> It’s not clear how many Starship launches it will take to refuel HLS. Elon Musk has said four might be enough
Has Musk once NOT lied about such figures?
The Lunacy of Artemis
291–300 of 539 posts
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Afiak, the purposes are to begin to setup the infrastructure for permanent habitation, and to prepare for a crewed flight to Mars. > That is explicitly an Artemis mission purpose. Where does it say that?
> Where does it say that? First line of the official page at https://www.nasa.gov/feature/artemis/ "With the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before."
That seems like a side effect more than an explicit purpose. Down below is more to the point:
> WHY WE’RE GOING TO THE MOON
> We’re going back to the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and inspiration for a new generation of explorers: the Artemis Generation. While maintaining American leadership in exploration, we will build a global alliance and explore deep space for the benefit of all.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#293> Conversely, if SpaceX and Blue Origin can’t make cryogenic refueling work, then NASA has no plan B for landing on the moon. If SpaceX and Blue Origin can't. Then Nasa will find someone who can. Cryogenic refueling is the projects real engineering target. Landing on the moon in the twenty twenties just isn't that impressive anymore. The Artemis program is nominally about going to the moon, but it really isn't. It's…
> It's about building and living in habitats beyond low orbit And what for if I may ask? And please don't say "technological development" or "colonizing space". ad Development): Most of the tech that needs to be developed for this, is what is commonly called space plumbing: Figuring out ways to make human bodily functions not immediately fail in space. Next to none of these technologies benefit humanity at large in a…
> There is exactly ONE reason why Apollo was manned by people instead of robots: Because computers, electronics and robotics in the 60s were not up to the task. If todays tech existed back then, I would bet the Apollo rocket would have had exactly one passenger, and that would have been the Lunar Roving vehicle.
But a manned outpost beyond earth would make the logistics for large scale space exploration (even with robots) much more feasible, no?
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#294> Conversely, if SpaceX and Blue Origin can’t make cryogenic refueling work, then NASA has no plan B for landing on the moon. If SpaceX and Blue Origin can't. Then Nasa will find someone who can. Cryogenic refueling is the projects real engineering target. Landing on the moon in the twenty twenties just isn't that impressive anymore. The Artemis program is nominally about going to the moon, but it really isn't. It's…
Why is cryogenic propellant transfer any more difficult than other difficult things SpaceX have already done (eg landing a rocket, and building a full flow staged combustion engine)? They do this on earth every time they fuel the rocket. I understand it will be more difficult in space, but I don’t see why specifically this problem is the real engineering target over say, reuse.
Landing/reusing a rocket isn't new and has been done before.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?". The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward. While arguably today there are comparable tensions, countries…
>The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward. I'd say the climate is as tense today, and it is getting tenser. NATO is now talking about putting "trainers" into Ukraine, and US-made weaponry is being used to kill Vatniks; China is using water cannon on Philippine…
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Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#296It's easy to miss how clever the Apollo mission architecture was. The moon is not so far away in terms of distance but it is very far away in terms of Δv because, not least, you have to land propulsively because there is no atmosphere to slow you down. Trips to some near-Earth asteroids are easier than the lunar surface, Mars and Venus aren't that much harder because in any of those cases the Moon's gravity can be he…
> The moon is not so far away in terms of distance but it is very far away in terms of Δv because, not least, you have to land propulsively because there is no atmosphere to slow you down.
Not least, but certainly the requirement to brake before you land must be on the small order compared to achieving escape velocity from the much bigger rock I'm on?
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 pu…
Because the spirit of Apollo - unsustainable one off dlag planting missions - lead to human spaceflight stagnating for the subsequent half century.
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Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what if China gets there first? How exactly would that benefit them, in a geopolitical sense? Sorry, but if I have the choice of wasting that much resources just so I can brag about it a bit sooner than my opponent, or watch my opponent do so, while I use said resources more productively, I know what to do.
> And what if China gets there first? How exactly would that benefit them, in a geopolitical sense? If China gets there first, the enormous amount of international credibility and resulting soft power that they will gain internationally, at the US's expense, will be immense and will be worth the resources they spend several times over.
> the enormous amount of international credibility and resulting soft power
You know what is giving China soft power? Funding projects around all of Africa.
You know what is not giving western countries soft power? Burning Billions on Space Programs that serve zero purpose and could achieve more with much less investments, if we just continued sending robots.
Again, I know where I would allocate my resources if I had a hand in this game.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#299> Conversely, if SpaceX and Blue Origin can’t make cryogenic refueling work, then NASA has no plan B for landing on the moon. If SpaceX and Blue Origin can't. Then Nasa will find someone who can. Cryogenic refueling is the projects real engineering target. Landing on the moon in the twenty twenties just isn't that impressive anymore. The Artemis program is nominally about going to the moon, but it really isn't. It's…
> It's about building and living in habitats beyond low orbit And what for if I may ask? And please don't say "technological development" or "colonizing space". ad Development): Most of the tech that needs to be developed for this, is what is commonly called space plumbing: Figuring out ways to make human bodily functions not immediately fail in space. Next to none of these technologies benefit humanity at large in a…
We covered more ground in a lunar rover in a week than any of our mars rovers covered in a year.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's about building and living in habitats beyond low orbit And what for if I may ask? And please don't say "technological development" or "colonizing space". ad Development): Most of the tech that needs to be developed for this, is what is commonly called space plumbing: Figuring out ways to make human bodily functions not immediately fail in space. Next to none of these technologies benefit humanity at large in a…
> There is exactly ONE reason why Apollo was manned by people instead of robots: Because computers, electronics and robotics in the 60s were not up to the task. If todays tech existed back then, I would bet the Apollo rocket would have had exactly one passenger, and that would have been the Lunar Roving vehicle. But a manned outpost beyond earth would make the logistics for large scale space exploration (even with ro…
> But a manned outpost beyond earth would make the logistics for large scale space exploration (even with robots) much more feasible, no?
How would it do so exactly? Please give me a technical reason for this assumption.
Because, I predict it would do the exact opposite: Keeping humans alive away from Earth eats up an enormeous amount of resources all on its own. Resources that could instead go into building better robots, building more robots, building more rockets.