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

#61

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:55 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.

He is pointing out issues with communication and people not knowing a lot of the required information. Kind of like people only want TLDR instead of actually understanding the point of the information.

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

#62

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 2:22 AM UTC

protastus wrote: post #37

Does NASA and their contractors have any true believers in leadership positions? The complexity and safety concerns have been pointed out multiple times. I stopped paying attention because this program appears to be on bureaucratic autopilot. Government contractors deliver parts, without control or accountability about the performance of the entire system. The complexity indicates that Artemis will get cancelled once…

There are some misunderstanding here. Artemis isn't really a program. SLS, Orion, HLS (Starship) and a few other things are all their own program. Each has their own political logic and its cancellation depends on many things. Cancling all isn't really possible, no matter what the marketing term 'Artemis' means. Artemis is literally just a marking term a clever NASA Administrator made up in order to get money for a lander.

SLS and Orion have survived many changes in program, their survival is independent.

The HLS program is fixed-price, and once award can't really be changed canceled. They can only not renew the contract for more missions.

If NASA engineering talent is so shit, why has Commercial Crew and Cargo program been some of the most successful NASA programs since Apollo? The same people selected the HLS program.

HLS (Starship) is anything but a Jobs program for NASA or SpaceX. Its literally the future SpaceX (pretty good engineering company) is banking on.

Artemis is a complex program with a complex history of sub-parts and lots of political constraints. The programs most like it have been successful. This is a larger version of those ideas, but those ideas were clearly more successful then what NASA has been doing for the last 40 years.

(Look at the countless failed projects)

> Government contractors deliver parts, without control or accountability about the performance of the entire system.

Contractors didn't have this during Apollo.

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

#63

Post by marcusverus » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

avmich wrote: post #46

marcusverus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

BOTE calculations, approximate numbers: - delta-V for LEO-to-the-Moon flight - 3100 m/s - delta-V to get to low Moon orbit (a-la Apollo) - 1000 m/s - delta-V to land on the Moon from low orbit - 1700 m/s - extra delta-V during landing like with Apollo LEM for emergencies - 700 m/s - delta-V to get back to the Moon orbit - 1700 m/s - extra delta-V during lift-off like with Apollo - 500 m/s Total - 3100 + 1000 + 1700 +…

Thanks for this!