storage and start from there. If the best that NASA can do is kill off a real SSTO design and go backwards 50 years in technology, then maybe our only hope is the private sector.

Lunar lander challengers

bruce wilson , winteringham UK — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:08:51 GMT

it's about time we were back in space ... never mind models, get a full size version of the best concept presently available and run safety test then live launch. need volunteers? contact me for lunar or mars shot.

Lunar lander challengers

Frank Glover, Rochester, NY — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:59:19 GMT

The Lunar Lander Challenge seems directed at developing technologies for reuseable, single stage (Grumman's Lunar Module was neither) Lunar surface-Lunar orbit applications. How one gets to LEO and on to Lunar orbit is another issue (Which the Lunar Module addressed by riding along with the Apollo command/service module on the Saturn 5).

Conducting the tests on Earth is still valid, as we know how much energy would be required to carry out a given maneuver in the Lunar environment. A demonstrator on Earth will be expected to expend the same energy, carrying out a similar, but obviously scaled down maneuver. And there can be no use of aerodynamic control surfaces (which clearly would be a 'cheat'), only reaction controls. Rule A.4.2 is clear on this.

Apollo astronauts used a roughly similar machine for training:
http://www.astronautix.com/
craft/apoollrv.htm

...and obviously NASA considered it a meaningful analog of the Lunar landing experience.

This differs from the DC-X/A, which Was a technology demonstrator for a future vehicle that *would* operate in Earth's atmosphere to low orbit and back (though they had rocket powered vertical takeoff and landing in common)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Clipper

Japan's similar RVT has had a foot in both camps, having both flown without:
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/enterp/tech/vehicle/06.shtml

...and later with its aeroshell:
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2001/06_01.shtml

http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/
flight_demonstration_and_a_concept_
for_readiness_of_fully_reusable_rocket_vehicles.shtml

Lunar lander challengers

Dennis Collins — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 01:42:58 GMT

The govt may have done all this 40 years ago, but the methods they used for orbit access are too expensive for anyone but the government and large corporations that can sell transponder access. Doing the moon by 1970 cut off development in high speed airbreathers that the Air Force was working on back then. We're finally making some headway in that arena, with every branch of the military, including the Army, working on hypersonic flyers.
Rutan said at Oshkosh that Return-on-investment for space related development is half the time as building new GA aircraft. Obviously some real money has been flowing on this issue and the next decade should be interesting to watch.

Lunar lander challengers

Bill, Alpharetta, GA — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 03:28:52 GMT

The fundamentals have not changed in 40 years. Refining something that worked well sounds pretty pragmatic to me.

Lunar lander challengers

Kelly Flynn Kelowna B.C.l — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:19:13 GMT

Physical laws did not get revised much in the last 40
years.Save time and money (and possibly astronauts) by
getting the plans for the Saturn 5 out and lets go. Forget the space station,we landed on one in 69,we just needed a plan to live there.

Lunar lander challengers

G Bird — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 04:34:00 GMT

My father worked for Brown Engineering ... Halliburton to "(do) all this with 100% success almost 40 years ago", as he bragged, "with punchcards".
Actually, it was closer to 50 years past than 40.

Punchcards & dusted Saturn 5 plans are not merely old tech, they are lost tech, as are the original formula for Damascus steel or silphion seed stock or Apollo 11 videotapes.

http://www.smh.com.au/
news/national/one-giant-blunder-for-
mankind-how-nasa-lost-moon-pictures/
2006/08/04/1154198328978.html

Because they functioned in living memory is irrelevant.
Unproven developmental tech is unavoidable in an era of future shock.

Myself, I'm enthusiastic about corp. sponsorship of launches & space exploration as marketing opportunities, a far more appropriate venue than the customary cultural highjacking epitomized by MTV Spring Break.
Let's hookup in Canaveral for Easter recess ! Don't forget your cellphone cam.