"Hey man how's it going?"
> replacing the asbestos lining in the boosters with a greener material, a project budgeted at $4.4M, has now cost NASA a quarter of a billion dollars
"... Jesus Christ."
The Lunacy of Artemis
251–260 of 539 posts
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#252The premise gives good material for writing an article and yet we are not comparing apples to apples. A cargo rocket main use would be for building a moon space station, transport materials. Hence its size.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#253„And though the Shuttle engines are designed to be fully reusable (the main reason they're so expensive), every SLS launch throws four of them away.“
Using reusable engines on non-reusable rocket? That alone doesn’t make sense at all.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#254We are going to The moon for two reasons. First, we want to set up a more permanent base. Nasa refers to this as "we're here to stay" The second reason we are going to the moon so that we can put the first person of color and the first woman on the moon. That is explicitly an Artemis mission purpose. Only time will tell if either of these two missions were actually worth it. One more point > Early on, SLS designers m…
I'd like to see us put the first ventriloquist on the moon, with a miniature spacesuit for their little buddy. "That's one small step for dummy-kind--", "Who ya callin' small ya big dummy!" This is why we go to space.
So long as they do a gag where the dummy's suit is depressurised and he continues to protest but now silently, then I'm all for it. If Man is truly to live along the stars then vaudeville humour shall be part of it
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I agree with you that the whole program is useless. The point I'm trying to make with this analogy is that the effort is internally incoherent even if you grant the premise that moon landings and building Gateway are desirable outcomes.
What do you think is useful for NASA to do? Do you think any form of spaceflight is useful ?
I'm a big fan of space exploration and would love to see a robotic exploration program on the scale of our current human space flight endeavors, sending rovers and landers all over the solar system, along with a major space telescope every 3 years or so (instead of once a decade).
I feel like we're squandering an amazing chance to explore space by getting stuck on sending people instead of leveraging the enormous progress in microelectronics, robotics, and autonomy of the last 60 years.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#256I think there's only one part of that essay I disagree with:
That SpaceX knows "How much propellant a Starship can carry to low Earth orbit". They're iterating on Starship. Falcon 9 started out with an LEO payload of 10.4 tons and they managed to get it up to 22.8 in its current iteration. By all accounts Starship's payload isn't up to expectations right now but SpaceX has lots of knobs they intend to turn to get it up. They'll try them and see, but there's no way to know what will work and how much right now. So really nobody knows at this point how many refueling launches it will take.
Should NASA have committed to this design before the kinks were worked out. No really but Congress had put them in an impossible position so I think they didn't have a choice. But this is risk that happens at the start of the mission before any astronauts board. If things go badly here they can always abort. Unlike the landing on the Moon. And rapid launches and orbital refueling are something SpaceX is going to be working on a lot anyways regardless of the Artemis program. Unlike the landing on the Moon.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#257Destin 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…
The problem is that Artemis is in many ways inferior to Apollo. It is less safe, more expensive (which is to say something!), less capable,... If the goal is to build a moon base, it should be able to do what Apollo did with ample margins, but from the look of it, it doesn't appear like there is much margin. It is complexity for complexity sake, it doesn't translate into more payload, more scientific potential, or lower costs.
The only breakthroughs with Artemis is the part with Starship, the refueling in space part could change the deal for future mission, for the Moon, Mars, or elsewhere. And finding an excuse to write a blank cheque to SpaceX is, I think, not too bad an idea despite all the Elon Musk bullshit. SpaceX actually launches rockets, they are even pretty good at it, a rare thing. But do we really need all that baggage with SLS, Orion, and convoluted orbits? Just have SpaceX send a Starship to the moon (which is one of the last points in the article).
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The real lunacy is simply not being mission-driven. Okay but why does the mission exist? People keep going "the mission is go to to the moon". Is it? Why are we doing that? How much do the "proven technologies" cost? Are they reusable? The answer of course, is that the mission is not "go to the moon". It's "go to the moon and establish permanent, long term scientific research operations with a view to using that ex…
> Okay but why does the mission exist? Politics. > People keep going "the mission is go to to the moon". Is it? Why are we doing that? Again, politics. The US has to assert dominance in space and cannot allow parties like China to one-up them. It's also a great way for political leadership to score points with the public. A more rational approach for establishing a permanent human presence on the moon would have incl…
> Politics.
You're saying "we need to be mission focused". If the mission is "politics", then hey, you're right - turn on the money faucet we're doing Apollo again. Developing new technology, doing science, whatever - all not actually happening.
Of course...if it's not politics, then maybe the new technology is the point? That a mission where you don't fundamentally improve how you're doing it would in fact be the only waste of money, because it's just the same pointless thing all over again.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
> NASA built a working engine in the 70s. Kind of. No NTR has ever been flown and tested in space. The program achieved many milestones and got pretty far into development, but was cancelled 50 years ago due to budget constraints. It's always the last 10% that are the hardest in engineering and while NASA (as well as the Soviet Union) got 90% there, it would still have taken a few years (maybe just two) of further de…
> The real lunacy is simply not being mission-driven. A true mission driven design would have used a simple, reliable option using proven and existing technology. Like non-cryogenic fuel for example. Are you talking about the lander? Because IMO, the lander it the least objectionable part of the whole thing. Congress, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the lander budget would be $3 B - about 1 year's worth of dev…
> Are you talking about the lander?
I'm talking about the entirety of Artemis. SLS was basically a job-saving programme initiated by Congress to appease senators that feared job losses in their respective states after the Shuttle programme was axed. Alternative designs that would use fuel storage in space and space tugs could've worked without an expensive new rocket.
> IMO, the lander it the least objectionable part of the whole thing
Then we have a disagreement :) The HLS requires the following in order work:
* the development of a rapidly reusable, radically new rocket system with new engines that haven't been flight tested before; alternative options could've used existing systems
* development of long term in-orbit cryogenic fuel storage - something that has never been tried before
* development of safe and reliable cryogenic fuel transfer between vehicles in orbit - again, a capability that has never been demonstrated before
* a lander with a single point of failure for exiting/entering the vehicle (on account of its ridiculous height)
* a lander that relies on turbo-pump driven bi-propellant engines for ascend - something so risky that Apollo-era engineers didn't even consider it
* a lander with a mass of around 100 tons for 2 crew initially - horrible weight to payload ratio, as this mass has to be launched from the surface
* several (actual number unknown as of now, but certainly more than 4) required refuelling launches
In conclusion we have 4 mission critical technologies that have never been demonstrated before, yet need to work flawlessly. We also have added risk due to the use of turbo-pump driven bi-propellant cryogenic fuel and the requirement of a 30+ metre crane for accessing the vehicle. I cannot comment on the stability during landing and ascend or the risks involved with dust and rocks from the exhaust plume on the moon.
As far as the economics go, yeah, I agree that with such tight budget a mission like that is very challenging to say the least. Low-balling the cost, exaggerating the timeline and hiring the person who on her own decided to hand out the contract throws a bad light on the issue, though.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I agree with you that the whole program is useless. The point I'm trying to make with this analogy is that the effort is internally incoherent even if you grant the premise that moon landings and building Gateway are desirable outcomes.
What do you think is useful for NASA to do? Do you think any form of spaceflight is useful ?
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