Live data from Hacker News

Artemis II Launch Day Updates

nasa.gov

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#181
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artemis was already set in stone well before DOGE came about and IMO if the federal government is going to set mountains of cash on fire I'd rather it be to NASA than half the crap the government wastes every year.

My point is that DOGE killed a bunch of government programs that help people while saving no money, yet this giant waste of money survived. Cancelling Artemis II alone in favor of III would save a billion dollars by itself.

> government programs that help people

Like spending $1.5 million on DEI programs in Serbia? That actually happened.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#182

Even I'm a big space fan, at moment I just can enjoy anything that comes from USA. I just can't applause to a super bully.

That's your own thing. Think about it to applause the dedicated work of people who have spent their life building these missions and have to do this work through multiple different administrations.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you watch sports, football, the Olympics? If not I'm sure you know someone who does. Same category as this. Each of the 32 NFL team is worth about the cost of 1-2 Artemis launches. The entire league could fund the whole Artemis program nearly twice. Hosting the Olympics is worth about 3-10 launches. Like sports, the objective is ultimately useless except as a showcase of what humanity has to offer, and people like…

I think in general space exploration is a great use of taxpayer money, but the artemis program doesn't seem great from either a "science per dollar" or "novel accomplishment per dollar" standpoint. If the goal was just to flex on the rest of the world I would've much rather we focused on going somewhere new or returning to the moon in a more sustainable way

I feel like these missions are just paving the way for billionaires to have a new vacation spot.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#184
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports would also be much cheaper without humans.

The most important (if not entertaining) things you can do in space don't involve humans. Telescopes, communications, earth observation, sending probes to distant bodies, etc. It's nice that we can send humans to space and it's good to keep that capability going so that the knowledge doesn't die. But the unmanned missions tend to pull the weight of actually accomplishing useful things. Humans just get in the way.

Most people don't find those things interesting unless people are directly involved in them.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#185
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a major difference though. Sports events are not pretending to be anything else. The Artemis mission claims to be advancing science and claims to be a stepping stone for an eventual moon base and a manned mission to Mars. I personally have serious questions about all of these.

Do you really disagree that it’s advancing science? Surely actually testing hardware, building knowledge on how to run this type of mission, learning to use lunar resources, figuring out how to keep people alive, etc. will teach us things we couldn’t learn any other way. Fwiw do share your concerns about the methods (sending humans on this specific mission is questionable, SLS is questionable compared to SpaceX appro…

It's not science, it's engineering. I don't think it's advancing science in a way that wouldn't be possible with a fraction of the cost without sending humans there.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why do you see this as a worthwhile endeavor? My personal perspective is that the resources are better used for other purposes, but it's possible that I just haven't encountered some compelling reason yet.

Do you watch sports, football, the Olympics? If not I'm sure you know someone who does. Same category as this. Each of the 32 NFL team is worth about the cost of 1-2 Artemis launches. The entire league could fund the whole Artemis program nearly twice. Hosting the Olympics is worth about 3-10 launches. Like sports, the objective is ultimately useless except as a showcase of what humanity has to offer, and people like…

The difference being that sports are not exclusively paid by taxes, I guess?

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#187
post #5

It's been 54 years since humans last visited the Moon. Hopefully, in a few years we will get boots back on the surface.

Out of curiosity, why do you see this as a worthwhile endeavor? My personal perspective is that the resources are better used for other purposes, but it's possible that I just haven't encountered some compelling reason yet.

It's a better thing to strive for than war.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#188
post #5

It's been 54 years since humans last visited the Moon. Hopefully, in a few years we will get boots back on the surface.

NASA is risking the Astronauts lives, and could have done the mission uncrewed to test what is being tested for the first time with humans: Artemis II is not safe to fly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043

But they need to convince the people that it's worth the money, and the people are more excited when humans risk their lives, even if it is for nothing.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#189

I will be watching the launch from Europe, so it will be not earlier than half past midnight for us. My kids (9 and 10) are sleeping on the couch in front of the projection screen, so that they do not even have to get up when I wake them up at midnight, which I promised. Just wanted to add my grain of positivity here. Godspeed Artemis 2!

> add my grain of positivity

The best of science, reason, research, engineering, training, expertise, co-operation...

The best of humanity. Le meilleur de l'humanité.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument comes up a lot, about whether a space program is “worth it” in some sense. One problem I’ve found is that these discussions often treat this in the abstract. And then we get into the nature of human endeavor, the economic benefits of that R&D, etc. Let’s talk about this in terms of practicalities. The NASA budget for 2026, per Wikipedia, is $24.4B. I often find it hard to really reason about the size of…

NASA isn't expensive. The science parts and the job creation parts almost certainly return a significant economic multiplier. The spend is very good value for around 0.5% of the federal budget. That doesn't mean Moon shots are the best possible use of that budget. There are strong arguments for creating more space stations first, and then using them as staging for other projects. Mars and the Moon are ridiculously ho…

I would like to watch a new Moon landing, but in my opinion more useful would be to build a space station with artificial gravity.

At some point it may become cheaper to build a spacecraft on the Moon and launch it in interplanetary missions than to do it from Earth. It might also be useful to build some bigger telescopes on the Moon than it is practical to launch from Earth, because due to the pollution of the sky extraterrestrial telescopes become more and more necessary.

Despite the fact that there may be some uses for bases on the Moon, it is likely that those bases should be mostly automated and humans should stay in such bases only for a limited time, much like staying on the ISS. The reason is that it is very likely that the gravity of the Moon is still too low to avoid health deterioration. According to the experiments done on mice in the ISS, two thirds of the terrestrial gravity were required to avoid health issues and one third of the terrestrial gravity provided a partial mitigation.

So even the gravity of Mars is only barely enough to avoid the more severe health problems, but not sufficient.

For long term missions, there is no real alternative to the use of a rotating space station, to ensure adequate gravity.

While with underground bases on Moon or on Mars it would be much easier to provide radiation protection, there remains the problem of insufficient gravity. It may be necessary to also build a rotating underground base, at least for a part where humans spend most of the time.

Post reply on HN