VP Pence gives his Kennedy speech: "humans on the moon in 5 years"

Started by Legend, Mar 26, 2019, 08:42 PM

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Legend

Who knows if it will actually happen, but it's a heck ton of interest from the White House. Calls for doing whatever is necessary to make NASA fast again.

(obviously this is a political move too but atm the space exploration results sound great)




The south poll was mentioned as the landing site.

Legend

Mar 26, 2019, 09:15 PM Last Edit: Mar 26, 2019, 09:32 PM by Legend
Rockets that could be used:

Falcon Heavy
New Glenn
SLS Block 1
Starship
Vulcan


NASA's architecture would be SLS launching Orion to a partially finished LOP-G. The astronauts use LOP-G to transfer to a lander that was delivered earlier by a commercial rocket. The lander lands on the moon, lets the astronauts have a day or so down there, and then part of the lander returns back to LOP-G. The astronauts return to Orion and then return to Earth for splashdown.

SpaceX's architecture would be launching a Starship with astronauts into orbit and then refuelling it over and over until it is in a highly elliptical orbit with full tanks. It then launches to the moon, lands, and can come back when desired. Astronauts ride the starship back down for a rocket powered landing. The multiple refueling events make this a very complicated mission for 2024.

New Glenn would be launching the blue moon lander. Either this would be used with the NASA plan or it would be used with Blue Origin's own capsule.

Vulcan with ACES would be able to basically do anything. Could be used to launch landers to LOP-G, could be used as a lander if XEUS is revived, could be a space tug between LEO and LLO, etc.


In general LOP-G or another orbiting station makes the most sense. Direct ascent takes a much larger rocket and even SpaceX could benefit from avoiding it. A tempt station could work though, similar to how the Apollo missions worked. Launch Orion into LEO and dock with an ACES upper stage and a lander. Then that could move out to lunar orbit, let the lander drop down and come back, and then let Orion on its own come back.

NASA moon landing: ACSC commercial competition to build human landers

Legend


the-pi-guy


Legend

What about designing a lunar lander that's rocket agnostic?

Scenario 1: lander is launched into orbit around the moon by SLS. A second SLS delivers Orion with humans to the lander. They transfer over, do the landing, and then come back. The lander is disposed of and the humans return on Orion.

Scenario 1b: lander is launched into orbit around the moon by Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, Vulcan, or Starship. As long as the lander fits within the Falcon Heavy then it could launch on any rocket. Mission continues in the same fashion as scenario 1.

Scenario 2: lander is launched into lunar orbit inside a cargo Starship. Orion is launched on SLS to the Starship. Lander is released and does the lunar landing. Lander comes back and both starship and orion return, making the lander reusable.

Scenario 3: crew Starship launches with both humans and lander. Starship reaches lunar orbit, lander is used for landing, and then humans return on Starship. Requires significantly less refuel launches. In this case lander would be limited by the size of the door on crew starship or it would need to fit in the trunk.

Legend



Wouldn't have expected this option.

Falcon Heavy first stage and SLS second stage. Launch crew to Lop-g for 2024 landing.

DD_Bwest

They are really trying to kerbal it together lol

Bout time.

Legend


Legend


DD_Bwest

Atleast there is finally extra money going towards things.

Legend

Atleast there is finally extra money going towards things.
Yeah would suck if this just becomes Constellation SLS Artemis where nothing really changes, but it could end up actually being the real deal. Hopefully there are enough people in high enough positions that push it as a science program.