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Exploration

What A 2020 Lunar Landing Might Actually Be Like

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 27, 2019

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

60 responses to “What A 2020 Lunar Landing Might Actually Be Like”

  1. TheBrett says:
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    I wonder what would be easier technically – building a bigger lander that could carry the crew and do a long stay on the surface, or building a small lander with minimal life support and pre-deploying a one-way hab module on the Moon’s surface that doesn’t move after landing?

    By “small”, I mean “it can get 3-6 people in space suits down to the Moon’s surface and back up, but has little life support of its own aside from that – if you screw up the landing and somehow miss the radio beacon bringing you in, you simply have to take off and go back to the orbiting spacecraft that brought you there”.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      But seriously folks. NASA’s architecture is quite complicated, with lots of moving parts, many of which are di$$po$able; Elon envisions the notion that the-lander-is-the-rocket. Not only that: the rocket holds dozens of people, replete with supplies.

      Is he completely off base?

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Nope, it’s the solution when you leverage modern technology and software to minimize cost and you don’t have to feed the Congressional Pork Machine. It’s why he is the only one with a chance to make the goal. But that is only if NASA doesn’t “help” as it did with Dragon2.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          I agree. It is unfortunate that so far SX has been unable to demonstrate the most innovative capability of the Dragon, controlled propulsive landing on land. Possibly they could do a hover over the water before splashdown on an upcoming mission as a convenient way to purge propellant tanks before recovery.

          • Skinny_Lu says:
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            Wooo! Hover maneuver before splash down! Big fan. Since the S. Dracos are the escape system, they will always have fuel to burn. Plenty to practice landing and demonstrate the capability, safely, after the primary mission has been completed. Great suggestion, Dr.

      • fcrary says:
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        We’ve gone back and forth on only developing one vehicle and having everything in it (your preference) and the higher efficiency of a specialized lander (my preference.) I think the difference comes down to what you are trying to do. For a small number of stand-alone missions, the direct landing and ascent would probably be better _if_ possible.

        Unfortunately, in this case, I don’t think it is. SpaceX doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to development schedules. They are claiming a target first flight of Starship in 2020, but they also originally targeted 2013 for the first flight of the Falcon Heavy. They were four or five years late on that one. I don’t think NASA can count on Starship to meet a 2024 deadline.

        On the other hand, SpaceX is developing Starship on their own. And they’re going to do that regardless of NASA’s plans for a lunar mission. So that’s really providing a second program and approach in parallel to whatever NASA does. (Note, by the way, that the Vice President talked about sending an American astronaut, not a NASA astronaut…)

        As far as I can tell, there are three possibilities. They could count on SpaceX doing it on their own with Starship (and I get the feeling they don’t want help even if it’s offered.) But I can’t see NASA doing that. Aside from the schedule risk, they can’t count on a project they have no control over. They could accelerate the current plan to use SLS, Orion and Gateway. That’s trying to take a program with a long history of schedule problems, and manage to speed up to complete the work (currently planned nine years) in five years. Good luck. Or they can use multiple launches with an existing launch vehicle and some form of rendezvous.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Not an auspicious list.

          Alternate 2: As you point out that won’t work.
          Alternate 3: Like our long discussion of mission architecture, we have similarly looked at orbital rendezvous, a discussion which concluded by pointing out that the pieces are not designed for on orbit mating. Re-design of architecture plus the introduction of on-orbit mating capability would add unknown years to this approach.

          Which leaves Alternate 1, which could happen with or without the NASA imprint and presumably a bit of NASA money.

          I read the very same tea leaves that you read: SX is proceeding with Starship in an independent way. They are building a spaceship capable of carrying humans to a range of destinations, none of which have been identified by SX. Moreover it is not clear why they are building this device unless it is intended as a precursor to a Mars trip. The point to point talk on Earth is just silly; and it has little use as a satellite launcher, though that’s the stated reason.

          Excuse me while I pour another cup of tea.

          • fcrary says:
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            I guess my point is that what SpaceX is doing is irrelevant to how NASA responds to this five-year challenge. Someone like Mr. Bridenstine will have to report to both Congress and the National Space Council on a regular basis, and tell them what NASA is doing to put an astronaut on the Moon by 2024. As a practical and political matter, that report can not be, “We aren’t doing anything, because there is a private company who plans to do it at their own expense.” That means, I think, that NASA will have to pursue a separate and independent path.

            Direct landing and ascent with something like Starship isn’t an option for NASA; they will be hard pressed to fly SLS with a crew by 2024. Starting over with something like their own version of Starship isn’t viable. That leaves accelerating their own SLS/Orion/Gateway plans, or developing the minimum amount of hardware for a multiple launch and rendezvous architecture. The later isn’t easy, but I think it is easier than accelerating the current plan. I also think it has more potential for evolving into more capable, future missions.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            It’s like painting oneself into a corner, and then asking for more paint.

            SLS is the gift that keeps on giving.

        • Paul451 says:
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          SpaceX doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to development schedules. […] they also originally targeted 2013 for the first flight of the Falcon Heavy. They were four or five years late on that one.

          JWST is a decade behind. Fully funded. EM-1 was meant to launch in 2017, they’re struggling to hold the launch to 2021. Fully funded, and in many years, overfunded. (And that’s ignoring the work funded during Constellation.)

          So it’s not like NASA, Boeing, LM, Northrop, etc have a great track record when it comes to development schedules. Not seeing how relying on them to develop lunar hardware can increase NASA’s chance of hitting their target date.

          SpaceX at least does deliver on a) Price reductions, and b) Constant improvements on technology and capability.

          • fcrary says:
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            I don’t disagree, and I didn’t intend anything I wrote to imply otherwise. The fact that we can’t count SpaceX getting an astronaut to the lunar surface in five years is one thing. That fact does not imply we _can_ count on NASA, Boeing, LM, Northrop, etc to do so either. It isn’t clear if we can count on anyone doing so.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          (Dr. C might not see this comment as the thread is getting a bit stale)

          Thinking more about this.

          Yesterday, the Tesla van rolled up to the house to service my wife’s car. They were responding to an air bag recall- a not-simple operation but one done smoothly. This wasn’t the first time. Of course this is made much easier by the much simpler electric car, compared to an internal combustion auto.

          Is this a model for early lunar exploration?

          Let’s say that the Lunar Gateway serves as the hub for on-going surface exploration activities, among which are the search for a suitable site for long terms. Included in those activities would be of course looking for usable resources.

          In that case I can see the need for a lander. This would need to be a very robust vehicle that is refused over and over again, presumably from stores on the gateway. Perhaps this is close to your thinking, and to that of NASA.

          The cost of constructing and maintaining the gateway will be huge: let’s figure $50-$75B, based on the $100B number so often floated for ISS (I have no idea what’s in that figure).

          It’s a big number, and all of the functions are obviated by Starship, able to carry the same set of tools, with the added feature of mobility.

          (The tech couldn’t think of a single thing that couldn’t be done to the car here on my driveway- no need to go to a shop).

          • fcrary says:
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            That may be what NASA is thinking, but my preference for a specialized lander is based on later use. A direct landing by Starship would have the nice ability put down everything you need for a long, productive expedition. And while you’re trying to cover a lot of territory before deciding on where to build a base, that may be a very good idea (if it works…) But once you do have a base (or a fixed, repeatedly visited station), it would be more efficient to leave all that gear. Hauling it up and down just doesn’t make sense to me.

            Sending all the gear down, on a one-way trip, and only send people down and up, just makes more sense to me. That lets you build up the fixed base or station, you can still cover lots of territory using the lander (or a modified version of one) for suborbital hops, and the lander could be specialized and therefore more efficient (e.g. life support and living space for a few hours, not a week.)

            But all that is predicated on going to and from a fixed site. For the initial exploration, I think there are many possibilities, and I’m not sure which is best.

      • TheBrett says:
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        Would Starship landing on the Moon have fewer “moving parts”, so to speak? It would need to be refueled in orbit before departing for the Moon, (possibly) refueled in lunar orbit again to land, and then refueled on the lunar surface to take off and return home. That’s a fair number of tanker flights (including at least one tanker lander), and the number increases if you want to reuse the tanker craft.

        Incidentally, that’s why I wanted to pre-deploy an expendable one-way habitat and make the actual lander itself as light on mass as possible. The less mass that has to take off and get back into lunar orbit from the lunar surface, the lighter the burden in terms of fuel sent. Starship dry would be over five times as massive as the fully fueled LEM Extended.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          That’s the chief (obvious) weakness of the plan for sure. Some would argue that the moon has crackable ice. Maybe. But using this resource is decades away. And anyway, those advocates forget Starship is powered by methane, so in the best of times in sit ice only solves the oxidizer part of the equation.

          Meanwhile, Starship itself can be produced as a freighter or as a people-carrier, much like big airplanes. SX is (presumably) working on the issues around moving huge amounts of cryogenic liquids around in space and on the ground. I do not know the state of the art.

          • fcrary says:
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            With water and methane/oxygen rockets, you can get 25% of the fuel mass as well as 100% of the oxidizer. And the Raptor engines run oxygen rich. Perhaps 80% of the propellent mass could be produced from water. And shipping the remained as carbon is probably easier than shipping methane. But going from low ice content permafrost to water would take some work…

      • rb1957 says:
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        No, “rocket as lander” is one design solution … one more complicated piece of equipment, compromised by the competing requirements of the two missions it has to do verses two machines “optimised” for their specific mission. There are advantages and disadvantages with both design schemes.

        Something else to consider is how does the colony base fit into this ? Build a base from various landers ? land components and build the colony base on the ground ?

        Like Keith’s tweet, I think replicating the LEM in 5 years is a stretch, probably less of a reach than building a new lander from scratch. But we Have to understand the colony strategy at the beginning, else we’ll spend lots of money going down blind alleys.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          But isn’t Starship (using the term as shorthand for your more correct ‘rocket as lander’) actually a simpler solution? It’s not really one ‘more’ piece of kit; it I the only piece of kit.

          Moreover, reusability is an incredible advantage.

          How is the base constructed? I’m intrigued at least in part because the design of this facility happens to touch closely on my own professional skills. A collection of Starships is a simple way to start: a usable base as the necessary site analysis is done. There will be dozens of scientists, and engineers, running about, looking at possible sites from lava tubes to crater rims. They will need a comfortable base to work from; Starship could provide it.

          This research is essential and can be done only on the ground. The lander architecture implies several temporary facilities in different spots across lunch, many of which wold be eventually abandoned. Starship could conceivable move. And it could unload plausible moon buggies.

          • fcrary says:
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            I think any long duration or permanent base would need to be underground. That’s the easiest way to deal with the radiation environment. But that’s not something you can build by connecting landers, and you wouldn’t want to invest in such a base without making sure it was in a good location. It would make sense to have an intermediate step, between simple landings and such a base. Something like temporary stations (e.g. supporting 14-day stay), at multiple locations. That would allow for surveying and prospecting before selecting the site for a larger base. That could involve separately landing a simple habitat and supplies, or something like Starship (if it works as well as some claim.)

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Yes, the radiation is a possible deal killer; but the ability to move the scientists and lab gear someplace else might make up for the need to shield them inside Starship, voluminous as it is.

        • fcrary says:
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          The more I think about it, the more I’m afraid this is going down a blind alley. There aren’t many (any?) good ways to get someone to the Moon in five years, and it may only be possible with hardware that has no future applications.

    • fcrary says:
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      That’s a variant on lunar surface rendezvous. That was suggested but wasn’t seriously considered for Apollo. The main concern was landing everything close together. Today, I suspect that would be much less of a concern. But you would probably need to refuel on the surface. Missing the landing site and taking off again might not be viable. But that does depend on the launch vehicle and how much mass you can land. With refueling on the surface, you do have a nice transition to in situ propellent on later missions. The lander wouldn’t need to change; you just shift from landing next to a tanker to landing next to an in situ propellent plant.

      • TheBrett says:
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        You could refuel on the surface, but that would also make it much more critical that you land in the exact correct spot – if you land beyond “hose” distance from your refueling station, you’re in serious trouble.

        You’d have to give them the means to get to the habitat, make the lander the habitat (so that it could keep them alive long enough to send up a follow-up lander), or have a second lander fly out in short succession that could be landed nearby. Obviously, that would be less of an issue if you’re flying up enough material in advance for a base, since they could conceivably stay up there for months or longer waiting for re-supply and a new lander (even if they’re not happy about staying a lot longer than planned).

        Of course, if that’s mass prohibitive to do an expendable lander pre-fueled for both descent and ascent, then you’d go with on-surface refueling. Make the lander bigger (if you’re not building up a base), and have an expendable tanker lander land after the crew is on the surface. Or fly up two expendable tanker landers, and just have the second one land if the crew lands too far away from the first one landed in advance.

        • fcrary says:
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          Surface refueling would require either a long hose or some sort of mobile fuel truck (I guess you could you put wheels on the tanker/lander.) I don’t think landing within a few dozen meters of tanks full of liquid hydrogen and oxygen would be a good idea. Even if you left it as water until after the landing, I’d be worried about damage from the crew lander’s rockets. Defining close but not too close would take a conversation the people designing the navigation/landing systems and those designing the surface hardware.

          • TheBrett says:
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            I found a research paper saying you could probably run liquid oxygen on a hose for at least 200 feet, but that’s probably not an upper limit. At some point, the mass of the hose plus the difficulty in unrolling it to connect to the lander would gravitate towards just having a small fuel tank on wheels for transferring fuel. If you have a pressurized rover with some torque you could tow the tank behind it.

            That’s for a shorter term mission. If you’re trying to build a dedicated base, you’d bite the bullet and go with the long hose/pipe route.

        • Tom Mazowiesky says:
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          For landings after Apollo 11, Nasa developed a system whereby they used radar data on the LM position and compared it in real time to what the LM computer thought the LM position was. This was used to correct for the differences in gravity caused by the mass concentrations on the moon. They took the data and updated the landing computer’s position of where to land. This was so good that the 12 guys almost landed right on top of the Surveyor spacecraft which they were to visit. I’m sure they could hit the mark using this technique, especially as the data on MassCons has been updated quite a bit

  2. MAGA_Ken says:
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    I agree with the tweet. Lockheed is talking about doing the bare minimum for the Gateway for 2024 but I suspect that NASA will ultimately decide to bypass that station and go direct. I think a lunar module could be built and tested out in three years.

    The timeline does include a permanent presence by 2028 (the end of President Pence’s first term).

  3. Bob Mahoney says:
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    Why not build the one we already built? If the objective is to merely make the date…

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      Which one are you referring to? NASA currently does not have any crewed Lunar Lander programs.

      If you are referring to the Apollo era LEM. The infrastructure to build it is gone and it is too risky for loss of crew probability.

    • SpaceRonin says:
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      Gedankenexperiment: Say we have all the LM drawings. Cool! What about the tooling. Probably long gone. OK so we have to remake all the jigs and GSE for this. Bit of a challenge but ok. So how about all those components made by various contractors… Right most of those contractors are long since gone and most of the those components long since run their course. Even if the contractors exist (even in an evolved form.. I am looking at you Grumman) and have the drawings they too probably lack the procedures and suppliers to restart in any sort of timely fashion. No problem we can source more modern replacements. Right but there is no guarantee that they will fit the old system so we will have to consider interface redesigns. Now those will extend to all the major functional chains, power, propulsion,TTNC, Guidance, NAV, ECLSS, yada yada yada. So we will have to look at a fully revised architecture just to address the need for modern standards and different component foot prints, mass, etc. So we have to mess with the original designs to carry all this new stuff….. No worries we can do a delta development program. We would still have to qualify everything again for the mission… probably in parallel with the FM build (Three years for a basic ComSat). Then there are the non-compliances each one of which will have to be sorted. One or two of which will turn out to be mission limiting and consequently require an all hands intervention and push ye olde critical path to the right.

      Probably be quicker to start with a clean piece of paper..

      • TiminSoCal says:
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        And let’s not forget the computers. LM had core memory computers slower than your watch. Need computers, and software. And you know how complex it’s going to be to develop and validate code to navigate, stabilize, control attitude, targeting, etc. That’s after all the HW you mentioned is figured out, too.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      Did you listen to Bridenstein yesterday at the House committee meeting?

      As I have been saying .. he stated MARS is STILL the MAIN focus for NASA and NOT luna.

      • mfwright says:
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        As soon as Mars is mentioned, it squelches any lunar goals because people will begin working on a lunar exit strategy before building a lunar lander. (yes, my same ol’ bankrupt gripe about mission to mars)

    • fcrary says:
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      The Apollo LEM, even if we could build or refurbish one, is fundamentally tied to a lunar orbit rendezvous with an Apollo CSM. We don’t have that either, Orion isn’t a substitute, and we can’t get the CSM/LEM combination to low lunar orbit without a SLS Block 2.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        the Apollo LEM is hardly a model, Dr. Crary; it was flimsy, under powered, difficult to control…the list goes on. It was on the very edge, driven by the persistent need to reduce mass. That need remains but is much more manageable.

        • fcrary says:
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          The mass problems are still severe if someone’s talking about returning to the lunar surface using SLS. And that’s what Mr. Bridenstine seems to be talking about. The technology has improved, and that should reduce mass. But the Block 1 and 1B can lift less mass than a Saturn V.

          But that’s not what I was saying. My point was that _even_if_ you could recreate the Apollo LEM, it would tie you to a mission mode which may not make sense anymore. And which would require recreating much more than just the LEM.

    • Bob Mahoney says:
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      Humor, folks. It’s called humor.

  4. Steve Harrington says:
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    Technically a moon base is doable, but expensive. Remember 2004? President Bush’s moon plan did not get very far. The budget required moving NASA money from one congressional district to another, which turned out to be impossible.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      The Administrator yesterday in the House committee meeting stated no base… sustainable exploration ..no mention of a permanent base.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      That moon plan didn’t get far because certain factions floated outrageous cost estimates. Or something.

      • fcrary says:
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        It was the usual feeding frenzy. I’m not sure I’d use the word “factions”; a large number of people and institutions were responsible and they weren’t conspiring together. There was just an assumption that an announcement of Apollo-like goals would mean the return of Apollo-like funding, and everyone put together a wish list of how they’d like spend the money. Once all the wish lists were totaled up, Congress looked at the bottom line and said no.

        • Steve Harrington says:
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          If you ask an average voter, “should we go back to the moon?” They will say “yes”. If you ask them how much more are they willing to spend in taxes to make it happen, they will say “nothing” So when politicians talk about returning to the moon but never actually do anything, they are doing exactly what the voters want.

  5. SpaceRonin says:
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    No budget

    No heavy lift
    No spacecraft

    No lander
    No habitats

    No Lunar capable EVA suits
    No modern site surveys
    ………but apart from that what have the Romans every done for us eh?

    Re-election season. Nothing to see here move along…

    • lamdapsi says:
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      Astrobotic has been chosen as a 10-year provider to deliver NASA payloads to the Moon through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

      “ESA is not going to the Moon alone and our vision for lunar exploration is based on international partnerships with commercial and industrial organisations. This mission study with Airbus and Astrobotic is a prime example of the new wave of space exploration,” said Dr. David Parker, Director of Human and Robotic Exploration at ESA.

      Its possible the lander would be provided by ESA if designed for say Ariane and SLS.

  6. Richard Mallender says:
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    This and a crasher stage might just about meet the timescale.
    http://www.astronautix.com/

  7. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    There were 15 Apollo Lunar Lander LEM’s built by Grumman , but only 10 were used, including the six that went down and back from the lunar surface. That means there are five functional Apollo LEM’s scattered about…. somewhere . I believe I saw one in the Air & Space Museum a very long time ago along with the other Skylab B space station that never flew.

    Think of what a restored LEM could do with modern avionics and other improvements to the early 1970’s tech. Example : I’m thinking SpaceX’s SuperDraco thruster pods have merit.

    Just musing.

    • space1999 says:
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      There’s a list here on the Apollo Lunar Module Wikipedia page. Looks like one was scrapped, one not completed, and the other 3 are at these locations:

      The National Air and Space Museum
      Kennedy Space Center
      The Cradle of Aviation Museum

    • Skinny_Lu says:
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      Nice dream. I do like to think that way sometimes. But for the reasons spelled above (by SpaceRonin), a blank sheet of paper is the way to go back to the Moon, to land. Does it have to be a separate lander? Space X could possibly land (propulsively) a Crew Dragon on the moon, (not sure if it has enough fuel storage to get to there), with the instrumentation mannequin and a few cameras.

      • fcrary says:
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        I just checked, and the numbers I could find were a little inconsistent. But no. A Dragon 2 can’t even manage a one-way landing on the Moon. The delta-v from the eight SuperDracos is definitely under 1.7 km/s and lunar escape velocity is 2.4 km/s. With major modifications, I guess you could replace payload and crew space with more tanks and fuel, but that still won’t get you a round trip. (And, although the Vice President did forget to include the “and return him safely to Earth” part, he did specify astronauts so I’ll assume a round trip is mandatory.)

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      Problem is that both the descend and ascent modules in the LEM uses Aerozine 50 as propellant to get higher thrust and higher specific impulse. Even then NASA have to stripped out the LEM to bare minimum to make the mass allowance.

      Besides the fact that the seals, wiring & vehicle structure integrity have all gone beyond their design lifetime.

      It is easier to do a clean sheet design for a Lunar lander and build it anew.

    • Paul451 says:
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      Belatedly:

      Think of what a restored LEM could do

      SLS uses engines literally taken off the retired Shuttle orbiters because it would “save time and money”. It is based around the Shuttle’s ET and SRBs to “save time and money”. It uses a modified DIVH upper-stage to “save time and money”.

      How is recycling old hardware working out so far?

  8. RocketScientist327 says:
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    Trump should have done this DAY 1 – not re-election season. That being said this is the right decision. The sooner SLS dies the sooner we all can get on to the business of conducting a real human space program of exploration and settlement.

    We are just feeding the beast right now. #truth

  9. MarcNBarrett says:
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    Couldn’t Boeing’s Starliner be used? I am envisioning the Starliner with an added base for the descent and ascent engines.

    • fcrary says:
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      That runs into the same problem as using a Dragon 2. Once you add the engines and, more importantly, the fuel, it’s too massive to launch on an existing launch vehicle.

  10. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Actually the North Pole just might be better. After Admiral Peary reached it in 1909 the next group to do so by surface were a group of snowmobile enthusiasts.

    https://www.snowmobile.com/

    “The four-men at the North Pole consisted of expedition leader Ralph Plaisted, a 40-year-old St. Paul, Minn. insurance man; navigator and radioman Gerry Pitzl, a 34-year-old university geography teacher; 40-year-old mechanic Walt Pederson, who owned a Ski-Doo dealership in St. Cloud, Minn.; and Jean-Luc Bombardier, the 29-year-old nephew of Ski-Doo inventor J-Armand Bombardier, whose snowmobiles the team rode to the Pole.”

    These folks would likely have more in common with the reporters, rock hounds, space tourists, etc. that might be on a Starship when it lands on the Moon. After all the ASAP will probably not consider a Starship safe for NASA astronauts to fly on…

    BTW the snowmobilers did make an important discovery –
    “Well, Plaisted does take a bit of pleasure in recalling, “About the only scientific achievement was that we found scotch freezes at -65 degrees.” I wonder if the next lunar mission will find out how champagne behaves in lunar gravity.

  11. Tom Mazowiesky says:
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    I’m not sure that a design could be approved by NASA in five years, let alone getting it built and tested. Everyone should read Tom Kelly’s excellent book (Moon Lander) on the difficulties in building the LM at Grumman in the 1960’s.

    • fcrary says:
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      I’m a little more optimistic. NASA did develop the Apollo lander, despite all those problems, in seven years. And that was using very limited knowledge or the lunar surface, guessing, or waiting until the Ranger and Surveyor results. In addition, quite a bit of existing hardware could be used. You don’t need to develop a new, throttlable, 45 kN engine. You can open the Aerojet catalogue (or SpaceX; the SuperDraco is overkill, but it can throttle way down.). I’m reasonably sure a lunar lander could be developed. Approving the design and issuing contracts, well, the probably wouldn’t take five years, even when done by the NASA of the 2010s. But that might eat up a year that would be a problem with a five year deadline.

      • Ray Gunn says:
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        Almost every human space program to date has encountered long delays, SLS and commercial crew being the latest. I would be fine with five years simply being used as a target, but I worry that pressure to meet a politically-based deadline will compromise safety.

  12. Ray Gunn says:
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    Did anyone else notice that when Pence called for Americans to return to the moon by 2024, he didn’t mention anything about returning them safely back to Earth?

  13. MarcNBarrett says:
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    Project Morpheus, anyone?