NASA Human Landing System

[RCgothic]

26 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They have a prototype to decrease the mass.

The base module of Mir was overweighted by 5 tonnes.
They were redistributed between Quantum-1 and -2, and Mir has happily worked in orbit.

SpaceX currebtly doesn't have even this.

Cool story about Mir.

But NASA's selection document warned that significant additional risks to Dynetics' mass budget were yet to be resolved. It was likely to get heavier, not lighter. 

Whereas Starship could put on 50 tonnes and still work, albeit with lower payload.

[YNM]

32 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Because their vehicle still doesn't exist even as a prototype.

Yeah, idk what those steel tanks are.

 

If we have to agree to disagree I'll leave it as is - honestly I wish we have more than just Starship for HLS, if anything I'll say Starship doesn't work at it's best on the Lunar environment and I wish for actual tests on Mars. I've said numerous times I particularly like the Dynetics idea since it means easy surface access - a characteristic you need when you have to access it so frequently. Seeing Starship being solely chosen for HLS was honestly a surprise given the access challenges, but when you don't fund your space program enough to achieve the goals you set forth to it I guess it's OK to rely on philanthropy (that still have the chance being done to avoid getting too much personal income on the balance...)

Edited May 6, 2021 by YNM

[kerbiloid]

12 minutes ago, YNM said:

Yeah, idk what those steel tanks are.

Aframax has even larger tanks. This still doesn't make them lunar modules.

24 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

But NASA's selection document warned that significant additional risks to Dynetics' mass budget were yet to be resolved.

Please, where can I see the prototypes of those SpaceX lunar modules perfectly matching the NASA docs?

Dynetics at least has something material to mismatch.

14 minutes ago, YNM said:

If we have to agree to disagree

This looks inevitable, until someone of them makes something actually lunar to operate with.

[YNM]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

Aframax has even larger tanks. This still doesn't make them lunar modules.

Yeah, wrong shape to start with. (FYI crude oil tanks in ships aren't cylinders, they're often just rectangular or rectangular with the tips slanted, so octagonal ? idk. Only knew it since they asked us to design a port as an assignment.)

6 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

This looks inevitable, until someone of them makes something actually lunar to operate with.

Yeah... godspeed to whichever company/entity it is.

[RCgothic]

"Show a mission replica prototype" would be a more credible argument if anyone else had a mission replica prototype. As is, not so much.

 

NT don't have flight ready engines. Dynetics' concept is severely overweight and likely to get moreso. These are deep program risks.

Whereas SpaceX has demonstrated every tech they *need* to support HLS, except for orbital refuelling, which they'll get to this year or next, i.e. early programme. There's therefore time to work that out. It's not a deep program risk.

Re-entry and reuse? Not necessary. Sure, it would help SpaceX's balance to not have to expend tankers to conduct refuelling, but if it came down to it Starships aren't so expensive that it would kill the company to take the hit. Tankers probably cost well under $30m each so a few hundred million for two missions isn't bank breaking for them.

 

It isn't really credible to argue the other options were better given what we know of the selection rationale.

[tater]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Please, where can I see the prototypes of those SpaceX lunar modules perfectly matching the NASA docs?

Dynetics at least has something material to mismatch.

Those mockups are mockups. They are not anything like flight article, they're closer to a kid's diorama.

I don't see what the obsession is with second-guessing NASA on this. They certainly have far, far more information about this than any of us here.

If the "proper base" is built, then you need down mass to the surface to deliver the construction vehicles and supplies to build such a base. That's not a lightened Alpaca (that can actually then land) with a whole 860kg of additional supplies. Or a Blue Moon with 3.6t of cargo.

 

[Selective Genius]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Because their vehicle still doesn't exist even as a prototype.

How would you define a prototype? In this case, would the prototype mean a pressure vessel? Or a full sized mock-up including life support, power and heat management?

[tater]

That is the interior of the dynetics Alpaca mockup.

That "computer screen" is a color print glued to foam core and velcroed to the wall. I could literally make that at home with the paper and foam core we have lying around for school projects for the kids.

[SpaceFace545]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Please, where can I see the prototypes of those SpaceX lunar modules perfectly matching the NASA docs?

Dynetics at least has something material to mismatch.

Well spacex does have a prototype, its a different rocket being financed by the money for the lunar lander. NASA doesn't know this but they just bought themselves an awful mars rocket instead of the lunar lander they actually needed.

[tater]

Just now, SpaceFace545 said:

Well spacex does have a prototype, its a different rocket being financed by the money for the lunar lander. NASA doesn't know this but they just bought themselves an awful mars rocket instead of the lunar lander they actually needed.

Landing on the Moon is easier than Mars.

I'm not sure how a Mars rocket is "awful" when NASA's own "Mars rocket" (2 admins back they pushed Orion as the capsule that would take us to Mars (and there's only one rocket to lift it, so SLS is the Mars rocket) is not actually capable of sending anything to the Moon, much less Mars.

NASA also didn't buy anything, they only pay when the job is done.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

Just now, SpaceFace545 said:

financed by the money for the lunar lander.

No. The payments were suspended for the time being. 

 

1 minute ago, SpaceFace545 said:

NASA doesn't know this but they just bought themselves an awful mars rocket instead of the lunar lander they actually needed.

They know what they bought, and last I checked it’s more developed and tested than either of the other option. It’s not *just* meant to go to Mars. 
Also, a SPECIALIZED variant is being used for lunar landing. Your argument doesn’t make sense. 

[tater]

The National team mockup is pretty decent, but it's still a mockup, not a prototype, not 10% as good as a prototype. The Dynetics one is the quality you might see surrounded by blue cloth dividers at a conference. They need a better booth girl, however.

It's not required to be gung ho about every single SpaceX design, different ideas are certainly possible.

It's irrational to be reflexively against every SpaceX design, however.

I liked the concept of Alpaca (and said so). But it flat out doesn't work. They were given 253 million dollars to take that initial design (the initial designs were gone over, then down selected to 3) and then submit one that could on paper land 2+ people and 860kg of cargo. To submit a design that doesn't work for a quarter billion dollars is inexcusable.

The NT lander can land. They were given a half billion to submit that proposal, and they also built that cool jungle gym above for JSC. It's not a prototype, either.

Edited May 6, 2021 by tater

[Spaceman.Spiff]

9 minutes ago, tater said:

cool jungle gym

Well, you'd need it to learn how to climb up all those ladders 

[tater]

So no prototypes exist of ANY of the 3 landers. Zero.

Multiple prototypes do exist of the Starship cargo/tanker variant that is part of the milestones needed to be hit for the SpaceX HLS vehicle to work.

SN16 is absolutely a prototype of that vehicle. It is a flight article.

SN20 is literally under construction now, and is an orbital prototype. There is every reason to expect testing of those flight articles (part of their HLS milestones) this year.

Nothing submitted by the other 2 is in prototype form except the crew cabin of the NT lander (since the pressure vessel I think is the same as Orion).

[RCgothic]

15 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Well spacex does have a prototype, its a different rocket being financed by the money for the lunar lander. NASA doesn't know this but they just bought themselves an awful mars rocket instead of the lunar lander they actually needed.

1) NASA bought two missions, not a lander. The missions include the starship architecture, so NASA isn't paying for anything they weren't aware of.

2) The contract payments are based on milestones. No milestone delivery, no money. If SpaceX wants to spend their money on unrelated things, they're free to do so. It's not NASA's money they're spending.

3) "Awful Mars rocket" doesn't ring true. China's opaque ambitions aside, nobody else has any other credible pathway to a crewed Mars mission.

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, tater said:

That is the interior of the dynetics Alpaca mockup.

That "computer screen" is a color print glued to foam core and velcroed to the wall. I could literally make that at home with the paper and foam core we have lying around for school projects for the kids.

Sometimes these type of things serve as useful test articles.  You design the thing in Solidworks and send the output to be made out of foam core instead of sheet metal (or whatever).  Then the customer looks at it,  requests a few changes, and you update your Soldiworks model.  Finally you send the output to a machine shop to make the thing out of the "correct" material.

The only problems that I can think of it was in the early days all work would stop as all the engineers would have to gather around and look at it.  Later, there must have been some pretty big fights over whose kid gets this amazingly cool toy for their playroom (albeit probably one of the toys much cooler in retrospec than when you had it).

[tater]

7 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Sometimes these type of things serve as useful test articles.  You design the thing in Solidworks and send the output to be made out of foam core instead of sheet metal (or whatever).  Then the customer looks at it,  requests a few changes, and you update your Soldiworks model.  Finally you send the output to a machine shop to make the thing out of the "correct" material.

The only problems that I can think of it was in the early days all work would stop as all the engineers would have to gather around and look at it.  Later, there must have been some pretty big fights over whose kid gets this amazingly cool toy for their playroom (albeit probably one of the toys much cooler in retrospec than when you had it).

Yeah, I actually have no problem with that as a mockup for actual astronauts to be able to move things around easily, so that things work in the right places to reach.

Those mockups are for human factor design, nothing more—which is a legitimate aspect of spacecraft design. It's important to at least realize that that sort of design is far FAR more important for a tiny lander where 2-4 people have to live for a week in something the size of one of my guest bathrooms (the master bath in my house is grossly larger than the NT or Dynetics lander cabins). Everything must be "just so." That sort of mockup is fun to have for Starship, but fitting stuff is simply not an issue.

The evident snark in my posts about the mockups is that they are in reply to posts suggesting that somehow these human factors mockups are "protoypes" that SpaceX lacks (which is remarkable as the posts started coming in a flurry moments after SpaceX actually successfully flew a flight article prototype).

Edited May 6, 2021 by tater

[Beccab]

 

[cubinator]

"Maintain competitiveness" by making other companies build a lander that rivals SpaceX's.

[StrandedonEarth]

Would a senator be arguing SpaceX’ case if BO was the sole winner?

[Beccab]

13 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Would a senator be arguing SpaceX’ case if BO was the sole winner?

Well, not *that* senator that's for sure

[tater]

I'm fine with having 2 vehicles, but it seems like "competitive" should be just that. So you pick based on merits, and price. First on merits, then all things being equal, price.

In a world where all bids simply exactly meet minimum specs, that's it.

In a world where the actual capability might be highly variable, I would say you pick the winner, then adjust the requirements and price judgements closer to the winner.

In this case if the winner can land 10s of tons of cargo, plus as many people as you feel like sending, and has 2 airlocks for ~$3B, then the "also funded" should either at least get close to that spec, or be commensurately less expensive.

 

[RCgothic]

An extra $10B for the program would be nice.

An extra $10B before the "favoured" bid lost would have been nicer.

[tater]

The BO bid doesn't even meet all the requirements. $6B for a 2 person, 1-off lander. Their bid explicitly says they have to start over and make a bigger lander for more crew, longer missions, and "sustainability." So $6B for 1 landing, then how much is a new, larger lander? It's larger, and more capable, so more, obviously. If a 2 person lander is $6B, is a 4 person one 12?

If picking a second one, I have to say I'd still prefer Dynetics.

 

[Beccab]

50 minutes ago, tater said:

If picking a second one, I have to say I'd still prefer Dynetics.

Honestly, I'd pick none of them. Surely not NT for the reasons you stated, but also dynetics was definitely not good. The negative mass margins are a massive problem, and make me doubt they could make a working lander by the 2029, not 2024. They've got a lot of stuff to solve, made little progress as far as we can see since they entered the HLS selection and cost 4 times Starship HLS, and on the top of that they also don't have a random billionaire like Musk or Bezos willing to take part of the costs. This isn't looking good, imo