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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
It sounds like a joke or the stuff of a children's fantasy novel: taking an elevator to the moon.
But that's how astronauts plan to get from their spaceship to the lunar surface, and back, in a few years when NASA returns to the moon for Artemis missions III and IV.
The elevator is part of SpaceX's Starship human landing system, which will not only carry two crew members to the moon but serve as their home for about a week while they explore the south pole, a dark and cold region where scientists believe water ice is buried in craters. The natural resource is coveted because it could supply drinking water, oxygen, and rocket fuel for future missions, ushering a new era in spaceflight.
NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug Wheelock recently tested a small mockup of the elevator — a crucial element to SpaceX's solution for getting humans from space to the moon's surface. This lift will be the portal from which the first woman and person of color step onto the moon.
[...] SpaceX's elevator will transport equipment and astronauts between Starship's living quarters, near the top of the lander, and the lunar surface, where astronauts will exit for moonwalks. The demonstration allowed Mann and Wheelock to interact with a flight-like design of the elevator system and provide feedback from a crew perspective.
During the test at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, the astronauts wore spacesuits to get a feel for the mobility challenges they'll face on their journey. For Artemis III, the crew will wear new advanced spacesuits being developed by Axiom Space. They practiced using the controls for the gate latches and ramp deployment, and they assessed the roominess for moving cargo.
As part of the deal, SpaceX will need to demonstrate a successful uncrewed test flight to the moon before Artemis III.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday December 28, @03:22AM (3 children)
There's a question that's been bothering me: Why don't they simply put the people at bottom of the rocket, under the fuel tanks, like the much smaller proposed Blue Origin lander does? That not only makes it much easier to get to the ground, it also means your unused propellant is acting as a radiation shield while you're parked on the surface.
It absolutely makes sense to have the payload at the top for launch vehicles that have an emergency escape system - you want that escape pod to have a clear escape route to blast free of the larger rocket. But for Starship there is no escape pod. And for HLS there's not even anywhere you could realistically escape to.
Other reasons I can think of are:
- You don't want propellant lines running through the payload compartment. Counterpoint: Starship already does that anyway for the header tanks needed for landing (and possibly whenever starting the engines in freefall, in order to settle the propellant in main tanks?)
- You're right next to the engines. That'll be loud, and if something explodes hard enough to breach the payload compartment you're dead instantly. Counterpoint: the engines are only going to be on for a few minutes, hearing protection exists, and if something breaches the propellant tank instead you're still just as dead, just a few moments later.
- The payload chamber would require extra reinforcing (and thus mass) to support the mass of tanks above. Counterpoint is that they already need to do exactly that for the skirt around the engines, which transmits the thrust from the SuperHeavy to Starship. And from a distance it doesn't seem to be dramatically greater than the reinforcements already needed to keep the payload bay from collapsing under reentry stress (granted, HLS can't do reentry anyway, so there would probably be greater mass savings)
- It's always been done that way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 28, @04:40AM (2 children)
Launch abort systems are easier to implement when you're further away from the bang with nothing in the way of your escape route. That's probably the design consideration driving this choice IMHO. I guess if you do get in a solar storm, you can ride the elevator down and shelter there?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday December 28, @02:52PM (1 child)
I addressed that in the second paragraph, before I even got to the potential reasons:
Starship has no ability to perform a launch abort. The passenger compartment is completely integrated into the second stage.
And HLS won't even have anywhere to abort *to* - you'd just be trading dying in the explosion for dying on the Moon's surface (via either suffocation of lithobraking depending on whether it happened at launch or landing). At least without a second HLS on standby in lunar orbit to rescue them, which doesn't seem to be in any current plans.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 29, @02:45AM
Yet. They do have a working launch abort system. And it won't always be flag and footprints missions.