Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions

[Warren Platts]

You can't refuel a disposable descent stage.

You could do a single stage storable lander, ...

If used as an orbital transfer vehicle, even a two stage lander could then be refueled as well, but that's not the main point.

I'm afraid I don't understand. I thought the way a 2-stage lander works is that the descent module is left on the surface of the Moon.

The reason they would prefer a single stage lander is not that it could be refueled per se, but so it could be reused for several missions, thus reducing the per mission cost.

Presumably, they looked at single-stage storable landers and concluded that the IMLEO was ridiculously large and so was not cost-effective.

Clearly, their preferred option is for a pressurized, 2-man LH2/LO2 powered lander. They think this could be developed for $0.5B and that this cost is acceptable. The open question is whether the boiloff issues can be managed.

As noted above, we studied two lander propulsion variants. The cryogenic propulsion option (studied by original study team member Jeffrey Greason and modified by lead author James R. French for payload consistency) considered two possibilities for propellants: liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen/liquid methane. While the engines were not specifically detailed, the PWR RL‐10 was taken as the model. The oxygen hydrogen version was assumed to deliver 445 seconds Isp while the methane version is assumed to deliver 355 seconds Isp. (Operation of the RL‐10 using methane was demonstrated a number of years ago and the throttling capability has been demonstrated as well.)

Our goal here was to develop a conceptual single‐stage liquid fueled reusable Lander/ascent vehicle in the hope that, as the system matures, an advanced version of the lander could be resupplied with propellant in low lunar orbit and reused for several missions, reducing permission recurring cost. One of the major concerns of both cryogenic options, but particularly the LH2 fueled concept, is the time in LLO awaiting the arrival of the crew. Minimization of propellant boiloff will be essential. This may be the major argument in favor of the LCH4 concept and still more so for the fully storable concepts discussed below. More study is required.

[mmeijeri]

I'm afraid I don't understand. I thought the way a 2-stage lander works is that the descent module is left on the surface of the Moon.

Or even crashed into it. But I was talking about secondary use as an orbital transfer vehicle, say from L1/L2 to LLO, SEL1/2, a NEO or to GEO. Pretty much anywhere in the Earth moon system, except for LEO, which would be possible but very expensive.

The reason they would prefer a single stage lander is not that it could be refueled per se, but so it could be reused for several missions, thus reducing the per mission cost.

That's one reason, but until they have ISRU it will not make much of a difference cost-wise. The operational advantage of refueling is to relieve mass limitations. Dry mass isn't much of a problem with existing launchers or upper stages used as an EDS. Another advantage would be the possibility of reducing cost to orbit through fierce competition between small vehicles.

Presumably, they looked at single-stage storable landers and concluded that the IMLEO was ridiculously large and so was not cost-effective.

It turns out it isn't in fact ridiculously large if you use 3.2 km/s routes to L1/L2. I do wonder if they considered those.

Clearly, their preferred option is for a pressurized, 2-man LH2/LO2 powered lander. They think this could be developed for $0.5B and that this cost is acceptable. The open question is whether the boiloff issues can be managed.

That's not clear to me at all. I thought they were trying to decide between solids + hypergolics vs LOX/methane, with LOX/LH2 not even being in the picture except as a fond hope for the future.

[pippin]

Ummh. How exactly do you _reuse_ it, when you can't _refuel_ it?

[mmeijeri]

Ummh. How exactly do you _reuse_ it, when you can't _refuel_ it?

You can't. But if it hasn't crashed into the surface and isn't stuck in a place where you don't have refueling, then you could refuel and reuse it. The point I was trying to make is that even just fueling, not refueling would be very useful.

[Bill White]

Ummh. How exactly do you _reuse_ it, when you can't _refuel_ it?

If "it" is modular, then GS could reuse portions of its lander.  Attach plug & play NOFBX propulsion to a fully reusable crew module.

Deliver plug & play NOFBX propulsion units via 100 day efficient trajectories.

[pippin]

Ummh. How exactly do you _reuse_ it, when you can't _refuel_ it?

If "it" is modular, then GS could reuse portions of its lander.  Attach plug & play NOFBX unobtainium propulsion to a fully reusable crew module.

Deliver plug & play NOFBX unobtainium propulsion units via 100 day efficient trajectories.

Fixed that for you.

@mmeijeri
Sorry, I didn't mean to answer to you but to Warren Platts who wrote it should not be refuelable but only reusable.

[mmeijeri]

Fixed that for you.

Yeah, that was a gratuitous insertion of technology that isn't yet operational. But you could do the same thing with hypergolics so the general point stands: you could reuse a hab even if you threw away a propulsion stage. And even if you did reuse the transfer stage as well, you would probably want to replace it after a few times, because servicing it in space is probably too ambitious for now.

So reuse of the hab doesn't strictly require refueling. However, you would still be faced with mass limitations, so if the hab is large enough you would still want propellant transfer as well. And since it's available and desirable, I don't see a good reason to avoid it.

Another form of secondary reuse would be to make use of the descent stage or some of its subsystems on the surface. In the more distant future you could even recycle its materials.

[Warren Platts]

The reason they would prefer a single stage lander is not that it could be refueled per se, but so it could be reused for several missions, thus reducing the per mission cost.

That's one reason, but until the have ISRU it will not make much of a difference cost-wise. The operational advantage of refueling is to relieve mass limitations. Dry mass isn't much of a problem

Huh? When dry mass costs $50,000 or $100,000 per kilogram to manufacture, it definitely is a problem. Why send a brand new lander every mission when you can use one, single lander for 20 missions?!?

Presumably, they looked at single-stage storable landers and concluded that the IMLEO was ridiculously large and so was not cost-effective.

It turns out it isn't in fact ridiculously large if you use 3.2 km/s routes to L1/L2. I do wonder if they considered those.

They may not have, considering that once you get to L1/L2, you still have another 2.5 km/s to go to get to Lunar surface, and then another 2.5 km/s to get back to your crew capsule. Thus, 3.2 + 2.5 + 2.5 = 8.3 km/s which tends to result in ridiculously large IMLEO and thus not turn out to be cost effective.

Clearly, their preferred option is for a pressurized, 2-man LH2/LO2 powered lander. They think this could be developed for $0.5B and that this cost is acceptable. The open question is whether the boiloff issues can be managed.

That's not clear to me at all. I thought they were trying to decide between solids + hypergolic vs LOX methane with LOX/LH2 not even being in the picture except as a fond hope for the future.

I'm afraid you're projecting your own personal biases into your reading of the intended meaning. Other things being equal, a reusable LH2/LO2 lander is obviously the best choice because of: (a) it's reusable; and (b) much better mass margins that might allow, for example, a rover? Because if they're there for only 2 days and forced to go on foot, they won't be able to cover much ground.

And if they can't afford an extra $200M to develop it when the entire project costs $7.5B, they'll never get off the ground anyways.

So that leaves the problem of whether boiloff can be managed or not. They clearly believe that is an open question at this point. "More study is required" were their exact words.

[Warren Platts]

Ummh. How exactly do you _reuse_ it, when you can't _refuel_ it?

What I said was that the entire point of refueling is that it allows reusability. . . . 

[mmeijeri]

Huh? When dry mass costs $30,000 per kilogram to manufacture, it definitely is a problem. Why send a brand new lander every mission when you can use one, single lander for 20 missions?!?

Because you would need much, much more propellant. That's why I said you would need ISRU first to make this worthwhile. Then again, if FH does achieve its intended price level, then the balance could also swing in favour of reuse. At today's launch prices and without ISRU I'd expect it to be a wash cost-wise.

They may not have, considering that once you get to L1/L2, you still have another 2.5 km/s to go to get to Lunar surface, and then another 2.5 km/s to get back to your crew capsule. Thus, 3.2 + 2.5 + 2.5 = 8.3 km/s which tends to result in ridiculously large IMLEO and thus not turn out to be cost effective.

Don't forget that the first 3.2 km/s can be done using LOX/LH2 even without cryogenic refueling.

I'm afraid you're projecting your own personal biases into your reading of the intended meaning. Other things being equal, a reusable LH2/LO2 lander is obviously the best choice because of: (a) it's reusable; and (b) much better mass margins that might allow, for example, a rover? Because if they're there for only 2 days and forced to go on foot, they won't be able to cover much ground.

Heh, I think you're the one who's projecting. For starters, other things are definitely not equal. They consider storage a problem even for methane (but note that this too would be easier at L1/L2 than in LLO!), let alone for LOX/LH2.

While it may be obvious to you and your spreadsheets that LH2/LO2 is non-viable, these guys are not quite so enlightened yet.

I didn't say LOX/LH2 is unviable, just that it wasn't practical for a near-term commercial effort. And for the record: I believe that LOX/methane is viable, just less practical on balance for near-term efforts.

[mmeijeri]

Heh, it looks as if you increased your hardware cost / kg to further your case! 

[Warren Platts]

When dry mass costs $30,000 $50,000 or $100,000 per kilogram to manufacture, it definitely is a problem. Why send a brand new lander every mission when you can use one, single lander for 20 missions?!?

Because you would need much, much more propellant.

I'm sorry, but this is just not true: on Table 5, the 2-man, pressurized LH2/LO2 lander uses 4801 kg of propellant.

On the other hand, according to Table 9, the 1-man, unpressurized, 2-stage, storable lander uses up 7623 kg of mass to get back to LLO, and the 2-person, pressurized version uses up 10,646 kg. Note these are 2-stage vehicles. That cannot be fully reused, Bill White's comment that you can reuse the ascender stage notwithstanding. You make these single stage, and the numbers go up by who-knows-how-much more. And of course all this mass has to be multiplied back to LEO to get the IMLEO.

Bottom line: if the boiloff can be managed, LH2/LO2 wins hands down....

[Warren Platts]

Heh, it looks as if you increased your hardware cost / kg to further your case! 

Honestly, how much do you think a human rated lander is going to cost? $30K/kg is almost certainly an underestimate.

[mmeijeri]

I'm sorry, but this is just not true: on Table 5, the 2-man, pressurized LH2/LO2 lander uses 4801 kg of propellant.

I meant a reusable lander would need much more propellant than an expendable one using the same propellant combination, not that a reusable cryogenic one would need much more than an expendable storable one. The cost of reuse is higher if you use lower Isp and the benefits are greater the more expensive your hardware is. Similarly, lower launch costs and / or ISRU favour reuse.

But I'm not arguing against reuse, indeed to the degree it is possible within the same budget I'm in favour of it, since it would mean a bigger market for propellant launches even if it didn't save you any money in total. You would be trading lander construction costs against launch costs, and I believe concentrating spending on launch is preferable. If in addition you can save money too, even better.

All I'm saying is that we don't need full reuse or even any reuse to make propellant transfer worthwhile. If we can get reuse too, so much the better.

Bottom line: if the boiloff can be managed, LH2/LO2 wins hands down....

We're all agreed on that and have been for a long time.

[mmeijeri]

Honestly, how much do you think a human rated lander is going to cost? $30K/kg is almost certainly an underestimate.

I don't know, I'm sure it'll cost a pretty penny. Bear in mind that even with a reusable lander, you'll still have to keep facilities and qualified staff around. This is similar to the problem with RLVs which need high flight rates to be economical. I just mentioned your price upgrade because I found it amusing.

[A_M_Swallow]

The transfer stage will either require a modified Centaur or a clean sheet cryo LOX + either LH2 or LNG.  I think single-engine Centaurs can be adapted for about $200M, requiring mainly a tank stretch or the add-on tank that has been discussed.  You'd have to make sure that LM didn't overcharge for the modifications, and that would be tricky.  (AFAIK, LM/CLS and not ULA would have to provide the Centaurs, since ULA can only sell to the gov't, not to commercial firms.)

They did mention the Methane option for the transfer stage. Is there any Methane engine from an USA company in existence (I think not) or would this be the engine announced by Elon Musk? Could this engine be ready in that time frame? Seems short for me, especially to the level for manned flight.

Back in May Masten Space started test firing its Katana 3500 lbf engine.
http://masten-space.com/2012/05/21/katana-first-fire

NASA JSC commissioned Armadillo Aerospace to develop a methane engine for the Pixel lander.  The latest version can produce 4200 lbf, Isp 321 s.

A transfer tug would need 4 or 5 of these engines to match the thrust of an RL10.

[Warren Platts]

The transfer stage will either require a modified Centaur or a clean sheet cryo LOX + either LH2 or LNG.  I think single-engine Centaurs can be adapted for about $200M, requiring mainly a tank stretch or the add-on tank that has been discussed.  You'd have to make sure that LM didn't overcharge for the modifications, and that would be tricky.  (AFAIK, LM/CLS and not ULA would have to provide the Centaurs, since ULA can only sell to the gov't, not to commercial firms.)

They did mention the Methane option for the transfer stage. Is there any Methane engine from an USA company in existence (I think not) or would this be the engine announced by Elon Musk? Could this engine be ready in that time frame? Seems short for me, especially to the level for manned flight.

Back in May Masten Space started test firing its Katana 3500 lbf engine.
http://masten-space.com/2012/05/21/katana-first-fire

NASA JSC commissioned Armadillo Aerospace to develop a methane engine for the Pixel lander.  The latest version can produce 4200 lbf, Isp 321 s.

A transfer tug would need 4 or 5 of these engines to match the thrust of an RL10.

A methane version of the RL-10 has been tested (but not flown) as they mentioned in their paper. If they go with CH4, they'll probably simply go with the RL-10 IMHO.

[JohnFornaro]

This, if true, bothers me because it indicates a non-inhouse integrator company that hires other companies to do all the development and hardware manufacture. There are inherent cost increases to the hiring out of ~30% more in costs. So if this is an indication of their business structure, it has some significant managerial and contracting challenges.

In other words this would be like a NASA surrogate organization streamlined for a narrow focus and goal. It would not represent the cheapest this could be done for with a new space policy of "we do the concept and build the hardware ourselves" vs. an old space policy of "we do the concept someone else buids the hardware".

I totally agree. This was the approach taken by Kistler, with their contractors eating their lunch (launch :-). If I had $1.4B lying around, I wouldn't pay another company to launch me to the Moon. I would start my own company, SpaceX style, and hire engineers to design and construct the needed elements. The carrot of working on a Lunar landing program would induce a lot of good engineers to come work for you (including pinching a lot of engineers from existing aerospace companies). This means I won't pay $100M for Lunar spacesuits and systems. I would pay $10M or less for suits and systems we made ourselves.

I kinda sorta agree.  Clearly, in this example, one would purchase launch services on the open market.  Suppose it takes a year from signing on the dotted line until launch date with SpaceX.  You simply couldn't roll your own in that time frame.  The same sort of approach might apply with space suits as well.

True, there's not much competition in the space suit tailoring industry, so they might very well charge you that high price, with the mutual understanding that you'd have to develop from the ground up if you wanted to make your own suits.  Also true, that should you decide to invest in a sewing machine, you might want to pinch some of those engineers with relevant experience.  Of course, that only could happen with substantially higher salaries.

You wouldn't need to recruit your total space suit tailoring department; many new hires could be right out of school, and come with some very good general skills.  They would need training and experience in how to wield a needle.  The personell trick is hiring away that person who has no only suit manufacturing and design skills, but also managerial and organizational skills to enable you to build your own suits from the ground up.  That person or those people would likely be bound by non-compete clauses, making your task to build space suits that much more complicated.

I don't know what the profit margin is on space suit manufacture.  Is it realistic to suppose that it is an order of magnitude above manufacturing costs?  That would play into your decision making process.

There's also time.  If you decided to make your own suits, how long would it take to start from an empty building, to having a half dozen tested suits on the rack, as it were?

As an aside off of the deep end, were you successful in this endeavor, you'd be able to consider my idea of replacing the rover with a pack animal.  Two mules (altho I like horses more), properly trained and equipped, could outpack, outrun, and outdistance the original lunar rover.  True, the run-in shed would be a massive thing to transport and sustain, since the animals would have to have a shirtsleeve environment for the mission duration.  With design experience in hand, and an "innovative" (loosely speaking) managerial structure, other ideas could be considered.  The "walk off" space suit design for landers and rovers could be standardized in some fashion, further reducing costs.

As an aside off of the shallow end, you'd have the ability to sell the suits on the open market, and this would change the space suit industry forever, as well as cover your development costs, and maybe even add some profit.

Backing up to Old Atlas' concern about the construction manager business model. I kinda agree, but at the same time, construction management is a viable business model.  If their executive knows how to manage all those sub-contractors, then why wouldn't the methodology work?

...The only things that are needed new would be the lander, surface suits and equipment and the transfer stage for crew and lander, which can be the same system, I think.  ...

So, do you think that the construction manager business model could achieve these goals?

In the GS paper, they assert that they can build a lander for $500M, by managing subcontractors.  Yet, in the halls of Congress, the general wisdom is that a lander would be prohibitively expensive, even as a copy of the LEM.  Which of these entities is correct?

Deliver plug & play NOFBX propulsion units via 100 day efficient trajectories.

I totally agree.  The barbeque grill and propane tank approach.  There is no pragmatic principled reason  why this would not work. [Edit:  The pragmatics and engineering of making a bottled hydrazine system work will remain.  But if you can consider a bottled H2/O2 system, you can certainly consider a hydrazine system.]

In time, H2/O2 landers would be designed, coordinated with the ice cracking plant.

Huh? When dry mass costs $30,000 per kilogram to manufacture, it definitely is a problem. Why send a brand new lander every mission when you can use one, single lander for 20 missions?!?

Because you would need much, much more propellant.

There's no way to avoid launching propellant from Earth for the first several years of building the infrastructure.  The lander has to, the way I see it, be re-usable.  So does the cis-lunar tug which goes from LEO to L1 or LLO. 

I think the cis-lunar tug might be able to use kerolox, which I think has got to be easier to transfer than even methane/LOX.

[HMXHMX]

If you stick with storables for the lander, I am certain it can be done for < $300M.

So little? I would have thought that the choice between LOX/methane and hypergolics would be a difficult one for a commercial endeavour, even though I strongly believe hypergolics would be the obvious choice for a NASA-led effort. But if it's so cheap, then hypergolics would be the obvious choice even for such a (partially) commercial endeavour.

The reason I thought it would be a difficult choice for a commercial organisation is that you would have to choose between the relative ease of developing a LOX/methane propulsion system and increased difficulty with transfer and storage vs more difficult propulsion development and easier refueling with hypergolics.

A large organisation like NASA could simply throw resources at it and choose the fastest option to refueling, which would be hypergolics. But for a smaller organisation those resources could be a big problem. That must be why XCOR is working with LOX/methane. So if you are going to use internal New Space development, LOX/methane would seem to be highly preferable, despite the difficulties with transfer and storage.

On the other hand, if GS are going to buy a lander, rather than develop it in house, there are more options. ULA for understandable reasons would prefer a purely LOX/LH2 one (their unique expertise after all), XCOR for equally understandable reasons would prefer LOX/methane, while SpaceX would choose hypergolics or perhaps methane.

I think most people will agree LOX/LH2 is not practical for a near-term commercial effort, even those who previously vociferously insisted any NASA lander had to be cryogenic for the sake of commercial spaceflight. So that leaves LOX/methane vs hypergolics. The Isp difference isn't that great, so the trade-off would be the flexibility of propellant transfer vs lower development costs for LOX/methane.

A company like XCOR could probably develop LOX/methane systems for a lot less money than a traditional aerospace company could using hypergolics.

Again, if you're NASA, that's not a problem because your business shouldn't be to promote the interests of XCOR, but those of manned spaceflight, so if someone else can deliver refueling capability sooner, well that's just tough luck for our friends at XCOR. But if you're GS, then it might make a lot of difference.

But if you're right, and SpaceX can do a simple hypergolic lander for less than $300M, then that's probably enough to settle the issue. And SpaceX has already demonstrated the use of hypergolics.

Time is money, and paying for the development team to wait around for propulsion to be done is the most expensive line item in a budget.  There are storable engines and tanks that are off-the-shelf (i.e., deliver times of <1 yr) for the size range needed for a lander, which is why I'd go that way, even though I don't want to deal with storables myself.

[mmeijeri]

Time is money, and paying for the development team to wait around for propulsion to be done is the most expensive line item in a budget.  There are storable engines and tanks that are off-the-shelf (i.e., deliver times of <1 yr) for the size range needed for a lander, which is why I'd go that way, even though I don't want to deal with storables myself.

Any ideas why they are looking at solids instead of AJ-10 / Aestus / Super Draco?