Earlier quoted context omitted.
We covered more ground in a lunar rover in a week than any of our mars rovers covered in a year.
But that week was fifty-two years ago.
That is a further endorsement of human exploration.
The Lunacy of Artemis
311–320 of 539 posts
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#312Earlier 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…
We covered more ground in a lunar rover in a week than any of our mars rovers covered in a year.
> We covered more ground in a lunar rover in a week than any of our mars rovers covered in a year.
And this counters my argument...how exactly?
Even forgetting the fact that scientific progress isn't measured in "kilometers driven" (just count the number of experiments that Perseverance carries, and compare the amounts of data produced(, there is no technical reason a robot cannot drive as far as a vehicle carrying humans.
In fact it's the opposite: One of the most important restrictions regarding the LRVs driving distance wasn't technological in nature, it was due to the the fact it had to carry humans:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle#Usage
An operational constraint on the use of the LRV was that the astronauts must be able to walk back to the LM if the LRV were to fail at any time during the EVA (called the "Walkback Limit"). Thus, the traverses were limited in the distance they could go at the start and at any time later in the EVA.
And even though they relaxed the constraints later on, the fact still remains: As soon as you have a human in the mix, things become more cumbersome, way more expensive, slower, less risks can be taken, and if things go wrong, the results can suddenly involve dead people instead of just trashed equipment.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#313I think we all can understand the situation here unless people are really dense.. the Artemis program was setup at a time when the private space companies were still very new. SpaceX will soon be quite close to technically doing the entire mission themselves without Artemis at all. SpaceX took the money from NASA to help fund their Starship development and probably for other reasons as well. Net result is that by the…
So the Artemis part of the program (the "pension plan") is just doing something that pretends to be marginally useful for insane amounts of money to secure political support through the jobs it enables at various companies strategically spread across the US (plus support from the international partners involved), while the hope is that the HLS part of the program (the "lottery ticket") will eventually succeed in maki…
The point is more that compared to prior landers, the Starship version at least has a uniquely high center of gravity over a narrow base, which makes it a whole lot easier to tip, and amplifies the consequences of, say, leg damage.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should have refused
Congress: Use Shuttle engines and SRBs to build a vehicle capable of deep space transportation. Nasa: No that's too costly. Congress: lol ok we'll slash funding + you legally can't refuse.
If the customer demands it they'll sell their integrity, and damn the taxpayers. I have little sympathy for this.
If this sort of continued honesty-free space program is what Congress + NASA are going to give us, we'd be better off without a manned space program.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There were good reasons why people were interested in sending people into space in the early days of space exploration. Before automated systems were sufficiently developed, manned programs looked like the best choice. But once automated systems became sufficiently advanced, it was clear that they were the way to go. This, and it never ceases to baffle me that there are people who still believe that there is some s…
To steelman the argument for human spaceflight: If launch becomes sufficiently cheap, then the cost of supporting humans in space also becomes cheap. The cost of developing space robots doesn't decline nearly as much. At some point, "why not robots in space?" has the answer "because on Earth there are plenty of applications where people are cheaper", and cheap space moves that argument to space as well. Note that thi…
> The cost of developing space robots doesn't decline nearly as much.
Developing Costs wouldn't, but deployment costs would.
If launching becomes cheaper, then, sure, I could launch more space toilets and freeze-dried groceries. Or I could use that capacity to launch more and bigger robots, more often and further. Guess which of these two has a better ROI given the many many many limitations humans have once they leave our Planet, compared to robots.
It doesn't matter how cheap a launch becomes. I have to support an astronaut with food. They have to exercise or their body breaks down in low gravity. I have to let them sleep.
All this is time, payload capacity and energy wasted, that I could instead funnel into more, better, bigger more capable robots.
And, finally: I have to bring astronauts back home safely, unless I want to risk a PR desaster (which is not good for funding). Once I am done with the robot, I can just leave it where it is and sell T-Shirts with its silhouette printed on.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an excellent narrative, but I think it omits the many risks the program took to get to the moon before the Soviets. For example, Apollo 8 was the first time a Saturn V (and command module) was sent all the way to the moon, and it was done with a crew. Because there was no lander, there was no backup in case the command module had a problem. If the explosion on Apollo 13 had happened on Apollo 8, the crew woul…
Yeah, the risk appetite was much higher. Those are good reminders on Apollo 1/6/8, but the problems didn't stop there. The first 5 landing missions all had huge problems that nearly killed everyone, too. Only the last 2 landings were sort of OK. Apollo 1: burned all astronauts alive ... Apollo 10: POGO oscillations on launch (Saturn V still trying to tear itself apart), LEM tumbling Apollo 11: Computer kept crashing…
You're sensationalising a little.
The abort button on Apollo 14 would at worst have rendezvouzed the lander with the orbiter prior to landing on the moon. It would have killed the mission, but definitely not the astronauts.
The brownout also had several safe abort alternatives and the question was only ever about how to continue the mission, not how to save people.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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. I think that's fair... but then we should make systems that are at least as good as the ones from the past. And SLS, even in the…
That is not the problem. Its that a technology designed in the 1960s for a 1960s workforce and tool base can't be made in the USA today, for the same reason that you can't produce cost-effective Browning HPs in Belgium today https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the...
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
To steelman the argument for human spaceflight: If launch becomes sufficiently cheap, then the cost of supporting humans in space also becomes cheap. The cost of developing space robots doesn't decline nearly as much. At some point, "why not robots in space?" has the answer "because on Earth there are plenty of applications where people are cheaper", and cheap space moves that argument to space as well. Note that thi…
> The cost of developing space robots doesn't decline nearly as much. Developing Costs wouldn't, but deployment costs would. If launching becomes cheaper, then, sure, I could launch more space toilets and freeze-dried groceries. Or I could use that capacity to launch more and bigger robots, more often and further. Guess which of these two has a better ROI given the many many many limitations humans have once they lea…
> It doesn't matter how cheap a launch becomes. I have to support an astronaut with food.
So, if it were to be as cheap to go into space as to go to St. Louis, sending a person would make no sense because of... food? This makes no sense.
Obviously there is some breakpoint at which it would make sense. You can't just handwave and say that universally without doing arithmetic.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an excellent narrative, but I think it omits the many risks the program took to get to the moon before the Soviets. For example, Apollo 8 was the first time a Saturn V (and command module) was sent all the way to the moon, and it was done with a crew. Because there was no lander, there was no backup in case the command module had a problem. If the explosion on Apollo 13 had happened on Apollo 8, the crew woul…
Yeah, the risk appetite was much higher. Those are good reminders on Apollo 1/6/8, but the problems didn't stop there. The first 5 landing missions all had huge problems that nearly killed everyone, too. Only the last 2 landings were sort of OK. Apollo 1: burned all astronauts alive ... Apollo 10: POGO oscillations on launch (Saturn V still trying to tear itself apart), LEM tumbling Apollo 11: Computer kept crashing…
Apollo 13 also had severe pogo on launch. Obviously it's overshadowed by the unrelated oxygen tank issues later, but that mission actually got extremely lucky that the oscillations happened to occur in such a way that the computer noticed the issue and shut down the affected engine. That could easily not have been the case, and if the oscillations had continued for a few more seconds it would have destroyed the vehicle.
Re: The Lunacy of Artemis
#320I find this essay to be well-crafted and compelling.
I actually was put off by the know-it-all nature of the whole thing as if nasa scientists had totally not considered any of this.