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Artemis II is not safe to fly

idlewords.com

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Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#181

Post by decimalenough »

kristianp wrote: post #21

> The trouble is that the heat shield on Orion blows chunks. Not in some figurative, pejorative sense, but in the sense that when NASA flew this exact mission in 2022, large pieces of material blew out of Orion’s heat shield during re-entry, leaving divots. Large bolts embedded in the heat shield also partially eroded and melted through. Fun wording. This isn't news, concerns have been raised about Artemis II saftey…

The point of the blog post is that those concerns have not been adequately addressed.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#182

Post by Grimburger »

idlewords wrote: post #98
GMoromisato wrote: post #77

This is a more balanced take, in my opinion: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasa-chief-reviews-ori... Camarda is an outlier. The engineers at NASA believe it is safe. The astronauts believe it is safe. Former astronaut Danny Olivas was initially skeptical of the heat shield but came around. And note that the OP believes it is likely (maybe very likely) that the heat shield will work fine. It's hard for me to r…

If you play a single round of Russian roulette with a revolver, it is likely you will not die, but it is also not safe to do that. The same idea applies here. The foam shedding/impact problem was heavily analyzed throughout the Shuttle program, and recognized as a significant risk. Read the CAIB report for a good history. That report also describes the groupthink dynamic at NASA that made skeptical engineers "come ar…

Have you bothered to ask the astronauts on board if they want to risk it?

You're getting clicks, they're going to the moon and there's a lot of people on Earth who would happily take any tradeoff for that.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#183

Post by joak »

pie_flavor wrote: post #165
sgt wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The NASA engineers wanted to understand what would happen if large chunks of the heat shield were stripped away entirely from the composite base of Orion. So they subjected this base material to high energies for periods of 10 seconds up to 10 minutes, which is longer than the period of heating Artemis II will experience during reentry. > What they found is that, in the event of such a failure, the structure of Orio…

The OP links a document from former astronaut Charles Camarda, who NASA explicitly invited in to check their work, and who observed the press conference the Ars article comes from. He addresses every point in it, including that one. Just because an article is contrary to a strident opinion doesn't make it 'balanced'. It matters whether the actual facts are true or not. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXc…

This report from astronaut Camarda is indeed a bomb. Scaring.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#184

Post by gmerc »

eru wrote: post #106
cultofmetatron wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. some of our best technologies came about to solve problems related to space travel which we later found useful for mundane problems at home. gps, digital cameras immediately come to mind. The only other phenomena I can think of with similar effects on human progress is war... I'll take a space race thanks

Have you heard of opportunity costs? About war: in our universe we got the first digital computers because of military efforts during the second world war. However, without a war IBM and Konrad Zuse and others would have gotten there, too. With much less human suffering.

Now do the opportunity cost of AI model virtue signalling to investors for several years

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#185

Post by wiseowise »

renewiltord wrote: post #168
wiseowise wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neither of these are major risks compared to never being what you want to be. I want you to repeat those words as you melt away re-entering the atmosphere.

That’s not my purpose so dying that way doesn’t seem that appealing.

Replace it with whatever you consider “worth dying for”.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#186

Post by joak »

pie_flavor wrote: post #166
AIorNot wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former NASA guy I would trust Eric Bergers measured and detailed reporting here over that blog post that says they are all going to die As he shows that Olivas changed his mind: “ Olivas told me he had changed his mind, expressing appreciation and admiration for the in-depth engineering work done by the NASA team. He would now fly on Orion” Anyway we live in an age of armchair experts in youtube (who are often v…

How about former NASA engineer Charles Camarda? Linked from the article: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXcBwF8qpDUxmZz...

I agree, this report from astronaut Camarda should really alarm NASA.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#187

Post by InsideOutSanta »

bayindirh wrote: post #129
kakacik wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think sociopaths like current 'leader' would change significantly upon such experience? I unfortunately don't share such optimism.

You don't have to be an optimist. You have to try . Trying and seeing what happens is also science, after all.

I mean, we can probably predict what will happen based on existing data.

"I've seen things up there that are huge, absolutely huge. And let me tell you, astronauts, they came up to me, they were crying, big men crying. Earth, it's a good name, but it's not big enough, not grand enough. So, I'm thinking we rename it. How about 'The Trump Sphere'? It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? And let me tell you, nobody would argue with that name!"

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#188

Post by sokols »

wiseowise wrote: post #81
idlewords wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apollo command module used Avcoat, the same material as Orion. But there are two key differences: 1. The application method is different. Apollo applied it to a metal honeycomb structure with very small cells, while Orion uses blocks of the material. (NASA tried the honeycomb approach for Orion, but it was too labor-intensive). 2. Orion is much bigger and heavier than the Apollo command module. The informal conse…

> NASA tried the honeycomb approach for Orion, but it was too labor-intensive So cost cutting, as always.

For the Apollo spacecrafts:

> The paste-like material was gunned into each of the 330,000 cells of the fiberglass honeycomb individually, a process taking about six months. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCOAT#Apollo_Command_Module

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#189

Post by InsideOutSanta »

Grimburger wrote: post #182
idlewords wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you play a single round of Russian roulette with a revolver, it is likely you will not die, but it is also not safe to do that. The same idea applies here. The foam shedding/impact problem was heavily analyzed throughout the Shuttle program, and recognized as a significant risk. Read the CAIB report for a good history. That report also describes the groupthink dynamic at NASA that made skeptical engineers "come ar…

Have you bothered to ask the astronauts on board if they want to risk it? You're getting clicks, they're going to the moon and there's a lot of people on Earth who would happily take any tradeoff for that.

> there's a lot of people on Earth who would happily take any tradeoff for that

That's not reassuring, though. And it isn't just about them.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#190

Post by IshKebab »

idlewords wrote: post #98
GMoromisato wrote: post #77

This is a more balanced take, in my opinion: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasa-chief-reviews-ori... Camarda is an outlier. The engineers at NASA believe it is safe. The astronauts believe it is safe. Former astronaut Danny Olivas was initially skeptical of the heat shield but came around. And note that the OP believes it is likely (maybe very likely) that the heat shield will work fine. It's hard for me to r…

If you play a single round of Russian roulette with a revolver, it is likely you will not die, but it is also not safe to do that. The same idea applies here. The foam shedding/impact problem was heavily analyzed throughout the Shuttle program, and recognized as a significant risk. Read the CAIB report for a good history. That report also describes the groupthink dynamic at NASA that made skeptical engineers "come ar…

But then no spacecraft is safe to fly. We're obviously willing to accept a much higher level of risk sending humans to the moon than in other situations. I think I read somewhere at a 1 in 30 chance of them all dying was acceptable. Not too far off from Russian roulette!
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