Why Blue Origin's Lunar Lander Is A Radical Rethink
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Published 2023-05-21
Blue Origin's lander won over 3 other options with only the Dynetics Alpaca lander coming close.
Blue Origin is the leader of the National Team which includes Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic and others. It's a 16 meter tall 100% reusable lander with the propellent tanks placed above the crew module, allowing the crew to be close to the ground upon landing.
While we don't really know that much about the vehicle, that does give me a perfect excuse to play with it in Kerbal Space Program 2
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All Comments (21)
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"the first flight of the Saturn V was 18 months before Armstrong landed on the moon" Apollo never ceases to blow my mind.
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Breaking: NASA has decided to go with Scott Manley's design instead of BlueOrigin.
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I wonder if NASA has considered requiring a standardised interface for refuelling. The refuelling equivalent of the international docking adaptor?
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This is a MUCH better lander than the previous national team pitch. Plus, single fuel hydrolox system means the entire lander can be refueled on the lunar surface with the suspected ice water on the surface. Hope we see this through
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I'm really excited that this return to the moon could actually produce and test new technologies in spaceflight. It that's the case it might actually be worth the cost.
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While I like the Starship, I am glad that there will be two teams working on solving the key problems that the Artemis mission profile calls for, namely refueling in orbit.
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I've been making landers in KSP like this for a while because not only is it easier for landing and egress, but I often make the command pod into a dettachable rover. This way I can take a large rover all the way to the mun or duna and bring it all the way back to Kerbin with tons of science and recovering the expensive rover components.
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Haven't gotten through the video yet, but Blue's new design really makes me wonder what they were thinking with the first one. With this they've shown they're clearly capable of coming up with a decent modern design, so what was with the previous Apollo-but-worse design?!!?!
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Hopefully the fixed price contract will motivate management to get things done instead of just scheduling preliminary design meeting and BS all day for decades.
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Thanks for this. My heart sank when I heard the National Team had been selected, because their last effort was so dodgy. This seems a much better concept. I am still utterly convinced that between Boeing and Blue Origin the chances of this flying, or being able to deliver the goods promised, within a reasonable timeframe or budget are slim to none. Keep your fingers crossed Space X can make Starship work, I have a feeling the Artemis program will need quite a few of their lunar landers ...
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I'm still a fan of Dynetic's concept, but this new one from Blue is looking very nice. I do hope it works out.
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Love how a bit of info can be turned into a somewhat accurate representation of the actual craft in KSP/KSP2.
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I only wish jeff would show what’s going on at blue origin or at least post an update every once in a while. Just imagine so many more young people getting hooked to spaceflight
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Can't wait to see how close you got it Scott!!
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Well done Sir, facts and details as usual. Thank you Dr. Manley.
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Thanks Scott for keeping up with all of this no matter what is decided it is an exciting time we live in.
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With all the hydrogen leaks on SLS when on the pad with many available engineers with torque wrenches, it'll be interesting to see how that works on an automated system...
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Originally, Blue complained about Starship needing on-orbit refueling and a massive elevator. I feel like once they got the chance to redesign for take two, they decided that refueling was doable, even with hydrogen, but that the elevator could never be made to work.
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Although my faith in BO isn't super high, I'm really hoping they'll be able to see this through all the way to the moon and back. Even if they fall short, it's good to have some competition for SpaceX. And the insights & experience engineers will get with hydrogen will be incredibly valuable in the coming decade on earth as well, considering it has some role to play in energy transition plans of many countries.
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If there's anything we've learned about crew safety, it is that it is better to put people on top of propellent than anywhere else.
