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

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

#51

Post by namlem » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 3:39 AM UTC

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…

He's specifically criticizing the orbital refueling timeline and the use of methane+LOX instead of hypergolic propellant for the lander. The timeline will probably get pushed back and the lander development seems to still be in a very early stage and it may well be worth it to consider hypergolic fuel. Also the systems of the starship lander must be accessible for repair.

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

#52

Post by namlem » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 3:42 AM UTC

ATMLOTTOBEER wrote: post #26

I sincerely hope this doesn’t destroy his career.

Few of his videos are done with NASA and his day job is developing anti-missile systems for the DoD. His career will not be meaningfully impacted lol

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

#53

Post by SushiHippie » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 4:00 AM UTC

ziffusion wrote: post #7

nabla9 wrote: post #3

Good talk, worth watch. 15 rockets!

Hey - you put in the time. Can you please help the rest of us out and post a TLDR?

Relatively good AI summary: https://www.summarize.tech/youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU

Click on see more, to see 5 minute wise summaries.

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

#54

Post by SushiHippie » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 4:05 AM UTC

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.

I recommend you to watch it, it's really good.

But as I mentioned in another comment, here is a relatively good AI summary:

https://www.summarize.tech/youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU

Click on see more, to see 5 minute wise summaries.

(Not affiliated with this site, I just use it from time to time)

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

#55

Post by sebzim4500 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 8:51 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #3

Good talk, worth watch. 15 rockets!

I think his phrasing in that section was at best misleading. It's not 15 rockets, it's 1.5 rockets (one booster, one HLS second stage, one refueling second stage) used 15 times.

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

#56

Post by sebzim4500 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:00 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #49

avmich wrote: post #39

Good video, many good points. "Focus on the mission" What's the mission? We're "returning to the Moon" - what does it mean? Boots on the regolith? I somehow doubt that. USA did that half a century ago, we're supposed to go farther. What's the mission this time? We're going to the Moon for a more serious, longer exploration this time, right? That's the mission, right? So, we want more people at the same time on the Mo…

Why not just build a smaller Starship to go to the moon? It would probably negate the need for any orbital refueling. The reason of course is that Elon Musk wants NASA to fund his rocket to mars, not to the moon. I.e. technology demonstration is more important than the mission itself. This is how you get neither.

And who would pay for it? SpaceX's HLS bid was so cheap because they were developing 90% of it anyway. SpaceX has no desire for a smaller Starship, especially since that probably means no second stage reuse.

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

#57

Post by ordu » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:43 AM UTC

jamesTee49 wrote: post #41

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…

Think about it, we can go to the moon but now can't. None of the superpowercountries like China, Russia, EU, could. I give more credence to we never landed human there but only sent mechanical robots there for deployment to prove we landed there. Look up Neil Armstrong career after coming back from the moon. He was so wasted about his achievement...could have been senator or even some big corporation hotshot. But did…

> Either they have moon ptsd or as what conspiracy hinted, we never have human landed there.

You can read an autobiography book of Michael Collins, it answers your question to a some extent. He cannot say for every astronaut and I wouldn't risk to give here an answer in a short form as I understand it, because I'm not sure I understand it right. But I urge you to read and to answer your question yourself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_the_Fire

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

#58

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:25 AM UTC

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…

I think the fundamentally disconnect here is that its not 'the same' mission. Sure if you break it down to the extreme the mission to the extreme, its the same 'people on moon'. But if you think about it beyond that, Artemis makes quite a bit more sense.

> We are supposedly going to the moon in two years, but we have never attempted a cryogenic refuel in orbit (this seems like a biggie).

The 2024 date was always politics and its an open secret that it won happen. Everybody who has followed this topic kind of knows this.

> - Have many layers of redundancy. Apollo had 6-7 backup procedures for what to do if they couldn't launch the lander off the moon.

While true, its also the case that Apollo lander had 1 ascent engine that couldn't be tested and wasn't redundant.

> - Test. small tests, big tests, real tests, skin-in-the-game tests.

I think its strange that he points this out but then doesn't point out that this is exactly the testing Starship proposed to prove out the rocket and things like the Cryo transfer.

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

#59

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:31 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #48

carlosdp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Starship program is the big unknown in the whole mission. The SLS is boring and expensive and underperforming but it somewhat works. They should have given it more power to avoid the NRO, which appears to be a source of complexity due to the underperformance of the SLS. It makes things harder than it needs to be, but it isn't a death knell. He clearly argued against flashy technology demonstrations like orbital r…

> He clearly argued against flashy technology demonstrations like orbital refueling, which if you have paid attention, doesn't apply to the SLS but Starship.

I think this ignores that a lander of significant size would need newly designed hypergolic engines and would need very complex orbital refueling of hypergolics as well.

> Fancy technology has been put on a pedestal, while the actual mission is being neglected.

I think this is just a misunderstanding of the long term vision for the program. I its not about Artemis 3 only.

> SpaceX enthusiasts think the moon mission is some irrelevant symbolic political boondoggle to keep NASA facilities open. They all want to go on the promised 100 people trip to mars.

That's unfair. SpaceX enthusiast for the most part are simply happy money flows into the Starship program. The real win here is the Starship program itself, not any individual mission.

And I think that is the most impactful thing about this, having impact all future deep space missions. So call me a SpaceX enthusiasts.

So unless you go to a tiny lander, its just a reality. Its in the critical path.

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

#60

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:52 AM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #36

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…

> 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. I would argue that if we did it exactly as we did back then that we would actually learn something because we forgot how to do so much. Literally can’t build an F-1 engine. It would take a ton of work just to recreate it. However, the benefit is that we would then have plans (diagram…

Sure you always learn something when you do anything.

> Literally can’t build an F-1 engine.

We can. There has been lots of work done on that already. But you wouldn't want to do an engine like it was done back then anyway. It would be crazy to do it the same way. A modern version would be better, better controls, lighter and so on.

> However, the benefit is that we would then have plans (diagrams, specs, etc) to build it and one built we can iterate.

Those would be more like constraints. So many things that are not the same anymore. You would literally reconstruct the economy from the 1960s first. That would be totally insane thing to do.

Its not because of 'lost knowlage' its because first of all, it just doesn't make any sense to do it the same way even if you could. Both the tools and the people are totally different, the structure of the economy is different.