Re: Why isn't XCor entering the Lunar Lander challenge?
- From: BradGuth <bradguth@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:27:17 -0000
On Oct 28, 7:05 pm, Joe Strout <j...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As you all probably know by now, Armadillo fell a bit short of winning
the Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge yesterday, despite some
fairly heroic on-site tweaking and swapping of components.
They seem plagued by engine problems -- clogs, hard starts, etc.
They've been designing and building their own engines from scratch from
the beginning, which I respect on one level, but I think they've
discovered that rocket science isn't as easy as it sounds. :)
Which leads one to think: who knows how to build highly reliable engines
of the sort needed for this challenge? Why, XCor, of course. And
really, the rest of the craft is pretty trivial: tanks, avionics,
landing struts, and that's about it. The craft isn't subjected to high
forces, doesn't need to be aerodynamic, and generally isn't much more
complicated than a hobby robot or RC helicopter, except for the
plumbing. And plumbing is what XCor's really good at.
So, now I'm wondering why XCor doesn't enter the contest. They've got
great engines: restartable, reliable, and with no hard starts. They've
probably got (or can get) tanks too. Seems like they could put the rest
of the craft together in a couple of months, and walk away with an easy
$350K or $1M. Quite apart from the money, it'd be great publicity for
them.
Is there some good reason I'm not thinking of that they're not doing
this?
Absolutely impressive supercomputers along with all of the required
fly-by-rocket physics for accommodating those real world 3D
interactive simulations exist as is, but such virtual R&D and much
less actual terrestrial R&D prototype proof-testing of whatever could
reliably accomplish the task, as such are far from any done deal,
especially since all of our hocus-pocus NASA/Apollo documentation and
of whatever R&D prototypes simply never existed, and for good reason
because it obviously didn't work according to plans A, B or C.
A working fly-by-rocket lander with sufficient deorbit and a fully
stabilized down-range flight capability, for safely hauling its crew,
tonnes of equipment and supplies, loads of radiation shielding and
still having that spare cache of fuel, as such would have to become
considerably different than anything NASA/Apollo related.
- Brad Guth -
.
- References:
- Why isn't XCor entering the Lunar Lander challenge?
- From: Joe Strout
- Why isn't XCor entering the Lunar Lander challenge?
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