Next X

In spite of the Willie.Moo expertise in everything under the sun
that's orbiting his flat Earth of mostly dumbfounded village idiots,
the Google/NOVA X-Prize will soon enough belong to China, unless Japan
or India gets there first.

JAXA's KAGUYA (SELENE), goes all the way down for the count, of not
hardly sharing a stitch of good or bad news for a month of having
contributed essentially nothing from those terrific images and
multiple other ongoing science about our physically dark and naked
moon, seems quite odd. Perhaps it's the highly electrostatic charged
lunar sodium atmosphere as having been deposited and thus collected
upon their CCD optics, or possibly the secondary/recoil of gamma and X-
rays has been taking its toll.

Apparently Japan's science of high definition moon surface mapping and
much greater mineralogy detail by way of the secondary/recoil
radiation of gamma and hard-X-rays has gotten deathly afraid to update
and share anything of their mission, without first getting the NASA/
Apollo stamp of approval. It seems more of what our moon actually
represents simply isn't adding up to what our NASA/Apollo rusemasters
had published and hyped to death.

It seems our NASA/Apollo spooks have managed to shut Japan down. I
didn't realize JAXA was such a total collective wuss of such brown-
nosed minions to that of our NASA. Of course, our MI5/CIA (aka MIB)
have every other good reasons to work their magic on behalf of keeping
our mutually perpetrated cold-war lids on tight, including of those
USSR/Russian lids.

With the JAXA Selene's 10 meter/pixel resolution (that's only going to
get a whole lot better as their mission orbital status decays), that's
more than good enough as is for having detected those various Apollo
landings and associated impact sites. Oddly, thus far there is still
not one worthy pixel that even remotely looks as though having
anything bright and shiny within, or of depicting any slightly dusty
surface as having been physically disturbed by way of our extensive
Apollo technology.

There's so much wrong with this form of science moderation/blockage
that it absolutely reeks of our Skull and Bones MIB intervention.
Most any public media worth half its investigative salt shouldn't have
any problems seeing this one in the cloak and dagger light of
mainstream damage control that it is.

Perhaps China's ongoing CNSA lunar mission "Chang'e No.1" will have to
move in for the kill, and for otherwise accomplishing their next
mission for taking our Google/NOVA X-Prize because, at least they seem
to have "the right stuff" without having to continually lie their
butts off.
.. - Brad Guth


On Feb 20, 8:09 am, wrote:
I see that a new X-prize was announced.

http://www.personalspaceflight.info/...rize-will-be-a...

Build a lunar lander

A lunar lander with custom launcher would be adaptable to a small
Delta-class reusable launcher along the lines described below.

The approach I will use is a subscale version of the 7-element
launcher proposed by Bono in his 1960 study for his manned mars
missions

Boeing Aerospace and Electronics, Space Transfer Concepts and Analyses
for Exploration Missions, NASA Contract NAS8-37857.

Each element is 8.5 metric tons for the subscale launcher with 1.275
metric ton structure allowance and 11.9 metric tons force of thrust.
Isp for the hydrogen oxygen rocket engine is an average 435 seconds
during ascent. Annular aerospike engine is preferred for altitude
compensation during ascent on each element.

The elements operate together as 3 stages - all 7 elements operate at
launch. Numbering the elements as follows - viewed from above;

(1)(2)
(3)(4)(5)
(6)(7)

Elements 1 and 6 feed 3
Elements 2 and 7 feed 5
Elements 3 and 5 feed 4

in such a way that propellant is drained from 1,2,6,7 - as a first
stage.

63.320 GLOW MT
28.900 prop MT
0.456 u
2,603.872 Vf m/s

The second stage continues as the first-stage elements separate to be
recovered down-range by 4 separate aircraft loitering there in a
manner similar to recovering film cannisters mid-flight from older spy
satellites in the 1960s. Except these use a parasail or wing system
and the aircraft tows the elements back to the launch center where
they land and may be reused.

The second stage consists of 3,4,5 with 3 and 5 feeding propellant to
4.

(3)(4)(5)

with elements 3 and 5 draining to propel themselves and feed element
4.

29.320 S1 MT
14.450 prop Mt
0.493 u
2,900.160 Vf m/s

Elements 3 and 5 separate leaving 4 as the third stage.

12.320 S2 MT
7.225 prop MT
0.586 u
3,771.759 Vf m/s

With a total ideal velocity of 9,275.79 m/sec

With gravity and air-drag losses, true final velocity is orbital
somewhere between 7 km/sec and 7.5 km/sec.

The payload on orbit is 3.82 metric tons. With the following
allocations for structure and staging - inline - atop element 4.

3.82 S3 MT
3900 Vf m/s
0.5986 u
2.2869 prop MT
0.3430 s3 MT
1.190017629 S4 MT
2800 Vf m/s
0.4808 u
0.5721 prop MT
0.0858 s4 MT
0.5320 lander MT

The 3.82 metric ton payload has a 2.62 metric ton kick stage built
around the same pumpset and engine set as the booster element -
boosting the 1,190 kg lander into a direct ascent lunar trajectory.
The mass allocations to the lander are 572 kg for propellants and 86
kg for lander tankage structure. The mass budget for the lander
itself is 532 kg.

The propellants are hydrogen/oxygen cryogens throughout. Fuel cell
powered MEMs based cryogenic refrigeration is used in the landing
stage to maintain propellant mass during the 2 to 4 day lunar
transfer.

MEMs based attitude control rockets are also desired using the
hydrogen oxygen propellants.

Drop the lander into one of the old Apollo sites to debunk the mythos
about those landings would be welcome. A roving capacity on the lunar
surface would be welcome but not required. A rover the erect the
American flag that fell during lift-off of the LEM ascent module would
add drama to the mission.

Aerospace costs run around $1,000 per kg for hardware - the elements
have the following structural masses;

1,275 kg - luancher elements
532 kg - lander
343 kg - translunar injector
86 kg - lander propellant tank

So, the launcher elements run $1.3 million each
The lander runs $0.5 million
The translunar stage runs $0.3 million
The lander's propellant tank $90,000

8 launcher elements, (1 for test) will run $10.4 million
2 landers (1 for test) will run $1.0 million
2 translunar injectors (1 for test) will run $0.6 million
2 lander propellant tanks (1 for test) $180.000

Subtotal: $12.2 million

Non-recurring engineering charges of $1.8 million.
Launch infrastructure.$1.0 million (Near White Sands)

Total: $15.0 million

The hydrogen and oxygen are produced electrolytically from DI
water.This includes 7,625 kg of hydrogen and 45,750 kg of oxygen - at
a cost of $26,000 per flight. A dedicated 12 MW peak solar panel
installation converts 68.6 kilo-liters of DI water into hydrogen and
oxygen gas liquifies it ans stores it - sufficient to supply all power
for the launch facility as well as a flight every two weeks.

The commercial space launch act prohibits selling space launch
services on uninsured launchers. Insurance costs can add millions of
dollars to each flight. Laiunching an experimental hobbyist rocket
may qualify for exemptions.

A reusable launcher capable of a flight every two weeks - putting up

3,820 kg LEO
1,160 kg GEO/Cislunar
532 kg Lunar/Mars landing
10 kg Lunar/Mars sample return

Would be worth between $38 million and $53 million per launch.
Licensing for commercial launch will likely cost 1/3 of this total.

William Mook, CEO
The Mok Companies