Let's just throw this old thing at the Moon and call it a day:
A cargo container that was built to fly on NASA's space shuttles is being repurposed as a prototype for a deep space habitat.
Lockheed Martin announced it will refurbish the Donatello multi-purpose logistics module (MLPM), transforming from it from its original, unrealized role as a supply conveyor for the International Space Station to a test and training model of a living area for astronauts working beyond Earth orbit. The work is being done under a public-private partnership between the aerospace corporation and NASA.
"We are excited to work with NASA to repurpose a historic piece of flight hardware," said Bill Pratt, Lockheed Martin's program manager for the deep space habitat contract, in a statement.
Donatello was one of three MPLMs that was designed to fly in the space shuttle payload bay to transfer cargo to the station. Built by the Italian Space Agency under a contract with NASA, two modules, Leonardo and Raffaello, flew on 12 shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011.
Also at Popular Mechanics.
Previously: NASA and International Partners Planning Orbital Lunar Outpost
NASA Eyeing Mini Space Station in Lunar Orbit as Stepping Stone to Mars
Related: Moon Base Could Cost Just $10 Billion Due to New Technologies
Should We Skip Mars for Now and Go to the Moon Again?
Cislunar 1000 Vision - Commercializing Space
Forget Mars, Colonize Titan
Japan Planning to Put a Man on the Moon Around 2030
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 27 2017, @08:16PM
Ok, I think I see where you're coming from. SpaceX has gotten public funding for the Dragon capsule. But I heard that they didn't get public funding for development of the Falcon 1, Falcon 9, or Falcon Heavy rockets. What NASA and to a lesser extend the Department of Defense has done is pay amply for some payloads to orbit (including the Dragon capsule) which has indirectly helped to cover these costs of development.
NASA did a year 2011 analysis [nasa.gov] of SpaceX's approach in an appendix. Here is Appendix B in full:
In other words, using NASA's usual costing approach for contract bids, they would have come up with an amount ($4 billion) over ten times larger than what it cost SpaceX ($390 million) to develop three rocket engines (Merlin, Draco, and Kestrel), two rockets (Falcon 1 and Falcon 9), and paying for the first six or so launches (including failures). Even using a new proposed costing method (which to my knowledge still is not in use), they were able to reduce their costing to four times ($1.7 billion) the amount SpaceX actually spent.
This sure looks like running rings around NASA to me.