A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen • Hacker News Board

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#151

Post by starik36 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 7:57 AM UTC

blahblahblogger wrote: post #100

aschobel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will change this spring which isn’t too far away. > Elon Musk’s SpaceX simulated a successful emergency landing on Sunday in a dramatic test of a crucial abort system on an unmanned astronaut capsule, a big step its mission to fly NASA astronauts for the first time as soon as this spring. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-spacex/...

Uh huh, that article is from 2017 and also says this: > Nearly 45 years after NASA astronauts last embarked on a lunar mission, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced his company's plans to send two private citizens on a flight around the moon in 2018.

The flight sending American astronauts into space aboard Falcon 9 + Dragon is scheduled for May. So not long to wait.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#152

Post by baq » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 7:58 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #35

No chance. This isn't the 1950s. We don't just throw people atop rockets anymore. These are vehicles, aircraft. There is absolutely no way any of the current crop of space vehicles could be made ready for a trip to the moon anytime before 2024. Going beyond low orbit, away from the sub-45min return time, is something we haven't done in generations. The craft need to be tested, repeatedly. Each test flight then has to…

one case in point is that you're citing cost-plus contract works. the current environment is conductive to different payout strategies.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#153

Post by baq » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:03 AM UTC

magicmouse wrote: post #143

Absolutely no chance. NASA spent 20 years designing this new super rocket, never even built a single one of them; so it only exists on paper, and when you look closely at the design it is basically the Saturn 5 with some slight modifications. The reason so many engineers jumped ship from NASA and went to work for SpaceX is that at least Elon is doing something with some alacrity. NASA is just a bunch of paper shuffli…

you've just described precisely why it is in fact possible to do what they say: there's a company on the market that has both knowledge and appetite to do that. in fact, they might do an unmanned moon landing just to make a point to NASA to simplify their negotiations for a manned one.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#154

Post by baq » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:05 AM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #26

ifdefdebug wrote: post #13

NASA wants to go to moon in about 4 years (!) but today they can't even lift a human into earth orbit since they discontinued their last spacecraft capable of such a task. Dream on.

LEO requires totally different technology than getting to and landing on the Moon. So yes, they cannot get to LEO, but they've been developing the machines (SLS) that should allow them to get to the Moon. It's doubtful it'll happen by 2024 though.

forget the SLS, it's a jobs program. it might do a mission or two but that's it.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#155

Post by baq » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:06 AM UTC

fmakunbound wrote: post #18

Would be better to spend that on robotic exploration. More probes to other planets, the Sun, asteroids etc. and space telescopes. Much greater scientific return on the dollar.

if you put a scientist with a shovel and a lab kit on the surface of mars, he'd do more science in a week than all the robots we've sent there to date.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#156

Post by mr_toad » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:13 AM UTC

rst wrote: post #59

nine_k wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can always hire a commercial rocket SpaceX used to be their long-time partner.

It needs more than just the rocket. You also need a lunar lander, and all we have right now are paper sketches of designs that would take more than four years to finish and build, on conventional timelines. (One wild card is the SpaceX Starship, which Elon is talking about having some lunar capability for, on extremely aggressive timelines. But Starship is a risky project in all sorts of ways -- besides which, before…

> One wild card is the SpaceX Starship, which Elon is talking about having some lunar capability for,

“Some lunar capability” is an understatement. If high elliptical orbital refuelling of Starship works it will completely change the game - eliminating the need for a lander & service module.

Instead of delivering a 25-30 ton lander, they’ll land the entire second stage, with 100 tons of cargo (or dozens of passengers), all at a fraction of the cost of the estimate $1 billion SLS launch cost.

Starship is already being prototyped, and will probably fly this year or next, while NASAs crewed lunar lander proposals are all just proposals.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#157

Post by ljf » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:25 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #155

fmakunbound wrote: post #18

Would be better to spend that on robotic exploration. More probes to other planets, the Sun, asteroids etc. and space telescopes. Much greater scientific return on the dollar.

if you put a scientist with a shovel and a lab kit on the surface of mars, he'd do more science in a week than all the robots we've sent there to date.

But what would the cost to put a scientist on Mars for a week vs all the robotic missions we've sent so far? Which of those missions does the human mission require as a sunk cost?

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#158

Post by 101404 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:32 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #138

sandworm101 wrote: post #35

No chance. This isn't the 1950s. We don't just throw people atop rockets anymore. These are vehicles, aircraft. There is absolutely no way any of the current crop of space vehicles could be made ready for a trip to the moon anytime before 2024. Going beyond low orbit, away from the sub-45min return time, is something we haven't done in generations. The craft need to be tested, repeatedly. Each test flight then has to…

We launch people on rockets every year to the ISS.

The Russians do it for the US. The US hasn't launched any astronaut in almost a decade.

SpaceX and ULA have been certified recently to launch astronauts too.

But launching to the orbit of the ISS (about 500 km) is very different from launching to lunar orbit (about 400000 km iirc).

My money is on SpaceX to land on the moon before 2025, not any government. Not even China.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#159

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:59 AM UTC

blueprint wrote: post #57

melling wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here we go again... Why I remember almost 6 years ago, after the Virgin Galactic crash, when we debated the merits of humans in space. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540279 Anyway, I think I lost and people were confident that Virgin Galactic would soon be back. I’ll just repost one of my summary thoughts. The entire thread is worth reading. It’ll probably be repeated in some form today. “ Someone dying is dev…

I wouldnt worry about those who dont understand why we must immediately become spacefaring. They're obviously on the "wrong side" of history as environmental pressure will make unarguable.

This is obviously false. Any technology that could allow humans to live anywhere but on earth (the moon, Mars, space stations, generation ship, you name it) would be infinitely more applicable on an environmentally devastated earth up to any degree of devastation.

Living on Mars would be much harder than living on the earth after an all-out nuclear war with the worse effects of global warming present, in the aftermath of a small asteroid strike.

In fact, diverting much needed resources from saving what can be saved of the climate for the pie-in-the-sky (literally) goal of having a minuscule handful of human beings possibly live a scant few years off the Earth in 20 years time is lunacy.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#160

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 9:02 AM UTC

onionisafruit wrote: post #60

Someone wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, combine ”NASA says contracts to build a lunar lander could be awarded in late February or March.” with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module#History . For the LM, the contract was awarded in September 1962, and first flight (unmanned) was in January, 1968. So, even Apollo’s aggressive schedule needed more time to first flight than what NASA would have now between awarding the contract and landing hu…

Did we throw away everything we learned in the apollo program? They won’t be starting from scratch on the design.

Some things will have to be rebuilt though. I read a story the other day (probably from HN as well) about rebuilding an older model rocket engine, because they still had the plans. Turns out a lot of that depended on the skill of the engineers, welders, machinists etc at the time, which could compensate for small changes on the fly. It didn't work the same with modern manufacturing technologies and materials. Mind you I do believe the modern stuff is better, they can do the same or better performance with less material and waste.