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The Lunacy of Artemis

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Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#481

Post by kqr »

Aeolun wrote: post #462
twh270 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction -- at least for Challenger, engineers did not think there was margin, and argued against the launch. At the technical level, both tragedies were caused by design flaws. Organizationally and culturally, multiple factors contributed, but an attitude of "nothing has happened yet, so this is fine" (normalizing risk) was a major one.

Normalization of deviance is how my professor described it. At least it’s taught in school now.

In my mind I have stored this phrase that "production pressures move the Overton window of acceptable shortcuts closer to disaster."

I think it captures several important nuances, like how it's a gradual process, how it ecpnomises/improves things at first, that there is a destination, that it covers even things such as discussions about shortcuts and not just their usage.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#482

Post by kqr »

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…

> 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 budgeted properly

I want to agree, but for literal moonshots, I'm not sure I can.

We all know there's a point after which throwing more people at the problem won't solve it. For complex, integrated products this can be a relatively low number. So maybe even an infinite budget does not help.

Planning maybe, but then again maybe a high launch cadence is a necessity for projects like this? I'm thinking of the learning cycle -- if there are years between missions maybe we will forget some of the knowledge obtained from the third when we launch the fifth, in a way we wouldn't have had with months between missions.

So maybe there are some things that are best done at high cadence with a small-ish number of people. If there are, then complex, integrated, innovative products would be it.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#483

Post by gnarbarian »

rbanffy wrote: post #473
gnarbarian wrote: post #435

this is how our entire federal apparatus works these days. our government is profoundly broken but we lack the will to acknowledge it. I have about 20 years of experience in Federal contracting. we have nothing but process and zero accountability. It's literally a miracle anything ever gets completed. we sink billions of dollars into projects that are forecast to have dubious economic benefits and then we never bothe…

> compensate leaders who save money by doing more with less. This is a recipe for burnout

we have the opposite problem in government

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#484

Post by Dalewyn »

fastball wrote: post #475
Dalewyn wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX is a space exploitation business, Starlink being the foremost example but also commercial and governmental launches of Falcon 9 and eventually Starship. Even going to Mars is ultimately a mission of exploitation, not exploration. Space exploration is the duty of governmental space agencies such as NASA, who (assuming sufficient budgeting) can all literally afford to run red ink for entire projects and not have…

I think space expansion business might be more appropriate verbiage. "Exploitation" has connotations of man-vs-man colonialism, which I don't think apply in the case of outer space.

I feel exploitation is apt:

* Whoever gets to Mars (and the Moon for that matter) first in a permanent fashion gets to write all the rules. Full stop. It's also why the US really does not want China achieving a Moon presence first.

* Starlink is competing (and winning) against all the incumbent ISPs for being pieces of shit one way or another, especially incumbent satellite ISPs like Hughesnet who are their immediate competitors.

It's all man vs. man colonialism in the end.

Besides, "to exploit" something means to make productive use of something: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exploit

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#485

Post by rbanffy »

gnarbarian wrote: post #483
rbanffy wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> compensate leaders who save money by doing more with less. This is a recipe for burnout

we have the opposite problem in government

Government isn’t meant to be efficient. It’s meant to be strategic and to do both the fundamentals everyone needs access to and the things private enterprise won’t do because they are not profitable yet.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#486

Post by qayxc »

XorNot wrote: post #258
qayxc wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay but why does the mission exist? Politics. > People keep going "the mission is go to to the moon". Is it? Why are we doing that? Again, politics. The US has to assert dominance in space and cannot allow parties like China to one-up them. It's also a great way for political leadership to score points with the public. A more rational approach for establishing a permanent human presence on the moon would have incl…

> Politics. You're saying "we need to be mission focused". If the mission is "politics", then hey, you're right - turn on the money faucet we're doing Apollo again. Developing new technology, doing science, whatever - all not actually happening. Of course...if it's not politics, then maybe the new technology is the point? That a mission where you don't fundamentally improve how you're doing it would in fact be the on…

When I say mission, I specifically mean the mission in the form of Artemis, not a permanent human presence on the Moon. The latter doesn't require three brand new rocket systems, especially not a Shuttle derived one.

SLS was created to keep job in the states that had STS facilities and needed Shuttle tech to justify their continued existence.

SpaceX HLS was just as questionable. Competitors presented realistic timelines and budgets, while a single person at NASA on her own decided to exploit the power vacuum after an administration change to award the only contract to SpaceX only to be hired by them shortly after.

The mission is not to develop a rocket that can deploy StarLink 2.0 satellites or supposedly take people to Mars. The mission is also NOT to keep engineers who worked on Shuttle employed. That's the issue and that's the problem with Artemis.

As far as new technology is concerned - you focus on tech required for the mission: new and more capable space suits (in the works), a more capable vehicle (Orion), reliable long term power delivery (NASA's KiloPower reactors), a logistics hub (Lunar gateway), communication systems (relay satellites), new surface capabilities (contract signed with JAXA), etc.

If you really want to achieve a goal, like giving NASA some new focus and establish a permanent presence on the Moon, you take the lessons from the past and improve upon them. A shoestring budget, a needlessly expensive new launch system that only exists to keep jobs and reliance on high risk new technologies without proper justification aren't it.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#487

Post by wffurr »

hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #377
wffurr wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advanced technologies you're describing are part of Artemis. The other part is a huge pork barrel jobs project for the SLS workforce across the country, in as many states as possible.

Nobody in congress will vote to kill jobs in their district. The military industrial complex figured that out a while ago, which is why at least one screw for some weapon or aircraft is produced in every state. If NASA is going to use the same playbook to be benefit space exploration, I’m not remotely upset.

Is it benefiting space exploration though? Or is it wasting huge sums of money that could be going towards real science.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#488

Post by usrbinbash »

margalabargala wrote: post #430
usrbinbash wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the enormous amount of international credibility and resulting soft power You know what is giving China soft power? Funding projects around all of Africa. You know what is not giving western countries soft power? Burning Billions on Space Programs that serve zero purpose and could achieve more with much less investments, if we just continued sending robots. Again, I know where I would allocate my resources if I had…

> You know what is giving China soft power? Funding projects around all of Africa. I don't disagree. Are you suggesting that China will be satisfied with merely the amount of soft power that they are gaining from funding infrastructure projects in Africa and will not seek additional soft power through other routes? I would assert that between the amount of soft power gained, and more, the amount of soft power lost by…

> Are you suggesting that China will be satisfied with merely the amount of soft power that they are gaining from funding infrastructure projects in Africa and will not seek additional soft power through other routes?

No, I am not.

I am, however, suggesting that the amount of soft power gained through bragging rights along the lines of "We did it! We did it! We managed to to the same thing the US did in the 60s! And we only had to light a huge pile of money on fire to do it!!!" is kinda negligible when compared to, say, having direct financial influence in many developing countries, or having a couple additional aircraft carriers.

And sure, they could do both, but resources are finite. Every dollar pumped into a, technically unnecessary, moon base is a dollar less they can invest elsewhere.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#489

Post by fastball »

Zigurd wrote: post #392
Dalewyn wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>SpaceX doesn't really care about the moon. SpaceX is a business, SpaceX doesn't care about the Moon because there are no customers interested in going to the Moon. If market forces shift and companies start wanting to go to the Moon, you bet SpaceX will care about the Moon because there's money to be made.

SpaceX makes sense as a business in the way a mega-yacht makes sense as a ship. The valuation was set by a vanity investment by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. 2.7 million subscribers can't keep 4500 satellites in orbit and replaced every 5 years. It is a prestige investment.

If you assume a very conservative $100/m subscription for every Starlink customer, they're making $3.6B a year already and it seems like they can do a lot more capacity.

Edit: just googled and they're predicting $6.6B in revenue for 2024.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#490

Post by eterevsky »

The whole idea of Artemis is to build up new technologies that would expand our capabilities. Artemis 3 is kept simple and I don't have a strong opinion about this, but it tests the hardware that allows brining to the Moon dozens of people at a time using a reusable lander.
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