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The Lunacy of Artemis

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Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#341

Post by usrbinbash »

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #334
usrbinbash wrote: post #312

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. 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 h…

If our world-wide herculean efforts towards building a self driving robotic car have yielded mediocre results, I have low expectations for a robotic field geologist built on a NASA budget. Also note that even with the limitations, the humans surveyed more ground. Remove the limitation by making the rover a mobile habitat and now the humans can have an even more expansive and productive mission. Ultimately we're going…

> I have low expectations for a robotic field geologist built on a NASA budget.

And yet they have put one on Mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseverance_(rover)#Instrumen...

Thing is: Building something that can autonomously navigate the many many variables of city traffic without killing people in the process, is a whole different problem space than building something that can stick a scientific instrument into the ground in an empty rock-desert.

> the humans surveyed more ground

Again: Scientific progress is not measured in "kilometers driven". And what "surveying" were they doing exactly? How many experiments did they perform during these runs? How many Terabytes of Data did these excursions produce per kilometer driven?

I don't know the number tbh. but I am willing to bet that the Mars rovers did better. ALOT better.

But okay, if you want to measure distance, lets:

Perseverance (which is still active btw.) covered 25.113 km so far. The Ingenuity drone (which perseverance carried), covered a total of 17.242 km.

So that's a grand total (so far, again, Perseverance is still active) of 42.355 km.

The longest LRV drive was LVR-3 on Apollo 17: 35.89 km. And, let's be clear: That is the total of all its excursions, not a single drive.

So yeah, sorry, but the robots have also out-distanced humans already. Comfortably so.

> Ultimately we're going to colonize space

No, we're not, until such time as we figure out how to leave the solar system and travel to other Earth-like planets.

That seems unfair and unsatisfying, I know, but there is simply no way around the facts: other than Earth, every single place in the solar system that doesn't just outright kill humans the moment they leave the spacecraft (and quite a few would kill people instantly even before that), is less hospitable than Earth would be during an ice age, or after a nuclear war.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#342

Post by lupusreal »

grecy wrote: post #304
z0r wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine being born in a habitat on another planet that is further away from Earth in travel time than one's lifespan, and being robbed of your birthright to experience the natural wonders and beauty of the cradle of humanity.

Imagine being born on an earth where millions of species have gone extinct, where there are hardly any old growth forests left, no bison roaming the central/western US plains and where thousands of water bodies around the world are so toxic they'll kill you if you fall in.

I feel strongly that I was robbed of my birthright to be a mammoth hunter in a caveman tribe. Man didn't evolve for this industrial society we've created, our machinations have already denied to us our natural condition.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#343

Post by lupusreal »

PaulHoule wrote: post #265

It'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…

> Mars and Venus aren't that much harder

Related; a proposal to do a Venus flyby with Apollo hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_flyby

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#344

Post by usrbinbash »

mft_ wrote: post #340
ryandrake wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting piled on, but you're absolutely right. We don't even have the capability to permanently inhabit Antarctica, which has 1. an atmosphere of breathable air at the right pressure, 2. survivable temperature range, 3. abundant water, 4. a magnetic field and radiation shielding, 5. safe transit to and from. How does anyone think we can inhabit Mars, which doesn't have any of these? Build a city of 100K on the…

Not sure if that's a good argument. There are lots of places more hospitable and less remote than Antarctica that aren't inhabited either - the reasons why a large number of people would inhabit an area or not are complex. We have the technology as a species to be able to inhabit Antarctica; there's just no compelling reason to do so at present, so we don't.

There is also no compelling reason to build a manned base on the Moon, or try to build a city on Mars.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#345

Post by dialup_sounds »

nativeit wrote: post #165

I’m seeing Starship discussed in terms that suggest I’ve missed something. When did it accomplish even the most base level demonstration of its required capabilities? How could anyone have any certainty in Starship at this stage, and how could anyone possibly compare it with anything?

One can look at Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy and reasonably project that SpaceX is capable of overcoming the engineering challenges of Starship.

The dubious part is accomplishing that on the Artemis mission schedule.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#346

Post by usrbinbash »

jcranmer wrote: post #328
usrbinbash wrote: post #272

Earlier 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…

There is one benefit to human spaceflight over robotic spaceflight: the human body is a much more adapted tool to unknown situations than robots are. A human hand is a better manipulator than any robotic tool (look up videos of robots trying to turn a doorknob and open a door, e.g.), and our locomotion tends to be well-adapted to adverse terrain. But it is far from clear that such versatility is worth all of the cost…

> : the human body is a much more adapted tool to unknown situations than robots are.

Here on Earth, that is true.

Everywhere else however, our body is confined to a bulky, heavy, unwieldy space suit, and has exactly as much range of movement as the air supply allows.

And the thing is: We can make better robots. There is clear progress in terms of their capabilities. Not so long ago, [this][1] would only have been possible as CGI, today, it is technical reality.

This rapid path to improvement, simply doesn't exist for biological systems.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1_QhJ1EhQ

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#347

Post by lupusreal »

usrbinbash wrote: post #279
jwells89 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long-term habitation of surfaces of bodies other than that of Earth is a stepping stone to being able to live in space long term in very large, permanently spaceborne crafts. It’s easier to develop these things on the moon, mars, etc because of immediate access to materials that’d need to be launched into orbit otherwise. In the long term, it may make sense to build shipyards on the moon, on Mars, or somewhere in the…

> a stepping stone to being able to live in space long term in very large, permanently spaceborne crafts. That is not going to happen, without technology that currently only exists in Science Fiction, like artificial gravity, for the simple reason that we require 1g to live, let alone thrive. > because of immediate access to materials that’d need to be launched into orbit otherwise. 1. How does this "immediate access…

> we require 1g to live, let alone thrive.

We don't really know how much we need. I think we'd probably do just fine in 0.9g for instance, and maybe even substantially lower than that. Humans thriving in Lunar gravity isn't out of the question, we don't have data that rules out such a possibility.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#348

Post by GMoromisato »

cratermoon wrote: post #330
smallmancontrov wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Counterpoint: all of those incidents, except Apollo 1 are proof that the engineering was great, because nobody died. For example, you mention the computer on the Apollo 11 lunar module crashing. In fact, it was recovering and working properly. The astronauts had left the rendezvous radar on during descent, in case it was needed for abort. That was not a nominal configuration, and the radar kept stealing cycles and ca…

Maybe. But it's hard to tell whether nobody died because the system was robust vs. nobody died because we got lucky.

For example, there were several cases of burn-through on the O-rings before Challenger. The engineers thought there was enough margin to not worry about it, so they didn't

Similarly, when Columbia was hit by foam-ice on ascent no one worried because it had happened before and nobody had died.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#349

Post by smallmancontrov »

cratermoon wrote: post #330
smallmancontrov wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Counterpoint: all of those incidents, except Apollo 1 are proof that the engineering was great, because nobody died. For example, you mention the computer on the Apollo 11 lunar module crashing. In fact, it was recovering and working properly. The astronauts had left the rendezvous radar on during descent, in case it was needed for abort. That was not a nominal configuration, and the radar kept stealing cycles and ca…

We don't disagree about the engineering being excellent. I was commenting on safety culture. A few days ago I saw Tory Bruno explain with visible frustration how they canceled the launch due to a valve that had to be cycled before it behaved. In that environment, the Apollo risks would not have been tolerated, even though they turned out to have been good bets.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#350

Post by lupusreal »

ryandrake wrote: post #331
usrbinbash wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a stepping stone to being able to live in space long term in very large, permanently spaceborne crafts. That is not going to happen, without technology that currently only exists in Science Fiction, like artificial gravity, for the simple reason that we require 1g to live, let alone thrive. > because of immediate access to materials that’d need to be launched into orbit otherwise. 1. How does this "immediate access…

You're getting piled on, but you're absolutely right. We don't even have the capability to permanently inhabit Antarctica, which has 1. an atmosphere of breathable air at the right pressure, 2. survivable temperature range, 3. abundant water, 4. a magnetic field and radiation shielding, 5. safe transit to and from. How does anyone think we can inhabit Mars, which doesn't have any of these? Build a city of 100K on the…

We definitely have the capability to permanently inhabit Antarctica, except there's nobody who's both willing and permitted to do it. This is also the main problem with Moon/Mars colonies; it could be done but who will pay for it? It's not an economically sound proposal.
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