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The Lunacy of Artemis

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Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#521

Post by _Tev »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #477
mlindner wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you're saying. The F-1 engine is easily beaten by many engines that exist today. It was not a very high efficiency engine at all.

We don't have decent heavy engines and my understanding is that that's main the reason why we don't have decent heavy rockets. It's true that in the end we may get there the long way, N1-style, but we still didn't.

Shuttle was heavy rocket. Decent in quite a few metrics.

Also the arguments about not having heavy rockets has nothing to do with engines, it's either "we don't need them" or "just use propellant depots". Without certain Alabama senator even SLS would be probably dead already. Big rockets are only useful when you sacrifice performance for reuse AND have enough payloads to maintain good flightrate.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#522

Post by eru »

wpietri wrote: post #515
eru wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apollo wasn't exactly cheap.

As the article explains, Apollo was cheaper per mission than this.

Yes. And a Rolls-Royce is cheaper than a Lamborghini.

Ie A can be cheaper than B, but still be expensive.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#523

Post by usrbinbash »

pfdietz wrote: post #517
usrbinbash wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like it could be that launch costs will become so low the differential will not matter any more?

Good thing the argument wasn't that this will necessarily happen, just that the case can be made that it could happen, and therefore human spacelight is not necessarily a bad idea. Note that I'm not proposing abandoning robots in space. Your whataboutism assumes a symmetry that's not there.

> just that the case can be made that it could happen, and therefore human spacelight is not necessarily a bad idea

Nuclear war could happen, that doesn't make waging nuclear war a good idea.

> Your whataboutism

Please explain how advocating for useful allocation of resources within a reference topic, without ever leaving said topic, constitutes "whataboutism".

I want space exploration to happen. Right now, the most efficient, most promising, and most fruitful way, including in terms of developing future technology that can one day benefit human spaceflight, is to send robots.

Trying to send people to do a robots work in space exploration right now, is a waste of resources that will, long term, hinder our efforts of becoming a spacefaring species. It doesn't make sense for a tribe that just recently invented small canoues to try and send them across the ocean. It is possible to do so in theory, aka. "it could happen", that doesn't make it a good idea. And every tribe member who drowns during these efforts, is one person less who could father the future inventor of the Galleon.

Pointing out this reality isn't "whataboutism".

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#524

Post by usrbinbash »

pfdietz wrote: post #519
usrbinbash wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Automation outperforms astronauts for (say) Hubble Telescope Repair? The last hubble repair mission was in 2009. Robotics have come a long way since then. And the Hubble was still pretty close to earth. I can guarantee you that no human hand will ever touch the James Webb telescope ever again. If things go wrong at the 2nd lagrange point, its either robots-to-the-rescue, or bye-bye-telescope. Comparing a short, lim…

Your assertion can be reality checked by looking at the proposed private mission to service HST. This mission would use crew to do manual maintenance, not develop robots to try to do the servicing. Yes, HST is close to Earth. It's still in space. This is a demonstration that when costs of getting the people there are low enough, people > robots.

> This is a demonstration that when costs of getting the people there are low enough, people > robots.

Maintenance missions close to Earth and space exploration are 2 very different tasks. This does in no way "reality check" my assertion that trying to make people live long term on other planetary bodies, or even send them there on limited excursions, makes no sense in todays reality.

You want a reality check? Fine, here is a reality check:

[Perseverance Mission cost][1]: 2.725 Billion $, is already up there doing work, and only the lastest in a line of ever more capable robots.

[2014 Projected Manned Mars Mission Cost][2]: 100 Billion $, could take 20 years or more. That was 10 years ago. Today we know it's likely to be even more expensive and take much longer.

This is the reality. Today, Robots outperform people when it comes to going to other planets, by any scientific or economic metric.

[1]: https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-perseverance

[2]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140422-ma...

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#525

Post by [deleted] »

pfdietz wrote: post #518
usrbinbash wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no activity for which a robot could be developed at great expense to do that activity That expense is still orders of magnitude lower than sending humans. And even IF launch costs go lower (and that's a big if), it wouldn't change the equation: If I can send more into space for my money, then sure, I could launch astronauts and their water supply and space toilets...or I could use that capacity to launch m…

So, that explains why the private effort to service the HST wants to send up a robot. Oh wait. That's totally wrong. They're proposing a mission to send up people to do the maintenance. Because that's far cheaper than developing robots to do it would be.

[deleted]

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#526

Post by usrbinbash »

pfdietz wrote: post #518
usrbinbash wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no activity for which a robot could be developed at great expense to do that activity That expense is still orders of magnitude lower than sending humans. And even IF launch costs go lower (and that's a big if), it wouldn't change the equation: If I can send more into space for my money, then sure, I could launch astronauts and their water supply and space toilets...or I could use that capacity to launch m…

So, that explains why the private effort to service the HST wants to send up a robot. Oh wait. That's totally wrong. They're proposing a mission to send up people to do the maintenance. Because that's far cheaper than developing robots to do it would be.

This discussion is about space exploration, not maintenance tasks close to Earth.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#527

Post by rbanffy »

gnarbarian wrote: post #499
rbanffy wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

come work here for 20 years and tell me how you feel about it after.

The US doesn’t really understand or appreciate that concept. Also, NASA’s job is not to explore the universe, but to prevent rocket scientists from defecting to North Korea. And to develop technology SpaceX and others will later use. A lot of CFD work was pioneered there, for instance. There would be no SpaceX, or Blue Origin, or ULA without NASA.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#528

Post by usrbinbash »

hifromwork wrote: post #378
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…

I'm not a geopolitics expert, and I assume you're not either, so I'll just say what I feel. As an European, deep down my unconscious mental picture of the situation here is probably this: USA is a geopolitical and economic power, China is a far away country that assembles parts and devices for western companies. This mental picture is wrong and hilariously oversimplified (I know rationally that it's wrong), but this…

> that would probably make a huge blow to that (subconscious) mental picture.

And?

Okay, so let's say this happens, and now some people think: "Wow China is more powerful in space than the US!".

What is the real world impact of this? Did Chinas army just get 10x more powerful? Does the CPP now own the moon? Did Chinas [economic challenges][1] suddenly disappear? Did their [demographic issues][2] suddenly improve?

No, of course not.

The only real world impact of this: China would now be faced with the choice between blowing billions upon billions of dollars anually for what is essentially a vanity project with little to no ROI, or find a way to abandon it quitely without too much public fanfare. And of course, the whole thing is constantly only one malfunctioning airlock away, from turning into a pile of dead astronauts and a complete PR desaster.

So please tell me, and you are completely right, I am not a geopolitics expert, in terms I can understand, what the specific and tangible benefits of building a Moon-/Mars-Base/NewMannedSpaceStation/etc. are supposed to be, in terms of geopolitics.

And sure, I can see some change to mental images, and yeah, that might e.g. attract some business that would otherwise be somewhere else, or make the odd contract negotiations go smoother. But at the end of the day, these advantages, such as they are, would still need to offset the pricetag of the whole show, and I don't believe they would.

[1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/27/economy/china-economy-cha...

[2]: https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-population-decline-continues

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#529

Post by usrbinbash »

coderenegade wrote: post #471
usrbinbash wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if China gets there first? How exactly would that benefit them, in a geopolitical sense? Sorry, but if I have the choice of wasting that much resources just so I can brag about it a bit sooner than my opponent, or watch my opponent do so, while I use said resources more productively, I know what to do.

Maybe weapons? Certainly you could hit speeds that would nullify any kind of missile defense, though MIRVs already accomplish that anyway. Depending on where you established infrastructure on the moon, it might be pretty easy to conceal the things you're doing in space. You won't see anything launched from the other side, and anything leaving the moon is going to fall towards Earth, so may be difficult to detect (e.g…

> Depending on where you established infrastructure on the moon, it might be pretty easy to conceal the things you're doing in space.

No it wouldn't be, because there is zero chance in hell of everyone else on Earth not realizing whats going on, if someone were suddenly busy launching all that machinery, building materials and weapons towards the Moon, not to mention hundreds of personnel with all their space suits, provisions, water, shelters, space poop collectors, etc.

Hiding something is pretty pointless, if the process of getting whatever it is to wherever it is hidden, is announced to the entire planet by shooting it into the sky on roaring pillars of fire.

> The moon is also a pretty decent staging ground for the rest of the solar system

The rest of what now?

There is Earth. There is the Moon. There is Mars. This is all the places in the solar system a human could, in theory, visit without immediately dying horribly. Maybe Phobos. Maybe.

The other planets are off limits: Mercury is worse than literal Hell. Venus is a hypercorrosive hothouse. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would instantly crush everything in their deep gravity envelopes, and most of their moons are highly radioactive hellholes. Not to mention that everything beyond Mars is not even theoretically reachable with a manned spacecraft as of right now.

So, that leaves Mars. A freeze-dried, irradiated, airless, toxic rock desert covered in microabrasive regolith, with too low gravity, no magnetic field to speak off, no available Nitrogen, and no resources that aren't found in abundance on Earth. And before anyone says "Land": May I present the [Gobi Desert][1], a 1.295 Million square kilometers large rock desert, smack in the middle of Asia. And while it is largely a cold, barren rock desert, it is still a paradise compared to Mars.

And even so, the Moon offers ZERO advantage as a "staging ground" for Missions to Mars, because, there is nothing on the Moon to be staged. Every kg of stuff that would be "staged" there, has to be first launched from Earth, so all a Moon Base does, is add another launch to an already costly equation.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobi_Desert

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#530

Post by usrbinbash »

SCM-Enthusiast wrote: post #502
NikolaNovak wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never found any math that made trip to the moon for materials even remotely wortwhile, by like orders of magnitude, not just today with today's technology, but for any foreseeable future we can meaningfully discuss. Water in particular is an unfortunate one to start with, given its abundance and ease of extraction on earth, vs absolutely positively ridiculous efforts to obtain them from the moon. But everythin…

you should read the book delta v. The only time lunar mining makes sense is when there is a cislunar orbit economy. The delta v required to put things in orbit from the moon is a fraction of that of earth. So, if you have a vibrant manufacturing enviroment in space (Semi conductors, and other deposition methods) which space is more suited for, then the moon becomes a better place to source your materials from.

> So, if you have a vibrant manufacturing enviroment in space

And how does this "vibrant manufacturing environment" get into space? How is it supplied with personnel, food, water, spare parts, etc.?

Let's just focus on one component, shall we? The Moon only has 1/6th of Earths gravity, but to get stuff away from the Moon still requires a launch. That launch requires fuel. There is no fuel source on the Moon, so even if we had production facilities there, there are no high energy raw materials for them to process.

So where does the fuel come from? How about the only place in the solar system we know where we can make rocket fuel: EARTH!

So every liter of rocket fuel used to power launches to supply raw materials to a "cislunar orbit economy", first has to be transported to the moon by launching it from Earths gravity well.

So, where is the gain in efficiency exactly?

Also, where would this "cislunar orbit economy" find a market? The vast majority of people are here, on Earth. So even if there was a way to supply such an economy with raw materials (and energy, and personnel, and so on), the products would still need to be transported to Earth, adding a huge additional cost to everything manufactured. How is this supposed to compete with products made on earth exactly?

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