NASA safety watchdog says it's time to rethink Moon landing The latest report from NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) raises questions about the mission objectives for Artemis III. Artemis III aims to land astronauts near the lunar South Pole, relying on SpaceX's Starship-derived Human Landing System (HLS) – a vehicle that has yet to achieve orbit, let alone venture anywhere …
Vastly outnumbering the more or less desirable firsts, are all the opportunities space travel offers gratis for fatally tragic firsts.
Being the first men in the Moon, no matter how deep, is hardly a desirable alternative to being the first on the Moon.
I'm beginning to have a certain "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch — next April?"1 feeling about the whole thing.
I hope I'm wrong.
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1 Axios: How the Challenger tragedy became a decision-making parable
I'll go. It'd be worth the risks.
And that right there, becomes the problem. No matter how big those risks become, there's very definitely someone out there willing to have a very large firework jammed up their ass and go for launch. NASA, at least after Challenger, embraced the idea of extreme risk reduction, which as we can see in the essence of the do more on each of fewer launches approach, has once again gone out the window.
But fuck it, gimme a seat and I'll still go. My life has been lived and that long painful death at the end is getting closer, much closer, and I'll take my chances on the best ride in the solar system.
So it will all go horriblu wrong and the rocket will blow up at some stage killing the crew.
Trump will then give a lonh rambling speech calling the mission a stunning success and a triumph of american engineering. He will then sneer about how it only happen with him in charge.
In case you haven'r noticed, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
It's in the speech:
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
If it goes well, it was Trump's influence
INFLUENCE? He'd be up there taking all the credit and barely letting the astronauts get a word in edgewise. Then demand that the Kennedy Space Center be renamed the Trump-Kennedy Space Center in honor of his historic accomplishment. Then next time he mentioned it he'd leave off the Kennedy.
"Trump will then give a lonh rambling speech calling the mission a stunning success and a triumph of american engineering."
Donald and Elon are peas in a pod. Every time Starship goes boom, Elon and the SpaceX mob dance and cheer.
OTOH, when SpaceX employees are voluntold to attend an Elon presentation, there is no dancing and cheering, just a cricket symphony.
Make it the first manned mission to the Moon achieved solely with the aid of AI. For added assurance of the success of the mission, from the supplier side, the CEO of the company that supplied the AI tech and the CEO of Boeing to be onboard. From the government side, who better than the commander in chief, Donald Trump.
Success of the mission is guaranteed.
Don't anyone mention the Titan submersible
Much smaller craft. The Orion is about the same mass as an Apollo CSM but carries a lot less fuel, it can't get itself into low Lunar orbit whereas Apollo could put the CSM and docked Lunar Module there. HLS is 8-10 times the mass of the Lunar Module and even by pessimistic estimates could carry a couple of LMs as cargo.
Isn't the approved car for space travel a Reliant Robin? I'm sure I saw a documentary about one going into space sometime back in the day... Well ploughing into the ground at full speed and exploding, due to a failed fuel tank separation, but I'm sure they got into space with the next launch...
Apollo's CSM & LM were light weight and with the help of the Saturn V were actually capable of getitng to Lunar orbit.
Orion is an overweight pig that with SLS help can't even reach a proper lunar orbit you can land from.
Of course in the 60s Health & Safety was not what it is today and NASA were very, very, very lucky not to lose any crew after Apollo 1.
"You only weigh 1/6 of your Earth weight on the Moon, so you can get back in with a few Naruto ninja leaps."
YOU only weigh 1/6 of what you would on Earth but, how much does that spacesuit you inhabit weigh? In the mood to climb 50m with all of that? You'd still need to sort out how to unstick the lift, get it stowed and the doors closed. Just cutting the line and letting in drop might impact the rocket not to mention all of the stuff that might need to be pushed out to make the vehicle light enough.
Just cutting the line and letting in [sic][the lift] drop might impact the rocket
There's been at least one case where a dropped wrench socket -- admittedly on Earth, with its higher-than-the-moon's gravity -- ultimately destroyed a Titan II rocket.
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/titan-ii-missile-explosion-2543/
"There's been at least one case where a dropped wrench socket -- admittedly on Earth, with its higher-than-the-moon's gravity -- ultimately destroyed a Titan II rocket."
I'm thinking a bad bounce could have the lift hitting an engine bell or scrapping some important bits off the side of the rocket. I haven't heard of any self-leveling feature so chances are really good that the rocket won't be sitting perfectly straight up and down.
Because they were a very different missions and spacecraft.
Note that they launched each Apollo mission on a single stack, but that the lander massed a little under 5 tons dry.
The HLS based on SS is likely to have a dry mass of ~20 times that.
The Apollo stack was also fully expended, whilst the aim with HLS is to recover the SH booster, as well as all the ships (other than the HLS itself which won't return from lunar orbit).
The SLS/Orion stack is closer to the SV stack... The Apollo CSM was ~12 tons, the Orion is ~ 9 ton from the capsule and a further 6 for the service module.
It's substantially less capable as a heavy lift than the SV (140 tons) with just 95 tons to LEO in early iterations - it does play a bit of catchup with 130 targetted for block2.
"The Apollo stack was also fully expended, whilst the aim with HLS is to recover the SH booster"
I don't see that as very beneficial for a system that might get 5-6 flights before the program gets scrapped. Break-even is in the neighborhood of 10 uses for a rocket and there's a sizeable hit to efficiency when building something reusable. For a heavy lift vehicle that needs every erg that can be squeezed out, leaving a quantity of fuel onboard and the mass of any steering/landing mechanisms hurts. There's also compromises in trajectories and altitudes to make boosters reusable. Even SX expends Falcons when the requirements need everything the rocket can give. Going to the F9H is much more expensive.
The mission is to put people on the moon and set up a permanent habitat, not sort out how to make reusable heavy lift rockets. If the latter is getting in the way, that's an issue. It's a "nice to have". I'm not a fan of a disposable society, but there are situations where you do throw something away after one use. I have paper plates and plastic utensils when there won't be the means to wash and reuse more durable plates and eating tools. I'll even plan those meals around something I can eat with wooden chopsticks if I can.
I'm seeing a good portion of SpaceX's issues being centered around reuse which they are having a very hard time with in the Starship design. It's dictating an architecture that is science projects all over the place.
I have an idea. As I understand it, the Trump administration are in favour of Battleships. So all they need to do, is to fit a Wave Motion Generator to one of the 4 Iowa class battleships. I suggest Wisconsin, which had the latest refit - but you can pick, depending on who pays the biggest bribe needs their museum ship least. Make a few compartments airtight, fit a few space toilets and fill 'er up with fuel. Bish! Bash! Bosh! New spaceship. Get it up there, do a few tests in LEO - then off to the Moon, plant flags, take photos, few quick samples, game of golf, back in time for tea and medals.
I believe they've got very good machine shops on these. So could also drop by the Hubble space telescope and give that a quick service - maybe pop to Mars and do some maintenance on all the rovers and fix up that helicopter - or even take a new one.
So all they need to do, is to fit a Wave Motion Generator to one of the 4 Iowa class battleships. I suggest Wisconsin, which had the latest refit - but you can pick, depending on who pays the biggest bribe needs their museum ship least.
The US can't even figure out how to put training wheels on a shuttle to move it. But not this battleship-
https://www.youtube.com/@BattleshipNewJersey
Because Ryan produces a lot of great videos about New Jersey, battleships in general, and why the US Navy is going 'Ok Boss!'. But the next 'battleship' probably won't be a BB, but more likely a CG & Ticonderoga replacement. Even though it would please my soul to see a real BB with 18" guns.. Which the US probably doesn't have the capability to manufacture any more.
The American space program is a weak shadow of its former self, not because Americans are fundamentally incompetent or technologically deficient, but because they have become lazy, complacent, and almost child-like in their thinking - on the rare occasion that they can be bothered to think at all.
American leadership is now modeled on graft, exploitation, and power-by-threat - or murder; quality education is in the doldrums; competence and expertise run a distant second, third, or fourth to brand, fealty, and social approbation. A much larger than zero percentage of the population have learned to *like* seeing people harmed, humbled, and humiliated
Most disappointing is that they did this to themselves, literally choosing this model, these actions, these incompetent but extractive leaders - sorry, "leaders" - to guide them to exactly this outcome.
It's all bread and circuses - the Las Vegas prototype edition - but the bread is mouldy, the entertainment is as cheap as it is vicious, and the outcomes are all bad. Perhaps more regrettably, they're getting it all over everyone else, too.
This is not an environment conducive to success, especially not in fields as complex and risk-laden as space exploration. America is done. Last one out please turn off the lights.
At this point, the only external solutions are isolating the U.S., firewalling against local contamination, and preparing a robust defense.
I mostly agree except that for most presidential appointments competence is not considered at all - only loyalty matters.
Also, the other key components for Artemis are time, money and goal. The schedule is limited by the theoretical end of the current president's term in office. More time is needed. In reality more money is needed but in some weird alternate reality SLS could be cancelled and the money spent on something useful for cost effective Lunar missions. Lastly there is the goal which is spiralling towards a repeat of Apollo trimmed down to "Flags and footprints 2". Been there, done that and China could still repeat it first. The US could actually win a race to the first permanently manned Moon base - if they set that as the real goal, abandon the current schedule and fund it properly. Excuse me while I ride a cuckoo to the clouds and feed some rainbows to my unicorns.
"The US could actually win a race to the first permanently manned Moon base - if they set that as the real goal, abandon the current schedule and fund it properly."
The aggressive goal of landing at the south pole is problematic. Initially, setting up a base that's more equatorial would be easier/less risky. The Apollo landings were pretty basic and each one mostly a stand-alone venture. At least the first couple of missions should be simple and as much about getting boot prints installed more than setting up nuclear reactors and trying to mine ice. Checking out what appear to be caves could be a quick way to get bases/outposts set up. Keep in mind that both SX and BO are using Methane/LOX so mining ice and taking it apart won't yield rocket fuel for any of their ships. Some work will have to take place to figure out how to make CH4 on the moon. Until then, stays will be constrained by how long cryogenic propellants can be kept from boiling off. The LEM ascent stage used storeable hypergolics to get to the orbiting CSM.
naptimefortruth
"The American space program is a weak shadow of its former self, not because Americans are fundamentally incompetent or technologically deficient, but because they have become lazy, complacent, and almost child-like in their thinking - on the rare occasion that they can be bothered to think at all.
American leadership is now modeled on graft, exploitation, and power-by-threat - or murder; quality education is in the doldrums; competence and expertise run a distant second, third, or fourth..."
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you.
And not just with the space program.
I have to wonder what our country did in the last ... say 30 or so years that has produced this outcome.
I just voted in the R primary here. It was unpleasant, but I searched for the most moderate R's I could find. If your state allows it, I strongly suggest voting in the opposite primary you normally vote in and look for moderates. I was pretty surprised at just how full on magat almost every candidate was. I see the same extremism in the D primary to a lessor extent, but since this state almost never elects a D to anything, the real vote is the primary. The general election outcome is going to be an R. So vote in the election that counts.
Personally I wouldn’t be concerned about downvotes. I have noticed that sometimes a post gets downvotes with no follow-up post to explain their reasons or opposition.
I suspect that in many cases downvoters aren’t doing it because they believe you are wrong, but more, they wish you were wrong, and don’t like hearing the truth.
Almost any post involving politics will attract at least one downvote, almost always with no explanation given. Straightforward, factual posts on any topic will sometimes do so as well.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Plenty of good people (not all, but enough) have given up on both US parties. In the US, the two main parties have a virtual hammerlock on the outcome. So you have a splinter of the populace "choosing" Democratic candidates, another splinter "choosing" the Republicans, and come election day, everybody else wonders why they have loons to vote for. The loons attract loons and still more "good" people cease to vote, especially in the primaries where the actual decisions are made.
I don't have any real solution to propose. Good on you for not just giving up, though. Your scheme of voting strategically seems reasonable to me; I've had cases where my own party's primary was Soviet-style, with the candidate basically already chosen, but the other party had a competitive race. Logically, in such cases, I should switch party affiliation and vote in the other primary. Must admit I've not actually done so, though.
"In the US, the two main parties have a virtual hammerlock on the outcome."
Being as disappointed with the two main choices as I have been, I've looked at the platforms of the other parties. They can be summed up in one word, whackadoodle. There's no realism at all with candidates stated views from anarchy to hard-line communism along with blissed out stoners that should have been required to provide a sample for medical testing before being allowed to run for public office. A lot of reform needs to take place and since the lunatics are in charge of the asylum, that's not going to happen. They've got a really good thing going as once they can clear the bar to get into the club, they can turn a generous salary into net worth's of millions in just a few short years, be immune from mundane laws such as drunk driving, fiddling taxes, and queue barging.
No, there just isn't more than two political parties that are moderate enough as all of the others are further off to the sides than the most extreme in those two. Mostly.
"The American space program is a weak shadow of its former self, not because Americans are fundamentally incompetent or technologically deficient, but because they have become lazy, complacent, and almost child-like in their thinking - on the rare occasion that they can be bothered to think at all."
What's left of the NASA budget is contantly being attacked/raided so the Department of WAR can have more money to not keep track of.
People get frustrated at working a career at NASA only to have the next change of politicos cancel all of the projects they've worked on. If the project you've been on gets the axe, you have to scramble to find another one to get into before you are made redundant. Anybody that's been let go will likely find a real job (at a government contractor) and never go back. That's not great advertising.
Some years ago I tried to get in at JPL and that's very difficult. I got a job at a new-space startup making OK money, but very hands on with all aspects besides what I was hired for. To keep trying for JPL would have taken a lot of time and luck and it's not in the area with the cheapest cost of living. The startup was in a very inexpensive area so my not so grand salary was actually quite fine. I rented a 3bd house, kept the pantry stocked and bills paid. It helped that I'd rent rooms to the interns that paid a good portion of the rent.
The report includes a pretty picture captioned: "First-time mile stones for the Artemis III mission" which includes
Several of those are from the demo portion of the contract SpaceX which has to complete before Artemis III starts. The demo portion could include a few RUDs and do-overs (at SpaceX expense) like Boeing had to repeat their uncrewed Starliner mission because the first one did not get to the ISS. Artemis III will not include the first HLS, first set of refueling launches, first use of a cryo propellant depot, first HLS launch from Cap Canaveral (on a launch pad that will definitely have been used for the depot, some tankers and probably some Starlink launches.) The uncrewed ascent is not part of the contract but SpaceX have promised to do it anyway. If that RUDs then I hope Artemis III will be delayed until after the second HLS uncrew Lunar landing.
NASA could (and probably should) include some extra steps but no matter how many are added one of them will be the first HLS crewed landing on the Moon - unless the project is cancelled. Hopefuly that will be followed by the first HLS crewed ascent. Artemis might not include the first Lunar EVA since 1972. That will depend on the progress China makes and if the US sticks to a schedule linked to presidential legal terms in office over a schedule based on thorough testing of all the components.
"There are always firsts in a new program,"
There should be a lot of "standing on the shoulders of giants that came before". It's always a temptation to do lots of new stuff, but it's not a good idea if risk goes straight up.
Most of my engineering is pretty boring and I freely borrow what others have done. My customers usually want things quickly so brewing things up from first principles is luxury. From time to time I get to do that and it's very satisfying, I must say. When I was working at an aerospace company, "science projects" were frowned upon. Completely off the shelf was the first goal. Modifying something to fit needs was second place and ground up design was reserved for special occasions. The propulsion engineer came up with some high pressure regulators that worked very well and shaved a load a weight off what was off-the-rack. Some of the internal parts were donated from purchased kit to keep from overloading the machinist any more than we had.
Trying to set a cannonball run record with a car you just finished building the night before might be a wee bit ambitious.
> There should be a lot of "standing on the shoulders of giants that came before"
There should be, absolutely... but there will also be new things.
> Trying to set a cannonball run record with a car you just finished building the night before
Is pretty much how these things are done isn't it... Every cannon ball run I've ever seen has either been in a production vehicle (boring), or a machine that was put together basically the night before.
"Every cannon ball run I've ever seen has either been in a production vehicle (boring), or a machine that was put together basically the night before."
That's why I mentioned it. Most of those runs end in tears and lots of wasted money and vacation time away from work. Trade show booths can often be last minute so always look at the back of displays to spot the duct tape on the new products. It's also why the staff can look like they need a good holiday. They were working 14 hours a day for the last 2 weeks and powered by coffee and cold take-away meals. They always arrive luke warm and there's no time to eat them straight away.
"First mission requiring approximately 15 fueling launches"
Elon keeps talking up bigger versions of SS/SH so 15 is optimistic and would rely on everything going perfectly. Any delays could set the counter back to zero as propellants boil off/ground support has to be replaced after a BUG (Blowed up good).
"First use of LEO Depot station including Cryo refueling"
I've got a sneaking suspicion that the orbital depot is going to spring some nasty surprises. Since it's never been done, one never knows if ALL of the right questions have been asked and answered.
"Well - neither has SLS"
It has circumnavigated the moon. There's also a culture of "get it right" as opposed to "move fast and blow shit up" (paraphrasing) with SLS. SpaceX HLS has never flown and isn't even being built yet. The orbital depot hasn't been built. The Tanker Starships haven't been built. No HLS mockup has been delivered to NASA for evaluation. The timeline had a Starship HLS setting a test version down on the lunar surface in January of 2024. As of March 2026, they haven't even attempted an orbital flight around Earth of a test shell.
SLS is expensive and fiddly, but it's worked and the next iteration is very close to working with a crew on-board. SpaceX HLS, not so much.
Technically Orion has done the loop... though it was lofted by SLS - but my comment was directly in response to:
"has it even launched in its final, full size, fully loaded version yet ?"
No, SS/SH hasn't, but neither has SLS.
SLS was also due to fly in 2018... that missed by four years
SS/SH has flown 11 times since SLS last destroyed a launch tower, and it might actually be 12 by the time SLS actually gets anywhere.
The two programs are about as similar as chalk and cheese in terms of the engineering approach - SLS is hardware starved, SS/SH is hardware rich.
Yet SS/SH seems to be managing on a shoestring compared with SLS.
Planetary Society data suggests that the SLS/Orion/EGS cost has been basically $50 billion to 2022 (ignoring inflation). Later figures referenced show somewhere over $100 billion inflation adjusted by 2026 (though that figure does include an amount spent on HLS, a significant proportion of which went to spaceX - so it's closer to 95).
In comparison SS/SH was estimated at ~$5 Billion to 2024, let's assume it was $10, and it's now up to $20... that's still a drop in the bucket.
SLS/Orion aren't doing much that's new - yes, there is an amount of new hardware. SS/SH are aiming for reusability, which is genuinely new, and they're managing to do that on a fraction of the budget spend on SLS.
"Later figures referenced show somewhere over $100 billion inflation adjusted by 2026"
Bah! California is spending more than that for HSR between two points less than 400 miles apart (where there's already train service most of the way). I looked a couple of years ago and there were around 44 flights per day between LA and SF. Many times HSR winds up with the same sort of groping stations that flying gets you so you won't miss out on that and the delays it causes.
I was recently watching a video on California's San Andreas fault. A portion of it moves about 26mm/year fairly consistently. Other sections don't move that much.... until they do and do all of the moving in a minute or so. Both scenarios would be bad for any tracks laid across.
The "Gold Runner" service going up the central part of the state could be a much faster service if it were grade-separated and not sharing tracks with freight which is what HSR must do except HSR will be much more expensive to operate and maintain.
SLS is poised to go all the way to the moon, so $100bn is a bargain compared by the mile.
"$100bn is a bargain compared by the mile"
Not exactly a normal comparison, and I wasn't comparing the per mile expense.
Just looking at the approximate costs of the two systems, neither of which have launched their final versions.
I personally think that the progress shown by the SS/SH program is pretty decent, and I'm looking forward to the next few flights...
Not to be the Grim Reaper here, but Artemis III launching a crew to land on the moon in 2028 depends a lot on Artemis II succeeding.
That flight has now been delayed several times, for a total delay of almost 3 years (and counting). In an article written yesterday I read that April 1 is the next targeted launch date, but in the same article it said the crew has been released from quarantine to continue training-- which means they will not be ready to fly in 3 days.
It's like they're still engineering the thing, which doesn't bode well for a successful flight in the next month.
Yes, you have a fair point here... not sure why I connected 01 April to the entire month of April.
From what I see online, typical astronaut quarantine is 14 days pre-flight, so I guess we'll see when they go back into quarantine.
"It's like they're still engineering the thing, which doesn't bode well for a successful flight in the next month."
They are finding more ways that Hydrogen can be a complete bastard. Some of that stuff isn't going to be found out until all of the real hardware is in place. They know the rocket works as it has flown before. My hope is they are just chasing details that doesn't point at fundamental design issues.
Not quite, the idea is that a Starship (stupid name but let’s go with it), is pushed into a low Earth orbit. But it has no fuel left, so maybe 15 additional launches have to happen with additional Starships having enough fuel to transfer some to the ‘main’ ship.
Now are these refusing vessels expendable? Maybe,.so they are’t coming back intact to be used again - that doesn't seem good. But every refusing flight has to work perfectly, any mistake that damages the refuting connection, it’s game over!
2028 is a nonsense, this simply won’t happen, I suspect that the next person walking on the moon with be Chinese in 2030, but does it acxtually matter?
We don't know how many refuelling mission there will be, Elon said it could be as low as 4 with a block 4 starship meaning around 1,000 propellant will be required.
Yes, the refuelling missions will be recovered (booster and ship), nothing to indicate otherwise.
Not every refuelling mission has to work, you think there won't be some redundancy. Need 10 launches then plan for 12.
Do agree that 2028 is optimistic but its still doable assuming Artemis II goes well.
2028 is flat impossible, and it's clear that NASA knows this internally but dare not say so in public.
There's far too much to sort out - Starship still hasn't been to orbit, HLS is still a paper exercise, on-orbit refuelling of cryogenics has never been successful, and Lunar Gateway is still CGI.
2030-2035 is plausible, and I hope it happens because I would love to see it - but the coming economic crash caused by the LLM craze may crush that hope.
Even if Artemis II works perfectly, it really doesn’t help much. Assuming NASA sort out the issues with SLS, it’s all fairly well understood mechanics. Orion is a basically an oversized Apollo CM (yes I know, it’s vastly more sophisticated, but the basic elements are the same). It’s not going to do anything that hasn't been done before with well understood methods. In fact it could be argued that it is less sophisticated than Apollo 8, as in it won’t attempt to break into lunar orbit but instead just loop around the moon in a free-return trajectory. There is far less that can ‘go wrong’.
I have no doubt that once it launches, it’ll work perfectly.
But Artemus III? No that’s an entirely different ball-game. It is assuming that a number of new technologies, (all of which should theoretically work but have never been tested, so who can say), will all be proven, and work perfectly. And this all has to happen in the next 2-3 years? It just isn’t viable. Just look at all the missed deadlines up to now!
OK I’m going to make a prediction, the next humans to walk on the Moon will be Chinese, oh say sometime between 2029-2031. But they will be basically a copy of what the US managed to do almost 60 years ago. So like coming 2nd in a race, good effort, can be applauded but not as good as being first, which, whatever happens now is not something that can ever be taken from the US. Who was the first person to climb Mt. Everest? Who was the second? Massively impressive achievement, and completely forgotten!
"the next humans to walk on the Moon will be Chinese, oh say sometime between 2029-2031. But they will be basically a copy of what the US managed to do almost 60 years ago. "
China has been executing methodically on their achievable plans for years now. I'll have to check again, but after one or two "footprints" missions, China is aiming at bases and likely to succeed as their plans aren't whipsawed with every change in politicians. NASA does get yanked back and forth so any plan further out than 4 years has a high likelihood of being cancelled.
"In fact it could be argued that it is less sophisticated than Apollo 8, as in it won’t attempt to break into lunar orbit but instead just loop around the moon in a free-return trajectory."
Artemis 2 would be a free-return trajectory. I heard recently that the reason why Orion would be in a HALO orbit for lunar landings is that it can't get into a low lunar orbit. I'm not sure if that's due to the desire to have an orbital change to swing over the south pole or for other reasons. That may be another WTF are they thinking tick.
It's not yet targeted an orbit, but it has repeatedly demonstrated orbital energy and reentry from said energy.
It's been slowly iterating the SS design, but still hasn't achieved orbit. But design changes have been increasing mass, thus reducing payload, although offset by engine improvements and more thrust. So still a lot of unknowns, like how many ferry flights will be needed to create the fuelling depot, and how safe that would be. Which in theory could be safe enough given auto-docking with the ISS has been working reliably for years.
But I still think the idea is a bit nuts, and we should maybe be building the great gas station in the sky. Possibly at L1, with fuel, snacks and space for some science. Then if we can boost fuel to that, perhaps use ion drives to slowboat & ferry stuff to a nascent Moon base.
"It's not yet targeted an orbit, but it has repeatedly demonstrated orbital energy and reentry from said energy."
Yes, they have not tried for orbit. No, they'd need to accelerate about 8,000mph more to get to orbital velocity. It's that 1/2mv^2 thing. The flights have been suborbital. If they had accelerated to orbital velocity, they have to make a deceleration burn to hit the Indian Ocean. They've burped the engines, but haven't made much of an impact to velocity doing it.
"Now are these refusing vessels expendable? Maybe,.so they are’t coming back intact to be used again"
The whole architecture is sold on the premise that everything will be reusable except the orbital fuel depot which stays in orbit and the HLS lander at the moon. Once HLS is at the moon, it's stays there, although there is no mention of how it could be refueled and used again so maybe it needs to be able to land again on the moon to become a store of refined metals. Elon has promised over and over that the rockets will be able to fly several times a day, not total, but per day.
"Are there going to be 15 rockets preceding/following the Artemis launch ? How will keep station to be available ?"
First launch is the orbital depot. Following that is how ever many launches in quick succession to fill it up with Methane and LOX so the HLS rocket can be sent and refuel. Once the HLS is refueled, it goes to lunar orbit and the astronauts can be sent in a different rocket to go meet it. HLS will ferry astronauts down to the lunar surface and back where they'll board the Orion capsule to make the trip home. As planned, the Orion capsule will be in a highly elliptical orbit and will come around every 7 days so if there are any issues on day one, the astronauts are buggered if they can't get by for 6 days.
The tanker flights to the orbital depot need to make trips quickly so minimize boil off of the propellants. If anything holds up the flights, they might have to begin again. If something happens to the depot, all bets may be off as it's not been said if SX will have a spare on standby that they can launch on short notice. The astronauts won't go until all the pieces are in place.
"Reality is nobody outside of SpaceX (and maybe NASA) knows how many tankers, boil off rates, redundant capability, launch rates, etc."
Competent estimates have been made based on public information with the number being around 24 tanker flights given average slippages/delays. Boil off rates aren't going to vary enough to move the needle more than 2 rockets if things go well. A damaged launch tower could reset everything to zero.
I mean during Apollo literally everything was new and never done before. More than half a century later most objectives being pursued are old hat. In orbit refueling is the only part that's never been done before (at least by NASA) but it's merely an item to check on a list, not something that's technically challenging.
The deadlines are, of course, intentionally unrealistic in order to compensate for schedule slip. The fixation on beating the Chinese to the Moon (or anything else for that matter) are also wreaking havoc with schedules, objectives and project timelines.
The current administration suddenly realized a nuclear reactor was needed to claim a "safety zone" (land squatting) and therefore decreed one should be designed, built and launched within 3 years. Which seems overly optimistic to me.
Apollo only did one or two firsts each mission, that's why #11 was the first to land.
Soft-landing a reactor isn't all that hard - because it doesn't need to actually work, just to be believable.
An expired one recycled from a submarine is enough. If they strip all the shielding so it's too dangerous for a future astronaut to approach for a couple of decades, that might even be better for its true purpose.
"An expired one recycled from a submarine is enough."
A reactor from a sub might be a good size, but the design assumes unlimited cold seawater. Stripping the shielding off a used reactor loaded with crunchy by-products isn't going to pass the sniff test. If there's no requirement that a reactor works once delivered, just delivered an equal mass and volume loaded with used pinball machine parts.
Think back to Apollo 13, and the mass of components and stuff there was in the craft to repurpose into other tasks to solve problems they weren't expecting to have. Now its 3 touch screens and what? I realise the screens just replace switches, buttons and their wiring, but think about all the other components they control that also have less in them due to increased reliance on microchips. They're comparatively very hard to repurpose. I could, for example, probably cobble together more uses for the parts in a 60s Ford Mustang than a Tesla Model 3.
I'm actually hoping to be proven wrong here, as it'll be interesting to see what commentards think they could more easily repurpose, and why?
"The first Apollo crew was launched into orbit with Apollo 7, followed by a mission around the Moon with Apollo 8. Apollo 9 checked out the Lunar Module in Earth orbit, and Apollo 10 did pretty much everything except land. The first lunar landing happened with Apollo 11. "
All that was done in less than a year as the hardware had already been built (or largely built in the case of the lunar landers). Artemis will never achieve that flight rate.
" Artemis will never achieve that flight rate."
Scott Manley was talking about that recently. It isn't a matter of "achieving" a flight rate, but scheduling flights more often. There may be talk now of not having such a huge interval between flights so there isn't a need to completely train a new ground crew ahead of each launch.
There's more talk about going to a fro rather than what is supposed to be accomplished and if those activities are something that is best done by humans and not robots.
Aren’t the details on this mission on the table for long? Did no one really saw this video?
Why is NASA not getting it, Musk is just doing it massively overcomplicated to suck as much money as possible?
More than 2y ago this analysis was published and according to the comments we’ll-received even by NASA engineers:
https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU
"Why is NASA not getting it, Musk is just doing it massively overcomplicated to suck as much money as possible?"
I get the feeling that it's much worse than that. Elon does indeed believe his own bullshit. It might not be that he knows it manure, but has so little knowledge of engineering that he thinks his ideas will work.
I've been there on numerous fronts and I'm, hopefully, older and wiser now and a bit more humble. If I thinks I have a simple solution to something that nobody has thought of before, what am I missing? 999/1000 I'm woefully lacking. I've been correct a couple of times I can think of, but the ratio is bad enough that I default to trying to sort out why I'm getting something wrong. I don't think Elon can do this. Who would tell him he's hitting the Tequila a bit too hard (that wants to keep their job)? Nothing but positive feedback and the machine goes straight off the rails.
You've been banging on for a while about all the things that SX can't do and yet they most of the time they have managed. For somebody who works in the space industry you don't seem to be keeping up with development, maybe you are working or starliner or something ?
As for Artemis, fortunately NASA are aiming for something more than footstep and flag which means having more than 1,000 cargo capacity that Apollo had.
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