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NASA may have put its plans to send people to the moon on hold, but that doesn't mean robots can't go.
Today, XCOR Aerospace and Masten Space Systems announced they were teaming up to develop robotic landers that could go to the moon, to asteroids, to Mars or anyplace else NASA wants them to visit.
It's an interesting pairing: Masten has been working on vertical-takeoff lunar lander prototypes for years, and last year the Masten team won more than $1 million of NASA's money in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. XCOR has worked on a methane-powered rocket engine for NASA, and is currently focused on building a series of horizontal-takeoff rocket planes that could eventually go to the edge of space.
XCOR's chief executive officer, Jeff Greason, was an outspoken member of the independent panel that laid out NASA's options for future space exploration - including the "flexible-path" option that the White House eventually chose. That option calls for the cancellation of NASA's Constellation back-to-the-moon program, and proposes instead that the human spaceflight program should look first toward lower-gravity destinations such as asteroids and Martian moons.
You'll probably hear a lot more about the rightness or wrongness of NASA's revised vision on Wednesday, when moonwalkers Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan testify at a House committee hearing. Armstrong and Cernan struck sparks earlier this month when they criticized the new space policy at a Senate committee hearing.
That debate doesn't directly affect what NASA does with its robotic exporation program, however. XCOR and Masten said they expect NASA to go forward with a series of unmanned lander projects. "These automated lander programs are expected to serve as robotic test beds on Earth, on the lunar surface, Mars, near-Earth objects and other interplanetary locales, helping NASA push the boundaries of technology and opening the solar system for future human exploration," today's announcement says.
These two "New Space" companies aren't the only ones looking for lander business, however. You can bet that the competitors will include the same companies that have worked on landers for the moon and Mars in the past: Lockheed Martin, the Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman. Other companies could enter the fray as well.
For example, some folks have been talking about a NASA-developed "Project M" that would send a humanoid robot to the lunar surface. Clark Lindsey at Space Transport News points out that the Johnson Space Center engineers responsible for the Robonaut project have detailed their Project M concept in a white paper posted to their website. The paper says a prototype lander has been assembled and is to undergo free flight testing as early as this month. The company that is helping develop the prototype is none other than Armadillo Aerospace, which vied against Masten in last year's Lunar Lander Challenge and may compete with XCOR for space tourism dollars.
This could get interesting, especially when you consider that 21 other private-sector teams are also shooting for a moon landing as part of the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition. And then there are the Chinese, and the Indians ...
Who's up for a robotic moon race?
Leave a Comment:
Where is it written that only NASA 'knows how...?'
Seriously, did everyone believe that this would be an exclusively NASA (or exclusively any other government) activity forever? No? Then why not sooner, rather than later?
Okay, now someone jump in and say this is all a bunch of 'amateurs' playing with 'toys.' It's not 'real' to you, unless it's a big aerospace company you already know, being paid cost-plus in nine or ten figures, over nine or ten years, by NASA. I see it coming, I know you're out there...
Right. High Technology never trickles down to anyone else (or is constantly redefined). No one learned anything from the last 50 years of rocketry. It's not true that a good calculator, cell phone (or even some watches) crunch numbers better than the Apollo CSM or LM computers. What's off the shelf today, is the same as it was in 1961....
And sometimes it doesn't *take* a supercomputer (or the developmental equivalent) to acheive a certain goal.
Unless one likes 'gold -plating' for its own sake.
If these guys said they were going to send humans to Pluto, yes, I'd want Carl Sagan's 'extraordinary evidence' to back it up.
Unmanned landers to the Moon? I might want the same evidence in 1961. But in 2010? Sure. Why not? This is no longer in the realm of an 'extraordinary claim.'
Someday, humans to Pluto won't be, either...
The X-Prize robotic landers are a good start. But what's really needed if we are going to develop the moon are landers large enough to land at least a single astronaut while keeping the mass down to what could fit on a medium-launch rocket (2,500kg +/- cargo to the lunar surface if that's possible). That should be the next prize. NASA should put up much more than a million dollars for such a prize. With the skill set developed by Masten the larger lander should be within reach given adequate funding.
NASA could do a COTS-like approach for the development of an Earth Departure System (EDS) again to fit on a medium-sized lifter. Together the US could start landing equipment, supplies, teleoperated robots, greenhouses, and eventually astronauts on the lunar surface for much, much lower price than Constellation would have cost.
Competition is always good when a difficult goal is trying to be achieved. Remember when digital watches first came on the scene? They cost hundreds of dollars and all they did was give you the date and time. Today you can get one for $1 that can control your TV. The reason? Competition. Whoever produced the best product at the lowest cost made the most money. Space is a gold mine...literally. And like a gold mine, there are risks associated with obtaining that gold. There are asteroids that are literally made of iron and nickel plus gold, platinum and who knows what else. Just one of those of modest size would provide all the iron we could use for a century. Imagine a fleet of robotic prospectors sent out to the asteroid belt. No need for food, water or life support. No need to risk a human life, no need to waste resources keeping acrew alive while they search. Once the resource is located, that's when we will need to take some risks. As the saying goes.."nothing ventured, nothing gained". But we can lessen those risks. Robotics is the way to go. As long as there is money to be made, there will be someone trying to get a part of it.