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The real lunacy is using chemical rockets instead of nuclear thermal once the ship is in orbit. That could reduce the fuel requirements for an Earth - Moon transfer by 4x. And this isn't some sci-fi tech. NASA built a working engine in the 70s.
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Everyone who's been paying attention to space stuff is aware of the mentioned issues. The fact is that NASA's hands are tied, they literally are not allowed to cancel SLS, as they have been legislated into using it for Artemis by Congress, who wants to keep pumping billions into Boeing. Until Senator Shelby retired a few years ago, NASA was forbidden from even talking about orbital refueling (under threat of having the entire space technology program cancelled), because that'd make the waste of money on SLS unnecessary. They literally redacted the word 'depot' in their public report on the selection of Starship as the primary Artemis lunar lander (despite it being obvious that's what they were referring to).
ULA was coerced by Boeing into dropping orbital refueling capability and the ability to carry Orion from Vulcan's second stage, again, because it'd make SLS unnecessary: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/rocket-scientist-say...
Congress is so desperate on forcing SLS to be used, after NASA blindsided them by choosing SpaceX for the first HLS lander (instead of the other two far more expensive, far more technically immature proposals which were designed around tons of waste and possibly using SLS), they tried to make it so the second one had to use SLS, on top of mandating that they would have to launch at least 1 cargo SLS per year, regardless of payload: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/an-alabama-lawmaker-...
The $4B per launch cost comes from a GAO report, it should be emphasized that prior to this report, NASA went out of its way to avoid counting SLS manufacturing costs so that the embarrassment of how wasteful it is would not become obvious: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/nasa-finally-admits-wh...
The optimistically every 2 year launch rate comes from the simple fact that every launch keeps getting pushed back due to manufacturing delays: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/09/lack-of-sls-rockets-...
The real lunacy is using chemical rockets instead of nuclear thermal once the ship is in orbit. That could reduce the fuel requirements for an Earth - Moon transfer by 4x. And this isn't some sci-fi tech. NASA built a working engine in the 70s.
Certainly a NERVA-style rocket engine is not a nuclear bomb, and a few nuclear reactors with known and tightly watched positions won't constitute a threat of a sudden nuclear strike.
But the treaties were made at times when the principal parties, the West and the Soviet bloc, did not trust each other one bit, and rightfully expected sabotage at any smallest loophole. So the treaties are overly tight.
Today's world is about as bad, with a hot war in Europe, and a lot of tensions around Taiwan. No chance that the treaties would be relaxed for mutual good, due to the increased mutual trust.
Breaking a treaty unilaterally just because it's inconvenient is also not great, and would untie the other sides' hands.
That's why we can't have nice things.
/* If you haven't yet, I recommend to read the novel Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem. It describes a civilization where all trust and cooperation are gone, and the planet is in the state of constant creeping war of sabotage. What Earthlings do there is another thing worth reading about. */
IDK why 81 year old Poli-sci major, attorney, and ultimate NASA executive decision maker Bill Nelson wasn't forced out of office after he incorrectly explained to Congress that the far side of the moon is always dark https://youtu.be/daZyPwCQak8?si=n9KXH-LJFBlpKXUp&t=153
Might be too much to hope for, but he could just mean it's always dark to us.
I'm getting of a kick out of this Trone calling it the "backside of a moon" and chewing on his glasses. Ain't no nerd. Tell me wut these Chinese is doing on the backside of the moon and leave the spacey mumbo jumbo out of it.
IDK why 81 year old Poli-sci major, attorney, and ultimate NASA executive decision maker Bill Nelson wasn't forced out of office after he incorrectly explained to Congress that the far side of the moon is always dark https://youtu.be/daZyPwCQak8?si=n9KXH-LJFBlpKXUp&t=153
Though there's a sense of the word "dark" that means it's unseen or that we are ignorant of it. Like "to leave someone in the dark", to "go dark" in communication, or a "dark match" in pro-wrestling (it happens but isn't broadcast and doesn't effect storylines). Might be too much to hope for, but he could just mean it's always dark to us. I'm getting of a kick out of this Trone calling it the "backside of a moon" and…
The second reason we are going to the moon so that we can put the first person of color and the first woman on the moon. That is explicitly an Artemis mission purpose.
Only time will tell if either of these two missions were actually worth it.
One more point
> Early on, SLS designers made the catastrophic decision to reuse Shuttle hardware, which is like using Fabergé eggs to save money on an omelette.
SLS designers did not make the decision to use shuttle hardware per se. SLS was explicitly designed and funded to use that hardware. One of the original purposes of Artemis, before the other two purposes that we see in the media were even decided upon, was to make use of shuttle hardware.
So it's a little wild to me to see software not only get more chaotic, but influence hardware as well. All in service to a creeping managerialism that runs on goals that, to the extent they can be articulated at all, get more detached from any sane human purpose.
I know shit about Artemis and would love to believe Maciej is totally wrong here. But it fits with so much of my experience of the world that it seems very believable to me.
Finally someone is saying it like it is. Sadly this someone isn’t a bigwig at NASA. NASA still can’t take humans to/from orbit on its own. To believe that in 18 months we’re going to have a successful lunar landing is batshit grade insanity.
Nasa doesn't have the capability today, but that does not mean that the capabilities that they are building for tomorrow are "batshit Insanity". This is a very silly take.
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No, he links to a footnote. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/footnote
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work." - ad-homming the author conveniently saves you from having to post anything interesting or refute any of the claims in the article. People don't need industry experience to compare NASA 2024 with NASA 1969 and observe that things are going worse; results are down, costs and delays are up.
IDK why 81 year old Poli-sci major, attorney, and ultimate NASA executive decision maker Bill Nelson wasn't forced out of office after he incorrectly explained to Congress that the far side of the moon is always dark https://youtu.be/daZyPwCQak8?si=n9KXH-LJFBlpKXUp&t=153
Though there's a sense of the word "dark" that means it's unseen or that we are ignorant of it. Like "to leave someone in the dark", to "go dark" in communication, or a "dark match" in pro-wrestling (it happens but isn't broadcast and doesn't effect storylines). Might be too much to hope for, but he could just mean it's always dark to us. I'm getting of a kick out of this Trone calling it the "backside of a moon" and…
I guess we have decided to elect political representatives are just egotistical camera whores, but why should the top decision maker at a technical agency be a complete idiot who is ignorant about many things the agency he runs has done? It would be like the head of the air force saying airplanes fly because of flubber