First US lunar lander in over 50 years rockets toward moon with commercial deliveries

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News/AP

January 8, 2024, 2:21 AM



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years rocketed toward the moon Monday, launching private companies on a space race to make deliveries for NASA and other customers. Astrobotic Technology's lander caught a ride on a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. The Vulcan streaked through the Florida predawn sky, putting the spacecraft on a roundabout route to the moon that should culminate with an attempted landing on Feb. 23.

“So, so, so excited. We are on our way to the moon!” Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton said. The Pittsburgh company aims to be the first private business to successfully land on the moon, something only four countries have accomplished. But a Houston company also has a lander ready to fly, and could beat it to the lunar surface, taking a more direct path. “First to launch. First to land is TBD," to be determined, Thornton noted.

NASA gave the two companies millions to build and fly their own lunar landers. The space agency wants the privately owned landers to scope out the place before astronauts arrive while delivering NASA tech and science experiments as well as odds and ends for other customers. Astrobotic's contract for the Peregrine lander: $108 million.

The last time the U.S. launched a moon-landing mission was in December 1972. Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon, closing out an era that has remained NASA’s pinnacle.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/us-lunar-lander-50-years-rockets-moon-commercial-106186244

[chia]

1. I never thought I'd fear for the future of the moon.

One of the spaceflight memorial companies that bought room on the lander, Celestis, said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto a mission. More remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which was boosted into a perpetual orbit around the sun reaching as far out as Mars.

[catsudon]

12. there is a big real reason for the interest to the moon

moon is full of rare element Helium 3

[Igel]

15. Isotope.

Helium is still helium. But He-3 is a variety of helium; He-4 is the usual stuff.

[Igel]

18. Many "real reasons."

Pick your goal, pick your reason.

Escaping Earth as such? Moon.

Reaching Mars? Moon is stepping rock.

Want He-3? Moon.

Perhaps if significant mineral deposits in what amounts to a giant ball of slag are to be found that could serve. I mean, the slag isn't completely homogeneous.

Then there's the argument I read today that such commercial activities should be stopped because of the precious sites, desirable sites, that could be tainted, abused, used.

What made them precious and desirable? The article was written by an astronomer who wanted the sites preserved for him and his, for his field.

[Igel]

16. I don't.

In the end, the Moon will meet the fate of the rest of the Solar System.

The Sun will be a white dwarf. Perhaps the Earth and Moon will form part of it after being in the red giant the star will become. It's a lifeless rock. It knows nothing, it cares for nothing. Pick up a dead cat or a piece of iron or a piece of granite--search for intelligence. That's the Moon, unless we want to adopt a religious view towards it.

Alternative view is less likely--over time the Moon will reach the Hill Limit and leave the Earth for an independent orbit. (This is actually likely.) But each orbiting body also has its Hill Limit. If the Earth and Moon aren't engulfed by the red giant in the Sun's future and drag causes it to spiral into the Sun it, too, each will reach its Hill Limit and take flight in interstellar space.

Nobody will be there to give the lumps of matter importance, either way; we assign and create value, unless you believe in a Deity--then you've moved to religion and I don't argue personal and idiosyncratic belief systems ... I have my own, no better or worse than yours. Otherwise, per science, following and not fallowing the science, the Universe is one gigantic impersonal space. We can anthropomorphize or project, we can assign meaning at a distance in time and space, but in the end, our atoms were forged in nucleogenesis as the Universe expanded in the Big Bang within seconds of the start of time and breaking of force symmetry or they were forged in stars, supernovas, hypernovas, or kilonovas, or in the accretion disks around black holes and other truly nasty bodies in the astronomical zoo. And they'll return to darkness until our very protons decay or our atoms are absorbed to form Pop 4 stars--then, later, in the end, they reach the same state--finally, there are leptons and photons and heat death as entropy maxes out.

Goodnight, Moon.

(The only way out of this trap is willful blindness ... or religion. Or, I guess, self-medication.)

Everything else is short-term thinking.

[Igel]

17. I'm okay and content with launching them into the Sun.

Although in a sci-fi show remains were launched directly into the Sun and somebody said, "They're idiots, they just launched them into a lower orbit."

A humanities major, I pondered this--a PhD candidate in astrophysics I respect(ed) made the statement, so I rather gave it credence. Later, teaching physics (thank you, undergrad coursework!) I understood.

Still, we're less than viruses on the surface of the Earth wrt to the Sun, so why not?

[Roy Rolling]

2. I'm grateful

I’m now an old man and I’m grateful for the technological advancements that were derived from the Space Race of the 1960s.

But now that technology can manufacture a better robot human than a biological human, why send humans to the Moon for experiments?

I mean, if 90% of a mission hardware is just to keep a delicate cargo of human beings at room temperature and supply oxygen, that’s a waste.

[NotMissD]

3. Would love to see a leave nothing (like national parks) approach to the moon

Otherwise it will be like Everest, a heap of trash.

[Mawspam2]

4. Oh, come on! Everyone who ever watched...

...Space: 1999 knows the moon is the perfect repository for spent nuclear fuel rods.

Yucca Mountain will never happen, the US won't build a reprocessing plant, and keeping spent rods at generation plants is unsustainable. To the moon, Alice!!!

[lonely bird]

5. Inaccurate title

This is the first corporate lunar lander.

In so-called public-private partnerships the public ALWAYS takes a backseat to profit.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Technically the last lunar lander WAS built by CORPORATIONS under contract to NASA

I.e., they weren't constructed by federal civil service employees.

NASA got the rights of ownership (under the contract) and could slap their name on it at the time.

[lonely bird]

8. Yes, but

Its purpose was not for corporate bullshit.

The corporations under government contract did what they did for the country.

This ain’t that.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Since Americans can no longer (or refuse to) support research like this through higher taxes

and lobbyists refuse to do the right thing to force Congress to make the wealthy to pay some fractional semblance of the taxes to generate the revenue that would support NASA fully, then this is the result. I.e., some aspects of "space research" go "private".

Eventually "private" corporations were going to go into space. "Government control of everything" is not a panacea (especially if fascists like 45 end up running it). So one needs to be careful for what one wishes for.

[Chainfire]

7. Corporate lunar lander built with your tax dollars. We should expect dividend payments on any future profits...

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Peregrine lander: Technical hitch threatens US Moon mission

The Astrobotic company behind the project says its Peregrine spacecraft has experienced an "anomaly" that has stopped it from pointing its solar panels stably at the Sun.

Without the ability to charge its battery, the mission's plan to land on the Moon is in danger.

Astrobotic said engineers were working on the issue and would provide updates when it had more information.
...
"The team believes that the most likely cause of the unstable Sun-pointing is a propulsion anomaly that, if proven true, threatens the ability of the spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon," the company said in a statement, adding: "As the team fights to troubleshoot the issue, the spacecraft battery is reaching operationally low levels."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67915696

[SpankMe]

11. Odd emphasis for this launch

Media stories keep yapping about the moon lander. But, they're ignoring the launch vehicle.

An automated lander about half the size of an office cubicle with a few experiments on it is pretty cool. But it's not really that extraordinary.

The Vulcan launch vehicle, however, is a big deal. And the fact that it worked on its first launch - and on the first attempt of its first launch - is significant. This is an entirely new launch vehicle. The upper stage borrows some technologies from the old Centaur. And the solid rocket motors are essentially the same as what was used on Atlas V.

But the rest of the whole rocket is completely new design - brand new first stage structure, payload fairing and accommodations, and new US made engines. And it all worked the first time.

It provides direct competition to Falcon 9. No other US lifter was in the Falcon 9 class until now. Blue Origin will be next. But, they're slower to the gate than ULA was.

Further, ULA plans to certify Vulcan for national security launches by the book instead of suing the government for the rights to launch like Elon did.

If ULA can hammer costs down to where they can compete with SpaceX, this will be better for everyone.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. The first stage (liquid) engines were from Blue Origin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4

It was their first flight.

[Igel]

19. The problem's simple.

Most journalists aren't science majors.

I mock in saying that a journalism major is just a failed English major, but when I was an undergrad that was in my experience true. (I mean, I had a journalism major roommate. Quickly he realized I was literate and he asked me to check his assignments. "I'm a chemistry and Russian lit major. What?" I'd skim his textbook, and correct his assignments. They were bad, and I'm gratified I never saw his name on a byline ... Ever. Pissed off at the time, distracted from my skiving, I didn't think that editing his projects was cheating. You know, I should have let his sorry idiot fundie ass fail. In return for helping him, he effing sicced Campus Crusade for Christ on me for a semester and they made my life hell for months.)

< Rant off. > Back on topic.

Even if a reporter got a bachelor's in science, there's science and there's science. I read bio pop sci lit that's well written. In a lot I find idiocy--those are the failed Eng lit majors. You major in bio, you have a clue. But if the same writer will discuss astro or physics or mat science? Puh-lease. Same for phys sci articles--some are great. (Siegal, for example.) But at times they put a bio/env sci person on physics or mat sci and they get it crazy. I do phys science--not well, but at an UG level and from time to time a bit past it (not bad for ABD Slavic linguistics, but I'm 1st gen G/T ... you should hear my Wieniawski). That same bio-ok writer will screw the phys sci content. Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I stare in shock and grief. "This shit saw print. Shit. It. Saw. Print." And I reach for a paper towel and 90% propanol to scrape the shit residue off my screen.

So a science writer misses what's important? Meh. My advice--keep propanol in a spray bottle near your computer. (But beware, cheap Walmart spray bottles after a year or so with propanol in them stop working.)

[orangecrush]

14. Poor Moon

"Ever since I was a kid,
You sure looked good to me.
Now I'm a man full-grown, and I
Know what I hate to see.
(Oh well.)
It might be tomorrow.
(Oh well.)
I just don't know.
(Oh well.)
It might take years.
I wonder when they're going to
Destroy your face?
It may seem silly, but I don't like
What's been coming down.
'Cause you've been looking good too long,
To change your color now.
(Oh well.)
They might test some bomb
(Oh well.)
And scar your skin.
(Oh well.)
I don't think they care, so,
I wonder when they're going to
Destroy your face?
I hope I see you in the sky
At night, when I get old.
I hope you'll look about the same,
As when I was a boy."

?si=WndfYS7ojJGIpdcq