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I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

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Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#21

Post by marcusverus »

haunter wrote: post #10
ziffusion wrote: post #6

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE someone post a TLDR. The dude is pleasant to listen to, but he goes ON and ON and ON about his life story and what not. Please just give us the bullet points.

Q: 'How many Starship launches are needed to execute the Artemis III lunar landing?' NASA: 'We don't know but at least 15' Video: 'Oh well that's a huge problem to have a complex project like this and we don't even have an exact answer'

Isn’t this disingenuous? As far as I can tell, Starship can make it to the lunar surface with a significant payload without refueling. The refueling launches are only required if you want to maximize the payload per lunar trip.

Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#23

Post by carlosdp »

dmillar wrote: post #14

My TLDW: He's (not so) indirectly critical of Space X's Starship program and tribal groupthink. He may be "scared" of NASA because he's calling out one of their giant Artemis contracts. Some longer takeaways: - Simplify. We went to the moon 50+ years ago, but we are reinventing the wheel in some significant ways in Artemis. Why? We are supposedly going to the moon in two years, but we have never attempted a cryogenic…

Idk how you took away that he was criticizing the Starship program at all. SpaceX pivots designs on a swivel, conducts tons of incremental tests, and ends up succeeding at the claimed impossible time and time again. If anything, NASA should be taking a cue from them.

He’s being directly critical of Artemis and Orion/SLS, which is not at all built that way, was basically architected by politics, and will probably not end up actually going to the moon unless there’s a major change.

Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#24

Post by vikramkr »

ulrashida wrote: post #22

I would have greatly preferred a non-clickbait title for this.

I don't actually know if it's clickbait. A huge portion of the video is actually just laying the groundwork for the importance of feedback and being afraid to speak up because of political and management concerns is actually a central point of the talk. Thematically the title is a great fit and if it gets clicks, good for him

Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#25

Post by dmillar »

carlosdp wrote: post #23
dmillar wrote: post #14

My TLDW: He's (not so) indirectly critical of Space X's Starship program and tribal groupthink. He may be "scared" of NASA because he's calling out one of their giant Artemis contracts. Some longer takeaways: - Simplify. We went to the moon 50+ years ago, but we are reinventing the wheel in some significant ways in Artemis. Why? We are supposedly going to the moon in two years, but we have never attempted a cryogenic…

Idk how you took away that he was criticizing the Starship program at all. SpaceX pivots designs on a swivel, conducts tons of incremental tests, and ends up succeeding at the claimed impossible time and time again. If anything, NASA should be taking a cue from them. He’s being directly critical of Artemis and Orion/SLS, which is not at all built that way, was basically architected by politics, and will probably not…

In-orbit refueling, etc. Those are Starships not SLS being counted: 29:45

Talking about methane, in situ refueling (not just spacex, but they've been the most vocal): 41:25

Complexity/redundancy: 46:28 (looong pause and laughter)

Comments on engine design: ~48:00 (you have to be aware of Raptor/SS booster design to get the criticism)

Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#27

Post by flashback2199 »

shahar2k wrote: post #17
grecy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We went to the moon 50+ years ago, but we are reinventing the wheel in some significant ways in Artemis. Why? Because if we do it the same way we did 50+ years ago, we learn absolutely nothing and the whole thing is a pointless waste of money. In order to progress and learn and improve you must do things you've never done before. You must be ambitious and you must attempt things that are difficult and will probably…

This strikes me as a moment where you should watch the video there's a moment specifically at 41:40 where he basically says what you're saying and it's an integral part of his point I find that a lot of people myself included like to argue against an imagined version of something they hear second hand often not going to the source material to realize they're standing on the same side

A counterpoint to his thesis that the orbit and design have to be simple to succeed is the Mars rover sky crane lander system. It was terribly complex and, famously, worked very well. Compute has made a big difference since the 60s. Roughly every line of code today used to be a handful of physical components, whether it was an analog circuit or additional core memory wire-wound in the flight computer. Then there's the fact we test differently today because we finite element analysis every part down to the smallest component. That wasn't possible in the 60s.

Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#28

Post by ianburrell »

marcusverus wrote: post #21
haunter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q: 'How many Starship launches are needed to execute the Artemis III lunar landing?' NASA: 'We don't know but at least 15' Video: 'Oh well that's a huge problem to have a complex project like this and we don't even have an exact answer'

Isn’t this disingenuous? As far as I can tell, Starship can make it to the lunar surface with a significant payload without refueling. The refueling launches are only required if you want to maximize the payload per lunar trip.

The Artemis mission involves landing astronauts on the Moon and bringing them back to Earth. Not landing an empty Starship on the Moon. Maximizing the payload is really important when need to carry humans, and launch a whole large spacecraft off the Moon.

Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#29

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

nijuashi wrote: post #18
ziffusion wrote: post #6

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE someone post a TLDR. The dude is pleasant to listen to, but he goes ON and ON and ON about his life story and what not. Please just give us the bullet points.

He’s basically saying the complexity of current Artemis mission design is indicative of lack of communication, mainly due to politics. He points out some of the obvious problems that isn’t being discussed openly (e.g., large number of untested refueling procedure which needs to be done to get one vehicle to the moon). He is trying to persuade the audience to challenge the current way of doing things, and look to the…

And to communicate truthfully about why things are being done in the way's they're done.

The in-orbit refueling with lots of Starship/SuperHeavy launches is to increase the payload capacity. That's partly needed due to limits imposed by the Gateway architecture (which are largely due to limits of the Orion capsule). But it's also, and IMO more importantly, due to the fact that a manned mission to Mars (which Artemis is supposed to develop technology for) will certainly need in-orbit refueling.

It's a more complex design than Apollo. Some of that is justified due to engineering goals of the eventual manned Mars mission, even though it is detrimental to the moon mission. Some is justified due to political expediency.

The public statements of the agencies involved have often omitted the real reasons for the decisions, and instead invented justifications expected to be more acceptable. They don't want to say "Orion & SLS are used because it's a jobs program" or "we're spending a lot of money & time now on an in-orbit refueling system a moon mission doesn't need because we got the budget for it and haven't gotten the Mars mission we hope to use it on funded yet".

Re: I was scared To say this to NASA (But I said it anyway) – Smarter Every Day

#30

Post by Buttons840 »

grecy wrote: post #15
dmillar wrote: post #14

My TLDW: He's (not so) indirectly critical of Space X's Starship program and tribal groupthink. He may be "scared" of NASA because he's calling out one of their giant Artemis contracts. Some longer takeaways: - Simplify. We went to the moon 50+ years ago, but we are reinventing the wheel in some significant ways in Artemis. Why? We are supposedly going to the moon in two years, but we have never attempted a cryogenic…

> We went to the moon 50+ years ago, but we are reinventing the wheel in some significant ways in Artemis. Why? Because if we do it the same way we did 50+ years ago, we learn absolutely nothing and the whole thing is a pointless waste of money. In order to progress and learn and improve you must do things you've never done before. You must be ambitious and you must attempt things that are difficult and will probably…

It depends on your mission. If the mission is to go to the moon, well, we've done that, we don't really need anything new. If the mission is to reduce carbon emissions, that will require something new.
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