next moon lander to be named Altair; concept art

[Captain Intrepid]

Ronald Held said:
They were trying to be clever in naming, instead of making more effort to design an esthetic looking, not merely functional vehicle?

Who gives a fuck about what it looks like, so long as it works as effectively as possible?

 

[shipfisher]

It probably won't look exactly like the most common depiction of the Recent LSAM either, but you can bet it will still have a seperate descent stage they can jettison if that "built by the lowest bidder" thing crops up on the way down to the lunar surface.

I'm sure the single stage, fully re-useable model will follow once they start cooking regolith for fuel.

 

[flux_29]

looks a little vunruble having the gas tanks covered in gold mesh? but i remember hearing this one can hold 3 astronauts?

 

[Outpost4]

I believe it's four astronauts, actually. The CEV can take six to earth orbit or four to the moon. All would go down to the lunar surface, leaving the CEV unmanned.

 

[flux_29]

^ Unmaned! thats a bit stupid. best leave one up there i think.

 

[Outpost4]

It would even be more wasteful to send a man to the Moon and have him sit alone in orbit for two weeks waiting for his friends to return. It might also drive him crazy. This isn't San Quentin with solitary confinement. It was OK with Apollo because the time on the moon was only 3 days.

I'm sure NASA will have some sort of back up plan in case something happens to the CEV.

 

[flux_29]

I wonder when they will send the first habitation pod (or somthing) to the moon like this:

Found this aswell:
Link