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Artemis II Launch Day Updates

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Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your side to some extent. It helped watching my 11yo watch the launch - for him it's more meaningful, more imminent than it can be for a jaded person like myself. I don't think it's mutually exclusive with food aid, though. If anything, it's taking money that probably would have gone into bombs and aeroplanes instead if we didn't have a space program. Honestly, it feels like we could redirect the entire…

Yeah totally. Ideally, I’d like it if we feed the kids that need the food, educate them, and have them build the rocket and have them take the glory of that achievement (the glory being we as a society uplifted ourselves, literally … to the moon). Right now it feels like the privileged are being sent to the moon. Many babies and young adults are on battlefields right now. But thank you for reminding me how important…

You're asking the US to act with a bit of socialism. Trump's made it pretty clear he thinks social anything is a gateway drug to communism. He even got Fox calling Canada "next to communism" because Repuglicans hate the concept so very much.

Yea, he's an idiot. But he's the boss for now.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#942

After spending years as a kid seeing footage of these things on TV outside living outside of America, I finally got to see it live! Brought my camera and got a few good pics too! Very invested in this entire mission! Someone behind me kept whisper crying "That's it! Go baby, go baby go" like it was his child and was encouraging them on. Very emotional, loved it. Also when that engine sparked it really hit me just how…

I watched the livestream and at one point (several points, i guess) they cut to the crowd watching and the thing that stood out the most to me was that every single person was staring at their phone pointed at the rocket. Nevermind the fact that better quality videos will live forever on the internet available to anyone who wants to watch them, but I cannot fathom having that opportunity and not watching it with my own eyes with my full attention.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#943
post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s absolute in the sense that you can determine your acceleration without any external reference. You feel a certain force (like what you feel in an elevator). That’s your acceleration. You don’t accelerate relative to Earth, or relative to anything else. You accelerate relative to when you wouldn’t be accelerating (your inertial rest frame, a state of free fall). If you are in space accelerating and the Earth woul…

That is not correct. There is no upward acceleration causing the 1G felt in a chair on Earth.

There is in general relativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_acceleration

"Similarly, standing on a non-rotating planet (and on earth for practical purposes) observers experience an upward proper-acceleration due to the normal force exerted by the earth on the bottom of their shoes."

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#944
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's not "safe"! We put a ton of explosives into a huge can, put a small can with humans on top of it, set it on fire and try to control what happens and get the humans into space, and then we try to drop the same can from the space, while it's traveling at miles per second, and land it on the ground. It's not "safe" and won't likely be "safe" in our lifetimes, there's always big risk, that's why astronauts…

What he means and you're interpreting a bit too literally is that this [heatshield] is one subsystem where the risks are not well understood or quantified as, say, the propulsion system, for which we have a lot more experience and flight heritage.

Yes, of course there are risky systems in there, and calling attention to one of them is fine. What I object to is framing it as a "safe/not safe" issue - as if without the tests the author proposed it were "not safe" and with them, by implication, it would become "safe". That's not like replacing old tires on your car with new tires - there are a lot of things that can go wrong, and many of them are "unsafe", and it's always a complex equation which can not be (at least at current level of technology) solved with doing more tests or anything else to make it "safe". The "safe" framing is the one I object to.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#945

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because many small steps are required before every giant leap. I would like to point out that the current misadventure in the ME has cost at least $38,035,856,006 in 32 days. And that won't receive half of the "this is a waste of money" critiques this mission will. And there are a ton of people who are against that excursion. Most people who will come across this will react with either extreme negativity or indiffere…

When I see numbers like that ($38 billion) thrown around I always wonder: Where did that money go? In the best case, it stayed in the economy in the form of salaries and such. In the worst case, it goes directly into an offshore pile of mega-wealth where it won't benefit the economy and likely won't even be taxed. Is there any way to determine where on this continuum this program stands? I'm guessing the 1960s space…

A lot of it is in between: it goes to building things that get unbuilt shortly after.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#946
post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to general relativity, you (and the ground) are accelerating at 1g, and feel weight because your inertia resists that acceleration. If you jump off a cliff, you'll stop accelerating for a bit, until the ground hits you. Edit to reply: > I am standing on the ground. I feel 1G acceleration. My speed is not changing. How much am I accelerating? You are accelerating at 1g through curved spacetime. Newtonian "sp…

I am standing on the ground. I feel 1G acceleration. My speed is not changing. How much am I accelerating?

Your speed relative to what? There is no absolute speed. Relative to an inertial rest frame, you're accelerating upwards at 1G, which is what you are feeling and what an accelerometer is measuring. Of course, relative to the non-inertial reference frame of the ground, your speed doesn't change.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#947
post #892

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many promises that never materialized or resulted in mediocre or bad products, from the Mars mission to the Hyperloop, and from Teslas dismal software and often promised, never materializing fully autonomous drive to the Cybertruck. Let's not go into the robot vapourware either...

Hyperloop is the only thing you listed that is accurate, although it was only a whitepaper + competition. It was open for others to pursue. Tesla easily has the best vehicle software + OTA and has since the S in 2012. It still feels better than most new vehicles. You can buy a Tesla (including Cybertruck) today that will do 95+% of drives with 0 intervention. It may not be 100% autonomous yet, but there isn't anythin…

>Tesla easily has the best vehicle software + OTA and has since the S in 2012

Sure: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/05/the-vehic...

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-drivers-are-paying-big-buc...

https://www.thestreet.com/automotive/tesla-employees-shared-...

https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2025-04-15...

https://www.torquenews.com/17998/after-software-update-left-...

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/10/tesla-autopi...

the cases are endless...

>The robots exist but are still being developed. Within 5 years, it is hard to imagine them not becoming super valuable within factory settings.

Yeah, let's check back in 5 years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaSupport/comments/1poig9a/night...

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/when-a-software-upda...

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#948

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the absolute minimum speed IS required. Anything below that and you’re just making your orbit elliptical.

That seems wrong. If you have a way to maintain enough propulsion for long enough you can escape the gravity well at any arbitrarily low speed. You "just" need to maintain that speed long enough for the escape velocity from the gravity well to go below it as it diminishes with distance from the mass.

Oh yeah, 1.01 Gs of endless propulsion will work. I was just arguing in the context of existing technology.

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#949

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many promises that never materialized or resulted in mediocre or bad products, from the Mars mission to the Hyperloop, and from Teslas dismal software and often promised, never materializing fully autonomous drive to the Cybertruck. Let's not go into the robot vapourware either...

And yet SpaceX flies the most reliable rocket in history more frequently than anyone in the world has ever flown, takes astronauts to the ISS regularly, and does so for far less then any competition. Tesla changed the automobile from ICE to BEV in a way people wanted to buy and was practical as a replacement for any use, and created a charging standard so successful every US car company is switching to. And the Mars…

>And yet SpaceX flies the most reliable rocket in history more frequently than anyone in the world has ever flown, takes astronauts to the ISS regularly, and does so for far less then any competition

Yeah, after almost half a century, they passed 70s-era Soyuz numbers.

>Tesla changed the automobile from ICE to BEV in a way people wanted to buy and was practical as a replacement for any use

The magic of EV subsidies (for both Tesla and buyers).

>And the Mars missions so far are just delayed.

The magic of that statement is that it can be true at any point in the future!

Re: Artemis II Launch Day Updates

#950
post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official one doesn't work for me on mobile but this does: https://artemistracker.com/

but it's not accurate. it claims TLI (trans lunar injection burn) happens two hours after launch when in reality that is going to happen about a day after launch

that issue has been fixed. in the graph orion is now shown at the correct approximate location and the time for the TLI has been updated.
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