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Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

blogs.nasa.gov

41–50 of 115 posts

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#41
post #30
post #9

Consequences of choosing the wrong first stage fuel (hydrogen) are many. Those tiny molecules want nothing more from life than to sneak through the smallest of openings. Well, possibly second to mating violently with oxygen.

There are just as many hydrolox(hydrogen + liquid oxygen) as kerolox(RP-1 kerosene + LOX). Atlas, Delta, H-II, Ariane 5, Long March 5, to name a few, all use hydrolox. I believe a part of reasons why launch attempts are called "attempts" is because of extreme scrub and failure rate of launch vehicle launches, and I think the fact that scrubs are now considered abnormal can be attributable to SpaceX and Elon Musk. I w…

True, but Delta IV is the only one of those rockets using hydrolox for the first stage. I have to imagine storing and moving that much hydrogen is a lot more complex than launch vehicles that only use it in an upper stage.

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artemis is a federal jobs program.

Military budget for the year was 777B... Give what you said all of the military is a jobs program also.

The military is a jobs program, thats not a secret.

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#43

Likely no next attempt until October, per Eric Berger ( Ars Technica ): - "Hearing a rollback to the VAB of the SLS rocket is likely, but I don't have confirmation. If that happens, it is very likely that Artemis I does not launch before October 17, at the earliest." - "I'm told that Space Launch System program officials will recommend a rollback to the VAB to investigate the hydrogen leak. The Artemis I mission mana…

I have my doubts that it will ever launch - the way things are proceeding, they’ll miss October, push to ‘23, and will then end up with parts and systems ageing out due to wear and duty cycles - the rollback to the VAB alone incurs significant wear. Meanwhile, starship will see its first orbital flight (likely not before a few RUDs) while SLS just grows mould. That said, the whole purpose of SLS was to provide jobs a…

Think about all the work done by people that you are discounting...

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#45

Likely no next attempt until October, per Eric Berger ( Ars Technica ): - "Hearing a rollback to the VAB of the SLS rocket is likely, but I don't have confirmation. If that happens, it is very likely that Artemis I does not launch before October 17, at the earliest." - "I'm told that Space Launch System program officials will recommend a rollback to the VAB to investigate the hydrogen leak. The Artemis I mission mana…

I have my doubts that it will ever launch - the way things are proceeding, they’ll miss October, push to ‘23, and will then end up with parts and systems ageing out due to wear and duty cycles - the rollback to the VAB alone incurs significant wear. Meanwhile, starship will see its first orbital flight (likely not before a few RUDs) while SLS just grows mould. That said, the whole purpose of SLS was to provide jobs a…

It’s a big, complex project and it’s failed two tests. I’m happy to take the bet that it will launch successfully

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#46

I feel like they need to go the SpaceX route and build dozens of these things and just launch them with the expectation that most will fail, but they learn from each failure to improve the next ones.

Do you think they would have learned something worthwhile by proceeding with the launch?

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my doubts that it will ever launch - the way things are proceeding, they’ll miss October, push to ‘23, and will then end up with parts and systems ageing out due to wear and duty cycles - the rollback to the VAB alone incurs significant wear. Meanwhile, starship will see its first orbital flight (likely not before a few RUDs) while SLS just grows mould. That said, the whole purpose of SLS was to provide jobs a…

When is that first starship orbital launch again?

Musk said he was going to Mars by 2018.

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#48

Likely no next attempt until October, per Eric Berger ( Ars Technica ): - "Hearing a rollback to the VAB of the SLS rocket is likely, but I don't have confirmation. If that happens, it is very likely that Artemis I does not launch before October 17, at the earliest." - "I'm told that Space Launch System program officials will recommend a rollback to the VAB to investigate the hydrogen leak. The Artemis I mission mana…

I have my doubts that it will ever launch - the way things are proceeding, they’ll miss October, push to ‘23, and will then end up with parts and systems ageing out due to wear and duty cycles - the rollback to the VAB alone incurs significant wear. Meanwhile, starship will see its first orbital flight (likely not before a few RUDs) while SLS just grows mould. That said, the whole purpose of SLS was to provide jobs a…

No post body was provided.

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#49
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately methane being a GHG brings additional important problems. Launching a lot of methane rockets would be really expensive to the environment. (We need to finally replace SRBs with something cleaner too.)

> Launching a lot of methane rockets would be really expensive to the environment. What does it turn into when burnt? Would there be much unburnt methane leaking into the environment from these rockets and the infrastructure to support these rockets?

Methane is the simplest hydrocarbon. CH4.

One molecule of methane combines with two molecules of oxygen to form one molecule of carbon dioxide along with two molecules of water. Releasing good amounts of energy when this reaction (oxidation of hydrocarbons by simply burning them) is taking place.

CH4 + 2 O2 = CO2 + 2 H2O

Hydrogen is the simplest flammable gas. H2, in molecular form.

2 H2 + O2 = 2 H2O

Two molecules of hydrogen combine with one molecule of oxygen to form two molecules of water with no other byproducts. Lots of energy comes out too when hydrogen burns but it is a completely clean gas unlike any other. If hydrogen can be manufactured using only green energy, it is completely benign to the environment when burned. Also harmless when released unburnt as long as it doesn't cause any fires or asphyxiation or something.

OTOH when the methane burns it turns into an equal number of carbon molecules in the atmosphere in the form of CO2. Fortunately the CO2 has a lesser greenhouse effect than if the unburnt methane were directly released (or leaked) into the environment.

As it is now, any methane likely to be used as rocket fuel would alternatively just be turned into atmospheric CO2 by some other terrestrial user of natural gas anyway. Without launching any spacecraft.

Methane fuel still puts CO2 into the atmosphere at the push of a button, which would require a herculean effort to remove later, and that removal would not be justifiable until the situation is much more dire, as we have seen.

Still, methane really can be considered the cleanest burning hydrocarbon, but nowhere near the zero-CO2 exhaust from a hydrogen flame.

Both of these gaseous fuels are so light they do not like to be physically liquified at all, not even when highly pressurized, and that would require very heavy-walled storage cylinders in that case. But they still need to be stored as a liquid in order to carry orders of magnitude more fuel than the same size tank would hold in gaseous form. So they use extreme low-temperature cryogenics to liquefy these fuels and the storage & handling is accomplished at temperatures so far below zero that the product remains liquid without needing to be kept under very much pressure. Instead, it's handled very cold at all times with lots of insulation & refrigeration. If it warms up too much the pressure rise is certainly expected to exceed the design maxiumum of the storage tank, so all safety relief devices must be highly reliable under these conditions.

There's this thing about cryogenics.

Everything can't be expected to work right the first time, and success may not be had until all possible failures have already been witnessed to occur, and further design experience has been gained developing the workarounds.

Re: Artemis I Launch Attempt Scrubbed

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my doubts that it will ever launch - the way things are proceeding, they’ll miss October, push to ‘23, and will then end up with parts and systems ageing out due to wear and duty cycles - the rollback to the VAB alone incurs significant wear. Meanwhile, starship will see its first orbital flight (likely not before a few RUDs) while SLS just grows mould. That said, the whole purpose of SLS was to provide jobs a…

Think about all the work done by people that you are discounting...

What is the point that you're trying to make here?

I'm sure we've all experienced situations where we realize that the work we're being paid to do is futile and will never reach achieve it's intended purpose. It's really demoralizing but the thing to remember in that situation is that you're still getting paid.

Would you rather be an aeronautical engineer who gets paid and doesn't launch of a rocket, or an aeronautical engineer who doesn't get paid and doesn't launch a rocket?

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