The former NASA administrator is the gift that keeps on giving, if you’re into flaming piles of dog poop.
Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin recently released an updated version of his dual-launch Artemis plan to get humans to the Moon. It relies on two SLS Block II launches and a lander that doesn't exist.https://t.co/O1YPM97jnI
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) December 9, 2024
Hallucinations?
Somebody evidently gave him a bag of psysilocybin gummi bears.
Next thing you know he’ll be telling us that all of this could be done under budget…
In all due fairness, using a non-existing unspecified lander solves a lot of problems, such as concerns over prop boil-off (if you don’t know what the propellant is, you can’t raise issues regarding its volatility). In-space duration is another factor thus avoided; if you don’t know what the in space duration of the lander is (due to it being non-existent and unspecified) then you can’t raise issues regarding how, exactly, two SLS missions could be launched close enough together to make the mission plan possible.
So, if the real mission plan is to avoid having to deal with reality, this one’s ideal.
Yes, the chalk board in the lab full of equations – and buried in the middle is “And then a miracle happens”.
Isn’t that always the way it’s done at NASA? 🙂
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d8/83/7b/d8837bc36497ecce8a8f784cc538112e.jpg
Although it’s more than just Step 2 that needs more detail
….how, exactly, two SLS missions could be launched close enough together to make the mission plan possible.
You’d have to build a second mobile launcher, for starters. (Oh, what fun!) But given what launch pad turnaround has been like so far, I have to think you’d need to claw LC-39A away from SpaceX, too. But I’m sure Griffin would take special delight in that.
A second crawler? Another $2-billion? FEATURE!
Maybe 10 years ago, that would have been a reasonable architecture. In the real world as we face it today, it’s a recipe for not developing new capabilities, and not landing on the moon before 2040.
He is so afraid of refueling. He doesn’t understand is the solution to a tanker failure is to send another tanker. You have lost low-value, trivially-replaceable fuel.
“Elon, we lost a tanker!”
“Meh! Send another…”
““Meh! Send another…”
The difference between a rocket factory and a custom rocket workshop…
The Griff needs to get a grip…
It is remarkable that Mike Griffin can urge this as an objective: “China must not be allowed to beat NASA and its allies back to the Moon.”
And propose as his solution: Have NASA develop a two-stage, storable-propellant lunar lander on a cost-plus contract.
This only works if you don’t think China can reach the Moon until the late 2030’s.
more like 2070’s, if we’re lucky.
I know, it identifies a perceived problem and offers a worse solution fraught with even more peril.
This isn’t even underpants gnome engineering at this point.
Sounds like they need a lunar lander developed on the fast and cheap, so here goes a quick and dirty design.
The early Apollo LEMs were about 15,000 kg at launch, and a Falcon Heavy can put about 12,000 kg on a TLI with an expendable launch. So we shave lander weight by only having a crew of one and making the ascent module a Bigelow tent with a pop-up console and flat screen displays instead of windows. Assuming that cuts the weight of everything in half, it only needs about 5,000 lbsf for the descent engine, so use 50 or 60 hypergolic Draco thrusters, half of which will also be part of the ascent stage. It has one hatch on the bottom center (surrounded by all those Dracos), taken from a retired cargo Dragon. The ECS is a surplus PLSS pack from the Shuttle or ISS, duct-taped to the floor. Everything possible is re-used or re-purposed from Dragon.
It’s still a pointless waste of money, but less money than whatever they’re going to blow on designing something that they’re never going to fly.
Reminds me of the “customizations” the fictional stranded astronaut Mark Whatley did to the Mars lander in the story “The Martian” in order to gain the Delta-V needed to rendezvous with the returning orbiter.