Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’ve killed dozens during the shuttle program , or did you forget ? Also a number during Gemini, Mercury and Appollo. Terrible safety record , and 5x worse than Soyuz . Shuttle fatality rate was 1/10. Approaching Russian roulette odds
135 missions, 2 fatal accidents, that’s not 1/10.
Artemis II is not safe to fly
121–130 of 667 posts
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
About the last point: At this point in time, manned space exploration should come out of our entertainment budget. The same budget we use for football or olympic games.
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?
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
About the last point: At this point in time, manned space exploration should come out of our entertainment budget. The same budget we use for football or olympic games.
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?
Perhaps, but they should also get a few free orbits of the Earth *after* their term ends, on a launch system built by whichever contractor has given the most "campaign donations" to politicians. Surely they'll trust it to be safe, right?
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#124It reminds me of both the movies Capricorn 1 and Iron Sky ... and not in any good way.
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#125if author is reading this, you should fix this maybe.
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never risk free , but Soyuz hardly lost any crew over its 50+ years
2/156 lost for Soyuz in 59 years, 2/135 for Space Shuttle in 30 years. Same rate. People often underestimate how intense STS actually was.
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
About the last point: At this point in time, manned space exploration should come out of our entertainment budget. The same budget we use for football or olympic games.
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?
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
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> NASA tried the honeycomb approach for Orion, but it was too labor-intensive So cost cutting, as always.
You would be the first person to ever accuse the Orion program of cutting costs.
The contractor has no trouble inflating the first one whenever they can, but they want to strip the second one to the bone to maximize profits.
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#129Earlier 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?
Do you think sociopaths like current 'leader' would change significantly upon such experience? I unfortunately don't share such optimism.
Trying and seeing what happens is also science, after all.
Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly
#130This is a more balanced take, in my opinion: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasa-chief-reviews-ori... Camarda is an outlier. The engineers at NASA believe it is safe. The astronauts believe it is safe. Former astronaut Danny Olivas was initially skeptical of the heat shield but came around. And note that the OP believes it is likely (maybe very likely) that the heat shield will work fine. It's hard for me to r…
The "likely" in "likely ...to land safely" and "likely to work fine" is not nearly good enough.