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It's not really NASA that's building this, it's Lockheed Martin and other too big to fail defense companies. This is just a little something something to keep them in the game. As one person in NASA told me, they "fears NASA is becoming just a white collar jobs program"--artemis is clearly on mission.
That's 90% of US defense spending.
Maciej has such a talent for picturesque metaphors.
Unkind quotes, but hilarious and probably well deserved: "SLS looks like someone started building a Space Shuttle and ran out of legos for the orbiter" "But on top of this monster sits a second stage so anemic that even its name (the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage) is a kind of apology." "the minds behind SLS achieved a first in space flight, creating a rocket that is at the same time more powerful and less capab…
And another one: "Costs on SLS have reached the point where private industry is now able to develop, test, and launch an entire rocket program for less than NASA spends on a single engine"
"Orion, the capsule that launches on top of SLS, is a relaxed-fit reimagining of the Apollo command module suitable for today’s larger astronaut."
"The capsule’s official name is the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, but finding even a single purpose for Orion has greatly challenged NASA."
"Where Apollo was built like a roadster, with a small crew compartment bolted onto an oversized engine, Orion is the Dodge Journey of spacecraft—a chunky, underpowered six-seater that advertises to the world that you're terrible at managing money."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do we have something in place to monitor the far side? We don't have a visual on it like we do the near side. Yeah, we've flown around it, imaged it in the past. Nothing ongoing though. If you think about it in a national security sense instead of an astronomical one, the question is "what is a rival power up to", then indeed it is dark and unknown. Mind I only watched from the timestamp, I might have missed somethin…
Yes, this has been observing the moon, both near and far side since 2009 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_Orbiter I don’t see how any NASA employee, who ultimately work for him, could have any respect for his ability to make strategic decisions for NASA
1. That's awesome
2. Yeah, he's a doofus.
Unkind quotes, but hilarious and probably well deserved: "SLS looks like someone started building a Space Shuttle and ran out of legos for the orbiter" "But on top of this monster sits a second stage so anemic that even its name (the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage) is a kind of apology." "the minds behind SLS achieved a first in space flight, creating a rocket that is at the same time more powerful and less capab…
Agree that the criticism is overall well-founded, but this one is a bit strange: > SLS looks like someone started building a Space Shuttle and ran out of legos for the orbiter Should the booster look different just for the sake of looking different?
As a kid, mainlining Heinlein, I just assumed we'd have a moonbase by now and that it would be up to something important and useful. In my 20s, I assumed that our then-primitive software engineering techniques would be refined until we could make things that were simple, polished, cheap, and reliable. So it's a little wild to me to see software not only get more chaotic, but influence hardware as well. All in service…
That was the original Apollo mission. We went to the moon 6 times.
This is a criticism rooted in viewing the problem the wrong way. You can't compare a modern attempt at a moon landing to the Apollo program. It's straight up invalid. The Apollo program was a national prestige program, so successful we stopped going to the moon for ~49 years and counting. At it's peak it consumed 2.5% of US national GDP. We will never, ever , nor should we run a program like the Apollo program ever a…
> it's thoroughly dismissive of the political concerns which are the essence of the entire problem No, it is quite correctly pointing out that political concerns are creating a lot of problems that shouldn't even exist . > If we don't get there with a more sustainable approach, then there's no point going. But the article's whole point is that this is not a "more sustainable approach". It's less capable than Apollo,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't Asimov write about half the moon being dark? TIL the "far side of the moon" is actually referred to as "the dark side of the moon". But yeah, it's funny/sad that nobody in the room seems to know anything.
When we earthlings see a new moon, we see one dark side turned towards us, while another dark side is the far side; Moon is completely in the Earth's shadow. During a solar eclipse, the far side is brightly lit, while the side turned towards us is dark. Most of the time the dark side does not match the far or the near side, we see a part of both the dark and lit sides as a crescent. I don't see how "the far side" and…
I always thought the dark side of the moon meant from earths’ view: we can see the light side (even when it’s dark) but we can’t see the dark side (even when it’s light)
Destin from Smarter Every Day gave a talk that addresses a lot of these issues that I found pretty interesting too. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU