[flagged]
Artemis II Launch Day Updates
531–540 of 1001 posts
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because I have schizo affective disorder, OCD and a partial immune deficiency. And because people treat houses like investments so now I can’t afford to live anywhere anymore, except in a 20 six-year-old Van. And also because people don’t care. mentally ill people are garbage.
You are not garbage, and I’m glad you’re in this thread. I’m sorry for your struggles.
Thank you and you earned 1 billion God karma points.
And I know I’m not garbage but can you tell everyone else that I’m not? Thanks.
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#533Waiting to see what happens to the heat shield on reentry... https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... https://theconversation.com/heat-shield-safety-concerns-rais...
> the agency said it was confident that a change to the re-entry trajectory would be more than adequate to offset any spalling issues. Somewhat confusingly, they also announced their intention to switch to a new heat shield design, starting with Artemis III.
This is not confusing in the least. Engineers don't talk about safety in binary terms. It's not "safe" vs. "not safe". Instead, it's all about the probability of a bad outcome. At NASA, they compute the probability of Loss of Crew (LoC) and the probability of Loss of Mission (LoM).
For Artemis II, a change to the re-entry trajectory brings the LoC/LoM back to an acceptable level. For Artemis III, which a new shield design, they can get to the same LoC/LoM with a different trajectory (which gives them other benefits).
Stop thinking in terms binary terms. Everything is a probability.
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#534I do hope the doomers who think that the entire US government has been completely gutted will take note of this. The government workforce is in a bad spot for sure, SLS is far from a perfect program, but this still demonstrates that we are doing some real work still.
I certainly hope the mission goes as planned but it does feel like SLS is the wrong approach in the time of reusable rockets, even if this specific mission profile would probably have demanded the booster be expendable. Using the Shuttle main engines - designed and made to be 'refurbishable' rather than 'reusable' but still dumped into the ocean after each mission - and the SRBs (solid boosters) still gives the impre…
Conversely SLS is ready now. Starship and Super Heavy are not and cannot do this mission today.
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet. Virtue signalling etc.
> It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet Is it more popular? Or is it just easy? Dismissive “reads” are done by the picosecond; there is just much more to choose from than constructive thinking, which takes work.
That's true, most of these comments are just drive by pessimism by people who just skim headlines and don't really care to deeply understand the topics being discussed.
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
Get nervous in 10 days, they won't need a heat shield until reentry.
10 days? Hope they brought snacks Seriously though I hope they're able to get up and walk around I don't know if I could handle that 10 days in that small room
Astronauts are made of different stuff. Truly the best of the best.
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack. Three of the main engines are refurbished Shuttle engines. The fourth is a clone that cost more than the entire SpaceX Starship stack. The boosters are derived from the Shuttle SRBs. It's a late-60s technology rocket stack with a 2000s-era flight computer. It's such a travesty.
> is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack Scaling is still engineering. And the environmental control system, laser-optical communication systems and block-construction heat shields are new. For Artemis III, in-obit propellant transfer will be new and transformational.
All of this stuff is really great but it's not worth the cost that was spent on it.
The thing you have to keep asking yourself is "what could 100 billion dollars of non-pork barrel spending have bought instead of what we ended up with?"
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe you’ll like this too: The Earth’s speed around the sun is around 67,000 mph. So it moves significantly faster than the rocket, though not orders of magnitude. The solar system itself moves at 43,000 mph relative to its local neighborhood. But speed is always just relative to some frame of reference. Acceleration, on the other hand, is absolute, and so might be the more interesting thing to look at here.
Acceleration is change in speed, so it is, by its very nature, relative just like speed is. If I fall, I might accelerate at G meters per second, relative to the earth, but I don't absolutely accelerate. If the earth decelerates at the same time, I'm now both accelerating an decelerating. It's relative.
It’s absolute in the sense that you can determine your acceleration without any external reference. You feel a certain force (like what you feel in an elevator). That’s your acceleration. You don’t accelerate relative to Earth, or relative to anything else. You accelerate relative to when you wouldn’t be accelerating (your inertial rest frame, a state of free fall).
If you are in space accelerating and the Earth would decelerate (which is just an acceleration in the other direction), you would still feel exactly the same force (minus Earth’s gravity, to the small extent you’d still feel it), and people on the Earth would feel the Earth’s acceleration. (For them it would feel like “down” isn’t perpendicular to the Earth’s surface anymore, or as if the Earth’s surface was tilted.)
When you sit on a chair on Earth, the pressure you feel on your butt is your acceleration upwards. If there was no chair and no ground (and no air), so that you’d be in free fall, that’s when you’d have zero acceleration. Your inertial rest frame is the trajectory you’d take in free fall. When you’re sitting on a chair, or lying in bed, or standing on the ground, you’re accelerating upwards relative to that rest frame, and that’s the pressure you feel on your butt, or on your body, or under your feet.
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#539[deleted]
Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is hard, but Everyday Astronaut had a manually-operated camera with a 2,000mm lens that captured everything from engine start all the way through a reasonably-clear view of SRB separation. In 4k, at 720fps. (I didn't bother with watching the NASA feed.)
I wish we'd known this before the launch Both myself and my 12yo were disappointed by the NASA feed, it was more like the matter-of-fact coverage of 'routine' Shuttle launches of the 1980s than something worthy of this historic mission.
Well, now you know. :)
Always watch Everyday Astronaut's live feeds for rocket launches. It's the primary gig for some of those involved, so they care a lot about making it something that is both informative and superb.