LSAM named....

[docm]

It's to be called "ALTAIR"<br /><br />http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/12/altair_to_the_m.html<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Altair To The Moon<br /><br />At a Lunar Lander Project Office Industry Day NASA announced that the name of the new human lunar lander project's LSAM (Lunar Surface Access Module) will be "Altair".<br /><br />A logo was also unveiled.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Logo pic.... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mattblack]

I think its an excellent name, is appropriate and has symmetry.<br /><br />"Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and is the twelfth brightest star in the night sky," wrote Lauri Hansen, NASA's Altair project manager, in an e-mail sent to Hanley this morning, a copy of which was obtained by collectSPACE.com. "The word 'Altair' finds its origins in Arabic and is derived from a phrase that means 'the flying one'," she continued.<br /><br />"In Latin, 'Aquila' means Eagle, tying our new lander to the historic Apollo 11 Eagle," concluded Hansen, referring to the vehicle that brought mankind's first two men to the lunar surface in July 1969. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

You forgot one. Altair was also the name of a computer company. If you haven't heard of it, you didn't miss much. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[thebigcat]

Well, they have given it a name and a logo. When are they going to get around to giving it a lead engineer, a design team and a spot on the budget? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[qso1]

In the artists concept accompanying the SDC article, there are four unidentified vehicles of the same apparent design sitting in the background. They are similar in shape to the concept I developed in my GN series for both lunar and mars bases but in the Altair image, the purpose of these vehicles are not mentioned.<br /><br />The lunar vehicles in my concept are not covered on the outside and the mars vehicle examples can be seen on the bottom of the first page of the thread "My 3D stuff" in the "Amiazing images" forum. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[no_way]

Theres also Altair Nano ( NYSE: ALTI ), producer of lithium titanate spinel batteries.<br />

 

[MeteorWayne]

It was also the home star of Forbidden Planet's story <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[rfoshaug]

Altair is a good name.<br /><br />Way better than "Artemis" (named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology) which was proposed earlier.<br /><br />Artemis sounds like a Musketeer's name, while Altair just sounds much better.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>

 

[tanstaafl76]

<br />Altair 4 was also famously featured in Forbidden Planet <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[no_way]

some timely commentary<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Stack up this lander next to the original Grumman LEM, adjust for scale differences, and this lander has less capability than its 40 year old parent. By Hansen's own admission, the lander has no redundancy, meets none of the space program's latter day safety requirements, and will now be open to investment, errr, we mean review, by four industry teams, each receiving $350K to tell NASA what a crummy job they did.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />From what i gather from earlier reading of this blog, this guy is a contractor engineer working on the Constellation.

 

[grdja]

OK this is sad, NASA is starting to spend billions to create powerpoint spaceships and mission logos. During 90es we had much cheaper powerpoint space infrastructure. Though X-33 ate up a lot of cast, it still had some physical evidence to show for itself.<br /><br />15 years to go to Moon... <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /> <br />USA went from first manned spaceflight to surface of the Moon in 8 years. Sure it was expensive, but situations cant be compared. We know exactly how to go to Moon, we now all we need about basic science and feasibility of endeavor, we only need to (re)build hardware.<br /><br />With a huge percentage of money going to maintenance of Shuttle infrastructure (and workforce), prolonging programs doesn't save money, it wastes money. Doing anything with any bit of shuttle hardware is wasting money. EELVs could drop in price if more were built and used, and can be expanded to modest heavy lift capability.

 

[samkent]

The reason behind the 10 stars in the logo is on the lame side IMO. Plus landing a crew of 4 on the surface? Does that mean 2 will remain orbiting in Orion? That would be 200lbs of dead weight all the way there and back.

 

[samkent]

I hope they lock the doors and take the keys with them.

 

[docm]

Orion has a "sleep" mode which it's put into while the crew is occupied elsewhere. <br /><br />We can only hope it's sleep mode wasn't designed by Microsoft or anyone who ever worked for them <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[PistolPete]

ROFLMAO!!!! <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[steve82]

Altair was also the name of the Apollo Command Module in James Michener's book "Space". <br /><br />It's the 2nd time I've seen NASA cross paths with that book. One of the characters, Dr. Leopold Strabismis, was a con artist who ran, at the beginning of the book, a UFO cult called Universal Space Associates. Later on, he ran a mail order degree mill called University of Space and Aviation. It was his way of taking advantage of people by naming his schemes "USA."

 

[propforce]

<font color="yellow">15 years to go to Moon... <br />USA went from first manned spaceflight to surface of the Moon in 8 years. Sure it was expensive, but situations cant be compared. We know exactly how to go to Moon, we now all we need about basic science and feasibility of endeavor, we only need to (re)build hardware. </font><br /><br />This is not your grandfather's space program. The world is different now than 40 yrs ago. <br /><br />We had a space race 40 yrs ago, we don't have now.<br /><br />We were in a cold war for global dominance 40 yrs ago, we don't now.<br /><br />We have far less lawyers 40 yrs ago than we do now.<br /><br />We accept the danger of space launch, and the possibility of astronauts get killed, 40 yrs ago. We don't now.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>