STUDY SUMMARY: Extended Duration Lunar Lander
 

Here's a study that went hand-in-glove with the FLO studies under the SEI program back in the early 90's. It's a breakdown of the systems and functioning of the Extended Duration Lunar Lander planned to be used as part of the First Lunar Outpost mission. It's basically a revival of the old pre-LOR "lunar direct ascent" method advocated by Von Braun and MSFC before Houbolt's "lunar orbit rendezvous" flight plan got traction and was finally adopted after Von Braun threw MSFC's weight behind it (despite JSC's objections, BTW).

This time imagine a skeletal gigantic lunar lander powered by four methane-burning RL-10's descending to land on the Moon, within walking distance of an ISS (then SSF) module landed atop a similar lander robotically a short distance away to serve as a reusable hab module for a 45 day stay on the lunar surface (2 lunar days and 1 lunar night). The descent stage's tanks supply fuel to the RL-10's which are actually connected to the ascent stage in the center of the landing stage, with their own (still sealed off) propellant tanks for lunar ascent and return to Earth. The central ascent stage, containing the landing and ascent engines and their own propellant tanks, is topped by a 6 meter diameter, 6 meter high "Super size Apollo" for four crew to land on the Moon and return to Earth (even a half-meter bigger than Orion!). The crew module would have two decks-- an upper command deck for liftoff from earth and TLI, a lower "hab deck" to live in on the way to and from the Moon, and after landing on the Moon (for up to 10 days on the surface if necessary, say if the hab crashed or wasn't launched or something). It was equipped with an airlock to eliminate the need to totally decompress the entire vehicle for entry/egress on all EVA's.

If the crew landed successfully near the ready hab module, they'd put their lander in a 'standby' state and then unload the cargo they brought with them and transfer it over to the Hab module lander for their 45 day stay on the Moon's surface. As the time to end the mission approached, they'd put the hab in standby mode, transfer back to their lander, and prepare it for takeoff. At liftoff, the inner ascent stage would take off from the lower descent/landing stage using the RL-10 engines used for landing, and propel itself back through TEI towards Earth, separating from the ascent stage a short time before reentry and landing back on land in the USA.

Of course the entire plan was predicated, just as it was in Von Braun's original "lunar direct" plan, on a Super-Heavy launch vehicle (Nova C-8 in Von Braun's original plans). FLO and EDLL would require a super HLLV rocket to achieve the flights, as discussed in other studies. This study did point out the advantages of using RL-10 engines adapted to burn methane instead of liquid hydrogen, as boiloff of hydrogen would be too high on a mission of that length, and methane was a preferred propellant for Mars missions (again, due to boiloff issues, and methane can be created on Mars from reacting Martian CO2 from the atmosphere with hydrogen brought from Earth in a Sabatier process reactor, or even from Martian-derived hydrogen electrolyzed from Martian water, if it is available).

Anyway, here's the summary and the pics... Enjoy!

OL J R

First pics...

Last pics... enjoy! OL J R :)

Luke,
thanks for posting these studies..always fascinating. Hard to believe the ol RL-10 is still in production....must be the Huey helicopter of rocket engines.

Yeah I read somewhere one time that the RL-10 is actually about as cheap as a helicopter engine if they're mass produced at full production capability...

Good to see you again... Been awhile!

Later! OL J R

sorry I have been a stranger...lots going on over here...primarily involving my daughter's wedding which is in less than 2 weeks...GULP!

Oh, FUN! LOL:) Something like that huh...

Yeah, me too... First Betty falls down the back steps on a wet morning going to feed the dog and fractures her elbow in two places, and all the joy that entails, then a week or two later mom went in the hospital for 9 days, I was home last week, then spent this past week up there 4 days taking her to doc appointments and stuff...

At least they're both on the mend now... Betty might have had to have surgery on her elbow but now she's just doing therapy, and Mom's on the mend.

It never ends... :)

Later! OL J R :)

That is terrible news Luke! the good news is that both seem to be on the mend. A fracture on 2 places? did they cast her? hoping that the therapy does the trick and she can avoid surgery! hoping everything with your mom is ok too!

Nope, no cast, per se... sling, and then a brace with limits on the hinges... she's moving it now...

It was really weird. Took her to the ER that morning, they X-rayed it, said "yep it's broke" and put her in a sling and sent her home with a Rx for happy pills. She had a follow-up with an orthopedic doc about a week later (??? seems like a long time to wait to me, but what do I know-- seems like all medical stuff now is "hurry up and wait!"). He sends her for a CAT scan, which takes several more days and basically another week before she gets back in for him to "review the findings". He tells her he's never seen one busted that bad on an adult-- chip of bone off the elbow, two fractures, ligaments totally torn off the bone, etc. He said, "Oh yeah, we're gonna have to do surgery-- but not here... we've never done one this bad... I'm sending you to an elbow specialist". So she calls the guy to make an appt., his secretary brusquely says "he doesn't see patients anymore" (Guess he's retired and she's just in charge of doling out people's records when they need them). She gets in touch with someone else and gets an appt. ANOTHER week later, so now it's like THREE weeks, and still the ONLY thing that the guy the ER doc referred her to was gripe how the ER SHOULD have splinted her, so he did a "soft cast" on her with some kind of wet-n-stick-til-it-hardens moldable removable stuff wrapped with an ace bandage... She made an appt. with the local bone-n-joint place (instead of in downtown Houston) for a second opinion. She went downtown, they did an MRI, and said, "nope, don't need surgery, just an articulated brace" and put her in one, and then physical therapy. She gets a copy of her CT scan and MRI for the other place's doc to look at, and drops it off. The other place calls her and moves her appt. back because the "CT scan isn't on the disk, just the MRI". She plays phone tag with the first bunch and they assure her it's on there, then a couple days later the other place goes "oopsies, we found it-- it was on there" and makes her an appt. Doc there says the same thing-- PT and the articulated brace, so she decides to do it all locally.

By this point it's been several weeks since she busted it and I'm like "WTF?" because heck by that time it's either healed up on its own or royally screwed up...

Oh well...

In other news, Keira made purple belt in her Kickstart Kids martial arts program at school...

Later! OL J R :)

Luke,
that is crazy....had they decided that she did in fact need surgery they would have had to re-break the elbow. I am hoping that she is progressing with the PT and the hinged brace. Is she having pain? loss of strength? And congrats to Kiera!! and from one dad to the other, enjoy the times with her..I am walking my daughter down the isle next Saturday June 3....still seems surreal.