Scott I am a child of the 50's and you bring Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and the rest back to life for me with your kerbal space.. even your updates make me hope again.. thanks!
I'm on an a decent rig. I got 120-240fps optimized. With scatterer and E.V.E. max settings, textures, atmosphere, three layers of clouds it look absolutely amazing. but I get 10-30fps. Just looking at water will drop to 10fps XD
Informative and entertaining content like this makes me so glad I subscribed to this channel over a decade and a tenure through both highschool and college ago. Your videos have made my years better, I really appreciate it.
Well SpaceX has really changed everybody’s ideas about big y’all landers. I remember when people used to talk about direct ascent vehicles they used to point to the size of a vehicles and it seemed ridiculous to land a 5 story high building on the moon. But after Spacex has been greasing the landings of rockets twice that height here on earth, it doesn’t seem so far fetched.
well, it takes more fuel to land on the moon then on mars, because of a lack of an atmosphere to slow you down, but spacex has has really shown it is possible
Thomas Wijgerse well you are correct, but there are some super serious physics issues that make Mars more difficult than the moon. Yes, Mars has an atmosphere, However, you have to remember that Mars’ thickest atmosphere is around the equivalent of 100,000 feet up in the earth’s atmosphere. Vehicles in earth’s atmosphere are traveling Mach 3 to Mach 6 through those flight regimes. So the atmosphere can slow the vehicle but only to the point where aerodynamic forces become severe enough to require the vehicle to be built for atmosphere (fairings/wings/lifting bodies...all of which add substantial mass)
Thomas Wijgerse yet they’re still only able to get the vehicle down to Mach 3 or so at the surface so the vehicle needs a whole ton of power at the surface as well. It makes mars a far harder but to crack than the moon.
Hmmm, I wonder how the lander will handle multiple landings and liftoffs. I don’t remember which mission it was but I believe it was 15 or 16 that the decent engine bell was damaged on landing.
What if you used a lander like the Apollo LEM, and you just kept several descent modules in orbit that could be bolted on, and refueled the ascent stage
That wouldn’t be very efficient, it’s like cutting a 747’s Engines and landing gears and building and having separate ones in another airport (idea like Elon Musk”s explanation)
Before watching your whole video I would have to say that this sounds like the promise of a reusable Space Shuttle: That it was going to be so cheap and with a quick turnaround.
Nah, the Space Shuttle was a totally "wrong" design of a swiss army knife. That's what put costs and errors through the roof. It COULD do one or two things really well (see the x-37 which does things very well and cheaply, but does 1 thing :P ). This is just doing 1 thing, luna landing and ascent as a single stage.
Space.com's article covering this release noted that unlike the STS, this vehicle would not depart from and re-enter Earth atmosphere between landings; it would stay on station at either Gateway or the ISS, thus greatly reducing the turnaround maintenance requirements. The Orbiter was an economic failure because its turnaround was maintenance- and QC-intensive; I think that every 2.5 missions enough money was spent to construct a new Orbiter vehicle.
i love how this amazing man makes me feel 3 years old. now i know how my kids feel when i teach them about space exploration. I only hope they are as interested.
Was able to see spacex's launch all the way from Phoenix Arizona tonight it was the first time I've ever seen a rocket launch and let me tell you it was humbling
Maybe it would be better for the astronauts health if the habitation module was inside the fuel tank. so they would get extra shielding from cosmic rays. There is the thing about the fuel tank exploding, but maybe if the habitation module was a hard egg it would be able to resist better the explosion? I'd personally rather have a BFR doing all of this and a couple of hydrogen extractors permanently set inside a crater somewhere.
I'm no engineer but having an elevator seems pretty extravagant when simple ladders will do, heck replace all of the elevator gear with manually operated pulleys given reduced weight on the Moon
I keep on missing the live stream on Tuesdays (based in Scotland so usually I'm asleep) looks like this was a funny one - thanks for uploading the highlights :)
Honest question: What would you need a reusable lander for? Just to safe on fuel tanks and engines? How many landings would you need to schedule to justify the extra r'n'd and extra energy cost lugging tons of fuel up and down?
They will be sending supplies to the LOP-G so they will acumilate surpluses oxygen and hydrogen I'm not sure Howe much water each each supply ship brings to the ISS.
Christopher Bloom yah, but even the current SLS design can't even deliver 40t to a lunar orbit, so you would need multiple SLS launches just to deliver the fuel for a single mission even if they were dedicated fueling missions
@@Dufud6 I'm not talking about taking oxygen and hydrogen specifically for propellant but as crews come and go the LOP-G will acumilate more and more water recovered from the crews water reclamation system even the plastic from trash could be broken down recovering hydrogen to feed into a sabatier reactor. The ESA ATV- supply ship can carry 1800LB of water to the ISS so if the LOP-G can get several supply ships a year they might accumulate part of the H2O needed to fuel the moon lander at least for the initial trip to the surface.
"Christopher Bloom yah, but even the current SLS design can't even deliver 40t to a lunar orbit, so you would need multiple SLS launches just to deliver the fuel for a single mission even if they were dedicated fueling missions " It would likely be one dedicated fuel trip and one co-manifested with Orion and crew fuel trip. You likely can't do 4 crew for 2 weeks with one heavy lift launch (Apollo didn't do that). Or 1 SLS and 1 FH/NG. Or 3 FH. Or 1 SLS with electric propulsion. Or lunar ISRU. Or asteroid ISRU. The Lockheed white paper I believe just says that NASA pays x amount for a kg of water and it is delivered by whatever means. edit: from the whitepaper: "Because of the high ∆Vs associated with deep space operations, and the objective of reusability as essential to sustainability, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen are the most effective propellants. These components may be derived from water, the most ubiquitous resource in the solar system. Because it is also essential for breathing, drinking, plant growth and long-term viability of human populations, the commercial delivery of water will become a highly competitive industry sector. In a pay-by-the-gallon model, industry players are free to develop, evolve or optimize their own launch and delivery systems while providing NASA with more and more cost-effective options for refueling their reusable fleet spacecraft, thus concurrently advancing the overall sustainability of NASA’s programs while lowering barriers to further commercial activity. "
Since you were talking about fuel system selection and also about fuel refinement and ratios; why not use hydrogen peroxide for the RCS system, like on Soyuz? It would help offset the ratio problem, and possibly (if Roscomos gets their act back together) allow for transport of H2O2 back to the ISS for venting and replenishment of Soyuz (perhaps some distance away from the station), getting around the 200-day operational constraint. If this mission infrastructure gets implemented and Soyuz can be replenished with H2O2 in orbit, it would be interesting to see a Soyuz redesign for long-orbit duration, possibly for some years.
Scott Manley, love your work; prefect blend of real rocket/space stuff and KSP. Can you please tell me which mod gives you the suicide burn distance calculation; it really is a pain to be switching windows to excel so frequently to check my descent profile. -Another Scott.
The centaur upper stage replacement will use gaseous H2 and O2 for reaction control combined with cold gas trusters. BFR will use methane and oxygen. Both systems will use self pressurization.
This is actually very reminiscent of the Integrated Program Plan's space tug vehicle, which was a versatile spacecraft that could take either crew or cargo to the surface of the moon, or just be used as an orbital vehicle and could be reused multiple times.
I'm glad to see that someone is finally talking about a lander. NASA hasn't had plans to actually land anywhere so their so-called plan to return to the moon is a joke.
tonas1997 I haven’t looked at the funding for a while now and I’m glad to see that Trump has actually requested funding for LOP-G. When I visited NASA last winter they didn’t have any money for their “plans.” Without funding, there is no plan. Congress apparently hasn’t actually approved any funds though. (If the Democrats win in November, there will be at least a two-year delay. They won’t want to give Trump anything he asks for.) It’s good to see that NASAs moon plans aren’t 100% smoke and mirrors now, at least.
I used to have faith in NASA but now fuck those cocksuckers. It's time we've had private corporations land on the moon that's the only way this will be done. Those motherfuckers high up at NASA wasting the assets of the program on stupid bullshit are the reason why we do not land on the moon again
Laura, NASA is the one basically giving all the money to those private corporations that you praise so much. Without NASA, those corporations would not exist today.
Scott, would you consider looking at and simulating the FH-XEUS/ACES direct lunar transportation system described in the Plan for Sustainable Space Development at DevelopSpace.info? Thx
Question: why not just use pressurized gaseous hydrogen (from the main fuel tank) as a monopropellant? It wouldn’t need ignition at all, and would reduce the need for complexity and dangerous fuels.
I wish Lockheed Martin would actually built it. I really liked the Lockheed Mars Ascent Descent Vehicle concept. but Lockheed has a history of designing concepts and then scrapping them, because nobody is willing to sent them a blank check for all the development costs.
I'll keep my opinion on the LOP-G to myself at this point. However, don't forget that a republican led House of Representatives sabotaged the Commercial crew program in 2012 and 2013, leading to 2 year delays, which is the main reason, why "we" don't have access to space right now. And that the Trump administration tried to defund several important NASA science missions including the WFIRST telescope and NASA's Office of Education. Plus they cancelled the mission that would have tested our ability to deflect dangerous asteroids.
Thank you for posting this simulation. I did not know about Lockheed Martin even having a new design concept on the drawing board. Maybe I missed something, but I understood that an essential component of New Space / re-usable spacecraft is to standardize on newer, more powerful and re-usable rocket engines on all stages. SpaceX does use RP-1 on Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, while Starship uses methalox exclusively. Why do theselong-standing aerospace manufacturers frequently turn to older designs that use liquid hydrogen? Given the problems we've seen with SLS, older hydrogen engines seem problematic. Blue Origin / National Team's proposal video for the National Team lander design made a big deal about the landing engine exhaust kicking up lunar regolith, causing debris to be shot around at kilometers per second. I don't understand why a lander concept like this Lockheed Martin design doesn't include high-mounted landing thrusters along the rim of the upper fuselage so that these could be used for the final descent phase, just prior to touchdown. (Like what SpaceX wants to do with its HLS Starship.)
Here is a question for you Scott. We know humans are healthy in a 1G environment (earth) and that they suffer in a zero G environment. Will 2 weeks on the moon be sufficient to determine if 1/6th G cures the health issues or just makes them a little less?
When peoples ideas of reusable landers were sane now nobody can shut up about starship, and to quote someone from twitter, are acting like it's the second coming of space christ
erase the need for bringing a complete Lander to the moon each time, but just the fuel needed to land. Even if the fuel for a multiple use lander weighs the same as a single use multi stage lander: - fuel is easier/way cheaper to produce and probably also to bring there - fuel can be used for multiple purposes - fuel could to some degree be generated in-situ
For a second there I thought you were going to talk about the specific impulse of a ladder. Would have been nice. By the way, another channel I watch NileRed did a video on rocket engines made from test tubes. You might check that out. Also by the way I'm still waiting on that 200M ISK. :P
I'm new to this game. Your last clip looks similar to my Mun landing attempt. I keep losing my maneuverability. SAS and RCS both just stop working sometimes and I can't line up for any orbit burns. A,S,D,and W keys are just dead. Finally landed on Mun, but I'm on my side. I'm in my first orbit around Minmus now, but I lost any control on the approach. Only pulled it off because it auto-rotates to the correct position upon full throttle based on orbit maneuver. Not sure how I'm going to land yet.
With kerbals on board or with probes? With a probe, you might have lost connection to KSC (depending on your difficulty settings) With a manned craft: Maybe you ran out of Monoprop (likely if you did not add additional tanks) or out of electricity for the reaction wheels. Also possible in all situations that you accidentally hit time warp (no control at all during time warp) Scots problem was, that his craft had far to much thrust for its mass to be landable without throttling (the Engines he chose for the craft in the last scene could just not be throttled, only turned on off (with some delay I suppose) and that the crafts RCS engines were not designed for such extreme tasks (there really should be no need to be, in real life)
Kerbals on board. First SAS became useless and I couldn't do anything while still attached to my main stage. I detached thinking my lander stage would react to my input, but it too was dead. I have 3 or 4 of those little RCS things attached, and full fuel, with 3 small external tanks attached. I highlighted the RCS tab, and could then maneuver with that, but it was difficult to control. Those too went dead. I could only maneuver while the main rocket was burning, which made landing an interesting ordeal. Trying to slow my lateral velocity while keeping it upright and having to start and stop it so I could still fall toward the surface. Tipped over on landing but was able to get out and walk around. Clicking on the little thrusters showed them being full of fuel I guess. I'll have to read up on those. I'll add a solar panel or two also as I didn't have any of those.
Store it as water and split it up as you need it? Or just use a lot of energy to keep it all very cold and give it some pressure *edit: Ah you mean on the lander? Just Park your rocket in the shadow.... should be pretty cold then already
Yes, in theory that's possible. But IRL it would take a lot of energy, resources and time to convert water to LH+LOx, which won't make sense unless they have nuclear reactor on Lunar orbit. Which doesn't solve the problem with LH stored in Lander for two weeks, cause if they put Lander in shadow, they won't have solar power.
40 t of water split holds about 175 megawatt hours of energy. Let's just say you need double that power - 350 megawatt hours because of inefficiencies in the conversion and non-stoichiometric engine use. The gateway that this is based off of produces 40 kw or .96 megawatt-hours per day. It could therefore fuel this in about a year. ISS produces about 2.5x that, therefore it could fuel this in about 6 months. ISS in an orbit that isn't in shadow half the time would produce double that, which would translate to fuel production in 3 months.
Just to put things in perspective: This lander weighs half as much as the entire International Space Station. And then we haven’t even taken into account the weight of the mothership that needs to be put into lunar orbit with frequent maintenance crews visiting it. I really hope NASA can see through the standard military contractor BS and doesn’t even respond to this ludicrous pipedream.
Does it even make sense to build the lunar gateway? If the landing vehicle stilll has to be able to make it to low lunar orbit, and then get to the lunar gateway orbit, how much more energy would it take to simply get to low earth orbit? Not much I would wager.
The best highlight of my KSP happened as I was landing on dubs with 4 parachutes. The first parachute got ripped off in the upper atmosphere as I was trying to land. Then a minute later my other 3 parachutes opened in the lower atmosphere. And less than 1000 meters from the ground I was getting excited that I wasn’t going to die... Then my upper stage parachute hit me at 200m/s and blew up my landers crew capsule. LOL! It was wonderful!
With more launch vehicle builders looking at Liquid Methane I am surprised Lockheed/Martin didn't go that route. Yes H2 has better performance but it also requires larger tankage. Plus the storage issues with LH2. Also if you use the Lunar Gateway as a fuel depot you could ship the fuel up as water and a dense hydro carbon or even solid graphite. and manufacture the fuel on site at the Gateway. I could see the Gateway being primarily a fuel depot and supply site. Personally I see Methane as a more likely future for chemical propulsion systems. As to the RCS system. Why not use H2O2 at about a 90 to 95% solution
To be honest I think anything proposed by NASA or any of the aerospace companies feeding the federal government trough will never be anything more than pretty pictures and animations. NASA's track record in the recent past has been less than stellar with the exception of the stuff done at JPL. Why is this? First it is because of incoming administrations changing goals and policy. Second it is because certain individuals in Congress care more about the jobs related to NASA Centers than anything actually getting accomplished in terms of actual goals, hardware being built and flown or much of anything else. LockMart, Launch Alliance and others are willing to play the game. The Shuttle was retired over 8 years ago and we are still no where near having any man rated system. I suspect Musk will launch man rated Dragons or even the BFR before NASA and the rest of the trough feeders are close to having a flight ready vehicle.
Is Realism Overhaul 1:1 scale instead of the smaller vanilla scale? I think someone said KSP vanilla home planet was 1/10th the size of Earth, but with similar gravity.
60 tons? reminds me of my first successful Mun Lander, complete with ISRU and Drilling Equipment, at 50 tons back then.. :D was a nightmare to get in orbit though because the atmosphere would tear it apart at the slightest turn...
I was wondering when we were going to start looking into reusable Lunar landers. Hopefully, someone will get around to doing research work on the reliability of such a craft doing lunar landing work vs something that is used only one time. The station in a highly elliptical orbit kind of surprised me a little. I would have thought maybe something more circular would be used. Mind you, I am aware there are trade-offs between using either kind of orbits. Not to mention the little bit of havoc the lunar mascons can do to orbits if you get too close, outside of only a couple of orbital inclinations.
Scott, at 4:20 you said about leaving a fuel tank an low Moon orbit. It is absolutely unrealistic because how much not round the Moon is. You will not find the thing where you left it.
Nah, to start with there's a frozen orbit at 86 degrees which is pretty close to a perfect polar orbit. so a Fuel depot would easily be stable for a few months.
You mention the possibility of creating H2, O2 from locally mined water. That would be ideal, but just replenishing the Oxygen liberated from rocks would save the majority of the weight of the propellant combination.
+thomasfholland If you enjoy Scott suffering, you are a sadist. If you are currently trying to recreate Scott's suffering yourselves in KSP, you're most definitely a masochist.
It angers me that the shuttle program was cancelled early, and that the constellation was cancelled shortly after the semi-successful flight of the Ares I. But, to me, those decisions (either on purpose or accidentally) led to a furnishing private space industry. #SpaceX #ULA #BlueOrigin
The Gateway station orbits fairly high, so it takes more fuel to get to it from the lunar surface than it does to just get into lunar orbit. This is fuel that you take down from orbit just to take back up to orbit, so some savings could be realized just by leaving it in orbit in the first place.
Moon crater Mining: moon craters are made when astroids hit the moon. Has anyone exam in the possibility of mining moon craters? Shouldn’t moon craters that were made by Metal rich astroids contain a lot of metal right near the surface? Wouldn’t it be easier to mine asteroids that have already crashed into the moon rather than trying to catch them in orbit?
Why don't we create space elevator in a first place? Yes it will be probably more expensive at the beginning but it will solves almost all landing/lifting staff from/into space!
Hi all. I’m not sure if I have missed it or it has all ready been done. But is it possible to orbit earth and moon simultaneously. To expand I was hoping for an elliptical orbit that passes by both bodies on each rotation
Why does the Earth look so small from the moon in RO compared to the pictures we see from NASA? I'm sure you have explained this before but, fm I can't find it.
I think I remember the Pentagon releasing a statement that they had found water on the moon with one of their satellites? Like, Great Lakes amount of water in craters on the moon.
I was genuinely just playing Realism Overhaul, and wondering what it would take to make a reusable Lunar Lander. I made something that could just about do it on paper, but it was probably twice the size of what Scott made. It was not fun to fly, either.
If I was an astronaut I would never want my main way of getting back to my source of air to be an elevator. I'd much prefer a ladder or a ramp I'd never want anything mechanical that could fail to get between me and life.
What would happen if a suborbital craft is caught by an oribital craft? Would the orbiting craft be pulled down, or would the suborbital craft be pulled into an orbit? I imagine the orbiting one would lose some speed, but would it be enough to pull it out of orbit?
Probably both spacecrafts would be destroyed. The orbital craft travels with more than 7.8 km/s. The suborbital craft must be slower. And even a 'small' difference in speed (e.g. 100m/s = 360km/h) is a too fast impact.
The difference between suborbital and orbital at any given altitude is the horizontal velocity, so it would depend on how suborbital the craft was... the closing speeds could be faster than a bullet. But assuming that they could survive impacting with each other, their momentum would be conserved and the resulting velocity would be lower than the orbital craft's velocity,. This may or may not be low enough to make them both suborbital, depending on the initial velocities.
As described before: the momentum (mass*speed) of both craft together would be the same as each separate crafts (before) added. This physical constraint / reality leaves you with the simple result that you cannot gain anything by this operation: You simply have to propel the orbiting craft prior to this move to the speed it needs to be able to perform it. Instead you can just propel your suborbital directly. This aspect of physical needs aside, just for the fact of doing it: In order to perform this at the lowest possible speed difference to be still an orbit after the 'catching', the orbiting craft needs to be way heavier than the suborbital one (to allow for a low as possible speed of the orbiting craft). Even if you are able to create a methode to 'catch' a suborbital craft with an (still much faster) flying orbiting craft, you'd need to implement some really fancy technologies to make the resulting acceleration bearable even for dead hardware, not to mention astronauts. Or, inversly, to make the 'catch' long / elastic enough that the accelerations get to a bearable level. Think about some x km long catching device...
Scott I am a child of the 50's and you bring Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and the rest back to life for me with your kerbal space.. even your updates make me hope again.. thanks!
As a child of the late 90s this brings a smile to my face.
As a child of the late 2020s I don't exist
Penjmarman.. it is your turn now to carry the torch sorry to have left such a mess..
Brandon I look forward to your birth.. tell me where to send the cigars or vape cigars
@@MrLego275 lmao
When the KSP graphics look just as well as the official animation xD
That official animation really looked like some of my Munar landers
Just as good, graphics have nothing to do with health.
I'm on an a decent rig. I got 120-240fps optimized. With scatterer and E.V.E. max settings, textures, atmosphere, three layers of clouds it look absolutely amazing. but I get 10-30fps. Just looking at water will drop to 10fps XD
Ksp2
Informative and entertaining content like this makes me so glad I subscribed to this channel over a decade and a tenure through both highschool and college ago. Your videos have made my years better, I really appreciate it.
Mmmm, hyper garlic.
cocaine garlic
Hypergarlic, essential for repelling space vampires.
or making some mean garlic bread
hypergarlic rockets
Well SpaceX has really changed everybody’s ideas about big y’all landers.
I remember when people used to talk about direct ascent vehicles they used to point to the size of a vehicles and it seemed ridiculous to land a 5 story high building on the moon. But after Spacex has been greasing the landings of rockets twice that height here on earth, it doesn’t seem so far fetched.
Plus lunar landing is an absolute piece of cake compared to rocket propelled landing on earth.
well, it takes more fuel to land on the moon then on mars, because of a lack of an atmosphere to slow you down, but spacex has has really shown it is possible
Thomas Wijgerse well you are correct, but there are some super serious physics issues that make Mars more difficult than the moon.
Yes, Mars has an atmosphere, However, you have to remember that Mars’ thickest atmosphere is around the equivalent of 100,000 feet up in the earth’s atmosphere. Vehicles in earth’s atmosphere are traveling Mach 3 to Mach 6 through those flight regimes.
So the atmosphere can slow the vehicle but only to the point where aerodynamic forces become severe enough to require the vehicle to be built for atmosphere (fairings/wings/lifting bodies...all of which add substantial mass)
Thomas Wijgerse yet they’re still only able to get the vehicle down to Mach 3 or so at the surface so the vehicle needs a whole ton of power at the surface as well.
It makes mars a far harder but to crack than the moon.
and its way easier on the moon too. ....the thing is tho that slowing down is way easier here because you can airbrake,.
Hmmm, I wonder how the lander will handle multiple landings and liftoffs. I don’t remember which mission it was but I believe it was 15 or 16 that the decent engine bell was damaged on landing.
Adam Allman Good question
from what i remember moon dust is pretty abrasive too
Right? I can see some flaws to the logic, if they make it work then that’s great.
Adam Allman that’s why they need to send a rover down and build a lunarcrete landing pad, save gas by doing suicide burns.
Is the engine using a catalyst like the SR-71 used to ignite the engine and afterburner?
No, it's the RL-10 C or CECE series which are expansion cycle.
I just realize again how miraculous Apollo was! Absolutely brilliant!
What if you used a lander like the Apollo LEM, and you just kept several descent modules in orbit that could be bolted on, and refueled the ascent stage
That wouldn’t be very efficient, it’s like cutting a 747’s Engines and landing gears and building and having separate ones in another airport (idea like Elon Musk”s explanation)
I don't get tired of watching you play Kerbal while teaching us rocket science. I request MOAR! :D
Before watching your whole video I would have to say that this sounds like the promise of a reusable Space Shuttle: That it was going to be so cheap and with a quick turnaround.
You could say the same thing about SpaceX, New Glenn, etc. At this point only time will tell.
Nah, the Space Shuttle was a totally "wrong" design of a swiss army knife. That's what put costs and errors through the roof. It COULD do one or two things really well (see the x-37 which does things very well and cheaply, but does 1 thing :P ). This is just doing 1 thing, luna landing and ascent as a single stage.
Space.com's article covering this release noted that unlike the STS, this vehicle would not depart from and re-enter Earth atmosphere between landings; it would stay on station at either Gateway or the ISS, thus greatly reducing the turnaround maintenance requirements. The Orbiter was an economic failure because its turnaround was maintenance- and QC-intensive; I think that every 2.5 missions enough money was spent to construct a new Orbiter vehicle.
i love how this amazing man makes me feel 3 years old. now i know how my kids feel when i teach them about space exploration.
I only hope they are as interested.
I wonder if Scott will ever make his own custom flag to plant on KSP
Was able to see spacex's launch all the way from Phoenix Arizona tonight it was the first time I've ever seen a rocket launch and let me tell you it was humbling
"...that's a whole SLS trip."
What you say later in the video is pretty spot-on, I think: it's designed to give SLS something to do.
Maybe it would be better for the astronauts health if the habitation module was inside the fuel tank. so they would get extra shielding from cosmic rays. There is the thing about the fuel tank exploding, but maybe if the habitation module was a hard egg it would be able to resist better the explosion? I'd personally rather have a BFR doing all of this and a couple of hydrogen extractors permanently set inside a crater somewhere.
After watching Lockheed Martin demo I was just waiting for upload... And here we go....
Thanks for the wonderful content.
Your thought processes are an endless source of amusement... great video
I'm no engineer but having an elevator seems pretty extravagant when simple ladders will do, heck replace all of the elevator gear with manually operated pulleys given reduced weight on the Moon
I keep on missing the live stream on Tuesdays (based in Scotland so usually I'm asleep) looks like this was a funny one - thanks for uploading the highlights :)
absolute unit
in awe at the size of the ladner
"I'm surprised I'm still not blown up yet."
*BLOWS UP*
Oh there. Thank you. I knew it had to happen!
😆
The engines glowing blue like that makes me think of the escape pod from the Tantive IV in A new hope for some reason. :)
Honest question: What would you need a reusable lander for? Just to safe on fuel tanks and engines? How many landings would you need to schedule to justify the extra r'n'd and extra energy cost lugging tons of fuel up and down?
I think that you should put the modlist in the description, and the craft files.
The last scene was an unrapid unplanned disassembly 😂
It's true, a quick save button is a great replacement for a checklist as long as your arm.
my biggest question is what are they going to use to bring 40t of fuel for each mission to the orbiting station?
They will be sending supplies to the LOP-G so they will acumilate surpluses oxygen and hydrogen I'm not sure Howe much water each each supply ship brings to the ISS.
Christopher Bloom yah, but even the current SLS design can't even deliver 40t to a lunar orbit, so you would need multiple SLS launches just to deliver the fuel for a single mission even if they were dedicated fueling missions
@@Dufud6 I'm not talking about taking oxygen and hydrogen specifically for propellant but as crews come and go the LOP-G will acumilate more and more water recovered from the crews water reclamation system even the plastic from trash could be broken down recovering hydrogen to feed into a sabatier reactor. The ESA ATV- supply ship can carry 1800LB of water to the ISS so if the LOP-G can get several supply ships a year they might accumulate part of the H2O needed to fuel the moon lander at least for the initial trip to the surface.
"Christopher Bloom yah, but even the current SLS design can't even deliver 40t to a lunar orbit, so you would need multiple SLS launches just to deliver the fuel for a single mission even if they were dedicated fueling missions "
It would likely be one dedicated fuel trip and one co-manifested with Orion and crew fuel trip. You likely can't do 4 crew for 2 weeks with one heavy lift launch (Apollo didn't do that). Or 1 SLS and 1 FH/NG. Or 3 FH. Or 1 SLS with electric propulsion. Or lunar ISRU. Or asteroid ISRU. The Lockheed white paper I believe just says that NASA pays x amount for a kg of water and it is delivered by whatever means.
edit: from the whitepaper:
"Because of the high ∆Vs associated with deep space operations, and the objective of reusability as essential to sustainability, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen are the most effective propellants. These components may be derived from water, the most ubiquitous resource in the solar system. Because it is also essential for breathing, drinking, plant growth and long-term viability of human populations, the commercial delivery of water will become a highly competitive industry sector. In a pay-by-the-gallon model, industry players are free to develop, evolve or optimize their own launch and delivery systems while providing NASA with more and more cost-effective options for refueling their reusable fleet spacecraft, thus concurrently advancing the overall sustainability of NASA’s programs while lowering barriers to further commercial activity. "
ISRU
Since you were talking about fuel system selection and also about fuel refinement and ratios; why not use hydrogen peroxide for the RCS system, like on Soyuz? It would help offset the ratio problem, and possibly (if Roscomos gets their act back together) allow for transport of H2O2 back to the ISS for venting and replenishment of Soyuz (perhaps some distance away from the station), getting around the 200-day operational constraint.
If this mission infrastructure gets implemented and Soyuz can be replenished with H2O2 in orbit, it would be interesting to see a Soyuz redesign for long-orbit duration, possibly for some years.
Scott Manley, love your work; prefect blend of real rocket/space stuff and KSP.
Can you please tell me which mod gives you the suicide burn distance calculation; it really is a pain to be switching windows to excel so frequently to check my descent profile.
-Another Scott.
The centaur upper stage replacement will use gaseous H2 and O2 for reaction control combined with cold gas trusters. BFR will use methane and oxygen.
Both systems will use self pressurization.
This is actually very reminiscent of the Integrated Program Plan's space tug vehicle, which was a versatile spacecraft that could take either crew or cargo to the surface of the moon, or just be used as an orbital vehicle and could be reused multiple times.
2:29 Wait! WHere did those orbital lines come from? Which mod adds them?
It is a mod called principia, which adds real orbital mechanics to the game and change how maneuvers are planned.
Ah, and the orbital paths are part of it. Got it!
It might or might not be Euclidia.
6:48 I agree completely. I've been saying this since not long after the program's cancellation.
I'm glad to see that someone is finally talking about a lander. NASA hasn't had plans to actually land anywhere so their so-called plan to return to the moon is a joke.
The LOP-G plans have included a "commercially-developed lander" for awhile now.
tonas1997
I haven’t looked at the funding for a while now and I’m glad to see that Trump has actually requested funding for LOP-G. When I visited NASA last winter they didn’t have any money for their “plans.” Without funding, there is no plan.
Congress apparently hasn’t actually approved any funds though. (If the Democrats win in November, there will be at least a two-year delay. They won’t want to give Trump anything he asks for.)
It’s good to see that NASAs moon plans aren’t 100% smoke and mirrors now, at least.
nice.
I used to have faith in NASA but now fuck those cocksuckers. It's time we've had private corporations land on the moon that's the only way this will be done. Those motherfuckers high up at NASA wasting the assets of the program on stupid bullshit are the reason why we do not land on the moon again
Laura, NASA is the one basically giving all the money to those private corporations that you praise so much. Without NASA, those corporations would not exist today.
Scott, would you consider looking at and simulating the FH-XEUS/ACES direct lunar transportation system described in the Plan for Sustainable Space Development at DevelopSpace.info? Thx
Question: why not just use pressurized gaseous hydrogen (from the main fuel tank) as a monopropellant? It wouldn’t need ignition at all, and would reduce the need for complexity and dangerous fuels.
Always nice vid!
This is fascinating!
Hey Scott why did the wastewater volume indicator spike when that last suicide burn go spectacularly bad?
I wish Lockheed Martin would actually built it. I really liked the Lockheed Mars Ascent Descent Vehicle concept. but Lockheed has a history of designing concepts and then scrapping them, because nobody is willing to sent them a blank check for all the development costs.
I'll keep my opinion on the LOP-G to myself at this point. However, don't forget that a republican led House of Representatives sabotaged the Commercial crew program in 2012 and 2013, leading to 2 year delays, which is the main reason, why "we" don't have access to space right now. And that the Trump administration tried to defund several important NASA science missions including the WFIRST telescope and NASA's Office of Education. Plus they cancelled the mission that would have tested our ability to deflect dangerous asteroids.
Thank you for posting this simulation. I did not know about Lockheed Martin even having a new design concept on the drawing board. Maybe I missed something, but I understood that an essential component of New Space / re-usable spacecraft is to standardize on newer, more powerful and re-usable rocket engines on all stages. SpaceX does use RP-1 on Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, while Starship uses methalox exclusively. Why do theselong-standing aerospace manufacturers frequently turn to older designs that use liquid hydrogen? Given the problems we've seen with SLS, older hydrogen engines seem problematic. Blue Origin / National Team's proposal video for the National Team lander design made a big deal about the landing engine exhaust kicking up lunar regolith, causing debris to be shot around at kilometers per second. I don't understand why a lander concept like this Lockheed Martin design doesn't include high-mounted landing thrusters along the rim of the upper fuselage so that these could be used for the final descent phase, just prior to touchdown. (Like what SpaceX wants to do with its HLS Starship.)
recommend to do video about ULA' ACES because somehow it don't use hypergolic in RCS.
Deserves more views
Here is a question for you Scott. We know humans are healthy in a 1G environment (earth) and that they suffer in a zero G environment. Will 2 weeks on the moon be sufficient to determine if 1/6th G cures the health issues or just makes them a little less?
RL-10C Expander Cylce is closed right?
When peoples ideas of reusable landers were sane
now nobody can shut up about starship, and to quote someone from twitter, are acting like it's the second coming of space christ
What is the advantage of multiple landings?
to save money, just like the space shuttle
erase the need for bringing a complete Lander to the moon each time, but just the fuel needed to land.
Even if the fuel for a multiple use lander weighs the same as a single use multi stage lander:
- fuel is easier/way cheaper to produce and probably also to bring there
- fuel can be used for multiple purposes
- fuel could to some degree be generated in-situ
For a second there I thought you were going to talk about the specific impulse of a ladder. Would have been nice.
By the way, another channel I watch NileRed did a video on rocket engines made from test tubes. You might check that out.
Also by the way I'm still waiting on that 200M ISK. :P
I'm new to this game. Your last clip looks similar to my Mun landing attempt. I keep losing my maneuverability. SAS and RCS both just stop working sometimes and I can't line up for any orbit burns. A,S,D,and W keys are just dead. Finally landed on Mun, but I'm on my side. I'm in my first orbit around Minmus now, but I lost any control on the approach. Only pulled it off because it auto-rotates to the correct position upon full throttle based on orbit maneuver. Not sure how I'm going to land yet.
With kerbals on board or with probes?
With a probe, you might have lost connection to KSC (depending on your difficulty settings)
With a manned craft: Maybe you ran out of Monoprop (likely if you did not add additional tanks) or out of electricity for the reaction wheels.
Also possible in all situations that you accidentally hit time warp (no control at all during time warp)
Scots problem was, that his craft had far to much thrust for its mass to be landable without throttling (the Engines he chose for the craft in the last scene could just not be throttled, only turned on off (with some delay I suppose) and that the crafts RCS engines were not designed for such extreme tasks (there really should be no need to be, in real life)
Kerbals on board. First SAS became useless and I couldn't do anything while still attached to my main stage. I detached thinking my lander stage would react to my input, but it too was dead. I have 3 or 4 of those little RCS things attached, and full fuel, with 3 small external tanks attached. I highlighted the RCS tab, and could then maneuver with that, but it was difficult to control. Those too went dead. I could only maneuver while the main rocket was burning, which made landing an interesting ordeal. Trying to slow my lateral velocity while keeping it upright and having to start and stop it so I could still fall toward the surface. Tipped over on landing but was able to get out and walk around.
Clicking on the little thrusters showed them being full of fuel I guess. I'll have to read up on those. I'll add a solar panel or two also as I didn't have any of those.
I think there's an audio problem with this video, your 's's are spiking on your mic.
Sounds like the boys in the lab at Lockheed have been playin too much Kerbal!
I will never again doubt the value of throttled engines.
How to store Liquid Hydrogen for two weeks or longer?Is there magical cryo tanks for that?How to not let LH boil off?
Store it as water and split it up as you need it? Or just use a lot of energy to keep it all very cold and give it some pressure
*edit: Ah you mean on the lander? Just Park your rocket in the shadow.... should be pretty cold then already
Yes, in theory that's possible. But IRL it would take a lot of energy, resources and time to convert water to LH+LOx, which won't make sense unless they have nuclear reactor on Lunar orbit. Which doesn't solve the problem with LH stored in Lander for two weeks, cause if they put Lander in shadow, they won't have solar power.
40 t of water split holds about 175 megawatt hours of energy. Let's just say you need double that power - 350 megawatt hours because of inefficiencies in the conversion and non-stoichiometric engine use. The gateway that this is based off of produces 40 kw or .96 megawatt-hours per day. It could therefore fuel this in about a year. ISS produces about 2.5x that, therefore it could fuel this in about 6 months. ISS in an orbit that isn't in shadow half the time would produce double that, which would translate to fuel production in 3 months.
ULA's ACES upper stage is magical cryo tank.
Just to put things in perspective: This lander weighs half as much as the entire International Space Station.
And then we haven’t even taken into account the weight of the mothership that needs to be put into lunar orbit with frequent maintenance crews visiting it.
I really hope NASA can see through the standard military contractor BS and doesn’t even respond to this ludicrous pipedream.
Hubble space telescope: please to a video on what’s happening with the Hubble T telescopes gyros. Can they work through this latest problem?
Does it even make sense to build the lunar gateway? If the landing vehicle stilll has to be able to make it to low lunar orbit, and then get to the lunar gateway orbit, how much more energy would it take to simply get to low earth orbit? Not much I would wager.
The best highlight of my KSP happened as I was landing on dubs with 4 parachutes.
The first parachute got ripped off in the upper atmosphere as I was trying to land. Then a minute later my other 3 parachutes opened in the lower atmosphere. And less than 1000 meters from the ground I was getting excited that I wasn’t going to die...
Then my upper stage parachute hit me at 200m/s and blew up my landers crew capsule.
LOL! It was wonderful!
With more launch vehicle builders looking at Liquid Methane I am surprised Lockheed/Martin didn't go that route. Yes H2 has better performance but it also requires larger tankage. Plus the storage issues with LH2. Also if you use the Lunar Gateway as a fuel depot you could ship the fuel up as water and a dense hydro carbon or even solid graphite. and manufacture the fuel on site at the Gateway. I could see the Gateway being primarily a fuel depot and supply site. Personally I see Methane as a more likely future for chemical propulsion systems. As to the RCS system. Why not use H2O2 at about a 90 to 95% solution
The lunar gateway is already planned to be hydrogen based so I would assume LM would operate around that idea.
To be honest I think anything proposed by NASA or any of the aerospace companies feeding the federal government trough will never be anything more than pretty pictures and animations. NASA's track record in the recent past has been less than stellar with the exception of the stuff done at JPL. Why is this? First it is because of incoming administrations changing goals and policy. Second it is because certain individuals in Congress care more about the jobs related to NASA Centers than anything actually getting accomplished in terms of actual goals, hardware being built and flown or much of anything else. LockMart, Launch Alliance and others are willing to play the game. The Shuttle was retired over 8 years ago and we are still no where near having any man rated system. I suspect Musk will launch man rated Dragons or even the BFR before NASA and the rest of the trough feeders are close to having a flight ready vehicle.
A cargo variant probably could carry 10 tons since it would not be carrying the crew cabin for a two week stay all the way down and back up.
Is Realism Overhaul 1:1 scale instead of the smaller vanilla scale? I think someone said KSP vanilla home planet was 1/10th the size of Earth, but with similar gravity.
Yep, it’s full scale
60 tons? reminds me of my first successful Mun Lander, complete with ISRU and Drilling Equipment, at 50 tons back then.. :D was a nightmare to get in orbit though because the atmosphere would tear it apart at the slightest turn...
I was wondering when we were going to start looking into reusable Lunar landers. Hopefully, someone will get around to doing research work on the reliability of such a craft doing lunar landing work vs something that is used only one time. The station in a highly elliptical orbit kind of surprised me a little. I would have thought maybe something more circular would be used. Mind you, I am aware there are trade-offs between using either kind of orbits. Not to mention the little bit of havoc the lunar mascons can do to orbits if you get too close, outside of only a couple of orbital inclinations.
Scott, at 4:20 you said about leaving a fuel tank an low Moon orbit. It is absolutely unrealistic because how much not round the Moon is. You will not find the thing where you left it.
Nah, to start with there's a frozen orbit at 86 degrees which is pretty close to a perfect polar orbit. so a Fuel depot would easily be stable for a few months.
You mention the possibility of creating H2, O2 from locally mined water. That would be ideal, but just replenishing the Oxygen liberated from rocks would save the majority of the weight of the propellant combination.
Wouldn't they use gaseous hydrogen, saying Integrated Vehicle Fluids system from ACES?
I must be a masochist!! I loved the ending!!
+thomasfholland
If you enjoy Scott suffering, you are a sadist. If you are currently trying to recreate Scott's suffering yourselves in KSP, you're most definitely a masochist.
It angers me that the shuttle program was cancelled early, and that the constellation was cancelled shortly after the semi-successful flight of the Ares I. But, to me, those decisions (either on purpose or accidentally) led to a furnishing private space industry. #SpaceX #ULA #BlueOrigin
What's that about leaving fuel pod in LLO? I didn't quite get it
The Gateway station orbits fairly high, so it takes more fuel to get to it from the lunar surface than it does to just get into lunar orbit. This is fuel that you take down from orbit just to take back up to orbit, so some savings could be realized just by leaving it in orbit in the first place.
What a mod is this, to make engine exhaust look more realistic?
The best part of that explosion was the timing.
A cable/pulley system(elevator) isn't too hard to make happen.
Nice Video
The most efficient fuel/oxidizer mix is actually LH2 and liquid fluorine.
But fluorine is really scary
So is oxygen, when you think about it for a bit.
Saw you on NASA TV Friday.
While rockets are more reliable than in Apollo's day, i think i'd still prefer my only ticket home to have hypergolic's reliability
Lunar hopscotch: Only slightly more dangerous than lawn darts.
What is the sparrow moon lander? Its in the SpaceX fan app.
Why not make these things modular to be modified to become a habitable living space for a moon base once their use as transport ends?
Moon crater Mining: moon craters are made when astroids hit the moon. Has anyone exam in the possibility of mining moon craters? Shouldn’t moon craters that were made by Metal rich astroids contain a lot of metal right near the surface? Wouldn’t it be easier to mine asteroids that have already crashed into the moon rather than trying to catch them in orbit?
What mod did you get the RL-10 CECE with?
Edit: Found it :P
Toho did this back in 1965, Godzilla vs Monster Zero. Hey Scott, make that! Please and thank you!
Why don't we create space elevator in a first place? Yes it will be probably more expensive at the beginning but it will solves almost all landing/lifting staff from/into space!
Electrolysis manufacturing on the moon! Nice!
Hi all.
I’m not sure if I have missed it or it has all ready been done. But is it possible to orbit earth and moon simultaneously. To expand I was hoping for an elliptical orbit that passes by both bodies on each rotation
It would have to be a figure 8, I think.
Did you see the ufo over California Sunday night?
Why does the Earth look so small from the moon in RO compared to the pictures we see from NASA? I'm sure you have explained this before but, fm I can't find it.
The game is using a wider field of view than those pictures
7:22 Won't the mass ratio be 4:1?
(Next statement is probably correct tho)
Stoichiometric is 8:1.
wait no nevermind
forgot that an atom doesn't have just protons and electrons
GREAT ENDING. Now THAT is KSP.
I think I remember the Pentagon releasing a statement that they had found water on the moon with one of their satellites? Like, Great Lakes amount of water in craters on the moon.
I wonder in his live stream, he would says
"I'm Scott Manley, fly unsafe!"
Can you actually build an orbital ring in kerbal?
Theoretically perhaps, but it would have so many parts that the game wouldn't run.
Hmm we need a mod for that XD
Watching this video after Starships win in a HLS bid is quite funny. "60t behemot, 14m high" XD
How 2018 Scott would react to SpaceX proposal? :D
I was genuinely just playing Realism Overhaul, and wondering what it would take to make a reusable Lunar Lander. I made something that could just about do it on paper, but it was probably twice the size of what Scott made. It was not fun to fly, either.
0:50 This landing must be real, it has stars in the lunar sky!
Why are there so many orbits around the moon?
If I was an astronaut I would never want my main way of getting back to my source of air to be an elevator. I'd much prefer a ladder or a ramp I'd never want anything mechanical that could fail to get between me and life.
What would happen if a suborbital craft is caught by an oribital craft? Would the orbiting craft be pulled down, or would the suborbital craft be pulled into an orbit? I imagine the orbiting one would lose some speed, but would it be enough to pull it out of orbit?
Probably both spacecrafts would be destroyed.
The orbital craft travels with more than 7.8 km/s. The suborbital craft must be slower. And even a 'small' difference in speed (e.g. 100m/s = 360km/h) is a too fast impact.
The difference between suborbital and orbital at any given altitude is the horizontal velocity, so it would depend on how suborbital the craft was... the closing speeds could be faster than a bullet. But assuming that they could survive impacting with each other, their momentum would be conserved and the resulting velocity would be lower than the orbital craft's velocity,. This may or may not be low enough to make them both suborbital, depending on the initial velocities.
They’d have to match speeds
Are you describing a Fulton Recover in space?
As described before: the momentum (mass*speed) of both craft together would be the same as each separate crafts (before) added. This physical constraint / reality leaves you with the simple result that you cannot gain anything by this operation: You simply have to propel the orbiting craft prior to this move to the speed it needs to be able to perform it. Instead you can just propel your suborbital directly.
This aspect of physical needs aside, just for the fact of doing it:
In order to perform this at the lowest possible speed difference to be still an orbit after the 'catching', the orbiting craft needs to be way heavier than the suborbital one (to allow for a low as possible speed of the orbiting craft).
Even if you are able to create a methode to 'catch' a suborbital craft with an (still much faster) flying orbiting craft, you'd need to implement some really fancy technologies to make the resulting acceleration bearable even for dead hardware, not to mention astronauts.
Or, inversly, to make the 'catch' long / elastic enough that the accelerations get to a bearable level. Think about some x km long catching device...
I miss Scott's KSP so much...
Hilarious highlight at the end
Throttle? We don't need no stinking throttle!