Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Artemis II is not safe to fly

idlewords.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 667 posts

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#211

Post by pavlov »

rustyhancock wrote: post #209

To some extent I think since the challenger disaster trying to blow the whistle on safety issues at NASA has been romantacized. For me, so long as the information is transparently discussed with the astronauts they can agree or disagree. But the task is intrinsically extremely risky. It makes it very challenging for anyone to really know how to balance those risks. The peak outcome (modal, mean at least) is a good ou…

The Artemis program has cost over $100 billion so far.

It doesn’t make any sense to spend that much money on something that’s still Russian roulette for the astronauts.

If the purpose of the human risk is to let the agency accomplish more, then it needs to be reflected in the cost as a drastic reduction (so you can actually spend the money on doing more). Now Artemis is the worst of both worlds.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#213

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

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.

It's unlikely computing would have developed as quickly as it did without the Cold War. IBM's Sage and MIT's TX0 were both Cold War projects - one for a national early warning system, the other as an R&D platform for flight simulators.

Most US investment in associated tech - including the Internet - came through DARPA.

Not pointing this out because I support war, but to underline that the US doesn't have a culture of aggressive government investment in non-military R&D.

NASA and the NSF both get pocket money in budget terms. And at its height Apollo was a Cold War PR battle with the USSR that happened to funnel a lot of of money to defence contractors.

The original moon landings were not primarily motivated by science.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#214

Post by rustyhancock »

pavlov wrote: post #211
rustyhancock wrote: post #209

To some extent I think since the challenger disaster trying to blow the whistle on safety issues at NASA has been romantacized. For me, so long as the information is transparently discussed with the astronauts they can agree or disagree. But the task is intrinsically extremely risky. It makes it very challenging for anyone to really know how to balance those risks. The peak outcome (modal, mean at least) is a good ou…

The Artemis program has cost over $100 billion so far. It doesn’t make any sense to spend that much money on something that’s still Russian roulette for the astronauts. If the purpose of the human risk is to let the agency accomplish more, then it needs to be reflected in the cost as a drastic reduction (so you can actually spend the money on doing more). Now Artemis is the worst of both worlds.

If you need expect perfection then we will never have a space mission.

Let the astronauts give informed consent. If they mission is to dangerous for NASA then we can only hope, ISRO, CNSA or ROSCOSMOS will go.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#215

Post by Mikhail_K »

voidUpdate wrote: post #210
Mikhail_K wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Challenger: no gasses were supposed to make it past the o-rings no matter what, > but when it became clear that gasses were escaping and the o-rings were being > damaged, there was a push to suggest that it's an acceptable level. Interestingly, the article https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXcBwF8qpDUxmZz... > by heat shield expert and Shuttle astronaut Charles Camarda, the former Director of Engineering…

Using the same o-rings afterwards is surprising, I've heard that the manufacturer was surprised that they were being used for that purpose because they weren't rated for that. Also I'm not sure the assertion is correct. If the sealant and O-Rings were adequate, the joint would not have failed. It was suboptimal, and increased risk, sure, but it in itself wasn't the reason for the accident. It was the joint and the o-…

> If the sealant and O-Rings were adequate, the joint would not have failed.

That assertion requires some reasoning and evidence to back it.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#216

Post by mlrtime »

bayindirh wrote: post #127
kitd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often thought world leaders, upon election/selection, should get a free few orbits of the earth, to give them some perspective on the job they're about to undertake. Maybe offer the first one on Artemis II, a deferred one for the current US administration?

James May of Top Gear has flown with a U2 spy plane once [0][1]. When they reached to the edge of space, May said "If everybody could do that once, it would completely change the face of global politics, religion, education, everything". I can't agree more. Another thing I believe needs to be watched periodically is Pale Blue Dot [2]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-COlil4tos [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

"If everybody could do that once, it would completely change the face of global politics, religion, education, everything".

You could have the same effect with LSD/Psilocybin for quite a bit less $$$$.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#217

Post by cromwellian »

throw-23 wrote: post #155
cromwellian wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA's budget is 0.35% of the Federal Budget. The US Government spends the equivalent of 20 years of moon mission spending on ICE. They're spending 2x that on Iran war. They blew $200 billion in PPP Loan fraud in 2020 alone. I'm tired of nickle and diming science funding. You had scientists like Sabine Hossenfelder cheerleading NSF cuts cause of "waste" on string theory and particle accelerators. NSF is 0.1% of the f…

It might not seem like it, but I really am on your team. What you're missing and Sabine understands is that there is no such thing as spending that's insignificant, and whether we're talking cash or mission bandwidth, everything has opportunity costs. Exactly how many possible missions are thrown out every time we decide to send squishy humans instead of robots? As for defense spending, to be clear I'm all for swappi…

Sabine got her wish. DOGE cut NSF by 40%. Tons of scientists out of work including physicists. But she'll be ok, she only needs to pimp another ad for Brilliant.com

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#218

Post by isoprophlex »

uoaei wrote: post #61
isoprophlex wrote: post #55

Can't they do a few loops around the planet and skim only the upper atmosphere? always worked well for me on kerbal space program, haha

Aerobraking causes heat cycles . Expanding and contracting a material that already has "not large, large chunks missing" doesn't seem very prudent. Even before the evidence of deterioration, I'm not sure the safety culture at NASA would reach for that any time soon when a single high-temp event would work.

interesting; obviously kerbal space logic does not apply to the real world... thanks for the explainer as to why

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#219

Post by azernik »

XorNot wrote: post #145
ponector wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How expensive in comparison to the nuclear submarines or nuclear carriers?

At its peak the Apollo program was about 6% of US GDP.

About 4% of the federal budget and 6% of discretionary spending at its peak, not of GDP.

Still a very high number, but nowhere near the military-budget-levels you're talking about.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#220

Post by voidUpdate »

Mikhail_K wrote: post #215
voidUpdate wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the same o-rings afterwards is surprising, I've heard that the manufacturer was surprised that they were being used for that purpose because they weren't rated for that. Also I'm not sure the assertion is correct. If the sealant and O-Rings were adequate, the joint would not have failed. It was suboptimal, and increased risk, sure, but it in itself wasn't the reason for the accident. It was the joint and the o-…

> If the sealant and O-Rings were adequate, the joint would not have failed. That assertion requires some reasoning and evidence to back it.

The sealant and O-rings were meant to keep the hot gasses inside. Simply making a joint slightly wiggly will not keep hot gasses inside. The hot gasses did not stay inside. The sealant and O-rings did not succeed in keeping the hot gasses inside (evidence: Challenger). They were not adequate
Post reply on HN