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Blue Moon

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Re: Blue Moon

#91

Post by avmich »

username223 wrote: post #82
T-A wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish Bezos, Allen, Musk, etc. weren't burning their piles of cash Allen did many things with his pile of cash (though none that I know of directly involved moon trips), but no longer: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/paul-allen-microsoft-spacesh...

RIP. Allen doesn't seem to have been going for the moon (yet), but I wish the billionaires would not spend their hoards on private rocket companies. It's a bit gross that the article you linked calls them "philanthropists" for doing it. Andrew Carnegie was a real bastard, but he funded many wonderful small-town libraries, which remain valuable community centers over 100 years later. Bill Gates took his shot at world…

To the contrary, I'd argue spending on spaceflight in current day is significantly more challenging and laudable than solving some more "real-world" problems.

Those problems are quite important, but I'd prefer to live in the world where space problems are among those worthy of attention.

Re: Blue Moon

#92

Post by avmich »

hodder wrote: post #50
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

I was waiting for this announcement. It is unclear to me how "real" this is; Bezo's claims they can meet the timeline of people on the moon in 2024. Since they aren't flying a heavy booster like the Delta IV heavy or the Falcon Heavy yet, and those platforms took about 10 years to go from concept to first flight. Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years. Perhaps he's considering using the Delta for FHeavy as the…

Unlike Elon Musk, Bezos has a tendency to set more accurate timelines. This is not to say that Space X’s achievements are not incredible. They are. It is just that Elon Musk projection timelines are pretty much always bunk, while Jeff Bezos seems to be better at projecting achievement timelines. Again, what Space X and Blue Origin have achieved are incredible, and yes Space X has an entirely different set of technolo…

But SpaceX still moves faster than Blue Origin, even though SpaceX promises to move much faster and then fails to do that.

Re: Blue Moon

#94

Post by mLuby »

cwkoss wrote: post #53

I'd like to see us put two return rockets on the moon. Would increase the safety factor of all future manned missions significantly if a crash landing wouldn't necessarily mean death. If you could safely verify the return vehicle is ready to go before sending the people, you could potentially use a one-way lander, vastly decreasing launch weight.

Better safety factor would be having such regular visits that there's already another vessel in the area that can divert to assist.

Re: Blue Moon

#96

Post by justinator »

justinator wrote: post #87

This whole mini-site looks like an extremely audacious undergrad aerospace engineering group project. Except when I was an undergrad, it was all about going to Mars .

Also the city I live in doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a "homeless" problem. The planet I live on also doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a climate change problem, a pollution problem, a corrupt political system problem.

We've got lots of Hard Problems to solve before we need to go back to the Moon.

Re: Blue Moon

#97

Post by simonh »

agildehaus wrote: post #25

I'm all for anything that gets us back to the Moon, but this clearly feels underwhelming versus Starship. It'd also be good if they got to orbit prior to marketing these grand plans. Gradatim Ferociter indeed.

This is a response to the NASA NextStep request for proposals for a Lunar lander targeting a 2024 mission. It’s not a clean sheet architecture like Starship.

https://www.nasa.gov/nextstep/humanlander2

Re: Blue Moon

#98

Post by pacificmint »

mr_toad wrote: post #54
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

I was waiting for this announcement. It is unclear to me how "real" this is; Bezo's claims they can meet the timeline of people on the moon in 2024. Since they aren't flying a heavy booster like the Delta IV heavy or the Falcon Heavy yet, and those platforms took about 10 years to go from concept to first flight. Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years. Perhaps he's considering using the Delta for FHeavy as the…

> Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years. It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11. You’d think we’d be able to do things faster now.

> It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11.

12 years, and 4.4% of the federal budget (in the peak). In 2007 dollars they spend around $136 billion to get to the moon.

Re: Blue Moon

#99

Post by mLuby »

I would rather see two engines with enough TWR and gimbaling to be able to lift off with one failure. Plus then you can place the payload between them and not mess around with cranes.

.O##O.

/^[$]^\

Re: Blue Moon

#100

Post by sbr464 »

justinator wrote: post #96
justinator wrote: post #87

This whole mini-site looks like an extremely audacious undergrad aerospace engineering group project. Except when I was an undergrad, it was all about going to Mars .

Also the city I live in doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a "homeless" problem. The planet I live on also doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a climate change problem, a pollution problem, a corrupt political system problem. We've got lots of Hard Problems to solve before we need to go back to the Moon.

I’m not downvoting you (maybe mentally), it’s a valid point. It’s also been a long-standing perspective;

Whitey on the moon, from 1969:

https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4

And from the Atlantic:

Moondoggle: The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Program

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...

(I’m personally for moon and space missions, there will always be issues to overcome)

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