NASA’s Lunar Module: Everything You Need to Know.

[sal_vager]

The Lunar Module was an iconic spacecraft which carried two-man crews to and from the Moon’s surface during NASA’s Apollo Program of the 1960s and ‘70s. Along with the Saturn 5 rocket and the Apollo Command and Service Modules (CSM), the Lunar Module is the third of the trinity of vehicles which made the moonlandings possible.

The Apollo Lunar excursion module, humanities first ever crewed vessel designed purely for use in space, some consider it beautiful, others terrifying, it has a unique elegance even if it as acquired taste.

Just as NASA and others return to Apollo style craft for orbital operations, you can see a clear inspiration in the Dragon capsule for example, the design of the LEM could give an idea of what the craft that will return to the Moon will look like.

One day, similar bug-like craft may visit the airless moons of Jupiter, or carry people to the surface of asteroids...

[xenomorph555]

Unfortunately no one designs landers like this anymore, now they have very large service modules to enter lunar orbit independently and have more simplistic crew modules.

Examples:

Also landers won't land on asteroids, they will be docked to.

[sal_vager]

Unaerodynamic and spindly legs, they look LEM'ish to me

Not sure about the landing/dock to asteroids thing though:

Philae (/ˈfaɪli/[6] or /ˈfiːleɪ/[7]) is a robotic European Space Agency lander that accompanied the Rosetta spacecraft[8][9] until it landed on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, more than ten years after departing Earth.[10][11][12] On 12 November 2014, the probe achieved the first-ever soft landing on a comet nucleus.

[Louella]

Why is there the gold insulation on the lander legs/feet ? what is it protecting ?

[xenomorph555]

Not sure about the landing/dock to asteroids thing though:

1. 67P is a comet

2. They didn't need a lander, the gravity is nearly none existent, you could just float up to it like Hayabusa.

Why is there the gold insulation on the lander legs/feet ? what is it protecting ?

Heat and radiation insulation, keeps the equipment cool when in the light and warmer when in the dark. Also dust protection.

[Ten Key]

Why is there the gold insulation on the lander legs/feet ? what is it protecting ?

My best guess is that the foil is there to prevent vacuum welding on the joints.

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/4169/how-is-the-unwanted-cold-welding-prevented-in-space

[Lohan2008]

Why is there the gold insulation on the lander legs/feet ? what is it protecting ?

When beaten out into a sheet, an ounce of Gold can cover a very large area maybe NASA had some still left over and they thought they would "bling" out the rest. Seriously, I agree with the vacuum weld theory.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Lohan2008

[Virtualgenius]

Altair is a seriously good looking lander

[Ten Key]

I was wrong-- it looks like the heat from the descent engine was the main reason for the insulation on the legs.

Landing-gear thermal insulation must maintain the landing-gear temperatures at or below design levels to ensure positive structural margins of safety and proper mechanical operation during deployment and landing. Furthermore, temperature control of the honeycomb energy absorbers within specified limits is necessary to preclude large variations in crush-load levels. A summary of the history of the landing-gear thermal-insulation weights is provided in table II.

A significant thermal-design problem was caused by the effects of descent-engine plume heating near the lunar surface. A few months before Apollo 11, test data indicated that heating rates on the landing gear were much higher than anticipated. At approximately the same time, the LM flight crew expressed a desire to have the option of using either the probe mode or the pad mode for landing. The probe mode is the primary procedure for LM touchdown and consists of descent-engine shutdown initiation after probe contact with the lunar surface but before footpad contact. The pad mode is considered a backup landing mode in which engine thrust is terminated after footpad contact. Inclusion of the pad mode resulted in even higher predicted heating rates for the landing gear. Consequently, the Apollo 11 landing -gear thermal-insulation weight was increased to 31. 03 kilograms (68.4 pounds), as shown in table II.

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/LM_Landing%20Gear1973010151.pdf

[linkxsc]

I thought that the gold stuff was kapton insulation. Nit gold

[Nibb31]

The late Altair lander design (the first picture) looked seriously cramped to me. Is don't see how they could have spent 2 weeks with 4 people inside that tiny cabin. Plus, a lot of that space was supposed to hold an airlock. The original Constellation (the second picture) always looked better.

[xenomorph555]

The late Altair lander design (the first picture) looked seriously cramped to me. Is don't see how they could have spent 2 weeks with 4 people inside that tiny cabin. Plus, a lot of that space was supposed to hold an airlock. The original Constellation (the second picture) always looked better.

I thought the same thing DX that would be hell to be crammed in there.

[Louella]

I tried looking for other pictures of the Altair lander, the airlock bit seems to be hidden in that picture, seems to be a cylinder almost the same size as the ascent stage bit.

Didn't find many useful pictures of the Altair lander, not from NASA or other technical sources anyway. Found lots of Kerbal Altair lander pictures though, lol.

Maybe that's a way to measure the success of KSP. By measuring the % of pictures on google image search for space-related topics that turn out to be KSP ones. lol

[Budgie]

I tried looking for other pictures of the Altair lander, the airlock bit seems to be hidden in that picture, seems to be a cylinder almost the same size as the ascent stage bit.

Didn't find many useful pictures of the Altair lander, not from NASA or other technical sources anyway. Found lots of Kerbal Altair lander pictures though, lol.

Maybe that's a way to measure the success of KSP. By measuring the % of pictures on google image search for space-related topics that turn out to be KSP ones. lol

From what I've seen, you're right. Next to the ascent module, or right behind it in that photo, is another black cylinder used as an airlock, and (I assume) storage for surface operations

[Whirligig Girl]

When beaten out into a sheet, an ounce of Gold can cover a very large area maybe NASA had some still left over and they thought they would "bling" out the rest. Seriously, I agree with the vacuum weld theory.

It's actually mylar, not gold.

[RAINCRAFTER]

Never knew what that stuff was.

Unrelatedly, did you know the Soyuz's initial purpose was to land on the moon to compete with America?

Edited January 30, 2015 by RAINCRAFTER

[xenomorph555]

Never knew what that stuff was.

Unrelatedly, did you know the Soyuz's initial purpose was to land on the moon to compete with America?

It wasn't to land on the moon, it's purpose was to do a circumlunar mission with several R-7's through docking and fuel transfer, that then evolved to a orbital expedition and then to a orbital mothership for the LK lander. I get tired of people thinking that Apollo or Soyuz landed on the moon themselves.