Alternative Lunar Lander... a Eagle?!

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

Pat

"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

Jeff Findley wrote:

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).

And, to be fair, one big disadvantage: clearance issues with staging
during abort from powered descent.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
Jeff Findley wrote:

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).

And, to be fair, one big disadvantage: clearance issues with staging
during abort from powered descent.

True, and that's not the only disadvantage. The notional designs for
landers with both landing engines on the bottom and engines at the back
introduce more failure modes which could trigger an abort.

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

Jeff Findley wrote:
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.


Even the same number of rear engines (four) although out on the pods
rather than clustered in the center.

Pat

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Jeff Findley wrote:

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).

And, to be fair, one big disadvantage: clearance issues with staging
during abort from powered descent.

This design does not stage, although it probably could dump its cargo if
it had to do a landing abort.
Other than a Space 1999 Eagle (which is almost identical to in both
concept and design) the closest analogy to it would probably be a
Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter.

Pat

Jeff Findley wrote:
True, and that's not the only disadvantage. The notional designs for
landers with both landing engines on the bottom and engines at the back
introduce more failure modes which could trigger an abort.


Note the two engines mounted under the central backframe just ahead of
the payload, their use is never explained in the presentation.
But, guess what? The Space 1999 Eagle also has two engines up the
http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/m...w2meagle1.html

Pat

Pat

"OM" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:16:01 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

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

...I found the official NASA site, so you don't have to go through
"Mr. Paranoid's" bull**** censorship:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1992015549.pdf

That's not it, but it's an interesting paper too.

The one on NASA Watch was a PowerPoint (says so under Properties,
Application). The PDF's Author (also in Properties) is Marc Boucher. If
you want it, I could email it to you, but it's about 9 MB is size (stupid
PowerPoint).

BTW, I agree with your annoyance at "Mr. Paranoid". He's got to stick
"nasawatch.com" on every page of every PDF he rips off and posts on his
site.

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

Pat Flannery wrote:


Jeff Findley wrote:

True, and that's not the only disadvantage. The notional designs for
landers with both landing engines on the bottom and engines at the
back introduce more failure modes which could trigger an abort.



Note the two engines mounted under the central backframe just ahead of
the payload, their use is never explained in the presentation.

Huh? I see four downward pointed landing engines, one under each "pod"
(where the landing gear was on the "Eagle") and each pod equipped with
an excess of RCS quads. The rockets at the back - the lunar orbit
insertion/deorbit engines - are annoyingly superfluous, however. The
landing egines appear to be exactly the same number and type. They
should be used for both operaions.

Jeff Findley wrote:


But the horizontal lander PDF has graphics that look like they were done by
managers in PowerPoint.

I believe you are correct. Powerpoint has made it far too easy for
talentless hacks to add ****ty graphics at will. Presentations tended to
look better in the days *before* powerpoint.