"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Very cool find by NASA Watch!
A design NASA worked on as a reusable alternative to Altair:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2009...unarLander.pdf
The design on pages 6 and 15-22 of the PDF will look _very_ familiar to
and Gerry and Sylvia Anderson fans.
There's a animated Powerpoint presentation on it he
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2009...unarLander.pps

Those recent "finds" by NASA Watch are really funny. The refueling module
looks like a promising concept (to get around the Ares I performance
problem).

But the horizontal lander PDF has graphics that look like they were done by
managers in PowerPoint. There are cubes everywhere instead of cylinders
which are *easy* to create in any CAD package. This one looks so much like
a blatant rip-off of a Space: 1999 Eagle that I'd almost say it's an April
Fool's joke at the expense of NASA Watch.

Seriously though, NASA has looked at horizontal landers before and they do
have several advantages. Visibility when landing, much lower center of
gravity (they aren't likely to tip over), and easier access to the surface
(no huge ladders for EVA or huge cranes needed to lower the payload to the
surface).

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson