Space and Science BS Thread

Safely landed 51 years ago today:

https://youtu.be/kmGP4o272ac

 

Nice breakdown:

https://youtu.be/GuSM_-Aw5HM

 

I can read up on it . . . but does someone happen to know if this is an attempt to prove Von Braun's direct ascent [I guess inversely, direct descent] model?

 

Just gotta Love the Black 'n White & the CB quality sound. Only time the teacher never had to tell the Kids to Shut Up.

 

Nothing direct about an HLS Starship. The only time it’ll be within Earth’s atmosphere is when it’s built and first launched.

I haven’t heard of anything other than crew transferring to it while it’s in the NRHO.

Never heard of crew launching from Earth on it and its not designed to re-enter either.

 

Ingenuity just made history this morning with the first powered flight on another planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1KolyCqICI

 

No, kinda... They are making this separate version with landing rockets above the tanks because they are afraid of creating large dust clouds and/or holes with the bottom engines when they land on the moon. It's end purpose will be to transfer cargo/people from the lunar gateway to the surface of the moon and back, essentially a ferry. That cargo/people will arrive to the station through another rocket.

It will most likely come back to earth orbit for refueling. Refueling is going to be interesting. Starhip holds 1200 Tons of fuel, and has a payload capacity of "only" 100 tons to LEO. So 12 rockets to fully refuel in LEO or up to 144 launches to fully refuel it and the tankers starhips in NRHO. I'm just wondering how long it's going to take. Are they going to get it down so good that they can restack, refuel, and launch every few hours, or is it going to be a launch every few days and take a week or more to refuel in orbit.

 

You got me thinking a bit more about your question....


Von Braun was a proponent of EOR in rebuttal to Direct Ascent. So in that case, I think I get what you were asking about. I would say the current HLS is more of a hybrid LOR model but with more than one launch vehicle.

This sums up the 1960s decision nicely:
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/18/7399...-how-to-go-to-the-moon-but-few-were-listening

Here’s NASA’s history if interested:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezvous.html

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/world/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-first-flight-scn-trnd/index.html

 

I’m thinking Elon and Gwynn paid for the full article..

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.1649664?journalCode=apc

 

No, it doesn't have the TPS for earth entry.

They'll likely have top off a tanker in LEO and send it up to NRHO and fill it up between moon runs. Then the tanker will have the TPS for earth entry (since they're designed for direct reentry from Mars)

 

I think @2008taco was talking about the tankers..

How much meth/lox will they need going to and from the lunar surface? 1/6th what they need for Earth??? Lessens the burden just a bit.

 

The problem with this is that you have to get a tanker to orbit, then launch tankers to fill up that tanker so that the tanker can get to NRHO to fill up the lander. My money is on them brining the lander back to earth orbit to refuel it until they get a propellant production facility on the surface of the moon.

 

Not that it matters . . . but I was talking about having a direct descent [later ascent] vehicle going to the moon rather than separate command and lunar modules. Unless I am missing something [highly possible], this new design appears to be a fly to the moon, slow down, land, return in reverse order vehicle. I thought Von Braun was in favor of that.

Kinda like most of my service manual removal/installation instructions.

The mars copter flies? Priceless!

 

The lander does not have any TPS, it's purely a vacuum ops bird.

latest render



Note - extended landing legs, wraparound solar, no aerosurfaces.

'going to earth orbit to refuel' uses a LOT of dV. something like 4km/s of thrust. Meanwhile sending a tanker to NRHO and letting it aerocapture on return saves about half of that.

 

please ballpark the dV cost for tanker to NRHO v. getting the lander back to LEO.

 

My understanding is astronauts board an Orion capsule (maybe on top of SLS, less sure about that), ride that into space and all the way to the lunar gateway, dock, transfer through the gateway to a Lunar Starship (which is friggin bigger than said gateway), then ride that starship to the surface of the moon, then reverse all that to get home (hence, no TPS needed on that Lunar Starship since it’s never coming anywhere near an atmosphere ever again).

 

lol ... there's no other ride for Orion besides a SLS.

But you're mostly correct.

Atermis 1 - SLS-Orion to NRHO, get on Starship HLS, mun, back to the Orion, orion goes back to earth.
<future>
SLS-Orion to gateway (with a parked starship HLS) ... <mun> .. <gateway> ... back to earth.

Lunar starship won't ever be going near earth again. How to refuel HLS starship, wellllllllll ... .that's up to the vendor. But the sane solution is a tanker in LEO, which gets refilled, goes to NRHO, fills the starship, then goes back to terra 'cos aerobraking is free (ish) while using thrust to get into LEO costs dV.

 

I am aware there is no TPS on the lander and that it will never come back to earth. Starship + booster however can only make it into earth orbit, to go further requires refueling. 6-12 starship tankers. The lander would require as much if not more fuel to get to NRHO, land, and take off again. So 6-12 tankers, each requiring their own tankers to refuel them to push them out of LEO. So almost no way out of dozens of launches to refuel in NRHO. I don't see that happening, it would require months if not years to refuel the lander.

 

Don’t you mean ‘free-return’?

Aerobraking needs some atmosphere to cause drag.