Isn't that what the Blue Moon essentially is? Or do you mean using the actual LEM blueprints as a basis? Because that's not going to work in practice - the amount of effort required to reverse engineer the original LEM, let alone establish a supply chain, at this point is certainly more than a clean sheet would require. It would just be an impediment to the project.
Because US space policy is short-sighted and schizo as fuck.
SLS is designed around lofting >130 tons to LEO equivalent (BLEO, like the Moon, is about a third of that). To do that it needs a much larger upper stage. That upper stage just got put on ice but had a troublesome development history, so in an effort to get hardware flying earlier it was proposed to take an existing high energy stage (Delta IV's upper stage; boy doesn't that sound familiar) and use that as an interim solution. Hence, Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). We don't make Delta IVs anymore because of a general consolidation of the launcher market (i.e., ULA wanted to slim down to one vehicle after inheriting two different ones from Boeing and Lockheed, these being Atlas V and Delta IV), so a stage that was only supposed to fly once got an extension to three units and that was it for production.
Isaacman's bright idea to replace ICPS with Centaur V is kind of a half-solution, in that it solves the immediate problem of having more SLS cores on order than available upper stages, but it comes at the expense of not having the larger, more powerful upper stage to do a co-manifested payload. EUS had its own problems that might well have pushed delivery out to later than 2030 but that heavy-lift capability just no longer exists.
And add to that that the current architecture demands a larger lander than could be meaningfully co-manifested (for a myriad of reasons, but chief among them being that it's the future and we like bigger margins of safety) and you've got a mess. HLS was supposed to solve that by depending on a brand new launch vehicle instead of cargo SLS B1Bs, but that's clearly not doing too well. I fully expect that Starship will be picked as the rendezvous target for AIII, but it won't be close to being a representative HLS vehicle.
Limp is full of shit about the New Glenn RTF timeline too. I've seen pad pictures and he paints a far rosier one than reality; a good chunk of the vehicle actually survived but the pad itself collapsed into the trench. Vertical integration has been something the program's been hoping for for a while though.
SLS is designed around lofting >130 tons to LEO equivalent (BLEO, like the Moon, is about a third of that). To do that it needs a much larger upper stage. That upper stage just got put on ice but had a troublesome development history, so in an effort to get hardware flying earlier it was proposed to take an existing high energy stage (Delta IV's upper stage) and use that as an interim solution. Hence, Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). We don't make Delta IVs anymore because of a general consolidation of the launcher market (i.e., ULA wanted to slim down to one vehicle after inheriting two different ones from Boeing and Lockheed, these being Atlas V and Delta IV), so a stage that was only supposed to fly once got an extension to three units and that was it for production.
Thanks for the technicals. Didn't realize how fucking cobbled together its all been thus far.
So I take it using 2 rockets, perhaps using a Falcon Heavy, to lob a LEM and some fuel into LEO for an Orion to intercept wouldn't work for a lunar landing mission?
Thanks for the technicals. Didn't realize how fucking cobbled together its all been thus far.
So I take it using 2 rockets, perhaps using a Falcon Heavy, to lob a LEM and some fuel into LEO for an Orion to intercept wouldn't work for a lunar landing mission?
It definitely would, if you could make a lander small enough to fit on a Falcon Heavy. Again, this is essentially what Blue Origin is planning.
One of those Delta IV Heavies would look really good right about now. They built a massive factory that could roll out ~40 a year but the market never materialized and now it's all gone. The real impediment to space travel is never technology, it's always the economy.
Does anybody else look at Facebook Reels/YouTube comments of bolides and get depressed? Literally a bunch of adults wondering why there isnt a crater, mad at nasa for not being able to track a 1 meter wide space rock, and/or claiming its actually invisible Iranian missiles bc Trump said something mean on X
Yes. Especially the moon landing conspiracy idiots. But also anytime there’s an image posted, like recent Artemis II ones you will always get “Hurdur it’s CGI!”. The flat earth people are hilarious to me though.
At this point might as well just design a single use lander so they can at least achieve a landing again. Starship is really not an ideal lunar lander and Blue Origin doesn't seem to have made much progress in their design, which isn't much more than a single use lander, since they unveiled it nearly a decade ago.
At this point it'd be cheaper and easier to just design a LEM 2.0. You'd gain the benefit of jettisoning mass at each stage of the mission which would probably help make it easier to do.
I love watching SpaceX's advancements but its clear Starship isn't doing a lunar landing this decade.
Bring back Altair from the Constellation program. Launch an SLS and have it rendezvous in LEO with a lander and Earth Departure Stage. Then do an eyes out translunar injection.
The issue with all of the plans IMO are that they all rely on the lander to have enough delta-v to do lunar orbit insertion, powered descent, ascent back to lunar orbit and trans earth injection. Orion should do some of that heavy lifting like Apollo did.
The whole design is terribly inefficient no matter which lander design you choose.
Apples to Oranges. FH equipment was developed under a totally different context. Much of the Starship development is done in the open, and the current focus of Starship is getting the base of the launch system working. No point having a harness if you plan to abseil if you don't have the rope. Falcon Heavy likewise was pretty indistinguishable to Falcon 9, and most of it was pretty closed off anyways. You could see the block updates but other than that, there wasn't much.
So I take it using 2 rockets, perhaps using a Falcon Heavy, to lob a LEM and some fuel into LEO for an Orion to intercept wouldn't work for a lunar landing mission?
That's similar to the Chinese approach (which is why all the moon race talk is somewhat foolish). Falcon Heavy however would require modifications for larger payloads. The Long March 10 version used can lift a similar amount at 70 tons to LEO, and 14 tons to trans lunar injection (as per wikipedia). But, for HLS and the long term ambitions of NASA and Artemis you really would not want that.
[chinese lunar mission profile]
Yes, the Long March 10 apparatus is probably the best if you're trying to shuttle crew to and from a lunar base (based upon what's functional right now, we cannot guarantee Starship as of yet). But it is limited to only bringing a crew of 2 down so would be closer to something like Salyut. There are strict mass limits for Long March 10, this would likely be alleviated with Long March 9 depending on how the long term Chinese lunar ambitions change. But the Moon base ambitions are still up in the air and are a decade (at a minimum) out. Much of what's going on is about reconnaissance and staking a claim so they can try get first dibs.
HLS was less about getting their as soon as possible, and much more future proofing. That is part of NASA's selection for Starship as the original HLS bid as it would enable them to upscale quickly. There's no point going from an Apollo style LEM when you want to start getting hardware down to the moon for future long term habitation. As you'll need other lander landers to bring down modules. So the logic went that you can use Starship HLS for both cargo and crew (in different configurations but little difference). That was the main determining factor [1].
However, the long march 10 is yet to actively fly, but the 10b version with Mengtian's (China's crew capsule for it) is meant to fly later this year and dock with Tiangong in an uncrewed test flight.
People who act like it's a race to returning the moon really have no clue what they are on about. It's a race to stay and use the resources of the moon. Something that's pretty far off.
1: well, that and Starship being under bid, the entire selection was a mess but even if NASA had a trillion to spend, Starship is what they wanted as an on paper design. Other proposals had a ton of issues. Funnily enough, Dynetics' lander would have had to be launched on a SLS block 1b first. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.
One of those Delta IV Heavies would look really good right about now. They built a massive factory that could roll out ~40 a year but the market never materialized and now it's all gone. The real impediment to space travel is never technology, it's always the economy.
The Delta 4 Heavy is a really inefficient and costly launch vehicle that was created out of the desire to have 2 separate launch vehicles for military payloads. New launch vehicles are significantly more efficient. It was about a 1/3rd of a billion like a decade or more ago.
Yes. Especially the moon landing conspiracy idiots. But also anytime there’s an image posted, like recent Artemis II ones you will always get “Hurdur it’s CGI!”. The flat earth people are hilarious to me though
Im not going to lie these faggots literally make me MATI. This retard isnt even American hes in the UK and obsessed with a world leader who will be gone in 3 years. I need to stop looking at comments but my damn family sends them to me as a joke.
Im not going to lie these faggots literally make me MATI. This retard isnt even American hes in the UK and obsessed with a world leader who will be gone in 3 years. I need to stop looking at comments but my damn family sends them to me as a joke.View attachment 9098887
Okay because Soviet Space flight history is not actually well known, anywhere really, I am going to clarify that Zvezda is a very, very old module. Like built in the 80s old. It was originally designed as a spare for the Mir core module, same design, it is why it is the service module for the ISS. It had been meant to be the core for Mir 2 as a result of its design, and it being kept in storage. It was not, and it was reused. A real part of spaceflight history. But this type of things will be more common with the ISS as the modules age more.
Note, the astronauts sheltering was not unusual. This was a pretty major thing, as Zvezda is the most important ISS module as it is the ISS service module, a lot of stuff goes through it to the point that NASA had a back up for it if the launch failed. Zvezda for context, is a Salyut module. Salyut being the first space stations, and were derived from Almaz. If you are a fellow space autist and want to see an actual Almaz module, you've gotta go to the Isle of Man. - France also has a Mir mock up (not the complete station, Mir's core, Kvant-1, 2 and Kristall.
The Russians said the leak was "fixed" some time last year, then it re-appeared after the latest Progress docking.
They attempted repairs this morning, and when NASA found out what they were doing—cutting off a metal bracket to get access to the area they wanted to patch, without having done any analysis of how the stress from the cutting operation would affect the cracks in the structure—all of the U.S. astronauts were ordered into the docked Dragon. I imagine the discussion in Mission Control went something like, "they're doing WHAT?! TELL OUR GUYS TO PREPARE TO ABANDON SHIP!"
The Russians then decided that maybe they needed to think the procedure through a little bit more. They're going to "conduct additional measurements and data assessments" and "NASA strongly supported that decision" per the above (very diplomatically worded) press release.
It sounds like the issue is just stress fractures in general due to age, which would also mean there isn't a permanent fix because more and more fractures would start to form. I can get behind NASA freaking out about that, if it's already stress fracturing what are the chances it suddenly fails because of careless tool use? How much longer a service life do they expect to get out of the ISS? More importantly, would replacing the service module even be possible now that they don't have the space shuttle with that nifty arm to help with construction?
It sounds like the issue is just stress fractures in general due to age, which would also mean there isn't a permanent fix because more and more fractures would start to form. I can get behind NASA freaking out about that, if it's already stress fracturing what are the chances it suddenly fails because of careless tool use? How much longer a service life do they expect to get out of the ISS? More importantly, would replacing the service module even be possible now that they don't have the space shuttle with that nifty arm to help with construction?
NASA has contracted with SpaceX to de-orbit the ISS in 2030 or 2031. It's a bit of a dance with Congress, who would rather keep it operating longer... but Congresscritters aren't known for their engineering chops, so that desire has nothing to do with whether or not it'll even still be safe to operate in 2030.
Rather than replace it, several companies have proposed private stations that will rent orbital space to NASA alongside other customers, similar to how NASA currently contracts transportation services from SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing (LOL), etc. It remains to be see how quickly those plans will materialize, if at all. IMO, Vast and maybe Axiom are furthest along. Blue Origin and Voyager are also still in the running, I believe.
Its kindof a relic of a bygone age which I think is mainly why they want to keep it, they still had the last vestiges of a useful space industry closely integrated with NASA when they were building it (that they would prove to have no ability to hold onto) and could never repeat that project today
Afaik the experiments they do up there aren't all that useful anyway its pretty much purely an academic/scientific endeavour for prestige
The Russians said the leak was "fixed" some time last year, then it re-appeared after the latest Progress docking.
They attempted repairs this morning, and when NASA found out what they were doing—cutting off a metal bracket to get access to the area they wanted to patch, without having done any analysis of how the stress from the cutting operation would affect the cracks in the structure—all of the U.S. astronauts were ordered into the docked Dragon. I imagine the discussion in Mission Control went something like, "they're doing WHAT?! TELL OUR GUYS TO PREPARE TO ABANDON SHIP!"
The Russians then decided that maybe they needed to think the procedure through a little bit more. They're going to "conduct additional measurements and data assessments" and "NASA strongly supported that decision" per the above (very diplomatically worded) press release.
I was wanting to go for a pint, but it turns out the Artemis 3 crew is being announced rn.
And Blue Origin intends to be ready for 2027, which is a positive.
Going to edit as it continues, and new (I think?) SpaceX renders
SpaceX now plans to have the crew transfer to HLS from Orbit with Orion, allowing for more abort modes because of Orion going into NRHO.
Mission Specialist, Andrei Douglas (1st flight)
Mission Specialist 2: Frank Rubio (1 flight, over a year in space)
Pilot: Luca Parmitano (ESA, notable for the spacewalk water leak)
Commander: Randy Bresnik
