Artemus is very different than Apollo. History, planning, engineering, risk mitigation & a bit of politics for the geeks & nerds:



NASA SP-287:What Made Apollo a Success
https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?si=U2ggRpj6OjkJ6YNb

Is there an executive summary?

Throw your hat in the ring.

Look at the mission differently.

In the world of talkers, be a thinker and a doer.

Ask the hard questions

Artemis has a basic political / cultural problem. If they succeed, "all" thy have done is duplicate a half century old mission. If they fail, and especially if they kill some astronauts, its a political nightmare. Going to the moon is *hard* its pretty remarkable than none of the Apollo missions were lost (depending on how you count the horrible Apollo 1 fire).

Artemis is also trying to do a lot more - setting up for a more permanent presence, but the public may not have a good feel for how much those extra steps increase the risk of things failing.

The public today is likely to be a lot less accepting of failure than it was in the 60s. In the 60s, beating the Soviets was everything and I think the public would have tolerated some lives lost for that goal. Not today.

In the 60s, there was a general idea that the future of mankind was in the stars and the moon was a necessary step on the way. It was an extension of climbing down out of the trees, crossing the savannah, crossing rivers, oceans - it was inevitable. I don't see that today either.

I very much hope Artemis works. I went to see the first SLS launch. I'd like there not to be a time when no living human has walked on the moon. Unfortunately I think the more likely path is continuing program delays and some excuse for an eventual cancellation.

We were so close....

I do not disagree with your general sentiments; but, TIL a bit more about Artemis. I would like to learn a lot more about the orbital mechanics and the delta-V limitation that drove the NHRO lunar orbit decisions.

Artemis’ goals are a lot more than simply Apollo Mk II. I am 68 YO and doubt that I will live to see another American boot print on the Moon (with the safe return of said astronaut).

I don't. The whole think the way it is structured, is a political boondoggle and it needs the plug pulled yesterday. I'm all for going back to the moon, but rather than spending billions on a nonsensical approach, instead they should offer those billions as a prize for the private sector to get there and achieve pre-set goals. Like the X-prizes on steroids.

Its difficult to make a set of prize rules that really does what you want. There is a rumor that the original X prize putting humans in space was intended to mean orbit, but they screwed it up, not realizing that orbit altitude and orbit are completely different things. (I still wonder when Virgin Galactic realized they were building an amusement park ride, not a real spacecraft).

Then there are other issues. We could offer a "humans on the moon" prize and find that we'd spent $200B to fund a Chinese mission

Its difficult to fix the problems with government labs. They used to be excellent - I worked for the DOE for >30 years, and we used to have some of the best engineers and scientists in the world. But things gradually fell apart.

When I left for private industry 2 years ago, my pay increased by 2.5X, for working a lot less hours, less stress, and with far better management. I don't see how the govt labs can attract people back.

OTOH a moon mission is a really huge project - far more than just putting people in orbit. Maybe industry can do it, but I'll be surprised.

I'll be happy to see human on the moon again before I die, but I'm not expecting it




I don't. The whole think the way it is structured, is a political boondoggle and it needs the plug pulled yesterday. I'm all for going back to the moon, but rather than spending billions on a nonsensical approach, instead they should offer those billions as a prize for the private sector to get there and achieve pre-set goals. Like the X-prizes on steroids.

That is an excellent video, thanks for posting! It is long (a little over an hour) but this guy really nails it and pulls no punches. My favorite part was the issue of cryogenic refueling in orbit - nobody knows how many rockets it will take to do this or if it is even possible, no real scientific or engineering risk assessment has been done let alone method testing.

I agree, Artemis is a boon doggle and should be scrapped.

Dan

The video is a master class in how-to tell the Emperor that he is wearing no clothes, and surviving the encounter.

Isn't the cryogenic refueling driven by wanting to use the spaceX upper stage as a lander - and its 10X larger than really needed.

I think you could keep some of the mission paramters and not need in flight refueling. I don't think the blue origins lander concept required that (but not sure)

I thought the most interesting takeaway was the latest estimate of the number of launches needed to deliver the fuel ("at least 15") and the apparent fact that NASA doesn't actually know if that will be enough.

Do you have a link to a document on it? The old plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3 ... CONOPS.svg

was 7 launches, which is already way too many. 15 is nuts. That must imply ~10 in-flight fuel transfers.

The official artimis site is pretty information free.

I suspect you are right - the difficulty of finding any mission launch scheme is worrisome. The Apollo scheme was available to me before the launch when I was a kid when I was about 7 years old (and could have told you what types of engines and fuels were used in a Saturn V - I had a model....)


Do they have active fuel refrigeration systems? Otherwise there is only a limited time window as the cryogens burn off. Usually NASA doesn't plan on cryogenic propellants for more than the initial launch / insertion trajectory, and uses storable hypergolics later.


We're not going back to the moon, are we.

As enthralled as I was for the Gemini and Apollo missions - I'm old enough to remember the later Gemini and all the Apollo missions - I think NASA, Musk et al have transitioned into Trekky fantasy/wet dream land.

If there is a planet out there similar to Earth it is so far away as to be entirely irrelevant. One way missions where ETA is several generations after departure is just stupid.

Mars?

Its a boring, dusty shthole.

We're living in the garden of Eden - why fantasise about leaving?

One reason to leave is so in the long term we can keep the earth as a garden, and move all the ugly stuff off planet to places we can't make any worse than they are now.

Another is that by any reasonable measure *everything* is in space, not on earth. We don't know how to cross interstellar distances yet, but the first people to paddle a log across a river didn't know how to cross oceans either - but they figured it out. No reason to think human lifespans are forever limited to four score years.

Yet another is that if there is intelligent life out there, history would suggest that we are much better off arriving in ships and seeing them wave at us from the shore, than to be the ones on the shore waving at the arriving ships.


Really though I think the best reason is because its there.

The cryogenic fuels were chosen because they or their constituents exist on the moon and can be used for refueling once the infrastructure is in place.

Starship is 10x larger than other landers because its purpose isn’t to take 4 people to the moon. It’s like having a school bus to take your kids to soccer practice; it wasn’t designed for that but you can make it work if you want to. There are potential advantages including larger payloads, more people, the ability to use the ship itself as a base while the stuff around it is built… but it was not envisioned to be a moon lander. The best design for that IMO is the ALPACA, which NASA discarded.