Looks Like OU Senior Member Avalon Has DONE IT! New Video!

[ramset]

MH
With the know how available today (world wide web) and with Brads determination and
Ability.

It would not surprise me one bit that we could mount a space venture to rival early
Efforts ...on a tremendously smaller budget.

Especially with the advancements in "small" technologies ..
Radiation hardening would be the biggest issue and still is today

Which does beg some questions about men standing on a moon with no natural
Shield against enormous solar flares and such....

Why has it all stopped ..and why did Russia not continue on to the moon
In a cold war a moon base would be of tantamount  importance...

Something is screwy  and I believe it is these screwy things which help feed
These questions and theories,

We have made light yearr advances in science  ..and  the planet as a whole
Is no longer looking at the moon ??

Perhaps it is the perception of great expectations from these trips of almost 50 odd years ago
That has lead people to look much closer now

It is not in our nature to STOP exploring ..

50 years...... No more trips by anybody ??
Not even a monkey ??
Well it may not be a monkey...
But there is definitely an elephant in the room

[picowatt]

I have made one large error in the previous post.
I was going on the dollar value of 1969,and not present day dollar value due to inflation.

Here is todays cost of 1x lunar rover--> $61,353,174.39,__and that is for 1 lunar rover.
Calculated using this US inflation calculator.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/


Brad

The error is a bit larger, I believe there was something north of a dozen rovers made and even more multiples of some parts and sub-assemblies.  Some of those were used for destructive and non-destructive testing.

The actual cost to build each rover was minimal and relatively insignificant, it was the engineering, testing, and certification that was the bulk of the cost.

If you decide to build a moon rover today you would of course have the advantage of modern hardware that is available, but even more so, you would know about conditions on the lunar surface and have some actual data taken from previous operation on the moon during the Apollo missions.

But just consider some of the thermodynamic requirements.  For example, what will be the minimum and maximum temperatures experienced by the wheels and drive motors?  How are you going to lube the motor and wheel bearings?  What lubricant will you use that will not boil off in a vacuum at the expected maximum temperature?  Will you attempt to hermetically seal the bearings, which is more difficult, poses additional engineering hurdles, and may make some seals mission and life critical, or will you allow them to vent/breathe as the bearings and lubricants experience the vacuum and extreme temperature variations?  How will you cool the motors as heat builds during operation?  Besides being exposed to the already extreme temperatures, how much heat will you need to dissipate from the drive electronics and just exactly how will you get rid of that heat in a vacuum?  What batteries will you use?  How do those batteries function in a vacuum and in the temperature extremes they will experience? 

Consider some of the mechanical requirements.  What sort of wheel design will you use?  How will you test those wheels to ensure they will not fatigue and break during operation?  How many wheels/tires will you need to make for destructive and non-destructive testing?  What will those test parameters be?  What sort of suspension will you use?  Of what design will the suspension damper be?  Will the damper use oil?  How will that oil perform during min/max temperature operation?  How will you seal those dampers, and how will those seals perform in the environmental extremes?  How will you determine and test the damper requirements when operated in the reduced gravity of the moon?  How abrasive is moon dust and how will you deal with that?  What sort of suspension bearings or bushings will you use?  How will they handle the extreme environment?  How will they handle the lunar dust?   

Also, keep in mind you must meet weight, size, range and load carrying requirements, with the total weight including seats, cameras, antennas, and all electronics and cooling hardware.  As well, you must engineer some simple method of containment and deployment that will allow suited astronauts to safely unload and unfold your rover.

And when you are done building it, the lives of two astronauts may depend on your rover performing as required, so you will need to certify it.  You will likely want to fully instrument things like wheel and steering motors and bearings for real time monitoring of temperature and vibration analysis.  You will need to monitor drive motor and battery current and have warnings and protections in place for all critical systems.  You will need to analyze various failure modes and provide redundancies or bypasses that will allow some degree of limp home operation during as many failure scenarios as possible.  You will also need to test everything in a suitable environmental chamber and as well perform shake and bake tests.  Of course, some scientists and engineers are going to have to provide data like G forces, vibration rates, directional axes and temperature/heat loading data so you know what the parameters of those tests need to be.   

For you to trivialize the engineering required to build a lunar rover only demonstrates an ignorance of the difficulties that task presents, the research and engineering required, and the marvel of engineering the lunar rovers truly were, particularly given the era in which they were built. 

As I have previously stated, I have always enjoyed your experimentation and willingness to share, but as of late, a cynicism towards scientists and engineers has crept within your soul that clouds your vision and closes your mind.

PW
     

[MileHigh]

Perhaps it is the perception of great expectations from these trips of almost 50 odd years ago
That has lead people to look much closer now

In late 2014 you were pushing GDS like it was the next big thing.  You defended them and wanted to arrange for a test.

This is the intelligence that I pulled up on them from that time period just the other day:

<<<<
Anyway I decided to go in, the building was open. This is what I saw:
-The cleanest emptiest office space I have ever seen.
-a girl working on a laptop at a solitary desk. No papers, files, filing cabinets, books  etc etc to suggest any kind of business operations
-I went in under the guise of renting storage space inquiring about the sign out front. I really wasn't prepared as I stopped in on a whim.
-She took me around the corner to another office where low and behold Mr Greg Potter himself (definitely the guy in the video) was sitting at a desk in a another completely empty office having his lunch. Again COMPLETELY empty, just a desk
>>>>

You are the one with the problem of great expectations and failing to evaluate situations properly.  You are the one that needs to look more closely at things.

For me, I am not perfect by all means but my batting average is better than yours.   No matter how you look at it, developing a new moon rover would be a huge endeavour.  It makes me think about one person around here saying that he was going to put his own home-made e-Cat in his basement.  I told him he was nuts if he thought that he could build his own alleged nuclear reactor by himself.  "Alleged" being the key term because the giant robotic e-Cat factory is never to be seen.

[picowatt]

I have made one large error in the previous post.
I was going on the dollar value of 1969,and not present day dollar value due to inflation.

Here is todays cost of 1x lunar rover--> $61,353,174.39,__and that is for 1 lunar rover.
Calculated using this US inflation calculator.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/


Brad

The cost of going to and operating in space, although still expensive, has come down significantly since the days of the space race.  Current cost is something like $10K per pound, and scientists and engineers are working to reduce that to $100's or less.  There are even private companies intending to provide commercial rides to near orbit or possibly low orbit.

The largest reason for these cost reductions is that engineers today have a wealth of data and experience to draw from.  That data and experience represents a tremendous amount of previous development and engineering cost.  New designs can draw form the weaknesses and strengths of previous designs.  One doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, with every launch vehicle and payload design.  Developments during the space race paid for a lot of engineering that bled over into the defense related and private sectors, and formed the beginning of many aerospace and consumer related companies that develop and produce today's modern technology.

Today, one could just buy a rad hardened spaceflight certified computer and solid state inertial guidance system from an aerospace company and not need to use spinning gyros and little old ladies weaving rope memory.  I'm sure that a modern spaceflight rated computer will cost considerably, but that cost would likely pale in comparison to what it cost even in 1960 dollars to design and build the flight computer and its rope memory, the first ever software for the task at hand, and the inertial guidance system (the lunar rover had to have a navigation/guidance system as well).

You are way too quick to dismiss and omit the value in today's dollars of all that previous research and engineering of the "unknown".

Could a better, lower cost lunar rover be built today?  Of course it could.  Think about why that is.  Most of the science and data collection, engineering development, component testing, and the cost to develop modern day, far superior, materials and subsystems has already been paid for.

PW

[ramset]

MH
We have been here before and I am quite certain you must really believe this nonsense.
I approached Mr Potter on several occasions and offered him a 100% no charge no strings attached
Black box investigation by the best team money could buy
At no charge whatsoever.

As time passed it became obvious he was not interested.

If he called me today , the offer would stand.

If you persieve this offer to investigate a claim as an indorsement ...well I honestly am at a loss for nice words
So I will bite my lip and let your readers judge .

I would posture the position that your endless public comments about GDS are much more likely to assist him
In his mysterious claims in an investment community wrought with similar .......

It is said in advertising that there is no such thing as bad advertising..
Your advertising at this point is pure conjecture...

Once that changes and you actually have facts ...well then its a different story altogether .
Your investigation would serve you much better privately if you are truly looking to not be culpable
In some poor soul getting within grasp of what you feel to be a con.

Just an observation  from my personal life experience

But back to the off topic ...topic at hand
The kids smell a rat

50 years And dropped like a hot potatoe during a global quest for world domination
During the cold war ??

The elephant is making a Rucus in the room ...


Respectfully
Chet