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The Lunacy of Artemis

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Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#151

Post by kqr »

bnralt wrote: post #82

> What NASA is doing is like an office worker blowing half their salary on lottery tickets while putting the other half in a pension fund. If the lottery money comes through, then there was really no need for the pension fund. But without the lottery win, there’s not enough money in the pension account to retire on. The two strategies don't make sense together. I don't think this analogy works, and it reflects a bigg…

I'm confused by this analogy also. Is the article saying that NASA is spending money on things that are negative EV? When it comes to these space exploration things that sounds like a subjective value judgment rather than an objective cost/benefit type thing.

Are they saying this sort of lottery has positive EV, just that the expectation is small? Then the Kelly-optimal course of action is indeed to split one's salary between it and the pension fund -- the exact ratio takes a more ambitious estimation of the EV, of course. But the idea to split money between safe, sure returns and moonshots is not a flawed idea at all.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#152

Post by lyu07282 »

causality0 wrote: post #76

NASA is excellent at its job. You just have to accept the fact that in 1969, NASA's job was putting astronauts on the moon, and in 2024 NASA's job is distributing taxpayer money to various places that don't deserve it. They're damn good at their job.

another important role of NASA is to demonstrate that government agencies waste money, its like the USPS or the NBN in Australia, its liberals putting other liberals in charge of these projects so liberals can say "look private space flight is way more efficient!". It is not allowed to be a functional agency for ideological reasons.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#153

Post by mangecoeur »

bnralt wrote: post #82

> What NASA is doing is like an office worker blowing half their salary on lottery tickets while putting the other half in a pension fund. If the lottery money comes through, then there was really no need for the pension fund. But without the lottery win, there’s not enough money in the pension account to retire on. The two strategies don't make sense together. I don't think this analogy works, and it reflects a bigg…

From a purely engineering standpoint maybe, but that’s also not fully the point of these programs. Look at the suppliers and you will see money going to every state, spread across many regions. This is as much a public money stimulus program as anything else. You want to create skilled jobs, and also print money without devaluing it, what better than a huge billion dollar high tech program.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#154

Post by fastball »

zefhous wrote: post #45

Destin from Smarter Every Day gave a talk that addresses a lot of these issues that I found pretty interesting too. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU

My problem with his criticism (and to some extent echoed by Maciej in this article) is that the main takeaway seems to be "we did it once, we can do it again, let's revisit the past instead of re-inventing the wheel".

But I don't think anyone actively involved wants to revisit the past. Who wants to go back to the moon just because we can? Nobody. Assuming best intentions:

- People at NASA want to go to the moon to build a permanent base there. Maybe this is just to beat China, maybe it will actually be very useful to have a moon base. But that is the stated goal.

- People at SpaceX want to go to the moon as a way to fund Starship development, so that they can go to Mars.

- People at Lockheed Martin / Aerojet Rocketdyne / etc just want to get paid. I am going to ignore this cohort for the purposes of my argument.

These motivations are not served by doing what the Apollo missions did. Can you get to the moon and back on a Saturn V with a single rocket launch, making for a much simpler mission plan? Absolutely, we did it 6 times. Can you build a moon base using a series of Saturn V launches? Absolutely not. Would SpaceX (clearly the most competent launch provider available in 2024) get anything out of building a much smaller HLS / not using methalox / anything else that would be more practical if your only purpose was to go to the moon? Also no – SpaceX doesn't really care about the moon. So a mission profile that is actually optimized for the moon does little for them.

So while I think overall Artemis is a dumpster fire of spending, I don't think pointing at the Apollo missions is the gotcha that critics seem to think it is.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#155

Post by eru »

mangecoeur wrote: post #153
bnralt wrote: post #82

> What NASA is doing is like an office worker blowing half their salary on lottery tickets while putting the other half in a pension fund. If the lottery money comes through, then there was really no need for the pension fund. But without the lottery win, there’s not enough money in the pension account to retire on. The two strategies don't make sense together. I don't think this analogy works, and it reflects a bigg…

From a purely engineering standpoint maybe, but that’s also not fully the point of these programs. Look at the suppliers and you will see money going to every state, spread across many regions. This is as much a public money stimulus program as anything else. You want to create skilled jobs, and also print money without devaluing it, what better than a huge billion dollar high tech program.

You are mixing things up. There's one part of the government that's spending this money, but they can't print money. They have to borrow it (or collect it as taxes).

There's another part of the government, the Fed, that can print money. But by and large, they don't 'spend' it. And they are bound by an inflation target. If inflation goes above target, the Fed sells assets from its balance sheet to remove money from circulation.

Borrowing or taxation just shuffles money around. If it has any impact on total nominal spending, that's nullified by the Fed adjusting the money supply to hit their inflation target.

You are right, that the point of many government programs seems to be to distribute the pork. But that pork comes from current and future tax payers.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#156

Post by nutrie »

Neywiny wrote: post #80
jessriedel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just skimmed it, but he mostly agrees with the criticisms right? ("Addresses" often suggests a rebuttal.)

I watched the whole thing but a bit ago when it came out. He did better than just that, he frankly humiliated the program in my eyes. The points I took away from his talk were: 1. Stop lying to yourselves and figure out the hard math (mostly in relation to the refueling question) 2. Learn from the past. Apollo kept excruciating notes (I'm still discovering new notes. For example, the lunar rover's manual is publicly…

I disagree that he humiliated the program, or the people behind it, which such a statement implies (although I do respect your conclusion). I've been following Destin for years and this guy genuinely cares. It's incredibly difficult to come up with a constructive criticism without offending people and he did a great job doing just that. He was humble, yet firm, well prepared and brought a fresh perspective to the table. Whether the stakeholders will acknowledge that is up to them. Hats off to the guy!

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#157

Post by nine_k »

ein0p wrote: post #118
nine_k wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not, if NASA outsources 100% of the actual operations? Find reasonable contractors (for certain values of "reasonable" that would match SpaceX), give them attainable goals, provide the money, provide publicity, and otherwise stand back and do not interfere. For extra credit, provide some scientific mission spacecraft and rovers, the things NASA us actually quite good at. Key bureaucratic feat: keep Boeing away. 1…

Realistically it takes us “10 years” to repair a bridge in this country nowadays, so I’m not sure what the multiplier should be. And no, Boeing cannot be “kept away” from a fat government contract like this one. Nor can all the other usual suspects

It takes 10 years to have the bridge repaired not because the actual fixing takes 10 years, right?

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#158

Post by bayindirh »

fastball wrote: post #154
zefhous wrote: post #45

Destin from Smarter Every Day gave a talk that addresses a lot of these issues that I found pretty interesting too. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU

My problem with his criticism (and to some extent echoed by Maciej in this article) is that the main takeaway seems to be "we did it once, we can do it again, let's revisit the past instead of re-inventing the wheel". But I don't think anyone actively involved wants to revisit the past. Who wants to go back to the moon just because we can? Nobody. Assuming best intentions: - People at NASA want to go to the moon to b…

From my understanding, nobody is telling that "We should use Apollo as-is", but "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?".

Everything made/designed in Apollo are no short of marvels. Today we can do much better with lighter, smaller electronics, and should be able to do weight savings or at least cost savings where it matters.

Instead Artemis feels like "let's dig the parts pile and put what we have together, and invent the glue required for the missing parts", akin to today's Docker based development ecosystem.

Yes, the plan might be to carry much more equipment in fewer launches, but if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If this amount of people are saying that something is lost in spirit and some stuff is not done in an optimal way, I tend to believe them.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#159

Post by lijok »

fastball wrote: post #154
zefhous wrote: post #45

Destin from Smarter Every Day gave a talk that addresses a lot of these issues that I found pretty interesting too. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU

My problem with his criticism (and to some extent echoed by Maciej in this article) is that the main takeaway seems to be "we did it once, we can do it again, let's revisit the past instead of re-inventing the wheel". But I don't think anyone actively involved wants to revisit the past. Who wants to go back to the moon just because we can? Nobody. Assuming best intentions: - People at NASA want to go to the moon to b…

"Let's revisit the past instead of re-inventing the wheel" challenge was posed to the project management, not engineering.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#160

Post by codesnik »

jojobas wrote: post #149
O5vYtytb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to miss the forest for the trees here. The goal is to get a base on the moon, and this is the first step. Starship will eventually be bringing lots and lots of cargo to the moon for this purpose. Bringing people there for a few days and then bringing them back is a very short term goal.

[flagged]

it really depends on price and cadence.
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