They’re calling it Altair
Published on Dec 22, 2007 at 3:04 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under NASA, space exploration.
In the 1960s, NASA furiously worked to design and build a lunar exploration program. Apollo was the result of that effort. The Apollo program was a wonder. A giant rocket, the Saturn V, lifted the moon craft on its way. Rather than land the entire craft, a Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), carrying only the bare minimum mass, detached from the mother ship with two astronauts on board and landed on the surface of the Moon. Most of the lander was left on the Moon when the bare minimal part of the LEM lifted off to dock with the Command Module still in orbit. An astronaut had to remain in the command module to ensure that the LEM’s ascent stage could dock with it. In theory, they could have docked with an unmanned command module, but they didn’t want to risk it.
Apollo was exploration. It was designed to get to the Moon and prove the technology. For sure, there were serious science goals, but NASA always expected to have a follow-up program, complete with a manned moon base. Then, the real science studies could begin. There never was a follow-up program to Apollo, though. But, President Bush proposed a new goal of sending men back to the Moon. This required new spacecraft. The timeline for return to the Moon was much longer than the initial Moon trips. President Bush has gotten some criticism for setting a time so far into the future. Indeed, his goal is so far into the future, and the money allocated to achieve this goal is so little that it seems unlikely to me that NASA will be able to accomplish the goal. One problem with such long range plans is that if you implement them slowly the technology will change over the life of the program. That means starting over on certain parts of it, slowing down the rest and costing more money.
But, there is a plus side to taking their time to get to the Moon. The first time, it was a rush job. They had to quickly design and build the lunar module. What they came up with as a rather flimsy craft. This time, they will be able to take their time to design and build a much more robust lander. Unfortunately, a really good lander takes money, and I don’t really see much of that coming.
This time, though, the craft have individual names, rather than descriptive designations. The Apollo program had the Command Module and the Lunar Excursion Module. Both had individual names, and each was its own spacecraft. However, they were different aspects of the same Apollo program. This time, NASA had names for the component craft. The Crew Exploration Vehicle is to be called Orion. And, the lunar lander is to be called Altair.
The idea is that each component may be used together or mixed with other systems, or even alone. They are not to be just part of one program. But, all that assumes that NASA gets the funding to actually do all of this.
-Astroprof
Bill Davis on January 10, 2008 at 12:04 pm: 1
The pictures reflect an up-to-date CEV design though presumably the lander is still to be designed, so the lander configuration seen in the pics will change. Still, if NASA sticks with a minimal lander (in the pics it might look bigger than minimal but it does have to carry 4 crew and some cargo) in conjunction with hab modules landed unmanned, I think the Altair will superficially resemble what we see here. I haven’t seen these graphics anywhere else- thanks!