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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

cnn.com

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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#441

Post by Forgeties79 »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #428
tibbydudeza wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end ?. Mars is a total boondoggle - a colony would require constant supply runs from Earth to support a double-digit population - who is going to field the cost and what are they going to do there ?. "The Martian" was work of fiction. A lunar colony is cheaper and way more feasible.

I don't understand your response. I clearly said it's not worth it right now.

Their point (I believe) is “why do we want to go there over the moon?” What is there that makes the effort worth it at all now or later (until we can truly move a large population there permanently/for very long stretches)?

If the point is a colony, then we should just do it on the moon. If the point is for the advances in technology it will bring, we don’t have to go to Mars to explore those things. We could just keep practicing on the moon.

Obviously it’s not exactly the same but idk, most of why I’d be interested in our going to mars can be answered with “it’s easier, more feasible, and generally just as useful to do it on the moon instead.” It’s still low gravity, no oxygen/breathable atmosphere, a hostile desert essentially, etc. but far closer. We can respond to emergencies more easily. We know for a fact we are currently capable of getting there and back safely.

TL;DR: we will likely get a lot more out of dumping our resources into trips to and from the moon and building something there than trying to go to mars for a very long time.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#442

Post by Waterluvian »

allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

Re: 1. I think the America of Theseus mindset is a bit troubling. A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in. Based on zero expertise whatsoever, I have a sense that this is a bit self defeating. To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy?

Today’s America scores zero points for its accomplishments of the past. But I think one way it can be a good thing is the, “we’ve done it before, we can do it again” attitude. Which is somewhat opposite to “we already won!”

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#443

Post by izzydata »

nobleach wrote: post #375
bahmboo wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a political deadline with no grounding in reality.

Most deadlines are completely made up to create a false scarcity of time. While I agree this one is pretty meaningless and we'll forget about it in a few days... it's not unlike any other silly deadline.

I don't agree. Deadlines are only partially made up, but not completely.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#444

Post by overfeed »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #424
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mars is entirely within reach if we wanted to dedicate the resources to it. If we can get to the moon over 50 years ago, Mars is nothing today. I don't necessarily think it would be worth it given the cost, but it is totally possible if it was a priority.

To what end ?. Mars is a total boondoggle - a colony would require constant supply runs from Earth to support a double-digit population - who is going to field the cost and what are they going to do there ?. "The Martian" was work of fiction. A lunar colony is cheaper and way more feasible.

> To what end ?

Funnelling a lot of government money into the pockets of the best candidate for the world's first trillionare.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#446

Post by tick_tock_tick »

bahmboo wrote: post #227

"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term" - Sean Duffy NASA administrator. A scary way to set a schedule on a complex project with lives at stake. They don't care though.

> A scary way to set a schedule on a complex project with lives at stake.

I mean that's how we did it last time.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#448

Post by dotnet00 »

sobellian wrote: post #397
vlovich123 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the 1970s as in Raegan when the space program stalled and became irrelevant and became mostly a way to funnel money to districts for certain congresspeople?

The space program stalled because pouring national wealth into gigantic single-use rockets was unsustainable. They tried with Shuttle but the material science wasn't there yet (heck it might not be even now, it doesn't seem that they've really nailed down the heat shield on Starship yet).

I don't think Shuttle's issue was that the material science wasn't there. The issue was the way the design was constrained, and the general aerospace culture at the time (that only began to change with "New Space").

Shuttle's heatshield would've been much less dangerous if it wasn't facing a giant ice and insulation covered external tank (like, if it was mounted on top of a booster), but the Air Force's demand for crossrange forced giant wings, which forced the lower mounting position.

They could've iterated on heat shield designs, particularly with attachment mechanisms, but every mission had to carry people, so you couldn't risk it, and anyway, the industry culture was already set in the "even the simplest things must cost large amounts of money and time" stage.

One of the key points that I feel a lot of people miss is that Starship is pretty much the first program actually doing the flight testing needed to understand the engineering requirements for an efficient fully reusable heatshield. They don't have much prior art to look at for tile spacing, mounting mechanisms, metal tiles or transpiration cooling. The fundamental materials haven't changed a lot, but we can see over test flights that SpaceX are figuring things out.

In the early days they used to lose tiles all the time, even after just pressure testing IIRC. Nowadays they may barely lose any tiles on static fire tests. Similarly, tile loss on reentry has decreased greatly, and we've gone from seeing plasma leaving the fins barely attached, to the latest test, where the fins were pretty much fully intact.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#449

Post by overfeed »

cyberge99 wrote: post #345
sigmoid10 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Which will backfire spectacularly when Obama is re-elected.

If it were to happen, I fully expect the supreme court to contort itself for a bespoke ruling that only applies under the current set of circumstances, favoring a very specific candidate and no one else.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#450

Post by bluGill »

testing22321 wrote: post #437
allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

> We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting Of course, but there a few things to consider. 1. This is a new race. The olympics happen every four years to see which nation is the current best. It seems it’s time to find out again. 2. The last time the US was dominant was 56 years ago. That’s three generations. Based on SLS and the comments here, it seems extremely unli…

What is the point of winning though? We could be doing other things in stead, and I'm going to submit that they are more valuable (you are of course welcome to disagree - this is an opinion).

Personally I hope no human lands on the moon again. I like telling my parents they are so old humans walked on the moon in their lifetime (last human left the moon December 1972 - before I was born). There is no value in this statement, but it is still fun.

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