Lander

From OpenLuna

Lander...

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module the LMs weigh in at about 15,000 kg... What a waste of material. We can't do that, we won't do that.

The entire contract also cost something like $11 billion! (in 1969 dollars) (Need a better reference than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_mission#Manned_missions.)

We can build an large settlement for that.

So, what we are doing instead, is a very lightweight, very low cost operation, built assembly line style. We are not going to build 1 of them, then redesign and build another, we are going to build somewhere in the range of 25 of them.

We want them to be modular enough to allow for a small envelope of changing conditions. (But as it has been pointed out, "Modular only goes do far." - Aftercolumbia) Go to the discussion page for more details.

Richard Speck of Microspace had been doing most of this work, as he has a mostly operational lander built, but with his untimely demise. the international team is picking up the design and carrying on with it.

12/3/08 Save some weight: lose the landing gear. The lander is designed with dimensions similar to a phone booth. With a space-suited astronaut inside it, the majority of the landing mass is the astronaut. The vehicle would not have anything like the mass requiring structural support on the lunar surface. I don't know what the empty mass for the lander is, but it seems destined to be something the astronaut can readily pick up and carry. . . BCJ lander already... (<50# dry!)