Moon Express: M1 Lunar Lander

[SquidInk]

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/moon-exp ... 2D11702824

A commercial space company has revealed the design of the lunar lander that it aims to send to the moon in 2015.

California-based Moon Express unveiled the blueprint and first images of its MX-1 lunar lander on Thursday in Las Vegas, during the last day of the Autodesk University computer-aided design conference. In addition to delivering payloads to the lunar surface, the coffee-table-sized MX-1 could also help service satellites, deploy tiny "cubesats" in Earth orbit and clean up space junk, company officials say.

"We really have tried to create a multifaceted, flexible and scalable spacecraft that can be utilized by other people for a number of different business applications," Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards told Space.com. [Countdown: Wildest Private Deep-Space Mission Ideas]

Moon Express designed the MX-1 from the ground up, Richards said. When fully fueled and ready for launch, it will weigh just 1,320 pounds (600 kilograms), with rocket fuel constituting more than 75 percent of the mass.

To make the lander so light, engineers employed composite materials and did away with the typical "bus," or structure that supports most spacecraft. Instead, the MX-1's fuel tanks serve as the structure, Richards said.

"With that, we got rid of a huge amount of mass," he said.

The MX-1's main rocket engine will burn hydrogen peroxide, though it also relies on kerosene as an afterburner to accelerate out of Earth orbit and head toward the moon.

The lander will be capable of delivering 132 pounds (60 kilograms) of payload to the lunar surface. Unlike the landers that NASA developed during the Apollo program, the craft has no legs; instead, it will land slowly and softly on one of its empty fuel tanks, whose collapsibility will cushion the blow.

Related:

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

http://www.space.com/23846-moon-express ... mages.html

http://www.space.com/18805-golden-spike ... aphic.html

http://www.space.com/10619-mining-moon- ... 10114.html

http://www.space.com/15416-asteroid-min ... iring.html

http://www.space.com/19368-asteroid-min ... tries.html

http://www.space.com/19981-private-mars ... -2018.html

[Riddick]

Conspiracy theorists have often stated that the moon landings were faked. But a select few take it further and are that the moon itself could be fake and simply a hologram. Let's get down to the theory!


Direct Link: https://youtu.be/gnEcJyjkYD4

[kbot]

OK, somebody's gotten into the peyote............(not that there's anything wrong with that )

Have these people forgotten about the multi-millennia's worth of data regarding the moon before holography came on the scene....?????