301–310 of 667 posts
The author seems to have a pretty extensive history of… strong disdain for Artemis II. While has mentioned concerns about the heat shield before it was in the context of a laundry list of complaints, and it was nowhere close to the top. I’m not a rocket scientist, but then neither is the author.
If I recall correctly the Author worked at NASA.
A lot of the discussion overlooks or wishes to avoid an uncomfortable problem with the Artemis program: Artemis III's hardware will not be ready for the forseeable future. The program has had multiple shakeups so far. This is a program heading for cancellation. The flight risk is surely acceptable if this is not the first flight of many but the last.
I think you mean Artemis IV (the moon landing)? Artemis III is now a near Earth orbit mission to dock with whatever mockup lander SpaceX or Blue Origin can throw up in time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure the other astronauts are really looking forward to fly with a person showing signs of suicidal ideation.
I read this as "accepting a risk of death in exchange for getting to have the incredible experience of flying to the Moon", not that they want to die.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Normalization of deviance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance
This is when you hire someone with autism and give them a direct report. Their inability at social cues will cut right through. Works every time.
It's pithy, but correct.
Source: I'm "on the spectrum." This often resulted in me being the skunk at the rationalization picnic, because I didn't realize the boss wanted me to rubberstamp a bad design.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
> The sealant and O-rings did not succeed in keeping the hot gasses inside (evidence: Challenger). They were not adequate No. The whole assembly --joint, sealant and O-rings, -- failed. "They were not adequate" - yet, after the redesign, they kept those same O-rings and declared that boosters are safe to fly, in manifest contradiction to your assertion. So your reasoning is clearly flawed.
presumably "redesign" means some stuff changed. why is it not possible that the O-rings were inadequate for the old design, but adequate for the new design?
Hypothetical to wrap my head around scope: Say we had a spacecraft that was 100% capable of launching from Earth, orbiting the moon, and landing back on Earth, but it also had the docking equipment to be compatible with ISS. Could I decide, while orbiting the moon, that I'd rather dock with the ISS instead? Is that at all feasible or is it one of those, "we're not lined up for any of this. It's basically impossible."…
If you are serious about moon, there should be dozen of unmanned landers setting up the infrastructure before first human landers. There should be plenty of time to test human rated stuff multiple times. This is only problem because it's second mission and right with humans. If it was 24th and first human mission all these unknowns would be solved. Ergo the mission design is wrong, not the heat shield design.
I'm literally guest lecturing at a Harvard class tomorrow on systemic failures in decision making, using the Columbia and Challenger disasters as case studies, and changed my slides last night to include Artemis II because it could literally happen again. This broken safety culture has been around since the beginning of the Shuttle program. In 1980, Gregg Easterbrook published "Goodbye, Columbia" in The Washington Mo…
Hypothetical to wrap my head around scope: Say we had a spacecraft that was 100% capable of launching from Earth, orbiting the moon, and landing back on Earth, but it also had the docking equipment to be compatible with ISS. Could I decide, while orbiting the moon, that I'd rather dock with the ISS instead? Is that at all feasible or is it one of those, "we're not lined up for any of this. It's basically impossible."…