keithl@vice.UUCP (Keith Lofstrom) (11/09/83)
The September 1983 "Acta Astronautica" (Pergamon Press, Elmsford, NY 10523,
$30/y for AIAA and AAS members) contains an article by Krafft Ehricke
describing the Slide Lander and the Drop Delivery systems for landing vehicles
on the Moon. These are systems intended to reduce the amount of waste gasses
and debris associated with lunar landings. Ehricke is well known among the
space community for his inventive new ideas, and these are no exception...
The Slide Lander puts bulldozer-like blades on the bottom of the vehicle,
which skids to a stop on a 100 Km long runway on the flat sandy surface of a
lunar mare. The vehicle's kinetic energy heats up and scatters the sand; the
vehicle slows from 1700 m/s at up to 2.4 gees. Ehricke assumes the blades
pick up a protective layer of sand, which keeps them from melting. Surface
features like small hills are avoided by jumping over them. The author
suggests some good flat spots on the Moon to do this (there aren't many).
The Drop Delivery system assumes the vehicle is slowed to a horizontal
stop with horizontally firing rockets (the gasses and exhaust will leave the
Moon). The vehicle then drops from an altitude of about 10 kilometers into a
tower of stacked nets 60 meters high. It punches holes in the nets as it
falls, losing energy in the process.
I don't know whether these ideas will work, but they're fun to think about.
There is a lot more information in the articles, and a juicy quote I'm putting
in the next article. Look for "Acta Astronautica" in a good university library.
--
Keith Lofstrom
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