Botiemaster wrote:

//I'm sure they don't plan to use the old technology stuff, although i can't imagine what craft they could come up with to make the landing other than the grand daddy original... //

I don't think it COULD use the "old technology stuff" if it wanted to; there's been a tremendous loss of experience-based skills since then, and heavens know if MIT even kept all the old program documentation around (I know IBM threw most of the Skylab stuff out after the missions and before NASA et al. realized they'd have to reactivate the computers to keep it from landing on somebody's head).

Given the advantages in microprocessors and integrated circuits, any new spacecraft would be able to have even smaller computers (and therefore would probably be able to handle some of the things itself that were farmed out to ground control during Apollo). Any spacecraft design would probably reflect that.

Other than that, I don't know what engineering advances or rethinkings have been made that might also affect design -- and if NASA wanted to send people for weeks rather than days, that would mean more design changes.

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Sincerely, Luriko-Ysabeth

"Everything explodes. Everything."
-- Law #11 of Anime Physics