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Artemis II Launch Day Updates

nasa.gov

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Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#861

Post by coldtea »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #835
coldtea wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might want it to be fiction, but he's been very good at figuring out business plans to leverage his ultimate goals. Not very good on delivering tech though, which is what makes it more fiction than not.

Who makes the bar for "good at delivering tech" if the guy pushing spacex, starlink and tesla simultaneously doesn't reach it?

Many promises that never materialized or resulted in mediocre or bad products, from the Mars mission to the Hyperloop, and from Teslas dismal software and often promised, never materializing fully autonomous drive to the Cybertruck. Let's not go into the robot vapourware either...

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#862

Post by Blackstrat »

It's good to see NASA finally do something beyond navel gazing. Nonetheless, calling this flight historic is a stretch. Other than flying a few miles further than Apollo 13, it will actually accomplish less than Apollo 8 did 57 years ago.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#863

Post by dmurray »

SR2Z wrote: post #837
prohobo wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ughhh, Elon Moosk amirite? Such a fraud, because [???] I don't really understand why these kinds of comments persist except as some pathological cope when confronted with a world that doesn't work the way you want it to. It's not convincing, it immediately outs you as a zealot, it's counterproductive in every single way. Why keep doing it?

I fully agree with you, but the answer is obviously "because he's a very unpleasant man."

Lots of powerful people are unpleasant, but Musk additionally got involved in politics in a very visible way at a very partisan, polarising time in American history. He didn't attract as much hate before 2024.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#864

Post by sensanaty »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #6
LorenDB wrote: 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.

I always found this framing interesting.

Sure, if we lived in a purely utilitarian world, there's some merit to the argument that space exploration is a waste of resources that could be more efficiently used elsewhere. We don't live in a utilitarian world though, and instead we have the same (and in reality much, much larger) amounts of money and resources that get spent on this moon mission being spent instead on bombing the Middle East with nothing to show for it other than an impending global economic crisis.

Could the money spent on Artemis be spent somewhere better? Probably, but how about we start with not burning through 38 billion (and rising!) on a farcical boondoggle of a military operation whose only effects so far are increases in the cost of literally everything? The first WEEK of the war cost 11 billion[1], but when it comes to NASA we're suddenly penny-pinching?

And that's talking pure monetary expenditure, without even going into the human lives lost, the lessening of sanctions on Russia (which will in turn cause even more suffering in Ukraine), or the halting of trade through the Suez, etc. etc. etc.

From where I'm standing, even if Artemis turns out to be a complete and utter disaster with not a single benefit of any kind coming out of it, the worst possible case scenario is a few astronauts die and we wasted a few billion (and I guess NASA gets shut down). That's of course us working under the assumption that there won't be a single novel scientific discovery of any kind, or that we will learn absolutely nothing from these missions.

The current unjustified war the US is waging on the other hand has already killed thousands of people, and will continue harming every single person on this earth through the economic fallout alone. The US is quite literally setting money on fire with every single bomb they drop over Iran. And the true worst case scenario that I can easily imagine happening is nukes getting dropped and all the consequences that follow from that.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/world/middleeast/iran-war...

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#865

Post by dreamcompiler »

layer8 wrote: post #424
sd9 wrote: post #320

Minutes after launch they reached "ten thousand miles per hour". That's 2.78 miles per second. Nuts. No doubt the speeds go even higher later too. I'm sure people here are already familiar with the speeds these things go, but that's the first time I've confronted a fact like that and it blew me away.

Escape velocity is 25,020 mph (6.95 mps), so not completely surprising. Note that escape velocity applies to a situation without continued propulsion and also without air resistance, but still you can imagine that the order of magnitude is similar.

Exactly. Your rocket can escape the earth at the speed of a slow elevator if you burn the engines continuously and you can carry an infinite amount of fuel and your fuel weighs nothing.

Since those constraints are impossible to meet in the real world, we have to get going fast enough to coast most of the trip on inertia after the fuel runs out.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#866

Post by amai »

Blackstrat wrote: post #862

It's good to see NASA finally do something beyond navel gazing. Nonetheless, calling this flight historic is a stretch. Other than flying a few miles further than Apollo 13, it will actually accomplish less than Apollo 8 did 57 years ago.

What did Apollo 8 accomplish more than Artemis 2?

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#867

Post by JumpCrisscross »

palata wrote: post #834
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> guess this is why in this timeline, all engineers in the world are at NASA How does this follow? Are you arguing the Moon programs didn’t increase American engagement in STEM? The point is the people who worked on a partial solution to a terrestrial problem because they were working on space may not be inspired—or incentivized—to work on that problem directly. We’re willing, as a society, to spend big on the Moon.…

> Are you arguing the Moon programs didn’t increase American engagement in STEM? Nope. You are arguing that without a space program, people don't go into STEM and instead become "bureaucrats or financiers". I am saying that this is preposterous. > We’re willing, as a society, to spend big on the Moon. No. Society doesn't have a say in how that money is being spent, that's my original point.

> You are arguing that without a space program, people don't go into STEM and instead become "bureaucrats or financiers"

I never used such hyperbole. I’m arguing fewer people go into STEM. And the people who do cannot be assumed to work on the projects that matter to you.

> Society doesn't have a say in how that money is being spent

Of course we do. Space programmes are popular. That’s why they get funded.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#868

Post by gibolt »

mempko wrote: post #754
SyzygyRhythm wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starship "making LEO" is not a significant challenge--the existing flights have explicitly targeted a (very slightly) suborbital trajectory. They could have done otherwise at any point, but for now it's more important to guarantee that the stage comes down immediately. None of their current objectives require more than ~1/2 of an orbit. Starship v3 flying will be a significant leap, though. It's the first with the Ra…

Their objectives keep shifting and starship is far behind schedule. Sure, it's a success if you keep objectives small. They could have tried for LEO ages ago but didn't. Each launch should maximize learning and having small objectives is anathema to that. And very wasteful.

If you think Starship is behind, look at the 'competition'.

Learnings per flight may not be maximal, but they are measured with enough risk so that bureaucrats will approve it (not restrict future launches) and other countries won't be impacted by a failure.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#869

Post by Blackstrat »

amai wrote: post #866
Blackstrat wrote: post #862

It's good to see NASA finally do something beyond navel gazing. Nonetheless, calling this flight historic is a stretch. Other than flying a few miles further than Apollo 13, it will actually accomplish less than Apollo 8 did 57 years ago.

What did Apollo 8 accomplish more than Artemis 2?

Apollo 8 actually went into orbit around the moon. This flight is more similar to Apollo 13, hopefully without the life threatening problems. The risk on this flight is far less than on Apollo 8 obviously. Still, it's more than time for the US to step up and have an actual space program. The shuttle program and ISS fall far short of the trajectory of the US space program at the end of 1972.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#870

Post by monegator »

Blackstrat wrote: post #862

It's good to see NASA finally do something beyond navel gazing. Nonetheless, calling this flight historic is a stretch. Other than flying a few miles further than Apollo 13, it will actually accomplish less than Apollo 8 did 57 years ago.

what about the fact that it is a joint effort between different agencies?
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