Lunar landers left behind

steve smyth lynn ma — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:08:20 GMT

hey, Alan...who decides the 'frontrunner' in these things?
you refer to problems for the 'frontrunner'.
how'd they get anointed?

Lunar landers left behind

Alan Boyle — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:41:34 GMT

Hm, maybe I'm one of the guys doing the anointing. ... Just call me Samuel. ;-) But seriously, Armadillo was the only team to compete last year and they almost won. This year, they're the only ones known to have actually run through the entire sequence for winning a prize already. They've kept folks posted about every step in their progress, and their work looks pretty impressive. So I feel comfortable with giving Armadillo front-runner status.

Lunar landers left behind

John Dog — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:40:19 GMT

Those guys have about as much chance making a lander capable of actually landing on the moon or on mars, as I have of making my SONY robot dog wizz on the top of mount everest...

Lunar landers left behind

Roger Stachura — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:36:38 GMT

Why is this so difficult if it was done 38 years ago? Oh wait it never did work on earth, but yet did so well on the moon. I understand the additional thrust needed in earths gravity but the ability to "balance" would be the same if not easier here because of the atmosphere. This is the smoking gun for people that question whether we actually did land on the moon in 69. That lander worked so good it looked as if it was being pulled straight up by a cable!

Lunar landers left behind

Dan Berger — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:48:39 GMT

Actually, the atmosphere would make it more difficult because you need to deal with variable lateral forces (cross winds and gusts) not just a constant verticle force. The decreased gravity of the moon (1/6th of Earth's) would also make it easier because it allows more reaction time for the pilot once in the hovering and landing phase since you are falling at an acceleration 1/6th the rate of the earths.

Lunar landers left behind

Bill Hensley, Houston, TX — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 14:31:17 GMT

It is true that the Lunar Lander Challenge contestants are not really building vehicles capable of landing on the moon. They are designed to operate on Earth, by remote control from a short distance away, and to be refueled from a trailor by people standing next to them in shirtsleeves. But they are building vehicles with the same Delta-V that would be required for a real landing (at least in the 180 second contest) and with a real control system for stable hovering flight. More to the point, most of them are amateurs! And they are spending a tiny fraction of the money that NASA spent on the real LM in the sixties. So there is an important sense in which they are, in fact, advancing the state of the art. They are solving the technical challenges in economical ways that bring these capabilities down from the realm of something only a superpower government can do to the level of something entrepeneurs can do. And that, I think, is significant.

Lunar landers left behind

steve smyth lynn ma — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 16:59:29 GMT

why is everyone an apologist?
we're going nowhere slowly...period!
Boys and their Toys...kid with the most toys at the end wins...etc...
that is what these challenges are all about, and it's pure, unadulterated pablum for the masses because nobody has a clue of what to do...so we repeat the past, in a bunch of half-baked, short money tributes...nonsense!
and...key...the masses don't don't give a rats patootie about the stuff we dream of at CosmicLog...DAMMIT!
because of the Boys and their Toys mentality...

Lunar landers left behind

Frank Glover — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:41:28 GMT

What you call 'Boys and their Toys,' I call people taking their own money (as oppposed to tax revenues), taking their own risks and *doing* something, rather than whining about how it should be...

Those 'masses' don't know about Centennial Challenges either, you see. That's as sad as anything else. But that's not why Armadillo and other contenders are in it. John Carmack already knows games. He knows how to do real stuff, too, because he believes in it. Had I the deep pockets and the expertise of a Carmack, Rutan or Musk, it's what *I* would be doing.

Bless 'em all. They're the spiritual descendants of those bicycle mechanics from Dayton...