Why Blue Origin's Lunar Lander Is A Radical Rethink 

Yeah, most of the Apollo gear was tested in LEO where the Saturn 1B launcher was enough.

What blows my mind is how easily public opinion was turned against putting people on the Moon, immediately after putting people on the Moon! Today's technology is 500 years behind what it would have been had it continued.

Get in the rocket Shinji.

They were fast, probably faster than spacex.

​@@shubhamkumar6689 Apollo was fast, but we should not forget they also had a far higher risk level compared to space travel in the 21st century. The risk level which was acceptable back then (Apollo was cutting edge and at the limit which was possible) wouldn't be accaleptable any more today. At the end the Apollo program had a better safety record than originally expected.

Make it so…

Equally as likely to go to the moon...

Manley Space

After adding a "kilt" to protect the cryogenics of the upper part from radiative exhaust heat (or some such contrived reason).

@@tygerbyrn Mr Laforge engage.

It would make siphoning fuel off of someone else's spacecraft easier. I just realized that what I typed could be a plan for a crime...

I understand that the IDS standard includes provision for the fitting of fuel/air/liquid umbilicals around the docking mechanism, but actual specifications are up to individual programs for now

​@@MonkeyJedi99 space pirates doing space siphoning

I'd like to think the specs would be made international so that if needs must craft from different continents could assist each other in a tough situation. NASA's non-cooperation pact be damned.

@@Geekofarm That was my thinking, imagine being in space with a BO craft and the only accessible fuel is in a Starship tank..

No longer suspected ice water! *Confirmed* ice water!

Eh, not wild about using such a precious resource as fuel. The mass of ice you would need to pick up only to throw it all away? Not great. Rather use it as in situ atmosphere for permanent base construction.

Blue Origin rocket: still not ready Blue Origin engines: still not ready Blue Origin lander: still just fancy marketing posters how many years has it been now?

​@@SoloRenegade sTarShIp Is bETtEr

Dynetics Alpaca 🦙 would have been a much better choice. Shackleton crater will now be sure to be in the CCP's hands.

The way I look at it maybe the money could go to better purposes, but it could also go to far worse purposes.

Artemis 1 tested all sorts of things.

I agree. Orbital refueling of cryogenic fuels and oxidizer is going to be huge. Plus, the more we learn about how to utilize resources that don't come directly from Earth, the better. Mars will have plenty of differences, but the less we have to ship in, the better. They're still both barren rocks with little or no atmosphere and magnetosphere. It will still probably be a hundred plus years until either are truly self-sustaining. I'm talking to where if Earth just vanished, they'd be fine

@@garreth629 My only concern with ISRU is that *the one rock with some extremophile goop on it* will **get fed into the excavator and melted down** A Bit Paranoid, but i almost wish there is a “Investigate before ISRU” policy or something lol. “Gonna Dig, Gotta Call…even in S p a c e”

We have a valid reason to return to the Moon to stay. The ice in the polar craters is supposed to be an archive of Earths climate and life, that reaches eons further back, than anything down here. There even can be samples of the proto life.

Expect the national team won't be flying anytime soon in the next 10 years. That just how it is

Also if one fails hopefully the other won't and Starship in 2023 comes off more as an uncrewed cargo transport/ base builder while this design is more crewed lander/ short term habtat.

@@LeftOverMacNCheese True but hopefully the AI driven design process being tested on the B-21 raider and gen 6 USAF fighter would be used to speed up this lander development.

@@GreenBlueWalkthrough it's Boeing and Blue origin. What did you expect

@@LeftOverMacNCheesestarship doesn’t even have a way to lower people to the surface. It’s an absurd design.

We are going to the mun again. The what ?. The satellite orbiting earth. Ahhh the moon ?. Yes the Mun 😂

Honestly, I don't see the appeal of bringing back a rover. There's plenty of vehicles on Earth, and they're cheap to build here (or on Kerbin). Better to leave the rover where you can use it again, even if you need to have a small ferry mission to move it to the new site.

Haha this is brilliant. I used to just make a huge tanked lander for biome hopping. But a rover command pod can reduce hopping by a lot if you keep landing on biome borders.

@@absalomdraconis It's not about bringing back a rover. It's about saving on mass by converting the command pod in to a rover. I do see the appeal of leaving behind equipment. Even if you don't use it. You can always recycle it for resources on a future colony.

@@absalomdraconis Why build anything in ksp? Sure there are other mission architectures with their own respective benefits. But why reutrn the rover? First of all, because it's fun, it's just fun to add the additional constraint that the mission must be fully reusable. Second of all, because in carreer mode sometimes the price of those science parts adds up on the rocket, so you can save money by bringing them back.

Good thing its fixed firm price rather than cost plus.

Yeah Dynetics was the better choice

@@land_and_air1250 The alpaca was not as good as this design. It is ok to be honest. A few posts have mentioned that BO needed this deal, so bezos likely funded a few billion on top of the government's price. A design with a bunch more money should be better. It sucks for dynetics, but the best design still has to win.

It will end up being like commercial crew. Without SpaceX we would still be flying on Soyuz today.

So you are willing to cross your fingers for SpaceX but not blue origin? Biased much? 2 predictions, SpaceX will not meet budget and blue origin will.

RIP ALPACA 😢😢😢

​@@RawSauce338 i don't think ALPACA has been cancelled?

@@absalomdraconis No, but in the absence of anyone paying for it, it doesn't have much future...

Why? No seriously, why? The design was half done and already had a negative payload mass fraction. Meaning it can deliver no payload to the moon. I mean it can but it can't get back into orbit. The fuel tanks would run dry on ascent. So why are you a fan of a lunar lander that failed the MOST BASIC requirement of making it to the moon and back. ALPACA was a PP presentation. Not even functional on paper. Even the Russians paper rockets at least work in theory. You and I could do better than handing in a failed project. "Hi, so I had no idea, this is my homework, I'd like a failing grade please". Oh and ridiculously overpriced. 6 billion for the engine to run dry half way to orbit. Then an awkward 10 minutes or so, while the astronauts fall back to the moon. Ah yes, what a design. It's actually the cheapest. It costs nothing and we're not going back. Artemis is cancelled. The money will go towards SLS, which will not be cancelled. It will become the new ISS access. The full upper stages will be left in orbit for future use.

@@user-lv7ph7hs7l all of this was fixed in the appendix p submission. Same capabilities as the blue design with a lower project cost and com. Equipment which actually meets the requirements and a schedule which doesn’t have “multiple contradictions”

The first one was a cash grab. This is trying to justify the existence of New Glenn. Once starship is operating there’s not going to be a good reason to use New Glenn for normal rocket launches so they need a specific application it exists for. This gives them the breathing room required to build an actual starship competitor.

If you see the first design was very similar to Apollo landers...It's logical Northrop Grumman was on board at the time...they were really good designing the Apollo landers...but this time NG is not on board....maybe this design is more risky but probably it works better

SpaceX opened the door of in-orbit refueling. The new BO lander is re-engineered to take advantage of that.

@@javierderivero9299 NorGru was building the tug module for the first design, the part that LM is building in the new design.

@@737smartin going to be very tough to do with Hydrogen. I hope they make it work.

Well that worked with Starliner... oh wait... Seriously though between Boeing and Blue Origin, this thing will cost three times what they bid and will not be ready 16 years from now. Bezos will have to sell some stock to cover the losses.

or to point out possible design errors.

In space!

So far NASA have managed to demonstrate keeping cryogenic methane cooled on the ISS...for four months until the chiller broke. (Which meant they couldn't test actually transferring it between tanks.) So, keeping hydrogen chilled is probably doable, but it's going to take a few more years of testing before there's any useable hardware I think.

Interesting is one word for it...

@@phuzz00 Keeping it cool is only the first of a long list of problems H2 presents.

specially when they can't fix them.

They needed complementary advantage, since they lost the "one" competition; stealing from ALPACA's playbook was quite natural. And, of course, it's to their merit that they learned from their mistakes, instead of just pushing the lobbying fan into overdrive.

@@timemachine1944 Nothing is simple tech when required to work flawlessly on the moon far away from help. It adds an extra mission critical component of moving parts that can break down and render the mission impossible to complete. Elevators on earth break down all the time!

​@@Nethian78 It's a winch and a basket. Backup? Second winch. Backup? Block and tackle, hoist yourself up. Probably a little crank handle you can turn to manually ascend like on some service elevators. Just crank 500 times and you'll get there. But yeah a simple elevator is very low tech. Doesn't even need electricity for the last backup.

@@neniAAinen they instead chose to lobby in the proposal by bidding a price to NASA that they admit is half of the cost that it’s going to cost blue undercutting Dynetics who’s lander was cheaper in total cost but more expensive to NASA as they don’t have bezos bucks

@timemachine194 The elevator itself works fine once you've added redundancies with backup motors and whatnot, it's just that all that weight for the winch and basket to carry the crew is mass that can't be used to carry payload to the lunar surface. All that extra mass needs fuel to get it to the lunar surface and then back up into orbit to rendezvous with Orion, so that means there's that much less science payload that can be returned because you have to schlep the elevator back up with you. It's not a technology thing, it's a mass thing. Blue Origin solves that problem by putting the crew at the surface and eliminates the elevator altogether.

There is an Airbus concept drawing of a new airplane with liquid hydrogen tanks over the passenger cabin. All I could think of is, go screw yourself, Airbus. And I've never flown.

I'm curious. What example of crew under fuel systems have there been in the past?

@@TheEvilmooseofdoom Ditto. I can't think of one.

Exactly like the original STARSHIP submission.

If they are peripheral engines and canted out, then could they be placed further up near where the fuel tanks are located or would this make it hard to fit in the fairing. This is what people thought the original Starship illustration was doing. Maybe Blue will change the design again and put the tanks and engines on the side like the Alpaca. They could have two Blue Moon cargo versions connect to the sides of a Blue Moon crew version to make a single lander.

@@mannyalejo772 That's exactly what I was thinking they might do. This is an early render. Having the landing rockets up higher near the fuel tanks makes all kinds of sense: less intrusion into the crew cabin below, less excavation of regolith upon landing. For a 45 to 60-ton lander, exhaust excavation will probably become a serious issue (unlike the lighter landers that can just plop down on top of their engine bells)

even funnier when you realize it looks like a Bart Simpson.

I always wanted to do this, but didn't because I assumed it wasn't realistic - otherwise why didn't they try it in real life. I guess I assumed wrong!

Originally NASA didn’t have the money to select two concepts for the lander. Then afterwards the money was added back in and NASA was forced to award another contract. But NASA is still cash strapped, so who knows if they’ll actually able to afford two landers.

At least spacex has hardware under actual development. How much of the BO proposal is starting from scratch?

@@Hibbidyhai It's my understanding that the Artemis missions through Artemis V are funded by Congress. So HLS Starship does 2 and Blue Moon does 1. Further Artemis missions from Artemis VI onward, have to be funded. IF China decides to not go to the Moon, I can see Congress pulling funding. IF China is going to the Moon, I don't see Congress not making sure Artemis is there too. Especially since Artemis is a multi-national program, so cutting Artemis loses face for America. Not something some in DC would care about though.

@@TheEvilmooseofdoom Blue has hardware in development. Some of which is not as far as long as NASA would have liked for Artemis III under HLS Option A. With the Appendix P contract for Artemis V, that may slide further than NET 2029 with Artemis III and iV expected to be delayed, Blue has some time to work things out. Bezos said that he wanted to speed up Blue Origin development, so this will be the time to show that, if he can.

They didn't want to only select SpaceX. just that there was no MONEY available for anything else.

In HLS Option A, the Alpaca was too heavy to fly. In Appendix P, it had more problems than the Blue Moon lander. NASA really likes the low-slung Alpaca, so if they had been closer in development, NASA may have picked Alpaca instead. Maybe Dynetics can pick up one or more CLPS contracts for delivering cargo to the Moon.

@@steveaustin2686 Well considering New Glenn has not even launched, I fail to see how they can have something ready before SpaceX, I thought SLS or some other rocket would initially be launching their lander initially anyway.

@@nzoomed NASA wanted 2 landers for the HLS Option A contract, but the 2020 Congress gave NASA ~1/4 the funding. Otherwise, if NASA had got the HLS Option A funding that they wanted, the Blue Origin ILV would already be the second lander. This Appendix P competition was NASA getting the second lander that they wanted in the first place. SpaceX was the top bid in HLS Option A, so they are doing the Artemis III landing and the Artemis IV landing under the HLS Option B contact. The Appendix P contract for Blue is for the Artemis V mission. So hopefully SpaceX will have flown the HLS Starship 3 times to the Moon before Blue has to fly their lander twice. Both Blue and Dynetics were going to use the Vulcan Centaur for HLS Option A, as it was supposed to be flying this year anyway. Both of those HLS Option A landers would have multiple launches to get the landers to the Moon. The Vulcan Centaur is 5.4m in diameter and the new Blue Moon lander is almost 7m, so Vulcan Centaur may not have a fairing for it. The New Glenn is 7m in diameter, so it is planned to fly their lander. NG is supposed to fly in 2024 and if it does, it should be ready in time for Artemis V in 2029. The NASA IG is expecting the Artemis III mission to slide into at least 2026 and Artemis IV to slide out of 2028, so Artemis V could slide as well.

Give it 10 year. Maybe 15 now that Boeing is here. You know Blue Origin is no good either and they plan to launch it in New Glen rocket so give it another 3 years.

Yes, in a crying Jeff bozos designed nuclear-powered craft of any type !!

Scheledued for 2029. Honestly, i have a feeling they have a better chance of making it, than starship making it for Artemis 4 in 2028

@@_mikolaj_ how does that make any sense. Starship already flown and Blue origin lander and the rocket to transport it doesn't even exist yet. And considering Blue origin and Boeing recent reputation on accomplishing their time goal BE-4 engine and Starliner..

@@LeftOverMacNCheese beacuse BO has made a lot more progress in developing New Glenn, and many of Lunar lander elements, than spacex has with starship. Sure spacex did launch an outdated abomination to catch investors, but imo it just shows how immature starship program is at the moment.

I actually thought it had engines at the top and the radiators were shields protecting the craft from the plume. The top makes more sense in terms of not digging a crater.

NASA has $3.5 billion that they’ll pay for that!

@@gasdive did the Apollo missions dig craters?

@@gasdive Oh, I WAS playing KSP, btw! So take that under advisement! 😁

@@icaleinns6233 I'm beginning to suspect that there's a lot of spitballing happening in Kerbal these days. Like "what if we tried this?"

Agreed, Starship for Artemis 3, Blue Origin Lander for Artemis 4+, refueling at an international lunar gateway station - I love how messy everything is. Variety and competition is gonna help so much in the long run.

The moon should NOT be a bloody trading post for private enterprise … One faction within America is already privatizing another celestial body with neoliberal capitalism on behalf of the whole planet. Tell them NO Try searching anything from economist Michael Hudson or critiques of neoliberal ideology and you’ll get a sense perhaps for why some people like me are so steamed.

China and India are In the race. Europe ... Let's not talk about it.

75% of all known asteroids are carbonaceous, so I'm wondering if they might find carbon under the Moon's surface, and might be able to synthesize methane from carbon and hydrogen. Perhaps not though. The carbonaceous asteroids are clustered toward the outer edge of the main belt where the sun's heat doesn't affect them too much.

@@eekee6034 The one thing we don't actually have is a good survey of what is and is not actually available on the moon.. on IN the moon.

​@timemachine194 The most important metric is cost per mission.

@timemachine194 Really? Last I checked, the mission barely got back to NRHO with the "baseline" payload (which is the same for both). Having a high dry mass, low Isp fuel and a all-up design does that.

@timemachine194 Well, the HLS concept mission, to be precise. Numerical analysis of it.

I like Starship for its potential, but whenever I see it pictured on the moon, I get worried about it falling over! :) Lower gravity changes the balance of forces in a landed vehicle in such a way that tall landers get somewhat more likely to fall over. It's not a huge effect, but Starship is very tall for a lander. It might be better if it had landing legs in the style of the Falcon 9. As pictured, I think it'll need active landing gear to have any chance of staying upright, though I am, of course, making assumptions about the center of mass. Perhaps there will be a lot of propellant low down.

@timemachine194 Misleading indeed, yes! :)

Very interesting possibility! I hope you're right. Exhaust excavation will probably be a problem with such a massive lander. Unless they clear and sinter a landing pad ahead of time...

It's Boeing and Blue Origin. That means 12 years from now they will still be trying to launch this thing with buggy software and stuck valves.

While I like Alpaca and NASA evidently loves the low-slung Alpaca design, Dynetics has apparently had a lot of problems making it work. It was too heavy to fly in the HLS Option A competition and had more problems than Blue Moon in the Appendix P competition per both Source Selection Statements. Hopefully, it will be like Dream Chaser and get a cargo mission for futher development. The Commercial Lunar Payload System (CLPS) program is for cargo delivery to the Moon, so maybe the Alpaca can get a CLPS contract or two. Forgot to mention that Alpaca was using hyrogen as well.

How would it get pelted? Things tend to move away from the source of pressure, not towards.

@@TheEvilmooseofdoom Yes, but some of the rocks will bounce off each other or the ground and go off in unexpected directions. (Look at the papers on the weird plume shapes from the DART impact, for example. Also consider why an upright pressurized bottle can jump upward from a solid surface when its lid is opened.) Also, a small portion of the expanding gas will expand upward, even if most of it goes sideways, and carry a few rocks that way.

It does, but i feel i need some data on how serious hydrogen embritlement really is.

@@ravener96 From what I know, that risk is seriously overblown in most discussions. Its extremely cold nature is the main problem when considering material interactions

​@@HalNordmann I happened to be looking at gas pumps today, the company had an entire line dedicated to H2 pumping. Just using different materials and such to resist it. So it's not a new thing and solutions are out there

Thermal/structural spacecraft engineer here. It’s not that serious of a problem.

the forces and stresses involved with moon landing/takeoff are not comparable to a vehicle taking off from Earth. This will lessen maintenance needs a lot

@@marcogenovesi8570on the other hand, lunar dust will probably increase maintenance, due to just how destructive it can be

I think you're talking about the Falcon 9 which uses RP-1 that burns a lot dirtier than methane. Though, I don't know all the details of turning a falcon 9 booster around between launches.

I agree with your point, I think while it's the ultimate goal to have reusable landers it's just too big of a challenge right now. A big part of reusability is inspections, as well as of course maintenance. Doing that in space is currently nearly impossible, as it requires developing a lot of capabilities that are still in their infancy. Things like the Hubble servicing missions were a training ground and many more will be needed before they can land a Starship on the Moon, launch it back to lunar orbit, refuel it, then safely land it again with crew. For now they will likely be used only once. Although I can see them eventually landing them for a second time uncrewed to provide extra storage or habitation space for a lunar base. In other words a particular Starship would land at a lunar base with crew, then launch back to lunar orbit with the same or a different crew, then land back at the base uncrewed to be used for other purposes. Inspecting the vehicle while in lunar orbit won't be as critical since the second landing would be without crew. Reusable cargo landers will likely come first, although I suspect the early versions of cargo landers will also be expendable, they will just land with their cargo and remain on the lunar surface. Eventually they are going to have quite a rocket garden on the Moon!

@@marcogenovesi8570 IT is even less than about half what it takes for Mars.

@@timemachine1944 Hey Elon. Read a history book for once. Apollo 11 almost ran out of fuel trying to avoid rocks.

And the solution is to angle them the right way. Look at the angle of the Space Shuttle Main Engines … they are not along the shuttle , but point roughly through the combined shuttle/fuel tank centre of mass, which means no angular momentum. That is also how you make a single booster for a rocket work.

Yeah and Dynetics fixed the problems they got dinged for in the first one and have a more mature design now with tested methane engines and methane rcs

It's still fine. You can land. Might be a bit tricky but offset thrust is nothing new. You would just come in at an angle, kinda like an aircraft in heavy cross wind, straighten out as the wheels/landing legs touch. Plus you can always shut the engine a second or two early and use RCS on the way down to land upright. It's the moon a few seconds won't accelerate it that much. But yeah, Space Shuttle had a super duper offset thrust vector. The center of mass was in the ET just around where the tank and orbiter connect. It's why the engine are offset so much. They fire through the center of mass of the stack, not the Shuttle itself. Similarly with 1/3 out you'd have them angled a little. Starship sometimes lands with 2/3 engines to. I believe SN15 landed on two engines and they tried some on one.

What about RCS? Wouldn't that be able to counteract the rotation?

@@user-lv7ph7hs7l no you couldn’t you would just crash and burn because the thrust vector wouldn’t go through your cg inducing a spin and making it completely uncontrollable.

Increasing trust by 40% do not mean increase payload by 40% Yes this would inproove paylaod but but not more than a few % (To get this result they need to increse trust and propelent )

not enough, SpaceX has already produced engines for 150 tonnes.

Funny thing is, one "Space Tug - lander derivative" concept from the 70s looks pretty much exactly alike

Dynetics already had this concept a few years ago and threw it out in favor of alpaca. Those people then were scouted and blue pulled them and surprise suprise blue has the same layout as the Dynetics tiger team design

streamlining is useless on the Moon.

I think SpaceX wants to test as much of the whole system (Super Heavy & Starship) as possible. I wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX went all the way to orbit on this next one and brought it down after 3 orbits a la John Glenn in 1962…

@@TraditionalAnglican I suspect they'll stay with their original flight plan until they succeed at it. No point in adding yet another problem by trying for full orbits.

You mean that it would be... unfortunately this ain't it.

​@@schmetterling4477 🙄 There were 3 serious bids for the Artemis lander and they finished in this order; SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics. Since NASA wanted 2 landers, that means that SpaceX and Blue Origin are the top 2, so they got the contracts.

@@steveaustin2686 How does the viability of a program follow from the fact that NASA is funding it? Besos hasn't launched as much as a fly into space, yet, but he has already crashed a human rated rocket hopper on Earth. Now he wants to fly people to the lunar surface? That's laughable.

@@schmetterling4477 🙄 Grumman had never been to space, yet they built the LM for Apollo. Blue at least has experience with crew and propulsive landings. Yes, their NS3.9 booster blew an engine, but the science capsule aborted safely. They have never lost a payload. It's not only Blue Origin though. The initial National Team was Blue Origin (descent stage), Lockheed Martin (ascent stage), Northrop Grumman (transfer stage), and Draper (avionics). The new team with one lander stage, is Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Draper. All companies with long histories in aerospace. Although Boeing shot themselves in the foot with the McDonnell-Douglas merger in the late 90s, so now they have to rebuild their reputation. Yes, Blue has historically, a LONG, SLOW development cycle. In the end, they make good equipment, based on the New Shepard. ULA likes the BE-4, although they wish they had it years ago. I like SpaceX. They are the top of the launch game and have done things as a new company that others did not. But tribalism just blinds you to reality. Blue has the more straight forward technical problem, but long dev cycles. SpaceX has short dev cycles, but the more challenging technical problem. SpaceX had the better bid, which is why they won the first contract. Blue beat out Dynetics in both bids, so they got the second contract. No shenanigans needed. And Blue has to perform, as all the lander contracts are firm, fixed-price contracts. So any cost overruns are on Blue, NOT NASA. Just like Boeing has been paying for the Starliner fixes, as the Commercial Crew contracts are also firm, fixed-price contracts.

@@steveaustin2686 You are clearly triggered by the fact that Besos is faltering in his efforts to compete with Elon Musk. And you want me to buy that you are not a tribal fanboy? Dude. Let's get real here. ;-)

The upside is that a case of the worms can make you a better person.

You're not looking forward to space nachos??

That's my first thought, too. The moon rotates once a month and the first missions are to the south pole.

It cannot

If there's enough propellant, it could rise, rotate, and land again. It hardly has to rise, but I'm sure it'll be more efficient to just increase the solar panel area.

I was curious if maybe the radiators and solar panels would be rigged at the top in such a way that they can rotate - but that still wouldn't address the fact that for a week or so every month the month the sun would be blazing in directly through the windows

@@minikawildflower The windows have shields, similar to those on the ISS.

That concept was pretty much just their variant of the NASA "Reference" design. Did exactly what was asked of it, and nothing more.

*since *their *too *their *theirs *its

The starship HLS is not reusable either tho

@@originalmin And with its concept of operations, it is unlikely to be reusable on the future

​@harbingerdawn and no one cares.

​@originalmin If I remember correctly, it's planned for at least two missions. The starship lander should be reusable for multiple missions in theory only requiring refueling. If full reusablity isn't in the cards for any of these missions eventually funding will be cut and will end up like Apollo.

You know subscribing to a channel helps with this.

I think Spacex will sweep the landing site with a starship touch and land the real starship after the dust has settled.

I don't imagine the moon's surface would have enough variation that one leg would sink substantially more than others, but it looks like there are some quite large "feet" on each leg that would distribute the load. They already need to make the legs extend/retract to be stowed for launch, so I would expect that they'd just use the same mechanism to adjust each leg to keep the rocket level upon landing.

Why would it fall over? SX SS is bottom heavy. This BO lander looks way more difficult to balance.

@@agerrgerra1361 It isn't just a matter of sinking, but also of slopes. If I recall correctly, if it landed at a similarly tilted slope as one of the Apollo landings, it would tip over

as shown by multiple impacts of landers and probes, the surface of the moon is not soft after all, it is mostly bassalt.

They built a reusable booster that autonomously lands and has done so nearly two dozen times.

@@michaeleddington5125 before it blew up and never flew again. Also that’s suborbital.

@@land_and_air1250 It’ll fly again, and being suborbital isn’t deal breaker. New Shepard is a proven vehicle and demonstrable of a viable program. If orbital is your qualifier, then we should have Vulcan launching this summer with BO engines.

​@@michaeleddington5125 Insiders like Ally Abrams are on record citing rampant technical debt (nerd speak for not addressing fundamental design problems) and toxic environment causing in-demand talent to leave. ULA Vulcan is now over 4 years behind waiting for Be-4 and still has yet to complete its first test flight. I would think they need to show they can perform before dropping a bunch of public money that will probably just be diverted to complete their private contracts or declare bankruptcy without ever providing a completed solution to anything.

@@gregmarsters2434 Mmkay

There is hope to refuel it with ice from the lunar surface. I am a bit skeptical about the amounts of water and difficulty obtaining it, but it if works it can save Billions in refueling launches from Earth.

Yeah it doesn’t make sense. The Dynetics bid has the same total mass as BO for at least as good performance and better performance if Bo needs the Tug to make a rendezvous with the gateway(same payload capacity too)

@@nikolatasev4948 ok fair, I hadn’t thought through ISRU. Still going to be really tough.

It was too fat to get into orbit though. Didn't have the delta V for the mission. It's like saying you like your cars seats but the engine is busted.

@@user-lv7ph7hs7l Did you catch the interview with Dynetics done by Angry Astronaut about a year or so back? It went thoroughly into this. Basically, their original bid was based on what could be done within a short time frame. They also said that the design would be considerably improved - to the point of being able to start from Earth orbit, land on the moon, return to lunar orbit and then refuel. In any case, my question to Scott had more to do with whether the BO lander might be able to angle the thrust well away from the vertical - which is going to be necessary given the nozzles are so close to the surface. I'm not sure a kerbal mockup has that freedom of design.

Says you about the only guy in the game who is up to orbit and back, currently. Three trips on one long weekend just ended.

​@@dennyoconnor8680 Are you seriously not aware the ULA, NASA and Roskosmos exist? Musk is not special because SpaceX can get to low earth orbit. He is "special" because he is the only guy who promised he would get to mars by 2022 and land humans on mars by 2024 (in 4 Starships!). He also promised to fly around the moon by 2018. So far, he had 1 test, which exploded before it made it to orbit while losing 8+ engines in flight. He will be lucky to get another test this year. Things are not looking good. Oh, and he was also supposed to get robo-taxis working by 2018, because self driving is a "solved problem". And solar roofs, and hyperloop tunnels, and Twitter "everything app".. I don't know, he makes up so much shit, it's kind of hard to keep track. So, to summarize: Elon has a well documented history of overpromising and then failing to deliver. This is a fact.

Nuclear Thermal wants hydrogen, Nuclear electric wants xenon.

to add to what Scott said, solid core nuclear reactors can't generate as high temperature as chemical reactions can, so in order to achieve higher efficiency they need the lightest exhaust particles possible, which is molecular hydrogen. chemical rockets' lightest exhaust particle is water molecules, which is why hydrogen-oxygen is the theoretically most efficient propellent

Goes back to LEO where its refueled by 2 or 3 NG launched tankers and heads back out to NRHO for the next mission

@@odysseyvoyager2354 Since to go back to LEO would require massive dV or aerobraking with robust heatshield, I think that would be impossible. I thought they would just discard it, but I don't think they've mentioned it, at all.

I'm sure that mod is based on the best data available, but also they might want to keep the poly count from getting too high. So I'd answer your question with "probably, but not definitely."

"Immensely complex and high risk"

It was mainly about the number and size of refueling flights. This thing needs only about 2 refuels per mission (so a total of 3 flights, same as their ILV) - the SpaceX one needs 16 of them, on a superheavy launch vehicle to boot.

Blue Origin rocket: still not ready Blue Origin engines: still not ready Blue Origin lander: still just fancy marketing posters how many years has it been now? still hasn't put Anything in orbit.

Good for BO. They need to innovate and they’re starting to do so.

@mdscott6...How many laps does Starship have again?

​@@SoloRenegadesomeone tell this guy that its normal to do things indoors where people cant see it. And that ironically the "posters" kinda show the reality of things with HLS

@@_mikolaj_ yeah, and it's also normal to actually deliver working product on schedule too. how many other rocket startups have already flown and are even flying customer payloads? BO has been around how long and has YET to standup a rocket capable of orbit. They are years behind schedule and contributed to the downfall of a partner company. Children make concept art that looks realistic online. where is the actual hardware?

Ammonia is about five times as heavy per hydrogen atom as H2, meaning methalox or even kerolox would be the more sensible option at that point.

@@michielwesselingh661 Or for that matter, burning the ammonia with the oxygen directly. I estimate the effective isp of an ammonia carrier hydrolox system at about 300s. Ammonia rockets can supposedly do about 340s in vacuum, plus you wouldn't need to carry the mass of the cracking system and associated power generation and heat rejection.

That would call for a source of nitrogen as well.

They didn’t underestimate it’s _cost_, they simply bid the lowest. Important distinction. The Starship programme as a whole is obviously going to cost a lot more than what would ever have been allocated by NASA.

SpaceX could under bid a fair bit, because they were already planning to make most (if not all) of these technologies. So it's virtually a "free" $3B. Their only commitment addition is "having" to go to the moon (and develop a lander specific to that). NASA gains a vehicle that can potentially land 100's of tonnes of materials on the planet. Something that'll greatly enhance any base building efforts. But you stay salty