<Gulp>

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/f ... o-dissent/

Those images don't look good, but I don't know how bad it really is. It sounds like they are planning a steeper reentry, high peak heat loads (and g loads probably), less heat soak time. I don't know how good their models are for that.

I'm surprised that risk-averse NASA is willing to risk this on a crewed flight without another unmanned mission, but Artemis launches are so insanely expensive that they probably have no choice from a program point of view.

I'd really like to see another manned moon landing before I die, but doubt Artemis will succeed at that.

The management overruling the engineers. Where have we heard this before?

OH, dunno, maybe 1986.. And maybe the delay on changing ET foam..

At 45 minutes this is a little long, but I think it’s excellent. Former Shuttle astronaut and NASA engineer Charles Camarda discusses the ongoing cultural problem at NASA, drawing similarities with Boeing and warning of the potential spread to other organizations. Needless to say he doesn’t think that Artemis should continue and even suggests that NASA is so broken and redundant that they should go back to doing high level research and leave spaceflight to private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.

I have been saying much of this since Challenger’s last flight. It’s sad to see, but the Orion heat shield and the way NASA is not dealing with it just confirms that the organization has not changed a bit since Columbia. I hope Rook shuts them down, but unfortunately that is likely more than one person can do, even if they wanted to.

I tend to agree, but I will point out that we have the benefit of hindsight to now see how successful SpaceX is. 10 years ago, betting on SpaceX was a hugely uncertainty thing to do. Had they failed, the tune would be different today.

I wonder just how much further our exploration of the solar system would have been if we spent the manned mission money on it.

If I was NASA head, I'd commission building two more JWST scopes, exactly what they sent already so no engineering effort, just build a few more, so we can do triple the science and have backup if the first one fails. The JWST will be the most productive scientific instrument man has ever devised allowing study of everything from subatomic physics to the entire universe.

I'd also green light a lot of "risky" exploration missions, like more Mars landers, Mars flying machines, more landers in the outer solar system, the Titan drone, orbital missions for the outer planets (not just a few hours of fly by), nuclear powered interplanetary propulsion, etc.

Spending vast sums just for humans to reach LEO when commercial can do that, or to send humans to Mars is wasteful, IMO. There is NOTHING on Mars that needs human presence. Musk talks about being "multi planetary" to save the human race, but we could shove a few thousand people into underground bunkers in Antarctica and do the same things and it would be VASTLY easier and nicer for them. Going to Mars is a death wish, no air, no water, no food, no organics, no minerals, nothing valuable is there. At the very most, a Lunar colony would be tremendously easier and do the same thing or better.

No human is landing on Mars in my lifetime and probably not in the lifetime of anyone alive today. Let's get real about this.

Mike C.

In hindsight I agree wrt unmanned exploration, but wrt private spaceflight my tune would not change if SpaceX had failed to reach orbit on that fateful 4th attempt. True that NASA (and Roscosmos, and easa, and others) would have to take over flights to low earth orbit, but my tune would be unchanged from what it was after Columbia: NASA’s manned space flight division is unsafe, reckless, and irresponsible, and should not be allowed to continue launching manned vehicles. At this point it is more than clear that the necrotic management there is unable to change or be changed. It needs to be flushed. Fortunately we now have alternatives.

I was in the NM desert when Richard Branson went up in Space Ship Two (or whatever they were calling it then). Not on the airport with all the rich peeps and those involved with the program, but in the sage brush next door all by myself watching the same thing they were seeing. There were a few very inexplicable things at the time and then watching the “produced footage” afterwards and seeing the very concerned look on Branson’s face prior to launch seemed to confirm my suspicions. Then, the chief pilot (Mark Stuckey I believe) was forced out for expressing his concerns and Branson sold the company soon afterwards. This kind of stuff is dangerous and risky, doesn’t matter who is doing it.

Indeed it is. That's why it's critical to listen to the people who know the vehicle, its systems, and materials like the back of their hands. Forcing someone out because they raised a red flag is indicative of a toxic and eventually deadly culture. NASA has it in spades.

The best (published) version of the story is “Test Gods” by Robert Schmidle

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/550 ... bOg&rank=1

By Nicholas Schmidle
A great book and Stucky is featured prominently. My hat is off to that guy…an incredible test pilot and a man of conviction.

Its sad, I remember when NASA and the National Labs (which are similar in a lot of ways) really did represent the best in the world. Sadly that has declined over the years. For the Labs, it was an attempt to make them "more like industry". Fine, except when I left my national lab job and moved to industry I got a 3X pay increase. Making the Lab be "like industry" removes the reason good people used to work there.

The best (published) version of the story is “Test Gods” by Robert Schmidle

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/550 ... bOg&rank=1

Ancient history here but STS-1 lost a bunch of tiles on the OMS pods on the first launch. I don't recall whether that was due to the acoustic waves from the SRBs lighting off, but somewhere in the late eighties, NASA started spraying a waterproofing spray on the tiles so that when the Shuttle was exposed to the weather on the Pad, it wouldn't get into the cracks between tiles. It doesn't seem like water intrusion was the problem on the Orion.

I tend to agree, but I will point out that we have the benefit of hindsight to now see how successful SpaceX is. 10 years ago, betting on SpaceX was a hugely uncertainty thing to do. Had they failed, the tune would be different today.

I wonder just how much further our exploration of the solar system would have been if we spent the manned mission money on it.

If I was NASA head, I'd commission building two more JWST scopes, exactly what they sent already so no engineering effort, just build a few more, so we can do triple the science and have backup if the first one fails. The JWST will be the most productive scientific instrument man has ever devised allowing study of everything from subatomic physics to the entire universe.

I'd also green light a lot of "risky" exploration missions, like more Mars landers, Mars flying machines, more landers in the outer solar system, the Titan drone, orbital missions for the outer planets (not just a few hours of fly by), nuclear powered interplanetary propulsion, etc.

Spending vast sums just for humans to reach LEO when commercial can do that, or to send humans to Mars is wasteful, IMO. There is NOTHING on Mars that needs human presence. Musk talks about being "multi planetary" to save the human race, but we could shove a few thousand people into underground bunkers in Antarctica and do the same things and it would be VASTLY easier and nicer for them. Going to Mars is a death wish, no air, no water, no food, no organics, no minerals, nothing valuable is there. At the very most, a Lunar colony would be tremendously easier and do the same thing or better.

No human is landing on Mars in my lifetime and probably not in the lifetime of anyone alive today. Let's get real about this.

Mike C.