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The Lunacy of Artemis

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Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#411

Post by alexey-salmin »

kqr wrote: post #296
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…

> 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?

> 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?

The problem is all the fuel you use to break before landing also has to achieve earth escape velocity at first. And it makes the original problem much harder because the total mass that needs acceleration grow exponentially with delta speed.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#412

Post by pfdietz »

thisaccount546 wrote: post #357
pfdietz wrote: post #310

Earlier 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…

That’s an argument argument that human spaceflight could, at some point in the future, make sense. Though it’s also likely that automation becomes cheaper in the future. When people are claiming that automation is going to replace many tasks for humans on earth, it’s not much of a stretch to think they would continue to perform better than humans in space, where humans are at a severe disadvantage. We also have to co…

For human spaceflight to be ruled out, automation has to be superior for every worthwhile application of human labor in space, not just some of them. Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless.

I think greatly advanced automation would improve the argument for humans in space, not refute it, by making it easier to support humans in space.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#413

Post by jodrellblank »

8bitme wrote: post #400

*The Lunarcy of Artemis ¬‿¬

https://www.etymonline.com/word/lunacy - lunacy (n.)

1540s, "condition of being a lunatic," formed irregularly in English from lunatic (q.v.) + -cy. Originally in reference to intermittent periods of insanity, such as were believed to be triggered by the moon's cycle.

->

lunatic (adj.)

late 13c., "affected with periodic insanity dependent on the changes of the moon," from Old French lunatique "insane," or directly from Late Latin lunaticus "moon-struck," from Latin luna "moon" (see luna).

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#414

Post by ralfd »

preisschild wrote: post #291

> 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?

Elon often makes relative statements even if it is reported in an absolute way. In this example he called 16 refuel launches „extremely unlikely“ (but possible) and „may only need 4 launches“ should be read also as an unlikely possibility presented by him.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1425474903436939266

Anyway that was 3 years ago and the 150 ton payload Starship 3 won’t likely be ready for HLS. Maybe if Artenis is delayed because of Orion reasons.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#415

Post by mft_ »

ryandrake wrote: post #354
mft_ wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's my point, it takes more than technology to inhabit a place. We might barely have the technology to live in Antarctica (or the middle of the Sahara desert), but it's still not economically feasible, there are no resources there that we need, and there's no social/societal need to be there. Even if we had the technology to safely get to Mars and viably live there (like aliens arrived and handed the technology to…

You wrote "We don't even have the capability to permanently inhabit Antarctica" - this is what I was disagreeing with.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#416

Post by GolfPopper »

LargeTomato wrote: post #26

We are going to The moon for two reasons. First, we want to set up a more permanent base. Nasa refers to this as "we're here to stay" The second reason we are going to the moon so that we can put the first person of color and the first woman on the moon. That is explicitly an Artemis mission purpose. Only time will tell if either of these two missions were actually worth it. One more point > Early on, SLS designers m…

>First, we want to set up a more permanent base. Nasa refers to this as "we're here to stay"

Perhaps I've not been following Artemis closely enough, but it doesn't seem to have anything actually in progress that would directly connect to the "permanent base" idea, beyond "Well, we need to go to the moon if we want a permanent base there". But that's sort-of like saying, "Well, I need to enroll in a university if I want a PhD".

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#417

Post by usrbinbash »

pfdietz wrote: post #412
thisaccount546 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an argument argument that human spaceflight could, at some point in the future, make sense. Though it’s also likely that automation becomes cheaper in the future. When people are claiming that automation is going to replace many tasks for humans on earth, it’s not much of a stretch to think they would continue to perform better than humans in space, where humans are at a severe disadvantage. We also have to co…

For human spaceflight to be ruled out, automation has to be superior for every worthwhile application of human labor in space, not just some of them. Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless. I think greatly advanced automation would improve the argument for humans in space, not refute it, by making it easier to support humans in space.

> For human spaceflight to be ruled out, automation has to be superior for every worthwhile application of human labor in space, not just some of them.

This is the case right now. There is not a single activity in space exploration right now, that humans can do better than robots.

> Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless.

Because here on earth, humans can breathe, eat, drink, piss and poop, without millions of dollars of equipment required to do so.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#418

Post by thisaccount546 »

pfdietz wrote: post #412
thisaccount546 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an argument argument that human spaceflight could, at some point in the future, make sense. Though it’s also likely that automation becomes cheaper in the future. When people are claiming that automation is going to replace many tasks for humans on earth, it’s not much of a stretch to think they would continue to perform better than humans in space, where humans are at a severe disadvantage. We also have to co…

For human spaceflight to be ruled out, automation has to be superior for every worthwhile application of human labor in space, not just some of them. Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless. I think greatly advanced automation would improve the argument for humans in space, not refute it, by making it easier to support humans in space.

For all of the things we want to do, automation outperforms humans in space. I pointed this out in my earlier post - this wasn’t the case in the 50’s and early 60’s, so these satellites were planned to be manned (and actually were in the USSR’s case). But automation made much more sense, so the plans changed to unmanned satellites.

Perhaps this could change in the future. But at least in the present, unmanned makes more sense, which is why these things are unmanned. And historically, increased automation has lessened the need for something to be manned (which, is to be expected), so it’s likely the same will be true when it comes to space.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#419

Post by strangattractor »

twothreeone wrote: post #410

> artisanally hand-crafted by a workforce that likes to get home before traffic gets bad. Ouch, that's gotta hurt.. I'm not saying I disagree, but I do wonder if a project is going "right" only when it starts to hit excruciatingly long shifts and burns workforce like coals - especially if it is expected to safely carry humans to the Moon. I think it's more likely a sign of doing something that wasn't planned and budg…

More likely the problem is DBC (designed by congress). Where are those old Shuttle Boosters made? The Orange tank? There are 535 member of Congress of which 10 are engineers of any kind. Probably even less Scientist.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#420

Post by Animats »

Meanwhile, China's moon program keeps plugging along. There's already been a robotic landing and return with samples. Chang'e 6, the second land and return vehicle, is in lunar orbit now, being prepared for landing.[1] This one has a robotic lunar rover.

China plans a manned moon landing around 2030. Then, on to the lunar base.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_6

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