Jeff Bezos Unveils Blue Origin's Dream Team to Land NASA Astronauts on the Moon

[newtons_laws]

Space.com article: https://www.space.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-artemis-moon-lander-team.html Quote" The U.S. companies Draper, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will join Blue Origin's bid to build a crewed lunar lander for Artemis, NASA's project to return astronauts to the moon by 2024." That's a team with an impressive pedigree! The article states that he descent stage will use the company's new BE-7 engine which is not surprising. The BE-7 engine uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to give good performance and offers the long term possibility that these could be sourced from lunar water ice. The article states that the Ascent stage will be made by Lockheed Martin but doesn't give details of the engine proposed to be used. It's interesting to note that on the Apollo lunar module both the descent and ascent engines used hypergolic propellants i.e the two components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other, so are easy to ignite reliably and repeatedly. Whilst it's not such a great problem if the descent engine won't fire up from lunar orbit to initiate a descent onto the Moon's surface it most certainly is if once you're on the Moon's surface you are ready to depart and the ascent engine won't start, so I wonder if the hypergolic propellants engine design will be retained for the ascent stage?

 

[Ittiz]

Hypergolics are dangerous. They tend to blow up all by themselves. The good thing about having people there, if they need to launch and they can't because their engines won't ignite they can troubleshoot the problem in person. Then if need be MacGyver a solution on the spot.

 

[Luca]

Space.com article: https://www.space.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-artemis-moon-lander-team.html Quote" The U.S. companies Draper, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will join Blue Origin's bid to build a crewed lunar lander for Artemis, NASA's project to return astronauts to the moon by 2024." That's a team with an impressive pedigree! The article states that he descent stage will use the company's new BE-7 engine which is not surprising. The BE-7 engine uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to give good performance and offers the long term possibility that these could be sourced from lunar water ice. The article states that the Ascent stage will be made by Lockheed Martin but doesn't give details of the engine proposed to be used. It's interesting to note that on the Apollo lunar module both the descent and ascent engines used hypergolic propellants i.e the two components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other, so are easy to ignite reliably and repeatedly. Whilst it's not such a great problem if the descent engine won't fire up from lunar orbit to initiate a descent onto the Moon's surface it most certainly is if once you're on the Moon's surface you are ready to depart and the ascent engine won't start, so I wonder if the hypergolic propellants engine design will be retained for the ascent stage?

Wow! I am interested in this stuff too. I am doing a project about Moon bases, just wondering if anyone has any useful info on the topic! Thx

 

[Science Rocketist]

If Mr Bezos or any of the other "Spacey Launchy People" had decided to launch from London UK, our lunatic lord mayor would charge them "Pro rata about £10,000,000 per launch in "Enviroment Emmision Taxes" If you consider that I would get charged £110 per day in LEZ (Low Emission Zone) and ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) Charges for driving a small diesel van, Transit sized, from Broxbourne into London.
Of course I know the geographical reasons for not launching from London. It was just a thought.

 

[Science Rocketist]

How did the Apollo 11 Command and Service modules slow down so much after it had done the TLI burn (6 minutes) to reach escape velocity. Stage 3 and the command module parted company after this burn and the service module did not have a rocket big enough or fuel enough to slow down from 25,000 MPH to the Lunar Orbit Insertion Speed. It must have drastically reduced speed very early in the flight, in order for the journey to have taken 3 days. 25,000 MPH is 600,000 miles a day, that's a long long way beyond the moon. I do not believe that "venting gases" would be any where near sufficient to reduce that mass by that amount.
I am not a scientist, I am just puzzled by this.
Would appreciate any reply (lay terms please)