Back in 2004, United Technologies/Chemical Systems Division, former manufacturer of the Titan III 120-inch solid rocket booster, was rapidly imploding. Everybody that could bailed just as soon as they could; this left vast piles of “stuff” all over that needed to be dealt with. There were boxes of old promotional glossies, binders of photos, file cabinets full of drawings. And paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork. While management took a dim view of employees wandering off with staplers and other office supplies, a lot of the old promotional “junk” was left out for people to pick through.
Two of the glossies I snagged were of, presumably, a United Tech lunar transport. I have the artwork, and nothing else. No date, no confirmation that these are actually UTC designs. But they very likely date from the early 1960’s.
I can’t say as I’ve seen any other vehicle designs quite like this. The concept is straightforward enough… a long pole would be used as a piston to push off against the lunar surface. The pole, which appears to be 30 to 40 feet long, would be rotated in flight so that it would take the landing impact.
The idea is not completely insane… if the push off involves non-dangerous levels of acceleration, then the landing, if it’s handled properly, would involve exactly the same levels of acceleration. If the mechanism is electromechanical or electromagnetic, then chances are that the vehicle could recover much of the kinetic energy upon landing. In a completely efficient system (which this obviously wouldn’t be) this would be a virtually energy-free way to cover distance on the moon. However, each hop would require energy to rotate the pole; there’d be losses to heat in the jump, losses to heat in the landing, and losses of rocket propellant as the thrusters fire to keep everything aligned properly.
It’s an interesting idea, but I’ll stick with the rover, thanks. You’d only need to jam that pole into a hidden crevice once to really mess up your plans in an energetic way.
Besides… the configuration is just a little unsettling. Maybe Dr. Evil would think flying around in something composed of a shaft and two balls is perfectly normal, but I think the kids at Clavius Base Elementary would point and laugh.
10 Responses to “Lunar Hopper”
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Although the cybernetics probably weren’t up to it at the time, there’s video from 1995 of a one-legged MIT robot hopping around like a pogo stick here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moENDzu_rS0
It was stabilized by adjusting how the hopping pole hit between each bounce, eliminating the need for thrusters
The Lunar Hopper is really clever how it switches the ends of the pole used on each bounce, always leaving it in the “cocked” position for the next leap.
Could mechanical inefficiency be compensated for by the loss of onboard fuel weight from thruster firings on each hop?
And yes, I thought it looked a bit phallic on first sight also.
I found a little more about it, it’s the “Lunar Leaper” from 1964:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/luneaper.htm
That would be great for an unmanned vehicle. The ride doesn’t need to be “smooth” (although maximum Gs is an issue, a lot of “jerk” — change in acceleration with respect to time — is very uncomfortable to humans). Getting stuck like Spirit would seem less likely, it might be possible to go over impassable terrain…
But as you said, if that pole gets stuck in a ravine, it’s game over.
The leaper would be something I could imagine in an Austin Powers movie.
I think this is truly remarkable:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/03/27/how-we-will-explore-the-moon/
For sheer coolth without limit, there’s always the Lunar Worm:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/lunrworm.htm
The NASA paper (referenced on the astronautix page) makes it sound like it would be fun to build at home. Imagine crawling out the garage and slithering slowly to the grocery store.
I did find a little more about the Lunar Leaper; the unmanned sphere is a propellant tank: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/residence_space/78419/2
Assuming it uses UDMH/N2O4 as hypergolic propellants, and I’ve got my mixture ratios right, the propellant sphere holds the nitrogen tetroxide, and the hydrazine is stored in the rear part of the crew sphere.
What would be fun to know is how exactly the jumping pole works; does it have a piston inside a tube with pressurized gas on either side of it that works like a pneumatic spring, or does a small amount of the propellants detonate inside the tube to generate gas to push a piston back and forth, venting when it reaches its full extension like a steam engine, or does it actually have a piston attached to a big coil spring at either end that compresses and locks into position, waiting to be triggered to extend again for the leap?
That would certainly be the easiest way to do it mechanically, as then you don’t have to make anything gas-tight.
Would the bouncing thing have a patent? Was a paper ever written for NASA or anyone else?
I’ll start looking for patents from the information herein:
http://tinyurl.com/29pr9g3
There’s also this, from the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, in 1974:
http://tinyurl.com/28fh2a5
This made the cover of “Space World” magazine in color, an issue I have (and will try to scan and email sometime soon). Don’t recall if there was a text page or not.
I get the impression “Lunar Worm” came about after someone saw the movie “First Men In the Moon”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqFnlaIEUw4