Talk:Project Morpheus

1000 Days

I don't understand the "1000 days" reference. Is this a reference to the duration of the program or the mission. When does the 1000 days start? The "Project M" page has the same problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.212.253.128 (talk) 18:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The 1000 days is the proposed duration of Project M including development and actual mission. It starts when the official go ahead is given by US Congress and the President. As of May 2011 NASA is still waiting for the go ahead. Andrew Swallow (talk) 19:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Good info

"Work on some of the systems began in 2006, when NASA’s Constellation program planned a human return to the moon.

Having spent less than $7 million over 2.5 years, the Morpheus project is considered lean and low-cost for NASA.

Kennedy’s wide-open space at the end of the shuttle runway provided a convenient location for the test flights, which will climb as high as 1,600 feet, reach up to 70 mph and last as long as two minutes.

The 330-by-330-foot “hazard field” includes five potential landing pads, 311 piles of rocks and 24 craters that mimic an area on the moon’s south pole."

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20120802/NEWS01/308020044/Morpheus-lander-ready-KSC-tests

Thank you. I inserted the extra information. Andrew Swallow (talk) 13:25, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Write-off

A Write-off is the technical term used by insurance companies when it is cheaper to replace a crashed car than to repair it. So calling the crashed Morpheus Lander a write-off was not vandalism. Now that you have supplied them I will leave the longer words. Andrew Swallow (talk) 08:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Upgrades

Sometime references for the upgrades will be useful. Andrew Swallow (talk) 03:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Section "Health and safety issues"

The "Health and safety issues" section seems way out of scope of the subject. Yes, rocketry is dangerous, but I don't think it is useful to make the article even longer with OSHA safety procedures and protocols, and its legalities. I propose to delete this section, but I am open to keeping one relevant sentence or paragraph if considered truly informative and substantial to the article. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 18:44, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

The team got very worried about Health and Safety at one point, this suggests that NASA management was giving them new instructions. The safety procedures should apply at any public demonstrations they may give off NASA property. Similar rules are needed where rockets are developed at non-governmental sites, although that may be a FAA matter. Andrew Swallow (talk) 19:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

No argument there. I just don't think that it merits a whole subsection. For example, hydrazine is far more dangerous and toxic than methane, and I hardly read any mention of hydrazine safety in all other spacecraft articles. However, being mostly an article about a new propellant, we could briefly mention the most relevant 'health and safety' issues for methane & liquid O2. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 20:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

(Current) spacecraft articles may not mention health, safety and toxicity but the articles on oxygen, methane, aluminium, iron and lasers do. The main dangers are the propellants exploding, the exhaust flame setting fire to objects including plants, spills of cryogenic liquids and eyes being blinded by the ALHAT's type IV lasers. The organisers of displays can handle these dangers by taking a few simple precautions - fly over fire resistant materials like stone and concrete, only allow qualified people to touch the equipment, ensure the laser paths are free of people & mirrors, put out any fires started and keep the crowds at a safe distance. Andrew Swallow (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Crash first or second untethered flight

I am pretty certain that it was the first untethered flight that crashed. All previous flights the vehicle had either been tied down or took off from the tether, which eliminated the ground effects. Andrew Swallow (talk) 02:30, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

The reference in that sentence indicates it was the second free flight. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 03:48, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Here is the blog entry for the previous test http://morpheuslander.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/tether-test-20-first-ksc-flight.html The August 3, 2012 flight was tethered and launched from above ground. It was the success of this test that lead to the authorising of the untethered test. Andrew Swallow (talk) 21:44, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Who was developing the engines

Who was developing the various engines, eg. ND4, ND5 ? Which part of NASA, and with which industrial partners (if any) ? - Rod57 (talk) 15:44, 7 August 2020 (UTC)