Live data from Hacker News

Artemis II is not safe to fly

idlewords.com

351–360 of 667 posts

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is bound to happen again and again considering humans are so oblivious to safety.

humans are so oblivious to safety It seems that in modern times, humans focus on safety almost to the exclusion of everything else. As much as the more traditional salutations "godspeed" or "have a nice day", we're even more likely to hear "drive safe" or "have a safe trip" or "be safe". We're very nearly paralyzed by insisting that everything must be maximally safe. Surely you've heard the mantra "...if it saves jus…

Considering that driving (at least in the US) is a relatively unsafe means of travel compared to the alternatives, I can understand imploring someone to drive safe.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spending money not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself? Welcome to the macroeconomics practical, where we'll dig a ditch, refill it, and count it as a productive addition to the economy both times!

If doing it lowers the cost of earth movers and gets 20 other groups to each dig their own ditch, that's actually money well spent.

This is a typical argument for state intervention in the marketplace, but it is weaker if one makes different assumptions about the state of the market absent the intervention. In order to show that it was money well spent, you'd have to show that it's better to have more groups digging, and that there wouldn't have been enough diggers without GovDitch.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Challenger: no gasses were supposed to make it past the o-rings no matter what, > but when it became clear that gasses were escaping and the o-rings were being > damaged, there was a push to suggest that it's an acceptable level. Interestingly, the article https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXcBwF8qpDUxmZz... > by heat shield expert and Shuttle astronaut Charles Camarda, the former Director of Engineering…

It's the same explaination. When the SRB joints flexxed the o-rings were meant to stay in place, but the joints were defective and NASA knew the o-rings were moving. However NASA also believed the o-rings could still take the abuse, because although they were moving they were getting shoved deeper into the joint, in a way that wasn't intended but was nonetheless at least marginally effective at stopping exhaust blow-…

> However NASA also believed the o-rings could still take the abuse, because

> although they were moving they were getting shoved deeper into the joint,

Why would they be "shoved deeper," when the problem is that the joint opens wider under load?

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#354
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Challenger: no gasses were supposed to make it past the o-rings no matter what, > but when it became clear that gasses were escaping and the o-rings were being > damaged, there was a push to suggest that it's an acceptable level. Interestingly, the article https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXcBwF8qpDUxmZz... > by heat shield expert and Shuttle astronaut Charles Camarda, the former Director of Engineering…

>>I find that highly surprising, because "it was the O-rings" explanation seems universally believed and sanctified by no lesser authority than the Nobel prize laureate Richard Feynman. Essentially you are mischaracterizing what Feynman did or say, although this is also Feynman fault :-), by doing the famous public demonstration, with the ice water in a glass [2], although even there he only said it has "significance…

That's valuable, detailed explanation, thanks.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#355
post #292

I'm literally guest lecturing at a Harvard class tomorrow on systemic failures in decision making, using the Columbia and Challenger disasters as case studies, and changed my slides last night to include Artemis II because it could literally happen again. This broken safety culture has been around since the beginning of the Shuttle program. In 1980, Gregg Easterbrook published "Goodbye, Columbia" in The Washington Mo…

As an aside, do you have any suggestions for "state of the art" reading on safety culture?

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#356
post #25

I haven't kept up with Artemis development but I've read extensively about Challenger and Columbia. These two parts of the article stood out to me: > Moon-to-Mars Deputy Administrator Amit Kshatriya said: “it was very small localized areas. Interestingly, it would be much easier for us to analyze if we had larger chunks and it was more defined”. A Lockheed Martin representative on the same call added that "there was…

> Challenger: no gasses were supposed to make it past the o-rings no matter what, > but when it became clear that gasses were escaping and the o-rings were being > damaged, there was a push to suggest that it's an acceptable level. Interestingly, the article https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXcBwF8qpDUxmZz... > by heat shield expert and Shuttle astronaut Charles Camarda, the former Director of Engineering…

My recollection is that a rocket design was scaled up from one that worked, by people who didn't consider how an o-ring should be loaded in order to function properly. They inadvertently changed the design rather than simply scale it. I don't think Feynman got this wrong either. His demo was because the justifications for flight were based on the fact that failure had a temperature correlation, and they had a model representing how damaged the o-rings would be.

The o-ring failure was a measurable consequence of the joint design failure. The data behind the model didn't go down to temperatures as low as that at Challenger's launch date.

For more inappropriate extrapolation to justify a decision: the data for the heat shield tile loss model was based on much less damage than sustained by Columbia (3 orders of magnitude IIRC).

Now they are looking at the same style of fallacy and don't even have a model based on damage sustained in flights.

Another parallel I haven't seen discussed here yet, though I haven't read all comments: I recall Feynman feeling like he was on the investigation panel as a prop, that the intention of the investigation was to clear NASA of any wrongdoing. They used a model, considered risks, etc. Feynman recognized the need for a clear and powerful visual to cut through an information dump and pull it to front page news. The invitation of Camarda to a presentation with a pre-determined conclusion has the same feeling. I don't know what Camarda can do to put it on a (non-HN) front page today.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#358
post #292

I'm literally guest lecturing at a Harvard class tomorrow on systemic failures in decision making, using the Columbia and Challenger disasters as case studies, and changed my slides last night to include Artemis II because it could literally happen again. This broken safety culture has been around since the beginning of the Shuttle program. In 1980, Gregg Easterbrook published "Goodbye, Columbia" in The Washington Mo…

It’s fundamentally a human coordination problem that cannot be solved

The more populated and complex an organization gets it becomes impossible to maintain a singular value vector (get these people around the moon safely)

Everyone finds meta vectors (keep my job, reduce my own accountability) that maintain their own individual stability, such that if the whole thing fails they won’t feel liable

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#359

Hypothetical to wrap my head around scope: Say we had a spacecraft that was 100% capable of launching from Earth, orbiting the moon, and landing back on Earth, but it also had the docking equipment to be compatible with ISS. Could I decide, while orbiting the moon, that I'd rather dock with the ISS instead? Is that at all feasible or is it one of those, "we're not lined up for any of this. It's basically impossible."…

It is one of those, "we're not lined up for any of this. It's basically impossible." things Completely different orbits, would need a ton of extra fuel, not at all possible for Artemis (or any other mission for that matter)

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#360

This is a more balanced take, in my opinion: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasa-chief-reviews-ori... Camarda is an outlier. The engineers at NASA believe it is safe. The astronauts believe it is safe. Former astronaut Danny Olivas was initially skeptical of the heat shield but came around. And note that the OP believes it is likely (maybe very likely) that the heat shield will work fine. It's hard for me to r…

[dead]
Post reply on HN